#a lot of murder a lot of fucked up declarations of love etc

[heatwa-ves]

been thinking about my enstars mermaid au again I might draw art for it

[king-and-his-consorts]

Need to get a little something off my chest.

I am currently avoiding twitter because lots of people seem to be at each other's throats currently. One of those topics discussed is Sanji's "betrayal" in WCI. WCI is a favorite topic of mine so I figured I'd share some quick thoughts on this.

I always see people say things like "why didn't Sanji trust Luffy?" "Why did he attack him?" "Why didn't Sanji just leave with Luffy?" etc.

We're just going to get the "Why didn't Sanji just leave with Luffy?" out of the way first.

Answer: Sanji was being threatened with the promise of harm coming to Zeff (and others). Sanji knows that Germa has incredible reach. For all Sanji knows, they could have Zeff just in the dungeon right that second. He can't take that kind of chance because he has no definitive answers on the health and security of any of his loved ones. It would destroy him if he let Zeff come to harm. Also, I'm sure he's thinking that Luffy would be disappointed if he threw a loved one under the bus to save his own skin.

Next: "why didn't Sanji trust Luffy?" and "Why did he attack him?"

Answer: The answer to these are deeply intertwined.

Sanji and Luffy canonly have an extremely close relationship. They're very affectionate towards each other. They share a deep, passionate bond. The trust expressed between them time and time again cannot be denied. So, you see, Sanji did trust Luffy. He trusted Luffy to act as Luffy does.

The thing to remember is, Luffy is extremely possessive and territorial as well as headstrong and foolhardy. Sanji is his. Both he and Sanji know that he will stop at nothing to regain what is considered his. Knowing this, Sanji had to try whatever pitiful means he had to make Luffy not want him anymore. Verbal and physical violence were the only tools Sanji had available to try and get Luffy to drop his possessive mindset.

Verbally and physically attack Luffy were Sanji's last ditch effort to get Luffy to turn his nose up and leave. I believe that by saying mutinous things and attacking his captain, he was trying to simulate the conditions that caused Luffy to turn on Usopp in Water 7.

Why would he want this, you ask?

The answer is actually Robin in Enis Lobby.

Sanji knows Luffy. Sanji was there when Luffy literally declared war on the World Government in order to get Robin back. Sanji knows that Luffy still has the foolhardy conviction to declare war again.

The problem is that this time he would be declaring war on both Germa and the Big Mom pirates.

Half the crew is literally on their way to fight a war against Kaido at that very moment. If Sanji lets himself be rescued then his captain will have started a war with two yonko and a deranged warmonger all at the same fucking time. The thought of that has got to be frightening, especially in Sanji's currently extremely traumatized state of being. He can't handle the idea of his crew being murdered by three incredibly strong factions. So, Sanji does what he always does.

Sacrifice himself.

Sacrificing himself to a life of misery and loneliness. Sacrificing himself to an existence of his nakama hating and resenting him. Sacrificing himself to eternal guilt and agony that he attacked and betrayed those he loves most in this world.

Unfortunately, I believe that Sanji has not realized how much Luffy's logic and ability to read his crew has drastically increased. Luffy read him like a fucking book and refused to fall for Sanji's game. All it did was tighten Luffy's grip on Sanji's metaphorical leash. Luffy is incredibly selfish. He wasn't letting go of what was his and that was devastating to Sanji because now he has to live with the memories of beating the shit out of his captain and the fear for his nakama's safety.

___

Anyway, that is my personal view of Sanji's headspace in WCI. It's a very deep and drawn out topic but I don't have the spoons to expand further. sorry.

[eirrw]

spoilers are below the break and indented

2022-11-13, 15:13

so id written up this whole first impressions review after watching s2e1 of warrior nun but i think it disappeared into the aether?

im through s2e4 now and and opinions are pretty much the same. writing is better but still not great, feels like the got a better budget and/or practice on the vfx, storylines are interesting enough to make me want to keep watching

im sketch about the major new characters (but i always am (especially men)), but as theyre built out i am intrigued how things will go. there's some relationships hinted at that id love to see followed up on cause im a hopeless romantic at heart

theres also some kickass demon murder which is always cool

2022-11-14, 00:07

right so netflix already killed one show i loved this year (rip first kill, you were too stupid to live 🙏). if warrior nun doesnt get a third (final? wrap it up, dont push your luck) act i might actually fuckin riot.

and dont get me wrong, i have ~feelings~ about how the show went down (particularly e8), but those can (and should) be cleaned up

can we talk about the tropes that went into the last bit tho? kill your gays, forbidden lovers, borderline enemies-to-lovers, fuck! also the whole thing felt really male-gaze-ish

dont get me wrong, i was rooting for it the whole time (see: hopeless romantic), as someone who mostly ids as male it felt kinda icky. idk maybe im just drunk

but anyways, it was good solid fun and i think it deserves another go. give it a whirl netflix, take a risk, you have a content problem and making cool shows that ~some~ (not all!) people like helps

also it takes the piss outta the church. i think i make my view on religion fairly clear (and am happy to clarify them if i dont), but i am an absolute sucker for myth and legend and boy howdy do the abrahamics have a lot of that

christianity is of particular interest to me, maybe because its the predominant religion in my part of the world, and the one ive been exposed the most. i also find that in general its the least commonly to be used in a mythological sense

i love shit like warrior nun, or lucifer, or his dark materials (is the show good? i havent seen it), that use christian myth as an inspiration/basis and spiral out from there. like fuckin da vinci code is about the fake history, these build a fantasy out of the legends

i see "a lot" of stuff stemming out of islamic and jewish myths, and im not nearly well-versed enough to say why that is. maybe theyre older religions that hung on to some of the old gods cruft? the creatures and shit that dont really appear in christianity

and dont get me started on the ips that are built on other old religions. norse, greek, slavic, the "old gods" that are classified as myth solely cause no one really believes it any more

theres no difference to christianity, or judaism, or islam, outside of the fact that people still believe in it. its all stories to explain why the world is the way it is and codify a way to live

im mainly picking in the big three here, but i have the same feeling towards all the others. hinduism, shintō, etc dont get a pass

so yeah, more christian myth please. theres a lot of material there and making people mad is fun.

2022-11-14, 12:51

been thinking a bit more about why this bothered me so much can we talk about the tropes that went into the last bit tho? kill your gays, forbidden lovers, borderline enemies-to-lovers, fuck! also the whole thing felt really male-gaze-ish

i think its the build up. they were pushing this from e1 or e2 with the dance scene, but then did the ol classic "we're into each other but we're never gonna talk about it like normal people"

and the relationship never progressed. at all. until the last half hour when its just lets kiss and declare our love for each other

which fair, these chars are young and in a rough spot (mildly) so maybe theres no time for that. but it still felt weird

and something i see pretty often (from a certain crowd) in these situations is the "oh so youre just gonna make 'a' gay now? she never suggested anything like that", and its like, no

bi people exist. and if theyre in a heteronormative relationship then 1, good for them, and 2, they can still be into the same sex! they dont need to talk about it!

and in this case, 'a' had been confined to a bed in a catholic orphanage for most of her life. maybe the whole, oh i like girls too thing just didn't hit for a while.

and 'b' was obviously gay right from her exposition chat in s1, even if they didn't come right out and say it (see: catholics).

i love that it happened but im bothered that there was no depth to it. idk, maybe if they figured it out in like, e5, and were able to spend some time building up to that final release itd have gone down better

i.e. still tropey but at left i could have felt better about it

copied from twitter, 2022-11-13/14 https://twitter.com/virunus_/status/1591887046150340615

[bluarlequinno]

Omg you are so very right, Arlong aiming right for the heart those truly have quite the symbolic charge in it, I am haven't read the manga, but aiming for the heart those add a lot to it doesn't

He was aiming for the heart of a woman who had decided on her dying words to declare out loud the love she has for this two little girls who she decided are her daughters, Arlong aiming for the heart of a human, who he sees inferior to him, as if it's nothing and just with the flick of a trigger, it's gone, violently traumatizing Nami and Nojiko forever like he's saying, you are pathetic, your heart, the one that holds this human love, is pathetic and I have the power to take it away from you.

You could do a whole essay on how Bell-mére, Nami and Nojiko and their existence as a family defies any established ideas of womanhood, Maternity, family and how a woman must behave with herself and the world around her, how one should fight etc.

Bell-mére and her influence on Nami really shows afterwards through all her life, from how she handles herself and how she interacts with other people, especially men, Nami has no shame on unforgivingly taking space and being aggressive, rowdy, loud and wicked and it's so obvious that between Nojiko and Nami, Nami was deeply affected by Bell-méres influence, not to dismiss at all Nojiko or anything of sorts, but Nami is so heavily influenced by Bell-mére. I could go on forever about Nami and therefore Bell-mére and how they stand out from typical mother and female characters, Bell-mére's death isn't just sad, it's gruesome, it's fucking traumatic even for the viewer, it's a total disarming of expectations. One piece has been keeping back up until Bell-mére's death, like you mentioned there has been emotionally and tragic stories involving death before this, but not something so explicitly violent, such hopelessly cruel it is purposefully crafted to make the viewer realize the implications of THIS death, not only narratively for the future of the series, but also for the ideologies the series will push onwards, this death is an after point of the real implications of this world and what politics it will handle moving forward, yes it is one of the first backstories to go out of its way to fully develope the complex layers of tragedy the series will be able to handle, but it doesn't take away how impactful it was, it truly shocked me the first time I saw it, it was genuinely shocking (in a good way of course)

It isn't only about it being sad, this isn't just a main character's mother dying, this is a woman who decided to become a mother for pure love, for girls she didn't even know, a woman who has given before now, her life to a system that was the same one at fault for the tragedy that would come afterwards, murdered at the hands of a man who as if it was nothing, took out her heart, the declaration of every implied absence of declared love between this woman and this two girls who if not by blood, were trying so desperately to cling into this idea of family everyone doubted it was there, questioning Bell-mére's ability to raise this girls, money keeping them from legally being said family, it was in Bell-mére's declaration of love, in Bell-mére's stubbornness that the family they were was able to feel real, but completely crumbled seconds later as if nothing, by the lack of money, lack of justice in front of a man who moved around the world as if he owned it.

Aiming at her heart felt like he was taunting the foolish and meaningless love of a human heart, in Arlong's eyes, it was pathetic.

treating myself to some old OP episodes to alleviate the horrors and i can’t resist the urge to ramble about bell-mère’s death a little bit.

so, i will start here, with this iconic moment:

manga readers may notice something right off the bat. “hey, arlong’s not aiming for her head!” yes, in the anime, seems they switched his aim for the heart. i actually prefer this. first of all, that flintlock is huge compared to her, so head or heart, it’s gonna kill her. not a fatality issue. i’m just a huge sap, and i think there’s something more symbolic about him shooting her in the heart for defending her love - her kids. (even tho all of this could have been avoided if she just lied, and then she’d actually be able to keep loving and supporting her kids, but, uh, i digress)

this moment really captured me when i was first watching, because for the first time, one piece truly felt dark. this wasn’t just an upsetting backstory. it had some element of gore here, which i’m not sure would be as effective if he went through with a headshot. they might have censored it a bit more.

more (slightly gruesome) photos and analysis beneath the cut 👀

look at what they got away with here!! this was early one piece mind you, so i feel like things were generally a little cushier? (or maybe that’s just my nostalgia talking XD) but the harsh black and white contrast, the utter silence during this scene, the speed in which this happened! (it was a pain to pause and scrub and get good screenshots, let me add). i will say i’m not up to date with current OP shenanigans, but to me, this seems like one of the most abrupt and brutal deaths in the series. (and this doesn’t even put into account the horrid beating she got beforehand)

there are some nice parallels here between her death and rosinante’s, (most notably her last words being “i love you” to nami and nojiko, and a flintlock as the weapon of choice), but even then, i think this is a bit nastier. seven little bullets in a 10ft tall man is painful, yes, but it wasn’t gruesome, and he managed to cling onto life for a little while afterwards. this was just. bang. done. heart – gone. leaves the viewer totally reeling.

in a way i feel like it’s almost an honor for bell-mère to get such a violent death? okay hear me out i know that sounds crazy. she sacrificed herself for her kids and went out kicking and screaming (or standing solemnly, towards the end). she brought forth such a refreshing take on women in one piece. i mean, let’s not forget this scene:

she was gonna blow his brains out!! zero hesitation!! how many characters in this series, let alone women, would go through something like this? i get that different characters have different honor codes and such, but it was sooo incredibly invigorating to see a woman get her hands dirty like this.

so by that logic, it’s kind of weirdly nice to see her not be treated like a little doll? this is highly speculative though, because i’ve noticed there’s this rather annoying trend where women are used as a moral compass for villains. “oh, look how deplorable arlong is, he did that to a young pretty woman!” we see the same thing with doflamingo, for instance, in his “fight” with viola. “oh how heinous, he threw her to the ground! how disrespectful! she’s just an innocent princess!” yeah, ugh. getting off tangent here

this whole scene set a standard for me, (and hopefully other viewers), who kind of saw the series as a fun lighthearted pirate adventure. yes, there was tragedy and sadness before this arc, before this backstory, but something about this moment in particular made my perception tremble. the bar was raised! a compelling character and backstory can have a truly harrowing ending!! a delightful revelation for me, for whatever reason XD

feel free to chime in if ya got any additional comments or takes on the matter. i don’t think bell-mère gets enough love. if you do wanna chime in, just um. be nice. i’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, okay. and multiple interpretations of these scenes are valid! i’d love to hear ‘em! <3

[juicequeen21]

I have so many fem Light Au’s but this one is by far my favorite.

