#amberlilly

Oooooooo I love this wing concept! I changed it a bit, making it touch-based, and also threw it into the stetopher blender 😁

It wasn’t the worst night of Stiles’ life. Maybe not even the second worst. Definitely at least third. Second or third worst night, probably. 

But of all the ways for his first, and now likely only, date with Lydia to end, her getting chomped by a murder-crazy werewolf was definitely the worst. Or at least, that’s what he’d thought, until the werewolf touched him under the chin. 

Stiles froze at the claw on his skin, heartbeat ratcheting up with fear even as he fought the instinct to slap his hand away and yell about personal space. Then he felt a weight at his back. 

The Alpha suddenly lurched backward slightly too, jerking his hand away to reach behind himself. Stiles’ eyes widened when he saw a huge, pure white, feathery wing stretched out behind the werewolf. Frantically, he felt behind himself, grasping a much longer, more delicate wing; a sheer iridescent membrane stretched over a craquelure pattern. Something wasn’t right though, something-

He looked at the Alpha again. 

At the stretched out wing. Singular, one wing. 

Hand trembling, Stiles felt around the other side of his back. 

Empty. 

The two stared at each other for a moment. 

“What the fuck,” Stiles breathed out. 

The Alpha’s grip tightened on the feathers, and then he shoved them behind himself with a growl.

The wings, though world shattering for Stiles, barely put a hitch in Peter’s stride. He allowed Stiles to call an ambulance for Lydia, and then continued to do everything Stiles assumed a revenge obsessed werewolf would do anyway. 

The only hesitation came when Peter offered him the bite. 

“We’re meant for each other, Stiles. I could give this to you. You could be faster, and heal from nearly anything,” he purred out, bringing the wrist closer. 

Stiles watched him move, listening to the words with his mouth open. Not because he was spellbound by the promises, but because as soon as Peter had touched his skin again, he’d felt the push of a soulbond. Warm and beating steadily. Nothing forceful or intrusive, but noticeable just the same. 

“You feel it already, don’t you? Our bond. It could be stronger. It could be so much stronger, Stiles,” Peter continued, lips nearly pressed against his skin now. 

Ice pierced through Stiles, anger suddenly flowing through him. 

It could be so much stronger. As if the strength of a soulbond depended on him becoming a werewolf, rather than on dedication to a partner. As if his human parents hadn’t had the strongest soulbond Stiles had ever seen. 

He would not be manipulated. 

“No.”

Surprise flit across Peter’s face as Stiles yanked away his wrist, followed quickly by hurt before his expression turned to stone. An aching pang shot through Stiles at having caused it, but he refused to regret it. 

“Fine,” Peter said. “I’ll find you after this. We have some things to discuss. In the meantime…” 

Stiles watched his soulmate drive away, crushed keys at his feet and a single wing fluttering at his back. 

__________

One exhausting run to the hospital later, the sheriff couldn’t seem to stop looking over Stiles’ shoulder- so much so that he wasn’t listening. 

“Dad. Dad! This is important!” Stiles insisted. 

“Sorry-” he apologized, still distracted. “Just- did that happen at the dance? Where’s the other one?” 

Stiles ran a hand over his face. 

“I feel like there are a few more important things happening right now,” he said, trying very hard not to yell. That finally got his dad’s attention. Not that it was any use to Stiles anyway. He still ended up alone in the hallway of the hospital, watching him walk away. 

Of course, he wasn’t alone for very long. 

There was a very good chance that if these hunters didn’t kill Jackson, then Stiles would. Assuming, of course, that they also didn’t kill Stiles. Something that seemed less likely as one of the goons tossed them both into an empty surgery, Chris Argent locking the door after he joined them. 

Stiles scrambled a little against the gurney and Jackson, still unbalanced with the lopsided weight of one brand new wing hanging off his shoulder. He’d just barely gotten his feet under him when he felt a fist gather his shirt and yank him up, spinning him around and pinning him to the wall. 

