#I mean if they did certain things it would change the whole chronicles

[nalyra-dreaming]

What decision/ direction from the writers would absolutely disappoint you?

In your opinion what is the biggest trap they should avoid with the show?

Softening down the narrative. Remove the messiness and difficult character traits.

I guess.

But I don't think they will. On the contrary, I think they will put their proverbial fingers into allllll the wounds.

... maybe if they put too much a focus on the "flings" in the books.

But I don't think they will. I think they will be very clear with their focus.

[ineffable-suffering]

Trauma-Dumping on your plants: The Anthony J. Crowley Chronicles

This has been living in my silly head rent free for so long, I finally decided to slap it on here in hopes of thinking about it a little less (than three times a day. It's been years. I need to get over it.)

Also, I'm absolutely certain I'm not even remotely the first person to realize or post about this, since it's not the hardest of parallels to figure out. Alas, I still shall, because out of mind, out of sight and all that. So:

Let's talk about how Crowley is using his houseplants to work through his own Trauma of the Fall. Or, well, maybe not work through it per se, but more so roleplay it to give it somewhat of an an outlet because he never got over it. Lol.

It's not rocket science to figure it out and God Herself actually gives us a pretty spot-on explanation of it in her own narration.

Crowley's plants are perfect. They're, as God Herself tells us, the most luxurious and beautiful in all of London. He takes great care of them, waters them, mists them. Does any and everything to give them the perfect conditions so they won't have a worry in the world.

And yet, we're immediately shown that despite the seemingly perfect conditions they're living in, Crowley's plants still get *gasps quietly* spots. And we all know how Crowley feels about that:

It seems like such an unnecessary tiny thing to get upset about, right? Like, plants get spots all the time. They're not perfect, they're part of nature and nothing is ever perfect in nature. Crowley would know that by now. Imperfection is the whole point of nature. If everything had stayed exactly the way it always was, nothing would have ever changed or evolved.

Besides, Crowley is a demon. If it were merely about aesthetics to him, he could easily miracle away any spot with a blink of his serpent eyes. But he gets so angry about it, it's almost comical. At first we think it's just to show us, the audience, that, in contrast to Aziraphale, who cares very dearly and lovingly for his books, Crowley is a mean, mean demon who, instead of being outwardly nice to the things he loves (like Aziraphale does), yells at his plants because he's a mean meanie.

But! If you look at the whole scene and what God says, it's pretty obvious what he's actually doing is something else entirely: "What Crowley does is he puts the fear of God in them. Or, the fear of Crowley. The plants are the most luxurious and beautiful in London. Also the most scared."

Folks, this man dude serpent is literally roleplaying the concept of God/Heaven threatening angels with their Fall in order to keep them obedient ... with his houseplants.

Have I mentioned yet that I am absolutely obsessed with him and also desperately wanna get him a therapy voucher?

Because what does he do once he sees a plant disobeying his rules of perfection and acting out? The same thing God did to her questioning, equally disobedient angels (including Crowley): Parade it in front of the very scared rest, making an example of it ...

... only to then, well ...

... quite literally chuck it out.

To anyone else, this seems like a completely ridiculous thing to do over a tiny, minuscule spot. There would have been a bunch of other ways to go about fixing that spot.

Figuring out what it was the plant needed that might not have been given to it yet.

Taking care of it in a different, individual way so it would have been able to thrive again.

Listening to the plant and letting it tell you why its spot appeared in the first place.

Telling the plant, that loves and relies on you entirely, you love it too, despite it not being without fault, despite of it not fully living up to your unreachable standards of perfection.

Caring for the plant not because you want it to be perfect, but because you're okay with it being imperfect.

(We're no longer talking about plants here, as you are probably aware.)

Alas, this isn't what Crowley does. Because it wasn't what God did, either. We still know very little about Crowley's actual Fall and the Fall of Lucifer and the rest. But we do know that Crowley was never like or even with them.

All he did was ask some questions. A tiny spot. A seemingly insignificant blemish in the luxurious, beautiful flora of Heaven.

And yet, before he knew it, he did a "million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulfur". Cast out, chucked away, just like his little spotty plant. And for what? Well ...

... to keep the others angels plants check, for the rest of time.

***

(Addendum from the comments: If we go by what the book tells us, Crowley doesn’t actually end up violently throwing out the ‚bad‘ plants. He just finds a different place for them and makes sure they‘re looked after. So much to him being a big, bad, meanie-mean demon.)

[booktomoviebrawl]

We are not judging how bad the movie is, we are judging which adapted the book the worst. There are good movies that are bad adaptions.

Propaganda below the cut (spoilers may apply)

Ready Player One:

Personally, I think the movie was infinitely better than the book because the main character in the book is such a BITCH and he just radiates incel musk, but I loved the movie a lot more. However, the movie did way more show and pizzazz with the easter egg hunting than in the book

THEY CUT OUT THE MASTURBATION SCENE

the movie barely followed the book plot and took a lot of creative liberties with character designs that completely changed certain themes within the book

Tales from Earthsea:

I don't think it could have been better, but it was just so off from from the books it was mainly drawing its inspiration from (I mean, I had no interest in seeing that weird weaver guy decide to off himself in the boat, but still).

Studio Ghibli is the perfect studio to capture the Le Guin vibe and yet Goro torched it so hard for no reason

To give credit where it is due, the film has some good settings and animation. Unfortunately, its beauty is only on the surface, and it is the worst Studio Ghibli movie I’ve seen. (I’ve seen almost all of them but Earwig and the Witch.) The plot is a collage of random bits of context from the first four books of the series, as well as its own stuff. It really is not the same story at all. I may have enjoyed it more if I had seen it as a child before reading the books, but not covering all the events exactly isn’t the only issue, it’s just worse. It takes the moral complexity and sensibility of the original and turns it into a typical fantasy war between good and evil (the Japanese title even translates to Ged’s War Chronicles) with emphasis on physical violence, in which evil is personified as a goth queer-coded villain whose death resolves everything. It completely misses the point of the books, which gives no such simple answers and is more focused on the darkness within everyone than an external battle. Where is the nuance? It also whitewashes everyone: most of the characters in the book are dark-skinned, but in the movie…

I was also bitter that they did my favourite character, Tehanu/Therru, dirty. She’s supposed to be horribly scarred and disfigured on half her body and reviled by people as a monster but in the movie she’s just a pretty girl with a red mark on her face. In the books, she doesn’t appear until the fourth book, Tehanu, which takes place after Lebannen is grown up and ruling a kindgom, and in which she is a mostly-nonverbal child. But here she’s aged up and thrown into the earlier story to give the protagonist a love interest and the film has him stay with them so it can focus on their romance. Even though a plot-relevant part of his character as well is his lack of interest in women and not settling into a relationship despite the people’s wishes.

Basically, they whitewashed, heteronormatized, macho-ified, and de-nuanced the narrative, and also took out the feminism.

On top of this, trying to cram the whole series into one movie is just not a good idea, and it would have been better to just decide on one book to adapt and do more justice. And yet they still added in so much that didn’t happen. When you have that much material to cover, you don’t have time or budget to be putting other things in, mate. Turning four books into one results both in a mess. Abridgment is one thing; taking particular aspects of different parts of the timeline and combining them in different ways is another. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s in an unfortunate middle area where it doesn’t follow the source material but also doesn’t give enough context that people unfamiliar with the source understand. For Earthsea fans, it’s infuriating; for others, it’s confusing. Also, why did they name it after the fifth book, which is a short story collection that it doesn’t reference whatsoever?

The failure of the movie is upsetting because the books are sooo good. Yet, it was the highest-grossing Japanese movie of the year, and did win a couple awards… The Bunshun Kiichigo awards for “Worst Director” and “Worst Movie”.

[azriel-edgemont]

Touchstones

Azriel has three key Touchstones at this point in his life: Phillip Mercotte, Thomas O'Shea, and Shirley Temple.

Phillip Mercotte

(FC: Anthony Andrews)

Azriel's godson, the son of his childhood sweetheart/lover Alastair. Aggie's got a lot of baggage tied up in Phillip beyond just the whole Kindred thing; in a lot of ways, he represents a life denied. It sounds poetic and flowery but on a certain level I think Aggie really does feel like Phillip should have been his son, with Alastair. There's a profound awareness, almost a vision, the idea of another time and place in which a relationship like he and Alastair shared could have been real and recognized in a way that would have allowed them to have their own family. It's a feeling that is first put to words (not directly, more unspoken meaning) by Alastair when he asks Aggie to be Phillip's godfather, but Aggie latches onto it and can't let it go.

Phillip isn't particularly handsome to look at, though he's got a certain charisma; and his art isn't all that special, either, though he has a handful of dedicated collectors who seek him out for gifts and commissions. He was born in 1947, making him 51 years old currently ("current" being the year our Chronicle is set, 1998). But what makes him special--what makes him a Touchstone--for Aggie is that connection back to Alastair, the only person he has ever really loved, the only reason Aggie even knows what romantic love is or could feel like. There's so much complication wrapped up in it, but as time has passed and the world has changed, becoming somewhat more progressive, gaining words for people like Aggie and Alastair, people like them entering the limelight, Phillip has become representative of Aggie's "love as thou wilt" conviction.

(I'll get more into detail about Phillip another time, since there's a lot more to be written about him and his relationship with Aggie; just writing about that relationship could easily be its own post and I don't want this Touchstone summary to drag on forever.)

(ETA: Phillip dies from cancer at 81 years of age. Aggie learns about his illness in 2027. )

Thomas O'Shea

(FC: Ken Yoshikawa)

A ghoul belonging to another Toreador in DeVry's small circle, Erika Komorebi, Thomas is a talented artist, favouring charcoal, oil pastels, and graphite. Erika and he were both present at Aggie's Embrace; Erika to partake in the draining, Thomas to capture the moment at DeVry's invitation as part of Aggie's birthday gift (Aggie was familiar with and had expressed appreciation for Thomas' art at a party hosted by Komorebi).

While Aggie appreciated Thomas' art before his Embrace, the painting Thomas did of the scene stands out in his mind as one of the most exceptional works he's witnessed. Like the moment that Alastair asked him to be Phillip's godfather with all the unspoken intent, the moment he first saw the painting is similarly crystallized in his mind. (I want to write more about the painting--I have such a clear vision in mind for it and it feels so important to Aggie's perspective on his Kindred existence, especially since it is the source of the connection between Thomas and Aggie's "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" conviction.)

They've had casual sexual encounters since then, never anything approaching a relationship (Aggie doesn't do those, Thomas belongs to Erika), but Thomas is the only person in Kindred society who Aggie feels has fully seen both his Kindred and his human nature; he captured the moment those two collided, after all. Erika and Thomas remained in London when Aggie and DeVry left, but the painting allows Aggie to continue to feel connected. Don't ask me how often he tosses off to it, you won't like the answer.

Shirley Temple

(FC: Herself)

Aggie saw and heard of the effect that sending boys who were barely men off to war had on them. He saw it in Alastair, who came back from war changed and, while not hard, more distant. He saw the impact it had on his father, who was never affectionate with Alastair but who changed from the type of young man who lived a free and easy life to an older man with pain and hate in him. He experienced abuses at Eton from the other students, and heard stories about what the other students endured at the hands of their schoolmasters (though DeVry kept him from experiencing it himself). And, of course, he had his own experiences as a child growing up in an essentially loveless home, ignored if not emotionally neglected by his parents, under the heavy hand of nurses and governesses who had little to recommend them in the emotional work of childcare. And then there's Phillip, his godson, who he has watched grow from a baby into a young man and experience all the harshness of life.

All of which to say--Aggie has some strong feelings about protecting children. I'm not really certain how it comes about, but I think the films of his childhood (he was largely contemporary with Shirley Temple) kind of coalesce in his mind as this idealized version of how a child should be--carefree, adored, dancing and making music. Even as a youth, as rumours were spreading in Britain particularly about her--she's a 30-year-old dwarf, her hair is a wig, she's never lost her baby teeth or never had them to begin with--he felt defensive of her as an extension of his own childhood.

Those films and characters become this crystalline, idealized version of what childhood should look like. Even as she grows up and enters the public eye in other ways through her political career, he always pictures her as that child actress, this preservation of idyllic childhood freedom; and when other rumours circulate later in life, about what she might have experienced or endured during her stardom, that just coalesces his determination that "children should be shielded from violence" even further.

(This will probably be the first of his Touchstones to pass away, which seems fitting the more that comes out about her life as a child star, and a growing disillusionment with the world at large that seems so actively reluctant to just leave kids alone. By the time she dies in 2014, I think Aggie's ready to give up on the idea of trying to protect children from violence; between bullying, parental neglect, abuse and exploitation, childhood is violence, and the idea that he ever felt otherwise is laughable naivety.)

