#this has been a thought journey

[lighthouseborna]

is henry. a little bit spoiled, actually? is that where all the Audacity comes from?

[yuseirra]

If all we need to live is up to time No one's sure what made it brought me to our way of life

[spacerockband]

notes on past and future link

[meadowsofmay]

so, i am one film in of my the hobbit re-watch and it's interesting how they portrayed each dwarf visually. there's quite an amount of fighting which showcases us the way they act: who's the fighter and who's the carer, who's the leader and who's the follower, who's the mind and who's the brutal force. but — their appearance does tell a huge part of the untold story about who they are and what are their roles in the company.

while re-watching 'an unexpected journey' i had an opportunity to pay closer attention to fili and kili:

and if i still didn't know a single thing about them aside basics and was asked «who's going to be the next king?», i'd say fili without hesitation, based only on the visual.

fili is put together. he might even seem to be somewhat arrogant with his facial expressions. and visual implications of him being the mature one are in his braids, his still growing beard but already braided mustache.

in comparison to kili — fili has a little bit of the weight that the age brings on him.

one of the reasons why we might sympathise alot with kili is because kili feels young. his appearance screams that he is the youngest: long unbraided/barely braided hair and those bangs, strands of hair over his face in a way to make it look rounder and cuter. we see kili act impulsively, him being all over the place with attachement and trust, him being childishly loud and stupidly brave. and his appearance really makes sense of that.

the relationships between durin's are also quite interesting to look at:

the thing with fili is not just him being the oldest of the brothers, for also because he is prepared/taught to be mature one. we hear it quickly in action during the departure from laketown but richard also said in the appendices that thorin prepares fili to be the next to the throne. and i think, he used the word «groomed» which might mean that they're at the beginning of the process that is not exactly wanted by one of the sides. hence, why i am using «prepared/taught to» — fili is still young and dumb at times but he is ahead of kili on the ride of growing up. because he has to. he is, again, more put together but he has alot of weaponry that he carries on him in order to be prepared for any sort of fight. he learns skills and hence the reason he still has huge assignment of blades to chose from.

fili is also less confrontational with thorin. kill is really open and honest about his feelings towards thorin's actions, for example in the scenes where thorin is unfair to bilbo. seems like kili really did get attached to the hobbit and was not shy to be judgemental.

also desperate for he is still young and doesn't really understand the meaning of calculated decisions and compromises.

fili usually keeps to the side, be it because he observes, has less confrontational character or just knows not to interfere when thorin gets moody. when kili jokes on bilbo — fili just plays along. when thorin starts to berate them it's kili who's ashamed but fili is just there. he is so done with thorin, it seems, he doesn't have it in him to react.

observing kili's behavior we can say that kili looks up to thorin in a more sincere, childish way. thorin is the hero of his childhood dreams, for he is the dwarf who took up on the role of his father while juggling all of his other duties. kili wants to impress thorin, wants to be good for him too, it shows in a way he jumps into fights hot-headed. and he is often ashamed when he disappoints him.

fili, on the other hand, just does what thorin says because he knows thorin will want of him exactly that. he learned a lot from and of thorin, he knows how to operate under his command. in a way, he might start to see thorin more as a leader rather than a father figure.

and it might be for another post but we see fili get openly confrontational only in 'the desolation of smaug' and only because kili is in danger. no matter how important it is for thorin to raise a king out of him, fili is still going to put his brother first.

he protests:

first time is when thorin rushes everyone on the river bank while kili needs healer's attention because of his leg.

second time — when thorin wants fili to go with them to erebor and fili choses to stay in laketown with kili who's gotten worse. thorin needs fili there with them because he is the next in line. fili's priorities lie with his brother. and that's probably the most loud conflict fili had with thorin in the whole trilogy. that was the conflict of interests.

the most loud conflict kili had with thorin, though, is in 'the battle of the five armies' when he finally had enough of thorin hiding behind a wall while the rest are dying for them. he almost lost respect for thorin and that was his last attempt to bring him to his senses because this thorin was not his childhood hero, was not the person he looks up to and the matter at hand wasn't just his foul character. it was the conflict of morals.

and i find that beautiful.

