#some brief notes:

[nostalgia-tblr]

Huzzah, it is @sifkiweek once more! This year I have not missed the deadline! I am posting this for day one as it fits the “throne” prompt pretty well. I’ve posted it as two chapters just for neatness as the whole thing is almost 9000 words which seemed a wee bit unwieldy for a single chapter - both parts already are up so the fic is complete. 

This year’s fic is a sequel to the fic I wrote for last year’s Sikfi Week, and you should probably at least skim that one so that this one makes sense: Bitter/Sweet 

Anyway, the plot of this fic is that Queen Sif has a baby and this a) scares her and b) makes her reconsider her position on whether or not Thor needs to die. Oh no, a Corruption Arc! 

Title: Loyalty Binds Me (AO3) Fandom: Thor (Movies) Rating: Mature Pairing: Loki/Sif Wordcount: ~8800 Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Sequel, King Loki, Queen Sif, A Large & Impossible-To-Ignore Thor-Shaped Hole, Angst, Corruption Arc, Pregnancy, Childbirth, Motherhood, Frigga Does What Frigga Thinks Is Best, Mild Sexual Content, Canon-Typical Violence, Fratricidal Ideation, Treason & Betrayal & All That Fun Stuff, Sifki Week 2024 (Marvel) Summary/Snippet: Sif knows that he has one more point to make, one more argument with which he can hope to win her over. She is already forming the words in her mind when he says them; “And there’s the child to think of too, now.”

PS: I made An Artwork to go with it

[fawnchives]

The difference between Nessa/Sab and Jake/Tara/Johnnie is that the triplets stopped hanging out with nes/sab because they became problematic.

nick probably caught on to the bullshit and was oh nah yall we gotta go! but like real talk…i didn’t keep up with their friend group stuff during the nessa/sab/photobooth era, i just knew that were affiliated with nessa’s crew and i was like oh ok bro!

[glimblshanks]

The thing about TNG is that the space aliens and moral quandaries are always like, the least insane part of the episode

[tricorderreading]

Guess who finally made their card! It's taken forever but they're being printed; I'm going to put one in each of the duplicate copies of Trek books that I have before leaving them in little libraries around my area 😄🖖

And I do intend on posting actual book reviews soon!

[orionsangel86]

Dream of the Endless - A Romantic Fool

After talking to @so-i-grudgingly-joined-this-site @duckland and @notallsandmen over on this post I have been thinking about the reasons why I personally interpret Dream as a romantic and think that later Sandman stories have made a mistake claiming that romance and erotic fiction are all the work of Desire alone and not the actual Prince of Stories (and thank GOD Neil Gaiman confirmed those Sandman stories were not canon eh?)

Under the cut because as always it got long. Why I think Dream of the Endless is an old fashioned romantic with a soft spot for love stories.

I mentioned in the linked post that I don’t see how Dream and Desire can keep themselves completely separated when their realms blur so much and when they are canonically probably the two most similar of the Endless even above Desire and Despair (which I think is the reason they clash so much).  It’s also worth mentioning that when it comes to influences over mortals, I don’t think any particular Endless sibling has more of a sway than any other, they all influence us all the time such is their nature and I think it would be very difficult to claim only one Endless was totally responsible for certain things. This is the reason why they like to compete and play games with each other like they did in Three Septembers and a January with the Emperor of the United States (side note: this is one of my all time favourite comic issues and my absolute favourite of the stand alone stories).

So even if Desire does have influence over the romance genre and erotica, I don’t think that would make Dream particularly averse to them, because he is also very much responsible for love stories and stories about love and seems to have inspired more than his own fair share over time.

Starting with the obvious - he was Shakespeare’s patron. No matter what else you say about Dream, he is responsible for inspiring and effectively being the muse for the greatest playwrite who ever lived. Shakespeare’s repertoire includes a whole list of plays with romance and love at their hearts not least of all being:

A Midsummer Nights Dream

What is the one thing you remember most about AMND? The fairies yes? Titania, Puck, Oberon, etc. But the central theme and story of AMND is specifically about love. It is a very sweet story about four mortals who are caught in a love “square” and get lost in a magical forest where the fairies decide to get involved and fix their love problems (with some confusing mess ups in between) and at the same time, it is a story about how the King and Queen of Fairie are having a bit of a falling out and the King decides to play some tricks on his stubborn wife, before ultimately reconcilling with her. The play ends with a triple wedding.