He had a moment to see Argent’s face before the man’s hand brushed the skin on Stiles’ neck, beginning to say “Let me ask you a ques-” 

Before he could finish, he cut himself off with a gasp, one Stiles found himself echoing a second later. 

The uneven weight on his back suddenly balanced. He could feel a second gossamer wing brushing his skin, fluttering against the wall. 

Perhaps it was because he was younger. Perhaps it was because he’d already been through this once tonight. For whatever reason, Stiles recovered much more quickly than Chris. 

He kneed Argent in the gut and yanked the man’s pinky off it’s plate. He scrambled away as soon as he was released, shuddering from the now-familiar feeling of a surging soulbond. With a bit of space between them, he could finally see that yes, Chris had a wing, a single wing, extended from his back, frantically flapping as the hunter stood there in shock. It was a matte black moth’s wing, buffeting the air and sending surgical equipment flying. 

No one approached Stiles, but the goons remained in front of the locked door. There was still no escape, and Jackson was useless to the situation, just watching it play out with a gobsmacked expression. 

Stiles silently snatched a scalpel that had fallen to the floor, keeping an eye on Chris as he examined the wing with a stunned look; keeping an eye on the confusion that crept across his face when he realized that there was just one wing. 

“Where’s-”

“I really don’t think you want to hear the answer to that,” Stiles interrupted, voice low. 

Chris clenched his jaw and straightened, staring at him, clearly considering his options. 

“You-”

He stopped, running a hand over his face, briefly touching his wing again. He looked at the other hunters, and then Jackson. 

“Get this one out of here,” he barked at the hunters. “Explain what will happen to him if he goes outside again tonight.” 

They obeyed without question, and Stiles wondered exactly what kind of weight Chris’ name held.

As soon as the door was locked again behind them, Chris turned to look at him again with a sigh, shoulder slightly hunched. 

“This is… not how I imagined this would happen. If it ever happened,” he said, shrugging the single wing again, a hint of bafflement to his expression. “But there are things happening tonight, Stiles. It’s important-”

“I know exactly what’s happening, and I’m not telling you where Scott is,” Stiles said flatly. “I’ve known you for all of five minutes, four of which you spent throwing me around.”

“You don’t understand, Stiles,” Chris grit out. “We hunters have to maintain the safety of humans like us. I swear to you, you’ll understand once I can teach you-”

“I’m sorry, what?” Stiles blurted out. 

“It takes time to explain everything about the hunter’s code, but right now Scott is out there-”

“No no,” Stiles interrupted again. “Are you saying you expect me to become a hunter?” he asked, incredulous. 

“Once you’re in the know as a human, it’s the only way to stay safe,” Chris said gravely. 

“Oh fuck you,” Stiles said vehemently, turning away to stalk around the surgery. “Fuck both of you, I can’t believe I have two soulmates and both of them think they get to decide who I’m going to be!”

“Two-”

“I already know about your stupid code!” Stiles continued to rant, ignoring Chris as he stormed around, glaring at the walls. “A code that’s as good as worthless without anyone to check your actions!” 

“Wait-” 

“Absolutely fucking not, you’ve taken enough time already.” And with that, Stiles jammed the scalpel into the electrical box he’d just found, causing sparks to shower from the equipment above Chris. He flung himself out of the way, stumbling with the new weight of a single wing at his back, giving Stiles enough time to rush the door and fling the lock open. 

“By the way, your sister? She doesn’t give a shit about your code. If you’re going to go find anyone tonight, it should be her.” 

And Stiles was gone. 

__________

“WAIT!” Stiles screamed, throwing himself out of the Porsche as Jackson prepared to throw the molotov cocktail. 

Peter was a murderer, and a manipulator, but he was also Stiles’ soulmate, and he couldn’t just watch him die.