[red-flagging]

💛 seb/lewis :-)

(kiss fic prompts!)

a little epilogue to rabbits are chasing :)

Lewis's flight lands at 8:02PM, which means that by 7:31PM, Seb is parked outside the airport arrivals door, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel and scanning the sky for approaching planes.

It's quite silly, getting here so early, but it's not as if there's much left to do at home. There's roast vegetables waiting in the oven, the cauliflower steaks that he started marinating earlier this morning chilling in the fridge. Mina and Ellie are safely ensconced in their duck coop with the heater turned on for the night. The sheets on the guest bed are freshly washed.

The car parked behind him starts up. Its headlights illuminate Seb's cabin. For a moment, he catches a glimpse of himself, harried and too-bright, in the rearview mirror. He scrubs his hands down his face. Christ. Get it together, Sebastian. He is a full 39 years old. Far too old to be getting the same jitters that he did the first time he invited a girl over at age 17, agonizing about what album to have playing when they came back to his room. Lewis is far too old for Seb to be doing all this. Lewis might not even be gay.

His phone buzzes. Seb nearly jumps out of his seat.

Lewis

just landed

getting my luggage now

hows it so freaking cold here

The inside of the car is already fogging up. When he'd asked Lewis to send dates he could come visit and Lewis had said just so you know the next few months are kind of crazy for me, Seb had expected late fall, maybe the holidays. Not the middle of slush season, when all the roads up the mountain have a 50/50 chance of being so muddy that they're undriveable.

Sebastian

I'm outside, in the blue Infiniti :)

He glances back up at himself in the mirror. The scab from where a wood chip caught the corner of his eyebrow while he was sanding the new planter box is almost healed over. His hair looks as good as it's ever going to. If Lewis asks whether he's been using conditioner, he's fucked.

It shouldn't feel like this. Seb beat Lewis to Senna's record, and Lewis still laughed at all his jokes the next season. Lewis watched Seb DNF twice in five races and still said in the media pen that he was waiting for the day Seb would be back up on the podium with him. When they inevitably auction off Lewis's Le Mans racesuit, it'll have to be with Seb's snot all over the front of it, because Lewis let Seb sob all over him and then laughed as he wiped sweat off of Seb's cheek with the sleeve. After all that – the fact that he's about to be in Seb's house for the next week shouldn't make Seb feel like he's standing in front of Lewis naked, without even the promise of a fast car or a good competition to distract Lewis from looking right at him.

His phone buzzes again.

Lewis

outside i think

Seb peers through the windscreen. Lewis – or rather, the blurry figure lugging a giant suitcase behind him that he assumes is Lewis – waves at him from the sidewalk. Seb flashes his lights at him twice.

The back door opens and Lewis's head, along with a burst of cold night air, pops in. "Hey," he says, a little breathlessly. "I don't think this is going to fit in the back."

It does, eventually, but not without a fight that involves Seb having to climb into the trunk alongside Lewis's suitcase and physically wrestle it into place while Lewis shoves from behind. They're both out of breath by the time they finally climb back in the front and slam the doors shut.

"You know, there are beds at the farm," Seb points out. "You didn't have to pack your own."

Lewis shakes his head, tugging off his gloves. His coat collar is turned up around his neck. He's wearing an an ear warmer headband, held in place by two butterfly pins. Every other bit of uncovered skin is pink, even with the heat in the car up at full blast. Lewis shoves his fingers in front of the vents and sighs with relief, closing his eyes. "Ugh, thank God," he says. He sounds exhausted. "Listen, you're lucky I fit everything into one." It sounds far less like a joke than Seb would hope. The fact that the fondness in Seb's chest still manages to outweigh the exasperation is probably a sign that Seb's beyond salvation.

"Next time I'll bring a trailer so you can fit your bathtub and toilet, too," he says, reaching for the keys. The engine purrs to life as he flicks the lights back on, then leans forward to scrub the worst of the fog off the windscreen. The thermometer on the dash says it's still 3 degrees outside. They might still be able to make it back before the slush freezes over. "Okay," he says, sitting back down and twisting around to reach for his seatbelt. "Ready to go?"