In the Sandman issue A Midsummer Nights Dream. It is revealled that Dream commissioned this play from Shakespeare to be a retelling of events which happened long ago, as a gift from him to Titania and Oberon so that mortals may never forget the fae once they leave the realm of Earth forever. It is also revealled that Dream and Titania were once lovers themselves, though we have no other details about when this was, as Titania refuses to talk about it at The Wake. It is clear however that they are still on extremely good terms, care for each other deeply, and had a very close relationship even after they were lovers before the fae left Earth. Throughout the comics, whenever the fae are mentioned, it is clear that Dream is closer to them than any of the other Gods, Goddesses, or various pantheons we meet. Even though at one point he states that he does not trust fairie magic.

At the end of the day, whatever else you want to believe about Dream, Titania is the only lover of his that he remains on good terms with. So much so that even though she clearly has a husband, he is still gifting her love stories. There is an argument here that AMND is quite mocking towards Titania, who falls in love with a man with the head of an ass, and spends most of the play having sex with him and swooning over him whilst the other fairies look on in horror. I know some people have interpreted this as Dream being mocking and cruel towards her, but I didn’t get this impression at all from reading this issue. Titania appears to be delighted at the play and Dream explains clearly his reasons for commissioning it:

The short version is that Dream commissioned a romantic and magical love story for his ex lover, so that the mortal world would never forget her when she left Earth for good.

Pretty romantic in my opinion.

The Tempest

Keeping to the Shakespeare theme, the other play commissioned directly by Dream is The Tempest. Now, there is probably a whole other meta essay to be written about Dream’s reasons for commissioning the Tempest, not least of all how fitting Prospero’s final monologue is when viewing it as a closing statement on Dream’s own endgame. But this is a meta about romance, and Dream couldn’t even keep romance out of his self-insert human!au original fiction. Like AMND, The Tempest is also a comedy (interesting how both plays commissioned by Dream were comedies when he is so clearly living in a tragedy *sigh*) and like AMND The Tempest includes young lovers who fall in love throughout the course of the play. Whilst romance and love isn’t a central theme in The Tempest, it is still a big part of the story.

I just find it impossible to take a view that Dream would shun romance when he personally commissioned two romantic stories from Shakespeare himself.

The Sandman: Overture - Dream’s Personal Love Story

But this isn’t the only evidence of Dream’s romantic inclinations. The Sandman: Overture also includes some interesting clues to Dream’s views on love stories.

Hope asks for a story. She does NOT request a love story. She simply asks for a story with Dream, that also includes a princess. Given that Dream is the Prince of Stories, and has most definitely had interactions with many princesses over his long life, he chose to instead tell a personal story, a love story, and so we finally get the full love story of Dream and Alianora.

Even though it must hurt to relive it, even though the Cat of Dreams (not gonna spoil the twist) specifically states that they NEVER tell that story, he chooses to tell it to Hope. Not only does he tell her that story, but he ends it with a happy ending - not “happy for always” but “happy for a goodly while”.

The fact that the Netflix show chose to adapt on this love story further, by having it be canon that Dream carved their love story into the gates of his own kingdom - well, that only further emphasises how much he cares for love stories, even his own, even when the truth is it ended badly, and hurt him greatly. Would a non romantic person carve their own love story into the gates of their kingdom? I don’t think so somehow. Because even after all this time, even though it pains him to relive it, he is still a romantic at heart, and cared about Alianora and their love enough to carve it into the gates of the Dreaming.

A Mother’s Insight

Also in The Sandman: Overture, Dream’s time with his mother is particularly insightful. She is the one to point out how alike he and Desire truly are, even though he dismisses the very concept and takes offense (obviously). It seems clear to me that we are supposed to agree with Mother Night on this. She also raises two other interesting points - the first is when she realises Dream’s scheme to get his parents back together in the hopes that it will save the universe. She laughs at him, and mocks him, calling it “one of his stories”. Because even if Dream isn’t exactly the most self aware of creatures (understatement), she is exactly right. Dream, being a romantic, had hoped that his parents love could save the universe. A true epic love story for the ages. It is his romantic ideations that sent him to meet with his parents. Dream’s romantic nature is integral to the story of Overture working. If he wasn’t such a romantic, he never would have sought out his parents, he would have been more grounded in realism, and known that they would disappoint him.

