#All roads lead to doom is also a great one

[rosielav]

Just this weekend I watched the following:

She loves to cook, she loves to eat

Sign of affection

Apothecary Diaries

Quintessential Quintuplets

....... So if anyone could recommend some good shoujo apparently I'm in the mood for it 😅

[ifishouldvanish]

The idea of Olrox being from Cholula specifically makes me so insane. Like would he have identified more as Mexica? Or as Tlaxcaltec? Would he have been loyal to the Tlaxcaltec and allied with the Spanish only to get screwed over like his Mohican lover did in the colonies? Would he have done so thinking he could get the upper hand in the end just like Mizrak/Emmanuel thought the Order could with Erzsebet?

"He thinks the devils he manufactures will be enough to destroy her when the time comes. What do you think? Do you think he's right?" - S1E4

Even after the fall of Tenochtitlan, nobility from all over the region would have been sent to Cholula to get the blessing of Cholulan priests for their legitimacy. How might this have fueled his disdain for nobility?

Olrox: "I prefer my blood blue."

Drolta: "Maybe you do things differently in the new world, but over here we don't feed off the wealthy. The locals will start to grumble." - S1E5

As a Mexica citizen, this disdain could come from resentment toward sumptuary laws, the increasing lack of socioeconomic mobility during Moctezuma's rule, and frustration with how he handled the Spanish... But as a Cholulan sympathetic to Tlaxcala, there's so much more???

It could come from frustration with leadership that defected from the very people who helped them elude Mexica rule in the years before the Spanish conquest. Anger at a decision that economically obliterated the Tlaxcaltec, who became completely surrounded by Mexica member-states? Regret at how much it cost them to 'overthrow' the Mexica? Grief at how this kind of political/military opportunism helped lead the wider indigenous population to its demise?? Like the latter is so much more thematically ripe for a show tackling colonialism and imperialism imo???

"This one? He was just an opportunist, following the Messiah because she's powerful." - S1E4

I mean!!?? Think about how the implications of all of this... *gestures wildly* stuff would lead him to adopt such a cynical, morally ambiguous worldview? This sense that it's all doomed, that he's not strong enough to fight it? Resist and fall to your enemies, or work with them only to lose parts of your identity in the process? Think about how the brutality of the Cholula massacre recontextualizes eurocentric perceptions of the brutality of flower wars and ritual sacrifice??? How it would leave you with anger and pain and an unyielding need for justice?

"Little boy Belmont. I know that feeling. That pain, that hate, that burning, unendurable need for retribution." - S1E1

Think about how the Mexica Empire had adopted Huitzilopochtli (war, sacrifice) as their primary patron deity, and the Tlaxcaltec Mixcoatl/Camaxtli (the hunt, fire)... Yet Olrox's form seems to be based on Quetzalcoatl (wind, knowledge, rebirth, among other things)–the deity the great temple at Cholula was dedicated to.

A handful of mesoamerican deities are associated with serpents/have names ending in '-coatl', but Olrox's serpent form clearly has a feathered crest—the 'quetzal-' in Quetzalcoatl.

But Olrox's abilities also seem to include lightning/thunder, which are associated with Tlaloc, who the Cholulans seemed to have adopted as their central deity some time before the Spanish conquest.

Quetzalcoatl is only associated with storms sort of tangentially, through his aspect as the wind god, Ehecatl. The Florentine Codex refers to Quetzalcoatl-Ehecatl as sweeping the roads to make way for the rain and the thunder.

Think about how in Tlaxcaltec accounts, Cholula–being a sacred city–had no real military to speak of and depended on their gods to protect them???

Mizrak: "There's only one God. Just one. That's the only thing I'm sure of. And I've spent my whole life serving him, fighting for him. That hasn't changed, and it never will." Olrox: "One god... And you think he can protect you?" - S1E4

Like... What does it all mean???? 🫠🫠🫠

Agshsjdkdkfll *screams into a pillow* I am so excited for season 2 but whatever happens Cholulan Olrox is canon in my heart y'all

[sitp-recs]

Part II: table for two

Following my list featuring the sea (now with a lil banner cause I’m getting in the reccing zone again baby!!!!), I thought I’d make this a series called “fic as a sensory delight” and continue the trend with good old Drarry domesticity walking hand in hand with some food porn appreciation. Who knew that Drarry living their best life while enjoying tasty treats could be so personal? These fics feel like a comfort meal when life gets too crazy and provide a delicious sensory experience. From cottagecore to road trips, found family, case fic, established relationship and even kinky delights - this list has a bit of everything and features food as a main character either bringing Drarry together, healing past traumas, helping them connect with their heritage or simply playing as a love language. I hope these fics bring you as much comfort, joy and healing as they brought me. Happy weekend!

🥘 Breakfast by @moonflower-rose (E, 3k)

Breakfast is Harry's favorite part of the day.

🥘 Market Saturdays by @sorrybutblog (M, 3k)

In which Harry is an accidental part-time cheesemonger, Draco is an organic farmer and they fall in love. Not an AU.

🥘 Salt and Sauce by onbeinganangel (T, 3k)

Sure, of course he knows how you take your tea. But does he know your chippy order?

🥘 Cupboard Love by @shealwaysreads (G, 4k)

Harry’s life, and love, in food.

🥘 Don't Bite the Hand That Feeds You by InnerLilith (E, 11k)

In which Harry takes Draco out for Eritrean food, and Draco has a severe obsession with Harry’s hands. Smut ensues.

🥘 Harry Potter and the Showstopper of Doom by @doubleappled (M, 11k)

In which Harry’s an amateur baker, Draco wants him to go on the Great British Bake-Off, Petunia never misses an episode, Sue is a witch, Paul Hollywood is Paul Hollywood, and everyone eats a lot — like a whole lot — of baked goods.

🥘 Poppiholla by @moonflower-rose (M, 13k)

Harry had accepted that he would pine silently for Malfoy forever, but one, humid summer might change that.

🥘 Connecting Lines, Connecting Crimes by @sleepstxtic (M, 15k)

“Hello, Harry,” Draco said. He was wearing a black turtleneck under a long grey overcoat, and he was already flushed with sweat. His hair was tied into a knot; it was longer than I remembered. He was older than I remembered. There were lines around his eyes, and I wondered if they were from laughing or frowning. “Hello,” I managed. “You must be with the British Ministry?’ He nodded. I thought I might faint.

🥘 Bridges by @cavendishbutterfly (E, 16k)

Harry and Draco are on a trip to Budapest to help with Kingsley's re-election, but that's the boring bit. More interesting: Harry Potter is changing his Tinder preferences to include men. Also interesting: Harry's spending more time with Draco Malfoy than he ever has, wandering around the city. And Harry doesn't hate it. The city's pretty gorgeous too.

🥘 Sourdough by @academicdisasterfic (M, 17k)

Draco writes romance novels and doesn't leave his apartment much. Harry bakes bread and sells it to Draco. Draco is quite weird. Harry might like that.

🥘 Preserving Lemons by @saintgarbanzo, @ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm (E, 17k)

Harry is cooking food he couldn't care less about; Draco is making art he couldn't care more about. A story about kebabs, miniskirts and the way preservation can transform a lemon.

🥘 Passion Cake by @icmezzo (T, 19k)

It’s all about desire. (Harry orders a magically enhanced cake from a chic London bakery, and from there it all goes to hell in a cake tin. Also, will someone please tell Harry what Passion Cake is?)

🥘 Knead by laughingd0g (E, 83k)

This is not a story about Harry renovating Grimmauld Place. This is a story about coffee shops and brewpubs, about Ginny and Luna on a farm with creatures, about magical Oregon, coastal road trips, flying, friendship, and Draco Malfoy's lean arms.

🥘 Soup-pocalypse and The Great Curry Cataclysm by SquadOfCats (E, 104k)

Eleven years after the war, Draco Malfoy leads a quiet, boring, and perfectly respectable life, thanks very much. Or, at least he does, until a sudden and very unexpected veela awakening causes him to throw soup all over Harry Potter in the middle of the Ministry cafeteria.

🥘 Make This Leap by @oflights (M, 118k)

Harry owns a struggling restaurant which is running out of money, and his Head Chef has just handed in notice. He's at a bit of a loss as to what to do until Narcissa Malfoy presents an obvious solution: bring in Draco Malfoy as Chef and part owner. Harry does.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 10/29/2024

new boot goofin. also a great book for the cowboyblogger crew and TWO cat photos

listening

afterimage by JUSTICE and Rimon was on a spotify autogenerated dance playlist and it is So soothing to my brain. sometimes described as heavy metal disco, it itches the same brain scratch as daft punk's interstella 5555. comforting and familiar road trip music where the road trips are in spaceships with a sort of clunky engine thrumming away in the background. you know that extremely early ass o clock in the morning road trip feel where it's very pale and a little misty out and you're only sort of awake? i feel like this is a very different kind of road trip music animal than than late-night road trip music. it's pulling you out the door. it's for beginnings, not for very tired almost-ends.

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reading

thank you mackie. very reading heavy week. im tryign to redirect myself into library books instead of election doomscrolling and im trying to read more physical books bc i have a tremendous pile of shit i genuinely do want to read and almost none of it is on my phone. first we'll talk about Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard, from randomly perusing the library stacks. really really really fucking loved this one.

