#actions have consequences and we all have to live with them

[thewitchandtheassassin]

Life, Death, and the Space in Between Part Four (Agatha Harkness x Reader x Rio Vidal)

Summary: Every action has a consequence.

Words: 1540

Warnings: Arguments, talks of death, canon death, language?

A/N: I'm alive. I haven't forgotten this. I also have Covid so forgive me. K, thanks!

-X-

Agatha’s feet carried her forward, through endless expanse as she searched for Nicky before—

Two small, thin arms wrapped around her, his head pressing against her stomach as he barreled into her. “Mama!” his voice cracked, burrowing deeper into her grasp.

Breath catching painfully in her chest, Agatha sunk to her knees, gathering him into her arms and just… holding him, silent tears streaming down her face. He smelled just like she remembered—of earth and rain and everything good in her world. Everything good she’d ever done.

-X-

Trembling hands caressed your face, wiping away sweat and tears as your breathing grew shallow, lips paling.

“W-what’s happening?” Teen asked nervously, flinching at Rio’s cold, unwavering glare.

“Which part? The part where you shouldn’t exist right now and neither should this godforsaken Road? How your powers just sent (Y/N) and Agatha into the realm of the afterlife because you can’t control your abilities? Or the part where—” Rio choked on her words, staring down at your unmoving body, “—Life is dying?”

Teen’s jaw dipped open, eyes wide with horror. “W-what?”

The other witches took a step back, sensing the brewing storm within Rio, eyes flickering between the boy and the scene before them.

“You, Teen, are Billy Maximoff. Son of the Scarlet Witch and the creator of the Witch’s Road. Congratulations, you’ve turned a con into a reality and in doing so, have damned Life to die because you briefly gave Agatha Harkness enough power to drag my other half into the fucking afterlife!” her words were sharp, cracking around the edges. “The living can’t come back from the afterlife! In letting Agatha have exactly what she wanted, Life made a choice… and she…”

Shaking fingers drifted along your cheeks.

“God, why did you do it?” she asked your still form. “You idiot. You stupid, wonderful, selfless idiot.”

“Wait, wait, hold up. (Y/N) is Life?” Jenn repeated, her eyes jumping between you and Rio. “So does that make you—”

“Death,” Lilia finished, though it wasn’t a question.

Tilting her head slightly, Rio’s eyes never left you. “Ding, ding, ding. Thank you for playing, witches. So, unless anyone has any useful ideas right this second, I need you all to shut the hell up while I think.”

For once…

The Road was silent.

And Rio had no ideas of how to solve this fucking mess.

-X-

Staggering towards Agatha and Nicky, you forced your body to keep moving, even as the afterlife demanded more from you the longer Agatha remained. Seeing her clinging to Nicky tugged at your heart and you hated yourself for what you were about to do. Dragging her away.

“Mommy!” Nicky gasped, peering over Agatha’s shoulder at you, his excitement fading into worry. “Are you okay? You don’t look okay.”

Stiffening slightly, Agatha glanced over her shoulder at you, eyes widening at the blackening veins pulsing on your face, the paleness of your lips, the shadows nipping at your heels…

“Hey, baby,” you rasped, collapsing beside Agatha and gently combing your fingers through his long hair. “I uh… I’m okay. I have to take Mama home though. I’m sorry, we can’t stay.”

Nicky’s expression dropped but he nodded. “I know. It’s not Mama’s time.”

Reaching up, his small hand touched your cheek, knowing something’s wrong even if he can’t understand it. His other hand touched Agatha’s.

“Please stop fighting,” he whispered to Agatha, holding her gaze. “It wasn’t their fault. Someday, we’ll be a family. All of us. You and Mommy and Mami… we’ll all be happy again.”

Maybe it’s the light shining in his eyes or the actual health keeping his face colored or maybe it’s the confidence in his voice but something—even if she didn’t want to admit it—began to warm in her chest, regret flooding into her eyes as she really took you in. How sick you suddenly seemed. The way you were panting, despite not needing air. The way your glow seemed…

Dim.

Smiling softly—in pain, in heartbreak—you grabbed Agatha’s hand and tangled your fingers together before closing your eyes, yanking both of you back into your bodies before she could try and stop you.

Then…

There was only darkness.

-X-

Agatha awoke with a gasp, sitting upright abruptly. The Road. She was on the Road again—lying in the wet mud—but…

Glancing around, she saw everyone surrounding… something.

“And here I thought this coven would be happy to know I’m fine,” she half-joked, staggering to her feet and wandering over to group, almost offended by the lack of reaction. “Really feeling the sisterhood here.”

Before she could even reach the circle, Rio’s hand was wrapped around her neck, shoving her into a tree. Scathing remarks on the tip of her tongue, she froze at the look of absolute fury on Rio’s face. Of all the things she’d said and done over the centuries, she’d never been on the receiving end of this expression…

This hatred.

“Agatha Harkness, you selfish, thoughtless woman! Hate me all you want but she—” Rio choked on her words, emotion swimming so deeply in her eyes that it nearly stole Agatha’s breath. “—she always saw the best in you. Forgave you for whatever you said; whatever you did. But this? Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What fucking mess you’ve caused? No, because you don’t ever think about anyone other than yourself!”

“What are you talking about?” Agatha choked out, fingers wrapping around Rio’s wrist in an attempt to loosen her grip.

Dragging her by her throat over to your body, Rio snarled, “Look!”

There, motionless on the ground, you lied. Pale in the moonlight of the Road, eyes fluttering, chest barely rising—

You looked like a damn corpse, something Agatha never once expected to see. You, so full of energy and life, snuffed out like a candle in a windstorm, only embers remaining where your flames once burned. Your fingers twitched, as if reaching out for something unseen but too weak to find.

“Nothing living can return from the afterlife. It demands a price, a price, for any mortal that passes through—and she fucking paid yours.” Rio’s lip trembled, staring at the dying body of her counterpart.

Her perfect other half.

For the first time in her existence, Agatha Harkness was struck speechless. You, who always stood by her side even when she screamed and raged and hated… you, who vowed to love her even as Agatha scorched the earth around her… you who could’ve left her to the afterlife…

“(Y/N),” she breathed, dropping to her knees beside you, a trembling hand reaching out to touch your face, only to be caught by Rio and yanked away, nearly knocked backwards onto her ass.

“Don’t fucking touch her,” she hissed, carefully lifting your body into her arms to cradle you to her chest. Feeling the way your heartbeat was waning beneath her palm. Sluggish. Barely beating. “You’ve done enough.”

Agatha’s lips parted, but no words came. There was nothing she could say. For once, the woman who had spoken her way into and out of every situation imaginable—who always found an angle to tip the scales in her favor—was utterly, horrifyingly speechless. For all her dark knowledge… she was completely unprepared.

A broken, strangled sound escaped her lips, and she moved again, reaching for you instinctively. “Rio, please—”

“No,” Rio spat, pulling you tighter against her chest. Her arms curled around you as if shielding you from the very woman who had caused this, her visage flickering for a split second. An unspoken warning. “You don’t get to ask anything of me. Of her. Not anymore.”

Agatha recoiled like she’d been struck, breath hitching sharply in her throat. She wanted to argue, to lash out, to fix this—but there was nothing she could say, nothing she could do. For the first time, she actually felt how powerless she really was.

"Please, baby," Rio whispered, this time directed at you. At the barely-there rise and fall of your chest. "Stay with me. Don’t leave me; I can’t do this without you."

But even as she begged, even as she reached for something unseen, something that was already slipping between her fingers, trying to call upon something—anything, the truth sat heavy in the air.

You were dying.

And there wasn’t a damn thing Death could do to stop it.

Jenn took a step forward, hesitant. “There has to be something we can do.” Her voice wavered, but there was determination in her eyes, staring at your still body. “Life isn’t a mortal, so that means the afterlife can’t just… take her.”

Rio let out a bitter laugh, low and humorless. “Oh, sure. Go ahead, Jenn. If you have a way to defy the fundamental laws of existence and the cosmos and the afterlife I’ve cultivated for millennia, be my guest. Clearly a bunch of half-assed witches know more than an actual cosmic entity.”

Jenn bristled but she kept quiet, knowing this wasn’t just anger—this was unadulterated grief. The panic of not being able to stop what felt inevitable.

And if they didn’t hurry…

There would be no life left to save.

