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as8bakwthesage · 2 years

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Confessions

Jonathan exhaled as he held the short woman in his arms carefully, unsure of why he was still holding her, but deciding to go for it, seeing how expectant her eyes were.

"I said... Look, I'm not good at this. But you are very talkative so... I'm going to try. I..." He hesitated, but didn't dare look her in the eyes. "I care about you, more than... I expected, I suppose."

As the words left his lips, Clotilde stared at him in equal shock and denial. No, that couldn't be true? Jonathan Eileen Crane liked her? A lot? The thoughts kept coming in. 'He's lying to you. He doesn't care. Nobody does, you deserve to suffer.'

"I just... I wanted you to know that. I spoke my truth, I hope you und-"

"Shut up." Clotilde cut him off, her words venomous and quiet, before they grew in volume. "Shut up! Fucking shut up! You are manipulative snake, Jonathan Crane! Do you expect me to believe you?!" She screamed in his face, grabbing the hem of his collar and glaring red at him, before her gaze softened as Jonathan noticed tears in her eyes. Her voice broke.

"Do you... There's no way... you have to be lying..."

Jonathan hesitated, before his expression turned stern and sour.

"No."

"What-"

"No! I'm not going to sit here and listen to you speak these words! So you will listen to me instead! I just drove over to Leon's to rescue your ungrateful self and drove us back while getting shot at with magical bullets! You are an alcoholic - depressed and crippled by loneliness and terrible self image coupled with self loathing. You reek of fear of abandonment and you desire company so clearly yet pretend not to care! But you clearly do! You wouldn't have saved us from the Batman that night or prevented Leon from killing us if you didn't. And you cope with it all through drugs, sex and a facade of over-confidence where you strut about and flirt with me while looking absolutely gorgeous while having a dark sense of humour and you genuinely care so much!"

At this point, Jonathan's southern drawl was starting to reveal itself from how out of control from both the volume and the passion in his voice.

"And the worst part is... is that I like it. And I can't stand seeing you put yourself through all this suffering. And the way Leon treats you... it's fucked up. And I hate it..."

He gritted his teeth as he stared at the woman he had his arms still wrapped around. He held her closely as her eyes stared up at his with shock, she was speechless.

"I... I like you a lot, Clotilde Ledoux... But... I'm not ready to say more than that."

Before Jonathan could so much as blink, he felt the woman’s arms wrap around him in a tight hug. He went still as his eyes widened, unsure of how to respond as his eyes trailed over to her form. He felt warm as he held her closely, refusing to drop her.

“Clotilde..?” He asked, awkwardly yet concerned.

“Just... give me a moment.” She replied softly burying her face into his shoulder as her embrace tightened ever so slightly. She was so incredibly warm and Jonathan realized that she smelled like springtime, a refreshing and pleasant smell. He wondered if she minded his own smell.

“What’s that supposed to mean anyway? I’m not stupid, you old bastard.” She muttered, sounding frustrated.

Jonathan sighed as he offered an almost sad look. “I know... You’re very smart, my dear.” He responded softly.

“Ha! He finally said it!” She laughed haughtily as she pulled away to meet his gaze with a victorious grin. “Jonathan Crane finally admitted that I’m smart!”

Jonathan rolled his eyes as he smiled at her antics before realizing just how truly beautiful she was. She was truly someone to behold, not just in looks but also in mind. When she was able-minded, she was capable of incredible intelligence and insight. And he found his gaze lingering on her face ever too long.

“Is there something on my face?” She asked, breaking him out of his stupor. He blinked before he acknowledged her words.

“Oh no! No, you look fine.” He replied, stumbling over his words slightly. Clotilde gave him a devious smile.

“See something you like?” She flirted with half lidded eyes. Jonathan set her down, but not before offering a small smile.

“You know the answer to that question.” He replied, gaining some confidence in his voice once more. “Honestly, you ask the most obvious questions Clo-”

But before he could finish that thought, Clotilde grabbed his shirt collar, pulled him down and kissed him silly. Jonathan’s eyes flew wide open as he tried to process what was happening. The woman he was hopelessly infatuated with was kissing him. Clotilde Ledoux was kissing him. Him - Jonathan Crane.

But as all good things, it didn’t last nearly as long as he would have liked before she pulled away and walked off. “There! Your reward for rescuing your damsel in distress!”

Jonathan’s ears flushed red as his face turned pink. “I- Clotilde! You can’t just-”

“Can’t what? Kiss your silly, adorable self? You truly surprise me, love.” She giggled before walking inside. “Now come on, I still need to fully sober up. I’ll order some Chinese food.”

Jonathan couldn’t argue with her on that. He decided not to spiral about the kiss and would wait to psychoanalyze himself. She made a good argument. He chuckled to himself before following Clotilde inside with a small smile.

“I would like that.”

#batman #batman rogues #scarecrow x oc #the scarecrow #jonathan crane #jonathan crane x oc #one-shot #romance

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the-cult-of-russo · 3 years

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Hi!! So i just read your billy headcanon about him and reader arguing and it was so good! I loved how thorough you were and i liked how the stages are so accurate to his personality! What do you think him and reader would argue about?

Once again, my brain is total chaos. It's my chaos and I understand it but trying to get it down for others to make sense of makes my head hurt lmao

First of all, I'm gonna do two sections. One for things that Billy would start a fight over, and one that you'd pick a fight over. Basically, things you do to upset him enough to cause a fight and then things he'd do that upset you enough to cause a fight.

If you haven't seen my other headcanon about how Billy acts during a fight, find it here. I reference his Stages of Rage in this so it'll make sense if you've read it.

Also remember this is my Billy.

Billy:

Billy can be impulsive and he has a temper. That being said, he's learnt really well over the years how to push it down. He's got good at stuffing his anger in a box and dealing with it another time somehow. Sometimes people wouldn't even know just how pissed he is. Yet with you, sometimes you do things that drive him to the brink of insanity and he finds it hard to deal with it.

The thing with Billy is, any negative emotion turns to anger. He doesn't know how to cope with it otherwise. And the things you'd do to cause him to fight with you don't actually make him genuinely angry. They've made him upset, hurt, or scared. All feelings he loathes to feel and they morph into anger instead.

The first thing that would cause him to fight with you is jealousy. Its not that he doesn't trust you because he does. He trusts you explicitly. But for all of his outward bravado and confidence, he has a lot of deep rooted self worth issues stemming from his childhood. Those disgusting feelings of not being good enough, of not being worthy of love or happiness, of not being wanted. All of those have been buried down inside of him yet you seem to bring them out kicking and screaming.

He's terrified of you leaving him. He finally has something special, worth every bit of pain he's suffered. He's finally found happiness. He feels like he's got to cling onto you desperately, fingers bloodied as he clutches you so hard like you might float away the second he let's up.

So when you and Billy are out with friends and you go up to the bar, he watches you with a dopey smile because he can't help it. But it gets wiped off his face the second some asshole approaches you. He knows it's ridiculous when the green eyed monster rears its head, he knows because although you smile at the man, it's tense. It's a polite but awkward smile as you shake your head and clearly tell him you're not interested.

Yet Billy's chest hurts. Because what if you see something in this man you don’t see in him? What if this guy is the one who steals you away from him? What if this is when you open your eyes and realise how worthless he is and you leave him?

He's aware his brain is being overdramatic yet he can't help the anger building inside of him. The defense mechanism of turning his pain and terror and sadness into something he can deal with.

And he doesn't want to cause a scene around all of your friends. So he goes the rest of the night being quiet and a little distant. You know somethings wrong and have a good idea what. But Billy suddenly feels miles away.

As soon as you get home, he let's it loose, unable not to. It sometimes starts with The Snark, passive aggressive comments about the man at the bar and how you should have gone home with him.

But he gets angrier.

Because you don't get it. You tell him nothing happened and that he's being stupid but you don't fucking get the agonising fear that's crippling him because he's not good enough for you. So The Loudmouth stage begins because if he's wounded, he's gonna wound you right back.

But somewhere along the way you see through the anger. You see the pain in his glossy eyes, hear the tremor in his voice. Suddenly you hear everything he isn't saying. Instead of yelling at him that he's being dramatic or stupid, you switch tactics. You reassure him. You tell him he's the only one for you and you soothe his wounds by trying to get him to see that.

Although he still doesn't believe it, he likely never will, it does bring him back to earth. And of course he says sorry for the remarks he made but you know he was only lashing out because he was hurting.

The other thing that will get him to fight with you is also because of fear. If you put yourself in situations where you could possibly get hurt, even if it's something small like walking home in the dark, he flips his shit. He hates it, doesn't understand why you'd be so reckless. And while sometimes he's being overboard with it, too overprotective, he doesn't see it that way.

Billy's been through a lot, seen a lot of shit, done even more. He knows how dark this world gets. So if you ever put yourself in danger, even a small bit by being reckless, you're damn right he's gonna lash out at you. He goes through every stage of rage (except the last) if you try and defend your actions because he can't fathom the fact you aren't seeing his side with this. Why you won't let him just protect you. If he had his way, he'd put you in a bubble to keep you safe.

Other than that, there isn't much else you do that causes him to really fight with you. He's not petty. He's not the type to pick a fight over mundane stupid shit like you leaving your clothes all over the bedroom. Even if it does annoy him since he's such a neat freak.

Anything that you do that elicits those awful negative emotions are what gets to him.

You:

Billy's flirting is certainly a bone of contention. And while it doesn't happen often and it's never really serious since you two got together, sometimes it slips out of his mouth like it's second nature to him. Because it is. An example of this is at an event. He pays a flirty compliment to a senators daughter thats been eyeing him. He doesn't even know he's done it, doesn't seem phased until he sees your face. But he's at work, important business and schmoozing to do and he doesn't want you to cause a scene.

But waiting until you get home only annoys you more. It was an offhand comment and you know deep down he didn't mean it. But it still hurts you because he's with you. And you knew damn well if you did that to him he'd lose his shit. But you patiently wait until you get home, giving him the cold shoulder the whole way. And he knows what's coming. It's happened before.

But the thing with Billy is that he gets defensive if he feels backed into a corner. So when you whirl on him the second you get home, he pushes right back. He thinks you're blowing it way out of proportion and honestly, if you'd approached him calmly about it, he'd apologise right away and tell you he'd do better. But the fact you’re yelling at him has his back up so he can't seem to find it in himself to see it your way at all.

At first you don't tell him the real reason why it hurt you. You're just pissed. But as the argument unfolds you blurt out why it stung so much and his anger gets sucked right out of him. He watches you, devastation on his face as he realises you don't feel loved enough, that you think he'd go behind your back, that he'd find someone else. That notion is absurd to him, like he'd ever do such a thing when he has everything he ever wanted with you. But knowing he's hasn't shown you enough how much he cares wounds him deeply.

So he comforts you, promises he'll make it up up you and it won't happen again and he makes sure to make time to make you see just how much he loves you and only you.

Another thing that tends to get you upset at him is Anvil. Billy works a lot, too much most times. The amount of times he's coming home when you're already asleep or has to cancel plans with you starts to weigh on you. Building up until you explode about it.

But once again, Billy feels backed into a corner. Anvil is way more than just a company to him. It's a physical manifestation of how far he's come in life. It's proof that he's come all this way and he's done it all on his own. Anvil is like his baby.

And if it ever came down to picking Anvil or you, yes he'd pick you. But deep down he might end up resenting you for it. Because Anvil is an extention of him and his work makes up who he is. You knew this when you met him. It starts to feel like you're trying to change him and that gets right under his skin. Because if you want to change him, then you don't love him as he is. And that shit hurts.

He's already tried his best to placate you over Anvil. He works less, only staying late if its imperative he does and he tries his best to make time for you. He knows it's hard and he's away more than you'd like but he's fucking trying. So it feels like a smack in the face when you do this, like you can't see how much he's ready done to try and make a life where he can have both.

He works hard to keep the company the best it can be, he has to. But he also works hard for you. Because one day he wants to buy a big house and possibly fill it with children with you. He wants to show you the world and give you everything you've ever wanted. So it makes him feel unappreciated.

He feels stuck between a rock and a hard place every damn time this argument comes up because he doesn't know what else to do. He's trying his hardest to juggle Anvil and you and sometimes it feels like you're making it hard for him. He can't change who he is and if you can't handle it then it kills him. Because he knows if you can't deal with it then eventually you'll leave and he thinks he might just die if that happens.