[kharti]

[ Good Sir, Mad Lad #10 ]

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“You’re not fuckin’ serious.”

Stede blinked at him with the innocence of a newborn babe. “Should I not be?”

      ( Continue reading on AO3 or... )

“You’re not fuckin’ serious.”

Stede blinked at him with the innocence of a newborn babe. “Should I not be?”

Jack grunted as he pressed a hand to his forehead to calm the headache that was steadily forming. “Let me get this straight. Ya pay the crew whether ya loot anyone or not?”

“Absolutely! Their time has intrinsic value to this ship.”

Holy fuck.

Jack had tied himself to an absolute moron. A moron with a huge dick, sure, but a moron nonetheless.

“How the fuck do ya make any money?” Jack growled. “Does the guy with the book keep track of all the money ya shit away?”

“I have a name,” the guy with the book muttered from where he stood nearby, scrawling something on the open pages in front of him.

“Well, no. He keeps track of my exploits and adventures.”

Jack frowned. “Your what?”

Stede clasped his hands in front of him and started to wring them while his gaze darted about. “Promise not to laugh?”

“No.”

That earned a strained chuckle from the man. “I do so appreciate your honesty.” He sighed and moved over to the couch, taking a seat, resting his elbows on his knees and dropping his chin in toward his chest. “So many pirates have already made names for themselves. There’s whole books written about you real pirates, and, I—I wanted one of my own, so I hired Lucius to write it.”

Jack didn’t laugh. He stared for a while, let his brain whirl the words around to process them.

He’d already long since picked up on the man’s weak self-esteem. Even Jack could see it a mile away.

But this was just—sad.

And that meant something coming from Calico Jack, whose greatest achievement was a threesome with twins.

“Ya know it doesn’t mean shit, right?” Jack tried to use a sincere tone, but he wasn’t exactly good at it. “Whatever ya read in books isn’t worth their weight in piss.”

Stede huffed a quiet laugh that made Jack’s stomach do a funny flippy thing. “But the written word is a legacy. Future generations will remember the names of those who make it into the history books.”

“Who the fuck cares about future generations?” Jack rolled his eyes. “They’re not even born yet, the useless fuckers.”

“I—” Stede laughed again, more sincere this time, and Jack’s stomach twisted into a knot. “I suppose that’s one way to look at things.”

“But, hey, man, if ya want an exploit to get ya into some books.” Jack grinned, letting his legs fall open. “Could always claim the title of best head Calico Jack’s ever had, if ya try hard enough.”

Stede sputtered.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” the book man said, standing up. “I’m not paid enough to chronicle this.”

Stede watched him leave, then swallowed, and Jack watched the bob of his throat with interest, imagining it was his cock making it move.

“I’m afraid I’ve never…”

“Sucked a cock?” Jack snorted. “Not surprised.” He let his hand rest on his groin, framing his growing erection beneath his pants. “Want to change that?”

Stede shifted in his seat, color rising to his cheeks. “Are you certain? I—might be rather dreadful at it.”

“Not much to it. Put my dick in your mouth and suck.”

Stede looked at him with a weird expression Jack hadn’t the first clue how to describe, just that it was somehow fragile.

Jack didn’t know what to do with fragile things. He was pretty sure all he would do was break them.

He was going to break Stede, and that thought made him feel uncomfortable in a way he didn’t like, so he grinned and patted his lap.

“Come on, princess. My dick won’t bite ya.” Then, as an afterthought, he corrected himself. “Darlin’.”

Stede’s lips twitched into a smile and he straightened up with new determination. “All right. Do I just… I just get on my knees, right?”

Jack watched as Stede did just that, moving from the couch over to settle between Jack’s legs on his knees. He looked up at him with soft, nervous eyes.

“Like this?”

Jack wanted to kiss him, but his cock was aching for attention. So he leaned back, scooting down so his ass was at the edge of the seat.

“Yep. Doing great, darlin’. Go on and get it out.”

Stede breathed out as his fingers—trembling, Jack noted—moved to undo the front of Jack’s pants and reached in to find his cock. The first brush of fingers was tentative, and then he gripped it firmly and tugged it out into the open.

“Good boy,” Jack said as a joke, but he watched Stede suck in a shaky breath and flush, so he tucked that information away for later.

“And I just—” Stede leaned down, opening his mouth and sliding it over the head.

Jack moaned, mostly as encouragement. There was no tongue, no suction, just a slide of lips and the general wet heat of a mouth. But it was the man’s first blowjob, and it was Jack’s job to instruct him.

Teach him.

Train him.

And fuck, Jack realized, there was a real opportunity here, to have someone so eager to please, so willing to learn, that Jack could make himself the perfect partner. Someone who did exactly what he wanted, the way he wanted.

“Suck on the head,” Jack said, his voice low in his chest. “Use your tongue, too.”

Stede was nothing if not obedient. He curled his tongue against the head, prodding and testing different angles while he diligently sucked like his life depended on it.

Jack rested a hand on Stede’s head and buried his fingers in those soft golden curls. “Now, down a bit…” He pushed to guide him. “And back up.” He tugged on his hair.

Stede moaned a bit, sending the vibrations straight down Jack’s cock. Jack tugged harder the next time, and was rewarded with a deeper moan.

Then Stede popped off and gasped for air, his eyes still closed, lips swollen and wet. “S—Sorry.”

“Gotta breathe through your nose, baby. Darlin’.” Jack chuckled and rubbed his thumb over Stede’s forehead. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

Stede opened his eyes to look up at him, and wasn’t he a beautiful sight like this, on his knees and so determined to please? Jack watched him descend on his cock again with renewed intent, sucking harder this time, puffing a breath out his nose.

“Yeah, like that… Good…” Jack let his head fall back and closed his eyes.

He’d had better head before, but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. In fact, there was something almost endearing in the sloppy work, in the way Stede struggled to regulate his breathing because he was too focused on sucking dick.

“Try using your hand, too. Just stroke what ya can’t reach with your mouth.”

But instead of doing that, Stede must have taken it as a challenge, because he suddenly went further down, took more of him until his nose brushed against his pubic hairs.

And when Stede choked, his throat went tight enough that Jack groaned and started to pull him back up, but Stede held still where he was. He rubbed the shaft with his tongue, tried to suck as hard as he could, tried to be so good for Jack in a way no one had before—it had always just been drunk fun, not a dedicated act of service like this.

Jack hunched forward and looked down at Stede, his mouth opening to warn him. But all that came out was a gutteral moan, as caught off-guard as Stede, who pulled off in surprise and took a load to the face with cum from the first shot dripping from the corner of his mouth.

“F—Fuck,” Jack managed as he watched Stede’s eyes close in unmistakable bliss as his face was coated in stripes of cum, which just made Jack’s orgasm feel all the more intense.

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[bellmo15-blog]

I *kinda* Want Better Home Menu's for the Switch 2

This may just be a result of it being like 7 in the morning when I considered writing this, me experimenting with custom home menu backgrounds for my hacked 3DS, me using a custom theme for Discord that turns it into a Windows 98 desktop or all three of those things combined on top Nintendo announcing that they are going to be sharing details about the Switch 2 in the next fiscal year whatever the hell that means but I’m kinda hoping the Switch 2 has better menus than the Switch.

That’s probably like what a lot of people are hoping for though right? A console home menu that has a lot more personality to the one we’ve been stuck with for the past 7 years on the Nintendo Switch. So it might surprise you to know I’m only kinda hoping for it. And let me explain. The home menu for any video game console, weather it’s old or new, has been something I have never been overly concerned with considering the whole reason I or anyone else plays on video game consoles in the first place is to play video games (Or watch something on Youtube or streaming or whatever you use your console for) and I have never understood why the menu of a console is such a make or break deal for some people considering how little you actually spend in a console home menu compared to being in game. It’s one of those things people tend to make out to be a bigger deal than it actually is. Seriously, some of you people would NOT survive the Playstation 2 or Nintendo 64 era where those consoles instantly load into whatever game’s inside them, double so for the N64 since there’s no grand console start up sequence like the Playstation or anything.

Even with that said though, I won’t deny that I do still like a good home menu all the same. It’s one of those things that add’s a little more personality to a console and even if you aren’t using the console for playing games and are using it for watching a movie or show, like I’ve been using my systems for a lot more recently, even just starting them up can be fun. Especially the ones that let you add a little bit of personalisation to your system to make it feel more you I guess.

Seriously, this is the base home menu for both the Playstation Portable and Playstation 3.

They are both similar in there menu designs but both can be customized to your liking.

I've been using my own pics I've gotten as commisions for my home background for these things...

but there were a bunch of unique themes for the systems as well that you could get from the PSN store or even as rewards from certain games.

I don’t have any for my Playstation Portable but I got a bunch for my PS3 back in the day and I loved using them especially the ones that change the sound effects for certain ones. I use to have a Prince of Persia one two but sadly I can’t find it anywhere on the PSN store to re-download it.

Same with the 3DS, even just the base menu has a lot of personality since your able to move around all the different icons and create your own folders for certain games and apps.

(And of course, here’s a home menu using one of my comms if your interested. I have to put a lot of effort in for some of these let's just say.)

And back when the eShop for the 3DS was still a thing I’m pretty sure I brought more home menus for my system than I did actual games from the eShop.

Seriously, before I swapped to using commissioned pics for my systems the Xenoblade Chronicles home menu for the 3DS was one of my personal favourites. Just the shot of the Mechonis in the background with the Manado Blade in the ground paired with the beautiful title theme just made for one of the most relaxing home themes on any system I’ve played.

Which brings me to the Nintendo Switch.

Just an incredibly basic home menu, only two options for backgrounds being basic white or black, no sort of personalisation of any kind and the option to create custom folders for our games wasn’t added until a few years later. Yeah, it’s a prime case of over simplification to me. It’s one of those things about the Nintendo Switch I’ve always been conflicted on. Well, this and also the fact that the quality of some third party games is inconsistent at best and many of the first party games released in the first couple of years of it’s life were just ports of Wii U games I either already owned or could of saved money and brought the Wii U version instead since I was starting to make my own money by the time I owned a Switch (seriously, I will never understand how yall will crap on the Playstation 5 for its port which it isn’t nearly as over saturated with as you make it out but then turn around and praise this thing for its arguably larger number of ports!) On one hand I still stand by what I said earlier in that the Home Menu of the Nintendo Switch is not some make or break deal when I’m going to be spending most of my time in game on these things but on the other hand, I do still miss the option to make my console just feel like my own little personal device. And who know, maybe with the Switch 2 allegedly being a lot more powerful than the Switch 1 we could get better home menus. It won’t be a massive deal break if there’s not but I’d still kinda like it.

I don’t know, I guess I just miss that option to make newer consoles feel more personalized but even if it doesn’t come back I’m still as excited for the Switch 2 and the details we will be getting on it. Just please don’t have the library for the first couple of years be ports of games I’ve already owned on a previous console again for the love of Palutena!

[j-graysonlibrary]

The Xiang Chronicles: Book Four Chapter 25

Title: The Xiang Chronicles: Book Four

Author: Jay Grayson

Word Count: 118k

Genres: Fantasy, adventure, drama, LGBT+

Available on: my website

Synopsis: In order to save the world from the continuous subjugation and potential annihilation at the hands of Tiandi, hard lines must be drawn. The Great Spirits that were imprisoned ages ago must be unsealed and awakened, no matter the consequences.

The players are divided—those who stand blindly with Tiandi, such as Xiang Merra and her disciples versus those who want to tear the system down and give the power back to the people. Even a few of the most religious Lords change their minds when they learn the truth of the world—that Tiandi is no more than a dictator with no love in his heart.

It is up to the last, real Xiang and the ill-fated Chaaya to put everything they have into tearing God from his throne and creating new possibilities for the future.

Full chapter 25 under the cut

Chapter XXV:

The conversation lasted until sundown, mostly because Alf had a lot of questions. It was understandable and, since May was not there to go into her level of detail, it was left to Pangu to paint the picture. With the added fact that Alf’s knowledge of all things Tiandi as well as the Mistresses of Shadow was lacking, it became a very learning intensive night.

Kira, of course, helped where he could and Oli attempted to clear up any confusion Alf had each time the man’s brow creased.

At first, Alf had been translating the story to some of the villagers that stuck around but, after a certain point in the retelling, he gave up and, presumably, told them that he would explain it all later.

Eventually, he was caught up to the present and he understood, fully, why they were there.

“So Gnome is not dead?” Alf blinked a few times and then looked to the side, at the monument—the very structure Pangu had been doing his best to avoid contact with since they arrived.

“We hope not,” Pangu responded and looked down, at the campfire. He pushed one of the rocks lining the perimeter with his boot. “So far, we have had good luck with the Great Spirits.”

