#queen phantom is referred to as a female

[hughmanbean]

New in Town

Jason is... worried. Somewhat. There's a new group in Gotham.

The first indication of this when he'd encountered a towering man in armor, his face shrouded in shadows. The man had introduced himself as Fright Knight, proudly declaring to be the Royal Knight of the High Queen.

A group of royals? He asks.

The most powerful! The Knight replies.

A girl is seen flitting around Gotham, mischievous grin on her face. She calls Jason stinky.

A man lurks behind her, grumbling to himself. He calls Jason unimpressive.

A couple zoom the streets on a motorbike, followed by an unnaturally dark shadow.

A new soup kitchen opens up. The moving truck with it donates lunch boxes to the less fortunate.

---

Fright Knight strolls the streets, humming to himself about a job well done. The High Queen had been muttering about how the Prince and Princess may have been getting bored, so he'd taken the initiative to find something interesting for both of them.

His Queen would be pleased. Now to tell her.

[vibrantbirdy]

Hiii. Firstly, I just want to say how much I LOVE your work. I think you’re fantastic!

I was hoping to request an Obi-Wan Kenobi x Senator or Princess female reader (always a sucker for this). Maybe Clone wars or pre- ending of Revenge of the Sith. Peppered with Obi-Wan denying his feelings for the sake of the Jedi code, and then confessing true emotions in the Kenobi series era. (gotta love angst with some feels after a whole lot of yearning).

Thank you so much 💙

Thank you so much for your kind words and this wonderful request. I was so excited to write for Obi-Wan as it's been years since I have, and it's really cool to write for him in the wake of the Kenobi series. So thank you for this lovely prompt and I hope this is the sort of thing you were looking for.

(Requests for Character x Reader fics are currently open in my Asks. Please read the guidelines first.)

(Masterlist of my fics can be found here.)

Title: Relics Fandom: Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Setting: Pre the Phantom Menace to post the Kenobi Series. Genres: Sci-fi; Romance; Minor Angst Warnings: mild/moderate sexuality; mild references to Reader family losses due to old age; mild references to the Empire being baddies and doing baddie things Pairing: Obi-Wan Kenobi x Princess Female Reader Chapters: 1/1 (Complete) Word Count: c.5k Author's Note: It's late and I need to proofread this properly, sorry for any mistakes in the mean time!

Summary: You and Obi-Wan Kenobi have a connection that spans decades as your lives intersect throughout the years. Will you find each other again in the most unlikely of places?

Now

Inevitably, the Empire discovered that you have been siphoning off funds to various Rebel factions across the Galaxy for years. As Queen of Vitis, you planned to stay on your home world and face the consequences of defying the Imperial tyrants with your people.

But your Bodyguard, loyal to a fault, had other ideas. The night before an Imperial delegation was set to arrive, your Captain of the Guard, Old Paltrum, hired a bounty hunter to abduct you from your chambers in the middle of the night and drop you off somewhere "safe." This apparently meant any random, obscure world in the Outer Rim of the mercenary's choosing.

Seemingly, the desert planet of Tatooine was the farthest flung rock in the Galaxy that the brute could think of.

At night, you dream of home. Of Vitis. A beautiful planet, full of lush forests and green meadows where wildflowers gleam through the grass like little jewels.

Too often, these dreams turn to nightmares and you watch, helpless, as the rivers run red with the blood of your people and the Imperial flag flies like Death's victory banner above the royal citadel.

You fear you'll forever be known as the Vitisian Queen who abandoned her subjects in their most desperate hour of need.

Tatooine is not like home. The heat during the day is a constant, inescapable blanket of oppression. No matter what you do, the sand works its way into your eyes, between your teeth, into your clothes and tracks its way all the way through the small one room home you managed to purchase with the few credits Paltrum obviously appropriated for you from the palace treasury. And you are always so thirsty, no matter how much water you consume.

Still, you have been on the desert planet for almost three months now, and despite your belligerent determination not to, you are beginning to settle and acclimatise. Slowly.

You like Tatooine best in the evening, just as dusk falls. It's cooler and there is a rare, strange beauty to be found as the twin suns set in the sky which turns from blood red to pink to purple and finally to a deep, midnight blue.

You make your living selling the clothing you make at the stall you have acquired in the market in Mos Eisley. It is mid-afternoon when you catch sight of a man you know walking across the far side of the square. You jump up from your stool, knocking it over in your haste and sending your weaving unravelling to the floor.

Ducking and weaving and apologising to the people you bump into, you track the man making his way across the market through the obstructions of clothing and clutter and trinkets hanging from the stalls of your neighbours' and your own.

Your heart leaps. It is him. Obi-Wan Kenobi.

What is he doing here? Of all places.

You want to run to him, to call out his name but something stops you.

He looks older. Of course he does, it's been over a decade since you last saw him. But that's not it.

The Obi-Wan you remember carried himself with a charismatic air of confidence which, on other men, could easily have been perceived as arrogance. But Kenobi was always able to temper this with his good humour and dignified manner.

Now, he looks downtrodden, smaller, as if he's been on Tatooine so long that the years have started to grind him into the sand. His once well kempt hair and beard are scruffy and his dirty, torn clothes are little more than rags.

You are suddenly struck by the idea that he might not want you to see him like this. Then, you think about what happened to the Jedi Order and the rumoured purge said to have been commanded by the Emperor himself.

Obi-Wan must be in exile or in hiding. Just like you.

With this revelation, you are paralysed by indecision. By the time you come to the realisation that you can't let this chance to reunite with him slip away, he is already gone.

***************************************************

30 years ago

The Republic have sent a diplomatic envoy to Vitis to discuss with leading politicians from the surrounding worlds the increasing Separatist pressure on the system's trade routes. The delegation of two Jedi, Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his young apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, arrive at the Vitisian royal citadel early in the morning.

Although you really think you should be sitting at the table with the other delegates, you've reluctantly agreed with the wishes of your parents, the King and Queen, to show Obi-Wan the palace grounds and some of the countryside beyond.

He's a young man about your age, probably eighteen or nineteen. Upon first introduction, you get the distinct impression that he feels like he should be present at the discussions too. But, following a brief period of stilted conversation as you lead him through the palace and out into the lush gardens, it quickly becomes apparent that you and Obi-Wan just click. Any interest in trade or commerce is soon forgotten by both of you.

When he speaks, his pronunciation is clipped and proper, but his voice is full of a charming vitality. He has a graceful, purposeful physicality and moves his body with a self-assuredness many young men his age don't seem to possess quite yet. And he's handsome. He has an open, honest face with well-proportioned features, adored with two impossibly bright blue eyes. He has sandy coloured hair which, apart from a small pony tail at the back of his head and a long, thin braid that runs down behind his ear and to his chest, is cropped short.

As you walk through Vitis's lush, green surroundings together, the conversations flows easily. You notice that he has a perpetual, good-natured smirk on his face, as if he constantly has an amusing quip on the tip of his tongue. Sometimes he speaks these out loud and his blue eyes twinkle with mischief.

His little barbs are never unkind. In fact, you find it refreshing, the way he makes you think on your feet in an effort to fire out your own witty retorts.

One time, you're too slow to think of anything clever to say, so all you can think to do is to pull, gently, at the strange braid affixed to the side of his head.

"What's this?"

What's what?" He asks with mock ignorance, and you shove him playfully.

"It's my Padawan braid," he explains, "It signifies that I'm not yet a Jedi. Once I've completed the trials, I'll cut it off as part of the ceremony when I become a Knight."

"Oh," you say, faltering.

It all sounds rather meaningful and symbolic.

"I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have..."

He smiles reassuringly.

"It's ok, I have a bad habit of tugging at it myself when I'm nervous."

Hours have passed and you've wandered all the way through the grounds as far as the great lake before either of you notice the time. You take the short cut back through the woods and past the gargantuan Whispering Tree, which stands sentinel like a great, leafy guardian on the border of the royal forest.

Obi-Wan stops to admire the tree, his eyes following its massive trunk and he cranes his neck in a futile attempt to try and get a glimpse of the top as it disappears into the canopy. The tree is putting on a magnificent show today. Its peculiar white leaves are dazzling in the sunlight and the pale silver bark shines like precious metal.

"What is it?" he asks, his voice filled with awe, "I've never seen a tree like it."

"It's called the Whispering Tree because of the noise it makes in the wind. It sounds like someone speaking. It's the only one left of its kind - a white Vitisian Birch. Traditionally, first born royal daughters are charged with its care," you run a hand against the smooth bark fondly," and that happens to be me."

Obi-Wan smiles almost absent-mindedly as he presses his palm against the tree and closes his eyes.

"Are you talking to it? Using the Force?" You ask, excitedly, "What's it saying?"

"That's not how it works," he chuckles, but he stops immediately as he sees your cheeks redden and realises that you're embarrassed.

"Uh, but if it could talk," he continues, earnestly, "It would say that it feels very lucky to have someone like you to care for it."

You beam widely at him and, unable to stop yourself, you lean in and plant an impulsive kiss on his lips. At first, he stiffens, his eyes wide in surprise, but then he seems to melt into you and you feel a thrill of excitement course through you as his lips start to move against yours.

"Obi-Wan!" A stern voice makes you both jump and you leap away from each other as if you've been electrocuted.

The tall figure of Obi-Wan's mentor is striding towards where you are standing at the tree line, his Jedi robes and long silver hair billowing in the breeze together making him seem even bigger and more imposing.

"Master Qui-Gon..."

"You were supposed to escort the Princess to dinner an hour ago!"

"I know, Master, I'm sorry..."

Obi-Wan starts to explain, but Qui-Gon Jinn cuts him off abruptly.

"I don't want to hear it."

Side by side, you and Obi-Wan traipse silently back to the palace behind Master Jinn. You find yourself having to scurry to keep up with his long strides, but Obi-Wan appears to be used to it.

He looks rather crestfallen following Qui-Gon's admonishment, and you reach out to touch the back of his hand lightly with your own. At first, he doesn't look at you, instead just allowing the corners of his mouth to lift slightly as he runs his knuckles back and forth against your own.

Then, you exchange a sheepish, secret smile, behind Master Jinn's back, before breaking the touch and you both return your gaze to the ground with suitably chastised expressions.

--------------------------------------------------------

It becomes apparent over dinner that Master Jinn, mercifully, has not informed your parents of your little indiscretion with Obi-Wan. You don't know what story he has concocted to explain your tardiness, but you are grateful for it.

Over the course of the evening, as you observe him, you realise that Qui-Gon Jinn is a kind man. Although he appears slightly terse with Obi-Wan to begin with, his manner softens as time goes on and to you, the relationship between the two Jedi seems almost akin to that of father and son.

Although you still feel a guilty, watching the two Jedi helps soothe your worries that Obi-Wan might face some severe reprimand on account of your actions.

Soon, it is time to see the guests off and the Jedi delegation is last to leave. You take advantage of the long conversation Master Jinn and your father apparently couldn't possibly have finished over dinner to say goodbye to Obi-Wan.

"I'm sorry, did you get in trouble?" You say quickly and quietly into his ear as you give him a formal, chaste kiss farewell on the cheek. "Yes, but it was worth it," he whispers back and a wide, boyish grin spreads across his face as he pulls away.

You can't do anything other than return it, and you look at each other for just a moment longer before he gives you a courteous nod of his head.

"Goodbye, Princess."

"Goodbye, Obi-Wan."

********************************************************

Now

You next see Obi-Wan a few weeks after your first glimpse of him at the market.

You almost approach him this time, but again, something holds you back.

He is heading towards Mos Eisley's space port and he has a more purposeful stride to his walk than when you last saw him.

Yet it's still not the walk of the composed, dignified man you once knew. In fact, his sense of urgency seems alarmingly close to panic.

Presumably, he is going off-world for some reason. He's not carrying much with him.

You hope he'll be back.

******************************************************** 12 years ago You are arriving on Coruscant, the sprawling city covered planet at the heart of the Galaxy, the seat of the Republic's power. Your father has sent you to make a representation to the Senate to officially declare an end to Vitis's neutrality.

It's not what you or your people want. But the Separatists have been pushing in on Vitisian interests on all sides in the past several months, disrupting trade routes, placing droid garrisons on nearby worlds, even muscling in on mineral mining operations on several moons within the Vitisian system. There is now really is very little choice. Vitis needs the protection of the Republic.

As you step off your ship, Obi-Wan Kenobi, now a Jedi Master, strides across the landing platform to greet you. You are so high up it gives the impression that the Coruscant sun which hangs large and low and golden in the sky behind you is about to swallow you whole. There is a strong breeze, which catches your hair and sends the flowing train of your green travelling dress snaking into the air like an emerald river.

Obi-Wan has grown into a fine looking man, tall and broad shouldered. He is clothed in traditional Jedi attire, a long brown robe draped elegantly over a cream tunic, fawn pants, and knee length, brown leather boots. His sandy hair is neatly cropped at the back and sides, with more length on the top and he had grown a distinguished golden beard since you last saw him.

"Princess," he says with a warm smile, those piercing blue eyes of his just as full of life as you remember.

"Master Kenobi," you respond, beaming, as he stoops to kiss you on both cheeks.

You'd been concerned that, in the almost two decades since you last saw him, his long years at war in service to the Jedi might have dulled that bright spark you so admired in the young man you once knew.

But you needn't have worried. As he escorts you to your chambers within the accommodation wing of the grand Senate building, you find yourself falling back into easy, cheerful conversation with him, as if no time has passed at all.

Obi-Wan's youthful spirit is still present but it has evolved into a sort of refined, contained exuberance that sits elegantly on him. He is as quick to laughter as ever and the eloquent wit he possessed even as a boy is just as sharp.

----------------------------------------------------------

You are sitting in the lavish parlour of the rooms you've been assigned. It is a fine suite, decorated in bright colours with a beautiful view out across Coruscant's endless cityscape. The arching floor to ceiling windows let in as much natural light at the metropolis' towering spires will allow.

Suddenly, you wonder what it would feel like to kiss Obi-Wan again, now that he has that dashing beard.

"Princess?"

Obi-Wan is standing at the sideboard, holding a steaming teapot and a glass mug out towards you. From the amused, questioning look on his face, you get the distinct impression that he has proffered the beverage more than once.

"I apologise, Master Jedi, I was parsecs away, yes please."

"Oh really?" he asks, conversationally as he drops into the lounge chair opposite you, and hands you the glass vessel across the low, marble table, "Where were you?"

"Well, I was actually thinking about when we first met, do you remember?"

It's not quite a lie.

"How could I forget?" He laughs, "Master Qui-Gon was furious with me."

A shadow of uncharacteristic sadness suddenly passes over his face.

Remembering the rumours you have heard of the violence of Qui-Gon Jinn's death at the hands of a mysterious, fearsome warrior, you put down your tea and reach across the table to take Obi-Wan's hands in yours.