“Don’t! He’s my soulmate!” he yelled, hurrying around the car, not quite within arms-length of Peter’s hulking shifted form. The single wing extended behind him like a flag, the pure white of it making it look like a surrender when Stiles knew Peter would do anything but. 

“He’s what?” two voices yelled at once. 

Stiles looked from Scott to Chris, and decided Chris’ question held significantly more weight. 

“Yeah,” Stiles confirmed. Chris’ mouth hung open for a moment. 

“No,” he denied, shaking his head too, as if that would change the truth of it. Stiles tried to hold on to his patience, remembering that Chris had just discovered his sister was a murderous whack-job. A dead murderous whack-job. A dead murderous whack-job who had killed their soulmate’s entire family, and then been killed by said soulmate. 

Christ. 

Stiles noticed Peter shrinking slightly out of the corner of his eye, shifting back to a more human form as he calmed slightly. Derek growled near them. 

“Stiles, get out of the way,” he spit out, claws curled toward Peter. Stiles scoffed.

“So you can kill him? I literally just told you he’s my soulmate. No.” 

“Stiles.” Stiles startled at the rough voice coming from Peter. His face still held some of the shift, and his claws were at the ready. “Why do you have two wings?” 

Stiles looked at Chris, at his very visible single black wing, and then back at Peter. The same denial living on Chris’ face grew on Peter’s. 

“No,” he growled out, echoing Chris. 

“Yes,” Stiles emphasized, beginning to lose patience. Peter lost slightly more of his Alpha shape, bringing a clawless hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

Everyone in the clearing relaxed a little. 

Eventually, Peter straightened up and turned to Derek. 

“Take your shot.” 

“Oh for fucks-” Stiles couldn’t finish the sentence as Derek rushed around him, attacking Peter. Peter immediately threw him, taking the fight away from Stiles. 

Of course Peter would rather give his nephew a chance to kill him than deal with having a hunter for a soulmate. Of course. 

After a few minutes of crashing and snarls, Chris came to stand awkwardly next to Stiles, watching the fight as well. 

“I can give you a ride,” he offered. 

“Maybe after I know whether we’re going to need a funeral for our other soulmate,” Stiles said dismissively. There was another awkward beat of silence, and then-

“You know, it’s not a bad life, being a hunter.” 

“It wouldn’t be a bad life being a werewolf either,” Stiles shot back. “That’s what Peter offered.” Stiles could see outrage on Chris’ face, but whatever he was going to say was cut off by a loud crack of bone breaking, and a whine as Derek finally submitted. Stiles clapped once and rubbed his hands together.

“Great! Congratulations on not dying Peter. Thanks for the offer of a ride, Chris. Fuck both of you, I’m leaving.” 

And with that, Stiles once again got into the driver’s seat of Jackson’s Porsche and tore out of there. 

Peter and Chris stared after him for a moment before glancing at each other, and then immediately looking away. 

The clearing was completely silent, until-

“Can… can I get a ride?” asked Jackson.

__________

“I am giving you space.” 

Stiles looked up from his homework to see his dad standing in the doorway. 

“O… kay?” Stiles said, confused. John pointed at Stiles’ wings. 

“I am giving you the space, and you can tell me about your soulmates when you are comfortable,” John emphasized. Stiles squinted. 

“Are you reciting a parenting book at me right now?” 

“It’s a good parenting book,” John protested, and then sighed. “I just… I didn’t get it at the time, but I just want you to know that if you have two soulmates… that’s okay.” 

“I know it’s okay,” Stiles said, eyes narrowed. 

“Then why won’t you tell me about them?” John asked, a hint of a whine in his voice. It was Stiles’ turn to sigh. 

“It’s not just that there’s two of them. They’re- it’s complicated. And I really, really don’t think they’re ready. For any of it. Honestly, I’m not sure I am either. So yeah. Space is probably the best policy right now.”

John pursed his lips and then nodded. 

“I’m off to work then. I’ll see you in the morning, alright kiddo?”

