#THE NOVEL IS DEFEATED. I REMAIN VICTORIOUS

[iovebarca]

can you write a pedri series inspired by a quevedo song for example like columbia

but plz make it a happy ending my heart hurts too much already bc of this season 😭😭😭😭

Fountain of Love - Pedri

Authors note: I've never written something like this so give me feedback! and please send in some requests!🫶🏼

+ I could turn this into a series but yall have to give me songs😭 and it doesn't necessarily have to be by Quevedo.

Warnings: incorrect grammar (probably), my first language isn't english so if you notice any mistakes please tell me

WC: 800 ish

Summary: You meet Pedri, a talented footballer, in the city. Despite challenges, your love grows stronger. Now, watching the sunset together, you find solace in each other's arms, knowing your love will endure.

Meaning of the song: Columbia by Quevedo is about a romantic relationship, with the lyrics expressing themes of love, desire, and passion. The song likely explores the ups and downs of being in a relationship, perhaps touching on emotions like longing, excitement, and devotion.

The first time you laid eyes on Pedri was like a scene out of a romantic novel, a moment etched into your memory with the vividness of a dream. It was a balmy summer evening, the kind where the air hung heavy with the scent of street food and the sound of laughter danced through the bustling streets. The town square was alive with activity, a vibrant tapestry of colors and sounds that captivated your senses as you strolled through its midst.

And then, amidst the chaos, you saw him—Pedri, standing by the fountain like a serene figure in a painting. There was something about him, something magnetic that drew you in, like a moth to a flame. Not too tall but incredibly handsome, with tousled dark hair and hazel eyes that seemed to hold the secrets of the universe, he exuded a quiet confidence that set him apart from the crowd.

As you approached him, your heart fluttered with anticipation, unsure of what to expect from this enigmatic stranger. But when he turned to look at you, a warm smile gracing his lips, all your doubts melted away. "Hello," he said, his voice soft and melodic, sending shivers down your spine. "Enjoying the evening?"

His words were simple, yet they held a world of meaning, a silent invitation to join him in this moment of serenity amidst the chaos of the city. And so, with a smile of your own, you nodded, feeling a sense of connection blooming between you like a flower in bloom. "Yes, it's beautiful," you replied, your voice barely above a whisper, the words carrying a weight of their own.

And just like that, your journey with Pedri began—a journey filled with twists and turns, highs and lows, laughter and tears. He wasn't just any ordinary guy; he was a footballer, a rising star in the world of sports, with a talent that left spectators in awe and opponents trembling in their boots. But despite his fame and success, he remained humble and down-to-earth, a quality that only made you fall for him even harder.

Together, you navigated the highs and lows of his career, from the exhilarating victories to the devastating defeats. You were his biggest fan, cheering him on from the sidelines with unwavering devotion, even when the odds seemed stacked against him. And through it all, he never failed to make you feel like the most important person in the world, showering you with love and affection every chance he got.

But amidst the excitement of his career, there were moments of doubt and uncertainty, moments when you wondered if your love could withstand the pressures of fame and fortune. There were rumors and scandals, gossip columns filled with speculation about Pedri's personal life, threatening to tear you apart.

But through it all, you stood by him, your love stronger than ever in the face of adversity. You were his rock, his anchor in the storm, reminding him of the person he truly was beneath the glare of the spotlight.

As the years passed, your bond with Pedri only grew stronger, deepening with each passing day. You shared your hopes and dreams, your fears and insecurities, knowing that no matter what the future held, you would face it together.

And then, one magical evening, Pedri got down on one knee and asked you to be his forever. It was a moment you would never forget—the way his eyes sparkled with love and adoration, the way his voice trembled with emotion as he professed his undying love for you. And as you said yes, tears of joy streaming down your cheeks, you knew that your life would never be the same again.

Now, as you stand hand in hand with Pedri, watching the sunset paint the sky in hues of pink and gold, you feel a sense of peace wash over you. For in Pedri's arms, you have found your home, your safe haven in a world filled with chaos and uncertainty.

As the stars begin to twinkle overhead, you lean in to kiss Pedri, your heart overflowing with love and gratitude. For in Pedri, you have found not only a lover but a partner, a soulmate to share life's journey with until the end of time. And as you gaze into each other's eyes, you know that no matter what the future may hold, as long as you have each other, you will always find your way back home.

[definitelynotshouting]

Ya boy has successfully proofed a 400 page 94k word novel in exactly two days. my brain may be oozing out of my ears but I Won

[dreamermonica]

—gender neutral reader, teen gojo x reader hence the preferred use of glasses, established relationship, slight cursing, just a fluffy scenario i had to post with my crippling gojo brainrot before i hibernate once again

“ah.” GOJO says flatly out of nowhere. “my head's starting to hurt.”

you subtly glance at him from the reflection of the opposing side of the train's tinted windows, watching the way he removes his glasses and rubs at his eyes. you inwardly sigh.

“i can't tell if you're being serious or you just want attention.”

gojo gasps dramatically from beside you, “why would i lie about something like that?”

“can you really blame me for being distrusting?” you say blankly, giving him and and his offended face the stink eye, “especially with the amount of times you've whined out to me like some child who wants to get uppies from his mother?”

you silently relish in the way he stays silent, pouting at you whilst a victorious grin rests on your lips, your gaze returning back to the novel in your hands.

“told you so.”

he whines your name in defeat and lays his head against your shoulder, “my head does hurt though...”

the way he said it urges you to think that he is, indeed, not kidding, and most definitely wasn't just seeking attention—voice stripped of any type of cheeriness, coming out hoarse more than anything.

you pursue your lips as your gaze quickly flits to his face, before dropping to the sunglasses situated on his lap, folded neatly as his eyes are closed shut.

right. the object reminds you of what is probably causing him the headache. six eyes.

your heart nearly cracks at the small grimace on his expression, jaw clenched as his arms are crossed, head still leaning against your shoulder as he focuses on heaving steady breaths. you immediately feel bad now. terrible. horrid.

“toru,” you say, alarmed, slightly panicking as you drop your novel onto your lap, hand situating themselves on both sides of his face as his eyes still remain shut. “i thought you said the glasses helped?”

“they do,” he croaks out, the grimace slowly disappearing as he takes in the warmth of your palms, “but they don't just block out everything, you know.”

“did you overuse your eyes again?” you're ready to scold him, he can tell from the way your tone is slowly turning into one of a nagging mother hen. “this is why you should use blindfolds.”

he only breathes a noise of contentment when you start rubbing circles on his temples, practically melting in your hold.

“well—to be fair,” he starts, one eye opening, and sarcasm still evidently present even with a headache, “we were up against a pretty tricky special grade earlier. i may be the strongest, but that doesn't mean i should let my guard down. you told me that yourself.”

you hold back the urge to roll your eyes, instead staring at him unamused. you caress his cheek gently, “close your eyes, idiot.”

your annoying boyfriend deliberately opens both as if to spite you, cheekily smiling as he stares back at you, “i can still see cursed energy even if i do, babe.”

you still aren't impressed. he chuckles at your expression.

“plus, my headache disappears faster when i see pretty girls.”

“oh, fuck off,” you angrily pinch his cheeks in response as he yelps out in pain, before opting to cover his eyes with one of your hands instead. you feel his eyelashes as he blinks in confusion at the gesture.

“does this help?”

“not really. i can still see cursed energy.”

“oh.” you move to remove your hand, “my bad—”

what you don't expect next is that he keeps your hand in place above his eyes with his own, feeling your knuckles under his palm as he moves to rest his head against your shoulder once more, his eyes still covered by your palm.

“i thought it didn't help?”

“it doesn't but i like you touching me.”

you blink, clearly weirded out by the way he worded that.

“...seriously?”

“yeah, darling. now, as much as i like your voice—i really want to sleep right now, so be quiet before i kiss you stupid right here in public.”

you immediately and effectively shut up at that, hearing an awkward cough from the man sitting across from you. you send him an apologetic look, before glaring at gojo, who's now snoozing his way to wonderland.

you have an inkling that he probably won't be wearing blindfolds anytime soon. especially with how he's grinning like a madman even in his sleep with your hand over his eyes.

you sigh—noting to bring a blindfold each time you go out with the man from now on, not wanting a sore arm everytime you take the train home. you can already picture him pouting in response.

“the child that you are, gojo satoru,” you murmur whilst leaning against his head, pressing a chaste kiss to his temple.

“...you're lucky i love you.”

extra:

donning his sunglasses as he exits the train, he cheerily says, “that was the best nap of my life!”

his headache is gone, which is a relief—but unfortunately, yours is still standing right in front of you.

you clutch your numb arm—already feeling the soreness that'll come after shortly.

“i take it back. i hate you.”

“aw, love you too, bae.”

Zzzz...

[torchwood-99]

Eowyn and Gothic Horror

I've ranted about the interpretation that Eowyn's rejection of gender roles was a symptom of her sickness, caused only by Grima's manipulations. An interpretation that doesn't hold to either Gandalf's speech in the Houses of Healing, when he specifies how the liberties denied to Eowyn and allowed to Eomer and her male peers played a crucial role in her depression, or when we see how Eowyn was really vindicated in her decision to ride to battle by her victory over the Witch King. A victory that wins her incredible renown and respect.

I think this reading comes about because people see the significance of Grima's contribution to Eowyn's despair, and think he is the sole source of it.

But Eowyn was not dissatisfied with her role and her enforced position in the house because of Grima's manipulations. She didn't rail against sexism because Grima played with her head and "poisoned" her traditionally feminine role for her.

Grima was able to prey on Eowyn, manipulate her and drive her to despair, because of the sexism that forced Eowyn to remain stuck in the house.

Look at the speech Gandalf gives Eomer about Eowyn's sufferings. The very first thing he mentions is the fact that Eowyn was denied the freedoms and opportunities Eomer had. The suffering that follows stems from that first initial injustice.

Because of that first injustice, Eowyn was rendered vulnerable, and Grima was able to exploit that. That isolation, that limited freedom, that unhappiness about her lack of choices, left her free game for Grima to take an already bad situation, and make it far worse.

Thinking about Eowyn's experience in Meduseld, what the impact of being confined to the domestic sphere did to her, and what is left her vulnerable to, makes me think of Gothic horror, and the role of sexism and domesticity in that genre too.

Eowyn's situation before the novels is that of a classic Gothic heroine. A fair, beautiful woman, trapped inside a decaying house, and preyed on by an awful monster, who hungers after her beauty and longs to possess her. Or else, destroy her.

Domestic settings and isolation are pretty crucial themes in the gothic genre, and for that reason it has historically been seen as a woman's genre. It taps into a pretty universal fear of what happens when home ceases to be a safe space, a fear that historically, has a particularly great resonance for women.

Whereas traditionally home is a refuge and respite for men from the world, the home is the woman's only true acceptable sphere. And yet even there she is subordinate. Therefore, she is vulnerable. With no place in the outside world, she has no escape, no respite, no refuge. If home becomes an evil, she is trapped. And because she has no place in the social sphere, she has no voice either. She is invisible, she is overlooked, her sufferings and her contributions are passed over,

Eowyn is isolated. Eowyn is vulnerable. Eowyn is overlooked. And because Eowyn is isolated and vulnerable and overlooked, Grima is able to get his hooks into her and drive her to despair. She is a wild animal, trammelled and caught in a hutch, a predator's helpless prey. But Grima didn't put Eowyn in the hutch. Eowyn was already there. Grima just took advantage of that.