To start there are something’s I head and for her no matter what like, she would win, no questions asked she is going to dominate the world. She is much more cruel, violent, sadistic, manipulative, etc you get the point. She is not afraid to play nasty and use any advantage she has to destroy those that oppose her. She would never be monitored by cameras or handcuffed to L because

“Why does this foreign older man want to constantly monitor/be handcuffed to a pretty young girl? Sounds like a perv to me.” Soichiro would not allow that to happen to his daughter and thus L loses a lot right there and then. The task force would be even less supportive of L because they all would absolutely love Light and hate how he wants to treat her.

In some of my au’s Light would try and flirt and seduce L but not in this one. If she were to do that sometimes I headcanon that she is successful and sometimes she’s not (just depends on my mood lol). In the cases she isn’t successful I imagine she would get even worse and nastier.

Fem Light is quicker to violence with L and would often get into physical altercations with L which makes the task force trust L even less, because not only did he “do something to so terribly upset her or maker her afraid” but he also attacked her.

She would not be afraid to make L look like a horrible person and basically force him to be super careful with what he does.

Fem Light would never keep the mask on around just L, so nobody but L knows her true personality.

Onto the specifics of my favorite AU. In this one Light is basically viewed as an Angel by everyone and I mean everyone. She does tons of community service stuff and fundraisers that she organizes, she is the top student nation wise, she is a tennis world champ, she has done national beauty competitions and won. She is friends with celebrities like Misa and the real HIdeki Ryuuga, she is considered Japan’s sweetheart or whatever and is constantly in the public eye because of how perfect she is. She has done so many amazing things for tons of people and is so well loved that even if she flat out murdered someone on world wide tv program people would jump to her defense. All of this basically means no matter what L is screwed in trying to catch Kira.

When she is around L and nobody else she starts to show her true colors. She threatens him, fights him, mocks him (only in regards to her being Kira) and she is basically no longer wearing a mask. She still actually helps in trying to catch Kira but its just for her enjoyment because both her and L know the truth and they both know he can’t really do anything.

If L were to somehow put her in solitary confinement it would absolutely get leaked to the public and people would be enraged which just helps Light.

She wouldn’t be afraid to grab L’s collar and pull him close and whisper threateningly say something like

“ You are never going to catch me, so you might as well stop fucking trying, kay?”

I think L would also start being pretty nasty (not holding back) once he sees exactly what he’s up against. Eventually I think they would stop with the up front hostility towards each other because they are around each other all day trying to solve the Kira case, so they kinda just get to be themselves around each other which is vastly different from how they are around others. I think what eventually would get them together would be that Light would mellow out some as she got older (less angry all the time) and both of them realizing how much they enjoy working together. Light would still keep killing but not to the same extent as before and the Kira case eventually is declared unsolvable and everyone has to move on. Light and L continue to work together and eventually Light meets Mello, Matt, and Near and they are all pissed that she got away with it.

I really like this Au because I like the thought of L having to deal with an absolute tyrant that everyone loves. I also love the thought that neither of them feel the need to be anything but themselves around each other and neither try to hide how toxic they are.

[thedoubteriswise]

okay so. I am a smart adult with many important responsibilities. I have good taste and care about things that matter. for this reason, I’ve been trying to identify where in cql canon wangxian manage to fuck.

because they definitely do; I like a good post-canon getting together fic as much as the next guy, but it’s just not realistic.

allow them. it’s already been so long.

(just like this goddamn post turned out to be, let’s do a cut)

right. so initially it looks like you could place this right after the time skip in episode 33, because it shows us that wwx is with lwj in cloud recesses. we know that he spent the night in the jingshi because he wakes up there the next morning before he goes for a nostalgic tour of his old school.

and also visits the cold spring, where lwj is mostly naked. nice.

but wait! wwx is surprised by the scars on his back and chest. that seems like something he would have known about if they’d already been naked together the night before, so I’m going to say they did not fuck immediately upon wwx’s return to cloud recesses. okay, fine, they’re taking things slow, that’s cool.

maybe they could work it into the next night, then. oh wait, lqr is injured and... staying in the jingshi? for reasons?

I don’t know why. he must have his own house in cloud recesses, and it’s probably at least as comfortable as lwj’s, but here he is. he lives to stop his nephew from getting laid, I guess.

the next day they do some Q&A with the kids and determine that they need to head to qinghe to figure out what’s going on with this sword thing. great! we love a romantic road trip, plenty of alone time. but they also have to do their jobs, and then jin ling needs to get rescued from a wall of dirt, and jc is unfortunately there being himself, and then they have to grill nhs about his tomb full of angry sabers, etc. etc.

with all that going on, their next obvious chance is at the inn immediately after interviewing nhs. this evening has already included:

wwx gazing lovingly at lwj from afar

lwj carrying wwx on his back

lwj pawing at wwx’s robes trying to deal with his cursed leg

lwj helping wwx up the stairs, serving him wine, fixing his flute, and generally being at his beck and call

a very sexy and homoerotic duet

and now they’re alone and drooling over each other as usual. this seems like a plausible spot, right?

it does! but no. after they go back to the nie basement o’ swords and hear the backstory on nmj’s death, we see them walking in yueyang and lwj asks wwx how the curse mark on his leg is doing. wwx says it’s almost healed, which may or may not be a lie, but his inner monologue says:

he’s more concerned about the wound on his arm from the sacrificing curse, which lwj doesn’t know about, because wwx won’t tell him and they still haven’t been naked together.

also, this silly teenage shit doesn’t make much sense unless they’re still dancing around each other.

you guys love the sound of opportunities as they go flying past, don’t you?

right after this, lwj gets drunk. I’m aware that Stuff Happens in the novel scene that inspired this bit, and they do incorporate some of that into the show by having lwj commit petty larceny and admit that he “likes rabbits” as part of the softest and most loving conversation in human history oh my god

but lwj goes to sleep right on time, and the next morning, wwx is laughing and reassuring him that nothing happened.

after this, it’s time to go on a fucked up field trip with the kids in yi city, so they don’t really have any time alone for a few episodes until they’ve finished that and everyone is back at yet another inn. I wonder if they learned something about wasted chances and poor communication from this miserable songxiao story?

maybe! look, they’re being cute and domestic. there are currently no material barriers preventing them from having sex, nor will there be any specific evidence later on proving that they didn’t.

but they’re still firmly in mystery-solving mode and the juniors and lxc are floating around. the vibe isn’t quite there. if I were to pick the most solid reason why I think they’re saving room for jesus at this point, it would be the tension that happens when wwx again asks how lwj recognized him. lwj asks why his memory is so bad, and wwx replies that he wishes he had a bad memory. even though they’re comfortable and happy being together, there’s still some fundamental distance remaining. there’s no sense of romantic resolution. that was actually a point against all their previous opportunities as well; they’re all very sweet, but none of these feel like the place in a story where the romantic leads Officially Get Together.

okay, off to koi tower! shit is getting extremely real. everyone’s busy insinuating that they recognize wwx, but no one is saying it explicitly. wwx isn’t supposed to be here. the guy he’s pretending to be also isn’t supposed to be here. he and his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s brother are trying to figure out if his boyfriend’s brother’s boyfriend is a murderer. no one is comfortable and the political intrigue leaves no time for fucking in front of anyone’s salad.

I guess there’s plenty of time to make dozens of armed guards and like half the people they know wait while they have a romantic moment, though.

could they be more in love? And that sure feels like a romantic resolution that might be followed by narratively-earned sex.

ah. no, unfortunately wwx gets stabbed again. this certainly sucks, but it does have the helpful consequence of making lwj take him back to cloud recesses, where they are mostly alone and as safe as they can be in the circumstances. now there’s even more tenderness and also some plot-justified touching and skin exposure. plus, lwj just made a very public declaration of love.

too bad wwx has probably been unconscious since he started coughing up blood in the forest near lanling. he’s also still visibly in pain. fresh abdominal wounds tend to kill the mood.

but hey, the injuries on this show are only as serious as they need to be to move the plot forward and facilitate gentle h/c scenes, so by evening he’s looking perfectly healthy and walking around under his own steam like nothing’s wrong. I guess that problem can be ignored moving forward.

lxc then offers the the most devastating highlights of lwj’s backstory, like, all at once. it’s nice that he includes a flute solo to give wwx a second to process this mountain of terrible information. what the fuck.

there he is! the most devoted man in the whole world! turns out they can actually be more in love after all.

and then the following scene... look, I’m lazy and I don’t know how to make gifs, but screenshots cannot properly convey how good it is. you all know. the hesitant way wwx approaches, the slow and gentle piano version of wangxian, the two of them watching the snow together, it’s. ugh.

remember how I was talking about how the last scene with no material barriers was an unlikely candidate because of the lack of romantic resolution?

well, here’s wwx still being cagey at the beginning of this conversation.

and here they are in the middle of this conversation, having some epiphanies about the course of wwx’s life - I love this shot for a lot of reasons, but I extra love it because it shows wwx out in the snow, with lwj as the safety and warmth waiting behind him, god this show goes hard, holy shit

they both recall their vow to live with a clean conscience and internally say some very corny things about each other because they are both So Much, and then,

ah, what the hell. he can say it out loud after all. romantic resolution accomplished.

and then the camera slowly pulls away as wuji plays.

a slow zoom out? swelling music? listen, I am a connoisseur, I know a tasteful fade-to-black indicating a sex scene that won’t happen on camera when I see one. at last, we have a winner!

now you may think this post is finally over, but I actually have one more piece of evidence for you - the next scene shows the two of them the morning after, meditating behind a screen in the hanshi while lxc is waiting for jgy to show up.

before wwx got de-cored, he was a pretty powerful cultivator, right? the chances that he’s just bad at meditating or that he can’t stay focused on this task seem slim to me. so why does he keep falling asleep?

well. he had kind of a late night.