Lewis doesn't say anything. When Seb looks over, he's staring out the front window, playing with one of his rings.

"Lewis?" Seb asks.

Lewis's head jerks around. "Hm?" he says. "Oh. Yeah." He doesn't move to put on his seatbelt.

Seb frowns. Kills the engine so he can properly turn in his seat. "Lewis," he says. "Is everything –"

Lewis leans across the console and kisses him.

It's barely half a second. Seb still hasn't moved by the time Lewis sits back down on his side of the car.

"Uh," Lewis says, after a second. He clears his throat. "Sorry. I just – Shit. Sorry. The whole way over, all I could think about was – I had to get it over with before I chickened out."

He's fiddling with his rings again, but his eyes stay fixed on Seb's. His jaw is set. He still looks half-ready to bolt through the door behind him, out into the night.

"Well, you don't have to make it sound like taking your medicine, Christ," Seb says hoarsely, and drags Lewis back across the console to kiss him properly.

Lewis's lips are still cold. When Seb opens his mouth, Lewis sighs, pressing in closer with a soft sound that makes Seb want to go twenty years back in time and kick himself for not figuring out how to make Lewis make that noise sooner. His hands settle on Seb's wrists, holding him in place. Seb slides his own hands up, cradling the back of Lewis's head, to return the favor.

When he finally pulls away just far enough to catch his breath, Lewis follows him, close enough that their noses bump. His eyes are wide. This close up, Seb can see the dark circles under them more clearly.

He closes his eyes. Lewis is still there when he opens them.

"How long have you been awake?" he asks.

Lewis blinks. "What," he says. "Are you talking about."

"Sleep deprivation," Seb says. His heart is pounding hard enough that he feels it in his throat. "People start to get delirious when they're tired enough –"

"I was awake for 24 hours and I didn't kiss you at the end," Lewis interrupts, his eyes sharp and bright. "I'm not making the same mistake twice."

Seb opens his mouth and nothing comes out. He tries again. Still nothing.

"Fuck," he says, closing his eyes. "Okay. Okay." He drags himself back upright and reaches for the keys. "We can – tomorrow. But we should – you need to shower. And sleep." Lewis's hand settles on his leg. Seb rests his own on top of it; after a second, he squeezes Lewis's fingers gently. Lewis flips his hand over and laces their fingers together.

"Yeah," Lewis says. His thumb traces over Seb's knuckles. "That – tomorrow sounds good."

The slush crackles under the tires when Seb starts to move. Ahead of them, the headlights carve a path through the darkness. Lewis's hand is a solid, steady weight against his leg. "Okay," Seb says, to himself, to both of them, to no one. Lewis hums softly from his side of the car. He squeezes Seb's knee gently.

Seb closes his eyes for a second. "Okay," he says quietly. "Yeah. Let's go home."

[blujayonthewing]

pitched battle inside my brain between the part of me that's desperately shaking myself by the shoulders going "YOU HAVE GOT TO ACTUALLY LIVE THE KIND OF LIFE YOU IMAGINE INSTEAD OF JUST SITTING AROUND IMAGINING IT UNTIL YOU DIE!!" and the part of me that's clutching my face going "is this allowed? is this allowed?? is this allowed???"

[fabuloustrash05]

It’s finally time…

The finale chapter of Courting a Salamandrian will be out this weekend.

[yea-baiyi]

i’m sure people smarter than me have said this, but the odyssey is the sequel to the monomyth actually. in the hero’s journey the hero departs from home, from innocence, from safety, to fulfil his destiny. in homer’s the odyssey, the war is over, the destiny fulfilled. next comes the real fight, the unwinnable fight—to return to everything you left home to fight for.

in the first half of the poem, while odysseus fights tooth and nail to return home, his home fights with its last breath to give odysseus a home to return to. and time is running out. his wife penelope is down to her last desperate excuse. suitors have invaded his home, eating through his household and his wealth. his son, telemachus, almost grown, leaves home for the first time to find out if odysseus is still alive, if there is still a reason to keep fighting. having lost everything he had, over and over, odysseus is finally allowed to arrive in his homeland. at first he doesn’t recognise it. and he is cursed to look old and decrepit, so that none of his loved ones would recognise him.

