#I just really like seeing old concepts and beliefs that ultimately never were

[quibbs126]

You know, it really is fun finding old headcanon relationships between Cookie Run characters, before they were proven otherwise

I can only list two I’ve seen off the top of my head, and both relate to Dark Choco, but the ones I saw were one where Dark Choco was related to Princess Cookie and thus by proxy Tiger Lily (and possibly their father), and another just now where Dark Enchantress was his mother, though I think in that case it was adopted

To be honest, I can kind of understand both (I’m gonna try and explain myself, but this is just going off of guesswork years after the fact, I don’t actually know the true reasons, nor am I stating these ones as the truth)

For the one with Princess and Tiger Lily, while I don’t know when exactly that one was made, it must have been before Kingdom, and going off of what just Ovenbreak tells us, we know all three were at some point royalty and there was, as far as I can tell, only one known kingdom in Cookie Run. We know Dark Choco was exiled from his kingdom, but we (I assume at the time) hadn’t known just how long ago that was, or how a guess of how old Dark Choco was. Not to mention the fact that both he and Princess share red eyes, and you got a relatively solid theory

Edit: I found the post I was looking for, it dates at around April 2019, so it checks out

As for the Dark Enchantress one, the posts I saw about that one seemed to be from around late 2017. At that time, the only “dark” cookies would have been Dark Choco and Dark Enchantress, so it seems to make sense to have them be in some way related. Throw in the fact that they both shared a prefix, which could be evidence of a relation, and again the red eyes. Yes aside from that they look very different, but I mean, Matcha and Dark Enchantress are related and don’t look all that similar other than the horns. So again, it makes sense. Also from what I understand, this was about a year before Relationships were added to the game, so Dark Choco’s feelings on her were not yet known

Honestly I’ve only been able to find these via random images on Google, then looking at the page they’re on, but it’s still fun to see these regardless, wish I could find more

[spacebarbarianweird]

Hi! Firstly, wanted to say that your HC are so good! I really enjoyed ones about Gnome and Half-Ork Tav, they're so bittersweet and adorable, my heart melted while reading :') Thank you for your work! (⁠〃ﾟ⁠3ﾟ⁠〃⁠)💖

And secondly, can I please request HC for Astarion and Monk!Tav? I see this as a very interesting concept, especially considering that some monasteries practice celibacy. And knowing Astarion's initial plan, thoughts about their interactions become amusing.

Also I just adore monk class and it's a little bit sad to see it being one of less popular. ಥ⁠╭⁠╮⁠ಥ

Damn, the more I read about Monks, the more I loved them!

Astarion x Monk!Tav

Masterlist

Headcanons

You didn't become a Monk by choice.

It was your attempt to run away from past mistakes, your only choice for salvation.

A criminal, a murderer no more!

You got a new name, a new role, a new home.

Your past was burnt along with your old clothes and you were reborn as someone new.

Tav the Monk, who follows the Way of the Open Hand.

You drowned your sorrows in strict discipline and training.

You can wear a thin tunic in the coldest winter and walk on burning coals.

The energy of ki flows through you, and your spirit is one with magic.

Your fists are the ultimate weapon, but you use them only to protect the weak and the poor.

You would love to spend your whole life in the monastery, but the Head Monk sent you away.

"It's not difficult to follow your principles in the monastery. You need to prove to yourself the world with its temptations won't drag you back to the darkness you originally came"

So, you left. A lonely traveler something between a Wizard and a Fighter, a dangerous enemy to meet.

And the world doesn't wait long to test your loyalty.

The moment you wake up in the pod, you crash it with your fist.

You do the same to all the pods, trying to save as many people as you can.

The tadpole in your brain tries to control but your mind is sharp and clear.

The parasite will never get you.

You are the most annoying in the camp. You force your companios to exercise and constanly control what they eat.

"Healthy mind in a healthy body!"

And you aren't the one to mess around.

You broke Astarion's hand when he tried to slice his throat and two ribs when he attempted to suck your blood.

"My hands are the ultimate weapon, don't mess with me, friend" you warn him.

But still, you give Astarion your blood. He needs it. You have it. So, you share.

But you warn him not to seduce you. Celibacy is one of the oaths you've given.

Which didn't save you from having a date night in the woods. Be it the tadpole, Astarion's charms, or your own dark desires. You don't know.

But you take a toll on yourself for breaking the rules.

In the meantime, Astarion gets closer to you - finally experiencing affection and love.

He confesses. And you forgive. You aren't angry at him.

But you almost break two more ribs of his when squeze him in your arms.

You've been to dark places. Your past was the same mess. But it doesn't matter now. He can make a choice, too.

You help Astarion kill his master.

"If your oath forbids you from having intimacy, I am okay with that."

But you shrug it away. "Celibacy" wasn't something bestowed upon you. You chose it because it was part of your own darkness.

Your body was given to so many people you lost count.

But, maybe, it isn't bad if you do it to someone you love.

You travel together post-game, searching for answers and testing your principles.

Of course, you've never insisted Astarion should become like you.

But he learned meditation techniques from you to deal with nightmares.

And some self-control tricks not to experience hunger all the time.

Upon return to the monastery, you asked the Head Monk for advice.

"Astarion will test your principles and beliefs till the end of your mortal life. Consider him your very own challenge," the old man laughs, hearing the whole story.

--

Tag list

@tugoslovenka @marcynomercy @wintersire @vixstarria @not-so-lost-after-all @ashiro20 @theearthsfinalconfession @herstxrgirl@starlight-ipomoea @micropoe10 @astarion-imagine-archive @veillsar @elora-the-slutty-songstresss @fayeriess @lumienyx @astarion-beloved @tallymonster @caitlincat-95 @tragedybunny @valeprati @lynnlovesthestars

[taradiddled]

so, shit about my laptop aside, I did promise @inubaki that I’d give a peek, and I’m feeling so frustrated right now that it’s tipping into generosity, so you get every SO FAR in the chapter:

enjoy the porn,

It was a common misconception on Earth that angels were virtuous, gospel-preaching, saintly beings, who looked those they deemed Good as their guardian angels. They were painted as beautiful, gorgeous beings, with beautiful, glowing white wings, hovering in the background, gazing down upon Humanity with a benevolent presence. Adam knew this misconception to be true, because she had helped spread it. Her own experiences with angels on Earth had ultimately amounted to the Creation of Original Sin. And still, it hadn't been until her eyes were forced open in Heaven by circumstance, that she learned how wrong she had been.

Particularly, about all angels being virtuous. But then, what had she expected? All she had known about the Seraphim before ascending was what she had been taught by the Archangels, the highest ranked of the Seraphim. Lessons meant to further strengthen the belief that Adam was forever engendered to serve God and Heaven in total. The Archangels would never say anything that might paint their own kind in any negative, grotesque, perverted light, only detailing the core concepts of Good which the Seraphim were meant to uphold. And, true, the Seraphim did tend to preach these concepts on a regular basis, but just because they preached, did not mean that they also practiced.

The same Seraphim that would lecture you on the virtuosity of Chastity, was also probably yanking it as a voyeur on whatever unsuspecting mortal couple was currently making the beast with two backs in the privacy of their own home. Adam knew that, because she'd caught that Seraphim in the middle of yoinking their sploink, while operating the extremely Holy, All-Seeing, Heaven's Eye, which allowed the viewer to look down upon Earth and observe, what the Higher Choirs preferred to call, The Human Condition. Adam had only caught a bit of what part of The Human Condition the Seraphim had been observing, but judging by the erotic sounds coming from Heaven's Eye, it hadn't been anything chaste. 

Seraphim were capable of sexuality, just like the Humans over which they held (purported) Holy superiority. Though they had (supposedly) been crated to be Good and Virtuous, without the inclination to indulge in Vulgarity, in actuality, they could be some of the kinkiest fuckers Adam had ever met. Knowledge she'd gained from having fucked almost half the entire member roster of the Higher Choirs. Seraphim who'd looked down their nose at her in the presence of their peers, enjoyed getting their rocks off with Adam in private. The old fogies who'd pressured Adam in Eden into the conformity of Gender, shaming her for having a cunt and a womb, also happened to enjoy Adam fucking them over their office desks, sometimes right after Morning Mass.

Adam's first experience having sex with a Seraphim had been awkward, as well as eye-opening. She hadn't actually been sure if she'd really enjoyed it physically, even though she had gotten an orgasm out of the experience. She'd fucked the Seraphim because she knew they'd wanted her (had been for quite a while, judging by the looks they'd given her during meetings with the Higher Choirs), and she'd thought that, if she fucked them, then they'd leave her be in the aftermath. 

To her relief, the Seraphim, Uziel, had done as Adam had hoped, and didn't press her further, but Adam had ultimately come away from the experience with the discovery that she was still very much desirous of sexual intimacy, even after ascending to Heaven. And at first, she'd felt shame, but then her fall-out with Michael hit, and she'd used sex as a form of rebellion. Against the expectations placed upon her as the Perfect Human Being, and against Michael, who had once believed in her Perfection so fervently.

She'd mainly kept her sexual repertoire to the Higher Choirs in the beginning, knowing that, with each member she fucked, she was not just ensuring some manner of hold over the Higher Choirs, but she was also making these uptight, preachy bastards, look like absolute hypocrites. They could look down their noses at her all they liked, but Adam had still fucked them, and they'd fucking loved it. 

Even one of Michaels' overseers, some of his most trusted followers, whose job it was to report back to Michael anything of perceived importance, had wanted a go. And even though fucking that Seraphim had been the catalyst for Michael officially turn his back on Adam, after violently assaulting her, both physically and mentally, not even having her hopes and dreams and unshakable beliefs crushed could keep Adam from embarking on what became hundreds of years of seeking sexual gratification.

Sex felt good. Sex was nice. Sex let her feel like she was in total control. Orgasms were amazing stress relievers, and the praise she received for her stamina and her skill was a heady addiction. She learnt a wealth of kinks, found out the different ways to get off on her own, and began putting her own pleasure before everything else. Truly, Adam had been a selfish lover, but if she'd wanted to rock her bedmate's world, then she'd bring the fucking cosmos down in the process (sexually speaking, that is).

Fucking Seraphim had taught Adam that wings, symbols of Holy divinity, and Righteousness, were also capable of being incredibly sensitive erogenous zones. Her first time with Uziel, she'd stroked their wings at their desperate urgings, and been pleasantly surprised when they'd orgasmed after ten good strokes. After that, she'd started experimenting with her own wings, and discovered all the different ways her wings could be touched to elicit a sexual response. 

Further experimentation with Wink Kink (as she came to call it) with her Seraphim lovers opened Adam's world up to a wealth of new pleasures, and, as she mastered those techniques herself, learning new skills, she found herself becoming more sexually desirable to the mortal souls as well. After all, who wouldn’t want to roll around with the First Man, when she could make you come just from stroking your wing feathers?

Those had been some hot, hot, sexy times for Adam. She might not have been happy, but she'd definitely been getting plenty of orgasms on a regular basis. If she'd kept a little black book, it would have had to go through different editions, with witch each week adding even more names to the list.

But all those past lovers and the attached memories fell away, unimportant, as Adam focused upon the True Love of her Life. Lucifer looked up at her, no sign of hesitation to be found, totally open and vulnerable for Adam to touch as she pleased. Fuck, if that didn't get Adam's arousal spiking up all over again. But before she let her fingers touch Lucifer's wings, she paused, and said, "Tell me if you need me to stop. I know it can be a bit much for first-timers." While overstimulation was sexy for some, it could be downright uncomfortable for others, and while Adam and Lucifer had been using a little overstimulation in sex from time to time, Adam just wanted to play things safe and consensually.

Lucifer nodded, eyes filled with nothing but trust for his partner. "Got it." He gave her a thumbs-up. "The safe word is still 'banana', right?"

Adam smirked, but nodded. "Right." Lucifer had been the one to choose the safe word. It was a word they both seldom used that the sudden presence of it would definitely knock either of them out of whatever sex fog they might be occupying. Though they had yet to use the safe word, it still helped to be aware, especially since Adam and Lucifer both tended to get a little too deep into the sex fog when they were really feeling horny (which was often). 

She ran her fingers along his sides, under his arms, smug when Lucifer did just as she said, though he looked both intrigued and confused as he unfurled his six Archangel wings out beneath him, beautiful and shining in their feathered glory. Adam hadn't seen them in so long -- she'd always admired them in Eden, and Lucifer used to let Adam run her fingers along the fingers, shuddering in ways he hadn't yet understood, other than that it made him feel good.

"You're so pretty, Luci," Adam cooed, massaging Lucifer's sides. His breath hitched as her fingers brushed against his wings, and her fingers teased along the scapulars, and slipped beneath the feathers to pet the membrane of skin, Lucifer releasing a pleased shudder as Adam continued her tender strokes.

"My pretty guardian angel," Adam whispered.

"A-A-Ada," Lucifer panted, hips bucking at the sweet words dripping like sweet, sweet honey from Adam's lips, his praise kink coming on strong. His cock was standing strong, fully erect, throbbing. It looked gorgeous to Adam, dripping a little onto Lucifer's belly, and Adam wanted to wrap her lips around the head and bring Lucifer off, like she'd planned earlier. But she knew she couldn't give Lucifer's wings the proper attention they were due if she were to keep her head down. Instead, she lifted her hips, canting them towards Lucifer's cock, lifting one hand up from Lucifer's wings to take hold of the base of his girth.

The sound he made when Adam's fingers wrapped around him was like a little gurgle, and he cursed.

"F-fuck!"

"We'll be doing plenty of that," Adam quipped, having to lift her hips up higher to get Lucifer's dick to her cunt. The head pushed against her entrance, and she hissed when it popped in, Adam having to swivel her hips back down to fully sheath Lucifer inside. Her mouth dropped open in an 'o' of pleasure, as she felt the head of Lucifer's dick hit that spot inside her that made her knees weak. She couldn't help but let out a little moan, rotating her hips on top of him to knock his dick against that spot again.

"Oh fuck, Luci." She squeezed around him, Lucifer groaning beneath her, bucking his hips against Adam in response. It felt good, but Adam couldn't let the pleasure she felt distract her from her mission. She'd never ridden any of her past lovers while she was fondling their wings -- she'd preferred having them fuck themselves on her cock so she could keep her hands free to do all the stroking. But Adam wanted to ensure Lucifer received maximum pleasure from his first experience with Wing Kink, and that meant that, while riding him, she had to also keep her hands busy, moving properly, and not making blind grabs for feathers. A part of her wanted Lucifer to come (ha!) from this experience with the notion that he'd never had a fuck like it in his entire existence -- that he'd just had the best fuck of his life.

Yes, Adam liked to aim high, but if she happened to supplant some memories of Lilith then...all's fair in love and war, yeah?

But, back to the mission: Make Lucifer Come His Brains Out.

She returned her attention to Lucifer's wings, rotating her hips slowly so that she was drawing out some pleasure, while her fingers returned to finding those wing sweet spots. Because Lucifer had six wings, that meant she had more area with which to work, and would have to keep alternating between wings to make sure the pleasurable sensation covered all bases. It would be tricky, but it was the kind of challenge that tickled Adam's most stubborn qualities, and whenever she was up against those odds, she tended to outperform expectations.

Like playing a pipe organ's keys, Adam mused, fingers finding the first set of wings' scapulars and beginning to massage. Start at the bottom...work up to the top... She stroked against the divide between the scapulars and the marginal coverts, smirking when it drew an "oh!" sound from Lucifer. Focusing upon that spot, she circled her hips once more, putting a little more pressure into her stroke just as she set her hips back down, drawing out a noise of pleasure from both Lucifer and herself. It took tremendous restraint for her to not speed-up the motion of her hips, as Adam continued to stroke Lucifer's feathers, before she moved on up to the second pair of wings, and repeated the motions there. 

Each stroke Adam made to Lucifer’s feathers had him thrusting up into Adam, pressing right into that sweet spot again and again that could make her sing like the banshee she was truly if she were to really let go. Lucifer's dark hands gripped at Adam's hips, claw-like fingers becoming actual claws as Lucifer sank deeper and deeper into his pleasure, his head tilting back against the floor, mouth open as he panted. His neck was naked and practically bared, tempting Adam to take a bite.

“F-f-fuck, Ada,” he groaned, hips bucking as Adam found another sweet spot among the feathers and stroked her fingers into it. The guttural moan Lucifer let out went right to Adam’s dick, and she ground her hips down against Lucifer’s pelvis, knocking the top of his dick right into her cervix once more, Adam's pleasure building steadily. The urge to speed things up remained, but Adam ignored it, focusing on her fingers' movements, while taking glances at Lucifer's face, to admire the pleasure so clearly expressed with his open mouth and eyelids laying low, looking absolutely intoxicated on the pleasure he felt.

"Do you like that, Luci?" Adam cooed, continuing to work her hips in circles, lifting herself up ever-so-slightly so that Lucifer's cock was halfway out and halfway in, before she'd lower herself in a bodily bob, sucking him right back inside of her. Fuck, she could hear��how it sounded. The slide and squelch, the way her cock bobbed, achingly hard. Adam wanted to wrap her fingers around herself and start stroking to the beat of the thrum of their bodies. But her determination to focus entirely on Lucifer allowed her to ignore her throbbing dick, allowing her to continue her work.

It was easy, watching Lucifer's face flushed with pleasure, in a helplessness that Adam knew was being shown willingly, and with trust. Adam's heart squeezed, and she cooed to her partner, "You sound so fucking slutty." Her fingers continued their stroking motions into Lucifer's feathers, now caressing the feathers at the median and lesser converts of the wings, drawing a litany of moans from the devil whose cock she was working over. 

"A-Ada," Lucifer hissed as Adam drew out the next strokes, before she then moved her fingers faster, just as she would if she were working over Lucifer's dick by hand. Lucifer's back arched against the bed, his wings trembling under Adam's skill. A groan left his body, his fingers sharpening at the ends, digging into Adam's skin.

Through the haze of pleasure, Adam was able to think. Pulling back her face, panting, her breath mingling with Lucifer’s, she looked into his face. He'd fallen entirely under pleasure's thrall, a little drool at his lips, eyelids lowered low as he moaned. It was utterly enticing, utterly engrossing, and Adam felt her desire spike from a midpoint to straight through the fucking roof.

Adam needed Lucifer, in her, around her, filling her body. She needed him closer, skin touching, sliding, until she felt they were one entire being. The need shot through Adam, and she hissed, bringing her face down close to Lucifer's, his breath, panting, soft and warm against her mouth. His hips jerked under Adam, and she grit her teeth through the pulse it sent through her core.

"Wr-wrap your w-wings around m-me," Adam instructed.

Lucifer's eyes had already gone glassy. "Wh-what?"

"Y-your w-wings!" Adam repeated. "A-around me!" She took a handful of one wing and pulled it towards her, until Lucifer got the idea, sitting right up and surrounding Adam with his wings, cocooning her in their soft warmth. The action had Adam clenching at Lucifer’s shoulders, as the angle of his dick changed.