These arguments get explosive because of all the emotions it makes him feel and sometimes you don't speak for days after. Both of you miserable as you miss the other. Deep down you know he's trying his best and you feel bad because you know how much these fights upset him. Eventually you apologise. You knew Anvil was his world before you met, knew how hard he worked. You don't want to change him and if you're honest with yourself, he's done a damn good job of making sure there's a place for you in his life. And maybe you never imagined you'd settle down with a workaholic, to miss them all the time, but it's worth it.

The last thing is how Billy's past seems to have a way of haunting you both. You were well aware of his nature before you met, he'd been pretty upfront about it. But sometimes it's hard when you're at an event with him and one of his past one night stands are there or you both run into one in the street.

This doesn't cause a full blown argument. If anything it's more one sided and Billy soon learns you've been taking tips from his Stages of Rage handbook when you use The Snark on him. You can't help it. The bitter jealousy that creeps in. But he doesn't fight back because for once he's a little ashamed of his past behaviour. He never wanted to settle down, didn't see the point. But that's because he hadn't met you yet. But now he sees your face everytime he's approached by a past lover and it hurts him. It makes him worry that you'll leave him one day.

So he accepts the anger and passive aggressive comments you throw at him because he feels like he deserves them. But his unwillingness to fight back has you sobering up pretty quickly. Because you know realistically it's not his fault and you can't hold his behaviour from before you even met over his head. It comes from insecurity and its not fair to lash out at him. And you hate how sad he seems when you do this to him. So you say sorry and make it up to him.

The last thing I'll touch on is his last Stage of Rage that mentioned in my other post. The Snowstorm. I said how this meant you'd done some really bad. Like maybe even break-up bad. This is where he turns off his emotions because you've hurt him that much. I wanted to give an example of what might cause him to do that.

The biggest one of course would be you cheating on him. It would be a knife right through his heart. He'd want to forgive you for the fact he loves you more than anything but betrayal isn't something he takes lightly. Couple that with him already having self worth issues and feeling not good enough for you and you have a very broken Billy on your hands.

Maybe in time he could move past it after some separation and a lot of thinking. But this would be the worst thing to happen to him.

#billy russo #billy russo x reader #the punisher #billy russo imagine #billy russo headcanons

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eve-of-halloween · 2 years

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What's Ebabhu's personality like?

Ebabhu was the first character I officially created back when I was 10. Thus over the 16 years of their existence, their personality and story have been thoroughly expanded upon and have changed a lot. When I first made ebabhu they were incredibly mean and actually a force over an entity. Because in the world and story I made with Ebabhu, which I hope to one day make an animated series of. Ebabhu is basically a god. Originally they were just a physical manifestation of the primordial force that originates air and death. those things exist because Ebabhu existed and Ebabhu back then didn't really have a personality us humans could understand because they were very much it in both mind and body. BUT RECENT EBABHU. Over the last 8 years. HAS ALOT OF PERSONALITY. omg they are an absolute mess they are an entity millions of years old but for their species is the equivalent of a dumb 18 yr old who thinks with the wrong head. And Ebabhu despite their age, acts like they are fucking 5. They are petty, short-tempered, obnoxious, a total god damn diva who when they need attention annoys the absolute FUCK out of their traveling companions. They really can't read a room. They suffer from a bit of I am an all-powerful entity who can rip your life essence from your body or just choose to stop the production of oxygen if I felt like it but I see myself as nothing special writing home about because I am labeled a failure by my kinds standards and struggle with self-loathing and a crippling fear of inadequacy.

They can be incredibly sweet and love affection and show it. They spoil their husband rotten with love and they adore making people laugh. They truly desire to be accepted by their peers as they are outcasted from their own kind because unlike the rest of their kind their existence ends life instead of creating it. They are very easily distracted and if a conversation drones on for too long it stresses them out. They both need mental stimulation to function but get overstimulated by certain things.

They are both extremely intelligent but are also an absolute goddamn MORON. Who's like "Yeah, I can create a completely sentient AI with thoughts and feelings." and "Wait, what do you mean I can't just yell bitch? Why is that offensive its a sound? what does it mean? well, why are your kind offended by silly sounds?" they are both baby and bastard, a golden retriever with cat-like traits and crackhead energy. I could go on more about them but then this post would go on for way too long.

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embermc · 3 years

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Thinking.

c!Wilbur wanted to be alone and isolated, but couldn't stand being lonely and separated from others.

Throughout his entire life, as well as during his death, c!Wilbur had a very strong tendency to socially isolate himself from others, to build walls around himself and push away those he cared about, and those who cared about him, both in a misguided attempt to protect himself and others. During his presidency, he himself admit to being very distant, and distancing himself from everyone else. He would only appear somewhat rarely, and usually it was for an important event, an introduction, or a political matter. The rest of the time, whenever he wasn't in front of a podium, he would hide away, expressing his emotional struggles and stress in private, where he wouldn't have to show vulnerability and reveal he wasn't okay.

In Pogtopia, he isolated himself even further, lashing out at others due to mental illness, pushing others away out of a lack of trust, and refusing to let anyone in on what he was going through. He stopped seeing, trusting, and often interacting with a lot of people he once trusted or saw as friends, purposefully secluding himself from everyone else. He fell deeper into his spiral, pushing those away that cared about him because he felt as if he couldn't trust them, couldn't trust anyone, terrified they would leave him and betray him as he had already been betrayed before. So he started to trust only himself, separating himself from others both emotionally and physically. Wilbur became trapped in a viscous pattern of fearing that people would betray him and leave him alone, and then pushing them away and isolating himself to avoid being hurt, and therefore ending up alone, with others having left him. Wilbur was also going through a lot, mentally, in Pogtopia, and part of his distancing from others was most likely to do with his strong desire not to have to be vulnerable and truly reveal what he was struggling with, as it was easier for him to just isolate himself and separate himself from others emotionally.

As his self-loathing and self-hatred deepened, so did his tendency to push others away, this time, for what he believed to be their own benefit. We've all heard the quote from c!Tommy, "He wanted to be treated poorly, so he treated everyone else poorly." Wilbur lashed out, purposefully drove others away, purposefully dug himself deeper into a pit of social isolation that ended with him physically taking himself out of the equation, in a misguided attempt to make the lives of others better, as his self-loathing caused him to believe that his presence in the lives of others was only detrimental and bad for them. Not only did he believe wholeheartedly that everyone hated him, he wanted everyone to hate him, wanted to leave the lives of everyone that he cared about because he cared about them, and his mental illnesses forced him to believe that he was nothing but a problem to the world that needed to be erased and isolated from the world. And in the end, he did the thing he knew could distance himself the furthest from everyone, he caused his own death.

c!Wilbur, for many years, fully believed that he should stay in Limbo. He believed, in his own words, he was "never good for that server." His self-loathing caused him to see his return as something that could seriously negatively affect the server. This is probably one of the largest examples of Wilbur isolating himself from others, and wanting to remain isolated. He believed he should remain in a situation where he wouldn't be able to affect anyone, and would be far away from others, even if he was alone. But we know, as viewers, that this isolation was detrimental to himself. Because c!Wilbur is a character that, deep down, despite his tendency to push others away, desperately wants to have company, to be with people. A lot of his fears and paranoia stemmed from him having a fear of being abandoned, betrayed, or left. A lot of his mental issues in Pogtopia stemmed from the belief that everyone was abandoning him and that nobody was truly on his side. Wilbur is terrified of being alone, of being lonely, without any real company, physically and emotionally. That's why I believe he so harshly projected onto Tommy in Limbo, grouping Tommy in with his self-loathing beliefs and including Tommy in his idea that neither of them were good for the server. Wilbur doesn't truly think that of Tommy, he has no reason to, but he's terrified of being alone in his harmful, self-deprecating beliefs. He's scared to be alone in his mental agony and suffering, and wants somebody else that he thinks is in a similar situation as him, even if Tommy definitely wasn't. It was incredibly harmful to say these things to Tommy, and nothing changes that, but that's what I believe was Wilbur's reasoning for doing so.

Wilbur described Limbo in a very distasteful manner, even going as far as saying it was the "worst time of his life." He hated Limbo, hated the crippling isolation, the agonizing loneliness. But, for so long, he felt like he had to stay there. He purposefully caused his own death in an attempt to both end his suffering, and separate himself from others since he mistakenly believed others would be better without him. He clung to the belief that he should stay in Limbo, stay in that place that was so agonizingly, painfully lonely for him, because he believed that his social isolation from others was best for everyone else. But at the same time, he hated it. He hated being lonely, being alone. And even now, we see that Wilbur is terrified of being alone again, so he clings onto Tommy, desperately trying to do anything, even using underhanded methods of persuasion, to get Tommy to want to stay with him and not leave him. He doesn't want to be lonely, and he never has, he hates it and is terrified of it. Yet, simultaneously, throughout so much of his life, he forced himself into isolation, pushing others away for what he believed to be both their emotional sake and his own. It's truly sad, and really shows some of the desperation, fear and well, human nature, of his character, as well as how his own mental illness-effected behaviors and thought processes really caused him to plunge deeper into a pit that would end up hurting him further and causing him more harm.

c!Wilbur wanted to be alone and isolated, but couldn't stand being lonely and separated from others.

#dream smp #dsmp #wilbur soot #c!wilbur soot #dsmp analysis #alivebur #tw mental illness #tw suicide #tw suicidal thoughts #tw self loathing #tw death #tw isolation #tw paranoia mention #/rp #im sad about c!wilbur again he's just so well-written #get this man some therapy

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therealvinelle · 4 years

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Thoughts on Twilight books vs. movies

Part one of infinity, because I have a lot of these.

As a fan of the Twilight books, for the longest time I kept being astounding by things the fandom mentions, or believes. It was when I rewatched the movies (well the first two, anyway) that I realized that much of what people kept talking about, the way they see the characters and canon events, was so wrong because it was from the movies. And the movies are... well the movies are a parallel universe where everyone’s subtly different in a myriad of ways that add up to the movie characters being different people than the book characters. It’s late in my time zone so this is not going to be a full essay, just general thoughts.

Examples that come to mind are Bella’s crippling self-esteem issues, her general absence of any sense of self worth, being cut from the movies. She also loses her wit. Kristen Stewart did a good job with the material she was given, but the material was a Bella who was cut down from her book counterpart to be as relatable as possible. It’s thin.

You have Aro. Take New Moon for an example, in the book he’s impeccably polite, reminisces fondly about his dear friend Carlisle and lets the Cullens go because they promise they’ll obey the law from now on. In the movie he is a maniac who comes within an inch of killing both Edward and Bella, never bringing up Carlisle. I’m highlighting Aro and this scene because it’s such a good example of how the movie characters are different characters. The Aro of the books is not the Aro of the movies. (I’m not bringing up BD because I don’t remember what the movies did there apart from unleashing Michael Sheen)

Another example is Jasper and Bella bickering fondly in the hallway in New Moon. In Eclipse, by contrast, we have Bella musing that Jasper is the quiet outsider of the family, the one she doesn’t know at all. She believes that if it weren’t for Alice he’d be de-Cullenized and eating people within the day. (I do love that, by the way. Bella, he tried to eat you, of course he’s keeping his distance.)

There’s Edward, who while self-loathing and all that, is also ridiculously over-confident. He thinks he can do anything, at one point claiming to Bella that he could take Jasper in a fight. This Gilderoy Lockhart quality is lost entirely in the adaption. Edward in general is crazied down, no doubt to make him more palatable, but it just removes everything his whole personality.

Edward/Bella might suffer worst of all, as they’re made these incredibly boring people who really have no reason to get together in the first place.

There’s also the vampires, who in the books are gods, in the movies they have generic Hollywood superhuman gimmicks and as one poster beautifully put it at one point, they all look like they huff gasoline in Czechoslovakia. I’d be more forgiving of this, since Meyer’s vampires are ridiculous and the only feasible way to do them justice would be to animate Twilight, but these movies didn’t even bother keeping the vampire look consistent from one movie to the next. The effort just wasn’t there.

Then you have the big stuff, like the movies never actually explaining why the Cullens are vegetarians who live with the humans in the first place. We’re just shown their house and lifestyle and the movies sort of take it for granted that this is what the Cullens do. Of course the Cullens live in a house, go to high school, and eat deer, it’s the Cullens! Again, no wonder the Harry Potter fandom killed Twilight with their memes about lame vampires.