[steelycunt]

ridi ridi hiiii !!! how are youuu how was yr dayyy i started mine off by rereading yr otiofad ficc did you know every sentence in it is a masterpiece did you know every word is like worthy of an auditoriumesque applause now yk i wanted to ask you to talk about that particular bit tho (if you wouldn't mind ofc !!) where sirius slams the book shut on an insect bc it's sooo like it's sooo !! it reads like premonition and also like r can't help but be wary of s and s can't help but be just like capable of harm regardless of intention & carelessly and i think it's sooo genius I think yr soooo genius for that and if you have more to say abt what that bit meant to youu + process of writing it + foreshadowing you wanted to get across w it etc. etc. i would be vv interested to hear <333 mwah love you loads xx

hello my lovely omg!!! my day was GOOD actually surprisingly good i am recovering from my illnesses and i played badminton and ate tangerines it was a very content day!! how was yours!! also warning you now in advance i wrote way too long a reply to this. like WAY too long NOBODY needed this im so sorry!! the very final paragraph provides like a little tl;dr you DO NOT need to read the essay that is under the cut!! im so sorry!!

okay firstly the idea that someone would not only read one of my little stories but read it more than once?? crazy actually!! insane!! so glad that it could be a part of ur morning n i would love to talk abt it!! hang on opening it in a new tab rn let me remember what it was i actually wrote huh lol

firstly with the flashback scenes in otiofad in general they had to serve two different purposes. they obviously needed to show the intense love and intimacy between the boys prior to The Incident, in order to juxtapose the post-prank scenes and serve as a marker for measuring the size of the rift in their relationship that its caused (which is why theres lots of kissing and cuddling and cloying monologues in the flashback scenes), but at the same time they had to demonstrate the little parts of their relationship which are a little bit fucked! a little bit unhealthy and obsessive. and they had to portray sirius as a person who has the capacity to do what he ends up doing. i didnt want to accidentally work against myself by over-idealizing their relationship to the point where it became difficult to believe sirius could be so thoughtless as to do what he does. like if ive just made you read fifteen hundred words of him being the Best Boyfriend Ever and then switch to him begging forgiveness for an attempted murder, his character becomes a little disjointed, and i really wanted it to feel like you're consistently reading the same people, just in very different circumstances. so the flashbacks very much needed to stress their intensity rather than their health as a couple.

im definitely roaming beyond the parameters of your question (but i promise it all circles back xx) but some of the sort of. i dont want to say red flag as much as cause for concern moments that i tried to include especially in the flashbacks include for instance: [Sirius says that sort of thing often, and with a confidence that Remus cannot ever fathom. Good god, how he would like to ask Sirius, them or me, that or me, and never fear the answer.] in the first scene, because i think remus' low self-esteem and his insecurity definitely affects their relationship + how he perceives it, which isn't anyone's fault as much as it is just them being young and imperfect like. theyre like sixteen here nobody had it together when they were sixteen right :-/ you have sirius utterly utterly obsessed with being in love with remus declaring that he doesnt want anything else from life and he's. sixteen years old. he's got no idea. like its that sort of rashness and impulsivity when he's speaking and acting which ends up fucking him over :-/

TO GET BACK to the bit you actually asked about (im so sorry for how long this is <3) the part where he closes the book on the spider. i mean honestly ur interpretation in the ask is pretty spot on!! its another one of the little stitches in the flashback scenes that sort of...slightly changes/sobers/brings the tone back down the reality a little, after theyve spent most of the scene cuddling and kissing etc. i'd already sort of tried (and i want to emphasise try at every point in this answer sfdghsh because i am not necessarily claiming that any of this was necessarily successful lol) to show sirius' capacity for being rash and obsessive, and the spider moment was just this tiny act of unnecessary, arguably cruel? violence that was meant to be jarring against the very over-sweet and gentle affection he's just shown remus. and although theyre acts of violence on such different scales, he gives just as much thought to sending snape to the willow as he does to squashing the spider. one of the things about sirius that i love soooo much is his relationship with violence and the way his anger translates into violence and cruelty (which remus mentions in the final scene when he says “You’ve got to stop being the kind of person who hurts people when they’re angry.”). its why hes SO fun to write angry because his anger is so distinctive lol. so the spider moment is just meant to serve as a little reminder of this random, mindless aggression that sirius carries around with him and that exists in tandem with all the affection we've seen him show remus, who starts in surprise when sirius slams the book shut. (i'll let u in on a super little fun (or not) fact that in my head when i was writing it i always drew a little parallel between the twitching insect leg thats left on the page and the similarly uncomfortable sensation of the eyelash that remus feels scratching his own eye immediately afterwards. thats not necessarily meant to come across n i expect it doesnt because i didnt develope the idea...at all...but in my head they were always a little linked teehee like even sirius' smallest acts of violence still have an effect on remus somehow xx)

but yeah!! apologies i didnt think this would be such a long explanation for a simple question fbhsdfhs im very embarrassed by this but like!! in short the spider was another little jarring moment designed to tether the version of sirius you get in the flashback to the version you get in the post-prank scenes, because ultimately he's the same guy with the same flaws both before and after the prank!! there was no reason for him to kill the spider like that and thats why hes so fucked. it was just his instinctive response to seeing it there.

[just-another-hhazbin]

I have a question for you:

I'm aroace, and while I love Alastor and that he's ace and potentially aro (not sure if the aro part is definitely canon or not), apparently Viv has said in past streams that he's egocentric/doesn't love anyone but himself and I'm concerned that that's why she made him aroace. Especially if he's definitely aro, since if he were only ace it'd be less questionable imo. Granted, he does have friends so the "only loves himself" thing may not be 100% true, and these things could still change while the show's in development. I'm just kinda worried about Viv's reasoning. What do you think?

Hello, fellow aroace! I find it both amusing and suiting that I received this ask several hours after I queued the ADHD Alastor reblog, because to me, they are very similar subjects.

To the best of my knowledge, Alastor has been confirmed ace in canon by Vivziepop. However, only Faustisse, who i don’t believe is any longer a member of the Hazbin team and has never been in charge of such official decisions, openly declared him aromantic.

However, Vivz has hinted at this, but holds off at the last moment because she wants “people to ship whoever they like and to have fun” (paraphrased).

That’s... not great reasoning and vaguely problematic in and of itself, implying that aromantic people cause problems and etc., but whatever. It’s a smart marketing decision and helps prevent the fandom from turning into even more of a bloodbath than usual, so I understand why she decided that. Do I agree? No. Do I understand? Yes.

However, it is issues such as what you bring up that makes me somewhat thankful we haven’t seen him officially declared aro (yet).

If you’ve seen my aspd!Alastor or other aspd posts, then you probably know some of my thoughts on the subject. For those who haven’t, I’ll take it from the top.

I... am also concerned. I think in the end that how much depth Alastor’s characterization is given will determine whether or not the aro is a good move. 

From what we’ve seen and what’s been given, Alastor is a manipulative, unhinged, sadistic, vaguely narcissistic asshole who cares nothing for anyone other than himself. On that description alone, I would very much recommend not labeling him as aromantic. Aro people have had enough of that stereotype, thank you very much. Also, people such as that can experience romantic attraction, it’s just that they tend to be douchebags about it.

That being said, the Alastor comic does give me hope.

(If you haven’t read the comic, go do so, because there be spoilers ahead. https://www.hazbinhotel.com/alastor-comic/page-1)

Yes, he’s a generally annoying pain in the ass dressed in bright red. However, he also wasn’t just going about his business killing everyone for the Hell of it. Sure, he might do that sometimes, but I’ll take “sometimes.” Furthermore, he wasn’t purposefully extra-dickish to customer service people (unless you count feeding the birds, which should be considered a crime but also, Radio Demon, could’ve been worse) and he tips street musicians while being kind to his fans. 

He obviously does want social interactions, and was increasingly frustrated and upset when everyone fled from him and the rose wilted at his touch. He wants positive interactions! He wants joy and pretty things and obviously does care about what others think of him, despite statements to the contrary.

And of course, the culmination of him indeed committing a murder and going full cannibal on someone’s ass... after stepping in to stop that person from abusing a customer, giving him a second chance, and then intervening again to stop the asshole from assaulting someone else.

None of these actions had any benefit to him. He knows that this will only increase his reputation as do-not-fuck-with-or-speak-to at worst, and have no affect at all at best. But he does it anyway.

So. If this is the Alastor Vivz sees and if we get more of him, of an Alastor who yes is a bit of an unhinged serial killer cannibal but also seeks out positive interspersonal interactions and cares about strangers, then I would be much more settled with giving him an official aromantic designation. Because then it’s not just that he said “fuck people and relationships; I’m a narcissistic sadist,” but that he’s searching for personal connections that resonate with him, and romance just isn’t it.

So. Yeah. Right now a lot of shit has been said about Alastor official and otherwise, half of it contradicting itself, and while I am Definitely Concerned about him playing into the stereotypical tropes around bad aro rep, I do have some hope that maybe it could play out well.

Also, unrelated to Vivz and how she and her team handles things, there’s always the fact that Alastor’s brother from another mother is undoubtedly Hannibal, who is the most in-love cannibalistic sadistic narcississtic serial killing gay to ever gay (or kill), so that’s a nice little counter-argument to have if and when people decide to be shit about Al’s character + acearo rep.

[homesweetgoodneighbor]

I feel like there are a number of old television shows and movies that Should Not Be Missed by Gen Z, and, of course, everyone's ideal lists are different.

For me, in the "mostly comedy but sometimes will smack your feels with a brick" category, I gotta tell y'all, M.A.S.H. is a TV series y'all really need to watch. It was set in Korea with a whole lot of artistic licensing (like the length of the war, etc.) when it really was a whole lot of commentary about the Vietnam war just as much as a social commentary not only about war in general but racism, sexism, capitalism, and more that were struggles in the 70s.

A whole lot of it still applies today and that hurts me...I mean, we are in the Future. We should be better than that now, right? (Please note, it's not without it's problematic moments, but some of those were used to highlight real world issues, and some were...the 70s. Good things to discuss.)

There isn't a whole lot on queer struggles, which isn't surprising given the time. But, speaking of that:

Another is more a made-for-TV movie that was originally aired on HBO in 1993 called And, the Band Played On.

It is a docudrama based on the non-fiction book "And, the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic".

Here's the thing, my loves, AIDS is still with us; although, in this country, it's no longer the death sentence it once was, but in poor countries it still remains so. In this country, though, it was used as a political weapon to try to get rid of undesirables, particularly queers. Reagan and his cronies undermined and underfunded anything that could help research or people who had AIDS. When straight people started showing up with it, bisexuals were blamed to try to use any means to make sex continue to look evil and evangelistic puritanical views to be "saintly". There was an actual argument about whether it should be "allowed" to be seen as blood transmitted because then they couldn't pin it on just sex...and then when they had no choice, they pinned it on drug addicts and pretty much declared them not worth worrying about. But, what it came down to was, if you tested positive, you were gonna die; and if the virus didn't kill you, the people around you would. (I remember when two little girls in Florida showed up with it because their dentist was using unsanitized tools. Their house was burned down when people found out. Think I'm kidding? Look it up.)

It's a hard fucking thing to watch, and I watched it when it released and bawled my ass off because it was my fucking childhood laid before me. It's as hard for me to watch as it is to watch Schindler's List. Two completely different movies based on two completely different situations, but gods, if they don't each show what lengths humans with an agenda will go to commit acts of horror.

Except...I lived through AIDS...I am still living through the ramifications of the politics that allowed it to become a plague that people literally fought to ignore.

Kind of sounds familiar...doesn't it?

.

----------

Edit: I just realized, I've seen And, the Band Played On only twice. And, I also realized the reason I have only seen it twice is because it is so painful I start gagging from sobs. I lived that. I remember screaming at fellow students about what will and won't transmit AIDS because my mother was smart enough to keep up and tell her children about it. I remember friends losing family members. I remember kids getting it and having to be taken out of school for their own safety because not only would fellow students but fucking parents would have murdered them. I have seen a small portion of the AIDS quilt and knew I could never view the entire thing unless I was in a fucking helicopter or the godsdamn space shuttle. I wasn't even aware at the time that I was bisexual, and now when I did realize it hit me how lucky I was to survive, and how much I still suffer from the biphobia that was enacted during that time (Bisexual always meant not concerned with the gender of their partner. Don't listen to fucking TERFS.) All these feelings don't even cover half the shit I've seen or heard during that time...and all of them funnel into my soul while watching that film. I hope to fuck that none of you have to watch a film about COVID like this...but I fear...it will be in your future...

[hd-cluefest]

H/D Clue Fest Masterlist

Cluefest Headquarters are finally unveiling the investigators of our cases. But before we do that, we want to thank each and every one of you that contributed to making this fest such a huge success, be it as a writer, podficcer, reader, listener, or reblogger and reccer. You wrote the most amazing fics, brought fics to life with your voice, and gave our creators lots of love with kudos, comments etc.  Fair warning: This post will be very long because we couldn’t control ourselves and made reveal banners. We would say we’re sorry, but we must not tell lies.

0430, T, 8.7k

Author: daughter_of_nemesis/@daughter-of-nemesis 

Harry disappears at exactly 04:30 in the morning. Hermione and Ron intend to figure out why. And Pansy's certain has something to do with Draco.

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A Hogwarts Detective Mystery, E, 19.3k

Author: ActorPotter/@actorpotter 

Harry returns to Hogwarts for his Eighth Year with Ron and Hermione after defending Draco Malfoy at his trial over the summer. Malfoy has returned too...but he's acting incredibly suspicious. So, naturally, Harry decides to stalk-er-follow him when he leaves the Eighth Year Common Room after hours one evening. It turns out that Malfoy has noticed something is amiss at Hogwarts, and he and Harry must work together to solve a mystery of disappearing portraits, randomly changing house colours on uniforms, and the Gryffindor Common Room suddenly appearing in the dungeons. What is happening to the castle? Will self-appointed detectives Harry and Draco discover what secrets are lying within the walls of Hogwarts...and their hearts?