"I was so very sorry to hear about Master Jinn, Obi-Wan," you say kindly.

"Thank you, it was a long time ago now."

He smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. He squeezes your hands gently before he stands up.

"I'll let you get settled."

Obi-Wan makes for the door and as he reaches for the handle, he turns and grins at you disarmingly.

"It really is very good to see you again, Princess."

----------------------------------------------------

You had only planned to stay on Coruscant for a week. However, politics being as they are, you have ended up staying for much longer.

One day, during a gap in the Senate proceedings, Obi-Wan takes you to visit the magnificent Jedi Temple. He wants to show you the terraced garden, knowing that you are missing the greenery of Vitis.

It is a paradise. You can't believe that at the centre of this endless cityscape is this bubble of serenity. The variety of plants that are grown here, the vibrancy of the colours, the wonderful aroma of a hundred different blossoms all intermingled - it makes you giddy.

You and Obi-Wan stay in the gardens for hours strolling and conversing and sitting together, then strolling some more.

"Strange how so many years have gone by yet I feel as if no time at all has passed between us," you say plainly as soon as the thought pops into your head.

You don't mean it to sound quite so romantic, but then you realise you really don't mind if that's how Obi-Wan choses to interpret it.

"I feel the same," he agrees and you are surprised to see a hint of bashfulness in the smile he offers.

You allow the back of your hand to graze against his. He turns his head and raises his eyebrows at you, an amused smirk of recognition on his face. He runs his knuckles along yours as he once did so many years ago.

Unlike then, Obi-Wan allows his hand to stay resting against yours this time and you walk like that, not quite hand in hand, through the vast gardens of the Temple long after the sun starts to set and the descent of the cool, evening air releases the sweet, heady scent of Coruscanti night blossoms all around you.

-----------------------------------------------------

The month you have spent on Coruscant has been stressful, busy, and filled with difficult negotiations and decisions which weigh heavily upon on you. Your father is in ailing health, ever since the death of your mother, and you know that soon you will be Queen. It is not a thought you relish, but now, at least, you know that when you take the oath to serve your people for the rest of your life as sovereign, you will be able to do so knowing you can hold your own on their behalf in the Rancor's den of the Republic Senate.

Yet, aside from all the worry, this has also been one of the happiest times of your life. When you are not working, and when he is not galivanting off-world on some Jedi business or another, you have spent every moment you can spare with Obi-Wan.

When the time finally comes to leave Coruscant, Obi-Wan volunteers to escort you back to Vitis. You'd sent Paltrum home weeks ago, poor old sod. City air has never agreed with him and you just knew his wife, Ina, would be worried sick about him.

As you finally land back on your home world, it is amid thunder and lightning. It is perhaps the most violent storm you've seen on Vitis in a decade.

You almost can't believe it when you and Obi-Wan step off the ship and see Old Paltrum soaked through, standing sentry at the palace doors.

"Paltrum, get inside, for the love of the Maker!" You scold the ancient Captain as you approach.

Obi-Wan is holding his cloak over your head in a valiant effort to keep you dry, but it is making not one bit of difference and you can feel the water seeping through your travelling clothes and into your bones.

"It's always been my job to watch for you, your Highness, I'm not about to stop now," Paltrum responds indignantly and you feel a pang of guilt for your rather patronising tone.

"I know, thank you, Captain," and you have to shout over the roar of the wind and the lashing rain, "It's late. I'll see my father in the morning, don't disturb him."

"As you wish, my lady," Paltrum says with a gracious nod, and you stifle a laugh as a deluge of water floods off the peak of his cap with the motion.

The Captain turns to Obi-Wan as he opens the huge, ornate doors to let you through.

"Master Kenobi, there are guest quarters ready for you in the east wing."

------------------------------------------------------------

Obi-Wan does not go to the east wing. Instead, you lead him towards your own chambers. Someone, thankfully, has lit a fire in your sitting room and you both sit cross-legged on the rug on the floor as close as is possible next to the roaring flames.

You've each taken off your sodden outerwear. If possible, Obi-Wan looks even more dashing wet through, his light undershirt clinging to his muscled torso underneath.

Neither of you have spoken since you sat down and as you both watch the flames from the fire reflect in the other's eyes, a tension-filled silence fills the room and sets your heart racing until you think it might burst.

When you can bear it no longer and you see no point in prolonging further pretence, you grab Obi-Wan by the front of his shirt and pull him into a kiss. It is not like your first, so many years ago. This is a deep and passionate embrace, full of desire. He responds immediately to your touch this time, his lips crashing almost roughly against yours.

The Jedi's hands are round your waist, at the nape of your neck, the small of your back, tangled up in your hair, seemingly all at once. You start to unbutton the fastenings on his shirt, tearing at them with one hand, while the other travels urgently down his chest towards his abdomen.

Suddenly, Obi-Wan leaps to his feet and turns his back to you, his broad shoulders rising and falling rapidly. As you've seen him do so often in recent weeks, he brings a hand to his face and rubs his beard. You think this new habit has probably replaced the old one of tugging on his Padawan braid.

"Have I upset you?" you ask quietly, the sting of confusion and rejection, worrying its way under your skin.

"No, Princess," his voice is an earnest whisper as he sits back down in front of you, grasping your hands in his, "Never."

"I still dream of that kiss we shared all those years ago," he admits suddenly, his voice low and full of longing.

Obi-Wan cups your face gently in his hands and looks at you, brows furrowed with emotion, his gaze penetrating right through your soul and setting it aflame.

"Now, seeing you again after all these years, I dream of what it would be like to hold you, to share your life, to....share your bed. These past weeks, I have yearned for you, you must know that."

Your foreheads are touching now, your nose presses into his face, and your fingers are suddenly entwined in his wet, golden hair. You can feel his heart raging against his chest as if it is fighting to escape, just as your own is.

"Obi-Wan..." you say, open-mouthed against his cheek, breathless with need for him.

He closes his eyes and brushes his lips against yours, but he doesn't quite allow himself to kiss you. Instead, after a moment of breathing each other in and out, he pulls away gently.

"But that's all they are," his voice has returned to it's usual refined timbre, "I'm sorry, but they are just dreams. It's all I can allow them to be."

His words are like a thousand tiny knives to your heart and you can't help feeling how cruel it was of him to give you hope and then tear it away like that. You stand up sharply and walk to the window, gazing out onto the storm raging across Vitis, a mere spring shower compared to the tumult now roiling within you.

"You must understand, I have pledged my life to the Jedi Order..."

"You were a child when you made that pledge..." you scoff and you despise the bitterness in your own voice.

He walks across the room to join you and puts his hand on your shoulder.

"All the same. It is made. And now we are at war. I have obligations, I have responsibilities to the Order and to the Republic"

You turn to him and place your hands on his broad chest. His heartbeat has slowed and you know you are losing him. It's like he's flicked some internal switch and raised a barrier between you.

"Then let us have each other, just this once," you whisper urgently, emboldened by desire and the fear that this chance to love him as you've always wanted is slipping away forever.

Obi-Wan touches your face and smiles sadly.

"If we did, I would never be able to leave you again, not for a single moment. I would be your prisoner forever."

"Then stay," you plead through tears, even though you already know his answer, "Stay with me."

"I can't."

***********************************************

Now

Obi-Wan Kenobi is sitting on a wall in Mos Eisley's market place. You are pleased to see that he looks much more like his old self. His head is held high and there is a look of calm on his handsome face. The clothes he is wearing are much neater than before, almost reminiscent of his old Jedi robes, and he has tidied up his hair and beard.

You walk towards him, but he doesn't notice you. You don't say his name. Instead, you quietly sit down next to him and let the back of your hand rest against his. You feel the strong tendons there tense.

He doesn't look at you. His head drops, and his eyes close as if he couldn't stand for it not to be you. Lightly, he moves his hand so that his knuckles rub gently against yours.

"Hello old friend," you say.

"Princess."

The use of your old title sounds natural and right on his tongue and you hope he never stops using it.

Obi-Wan finally looks up at you and his eyes, still dazzling shards of icy blue, gleam with tears. You reach out and touch his face, his stubble pleasantly rough under your hand. You take in the lines around his eyes, deeper now, and the distinguished flecks of silver in his beard and hair. The sight of him is more beautiful, more familiar to you than you can bear.

"You still look the same," you say, your voice shaking slightly.

He smiles and turns his face to gently kiss the heel of your palm that is resting against his cheek.

"And you are more radiant than ever."

He helps you take down your market stall early for the day and you take him into your home where you speak for hours in hushed tones and tell each other everything of your lives in the years since you were last together.

Then, as the twin suns of Tatooine set behind your little domed house in the sand, you lead him to your bed.

----------------------------------------------------

You are curled up on your side against Obi-Wan's solid, warm chest. For the first time in years you feel safe, entwined in his strong arms, listening to the steady, sonorous rhythm of his heartbeat.

"I have always loved you," he whispers tenderly in your ear, tucking away a stray lock of hair back from your cheek.

"And I you," you say and you mean it.

Still, you can't help but smile sadly as you think of the last time you saw him that fateful night of the storm of Vitis before everything fell apart.

"But of course, you already knew that," you add.

"I am sorry, truly."

"Obi-Wan..." you start to interrupt, worried that your words sounded resentful.

"For all the wasted years," he continues.

He needs to say this, you realise. So you let him.

"If I'd known how the Republic would fall, how the Jedi Order would fail, how the Empire... Well, I never would have denied us this."

He brings his lips to your shoulder and traces a trail of kisses down your arm. His beard tickles.

"No one could have known, Obi-Wan. You did what you thought was right at the time. We all did. And now here we are together again. We made it back to each other. Two old relics of a past age."

"Oh come now, we're not that old," he quips, and you are happy to hear that his tone has lightened again.

You grin mischievously and wriggle out of his arms to push him down onto his back and roll on top of him.

"Prove it," you whisper, as you come to rest on his abdomen and lean down to kiss him on the nose.

His eyes widen in surprise and then in boyish delight as he grasps you firmly by your hips. "Again?!" he laughs and he throws his head back in mirth at his own joke, his eyes squeezing shut so that they crinkle beautifully at the corners.

It is a joyful, youthful, transcendental sound and suddenly, you are back under the Whispering Tree in the green meadows of Vitis with a young Jedi, an unwritten future together stretching out endlessly in front of you.

[siriusblack-the-third]

Matching Misfortunes: Susan Pevensie

I enjoyed writing this one so much. I hope you enjoy reading it just as much!

.

Susan’s cheeks hurt.

She smiles at the boy as he throws an arm around her and winks, and she feels the muscles of her face ache with the effort of holding a smile for hours and hours on end. She wants to shrug off the black-haired boy’s arm, wants to tell him to piss off and not bother her again lest she ask Peter to ensure his distance from her with violence, but she simply smiles at him.

She straightens her spine and smiles.

She ignores the glares her female classmates are throwing at her from all corners of the classroom. She is beautiful, she knows she is, but that does not mean he enjoys being the nectar to the bees that are the hormonal, idiotic boys of Westbrook. She has never enjoyed being known for her beauty, for it has always been nothing but a miserable curse— three wars had been fought for her hand in marriage over the course of twenty years, and Edmund has sometimes called her Helen of Troy for her troubles.

She hates that fucking name.

Her cheeks hurt. Yet, she smiles her most charming smile as she subtly leans away from Raymond— she has heard of the way he treats girls, and she has no interest in being one of his thrice-damned conquests. She has no interest in being a challenge, a trophy to be earned, a thing to be owned. She is to be respected, dammit, she is smart and keen-eyed and knowledgeable. Heaven’s sake, she is a Queen—

She breathes. Pushes the thought out of her mind. Maintains her smile.

Raymond smirks back, dull greyish blue eyes glinting like a broken steel sword in the sunlight that streams in through the windows, and tries to draw her closer to him using the arm that he has around her shoulder. Susan does not deign to move. She does not bother to pretend that she is not stronger than this arrogant youngling, this boy playing at being a man, and simply sits there, unmoving and seemingly oblivious, until he furrows his eyebrows and stops trying to move her without her permission.

Her cheeks hurt.

“C’mon, Pevensie,” he leers at her, and she stops herself from lifting a hand to her back. Five and a half years, and she still hasn’t forgotten the phantom presence of her quiver full of arrows, her bow made of the finest wood covered in intricate carvings.

“Say yes, darling,” he says, and she smiles so that she does not try to stab. “The party would be boring without the prettiest girl in school there.”

Susan has heard that compliment fall from the lips of powerful Kings and lovesick fools alike, and she has never been affected by it. Raymond falls into the third category of the people who have called her pretty, the one where they simply want to be known as the one who broke the prettiest girl’s heart, who claimed the love of the Beauty of Narnia—

She breathes in. Pushes the thought out of her mind. Maintains her smile.

“Well, I don’t know about that, Raymond,” she says in the smoothest, most convincing one that she can muster, and she does not fail to notice the way boys and girls alike sway towards her just to listen to her speak. She ignores the way her heart hums at being listened to, a song she has tried (and failed) to forget for five and a half years. “Parties aren’t really my fancy, you see.”

Raymond waves a hand lazily, and Susan wants to scoff at how far the action is from the effortlessness she is sure he wants to portray. He is an arrogant airbag of a boy with an inflated sense of importance playing at being a powerful man. “Oh, now we both know you’re lying, my darling.”

Susan feels the sudden urge to cut off his tongue, for daring to refer to him as his darling. Instead, she folds her hands in her lap and laughs softly, notices the way the students gathered around laugh with her as if following her lead. Her throat feels tight and her eyes burn, and she pushes both feelings away.

“No, I’m telling the truth,” she says, laughter colouring her words in just the right amount that tells everyone that they are welcome to laugh along and sure enough, they do. They do not take their eyes off of her, and follow her unspoken command by laughing along. She ignores the strange warmth that settles behind her heart in her chest. “I get too tired at parties, they’re too much for me.”

She loves parties. She has loved parties for ages and ages, since she was a nine-year-old child and she dressed up to let her father take her and mum out for dancing, and then a twenty-something year old Queen dressed in the finest silks and talking circles around Princes enchanted by her beauty and Kings madly in love with her—

She breathes in. Pushes the thought out of her mind. Maintains her smile.

Raymond’s arm tightens around her shoulders. Susan’s fingers twitch, but she forcefully presses her hand into her lap to stop herself from reaching for the quiver that no longer hangs from her back. There is no quiver. There is no bow. She is a schoolgirl, not an archer. She has textbooks in the bag that hangs from her back. She is a schoolgirl.

“Oh, be a sport, Pevensie,” Raymond scoffs, and Susan wants to rise to her full height and demand that he treat her with the respect she deserves. “It’s just one party, and it’s the first party of term. C’mon, you can even be my date.”