Even after Grima is gone, Meduseld is still a place Eowyn longs to escape, and while its evil is purged and she does return, it is only for a short while. Grima's defeat is not enough to make Meduseld a place where Eowyn can find real happiness or fulfilment. On its own, it still represents a role for Eowyn that she wishes to move beyond.

The healing counterpoint to Eowyn's gothic castle of horrors, the hutch she was caught in, is in escape, and in a return to nature.

Eowyn's entire romance with Faramir takes place within the gardens of the Houses of Healing, where we see Eowyn start to recover from her ordeal. It takes place on the open, in the garden, on the ramparts, with much notice given to the sky and the sun and the elements around them.

(Also, the Houses of Healing themselves are not a domestic setting, but a public one, and there we see women working alongside men and holding authority.)

Eowyn's happy ending, her great escape, climaxes with her decision to go with Faramir to Ithilien.

Ithilien is the exact opposite of a hutch. It's descriptions are filled with natural imagery, and is known as the Garden of Gondor. It is a place for growth and fresh starts. A place of freedom. A place for a wild thing.

When Faramir suggests that he and Eowyn live in Ithilien, he reasserts again and again that they will go there if it is Eowyn's will. Both Tolkien and Faramir put emphasis on the importance of Eowyn's will, and Eowyn's right to freedom of movement.

In his plans for their future, Faramir talks of "us" and "we", removing the separation between men (belonging to the social sphere) and women (belonging to the domestic), and speaks of Ithilien as a shared dwelling place for both of them. Faramir only distinguishes between himself and Eowyn when he puts importance on Eowyn's will, and at the end, on Eowyn's influence.

At the close of his speech, Faramir says all things will grow with joy in Ithilien, if Eowyn is there. Returning Ithilien to its former glory, allowing it to bloom once more, is to become Faramir's life's work, and still it is Eowyn's influence he puts centre stage. Far from being kept confined to the domestic sphere, relegated to being Faramir's home support while he dominates the rehabilitation of Ithilien, Faramir places Eowyn's work and Eowyn's significance at the heart of their future together.

Eowyn goes from being shut in the house, where everything around her was decaying and falling to ruin, to being freed to stand in the heart of nature, where there is a chance for influence, growth, and fresh starts.

[yervevee]

Am i the strongest, right?

Hi yall! This one-shot was request! I didn’t read the battle btw Gojo and Sukuna so i tried to minimising it! Also, English is not my first language so if there’s some errors, please let me know!

Pairs: Gojo Satoru x nb!reader

type: Fluff, Slightly Angst with happy ending

Warnings: none

——————————— 🦋——————————

The battle that occurred between Gojo Satoru and the curse king Sukuna was devastating. their powers, their dominions, it seemed like a battle without equals, without winners. But it just seemed like it.

Because there was a winner: Gojo Satoru. His dominion, which had enough strength to be considered that of a God, defeated the curse. The battle was over, the houses were destroyed and many were injured. Even Gojo, who emerged victorious, was injured.

But he didn't care at that moment.

For the first time in a long time, himself wasn't his main concern, but you were. You who prayed during that battle, feeling helpless as you watched your fiancé battle not one but two extremely strong enemies. And his gaze was looking for yours, he was looking for your figure among a thousand others. He avoided his classmates, he avoided his students, he avoided anyone who wasn't you. He could feel the fear inside himself at not seeing you in the crowd, ready to welcome him into your arms and congratulate him, crying. He was afraid that you weren't there, that you were one of the civilian victims who fell in that battle. And he could feel tears in his eyes, just thinking about you no longer being with him.

But then, when he heard your voice, calling his name, with the same concern he had for you, he wasn't ashamed to his tears of joy. He ran into the crowd, abruptly pushing aside the people in front of him, while the mere thought of having you in his arms healed every wound, internal and external. He followed your voice and soon found your gaze. He smiled, a genuine and moved smile. The smile of someone who felt relieved and in love. He ran towards you, reaching for you and lifting you into the air as he caught you in his arms.

"Y/n! How- How worried I was!" he exclaimed, soon grabbing you in his arms and making you leap into the air. You couldn't help but burst into tears, so happy to see him safe and sound.

"Satoru-" your voice died in your throat, as a sob hit you, you then tried to calm down, holding yourself tighter in his arms if possible. Your safe place. "Satoru, I'm so happy that you're alive! I didn't know if I would see you again, kiss you, love you again!" you exclaimed.

From the outside, the scene might have looked like an old novel, but you didn't care. He was with you and you were with him.

Satoru soon wiped the tears from your eyes as he whispered sweet nothings to you between kisses. “You have nothing to worry about anymore, Y/n,” Satoru said solemnly, looking at your face with a confident expression.

“I'm the strongest for a reason right?” he then added cheerfully, shooting you a wink. You smiled, shaking your head. After all, even if he was injured and battered, Satoru always remained the arrogant and self-satisfied Satoru.

But that's why you loved him, so you were fine with having such an arrogant boyfriend.

Soon after, you shared a kiss. Not a lustful kiss, or wanting more no, a simple and chaste kiss, that showed how true your love was.

——————————— 🦋——————————

[mariacallous]

I’m just a defense analyst, so I’ll leave a proper critique of Ridley Scott’s new blockbuster biopic Napoleon to the many reviewers who have already disparaged it. I, for one, found it to be a lukewarm mélange of battle scenes and romantic vignettes, leaving me with neither a sense of the man Napoleon Bonaparte—the bicorne-hatted soldier-turned-emperor of the French—nor a feel for the age of upheaval he so much defined. For a grand piece of historical fiction from the director of such masterpieces as Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise, and Black Hawk Down, the film curiously fails to entertain.

My perspective on Napoleon is a different one. Scott’s film stands in a long line of movies, novels, and even history books that have given the world an entirely wrong view of how wars are fought—and even more importantly, how they are won. And that matters, because the mythical idea of war embedded in Napoleon and so many other works has become so widespread in our culture and discourse that it ends up informing actual decisions about actual wars.

Let’s call it the decisive battle myth. Napoleon, with its focus on famous battles such as those of Austerlitz and Waterloo, perpetuates the dangerous idea that wars are decided by great and bloody clashes. This obsession is as old as there have been written accounts of history, but in popular culture in the English-speaking world, the myth can be traced back to the 1851 publication of The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo, which helped kickstart an entire genre of works focusing on battles supposed to have singlehandedly changed the course of history. In film, think of The Longest Day, Midway, and Stalingrad; in books, the list of battle histories and battle fiction is too long to contemplate. The genre even plays in counterfactuals: The 1993 movie Gettysburg, based on Michael Shaara’s novel The Killer Angels, suggests that the South could have won the U.S. Civil War had the Battle of Gettysburg gone the other way.

No matter what these works have taught us to think, the decisive battle is a myth. Wars between major powers are not decided by great battles but by attrition of soldiers and materiel, which in turn is determined by such things as force size, logistics, production, and technology. Battles, large and small, are important only to the extent to which they accelerate attrition and wear down the other side. Yet the myth of the decisive battle—the idea that an adversary can be defeated in one big and bloody but short engagement—remains powerful. It’s also dangerous, because it affects not only ordinary moviegoers but military and political leaders as well. In other words, the very people deciding whether to start and how to fight a war.

Scott’s focus on battles is hardly surprising. Napoleon fought numerous campaigns culminating in big set-piece battles, after which the defeated side sought peace; at the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon defeated the allied armies of Austria and Russia, forcing the former to sue for peace and the latter to retreat home. But the French emperor’s most celebrated victory—exactly 218 years ago today—was only an episode in a long war that did not end until 10 years later, after attrition and mutual exhaustion.

The focus on decisive battles orchestrated by a brilliant military leader such as Napoleon has been poisoning Western military thinking for centuries by suggesting that great power wars can be short affairs. The idea that an adversary can be decisively beaten in just one or a few engagements has incentivized political and military gambling: Think of the German Schlieffen Plan that bet on a single, decisive encirclement of French forces and their quick annihilation or capitulation in 1914, with the disastrous result of condemning much of Europe to four years of attrition with millions of soldiers killed. The idea of a quick, decisive battle inspired then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in 1980, which led to a horrifically bloody eight years of attrition.

More recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin thought one decisive push toward Kyiv in early 2022 would quickly and painlessly conquer Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of deaths later, the grinding war goes on. For all the emphasis on Napoleon’s quick campaigns and decisive battles, his wars tell a similar story of long and painful attrition: More than 5 million European soldiers were killed or otherwise died during the Napoleonic wars, a level of carnage, relative to total population, on par with World War I. France alone lost around 860,000 soldiers, including 38 percent of all men born between 1790 and 1795.

That Napoleon is only a movie doesn’t make it better. There are documented cases of films influencing a policymaker’s decisions to go to war. In 1970, for example, then-U.S. President Richard Nixon repeatedly watched the film Patton during the decision-making process to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia, taking inspiration from the movie general’s willpower and single-minded belief in U.S. military power. One academic study found that popular culture, including fictional films, can frame the way we think about a multitude of issues, and there is no reason to believe that military officers and policymakers are exempt from these effects. Movies can help prevent wars, too. Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan was inspired by the television film The Day After and Tom Clancy’s novel Red Storm Rising to push for nuclear arms control. But if decision-makers and military leaders are prone to fighting the wars of their imagination, then a popular culture that reinforces the idea that wars can be short and decisive may incentivize willingness to look for a quick military solution to a political problem.

There is much more in Napoleon that made me cringe as a military analyst. What you see on the screen has absolutely nothing to do with warfare in the age of Napoleon—as a matter of fact, the clouds of gunpowder from the era’s muzzle-loaded muskets meant you would not be able to see very much on a Napoleonic battlefield to begin with. The battle scenes are a Hollywood mishmash of medieval melees, meaningless cannonades, and World War I-style infantry advances.

One scene that stands out is the apocryphal depiction of Napoleon leading a cavalry charge into what are supposed to be the Russian lines at the Battle of Borodino. As a former artillery officer, of course, Napoleon never led a cavalry charge in his life. For all of Scott’s fixation on Napoleon’s battles, he seems curiously disinterested in how the real Napoleon fought them—and just as disinterested in the changing character of Napoleonic warfare. By 1812, Napoleon’s enemies had not only learned to adapt by emulating the French style of fighting, but the battles themselves had turned into meat grinders of such a scale that no individual could control them. The battles of Wagram (in 1809), Borodino (1812), and Leipzig (1813) each involved hundreds of thousands of troops and many hundreds of cannons. The idea that the commander of his country’s armies in an 1812 battle had the liberty to lead a horse charge is so preposterous that the scene makes Mel Gibson’s Braveheart—considered one of the most historically inaccurate films in recent decades—look like a paragon of historical realism.

Napoleon’s military genius was not just about individual heroism or skilled battle tactics, but more importantly his vision for structural reforms. Napoleon helped institutionalize the corps system, dividing up large armies into smaller ones as a way to enable more effective command and control, as well as greater speed and range. Key to this new corps system were Napoleon’s marshals, distinguished military officers who sometimes remained undefeated in battle and whose deaths Napoleon mourned deeply. It was the marshals and other officers to whom Napoleon delegated authority; they proved to be a major asset contributing to his victories. In the film, these colorful independent actors are relegated to the role of footmen.