Award-winning author of The Red Scholar’s Wake Aliette de Bodard comes for your heart with a compelling tale of love, duty, and found-family in an exciting new space opera that brings xianxia-style martial arts to the stars. Jockeying navigator clans guide spaceships through the Hollows: an area of space populated by the mysterious but deadly creatures known as Tanglers. When a Tangler escapes the Hollows for the first time in living memory, each clan must send a representative to help capture it—but the mission may be doomed and the hearts of two clan juniors may be in danger too.

first off: this isn't fucking found family. this is a group of coworkers. tor dot com loves to slap found family on anything gay.

politics is about control and inter-group dynamic politics are also about control. and grappling for control in your life when you grow up in a Young Leadership program. i really liked this, one of the least annoying examples of someone getting overstimulated and needing to lie down in a dark quiet room and how hanging out with some people does not impair rest and hanging out with some people is extremely extremely draining. the love interest is what if lee van cleef was a young vietnamese woman in the far future who can navigate faster than light travel.

very snappy little 160-pg novella that does not overstay its welcome. packs a genuinely surprising amount of worldbuilding and character work into its pages: i have a lot of trouble with ensemble casts post-Covid and keeping everyone straight (especially in hard copy form where I can’t easily search a book) but everyone is a fully formed person here and i had no trouble keeping everyone straight in my head. i will be asking my siblings to acquire a physical copy for me for christmas. i love a fucked up political mystery with spacewalks and space monsters.

the lead, nhi, reminded me a lot of friends at the table's brnine, a self-sacrificing perfectionist fish. hope that's useful information to all three of you i have bullied into listening to fatt

The Shabti by Megaera C. Lorenz. this finally came off my holds, hat tip to i think someone else's tuesdaypost? cannot immediately locate it. holler if it was you.

Can you flimflam a ghost? It’s 1934. Former medium Dashiel Quicke travels the country debunking spiritualism and false mediums while struggling to stay ahead of his ex-business partner and lover who wants him back at any cost. During a demonstration at a college campus, Dashiel meets Hermann Goschalk, an Egyptologist who’s convinced that he has a genuine haunted artifact on his hands. Certain there is a rational explanation for whatever is going on with Hermann’s relics, Dashiel would rather skip town, but soon finds himself falling for Hermann. He agrees to take a look after all and learns that something is haunting Hermann’s office indeed. Faced with a real ghost Dashiel is terrified, but when the haunting takes a dangerous turn, he must use the tools of the shady trade he left behind to communicate with this otherworldly spirit before his past closes in.

this keeps getting reviewed as cozy horror, which i do not agree with bc i hate the term and believe it oxymoronic. it is a fairly straightforward romance with paranormal shit happening in the foreground. a period piece not particularly for the folx end of the fag/folx gay book spectrum-- they happen to be gay but there's a lot of other shit happening. not a spicy romance as the tiktok girlies say. it is a period book that sort of elides over the worst parts of the 30s? eg there is no on-page or overt racism or antisemitism that the characters have to Confront. one of the lead's neighbors is a black nurse trying to start a NAACP chapter, but she's so fully fleshed out and such an enjoyable character it doesn't feel like the book is looking for moral points from modern readers. i also liked the general slow-build of the book and their relationship — i have no complaints about the intensity or pace of their relationship.

the one ding i have is that it is perhaps a touch too enthusiastic about period slang. it's fine when the two leads are talking to each other, especially bc their word choice is a large way they show their personality, but when there are more than two people in a scene it can grate a little for me. i do think the dialogue is generally the strong suit here, and the author particularly excels at two-person back and forths, so it’s not a frequent complaint.

i liked the contrast of the scam medium with the academic egyptologist, since many egyptologists were also scams. the scenes with the spirit are genuinely eerie, which is a very good contrast with the fairly straightforward, often sparse narration.

grudging respect for keeping a joke simmering on the back burner for four hundred pages before deploying it. this was a well-paced read i have no major complaints about.

i have to spin this book around in my brain and get a physical copy and flip back and forth and lot and make notes to myself in a separate notebook before i talk about this one here i think. same brain itch as a canticle for leibowitz.

i also read a bunch of comics but this section is already long enough goodbye

-

watching

the first episode of the currently airing penguin tv show! at my bestie's house bc she has an hbo max subscription from something, unfortunately it is an emotionally fraught very tense show and we're kind of full up on those so i will have to finish this on my own. at no point did i say to myself "whoa that's colin farrell". both the prosthetic and accent work are off the charts.

i do Not like a piece of media about the mob. i will stomach it for batman. it's really wild how the accents they've chosen for gotham and her suburbs make me so so so weirdly homesick. one of the locations is an early McMansion and my bestie and i said almost simultaneously "are we in fucking Cherry Hill???" a jersey noveau riche town infested with notable McMansions.

i am constantly chasing the high of s1 black sails where everyone is frantically scheming and falling all over them fucking selves. this gets pretty close! it's big budget prestige tv with the storytelling chops to match so far. one of my favorite comic runs is The Long Halloween, partially about the fortunes of the Maroni and Falcone crime families of Gotham. this is loosely following that, but deviates enough to surprise me, which i enjoy. there have been enough faithful adaptations of that comic run imo.

optimistic about the rest of the season! i have such low expectations for batman media that it's refreshing to get like a genuinely good pilot episode out of the franchise.

-

playing

i have Got to find a new game to play that i already own. genshin is such a good podcast game but i need Something New. surely the 576047357649857689 games across five libraries will save me.

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making

so many things happened this week. cat neuter and constipation episode. helped take apart and put back together a children's' room. lot of running around.

crunchy! i almost left these docs at goodwill bc i don't have a super high opinion of the company or the quality of the boots. i have heard my ENTIRE life about how long-lasting they are and how people have had the same boots for years but i completely shredded a pair during eight months in 2019. like the soles were worn almost completely smooth to the point they were a slipping hazard, half the eyelets were broken, and the leather was genuinely disintegrating. that was one of the busiest and most active periods of my life (classes at other campuses both semesters, a summer in new hampshire, the beginning of the makerspace) but i did expect them to hold up a little better or a little longer. they only got to experience about a month and a half of salt at the beginning and were regularly cleaned. yes i did buy them straight from the company.

anyway. these extremely ugly docs industrials had almost all their tread and magically fit me. like the rest of me, my feet are large and wide and difficult to fit. they are by Far the ugliest shoes i have ever owned. however. they will be the boots i will wear for when i need to be okay about potentially destroying my footwear.

hit em with some saddle soap and polished the toes, i seem to be flat out of leather conditioner so i was only able to hit the heels and one tongue. the laces are in the warsh.

they're real leather and were twelve dollars and miraculously fit me. you know that quote about americans being temporarily embarrassed millionaires? i still, in many ways, think of myself as a temporarily embarrassed abled person. i am slowly giving up on the idea of another remote job, bc they seem to all be fake, and going harder on city and county jobs. while i would rather wear my beloved CAT steel toes with the nice padded cuffs any day of the week, maybe these will be good for tromping around somewhere inspecting something. would Love a weights and measures inspection job if their office would return my polite messages.

also ruby goes home tonight! goodbye ruby!

[vorbarrsultana]

the vampire lestat reread, pt. 1 (lestat and nickistat)

also known as "i decided to reread tvl after the season finale because some takes i've seen online give me the impression i read a completely different book two years ago". i've finished it two days ago, and turns out i have more than 5000 words of notes that significally exceed tumblr character limit. so, i had to split them into three parts.

here is part one, all about dramatic theater kids full of love, sad violinists of infinite beauty, and friends-to-lovers romances doomed by the narrative.

i love lestat.

i forgot how fun and likable tvl lestat is from page one. and how different he is from his fanon characterization!

lestatposting is fun, i get it, but i am starting to get annoyed at the amount of fanfics where lestat needs someone to help him adapt to modern times. he is doing fine on his own, thank you. it took him less than two weeks to start a rock band.

(and the whole iphone thing from "prince lestat" is more about him not seeing it as something useful since he has a mind-skype ability to talk to any vamp on planet earth, and they cannot decline the call.)

lestat is not stupid. impulsive? yes. stubborn? of course. but clever, resourseful, and cunning when he needs to be. all of this makes him a great hunter! also, really thoughtful when the mood strikes, and his quiet, existential moments have some of the best prose in that book.

i wish someone smarter than me wrote a good meta about lestat & social class because he really seems to buy into the idea of "noblesse oblige" i.e. the belief that aristocrats are obliged to take care of those less fortunate. it's present in the way he kills the wolf pack for the villagers (who live on his father's land), and later takes responsibility for the theatre troupe & remnants of armand's coven, even though he doesn't owe them anything.

also, characterization of lestat as someone socially cluesless is simply untrue. sure, he plays dumb on occasion (and hates it every time because early life illiteracy trauma), but he is also good at reading people. like, he got a pretty accurate read of armand behind the angelic facade during their first face-to-face meeting. the only people he has trouble reading are those closest to him because he heavily projects his abandonment issues on them.

lestat's struggle of being "too much" contrasts nicely with the struggle of never being enough which is so crucial to louis. hashtag made for each other.

and juxtaposition of lestat's desire to be loved for who he is and louis's struggle with identity is also delicious.

this time i also related so much to lestat's "malady of mortality" and his search for meaning in the world. which ultimately fails because he is forcibly turned into a monster, and now every ounce of happiness he might bring into the world (and lestat desperately wants to do good!) is outweighed by him killing to survive.

and marius later reinforced the belief that vampirism has no higher purpose, and no wonder that nola!lestat is a shell of his former self.

lestat's turning is the most classic horror moment of the vampire chronicles to me. the mina harker of it all. the creature of night shrouded in terror snatching an innocent victim from the arms of their love right before bleak november sunrise.