Susan ignores the way the glares are once again aimed at her, ignores the disgust that roils in her stomach, and masterfully stops her smile from curving into a disdainful sneer. An arrogant boy playing at being a powerful man, who wishes that she would clamour for his love. Ha. She has seen many thousands of men just like him.

Many thousands of men trying to seem more important than they are, vying for her attention, looking to claim her, looking to own her, aiming for her throne and her kingdom—

All of them learnt to fear her over time.

All of them learnt over time that she was not just Beauty. They learnt that she was not just respected for her looks. They learnt, over time, that she was Beauty and Brains and Brawn. She was beautiful, she was the peacekeeper, and she was the most talented archer in all the known lands. She was a dangerous enemy to make, and despite her preference for non-violence, would not hesitate to hand out gruesome and painful deaths if needed.

Susan is Gentle, not Harmless.

Men learnt over time, in Narnia, and so will Raymond learn it in England.

She straightens her spine and gently shrugs off Raymond’s arm. He tries to move it back to its former place, and she stares at him with a smile she knows looks too wide and too sharp, making him stop halfway through his movement. That is one good thing that comes out of being truly beautiful— Beauty, true Beauty, is terrifying. It is deadly. It is something that a simple human cannot help but be bewitched by, and Susan knows this. She has known this for decades. She has successfully used this piece of knowledge to her kingdom’s benefit time and again.

Raymond does not try to throw his arm over her shoulder again, and Susan makes sure her smile goes back to its most charming as she engages the rest of the students.

“I will have to decline your.. generous offer,” she says, laying the sarcasm on so thinly that only Edmund would have noticed.

Alas, her dearest younger brother is not here to witness her exercise her power over her classmates. If he were, he would have enjoyed watching them move to her word like mice moved to the Pied Piper’s tune. He is absurd like that, but who is she to deny him his entertainment?

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she sighs as she pushes herself off the desk and stands to her full, impressive height. She brushes her hands over her skirt, takes her water bottle from a boy with a soft smile that has him blushing bright red, and waves to everyone. Without saying a word more, she walks out of the classroom with her head held high and her shoulders pulled back.

Her cheeks hurt.

She walks in silence, ignoring the students that mill around in the corridors of the school. The girl’s bathroom is on the floor above, and it takes her barely a minute to reach it; people clear a way for her, moving out of her path as she walks with measured and careful steps. They do it almost without noticing that they are, almost like a force is making them do it.

Susan locks the door of the bathroom behind her, takes a good look around to make sure she is alone, and bursts into silent tears.

She drops her bag to the floor and leans her back against the door, screwing her eyes shut and letting the tears run down her cheeks and drip off her jaw. Her chest heaves with quiet sobs, and she sucks in shuddering breaths as she slides down to sit on the floor with her head buried between her knees. The warmth behind her heart turns into a painful burning sensation, and she chokes on her tears and emotions that she cannot fully understand.

No matter how much she tries to bury her memories behind smiles that sway the students, no matter how much she tries to forget, she knows what she is. She knows what she always was, and what she always will be.

She is Queen Susan the Gentle of Narnia, the Eagle-Eyed Marksman Queen, Second of the Beloved Four, Defender of the People.

[osmt-hkw]

alright, so, i'm not normally a news blog but i'll try to share at least some stuff because it's relevant to hesokuri wars:

hesokuri wars is shutting down!

yep, the app that's been going for 6 years strong is finally shutting down. the staff made 4 tweets about it which you can find here (one, two, three, four), but basically they say,

"hesokuri wars is shutting down and a new game is being made. the game will shut down on October 2nd, 2022 at 15:00 (JST). thank you for playing the game. we're renewing all the previous events and adding new event(s?) for the ending of the game. the new game will be called "osomatsu-san's main battle poko ball"* and will be made this winter. tweets about it will come from this same account."

*the title is just what DeepL gave me

for anyone that's interested, i put all the dates under the read more, if i made a mistake please let me know!

event renewal dates

from 7/29 - 8/12

white day

geruge

matsuno quest

animal pajamas

phantom thief

zombie

swimsuits

band

invitational

invitational (awakened)

from 8/5 - 8/19

haunted house

magical girl

sports day

vampire

shinpingumi

youkai

dark santa

iyami kart (new years)

hero

spy

from 8/12 - 8/26

ice skater

musical

expedition team

knights

matsu noir

drag queen

soba restaurant

artifical human

denki mystery

fashion industry

from 8/19 - 9/2

boxer

akatsuka TV

lawyer

angel*

knights (the last night commander)

bellboy

dolls

hero mark 2

overalls (colorless)

phantom thief (iyami disguise)

from 8/26 - 9/9

yakuza wolf

female prisoner

billionaire

goblin

antarctic expedition team

steampunk

akatsuka robot industry

magical girl (panzer)

ino samurai

matsuno quest (level 99)

from 9/2 - 9/16

matsu noir (akatsuka police)

sweet villain

gunslinger

hero (locked ward)

hot teacher

phantom thief (kids)

foster daughter

dog matsu (one dog)

big maniac

akatsuka's earth defence force

from 9/9 - 9/23

angel (biker)

staff t-shirts

stage papa (mushroom children)

yakuza wolf (reinforcement)

18 years old (kimono)

cyberpunk 1.0

cats

director

searcher (servant of the evil god)

band (wizard of the rainbow)

from 9/16 - 9/30

band (wizard of the rainbow) (part 2)

idols (casual outfit)

cats (points atsume)**

jam session

cavematsu

cavematsu (part 2)

housekeeper

jeweler

small shadow

ghost (sheets)

from 9/23 - 10/2

musical (pajama)

akuma worker (pajama)

color gang (slum)

re color gang (slum)

diver

perfumer

foster daughter (usual dress)

jeweler (GATE)

vampire (black robes)

steampunk (land of deserts)

*the full title here is "クリスマス特別企画 ウェルカム！現世" and the confusing thing about this is, only the "ウェルカム！現世" refers to the angel event. i have no idea what "クリスマス特別企画" is, maybe it's a different version of an existing event, maybe it's a typo, i have no idea.

**the points atsume refers to the events where you collect a bunch of points in exchange for power ups and etc. i'm not sure why this is one of the "events" they decided to revive?

gacha renewal dates

from 7/29 - 8/5: phantom thief (close call) from 8/5 - 8/12: youkai (hyakki yagyou) from 8/12 - 8/19: denki mystery (oni S, D) from 8/19 - 8/26: cthulhu mythos from 8/26 - 9/2: spy (episode S, D) from 9/2 - 9/9: matsu noir (dazzling S, D) from 9/9 - 9/16: yakuza wolf (sakura S, D) from 9/16 - 9/23: band (wizard of the rainbow) from 9/23 - 10/2: girlymatsu working in hell

everything listed here ends at 18:00 JST, with the exception of the last week which ends at 15:00.

[virtuouswhitehatorganization]

Hormoniac (Villainous Oc)

Name: Amobi Onyilogwu

Age: Same Age As Black Phantom 

Headcannon Voice Actor: Uche (English); Javier Olguín (Spanish)

Relatives: Amadi Onyilogwu (father-deceased); Nnedi Onyilogwu (mother-deceased); Jidemma Onyilogwu (uncle) ; Ijeoma Onyilogwu (aunt by marriage); Adaeze Onyilogwu (cousin)

Abilities: Hormone Manipulation And Generation 

Love Interest: Green Rod

Ethnicity: Nigerian-American

Gender Identity: Genderfluid

Sexuality: Pansexual 

Residence: Marin City 

Occupation: Villain; Club Owner; Gang Leader; Drag Queen Performer; Singer

Personality: He is an eccentric and quirky fellow who sees himself as larger than life. He is very bombastic and loud and loves to make a scene. He also is very dramatic and can act very over the top. He also is very mischievous and can use his powers to  play pranks on people. Despite being a villain he does have a soft side for his underlings and gang members due to the fact he took them in when no one else wanted them. He also has great hatred for PEACE due to the experiments they did on him and is willing to also target them as revenge. Although he is very confident and prideful, he also inside has vulnerabilities he doesn't often show to other people and it includes his past involving his family and his reluctant to show them to anyone except his closest subordinates and later Green Rod. Despite how civil he can be, he can still have a ruthless side since he is a gangster and will get rid of people if he thinks they will get in his way. He also tends to be very flirty and loves flustering and teasing people. He tends to be a nicknamer and give people special nicknames he uses to refer to them. 

Background: He was an orphan was who taken in by his uncle and aunt after his parents died, but they mistreated him and favored their daughter over him. The abuse got worse as he started identifying as queer and they got even more hostile towards him. He then at the age of eighteen decided to leave where he lived on the streets until he found a spot opening for PEACE as a test subject. He entered into the program where he was promised big things if he was tested. However, the results of the testing turn haywire and mutated him. The scientists thought the results were mixed but still though he could useful and wanted to keep him as a observation subject.  He decided he didn't want to be used as a locked up specimen and used his new powers to subdue everyone and run away. He was again back on the streets until he saw an ad for the Black Hat Organization and became a member so he could avoid being used by PEACE again. He then got the resources to form a gang called The Pride Pack and opened up a club called Flavor Flair. He recruited people who felt marginalized for their sexuality and used his powers to help those fulfill their dreams when it came to being their trues elves.  

* He joined Black Hat's organization before meeting Flug and Demencia, but afterwards he has met them many times. He does seem to be sweet on Flug. 

* He uses and switches between female and male forms. 

* He is influenced by Uche and Emporio Ivankov from One Piece. 

* He has ties to other mob bosses like King Cassino. 

* He is Green Rod's third love interest. 

* He uses he pronouns in male form and she pronouns in female form. 

* He started discovering his identity when he got into high school. 

* He likes switching people's genders for fun. 

* He has a great singing voice and often performs at his club in both forms. 

* He knows Igbo and English. 

* He is inspired by flamboyant villains seen in media. 

Created through picrew.me/en/image_maker/20949…

[thescarletwitchsapprentice]

Marvel/MCU: Wanda Maximoff: Yandere

One-Shots/Sometimes Kinda Series IDK

My Royal Treasure (Yandere!Queen!Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Servant!Reader)

The Scarlet’s Songbird (Yandere!Phantom!Wanda Maximoff x ADD!Autistic!Fem!Reader)

Tonight You Belong To Me (Yandere!Mermaid!Wanda Maximoff x Fem!Reader)

Her Sweet Little Gumdrop (Yandere!Platonic!Wanda Maximoff x Autistic!Child!Reader CATCF AU)

Forged in the Dark, Blessed by the Light (Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch x autistic!reader)

Forever the Witch’s Light (Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch x autistic!reader)

Baby Mine (Yandere Mom!Wanda Maximoff x (possibly-autistic)!Reader) (Potential MoM spoilers ahead! Read at your own discretion!)

Ready or Not....Here I Come (Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch x Reader) (GIF contains potential MoM spoilers? IDK)

A Sweet Flower for the Scarlet Witch (Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch x autistic!ADHD!fem!reader) (Spoilers for Multiverse of Madness) (Also potential flash warning for the GIF)

Past the Point of No Return (Dark!Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Dark!Yandere!Scarlet Witch x fem!Reader) (References/hints at a location in MoM so potential spoilers?)

The Witch’s Sweet Little Songbird (Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch x autistic!ADHD!fem!singer!reader)

Catching the Bouquet (Yandere!Wanda Maximoff x autistic!fem!reader)

All Mine (Dark!Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Dark!Yandere!Scarlet Witch x fem!reader)

The Scarlet Witch’s Delicate Flower (Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch x autistic!ADHD!fem!reader) (Spoilers for Multiverse of Madness)

Forever Home (Yandere!Platonic!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Platonic!Scarlet Witch x female!autistic!chaos magic user!ADHD!young adult!reader)

Love Bites (But you don’t mind) (Yandere!Vampire!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Vampire Queen!Scarlet Witch x willing!lesbian!simp!female!reader)

Headcanons:

Yandere!Wanda Maximoff with an ADD!autistic!s/o

Yandere!Wanda Maximoff Headcanons (Corpse Bride AU)

Yandere!Wanda Maximoff with an S/O during her time at HYDRA. 

Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch with a Sweet and Innocent Beloved: Post-Westview, Pre-MoM, Part 1

Yandere!Parent!Queen!Wanda Maximoff with an Autistic!Fem!Magic!Child (General Headcanons)

Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch with a Sweet and Innocent Beloved: Post-Westview, Pre-MoM, Part 2

♡ Yandere Alphabet ♡ Wanda Maximoff Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch with a Sweet and Innocent Beloved: Post-Westview, Pre-MoM, Part 3

Imagines:

Wanda calls you her precious flower.

Wanda’s your next door neighbor.

You’re a young adult stranded near Westview, and Wanda really wants a younger sibling.

You’re an orphan in a kingdom and Queen Maximoff decides to adopt you.

You have been taken captive by a powerful Sith Master, but she’s a little.....different. (Yandere!Sith Master!Wanda Maximoff x Jedi-in-training!Princess!Reader)

You’re getting bullied at school and your mom’s not happy about that, to say the least. (Yandere!Mom!Wanda Maximoff x Child!Reader)

You have the power to travel through the Multiverse, and you’re at the mercy of a witch who desperately wants to be with her children. (Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch x female!multiversal traveler!reader)

The Scarlet Witch invades your city in search of her children, but you react differently to her. (Yandere!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Scarlet Witch x autistic!fem!reader)

The Scarlet Witch thought you’d be scared when you woke up in her castle. Keyword: thought. (Yandere!Dark?Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Dark?Scarlet Witch x female!lesbian!simp!reader)

You’re a princess at another kingdom’s ball; also you catch/have caught the attention of the queen of the kingdom. (Yandere!Queen!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Queen!Scarlet Witch x autistic!female!royal!reader)

The Queen didn’t expect that you’d react like this when she took you captive as her beloved. (Yandere!Dark?Queen!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Dark?Queen!Scarlet Witch x female!lesbian!simp!reader)

Short Drabbles and Whatnot:

The Carnival’s Sorceress (Yandere!Carnival Mistress!Wanda Maximoff/Yandere!Carnival Mistress!Scarlet Witch x Reader)

Series

[nyxshadowhawk]

Names for Witches

An updated version of an earlier list! Good and evil witches alike:

Acrasia: A witch in The Faerie Queene who tempts and bewitches people, controlling their minds. Means "lacking command."

Agatha: Means "good." A disproportionately common name for witches in media, including the Enchantress from Beauty and the Beast, Aggie Prenderghast from ParaNorman, and Aggie Cromwell from Halloweentown.

Aglaonice: A Thessalian witch from the writings of Plutarch, who could draw the moon down from the sky (probably referring to an eclipse). She might just have been an astronomer!

Akantha: A Greek name meaning "thorn."

Akitophis: The name of an unkown goddess mentioned in the PGM. Possibly a name or epithet of Ereshkigal.

Alcina: An evil sorceress and seductress from Orlando furioso, and the title character of a series of operas. Meaning uncertain.