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A House on Fire, E, 8.4k

Author: p1013/@p1013

For the last five years, Auror Draco Malfoy has walked into his office with hardly a glance at the illusioned window taking up the back wall. It looks out over an imagined London, a perfectly bright and brilliant view of the city that hides the smog and rain and dirt that clings to the city like a patina of time that can never be worn away. It's always a perfect summer's day with soft, white clouds that float through the painfully bright blue sky like a dream. He likes to imagine the gentle breeze that ripples the surface of the Thames brushing across his skin, since he'll never be able to actually feel it. After all, his office is located on the second floor and is, therefore, underground.

Or at least that's what he did before the seventh of October, 2009.

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A Little Bird Told Me, M, 18.6k

Author: Cibee/@cibeewastaken

Harry and his partner are called to investigate a murder that occurred at an exclusive getaway hosted by Muggle patrician Robert Morton in his own house. The surviving six people are now both witnesses and suspects. There is just one problem for Harry: Draco Malfoy is one of them.

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a meeting of minds, M, 8.2k

Author: saltwatergarden

When Harry Potter starts hearing someone else's thoughts for several minutes a day, at first he chalks it up to his own bad luck and he tries to ignore it. But the longer it goes on, the less Harry can ignore it. Whoever it is, the person whose thoughts he's hearing needs help. Harry finds himself indignant at the mistreatment of the man taking up space in his head, and feels a sense of closeness to him that he cannot explain.

How can he find out whose thoughts he's hearing? And what exactly will he do when he finds him?

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Cruel River, T, 67.7k 

Author: eleventy7/@tinyhistory

Draco inherits a castle deep in the Scottish highlands, and discovers it’s haunted by more than just ghosts.

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Dear Stranger, T, 22.7k

Author: iero0/@iero0

The one thing more pointless than falling in love with an anonymous wizard over a correspondence is falling in love with Harry Potter when you’re Draco Malfoy. 

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Draco Malfoy and the Case of the Smuggled Gossip, T, 6.9k

Author: A_Professional_Protagonist/@aprofessionalprotagonist

It's eighth year and someone is selling gossip about Harry Potter and his friends to the new trashy wizarding tabloid. Can Draco discover how the gossip is getting smuggled out of the castle? Will he and Harry grow closer in the process? Will there be kissing? (Spoilers: yes.)  

  -----

For Now, 6.7k, T

Author: Samunderthelights/@samunderthelights

At first when Harry gets sent a mysterious notebook, he thinks it's a gift. But when he starts to write in it, he finds that someone can see what he writes, and the stranger is writing back to him.

Over time he finds himself opening up to the mysterious stranger, but how is he supposed to fully trust him if the stranger won't even tell him his name?

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He makes saints out of sinners, M, 32.8k

Author: miafancies/@miafancies

Harry grows with the turn of the tide. Draco contends with his ghosts.

This is a chronicle of inevitability.

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It might take an army, it might just be me, M, 15.5k

Author: slytherinnbitch/@slytherinnbitch

Five years after the war, Auror Potter goes out on a seemingly routine mission to check up on some pardoned criminals. He doesn’t come back. Immediate suspicions are cast on Draco Malfoy, one of the charges he was to be visiting. But unbeknownst to everyone, the two of them have been in a secret relationship for over six months, and Draco is beside himself with worry and so is Hermione and Ron. Together they try to get their best friend back. But there are surprises on their ways which none of them even expects of.

Can they get their best friend back or is he gone forever?

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Long story short, G, 4.6k

Author: time_streams/@time-streams

Someone's written about Harry's secret raspberry jam recipe. Also, they write fanfiction about him. Obviously, he using his investigative prowess to find them.

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Love's Sake, Evermore, E, 9.6k

Author: wanderingeyre

Someone is doing nice things for Draco and that someone seems to know an awful lot about his habits and favorite things. Draco can't imagine why anyone would do these things for him because he still thinks he has something to prove. Some days he thinks he’s going to spend his entire life spackling over the mistakes of his youth and the sins of his family.

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Memory Lane, T, 9.7k

Author: mortenavida/@mortenavida

Draco Malfoy has been happily living in the Muggle world for nearly a decade, far away from any Wizarding responsibilities they might try to enforce on him. He planned on leaving that world forever, save for making sure his son received a proper education, but things didn’t exactly go to plan. On his doorstep, one night, Harry Potter showed up. Except Harry Potter was supposed to be dead for the last seven years.

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Mine O'Clock, T, 1.2k

Author: PhenomenalAsterisk/@phenomenalasterisk 

Harry Potter is missing and Ron and Hermione are going spare.

How can Draco enjoy his lazy weekend with their nonsense cluttering up his front steps?

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[podfic] Potterotica, E, 20min

Podficcer: EvAEleanor/@eva-eleanore

original fic: Potterotica by Elle Gray/@diligent-thunder

The first story, and you could barely call it that, had appeared in the communal bathroom overnight. It was stuck to the mirror, one above each sink, like it was expected people might casually read it while brushing their teeth.

Except, there was nothing casual about reading explicit erotica in a communal bathroom while shoving a lubricated brush in and out of your mouth.Blaise had been the first to find it, or rather, to gleefully admit that he had. He’d burst into the common room in his pants to declare, 'There’s fucking porn in the bathroom!' Someone's writing smut and signing it with Harry's name. Hermione isn't buying it, and she has a plan to expose the true author. She also has her hand in her pants in a wardrobe.

A (ridiculous) response to AO3s (valid) new co-creator rules.

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Repairing his world, M, 34.8k

Author: AhaMarimbas/@mars-bar81

15 years after his father was arrested, Scorpius uncovers his case file at work. Desperate for answers on why his family was torn apart all those years ago, Scorpius looks into what happened. But is he ready for how the new evidence will change his life all over again?

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Reverie in Green, T, 51.7k

Author: dynazty/@dynazty

Draco just wants to get away; Harry just wants his dog back.

There's a small wooden bridge in the middle, somewhere, curved over a stream that never stops flowing. All they have to do is cross it.

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Secret Admirer, E, 12.3k

Author: Cassiopeias_shadow

Fresh out of training, Harry discovers that life as an Auror isn’t at all what he’d imagined - it’s much better actually, and there are stickers. As he settles into the team, a case lands quite literally on his doorstep... who keeps sending the Knight Bus to his house?

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Sleight of Hand, E, 15k

Author: TheStarryKnight/@the-starryknight

It’s another one of these horrid Ministry affairs, and the only interesting thing is twinkling from Draco Malfoy’s finger. Can you really blame Harry for being fascinated by the gorgeous emerald ring and those long, elegant hands, especially when he’s certain Malfoy is up to something?

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[podfic] The Lion, The Dragon, and the Broom Cupboard, E, 1h45min

Podficcer: laughingd0g/@jovialobservationanchor

original fic: The Lion, The Dragon, and the Broom Cupboard by tasteofshapes/@tasteofshapes

Draco thinks he’s hallucinating the first time when he opens the door to the office pantry and finds Potter there instead, looming out of the shadows of what appears to be a cupboard like some deformed gargoyle. Things don’t go much better after that.

Or, three broom cupboards, two times they get it on, and one love story.

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The Mysterious Case of the Missing Yoghurt, E, 24.5k

Author: manixzen/@manixzen

Newly-hired Flying Professor Harry Potter is happy to return to Hogwarts for a fresh start after several failed careers, but nothing is going as planned. His classes are a mess, he has to find a way to work with Draco Malfoy (annoying git extraordinaire) and now, in an act of villainy and depravity, someone keeps stealing his yoghurt.

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Through the Blur, E, 27.7k

Author: anachronic_mai/@danbrokethesoundbarrier

Sleep doesn't come easy to Harry. Despite taking regular doses of Dreamless Sleep for years, he hasn't managed to get rid of the nightmares. Things can't get any worse for him when Potions Master Draco Malfoy comes to him for help after mysterious attacks to his apothecary.

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[podfic] to heal a fracture (to bind a life), M, 33min

Podficcer: bluedreaming/@porcelainsalt

original fic: to heal a fracture (to bind a life) by glittering_git/ @glittering-git; meandminniemcg/@meandminniemcg

Who you gonna call? Harry has become one of the foremost Spiritual Exterminators in Britain. Draco has a spirit that needs extermination. But what seems like a simple problem ends up becoming far more complicated when the spirit is identified. The secrets that are exposed and the history that is uncovered leads both Harry and Draco into uncharted territory.

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To Live & Die in LA, E, 28.8k

Author: fwooshy/@fw00shy

Someone is blackmailing Pansy Parkinson. Pansy's father hires Harry Potter, P.I., to get to the bottom of the scam. But how is Harry's errant ex-boyfriend, Draco Malfoy, involved? And why did Draco run to Los Angeles in the first place?

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Two Hearts Divided, T, 18.6k

Author: iero0/@iero0​; Ladderofyears/@ladderofyears

Draco Malfoy, the celebrated Ghost Clearance Expert is in Germany, trying to solve the tricky little matter of a stubborn ghost called Clara von Kellern. Exasperated after trying every spell he knows, Draco sends an owl to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in London, requesting their urgent help.

Little does Draco know that the clerk who willingly grasps his letter is Harry Potter.

Injured in action, Harry enjoys a quiet, deskbound existence and sees Draco’s letters as a bit of excitement to brighten up his dull days. Harry has no idea that investigating Clara’s life, and that of her beau (and potential murderer) Ernst Wernet will lead to the beginnings of a love affair all of his own.

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Violent Delights, E, 20.4k

Author: primaveracerezos/@primavera-cerezos 

Draco Malfoy's life should be going very well. He's engaged to a wonderful man and in line for the Head Auror job. He's been made lead investigator on a serial murder case, trying to figure out who is killing off the scum of the wizarding world, one by one. So what if he's kind of miserable? Things always get better.

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Who Put Bella in the Wych Elm?, E, 15.4k

Author: alittlewicked/@undersummerstars 

As sad as it was for a family to come to this point: no one would put it past the others to be able to raise their hand and wand against a cousin, an aunt or even a son.

Merlin knows, it had been happening often enough in the House of Black.

So that left the attendees with one question.

Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?

*

Harry & Draco are Walburga Black's guests at Number 12 Grimmauld Place to find the one, true heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. What had the potential to go terribly wrong, went one step further and culminated in a dead body and twelve suspects.

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[witchbitchheadedtoaditch]

The Basics of Kemetic Philosophy (without the appropriated shit from Judaism): Where the Fuck Do We Begin?

We should look to begin with what is, in my opinion, at the very heart of Kemeticism as a whole: Maat. Maat has a variety of different definitions, but it is most widely accepted as a "fundamental, pervasive and enduring element in ancient Egyptian civilization and an inclusive and defining cultural category." Maulana Karenga (author of Maat, the Moral Ideal in Ancient Egypt: A Study in Classical African Ethics) defines Maat as the "understanding of ancient Egypt's highest moral standards, its delineation of right and wrong, its definitive concepts of relational obligations and rules of conduct and other data which composed and informed the ancient Egyptian moral universe."

But what exactly does that mean?

That's a good question, and it's the question that a lot of Kemetic practitioners ask themselves every day (myself included). While we don't have a definitive definition necessarily, we do have the differing definitions of a variety of scholars, both philosophical and archaeological. Mubabinge Bilolo suggests that Maat is "a place of articulation of three ideals," and that these ideals are:

The ideal of knowledge; the love of science; the aspiration for knowledge; the aspiration for the knowledge of true being or of that which is true or sure.

The moral ideal of truth, justice, and rectitude.

The metaphysical ideal of love and the knowledge of being: the beginning of all being.

That is to say, Maat is more than just a moral ideal, it's also an epistemological ideal. Karenga calls Maat "polysemic," that is to say, it hold several different meanings, and they're all correct. Maat is not specifically an ideological ideal, it's the foundations on which the universe rests. It is the foundation and order of the world along with the foundation of morality and idealism. It is an "interrelated order of rightness" that we should all strive to both embody and perpetuate. Maat is the core of Kemeticism and the core of who we are as Kemetic practitioners. Henri Frankfort states that "a [person's] success in life appears as proof of his frictionless integration in (this divine) order."