He let out a sigh that sounded like a laugh. “Incredible…”

“Can we bring Alf into the spirit world with us?” Oli asked as he gripped the man’s shoulder.

“Of course,” Pangu replied easily. He did not see why not and, considering all Alf had done for his people as well as their group, he definitely deserved it. Really, Pangu would take the whole village with him if he could.

“And we hope to bring Lords Dio and Evie as well,” Viren added.

“This is so exciting.” Alf knocked his knees together as he grinned. “I cannot wait.”

Despite his high energy, Alf did not keep them awake to move onto the more political aspect of their visit. That, thankfully, was pushed to the next day.

He and Oli might have discussed it to some degree since they retreated to Alf’s hut together but Kira had a different idea.

As he, Pangu, and Viren settled down onto their guest cot, he asked, “Viren, how do you feel about Alf being your new cousin?”

Viren, hardly having the energy to raise his head and look over the top of Pangu responded, “What do you mean?”

Kira snickered and Pangu laughed, knowing exactly what he was getting at. “He is saying that Oli and Alf are romantically involved. And asking how you feel about it.”

“They are not,” Viren dismissed the idea and rested his head against Pangu’s shoulder.

Pangu and Kira shared a look and only Kira laughed that time. “Sure.”

Viren cracked open an eye. “You really think so?”

“Yes.” Kira then elaborated, “They have been writing each other letters since the two of you left here and they are probably sharing a bed right now.”

“Kira, we are sharing a bed,” the lord pointed out.

Pangu laughed and closed his eyes. “Just go to sleep. You can ask him later if you really want to know.”

It was just a statement to try and get them both to settle down and rest. Pangu did not believe, for a second, that Oli would be honest even if what Kira was saying was true. If Kira asked him, he would see it as some joke or a means of teasing him and become flustered. And, if Viren asked, he would surely be too embarrassed to answer.

He did think they would be a cute pair, however.

***

Viren and Oli took over the conversation in the morning and Pangu and Kira left them to it, not necessarily needing to hear the same points that would be revisited once Dio and Evie came. Plus, Pangu was sure he knew most of the things that were being said anyway.

He, Baiya, and Kaz, had been audience to a lot of Viren’s ideas.

So, instead of sitting with them, he and Kira walked around the village to a less crowded area. The same spot Pangu had stayed away from yesterday—where he had looked at all but twice and each time on accident.

The very first time he looked at the arrowhead, he remembered, he was filled with dread and discomfort. When he had seen the tomb on the other side, those feelings became worse.

He wondered, looking back, if he knew, deep down, what would happen. If he was being warned by some energy from the future about his fate.

Not too far away, there was a smaller structure, one that was, potentially, even worse on his anxiety. His emotions were difficult to pin down and they continued to multiply, almost like weeds growing at double speed. When he tried to step back, mentally, and actually address what was going on in his mind, it was as if he was staring through warped glass.

Then he settled his eyes back on the small stone, with his name engraved on the surface, and he felt nothing but pain in his abdomen.

He clutched the spot of his old would and dug his fingers in, nearly feeling the indent though he knew, for a fact, it was no longer there.

He tasted blood.

Kira glanced over at him and noted the look on his face and the tension built up in his frame. He knew that returning would be hardest for him, even if the sight of the village instilled in him a simmering rage and hollowness. His feelings were lies—distant echoes and nothing more—but Pangu could probably not so easily think his way out of things.

He reached over and took the hand that was twisted into the front of his robe and held on.

Pangu shifted his attention to Kira and squeezed his hand. “Yes?” he asked, assuming he must want something or else had something on his mind.

“Nothing.” Kira gave him a short lived smile. He patted their joined hands with his free one. “You just seemed out of it so…”

“Oh.” Pangu glanced down. “I knew this was going to happen. It will be difficult going back into the spirit world.”

“I know.” His response was a whisper and he, too, looked down. Their hands stayed linked and he lightly swayed them. “Viren and I will try to break the seal as fast as we can and, hopefully, Gnome will be in a good mood and pick their link quickly.”

“Yes,” Pangu said with a sigh. “I worry our luck with amicable Great Spirits is running out, however.”

As much as Kira very much felt the same way, he could not allow Pangu to lose himself in that concern. Not right now. And not here of all places. So, he shook his head, adamant. “No, Gnome will be kind and happy. Maybe more relaxed even.”

“Well I do not think anyone could match Sylph’s energy,” Pangu commented with a chuckle.

“True.” Kira gave his hand another squeeze. “Just…know it will be fine.”

Pangu nodded and allowed his eyes to travel back to his headstone and then, to his left, at the arrowhead. Gnome’s grave… Once they were through here, they would have only one spirit left. The idea was unreal and the twisting in his stomach changed from the residual pain of his fatal wound to a nervous fluttering. If it kept up, he worried his breakfast would come out soon.

“Who do you think Gnome will choose?” Kira asked after a moment, noticing some passing discomfort still on Pangu’s face.

“No idea,” he answered honestly. “With Dio and Evie, as well as Alf, there will be plenty of options. Then again, they might choose more than one, like Sylph.”

“I would pick Viren but I suppose I am biased.” Kira chuckled.

“Yes but Dio, Evie, and Alf are all from the people who were here first…who remembered and honored Gnome even after they were sealed.” Pangu swung their hands with a little more gusto as he said, “It would make more sense if Gnome chose one of them. I believe Viren is expecting the same thing.”

In fact, he knew that he was. He had all but said so the other night.

“Just as long as they don’t pick me,” Kira muttered. “That is the last thing I need.”

“Why? Would Raine become too jealous?” Pangu softly laughed.

“That too.” He grinned. “But, with the mantle of Chaaya already, being your disciple and everything else…”

“No, I understand.” Pangu exhaled, slowly. “I was glad Sylph did not pick me.”

Kira barely nodded but he was grateful his friend understood. Their positions were already too chaotic, too cluttered. It was best if the Great Spirits simply gave them a verbal thanks and nothing more.

He brought their hands up closer and marveled at the difference between them. Not too long ago, Kira would have been darker than Pangu. Not by a whole lot, but, with their hands clasped together, it would have been notable. It was still notable now but in the opposite way.

The black made up most of Kira’s hand but there were pale spots that had yet to be contaminated. Those stretches of skin, next to Pangu’s deep tan were stark in contrast.

“Your entire hand is almost covered,” Pangu acknowledged. “Does it hurt…?”

“Not always,” Kira answered, honestly. “Sometimes I get a twinge but, really, I have gotten used to it.”

Pangu frowned and pulled his hand closer to him, using his free hand to trace over the darkest spots. “How badly is the rest of you covered?”

There were some splotches branching up his neck, coming from under the collar of his tunic and there were random patches on his arms but the rest of him was always covered. Pangu suspected his torso looked quite similar to what he could already see.

“It is probably what you expect.” Kira gave him a sideways smile. “Raine did not flinch too bad.”

They shared a short, quiet laugh.

Then, Kira let his arm go limp and, while they still held hands, there was no swinging and tight gripping any longer. His face started to fall and, before he knew it, he asked, “Pangu, what was it like being dead?”

It was not a topic the two of them visited often or, really, at all. When the overall story was told, the details were usually kept to a minimum and when Pangu had spoken more in depth about his time being dead, it was never around Kira. He knew he did not want to hear it, or so he had assumed.

To hear the question, so direct now, was jarring.

Pangu looked over at him but his friend did not meet his gaze. “Being dead or dying? The second one was far worse.”

“Being dead,” Kira clarified. “Were you still…aware?”

“No,” he answered and, immediately, Kira let go of his hand. Pangu rushed to elaborate, “But, that was because of how Gong was keeping my soul.”

Kira turned to face him. “What did he do to you?”

“Nothing bad, really. He just had to house me in a sealing jar…or gem…I do not remember which.” Pangu shook his head. “Anyway, it was to keep Tiandi and the other Princes from knowing that he had me. And, because I was in something for sealing, I just had this abyss all around me. Sometimes I would have a thought but I could not linger on anything. It was…you know how you have awareness as you fall asleep sometimes but everything that happens in your mind is out of your control? Then the next thing you know, you are waking up?”

Kira nodded.

“Sort of like that but it went on and on for…well…a year.” He sighed. “I am told that is not the normal experience upon death though. Like the spirits, you retain your essence and memories. Sort of like Badou, I guess. Although, most people who are dead probably do not stay stuck in the spirit world like him.”

“True but…” Kira started but then stopped immediately. When he realized he had already come too far, he sighed and marched forward. “What about someone who would not be allowed in the spirit world after their death? What happened to all the Chaaya before me that died?”

It was a truly odd line of questioning to be coming from nowhere. Pangu suspected this had been on his mind for a time and that there was a good reason for it.

“Kira…” he frowned as he asked, nervous to hear the answer but needing to regardless, “You are not planning on dying on me…are you?”

The laugh that came out of his second disciple fooled no one. “What? I was just curious.”

Pangu felt his old wound ache again but he did not have time to ask anything else or to point out that his best friend’s response was not truly an answer. “Lord Dio! Evie!” Alf’s voice rang through the village and Pangu reluctantly turned away from Kira.

[dailyaudiobible]

7/18/2023 DAB Transcript

1 Chronicles 26:12-27:34, Romans 4:13-5:5, Psalm 14:1-7, Proverbs 19:17

Today is the 18th day of July, welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I'm Brian. It's great to be here with you today, just like it is every day and I mean it. It’s great to be together, isn’t it. It’s great to have this place that we can come and let our cares evaporate and just kind of be in the background and just let God's word wash into our lives. I am grateful, grateful every day to come here to the Global Campfire and be together and take that next step forward. And so, let's do that. We’ve been working our way through the book of First Chronicles and we’re working our way through it. There are 29 chapters in First Chronicles, and today we will read chapter 26 verse 12 through 27 verse 34.

Commentary:

Okay, as we are continuing the beautiful letter to the Romans, Paul is spending a lot of time talking about Abraham, and there's a reason for this and it's central to all the Paul teaches. So, we remember when we were moving through the book of Acts, we were moving along with Paul like the life and times of Paul in his missionary journeys. So, we’re kind of like traveling along with Paul. And he had this experience where Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus, a place that he was going to persecute believers, he met Jesus on this road, and that changed Paul, and has certainly had repercussions the world over until this very day. Like, it's been revolutionary since then. But before that, before it's been revolutionary in the world, Jesus intervened and introduced himself to Paul, and Paul had a personal revolution in his life, like a complete transformation. This is a person that was devoutly trying to stamp out the name of Jesus and wipe it from the lips of anyone who would udder it. He hated this teaching; he went from that to being an advocate who died in defense of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Gospel. That is a complete turnaround, that is a revolution in his life, and we can read it and go and then clap our hands and go, praise the Lord, thank God for the Apostle Paul or whatever. But if we think about the things that have made us completely turn around and go in a totally opposite direction, that does not happen without revolution in our lives, without incredible disruption. And one of the greatest disruptions that a person can face is a crisis of faith, and Paul went through a crisis of faith. He believed things a certain way and had ordered his life devoutly believing that he was serving God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, and he was believing and living in that direction, and he met Jesus, and went in the other direction. That didn't happen without turmoil. It doesn't happen without turmoil in our lives. Moments that feel like we're in freefall where we just don't know what's going on. So, it's not surprising then to see Paul in this state, working through these things, hearing from Jesus, being taught, being raised up understanding the way. It’s not surprising then for Paul to go okay, I've been living in a story, the Hebrew experience. I have believed to be a chosen of God devoutly trying to obey God's law. Now I see I didn't have the whole story and my framing of the story has had me trying to serve God with all my heart while being in opposition to what God is doing. So, Abraham goes back to the beginning of the story. The place where the Hebrew people find their origination and that is with a person named Abram, who becomes Abraham. And so, Paul goes back to the beginning of the story that he's living in and looking at it and going what is, what is this story, where did we miss the plot. And that's when he realizes Abraham believed God, and God counted it toward him as righteousness. He didn't order his life to obey a law to become righteous. He had faith. He believed God, and God considered him righteous, and that was revolutionary for Paul. And since Paul is speaking to a predominantly Jewish audience in this letter, it can be revolutionary for them as well. If they can see what he is saying. So, in today's reading, Paul's discussing Abraham's life to contrast the life of faith, versus life under the law. And I quote from Paul, “if God's promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary, and the promise is pointless. For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break.” So, for Paul and we who believe what Paul is saying here, faith is the bridge for interaction with God. Faith is the way to find yourself right, in right standing, righteous before God. God wants us to engage him through faith, not just obeying a set of rules. So, Paul is inviting his readers to do what he did, go back to the beginning of the story, go back to the origin story and look deeply at what God did in the world through Abraham, and see for yourself that it was faith in God's promise that began the story. Abraham simply had to believe. And so, Paul's argument is that for the Jewish people, it is faith and not the law, that actually contains their real true identity as chosen people. Or I just quote from the letter to the Romans, “The promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift, and we are all certain to receive it. Whether or not we live according to the law of Moses. If we have faith like Abraham's.” And what does that look like? Well, we’ve read this story this year. Abraham hoped against all the odds that the promise could be possibly true that maybe, in God's almighty power, he, Abraham, might be the father of many nations. And that was not a small thing, right. Like we read the story. Abraham’s 100 years old. Sarah's nearly that old and they’re being promise that they will have a child and that will be the beginning of more children that will one day be more numerous than the sands on the seashore or more numerous than the stars in the heavens. So, Abraham was invited to believe, to hope in the impossible and he did. He did believe. And it did happen, and Isaac was born. And so, Paul is trying to make this the central point. It is faith that makes us righteous before God and not adherence to the Mosaic law, which felt, to those who would been devout and followed the Hebrew traditions, like Paul was tearing down the religion. What Paul was trying to do was share the good news that through faith, mankind can be restored and become righteous before God. I quote again from Paul in our reading today, “since we have been made right in God's sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand. And we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory.” And so, Paul’s saying, through faith our reality changes and we stand right with God and this should give us great immeasurable hope and should cause us to reframe the circumstances of our lives and reinterpret the obstacles and trials we face, because they have a purpose, they build endurance in us, and that endurance leads to character, and that character builds great hope in our right standing with God, that hope allows us to enter into the story of Abraham and hope in the impossible. And as Paul said today, this hope will not lead to disappointment.