[octo-blobs]

hi i cant remember what notes are but here we go.

for many a reason i very deeply resonate with the found family aspect of 8path and have spent a lot of time daydreaming about it - so a Hefty Chunk of what i've taken from it includes projection and indulgent headcanoning. i loved english literature at school so i like to think my analysis skills have aided me in keeping the characters i ship in a recognisably canon-compliant state, but because i'm just stubbornly gay i stop caring whether it makes sense to then add copious amounts of romance on top. ~anyway~.

alfion. i originally didn't like alfyn! my first experience of him was the english dub and i found his sonic-like mannerisms annoying. after experiencing the game in full, however, and becoming very attached to therion, i figured that he was a great asset to those who needed a soft-hearted-strongman. i love what the narrative offers regarding how it shapes these characters and would make a seriously long post about analysing every character i talk about here If People Cared -- for now, though, i'll try to keep it short. (NARRATOR VOICE: he did not keep it short.)

i just love the foils between alfyn and therion. therion, whose heart stutters and bleeds the truth of his loneliness; a man who lives in the shadows only to yearn for the love that light holds. alfyn, who from his trauma took the lesson of embracing life with open arms; a man who would rather unintentionally shepherd in evil than to deny a second chance. they embody such a deep sense of hurt/comfort whilst also curating a casual, warm and boyish sense of true friendship together.

therion benefits so deeply from all 7 of his playable companions, and in alfyn's case, i think it's deeply tied to his free-falling honesty. not only does alfyn portray his values strongly - he also does utterly risk-intensive and sometimes borderline stupid things because he believes in his chosen role as a force for change. his story arc seems to show him doubling down on these decisions, and there are several points at which therion's existence as a societal menace and ~bad person~ can be seen as relevant to them. whether or not you should help a no-good thief; whether or not a person is evil because of their past and circumstances that changed the trajectory of their life; where you should draw the line and what you should punish; whether you should give up on a person who nobody else can seem to help. to me, alfyn seems to decide that he'll be somewhat of an objective and benevolent (as much as a human with a strong protective complex can be) shepherd to the weak and forsaken, taking consequences of his actions as a workplace risk instead of a curse to his worth. therion, however ... this man is mired in shame and has no sense of self-worth that doesn't come down to spiteful pride in the abilities that darius praised & his self-preserving spite. he gave his heart to someone and he thinks, for the most part, that he need not ever get past the pain it caused him, lest it make him weak all over again. because being weak hurt - being powerless hurt. and being chucked off a cliff by someone you would've burned the world with... *really* hurt.

from therion's standpoint he is seen by others as undeserving and, for the longest time, i don't think it matters to him whether or not that assessment is true. his way of compartmentalising the way society treats him is to do what he needs for survival regardless, because there are a hundred more evil things than he himself is capable of - as, iirc, an orphan, and a pauper - but i don't think this leads to an appreciation for his worth. it's so tarnished by darius, the fallout of which probably confirmed pre-conceived notions such as 'don't trust anyone', 'always account for yourself and forsake others before they forsake you', 'the whole world is more likely to turn you in than to hold your hand'. honestly, i see in therion such overflowing yearning that he doesn't *fully* live by these notions - he can't cut himself off from the love he longs for because he's not the kind of no-good scoundrel he thinks he belongs with. whereas darius and plenty of other criminals ingame sow cruelty and are cutthroat with their relationships, therion seems to be capable of empathising with a broader spectrum of people (as seen, to me, by his ability to sympathise with cordelia & thus the untouchable bourgeoise he so loathes). alfyn's open-minded worldview allows therion to be present in the life of a thoroughly kind person without either feeling threatened or like he's in disguise. from there, he's able to observe the light he's yearned for and, in time, this could blossom into a love that finally grants him security.

god i could talk about them forever, but i also have a headcanon that i've held close to me for a few years now. based on the map and where therion's attempted murder takes place, i've ruminated on the idea that therion could have ended up getting medical treatment in clearbrook. after tumbling down the jagged, steep lines of bolderfall's mountainside, he could have broken his fall as the terrain blushed green with grass and trees and underbrush. dry from the desert sun and on the brink of death, a near sightless therion dragged himself towards the sounds of rushing water. the current dragged his limbs - some broken, others just weak and covered in wounds - further down the river. as therion and alfyn were both younger, i wonder if zeph would have lead the treatment that therion received once he was pulled from the bubbling waters and rushed onto the medieval equivalent of an operating table. the immediate question is, "wouldn't they recognise each other once they met in the future?" - and i don't think therion would want himself to be known, treated or kept in such a generous home. most apothecaries are paid in-universe - a service therion was beyond sure he couldn't pay for. to me, therion is apprehensive about returning to clearbrook on his travels but *needs*, for whatever narrative reason, to pass through and receive apothecary aid. alfyn recognises the white hair and skittish tendencies, recalling little other than a patient who picked from zeph's coinpurse and ran. for the longest time, he never brings up that he belives - knows - that person was therion. he wrestles with it, deciding that he indeed wants to see just what kind of person therion is, which eventually leads him to discover that he was right to trust & nurture him.

the therion i depict always has a snarled lip from a lasting scar, cleft from the incident, and i headcanon him suffering from lasting conditions, both physically and mentally, that actually alfyn would be able to treat or provide relief from - continuing the proof that he can and will be taken care of here; that there's no reason to be afraid; that he can scratch and protest all he likes, but he's in the hands of a man whose whole purpose (and joyfully so) is to make sure he has a space to heal.

god lmao i love them so much. i also see them both as trans but i also see a good portion of the casts of both 8path 1&2 as trans so it barely feels relevant. i just think its neat.

h'aanirose. primh'aan. it's a very similar story, though their personalities, goals and lives are led in very different manners to alfyn and therion. i certainly think there's a lot to add about lesbianism here, such as comparing primrose's relationships with women to those she has with men, as well as h'aanit's portrayal as a warrior woman and a blushing knight in the face of her alluring lady, but i probably wom't go into all of it.

primrose and yusufa was an extremely formative relationship. it, unfortunately, mirrored the one with her father and left her losing another deeply important person to murder. the kind of rage that rumbles in primrose's heart and thunders out into bursts of arcane shadow is not to be underestimated, in part because it left her so vulnerable to the puppeteering of simeon. in her eyes, she lost everyone she loved - and then, suddenly, in a way that made her once again feel like a child, she un-lost one of those people. forming a deep and lasting connection must be tough for her after the events of the game and thus i think the a certain travel banter line from the end of her story is representative of even more yearning than it seems on the surface. to h'aanit she suggests they could travel together in future, even commenting that she could protect h'aanit herself. to which, of course, the incredibly muscular pseudo-viking with axe-wielding biceps and a giant snow leopard says, 'dost thou not mean *i* coulde protecten *thee*?' i find this so incredibly cute. of course there's a huge aspect of prim's banter where she alludes to her physique & intimately informed commentary on men, which leads her to praise h'aanit for choosing neither of the 'two kinds of men' in chapter 2. however, the power of yuri in my heart takes this subtext and runs with it - when i talk about the deeper yearning of this interaction, what i'm referring to is the fact that the game gives us an insight into her thoughts and has her, like a stumbling shy lovebird, question why she didn't just outright admit she likes h'aanit's company. it's one of my favourite little things in the entire game because primrose has lived so much of her life as someone that she didn't want to be, but *had* to be in order to approach the truth and get closure for her grief. i think she knows that there's an aimless and unknowable path before her, and her old skills kick in. before she can simply ask for h'aanit to join her on this daunting endeavour, she finds herself trying to sweeten her words & make herself seem appealing as a companion. (seeing as prim can allure any gender, it highlights that alluring isn't just used in a sexual manner - though frequently that's how she's received by men & has more success playing into that across the board). i think this scene is emblematic of the effect h'aanit has on her, and i love gobbling it up.

primrose feels comfortable in letting h'aanit know that she feels safe with her very automatically, even when she's shy about asking for her company. h'aanit, to me, would make a lovely candidate for a person that primrose can deeply love & is less likely to lose to a cruel deception or death; i think the way in which h'aanit fends for herself is appealing in this manner. in turn, the sweet way in which they can exchange life lessons creates a foundation of support, which is both fantastic in a world where the men* in their lives are falling short of the roles they might otherwise occupy and a foundation for love that appreciates their strengths without regretting their weaknesses. (*z'aanta as a drunken & lighthearted mentor often scolded by his apprentice; primrose's lack of a present father figure or protector; the way h'aanit's story champions the presence of strong and/or skilled women; primrose chapter 1 villain who icr the name of cause he sucked; simeon as an older man in young primrose's life who preyed on her innocence and love for him). etc etc.

h'aanit is a learner. she may not start out with experience, and further on she finds herself flustered at several points when it comes to the mannerisms of cityfolk, but she's capable of understanding the wider picture. i think this is aided by the way in which she sees herself in the cycle of life, protecting the forest by stepping into it only where it can undo the superfluous presence of man. she doesn't get too involved in the habits of others unless they threaten the forest - an example is with therion and the way she just flat-out judges his nimble fingers, only to do nothing about it other than sass him out in ye olde. she is patient to see how things pan out, and can respect others enough to see where their actions will take them before stepping in. then, when she steps in, she is both graceful and noble, making her an incredibly romantic figure imo. i have, many a time, also thought about the way h'aanit is predominantly a melee (aside from summoning) fighter, with an emphasis on strategic timing for her skills, and prim is almost entirely a support. throughout the trauma and troubles that primrose faced prior to meeting any of the cast, she was unable to access enough power or knowledge to push forward and instead played a waiting game. i think it delights her to know that she can stand beside her battering ram of a girlfriend and fuel her, achieving her goals not through manipulation or abuse but through their shared vision.

my hands feel a bit numb from typing all of this out on my phone, which i didn't need to do but did anyways because it's very easy to fixate on these characters. i feel like i have a thousand things to say, all of them obsessive and excited because of an adoration for the character writing in these games. i love squeezing it for all of the gay stuff and i will never stop.

honourable ship mentions that i will go into detail about if anyone asks, *particularly* those for 8path2 - olberus, olberus but with erhardt too for yaoi reasons, throné x temenos t4t, throné x agnea (postgame +several years), knightlight, a polyamorous amalgamation of the above 8path2 characters (with the exception of temenos not being into women in my hc)... god. help. theres always more but im tired and now i want to replay the games. thank you op for my life

if you read this you get a gold star

I miss octopath yapping with people so uh yknow what! We’re gonna play a game!!

