#pointing out foreshadowing and gasping is a full time job

[whinlatter]

Harry’s thoughts of Ginny in the Forest: a meta

‘Nothing too big, because you wouldn't be able to take it with you... I wanted you to have something to remember me by.' - DH, p. 99 (UK edition)

Here I am, on a rainy Thursday, doing re-reads for some writing and thinking about the parallels between Harry and Ginny's kiss on his birthday, and Harry’s thoughts of Ginny as he goes to his death. 

I’m thinking differently about Ginny’s motivations for the kiss these days. I used to think about her words to Harry that morning, and the act of kissing him, as a promise she’ll wait for when he comes back. Lately, I’m wondering if it’s not something sadder, and more profound. I think what Ginny does on Harry’s seventeenth is the act of a person who is starting to process the fact that the person she loves is likely going to his death — that he might not be coming back. It's a scene of a person bracing for grief and thinking about love after death, and it will set the stage for how Harry meets his own death in the Forest.

So here’s a much-too-long meta to help me think through these ideas - about the kiss, Ginny’s suspicions about Harry’s fate, and what it means that Harry returns to the memory of Ginny at the end of his life. (Stick the kettle on for this one and if you worked this all out long ago before me, just give me an eye roll and forgive me).

I’ve always taken Ginny's words to Harry before their kiss at face value. I thought of it not quite as a fun scene - it’s certainly sad - but sweet, a little sexy, and sort of reckless, even a bit mischievous on Ginny’s part.

It’s the birthday of the boy Ginny loves. They’re not together anymore. She knows he's going away. She wants to give him a birthday present, but she doesn't want to give him something he has to haul around or might lose. She does want to let him know that, despite their separation, her feelings are still the same. She craves a moment with him before he goes. She is still in love with him, she is deeply attracted to him, and part of her still feels a bit possessive. Although she’s not really concerned Harry’s going to crack on with some Veela, she does want him to have a memento of their time together. She wants him to have a happy memory, of physical intimacy and emotional comfort, to keep him going while he's away, to feel less alone.

Most of all, I used to think of the kiss (and whatever Ginny imagined might come after the kiss) as a promise. I still love you. Even though we’re not together and I respect why you have to go, I’m still all in on this. I’ll wait for you for when you come back. I want you to have the memory of this, as proof.

Harry’s reveal

But the more I’ve thought about it, the more I think about the context of when this kiss happens, after Harry and Ginny's last conversation before his birthday. It's the one a few days before, when Harry and Ginny are laying the table for dinner, and Harry lets slip to Ginny what he, Ron and Hermione will be doing when they leave:

'‘And then what does she think’s going to happen?’ Harry muttered. ‘Someone else might kill off Voldemort while she’s holding us here making vol-au-vents?’ He had spoken without thinking, and saw Ginny’s face whiten.‘So it’s true?’ she said. ‘That’s what you’re trying to do? ‘I - not - I was joking,’ said Harry evasively. (DH, 78-9, UK edition)

This is a desperately sad scene, but it’s also an important moment. Harry, so used to having his guard down with Ginny, realises he’s accidentally confessed something big: that he’s going on the run to try and kill Voldemort himself, with Ron and Hermione’s help. 

Ginny is shaken by this. As a character, she tends to either take things in her stride, or yells first, processes later. But this catches her off guard. Her words suggest there has been speculation about what it is the three of them are going off to do (‘So it’s true?’ suggests that Ginny, and perhaps other members of her family or the Order, have been speculating about this for some time). But both she and Harry realise here that he’s flippantly confirmed something huge that Ginny did not already know for sure. He’s spoken aloud the task is that Dumbledore has left him. 

It is a sign of how close Harry feels to Ginny, how safe he feels in her company, and how difficult he finds managing keeping secrets from her, that he lets this slip. He won’t come as close to telling the truth to anyone else, even people he trusts. The scene before this, in his conversation with Mrs Weasley, he didn’t let on nearly as much (though he admits that he found affirming the importance of secrecy difficult when he looked at Mrs Weasley and saw Ginny’s eyes staring back at him):

‘Well, Dumbledore left me . . . stuff to do,’ mumbled Harry. ‘Ron and Hermione know about it, and they want to come too.’ ‘What sort of ‘stuff’?’  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t—’  ‘Well, frankly I think Arthur and I have a right to know, and I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Granger would agree!’ said Mrs. Weasley. Harry had been afraid of the “concerned parent” attack. He forced himself to look directly into her eyes, noticing as he did that they were precisely the same shade of brown as Ginny’s. This did not help… ‘Dumbledore didn’t want anyone else to know, Mrs. Weasley (…)  I didn’t misunderstand,’ said Harry flatly. ‘It’s got to be me.’ (DH, 77-8)

Later, he’ll also refuse to give any information to Lupin, for the same reason. 

'‘Can you confide in me what the mission is?’  Harry looked into the prematurely lined face, framed in thick but greying hair, and wished that he could return a different answer.  ‘I can’t, Remus, I’m sorry. If Dumbledore didn’t tell you I don’t think I can.’  ‘I thought you’d say that,’ said Lupin, looking disappointed.’ (DH, 173-4)

But with Ginny, he’s accidentally gone much further. He hasn’t said Horcruxes, but he’s as good as. The trio are setting off to try to kill Voldemort, the most dangerous task imaginable in this war. He tries, in vain, to undo it, but the damage is already done. Ginny knows more now than she did before: that the journey he’s about to go on is one that very likely will claim his life. 

What does Ginny know about Harry’s fate before this moment? 

It's clear from this interaction that Harry has never discussed any of this with Ginny before. In their breakup scene, Harry repeatedly said that he was breaking up with her for her own safety. He said he did not want her to be used as bait, as she already had been previously, and as Sirius was: 'Think how much danger you'll be in if we keep this up...' (HBP, 602). The focus was entirely on the risk to Ginny's life, a risk Harry says he cannot live with.

Ginny’s remarks at Dumbledore’s funeral told us something about how she, at that point, understood the path ahead for Harry. She made her half-joke that Harry was always busy saving the Wizarding World, and says she thinks he 'would never be happy', never fulfilled or satisfied, unless he were 'hunting Voldemort' (HBP, 603). She showed she interpreted his actions as choices being made by someone brave, determined, and personally committed to bringing about the end of Voldemort, not someone destined to. Harry’s motivations and reasons are ones she respects and empathises with. She knows the path ahead is dangerous. She doesn’t yet think of it as lethal. 

Harry didn’t respond to her assessments at the funeral, neither correcting nor confirming them. He didn’t let her know, at that stage, exactly what it is he is going to set off to do. The closest Harry came to revealing the road ahead for him in the break-up scene was this:

'It’s been like… like something out of someone else’s life, these last few weeks with you,' said Harry. 'But I can’t… we can’t… I’ve got things to do alone now.' She did not cry, she simply looked at him.’  (HBP, 602)

This is a pattern throughout their relationship, both as friends and later as romantic partners. Ginny knows a little, but not a lot, about Harry’s path. She thinks of it almost entirely as a decision he has made himself. Conversations about Harry’s destiny - about the Prophecy, about being the Chosen One, and, eventually, about the Horcrux hunt - happen near Ginny, but never with her. She does not seem to believe that Harry is the Chosen One or in any way bound to Voldemort's own fate. At the start of HBP, on the train in Slughorn’s carriage, Ginny states publicly her belief that any speculation about Harry being the Chosen One is nonsense: 

‘We never heard a prophecy,” said Neville, turning geranium pink as he said it. ‘That’s right,’ said Ginny staunchly. ‘Neville and I were both there too, and all this ‘Chosen One’ rubbish is just the Prophet making things up as usual.’ (HBP, 140)

Ultimately, before DH, Ginny has been given very little information. We can assume that she’s decided to respect Harry’s decision to keep any information from her and not to push for it. She has reason to fear he might be in danger, but she doesn’t yet know the full extent of it.

Ginny’s response

The immediate aftermath of Harry’s confession at the Burrow is very telling. 

‘They stared at each other, and there was something more than shock in Ginny’s expression. Suddenly Harry became aware that this was the first time that he had been alone with her since their stolen hours in secluded corners of the Hogwarts grounds. He was sure she was remembering them too.’ - DH (79)

It’s important that, immediately after this confession, Harry’s mind immediately takes him to private time spent alone with Ginny at the end of HBP. His certainty that Ginny, too, is reminiscing about them is typical of their wordless displays of understanding. They both reach for memories. And the memories of the last time he was alone with her, when they were still together, suddenly trigger an intense emotional and sexual tension. They are soon interrupted, and the dinner afterwards is extremely awkward. Harry wishes he were further away from Ginny, and tries, with great difficulty, to avoid touching her at the dinner table. The energy between them is intense and charged, anticipatory and frustrated. There are lots of ‘unsaid things’ that have just passed between them, and both are aware of it (DH, 79).

There are important themes being introduced here. Whenever Harry thinks about memories of his time with Ginny in DH, he does so consistently in two clear ways. To him, those times were private, intensely intimate moments which carried huge personal significance. It is strongly implied those were moments of sexual intimacy between the two of them, and where they shared an emotional closeness neither has found with any other character. But those moments with Ginny are also something Harry feels he was wrong to take. His relationship with her was something that, in retrospect, he embarked upon against his better judgement. He now feels it was something he was not entitled to, on account of his own burdens and obligations. Those were ‘stolen hours’ that were ‘something out of someone else’s life’. If we look to the wedding scene, we can see this most clearly:

‘‘Yes, my tiara sets off the whole thing nicely,’ said Auntie Muriel in a rather carrying whisper. ‘But I must say, Ginevra’s dress is far too low cut.’  Ginny glanced around, grinning, winked at Harry, then quickly faced the front again. Harry’s mind wandered a long way from the marquee, back to afternoons spent alone with Ginny in lonely parts of the school grounds. They seemed so long ago; they had always seemed too good to be true, as though he had been stealing shining hours from a normal person’s life, a person without a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead…’ (DH, 121) 

There are certain tropes at play here, that will that recur again and again in Harry’s thoughts of Ginny until the point of his death: the memory of time alone, the feeling of shared emotional and physical intimacy, to an intense degree; the sense of their time together being something stolen, both in the sense of it being snatched from within darker times, but also being forbidden, given with Harry’s fate when it comes to Voldemort. That Harry recalls these moments at a moment as two other characters make lifelong vows of marriage to each other is not insignificant: all is set up to maximise the sense of tragedy.

Ginny processing Harry’s fate

Ginny is not naive. Harry’s confession seems to change something about how she thinks about what he’s about to do. She may once have dismissed the prophecy of Harry as the Chosen One as nonsense. But she now has reason to suspect that might not quite be true.

She may well re-trace what she does know. After all, she was at the Department of Mysteries two summers prior, where she learnt that Voldemort, at least, thinks there is a prophecy of significance that involves Harry directly. She knows Harry has been having one-on-one lessons with Dumbledore: she even gave him one of the invitations (HBP, 228). She also knows that Harry and Dumbledore left school for a secret mission alone on the night the Astronomy Tower was attacked and Dumbledore was killed. She observed how Harry saw Dumbledore’s death as a catalyst to prepare for a path that required him to step back from her. Above all, we also know that Ginny is a character who understands Tom Riddle intimately. She is one of the people who comes closest to understanding the stakes of your life being bound, in some way, to Voldemort.

It is also significant that Ginny is a character canonically intrigued, and touched, by death, and by powerful Dark magic. The diary, and her own near-death experience, is the most obvious example. But in the Department of Mysteries during OotP, we are told she is also one of the characters most drawn to the veil, despite having far less direct experience of loss and grief than Harry, Luna, or even Neville:

‘[Harry] took several paces back from the dais and wrenched his eyes from the veil. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to — well, come on, then!’ said Hermione, and she led the way back around the dais. On the other side, Ginny and Neville were staring, apparently entranced, at the veil too. Without speaking, Hermione took hold of Ginny’s arm, Ron Neville’s, and they marched them firmly back to the lowest stone bench and clambered all the way back up to the door.’ (OotP, 775)

I don’t mean to suggest Ginny knew what was coming for Harry, that she foresaw him having to go to his death. She knows nothing of Horcruxes, she doesn’t know the contents of the Prophecy, and she certainly doesn’t know Harry himself is a Horcrux. Harry, of course, doesn’t yet know the certainty of him going to his own death, at this point in the text. But given the information she alone has been handed, inadvertently, by Harry, she has plenty of reason to begin to suspect the path Harry is on is one that might end in death, moreso for him than for an anyone else in this war.

Ginny doesn’t appear much in the following pages, other than in her role helping to prepare the house for the wedding. Over the next few days, she has lots of time to consider Harry’s words. We know she’s also sharing a bedroom with Hermione, who is actively preparing for their imminent departure, and watching the three of them try to sneak off together to make plans. This is time for Ginny to start to digest the information Harry has unwittingly divulged. She can now begin to think about how she ought to respond to the prospect of him leaving for a mission that will, likely, cost him his life.

The kiss itself

We can see Ginny has planned this interaction with Harry in her bedroom. The false casualness of how the scene opens - ‘Harry, can you come in here a moment?’ - and the actions of the bedroom’s other occupant, Hermione, suggests some level of premeditation and collaboration. For the first time, Ginny brings him into her bedroom, with the door closed. The setting is obviously intimate and suggestive.

Harry describes Ginny as seeming nervous, but purposeful, like she is readying herself for something - she ‘[takes] a deep breath’. She is looking at him ‘steadily’. Harry is nervous, too: he cannot bring himself to look at her, finding it almost painful, like ‘gazing into a brilliant light’ (DH, 98). Her trademark blazing look is in full force. She doesn’t entertain his attempts at small talk: she is serious about what she’s about to do.

‘‘I couldn’t think what to get you,’ she said.  ‘You didn’t have to get me anything.’ She disregarded this too.’ (DH, 98-9)

Ginny opens by revealing how difficult it has been for her to work out what she could give him, under the circumstances. She is, in her own way, acknowledging how hard she is finding processing what it is he has to do now. She has been struggling with the prospect of Harry’s departure, and the possibility, even the likelihood, of his death. But she has decided she wants to make that path easier for him. Despite his reassurance, she insists she wanted to give him something. 

‘‘I didn’t know what would be useful. Nothing too big, because you wouldn’t be able to take it with you.” He chanced a glance at her. She was not tearful...' (99)

These lines are so significant. The first two lines in particular are deeply profound. They read very differently to how I first thought of them, if seen in this light. I didn’t know what would be useful, she says, because she doesn't know what she can say that will be useful. What could possibly make this easier, to help Harry think about the enormity of his situation, or to help guide him on a path requiring him to accept his own likely death? 

She doesn’t want what she gives to him now to be too heavy, too sad, or too serious, because she knows Harry will not be able to deal with it (‘nothing too big’). Anything too declaratory, too sentimental, or too enormous, would be impossible for him to leave with. In the last part of the sentence, her words are deliberately vague: because you wouldn’t be able to take it with you. 

I think this is the most poignant part, and it suggests the part of Ginny's mind that believes in, and is curious about, what happens beyond, after death: the voices on the other side of the veil. I think there is some part of her that thinks Harry might be going somewhere she can’t reach him - what Dumbledore will later call going on. Ginny does not openly speculate about where Harry will be taking whatever she gives him. That it could be to his own grave, or beyond, is left unspoken. He looks at her, finally, after these words, because he seems to understand, on some level, what she is trying to say to him.

‘She took a step closer to him. ‘So then I thought, I’d like you to have something to remember me by, you know, if you meet some veela when you’re off doing whatever you’re doing.’’ (DH, 99)

Ginny has decided: the thing she will give him is a memory, one that he can take with him when they part. Something to remember me by. She wants the memory of her, of them, to be useful, to serve him in some way, and to be something that he might be able to take on with him after death. She tries to soften what she’s trying to convey, with the joke about the veela. But both seem to understand what she is really saying: that she isn’t really asking for his loyalty or fidelity. She doesn’t say she’s giving him ‘something to remember me by’ for when he comes back and they can be together again. Her words are very final. The joke is supposed to make it easier for him to hear what she is saying: she’s telling him, quietly, how to think about her when he leaves, whatever leaving might mean.

Harry, for his part, continues the joke. (‘I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be honest.’) She plays along, sort of, in a very sad way (‘there’s the silver lining I’ve been looking for’). But both seem to know that there is no real silver lining to this. 

And then there’s the kiss itself: 

‘There’s the silver lining I’ve been looking for,’ she whispered, and then she was kissing him as she had never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it was blissful oblivion, better than Firewhisky; she was the only real thing in the world, Ginny, the feel of her, one hand at her back and one in her long, sweet-smelling hair —’ (DH, 99)

It all comes to a head here. Harry recognises that this kiss feels exceptional, unlike any other they’ve ever shared - that Ginny has never put so much into a kiss before. It is ‘blissful oblivion’, this moment of extraordinary intensity, where she kisses him and allows him, for a moment, to think only about her and them together. It’s heady and sexual (‘the feel of her’). It’s a gift for Harry  to be able to forget everything and let this moment be a vacuum, to focus only on her. The crescendo effect of the short causes and run-on sentences allows the moment to build and build, a crescendo effect that anticipates something to come. 

Of course, their moment gets interrupted, again. Unlike when Ron interrupted her with Dean, Ginny doesn't rage at him this time: she is subdued, a response that is far more appropriate for her processing the fact that she may have just had her final kiss with the boy she loves. Harry suspects she has started to cry, something he notes is out of character. Ginny had imbued a lot of meaning into this interaction: this is a portrait of a character whose heart is breaking.

When Harry and Ron are discussing the kiss outside on the lawn, after the initial shock of being yelled at by Ron for going anywhere near Ginny, Harry has his own, shattering realisation of what all of this means for himself and Ginny:

‘Yeah, but you go snogging her now and she’s just going to get her hopes up again—’ ‘She’s not an idiot, she knows it can’t happen, she’s not expecting us to— to end up married, or—’  As he said it, a vivid picture formed in Harry’s mind of Ginny in a white dress, marrying a tall, faceless, and unpleasant stranger. In one spiralling moment it seemed to hit him: Her future was free and unencumbered, whereas his . . . he could see nothing but Voldemort ahead.’ (DH, 100)

Thinking aloud, Harry says it would be idiotic for he or Ginny to imagine they could be together, either now, or at any point in the future. He expects her to find someone else; he cannot even begin to imagine a future for himself after the task set out for him. He does not say his inevitable death - he has not yet embraced that reality - but he remains caught in the certainty of an existential battle with Voldemort that he knows he may well not survive.

Later that day, Harry will receive the snitch from Dumbledore’s will. Though he doesn’t know it yet, he now holds the resurrection stone, the item that will open at the close in the forest. It is a birthday that starts and ends with hints about what little time he has left: the stage is set for an arc that, now, has to end in his own death.

Foreshadowing Ginny and the Forest

Moments foreshadowing the significance of the forest are all over Deathly Hallows. Sometimes, they mirror the moment of his own death; often, they are related to Ginny. When they leave the Ministry, with Ron splinched, clutching the Horcrux locket, they arrive in a forest. For a moment Harry’s heart ‘leaped’ at the thought that they were back in Hogwarts’ grounds, the site of so much of his earlier happiness with Ginny (DH, 221). When the trio hear that Ginny, Neville and Luna tried to steal the sword of Gryffindor, it is the Forbidden Forest they are sent to by Snape as punishment (248-9). Harry does not fear the Forest, and is consoled by the thought of Ginny serving detention there rather than anywhere else.

In the Forest of Dean, the scene where Ron returns begins with Harry thinking of Ginny. He sits at the mouth of the tent, wanting to look for Ginny on the Marauders’ Map, until he remembers it’s Christmastime and she is at the Burrow (297). Later, in a moment that mirrors his later walk to his death, he follows his mother - Snape’s patronus, the doe - into the woods, in order to recover and destroy the Horcrux, inching Harry’s own life closer to its close:

Though the darkness had swallowed her whole, [the doe’s] burnished image was still imprinted on his retinas; it obscured his vision, brightening when he lowered his eyelids, disorienting him. Now fear came: Her presence had meant safety. “Lumos!” he whispered, and the wand-tip ignited. The imprint of the doe faded away with every blink of his eyes as he stood there, listening to the sounds of the forest, to distant crackles of twigs…  He held the wand higher. Nobody ran out at him, no flash of green light burst from behind a tree. Why, then, had she led him to this spot?’ (DH, 299)

Foreshadowing Harry's end in the Forest means also foreshadowing Ginny's own appearance at the moment of his death.

Harry’s ‘death’ in the Forest 

In the final battle, Ginny is the last person Harry sees before he begins his walk into the Forest. He takes the words she says to the child on the ground as her final act of comfort. Harry hears them as if they are being spoken to him: 

‘He was feet away from her when he realised it was Ginny.  He stopped in his tracks. She was crouching over a girl who was whispering for her mother.  ‘It’s all right,’ Ginny was saying. ‘It’s okay. We’re going to get you inside.’  ‘But I want to go home,’ whispered the girl. ‘I don’t want to fight anymore!’ ‘I know,’ said Ginny, and her voice broke. ‘It’s going to be all right.’  Ripples of cold undulated over Harry’s skin. He wanted to shout out to the night, he wanted Ginny to know that he was there, he wanted her to know where he was going. He wanted to be stopped, to be dragged back, to be sent back home (...) Ginny was kneeling beside the injured girl now, holding her hand. With a huge effort Harry forced himself on. He thought he saw Ginny look around as he passed, and wondered whether she had seen someone walking nearby, but he did not speak, and he did not look back.’ (DH, 558-9)

Harry believes that this is his final moment with Ginny before he goes to die. A part of him wants her to know that it’s happening: he is leaving, at last. But he can't call to her, because he worries she will try and stop him, and he might let her. Instead, he walks on, and doesn’t look back. After watching Ginny comfort the girl crying for her mother, Harry then goes on to the Forest, and summons his own mother, his own family, to walk with him to his death.  

‘His body and mind felt oddly disconnected now, his limbs working without conscious instruction, as if he were passenger, not driver, in the body he was about to leave. The dead who walked beside him through the forest were much more real to him now that the living back at the castle: Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and all the others were the ones who felt like ghosts as he stumbled and slipped toward the end of his life, toward Voldemort. . . .' (DH, 561-2)

Harry is already preparing to go on from this world: his living loved ones are the ones he now feels furthest from. He stands now with the dead he has summoned, who recognise him and seem to have memories of him. He doesn't fear the dead: he is going to join them.

It’s the death scene itself that I think has subtle, but important parallels with the kiss scene much earlier. In both imagery and in writing style, the scene recalls that earlier moment, where Harry found himself on the edge of another kind of oblivion. There is this mounting, febrile sense of anticipation. There is a tension that is almost sexual, a dynamic injected into the scene through descriptions of Bellatrix’s body language and behaviour towards Voldemort:

‘Bellatrix, who had leapt to her feet, was looking eagerly from Voldemort to Harry, her breast heaving. The only things that moved were the flames and the snake, coiling and uncoiling in the glittering cage behind Voldemort’s head.’  (DH, 564)

The ugly parallel of Bellatrix and Voldemort is not supposed to show the pair as the mirror image of Harry and Ginny. Rather, it is a theme that recurs throughout the series to demonstrate the gulf between Harry, with his immense capacity for love, and Voldemort, with none. Bellatrix and Ginny are memorably paralleled twice in the series: once, at the Department of Mysteries, where Bellatrix moves to ‘torture the little girl’, and Harry steps in to prevent her (OotP, 783), and again in the final battle: 

'Bellatrix was still fighting too, fifty yards away from Voldemort, and like her master she dueled three at once: Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, all battling their hardest, but Bellatrix was equal to them, and Harry’s attention was diverted as a Killing Curse shot so close to Ginny that she missed death by an inch—  He changed course, running at Bellatrix rather than Voldemort, but before he had gone a few steps he was knocked sideways…’ (DH, 589)

As Harry waits for the killing curse, we see the most direct parallel with Ginny's final kiss to him:

‘None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: everything was waiting. Hagrid was struggling, and Bellatrix was panting, and Harry thought inexplicably of Ginny, and her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on his — ’ (DH, 564)

There's such an intense physicality and breathlessness to the whole scene, and an enduring pseudo-sexual tension, with Bellatrix audibly panting. Even the sentence structure even invokes the kissing scene: the run-on build up of clauses, the repetition of the present participle to actively hold the reader in one present moment, building and building and ending on a dash, the promise of something more.

At the end of his life, Harry returns to the memory Ginny gave him. She meant for it to be useful, if he was to go to his death. And at the close of his life he chooses to use it, as he prepares to leave her behind in this world and depart for the next. Just as the Resurrection Stone helped accept death, so too does the memory of Ginny. He feels the memory of her, the sensation of physical touch and of being kissed, the look she gives him that he knows as one of love and great courage. As he is killed, he remembers her last gift to him, the certainty of her love for him impressed upon him.

--

There's a line in OotP that I think is such an underrated line that sums up who Ginny is as a character. Harry is trying to get to Umbridge's fire to speak to Sirius when he thinks the latter is being tortured at the Ministry; Hermione suggests using Ginny and Luna as a distraction, despite Harry's objections:

'Though clearly struggling to understand what was going on, Ginny said immediately, ‘Yeah, we’ll do it,'... (OotP, 736)

This is who Ginny is. It's especially who she is to Harry, during the war. She doesn't fully know what's actually being asked of Harry (and, by extension, what is being asked of her, as the person who loves him, and who has most to lose if he is to die). But even when kept in the dark, she is enormously selfless, and her biggest act of bravery is extremely quiet. She keeps the secret Harry accidentally bestows on her, and she realises, in some sense, before he does, what it will likely mean for his life. She chooses to let him go on, knowing that he is loved, to make the path that he is on a little bit easier, even when she has realised that it will take him away from her for good.

[gae-bug]

A slight hyper fixation is forming on the movie coco so here are some things I jotted down while rewatching it last night.

-We first see Dante next to a shop that sells a bunch of alebrijes

-miguel commenting on how cool de la curz’s guitar is And how his fav song is remember me little does he know that that's hectors guitar and the song he wrote for coco, also he knew they were connected in some way

-they keep up with the dimple only on one side thingy

-the talent of this kid for being able to make a functioning guitar from scraps lying around is fucking amazing, even if his shine for de la curz is a stong fire hazzard-

-learnt by just watching and hearing without actually being taught!!!?!?!?! Bro is insanely good

-"I'm gonna play even if it kills me!" The universe took that a Lil to literally lol

-oh Dante, he shall always be my favorite animal character in a movie

-the collective gasp

-at least Miguel's dad showed some sing of 'okay this is a little to far’ when she went to smash the gitaur

-the way he folds the picture the opposite way, so instead of Hector being the one left out its Imelda

-just casually stealing from the dead, smart move tho with the fire work.

-I like that the petals start to flicker

-how did people realize it was missing so fast bro

-"oh hey Miguel.….😨😨😨😨”

-the city in the land of the dead is so pretty but would also be terrifying as someone who is afraid of heights.