While Maat is similar to a myriad of different ideological principles in different cultures throughout the world--cieng in the Dinka tradition, rta in Hinduism, etc.--Maat is uniquely situated as more than just an ideological principle for morality or for righteousness in a culture--it is "conceived and carried out within the worldview which links the Divine, the natural and the social. These three domains are interrelated, interactive, and mutually affective." (Karenga, p.10)

Maat, unlike many other moral principles, is not a fixed ideology or a fixed set of concepts. It's an ongoing project that we all work to create and make better throughout our practices. It is something that we have to actively work on in order to bring to fruition and continue to uphold.

So what all does Maat entail?

Maat, like I've stated, is a polysemic concept that envelops three distinct areas of life: the Divine, the natural, and the social. In order to best understand Maat so that we may best practice it, it is best to split it up into these three sections: Maat as it relates to relationships with the Divine, Maat in the natural world, and Maat in the social world. In order to understand Maat as it relates to relationships with the Divine (or even the goddess Maat herself), we must first understand Maat in the natural and social worlds.

Maat in the natural world

Maat as it relates to the natural world is, in my opinion, the most basic understanding of Maat. In ethical texts, it is described as "life-giving" and "life-affirming," which is to say that it is natural way of life. Ptahhotep describes Maat as "a way even before the unlearned," suggesting that it is innate within us and when we learn things that go against our instincts we are effectively going against Maat. It is considered a way of life that we are so innately connected to we do not even have to learn it. Of course, we will always have to work to practice it--isfet is always nearby--but we do not have to work to learn it. It is the understanding that we are to be mutually beneficial with nature. We cannot take whatever we please from nature without giving back to nature in some way, just as nature cannot take whatever it pleases from us without giving back in some way. There is a reciprocity in Maat as a natural principle.

Maat in the social world

Maat as it relates to the social world is probably the most common definition of Maat--at least in my research--and it centers around social ethics and civil service. To be more precise, it centers around several key teachings made by different pharaohs during different Kingdoms. The most common teachings cited as the foundations of Maat stem from the Old and Middle Kingdoms, with a heavy focus on the teachings of Ptahhotep and his court and the writings of multiple tombs which include things like the Declaration of Virtues, the Declaration of Innocence, and the Book of Coming Forth By Day (Also known as the Egyptian Book of Life/The Egyptian Book of the Dead).

The oldest instructions come from The Instruction of Hordedef, during the third Old Kingdom. They say:

"Cleanse yourself before your own eyes, lest another cleanse you. When you prosper, found your household, take a mistress of heart, a son will be born to You. It is for the son that you build a house when you make a place for yourself. Make good dwelling in the graveyard, make worthy your station in the West. Accept that death humbles us, accept that life exalts us, the house of death is for life. Seek for yourself well-watered fields. Choose for him a plot among your fields, well-watered every year. He profits you more than your own son, prefer him even to your [son]."

While there are a multitude of versions of the Egyptian Book of the Dead that we can look towards for information regarding Maat in a variety of contexts, I have found the Papyrus of Nu to be one of the most helpful in interpreting the social constructs of Maat.

From the Papyrus of Nu, we get the following:

"In truth I have come to thee (Maati), and I have brought Maat to thee, and I have destroyed wickedness for thee. I have not done evil to mankind. I have not oppressed the members of my family, I have not wrought evil in the place of right and truth. I have had no knowledge of worthless men. I have not wrought evil. I have not made to be the first consideration of each day that excessive labor should be performed for me. I have not brought forward my name for exaltation to honors. I have not ill-treated servants. I have not thought scorn of the Gods. I have not defrauded the oppressed one of his property. I have not done that which is an abomination unto the gods. I have not caused harm to be done to the servant by his chief. I have not caused pain. I have made no man suffer hunger. I have made no one to weep. I have done no murder. I have not given the order for murder to be done for me. I have not inflicted pain upon mankind. I have not defrauded the temples of their oblations. I have not purloined the cakes of the gods. I have not carried off the cakes offered to the khus. I have not committed fornication. I have not polluted myself in the holy places of the god of my city, nor diminished from the bushel. I have neither added to nor filched away land. I have not encroached upon the fields of others. I have not added to the weights of scales. I have not misread the pointer of the scales. I have not carried away the milk from the mouths of children. I have not driven away the cattle which were upon their pastures. I have not snared the feathered fowl of the preserves of the gods. I have not caught fish with bait made of fish of their kind. I have not turned back the water at the time when it should flow. I have not cut a cutting in a canal of running water. I have not extinguished a fire or light when it should burn. I have not violated the ties of offering to chosen meat-offerings. I have not driven off the cattle from the property of the gods. I have not repulsed the gods in their manifestations. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure. I am pure."

We also have the Negative Confession from the Papyrus of Nebseni, which is a numbered list of 42 statements that define what Maat is not. These are somewhat edited from the most commonly found translations because the translations speak only of God, and we know that Kemeticism is not a monotheistic religion and it irks me lol.

Hail, thou whose strides are long, who comest forth from Annu, I have not done iniquity.

Hail, thou who art embraced by flame, who comest forth from Kher-aba, I have not robbed with violence.

Hail, thou divine Nose, who comest forth from Khemennu, I have not done violence to any man.

Hail, thou who eatest shades, who comest forth from the place where the Nile riseth, I have not committed theft.

Hail, Neha-hau, who comest forth from Re-stau, I have not slain man or woman.

Hail, thou double Lion-god, who comest forth from heaven, I have not made light the bushel.

Hail, thou whose two eyes are like flint, who comest forth from Sekhem, I have not acted deceitfully.

Hail, thou Flame, who comest forth as thou goest back, I have not purloined the things which belong unto the gods.

Hail, thou Crusher of bones, who comest forth from Suten-henen, I have not uttered falsehood.

Hail, thou who makest the flame to wax strong, who comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah, I have not carried away food.

Hail, Qerti, who come forth from Amentet, I have not uttered evil words.

Hail, thou whose teeth shine, who comest forth from Ta-she, I have attacked no man.

Hail, thou who dost consume blood, who comest forth from the house of slaughter, I have not killed the beasts which are the property of the gods.

Hail, thou who dost consume the entrails, who comest forth from the mabet chamber, I have not acted deceitfully.

Hail, thou god of Right and Truth, who comest forth from the city of double Maati, I have not laid waste to the lands which have been plowed.

Hail, thou who goest backward, who comest forth from the city of Bast, I have never pried into matters to make mischief.

Hail, Aati, who comest forth from Annu, I have not set my mouth in motion against any man.

Hail, thou who art doubly evil, who comest forth from the nome of Ati, I have not given way to wrath concerning myself without a cause.

Hail, thou serpent Uamemti, who comest forth from the house of slaughter, I have not defiled the wife of a man.

Hail, thou who lookest upon what is brought to him, who comest forth from the Temple of Amsu, I have not committed any sin against purity.

Hail, Chief of the divine Princes, who comest forth from the city of Nehatu, I have not struck fear into any man.

Hail, Khemiu, who comest forth from the Lake of Kaui, I have not encroached upon sacred times and seasons.

Hail, thou who orderest speech, who comest forth from Urit, I have not been a man of anger.

Hail, thou Child, who comest forth from the Lake of Heq-at, I have not made myself deaf to the words of right and truth.

Hail, thou disposer of speech, who comest forth from the city of Unes, I have not stirred up strife.

Hail, Basti, who comest forth from the Secret City, I have made no man to weep.

Hail, thou whose face is turned backward, who comest forth from the Dwelling, I have not committed acts of impurity, neither have I lain with men.**

Hail, Leg of fire, who comest forth from Akhekhu, I have not eaten my heart.

Hail, Kenemti, who comest forth from the city of Kenemet, I have abused no man.

Hail, thou who bringest thine suffering, who comest forth from the city of Sau, I have not acted with violence.

Hail, thou god of faces, who comest forth from the city of Tchefet, I have not judged hastily.

Hail, thou who givest knowledge, who comest forth from Unth, I have not... and I have not taken vengeance upon the god.

Hail, thou lord of two horns, who comest forth from Satiu, I have not multiplied my speech overmuch.

Hail, Nefer-Tem, who comest forth from Het-ka-Ptah, I have not acted with deceit, and I have not worked wickedness.

Hail, Tem-Sep, who comest forth from Tattu, I have not uttered curses on the king.

Hail, thou whose heart doth labor, who comest forth from the city of Tebti, I have not fouled water.

Hail, Ahi of the water, who comest forth from Nu, I have not made haughty my voice.

Hail, thou who givest commands to mankind, who comest forth from Sau, I have not cursed the gods.

Hail, Neheb-nefert, who comest forth from the Lake of Nefer, I have not behaved with insolence.

Hail, Neheb-kau, who comest forth from thy city, I have not sought for distinctions.

Hail, thou whose head is holy, who comest forth from thy habitations, I have not increased my wealth, except with such things as are justly mine own possessions.

Hail, thou who bringest thine own arm, who comest forth from Aukert, I have not thought scorn of the god who is in my city.

**"neither have I lain with men" can be used to excuse homophobia in Kemeticism, but I personally interpret it similar to declaration 19, in that it is specific to those already married/in relationships.

There is a large body of work surrounding Ptahhotep's Maxims as a site of Maatian ideals, but the Maxims alone are over a dozen pages long, so I will put those in a separate post!

Maat, the relationships with the Divine

Maat as it relates to relationships with the Divine is probably the least well-defined aspect of Maat. In the autobiography of Seshem-Nefer, Maat is defined as "What God loves, wills and wishes" and "the Good". In relationship to the Divine, Maat is essentially "right" worship. This leaves a lot of room for interpretation and expansion, which is ideal in a culture and religion that continues to evolve and survive the tests of time.

What the hell does all of this mean?

This all goes to say that Maat is the crux of Kemeticism, and without it we would definitely struggle to understand the gods and our world effectively and efficiently. Maat is an ever-changing ideal that centers around doing what is good and right both socially, naturally, and with regards to the Divine. There are a multitude of interpretations of this concept, and this is only one of them.

[paradife-loft]

more miscellaneous Tyranny thoughts (teal deer as usual)

finished my second playthrough / the "what if Ilevath chose the Disfavored in Act I" AU - it was.... weird? weird. a lot of it just didn't feel like him, somehow - the entire Stone Sea arc comes to mind pretty prominently. I think part of it is that Act II features "you now get to commit atrocities!! :D" pretty heavily, and the particular type and context of them on the Disfavored run... don't work for him. killing individuals, especially if they're a "sacrifice" to a larger goal, is something he doesn't love but will power through, and the Voices of Nerat is individually powerful enough that Ilevath is in fact scared of him. Graven Ashe, he is... not really scared of, because he feels his standing in the court matters a lot more to him, because for all his power he's a warrior rather than an ageless magician and that feels more "knowable", etc - and he neither personally shares Ashe's goal of annihilating the Chorus, nor has any other real reason to help out with things like destroying a whole tribe of Beastmen just for being i n the way (when there's other options, surely??) or violating Kyros's economic laws wholesale for centuries. so yeah, that part just didn't... stick? psychologically? very well, because it just didn't feel like it fit him, and so I was kind of just going through the motions.

on the other hand, Act III was a lot more interesting, if still suffering from the problem of "building on the relationship he's had thusfar with the Disfavored"... he actually went to Tunon's trial first this time, instead of murdering the other archons first out of blind terror. wanted to convict Ashe but ultimately argued to convict Nerat, purely out of "which one feels like he'd be more difficult to deal with on my own" political calculus (...which makes me wonder if it's a feature of this game that whichever archon you work with is the one you end up with more/better reasons to throw under Tunon's axe, while the one you don't work with is the one it's "harder" to subdue outside the trial?). didn't feel great about it. (I didn't feel great about it. Nerat being executed just felt.... bad. disturbing. wasteful. nothing to unpack for me about that, noooo absolutely not.)

then went back and convinced Ashe to bend the knee to him, not because he liked the man but because he wanted his army to rule the Tiers, like you do. (will he be able to effectively change Disfavored policies he doesn't like, as the new archon in charge? yeah that's a question he has too.) ...and then. god. I honestly really wanted this to be a playthrough where he did end up declaring war on Kyros (out of fear that Kyros wouldn't let him live regardless of what he did), just because it would be such good symmetry to have that one almost-coin-toss choice at the end of Act I spiral out into this polar opposite ending. but ultimately.... he was so fucking tired of war and fighting. he couldn't justify launching them all into more of the same right away, of his own accord. so it was a difficult choice, but ultimately he swore his allegiance to Kyros again anyway, if nothing else but to buy a little bit of time.