Explain in the notes what y’all’s favorite ships are and why you like them!!!

Only rules are

1) do not explain why everyone should think your ship is canon, as that is not the point of this post 2) do not put any other ships down bc that is also not the point of this post 3) ALL games are included (yes including cotc) 4) ANY SHIPS ARE ALLOWED!!! GO NUTS!!!!

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

He Experiences Hate From Common Folk Due To Being A Powerless, Banished Noble But All He Gets Out From It He's Poor

If this was another series this would slowly open his eyes to how nobles like him are hated by everyone so much due to how they use and abuse them.

But nope all we get is that Stolas self-pities himself for being poor and live with the severe consequences of his rash actions.

Then again this man brushed off Striker's justified grievances with the royals as vile so this pos would totally not give a hoot about how the normal people have been mistreated. And despite what fanbase say I don't think Stolas will ever get that point because the narrative babies him from actually being in the wrong.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

KILL!!!!!!!!!

[caramellody]

I could go on and on and spiral about a LOT of things relating to NSBU:

The NATURE of the nsbu movie and what THAT could entail and what THAT could mean for the characters in this movie

The way at how everyone in the main cast AND barsimmion follow the themes of the lack of change and stalemate in life

[ernest-shackleton]

The last one of my brothers has reached the point of no return w my mother and I'm so happy to have all my siblings back :3

[meganechan05]

While I love the possible Gira Corruption Arc with him being cynical about the Body Swap and calling Jeramie naive, think about it.

Gira was their roommate at some point while he was playing dead soon after he was tossed around between countries for different reasons per King.

He had to live with them after learning what kind of Kings they are.

That's freaking hilarious if you think about it.

Not to mention soon after he and Jeramie became Kings, they all fcked up and were thrown into Gokkan's prison. He had to reassure their aides that the 2 years that have passed were peaceful enough for none of them to worry until Dugded showed up 🤣🤣

[edwardseymour]

Love that we're blaming Jane for Anne and the other men's deaths, she was a wild woman after all lol. Honestly though whenever I see that take I'm like how many deaths are we now allowed to lay at Anne and Elizabeth's feet? All those people that refused to sign the oath of succession?

you see, it’s different, because one was judicial murder to facilitate a regime change and the other was legal execution where the forced submission to a regime change failed. very different!

[zorthania]

A piece about survivors guilt.

This comic isn't perfect. I started it back in October 2023, and every time I picked up my pen, I wept.

I bring this to you today, on 9/11, in hopes that you reflect on this day a little differently than how most Americans would. Let it move you to continue to boycott, protest and challenge your family, friends and colleagues. You have a bigger impact than you would believe.

Thank you for reading this with an open heart.

From the river to the sea...

I'd like to bring to attention the fact that the figures depicted above are a gross undercount of the actual number of deaths. I scoured the internet high and low to source my findings and not a single one could break down the devastation that befell an individual ethnicity. Instead, they lumped a bunch of ethnicities together, provided a general timeline, and called it a day, reinforcing the sheer scale of dehumanization propagated in the west. The only consistency between all the articles I looked up was the 4.5 to 4.7 million figure I've included above, and even then, they were all published by western media news outlets... the very same that have been so unreliable and complicit in the genocide of Palestinians today. So I have to take everything they say with a grain of salt.

We are not just numbers.

All of us have ambitions and desires and lives worth living.

With that said, this is your friendly reminder to:

Donate an e-sim

Donate to PCRF to provide Palestinian children aid

Donate to Pious Projects to provide woman with feminine hygiene kits

Donate to CareForGaza to provide food to displaced families in Gaza either through their Gofundme or their paypal

Donate to any of the vetted gofundme campaigns on GazaFunds to help Palestinians trying to flee Gaza.

And if you or someone you know sees or experiences a hate crime and can afford it, SUE. This is a more effective use of your money than most realise. The reason zionists act with impunity is because of the normalization of white supremacy and oppression of ethnic minorities. Challenging that in any capacity tells them that there are consequences to their actions and makes them think twice before engaging in hate crimes and helps raise all of us up against the systems currently in place that let them get away with it.

If you can't donate or spend any money, you can:

Do your daily clicks.

Boycott targeted companies on the BDS list (if you're like me and you don't want a single dollar to go towards anything supporting Israel right now, you can use Bdnaash to double check what products are okay to buy, but the BDS list is sufficient as it is a strategic attack and proven very effective thus far)

Flood your representatives emails and voicemails with how you won't be voting for them unless their politics align with an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Attend a protest, be LOUD.

Challenge your circle of friends, family and colleagues with conversations about Palestine. (THIS IS THE MOST UNDERRATED AND MOST EFFECTIVE THING YOU CAN DO)

and if you're really up to, be disruptive in any capacity that you can think of towards major corporations benefiting from this onslaught. (i.e. halting military manufacturers from production + shipments, sticking boycott stickers on products at your market etc)

And finally, if your country wasn't mentioned in the above excerpt, it was no deliberate omission on my part and I encourage you to come forward and tell your story about the suffering of your people so that this may be a learning opportunity for everyone.

You are seen.

You are not alone.

Thank you again if you've read this far.

From the river to the sea...

[isekyaaa]

One thing that conversation came extremely close to but (I was smart enough) not to touch on is the idea of people's "right to know." I think the point I was trying to get at (that I did a bad job of explaining) is that there's a difference between a shitty person and a horrible person. Shitty people are shit, yes, but that doesn't mean you should ruin their lives over it.

And going back to people's right to know, one of the people in that conversation mentioned about "putting your experience out there but not telling people what to do" and that's like absolutely stuck in my mind. In my personal opinion, it's nobody's business to know the business of shitty people and how shit they are. Horrible people, yes, but not shitty people.

It reminds me of this story I read a few months back about a fanfiction author that had two Ao3 accounts. On one, they put g-rated stories that were really popular. On another, they had stories that dealt with things such as rape, incest, etc. They kept both accounts completely separate with nobody knowing they were the author of both. Someone found out and was so horrified that they basically doxxed their g-rated account and ruined that person's rep online. Now comes the question. Was that doxxer right to do so?

It scares me to think that majority of the people online would say yes, that they would hate to enjoy any fics written by someone that likes horrible things. That yes, that they have the right to know. Am I the only person who thinks that's wrong? That, even if this person is into horrible things, they don't deserve to have their lives ruined over it? Am I the only person to think that's completely insane to just spread out to the world?

There's this weird purity culture going on in the world that you are not allowed to enjoy things made by bad people. That you're not allowed to support them. That if you enjoy these things, that is a direct reflection of you and your character. That because you enjoy this author's g-rated works, you must condone their personal kinks as well. If you consider them a good writer, you must support rape and incest as well.

Am I insane to think that that's none of your business? That you shouldn't go about life vetting every tidbit of entertainment you take in to make sure that it's good and pure? That everyone has evil things about themselves that they are not proud of and preferably don't want spread to the world? That just because you had a bad experience with someone, you have no right to air their dirty laundry to millions of people online? Am I the only person that thinks that's cruel?

[absolutedestinyapocalypsse]

i love how as you read more into tlt, the ninth house seems more and more normal. Like if i'm at an immoral evil government competition, and i use human fat as soap and animate skeletons to do menial labor, i'm gonna LOSE if my competition is the third house, represented by ianthe "who HASN'T eaten human flesh and fucked a corpse" tridentarius. My weird skeleton thing seems normal, suddenly. Well-adjusted, even. It's recycling. They're using resources in a sustainable way. Normal and regular and productive for a post-climate change apocalypse universe.

People go on and on about how Muir drops you into gtn hearing from the person who knows the least about whats happening, and does not hand hold the reader through the crazy shit that occurs, and that's all true. It truly is a crazy writing decision to make your first pov character come from the universe's equivalent of amish fundamentalists. But the reader is actually done a huge favor being dropped into the ninth house first, because we already understand that space is cold and what catholic nuns are, and what goths look like, and what lesbians are. Very little time is wasted in the first chunk of gtn ripping hair out of your head wondering what the fuck is going on, because for all of its strangeness, the ninth house is already the most familiar thing we're gonna get.