-Hector has no eyebrows, he does got some sick move tho

-I love that everybody's afraid of imelda lol

-imaging still having to work a service job in the after life-

-again Dante is my favorite

-Hector has a broken rib

-I also love Hector's confusion, he's like tf u mean that asshole has KIDSS!!!?!?!!?!??!

-Hector’s guitar has a golden tooth just like him!

-Dante being the best count like 15 lol

-would all these dancer s also get in legal trouble for faking unibrows or do they get a pass bc it was a celebrities idea?

-coresction, Hector had SEVERAL broken ribs.

-"what do you know" alot buddy, A LOT.

-bro took his femur, and DIDNT RETURN IT-

-okay, ik I said Hector had no eyebrows and that is true but basically nobody else really does either but it's more noticeable to me on Hector because of him taking off the fake eyebrows.

-the fucking detail on Miguels face, you can see his skin through the face paint as if it was real.

-the foreshadowing from looking at the shot glasses, one dunk, one still full.

-the nuns are also playing remember me before they even said that everybody is playing it

-one of his arm and one of his leg bones are also being held together by what I think is gauze? Idk it's blue it might be ribbon.

-I love hectors excitement when migeul stars playing poco loca, especially considering that it was most likely a song HE wrote about Imelda

-he called Miguel's musical fantasy stupid bc his got him killed.

-skeleton horses have been spotted, plus 10 points(I say as if I'm keeping a point counter lmao)

-him laughing and genuinely having fun with people who actually enjoyed his music

-he looks better as a skeleton low key- (de la cruz)

- yk there's a thing called stairs Miguel…

-the shock on del la curz’s face bc he knows he DID NOT have children, but he sees this as an opportunity to get more famous so he runs with it

- notice how he doesn't mention him leaving his family bc he didn't leave a family

-can't believe this dude has pools in the shape of the gitaur that he murdered his best friend for.

-he murdered his best friend, stole his guitar, stole his songs AND profited off his death by putting in a move and making himself seem like the victim in that situation.

-all Hector cares about is seeing his daughter one last time

-takes his guitar before Hector even hits the ground.

-when Imelda says I give you my blessing the petal lights up but when de la curz says it the petals stays normal

-as soon as de la curz is meant to be seen as the bad guy you see him in green and purple lighting, colors Disney like to use for villains.

-even though he is fading hectors first priority was comforting miguel

-THE DETAIL ON EVEN THE TINIEST OF THINGS BRO

-seeing Hector with skin is weird to me for some reason, maybe it's just because I'm so used to seeing him without it.

-Dante very well has over a hundred points for being the best at this point

-hector holding his hat like a sad wet cat.

-Imelda has earings but no ears-

-"she’s talking about me! I'm the love of your life!?" One of my favorite moments lol

-bro was stupid enough to keep the photo in his pocket.

-"I don't know what I said" "that's what I heard 🤭😏"

-'that's interesting yk why,’ 'why?' 'Because- *runs away*' seriously tho the run he does lmao

-this entire family got moves bro, and are also very good at avoiding the cops.

-I hate this fucking asshole

-YES! PUT HIM ON BLAST!!!!!!

-dont you fucking call him 'old freond' you fucking bitch

-yes boo him off the stage! Throw your tomatoes!!!!

-bell: 2 Ernesto: 0

-you can start to see Miguel's skull through his skin

-her earrings are just pierced through her cheekbones-

-he follows the petals home

-"not all of us" STOPPPPP.

-I'm glad they didn't try to make it seem like he was singing perfectly and instead had it so you can hear the tears in his voice

-it's dirty gauze and duct tape that's holding his bones together btw

- it's been a year and bro has not gotten better clothes.

Edit: ok hector actually did get some slightly better clothes I think but like they are very similar to his old clothes and seem a lot worse compared to the rest of his family’s

[deardragonbook]

Those really weird dream sequences and when are they good?

I used to think that almost all dream sequences in books were bad. I don’t recall what books I was reading at the time but I specifically recall them being just a bunch of nonsense. 

Until one day, I read one that didn’t only entice me, but I read it three times in a row. Why the desperation? Because it was telling me something. Although what it was telling me wasn’t essential, just foreshadowing and food for theories, I just wanted to know. No. I needed to know. 

So, bad dream sequences are the ones that don’t serve a purpose. It’s just a bunch of shocking imagery for the sake of it, because you need some excitement but the next action scene is too far away. 

Or because you have a cool image in your head and you think despite it’s lack of relation to the story it will entice your reader regardless. Perhaps you like other people’s dream sequences and don’t know what you like about them. 

For me, a good dream sequence tells you something, perhaps gives you some important details about a characters past, perhaps some insight on their emotional state, it tells us about what they’re worried about, it’s tell us what they’re scared of. 

I think the most important thing is to know what you’re trying to express before writing the sequence. Choose the essential details and then mix in some less-esential but in no way irrelevant ones. 

Let’s use an example from my writing, spoilers ahead for Act 1 of Oppida Institute for Reformation (obviously, slight spoilers, it’s available for free in the link at the bottom of the post if you’d like to read it and then come back!): 

Slumber came fast, but it was not pleasant. She found herself in the Institute, her arm was hurting, why was her arm hurting? She looked down at it to see it was bleeding. Why was it bleeding? She turned her arm over, but couldn't find where the blood came from. She hummed and began to walk towards the exit.

She knew this building. She hated it. But she knew it. She reached the familiar door, pushed. Nothing, it wouldn't budge. She hummed again and wondered off to find a window. But there were none.

She was tired. So she headed upstairs, towards her room, she needed somewhere to sleep. The building had been empty up until now, but when she entered the hallway with the rooms it was full. There was a child at every door.

They were younger than Elizabeth. She didn't know who any of them were, they didn't have names, but she somehow knew they were from the Institute.

They looked at her. Or past her? No. Definitely at her.

"Hello?" she couldn't hear her own voice, but they reacted to it by tilting their heads.

She didn't know who they were, until it dawned on her, they were the children who she hadn't got to in time. She looked at them closer. They all had cuffs on their wrists. The cuffs she'd worn when thrown into the carriage.

She looked down at the ground, it wasn't stone anymore but wood. She looked back up, the walls were wood, the doors to the rooms were now all like the exit to the carriage. The ground began to move and she lost her balance falling to the ground.

She heard banging, it was the sound of her banging on the exit of the carriage.

She gasped for breath. Before waking up in a cold sweat in her bed at the orphanage. She was crying. She was crying loudly.

Thankfully her room mate was missing, nobody noticed.

Okay, so what was the goal with this scene? Context for those who haven’t read the story: Act 1 consists of Elizabeth infiltrating what is believed to be an abusive institution to find evidence. She finds this evidence but is promptly found out and nearly “shipped off” in a wooden carriage fighting for survival. 

She is rescued before anything truly bad can happen to her. However, she’s shown to be quite stressed and her attitude towards the adults in charge further hint that the events are having a larger impact than she wants them to know about. However, this is the moment where all readers should realize how deep the trauma runs. 

Prior to writing the sequence, I knew I needed to show the Institute, the carriage and the children. The Institute being the origin of the trauma, the carriage being the overflow and the children being her largest regret. The children who came before her, who she didn’t arrive in time to save. 

Okay, so three things to work with. What about the other details? Where do they come from? Let’s take a look by listing them: 

-Pain/bleeding in her arm: this a quick early hint at what’s to come for those who read the chapters in order. In the carriage she banged her shoulder and in extension her arm against the wooden door. Although not stated because of the adrenaline and the lack of relative importance, this is something painful and damaging. This is also foreshadowing to the next chapter where she is taken down with an odd amount of ease, partly due to exhaustion from this nightmare, but also partly due to invisible injuries needing recovery. 

-Locked door and no windows: obviously representing the feeling of being trapped that she had while living there. 

-Being tired and heading to her old room: it shows how despite being back home, she still holds that instinct from the time she was there. 

-The building being empty except for children: after she found evidence obviously the building was emptied, employees were arrested, children returned to safe homes. But in Elizabeth’s mind, it’ll never be fully empty, for it still holds those children who weren’t allowed to ever go home. 

-The children standing at the doors: this is a throwback to this exact thing happening at the Institute. 

-The children being younger than Elizabeth: This one is interesting because in the actual story, it’s mentioned that Elizabeth’s the same age as most of the attendants. Why make them younger here? Because Elizabeth perceives them as such. She’s an apprentice, a guard to be, responsible, mature. They’re children that need protecting. It’s her job to protect them. Just like an older kid to a younger child. 

(Plus children are always spookier). 

-Not being sure about where they are looking: Who’s to blame for them not making it? They look past her, at the real culprits, but ultimately Elizabeth still blames herself so they’re eyes return to her. 

-Not being able to hear her own voice: This is just something that happens (to me) often in dreams. And that’s another thing you can incorporate into dream sequences, actual realistic things from dreams, it can help sell and seal the scene. It also adds to the spooky factor and makes the wooden noise coming up later stronger and more impactful. 

-The sudden recognition: Another thing stolen from my actual dreams. I often am confused as to who people are until my brain fills me in on the story it’s trying to tell. 

Obviously I don’t expect anybody to pick up on all of these details, especially not to this extent. I expect some are obvious, while some are near impossible. I expect there are details I did not add on purpose but people will over read, or read differently. But the point is, there are details, there are layers. There’s nothing wrong with readers giving stuff their own twist!

Plus, nothing is added in just for the visual affects or to sound spooky. There is thought behind these random details. 

Another thing to note about this scene is the point of view and the pacing. Usually I’m a lot more to the point with my writing, asking questions and giving a lot of opinion create a slower pace I’m not always a fan off. But this is a different plane, mixing up the pacing and showing a lot more of Elizabeth’s feelings helps separate it from the real world. 

It helps set the tone and more importantly, it allows for more impact in the final scene. 

The final scene, the climax of the dream sequence, the whole place turning to wood, the noise and the feeling of the ground moving. It’s an example of a scene that uses the senses, only missing smell here. But we don’t usually experience things so vividly in dreams, right? Well, that’s why she wakes up. That’s why it’s the climax. 

I think it also helps to think of every dream sequence as it’s own little story, with it’s introduction, midpoint and climax. You can also consider them as little chapters if you’re going to have several, but be careful with overusing dream sequences! Especially if you do like I do and mix up the pace, if a reader enjoys your writing style, having that style change often may be frustrating. 

Anyways, I hope this made sense. I don’t know if using an example from a story few of you will have read is a good idea because a lot of the details won’t make sense on their own, but it’s something I had easy access to and actually knew everything about. 

Did it work for you? Would you rather I try to make something up next time? Feel free to tell me, I aim to imrpove, as we all do. 

As usual,  check out my socials and book here. Also, my Wattpad is in there, so if you enjoyed this small extract from Opida’s Institute for Reformation, you can read twenty three chapters of it for free! Plus a new chapter every Tuesday. 

What’s your favorite dream sequence from a book you’ve read? 

[shanitani]

CHAPTER 3: BAD B*TCHES

table of contents

👩🏽‍💻: lol did y’all miss me? im still on hiatus for maybe a good two weeks until summer srry<\3. but to make up for it I made this chapter hella long.

“Damn their water pressure is good.” You mumbled softly, turning off the faucet. The boy had a cleaner bathroom than you had expected, in comparison to the ones in America - he was almost cleaner than yourself. You wiped the fog from the glass admiring your damp face for a moment, fully indulging in the fact that you were really in Japan.  

You slipped on your pajamas, the bottoms hugged at the figure well and unfortunately so did the tank top Mitsuki put out for you. You had no problem wearing it around by yourself, but you had to take into account there was a boy you had never met before living there as well. It didn’t help that Midnight never gave you any descriptions about the boy as well, so it was obvious how high alert you were.

You grabbed your belongings, turning the music down to a soft hum in volume before turning off the bathroom light. The cold air hit your damp warm one before clearing your vision to see the teenage boy you had been wondering about the day you got your acceptance email. You both stared in awe, you took in his muscular arms due to training, the light ruffle of his blonde hair, his mouth fixated in a frown, and his piercing red eyes.

It wasn’t as if he wasn’t looking at you either, your skin glistening under harsh light, your hair lightly tied back with a hair tie, the familiar smell he smelt minutes before now more concentrated and easier to name. He dared not to look at your figure-hugging the waistband of the pajamas, trying to rip his glare away fast enough. He grunts, beginning the doorknob, “You better have had left my bathroom the way you saw it.”

You frowned furring your brows, “Duh I did. And hello to you too.” you scoffed looking down at your phone in an attempt to make the situation less awkward. The blonde boy let out a groaned out “hey” before opening his door, and closing it in the same breath. “Rude ass,” you mumbled under your breath before heading downstairs back to your room. 

“You met him?? TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED” Imani squealed putting her elbows on her crisscrossed legs looking in awe behind the screen. You smiled at her eagerness to know the boy, though you didn’t think he was all that. “Well he’s pretty muscular, um tall, he’s blonde and rude as fuck.” You rolled your eyes at your last sentence as you simultaneously put your belongings in your new backpack for tomorrow.

“Okayyy he could work! You gotta fierce Lil attitude too so it’ll work out fine.” Imani flashed you a smirk - knowing you couldn’t hit her from Japan. “Oh shut up Mani! you know if I was there I’d slap your ass right now.” you pointed your middle finger towards the camera, giving her a nice view of your white acrylic nails. “Exactly why ima act out now rather than next year.” She huffed, turning off her led lights looking back at her best friend. “I’m gonna miss you tomorrow, school’s gonna be so boring.” You whined thinking about the worst scenario known to come. If they were anything like Bakugo, well you were going to be entirely fucked. “I will too. But stop making me sad about it! We gone see each other soon.” Mani kissed the phone foreshadowing a kiss to your cheek, you smiled doing the same motions as her before ending the call and rolling over to fall asleep.

“I better like these people, Nah they better like me....” you shut your eyes, anxious for your first day to start.

The next day came, as Mitsuki dropped you and Bakugou off. You expected him to at the least show you to where you needed to be - but instead he slung his backpack to the side , not giving you a glimpse of attention your way. “One day im gone beat his ass up.” you took a breathe trying to find the dorm rooms, only to be met with a man right in front of you.

“Hi, [L/N] nice to finally meet you.” The tired-looking man shook your hand motioning you into the dorms. “As you know we enroll all students into the dorms for their safety because of accidents that have happened in previous years.” you nodded looking at the huge building with high ceilings and pillars inside. The man showed you around to the necessities like the gym, commons room, the classrooms, and finally to your dorm room. “I forgot to mention, but you probably know me. I’m Aizawa, and I’ll be teaching you along with class 1A. Today we just want you to prepare your dorm room so you can sleep easy tomorrow - I won’t lie to you, it won’t be easy.” he shrugged giving you the keys to your dorm.

You thanked the man before opening the room, as said in the description - the rest of your belongings were stacked to the side of your room along with your mattress to the right of it and a desk to the left. “Might as well put on music.” you thought to yourself, scrolling through the millions of playlists before finally reaching the one you wanted. 

“Yeah, this will take a while.”

Putting on the comforter of the bed, and adding the last of your pictures on the wall; you flopped onto your bed feeling a slight headache arrive. You groaned wiping your forehead, looking out the window to see the sun almost come to a set. “How long do these children work? Seems like their school hours are a whole part-time job.” before you could laugh at your inner joke, you heard the loud door creak open before the kids voiced roamed the hallways.

You shifted uncomfortably on your bed, knowing that they knew you arrived. It wasn’t like you didn’t want to meet them. You just didn’t want to do the same cycle of meeting new friends again - it was a hassle and you were fine with the ones you had in America. You took a deep breath trying to regain your thoughts, “They won’t even know I’m here. It’s alright.” you repeated to yourself trying to make the anxiety slowly creep up disappear. 

“Yeah she’s here now stop asking me about her, you wanna talk to her go right there.” you heard the familiar huffed voice described as Bakugous. You could tell he pointed towards your dorm the way a teenage girl laughed, hearing the footsteps come closer and closer towards your room. “Shit.” you jumped off the bed, fixing your hair making sure to make a good impression no matter who it may be. That’s when the footsteps stopped, and a light knock was met at your door.

you opened the door to a girl squealing, “Hi!” a curly haired girl engulfed you into a hug making you step back giggling at her eagerness, “Hey! your hair smells nice.” you hugged her back, finally stepping back to get a look of her. Her hair was the same color as her skin - pink, that you could only assume was the cause of her quirk. However, she did have black features that made you believe she was Blasian. 

“Mina stop harassing the new girl! it’s only her first day. Hello I’m Momo!” A black haired girl came waving her hand at you, she looked beautiful - you were almost intimidated by her stunning features feeling a tad insecure once side by side. 

“Oh no worries!” you giggled sitting on the edge of your bed motioning for them to come in more. “How’s your first day been?” Mina sat at the other edge of your bed looking at you with huge eyes, “Honestly, kind of boring. also confusing since this place is huge. Way bigger than the schools in America” you motioned towards out your door foreshadowing the commons room.

“America? that’s where you’re from?” Momo chimed in walking towards your desk chair to sit down. You nodded, “Mhm, California.” Mina gasped - “California! You’re so lucky!” you laughed at her bubbly attitude that was a bit similar to your bestfriends at home. “Trust me you wouldn’t want to be there, I’m here for a reason aren’t I” you smirked nudging her shoulder slightly.

“ Wow, How long will you be staying?” “One year.” you shrugged looking off in your dorm window. “Well I hope you love it here, hopefully become a pro.” Momo smiled at you genuinely, and you couldn’t help but fall in love with her persona. Before you could speak again you heard a knock on your door and small murmurs behind your door, Momo opened the door slightly, only hearing a faint “Yall better not embarrass me. I’m serious” before she opened the door all the way to the boys.

“Shut the hell up Momo.” one yellow haired boy lightheartedly says before leaning on your wall and catching your eyes. “Hey! I’m sero and this is Denki. Nice to meet you.” Sero extended his hand to yours to shake, “Wassup Sero, Hi Denki.” you smiled at the other boy.

“Damn, so this is why Bakugo didn’t want to show you off huh.” Denki came closer to you, taking in your features. “Or he just don’t like me” you scoffed thinking about his arrogant characteristics from Sunday. “Well that’s good, less people to compete against.” Denki sat next to you on the edge of your bed fully focused onto you. You smiled taking observations to his flirtatious personality.

No matter Denki giving you his full and undivided attention, Sero caught your eye the moment he walked in the door. You looked Sero up and down, his outfit caught your full attention. He wore the UA uniform required yet paired with grey Jordans and a silver chain dangling from his neck, it was no understatement that he was a very attractive boy. “Why you standing there all quiet, Sero? you obviously came up here for something.” you jokingly stated - trying to start some conversation with the boy.

“Tried to see if you were really what all the hype was about.” He shrugged coming up near you to overpower your figure, your heart raced as he looked down upon you smirking, he knows he fine chile. “They were definitely right.” He smirked looking at you with low eyes.

“Y’all are the most flirtatious boys I know. Swear I can’t take yall no where.” Momo grabbed the two boys by their collard shirts making them groan in displeasure earning a laugh from you - only to make them groan in embarrassement. 

“Bye boys.” you wave them off as Momo literally kicked them out your dorm, before closing it in front of them. “I like you” you pointed to her, making her eyes widen, while her cheeks grew into a blush before smiling. “Now how did you make a better impression than me and I came here first.” Mina flopped onto your bed frowning. “Don’t worry girl I like you too.” you slapped her thigh in a friendly manner.

“Alright you two enough talking, get back to your dorms. You all have a long day tomorrow.” Aizawa yelled through the door with his usual tired voice before shuffling off to his room closing the door. “Guess I’ll see you tommorow [Y/N]!” Mina skipped off towards your door “Yes! see you tomorrow” Momo opened the door looking back once more “Bye boo’s!” you called out before the closed your door.

You turned on your led lights in substitute for the harsh lighting in your dorm, shuffling off into your bed. you looked off onto your wall looking at the pictures you stuck to them, “Damn, I miss you Imani” your hand grazed upon the picture of you and Imani sticking up the middle finger to a flashing camera with your phones in one hand and a red cup in the other - a party you both went to knowing damn well you weren’t supposed to be there.

You turned towards the other way of your bed shutting your eyes - anticipating for the long day ahead of you, and meeting the rest of your class tomorrow morning.

👩🏽‍💻: y’all fw y/n being bisexual orrr? or do y’all want scandals? tell me now😁

Tag list(send me an ask to be apart of it)

@quincywrites, @fandomsgotmefucked , @lokis-teseract , @racistareversa,@ladybakugouu, @melanin-baddie , @oookore , @bnhathotty, @bleach-your-panties , @shikamaruhairline, @dilfhwa ,@winxme

[extremelyblackandwhite]

the unseen one - 30

Pairing: Hades!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: none

A/N: i’ve been foreshadowing this ending since like mid fic and i’m proud for not giving up on this ending which i almost did but thankfully i did (yay plot consistency). i’m rly emotional about finishing another fanfic, it’s been such a joyful ride and i wanna thank everyone who commented and liked/reblogged my work for these past months, you guys are fantastic. enjoy xx 

A kaleidoscope. A kaleidoscope was the first thing that broke through the darkness in various shades of pink, white, and grey. The images were blurry and the colours vibrant as it spun through the darkness, soon enough becoming the only thing occupying what once was a sea of darkness. The once silence that wrapped itself around like a tight hug gave way to the sound of stream water, sounds of nature and spring slightly blooming in her ear drums. What once was nothing was blooming and alive. 

A warm feeling settled over her chest and in a harsh move she opened her eyes, raising her chest and gasping up for air. The first sight was bloom, the perfect utopia of what spring sounded like in every song and every fairytale with various different flowers and tones of various colours. She looked down at her hands, noticing how warm they were, almost too warm and as she was about to snap her head back, petals started falling onto her palms. 

She should be scared, but she somehow wasn’t and as if it had been a taught movement, her hands moved up to her hair, feeling more white petals falling on her palms and legs. Y/N looked around, not understanding where she was standing or where she was for that matter. She was surrounded by a blooming environment, blooming so slowly yet so fast she could see the flower buttons open. 

Slowly but surely her senses started to recover to her, noticing the cold marbled stone she was sat on and the warm sun hit her skin. Bucky. Was Bucky alright? Where was Bucky? Her mind couldn’t wrap itself around her last memory of Bucky’s terrified face. Was he okay? Where was he? She was removed of her line of thinking by a shattering sound. Y/N immediately turned her head towards the sound seeing Hecate mouth wide open as if she had seen something fantastic.

     - Where’s Bucky? - her voice came rather raspy but the goddess of witchcraft was still standing there wondering if Gaia was playing tricks on her. Dead mortals don’t come back to life. Dear gods, dead mortals who gain the hatred of half the pantheon don’t come back to to life as part of the pantheon itself. - Where’s Bucky?!

She questioned again, turning around and placing her bare feet on the grass patch yet unlike normal, the grass did not turn dark green, instead blooming from her steps as if she herself controlled nature. Hecate stopped her by putting herself in front of Y/N. She knew better not to annoy a newly born goddess specially because she didn’t seem to know what she was and therefore had little to no grip with what she could do.

    - I’ll get someone to get him, you need to sit down. - she motioned for Y/N to sit down as carefully as someone handling a bomb. Hecate quickly send a equally confused nymph to go grab the incredibly depressed god of the Underworld.

Y/N sat down against the bark of a cherry blossom, looking at Hecate who had a very confused yet careful look in her eyes. The goddess of witchcraft sat next to Y/N as more petals started to fall on her hands. She had forgotten how it was to be next to a very nervous goddess of spring.

    - Where are these coming from? - Y/N threw the bunch of petals onto the ground, noticing they kept falling onto her hands.

    - They’re coming from you. You need to stop stressing or they’ll keep showing up. No harsh emotions, just breathe. 

    - Why are you talking to me as if I were going into labor? - more petals fell off making her huff, throwing another bunch on the ground. - What’s going on? 

    - In the easiest ways of putting it in ... I would say you’re ... well, the goddess of Spring. - she pointed out at the once dead grooves which were now blooming like the rest of the Elysium. Damn, it was better than the rest of the Elysium with his beautiful tall blossom and fruit trees with a substantial amount of flower bushes and other grass weeds. 

   - The goddess of Spring no longer exists, Bucky told me so. - she replied, very overprotective over the answer she had gotten from her beloved. Like an expression of her huffing, more flower petals fell over on top of her hands. 

   - Goddesses doesn’t cease to exist, specially a goddess responsible for a whole season. They are ... chosen if they cease to exist. The titans seem to have chosen ... well ... I guess you. 

   - That is not funny. - she got up from her sitting position, once again smoothing over the petals that had stuck to the fabric of her gown. Hecate surely was not her biggest fan but she knew what she was and she definitely was not a goddess. At least she didn’t felt like one. How did goddesses even feel? Did they fell any different from mortals? She was about to question Hecate about that fact when two nymphs entered the grooves pulling a very unwilling God of the Underworld with them.

Y/N turned to face him, the first thing calling her attention was the stubble turned beard and the dark bags under his now very wide awake blue eyes almost as if he wasn’t expecting her to be there. Y/N rushed over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her nose in the space between his neck and neck. Bucky stood still wondering if he was dreaming again or if he had finally managed to overdose himself with ambrosia but no, she was there, she was there with her arms wrapped around him and flowers blooming from the top of her head and dropping onto him. His eyes settled on Hecate who had the same surprised eyes yet slightly less than him. 

Y/N pushed back, noticing something wrong in Bucky’s aura but he was still staring at her. He caressed her jaw with his knuckles, thumb caressing the soft part of her cheek. Noticing its warmth and her soft smile he didn’t know if he wanted to raise her up or kiss her. He settled on kissing her, noticing the newly added honey like taste to her lips and more flowers falling onto their hands.

   - I’m not sure if I adore this. - she caressed his beard, making him chuckle as he kissed her again. - Stop, when was the last time you slept?

   - Long enough, this might be some hallucination of you.

   - No, I’m here. 

>>>>>

The Underworld was a mess and that was something that came rather lightly from Y/N’s point of view as it normally used to be constantly messy full of dead souls and unruly nymphs. However, today, it seemed like everything had broke loose and every single god, goddess, demigods, oracles and every single thing that could be considered mythical and gone down to the underworld for her coronation. Was she happy about it? No. Was James happy about it? Also no. They’d rather be in their secluded little spot of the underworld without anyone around. However, protocol demanded the new goddess of Spring to have a public coronation if she became Queen of the Underworld. Besides, Y/N was a bit way too cheerful to see those who had wanted that spot see her gain the crown to the Underworld. 

      - I’m going to catch you, sunflower. - Bucky chuckled lowly as he briefly saw the grass she had stepped on bloom with white roses. He heard her giggling in the distance and then it stopped, rendering him alone and somewhat lost and because he wasn’t used to the newly found sunlight, the fresh air and fauna that surrounded him in the Groves, he asked for help from one of the nymphs who were taking care of the flora.

An annoyed nymph turned to be face to face with her King, pointed towards a direction. He was aware that this was supposed to be a fair game, something fun that his beloved had come up with in the moment bored of coronation preparations, but he would rather be done with it quickly so that they could enjoy each other’s companies and bring her back to a very pissed and very stressed Hecate.