also, all the implications of what magnus has done to lestat were even more clear during this reread, and i wonder if that was the reason rolin "i-love-narrative-parallels" jones added bruce into claudia's story.

the book also explains perfectly why lestat is so well suited for vampirism. his curiosity, thirst for new experiences, and adventuring spirit are his eternal engine on the devil's road :)

however, the downside of that personality facet is that lestat steamrolls over his trauma telling himself "this is fine! look, satan, i am making the best of it", which in turn leads to the iwtv nola mess.

and i feel like this constant search for positives in vampirism (that unwilligly turned lestat & claudia share) is why they can't really relate to louis, who chose it for himself. if these two start to get too existential, the temptation to throw themselves into the fire might become unbearable.

lestat equating his loneliness with his evilness is interesting, but i have nothing to say about that for now other than equation being there.

lestat's explosive temper is also present in the book. there is a constant pattern of lestat doing things he regrets the most (like the theater performance fiasco or eating people at notre dame's steps) when he is angry or upset.

let's talk about nicki. i love him, despite half of fandom hating on him for some reason.

lestat has a type, which is "good catholic boy" with narrow view of good and evil. except louis is of a parent's favorite, conforming variety, and nicki is the rebellious one, driven to the utmost cynicism by religious dogmas.

however, despite being a self-proclaimed cynic, nicki practically drowns in catholic guilt, almost reveling in the fact that everything he does, from playing violin in the boulevard theater to having an affair with lestat, is wrong. there is no meaning in anything, and he is doomed to die a sinner's death.

he is doomed! by the narrative though.

lestat and nicki's philosophical difference seems to be that nicki (unlike lestat) does not believe in inherent goodness of the positive emotions. for him, "sin always feels good", therefore happiness they bring performing = sin.

but still, nickistat's love is so touching. after lestat ghosts nicki to protect him, he still trusts lestat's love for him and the troupe, thinks best of him, and shuts down all nasty rumours. in turn, lestat equates all the good that was in his mortal life, all his hopes and dreams with nicki. he is a symbol of everything magnus took from him.

AND THEY COMMUNICATE THROUGH MUSIC, AND IT'S THEM AT THEIR BEST, AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL.

nicki almost became lestat's charlie. when they meet face to face for the first time after lestat's transformation, he can barely contain his hunger magnified by attraction.

the most terribly sad thing about nicki is the unfairness of all that happened to him. he had seen lestat being shot right before him, then he disappeared with dying gabrielle, then the coven kidnapped and tortured him until he lost his mind.

and for nicki, the dark gift is a confirmation of everything he believes in being true. the meaninglessness of it all. evil being the only certain thing in the world. the way to fall into a deeper, darker abyss than the one that was before the mortal him. and it is a confirmation that lestat's inner light he loved so much will eventually burn out.

(his spark in the dark, if you will.)

(and lestat's dream before turning nicki hurts, because he dreams of growing up and growing old together, of maturing past magnus's eternal lelio with sunlight in his hair and summer sky in his eyes. oh, the lesdaughter of it all.)

there is certainly a parallel between nickistat's bitter "in darkness, we are equal now" vs loustat's comforting "in the quiet dark, we were equals".

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Got tagged by @chaotic-neutral-knitter to share my favorite fics I've written and I feel a little bad not putting any of my 3 OFMD fics on the list. But in my defense it was very hard to choose between my 116 slutty slutty children, and while I like my OFMD fics a lot (especially Learning and Remembering) I decided to limit myself to five fics across all the fandoms I have written for over the past nine (!!) years, and there are some that stand above the rest.

Maybe I'll Show You the Way (Dune, Paul/Chani). Maybe my recency bias is showing but I really think this is one of the best things I've written. Paul and Chani's whole "falling in love while fighting side by side in an anti-colonial armed resistance movement" romance in Dune Part Two felt like it was designed in a lab to appeal to me specifically, and I just wanted more of it! What started with a simple "5 times they fucked in between fighting the Harkonnens" premise has become a novella-length character study about war, politics, solidarity and resistance to oppression in all its forms, interlaced with a very sweet, youthful first-love romance that always has a bittersweet edge because we the audience know these characters are living in a tragedy. This fic is one chapter from completion and I've been stalling because I really wanna stick the landing on this one, but it will get finished!

a narrow door, swiftly closing (Dune, Paul/Duncan) Different ship, different era (post-Dune Part One) and a very different vibe. The fun of this ship is the multiple power imbalances running in different directions (younger/older, student/teacher, lord/vassal, end product of a 90-generation eugenics program with a mind that can bridge time and space/Just Some Guy). It's also got that chewy age gap thing where the older character has watched the younger character grow from a child to an adult and has to wrestle with the realization that they find them sexually attractive now. Peak forbidden romance and mutual pining in this one and not just one but two of my favorite finally-crossing-the-line kisses I have ever written.

Three Times Is a Habit (Trust, Primo/The Other Paul) Ah yes, my "which doomed curly-haired teenage twink heir to a powerful dynasty named Paul are we talking about?" era. For a hot second (most of 2021) I was really into this hidden gem FX limited series Trust, based (with many creative liberties taken) on the real kidnapping of John Paul Getty III in Italy in the 1970s. The fun of this fandom is that every ship is an absolute garbage fire of bad decisions, and writing the trainwreck emotional logic that leads to a traumatized teenager repeatedly hooking up with his kidnapper was an adventure. There's also a fun meta layer at play in the relationship between our reality, the fictionalized "true" version of the kidnapping that happens in the show, the lies the characters tell about the fictionalized version of the kidnapping in the show, and the version of the characters I'm writing, some of whom are based on real people and some of whom are made up. (Is this RPF? You decide.) This fic will make zero sense if you haven't watched the show. But you should! It's a wild ride with a great cast (Donald Sutherland presente!)

Salvage & Scrap (Mad Max: Fury Road, Gen) Two minor characters who have a combined total of maybe five minutes of screen time produced what was until recently my longest fic on AO3. This fic was based on a fantastic prompt: what if Ace (the older war boy who seems to be Furiosa's second in command on the War Rig) and Valkyrie (Furiosa's Green Place gal pal) both survived their violent vehicular encounters and met each other? The idea was immediately appealing to me because they both care about Furiosa but have known such different versions of her, and the way their worldviews would clash seemed like great story fodder. I still love the imagery of them meeting at the place where their worlds have literally collided--the wreck of the War Rig in the Rock Riders' canyon. Also I recently reread this and I forgot how devastating the tiny glimpse we get of Furiosa is in this fic.

Fightplay (Mad Max: Fury Road, Max/Furiosa) You know this list wouldn't be complete without a smutty Maxiosa fic. It was really hard to pick one piece of the 127k smut novel I wrote about them in non-chronological order over the course of about 3 years (2015-2018). But Fightplay was definitely the start of writing uhhh a certain kind of dynamic for them. The prose is very spare and exacting in a way that I still find hot 9 years later.

Tagging @thebyrchentwigges, @thetardigrape, @nandamai, @bethagain, @demolitionwoman-blog and anyone else who wants to do this!

[duchezss]

Once in four years mcsm hyperfixation is back baby, and on this most recent rewatch some interesting patterns popped up for me. Honestly this might not be a new conversation, but I had no idea the fandom was still so lively. I've loved this game since it first came out and I really love that so many people still talk about it. Anyways, disregarding S2 for a moment (my opp), I think it's so intriguing the way the writers set up S1 and the art of history repeating itself.

The Order of the Stone were (supposedly) the greatest group of heroes that every lived, but they started out as something so much simpler. They were just friends who wanted to go on adventures and maybe make a difference in the world. Of course their trajectory and outcomes were much different from the modern crew, but in many ways they're still similar. I'll get to the in a sec, but I wanna talk about the originals first.

The original Order kinda breaks my heart, because frankly I think their intentions were good, they just lost their way and got caught up in the glory, not the adventure. They all make it seem like they've known each other for a lifetime, so it's easy to assume that even if they hadn't seen each other in like a decade, they had still known one another for practically twenty years. Soren describes their first adventure like a shot in the dark, and how they were so young. So my guess is they met in their late teens/early twenties, the same age I assume the modern crew is when their story starts. Yes they're all bitter in the main story, but their history seeps into every interaction. Magnus called Ellegaard, Ellie, and it might feel malicious at first, but he still uses it after she dies, which leads me to believe it started out with affection. Then there's Soren and Ivor, who were constantly fighting and at each other's throat. This makes me feel like there might've been a point when they were the closest. Magnus and Ellegaard seem almost relieved to see Ivor, even after they know what he'd done. The command block had led them to great success, but it also ruined the one real thing they had, their friendship with each other. Honestly I think the most heartbreaking thing is they were so close to reuniting again, but Magnus or Ellegaard dies, and Gabriel doesn’t have his memory. Then when the dust finally settles, Soren is gone. Ugh just tragic friend group save me, they are the ones that made me realize how much I love the niche trope of a friend group "haunting the narrative". Their friendship and fallout is what causes the events of the entire story, and thus thrusts Jesse into action. If they had never been friends there would've been no Wither storm, their actions led the modern crew to where they are now. Anyway mini rant over my fault, but how does that effect the crew? Well honestly it felt like they were doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

There's Jesse, the fearless leader who always has the answers and a plan for that matter. Caring, direct, and motivated, she begins the story feeling like she is destined for more. She would do anything for her friends and she's a quick learner in a life she doesn't fully understand yet. Soren was likely the same, he was trying to herd three maniacs and a genius together, and something tells me the leader role wasn't his original goal. He thought the command block was helping, when he was really just fighting his friends battles for them. Soren's life became one of solitude and guilt, one I think Jesse was perhaps destined to as well. The courageous leader doomed to isolation and doubt, unable to comprehend the road that led to their downfall.