Prayer:

And so, Father our hope is in You that we believe. We know that you love us and that you are for us and that You have invited us into Your family, and we lose sight of that all the time. And so, we doubt and take control of things and make messes all of the time, when there is such a great hope. We can't do anything to be righteous before us, but You can. And because You can and did, we are right with You, right before You and we have great hope, not only for our lives but for the world. We are carrying the hope. We are carrying what everybody is looking for. So, thank You Jesus for rescuing us and may we be Your hands and feet and continuing to share the Good News that there is hope for restoration in righteousness before God. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base and that's, that's where you find out what's going on around here. So, brand new announcement. So, brand-new item in the Daily Audio Bible Shop. Just becoming available today. So, here's the story. We have several different Daily Audio Bible channels, like Daily Audio Bible Chronological and Daily Audio Bible, which is what we’re doing right here, right now. We also have Daily Audio Bible Kids, and that's been running a long time and our son Ezekiel began to read through the New Testament for kids a couple of years ago. So, he's been in the Scriptures and reading along, just like his parents for the last couple of years. Many, many, many years ago his older brother, when his older brother was a little boy, his older brother Max, he used to also read Daily Audio Bible for kids. And Max, you have to know him. He's like a beautiful boy, a creative person through and through. A brilliant creative person who's can be all over the place. And just comes up with all kinds of interesting and creative things. And so, he, he, he had a sign off back when he was doing Daily Audio Bible Kids and he would say rubber ducky. It means absolutely nothing. It’s just how he was saying goodbye, I'll see you tomorrow. Some of you who have been around a long time might even remember that. There were rubber ducky T-shirts back in those days. And I still them around once in a while. Kind of run into somebody vintage from around here, who has a rubber ducky t-shirt. Well, fast forward a good decade and we’re here with Ezekiel and he's reading through the Daily Audio Bible for kids, moving through the New Testament. And he starts, he comes up with his own signoff. Just all of his own and he says every day on Daily Audio Bible Kids and those of you who are listening can say it with me, byeeeeeeeee. And then sometimes he'll stretch that out. He’ll say byeeeeeee and he’ll stretch the E out as long as he has breath. Sometimes it's short, it's always different, each and every day, but that's how he ends the Daily Audio Bible for kids each day. And so, we have made Daily Audio Bible Kids, byeeeeee t-shirts and they're actually pretty awesome. They have Ezekiel’s picture on them and he's waving. He’s like a cartoon character and the Daily Audio Bible logo behind it and Daily Audio Bible Kids and he's waving byeeeeee. So, announcing those, those are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop as of today. And we have adult sizes and all of the kids sizes as well. So, we just want to love on the kids, we just want to love on all the kids of Daily Audio Bible Kids and make this resource available. And you can find it in the Daily Audio Bible Shop, in the Lifestyle Section. So, certainly, check that out and check out the other resources that are available in the Daily Audio Bible Shop.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible. Thank you, humbly thank you. There is a link on the homepage at dailyaudiobible.com. If you’re using the app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or the mailing address is P.O. Box 1996 Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

And as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today, I'm Brian, I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Prayer and Encouragements:

Hi Daily Audio Bible family, this is Emmie. I haven’t called at all this year. I feel like this year has been so hard for me with my faith. But I’m just calling to encourage anyone that has felt the way I’ve felt this year. Keep pressing on. Keep listening, keep praying. Sometimes we feel that God doesn’t hear you but He’s there. And I’m trusting in Him. I’m speaking to myself as I’m speaking to everybody else right now. So, just keep listening, keep praying, keep trusting God for who He is and for what He has done. Even if you don’t see it now. Remember the things He’s done. Remember how He’s come through for you. I just want to encourage anybody that thinks that just keep pressing forward. And sometimes it’s hard …

Hi, this is Victorious Soldier, just calling to pray for some of the DABers. I just wanted to say congratulations to Peter for having another birthday and I’m glad that he and God’s Smile got out and went to the beach, it was so nice. And I’m praying the Lord continues to strengthen and bless you all. I also want to pray for the young man who moved out of his parent’s house and has moved into a place that has got rather challenging. I ask that the Lord bless and protect them and open doors for them that no man can close. I want to pray for Rhonda. I also want to pray for her, her cousin that, whose husband has to have a heart transplant. I’m praying with them that the transplant goes, goes successful. And I’m also praying for the marriages. Gracious Father, we just ask You to touch the names that I called out and also the marriages that are going through, Father. Only You can be in the midst of those marriages. Only You can touch their heart, Lord, and bring them together in every aspect of the way. We ask that You bring them together and You bless them knowing that they’re, they have a reason for being together. And let their marriage go even greater than it was before. And we just ask You to touch in that heart transplant. You are a doctor that never lost a case. We just ask You to guide the doctors hands and to touch the heart of those family members as they wait on the one having the operation. That God will be with him and bless him and let him come out with successful results with the doctors being successful in it also. And Lord, we give You the glory and the honor. We thank You Lord for Your goodness and Your mercy. We thank You for blessing the DABers and we just thank you …

Hi, DAB community. It’s Morning Lift again. Calling out just to continue to ask you to pray for me and my wife and our marriage. We’re going through a separation, as you know. And it’s been very challenging to say the least. The Lord has blessed me this week with an opportunity to attend a leadership class led by two Christian authors. And it’s been a really good time of introspection and healing and doing some really hard work on myself. And I’m really grateful to God for this opportunity. And I am just constantly in prayer for my wife and our marriage and our family, that we would both grow closer to God, that we would both deal with the problems that we have in our thought processes and the way we resolve conflict and the way we interact with others. I’ve seen so many things in my own the past couple days that were just blind spots that I had missed on my own. And I’m thankful to God for this opportunity to be at this training seminar that I wasn’t even really planning to be at. And God just put it in my path. And I got on the plane and here I am. And I’m grateful to God for this opportunity and I’m just praying at the same time that God would use it to draw me closer to Him, I know He is, doing that. But He would also use the things that I’m learning and the way my mental health is improving, to help just reconcile the relationship that I have with my wife. In Jesus name. Amen.

Good evening family. It’s Soaring on Eagles Wings from Canada. And I have a prayer request this evening. My dear friend and sister, God’s Yellow Flower, is coming back to Manitoba with her son, Keith, for two weeks visit. They’re from here originally, so it will be a delight for them to return home and for Keith to see his friends that he hasn’t seen for quite a while. And for God’s Yellow Flower, to meet up and engage with her friends, here in Manitoba. So, would you please pray for traveling mercies with me. And you know, you know all about Keith’s illness and his lung capacity. So, please join me in prayer for them both. Abba Father, what a delight it will be for God’s Yellow Flower and Keith to return to Manitoba for us to be able to see them and them to interact with us. Now I’m asking You for traveling mercies. Go ahead of them and prepare the way for traveling on July 18th, that there will be no hiccups along the way. And I pray that the two week visit here will just be one that is spent with just talking about the goodness of God. And having Keith’s friends see him and see what the Lord has done. We can say, look what the Lord has done. And thank you all for praying. I know you love them as much as I do.

[thegreymoon]

Ooh, I want to play! 💚

The Last Book I Read: The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. This was last year but it is the last one I completed fully.

A Book I Recommend: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Such a good book. The best book. I cannot recommend it enough. It changed my outlook on life and on people in general and made me realise just how casually your own family and community will destroy your life if you let them and not even think for a second that they are doing something wrong. This book caused an entire seismic shift in my mind and made me view humans in a whole different light.

A Book That I Couldn't Put Down: The Husky and His White Cat Shizun by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou. This one is extremely notable to me because it was the first in many, many years that I couldn't put down. It was the cause of my first all-nighter over a book since my teens. I was out of it for a whole week, it derailed my entire life for months and reintroduced the love of reading to me after a very, very long drought.

A Book I've Read Twice (or More): Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. In truth, I've read all my faves multiple times. I love rereading books, but the notable ones have already been mentioned elsewhere on this list, so Elizabeth can have this spot.

A Book on My TBR: Beren and Luthien and The Children of Hurin by JRR Tolkien. These have been on my list for years now, but I must reread The Silmarillion first because I read it so long ago, I've forgotten who all those people are and need a refresher.

A Book I've Put Down: Blood Canticle by Anne Rice. I mean, I've put a lot of books down, but this one is notable because I put not only this book down, but the entire Vampire Chronicles and everything else written by Anne fucking Rice right along with it. I really enjoyed Interview with the Vampire, but all her subsequent books kept getting progressively worse. At least two books before Blood Canticle were absolutely no joy, just pure rage (looking at you, Blood and Gold and The Tale of the Body Thief) but this was the one where I finally said, "Enough!" And purged her entire bibliography from my life.

A Book on My Wishlist: Nan Chan by Tang Jiuqing. I've already preordered the first volume of the official English translation! Fingers crossed that it arrives safely! I've read the fan translation at least three times by now, I love it so much! It's not only one of the best danmei I've read, but one of the best books in general.

A Favorite Book From Childhood: The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien. The influence of this book on the entire course of my life cannot be overstated. I can safely say that if I had not discovered Tolkien at a formative age in my life, I would be a completely different person today.

A Book You Would Give to a Friend: IDK. My IRL friends are not big readers. The way it usually goes is I recommend a book to them, they do not read it and I feel stupid. But of the books I successfully lent them in the past, I think the most notable are Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy by Mary Renault. They kicked off an entire obsession with Alexander the Great among my friend group for a while there.

A Book of Poetry or Lyrics You Own: Graždanski Erotikon by Sava Damjanov. This is the only book of poetry I currently own. I'm not a big fan of poetry. Most of the time, poetry does nothing whatsoever for me (though some of the big epics like The Iliad and Balkan traditional epic poetry held quite a sway over my brain at certain points during my teenage existence). In addition, I did a purge of all paper books in my house a few years ago because they were collecting dust and taking up space. I gave away 98% of all the books I owned and only kept the ones I really loved or couldn't give away for some other reason. The Erotikon stayed behind for "some other reason" (the reason being that it is a book of explicit dirty poetry and illustrations I bought on a whim one day because I thought it would be funny). Unfortunately, it was not particularly funny (nor fun) and I never finished it, but when I did the purge, I was too embarrassed to give it to anyone. So, here it is. Sill in my cupboard. I will never be rid of it and people will find it among my possessions after I die at the age of 104.

A Non-Fiction Book You Own: Anatomy for the Artist by Sarah Simblet. This is one of the few books that survived my purge. I was in my first year of college when I found this book. I was a baby artist and it blew my entire mind. It cost a fortune (for my circumstances at the time) and even though I couldn't afford to buy it, I kept going back to the bookstore every few days to look at it, sighing a sigh of relief every time because it hadn't been sold yet. I begged my brother for the money to buy it and he gave it to me. Getting to buy that book and holding it in my hands afterwards was a religious experience. I never ended up using it as much as I thought I would and it just sat on my shelf unused for years, but I'm sentimentally attached to it and will probably never be ready to part with it.

What are You Currently Reading: Beloved by Toni Morrison. This is such a good book, one of the best things I've ever read but this is my third attempt at finishing it. Every time I try, I get interrupted by something major IRL and then never get around to it. I am also rereading 2ha, currently on volume 4 and hoping to get my hands on (the finally properly translated!!) volume 5 soon.