FUCK. She could feel that throb growing between her legs. But, head back in the game, concentrating on those wings. Once Adam felt them close against her back, she struck, slipping her arms beneath Lucifer's, reaching around to his back, and taking handfuls of the skin on Lucifer's spine where his wings connected. Digging her fingers in, she felt Lucifer fingers take their own fill at her backside, urging her to move faster.

"Fuck, Ada!" He was practically slamming her down on his dick after each lift of her hips, his heart rate increasing as Adam's fingers massaged and stroked those spots against his spine, rolling the skin between her fingers. She dragged her nails up Lucifer's back, between the wings, eliciting a shudder from the King of Hell as he got closer and closer to his peak, thrusting up into Adam with a pace that had even her breasts starting to bounce.

Her chest heaving, she tried to continue her project, but then Lucifer hit that sweet spot inside, harder, repeatedly, and Adam clung to Lucifer. For dear life and afterlife, she buried her face in the space between Lucifer’s shoulder and neck, her breathing gone ragged.

“Shit, Lucifer! Harder!” She urged, chasing that feverish rush as she got closer and closer to her finish. Lucifer was more than happy to oblige his mistress’s demands, grinding her down onto his cock, squeezing her ass’s soft flesh in his claw-like hands. Adam knew she wasn't going to last much longer, and, judging by the jerk in Lucifer's hips, the flex of the muscles of his stomach, he was rapidly nearing his own finish. She could close and her eyes and count down the seconds, their breaths ragged, the space between them charged with the friction made by their bodies, as they got closer and closer and--.

FUCK. YES.

Adam toppled first, squeezing around Lucifer like vice, thoughts splintering with pleasure. She dug her nails into Lucifer's back, and hissed through her teeth, body shuddering through her climax, hips jerking as her lower half pulsed, her cock painting Lucifer's slick chest wet with her cum. Her hips stuttered as as she wound down, breathing evenly as Lucifer continued his thrusting, fucking into Adam with reckless abandon. His claws were making marks on Adam's flesh, thrusting harder, harder, harder!

"Oh fuck!"

His wings closed tighter around Adam, and, just like that, he finally hit the pinnacle. He dug his fingers into the flesh of Adam's ass, grinding into her one last time before he went still and came apart at last. He held her tight against him as he emptied, pulsing inside of her cunt, his mouth dropping open with ecstasy. Adam rotated her hips against the sensation, helping Lucifer ease down from his high, until he finished.

In the aftermath, Adam and Lucifer were still clinging to one another, simply breathing each other's air. Lucifer's hands left Adam's backside to rest at Adam's hips, holding her there gently, his wings shifting back, revealing Adam from her cocoon of wings. There was a flutter to the feathers, as Lucifer retracted the wings further and further, until they disappeared, returned to wherever Lucifer kept them when not in use. Adam couldn't help but feel a pang of longing, remembering their softness against her skin. But having Lucifer's arms wrapped around her soothed that pang. Now, if only she could regain control of her breathing and actually speak.

It would figure that Lucifer would be the first to regain control of his vocal chords after an orgasm like that. His hands migrated from her waist to her back, fingers rubbing soothing circles in their wake.

"I think I just saw the pearly gates for a minute there," Lucifer humored. "Holy shit...I think you literally took my breath away." He pressed a soft kiss to the skin of Adam's collar. "Fucking incredible." Another kiss, this time to Adam's throat. "My oh-so sexy, vicious mistress." He then pressed his face into the valley between Adam's breasts, and sighed deeply, no doubt inhaling her scent. Adam allowed it, lips curving into a small smile, as she stayed draped against Lucifer, arms hanging slack over his shoulders, enjoying the post-coital aftermath's accompanying calm. Adam hummed, resting her head against Lucifer's blonde one.

They held each other for another minute, basking in the companionable quiet, until Lucifer finally peeled his face from Adam's chest, his hands going to Adam's side so that he could pull themselves apart, their bodies sticky but warm. "I say that deserves a post-fuck nap," Lucifer declared, flopping onto his back on the bed, arms out wide, waiting for Adam to dismount and curl up against Lucifer's side. His ruby-red eyes slipped close, and let out a hum of contentment.

It amused Adam how lethargic Lucifer became after one round, because she knew it was just a ruse. He was giving her an out, to call it a night and rest. She knew his sexual appetite was bigger than that, and he'd go eight rounds if that was what Adam wanted. But as Adam's belly grew bigger, her energy levels were weakening, and she could predict that, in a month's time, she'd probably be waving the white flag of surrender after a measly three rounds. However, that would be then, and Adam, right now, wanted to enjoy as much libidinous and unhinged sex as possible.

As Lucifer made himself comfortable on the bed, Adam rotated her hips, knowing she could get Lucifer erect again if she just gave a little squeeze...

Lucifer's eyes flew open, and his hands flew to Adam's hips, gripping them tightly. His hips bucked into Adam, and she sighed pleasantly as she felt Lucifer begin to harden again inside her cunt. Fuck. He made her feel so full, so fucking stuffed. During their first time together, she'd palmed at her belly while Lucifer had fucked her, goading him on by telling him how she could practically feel him thrusting beneath her fingertips.

"Fuck, Lucifer. I c-can feel your dick there. You're -- ah! -- so fucking b-big. So f-fucking hard. So -- fuck! Yes! Fuck me harder!"

"Fucking slut. Good luck leaving my bed in the morning, because I'm going to fuck you so hard that you won't be able to walk."

The debauched memory had Adam circling hips faster on top of Lucifer's cock, now at full attention inside of Adam. She was starting to pant, her hands landing on Lucifer's chest to help her stay propped up, leaning over Lucifer now as she established a rhythm, grinding down against him when his hips thrusted against hers, more deliberately than in trigger-response to her movements. Lucifer sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, grunting when Adam squeezed down on him, her lips curving, sharp teeth glinting in the room's lamplight.

"Are you tired out already?" Adam smiled wickedly, pressing her head down against Lucifer's, sighing as she continued to use Lucifer's dick to pleasure herself. She knew Lucifer wasn't a bit winded -- bless that devil stamina -- and only needed a little encouragement to get back in action. Judging by the color rising on Lucifer's cheeks, and down his neck, he was starting to get the idea, albeit, not as quickly as Adam would like. But that was all right. She could do this all night, even, just riding Lucifer's cock, slowly starting to wind herself back up on the pleasure she felt. 

Stretching her arms above her head, leaning her hips back so she was better balanced, Adam cast a sultry smile down to Lucifer, watching his mouth drop open to let out a moan.

"If you waaaaaant," Adam teased, "I can just do all the work, and youuuuuuu can lie back and think of Hell." It was a taunt, pure (well maybe not 'pure') and simple (definitely not 'simple'). A well-aimed challenge to Lucifer's Pride, capital 'p', meant to ruffle those peacock feathers of his, something clearly happening, judging by the indignation rising up on Lucifer's features like liquid heat inside a volcano. That magma bubbling beneath the surface, ready to erupt. Just needed a little more pressure...

A growl rumbled out from the King of Hell's chest, and Adam knew she'd struck that particular nerve.

"I'm going to fucking demolish that ego of yours, Ada," Lucifer hissed, fingers digging into the flesh of Adam's hips. With little effort spent, he spun them around, pushed Adam onto her back, right into the pillows, slamming his hips against her. Adam cried out, and Lucifer rose onto his knees between her legs, his hands slipping down from her waist so that he could start taking hold of her thighs, lifting her lower body up against him, thrusting back into her with a precise force that had Adam gasping and clutching fistfuls of the comforter beneath her just to have something to hold onto.

"I'm going to make you eat your words," Lucifer snarled, hips moving faster, spearing Adam with his cock repeatedly at a rapid pace. His horns began to emerge atop his head, his irises getting swallowed in a red glow, his tail lashing wildly behind him in its enticement. "And then I'm going to make you scream them, again and again, and again, until you can't even speak."

Lucifer made good on that promise. He fucked Adam all the way to Heaven and then back, and then to Heaven again, getting her on her hands and knees (with a pillow tucked thoughtfully beneath her round belly for cushioning), bending her over the bed's edge, legs spread apart, so he could get deeper, and manhandling her atop his cock, totally capable of moving her by himself, unassisted. The squelching sound of Lucifer fucking her was a constant background noise, as were Lucifer's grunts, groans, and Adam's cries as she climaxed again and again, her fingernails sharpening to claws that dug deep into Lucifer's back, egging him on further, leaving trails of red that Lucifer healed by the time he carried Adam off to the bath not long after midnight, to wash away the dried cum and blood. 

Adam had been half-lucid as Lucifer had wiped her down, fading in and out with her exhaustion, Lucifer's tender, thoughtful care only helping to further lull her to sleep. She was out like a light by the time Lucifer drained the bath and wrapped her in a bath towel, but she'd felt Lucifer's lips on her brow when he kissed her "goodnight". 

The next morning, Adam's voice was actually incredibly hoarse. Her throat hurt when she tried to raise her voice above the standard decibel level, and when she tried to tell Lucifer “good morning” before he went to go get breakfast started, she visibly winced at the ache in her throat, her hand going to her neck, as if she could try to feel the ache herself. Still, she tried to go back to sleep for a while, until Lucifer would return, hoping the soreness would go away with more rest. But when Lucifer returned and woke her, Adam could still feel that ache.

This time, Lucifer caught her grimace. "You okay, Adam?" he asked, face pinched with concern.

Adam winced as she tried to clear her throat. "I think I screamed my voice out." Her voice was entirely raspy, not unlike it had been after that first time she had deep-throated Lucifer. She'd been so proud, and so smug in the aftermath, though it'd taken a full day of drinking honeyed tea, and sucking on honey lozenges, before she could speak again without croaking. Adam hoped that her current condition would be as easily cured, especially since she and Lucifer were going to be busy the next couple of days with all they had planned.

Especially today, when Charlie and Vaggie would be visiting the palace. Adam really should have taken that into consideration the other night, before she'd goaded Lucifer into fucking her with the kind of determination she'd not seen since the night she and Lucifer had conceived their child. But she'd been so thrilled to see it again, that she'd had to express her appreciation vocally, repeatedly, and loudly.

"Oh FUCK, LUCIFER. Fuckmefuckmefuckme--FUCK ME!"

There was still a little ache in her pelvis from how hard Lucifer had slammed into her the other night, thrusting between Adam's thick thighs, hips practically a blur from how fast he moved them. At one point he'd taken hold of her thighs to better keep Adam's legs apart, needing more room to accommodate that amazing, fat devil's cock thrusting into Adam's cunt. Even now, Adam could still see the red of Lucifer's claw marks on her thighs, from where he'd started to squeeze for purchase. She'd just have to cover that with some leggings today, or else risk a lecture on decency from Vaggie. But then, Vaggie would probably do that anyways, if she happened to ask why Adam wasn't being so talkative as usual.

Sucks to suck, Adam supposed.

"Guess I'll be sucking on some honey today," she sighed aloud.

Lucifer gave Adam a guilty smile. "Sorry. I supposed I went a little hard on you last night."

Adam waved off Lucifer's apology, shaking her head. "Puh-lease. I haven't orgasmed that hard since the night we fucked Oz into being." She patted her belly. "Pretty damn sure that, if I wasn't already carrying this little womb nugget, you'd have fucked another baby into me last night." She smiled salaciously, tilting her head and winking at her partner. "I'll remember that for when we're thinking about doing some more baby-making." T

Lucifer's face turned orange as he blushed, looking flustered by Adam's crassness, as well as excited by the notion of having more children. Adam could recognize that want in Lucifer's face -- not something exactly sexual, but an intimate want he kept close to the heart. She could tell that, though Lucifer hadn't been created with the purpose of reproduction in mind, he very much wanted to have children. Even when they had been opposed to each other, with Lucifer in Hell and Adam in Heaven, Adam could tell Lucifer had a yearning to expand his family beyond merely indulging his obvious breeding kink. And Adam, who was already forty-three kids deep, with one on the way, was a little surprised that she, too, wanted to have more children. 

Right guy. Right time. Adam supposed. Then again, she might have to also chalk it up to her own emerging breeding kink. Hundreds of years of being one of Heaven's biggest hoes (facts are facts), and here Adam was, learning new things about her sexual proclivities, with the King of Hell. It helped that Lucifer also seemed to be discovering new things about himself -- such as how he wasn't the unflappable devil he'd believed himself to be. The orange flush to his face was proof enough of that unavoidable fact.

"Sometimes I can't tell whether you say shit to just fluster me...or if you're really meaning it," Lucifer said, a hand going to his racing heart. 

Adam just grinned, sharp teeth showing with the curve of her lips. "Can't it be both?" She laughed at Lucifer's stubborn pout, but cut her laugh short when her throat ached. Her hand went to her throat, and she grimaced.

"Guess you won't be heckling me too much this afternoon," Lucifer wryly stated, brushing his fingers against Adam's throat. "I'll have to make you some of that new-fangled honeyed tea I've been researching lately." Adam couldn't help but smile, appreciating the forethought. Though he could easily use magic to soothe Adam's ailment, Lucifer accepted that Adam didn't want to be too reliant on magic to solve something that would easily go away with time and care. Not to mention, Adam didn't want to get used to using Lucifer's power to solve problems, whether big or small, when she could instead work on building and then using her own power.

So, for now, some specially-prepared honeyed tea would have to do the trick. 

"I'll take the biggest mug you've got of the good shit," Adam agreed, voice ending on a croak. "I'd like to not sound like a frog got stuck in my throat, forever."

Lucifer snickered like a naughty schoolboy. "As I recall, it wasn't a frog that was in your throat last night." He waggled his blonde eyebrows at Adam, earning him a very dry look from his prickly mistress. But the one corner of her lips, turned upwards, was proof enough for the King of Hell of his mistress's amusement. Especially when she huffed a laugh.

"You're so fucking corny," Adam snickered, mouth breaking into a wide grin, all sharp teeth glinting. “And laaaaaaaaame.”

“Well,” Lucifer snickered, nuzzling in close, “You fucked it, so what does that say about you?”

Adam’s lips pursed into a pout, but she was only pretending to be stung. She gave herself a half minute to consider her response, and then her lips spread into a naughty smile.

“I’d say ‘generous’.” She laughed at Lucifer’s responding pout, and then shrieked when he half-tackled her in an embrace, his arms wrapping about her as best they could, his tail winding about one of her thighs. 

He nipped at one of her pointed ears, grinning. “I think I’m the generous one, dear!” He pushed his face into the nape of Adam’s neck, serpent tongue sticking out to taste the scent of her skin. Sex, cinnamon, and something milky — not even the strongest hair products and soaps in Hell could overpower a scent so natural.

Adam tilted her head to the side, giving Lucifer more access to her neck, a little sigh of contentment passing her lips. His lips were soft where they left little whispered kisses behind.

"Hey," Lucifer said a little softly now, nuzzling his head against hers. A memory occurred to Adam, that it was exactly like how they'd seen the wolves show affection in Eden, and Lucifer had been so touched to see the special ways of companionship among the animals, that he'd wanted to show the same affection to Adam, in the same manner. It had been thousands of years, and yet, Lucifer still remembered. Little things like that were what made Adam’s heart squeeze so tightly for the King of Hell. Her heart on her sleeves, she reached up and placed a hand against Lucifer's cheek, pushing their faces even closer, turning her head so that her lips pressed to his lips, sliding against each other almost wantonly. 

A moan rose between them, and Lucifer wrapped his arms about Adam's shoulders, holding her closer, pressed against his body, his claw-like fingers pressing into the skin of Adam's arms, anchoring Adam further to that very moment. Ah. Yet another reason Adam was so gone on the King of Hell -- he could make Adam feel she existed right there and then, purely with him at her side, as if it'd always been Meant to Be. Even though they had only recently just come together.

Let me live in this moment a bit longer, Adam pleaded to herself, as Lucifer tipped her back down to the mattress, their lips still locked in a mind-melting kiss that would make all the old Earth poets and romanticists swoon (at least the poets and romanticists Adam had met in Heaven). Adam sighed through her nose, wrapping her arms around Lucifer's neck, her lips parting ever-so-slightly to admit Lucifer's serpentine tongue into her mouth. Her legs wound about his ankles, and she sought to bring him closer and closer, if not for the roundness and size of her belly keeping the space between them. 

A strong kick from Oz in Adam's belly made them part, with Adam gasping from surprise. 

Way to kill the mood, kiddo, Adam conveyed to Oz through their bond.

Atop Adam, Lucifer pulled back, face full of concern. "Are you okay?"

Adam nodded, putting a hand to her stomach. "Oz woke up," she croaked, feeling another kick against her hand. She could feel the impatience coming through the bond. "He's saying 'feed me, you horny dick'." Though she was mildly annoyed to have her Sexy Fun Times interrupted, Adam couldn't help but feel a great swell of pride at her child's obviously large appetite. He definitely inherited that from Adam's side. 

Her kids always had tremendous appetites, able to gorge for hours if given the opportunity. Adam, herself an avid eater, had never begrudged her children their bottomless stomachs. Like her, they'd scraped and struggled on Earth, where food had to be rationed, lest someone's belly went unfilled. So when they began to gorge like snuffling hogs up in Heaven, Adam's heart had swelled to know that her children finally had a permanently stable food source (never mind that they no longer needed to eat, what with being deceased), so each organized family dinner, she'd watched proudly as her sons and daughters had eaten their fills, before, of course, offering them more food.

Already, Adam could picture having the same type of meals with Oz. She'd make sure he would never have to scrape for a meal, and that his plates would always be full when he was seated at their family table. A little dragon seated before his banquet, able to take his pick of what he liked.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

I really wish people could see more than a foot in front of their own faces sometimes. The phrase, "The path to hell is paved with good intentions" is a reference to when you try to keep doing good things only for it to lead to something ultimately bad.

Sadly, right now, that's the bulk of what we are doing in the west. It's what we have been doing for the past 10-15 years. Though it also burns me up that more people can't think ahead. Like this:

So here's the thing, stuff like this is good as an idea. However, read that again. A GOOD IDEA. Idea is the key word there. In practice, however, not so much.

The thing is, I'll use the picture above to make the point.

If this were put into practice you would end up with several issues.

-The cleanup costs for fallen fruits would have to be added to city costs (Also risk of falling fruit to vehicles and passerby's)

-Any missed fruit will end up rotting (leading to)

-Doing this would increase pests in the area, including flies and maggots

-Doing this would also lead to more large animals around these areas which could be a danger to residents in the area. The danger would also be faced by the homeless. (both from the animals and the pests)

People always want results NOW while not realizing that having your results now can end VERY poorly. Like drug use. Sure it probably feels good but getting off the drugs physically messes up your body, which is when withdrawals happen. And it can kill you at any point. So to the people that are like, "Just let them have their drugs". How about no. Especially not with my Tax dollars.

That however is my point. And it's almost every single policy that the modern left screams about.

-Eat the rich (The people that actually pay most of the taxes in the US by a landslide contrary to popular belief.) A concept that is not only stupid but the only people that push it are often just people that are angry and jealous they don't have that kind of money.