Petra's pessimistic and sarcastic nature defines her a first, but it's clear that she's so much more than meets the eye. She's determined, chivalrous, and sometimes (overly) reckless too. Above all she strives to be a protector, of people, of her friends, and of her ideals. That's what keeps her from laying down her sword even though she longs for a life without battle. History says Gabriel was the same protector, even if we truly know him to be different, but this isn't about reality right now. Regardless of this they were seen as the fighters, with the only enemy too strong to beat lying in their imagination. The brave warrior doomed to die and lose their self in battle, interpreting life as nothing more than a fight to be won or forever lost.

It's hard to say what else describes Axel but bluntness. He's an out of the box thinker who can perhaps be slow at times, but he makes up for it when it really counts. He holds his friends close, and views others in a hostile matter (for better or for worse), and at the end of the day his hard exterior is easy to see right through to those who matter. Magnus is spunky and edgy, and rolls his eyes at the mere mention of the others, yet like Axel, it's simple to see right through him. His love for the others is something he shields, and it's clear he does this by pretending his life is perfect the way it is. The maverick doomed to surround themselves with a false sense of community and leadership, forever unaware of all that lies out of their reach

Olivia is intelligent, innovative, and practical. She usually prefers a simple solution but that's not to say she can't also have fun. She's compassionate and curious, and enjoys going through hypotheticals just to be extra prepared (or simply for a easy pass time). She's amiable and while her skills aren't exactly adept, it's clear she has a desire to learn. Ellegaard is a similar, and although she's jaded and has far more of an attitude, it's not hard to believe she used to be similar in her youth. It's also very likely they would have the same coping methods, focusing on red stone is far easier than focusing on others. The brilliant engineer doomed to surround themselves with their machines and inventions, who instead distance themselves from any real connections.

And finally there's Lukas. Selfless, kind, and impeccably loyal, in some ways he's the glue that held them all together. His intense desire to meditate got them out of a few fights, even if his presence initially caused them. He's the resident worrier of the group, and his only goal is to make sure his friends are safe and sound. Glory and adventure are the furthest thing from his mind, they're just a welcome bonus. Ivor clearly cared very deeply for the group, because he was the most hurt by Soren's secret. Even after his anger at them, it's evident they were never far from his mind. He tried so much to get them to see reason, but it was all for nothing. The permanent outcast, doomed to try the best they can to save the group, but who will inevitably be the one to ruin them all.

Of course those fates didn't really fall on the old order, that was just what people expected of them. Soren understood very well what he did wrong, Gabriel lived on, Magnus or Ellegaard died, and Ivor didn't ruin them, he just exposed them (even if his wither storm did kill one of them, but that wasn't really the point). Yet what truly happens in history, versus what we've been told or come to expect are quite different. I just think it could've been interesting for the writers to play into this predetermined fate the group already had, perhaps they would accept it, or maybe they would run from it so fiercely that they end up right where they feared. Or maybe their friendship was enough, and they never got wrapped up in the greed or the glory. Obviously that's not where S2 went at all, but it's was just something interesting to think about.

[dawn-of-worlds]

UBI SUNT?

Where does it all lead? Striving, struggle, growth, exploration? Kings and counselors, poets and prophets — after all is said and done, where do they go?

Yes, the bones and blood may feed the teeming earth, names pass from speech and monuments wear to sand, but the most excellent part, the part that strives and understands, must struggle along the great road of stars¹ to the kingdom at the end of all things.

To Him: Caster of Nets, Lighter of Paths, Star of the Great and greatest of stars, cynosure of all ambition and architect of the winding paths that reach it. Above the northernmost part of the sky, above the cold wind's thunder and the petty lights of air, He keeps His kingdom and His court.

The King Irradiant comprehends the metabolism of the cosmos, its tesserae of stars and organs. He knows the purpose of souls and the course of their returning. He knows why the livers of animals deform themselves before the deaths of kings, how the birds plot their courses, why the comet brings famine and flowers turn their faces to the sun. The secret webs that link the stars, the planet's occult meridians, the tangled threads of mortal fate — all transparent to His wisdom.

And He loves all He has seen, for all roads lead to Him.

He will teach these things — to the wise, the ambitious, those his secrets will exalt and those they will undo. Astrology, the binding of spirits by contracts, doomed kings hanging on the words of strange prophets and computing the secret geomantic architectures of their new capitals — these are His esoteric arts.

He is a god of discernment. He chooses who is remembered and who forgotten. He loves what is singular and eternal, what is intense, troubled, rich in feeling and complexity, the narrow paths suspended between the ordinary and the sublime. He treasures the souls of the excellent and wise; He appoints judges of the dead. He is a god of aristocratic grace: after all, all the best people are dead.

He is lord also of terrible realizations; of momentous decisions; of ascent, enlightenment, geometry, and philosophy.

At the beginning of the world, He — spirit of the law and law of the spirit — treated with the god Kirrik and sealed a covenant with all life, granting it the divine Word and, thus, the capacity to attain virtue, speech, and consciousness. All life must uphold its end of the pact by returning to Him. Though the terms of his covenant are not to be remembered by the waking minds of mortals, knowledge plays some role. Every secret taken to the grave is taken, in the end, to Him.

Dead men tell no tales, but with sufficient discernment, we may read between their silences, and these are among the things they say:

He was once a mortal king of some race long turned to dust.

One thing troubles Him above all else: He, too, must someday die. For all his grace and wisdom, He has not yet found a way to undo this fate.

Every soul entering the Kingdom may ask Him a single question.

Souls relinquish their memories and return down the opposite side of the sky, to take new bodies according to the justice of the Kingdom.

Souls never return, but sublime into stars or decay into the darkness of the sky according to their merits.

Something refused or eluded His primeval covenant.

A tree in His gardens bears shining fruit that grants wisdom, immortality, and the realization of desires, but which the King cannot — or must not — eat.

Beyond the span of light, the souls of the dead find only a vast nebula suffused with a golden glow: the King is dead, has been for aeons, though his light still shines on distant places; but those who make their way to the center of his concentric labyrinths apprehend the immortal star within, which still lives and ever will: the Holy of Holies — the Midnight Sun.

¹ Something like the Milky Way.

[lemotmo]

Happy Friday! What a wonderful day :) that episode was just what I needed after a terrible week! I was thinking of you and Alli during that breakup scene and how vindicated both of you must feel!!!

I have seen so many people doomposting here and on twitter unfortunately about Ryan’s interviews and wanted to provide some hope for the doubters… almost every journalist commented that the couch scene (welcome back couch theory LOL) was the true beginning of something. Ryan and Oliver cannot 100% agree because maybe by episode 8 they DON’T KNOW where the story is going yet since they only have shot up to 8x08 and possibly 8x09! Eddie is canonically straight so yes Ryan is discussing that in interviews especially now because of Eddie’s line to hot priest in the episode. However, we know Eddie was supposed to have the storyline with Tommy in s7. We also know that straight characters on television will rarely, if ever, explicitly state “I’m straight,” and Josh’s Glee speech to Buck exactly describes the type of repression Eddie might be experiencing. I apologize for rambling on but I wanted to share some of this positivity because after finishing 8x06, I have never been more confident in buddie happening than I am right now! Even if it doesn’t happen until 8x12 or beyond… all roads are leading to buddie at this point. At least from what we are seeing on the show.

I cannot believe I missed your great post Nonny!

My ask box is so insane right now and it's impossible to answer all the posts, but this one is so good.

I fully agree with you! The doom posting is getting out of hand at this moment. Again, my ask box is a mess filled with hope, positivity and doom posts.

Thank you for your message of hope and positivity!

[powderblueblood]

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR EDDIE

— the 411 on the loser playboy of the midwestern world

Tagged by @jo-harrington & @deathbecomesthem who got this stunning prompt on the road, love this love youse

let’s talk MUNSON!

What story is he from? What kind of story is it (Fix-it fic, Older!Eddie, Rockstar!Eddie etc)? The Eddie darling that takes up prime real estate in my brain is of course Hellfire & Ice Eddie, which is a teen romantic-dramadey with sprinkles of crime capers on top. We meet him at 18 years of age, drug dealin’, Dungeon wheelin’, at the absolute top of his bottom of the food chain game. He’s all raw nerve and engine sputter, our consummate not ready for prime time player. He is brassy, ballsy, funny, terrified.

What inspired you to write this Eddie? Flight of Icarus, actually! It reignited my initial love for him by basically confirming what I had already known to be true—he’s a little bitch that’ll take any opportunity to be struck down lovesick and he’s doomed by his bloodline.

What are your favorite headcanons about him/share something you never shared in your story? Eddie runs on a full tank of defiance, just burning rubber against what’s expected of kids his age—but to zoom in? Eddie sometimes wonders what it would be like if he was different. Tried harder. Cut his hair, joined the basketball team, really pulled himself up by his bootstraps and divorced himself from his stain of a last name. Folded in and blended, made all the right moves. Why couldn’t I do that? he thinks, Just pretend. I’m good at making shit up. But that’s selling out. And Eddie Munson is no sell out—rap sheet or no, his life is his own.