The film’s wild inventions go much farther. The British Army, led by the Duke of Wellington, features prominently, even though it played only a minor role in battle. Rather than the fighting role, the British contribution to Napoleon’s defeat lay in the sea blockade and in financing the huge standing armies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia that bore the brunt of the fighting. The duke and Napoleon never met in person, another invention of the movie that could have been omitted without loss, since it is devoid of meaningful dialogue that might have helped the audience better understand Napoleon’s volatile and ruthless character. Scott could instead have depicted the heated argument between Napoleon and Austrian diplomat Prince Klemens von Metternich during their famous eight-hour encounter in Dresden, then the capital of the Kingdom of Saxony, in 1813. The meeting convinced Metternich of the French emperor’s troubling mental state and the impossibility of making peace as long as he reigned.

There is no reason to believe that the myth of the decisive battle will lose its power any time soon. As the historian Cathal J. Nolan writes in The Allure of Battle: “The idea of decisive battle will always be more alluring than winning by attrition—morally and aesthetically; to generals and theorists, and to publics hungry for war news.” Nolan might have added film directors to his list.

Let us hope that U.S. and NATO military strategists and force planners do not draw too deep an inspiration from Scott’s depiction of Napoleonic battle. It’s bad enough that the allure of the decisive battle is already shaping U.S. deliberations over how to fight a possible future war with China over Taiwan. Disregarding the likely attritional character and extended length of such a fight—and the requirements in manpower, weapons, ammunition, production capacity, and political constancy that would entail—could spell disaster for the United States and its allies. Focusing on long attrition instead of dramatic clashes would certainly make for a boring film experience, especially since one only has to look at Ukraine to see the long slog of attrition playing out in real life. Nonetheless, stripping Napoleon of the romanticism associated with epic battles decided by the archetypal hero on horseback would be a small first step in gaining a better understanding not only of past wars, but also of how future wars will be fought.

[osovereign]

❛ ♚—HEADCANON: WORLDBUILDING / i.

PART ONE: covers pre and kharlan war era up until he leaves cruxis ( the first time ).

i will start by saying that while this is primarily information taken from canonical sources, there is some bits of my own headcanon mixed in to kratos' backstory and motivations but with that being said, the kratos novel has never been officially translated and i do not speak japanese ( i used mtl to read it years ago and serve as my current refresher on the material ): this isn't meant to be taken as the gospel regarding tales of symphonia and i don't expect it too. final note: this'll have several parts and while not required to read it is highly encouraged for both those that know of tales of symphonia and that do not--it'll be the answers to how and why kratos is the way he is in his main verse, post-tos.

canonically, kratos, is rather mundane and carries a very monotone state about him, outwardly at least. internally, he has such intense emotional anguish ( paired with a bit of stunting ): going on for a plethora of reasons spanning millennia upon millennia. ingame, he speaks very cohesively, eloquently, and to the point: which is a callback to his time before the great kharlan war in which he was born from esteemed high nobility ( the aurion family held the ranking of earls ): though he’d later abondon the lap of luxury to join the knighthood, then in being apart of the imperial knights ( leading to countless victory ): along with his natural affinity for battle that he is promoted to the captain of the royal guard, reporting directly to queen soleille, the last queen of the country of te’thealla.

it was during this time that kratos had encountered yuan, mithos, and martel and decided to part ways with the knighthood ( deciding that, joining these three would be the fastest way to put an end to the thousand year war ): while many, including mithos, would speculate that something was going on between the queen and her most trusted personal guard, it was one sided ( as when leaving te’thealla kratos told her as much after having an audience with the king and relinquishing his title, status, command, and affiliation to his country ): queen soleille was later killed by beheading for both rumor of unfaithfulness and for kratos being associated and then, siding with half-elfs. [ kratos novelization | shokuzai no kratos ] 

with kratos, no longer having a country to fight directly for his full attention went to ending the war ( instead of merely seeking to defeat the opposition ): by aiding mithos travel around the world to make pact-vow’s with the summon spirits and then later, origin itself ( to grant mithos, a half-elf the power to wield the eternal sword ): however, the great kharlan tree was already dead by then and had only left one seed ( known as the great seed ) behind and with the little mana the seed could emitted was not enough to support the world. without mana, the source of all life on aselia, the world would die and so the only way to save the world was to use a great amount of mana, namely the comet of derris-kharlan, to revive the great kharlan tree.

though, the comet wouldn’t come back for a few decades ( as it had done originally whenever derris-kharlan came near the lifeless place known previously as earth it left lingering remains of mana and that is how the planet began to bring new life and what led to the elven race settling upon the world ): but, the world could not survive that long, this was why mithos’ decided to spilt the worlds with the help of origin ( to give them the time that the kharlan hero’s otherwise did not have ): by separating sylvarant and tethe'alla to alternate the great seed’s mana between the two, kratos and co would ensure that:

O1. so that no war to such an extent would start again. O2. it would prevent magitechnology from being used too much. O3. would stop the overconsumption of the limited mana in vast amounts.

this approach was originally supposed to last until derris-kharlan once again approached the world of aselia and on the dawn of its approach, mithos would again wield the eternal sword to revive the Giant Tree and unite the two worlds as one again. however, all was well in their mission: until the day martel was killed by a human. from her death sprung a grief for mithos, yuan, and kratos that brought forth the era of cruxis. during the early days of the organization, after the trio had put an end to the great kharlan war they had one main objective: to revive martel yggdrasill.

whom now had her role within cruxis as the goddess of the new world of aselia, now divided into two separate halves, with the previously fighting counties of sylverant and te’thealla as there own worldly entity. once enacting the chosen system by starting of the mana lineage, spreading of the goddess martel through the guise of how the holy war of kharlan was ended ( in this tale mithos, was simply known as the hero: his race omitted for as the distaste for half-elf’s had survived even after the war ): and the millennia that followed was one of dread for kratos.

cruxis organizational hierarchy mithos yggdrasill ( lord yggdrasill / half-elf -- seraphim and leader of cruxis — angel ) ⤿ the hero whom ended the great kharlan war

martel yggdrasill ( goddess martel / half-elf — seraphim and false goddess — angel ) ⤿ goddess of both worlds and reason behind the regeneration

kratos aurion ( human / seraphim of cruxis — angel ) ⤿ overseer to the world of sylverant and its chosen ⤿ the one true god king to aselia after it is reunited ( post kor/top )

yuan ka-fai ( half elf / seraphim of cruxis — angel ) ⤿ overseer to the world of tethe’alla and its chosen ⤿ guardian to the great seedling / yggdrasill tree

these four are the highest pinnacle of the organization and from them stems the lesser ranked angels ( those with wings of white or dark feathers instead of light ): however even those with wings of glittering light can become permanent feathery wings if they’re used for too long consecutively, which is a common problem with newer angels ( the four seraphim of cruxis and those of the chosen mana lineage are except from this rule ), then pronyma ( head of the five desian grand cardinals ), the grand cardinals ( pronyma, kvar, magnius, rodyle, and forcystus ), and then all of the unnamed desians. which, it should be noted that the organization is entirely composed of half-elfs, besides kratos the only former human. cruxis as a whole is divided into two levels: the angels, whom have high exspheres / cruxis crystals, and then the desians, who have base level exspheres.

with this, the four seraphim each have their own angelic messengers ( they are much like colette when she releases the final seal: soulless and memory less ): they have a band on their arms with a color specific to each of them ( mithos’ messengers have rainbow bands, kratos’ have purple, yuan’s have blue, and martels, when she is revived, would have green ): now during, the first two or so millennia of cruxis is when kratos first began to greatly disagree with mithos’ methods in trying to revive martel, in the beginning he spent them trying his best to keep his sanity. from which was on part for still holding the grief of losing martel and being unable to let it go, secondly for allowing mithos ( his most precious student to fall of the path of a righteous hero ), and three for having lost his sense of humanity but trying to again obtain it.

the catalyst for this event was when kratos was watching aithra at the tower of salvation with her guardians from a screen in welgaia and they watched her being stabbed to death. upon seeing this, it reminded kratos of the day martel was killed but mithos’ was only teaching kratos ‘to not allow something like this to happen again’ and ‘that cleaning up would be tedious’. due to this lackluster reaction from mithos, it was also when kratos stopped calling him mithos and only as, lord yggdrasill ( as he no longer recognized his former friend and student, who did not make the comparison ): he was no longer mithos, the hero who had put an end to the thousand year war in the holy ground of kharlan but simply the leader of cruxis, lord yggdrasill: who was very grief-stricken and a hate filled child who missed his sister.

with all this being said kratos retains through everything such an intense social awkwardness, both due to his endeavors of the traumatic stresses from the kharlan war, its grief, and his atrocities within cruxis. because of this he's a bit cut-throat blunt on various subjects by default ( he also doesn’t keep up with any of the latest lingo and is also noted by many to be very formal and old-fashioned ): above all, both within canon and my heavily canon expansion of his character: kratos is an observer and always has been. he is the type to watch, wait, and listen before taking any action but to have lived as long as he has takes patience, takes wisdom. his role within cruxis fit him very well as cruxis was an observatory organization for the most part.

[anonymousewrites]

A Good Day for Death (Book 1) Chapter Fifteen

Wednesday Addams x Reaper! Reader

Chapter Fifteen: A Good Day for Diaries

Summary: Wednesday learns that being lonely isn't fun and really wants (Y/N), her partner-in-crime, to come back.

            Wednesday ordinarily would watch the coffin being placed in the grave, fascinated by the morbidity, but her eyes were instead drawn to another sight. She watched as (Y/N) murmured quietly as dirt was scooped into the grave to bury Mayor Walker.

            They were praying for safe passage to the afterlife, fiddling with their bone ring as they did so in a self-soothing motion.

            Wednesday forced herself to look back down at the coffin. It didn’t matter that in the midst of death and rain and doom and gloom, they were doing their best to help in the small ways they could. It didn’t matter that their kindness was more genuine than many of the people in attendance’s. It didn’t matter.

l

            Two days later, two long days of lonesome investigations, no one to share her findings with, and funerals to attend, Wednesday sat turning the pages of Faulkner’s diary, which her Uncle Fester had helped her find in the Nightshade’s library. It had details on many types of creatures that Wednesday hadn’t even heard of. She was hoping to find something with the monster in it. Then she could figure out how to defeat it.

            The difficult part was as victorious she should feel for finding another, helpful lead, Wednesday felt oddly lonely. No, not oddly. She knew why. (Y/N), her partner in crime, wasn’t there to share it because Wednesday had…messed up. She had hurt them. They had tried to help and support her, and she hadn’t cared.

            She cleared her throat and focused back on the pages, examining each creature’s chalk drawing. If she just threw herself into her work, Wednesday would forget about her stupid, unnecessary emotions.

            “These are some sweet digs,” said Fester, grinning as he gazed around Wednesday’s dorm. “How’d you swing your own single?”

            Wednesday paused. “My former roommates…They couldn’t handle me.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but it wasn’t quite a lie. Luckily for her moral issues, she turned to the page of the creature and was successfully distracted.

            “Here it is. Faulkner describes ‘Hydes’ as artists by nature but equally vindictive in temperament. Born of mutation, the Hyde lays dormant until unleashed by a traumatic event or unlocked through chemical inducement or hypnosis. This causes the Hyde to develop an immediate bond with its liberator, who the creature sees as its master. It becomes the willing instrument of whatever nefarious agenda this new master might propose,” read out Wednesday.

            “Anyone willing to unlock a Hyde is a next-level sicko,” said Fester.