What Are You Planning on Reading Next: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. I've watched the drama and been in the midst of the English-speaking fandom (and fandom wank) for years now, so I honestly doubt that this book will have much to offer me at this point, but I feel guilty never having read it. I tried years ago when I first watched The Untamed but the fan translation just didn't sit right with me and I gave up a few pages in. Now that the official translation is out in full, I feel like the time has finally come.

Tagging: everyone who sees this!! 💚

13 Books!

Yoinking this meme from @profiterole-reads

The Last Book I Read: I finished the YA graphic novel Kiss Number 8 by Colleen AF Venable last night.

A Book I Recommend: there aren't many books I'd recommend without knowing who I'm recommending it to, but The Alienist by Caleb Carr is fantastic.

A Book That I Couldn't Put Down: Little Mushroom by Shi Si

A Book I've Read Twice (or More): the Elenium trilogy by David Eddings

A Book on My TBR: my "next ups" are Thousand Autumns vol. 4 by Meng Xi Zhi and Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker.

A Book I've Put Down: it's been a long time since I've really had a DNF? One of the first books I can ever remember DNFing, when I was young, was book 1 of The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey, I just couldn't get into it.

A Book on My Wishlist: I don't have a wish list, most of what I want is pre-ordered and I'll get it when it's available.

A Favorite Book From Childhood: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede

A Book You Would Give to a Friend: again it depends on the friend???? idek I don't think I can answer this one, no book is universal.

A Book of Poetry or Lyrics You Own: Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

A Non-Fiction Book You Own: all of Stephen Sears Civil War battle analyses are fantastic.

What are You Currently Reading: Copper Coins by Mu Su Li

What Are You Planning on Reading Next: I already answered this on the "a book on my TBR" one, didn't realize it'd come up again, oops.

Tagging: anyone who wants to play! <3

[darkcircles4lyfe]

Death to All Might, Rebirth to Yagi Toshinori

So about All Might. I’ve been extremely wary of talking about what could happen to him because straight up saying “I don’t think he’s gonna die” is asking the universe to spite me. Plus it also feels like a room full of people turning to stare at me as if I said the Sun isn’t a star. Man has death flags everywhere, I know. 

But, okay, *Bill Nye voice* consider the following:

Mr. Yagi here, if he overheard everything, just received the final nail in the coffin on his career. His time as the symbol of peace is not only over, it was in fact partially responsible for the current state of things, since he once did so much on his own that his absence now makes heroes and civilians alike ill-prepared to cope. I think it was very apt for that one guy to be wearing an All Might shirt--he was acting as a mouthpiece for the latent societal problems embedded in All Might’s legacy. 

We know already that he’s been feeling useless. I love this scene and although I’m not gonna talk about it right this second, remember what Aizawa says about just “being here” being enough:

And we know from conversations with Inko that Toshinori is also reframed his purpose around looking after Izuku. But in the end, Izuku rejected his help, and it was his classmates instead who were able to save him. Now the very progress of humanity is rejecting him too. You may me wondering how on Earth I don’t see the logical conclusion of all this being his death. Hold on. It actually has a lot to do with the fact that we’re all expecting it. Nighteye himself saw it, and despite any contrary convictions anyone might have, the plot doesn’t seem to be veering away from that end. All Might Is Gonna Die, says absolutely everything. 

It’s occurring to me that I have previous experience with this kind of plotline that probably little to no one else in this fandom shares, being that I’ve read a certain book series in which the main character is told in no uncertain terms that he will die (no, I’m not talking about hp). The series in question is T*e Und*rland Chronicl*s (censoring so it doesn’t get put in their side of tumblr) and I’m sorry but I’m about to go on a shameless tangent about it and spoil the ending for you.

So in this series there is a prophecy in every book, each one having something to do with war and conflict, and so far all of them have been right. In the last book [mc] finds out that it’s prophesied that he will be killed. Lots of the things in the prophecies are convoluted and metaphorical, but no, this one literally says “when the [mc’s title] has been killed.” He spends the whole book coming to terms with this, and he gives into it, only to find himself waking up in the hospital instead. “Wow, plot twist. /s” you may be thinking, and yeah sure, the mc in a kids book survived, big shocker. But it doesn't end there. After the war, there are peace talks, but they escalate until the two sides are on the verge of declaring war again. And [mc], bless him, has just been caught in the middle of all of this the entire time. He’s sick as shit of fighting, of watching the suffering and death of people he cares about. He draws his sword against both of them angrily, gives a speech saying he won’t take a side, and then promptly breaks his sword across his knee: “There. [mc’s title in the prophecies] is dead. I killed him.” He’s giving a huge middle finger to everyone there, to the man who wrote the prophecies, to the entire fucked up culture of it all. And so something that was taken literally turns out to be metaphorical. That is, if you still believe in the prophecies at all.

Hopefully you’re catching my drift here. What I’m saying is, even though this other series has nothing to do with bnha, it goes to show sometimes it’s the most absolute certainties that are red herrings, and a “death” can consequently be a symbolic one. In All Might’s case, it could be the death of hero society and a rejection of his own past. In other words, character development for Toshinori himself that reflects on the way the world is changing, too. Also there’s the fact that the mc from that other series I’m trying not to name has an honorary title, and I’m imagining that role he occupied “dying�� could correspond to something that amounts to, “All Might is dead. I (Yagi Toshinori) killed him.” 

And here’s another thing: we also have to ask ourselves what good a dead Toshinori is to Izuku, narratively speaking. Yes, Izuku has spent his whole life idolizing even the more toxic parts of All Might, and his idealized vision of his hero does need to “die.” But how about Toshinori as a father figure?  Izuku regretting that his last interaction with Toshinori was to reject his help may drive home the fact that he shouldn’t go off on his own, but at this point it’s kinda redundant. If anything it would negate some of the progress that was just made because it’d make him extra paranoid about losing other people too. To be honest, the whole “Uncle Ben” trope, the mentor/father figure who dies and gives the mc a reason to do better, is so tired. Experiencing the death of a loved one really doesn’t deserve to be romanticized like that. I might as well admit that I’m speaking from experience, and let me tell you, losing someone you love suddenly, when you weren’t around, and with unfinished business--it makes you paranoid as hell that it will happen again. It literally gives me nightmares. Y’all, I cannot stress enough that trauma does not equal character development. Granted, just because I know this doesn’t mean Horikoshi does, but in general he does seem to lead his characters toward healing.

Okay, back to the present. Toshinori is turning away from UA. He likely feels useless and rejected. We can infer that what happens next will involve Stain, and we have a couple of extra clues to go with it: Stain considers All Might a true hero, and has stated that he would let All Might kill him. And since Horikoshi loves his parallels, we also have this fight between Endeavor and this random villain who admires him so much that he wants to die by Endeavor’s hand:

This suggests a confrontation in which Stain challenges All Might to live up to himself as he once was, so that as a hero he can vanquish Stain and symbolically overcome society's perversion of that role. But based on what All Might has learned about the system he upheld, Stain is wrong. All Might is not a “true hero” in the sense that the societal issues Stain witnessed exist not in spite of All Might, but (in part) because of him, because he took too much of the responsibility for himself.

Stain probably had no idea about the personal cost of All Might’s lonely burden until after the fact. Maybe he’s seeing it now. So then perhaps the confrontation would be more about Stain claiming he’s just as fake as the rest. Either way, Toshinori has the opportunity to denounce himself and be rid of “All Might,”  to stop living in his own shadow. Nighteye’s vision has been defied before, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the combination of society shifting + Toshinori’s own conviction is enough to do it again and work fate in his favor.

He is not All Might. He is Yagi Toshinori: quirkless, worn down, and directionless except for his dedication to Izuku. If he survives his interaction with Stain, he can resolve his imperfect mentorship by confessing about his shortcomings and simply supporting Izuku as a part of his family, not as his teacher (as Aizawa said, just “being there”). And that’s how you really get character development, for both of them. I mean, shit, imagine Toshinori straight up telling Izuku to stop calling him All Might.

[bluemeetgrey]

Unpopular opinion…

Is Ty a morally great character? I don’t know and none of you do too. Because we barely know anything about him. Even though the twins solve most of the mystery in TLM, they were constantly sideline by Emma and Julian because of their age. And there is nothing wrong with that, Julian needs to protect his kids and this is the only way he knows how. But the results of that is, we know nothing about Ty, except for the fact that he is smart, likes animal and Beautiful, (thank you Christopher, you can sit down now). 

By the second book, we learned a little more about him through Kit. But most of it is probably unreliable information because as hard as it is for me to admit, Kit it’s kind of a unreliable narrator. We all know, (with the exception of Christopher himself), that he fell in love whit Ty at first sight. This means that starting from that point onward, everything he says about Ty, contains way too much bias to be taken as factual evidence. It’s unfair to judge someone’s character, based on bias information. 

Actions speak louder than words. Through his actions in the second book, protecting Kit, agreeing to become parabatai whit Livvy to protect her and freeing the fairies in the shadow market, even though they were all desperate go back to the Institute. Indicates that he is compassionate and kind, not just towards people he love, but to the world around him.

Let’s talk about the letter to Annabel. I need a whole entire paragraph for this! This boy is just *chefs kiss*! And to those who thinks Ty is Uncompassionate and cole. Please remember that throughout the whole entire Shadowhunters Chronicle, Ty is the only person who treated Annabelle like a person instead of a tool, something to be fear or something to be protected. What about Malcolm? You might ask. I believe Malcolm did love her and still do. But at a certain point Annabelle became an ideal, instead of a person with free will to him. He is so desperate to have somebody who would love him for who he was, that he lost all his humanity and disregard it who she truly was. Unlike Ty who is willing to open his heart to her and acknowledge her pain and suffering. The most important thing here is that he bargain with her, giving her a choice to say no.  This is a very big deal, because for the first time in 400 years, someone give her the power to decide her life instead of her oppressors. And no one else, not Julian, Emma or Magness thought of that. None of them thought of her as an actual person with feelings and want.

In the third book Ty was grieving, I mean half of his world crumbled. He was only 15th! And should’ve definitely be in therapy. But instead circumstances push him to move on. He has no way of letting out that grief, so he did the only thing he knows how, which is to bring her back. And even then he made a conscious choice not to harm anyone while doing so. He could’ve used a fresh power source, by killing someone like Malcolm. But he chose not to.

 And i’m not blaming Kit for leading him on because Ty is his only light and he would do anything not to snuff it out.

Also the lack of Ty POV is another reason why I can’t exactly judge him. I don’t know who he is or what he’s like. But based on the information that I’m given, Ty is ambitious but compassionate. Unlike Valentime, Axel, Tatiana and Benedick, he would never let his ambition get in the way of his  kindness. He is someone with humility, evidence by his remorse during The Lost World. He is stubborn and prideful, probably not used to being wrong. But I’m hoping that this would change, as he develops in TWP.

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, part 12

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

Let's bring this thing home! It's time for the conclusion of the essay series!

Conclusion With a stupidly long essay series behind us, it's time to look at what we've learned! Let's go back to Part 1 and review what we needed from Van Zieks's character development for a fully rounded redemption arc, shall we?

1) Present an antagonistic (possibly immoral) force who personifies Ryunosuke’s biggest personal obstacle/weakness, in this case racial prejudice. 2) Humanizing traits begin to show. OPTIONAL: A backstory to justify any immorality he has. 3) Over time, Barok has his realization and sees the error of his ways. 4) Barok atones for his immorality, not simply through apology but by taking decisive steps. 5) The cast around him acknowledges his efforts and forgives him.

And looking at the main game (plus additional dialogue), we have...

1) Antagonistic force:

Etc. etc. I have many of these. We can all agree that as an antagonistic force, he does his job quite well. CEO of Racism and White Privilege in the flesh. It works, since we as the audience get very frustrated and want to see him defeated.

2) Humanization:

Giving him an old friend to be a defendant was a brilliant move, really. Albert's reflection on the friendship and the person Van Zieks used to be really helped flesh him out and make him appear more like a human being with, y'know, emotions and weaknesses. The little snippets of dialogue in his office really help too. Presenting evidence can also lead to fun tidbits. All in all, considering how gruff and distant Van Zieks is, they really did their very best to humanize him. The writers were given very little to work with but they exploited every opportunity to come their way.