“Yeah Dad. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Stiles listened to his dad clamber down the stairs and lock the door behind himself. The rumble of the cruiser rose up through his propped open window, and he paused to try adjusting his wings as the sound of the car faded away. 

He was getting better at moving them around. He felt more like a stumbling toddler than a newborn with no muscle control. His back barely ached at all anymore, and he spared another thought of gratitude that his wings were light. 

The iridescence still caught his eye in a distracting way, though, and even worse when they refracted light.

“They’re beautiful.” 

Stiles startled, nearly flailing out of his chair. 

“What the fuck Peter!” he hissed. “Haven’t you heard of a door?” 

Peter casually stepped down from the window ledge, inviting himself into Stiles’ room. 

“Why would I use a door when your window was already open?” he asked, wandering over to Stiles’ bookshelf to look at the titles, and giving Stiles a clear view of his back. 

“You still haven’t talked to Chris,” Stiles said flatly, eyeing the lonely wing tucked into his back. 

“I have no reason to talk to the hunter,” Peter said, turning to look at Stiles. “Just because he’s your other soulmate doesn’t mean he’s mine.”

Stiles stared at him in disbelief. 

“You’re kidding me right?”

“No fate in the universe could possibly be so cruel to give me an Argent for a soulmate,” Peter spat out before smoothing his expression. “You on the other hand, have proven yourself to be clever and capable. Have you given any more thought to my offer?”

“Your ‘offer’? The one you tried to con me into by insinuating there’s some kind of magical extra special bonus soulbond that comes with being a werewolf?” Stiles clarified sharply. 

Peter smiled unrepentantly. 

“Yes, that one.” 

Stiles stared at him, unimpressed. 

“You would make a wonderful wolf, sweetheart.” Peter approached him silently, laying a light hand on his wing. Stiles had to fight back a shiver as their potential bond surged again. 

“Feel my sincerity,” Peter urged. “You would be so-”

“Back away from him, Hale.” 

Peter and Stiles’ attention snapped to the doorway, Christopher standing there rigidly, fists clenched. 

Stiles flicked his wing away from the distraction of Peter’s touch, and said, “Okay, I know that door was locked.”

Chris just tucked a lockpick back into his pocket. 

“I heard Hale in here. I had to make sure you were safe.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. 

“I’m fine. I’m not sure about you two though. I can’t believe you haven’t even touched yet.”

Chris looked at Peter with daggers in his eyes. 

“He killed my sister-”

“She killed my entire family-” Peter hissed back. 

“Yeah, I know,” Stiles interrupted, “but you two can’t even touch each other for a second to confirm whether or not you’re soulmates. Less than a second! A millisecond! Even if you decide you hate each other and can’t stand to be soulbonded, don’t you at least want your other god damn wing?!” He folded his arms and glared at them. 

The weight of his glare was a heavy thing, as Peter and Chris quickly came to realize. Heavier and heavier with every second, in fact. And he did have a point. 

Inch by inch, they moved closer to each other, both reaching out a single pointer finger slowly. 

Too slow for Stiles, apparently. 

“Is this a re-enactment of ‘The Creation of Adam’? Is that why you aren’t touching? Is that what’s happening here?” 

Peter and Chris both shot irritated looks at Stiles’ raised eyebrows, and finally surged forward to touch each other. 

Just for a millisecond. There and apart. 

Stiles was right. That’s all it took. 

Peter lurched back slightly as the weight on his other shoulder balanced out, Chris doing the same but with more fluttering. 

As soon as they regained their balance, they looked at each other in shock. 

Stiles smiled. 

“Thank you,” he said, voice sincere. There was a beat of silence, and then- “Now get out of my room, I have homework.” 

They stared back at Stiles, shock and surprise still evident on their faces. Stiles waited a moment before realizing that he was going to have to clarify. 