-Minimum Wage should be living wage (The costs on everything would go up be a long shot. And this would not fix inflation. This would also take wage decisions out of the hands of employers. The result of this would be companies not promoting people, and only hiring people they can objectively see staying with them for extended periods of time. The true results is that this tends to end up in MASSIVE discrimination when it comes to hiring. This would also further enable to STUPID levels of entry into companies. Like "at least 5 years old with 20 years experience and a PhD in space aliens. I don't want more of that.

-Landlords are evil scum and housing is a human right (except it's not. And it never will be) My tax dollars are mine. And I should not be forced more than I already am, to give money to people that often don't want to work. And before I get the barrage of "THEY DON'T WANT TO BE HOMELESS HOW DARE YOU~", or any other version of that, let me be clear. There ARE people that are homeless due to mental illness. And those people SHOULD be taken care of to some degree. However, at that point, bring back Asylums. If you want state funded asylums I would not mind if some of my tax dollars went that direction. However, there ARE a lot of homeless that opt to be homeless. I know because I've talked to them. Some of them just don't want to be on the grid at all, and they make a killing off panhandling. Some can make 100's if not 1000's a day. Frankly it bothers me.

More so the case when you realize being a victim is profitable. Because almost nothing sells better than sympathy.

But all of these are things I see people preach about, and it frustrates me to no end. How is it you want fruit trees in cities when they can't even keep people from pooping in the streets? Places like SF even have POOP MAPS and an entire new agency created because of the poop problem. And you want to pay MORE in taxes for the CHANCE to eat fruit or feed the homeless? That thing your state already claims it's supposed to be doing. And has spent 100's of Millions on? Clearly that's working as planned. And then you want to house the homeless for free in homes that belong to other people? And you expect those homes to not fall into squalor? Who's going to do the repairs? Who's going to pay the person that building and property belong to? Not the state. Who's going to make sure the building doesn't just end up as another worn down crack den with windows busted out and plywood over the windows with no heating or cooling or running water because it's all been stripped for drug money? Not the state.

None of you think anything through. Ever. And it shows. It's quite literally, "Oh this sounds good so we should do this" but you never consider the consequences of what you want. None of you do. You think because something sounds good that it IS good. Rather than realize that what you want could well lead to a devastating result. And all because you, "just wanted to help". Believe me. Wanting to help is a good thing. Just not when that help is not thought out. It's like the analogy. "If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime". In other words, if you give a man a hand out you might help him in the short term. If you teach a man to make his own way in life, he won't need a handout. And he will learn to fend for himself.

Now a days however, we have a lazy class of sheltered morons who think that since food exists in stores and amazon has stuff on it's site that SOMEHOW we are beyond scarcity. We are not. And without capitalism you lose your AC. You lose power. You lose your special vegan foods that can only really exist in a thriving system. Meanwhile you whine about capitalism when the actual issue you have is with the government and it's over regulation of everything rather than the actual economic system. Most of you are entitled little shits who frankly should be shipped to china, stripped of your citizenship, and be prevented reentry. Go live your communist dreams in a country that will literally torture you or kill you for burning their flag.

I've gotten off topic a bit by my point remains. You all need to think for yourselves. And you need to think ahead. And when you do, remember we don't live in a perfect world. Get out of your BS utopia that doesn't exist, and use your brain. Actions, no matter what they are, have consequences. Like this guy, who did something I personally view as a net positive. Except the government decided, "Hey, you are stepping on our toes. How dare you try to solve an issue that makes us so much money. When will you realize the ruling class LIKES homeless people because homelessness is profitable. Solving it is not. So they never will. And no it's not a "Republicans don't care" thing because in states like Texas our homeless issue is MINIMAL. And is mostly taken care of by each individual city. And they tend to handle it rather well. Unlike NY, SF, and LA. Speaking of LA:

Now granted. Do I think this guys idea would have failed long term? Yes actually. Do I think he had good intentions? Also yes. Do I think he did more for these people than the city or state ever has? Also yes. Because he did this out of his own pocket. Even went so far as to rent a lot out for these tiny homes. But listen to the video. Listen to what the politician says. But I think this idea at least is better than giving homeless of all kinds carte blanch to someone else's property. And they are super small, so they'd be easy to repair on your own after a day of pan handling. Does it solve the issue? No. Is it more than LA has done for it's homeless in decades? Also yes.

[shockersalvage]

Danganronpa Gaiden: Killer Killer Rewrite

Heyo! To those reading this, this is basically how I would have handled Killer Killer if it was kept in the same 14 chapter set-up it had. Not sure if I said it here, but to make things explicit I genuinely think of out of the Hope’s Peak Academy saga of the franchise, Killer Killer is the very worst of it in terms of how it handles it story and world. Yes, even more than Danganronpa 3 in that regards.

I love its art and Killer Killer is chalked full of great concepts, but it kind of feels as if the writing leaned too far into the ‘CrAzInEsS’ of the Danganronpa world...and kinda forgetting that as wacky as it can be, even Danganronpa’s story (especially in regards to the games) still held itself to a set of (well, I can’t say realistic) a grounded world. DR3 also has that problem, but that’s for another time.

Now, going into this, I swore to one thing: I can not outright get rid of any cast members the manga introduces. I can tweak concepts and story elements, but if the series wants a mad bomber Ultimate, I can’t get rid of the mad bomber Ultimate. Personally, I’m of the belief that it’s better to fix something wrong than just outright get rid of it

NOTE: This does not serve as a replacement ot the RE: Killer Killer I am working on. Think of this like another AU meant to serve well with the another rewrite I’m working on. 

Chapter One 

Honestly, no real changes to the first chapter. It serves as a pretty decent way to introduce both Misaki and Takumi, as well as the twist of Takumi being Killer Killer. Now, the one thing I will tweak is the 1st serial killer’s motivation.

Momomichi Ito…hoo boy. I feel as thought they were trying way too hard to show he’s ‘CRAZZZZZY’ and over the top, which kinda hurts when he’s the first villain of the week we’re supposed to see to get used to this new world way of doing things. So for him, I’d make it so that the people he killed were critics of his show, ranging from religious extremists to just your average music reviewer. Make him a vain narcissist that sees himself as the second coming of Maizono’s group and the music industry…and go ballistic when people think his work isn’t perfect. No need to have be some off the rocker for a motive that really doesn’t mesh well at all….

And yeah, no giant syringe of fucking blood. He does get a syringe, but its a normal one for knocking people out with sedatives.

For his murders, I also think he’d be the type to bully his backstage crew into doing the grunt work for his set-up so himself isn’t suspected too much. As for how he gets caught, I kind of like to think that the same warning message he used to send to Future Foundation, would be in the same style he uses for an autograph. On that note, this gives Takumi some legitimate detective prowess than his ‘sixth sense’ the manga keeps using to explain how he suddenly knows whose a killer or not. Because that never gets old!~ Hah…

Chapter Two:

Now, time for the real changes!~ Rei, whose in silhouette at the start, is in her hideout and she winds up receiving an envelope on her table. Inside is a photo of her misdeeds and a note saying that if she doesn’t go after Killer Killer, she will be exposed. With her hand forced, she blatantly kills her next victim at Ongo Hospital.

In this version, Rei kills her victims in her forest hideout, using them like in canon as parasite hotels. In this version, her parasites don’t fuse to become a giant monster and resemble…well actual parasites instead of those weird monsters. Takumi, and eventually, Misaki suspects her, when its found that the records for those who did the surgery/check-up on the victim was lost due to an accident with Rei. While Rei does sic her parasites on Takumi, with claims that she can’t be killed by them due to her modifying such parasites to recognize her as one, she’s ultimately killed when Takumi ends up splashing blood from one of her victims on her.  The parasites devour her alive and her body is found by Future Foundation forces that eventually discover her location from their own separate investigation.

Mekuru’s introduction has her apart of a B-plot with Misaki trying to bond with her, since Takumi is in the hospital. Ultimately, its their shared desire of seeing evil stopped that allows them to work together. In this rewrite, Mekuru’s Drowsing Deduction requires information before she can give an accurate lead - with both finding out Rei’s hideout on their own. As a side nugget of info, its also revealed that Rei’s parasitolgy research was also being funded a bit by some organization.

The blackmailer of Rei is disappointed, but not really surprised that she failed. Ultimately, he surmises from such information that in order to further his plan, instead of an ordinary killer…he’ll have to hire some whose more of an Ultimate - pulling up information on a certain fireworks artist.

Chapter 3:

We see Ted Chikatilo confronting our blackmailer whose in the shadows. He wants to know why the heck an Ultimate like himself should even bother taking on Killer Killer, especially since he never ran into that serial killer before. In this Ted is the owner of the serial killing gambling and is enjoying making his profit in secret. 

In response, the Villain shows him the potential extra moolah, he could gain from hosting a show featuring the elusive serial killer and the notoriety that can be gained as well. Plus, if he plays his cards right, he can both beat Killer Killer and wipe out a good portion of the Sixth Division of Future Foundation. Something that can get Ted to be favored by a certain organization. The last part is what gets Ted’s interest and he begins plotting

Concerning the plot with Eiichiro, its pretty much the same - though his corpse is used by Takumi as a fee for entering the serial killer gambling. Albeit, he’s disguised, with Takumi himself wearing a cloak and the Sparkling Justice mask from DR2 that he stole from Eiichiro. In his hands is a poster for Killer Killer as the main event in serial killing gambling. 

Chapter 4:

In this chapter, Future Foundation gains knowledge of the Killing Festival being hosted at Tify Ariake Arena this time. The Foundation has heard about the event for months, but given its secrecy and how it never has a set location, they haven’t had much luck in regards to stopping them. Not wanting to give a Death Game any sort of support given the fiasco with Junko’s game, they make plans to do a raid to arrest everyone involved in the Festival. 

In this case, Juzo and Takumi are to pose as Killer Killer and Juzo as a Ted Chikatilo copycat (IDK call him Ned Bikatilo or something XD). Likewise, to sell the illusion of them being legit killers they were supposed to use dummy corpses created by the Ultimate Make-up Artist…granted, Takumi sell his guise later by using Eiichiro’s corpse which he never quite discloses to his comrades.

For Misaki, given how this is her first official raid, her nerves are on her. Especially given how this Festival raid has her finally meeting Juzo. This is operations is a co-op between Juzo’s Special Forces and Special Crime Unit. She also gets to see first hand how he treats the leader of his Special Forces, Kenji Tsuruhashi…namely by yelling at him and threatening him to get on with things during their meeting. With Mekuru’s Drowsing Deduction after getting information on the arena’s layout, they plan on quietly neutralizing the Festival’s security while the audience is distracted with Juzo and Takumi’s fighting. Afterward, they would surround the audience via the arena’s entrances and quickly captured them. With the majority of the people corralled and exits blocks, any stragglers can be hunted down and taken in without too much resistance.

Given the role Takumi is playing, in addition to her prior experiences with Killer Killer, Misaki is both concerned over his safety…and partially suspicious. Though, she tries to dismiss it as being impossible. That being said, she does wish to apprehend Killer Killer for essentially ruining justice properly for their past cases. 

When the plan goes off, it initially seems as if they will have a clean run through of their operations, with security going down fairly easily. A bit…too easily? During Juzo and Takumi’s match, Ted’s voice on an intercom interrupts to announce to the crowd both’s affiliation with Future Foundation…and how the the place was filled to the brim with such opposition! Before the squads knew it, metal doors shut down on the exits. Effectively sealing them in with an audience full of pissed off onlookers and criminals. 

It’s then that Ted appears on television to announce this ultimatum: to the audience, they have to kill every last Future Foundation personnel in the building…or else he’ll blow up the entire building with bombs that he planted all around the arena.

Chapter 5:

Given the events of last chapter, Future Foundation is in a fight for their lives as the crowds begin fighting for their lives. It’s this chapter where we see Future Foundation’s specialized paralysis ammo they use in their firearms, as well as the fighting prowess of both Ikue Dogami and Juzo. While the cast is doing their best, they are gradually beginning to get overwhelmed and the knowledge of the time limit is clearly on their minds. 

Ultimately, they decide to split off. With Mekuru’s Deduction, she, Dogami and some others will go off to look for the probably locations of the bombs. Juzo and most of his Special Forces will fight against the audience to both apprehend them and give the others time. Misaki, Takumi and Kenji are tasked with heading to the upper levels of the arena to look for Ted.   

As they head up the arena’s stairs towards the rooftop, both Misaki and Takumi are discussing how bizarre it was that the enemy somehow knew they were coming, especially since this was a top secret mission that most shouldn’t be aware of outside the Future Foundation forces in play. Takumi half-jokes that their’s a traitor in their midst, something that gets Kenji and Misaki to tell him to quit playing about.

When they check into one of the rooms nearby the top, see the Republic’s of Lamieca’s Defense Secretary dead. They assume he was a backer of the Festival, but the fact such a high profile figure was dead here was going to cause problems once this was over. During the inspection of the corpse, Kenji makes an off-hand commented on the exact amount the SoD gave to the Festival…

Which gets both Misaki and Takumi to wonder how the hell does he know that. With the gig up, Kenji is forced to reveal he was the traitor that helped lure the division into this trap. In exchange for leaving with Ted prior to the explosives being set off and givine the bomber info on their plan, Kenji could finally kill Juzo for treating him like shit. When they ask about the SoD, Kenji explains it was insurance so to speak. On the offhand Juzo did survive, the loss of the SoD, ontop of losing most of his personnel in this raid, woudl no doubt earn the public’s ire and calls for him to resign.

Misaki is enraged at such a corrupt figure being on the force and tells Takumi to go on ahead whilst she deals with him. This is meant to give Misaki her own moment, as wel las strengthen her beliefs in dishing out proper justice. Being a platoon head, though, Kenji is quite strong. Yet, his arrogance and short temper leaves him wide open for Misaki to get a good shot on him, stunning him enough to be apprehended. 

With Kenji defeated, the scene transitions to Ted and Takumi’s own matter which plays out similarly to how it was in chapter 5 of the manga.

Chapter 6:

This plays roughly out how it is in the manga. Misaki catches up with both Takumi and Ted, but Ted is using his mesmerizing fireworks. Only real key difference is that he reveals a tidbit on how he should thank ‘that person’ for getting him to go against Killer Killer and inspiring his new motivation. That is, to get the Remnants of Despair to rally and continue spreading chaos with a Director of Future Foundation dead. Ted himself is not an Ultimate Despair, but he does value their work and wants to ensure that chaos is the dominant force in the DR world. He had hoped that if he pulled off his plan, it would impress such an organziation to both allow him formally into the upper class of their organization (not like the unfocused Monokuma masked mob that’s piling about) and continue making more frightening shows with their backing.

Same as in the current story, Ted is killed by his own fireworks and Takumi feigns as if he was still brainwashed as Misaki to avoid her finding out about the truth of Killer Killer. However, upon learning that Killer Killer was the one to beat Ted, she vows even more to apprehend them. The corruption of her colleague just re-igniting her desire to stop evil a ‘helpful’ killer like Killer Killer. From there, we learn that the others managed to find and disarm the explosives, whilst the surviving audience were all arrested. As for Kenji, however, he had disappeared. 

Still, Munakata is impressed with the Festival being effectively over. In addition, with learning Killer Killer still had no possibility of despair, he ows his Foundation won’t crumble. Kyoko also asks about Shuji, same in canon. At his hideout, Shuji happily is sitting in his locker…whilst Kenji is found, tied up and unconscious on the floor. 

Chapter 7:

The plot plays out fairly similar to main storyline. Key difference is Mimiko is inspired to ‘duel’ Killer Killer after recieving an anonymous tip from the Villain, and believing that if she can beat him then she can protect her Kinari with no issue. Naturally, she fucking dies for her attempt via beheading, but it should be noted Takumi doing his whole ‘one knife slices apart the fucking building’ shtick is absent in this. Coolness is no excuse to break the world.

Like in the original, Misaki meets up with Shuji, who asks for help in stopping Takumi from being Killer Killer. Something that leaves her immensely shocked and taken aback.

Chapter 8: 

I really love this chapter! Has to be one of my favorites from Killer Killer...which isn’t a super high bar to jump over XD The only notable changes I would make would be Mukuro being covered up instead of blatantly out in the open killing people (seriously, what was with both DR3 and DRG deciding that the duo that spearheaded the end of the world don’t know the meaning of ‘stealth’ and covert operations)?

Also some more clarification that such an attack happened prior to the UD girls enrollment in Hope’s Peak. Instead of both meeting outside the school like a couple of dopes, instead Mukuro is in some old building getting a radio message from her sister about how this job was just a ‘check-in’ of sorts.

Now, given how both boys at least recognize Mukuro, I would make it so that during the chaos, Mukuro’s mask is knocked away a bit. Takumi gets a good look at her…but given his psychological breakdown, his new mental state has him be appreciative of the ‘one who showed him the way’. In Shuji’s case, he barely gets a glimpse, but upon watching the Killing Game years later, he learns of her identity and reacts in horror upon who made him just one of two survivors.

In this version, Misaki is more visibly in shock and denial. Logically, Takumi being Killer Killer would make sense with the irregularities of the prior cases…but at this point she had become really attached to her partner. Tension rising as it turns out Takumi was hiding in a box behind them...and they overhear how Mukuro Ikusaba was on the loose.

Final Arc (Chapter 9 - 14):

Now the final Killer Killer arc: honestly, I don’t think it needs too much in terms of rewriting to be made solid I feel? Personally, I think this most of this last stretch just needs some more depth to make it work more…………and you all know what’s getting a major cut-out in the final chapter.

For the Ikusaba invasion, from the get-go have it be explained that these Mukuro attackers are just female Remnant of Despair cultists of her trying to imitate her.  They romanticised her as a martyr and got plastic surgery from somwhere on the black market to look more like their idol, so they could continue ‘her wish’ right. 

After their defeat, we get Misaki tearfully accepting the truth that Takumi is Killer Killer and she gets stabbed by Shuji. Shuji then explains his motives, with the nice handy bonus that he sent Rei, Ted, Mimiko and the Ikusaba Cultists all after Takumi in order to scare him into giving up being Killer Killer. From there, we get the scenes where he’s chased off and it transitions into the hospital with Mekuru and Misaki.

Now, Mekuru! You know how DRG said she and Takumi met before, but never went into detail why? Well, we have her finally explain her story. On how she was all alone during the Tragedy and was about to be killed by some Remnants before Takumi killed them. In addition, he even escorted her to safety...which is how he met Ikue Dogami. It’s why she holds trust in him despite being such a notorious killer. Considering the despair she’s feeling from essentially declaring herself the one to apprehend Killer Killer…only to get stabbed with the awful truth, this is something that helps get her out of her funk a deal.

Of course, we then move on to hearing about Shuji’s killing game. You know that guy Shuji killed to prove he’s Killer Killer…except when you think about it doesn’t really prove anything. He just kinda stabbed him, no real indicator of his crimes or proof. Well, Kenji takes his place, with Shuji showcasing the recording of him murdering the DF Secretary. Tears in his eyes, Kenji pleads for his life but he’s murdered. This, of course, would piss Juzo off something fierce. Now, concerning the bomb threat Shuji also made, perhaps have him detonate one in some random part of Japan. As means to show that, yes, even the bombs he stole were legitimate and real.