Because THEN we learn that this whole universe's medieval chivalry system is designed to groom people from CHILDREN to not only be exploited and used as human batteries for necromancers, but to LIKE it. to wax poetic about it. to confuse it for love, to write fucking academic papers about it! Then we learn about planet flipping, an act so horrific and violent it turns the planet's soul into a massive vengeful monster capable of killing GOD. Like what do you MEAN the animals "change"? Is this why noodle has six legs? I would MUCH prefer to wear skeleton makeup and repent forever if the alternative was to witness my family dog grow TWO EXTRA LIMBS because the planet he lived on fucking died. Suddenly, living in the asscrack of a planet where no light gets in seems like a sweet deal when the whole solar system is lit by a sun that MAKES YOU GO CRAZY. The ninth house's WORST sin, killing 200 babies to make Harrow, a waste of resources and an act so terrible it haunts Harrow for the entire span of her life, is like a BLIP compared to the death count Jod's empire. God even hears about it and he's like, no big deal! The cohort probably kills that amount of people in a DAY.

And its ALSO tragic because you realize that all of this trauma and abuse that Gideon goes through is not really because of the ninth house at all. It's really just an individual skill issue that she wasn't treated with compassion. Nobody hated her because she's jesus or a bomb, nobody even KNOWS she's a bomb. It's just Priamhark and Pelleamena being deeply guilty and scared people that motivates her treatment, and absolutely nothing else.

They did something bad, and they know it, and Gideon survived it, and they can't kill her to cover it up, and that's IT. They killed themselves for pride, because they were afraid of the consequences of their actions (both the baby killing and Harrow opening the tomb) coming back to bite them. You can argue this is the catholicism of it all, and I wouldn't say you're wrong, but compared to the cavalier system, where exploitation is in the very lining of the house's institutions, the ninth house is really removed from the space empire's blood factory. This is compared to the fourth house where they have tons of children to be CANNON FODDER to join the cohort at fucking 14, compared to the eight house uncle nephew fuckery, even the fifth house which actually does seems nice to live on but also seems to have the fourth house in some sort of fucked up political bear hug??? (maybe the fourth house has so many kids in order to fight the fifth's battles? which is EXACTLY what jod's whole empire is about; politely stirring your tea and acting nice while you destroy everything) compared to ALL OF THAT, the cruelty that Gideon faces is really more a bug of the ninth's system than a feature.

There's nothing baked into the culture and everyday life of the ninth house that necessitated that cruelty; in fact, for such a pragmatic and resource-scarce place, it's WEIRD that a strong able-bodied young person was treated like a waste of space and resources. It could just have easily not happened, if Harrow's parents had been different people. Maybe they were products of their environment, but so was Harrow, and she values Gideon's life SO MUCH that she'd literally rather carve out parts of her own brain than exploit her. Gideon grows up knowing really NOTHING about cavaliers, so remote from the horrors of the empire that she develops an idea of what the cohort is from porn magazines. And in a lot of ways, that upbringing was desolate and terrible, and in a lot of other ways it literally DID NOT HAVE TO BE.

Gideon's MAIN THING is that she wants to be useful, to be needed, to be loved and it SUCKS that she couldn't even get it in the one place where she was actually an invaluable resource, where the death empire had the weakest reach. Gideon can't even blame her lack of love on the fucked up chivalry system like everyone else can because it JUST WASNT REALLY RELEVENT!?!?! This is like if i rolled up to the trauma competition and everyone else was raised in a nuclear warzone by wolves or something and i grew up in like, the suburbs and was raised by teachers and i somehow STILL WON. truly what the fuck guys.

[arabian-batboy]

This is why Zionists spent months spreading lies and propaganda about rabid Palestinian men going on a raping spree against any innocent Jewish woman they could see on October 7th, to perpetuate this narrative that sexual violence committed by Palestinians against Israelis is a serious wide-spread issue because Palestinian men (or just brown men in general) are savage animals who breath and live solely for raping women, when in reality its the other way around.

By doing so, they embedded this caricature about Palestinian/Arab men into people's mind that makes them view them inherently as rapists, but never in a million year as a rape victim and that if they don't quickly rush to "condemn" these fake evidence-less rape allegations (not a single of each have been proven to happen by any reliable sources) then they're terrible people and rape-supporting anti-semites. Needless to say, those same people are definitely NOT in any rush to condemn these actually proven and verified rape cases by Israeli settlers.

All of which makes it easier for Zionists to continue their decades long history of sexual violence against Palestinians by having these concentration camps where Palestinian men and boys, just like Palestinian women and girls, regularly go through horrendous forms of torture and sexual abuse that don't receive a fraction of the attention, disclosure, sympathy and condemnation as all of those fake and already-debunked cases of Israeli women being brutally raped by Palestinian men, because everyone has decided that rape is something that's always committed by (brown) men and its victims are always (white) women.

This isn't anything new or exclusive to only Palestinian men, on top of the Israeli concentration camps, many innocent Muslim and Middle Eastern men over the years who have been subjugated through demeaning torture and sexual assault in other concentration camps such as Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo with no consequences for the perpetuators. Not even when we have real documented footage of those sexual crimes, that are literally posted online by the American or Israeli rapist-soldiers (often female soldiers) where they're shown smiling and laughing with their faces clearly seen as they torture the prisoners, because they know that as long as the victim is a Palestinian/Arab/Muslim man, there will be no consequences for them or any justice for their victims.

And people will just go on believing the notion that all Middle Eastern men are sexually-deprived raping machines who can't control themselves when they see a woman showing her ankle, when in reality foreigners occupiers and soldiers target them as much as they do to Middle Eastern women and subjugate them to the same level of sexual crimes, yet those foreigner occupiers and soldiers are never the ones who get associated with the words "rapist" or "terrorist" despite their long documented history of rape and other sexual crimes.

Find a protest near you here: X, X, X, X & X

Donate or join Palestine action here: PALESTINE ACTION

[nostalgicmiscellaneous]

This fandom created a myth about Lady Whistledown. Sometimes i wonder if i watched the same show. Let me make myself clear: While Penelope has to tell Colin the truth, because she loves him and he deserves it, LW helped the Bridgertons a lot actually. It saved them to have Daphne married to a creep ( and see how Violet wanted people to talk to reach LW and spread), saved Colin from a loveless marriage with children that he didn't know anything about it and saved Eloise. Yes, it saved Eloise. Eloise created and kept pushing the situation in her reckless pursuit. Eloise also didn't think about the consequences of her action towards the people working for LW, didn't listen to Penelope, didn't think about the risk she was putting people at. And while i understand her anger in not knowing, had she been a better friend, many other things would be different, because she truly never paid attention to what Penelope feels or want, she molded Pen to be whom she wanted and be her audience. And then, she left Pen with the choice of losing all she built and suffer consequences or pick the less harmful option: to make Eloise's scandal about politics, not romantic and save them both, plus Theo. The real ruin for Eloise would've been her being caught with Theo, something that was bound to happen as she was not careful at all. Why should Pen sacrifice all for Eloise? Would any of you sacrifice all ( job, family and possibly your liberty) for a friend who caused the bloody situation? I'm no hypocrite, i know i wouldnt. Not to mention Eloise bravado, to Pen she would say she wants to challenge society and doesn't care about what they think...but folded the moment she received a frown from the Ton. Shall we see who are LW victims, people that suffered real consequences? Lord Beerbrock. That's it. Marina is married, despite her lies and deceit. Colin? Nothing as well, in fact, happier than ever. Eloise? A few weeks of ostracism and she's back without a problem, without a romantic entanglement to ruin her. One that she clearly didn't really thought was deep enough to face society. The Bridgertons have more to thank LW than to hate her. And Violet and Anthony, i bet your asses, do think so, and see it. And The Queen? Are you watching the show? Have you seen Charlotte's personality? That woman loves the whole game with LW. And She loves to take it all, to receive the laurels of that society. As long as she can make it look like the won, and she can, easily, by revealing or be involved in revealing who is LW. See the whole KatexEdwina, how she handled the Ton there.

Anyway, just wanted to say something because some people have dreamed a LW that doesn't exist at all. Created on their own minds a boogeyman that wasn't simply reporting the truth with witty opinions but fabricating stories and lies to ruin lives, and that's simply not true. Never happened. There was never a lie created there. Only the truth, even about herself, as Pen was often damaged by her column.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

 book 7 chapter 12 part 2 thoughts!

***THIS POST CONTAINS MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR BOOK 7 PART 12 OF THE MAIN STORY!!*** This spans part 245 to part 268, focusing on Trey and Ace.

We will get Riddle's dream in a future update (scheduled for Feb 7th)!

Please note: this is NOT meant to be a summary or a translation; these are only my initial thoughts on the events that roughly unfold. There may be details overlooked or misunderstood in this post, so PLEASE do not use this as a translation.

The group lands on a tropical island! These are reused assets from the Lost in the Book with Stitch event.

Cater indicates that he's fine from the bumpy ride; he likes the thrill! It reminds him of sky diving. He also shares that he once lived by the sea in Pyroxene/the Shaftlands and that he enjoys board-related activities (snowboarding, surfing, skateboarding, etc.)