Alcmene: The mother of Heracles. Means “moon strength.”

Aradia: The title character of Charles Geoffrey Leland's book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. A moon goddess and basically the witch version of Jesus, at least in that book.

Arcana: Latin word meaning “secret” (literally “to shut in a chest”), also a word for the two groups of cards in a tarot deck.

Argante: The Queen of Avalon in one Arthurian text, a version of Morgan le Fay. Might be related to argenta (“silver”).

Arianrhod: A Welsh goddess, associated with the moon, stars, fertility, and the passage of time. Means “silver wheel.”

Armida: The name of the witch/seductress in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, meaning uncertain.

Asteria: A Titaness and the mother of Hecate, the goddess of falling stars, prophecy, astrology, and oneiromancy. Means “starry.”

Asterope: The mother of Circe in one telling. Means either “lightning” or “star-faced.” (Also the name of one of the Pleiades.)

Autumn: The season containing Halloween/Samhain.

Belladonna: Deadly nightshade, a poisonous herb. Means "beautiful woman."

Briar: Refers to thorny bushes. Could be associated with evil enchantments, beautiful roses, or both.

Brigid: Celtic fire goddess. Means either "strength, virtue" or "exalted one."

Cassandra: A Greek prophetess whom Apollo cursed so no one would believe her. Means "she who entangles men." Could be shortened to "Cassie."

Cerridwen: Welsh enchantress goddess associated with the sacred cauldron of divine inspiration. Means "white poet."

Circe: A sorceress in Greek mythology who turned men into animals and who was a priestess of Hecate. Means "hoop-round."

Despoina: A daughter of Demeter and Poseidon associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries. Means “the mistress.” Also an epithet of Hecate and Persephone.

Diana: Roman name of the goddess Artemis, the virgin goddess of the moon and the hunt. Associated with Dianic Wicca, a modern cult centered around this goddess.

Edana: Celtic, means “little fire.”

Elergia/Annowre: An evil sorceress in Arthurian legend who tries to seduce Arthur.

Endora: The Witch of Endor was a sorceress in the Bible.

Empusa: Female monsters that served Hecate. Means “one-legged.”

Erichtho: A horrifying, evil hag from Lucan’s Pharsalia. Meaning uncertain.

Esmeralda: The name of Granny Weatherwax (from Discworld), means "emerald."

Freya: Norse goddess of love, beauty, sex, and war, means "lady."

Ganeida: An Arthurian sorceress, a sister of Merlin.

Grimhilde: The name given to the Evil Queen in Disney's Snow White. Good for fairy-tale-esque witches, could also work for a kinda Gothy heroic character. Means “masked battle.”

Gwendolyn: A Welsh name meaning "white bow" or "white ring."

Habundia/Habonde: "Abundance," a name for the queen of witches or fairies, associated with Diana, Mab, Nicnevin, and Hecate.

Hazel: Witch-hazel is a shrub with yellow flowers, associated with witches because of its name and its medicinal properties. Actual hazel is an all-purpose wood for magic wands.

Hecate: The goddess of witchcraft, necromancy, the night, and the crossroads in Greek mythology. Means "worker from afar.”

Hecuba: The Queen of Troy, mother of Cassandra. Uncertain etymology, possibly related to "Hecate." She turned into a dog and became one of Hecate’s familiars.

Hellawes: An evil sorceress in Arthurian legend, who seeks to kill Lancelot so she can embalm his corpse and kiss it every day to spite Guinevere. Creepy.

Hellebore: A poisonous herb.

Ianira: A name of several nymphs in Greek mythology, possibly meaning "enchantress."

Ingrid: A Norse name combining the name of a fertility god and the word for "beautiful."

Ivy: A plant thought to drive out evil spirits.

Lamia: A vampire-like monster from Greek mythology that eats children. Name of the witch in the film version of Stardust.

Lilith: The Queen of Demons in Hebrew folklore, means "of the night,” referring to a screech owl.

Lilura: Basque name meaning "enchantment."

Louhi: An evil witch queen in Finnish mythology. Means "trance."

Luna: Roman goddess of the moon.

Maeve: Based on Irish Gaelic, means "intoxicating." Possibly related to Queen Mab.

Medea: Means "cunning," a sorceress in Greek mythology who helped Jason steal the Golden Fleece. Took violent revenge when he left her for another woman.

Melissa: An apprentice of Merlin, who rescues the victims of Alcina. Means “honeybee.”

Morana/Marzanna: The Slavic goddess of death and winter, means "death."

Morgana: Name of the famous sorceress Morgan le Fay from Arthurian legend. Means “sea circle.”

Morrigan: Irish goddess of death, war, and ravens, means “great queen” or “phantom queen.”

Morwenna: A Welsh name meaning “maiden,” the name of the witch in the book version of Stardust.

Nepenthe: A magical drug from the Odyssey that cures sorrow and causes forgetfulness.

Nicnevan: Queen of the Fairies in Scottish folklore, and the witch queen of Samhain. Means "daughter of the divine." Identified with Hecate.

Nimue: A name for the Lady of the Lake, and/or the sorceress who encased Merlin in a tree with his own magic. Might be related to a Greek word meaning "memory."

Nyx: The Greek primordial goddess of and personification of the night.

Orenda: Iriquois name meaning "magical power."

Persephone: Greek goddess of flowers and Queen of the Underworld. Means either "wheat-thresher" or alternatively "destroyer."

Ragana: Lithuanian Crone goddess of witchcraft.

Raven: The bird, associated with death, magic, and prophecy in multiple mythologies.

Sage: Unisex, a cleansing herb used in many magic spells. From Latin, “healing plant.”

Selene: The Greek goddess and personification of the moon.

Sibyl: Greek, “prophetess,” a word for an oracle.

Strega/Striga: "Strega" is the Italian word for witch (and a word for Italian neopaganism). "Striga" is the Latin word for witch and means "screech owl" (owls are in the order "strigiforms") and a genus of flower called "witchweed."

Sycorax: The name of the witch in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, who is probably based on Medea. Uncertain etymology.

Taika: Finnish, "magic spell."

Vervain: An herb with magical and medicinal properties.

Venefica: A Latin word that simply means “woman who poisons,” referring to a woman who works magic by means of potion-making.

Vivian: A name for the Lady of the Lake, means "lively."

Willow: A tree associated with witches and spirits

And, because I don’t want to neglect the men, here’s a few for male witches (I haven’t been able to find nearly as many!):

Abdecian: Means “to get by asking,” as in a magic spell. (Disclaimer: I have no idea where I got this name. I had it written in my notes, and I remember finding it somewhere, but when I searched it I got mainly my own content on various websites. So… idk.)

Abraxas: A magic word found throughout Greek magic spells as a name of power. The name of the “Great Archon” in Gnosticism, also the name of one of the horses of the Sun. Etymology uncertain. Also spelled Abrasax.

Alaric: Germanic, “all-powerful.”

Alistair: Scottish variant on Alexander, meaning “defender of mankind.” Similar to the chosen name of a certain famous occultist.

Altair: The brightest star in Aquila. Means “eagle.”

Amergin: A druid in Irish mythology, “born of song.”

Aspen: A white tree, associated with fairies. Its leaves turn golden in the fall, and they appear to “shimmer” in the breeze.

Arawn: The Welsh lord of the Otherworld and the dead, and leader of the Wild Hunt. Etymology uncertain; might be a variant of the Hebrew Aaron, “exaulted.”

Aurelius: Latin, “golden.”

Belenus: Pan-Celtic god of light and healing identified with Apollo, who gave his name to Beltane. Means “shining one.”

Briar: Refers to thorny bushes. Same fairy-tale associations.

Eliphas: Hebrew, “God is agile.” The pen name of the famous occultist Alphonse Constant.

Gwydion: Means “born of trees,” a magician and trickster god in Welsh mythology.

Hemlock: A poisonous herb used in spells.

Hunter: Self-explanatory. Modern witchcraft tends to involve the worship of forest gods associated with hunting.

Mabon: Welsh, “divine son,” a figure in Arthurian legend. His name was given to the autumn equinox in modern paganism.

Maddock: Welsh, “fortunate.”

Melchior: One of the Biblical magi, “king of light.”

Merle: A unisex name, from Latin, meaning “blackbird.”

Raven: The bird, associated with death, magic, and prophecy in multiple mythologies.

Rowan: Irish, “little red one,” the name of a tree with the ability to ward off evil.

Simon: Greek, from Hebrew, “hearkening.” The name of an ancient sorcerer, Simon Magus, who founded Gnosticism in early Christianity.

Soma: A name with various mystical meanings in different languages. In Greek, it means “body.” In Sanskrit it means “distill, extract” and refers to the drink of the gods, as well as being another name for the Hindu moon god, Chandra. In Finnish, it means “pretty.”

Tanwyn: Welsh, “white fire.”

Taliesin: A legendary bard in Welsh folklore, the son of Cerridwen. Means “shining brow.”

Valerian: A medicinal herb, used to induce sleep. “Health, vitality.”

[sailormoonandme]

Usagi’s Evolution as a Healer Goddess

The other day I saw a post discussing the evolution of Usagi’s fuku and it occurred to me how Eternal Sailor Moon’s costume was her first Senshi uniform to ditch the tiara. 

That in turn led me to consider how that kind of makes Usagi weaker as it removes a very useful weapon for her. After all, if you include the movies, Usagi uses some variant of Moon Tiara Action in practically every season prior to Stars.

However, dwelling more upon it I realized how this tiny change was all too appropriate for Usagi’s character development.

Firstly, by supplanting the Tiara with her Moon planetary symbol, Eternal Sailor Moon more closely resembles both Queen Serenity, her own Princess Serenity form and her future self as Neo-Queen Serenity. 

Since all three are objectively more powerful than Usagi typically is as Sailor Moon I think the change emphasises how she has ‘levelled up’ in her Eternal form. When combined with the angel wings, Eternal Sailor Moon shifts Usagi visually closer to her future self as NQS, which in the anime is implied to be her most powerful incarnation.* It is almost as though the visual was communicating that the Divine Miracle Magic that she’d previously drawn upon as Princess Serenity in Classic-SuperS had now become ingrained in her standard Senshi form and thus was more accessible to her. 

It was in thinking of her previous efforts as Princess Serenity that I inevitably recalled her duel with Metalia/Beryl in episode 46 and realized that Eternal Sailor Moon was the first time since Classic that Usagi’s default attack was a healing  technique not a destructive one. 

Moon Healing Escalation was Usagi’s first healing technique but until Starlight Honeymoon Therapy Kiss (and it’s later upgrade, Silver Moon Crystal Power Kiss) it was also her only healing technique. 

Between regaining healing techniques and ditching her tiara/other destructive attacks/weapons, I think this represents her subtle growth in both her power and status. After all, it is a sad fact of life that it is easier to destroy something rather than fix it, thereby making the latter far more impressive.**

This skewing towards healing power rather than destructive power is also (arguably) thematically appropriate given the nature of Sailor Moon as a female power fantasy as (rightly or wrongly) the act of healing is typically coded as feminine. 

We can even take this further by examining things from the ‘opposite direction’ as it were.

Consider that in the climactic final episodes of Sailor Stars, Eternal Sailor Moon’s healing technique actually fails her when used against Galaxia. In later episodes, upon adopting her Princess Serenity form (complete with larger and more obviously angelic wings), she uses a sword to duel Galaxia.

Obviously a sword is, at least predominantly, an offensive weapon and can therefore be viewed as symbolic of aggression; let’s leave any Freudian or gendered interpretations alone for today. Her use of the sword is highly uncharacteristic (in the anime). Even her explicitly offencive weapons (like the Cutie Moon Rod or Spiral Moon Heart Rod) weren’t as clearly aggressive nor obviously violent. Desperate times calling for desperate measures? Perhaps, but we might also speculate it was her subconsciously reacting to grief. Not only can grief make you act in ways you wouldn’t normally, but a sword after all was a weapon wielded by her lover in his Prince Endymion incarnation. Her lover whom Usagi had just learned Galaxia had murdered. In other words, amidst her grief she reacts by going too hard in the other direction after healing her enemy proves ineffective.

However, when all is said and done the sword fails her.*** Ultimately is simply escalates the conflict by prompting Galaxia to become Chaos Galaxia and thereby make Usagi’s chances of victory all the slimmer. If we wished to stretch things, you could perhaps say that this is a commentary about how war and violence ultimately begets yet more war and violence.

Even if that is an over extrapolation though, it still served to emphasis the point that a sword is not befitting of Usagi, that she was doomed to lose if she continued to battle with destroying her enemy as the end goal.

In fact, her road to real victory begins when she not doesn’t attack Galaxia but makes it easier for herself to be attacked. In the end, Usagi doesn’t confront her most powerful enemy as the God-Queen of the future, the demi-goddess Princess of the distant past, the sailor-suited soldier of love and justice in the present, nor even a humble school girl.

She does it by literally stripping herself of all those things, of stripping herself of everything in fact.

Her weapons? Gone.

Her other items, like her Tiare? Gone.

Her comrades? Gone, and they’d be powerless against Galaxia anyway.

And finally, even her clothes? Gone!

Beyond the Silver Crystal (an outward visualization of her heart/soul) and the angel wings (symbolic of her role as a saviour) she is completely (but tastefully) naked.

Usagi visually and quite literally is more vulnerable  than she’s ever been, even more so than on her first night as Sailor Moon.

And yet this is Usagi at her actual most powerful.

It is her distilled to her absolute essence as a person, all other trappings removed. She’d just one person showing another they will categorically not harm them, that they bear them no malice and they have nothing to hide. That openness and compassion is what ultimately enables her to connect to the good within Galaxia and pull her away from the darkness that had corrupted her.

Usagi in this moment completely fulfilled her character arc.

·      In the Dark Kingdom arc Usagi destroys (or seals away depending upon your POV) Beryl/Metalia.

·      In the Hell Tree arc, Usagi resolves the over all plot via a healing technique (although it is functionally similar to a destructive attack). However, that only happens because the Hell Tree both instructs Usagi to do that and because it lets her. It is the equivalent of a sickly doctor instructing a nurse on what to do to make them better. The nurse might have the power but their agency as a healer is limited.

·      In the Black Moon arc, Usagi, with help, destroys Wiseman/Death Phantom. 

·      In the Death Busters arc, Usagi does save Hotaru and ‘purify’ her. However, like the Hell Tree, that was something Hotaru wanted. Additionally, her purification functioned as a way to heal the body of someone sick and who wanted to sacrifice themselves, not someone actually evil. The evil in question was Pharaoh 90 and it is presumed that Usagi destroyed him (although it might’ve been Hotaru or the pair of them together). 