This is turning into a rant on why these movies make no sense, which it wasn’t supposed to be.

Point is, the movies and the books are different in all these insidious ways, and it adds up to movie canon being completely different and me not understanding what anyone in fanfiction or on tumblr is talking about half the time. Not only are the characters different, but the worldbuilding is too.

One difference wouldn’t matter, a few differences would just mean some things had to change as the story changed mediums from book to screen, but when all I can see are differences, on every level, then we’re dealing with two separate canons.

#to say nothing of the casting #twilight #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #twilight vampires #i have watched all five movies but it's been years since the last three and I only watched them once #it was an insane marathon where i sat there slack-jawed

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klbwriting · 3 years

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Unexpected Allies - Chapter 7

Fandom: Six of Crows

Pairing: Kaz/female!Reader - its almost here you guys, getting so close

Summary: after a confrontation with the Darkling a discussion needs to happen

Note: so I went ahead and put in the first of four songs that inspired this fic. ‘Summertime’ by My Chemical Romance, give it a listen if you haven’t it is a masterpiece

Tags: @mcntsee

Kaz had never seen the Darkling before and he was surprised now that the man who had created the fold, lived for hundreds of years, barely looked a day over 25. He glanced over at Jesper and Y/N, watching her get down from the horse and start walking towards the Darkling. He panicked for a moment, getting off his own horse and handing the reins to Jesper. He pulled out his cane, not sure what he could do with it against a man who was considered the most powerful Grisha in existence, but he would go down fighting to protect Y/N.

“What were you thinking Y/N? Running off with these two?” Aleksander asked, motioning a dismissive hand to the Dregs. Kaz glared. He looked to Y/N and saw her looking at him. When their eyes met she shook her head and he knew what she meant. Now that she had spilled her secrets to him he could see more in her eyes. She wasn’t hiding herself from him anymore and right now she was clearly telling him to not start a fight, that she didn’t want to have to take on the Darkling now.

“Aleksander, I couldn’t stay anymore in your shadow. Not when we both know that with the parem I would be more powerful than you. I want your throne,” she said, lying through her teeth. Kaz could see the obvious falsehood there, but apparently the Darkling didn’t know her as much as he thought.

“Is that why you stole it? The only useable vial of parem we had?” he asked. Kaz froze. So she hadn’t told him everything. He looked over at her and watched her as she stared at Aleksander.

“I couldn’t let you have it, not why I needed it,” she said. “Leave now or I will use it. I’ve already taken it.” She was lying, Kaz had seen first hand when parem did to Grisha, there was no one she had taken it before they left. He just hoped the Darkling believed her lie. Aleksander scowled.

“So this is it, another betrayal by a trusted friend? Well, you may have taken the parem but your friends haven’t,” he said, gearing up to perform the cut against Kaz.

“No!” Y/N screamed, reaching out with both hands and closing her fists. Aleksander stopped, falling to his knees and groaning in pain.

“What…is this…how…” he stammered out as she constricted his airwaves and his heart. Kaz looked at her, seeing the desperation in her eyes, but he also saw the vengeance beneath it. She wanted to kill the Darkling, make him suffer for everything he’d taken from her and for a minute Kaz was going to let her do it. Then he remembered the look on her face when she talked about how many died at her hand, how much the pain wrecked her. Aleksander had once been her friend, could she really handle killing another friend and not break entirely. Kaz didn’t want to find out.

“ Y/N!” he yelled, running over to her. “Stop, send him away, as far as your winds can take him, but don’t kill him. You’ll lose yourself more if you do.” What was he saying? Kaz Brekker didn’t care who got hurt. Saints or whoever, damn this woman for what she was doing to him.

Once the Darkling was unconscious Y/N finally stopped. Kaz was right, she couldn’t kill more people she once cared about, it would take another piece of her soul and she didn’t know how much was left at this point. She mustered up all the Squallor ability she could and sent Aleksander away, making sure that the wind would set him down softly. When he was gone she turned to the other two. Kaz looked relieved and Jesper was shocked.

“How can you do you more than one thing?” he asked. “Did the parem really do that to you?”

“I lied about the parem, I didn’t drink it. I took the vial, and I smashed it right after we left the prison. No one is taking the parem as long as we keep Kuwei away from the Second Army. I’ve always been able to do multiple Grisha skills, but my Inferni skills were the strongest so I chose to train in that and hide the rest,” she explained. Jesper nodded and smiled.

“Well, looks like we have a valuable weapon in our midst,” he said. Y/N rolled her eyes, hating that she was once again being relegated to a tool for these guys.

“No,” Kaz said softly. “She’s not a weapon, she’s our friend and we need to get her to the resistance and help them.” Y/N couldn’t hide her surprise at him. She was sure once he knew that she had kept one last secret from him he would be furious, instead he was planning to help them. She knew it could have been a lie, something to get them moving again, get her out of their hair quicker, but it didn’t seem like it.

“Kaz can I talk to you alone for a minute?” she asked, needing to sort out some things with him before she kept going. He looked aggravated at the delay but nodded. Jesper took his cue and walked the horses to a nearby stream to drink. “Look we have to at least address some part of this, whatever this is.” She motioned between them and he scowled. She knew he didn’t want to talk about it, but she had to make him. They at least needed to establish some form of trust between them, something solid that they could stand and fight together one. In Ketterdam Kaz and his group fought together as Dregs, but Y/N wasn’t one of them, she needed to establish something else with Kaz to make this work.

“What do you want me to say? I said you were our friend,” he snapped, not looking her in the eye. Y/N sighed, looking at the ground.

“Alright we are friends. But you know there’s more to it, I know you feel it,” she said.

Kaz hated all of this right now. This whole conversation was making him want to leave her here and just travel on without her. He would get his crew and get the hell out of Ravka, let her face the Darkling on her own. Dammit he knew he couldn’t do that. This woman made him soft for her and he wanted to rage against it, but what use was it?

“Why in the hell would you want anything more with a crippled bastard anyway?” he asked, feeling his self-loathing seeping from his pores. He could keep up his façade in front of anyone, pretend to be more than he was, criminal mastermind, leader of the Dregs, the Bastard of the Barrel, but for some reason she broke down that defense and here he was that sad boy that lost his brother and was still searching for a way to be whole again. He saw her reach a hand out before stopping and clenching her fist.

“Kaz Brekker, you are single handedly the most amazing man I have ever met. Capable of the most intense torture yet still willing to dance with me, you don’t let anything stop you from getting what you want. You sir, are a criminal king in a blood soaked crown and personally I have never wanted to be anything more than a queen standing next to you,” she said. Kaz looked at her seeing that her face was flushed red, embarrassed to have gotten so honest with him. He quirked his mouth into a smirk and she groaned. “Dammit, why can I never just keep my mouth shut around you.”

“O please don’t, I love to hear you heaping praise on me. I like that bit about the crown,” he said, smirking more. She glared at him and folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not sure I’m ready for a queen, not in the way you would want me to be…”

“Kaz I want you exactly the way you are. Whoever you want to be I will want you,” she said. He could hear that she meant it. He didn’t have to fix himself or be more than he was with her. “You could never touch me again and I will be fine, you never have to smile if you don’t want. I’ve felt your hand and seen your smile and I will keep that memory fresh in my mind forever.”

“I had my gloves on when I touched you,” he said softly. She smiled at him.

“I’m alright with that. I’m alright with you.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for a queen still, but as soon as I am you’re the first person I’m going to find,” he said. He meant it, his heart was making a room for her to live there and once it was ready he would get a bloody crown to match his and give it to her. He lifted up his gloved hand and put it against her lips. “I promise.” He felt her lips kiss his gloved finger and pulled away. He took a deep breath, surprised that nothing had happened, no images of death or feelings of disgust. She kissed his finger and he had just walked away to get Jesper and the horses.

As evening fell they decided to make camp near a stream. The group filled their canteens and built a small fire, eating some rations and donning their coats as the weather was starting to get colder as they moved further north. Y/N built a small item out of her vest pocket and focused. Soon her guitar was in her lap and she was strumming it.

“How did you do that?” Jesper asked as he took a seat next to her. Kaz sat down on the other side of her, giving Jesper a look that said not to get too close. Y/N almost laughed. He had been jealous the whole ride here, clearly wanting to hit Jesper with his cane again. She knew it must irk him that others could get so close to her and he couldn’t. She hoped the smile she gave him, one he almost returned, made him feel better.

“I just focus on the material and will to be smaller or bigger, I’m not sure how it works honestly,” she said, strumming a little.

“You going to play us something?” Jesper asked. Y/N thought for a minute, trying to pull a song out of her head that they might know, but she couldn’t think of one. Then she got an idea.

“I wrote a song a little while back, something I used to sing with Alina when I would visit her followers to give them messages,” she said. I think it applies now, to all of us.” She started the cords, stumbling at first as she tried to remember the exact notes she played before. Once it came back she found a good rhythm.

“When the lights go out, will you take me with you And carry all this broken bone Through six years down in crowded rooms And highways I call home?”

She could see Kaz listening intently, leaning forward to see her fingers move and hear her voice more. She wasn’t a master singer she knew but no one had ever complained about her voice and seeing the look on his face she knew he liked it. Jesper bopped his head to the music she made and she smiled at him before looking back at Kaz as she sang.

“If you stay, I would even wait all night Or until my heart explodes How long until we find our way In the dark and out of harm? You can run away with me Anytime you want”

She finished the song and found that Jesper had laid down during the singing and was fast asleep. She chuckled and shrunk her guitar, putting it back in her pocket. She moved to put out the fire when Kaz waved his hand at her.

“Not yet,” he said softly, looking at her. She nodded and moved to cover up Jesper before laying down herself, watching Kaz in the firelight. His features were more pronounced like this, his edges sharp, eyes deep with depths she had just barely began to swim in. She knew she shouldn’t take his words to heart, that she didn’t fully know that he could be believed. He was an excellent liar, had duped almost everyone he had ever met, but she wanted to believe him so she did. She would live this lie with him for as long as he let her. Let him destroy her, she would die with a smile on her face.

“I love you Kaz Brekker” she whispered softly, not caring if he heard her. He didn’t move so she assumed he hadn’t and she rolled over to fall asleep.

Kaz watched the fire and heard ever word she whispered to him. He felt the last piece of resistance waver and flee from his heart. He heard her breathing steady beside him and knew she was asleep. He placed his hand gently on her shoulder, testing again to see if the revulsion arose. When it didn’t, he actually smiled.

“I love you too Y/N.”

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cosmicjoke · 3 years

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Alright, up through chapters 111 and 112 of SnK!

First, I just have to say a few things about Eren here and what a massive dick he was to Armin and Mikasa. It’s hard as hell not to be pissed at Eren here, even knowing that he was trying to push his two best friends away in an attempt to keep them out of harm, and part of that is because, given what Eren later confesses to Armin, about not knowing what he was doing during this scene, I don’t think the way he treats them here IS entirely to protect them. Armin says after the whole confrontation that Eren’s the one who’s a slave, specifically he says “You’re a slave too, and your master’s a worthless bastard.” Eren has the gall to get offended by this, after he just spent the last however many minutes telling Armin and Mikasa both that they’re pathetic slaves with no will of their own. But the important part here is what Armin says. He’s referring, I think, to all of Eren’s worst traits as a human being. He’s telling Eren that he’s let himself become a slave to the worst parts of his personality, the parts that want to hurt others, that finds gratification in hurting others. That he’s letting himself be dictated by those ugliest, cruelest parts of himself. I think part of Eren’s tirade against Armin and Mikasa was based very much in his honest feelings, those feelings of anger and hatred towards his best friends being born out of his own insecurity about himself. He tells Armin that his constant attempts to “talk” are pathetic and worthless, and that Mikasa is only strong because of experiments conducted on the Ackerman bloodline. Essentially, Eren is trying his very best here to strip away both Armin’s and Mikasa’s own merit, and cast their strengths and abilities in a negative light, treating those strengths as either weaknesses or as something unearned, some sort of freak accident of birth. Eren goes particularly hard after Mikasa, trying to make her exceptional abilities seem somehow lesser or unimpressive because they’re only a byproduct of experiments done to other Ackerman’s over the centuries. This smacks terribly to me of Eren taking out his own physical shortcomings on Mikasa and Armin both, blaming them for his own weakness. Eren taunts Armin later while he beats the hell out of him, telling him they’ve never fought because it never would have been a “fair fight”, as if Eren himself was ever any kind of exceptional fighter. It’s made a point of again and again early in the series that Eren isn’t particularly special or gifted in anything he does. He isn’t a good fighter, he isn’t especially smart, he isn’t especially skilled. But here we have him flaunting himself over Armin, as if Eren was ever some sort of uber bad-ass fighter who could destroy any opponent with ease. It really does just come across as crippling insecurity on Eren’s part, on him acting out his self-loathing and insecurity in himself on his friends. It’s really one of Eren’s lowest moments in the whole series, and especially because it doesn’t particularly feel like he doesn’t entirely mean it. I think he does, to some extent.