so then...

playthrough #3. rebel run. okay.

this has been....... frustrating, so far? frustrating. I managed to wrangle up a Fatebinder concept I could see reasonably allying with the rebels in Act I, but it's still been difficult trying to square what I want her personality to be like with the very narrow options that will actually let you do that in-game? (partially because they all feel a lot more... polite/respectful/nice toward the rebel leaders as people, whereas my concept for Ismene neither cares about them as individuals nor is interpersonally smooth in the way that would let her pretend to be so while thinking like 10 steps ahead. she's just... pragmatic, not really gung-ho at all about Kyros, and doesn't like to see people suffering.)

and, I dunno, in general I feel like I'm having trouble really inhabiting her POV, especially in terms of what her day-to-day interactions with the rest of the empire's structure should look like? she's not an ideologue, the way Ilevath is, which I think is part of the difficulty. she's not actually dedicated to ~law and order (she has decidedly mixed feelings about being conscripted into Tunon's court, leaning toward negative most of the time); she'd rather get things out of the way with a clean fight but now is getting pulled into ~intrigue stuff, and just... hm. I think possibly the most chewy piece of characterisation that I'm poking at right now is Fifth Eye's line to her after she claims Ascension Hall and the Spire, that when he looks in her eyes he can tell she is claiming it for herself (with the court as backing) rather than For Kyros Properly, and "means to be lord, not vassal". so I'm thinking of that as an angle for why she isn't happy in Tunon's court, even if on paper it may be safer, more status, etc - where she came from in the army, she'd grown up on the idea of once you get high enough, you can have your own command, you can be powerful in your own right, not just... someone else's deputy. she knows fighting; she doesn't really have much optimism about the state of the world being something she can change - but she has always wanted a(n almost pipe-dream) freedom of being her own master, rather than a servant in the command of another.

on a very different note.... I hadn't realised that during the rebel playthrough, you kill Iron Marshal Erenyos right at the end of Act I. I saw her come up to challenge me and I was like wait no! that's an NPC I'm friends with who's around during the endgame, does she run off or something after you get her HP down enough?? ....no. you just kill her. (which is in-character, really.) - it's really stuck in my head though because it feels like the writers doing something interesting in flipping around players' story expectations? like, the leaders of the Vendrien Guard do survive in the rebel playthrough, where otherwise they occupy the same position of "notable NPCs who get killed during Act I because of choices you make, but could survive until the end under different conditions"... it's just that the framing of the game where they start out as your enemies, makes it less !!!!! D: when you end up killing them, because there's the expectation kind of built it already that they're going to have to die. killing Erenyos (especially after completing two playthroughs where she survives) flips that on its head and makes me think about narrative expectations and "inevitability" and how nobody's ultimate fate in this story is truly pre-written outside your own choices, in a way that e.g. the Guard surviving doesn't quite manage, for me. I like that. (even though I'm still sad about killing Erenyos. why do I particularly like her, even though she's basically Ashe's second and presumably not better than the rest of the Disfavored? go figure. maybe just because she's a lady in full body armor with snazzy personalisations and is a nice quest-giving NPC in Act I.)

[sarahjtv]

BNHA Chapter 313 Short Thoughts & Berserk

So, for anyone following me for my My Hero Academia analysis stuff, unfortunately, I don't think I’ll get one out this week.  The chapter was amazing, don’t get me wrong, but I just didn’t have time to really write anything big about it.  Blame the BNHA: The Strongest Hero mobile game that released this week.  Gatcha games really suck me in.  Bakugo was my first random pull amazingly, but I haven’t gotten my fave Shoto yet.  I want my man to come home 😭.  Anyway, I will point out a few things from this chapter:

Thank god All Might is alive!  I didn’t expect him to die, but I’m still afraid of that possibility someday.  That one panel of him declaring himself to those thugs was amazing and I can see why it gave people Stain vibes.  Where is that guy anyway?  Also, I want All Might to sign Izuku’s adoption papers already.  He really is Izuku’s father at this point.  

All Might warned the Top 3 (Endeavor, Best Jeanist, and Hawks) about Lady Nagant, so I expect them to pop up sometime soon.  Especially Hawks.  That’ll be an interesting reunion with his Senpai.

Lady Nagant is still beautiful and badass and I love this Queen 👑

Deku got shot in the stomach (or side?) and he’s fucking pissed!  This kid’s nuts for being so reckless right now, but it looks like he’ll do anything to get info on AFO and Shigaraki.  This arc is really doing things to Deku.  I got a bad feeling that his recklessness will bit him in the ass real soon.

I think En (the 6th Holder) is rising up the ranks of being one of my favorite OFA predecessors.  I like his design, his personality, and how he mentors Deku.  The faces he made this week are amazing!  This man is just done with Deku’s shit he wants to go back to Shoyo Hinata and play volleyball again 😂  Also, he said “Hey, Hey, Hey!” in the fan translations and I can’t unhear Bokuto from Haikyuu!! whenever someone says that DAMN YOU OWL🦉

Lady Nagant’s Quirk can make her a sniper scope out of what looks like muscle or tissue because of course it freaking can.

Finally, I’m still confused on what the 3rd Holder’s Quirk is:  Fa Jin.  I think everyone is.  Apparently research says that it’s a form of Chinese martial arts that unleashes kinetic energy.  That’s why Deku was doing all those squats with his legs before he jumped to grab Lady Nagant.  I’m thinking it’s like how Black Panther’s costume stored kinetic energy and unleashed it whenever he did a punch to the ground.  Or something like that.  Horikoshi really needs to explain this one next week.

So yeah, awesome chapter this week with some action, badass All Might, and big reckless brain energy from Deku.  

And finally (and this will be a long spiel), I really need to address the sudden death of Berserk’s mangaka, Kentaro Miura (age 54), that was announced to the public recently.  He died back in May 6th due to an Acute Aortic Dissection.  I’ll admit to never reading Berserk or watching the anime adaption.  I know about it, but I never got around to actually getting myself into the series.  I heard amazing things about it, but I also heard that is has every content warning under the sun (abuse, sexual assault, rape, torture, murder, etc.).  It’s like if manga had a rating, Berserk would be rated-R full stop.  Still, I would like to get around to reading it one day.  Even so, I have seen some panels from the manga and it is literally God-Tier art.  It’s so rare to see an artist put in so much work into their pieces.  Every little detail is drawn masterfully.  If you looked at his panels far away, you’d swear that it was a photo.  If you looked up closely, you could see every single line Miura drew.  Honestly, his work deserves its own museum.  His story and work were so influential to the pop culture we know.  There would be no Souls series without Berserk.  There wouldn’t be Cloud Strife.  Any buff character with a gigantic-ass sword was inspired by Berserk in some way shape or form.  Other mangaka both loved and were inspired by Berserk like our own Kohei Horikoshi.  Miura-san was a true legend in his own right and he will be deeply missed.

I’m no doctor and I’m honestly not sure what really caused Miura-san’s untimely death, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the stress of mangakas’ absolutely brutal schedule was one of the causes.  In case you don’t know, mangakas pretty much literally put their lives into their works.  Their schedule is roughly like the one seen below.  Sleep and free-time are basically non-existent for them. The same goes for a lot of animators out there with Studio Mappa (despite their amazing animation) being one of the biggest causes of factory-like work in the industry lately.  I wish Miura’s death didn’t bring get this topic trending, but I do hope that both the manga and anime industry finally see what this work does to their artist and gives them a much more breathable schedule.  Shonen Jump+, Jump’s exclusive online manga is actually doing fairly well with their mangaka in terms of schedule.  Series like Spy X Family and Kaiju No. 8 have their mangakas release their chapters every 1-2 weeks.  They even let their mangaka take breaks if they need to with beautiful pieces of artwork as consolation.  God knows I had to wait a full month for a Spy X Family chapter to come out.  Regardless, I truly do hope this is a wake-up-call for the manga and anime industries.  I hope things get better for all the mangaka and animators.  They deserve all the praise, rest, and ease they can get.  Respect and love your mangaka and animators, my friends.  RIP, Kentaro Miura.

[maribabyart]

Do you have any Demon Martha headcanons? How do you think her reunion with Mrs. Mayberry (The teacher who paid for her assassination) in hell would go?

 OK YES I HAVE HEADCANONS FOR THIS HERE WE GO --

MARTHA HEADCANONS <3

So, I’m gonna start with her before she died so I can fully get into why every part of her is the way she is as a demon.

Martha is light skinned Latina woman with family coming from Venezuela. Her mother has a much darker skin tone than her, but her father is far more light-skinned, where she gets her complexion from. While she was raised in America, her parents were immigrants. She was born at home, and she didn’t get a birth certificate until she was four, the year before she started schooling.

She has three older brothers. They were very rambunctious with Martha as a child, pulling pranks on her/with her, taking her hunting, etc.

She was raised out on a farm in the middle of a forested area in Kentucky. They raised cattle, sheep, chickens, and horses. Martha’s main job on the farm was to groom/ride horses and feed chickens.

She learned her sharp-shooter skills in a more intense version of something like 4H unique to her area. She was fantastic with a bow and arrow, and even better with her firearms.

Cannibalism was normalized in Martha’s life from a young age. She knew that it must be kept secret from the outside world, and that it wasn’t accepted. However, it wasn’t something she found to be horrid.

Her family -- and their close friends -- came from a long lineage of Satanic cultists that practiced cannibalism to purge any bit of, “soul” remaining in the corpses of their sacrifices. Due to this, Martha had evolved to be able to be immune to the ill side effects of cannibalism, along with the ability to not feel repulsed by the idea of eating human meat.

Her favorite part of the body growing up was the brain, and it still is to this day. She loves the frontal lobe slathered in spices and hot sauce.

She began her cultish killings at age fourteen, when she officially joined the cult of her family’s descent -- Compañerismo de la Fruta Prohibida (Fellowship of the Forbidden Fruit, a refrence to their following of Lucifer)

Martha didn’t love Raphael Peterson, or, “Ralphie”. She was married of to him at age sixteen, when she became a, “Woman” in the cult’s eyes. They were both meant to appear as an ideal couple so that people wouldn’t suspect them, as their parents before them have.

Ralph and Martha always saw each other as friends with benefits.

They moved to Dayton, Tennessee to start their family when they turned eighteen.

In Nashville, Martha started singing to music her husband played in Taverns. Think Dolly Parton style music. She sounded a lot like that.

Their first child was born when Martha was eighteen: Their daughter, Jolene Peterson. Two years later, they had their son, Beau Peterson.

Martha was always really involved with her kids’ school activities, and she was always volunteering to work events, and her kids were in every activity they could be.

She used her physical attractiveness to seduce and kill men.

While sex favorable, Martha is on the aspec -- greysexual (sexual pleasure is irrelevant to her, and she only engages in it to appease her partner generally. She only finds sexual attraction in people while in the act.) Because of this fact, Martha only has affairs for the sake of gaining trust to bring the men home so they can be killed and eaten.

When Martha was shot, the community villainized Mrs. Mayberry because the town darling, Martha Jane Nunez Robles-Peterson, would NEVER cheat, right? The situation was misread: Martha was just talking to Jarold Mayberry that night about t-ball-related things, right? He WAS the the little league captain for her 6-year-old-son’s league, wasn’t he?

Martha was gifted millions by the community, and people were insanely supportive of her. They wanted the sweet Martha they, “knew” to get better soon. They loved her so -- such a darling woman!

Her music became more well known, and soon, Martha was all over TV. Her big musical break came from when she auditioned for American Idol and made it. Her sob-story propelled her, and she eventually won.

Martha was a hero to everyone around her -- surviving a traumatic event that was uncalled for, while also being so damn chipper and kind.

Hell, did you guys see the background in one of those scenes?! Martha was canonly proclaimed a SAINT! People loved her that much.

She used the public trust to lure in more victims and never be suspected.

Martha was 28 when she died. Ralphie was 28 as well. Jolene was 10, and Beau was 8.

Ralphie managed to survive the explosion, albeit he was completely paralyzed, and the two children went to heaven. Ralphie repented during his last month alive, and confessed to his crimes. He was sent to heaven as well.

Martha and the children were declared to have died in a bear attack, as Compañerismo de la Fruta Prohibida covered up their true demise with ease.