“I’m sixteen, dudes. You’re both in your thirties. Now that you know you’re soulmates, sort out your shit. I know there’s a lot there, but whatever you need to do, you have two years to do it. I’m not bonding with anyone before I even have a high school degree.” 

Stiles turned around and focused on his homework again. He threw up two fingers behind himself in farewell. 

I am a complicated person, in some ways. I am the person who will defend to the death that America DOES have a distinct food culture, that many parts of it are good and useful, that the American rejection of tradition and freedom of expression has lead to some of the most interesting food in the world coming out of here or influenced by here. This is NOT IN ANY WAY THAT ESSAY. 

Because I am also the person who will turn around and tell my Fellow Americans that they are children who are in thrall to a series of large companies who have all tricked their palates into being deadened, and every other country (With a handful of exceptions) who criticizes the American Way of Eating is absolutely fucking right. 

Your General American has three things they like: fat, salt, and sugar. Subtlety is wasted on most Americans, and this both annoys and grieves me. I genuinely feel sad! I wish Americans were into complexity, were into spice, and sour, and bitter, and all the things that make up the larger global palate that offers SO MUCH into the world. 

The standard American diet is G A R B A G E. And for all the backbiting I hear about the diet industry (Which I also hate, ask my fitness group) I never hear it about the fast food industry and snack food industry which is LITERALLY working out and engineering ways every day to fucking rush you with dopamine and trick you into craving their food, but we’re all like....fine with THIS PARTICULAR Multi-billion dollar industry? Flattening us into the wallpaper paste and mockery of the world? How have we let ourselves be so thoroughly conned? It’s a con job WE’RE RUNNING ON OURSELVES. 

We can do better, we can be better. It is okay if not every meal you eat lights up you brain like it’s a fucking line of coke. It’s okay to push yourselves! I feel like so many of the things I end up ranting about are “Y’ALL, IT IS GOOD AND VALUABLE AND OKAY TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE. NOT EVERYTHING VALUABLE IN LIFE IS ENJOYABLE” I dont’ spend my hours getting my ass kicked by biblical Hebrew because I’m having a good time, I do it because I need to fucking learn how to read Torah because we’re not gonna have a rabbi in May and someone needs to learn. I AM LEARNING TO CHANT TORAH TO BE A RICHER, FULLER PERSON. 

You deserve better than to just eat chicken nuggets and fries, seriously, and your loved ones deserve better, and no, I do not care about how you can’t eat this or that or the other thing, on some level you know it’s an excuse or you wouldn’t feel insulted. If your main diet is fat, salt, and sugar, you know the fucking bargain. Only hit dogs holler. In the same way I don’t give a shit or feel guilty if people say (rightly) that you should take more public transportation even if it involves you having to walk more, and maybe carry shit. I literally cannot do it because we don’t have it, ergo, I DON’T FEEL BAD. 

Bless you for this. <3 Unfortunately, this year the Seder has been cancelled, and I can’t follow the traditional “no chametz or kitniyot” because those two food groups are basically all that’s available right now. (My area is actually on rations because of all the panic-buying.)

As for what Passover, or Pesach, is, it basically works like this.

There are multiple versions of what happened. One is the Torah version, which is almost certainly not literally true. However, non-Torah written evidence for something like it has been found, and there are some great arguments in favor of “Torah is a ‘historical fiction’ version of a real event.” Here are some links to those.https://reformjudaism.org/exodus-not-fictionhttps://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/pinpointing-the-exodus-from-egypt/https://abcnews.go.com/International/exodus-moses-people-happen/story?id=18068905https://english.tau.ac.il/news/exodus_history_and_mythhttps://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-Exodus-Does-archaeology-have-a-say-348464Now for the thirty-second Torah version, because I’m really tired right now:

We were slaves in Egypt for about 400 years, give or take. And at the end of those 400-ish years, G-d went “okay, enough’s enough,” and sent Moses to convince the Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt.

He did not do that.