What does he wear on a casual day? On a dressier day? What does he wear to bed? Casual day, it’s your cartoon character stock costume of insert band t-shirt here, ripped jeans there, doubled up battle vest and leather cut to top it all off. There might be a variant in jean shade but that’s it. He likes to stick to a look. The dressiest he’ll go (he does not own dressy clothes) is a black cable knit sweater, very old, with the thumb holes worried through the cuffs. To bed, preferably nothing, but boxers of absolutely necessary and a very old, ratty pair of flannel PJ bottoms and an old t-shirt or a faded sweatshirt of Wayne’s if it’s freezing.

Favorite foods? This FUCK loves a pizza with the most fuckass toppings. Anchovy, black olive, pepperoni, sweetcorn (for the vitamins!), pineapple (for the jizz thing!) all on the one pie. But he can cook, to an extent, and we unfortunately have to hand this to ex-line cook Al who taught him how to grill a cheese and make a bitchin’ spaghetti with honeyed tomato gravy and lots of oregano. Eddie also loves a snack he can gesticulate with, see: Twizzler, corn dog, ice pop. Bordering on phallic foods.

Tell Us About His Family/Friends: Immediately in the gene pool—Al, the absent and up-to-no-good father who somehow still has a knife in Eddie’s side and will twist it with the simple words, “C’mon, that’s my boy!” Wayne, uncle and father figure, silent but loving and the only real pillar Eddie could ever lean against, and he feels like such a burden for it sometimes. Elizabeth, mommy dearest and dead, canonised like a saint in Eddie’s mind, and might have been but also might not have been. The root of his love of music and his need to tell stories to survive. The found-by-the-hand-of fate family— Ronnie Ecker, the Stalter to his Waldorf, the Bonham to his Page, the only person he’d ever follow into battle because you wouldn’t think it but Ronnie, who is secretly rage akimbo, would accidentally lead that charge. He loves her like a sister, she loves him like a dog. Just kidding. Maybe. He wants to be Ronnie Ecker when he grows up. Granny Ecker comes as part of this deal, one of the people credited with whooping Eddie into shape. We don’t quite know what shape yet, it’s Picassoan in nature. Then, the extension again that is the great Corroded Coffin/Hellfire crossover event—Jeff, Cyrus, Dougie and Gareth. He’s not quite as close with the boys, but they’re good boys. They love and fear him, except for Cyrus who is a true enigma which pisses Eddie off because he’s supposed to be the fucking enigma here, dammit.

Yeah Yeah, he's a Metalhead. Tell Us MORE About His Taste in Music in your story: We are working off Flight of Icarus rules so he’s got a taste in the mouth for Howlin’ Wolf style blues, real down and dirty Detroit shit. He also loves a sleazeball, so enter Tom Waits and when he’s feeling REALLY sentimental, Leonard Cohen. Eddie loves to bite a thumb so he has some punk spinning too—Richard Hell, MC5, The Cramps, and reluctantly Iggy and the Stooges. They’re Al’s favourite so kind of tainted. Last but not least, I think that Johnny Cash’s Live From Folsom Prison album gets a lot of play. Particularly Cocaine Blues and Dark in the Dungeon, which he’s definitely incorporated into some campaign. He does NOT listen to CHICK MUSIC because he’s a loser boy (Wayne has a Linda Ronstadt record that makes him cry).

What are his views on romance? On sex? Eddie Munson falls in love fourteen times a day because at the be all and end all, he’s an artist and he’s sensitive as shit. Let’s get one thing straight—he can flirt to beat the band, once anyone gives him the time of day. Which they don’t. But in his mind? He’s a silver tongued Casanova. It’s just easier to use on people he hates. Once he has a crush, he has an obsession, even if he’s oftentimes too chickenshit to act on it. Cue pulling pigtails in the playground routine. He wants so badly to worship someone and be worshipped in return, okay, it’s reciprocal worshipping—give him mutual pathological obsession or give him DEATH. He wants to build a shrine, and will, to the right person. He’ll preoccupy his mind with every detail about them to the point where, yeah, it is borderline kind of stalkery but he’s still 18 years old. Speaking of, sex? Yeah, he’s done it. Badly. He’s like to do it again, goodly. He’d like to do it with someone that wasn’t treating it like an experiment, someone who’d let him slobber all over them and rut and keen and whine like the hound in heat he fucking feels like. He has no goddamn control! He experiences pleasure in a total headrush, never been able to stay cool and sexy and commanding a day in his life. He just wants, wants, wants and he burns so hot. Eddie wants so clumsily that it comes out at the most inappropriate times, like the nurse’s office after he gets his fist busted. He’s not some sex god, just some dick with an overeager cock. But he sure is willing to put in the work.

Is he optimistic or pessimistic? Pessimistic on the surface, the life is shit and then you die so might as well do some whippits poster boy but so so secretly, Eddie holds the tiniest flame of hope that someday, somehow, things will get better. At the very least easier. That he’ll grow into his bones somehow, or someone will help soothe him into them. That he’ll feel some kind of belonging. Because he does want that, really. Some soft place to land.

Where or with whom is he most comfortable? Those pockets of alchemy at Hellfire Club when he’s got a rapt audience. With Ronnie, sitting on the sagging couch outside his trailer. Playing chauffeur to a certain princess across-the-way.

What are his views of his future? What are his hopes/dreams? Pie in the sky? Cover of Circus with his cheeks out, duh. A Grammy or two, his own metal club, a published fantasy author, shit. He’s not askin’ for the world, here! But honestly, Eddie’s view of his future is 18 year old misanthropist bleak. He hasn’t even considered college as an option, not that he’d get there with his grades. He figures he might just start selling full time for Rick once (if) he graduates then hopefully have the good enough sense to take his money and split to Chicago or someplace. Might hit it lucky when he’s played in a couple more iterations of Corroded Coffin and con someone into letting him be a session guitarist—which wouldn’t be the cover of Circus, but would still be a huge deal! But as much as an ego game as he likes to talk, he’s got this terrible, looming feeling that he’ll never leave Hawkins alive.

What do you imagine his future looks like? (If your story is incomplete or if this would be a spoiler you're not willing to share, you can skip this question.) I’ll give you a couple details, because I am writing a sequel about this. Picture a brief stint in Indianapolis. Meaner, grizzlier, bartender-ier, going on a decade of heartbreak, performing at his sexual best but nearing burnout and about to turn 30 with some side dealings at home that are edging out of the side and into the forefront. Heavy is the hand that wears the ring. You look so much like your father!

Anything else you'd like us to know about your Eddie/your story? He is so full of love and piss and vinegar. He is going to end up cherished. Like, violently so.

Optional Vulnerable Question: Why do you write fics for Eddie Munson? I love a tragedy touched smartass who folds at the first sign of affection. I want to nourish him and eat him up like the witch from Hansel and Gretel. Or have Lacy do it for me, whatever.

tagging: YOU. READING THIS. Not KIDDING IF YOURE READING THIS GET TO WORK

[adhdo5]

ok i'm curious, what is this TGCFlike house divorce we've been hearing about?

-Terra

OK so play with me in this space: MDZS and TGCF are in many ways about the same things but their conclusions are almost opposite. Super briefly: Xiyao are doomed as hell in MDZS because MDZS is a story about among other things when decency is not enough to overcome the ways in which society is built, and how it fails. But TGCF is about the ways in which it can be. Xiyao cannot be happy together until the revolution and the revolution doesn't happen in MDZS's thematic paradigm but the end of TGCF it does – they deny the artificial divisions and calls to revenge that Jun Wu's heaven is built on and that gives them the power to win; gods and ghosts and beggars come together to build something new and start to forgive each other. The laundry of class disparity is resolved even

So my thesis is as follows: postcanon MDZS fixit straightforwardly doable by letting the world gently transmute into something like TGCF. This is not really a crossover as much as it is "this AU works on TGCF rules" but we DID recently mess around with letting Lan Xichen and the Shi siblings interact so maybe it is a crossover or maybe that isn't canon I don't know I haven't decided

But let us not forget that this AU is called house divorce and I'm constantly whining and also, crucially, TGCF has four books covering eight hundred years of abject misery. SO

Zewu-jun spent some years in meditative seclusion before finally emerging to take up his responsibilities again, wiser and more reserved than before; he led his sect, he cultivated, he was part of the effort to take down Nie Huaisang when the Nie cancellation hit, and in the slow twilight of the power of the jianghu his measured grace and surety and wisdom allowed him to pass his Heavenly Calamity and ascend to the status of the martial god possessed of all the virtues he once allowed his reprobate brothers to take credit for that many know and love to this day. If LQQ is here he's supplanted by Zewu-jun as the Martial God of the East or maybe they're different Easts idk if he's even here point is Gusu is obviously his place of power etc etc

(Lan Xichen spent years in what amounted to devastating clinical depression before, with a monumental effort and the support he did have and a lack of any other option and a desperate desire to not be Qingheng-jun 2, managing to let the snarl of love and care and responsibilityobligation drag him out of his room and slowly back into his duties as sect leader. His reputation recovers like how Jin Guangyao predicted years ago. He takes up the practice of folding his grief inside himself like he takes up Shuoyue again, with an almost physical pain, and he pretends very dutifully that being dutiful to this is something he believes he can do and tolerate, because of course it is, because what else is possibly there, because as harrowed as he is and as much as he has broken pretty much every rule on that wall he cares about them, cares about what they're meant to protect, this matters to him and if he's to have any say in where that bright paved road leads he must walk it; there's no third path)

He's very much on the martial god side of things rather than civil god; he's not a stranger to non-cultivator societal concerns obv and he has non-cultivator worshippers esp as the power of the great sects really declines but he is very much a cultivator god/of that society and worshipped as a cultivator warrior-noble etc etc. He's quite well-liked in the heavens and on earth; he's not really the top of the hierarchy but he's in the leaderboard, doesn't want for merits or lanterns or spiritual power and is generally possessed of a decent reputation if the subject of some envy even if Zewu-jun is a little bit withdrawn; they say he has been since he emerged from seclusion and he's pretty much always perfectly polite and functional. The picture of coping.