People were heart broken -- Martha’s music was used in sad collages on Youtube, Tik Toks had Martha’s face in them for memorials.

No one ever realized her crimes.

Now! As a demon....

In hell, Martha picked up the alias Hero -- it’s what she was in life, right? I’ll be calling her Hero from now on.

Hero is both different and similar to how she was when she was alive. She’s still the got her kind-hearted, southern mama vibe going for her: She tends to be able to fit into any demonic crowd well, either by attractiveness or by sheer, overwhelming allure -- she’s a very magnetic personality.

As far as powers go, Hero’s are mostly related to firearms. She’s acquired these powers through deal making and soul dealing, as most demons do. Her charming aura very quickly lure people into thinking she’s naive or really just being honest with them.

Her nails can peel back to allow her to shoot from, “finger guns”. Each finger is a different gun, besides her middle and index fingers. They are both shotguns. Together, they make a double barrel shotgun.

When in full demonic form, Hero’s bandages become sentient. They peel away from her wound, revealing a minigun like weapon in the hole in her head. This can rapid fire while the bandages can grab onto things or hoist Hero up. She can make this last for five minutes -- ten at the longest -- before she gives out to sheer exhaustion and needs to eat demon meat to replenish herself.

Within her first week in hell, she was known to be powerful. Not quite an overlord, but powerful enough to hang around overlords. 

She hit overlord status three months later, during the terf war seen in Hazbin Hotel’s pilot: She took several areas of land, and was seen to have several lesser demons flocking to be on her good side.

Hero used her land to build up a bar and grill that serves strictly demon meat and blood, where demons can play music and dance. It’s like a fucked up country dinner. It’s an insanely popular addition to Cannibal Colony, where she lives.

The place is called La Cocina de la Calle Kuru (The Kuru Street Kitchen)

Hero REALLY wants to get her hands on exterminator tools, but she’s not really a fan of black market deals -- it’s too “trashy” for her.

Hero knows Alastor pretty well, as he’s came in for meat and to watch the music. They’ve had pretty decent conversations while she was on break, seeing as they were both influential  southern, cannibalistic serial killers. It’s a running gag between them where they jokingly talk about who was more iconic -- “I bet I took out more belles in a lifetime than you could in your entire afterlife!” “Well hon, at least I could eat the brains without gettin’ Kuru!”

She talks to Rosie a lot about business, and has met Niffty and Mimzy before. (Al hooked a bitch up with some friends lmao)

She REALLY likes Mimzy. She reminds her of Ralphie, and they became super fast friends. 

Vox and Hero have a confusing sort of friendship, as neither really wants to be seen with the other -- In his case, because she’s much lower on the overlord spectrum than him, and in her case, because she’s no stranger to Alastor and Vox’s hatred for one another. However, she often finds herself consoling Vox on sleepless nights after closing up the bar, trying to convince him that Valentino is NOT worth his time. Beyond that and him occasionally paying her back in tech at random hours of the morning, they don’t talk often.

Hero LOVES dancing! Like, a lot.

She’s seen Charlie’s ad for the Happy Hotel. Her and Mimzy watched it, and they both thought it was the stupidest damn thing they’d ever seen. However, Hero said she was happy Charlie got up there, because she was just, “Cute as a button, that lil’ sweatpea was!”

Hero’s best friends are Mimzy and an unnamed demon who specializes in black market, extermination tool selling (the one seen in in Addict -- Cherri Bomb’s former lover).

These two people, and these two people alone, can call her “Martha”

Hero cooks whenever she’s stressed. She also adores sewing and binging soap operas and reality shows on Voxflix.

Hero’s Instagram would be, “HeroicMelodies” in reference to her music career and name.

Hero gets hit on A LOT, and she despises it. She doesn’t need to seduce people anymore to get away with murder, and she doesn’t want to. She dresses the way she does because she LIKES that clothing. People can fuck off.

The reason Hero is white and pink is to show how innocent she looks. Her pitch-black eyes show her dark soul.

Hero sings in Spanish to herself when cleaning up.

Sometimes, Hero and Rosie spend holidays going around with ground demon meat to throw to the hell crows and other critters. They find it peaceful.

Hero, shockingly, holds no hatred for I.M.P., and commonly jokes about how the I.M.P.’s, “Did her a favor” by sending her somewhere she can actually be her. She has no idea who called for the hit, though. 

Hero finds Blitzo’s Instagram posts being poorly spelled to be, “Damn near precious”.

She thinks he’s a teenager, and probably would think it less adorable if she knew he was a grown man with a grown kid.

Hero doesn’t care about Mrs. Mayberry at all. Like, at all. She honestly assumes the woman is in heaven. She knew Mayberry wasn’t bad -- she probably wouldn’t care if she was in hell, though. Oh well. Sucks to suck, bitch.

Husk frequents La Cocina de la Calle Kuru to drink and engage in the gambling scene. Hero finds him trashy, but can’t say she hates him. She finds him funny as hell, and enjoys the business. Just not someone she’d personally hang out with.

[genderbinaryisforlosers]

everyone on the carte blanche for the ask meme

everyone? oh boy this is gonna get long ajfhdsf

JUNO

First impression: i, like a lot of people who get into the podcast without knowing a great deal about it, was expecting at most an ambiguously bisexual angst machine with a closely-guarded heart of gold. juno being an explicitly bisexual genderqueer angst machine is perhaps the most pleasant surprise of my life. the angst machine heart of gold characters were kind of my type at the time, so i loved him right away

Impression now: every time i think about juno’s arc from depressed mess held together by bad coping mechanisms, safety pins, and a few good strong puns into someone who can talk about his feelings, feel comfortable about being happy, and recognise when he needs to change, i want to cry about it a little bit. the depth of my love for juno steel has only grown along with him

Favourite moment: juno has a lot of great one-liners and i’m still a big fan of the “on the other hand i wasn’t wearing a watch” bit and who can forget such classics as juno finally deciding to stop moping over nureyev and move on only for him to open the door to his apartment and find nureyev sitting in the dark dramatically, but honestly nothing will ever hit me harder than his sudden, pissed-off declaration of “i can’t die yet, i still have shit to do!” in promised land. god.

Idea for a story: oh i have so many and i want to write most of them so no spoilers, but juno accidentally kidnaps a baby during a carte blanche heist and shenanigans ensue

Unpopular opinion: obviously we all know he’s dummy thicc but i feel like a lot of people forget he’s an actual genius, like the stuff he notices and how he strings it together is sometimes so obscure and he’s almost always right. oh, also juno is not skinny and i will not be taking criticism on that

Favourite relationship: this is so tough because every dynamic is so good, but i think it has to be juno and rita. those two are so good! the best best friends in the world!! i’m really a sucker for any dynamic that’s ridiculously in-sync so i loved these two as soon as juno saw rita’s notes in prince of mars and went “makes perfect sense to me” (which it probably didn’t, because rita, but he trusted that she knew what she was doing which is the important part)

Favourite headcanon: this isn’t really a headcanon but i still think about how juno is (was?) deathly afraid of heights but when he heard rex glass coming he still attempted to climb out of the window. either his aversion to working with dark matters/other people in general was so strong is overrided his fear, or his office was actually on the ground floor. not sure which of these is funnier.

NUREYEV

First impression: we’ve all seen the memes about nureyev knowing juno steel for one (1) day and deciding to Risk It All by leaving him with his name, look at this Hopeless Romantic, this utter DISASTER of a homosexual. the fact the very next time we hear from nureyev (at least directly) he’s patiently waiting in juno’s dark apartment to surprise him with a heist definitely supports this image.

Impression now: even after literally being inside peter’s head, i feel like we didn’t get a real sense of who he is until man in glass, where we find out he aggressively compartmentalises everything that causes him stress. he’s also distinctly someone who’s had his heart broken before, i think, which makes those first appearances of his very strange. but it does remind me of what juno says about diamond, and how he decided to provide the trust first and wait for the trustworthiness to grow in (only to get severely hurt), and i think that’s exactly what nureyev did. i am also... very uneasy with how suspicious he’s behaving this season because obviously i want to believe he’ll sort it all out and not betray the crew but... oof

Favourite moment: the beginning of what lies beyond pt1 where he’s affectionately bullying juno into taking care of himself? cleared my crops watered my skin etc etc etc

Idea for a story: i’d love to hear more about his past as a young thief idolising buddy and vespa (i can’t actually remember if that’s canon or fanon but anyway i wanna read it!)

Unpopular opinion: i think people often cling to an image of him that more resembles his first impressions in season 1 instead of seeing the depth that we’ve been given about his character in season 3

Favourite relationship: him and juno but honestly it’s a close call between them and his budding friendship with rita. even though she learned it by accident, his name is still a point of intimacy and it’s one less secret to keep around her which has to be a weight off his shoulders, at least a little? they seem like they could be really good friends once ultrabots is out of the way. juno steel love (and also bullying) zone activates whenever they’re together

Favourite headcanon: i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again - nureyev has never done a household chore in his goddamn life. he doesn’t know the water needs to be hot when you wash dishes.

RITA

First impression: honestly i’m not sure? i don’t remember having a big awareness of her in murderous mask but i remember loving her “note-taking” in prince of mars, i thought she sounded really fun and cute

Impression now: rita is really fun and cute, she’s also an extremely hardworking and dedicated woman who had the guts to throw in with a detective fired from the force and then invest all of her time and money into helping him help people.

Favourite moment: Rita Gets A Knife. enough said

Idea for a story: i don’t know honestly! i really struggle to write rita because her thought processes are so wild and i don’t think any story i could come up with would match mega ultrabots of cyberjustice.

Unpopular opinion: this shouldn’t be unpopular because juno steel himself shares this opinion but all future-jupeter headcanons are incomplete without rita also being a huge part of their lives

Favourite relationship: rita + franny 4ever obviously.. jk it’s juno & rita have you heard rita minute 3 they’re too adorable for this world. im still Soft over their conversation at the end of soul of the people when he said he couldn’t stay in hyperion anymore but he wouldn’t leave with the carte blanche if rita wasn’t coming because he was done leaving her behind, and she threw out all her hesitations on the spot and said call the big guy. speaking of, rita & jet are a close second. instant best friends i love them.

Favourite headcanon: i think this is basically canon now but rita being literally half the height of jet is so good

JET

First impression: “haha lorge funny man puts juno in the trash”

Impression now: jet sikuliaq is one of the dearest characters to me out of anything ever. he is a huge, menacing, polite, kind, sincere man who i would very much like to give me a hug. he’s the best aro ace in outer space and while being generally very levelheaded and straightforward, also takes every opportunity to fuck with juno because it’s very easy and very hilarious to him personally. he is everything my autistic acearo ass needed and i’m so glad to have him

Favourite moment: all of them every single one. him putting juno in the trash is of course a classic and every moment jet chooses to be funny makes my heart happy, but also every piece of genuine advice he gives. i’m a particular fan though of buddy recounting her years in the lighthouse and him saying he became concerned when she didn’t come downstairs at the usual time. “you took the door off its hinges.” “i was deeply concerned.” king of understatement

Idea for a story: again no spoilers for you but..... tools of rust time loop au

Unpopular opinion: this isn’t “unpopular” as much as it is unknown but jet is buddy’s queerplatonic partner and i will keep saying it until everyone believes it

Favourite relationship: jet and buddy,,, just everything about them. the way he suspects when she’s lying, the way she makes tea for him when she expects him to drop by. the fact he comes to check on her when she is 41 seconds late to the family meeting because it’s unlike her to be late and the last time she was late for something her brain was turning to radiation soup. but most especially the way she snaps at him to stay out of her business and he said he could not because he made her promise eight years ago to never stay out of the business of her health, no matter how many times she asked. they r literally in a qpr

Favourite headcanon: i don’t think this is true but i still think it would be funny if the ruby-7 used to be painted red but when jet got it he had it painted green because he Just Really Likes Green (as evidenced by his hovercycle). it’s very funny to me.

BUDDY

First impression: it’s been a minute since i relistened to time gone by but i’m pretty sure the first thing she ever says in the podcast is sliding up to depressed accidental whiskey thief juno and say “that’ll be ten million creds,” scaring the shit out of him, so needless to say i was in love instantly.