            “That means we’re not looking for one killer but two,” said Wednesday, still speaking as if she and (Y/N) were working together. “We.” “Us.” She narrowed her eyes. “The monster and its master.”

            A knock sounded at the door. Wednesday shoved the diary into her desk drawer and turned to go to the door. Miss Thornhill was already walking in. Wednesday’s eyes widened. Fester was in her room still.

            “I didn’t mean to startle you,” said Miss Thornhill, smiling.

            Wednesday turned, frowning as her dorm mother didn’t react to the presence of her uncle. Fester had already disappeared, and Wednesday awkwardly turned back. “I was just working on my novel.”

            Miss Thornhill’s smile turned a little forced as she tried to remain positive. “Enid has requested to room with Yoko for the rest of the school year,” she said.

            Wednesday broke eye contact and looked down slightly. “She did?”

            Miss Thornhill smiled kindly. “When there’s a falling out, I like to get both students’ perspectives on what happened, and it seems you, Enid, and (Y/N) had one. What happened? You and Enid got along, and you and (Y/N) were thick as thieves!”

            “They couldn’t handle me,” said Wednesday, repeating the line she’d used on Fester.

            Miss Thornhill’s patience didn’t break as Wednesday refused to be totally honest. “Wednesday, I know you cared. I mean, everyone saw (Y/N) in particular brought some warmth out of you.” Seeing Wednesday’s offended face, she continued, “Just a tiny, tiny spark. Barely perceptible to the average eye, but…I noticed. Part of the dorm experience is making friends with people that you wouldn’t normally connect with. And those friendships often turn into lifelong bonds.” Miss Thornhill smiled.

            “I would rather buy a rope,” said Wednesday.

            Miss Thornhill sighed. “Listen, if two roommates is too much, Enid can room with Yoko like she wants. But (Y/N) hasn’t decided if they want to change.” She looked at Wednesday with questioning eyes. “I need to know if you can handle it or not.” Wednesday frowned slightly, and Miss Thornhill pressed forward. “Do you want (Y/N) to room somewhere else or do you want them to come back?”

            The phrasing was precise. It was asking what Wednesday wanted. It was asking what she thought of (Y/N). It was asking if she wanted them to come back. The truth was she did. Wednesday had come to terms with how she felt towards (Y/N), and she didn’t want to think she had messed up to the degree that (Y/N) didn’t want to be around her at all. She wanted (Y/N) to come back.

            Wednesday looked down to avoid looking Miss Thornhill in the eye for a moment, betraying her emotions just enough that the professor saw them. “I’ll survive alone. I always have.”

            Miss Thornhill sighed. “Well, if that’s your decision, I’ll submit the forms for Enid’s dorm switch to Principal Weems and discuss (Y/N)’s options with them.” She shook her head in disappointment before leaving Wednesday’s dorms.

            Wednesday composed herself before turning back to her room. “Uncle Fester?” Behind her, one of Enid’s squeaky toys fell from her pile of stuffed animals. Wednesday turned and deadpanned as she pulled a stuffed animal away to reveal Fester hidden in the pile.

            “Hey! Is that ‘(Y/N)’ the kid Morticia and Gomez were telling me about?” said Fester.

            Wednesday crossed her arms. “Of course my parents are interfering with this, too,” she muttered.

            Fester shrugged. “They seem to like the kid. I heard there was ‘chemistry.’ ” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Morticia is good at spotting those things.”

            “They’re my roommate and my partner in my investigation,” said Wednesday. She glanced away. “Were.”

            “Ah. I get it. Lost in the line of duty,” said Fester, nodding.

            “Something like that,” muttered Wednesday.

            “Don’t sweat it, Wednesday. It’ll work out if it’s supposed to,” said Fester jovially. “Just look at me! I roll with the punches, and life is pretty good.”

            Wednesday didn’t dignify him with a response as he watched her walk away from the pile of squishmallows. Everyone seemed intent on talking about feelings and (Y/N), so she was going to focus on her case. She already had suspects, after all.

            Dr. Kinbott and Xavier.

l

            Wednesday struggled to keep herself from looking too annoyed as Tyler approached her in the café. Just what she needed after being accosted by Kinbott in Weems’ office just when she had the proof Xavier was sneaking off to meet with her, all but saying he was the Hyde and Kinbott his hypnotherapist master. It seemed everyone she didn’t want to see was bothering her and the one person she did was intent on avoiding her.

            “Uh, I made you a quad. On the house,” said Tyler, smiling in a cute-shy way that didn’t have an effect on Wednesday.

            “Hey, thanks kid!” said Fester, drawing it over to him. He handed over the ketchup bottle he had downed. “Need a refill on this puppy too.”

            “My Uncle Fester,” said Wednesday shortly.

            Tyler extended a hand to shake Fester’s. “Hi, it’s nice to—” He jumped as he was shocked by the device on Fester’s hand. Tyler looked nervously between Wednesday and Fester, but Wednesday just smirked at the prank, and Fester chuckled. Tyler’s eye fell to the book on the table. “Is that…?” He recognized the creature. He sat down in the booth next to Wednesday, who scooted carefully away.

            “It’s called a hyde,” said Wednesday.

            “Whoa. That’s it. From that night,” said Tyler.

            “Your father gave you explicit instructions not to be near me,” said Wednesday, doing her best to send Tyler away so she could focus.

            Tyler did not listen. “Yeah, my dad’s not here, and I’m on break.”

            Since he wasn’t leaving, Wednesday decided to try her luck using him as an assistant. Maybe having someone take (Y/N)’s place would distract her. “Apparently a hyde needs to be unlocked by someone. Its master.”

            “Holy shit,” said Tyler.

            “Tyler,” said Sheriff Galpin’s voice sharply. “What’d I say?”

            Tyler stood, not before getting confused since Fester had disappeared. “For the record, Wednesday was trying to keep her distance. I was the one that sat down with her.”

            “Alright,” said Galpin, annoyed but letting it go. He handed over a paper. “Putting these up around down. It’s a bank robbery suspect, and he’s a real creep. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

            Tyler put a smile on his face even though he recognized it to be Fester. “He’d be pretty hard to miss. I’ll pin it on the bulletin board.”

            The sheriff shook his head. “Why waste my breath?” he muttered as he left.

            “You didn’t have to do that,” said Wednesday.

            “Yeah, your family’s very…colorful,” said Tyler.

            “Ironic considering Fester’s the black sheep,” said Wednesday. (Y/N) would find that entertaining. She shook the thought from her head. “He’s harmless.”

            “So…About that date I thought we were going on…” said Tyler.

            “I already apologized to (Y/N) for leading everyone on. I won’t do it again,” said Wednesday. She had failed to apologize, but she wished she had.

            “Well, I figure after what happened, you owe me,” said Tyler, teasingly alluding to his attack.

            “I can’t sneak off campus. All eyes are on me,” said Wednesday, pulling on any excuses she had.

            “I’ll come to you. Nine pm. Crackstone’s Crypt,” said Tyler. And then he walked away before Wednesday could contradict him again.

            These days didn’t seem to be going Wednesday’s way.

l

            “What’s this?” said Wednesday, holding up black nail polish to Thing.

            He tapped guiltily against the desk.

            “What do you mean you’ve been stealing (Y/N)’s stuff?” asked Wednesday in exasperation.

            Thing tapped again.

            “You think it’s going to get them to come back and talk to me?” Wednesday put the polish down forcefully. “It’s not. They can borrow combs and nail polish from other people. This is pointless.”

            Thing tapped furiously.

            “I don’t miss them,” denied Wednesday. “They’re a weakness.” She crossed her arms. “Now, your job is the guard the diary while I’m gone.”

            Thing “looked” at her accusingly.

            Wednesday glared back. “It’s not a date. Not even if he thinks it is. I’m going to tell him I’m not ‘interested’ as they say.”

            If Tyler was going to misconstrue everything Wednesday did as a hint she was, then she was going to do what she did best: be blunt. She was dealing with enough emotional issues; she was going to get rid of one.

l

            Wednesday walked stiffly towards Tyler and Crackstone’s Crypt. Tyler smiled.

            “Hey. Ready for the surprise? I promise this one won’t make you pass out cold,” he joked, pushing open the doors of the Crypt. He held out a dahlia. “But you do have to close your eyes.”

            “That will be unnecessary. I’m not one to enjoy surprises anyways,” said Wednesday.

            “Don’t do that. Discount my feelings,” said Tyler, stepping forward.

            Wednesday took a step back. “Tyler—.”

            “No, no excuses. You can keep trying to push me away, but it’s not going to work,” said Tyler.

            “You’re making a mistake,” said Wednesday sharply, fulling intending to continue.

            Tyler interrupted again. “I’m not. And you know it.” He took another step forward, but before he could do anything, lights shone through the forest at them.

            It was Sheriff Galpin and his deputies. Tyler jumped back, eyes wide in surprise. Wednesday, on the other hand, but both relieved and frustrated. At least Tyler was shutting up for a moment, but she also didn’t want to be interrupted at the moment she wanted to confront Tyler on his continued misconceptions of her actions.

            “What the hell?” said Sheriff Galpin. “Tyler.”

            “Dad? What are you doing here?” asked Tyler.

            “The school groundskeeper found a motorbike by the lake. It matches the description of the one the bank robber stole,” said Sheriff Galpin. “There’s a canoe missing. Figured he might be on Raven Island. I’m not going to ask what this is, but I never saw the two of you here. You got it?” He shook his head. “Unbelievable.” He gestured to his deputies. “Come on.” He left as Tyler and Wednesday watched.

            Tyler chuckled awkwardly. “Well, I hope he didn’t ruin the mood—”

            “He did,” said Wednesday shortly, walking away. She had wasted enough time here. She knew trying to deal with emotions would be pointless, even if it was trying to get them out of the way.

l

            Frustrated and annoyed at the way the night had turned out, Wednesday opened the door to her dorm sharply. Her eyes widened as she took in the view.

            The room was trashed, papers were strewn about the ground, furniture was tipped over—in short, it was ransacked.

            “Thing?” called Wednesday worriedly.

            She turned and found a more horrifying sight. Thing was pinned by the palm to the wall with a knife. Blood dripped to the puddle forming on the ground below him.

            “Thing…” breathed Wednesday in horror. She pulled the knife away and cradled him in her hands. Her breathing turned shaky as she found him unmoving. In an instant, she was running for Fester’s help.

l

            Unable to sleep, (Y/N) was curled up underneath the Poe Statue trying to work through their feelings. They had been miserable with Wednesday since they had really viewed her as a friend since she accepted them and didn’t seem to mind them and their supposed bad luck. They missed her, but they were determined to stay away since Wednesday didn’t want them, and (Y/N) wasn’t going to disturb her if they were that much of an annoyance. But they couldn’t help but want their friend back.

            Biting their lip and blinking the unshed tears away, (Y/N) shook their head. It was useless to be so upset because it didn’t solve anything, and all they were was a little heartbroken. The feeling would pass in time as they stayed away from the girl causing it.

            (Y/N) stood and blinked as they saw the girl in question running through the courtyard in a panic. That set off alarm bells, and when (Y/N) took a step after Wednesday, their eyes widened in horror as they saw drops of blood in a trail after her.

            (Y/N) may be heartbroken, but they weren’t a monster. They took off running after Wednesday. They couldn’t bear the thought of her being in trouble and not helping.