The second point Mother Night points out, is Dream’s desire for a lover, as she offers to make him one so that he might stay in her realm with her. He declines of course, since Mother is simply manipulating him to keep him with her, but that doesn’t mean what she says isn’t true. Dream very much desires a lover. His whole family is aware of this. His love story with Alianora began with Desire sending Alianora to Dream after all. Dream’s wish for love and also romance is an integral part of his character.

Brief Lives - Motivations and Comparisons

Dream’s romantic ideations are also central to the story in Brief Lives since the only reason he agrees to go to the Waking World with Delirium is because he hopes that he may find and reconcile with Thessaly. His fantasies of reconciling with her are strong enough for Destiny to call him out and bring him once again back down to Earth.

Knowing what we do about Thessaly, it is very easy to interpret Dream’s feelings about her, and his romantic ideations about reuniting with her, as not rooted in reality. I find it very difficult to view Dream as anything other than a romantic fool when he is taking road trips across Earth on the small chance he may lock eyes with his ex lover across a street and they may fall back into each others arms like in some fluffy romance novel. He is ridiculous, and this is made clear throughout Brief Lives.

In fact, Destruction definitely agrees with me as well. He calls Dream a romantic fool directly.

Orpheus’s very existence is also a good example of Dream being a romantic. Who else could father a child who becomes famous for his poetry, his songs, and his epic tragic love story. In The Sandman, it is at least implied that part of the reason Orpheus meets his tragic end is because he is too much like his father, and the one thing that is made very clear about Orpheus, is that he is a romantic, with love being one of his main motivations.

I think adding all this together with the comments made about Dream by his own creations, the residents of the Dreaming, as well as his ex lovers at The Wake, it is clear that he is a romantic character, a character who is driven in many ways by his desire for love, and who rather fancies himself as the broody romantic hero (I just KNOW Dream was somehow involved with Lord Byron lmao). Throughout the comic, Dream often denies that he has any needs, any desires, to the extent that he denies that he is even a person, who has a life. He also adamantly denies that he has a story. Yet, throughout the comic, it is made clear that none of this is true. The reason Dream is so often at odds with Desire is because he desires so strongly - moreso than any of the other Endless siblings. It’s because of this that I think he would enjoy the romance genre possibly more than anything else. Romance is a core component of his personality. In comic canon, Dream has been directly or indirectly responsible for the creation of at least five love stories - two Shakespeare plays, the Song of Orpheus, the love story of Dream and Alianora, as well as the story that the African tribe tell their children when they come of age - the love story of Dream and Nada, the tale where their love was so passionate that every living thing that could dream dreamed of their love making.

So whilst the comics never directly state whether or not Dream is a fan of romance novels, his desire for love and romance indicates to me that he holds love stories in high regard, regardless of whether or not his annoying younger sibling has anything to do with them.

Also, not that it really counts for anything, but Tom Sturridge agrees with me. ;-)

[pa-pa-plasma]

okay i just marathoned the entirety of ATLA live action & i might do an actual review of it explaining my thoughts more in depth, but the TLDR version basically boils down to this:

if you want to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender, just go watch the 2005 cartoon

[circusfable]

I have finally completed this beast of a fic

[hiphopcherrrypop]

they are even in my subconscious… sick and tired 😭!!!

[bedforddanes75]

why is he holding 90s damon albarn what

[ubyr-babaj]

You know it's probably a bad sign that I could never guess Valente's translations of Akhmatova because she'd take some of the most profound lines of Russian poetry and translate them without any rhythm, rhyme or care towards the author intended alliteration.

[benbamboozled]

TALIA AL GHUL:

JASON TODD:

TALIA AL GHUL: . . .

[ugisfeelings]

tbh I’m relatively new to francophone scholarship on the French Revolution and I unfortunately cannot read French-- but just from skimming the autotranslations of this article by Pascale Pellerin, Algeria writer Kateb Yacine’s 1984 play, Bourgeois sans-culotte ou le specter du parc Monceau, presents as possibly one of the most compelling dramaturgical interpretations of the French terror and Maximillien Robespierre’s historical memory imo and should honestly be considered a primary example of his radical influences. Yacine unfortunately died while revising the manuscript, so it was never published in the form he intended, but there have been partial translations online, and a clip from the posthumous 1988 Paris performance is on youtube as well.