Anyway, okay, I also want to talk a little about Levi and how he reacts to the news of the Yagerists taking over the military, and Zeke’s involvement.

What really strikes me here is Levi’s reaction to Pixis’ and the MPs plan to feed Eren to someone else, to give them the Founder. Levi says to hell with that plan, and it’s really interesting to me, because this shows two things about Levi and how he regards Eren at this point. It isn’t that he feels betrayed by Eren that Levi has his internal monologue about all his comrades dying in the line of duty while protecting Eren, it’s because he’s thinking about how all of those people died to protect Eren, only for the military to then turn around and render all of those sacrifices utterly meaningless by deciding to just feed Eren to whoever they choose. A recurring and vital theme for Levi’s character throughout SnK is that he can’t abide meaningless death. The thought of anyone dying or suffering in any way without reason, for Levi, is one of the worst things that can happen. Pointless, meaningless death is a travesty to him. And by deciding to just kill Eren then and there, to feed him to someone else, the military is basically shitting all over the deaths and sacrifices of an innumerable amount of Levi’s friends and comrades, essentially declaring those sacrifices null and void and pointless. All these people will have died, it turns out, for nothing. That’s why Levi calls the current situation they’re in a “farce”, because it’s made a joke out of all those lives lost. And it’s why Levi won’t stand for it. He refuses to let it happen, instead deciding it’s Zeke who should be fed to someone. It must be more galling to Levi than just about anything, that these MPs, who never lifted a finger or sacrificed anything in order to fight for humanity’s survival have now taken it upon themselves to decide that all that effort, all those lives lost, all those morals compromised, all that blood gotten on the hands of the SC members for the betterment of humanity, meant nothing and was never necessary, that they’ll just kill Eren without any input or say from those people that sacrificed so much to keep Eren alive all this time. And it’s not just the lives lost, like Mike’s, or Nanaba’s, or Nifa’s, or Erwin’s, or any of the other hundreds of SC’s members that died while protecting Eren, but also people like Jean and Armin having to get blood on their hands, going against their moral codes and now living with the burden of having taken lives, or Dimo Reeves essentially giving his life to protect Eren and Historia. There’s any number of smaller sacrifices, on top of the lives lost, they’ve all made in order to protect Eren, because they all believed him to be essential to humanity’s future, that he was one of them, and could be relied on and believed in to always hold true to the ideals of the SC, to fight for humanity’s salvation. The military’s decision to just kill Eren throws that belief back in the faces of the SC.

I think, also, it’s interesting, because Levi’s still holding here to the possibility that Eren hasn’t betrayed them all. He’s still showing that he believes in Eren, even as that belief is being strained and tested by everything that’s happening. That Levi doesn’t just immediately wash his hands of Eren here, and say “Yeah, kill him.”, shows also that he still WANTS to believe in Eren, that all the hopes they put in him weren’t unfounded or for naught. Even as he acknowledges that he doesn’t know if Eren is being controlled by Zeke or not, he still wants to give him the benefit of the doubt. It shows that he still cares about Eren as a comrade and a friend. He holds no such ties to Zeke, who’s done nothing but cause him pain and misery, and so Levi’s solution here makes sense. Feed Zeke to one of the Yaegerists, then, after Historia gives birth, if she’s still willing, let her consume the Beast Titan. Levi’s trying here to avoid killing Eren, both because he can’t bear the thought that all those people died for nothing, and also because he still feels loyalty and friendship towards Eren, which speaks to the depth of Levi’s dedication as a friend, honestly.

Also, we get to see Levi’s suspicion of Zeke’s story about how and why he turned the people of Ragako into Titan’s validated, when it’s revealed that he lied about his spinal fluid, if consumed by Eldian’s, freezing them up. The guy really is just a straight up liar. And that particular deception of Zeke’s is what leads to the tragedy of what happens next, turning Levi’s comrades into Titans. Like I said in my previous post, I think Levi was trying to genuinely glean if Zeke really was as heartless and uncaring as he appeared, trying to understand if there was some understandable reason behind his actions, and that he came the conclusion from reading Zeke’s tone, words and body language (just like Erwin says about Levi’s ability to see the true nature of man), that there isn’t any real humanity in Zeke at all. And of course, what Zeke does here only proves that beyond any sort of doubt.

Levi’s declaration here that he isn’t going to let Zeke dictate things any longer is Levi being fed up with these mind games and manipulations. He’s known all this time that Zeke has been stringing them along, lying to them, using them, all with some ulterior motive and plan in waiting, even as he couldn’t know the details of those things, and Levi knows if he waits any longer to take Zeke out, things are going to reach a point of no return. Levi’s instincts here are right, and have been from the start, but because he was beholden to the chain of command, he couldn’t act. It’s the pussyfooting around that the military’s done up to this point, their indecision and fear, to trust Zeke, but also to have the balls to move against Zeke completely, that’s lead to things getting so out of hand. Tragically, Levi’s decision here comes too late. But man, he was ready to take matters into his own hands finally. Someone should’ve listened to him sooner about Zeke. They should’ve just killed his ass the second they had him on the island.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #snk 111 #snk 112 #Levi Ackerman #eren yeager #zeke yeager

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sepublic · 4 years

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Gus meeting the Blight Twins!

With regards to recent developments with characters and whatnot… I think it’d be interesting to see Gus interact with Emira and Edric. Gus is someone who is proudly a dweebus, like his father Perry before him, and so on and so forth; He mentions a ‘long’ line of dweebuses to Eda, after all! So there’s this shared concept of a family lineage that one ‘lives up to’, or at least carries out… Although given how well-adjusted Gus is compared to the Blight kids, obviously Perry was far more lenient about it than Odalia and Alador, and Gus’ interest in being a nerd was something genuine that came from a legitimate appreciation of his dad!

Meanwhile, Emira and Edric clearly make fun of the idea of being a nerd, although they don’t seem maliciously against it, nor do they seem like people who’d insist on bullying someone else… The exception of course is Amity, but they still DO care for her as their little sister. Plus, there may have been concerns about what Amity’s dedication to schoolwork was doing for her mental health, how a lot of that may have come from the expectations of their parents… And so it can make it difficult to discern where Amity legit enjoys learning, and where she’s doing this for Odalia and Alador.

That could lead to maybe the Blight Twins infantilizing Amity, believing they ‘know’ her better than others, and wanting Amity to get away from being a nerd and teasing her about it… When in reality, like Amity herself probably, they don’t realize the distinction between learning, and school itself as a system, particularly under Belos’ rule. Regardless, after seeing what when on with Mittens, and their concern for her amidst it (even if they didn’t handle this concern very productively despite likely meaning to)… I have to wonder how this could apply to Gus?

I can see the Blight Twins getting to know Gus, they think he’s a cute little kid, and like everybody else, they adopt him as a little brother! Gus eats it all up, he’s a kid who likes the attention of course. No doubt, Emira and Edric are inspired by Gus’ skill with illusions, likely seeing him as capable of being better than even them, and encourage it! Gus, of course, is flattered and feels better about himself.

It’d be cute to see Ed and Em give Gus a few pointers on Illusions… Maybe receiving a lesson or two from him, because even if they don’t like school or learning, they’d at least enjoy the pragmatic effects of illusions in pulling off pranks and their little rebellions! However, I can also see them maybe looking down on Gus as being even younger to them than Amity is… Without meaning to, they might accidentally contribute to Gus’ feelings of being overlooked. Especially since Emira and Edric might try to encourage Gus to join in on their mischief, or ‘misuse’ his lessons to pull off pranks…

Gus could feel a bit conflicted. But on the other hand, he HAS gone through growth, and Perry was clearly a much more supporting parent than Odalia and Alador. I can see Gus vouching for himself, refusing to participate in anything… And worst-case scenario, Emira and Edric wonder why he’s being so stuck-up, but otherwise they respect the kid’s decisions, and don’t try to force him in! They didn’t hold any grudges against Luz for going against their plan to post Amity’s diary entries, after all. Maybe Gus enjoys the role of being a teacher, but also feels obligated to do more than just provide academic lessons, but emotional ones as well…

Either through Luz, through his observations of Amity’s crippling self-loathing, and/or hearing down the grapevine… Gus realizes that Emira and Edric aren’t doing so well! Maybe he tries to ‘set them on the right track’, or at least try to provide some form of therapy… He probably feels bad because Odalia and Alador are utter trash, whilst current evidence points towards Perry being one of the best parents this show has to offer!

And while I can see Ed and Em being touched and flattered by the gesture, maybe they’re also put off by it as well, because Gus is WAY too young to be telling them what to do… But like with Luz, they hold no grudges and mostly just appreciate the sentiment, at least. Maybe this contributes to Gus feeling like he’s not listened to, and maybe some genuine concern for Ed and Em as yet another addition to his collection of surrogate older siblings… I can also see Gus getting in over his head, thinking he really DOES know best, and perhaps intruding on some boundaries!

Which, this could lead to Emira and Edric maybe getting a bit more hostile, if they see similarities to Amity because of this… And then they might realize that hey, Gus IS a lot like Mittens, in a sense! They’re both young, child prodigies who do incredibly well, they speak of a family lineage they’re proud of and apparently feel obligated to carry out… Amity is aiming for the Emperor’s Coven, but even SHE hasn’t ascended a few grades like Gus has! Which could lead to some concern for Gus, that maybe Perry is pressuring him, maybe imposing the ‘Porter’ legacy onto the kid…

And while Gus DOES have some insecurities here or there, of being younger than the rest in his grade- I’m pretty sure he’s ultimately happy with the decision, and it’s something he agreed to alongside Perry! I say this because he’s clearly more happy and confident in himself than most of the cast, really, and if he DID have an issue with being above his grade… Like with Willow, the kid probably would’ve had this addressed and changed. I think it’s more than likely that Gus actually enjoys learning a lot, and he DOES appreciate ascending a few grades- He really seems to enjoy Illusions! It’s just that as a kid, and because of his unusual situation, he’s entitled to some insecurity here or there, but in the end, he doesn’t regret his decision; Just as Eda may have suffered from loneliness as a Wild Witch, but she DID choose this, she’d never change her mind to become a covenscout, and maybe her sister Lilith needs to acknowledge this!

Which, if Emira and Edric also act as (surrogate) older siblings, like Lilith was to Eda… Then maybe they’ll have to learn to recognize Gus’ own decision and autonomy when it came to passing a few grades. Or at the very least, they first try to do things for Gus’ ‘own good’ like they did with Amity… Perhaps they misread the situation Gus has with Perry, maybe they project some of their own experiences, and accidentally try to vicariously live out another rebellion against parents through Gus…

Either way, they try to get Gus to rebel, to care less for his grades, to not listen to Perry, etc. And while Gus may at least learn to voice a thing or two with Perry (assuming he hasn’t already), it could lead to an artificial rift between father and son. Gus might feel uncomfortable, but he also recognizes that Ed, Em, and Amity WERE abused, so maybe they DO know better what his situation at home is actually like…

Spoiler alert, Emira and Edric have no idea! And while they mean well, this could lead to them trying the same tactics as they did with Amity, towards Gus… Again, encouraging him not to be a ‘rule-follower’, unintentionally belittling him and encouraging Gus to listen to them! Maybe not- Emira and Edric MAY have learned their lesson with Amity by now, but it’s not out of the question for them to occasionally, accidentally, relapse into old habits. Abuse and toxicity are hard to unlearn, man.

Maybe Emira and Edric even convince Gus to move back down to a lower grade! But in the end, Gus isn’t happy with this, he feels his intellectual needs aren’t being meant and his mind isn’t stimulated enough- He misses being back at his older grade level! Emira and Edric might try to dismiss this, that this is for his own good… But in the end, Gus has a lot of self-respect. He’s not Amity, nor Willow… He’s a lot more like Luz in that regard. He WILL eventually have to vouch for himself, and/or Emira and Edric will notice how uncomfortable he is before that has to happen.