·      Forgive me for skipping the Dead Moon Circus arc as Chibiusa is the real protagonist there, and Usagi’s role is chiefly as a rescuer. It therefore doesn’t really apply, although the Nehelenia mini-arc from Stars is a different story. There, Usagi was a healer again, but she did it with the help of her loved ones and with the aid of her Tiare device. Nevertheless, we can see by this point Usagi’s capacity as a healer heroine had been gradually growing until we get to the battle with Galaxia.

By the end of series, Usagi has successfully healed Galaxia and it is neither with the aid of her comrades, nor with the power of a weapon or device, nor with any instructions from her ‘patient’ or any other third party.

Additionally, Galaxia (unlike Hotaru) wasn’t someone’s who was saved from a noble self-sacrifice or had a physical ailment that needs to be addressed. In Galaxia’s case, her very soul had lost it’s way and become corrupted. She had lost who she was supposed to be and her purpose in life had been perverted.****

When combined with how powerful Galaxia always was, how Chaos and the Star Seeds empowered her further, Usagi’s victory here cannot be understated.

Her ‘patient’ was more powerful than all her other adversaries, was in need of more healing than her other ‘patients’ and was more resistant to being healed. Not to mention, since she’d directly murdered her beloved friends (and indirectly aborted her future daughter), Usagi would’ve been forgiven for not  even trying to salvage Galaxia 

And yet, with no weapons, no backup and just the power of her heart and soul basically, Usagi succeeded. 

After Stars the idea that Usagi could heal the entire planet after a global catastrophe and reshape it into a fairy tale crystalline utopia was all too believable.

What’s healing one planet when her ability to empathise had already healed a whole galaxy?

Who needs a tiara to reduce evil to dust when you can simply convince evil to be good?

*This is arguably symbolized by baby Hotaru’s vision of NQS transforming into Eternal Sailor Moon in episode 1 of Stars.

In fact, we might argue that a low-key subplot running through all of Stars (both the Nehelenia and Galaxia portions of it) is gradually transitioning Usagi closer to the person she is destined to become as Neo-Queen Serenity, hence why the first episode features the most explicit reference to her fate as Queen since R. 

**Personally I am an atheist, but nevertheless I and others like me can grasp why  deities in most major religions through history weren’t simply capable of mass scale destruction, but also of essentially manipulating reality to create  things too.

By that same token, it’s little surprise that perhaps the widest spread religious figure in history was Jesus Christ who rarely (if ever) engaged in aggression or destructive acts, predominantly employing divine healing powers.

I suspect the attraction of such figures to human beings lies in the fact that on some level we know that, given the right time and resources, we mere mortals would be capable of destroying anything. Given time it’s all but certain we will develop the technology to even destroy planetary bodies. On the flipside, I think we also intuitively grasp that  reversing  such damage, of reattaching a limb, of stanching bleeding, etc, is far more difficult if not impossible. Hence we attributed the ability to do such things to larger than life Divine Entities.

*** Now that I think of it, it’s also poignant that Usagi tries and fails to defeat Galaxia with a sword when we take Sailor Uranus into consideration. 

Uranus is of course associated with her weapon, the Space Sword and, like Usagi, tried and failed to use such a weapon against Galaxia.

Giving Uranus a sword is symbolically appropriate given her role as the leader of the more aggressive branch of the Sailor Team. Having her fail against Galaxia and Usagi consequently fail by in some way ‘mimicking her tactics’ is equally symbolically appropriate. Not only because of their ideological conflict in Sailor Moon S but also their tensions in Sailor Stars itself. In both situations Usagi’s more open, less aggressive, ideology was ultimately proven correct. 

Thus in using a sword against Galaxia it represented how Usagi was always doomed to fail by taking the aggressive/destructive route and how she was arguably not being true to herself in that moment. 

****It’s not to dissimilar to Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker now that I think about it. 

[ragweed98]

This is my first, tentative post, it's borderline smut with Roger Taylor. I've only ever edited and brainstormed with the amazing writer @a-bisexual-phantom

So I guess tension as a warning?? Mild cliffhanger as I can't write the actual act for the life of me?? I tried to be accurate!!

You were so excited for the opportunity to intern with Queen, not only was it a huge learning experience but you had the feeling that you were watching history go down. Some aspects of your job included anything and everything anybody else needed, paperwork, snacks, occasionally breaking up fights between band members when the manager wasn't able to. 

You loved the little farm house that the band would be recording their album at. You really hoped the quiet countryside would provide maximum song-writing atmosphere for everyone. Once everyone got settled into their bedrooms, yours being the closest to the bathroom probably due to the fact that you were the only female, you decided to explore a little bit as this may be your only chance before being buried in paperwork.

After looking through the studio, you began exploring outside and you discovered a few worn paths that went who knows where. Naturally you picked one and immediately started walking down it. You weren't scared of getting lost or running into any murderers. Along the first trail, the plants were growing together overhead, creating a tunnel of green that the last of the sun shone through.

You made your way back and decided to grab a torch so you could continue your adventure into the night hours and then departed to the second trail of the trip. As you walked you dragged your feel, shuffling through the leaves, smiling to yourself at the noise you created. Your smile grew, splitting across your face as you came to the end of the trail, as you took in the sight before you. 

It was a gorgeous lake, "perfect", you thought to yourself "for relaxing". 

The fact that you had no swimwear was a trivial thought, and easily fixed since you were most likely to be the lake's only occupant. 

You walked back to the house around three a.m. water droplets clinging to your hair. The door didn't creak, but as you crept down the hall towards your door the floor squeaked with every step you took. Though you thought you were in the clear as you entered your room, you failed to notice a door open and a shaggy blond head poke out to see who was squeaking in so late.

With three and a half hours of sleep under your belt you started making a huge breakfast for everyone at about 6:30 a.m. As the smoke from the grease filled pans hissed up, the aromas of bacon, eggs, and much needed coffee coaxed everyone out of their rooms. Everyone filtered in, sitting down sleepily, looking like rock and roll zombies. You set plates out for everybody to dish themselves up, Roger grabbed the last two plates, setting them down to dish up next to you on the counter and put his other hand on the other side of you. 

"Someone had some late night adventures last night", Roger whispered in your ear, his raspy voice laced with sleep. 

You turned to face him intending to ask why he had been up at that hour too when you realised since the whole band was still in their pyjamas you came face to chest with the shirtless drummer. With the toned arms of Roger Taylor on either side of you, you put on your best professional, no nonsense face about half a foot away from his. You couldn't put much more distance between you and him due to the kitchen counter and he seemed to know that as he smirked, leaning forward slightly with his whole body. 

"Mr. Taylor, that's quite enough", you said in a soft stern voice. 

"Oh you two are adorable." Freddie said at the same time Deaky started complaining about Roger not being able to go five minutes without blatantly flirting with the band's intern. 

"Roger, please leave Miss L/N be, as she is here to help Miami help us with our career." Brian said without looking up from his songbook and coffee. 

Roger sighed at Queen's comments, then looking at you, drawled, "it doesn't seem as though Y/N wants me to move..." 

His eyes widen as you suddenly put your hands on his bare shoulders and use him to hop up on the counter in front of him, lift your legs over his arm, back onto the floor and walked off with your plate, saying since his ego was so big and heavy you moved so he wouldn't have to strain himself. Freddie barked out a laugh, congratulating you on rendering Roger speechless. 

"It's not often he doesn't know what to do with his mouth." You chuckled. 

"Especially when a beautiful girl is involved," Freddie said, causing the drummer to blush as he continued gawking like a goldfish. 

It had been a few weeks of stress filled song writing and you were attempting to enjoy a shower when you heard thumps coming from outside the bathroom. You ignored the commotion and finished your shower, toweling off only to realise you hadn't brought clean clothes to change into.

You wrapped your towel around your body securely and cracked the door to peek out and seeing that the coast was clear you calmly walked towards your open door. As soon as you went to close the door, hands grabbed your waist and pulled you behind the door, against the wall, your hands pushing at the possible kidnapper. 

You let out a yelp only to be silenced by a hand over your mouth as a body pushed up against you HARD. Roger opened the door back up until it was touching his back and put a finger to his lips, touching both of your noses as he did so. Freddie thundered down the hallway and tiptoed into your room brushing by the door as he entered. Roger pulled your leg up around him and leaned  all the way into you to give the door an inch to swing inward as Freddie walked back out of your room, having unsuccessfully found anyone. 

"We're playing hide and seek, Love" Roger breathed in your ear as he let his hand slide down from your mouth to lightly rest on your throat, smirking at your current attire. 

"Well, Mr. Taylor, you should have said so." You said as you decided to get him back for his 'unprofessionality' as Brian referred to it. "FREDDIE! ROGER'S IN--" Roger cut you off with his hand, cursing as Fred's footsteps pounded back into your room. 

"Oi, Roger! Put her down" Freddie yelled at the drummer who realized you were still flush around him in his hiding spot. He glared at you as he let you push him off you this time and slipped over to your dresser. Freddie shoved Roger out of the room for you to change, thanking you for your service in the game.

As the door clicked shut you let the façade of professional indifference fall as your face blushed red hot at the situation and proximity you had just come out of. Deciding that taking another shower would be doing too much, you changed into shorts and a tank top and took a dry towel to head to the lake. You poked your head out to see that it was Roger free, strode down the hallway and headed down the stairs, listening all the while for band members.  

You stopped by the kitchen for a coffee and ran into Freddy when you opened the lower cupboard to grab a lid to take your coffee with you. Managing not to react too wildly you grinned at him and asked if Roger was seeking now. Freddie nodded and Mr. Taylor came in from counting outside to find you putting the lid on your coffee thermos having closed Freddy's hiding spot back up.

"Well if it isn't my newly declared hide and seek enemy," Roger greeted you with fake hurt puppy eyes.

"All is fair in love and war Mr. Taylor" you said, sipping your coffee you grimimced then turned around to grab some sugar to add to the bitter bean water, knowing exactly what held the drummer's gaze now that you were facing away from him.

"Maybe," Roger said slowly, stalking towards you, "you and I could help each other….you know in the game" his pause implying the other game he was playing, with only you.

 He continued walking slowly toward you as you continued slowly walking backwards until your back hit the counter and he smirked. You set your coffee down and jumped up to sit on the counter, crossing your legs and picking your coffee back up.

Roger stopped at the counter you were seated on, placing his hands on the counter right up against your leg and under the crossed one. 

 "Perhaps you should make it up to me, losing me the game I mean" his thumbs coming up to rub your legs.

"What if I tell you where Freddy is currently hiding at this moment?" You asked, fighting a shiver from his rubbing.

"Mmm I had something else in mind but I suppose that will do for now." His hands came up to rest on your still crossed legs, making it abundantly clear to you what else he had had in mind.

"Mr. Taylor it is a bit unprofessional to put your hands on a working intern as you have today-"

"Are you saying this?" He gestured with his head, "professionally does nothing for you?" He grinned cockily.

"What I'm saying is that A. I'm not a groupie, I'm here to work in a field I enjoy, B. I'm not one of your countless harlots, C. You're just horny because you've been here a few weeks and I'm the only female in a hundred miles and D." You leaned in close to his ear as Freddy silently closed his cupboard door and tiptoed to a different hiding spot, "you are a terrible seeker" you leaned back to sip your coffee.

"Well I convinced you to tell me where Freddy is, so I can't be that bad, speaking of which Love, you have yet to actually tell me where he's hiding, unless you want me to...continue convincing..."

"The cupboard, behind you."

Roger opened the cupboards behind him to find nothing. 

 Turning back to you, his face like that of a predator, stalking his prey; his eyes looking straight through your bones to your core. Uncrossing your legs to get down, Roger walked back up to you in one long stride, leaning right up against the counter, pushing your legs apart with his hips as he did so, causing you to fall back, catching yourself on one hand. Caught off guard you set your coffee down perhaps harder than you meant to and put your other hand on his warm chest to prevent him from getting closer than he already was.

"You lied"

"I said I could tell you where he was at that exact moment, he moved since then, while you were...preoccupied."

Placing his hands on your hips his eyes bore into you, "well then I suppose you still owe me for costing me my title at world champion hider. Do you have a preference as to when I should collect?"

Roger smirked as though you were trapped when really you knew all you had to do was say 'no' and he would back down immediately….though you never would.

"Mr. Taylor, I wonder if you could perhaps be more specific as to what sort of debt I am owing you, then I could be more helpful-"

Roger Taylor's soft lips cut you off, sampling the coffee in your mouth and you sighed into the kiss.  

"Sorry Love, couldn't play our game much longer with you looking so fucking delicious," Roger pulled away to gauge the situation, wanting to make certain he wasn't crowding you.

"Oh-ho no, you don't get to do that and just walk away mister! Get back in here!" You ordered him, snapping him back to you with your legs.

"Yes Ma'am," Roger saluted, clearly bemused by your little show of dominance. He slid his hands under you and turned to leave the kitchen.

"And just where are we headed now?" You inquired, tying your legs around him, doing your best to hide your smile at his cockiness.

"Ahh well, I just thought- I mean I..maybe," confidence gone he stuttered "we were-umm going for a swim?" His eyes fell on your towel.

"Good answer, now let's go 'swim' before the rest of Queen realizes you're not actively seeking them."

His smile returned a bit shy as he stopped and fell into your eyes before the words "so fucking gorgeous" whispered from under his breath causing your cheeks to heat up.

[kuekyuuq]

So, mid-season finale [SG 6x07]

They basically made a bottle episode for a mid-season finale. Ambitious..?

Didn't quite work, imo... :| C'mon, people it's the last season! As much as I enjoy myself a nice character-study, sadly, personally, I feel even with Brainy and J’onn unaffected, it stretched itself too thin and missed the mark a bit...

Harry Potter / Dementor reference for the Phantoms was long overdue (sucking souls, bringing up fears, it even gets colder when they are near)

What was the point of the shield-meter protecting them from the outside Phantoms going down drastically into yellow after the 3rd(?) turbulence / the flash / in the beginning of Alex' and Kelly's parts (detail: it didn't go down on the main-screen) when the nightmares came from the Phantom in the containment unit?

...I really liked Lena making (only) Nia part of her vision ^.^ They made a good combo! (Although, the loss of the others was a deep-cut for her fear of losing people she cares about / ending up alone) - Oh, and Lena was the only of the four who figured out it was a vision / nightmare and applied Kelly's advice. Smart cookie. 

Also, Lena facing the water-monster like Ellen Ripley the xenomorph queen; difference being who turned be the mother (I did think it looked like Kara still with her bangs at first, tho...)

Kelly sorta applied her own advice by reminding herself of everything real about Alex and their relationship

So, with the Phantom locked back up, only Kelly and Lena faced their fears. With Lena by actually looking at her fear come to life (and it transforming into the underlying memory of her mother) and Kelly overcoming her passiveness and using a shield and being kick-ass (future female Guardian?). Alex learned a lesson of sorts, still, and went through with the self-sacrifice. Nia mostly self-confirmed her already existing issues of failing in the most horrible ways...