The play on Robespierre was commissioned by and performed mostly in Arras, aka Robespierre’s hometown, but it would be remiss to shrug Yacine’s interpretation of the French Revolution as a provincial hagiography or redundant to previous French leftist nationalist discourses. Bourgeois sans-culotte is thoroughly a transnational story about revolutionary violence and freedom, and a critical recuperation of Robespierre’s legacy from the perspective of France’s former colonies. For Yacine especially, it was important to highlight the parallels in historiographic receptions of the “reign of terror” to colonial propaganda of the Algerian Revolution and other anticolonial guerilla struggles in Haiti, Vietnam, and Algeria

Posting my favorite sections from Pellerin’s analysis, translations provided by google lmfao; highlights & underline mine--

“Kateb Yacine's piece constitutes a circular vision of History of which Robespierre would be the centre. Whether one is in Indochina, in France, in Algeria, in the 18th century or during the Algerian war, the image of Robespierre speaks of the violence of History and its justification in the face of the violence of the oppressor, that of monarchical power, that of colonialism, that of Nazism. The representations of the guillotine, the Terror and Robespierre constitute a major ideological challenge for Kateb Yacine and take on a particular meaning depending on the place and the space.” (p4).

Note: Yacine’s conspicuous influences from Marx and direct homage to the opening line, “a spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism," from The Communist Manifesto.

Note: Yacine’s decision to weave his autographical self and experiences in colonial Algeria into re-telling the French Revolution.

Note: Yacine’s portrayal of the guillotine as indeed a “ambivalent tool”-- not as a post-Thermidorian carcicature of popular violence against the bourgeoise-- but due to its later mobilization by the French colonial government in the execution of over 2300 Algerian revolutionaries 1956-63.

Note: Yacine’s mediations on Francophone historiography and moralization of the “Reign of Terror”; direct resonances for Algerian revolutionaries on the role of terrorism in struggles for national indepedence from French colonialism

Note: Yacine’s explicit affirmation of Robespierre as the original and legitimate symbol of an enlightened French republic-yet-to-come, in spite of the revolution’s failure to manifest it.

Note: Robespierre attempting to reach Karl Marx prior to his confrontation with de Gaulle, the latter of whom mocks Robespierre as “[having] nothing of a man of action.” Empower by his meeting with Marx, Robespierre responds to this attempted demasculation [perhaps paralleling popular portrayals of his feud with Danton?] with, “And you, the great de Gaulle, you have subdued the generals, but you have not seen Second Lieutenant Le Pen, who is threatening to take power” (Yacine in Pellerin, pp27).

[cuteniarose]

Even more incorrect quotes shenanigans, because I’m going to do everything in my power to cheer my dear @katkastrofa up, even if school almost completely exhausted my mental capacity :)

[silverware-is-interesting]

thought i'd try to design the fallen humans, but i only have integrity so far, the design might change a bit, but otherwise i quite like it

i don't have a name for them, or any plans for the other fallen humans, but i'll cross that bridge when i get there

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

ok so i was gonna draw these but um. i got lazy. so i'm now just going to write up a tumblr post establishing this headcannon so when i eventually post my fic about it i can link to this as an explanation.

so hi gang. back when i first started cosplaying life series characters i wanted to make up a way that allowed me to more clearly distinguish my cosplays in between the seasons, even if it was just something small and for me, and this led me to here.

basically, what happened here is i decided to give each player a little mark/tattoo like thing representing themselves and each season they didn't win. this has now morphed into a headcannon, that all of the life series players have a physical reminder of every game that they don't win from the watchers, to remind them of what they're missing while they're gone, in an attempt to encourage them to come back. (they're not particularly effective, but oh well, the watchers like to commit to a bit). the winners don't get one because they accidentally set a precedent by not giving grian one (they didn't WANT him coming back), and while the same thing applied to scott, they don't quite feel the same way about pearl or martyn. however, it's also just a little bit of cruelty that there's not physical reminder of what you went through if you win. it only lives in your mind, as fickle as your mind can be, especially in these games. it's on brand for them.

i'm throwing everyone's marks below the cut, specifically what they look like post limited life. i will also explain why i chose each of them, because some of them are more obvious than others.

grian: three purple eyes on the back of his right hand. look the watchers are doing this, of course it's a reminder of what he's supposed to be doing instead of playing these games. for him, it's meant to serve less as encouragement to sign up again, but as encouragement to stop. if you hate us so much, why are you letting us give you more reminders of what you are to us?