In the end, Ed and Em realize that they’ve been mistakenly projecting their own insecurities onto Gus, and that they’ve screwed him over like they did Mittens, assuming they know the best; When in reality they don’t! This could lead to a crisis for the two, doubting their own judgment in anything… And Gus reassures the Twins that while they’re not perfect, they DID make progress against Odalia and Alador, and at least they’re trying! And then Gus says he’s proud of them, as a teacher, and as a ‘little brother’ to them in a sense… And Emira and Edric remember that even though Gus is a little kid, he knows a lot and has a lot of advice to offer- So they accept this, and they accept Gus’ autonomy and decision.

When Gus refers to being a part of a ‘long line of dweebuses’, he takes pride because his relationship with Perry is likely pretty good, and he genuinely looks up to his father and admires him because of this… And Gus WANTS to be a dweebus, because it’s something to be proud of; Knowing who you are and sticking with it! It’s Perry making Gus self-confident, that causes the kid to take pride in the Porter legacy, so to speak…

I can see some apologies being made, especially if Gus may have gone overboard himself, here or there- Maybe to the same extent as Ed and Em, maybe not. Either way, I can see Emira and Edric trying to leave Gus alone, for fear that they’ll just mess him up like they did Amity… And either Gus respectfully gives the two time to figure themselves out, and/or he once again reassures them! And Emira and Edric are baffled at how precocious this kid is, but are also impressed, while recognizing that Gus is still a kid by the end of the day and needs emotional support, just as much as anyone else, just as much as Mittens…!

And, I can see this leading to Emira and Edric better understanding Amity, and treating her with more love and respect; Especially now that they know that her situation is certifiably worse than Gus’. Obviously I can’t compare insecurities and act like Gus’ are lesser than Amity’s, his feelings are still valid… But let’s be real, Odalia and Alador are objectively worse than Perry! Either way, Gus DOES pass on a lot of wisdom to the twins, and ends up improving the Blight siblings’ relationship without even meaning to! Way to go, kid.

#the owl house #owl house #the owl house gus #gus porter #the owl house edric #edric blight #the owl house emira #emira blight #the owl house perry #perry porter #augustus porter #speculation

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imagine-valhalla · 4 years

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BEING SIGURD’S PARTNER/LOVER WOULD INCLUDE:

(anonymous said: hello there. want to say that I’m in love with yours imagines & to thank you for your work, it’s really amazing 😍 also, I know (pretty sure) that I’m the only person who loves this guy, but can I ask for something like “being Sigurd’s partner/lover would include” imagine?)

(a/n: thank you for saying that lovely! It means a lot to both admin kat and myself ❤. you are too sweet! 😊 i hope you enjoy what i have written up for you and hopefully it will meant the stander-ed to your sigurd feels! have fun reading. - admin wenzel 🌲💖)

(I APOLOGISE GREATLY IF THERE ARE ANY SPELLING MISTAKES BELOW WITHIN THIS PIECE OF WRITING. WITH THAT SAID, EITHER WAY PLEASE ENJOY!💖)

◾ If this Viking Prince truly cared for you, (to which clearly he would, hands down), Sigurd would rather appear to be quite possessive towards you, but nonetheless ever dotting and would hold such a great amount of love for you, that not even the all Mighty Gods from above you splinter. In the end, this son of the Great Ragnar Lothbrok would very much believe that you and himself were both destined for one another, forever expressing his gratitude towards the all Mighty Gods above for bring someone so breathtaking and sincere into his life, forever changing both of your lives for the better.

◾ It would become quite an common outcome for Sigurd to use his spare time, whenever that may be, to write up lovely melody’s about you. Truly having an outstanding gift with instruments and so on.

◾ With that stated; Sigurd would invite you on trips, whenever you both have the free time to somewhere far away and quite private, away from all the hustle and bustle within Kattegat while having the intention of play you his newest written melody, to which would be very much dedicated towards you once finding an rather peaceful and secluded area.

◾ It would be an rather known fact that this Viking Prince would completely detest and strongly loathe whenever his younger brother, Ivar were try to get your attention away from him or him uttering any words about or towards you or to even to glance your way, (etc). Clearly finding this rather quite irking.

◾ Whenever this situation would arise a blazing fire would always emerge within this vikings’ heart, making Sigurd snap like a wild crazed blood thirsty lion towards his crippled brother, Ivar. With irritation and envy boiling within him, Sigurd would spit threats and insults towards the cripple he never would call a ‘true’ brother. Before any of his brothers, his mother, or any other person/persons could stop him, he would make sure to stated that you are his and only his and that Ivar could never and would never have you no matter what.

◾ “You must be so idiotic in the head to ever think that (Y/N) or any woman out there would pick a cripple burden like you!” Sigurd would roar like a lion, his voice booming so loud it felt as though it were an earthquake. With spite consuming his words, body and soul, Sigurd quickly gave his younger brother a death-glare. It was as though this cripple of a ‘brother’ he was related to wanted everything he had dear to him. It was driving Sigurd insane like a deranged person. “When will you realise this!” He added “(Y/N) is mine and only mine!”

◾ On that note; If Sigurd were to ever to stumble upon you appearing to act rather sympathetic or quite kind-hearted towards his younger brother, Ivar, just know that Sigurd would be rather utterly disgusted to glimpse upon this act & would also become rather angered by your actions towards his cripple of an brother, clearly not being too overjoyed by this situation unfolding before his eyes.

◾ With this stated, Sigurd would straight away take you onto the side lines or somewhere quite private with the intention of vocalising his ‘view’ on this situation and questioning why you act this way towards his crippled brother, while expressing a huge amount of disbelief and annoyance.

◾ Overall Sigurd Snake in the Eye would clearly state that he doesn’t find it very intelligent or wise of you to behave or act toward his cruel crippled brother this way, and that you should stay completely away for this burden. But soon he would quickly turn possessive and would snap at you, telling you off like a child and would poison your mind with horrible, ill and dreadful facts, truths, and words of how Ivar really is.

◾ “Why must you behave with sympathy towards that burden, (Y/N)?” Sigurd questioned you while complete displeasure and disbelief were laced within his words. This was sickening upon site for himself to see you acting so foolishly and moronic towards his crippled brother. “For the things he has done, he does not deserve such things from others! Especially from you!”

◾ “No!” You would snap back into a bark while feeling outraged. It was as though your lover was acting like a simple-minded child. It was revolting. “I cannot believe that you can be so simple-minded!” You added with a wrath that was turning into a horrible storm. “You! You are the one that is the monster Sigurd!”

◾ If any person/person’s were to inflected ill, harmful or negative, (etc) actions or words towards or upon you, Sigurd Snake in the Eye would dash quickly to your side as though his body was possessed with superhuman speed if though it appeared as all the Mighty Gods from above were controlling his body. He would soon shut the person/person’s down with sarcastic rude comments or threats, telling them to leave you be before this scene could turn into a blood covered battlefield.

◾ It would be a fact that Sigurd would definitely without a doubt spoil and lavish you with all sorts of gifts from raids, the market, or self-made.

◾ “This is very thoughtful of you my love, it really is.” You declared out softly while a light-hearted smile spread across your lips. “But you do not need to shower me within gifts. For I already know your love for me, as I have for you.”

◾ If you were to suffer from night terrors, this viking prince would pull you into his warm embrace and would utter soft sweet nothings into your ears while rehearsing that it was just a nightmare. Sigurd would soon after declare that he would let nothing terrible happen to you and that he would protect you.

◾ “My sweet (Y/N), you need not to be afraid, for it was just a night terror.” Sigurd would hush out into the darkness that surrounded the both you. “For I swear upon all the Mighty Gods from above that nothing like that will ever happen. You will always have my heart and for that my protection.” He added on into a soft comforting whisper whilst pulling your trembling and damp form in his strong muscular arms further more.

◾ Whenever Sigurd or yourself would have time, after a busy day, to spend alone time with each other, Sigurd would show a rather soft and tender side, expressing his upmost love for you, that no other would have the chance to witness, (etc).

◾ At times when you both are side by side, no mattering if it were to be at a feast or just roaming the markets within Kattegat (etc), the other sons of the Great Ragnar Lothbrok would find any or all chances to tease one of there younger brother, to whom would be Sigurd, always being fond of getting a reaction out of him, especially with his younger brother, Ivar.

◾ When situations like this were to spiral out of control, especially if Ivar were to take his teasing too far (etc), Sigurd would straight away snap with a rather wild yet untamed rage, ready to strike the person(s) down with more power then the Mighty God Thor, not really having a care in a moment like that, for what would words or threats to escape his lips, like a poisonous venom, while at the same time making sure that he is to shield you with his protection.

◾ On the other hand, your viking lover, Sigurd would rather have an habit with showing you off, not mattering if it were his family or the whole of Kattegat, he is rather fond of wanting others to know that you are breathtakingly, but also of how grateful the all Mighty Gods above blessed him with someone like you within his life. Also deep down within his soul, Sigurd would rather find it pleasing when acting so, showing you off, clearly stating to all that you are his & only his, that no one could ever have you, (etc).

◾ With that jotted down, whenever a situation like this would arise, your viking lover would find this quite pleasing, yet being never the less amused. Especially if his so-called cripple of a brother, Ivar would be near.

◾ On another note, if you were ever to accompany your lover upon any sorts of raids, he would appear rather support of your decision and wouldn’t be the type of lover to deny you of such things, but would keep very much keep an close eye on you at all times, no mattering if you both were on the battle field or upon the boats while it navigates towards the right path, (etc).

◾ On that topic; I think if you were to ever get badly injured or near to death upon the battle field, Sigurd would never forgive himself. Resulting in himself staying all hours by your side, making sure you are getting the right and proper help from the healers, whilst feeling deep down rather angry with himself for not having kept you closer.

sigurd snake in the eye gif : source - 🏹

hope you enjoyed! please follow for more, lovelies.

#imagine-valhalla #vikings #vikings history channel #vikings history #vikings sigurd #sigurd snake in the eye #headcanons #headcanon #vikings would include #vikings would includes #would include #would includes #relationship would includes #would involve #would involves #sigurd ragnarsson

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impalementation · 4 years

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Do you think there is a connection between Buffy chosing name Joan in Tabula Rasa and Spike telling her she's addicted to misery in Normal Again? Does Buffy think of herself as a martyr?

sorry in advance that this reply sort of went all over the place. it’s an interesting question!

first, i think answering the martyr question depends on how one defines “martyr”. if we’re talking in the basic sense of “sacrifices oneself for a cause” then buffy certainly is one, and she does mention her sacrifices at various times throughout the show. even from the very first episode, it’s clear that buffy thinks that slaying is something she has to sacrifice something of herself for--her “normality”, her life, her peace of mind. but on a meta level, i wouldn’t say that buffy is a typical martyr figure, because the show frames her sacrifices as fundamentally unjust. as opposed to something worth deifying--the definition of martyr that is more like “sainted for sacrificing oneself for a cause”. the narrative treats buffy as heroic in part because she repeatedly chooses self-sacrifice over people getting hurt, but i don’t think it ever canonizes her for this aspect of her heroism. it doesn’t make her an exalted object of worship…with maybe the exception of her headstone and crucified swan dive in the gift. because note how after buffy sacrifices her life in prophecy girl and the gift, or sacrifices angel in becoming, the show doubles down on her humanity and trauma. when she was bad, anne, and most of season six all emphasize the emotional and psychological toll of buffy’s life as a slayer, and feature her really fucking up, or generally not being a saint. the show pays for its martyr imagery in the gift by bringing buffy back to earth in every sense of the word. i’ve always found it pretty impressive writing honestly, the way that the show consistently makes buffy’s pain humanize her instead of glorify her.