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[chroniclesofamber]

Zelazny's 'Shadows', NyCon 3, The Statler Hilton, September, 1967

"Literature, of necessity, contains shadows"

[O]ne of his most crucial self-critiques was [Zelazny's] decision that he was “overexplaining” to the reader and should instead “avoid the unnecessarily explicit” and not “go on talking once a thing had been shown.” In a speech given at a 1967 science fiction convention he elaborated on this insight, declaring, “Literature, of necessity, contains shadows … A writer never writes an entire story … You live part of it yourself.” He went on to identify these shadows, gaps that the reader fills in, with the fabled “sense of wonder” that, to science fiction readers, defines the texts they love:

“Writing involves your taking everything in through those little cryptic bugs that crawl across the page and construct things around them. This is where that strange thing called ‘sense of wonder’ comes into play … It sort of enfolds this shadow area. Into those shadows you project those things you are looking for.”

Krulik considers this determination to avoid overelaboration “a central philosophy” of Zelazny’s writing. But what Zelazny posits in his speech, and what remains foregrounded even in a linear, plot-heavy work such as The Chronicles of Amber, is that readers experience the magic of shadow, and thus the sense of wonder, through language. Readers can imagine the streets, the plumbing, the business models of Amber as they see fit; the “emotional archetype” of the fantasy novel derives from Corwin’s story and how he tells it — both the worlds themselves and the ellipses that lie between.

Just as the reader experiences Amber through Corwin’s voice, the fate of Amber lies in Corwin’s hands, even after he decides he doesn’t want to be in charge any more. The outcome of the first half of The Chronicles of Amber comes down to learning who among the scheming, self-involved members of the royal family can master the Pattern — can, that is, control and focus their actions to execute a careful plan in order to achieve a goal.

"...the Pattern I drew to the sound of pigeons on the Champs-Elysées..."

By walking the Pattern, Corwin regains his memory and Dara assumes her true form; by failing to master the Pattern, Brand is defeated; by failing to repair the Pattern, the patriarch Oberon is doomed. And when Corwin gains access to the Courts of Chaos, enabling his ultimate victory, he does so not through the old, broken Pattern but by making a new one, a process that calls forth memories of a happy interlude in his past — on Earth in 1905 Paris — even as it demands an excruciating precision:

“I did not meet with the physical resistance that I did on the Pattern … a peculiar deliberation had come over all my movements, slowing them, ritualizing them. I seemed to expend more energy in preparing for each step — perceiving it, realizing it and ordering my mind for its execution — than I did in the physical performance of the act. Yet the slowness seemed to require itself, was exacted of me by some unknown agency which determined precision and an adagio tempo for all my movements.” (542)

Could there be a better description of the act of writing? If Zelazny began The Chronicles of Amber struggling to find his preferred artistic path, he ended the series’ first half with a reminder of the difficult requirements of both creative process and practical accommodation, and, arguably, a more mature vision of both. For Corwin, if Amber is not what you thought it was, it is well worth preserving. If the Pattern you thought was your legacy no longer works, the only thing to do — the only way to defeat the forces of Chaos — is to draw a new Pattern of your own.

— Cox, F. Brett, “A Series of Different Endeavors 1972-1979”, Roger Zelazny: Modern Masters of Science Fiction, 99-101, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021

[elliepassmore]

Heart of the Sun Warrior review

5/5 stars Recommended to people who like: fantasy, Chinse mythology, epic fantasy, star-crossed lovers, magic

Daughter of the Moon Goddess review here

Once again I was completely swept away by Tan's writing and was wholly immersed in the book from start to finish. I will 100% be reading her future books (and I'm very curious to see who the companion novel is going to be about since there's a number of contenders). The book opens a year after the ending of Daughter, and while Xingyin is largely recovered from her encounter with the Celestial Emperor, she sees danger and potential betrayals wherever she turns. Unfortunately for her and those she cares about, there is danger. This time, though, when Xingyin goes on the run, she's accompanied by the people she treasures most. I enjoyed getting to see more of the relationship between Xingyin and her mother. Their love for each other came through clearly in the first one, but Chang'e gets more page time in this one, so we get to see more of their relationship. Likewise, Ping'er's relationship with Chang'e and Xingyin is more visible in this one, and it's clear the three of them have made their own little family. We once again get to venture across the Immortal Realm, though we get to see some different settings this time. The Southern Sea, Ping'er's homeland, is featured and I greatly enjoyed getting to see the underwater city. We also get to learn more about the sunbirds and the role both Xingyin's father and the Celestial Emperor had in their demise. The role of the sunbird and the Sun Goddess is relatively brief, but Xingyin does venture to their garden, so we get to see where they reside as well. After the events of the last book, Xingyin is content to remain on the moon with her mother and Ping'er and, when that isn't an option, to try and find a place where they can reside peacefully away from Celestial Kingdom politics. While it is somewhat of a change from the last book, I feel like it's very consistent with the things Xingyin wanted (i.e., her mother to be free and to go home). She does still have that spark in her that gets her to stand up and fight back, so even though she wants peace, she also knows that sometimes it isn't an option immediately. A lot of her growth in this book is about understanding and accepting loss, in more ways than one. Liwei makes a return in this book, though he's a more minor character due to everything going on in the Celestial Kingdom and the royal (haha) mess that everyone has found themselves in. He's still remarkably sweet and he's gotten better about standing up to his parents, particularly in regards to Xingyin. I did enjoy seeing him go head-to-head with his mother, though I suspect/know some of his 'win' is due to Xingyin. I still would've liked to see him more in this one. Wenzhi is also a returning character, and he's someone that Xingyin is, understandably, not pleased with. He comes in claiming that he's changed over the past year and that he realized his victory is 'hollow' considering how much he hurt Xingyin to achieve it. It's definitely hard to trust him and, like Xingyin, I'm skeptical. But he does prove that he's someone who's interested in helping the group and in defeating the new antagonist. By the time I was 60-75% through, I was pretty convinced Wenzhi had changed, or at least regretted his actions. I was pleased to see Shuxiao again as well. She's a good friend to Xinyin and it was good to see her be able to step outside the bounds of the Celestial Army for a little bit. She has a good perspective on things and is both good at providing fighting support and moral/advice support. I'm definitely glad that she was able to resolve things with the military and go back to her family. There are a handful of new characters that come into this book as well. For the most part they don't get a ton of page time, but it was good to see some new people come into the bunch. Some of the new characters have interesting implications, both for the world and for some of the characters we already know (and I should note, not all the 'new' people are new to the characters we've already met, they just weren't present in the first book). I do feel that this book is more action driven than Daughter, though there's still character development. I enjoyed how fast-paced it felt and how there are several moments of impending danger. There are multiple moments when allies and enemies have a chance to appear and/or change sides. I liked how the shifting alliances part of this book worked out, and think it does a good job of showing how a common enemy or goal can unite people, for good purposes and bad ones. Admittedly, I don't ~love~ the ending, but I do think it makes sense. I would've preferred it to go a slightly different direction, but with everything that's happened in this book and the way the main characters have grown and changed and matured over both books, I don't really see how there could've been a different ending that was still satisfying (and it is happy!). Overall, I really enjoyed this book and loved getting to see more of the Immortal Realm. I thoroughly liked the intense planning the antagonist in this one went through, and they definitely felt like a heavier/worse antagonist than in the last one. I also really liked seeing the character relationships and their development, especially with the returning characters. I definitely can't wait to see what Tan's next book holds, for this world or a different one!

[kinfriday]

Lighthouses

2022 began with me emerging from a period of injury that made it very difficult to move.  

Four months prior to the new year, what appears to have been a vaccine reaction triggered a severe case of rhabdomyolysis and inflammation which was exacerbated by an extreme cramping in my lower legs that saw many muscles torn or damaged.  

This ended my year on the Pacific Crest trail 400 miles from the terminus. 

It was soul crushing on multiple levels. My recovery led me to a period of being sedentary that I hadn’t encountered in years, resetting my fitness progress to essentially zero. 

Still, I resolved to set ambitious goals, hoped to lose about thirty pounds and return to the level of fitness I had achieved at the peak of 2020 before another bout of injury sidelined me.  

There has been an evolving trend these last few years that I hope I am on the verge of breaking of going hard only to wind up injured, with long spans of recovery.  

I like to push, but so many of my endeavors seem to end inconclusively, if not as outright failures. Ambition and effort do not always lead to success, and I am living proof of that, but I’ve come to understand that it is that lack of success that has pushed me to find greater meaning in my work.  

It seems a contradiction but having tried and failed as much as I have has pushed me towards a type of success. Elements that have remained glow as beacons, calling me to try again and push forward.  

The fact that they still persist, attempt after attempt, only causes them to shine brighter on my horizons. My writing, my fitness, my path... No matter how much I sometimes feel a failure, they always remain. Somehow the road seems to curve, and I  seem to find myself back again, chasing those pursuits.  

Purpose outshines achievement, persistence outshines motivation. One of the greatest lessons of 2022 for me is, I feel, that after a lifetime of knowing my calling on some level, I’m beginning to understand it more and more as a deep and inseparable part of myself. 

My purpose is found in my doing, in what I cannot help but be, and this truth, from my perspective is fundamental to all.  

It’s what you can’t escape no matter how far you run, it’s what remains monolithic within yourself when the forest of your life has burned down around that is the core of who you are.  

And throughout this year, I have strived to live that, with limited amounts of success, but here I am, still moving down the path.  

It has been a year of goodbyes too. My Aunt Karen lost her battle with cancer in the first part of the year. She always believed in me, was one of my earliest champions and helped my family accept me when I transitioned. Then in August, my cat Charlie crossed that far horizon.  

In loss I have learned why love is precious, and just how fleeting time is. In my last email to her I wrote on the great conceit that there always seems to be more time until there isn’t.  

I was in the midst of writing another email to her when the notice of her death arrived.  

Persistence, change, new beginnings and endings, 2022 has had all of these. It has taught me profound lessons in moments of soaring victories, crushing defeats, and near unfathomable losses.  

It has, in short, been one hell of a year, and through its struggles I’ve gained a greater clarity as I look towards 2023.  

Goals have been set, strategies have been devised, and who knows how far I’ll go?  

In the fall, my Dragon Edit Team began work on Farthest Star. After three years, and a worldwide pandemic, we are finally returning to the business of publishing with the goal of releasing my next novel this coming June.  

Meanwhile, I’m still working towards my first marathon, and dreaming of attempting the continental divide trail.  

Some people have called me ambitious or driven, but these goals are reflections of those monoliths. The lighthouses on my horizon. As hard as it gets sometimes, as miserable as I can feel sometimes, or frustrated in those pursuits there is something natural about running each day, writing each day, and pursuing the ascetic path that I’ve been blogging about here.  

My nature lends myself towards these things, no matter how imperfectly I may achieve them in a given moment.  

They are what is left when all else has failed, the annunciation of my deepest inner truths, which is where I find the strength to haul myself up, time and time again, no matter how much I falter or fail.  

Not without despair, not without moments of kicking and screaming, never without doubts, but even my Lady Eostre, in the fragments of legend that have survived has struggled.  

She, the embodiment of hope, wrestled with despair, and only found her way through connection and resolve. Though she could not find the strength to bring the Spring she still tried, she still hoped, she still strove, until finally the moment came when hope triumphed over the night.  

And there it is, another beacon calling me towards persistence, a week after our celebration of the triumph of the light.  

May your 2023 be full of bright blessings and every good thing!  

Onward, towards the dawn!  

-Sister Snow Hare  

[warsawmountain]

Four Mistakes

i kept losing Mario Kart 64 because of the stolen glances to yr fishnets, olive chubby skin bulging out, This seems like my first mistake— to be in love with the sound of the blue shell defeat in the room with the broken window. i was a kid and it seemed like there was always a storm, so i turned off the TV but the moment of my defeat & yr victory—still there like an aftershock. i look to history to explain & this is really my first mistake when i say history i mean the stone half-buried by the roadside, which has witnessed more tragedy than a filthy glass of a water. i look to the water In the glass on my end table, but all i see is dust. i look to the dust & all there is is history. here’s a feather & a well of blood to write radical movements across the fractal back of infrastructure. here’s a father leaving home to build railroads with his bare hands. write the laws Clawing the eyes out from owls, building a wall between the river & the thirsty, dragging families from their homes & into the streets. write a treaty between the horse & the bird, between the wolf & the lamb & make them dance to the sound of yr voice. A visual-novel D ending. This is my second mistake.

as I grow the Turnips for Stardew Valley & peach trees for Animal Crossing, careful to make sure everything is just right for her in the deep valley of her eyes.

but she does not understand that when a farmer dies, he dies forever. there are no more crops after he's dead. or trees for that matter. and all of the things I've put so much care into will wither away.

Pause. Stopping to take a break to take a walk to 7-11 we are the tenderness of the lies we tell ourselves; We are the appetite— for something other than what is staring us in the face.

Swishing the Cherry-soda Mountain Dew Slurpee, in Winnipeg, on the inside-cheeks of my mouth, sugary & cold & shoplifted, just to get a little more red, pulsing freezing, just to feel something but it makes my stomach feel like glass & I can’t drink it This is my third mistake

my street is 29th SW, a few blocks away, where the fruit-picked trees, hearty bark, Make sitting for the neighborhood teenagers To smoke a joint or break-up or fuck.

how many times are we slow dancing with everclear or sourpuss? orange & blue in the dark, & though it brings us down by the roots, the sky is always blue: the red birds that circle in a vortex, screaming

there’s a poster on a streetlight, for missing cats the Calgary Zoo, of prehistoric birds; bird fossils from China; the fossilized remains of a saber-toothed cat. live animals— a baby panda, a zebra, a polar bear.

She has told me I’m going to be a writer, that I do everything right, that I take care of my animals and my plants and my villagers like they are my own children. I’ll write for you, she asks, & maybe one day I will, if only I ever saw the blacks inside of her eyes.

to be in love with the sound of the blue shell defeat ends. i had to finish this poem & there is no room for love in a basement where the only thing that keeps me from losing my mind is the sound of my skull trampling on concrete, the emotion of someone else's pain, & the feeling of never being good enough. This is my fourth mistake.

[whypolar]

re: riddhe, "invested in" is a bit of a stretch so it doesn't really bother me too much to see him bashed, it's more like he's the character who i was compelled by most when i watched. i tend to enjoy rivalries/uneasy allegiances/relationships that revolve around strong ideological differences so i was already primed to like his relationship with banagher, especially in their fight against loni, and was even willing to buy his proposal to/romance with mineva as a sort of political marriage or marriage of convenience thing until it became clear in the OVA that mineva was barely going to be giving him the time of day, which kinda ends up breaking down the main trio both as an interesting ongoing interpersonal dynamic and as synecdoches for their respective factions (i.e. banagher as the vist foundation, mineva as zeon, riddhe as the political branch of the earth federation). i think there are some parts of the novels' characterization that line up, but my main feeling when i read your post about episode 3 was that i'd been so robbed because so much of that characterization was just completely absent, not even necessarily that it was replaced by something worse. i like that riddhe in the novel has stronger convictions, and that portrayal of him probably has an edge on his OVA portrayal because it eases some of my biggest pain points with unicorn's politics overall, but i also like characters who have flawed, conflicted motivations, it's just that the OVA feels like it's pulling a lot of punches. there's probably going to be more to say once we get to his heel turn and subsequent face turn because that's when i felt riddhe becoming really sloppy and incoherent as a character, so i'm interested in how that's handled in the books especially given that he is more or less a completely different character.

re: unicorn in context of UC/gundam, i personally found unicorn deeply frustrating and self-defeating and confusing when everyone else talks about it like it's "a love letter to UC" (focusing more on first gundam through char's counterattack, i think f91 and victory are doing their own things enough and drawing less on specific characters and events from previous installments) but from what i gather you seem to like it? i think my basic complaint is that gundam 00 handles the themes around newtype stuff, the power of communication, belief/faith/religion, and even smaller stuff in unicorn like agency and problematized humanity leaps and bounds better, so what does unicorn have to say about UC specifically and what "purpose" does it serve as a UC story? i still have some problems with it that would have remained problems if it were an AU installment, but being so tied into the continuity of UC makes it harder to write off or reconcile. again though this may be more relevant to revisit at the end of the series.

Ahhh, I see. I feel like a lot of the commentary from people I personally follow re: Unicorn is quite negative, so it seems my fandom context is a little different than yours. Not so much on tumblr where I'm posting analysis, but like, UC Gundam fans broadly whose opinions I respect on Twitter or whatever. Even people who like Unicorn (or parts of it) seem to have significant complaints in my circles.

Coming at it from that angle specifically, hmm… it's complicated. I do think it would be easiest to talk about this at the end. There's a lot of different things going on that I'd have to untangle in my brain. Plus, I want to see how the anime does it, because I know Frontal's story ends differently, and he's a huge deal to me.

I haven't watched 00 yet-- started and liked what I watched a while back, just got sidetracked by life and never circled back. GWitch is the only AU I've watched all the way through. God, there's so much Gundam in the world. Sometimes I think about what I'll watch next when the Unicornbrain finally recedes, and it's so daunting.

Everything you said about Riddhe makes a lot of sense. I do think a lot of the "worse" I'm perceiving is that he feels boring to me (though I also just have a personal grudge against sheltered wealthy 20-somethings who give guilt-trippy love confessions to teenagers. I dated this exact genre of guy for nearly a decade of my life). If they made him less sympathetic in a way I thought was interesting, I'd still be annoyed to not get to see the character I liked, but I might be able to get into it as its own thing.

I do think the OVA feels like it's pulling more punches than the novel, not even on an actual plot level necessarily so far, but like… the "vibe" of the world and the people in it, if that makes sense…? I talked about Syam feeling ethereal and like his edges have been sanded down, and I feel something similar about a number of minor characters, and also just the unnamed people existing in the world. They feel less tangible to me. More abstracted. I have no idea if I'm being coherent at all right now, but hopefully you get what I mean.

[loki-used-to-rule-the-world]

"Do you sing, Loki?" - LOKI FANFIC

This is a Loki fanfic (one-shot) I wrote almost a year ago, based off a drawing my best friend told me to do, followed by a phase of listening to Wardruna's songs only. This is the drawing:

In this story I use two songs: "Grá" by Wardruna, and "Helvegen" also by Wardruna, but I chose the Kalandra cover of this last one. I'll put the YouTube links of the songs when it's "time to play them" while reading.

I wrote this in Spanish, but after episode 3 of the Loki series with everyone going crazy for Loki singing, I asked if someone wanted to read it in English and two people ( @lucywrites02 and @lokislovingvalkyrie ) said they wanted to... so here it is.

* * *

"Do you sing, Loki?"

Loki & Wanda fanfic

Wanda absentmindedly stirred her coffee, staring at Loki as he read, and she then let go of the thought that appeared in her mind without previous warning.

“Do you sing, Loki?”

The question seemed to take him by surprise, because he looked up frowning and focused his eyes on her with a serious face.

“No, I do not sing,” he replied briefly, before looking back to the open book he held in his hands.

Wanda didn't think about giving up, because she saw something hidden behind his apparent rejection. Why, if not, did he look so worried and frowned his eyebrows so much as he pretended to keep reading? Up until she had asked the question, a slight smile danced on his lips as he read the novel’s lines, but now his eyes were fixed in the middle of the page, as if his mind was far from there.

“Don't you know how to sing, don't you like to sing, or don't you want to sing?” She asked, tempting her luck.

“All three,” he replied, without looking at her.

“At the risk of raising your ego, you have a beautiful voice, Loki,” the witch said, leaving the coffee cup on the countertop and resting her hands on her hips. “I bet you also have a wonderful singing voice. Why don't you want to?”

Loki delicately closed the book and left it by his side on the couch before standing up and walking to the table that served to eat, work, study, and all at once. He sat on the corner, resting one foot on the crossbar, and leaving the other on the floor. Wanda followed him with her gaze, attentive and full of bewilderment. What was going on? Had she said anything wrong?

“I sang, many years ago,” he said, after a moment of silence. He had raised his eyes to the ceiling, with his gaze absent in the memory. “The culture that worshiped us, the Vikings, emerged in history in the Midgardian year 793, with the raid of the Monastery of Lindisfarne. That was the appearance of the Vikings on the European political scene. Europe knew about them since a little earlier, but they had never been given importance, until they began raiding and attacking other areas. The annals and chronicles of the following centuries are replete with terrifying accounts, due to their violent actions, and the Vikings and their descendants had a great influence on European history. In the British Isles they ruled for many years until finally being defeated by the Normans, descendants of Vikings who had received lands in Normandy, or France. The end of the Viking period is often dated as the fall of the King Harald Hardrada, who was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in the Midgardian year 1066, while attempting to take possession of the territory of England. Danish historians extend the date to 1085 with the end of the reign of Canute IV of Denmark. While Norse influence remained relevant, the Normans’ acculturation, the military victories of other states, and the Christianization of Scandinavia meant the end of the Viking activity as it was known.”

There was a moment of silence, which Wanda did not dare to break. She had nothing against history lessons, even less so if Loki narrated them in such an appealing way, but she didn't understand what that had to do with singing. However, she remained silent without deflecting her eyes from Loki, and eventually he took his gaze off the ceiling, fixed it on her, and smiled as if he had just noticed her presence.

“Sorry, I was beating around the bush. I wanted to give you an overview and I think I confused you even more.”

“No, no,” Wanda waved a hand. “It doesn't bother me. But I don't see the connection with my question. Keep telling me, though, if you want. It's interesting. I never knew much about that culture.”

Loki stared at his hands, wandering away back into his thoughts. Wanda couldn’t help admiring him from afar. That god was an artwork from head to toe. She laughed quietly at the thought of it, but Loki started talking again and she paid attention to his words.

“Apart from history, the Vikings adored us because they knew us. I was born in the Midgardian year 800, so I was already three hundred years old when the Viking Age came to an end. This gave me the chance to come down to Midgard and meet them personally. They did not get to praise me as a protective god because...” Loki smiled longingly, still staring at the palms of his hands. “Well, let me just say I liked to create chaos everywhere. But I still integrated myself quite a bit into their culture, very backwards compared to the one we had in Asgard, but no less interesting. While Odin, Thor and the others were praised, engaged in battles and all that drama, I spent more time getting to know the Vikings as individuals, their families, their society, their language and, above all, their music. Today nothing is known of Viking music. There are no records, nor any kind of score, and few instruments have been found in archaeological investigations. Viking music has been erased, lost, or so everyone believes. Among the many human groups and singers who play the 'Viking' style, there is a band called Wardruna that is supposedly like the others, playing what is believed to have been the music at the time, based on the few instruments found. The reality is that the lead singer was enlightened by the runes, and the music he plays is exactly what was played in the Viking Age. Of course no one would believe that, so it is thought to be mere folklore.”

Wanda had never heard of the band he mentioned, in fact, it had never even crossed her mind to listen to Nordic music of any kind. Sure she was dating a Norse god, but she was really in the dark about his ancient culture. She had never thought of asking questions, nor investigating; she simply lived in the present. Loki hadn't mentioned anything about it either, ever.

“Do you know Wardruna?” Loki asked, looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

Wanda shook her head, shrugging. On top of that, she also didn't fully understand what that whole Viking music story had to do with the face Loki had put on before, as if her question had deeply affected him. He was behaving strangely, and she wasn't quite figuring him out.

“You said you sang before. What did you sing? And why don't you sing anymore?” She asked, tilting her head.

Loki let out a heavy sigh and clicked his tongue. He was definitely behaving weird.

“I sang with the Vikings. I composed songs that they sang afterwards, and some of them are now Wardruna’s. I stopped doing it when that culture died out, because I had no longer a reason to do so.”

“You could have kept doing it.”

“And sing for whom? For the Christians? Nice show.”

Wanda shut her mouth. Loki clicked his tongue again, this time sounding frustrated, and then raised his hands in a strange way. Wanda didn't have time to ask, because a golden glow grew between Loki's fingers and spread, forming the figure of an instrument she had never seen before. The closest thing she could think of was a harp, but this one was small and looked more like a combination with a guitar.

“It is a kravik lyre,” Loki said, answering her unspoken question. “Now shut up and listen carefully, because you are not going to see me do this again. I had left this behind, and I only show it to you because you are you.”

Excited and suddenly impatient, Wanda nodded with energy and sat on the top of the kitchen bar to listen. Loki took a deep, slow breath, and then his fingers ripped the sound out of the strings into a soft three-note melody that he repeated eight times, before opening his mouth and beginning to sing in a low, deep voice.

“Eg hugsar ringen før den brotna…”

Wanda didn't understand a word of the language he was uttering, but her breath seemed to have stopped in her chest. She had been right, absolutely right. Loki's singing voice was different from his voice when speaking, and infinitely more beautiful. Loki kept singing the end of the last word for a few seconds without letting his breath waver, before falling silent and leaving only the same notes of the instrument repeating over and over again. And then suddenly he sang again, now on a higher note and sending a shiver through the witch’s entire body.

“Songen din rørar djupt i meg… som taumar rakt frå minna dreg… Eg finn ikkje ord, dei er for meg gøymd… men det er noko gamalt, det er noko gløymd…”

The harp's notes changed of melody, and Wanda felt like she was dragged forward, as she took one step, and another, and another, until she reached Loki's place. He looked at her in the eye and she raised a hand without planning it, following the song’s call. Her fingers touched Loki's forehead, right in between his eyebrows, and the world changed.

The darkness absorbed everything, and Loki's voice fell silent along with the lyre’s notes. Wanda stood there alone, in the midst of the nothingness of that other reality, until a slight coppery glow flashed in the night and the crackling of the fire broke the silence. A wolf howl startled her in the distance, followed by others, surrounding her, far away. The color of the fire grew brighter and she found herself standing next to a campfire, and Loki's silhouette was on the other side. His face was dark, barely lit from below by the flames, but she knew he was looking at her. He no longer held a kravik lyre, but in his left hand was a kind of flat drum, and he held a stick with the other. She held her breath, he opened his mouth and went back to singing the same thing he had sung a few seconds ago. This time the words made sense to Wanda even though they were in that strange language, because she extracted the knowledge from Loki's own mind. His voice echoed in the night, much deeper and more serious than it had been in Wanda's house.

“Old gray…”

A wolf howled closer, with a strangely beautiful melody in its howl. Loki continued to sing.

“I remember the ring before it broke…” And in the last word he began to rhythmically hit the skin of the drum he was holding, shaking the ground beneath Wanda and the blood in her veins with each beat.

More instrument sounds rose around the campfire, and Loki was no longer alone. People dressed in animal skins and faces in the dark accompanied the melody with rhythmic beats of different tones, all following the same song. Loki raised the note of his voice.

“Your song stirs something inside of me… like chords pulling directly from memories… I cannot find the words, they are still veiled…” His voice went down again, dragging her into the bowels of the earth on a deeper note. “I still know it is ancient, I know it is been forgotten…”

Chilling female voices rose at both sides of Wanda, following a beautiful, ancient melody without words as Loki continued to beat the drum with the same rhythm as at the beginning. Wanda's heart felt like it was beating in unison with his.

“I remember when you wandered freely…” Loki intoned, and his voice surrounded the witch like a whisper in the air and a tremor in her bones. “I remember when we were wandering together… I remember us before our paths parted… I remember the ring before it broke… Always cautious about you, and you about me… Always cautious about me, and I about you…”

The wolf howled again and its figure appeared next to Loki, but he showed no sign of having seen it. The women's breaths followed the rhythm like a moan at the same time as Loki's drum, but he suddenly stopped playing and they raised their voices again so wild and at the same time so ethereal, and he resumed his beat just an instant later, with redoubled power. Sounds surrounded Wanda with ferocity, and the people around the campfire danced in a tribal circle, accompanied by wolves. Loki's voice, powerful and ancestral, was heard above all else.

“You can run into my woods… Wander freely in my mountains… Direct your herd to my valleys… Let us restore the ring…”

The drum stopped, and only Loki's voice and those of the women remained.

“I will sing to you so you may be safe on your way… I will sing to you so that you get home safely.”

The echo kept the last note, the fire stirred and extinguished in a blow, and all the people and animals disappeared. Then, a devastating emotion pierced Wanda, and it took her a moment to realize that it was not felt by herself, but by Loki.

The nostalgia felt like a knife in her chest, puncturing her from side to side. Both longing and melancholy, so strong that they suffocated, cut off her breath and she found tears on her own cheeks. She felt the urge to retreat and cut the bond between their minds, but their hearts still shared the same heartbeat and although she didn't see Loki's face, she could imagine he was crying. So she took a deep breath and tried to give him something, which maybe wasn't even comfort. She walked through the memories of Loki's songs and immersed herself in the words, and her sweet, deep and stinging voice pierced the silence with a sound so pure that it hurt.

.

Who's going to sing to me?

Into the death-sleep sling me

When I walk the road to Hel

And the tracks I tread are cold, so cold

.

I sought the songs

I sent the songs

Whilst the deepest of wells

Brought me the harshest of tears

From the Slain-father's pledge

.

I know it all, Odin

Where you hid your eye

.

Who's going to sing to me?

Into the death-sleep sling me

When I walk the road to Hel

And the tracks I tread are cold, so cold

.

Early or in the day’s end

Still the raven knows if I fall

.

When you stand by the gate of Hel

And when you must tear yourself free

Follow you I shall

Across the bridge of Gjöll with my song

.

You will be free from the bonds that bind you

You are free from the bonds that bound you

.

Cattle die, friends die

So, too, must you die

Though one thing

Never dies

The fair fame one has earned.

.

Cattle die, friends die

So, too, must you die

I know one thing

That never dies

The reputation of a dead man

.

She fell silent. Loki's laughter shocked her and filled her ears and thoughts. At the same time as the laughter, she felt the sadness, and behind it she experienced a deep gratitude. Loki's hand held hers and pulled her fingers away from his forehead, causing Wanda to return to the reality of her own body and be able to look at the god in the eye.

As she had suspected, his eyes were full of tears, but he laughed. She couldn't help but laugh the same way, and she couldn't stop the tears either from running down her cheeks.

“Do you realize how ridiculous we are?” The witch asked, still laughing and crying at the same time. She didn't even know why.

“What on Yggdrasil gave you the inspiration to sing?” Loki replied in the same way.

“I wanted to comfort you, I guess. Did it work?”

“It was a surprise, I must admit. Hearing you sing in Old Norse is not an everyday thing.”

“I can say the same.”

“But I am a Norse god, it makes sense. On the other hand, you did not even know what a Viking was until I explained it to you.”

Wanda laughed, sniffled and wiped away her own tears with her sleeves before drying Loki's with the same method. He let her do it, and she realized that the lyre had disappeared at some point during the conversation.

“Did you compose those two songs?”

“During my time as a poet.”

“To be honest, Loki the Poet sounds very strange. I would have never thought of it.”

“I have several angles,” the god said, flashing her a wide smile.

“I already realized that. I love your angle in bed.”

“Oh, look at her, the witch came out as a pervert.”

“Don't lie, you already know.”

“Of course I know.”

Wanda hugged him by the waist and rested her head on his chest as she laughed to herself. She listened to Loki's heartbeat for a long time as he caressed her hair and drummed with his fingers on the witch's back, following some melody. Wanda's chest filled with warmth. Deep inside she felt that, even if Loki had said it would be a one-time thing, he had actually unlocked his fear and sadness, and perhaps he would dare to sing again. If only for himself, at least. The god snorted slightly through his nose and she knew he was laughing because he had read her thought.

“In your dreams,” he muttered.

“Uh-huh,” she said, and she knew that she had won the argument when he didn’t reply back. At some point he started humming the song she had sung before, and she just smiled.

[aristidetwain]

The Shared Dalek Universe of the 1960s: A Case Study

In 2011 (a little over ten years ago!), El Sandifer cited my dearly-beloved 1960s Who Annuals as examples of stories which ended up influencing the TV series many years down the line despite making an unrepentant hash of continuity. 

Her first example is that the Doctor is called Dr. Who, and that he alternates between being from Earth on one page, and not being from Earth three pages later. I would point out that TV was doing much the same thing in those days, and went on flip-flopping basically until Jon Pertwee, so it’s not a terribly good argument to begin with.

However, she spends more time pondering the Daleks of the comics. These Daleks, she notes, are very different from those on television at the time. There are hordes of them, they travel in fleets of saucers, and they’re ruled by the Emperor. This contradiction, she argues, later fed back into the TV series in the RTD era, when huge fleets of Daleks became the norm and, earlier but still well after the first burst of Annuals, in the form of Patrick Troughton facing a very different Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks.

In no way do I wish to undermine Sandifer’s ultimate conclusion that “canon” in the sense of diegetic consistency is a red herring of little importance, and what matters for any sane definition of ‘canon’ is whether a story is referenced at all, not whether it’s contradicted. 

However.

Having gone back to 1966′s The Dalek Outer Space Book, I have made a very startling discovery, in the story entitled The Secret of the Emperor. The rest is after the cut; I will leave you with a delightful panel from this story, showing the “bewildered” Dalek Emperor being bullied by knights at the Battle of Agincourt. (This is one of my favourite Doctor Who images ever, and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face I am not sure I want to take you seriously.)

So, famously, when he debuted in the comics, the Dalek Emperor was not the giant, static Dalek later shown on television in The Evil of the Daleks and The Bad Wolf of the Ways; instead, he was golden, squat, and had a bulbous head; to house all the ego, one expects. 

Thus, most people will point at the fact that when the Doctor met “the Emperor” in The Evil of the Daleks, he resided in a huge tower-like casing in the Dalek City, as evidence that although ideas received a first treatment in the comics which later made it to screens, no direct continuity was intended; the comics’ Emperor was an alternate, a first draft, to be discarded once a more definitive TV portrayal emerged. 