OPTIONAL backstory:

Again, I don't think we needed a tragic backstory to have a well-rounded, redeemable character. Still, it ties in very expertly to the game's plot and the motivations of quite a few other characters. The story of Klint van Zieks and his death isn't necessarily Barok van Zieks's backstory, it's the center of an intricate web which also holds Kazuma, Stronghart, Gregson, Jigoku, (S)Holmes, Mikotoba, Sithe, Drebber- I could go on. A LOT. So because of how very integrated it is into the main narrative's recurring themes and characters, I'll give it props for being relevant and well thought out. The bigger question is: Does it justify his immorality? Not entirely. I think the game could have gotten more out of this if they'd involved the other two exchange students in this tale just a bit more. They could have given more attention to how Jigoku's aggressive behavior in the trial impacted Van Zieks, and explained whether he might've suspected Mikotoba of sabotaging (S)Holmes's investigation. If the narrative had done that, all three Japanese people to come to London would have been ‘the bad guy’ in Van Zieks's eyes and it would have given more credence to his racial generalization. They could have also given more attention to how the people around him reacted to Genshin being the Professor, because I'm sure Stronghart and Gregson stoked the fire in terms of xenophobia. As it stands, there isn't really enough there to justify hatred of an entire race as opposed to just one person.

3) Realization/Redemption

We see him already start to realize the error of his ways around the end of 1-5, which is technically only about halfway into the full narrative. Unfortunately, thanks to 2-2 being played afterwards (but chronologically set before 1-5), any progress made in 1-5 can become invalidated in the player's eyes. Growth works best when it's done linear. Don't get me wrong, flashbacking to earlier times when a character is still more morally tainted can work well, but it needs to be executed properly. Barok's behavior in 2-2 is downright insulting towards the audience itself and therefore, it causes emotional friction when relaying the narrative endgoal of redemption. It also makes it extra jarring when we hit 2-3, and suddenly Van Zieks is meant to be relying on the protagonist's desire to expose the truth. How on earth can we as the audience trust that Van Zieks believes in Ryu's abilities when we just came fresh out of a case where this man actively sabotages Ryu's efforts?

Still, the line of redemption continues from 2-3 into 2-4 well enough. He admits that he was wrong- that his hatred was illogical and that he needs to change. This is the very definition of redemption. I need to stress once more this is not to be confused with atonement, which comes next.

4) Atonement

Here it is. It's not enough to simply acknowledge mistakes; one needs to work hard to fix them. Since Van Zieks is the defendant for two whole episodes, equaling roughly 20% of the full narrative and 67% of the time following his first true realization (chronologically), there isn't much that he can actively do to atone. Because remember, not only do these actions need to fit the situation he's currently in, they need to fit his personality. These two limitations ensure the atonement mostly takes the form of dialogue. Of apologies.

One might want to point out that he never apologizes specifically for his racism, but there's a reason for that. If you pay close attention, you'll notice that there isn't a single character who ever uses a word like “racism”, “xenophobia” or even “racial prejudice” in this game. It's for the same reason you'll never see an Ace Attorney character utter words like “alcoholism”, “drug abuse” or “depression”. These things may be implied very strongly, to the point where you'll know for certain a character is suffering from it, but it's never given these exact labels. It has to do with the tone of the game. In Great Ace Attorney's dialogue, Barok van Zieks is only ever described as holding “a deep hatred for Japanese”, which is then the only thing he could apologize for. And he does, so long as you aren't looking for a literal phrasing of “I apologize for my deep hatred of your people”.

Regardless, he can't take more active, decisive action until he's freed from prison and two scenes with Van Zieks later, the game has ended. He still manages to take two actions, though! The first is to publicize the truth of the Professor, taking the blame of the mass murders off Genshin's shoulders (and losing his own privilege in the process). The second is to take Kazuma under his wing as his disciple. I'm not certain there's anything else the narrative could have had him do. What is decisively missing, however, is the following:

5) Acknowledgment

The above aren't good examples of cast acknowledgment that Van Zieks is taking part in a redemption arc, rather, they're the best I could find. Characters are acknowledging that he's changing- that he's being kinder to them and they can get along with him now, but they're not acknowledging that he caused hurt in the first place. This, in my opinion, is the Great Ace Attorney's biggest narrative flaw. I've talked before about how Ryu's reaction to Van Zieks's racism is 'indirect communication', a typically Japanese manner of dealing with negativity. I've also talked about how Ryu is not in a position to speak up, as he's a literal minority who is there to represent his country in an official capacity and can’t afford to make enemies. However, characters like Susato and Kazuma are far more outspoken in their opinions, as is Soseki. The only one who ever calls Van Zieks out on his racism is the British judge, and even that is done very meekly. When an old crusty white guy is the one who condemns white privilege in a cast full of minorities, you've got a problem. The Japanese cast's refusal to acknowledge that Van Zieks's words were harmful is like Team Avatar telling Zuko that sure, he can join since he's a good guy now, but never once acknowledging that he burned down villages or betrayed everyone's trust in Ba Sing Se. There's something very vital missing, see? If indeed the cast had called Van Zieks out more actively on his harmful ways and how necessary it was for him to change, he in turn could have taken more atonement steps in response.

So, for the conclusion: Does Barok van Zieks tick all the necessary boxes for a complete redemption arc? Yes. In a very technical sense, all the requirements are there. But does that mean it's a successful arc? Not necessarily. The game has a few slip-ups, a few things not executed as well as they could have been. For that reason, whether the audience is satisfied with the arc is entirely up to them. Taking into consideration that they had to cram a whole lot of story into just two games- the second game in particular, I can acknowledge they did their very best with the limitations that were there.

And there we have it! That’s all I could think to say on the matter. I hope everyone who read this till the very end enjoyed it, maybe even learned a thing or two. I’m always open to questions, input and constructive criticism!

[cosmicjoke]

Well, honestly, they already did give the SA to Lestat. Remember he bites Louis before he drops him? Just like Armand bites Lestat after hypnotizing him and then Lestat beats the shit out of him for it. Since drinking from another vampire without their consent equates to rape for these vampires, or at least in the books it does, then there you have it.

But yeah, they really shouldn't have said this was going to be the "most faithful adaptation ever", because it's anything but. And yeah, that's also a good point that, given Louis didn't die from a 2 kilometer drop, how would Lestat, who's infinitely more powerful, be hurt from a fall from a tower? I mean, Lestat can also fly, at this point, so that wouldn't make sense either. Unless they're going to play it like some BS about Lestat feeling so guilty over what he did to Louis that he lets himself fall. That would be in line with what you said here, about the reason Lestat's been out of sight all these years is out of shame over hurting Louis, rather than him being grievously injured. If it holds true that Lestat never came to Paris seeking Armand's help, but was retrieved by the Paris coven instead, that would also support that notion. Because Lestat originally comes to Paris seeking Armand's help, because he's so physically wrecked by what Claudia and Louis have done to him and he isn't able to heal quickly. That's just exacerbated by Armand's subsequent torture and starvation. But it's true, Lestat doesn't look unwell at all here. There are moments when he looks out of it, like he's being influenced in some way, but physically he looks fine. So I have no idea what they're planning. If they're going to revisit the trial again and make some sort of drastic changes, or what.

Again, this whole unreliable narrator trope is getting stale. Nothing in "TVL" contradicts what Louis said in "IWTV" in terms of radical changes to scenarios or situations. What "TVL" does is add context to explain why and how certain things happened. The trial plays out the same way, we just learn that Lestat had been brutally tortured for months before it took place and was forced into a confession and into testifying against Claudia that way. But even in "IWTV", it was clear from Louis' perspective that something was deeply wrong with Lestat, that he was incredibly unwell and desperate and scared. We see none of that here in the show. Lestat seems physically fine and mentally sharp, even if there's maybe some element of mental manipulation going on, or some type of coercion. And, again to your point, it absolves Louis of all responsibility for Lestat's condition. Louis doesn't have to feel guilty here because Lestat is, apparently, fine, suffering no adverse affects from what Louis and Claudia did to him.

And you know, I did always wonder about why they chose to call it "IWTV" instead of "The Vampire Chronicles", and that really does seem to imply that they want to make Louis the main character over Lestat. I have no idea if that will actually turn out to be the case, though obviously they want to expand Louis' role and make him more prominent throughout. I don't know how they're going to do that, when he's barely in "TVL" except near the very end, and in subsequent books, again, his role is rather limited. I don't know how they're going to have Louis more present in an adaptation of "TVL" since the vast majority of that story takes place in 1700s France.

You know, I'll keep maintaining that it was just such a massive, really unfixable mistake for them to have Lestat do what he did to Louis in season 1, not just with beating Louis to within an inch of his life, but also the drop, because, again, the reason Louis forgives Lestat and comes back to him at the end of "The Vampire Lestat" is because he realizes all of Lestat's manipulations and refusals to share information with him, his hiding of his true power and reluctance to tell him about where he came from or who his maker was, etc, etc... was all Lestat's fumbling, ineffective and desperate attempt to protect him and Claudia, both from Marius' threats and also the coven in Paris, and of course, also Lestat's fear of being alone. Yes, Lestat's treatment of Louis and Claudia was a form of abuse, really more in the realm of negligence than anything else, but it was done largely out of fear and desperation, not with any sort of malice or intent to harm.

And that's the problem, and that's why I'll never accept this idea that it's "in character" for Lestat to behave the way he did in the fifth episode of the first season, even with the revisions they showed us in episode 7 of season 2.

Lestat admits at the trial that he did it to hurt Louis, because he couldn't make Louis love him, so he decided to break him instead.

This takes what had been unintentional abuse on Lestat's part, and turns it into intentional, malicious abuse and plain cruelty. It fundamentally changes who Lestat is and what the issues between him and Louis are, and what's at the core of Lestat's actions toward Louis and Claudia.

They shouldn't have done it. Because even now, after this latest episode, you still have plenty of people talking about what an abusive piece of shit Lestat is, how what he did was unjustifiable, and how Louis' actions against him were justifiable, as a result.

Louis' entire reconciliation with Lestat is rooted in Louis realizing that Lestat never deserved to die. In realizing that he and Claudia had, in fact, wronged Lestat by attempting to take his life. He realizes this because he realizes Lestat's own wrongs against them had never been committed with malicious intent. He realizes Lestat had been misguided, but not cruel.

But Lestat's abuses and wrongs against Louis and Claudia in the show, as admitted by Lestat himself, were done with malicious intent, with the precise purpose of hurting Louis, specifically. It was done specifically with vengeance in mind, and again, that fundamentally changes everything about their relationship, and drastically undercuts both the believability and desirability of their later reconciliation and rekindled romance.

A large part of the audience for this show just isn't going to want to see Lestat and Louis end up together, because through this one, massive change to Lestat's character, they've completely altered the very nature of that character and of his relationship with Louis.

It kind of sucks, because Sam Reid is so good as Lestat, and his acting during that entire scene where he confesses he wanted to hurt Louis was fantastic. But it just completely butchers Lestat's character and makes his and Louis' romance almost a non-starter.

[ashdumpsterpile]

Ohmygod YES Susan Pevensie is awesome please talk to me about Susan i want to know everything you have to say

Literally THANK YOU for asking me this bc Susan Pevensie is a character I never get asked about and I have So Many Opinions.

I'm going to start by saying that Susan used to be my least favorite character in the series. This goes for the books and the movies. Some of it was for personal reasons--she reminds me of a couple of annoying ppl I know irl--but it was also bc I watched Prince Caspian which shoehorned her into a relationship with Caspian which I hated.

HOWEVER. I ended up rethinking this position after interacting with Susan fans and realizing that there are so many wonderful things to love about her!

(putting under the cut bc this got long)

Things Ash Loves About Susan Pevensie

Aight I'm not going to do a formal analysis yet on her, but instead rant about some of the unrelated things I adore about Susan Pevensie.

Susan the Archer

Look we all love archery here. I don't have anything more to say.

Okay, I actually do have more to say. I love the fact that Susan is a complete badass with the bow. You get the general impression that she's one of the royals in charge of public relations, traditions, foreign policy, etc. and yet she's the most competent archer in the series. One of the few things I liked about the movies is how they didn't downplay this. They actually let her be a badass and show off her skills.

Also the part where she kicks Trumpkin's ass was awesome.

Susan the Gentle

Susan being the most passive Pevensie was something I definitely underappreciated as a teenager. I think my non-ability to see past "I'm not like other girls" narrative and the combination of Susan being described as the most traditionally feminine woman in the Narnia series is what initially turned me off from her.

HOWEVER, now it's one of my favorite attributes! I love that Susan is a badass and the most beautiful woman in Narnia. She has hair down to her feet, every man and woman in the kingdom want to fuck her, and she's still a fucking badass who will not hesitate to kick your ass.

Susan the Sister

Most of my thoughts of Susan as an older sister mostly stem from my own personal headcanons, but she is an awesome sister to her siblings. She's Peter's voice of reason, Edmund's sass partner, and Lucy's big sister.

Susan the Mom-Friend

She is a literal mother-figure for Corin.

"[...] the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: "Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. [...]"

-The Horse and His Boy, 33-34

Most everything I have to say about this ventures into headcanon territory, but I love the idea of Susan basically adopting Corin after his mom dies. The way she trusts Cor--who she thinks is Corin in this chapter--is really sweet and I wish we could've seen more of that relationship.