then there’s "martyr” in the sense of “acting martyred”. which is more like “exaggerating victimhood for sympathy”. or “righteously wallowing in one’s suffering”. which i don’t personally think that buffy really does, but it’s certainly something that characters and audience members accuse her of. see cordelia calling her a “cry-buffy” or faith in who are you? saying of buffy: “i could do anything i want, and instead, i choose to pout and whine and feel the burden of slayerness?” or willow’s mockery of her in grave. what i would say is that buffy definitely has a tendency to not talk to other people about her pain because she doesn’t think they would understand. for instance, her leaving all of her friends behind in anne or not telling them about heaven in season six. i don’t think that “martyred” is really the right word for that, since it has such derogatory connotations, and because this tendency of buffy’s is not really, in my opinion, about buffy flattering herself or seeking pity. but there is absolutely a way in which buffy keeps her feelings locked up, and stews in them, and doesn’t really feel able to talk about them, in a way that is tied up in her “special”, heroic status. she even says explicitly in conversations with dead people that on some level she feels like the love and validation of her friends doesn’t matter because “they haven’t been through what [she’s] been through. they’re not the slayer.”

she’s also (in my reading) preoccupied with her goodness to a pretty intense degree, which is why her failure to live up to her ideal of herself in season six is so devastating to her sense of identity. she seems to feel an obligation to be “good” because of her heroic status—it’s telling that when she breaks down to tara about spike she describes him as “everything i’m supposed to be against.” as in, she seems to think of herself as betraying some exalted, heroic ideal by being with him, rather than just having an unhealthy relationship. you could also probably read her self-punishment that season as having similarly exalted motivation. like she is taking it upon herself, as the slayer, to punish herself for not being a “good” enough slayer. it’s how i read her turning herself in in dead things, anyway. these tendencies to self-isolate and elevate personal suffering to cosmic importance are definitely not healthy (even if her personal suffering sometimes is actually, uh, cosmically important), and do have things in common with acting martyred. but are way more complicated than just “playing the victim” or something. i don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s pretty much always “bad” people that suggest that that’s what buffy is doing. because the show sees much of buffy’s suffering as genuinely unfair, and thinks she is good for not rolling over and accepting it.

so to connect this to spike’s lines in normal again, i think we’re meant to see him as both right and wrong. as is the case with many of spike’s speeches. he’s upset, like dawn was, at buffy rejecting him from her life, and reacts with his well-worn tactic of hitting people with the almost-truth right where they’re most sensitive. he calls her attitude “nasty martyrdom” because, given his soullessness, he’s not in a position to really understand her depressive self-loathing. but he’s absolutely right that buffy holds herself to heroic ideals that make her miserable. and given that he was the tool she was recently addictively returning to to punish herself, it’s not strange that he would think of her as “addicted to the misery”. he gets that buffy is needlessly beating herself up, and using her heroic ideals as the bludgeon. he gets that she doesn’t feel allowed to be happy. he gets that she feels somehow trapped between what her friends represent and what he does. but he doesn’t get how that behavior is a product of self-hatred, instead of some kind of overwrought masturbatory self-interest, and is therefore unable to be sympathetic to it. even as he correctly identifies that her mindset is unhealthy.

i don’t know if they’re meant to parallel each other, but it feels deliberate that we get that scene in never leave me that also takes place in buffy’s bedroom, only this time it’s spike that’s having his brain fucked with, and buffy that suggests he’s feeling sorry for himself. and spike tells buffy that he finally understands the thing he couldn’t in season six, including normal again.

BUFFY: So, that's what this is about. You feeling sorry for yourself, Spike?

SPIKE: I’m feeling honest with myself. You used me.

BUFFY: Yes.

SPIKE: You told me that, of course. I never understood it though. Not until now. You hated yourself, and you took it out on me.

BUFFY: You figured that out just now?

SPIKE: Soul's not all about moonbeams and pennywhistles, luv. It's about self-loathing. I get it.

as for whether we’re meant to draw a line between normal again and buffy naming herself “joan” in tabula rasa, i’m not sure. the name “joan” seems like a dual joke about the fact that joan is a blandly normal name compared to “buffy”, but is also a name that evokes the grand sacrificial heroism that buffy is capable of. a joke about which parts of buffy’s identities are permanent or not. but if there is a connection, i think it’s related to the season’s general deconstructive mindset. buffy’s identity crisis in season six is all tied up in her idea of what a hero looks like, and so in that respect it’s very significant that buffy at the end of the gift was buffy at her most mythically heroic. the kind of heroism frozen at a moment of perfect, martyred sacrifice. similarly, joan is normal and happy and heroic, a version of herself--like the buffybot--that buffy feels distant from. but no one can live up to that sort of perfection day to day. buffy’s struggle to confront her human imperfection parallels the season’s attempt to make itself and its audience confront their own expectations regarding perfect, happy heroes. everyone, including buffy, is frustrated that something seems “wrong” with her. so the two scenes seem related in that they both suggest that buffy is drawn to heroism and idealism, consciously or unconsciously. which is relevant to the season’s implication that a fixation on such ideals can be as crippling or harmful as they are noble.

#s6 #buffy

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tolkienhorror · 3 years

Text

In Sauron’s Lab: File #5

Another oneshot about one of Sauron’s torture methods.

Warnings: Abuse, torture, non-con, flaying, public humiliation, cannibalism, medical torture.

Please note: This was created on a tumblr prompt given on my main blog. Prompt: Fingon/Sauron, Audience, Crying, Collaring, Public humiliation

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I asked for a King to replace the one you lost, Lieutenant, and all you bring me is this, Morgoth had told Sauron when the orcs had dragged Findekáno into the throne room of the enemy’s base.

You have a week to break him, the Dark Lord had told his minion, interrupting Sauron’s almost nervous sounding explanations about how very useful the son of the new High King would be in their hands for their cause, black eyes uncaring, greyish skin glowing like the destructive flash of lightning in the shine of the Silmarils wrongly crowning that terrible, hollowed face. You make him kneel for me, or you can go right back to that mountain I pried you and feed another of your bodies to the crows.

Then they’d taken him away, and Findekáno remembered wondering if it would even take him a week at the mercy of someone who’d long given up on all empathy along with his sane mind, only to serve this monster who didn’t even bother caring about him in the presence of a prisoner, before he would wish for death. For a quick end, rather than clinging to the foolish hope that someone would come to find him here.

No one would. No one even knew he was here and they wouldn't for several weeks, not before he was expected home from his journey to Himring to surprise his husband. By the time, they would start to wonder in Hithlum, it would be too late.

Maitimo would probably learn last, and even he would not come. Findekáno had made him promise, made him swear on everything safe for what would have bordered on an oath that neither of them needed another one of. More than that, Maitimo would know, better than anyone, that Findekáno had been lost the moment his escort and he had been overwhelmed with the help of countless black arrows and half a dozen of fiery whips from behind. A year, he had once told Findekáno. If you could hold on to your will to live or your sanity or both for a year of being a prisoner in Angband, you were counted among the lucky ones.

As it turned out, for Findekáno, it was two days before he started to regret that he hadn’t tried to bite through his own wrist arteries in these few minutes that he’d spent alone in a pitch-dark, moldy cell, damned to wait for whatever what was to come. And that was before anyone had even touched him.

Findekáno had no doubt that a lot of them wanted to. Two of the boldest creatures reaching out for him had died already when another of Morgoth's highest ranking Lieutenants had dragged Findekáno from his cell to lead him towards a huge hall at the end of the dungeon wing that had already echoed with the screams of more than one of his people at that point. And dozens orcs more were very clearly waiting for their chance, lurking in the corner of that torture chamber, scarred faces distorted into sneers. The scornful whispers about all that they would love to do to their most precious prisoner given half a chance were only interrupted by the occasional brawl or by the sounds of two or more of those despicable bastards starting one of their perverted, brutal mating rituals, high on watching their master use his songs and evil instruments and cruel skill on yet another elvish prisoner.

But they would not be allowed to approach. And the one person Sauron would not lay hand on, was Findekáno himself. The former maia might long be beyond a sane mind, but if there was one thing he was not, it was stupid. Very well aware of Findekáno's relationship to the prisoner that Findekáno had robbed him of under his very nose not too long ago, not least thanks to everything Sauron had seen in Maitimo's mind in decades of not only physical but also mental torture, Sauron must know that there was very little he could have threatened Findekáno with that he didn't expect. Spending night after night with talking Maitimo through his nightmares and memories had made sure of that. Repeat performances were very obviously not among the maia's twisted preferences. So he chose to confront Findekáno with the only thing he could truly hurt him with: the suffering of his own soldiers. Which would have been bad enough on its own, but it still wasn't the worst.

Findekáno would gladly have borne every pain, every humiliation if he could have saved any of his warriors by that, even if it was only by the blade to their throats. The uncertainty of what would come for exiles like them afterward was better than even an hour under the clawed hands of Morgoth's lapdog. If they'd let him, Findekáno would have taken the place of every single of the elves and she-elves he had to watch scream their lives out and yet not being allowed to die in the first days of his captivity; and that, too, was something Sauron knew, of course. The worst was that being the only choice Findekáno could not make. This was the promise he had given his husband in return. That he would not give in. That he would not trade his soul for a couple of lives that were forfeit anyway, weakening his own mind by letting the cunning spirit of the maia enter it to rip it wide open and put into it whatever Sauron thought suited to bend Findekáno to his will. They could not have him as long as he did not give himself to them, they said, Maitimo said, so he would endure. For he knew, if his mind would no longer be his own, if he would go back to his people in the fashion Morgoth doubtlessly wanted him to, no longer himself but merely a vessel … A vessel like they had had to eliminate so many who had allegedly escaped their thralldom, coming to either his father's or Maitimo's doorstep for assault rather than refuge … Then the first person they would set Findekáno to kill would be his own husband. By refusing to give his enemies this chance, therefore trading the life of the person he loved most for the one of dozens – almost a hundred, in the end – other elves, Findekáno thought, maybe he had actually sold his soul already.

A high-pitched yell, quickly cut off by the choked gurgling of blood blocking the throat it had emerged from, tore him from the useless circle of self-hate that was his mind.

"As I was saying before you so rudely started to disassociate," Sauron sighed in that honey-laced voice of his while throwing the tongue he'd just cut from his victim's mouth in a bowl nearby, "I'm starting to think, that useless husband of yours made the wrong choice, relinquishing his claim to the throne. If all people from your side of your kin are as breakable as your unit, Your Highness, the Noldor might have been better advised living even under those kinslaying, crippled hands of your lover. Or rather, the one you haven't cut off when you were too weak to break a single shackle, that is."

Findekáno still did not give the bastard the satisfaction of an answer. He hadn't addressed the maia a single time since they'd taken him and very carefully avoided even regarding that black-clad, delicate shape with more than a fleeting glance from the corner of his eyes. It was better, not staring into those flaming eyes for too long, Maitimo had used to tell him, for you never knew what might stare back at – into – you. Besides, he was too busy, trying not to throw up when his torturer yanked the head of that elf who was firmly chained to a narrow wooden table, to the side by his red-matted blond hair, catching the streams of blood from the victim's mouth in that same bowl before handing it to one of the orcs without even looking twice, leaving the delightedly screeching creatures to fight over their breakfast. Once more, Findekáno wished he could have told the elf – his captain – that it would be over soon, at least, but judging by the last three scenes of this kind he'd already had to watch, chained to a chair of metal himself in a way that left no inch of a room to try and free himself, that would have been a blatant lie.

Sauron hated being distracted by too much talk when he was working but he very much enjoyed hearing his victims scream, that was all. So this was always how he started. "Let's see if we can get a little more fight out of this one, shall we? It would be a shame if you had to do without the leader of your escort once you'll promise yourself to the Lord of this world."

The Never was on the tip of Findekáno's tongue, but it never came, and maybe not only because he refused to acknowledge the numbing poison that was Sauron's words with anything but a blank stare. It was hard, holding on to resistance when you had to watch your enemy reach for a diamond-sharp knife and put a first clean, deep cut to his newest victim's body, right around the wrist, in front of the broad shackle holding the captain's arm in place, and then start to peel off the first layers of skin inch by inch, finger by finger, more patches of flesh and skin carelessly thrown towards the drooling audience. It was a mercy, one that Findekáno shouldn't be half as thankful for as he was, that the elf's voice was soon too sore from screaming to produce more than a hoarse noises, hardly even able to drown out the mirthful whistling on Sauron's lips that was a most basic healing spell to keep blood loss and infections at bay. And it was an irony that wasn't lost to Findekáno, that he'd spent almost two years, trying to convince his husband that he had no reason to hate himself for what he'd seen and been forced to do during his own captivity, and that he could feel the same blackness of loathing wash over his own soul now; thick acid trying to bury every memory of light and love and friendship especially to these people he had to see suffer right in front of his eyes, maybe never to be revived. It was far easier to believe in innocence when you weren't the one watching silently. That heaviness of shock and any missing rest for days, that had started to take hold of his soul, was spreading, creeping over his skin in droves and leaving it numb, so that he did not realize, there were tears rolling down his cheeks, until Sauron was suddenly standing right in front of his chair and grabbed his cheek to slowly lick the salt off his face with his forked tongue, laying hands on him for the first time. The nausea grew instantly, a gagging sitting in the back of Findekáno's throat that he didn't want to let his enemy hear either, so he just jerked his head away and bit his tongue bloody to keep silent.