IHBASOUFA8TVVAD8FA RIGHT AS THEY'RE TALKINGA BOUT THIS, LEONA INTERRUPTS AND TELLS THE KIDS TO STOP WASTING TIME, THEY GOTTA FIND THE DREAMER 💀 (Can't believe I'm saying this, but I want to shake his hand for reminding everyone to get the fuck back on track instead of standing around talking for several parts in a row...)

They find some footprints in the sand and decide to follow them. Due to the size and shape of the footprints being similar to Deuce's, they think the footprints must be Ace's and will lead them to him.

We bump into Ace (who is wearing his beachwear clothes from the Stitch event), along with dream!Riddle (also in his beachwear) and dream!Trey (who is in his Yasmina silk from the fireworks event). Trey was cooking up BBQ for everyone! afhlbllbaiad THE TWST DEVS ARE REALLY GETTING MILEAGE OUT OF THOSE OLD ASSETS, HUH...

Ace speaks to Deuce, Cater, Grim, and Yuu in a familiar tone, but is shocked to see everyone else. He also mentions dream!Cater leaving to change into swimwear and to take pics by the sparkling sea; it looks like he was dreaming of all of Heartslabyul and Grim + Yuu hanging out here. Apparently, dream!Cater rented a place for them by the beach from Kalim's family.

Ace and dream!Trey explain they're celebrating because Yuu can now freely pass between Twisted Wonderland and their original world. asdbihasiodasqevyf IS THIS SLIGHT SHADE AT THE THEORISTS THAT PROPOSED SOMETHING SIMILAR TO KEEP YUU AS THE MC IN TWST... (Turns out, Ace must have been really wishing for Yuu to not leave their friend group forever www) This seems to be their summer vacation after the first school year.

Cater volunteers himself, Silver, Leona, and Idia to help Trey with making BBQ. This is so they can monitor the darkness while giving the first years a chance to wake Ace. Congrats to Cater for being a little useful in these dreams 🤡

The first years directly confront Ace as he is showing them options for beachwear to change into. However, to everyone’s shock, Ace is in complete denial and brushes it off when his head starts to hurt. He tells they are all being overly negative and it's harshing his vibes! It's vacation time, so why are they trying to ruin things with jokes that are in poor taste? This marks the first major instance of the dreamer resisting the feeling of “waking”.

Sebek intervenes and tries to take charge of the argument. Even with Sebek shouting about all the havoc Malleus's magic is causing... even when Sebek says Malleus's magic will eventually swallow the world, Ace has no problem with it. He claims it's not his problem. Besides, everyone's going to be living happily in dreams, right? And this is the path that Malleus chose for himself, so he should accept the consequences of his actions. What's the issue there? Besides, he doesn't want to cooperate with a person like Sebek who constantly looks down on others and paints all the dreamers as victims in need of saving.

Ace storms out in a fit of anger. Grim starts blaming Sebek for things emotionally escalating. Then Ortho confronts Sebek with this question: if it was not Malleus Draconia behind the current situation, would Sebek really be trying as hard as he is to rectify things? This question shocks Sebek into silence.

Cater and the others show up to check in on us. From our crestfallen expressions, he can tell we failed to wake Ace.

HUHHHHHHHH 😟 Silver suddenly gets super strict with Sebek and scolds him for the trouble his rudeness has caused everyone + their seniors. He says that the people around Sebek have been too lenient with him and thus spoiled him; he needs to reflect on his actions!! Sebek uses a really quiet voice and apologizes to us (but he still uses kisama which is a pompous and rude way to speak to others 😭).

LEONA 💀 He suggests they are wasting too much time trying to wake a small fry like Ace and it may be more efficient to skip him and move onto the next dreams. THE DAD THAT LEFT FOR MILK, FOLKS

… What the fuck. I did not expect Ace’s dream to better my opinion of CATER of all people but lo and behold, it is. Cater agrees with Leona that it may be more efficient to skip Ace’s dream. He and Idia do not need to worry about Ace anymore. This first year is Heartslabyul’s so it’s not their responsibility. Cater walks off and Yuu, Grim, and Deuce chase him. The others follow in a separate group due to the radius for Ace’s dream world not being very large.

Deuce begs Cater to let him try talking to Ace one more time before they give up on him. AND THEN CATER ACTS LIKE THE DAD THAT STEPPED UP because he tells Deuce he never had any intention of abandoning Ace 😭 Deuce, Grim, and Yuu decide to team up with Cater to wake Ace, especially considering they may have to combat darkness this time.

Cater finds Ace by himself and asdbhlabsyod8ysaas8fb uses Split Card to make a bunch of clones to gang up and pummel his junior... "I'll show you this is a dream :))" *PROCEEDS TO BEAT THE CRUD OUT OF ACE* Unfortunately for Cater, dream!Riddle, Trey, Cater, and Deuce show up to put a stop to things. (I want to add it's hilarious that Cater is also in Yasmina silk but Deuce is stuck in his P.E. Uniform asdhbasoyafae)

Ace is tempted by the darkness and mumbles a bunch of stuff about how he doesn't want to do difficult things like fighting Malleus. He says he’s just an ordinary mage and doesn’t even have his UM yet. We're shocked by Ace's cowardly side but Silver points out that darkness being present feeds and amplifies your most negative emotions.

Anyway, Sebek and co. want to barge in to save Ace, but Leona holds them back; they should leave it to Cater.

fuasboyfg8fdasibTHER'S THIS ON e FUNnY MOMENT. Leona says that those that it's easy for the darkness to indulge in the dreamer when they're at their lowest/acting cowardly. Idia voice) Eeeeh, aren't you talking about yourself, Leona-shi... abhlfbioasfoasobifadib LEONA NYOOMS OVER TO IDIA'S TABLET AND COMES CLOSE TO BREAKING IT... Watch yourself, Idia...

WOW CATER 🤯 He blew my mind… Cater reminds us and Ace that when Riddle OB’d, Ace was the one that stepped up to fight even when the battle seemed unwinnable—and it was Cater who wanted to run. He tells Ace he looked so cool back then, but he hasn’t had the chance to thank him for it until now.

ACE LAUGHS AND CRiES

Cater pulls Ace out of the darkness!! He calls to Leona and co. for backup~ (One neat touch here is Ace says one of his battle opener lines: “Okay~ I’ll get this over with fast.”)

Deuce and Grim bonk Ace on the head for giving them a hard time. augwjsjs Ace starts to given’m lip again but Leona tells him to watch how he speaks to upperclassmen OTL

do skwguwuwn AcE CALLS oUT SILVER AnD LILIA foR SPOILING SEBEK… Cater interrupts to remind them to get along + respect their seniors or the red demon Riddle will come for them!

Adeuce are embarrassed about having to shout Dream Form Change. Idia enjoys it. Cater does too; he thinks it’s cute and wants Adeuce to do it again so he can take a video (they refuse to).

Deuce makes a passing comment about how maybe they don’t know Cater as well as they think they do?? The Cater they think they know is obsessed with taking pictures… but maybe he can be reliable too!

Sebek and Ace bicker again as they prepare to dream hop. Once again, Leona comes in clutch by telling them to stfu and for Silver to hurry it along.

They land in front of Heartslabyul dorm in Trey’s dream.

Ace didn’t have an issue with their travel; in fact, he posed when Cater pointed his phone at him!

We tell Ace we’ve basically gotten about 20ish people recruited to our cause already, plus the support of S.T.Y.X.! However, their group is 10 people now (Grim, Yuu, Ace, Deuce, Cater, Silver, Sebek, Idia, Ortho, and Leona), which will make it dangerous to dream hop.

Grim mentions that if he is without Yuu, he won’t count as a student. That’s weird, because earlier in book 7 he mentions moving to the second year even once Yuu has returned home… Maybe this will be formally discussed later??? It sounds slightly contradictory.

They smell butter and follow it to the Heartslabyul kitchen. Cater stops everyone suddenly?? He doesn't think it's wise if all 10 of them cram into the kitchen at once; he will go since it's not odd for a Heartslabyul student to be present in the area. Plus, if things get dicey, he can always use his UM as an excuse or in a combative pinch!

asdhasbyofasd Leona and Idia get dragged along with Cater since they're the oldest. This conveniently allows the others to listen in on the conversation in the kitchen by using the mic built into Idia's tablet. (Idia however is not happy that he gets stuck with the sunny Cater and the grumpy Leona.)

WHOA check out the cakes and other baked goods here???? I don't even like sweets, but this looks tasty.

Cater tells the other two with him that Trey handmakes goodies for unbirthday parties. He has advised in the past that Trey take shortcuts (using commercial goods/already made cakes or box mixes, I presume), but Trey doesn't listen. Cater suspects it's because Trey thinks it's way too fun to bake to give it up, even if it would be faster to use another way.

They overhear people talking and... WHAT THE HECK, CHENYA'S THE HEARTSLABYUL DORM LEADER NOW????? ? ? ?? ??? ? ? ? ?? ? ? He's complimenting Trey's meat pies...