Susan the Flawed

Something I notice from the fandom is a lot of people who hate Susan tend to because of her flaws. On the other hand, most Susan stans like to wave away these flaws and blame C.S. Lewis for being misogynistic or Aslan for being a "cruel god" and ignore the fact that she is a deeply flawed person.

Susan gets something of a "reverse redemption arc" in The Chronicles of Narnia. This makes her not only a fascinating foil to Edmund--as both are analytical, logical people--but an interesting character by herself.

She starts out in TWW as very skeptical of Narnia and it's whole deal and also very condescending to Lucy throughout. She ultimately does admit that Lucy was right and does get on board with the whole prophecy at the same time Peter does, and ends the book being crowned "the Gentle Queen."

In The Horse and His Boy, she has a very interesting dynamic with Edmund and in even more interesting relationship with Rabadash. They don't even interact on-page with each other, but it's highly implied that she was interested in him when he was a guest in Narnia. His behavior obviously changed when she visited him in Tashbaan, but you have to wonder what their dynamic was like before for her to travel all the way to his home when relations between the countries were strained at best.

Prince Caspian is where the cracks start showing through. Susan has lived an entire life as an adult in Narnia, gets thrown back to England with her siblings, and is yet again in Narnia as a child. This book is what really emphasizes her one fatal flaw: convenience.

(Put a pin in that thought, I'll get back to it.)

Susan denies once again that Lucy saw something that the rest of them can't seen. She continues this narrative until every other sibling finally acknowledges Lucy in the right and only then does she apologize.

The last mention of Susan is in The Last Battle, where all of her flaws rise up against her in the worst way possible. I have a lot of controversial opinions on this that I'm going to address later, but I just want to say that Susan's reverse-redemption arc is something I actually like about her.

(There is also evidence that Susan does get a full redemption arc, just as Edmund and Eustace did, but C.S. Lewis was pretty much done with The Chronicles of Narnia at the point and instead encouraged fans to write their own version of how that went down.)

Okay, back to convenience being Susan's fatal flaw. So the one thing that comes up time and time again in the series is that Susan is very focused on material comforts. I believe it's implied that she's vain, and it's canonical that her own personal comfort spurs her to make decisions.

"[...] I really believed it was him — he, I mean — yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and — and — oh, I don't know [...]"

Prince Caspian, 81

Prince Caspian has the strongest examples of Susan doing this, but certainly there's evidence elsewhere. There are a lot of fans who are distressed by this, claiming that Aslan and the others are too hard on her and shouldn't judge.

Honestly, I like that she's written with this flaw. Not only is it very relatable--(my own personal comfort and convenience is something I highly prioritize too)--but it humanizes a character who otherwise is ridiculously op and basically the Helen of Troy of the series. It may sound like I'm using this as an excuse to rant, but I really wouldn't have her any other way.

Susan As Portrayed by Anna Popplewell

Movie!Susan is a fucking delight.

She's sarcastic and badass and awesome and I could spend hours heaping praise on Anna's acting and her portrayal of Susan, but I can already tell that this post is going to be long so, I'll just stop here.

(10/10 want to be stabbed by her tho.)

Personal Headcanons

Let's talk about my fanon thoughts. I have many.

Susan is Aro

There's canonical evidence for this! Susan is a character who is heavily pursued by suitors everywhere, and even lets herself be courted by many of them, but chooses not to settle down. Even when she gets back to England and is described as only having interest in parties and material things, boys aren't mentioned.

I like to think that in The Horse in His Boy Susan was interested in Rabadash at first because he was a brilliant conversationalist. Nothing she says about him implies romantic interest, before and after she realizes the truth of his intentions.

Susan and Edmund Were Best Friends

This might be my love for The Horse and His Boy showing itself, but I think Susan and Edmund were thrown into circumstances where they interacted the most with each other.

Edmund is the ruler in charge of politics. Susan is the ruler in charge of Cair Paravel's public image. I imagine they spent time as ambassadors to other countries and planning royal functions.

They're also the most level-headed and logical out of their siblings, so they probably found a lot in common.

Susan Fancast

I literally just said I loved Anna's potrayal of Susan's (and I love what they gave us of older Susan too in LWW!), but I read the books in 2008 and my parents didn't let me see the movies bc I was like...nine years old and they thought it would be too scary.

So I had to headcanon my own interpretations.

Queen Susan the Gentle:

For some reason Merlin wasn't too scary for me to watch and I fell in love with Katie McGrath in like. Two episodes so. (On an unrelated note, I also fancast Bradley James as Peter at the time.)

Anyway, fanon Susan is basically Morgana Pendragon pre-evil arc. Sassy as hell, hot as fuck, and can kick your ass.

Unpopular Opinions

Yeah, feel free to skip this part if having controversial fandom opinions is a deal breaker for you.

The Problem With Susan Isn't Actually A Problem

I'm about to start so much discourse in the Narnia fandom, but C.S. Lewis's choices with her in The Last Battle weren't misogynistic. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that all of his writing choices in the series were A++ or excusing away certain racist/sexiest bits, but it's honestly baffling to me that people are so up in arms over Susan's exclusion in the final book.

So the part that everyone loses their shit over is as follows:

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle, 83-84

There's a lot to unpack here and I first want to say that everyone's opinion on this part, no matter how different than mine, is valid. I'm going to be quoting some other ppl's opinions on here and by no means am I bashing them. I just want to address my feelings on the matter and the best way to do that is to cite the thoughts of ppl who have opposing ideas.

Here are some arguments on Tumblr I've heard regarding "The Problem of Susan":

"How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn't deserted Susan? [...] What if we didn't tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn't have again."

"Narnia is filled with metaphors (often not very subtle ones) that are supposed to teach us how to be, and the most glaring one for any young girl to absorb is that it's okay to be a girl like Lucy, unthreatening and cheerful and valiant and faithful, but to be a girl like Susan gets you punished - in fact, you aren't just punished, you're destroyed."

"why do we call it ‘the problem’ where’s the problem about a young woman dealing with her trauma and choosing her own path, actively making the choice to keep living and to stay and to carve a life out in England when her siblings couldn’t? what is the problem about susan forgetting to somehow cope with what she’s experienced? why is it ‘the problem of susan’ that she recontextualised her faith?"

And then there's JK Rowling who said this:

There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

It's weird how I'm still finding new ways to hate JKR in the year 2021. Again, there is absolutely zero implication that Susan had sex when she came back to England. ZERO. Did she actually read the books? IDK. If someone shares this opinion pls reply with actual canonical evidence.

Back on topic, I'm a firm believer of death of the author and interpreting art via your own experiences. Which is why I'm also going to share my own interpretation by saying y'all are wrong.

Susan Pevensie was not abandoned by Narnia. She was not barred from Narnia because she is traditionally feminine or because she "owned her sexuality" (another opinion I didn't have time to condense down for this post) or because she recontextualized her faith or even because she deserved to be punished.

I also fail to see how Susan recontexualized her faith, as the entire point of it all is that she has none. Bringing this back to Susan's fatal flaw (personal convenience/material comforts), her prioritizing herself over her own faith is the reason she is "no longer a friend of Narnia." Not...whatever fanon y'all are imposing on her character.

Susan is not being punished for liking lipstick and looking pretty. Susan's not even being punished. Y'all read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan and forgot it wasn't canon.

There are many reasons Susan is not in Aslan's Country (one of them being that she's not actually dead yet), but the main one has to do with this:

"[...] But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 215-216

Yeah, okay that's why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. The implication when the Pevensies are told that they can no longer enter Narnia is that they are to find Aslan in other places. Susan doesn't do this, instead choosing to focus her life on material things. It isn't the lipstick, it's that she only wants the lipstick.

Susan Had Sex In The Books

Oh and not in the context y'all are thinking. (Again, there are no implications that Susan was barred from Narnia for having sex or that she had sex when she came back to England.)

So there's actual canonical evidence that Susan and Rabadash had a sexual relationship. Sort of.

"What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?"

-The Horse and His Boy, 35

Edmund calls Rabadash her lover. Not her suitor. I don't know if the word had a different meaning in 1954, but it feels like C.S. Lewis is saying that they're fucking. I'm not really happy with the idea of Susan sleeping with an abuser, but really proud of her for Getting Some as a woman born in a time period where having premarital sex was a big no-no.

This also invalidates the weird opinion going on that Susan was barred from Narnia because she had sex.

Suspian Is The Worst

I haven't really talked about Movie!Susan much, but as long as we're talking unpopular opinions, it's worth noting that I hate Suspian. Some of it is the "Susan is Aro" headcanon screaming inside of me, but it's also the fact that it's written poorly, does nothing interesting for either character and generally comes across as awkward.

I feel like they were trying to make Prince Caspian sexy and relevant to teens. It came across as super heteronormative and unnecessary.

It also gets really really weird bc the next movie then gives Caspian and Edmund mad chemistry and we're all just like........ok.

Final Thoughts

Susan may not be my favorite character in the series, but she's grown on me over the years. I have many issues with fanon interpretations of her--which definately fueled some of my disdain for her initally--and I don't identify as a Susan Apologist.

I do however adore Susan and have many headcanons for her not mentioned here. I love reading fanfic, writing fanfic and meta, and generally having conversations about her and would love to talk more about it.

I welcome criticism (CONSTRUCTIVE) and conversation on all of my opinions and observations. Please drop into my inbox. <3

[blazehedgehog]

Do you think the Sonic franchise would be universally accepted if it were to go into the direction set out by the SatAM cartoon (e.g. roboticization, Robotnik with demonic pitch-black eyes and a robotic arm, Sonic being part of the Freedom Fighter ragtag group) instead of the direction it took from the country of origin (e.g. Eggman being round and wears glasses, having colorful and surreal places)?

Well, let me ask you what you mean by that, because by 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog was a pretty big household name. Kids knew who he was, their parents knew who he was, and just in North America, he had two TV shows and a comic book. He was everywhere. That counts as "universally accepted" right?

And I suppose this is what you mean, right? Sonic was massively popular in the 1990's, when Sega of America changed so much about his identity to suit the region's tastes. And now, Sonic isn't as popular, so are the two data points related?

To me, this just feels like a broader version of "Robotnik was a better name than Eggman, because things were better when they called him Robotnik." And that has always been extremely circumstantial.

To my viewpoint, SatAM was extremely of its time. Cartoons were shifting in a certain direction -- typically the "Saturday Morning Cartoon" was something colorful and funny. There wasn't a lot of serious storytelling going on. It was stuff like Looney Tunes, but also things like G.I. Joe or Transformers, where they were more about action than meaningful plot.

That probably started to change around the time Fox debuted the X-Men cartoon in the 90's. This cartoon took stories from the comic books and (poorly) adapted them in to a Saturday Morning format. It was inscrutable and kids like me found it hard to follow, but my brother, who is 14 years older than me and was probably in his mid-to-late 20's, found it pretty fascinating. It broadened the format a little bit and soon the floodgates broken open.

Spider-man, Batman, Gargoyles, soon Saturday mornings were awash with darker, edgier, more serious cartoons for older kids. Even the Ninja Turtles, who were broken from the Transformers mold of colorful, action-based shows, was reworked to look darker and more serious. And right at the end of that first wave of shows was SatAM. Right place, right time, right vibe.

That... ended. Batman was eventually replaced with Batman & Robin, that was eventually supplanted with Superman Adventures, then the two shows were combined in to Batman & Superman Adventures, and every time it got retooled, the tone got lighter, and lighter, pushing back towards the old action shows of the 80's. Gargoyles went in the opposite direction, retooling itself in to "The Goliath Chronicles," becoming so self-serious it borderlined on a Saturday Morning soap opera. It lasted barely a whole season and most modern continuations of the Gargoyles mythos ignore it entirely. The "Red Sky" Ninja Turtles has more or less been treated the same, with extremely sparse home releases until it eventually landed on streaming a few years ago.

The Sonic comics kept the SatAM cast alive and relevant, yes. But obviously Batman comics stuck around, too. And Spider-man, X-men, and Ninja Turtles. That was the format a lot of these shows were trying to copy to begin with, so it makes sense that SatAM would transition to comics fairly painlessly.

To circle back around to how successful the games are or aren't, it's hard for me to cite this now because I always looked at the TSSZ article for it and now that's gone, but somewhere around 2010 or 2011, the Sonic franchise was actually listed as one of the most profitable entertainment franchises in the world that year, rubbing elbows with the likes of Pokemon and such. This was years after SatAM had fallen out of favor and the comics were starting to hit the skids because their availability was going down (this was a problem in the comics industry as a whole, not just for Sonic).