for the second half of the poem, he has returned and miraculously, he has not been displaced or forgotten. but now he has to reclaim what was his. and removing the rot, restoring this place to the home odysseus remembers, is long and painful. instead of walking through the front door, he must sneak in through the back or risk being thrown out. not a single person knows him by sight; odysseus must prove his identity over and over, to every member of his household. he must retell story after story, share secret after secret, reveal every marking or scar upon his body, to finally be recognised by his own family. and then he destroys every last trace of the intruders—kills the men, kills the servants, wipes the slate clean.

by athena’s magic, he is restored to his former youth and glory as he reunites with his wife. the families of the slain suitors try to seek revenge, but zeus, lord of the skies, intervenes. odysseus, filled with his god-given strength, is home, and ready to fight to protect it.

it’s a complete sequel to the heroes journey, but what makes it part of the monomyth is the horrible truth about odysseus’ tale: that it’s impossible. that you will leave, and your home will change in your absence, and someone might fill your place; your family won’t recognise you, your wife met someone else, intruders have destroyed your home, and you will never be as young as you were. you will return and you will fight with every ounce of your strength and it won’t be enough to turn back the clock. it’s the terrible last chapter to every hero’s story that we don’t like to talk about.

and yet, of course, it’s the same story we tell over and over: we’ve won the war, now all we want is to return home, but home is no longer somewhere we can reach.

[stardustedknuckles]

It would just be so easy for Steel to start behaving overtly controlling and War-minded at literally any point (seeking control and owning up to what that means) and at that point it would become easy to dislike her and her sway over Suvi but that's not the POINT, she is GENUINELY wise and so, so brilliant and she loves Suvi so truly and she is infuriatingly level headed and sincere in her efforts to help and so very kind, and I love her character more than I can adequately put into words and the inevitable clash of ideals, the rift that will and must develop, is going to destroy me. Because I genuinely don't know if Steel could choose Suvi over the empire and in fact I think it's pretty clear that she wouldn't, but that does not diminish the love she has for Suvi and the two things being true simultaneously have me biting the air. Steel is a goddamn masterclass in examining characters who act from fundamentally kind intent within a twisted framework of lifelong indoctrination and beliefs that have taught her a distorted view of what that should look like. Bringing the empire's light to the world is the ultimate kindness to her, and she wants nothing more than to be a key part of the mechanism by which that will happen. Because it will happen. And we're not told this, we're shown a brilliant and devoted mother figure who will stop at nothing to make a better world in the image of the empire her life belongs to.

Every single time something goes wrong with Ame and/or Eursulon (and even Suvi) I brace for the kind of overbearing "us VS them" mentality that never comes. She genuinely wants collaboration and answers so she can help. she very much means well, as do they all. It compels the absolute hell out of me.

[astarlightmonbebe]

i'm only at the beginning of li tongguang's descent into obsession (eps 17-18), but already it's both hurting and hitting. hurting, because we know li tongguang's capabilities, and his level headedness, and the potential he has, that he seems to throw out due to this obsession. hitting, because when you think about it, the obsession storyline and characterization does make perfect sense. obsession like that is a double edged blade, which can turn from love to hate, childish belief and joy to embittered rage in a second.

on one hand, it's painful to watch ltg's childlike desperation when faced with ruyi again. we want to grit our teeth and think of him as idiotic, unable to take a hint. but the reality is that it's a completely normal response to be expected from him. i mean, it's a dream come true, to see the person you 'love' the most in the world to be whole in front of you. it's probably what he could only dream about, especially being the one to apparently find her bones and bury them.