"You taste sweeter than your lover, little Princeling," Sauron murmured huskily, blood-covered, spidery hands brushing through Findekáno's messy hair. "You might want to rethink your priorities. You could have a life so much better by my side than being the useless son of a lesser King. The only thing you're doing right now is hurting everyone in this room." Findekáno's ongoing silence seemed to be loud enough, because he backed away with a shrug. Ridiculously gentle for what he'd been doing to every of Findekáno's soldiers for a few days now, he tugged two of the golden ribbons from his braids and went back to his current victim. After handing his minions another bowl full of red to slurp that had been filled by that skinned hand of a barely conscious elf in the last few minutes, he wrapped the ribbon around the mess of twitching, bared muscle and pressed the captain's wrist down against the table with his elbow while reaching for a long nail and a hammer. "Now, now." An admonishing noise came from Sauron's cherry-red lips when Findekáno turned his head away, unable to stand the sight of that nail being pressed right in the middle of that ruined palm, with only the fabric of the ribbon between, the sight of a usually so proud, brave warrior arching up against his chains in fear. "Is that a way to honor your people's sacrifice for you, Your Highness? You won't even look at them while they're suffering for you?"

A sob that he could no longer hold back came from Findekáno's lips but could never make it past the echo of the new, broken scream from one of his oldest friends when the hammer drove the nail through his flesh in a single strike.

It didn't last long, because the elf had finally blacked out which didn't stop Sauron from repeating the same cruel process on the other arm so that his victim came to even more inhuman pain. With the second nail in place, the chains were no longer necessary to hold that marred, infection-weakened, writhing body in place as Morgoth's butcher reached for his knife once more. "Did you know, my precious Prince," he said calmly while he put the blood-smeared tip to the elf's left side, right under the ribcage, "there's at least four organs a Firstborn body can survive without? And a dozen others of which you can take at least half away before you need to sing the rest back together to function? You should know. I've fed a couple of your husband's parts to my wolves. I think they might get some more elvish dinner tonight." The knife started to cut. With a disgusting, meaty sound, a mess of red and yellow was dropped in a bucket below the table.

But this time, it wasn't the captain's scream that filled the room the loudest but a sound Findekáno hadn't known he was about to make before it came, his resolve shattered into pieces.

"What was that?" Now it was Sauron, not even looking up but reaching for needle and thread instead to close the crude cut he'd just made before his victim could bleed out on him. "Anything you want, my precious Princeling? All you have to do is ask, you know."

"Please." This time, the word came quietly, but clear and unmistakable. Apparently, after all this time that Findekáno had thought he would be the rock in their relationship, had to be, because Maitimo didn't have the strength anymore, it was time to admit, that his husband had been the stronger one between them from the start. Perhaps, when it came to it, if Findekáno would only ever leave this fortress again an enemy of his own people, no longer the master of his own mind and thoughts and will, his husband would even be strong enough to kill him before Findekáno could beat him to it. "Stop. If it is me you want, release my people."

"Is that an order, Your Highness?" Wholly unimpressed, Sauron moved to his victim's other side and caressed the quickly, panicked heaving chest with just the tip of his knife, as if trying to make out the best spot to continue his gruesome work. "I do not need more food for my troops and beasts. I need a servant loyal to me and my master. Is that what you want, Prince of the Noldor? To serve the Dark Lord?"

"Yes." It became easier, Findekáno found dully, once you had given in to your fate. He did not even shy away from that triumphing, flickering stare of his enemy any longer. Maybe it would hurt less if he let himself fall for it quickly.

"Yes, what?" His hand wandering lower, Sauron thrust his knife deeply into his victim's loins, spearing a kidney, impatiently wiping blood of his cheek, both from the new horrible wound and from the captain's mangled hand, from its useless, mindless attempt of freeing itself from the nail crucifying it.

"Yes. Master." Findekáno never lowered his head. There was no use, trying to look away now.

"Better. We're getting there." Sauron just left his tool right where it was, impaling his victim's body in a third place, and went to the back of a room to open a silver box with the symbol of his eye on it that had been waiting there from the first hour on. A flash of gold and obsidian shone in the bright candle light as he slowly approached Findekáno, dangling from a lazy finger a broad collar with sharply carved tips at the top and the bottom. In the hand of a fire maia, the horrible adornment quickly started to heat, a dangerous orange glow matching the hair of Findekáno's torturer, pulsating right in front of his eyes when Sauron stopped by his chair and grabbed his chin, forcing him to surrender to that black stare again. "Ask for it, my sweet little pet, then I might think about allowing your incompetent captain over there to die."

The last of tears dried on Findekáno's skin as he left a part of him behind that he knew would not return, no matter how his life would look from now on and for how long. I'm sorry, Russo. "Please, Master, put your collar on me. Let me serve you."

"So easy." With a lazy snap of fingers, the chains holding Findekáno clicked open, allowing his knees to give out under him all by themselves when an ice-cold hand was wrapped around his braids, shoving him off the chair.

He thought, he could fight, for a moment. But he'd also thought that when they had first brought him into this room, and the rest of that day, he'd spent watching fifty orcs raping one of his best friends to death, so that spark died down as quickly as it had come. It had been too late to fight the moment he'd let himself be foolishly raided from behind instead of securing the area well enough.

"Your father should thank me that I'm taking the weakling that calls himself his firstborn from him," his enemy chuckled, a clear hint of arousal mixing into the purr of triumph in his voice as Findekáno winced and gasped for air, in vain, as the collar was closed around his neck. Melted into one by a single hummed tone, the heated metal was scorching his skin, the first exhausted attempts of breathing, of swallowing leaving marks and cuts on him. "This does look a lot prettier on you though than on your lover, my new favorite pet. Why don't you show me how you like to please him?" Under the approving cheers and leering of the orcs, laces were opened without haste. Thick, crooked hardness brushed Findekáno's tight lips, with ridges and barbs adorning the misshaped appendix that he knew he would soon feel somewhere entirely else and be forced to pretend and love it. If nothing else, at least Sauron was predictable.

But Findekáno didn't move, not yet, ignoring that hand in his braids that was grabbing him harsher by the second. His eyes wandered to the table in the middle of the room that was dripping blood on the ground in a slowly growing pool.

The sounds of searing agony from there still hadn't fallen silent.

Sharp fingernails scratched over his cheek, prying his mouth open with ease, the first brutal bump of hardened flesh against the back of his throat cutting off any protest before it could come. "If you worry about him so much, I suggest, you hurry to please your master, pet. It's only up to you how much more your people will have to take before I let them go."

It was another lie, of course, but one, Findekáno thought, he could live with. None of his soldiers would leave this fortress alive. If he could keep Sauron's filthy paws off of them for the rest of what was their ruined life, he would, at least, have done something right in the mess that his life had become. Findekáno had given up.

#Sauron #fingon #sauron's lab #fanfiction #DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT

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unwiltingblossom · 4 years

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Code: Realize Route Review - Victor Frankenstein

to be fair to everyone else, this doesn’t include his Future Blessings content, but mmm MMMMMMM that’s such good content that I will 100% be making reviews of all of them, especially Victor’s.

MY HEART. MY BOY. MY SWEET PRECIOUS CINNABUN.

I’d save him for last because he’s transparently my favorite, but I’m trying to do this in the play order I’ve worked out should be done. Victor was my first route, though, because aaaa he’s so perfect - this was a bad choice both because it meant I saw him in all other routes and couldn’t romance him and because he spoils everything except Germain and Lupin’s routes. (He doesn’t spoil a plot twist in Impey per se, but information Impey gives you is redundant if you play Victor, and you’re definitely supposed to have Van and Impey’s routes done to make the ‘surprise’ in Fran’s route work. It’s not a surprise if you go directly into Victor’s from Common Route)

Anyway, Victor should be done third. It spoils Van Helsing’s route and negatively impacts Impey’s route. Germain’s route spoils Victor’s so even though Van’s teases Germain’s, you should do Victor before San-chan.

Victor Frankenstein

THE BOY’S PERFECT.

Anyway, Victor has an unfair advantage over all the other guys, even Lupin. He shows up the most in the common route and is super important to Cardia. He’s technically the third introduced, but Impey’s solo scene with Cardia is shorter and mostly focused on bullying Impey, and Lupin suffers from what he’ll always suffer from: plot is way more important than him whenever it’s ‘his’ time. If you don’t believe me, trust me anyway. I will make a whole separate post to PROVE to you that Victor gets an unfair advantage in the common route compared to literally everyone else.

But it’s no joke to say that Victor Frankenstein’s route feels the most ‘natural’ of them all, because the common route does such a good job of setting it up (especially if you’re going for his route) that by the time you’re on his route you can’t imagine her ending up on anyone else’s route. It’s so effective that Victor being my first route made me think that the whole common route adapted and gave special scenes to whatever the highest affection boy was, so that you naturally fall into their arms like ‘well of course they fell in love’.

It’s so significant I can’t even review his route without talking about his common route parts.

So let me stop rambling and get on with it.

Victor, like Impey, has a really obvious role in the story that you know basically immediately. He’s the cute nerd who’s also the only doctor for Cardia, dedicated to improving her life because he feels responsible for her creation and is suffering from crippling guilt over the Vampire War. He makes her clothes, he identifies the gem in her chest, he explains where it came from and what it’s meant to be, and he teaches her how to handle chemicals. Which she takes to REALLY well, because Isaac is her dad.

Victor’s route further explores the fact that the Vampire War was all just a staged play and more of a pointless genocide than an actual ‘war’, and that’s part of why Helsing’s route should be played first, but also Alistair is outright villainous in Victor’s route, so it’s impossible to be fooled in Van’s route if you’ve done Fran’s first.

You may not know immediately if you don’t also guess/know that Cardia is a homunculus, but Fran is one of...I think just two? who know immediately that Cardia is a homunculus. Most of the men find out when she does, after they’ve already fallen for her, but not Victor. He knows from the beginning, and despite that, all he ever sees her as is a human girl like anyone else. He loves her knowing full well what she is, because to him she’s always just been an innocent girl he caused harm to.

Fran’s one of my favorite routes on a purely technical level, because Cardia learns chemicals and uses them alongside Victor. He doesn’t let her use the deadly explosive kinds because he’s super protective, but his is one of the routes where her training actually comes in to play, rather than expecting her to step back and let Fran protect her. In fact, his route requires you to treat him as an equal and trust him implicitly.

Victor’s route was super easy to get into for me because I was a simpering fool for Fran anyway. You’ve got to go with him to help protect him in the train during the tag team mission, and ideally you’re supposed to trust him to be able to handle himself against the Twilight soldiers even when it looks like he’s backed into a corner and helpless, because he wants to protect Cardia so much he’d rather be put in danger than let her endanger herself.

Cardia’s route is probably the roughest encounter with Finis, as he succeeds in activating the Horologium before Victor can show up to save her, turning her into a ticking time bomb that can’t be turned off.

Victor is actually so attentive to Cardia. When Cardia tries to sneak out of the mansion at the very end of the common route because she thinks she’s a monster, she looks back to the mansion because her heart aches at the thought of never seeing Victor anymore...but there he is. He noticed she was trying to sneak away and followed after her, because Victor would rather banish himself than allow her to feel alone. Imagine my surprise when I found out like half the other routes Cardia just escapes because no one notices her trying to sneak away.

So, Victor doesn’t just reject that she’s a monster, he rejects it with the authority of having always known her true nature not out of some spat of denial. He accepts her completely, and loves her even in her darkest moment. Then he promises he will do anything to save her, and runs off into the night.