scar: a (non painful, because it's not real) injury representing the way he died in each season. there's a bruise on his ribs that never goes away, covered by two scars from ren's arrowhead and grian's sword, tinged in a skulk-y blue.

scott: three flowers on the inside of his right elbow. a poppy for third life (duh), a lotus for double life (victorian flower language is "estranged love"), and hemlock for limited life (victorian flower language is "you will be the death of me").

jimmy: four canary feathers clumped together on his left shoulder. no explanation needed.

pearl: the first two phases of the moon (starting with the full moon) on the inside of her left elbow. obviously due to her name, but i think it's also important to note that last life began a few months into s8 and ended a month before the end of s8, so she would've had her first one show up a month before the moon… well...

martyn: three tally marks on his right eyebrow. this one is less representative of martyn and more of his relationship with the watchers. it's a small mark, it almost looks like a deliberate eyebrow slit or a scar if you're not paying much attention. but as time goes on, and martyn's understanding of/connection to the watchers increases, it's harder to mistake. it's harder to hide what's really happening.

ren: three crowns on the left sideburn. also very self explanitory.

bigb: an arrow, a diamond sword, a piece of dripstone, and another diamond sword on his clavicle. each represents the weapon that shows up around him the most in each season. he's killed by a bow and a crossbow across all three of his deaths in third life, he kills cleo with a diamond sword in last life and looses his first life to lizzie's sword, he is killed by mobs only in double life until grian and the dripstone, and bigb is killed by and kills with a diamond sword most often in limited life.

etho: four sticks of tnt behind his right ear. this is less related to his life series and more his general... everything. it's etho, of course it's tnt. the "behind the ear" thing is also very funny to me because it takes etho AGES to figure out where his is- he knows he should have one, everyone but grian has one, but someone else sees it first MONTHS after third life has ended.

impulse: four arrows on his neck, pointing down. his final deaths in third and last life are to bows, and his first (and arguably only, as bdubs looses the other two lives) death in double life is to a skeleton. the limited life connection is a little more sparse but 1. the watchers had already committed to the bit and 2. he killed quite a few people with bows this season, including bdubs and i am nothing if not annoying about those two.

skizz: three hearts on his wrists, one on the front and inside of his left wrist and one on the outside of his right wrist. hearts are the general symbol of the life series, but skizz is also the definition of "heart on his sleeve". in this case it's just on his wrist, cause i think it looks better than his shoulders/upper arms.

tango: lichtenberg scars along on his left ankle that spread farther every time he looses. these are the scars that you get from being struck by lightning. lightning strikes when you die, and tango's deaths continue to be the most frustrating part of every season for him, the part the watchers think he'd most want to rectify. i know the lightning strike on death wasn't a thing in third or double life, but shhhh don't worry about it. i'm retconing.

bdubs: numbers of a clock on his left side. limited life rounded out the 12, 3, 6, and 9. further seasons would fill in the rest of the numbers and the hands. this is also entirely self explanatory.

cleo: four red stitches around her right wrist. (the stitches existed prior to her playing in the life series, but they change colors one by one after every season. were she to run out of stitches, she would either start suddenly generating more on the same area or ones on other parts of her body would start changing color.) for her, it's just something small that she'd constantly be seeing, as she works with her hands often and the red stands out well against both green zombie skin and the more human colored parts. it makes the series stick in her mind, reminds her of what she still wants from it.

joel: four vertebrae outlined down the spine. the bones part comes at the start from his dogs in third life, and then it becomes more of an association with death as the seasons go on. it's specifically outlining his vertebrae because one thing about life series joel is that he has a spine. he is never a coward, even when it might serve him better to be one.

mumbo: one broken heart on his chest. as martyn discussed in his post limited life stream, last life messed mumbo up bad. like, so bad the watchers decided they couldn't put the guy back in. his is very literal- a broken heart over where his real heart is, where he took multiple injuries over the course of last life, for once, in a mostly non malicious way, a reminder that he shouldn't come back. (i say mostly because, hey, nice to give him time to recover, but it's less because they actually care about the guy and more because they know he'd be no fun like this)

lizzie: small fairy wings on her right shoulder. representative of the fairy fort, of course. were she to show up in another season, it would be something else to represent her alliances, because that's always where lizzie thrives in my opinion, with other people (even if fairy fort was a mess, lol).