on a deeper level, ltg's initial reaction is very much a manifestation of his inner child, almost peter pan-like in the 'child that never became an adult/grew up' way. by that i mean to say the desperate urge to please, the constant worrying, and the oscillation between hot and cold moods are all so indicative of someone who grew up in an insecure/unstable environment, usually with volatile or simply unavailable authority figures. from what we can gather, he had no father, his mother wasn't in his life ("she doesn't want him around, nor can she bear for him to be away, so that's why he's like that" per empress zhaojie's words to ruyi). the one authority figure that entered his life to offer some semblance of guidance was ruyi, and even though it's clear that she held care for him, she was also a twenty year old assassin used to training subordinates, not children. her mentorship style is clearly so different when you hold ltg and yang ying side by side, and we know from ruyi's own mouth that she doesn't consider herself to have taught ltg well, and wants to remedy that through/with yang ying (i'll probably make a whole different post comparing this and the affects of this after watching some more episodes lol - there are bullet points in the drafts). so even though ruyi was his authority figure, she was still an emotionally unavailable one who couldn't meet ltg on the level he probably needed at that time in his life, and which no one probably ever did. hence his up and down reaction and actions.

it intrigues me, too, because i think, in a very subtle way, ltg is very much a character foil to ruyi in that he reflects some of her worst attributes, or more accurately represents the sort of person she was, or at least acted like (yuan lu's comment about how ltg has ruyi's gaze was meaningful outside of the jealousy arc - to me at least). i saw someone make a really interesting comment on how ltg's devotion to ruyi parallels ruyi's own devotion to empress zhaojie, which i'll also probably comment on more later.

obviously, ltg's obsession stems from an issue much larger than ruyi herself - she just happens to be the unfortunate target of it. and, clearly, i know his descent into it will be ugly, if understandable. i understand ruyi wanting to leave that part of her life behind, but also - to think that maybe many of the issues faced in future eps could have been avoidable if she'd been upfront with li tongguang about her identity early on.

[8rujaa]

i feel so happy i have the urge to get on my hands and knees and worship something

[kellysketches]

Is rei queer?

It doesn't really pop up in the story, but I'd say all the main cast are, including Rei

[roselise]

On a much more cheerful and somewhat silly note ..

The pink in my hair has faded considerably! I am genuinely wondering if I should dye it bright pink again or simply keep it like it is c:

My roots not included — currently I would call it a light blonde with a soft pink tint ? ♡

(This faded color is honestly *so* pretty I have not felt the urge to touch it up at all! I will put up pics if some would like and I feel well enough later maybe .. I am just thinking out loud and musing at the moment though!)

🎀 ⊹ * ˚ . 🤍

[fromtheseventhhell]

I'd be interested in seeing Sansa's reaction to Robb's will and the news of her being disinherited. She's spent so much of the story being tangled in the plots of others because of her claim to Winterfell and it's something she reflects on often, and quite bitterly. I wonder if the news is going to be met with relief on some level; she's no longer the valuable pawn that has motivated so many people to use her.

[itspileofgoodthings]

really really really enjoyed the “icon for good” he could have been/should have been/WAS to (frankly still iconic) “little bitch” pipleline that was Coriolanus’s journey. no way to choose evil and not shrink inside your own skin and become spiritually smaller than you’re supposed to be!

[keep-ur-head-low]

I once saw a youtube comment wish that Doubt Comes In didn’t include Eurydice’s part so that we could experience the trial from Orpheus’ perspective and feel the same doubt of whether she’s actually following him. I thought about this for a bit and would like to appreciate that Hadestown doesn’t go down this  route. All things considered, Eurydice is the true main character of Hadestown: she gets the dramatic final introduction in the opener, Any Way The Wind Blows is very much a traditional protagonist “I Want” song, and Act 1 closely follows her changing perspective of Orpheus whilst he just kinda stays static throughout. Although Act 2 sorta forgets about this set-up and leans more towards Orpheus as the story’s hero, she still gets an upward journey from a jaded woman bitter towards the lonely world into an intensely passionate optimist who would walk with her lover to the end of time. It would be a disgrace for her voice to be taken away at the very end of the story, as the suspense comes not from dreading that Orpheus’ doubts may actually come true, but from hoping that Eurydice’s renewed faith and assured attempts at comforting her broken lover will be enough to save her.