He walked and walked, listening always for the river that the undead and nymphs had spoken up and asking ever so often for directions for other servants. They would whisper a “Over there” and point or a “Go North”, and Bucky would believe their words because they had been nothing but loyal to him. In fact, much more loyal to them than others had ever been to him - he found that, in the afterlife, people - or what was left of them - were much calmer and kinder than those who were still alive. 

Soon enough, he found his beautiful Y/N humming by the river. Her delicate feet were dangling and lightly touching the water that ran on the stream and her eyes were shut, head moving to the rhythm of the chirping birds and a small smile played on her lips. Quietly, he inched closer to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her to him and burying his face in her hair; it smelled of everything good about spring, from freshness to wild flowers and ripe fruit. 

She giggled and kicked her legs up in the air, clearly enjoying the attention she was receiving but also no liking that her little game had come to an end which meant she had to return to the very much annoying job of preparing for the ceremony.

     - Seems like I found you. - the God of the Underworld grinned against her hair, setting her on the ground but holding onto her hips, admiring her figure; her newly found position led to her being constantly adorned with luxurious fabrics, veils with beautiful patterns and so many jewels, mostly gifts from Demeter from all people, but somehow it was when she wore something as simple as a white dress enveloping her form and golden sandals that he found her the most mesmerising. The simplicity and purity that he had fallen so hard for that he moved heaven and earth to have, regardless of what everyone else said, regardless of how lowly they found Gaia to have named a mortal Goddess of Spring. She was always a goddess in his eyes but the actual title did suit her better than anyone else. - Did you have fun escaping your responsibilities?

    - Would have been funner if you didn’t cheat, Bucky. - she raised her eyebrows at the man and crossed her arms, knowing fully well he had. How else would he know his way through the newly found Groves if he barely entered them. Sighing, she kissed his lips lightly and then grabbed his hand to take him to the nearest shade. - I’m sure Hecate sent you after me. 

     - Yes, she says you’re being quite impossible but personally, I was hoping we could have some personal fun. - he smirked, pressing a kiss to the shell of her ear, then to her neck and collarbone, making her shiver and push him to the side lightly. - Such a harsh no. 

     - I don’t need my nymphs to see that. - she blushed and fidgeted with her hands and wedding ring, sitting down and resting her back against the bark of a tree. The God of the Underworld chuckled and sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her waist. - But I can be swayed if you cancel the whole ordeal.

     - You know I can’t. - he kissed her shoulder. - They’re already very upset over your decision of giving the souls of the Elysium their memories. 

     - They are much more happy and you can’t deny it. - she pointed out. Y/N had technically been a ruling consort ever since she got wedded to Bucky in a very small ceremony where no one but them were included. As such, Y/N had put forward a motion to give the Elysium’s residents their mortal memories back, something that of course had been passed as she was fiercely backed by Demeter who could put the fear in any god by just looking at them. It had made the residents much happier and Bucky much happier considering he could now speak to his friends, family, and most importantly Steve. She on the other hand had managed to reunite with her parents and introduce them to Bucky which managed to be their version of normality. This had however created a stir with Zeus who was still very much upset a mortal was now a goddess he could no longer order around. - This is ridiculous, why do they need to see it?

     - It’ll just be for a few hours. Besides, I wanna see you become my Queen. 

     - Okay. - she shrugged. - Only because I love you.

     - I know. - he smiled, lovingly. - I just hope you don’t change your mind, we’re sort of in this forever. 

     - What does Steve say? Til the end of the line?

    - Til the end of the line, sunflower. 

THE END

tag list: @philogrobizedvee​​​​​​  @keithseabrook27​​​​​ @inlovewith3​​​​19 @nwbstan​ @romanoffs-heart

[talesfromthesnogbox]

A Love Story in 10 Parts

Summary: After Eddie and Richie fell in love, how did they not see their daughter falling for her best friend? 

“They’re taking bets on when Sam and Maggie are gonna get together.” Bill piped up, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Stan spluttered. “Excuse me?” 

“I have to say man, your kid is a real Cassanova.” Mike raised his eyebrows watching the two sway.

Word Count: 7,974

Notes: This is a continuation of "Richie Tozier and the Birth of His Child". You don't have to read it to know what's happening, but there's a few nods back to it! The fic is the brainchild of my headcanon "what if Reddie's kid fell in love with Stanpat's kid?" Anyways, I've plopped in two references to two of my favourite mid-2000's movies, 10 points if you can find them! Enjoy!

Tagging: @richietoaster

AO3

A Love Story in 10 Parts

I

The house was clean, the fridge was stocked, and six month old Maggie was nearing the end of her nap. Perfect timing as her aunts and uncles of the Losers club were finally coming down for a late baby shower.

“Hey Eds, you have the dip—”

“For the veggie platter? Still in the fridge.”

“And the wine—”

“Shiraz is on the counter, Moscato is in the fridge chilling. There’s some beer and cider chilling as well.”

Richie nodded, taking stock of the kitchen, pristine for the first time since Maggie’s arrival.

“Good, good. Why do I feel like I’m forgetting something?”

Eddie chuckled. “Well the guest of honour is getting her beauty rest.”

Richie grinned. “Right, can’t forget her. No, I’m forgetting something that’s right under my nose… or rather it will be in a second.” He leaned down to kiss his fiancée. “Can’t forget to tell you how much I love you before the others get here.”

Eddie frowned. “You’re gross.” He muttered just before the doorbell rang.

“But you love it!” Richie called out in a sing-song voice, rushing to let his friends in.

Unsurprisingly, it was Stan and his little family to arrive first.

“Stan the man! Welcome dude, come on in guys.” He caught little Sam’s eye, but the boy quickly shied away.

“Hey Sammy, do you remember who that is? It’s Richie!” Patty asked, brushing the boy’s hair back.

“Chee.” The boy whispered, sending Richie into a fit of giggles.

“Oh my god he’s huge! How’s it going little buddy?” Richie waggled his finger in front of the 18 month old’s face.

“You know, ever the explorer. Just like his mum.” Stan said waltzing into Richie and Eddie’s house. “Where’s the little princess?”

Eddie chuckled as Stan mocked Richie. Ever since Maggie was born, Richie had become so attached to her. He’d taken to calling her his “little princess” in their group chat. None of the other Losers quite understood it, not even Eddie really, but it was entirely endearing to watch how enamored he was with his daughter.

“Just you wait till you have a girl Staniel, then you’ll get it.”

“I somehow doubt I will.”

Richie ran off to collect Maggie, and when he came down, he had a full house.

“Wow, you all showed up on time!”

The Losers chattered and giggled, all catching up with the others, passing Maggie around.

The infant was already in love with Beverly, of course, being her biological mother, but she was also quite taken with Mike. Eddie had to admit, the man had a gift with children.

While Mike held Maggie, Bill couldn’t help but notice that Sam had become rather interested in the little girl.

“Mama,” he whispered, “baby.”

“That’s right sweetheart. Would you like to see the baby?” Sam nodded and turned on his mother’s lap to face Mike.

Mike turned Maggie, and the moment her eye caught Sam’s, a wide smile took over her face.

Bill chuckled at the two youngest Losers as he looked between them. “How did she somehow make Trashmouth’s smile adorable? I just don’t get how she’s Richie’s kid and so cute.”

“Looks like someone else thinks she’s cute too.” Mike said glancing pointedly at Sam.

“Aww, Sammy’s got a crush!”

Richie scoffed. “Please, I will not tolerate any heteronormativity in this house. He’s not even two.”

Stan rolled his eyes, while Patty let out a snort.

 II

 Two and a half years went by, and the Toziers were finally tying the knot.

The day had come, and everything was perfect. Both Eddie and Richie had custom suits made by the one and only Beverly Marsh-Hanscom, and little Maggie even got her own Marsh Original. She couldn’t stop twirling in her little white flower girl’s dress, looking back in the mirror every time she caught a glimpse of the oversized bow fastened to her back.

“Why do you have flowers?” Sam, now four years old, asked her, poking her arm.

“Because I’m the flower girl. I have to put out the flowers so Papa can find Daddy at the end of the aisle.”

“Well why do I have to carry rings? What if I want to carry flowers?”

“Because you’re the ring bear. You have an important job.”

“Why is it a ring bear?” Sam asked, playing with the flower crown on Maggie’s head.

“I don’t know, I don’t make the rules.”

The girl turned around when she heard a gasp coming from behind her. “Wow sweetheart.”

“Papa!” Maggie squealed, running into Eddie’s arms.

“You look like a princess.” He kissed her forehead. “Have you gone to see Daddy yet?” She shook her head no. “Well you should go see him before it’s time to start.” Eddie put her down and watched her run off in her little tulle skirt towards the other little room across the hall where Richie was.

“Daddy!” She ran right into Richie, hugging his leg.

“Hey my little princess, let me take a good look at you.” Maggie flashed a signature Tozier smile up at her dad, and it brought tears to his eyes. “Wow, look at how beautiful my little baby is.” He picked her up and the tears started falling.

“Oh my god Trashmouth, don’t tell me you’re crying again.” Bev walked up to Richie, pressing a kiss to Maggie’s cheek and handing him a handkerchief.

“Daddy, don’t cry, why are you sad?”

He sniffed. “I’m not sad baby, I’m happy, these are happy tears.”

“Dry your eyes bridezilla, the ceremony is gonna start in a few minutes.”

Richie gave Maggie one last kiss on the cheek and she ran to meet Sam again in the hallway.

The music started, and the crowed “aww’d” as the two walked down the aisle. Maggie, being an absolute ham, smiled with her rosy cheeks dropping rose petals in her path until her and Sam reached the end of the aisle.

There wasn’t a dry eye at the ceremony as Eddie walked down the aisle towards Richie. Richie’s parents held onto Maggie’s hand tight, but as Eddie began to approach the altar, she let out a wail.

“Maggie?” Both Eddie and Richie looked her way to see the girl sniffling, her shoulders moving, but no tears falling.

“Maggie are you okay baby?” Richie bent down to caress her face.

“Yeah Daddy, I’m happy crying!” the congregation laughed, and Richie kissed her cheek before rejoining his groom at the altar.

The ceremony was short and sweet, and Eddie came by to pick up Maggie in his arms before walking back down the aisle with his new husband. The little girl smiled as she saw her basket of rose petals left behind for Sam on her chair.

Photos followed the ceremony, and just as Richie had suspected, Maggie was totally in her element. She was a Tozier through and through, dramatic, witty, and absolutely adored being the center of attention. She listened to everything the photographer said, even didn’t complain when Sam left a wet kiss on her rosy cheek in one of the snaps.

Sam’s favourite part of the day came a little later… the dancing. This was both Maggie and Sam’s first wedding, and neither child had experienced the joy of an open dance floor.

Sam pulled her into a slow sway as Richie and Eddie took to the floor for their first dance, and as much as the Losers wanted to watch Richie and Eddie finally get their happy ever after (and their shit together, it took them entirely too long to come to their senses about how they felt towards each other), they couldn’t take their eyes off the two kids on the dance floor.

“Something tells me this is foreshadowing for the future.” Mike whispered to Bill, Ben and Bev.

“You think?” Bill took a sip of his beer.

The four of them watched intently as Maggie rested her cheek on Sam’s shoulder.

“Oh yeah, definitely.” Ben laughed.

“But if she’s anything like her dads, and her godfather, she’ll be sixty before she says anything to him.” Bev poked Ben’s side.

Ben glowered at his wife. “They won’t end up like those two idiots. Stan had a ring on Patty’s finger before they even finished college.”

“What did I do now?” Stan and a mildly pregnant Patty took their seats at the table.

“They’re taking bets on when Sam and Maggie are gonna get together.” Bill piped up, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Stan spluttered. “Excuse me?”

“I have to say man, your kid is a real Cassanova.” Mike raised his eyebrows watching the two sway.

“Alright, I’m gonna need another drink.”

 III

 Stan, Patty, Sam and their youngest Abigail had all moved down to Santa Monica shortly after the Tozier wedding. Maggie loved showing her best friend Sam (and new friend Abby) all the fun things they could do at the beach.

Now that Maggie and Sam were older, about to start 9th and 10th grade, all the adults agreed the beach was great for their independence, especially since Richie and Eddie had just bought a big house that backed onto it. The teens could have their privacy, and Eddie could make sure they were safe without hovering too much.

Usually Maggie was the first to get the door when she knew Sam was coming over, but today, it was Eddie that answered.

“Hey Sammy, I think Mags is sitting out on the deck.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks Eddie.” The boy wandered through the house and out the backdoor to find his friend with her head in her hands.

“Maggie?”

“Don’t look at me, I’m hideous!”

Sam frowned. Maggie wasn’t hideous; sure he teased her about the size of her teeth, and her unruly brown hair, but she was fourteen and in her awkward stage… and far from hideous in his humble opinion. He and his family had gone to visit his grandparents in Maine for the month of July, and he was anxious to see her and catch up. He’d really missed his friend, awkward stage and all. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She turned to him with tears in her eyes, tears that had been obscured by a pair of tortoise-shell glasses.

“Hey, you got glasses!” He rubbed her shoulder. “They look good.”

“No, they don’t! I look like such a freak.”

“Oh come on, wearing glasses doesn’t make you a freak, your dad wears glasses.”

She looked up to him, shooting daggers through her eyes.

“Okay, you have a point, your dad is kind of a freak. But hey, who called you a freak?”

“N-nobody.”

Sam’s heart broke at how quiet the stuttered word was. “Seriously Mags, who called you a freak?”

She was silent for a moment. “Liam Donahue.”

Liam. I’m gonna kick his ass. Sam thought, seeing red. He lived down the street from Sam and Maggie, and in summers past, he’d hung out with the two of them. He’d all but disappear once the school year started up again, but neither of them really cared, they just liked having people their age to hang around with on their break. “W-what happened?”

“Well I asked him this morning if he wanted to grab lunch with me after my appointment, and he said yes. But when I met up with him at the diner, he… he…”

Sam pushed her hair away from her face. “What’d he say Mags?”

“He laughed in my face. Told me I looked like a four-eyed freak. I guess one of the girls from the soccer team told him I had a crush on him a-and he got spooked.” She sniffed, rubbing her eyes under her glasses.

“What an asshole.” Sam shook his head. Why couldn’t Liam see what a great girl Maggie was? She was smart, unapologetically herself, witty, absolutely adorable… he would be lying to himself if he said he didn’t have a slight crush on his best friend. “You’re not a freak Maggie, you’re my best friend. Don’t listen to Liam and those other dickheads, you’re way too good for him.”

“Really?”

“I promise. Now come on, I think I saw your dad brought stuff home for s’mores.”

 IV

 The conversation Richie had overheard about that jackass Liam Donahue was now years behind them, and the Tozier couple was now leaving their daughter behind at Berkeley. The first hour of their five-hour drive back to Santa Monica was quiet, but as soon as hour two hit, Richie became a blubbering mess.

“I just can’t believe we just moved her into college. College Eddie!”

“Yes, Richie, that tends to happen after kids turn 18.” Eddie was sad to see their daughter go too, but he trusted her, and he knew that despite all the worrying he did before she was born, they’d raised her well.

“B-but what if… what if something happens? What if someone tries to hurt her, or what if she gets homesick and wants your homemade pizza?”

“Rich you’re starting to sound like my mother.” Richie’s blubbering halted. “Maggie is a smart girl. We’re only a phone call away from her, she isn’t that far, and besides, she’s got Sam with her.”

Sam had taken a year off between high school and college to work and save up money for school. When he’d found out both he and Maggie had gotten early acceptance to UC Berkeley, everyone was over the moon that the two best friends would be together.

“Sam’s been good to her Rich, he won’t let anything happen to our Mags.”

Richie nodded. “I hate it when you’re right.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure your little princess will call you all the time.”

As always, Eddie was right.

Maggie made sure to check in every night, whether it was through their family group chat, weekly FaceTimes, or simple texts, but one Friday evening, Richie didn’t hear from her.

“Eds, did Maggie text you last night?” Richie asked, snuggling his husband closer in their bed on that lazy Saturday morning.

“No, why?”

“Nothing, I just haven’t heard from her.” Richie frowned and pulled out his phone, texting her privately. Hey my little princess, I miss you. Everything OK?

It wasn’t until noon that he heard back from his daughter.

“Hey princess, are you alright?” He answered the incoming FaceTime call. She looked like hell.

“Yeah… no… not really… I’m pretty sure I have a wicked hangover.”

Richie laughed out loud, taking in her ruffled appearance and the dark circles under her eyes. “Yeah, college will do that to you.” A weight lifted off his shoulders as she giggled along with him. “Big party last night?”

“Yeah dad, it was wild. Now that midterms are over, I think we all needed to let loose.”

He nodded in agreement. “You’re partying responsibly though, right?”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “Yes dad, I knew my limit and stopped within it.”

“That’s my girl.”

“Hey dad… is pops around by any chance?” Her eyes shifted downward suspiciously.

“No, we’re having the Losers over tonight so he popped out to grab some snacks. I can get him to call you ba—”

“No! No, it’s fine. I just… something happened last night and I’d rather him not really know right now. You… you know how he is.”

Richie’s heart sunk, but he kept a straight face to not alarm her. “Yeah, yeah I know. What is it sweetie?”

“Well… I um… I kind of… kissed Sam… last night.”

He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. “Oh… is that right? A-and how do you feel about that?”

“I dunno, I mean, he’s my first kiss, he’s my best friend. What if… will things get weird?”

Richie shook his head. “You can’t think of it that way. Things will only get weird if you let it get weird. Have I ever told you about my first kiss?” She shook her head. “Well, surprisingly enough, it was with pops.”

She scoffed. “What? I thought you guys didn’t get together until you were like… 25 or something.”

“We didn’t, but it was a spin-the-bottle situation. Bill threw a party, and he was really trying to impress this girl, so he started spin-the-bottle, and of course, I landed on short and angry. We kissed, my heart soared, but we all thought he was straight, so I played it off as a joke rather than telling him how I felt.”

“So I should play it off as a joke?”

“No! I mean, if you don’t have feelings for him, then don’t say anything about it, but if you do… you should tell him sweetie.”

Maggie sighed. “But… but dad… what if he doesn’t like me back?”

Richie’s heart swelled. As much as his little girl growing up so fast saddened him, it was sweet that they could share the experience of being in love with their childhood friend. “That’s the risk you take when you put yourself out there. It’s your choice, you don’t have to say anything now, or tomorrow, or even a month from now, but if you really like him, I think you should tell him. Trust me, I think his answer will surprise you.” Richie knew for a fact that his answer would surprise her. He saw the way they looked at each other, Richie may have been blind to his own love life at his daughter’s age, but now that he was past that, he could clearly see how much Sam cared for her.

“Thanks dad.”

Richie kept his lips sealed tight when Eddie returned, he even didn’t say anything when their friends arrived, but Richie couldn’t be trusted with a secret around alcohol.

“How are the kids doing at school?” Mike asked after spilling the beans on the woman he’d met while travelling in Vancouver.

“Sam’s great, he loves his program!” Patty gushed.

Richie chuckled. “Yeah, Mags is great too. Even better after last night though, right Staniel?”

Stan looked at him confusedly. “What?”

“Mags and Sam? Sharing a little smoochy smoochy time?”

“Wait, what?” Both Eddie and Stan shouted. Patty and the rest of the Losers couldn’t contain their laughter.

“You t-totally called that at their wedding!” Bill high-fived Mike as their laughter died down.

“Oh fuck, I was not supposed to tell you that.”

 V

 Richie was lucky that the Losers loved him enough to keep Maggie’s secret. Nobody had spoken a word about it, at least not until the Christmas break the next year.

Their 19 year old had only been home for all of two days, but Richie was already dreading bringing her back to Berkeley.

“You’re so dramatic, she doesn’t go back until January, Rich. Get some sleep, it’s three in the morning.”

Richie yawned and started to doze off when a thump coming from Maggie’s bedroom made them jolt up.

“Mags?” Richie was out of bed in an instant, with Eddie hot on his feet. They burst into their daughter’s room, only to find out she wasn’t alone.

“Sam?”

He spluttered. “Uhhhh, hi Mr. Tozier… Mr. Tozier.”

Maggie groaned as the lights came up and the two tried to hide how disheveled they (and the bedsheets) were.

“Care to explain why you’re in Maggie’s room, without a shirt, at three in the morning?” Eddie crossed his arms, trying to look intimidating in a pair of boxer briefs and one of Richie’s old tour shirts.

“Well, um… you see…”

“Dad, pops! Stop it! I invited him over.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain why you’re shirtless, Sam. Unless this has something to do with what happened last year?” Eddie’s eyebrows raised.

“Last year… Oh my god, dad did you say something?”

Richie winced. “Sorry sweetie.”

“Ugh!” Maggie let out a huff of frustration. “Dad! How could you?”

“I know, I’m sorry I fucked up, but you shouldn’t be… sneaking around Mags. I thought we could talk about this kind of stuff.”

“I’m sorry Dad.”

Eddie shook his head. “Put a shirt on Sam, I’m calling your dad.”

Sam followed Eddie out of the room, his head hung low. Richie stayed back for a second and threw a quick thumbs up at Maggie. “I’m proud of you for saying something to him sweetie, but next time, please don’t sneak around, just… ask if he can stay the night.”

“Really, you’d let my boyfriend stay the night?”

“Well… no, I wouldn’t, but hold on, boyfriend?”

She blushed. “Yeah, we um, we got together when the semester started.”

Richie’s heart swelled. As disappointed as he was that she kept something like this from them, he couldn’t help but root for her. “You can tell me about it later, I’m sure we’ll be spending all the time in the world together while you’re grounded.” He kissed her on the head and joined his husband downstairs.

Stan was just as grumpy as Richie thought he’d be when he and Patty arrived.

He looked at his son, a tired expression on his face. “You, car, now.” Sam skittered off past his parents towards the car.

“I’m so sorry guys, he must’ve snuck out after we went to bed.” Patty shook her head apologetically.

“It’s fine guys. Sam’s a good kid, I think it was more Maggie’s persuasion that got him over here if I’m being honest.” Eddie laughed. “Man that whole intimidation thing was fun though.”

The four adults spluttered trying to contain their laughter at the situation.

“So… they’re dating?” Stan questioned.

“Yep, since September it sounds like.” Richie confirmed.

“Fuck, that makes us in-laws, doesn’t it?” Stan rubbed his eyes.

“Fuck! That means Bill and Mike were actually right!” Patty shook her head.

 VI

 After that fateful December night, Sam became an even more permanent fixture in the Tozier household.

Maggie had never dated at all before Sam; everything was new territory to her, and to her parents. She now had this dreamy eyed look on her face on nights where she facetimed them after he’d left, and her Instagram was filled with pictures of the two of them, smiling and in love.

“They look rather cozy in that one, don’t you think?” Eddie pointed out, looking at her Instagram story over his shoulder.

“Yeah… they do. Do you think they’re being safe?”

“What? The hell do you mean—” Eddie’s brow furrowed.

“Well I never taught her about protection, I thought you had that covered!”

“I—” Maggie’s face popped up on his screen as her facetime request came in. “Fuck. Hi sweetie!”

“Hey pops, hi dad. Sam just left, I thought I’d see what you two were up to.”

“You’re being safe, right?”

Eddie’s eyes widened and he playfully slapped his husband’s chest. “Richard! You… you can’t just—”

“Dad!”

“What! It’s a valid concern, Stan would kill me if he became a grandfather at the ripe old age of 35.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, 35 sure.”

“Well honey, you have a boyfriend now, you know you can call us if you have any questions… or if you need anything… some snacks, a condom…” Richie baited.

“Yes, because you two know so much about hetero sex.”

“Hey, I was a closeted comedian until I was 25, I know plenty about heterosexual relations.”

“You do?” Eddie eyed him carefully.

“Okay… so I’m not a great liar, but I’m a great listener and I have Bev on speed dial.”

Maggie giggled. “Thanks dad, but I think I’ll leave the girl talk to mom, if that’s okay?”

“Of course, sweetie. Your dad and I are always here if you want to talk, but we understand if you’d rather talk to Bev about this stuff.”

“Thanks pops.”

Richie and Eddie took everything Maggie threw at them growing up in stride, but were so incredibly thankful for her and Bev’s strong bond, especially once she became a teenager. They did all the hard lifting, explaining everything, and doing all the research to teach their girl, but Eddie will always remember the panicked phone call on that rainy Sunday morning standing in the drug store staring at a wall of tampons, and could never thank Bev enough for her help.

 VII

 But of course, Bev couldn’t always be around to help.

Richie and Eddie were having a quiet Saturday morning brunch when they heard their front door slam. Their 24-year-old Maggie rushed up to her room, bag in tow, which was unusual, considering she and Sam had an apartment not far from them.

Shortly before graduation, the two of them had moved in together. Eddie loved Sam, he really did, but ever since that point, he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He’d seen it for himself with many college friends of his… college relationships don’t always last. So when he heard that door slam shut… he had an idea of what was happening.

Eddie shot Richie a look, I’ll get her, and followed her up the stairs.

“Hey, hey baby, what’s wrong?”

“Hi pops… sorry for barging in, I just needed to get out of the apartment.”

“Don’t apologize, you know you’re always welcome here sweetie. Now tell me what happened.” He sat down beside her and rubbed her back as she leaned into him. Hot tears hit the collar of his t-shirt, and his eyes met Richie’s, now standing in her doorway. Eddie motioned him over, and he joined the two on the bed, patting his daughter’s hair.

“It’s Sam… he’s been so distant lately, and secretive. He gets so anxious every time I try to bring it up, and he brushes me off. Today he just… he just snapped. Went into our bedroom and shut the door, he didn’t even say anything. I think he’s hiding something from me, I think he’s cheating on me.”

The two fathers let her cry it out, until she was done with the tears. Maggie fell asleep in her childhood bed, and they left her to sleep it off.

Eddie let out a huff once they’d reached the main floor. “Man, she’s really heartbroken.”

“This is crazy, you know? I never saw those two breaking up.”

“Rich, he’s her college boyfriend, sometimes relationships just… run their course.”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I know that, but he was just here last week asking for my blessing to propose.”

Eddie looked at his husband incredulously. “WHAT?”

“What do you mean ‘what’?”

“You didn’t think to tell me about this, what?”

Richie scoffed. “Shut up, I so told you about this. Remember, we talked about it before bed on Monday… ohhh, your stupid talented mouth totally distracted me from telling you about that. Right.”

“Oh my god! I can’t believe you let me blow you when you were sitting on that information!”

“To be fair, you do tend to suck my soul through my dick, and it’s too good to pass up in the moment babe.”

“You’re disgusting!”

Just then, the doorbell rang. The two of them got up to see Sam on the other side.

“Hey Sam, I don’t really think it’s a good time—”

“Eddie, please, I need… I need to talk to her.” His hands shook as he pulled the little velvet box from his pocket. “I just… I was planning to do it this weekend, and I had this whole plan but then things started falling through one by one, and I wanted it to be perfect, I just got so stressed out—”

“Sam?”