P.S. That chef's outfit looks so good OTL

Ortho casually hacks into the RSA student database to report on who Chenya is (since Silver and Sebek have no clue who he is).

We sort of get an explanation for Cater’s dream??? He says he wished to live comfortably and happily, as if every day was like his birthday. Somehow that got twisted to him being dorm leader…

xhsvhwiwkw The first years are bickering outside… Ace and Grim are fighting to see what’s happening, Sebek is being too loud so Ortho chastises him.

Trey is able to tell the original Cater from the clones??? Bro is Haruhi Fujioka OHSHC… He comments that Cater looks different than usual, so he knew right away.

Riddle seems to be a regular card solider. He tried to challenge Chenya for his dorm leader seat.

Chenya explains Riddle lost to him because his UM doesn’t work on Chenya. He then demonstrates his UM…! (Note: some creative liberties taken while transcribing in order to slap in an Alice in Wonderland quote :3c)

“Most everyone’s mad here. You might’ve already noticed I’m not all there. Not All My Head!”

(More direct translation of the incantation would be, “Everybody's weird here. You've noticed that already, haven't you?”)

It doesn’t just refract the light and make Chenya appear invisible; his body is literally NOT there. This explains why Riddle’s UM doesn’t work Chenya—there is literally nothing there to collar.

cHENYA bULLIES RiDDLE A LIRTKE BY HsRaiNH An EmBaarRsING StORY 😭

Anyway, Riddle has challenged Chenya many times but lost because Chenya is an expert at avoidance. Riddle uses up his magic and burns out easily.

Oooh? Chenya talks about a special language his grandpa taught him. It reminds me of Riddlish from Ever After High.

Trey’s ideal Heartslabyul… it’s one with loose rules, a huge ass kitchen that can be used freely, and a dorm leader that is easygoing. It’s pretty mild and grounded.

Trey asks the third years to sample a prototype lemon jelly and yogurt dessert for him. The only sweetener is honey so eve Cater should be okay with it—and Chenya won’t be mad if someone violates the “dorm leader gets the first bite rule”, even if desserts like jellies are excluded from that rule. Cater agrees but insists that Trey joins them.

dhisbwkwnw Leona has meat pie instead of the lemon dessert. Trey wants to make more to feed his guests and decides to make enough for all of the dorm.

The first years are drooling and jealous that the third years get to eat when they’re supposed to be investigating!

Cater is impressed that Silver had the fortitude to go through so many dreams. He thinks he may have given up a while ago if he were in Silver’s shoes???

Trey says he likes baking because it is satisfying to see the finished product—and others can enjoy it too, so it is killing two birds with one stone. Even Riddle is able to eat as much as he wants now. Apparently Riddle was the close to the same age as Trey’s younger brother at the time (Trey was 9 or 10; Riddle is one year older than the Clover brother). Trey describes Riddle as very mature for his age.

Hmm, interesting… The part of Riddle’s past where his mom caught him eating a strawberry tart remains unchanged.

LMAO the Clovers got scolded for 5 hours by Mrs. Rosehearts… Trey claims he and his family now laugh about the incident. Out group theorizes that this is result of trauma; it’s Trey’s way of coping.

Oh????? Trey says Riddle has changed a lot since he left his parents. Due to Chenya’s encouragement, Riddle now eats as much as he wants. Apparently both he and Chenya see Riddle like a little brother and they love seeing him be able to grow up.

ASGYUGYASNNYFOYADSSD Leona's theories keep being proven wrong in these dreams... He theorizes that Trey might have been angry when he became vice dorm leader, but Cater says that's not the case.

Trey was very excited when Riddle entered NRC; he told the other Heartslabyul students that his childhood acquaintance is joining the school. Although Riddle is quiet, he is talented at magic and Trey hopes they get along well. But then when Riddle enrolled, he was a completely different person than how Trey remembered him. He had developed a short fuse and become very controlling... cutting himself off from his feelings in order to rule. Riddle also acts detached from Trey.

In the flashback we see, Riddle has a heart mark. I guess this is what he had in reality too, not just the dream world.

Anyway, when time came to appoint a vice dorm leader (dorm members vote for them), Trey kind of got handed the job. Cater suggests it was probably tough on Trey to see that Riddle had changed so much; at one point, Riddle even beheaded Trey because the rules do not discriminate. He also suggests that maybe Chenya is in Trey's dream so that both friends can be present to support Riddle.

ajbuasiodyasida CATER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT... He confesses that he's always a spectator and now, seeing this, he wonders if he should have done more or intervened sooner.

UUUUUUH, there's a big BOOM!!???!! heard over Idia's tablet. It sounds like the other group is in trouble! But what are they dealing with...?

... Oh. OH.

THIS IS LITERALLY THE TWST ORB MERCH 😭😭😭😭😭 Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber... and round Cater and Riddle...

uMMMMMMMM I feel like I learned about one of Trey’s secret special interests and I don’t like it one bit 🪦

Riddle is now the tallest second year... bigger than a horse... How is he gonna ride Vorpal?! Ace and the others are in distress, saying that he can't do basketball and Deuce can't do track and field with those round bodies!!

We attempt to fight the massive dream!Heartslabyul boys, but it's useless!! Silver tries to form a barrier, but the dream!boys just roll too fast and knock him over before he can complete the spell! Cater tells Leona to use his UM to help out, but Leona can't because there would be collateral damage if used in an enclosed space.

The dream!boys try to convince Trey to stay in the dream but they start to present information that doesn't make sense. For example, dream!Riddle does not care about nutritional content; he will eat anything if it's something Trey made! Dream!Cater starts to eat a bunch of sweets to demonstrate his willingness to consume what Trey makes for them; ah, but that's not right either because in the real world, Cater doesn't like sweets at all!

Trey is able to wake up on his own...!

Aaaand we got the context for his groovy...? AFBADAVADSPB SO THE CATER AND RIDDLE PICTURED HERE, LOOKING DOWN AT HIM... IT'S THE ROUND ASS ONES AKHLBAFSIYBAFIYVAFOV8YQEOVYPQRWBFUEFABIHFDIB THAT MAKES THIS ILLUSTRATION SO MUCH LESS SERIOUSSSSSSSS

There's a big BOOM!! BHLFBIAFSIYBAFSIBYADFBIADVBLDFS LEONA SANDED SOME OF THE BIG ORBS?? ? ?? ? ? ???? ? ? Bye-bye, round Adeuce...

We rally with Trey and he has an admittedly cool line... "Don't talk with your mouth full. It's poor manners under the law of the Queen of Hearts!"

After the darkness is dispelled, Trey is caught up to speed and expresses he's not sure if a normal mage like him can be of much use against Malleus; why didn't they go for Riddle, who is way more powerful, first? asfhbasyuvfgfyoaodasi Ace has a cute moment where he reminds Trey that it was HIS unique magic that overrode Riddle's and saved his ass. Besides, we need Trey to help out with Riddle. He's Riddle's bestie, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHAFHAFH Sebek quietly says he is indebted to Trey... I just think about how Sebek has said Trey reminds him of his father OTL Ace whines about how Sebek treats him and Trey so differently and Sebek shouts that a third year will actually be HELPFUL, unlike Ace. afbaiuliafiefa GIRLIEPOPS YOUR BICKERING PLEASES ME... continue--

Cater takes a picture of Trey in his chef clothes before he swaps over to his dorm uniform; he wants to show Riddle later! I think Trey also brings along a strawberry tart...? Not sure if it transfers from dream to dream or if I'm misunderstanding the wording there.

Then they all gather around Silver and move on to Riddle's dream! (Leona closes off this section with a banger line about how it's time to get back on the small crowded bus. LMAO)

Alright, so what were my overall thoughts on this update? I definitely feel as though the writers got better at writing the dreams as they continued. The first few felt awkward and stilted, but the more recently ones (Savanaclaw and Heartslabyul) are noticeably smoother, even when kept in the confines of already established patterns.

I really appreciated how often Leona was kept telling everyone to shut up and move on with the story. He sounds so tired, annoyed, and wanting to get to the end of book 7 already. It feels like the devs are speaking to us through Leona bilfiaylasdpasod

I'm a little surprised that Ace didn't get his UM in his dream, but I guess maybe they're saving it for the very end battle? I find it suspicious that he brings up and laments his lack of UM while talking about how he's a "normal" mage that doesn't stand a chance against a big boss like Malleus. This sounds like intentional foreshadowing for that confrontation.

As I expected, Ace had a special interaction with Sebek, much like most of the other first years have. (I've updated my "Sebek and the first years in book 7" analysis post based on this.) Ace capping things off by openly calling out Sebek's flaws helps to bring everything full circle. I was also pretty spot-on about Ace's dream covering Yuu being able to stay in Twisted Wonderland. I'm surprised that they did the "Yuu can go between the two worlds as they like" thing; it's a very convenient idea proposed by many theorists in the fandom in order to maintain having Yuu as the POV character in Twst while also allowing Yuu (the in-universe character) to be able to return to their friends/family back home. More and more... the dreams feel like vague fanfiction addressing some fun fandom theories and ideas.