I'm thinking, the picture on the thimble was meant to show the white flash striking the Tower-Ship, and the thimble itself how Dreamer still can't interpret things right ('a desired result not being met' according to online dream-analysis, which sounds much more fitting than Nia's interpretation and failed attempt at sewing with her powers) - that said, sadly no new revelation on that end... Her powers work just fine, and maybe instead of fearing to fail, she should try find ways to learn the skill.

...balloons ARE scary. Don't you want a balloon, Georgie?

Kara had like 4 minutes screen-time in the episode about her return... (Didn’t actually clock it, but sounds about right)

The Tower-Space-Ship is bigger on the inside :) 

The Tower-Ship needs a name. SIDRAT? BigBen? Spotlight? Headliner? Huh, I like headliner... >.>

So, I guess Zor-El was Kara's touch-stone? (Eh, did he do another "until you came along" speech? Supercorp shippers will know what I mean. Now it's awkward...)

Gotta love the detail, that Kara's scratches on her neck are immediately healed after the yellow-sun bomb ^.^

While Kara super-speeding to Alex was awesome, I feel deprived of a group-hug :(

After having spent a larger amount of time in the Phantom Zone (yes, time may “not pass” there, but it’s still duration, since ppl inside are moving; meantime, several days passed on Earth) the promo for 6x08 shows Kara jumps right back to work? ...let’s hope, there are some repercussions. You know, just a tad of realism? Our girl’s been horribly traumatized 20 times and some in her life... She could book out Kelly for life. 

If this episode had happened at any other spot during the season, I would maybe have given it a 6/10. But it being a mid-season finale kinda makes it rather disappointing. I am not even taking into account anything Supercorp, because I 100% did not expect anything on that front to happen anyways. Even with the episode plot being wrapped up nicely, this arc's plot ending felt rushed and like a side-note... no emotional pay-out.

--> And THAT is why I am disappointed with the episode. Not because of shipping. But because, objectively (or at least in my best objectiveness), this episode was not what it should/could have been. Stretched too thin, a misplaced bottle-episode (which are a skill to master), a filler-episode even (a whole different episode-filling plot squeezed in the middle of the rescue-Kara arc - anyplace else can be a good/interesting idea, but is disconnecting at the finale of an arc). Maybe the original script was much better? But, taste differs. I hope, others enjoyed it much more than I did. 

I still love the characters and the actors are doing a great job. And while I have some misgivings on Kara jumping back right in after everything that happened, I do LOVE the show for the fun stuff (uncle Archie?) and Kara supering :) So, after one and a half third season of drama, I can’t help but look forward to what the promo promised! \^o^/

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

This post is a response to a reply I got on this post about Hades and Persephone HERE. It involves a LOT of discussion of rape as it applies to the myth, so massive Trigger Warning for Rape.

princess-nazario:

I'm not directly against modern retellings where Hades and Persephones relationship is consensual and could be about escaping toxic motherhood. Many people suffer overprotective/narcissistic mothers today, I think it has a good message- and besides, nobody really wants to hear a story about a girl being kidnapped and raped against her will.

But I hate when people try to say that this consensual version was actually the original myth all along and is ~cool~ and ~feminist~. I hate when people say Hades and Persephone are the most healthy, loving couple in all greek mythology when there are plenty of other underrated couples and figures out there.

I hate it when people try to write off Persephone trauma and allegory for the horrible things young girls had to go through in ancient Greece as "weak" or "unfeminist" labeling female solidarity of trauma and misogyny as "weak" is the exact opposite of feminist.

Like there are plenty of abuse victims out there there are also rape victims, victims of abduction, victims of misogyny all throughout history and today in the modern world. By writing off the pain and suffering of a protagonist who is a victim of rape you are disrespecting and victim-blaming all of these people.

Persephone meant something for all of these victims and survivors knowing that even the goddesses had to go through the things they went through. That even a victim of rape and abduction can still rise as a queen and a goddess, that even after she was raped her story was not done, and although she now has to spend half of the year with her rapist she also gets to see her mother.

In most greek weddings young girls are now apart of their husbands family and never get to see their mothers again. I'd love to see a Persephone retelling that maybe doesn't woobify Hades for once, or show Demeter's perspective and truly explore Persephones experiences in her point of view and shows her rise to power other than just "she was scared at first but now she loves hades and its okay!!"

Was she homesick? How did she adapt to her situation? Did she resent Hades for what he did to her even though he thinks he didnt do anything wrong? Did Hecate help her even though she was scared? How did she feel about being treated like a object or trophy? At what point did she go from a scared little girl to the Dread Queen of the Underworld?

I'm not saying the original versions of the myth where Persephone was kidnapped and raped are peak feminist and great for women, after all this was a culture that gave little voice to women- but what I am saying is that we shouldn't erase or ignore women's trauma and female solidarity for some dull romance story.

You can write a story about Demeter being a toxic mother and Hades/Persephone as consensual, Persephone perhaps being an idea of women's self discovery and independence and agency- but do not forget or refuse to acknowledge the misogynistic and non-consensual traumas of women this tale is allegorical too as well. Do not label THEIR traumas as weak or feminist.

@princess-nazario I’m not sure why you sent me this in a reply, I thought maybe you might be new to tumblr so just so you know, when you have a large response like this typically you start a conversation through reblogging rather than replying. If you had other reasons for it being reply-specific, I’m making the decision to respond as a post because this subject is really important to me and you’ve touched on something that I felt needed an open response.

So, to start with, I have to tell you that I believe you did not actually understand the context I was coming from with the original post. To be fair to you, I think this is a topic that has a lot of missing context, especially for younger people who A) may not have the same educational background (formal or otherwise) or familiarity with the subject or B) have not been around literary circles or fandom long enough to be familiar with what these kinds of archetypes have meant to women in those spaces. When I wrote the original post, I was kind of speaking specifically to an audience that I know is already familiar with these things.

So, while I think it’s perfectly valid for you as an individual to view Hades and Persephone through the very specific lens you’ve painted it, It is probably not completely accurate to what the original myth was about and is in fact in my opinion it’s own form of feminist revision of an ancient tale. Personally, I view this kind of take as part of the problem I was expressing in the original post, just from the opposite perspective. If that upsets you I hope you’ll please at least bear with me to get where I’m coming from with this.

Hades and Persephone comes from a culture in which rape was extremely normalized in comparison to ours. According to my historian partner, when soldiers conquered people/sacked a city they would rape en masse and this was not considered a war crime. Marriage involved rape via social coercion and likely via physical violence anyway. Whether or not rape was considered wrong had a lot to do with the status of the perpetrator and the victim, i.e. if a highborn woman was raped by a poor man, he was a criminal. But if a highborn man raped a poor woman, it would be fine. A serial rapist in a small community would probably get his head chopped off. While it’s not impossible that women told this story to process their trauma, it should be noted that this myth existed in a society where men were the dominant voices and they were pretty much cool with rape.

What happens in the myth is more representative of what marriage actually looked like for girls (and their mothers) of that time period, and was meant as a way to explain the changing of the seasons. When you hear the phrase “The Rape of Persephone,” it’s relevant to mention that the phrasing of “rape” is both a more modern interpretation of the story than the ancients (as in it’s a phrase from the last few hundred years, to my knowledge), and by today’s standards an older use of the term. “Rape” does not always refer to sexual rape, and in this case was specifically referring to the kidnapping aspect. Could literal sexual rape have happened? Maybe, in the context of how arranged marriages like this often involved coercive rape. But it’s worth noting that when Zeus rapes women, it’s never ambiguous like this, it just is a thing that happens and there are no euphemisms about it, no “fade to black”.

 Either way it’s kind of a moot point. To say that Hades and Persephone specifically was intended as a tale about an evil man raping a young girl  and was intended for girls to process that trauma ultimately isolates it from it’s context within all the other stories of the greek pantheon, in which rape happens all of the time and is normalized - let alone the actual culture it came from. It’s honestly viewing an ancient culture through a modern Christian framework, where the “god of the underworld” is akin to the monstrous devil.

Could women of the time have used it to process their trauma regardless? It’s possible, but I digress.

My point is, there are two extremes on the table here. Either a revisionist tale of Perspehone in which she willingly chooses hades and they have a tumblr approved sweet and pure relationship, or a revisionist tale in which Hades is the quintessential representation of a rapist and Persephone’s story is entirely about overcoming her rape trauma. 

Neither of which are true, and neither of which appeal to me. Again, if either appeal to you or anyone else is fine, but my original post was rooted in my frustrations with girls on tumblr who are unfamiliar with the very complex contexts of both the myths and of feminist reimagining that came before the time of tumblr.

It would be more accurate to say that what I was speaking of in the original post is how girls on tumblr have erased the complex power struggle inherent to the literary trope of the Demon Lover (think “Phantom of the Opera”). You can see this trope in many subgenres, including Gothic Romance and the current Monster Boyfriend trend.

Again, it’s very important here to understand that I am talking about allegories. Not literal people perpetrating literal power struggles or violence or having literal relationships, toxic or otherwise.

The trope of the Demon Lover in women’s fiction is often a framework about a woman struggling between the precipice of her own desires vs the patriarchy. He is often framed as an outsider to the normal patriarchy but a being who has the power to move within it, often more so than the average man. He embodies both the allure and danger of masculinity simultaniously. Often there is a solidarity between the heroine and the Demon Lover, because they have something spiritual/emotional which binds them. They exist in solidarity above the social expectations of women’s lives. And yet there is often a power struggle in that narrative, where the heroine must find her own power in balance with the Demon Lover.

In a lot of cases where the Demon Lover is written by men (aka many of the pop culturally significant iterations that women in fandom tend to love), he is indeed portrayed as purely a monster, or whatever temptation he represented is treated as something the woman must ultimately reject and return to social expectations of how she should behave and what she should desire. (Hence why you have so many women in fandom who like to reimagine these dynamics ending with romance).

In effect, the Demon Lover takes on a role for the heroines exploration of her own power in contrast to patriarchal expectations about her role in society and what her sexual and romantic desires should look like.

For a long time, this is how a lot of feminists viewed Hades and Persephone, the Demon Lover trope, and created art based on it. This too is a modern feminist reimagining of the tale.

However, what I see happening on tumblr is a refusal to engage with anything that complex. Instead, what a lot of girls are doing is forcing both Hades/Persephone and any other story which falls under the “Demon Lover” trope (Phantom, Labyrinth, etc.) to be categorized in boxes that fit “purity” sensibilities and are ultimately often embody an unwillingness to engage in challenging, complicated material that doesn’t appeal to black and white thinking. Either Persephone was never in danger because Hades was an uwu soft boy, or Persephone was always threatened by this terrible monstrous abuser and exploration of her reciprocation is wrong. 

Personally, I feel this kind of compartmentalizing robs the Demon Lover trope of what makes it compelling and valuable in the first place. It enforces this idea that all depictions of relationships in fiction have to adhere to one specific sensibility of what real world relationships should look like or else be condemned as morally inferior, which is absolutely not the point of the Demon Lover trope and is unfair to the rich history, feminist and less so, that still lives within it. We can do better.

As far as how this story impacts rape survivors, I want to point out that you have absolutely no clue what the people who enjoy Persephone’s tale as a romantic one have endured. Many of them whom I know are indeed rape survivors. Many of them, including myself, are victims of male on female abuse, or otherwise have trauma around the subject of male/female relationships. There are multitudes of ways that women with trauma have long since used the Demon Lover trope to process trauma, and I’m honestly quite tired of the way people on tumblr compartmentalize things in such a way that there is a built-in shame surrounding this subject that many women, including myself, have been trained over the past several years to feel about it. There’s a whole aspect to this that is connected with Twilight and 50 Shades (which are very poor renditions of the Demon Lover trope) and how we as a culture responded to these stories, and how much that has poisoned the ~discourse~.

[otterskin]

Pet Peeves in Thor Stuff

Inspired by a few posts doing this, so thought I’d vent and get it out here.

1. MCU Loki’s Name

I don’t care what the fan-run wikis say. All the official MCU material, including the text of the actual movies themselves, call him Loki Odinson or, for a brief period, Loki of Asgard. Loki Laufeyson is the name of a character from Marvel comics, and him having that name makes sense for that character’s backstory, which is very, very different from ‘adopted at birth and a late discovery’ MCU Loki. Incidentally, Norse Mythology Loki is not Loki Laufeyson, he’s Loki Laufeyjarson, which is a matronym because Laufey is his mother in most Norse Myths.

Loki in Thor 1 was Loki Odinson, Avengers was Loki of Asgard, and he certainly seemed fond of Odin again in Ragnarok and officially reclaimed the title Odinson in IW. He’s called Odinson over and over again in official Marvel publications such as the illustrated dictionary. Please stop using the wrong name. It’s weird and wrong to assume his name MUST default to his birth-father’s upon discovery of adoption, no matter what he’d been called his whole life. Especially when I think it’s pretty clear that Loki vehemently rejects any relationship with that namesake. He literally murdered Laufey to prove to Odin he had only one father, I don’t know how he could be more clear about his preferences.

And yes, I do think that this invalidates the fan-wikis as good sources of information. If they can’t get a name right, you probably shouldn’t trust anything in the article below it. Stick with canon publications.

2. The Transformation Spell

And heck, while we’re on this page, yes, the spell keeping Loki Asgardian is Odin’s. I don’t mind fanfic that posits a different origin, because hey, we’re just trying to have fun here, do what you want and I’ve probably read a lot of it already - but this is the canon explanation, please stop messaging me to tell me I’m wrong when I say it’s Odin’s spell doing it. Also, the reason it didn’t break when Odin died is because magic can outlive the caster, as Doctor Strange said. This ain’t the Phantom Menace.

(Incidentally, this dictionary is fun and even has entries for Huginn and Muninn!)

3. Step-brothers and Half-brothers are different things and neither is correct for Thor and Loki’s relationship. Nor is Odin Loki’s step-father.

I don’t see this in the Thor Fandom much, it’s more in articles and reviews I’ve read, but it’s kinda appalling how people don’t know the difference between brothers, step-brothers, half-brothers, and blood-brothers. Not being sure who your second cousin twice removed is I get, but I would hope that these are much more commonly understood. Just to get it off my chest, even though I’m sure no-one reading has ever thought different -

Step-brothers are when two unrelated families are joined by marriage. The children share no biological parents, but their parents are married. Unless Odin married Laufey at some point, he is not Loki’s step-father, and Thor is not Loki’s step-brother. (I mean, Odin’s had a long and probably very interesting and mysterious life, so I suppose it’s POSSIBLE he had a real bender at one point, but even if he had a Vegas wedding to the King of the Frost Giants and then decided to throw away the ring as if nothing had happened, the relationship he has with Loki has always been identified as ‘Father’).

Half-brothers are when children share one biological parent, but not two. So unless that bender with Laufey got REALLY crazy, Loki is not Thor’s half-brother either.