Anyway one day 200+ years postcanon he gets sent down to deal with something on the ground; this is possibly whatever NMJ has going on RN for plot economy but I'm still trying to figure out what NMJ's final role in this all is anyway. What I do know is LXC ends up in ghostly territory; once he realizes he is he's like Ah I'll just be surreptitious but he's yet quite quickly met with a clone that, with stiff movements like it's used to moving through debilitating pain but impeccable propriety and an unwavering smile, says that as the lord of this place he doesn't wish for any trouble with Heaven, and invites LXC to negotiate with the local official

Official?

The Ghostly Civil Palace is in fact styled after the heavenly palaces of civil gods. It's slightly more luxurious, but still tasteful and practical enough that it isn't ostentatious; it's large but ordered enough it's not sprawling; it's completely, desertedly empty, even the footsteps of the clone disappearing the second LXC takes his eyes off it once it leads him to the pavilion and dismisses itself

LXC has an impeccably polite and extremely reasonable and productive discussion with the disembodied voice of the Ghostly Civil Official, who is by all appearances pretty genuinely invested in ensuring the wellbeing of his domain and the dead in it and is also concerned about the thing LXC has been sent down to deal with, in this nice understated pavilion. There is a koi pond. There is a single tea setting.

It is against all advised practice to take food from ghosts but LXC is not inclined to be rude as hell to someone who has been nothing but genteel and helpful, even if that someone is a disembodied voice coming from everywhere and nowhere in an ethereal palace, and does in fact accept and praise the tea setting. It's nice tea

The Ghostly Official feels no ways about this unexpected courtesy and will be answering no questions at this time.

He doesn't know if he remembers something like it from when he was alive but spending 100 years as a fierce corpse will do that. It's very nice, and mostly he remembers his life as Jin Guangyao in the ways of raised undead – outlines of despair and rage and unfinished business. It was easier once, but having regained enough spiritual cognition to miss it makes it very much an inconvenience. Troublesome to only remember your own name, your mother, your death in agony. Perhaps remembering more people than the one man whose death haunted you the most would make the search for his mother's probably-desecrated remains more effective, but the outlines of resentment are certainly enough for him to sharply know that he's always been good at working from positions of few advantages

He's doing well enough for himself and has picked up further tasks along the way. The Ghost Realm has AWFUL infrastructure. He's implementing reforms. Well. Forms he's implementing forms. Just because one is dead doesn't mean that having no social safety net is a tenable state of affairs. There's ghost public transportation in his sphere of influence

Anyway as they recognize each other more and more they go more and more Wait. Hey. What the fuck. HEY

JGY recognizes Shuoyue before he recognizes LXC himself. Y'know how it is. They have to lose all hope and divorce 43 times. Return the favor wrt the homoerotic stabbing. LXC gripping the sink looking into the mirror like I'm NOT gay anymore I feel NO ways about how that clone smiles and I am NOT going to fuck that house

Other characters around:

NMJ has also recovered spiritual cognition though he's still very saberbrained and he's currently on a mission from his Nie ancestors to find and thrash some sense into his terrible AWOL little brother who drove their bloodline into the ground

COMPLETELY UNRELATEDLY JGY's social programs include awkward-encounters-with-people-from-your-past insurance and he's got a particular charge from there, a sect leader from ages past who's dodging the spirits of his ancestors, and he's a bit of a mess but he's fun enough company and JGY privately regards him as something like a friend. It's nice. He thinks vaguely he might've known someone like that in life

Wangxian are still around! They cultivated to immortality not in the god way just in the normal way and are Sanrening it up. Every day means every day! Not every day for a normal human lifespan! There's a lot of days in forever!

They are still in some contact with LXC! This is possibly the most genuine interpersonal relationship he has

I don't have roles for Song Lan & co. but I think they're also still around. Waiting in the wings as it were

Idk who the fuck is the heavenly emperor. Is it Jun Wu? Fuck if I know

Lmk if you want to see the LXC+Shiblings thoughts which may or may not be canon

[atiny-for-life]

Xikers Full Storyline Explained - BONUS 3: Namoo & the 'Bittersweet' Preview

Masterlist

HOUSE OF TRICKY : WATCH OUT

Prior to the release of Witch, an animated short titled 'Watch Out' was released which had the energy of a 1950's PSA from the US and gave us a huge amount of information regarding the type of world Xikers are living in:

In it, a voice asks if you're lost in life due to all these choices life has to offer because, boy howdy, does she have the perfect solution for you!

Namoo is a company which has figured out how to rid your life of all these pesky choices by scanning your DNA and determining which career path is best suited for you based on your skill set

That is right, their AI "Good Brother" is trained to scan your DNA to find the Coordinates (genes) which will lay out the Road to your perfect life

Simply follow the path chosen by your Coordinates and you'll lead the perfect life without worries or wandering

Now it's your turn! Check your Coordinates through the Coordinate Ball! A perfect life aligned with your Coordinates awaits you!

'Bittersweet' Preview

Following the release of the PSA, another video was released in line with its premise which shows us exactly how Xikers feel about Namoo and what they've done to the people of their world:

We open on the Namoo headquarters which we've already seen animated in the PSA and zoom in through one of the highest floors to see what's going on inside

Inside it's giving Doom 3 Delta Labs - metal walls, metal floor, metal doors, weak overheard neon lights

Once we exit through the door at the back, we get to the main section where the Coordinate Balls are manufactured and getting prepared for transport to their receivers

We focus on one Ball specifically with the label "Athletic Road" which follows another labeled "Artistic Road" before one carrying the words "Medical Road" heads toward us

The last one seems to have been meant for Minjae whom we now get to see surrounded by his members in a factory warehouse

He seems to know the Coordinate Ball is about to appear to him (perhaps there's a certain feeling to it) and raises his hand, leading everyone to look at him with great indifference

It's obvious already: they don't care for this system at all

Using his powers, given to him by TRICKY, he melts the Ball before it could even fully form, clearly not one to even give a passing thought to whatever life this company wants him to lead

Following this opening, the song begins to play and we get to see flashes of everyone's faces before they begin their performance (it's such a sick af song, by the way, lowkey my favorite on the album - I love the Halloween-y vibes)

From here, we keep getting glimpses of the members in scary situations where they're clearly being threatened or scared by their environment which falls in line with the type of content they released prior to the album's release (think TRICKY HOUSE episode 49 and 50)

Throughout these sequences, we also get to see Sumin as he's being chased what might be a government drone of some kind, given how it's filming and scanning him before it begins chasing him

They truly are following in their older brothers' footsteps by rebelling against an oppressive government - I love a message of rebellion in these shitty times of corporate greed and exploitation - it's time to unionize and vote, my friends

There's also a really cool moment in the choreo where we get to see Yechan activate his powers momentarily which are giving Tokyo Ghoul as spikes shoot from his back before they crumble and fall off

Following Yechan's rap verse, we switch to the melodic "You should better run, you should better run..." as we see news footage of birds flying overhead, followed by a crumbling building which may be indicative of the state their world is in - it's in disrepair, it's collapsing

Ending this section is Hyunwoo who's leaning onto Jinsik's shoulder in the red-lit freaky space Yechan was trapped in earlier where hands are pushing against the walls

This is showing us the past

Jinsik was following his laid out Road set for him by the Coordinate Ball which left him a mindless drone and Hyunwoo then pulled him out of it by telling him there is more to life (though what the lyrics say is "Oh, you might get trapped by playful whispers")

Interestingly, it's later the opposite in WITCH with Jinsik being the one to whisper to Hyunwoo, telling him "Guess what is coming?"

After this moment, we immediately see Jinsik gain an "X" in his eye before we cut to him smiling amidst the others, clearly having just joined their rebellion

We also get to see Hunter's powers which seem to be conjuring up smoke - very useful for their mission, I'd say, given how they'll have to operate undercover

Of course, we also get to see exactly what their current mission is:

First, Yujun steps forward so we can get a good look at their surroundings; they're standing surrounded by a bunch of Coordinate Balls, or rather large orbs made of the material which these Balls are made of

Once Yujun returns to their formation, Minjae steps up and makes use of the powers we've already seen him utilize earlier by annihilating all these orbs so they can't be used to oppress further people

We also get to see a flashback to the first orb Minjae ever broke: his own, while he was still trapped in a cage which makes me wonder if they were all trapped in separate facilities across the country

Because, as we saw in Rockstar, they were chosen by TRICKY from multiple locations, and presumably exactly because of actions like this: they were rebelling against the status quo and ready to cause chaos which TRICKY loves more than anything

So TRICKY picked them, brought them together, gave them powers to rebel and stir up trouble for their oppressors and, by doing all that, created one big real-life game for itself

My best guess is that they were all brought together during the Maze of Choice, the YouTube game released as part of the album's promotion; they were chosen by TRICKY, transported to the maze and had to find their way to its end

There, all the members met for the first time and were given their powers through the Dokkaebi which are controlled by TRICKY which we saw in Rockstar

We end the video after a sprint toward a set of doors which open at with a rattle and squeak at the very end, likely leading us to the next stage of TRICKY's game: back to the Maze it is

[bandydear]

I’ve been reading your tlgbf tlgbl fic, and am absolutely obsessed!! Where did you get the inspirations for dyke Jackie? I love how you’ve written her and her queerness

So, I prescribe to the theory that Jackie had some inclinations about her homosexuality out there in the wild and that's why she's parading around in sweater vests and limp wrists. That the high femme presentation we see in the pilot is more of a gender and social performance than who she is. And, I explored the people pleaser elements that lingered behind in that.