The three men looked towards the top of the staircase to see Maggie standing there, tears in her eyes.

“Mags… please…” He fumbled with the box opening it and tuning out the three collective gasps heard by the Tozier family. “I love you, I love you so damn much, since we were kids.” He moved further into the foyer. “I’ve wanted this forever, from the first time we kissed, I knew you were it for me. Maggie Tozier, I love you, would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?”

Richie let out a choked sob, and Eddie knew he had to drag his husband away. He heard muffled voices talking lowly as he and Richie moved into the living room to give them some privacy, but it was only minutes later that a girlish giggle and a simple three letter word broke the room’s silence.

“Yes!”

Eddie met Richie’s eyes, tears now clearly welling up in both of them as they thought back on their own little love story. They had been older than Maggie and Sam by a few years, but god, they were just as stupid, and just as wrapped up and in love with each other.

“That’s our little girl, baby.” Richie pulled Eddie closer, and kissed the crown of his head.

“Yeah Rich, she’s all grown up.” Eddie wiped his eyes and moved away from Richie’s embrace. “I think I’ve got a bottle of champagne lying around from our anniversary, good time to crack it open.” He smiled as he rummaged about the kitchen.

 VIII

 Eddie was a totally hands-on wedding planner, but he wanted nothing to do with the dress. Dress shopping didn’t hold good memories for him, and he didn’t want to put a damper on Maggie’s day. Luckily Richie was practically bursting at the seams with joy at the thought of wedding dress shopping with Maggie.

The day of Maggie’s bridal appointment had come, and Richie had never felt more out of his element. The Beverly Hills shop was beautiful, soft grey walls, luxurious couches in front of huge mirrors and pedestals. Gowns lined the walls, and Richie suddenly felt panicked.

“Hey sweetie, you okay?” Bev grabbed his hand, and he nodded, taking a deep breath.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“I know it’s hard seeing her grow up.” Bev smiled at him, and joined Patty and Abigail admiring a dress with a beautiful satin skirt.

Maggie was whisked away into the dressing room while her “entourage” took their seats, and minutes later she emerged. The dress wasn’t anything grand, it was a simple gown with a poofy skirt and a sparkly belt. The girls let out soft coos, showering the bride with compliments, but Richie was silent.

“Dad? What do you think?” Maggie turned around and met her father’s eyes, only to realize they had misted over. “Dad! You said you weren’t gonna cry today!”

Bev burst out laughing, pulling her best friend close and kissing his cheek. “Oh, be nice to your dear old dad, he just has a lot of feelings.”

“Sorry sweetie, you just look so beautiful.”

Patty pushed his hair back from his face. “Aw Rich, I can’t believe you made me lose fifty bucks to my husband.”

Bev gasped. “Patricia Uris!”

“Damn Patty, I thought you knew me better than that.”

“Well I thought you were gonna hold it together Trashmouth.”

The group agreed that while the dress was beautiful, it wasn’t the one for Maggie, so back to the dressing room she went.

Maggie tried on four more dresses, none of which were winners. It had been a long day, and the group was nearly ready to leave, but one dress in particular caught Richie’s eye.

It was simple, but beautiful. “Hey Bevvy, what do you think of this?” His large hands looked clunky against the delicate lace appliques, the dress was soft and flowy, and he thought it ticked all the boxes on his daughter’s wish list.

“Oh Rich, it’s amazing. I know the designer, why didn’t I think of putting her in something like this?”

Richie raised his brows. “Hey Mags, before we leave, could you just humour me and try this one on?”

The four of them took their seats on the couch when Maggie emerged in Richie’s dress looking like an absolute dream.

“Oh my god baby, you look incredible.” Bev was up right away, fussing with Maggie, fixing the dress, pinning her hair into a messy, fashionable bun and adding a veil.

“Dad?” She turned around, tears welling up as she met his eyes (which of course, were also watering).

“Mags.” His voice broke. Richie stood—the pedestal she stood on and her heels making her just above eye level with him—and took her hands. He stared at the girl, no, woman that stood before him, and didn’t even care when he heard the clicks of Bev’s and Patty’s phone cameras going off. “Maggie sweetie… wow.”

“I think this is my dress dad.”

 IX

 The next nine months flew by faster than anyone was prepared for, and soon enough, the day came where Margaret Tozier would be wed to Samuel Uris.

“We should get out of bed. She needs to get to the venue to start getting ready.” Richie lie wide awake on that beautiful Saturday morning beside his husband, who promptly smacked him on the chest.

“Shut the fuck up and go back to sleep, it’s six o’clock in the morning.” Eddie groaned and rolled away from him.

“But like… there’s so much shit to do, Eds. The flowers are going to be arriving soon, and the centerpieces, we can’t forget to put the seating chart up at the reception and help set up the favours table, and the photographer—”

“Doesn’t show up until noon. The ceremony starts at four, Rich. Florist won’t show up until one at the venue, and Mike and Bill already said they’d go help set up the ceremony space while Ben shows them the reception hall. Photographer shows up here at noon and another to Stan’s house around the same time. Mags and Bev will head to the venue for twelve-thirty with your mom, Patty and her mom, and the bridesmaids will get ready there. We show up at two-thirty for photos with our tuxes and a shitload of tissue. We’ve been over this babe, we got it down.”

Richie huffed out a breath, but nodded, turning on his side to spoon Eddie. “What would I do without you?”

“Drive yourself mad.”

He laughed. “You know my mom is giving Mags the diamond earrings she wore on her wedding day as her something old?”

“That’s beautiful, Rich. Bev told me she’s going to give her the brooch she had in her hair at her wedding for her something borrowed. Mags wanted to put it on her bouquet.”

Richie kissed the back of Eddie’s head. “I love that, she should have something of her mother’s with her. The dress is new, and her shoes are blue, so that covers the rest of it.”

“Perfect.” Eddie yawned. “Can you believe our baby is getting married today?”

“Not one bit. Remember when I accidentally spilled that Bev went into labour on a radio show?”

“Yes, you idiot. Oh god, you’re totally going to bring that up in your speech, aren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Richie snickered. “Of course I’m bringing it up, Stan was the first one to visit.”

“I forgot about that, he was, wasn’t he? Who would have thought we’d be here right now?”

“Crazy, isn’t it Eds?”

The two drifted off to sleep for a few more hours before Eddie’s alarm went off. They snuck down the stairs as quietly as they could to not wake Maggie, and prepared her a pancake breakfast spread. She’d spent the night at their house, not wanting to see Sam until she was meeting him at the altar.

“Morning baby girl, it’s your wedding day.” Eddie crept into her room, Richie following with the tray.

Their daughter greeted them with a watery smile. “I love you two so much.”

Richie set the tray down on her side table and jumped into bed with her, cuddling his girl to his chest as tears streamed down his face. “We love you too sweetie, I can’t believe how grown up you are.”

Eddie scootched into bed on her other side, stroking her hair lovingly. Once the tears had dried, and breakfast was eaten, Maggie got down to business.

“Mom just texted me, she’ll be here in an hour to pick me up. I’m bringing the veil, jewelry and Sam’s ring, but can you guys bring the dress and shoes? They’re both in the hall closet downstairs, all together in the garment bag.”

“Absolutely honey.”

“Perfect, I’m going to run a bath. Shoo, go relax or something!” Maggie gave them both kisses on their cheeks and pushed them out of her room.

Just as scheduled, Bev and the photographer arrived and snapped a few pictures of the strange little family in their home before the girls were whisked away to the venue. After the few minutes of chaos, a peaceful silence washed over the two.

“I definitely expected this morning to be crazier.” Richie huffed, playing with Eddie’s hair.

“Yeah, yeah I feel quite… relaxed.” Eddie stood, pulling his husband up with him. “Come on, we’re jumping in the shower before we put our tuxes on.”

“Together?” Richie gasped. “But Edward… I’ll see your… thingy.”

“Oh no, not the thingy.” Eddie deadpanned and dragged him up the stairs. “Get your mind out of the gutter Tozier, we’ve got important shit to do today.”

One (almost) uneventful shower later, the two of them were buttoning up their shirts and lacing their shoes. “God damnit Rich, Bev will kill us if we’re late.”

“Relax babe, we’ll be at the venue in plenty of time, it’s only two.”

He glared at Richie. “Yes, but I want to be able to actually walk my daughter down the aisle, asshole, my legs are still shaky.”

Richie snickered. “Hey man, you started it. Can’t get enough of this magical dick.”

“Fuck you. Let’s go, don’t forget your jacket.”

They locked the door and buckled their seatbelts, but as Richie pulled out of the driveway, Eddie shouted. “Wait! She asked us to grab the dress.”

“Fuck, right! Hold on, let me run up to her room to grab it.” Richie sprinted inside quickly, but when he got to Maggie’s room, there was no dress in sight. “Eds! She definitely took it with her. It’s not here.” He told his husband, wracking his brain to figure out where she put it.

“No she didn’t Richie! I saw them leave, she had her veil and jewelry box, no garment bag. She specifically asked us to bring the dress and shoes.”

Richie looked around her room perplexed. “But… but she has to have it… it’s not here.”

“Fuck.” Eddie looked around panicking. “Fuck! She’s gonna kill us!”

“Hey, Eddie, hey, calm down, we’ll find it.”

“No Richard, we won’t find it and our daughter’s entire day is going to be ruined, and it’s going to be all my fault! Maybe we should have got out of bed at six like you said we should, Richie I’m such an idiot, I have to call her, we have to tell Bev, she’ll know what to do, she’ll know someone who can whip up a dress in an hour—”

“Eds! Babe take a breath, please, you’re freaking me out here. Maggie told us where it was, try and think back.”

“She said a closet, but you said it’s not in her closet! Get back in there and check again.”

“Woah man, I’ve been out of it for too long, you can’t make me get back into the closet.” Richie joked.

“Shut the fuck up asshole, save the jokes for the toasts. I’m going to look again, you go look downstairs.”

The taller man nodded in agreement and kissed his husband’s forehead. His eyes scanned the open concept main floor of their home, looking for the glaringly obvious giant white garment bag and blue box, but couldn’t see anything in plain sight. He checked the spare bedroom, his office, dining room, cupboard, but nothing came up. Finally, he had one place left to look: the hall closet.

Richie felt his breath leave his chest and his heart stutter as he opened the closet to find exactly what he was looking for. “Eddie, search party is off, it’s down here!”

“Thank fuck!” Eddie came careening down the stairs and grabbed the shoebox as he dashed out the door.

When the two arrived, Bev was waiting outside, arms crossed angrily. “Oh my god finally! She was freaking out in there, thinking something had happened to you idiots.”

“No, we uh, couldn’t find the dress.” Richie said sheepishly. “But hey, we got it!”

“Thank god, she was getting anxious. Now come on, the photographer wants a few shots of you helping her get ready.”

Stepping into the room was like stepping into organized chaos. Maggie’s friends paraded around the room in floral silky robes helping each other with their hair and makeup, and finally towards the back of the room, Maggie was in the makeup chair, the artist putting the final touch of lipstick on.

Eddie could tell that Richie was already getting choked up. “You look beautiful Mags.” He held his hand out to the taller man and squeezed it, bringing him closer.

“Wow.”

“Dad!” Maggie blushed. “I haven’t even put my dress on yet, stop it.”

“We’ve got that here for you by the way.” He offered the large garment bag over to her.

“Perfect timing. Can you get mom to come help me into it? I think the photographer wants to shoot you two helping me with the buttons.”

“Of course, we’ll give you some space.”

The next hour was filled with a flurry of activity. The photographer perfectly captured Richie’s face glowing with pride as he laid eyes on his daughter in her dress for the first time since he helped her pick it out. The small family shared a moment together when they could hear everyone shuffling into the ceremony space, right before they would walk her down the aisle.

“We’re so proud of you sweetheart, you’ve grown into such an incredible woman, and I know you and Sam are going to be so happy.” Eddie laced his arm through Maggie’s and kissed her temple as they walked towards the aisle.

“Pops, stop it, you’re going to make me cry!”

Richie sniffed on her other side. “I’ve got extra tissue if you want.”

Finally, the three made it out into the open air of the ceremony space overlooking the water. Gasps could be heard from the congregation as they all took in how incredible she looked, but Maggie only had eyes for the man at the end of the aisle.

Richie caught Stan’s eye as they approached the arch, and even he had a tear in his eye watching his best friends walk their daughter, his now daughter-in-law, down the aisle to his son.

The ceremony was beautiful. Much like at his own wedding, sniffles cut through the silence between the vows, this time, it was Richie instead of Maggie.

The reception was just as incredibly beautiful as the ceremony was. All the losers took their seats at their table together and watched the newlyweds share their first dance.

“Dude,” Mike piped up to Bill, “you owe me $20.”

“What?”

Mike rested his hand on the table, palm open. “$20, I told you this would happen.”

“When did we make this deal?” The rest of the losers snickered around them.

“At their wedding.” Mike nodded to Richie and Eddie. “Those two were dancing, but those two were the cutest couple I’d ever seen.

“I really can’t believe you put a bet on our kids man.” Eddie shook his head and took a swig of his wine.

“Oh I can, we put a bet on your husband and I lost.” Patty giggled, leaning into Stan.

“When did you put a bet on my husband?”

“Dress shopping, I bet he would break down the second he saw her in a wedding dress, Patty thought he’d keep it together.” Stan kissed his wife’s cheek. “What were you thinking?”

“Yeah honestly Pats, he made some easy money there.”

“Who said it was money we bet?” She threw the table a wink and stared at her husband bashfully.

“Woah Staniel the maniel!”

“Alright, alright, chill out, we’re at my kid’s wedding, remember?” Stan knocked back the rest of his drink and stood up. “Let’s go, we’re all doing shots.”

 X

 The next two years saw Maggie and Sam travelling the world. Sam had really made a name for himself as a veterinarian at the San Diego Zoo, and Maggie as a documentary filmmaker, and luckily, their jobs happen to clash when National Geographic offered them a contract travelling the world documenting wildlife foundations and rescue practices.

The holidays were hard without the two of them there; this holiday would be especially hard as Mike and Bill and Ben and Bev would all be gone as well. Eddie was preparing a small thanksgiving dinner for himself and Richie plus Stan and Patty; it would be quiet, but it would still be nice. Besides, Maggie and Sam were due to skype in during dessert.

“Have you heard from them yet?” Patty asked, taking a sip of wine.

“Yeah, Sam said they were going to call in around seven—” Eddie was cut off by the sound of his phone ringing. “Hold on, that’s actually Mags right now. Hey honey, how’s it going?”

“It’s great! But kind of bad news, our service is really bad around here, we may have to push our skype.”

“No worries, wish you guys were here, we made too much food as usual. Whereabouts are you now?”

“Pops? Pops you there? You’re breaking up?”

“Maggie? I can hear you just fine, what’s going on?” Eddie’s heart thrummed in his chest.

“Hold on, let me move into a better reception area.”

The call hung up, and Eddie’s heart sunk. “Mags?”

Suddenly, keys jingled in the front door, and in stepped Maggie and Sam.

“Oh my god!” Richie led the way as the four of them ran to greet their kids in the doorway. “How did you guys get here? How long have you been planning this?”

The questions continued through dinner. Maggie and Sam told them all about the places they’d visited to their parents who listened with open ears.

“Sounds beautiful darling. Hey Stan, we brought that really nice bottle of merlot, why don’t you break it out? Maggie you’re gonna love it, I promise.”

“Oh.” She blushed. “T-that’s okay Patty, I’m a little jetlagged, I’m afraid wine might just put me to sleep.”

“Nonsense, I insist! You’ll sleep like a baby tonight.”

“No, um, mom it’s probably not a good idea if she drinks the wine.” Sam stepped in looking around at the four sets of skeptical eyes that sat on him.

A sudden wave of realization fell over the room. “Maggie?” Richie whispered, looking at his daughter, already feeling the tears stinging his eyes.

“We wanted to surprise you to let you all know that you’re going to be grandparents!”

Everyone jumped to their feet to crowd the couple, cheers of delight echoing throughout the dining room.

“How fa r along are you?” Patty asked.

“Ten weeks, we actually came back to see my doctor and figured it was a good time for a pit stop in to tell you all.” Maggie stood proudly and lifted her shirt. Sure enough, her abdomen was swollen ever so slightly. “You okay there dad?”

Richie blinked. “Y-yeah! I’m more than okay, I’m going to be a gr-grandpa. Holy shit.” He sniffled and immediately broke down. “My baby is having a baby.”

“Oh come on you big old sap.” Eddie rubbed his back, chuckling at his husband, but his voice was also thick with emotion.

“I think grandpa needs another glass of wine.” Stan said, reaching across the table to fill Richie’s glass. “Shit, that makes me grandpa too… three grandpas.”

“Luckiest kid in the world.” Maggie whispered adoringly.

[machinequeen4]

Fic rec bingo list!

I thought I’d fill out this fic rec bingo card, posted by @lightveils on Twitter!

It sort of turned into the History of MachineQueen in Fanfiction. All you unsung heroes who write and publish fanfic, I love you and remember your names.

Recs for Fire Emblem Fates, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Yu-gi-oh, Doctor Who, RWBY, Ace Attorney, Tales of Graces follow!

1. A fic you love without knowing the source material

Undone - codenamecynic, Dragon Age II, E rated, Fenris/Female Hawke, multichap 135k words

https://archiveofourown.org/works/482156/chapters/838851

I know nothing about Dragon Age and can’t remember why I decided to read it. TV Tropes maybe?  From what I can tell it’s the events of the game with additional sex scenes. Hawke is witty, Fenris is a tragic broken bird, I was sold.

2. A fic with a premise that shouldn’t work but it does

Trial and Error - undieshogun, Fire Emblem Fates, T rated, Subaki/Takumi, multichap 15k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890677/chapters/15719992

Not so much a premise but a ship I wasn’t convinced on. But it had Subaki in it so I gave it a try. It’s really cute - Subaki tries to teach Takumi social skills, much to his annoyance. 

This line alone is gold star characterisation:

"I couldn't tell you why Tsubaki has taken such a liking to you, but I do know that any time he wants to befriend someone, it's because he sees in them something he lacks."

3. A fic you’ve reread several times

Gratitude - GoldenThreads, Fire Emblem Three Houses, T rated, Hubert/Ferdinand, multichap 8k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20344273/chapters/48239686

The writing style is so beautifully layered that I find new meaning every time I read it. The scene where Ferdinand offers a hairpin for each story Hubert tells is gorgeous, one of my favourites to reread. 

4. A fic you still remember many years later

A Song I Think I Heard Before - Scribbler, Yu-gi-oh, T rated, Mai/Jounouchi (Joey), multichap 40k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5924028/1/A_Song_I_Think_I_Heard_Before

My favourite Mai fic. This gives her a backstory with Dartz based villainy and recontextualises her relationship with Jou (Joey in the dub, most YGO authors used the JP names to distance themselves from 4Kids’ added cheese). I was on tenterhooks waiting for each new chapter. It’s got real emotional depth, capturing Mai’s cynical nature perfectly. Also I still think about/use the phrase bumblefuck in the morning. 

5. A comfort fic

just a little stuck on you (you’ll be on me too) - flowermoons, Fire Emblem Three Houses, T rated, Hubert/Ferdinand, one chap 33k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21875707

This brings the cast of FE3H to the modern world and drops them into reality TV show The X Factor. There’s no war or death angst, just a singing contest. I grew up with The X Factor on TV on a Saturday night so this was a delight. Like me, the author is cynical about reality TV which makes the fic even more engaging. Ferdinand mourning his long hair after he cuts it and Hubert running round London looking for him really made my day. 

6. A catharthic fic

Long and Lost - Windian, Tales of Graces, M rated, Richard/Asbel, multichap 36k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5357546/chapters/12372899

Listen game, you can’t spend 40 hours having the protagonist’s motivation as ‘save Richard’ and then pull a no homo on me! In this fic Asbel dutifully marries Cheria only for the whole thing to collapse in on itself when he realises he’s in love with Richard after all. The snow storm scene is something I’ll always remember.

7. A fic you’d like to print and put on your bookshelf

Revival series - MyAibou, Yu-gi-oh,  T rated, multiship, many k

http://fanfiction.net/s/2681684/1/Revival-Prologue-Paradox

This is split into multiple parts and has another multipart followup. A continuation of Yu-gi-oh Duel Monsters with shipping and very decent original characters including villains. My polarshipping heart is in love with this scene on the clifftop in part 2 chapter 11 - a slow dance to the sound of the waves to help Mai remember she isn’t alone *melts into a puddle*

8. A fic you associate with a song

Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been - darkrunner, Yu-gi-oh, rated K+, Mai/Jou, multichap 9k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4445992/1/Who-I-Am-Hates-Who-I-ve-Been

It’s titled after a song. This was one of the first fics I ever found, read and loved. I was way too shy to review but I loved this author dearly. Good old angst & hurt/comfort with a happy ending. A happy ending for Mai was all I wanted haha!

9. A fic that inspires you

Patience, Ponies and Pastries - GoldenThreads, Fire Emblem Three Houses, T rated, Hubert/Ferdinand, multichap, 27k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20722859/chapters/49231019

A shipping fic where the two characters being shipped spend most of the fic apart! This author is so good at characterising the pair, there are treasures hidden throughout. I never thought reading about horses of all things could make me so emotional... 

And this passage from Ferdinand’s point of view:

As long as Hubert did not truly reject such affection, did not throw him in the stocks for his bleeding heart, then he did not require reciprocation. He required that Hubert be cherished, and that was that.

10. A fic that brought you on board a new ship

Marik and Bakura Go To Censored Town - Little Kuriboh, Yu-gi-oh, M rated, multichap, 24k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6954805/1/Marik-Bakura-Go-To-Censored-Town

I spent most of my Yu-gi-oh fandom life wishing there were more fics about Mai and tended to avoid the big slash ships. However, Yu-gi-oh Abridged’s strongest pair were always Marik and Bakura. When I read this fic I realised yes, Marik being an idiot and Bakura being the straight man (not literally) makes this ship sing.

11. A fic you wish could be a movie

Denial & Deception - Bohemienne, Fire Emblem Three Houses, M rated, multichap, 74k (incomplete)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20895731/chapters/49671050

The setting of Derdriu is so lushly described that it would make a wonderful movie setting. Additional points for the masked ball chapters! 

Hubert and Ferdinand infiltrate the Leicester Alliance using a fake relationship. It goes as well as you might expect. There is comedy, there is romance and the whole thing makes you want to smack Hubert round the face with a fish. 

12. A fic that led to you making friends with the author

Past Future Continuous - HermitsUnited, Doctor Who, T rated, multichap 20k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4917490/1/Past-Future-Continuous

We are not in contact anymore but we shared a love of Donna Noble. This shines through in all her alternate season 5 fics! 

13. A fic you’ve gushed about IRL

Festering Under Your Skin - Bohemienne, Fire Emblem Three Houses, M rated, multichap 52k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20465312/chapters/48559553

My poor gf had to put up with me going on about this one. Lady Edelgard is dead and Ferdinand is a Blue Lion who spares Hubert. All of this is played for maximum dramatic potential. Special marks for the scene where Ferdinand accidentally poisons himself with Hubert’s coffee. So brilliantly in character for both of them. And excellently foreshadowed earlier in the fic where an imprisoned Hubert keeps asking for his coffee... 

14. A fic you associate with a place

Heart of Defiance - battlemage15, RWBY, M rated, multichap 150k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7896874/chapters/18038116

I downloaded this to my phone and read it on the top deck of the number 6 bus as it bumped along the country roads of deepest Devon. I was on my way to job interviews in the city and the trip was 2 hours long. The fic itself is a Yang centric shonen power fantasy that goes to pretty dark places. 

15. A fic that made you gasp out loud

Blood and Ink - ShowMeYourFury, RWBY, M rated, Cinder/Ruby, multichap 45k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11754595/1/Blood-and-Ink

This fic is ruthless with Cinder’s villainy. Every time you think she can’t go any further, she does. I love it. 

16. A fic you found at the right time

Forward - Lyricanna, Fire Emblem Fates, not rated, multichap, 34k (incomplete)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12747516/chapters/29075913

I love the concept of this fic so much. Subaki is selected to be a Hoshidan ambassador in Nohr and gets lumped with Niles as a guide. Neither is having a good time. There is a plot going on involving kidnapping and asassination that forces them to work together. 

17. A fic that you would read fic of

The Obligatory Hot Spring Scene - Scribbler, Yu-gi-oh, T rated, oneshot, sub 1k

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6368612/1/The-Obligatory-Hot-Spring-Scene

Written as though the characters are actors and canon is a TV show. I love this concept and would read more in a similar vein

18. A fic that made you laugh out loud

Surrender To Your Peace - spiralpegasus, Fire Emblem Three Houses, M rated, Sylvain/Felix, one chap, 11k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20757260

“This is very unfortunate,” Dimitri says with a frown. “As the leader of this mission, I will take full responsibility and use the Swamp Bedroll.”

One does not simply sacrifice themselves to He Who Saw The Bottom Of The Earth And Lived with such a cavalier attitude. “You know your guilt complex doesn’t actually have to extend to sleeping in a gross swamp bag,” Sylvain tells him disbelievingly.

“I agree, Your Highness,” Dedue says, setting He Whose Stench Haunts The Dreams Of Man down on the ground with a delicate sort of distaste. “None of us need use this… bedroll.” He says bedroll the same way he says food when it’s Flayn’s turn to cook.

19. A fic with a line or two you’ve memorised by heart

one sentiment enlightens to another - newamsterdam, Fire Emblem Three Houses, G rated, Hubert/Ferdinand, oneshot 6k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21074840

Ferdinand rolls his eyes. “Of course I do, Hubert. I remember very well. I just— well. Perhaps I’ve overestimated you.”

Hubert, who has spent the better part of the past few weeks believing he constantly underestimates Ferdinand, bristles.

Not the exact lines but I always keep this in mind when writing the ship. I think these hit on the fundamental misunderstanding between the two characters. Hubert is only human, not some all powerful hero/villain. And Ferdinand isn’t stupid just because he’s honest and emotional. I think the two of them have trouble getting their heads round these concepts!

20. A fic that gave you butterflies

Ataraxia - Windian, Tales of Graces, T rated, Cheria/Pascal, 13k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828981/chapters/17871247

"I want you," Cheria tells her, and the night catches like a rubber band. Her hands are in Pascal's hair, Pascal's arms around hers, her mouth on hers. Their kisses are sloppy and messy, noses knocking against one another, but it's everything and it's nothing at all like kissing Asbel.

When they break for air, Pascal tells her, "You don't know how long I've wanted to do this, Cheria."

Cheria asks, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I dunno Cheria, because you were gonna marry Asbel, maybe?"

It stops her in her tracks. Voice low, she asks, "What am I going to tell him?"

Pascal cups either side of her face. Kisses her, so hot and hard that Cheria's left seeing stars, clinging at the strings of Pascal's swimsuit like a shipwrecked sailor to a spar.