From there, the manga continues as usual. Takumi and Misaki try to survive against both the FF guards, panicked public and other Remnants being shits. Now, before I continue, I have to address the scene with Tengan in Chapter 11…and how he has Despairful eyes. Which is a good indicator that he likely watched the Despair Video and is brainwashed by it…

*closes old man Jenkins eyes*

Nope! Sorry! Fuck that! Someday I’ll show the other one I’m working on, but I can say that Tengan being likely kbrainwashed is not a thing here. He’s still an extremist, mind you, but he doesn’t need to watch a video to go that far. We stan wrecks that can be wrecks by themselves in this…bloghold? 

Anywho, the fight between Takumi and Shuji is mostly unchanged. They get their big showdown and…okay,  I can’t put this off for much longer.

The Recapitation….

What I consider to tbe the single greatest fucking sin in this series is next…the amount of hatred I have for it is immense. Everyhing wrong with Killer Killer can be summed up in the above. In Danganronpa, every other series, if a characters get their throat slashed...they die. The series has always been consistent with how fatal its injuries can be for its cast since, while most are Ultimates, they are also human. It grounds them. But here!? NOPE! Fuck how it works usually! Takumi can decapitate someone and they suffer no injuries because, for whatever reason, the writers thought it was a good idea to have their story not give a damn about the rules!! Arghhhhhhhh... But that begs the question:

What the hell can it be replaced with?

Well, I think the answer is fairly simple. As a way of admitting defeat, Shuji tosses the control switch for the collar. No bullshit neck severing/reattaching. Just a man who tried his damndest to change someone’s view, in his dying moments, fully accepting such a path in life and giving up their ambitions. No bullshit ‘it was that clean’ nonsense! Just a good way to tie up Shuji’s arc further and have it be that. Okay? Okay.

Minor notes before I continue, the panels of Munakata seeing the Remnants is getting tweaked so that he sees potentially gets glimpses of some of their features, but nothing concrete. Because both DR3 and DRG kinda forgot about the whole ‘Remnants identities aren’t supposed to be revealed to FF until after Makoto’s NWP is in motion. Well, sorta. DR3 did bring it up in the Despair Arc finale as to why they were faking their deaths…….except Future’s Arc first episode contradicts that with showing blatantly out in the open and attacking the Directors. Ugh...just, don’t think too hard on it.

Anyways, with the worst of the story out, we can safely transition into the both of Takumi and Misaki having their Super Lovers Suicide without error!~ A nice rather happy ending for these two lovebirds!~

Overall

What this aimed to fix were several things

1. Make the cast abilities be more grounded in reality/not-so bullshit and be more logical. This is a manga centered about a group of detectives, have them showcase more of said skill instead of just going by ‘intuition’ and even have the their broken side of them toned down or given a logical buffer. Such as Mekuru’s deductions needing information so she can give an accurate reading. Stuff like that helps make it feel as if the cast aren’t OP tools, but still humans like the rest.

2. Give focus to concepts/cast that lack it and help bring them in closer ot the narrative. Sorry to say, but the villain of the week idea really didn’t help the manga much for me. One too many chapters just feel like filler or wasted concepts that had a lot of intrigue to them. By having a deal more of the villains be essentially mercenaries sent after Takumi by Shuji or connecting them with others concepts to give both more depth, I felt it would have made things better narratively. For example, I love Ted’s design and the concept of a rogue Ultimate is great...but he kinda just...doesn’t really do much? Or seem to much connected with things? Doesn’t help he really doesn’t have him a motivation for what he’s doing unlike the other villains. I lvoe the idea of killer gambling...but its just kinda thrown in without much care. So, why not combine the two? Have him be a sadistic greedy showman who wants profit and eventually infamy for his handiwork, with the Festival being a way he makes his dough.

3. Crazy does not equal genius - it needs to go. Sorry to any of you who enjoyed the over to the top insanity the manga brought...but it needs to go. I already went into my loathing of the Recapitation, but from the parasite monsters weird designs and fusio to Shuji’s skills becoming more bullshit by cutting a damn roof in half just.....no. No. Its uneeded. Craziness can be allowed, but you need to be thoughtful with it and use it wisely. Why isn’t Sakura busting down the walls of the Academy? Because being the Strongest Human still doesn’t mean you can do whatever the fuck you want and the games recognize that. Which is why its baffling that the manga doesn’t and decides cutting off roofs with a small ass knife is a-okay!!? Ugh...

Anyways, hope you all enjoyed this! It was fun thinking of these fixes!~

[fierceawakening]

Hey, Fierce! I’ve been somewhat following your discourse on “is there such a thing as bad foods” (in the sense that I follow you and your posts about it keep showing up on my dash). First I just want to say that I appreciate how respectful and well-reasoned you are in your arguments, and it’s been interesting seeing everyone’s different takes on the issue and considering where everyone’s coming from. I don’t know if you really want to engage in any more discourse on this topic, so feel free to entirely ignore this ask if you so choose, but if you’re okay with it, I’d like to share my perspective.

It seems like while most people agree that eating a lot of junk food is not the healthiest, we all have a bit different ways of conceptualizing what that means, and different ways of conceptualizing things work well for different people. Personally I would characterize it not so much as “junk food is inherently bad” (from either a moral or a health perspective) and more as “junk food is bad for you when you eat too much of it,” though I definitely see your point about it being specifically designed to encourage overeating. This is a useful understanding for me, but I also have a different relationship with food than you, and I’m glad your conception is useful to you.

I also think it’s interesting to think about how our ideologies and our interpretations of different concepts are often formed in response to our environment. For example, I probably have a less charitable view of “alternative medicine” than a lot of people because I’ve had significant exposure to questionable information from naturopaths and chiropractors and didn’t realize how flimsy or outright contradictory the evidence was for some of the things they presented as fact until a long time later. Especially with the way the internet allows us to so easily pick who we interact with, but even outside of the internet just based on our real-life communities, two different people can end up with very different perceptions of not just how the world works, but also how other people think about the world, and form different values and beliefs in response—and neither are necessarily wrong or unreasonable, but they are responding to different things.

So I guess what I’m saying is this has been a very thought-provoking discourse and I’ve enjoyed thinking about how words and concepts can mean different things to different people and how important the context in which we form our opinions can be and also how that context is often stripped away in conversations because you just can’t and probably wouldn’t want to expound upon every single thing in your life that has led you to form those opinions, and I wish you the best.

Thank you!

I dunno. Maybe I’m just strange but I feel like there are a lot of people in the world who just.. don’t want to let things suck a little? It feels to me like people can be very… how dare you say that we’re not all fine? About things.

And that’s never made sense to me. Like, take the conservative old saw “facts don’t care about your feelings.” It’s mean and it’s often used by people who are also mean to argue that things are facts that very much actually aren’t. But the reason it works as a hook is that it’s actually in one sense true. There’s a lot of shitty crap that’s true and isn’t going to stop being true because we say it’s not. Like… I gained more weight than I planned to in part because I was in an online environment I do think was kinda controlling, and I really did get the sense that if I didn’t enjoy the foods I liked whenever I wanted them, I was letting fatphobia, literal unfounded fear becoming fat, due to propaganda about it, win.

When my doctors started noticing me gaining I had ready defenses: you’re fatphobic, and my blood pressure is only doing that because I have ptsd.

Ultimately I decided, feeling scared as this kept getting worse and maintaining the belief that others were fatphobic and I was fine became more difficult, to test whether MY weight and MY blood pressure are correlated.

FOR ME? They are. I've seen them increase and decrease together enough that I'm satisfied there is a correlation.

So when I hear “fat people can be healthy,” it’s not so much that I think that’s clearly wrong and people are lying, but I get very interested: which fat people? Do we know which people have this blood pressure thing and which don’t? Can we predict it, even roughly? Cos I spent like a year wrecking myself for political cred and it didn’t really get me much, and who knows, there might even be some damage.

But when you start asking what is pseudoscience, some people can take it super personally, and that’s… I don’t know what I do about that really. I mean if I was the kind of person who was more concerned about avoiding conflict than about trying to fact find I would stop talking, but I’m not that kind of person, fortunately or unfortunately for all concerned.

And my thing is toxic positivity lately I think, again, because my own work in therapy lately has been learning that it’s okay to say things aren’t fine. Like I know it’s okay to say, but I have a lot of experience with being judged for being the one who says it, and that’s… that’s hard, because I don’t know how to not mention truth when I think I know it.

And the truth I think I see here is, hey, some of us actually do need to make diet changes for health. Some of us don’t. But letting those of us who don’t talk over those of us who do for politics is (clutches pearls) BAD. It literally got me hurt.

I might have some of the facts wrong, that’s very possible, but I CANNOT possibly be the only one.

[skaldish]

Absolutely! I love talking about this stuff.

The short answer is that, the Old Norse religions were structured very differently from Greek and Roman ones.

The long answer requires a little bit more anthropological and historical context:

Religion is ultimately a product of culture. The way a given religion is structured emerges from the worldviews, sensibilities, experiences, and priorities of its people.

All of these ancient pagan religions started more or less the same way; they emerged out of people perceiving things about the world and telling stories about it. However, a religion doesn't really centralize until a society grows and develops things like agriculture and cities. Only then do we start to see a "canon" of myths and orthopraxy and orthodoxy emerge—that is, "how to do the religion."

Regardless of any similar features they may have, all religions have their own unique architecture or "operating system" that they run on. What determines the OS of a religion, is based on what factors shaped the development of the culture it comes from.

Take Rome, for example. Rome was shaped by the environment of conflict pretty much since its conception. Rome's neighboring societies constantly threatened invasion due to Rome's coveted position in the dead-center of the Mediterranean peninsula, which meant Rome started to value control over the land as a result. Religio Romano reflects this: All of the Roman gods are characterized as lords (read: land-owners) of the different "domains" of the world (i.e. "that which you hold dominion over"). A society that did not develop conquest as a value would not have a pantheon of gods that works like this.

Now here's where it gets interesting with the Norse people: Their society never actually got to the point where their religion could centralize, before Christianity swept through. Despite having multiple named gods, its overall structure was and is still mostly animistic, because it was only just starting to develop the characteristics of polytheism by the time of the Christian conversion. However, this late conversion means what remains is not as garbled and corroded as it could have been, giving us this impression that it was more centralized than it actually was.

There's still an issue of USAmerican pagans making the mistake that we almost always make when approaching old European form of paganism: Assuming that we can restore what has been lost by modeling them after Roman/Greek polytheism.

Why we have this assumption is pretty simple: Whenever our nation doesn't know how to do something, we turn to models of antiquity to guide us. After all, our entire democratic republic is based on Ancient Greek and Rome, so the structures found in Grecco-Roman societies are what feel the most familiar and sensible for us.

Unfortunately, this unchecked assumption is the mechanism behind the Imperialization of a lot of these old pagan practices. It's not something we're intentionally doing, of course, but it's something that emerges due to lacking methodology for switching religions; we think switching religions is just a matter of switching gods, rather than a process of changing our entire patterns of thinking.

Rome was very good at giving people the impression that everything about it represents the baseline default for "how to do society," including religion. This is evidenced in the way we discuss religion as a whole, using terms that derive from Grecco-Roman models: Theology. Religion. Cosmology. Pantheon. Deity. Orthopraxy. Orthodoxy. These are all Latin words, and truthfully they only accurately apply to Latin-derived belief-systems.

Heathenry is not one of those, and let me give some examples why:

Take the Old Norse word that we commonly translate into "god" in English: Ás. The actual implied meaning of this is "member of the Æsir." The Æsir are a family of people who live on the other side of the veil—in what we'd call "the Astral" or "the Otherworld" or "the Heavens", etc.—in a sphere called Asgard. But they are not the only kind of people there, for there's also the Vanir, who live in their own sphere called Vanaheim. (If you want to complicate things further, these spheres were not seen as separate from the material world, but rather nested within it, and how this works would take me too long to explain for the scope of this post.)

The names "Æsir" and "Vanir" do not actually describe different "species" of divine powers, but describe affiliations, similar to how we say "the Bloods" or "the Crips" when identifying those gangs. As far as I'm aware, there isn't a word like "god" in Old Norse because the Norse people did not identify these beings as anything other than people. We just gloss these terms as "god" in order to make it clear what their function is to Western readers, who are coming at this from a Latin paradigm.

Same goes with the word jötun, which is often translated as "giant" in English. At first we'd assume jötnar are similar to "titans" by virtue of this descriptor, but they're not. It's more accurate to say that they are "the powers that dwell in environments human beings can potentially visit, but not stay in forever."

Jötnar live in the "countries" we can't tame, such as on the peaks of mountains, in the depths of volcanoes, in the torrential oceans, etc, but this also applies to more abstract countries: For example, the god Loki is also a jötun, but he typically dwells in the "country" of parties, mischief, and entertainment. This is a realm we adore visiting and often invite into our lives, but just like how we invite fire into our lives, it needs a specific designation and cannot engulf our entire existence without harming us.

Compare this to, perhaps, Frigg's hall, which is the "hall" we visit whenever we work on fibercrafting and textile arts. Frigg is not jötun, but she also wouldn't be one because her hall emerges from domestic life, vs. Loki's nonsense, which is a wild thing we invite into the domestic sphere.

"Giant" is typically accepted as a gloss for jötnar because it's not exactly inaccurate—jötnar have energy that feels noisy and big compared to the usual hum of our lives—but this word is once again a gloss.

So...yeah. It's more complicated than we typically want to admit. A lot of people coming into paganism are looking to get a foundation beneath their feet as fast as possible, so they reach out for the most accessible paradigm they can find. But just because a tool is accessible doesn't automatically make it the right tool for the job. Many people end up recreating the Latin and Imperial structures of religion they were trying to get away from this way, and are left wondering why they do not feel fulfilled.

Pet peeve of mine: When it's assumed Norse polytheism works like Greek or Roman polytheism, when it really does not.

[therealvinelle]

I've always wondered this, but what do you think the Cullen's political viewpoints would be, given their individual backgrounds? if vampires don't change after they turn, then surely they would all be extremely racist (especially Jasper). would this not come up at some point? they aren't like the Volturi because the Volturi are too old to care, but the Cullens are young enough that they have been brought up with opinions on stuff like sexism, racism, homophobia and the like.

Oh fuck.

You get an early answer because otherwise I'll just chicken out and delete this one, pretend I never saw it.

UMMM.

Since I'm guessing you meant American political viewpoints, we need a disclaimer. I am not American, and not too knowledgeable about your politics. Not just in the sense that I don't follow the day-to-day drama, but as I am not an American citizen there are several things I don't know, can't know because I've never lived in your country and therefore can't know what the effects of living in a country ruled by American policies is like. What I do know is based off of the news in the foreign section, social media (by which I mean tumblr posts), and Trevor Noah's Daily Show.

I am an outsider looking in.

Which is really rather appropriate, since the Cullens are too.

The Cullens go to high school and college, Carlisle works, they pay taxes, they own real estate, and submerge themselves in American culture. Esme, Edward, Rosalie, Emmett, and Bella are young enough that this is in many ways their world, and apart from timeouts they've more or less spent their entire lives, human and vampire, integrated into American society.

Not fully integrated, mind you, they do what they need to to fit in and get to school or, in Carlisle’s case, to work. They go no further. No extra-curriculars for the kids, no book clubs for Esme, no game nights for Carlisle. They walk parallel to humans, not among us.

In addition to this they're obscenely rich, which puts them another thousand miles from the experiences of your average American. They won't deal with the health system, which means healthcare is a non-issue, they're not going to need welfare or other social programs, unemployment is another non-issue. Name your issue, and the Cullens don't have personal stake in it. Even the climate crisis won't be a problem for them the way it will for us.

What I'm trying to say is, American political issues are a concept to them, not a lived reality. Just like they are for me. So hey, you made a great choice of blog to ask.

I'll also add here that you say the Volturi are too old to care, and I agree- from an ancient's point of view, racism is a matter of "which ethnicity are we hating today?", and it all looks rather arbitrary after a while. Same with every other issue - after a while it all just blends together into "what are the humans fighting over today? Which Christian denomination is the correct one? Huh. Good for them, I guess."

I can't put it any better than this post did, really. The Volturi are real people, humans are nerds and tumblr having Loki discourse. Aro thinks it's delightful and knows entirely too much about Watergate (and let's be real, Loki discourse as well), but the point I wanted to get at is that politics really don't matter to vampires.

And I don't think they matter to the Cullens either.

So, moving on to the next point while regretting I didn't put headlines in this post, I'll just state that I don't think vampires' minds are frozen. Their brains are unable to develop further, and they can never forget anything, but... well, this isn't the post for that, but in order for this to be true of vampires they would barely be sentient. They would not be able to process new impressions, to learn new things, nor to have an independent thought process. Yes, we see vampires in-universe (namely, Edward, who romanticizes himself and vampires) believe they're frozen and can never change, but there is no indication that this is a widespread belief, or even true. Quite the contrary - Carlisle went from a preacher's son who wanted to burn all the demons to living in Demon Capital for decades and then becoming a doctor and making a whole family of demons. Clearly, the guy has had a change in attitude over the years. Jasper, in his years as a newborn army general, slowly grew disenchanted with his life and developed depression. James initially meant to kill Victoria and hunted her across the earth, then became fascinated and changed his mind about it.

Had these people been incapable of change, Carlisle would still be hating demons, Jasper would be in Maria's army, and James would still be hunting Victoria.

It goes to follow, then, that they are able to adapt to new things.

The question is, would they?

Here I finally answer your question.

So, we have these people who don't really have any kind of stake in politics, who keep up to date all the same (or are forcibly kept up to date because high school) and are generally opinionated people.

Where do they then fall, politically?

(And this is where you might want to stop reading, anon, because I'm about to eviscerate these people.)

Alice votes for whoever's gonna win. She also makes a fortune off of betting each election. Trump's 1 to 10 victory in 2016 was a great day to be Alice. MAGA!

The actual policies involved are completely irrelevant, she does this because it's fun. Election means she gets to throw parties. Color coded parties for the Republican and Democratic primaries, and US-themed parties for Election Night! (Foreigner moment right here: I at first wrote "Election wake" before realizing that's not what y'all murricans call it.)

Alice loves politics. Doesn't know the issues, but she sure loves politics.

Bella votes Democrat. She actually knows about the issues, and cares about them. This girl is a Democrat through and through.

Carlisle doesn't vote. I can't imagine it feels right. Outside of faked papers he's not a US citizen, this is meddling in human affairs that he knows don't concern him.

More, this guy has never lived in a democracy.

In life, Carlisle lived under an absolute monarchy that, upon civil war, became an absolute theocracy. From there he learned that vampires live under a total dictatorship.

For the first 150 years of his life, democracy was that funky thing the Athenians did in history books thousands of years ago, no more relevant to him than the Ancient Egyptian monarchy is to me. Then the Americans, and later other European countries started doing this.

Good for them.

There's this mistake often made by those who view history from a... for lack of a better term, a solipsistic standpoint. A belief that the present day is the culmination of all of history. “My society is the best society, the most reasonable society; all the others had it backwards. Thank god we’re living in this enlightened age!”

The faith in our current system of government is one such belief. We (pardon me if this doesn’t apply to everybody reading this post) have grown up in democracies, being told this is the ultimate form of rule, and perhaps that is true - but remember the kings who have told their subjects they had were divine and the best possible ruler based on that. Remember also that most modern democracies haven’t actually been democracies for very long at all, America is the longest standing at some 230 years (not long at all in the grand scope of things) and they have a fracturing two-party system to show for it.

Every society, ever, has been told they’re the greatest, and their system of government the most just. Democracy is only the latest hit.

This is relevant to Carlisle because he’s immortal and decidedly not modern. Democracy has not been installed in him the way it was the rest of the Cullens, Jasper included. To him- well, it’s just not his world. He has no stakes in our human politics, and as he is older than every current democracy and has seen quite a few of them fall, he’s not going to internalize the democratic form of rule the way a modern human has.

I think the concept of voting is foreign to him.

It requires a level of participation in human society that he’s simply not at. He does the bare minimum to appear human so he do the work he loves, but nothing more, and I find that telling.

As it is I think he'd be iffy about his family doing it. He won’t stop them, but in voting they’re... well it’s kind of cheating. They’re not really citizens, none of this will affect them, and by voting they’re drowning out the votes of real human voters. He does not approve.

Edward votes Democrat. He's... well he’s the kind of guy who will oil a girl’s bedroom window so he can more easily watch her sleep without being discovered, justifying it to himself as being okay because if she were to tell him to get lost he’d stop immediately. Same guy is so sure that he’d leave and never return again if she wanted him to, except this is the man who returned to Forks to hang around his singer, knowing there was a significant chance he might kill her. To say nothing of his Madonna/Whore complex, or of the fact that he tried to pimp out his wife twice, and was willing to forcibly abort her child.

This guy is very much in love with chivalry, with being an enlightened and feminist man who supports and respects women, while not understanding the entire point of feminism, which is female liberation.

He votes Democrat because he’s such an enlightened feminist who cares about women’s rights.

Emmett doesn’t care to vote, but if he has to he votes Republican. The guy is from the 1930′s, and has major would-be-the-uncle-who-cracks-racist-jokes-if-he-was-older vibes.

Esme doesn’t vote, that would require getting out of the house.

More, I just... can’t see it. I can’t see her being one to read up on politics and The Issues, period, but if she has to then I doubt she’d be able to decide.

Jasper doesn’t vote. Alice can have her fun, he does not care.

There’s also the whole can of worms regarding the last time he went to bat for American politics.

I imagine he stays out of this.

Renesmée doesn't vote. She has no stock in the human affairs. Who would she vote for, on what grounds? When Bella tries to pull her to the urns, she points out that she's three years old.

Rosalie, guys, I’m sorry, but that girl is definitely gonna vote Republican. Perhaps not right now as it’s become the Trump party of insanity, but the Mitt Romney type of Republicans? Oh yes.

And for the record, yes I imagine she does vote. To step back from politics would be another way she was relinquishing her humanity, and that’s not allowed to happen. So, yes, she goes to the urns, less for the sake of the politics involved and more because like this, she’s still a part of society in some way.

Now, onto why I think she’s Republican, I think it’s both fiscal and social.

This girl was the daughter of a banker who somehow profited off of the Depression, and who then became part of a family with no material needs that would soon become billionaires thanks to Alice. Poverty to Rosalie is a non-issue, as it is I imagine she views it as a much lesser issue than what she’s had to deal with. The humans can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, Rosalie’s infertility is forever.

Rosalie’s empathy is strongest when she’s able to project onto others, and she won’t be able to project onto the less fortunate at all.

Then there’s the fact that the Republican party is all about traditional family values, and pro-life.

Rosalie, a woman from the 1930′s who idolizes her human life and who‘d love nothing more than to get to live out this fantasy, is down for that. And as of Breaking Dawn she’s vocally pro-life, so there’s that.

This all being said I don’t think Rosalie cares to sit down and fully understand these politics she’s voting for, the possible impact they’ll have- that’s not important. What’s important is what voting does for her.

TL;DR: I bet anon regrets asking.

[kylorenisadorkable]

How TROS Failed Rey

These are just my opinions and from my personal perspective, if these things worked for you in the movie then cool, but this is why it was never going to work for me.

A Feminine Power Fantasy

Growing up in the 90s there wasn't a ton of media that had female lead characters. I grew up with strong female characters but they were often relegated to being the token girl of the group (see the Smurfette principle), the story was never centered around them and we never got to experience things from their point of view or really get to know their story. It felt like I was being asked to relate to male characters but boys were never asked or expected to relate to female characters.

Just as young boys see themselves as Luke, leading the adventure I also wanted to see myself as the main character. I wanted to have my own adventures.

When I first saw TFA, I went in knowing nothing about the movie. I had seen the OT and the Prequels as a kid and I had thought they were ok but I wasn't a huge Star Wars fan and in hindsight I really think this was due to the lack of female representation, Leia and Padme are great but I never really felt like I really got to know them as people. Not to mention that these characters are 2 women out of a cast that's predominantly male, it just seemed like the message LF was sending was that Star Wars is for boys, yeah girls can watch it if they want to but this isn't a series that is meant for you. So as you could guess I wasn't really expecting much from these new Star Wars movies, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I fell in love with Rey's character during those first 3 minutes of her introduction. During this brilliant example of “show don't tell,” story telling they were really able to convey so much about Rey's character and personality, I really began to care for her and felt like I understood her, as I could relate to her loneliness and isolation in my own way. And I was excited to see a story from a major fantasy/adventure franchise told from a feminine perspective. It felt like I was finally getting the representation I wanted to see.

So what happened? How did we go from Luke's line “And I will not be the Last Jedi” which is essentially him “passing the torch” to Rey, the next generation, to “One day I will earn your brother's saber?” 

As if the saber didn't already choose her in the Force Awakens? Why did they decide that all of a sudden Rey was unworthy? Didn't Yoda say “that library held nothing that the girl Rey didn't already posses?” which yes was a clever way of saying that Rey already took the jedi texts with her but was also implying that she already had everything she needed within herself to be a jedi (courage, humility, compassion etc...). Why did they take a step backwards in the last movie in the franchise? Insisting that Rey needed to train, that she suddenly wasn't good enough?

I can't say for sure what happened to lead up to this point. Was it just that the creative team gave in to the pressuring of a loud minority of alt-right youtubers and bots. Were they relying on Reddit and Twitter for public opinion rather than doing actual marketing research?  While I think that this was definitely a big factor I think there was just a general misunderstanding of the characters on Terrio's and JJ's part to begin with.

What Does Rey Want/Need?

To know where they went wrong, we have to ask ourselves who is Rey? All characters have a story goal, or the thing they want. By the end of the story the character will either get what they want after some struggles of course or learn that the thing that they want isn't what they need. So what does Rey want?  To understand what she wants we have to first understand her wound or past experience that caused emotional pain and interferes with the character's life. Rey's wound stems from her  abandonment. Along with the wound, comes the concept of the false lie. What is a lie that the character believes about themselves that we as the audience knows is untrue? Rey's lie is first, that her family is going to come back for her. 

The other lie she tells herself is the belief that she is worthless because she was abandoned, as she tells everyone she meets “I'm no one“ or “I'm just a scavenger.”

When Daisy Ridley was asked in an interview why Rey says she's “No One.” Ridley says it's because our relationships to people define so much of who we are and without relationships then who are we?  This makes sense considering that our parents are major influences in our development and in how we think about ourselves through much of our lives.

Rey seeks out parental figures, thinking that through them she'll figure out where she belongs. “Whoever you're waiting for on Jakku, they're never coming back. But there's someone who still could. The Belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead.” 

Rey initially believes that Maz is referring to Luke and when she later sets off to find him. She believe that he is going to be able to give her answers, and provide her with the belonging that she longs for, but Luke ultimately ends up disappointing her but finds comfort in her relationship with Ben.

This goes back to the idea that what Rey thinks she wants, Isn't necessarily what she needs. As JJ stated in the directors commentary of The Force Awakens, “So there was a very powerful idea that what she desperately wanted was belonging, which she’ll get, but just not how she expects.”

JJ and Terrio try to fullfill Rey's need through “found family” the family she finds with her friends and the resistance, but I think there is more to Rey's desire of wanting family that can't be satisfied by this alone. Finn, Poe, Leia are definitely a part of her journey in finding belonging but they're not the final piece to the puzzle. Otherwise she would have felt completely fulfilled by the end of The Last Jedi when she is on the Falcon surrounded by her friends.

I think part of Rey's desire for family, is also the desire to be understood, to be “seen.”  Rey even tells Finn in TROS that “People keep telling me they know me. No one does.” We hear Ben's response in the trailer “But I do...” (which was cut from the movie)

Ben has always been shown to be the person who truly “sees” Rey. He sees even the aspects of herself that she doesn't like to acknowledge. Recognizing that her holding on to her parents is affecting her negatively and that if she really wants to “find herself” she needs to let go.

Which is why when Ben says “You have no place in this story. You're nothing. But not to me.” What is really being expressed is “I don't care about where you come from and I see you for who you are.”  

This is why I believe that Ben was always suppose to be the final piece to the belonging Rey is searching for. As their narratives are intertwined. They both satisfy each others needs as characters, Rey's need to be seen for who she is and Ben's need for reconciliation and healing within his family.

Rey Palpatine

Rian Johnson said that when he began working on The Last Jedi, he wrote out all the character's names and next to them wrote what would be the hardest thing for that character to face. For Rey, this was that she needs to stand on her own two feet and define who she is for herself but JJ and Terrio seemed to have misunderstood this as Terrio states that,

“We also thought that Rey’s arc cannot be finished after Episode VIII. You can leave Episode VIII and say, “Well, now, Rey is content. She’s discovered her parents aren’t Skywalkers, or whatever, and that’s fine.” But so much of her personal story was about where she came from, what kept her on Jakku all those years and the trauma that shaped her. We see quite strongly in Episode VII that something mysterious and troubling happened to her. Although she did get some answers in Episode VIII, we didn’t feel that that story was over. We felt that there were still more questions in Rey’s head about where she came from and where she was going. So, that was the other big idea that we had to address in this film. Rian’s answer to, “What’s the worst news that Rey could receive?” was that she comes from junk traders, and that’s true. She does come from junk traders; we didn’t contradict that.”

Rey's conflict wasn't that she came from junk traders. Rey didn't care about “legacy.” Her conflict stemmed from her abandonment. Rey thinks she's “a nobody” not because of her parent's occupation or lineage but because she feels that she must be worthless because why else would her parents give her up? Rey learning that her parents sold her off for drinking money, that they didn't want her, was already a difficult and traumatic truth to overcome. Star Wars is a coming of age story, in the OT Luke grows from being a boy longing for adventure to discovering what it truly means to be a Jedi (following your principles and having a compassionate heart). Rey's journey is about letting go of childhood trauma and discovering her own independence.

It's also strange seeing as JJ had previously stated during The Force Awakens press tour that “I really feel that the assumption that any character needs to have inherited a certain number of midi-chlorians or needs to be part of a bloodline. It's not that I don't believe that as part of the canon, I'm just saying that at 11 years old that wasn't where my heart was. And so I respect and adhere to the canon but I also say that the Force has always seemed to me to be more inclusive and stronger than that.”

And there was still conflict for her to overcome. The one person who she felt truly understood her is now the supreme leader of the first order, will the resistance discover their connection? Will they see her as a traitor? All of this had the potential for great external and internal character conflict, but for some reason they didn't see this as conflict enough to sustain a whole movie?

Instead they gave Luke's character arc in the OT of having a dark side relative to Rey. “Discovering that you actually descended from your adoptive family’s greatest enemy, the same enemy who corrupted Anakin Skywalker and is responsible for the destruction of the Skywalker family in the first place, felt most devastating to us.” This doesn't make any sense to me as it feel like they just gave Rey Luke's internal conflict of being afraid of his dark side, I don't think this was ever a problem for Rey. In fact, in The Last Jedi  she leapt into the dark side cave to face her darkness (her abandonment). Luke even says “You went straight to the dark and you didn't even try to stop yourself.” 

The dark side cave in The Last Jedi was symbolic of Rey coming to terms with her darkness (the parts of herself she wants to hide).  It relates back to Jungian psychology (which much of Star Wars is based on) that people can only become whole through understanding both the light and shadow aspects of their personality. So it doesn't make sense for Rey to be afraid of who she is in the final movie when she just finished a journey where she learned to accept who she was?

Rey Skywalker

Terrio says that the decision to have Rey take on the name “Skywalker” was a way to show that “you can choose your ancestry.” Which is not true and also a strange thing to say considering the trilogy started with this:

But even if this was just awkward phrasing and what Terrio meant to say was that she considers the Skywalkers her family. Does this make sense considering that she didn't have a great relationship with Luke to begin with?

 I've seen it argued that she took the name as a way of honoring Leia but Leia never took the name or considered herself a Skywalker. Also this is another step backwards for Rey's character as The Last Jedi was trying to assert that Rey does not need to keep looking for parental figures to define herself.

So why  must she be a Palpatine, a Skywalker and “all the jedi” anyways? I think this was done for two reasons, the first was because by killing Ben they were going to kill the last of the Skywalker family and they wanted to keep the name tied to the franchise, in case they need the characters for future projects down the line, so they just pushed it onto Rey. The second reason is that I think they were trying to appease the misogynists' who spent the last 4 years calling Rey a “Mary Sue” so they explained her power away through powerful male lineage. It just feels so weird to me, like the creators are saying that we should like Rey not because of who she is as a character but because of who she is in relation to all these other characters we know you like (Luke, Leia, all the jedi that use her as a vessel etc...)

Daisy Ridley has even expressed her frustration with the Rey's lineage debate multiple times, “I love that Rey is such a great character, they’re like: ‘No, no, she has to be… she has to be-’She’s her own person! Let her be her guys, let her live.

Yet even at the end of the final film poor Rey can't seem to catch a break as she's once again asked for her last name. She once again has to justify herself for just existing. Why are surnames suddenly so important in Star Wars now anyways? Shouldn't the correct answer be “just Rey,” now that she's come to accept who she is and where she's come from and shouldn't that be good enough? What happened to the message of anyone can be a hero? That you don't have to come from or align yourself with a powerful family legacy. That we all have the power to make a difference?

TROS seems to be constantly asking Rey to prove herself. And weirdly enough it reminds me in a strange meta way of my own experience being a woman in the fandom and being constantly asked to prove that I'm a “True fan” (whatever the f@#% that means...) to prove that I'm worthy of consuming and participating in this content that male fans feel belongs solely to them.

In Conclusion

So what did our heroine gain in the end? Did she find family and belonging? No. So what does she have in the end? A yellow lightsaber (for merchandising purposes) and a surname of a dead family?  I guess she finally has an answer to give all the nosey nellies, obsessed with ones pedigree that have suddenly popped up all over the galaxy.

It's not a satisfying ending for her, as she's basically right back where she started. Alone, in a desolate desert, once again staring face to face at an old woman (an old woman which at the start of the Force Awakens symbolized her fear of growing old and wasting away her life on Jakku).

Terrio states that  this is not meant to indicate that Rey plans to stay here, “The very last thing Rey would do after all that is to go and live alone in a desert.”  but when that is the last shot you chose to end the movie on then what is the audience suppose to think? The bigger issue however, is that Rey's ending holds no significance to her or her journey. Terrio says that “In our thinking, Rey goes back to Tatooine as a pilgrimage in honor of her two Skywalker masters. Leia’s childhood home, Alderaan, no longer exists, but Luke’s childhood home, Tatooine, does. Rey brings the sabers there to honor the Skywalker twins by laying them to rest — together, finally — where it all began.” Tatooine, the Lars homestead and the twin suns, don't mean anything to Rey.  You know who did mean something to Rey? Who was the one person who understood her, who she had an intimate relationship with, who she explicitly states she wanted to be with? Ben. But he's gone too. But clearly a light saber and surname are more important. Again this all comes from a lack of caring for what Rey wants.

I just wish that the Sequel Trilogy had stayed Rey's trilogy, that she got to be a heroine in her own right not because she was a skywalker, or a palpatine or from some other powerful family. I will always love Rey but I will always hate what they did to her and I'm tired of people invalidating my feelings and telling me that it was a good ending or that it was empowering. I just want heroines to be taken as seriously and to have all the same privileges as male heroes. Let them stand on their own without connecting them back to every male hero in the franchise, let them be their own character, and finally just let them be human, let them fall in love and have relationships if they want to. Male heroes are never considered to be less of a hero for having a love interest, so why are female heroes? Basically what I got out of the Rise of Skywalker, was that it was created by a couple of guys that loved Luke and the OT and could care less about Rey and that's truly heart breaking.

[curiosity-killed]

Lang Qianqiu deserves more love goddammit: a post, unfortunately

This brought to you by the wonderful @veliseraptor & @/yuer on Twitter but also mostly out of spite and the fact that it’s preventing me from writing a very dumb poke-the-bear post abt the entire weird social media culture around The Minors

As always ✨SPOILERS!! SPOILERS EVERYWHERE✨

So first off: when I hit the scene where lqq confronts xl and screams “I will never be like you” I sat up in bed, did a little shimmy of delight, and hissed “fuck yes” at like 2 AM so. Now you have a preview of wtf this train wreck will be

1 ) lqq is a good character

We don’t get a ton of time with lqq because tgcf is 87 side characters running across stage with The Most Interesting Concept constantly one-upping each other before vanishing. But what we do get is, I think, enough to make a pretty compelling story: Lang Qianqiu is a kind and generous prince who is also the sole survivor of the bloody massacre of his entire family, committed by the people dearest to him (both in his belief that Gusohi Fangxin did it and in the reality of An Le’s involvement), who goes on to peacefully lead his fractious nation into a peaceful reign before he ascends as a powerful enough (aka beloved and worshipped enough) god to be ranked among the top heavenly generals. That’s like. Pretty fucking classic protagonist vibes right there.

And, as usual with mxtx’s characters, we get a lot more than this lovely little backstory. In his interactions in canon, lqq is capable of great grief and anger; he is willing to sacrifice himself if it means avenging his murdered family; and he simultaneously holds both great hatred and great respect for his old teacher. And, of course, he winds up raising and taking care of his enemy’s son which shows a remarkable depth of compassion and emotional messiness that I find terribly compelling. He struggles with a simplistic view of justice that is supported by lies told to “protect” him and that is uprooted by the truth and forces him to try to make sense of the world without the guardrails that others installed around him (looking at you mister fangxin sir).

Also I’m stealing my own tweets bc I’m Right but:

*pulls up single barstool to lqq is a good character table* I think it’s interesting & Says Things abt the continued relationship btwn lqq & xl that lqq *didn’t* recognize xl, implying that he left fangxin’s mask in place even when he went to kill him

Like here is the man who killed his family & best friend, who left him abandoned in bloodshed on his 17th bday—& here is also the man who saved his life, who taught him, who lqq looked up to & wanted to be like

Even when lqq *does* recognize xl, he still has so much respect for him paired with that hatred that it’s honestly rlly tragic? Like man. There’s so much grief in lqq’s repeated demands for a duel & insisting it’s fine if xl kills him as long as he doesn’t hold back

*pats lqq pompom* this bb is so sad. And so much more like his teacher than either of them seem to realize or necessarily want

Despite being a pretty minor character, lqq gets a lot of complexity and nuance! Look at this child trying to be grown up while desperately turning to his old master for guidance and “the truth”! Look at him! Be sad!!

2 ) lqq is an excellent parallel to xl

Okay stealing my own tweet again don’t look at me I yell the same shit everywhere

Xl didn’t want lqq to become like him (self-sacrificing, vengeful, alone) but lqq not only became alone, chasing vengeance, & willing to sacrifice himself for revenge—he also became kind, open-minded, & remorseful!! & he still clearly respects xl @ novel end 🙃🙃

We all know hc’s “they’re not very alike at all” and yeah sure baby go support your man but narratively, there’s a lot of importance given to cycles, parallels, and foils in mxtx’s writing and most explicitly (compared to mdzs, haven’t read svss) in tgcf. For example, *gestures at beefleaf, gestures at Xianle Trio vs Wuyogn Crew, gestures at Xie Lian & Jun Wu’s whole uh. Deal.* And while I’d argue xl and lqq are part of a triumvirate rather than a pair, we’re not including mister three-face in this conversation so just looking at xl and lqq:

Both adored and sheltered crown princes

Both taught by a guoshi who was seeking to prevent the repetition of their own tragedies and in their efforts, lied/omitted information and failed to protect their charge from tragedy

Both were betrayed* by their closest friends

Both are the last living members of their respective royal families

Both caught the interest of supernatural beings from a young age

Etc etc I’m getting v bored and distracted writing this so moving on

Most importantly to me, we have their betrayal by a very close and adored mentor and how they react. The confrontation I mention at the start of this shitshow is really imo one of the most important scenes in the novel because it a) illustrates the differences in xl and Jun Wu and b) sort of gives you a preview of how xl ultimately wins

So a) Jun Wu and Xie Lian both take a talented, marked-for ascension young prince under their wing. Jun Wu sees himself in the boy and obsesses over shaping him into Jun Wu’s own image in the belief that this will make him the perfect heir. Jun Wu pushes his chosen heir into situations where Xie Lian is repeatedly harmed in an effort to show that the common people are fickle and cruel and don’t deserve his compassion and care.

Meanwhile, Xie Lian is reluctantly roped into mentoring his prince due to his inability to stand aside when he feels he could do something to prevent hurt or injustice befalling another (simultaneously his great strength and great weakness! God I love him). Xie Lian tries to teach his student to believe in and care for the common people and not to sacrifice himself (see: flashback convo re:taking the force of the sword strike into his own body).

When Xie Lian refuses to bend in the shape Jun Wu demands, Jun Wu bashes his head into the wall. When Lang Qianqiu cries “I will never be like you!”, Xie Lian laughs and says “Good!”.

B) this of course feeds directly into foreshadowing! Like Lang Qianqiu’s bold words, xl ultimately refuses to become like his mentor and remains defiant even when it would stop him from being hurt. Xl beats lqq and says so what if I tricked you, so what if I lied, I still won. Naturally, xl beats Jun Wu not through standard swordplay but by using a trick he learned while forced to busk and wander the earth alone and unlucky for centuries.

…okay so I have fully forgotten what I was actually saying here! Anyway!

Like Xie Lian, Lang Qianqiu spends a time consumed with the need for vengeance, hunting his enemy and rejecting the heavens. And like Xie Lian, he winds up caring for his enemy’s “son” and trying to both comfort him and maintain what’s left of Qi Rong’s life force despite having previously been hellbent on destroying him—bc he sees the impact it has on another person. In the end, he even gives a gift to Xie Lian—his mentor, his role model, and the one who killed his father—that was once given to him as a symbol of unexpected kindness. Sound familiar?

But, importantly, and contradictory to what I have been yelling abt but whatever it’s 12:30 am, Lang Qianqiu is not a direct mirror of Xie Lian but a closing of a vital loop in the story. Lqq is very similar to xl (I will die on this hill!! Only I won’t bc I’m stronger than y’all and will keep swinging these pots and pans) but bc xl tries to do better and keep lqq from suffering the way xl has, lqq is able to have a gentler and more optimistic path forward. He’s proof that even a small act of kindness or even kindness to only one person still matters and has a ripple effect that can’t be seen when you’re in the middle of it—a thread started with xl giving the coral pearl to Lang Ying and closed with Lang Qianqiu returning the pearl to Xie Lian.

So I have no idea if any of this is coherent or compelling but I meant to be asleep two hours ago and the points are:

A) Lang Qianqiu is good actually

B) parallels!!!

C) look ive already started another wip about Lang Qianqiu and Xie Lian and I didn’t want this but no one else wrote it so now I have to so pls just accept this as a warning

*sort of air quotes around this for Xie Lian bc frankly Mu Qing was right & Xie Lian kicked feng xin out BUT on the other hand, it was experienced as a betrayal and we also again have all of Jun Wu’s shit so it evens out

[hxneydreamers]

Hello, could u share your journey in the law of assumption and how u started and what progress you've made till now, what you had trouble with at first and how you resolved them, and finally what concepts made everything click for you and made manifestinf super easy like being on a roll for you? And thank you for starting this cool blog 😊

Hey! I'd love to!

I'll first point out that I am still learning and whilst I am here to help people manifest, I am learning alongside you! I want you to know that I am very well educated on the law of assumption, and I am also currently manifesting an SP. I have manifested lots of things in the past (like traveling, meeting a celebrity crush, as well as multiple specific people including my current SP), but I never really pushed through because I never properly tried. I was always on and off my game for a number of reasons, so I would receive my manifestations, but not in full, and this was all because of my self-doubt and self-concept.

I first discovered manifesting with the Law Of Attraction a few years ago after watching the documentary 'The Secret'. I had NEVER EVEN HEARD about manifesting before, and I felt like it was a bit far fetched.

For a very long time, I was extremely non-religious, I didn't believe in God or magic, the afterlife, spirits, fate, NOTHING! I was the biggest non-believer out there. When I watched 'The Secret' I tried to simply change my attitude to be positive as much as I could so I would only attract positive things in my life, and I noticed it worked for a little while, but it wasn't anything significant. I pretty much forgot all about manifesting very quickly, because I never took it seriously.

The next year one of my friends was obsessed with the law of attraction and twin flames and all that spiritual stuff, and she was trying to convert me a bit. I was intrigued by the concept, but I didn't really believe in any of it at all. I just liked making vision boards with her for fun. I never took any of it seriously.

My friend made me go to a psychic with her for fun one day and I resisted and said no, but I eventually gave in because I got curious. Seeing this psychic was extremely earthshaking. I won't go into detail about my experience with her, but some things happened that pretty much changed my view of life and way of thinking. I was much more open to the possibility of things like manifesting.

A year ago, 2 people close to me sadly passed away. I felt very lost and I spent many nights awake and I stumbled across 'Sammy Ingram' on youtube and discovered the Law Of Assumption. I began to binge watch her videos and I did sooooooo much research about the law. I was immediately obsessed.

I started manifesting text messages and instant replies and dates so easily because I was so excited about it and felt no doubt that it would work.

I had success manifesting an internship, consistent shifts at work/consistent money flow and other money manifestations, I manifested dating a specific person (but I ended it for natural reasons), I manifested another specific person literally within a night, just to see if I could do it, and I manifested my current specific person as well (we have a past).

After these successes, I ended up having to deal with some personal issues with my grief for a while, as well as finish my studies, AND my internship, which took my mind off manifesting, and as a result, I manifested negative circumstances in many areas of my life, because I let myself spiral.

I won't tell you the old story too much, because I don't want to revisit it, but basically, for years I had been stuck in a cycle of being abandoned. I felt unlovable and my self-esteem was quite low. All of these beliefs were reflected in many ways, and I was constantly worrying about everything. My internship became toxic and I wanted to leave, my relationship also ended temporarily, and my self-concept was very very very bad!

I felt like I was obsessing over everything in my life going wrong and I wanted to manifest my SP because I thought that he would fix everything, but by putting him on the pedestal I was stalling.

As soon as all this happened, I was of course upset, HOWEVER, I had suffered so much loss at that point that I was determined to make sure that I turned my life around. So I decided to manifest ending my internship naturally, rather than me leaving or being dismissed.

I started visualizing a conversation with my superior where they told me that something came up and we would have to pause the internship.

Literally, two weeks later, he met up with me and told me this exactly, and he said that the decision was ultimately up to me if I wanted to continue later or not. So I said that the timing would not work with my studies, and I successfully manifested leaving the internship naturally.

Next, my SP.

- I literally went to sleep every single night repeating my affirmations.

- I affirmed every single day, I affirmed through tears and I affirmed with my friends. EVERY CHANCE I GOT!

- I started affirming from a place of peace, indifference, faith, and trust that it would work out

A week later we were back together again.

My struggles with the law were mostly that:

- I KEPT CHANGING MY AFFIRMATIONS

- I was on and off my mental diet

- I kept looking for confirmation in the 3D

- I kept repeating the old story

- I focused too much on my SP and not enough on me

About 2 months ago, I had a breakthrough where I decided I needed to completely change everything in my life to put myself in control.

- I started listening to music that made me feel extremely happy and would watch movies and shows that put me in a great mood

- I decided to pick my affirmations and stick with them NO MATTER WHAT!

- I started having a better mental diet, and I noticed results immediately

- I started being able to say 'I don't care what I see, I'm getting my manifestation, and genuinely feeling relaxed and peaceful about it

Once I shifted the focus onto myself and even took some space from my SP, I felt amazing 24/7 and my mental diet was practically perfect.

He has started implying that we are a couple, I don't feel needy, and don't even text him much anymore, he is the one chasing me and constantly blowing up my phone. He is constantly asking to see me, begging me even. He initiates ALL CONTACT NOW! Finally, the whole tone of our relationship has changed and our interactions have been extremely amazing! I have never felt so confident in myself and I can see it reflected in how he treats me.

I manifested him in steps to build our relationship to this point, and I didn't want to begin manifesting commitment until I felt my self-concept was perfect, as I want a healthy relationship with him. Now I am finally beginning to manifest the final stage: official commitment, and I am certain that I will get it!

My biggest tip based on my own experience is to:

- Persist in the same affirmations.

- Do not affirm from a place of desperation and lack

- Keep yourself busy and prioritize yourself and your life, they must reflect this and prioritize you as well

- Trust that it is done and don't check the 3D for confirmation

- If you started having negative thoughts, PERSIST! Do not be discouraged!

- If you know that you have been doing everything right, but suddenly everything feels wrong and your negative thoughts are coming out all at once and/or the 3D looks like shit, you could be in a transition period. THIS JUST MEANS THAT YOU ARE FINALLY GETTING RID OF THE OLD BELIEFS AND YOUR MANIFESTATION IS REALLY CLOSE! SO PERSIST THROUGH THIS!

So for whoever is reading this, please remember that I am here to help you, AND I am on this journey with you! We are all human and none of us is perfect!

I'll share updates on future manifestations in the future, but this is my story so far and my current manifestation in progress!

I will probably make a post in the future about past manifestations such as celebrity crush and travel etc.

[spiritus-sonne]

The Plasticity of Otherkin

To clarify, in this writing I’m using “plasticity” to refer to changes that can occur, particularly psychologically, in the experience and/or identity of being otherkin (and related identities). This does not mean that such changes are by conscious choice (though maybe they can be in some cases) nor that they are easy to occur (in which plasticity as a definition can denote “easy to mold” but I’m not using it that way, this is instead something at least more similar to how it is used in neuroscience with the ability of the mind to change). It is generally accepted by otherkin that being such is an involuntary thing and that being otherkin is essentially permanent and life-long from whenever it begins.

It used to be a very common belief and ‘standard’ in the therian and otherkin communities that one must be born as therian/otherkin and any belief to the contrary was treated as invalid, sometimes with people stating that an individual always was therian/’kin from birth but just didn’t know it until later in life. Eventually such insistence calmed down in these communities, seemingly from people who adamantly spoke against that ‘norm’ and offered reasoning as to why it isn’t an invalid belief, myself included amongst those who spoke against it (specifically in my “Becoming a Therian” writing). There also tends to be a lot of people in the otherkin community who believe their own otherkinity is due to spirit-based reasons, and some of those people (though seemingly less so anymore) believe that such is the case for othekin in general. With that, they tend to believe that one’s spirit is anchored to a human body at or near physical birth and thus that the spirit (and therefore their nonhumanity) would be a part of them from birth. Which is a fine view to have but it certainly isn’t the only legitimate one and fortunately many otherkin in the community now accept other views including psychological ones.

When it comes to the debate about whether otherkinity can be voluntary or if it is only involuntary, I feel kind of grey about it, undecided as to which ‘side’ I take because, really, I think my view is somewhere in-between. I do hold that otherkinity/therianthropy are not choices in a simple sense nor that one can easily or quickly become ‘kin/therian or easily lose being such. But that doesn’t mean I view it as strictly “involuntary”. The matter is more complex than a simple black-or-white definition of “otherkin are only such involuntarily”. I totally get why these identities and experiences are viewed as involuntary, but to those who feel they fall in that grey area or to those who want to dive deeper into this concept instead of taking it at face-value--well, that’s why I’m writing this piece. It has just never sat right with me that otherkin-is-involuntary is treated as some factual truth that can’t be questioned.

So to start off, I’ll cover the concept of ‘becoming otherkin/therian’, though much more briefly than my essay I mentioned. It appears most common for someone to essentially have always been ‘kin/therian, from birth, but it does occur sometimes that an individual will develop their nonhuman identity and experiences at some point later in their life, after early childhood. A person’s sense of self and their personality can change quite significantly between their baby or toddler years and their near-teens, teenage years, and into being an adult. I, personally, can’t track back my nonhumanity to before I was 10 to 12 years old--a very critical changing point in my development as an individual and who I have been since then. Actually, I can even date back my monster-heartedness to early childhood but not my otherkinity. So why would I just assume those experiences were there when I can’t so far find the evidence to believe such? Just because some other people want to believe that every otherkin had to be such from birth? That’s not a good enough reason for me. That crucial pivot point of my life at 10 to 12 years old changed me in many ways as an individual, and causing me to develop my otherkinity was a big part of that. I don’t know *why* exactly my otherkinity developed, and when in particular certain ‘kintypes developed enough that I would now consider them ‘kintypes, but it did.

The mind is a plastic thing, with the level of plasticity dependent on various factors, including but not limited to: age or stage of life, social factors and influences, trauma and stress, and learning, among other things. And with that, the Self is also similarly plastic. It’s easy for people to take for granted the Self as being static because most of the time it develops so slowly it’s hard to notice the changes until one looks back at their memories or other people’s memories of them to find contrast to who they are at present and at different points in their life. The Self does have static, or at least mostly static, aspects, and the extent of such varies from individual to individual, but it also has aspects that can and do change on an individual basis. So it calls into question this concept of a “true self” that one’s otherkinity is a part of. I do believe that otherkinity is a deep, integral part of who someone is, that it is part of one’s Self. However, that Self can and does change over the course of one’s life, so why can’t one’s otherkinity necessarily change with it, including to the extent of either developing or losing whole ‘kintypes or their otherkinity entirely? That doesn’t mean that such happens by choice, let alone by some superficial kind of choice.

But what of people choosing to gain or lose a ‘type? Copinglinks and otherlinks are essentially experientially the same as otherkin and fictionkin with the key difference being that ‘links are formed voluntarily--by choice--unlike how otherkin are believed to form. Yet there can be a grey area here, in that some ‘linktypes may develop in such a way as to become completely involuntary, regardless of whether the individual with the ‘type likes it anymore or not. And the question is whether these now-involuntary ‘linktypes could be considered ‘kintypes? Personally, I think they can, but that it’s ultimately up to the individual experiencing such to decide if they feel otherkinity, fictionkinity, therianthropy, coping/otherlinking, or whatever fits their experiences and identity better. It’s not up to other people to decide for them, and that does not make the matter insulting or disrespectful of otherkin and related or types of ‘linking. I believe that it also is possible to voluntarily lose one’s otherkinity, though I figure it is very difficult to do and would likely take an extensive time to complete, along with it quite notably changing core aspects of the individual’s Self, including in ways the individual couldn’t predict. As to whether anyone has done such, I don’t personally know, but I would like to see the communities open and respectful of the concept, at the least.

I’ve known of people before who have lost one or more therio-/’kintypes over time, not that they were actually “just wrong about being those ‘types” but that they felt they legitimately lost them for whatever reasons. And I believe that such can similarly happen to the individual’s full nonhumanity or fictionkinity, even if it may be a rather rare occurrence. And that’s, as a concept, okay. The individual has the place and right to believe they lost that part of who they once were, whether they wanted to or not, whether they even liked that part of them or not, and they shouldn’t be shamed, disrespected, or insisted they are wrong about it because of it. These cases, in my opinion, aren’t ruining these nonhuman and fictionkin parts of alterhumanity, despite how some people may act like they are. It’s especially problematic if these people do exist and for any of them their loss of their nonhumanity or fictionkinity is a bad, emotional part of their life. Or even if they consciously chose to lose such, their reasons behind making that choice could be surrounded in rather negative parts of their life and previous self, so people shouldn’t be making them feel bad about it because others are viewing their experiences as “invalid”.

The point to all this is that otherkinity and related are still highly subjective things and we are learning more about the vast diversity in the experiences and identities of such over time, so our communal knowledge needs to remain open to certain extents and willing to let that knowledge grow when new information emerges. Otherkin is not necessarily a for-life static thing in various ways and we need to be more careful to view it not through a black-or-white lens but through a whole spectrum of possibilities before we decide what exactly is set-in-stone about it. And doing this does not render the definition of otherkin meaningless.

[thisdreamplace]

ashamed to say the 3D reflects our true inner reality, yes? my ENTIRE family has turned against me, after some atrocious conflicts in which they all ganged up on me nd judged me, name-calling, very hurtful things too, provoked me. i been dealing with some serious mental uh 'issues' on my own nd when this happend i was already on the verge of a breakdown nd the good news is while the conflict happened i kept telling myself theyre only reflecting me u can get thru it etc. Later i looked at the hard facts nd realised some of the hurtful things they said were my deep secret feelings abt myself. BUT my question is why the HELL cant they talk to me like normal people? confronting one person vs whole family, why?! i felt so small nd like an object, nd not a single person defended me. am i not a part of the family?

Part 2 is simply its been a week and theyve still been cold towards me as if I yelled AT THEM ABT THEIR PAINFUL 'tRuThS' in front of EVERYONE LMAOOO. At first if i was around we'd have dinner together while they'd all talk to each other like best friends aka sickeningly overly friendly while completely IGNORING me while i sat there. i could tolerate it. I WAS PISSED AT THEM TOO Now its too painful. They're having dinner without telling me, yesterday didnt leave enough food for me knowing i hadnt eaten, serve tea/snacks without my portion. i honestly feel so unspeakably trigered nd sad. worst is these things r reminding me of deep school memories when id feel excluded like this by other kids at parties or class activities nd its like im back there. anyway im glad i controled myself a bit nd didnt counter with horrid things abt them to THEM yet they think they can say the same to me. im so hurt rn i cant even tell u lol i was okay the whole week but now its too much,, ive been crying the whole day

thing is, ik this seems like 'im a victim oh noooo they ganged up on meee'. Nope its more like how do i change myself to change them?! u could say why not talk to them how they made u feel, except whenever ive defended myself in the past regarding hurtful things they/anyone in family did, the siblings/parents would say irritating things like: "oh so YOU'RE the one hurt? Oh thats right, its because YOU'RE right! yes, yes, you're always right. Forgive me for saying anything against the perfect person u are." Or one of them says: "You?! I hurt YOU? What about me? You don't care about me! So you think what ur doing is okay?" or "no, who do YOU think u are to tell ME what to do?" it just goes in circles like this! i dont deserve to hurt myself or do smth to myself even if they dont give a damn, even if years of silent suffering of the 'mEntAL pRoBlEms' (which my lovely parents have already told me is my fault years ago, hence why I NEVER show it to them, unless im crying too much then lol they just mock me, but idc abt THAT bcoz now ik i hav a right to let out my emotions)). i mean this is worse rjan usual. its kinda insane nd when guests come they start talking to me as if nothing's wrong then when they leave, they ignore me!

this whole twisted dynamics, feelijf left out nd helpless is ig some crazy assumptin from childhood of being alone nd unable to defend myself. plus when they argye with anyone, they become overly self-righteous nd over the years its clear they can only scream, blame the scapegoat and never talk abt serious matter like normal ppl. And yes, in the past when i bring this up, they like to reply with stuff like: "no YOU'RE the one who doesnt talk to US bla bla" like, when i do u just shut me down? have belittled my mental 'issues', mocked me when im at my worst, stabbed me with cruel silent treatments nd thinking its alright "bcoz of self-righteousness blegh". Or maybe i think its okay for them to punish me? or whatev? Like law says u get what u r. if these ~~~ keep doing this to me, im doubly ashamed to say this means im the one at fault?! i let this monster assunptin grow nd now idk what to do. the worst thing imo is how i failed to tell them,even if they ignored me in the past, how i feel when anything like this or a conflict happens nd none of them stand up for me, or at least are neutral to me. bcoz now if i do, they say nope, u dont care what we do, YOUR the shameless one :! so yeah they hav the advantage of 'numbwrs' while im too afraid to stand up for myself lol. btw they never apologize nd i suspect they expect ME to apologize to TYEM bcoz everything's already ruined bcoz of 'me'..... i give up on them, i really do, but my heart hurts. Either i harden my heart, nd save up to move out, OR i try to change my self or whatev assumptins i have. But how do i do that? i try afirming: "my familys so nice to me, im respected by them" but it feels so fake tears literally enter my eyes lol

firstly i want to say, thank you for coming here to vent and being open about your feelings. it’s so important sometimes to just let it all out, without holding back. so that way you can move forward more bravely, to create the life you truly want to experience. that being said, i am going to be completely honest with you here in hopes that perhaps it may inspire you and you will be ready to do what is needed for the life you truly want to experience.

“BUT my question is why the HELL cant they talk to me like normal people?” -> “i felt so small nd like an object, nd not a single person defended me. am i not a part of the family?” here is your question, and here is your answer. i think that being completely honest when venting your feelings can actually be so helpful, because if you read back what you have said, you will be able to clearly find the patterns that are creating your personal hell. FEELING IS THE SECRET. ASSUMPTIONS HARDEN INTO FACT. the true way you feel, becomes your experience. Feelings/assumptions/beliefs come first, and the experiences come second to confirm them. That’s all that’s happening here.

i am glad that you were able to keep your reactions to a minimum! that's wonderful and as many of us know, it can sometimes be hard to do in such hurtful circumstances. but you managed to do it, this shows just a small glimpse of the power you truly hold within. although emotionally you may feel out of control, there is still the choice to choose better for yourself which you demonstrated through your reaction to them. good for you!

the truth is, you acknowledge the victim mindset to seem like you’re not engulfed in it, but no, you’re still very clearly engulfed in it. as i have said before, you can’t be a VICTOR and feel bad about it. feeling bad about taking responsibility, about everyone is you pushed out, about any of these types of concepts automatically shows a victim mindset. talking to them won’t do anything, because there are no second causes. you could talk to them nicely, you could be the nicest person in the world. but you can’t pretend your way out of your inner world. your inner world is the one and only cause of your experiences. until you change the story you tell yourself, they will stay the same. this is a hard pill to swallow sometimes. and it can feel heavily, because it’s ultimately only you’re choice. they can’t change until you do. the heaviness of the situation may make it seem impossible to turn around, but that’s just an illusion. your emotional attachment to the situation makes it seem so real and hard to change, but no. that’s just an illusion too. however, it’s ultimately your choice. Do you want to take responsibility for your life, or do you want to keep being tossed around like your lost at sea, victim to the merciless angry waves? Because we always have a choice. No one chooses your inner world, you do. No one can go into your mind and decide things for you, that’s only your job.

you can harden your heart, but who would be the one who suffers more? It won’t be your family, i can assure you. it’ll only be you. by doing that, you keep that old story alive and therefore you keep experiencing it. you keep those stories alive that are desperately showing themselves to you, saying “LET US GO.” but you remain identified with those painful stories, so you grip onto them tight. you keep on thinking of possible reasons for their behavior, but you could just read your entire ask back to yourself and you’ll see every reason. your reactions, your beliefs about them, your emotional pain. its your refusal to let those things go, and focus on what you truly want that keeps you in this state and keeps them in this state. sure it’s painful to face the responsibility at first, but it’s not a blame game. thinking its about blame is just a misunderstanding of the teachings. it’s not about they’re so perfect and you’re so not, so you have to change your ways. it’s about this is how life works here. this is about... you can ONLY ever experience self. whatever is going on within, will be reflected in your outer world. it’s about how they can’t change, UNTIL YOU DO. so instead of feeling sorry for yourself, you have to decide to give yourself the gift of a wonderful life because you have that power too. you stop deciding they can be in control of your experience, and you decide your experience yourself.

to change your assumptions, stop trying to affirm over them and actually face what’s keeping you from believing in your desires. yeah, it’s going to be painful and uncomfortable. but you need to face the pain that you’re running away from, so that it can finally be released. you have to realize, it only stayed true because you believed it to be true. and if you are to live a life free from that story, and experience a more desirable story, then you must let the pain go. give yourself love and grace as you work through it, and know that there is a more beautiful side of life that awaits for you to accept it in.

No One To Change But Self

There is Nothing to Forgive

How to Sit with Your Triggers

give yourself the time you need, it's not race. the love that you wish to experience exists, allow it in. 💖

[dadsbongos]

Greetings! I got this idea for danganronpa AU where Nagito is like ghost "living" (or haunting idk-) his old house and the reader moves into that house and they slowly became closer and yk<3

hi i love this concept :)

Request for: Nagito Komaeda Warnings: nagito’s backstory, slight religious overtones, we breach minor ghost-fucker territory (but no actual ghost-fucking), no-killing game au also ~~~

The house itself was rather nice. Nothing too luxurious for who the previous owner was aside from the obnoxiously fancy chandelier hanging in the den.

The realtor was hesitant to explain that the reason it was selling so comically cheap was, in fact, due to the belief of a ghost. Not just any, however. It was the previous owner’s ghost.

People who even stepped into the house could feel his chilling touch. Hear quiet, shaky whispers in the night. The fireplace would crackle and burst to life at strange times with nobody near it. Visitors and almost-buyers alike would thrust their warnings to stay away upon anybody who so much as looked at the home.

But that didn’t matter much - a house was a house and it’s not like the ghost was malicious from description. Just… annoying. Perhaps a little eerie, but again, not harmful. Everybody escaped without physical injury. So, why not buy it?

Maybe the ghost just needed a friend? Death was probably a lonely time.

Bought on Tuesday. Moved in Wednesday. Finished unpacking… still pending.

It’s not like (Y/n) had anybody to impress anyways. She’d made the move for a fresh start; new faces, new stories.

The bumps began on Friday.

Sometimes they were taps. Sometimes crashes followed by the gentle rapping against the walls, as if to apologize for the loud noise.

She’d stayed through the month, undeterred by any of the ghosts’ activities.

Then the happenings seemed a little more… intimate.

A photo slowly sliding out from beneath the fridge, at first.

Three people in frame. From left to right, there was a figure with shoulder-length pink hair and a smile to make the heavens jealous - then white hair to rival a cloud-marshmallow love child, skin sickly pale and body wastingly thin - finally, brown hair with an ahoge sticking out like an antenna and posture that almost made him taller than the one in the middle. Well, not really, but attempting counted, right? 

“Which one’s you?” she asked the air, whether she was too tired, or simply didn’t care enough, to be embarrassed was irrelevant. 

A single droplet of water, from a leak she didn’t know existed until this very moment, fell from the ceiling before splotching over the face of the one in the middle.

“White hair, heavy eye bags?”

There was no response, but she took it as a yes anyway. What a pretty, pretty face. In a tragic way.

Because he did look rather ill. Frail build and purple hues under his eyes. Pretty but suffering - it made her feel bad. Of course, she already knew he was dead, but even so - suffering should always inspire empathy rather than romance.

And again, he was dead, so the likelihood of a romance between them anyway was slim to none. None. Unless she suddenly dropped dead, there would be no sweet kisses in the morning or gentle hugs from behind as one of them makes dinner. Maybe when she died, he’d be available for a ghostly date while the house gets put back on the market.

(Y/n) chuckled at the sudden thought of lightning cracking into her home, despite the sunny weather, and striking her dead where she stood. Ridiculous, but God liked ridiculous things.

The sudden thought hit her - what if that old photo was old old? Maybe he was eighty when he died and she just subconsciously signed herself up for a date with an elderly ghost?

Shaking her head, (Y/n) scolded herself for the thought. She’d already be dead by then, it wouldn’t matter what age he was...

Then, it was the scribbling on spare papers. Always specifically spares. Double copies she had put in recycling. Scraps. Even on the backs of paper-esque trash. It was an oddly considerate move for a ghost, though to be fair, she’d never met a ghost before and couldn’t tell if it was out-of-place or not for them.

The words always appeared when she was out of the room. Leaving to grab something and coming back to find the out-dated schedule for work out of recycling and on her desk with crayon sprawled over it. 

Hi 

Eloquently said, in her opinion.

“Hi?” she looked around the room, “Can you not talk? I thought people said they heard whispers…”

A bang in the other room drew her out. When there was nothing out of place, she returned to her desk only to be met with more words.

I’m Nagito Komaeda :)

“Dodging the question, huh?”

The process repeated. Bang. Nothing out of the ordinary. Return. New words.

Sorry :(

“Don’t apologize,” (Y/n) shrugged off before moving to her computer, “I’m just gonna look you up.”

A series of bangs - now that she truly listened, it sounded like a fist pounding to the drywall - resonated through the home. She did not get up nor did she pause her actions of Googling the man known as Nagito Komaeda. 

Until a piece of paper flew in from the open door.

Bad idea

“Probably, yeah,” she huffed, moving back to her computer.

Nagito Komaeda, born April 28th, first popped up as the sole survivor in an old plane hijacking report. Both parents, all plane staff, and the hijackers left dead after the plane crash caused by a meteor strike. Then he came up as a survivor of an old serial kidnapper/killer. Then as a boy who’d inherited the entirety of his parents’ fortune and won a large sum from a lottery ticket he’d found in the trash bag he was stuffed in by his kidnapper. Then as a Hope’s Peak graduate under the title Ultimate Lucky Student.

Finally, as a 25-year-old man who’d miraculously survived ten years post-diagnosis with frontotemporal dementia and advanced lymphoma before his death.

“Holy shit,” she nearly choked on her own shock, “You weren’t boring, that’s for sure.”

Another paper, this time written in marker as if he could sense that she didn’t wish to get up. Another strangely considerate move.

Thanks 

You’re not creeped out?

“I mean, it’s more sad than creepy,” her eyes scanned over a single line in the article once again.

“Nagito Komaeda, after all his fortunes and misfortunes alike, died at age 25, after ten years of illness, surrounded by friends who took the place of family. Out of respect, no interviews were conducted, but anybody, anyone at all even from a quick glance, could tell - Nagito Komaeda will surely be missed.” 

Her eyes watered slightly as she clicked out of the Togami Publications, laughing at the pure awkwardness of her situation, “Oh my God, that’s really fucking sad. I’m sorry your life sucked.”

Another paper.

It’s fine

I was just wasting space anyway :)

“No, you were- “ she gestured to her computer screen before covering her eyes in shame of her tears, “You meant so much to your friends.”

She expected memorial posts, maybe not as many as there were, but she saw them coming. What she didn’t see coming, however, was that each and every one would be dearly heartfelt - not a single one was disingenuous or vague in the slightest. She also didn’t see herself crying by the end of her little search.

But there she was.

Something light floated into her lap. A tissue.

“Oh my fucking God,” (Y/n) choked up again, picking up the tissue with a small smile, “Stop, you’re a ghost, you’re supposed to be scary and making me leave, not helping me dry my tears…”

Another paper atop the slowly growing pile.

Was that a ghostphobic remark?

“Oh, I’m keeping that one,” she stood, sniffling as she wiped away her tears, and picked up the last paper, nodding to herself as she muttered, “Yep. This one’s going on the wall.”

~~

Nagito stopped whispering because people ran when he did. His voice was always hideous, he didn’t to be reminded. Besides, (Y/n) seemed to prefer the paper method - she hung up her favorites along the walls of her office and if a visitor teased her about it she would ignore them. It was admirable, how their grins and giggles rolled off her back like water droplets over a duck.

He wished he could be like that.

Could have been.

He still had trouble with that.

Has.

Nagito looks up from his spot at the kitchen table where (Y/n) was cooking for herself. She seemed so at-peace in this house, and he’s glad for that. He never liked living alone and everyone else seemed to hate having him there. Not that he blamed them much.

Even so, he much prefers (Y/n) over any past guest as his living counterpart of the house.

She even leaves chairs open for him at the table; he smiles widely at the thought, patting his thighs and kicking out his legs in his seat- just like now!

She’d pulled out the chair upon entering the kitchen before calling out for him that she’d be cooking. She even knew he liked watching her cook!

It was selfish of him to crave so much attention, but in the end, Nagito was already dead so… did it really matter when he indulged in his wants more than he should?

Divine punishment isn’t real and he likes being around her, so why should he bother hiding himself away in the attic?

(Y/n) moved around the house with little to no liveliness, it made him chuckle. Her shoulders drooped and footsteps heavy, it was fun. To feel like he wasn’t alone.

He hoped she felt the same. That he was a friend… or, undead companion?

He hoped she would stay and not move out.

He hoped they could be real friends one day… if it’s not too much to ask, that once she dies, she’ll meet him. The real him. 

That would be heaven.

[rigmarolling]

Historical Holiday Traditions We Really Need To Bring Back

Here comes Santa Claus, and also a bunch of annual holiday Things we do to ensure he commits a truly boggling act of breaking and entering and leaves goods underneath the large plant in the living room.

Because I’ve always got a hankerin’ for the days of yore, here are some historical holiday traditions we really need to bring back:

1. Everything that happened on Saturnalia

Saturnalia was the ancient Roman winter festival held on December 25th--which is why we celebrate Christmas on that day and not on the day historians speculate Jesus was actually born, which was probably in the spring. 

Saturnalia was bonkers. As the name suggests, it celebrated the god Saturn, who represented wealth and liberty and generally having a great time.

Above: Their party is way cooler than yours could ever hope to be.

During Saturnalia, masters would serve their slaves, because it was the one day during the year when everybody agreed that freedom for all is great, actually, let’s just do that. Everyone wore a coned hat called the pilleus to denote that they were all bros and equal, and also to disguise the fact that they hadn’t brushed their hair after partying hard all week, probably.

Gambling was allowed on Saturnalia, so all of Rome basically turned into ancient Vegas, complete with Caesar’s Palace, except with the actual Caesar and his palace because he was, you know. Alive. 

The most famous part (besides getting drunk off your rocker) was gift-giving--usually gag gifts. Historians have records of people giving each other some truly impressive white elephant gifts for Saturnalia, including: a parrot, balls, toothpicks, a pig, one single sausage, spoons, and deliberately awful books of poetry. 

Above: Me, except all the time.

Partygoers also crowned a King of Saturnalia, which was a predecessor to the King of Fools popular in medieval festivals. The king was basically the head idiot who delivered absurd commands to everyone there, like, “Sing naked!” or “run around screaming for an hour,” or “slap your butt cheeks real hard in front of your crush; DO IT, Brutus.”

Oh, wait. Everyone was already doing all that. Hell yes.

(Quick clarification: early celebrations of Saturnalia did feature human sacrifice, so let’s just leave that bit out and instead wear the pointy hats and sing naked, okay? Io Saturnalia, everybody.)

2. Leaving out treats for Sleipnir in the hopes of avoiding Odin’s complete disregard for your property

The whole “leave out cookies and milk for Santa” thing comes from a much older tradition of trying to appease old guys with white beards. In Norse mythology, Odin, who was sort of the head god but preferred to be on a perpetual road trip instead, took an annual nighttime ride through the winter sky called the Wild Hunt. 

Above: The holidays, now with 300% more heavy metal.

Variations of the Wild Hunt story exist in a bunch of European folklore--in Odin’s case, he usually brought along a bunch of supernatural buddies, like spirits and other gods and Valkyries and ghost dogs, who, the Vikings said, you could hear howling and barking as the group approached (GOOD DOGGOS).

That was the thing, though; you never actually saw Odin’s hunt--you only heard it. And hearing it did not spark the same sense of childish glee you felt when you thought you heard Santa’s sleigh bells approaching as a kid--instead, the Vikings said, you should be afraid. Be VERY afraid.

Because Odin could be kind of a dick.

Odin was also known as the Allfather, and like any father, he hated asking for directions. GPS who? I’m the Allfather, I’m riding the same way I always ride.

And that was pretty much it: “I took this road last year and I’m taking it again this year.”

“But,” someone would pipe up from the back, “there are houses on the road now--we’re gonna run right into them. We could just take a different path; there’s actually a detour off the--”

“Nope,” Odin would say. “They know the rules. My road, my hunt, my rules. We’re going this way.”

So if you were unlucky enough to have built your house along one of Odin’s favorite road trip sky-ways, he wouldn’t just plow right past you.

He would burn your entire house down--and your family along with it.

Kids playing in the yard? Torch ‘em; they should have known better. Grandma knitting while she waits for her gingerbread Einherjar to finish baking? Sucks to be her; my road, my rules, my beard, I’m the Allfather, bitch.

Above: Santa, but so much worse.

To be fair to Odin, he could be a cool guy sometimes. He just turned into any dad when he was on a road trip and wanted to MAKE GOOD TIME, DAMN IT, I AM NOT STOPPING; YOU SHOULD HAVE PEED BEFORE WE LEFT.

To ensure they didn’t incur Odin’s road trip wrath, the Vikings had a few ways of smoothing things over with Dad.

They would leave Odin offerings on the road, like pieces of steel (??? okay ???) or bread for his dogs, or food for his giant, eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, because the only true way to a man’s heart is through his pet. 

People would generally leave veggies and oats and other horse-y things out for Sleipnir, whose eight legs made him the fastest flying horse in the world and also made him the only horse to ever win Asgard’s coveted tap dancing championship. 

(Side note: EIGHT legs...EIGHT tiny reindeer...eh? Eh? See how we got here? Thanks, nightmare horse!)

Above: An excellent prancer AND dancer. 

And if Odin was feeling particularly charitable and not in the mood for horrific acts of arson, children would also leave their shoes out for him--it was said that he’d put gifts in your boots to ring in a happy new year.

If all that didn’t work and the Vikings heard the hunt approaching, they would resort to throwing themselves on the ground and covering their heads while the massive party sped above them like a giant Halloween rager. 

So this holiday season, leave your boots out for Odin and some carrots out for his giant spider horse or you and your entire family will die in a fiery inferno, the end.

3. Yule Logs

Speaking of Scandinavia, another Northern European winter solstice tradition was the yule log. Today, if you google “yule log,” something like this will pop up:

...which isn’t an actual log, but is instead log-shaped food that you shove into your mouth along with 500 other cakes at the same time because it’s CHRISTMAS, and I’m having ME TIME; so WHAT if I ate the whole jar of Nutella by myself, alone, in the dark at 3 am?

But that log cake is actually inspired by actual logs of yore that Celtic, Germanic, and Scandinavian peoples decorated with fragrant plants like holly, ivy, pinecones, and other Stuff That Smells Nice before tossing the log into the fire.

This served a few purposes: 

It smelled nice, and Bath and Body Works scented candles hadn’t been invented yet.

It had religious and/or spiritual significance as a way to mark the winter solstice.

It was a symbolic way of ringing in the new year and kicking out the old.

Common belief held that the ashes of a yule log could ward off lightning strikes and bad energy.

Winter cold. Fire warm.

Everybody loves to watch things burn. (See: Odin.)

The yule log cakes we eat today got their start in 19th century Paris, when bakers thought it was a cute idea to resurrect an ancient pagan tradition in the form of a delicious dessert, and boy, howdy, were they right.

In any case, I’m 100% down with eating a chocolate yule log while burning an actual yule log in my backyard because everybody loves to watch things burn; winter cold, fire warm; and hnnnngggg pine tree smell hnnnnggg.

(Quick note:  The word “yule” is  the name of a traditional pagan winter festival, still celebrated culturally or religiously in modern pagan practice. It’s also another name for Odin. He had a bunch of other names, one of the most well-known being jólfaðr, which is Old Norse for “Yule father.” If you would like to royally piss him off, or if you are Loki, feel free to call him “Yule Daddy.”)

4. Upside down Christmas trees

I just found out that apparently, upside down Christmas trees are a hot new trend with HGTV types this year, so I guess this is one historical trend we did bring back, meaning it doesn’t really belong on this list, but I’m gonna talk about it, anyway.

Side note: Oh, my god, that BANNISTER. I NEED.

Historians aren’t actually sure where the inverted Christmas tree thing came from, but we know people were bringing home trees and then hanging them upside down in the living room as early as the 7th century. We have a couple theories as to why people turned trees on their heads:

Logistically, it’s way easier to hang a giant pine tree from your rafters upside down by its trunk and roots. You just hoist that baby up there, wind some rope around the rafter and the trunk, and boom. Start decorating.

A Christian tradition says that one day in the 7th century, a Benedictine monk named Saint Boniface stumbled across a group of pagans worshipping an oak tree. So, instead of minding his own damn business, he cut the tree down and replaced it with a fir tree. While the pagans were like, “Dude, what the hell?” Boniface used the triangular shape of the fir tree to explain the concept of the holy trinity to the pagans. Some versions have him planting it right-side up, others having him displaying a fir tree upside down. Either way, it’s still a triangle that’s a solid but ultimately very rude way of explaining God. Word’s still out on whether anyone was converted or just rightly pissed off that this random guy strolled into their place of worship, chopped down their sacred tree, and plopped HIS tree down instead. Please do not do that this holiday season.

Eastern Europeans lay claim to the upside-down tree phenomenon with a tradition called podłazniczek in Poland--people hung the tree from the ceiling and decorated it with fruits and nuts and seeds and ribbons and other festive doodads. 

(God, who lives in these houses? Look at that. That’s like a swanky version of Gaston’s hunting lodge. Where do I get one? Which enchanted castle do I have to stumble into to chill out in a Christmas living room like that?)

Today, at least in the West, upside-down trees are making a comeback because...I don’t know. Chip and Joanna Gaines said so. 

Some folks say it’s a surefire way to keep your cats from clawing their way through the tree and then puking up fir needles for weeks afterward, which checks out for me.

5. Incredibly weird Victorian Christmas cards

So back in the 19th century, the Christmas card industry was really getting fired up. Victorians loved their mail, let me tell you. They loved sending it. They loved getting it. They loved writing it. They loved opening it. They loved those sexy wax seals you use to keep all that sweet, sweet mail inside that sizzling envelope. (Those things are incredibly sexy. Have you ever made a wax seal? Oh, man, it’s hot.)

The problem, though, was that while the Victorians arguably helped standardize many of the holiday traditions we know and love today (Christmas trees, caroling, Dickens everything, spending too much money, etc.) back in 1800-whenever, a lot of that Christmas symbolism was, um...still under construction. No one had really agreed on which visual holiday cues worked and which...didn’t.

Meaning everyone just kind of made up their own holiday symbols. Which resulted in monstrous aberrations like this card:

What the hell is that? A beet? Is that a beet? Or a turnip? Why is it...oh, God, why does it have a man’s head? Why does the man beet have insect claws? 

What is it that he’s holding? A cookie? Cardboard? A terra cotta planter?

And then there’s this one:

“A Merry Christmas to you,” it says, while depicting a brutal frog murder/mugging. 

What are you trying to tell me? Are you threatening me with this card? Is that it? Is this a threat? How the hell am I supposed to interpret this? “Merry Christmas, hide your money or you’re dead, you stupid bitch.”

Also, why is the dead frog naked? Did the other frog steal his clothes after the murder? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS?

Victorian holiday cards also doubled as early absurdist Internet memes, apparently, because how else do I explain this?

Is this some sort of tiny animal Santa? A mouse riding a lobster? Like, the mouse, I get. Mice are fine. Disney built an empire on a mouse. And look, he’s got a little list of things he’s presumably going to bring you: Peace, joy, health, happiness. (In French. Oh, wait, is that that Patton Oswalt rat?)

But a LOBSTER? What’s with the lobster? It’s basically a sea scorpion. Why in the name of all that is good and holy would you saddle up a LOBSTER? I hate it. I hate it so, so much. Just scurrying around the floor with more legs than are strictly necessary, smelling like the seafood section of Smith’s, snapping its giant claws.

This whole card is a health inspector’s worst nightmare. It really is.

I gotta say, though, I am a fan of this one:

Presumably, that polar bear is going in for a hug because nothing stamps out a polar bear’s innate desire to rip your face from your skull than candy canes and Coke and Christmas spirit.

This next one is actually fantastic, but for all the wrong reasons:

I know everyone overuses “same” these days but geez, LOOK at that kid. I can HEAR it. SAME.

If you’ve ever been in a shopping mall stuffed with kids, nothing sums it up better than this card. This is like the perverse version of those Anne Geddes portraits that were everywhere in the late 90s. “Make wee Jacob sit in the tea pot; everyone will--Jacob, STOP, look at Mommy; I said LOOK. AT. MOMMY--everyone will love it.”

Actually, you know what? Every other Christmas card is cancelled. This is the only card we will be using from now on. This is it. 

Wait, no. We can also use this one:

Merry Christmas. Here’s a fuckin’...just a dead fuckin’ bird.

[to-many-towered-camelot]

book notes

for anyone who is interested in a nuanced take on fairy beliefs vs the Christian Church in the Middle Ages, this book by Richard Firth Green was actually so good, if your library has it:

[Image: Front cover of the book ‘Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church’ by Richard Firth Green]

like, obvs it’s just one person’s take on a very complex topic, but it’s well-written, well-researched, and it uses a bunch of Arthurian examples throughout to explore this dynamic (see under cut)

really interesting exploration of how the Church’s response evolved from the early-High Middle Ages (”dude, you believe in fairies? hhhmmm, do penance for 10 days”) to the Late Middle Ages/Early Modern Period (”kill them for heresy and witchcraft!”) 

and how it enfolded vernacular/fairy beliefs into Christian doctrine as fairies being either a) demons or b) the illusions of demons (and how dangerous/bad these demons were depended on the time/location/cleric in question - some packaged fairies as “neutral” demons who fell when the rebel angels did, and who must be punished on Earth but will return to Heaven on Doomsday - potentially doing this to soften things for their parishioners, who often held these fairy beliefs and reconciled them with Christianity, uh, differently than the Church officially would prefer)

and enduring belief in fairies existed in both common and aristocratic circles (can see this in medieval romances, although they’re not the only source of evidence), rather than just being used as cultural “decoration” by a more sceptical upperclass

aaaaand because of this conflation of fairy = demon, you get a really interesting blend/overlap with medieval demonology and enduring “folk” beliefs (obvs not all of medieval demonology was just rebranded fairies, but some of it defs was - you see stories being retold with “devil” instead of “elf”, for example)

INCLUDING in Arthuriana - how you get Morgan the Fairy (”le Fay”) vs Morgan who was raised in a nunnery and learned dark magic there, the Lady of the Lake as a (largely) positive force, Merlin inexplicably as a (perceived to be...) Good Guy despite being the literal antichrist, the Green Knight and all the overlap with Christian symbolism in that story, etc, etc. and they all just either??? co-exist in the same stories or appear through either more fay or more ~Christian lenses depending on the version

and it creates a very interesting and very confusing soup of Stuff stemming from a very confusing - and sometimes dangerous - soup of official and unofficial beliefs evolving over hundreds of years

anyway, WRT Arthuriana it’s got (and ymmv on these, but they’re all interesting thoughts):

(i think in Gottfried’s Tristan???) apparently Tristan has a rainbow fairy dog called Petitcriu...name a knight less deserving of such a Good Boy smh

Chretien’s Yvain flooding out Laudine at the fountain (...jerk) as a continuation of the beliefs surrounding a magical Spring at Barenton 

Gingalain moving from being the son of Gawain and the fairy Blanchemal (and having a fairy love interest, Pucelle) in the French OG version (~1200-ish) to being the son of Gawain and his human mistress (with Pucelle also being human) in a later 15th-C Middle English version)

AJDKN UJ IOE E Merlin’s conception, that one’s a wild ride - theologians REALLY didn’t like the idea of demons being fertile, and the work-arounds they came up with were...incredible. but skipping over that sheer comedy, the author draws links between Merlin’s conception and the general trend of claiming a fairy lover/whatever when a difficult-to-explain pregnancy arose. He also theorises that Geoffrey’s idea for Merlin’s father being a demon/fairy may have come from Nennius saying that Merlin/Ambrosius’ mother “never knew a man”. Later adaptations of this storyline made it even more fay-like (when they weren’t, like Robert de Boron, making it more fucked-up) by making Merlin’s father invisible (Wace) or a super attractive guy in swanky gold clothes (Layamon) - and Vortigern’s advisor explaining the creatures that lived between the earth and the moon until doomsday, etc, etc (walking that line between fairy and incubi, whichhhhhh was not clearly delineated in the Middle Ages the way it is now). also there’s one 13th-C Anglo-Norman poem where Merlin’s father is a bird that transforms into a dashing young squire, which isn’t terribly demon-y. So even though most versions of this story describe Merlin’s dad as an incubi-demon, what people understood this to mean may have been more fay-ish that we’d expect nowadays (depending on the reader, and also on authorial intention - some are pretty explicit that he’s a demon [many clerics keen to push this as the main narrative], while others refer to him as an elf or fairy). some contemporary scepticism during this time about Merlin having any sort of supernatural parentage as well

[none of the same Church anxieties about explaining away how the Plantagenets and other aristocratic families claim a female fairy ancestress - maybe bc there’s none of the stress about patrilineal bloodlines??? who knows! but yeah, much less thought given to those stories in ecclesiastical circles, and they were very popular in vernacular romances (male aristocratic wish fulfilment?). also, fairy enchantments =/= necromancy, so there are stories like the non-cyclic Lancelot where the Lady of the Lake is found out to be “a fairy by education, not by nature or heredity” (Elspeth Kennedy), with the spirits used in necromancy being demons, not fairies. also potential trend of female-associated magic becoming more passive and book-learned, gradually demonising it leading up to early-modern witch hunts.]

Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Historia and in the Vita Merlini being actually pretty circumspect about saying whether or not Arthur was alive/dead, returning/not returning, maybe due to his work/text being a (hypothesised) defence of the Welsh as being “civilised” (and having been so for centuries before the Normans came) - with the corollary that believing in Arthur’s return was somehow “uncivilised”. Author argues that this may be due to an association with fairy beliefs, and that Layamon is the one that makes Avalon explicitly fey. Also the author describes Arthur as living in a “feminised version of the Christian heaven” (iconic) and says that later writers and people could be very scornful of this belief held by the Britons/Welsh/etc, and that it was contrary to orthodox ways of thinking. 

Links the “discovery” of Arthur and Guinevere’s bodies in Glastonbury in the late 12th-C as similar to when individuals found the bodies of their loved ones, thus making it much harder to believe (and hope) that they were still alive in fairyland. Makes a suggestion that the monks in Glastonbury who “found” these bodies may have been trying to curry favour with the English crown (i.e. champion/hope of the Welsh isn’t coming back) but also may have been trying to “help”/”save”/correct the thoughts/ideology of the Welsh (i.e. “set them on the correct path to salvation”). Lots of medieval writers describing Arthur as living in “fairyland”. Precedent of people visiting fairyland and returning, so Avalon/fairyland =/= a place only for the dead (i.e. Arthur isn’t dead). An Arthurian example, albeit a less explicitly fay one, is Lancelot getting in and out of Gorre (with Gorre as a “typically supressed and rationalised” version of fairyland) in Chretien’s Knight of the Cart.

Some stuff about the wild horde (distinct from the wild hunt) being presented by some writers as very penitential (i.e. they are departed souls that may look like they’re bearing arms/hunting/whatever as they did in life, but really they are in agony e.g. because their weapons burn them) and tbh demonic (black armour, carrying torches, ominous aesthetic). Other writers thought maybe it was - once again! - demonic impersonators rather than actual mortal souls. (Should note also that the wild horde/wild hunt motifs were not always associated with their being dead). Relevant in the Arthurian context because Arthur and his court were sometimes associated with the idea of the wild horde (as in, sometimes the wild horde is described as Arthur’s court living it up in a cool, undying sort of way - “in the likeness of knights hunting or jousting, commonly known as the household of Hellequin or of Arthur” [Etienne de Bourbon, a medieval writer] - with Hellequin’s household often being used to encompass either the wild hunt or the wild horde). Ultimate point made by the author (props to him, he’s always like “if i’m right” lol) that for many clerical writers, it was very uncomfortable to leave people with the impression that Arthur and his court were living it up in fairyland (and similar for other figures associated with the wild hunt/horde) and this idea needed to be corrected/shaped to suit more orthodox perspectives - e.g. tying in with notions of purgatory, etc. 

Aaaand this one was exciting to me just bc i’ve vaguely heard about Arthur and his knights snoozing under a hill, but for some reason i could only remember this being in Victoria-era-and-onwards poetry. 3 versions of the same tale, where a servant looks for his master’s lost horse on a Sicilian mountain. Version 1) servant of a bishop finds his master’s horse in the beautiful palace of Arthur’s court beneath Mt Etna. Aside from the fact that the ancient wound Arthur received from Mordred opens once a year, it’s not very purgatory-like. Version 2) a dean’s servant is told by an old man that King Arthur has the horse on Mt Gyber (Mt Etna). he is told that his master must attend Arthur’s court in 14 days, but the dean laughs it off...then sickens and dies on the appointed day (whoops). Enough differences to this story compared to the first to suggest an oral circulation. Also a note in the version/text that such mountains are said to be the mouth of hell, and only the wicked are sent there, not the chosen. Version 3) Etienne again! Also likely changed with intervening oral circulation. The master is not an ecclesiastical figure, and Arthur’s palace is now a populous city - also Arthur is not referred to, just a nameless prince. There is a gatekeeper who warns the servant not to eat or drink while he’s there (that...is a very fairy-ish proscription). This mountain is apparently reputed to be the site of purgatory. The book author (Richard, i mean) ties these versions in with other stories/accounts of different entrances to purgatory (e.g. one on an island in an Irish lake) as being part of a gradual process of “rendering [...] fairyland purgatorial”. 

Finally, Gawain in Roman van Walewein: To get to an ‘earthly paradise’ [i.e. King Assentijn’s garden with its fountain of youth - side note that ‘earthly paradises’ were often popularly described to be fairyland/where fairies live, in addition to their theological functions, e.g. Avalon was sometimes described as an earthly paradise...i should also say that purgatory was frequently thought to be located beside earthly paradise, so there’s the proximity element] and the castle containing it, Gawain must cross a river (guided by a magical talking fox) that a) has waters that burn like fire, and b) can only be crossed by using a bridge sharper than a razor. His reaction? “Is it the enchantment of elves or magic / that I see?”. He is then guided by the fox underneath the river through a tunnel, and is told that the river’s source is in the depths of hell, and “[the river] is the true purgatory / All souls, having departed from the body / Must come here to bathe.” So it’s a very strong intermingling of fairy and purgatorial imagery/ideas!

I dunno, I just found this very ??? satisfying to read

it leaned towards lit-crit at times (which, considering the subject matter, is honestly fair enough), but it was more respectful of vernacular beliefs than so many other academic takes i see (ofc ymmv re: anything to do with non-Christian major religions, but i think the author’s pretty solid on this!), and it had an explanation for the survival of these beliefs that imo made a lot of sense, especially from a pan-European perspective, not just a Celtic one 

plus it explored the undeniable damage done by Christianity over history without making up some “ranged battle between paganism and the Church” that i see  e v e r y w h e r e  in casual Arthurian circles...which, like, i empathise with the vibe, but also! that’s just straight-up historical revisionism! (i blame MZB and the 80′s for that one)

(there was a fantastic post floating around a while ago about how the religious syncretism in Arthurian literature is much more interesting than peeling away all of the Catholicism in the medieval lit (...you ?? don’t end up with much left?) and saying that this is more “accurate” to some obscure original)

anyway yeah yeah ymmv but it’s v interesting 😊