Impression now: my love for buddy aurinko has only grown and if it sounds like i already said that in this post it’s because i did about juno and it’s appropriate because the parallels are astounding. the heart of it all gave us such depth to buddy’s internal monologue and why she always sounds like she knows exactly what to say and what that’s like and honestly will i ever be over the heart of it all as an episode? unlikely. i think i’m gonna have a little piece of it in MY heart forever.

Favourite moment: everything she’s ever said is iconic as hell i especially like “in an impressive fit of hubris i’ve decided not to prepare my words for this vow” which made me laugh out loud but once again i must give it up for her iconic “I WANT TO LIVE” moment. honourable mentions to her taking rita out for ice cream and giving juno shooting lessons while she’s in her actual wedding gown. i love her

Idea for a story: buddy and vespa as sun/moon dieties.... that’s all

Unpopular opinion: stop drawing her with a fancy high-tech eye like the theia!! it canonically looks like garbage and it’s described in detail, please, i’m dying, also don’t minimise her scars you bastards

Favourite relationship: buddy and vespa invented romantic love and the entire carte blanche crew’s relationship to her is great but you know by now i’m a slut for buddy & jet out-of-this-world queerplatonic partners. the way she checks in on him during tools of rust to make sure he’s not relapsing and he comes to find her when she is 41 seconds late in the heart of it all to make sure she’s not having a heart problem!! it’s the trust,, the devotion,, the mortifying ordeal of being known

Favourite headcanon: she can sing. absolutely tears it up at karaoke. i’m right

VESPA

First impression: knife lesbian goes STAB. she will heal your wounds but she will be threatening to give you more the whole time

Impression now: she is extremely strong, heart-rendingly tender, and despite being in the older half of the carte blanche crew somehow has unmistakable little sister energy which makes her downright hilarious. i’m so glad she got to marry buddy and they’re official space wives now they’re so good for each other

Favourite moment: both from shadows in the ship, either “GUN!!” “KNIFE?!” (iconic) or when she clocks the dark matters drone pretending to be juno because it called her crazy and juno wouldn’t call her crazy. i’m always a sucker for “shapeshifter fails to fool mark because they Know Each Other Too Well” and it was just *chefs kiss* so good

Idea for a story: i really want to write something about when she was first staying at the lighthouse with buddy post-reunion, and getting to know jet and stuff. i think it would be cute

Unpopular opinion: i know vespa doesn’t canonically have lots of scarring but people who don’t draw her with scarring? cowards.

Favourite relationship: once again, although buddy and vespa invented romantic love, i just love the dynamic between vespa and juno so much. they’ve come so far with each other and their weird sibling dynamic gives me life. at the end of what lies beyond when juno says “we’re not gonna kill her, vespa” and instead of sounding full of Rage and Suspicion she’s like “whyyy notttt?” and he’s like “because i said so!” and that’s just good enough for her even if she’s a bit grumpy about it. i love it.

this took.. a hot minute to do! jshkfjsdgsa thank you dyl ily <3

[magaprima]

Okay, so I was going to do a list of all the moment where Lilith was soft and emotionally vulnerable etc, but the list was surprisingly long, so I’m having to divide them into basically sub-genres. 

So behold, all the moments Lilith shows pure softness. 

1. When she creates a secret book club for the girls of Baxter High. She had so many ways she could have solved this problem with Roz, including just compelling the school to allow the books to be read. But instead she creates a Book Club that she leads, allowing girls to have a safe place to go, and to read and grow and develop their minds, and despite Lilith claiming she’s doing it to tear their souls apart, she never does, and she just has these flashes of delight at all the girls around her. Lilith is in her element in leading women to enlightenment.

2. When she was thanked for the first time ever. The woman has clearly never been genuinely thanked for her work/actions in her entire existence, or at least not for thousands of years, and Sabrina genuinely thanking her for her help really seems to effect Lilith, it stuns her and we see she is emotionally effected by it. And I think it’s the first time we see her physically soften. 

3. When she helps Dezmelda tell her story. Lilith takes the girls there to make a point about corruption within High Priests, but when Dezmelda finds it hard to tell her story, Lilith instinctively reaches out to put her hand on Dezmelda’s knee supportively and helps her tell the tale. There’s a lot of falseness going on in this scene, but her interactions with Dezmelda seem entirely genuiine and they are very soft.  She may be using it to her advantage, but Lilith clearly has genuine solidarity with a witch chased out by an abusive man, choosing to live in the woods rather than submit.

4. When she admits they’ve all done unspeakable things to help the ones we love. There is something very genuine in this moment, she avoids Sabrina’s eye and doesn’t have the same manipulative expression she usually does when encouraging Sabrina to do something. There’s an honesty here, Lilith recounting what she has done for love, and though it might not seem a typical example, this is a very soft moment, because we’re seeing how Lilith can be motivated by love in regards to the Dark Lord, as much as by ambition. 

5. Attending Theo’s try-outs and being genuinely interested. So she ensures Theo is allowed to try-out as part of her determination to have no gender bias at Baxter High under her rule, but there is absolutely no reason for her to attend the try-outs. She’s not required there as Principal, she has no idea Sabrina is going to be there, and whether Theo gets on the team doesn’t effect her...and yet she goes, and we see her actively look for Theo, following where he is. Lilith got invested in a student’s life and that is so freaking soft. 

6. When she’s watching the passion play. Seeing her past played out on stage, even if with Blackwood’s biased re-write, has Lilith revisiting her own memories and she gets so very emotional about her. We see her entranced, remorseful, broken-hearted, upset, she is near to tears the entire time, and if that’s not softness I don’t know what is. We see here that despite everything, despite what she does, what she’s been through or how old she is, she has not been as completely hardened as she likes people to think. 

7. When she loves Adam’s gift. She was not expecting to like what he had, she probably expected something twee, and yet with a gift that was not only thoughtful but was something that appealed to Lilith’s rage, he wipes away all her murderous intent. She was planning to stab him with a knitting needle two minutes previously and then with this gift and this action, she’s suddenly going to him and smiling. It shows us how the smallest action of kindness has such an effect on Lilith. 

8. After Adam tells her he loves her for the first time. He openly says I love you, admittedly he believes he’s saying it to Mary, but the declaration alongside the kiss just makes Lilith utterly speechless. She’s thrown by it which is just so incredibly soft; how is it that an ancient witch, the mother of demons, future Queen of Hell can be so thrown by a simple declaration of love and a kiss?

9. When she dances with him. At first she’s reluctant and slow to accept what she has to do right now, but the more the song carries on, we see in the background as Lilith lets him twirl her nad even bobs with the music herself. She starts loosening up, but I think it’s partly because amongst the crowd she feels no one is seeing her. 

10. The foot rub. When Adam is giving her a foot rub after the dance, Lilith is so relaxed, she’s so comfortable and at home with him and it’s so starkly different to how she was when she first met him only a few hours ago. And she openly admits ‘a girl could get used to this’ which is a very telling thing to say and is probably why Stolas squawked so angrily. 

11. When she admits Adam 1.0 was cruel to her. We never hear her talk about Adam at all, or the Garden, but she genuinely shares here (it seems to be taken that it’s Adam in the Garden she talks about since she speaks of him in the past tense and she says he was only ever cruel, yet she tells Sabrina that Lucifer used to be kind), she feels safe enough to share, and she’s so broken and upset as she does, showing us just how much of an effect her experience in the Garden has had on her. 

12. Touch Starved. When she leans willingly and so eagerly into Adam’s touch, so she can feel his hand on her cheek. She leans and rests against it and just shows how much Lilith does long for intimacy and love and security. Something she probably had with the Dark Lord originally but hasn’t for centuries. This is where we see that Lilith not only can be soft, but she knows she is, when she admits it to herself.

13. When she initiates the kiss herself for the first time. This is the very time we see Lilith be the one to initiate the kiss, when Adam silently asks permission and she grants it. But the way she leans in, what it means for her to grant consent, how different it is to when she’s being sexual in order to trap someone (such as Hawthorne or the Pizza Boy) and we see that when Lilith is being genuine, she is very soft and gentle. Surprisingly so. 

14. When she realises she doesn’t want to lose him. This is a key post-kiss moment, when he has his eyes closed and she doesn't so we the audience see how she’s looking at him, how she’s studying him, and we see the dawn of realisation in her eyes that she does not want to lose him, and there’s that soft intimacy of their foreheads touching, the comfortable closeness of it. 

15. When she gives Adam the ring and he agrees to set a date. She’s so enthusiastic here. Yes, there’s a need to get that ring on his finger to protect him from the Dark Lord, but she’s genuinely eager to do it. We see her being so open here. Wide-eyed and open. 

16. When he agrees. When he says yes to the ring and they kiss, she is just so excited to keep him, she is biting her lip barely able to contain her delight and she is at one of her softest moments here. Adam is seeing a side of Lilith no one else has ever gotten to so far. 

17. Engaged. When she’s basically engaged now and she recognises this, she just looks so full on fucking happy. She’s utterly delighted and she’s looking at him with actual adoration and that’s so freaking, freaking soft. 

18. When she’s being all domestic with Adam. This quiet morning when she’s doing all her Principal admin work and he’s sat with her and there’s tea and jam bread. It’s just so softly domestic and shows how easily Lilith does slip into that. 

19. When she agrees to skip work and spend the day with him. Firstly, the fact she actually debates being able to skip work, and then when she does it’s while looking at how tempting she finds Adam, she wants to spend the day the with him

20. When she laughs at him for suggesting Tibet then realises he’s serious. This is just so sweet and cute but also shows how comfortable and relaxed she is with Adam, and also how much she thinks about his feelings, enough to feel bad when she laughs at him when he was being serious

21. When she says she’ll think about it. She agrees to genuinely debate giving up the throne and crown to go to Tibet to live a life with a mortal. If that isn’t soft I don’t know what is. 

22. The pebble wish. When she makes a fucking wish on a fucking pebble like a fucking princess and smiles while she fucking does it and then fucking launches it while leanign against Adam with his arm around her waste like the fucking Queen she is. Sotfness Squared. 

23. The look of love. When she studies Adam when he’s not looking like you do when you’re in love, where you watch them when they’re not watching you, and she seems to realise herself in this moment just how much she loves him. SOFT. 

24. Romantic Meal. If you forget for the moment that it’s really the Dark Lord, if this was really Adam, Lilith is being so domestic yet again having a meal with him, smiling, complimenting his cooking...

25. Agreeing to go to Tibet. If anything is soft it’s Lilith smiling while she officially decides to give up her claim to the throne and instead run away for a life with a mortal. 

26. The Widow. Despite the sadness attached to this scene, I still think it’s very soft that Lilith chooses to take Adam’s ring and put it on her wedding finger. She marries him in death essentially. She chooses to consider herself his widow. And despite the tragedy of that it is also very soft. 

27. Keeping the ring on. Even when she crowns herself, she’s wearing the ring still, the fact she doesn’t take it off even to meet the Dark Lord or to attend the coronation, ah, so very soft. 

28. The prayer. When she’s being prayed to, Lilith is so emotionally effected by that. She is so touched by the sound of a coven of witches praying to her, considering her to be worthy of worship and seeing her reaction here shows just how much Lilith needs to hear she’s worthy and how much that prayer meant to her

29. Looking after Lucy. Lilith is very instinctive here, she reaches out for Lucy so naturally and holds onto her so naturally and doesn’t even blink at the fact the girl holds onto her and does, in fact, hug her back, holding onto her. She only stops when she consciously realises she’s doing it. And then there’s the fact she erases the horrible things Lucy went through so she only remembers being rescued. 

30.Ambrose’s enthusiasm. She gets genuinely and quietly amused at Ambrose geeking out rather than being annoyed, and it shows a softness that she appreciates and accepts his excitement over being in Hell. 

31. Being sympathtic to Sabrina’s loss. When Sabrina breaks up with Nick, Lilith offers sympathy but it’s when Sabrina isn’t looking at her that we see her genuine softness as she remembers what it is to lose someone you love and how ‘Queens aren’t allowed to cry’

32. When she fully commits to ruling beside Sabrina. This moment is so brief, and it’s when Lilith has come to totally accept Sabrina as Queen, which is a big fucking deal for Lilith, and even bigger deal? She’s happy about it. She talks about she and Sabrina ruling side by side for eternity, a glorious eternity, and she doesn’t hide how happy she is about that, she lets Sabrina see her happiness. This is just showing not only that Lilith can adapt her ambitions, but when she works with someone, if she believes there’s equality and respect she’s happy. And that’s why it made the next moment such a betrayal to her. But that’s a different post I already made ages ago.