I found it really fascinating that Trey's dream didn't erase the moment in his life that tore Riddle away from him. I wonder if the trauma is just so deep-rooted that even Malleus's magic couldn't get rid of it...? Or if the event was framed by the magic as something sad that had to happen so he could spoil Riddle and give him a happy life now??? I can also understand an interpretation in which Trey feeds others or does his best to help them out even if he finds it bothersome because some part of him still holds onto that immense guilt he feels for his role in the Tart Incident. And in that sense, it's the dream allowing Trey to indulge others without stop, without moderation--a weakness of his that he was warned about in Vil's Labwear vignettes.

asdlhbasnyurnoabafsi NOT GONNA LIE, TREY'S DREAM IS GOING TO GIVE ME NIGHTMARES. Don't get me wrong, I love how whimsical it is, and how he can just enjoy baking to his heart's content. I also love that we get Chenya's UM name and incantation, as well as more about how it actually works. HOWEVER. The massive spheres that Trey made of his dorm members freak me out 💀 THERE'S SOMETHING SO GROTESQUE ABOUT MASSIVE BODIES WITH SMUSHED TINY FACES ROLLING AROUND TO CRUSH PEOPLE...

The MVP this update was most definitely Cater. I was shocked to see how proactive he was. He took the lead in both Ace and Trey's dreams and we got to see him put his craftiness to some good use. Stepping up for the first years, roping the other third years into helping him, even not hesitating to kick Ace's stubborn ass... I hate to say it, but I could really see Cater's dashing big brother side coming out here 🤡 YES I AM UNFORTUNATELY PREDICTABLE I had to pause reading so many times to go, "Waaaah, Cay-kun is so cool!!" which is not a thought I typically have. I'm also such a big fan of him regretting his past actions (or rather, inaction) and finally FINALLY being able to verbalize some of his deepest and most concealed feelings to other characters. When Cater thanked Ace for what he said back when Riddle overblotted... man, it hit me right in the heart.

Sebek was also pretty bashful this update. I don’t think I’ve heard him being quite so… humbled??? His quiet voice is cute 🥰 Was not expecting Silver to speak sternly to him though. The shouting came put of nowhere??? And it’s not as though you aren’t part of the problem for spoiling him, Silver…

Those are my thoughts for this update! I'll see you in the next one. Riddle's dream, on the 7th...!!

[nobodyfamousposts]

Scarlet Lady Top 10 Favorite Characters: Number 10

For @zoe-oneesama

Okay, I realized as I was writing these that there is way way WAY too much to each of these and why to be able to put them all into one post, so I'm breaking them down into individual essays focusing on each one to keep them palatable.

So without further ado....

Number 10: EVERYONE

Yeah, I know it may be cheating but at this point it was the only choice I could make.

I came to regret making this list, specifically because I couldn’t seem to make up my mind as far as who all would be on it. I reread the entire series. I kept switching people in and out as I was reminded of characters or scenes I loved. And I came to a realization that there is no character in the whole of this series I didn’t enjoy to some extent that they didn't deserve some love in this list and I kind of wish I could have added all of them just to give them all some spotlight.

Yes, it is partly because everyone is vastly improved compared to Canon. But as I reread the series, it came to mind that if Canon didn’t exist and I didn’t have the comparison between the characters, I still very much would have loved this series and everyone in it.

Cause and Effect Exist

It's important to have a setting in which the characters and their actions make sense for the world they live in. When the setting is supposed to be modern day earth, we need the people to be able to show that they are capable of surviving in it on a day to day basis without being so massively incompetent that they would do something like accidentally ingesting poison. Or forgetting how to breathe.

I would think it would be obvious, but sometimes Canon makes me wonder. Which is never a good look for a show that is supposed to have some level of seriousness and involve superheroes.

Here’s the thing Canon can’t seem to get: when a majority of the things that go wrong in a plot are because of everyone having to be stupid to make the plot work, you have a problem with the writing. Changing the material in a story so that younger people can enjoy it does NOT mean dumbing down the characters and throwing in arbitrary lessons with no real reason to them. Even if the show itself is geared towards kids, you can’t treat the audience like they’re stupid.

In Scarlet Lady, the people aren’t stupid.

Silly, yes. Wrong, often. Overdramatic, definitely. But while they may make stupid choices sometimes, they aren’t so dumb that anyone should have concerns about their ability to function at a higher level than an overcaffinated 2 year old.

They’re fooled initially the way many of us would be with a biased story that hits the news first. Oblivious to the problems in a situation that they logically wouldn’t have much direct insight into. Prone to making mistakes and incorrect judgement the way that anyone would. That's normal. That's expected.

But they’re not so incapable as to forget things that happen right in front of them between one day and the next. Or even between one scene and the next.

Things carry over. We see cause and effect. We see consequences—bad and good. And those consequences extend not only for the episode or season but for the entire series.

Aurore KNOWs Alec cheated her before and maintains a tight control over him and prevents more of his antics.

Adrien and Alya maintain a cold attitude towards Lila for some time after her reveal as a liar. And it even remains a point against her as used by Chloe as herself and as Scar to discount what she says.

The boys of the class remember Adrien’s “love letter to Marigold” and try to win him her merch because they’re bros like that. 

Adrien himself remembers the instances of his dad being a massive prick and instead of being surprised and “sad boi uwuwu” each time it happens like it’s supposed to be a surprise that the massive prick would choose to be a prick, he very clearly moves through the stages of grief to the point of a sort of acceptance that involves planning around and even for him.

Gabriel’s horrible parenting and general lack of concern for Adrien or his wellbeing as he ends up a casualty of various akuma attacks was played off for laughs when such incidents occurred. Then they were brutally called out against him in the Finale as a way to counter his claims of doing everything for Adrien’s sake. And the big reveal of the Birthday Scarf…utilized in the last way anyone would have wanted.

And Chloe is perhaps the biggest example as her antics ARE NOT forgotten or ignored by anyone. The classmates still interact with Chloe and are relatively nice to her, but they don’t just forget that she’s treated them horribly. They don’t act surprised when she does anything horrible. Nor does anyone just laugh it off or excuse it as “just who she is”. We see follow up to her behavior—the class fully expecting her to cause trouble and actively try to plan around it. People calling her out on past behaviors. And even bigger consequences as time goes on. Such as Adrien breaking off the friendship. And a blink and you miss it fridge logic moment in Ikari Gozen when you realize that when they said she was banned from all future Gabriel-involved competitions, they meant it.

The fact that by the time the big reveal happened that Chloe was Scarlet Lady, no one was shocked.

Story-wise, this is showing the passage of time and the effect the events of the story are having. It’s showing that there is lasting impact and that what happens to the characters matters.

Meta-wise, this is Zoe rewarding us for paying attention.

Continuity exists in Scarlet Lady. Time exists. The people exist. When anyone does anything, you get the sense that they aren’t operating in a vacuum. The things they do matter. There are consequences. There is an impact. And if there is an impact in the story, there will be an impact on the audience.

Which leads to…

Character Depth/Character Growth

Usually in TV shows of this nature, if there ARE character arcs for the side characters, they only occur over the course of a single episode devoted to focusing on them before moving on elsewhere. 

Canon didn’t give us that much at all in favor of having every episode that should focus on other characters learning and growing instead forcing Marinette to be wrong in some way and learn an arbitrary lesson that often would have better served for someone else.

In Scarlet Lady, the arcs we get are impressive for all that they’re relatively unobtrusive. They aren’t big. They aren’t world-ending. And the thing is, most change in life isn’t. It can just FEEL that way.

Like the way it felt for Kim when he first found out Ondine liked him and then had his confession to her screwed up.

And the way it felt for Kagami when she lost that first match against Adrien.

Then there’s the way it felt for Chloe when she was dismissed by her mother, had her popularity go downhill, and ended up losing her Miraculous.

…or the way it felt for Adrien when he discovered his dad was Hawk Moth.

The reactions we witness are in a great part due to actions outside of the characters’ control, but are ultimately a result of the experiences they have had and the ways they have changed as a result.

The question becomes: are the characters that we meet at the beginning pretty much identical to how they are at the end? Is the world?

The answer in Scarlet Lady is no.

Whether because the characters themselves change or our perception of them does, we can see that they have all undergone some sort of events that create a difference between the start and end points.

Not all of them HAVE to undergo some big emotional arc. Not all of them NEED to. But the characters still mostly go through some sort of growth by the end that I feel make them stronger and healthier people.

You’ve got the big life-altering changes like Lila and Sabrina.

You’ve got the little changes like Nino and Ivan.

You’ve even got the most minuscule, beginning stages of change in Chloe.

You’ve got growth that creates such perfect setup with Mylene when she starts off scared and traumatized by how things went with Stoneheart then is the one who confronts him in the end. And the parallel between the finale and the beginning when she returns him to normal by kissing him just like they did in that first episode to change him back then, too! (Just….GOD, I CANNOT GET OVER THIS!)

