#i cannot express MY HATRED FOR REFERENCING

[scorpiusmalfoylovesoscarwilde]

I didn't come into this thinking "oh the citations will be a nightmare". you know, I thought difficult things in uni were when you actually write the essays and take exams and stuff. no - when trying to reference correctly - you'll wish you were dead

[eros-vigilante]

The Many References in Teniwoha's Samsa

If you haven't read "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka, the one thing you likely know about the short story is that in it a man turns into a bug. And this is enough to recognize the allusion of Samsa being named after the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, as well as the imagery of a dragging tail and onomatopoeia of "zuki". However, there are several deeper layers to Teniwoha's symbolism of themes and references to "The Metamorphosis" that add a great level of cohesion with Immiscible Discord's story. First, I would like to say that "The Metamorphosis" can be found as a free pdf online, and is a very good short story, so if you have the time and energy you should read it. This post will only be summarizing the themes that are referenced in Samsa and Immiscible Discord and will not include some of the other great commentaries Franz Kafka has. And of course, it will spoil the progression of the plot. Also, all quoted lyrics are from Amiaryllis' english cover, which is also very good and worth listening to. The lyrics will not be quoted in order.

The biggest and first theme the surrealist nature of the story expresses is that Gregor Samsa has been led to - and does - believe that his worth is tied to his ability to work. When he discovers he is a bug, he is only concerned because he is going to be late for his job if he cannot figure out how to get out of bed in his new body. He is determined to go to work because his entire family relies on his job to pay for their lives. ("i've grown monstrous down to the very core of my soul") This is comparable to Mafuyu's relationship to academics. Their mother relies on them to fulfill her dream of Mafuyu becoming a doctor, and so teaches them that nothing matters as much as this goal. Even when Mafuyu is stressed or physically ill, they push themselves to attend school, club activities, cram school, and study. Mafuyu's academic performance is their worth to their mother, as Samsa's income is his worth to his family. ("so could the bravest of souls face me and bear the toll?") When Samsa's family discovers he is an insect, they are horrified. Samsa finds this reasonable as he also considers his form monstrous. It is another theme of the story being from his perspective that he has good faith in his family to the point of seeming either naive or to have a low self-esteem. Actions that are most easily justified as disgust and hatred are rationalized by him, despite acknowledging at points that his family was not as affectionate to him after they began relying on him for money, as well as acts of physical violence such as his father shoving him back into his room.

("those painful fights, fearful nights") This is an interesting thing to compare to Mafuyu's experience of being gaslit by their mother. They believe very strongly- because they were told- that everything their mother is doing is for them, their future, and is in their best interests. This prevents them from questioning her actions and sacrificing their own desires in a self-destructive manner, which is also something Samsa does. For instance, he hides himself with a bedsheet so his sister does not have to see him when she brings him food, despite him finding this uncomfortable. ("craving any smile or attention just from you") Samsa's sister is the only one who still shows affection towards him, as she is the one who brings him food, but eventually she too festers fear towards and dehumanizes him. By the end of the story, the entire family blames their despair on him becoming an insect and no longer believe he is Gregor Samsa. The most direct reference to the story in the lyrics is when his father throws apples at him and has to be stopped from killing him by his wife, Gregor's mother. He crawls back into his room and he is locked inside. ("i beg, don’t throw those rotten apples at my chest before they lock up, lock up samsa") This could best reference when Kaito says that Mafuyu's mother is killing their feelings or true identity. Additionally, Mafuyu's mother places all blame for Mafuyu's recent behavior on Kanade's influence. And as the family plans for their life after his death, Mafuyu's mother tells Kanade that she plans to convince Mafuyu to go back to doing what she wants, no matter how extreme she must be about it. ("if it all goes to plan, then, we’ll soon rejoice") In the end, Gregor Samsa stops eating, and dies of starvation. All the while, he still thinks fondly of his family and believes they are in the right for their treatment of him. Gregor Samsa is used to form a strong representation of the extent to which Mafuyu has been gaslit. ("so please don't tell me that you'll be giving up on reality, samsa") The biggest difference (other than the bug transformation) is that Mafuyu has people who still dearly care about them, and not just for what they can provide. While all of Gregor Samsa's family abandons him, the other members of Nightcord do not abandon Mafuyu. Mafuyu has a reason to live, and people to tell them that they do not deserve to be locked away. ("i know that brilliant light will shine as the clock strikes 25")

He could already hardly feel the decayed apple in his back or the inflamed area around it, which was entirely covered in white dust. He thought back of his family with emotion and love. If it was possible, he felt that he must go away even more strongly than his sister. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful rumination until he heard the clock tower strike three in the morning. He watched as it slowly began to get light everywhere outside the window too. Then, without his willing it, his head sank down completely, and his last breath flowed weakly from his nostrils (Franz Kafka).

[burgerrat]

I was not expecting to find an image, nay, a person, who was able to conjure as much unhinged aggressive chaos destruction biting violence vibes with one(1) facial expression the same way William Finley managed to do with Winslow. I don't know how else to better describe the feeling these kinds of facial expressions give me other than referencing campyvillain's post about that same Winslow image

@beastofweapons 's interpretation of AM is absolute perfection in my opinion. I CANNOT GET OVER THE FUCKING FACIAL EXPRESSIONS THAT'S WHAT DRIVES ME OFF THE WALL THEY'RE SO UNCANNY AND CARTOONISHLY EXAGGERATED IT CAPTURES AM'S HATRED AND SADISTIC PERSONALITY PERFECTLY

[draco-the-voiddragon]

Y'know what I just realized about the Ten Commandment curses from the 7DS? They're all just amplified/extremist versions of what happens when you contrast the power:

Format: Commandment: Curse. Explanation.

Truth: When you lie/go back on your word, you turn to stone. When you get caught in a lie, you tend to freeze up right?

Repose: Keep fighting long enough and your power is sealed. Everyone needs time to recover from turmoil, even you.

Pacifism: When you kill another creature in their presence, you are robbed of your remaining time/lifespan. They're just skipping the murder trial and speed running time in prison right there!

Benevolence/Love: You are unable to afflict harm to another with hatred in your heart. Living in spite/keeping grudges you cannot do anything about holds you back from your potential... Mostly

Faith: Anyone who shows a lack of faith will have their eyes set ablaze. Woah, I can't believe my eyes on that one!

Patience: Anyone who shows intolerance of pain shall experience further pain. "You're depressed because of that damn phone!" a former mom.

Piety: Those who turn their back on the Demon King or his surrogate are automatically converted into loyal slaves of both. Think that's just simps trying to escape the Vtuber basements, isn't it?

Purity: Any who thinks impure thoughts are inflicted with illness. Only explanation I got is by referencing Boa Hancock from One Piece.

Reticence: Those who express hidden/suppressed feelings or emotion are rendered unable to speak. Repeat after me: SILENT. TSUNDERE.

Selflessness: If you commit a selfish act/hold desire from another, you lose your memories, emotion, and sense of self. I'd go feral if someone tried to take my nuggies from me too!

[bullsh1tterz]

A blink, then the littlest of chuckles. "You're a smart kid." He tells him, hand reaching out to point his way as the smallest, most unreadable smile of the twenty first century remains plastered to his features. "Kinda like that, yeah" he nods. "'cept I don't believe I'm all bad, kiddo." a small shrug. "Everyone's got a mix in 'em - y'can't physically be all bad 'nless you're an exception to that rule." Which some are. Some definitely are; but even the world's most vicious dictators and irredeemable psychopaths have had to them so much as a single quality which one could deem a general positive. Such qualities are never grounds for redemption after one has gone too far, they never are, but they undeniably link them to human kind. Perhaps, though, in a way human kind itself is never ready to process - the fact that the vicious and terrible are human and not fundamentally foreign from their state of existence - that one is not separate from the innate traits in them which might fester into heinous, iredeemable horrors.

Adam is, perhaps, a much milder and less lethal case - hell, he's righteous - but he remains such a case nonetheless; a microcosm of the more fatal inflection of the trope. "'s just that I've got more bad than good 'n here." The smile doesn't fade, but falters, previously pointed hand now pressing against his own chest. "Y'don't gotta be all bad to be an asshole, y'just gotta be bad enough." a shrug, the smile leaving him. "'m sure it's even the same with your mom. She's good and nice at times and a total bitch at others, no?" The sign of an impeccable manipulator.

And again, as the kid continues to speak, Adam finds himself reverting to - referencing - older times, vicious times. Acceptance. Flaws. The agony of being one's self when one mustn't be such a self; when people expect the personhood of everyone around them to match their perception of what it should be. He sighs. He doesn't know what the kid is talking about and there's no way on earth he's going to guess that. To him, it was bisexuality. To him, it was his brutal honesty. To him, it was his innate hatred and cynicism towards the world. To the kid, it must be something. Damned he'll be if he pries it out of him, no. It's not his place. And yet he's compelled to lighten the load somehow, some way.

"I've been called a freak 'n I'm still here." he begins, taking a step forward and crouching enough to the other's height. "The funny part's that they didn't even call me a freak over the right stuff - it was just the stuff they thought was wrong with me." A little head tilt, frown present yet empathetic. There's a little sigh that leaves him. "How old are ya, kid?" he asks. "Can't be older than sixteen." he replies to himself, mostly, but he does leave him a window there to correct him. "I'm twenty seven. That's at little over ten years on ya." index and middle finger drum up to brush against the camera hanging around his neck. "I don't fucking know jack about what my purpose is." He rises up, finding the nearest stool and sitting as he speaks.

"It's fine if somethin's missin'. There's always gonna be a blank bit o' ya, that's how we people work." He turns to the kid, not motioning for him to sit beside him but giving him an expression which, in very subtle manner, suggests it would not be ill-recieved. "The good news is... that's proof you're no monster, kid. Monsters ain't walkin' around wonderin' what their sense o' purpose is or wishin' ta find what's missin' in 'em." A little lean. "Whatever it is you are - the bits o' ya that y're so intent on hidin' - there'll be people out there who don't give a single fuck."

Aside from the passing possibility that the child is a serial killer, which Adam now thoroughly doubts but still cannot quite remove the smidgen of skepticism tethered into, Adam is almost pretty sure he wouldn't care what the kid's big dark secret is. No matter how big. Or how dark. With the nature he sees before it, there's the slightest and most negligible chance that this kid has done or is doing something which Adam would be repulsed by. But, then again, he can only really truly know if he comes to hear it. And he's never the type to pry his way into such.

"And there are gonna be people that like ya for it or in spite of it or whatever else - everyone's annoyingly different." A pause. "Does your family ever tell ya that sorta thing? That- they're not the only bastards in the world who'll accept ya?" Oh, shit, wait - he just asked a question. That's not good. That's not good at all; now the other must think he's taken an interest!! Because, well, he has. But he wouldn't want that to be known, no, now that's grounds for trouble.

he can't help the way his feelings uncomfortably stir : he doesn't thank the other or insist any further , ( because adam is , after all , an adult , ) but the word "worth" still pricks him in a way that gave him the same itching , irritated lump as the word "deserve" did . he wants to resist , decline , insist : but you do . no matter how meek and timid the niwa perpetually seemed , weren't feelings like those still his own ? to dispense and allot wherever , to whomever he liked . had he the words to express any of this , then maybe he would have balled up his fists a little at his side and stood his ground until adam accepted it .

instead , he stays as still as he can and listens , unable to help the way his eyes glide shy away from the other's --- like a nervous animal hoping not to get eaten , a dog with another's teeth bared close , far too close to its nose .

delusions ... right . what confrontation he's avoided and tried to muster up all sorts of excuses for , he suddenly feels chided over . ' kind of like --- ' he hesitates just on the brink ; feels his thoughts lurch at the thin , sliced edge of the conversation , a chasm that rips itself open right in front of him and whose deep , open plummet makes his heart sink and thud in his chest . ( adam would either immediately hate him for this , or end up shocked at the sheer hidden guts and gal it took for it . maybe even both . ) nevertheless , daisuke verbally leaps : ' like the way you kind of ... talk like you're all bad , even though you really aren't ? '

it's not the place for comparison , he knows --- but he can't help the times he had wondered whether or not there would ever be any sort of light for him . what was good , what was evil ... ? did a drop of poison always pollute the entire well ? did a weed in a field render it foul and infertile ? cherubs were said to only know peace and wear smiles ; in its shadows , the devil and all its stormy leers and grim brooding could be concluded a devil for as long as these things remained a truth .

even thieves had their reasons . their little white lies ; their rampant delusions . he's never known whether or not good intentions could make up for cardinal sins , but if he could have told adam the truth , here and now , what would the other have said , then ? would he have lent mercy , even more sympathy and encouragement , no matter how rough and crass ; no matter how bitter and angry , to the sorry kid --- criminal --- raised from birth like all of his ancestors to fall out from innocence and to endlessly steal ? his family might have been the entire reason for his woes , beginning with an ancestor of hundreds , maybe thousands of years ago , a curse --- but , after so much time , he still cared for everyone . his mother , his grandfather , a father he barely felt he knew ; the artworks he had laid his hands on , even his other self .

' i just ... ' if anything , he wished his mother really was here right now . to hear what she might say to an ordinary person when all the other times he had tried to declare that he was going to give up thieving , he had been met with nothing but a chorus of pleads and tears and demands and declines . ' ... they're the only ones who accept me , too . they know --- parts of me that no one else knows about . that i'm too scared to show to strangers or ... even my friends . ' his flush reddens a little , even more . his voice shrinks and stays infinitesimally small . ' i just don't want people to hate me . what if someone points and --- and calls me a freak or a monster ? what if it's the truth and everyone's right ? what if i can't change or --- or fix it ? '

a beat . ' i mean , whether or not it's my fault , isn't there something still wrong with me ? ' a breath . ' i'm so stupid and i keep thinking --- wondering , maybe i'm not any good for any of it . not my family or strangers or ... o-or anybody . ' and just like that , lifting an arm to rub a sleeve across his dry lips and hide away his mouth for however briefly , he apologizes again . ' sorry . i didn't --- i didn't mean to ... i just don't know what i'm doing . it feels like everyone knows what they want in life and how to talk and ... be normal , but me . and i don't know how to fix it . i never know just ... what's missing . '

[idw-sonic-fan-blog]

The Mandates

Just wanted to share my thoughts on the pro-ported mandates because they cast a shadow on this comic.

“Game characters cannot have relatives unless they were estabilished in the game canon, i.e. Cream and her mother.”

This one is understandable and you can blame Penders for this. Mind you that most licensed comics of gaming franchises don’t actually delve too much in personal family relationships or expand on them. So this is expected and honestly Sega should have put the screws on Archie decades ago about this.

“Game characters can not die. There are workarounds for this, such as being Mistaken for Dying or "Mistaken For Dead”

Again. Yes. Not a big deal.

“Game characters cannot have wardrobe changes unless approved. Chao Races and Badnik Bases has some characters (mainly the female game characters) wear different clothes for extreme conditions. Male characters remain the same.”

This is a useless rule but whatever. I mean Sega, you are the ones putting bad wardrobe choices on the characters so again it’s whatever.

“Sonic can't be shown getting too emotional (i.e;cry)”

This is one that it complained about because it really wouldn’t matter unless it is called attention to. A lot of superheroes don’t cry. But that doesn’t prohibit them from expressing themselves. IDW Sonic has been sad. He has been pissed. He has been furious.

Is this not too emotional?

Is he not expressing himself appropriately?

I don’t even know why this is brought up. When in this comic has Sonic not been expressive or displaying the appropriate amount of emotion? When did Sonic needing to cry be necessary?

“Game characters cannot enter in a relationship.”

Oh GOD YES. Don’t threaten me with a good time.

“All major Character Development must be approved by SEGA.”

Yeah, of course. Let me remind you that Penders and Archie ruined any strand of trust Sega could have in comic media. They played loose at first and all of the sudden, they are involved in a lawsuit about characters in a Sonic comic that they didn’t even know about. They probably lost a video game business relationship because of it. If they want to be involved in the comics, fine. That means that they are now forced to World Build. They have to invest in it now and not just be like Lucas Films and let anybody do anything with their flagship title.

“Much like the post-reboot of the Archie comic, the words "Mobius" is banned—the planet is simply called "Sonic's World". Unlike the Post-Boot, which allowed the names "Mobian" and "Mobini", anything related to Mobius is banned in this comic.”

…Of course but how about you throw the writer’s a bone and I don’t know, name the fucking planet. If it is not Earth, give it a name.

“Sonic must always win at the end. Even if he and his friends are at the losing end in an overarching story (the Metal Virus arc, for example), they must come out on top when it concludes.”

I don’t even get this rule and the knee jerk hatred for it. Why even have it? Why even share the existence of this rule? Archie Sonic didn’t really lose too bad. It’s more on how you frame a victory. The fact of the matter is that Eggman is still actively trying to conquer the planet. Sonic stops him but Eggman still has control of land and has military installations all over.

This rule is offset by this. While Sonic can’t lose, Sonic can’t completely win.

“Characters and material from other licensed properties (Sonic the Comic, Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM)', Sonic Underground, the OVA, Sonic X and the Paramount films cannot be used. This rule extends to characters and redesigns done by the current writers. The only exception is Sticks from Sonic Boom, and that's because she was created by SEGA themselves and showed up in non-Boom media, but any ideas regarding her use still need to be okayed by SEGA.”

First off I am glad that Sticks was spared by this rule and I look forward to her eventual inclusion. Second, again, this is not much of a big deal as it was expected. Sorry Freedom Fighter fans but honestly deal.

“Male characters, sans Eggman, can't wear pants, which was also a thing in the Post-Reboot, albeit never explicitly stated. The inverse is also true; female characters have to have some form of lower clothing.”

Okay this is a pedantic rule. It is so weird with how precise it is. Like…huh?

“Classic characters such as Mighty, Ray, Nack/Fang, Bean, and Bark won't appear in non-Classic issues, as Sega doesn't want Classic and Modern Sonic to mix.”

One of the most bullshit mandates fueled by the nostalgia boner fans created. Like this is stupid because Archie Modern Sonic has added more character and depth to all of these mentioned characters than any of the Sega Sonic games they appeared in which only amounts to 1 or 2 at most. Why neuter your own potential stories with this stupid limitation?

“According to Ian Flynn, a specific incident involving Shadow's characterization when he's exposed to the Zombot infection was written in a specific way because of Sega mandating that he be written as an "overconfident asshole rival" character, similar to Vegeta. He later followed up with an explanation that out of every character, Shadow has the most mandates and notes attached to how he's portrayed. According to the podcast, Sega says that Team Dark is no longer a thing. The three members are not a team and they have never worked for G.U.N.; Shadow also doesn't even consider them friends.”

This is my opinion is the worst rule. First it’s contradictory to the character Sega introduced us to. Stop trying to be like Dragon Ball for once and actually be your own thing. It’s one thing if we are changing it because Shadow was unpopular because of his personality. But no one likes this Shadow. People miss the somber but reserved Hedgehog that continued to fight in spite of the world betraying him. Hothead Shadow is a cheap Knuckles. And I don’t even understand why Shadow even has so many mandates when he wasn’t the most egregious offender. Knuckles was.

Also, Team Dark aren’t a thing and Shadow doesn’t even consider them to be his friends. First off that doesn’t even fly in your own games. Who outside of Sonic does Shadow interact the most? Rouge. They have teamed up and were a packaged duo since their inception. When Shadow appeared, Rouge appeared right next to him. If Rouge was in a game, so was Shadow.

Team Dark or just Rouge has fought alongside Shadow in every game they appeared in. Who else does Shadow talk to if not Rouge?

“Sega has stated to Flynn that only male hedgehogs are allowed to go Super with the Chaos Emeralds.”

Except in Sonic Mania.

“Ian isn't allowed to directly reference a game, since the comic is supposed to be its own thing.”

Okay. Not only is this rule stupid. But it’s untrue.

This references the end of Sonic Forces.

The first page of comic.

It has referenced Sonic Adventure, SA2, Sonic Generations , and Sonic Unleashed.

This referencing Shadow the Hedgehog.

I don’t believe this rule exists and even if it did, it is dumbest rule since the whole point of this comic is to base it off the games more. The dumbest rule.

“Knuckles is not allowed to leave Angel Island unless he has a very good reason to.”

For decades, people have complained that Knuckles routinely leaves the island. For decades. Now does this mean Sega is going to 1. Use Knuckles and 2. Amplify the importance of Angel Island and the Master Emerald? No. Again, this criticism should be levied at Sega because they often conveniently forget Knuckles purpose and just hand wave it instead of giving Knuckles more to do on the island like I don’t know, have other entities invested in attacking him.

In summary, here is what I think is going on. Do I think most of these mandates are real? Yes. Given what happened to Archie, I do think Sega is doing some brand alignment. I think they got the clamps on.

But what I think is going on is a Japanese cultural thing called Power Harassment. It is normalized abuse of power. Sega of Japan is normally laxxed about their brands. They don’t mind blatant rip-offs of their mascot nor do they get stiff about fandom creations or mods. The comic division, however, is getting tough love because not only did it cost them a publishing deal, but ruined a relationship with a high end developer. So the IDW writers and staff are being subjected to intentionally hypocritical rules and strict mandates that they know don’t make sense until they’ve shown to be obedient.

A lot of the mandates aren’t strict. But some are so asinine that I don’t think they aren’t aware with how stupid they sound imposing those rules. Like Shadow is the most narratively complete Sonic character and yet, Sega puts this tight mandate as if Archie Shadow was the most egregious thing. Archie Shadow was overpowered. He wasn’t out of character like Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails were. They can’t be that stupid or be that intentionally dense. So they want to see if the writing crew can follow orders. That’s it.

But that’s just my take.

[er9tic]

𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐒𝐖𝐀𝐍.

summary : headcanons surrounding my modern interpretation of historia reiss.

contents : dark themes, murder, obsession, verbal child abuse and neglect.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗘𝗜𝗦𝗦 𝗙𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗟𝗬.

i'll expand on historia's rls with her mother in another post, but for a quick summary, i hc that alma had fled off with historia when she was first born after being rejected by rod reiss once he'd found out about her pregnancy. except, that didn't mean she did it voluntarily. her hatred and neglect towards historia was still present, and the rejection of rod had caused her great damage to her mental health, but that's a story for another day.

all that's relevant now is after alma's passing, rod had taken her in his arms once again and introduced her to the rest of her half siblings.

historia wasn't a perfect fit into the top notch family, the expectations were too high, she struggled with school after being neglected for so long ( her mother refused to enrol her into an education ) so she was always academically behind up until high-school where she could finally catch up and get back on her feet.

i think ballet was the perfect form of self expression for her though. she didn't have to stress on books or theory, she could freely dance her way through her grief and her exhaustion from the constant pressure that rod placed on her, along with the anger that builds up from the bitter treatment of her half siblings ( frieda excluded ).

ballet to her is...fluid. dancing in liquid. it's smooth, graceful, her emotions are perfectly voiced with every step, every action, every wave of her finger and though the audience presume it is a mere act for the show, historia knows deep down that it is nothing but the bare truth, revealed into the world but never actually taken in. it is a relief to her.

she excels in ballet, historia is the best at it actually and holds this skill close to her heart, constantly practicing it, constantly prioritising it, it's the one thing that managed to form a smile upon rod's face when he saw her first show, the one thing that made him accept her as a true reiss child.

to make it get darker though, she has a rival in her ballet team... krista lenz. a beautiful woman with a beautiful ballet technique, too good actually and this sparks some sort of... threat to historia. she worries of being replaced, of not being good enough.

but krista lenz is the crystal image of a perfect girl. she's kind, warm hearted, lovable, everyone is infatuated by her and she consists of all the traits that make her this perfect...ballerina, a perfect candidate for any role and historia feels threatened by it.

to historia, krista is someone she wants to become. she wants to be the center of attention again, the spotlight, the blinding star. i can see her sneaking off to parties at night and introducing herself as krista lenz, just to give herself that little...boost of confidence. referencing patrick bateman's obsession with paul allen.

to make this even more darker, historia's overwhelming jealousy of krista lenz overcomes her. it darkens her, consumes her whole and prompts historia to commit an action she cannot ever take back.

black swan was the biggest inspiration for this...except with a little bit of a twist. maybe one day i'll actually write up that little action that she commit, who knows.

[sterlingarcher]

god that post i just reblogged. it is so true. and its something ive been bothered by and talking about for many years by this point. i am a man, a trans man, but a man nonetheless. the overwhelming negativity and hatred i see directed toward Men impacts transgender men just as badly as, sometimes if not worse than, cisgender men. and it kind of appalls me the way i witness women who aggressively claim to be activists and allies trying to do mental gymnastics to create arbitrary categories for “good” or “acceptable” men. it is so mind-blowingly common for me to be speaking to a woman and out of nowhere, so fucking out of pocket, shell start saying the most foul and rancid shit about men. and they do this shit around me and other trans men like me, because whats happening here is this very deeply conditioned covert transphobia. youre saying these horrible things to me because the fact that i share biological sex organs with you disarms you and makes you feel more comfortable. you fail to remember that i am more than just the sum of my sex organs, and that when you say you hate all men, theyre ugly, youre repulsed by them, men have no personality, etc etc etc, i actually do happen to be one of those men youre referencing. you absolutely cannot maintain that gender is a construct and that your reproductive organs do not equate to your gender or how you exist in the world while simultaneously asserting that i am somehow “different” from other men just because of the gender i was assigned when they pulled me out of my moms uterus. and then there are the bozos who take that really juvenile “im not a bigot i hate everyone equally” approach and they try to tell you that “no one is safe from them, they hate trans men too because theyre no different from cis men,” which is just a patently untrue, and again, covertly transphobic statement. there are absolutely nuances to individuals experiences as trans men. no, i do not navigate the world or my life in the same way as a cis man. no, i do not experience the same privileges as a cis man. and no, i dont at all think that myself and a cis man are the Same. but its pretty fucking vile when you start listing off a litany of characteristics commonly shared by Men, characteristics that i myself and many other trans men may struggle or identify with, and all you can do is bitch and moan about how all of those characteristics are so terrible and cringey and intolerable. we wail and whine and lament these supposedly abhorrent and obnoxious male traits but instead of expressing love and kindness and empathy, instead of trying to put our heads together to discover solutions for men to reclaim and express their masculinity and manhood in healthy and positive ways, we just shit our diapers about it and cry but refuse to let anyone change the diaper. and then we sit around scratching our asses wondering why the fuck we got a rash. i dont fall for the whole “well men made this mess for themselves by building the patriarchy, they can find their own ways out.” we are creatures of community and connection. we cannot flourish or grow as a species unless we come down off our high horses and afford love, kindness, and basic human decency to EVERYONE.

i dont think misandry used to be a real thing. i think what people used to call misandry was just kind of a form of bullying. but the older i get and the more i see this growing toxicity for men in even supposedly safe, open-minded, allied/activist spaces, the more i swear to god we as a society willed misandry into existence like some kind of fucking oppression tulpa

[googledocsdyke]

for communitynatural: i think it's interesting that while abed & cas are paralleled, as well as dean & troy, abed and dean speak in near constant references because that's how they relate to the world, while cas and troy just. say things. because they aren't scared of being emotional

ALRIGHT unfortunately this is gonna be long. i wanna deconstruct the cas/troy thing but i’m gonna put a pin in that for now because you’re right! but you’re also wrong! both abed and dean constantly mediate the world through pop culture, in a way that initially makes them seem really similar, but actually when you look at the respective ways their References and Homages work, it actually highlights how different their characters are, and how well they work as foils (different, complementary) rather than mirrors (similar, paralleled)

i think the key difference is that abed uses pop culture to make sense of the world, while dean uses it to make sense of himself. like abed has a very clear & coherent internal sense of who he is, and he's comfortable with it. he knows that who he is isn't someone the world always perceives as "acceptable" or "normal", so sometimes he uses pop culture to translate that person into something or someone “acceptable” readable by the world. but it never actually modifies his internal sense of who he is! key moment: in early season 1, where the study group is intent on making him over so that a girl will like him, and "teaching" him to be "normal". he goes along with it, and when the plan fails, they all express regret that they somehow damaged his self-esteem by forcing him to think that he needed to change for other people. and you know what he says?

"when you really know who you are and what you like about yourself, changing for other people isn't such a big deal." like this is a line that is SO key to understanding abed's character, and makes him like truly one of the best characters on television (it would've been so easy for his internal conflict to come from him hating himself for being autistic(-coded), and they DON'T do that, and it's GREAT) 

and like. can you IMAGINE dean winchester saying that. like can you imagine him saying that even as a joke. for all his efforts to present himself as a Coherent Swaggering Hero, he has DEEP internal turmoil over who he really is, and all the points at which this heroic masculinity fails. half the time, he is gripped by self-hatred. and when he "changes himself for other people" it's not something he casually flips on and off. it's at the very core of his identity. it's something he cannot remove from himself. he knows full well that "your taste in music? dad's. your jacket? dad's. do you even have an original thought?" he then proceeds to listen to the same music and emulate john winchester in essentially the same ways for the next decade and a half.  dean winchester only IS dean winchester because of the external influences that force him to change. and part of this comes from his own compulsion to be written as/write himself as Hot Action Hero at all costs. like literally at the cost of his own life. it's a game that he can't stop playing. when he gets hit by a CAR he wants to know "did it look cool, like in the movies?" abed would never ask that. abed would just know it looks cool. dean has this pathological need to see it reaffirmed by an Audience, a Ceaseless Beholding Gaze that compels him to perform action hero masculinity at all costs

there are two key points of comparison that really cement this for me:

when abed says "i got self-esteem falling out of my butt," it's like an incredibly sincere line. he genuinely is comfortable with himself and has a high opinion of himself. sure, sometimes he gets distressed that the world doesn't see him the way he sees himself, but he knows who he is and doesn't attempt to repress it or lie to himself about it

when dean says "i think i'm adorable" or "there are no men like me" or like any of the "i am dean winchester and i'm amazing and i love myself" swagger lines, it's a PERFORMANCE of self esteem masking, like, a deep core of self-hatred. his entire personhood is built on him lying to himself — (dean to himself in 5x04 voice: i know that lying face i've seen him in the mirror). he can't truly have self-esteem or self-stability because he doesn't truly have a sense of what his Self even is

the han solo thing. in the season 2 finale during the paintball war, abed very consciously takes on a han solo persona because the setting demands it ("it appears we've exited the western and are headed for more of a star wars theme"). he dressed up as han, drops an iconic line or two, and has a Hero's Makeout with annie (who’s “playing” leia) in-character. but as SOON as they're both soaked in paint (and thus their characters are Dead within the game) he snaps out of it with no problem whatsoever. annie calls him "han" afterwards and he literally says he only did it “because the context demanded it.” abed knows exactly when he’s playing a role and when he isn’t, and very consciously turns it on and off.

but dean. OH DEAN WINCHESTER. he is playing the pop culture han solo hero role at all times and will never admit to himself that he is performing. it soaks into like the very core of his being. to quote tumblr user minor-mendings, “dean is trying to be the movie cowboy, the outlaw, the han solo type, with no realisation that that person doesn’t really exist.” i go over this in more detail with my han solo + dean meta - in so many ways he is So Thoroughly Not the pop cultural role that he insists on playing with complete sincerity, and that the writers insist on writing him into with complete sincerity. abed always knows when he is Playing and Referencing and Homaging and Alluding. dean NEVER knows when he is Playing and Referencing and Homaging and Alluding because his whole life is play, an elaborate repetition of stylised acts

so you're right, i think dean and abed are really interesting characters to read alongside each other in that they both 1) sincerely love pop culture in its own right in very fun and neurodivergent ways and 2) use their pop culture knowledge in their own self-fashioning and the way they translate themselves to the world and 3) engage with the world through Homage and Play and enjoy playing Roles. HOWEVER. the way they respectively use pop culture is so deeply different and indicative of fundamentally different processes of self-fashioning and self-perception, that i can't read abed as a dean-figure or dean as an abed-figure. they're complete inverses of each other! dean is a troy mirror/troy-figure and an abed foil

[laundryandtaxes]

I get where you're coming from, but I think in this instance with Elliot Page it's more about the specific accomplishments/actions/statements made before transition and the rush to erase them and/or remold in terms of the new identity. I think people in the public eye have a bit of a different circumstance surrounding them since people/society have this weird thing with public figures where we consider them sorta authority/important figures above regular people and emulate or idolize them, so it's not quite the same as an average person living through the same situation. I feel like I wouldn't even bat an eye at an acquaintance or local person I've met before transitioning and I certainly wouldn't bother a stranger, but a celebrity is putting a certain message out there with their actions and how they handle their lives. It comes with being famous, and this whole thing with abandoning the past, changing the nature of past roles and works, and disavowing any statements made before transition as associated with womanhood or lesbianism is not exactly a good look. I also think that by becoming famous and choosing to live in the public eye, you open yourself up to public critique and you don't (and shouldn't) have the ability to fully control that. Honestly I think this situation could have been handled better or something if this is them living their truth, but it's not like you can change things that already happened anyway so 🤷‍♀️ it is what it is.

This is probably the only time I’ll address this because I honestly don’t care all that much BUT I do want to respond because I think you’re being honest and normal here instead of dishonest and weird, and I appreciate that, but there are several points where I disagree. I’m gonna pull and highlight different parts because I’ve been spending a lot of time on reddit and it seems the easiest to me.

it's more about the specific accomplishments/actions/statements made before transition and the rush to erase them and/or remold in terms of the new identity 

That may very well be the case with SOME reactions, but I’m very much referring to people who, within a few hours of that social media post, were whining in public about someone they don’t know using a new name and pronouns.

I think people in the public eye have a bit of a different circumstance surrounding them since people/society have this weird thing with public figures where we consider them sorta authority/important figures above regular people and emulate or idolize them 

I totally agree with you here, but if people are doing that then frankly they are acting stupid and that is their own fault. Celebrity culture is stupid. Buying into it is stupid. As grown adults it is stupid to be invested in what strangers do because they’re decent actors, or because they’re famous and gay or famous and black or whatever. If someone is engaging with celebrities in this way, that is their own fault, and it is a poor decision and it is honestly just...stupid. And I say that having been on the other side of that weird relationship on tumblr on a scale that is obviously about a million times smaller, where people will just assume because they’ve followed you for a long time that they can talk to you in ways that are disrespectful if you’re not a friend, or have the right to have input on your life, or place stock in you being a certain kind of way.

a celebrity is putting a certain message out there with their actions and how they handle their lives 

Again, the issue here is that you THINK they are putting a certain message out there when in reality they’re just living a life, with good decisions and bad decisions like everybody else. They are literally just people, just like the other 7 billionish people on the planet. Was Paul Walker putting a certain message into the world when he crashed his sports car into a tree in a residential neighborhood and died? No, he was just being stupid and making a stupid decision and doing something to have fun. It truly is not that deep. Celebrities are nothing except human beings that some people choose to keep up with. They’re literally not even special. There are musicians as talented as all your favorites who you’ll never have the opportunity to listen to. There are actors as talented as whoever won the last big acting awards (I get them mixed up) at your local theater, I guarantee it.

this whole thing with abandoning the past, changing the nature of past roles and works, and disavowing any statements made before transition as associated with womanhood or lesbianism is not exactly a good look 

I haven’t seen any of that, and if it is happening then yeah I agree it is stupid but also people say and do stupid things literally every single day and I shrug and move on. But even if it IS the case, it is not what the people I’m referencing here were bothered by. They were bothered by someone transitioning because they had an investment in that person (who again, is only special in the way that any other random human being you pull of the street would be special) not transitioning, and it is stupid to have that kind of investment in a straight up stranger. It is one thing when you have a buddy that you think is transitioning for the wrong reasons or with unrealistic expectations, and it is one thing to look at the rates of masculine female people who transition and just scratch your head because the rates of us who can only find dysphoria mitigation through transition cannot possibly be this high- both super reasonable imo. It is another to find out some random person is transitioning and whine about it on the internet and expect people not to regard that behavior as ridiculous when it is, in fact, ridiculous.

by becoming famous and choosing to live in the public eye, you open yourself up to public critique and you don't (and shouldn't) have the ability to fully control that 

Agreed here. I also think that if you believed you were x and millions of people made fun of you for it, since again celebrities are literally just random people, you’d be upset by it. But agreed, at the end of the day you cannot and should not get invested heavily in attempts to control the way people look at you.

Honestly I think this situation could have been handled better or something if this is them living their truth 

All due respect, I think the kinds of people complaining that I was referencing agree with you that the whole thing could have been handled better, but I think that “handled better” in their opinion means not coming out. Which, fair enough, but you have to own up to that and just cop to the fact that you generally oppose transition- it is much more reasonable to say that than it is to say you don’t generally oppose transition but every time you hear about it you assume it is coming from self hatred.

I’ve been pretty open about what I think about nonbinary identity (and, while I try to stay very uninformed on celebs in general, it is my understanding so far that that’s how they are identifying) AS it is expressed and discussed by the majority of people I’ve seen fully embracing it- I think the majority of the time it implies really antifeminist things about what men and women can do and like and look like and be like, I think it very often appeals to women because it sucks to know that the world hates women and to be one, let alone to be one who doesn’t fit the image of what women are supposed to be, I think it very often solidly reinforces gender roles by insinuating that people who do not fit the prescribed gender role for their sex are in fact a whole different entity because real women are straight and pretty or whatever, I think it very often hinges on this idea that the majority of people in the world are walking around with a gender identity when the vast majority are absolutely not- like I am not coming at this from the position that all kinds of identities are good and valid and reasonable and that there is NOTHING TO SEE HERE when it comes to the politics of how nonbinary identity is most often presented. I’m just saying that, if a random person who happens to be a celebrity picking a new name and pronouns really deeply shakes you then that probably indicates that 1) you have a baseline issue with transition in and of itself, which, okay but don’t pretend that that isn’t the case, and 2) you have a problem with celebrity worship and that is nobody’s fault but your own if you’re a grown adult.

[syes-lyrics-repository]

命に嫌われている。(Hated By Life Itself.) translyrics

Artist: Kanzaki Iori feat. Hatsune Miku Nicovideo broadcast Youtube broadcast Translations referenced by beanskayl

If you use these lyrics please credit me (Sye216) and link back to this blog if you can.

“Cheer up now, don’t say you wanna die!” “Keep on pushing through now and don’t give up!” In this day and age, songs that say that stuff, they just seem like foolish noise. Being real, I don’t really care either way if I would die, But I think I would be broken if my buddies did. I guess it’s a human ego that says that, “I wouldn’t like them gone.”

Not even caring if strangers live or die anyway Hating someone else seems like a kind of fashion now Even with these things, we must soldier on happily? How wonderful that sure would be... On the other screen, somebody slips away silently Someone grieving them sings along to this song quietly A young boy seeing all of this runs away secretly carrying a very sharp knife.

And so we are hated to the core by all of life itself. Pushing values and our egos like we always do. Simply singing of our hate while on the radio, As if our hatred could destroy them like that. And so we are hated to the core by all of life itself. All of us who say so carelessly we want to die, We who look upon our life with so much thoughtlessness— We are hated to the core by all of life itself. I'm totally broke once again today, so I just sing along to some old lazy songs Even now I cannot grasp the meaning of life, So I take a breath and try to let it all go. “Loneliness”, and other such words like this, Can they actually express all of the pain of these wounds? Carrying nothing but my own obstinance, once again I sleep all alone in my own bed.

All of us  who were once little kids Are now starting to change into such young adults. As we're growing older, we will rot like fallen leaves and Nobody on Earth will even know about our lives. Finally obtaining a body that cannot be hurt, Living on and on without worrying about death... ...I’m just thinking 'bout some sci-fi stuff today.

I really don’t care if I live or die either way But my friends still want me to live on anyway Carrying such opposites living my life every day, I think someone would yell at me. "Stuff that is correct, that should stay correct every day." "If you're scared of death, try to stay alive anyway" If we’ll be depressed no matter what we do, then I guess I will laugh alone my whole life.

And so we are hated to the core by all of life itself. Without realizing the true meaning of real joy, We just hate the shitty hand that life has dealt us And curse out our past that made us feel this. And so we are hated to the core by all of life itself. We who think about our last goodbye with too much joy, With no knowledge of the anguish of a true farewell— We are hated to the core by all of life itself. ‘Cause happiness, and endings, and friendships, and love too, They're goods that can be traded for a little cash— but only in a joke within a funny dream. I could die tomorrow, don’t you understand that? Everything that we do could end up all being for naught. In mornings, and evenings, and autumn, and spring too— No matter what we do, somebody dies somewhere on Earth. I don’t need a dream or another day to live. If you could keep on going, then that’s all I really need. And yeah… that’s really… Everything that I wanna sing about.

Hated to the core by all of life itself. In the end, all of us eventually will pass away. I will die too, you will die too. One day, all of us will rot away like fallen leaves. Even so, we keep on living, frantically, we're living on, Shouldering the pain of life, somehow we're living on, And we kill, and we fight, and we laugh, and we bear— And we live, we live, we live, we live— So just live.

[thewhumperinwhite]

WKW: Magic Lessons Part Two

Previous:  Teaser 1 / Teaser 2 / Presentable / The Lion’s Mane  / To Bid You All Welcome: Part One / Part 2 / Part 3 / A Single Bed, A Door With No Lock / Sword Of My Fathers / Flashback: Little Bird, Part One / Little Bird Part Two / Stained Glass, Candles, Empty Stone / Magic Lessons: Part One / Magic Lessons: Interlude

Asher has a visitor.

TW for: underage whumpee; captivity; isolation; implied/referenced/threatened noncon; grooming; gaslighting and manipulation; Morden Crane’s Creepy Vibes

@faewhump @lollyxxxfem also hey if you wanna be tagged in wkw updates please send me a message specifically cause those are the easiest for me to keep track of <3

----

If Asher had known to expect the fall of his father’s house, if he hadn’t believed the lies the nobles and staff had raised him on, that the castle was impenetrable, that the walls of Colomur were unbreachable, that the Lion of Colomur was unkillable and the Lady’s magic unbeatable—even if he had known to expect anything, he would not have expected his chief complaint in the first weeks after the end of the world to be boredom.

It’s far from his only complaint, of course. There’s no abundance of food and he’s not felt really full since—well, since even before the siege, so probably in months, now. And generally when he sees the armed Leisevan soldiers in their black armor patrolling the halls of his father’s house he has to sit down quickly because he is immediately shaking from—well, partly anger, and mostly fear.

And occasionally he thinks of his brother’s blank face as he kneels before the Winter King; occasionally he thinks of the clothes they have made his brother wear before the court and all the things they might mean, each one worse than the last, and of how even if there was anything he could do to stop it Andry would not let him because his brother is determined to die for him whether Asher wants him to or not.

But even so, Asher is allowed one hour a day to see his brother, generally under the sardonically watchful eye of the Winter King’s Wolf, upon whom all the hatred in Asher’s heart is currently focused; and the minute Andry is out of his sight Asher begins to feel as though perhaps the world outside the single room they keep him in no longer exists, and maybe never existed.

The room itself is small, equipped with a bed, a small couch, and a chamber pot and washtub. There are two black-armored guards posted at the door at all times, but either they have been instructed not to speak with him or they don’t care to.

They have left Asher his clothes, including the jacket he was wearing when the siege broke, which is emblazoned with his father’s crest embroidered boldly across the back.

For reasons he has had no opportunity or reason to verbalize, Asher has spent the past three days unpicking it with his teeth.

Asher has no reliable way of telling the time, so even though he ought to know better, he looks up with real hope when the door opens, thinking it must somehow be his allotted time with Andry again. Then he freezes, and presses the ruin he’s making of his father’s crest face down on the floor beside him, without really knowing why.

The Winter King is standing in the doorway, looking down at him with tolerant amusement.

Asher has not laid eyes on Morden Crane since he was seated beside him at the banquet, and that was—at least two sunsets ago now. And, crucially, in public. Long before he can identify what he’s feeling, the Winter King smirks down at him—Asher is sitting on the floor in front of the bed, unwashed and really only half decent, at least by his mother’s standards—and plucks the jacket, which Asher has now spent unbroken hours ruining, easily from Asher’s relaxing grip.

The Winter King examines the jacket, smirk widening; mercifully it is now between his face and Asher and Asher uses the opportunity to scramble up off the floor and onto the bed in order to scoot back away from the Winter King as quickly as possible.

“Goodness,” Morden Crane says. “It may not be an elegant crest, but I wouldn’t have thought it as hateful as all that.”

He lowers the jacket to raise his eyebrows at Asher, and Asher can see the center of the embroidered lion’s face torn to shreds. He did it himself, but seeing it in Crane’s hands makes him immediately sick.

“Feeling a bit restive, are we, Prince?”

Asher glares up at the Winter King. The man is, as always, tall and handsome and immaculately neat, every strand of his long black hair in place, expression lightly amused but mostly serene and unbothered. Asher lifts his chin, determined not to be afraid. “What are you doing here?”

Morden sets the jacket on the back of the couch, patting it with mocking gentleness. Then he spreads his hands and smiles at Asher, his face mild and open and dangerous.

“I’m here to see you, of course,” the Winter King says.

Asher stares at him, alarmed.

“It occurred to me that you’ve had little room to run since our families have come together. A growing boy needs space to move about, I imagine.” Morden’s black eyes glitter, as if at a private joke at Asher’s expense. “Perhaps you’d like to take a turn of the gardens with me, Prince.”

Asher’s heart hammers in his chest. The knowledge that it must be a trap does him no good, because he cannot imagine what such a trap’s object might be. Andry, he thinks desperately, would know, would see immediately what the Winter King is playing at, but Asher has never been clever like Andry is, and the longer Crane stands before him the more he is certain of nothing except that he is afraid.

He shakes his head, because his tongue is too thick in his mouth to speak well.

Morden Crane looks at Asher, apparently without anger, and sighs a little. “Prince,” he says, “really. It gives me no pleasure to be feared and hated by those with whom I have no quarrel. Politics may have started us off on the wrong foot, but it needn’t make us lifelong enemies.”

“You killed my father,” Asher says flatly.

Morden sighs, making a conceding gesture with his gloved hand. “A difficult start, I’ll grant. My Harpy is excitable; her orders were to take the Lion alive. In fairness, you must agree the Lion’s temper allowed for little diplomacy.”

It is, in a terrible way, true. Even if Crane hadn’t ordered Audoine killed, Asher knows his father too well to imagine him being taken alive; he’d have died first out of spite alone.

It also barely matters anymore. Asher is too sick with worry about the living to question the treatment of the dead.

Asher shifts forward, gripping the edge of the bed, and meets the Winter King’s black eyes, as fearlessly as he can manage.

“Crane,” he says, and doesn’t shrink back when Morden raises his eyebrows at the address. “Answer, and don’t lie to me.” Asher cannot spot a lie like Andry, but he thinks he will know this, to his bones. “Winter King. Have you touched my brother?”

Morden blinks, and then bursts out a laugh, apparently startled, as though at a ridiculous question. “Me?” he says. “Darling. No.”

Asher searches the Winter King’s face. Morden lets him look, with nothing more than amusement.

“Then I’ll go with you,” Asher says, and hopes the condition is clear in his voice.

If the Winter King wants to walk to gardens with him—for reasons Asher can’t fathom, but which he isn’t naïve enough to imagine he will like—Asher can give him that, at least for now. Andry may be determined to die for him, but two can play that game.

Asher braces himself for some overt humiliation—Andry is never permitted to walk the halls without being leashed like a dog—but Morden Crane only glides serenely over to the door, nods when the guards snap to attention, and raises his eyebrows back at Asher, beckoning when Asher doesn’t immediately follow.

Asher approaches cautiously, and Crane gestures him ahead, the motion slightly too grand to be anything but mocking. Asher stares at the guards—if they are laughing at least he will know better what he is being led to—but they must be trained specially to show nothing on their faces, and their black Leisevan uniforms still send a shiver down Asher’s spine—enough that he takes half a step closer to Crane before he realizes what he's doing, and would stumble into the Winter King if Crane didn’t obligingly drop a black-gloved hand onto his shoulder to steady him.

Asher goes rigid at the Winter King’s touch, all thoughts of self-sacrifice driven immediately from his head by skin-crawling panic.

Crane withdraws his hand easily, and even steps back to give Asher more space, and his burst of laughter is harsh enough that it might actually be sincere.

“Relax, Prince,” Crane says. “Gakne knows I’ve no interest in touching you either.”

Asher takes a breath to try to slow his hammering heartbeat, ashamed of his own lack of resolve, and squares his shoulders, stands tall like Andry used to stand in front of their father.

Crane watches him with open amusement, and then turns and sweeps down the hallway, not even turning to see if Asher will follow.

Not that Asher has any choice, with the two guards still standing at attention mere feet behind him. He scurries after the Winter King, and leash or no he feels like a dog at heel.

After days in one room, the sunlight nearly blinds him, and he is immediately shivering in his tatty undershirt, no longer used to the autumn breeze. Crane has led him out a side door into the courtyard, and watches him shake with the same amused smirk with which he seems to look at everything, and Asher only barely keeps from glaring at him.

Then the Winter King says, “Here, boy,” and reaches for the jeweled clasp at his throat, and before Asher can protest, Crane has swung his great black cloak around Asher’s shoulders; for a moment the warmth is such a relief that he almost pulls it closer.

He remembers Andry’s bared shoulders in front of his father’s court, the jeweled band around his throat, Andry’s bowed head and shaking hands.

Asher shrugs the cloak off, hard; the material is thick and costly and it smacks heavily into the dirt, raises a cloud of dust.

He can practically hear Andry’s horrified voice in his head and knows he should stop before he’s gone too far to come back, but he has never been as strong as Andry. Asher spits at the Winter King’s feet, instead.

Then he stares up at the Winter King, who has raised his perfect brows very high, and prays he doesn’t die looking frightened.

Then the Winter King smirks again, and opens his gloved hands in amused surrender. “You’re welcome to freeze, if you’d prefer,” he says, and stoops easily to retrieve his cloak, folding it over his arm, as if to show off how little the cold bothers him, and turns to lead Asher through the garden.

Asher feels tears prick at his eyes, though he doesn’t know why. When the Winter King begins to pick his way through the flower beds, he follows.

----

Riding high on the aftermath of one of Thorne’s “lessons,” it’s easy enough for Morden to be merciful. And as no one else is present in the homely little courtyard garden to witness the child’s outburst, it’s certainly no skin off Morden’s nose. Quite the opposite, really.

Still, it’s a delicate situation, maybe more than he anticipated. The younger Prince isn’t so much older than his Thorne was, when he first found him; yet apparently a few years can make a world of difference in the attitude of a teenage boy. And, of course, his work with Thorne had the advantage of novelty: no one had offered Thorne a soft word or a hot meal before Morden; the little Prince, in contrast, has clearly been spoiled, by his brother if not by the dead Lion. It’s an entirely different proposition, really.

Still, Morden thinks, basking in magic like a cat in the sun, he can afford to be patient. The little Prince is only a backup, and Morden has plenty of time.

[only-by-the-stars]

the annotated Tome of the Wild

Part 7: The Wild!

- Link didn't open his eyes. A twist on the beginning of BOTW, where you hear Zelda telling Link to open his eyes. I couldn’t resist.

- Hestu’s cameo was a lot of fun to write too. I always found him adorable, first in BOTW and then in AOC as well, and the idea of him waking up Link with his maracas was too amusing not to do. I also had to include his “shimmy shimmy” battle cry from AOC because I always laugh my head off whenever I hear it.

- This also reveals that Midna brought Link to the Great Deku Tree, a character that debuted in OOT and made further appearances in WW and BOTW.

- Something tickled her arm, breaking her out of her gloomy thoughts. Midna lifted her head and looked down. New growth was sprouting from the branch she was sitting on, wriggling its way up onto her. Nothing like this happens to Beatrice in the show, but I had to put in this chilling little moment of Midna nearly succumbing to the dekuwood. It provides a way later to introduce Rhoam’s presence in his scene, as well as some horror at what could’ve happened to her here.

- Note to self: never visit Tabantha if you can help it... Tabantha, of course, being a very cold region in BOTW’s Hyrule. Link’s newfound hatred of snow mirrors my own, and now he’s going to associate it with this horrible experience.

- “It's a bad habit, I guess.” He laughed softly. He’s referring, of course, to how he casually greeted Riju and Medli back at the school pool and they gave him a bit of a hard time about it.

- “You...” Midna stared at him for several seconds, stunned. “You...” She slapped his hand away and starting swinging her tiny fists at him, which he easily dodged. “You oaf! You idiot! What the hell—what the hell is wrong with you? How can you forgive me so easily, when you're still in a shit situation because of me? Neither one of us would be out here groping around blindly in the fucking snow if not for what I did!” I set up Midna and Link to be parallels of each other in a couple ways. One of which is that while Link has isolated himself from Mipha, hurting and confusing her, Midna is on the other end of something similar with Zelda. And here we see something they both struggle with: forgiving themselves. Midna can’t understand how Link can so easily forgive her actions towards him, while Link utterly despises himself for his actions towards Mipha and cannot forgive himself for causing her pain. He’ll later struggle with the fact that Mipha forgives him easily, just as Midna is having trouble understanding his forgiveness of her here. All of them find it easier to forgive their loved ones than to grant that same grace to themselves.

- “She told me that while she appreciated how much I cared, I should think a little more and be less reckless. I know she'd never call me stupid, but...” Link shrugged. “Honestly, I kind of am.” Another reference to Mipha calling Link reckless, and how she hates seeing him get hurt. He is indeed not the smartest guy around, but she does describe him as being very kind and determined to help those in need, so I tried to emphasize that aspect of his personality in this story. Although the “I kind of am” line is also intended to be a subtle red flag. We’ve already seen that Link thinks very little of himself and his abilities, even when it’s clear from the words of others that he’s very talented. And we’re about to soon see him use a bit of intelligence he very much does have, in order to save the day. He would never believe himself capable of such a thing, but he does it anyway.

- “Even just a few branches could be processed... enough to get us through this storm...” Note the use of the plural here. This is leading up to the revelation about his belief that Zelda is in the lantern. His desperation to find more oil anywhere is because, of course, he believes that if the light goes out she will die. And he wouldn’t be in this scarcity if not for what happened back in chapter one, with Link and Aryll and the dog accidentally wrecking the mill and his oil supply.

- He was soon rewarded with a most welcome sight: a single dekuwood branch, growing out of that of a normal tree. It seemed sickly, withered, and it waved feebly in the air, but he rushed forward and hacked it off anyway. The very same branch that tried to attach itself to Midna, sickly and withered precisely because of that failure.

- And now we come to the confirmation that the dekuwood is made from the people who succumb to despair and exhaustion in the woods, right as we see it growing all around Aryll. Rhoam has been unaware this entire time of all the souls he’s sacrificed over the past several months, and now that he knows, he refuses to do it any longer. For he, like Midna, recognizes that Zelda would never want anyone to be harmed for her sake.

He’s also right that Link would never leave Aryll to such a fate, recognizing Link’s love and protectiveness towards his little sister. This is a point where my characterization of Link wildly diverges from that of Wirt, the protagonist of OTGW. I pulled some things from Wirt for Link and his arc, but one thing I didn’t keep was the resentment and initial callousness that Wirt displays for Greg, who is revealed in the tavern sequence to be his half-brother thanks to his mother remarrying, something Greg frowns at when Wirt mentions it. Aryll is also technically Link’s half-sister, as I revealed in the letters that his mother remarried some years after his father’s death and had Aryll with her new husband, but I could not for the life of me see him being resentful or unkind to his little sister. Whatever his faults, I’ve written him as being, at his core, an incredibly kind and deeply loving person, and his adoration of his sister is a part of that. He doesn’t view her as a “half” anything, she’s just his sister and he’ll do anything to protect her. Which of course is a big part of what led to his breakdown: his feelings of guilt over not doing as good a job of that as he thinks he should be doing.

- “Link, I don't... I don't think that's natural light. It looks more like...” This has a double meaning. The fire in the lantern is not the “natural light” of the sun, and it is also deeply unnatural, given that it’s the Beast’s soul in there.

- Speaking of that! The confrontation with the Beast plays out a bit differently here than it does in the show, thanks to Midna’s personal connection to all this. Rhoam’s mention of Zelda gets her attention, and the Beast uses her love for Zelda as a way to try and turn her and Link against each other with his attempt to make them choose which soul will go into the lantern. He’ll get fuel and kill Aryll either way, but why not pit these two against each other as a way to manipulate them into doing what he wants? Except it backfires, because Midna won’t harm anyone for Zelda’s sake, and Link figures out what’s going on anyway, thanks to remembering the words of Rhoam and Telma.

- Link stood up, his mind racing. It was like when the solution to a puzzle finally presented itself in a moment of stunning clarity. For all that he’s not that bright in so many ways, it’s important to remember that he’s canonically able to solve all those tricky puzzles we do, without benefit of a guide, just using his wits and the tools he has at hand. And so too does he solve this particular puzzle, by remembering what he’s been told and piecing it together with what he sees here, thinking about the fact that the Beast’s story doesn’t add up. Which saves the day, in the end.

- “Am I wrong?” Link repeated, his voice shaking with barely suppressed fury; he took a few more steps, forcing the Beast to retreat further. “No more lies. Tell the truth for once, Beast.” Referencing, of course, the fact that Telma told him the Beast lies. He’s absolutely furious right now because of the attempt on Aryll’s life; you do not mess with Link’s loved ones. The Beast, too, fucked around and found out the hard way.

- In the show, Wirt gives the lantern back to the Woodsman to blow out after the delivery of the “Are you?” line that I kept (and had Link nail the delivery of on his first try, unlike Wirt, because that’s what makes sense for both their characters). Here, I chose to let Link kill the Beast, because he is, after all, the legendary hero who slays the villain. But even more importantly, I felt he deserved and had earned such a moment with his growing courage over the course of the tale.

- “See you later, Link.” Hey, remember how Midna broke all our hearts by saying a similar line to Link in TP as she broke the mirror and went back to her world? I sure do!

- “Sleepers wake, dreams will fade... although we cling fast..." This, and the lyrics that close out this section, are the first few lines of the vocal version of Ballad of the Wind Fish that was done for the LA remake.

- There were lights and shadowy figures coming closer, and voices—was someone calling his name? As I would later reveal in the prologue of a place to start, Mipha was screaming his name as she ran down the hill towards him.

- The words he wanted so badly to say to her hung on the tip of his tongue And it shows on his face, that desire to express the love for her that is all but bursting out of him in this moment, and Mipha sees it. She sees that love shining in his eyes as they stare at each other, giving her her hope back and then some. In a way, Link was right: if he hadn’t hidden from her, she would’ve realized what his real feelings for her are. He just didn’t know how happy it would’ve made her. But he will soon.

- “—and that's how we got away from the evil possessed lady!” Out of the corner of his eye Link saw Aryll shake the frog triumphantly, and Mipha, distracted by the sudden commotion, looked away from him. A small, muffled chime sounded, and the amphibian's stomach glowed. “The ringing of the bell commanded her! Though she wasn't really evil, just...” The series is never clear on just what the otherworld the brothers enter is, but it is clear that it really happened to them, and I preserved that ambiguity in the same way, by showing the bell as still being in the frog’s stomach.

- Link nodded. “Yes.” It didn't matter anymore how it'd gotten into her pocket; he'd made it, and brought it with him tonight, with the intention of giving it to her. There was no more question of taking it back or denying it. Courage has been achieved; he’s no longer going to hide or pretend, or try to take back the gift he worked on so hard. Midna is right: he’s been so brave in the Wild, and it’s time to apply that bravery to confessing his feelings to Mipha and letting her know that he loves her. The words will have to wait till the next day, but for now he’s doing all he can to face his fears and stop running, by hugging her and holding her hand and wiping her tears away, letting his love show in his expression as he looks at her without avoiding her eyes. Plus, of course, admitting to his intentions with the tape and inviting her over to listen to it together. They’re finally getting a breakthrough after two months of separation and pain.

- The doctor, Syrup, is a recurring NPC throughout the series, a witch who brews up helpful healing potions for Link to use on his adventures.

- I'm home, Mipha. Calling back, of course, to Midna’s line about there being someone waiting for him and to go home to her. Not only that, but in Mipha’s letters, I had her mention wanting him to “come back to her”. And now he finally has.

and that wraps this up, as the epilogue is composed strictly of Miphlink fluff and sweet, sweet payoff. if you took the time to read the fic and these write ups, thank you, I hope you enjoyed them! ❤

[mothercetrion]

Acceptance

Summary: Kuai Liang decides that it’s time to tell the Lin Kuei that he’s with Hanzo. It’s not easy news, but it feels right.

Characters: Sub-Zero (Kuai Liang), Bi-Han and Saibot, Sektor, Cyrax, Smoke (Tomas Vrbada)

Word Count: 2202

Request: “If you want, could you write Kuai telling Bi-Han, Smoke, Cyrax, and Sektor about his relationship with Hanzo (or at least one of them).” - anonymous

another request!!! woohoo!!! this has been done for a while but I’ve just been so busy. I apologize for the wait

I gotta be real, this fic is heavy. deaths are referenced, hatred is mentioned, and it’s mild angst. but I promise all of you that there is a happy, hopeful ending. this is on ao3!! enjoy

———

He waited until Hanzo was on good terms with the Lin Kuei on purpose.

Once they all could be in the same room and it not be tense, once Hanzo could attempt to joke and the others laughed, that’s when Kuai Liang knew that it was time to tell the others that he and Hanzo were together.

The moment they started staying at the Lin Kuei temple again, he knew one thing: he did not want to overwhelm them. Being revived and jumping right into normal life alone could be challenging to manage. They needed a while of transitioning into a normal life, as Kuai Liang did, before learning about anything too drastic.

It took a month. It took a month before the night terrors were mostly gone, and smiles were natural. It took a month before Hanzo could visit the temple, and they’d have a good few hours of jokes and laughter and fun. It took a month before Kuai Liang felt that things would be okay if he told them.

He told Hanzo, and Hanzo said that he was okay with him telling them. He wanted them to know anyhow; they were six months into their relationship, and he didn’t want them to find out through someone that wasn’t them… namely, Johnny Cage, who tended to spill secrets when excited.

Light snow fell at the temple, and Kuai Liang had decided to give the Lin Kuei off for the evening to do whatever they desired. Some of them rested, some of them meditated, and some of them sparred. Some of them even had snowball fights at various locations around the temple, and their laughter filled the air and made the whole area happier. Kuai Liang figured that it was as good a time as any.

He invited Bi-Han, Saibot, Tomas, Cyrax, and Sektor to tea to “celebrate their great mental strides over the last month,” which was a valid reason. The group had made excellent strides towards a better life since their revival. Nightmares were few and far between. Discussing their pasts was easier. They actually slept peacefully. Kuai Liang was, to say the least, incredibly proud of them.

As they sipped their tea, they discussed everything that they could possibly think of. The clan, one another, new friends, everything. Even Hanzo was brought up by Cyrax; he said that he wished to visit the renewed Shirai Ryu Fire Garden one day. The rest of the group agreed. That alone helped ease Kuai Liang’s racing heart.

When nearly everyone was concluded with their tea, Kuai Liang cleared his throat. “Before we conclude our tea, I… I have an announcement to make.”

The rest of them immediately put down their teacups. “This is a drastic mood change… Is everything alright, Kuai Liang?” Cyrax asked with a frown.

“Oh, of course.” Kuai Liang nodded hurriedly. “Everything is fine. Everything is… great. That’s exactly what I want to talk about.” He ran a hand through his hair. “This is a… a deeply personal thing that I’m telling you all today.”

“Kuai Liang,” Tomas said, smiling, “we already know that you’re gay. We’re cool with it, remember?”

The rest of the group snickered quietly, and Kuai Liang felt his cheeks turn red. “I… I know that, Tomas. I told you all ages ago. Thanks for the reminder.” He shook his head, failing to keep a smile from forming on his face. “Tomas, you threw me off!”

They all began laughing louder, and Kuai Liang covered his face with his hands in an attempt to compose himself of his laughter. “Goodness, okay… Look, everyone, um… there is no simple way to say this, so I’ll just say it upfront.” He uncovered his face and looked to all of them. “I am currently seeing someone.”

The entire group gasped, their laughter vanishing into the air. “Oh, Kuai Liang, that’s wonderful!” Cyrax said excitedly.

“Who is it? Someone that we know?” Sektor turned to look at the others, his smile growing. “I bet it’s that… that Cage fellow.”

“Do not tell me it’s Cage,” Bi-Han said teasingly. “I cannot handle him as an in-law.” Saibot’s quiet giggles were heard next to him, and they fell into his side, their white eyes closed in joy.

“No. No, it is not Cage.” Kuai Liang pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can assure you, it’s not him.”

“Don’t leave us hanging!” Tomas wiggled in his spot in excitement. “Who is it?”

Kuai Liang sighed deeply. “Just… keep an open mind, okay?”

“Absolutely, brother,” Bi-Han said, nodding. “We will love who he is, I’m sure.”

Kuai Liang closed his eyes for a moment and opened them again, looking down at the table to avoid their faces. “It’s Master Hasashi.”

Silence fell upon the group, and Kuai Liang got the courage to look up after a few moments. The first thing he noticed was that Tomas was grinning like an idiot, and Cyrax was struggling to not do the same thing. Sektor’s mouth hung open in shock. Saibot was pointing two thumbs up in Kuai Liang’s direction. Bi-Han’s expression was unreadable. “Oh, my gods. You’re kidding. It’s Hanzo? You’re dating Hanzo?” Tomas asked excitedly.

“I am,” Kuai Liang said, releasing a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding.

“How long?” Sektor asked. His happiness was evident in his voice.

“About… six months.” Kuai Liang felt his cheeks reddening. “They’ve been wonderful. Every second has been amazing.”

The three men all awwed. “That is so great. I’m so happy for you, Kuai Liang,” Cyrax said kindly. Sektor and Tomas immediately agreed.

Kuai Liang thanked them and looked over to Bi-Han, who was still neutral in expression. “Bi-Han?” he asked quietly. “What are you thinking?”

Bi-Han looked Kuai Liang in the eye. “I’m… processing. It’s a big shock, you know.”

“I understand.” Kuai Liang gripped at his fingers nervously. “I waited until I believed you could handle it. I know it’s—it’s big news.”

Bi-Han nodded and averted his gaze. “Yes, it’s… I honestly don’t know what to say.”

“Take as long as you need,” Sektor said quietly. He put a careful hand on his arm. “You are in no rush at all.”

“He is correct,” Kuai Liang agreed. Cyrax and Tomas said quiet agreements as well.

Bi-Han closed his eyes for a moment, and Saibot vanished into his side. Kuai Liang watched in stunned silence as Bi-Han climbed to his feet. “Please excuse me for a moment. I-I need to spend some time alone.” He turned on his heel and left the room, stepping outside the temple with quick steps.

Kuai Liang stared ahead in shock and did not notice Sektor move to sit on his side of the table with Tomas and Cyrax. “I… I waited,” he said quietly, “until I thought he could handle it.”

“There wasn’t a better time,” Tomas assured. “You waited as long as you could manage. He would have reacted the same way no matter what. It’s big news.”

Sektor put a hand on his shoulder when Kuai Liang’s hands began to shake. “He’s mad,” Kuai Liang mumbled. “He—He hates me.”

“Kuai Liang, listen to me,” Sektor said. “Bi-Han does not hate you. He loves you very much, he tells all of us this frequently.” Cyrax and Tomas nodded in agreement as he went on. “It is big news to take in. He needs some time to process it. He will come around, most assuredly. He just needs some time to think.”

Tomas and Cyrax were quick to offer him comfort as well, and Kuai Liang simply looked down at his lap with a shaky breath. “You all are happy about it, right?”

“Yes! Of course,” Cyrax assured, hugging Kuai Liang from the side. “We are ecstatic. Master Hasashi is a fine man.”

Tomas and Sektor were quick to offer side hugs of their own, so Kuai Liang was enveloped in support. Kuai Liang’s eyes fell closed, and he fought back the emotion he so strongly felt. “I want him to be happy too,” he whispered.

“He will be,” Tomas said confidently.

Time passed. The remaining four finished their tea, though with a much less happy tone for the gathering. Soon enough, Sektor encouraged Kuai Liang to go talk to Bi-Han, which was the last thing he wanted to do. But Sektor all but shoved him outside of the temple. He knew it was for the better, and Cyrax and Tomas agreed.

And there he was, stood outside his temple and staring at his brother, who was sat in the snow. He was creating snowballs with his cryomancy, tossing them in the air and watching them dissipate. Saibot was sat on the other side of him, gathering snow into their palms and messing with it with no intentions in mind except to pass the time. Kuai Liang could see half of Bi-Han’s face, and he was clearly thinking about the events of the day. The snow fell a tad heavier, but not much.

He saw Kuai Liang suddenly and turned his face to look at him. Saibot noticed him then and instantly vanished into Bi-Han’s side. “Why are you out here?” Bi-Han asked.

“I have to talk to you, Bi-Han,” Kuai Liang said. He stepped further away from the temple and sat in the snow in front of his brother. They sat in silence for a few moments before Kuai Liang cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

Bi-Han frowned. “Why would you ever be sorry?”

“I upset you by mistake by sharing the news of my relationship.” Kuai Liang averted his gaze from his brother. “I wanted you to be ready to hear it, and you were not.”

“There is no reason to apologize. I promise,” Bi-Han assured. “It is just… It is just a big surprise. It would have been no matter when you told me. Hell, he and I could be best friends, and it would be a surprise.” He sighed softly. “My history with Master Hasashi is very complicated. You know this better than anyone, obviously.”

“I do.”

“And I don’t… I do not hate Master Hasashi.” Bi-Han looked off in the distance, past the mountain ranges and towards the horizon. “I used to. I used to live in the Netherrealm and think of how he wronged me. Since my revival, in addition to this hour or so of thinking, I have realized and fully understand the truth behind his actions. I have come to a conclusion.”

Kuai Liang looked back to his brother, frowning. “What would that be, Bi-Han?”

Bi-Han looked Kuai Liang in the eye. “I would have done the same thing that he did.”

Kuai Liang felt his heart stop in his chest. “You… You would?”

Bi-Han nodded firmly. “If the Lin Kuei were to be brutally murdered, and Sektor and Tomas and Cyrax and you were killed, and I believed it to be Master Hasashi that did it…” Bi-Han stopped, his voice cracking. He closed his eyes as he imagined the tragedy. He continued in a whisper. “I would kill him in an instant. I would avenge you without a moment of hesitation.”

His eyes opened. “I understand how guilty he feels, knowing the truth. But I… I have forgiven him for what he has done. It would be wrong of me not to, considering that I would do the same thing. It has not been easy, but it is what I feel is right, and that must be done, no matter how hard.” He stopped again, and he took in a breath and gave Kuai Liang a smile. “You have found yourself a respectable man, brother. It will definitely take some getting used to, but that comes with any new relationship.”

Kuai Liang’s heart began beating again, heavy against his chest as he processed what his brother was saying. “I… I do not know what to say.”

“Besides, if anyone should apologize, it’s me.” Bi-Han frowned as he thought back to their gathering earlier in the evening. “It was incredibly rude of me to walk out on you and the others like that. I plead that you forgive me for what I have done.”

“What? Yes, of course.” Kuai Liang shook his head in shock. “I expected it to a certain extent.”

“So everything is cleared up, yes? I want to see Master Hasashi soon to congratulate him, and… I am delighted that you have found someone that makes you happy,” Bi-Han said kindly. “You have spoken fondly of him for weeks. I fully believe that this is a good thing for you both.”

Kuai Liang could not help but grin. “Thank you, Bi-Han. It means everything to me to hear you say that.”

Bi-Han returned the smile, and he chuckled to himself. “So… Have you two kissed yet?”

“Bi-Han!” Kuai Liang gasped. He glanced away from him, very clearly embarrassed. “It is none of your business what Hanzo and I do.”

“I’m just kidding.” Bi-Han laughed aloud and smacked at Kuai Liang’s knee. “Teasing you will always be a joy. That will never change.”

Kuai Liang felt relieved to hear his brother’s laugh. He knew things would be easier with time. Everything was easier with time.

[dewitty1]

When Did You Last Let Your Heart Decide?

hephaestiions @euphemisia

Chapters: 14/14 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger Additional Tags: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anger, Depression, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Enemies to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Therapy, there’s talking here, lots and lots of talking, because communication is beyond important, especially when you are these boys, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks, Hurt/Comfort

Summary:

“I can show you the world.”

Our world is a broken disaster. A world separated by death and devastation.

“Shining, shimmering, splendid.”

Torn, darkened, burnt.

“I can open your eyes.”

My eyes are watering from the smoke.

“Take you wonder by wonder.”

Are you a wonder? Could you please, please take me somewhere?

Excerpt:

Determination seizes him. It isn’t fair. Harry has been shutting Draco out for a week without justifying it and Draco wants his friend back. He has been raised as the Malfoy scion, the only child of a wealthy, pureblood family. So when he wants something, he hasn’t been taught to be refused.

He wears grey robes, freshly laundered and pressed out. He feels better in them, more confident. He looks in the mirror and while he is still gaunt from months of eating far too little and sleeping only under the influence of Draught, he has filled out enough with his exposure to the trio to forego the Glamour.

He hesitates before he removes the Glamour that covers the scars too– the Dark Mark, the Sectumsempra, the slashes on his back from one of Fenrir’s enraged moments. He looks himself in the mirror, runs his hands through his hair one more time and steps through the Floo into Grimmauld.

Hermione is on the couch reading as usual. She raises her eyebrows when she sees him and teases, “A day early, Draco. The final review dinner is tomorrow, you know.”

He scowls playfully at her and says, “Who’s cooking today?”

‘I am,” she replies with a grin.

“Then I’m not here for dinner at all,” he says, heading for the stairs.

“Now that’s just unfair!” She calls out and he just laughs.

He knocks on the door of Harry’s room. It had been completely ruined but Hermione had told him the three of them had managed to fix most of it. It had been Harry’s godfather’s room and he refuses to move out into a different one even if the plaster is strangely chipped in places.

The door opens and a dishevelled, rumpled Harry steps out with a disgruntled expression, “I told you, ‘Mione I’m not going to go, he doesn’t want to see– oh! Draco!”

Draco’s heart clenches at the sight. He can’t help but think this must be how Harry looks when he has just woken up and gotten out of bed and his hands almost rise with the strong urge to hold him, to pull him close, to never let this domestic vision of Harry out of his sight again. But he doesn’t, instead he raises one eyebrow and says, “Who doesn’t want to see you, Potter?”

Harry’s cheeks pink up delectably. “Thought we were sticking to first names now,” he mumbles.

“Well, pardon me but I thought you were supposed to be at my house on Friday afternoons. Yet, you weren’t. Tell me why I should stick to the first name when you insist on treating me like a stranger?”

“Draco…” Harry rubs a tired hand across his face “it’s not like that.”

“Then pray tell how it is.”

“Ithoughtyoudidntwanttoseeme.”

Draco blinks at the mingled, mumbled syllables that have merged together to form one long string of unintelligible sounds. “I beg your pardon?”

‘I thought,” Harry enunciates, “you didn’t want to see me.”

“Harry,” Draco says, exasperated. “I asked after you when I thought you weren’t coming. I ask after you every time Hermione and I talk. What part of that sounds like me not wanting to see you?”

Harry looks away. “I thought that was you being polite.”

Draco snorts. “When it comes to you, Potter, when have I ever bothered to be polite?”

A tentative smile tugs on Harry’s lips. Draco wants to kiss it, taste it, taste the first traces of happiness on Harry’s face. “You do have a point, I believe,” he says finally. “But since you’re here, you might as well come in. I have the Prophet in here somewhere with an unsolved crossword.”

It is at this moment that Draco’s resolve breaks. He had wanted to keep his distance, let none of his desire show through, let none of his wanting push Harry away from him. If he couldn’t have him the way he wanted him, he could at least have him as a friend. But when Harry smiles at him so openly, so beautifully, like something out of a perfect daydream, Draco can’t hold himself back.

The minute Harry steps back to let Draco through, he steps in and uses his slight height advantage to grab Harry’s face entirely by surprise. His eyes widen fractionally before Draco is brushing his lips across Harry’s, gently, tenderly, completely at odds with the bruising force with which he keeps ahold of his jaw. After one second of frozen surprise, Harry sighs just slightly against his lips before parting his lips delicately to let Draco’s tongue slip through. They push and pull against each other, Harry’s arms coming up to twine together at the nape of Draco’s neck and Draco’s grip loosening on Harry’s jaw but remaining possessively there none the less as his other hand brushes long fingers through Harry’s tangled hair.

They prolong it as long as possible, mouths moving against each other’s, slotting together so perfectly that air is a secondary concern to the euphoric feel of the drag of the other’s lips. It isn’t kissing, Draco thinks, seeing stars behind his closed eyelids. This cannot just be kissing because Draco has kissed before and has been kissed before and none of it ever felt like this. This is dying, this is that split second before your soul leaves your body and your entire life flashes before your eyes, your best memories bidding you a fond farewell. This is dying and coming back to life again, knowing you have a second chance to do everything better, to do everything differently from the first time.

Harry’s lips are soft, slightly bitten and slightly swollen but so beautifully perfect that Draco knows he can stay caught in this moment forever. If lightning was to strike him down right at this second, he would die the happiest man on earth. He nips slightly at Harry’s full lower lip and drinks in his startled gasp. He tastes like pancakes and it is everything Draco has been dreaming of.

When they part, gasping for breath, Harry’s eyes remain closed while he chases Draco just slightly. Then a blissful smile creeps up onto his lips and his eyelashes flutter slightly. But just before he opens his eyes, just before Draco can lose himself in wave after wave of ecstasy at seeing those green, vibrant eyes look up at him, panic courses through him like a Stunner to the chest.

He isn’t supposed to do this. He is Draco Malfoy, he cannot, he should not under any circumstances be kissing Harry Potter. Even taking out the whole Death Eater, Saviour complexity out of the equation, what are they left with? Years and years of mutual hatred, death threats, curse scars and hexes. Years and years of wanting nothing but the other gone. A few weeks of being acquainted to each other, knowing nothing but the basics. Harry probably only kissed him back because he didn’t know how to turn him away. Draco had done him a favour when he had Stunned him and helped Hermione through her panic attack and Harry feels too grateful to do something as insulting as turning away someone who kisses you. He hadn’t asked for consent, Harry probably hates him by now. Harry probably thinks he’s trying to take advantage. Harry probably… probably…

Harry is looking up at him, green, beautiful eyes full of worry asking him Are you alright? Did I do something wrong?

How can Draco tell him that he didn’t do a thing wrong, that it’s all Draco’s fault? He stares into those eyes and the words come unbidden to him, “Oh Salazar, I’m so sorry! That should never have happened, I shouldn’t have done that. And really, you didn’t have to go along with it. It’s okay to say no, you know.”

Harry’s brows draw down in confusion but Draco is already backing away repeating, “Fuck, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, that was a mistake. We’re just idiots, I’m going to leave.”

He turns, ignoring Harry’s demands to wait and Hermione’s cry of Draco, what’s wrong? and steps into the Floo. The last thing he sees before the flames obscure Grimmauld Place is Harry standing in the middle of the staircase looking like someone just shifted the ground out from underneath him.

[ssaalexblake]

Uhm, Galaxy braining. 

S12 of DW

The Doctor as Frankenstein and The Master as the monster. 

B/c, I was making a graphic based from a quote from a film adaptation of Frankenstein (which i may or may not post... it’s not great), and i decided to go and have a look at Frankenstein analysis on the internet because i knew the quote i was using wasn’t actually from the novel and wondered if it was just a Slight change in dialogue or if the sentiment was never expressed in the novel and it was just a script writer’s whimsy (i have not read the book for Many years). 

Which led me to find This, an original quote from the book;

If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear; and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred

And... That is a quote from the monster, who at the time in the story is asking for a girlfriend, but??? !!!!

If you take the first part as him referencing Missy, and everything Else to be his thoughts as This regeneration it’s very... Very on the nose. 

The Master Did try for love, it did not go well. And so, rage, fear, pain. All aimed at ‘the creator’ aka the doctor, whom he swears hatred (he Does hate her... It’s just he doesn’t Only hate her, he’s conflicted). 

Which is interesting, because i’d been thinking about the inclusion of Mary Shelley and Frankenstein specifically as a Doctor metaphor post the timeless children, because the monster is not A monster in the book, the monster in the story is the creator AKA Tecteun, the terrible parental figure. In the end, the monster is a victim as the timeless child was, abandoned and unloved, just a science experiment from those with too much greed and ego.

And while that isn’t an entirely accurate similarity to draw to the dw situation, it’s comparable when you think about the roles the characters are playing in the story. In reality, the timeless child is the original creature and tecteun pieces herself and the rest of the shobogun out of pieces of that child’s genetic code. 

But, if you look at it from the master’s perspective, the doctor Is Frankenstein (i’d say doctor frankenstein, but... he wasn’t a doctor just a dropout) and he and the rest of the time lords are the monsters, plural, as they are just second hand knock offs of a brilliant original (the doctor).  Meanwhile, the doctor is Seeing themself as the victim of the story, and therefore seeing themselves as the monster character as well.

I’m not sure how to end this one but. I love the idea of the master thinking this makes him some kind of frankenstein’s monster. It makes me more enthusiastic about his reaction to this whole thing if i look at it from this angle, i just makes it more interesting thematically to me this way that they’re both casting themselves as the victim in the story and are crossing wires because they’re seeing each other as the ones with the power.