Blood-brothers - So some people will use this phrase to refer to people who are related by blood, but that’s sort of an older phrase. However, for most elementary school kids and in the context of Norse Mythology, it has another meaning - two people, unrelated by birth, who undergo a ceremony that involves blood mixing as an oath of brotherhood. Norse-Myth Loki is usually depicted as blood-brothers with Odin (and, in a few rare stories I read, with Thor, instead, but that’s a long story about how Thor was slowly starting to replace Odin as chief patriarch and therefore subsuming a lot of his traits and relationships). However, in the MCU, neither of these meanings currently applies to Thor and Loki. They are not blood related, and they’ve not undergone any blood oath ceremony either (although you can bet your briskets I’d LOVE to see that and it’s been in my general prediction box/wish-list since 2011. Imagine how happy it’d make us to see Thor and Loki choose to have their relationship, rather than feeling like it was Odin’s decision and they’re just living with it.).

Brothers - if in doubt about any brotherly relationship, just say this and you won’t be wrong. Thor and Loki are brothers, or adopted brothers, full stop. So no more step-half-blood nonsense.

And to be clear, if you’re writing fanfic that re-imagines this relationship, this is in no way directed at you. I’m more venting at the dearth of articles, presumably written by university graduates with an English degree, who can’t seem to keep this straight.

4. Brother is a Proper Noun

While I’m on this brother train, a small grammatical note - ‘Father’, ‘Mother’, and ‘Brother’, if being used in place of a name, are proper nouns, which means they’re capitalized.

Ex. “Stop smearing your booger on my shirt, Brother.”

It’s not capitalized if it’s not being used in place of a name, but is simply referring to the noun.

Ex. 2 “My brother once ate a whole goat without noticing it was still alive.”

Ex. 3 “I never knew we had a sister.”

Sorry, sorry - but I see this mistake a lot while I’m reading and I daresay I make it myself all the time!

5. Frigga isn’t perfect

Real talk, one of my least favourite tropes in fiction is ‘Woman on a Pedestal’. I really feel it denies female characters agency if they’re made out to be perfect lovely angels loved by everyone. I’ve read a ton of great fics that explore the flaws Frigga is suggested to have in the MCU but never got the screen time to deal with, and they are some of my favourites. I’ve also read a ton where she’s endlessly patient, wise, righteous, and oh-so-much-better than that heartless Odin or oaf Thor, if only she’d been in charge the whole time, nothing would have gone wrong! It’s a matter of taste and I’d never tell anyone to not write what makes them happy, but I really do think Frigga’s a better character when you engage with her mistakes and oversights and less-than-noble aspects. Women in the MCU have really gotten a short shaft when it comes to character arcs, flaws, and general humanity. Almost all the mothers are on pedestals in it, and with that comes a lack of introspection. Frigga could be argued to be in that category, but at least there is some material to suggest her imperfections that can be exploited. (Unlike Quill and Stark’s mothers, say.)

I leave it up to everyone to interpret the character for themselves, but for me her weaknesses are that she

tends to deflect blame for her choices onto others, particularly Odin.

sometimes acts to smooth things over without really acknowledging hurt, either caused or experienced.

has a manipulative streak and isn’t afraid to leverage her sons’ affection for her to get them to do what she wants, which is often ‘smoothing things over’.

probably spoiled her kids a bit

has an allergy to giant knives

Personally I like these things about her. They come from her life as a peace-maker, both in her role as a politician and a Queen and in her role in the family. She’s loyal, clever, witty, a confidant, and had the best scene in Endgame by a long mile. Frigga is the mom we’ve seen the most of, and I would love to see more in any form.

AH.... that felt good. I might do another post on my problems with how Thor is sometimes portrayed, but that’s a whole other, very personal, thing. Thanks for reading this dumb thing.

[onthemeander]

ACOTAR Review

I have to start off by just mentioning that this book was heavily suggested to me. I only ever heard praise of the plot, characters, and the romantic message at its core. I feel this needs to be brought up because it was the fuel for the utter frustration I felt while reading this book. A frustration at my core that drove me to write my first ever review, so thanks for that.

Let’s start with the Pros of this book.

It is an easy read. I can inhale 300 pages in only two days. It is a good relaxing read if that’s what you are looking for. The kind of book you can curl up with on a rainy Sunday and just pass the free time if you're burned out on binging Netflix.

Okay, that’s it for the Pros. Now onto the Cons.

This book, a loose reimagining of Beauty and the Beast, feels like it has been written by a 50 shades of grey fan who hates Disney princess movies because the princesses are not “tough” enough. This novel comes off as the edgy version of a fantasy world that wants to include all the dark sides of life but doesn’t want to address the life long lasting implications of those dark actions. I am looking at you Ryhsand. Oh and I will go in on him later but first let's talk about our heroine.

Feyre is a young girl whose family has fallen onto hard times and it is her single minded goal to keep them all alive. They live hand to mouth, off the game she manages to hunt in a rather inhospitable forest. One day while trying to kill a Doe she sees a massive wolf and decides to kill it as well, as it was making eyes at her doe and a girl is hungry.

She kills the massive creature and takes both animals home to skin and prepare for meals. The money and food ensuring that her family won’t starve for at least a few weeks if they ration properly. Days later another more terrifying monster comes to her cottage, a Fairy in beast form by the name of Tamlin, who says she killed his friend. Now, because she killed a fairy, she can either die or come live with him for the rest of her life. She takes the later… obviously.

Feyre is a fine enough protagonist, bland enough that you can imagine yourself in her position and fantasize about having two hot men chasing you. In my younger years, I would have happily daydreamed about being in her world, surrounded by magic but being personally skilled enough to not need the aid of magic.

A pet peeve, a totally personal bias, is that to her everything is just the worst. Her Sisters are awful, her dad useless, the cottage disgusting, hunting she hates it, the fairies vile, the Spring Court a prison, and so on. The issue isn’t so much that she has a negative mindset, that is human and that can make for an interesting shade of protagonist but in this novel, it is so one-note. Everything is described with the same level of disdain. Which makes moments where she talks about having to protect her family or Tamlin honestly confusing because with how little she seems to like them the reader is left wondering why? Because of a promise she made? To a mom she hates?

Listening, family relationships are complicated. The best line I’ve heard about a relationship similar to Feyre’s, comes from the movie Ladybird, where the titular character tells her mother “I know you love me but I don’t think you like me.” Maybe it’s the fact it’s a movie and the way it is said but it is hurt there. There is a pain in the girl’s voice that her mother and she are at odds.

Feyre at no point talks about the personal pain that comes from being so distant from her family. She just resents them. Even a short moment of remembering the better days, little memories of when her and Nestia playing together as kids or Elane showed her something in the garden. Something that shows that there is, even for the briefest moment love in these relationships.

Without those moments, Feyre’s flip-flopping between going home and staying at the Spring Court feels more like padding to extend a book that saved all of the interest for the last 3rd.My bigger issue with Feyre is she doesn’t seem to really think so much as exist and react in the world. For a series that many have commended for being about feminist agency, Feyre lacks more agency than a rock in a river. At least then the water has to move around the rock.

A story based around Beauty and Beast is always going to bring into question the nature of female agency. This French fairy tale was written in 1740, in a women's magazine, meant to help teach girls about their ultimate futures. In a society where women were the property of fathers and husbands. It urged girls to look at their “beastlike” husbands and try to find the good in them. To become okay with the fact that who they marry might treat them terribly but means well… maybe this book is a perfect adaption of that idea, but I digress.

Feyre is whisked away to this magical world and through her, we learn about the fairy world. A world of violence, court games, and so much sexual assault.

While in the spring court she is tricked by a mirage of her father, nearly eaten by Naga’s, threatened multiple times by basically everyone, sees a fairy die from its wings being ripped off, finds a severed head in the garden, and so on. Whenever she expresses confusion on what is happening there is always a Fairy there to monologue away the day with detailed pages long exposition.

She readily accepts any explanation of the fairy world a man, in particular, tells her. Its exposition for the readers but for a girl who has grown up in a world that believes fairies are violent and enslave humans she is so quick to accept everything they tell her. She doesn’t stop and questions intentions and if she does wonder about the intentions of a character she usually ends on the side of being favorable to them, l especially if they are attractive.

It's clear that Feyre isn’t there to be a character but a vehicle, an avatar for the reader to travel from point A to B. She never reacts to things in a way that a person of this world with such polarized groups would react to being forced to live in the enemy camp.

Then there is Tamlin. He is fine. Your standard brutish romantic interest that is cursed to be ugly forever, by way of the phantom of the opera mask. He is demanding and haughty and thinks he knows better than everyone. Your standard High Lord ego makes for the verbal back and forth that toes the line between sexual tension and toxic relationships.

He does that standard bodice-ripping shtick, while hopping up on fairy dust, he pins Feyre to the wall and bites her neck. She says no, he ignores and then runs off. With a lovely little moment later blaming her for leaving her room, therefore, he can't be held responsible.

While Feyre has probably never listened to a single rule in her life that is still a huge red flag.

Lucien, an interesting play on the Beast’s servants. He is torn between wanting Feyre around to break the curse but also hating her for killing a friend. Honestly, I think this could have been the most interesting relationship if there was more time devoted to it. That happens a lot in this book, interesting things happen too fast and a lot of time is just devoted to Feyres’ water bowels.

Finally Ryhsand, oh dear Rhy, how I wish I could cut you from my mind just as easily as you pop other Fairies brains. Rhys is not a bad character but his introduction into the book is right when this 400+ novel went from bland but inoffensive to outright infuriating. He is the triple threat of assault; Mental, Physical and Sexual.

We first meet the Lord of the Night Court at the Fire Festival (or in honor of Maas naming conventions Fyre) where he saves Feyre from a trio of Fairies that wanted to assault her. A fine enough intro, maybe a bit overused, but I liked the Howl’s moving castle vibes with the playboy swagger and not knowing why this guy is helping at all.

I was excited at first when he showed up, I couldn’t help but get online and see what fans had to say about the books and instantly noticed that the top pairing from the series was Feyre and Rhys. Not just a fan-loved pairing but an actual canonical couple. I was interested to see how the story went and how the author would hint at this future couple while the current story was still very much pointing to a Tamlin happy ending.

Imagine my surprise when the very next scene that Rhys pops up in, ends with him physically pinning Feyre and mentally assaulting her. I believe she refers to it as a talon in her mind ready to rip her consciousness into oblivion. What a great love interest.

To add insult to literal injury, he then mentally violates her and reveals all of her more adult desires that she has been thinking about Tamlin.

He blackmails them all, threatening to tell an evil queen, Aramantha, about Feyre’s existence unless Tamlin kneels and begs. Even then he demands Feyre’s name. She lies and gives him a girl’s name from her village.

Later we learn that the village girl, Claire, has her family burned alive in their home and is dragged to the Fairy world where she is brutally tortured, mutilated, and put on display like a bear pelt. This cruelty is all the result of Rhys not keeping his fat mouth shut about Feyre being in Tamlin’s court.

The author thinks it's okay to excuse this innocents girl's murder away and make Rhys seeming cunning, by saying that he knew that wasn’t Feyre and lied to protect her. A logic so backward I am surprised my spine didn’t snap in how far it had to bend to dodge the fact that he caused her endangerment by telling Aramantha about Feyre to begin with.

Things get darker than the night court once we enter under the mountain. There, while trying to survive Aramatha’s trials, Feyre breaks her arm to the point that the bone is exposed. A day later, bleeding out, in pain, and feverish from infection, Feyre has to talk to Rhys in her cell. He offers to heal her arm in exchange for her living with him every month for two weeks.

Feyre is not interested in his deal and tells him to leave several times. What does our future perfect mate decide to do then when denied what he wants? He grabs Feyre by her exposed arm bone and twists. This man. This sexy dream boy that so many people say is their model for relationships, grabs an injured woman’s exposed bone and tortures her. Just so she will promise to live with him. He is the little boy kicking the dog because it didn’t follow his orders.

After being physically assaulted in a way that is so painful I am sure most people would black out, Feyre agrees to his deal. However, she bargains the time down to one month. He agrees and seals the deal. Just like that Rhys becomes the male embodiment of a period, complete with all the emotional distress, muscle cramps, and blood.

So does the torture end there? Oh no. For several nights after that he makes servants strip her, paint her and dress her in fabric so thin that she is basically naked. Why paint you ask? Rhys claims it is so she and he knows if anyone touches her. Though I will say that while he states this he touches her shoulder and the paint magically fixes itself. So You know it will show if anyone but Rhys touches her.

He then parades her publicly in front of the entire court like a toy. She is forced to publicly expose her breasts and genitals to a crowd of people that from day one want to see her die. He reduces her to a sex object in a crowd that already does not see her humanity.

Then he drugs her. Not an exaggeration, he even admits to it later in the book. He forces her to drink wine that makes her blackout. The next morning she can barely remember anything and has to rely on Lucien to tell her what happened. While blacked out she is forced to dance practically naked, giving Rhys lap dances and just sitting in his lap. She is exposed so throughout that Lucien even comments that he has seen more than he ever wanted to.

All of this culminated in a moment where one-night Feyre gets a moment with Tamlin, the man she loves, and they kiss and touch each other. The paint is smeared and Rhys finds them. He tells Tamlin to leave and then pins Fyre again calling her a stupid human. Then shoves his own tongue down her throat against her will as she thrashes. Aramantha finds them then and makes sure everyone in the court gets a good laugh at Feyre’s “promiscuity”.

The act is disgusting but what really made me want to burn this book was the scene directly after this. Where Rhys shows up and gives his “reasoning” for abusing her. He was just protecting her because Aramantah would be mad if she found Feyre and Tamlin kissing. He was using her nude dances to try and anger Tamlin so he would fight back when he can. He drugged Feyre so she wouldn’t have to remember the humiliation of being someone's harlot. He did all of it to help her and him.

It's okay that he abused her because it was all for a greater plan. It's okay cause he is hot.

This is the moment when I have to step away from the book review and talk about what I have seen surrounding this novel. I have heard several fans explain away Rhy’s abuse by saying “but it was in her best interest” and “that’s what war does'”. So, let's unpack that, first “in her best interest” is basically the catchphrase of every abusive partner at this point. There will always be a reason for the abuse, it’s a gaslighting tactic that ensures that abusers can deflect any blame from themselves and onto their victim. This creates complicated emotions that will paralysis the abused person from leaving the relationship altogether.

If you find yourself in a relationship where you are always rationalizing away mistreatment then please take a step back and question why there are so many excuses to begin with.

As for the but war does that. I would like these same people to say that while looking at photos of real war atrocities. To look at images from the Nanjing Massacre or the Wounded Knee Massacre and say the same thing. Those acts of violence against men, women, and children were done during the war. Does that make it okay then if the violence was done by an attractive soldier who was deep and brooding?