You’ve got them reaching out and making friends and relating to people they hadn’t before.

And by the end of it all, we get characters who feel like people rather than props.

They don’t all have to change. They don’t necessarily need to go through an entire emotional arc and back again. They just need to be part of the world they’re in.

Nino doesn’t just pop into existence when Adrien or Alya need someone to interact with. Kagami isn’t just a non-horrible or non-evil love rival for Adrien or a stepping stool for him to “practice“ at being in a relationship before it’s time for him to try the “real thing” with his endgame pairing. Luka isn’t just a decent guy who is the only actual form of support for the female lead and yet only lacking that precious “male lead” title or all around just not “Adrien enough” to fill the role.

Adrien isn’t just a “sad boy” meant to be a main love interest, Villain’s Morality Pet, and the one everyone idolizes and chases after just cuz he’s the male lead and that’s how you show he’s desirable I guess. Marinette isn’t the atlas keeping the story alive because no one else is apparently capable of learning lessons and changing, or even just the bare basics of functioning as individuals. Chloe isn’t just there to be horrible for no reason and get away with it so she can continue to be horrible until the writers suddenly need her to be sympathetic.

And the rest of the classmates aren’t just some Greek chorus there to fill the background.

We see them interact. We see them making jokes or jabs. We see them even…*gasp* having different opinions!

And on something as major and life-controlling as feelings about the “Hero of the City” no less! Why, that’s the sort of thing that would break up friendships and determine who you can sit next to at the cafeteria! The horror! The scandal!

And…oh hey. This puts the characters in different groups. It links them with characters other their Canonically designated pairings and groups. This lets them disagree on things and not need to vilify any of them. This creates implications that add depth to the story and to the people in it.

The characters can disagree without being enemies. They can be wrong without having to be evil. They can make mistakes without having to be stupid. And they can change and grow—both for better and worse.

And we see both and in different ways. SO many different ways.

Adrien goes from excited and impulsive to buckling under the forced responsibility and weight of a partner who hinders more than she helps.

Lila goes from selfishly bad and self-serving to selfish but friendly with better direction of her talents in a less self-serving way.

And Chloe just goes from selfish and bad to selfish and worse..

I mean, it says something that the combination of Lila’s growth and Chloe’s fall from grace resulted in Hawk Moth being unable to use Lila as a tool for his Heroes Day plot like he originally intended.

The key is that whether they necessarily grow or become better people, these characters are still IMPACTED by the events around them and AFFECTED as a natural result of the world they live in. 

You can’t help but feel for them in some way as a result. It’s part of why I love them.

The other part of why I love them is a bit more epic though…

Crowning Moments of Awesome

If there’s one thing I love, it’s seeing characters be awesome. I love it when characters get to be awesome. I would love to see more of it. Especially when the ones involved are characters you wouldn’t normally expect or get to see have a chance to shine.

And it’s when you see these characters be awesome that you really get the sense that yes, this character would work as a hero.

Seeing Max help against Robustus. Seeing Kim help against Odine. Alix stepping in during Pharaoh, calling out her brother’s fan fiction, and helping the heroes escape the security system at the Lourve. Alya stepping in during Copycat to clue Chat in to what’s going on and later keeping Anansi distracted to keep her away from Chat while he’s trapped. Rose kicking Nightmare!Chat in the face to defend Marinette even when she’s on the run from her own nightmares in Sandboy. Luka leading groups twice to stepping in and helping the heroes deal with akumas. Nathaniel standing up for Marinette and Sabrina when they’re accused in Rogercop and then helping the heroes in Reverser.

These little moments of support make such a big different and really make it make sense that the heroes would trust these people with magical jewelry to help them in battle.

And the little moments of characters being petty or strong or smart or turning the tables or just showing off what they’re capable of. Even without superpowers.

Adrien getting petty revenge for Nino and finding a tactic to counter Gabriel in the future.

The Police Force in Rogercop just saying “Nope” to obeying an obvious akuma. 

Zoe manipulating akumas twice to help the heroes. Her two Reasons You Suck Speeches to her mom and Bustier.

Every instance of payback that Tikki gets against Chloe.

Everyone in the Finale. Just…EVERYONE in the Finale. The characters who manage to avoid akumatization by either spotting the flaws in the illusion or refusing to give in to fear and even protecting others. Nora smacking any akuma that enters the home. Claudie pulling off Power Mom and ordering Max to stop attacking the city then helping to calm him down. Prince Ali and Juleka freeing Rose by kissing her! Chris, Ella, Etta, and Manon saving Mylene! Mylene saving Ivan with a kiss in a direct callback to how they first got together in Stoneheart! (Yes, I am still stuck on that!) Ondine saving Kim! Lila and Sabrina saving Alix! Luka facing Riposte alone and unarmed and then Kitty Section saving Kagami! ALL of the Heroes making a final comeback to help take down Hawk Moth for good! Just—AAAAAH!

How could Miraculous have peaked with this in Season 2 when this is Grand Finale material? Because there are few things more awesome than getting to see ALL the characters the heroes met and befriended and helped throughout the course of the story stepping up at the final battle to help take the Big Bad down!

Like…can we just take a moment to appreciate how everyone gets a chance to stand out in some way? Not all of them necessarily good, exactly (looking at you Andre). But still stand out and be memorable. Even characters who didn’t originally get much focus. Especially characters who were originally functioning as cardboard cutouts to fill a scene.

Anyone remember Aurore? How for the FIRST akuma in the pilot of the series and one who is quite frankly the most interesting and noteworthy, we don’t really get to see her again except in the background.

In Scarlet Lady, we got to actually look in to the contest and how she lost as well as the aftermath. She wasn’t some arrogant showoff who deserved to lose to the “sweet down to earth rival”, she was a girl who legitimately tried her best and had valid reason to be upset. Seeing her get revenge on Alec for cheating and humiliating her on live TV was well worth it.

Or how about the Photographer? Just there to take photos of Adrien in the park for a photo shoot or be the school photographer, but otherwise has no personality and is only remembered for his weird “spaghetti” line.

In Scarlet Lady, his role is two-fold. He acts as a sort of supporter for Adrien in his crush. Taking really good pictures of him being happy with the girl he likes. Taking more class photos at the behest of this girl for the sake of a friend who missed out on the class picture. And then there’s his OTHER role as a sort of antagonist to Chloe. He becomes one of the only ones in the early seasons willing and capable of dismissing her tantrums.

They’re both given more character. They get moments to stand out and BE awesome. So is everyone.

EVERYONE. From the classmates and big named characters we see regularly to the side characters who only appear once or twice. They all get some good scenes and focus that give them their own identities. All of them are memorable. None of them can really be ignored or forgotten. And part of what made making this list so difficult was that I found myself getting attached to pretty much everyone as I came across each of them that I couldn’t quite make up my mind.

Everyone in this fic has done something to make me happy and warrant my approval. Even the characters I normally wouldn’t like at all had their moments to shine and elicit an “okay, that was cool” from me.

Thus I grant this spot to everyone. To all the characters I don’t get the chance to mention. To all the ones I like albeit somewhat less than others. To all the ones I know are horrible but can’t help but like regardless. To all the ones I fought with myself for THREE MONTHS over which one would get this spot.

I love all of them.

[always-coffee]

WV Libraries Are Under Attack: How to Help

News came out yesterday that West Virginia House passed House Bill 4654. This would remove “bona fide schools, public libraries, and museums from the list of exemptions from criminal liability relating to distribution and display to a minor of obscene matter. …”

Potentially criminalizing librarians is bad, and it’s straight out of the fascist playbook. “Opponents of the bill said that while the bill does not ban books, the bill would have unintended consequences for public and school libraries, resulting in increases in challenges to even classic books and attempts to criminally charge librarians over books not pornographic in nature, but books that include descriptions of sex. They also said it could result in improper criminal charges against library staff,” Steven Allen Adams writes.

So, the question is: now what? What do we do? Where do we go from here?

If you live in West Virginia, call you state senate reps. You can find them listed here.

It’s okay to keep your message short:

“Hi, I’m [full name] calling from [ZIP code], and I’m a constituent of [Senator Name]. I am calling to voice my opposition to Bill 4654, because this is a dangerous step toward book banning. It could potentially harm librarians and libraries, which is incredibly wrong. Do not back this dangerous bill.

You can also ask how many people have called to voice their opposition to this bill. This may annoy the person on the phone, but they technically have to answer you. They may be evasive anyway. But you can either give them your contact information and tell them you’d like a call back or you can call back again later and ask for the tally.

The thing is, people rarely call in. A handful of calls is considered a lot, and the best thing you can do right now is make yourself a nuisance. Good trouble, etc.

Only call if you live in West Virginia, because they do not count calls from those outside their constituency. I am obviously not an expert, but if you have additional questions, ask them and I’ll try to help. I learned way more about how politics work during the last presidency than I thought humanly possible.

Additional resources: