#I feel like this part of the lore is the only detail from my real self that I gave to any of my OCs.
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fiangrey · 3 months ago
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Viaraxia openly hates and afraid of implants and body cybernetics, to the degree when he falls into long depression episodes every time Arasaka takes something from his body, even something not visible. And rippers of Arasaka know that this is good strategy to punish it's soldier and make him be so scared, to obey every their absurd demand. This fear might be the product of his past and upbringing from his nomad family. Growing up in USSR, hopping from place to place across nuclear wasteland makes you cherish every part of your healthy body, and makes you throw scarce resources on every opportunity to restore health, to not let down your family on the move. Viaraxia underwent a full body conversion once, after a long unsuccessful battle with radiation sickness. This body was the most valuable present from his family, while they gave almost everything for it, not asking anything in return. This body is significantly different from the original, to the surprise of those around, but V was glowing from his deathbed (not only from radiation sickness!) seeing something people called "oops, sorry, we need to grow new one, because this came out with wrong body parts and some other conflicting details about it". This body is perfect, this is how Viaraxia seen himself all his life, he wants it, he want to be this person, and this is him, always has been. And now Arasaka mutilates (by V words) his perfect body. They took away his hands, to give mantis blades instead (what was bad about any other melee weapon he can grasp in his hands!?), they took away his real eyes, scarred his face and visible parts of body with ugly implants. Even so, he loves every little detail about what remains untouched, and this love spreads to other people. Viaraxia envies (in a good way) all real bodies and worships every inch of all his partners.
I miss the cyberpunk community posting OC lore so reblog this with a fun fact about your V or not-a-V. Share the lore. Share it.
(You can give one sentence or one essay or anything in between. Dealer’s choice)
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robboyblunder · 1 month ago
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As promised I went ahead and continued my "ghoul guide" with a part 2 (part one linked in replies)! This one covers stuff specifically with a made up lore guide of in-world ghoul stuff as if they were a sort of unique magic entity.
This one wound up way longer and had to be split so expect a third final one eventually lmao. for now though... I'm gonna take a break and yell. Bonus extra info plus the transcript under the cut!
ID in ALT text!
Bonus note: While not portrayed in the guide, it’s important to know a detail about ghouls’ origin called “memory echoes”. While ghouls are formed from humans past who lose all memory of their previous self while maintaining an assumed personality from before, at times certain instances of events, actions, items, and otherwise can trigger these “echoes”. Echoes are very rare, but a valued treasure to ghouls; they make them feel more connected to their past and more “human”. Upon triggering an echo, a ghoul will become completely listless, unable to respond or react until the echo has completed, usually within seconds.
“Memory echoes” are described as blurry faded memories that often show featureless shapes and colors, but a very strong “feeling” of a Deja-vu of the moment. They feel viscerally real and can have a mix of the senses i.e. touch and smell, but produce no recognizable faces or imagery of the self. No ghoul has ever reported fully remembering one, nor any semblance of their true past beyond the haunting leftovers.
Begin Transcript:
A Compendium of Hell’s Derivates
While there are many theories on the demonic nature of ghouls,
The true source is surprisingly Human.
Souls cannot be recreated; rather, they’re Recycled and Reborn
The cycle of ghoul creation started for unknown reasons…
But one thing is Certain:
Natural forces do not change easily.
Raw elements collide with the fuel of life itself until one connects
by His command
A violent injection of pure elemental magic
Rewrites and erases all memory and one’s past, drastically altering the soul…
These new powers lend to the powerful allies of the ministry,
However….
… new powers are a dangerous toy.
While coined as “Feral”, new ghouls would better be designated “Raw”, “Unbound”, and “Lawlessly Dangerous”
First formed, they are still elements;
Torrential, Aimless,
Incapable of coherent thought or rules
-but with time, coherence returns to the individual
Who grows much like a life cycle’s stages without necessarily aging.
The overall cycle is the same per ghoul, yet varied enough each rises differently…
First form: “Raw” – Second form (1): “Feral” – Second form (2) – Third form: “Stabilized”
Catalyst, violent, poor formation – Unaware, wild, chaotic – Conscious; can act like oneself; less raw – fully formed and recognizable
The first form, “Raw”, is notably so violent the devil himself does not release them until stage two.
The second form in stage one of a “Feral” ghoul is much like the forces of nature; free willed and wild, understanding minimal speech.
Take caution: they can be mischievous and cause decent damage.
In the second stage of a “Feral” ghoul, they behave like typical people; however, they’re still very free and may choose to never fully stabilize.
Note: you can tell they’ve reached this stage by presence of a tail and civil habits.
If desired, a ghoul reaches the final form: “Stabilized”. They’re transformed into a stable humanoid body, a form less powerful but safer.
Note: Talented ghouls can change form at will in this stage between secondary Feral and Stable.
When it comes to location, each form is most likely to be found:
Raw: Hell, contained
Feral (Stage 1): wilds/natural areas
Feral (Stage 2): wilds and civil areas
Stabilized: anywhere people go
Seeing feral ghouls is not uncommon, and can even be considered lucky!
They tend to provide free protection to keep their home
Ghouls can only stabilize via ministry ritual;
One can assume they’re ministry members if stable, even off duty.
Ghouls are uncommon, but found most places if looked for;
This seems especially true near ministry placements.
Ghouls only form from adults and don’t “age” traditionally, yet they’re still mortal
Deceased ghouls do not seem to return or recycle.
Summoning intentionally pulls only second stage feral ghouls or stable ghouls from anywhere,
They don’t always like this however (see other guide).
The cycle of ghouls serves a main purpose – as forces for the Dark One, in return for rebirth
However, there are two channels through which they serve.
1) Natural defense against corrupted holy magic
Non-stable ghouls defend at will naturally where they live
2) training to fight, protect, and uphold the ministry’s efforts in the name of the Devil.
Contrary to belief, summonings cannot grab from “nothing”;
Like the creation of a ghoul,
Their element, once developed, is what becomes pulled by nature
The force of such pull is incredible,
A disorientating test of will so great…
…it can render even the most sound minds rather violent.
This is why while some choose to stabilize, others may not;
But should a mind change, they can be freed or re-summoned.
Alternative to wild summoning, one can summon from trained ghouls over feral;
Many ghouls are trained for ministry positions all over, but any can be summoned if unassigned.
Though stabilized, unassigned ghouls are not contractually bound to anyone until assigned.
They’re great for extra work hands and being able to know what kind of team mates you’ll get without leaving it to chance.
Summoning any ghoul however reverts them to feral form, and the challenge to tame them remains the same.
Just because you know a ghoul does not mean an easy summon.
Finally, be warned: forcing unwanted breaking or upholding of a summoning contract
Will have dire consequences.
Aside from rarity of an element, there are “power classes” within each element.
Tiers:
Rarity of an element does not equal strength.
The break down is as follows:
Rare – extreme and dangerous power. These ghouls earn a specialized title.
Quite strong, stand out in their class and very sought after.
Most common tier; average and decent powers that are expectable.
Weak powers, but some uses are applicable.
Uncommon – ghouls who possess little to no powers. Ghouls in this tier may at times suddenly change power tier without warning to any other category.
S-Tier ghouls are quite rare and a sight to behold- truly, they embody nature’s power.
End transcript.
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sophietv · 1 year ago
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Everything you need to know : Failed Coming Out 2019
This is an answer to an anon I've received.
I typed it all and Tumblr said there was an error when I went and tried to published it. So I had to type it all again but lost the anon....
Here's the question: could you tell me more about her wanting to come out in 2019? sorry for asking again I'm new on the fandom!
Hi!
It will be my pleasure! This is such an important part of the Gaylor Lore to know and understand, especially when you are new in the fandom.
This theory has been confirmed, but we'll get to it in a minute.
Also, I'm so sorry because learning about what went down during Lover Era is a transformative experiece in the Gaylor fandom, in a very heartbreaking way.
So back in 2019 Taylor wanted to come out with the Lover Era.
June 30th during the New York City Pride wich was also the Stonewall's 50th anniversary, was supposed to be the day it happened.
This date might be familiar to you, because it's the date we learned at the same time as Taylor about her masters being sold to Scooter Braun.
So let's start at the begining of all of this. I won't go through ALL the details because my post will never end. But I'll cover the most important ones.
Right at the begining of the year, insiders were already talking about the fact that Taylor was planing to come out that year in podcasts and blind items.
Then in March 6th (Karlie and Taylor's anniversary)
Taylor does a post hinting at this new era. The very first lyrics we get (We got hints at ME back in February):
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Daylight the song is about Karlie. But this line specifically means coming out.
Stepping into the daylight, and letting everyone see the real you.
(Also worth noting the lesbian filter)
Taylor started being really loud in the posts she made from now on. Flagging rainbow, lesbian and bi colors every chances she got.
And flagging Butterflies. Wich is very important thematically in Lover and coming out.
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Side note on the Butterfly meaning:
Remembre how in reputation, snake was a really important theme?
And how in Lover it switched to butterflies?
More specifically it switched to Snakes transforming into butterflies?
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There's a species of butterflies, that when they are in the chrysalid phase of their transformation into a butterfly, can look like a snake if they feel unsafe or attacked in order to protect themselves.
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Then, after the average 13 days waiting period, they transforms into a beautiful butterfly.
Basically what Taylor was doing, protecting herself during reputation with that "personna" like she described.
And now, she was ready to finally transforms and have a new beginning.
Here's a description of what butterflies means:
A powerful beacon of growth and new beginnings, the butterfly signifies the power of transformation and the incredible feats we can achieve when we trust ourselves. We all have the ability to listen to our innate wisdom, guide ourselves through difficult times, and emerge better and stronger than before.
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The ME! of it all:
Ok back into the Lover Era timeline!
So all those rainbow posts were leading up to the first single: ME!
Even Taylor Nation was pretty loud about this (number of rainbows = number of days leading to ME! release):
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3 days before ME! release, Taylor performs at the Time 100 Gala and it's the first and only time she switched so very clearly pronouns in the song, multiple times:
She sings repeatedly : I want HER midnights
And she even seems to be getting more and more confortable as the song goes on and singing it louder and louder.
She also looks at the crowd while singing it.
Then she releases ME!
That was really the first part of her coming out.
And honnestly, she shouldn't have had to do more than this.
ME! was released on April 26th.
April 26th in 2019 was Lesbian Visibility Day.
And she captionned the release with: ME! Out Now!
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A song about how she is unique as a Lover...
That is without mentioning the amount of rainbows everywhere in that MV as well as other references.
Worth noting that in 2019 Lil NasX came out in a MV with the rainbow tower and was annoyed that people didn't get it?
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Taylor also probably deadass thought that she made it obvious:
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May & June 2019 leading up to the big coming out:
Taylor continues to be as loud as she can.
She makes a very generous donation to GLAAD:
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She sings ME! every chances she gets, while flagging the Lesbian Flag.
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Taylor Nation also keeps on being really loud:
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And releases a song and music video about homophobia and includes herself front and centered in the LGBTQ+ community (represented by the Trailer park, note how Ryan Reynolds, the only straight person in the MV is outside of this park, not in it like Taylor).
With a bi flag wig...
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So yeah, she was trying really hard to make people see her.
Christian Siriano and the dress...
Back in April, we learned that Christian Siriano (a fashion designer) was working on a project for Taylor:
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In June, he started teasing us about a mistery rainbow dress for an unnknown person:
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It was heavily rumored that it would be the dress used by Taylor to come out at the end of Pride Month.
He kind of confirmed it with this post:
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Then. June 30th.
The New York City Pride.
Taylor planned to come out at the event.
Employees on site, starts to be warned about this (you can find some comments online).
Taylor learns at the same time as us that her masters were sold to Scooter Braun.
She never makes it to Pride.
And Billy Porter ends up wearing the dress:
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But. You can see that the dress was not meant to be worn by him. It doesn't fit well and the "nude" parts shows that it was meant to be worn by a white person.
In 2022, Christian confirmed it by dueting a TikTok talking specifically about this.
He deleted it right after but you can still find it on TikTok: (X)
Last minutes changes to Lover:
We now know that Taylor scrapped two songs from Lover: All Of The Girls You Loved Before and Need.
All Of The Girls is really loud and very clearly talks about a girl. Wich Taylor couldn't afford if she didn't want to/couldn't come out.
London Boy was actually written and added really last minute to the album.
Really interesting, because this is her loudest song about her loving boyfriend. Wich is a brilliant thing to do if you want to limit the public speculation after all the flagging that you did...
We know it was last minute, because Taylor sampled it on Cold War from Cautious Clay. (X)
He was called in the middle of the night and had to approve the sample right away.
Interesting fact: Cold War was featured in Book Smart, a movie Taylor promoted that year.
The song plays during a lesbian sex scene...
The intro to London Boy is actually Idris Elba in a interview where he was talking about a charity where he sold a date with him.
You know, people paid to date him...
The shift in the Lover Era:
After this, you can start to see a shift. Where it was colorful sequin and rainbows everywhere with colorful choreography.
She now dresses in black, is incredibly sad and sings mostly accousting song.
Like her BBC 1 performance or Lover In Paris:
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Miss Americana:
Miss Americana was supposed to be her coming out documentary.
It has been confirmed by the director of the project that a lot of footage has been scrapped.
Also, the documentary was supposed to be called : Is It Cool That I Said All That?
This is why the documentary sometimes feels like something is missing and some parts are rushed.
They tried to switch her coming out approach by making it her political activism era.
Taylor confirms it in Anti-Hero MV:
youtube
She's pierced through the heart by The Archer.
Her queerness starts showing (she's bleeding lavender glitters).
She tries to cover it up by taking the table cloth.
Her wanting to cover it spoils the dinner for everyone and they leave her.
And while she sings : "Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism, Like some kind of congressman?"
She covers her queerness with a sticker : Vote For Me, For Everything
Confirming that the political activism during Lover Era and mostly Miss Americana was in fact really to cover the fact that she was already one foot out of the closet when they had to backtrack.
With this. Take a look at the closing scene of Miss Americana. When The Archer is playing in the background.
It's a montage of Taylor talking to someone and Taylor on the release night of Lover.
Look at what Taylor says...
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Queerbaiting Backlash:
This might be the worse part in my opinion.
Since she was flagging so hard to come out.
Sadly, most people didn't get that that was exactly what she was trying to do.
And medias massively accused her of queerbaiting.
And using the queer community.
I'm still so mad and heartbroken about this....
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reusing an old Twitter post...
Even queer fans...:
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Frankly, speculating about her sexuality would have been way less damaging than this...
Songs about this event:
Taylor wrote a lot about this failed coming out.
The Archer, was her song about her anxiety about coming out. And begging her fans to stay.
I'm not gonna do a full lyrics analysis because this post is already a novel.
But read those lyrics with that in mind and you'll see how loud it is, and heartbreaking.
"I've got a hundred thrown out speeches I almost said to you"
Also. Worth noting that after Lover was released and she was not able to come out, she switched one lyric in that song.
Instead of "Combat, I'm ready for combat" singular (coming out was the combat she was ready to face)
She now sings every time "Combats, I'm ready for Combats", because coming out has turned into multiple battles that she has to face now...
Hoax:
Noticed how she says that all of her heroes die all alone in The Archer?
Her fear that if she comes out, all her fans would leave.
In Hoax she says: "You know the hero died so what's the point of keeping score movie for?"
Because with her Master Heist and everything, she was not able to be one of those heroes herself... The hero that she wanted to be died in that moment because she was unable to come out.
Edit: I messed up the lyrics. But it's even more telling. Because the movie she's talking about is Miss Americana, once she was unable to come out.
Evermore:
This song is litteraly her looking back at what happened and how she managed to process everything and ultimatly heal even though it felt at the start like she would never be able to.
"I've been down since July" - June 30th = failed coming out
"Motion capture, put me in a bad light" - Queerbaiting allegations. And Miss Americana being rebranded.
"Writting letters, adressed to the fire" - Her hundred thrown out speeches that she almost said.
"I rewind the tape, but all it does is pause, on the very moment all was lost" - June 30th...
"Sending signals, to be double crossed" - Her flagging strongly on her way to come out, only to be accused of queerbaiting.
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Right Where You Left Me:
The restaurant is a metaphor for the closet.
"Sitting in a corner I haunt, cross legged in the dim light"
Doesn't really feel like a restaurant, but her hiding in the closet.
"I swear, you could hear a hairpin drop. Right when I felt the moment stopped"
Droping hairpins is giving hints that you are gay.
She was doing this very loudly right before she was kept from coming out.
"Dust collected on my pinned up hair"
Her hair are still pinned up because she was not able to come out. And dust collected over time that she spent forced in the closet.
Anti-Hero:
AH is really The Archer 2.0, and talks about the same fear of coming out and being abandonned.
The fact that she decided to depict herself as the Anti-Hero is both really interesting and heartbreaking.
Because to her, the hero was the version of herself that was able to come out...
Listen to Change in the perspective of being able to come out and change the face of the industry:
"Tonight we'll stand, get off our knees
Fight for what we've worked for all these years
And the battle was long, it's the fight of our lives
But we'll stand up champions tonight"
They were the Champions.
Side note: she sang this song at the ACMA in 2010, two weeks before Chely Wright's coming out.
When we know that she has knowed and worked with Chely since about 2007.
Then Taylor wrote Long Live one month after Chely Wright's coming out.
Listen to the song with the same perspective as Change now.
"You held your head like a hero, on a history book page"
Chely Wright came out in May 2010. Taylor wrote Long Live in June 2010.
Look at the parallels of both songs.
And now, look at her choice to name that song Anti-Hero after everything that hapenned....
She also wrote Long Story Short and The Great War about that event, but this is for another post and it's about how this event affected her relationship with Karlie.
How she thought she was betrayed but ultimately found out it was not the case.
And how they both made it through.
Ok, I'm exhausted lol.
Sorry for writting a novel.
But this is such an important part of Taylor's history and I really wanted to do it justice (hope I was able to).
If you are still reading...Thank you for your question!
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liveontelevision · 6 months ago
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MY FAVE POOKIE.... BY ANY CHANCE CAN.. CAN YOU WRITE FOR A VAMPIRE LUCI?? <3 I FEEL LIKE YOU'D CAPTURE HIM PERFECTLY
YOU'RE ONTO SOMETHING HERE BBG
(You're drawing of vamp Luci is literal eye candy and I'M IN A SUGAR COMAAA) I got way into the lore here I literally did nothing but write and edit this today - THAT BEING SAID this may need a 2nd part but lmk what y'all think
CW: He's a vamp, so.. blood in suggestive situations obvi
♡♡♡
Bite Me | Vamp Lucifer x Reader
"Isn't it just amazing?" You hold a book, opened to a certain illustration, far too close to your friend's eyes. They push the book back a bit just to get a peak, considering their nose was essentially in the pages. The paper reeked of dust and mildew. They subsided a sound of disgust to inspect the illustration you were so eager to show off.
"Oh! This is that weird mansion on the other side of town, but.. it looks..." 
"Stunning? This was what it looked like when it was first built and look-" You excitedly point out a certain tower, it was so thin and far back, that not even the pencil of the original artist could capture its true detail.
"Wait,  that's not there anymore, is it? Weird." Your friend shrugged it off, clearly not as invested as you. You scoff, pulling the book to your chest.
"Well.. not in the daytime, at least." You muttered. This was your hometown's rumor that's been spread for centuries. On the highest hill, past the overcrowded forest, sits the darkest and most foreboding manor anyone has seen. Even the oldest living relatives of those who have seen it, never recall what it looked like in its glory days. No one's quite sure when it was first built. It's as if it had always been there.
No one would really talk, only the seniors and the more.. eccentric.. People would even mention it. A tower that exceeded the height of the full moon, which was the only time it was visible to the naked eye. You've seen it yourself. But you were too inspired, too invested, to be satisfied with a little rumor and a single sighting.
You did your research. You scowered the forest, only to get lost for hours. You managed to find the manor, but in its close proximity, there was no sign of that tower. You found a book, shoved away under some shelf in your public library, depicting poorly written journal entries and illustrations. From what you could decipher, it was older than the town.. it must belong to its original tenants.
The handwriting was almost entirely illegible, which was disappointing, but the pictures inside.. they were crafted beautifully. Scenic drawings of the forest, animals, and a few of a stunning woman were scattered throughout. Every historian you tried to contact left your messages unopened. Any townspeople you'd show the pictures to, to see if they’d recognize the woman at least, looked at you like you were crazy.
Well.. crazy or not, there's only one real way to settle this.
You mark your calendar, circling every full moon for the rest of the year. And it nearly took that long to finally spot the tower, again. After all this time, restless nights where you'd fall asleep with the book in hand, strained sessions of trying to decipher the wording, yet it all got you nowhere. You'd lost friends because of this. You've skipped dates. All because of this damned tower. 
But finally, here it is! Ready to throw yourself from your bedroom window, you take the bag that had been packed for months in case of this very instant, but decide it best to leave through the front door.
You had memorized the path to the manor at this point. What could possibly be drawing you in so deeply? What history could this place possibly hold? Who was the woman drawn in this book.. and who was the artist? You stood in awe, finally seeing the tower up close. The manor itself seemed to be made of an entirely different stone. You jot down your notes and the differences you're seeing in a small book.
You nearly squeal at the sound of the creaking double doors, as you step inside. It wasn't your first time here, you reach into your bag to obtain the little map you had drawn out a few weeks back. Were you going insane? Who's to say? You traced your finger across a path you had drawn, then with determination, went towards the corridor that should lead you to whatever you were looking for.
You stopped and took pictures on occasion, observing things you have seen countless times over the past few months. It still managed to take your breath away. You turned around, stepping backward, to observe the intricate detailing of the high ceilings, letting out little ooh's and aah's you'd assume no one would hear. But you couldn't be sure.
You nearly stumble, turning to face the corridor head-on. A crumbling noise had sent a shock of fear and curiosity into your heart. Was this place ready to cave in? Did something else cause the destruction?
As you continue on, you decide it best to place headphones over your ears. With one ear still slightly free, you do your best to distract your fears and keep exploring. As you hum along, occasionally breaking out into song, your eyes are drawn to a small doorway that definitely was not there during your previous visits. It's made of a different wood than the other doors. It looks.. newer. The handle seems used as If the oils of a hand had worn down its clean coating. This has to be it. Your hand is shaking as you reach for the door, and your heart drops for a moment. It’s warm underneath your touch. With a final breath, you open the door.
It’s.. not exactly what you were expecting. The door led to an impossibly long spiral staircase, you weren't sure if you could make it to the top before daylight. It's too late to go back now, though. You dredge on. As you start your climb, the music from your headset turns to static. And what you expected to be a mile-long staircase ended in mere seconds. Confused by the distortion of the building, you pull out your little journal to document your new discovery as you continue on. 
The steps lead into the tower, you were sure of it. The bricks of the walls and the wood of the doors, it was all different than the manor below. It opened into a short hallway, with a few doors on either side. Opposite to you was a window. It wasn’t shattered or cracked, or even dusty. You press your hands against it and lean forward to see the view of your town. In a stereotypical, I can see my house from here! moment, you pull out your phone to take yet another picture, but.. it's dead. After being fully charged before your arrival. Of course. It's a magical tower that only appears on a full moon and has disappearing staircases, you weren't too shocked by sorcery after what you've exposed yourself to.
As you take in the terrifying height of the structure from the window, something happens that officially startles you for the first time tonight. You hear a gruesome cackling from behind a nearby doorway.
You quickly find its source, pressing your ear to the wooden door. You couldn't make out any specific words, but there was a voice. It was a man's voice. He seemed to laughing, then groaning and complaining about something, then talking some more.. quite a blabbermouth for someone who seems to be alone, you don't hear any other voices.
You have a weapon in your bag. It's nothing fancy, just a little switchblade, but you assumed it'd be enough to ward off at least a single person. Just in case. You decide to go in.
"Oh, who am I kidding, this sucks!" An exacerbated groan, and the sound of something crashing, can be heard as you crack the door open a bit. You peek inside.
A pacing man is surrounded by trinkets, books and tools in some kind of workshop. He looks human.. almost. You notice his skin is nearly paper white. It has a beautiful glow to it, that contrasts against his mostly black wardrobe. You clock his clothes as almost Victorian, a puffed blouse that cinches in at his waist with the assistance of a red-laced vest. His heels seem a bit tall for the time period, but even then, he's actually rather.. short. Despite that, his hair was slicked back but seemed to be coming undone. You watch him pace around for a while longer, finally capturing his arms running through his hair. They're tapered black, as if his hands were dipped in soot. How odd. You want a picture. You want to talk to him, to ask him questions.
You're too engrossed in the view you were spying on to notice he had stopped his jabbering and was now frozen in place at the sight of you. An awkward amount of time passes before either of you make a decision on what to do next.
You decide it best to just forget about this random encounter. This was obviously just another dream. It wasn't, but this wouldn't even be the strangest one you've had. You finally break eye contact, pulling the door shut behind you.
You lean your entire body against it, desperate to keep him contained until you can get your thoughts straightened out. Maybe he's nice! Maybe he's not an insane, inhuman, tinkerer who talks to himself. Before you can think a moment longer, the door opens and thoroughly knocks you to the floor. You scuff your knees and palms against the stone floor, hissing at the wounds before turning on your back to face your attacker.
Okay, it wasn't an attack, exactly. He just opened the door you were standing in front of. You were a little shocked, considering you were putting your full weight on it and he swung it open like nothing was there at all.
your widened eyes were met with his yet again. They seemed different than before. His irises were suddenly glowing a crimson red, staring down at you with a look of disgust. Your heart rate quickens as you finally catch more of his features. The glow of his eyes and the moonlight from the window show off a set of demonic horns, twisting and turning from his temples, and pointed ears. Then finally, you spot his frown- then his fangs.
You slowly crawl backward, making as much distance as you can before your back hits the cold stone of the wall. Your breathing rapidly as he kneels down, continuing to observe your tense body language from such a close distance.
"What is this- how did you get in? I made a whole fancy labyrinth for you little humans and you still manage to pester me." He seems curious now, still annoyed by the interruption, but curious. He catches the sight of your blade, taking it from underneath your hand.
"And you thought this could kill me?" He scoffs, tossing it to the side. "I thought the ones smart enough to get in would put more effort into their weapon of choice." He finally stands, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at you. His piercing red irises had you staring for an inappropriately long time. He looks around, then behind him, in disbelief that you'd be this lost in his eyes. He clears his throat to get your attention.
"N-no! I don't want to kill you, I swear! I just.. I wanted to..." Why were you here again? To find what's inside the haunted tower? To explore a rumor and find the truth? You'd hate to consider it.. but could you have been wasting all this time after finally being faced with the anticlimactic answer? Your silence doesn't seem to amuse the stranger.
"What, you just stumbled upon my hidden tower? That doesn't sound right. Well, I'll tell you now, I'm not some genie or wizard- I won't grant you wishes or anything stupid like that." He starts to head back to his office. "I have nothing to offer you, so just pretend this is a nightmare or something and go home." You see a little flame puff from his lips as he speaks, clearly irritated by your presence. 
"Wait- wait! I forgot!" You stumble to your feet, wincing at the pain in your scraped knees, but still going on to fumble through your bag. You find your tattered book. The relic that started this all.
"Is this yours?" He takes the book from your hand, skimming through the pages then glaring back up to meet your eyes. 
"Did you steal this?" You shake your head with haste, watching him continue to examine the book. "Then.. yes. This is mine. I'm surprised it's still in one piece." He stops at one of the drawings of the woman. He brushes his hand across the illustration with a dreamy sigh.
"She's beautiful." Your voice breaks his concentration and you see his pale skin turn ever so slightly pink. 
"She is, isn't she?" With a warm smile, you almost forget his threatening nature.
"Who was she?" He looks away from you, letting the book shut.
"It's not important. You need to leave." He leads you to the door. You try to keep up with his strides, only to fumble, your knees weak and bruised from the previous fall. He spots the bleeding scuffs and groans.
"Good lord, you humans are so fragile." You hear him grumble before he's turned on his heels and is dragging you back towards that workshop you intruded on. He grabs you by your arms and guides you to sit down at a little table he had set up. You examined the room after he had walked away. You saw his workbench. It held numerous little springs and gears, paints, and brushes. Looking to the side, you see a shattered figurine, probably what he had thrown during his little tantrum you spied on.
Seeing him standing above you stops your wandering eyes. He kneels down, already wrapping your wounded knees in gauze. You watched him silently. You were surprised at how comfortable the space seemed, considering a man with a demonic presence was currently tending to you like a nurse.
"So.. what are you exactly?" You finally blurted out. You had so many questions, but this was a good place to start.
"Oh. Um.. I think I hear humans referring to me as a vampire." Your blood runs cold and you squeeze the edge of your seat on either side. You feel his hand tremor for a moment, letting his eyes linger on your legs before finishing up one knee with a neat tie. He moves on to the next.
"So you're immortal and drink blood and all that?" He scoffs at your questioning shaking his head. You sound like a curious child.
"That’s.. Mostly correct. Actually, your human literature seemed to accurately portray a lot of my abilities. I'm almost impressed."
"Should I be scared?" You ask with an almost teasing tone, as if that weren't possible.
"Why? Do you think I'm scary?" He looks up for a moment, meeting your eyes. Its subtle, but you see them glowing just slightly. And it almost makes you nervous. Enraptured in an emotion you have to assume is fear, you watch his hands trail around and calf to bring your leg a bit closer. He sticks out his tongue. It's similar to a serpents’. Your eyes follow his tongue to your knee, where he licks the entirety of the wound.
In a state of shock, all you do is tense in your seat, wincing from his action. His tongue reels back, stained with the blood from your own wound. He lets out a breathy hum, before realizing his place.
"E-excuse me, I uh.. have healing properties..?" You cock your head to the side, the confusion in your mind quickly replaced with curiosity.
"Woah, really?" He finishes off your other knee.
".. No. Okay, all patched up. You have to leave." He said hurriedly before the realization could set in. He was embarrassed by his actions sure, but the sunrise softly lighting the room seemed to make him anxious.
"Wait- no! I have so many questions! Why do I have to go? How does this place just vanish in the daytime? Why are you here all alone?" You start to ramble as he manages to move you with ease. "A-at least tell me your name!" You say quickly, breaking from his grasp just before he can shove you out the door. He stops and lets out a sigh.
"Fine. Here." He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a small golden crystal attached to a necklace. Forcing your eyes down to his dipped neckline made you a bit red in the cheeks. With a quick motion, he swings it over your neck.
"This is an Asmodean crystal. You'll be able to see and enter my tower on any night now. You.. you're welcome to return when you see fit." You stare at the small gem in amazement.
"And.. you're just trusting me with this?"
He shrugs, smiling at you for the first time tonight. "You haven't given me a reason not to. You're definitely not a threat." You hum in response, despite his obvious condescending nature. giving the gem one last examination, you tuck it away into your own shirt.
".. And it's Lucifer."
You can't help but grin. “Okay! Time to go! The sun’s almost up!” He rushes you.
"Hm! I'll be back, then, I promise! I'll see you, Lucifer!" You excitedly wave and head back down the stairs. Lucifer.. Your mind was running with possibilities as you left. You turned to the door before leaving, but by the time you looked back, it was simply.. bricked over. You felt almost disappointed. But feeling for the necklace and twirling it between your fingers reminds you that this was all real. He's real.
Lucifer said you could visit. And so you did. While you passed out almost immediately once you returned home, you waited eagerly for the sun to set the next night. You check your window, again. With the crystal squeezed tightly in your fist, you see the familiar tower yet again, despite the full moon being nowhere in sight.
Unfortunately, you are human. You do have a life to live. It took you a few days before you could visit, again, but eventually you did. And it was perfect. Looking down upon in your hometown, it was refreshing to have a new friend. You told him about your own life, giving him some brief history lessons on things he might not know, and bringing him the stereotypical vampire merchandise from current media. He deemed it offensive.
You got him to talk about his past after some pushing. He was one of many brothers, all of them were bloodsuckers of their own accord.
"Wow.. so you came from a whole family of vampires? I mean.. if you don't mind me asking, why aren't you there? What brings you to my glamorous little town?" You say your last question with an eye roll. You were seated at a little bench, a comfortable nook that was set at the window in his workshop, as you watched him working on some sort of mechanical toy. You notice a slight frown tugging at his lips in response to your question.