She compliments Nat in the Pilot that she admires how true to herself Natalie is which means that Jackie is not true to herself. She feels the pressure of expectation and lives within that expectation instead of her truth. We are never given a "truth that could crash an airplane" from Jackie. What she says is that she used to sneak downstairs and watch The Color of Night so she could pause it at Bruce Willis's wang.

For research for the fic, I watched Color of Night (the shit I do for art...). Bruce Willis's flaccid dong is there for like, five frames. And, it's not impressive like she claims it to be. You know what that movie actually has a lot of? Naked women and lesbian sex. Jackie's gay.

I know a lot of butch/futch/even high femme dykes who began their journeys presenting heterofemme realness and rejected it when they made their way down the rainbow brick road. Jackie very much gives me those vibes. Like, she has gay energy, but also a very "useless gay man" energy.

I think that finding out "x amount" of her teammates are some kind of queer and that the Very Hetero Sport she's been shielding herself with is uhhhhh Not That is part of what leads her down the path of self-discovery.

She's also shredded. Jackie canonically has an 8-pack and that's interesting because in the 90's, muscle tone was seen as something undesirable for women. (Now, I know that the show is made Now, where the aesthetic ideals are different, but if it's in the text it counts.)

Anyway, this has all been said before in other tumblr posts about Jackie being gay. I'm sure you're asking about why I wrote her as a futch service top instead of say, a femme pillow princess?

It has to do with her character arc. In S1 of Yellowjackets, Jackie's arc is one of nihilism and regression. The only thing that is keeping her alive in this survival situation is her love for Shauna, and when she learns of Shauna's resentment, she loses the will to live. Literally. Dies of a broken heart.

Jackie cannot survive in an environment without love. And, she struggles with survival instincts in general. Which is what makes her a great foil to Nat, who cannot help but survive, and, ironically, dies in S2 of too much love. The moment Nat stopped being cynical and nihilistic she doomed herself.

Two characters in direct opposition cannot exist so therefore they must either kill one or the other other--or change each other to live in harmony. I chose the latter. Jackie softens Nat and Nat hardens Jackie. They meet in the middle. If Jackie becomes hard, and becomes someone who can survive, what does that look like? What's the funniest possible way to get to this point?

Make Jackie the one who builds the shelter. Take this ineffectual, limp wristed twink and show her the way towards self-sufficiency through trades. Her home was broken beyond repair, so she learns how to fix it on her own. The literal is metaphorical and the metaphorical is literal.

So, now that I've explained:

Why Jackie is gay

Why Jackie fixes houses

Now, "why a service top"?

I touch on it in the text, but I don't think she's solely that. I do think that even after coming out, if she was experimenting with people who weren't Shauna she wouldn't allow herself to be physically vulnerable with them. It would cause a panic attack. She has a very Protestant energy and receiving pleasure as a part of sex would probably give her like 5 different mental breaks.

Jackie doesn't enjoy sex with Jeff (oral and hand stuff count as sex) not just because she's gay, but because she's too self-aware of how she's being perceived to enjoy her body.

On the other hand, she is a chronic people pleaser--though Lazy, so I knew she couldn't jump into this with both feet. If Jackie had slept with the girl in chapter 1 it wouldn't have gone well, and it would have been super awkward and unsatisfying for both parties. It's the envy at seeing Nat enjoying herself, and finally being in a safe space to relax a little that allows her to explore sensuality. Still, I don't think she'd let herself be touched in the same way.

If she had, as planned, shared a room with Shauna at Rutgers, I could see her being in a much more comfortable sexual role. Because Shauna was her safe space. But, I could also see her bringing a lot of her own baggage into that situation, and it quickly becoming toxic. I don't think they'd work romantically out of their "platonic" relationship in school, because it had already broken and festered by the Pilot.

Anyway! That's the impetus for Jackie's dykery. I hope that clarified some things. There are other folks out there who have come away with other, valid, and cool conclusions, but these are the ones I came to with my own research and experience. Thanks again for asking!

[peachonified]

I have some anime recommendations.

I have STRUGGLED this year to find things to watch. I don't particularly like romance - it saps the storyline - and I like action/comedy. It's why I've always had a taste for sports anime.

So... this is just a starting point for the lost souls who are just after something, and don't know where to start. This is in no particular order, although prob related to how recently I watched it...

1. The Apothecary Diary

Set in a land in the far east, Maomao is sold to the back palace. From there she solves mysteries.

This is honestly such a great show! Intrigue, engaging characters, and you could absolutely read Maomao as aroace. This was a stand out.

I also love the opening song. Very Shakira-esque.

2. Another stand out was Death Mount, Death Play

I'm not a fan of super violence, so I almost didn't make it past ep 1... but I ADORED this show. The main character is amazing, the shark in the credits is so cute, the story is many faceted, and I seriously adored it! highly reccomend.

3. I wasn't expecting to enjoy God of High School.

Now, it absolutely does feel like it needs a second season, but it ended in a way that felt okay too... it is based on aKorean wrbcomic, but has japanes va's. It's an over powered fighting anime, with mystery powers and a very likable main character. It's got super baddies to hate, and it does edge into too violent for my taste, but still sat down and watched my way through it xD

4. Ah... my beloved sports anime. I'm gonna add Haikyuu! And Kuroko no Basket here. I mean... both are fandoms I write for xD

Haikyuu!! Is great as there are no real bad guys, and lots of growth all round.

Kuroko is basically magical high school boys who play high school basketball, but same thing: lots of character growth, lots of friendship.

One thing I love is how the boys cry? I mean that in a they are disappointed when they lose and aren't told to suck it up. I always appreciate that!

5. It's been hard to avoid isekai animes, and some of them are less than engaging, it is true. But some? Some are delightful!

5a So, I got reincarnated as a slime is one of my faves.

It's just... nice? Satisfying? It doesn't reaaaaally push any boundaries (although I love almost everything about the final arc). There's so many loveable characters, and it's alot of fun. It helps I've always loved slimes, so this overpowered one isno exception.

5b why Raeliana ended up at the dukes mansion is, yes a romance.

But its also fun. Our protagonist is reincarnated into a gane, as a character that they know will die. And they don't want to die! And so... this isthat story.

5c. This lead me down the reincarnated in a game pathway, and I came across My next life as a villainess: all roads lead to doom

You know those really dumb lovable characters? Well, I love Catarina. She is charming with a harem comorised if almost everyone she grew up with, and there's just something so delightful! I laughed outloud as much as i groaned at this one!

Older ones I reccomend:

Natsume's Book of friends

Slice of life about a boy who can see spirits. Definitely leans towards melancholy, but really leans into found family

2. Black Clover

Look. Get past Asta screaming in the first 20 eps and you've got some enjoyable action. The characterisation is

[coreene]

The Moonshaes

Cloaked in mists, the rocky cliffs of the Moonshae Isles rise high above the surf of the Sea of Swords, their tops clothed in ancient forests. The Moonshaes lie due west from Mintarn- and Baldur's Gate, and Candlekeep, and even Amn, for that matter: this great stretch of islands is nearly half as long as the Sword Coast, enclosing the Sea of Moonshae.

On the southern isles live the Ffolk, humans ruled by their High King, Derid Kendrick, from the fortress of Caer Callidyr on Alaron. The Ffolk worship a goddess they call the Earthmother; her druids gather in sacred groves on the islands. Some of these groves hold moonwells, magical pools that the druids say the goddess uses as her windows onto the world.

The northern isles are the territory of the Northlanders, who spread south from Ruathym to settle here, and have fought occasional wars with the Ffolk in the centuries that the two groups have uneasily shared the islands.

Alaron

The largest and most populous isle of the Moonshaes is Alaron. The Ffolk stronghold of Caer Callidyr overlooks a bay south of the Fairheight Mountains, at the northern edge of Dornall Forest. The forest is a perilous place, filled with goblins, worgs, and their ilk. The deeper one goes, the more otherworldly the woods become, with fey creatures leading travellers astray - or to their doom. Even the High King's rangers walk the forest with care.

Rumor has it the Rookoath dwarves of the Fairheight range-bolstered by Clan Rustfire of the isle of Gwynneth, and adventurers out of Callidyr-have won victories against the local ores and their shadow dragon master. High King Derid hopes to forge an alliance with the dwarves, but thus far they have spurned the aid of the crown.

Meanwhile, Kythyss, a port town on the Great South Head of Alaron, has been hiring mercenaries to guard caravans running north to Callidyr. Caravan masters there are always looking for help, if you're willing to brave the road for a while.

Gwynneth

Over my lifetime, the isle of Gwynneth has become ever more fey and mysterious, home to the elven realm of Sarifal, under the rule of High Lady Ordalf.