It’s just about the next morning that Cardia realizes this strange feeling in her heart might actually be love, but oh my gosh. This girl has it bad. She’s always dedicated to her routemate, but with Victor, she is laser focused on him and only him, and will blindly rush into danger if it means seeing him.

to be fair, though, Victor is basically the same thing. Honestly, you wouldn’t expect the scientist of all things to have maybe the most action packed route but dang, he is just IN THE THICK OF IT. He jumps off a bridge with Cardia while a bunch of Twilight soldiers are shooting at them and that’s at the beginning of his route.

Especially if you’ve played through Impey’s route where Cardia can’t stop taking back her confessions and Van’s route where he pretends he isn’t in love to ‘protect’ her, the fact that Victor and Cardia admit they’re deeply in love and will say it just over and over again, without ever doubting each other or questioning each other about it, it’s really nice. Maybe a tad mushy, but the angst on the route helps balance that.

For me, Victor’s route was the easiest route to play. I didn’t hit any bad ends for Saint Germain, either, but I was more uncertain about some of the choices. Victor’s are so easy you kind of have to choose them on purpose to fail.

Victor doesn’t trust himself, Cardia and Victor both believe they don’t really deserve to live. The fact that the choices and overarching plot of the route is basically “Trust Victor because he’ll do literally anything to protect you, even controvert the laws of the universe, so don’t you dare give up, but also protect him from his own stupid choices motivated by survivor’s guilt” is pretty wholesome.

Victor’s route is, I would say, the most wholesome, and I’m sure I’m not biased or anything.

All the boys have things that allow them to sympathize with Cardia, but I feel like Victor and Cardia have the most similar backstory. Victor sees himself as a monster because his work massacred the innocent vampires, and Cardia sees herself as a monster because her poison killed the only person who ever loved her aside from her father who abandoned her and told her she wasn’t allowed to ever love anyone.

Granted, there’s no revenge or closure or anything on the villagers for what they did in Victor’s route, but there is acceptance, understanding, and healing, because both of them have ugly, horrible tragedy in their history that they can’t go back and change or make better, but they have someone who loves and understands them and doesn’t blame them for it anyway.

Victor is at once plagued with the guilt and self-loathing that tells him he doesn’t deserve to be happy and just so desperate to make up for what he’s done and find a way for someone to forgive him so he can forgive himself.

But man.

Cardia is transforming into the Philosopher’s Stone in Victor’s route, which means this person he loves, the only person who knows everything about him and loves him anyway, is a ticking time bomb who is going to explode and wipe out an entire city full of innocent people again, and it’ll be his fault for not doing anything.

Because the queen isn’t pretending to be a good person in this route, she gets the most development out of all the routes. (she has a really weak and shallow epiphany in Lupin’s route that matches Victor’s, but that’s the ‘must resolve all plot threads whether it makes sense or not’ thing) It’s also the one that most clearly shows she’s romantically interested in her knight.

Victor’s route climax has him caught between two horrible fates: allow Queen Victoria to release the Zicterium and massacre her own people to plunge the world into a massive war so that Cardia will survive and be allowed to live as a normal human girl, dying beside her in the process, or...allow Cardia to be the one who kills all of Steel London when she explodes, killing her as well. No third option, no ‘save all of London’.

This is just. so cruel to Victor. He has a big flashing button on his chest that says ‘traumatized by the fact that Zicterium killed a bunch of people after he accidentally invented it’, and then his route climax is him stuck in a dilemma where the only answer is ‘everyone dies by Zicterium’.

Despite that, Victor thinks just incredibly fast on his feet, and he’s so dedicated to his ideals and pacifism that he’s able to finally sway Leonhard into defying the queen’s commands and defending her from herself. I don’t particularly find Victoria sympathetic regardless of her motivations, because she’s a ruthless killer who massacred the vampires and tried her literal hardest to do the same to her own people in a misguided attempt to protect Britain, but the route tries to make her sympathetic anyway.

Victor and Cardia both get BDH moments, including Cardia rescuing herself from being a hostage and showing up at the showdown to allow the heroes to fight to their fullest without fear of her being killed as a hostage.

And they’re always like ‘I’d rather die for you’ ‘no, I can’t live in a world without you, I’ll die first’. Honestly, they’re just...so adorable.

Cardia’s poison goes away late in the route because she’s mid-transformation, which gives Victor the ability to kiss and touch her without fear.

and rather than try to explain how cute it is, I show a picture and save probably literally 1,000 words

aaa

so perfect and cute.

...

I think I’ve gotten lost in the weeds again.

anyway.

so.

Honestly, you won’t be surprised by the queen AT ALL if you just go by what happens in the route. It relies on you being tricked by Impey and Helsing’s routes where she comes off as good-natured and reliable, so that you’ll fall for her tricks in Victor’s route. Aleister’s role in the route is pretty much superfluous, though, he’s there to be annoying and hold Cardia captive so that Victor can be scared for her, and then flounce off into the night in style because you just saw him star back in Van’s route.

The other boys also don’t contribute that much to Victor’s route, other than being there in the big showdown while they fight off the Twilight troops and helping Victor try to sneak into the castle again. Saint-Germain briefly features to tell Cardia what she’s feeling is love, but even though the routes usually have the ‘next in line’ feature in the route to tease you, there’s just so much going on with Victor that there’s no time for Germain to do much but look absolutely fabulous and murder Finis so hard he doesn’t come back.

Both of Victor’s endings are so good!

His normal/bad ending is one of the more tragic and painful of the endings, and while it’s not as completely different as Impey’s, it still feels unique and based off of the choice you make, not just collected affection points deciding if the story cuts off too soon or not.

It just works. Cardia deciding to take away the responsibility from Victor and save his life by killing herself is well within her personality, and it plays out so painfully tragic - as she didn’t know he was only moments away from finding the solution to save her.

It’s also interesting, because Fran’s is the only ‘normal’ ending in the original game where Cardia dies instead of the love interest. Her dedication to making sure that Victor survives, and her determination not to live a life without Victor is just that strong.

Poor Victor.

BUT ANYWAY ONTO THE GOOD END.

Victor being willing to put Zicterium in his mouth so that he can feed it to her, conveniently in the form of a kiss! Granted, he does point out it’s much less volatile and immediately deadly in liquid form, but it’s still extremely dangerous, since leaving anything behind or swallowing any of it could be terrible.

Victor gets to kiss Cardia more than the other boys, but, look. he

earned it

It kind of cracks me up, honestly, that while Victor is always looking for a cure for Cardia, it’s only on his route that he immediately figures out a fix. Most people have to either wait for Future Blessings before he’s done or complete her transformation into the philosopher’s stone, but Victor is like ‘well it’s a prototype but it’s one I’m willing to trust my lips and other things to’

To be fair, the version he gives Cardia in his route requires her to constantly take it, and never neutralizes it completely while the others are one-and-done, but still.

ANYWAY

The fact that Victor refuses to see her as anything but a beautiful, lovely, human young girl and that Cardia refuses to blame Victor for the atrocities that the queen perpetrated, that she gently holds him when he cries and he removes his gloves to touch her face when she thinks she’s becoming a horrible monster....they’re just so sweet.

They’re so adorable.

in conclusion:

VICTOR IS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also, how can I not love the ship when it is “Victor Frankenstein and his monster”

...anyway now that I’m done gushing about Victor (for now, wait for the coda and the future blessings review) I guess it’s time to move on and cry about Saint Germain, the second most perfect man.

#code realize #victor frankenstein #victor x cardia #code realize review #code: realize #victor frankenstein route #otome game #spoilers #ooc #i decided to make it prettier with pictures #should I go back and do the same for impey and van?

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innenofutari · 5 years

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Dimitri is one of the best lords of the entire franchise (Character Analysis)

[HUGE SPOILERS FOR MANY PARTS OF BLUE LIONS ROUTE]

Beware of spoilers! This is my messy attempt at conveying all my love for this route and lord, since he really touched my heart as no other Fire Emblem character previously did. And I posted this on Reddit as well, but figured I’d post here too because why the fuck not.

I just very recently finished the Blue Lions, and while I loved many parts of this route, what caught my attention the most was Dimitri. There is absolutely no way he isn't my favorite Fire Emblem character of all time now, and I would like to try and explain why, so here we go.

Right off the bat what made Dimitri painfully interesting to me was how similar his personality was to the common "kind, idealistic and naive" lord archetype we have in many games, but not quite.

In his nature, he is indeed kind and soft hearted, but his very own life goal goes against every single one of those principles, being something as ruthless and even bloodthirsty as revenge. For someone who feels like a monster for every life he takes, that's awfully contradictory if you ask me. And that's the key to Dimitri's conflicts, "contradiction".

Dimitri is a walking contradiction, he hates taking lives, and yet he obligates himself to do so, resulting in crippling self hatred. This forms an inescapable circle where, if he takes lives, he'll end up hating himself, but if he doesn't, he'll still hate himself for being incapable of avenging the dead and fulfilling the duty he established for himself. It's a maze with no exit that his trauma forced him in, creating two very opposing sides to his personality and actions.

Another thing that really pleased me with his writing, is that Dimitri's soft heartedness, kindness and naivety is never played as a quality, but as a flaw. Dimitri possesses an incredibly black/white, good/evil way to see the world, never realizing what's in between (which is very ironic, as he himself is a pretty morally grey character). This kind of thinking is one that clouds his judgement and makes it impossible for him to see the world as it is as well as impossible to truly forgive himself. Mercedes A support and Gilbert's entire support chain illustrate this perfectly.

Now, we get to the timeskip, where his mind and actions seemingly look like a totally insane person's who has broken down completely and just doesn't care about what he's doing. That seems like the first thing you'd assume, but I personally have a different way of interpreting timeskip Dimitri. For me, Dimitri is not insane nor crazy, he is totally aware of his own actions and in fact, willingly chose to act like the way he does until chapter 17. But rather the only way he saw of coping with the crushing self loathing he felt was by becoming the monster he thought he himself was. Dimitri thought that by completely forsaking his humanity and turning a blind eye to his own emotions, he could serve as the perfect vassal for the dead, with no will of his own.

One of my biggest gripes with Dimitri's character arc was that his change in chapter 17 felt way too abrupt for me especially since the writing until that point was so consistent and solid, but following this line of thought, it makes perfect sense for him to change so abruptly, since his timeskip change wasn't something that happened because he lost his mind, but a choice he willingly made and just a part of him that was always there resurfacing and taking control. Dimitri "turned into his old self" once again not because of the power of anime tropes, but because he dropped the whole "I'm a vassal for the dead with no identity nor humanity" thing the moment he saw a person he cared for dying in front of him, and he finally realized how selfish he was being, even if only for some minutes. Dimitri was sure that forsaking his humanity was the only way to stop his own suffering while simultaneously punishing himself (another one of this boy's contradictions), but he ultimately couldn't fully repress his "former self".

Rodrigue's death was the push Dimitri needed to finally realize that the dead didn't expect anything from Dimitri, and that he was his own person. Byleth later reaffirms Dimitri that he is his own person, and the dead shouldn't hold any power against him, to which he finally accepts and agrees to let go of hatred. Dedue mentions in chapter 18 if I remember correctly, that saying that Dimitri returned to his old self was an incorrect statement, since Dimitri had always been struggling with his two contradictory facets inside himself ever since the tragedy, and as he says in his Felix A support, they are both a part of him. This boy has been in constant emotional turmoil since the very first day we see him at the Monastery, living with those two conflicting parts inside of himself.

That's why Dimitri's development feels so satisfying, he's not only able to stop hating himself to such a crippling extent, but he also comes to understand that he is his own person. In his S support with Byleth he says that the voices of his dead loved ones will probably accompany him until his deathbed, but that this is a thing he now knows he's strong enough to fight against, successfully burying all the hatred his trauma has caused. His scene in Fhirdiad of him finally reclaiming the throne, and realizing that he is actually very beloved by his people, that they don't hold any kind of hatred or grudges towards him, will always do things to my heart. His whole life he just wanted to be forgiven, a thing he never allowed himself to do.

Thank you warriors who read up until this point, I'm well aware this is a massive wall of text but hey it was just made in good fun and love for Dimitri. Also, a last heads up but this is merely my own interpretation of Dimitri and by no means the absolute truth. Well written characters such as Dimitri can warrant a myriad of different interpretations, and this was just an attempt to share mine. (Would love to debate, too! Feel free to call me out since I have a tendency to overanalyze.)

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #dimitri fire emblem #his name is dimitri fire emblem this game will not fool me with fancy surnames #character analysis #meta #fe3h

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