"Hm. My brothers aren't exactly a fan of me. And you speak sarcastically, but it is actually quite nice here. The air is clearer, and there's much less fire." You look out the window as he's talking.
"Wait.. less fire than where?" He slipped up. You've noticed over these past few visits that he's not too keen on disclosing certain parts of his past. You see him stop what he's doing and curse under his breath.
"I.. I'm from a different realm, of sorts. It's dingy and dark and everyone there cares for nothing but bloodlust." He explains carefully.
"Damn, that sounds like Hell." You pull your knees to your chest, just attempting to sympathize with him by your words.
"You have no idea." He chuckles in response, seeming disarmed enough to continue his tinkering.
"Do you ever go back there? You have to see your family sometimes, right?" He's groaning quietly at your questions.
"Well, yes and no. I'm always here in my tower. And I put a lot of work into making it my own. I'd keep it here forever if I could, but it takes quite a bit of energy from me to keep it in good shape in this realm, so when the sun is out-"
"You return to your own realm! Wow.." you wished you had your book on you to write all this down. But it seemed unnecessary to bring a survival kit here. You felt so safe. 
"How about that lady? In your book? Is she someone from that realm? A family member, maybe?" You bombard him with questions yet again. You do that a lot. He looked over at you with an unenthused glare. You laugh nervously and wave your hands. "N-Nevermind, sorry."
He's made it clear that he doesn't appreciate all these questions. But when he does open up, you can't help but appreciate his fantastical stories.
Looking for a change in topic, you approach his bench, looking over whatever he was working on. With one final screw being turned in, he looks up to you and shows you the small trinket silently. You take it, a bit nervous of its delicacy, and examine it.
"It's fine, it won't break." He rolls his eyes at your nerves. "Like this." He places a hand below yours to steady your grasp and lifts the top of the little round structure to reveal a little sculpted scene. It’s of a pond, with some fish and ducks visible on the pond. It looked so real, despite its size. He smirks at your enthralled expression, reaching for a small key on the back and turning it. It releases a gentle tune, the ducks suddenly spinning and dancing across the pond.
"A music box..?" You question. You look towards him and notice his reaction. He looks almost nervous like he was expecting some harsh critique.
"It's beautiful, Lucifer! Did you use magic or something? This is so cool!" Your outburst leaves him slightly surprised, and just a bit blushed.
"Y-Yes, it is pretty, isn't it?" He says softly, looking away with a smile. By the time he's looking back to you, still enjoying the little trinket, the sun is just peaking from the hills. He should rush to get you out of there. Humans don't belong in his realm, definitely not this one.. but he doesn't want this to end. He wants to show you more, while he listens to you rant about something useless. He shakes his head to reality. He can't have these feelings. Not again.
"It's morning. I'm afraid you have to go, dear." You look just as disappointed as he does, but follow him to the exit either way.
"Wait, here-" You hold the intricate music box back out to him, but he closes his hands around yours, encasing it in your grasp.
"Keep it." His hands are cold. You notice that his skin is always cold, no matter the weather. You wonder if he thinks about the warmth of your hands just as much. Your hands are held together for a bit too long, but the sight of your face in the golden light of the sunrise has him frozen in place.
"What happens if I stay?" Your hasty question snaps him away, quickly tucking his hands behind his back.
"Absolutely not." He says sternly, reaching around and opening his door. "Sorry.. I just.. It’s not safe. You’ll be back though, right?." He smiles, and it always disarms you. Briefly disappointed, you nod and give him a quick wave. You head back to your regular vampire-free life for the time being.
You find yourself back in his workshop, a few months later. The visits were becoming more frequent and neither of you seemed to complain about it.
Since then, the room has been decorated with pillows or blankets you've brought. On occasion, you'd go to see him just to sleep uncomfortably on the small cushioned nook near the window. He never seemed to mind. He'd wake you up carefully before the sun rose.
Other times, you'd bring him tools or gifts from your hometown that he might like, and occasionally you'd get him to eat actual food.
One night you set out one of your blankets on the ground and forced him to sit with you, after seeing him get flustered with whatever he was working on.
"Can you actually eat? Does it do anything for you?" He shrugs in response to your question, popping a little chocolate confection into his mouth.
"Not really. It's more for enjoyment than anything. And these are definitely enjoyable." As he hums at the sweets, he moves to lie down across the blanket, resting his head in your lap. "Where are they from?"
You look down at the little heart-shaped box you've both been taking the treats from and cringe.
"A.. uh.. person. It was a gift. Someone tried to take me out for Valentine's Day, but I wasn't interested." You say quietly.
"Right.. it’s Valentine’s Day… Well, what was wrong with them? Were they rude to you? Ugly?" He asks between bites. You laugh and take a chocolate for yourself.
"No, nothing like that.. they just..." They weren't you. "N-not my type is all." You stammer, quickly shoving the chocolate into your mouth. What are you thinking? He's laughing at you now.
"So you'd rather spend your Valentine's Day with an old crone?" He was joking, but he was right.
"Yeah.. I think I would, actually. I love visiting you." You said calmly, trying your best to keep the compliments.. platonic. Peeking down at him for a second, you notice his tense posture and pink cheeks.
"I-I just- it's not that big a deal, I mean, I've never really celebrated Valentine's Day anyway, so.." You start to fidget with your crystal necklace, picking at the thread and running your thumb along its smooth surface.
"Well..! Then... I'm glad you're enjoying my company, I suppose." He tries to de-escalate the brief tension. You change the subject matter.
"Well, if we're getting on my social life, then I have a question." You finally say. He seems nervous for a moment but is playing it cool to the best of his ability.
"Shoot."
"So, you stay in your tower all day, don't see your family, I don't even hear you talk about that woman from your drawings.. Have you just been alone this whole time?"
He freezes for a moment, before putting a chocolate back into the box and clearing his throat.
"No.. not the whole time." He sighs, standing and going to fetch something. He returns to sit across from you and you’re a little disappointed he didn’t return his head to rest in your lap. It was a journal, it had a similar binding to the one you had found over a year ago.
"Her name is Lillith." He starts, flipping the pages and stopping at one of her drawings. "She's from my realm, and.. we fell in love." For some reason, your heart ached at his words. "I decided to show her this place many years ago, and she wanted to see a nearby village, so.. we went down there together. It was disgusting. People were treating each other so foul, it was loud and dirty, and there was no sign of intelligence." His voice goes dark for a moment, allowing you to flip through the book. "But Lillith loved them. She saw their potential and.. wanted to stay with them. So we made a deal. She'd explore the village when the full moon was out and then return to me the rest of the time."
You look up from the book, seeing that her drawings had stopped about halfway through. The rest of the book was empty.
"So is she.." you mutter, letting the book drop to see his pained expression.
"I haven't seen her in years. Might be decades at this point, but.. it's hard to keep track. I have no idea where she could be, but if she ever returns then-"
"You're waiting for her?" You interrupt, your voice has a hint of irritation to it.
"Hm. I guess I am. I've given up trying to find her, but I still keep this place standing. Just in case." His face reads dejected as he speaks.
"Do you still love her?" You ask. Of course, he does. He's a romantic, waiting for his long-lost love to return. But he looks at you, with a worried expression. Like he wanted to reassure you that wasn't the case.
"I..I do." He says softly. You feel your chest aching still, and you clench the blanket in your fists on either side of you. "I think so? I-I'm not sure." He groans, running his hands through his hair. "Is that terrible of me?" 
You think for a moment. You have to tread lightly. If he truly loves her, it might be best for you to keep your distance to avoid any.. confusion. You let out a defeated sigh, placing your hand on his shoulder to bring his panicked attention back to you.
"Not at all. It's.. nice. That you can love someone that much, especially after all this time." He smiles in return, placing a hand over top of yours.
"How long has it been, do you think?"
"Hmm.. From what I remember.. when were hot air balloons invented?" He genuinely questioned.
"Good lord."
(The answer is over 300 years ago)
You stopped visiting him for a while. After that night, you needed to step away and consider what you were really doing. He's not just an immortal vampire, he's an immortal vampire still holding out hope for a woman he hasn't seen in centuries. And you're just a human. That kind of relationship only works in movies. The sleep schedule you've created has nearly destroyed your social life and you barely have energy in the daytime anymore. Maybe it was for the best to keep your distance. But you have to tell him that. You can't just disappear, he doesn't deserve to feel that pain, again.
You enter his tower as usual, bringing an empty bag to escort some of your belongings back home. To your apartment, your awful tiny apartment. You avoid comparing it to the elegant manor, it's only making you want to back out. You go through the hall, swinging his workshop door open.
"Luciferrr! Sorry to be away for so long, but I think we should talk." You look around to realize you are speaking to an empty room. You look back to the hall. You've never been through any of the other rooms, but he had to be somewhere. And he wasn't responding to your calls.
You open each door carefully, seeing mostly empty storage and cobwebs. One of the rooms was filled to the brim with clothing from all decades. You make a mental note to tease him for playing dress up, later.
You knock at each door, finally opening one that greets you with the warmth of a bedroom. And by warmth, you mean it. You take any coat you were wearing off, finally spotting Lucifer lying in the elegant bed in the center of the room.
"Huh.. I thought you said vampires don't need sleep." You call out, letting your eyes scan the room as you approach the bedside. He's curled up and unresponsive. His sudden panting briefly eased your nerves, at least he’s breathing.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to just barge in, but.. Lucifer? Are you okay?" You reach out and place your hand to his shoulder. He's hot to the touch. You move his body so that he's lying on his back, and he seems even more distressed.
"L-Lucifer..? Lucifer!" You try to speak quietly, but his actions are making you nervous. He finally shoots upward, gripping his bare chest in an attempt to calm his rapid breathing. He does a double take, not believing that you were at his side. Not to mention your scared expression, which is only causing him more concern.
"I-I'm alright! I'm okay.." He lets out a sigh, brushing his hair back. He scans the room, peering out the window. "Ah, nighttime already? I'm sorry, darling, I didn't mean to worry you." He turns back to you, seeing your still-shaken expression. "I slept in! It's okay!" He reassures, patting the side of his bed. You hesitate, but sit down either way.
"I thought.. You didn’t need sleep." You say softly, looking to calm yourself.
"I don't, but it is relaxing sometimes."
"That didn't look relaxing at all."
"Well.. I did say only sometimes." You let out a quiet chuckle and it brings a smile to his face.
"I rest when I'm feeling a bit weak, usually a quick nap helps. But.. sometimes I get nightmares and they're-" You interrupt him.
"Weak? Why are you feeling weak? Did something happen?" You lean in, still feeling uneasy.
"... Just a bit. Don't get me wrong, I am quite powerful-” He loves to gloat about his abilities, your usual reactions of amazement never got old. “-but.. this tower takes its toll on me sometimes. It takes a lot of energy to set up illusions and tricks to keep humans out. I just needed a quick pick me up, that's all." That seemed to calm you a bit, but it did bring up another concern.
"Lucifer.. why do you keep coming back here? Is it worth the trouble? Is.. she worth the trouble?" You ask timidly. His eyes are soft, looking in your direction. It turns you a bit red, you hope you can blame it on the heat of the room if he asks.
"I don’t know.. I’ve been thinking. I-If Lillith has any plans on returning, I'd think she would've done so by now." You feel hopeful, but you attempt to not let it show. "But, I've been here for centuries and I've grown rather fond of... the atmosphere." He tries to reason. He pulls your chin forward, greeting you with a sweet smile. "I'm alright, I promise."
You can't help but return the smile, but you miss his touch once he pulls away. At this point, you're finally taking in his appearance. He's covered in sweat, the bags under his eyes are tremendous and his lips are trembling a bit to keep up a smile.
"Are you sure? You still seem.." You reach your hand out, as if you were about to touch his face, but you see him reel back.
"Clearly, I didn't get a good night's rest.. maybe you should head home, dear, I'm not much fun to be around when I'm like this.." He sulks, making it a point to avoid looking at you. With just the sight of you, he might as you to stay.
"No!" His wide-eyed expression shows that you've clearly just embarrassed yourself. "No, I mean- I don't want to leave. Can I help? Can you.. drink my blood or something? Would that do anything?" He's immediately blushing at your suggestion, right to the tips of his ears. He quickly declines.
"No. Nonono.. That is not happening." He crosses his arms over his still bare chest, which neither of you has mentioned yet. That’s not to say you haven't been staring.
"Would it help?" You ask. He sighs and nods. "Would it kill me?" He shakes his head. "Not if I'm careful.."
"Will it turn me into a vampire or something?" He shakes his head, again.
"Then do it. I want to help you! It's the least I can do since you’ve been so sweet to me." You say sternly, beginning to move the strap of your shirt, revealing a bare shoulder.
"Woah woah, okay. Fine.. I’ll just take a little. Since you're so insistent." He moves your strap back up your shoulder carefully. "And there's no need for that, dear, don't get too excited." He teases. He looks like he’s on the brink of death, yet he still manages to make fun of you.
"I-I'm not excited! Shut up.." you stammer, as you feel him pull your hand towards him, keeping a grip just below your wrist.
"Whatever you say." His smirk has you blushing, again." you ready?" You nod your head, attempting to keep a straight face despite the reality of the situation.
He leans forward to face you, and you move closer to be more comfortable. With his clawed hands still holding your arm delicately, he brings your palm to his lips. You feel his hot breath against your skin and instinctively flex your hand. He stops abruptly and looks at you.
"I-I'm fine, just do it already!" He rolls his eyes and positions his fangs right at the pulse point on your wrist. With a deep breath from both of you, he sinks his teeth into your flesh. The skin is thin there, so it wasn't as painful as you thought it would be.
It's awkward for a moment, you don't feel any different at first. But looking towards Lucifer, you see his eyes turning that glowing crimson red that had startled you when you first met. Sure, it still startled you now, but it was Lucifer. He's not as scary as he looks, you tell yourself. You feel a breath of hot air from his nostrils, realizing he had been holding his breath this whole time. His eyes fluttered shut, and that's when you felt it.
It felt like getting your blood drawn, but his fangs were less painful than the needles somehow. You'd only notice your hand start to fall asleep after a while. But his expression stopped you from saying anything. His heavy breaths against your skin, as he occasionally pulled away to lick the wound clean, only to sink his teeth back in the same spot. You placed your free hand over your mouth to prevent any noises from escaping your lips. He pulled off for a moment, then sunk his teeth in another spot, feverishly placing multiple bite marks across the entirety of your wrist. You attempt to speak up through your hand.
"L-Lucifer.. I-I'm..!" He stops almost immediately, sitting up straight and blinking his eyes back to their usual hue. He looks down to your wrist, a mess of bite marks, all still leaking your crimson blood. Your hand had fallen slack.
"Sorry! Sorry-" He runs his tongue across the wounds, it seemed to stop the blood for now. "How do you feel?" Your eyes are dazed a bit, and when you go to prop yourself up on your previously ravished wrist you fall forward. He catches you by your arms, before you can fall away from the bed. You shake your head, finally looking at him through half-lidded eyes.
"I'm okay.." you say weakly. He's nervously trying to keep your head up, and brushing hair away from your face. He moves to the other side of the bed, and brings you along to lie down beside him. He sits on his knees to examine you, keeping a hand cupping your cheek. It's cool to the touch again, a relief for you. You shakily place your hand on top of his, then look towards him. "You look amazing, Lucifer~" You say with a dizzy smile. Despite the wording, you were right. His skin had brightened up, and he instantly lost the bags from his eyes.
"I might've done too much.." He mumbled, tracing his free hand across your wrist. "You're starting to sound crazy."
"No..! I mean it, you're just.. beautiful.. quite a sight." You're delirious. He starts to worry, suppressing his excitement for the oncoming compliments. He'll have to let you rest, no matter how disappointed that made him. He'd missed your company these past few days.
"Whatever you say, darling. Go ahead and rest, I'll get you some water." And he does just that.
You had left some water bottles and snacks here a few months ago, so he hastily took those and brought them back to you. He set everything on the nightstand and went over to open the glass doors to the balcony of his room, bringing in a fresh night breeze. He put an actual shirt on, finally, on the way to look over you from the side of the bed. 
You were just sitting up, leaning against the headboard as you took a very needed gulp of water.
"So? How did I taste?" You tease, stretching your hand now that you’re regaining feeling.
"Delicious." He sounds flirtatious but almost serious. It has you blushing.
Lucifer had gone off to work on something after you insisted you'd be fine and just needed a few more minutes of rest. That didn't go how you expected. You came here to set some boundaries and here you are in his bed, covered in bite marks. The implications alone made you groan from embarrassment.  And slightly in disbelief. You huff and attempt to stand, it’s not too bad, then move to the balcony and lean against the railing. The breeze ran through your hair and across your heated face, you let out a sigh of relief.
"Feeling better, dear?" His voice has you turning your head a bit, and you greet him with a smile. You nod your head before returning your eyes to the town below.
“I’m glad. Thank you, for.. Letting me do that.” He says, sounding a bit shy. He joins you, leaning against the railing by your side. You both stand in silence for a moment.
"I think I'm in love with you, Lucifer." Maybe it was the blood loss or the sheer exhaustion, but something just forced those words from you. You keep your eyes away from him. If this could be the last time you see him, bringing this dream to an end, then you might as well let it out.
"O-Oh..! Hm! Well, that's uh.." He hoots, and you see his hands flexing against the railing. He can't even form a real response.
"It's stupid, I know. I'm a human, and you're this crazy immortal being. Plus, you just drank my blood. Maybe I'm still delirious.." You continue to toy with your gifted necklace, still keeping your eyes low. You don't know how you would react if you could see his expression right now.
"So.. you would... you want to be with me?" That's what he asks? That's his response?
"I-I mean.. yeah. You're my best friend, you're handsome and smart, and you're inventive and... I just love being around you. I want to.. I want to make you happy, but I just don't know if that's something I can do." Your gaze is finally brought to his when his claws gently guide your chin towards him. His expression is that of pure infatuation. You'd never expect to see him look like this, not when looking at you.
"You make me plenty happy, darling." Your eyes go wide.
"You're bright and fun, and you're adorably curious- I just worry as well. I'll outlive you. I've been locked up here for so long, I don't know how much I can offer you.. but it's definitely less than you deserve." His words send a pain to your chest. You both know, based on fact alone, it just wouldn't work.
"I only want you to be happy as well, love." His words force a nervous sigh from you. This seems like a night for bold decisions, so you decide to make another. You turn to face him, bring him in by his collar, and press your lips against his in one fell swoop. Giving him no time to comprehend the situation, he lets out a muffled exclamation into your lips. It felt like hours before you feel his hands on your waist, and his lips desperately ravishing yours. He pulls you closer to him, his hands now reaching your hips and gripping you tighter. You pull his lower lip down with your thumb, keeping a hand on his jaw as you do so, and begin to explore his mouth with your tongue feverishly. A small yelp at the boldness comes from Lucifer before his forked tongue is dancing with yours. You can still taste your own blood on his lips.
He turns the both of you, having your back pressed against the railing of the balcony, giving him the chance to corner you into being as close as possible. He leans his chest into yours, moving in even more. You're leaning over the railing just slightly, but one of his hands is firmly planted against your back, giving you a sense of security. The other is still gripping at your hips, occasionally slipping upwards to brush the bare skin beneath your top, his cool touch acting as a reminder that this is really happening. He props his knee between your legs, having to force them apart gently to do so.
You pull away with a deep exhale after realizing you've been anxiously holding your breath this whole time. Even leaning away from him, your mind was running rapidly with thoughts of his body. You trace your thumb over his lips, parting them just slightly to examine his fangs. He's turning red with the close inspection.
"W-What are you doing..?" You understand what he's trying to say, but his words are still muffled by your hold on him. He sees your eyes ponder for a moment before you look back to him.
"Bite me." You say sternly. Your hand slips away from his mouth and you start speckling small kisses across his forehead and cheeks, lifting his head slightly with a kiss to his jaw.
"Excuse me?? You want-" You hush his stammering by pulling back, to look into his eyes one more time.
"I want you to bite me.. my neck, I mean." You clearly weren't budging. He still seems hesitant but proceeds to move any hair away from your shoulder
"What, does someone enjoy being bitten?” He asks in a teasing tone, looking at you with a smirk. With a deadpan expression, your eyes brimming with lust, you take a hold of his collar again and pull him into a messy kiss. When you pull back, you see a dazed Lucifer, struggling to keep eye contact.
“Yes.”
He huffs, completely enthralled in your enthusiasm, but still seeming nervous. He pulls the strap to your shirt to the side, examining your collarbone and neck. You hear him gulp, as he runs his hand upward until it’s cradling the back of your head.
“I tend to lose myself a little. You saw what happened before, are you sure-"
"I'm sure. I'll tell you if you have to stop." Still very adamant about it, Lucifer pulls your head to one side as you keep your grip on his shirt, balling the fabric in your fists with anticipation.
He places a small kiss first, the action causing you to flinch slightly. You feel him smile on your neck, clearly enjoying your reaction. He kisses every inch of you, each one becoming sloppier than the last.
After thoroughly leaving you in a dazed state of affection, he traces his face to the softest part of your neck, just above your collarbone, and quickly snaps through the skin. With a startled yelp, you glide your hand upward until you've taken a tight grip onto his hair. You barely have time to appreciate how soft it is before you feel the sensation of his fangs piercing a different spot of flesh.
He doesn't seem to be taking much blood.. Definitely not as much as before and not as quickly. It's leaving your head slightly fuzzy, making any sensations, any marks he's leaving on your body, blur into an overall bliss. You're thoughtlessly letting out little moans and gasps at each bite, only encouraging him to keep it up. You feel the vibrations of his groaning against your skin as he moves to hold you tightly around your waist. After a few moments, you start to feel a bit woozy, your body completely melting into his touch. You tap his shoulder quickly,
"Ah.. Lucifer-" Just as before, he made sure to clean any wounds that were still dripping with blood, but he went on to embellish each one with a kiss before pulling away. He looks at you with concern, cupping your cheek and bracing the weight of your lulling head. You smile and hum into his palm.
"How are you doing, darling?" He actively inspects your entirety before meeting your eyes again.
"Lovely~" You say with a drunken chuckle. He pulls you in for another kiss, before easily scooping you up.
"Alright, then.. let's get you to bed, you little perv.” You hit his chest to the best of your ability in your weakened state. His laughter is music to your ears. You’re too tired to worry about how this will affect your relationship. Or your physical health for that matter. But for now, nothing has felt more comforting than his arms wrapped around your body, the cold soothing the heated moment, and your dizzy mind.
♡♡♡
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!Taglist!
( @vififofum / @thornwolfy235 / @tinywolfiegirl / @chipper-chip / @bat-boness / @misfitgirlwrites / @nayomi247 / @lonelynmisunderstood / @escapistoftherealworld / @b4ts1e / @hamthepan / @kyo-kyo1 / @looking1016 / @polytheatrix / @littledolly2345 / @lillianastuff / @yourlocalcryptidbee /@0strawberrysorbet0 / @themageofblood / @jayyyayaysblog / @floralsightings / @azmosposts / @8har0ley8 / @actuallyspiderwoman / @sirenetheblogger / @christineblood / @kaytemchugh / @cimadreamer / @simpdevil66 / @azmosposts / @m3ow1 / @acrazyartist / @redfoxwritesstuff / @4k1to / @meesachan / @corvusskid / @alientee /@xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx / @alon3lylov3r /@sapphireravensworld / @mjmdragons / @catticora / @the-maladaptivedaydreamer / @carrie0-1 / @shamblezzz / @cassandras-nest )
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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 2 years ago
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book 7 part 2 thoughts~
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***THIS POST CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 7, PART 2 OF THE MAIN STORY AND DORM UNIFORM LILIA’S VIGNETTES.***
Please note: this is NOT meant to be a summary or a translation; these are only my initial thoughts on the events that unfold. There may be details overlooked or misunderstood in this post, so PLEASE do not use this as a translation.
As expected, Malleus did get invited to the party (he was the first person Lilia thought of).
GAO-GAO DRAGON-KUN OMG Malleus’s silly virtual pet actually ties into the themes and concerns of this episode!! Every 30 days, Gao-Gao “leaves” (I think it dies, Tamagotchis have short life spans. Either that, or it actually moves away) and you have to start over with a new egg. (Malleus cried the first time it happened and ran to sob to Lilia about it.) It reminds him of the brevity of human lives compared to his own…
Lilia drops a bunch of depressing lines about how it’s because something comes to an end that you have to cherish the time you spent with it… that it’s hard to say goodbye the more time you spend with something, etc.
More Silver lore too?? Malleus got Gao-Gao Dragon-kun around this time; Silver was found in a forest, etc.
DORM UNIFORM LILIA SPOILERS BTW (and more Silver lore): BRO HOW IS LILIA’S SPECIAL TALENT “BABYSITTING”, IT SOUNDS LIKE HE RAISED SILVER KIND OF. UH. ROUGHLY???? And once Lilia left baby Silver in his cradle… outside, unattended… WHEN SILVER WENT MISSING LILIA’S JUST LIKE, “Oh, I’m sure he’ll come back eventually!!” The Zigvolts had to intervene and teach (well, scold) Lilia that babies don’t come back on their own???????????? Since then, the Zigvolts insisted on having Silver over whenever Lilia is away for extended periods of time.
Lilia’s farewell party… I’m surprised that everyone showed up as intended, even people that aren’t close with Lilia or Diasomnia (lookin’ at you, Leona-san), but it’s nice that everyone is coming together for this moment 😭
AHHHHHH TREY TALKS ABOUT LILIA BEING HIS CLASSMATE AND FELLOW VICE and indirectly dunks on his ability to follow a recipe.
Cater takes one last selfie with Lilia and even talks about how lonely it will be… OH GOD, COME TO THINK OF IT this would hurt Cater a lot, seeing as he has had to move away from a lot of his own friends in childhood, and now a friend and club mate of his is doing the same…
RIDDLE SHUT UP DON’T BRING UP EPISODE 2, WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THAT. (… Real talk though, it’s sweet that Riddle’s showing Lilia so much respect, he’s observant of Silver and Sebek as their Equestrian Club senpai too (commenting on how he notices that Silver and Sebek speak highly of Lilia). It feels like Lilia is leaving his children in Riddle’s care adhabsodbasasdfewpqf)
Mmm, it sounds like Leona came for social grace reasons (comes with a heavy side of sarcasm).
DNLFDSOIYFWF BAHAHAHAHA OF COURSE RUGGIE CAME FOR THE FREE EATS
WHJ AT THE FUCKING ADSKJ ADFLH ISDBILADFBIUOLADFLI FUFKCCVKKFKKKKKKL???????? LEONA SUDDENLY STARTS SPEAKING REALLY. ELOQUENTLY?????????????????????
Leona wants to peace out now (before Malleus shows up), but Ruggie fights him because he wants to eat more of the fuggin’ food asdlihbasbiydasbibfasdbiaqwh MOOD RUGGIE 
Haha, Leona’s kind of coerced (?) into staying.
SEBEK IS HOLDING HIMSELF BACK FROM PICKING A FIGHT WITH LEONA FOR TALKING RUDELY TO/ABOUT LILIA
Malleus is nowhere to be seen. Silver goes to look around the party for him. Sebek wants to go too, but his stomach growls and he is excused to go eat.
AYYYY The Mostro Lounge is catering the party. Making their coin honestly for once! They even gave some free seafood fishes and desserts, how kind of Azul…
GOD THEY’RE BRINGING UP EPISODE 2 SO MUCH, I realize now that that’s when a lot of the characters got caught up with Diasomnia??
AHHH THE STAFF ARE AT THE PARTY TOO, I SEE SAM AND TREIN 
OH MY GOD, IS JADE REALLY FISHING LILIA FOR INFO ON MALLEUS AT HIS GOING AWAY PARTY. THIS MAN NEVER STOPS
Kind of ominous, but Lilia mentions (in response to Floyd) that he doesn’t want people (Diasomnia) to see “this side” of him. His weakness??? I’m guessing???? He doesn’t want Silver, Sebek, and Malleus to see him on his death bed???????
Not gonna lie, I fully expected Kalim to be BAWLING about Lilia going. I’m glad that he was able to be emotionally mature and hold back his sadness to see Lilia away with a smile.
Silver comes back to Lilia to report that Malleus is nowhere at the party. He then runs off to search for him. (Lilia was about to say his farewells without Malleus, but Silver raises his voice at Lilia and says that’s NOT okay to do.)
adhbVOSYDvdiabid SEBEK COMES OVER WITH HIS MOUTH CRAMMED FULL OF FOOD HE SOUNDS SO CUTE
Lilia’s age is confirmed to be roughly 700 years old. biuabo8ysdyasbiiafb SEBEK TELLS VIL AND ROOK TO STFU WHEN THEY REACT WITH SHOCK TO LILIA’S TRUE AGE.
OH????? ZIGVOLT GRANDPA NAME DROP, IT’S “BAAL”???????? Not sure if that’s how you spell it, but it is pronounced like “Baul”.
Malleus is confirmed to have ancestors that were actual dragons. It seems that dragon fae are indeed a cross between dragons and fairies.
For dragon fae, 200 years is considered still a baby/child, 500 is still young, and 1000 is an adult.
Lilia says that his own species can live up to 1000 years, but that due to his own recklessness his age is starting to catch up to him sooner than anticipated. Sooo… 1000 years is the maximum lifespan for Lilia’s species (~80ish years old average for humans), but Malleus’s species appears to live longer (since 1000 seems to be like a dragon fae’s 18-year old equivalent).
At this point, I realize all the first years are not included in the dorm meetings with Lilia. Pretty sure they will get their own segment later (from future Raven: yes, they do).
DFNADLIBYABILFIAAFB CUT TO IDIA’S ROOM, ORTHO’S TRYING TO WAKE HIM UP FOR LILIA’S PARTY
Idia’s crying about his long-time friend Crimson Muscle quitting gaming and totally going offline (wiped his Magicam account). This is killing Idia emotionally and he cannot bring himself to go to attend the party. IDIA’S FINALLY REALIZING THE magic VALUE OF FRIENDSHIP… 
Ortho offers to find Crimson Muscle’s real identity out using his Robot Hacks??? But Idia cancels the idea because he thinks it would kill the magic to know about his friend’s irl self it’s creepy.
Idia tells Ortho to go to the celebration without him. OH MAN, THIS IS THE LOOPHOLE TO KEEP IDIA FROM GETTING CAUGHT UP IN THE (anticipated) SLEEPING SPELL MALLEUS WILL CAST.
Cut to a snow-covered Main Street, Silver has finally located Malleus.
NAUUUUR Silver is outright sobbing in front of Malleus 😭 He’s so sad about Lilia leaving, he had always intended to be by his side until the end. Lilia has still done so much for him… Lilia raised him as a single parent and Silver feels like he disappointed his dad for not fulfilling his wish (to send him off with a smile) before he left, and Silver will never have the strength nor the time to truly be worthy of Lilia in his “final moments in a foreign country” (IS THAT IMPLYING LILIA IS HEADED OFF SOMEWHERE SO NO ONE HAS TO WATCH HIM SLOWLY WITHER AWAY AND DIE… .… ….. .. …. … …. . )
B r u h Malleus just listens to Silver and says some uh… cryptic sad stuff. “Grandmother always told me that the Draconia line was blessed with great power to protect the smiles of everyone under our rule” but now Malleus is sad because even with all that power, he cannot protect what he loves most.
I think. Silver crying about his mortality and not being able to be with Lilia until the very end triggered something in Malleus.
OH NO YABAI YABAIIIIII MALLEUS THINKS ABOUT HOW HE SHOULD DO ANYTHING IN HIS POWER TO PREVENT HIS LOVED ONES FROM GOING AWAY… He then crazy laughs and poofs himself and Silver off, which is followed by a ton more blot pooling. NOT A GOOD SIGN AT ALL.
Cut back to the party on that ominous note 🙂
ORTHO IS FINALLY AT THE PARTY, EVERYONE POP THE BOTTLES
I’m so glad Grim is fucking eating well, he deserves it!!!
OH MAN ORTHO CAME SO CLOSE TO FIGURING OUT LILIA IS CRIMSON MUSCLE……… ….… .… . .. .
IHDBAYOBFOY8QEFQB LILIA IS SUPER INTO HIS BERRY JUICE????? It’s like his alcohol, I swear…
Yup, I was right adhabildsbasda Lilia’s hanging out with the first years, thanking Jack for episode 2, talking about VDC with Epel, etc. His dad energy is really coming out strong, he imparts wise words to Jack and Epel.
Okay, so it looks like the Land of Crimson Long doesn’t…???? Have???? Internet?????? HUH???? So no gaming for Lilia… RIP IDIA HIS GAMING BUDDY REALLY IS GOING BYEBYE FOREVER
Aw, Lilia thanks Yuu for being Malleus’s friend and says that he hopes they will continue being that for him, as Malleus still has a lot to learn.
Oh no 🤡 Yuu’s dreams are now prominently seeping into their consciousness too; they got a vision of Maleficent right after Lilia talked to them. Yuu gets briefly disoriented, which concerns Adeuce and make the group think about leaving the party early since they already greeted the host.
Lilia offers a comment that makes me rethink the “Silver and Yuu are somehow tied” theories 🤔 Basically, Lilia thought Yuu was falling asleep standing up like Silver??? Which. Could just be a one-off comment, but what if it means something more…? Does Silver actually also have those prophetic Disney movie dreams????? 👁️
NAUR THEY MENTIONED EPISODE 2 AGAIN MY BELOATHED A DHOBYISDBdpgeophfasp Adeuce remember Lilia helping them during the stampede incident!! They’re sad because they never had a chance to repay him, and now Lilia is up and leaving… but Lilia says it’s okay, they can repay him by helping out Sebek (who is still struggling to get along with others due to his attitude).
LMAO Ace is all like, “no one at this school is the type to kindly offer their hand to help”, and barely anyone will accept that help either. Methinks this smells like setting up some foreshadowing for when the tables get turned when the conflict gets resolved.
ADFHBFADIYLFAIQFEILADFAD THERE’S AN AWKWARD ASS SCENE WHERE SEBEK IS FORCED TO FACE THE OTHER FIRST YEARS (Ortho included, yay!!) AND TRYING TO… JUST BE CIVIL…………… … . .… . ….… . . (spoiler: Sebek fails, he calls them all shallow–)
The first years are interrupted by Crowley announcing that it’s time for Lilia to go now. Wait, so soon?????? It felt like the party only just got started… SILVER AND MALLEUS AREN’T EVEN BACK YET????????
Of course, Sebek tries to stop Lilia from departing before Malleus and Silver come back.
Lilia gives a big speech to everyone about his time at NRC, asking Sebek to communicate this same message to the other two later. Lilia first got invited to NRC 500 years ago but had no interest in enrolling until Malleus was later invited as well. Aw… Lilia says he’s grateful he was able to spend three years with everyone 🥺
Right as Lilia finishes?????? Who should arrive but Malleus and Silver in a burst of green flames!! (From the sound effects, it sounds like there was also a strong wind blowing.) Their eyes are red, and they’re covered in snow. Lilia wonders if Silver has been crying (yes, he has).
OH MY GOD MALLEUS SAID THE THING, HE SAID IT. It’s basically his equivalent to Maleficent’s “Well, quite a glittering assemblage. Royalty, nobility, the gentry, and … how quaint. Even the rabble,” line.
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Malleus apologizes for his tardiness; he says he was mulling over what gift to bring (even though the invitations Lilia sent out said “no gift required”). HIS WORDING IS SO FUCKING SUS, HE’S LIKE, “I wasn’t sure what gift to give to you (Lilia)”, then changes it and says “to you all/everyone”. Finally, he settled on bestowing a blessing on them for this special occasion.
IT’S HAPPENING IT’S HAPPENING OH NO 🤡 Malleus tells everyone in attendance that there’s no need for them to feel sad or worry about anyone leaving anymore… It’s no longer a celebration of farewell, but the celebration of a new beginning, for he will send them into a world where no one will lose anything–not friends, nor family.
ORTHO BABY MY BELOVED 😭 He senses a really fast blot accumulation and warns the guests to evacuate!!
There’s a battle here (Crowley allows it) and if you thought the episode 6 battles were bad, YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET. Malleus has like 300,000 health and regens a ridiculous amount of health. I think it’s a scripted loss???
Ooooh, I think Lilia’s deteriorating magic is legit?? He tries to stop Malleus but can’t because his magic isn’t manifesting. (I can’t think of a reason why he would restrain himself from spellcasting when the family he loves is in very real danger and lashing out at his school companions.) NO MALLEUS DOnmT CALL LilLIA PITIFUL ShUT UP
SHIT’S HITTING THE FAN, MALLEUS IS LOSING IT, HE’S SHOUTING AT EVERYONE, DIASOMNIA IS SHOUTING BACK (Silver and Sebek are just. GOD. Silver tells Lilia to get away, he realizes that Malleus is not being himself… Sebek’s trying to calm Malleus down but of course it isn’t doing ANYTHING.)
“IM DOING THIS SO I WON’T LOSE YOU!!!” – Malleus to Lilia
NOOOOO
NOOOOOOOO OO O O O O OOOOOO OO O O O O O OO OOO
Malleus unique magic reveal!!! “Fae of Maleficence” (in Kanji, it is written as “The Blessing”). We get the chant too!! “Spin the thread of disaster on the spinning wheel of Fate. For I, the King (/Ruler) of the Abyss, shall bestow it upon you.” EPISODE TITLE DROP??????
Thorns engulf the whole island and send everyone into slumber… Students, staff, Grim, Ortho (the robot), and it seems even Yuu. RSA is most likely fucked too 😔
I think Idia is probably spared since he’s still in Ignihyde, which is considered a pocket dimension of its own outside of the island??? (Malleus’s magic probably loses range after the pocket dimension of Diasomnia and Sage’s Island?) So it really IS up to him to be the hero…
IMAGINE IDIA STEPPING OUT OF HIS ROOM AND HE SEES ALL OF THIS. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY HE BARELY LEAVES, THERE’S ALMOST ALWAYS SOME CATASTROPHIC WORLD-ENDING SHIT GOING ON WHEN HE DOES.
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OH SHIT MALLEUS OVERBLOT ALREADY?!?!?!?!?!??!??!?!?!!! IT’S ONLY LIKE PART 37, MY DUDE
afhalidbasbda WHY DOES HE LOOK LIKE A SEASICK VAMPIRE WITH THE SLICKED BACK HAIR AND CAPE AND WEIRD TINTED SKIN (Yes, I know it’s meant to look like Maleficent’s skin color but it still looks weird to me 💦)
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“All of you will become heroes in a fairy tale” HUH, KINDA SUS THERE, MALLEUS. (It’s probably just referring to Malleus seeing them dreaming as putting them in a better place than in reality???) This makes me think of the line he says in early marketing/promo of the game… “Come, let me show you to the true happy end” or something.
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QEFIYQGUP9F9AFPBAOF;OA IGEBAD MALLEUS STOP HUMMING “ONCE UPON A DREAM”, TRHIS ISN’T A HAPPY OR NOSTALGIC MOMENT THIS IS ACTUAL HELL
HFIYBFFIF;OAF;  THAT’S WAS AN ABRUPT ENDING, IT JUST CUT BACK TO THE OPENING SCREEN WITH THE TWISTED WONDERLAND LOGO
Um. Well. That was… wild 🥲 I feel like not a lot actually happened, and yet EVERYTHING happened at the same time…?? I definitely was NOT expecting Malleus’s Overblot to come this soon, but I did expect the sleeping spell (curse?) to be cast since the party setup was very similar to the one in Sleeping Beauty. I super enjoyed Lilia interacting with all the different dorms; the fact that everyone is coming together in spite of their differences already shows tremendous growth in the entire cast. Then they had to rip out our hearts with the dramatic escalation…… ……… …… ….. .… .… . ..
THIS IS GOING TO BE REAL AWKWARD BECAUSE THE YEAR III TWST ANNI WILL SHOW MALLEUS AND LILIA POSING HAPPILY WITH THE OTHER THIRD YEARS MEANWHILE EVERYONE IS SUFFERING IN THE MAIN STORY UPDATES.
SDBSIHP9DBBHDyodVS The “it’s a dream” theory is seeming more and more real by the second… Early on in the update, Malleus related Gao-Gao Dragon-kun, a virtual character, to his current plight, saying that it would be better if a character that exists in a fictional world could exist forever??? And we know that Gao-Gao and the TWST boys live in a world where time advances and changes things (episode 7 opened with acknowledgement of Lilia losing his magic and the fourth year internships; ie everyone is “moving on” like how Gao-Gao does at the end of every month). Then Malleus has a lot of dialogue about how everyone will be protagonists of a fairy tale, how he will show them to a happy ending… PLUS THE OMINOUS ENDING WHERE HE BOOTS YOU TO THE MAIN SCREEN OF THE GAME?????? The part of the story when he casts his unique magic is also called “Forced Game Over” which seems oddly specific; why the forth-wall breaking title???? (It’s in the same vein as the title having “Wonderland” being an allusion to Alice’s Wonderland being just her dream.) AND THEN ON TOP OF THAT, THE VAGUE CONNECTION BETWEEN SILVER AND YUU’S DREAMING… What does this all mean????????
Malleus and Lilia are both trending–F
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morguecuts · 3 months ago
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Running From Vain
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five hargreeves x fem!reader synopsis: you confuse anger for love. word count: 1.8k tags: angst, heavy fluff, kissing, touching, etc. technically adopted siblings? lots of character lore lol note: story was written with s4 visuals in mind. this is my first time writing tua fanfic so i hope u enjoy. i apologize in advance for being an extremely detailed writer :)
♱⛧ ⋆ ˚。 ⋆୨ ୧⋆ ˚。 ⋆⛧♱
the 8th hargreeves child was the one that reginald kept hidden and locked away for decades. her blood regeneration was able to flow through not only herself but others as well, being able to save them from death and retrieve their leaking souls when needed. she lacked the ability to control them from a young age, and her powers were deemed too impactful to society fairly quickly. when a mission goes rather poorly, she is revealed to the world by mistake. since then she’s been known as the outcast to everyone, including her own siblings. the world is coming to an end once again, issues are constantly arising with all connections pointing to the umbrella academy. the family already lost beloved parts of itself in the past, and they bare to lose any more. tension has been brewing for years and one wrong comment leads to a certain couple releasing deep emotions, both good and bad.
♱⛧ ⋆ ˚。 ⋆୨ ୧⋆ ˚。 ⋆⛧♱
his hands travel from the sides of his face upwards towards the messy black hair that lays upon his head. their strands are falling to perfectly frame the chiseled boy below them. an unpleasant expression is sprawled across five’s face, his tired eyes clenched closed as his eyebrows pinch together. 
“no, you don't understand! we can’t keep wasting time, everything will be gone tomorrow.” he opens his mouth for the time in what feels like hours. his chest begins to rise and fall quickly. his feet start to carry him back and forth, passing you every few moments while his eyes are locked onto you. the hallway where you both reside is tense, heavy, and secluded from the rest of the house. for being in such a mammoth size mansion, with 7 other siblings, a robot mother, and an intelligent monkey, the world seems to be silent. the only noise that can be heard is the faint sound of five breathing, releasing a few deep sighs as he does. 
“i understand perfectly well, but your plan is useless. you are so insufferable to work with, i mean come on five, be realistic for once! if we listen to viktor then we might actually be able to stop the apocalypse.” you make an attempt at replying, but it seems like he’s starting to ignore you. 
the air is intoxicating, you hate him, you hate what he did to the umbrella name, and especially to you. it’s time for someone to stand up and confront his decision making. everything he does is egotistical and arrogant. his words are sharp and impactful in the most negative ways imaginable. the sound of his shuffling feet stop, his dark beaded eyes trace every aspect of your face before opening his mouth in response to you. 
“you know you’re a real piece of work right? calling me insufferable is completely distasteful when all you do is follow diego around like a lost puppy. it’s fucking embarrassing for everyone in this family, and you know it.” he stops to let out a small chuckle before pointing his finger towards your chest. “don't even make me mention the grave mistake you made on our last mission either” his expression is ridden in evil, a small upturned smile resting on his face and he stares into you.
“that was not my fault,” you spit back, angrily stepping towards him. “i am the ONLY person who TRIED to help ben and everyone who was in that chamber could tell you that themselves.” red flashes of anger spread across your skin as you continue to step closer to five. “he died from something completely unrelated to my powers, but I FUCKING TRIED! I DID, NOT ALLISON, NOT DIEGO, ME.” by this time you are meters away from being chest to chest with the boy. 
“you’re a waste of space. you disappoint everyone in this house.” he glares down, his taller figure towers over you menacingly.
"that's really rich coming from you." you take a step back and laugh to yourself. "do you know that nobody in this family likes you anymore? hmm? after all the shit you've constantly put us through, five?”
"i dedicated my entire life to saving your asses, i spent 40 goddamn years in an apocalypse just to come back and save all of you countless times! what do i get in return? impertinence." his demeanor is getting worsened by each remark, hot red anger is spread across his face as he snaps back at you. 
"none of us asked you to! you are always taking charge and forcing us to follow your plans, what if we didn't want to do this anymore? you're such a narcissist everything is always about you!" a near table rattled slightly from the yelling, the flowerpot on top shook before calming back down after a moment. 
"fuck you. fuck all of you. i'm TIRED of trying to save this family. if you all want to die in another apocalypse, then be my guest." he scoffs looking at you one more time and turns to walk away. "god you're so pathetic, always teleporting away when things don't go your way. you’re so childish." you hiss
"what did you say to me?" five spins back around, his feet carrying him back towards you. "you heard me." you raise your head and straighten up, holding his tough gaze. by this time the two of you are practically chest to chest again, his eyes beaming down into you. if he wasn’t human, you'd imagine smoke being blown from his ears and nostrils out of anger.
"say it again." 
"you're. fucking. pathetic." 
in a heartbeat his lips are smashing into you hungrily. one of his hands is gripping your face while the other snakes around your waist. all of the pent up anger between the both of you comes crashing down, blending into lust. he feels warm, his soul is bleeding into yours as his tongue explores your mouth. his hands are running all over your body, stopping to hold onto your mid section, then your behind, and finally dragging their way up to your neck. five pulls back, panting slightly, his eyes searching yours worried and confused.
“do you want this?”  
“more than anything.” you drive your hands into his hair, yanking his lips back into yours. his small smile is felt pressing into your mouth, fingers lingering around the belt loops on the front of your jeans. he’s pulling your body into his as he deepens the kiss, groaning into you when you rub against him slightly. 
he pulls away and leaves trails of hot wet kisses on the front of your throat. you grumble and moan at this touch, causing five to laugh into your skin. he leaves small love bites all over your neck and collarbones while you run your hands through his hair. his eyes glance up at you, a different light beams through them now then moments before. his anger has faded into something similar to love. his little pecks come to a slow rhythm before he returns to your lips. dragging you into him, the two of you slowly begin backing up towards one of the hallway walls. 
he presses his long fingers into the sides of your waist, shoving you into the stone behind you. five’s grip is firm and tight, stopping you from being able to wiggle loose. the way his mouth moves is like a work of art. there’s no doubt that someone had taught him how to kiss like this, but my god, you are thankful for them. you touch him memorizing every piece of his body from his chest, his jawline, to the back of his neck, and up through his hair. the way he leans into your touches with such desperation is absolutely god like.
his slight groans and noises grow in volume when you reach your fingers towards his waist. a sly hand lifting the edge of his shirt and running along the front of his bare body. his small smile returns, pulling back from your lips. 
“your hands are cold.” he leans forward, placing a kiss on your forehead. the invisible bubble draped over the two of you seems to pop. he’s moving hands into the back pocket of your jeans, keeping you pressed into him. you smile at the small actions, glaring up to analyze his face.
“come with me” five reaches for your hand interlocking his fingers between yours. his feet are ready to speed away as he gently pulls you toward whenever he’s leading. 
“five we can’t…” you look at him guilty. 
“no, no… not that.” his head shakes in disbelief as he smiles at you. “please just trust me and come” his hand tugs at yours pleadingly. 
there’s another moment of hesitation before you give him a small nod and move your feet to follow his. the grip he has on your hand tightens as he pulls you forward, a blue smokey powder flashes in front of you before realizing what he was doing. 
there’s a millisecond of discomfort and stinging before you feel the ground beneath your feet again. it hadn’t crossed your mind before how it felt for five to use his powers, but my god it was strange. 
the room is similar to a greenhouse with its large glass windows and open ceiling. it’s covered in vines and greenery with a small white pitched tent in the center. there are boxes and a large wooden table to the side, scattered papers sprawled over its surface. there’s a couple whiteboards on the back wall with calculations and symbols scribbled all over. the messy handwriting looks like five’s, and a photo of his stupid mannequin ex-girlfriend, delores, is hung from one of them confirming this was his doing. 
“where are we?” you glance at him before returning to observe the room.
“the highest level of the house, it’s locked behind one of dads bookshelves but i found it a couple years ago. i used to sneak in here when i needed a quiet place. it’s hard to be bothered when nobody else can get inside except for me” he smiles down at you, tracing small circles with his thumb onto your hand, still intertwined.
you analyze the writings and questions scattered along the room, puzzled about the true purpose of being taken up here. he looks at you confidently while holding a small pale wooden box with the umbrella logo printed on top. 
“i didn't think you were ready before, but i think you are now. i know how we will all survive the apocalypse.” 
 ♱⛧ ⋆ ˚。 ⋆୨ ୧⋆ ˚。 ⋆⛧♱
thank you so much for reading!
i hope you’ve enjoyed it, please feel free to make any comments or story requests down below. any support is always appreciated <3
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thewalrusespublicist · 2 months ago
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Two of Us Play: Thoughts or 'This Could Mean Nothing: The Play'
I saw Two of Us and I have thoughts. and feelings. Frustrated feelings.
What I liked: the mental health angle, the details, the research, the bones of the story and the acting for the most part (good actors, poor direction basically).
What I didn't like: First off the script needs work. At the minute it plays more as a spot the reference rather than one coherent story. This doesen't feel like convo between friends but a recap of Beatles lore with no train of thought that gets satisfyingly resolved and whilst hitting off the movie beats rather than building to them. The pay off feels less like a cathartic journey and more 'cool it's Mclennon I guess..'. Next the chemistry is off, the two leads don't feel like platonic soulmates/best frenemies and they don't fly off of each other as John and Paul did. Instead the energy is super low, even in their heightened fight scenes it doesn't feel like two people duking it out. There's no screaming and shouting, it's like two old but never that close friends going from awkward to semi awkward and back again repeatedly without ever hitting any moments of sizzling connection. This I think is partially to do with the 'nice Paul' characterization, which please lord can it end! Let our beloved alpha bitch be beloved and alpha bitchy, it's good for his skin AND MORE REAL.
I think the chemistry/energy problem is linked though to the main problem and the elephant in the room: the 'latent' homosexuality. Latent is probably the best word for it, but that's only because of the play's fear of its own implications. To be clear, with a slightly more daring director unafraid of the material, the latent would be BLATANT. The dialogue is BLATANT. John's wordplay is loaded with suggestion: 'best fuck you've ever had', 'you should have married me' and there's a closeness when they are singing on the piano which was 👀👀. The 'I love Paul' badge is also there with a 'lucky Paul' comment that COULD have built to a potentially interesting character moment. But they just fly over these bits like they haven't been said. The candlelight dinner as well that John puts on for Paul is by its nature loaded, as is John offhandedly calling him 'my love' when fiddling with the stereo during that scene.It's so casual that it feels like an accidental slip on John's part. But nothing is made of this, no pause, shift in the air, comments, nothing. This was the worst with the KISS which was initiated by John and yes, way way way too long for it to mean nothing and the Epstein jokes are completely omitted. Its a wild moment, but the play can't seem to handle what they've just laid down so just ... skates past it. Its like HAHA WEIRD RIGHT THEY JUST KISSED ANYWAY ROOF SCENE.
But the implications also aren't consistent as the whole thing is too attached to the 'Paul is a jilted victim' angle. It's Paul who is jealous of Yoko, but save a line about being surprised about Linda, John seems neutral (weird considering its JOHN making the overtures and was IRL not Linda's biggest fan). The ending is the strangest for this. They have the SNL thing like in the movie but it's weirder as Paul is CRYING. OBVIOUSLY CRYING. CAN HEAR AUDIBLY FROM A DISTANCE CRYING. The whiplash of John throwing down these implications and suggestions to just ... nonchalantly giving a hand grip goodbye and ignoring Paul's tears after going on this whole journey together is WEIRD and makes him look like a user and a selfish, insensitive prick. Like bestie your bestie is crying you can call Yoko back??? Also the end is meant to be a love you to both each other and their wives but Paul's is clearly to mostly John and John's feels mostly to Yoko. It's not a good look on John and its not a good look on his relationship with Yoko (yh John could free himself from the prison he's made for himself and was about to but the darn Yoko pull is just too strong guys). Again this would be sort of sad but fine if it was Paul making the overtures or there were no overtures but it isn't and there are! John is both the mooning would be romancer and the unavailable ex. Once again nuance and coherency (as well as Paul and Linda!) are sacrificed for the traditional John and Yoko angle. Wholeheartedly, it feels like there has been a layer of implication added onto the script, a layer which means that the original elements of the script would need to change to work but they haven't done it so you have this Frankenstein's monster of a traditionalist narrative fused with loaded suggestion.
So yeah, I think the whole thing had a lot of potential as a play but the script needs an overhaul, the actors need better chemistry and if you are going to go there, for gods sake GO THERE.
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flaetsbnortoriginals · 10 months ago
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I've just had a dream that was so steeped in Magic: The Gathering lore that I need to post it to tumblr on the off-chance that people who know enough to understand it will be able to read it, because if I tell it to the people I usually tell my dreams to they won't understand a dang thing. Sorry @one-time-i-dreamt
So. The dream was in Ravnica, and was about this planeswalker lady. She was white, with long straight blonde hair, and a fancy blue dress. I have the feeling that I was dreaming I was her before my dream remembered I'm a boring cis man without any amazing powers so as far as I can recall I'm just following her, like the main character of a story. I'm not sure I should call her my OC since she was created without any prompting of my conscious mind but none of the characters in the dream have names so I'll call her that.
OC was walking down a boulevard in Ravnica with this dude. They were pretending to be a couple, but the dude was actually a Dimir spy she had bested and was kind of her prisoner. Dimir guy wasn't very happy about it but wasn't too angry either, he saw his "custodianship" as a work thing and kind of respected OC, so they were chill.
OC saw a woman who she realized wasn't from this plane, although she was pretending to be a local. She challenged Dimir guy to point out what made them realize this. Now I expected this to go like a Sherlock sequence, with each one pointing out a detail in the woman's outfit or some very precise behaviour. Instead, OC starts by pointing out that this woman is wearing
A FRIGGING BRIGHT BLUE SOCCER JERSEY
and not only are soccer jerseys not usual clothes in Ravnica, (at least not until Hooligans at Rakdos Stadium is released), but it also has a giant number on it (77 if you're curious), except that Ravnica uses a different writing system, so any planeswalker would immediately clock her as an outsider. (I think that it's only sort of implied that each plane uses a different writing system, but in the dream that was settled truth.)
OC is so apalled at how poorly this woman - who needs a name, so I'll call her BadKellan for reasons that will soon become apparent - is at hiding herself, she decides to have a word with her. BadKellan realizes she's being followed and hoofs it - but OC and Dimir guy immediately use their Dimir crap to become invisible. BadKellan thinks he's shaken them off, but she's quite rattled, so she goes to her safehouse, which happens to be just around the corner. OC and Dimir sneak in behind her, then make themselves visible.
Now I should tell you that Dimir Guy does nothing else in this story. I was going to say that he's just Ken, he's just there, but it's actually worse - his presence makes the story make no sense, since OC is about to reveal some secrets to some random lady. But the dream didn't forget him: I vividly recall that he was still around all throughout this part of the dream, even though he does nothing else.
So. OC reveals herself and tells BadKellan that what she's doing is very dangerous. She tells her about the Dimir (the guild, not the random guy) and says that if they see her poorly sneaking around and think she's going to be trouble, or even can't figure out what her deal is, they're just going to kill her. Which means it's incredibly dangerous for her to go around like that.
BadKellan reveals a few things about herself. She's from Earth - yes, our real world. She's not a planeswalker. She was brought to Ravnica against her will and told to blend in and pretend to be a local. She doesn't feel comfortable revealing who told her to do that.
OC decides to give BadKellan a few pointers on how to lay low on Ravnica. She explains that she would dress mostly in gray, since colours are strongly associated with the guilds and she should stay away from them to stop making waves. She asks her to change her outift and she'll say if it draws attention.
BadKellan changes clothes. She's now dressed entirely in gray, which is good, except that her shirt
HAS A LARGE, GLITTERING PRINT ACROSS THE FRONT READING
girl
IT'S THE EXACT SAME THING AS BEFORE. IT'S A LARGE PRINT USING OFF-PLANE SCRIPT. It's not as large as the jersey number, sure, but I'd like to remind you that it's glittering!
OC is apparently as taken aback by this as I am, because she turns her into a squirrel.
In fact, she specifically turns her into the squirrel from Bloomburrow key art.
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OC's logic is that BadKellan is so bad at blending in that this is the only way she can be safe. OC intends to release "squirrel girl" in a park while she tries to look into exactly whose plans she just ruined and how bad of an idea it was.
There was more to this dream, but my memories are fuzzy and it's (even more) uninteresting. I think it involves the Boros having a special currency that they gain when they help people but the Dimir also use it in a kind of ironic way? I don't remember.
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callmelyc · 4 months ago
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Back thinking about Oracle Lance but this time it's him foreseeing Keiths betrayal to him and instead of trying to stop it he aids him in secret bc lance trust Keith more than anyone else and if his betrayal is lurking it must be for a reason (it is)
Lance is an oracle for the empire, his job is simple and to the point: have visions and make sure they're as detailed as possible.
He is to be alone, to be nothing but a tool in hopes he can turn the future to their favor. That all changes when Keith comes into the picture.
Keith is Lances new guard, his servicer if you will. His job is to keep eyes on lance 24/7, make sure he shares every vision he has, every inkling of divine intervention and wisdom.
But to Lance, Keith is so much more. He's his confident, his first real friend here and though Keith has never seen his face due to the veil magicked onto his face, Lance is so sure he feels Keith looking right into his eyes everytime they talk. Usually people will look past him, a select few will even look down in respect. But Keith? Keith has never feared meeting lances eyes even though they're hidden away.
It doesn't take long for Lance to fall in love with him. The realization hits like a tidal wave and with it his visions become clearer than a sunny day. They grow in power, in detail and lance has never felt so much pure quintessence race through his veins.
He doesn't tell the empire his visions have changed in strength least they take Keith away. Because if they discovered he did the one thing he was never to do, they'd have hell to bring down upon him.
Lance was never to be in love. He was never to hold lust in his heart. Yet here he was lusting after a man sent to guard him and keep him in check.
The day he accepts his love, Lance is sitting with Keith in his private gardens. The vision that hits him is harsher than anything he'd had so far.
In it he foresees something that leaves him gasping for breath: Keith's betrayal.
There's fire, the smell of smoke and screams for an intruder.
/"Capture him!"
"The emperor is dead!"
"Kill him"/
Blood on a blade, blood on pale hands, blood seeping through the slice on lances back....and purple eyes looking at him with a fierce determination
/"I'm sorry"
"No ....you aren't"/
"Lance?" Keith voice sounds so far away and concerned but lance can't break free from the cold taking over his veins.
/"You're right ....I'm not."/
"lance! Lance what's wrong-"
Lance chokes as he snaps free from it all, reality bringing him back to earth in a snap. He knows he's shaking, he knows Keith is concerned but all lance can think about is this:
If Keith is here for a reason, if Keith is to take this empire down then all Lance can do is give his aid. Because above all else he trusts Keith more than anyone, including the empire.
"I'm ok- just a vision"
Keith's hands grip his arms, it's steadying in its own way though it has no right to be after lance learned Keith would kill him.
"what did you see?"
If lance didnt know any better, he'd almost think Keith was genuinely concerned. "I saw the emperor, leading all to glory."
Lance watched Keiths face force itself into neutrality hoping the lie was enough
"Is that so?"
"Yes..." He takes Keith's hand squeezing it "in three full moons, everything will change."
He hopes it's hint enough, that Keith will understand that's the time he has left.
and their evening ends with Lance aware that his remaining moments with this man will be all he has left to love him.
+ lore notes 🎉 bc I've really thought about this ver alot (I have a second ver in my head somewhere this one's winning out)
-It's fantasy vld au
-Keith is a blade/part of the resistance that goes undercover to get Intel and ends up with the job of taking down the empire from the inside (he is not the only one planted there)
-lance doesn't have a family because the empire scopes out people born with the Oracle talents and scoops them away to raise them brainwashed from the start.
-lance was trained by the empire druids and is one of the only oracles not regularly punished by them bc he stays in his lane
-lance learned very early on to always say exactly what they want to hear so he always words his visions in just the right amount of vague details that it satisfies them and also isn't a full lie
-when he tells Keith the emperor will lead all to glory he purposefully leaves out who will be the one to do so bc he knows Keith will be the one the ppl look up to once all is said and done even if he refuses to be an emperor
-shiro having been a prisoner of the druids long ago, does not trust Lance bc he sees the oracles as extensions of the druids
-oracles are just quintessence sensitive beings that can't control it. Druids have tried and failed to turn them into proper alchemist and those they try have died.
-lance is heavily watched bc of this also, he's the remaining one with enough strength to be of interest. Had Keith and the rebellion not come he'd have been the next experiment attempt
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thesummerestsolstice · 9 months ago
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Headcanon Crafts for Everyone I Missed Last Time:
Idril: a sculptor. She worked with every kind of stone imaginable, and often went looking for new material in Gondolin’s mines with Maeglin. (Look my Maeglin head canons are complicated but they should get to be friends the narrative has hurt them too much already) She actually preferred not to make elvish figures, instead focusing on strangely beautiful stone landscapes and various animal-like figures. She was actually responsible for Middle-Earth’s version of the gargoyle, having carved several to stand guard over Gondolin. Several elves swore that the statues moved, but she never addressed those rumors. She also liked to paint her work with bright colors, which would’ve been seen as odd back in Valinor, but fit right in in First Age Middle-Earth.
Maeglin: a smith, but his craft was more in-line with Avarin practice than Noldor practice; with much less focus on the idea of making gems and heavier focus on understanding natural geology and the properties of various gems and metals. He knew the mines of Gondolin better than anyone, and wrote plenty about the the earth under the earth. His work also had fairly significant Dwarfish influences. He liked to make mechanically complex pieces, with moving parts or even some internal gear work.
Finduilas: a hunter. Her and her father were both nature people, just in very different ways. She was silent, with all the grace of a dancer, and quick enough to outrun most of what she hunted. She preferred to go after more aggressive animals– wild boar, wolves, bears, even wargs– and leave the deer and rabbits be. She was born in Beleriand, and had never met the Valar, but sometimes, privately, offered up prayers to Orome. She liked to imagine she could’ve been in his hunt, if things had turned out a bit differently.
Celebrimbor: a smith, in the very traditional Noldor sense. Gemworker, specialized in jewelry, made various famously beautiful pieces, etc. Was never quite happy sticking to hairpins and necklaces. Longed to try his hand at imbuing his work with real power, but always talked himself out of it. A whole binder of concepts for works of power sat locked away in a chest in his workshop for centuries. He never talked to anyone about it. He was as ashamed of his feelings for his craft as he was of his feelings for his family. By the end of his life, he’d made peace with only one of those things.
Earendil: a mariner? Alright, he was definitely a mariner, and he loved the ship life– he even built a few boats of his own, in a similar fantastic style to Turgon’s architecture– but he also had a longstanding fascination with the natural world, and filled volumes and volumes of journals with information on various plants, animals, and minerals. But natural lore isn’t a recognized Noldor craft, since it involves learning but doesn’t really produce tangible results. Still, it was a passion he got from afternoons spent learning about geology with “Uncle Mole,” and one he shared with Elrond. Researching the beauty and wonder of nature gave Earendil something to do with his immortal life, and was a big part of the reason Elrond chose to be immortal at all.
Gil-Galad: a king. No, really, he’d been the high-king of the Noldor since he was a child, and hadn’t really had time for trivialities like “finding a life purpose” or “having fun.” He was too busy learning how to stay alive in late stage Beleriand (read: hell) and learning to rule the least cooperative group of elves imaginable. He wanted to be a painter, and while he found enough practice time to get good at his chosen craft; because of how long detailed paintings can take, he almost never had time to actually make anything. He tried not to let it bother him too much. He didn’t always succeed at that.
Elrond: in a bit of a weird spot. Elrond is most associated with lore and healing; but, as discussed, “lore” isn’t considered a craft. And, well. Healing had to be Elrond’s craft, right? He’d been doing it since he was seven, and just about the only person in Amon Ereb who could still use healing powers. And it was good work, and it was rewarding, even if it often left him feeling so burned out and worried that he forgot to eat or sleep. It took him a long time to admit to himself that healing for him was what fighting was to many other elves: a necessity. Truth be told, he’d rather be gardener, working with the earth to create a place of peace and beauty. Also, Elrond is basically a nature spirit. So. It was something he began to explore in the peace of the early Second Age. He found that his Ainuric powers had all sorts of interesting effects on plant life. He also learned how to breed new varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Still, he never really considered that it could be a proper craft for him. At least, not until he first saw the valley that would one day become Rivendell.
Headcanon Crafts for Finwe and his Children, the House of Feanor, the House of Fingolfin, and the House of Finarfin.
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mysadblacksoul · 9 months ago
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Twenty One Pilots - Overcompensate theories (whoo!)
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It's a face of someone who put so much lore in the MV that I genuinely don't know where to start
Pt.1 - MV
So the MV takes place right after the end of The Outside MV, pretty easy - logical Now are we relly back in Trench? Seing all the maps, and the way back from The Outside to Jumpsuit? Tracing back the map? Being welcomed? lol. no
Tyler (or Clancy, am I deadnaming him now???) is using the powers, that were mentioned in I Am Clancy video and the one that Ned gave him in The Outside MV As we can see Bishops still wants him to lure people, to make them surrender to live how the Bishops wants them to
So since Tyler is just using someone else to pretend that it's him we can assume that Josh is also a projection
Why is Josh here? Maybe as a representative of Banditos
Now we play heavily in the symbolism of mask. Of course mask symbolizes the difference between a fictitious identity and a real identity. But here we can see something interesting. If Tyler is taking off his mask he is his true self, yet if someone else tries to take it off you can see a different person
So let's see what the hell is Tyler even doing in the MV itself. Well he is doing both jobs. On the surfice, he is doing what the Bishops wants him to. But actually he is showing people some kind of code. (I am sure that all the gestures weren't just a silly choreography). He is showing them his true self (no mask) and giving a presentation on the secrets of Dema. I believe he is sharing the information that normal people were never supposed to know
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Like the lyrics of Shy away, he is trying to "Just break the cycle in half". Break people's belief in the religion that the Bishops created and to ultimately take away their power
And after the lesson in the backrooms (lol I don't know how to word it differently) people have tape on their shoulders. But not only the red one. We can se the yellow tape. The legendary Bandito's tape
But what is the meaning of the end? For me people were so used to following the rulers, the rules and doing what they were told that after changing their mindset about the Bishops they still felt the need to follow somebody. That somebody will be Clancy
other small details will be nine red lights for nine Bishops
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Tyler having a symbol for the band logo
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So is Tyler tring to break the cycle from the very core? Well maybe, for sure what he does now is a complete diversion
Boy is ready to take a revenge, he even brought his best buddy to help
Pt. 2 - Lyrics
We need to start by translating the intro for sure so:
Diese kleine unheimliche Insel hat mich zu einer Waffe gemacht (From German) - This scary little island has turned me into a weapon
Wir glauben beide (From German) - We both believe
Cette petite île étrange a fait de moi une arme (From French) - This scary little island has turned me into a weapon
Nous croyons tous les deux que nous pouvons l'utiliser pour changer l'élan de cette guerre (From French) - We both believe we can use it to change the momentum of this war
So this is pretty much what we know from I Am Clancy video. Tyler and his powers are used by the Bishops to cause harm
And we already saw that first line, which comes from Clancy’s letter from 2022 posted on the dmaorg.info website.
I created this world / To feel some control /Destroy it if I want / So I sing, "sahlo folina" / "Sahlo folina" - This part comes from Bandito. It could be the call for Banditos, to tell them to beware of what is going on. Or it is the way of teaching the people the special code - which sahlo folina is for sure a part of
Earned my stripes - he earned his position in the city, possibly because of his powers
Bless your ear holes while you react, acting / Gobsmacked - maybe people were sent to this place by the Bishops to mess with their brains, but since Tyler is talking about something different to them they are confused
I feel like I was just here, same twitchin' in my eyes - he started just like those people, brainwashed with no sense of reality
Don't sleep on a boy who can fall asleep twice / In the same night - so he can die twice? Or maybe it is the dig that he is working on both sides, just undercovered
and won't hesitate / To maybe overcompensate - simply, Tyler is ready to kick some Bishops' asses and take revenge for everything wrong they ever did to him and other people
I said I fly by the dangerous bend symbol - the symbol that Bishops were making in Nico and the Niners Mv OR The symbol that Tyler uses (what he makes with his hands) is dangerous for Bishops, because it is a sign of rebellion OR (This one makes the most sense) it's U+2621 ☡ CAUTION SIGN, which was created by no other than Nicolas Bourbaki group of mathematicians. Nico is very important, since in Morph we have the lyrics of "He goes by Nico / He told me I'm a copy". So was Nico the first one to discover Clancy's powers?
And then by the time I catch in my peripheral - the peripheral vision is what you can see to each side or up and down without moving your head, or everything that you can see that isn't in your central vision. The peripheral vision might be the same as the rearview from Choker. So this is everything that he saw in Dema on accident, all the secrets that he cought with his eye. Once he saw them he is ready to change everything
Where am I from? I was born right here, just now / Originated right in front of your eyes - Clancy is from Dema, simple as that. He is the citizen and the escapee
If you can't see, I am Clancy, prodigal son - the reference to The Bible. Prodigal Son is "a man or boy who has left his family in order to do something that the family disapprove of and has now returned home feeling sorry for what he has done". Tyler for sure returned, bus is he really sorry? Or the Bishops made him act like he is?
Done running, come up with Josh Dun / Wanted dead or alive - JOSH DUN MENTIONED. But also comming to Trench with Josh could be a sign that Clancy wants people to see that Banditos are not bad people. Not someone who you should fear
So now you pick who you serve, you bow to the masses - make a choice if you gonna change your life or stay in the circle of madnesss
Half empty, half full, save half of your taxes - again, make a choice weather you're gonna think positively or negatively (glass half empty/half full)
Then overtake your former self - become a better person, better version of yourself and live your truth
Days feel like a perfect length / I don't need them any longer, but for goodness sake - just a perfect condition to make a change
Do the years seem way too short for my soul, corazón / Way too short for my soul, corazón - it is the reference to all the years Tyler lost while working and living in Dema
A wild ride, as always...
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ganondoodle · 15 days ago
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i have seen people talk about how hard it is to draw anything if you have aphantasia (which is good to talk about and true and valid and also intersting to read and this post isnt to devalue that, two things can coexist etc etc)
i personally struggle with the opposite; i have incredible imagination, i'd say it's my best and only "inate talent", (this is not a brag ..) all stories i think about are movies, i can stop them, change camera angle and poses, rotate ever object however i want, place lighting sound and voices, even styles, i switch from ghibli to botw to fortiches style, even into the style of a comic i recently read which wasnt even animated, the only thing that only works half the time is music-
and that all might sound fantastic, but its a mess, it goes too fast and too quickly, things never play out one way, theres interruption, involuntarily sudden changes to other subjects, i feel like struggling to keep an angry horse on one path, it makes me waste HOURS each day just reversing and redoing a scene like im a movie director wizard in my head, theres no ONE finished version, it changes everytime yet i go back over and over again to make it better, i forget most of it within a few hours anyway; even IRL when someone tells me about a memory and they are not sure if i was with them during it once they start to explain trying to make me remember it instead i will imagine it, in the end i wont be sure if i actually remembered or if i just imagined it too real, it scares me how much i forget and cant remember only for my mind to make shit up, makign me doubt my own memory (its weird how it works, i have horrible geographical memory, when i drive somwhere i have known my entire life i need to remember the path to it by imagining driving it, i remember significant things but not the path to them or how they connect or in what order, i have to go through it in my head every single time)
by far the worst part though is that extreme disconnect between whats in my mind and what i can do, just because i can imagine things like that doesnt mean i can draw it (god i WISH), nothing i have ever drawn is how it was in my head, the few things you get to see are the ones i won the fight against myself with to keep going and say 'good enough' at some point the speed is a problem too, the things playing in my head, sometimes even multiple at the same time, play like, again, a movie, whatever im trying to draw is rarely ONE thing, its a whole scene that plays over and over, i want to draw it all but it wont work bc my mind is too fast and i am too slow, it makes me try to skip ahead and get things done as fast as possible, it NEVER works (also too much, theres so many things in my head, i have almost the entirety of the totk rewrite in my head already, novels worth of lore and story for my other projects, its overwhelming how much is in there that i cannot get out and on paper)
its why comics take me so long to make, why detailed paintings are so rare, its the rare times i can force myself to try and tune out my mind and just work on what is in front of me, usually works for a few hours .. if i can manage to reach that sort of focus at all, its why basic sketches of characters are so much easier to do bc i dont have to fight as hard to just draw a character doing nothing- as soon as i want to make it a sketch page of things and scenes the movies are back and are there to haunt me until i cry and give up after hours of trying to keep up with my mind that i will never be able to catch up to (and this is only about drawing .. )
i know skill and speed increase over time, but i wont ever get to where my mind is, its always ahead and trying to skip and jump towards it only makes me stumble and fall flat on my face- maybe its ADHD, maybe its the autism, maybe its the depression, maybe its just me, maybe its just all of that
what im trying to say is, head full, too much thought, too fast, never able to translate it into viewable things in the way and speed as my head works, i explode
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weirdmarioenemies · 2 years ago
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Name: Clawdia Koopa
Debut: Super Mario Bros.
If you’ve ever tried to take a closer look at the Mario series lore, you’ll realize one thing… it is not very consistent! Mario games are filled with little discrepancies, and of course, plenty of obscure and forgotten characters were practically retconned by the series! And of these, who has suffered a worse fate than Clawdia Koopa?
If you were a gaming fan during the 80s and 90s, you will surely remember Clawdia Koopa, the beloved and female wife of the fearsome King Koopa! She may not have shown up much, but her impact on the Mario world was felt everywhere!
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Who could forget making it all the way to the end of the NES game, squaring off against the frightening Bowser himself… only to find out, he was even more scared of his wife than you were of him! As the king of the Koopas cowers before his nagging old ball & chain, Mario, who is in no committed relationship, is able to jump over their heads and grab the ax, sending them both plummeting into lava!
Though their relationship may have had a rocky start, it seems the two were still able to settle down and start a family. Just take a look at this letter Bowser sends you in Super Mario Bros. 3!
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Yup, this game introduced the Koopalings, and as Nintendo made very clear, Clawdia was their mother! Not only did the game manual reiterate this fact, it also included some pretty detailed pictures of Clawdia in labor, giving birth to each of the seven! They’re a bit too graphic to reproduce here, but it’s awesome they went that far to flesh out the worldbuilding!
So, if Bowser was married, why did he keep kidnapping Princess Peach? Maybe their marriage wasn’t actually going that great? You see, if you were to 100% Super Mario World twice over, you would actually get to see a secret message written by Bowser:
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It’s pretty heavy stuff, and Nintendo hid this message for only the most dedicated of Mario fans! And sure enough, things would only go downhill from here… In Hotel Mario, Bowser would build seven Koopa Hotels just to stay away from his wife, and Clawdia hasn’t been seen in any games since… All the fans who never got this message were pretty confused, wondering where Clawdia Koopa had gone… and they were even more confused with the release of Super Mario Sunshine!
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This game introduced Bowser Jr., and he was supposed to be Bowser’s new child! Not only were the Koopalings not mentioned at all, but Clawdia was nowhere to be found, either! Instead, Bowser Jr. kept referring to Peach as his ‘mama’, but she turns out to not be his mother either! What’s going on? If Clawdia and Bowser really did get divorced, then where did Bowser Jr. come from?
Things got even worse when Shigeru Miyamoto was interviewed in 2012, saying “Our current story is that the seven Koopalings are not Bowser's children. Bowser's only child is Bowser Jr., and we do not know who the mother is.” When asked about Clawdia Koopa, Miyamoto ended the interview abruptly. So what’s going on here? Is there some sort of conspiracy to cover up Clawdia Koopa? Who would benefit from this, and why?
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Well, it turns out the real culprit may have been right in front of us all along! Bowser actually DID remarry, and the mother of Bowser Jr. is none other than Miyamoto himself! After becoming Bowser’s wife, Miyamoto became jealous of Bowser’s ex-wife, suspecting he still had feelings for her. So Miyamoto went and changed the official story, acting like the Koopalings were never Bowser’s kids to begin with! It was quite a petty move on his part, but since Mario canon is in his hands, there was nothing we could do to stop him…
Clawdia may be gone, but I won’t let this revisionist view of history take place! Most Mario fans today have never even heard of Clawdia Koopa, and that’s sad… But I’m not afraid to say her name! This International Women’s Day, I will be changing my full legal name to Clawdia Koopa in her memory, and I hope anyone who stands with me will do the same! After all, if we let Miyamoto get away with this, who knows what he will do next? He might even try to sully the name of Morton Koopa Sr.!
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nakanotamu · 2 months ago
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Something about Metaphor: ReFantazio that scratches an itch in my brain
Something I care about a lot in games is a sense of place. What I mean by that is, exploration is a huge part of what I enjoy in games, and and I love it when a place in a game feels "real". When it feels like a space that people could actually live in or that might exist, regardless of how fantastical or surreal it might be, rather than just feeling like a videogame level.
Mass Effect is a fantastic example of a game that was terrible at this. In the original trilogy, almost all of the combat areas feel like just that - areas that were set up for combat to happen there. If you try to look around, to explore, none of their spaces feel lived in, even livable. The lore & writing of the series, the entries you get to read on scanning every planet, makes it feel so full and rich, and the level design betrays that.
Conversely what I played of FF7R had a fantastic sense of place. Every area feels bigger than it really is, like there's a whole world beyond what you actually play through. Climbing around on the sunlamps on the underside of Midgar's upper level is just a dungeon level, but it also feels like you are climbing around on scaffolding high in the sky above the town you just came from. It feels real.
Part of why Metaphor is clicking so strongly for me is the way not just the level design adds to the world's sense of place but the way they've tied the scheduling and travel into it as well.
It's something Persona's struggled with in varying amounts ever since I started playing. The daily life segment felt right from the start and has only improved, but the dungeons lagged significantly behind. In 3 Tartarus is a glaring failure in this regard imo, salvaged a little bit by the fact that it's supposed to feel unreal. But that doesn't stop it from feeling like a huge slog to get through, at the end of the day too obviously just "the dungeon", even if the aesthetics are cool. The Full Moon missions have significantly better identities than Tartarus, but you play in them for a matter of minutes. 4 tied the dungeons into the narrative better by connecting them to actual characters and giving them specific aesthetics, which helped a little, but ultimately procgen will probably always struggle to provide this feeling. 5 I think did the best with it by finally getting rid of procgen and giving the palaces stronger identities as well as actual defined layouts. I think P5 palaces are actually a fantastic example of how a place doesn't have to feel real to feel believable. They're impossible dreamscapes with surreal and impossible geometry but thanks to stronger identities and the details of actually traversing them they still feel like spaces you actually need to navigate through rather than just videogame levels.
And I think that's what it comes down to. A space in a game, to feel believable, shouldn't be just mechanics. You need some empty space and breathing room and variety. And I think what Metaphor does so well in that regard is the way it added travel to the world & to the scheduling. Now it's not just dungeons and towns that feel real but even the act of going from place to place. Wow, look at how far apart these two places are! It's not just a matter of selecting one on the map menu, you need to spend two days just travelling from one to the other! And then there's this other stuff you can only do while travelling because you're totally spending actual time to get there! And there are camps and roads in between, small single room backgrounds in actuality but they help make the illusion of traversing an actual area so much stronger. I just think connecting the scheduling gameplay to travel to the dungeons and towns just helps the believability of the world so much, it feels really satisfying just to plan out your trip and go from place to place.
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calitsnow · 1 month ago
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Let’s talk about Hong Lu’s siblings:
Canto VII provides us with a really good amount of lore on Hong Lu. And to be fair it’s pretty normal since he’s the next one to have a therapy session after Don, so it’s only natural that things are speeding up on his side, and what an acceleration it is, as we’ve had the chance to meet a new member of his family. While we’ve already encountered Jia Huan and heard a few mentions here and there of other members of his family (his father, grandmother, and so on), we hadn’t been introduced to a single family member since Canto I. And honestly, fair enough, because even though the Jia family seems large, they also seem very distant from city life, as it feels like no one knows them, or at least no one recognizes Hong Lu, even people in important positions within the family.
But the most interesting part of this encounter is that we’ve now had confirmation, apparently, that Jia Baoyu’s cousins have become siblings for Hong Lu (who is supposed to be Jia Baoyu), and another small detail is that Project Moon didn’t let Hong Lu’s little sister and her bodyguard use his name. Indeed, Hong Lu doesn’t hesitate to say Xichun’s name, but she, on the other hand, simply calls him “brother,” “my naive brother,” while Wei calls him “young master.” So it’s still possible that Hong Lu is not his real name.
With that, I think it’s time for me to make a post recapping Jia Baoyu’s cousins and siblings to help those who haven’t read the novel (and those who have, because oh boy, this family is so big, it’s easy to get lost among the different branches).
This post aims to introduce the various cousins of Jia Baoyu by briefly giving some info about them. If you’re interested, I also made a post about Baoyu’s family members, including his grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts (by blood, not marriage), and his brothers and sisters just here.
For this post, I’ve decided to talk about each of Jia Baoyu’s cousins in order of birth (from the oldest to the youngest) to help figure out where they might stand in relation to Hong Lu, if Project Moon has kept the birth order (Xichun seems to confirm it, but Jia Huan seems to contradict that, so we’ll see…).
Even though I’m not sure of the exact birth order I’m using (I am not even sure there is a 100% clear one, I’m 99% sure about their placement in relation to Jia Baoyu, knowing whether they are older or younger than him. This is the most interesting part, as this information will help us figure out who can be considered an older brother/sister to Hong Lu and who can be considered a little brother/little sister.
That’s also why, even though I’m not explaining again Jia Baoyu’ siblings, I’ve still placed them in this birth order ranking to help with orientation, especially in relation to Jia Baoyu.
I realize this post doesn’t help with visualizing the family as a whole, but my posts are more informational and serve to share snippets of the lore from The Dream of the Red Chamber, rather than creating a family tree.
Lastly, it’s worth noting that the Jia family is split into two main branches: Ningguo and Rongguo, two of the most prestigious aristocratic families in the capital. These branches descend from a common ancestor but are managed separately. I will try to indicate which branch each cousin belongs to.
To note:
The Ningguo house is the elder branch of the Jia family, descended from the elder of the two founding brothers. Although it is the elder branch, the Ningguo house is in decline in terms of wealth and influence compared to the Rongguo branch. Jia Zhen and other members of this branch are often involved in immoral behaviors, which further contributes to the decline of this part of the family.
The Rongguo house is the younger branch, founded by the second brother of the Jia family. It is more prosperous and influential than Ningguo, mainly due to the connections made by Jia Yuanchun, the daughter of Jia Zheng, who becomes an imperial concubine. This gives the branch an advantage and elevates its social status.
Jia Baoyu belongs to this branch.
Wang Ren:
Apparently, he is the elder brother of Wang Xifeng.
Son of the elder brother of Wang Ziteng, Lady Wang, Wang Zisheng, and Aunt Xue.
Jia Zhen, Ningguo House:
Head of the Ningguo House, the elder branch of the Jia Family. He inherited the title of marquis when his father (Jia Jing) became a Taoist practitioner.
Son of Jia Jing.
Husband of Lady You.
Father of Jia Rong.
Older brother of Jia Xichun.
Jia Baoyu’s oldest cousin.
He is not very focused on work and extremely greedy.
Leads a life of debauchery, preferring to chase women with his cousin Jia Lian.
He had an affair with his daughter-in-law Qin Keping (wife of Jia Rong, Jia Baoyu’s nephew).
Wang Xifeng, Rongguo House:
Also known as Sister Phoenix.
Daughter of Wang Ziteng, Lady Wang, Wang Zisheng, and Aunt Xue.
Wife of Jia Lian.
(yes, she is also his cousin by marriage because her mother’s sister is the wife of her husband’s father’s brother, I know it’s complicated.)
Mother of Jia Qiaojie.
Sister of Wang Ren.
Proud, scheming, and incredibly capable, she manages the Jia family with rigor.
However, she is also vain, greedy, devious, and cruel.
She always blames others and takes all the credit for herself.
Her life ends due to a serious illness, and her ruined family eventually disperses.
She is the second person that Aunt Zhao (Jia Huan’s mother) tries to kill (besides Jia Baoyu) using black magic.
She is one of the 12 Beauties of Jin Lin.
Jia Lian, Rongguo House:
First son of Jia She (the older brother of Jia Baoyu’s father, Jia Zheng).
Husband of Wang Xifeng (Sister Phoenix).
(Yes, she’s also his cousin by marriage since her mother’s sister is the wife of his father’s brother, I know it’s complicated.)
He also has a concubine (Second Sister You).
Father of Jia Qiaojie.
Half-brother to Jia Yingchun and Jia Cong.
He bought an official title but has some shady activities.
He is a notorious womanizer and has a strong sexual appetite.
His marriage with Wang Xifeng is only for appearance, and he’s more of a dandy.
He manages the finances and hires people with his wife, but they often argue over this power.
He is a frivolous man with flaws, but he still has a conscience.
Jia Zhu, Baoyu’s older brother (deceased):
Already covered in the previous post
Jia Yuanchun, Baoyu’s older sister, Rongguo House:
She is one of the 12 Beauties of Jin Lin.
She is the first of the quartet of "Springs”, The quartet of springs is the name given to 4 of the Jia daughter
Already covered in the previous post
Xue Pan:
Son of Aunt Xue
Husband of Xia Jingui (wife who seems to have caused many troubles for the family)
Older brother of Xue Baochai
His father died when he was very young, and as a result, his mother indulges him excessively.
He is the opposite of his sister but holds a genuine respect for her.
Nicknamed the “Stupid Despot.”
He leads a leisurely life and enjoys beautiful landscapes but also a dissolute lifestyle, including his attraction to men.
Arrogant, he relies on the powerful ones to bully others.
He has committed several murders as a result of fights and resolves his issues with money.
He is a typical thug and was a local bully in Jinling City, where the Xues came from.
Jia Baoyu, Hong Lu is here :D
Jia Yingchun, Rongguo House:
An extramarital child and the only daughter of Jia She (Jia Baoyu’s uncle).
Half-sister of Jia Lian.
She is honest but timid.
Yingchun is kind-hearted but lacks willpower and is described as having a “listless” personality, indifferent to worldly affairs.
Although she is beautiful and cultured, she does not possess the intelligence or quick wit of her cousins.
Her most notable trait is her refusal to intervene in family matters.
She marries an imperial court official, in a desperate attempt by her father to restore the declining fortune of the Jia family.
After her marriage, she becomes a victim of domestic violence and is ultimately killed by her husband, a general.
She is one of the 12 Beauties of Jinling.
She is the second of the quartet of "Springs”, The quartet of springs is the name given to 4 of the Jia daughter
Jia Cong:
Youngest son of Jia She and Lady Xing
Younger brother of Jia Lian and Jia Yingchun
To be honest I don’t have anything else on him and I only put him here because he appeared in the Jia Family’s tree
Shi Xiangyun, Rongguo House:
Granddaughter of Grandmother Jia’s brother (the Dowager’s brother).
Daughter of Shi Ding.
Favorite of Grandma Jia.
Her connection with Baoyu is strong, causing initial jealousy from Lin Daiyu, but they later become close.
She is exceptionally beautiful and is described as a tomboy, androgynous, dressing like a man and enjoying eating meat and drinking.
She was raised by her uncle after the death of her parents.
Orphaned, she remains optimistic, joyful, and full of humor despite a difficult life filled with tedious tasks like embroidery.
She embodies liveliness, naivety, optimism, and naturalness.
Very talented in poetry, she is almost as skilled as Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. She is part of the Crab Flower Club.
She will become a widow after her marriage.
One of the memorable scenes in the novel is in Chapter 62 when Xiangyun gets drunk and falls asleep among the flowers in the Prospect Garden, surrounded by butterflies.
She is one of the 12 Beauties of Jinling.
Xue Baochai, Rongguo House:
Daughter of Aunt Xue.
Wife of Jia Baoyu.
(Yes, she is also his cousin by blood since her mother is the sister of Jia Baoyu’s mother.)
Sister of Xue Pan.
She is a calm, distinguished, social woman with a pleasant, tolerant character, in contrast to Lin Daiyu.
She is the only one whose talents could rival Lin Daiyu’s and is described as very skilled in poetry.
She receives praise throughout the Jia household and helps Lady Wang with household management.
At the same time, she is very calculating.
Her wishes are fulfilled when she marries Jia Baoyu (as the perfect wife) and bears him a son, but she will remain alone in the end as her husband becomes a monk and disappears.
Her marriage is seen as a maneuver orchestrated by Wang Xifeng and Grandma Jia.
She is one of the 12 Beauties of Jinling.
Lin Daiyu, Rongguo House:
Daughter of Jia Min (sister of Jia She and Jia Zheng) and Lin Ruhai (a scholar and official from Suzhou).
(She is, in fact, Jia Baoyu’s cousin by blood, as her mother is the sister of Jia Baoyu’s father.)
Known by the nickname “Princess of the Water.”
She is said to be the reincarnation of the Crimson Pearl Flower and has a deep connection to the jade stone (which Jia Baoyu embodies) that helped her when she was a flower.
She has lived with her maternal grandmother (Grandmother Jia) since the death of her father and mother (which is roughly when the story begins).
She is exceptionally beautiful, but her life is marked by chronic illness, which affects her fragile appearance.
She is a haughty, distant, and very sensitive young girl with exceptional intelligence.
More specifically, she is emotional, prone to melancholy and mood swings.
She is particularly vulnerable and often experiences jealousy, insecurity, and loneliness despite her elevated position in the household.
She is highly talented in poetry, and her poems are greatly admired, especially those composed during moments of melancholy, such as when she buries flower petals.
Her love for Jia Baoyu is mutual and is a major storyline in the novel (she is his soulmate, while Baochai represents the ideal social match).
On the day of Baoyu and Baochai’s arranged wedding, she dies after crying all the tears from her body.
While Baochai embodies the virtuous and practical woman, Daiyu represents sensitivity and emotional fragility.
She ranks first among the 12 Beauties of Jinling.
Jia Tanchun, Jia Baoyu’s Half-Sister, Rongguo House:
She is one of the 12 Beauties of Jinling.
She is the third of the quartet of "Springs”, The quartet of springs is the name given to 4 of the Jia daughter
Already covered in the previous post
Jia Huan, Half-Brother:
Already covered in the previous post
Jia Xichun, Ningguo House:
Daughter of Jia Jing.
Sister of Jia Zhen.
When she was little, her mother died, and Lady Wang brought her to the Rongguo Mansion.
She has been a devout Buddhist since childhood.
She is mainly depicted as an adolescent or pre-adolescent in the story.
She is a cold woman who always keeps her distance in human relations.
An excellent painter, she is tasked with painting the Prospect Garden for Granny Liu.
The death of the matriarch, the looting of the Prospect Garden, and the family’s expropriation shake her life and drive her to convert to Taoism.
She is one of the 12 Beauties of Jinling.
She is the fourth of the quartet of "Springs”, The quartet of springs is the name given to 4 of the Jia daughter
Voilà! I hope this post will be useful and if i ever made a mistake do not hesitate to notify me :) and I’ll finish this post by saying that apparently Hong Lu would have 15 siblings (14 if we don’t count the one who is dead at the beginning of the novel)
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lizardsfromspace · 2 months ago
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Okay, this is the conclusion to my posts about Sophia Stewart. I'll never do something like this again
Everything I've posted is from her own book or her web presence btw. That's all I'm drawing from and if anyone tells me any information about her they gained any other way I'll block them immediately so uh, don't
Towards the end she reveals some of her other pitches. By showing she copywrote sequels to the Matrix and Terminator
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Lots of strange details here - she wrote The Matrix 4 in 2000? They didn't even start filming The Matrix 2 & 3 until 2001. Also, we can see in this book that her pitch has nothing to do with The Matrix or Terminator, but she claims she wrote direct sequels to both?
(Her explanation for how both very different films are ripping off her work - a 1:1 copy, she claims - is, hilariously, that The Terminator plagiarizes it front to back, while The Matrix plagiarizes it back to front. What?)
But also she didn't write it. She registered copyright on a synopsis for The Matrix 4. She has concepts of a plan for a Matrix 4.
The book ends with a pitch for another...she calls it a book, but it's a movie pitch? And this, too, is just a synopsis for some grand epic series, light on detail of character and plot and heavy with lore and rants (in this case, primarily about God and Adam & Eve). Of course her exhaustively long but barely sketched-out epic movie pitch has a prologue, which is also full of Christian-tinged Ancient Aliens pyramid power woo.
Sophia Stewart is unimportant, bc she represents a class of writer. Writers who have Ideas. Who have outlines and plot points but no real story, bc they never write it. But they think just having Really Good Ideas is enough - that you should get credit for coming up with a good idea for a story, regardless of if you make an actual story out of it. They're a "writer", but they never write. Despite this they often have a deep case of Dunning-Kruger, churning out outlines that leave out basic details like "what happens in the climactic battle" and the personalities of characters while insisting that an inability to author anything shouldn't keep you from being praised as a genius author
If that type of person is lucky enough to have money, they become a studio executive or tech guy, both professions awash in the uncreatively creative, or they hire ghostwriters. If they're not, they become the type of person to file spurious lawsuits under the misapprehension they own basic plot concepts. It's the "I coulda made the majors!" of writing, except, you know. Baseball players who didn't make the majors still actually played baseball at some point. I assume from now on all those types will just pump their outline into ChatGPT and try to sell the gunk it slops out and then claim they 'wrote' it so uh, uhhhhhhhhhhhh
The only reason I made these posts was discovering the conspiratorial angle to her work, bc who cares if a major studio has to deal with a spurious lawsuit? That was the part that actually sucks. But also, she does a lot of press: profiles on news websites, podcasts, that documentary was even made by other filmmakers, who actually make films. It's persisted from blogs and chain emails all the way to podcasts and TikToks. All of this uncritically spreads her story, but I also have to ask: how many actual African-American science fiction writers do those platforms profile? How many of them get documentaries made about their work? How much air is being sucked out of the room by the decades long misinformation about the "true" creator of The Matrix? And why is that misinformation so persistent when it takes a trivial amount of effort to find out it just isn't true? It feels good to support the underdog against the big studio, but in this case it just isn't true.
The sad truth is a lot more Hollywood plagiarism cases look like this than are real exposures of wrongdoing, but people tend to accept them at face value since they feel like a little guy taking on a corporation, though in reality it's just two writers suing each other. Take The Holdovers case, where people immediately turned on it, but if you look into it, the two scripts have very little in common, and the accusing writer makes odd claims like a human character in The Holdovers being a ripoff of a billboard in his script.
Or look at Groundhog Day, which was accused of plagiarism by Richard A. Lupoff, writer of the story "12:01 P.M.". The two stories have nothing in common besides a time loop; in Groundhog Day he's reliving a day, in 12:01 PM he's reliving an hour. Groundhog Day is a romcom, 12:01 P.M. plays it for horror. Groundhog Day never reveals the source of its lop but it's clearly fantastical in nature, 12:01 P.M. is explicitly science fiction. In Groundhog Day he escapes the loop, in 12:01 P.M. he never does. You can't deny Lupoff felt personally slighted, but at the end of the day, a world where a writer could own the concept of time loops would be a dystopia where creativity and art would die.
But even though they were wrong, The Holdovers & Groundhog Day cases were based on real works of writing that existed. They were based on a real, if misguided, sense of violation from the writers. But in this case, we have a mere outline of a story with not even basic similarities to the stories she's claiming are a 1:1 copy of her work, and decades of media appearances based on exploiting a community college media student's mistake in 2004. Anyway seems bad
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