Sarifal shares the island with the reclusive mountain kingdom of Synnoria, the home of the Llewyr elves, plus a few small shield dwarf settlements, and the ruins of Caer Corwell, the former Ffolk settlement on Gwynneth. High King Derid wants to reclaim the old citadel and rebuild it as an embassy, but has yet to secure Lady Ordalf's consent to do so.

Gwynneth is also home to Myrloch Vale, a lush valley nestled in the mountains with the shimmering waters of the Myrloch to the south. Druid circles are active in the Vale, allied with the elves and the fey creatures of this area.

In the north of the island, High Lady Ordalf's son, Prince Araithe, leads the struggle against the darker fey of the forest of Winterglen. The prince is a pragmatist willing to accept aid in fending off his people's foes, and so has been known to allow adventuring companies to cross the Strait of Alaron and land on Gwynneth, if they pledge to aid the cause.

Korinn Archipelago

The Korinn Archipelago is dozens of rocky, rainy, and windswept islands populated mostly by Northlanders, who herd sheep, fish the nearby waters, and occasionally go raiding or pirating. Dozens of separate settlements are their own mini-kingdoms with little that unifies them besides a shared Northlander culture.

There's no safe harbour for outsiders; you just have no idea what you are dealing with. For other Northlanders, the settlement of Westhaven on Pandira serves as a neutral ground where Northlanders of all stripes who ply the waters of the Sea of Swords might come to port and wait out a storm or resupply.

Moray

To the west of Gwynneth, Moray is a land at war with itself. The embattled Ffolk of Caer Moray struggle to keep the port town open so that Dynnegall, farther inland, can receive vital goods and supplies.

These supplies sometimes include reinforcements to deal with the threats of the island, which are many and varied: the Black Blood tribe of Malar-worshiping werefolk, the giants of the Trollclaw Range in the north, and the ogres and ores of the Orcskill Mountains in the south.

The Ffolk of Moray are loyal to the High King. They hope for a return to a unified Moonshaes under the Kendrick banner and are determined to hold on long enough to see it.

Norland

North of Moray lies Norland, the stronghold of the Northlanders of the Isles. Much has happened among the Noris of late, weakening their grip on the Moonshaes, but I fear High King Kendrick lacks power to capitalize on it.

In recent years, a Northlander woman calling herself the Storm Maiden arose as a battle leader among them, which was unusual because Northlanders don't allow women to raid or fish. Said to blessed by both Valkur and Umberlee at her birth, the Storm Maiden gathered great numbers of Noris to her banner, and it seemed she might contest the king for control of Norland. However, a decade ago, she seemed to be consumed by the power of Umberlee, and she drove her followers on a mad quest to control the Sea of Swords. When at last she was defeated at sea, she and her ship vanished into the waves. She is known to be unable to drown, and many people fear her return.

Rault the Wise, king of the Noris, lost both his elderly son Olfgaut and grandson in battles against the Storm Maiden, leaving succession in question. He has a granddaughter of great spirit and wisdom, but in the male-dominated Northlander society- and so soon after the disastrous rise to power of the Storm Maiden - it is unthinkable that rule should fall to her.

Oman's Isle

The last time I set foot on Oman's Isle was just after the Moonshaes had unified, and it was a peaceful, lovely place. It had sheep, farms, and fishing boats, and plenty of folk willing to trade the gold from their mines for goods from the mainland or other islands. Now, Oman's Isle is a blasted place is controlled by giants, especially fomorians, that hurl huge stones at any ship that comes too near the coast. If you do make it to shore, bring friends, and plenty of weapons-it's a dangerous place, but might be worth the risk. I can scarcely imagine the reward Jar! Rault or High King Derid would offer to the adventurers who reclaimed the ruins of Iron Keep, once home to the isle's rulers.

Snowdown

The little isle of Snowdown, south of Alaron, is a possession of Arnn, where Lady Erliza rules from Caer Westphal. She is the second of her name, noted for her striking resemblance to her great-grandmother, the first Amnian ruler of the isle.

Since taking possession of the place, Snowdown's occupiers have cut down its woods, stripped its mines, and choked its waterways with the refuse of the overworked Ffolk under their rule. Lady Erliza and her soldiers have ruthlessly put down several rebellions, and the Ffolk here refer to her as "Bloody Erliza." Some Amnians believe the isle is becoming more trouble to hold on to than its diminishing exports are worth, and further uprisings are almost certainly brewing amongst the Ffolk, quietly supported by Alaron.

source: Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide pg. 67-69, top map

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi WQA I hope everything’s been good!

I wanted to know- how do I depict a character arc of “reluctant hero/chosen one” without it being… how to explain it? Like the usual Disney type of stuff?

I want my MC to be given a power that they do not want to deal with and are now stuck with- plus leading a bunch of peeps to destroy the big bad guy- but I really have no idea (I mean I have a few story beats in mind but it’s still REALLY fuzzy yknow?) how to show them going from “ew I don’t want to deal with this” to becoming a leader and eventual ruler- how do I depict the arc?

Thank you very much friend!

Non-Cliché Reluctant Hero/Chosen One Arc

There are some specific things that make the Chosen One arc cliché, and honestly, not great a lot of the time. We'll go through some of those things and talk about what can be done instead.

1 - Fate vs Destiny - One of the biggest issues of the Chosen One trope is that all too often, the hero--whether reluctant or not--doesn't have a choice in their role as the Chosen One. They are fated to do the thing that only they can do, so every decision they make is preordained to lead to that outcome. If they're fated to save the world by sacrificing themselves, that's going to happen no matter what. This strips them of any agency they might have in the story. There is the illusion of choice, but all roads lead to their fate. And, honestly, it's not much fun to watch someone rise to greatness when it's the only possible outcome. Solution: Destiny can be changed... it can be shaped by choices. If a character is destined to save the world by sacrificing themselves, that outcome can be avoided. They can find a way to save the world without sacrificing themselves. They could even refuse the call if it somehow set off a chain of events that still led to the world being saved. A Chosen One with agency is much more satisfying to watch than one who is doomed to their fate.

2 - Give Them a Choice or Make Refusal an Option - Prophecies (which can be fate or destiny), bloodlines, or being the only one in possession of a unique gift leaves little to no room for choice. They didn't choose to get involved with a particular cause. And if they'd refused the call, they would have looked terrible. They may have agency later on in that their choices actually matter, but what difference does it make if they're making choices in service of a cause they had no choice but to accept? Solution Option #1: Put them on their path by choice. For example, in The Hunger Games, if Katniss's name had been pulled from the Reaping ball, she wouldn't have had any choice in being a tribute. But because it was her sister's name that was chosen, she made the choice to volunteer to take her place. Since she was the first person in District 12 ever to volunteer as tribute, no one would have expected her to make that sacrifice, and we as the reader wouldn't have even known it was possible. So, while from an emotional and moral perspective, there was really no other choice she could have made (she wasn't going to let that happen to her beloved sister), she still made the choice. She was still the master of her own destiny, and continued to be as the story went on. It can also be argued that volunteering as tribute wasn't even the thing that made Katniss the Chosen One, but rather her behavior and actions during the games that earned her a role as the icon of rebellion. So, "hero-by-deed" is another option to give your character some choice in their role. Solution Option #2: Give them a viable alternative, but one which has an undesirable drawback. For example, let's say your character has a unique magical gift and that's why they're chosen, but whoever delivers the call gives them the option to transfer that ability via magical spell to another person. The drawback is the gift won't be quite as potent in another person, and also they'll lose all their memories associated with ever having or using that gift. Now they have a viable choice. They might lose their unique ability and all associated memories, but they don't have to be in a situation they didn't choose.

3 - Prophecy for the Sake of Prophecy - Too often, prophecy is used as the basis of why the character is the Chosen One, however the prophecy is superficial and serves no other purpose. Solution: If you use a prophecy as the basis of why your character is the Chosen One, make sure the prophecy is fleshed out, relevant to the world and plot, and serves more purpose than being an explanation.

4 - Salvation in the Hands of a Child - Another Chosen One cliché is when the Chosen One--whether a child, young adult, or amateur--is surrounded by people who are better skilled, more knowledgeable, and better qualified to save the day, but still somehow the fate of the universe rests on the Chosen One's shoulders. Solution: Make sure there's a reason why the character, despite lacking in qualifications, is still the best option to save the day. Also, have them receiving lots of help and guidance from the more qualified people around them. Let them struggle as they acquire new skills, and have them really need that help from others. It should be a group effort to some degree. Let other characters be important.

5 - Proficiency at Lightning Speed - There are few things that make a reader's eyes roll faster in a Chosen One story than when the previously uninitiated Chosen One answers the call, then very quickly becomes proficient in whatever skills are needed in order for them to fulfill their destiny. Solution: Again, let them struggle as they acquire the necessary skills. It should take a believable amount of time for them to do the thing well, and there should bot lots of failures and setbacks. As much as I hated the Disney+ sequel to Willow, one thing they did right is have their Chosen One really struggle with learning to use and control the magic that was in them all along. It was pretty close to the end of the season before they became adept enough to really make a difference.

Bonus - Here's a lightning round of things to avoid: the over-the-top underdog Chosen One, the "All Powerful" Chosen One, the Chosen One who never has to make tough decisions, the Chosen One who is ordinary for no reason, the Chosen One who is defined by their destiny, the Chosen One who is special for the sake of being special, the Chosen One who has no autonomy and no agency, the Chosen One who only puts others first and never considers their own safety/wants/needs, the Chosen One who doesn't get to have a life beyond their Chosen One role.

Happy writing!

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