So G-d sent plagues. Darkness, blood, locusts, lice, frogs, flies, “pestilence of cattle” (so like . . . parasites or something, anyway all the livestock got deathly ill), boils, and hail.

After each one, Moses was like “ay yo so Pharaoh you do realize you could avoid this by just letting my people go, right?”

Pharaoh continued to not do that.

Nine times.

At which point G-d went “okay, Israelites, here’s what you’re going to do. Kill a lamb and put its blood on your door frame. Everybody stay inside tonight and eat the lamb you just did some dramatic home decor with. Tomorrow you will leave Egypt.”

. . . aaaaaaaaaaand then G-d killed the firstborn of every single house that didn’t have the blood on the door.

Harsh.

But at that point Pharaoh was, most definitely, interested in the Israelites getting the fuck out of Dodge, and by Dodge I mean Egypt, so he basically went “fuck off, take your animals and your belongings and your crazy G-d and get the hell out of my kingdom.”

So we did.

At which point Pharaoh went “fuck, those were all my slaves!” and sent the army after us.

Now at this point we had reached something called the Sea of Reeds. (Important note: not the Red Sea. Different location entirely, we think. There’s some room for uncertainty with the translation, since the word ‘suph,’ translated here as ‘reed,’ has multiple meanings.) We were all set for freedom, bro!

. . . . Pharaoh wasn’t having that. And then, basically, this happened:

Seriously, go watch The Prince of Egypt, it’s great and really well-researched and amazingly animated and explains the story I just relayed pretty well.

So we cross the Sea of Reeds, Pharaoh and his men are destroyed in the sea and/or they run away, and we . . . wander the desert for forty years. Anyway, we’re not slaves anymore! And in forty years we get to Canaan, which you know today as Israel! Woot!

Oh man, I thought this was just me! I don't go through my dash via either the app or the desktop website, but rather Washboard, a website that allows me to do a *lot* of blacklisting words. And I just assumed that Washboard was messing it up and shrugged and just dealt with it because it's still 100x better than using regular tumblr.

The patient was, to use the words of the board Winston had to stand in front of, “functional.” 

Lena “Tracer” Oxton was expected to die of her injuries, and then didn’t. She was expected to spend the rest of her life catatonic, but she neglected to do that, as well. Four months out from her return from the stream of time itself, she was a bit quiet, a bit shaky, and there was little doubt that she would never be able to return to field work, but she was far more alive and far more engaged with the world than was ever expected of her. 

These are the things Winston reported, along with his progress on some manner of equipment that would allow her to leave the containment unit. Dr. Zeigler--Winston had only recently gotten the slightest bit comfortable calling her Angela, no matter how she insisted--was in charge of the greater medical specifics, only some of which he understood. They presented every other week, and every other week, no matter what Winston said about his chronal device, no matter what Mercy said about Tracer’s improving tremor and complete seizure control, there was nothing but a frown and a question: 

“When will she be able to tell us about the Slipstream?” 

I MAY BE IN THIS PICTURE. The only thing that bummed me out about getting all hardwood floors was not being able to finally fulfill my Roomba-based dreams. (I could risk it, but I did not spend the hideous amounts of money I did to have all the floors done before we moved in to unleash the potential for scuff and scratch damage. I ALREADY HAVE THAT AND HIS NAME IS HOWARD H POCKET.) 

I think we all know that at opposite ends of the spectrum would be Usagi and Michiru. Michiru in the best of times could hardly be labeled “sentimental”, and whatever she has to spare on that front already goes to Haruka. Usagi is of course the most sentimental creature on the entire planet, and so has already named it, and talks to it, and talks back FOR it, and gets it little hats, and she just loves Roomba-san SO MUCH. (The Senshi live in minor low-key fear that if it ever breaks, she’ll try to use the ginzuishou to fix it.)

Everyone else, naturally, lie somewhere between these points. I think more to the Michiru side of things we have Mako, who would no more name her roomba than she would her cookie sheets. It’s a tool for keeping the house clean, as are the dozens of others she uses in her day-to-day. What did she name her roomba? She didn’t, stop being weird, Usagi.

Then I think we’d have Rei, who has a general Mako approach in that it’s a tool. But that said, I DO think she has a favourite broom, and while I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say she named it, there’s an unspoken rule that it’s REI’S broom, and Yuuichiro is NEVER TO TOUCH IT (and neither is grandpa, but ignoring that rule is a personal delight for him). So I don’t think she’d go so far as to be personally attached to the Roomba, if it does a good job, I think she’d look upon it with some measure of distant fondness. (Though nothing, of course, will ever do better than a really good broom and your own personal passion and dedication to a clean walkway.)

Minako comes next for me, though she’s a good long step away from Rei, more toward the middle of the line, I think. She doesn’t have any actual feelings for the thing -- it’s sucking on wheels, and she already has Haruka for that, huh? Huh?? -- but it’s one less tedious chore she has to do, so hell yeah, suck away, little dude. I can see her lying on the couch, amiably talking to it, responding to its beeps like they’re holding a conversation, but if that specific individual Roomba breaks, it’s “Well, shit,” and immediately online ordering another.

Next up, I’d put Ami. She knows it’s a machine, she knows it’s entirely without the capacity for emotions or thought or literally anything that makes up life, and that certainty is always in the back of her thoughts. Still, isn’t it cute? The way it beeps and spins and maps out the room and is so precise. Her affection for it may not make any kind of actual sense, but is real all the same.

Pluto treats her Roomba like a pet. She puts out treats for it, and smiles adoringly as it gobbles them up. Is it different from a cat? Not in any way Pluto can tell! She’ll mourn when it passes, but life is always so brief and its end the only certainty.

And finally, we have Haruka, who comes in under Usagi, but perhaps only because Usagi would never try to hide it, while Haruka will swear with her last breath that she DEFINITELY did not tear up when Rosie The Roomba stopped working one day. Spend two sleepless days in her garage trying desperately to triage the situation? DON’T BE STUPID AND ANYWAY OF COURSE THE ROOMBA DIED IF HARUKA HADN’T BEEN SUCH A SHITTY  DOCTOR MAYBE SHE COULD HAVE SAVED IT OR MAYBE SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE LEFT ALL THOSE DORITOS CRUMBS ON THE FLOOR AND OVERWHELMED THE POOR INNOCENT ROOMBA WITH HER DISGUSTING HEARTLESS CHOICES BUT IT’S FINE SHE TOTALLY DOESN’T CARE AND HAS TO GO RUN NOW UNTIL SHE PASSES OUT FOR NO RELATED REASON AT ALL GOODBYE

This is hard because I don’t generally enjoy fantasy! Which isn’t to say it’s without merit at all, it’s just not something I personally enjoy, partially due to something you bring up, which is that the magic systems are incredibly flexible to the moment, and I don’t much care for that. That and I am less of a person who enjoys building out a fantasy or sci-fi world than I am the person who wants to get into the brass tacks of what people are thinking and feeling and what is the human element of all of it? 

"I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are."--His Dark Materials

Honestly the best fantasy series I can think of with this criteria is His Dark Materials. The fantasy is not a distraction from the story and emotions itself, any romance in the story is not something that the story needs or necessarily even wants you to give a shit about, and to some extent, I would argue that it’s there at all. It IS a YA book, which is my only stop point here, but I would argue its one of the more complexly written YA books, and has good prose, some nice grey moralities, and there’s no system in it so complicated that you have to sit down and pattern out the rules around it. It’s a world very much like our own, only slightly different. 

It also does a really good job with the nature of goodness and gets into some extremely weird and interesting shit about God that I feel a lot of ways about at once. Can’t recommend the series enough on that level. I have read it as an adult and stand by it, and that’s my Big Test. 