I have a tendency to write my own preferred scenarios which I know is kind of pointless for a published book but fix fit fiction is a thing so hear me out.  Or don’t, that’s fine you can stop reading here as the review is over. I just have one simple idea that could fix a lot of my problems with this series.

Separate Rhysand into two separate characters.

Make the man she meets at the Fyre Festival and the guy who threatens her in the mansion and under the mountain just different guys.

You can keep the dark cunning mystery man of the Fyre Festival, maybe not even name him until he shows up again in the court to help. Have him come to her cell and offer his help. Have her say no and instead of grabbing her exposed arm bone he just says it’s the only help she will get. Hell Feyre talks herself into anyways after he grabs her bone so let's just skip that violence. Have her agree just as he is about to leave and give her the stupid arm tattoo and save her life. Then that’s it. He shows up at the end to help her but that’s it.

The man who meets her in the cell does not need to be the same man who forces her to do stripteases in front of hundreds of people. Make it Attar or some other male henchman of Aramantha who makes her do the dancing and drinking and everything else.

You still want him to be cunning and calculating? Maybe have a little bit of the grey morality that makes us all squirm?  Great than keeping the scene with the forced kiss (not great but whatever). That is easier to overlook than drugging, sexual harassment, and assault.  He can be forcibly kissing her to protect her and hell let's throw in an apology for fun.

Then you set up a situation where you have this dark and mysterious figure who we still don’t know why he helps her.

I know people say wait till book two and I do plan to read it. I got to see what excuse the author comes up with that seems to explain away so much abuse. What could she possibly say that makes me sit back and say “You know yes he pimped her out and yes he pulled on an exposed bone but you know what he just suuuuuuch a good guy.” If she is that good of an author then she should become a PR writer who makes spin articles for R. Kelly and Harvey Weinstein.

[x-x-moon-maiden-x-x]

Morrigan

The Morrígan was the Irish goddess of death and destiny. Appearing before great battles as the goddess of fate, the Morrígan offered prophecy and favor to heroes and gods alike. As the Phantom Queen, she circled the battlefield as a conspiracy of ravens to carry away the dead. She was at once both a single deity and a triple goddess, made up of Ireland’s most powerful goddesses.

Her husband was the Dagda (or the Great God), who came to her for prophecy before major battles. She is associated with several sacred and natural sites across Ireland.

The Morrígan, sometimes known simply as Morrígan or Morrígu, was the anglicized form of the Gaelic Mór-Ríoghain. Scholars have disagreed as to the exact etymology of this name, but have linked it to similar words across Europe. Mór has been linked to a Proto-Indo-European word meaning “terror” (which appears in English as part of the word “night*mare*”) and Ríoghain, meaning “queen,” bears similarities to the Latin regina. She was seen by medieval Irish writers as an archetypal figure in her relation to spirits, particularly malevolent female spirits and monsters. These scholars referred to such spirits as morrígna, and used the term morrígna to describe beings as diverse as the Middle Eastern lamia and the demon-goddess Lilith from the Latin Vulgate Bible. She was often called “Phantom Queen,” a title acknowledging her relationship with the dead.

The Morrígan was first and foremost a goddess of war and death. She was also the goddess of prophecy and fate, and as such saw the future of all things, including the end of the world. She was all-knowing, and would occasionally share her knowledge with others (for a price). Her prophecies were never wrong and her wordings were exact, if somewhat poetic. Her appearance to royalty and warriors also represented the side she favored in a battle. The Morrígan’s association with the raven stemmed from the bird’s constant presence on the battlefield. She was a shapeshifter who took many forms; she would often appear in multiple forms throughout a single story. The most common of these forms were a shapely maiden, a battle ready warrior-queen, an old crone, and a raven. While she could take the form of other animals beyond a raven, the Morrígan did so less frequently. Her appearances at the deaths of prominent figures, such as those who fell at the Second Battle of Moytura or the mighty Cú Chulainn, have caused scholars to link her to spirits appearing later in Irish folklore, such as the banshee, or “fairy woman.”

One of the most prominent aspects of the Morrígan was her nature as a triple goddess of war. In many stories, she appeared as both an individual and as three goddesses acting under a single name. Membership within this triple goddess varies depending on the source. In some cases, the daughters of Ernmas, Badb, Macha, and Anand were named as the Morrígan, with Nemain or Fea sometimes replacing one of the goddesses in the triad. Elsewhere, the Morrígan was listed as a sister of Badb and Macha, with Anand simply serving as an alternate name for the goddess. This inconsistency likely represented early Irish scholars’ attempts to resolve a number of conflicting oral traditions.

Morrígan was the daughter of Ernmas, a mother-goddess who was herself the daughter of Nuada, king of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Her father remains unknown. Her siblings were Ériu, Banba, and Fódla, who made up the triple goddess representing the spirit and sovereignty of Ireland, as well as Badb and Macha, with whom the Morrígan made up a triple goddess of war. Her brothers were the Glon, Gnim, Coscar, Fiacha, and Ollom. She was married to the Dagda, the great god and chief of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

[pumpkinpie59]

The fact that i made a theatre au for tmm lol ...

au headcanons under the cut ...

Ichigo’s favorite musical is Bye Bye Birdie, and she wants to be Rosie someday. Her favorite showtune is Telephone Hour, bc lbr it slaps. She has a pretty big range, but she struggles with her chest voice.

Minto’s favorite is Cats (not the movie tho--). It’s very dance-heavy so I think she’d like that. She would be a great Victoria. also it reminds her of her best friend lol. She’s not really a singer, but can hold a tune pretty well. She’s mainly a featured dancer.

Retasu’s favorite is a tie between Something Rotten (bc Shakespeare, history, and poetry jokes) and Music Man. She really wants to be Marian so someone can sing Marian the Librarian to her bc it’s rlly romantic and she’d melt. Retasu has the highest range of the group, so she tends to get soprano roles. She has the ability to belt and sing alto, but she’s not confident enough to try it in front of others.

Skipping to Pie bc it’s connected to Retasu’s bc of course it is. His favorite musical is Les Miserables bc history nerd. His favorite role is Javert, but he’d like to play Harold Hill in Music Man bc well see above. The dude has range, but he’s best at baritone and bass. He plays intimidating or gentlemanly characters mostly. In dance numbers, he tends to be paired with Zakuro since they are the tallest male and female cast members which sucks for him since they aren’t too fond of each other and he wants to dance with his crush.

Bù-líng doesn’t have a favorite musical and likes being in theatre because of the energy and she gets to hang out with her friends. She likes comedic roles best. She has a great belt.

Zakuro’s favorite musical is Six the Musical (girl power, powerful ballads, queens, and friendship). She’d like to be Catherine Parr. She’d absolutely nail I Don’t Need Your Love. Zakuro was the go-to for big roles before the other girls started getting main roles. She’s probably performed as Elphaba. She has a large range since she’d been professionally trained. She can belt impressively well.

I think Masaya would like Once Upon a Mattress bc it’s a funny show that could distract him from his hard home life. Also Winnifred might remind him of Ichigo. Masaya has a very clear tenor, and he tends to get main roles due to his good attitude and hardworking nature.

Ryou likes Fiddler on the Roof. He’d be a great Perchik xD He switches between tenor and baritone, and he sometimes struggles when songs are right in the middle.

Okay listen. Quiche is a Phantom of the Opera fan. The boy is DRAMATIC. Also it’s kind of a reference to his creepy behavior in the og story. He’s a tenor and he tends to play comedic roles or roles that need a lot of energy.

Tart would probably switch his favorite all the time. He likes whatever musical the others love, but then he hears another musical and likes that, and then another, and so on and so forth.

Ringo likes Tuck Everlasting. She’s not picky about her roles, but she likes to play young boys and old ladies especially since they’re so unlike her actual personality. Like Bù-líng, she has a good belt, but she likes to stay in her lower register, so she stays in the alto range.

Berry LOVES Hamilton (not my fav, but she gives me that vibe). She’s new to theatre, but she enjoys it so far. She’s only been ensemble, and she’s an alto.

Tasuku is a Newsies fan. He screams Newsie energy. He can parkour. I’m positive he’s played Crutchie AND an ensemble member (one of the ones who does flips). He’s not a super strong singer, but he’s certainly not bad. He can sing with character voices which is always fun.

Keiichirou is techie! But he always takes one night off to watch Ryou perform.

[movedtotophatvixen]

Art From January 1st, 2021!

Happy New Year everyone 🎇🎆🧨!!!! I started 2021 strong by making eight pieces of artwork today. Most of these are a bunch of drawing plus edits of Hyoubu x Azusa and their daughters, Seraphim and Ophanim (+ my new Zettai Karen Children OC, Sköll).

First drawing is of Hyoubu x Azusa, it’s been awhile since I’ve drawn them to be honest. I got the urge to draw them both on a chess board surrounded by black chess pieces (it represents P.A.N.D.R.A and is a part of the Dark Messiahs of Espers’ aesthetic), especially since chess basically runs proudly in their blood! Also, as you could probably tell, Hyoubu is represented as the King of Chess while Azusa is the Queen of Chess ❤️♟👑💌💍💟💘! Also I worked on another Hyoubu x Azusa edit since it’s been awhile since I’ve edited them into the manga. Azusa is just checking on Hyoubu’s wounds here. Yes, both of them are wearing suits because suit couple solidarity!!!!

Plus I’m showcasing more edits of the Hyoubu x Azusa fankids/daughters, Seraphim and Ophanim! First three are of Seraphim, saying chess catchphrases as usual, while the final one is Ophanim ❤️👑💕💟! Also, her eyes are different in the second edit since Seraphim is using psychometry in order to take control of a tank. Yeah, my daughter can do that 😎. The third edit with Seraphim is her using her spatial awareness due to her being a teleporter and thanks to wearing a specialized smart monocle like Azusa does; it’s enhancing her spatial awareness ability.

Also, the last two drawings have context. The final left drawing is of Queen/Leader of P.A.N.D.R.A and Espers Seraphim Hyoubu; I have an AU for Hyoubu and Azusa’s oldest daughter where she becomes their leader far into the future (2032 to be exact) due to Azusa’s old age and ended up passing down leadership to her daughter. During that period, Seraphim starts wearing the cape that Azusa used to wear during that time frame. Due to Seraphim now being the Leader and Queen of P.A.N.D.R.A; Seraphim goes by Queen of Duelists (and ya know Queen of Espers and P.A.N.D.R.A). In 2032, Seraphim is 36 but due to her anti aging powers she inherited from her father, Kyousuke Hyoubu, she has stopped aging and physically, Seraphim is around 24-26 years old. The name of this AU is Queen of Duelists Seraphim AU but can also be called 2032 AU. During this time, Seraphim is the wife of Sköll Hyoubu (Sköll Wolfensson in current timeline), due to marrying her during Future, and is the adoptive mother of Dadoji Hyoubu (Dadoji is 6 years old during Future/2020 while she is 18 in 2032) who she and Sköll saved during the Future Timeline of ZKC.

The second drawing is of one of my Zettai Karen Children OCs, her name is Sköll Wolfensson (Sköll Hyoubu during Future due to eventually marrying Seraphim Hyoubu). I don’t have a bio on Sköll right now but here is some info on her below:

* Her full name is Sköll Wolfensson. In the Future, she is called Sköll Hyoubu.

* Sköll is a Level 6 multi-powered female esper. She has Electrokinesis, Metamorphosis - can turn into a wolf, Teleportation, and Psychometry.

* Sköll is a supporting character in Zettai Karen Children while a main character in The Unlimited Hyoubu Kyousuke.

* Sköll is the same age as Seraphim and Ophanim (currently 19). Sköll debuts in Elementary Arc (around the time when Black Phantom was being introduced) where she is 14 years old and in Middle School Arc, she is 16.

* Sköll is an executive of P.A.N.D.R.A as of High School Arc, though she is a P.A.N.D.R.A member during the first two arcs.

* Sköll has a sukeban aesthetic as seen with her school uniform and her confident yet delinquent attitude. She incorporates elements from Taisho Era uniforms into her school uniform such as wearing a school cap and a long cape.

* She typically fights with a katana and yo-yo but also uses grenades/handbombs, daggers, and throwing knives. Sköll is also a skilled martial artist, she mainly uses Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Karate, Taekwondo, and Capoeira in combat.

* Sköll occasionally fights with a baseball bat with nails attached to them.

* Sköll stands at 5’2”/157 cm.

* Sköll was born on June 20th, 1996.

* Sköll is biromantic bisexual.

* Sköll is the love interest (girlfriend) of Seraphim Hyoubu and becomes her wife in the Future. In the Future, Sköll and Seraphim becomes the adoptive mothers to a young esper girl named Dadōji Hyoubu.

* As a duo, Sköll and Seraphim are known as The Nogitsune and Sun Devouring Wolf. Sköll later becomes part of Seraphim and Ophanim’s team, Angels of Duelists, and even Foxes of Duelists (team mainly consisting of Azusa, Seraphim, and Ophanim; they play a big role during Future).

* Due to being the love interest of Seraphim, she is seen as a daughter-in-law figure by Kyousuke Hyoubu and Azusa Hyoubu.

* During Future, Sköll is 24 years old. In Queen of Duelists Seraphim/2032 AU, Sköll is 36. In 2048 AU, Sköll is 48.

* In the Future, due to being the significant other (girlfriend/eventually wife) of Seraphim Hyoubu, Sköll starts going by the alias, Princess of Duelists, and is even called Princess (though the members of P.A.N.D.R.A did start calling Sköll, Princess, once she became Seraphim’s girlfriend).

* In 2032, when Seraphim becomes the leader of P.A.N.D.R.A/Espers, Sköll also becomes the Queen of Espers and like Seraphim during that timeline, Sköll goes by Queen of Duelists and is referred to as Queen by the Espers and P.A.N.D.R.A members.

* Sköll is Icelandic-Japanese.

* Sköll’s favorite food is venison.

* Sköll’s hair color used to be blonde until Marie Antoinette Syndrome, which caused her hair to turn white.

* Sköll is voiced by Yū Asakawa.

* Sköll was the former leader of an esper street gang known as the Legendary Wolf; which she formed after being rejected by her family for displaying esper powers. The sense of rejection she felt caused her to form Legendary Wolf, a delinquent esper gang who often committed crimes such as theft, shoplifting, and violence though mainly did this out of survival and the members were viewed as family members and took in outcasted espers into their group, including esper children. The members also typically called Sköll the Legendary Wolf. Around the time Black Phantom presence began to grow, many espers were targeted and due to this; her gang of espers got kidnapped; with the only sole member left being Sköll who got greatly injured trying to defend them yet backfired. Later being found by Hyoubu, Azusa, and Seraphim; Sköll quickly joined P.A.N.D.R.A who is very ambitious on stopping Black Phantom for their atrocities they commit against espers and to hopefully retrieve her friends from them.