"Screw it. Think about it in the morning. For once in your life, do something you want."

21. A fic that embodies something you value in life

The Truth About Love - MistressAkira, Fire Emblem Fates, T rated, Niles/Subaki, 2k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036081

This fic is experimental in style - the author descrbes it as a soliloquy. The sentiment I take from it is that love is compromising, inconvenient, illogical. Yet it’s still something beautiful and something worth fighting for.

22. A favourite AU

Mobius - SirTeateiMoonlight, Xenoblade Chronicles, T rated, multichap, 17k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17845748/chapters/42111473

Melia finds a copy of Xenoblade, plays it and knows exactly what’s going on in the story. She uses this knowledge to her advantage. It’s a slippery slope. By the end of the story she’s mercilessly torturing Lorothia against her brother’s wishes. 

23. A fic you’ve stayed up late to finish reading

Dirty Sympathy - ideny, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, M rated, Klavier/Apollo, 130k on AO3 not sure on kink meme

https://bludhavens.livejournal.com/88397.html?thread=41790541#t41790541

https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075868/chapters/2160789

I stayed up reading this until 4am and for some reason (probably tiredness) confessed this to my not-yet-gf. She cites this as one of the moments she fell for me!

It’s a dark fic in which Klavier and Apollo are both in abusive relationships with villains. They concoct a plot to implicate the two of them in criminal activities to escape and fall for each other along the way. 

24. A fic that made you feel seen

i knew you were trouble - Magepaw, Fire Emblem Fates, M rated, Niles/Subaki, 8k

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19314568

First of all the title is one of my favourite songs. Second of all the dialogue is everything I want from the Niles/Subaki ship. Third Subaki’s pegasus makes her presence known. Fourth there is a gory battle scene and hurt/comfort gone wrong. And fifth, a happy ending. 

Niles had to turn away, hand pressed to his mouth, before his own blush betrayed him. This was too good to last. This had to be the most embarrassingly vulnerable moment of his entire life, and of course the entirety of the Nohrian and Hoshidan military combined had to be there to see Niles go soft. 

[shijiujun]

history3 ep 9 summary - AKA SHAO FEI IS JEALOUS FOR 26 WHOLE MINUTES

GUYS YOU GONNA DIE OF LAUGHTER THIS EP OMFGGG WTF JUST HAPPENED?!!! although the jealousy was a bit much man

WE START OFF WHERE WE LEFT OFF LAST WEEK - OFFICE + ANDY

we start off with the massage scene again and oooh seductive andy’s tone as he tells tang yi to relax - nice hands and totally hypnotising YOU GO ANDY

bodydumb and shao fei teaming up is hilarious AND OMG so andy bends down to the floor like we all saw last week, and that’s when both bodydumb and shao fei literally gasp like HORRIFIED and just barge into the room to grab andy up and shao fei is all “what the fuck are you doing why are you crouching down what position is this?!”

CUE SLY ANDY JUMPING UP, POUTING AND THEN HIDING BEHIND TANG YI: “ah yi, this person is so fierce i’m so scared”

shao fei: “i’m now tang yi’s bodyguard and i feel that you’re dangerous and problematic so leave right now”

bodydumb at shao fei: “hey why are you snatching my job?!”

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE BOTH OF YOU, AM I BACTERIA?!” - ANDY at shao fei and bodydumb WTF HAHAHAHAHA

omg andy is squatting down on purpose to fuck with them I LOVE HIM

THE NEXT SCENE - they move to the restaurant and geez where is andy GIVE ME MY ANDY but anyway SHAO FEI IS TOTES ANGRY AT TANG YI AND THEY’RE AT THE RESTAURANT AND OMG BODYDUMB YOU HAVE BEEN UPGRADED TO BODYGUARD HE TOTALLY SAW THE ATMOSPHERE AND WAS LIKE ALRIGHT TIME TO FUCKING EXIT instead of sitting around and watch th both of them

omgggggg shao fei is so jealous he’s eating so damn hard and noisily and tang yi is just laughing at him and he CHOKES HE FUCKING CHOKES because he’s eating so damn hard and angrily and tang yi just laughs at him he can’t take it anymore

tang yi insists that they’re friends - shao fei is like: “what kind of friends? there are the ones that go for karaoke, the friends that you exercise with.... and then then kind that do the OTHER kind of exercise, which kind are you guys?!” and after a while of him just talking tang yi interrupts him and goes: “are you trying to understand or are you jealous?”

SHAO FEI, WITHOUT HESITATION: “BOTH!!!!”

and then he denies it as he mutters to himself, and just look at how gleeful and happy tang yi is wtaf and then shao fei goes on and on about how andy has a boyfriend and what if his boyfriend came to find trouble with you? you already have so many enemies, now you want to add on another love-enemy?”

tang yi: “you’re thinking too much”

shao fei goes on as if he didn’t hear him: “you never know, things are crazy nowadays, did you see the news?!!!! etc. etc. especially because you’re so charismatic?!”

and tang yi just takes the praise in stride it’s amazing - and then because shao fei is so damn angry tang yi i think purposely picks up shao fei’s coke and drinks it with the spicy dish they’re having, and as expected, shao fei pauses in his tirade and goes: “hey, you’re drinking coke now?”

and tang yi NODS

OMFGGGGG CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT - TANG YI IS SWEET!!! and shao fei spoils the moment (or makes it better, it’s up to interpretation): “you’re drinking my saliva (from the coke)”

OMGGGGG THE LADDER BODYGUARD DUDE IS QUITE HANDSOME TOO NO?!!!!

JACK is totally jealous that zhao zi is touching some other dude’s pecs and man-boobs, so he’s totally like come touch mine zhao zi don’t touch that old man’s!!!!

jack: “if you want, you can come check mine (muscles)”

he’s totally flirting, but zhao zi is like: “okay! you promised, no take backs, you can’t be shy on me later” 

jack: “me? i think you’re the one who will be scared” (BECAUSE THEY ARE THINKING OF DIFFERENT THINGS)

zhao zi: “this is nothing, back in the academy, i’ve even seen guys butt naked etc. etc.” - dear lord zhao zi you’ve got no idea, you’ve got NO IDEA HOW MUCH jack is thirsting over ur ass

more zhao zi and grandma backstory: SNIFFLES grandma died in his second year of police academy and paid for his education, but didn’t live to see him graduate, and i SWEAR IF JACK DIDN’T ALR LOVE HIM HE DOES NOW?! 

OMG ZHAO ZI CAN U BE MORE STEADY THAT WASN’T LIKE A FLIMSY LADDER?! anw they fall into the pool like in the trailer and omg i love them, and because jack is wearing a white see-through shirt which is totes translucent when he stands up from the pool and zhao zi is totally drooling at his man-boobs and then jack goes: “you’re kidding, you want to check now?!”

HONG YE walks past with Dao Yi, she’s here to discuss smth with Tang yi and waiting for him to come back and then she sees Jack and Zhao Zi in the pool and is like WTF - zhao zi recognises her face from interviews and tv that she’s done (probably for the company etc.) and intros himself as a police and then she ‘s like HMPH WTF and then stomps into the house

LOL - “HONG YE LOOKS LIKE MY GRANDMA” - ZHAO ZI QUOTE OF THE YEAR he’s damn lucky hong ye wasn’t in earshot when he said that she would have DESTROYED HIM

i wanna explain more about hong ye and glasses guy dao yi but i’ll do that after i get this out in full - in any case, she wants him, he obviously likes her, but refuses to be her boyfriend because he is having a dilemma, considering that he’s watched her grow up and also protected her since she was younger in a sense, he’s finding it hard to decide whether to treat her as his charge or a woman that can be his girlfriend

LOLOLOLOL

OMGGGG HOT DOCTOR?!!!!!!!! 

tang yi: “we’re here because i need to repay a debt”

shao fei: “what debt? why must you do it here?”

HOT DOCTOR POPS UP: “because there’s a bed~” - wow hot doctor way to go way to make shao fei go even more mad and jealous

OMFG - SHAO FEI’S EYES WHEN TANG YI STRIPS OFF CLOSE YOUR DAMN MOUTH FLIES ARE GONNA GO IN

OMFGGGGGGGGGG SHAO FEI PLSSSS

you guys can imagine what happens inside and what shao fei hears before barging in, things like “oh this is my first time, am i using too much force? etc. etc.” - of course, of course 

after shao fei barges in, gapes at tang yi, tang yi shooing him off cutely like he would his husband or lover, and then shao fei stomping out-

doctor dude at shao fei: “wow, wasn’t he a bit too angry?” - YEAH DOC YOU DON’T SAY

HE’S STILL ANGRY OMG SHAO FEI - “is your body meant for other people to touch?!!!!”

OH JESUS BASICALLY TANG YI SHRUGS OFF HIS JACKET AND PUFFS UP HIS CHEST AND GOES: “here you go, you wanna touch?!!!”

good on you shao fei, you didn’t take the bait like zhao zi did - he stomps into the house, goes to the fridge, grabs a drink, and then while pouting and obviously jelly still, he presses the drink to tang yi, and tang yi SMILES omgggg he’s killing me with his smiles

omg poooooor bodyguard - he thinks tang yi doesn’t know that shao fei likes him, so he’s trying to tell tang yi that shao fei has other motivations against him aka shao fei is lusting over him, but tang yi already knows?!!! tang yi tells bodyguard that if he cannot control himself, he’ll transfer him out of the house

OH SHIT: bodyguard goes outside, idk who the hell he is talking to but he says over the phone - “hey, it’s me, do you have time to meet?” - he’s definitely meeting a bad person, it could be hong ye but at this point it doesn’t look like it but it could be anyone’s guess

scene at tang yi’s office - he feels the tension between hong ye and dao yi, and basically she wants to make dao yi jealous and mad, so when dao yi suggests a project for tang yi to do, she steps in and goes: “i don’t think we should spend so much money on the project, can you loan me some people and i’ll do a site visit myself to check?”

and then she sees shao fei buddying up with the guy outside - LOL SHAO FEI LEGIT IS GANGSTERBAIT?!!!! EVERYONE ELSE LOVES HIM AND HE’S FRIENDLY W EVERYONE I HOPE

she sees him and she’s like: “i’ve been really good haven’t i? then i wanna go shopping, i want officer meng to guard me while i shop”

and dao yi is like GASPS: “no, miss, i’ll-”

hong ye: “it’s such a waste for a policeman like him to just stay in here doing nothing, he might as well protect me”

shao fei in the end, even though he protests a bit, but - omggggg the way shao fei listens to tang yi without much argument i love it, tang yi says that protecting hong ye is like protecting her, so shao fei smiles, nods, and goes, but not before saying to hong ye: “what is the worst that could happen (on the trip)?” - WOW FORESHADOWING, GOOD JOB SCRIPTWRITERS FINALLY ON THIS PART

i kind of liked this scene because it shows us the hong ye-shao fei sibling rivalry dynamic - challenging, but healthy challenging rather than heated, harsh barbs aimed to murder each other

okay at this point: we can CONFIRM more or less that the person on the photo isn’t glasses guy Dao Yi, because right after hong ye and shao fei leaves, tang yi is very friendly and warm towards dao yi: “if you won’t promise her, you can’t blame her for treating you like this”

dao yi: “it’s not that i won’t, it’s that i can’t”

tang yi: “if you think too much, you’ll just hurt each other”

it ends there - so GUYS we know we have the shooting tmr and hong ye’s shady scene, i really don’t think hong ye is evil at this point, but she could be doing something she thinks is in tang yi’s and the organization’s best interests, but is doing more harm than good - during the earlier scene in the ep w her and dao yi, dao yi mentions that she shouldnt be so concerned with how other ppl will view Xing Tian Meng and whether they would wanna do business with them because their company and the organization is all legal and clean now, so there’s no matter - but then hong ye replies: “that’s only when we’re FULLY legal and clean, not now” - it’s strange that she would make such a distinction, so i guess she is doing something shady but not totally evil, and my take is that when shao fei gets hurt for it, she feels guilty 

or she could be the person bodyguard is meeting?!!!

OR MAYBE I’M THINKING TOO MUCH INTO THIS GUYS

[chiseler]

The Sound of Fury

“America, as a social and political organization, is committed to a cheerful view of life,” Robert Warshow wrote in his seminal 1948 essay “The Gangster as Tragic Hero.” Democracies depend on the conviction that they are making life better and happier for their citizens; only feudal and monarchical societies can enjoy the luxury of fatalism or a fundamentally pessimistic view of life. Praising the gangster genre as a form of modern tragedy, Warshow also accounts for film noir in his statement that, “There always exists a current of opposition, seeking to express by whatever means are available to it that sense of desperation and inevitable failure which optimism itself helps to create.” The gangster’s demise is the purest American tragedy because it is driven by his mania to climb the ladder of success. The end of his saga is inevitable, so in chasing success he is really chasing failure; his self-destructiveness expresses defiance at the inevitability of defeat, but also confirms it.

This underground river of pessimism and disillusionment unites the pre-Code films of the early thirties and postwar film noir; they share a tone of bitter gallows humor; a satisfaction in being wised-up, knowing the score; they flaunt the scars and calluses of lost innocence. Pre-Code movies reflected the free-fall of the Depression, the farce of Prohibition and the dizziness of a society edging towards anarchy. Noir exposed the suppressed anguish of WWII, the anxiety of the Cold War, the stresses of conformity and materialism.

Films like Cry Danger (1951)—recently restored to full glory by the Film Noir Foundation—depict a battered, abraded country that has turned cynicism into a running gag. A man just out of prison after serving five years for something he didn’t do trades sour wisecracks with a one-legged, alcoholic ex-Marine. They make their home in a dilapidated trailer in a scruffy park perched on Bunker Hill, where the proprietor sits around strumming a ukulele and ignoring the busted showers. The vet (Richard Erdman) falls for a pickpocket who steals his wallet whenever he gets drunk. The ex-con (Dick Powell) idealistically tries to vindicate his best friend, who’s still in jail, only to find out he’s a double-crossing liar. The film achieves an extraordinary blend of the glum and the snappy, a deadpan insolence that saturates the air like smog. “What’s five years?” Powell says of his stretch. “You could do that just waiting around.”

While pre-Code movies gleefully portrayed an “age of chiselry,” a country where everyone was looking for an angle, they never plumbed the depths of alienation, fatalism and misanthropy that noir opened up. For all their knowing skepticism, Depression-era films evoke a sense of camaraderie, a shared body heat from people huddled and jostling together—maybe cheating each other, but still sharing jokes and boxcars, Murphy beds and stolen hot-dogs. Noir, by contrast, purveys a chilling sense of isolation and social atomization; not only institutions but individual relationships are corrupt and predatory. There’s no longer a hard-times sense of being all in the same boat. As Kirk Douglas nastily smirks at his colleagues in Ace in the Hole: “I’m in the boat. You’re in the water.”

Noir used unpretentious, low-budget crime thrillers to smuggle this caustic vision into movie theaters during a time when, on the surface, America was at the height of prosperity and social cohesion. Unlike the early-thirties gangster cycle, which reflected a real wave of lawlessness, the crime movies of the fifties were made during a time when the murder rate was lower than in previous or succeeding decades, perhaps as a channel for other, submerged anxieties. Noir’s prophetic vision of disintegrating communities has become only more compelling with time, a development that may explain the passionate revival of interest in film noir in the last decades of the twentieth century.

Healthy, functioning groups don’t exist in noir; even gangs and criminal “organizations” fall apart because their members are out for themselves, ready to betray each other for a payoff or a bigger share of the take. Institutions like politics and business appear only in stories revealing their corruption. The police are the only representatives of government commonly seen, and they are often bullying and crooked, hounding innocent suspects with sadistic relish. Even films that take the side of law enforcement underline hostility between cops and the people they protect. Apart from the justice system, the public sphere does not exist: the town meetings and popular movements that crowd the screen in thirties films, with indignant and excitable citizens marching, rioting or celebrating, are unimaginable in film noir. People seem to exist in a vacuum.

In part, this vision reflects the privatization of life that accelerated in the postwar era, as cars replaced trains; television replaced movie theaters; appliances eliminated the need for servants, milkmen and ice men; suburban back yards took the place of parks, all part of the glorification of the detached home for the “nuclear” family. The homogeneity of the suburbs and the intrusiveness of media and advertising paradoxically diminished any sense of place or community. Meanwhile, Cold War paranoia meant that expressions of communitarian spirit or calls for collective action could rouse suspicions of communist sympathies.

Many of the writers, directors and actors associated with film noir were liberals, often former Communist Party members who had seen the left-wing idealism of the thirties buried by World War II and then vilified during the Cold War. Disillusioned, they used crime movies to indict a culture of rampant greed and cut-throat competition. Thieves’ Highway(1949), the last film directed by Jules Dassin before he left the country to escape the blacklist, slices open the produce business to reveal the rotten heart of capitalism. Even something as pure and nourishing as an apple becomes a poisoned agent of strife when it’s equated with money. A Polish farmer, enraged at being paid less than he was promised for his apples, flings boxes of them off a truck, screaming, “Seventy-five cents! Seventy-five cents!” The apples roll wastefully across the ground, an image foreshadowing the film’s most famous shot, when after the same truck has careened off the road and exploded, apples roll silently down the hillside toward the flaming wreck. When the dead trucker’s partner finds out that money-grubbers have gone out to collect the scattered load to sell, he begins kicking over crates of apples, fuming, “Four bits a box! Four bits a box!” Everyone in the movie is “just trying to make a buck,” and cash haunts the film, dirty crumpled bills changing hands in a series of soiled, coercive transactions.

It is easy to see why the House Un-American Activities Committee wanted to drive people like Dassin out of Hollywood. Films such as Joseph Losey’s The Prowler (another Film Noir Foundation restoration) and Cy Endfield’s The Sound of Fury, (a.k.a Try and Get Me! 1950, the FNF’s next project) are scathing attacks on a materialistic society, unmasking the American dream as a shallow and shabby illusion that breeds crime and shreds the social fabric. (Both directors fled to England in the early fifties to avoid persecution by HUAC.)

Endfield’s stark anti-lynching drama opens with a down-on-his-luck family man hitch-hiking on a dark highway; he tells the trucker who picks him up that he’s been looking in vain for a job. Howard Tyler (Frank Lovejoy) moved his wife and son out to the postwar California suburb of Santa Sierra, hoping for a better life; “I can’t help it if a million other guys had the same idea,” he complains bitterly. They live in a shabby little bungalow behind a wire fence that makes the place look like a miniature P.O.W. camp. Howard’s pregnant wife hates the idea of using a charity clinic, and frets over money owed for groceries, while his whiny little boy begs for money to go the baseball game (“All the other kids are goin’!”) A bartender at a bowling alley sneers at his cheap customer: “You take a beer drinker, you got a jerk.” If Howard weren’t so dejected and humiliated, he would never fall under the spell of Jerry (Lloyd Bridges), the vain braggart he meets at the bowling alley.

Primping and preening, flexing his muscles and showing off his fancy aftershave (“Smells expensive!”), the manic Jerry boasts about his sexual conquests and the big money he makes, and he treats the modest, submissive Howard like his valet. He offers to put him onto something good—“nothing risky”—just driving the car for his hold-ups. When Howard hesitates, Jerry snorts, “You guys kill me! The more you get kicked in the teeth the better you like it.” Their first job is knocking over the grocery store at a cheap motel (“The Rambler’s Rest”), where Jerry easily intimidates an elderly couple and pistol-whips their son. Intoxicated with the easy money—and a few stiff drinks—Howard bursts in on his family with armfuls of groceries. His wife gasps at the extravagance of baked ham and canned peaches, and he brags that now they can get their own TV, and won’t have to go over and watch their neighbors’. “And we’ll throw this piece of junk away!” he crows, pointing to the family’s radio. Soon Howard is buying his wife new shoes and dresses with hot money, telling her he has a night job at a cannery. His little boy sports a cowboy outfit and ambushes his jumpy father with toy guns.

Unsatisfied with these penny-ante crimes, Jerry comes up with a scheme to kidnap a wealthy young man and hold him for ransom. He’s overcome by envy as he fingers the victim’s suit, tailor-made in New York, and after they’ve taken him out to a gravel pit in a disused army base, Jerry panics and kills him. When Howard gets home, dazed with horror and guilt, his wife wakes and tells him about the lovely dream she was having: she had the baby and this time there was no pain at all; “I got right up out of the hospital and took her shopping. I was buying her a pinafore.” Even in her dreams she’s a consumer, subconsciously linking commercial goods with the fantasy of a painless life.

As Howard mentally unravels, the shoddy vulgarity of the culture around him takes on a sinister cast. Jerry shows him the ransom note he’s written in a diner while ordering a steak sandwich (“Cow on a slab!” the waitress yells.) For cover, they go out of town to mail the letter, taking along Jerry’s girlfriend, a glossy blonde, and a lonely manicurist she has dug up for Howard. In a nightclub, he’s subjected to a string of dumb jokes and parlor magic tricks from a burlesque comedian. “Blame my psychiatrist,” the comic quips, “I didn’t pay my bill last month and he’s letting me go crazy.”

From its opening moments, the film depicts the crowd as a mindless and malevolent force, which will eventually be stirred to frenzy by sensationalizing newspaper articles. Crowds in noir are always bloodthirsty mobs, surrounding and destroying strangers in their midst; the communal desire for security is tainted by bigotry and ignorance. This is a dark inversion of Capra’s rallying citizens, or even the all-for-one armies of bums who fight for their squatters’ rights in Wild Boys of the Road. Movies of the Depression era never saw anything wrong with wanting money, good food, a pair of shoes, or even fur coats and diamond bracelets. They are tolerant of people—especially women—who do whatever they have to do get ahead. By contrast, The Sound of Fury shows materialism—the desire to keep up with the neighbors, to make a better life for your family—as a force that corrodes souls and breaks down social decency. The deepest well of pessimism in noir is a distrust of change, desire and ambition. “I just want to be somebody,” people are always saying, but the urge to squeeze more out of life, to grab a chance at happiness, is brutally punished.

Below the surface, the force driving noir stories is the urge to escape: from the past, from the law, from the ordinary, from poverty, from constricting relationships, from the limitations of the self. Noir found its fullest expression in America because the American psyche harbors a passion for independence, an impulse to be, in the words of Walt Whitman, “loosed of limits, and imaginary lines, / Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute.” With this desire for autonomy comes a corresponding fear of loneliness and exile. The more we crave success, the more we dread failure; the more we crave freedom, the more we dread confinement. This is the shadow that spawns all of noir’s shadows: the anxiety imposed by living in a country that elevates opportunity above security; one that instills a compulsion to “make it big,” but offers little sympathy to those who fall short. Film noir is about people who break the rules, pursuing their own interests outside the boundaries of decent society, and about how they are destroyed by society—or by themselves.

The gangster, Robert Warshow wrote, is driven by the need to separate himself from the crowd, but in doing so he isolates and dooms himself. White Heat (1949), which brought James Cagney back to the gangster persona that made him a star, came out one year after the publication of “The Gangster as Tragic Hero.” It took the “man of the city” (as Warshow defined the gangster) out of the city, but Cagney’s explosive death atop an industrial gas tank is the supreme illustration of Warshow’s observation that the gangster’s pursuit of success—“Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”—is a pursuit of death.

White Heat is also a perfect example of what Edward Dimendberg (in Film Noir and the Spaces of Modernity) called “centrifugal” noir: it’s a film without a center, about a world flying apart like the cooling fragments of an exploded star. Cagney’s gang, decaying under the strains of resentment, betrayal and madness, moves between equally bleak urban and rural hideouts. After robbing a train in a rocky no-man’s-land, they hole up in a frigid, creaky old farmhouse “a hundred miles from nowhere,” as Cagney’s wife gripes. Cooped up together in this gloomy Gothic house, surrounded by split-rail fences and naked, rolling hills, they snipe at each other and grumble about their leader. Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) suffers debilitating migraine headaches and huddles in the lap of his gaunt, fiercely loyal Ma. The realization that came to Cagney in Public Enemy as he stumbled into the gutter in the rain—“I ain’t so tough”—is here amplified into an infantile weakness, perpetually on the verge of breakdown. Cody’s frailty only makes him more vicious. At his orders the gang leaves a wounded member behind, bandaged and in pain, to freeze to death once they make their move to a motor court in LA. The motel is typical of the “non-places” (in Marc Augé’s term) where noir flourishes: marginal, transient spaces where “people are always, and never, at home.”

The banality of the modern west makes room for Cagney’s majestically psychotic performance, fine-tuned and sensitive as a landmine. Cody Jarrett crumples inward under the crushing pain and then erupts, and White Heat similarly closes in and then shatters people are either cramped in suffocating enclosures (Cody shoots a man while he’s locked in the trunk of a car, cruelly offering to “give him some air”), or stranded in vacant, inhospitable spaces. At the rural hideout, the wind is always blowing bitterly around the house, tossing the trees; Cody walks alone at night, talking to his dead mother, who was shot in the back by his wife while he was in jail. He tells a friend—really a police plant who will betray him—how lonesome he is, because “all I ever had was Ma,” and how hard his mother’s life was, “always on the run, always on the move.” White Heat brings together the ultra-modern—radio tracking devices; drive-in movie theaters—with the pre-modern, even the primitive. It proves not just that film noir can thrive in the country as well as the city, but that noir was not merely a response to the new—industrialization, the bomb, etc.—but drew on deep veins in the American psyche and the American landscape: the desire to stand alone on top of the hill, even if there’s nowhere to go from there but death; and an accompanying fear of being buried “on the lone prairie,” having no one to talk to but the night wind.

by Imogen Sara Smith

[whinlatter]

underrated hinny moments that make my heart hurt: shell cottage 🐚

'They were all sitting in the living room when he entered the little hall, their attention focused upon Bill, who was talking. The room was light-coloured, pretty, with a small fire of driftwood burning brightly in the fireplace. Harry did not want to drop mud upon the carpet, so he stood in the doorway, listening...'

i just wanted to say a little bit about an underrated hinny moment from of my favourite chapters in deathly hallows, the wandmaker. i love this chapter (and the one after it, also at shell cottage) for so many reasons: the rich visual imagery of the survivors finding their way to the sea; the symbolism of harry preparing the grave by hand for dobby's burial, foreshadowing his own death '('deeper and deeper Harry sank into the grave...'); ron and dean silently joining harry in digging dobby's grave, three soldiers burying a comrade, and both dean and ron offering up items of clothes to dobby as a tribute for dobby's sacrifice... it's all just gorgeous.

but… the hinny moment tho. the hinny scene in this chapter is so tiny and quiet but it's also so sad and so good. ok let’s get into it.

the chapter begins in the immediate aftermath of dobby's death. ginny hasn't been mentioned in the past seventy pages, since early january, with the trio's visit to the lovegood house (the group arrive at shell cottage in mid-march). the last time ginny was mentioned, harry was in devon, looking out to the burrow, realising how close they were to each other, thinking of her but being glad of her safety away from him. that day, he also saw her painted face alongside the others on luna's bedroom ceiling (friends.. friends... friends...) of course, it's at the lovegoods that harry learns the tale of the three brothers, and hears about the deathly hallows for the first time. this is a plot point that, with hindsight, we know foreshadows harry's mortal fate. (on ginny and the intertwined plotlines of hallows/horcruxes/harry's death, see here).

this chapter, then, begins with the little group, having just arrived, confronting terrible tragedy. the scene is reminiscent of the last time harry crash landed, panicking and grieving, in a place of safety: the burrow, after the seven plotters rescue, after hedwig’s death. of course, in that moment, harry is met by ginny: he wants to hold her and find comfort in her; ginny holds his hand and stays close. as we’ll see, there’s a trend in the later stages of the series: whenever harry is grieving, ginny is close by.

harry’s not in devon, this time, but in the neighbouring county of cornwall (two parts of the U.K. with these important historic ties as the two counties out on england’s jagged south-westernly peninsula jutting into the same stretch of sea). as soon as the chapter opens, harry's mind makes a callback to the last time harry staggered from a loved one's body:

'It was like sinking into an old nightmare; for an instant Harry knelt again beside Dumbledore’s body at the foot of the tallest tower at Hogwarts, but in reality he was staring at a tiny body curled upon the grass, pierced by Bellatrix’s silver knife.'

of course, when dumbledore lay dead at the foot of the astronomy tower, it was ginny and ginny alone who was able to get through to harry, to reach him and guide him away. this time, things are different. harry has no comfort here, no ginny present to catch him and receive him in his immediate grief: he's distanced mentally from the others at shell cottage, both by the fact of his loss and by the thoughts of voldemort and his fate that plague him now:

'The sea was rushing against the rock somewhere nearby; Harry listened to it while the others talked, discussing matters in which he could take no interest, making decisions.'

once the grave is dug, the little group gather together to bury dobby. there's another callback to dumbledore's death here - this time, it's to the funeral:

'He forced himself not to break down as he remembered Dumbledore’s funeral, and the rows and rows of golden chairs, and the Minister of Magic in the front row, the recitation of Dumbledore’s achievements, the stateliness of the white marble tomb. He felt that Dobby deserved just as grand a funeral, and yet here the elf lay between bushes in a roughly dug hole.'

harry returns to the memory of the funeral to contrast dumbledore's grand send off with dobby's humble one. but also, on some level, he's mentally returning to moments that were defined both by loss but also by the presence of what was, by his own description, 'his greatest comfort'. last time he said goodbye to a loved one, ginny was at his side - until, of course, the funeral had ended, the goodbye had been said, and harry had acted on his decision to let ginny go and embrace the solitary path left for him ('I've got things to do alone now’).

harry, grieving dobby, turns to the same coping strategies as he showed at dumbledore's funeral. a death means distancing himself from others ('I've got things to do alone now'); it means forcing himself not to break down ('[he] could not bear to hear these things, nor did he think his resolution would hold if he remained sitting beside her'), and it means pushing aside thoughts of his own grief and concentrating on the task left to him ('Moving felt much more bearable than sitting still...').

harry asks for the others for a moment alone, which they grant him. he then marks his friend's grave. the text is now heavy with foreshadowing. we are told, now, that harry has had a realisation as he dug the burial plot, though the details of this realisation is kept from the reader: we know it is somehow linked to the hallows and horcrux distinction. harry thinks about it now as he walks from the grave back to the house, hallows and horcruxes at the forefront of his mind.

'...his mind full of those things that had come to him in the grave, ideas that had taken shape in the darkness, ideas both fascinating and terrible...'

we will learn, in the next chapter, that the decision harry has made is not to race voldemort to the elder wand. he’s chosen to go after horcruxes, and not the hallows; not to become master of death, but to remain the chosen one. it’s such an important moment for harry: he’s choosing who he will be, setting things in motion, making a gamble that distinguishes himself both from voldemort and, he thinks, from dumbledore. he doesn’t know it yet, but this powerful - and shrewd - decision will cost him his life. and whenever harry takes a step closer to his own death...

cut to the next paragraph. immediately after this enormously significant line - of pivotal ideas taking shape in the darkness - we have this:

'They were all sitting in the living room when he entered the little hall, their attention focused upon Bill, who was talking. The room was light-coloured, pretty, with a small fire of driftwood burning brightly in the fireplace. Harry did not want to drop mud upon the carpet, so he stood in the doorway, listening.'

the setting here is important. it's domestic, homely, safe, similar to descriptions of the burrow, a kind of modest, warm, familial comfort. harry stands on the threshold of a room which is described as 'light-coloured' and 'pretty', with a bright fire lit. throughout the series, of course, signals for ginny throughout the text are always about light (especially natural light and sunlight), warmth and fire: obviously we have ginny's 'blazing look', but also her 'glowing like the setting sun' (CoS), her eyes 'reflecting the firelight' (OotP), her 'red hair flying like flames' (HBP), how looking at her is 'like gazing into a brilliant light' (DH). the mentioned prettiness of the room is also supposed to help usher in mention of a character that, in harry’s mind, is beautiful and lovely to behold. harry stands apart from the room and from the others: his fears about the mud are also supposed to reinforce how removed he is from the rest of the gathered group. still, these little descriptions give us little clues that a mention of ginny is coming.

as bill addresses the people gathered in this firelit pretty little room, the part of his monologue that harry's ears prick to is the mention of ginny:

'... lucky that Ginny’s on holiday. If she’d been at Hogwarts, they could have taken her before we reached her. Now we know she’s safe too.'

the mention of ginny here is significant for two reasons. first, news that ginny is safe is the first small piece of comfort harry gets after dobby dies. standing outside this warm, safe, sheltered little room, harry receives news that ginny is out of harm’s way, as are the other members of the weasley family, whom he loves. now both the reader and harry get this little bit of light in the darkness, confirmation that ginny is safe, but also allows her to resume her role in HBP, as some tiny comfort to harry in grief, even in absentia. (honestly i just love the image of harry in the doorway, grief-stricken, covered in mud, listening in the corridor to this one little tiny piece of good news about the girl he’s in love with).

secondly, though, i love how this brief mention allows ginny to enter the narrative of these scenes that are, at its core, about harry’s ultimate destiny in the voldemort/chosen one/horcrux v hallows arc. even when not physically present, ginny stands in as this one flickering little warm light - a little fire, burning still - that anchors harry even when he is making these huge choices that will take him into such deep forms of magic and down so solitary a path where no other character can really reach him. it deepens this connection in the reader’s mind between ginny and harry’s fate in ways that makes him thinking of her as he dies make such deep sense. ginny isn’t a subplot extraneous to the chosen one plot: she’s bound up in it, in this rich, complicated, sad way, not as someone who save this character from his fate, but is essential to sending him off at peace with it. so often when harry is closing in on the truth about the horcruxes and hallows, mentions of ginny are close by (see the kiss meta above). ginny is that important.

'[Bill] looked around and saw Harry standing there. “I’ve been getting them all out of the Burrow,” he explained. “Moved them to Muriel’s. The Death Eaters know Ron’s with you now, they’re bound to target the family—don’t apologise,” he added at the sight of Harry’s expression. “It was always a matter of time, Dad’s been saying so for months. We’re the biggest blood traitor family there is.” “How are they protected?” asked Harry.'

obviously, harry is harry-ing here - he wants to apologise for the risk and danger posed to the weasleys (especially because the reason for the trio's capture was his fault), and he demands information about how ginny and the rest of the weasleys will be kept safe going forward. he knows ginny is safe: he wants to make sure she stays that way.

what's also significant about this moment, though, is that it reinforces this dynamic that runs throughout DH as a book, which is that at all times the reader knows exactly where ginny is. ginny spends the majority book off stage, yet we're told when she's on the train to hogwarts, when she's back home for christmas, when she’s back for easter and moves to muriel's etc. when harry doesn't know where ginny is, during the battle - when she leaves the room of requirement at his instruction but then appears to vanish - it’s therefore deployed to detonate a deep sense of panic, where we see harry confront the worst possible reality, one he is unable to even bring himself to process, the prospect of ginny’s death ('and he wanted to find the other Weasleys, and above all make sure, make quite sure, that Ginny was not—but he could not permit that idea to form in his mind—'). when harry eventually goes to his death in the forest - the ultimate thing he will have to grieve: his own life — of course, it's ginny he comes across in the grounds, waiting to give him comfort one last time, to send him on his way. (see the forest meta again for a more thorough explanation of this).

after this short conversation with bill, harry cleans himself of the dirt and mud of the grave at the kitchen sink. it seems so trivial but i'm just obsessed with the extremely slow pace of this scene. the tempo is so unusual for the series, and there's this extremely compelling domesticity to it, which continues this ongoing association with ginny and the burrow in the reader's mind. harry slowly and methodically washes and dries his hands as he thinks, again, of dumbledore and the hallows, in this setting that feels like the end of the earth:

'Dawn was breaking over the horizon, shell pink and faintly gold, as he washed, again following the train of thought that had come to him in the dark garden . . . Harry dried his hands, impervious to the beauty of the scene outside the window and to the murmuring of the others in the sitting room. He looked out over the ocean and felt closer, this dawn, than ever before, closer to the heart of it all.'

in the rest of the chapter, of course, harry will make some of the most important choices he’ll ever make. he'll choose to talk first to griphook over ollivander, a choice he recognises as making the ultimate decision to hunt horcruxes over hallows. the conversations with these characters will each inch him closer to the end of his quest, and of his life. and he’ll think about who he is — who dumbledore understood him to be — and throw back veils of understanding to see himself most clearly for the first time, the most significant epiphany scene bar the later discovery of his own death in dumbledore’s office.

'You gave Ron the Deluminator . . . You understood him. . . . You gave him a way back . . . And you understood Wormtail too. . . . You knew there was a bit of regret there, somewhere. . . . And if you knew them . . . What did you know about me, Dumbledore?'

i really love these lines on their own terms, but i just think this chapter, and harry’s time at shell cottage, are some of the most significant statements of harry’s essence as a character we get in the whole series. we’re seeing who harry has become and all that dumbledore knew that he was: the core elements of harry, the cumulative weight of the preceding years on his shoulders, and the person made and moulded by everything he has been through up to this point. he's seeing clearly now. in his grief over dobby, he finally masters the connection with his mind and voldemort’s, using his grief and his love as a barrier, and chooses who he will be.

so i just think it means so much that ginny is brought, quietly, into the frame at this extremely pivotal point. she’s a little driftwood fire in a warm little family home by the sea, a brief moment of pause and safety and sanctuary, before the end; not holding harry back from his fate, but giving him some strength, some comfort, as he embraces it.

(ps: the next time ginny is mentioned, in the next chapter, shell cottage, it happens during this sweet little dinnertime scene by the fireplace, with romantic undertones with fleur worrying about bill in his absence, right before remus bursts in to announce that his own wife has just given birth to their son, with harry surrounded by all this talk of little families... ok i'll stop i'll stop but honestly):

A strong wind gusted against the cottage windows as Bill and Ollivander set off into the night. The rest of them squeezed in around the table; elbow to elbow and with barely enough room to move, they started to eat. The fire crackled and popped in the grate beside them. Fleur, Harry noticed, was merely playing with her food; she glanced at the window every few minutes; however, Bill returned before they had finished their first course, his long hair tangled by the wind. "Everything's fine," he told Fleur. "Ollivander settled in, Mum and Dad say hello. Ginny sends you all her love...'

[esonetwork]

A blog of ice and fire: Thoughts on Game of Thrones season 8 (spoilers!)

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/a-blog-of-ice-and-fire-thoughts-on-game-of-thrones-season-8-spoilers/

A blog of ice and fire: Thoughts on Game of Thrones season 8 (spoilers!)

After four months of gasping, cheering, and yelling at the TV, my journey through Game of Thrones came to an end this past week. In some ways I’m glad I waited till the show was completely done to start watching it (I’ll delve into that thought more later), but I’m also a little sad I missed out on some of the episode-by-episode discussions that happened while the show was airing.

I was really curious to see what my thoughts on the final season would be, after I heard that it was controversial amongst fans. As I’ve mentioned before, I heard spoilers about how most of the major character arcs ended before I started watching this show, so I didn’t get caught up in guessing who would ultimately take the Iron Throne.

In the end, I’m pretty happy with where most of the character arcs ended up, though I will say that the conclusion felt a little rushed and needed more fleshing out.

The North remembers

As a fan of House Stark, I was going to be happy with any member of the Stark family ending up on the Iron Throne, and I think Bran is an interesting choice. It has some nice narrative symmetry, bringing the show full circle (since Jaime Lannister basically started this whole mess by pushing Bran out a window). I also like that the new leader of Westeros didn’t win the throne through violence and hadn’t been seeking power for its own sake.

I will say that if “King Bran” was always going to be endgame, the showrunners needed to do a little better job of foreshadowing that and giving Bran a more active role throughout the series. Maybe part of that disjointed feeling has to do with the fact that the show outpaced George R.R. Martin’s books, and so the showrunners had to come up with their own conclusion to the story. But still, they could have started making Bran more of a major player back in season 5, when the show really started diverging from the books.

I also love, love, love that Sansa is crowned Queen in the North. She’s had to suffer through so much, and I’m so happy that she survived all the dangerous political games going on around her and outlasted everyone who tried to use her as a pawn. Again, similar to Bran, I wish the show had done more to set up the North declaring its independence, but it makes sense that they’d want to do that after all the bad stuff that’s happened to them. It’s also great to see Arya heading off on her own adventures (spin-off series, anyone?).

The Dragon Queen

Now, one of the most controversial aspects of the series finale is Dany’s abrupt turn to the dark side. While I was okay with this plot twist, I totally understand those who were disappointed and wanted something different for her character.

The show should have started showing us Dany’s fall from the light much sooner, and with more nuance this could have been a truly fascinating and heartbreaking character arc. Instead, Dany simply snaps two episodes from the end of the series and starts burning literally everything in King’s Landing, even innocent children. It just didn’t make sense for her character at that time. The series needed to do more to show how (and why) she arrived at that point.

I do believe that it’s more difficult to show a hero’s fall from grace than a villain’s redemption, and off the top of my head, I can’t think of an example where the former has been done really well (although I’m sure there’s one that I’m simply forgetting). We did see hints of Dany’s darkness before the final season, as she sometimes responded too harshly to those who opposed her.

The show could have spent more time reflecting on Dany’s sense of justice and demonstrating how her desire for vengeance gradually drowns out her compassion. Dany believes it is her right to rule the Iron Throne; is that fair, just, and noble, or is there a darker sense of entitlement running underneath the surface? There are so many fascinating psychological and philosophical issues that the show just didn’t explore.

The fall of the Lannisters

Another character arc that seemed a little too abrupt was Jaime Lannister’s. He actually leaves Cersei to go fight in the battle against the Night King, and it seems like maybe he’s finally on a better path. Although Jaime has never really been one of my favorite characters, even I was kinda rooting for him to have a redemption arc.

Then, after he demonstrates his love for Brienne, he just decides, “Never mind — I’m going back to King’s Landing to be with Cersei!” He and Cersei die in each others’ arms while rubble collapses on top of them.

Cersei is probably my favorite villain on this show, and I believe she deserved a more epic death scene than that. I would have preferred to have Jaime actually reject Cersei in the end. Maybe he lies to Brienne so that she won’t follow him to King’s Landing and place herself in harm’s way, and then he kills Cersei himself. Maybe he still dies in the destruction of King’s Landing, but Brienne finds out the truth and knows that Jaime died a hero.

As it stands, I’m really mad that Jaime broke my girl Brienne’s heart, and she deserved better. I know that in the final episode you see that scene where Brienne is writing about all of Jaime’s deeds in that fancy book, but in my personal head-canon she scratches all that out and writes lots of dirt about him in there instead. 

The King in the North

I’m still trying to decide how I feel about Jon Snow’s character arc. He goes from being King in the North, to one of Dany’s greatest allies, and then he ends up killing her once he sees what she’s become. He still loves her, even though they’re related and she’s turned to the dark side. (It’s really, really complicated.)

If I hadn’t known the ending already, I probably would have been rooting for Jon to take the Iron Throne, and after all his moments of triumph, it is a little disappointing that he’s basically exiled and sentenced to return to the Night’s Watch.

Yet it does have a sense of Shakespearean tragedy to it; Jon gives up his destiny and a woman he deeply cares about in order to do what he believes is right for the future of Westeros. I think that if the series had gotten one more season, to really flesh out Dany’s fall and the final battle for the throne, the writers also would have had enough time to give us a really deep arc for Jon. Maybe it still ends in his exile, but they could have made that whole arc more meaningful.

Final thoughts

While I’ve spent a lot of time in this blog talking about some of the drawbacks of the final season, I don’t want to end on a negative note because I really, really loved this show.

From season 1 up until the battle against the Night King and his army of the dead (season 8, episode 3), Game of Thrones is some of the best television I have ever watched, or probably ever will watch. While the final few episodes of the series were a little disappointing/rushed, that doesn’t take away from how amazing and narratively rich this series is as a whole.

Peter Dinklage leads a master class in acting every single episode. I never expected it, but Theon Greyjoy had an amazingly beautiful redemption arc, and I felt genuine sadness when he died. I loved Jorah Mormont’s unrequited love story, and it was fitting that he died protecting Dany. Overall the battle scenes and special effects in this series were amazing, and I got excited every single time the dragons showed up.

I’m so glad I finally decided to watch Game of Thrones, and I can definitely see myself returning to certain arcs and rewatching my favorite scenes (although I never, ever want to watch the Red Wedding again). In the end, I am glad that I heard some spoilers about the final season, because it helped me adjust my expectations regarding the final episodes. Even though I personally would have changed some things, I’m happy I went on this journey.

Game of Thrones is one of my all-time favorite TV shows now, and I’m looking forward to talking more about it with other fans now that I know the complete story.

[smilingperformer]

SM074 - Thoughts

Holy cow... that was some tough ride. First it makes you laugh, then it crushes you, then it rekindles your inner light. So to speak. If you ask me, I’d say this was an episode well executed. Ula’Ula Arc continues on strong!

Satoshi is finally on Ula’Ula island Territory, and we get some others news during the scene before opening song kicks in: Alola League is being set up and both Kaki and Satoshi are fired up! We don’t have to argue about Alola League possibility anymore! : D

(Warning, I went quite analysive on this post, specifically about Sakaki and Kuchinashi. Be prepared for a really long post. lol)

I won’t like, it kinda feels hard to figure out where to start. So, why don’t we start with Rocket Gang, because well, the classmates aren’t here, and our only shots of them was from the beginning where Alola League was confirmed by Kukui, who then asked everyone to help out with setting it up. I wonder when it’ll be up for attendance!

Anyway, Rocket Gang!

While their role in this episode was more of a sideplot and to foreshadow future events, their scenes were very enjoyable and each episode of Sun & Moon makes me love them more and more. Musashi is daydreaming about Mimikkyu-Z move, and Kojiro & Nyarth are just a bit farther looking at the overjoyed Musashi, a bit bummed? Apparently she’s not letting the Z-ring up lol. Typical Musashi. When they see Satoshi the Brat Boy come to Ula Ula via Ship (this kinda reminds me of how they always used to following him on the same ship, esp. at the start of both Hoenn and Sinnoh.), they notice no classmates and immediately realise they might have a chance at winning against him. While we all know they’re doomed to fail (because they really are, nothing is confirmed but I find it hard to believe they’d win, as much as I want them to), I wish them luck! :3

We then cut to Kuchinashi, who seems to be sleepy, and wants to go take a nap somewhere else than the Police Station. It seems like he’s actually an active policeman in Pokeani. Was he in the games? Local Junsa calls him out in slacking, tho he pretends he’s on patrol and then heads back to Police Station, claiming he forgot something.

Looks like he was just trying to avoid his over a dozen Alolan Nyarth who keep on asking for food. I’m not cat owner, but apparently this is very relatable. :D This was a cute scene and all, but the next scene is the most intriquing one.

Kuchinashi receives as call, and while he tries to avoid answering it at first, hoping whoever is phoning him would give up, he eventually picks it up and oh guess who’s there:

Had I not seen the preview, I’d have been more suprised! But I did gasp at the scene while seeing it live thou.

And Sakaki is addressing Kuchinashi as an old friend? What is their deal here? I mean, SM073 already explained that the two know each other, but it looks like their relationship is deeper (And I mean more mysterious by it). Sakaki doesn’t seem to be aware of Kuchinashi being both Island King and police officer thou so... did they know each other before Kuchinashi became Island King or before he even became a police officer? Is Kuchinashi in Pokeani actually an ex-con who turned to the right side of the law? There’s more to this dialogue that makes me really curious. After small talk, Sakaki says that “he now gets it”. Get’s what exactly? He then tries to pry info out of Kuchinashi about “Kagayaki-sama“, which we localisation fans know as The Blinding One (see what’s being foreshadowed?). I didn’t know what exactly this was until later during the episode when I watched it live, but I had a hunch he might be asking about it. And I was correct. This is the first hint of an incoming arc about Necrozma, and with Sakaki being involved, a possible Rainbow Rocket arc!  I am beyond stoked and excited!

The way Kuchinashi reacts to the question is really interesting as well. I bet he does know, as we later know it is part of another legend told on Alola. But he seems certain on not letting Sakaki know, telling him he's never heard of it (the man keeps on lying to everyone, pffffft). So, I doubt he’s in league with Rocket Gang but, he might have had some past with them before. More specifically with Sakaki. What kind thou? Guess we’ll find out later this... summer? Autumn? Winter? This arc specifically? I’m finding it hard to predict future stuff for Sun & Moon, it always suprises me in different ways.

Sakaki expected a lousy answer from Kuchinashi, but like, this line has me so curious? Just what is Sakaki planning? I think he’s gonna have a big part in Necrozma arc, and Pokeani might try doing something original with merging ideas of Rainbow Rocket, Necrozma and the post-game stuff from Sun & Moon games (NOT Ultra ones, since Ultra replaced the Post Game from original games to Rainbow Rocket). Anyway, this quite intense Phone Call is finally hung up (Sakaki didn’t seem too pleased, calling his name just when Kuchinashi says he’s hanging up. He didn’t sound mad or anything, it was quite a calm and collective voice, but it was like he was trying to intimidate him? Idk) after Satoshi starts shouting outside, looking for the Island King himself. I guess our depressed Nyarth cop got off the hook, so to say? At least for now.

Maybe I should have put this part of this post as a seperate one, but... I’m not sure how to format it. If people want me to put it seperately, I can do so. But, moving on!

Well, before we move on with the plot of this episode, Satoshi gets piled up with Kuchinashi’s Nyarth, and Bevenom causes bit of chaos by shooting some... stuff, at them. Then Bevenom provokes the cats and a fight between Satoshi’s friends and Alolan Nyarth occurs. The cats won. lol Poor Satoshi. Rought start for this Island Pilgrimare.

And once again, when Kuchinashi gets asked himself as an Island King, he lies, saying Kuchinashi is his co-worker and currently on a patrol. Pfffft. He’s got some tough nerves to keep on lying to strangers. On top of it all, he tricks Satoshi into keeping company to the Alolan Nyarth “until Kuchinashi comes back“. Ruuuuude! He seems to be quite fed up with life. : D But this keeps his character interesting, he’s totally my fav Kahuna now. Sorry Lychee.

Kuchinashi does take note to Lugarugan and Bevenom specifically before tricking Satoshi into playing with the Nyarth thou. Doing a good job as Island King :)

So... Satoshi is dead from keeping company before the break time. Poor thing. These Alolan Nyarth sure are attention-hungry. (The Commercial Breaktime part is announced by Sakaki and somehow it gives me shivers lol)

After showing how exhausted Satoshi is, which is possibly because of playing with the cats for hours, Acerola shows up, searching for Uncle Kuchinashi. I have to say, the way she’s animated during this scene is so cute and gorgeus at the same time? She’s absolutely beautiful in Pokeani, they nailed here so well ♥

Well, after Satoshi explains Kuchinashi isn’t here and how he’s staying there until the “other officer“ comes back, Acerola blows the old man’s cover. Satoshi’s reaction is a lot calmer compared to Rocket Gan Trio’s, but you can see he’s a bit suprised. He’s also quite calm about Mimi-tan being a ghost. The pictures Rotom took were quite spooky... Acerola then offers Satoshi to take him to Kuchinashi, as if knowing she’ll know how to find him. This girl knows this man well, huh?

And just look at this animation, it’s perfection. The leg movement, the pose, the cuteness, the gorgeusness! That’s it, she’s my fav Pokeani character now. I’m gonna be sad when Ula Ula Arc is over I’m so sad she’s not a classmate ;_; She better appear more later on!

Back on topic, they head to the library Acerola works at, and after a small introduction to the place, Acerola brings up a book about a local legend, to which Bevenom seems to show being curious on. And so am I!

To explain it shortly, legend is about The Blinding One (Ultra Necrozma), Lunala and Solgaleo bringing light to a newly founded Alola Region, which was without a light at the time. If you want a full recap, I’ll point you to this post.

So, we now know some lore about Alola in Pokeaniverse! I love lore, and I was stoked to learn about Pokeani’s version of the Necrozma legend. It’s a bit different to the game one, where the Blinding One is a legend told in Ultra Megaopolis instead of Alola, and it’s actually about Necrozma itself instead of Ultra Necrozma. I wonder how they’ll showcase the hostile, incomplete Necrozma, who’s supposed to be in constant pain unless it fuses with Lunala/Solgaleo... hmmmmm. I’m worrying over Hoshigumo/Nebby now. Because of the Pokedex entries.

Acerola then informs Satoshi that Uncle Kuchinashi believes The Blinding One to be an Ultra beast. This bit also confirms Kuchinashi knows about the legend, and lied to Sakaki about. XD Ofc, the mafia boss didn’t believe him.

Well, what we didn’t see until the last second of the scene is that Rocket Gang is back to tailing Satoshi, and they have now learned about the tale of The Blinding One. They don’t know that Sakaki knows about it already, because they want to go and inform him right away. Weeell, they get scolded by Matori later in the episode for not bringing in new info anyway. Poor buffoons.

Small bits I like about this episode: How Mokuroh is absolutely adorable throughout it (I want to see the part where Satoshi feeds Mokuroh giffed it’s so CUTE) and Mimi-tan actually fancying Pikachu, unlike some other Mimikyu we know :))

I gotta say, the dynamic between Satoshi and Acerola is quite enjoyable. Satoshi is shown a bit restless here, wanting to go search for Kuchinashi at the Police Station, while Acerola just with proudness claims that there’s no need. Because she’s got the ultimate weapon for getting him to her: the hostage! Of his Kendama toy.

She’s adorable. How did Kuchinashi end up becoming her carer. That’s it this is my new Discord avatar. Welp. Her hostage works, because Kuchinashi comes right to her house.

I think this line confirmes Satoshi is gonna do another trial before SM077, and I think it’ll be the Ghost Trial. Maybe it’s a bit different to the games, since SM076 is gonna be Musashi’s Mimikyu VS Satoshi’s Pikachu. And they’re hyping it with different summaries, a lot. We’ll see, I’m not really having any ideas how they could portray Totem Mimikyu in the same episode. But I can see him getting the Ghost-Z Crystal. Anyway, let’s move on.

Kuchinashi denies Satoshi’s challenge, stating he can already see that he’s not strong enough to challenge them. He even tells him to go back to Melemele. Kinda harsh. Acerola convinces him to give the boy a try thou (by giving him glares and claming Kuchinashi is just finding his job a pain), so they’re gonna do a Pre-Trial for Trials. : D Which btw, is the highlight of this episode. I love how Kuchinashi seems to be unable to say no to Acerola. What a duo they are.

So, Kuchinashi uses Waruvial with the Intimidate Ability, while Satoshi uses Lugarugan, who showed interest in fighing earlier. However, we can see Lugarugan getting intimidated by this ability, and as we know, he’s got anger issues.

Btw, Kuchinashi doesn’t show a single interest in this fight. He looks bored. He knows he’s gonna win.

Well, each time Lugarugan gets intimidated by Waruvial, it gets angrier, and Satoshi notices this. He tries to calm Lugarugan, and well, so far it’s still listening, but...

None of Lugarugan’s move have an effect on Waruvial, and Kuchinashi manages to get Lugarugan trapped in a Sand Tomb. And well, this is where things get really serious.

Red-Eyed Lugarugan is back, and it’s not because of dirt, but because of not being able to control his own anger. I feel bad for thinking it was due to dirt. SM069 already kinda showed that it wasn’t related to dirt, because Lugarugan was dirty there. But let’s continue. Because this is where I start feeling ache in my heart.

Honestly, Satoshi looks terrified here. He knows what’s gonna happen. He knows already he won’t be able to control him! And he’s right!

The fight turns into Lugarugan not listening to any words Satoshi says, and it just keeps on biting Waruvial like a wild raging dog. It’s scary. It’s terrifying. And Satoshi has every right to be scared. But Kuchinashi?

He’s just being rude ass here, like he’s enjoying this scenario here. He seems so savage during this whole scene. Like he’s toying with the boy. And I sort of want to slap Kuchinashi for this, but then again, I love what Pokeani is doing with him here! We haven’t had Gym Leaders like him before, and to top it all, this is the first Dark-Type specialist Satoshi has to beat. Acerola is scared at Lugarugan here.

Kuchinashi does creepy smiles here while waiting for the right moment to counter enraged Lugarugan. You can see he’s a dark-type specialist. It sort of flows around him. Once the following scenes happens thou...

Cue the screenshot that starts breaking me. Seriously. We haven’t seen him look like this in whole Alola! He’s breaking!

And when Kuchinashi orders Waruvial to use Crunch, and it lands on Lugarugan perfectly...

Cue the most heartbreaking scene I have ever seen of Satoshi. I mean it. This is what breaks my heart! XYZ’s loss against Wurfic wasn’t enough, thou it was close! And I just had to see this similar shot of someone else in another show, so to see it this soon in Pokeani, with Satoshi, hurts so god damn much!

Lugarugan falls down, and the fight is over.

With Satoshi in disbelief. Seriously. I started crying few moments ago already. He looks so devastated. He’s lost before. But somehow this loss hurt so much more than other losses.

When he goes to Lugarugan and asks him if it’s alright, seriously, he looks like he’s about to cry. He’s at the line of the breaking point.

And he’s certainly keeping it in! He’s about to cry! ;_; And so am I hold on. I have to point out that Rica Matsumoto’s performance in this scene, and the next, is absolutely beautiful and I applaud her for a job well done.

Kuchinashi just straight up tells Satoshi that he should go back to Melemele Island. But the way Satoshi says the following line?

He’s saying it with the kind of voice that implicates that he’s so ready to cry and he’s determined on not giving up! I love this boy, and due to how impactful this scene is, I love the whole sequence of the scene, from start of the fight to the finish of this scene, whole lot!

This is the Satoshi we’ve learned to love. Determined to never give up. Determined to stay on the Island and train to become stronger, to be able to beat Kuchinashi. It’s admirable, inspiring, and I was once again reminded why this boy is such a golden one. I can’t believe I used to think lousy stuff about him years ago. I feel awful.

Anyway, Kuchinashi then tells him to do as he pleases. We then have another foreshadowing from Rocket Gang for the SM076, and I kinda explained the scene before, so, moving on! (Sorry Rocket Gang you know I love them D:)

The final scene is a good one as well. Lugarugan is sulking alone about the loss, and Satoshi goes to him, talking about how he’s frustrated, and how they weren’t able to do anything during the battle. It was very one-sided after all. He’s clearly disappointed. But then he apologizes to Lugarugan, like he seems to believe it’s his fault he can’t control Lugarugan’s anger issues. And well. He’d never blame his Pokemon. His friends. He then asks Acerola about where he could train on Ula’Ula Island, and Acerola suggests on meeting with Kapu-Bulul. Which is next week’s episode!

The end of SM074! I don’t know why I went such detail on this one. I’m blaming it on plot elements, creating my new favourite scene in Pokeani, making me love Acerola and Kuchinashi more, etc etc etc. If you guys managed to read this all, I applaud you. And sorry for sucha long post. :’D

Pokeproblem of the episode is stunning. Kuchinashi loves teasing his Nyarth.

While the preview talks about Island Kings resembling the Island Deityes by their personalities (bless the preview dialogues), we’ll be heading to the Ruins of Abudance, where Kapu-Bulul resides. And they’ll be crossing the desert to get there! Time for some slacker training!

Kapu-Bulul! Intense Slacker Training! Cya all next week!

[royalfoxfics]

Art by Twin Doodles

Ao3

FF.net

In which Chloe sits in time out, Pollen goes for a spin, and foreshadowing is a real pain. 

Chloe sat on the bed facing the wall and fuming.  Adrien had put her there after she had nearly blown a blood vessel glaring at her less than functional Kwami.  Pollen was talking with Plagg and Adrien behind her, while she “cooled down” with a small cup of water Adrien had given her.  

 She glared down at her reflection in the cheap paper cup of tap water.  Since she had been born, everything in her life had been brand new and top of the line.  She had been raised with a silver spoon in her mouth and a roll she was literally born to play.  Now she finally had a chance to go off script, and that chance came in the form of a pre-used piece of junk with no instruction manual.  She knew there was a word or phrase for that sort of thing. Irony?  Poetic Justice?  Pain in the ass, that was it.  

 She grimaced at the soggy cup before draining it down in one gulp, just so she wouldn’t have to see her own miserable face anymore.  She tried not to taste the commoners water as it went down.  At least it was cold.  She crumpled the cup into a damp ball and tossed it at the waist bin across the room, and watched as it fell several feet short and to the left.    

 ‘…Whatever.’

 She shook her head and turned her attention to the hushed conversation behind her.  

 “So you don’t remember anything?” Adrien asked.

 “We remember that we have a grave dislike for being asked foolish questions,” Pollen snapped.  “Our memory is perfect.  It is just a tad… hazy when it comes to anything regarding transformation.”  

 Chloe was glad to hear that Pollen sounded extremely uncomfortable.  The little pest had better feel bad about not knowing how to do its’ job.  If she had a servant that didn’t remember to bow to her when she walked in the room she’d have them fired on the spot.  Unless it was Serge.  Serge didn’t need to bow to anyone as far as she was concerned.

 Plagg groaned behind her. Adrien shushed him and tried again.

 “Look we really don’t have time for all this.  Can you at least remember the words to transform?”

 The silence that followed was not promising.  

 Plagg groaned again and Chloe wanted to smash her head against the wall in front of her, but her poor lovely face had already been disfigured enough.  

 Useless.  Her miraculous was completely useless.  She might as well just throw it at the Akumas for all the good it would do now.  Why did this sort of thing always seem to happen to her?  

 Behind her, Pollen was continuing to argue with Plagg while Adrian tried to keep things from escalating further.

 “Seriously, I can get being a little forgetful at first after two centuries, but you’ve been awake for how long now?” Plagg asked.

 “Well perhaps it would all come back to us more quickly if someone hadn’t spent an entire night bashing us over the head with incomplete historical twaddle!” Pollen yelled back, purposefully turning to look over their shoulder at Chloe as they did so.  

 “Oh give me a break,” Plagg said, rolling his eyes.  

 But Chloe didn’t hear him. Her blood felt like it had just turned to ice.  

 “It’s my fault…”  

 “Did you say something, Chloe?”  Adrien asked, trying to hold back Pollen from attempting to stab Plagg with their rear end.

 “It’s my fault,” she repeated, turning around to look at them.

 They were all taken aback by how guilty and terrified she looked.  

 “I broke my miraculous!”

 Plagg sighed and shook his head.  

 “Kid, Kwamies are made of pure energy.  You couldn’t hurt us with an old-“

 “It’s my fault!” Chloe almost screamed.  “It’s always my fault!  I screwed up my only chance because I freaked out and hurt someone, again!”  

 She clutched the sides of her head and stared at her feet.

 “Chloe, I’m pretty sure you were actually justified this time,” Adrien said, shooting Pollen an angry look.  

 Chloe wasn’t listening. She stood up from the bed and began pacing in front of them and repeating.

 “I broke the Coyami, I broke the Coyami, I broke the Coyami,”  

 “Kwami,” Pollen hesitantly corrected.  

 “Whatever!”  

 Pollen winced as Chloe rounded on them.  

 “The point is I’m a monster. I hurt everybody that I come in contact with, and most of the time I am totally fine with it!”  

 “Chloe, you need to calm dow-“

 “No Adrien!  No!  I said it last night.  I am not a nice person.  I am a horrible monster who should never be given a miraculous!”  She turned away from them and threw her hands in the air.  “I’ve hurt so many people they may as well Crown Me queen of the Akumas!”

 Amidst Chloe’s angry ranting, her miraculous suddenly flashed and Pollen’s eyes lit up.  

 “Wait, that was iiiiiiiiii-“

 Their words became a confused scream as they were suddenly pulled towards Chloe as if sucked in by an invisible vacuum cleaner.  Chloe had her back to them, and when she turned around to see what the noise was about, she saw the tiny creature come screaming straight at her head!  Naturally, she screamed too, but after their fight last night she also had the sense to duck.  It did little good though, as Pollen just barely overshot her before veering sharply to the left and began spiraling towards Chloe’s head as if caught in a whirlpool.  Still screaming the whole way.  

 The screaming only stopped when Pollen disappeared into the miraculous in another flash of magic, and the comb sprouted two long black antennae.  There was one brief second of silence and stillness, and then Chloe’s body jerked up violently.  She practically threw herself into a standing position with her limbs out at her sides, and almost seemed to be hovering above the ground, as if being abducted by a U.F.O.  The center of her face exploded with blinding yellow light, and golden energy began washing over her body as she was jerked this way and that in a clumsy looking spinning dance, as if she were a beautiful puppet on invisible strings, being controlled by a child that thought she was a sock monkey.  

 In the span of only a few seconds, Chloe Bourgeois had disappeared from the room, and in her place stood a beautiful and mysterious stranger.  

 “I think she said the magic words,” Plagg commented.

 “Chloe…” Adrien gasped. “That was amazing!  How did you?  I mean- “

 Adrian ran his hand threw his hair as he looked her up and down.  He had to forcibly remind himself that he was still looking at Chloe. Somehow his mind just didn’t want to associate the two faces.  

 “I can’t believe it.  I mean, I knew you could do it, but…  Wow, you look incredible!  How do you feel?”

 “…Ow…” Chloe squeaked.

 She was holding herself completely still, as if afraid to move a muscle for fear she would suddenly start jerking around again.  She seemed to be holding her breath too, as if afraid even breathing might hurt.  

 “…Are you okay?”

 Chloe’s expression changed from one of fear and pain, to one of someone who was trying very hard to stretch out the last of their patience.  She forced herself to slowly let out the breath she was holding and cautiously breathed in again.  When that seemed to work without causing further injury, she tried speaking in full sentences.

 “No Adrien.  I am not okay,” she said, very slowly.  “My body was just jerked around like a ragdoll, and every bruise feels like it was just rebruised with tiny little lacrosse sticks.”

 She began to very slowly relax her arms.  

 “…Oh.”  Adrien said, frowning at her.  “That’s… weird.”

 “Ehe, the transformation process can be a little ruff the first couple times,” Plagg said, flying around to look the new Chloe over.  

 “It wasn’t for me!” Adrien said.  

 Plagg stopped and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.  

 “Yeah, well…  you were really enthusiastic about it.”  

 Chloe began slowly rolling her shoulders and very carefully moving the rest of her body around to stretch it out.  

 “Okay…  Okay I think…”  She took a deep breath and let her shoulders loosen up.  “I think… I’m okay now.”

 She looked down at herself and saw she was wearing a skintight suit similar to Ladybug’s, though the color and pattern was different.  She shuddered and swayed slightly.  Adrien rushed to her side to steady her.  

 “Are you sure you’re okay?”

 Chloe nodded.  

 “Yeah, it’s just… kind of familiar…”

 She frowned and unconsciously reached up to touch the mask on her face.    Adrien frowned too.

 “…Close your eyes.”

 She did as he asked, and he carefully walked her forward a few feet and turned her slightly,

 “Now open them.”

 She did, and gasped.  He had put her in front of the dirty old mirror she had checked her hair in earlier, only now it looked worthy enough to hang in the Louvre.  

 “Is that… is that me?”

 “The one and only,” Adrien assured her.  “No akumatized wannabe this time.  That’s the real you, Chloe.  Well, I guess you’re not Chloe anymore.  Any ideas on your new name?  I’m thinking something inspiring.  Something powerful.  Waspwoman!  No, too generic… Or how about BuzzKill!  No, you’d never get invited to parties.”

 He continued to talk, but Chloe tuned him out, completely mesmerized by her own reflection.  She was wearing a flattering one-piece gold and black body suit, though its’ design made her look like she was wearing knee high boots, and long black gloves that went up past her elbows.  A broad black stripe ran over her chest, which she was pleased to see accentuated her bust nicely, while a few more smaller lines ran across her stomach and formed two shallow Vs.  Her mask was black, but her eyes were surrounded by gold eyeshadow that almost formed a second mask inside the first.  Strung across her waist was a circular satchel with a gold and black bulls eye design, and two strings with little yellow cones hanging off the top, but no zipper or clasp to open it.  She turned her head and saw that the bee comb still kept most of its original shape, though closer inspection showed that the outer teeth of the comb had curved around her ponytail and formed a nearly complete ring, presumably to help keep it from falling off while she moved around.  Also, it had sprouted two long flexible antennae that didn’t seem to do much aside from complete the look.  Though the look was good.

 She had cosplayed as Ladybug more times than she could count, even been akumatized as her antithesis, but this… this was different.  There was no voice clouding her mind and controlling her emotions. No feeling of sticky adhesive holding the mask to her face, or of spandex rubbing against her skin.  She wasn’t pretending to be anyone else.  She was herself. She put her hand over her mouth as she felt tears beginning to form.  She was free. Free to be whoever she wanted.  The reality of it was both terrifying and wonderful at the same time.  She looked into her own eyes and for the first time she could remember, she saw hope sparkling in them.

 Then her back exploded with pain.

 She gasped and fell forward as she felt the horrific impact push her off balance.  She thought she might have heard Adrien scream her name, but she couldn’t focus on anything else but the awful burning, ripping feeling of something forcing its’ way through her back and nearly burst out of her chest.  The pain was so overwhelming she couldn’t scream or move.  Her breath became caught in her throat, and her whole body seized up. She knew her eyes were open, but the whole world had gone dark…  

 And then it was gone. Her body went completely limp as she hit the wall and crumpled sideways into a corner between it and a filing cabinet. The impact forced some air out of her lungs, and she realized she had stopped breathing.  She tried to breathe in, and the air came back to her in a sudden rush that made her head spin.  Her vision started to return, and she could see Adrien and Plagg rushing over to her.

 “Chloe!”  

 “Kid!”  

 Chloe held up a hand to show that she was conscious as she continued to gasp for breath.  They stopped so as to not crowd her.

 “Are you okay?” Adrien asked.  

 Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she recognized the tingly feeling of an adrenaline rush from her near-death escapes at the hands of an Akuma, but she couldn’t understand why it was happening.

“I’m…  I don’t know anymore,” she said from her place on the floor. “What happened?”

 “I don’t know, one second you were looking at yourself in the mirror, the next you were on the ground,” Adrien said, reaching out a hand to her.  

 She took it and he pulled her to her feet.  She bounced on her heals as she landed, practically buzzing with energy.  Yep, definitely an adrenaline rush.

 “So what happened with you?” Adrien asked, turning the question back on her.  

 Chloe shrugged.

 “I don’t know.  One second I was looking at myself and feeling really great, the next my back just…  I don’t know how to describe it, it just hurt really bad!  Like someone had stabbed me or something.”  

 Adrien turned her around and looked her over.  Chloe looked over her shoulder at her reflection but couldn’t see anything wrong. The back of the suit was completely bare of any mark or sign of injury.  Her butt looked great though.

 “Where did it hurt?” Adrien asked.

 “Right here.”

 Chloe reached back and indicated a spot near her left shoulder blade.  

 “It was like… I don’t know how to describe it.  It was so bad I think I blacked out or something.  It only lasted a second though, and then it just… stopped.  Like completely.  There one second, totally gone the next.”

 “Weird… Plagg do you know what happened?”

 Plagg shook his head, but took a closer look at the place Chloe had indicated.  

 “I never heard of anything like this, but then I’m no expert either.  But hey, if it stopped it stopped.”

 Adrien sighed, and put his hand to his face.  Chloe on the other hand was still riding the adrenaline rush and tapping her foot impatiently.  

 “Whatever,” she said quickly.  “Let’s just hurry up and go help Ladybug already.”  

 Adrien looked at her uncertainly.  

 “I don’t know Chloe, something might be wrong with your miraculous.  Maybe you should sit this one out…”

 Chloe scoffed and waved her hand dismissively.  

 “I’m fine.  I feel better than I have all day!  Now come on, Ladybug’s probably wondering where her partner is.  Or partners now, right?” she added with a mischievous smile.

 Adrien quickly forgot his reluctance and smiled back in anticipation.

 “Alright.  Plagg, Claws Out!”  

 Chloe smiled wider as she watched Adrien go through his transformation.  

 “I guess I should work on my own dance too, huh?” she asked teasingly.  

 Chat Noir brushed past her and twirled his compact staff nonchalantly.  

 “It’ll come naturally to you.”  He opened the door for her and gave her another bow.  “Shall we?”

 Chloe curtsied and stepped out of the office and into the empty courtyard.  Chat Noir followed her out and quickly ran past her, using his extending staff to pole vault onto the roof above.  

 “Race you to the Akuma?” he called down, lazily putting his staff behind his head and resting his arms on it.  

 Chloe smirked. Without thinking she took a running start and leapt up to the second floor.  She landed easily on the railing twenty feet above her, and spun around on the ball of one foot.  Launching herself up and out into the open air, she caught the lip of the roof with her hands and used the momentum to flip herself up onto the roof next to Chat Noir with dignified grace.  

 ...At least that’s what she meant to do.  Instead, she only managed to jump a few feet into the air, came down unexpectedly fast, tripped, and tumbled over herself and crashed into one of the wooden benches.

 Chat Noir leapt down to find her splayed upside down on the bench with her feet in the air, looking confused, but on the whole, unharmed.  

 “Chat?” she asked, not moving to correct her upside down self.  “How do you turn on the super strength?”  

   Author’s notes:  

 Regarding the short length: This chapter and the one following it will be a bit on the shorter side. I spent the last night typing out close to 8,000 words, and over 6,000 were all for one chapter.  That will probably be divided up into two, but please be assured there is still much more of the story to come.  I’m shooting to update every Sunday, so please look forward to them then.  And thank you all again for the comments and reviews!  They really do help me to push forward to keep writing and editing the best I can.  ^^

[cagedbycravings]

@atarostarling is another fantastic writer I’ve discovered. She was one of the first enchantresses I reached out to when I entered the fandom and my word, I can’t get enough of seeing her on my dash. That said, I am shamefully behind on her wonderful fic The Draconian. I will catch up! In the meanwhile I wanted to share my favorite lines from each of the chapters I have read.

Warnings: Spoilers, Implied Sexual Situations, Cursing

   Chapter One

 A low, threatening growl from behind caused them to pivot. The Bodyguard, Gladiolus, summoned his Greatsword while the Strategist, Ignis, called forth his daggers. The two of them placed themselves in front of their Prince, Noctis, the future King of Lucis. It was their lifelong duty to serve and protect the heir to the throne, but throughout their years in service their instinct to shield Noctis was rooted in the brotherhood they shared. They faced the origin of the menacing sound, who turned out to be the Sharpshooter, Prompto. His wide eyed look of confusion soon replaced with a sheepish grin as he placed a hand on his stomach and let out a nervous laugh…

Her eyes were darting everywhere, which is when he concluded that she was evidently frightened. He could see it in her breathing, her fists trembled ever so slightly as she struggled to keep them raised - exhaustion written all over her physique. Finally, in all the commotion, her eyes found his and she froze, lips parting slightly, the fire in her eyes extinguishing immediately. The need to gaze upon him for hours to take him all in started to take over her being; her knees began to weaken in the presence of this man. All these thoughts racing through her mind meant her fists lowered slightly, however almost immediately she shook her head ever so slightly, as if snapping herself out of the reverie, and her fists came back up to her face as she prepared to move forward. 

 One of the strongest opening scenes I’ve read. The introduction of each character was vivid and intense. The picturesque description was in my opinion far better than the intro in the video game or movie. I felt a more compelling connection with the writing as Ataro drew me to the edge of my chair only to relax in laughter.

 Chapter Two:

A short while later, the five of them sit around the fire, eating, casually discussing the days events and the monster they faced before encountering ___ . Meanwhile, ___ is focused completely on her food, eating it with an almost monstrous intention. When she had spooned the final grain of rice into her mouth she looked up to find the four men staring at her in shock. She couldn’t help but laugh at herself. Much better than trying to act sheepish around them, she thought. “I’ll take any leftovers, boys!” Noctis was the first to crack into a chuckle, before the rest of them let out laughter in disbelief. 

My biggest hesitation with reading self inserts is that I hadn’t found any that were written with personality. And while I understand a blank slate is intended, as far as fiction goes, I feel that each character needs to share something with the reader to make them hopeful and enticed. Ataro nails that as I grew to see the insert as more than just a slate but rather an actual person who I could meet and befriend.

 Chapter Three:

“I’ve had romances with women, though I wouldn’t call myself a lesbian, if I feel an attraction it doesn’t matter what they have between their legs.” Gladio coughed to try and cover up the grin that was plastered on his face while the younger of the companions stuttered over their response to her answer.”

Loved the subtle nod to not being completely straight. Whether the insert is Bisexual, Pansexual or one who doesn’t adhere to labels, I appreciated how this was so artfully added. Gladio’s reaction is also realistic in my opinion as the reader isn’t abashed to speak up about a subject still considered taboo. All around one of my favorite moments in this chapter.

 Chapter Four:

“It’s a date.” She replied. Nailed it.

He shook his head and turned, Prompto’s eyes lit up as he ran in front of Ignis and took a picture of him. Prompto dashed over to ___ and showed her the image he had just taken. She tried to contain her gasp as she saw Ignis’ coy smile on the preview screen.

Another element I appreciate about her writing, is the delicate foreshadowing of what’s to come. Her writing is so precise and graceful that I just can’t help but feel enthralled.

 Chapter Five

As the men began to trickle into their tent to sleep she remained by the fire, staring into the embers. It was only the sound of the tent flap unzipping that broke her from her thoughts, which is when she realised she had been sat out there most of the night. The figure emerged from the tent, then turned to zip the door back. It was Ignis, dressed in grey sweat pants and a form fitting white undershirt…

 Ignis was pacing around her as he spoke, though he never took his eyes off her. Angry tears were now forming in ___’s eyes, though she was trying her best to keep them at bay. “Unless that is of course you’re not from a small town.” He approached her menacingly and stood in front of her so he was looking down on her. His broad chest seemed to eclipse everything in her peripheral vision. “You work for the Empire, don’t you?”

Out of all the chapters I’ve read thus far, this is one of my favorite scenes. The image of Ignis pacing like a hawk zeroing in on its prey is a powerful metaphor for his abilities. This is the strategist’s ultimate strength. Intensity. Intimidation. Interrogation.

 Chapter Six

“Is that what you see me as? Some girl?”

From the first moment it was said, I could feel a rush of warmth between my legs. This line oozes sexual tension no matter how many times I read it.

The thought dawned on him that the others would rouse in their sleep because of the noise they were making, but it only made him want to pleasure her more intensely so they could watch him satisfy her. Ignis remembered that Gladiolus and Prompto flirted with her occasionally; he wanted them to see that ___ was now his. Their eyes locked and his heart raced, a wave of longing crashed over him. He wanted to kiss her, touch her, fuck her, love her like no one else ever had and ever will. He ran a hand down her torso, his thumb found her pleasure point and he began to rub it rhythmically with his thrusts. She breathed an obscenity as he pushed in and out of her faster, applying more pressure under his thumb. ___’s breathing soon became screams of pleasure, Ignis watched her climax, her face glowing with pleasure, then he gripped her hips again and began pushing and pulling her entire body around him so that he could cum inside her soon. “Oh yes, Ignis, yes!” He was so close, so close to finally feeling his orgasm release inside of her. So close…

His eyes fluttered open. The roof of the tent stared back at him, not ___’s glowing, almost naked body. He heard the sounds of the others sleeping next to him, before becoming painfully aware of the erection he had. He looked down and saw it tenting the covers. Quickly he got up and left the tent in case the others saw him. When he was outside, Ignis contemplated dealing with it, but he glanced at the spot where ___ would have slept and arrived at the decision he didn’t deserve the release. He simply waited until his arousal had subsided, then made his way over to stand in ___’s spot to look out into the night. Some nights he swore he could see her in the distance, walking towards him. He had almost ran towards her image at full speed, ready to hold her and not let her go, but it was always an illusion. He was always standing alone when the sun broke on the horizon.  

This scintillating scene is truly one of the best pieces I’ve read. The restraint Ignis places on his yearning leaves me soaked each time.

 Chapter Seven

“The very same! Weird, huh?” ___ replied.

“So…you’re a hooker now?” Noctis inquired.

“What?! No! I’m a waitress!”

“Uh…huh.” Prompto skeptically said.

“Really, I am! I just wear that wig to try and blend in a little. It’s also so that people don’t recognize me as much when I leave.”

“Anyway…you got a job as hooker…continue.” Noctis joked.

The banter in this story always makes me so happy. I cherish how close this reminds me of brothers and sister tease at each other.

Chapter Eight

“Noctis and Prompto were sat on a couch, phones in their hands pretending that their attention was not on Gladio and Ignis. Noctis had never seen Gladio be so forward with Ignis, this seemed like forbidden territory for the years they’ve all known one another. Prompto messaged Noctis: “Shots fired!” and Noctis tried his best not to smirk.”

Each time I read this all I can think is Meme’s in my Final Fantasy! Why I never! But in all seriousness, the dialogue in this story is out of this world. For this and the striking scene below, I’m constantly hearing the voices from this story echo in the walls of my mind.

“___?? Wait…is Freya even your real name?” Reeve asked, his voice growing hysterical.

“No, Reeve. Freya was my name at the Galbadia. ___ is my real name.”

“So you’ve been lying to me this whole time?!”

“Come on now, it’s just a name. Remember the time we’ve spent together, Reeve. We’ve laughed together, cried together…you told me all about your family.”

“That’s why I have to do this, Fre…___…whatever!” Reeve’s panic was rising with each stutter. “K-Kuja told us if we could bring in the Prince and his friends we could see our families again.”

“Kuja was lying to you, Reeve. He won’t let you go. He’s using you. He’s in the Galbadia right now with Adel after telling you all he’d punish any of you if he caught you in there. Don’t let him get to you, let me help you.”

Reeve held onto his gun, trembling. ___ held her arms up, but she was inches away from the barrel of the gun now. 

“I need to see my family.” Reeve sobbed.

Suddenly, ___ grabbed Reeve’s wrist and pushed it the side, then punched him in the jaw and snatched the gun from his hands and pointed it at him as he stumbled back.

“I’m sorry, Reeve, I didn’t want to hurt you. But I can’t let you make this mistake, ok?”

His anguish quickly turned to anger. “You bitch, I’ll call for backup, you’ll never get out of here alive!” 

“There’s no need for that, it’s not too late.” ___ took apart the gun and threw the mechanisms on the ground. “I’m not going to hurt you. Let me help you. I promise you, you can see your family again if you just let us leave.”

Reeve stood trembling, sweat beading down his forehead. “I want to see them again, Freya. I’ve gotta do this.” He reached his hand swiftly into his pocket and pulled out a radio.

“P!” ___ yelled.

Immediately Prompto shot the radio out of Reeve’s hands, who stared at his bleeding hand and glared at ___ before lunging towards her and wrapping his other hand around her throat. Before ___  could react, she saw a flash of silver and then saw Reeve’s horrified expression. His grip loosened on her throat enough for her concentrate but her breathing was still restricted. Ignis was stood at their side, his dagger pressed against Reeve’s throat.

“Release her.” Ignis said calmly, but his eyes burned fiercely.

Reeve stayed motionless, his eyes darting wildly between ___ and Ignis.

“Release her now…I won’t ask you again.” Ignis pressed the dagger deeper into his skin, enough for a thin line of blood to begin to drip down his neck. Reeve released his grip. ___ gasped for air and rubbed her throat. Gladio held her up as she regained her composure.

“I’ve got you.” Gladio said to her soothingly.

Despite Reeve following his instruction Ignis had not lowered his blade. “Ignis…let’s go.” Noctis said. Ignis snapped out of his trance and lowered the blade. They all walked away from Reeve, who dropped to the floor and wailed into his hands.

Chapter Nine

 As she was idly rubbing the formula on her various cuts and bruises she mused out loud. “I hope Reeve’s gonna be ok…”

The boys looked at each other around the camp fire, unsure if they heard her correctly.

“You still care about what happens to him after what he did to you?” asked Noctis.

“Of course I do. These men have suffered at the hands of the Empire, they’re only acting on fear. The Nif’s are taking away their freedoms and parading false glory in their faces. It’s brainwashing.”

I felt this on a personal level as this is almost identical to how I react to someone hurting me.

Chapter Ten

Honestly, this entire chapter was incredible. There wasn’t just one line that I couldn’t stop reading. From beginning to end I was captivated by the world building. The Tueri lineage and connection to Bahamut, and the sexual tension built by Ignis’ suave kiss. *swoons*

Chapter Eleven

“I’ve had enough of you trying to deter me from my destiny! The Niflheim Empire is sapping the essence of the people of Eos, the people that your God chose to protect. You mock me as a mere mortal, but Bahamut himself chose me to protect this world and everyone who wants to save it from the Darkness.” ­­­___ placed her hand to her chest. “I AM the Dragon Knight. Once I have taken back the land from Niflheim I will banish the Darkness forever. I need the Rakuyo to fulfill my purpose… if you will not give it to me, then I will take it from you!” She cried out, her words echoed around the chamber. It seemed to silence the roar of the flames that surrounded them. The Messenger stood motionless.

Out of all the world building in this story, this was what stood out most to me. The insert’s trial shows her strength through tribulation and provides a new level of respect for the reader.

““Oh, kitten.” Ignis purred, “This is not even the beginning of what I want to do to you.” He brought his hand to her chin and tilted her head upwards. Painstakingly slowly, he closed the gap between them and planted the softest of kisses on her lips. He lingered for a while, allowing her to focus on the feel of his skin, before he pulled away. ___ immediately moved to meet his mouth again, but Ignis withdrew, his lips curled into a devilish smirk witnessing her desperation for him. He left her against the tree stump, her chest heaving with lust, a wild confusion in her eyes as she watched him turn and walk away from her.

When he was almost out of earshot, ___ called out, “Ignis…”

As if her words shot a bullet of passion through his heart, he turned on his heels and stormed towards her. Witnessing the fire in his eyes, ___ felt her legs move as she made her way to meet him. When he got close he cupped her head in his hands and pulled her in for an explosive kiss. Her mouth immediately opened to let in his tongue as it massaged her own. His hands moved down to her waist, then wandered down to grip her ass as ___ wrapped her arms around his neck and locked him in her embrace, her fingers intertwined in his hair.”

My ultimate kink. This. Kitten. Explosive kissing. Intertwined fingers in hair. All of it.

[petiteredlady]

This is not spoiler-free

I finally saw Yuukyuu no Toki today ! I had a seat almost at the very back of the hall but I still had a pretty nice view of the whole stage. And given how small the hall was, I'm happy I got a seat at all^^ Sambart93 already posted a pretty detailed summary of the stage so I won't go into that much detail about the plot. (Especially since I usually watch Messiah DVDs with my dictionary, so it was harder to follow live XD)

I don’t have a scanner but I’ll see if I can find a good scanner app to share the pamphlet pictures. They’re gorgeous.

Yuukyuu was better than I expected, but I didn't expect a lot to be honest. The "new" Messiah series hasn't convinced me so far. I thought Akatsuki and Polar Night had too many plots with little impact on one another, too many characters, and consequently a lack of focus on character development. I found many returning characters OOC, too. And I liked about half of the new characters^^

BUT I thought Yuukyuu actually did better ! There are still too many plots and too many characters, but at least there was some sort of link between them all. Like Ariga and Itsuki's graduation mission is to kill Ichijima, who is pretending to ally with the Hanged Man, who's based around the Tower of Babel, which is the target of a more general Sakura mission. And the two runaways have a way to hack into the Tower of Babel. Cheka also associating with the Hanged Man was... weird, but given how he ended up in Akatsuki I can believe it. The only thing that felt really out of place was Salyut looking for his father among the Spectres. Like, why now and not while he was working with Cheka ? Why does he have a partner if it's not an official mission ? What's the link with everything else ? I'm sure we'll have answers later, but that's also a thing with the new Messiah : they're too aware they're a series and are bad at foreshadowing ans cliffhangers. In the previous series, while stories were evolving, each stage was a complete story. So yeah, not that it important, but it felt very random.

And despite having too many characters, I thought most of them were well developped. Returning characters did not feel OOC this time ! (Especially Ichijima. I had been so disappointed in Akatsuki and Polar Night despite him being like my second favourite character.) Yugi and Mayo-sama got just the right amount of cryptic discussions to be interesting and likeable while I really didn't like them before. Hinamori's introduction was so, so, so random (almost like Ichijima pulled the first guy passing by and decided he'd be Kogure's Messiah XD), but he had a great personality and Yamamoto Ikkei was so good at playing him, I loved him instantly. I think he and Kogure have great potential to work together !! And I also liked Kogure starting as his usual self and slowly losing it throughout the play ! That gave him depth he didn't necessarily have before. Kuroko and Dr Three were good surprises too. I've been gradually warming up to Kuroko but in general I just find him cringy +_+ And here I think there was just the right balance between comic relief and actual character. He was a great leader for Sakura and I was glad to see Ichijima acknowledge that ! (Actually they were pretty friendly with each other in this play, I was surprised.) Dr Three was still mostly the same character, but I liked that he eventually played along with Kuroko's antics ! He did feel like that kind of character before, and I'm glad he's now allowed to be a bit silly too. Finally, I expected to not care about the two runaways, but they were very very cute. They felt like stereotypical shounen protagonists, though, with their promise from long ago of one day leaving the island together XD I'd be ok with not seeing them ever again, but they weren't the annoyance I feared. I think they were also portrayed very well, because I felt a lot of things from them despite them not having too much stage time. (I was delighted to see Murata Mitsu, but I'm 0 % ok with the plot twist of him actually being an old friend of Ariga =_=)(But that's me generally disagreeing with every new Messiah story XD)(That's a trend they have now where everyone is related to everyone and just NO.)(And having Ariga kill him, even with Itsuki, goes against all the character development he’s had since he killed Mamiya ! He said NEVER AGAIN ><)

Actually, in addition to the "everyone is related" terrible idea, they should really leave alone the people who are gone. Like why did Mamoru and Kaito have to have helped several times in significant ways during this stage ? Aren't there MORE THAN ENOUGH CHARACTERS who could do the job ? And just STOP WITH MAMIYA. Mamiya had an amazing story with a great conclusion, I loved it, but they're really destroying everything that was great about it by just adding and adding. Itsuki trying to play the violin was both OOC and extremely cruel. Good thing he got shot before he could really play, despite it meaning that Ariga has now shot ANOTHER violin-playing Messiah T__T

Other random things I wrote down :

- At several points during the stage I laughed because I wanted to do the Messiah drinking game where you finish your drink when someone should have died from gun shots XD There were SO MANY people who were shot at close range in pretty vital areas and still survived. Sometimes still stood and talked. Special mention to the Hanged Man, who was double shotted by Itsuki and Ariga and still got up to talk then shoot himself XD Honorable mentions : Itsuki, Ariga, Kogure and Mayo-sama ! (And maybe Ichijima. My goodness, my heart stopped when I thought he was shot dead +_+)

- Ichijima and Kogure went full CLAMP on us, with the only important part of their discussion being whispered in Kogure's ear >o< But omg I was so impressed, because from the beginning there were people speculating on the internet that Ichijima and Kogure were related and I was just rolling my eyes like "Come on, just because he has glasses..." AND YET ! That's what Kogure wanted to ask Ichijima O_O And it was obvious enough that Ichijima guessed it O_O

- Hinamori stole the show for me XD Instantly. And yet his first appearance has him getting into a face-grabbing match with Kuroko XD (He called him Momose-chan and that was the cutest thing ever, too.) I'm forever sad I didn't get exactly WHY he resented Ichijima, though T__T Well, the DVD and my dictionary will be there in due time XD

- Yugi and Mayo-sama managed to break my heart in one conversation. With Yugi saying god doesn't exist and he wants to kill the 'divine child' who lead the cult he was part of. I didn't think he'd open up that much. And Mayo looked so so depressed, but also relieved, because he wants to be killed by Yugi >o< I don't know why him specifically, but apparently Mayo is tired of the fact that he can't die, an interesting twist for a guy with the same curse as Eiri. (Though in Mayo's case it might be litteral XD)

- At the end of the play I almost thought Ariga was really going to kill Ichijima, but then he beautifully mirrored the scene at the beginning when Ichijima spared and recruited him <3<3 Amazing. Thank you Ariga.

- During the play I kept thinking "well Murata Mitsu isn't that tall actually, Nakahara Yuuya and Izawa Yuuki come really close". Then when they were all lined up to bow, I realised that no, he is really really tall, more than anyone else XD

- Itsuki and Ariga's post-graduation outfits were super cool. I loved Ariga's flowing coat and Itsuki had a nice wild style. That made the girls next to me feel better, because during the second half of the play they were all crying XD (I wasn't. But I was gasping a lot^^)

- ... Yamaoki Yuuki is a father ???? I didn't know that. He was the one who had a special speech for the curtain call, and he told us about his son and I was like "YOU'RE THE SAME AGE AS MY LITTLE BROTHER YOU CAN'T HAVE A BABY". Hashimoto Shinichi and Yamamoto Ikkei made fun of him and at some point he lost his train of thoughts XD Then the same thing happened when Izawa Yuuki was speaking and Sugie Taishi was being silly behind his back XD

.... There were other things but this has gotten long enough already^^

[dragneelmedown]

That Pink Haired Demon

Lo & behold! Chapter 4! I hope you guys like it. It was rushed and very bad but it still gives a lot of background depth and foreshadowing and gajevy :)

Pairings: Mainly NaLu, building Gajevy, mentions of Gruvia, Jerza, Fraxus, Stingue, AlBis and ElfEver.

find on ff.net

Chapters: one, two, three, four multi chaptered nalu au ; you’re a demon that tried to possess me but when you realized what awful shape i’m in, you forgot your nefarious plans and now you’re trying to help me get my life together

Meetings in Fairy Tail were short. Usually, Makarov would welcome everyone with a bright smile. He'd then proceed to all the important information needed.

Today, the Master noted, "We will soon be meeting up with Sabertooth and Lamia Scale! Not in Magnolia, but Crocus. No, it is not the time for the Grand Games," He paused to allow people in the hall to groan. "I'll explain it in another meeting. I'm going to talk about how we are planning to hold our S-Class trials at Tenrou. We're bringing in the other Groups because they are also sharing our island for their trials,"

This was surprising to everyone because Tenrou was Fairy Tail's territory. Although, they didn't mind seeing familiar faces around the island. Supposedly, the founder of FT saw fairies there. But many others believe they were fireflies. Members of the café still argue and say that fairies still exist.

"The following organizations are coming to Tenrou: Sabertooth and Blue Pegasus. Just two, so you brats aren't complaining about sharing," Makarov rolled his eyes.

Groups were associations to help ordinary people and recruit them into their organization. At first, Groups were created for "magical wizards" back in the day, but there was a 'war' back then. Which wiped out all mages. Now, these Groups are full of human beings filled with hope and humbleness.

There are different Groups and they all had separate locations, like Fairy Tail. They were all in dissimilar areas. So it was easier to help out other ordinary citizens all over the country of Fiore. For example, Mermaid Heel hosts at the beach while Sabertooth was near a castle. These Groups were intended to help out others. Although, there were also evil Groups that do terrible things. Their locations are unidentified, but they don't serve a big threat.

However, they did pose a danger towards Magnolia when Lucy's father sent the Group, Phantom Lord, to retrieve his daughter. Luck was on their side that day because Fairy Tail fought back, lead to a victory, and even recruited a member named Juvia. Since then, Phantom Lord has gone into the shadows or has been disbanded.

"Now getting into the good stuff, candidates for the S-Class trials, chosen by me! As always, I picked 5 people who I thought qualified this year. Cana Alberona, Gray Fullbuster, Freed Justine, Levy McGarden, and our newest member, Juvia Lockser! You have the entire week to select your partners and may you choose wisely. Good luck to all participants! This meeting is over, thank you for coming, brats." The Master concluded, disappearing into the kitchen.

The hall turned into laughter and happiness floated in the air. "Congratulations" went to all of the candidates.

In Fairy Tail, there are normal employees such as Max or Kinana. They go on jobs to help others, just like S-Class. There are also S-Class workers who not only get paid more, but they have private meetings between only them. No one else knows what they're about other than the actual S-Class members. Even though it doesn't seem very important, everyone in Fairy Tail was curious.

"Let's have a party tonight at me and Lucy's place!"

"NO!"

Soon enough, the celebration settled down. "Okay, but seriously, let's have a party at our place." The brunette brought up again to which the blonde shook her head firm.

"C'mon Lucy~"

"A 'lil party!"

"Our place is too small!" Lucy argued.

Cana laughed as if it was no big deal, then replied, "It's okay, most of the members have plans anyway. Like Laxus is holding a small party for Freed already with the Raijinshuu and the Strauss family. We're gonna do our usual group of girlies and add whoever else we want! That's the fun of party making."

"Oh, I thought it would be okay if we could borrow Levy for today?" Jet asked with a smile.

"Guys... I'm not a toy.." Levy spoke up as she held a pout on her face, arms crossed.

"Jet, you and Droy can join our unofficial party! But if you want her all to yourselves, then it's fine!" The bartender offered, and the two men nodded in excitement.

"Lucy, if you're going to reject this, you're going to reject everyone's, HEART. You don't wanna be the cause of that, right?~" Cana asked with a tone of her voice, making Lucy unable to deny the suggestion.

"FINE. Party at ours. Everyone's invited." The blonde agreed in a stubborn manner.

Cheers broke out once again while one could hear Cana's obnoxious loud laugh even through all the noise. Many conversations Lucy heard was about several different parties, like what to bring or how to do their hair.

To be honest, the woman didn't mind the party a bit, she wanted some time to talk to Natsu. Unfortunately, it seemed like that wasn't going to happen. As she realized that, she frowned a bit.

"Uhh, Lucy?" A voice stirred her away from her isolation.

She swiveled around to tilt her head down and that led to a conflicted boy named Romeo. She bent down to talk to him. "What's up, Rome?"

Romeo was the son of Macao Conbolt and the youngest worker in the café, practically every single person loved the kid. He was very adventurous and determined about anything. He said, "Can I go to the party? And can you ask my dad for me?"

Lucy let out a giggle. "Why do you need me to ask your dad? Are you.. scared?" She exaggerated the last word and a dramatic gasp escaped her lips.

The raven haired boy's eyes widened as a light shade of pink dusted his cheeks. "OF COURSE NOT! I'm jus' asking because, uh, I've never been to an actual party so it'd be good to have the, um, permission of the, mm, host!"

She squinted at him. "Well, you have my permission if you go ask your dad."

He groaned in exasperation, "Fine! I'll go ask, but you have to come with me!" He declared in confidence as Lucy nodded in a brief motion.

Some of the workers noticed the young Conbolt marching and stomping towards his dad, a few stumbles on the way. They laughed at the boy and said, "Go get 'im!"

And with that, lead a strong Romeo who reached his father and stated, "Dad, I want to go to Lucy and Cana's party tonight."

Macao raised an eyebrow at Romeo, then glanced at Lucy as if he was saying, "Did Cana put him up to this?" So the blonde furiously shook her head. His eyes went back to Romeo, "Well, I guess, as long as Lucy's watching you, you can go ahead." His son let out a big, "Yes!".

After that, Romeo and his father rearranged their plans for this day after Lucy spoke a quick goodbye to the two. She walked towards Cana, Levy, and Juvia who saw the astronomer making her way towards them. They waved her over and she smiled back at them. Once finally reaching her girl group, Lucy asked, "I'm going to the grocery store to buy stuff for the party. Anyone wanna come with?"

Levy pouted, "Sorry Lu, I already promised to help Cana clean up the place!" Cana nodded after, confirming the blunette's task.

"Juvia would love to! She needs to bake a cake for Gray, anyway." The other blue haired woman smiled at Lucy, who was grateful that she had a friend to go with.

"We're heading to the store, then. We'll see you, girls, later!~" Lucy held the door open for Juvia. Both of them waved and left the building.

Arriving at Cana and Lucy's 420 apartment, Cana herself was in front of the door. Levy was waiting in a patient and polite manner.

"I promise it's not that bad, Lev." The brunette claimed, opening the door to the apartment.

Levy's eyes widened in surprise as she followed Cana into her home. It wasn't actually that bad. Then again, Cana lives with Lucy who is more of the cleaner roommate. There were few clothes laying around in their respective spots. Walking into the kitchen, however, was a different story. Unwashed plates since both owners of the apartment were busy or lazy. Chips placed in separate areas, as the same with pretzels. Ah, yes, Lucy's pretzel obsession. Soda cans seemed like they'd been thrown around. Levy also spotted money sitting in a corner.

She pointed it out. "Is that a tip for me?" The woman said in a joking tone.

"You wish," Cana rolled her eyes and laughed. "This can all be cleaned up in an hour or two. I'm positive."

"Yeah. Let's get to it!" The two high-fived each other before starting to clean.

During the cleaning process, Lucy and Juvia had linked arms as they were walking around to find the right ingredients for the cake. A made-from-scratch plus love cake. Lucy already bought chips, pretzels, soda, and she was planning to order pizza later. She decided to help out Juvia with her cake since Juvia helped her as well.

"How's your relationship with Gray going~?" She asked, wiggling her eyebrows at Juvia.

Juvia shook her head, "Lucy is too much. Juvia isn't sure about Gray... Juvia truly hopes Gray loves her because sometimes she doubts herself. Like, what if Gray doesn't love Juvia anymore and just wants her to go away? She can't imagi-"

"Shhh. Shush. Shut it. Shut up. Any other form of saying be quiet. You know that Gray loves you, right? A few times he's been over to our place, asking how he should he impress you on Valentine's Day or your birthday. Asking, 'what would she want?' Yeah, Gray sucks at being romantic, but he means well. He's really improving. Don't ever think that, because you're the hottest bean in the world and he will forever and always will appreciate you." Lucy said without hesitant stuttering.

The cerulean haired girl smiled in confidence. She straightened her back, "Lucy is too much," Juvia laughed and Lucy pouted, "but Juvia thanks her. A lot."

"No problem, Juv." The blonde grinned, nudging her with her shoulder. "Now lettuce go find your special ingredient!"

Back at the apartment, the buddies decided to take a quick break. They were halfway done. Cana poured out lemonade for both Levy and herself.

"You're not drinking?" Levy queried.

"Levy, please, you know I'm not that wild," Levy sighed in relief, but Cana continued, "I'm saving it for tonight."

"Why did I even hope?" The blunette asked herself and the brunette laughed.

After plopping on the couch, they took a sip of lemonade. There was a moment of peace and quiet, breathing was the only sound that occurred. Cana started to get sleepy before a blinding light shined around the room. She sat up imminently, while Levy was cautious as she stood up.

A voice said, "Yo."

That voice belonged a specific pink haired demon, who was staring at the screen. Or rather, his dark eyes dashing around as if he was searching for something. Someone.

"NATSU?!" Both companions yelled, staring at the hologram. They looked each other, "HOW DO YOU KNOW NATSU?"

Cana spoke first, "Last night, Lucy and him were talking and I came in. That's it?"

Levy giggled, "Alone?" Cana nodded and snickered.

"I met Natsu when Erza, Juvia and I came over to force her to summon a demon." The short woman said. Every word that was said had a hint of delight.

"Sounds like y'all." The brunette laughed, shaking her head.

"Sorry to interrupt your wonderful conversation, but is Luce around by any chance?" Natsu asked with hesitance.

"Luce... Lucy?" Cana questioned, glancing at Levy who shrugged. She looked back up at Natsu who nodded. "Uhh, Luce- I mean, Lucy, went shopping with her friend for a party tonight. Why you asking, demon boy?"

Natsu looked a bit disappointed, but covered it up well with a smile. "No reason. Can I come to the party? You guys have enough space for the greatest and strongest, Natsu!"

The two women bursted out laughing. They couldn't hold in their giggles for a second. "Ah, Natsu, you wish. I betcha Lucy would love if you could hop on over to Earth. We have plenty of space here in the land of CanaLucyia! You're welcome anytime, my dude."

"Alright! Natsu signing off, I'll see you guys-"

"Who're ya talking to, firebutt? Oi! Is that the Shrimp over there?" Another low voice joined into the conversation, abruptly finishing the demon's sentence.

Cana grinned at Levy, "Shrimp?". While the blue haired girl ignored her smirk, instantly glaring up at the hologram. Her eyes met a deep red color and immediately put her hands on her hips. "Gajeel, I will murder you if you call me that again."

"Woah! Shrimp, oh sorry, Levy, seems pretty upset. What'd you do this time?" The raven haired demon looked at Natsu accusingly.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! YOU CAME IN AND CLEARLY INSULTED LEVY! ARE YOU CHALLENGING ME TO A FIGHT, IRON EATER?" Natsu yelled, now completely ignoring the humans on the other side.

"Ahh shut up." He rolled his eyes and turned back towards the two women. "Who's that, 'shroom?"

"Did you call me a mushroom?" Levy's right eye twitched.

"Ahh, I am Cana Alberona! It's nice to meet you, Gajeel." Cana smiled evilly. "Levy talks about you all the time!"

"WHAT THE FU"

"Alright! Great conversation, you met Cana! Everything's great, no more nicknames, oh! And tell Lucy that I'm mad at her now. Thanks, Levy! Bye!" Natsu quickly interrupted and spoke fast. The last part was easy to catch before he hung up and the hologram disappeared in a second.

The humans took a moment to breathe before the blunette screamed, "YOU JUST MET HIM TODAY I NEVER SPOKE ABOUT GAJEEL!"

"Levy, Lev, Lev, it was a joke! Don't worry about it, babe. Worry about getting ready for the partay~ tonight!" The bartender laughed as Levy huffed.

Soon, Juvia and Lucy came to the apartment with a finished cake that had icing written, "Congratulations, Gray!" Of course, Juvia wanted to add, "my love", but it was a cake for everyone to share. Fortunately, Juvia came to accept it quickly and smiled proud.

The decorations were up, everything was clean. Not exactly spotless, but still, clean. The guests came in pairs, such as Jet and Droy. Others like Max and Warren, Kinana and Laki, Romeo by himself. He said his father felt like staying home, sleeping well unlike the youngins. Cana laughed at that. The party was filled with chatter, occasionally screaming from Cana. The songs were a variety of types.

After talking to many people, Lucy sat down on the couch. In her hand was a cup of lemonade, she'd rather drink that instead of alcohol tonight. She knew she was going to be cleaning up alone since Cana will pass out later. On the couch, she met Warren.

"Hey, Lucy!" He said, waving at her.

"You enjoying the party, Warren?" She asked with a polite smile.

"Not my thing, but Max felt like bringing me along." Warren laughed. "Oh! How's the communicator thing I made for you guys? Is it working well?"

Lucy gasped. She totally forgot about calling Natsu. Especially since that random text Levy sent her that said, "Natsu is mad at you right now. Don't ask me, I have no idea why." She received while she was waiting with Juvia for the cake to bake.

"Uh, Lucy?"

The blonde shook her head, looking back up at Warren. "Oh yeah, there is a problem, but it's minor. One time, the hologram opened up by itself when nobody, on either side, called. When can you fix it?"

The man scratched his head, "Oh, is that so? Well, I did make it recently. Plus, it's new so it is difficult to fix because I don't know how I can unless I borrow it for at least a day. Do you need to make a call to anyone tomorrow?"

Without thinking, Lucy responded, "Yes. I'll text you when I can give it to you!".

"Alright, cool." Warren gave her a thumbs up and stood up. "I'm going to awkwardly leave this party. Thanks for everything!"

"Uh, no problem?"

Eventually, with the cake being completely eaten and time slowing down, the party ended. "Thank you for coming tonight!" Lucy said, waving at everyone exiting through the door.

As soon as the astronomer closed the door and sighed, Cana plopped down right on the couch. The only thing heard out of her mouth was a snore.

"Great."