And yet, of course, it is somehow appealing to think of the two as the same Dalek, isn’t it? John Peel (Dalek writer voted most likely to be a 19th century Victorian man who stumbled into a time eddy; it’s mostly the remarkable sideburns) spent a lot of time in his Dalek novels establishing the life story of the Dalek Prime, the First Dalek Ever, who transitioned from the globe-headed casing to the towery Evil one and then deeply regretted it, what with the “getting killed by his own infighting troops with no way to escape”.

But this is usually viewed as a retcon. A cute retcon, an admirable retcon even, but a retcon. My good friend and esteemed fellow canon-welder, @rassilon-imprimatur​, espoused such a view four years ago:

Well, all of this is, if you’ll pardon my French, bollocks. John Peel didn’t make anything up, except for the snappy name of “the Dalek Prime” as a designation for the individual. The Dalek Emperor in Evil of the Daleks was always the Emperor of the 1960s comics, and there is a very good reason for his seemingly-contradictory change of appearance. What’s more, I am not talking about murky authorial intent: these are things that the discerning Dalek fan in 1967 was meant to have known.

Let me wind back the clock to 1966. A Dalek master-plan is unfurling, a multi-media agenda spanning several years, more ambitious perhaps than even Time Lord Victorious in its scope; for the ultimate aim of a small cabal of men including David Whitaker, Terry Nation and Brad Ashton is nothing less than spinning the Daleks out of Doctor Who and into their own non-BBC TV show — to be made in America, and in colour, if you please! 

For over a year now, a Dalek story arc has been running in the pages of TV Century 21, tracking the early rise of the Dalek Empire and its early interactions with 2060s humanity. Though the Daleks encroach over other parts of the book, including the headline stories, the bulk of this story arc comes in the form of weekly one-page comics making up one long serialised history of the Daleks, under the minimalist title of The Daleks.

Also under the solo brand of “The Daleks”: Annuals, an exclusive audio story, and, of course, toys. Time for Phase Two. It is time to end the Daleks’ endless confrontations with Dr Who on television, and set the stage for a new status quo able to support the TV series Nation dreams about. 

Important background: Terry Nation, famously, does not like the Dalek Emperor. Whitaker made him up without consulting Nation, who maintains that the highest rank in the Dalek hierarchy should be the Dalek Supreme. The Emperor was hard to do away with in the comics, since he was basically the protagonist of the TV21 strip, but one imagines Nation was keen to jettison him from the world of the planned TV series. 

I am speculating, of course, but I picture Nation sitting in his office, pondering the two great thorns in the side of the Independant Daleks Masterplan. 

Thorn one: the Daleks are entangled with the Doctor both diegetically and symbolically; unless something can be done, the Daleks will remain “the Doctor’s enemies”, and a show where they commit evil and the Doctor fails to show up would ring false with the kids watching. The Daleks must be removed from Doctor Who in a sensational and definitive manner, or the whole enterprise is a nonstarter.

Thorn two: I, Terry Nation, have foolishly allowed David Whitaker to shape the lore of the Daleks, and he has made this Dalek Emperor guy very central to early Dalek history, leading up to the 22nd century Dalek Invasion of Earth that most of the Doctor’s subsequent conflicts with the Daleks have stemmed from. But I do not like the Dalek Emperor. I wish I could get rid of him in my new status quo. 

…………Aha.

A triumphant Terry Nation adds a post-it note to the ever-widening corkboard representing the multimedia Dalek Masterplan setting up the TV series, which must already include things like “convince Jean Marsh to come back as Sara Kingdom”. Notes distilled from this corkboard will form the backbone of The Dalek Outer Space Book, this year’s Dalek annual, which exists principally to set up the prospective main characters of the new TV series: Sara Kingdom and Agent Mark Seven, of the Space Security Service. 

The new post-it note reads:

Construe the Daleks’ enmity with the Doctor as a personal enmity between the Doctor and the Emperor, a la Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty. Have the Doctor triumph over the Emperor on TV in a big ‘event’ story. 

Result: the Doctor-vs-Daleks storyline is over; the Emperor is dead; I get everything I ever wanted. 

(Except maybe a pony.)

Then he phones David Whitaker, smirking all the while like an evil genie preparing to grant a badly-worded wish. 

“Good news, old chap, I’ve decided you can write a new Dalek story for the BBC, all by yourself. I promise I won’t interfere.”

*confused and delighted David Whitaker noises*

“ And you can even bring in that Dalek Emperor of yours. Yes, you heard me!”

*Whitaker enthusiasm intensifies*

“Ahhh, but there’s a catch. The Dalek Emperor must DIE.”

Of course, like all good Faustian bargains, this is irresistible even though it is ruinous and the victim knows it to be ruinous. Whitaker agrees to the scheme. He and Nation begin planning out the events of the great finale of the Dalek-Doctor confrontation, which will hit the screens in 1967 as the mildly racist, but otherwise quite well-loved, ‘The Evil of the Daleks’. 

Quickly enough, it is decided that Patrick Troughton crouching to berate the short and bubble-headed Golden Emperor would look silly. If the Emperor appears on TV, alongside human performers, then it should tower over them. Besides, this is to be the archvillainous Dalek Emperor’s last stand, and certain traditions must be followed.

Hence another task is added to the bucketlist of the Dalek Outer Space Book: tell the story of how the Emperor transformed from the globe-headed dwarf to some huge and terrible towering form under the Dalek City, for the Doctor to stumble onto later. This rebuilt Emperor may be teased, but must not be truly seen or truly defeated in the book; that would defeat the whole idea. 

Hence, The Secret of the Emperor, a story which sees the Emperor becoming self-conscious about his own efficiency and letting the Scientist Daleks rebuild his casing from scratch. The final page is a splash panel, a delightfully nonsensical diagram of the mechanical components of the new casing. 

The almost surreal array of colours and shapes is so arresting as to obscure an important detai. Many have seen this page over and over, and yet still missed it. The recent(ish) ‘Anatomy of the New Dalek Emperor’ artwork from Time Lord Victorious clearly looked at this page for reference, in spite of the fact that the TLV Emperor is much more inspired by the old Emperor than the rebuilt one.

Let me spell it out for you: look at the Scientist Daleks in the top right and centre-left. Look at them.

The new Emperor is huge.

And what else? 

That Scientist on the left is plugging huge wires snaking from the wall into the tower-casing. 

He now resides in the Great Hall of the Dalek City.

The background wall is a weird checkered pattern.

In addition, the following facts are seeded throughout the earlier pages of The Secret of the Emperor.

The point of moving to the new casing was to grant the Emperor increased brain capacity (suitable for concocting masterplans).

He acquired said increased brain capacity to help the Daleks attempt to overcome humanity once and for all. 

The Emperor has recently had a trautmatic but eye-opening experience with time travel. 

Ignore the fact that the Emperor was here depicted with what appears to be a still fairly bulbous, and golden, head, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is very, very direct setup for how the Doctor finds the Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks — tower-like, in an imperial throneroom in the Dalek City, with a checkered wall pattern, planning out a complicated scheme to harness time travel as a means of defeating humanity once and for all!

Yes, the designs don’t quite match — but how could the artist behind the visuals of Secret of the Emperor have known precisely what Shawcraft would build, a year later, based on the same basic description by Nation & Whitaker? The parallels far outweigh the minor differences in execution. (It’s worth noting that elsewhere in the Outer Space Book a different artist drew what was clearly intended to be the Golden Emperor as a large, golden, but normally-proportioned Dalek, so it’s not like the visual descriptions of these scripts were exceedingly precise…)

The rebuilt Emperor is never seen in the Outer Space Book outside of this ‘dissection’: he is heard throughout The Brain Tappers but kept carefully off-panel, and his new and dangerous new casing is pointedly not destroyed in the story’s conclusion. Well, of course not. That’s what Dr Who is for.

tl;dr: it is not a post hoc retcon, or even a secret, that the round-headed Emperor of the comics became the Dalek Emperor of Evil of the Daleks. A holistic view of the state of Dalek media in 1966-1967 shows that, in fact, it was the whole point that this be the Emperor of the comics; and that the comics had begun setting this up long before Patrick Troughton encountered Edward Waterfield on TV.

And thus, to circle back to Sandifer’s 2011 post, it is not enough to simply say that the “seemingly non-canon” comics inspired the show down the line. In fact in this instance, what appeared on Doctor Who existed for the benefit of the Daleks spin-off — not vice-versa!

[dramioneden]

Surviving Voldemort's World: The Order Loses The War

Draco "Claims" Hermione to Protect Her (Hermione Slave Fic)

The Auction by Lovesbitca8 @lovesbitca8

A saga length classic in the fandom by one of the best writers on AO3. Hermione POV, Voldemort wins, Hermione is captured and is auctioned to the highest bidder, Draco spends a fortune on her ... but not for the reasons anyone, including Hermione, thinks.

Bleak Manor by PushtheButton

Very much in the same vein as The Auction, but begins with a very morally conflicted Draco. Draco POV, Voldemort wins, Hermione is up for grabs as a "slave", Draco reluctantly claims her. Though the concept has parallels to The Auction, Bleak Manor stands out with an edgy atmosphere, Draco's conflicted POV, concisely paced plot, well developed side characters (including a clever depiction of Parvati) and novel length word count. Being told from Draco's POV it proves to be a decent, edgy character study of him as he navigates his place in Voldemort's world and his evolving feelings for Hermione.

Shelter and Sanctuary Series by Musyc @willhavetheirtrinkets

Voldemort won and has made Hogwart's his stronghold where his Death Eaters are in an unyielding revel of torture and rape of Order captives. Draco successfully postures to claim Hermione as his. And so begins a codependence of survival in this gritty and dark tale of Voldemort's world. *** Note: The series itself is a WIP, but the published installments are each complete.

A Good Man by a ASongofIceandHope

Shell-shocked that Voldemort actually won, Draco does the last noble thing he can think of doing and saves Hermione.

Draco and Hermione must Work Together to Defeat/Escape Voldemort's World

Shared Hell & Shared Path by @lightofevolution

Hermione finds herself in a cell in Azkaban and realizes the prisoner in the next cell is Draco. Realizing a "bonding spell" could allow for their escape, the two decide to work together.

One of the Monsters by galfoy @heymanticore

Draco's sanity is barely surviving being one of Voldemort's henchmen after the order is mostly vanquished. Finding Hermione alive shifts his whole perspective.

Opportunity Cost by @misdemeanor1331

Draco was looking to relieve some tension, instead he found Hermione prostituting herself and a plan is hatched.

The Price of Victory by ningloreth

Prostitute Hermione, Powerful Draco. Both looking to escape Voldemort's world.

The Pretense by Colubrina @colubrina

A Dramione Must Read. Draco is madly in love with Hermione and she has accepted him and abandoned the Order. Or is that just a pretense?

Inspired by The Handmaid's Tale

Manacled by SenLinYu @senlinyu

A cult classic in the fandom. The Handmaid's Tale, Dramione style.

Handsome. Bad. Evil. by cup_of_madness

As this is also inspired by The Handmaid's Tale, the parallels with Manacled will be obvious while the story remains separate. *** Note: This is written in Russian. In order to read it in English you will need to use Google Translate, I have not found an English version of it yet - if you have, please message me and let me know.

Draco Appears to "Selfishly" Protect Hermione

An Unconventional Escape by Ariel Riddle @ariel-riddle

Marriage Law Voldemort Style.

Thirty Times Lucky by galfoy @heymanticore

Hermione exchanges sexual favors to keep her job at Malfoy Corporation with Draco. He might care for more than just the sex and she might care for more than just her job.