Meaning that, largely, the success of Sonic at that point was due to the games and 8 year old reruns of Sonic X. And it still landed in this top ten. I'd love to find this article, really I would, but it's impossible to google now thanks to so many other articles praising the Sonic movie for being the highest grossing video game movie of all time, mixed in with articles about how the Sonic fast food chain is dying and what happened to it.

At the very least, Sonic rates to make it on the Wikipedia list of "Highest Grossing Media Franchises." It rates high enough that it beats out Fortnite, Halo, Minecraft, My Little Pony, and Roblox.

Also, to back up a bit, consider: the Sonic movie did really well. And it wasn't Ken Penders' pitch for a SatAM movie, it was something wholly different.

And then consider the outrageous success of Sonic Mania. The most critically acclaimed Sonic game since 1994. Though sales figures aren't super clear, I'd estimate it's also probably the best selling Sonic game in the last decade and a half. There is nary a hint of the Freedom Fighters or "that Robotnik" in that game anywhere.

I love the Freedom Fighters. I love SatAM Robotnik. I'd love for them to come back in an official capacity. I'd love for the Archie comics to officially pick up right where they left off and keep going as if they never missed a beat. It burns me that Archie or Ken Penders or both forever tainted a lot of that stuff so badly that it's become an exclusion zone nobody wants to touch anymore. I've talked at length on this blog about how I think a character like Princess Sally was a perfect foil for Sonic and how they played off of each other extremely well. I want that back. I want Bunnie Rabbot back. I want Antoine back. I want Robotropolis back. And Snively. And Ixis Naugus.

But also, at some point, you have to look at the cold, hard truth: Sonic doesn't need those characters, it doesn't need that universe, and the SatAM version Sonic would not exist at all if it wasn't for the original Japanese Sonic first. SatAM was supplemental material to the main version of the thing people already liked. That's the entire reason something like Sonic Mania could achieve the success it did.

And that's all there really is to it.

[sushireads]

yoongi fic recs

this is a list of yoongi fics i’ve read and loved very much! enjoy. <3

ps. all fics with 🍙 are the ones i loved a little bit more.

“Where’s my kiss?” by @mintseesaw​

fluff | drabble | 1.6K words

A Wish Out of Water by @jimlingss​

🍙, fluff, humor, fantasy | two shots

A genie could solve all your problems. Though you wouldn’t even know exactly what to ask for - money, a warmer house, a better job, a better life? But Min Yoongi is no ordinary genie. He’s here to make your life a living hell. Too bad it was hell to begin with.

GENIE au

All I Want for Christmas by @hayjeon​

🍙 | one shot | 13K words

CEO, CHRISTMAS, SECRETARY, SINGLE DAD au

an out of bounds umbrella by @yoonsgiggle​

fluff | one shot | 10.2K words

you’re apologetic about almost blinding your university’s star point guard with the broken tip of your umbrella until you share a class with him and find out he’s a three star recruit but a four star dick or min yoongi doesn’t find your high school musical puns amusing.  

BASKETBALL PLAYER, COLLEGE, ENEMIES TO LOVERS au

aquiver by @floralseokjin​

🍙, fluff, angst, smut | series

Yoongi can’t remember the last time he was able to successfully bring himself to the point of orgasm, then Namjoon gives him a business card advertising ‘Healing Hands’, and that’s where he meets you; pretty and innocent looking, who gets paid to provide hand jobs for a living…

IDOL au

bad boys bring it to you by @yuengi

smut | one shot | 7.1K words

TATTOO ARTIST au

Black & White by @akinnie75

🍙, fluff, angst | one shot | 24.7K words

You finally confessed to Yoongi after he asked if you like him. His response is to give you a contract to sign. However, you soon realize that Yoongi manufactured your emotions and manipulated you to like him all for the sake of his senior project.

SLOW BURN au

Blackthorn Manor by @kpopfanfictrash 

one shot | 7.5K words

After becoming the assistant of professional recluse Min Yoongi, you begin to notice strange things. Noises which shouldn’t take place, shadows which shouldn’t move like they do. You’re almost convinced that you’re crazy - until something happens, something unbelievable to make you realize you’re not.

GOTH au

Blow by @inkofyoongi

smut, fluff | one shot | 5.5K words

Yoongi loves you, even if he’s never said it… but gestures sometimes speak louder than words.

BOYFRIEND au

budapest by @junghelioseok

smut | one shot | 11.1K words

over many years and across several dozen cities, you fell in love.

SECRET AGENT au

Clair De Lune by @yoonia

smut | one shot | 23K words

You were ready to leave a part of your life to move on to the next, and he is willing to give you a chance to end it glamorously. But at what cost? And will he be a part of the life you are leaving behind or will he be there for the next part of it?

—part of @bangtansmutcentral‘s In The Mood Project

ESCORT, MUSICIAN au

Cut Me Open by @hayjeon

angst, smut, fluff | two shots

—a spin-off from Cardio Palpitations

MARRIED COUPLE, SURGEON au

dancing with the devil by @minnpd

smut | one shot | 6.8K words

Easy Rebound by @ditzymax

smut, angst | one shot | 6.5K words

Yoongi is one of the star players on the college basketball team. You are the head of the cheerleading squad. The pair of you would make the most beautiful (if most cliché) couple on campus, except neither of you have ever wanted anything more than the frequent, casual fuck. Yet somehow Yoongi finds his emotions straying towards dangerous territory.

BASKETBALL PLAYER, CHEERLEADER, COLLEGE au

ego: hoe chronicles by @suga-kookiemonster

smut | one shot | 7.2K words

he was messing with you again. he was messing with you, trying to get a reaction out of you simply for his own amusement. but you refused to give it to him—refused to give him the satisfaction of playing right into his hands.

—an alternate universe of ego

COLLEGE, FRAT BOY, FUCK BOY au

eight by @cupofteaguk

🍙, fluff | one shot | 5K words

or, Eight times Min Yoongi tells you he loves you

IDOL au

First-Date BAIT! by @jimlingss

fluff | two shots

First dates are embarrassing. First dates are awkward. I’ve been through countless ones, sitting across from people who bored the living daylights out of me. It was less exciting than watching paint dry. Some dates were so utterly rude - I think you and I both know what it’s like to be on the receiving end on that. But now we both don’t have to waste our time anymore!

With First Date Bait they went out for me! Afterwards, they informed me if it was recommended to go out on a second date. It’s amazing with a 99.99% accuracy rate! That’s how I ended up meeting my husband!

First Date Bait.

Why waste your time with awkward first dates?

—part of the Service Series

Hades by @littlemisskookie

horror, smut, angst, fantasy | one shot | 9.4K words

You meet a rather dreamy- albeit annoying, new kid who sweeps you off your feet. Too bad it’s in the middle of a series of murders around town.

GREEK GOD au

heavy sugar by @kinktae

smut | one shot | 8K words

The Roaring Twenties were a time of great economic wealth and social change. But beneath the jazz music and colorful speakeasies were mafia led organized crimes and bloodstained cash. You knew this well, but try as you might, you just couldn’t ignore the dark and enigmatic gangster whose eyes lingered on you from across the room.

—part of the rewind series

1920s, GANGSTER, FLAPPER, MAFIA au

i’m not your daddy by @scriptaed

🍙, fluff | one shot | 2.5K words

learning that his daughter no longer wishes to wed him but rather his now-arch-enemy jungkook marks the most soul-crushing day your husband has ever had to endure. no one, and he means no one, is more deserving of his angel than daddy min himself, and he’s willing to do anything to earn his daughter’s heart back.

DAD, PARENT au

Ink Nemesis by @scriptaed

🍙, angst, fluff | series

As an aspiring writer drowning under the public’s radar, a click of the pen is all you need to accept your supervisor’s offer to co-write an article for the SS - Secrets Spilled, a regular section of your company’s weekly tabloid; but fabricated stories and invasive details aren’t all that you write when you discover Min Yoongi’s dirty little secret. 

FAKE DATING, IDOL, PAPARAZZI au

La Douleur Exquise by @cinnaminsvga

ON-GOING | fluff, angst, smut, fantasy | series

in which you accidentally summon an incubus in the middle of your shitty apartment and he won’t leave until you agree to have sex with him. until then, min yoongi, incubus extraordinaire, is now your sexually promiscuous and grumpy roommate. aka, the incubus au no one fucking asked for.

INCUBUS au

Melody companion by @prisczero

fluff | one shot | 3.6K words

“A soulmate story where Yoongi can hear everything that you listen to, but only if it is music.’’

IDOL, SOULMATE au

Miss Dial by @versigny 

ON-GOING | 🍙, smut | series

[11:31] You: okay so i’m texting you now like I promised instead of drunktexting yoongi and telling him how badly i want his cock tonight. Arent you proud?

[11:32] unknown number: this is yoongi, hi

FRAT au

Mixtape by @jungblue

🍙, smut, fluff, humor | one shot | 15.6K words

Two mystery students from your college run the podcast dubbed ‘mixtape.’ It’s become a sort of phenomenon around campus, listened to by almost everyone. In their most recent episode they discussed various study methods… One of them being oh so tempting.

COLLEGE, PODCAST PERSONALITY au

Next Door by @personasintro

smut, fluff | one shot | 10.3K words

Your neighbor doesn’t respect your complaints about him being loud, but you don’t let it slide so easily.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS, NEIGHBOURS au

petals by @yoonia

🍙, fluff | series

IDOL, PARENT au

see you soon by @cupofteaguk

fluff, angst | one shot | 7K words

In which you live in a world where one stroke of a pen against your skin is a signage of forever, and Min Yoongi just has really good timing 

SOULMATE au

She’s Testosterone by @jimlingss

🍙, crack, smut | series

Drop dead gorgeous, cute and sassy - you adore your best friend. But is there more beneath the surface? Who exactly is Min Yoonji?

YOONJI au

so i heard you like bad boys by @scriptaed​

fluff | one shot | 4.7K words

while others see min yoongi as the resident heartthrob of the school - quiet, resilient, and mysterious - you can’t see him as anything other than your dorky best friend since childhood; but what you don’t know is his long desire to be anything but that, even if it means becoming the bad boy in town… or at least try to.

COLLEGE, FRIENDS TO LOVERS au

stay high by @personasintro​

smut, angst | one shot | 16.5K words

You’ve to stay high to keep your ex out off your mind when he comes back into your life.

EXES au

Studio cuddle by @mintseesaw​

fluff | drabble | 1.8K words

Tired from work, you went straight to Genius Lab in the hopes of being able to cuddle with Yoongi. You did not hesitate to press the passcode of his studio, knowing he might get pissed off for interrupting him from his work.

IDOL, PRODUCER au

Sweeter than Sweet by @gimmesumsuga​

fluff, smut, angst | series

“You never would have expected someone like Park Jimin to notice you. As handsome and beguiling as he is deadly, you’re enthralled from the very moment you meet. Addicted to his kiss and his bite, Jimin opens up your eyes to a whole new world of love, lust and seduction.”

VAMPIRE au

the blue coat and cerruti 1881 (a flash fire) by @yuhdongsaeng​

angst, fluff, smut | two shots

that’s the thing about flash fires. they’re intense outbursts of flames that reach their maximum heat quickly and don’t last a long time. hell, they don’t even get to fade before they cease to exist. however, flash fires may be intense and short, but the floor beneath them is ruined forever.

IDOL au

The Truth Between Us by @jimlingss & @gukyi

🍙🍙🍙, fluff, angst, fantasy | series

a book deal should be the most exciting time of your life, but there seems to be a constant and omnipresent damper on your mood in the form of a certain min yoongi, who you would just cut out from your life, if he weren’t your editor. but then, the world shifts beneath your feet, and you begin to wonder if maybe you’ve always been looking at life from the wrong angle.

ENEMIES TO LOVERS and loads more aus— just stop what you’re doing and read this masterpiece!

want a taste by @suga-kookiemonster​

smut, humor | one shot | 18.3K words

pretzel pro. most skillful tongue in the food court world. allegedly. that’s what yoongi keeps telling you, anyway. of course, you’re reasonably skeptical of his claims—but if there’s one thing that motivates the notoriously-lethargic man, it’s proving skeptics wrong.

—part of the you never shop alone collaboration

FRIENDS TO LOVERS, SHOPPING MALL au

what you did last summer by @winetae​

smut | one shot | 33.8K words

Yoongi was fine with a lot of things—you maxing out his credit cards to buy ridiculously expensive items of clothing that you never wore more than once, you taking out his newest ride for a spin without permission, you spending an extra thirty minutes on your hair and makeup when he was running late for a dinner function.

What he was not okay with, however, was you sharing your pussy with barely-out-of-college boys who were incapable of going five seconds without creaming their pants.

No, that was where he drew the line.

↳ alternatively titled; How to Get Dick - an autobiography written by (you)

TROPHY WIFE au

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