"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die." --A Song of Ice and Fire

Ahahahah there was a time I would have recommended A Song of Ice and Fire in this, which, to a point, I LOVED, I started reading it as a ...middle schooler? Maybe young high school? When I started falling out of love with fantasy. I still think the first few books are good, but I think  Martin’s biggest problem is he simply took too long, and what is the feel of fantasy now, and what most fantasy readers want, is out of his grasp. Though HONESTLY, if someone took a series of mine I hadn’t finished and made me fucking millions, would I keep writing? Or would I be like, “Aw, I’m retired now, I’m good”? I dunno, it’s easy to pretend you have morals when no one’s giving you  ten million dollars. But it also didn’t rely SO heavily on magic or anything, it was mostly about political machination. 

"where the world ends is where you must begin" --The Gunslinger

I almost forgot that The Gunslinger would actually completely be termed as fantasy. The Gunslinger is a fucking fantastic novel by Stephen King. I avoided reading the entire Dark Tower series for years, because people kept telling me, “Oh it’s nothing like Stephen King” and well I happen to very much like King’s THING, even when it aggravates me, so why would I read something that is nothing like him? Fortunately, what they meant was, “It’s not a horror novel.” I don’t know if I can recommend the entire series even though *I* ended up fucking loving it--I read the whole series in a year and that was with a huge break, but if I said it didn’t have it’s occasionally aggravating moments, I would be lying. But when it’s amazing, it’s so amazing, and the first book is all killer, no filler, and if you just wanted to leave it there, that would be fine. If you DO read the series...read the cliffnotes on Wizard and Glass, it’s boring as shit, and it’s clearly all of King’s backstory notes on Roland while he was trying to get back to writing the series, and like, no hate, but also, it made me stop reading the series for months. Wolves of the Calla, the one that comes after it, is an IMMENSELY fun fantasy-western, which in many ways I guess the series as a whole is? But mostly Wolves of the Calla. 

“Time and I have quarrelled. All hours are midnight now. I had a clock and a watch, but I destroyed them both. I could not bear the way they mocked me.”--Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell

This one is given with caveats--I haven’t read it since I was eighteen, and it might not be as good as I remember it being. I’ll look to reread it next year. But I know at the time I adored it! It has a really fun style to the writing that echoes the style of Dickens and the larger styles of the era, which makes the book an immense amount of fun for people named Doc, who are me. It is an INTENSELY English novel in a number of ways, and how both Strange and Norell can be so strangely (hah) fussy and so competent, and yet inept and caught up in their own petty backbiting drama (especially with each other--the story is, in many ways, about their friendship) just absolutely charmed the shit out of me as a youth. Now I want to reread it ahaha. It’s also, as I recall, a pretty easy read, though long. 

"What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?" --The Dresden Files

Ohhhhhh boy does this come with caveats. This is a popcorn pulp series. It is a popcorn pulp series that at a certain point fails to deliver even on that promise. But for the first, oh, eight or nine novels, GOD did I love the Dresden Files. One of my favorite things was that it made me discover that though fantasy largely does not speak to me, I can quite love what I have come to find out is called ‘Urban Fantasy”. It had me from the moment where it was like, “Our world, but wizards are real, and they also have to go buy milk at the store” and I was like, “Oh fucking sold” because it allowed me to get into magic without all the “She was born of the CLydroffer lineage of witches, which took their power from air. She ran down to the village of Stratford-upon-Badger’s Nose and took to seeing the local Scriddonk” and anyway, avoiding the medieval setting made me enjoy it so much the more. They have a very fun lawful good character, Harry is that kind of smug asshole protagonist that’s JUST this side of enjoyable, and while there’s romance, up to a certain point at which I hope you abandon the sinking ship, you can ignore it.  Like I said, they’re not any great literary giant, but they’re immense fun in the way that like, Anita Blake was fun for awhile (for my mother at least) or Anne Rice.*