#all things must die

[slymanner]

hurt my heart why dontcha.

[autism-swagger]

Grace Chasity character of all time. She's a religious zealot for both God and what is essentially the Devil. She steals a gun off of a cop and then makes her getaway on her pink bicycle (with a basket!). She brought supplies to hide a body to a simple prank. She commits quite possibly the worst Freudian slips of all time. She drinks hot water. She equates someone carrying her books for her to premarital sex. Someone dies in a freak accident and her immediate course of action is to hack up the body and bury it under the floorboards. She's canonically homophobic.

[yourlocalabomination]

Giving the people what they demanded

[reverseisekai-richie]

Aww... Pokey is getting into the weeb spirit of this blog.

[cygnus-is-tired]

Orthodontist hate him, dentist fear him! It’s NIBBLY!!!

(Unlike Nibbly you aren’t a god so don’t bite hard candy, you can and will fuck up your teeth)

[fanaticloser]

I need a tag that says “Fake dating but one of them thinks it’s real and the one who knows it’s fake actually falls for them and there’s angst but they end up together in the end”

[ricky-mortis]

He’s such a goofy silly guy!

[starleska]

the way Max Jägerman is so perfectly 50% Jerma and 50% MatPat is absolutely killing me 🙈🙈🙈

[warrioreowynofrohan]

One of the oddest Silmarillion takes that I’ve seen recently is the idea that Beren and Lúthien had it easy.

I mean, let’s take a look at Beren’s life. The Battle of Sudden Flame hits when he’s in his early twenties. He spends five years carrying on a guerilla war against the invasion of his homeland by orcs and other evil creatures; his mother and all his female relatives have to flee, and he has no knowledge of whether they are desd or alive, or captured. There’s a strange darkness speading over the forest and turning it into something out of a horror movie, a place most people won’t even dare to go into. The band of guerillas is slowly whittled down to about a dozen people, who are hunted constantly by Sauron and his wolves. Then, while he is away, his father, his uncles, and everyone else remaining are brutally killed, and he returns to find crows eating their corpses and orcs joking about looting the dead.

He carries on an guerilla alone, against Sauron, for another several years, in the haunted woods od Taur-nu-Fuin. When he absolutely can’t last any longer, he crosses the most horrifying wasteland in all of Beleriand, where the only water present is poisoned and turns you mad, filled with evil spiders and who knows what other creatures. He’s in his early thirties but he’s been through so mich that he looks like an old man. He has lost literally everyone he has ever known; he does not know if any friend or relative of his, anywhere, is still free or living.

Then he meets Lúthien.

When he leaves Doriath on the quest of the Silmaril, which every sane person in Beleriand knows is laughably impossible, he goes to Finrod, the one person he can hope for any assustance from. Finrod has an entire realm; I don’t think Beren is any expectation that Finrod will go with him personally. And what happens? The king of the largest remaining kingdom in Beleriand besides Doriath is overthrown by his own people at the instigation of Celegorm and Curufin and left with only a few loyal people around him. All of whom then die torturously in the dungeons of Sauron, followed by Finrod’s own death saving Beren.

On top of everything else he’s been through, on top of spending several months in despair being tortured in Sauron’s dungeons, the survivor’s guilt that Beren must be feeling is extreme. Even after Lúthien rescues him, it takes him a while to recover. And he still hasn’t made any progress on the quest itself!

Then they’re attacked by Celegorm and Curufin – the people who bear a substantial amount of respinsibility for the death of Finrod and the Ten, the people who very deliberately abandoned them all to due and coerced all Nargothrond to do the same, and the people who kidnapped Lúthien and attempted to force her into marriage – and they try to kidnap Lúthien again, and to murder Beren.

The fact that Beren does not kill Curufin in that moment is a deed of extreme moral fortitude. The difference between Beren and Lúthien compared with many of the Finwëans isn’t that they don’t face temptations, or that their choices are easy, it’s that they overcome those temptations.

So. Beren spares Curufin’s life at Lúthien’s urging and Curufin immediately tries to murder Lúthien; Beren jumps in front of the arrow, is severely wounded again, and for the third time since they met Lúthien gets to work healing him. Virtually all of their time together has been spent with Beren recuperating from physical injury, psychological injury, or both.

And as soon as Beren recovers, he walks away from the one person who loves him who’s still alive, and prepares to rob the gates of Hell, alone. Because Beleriand is dangerous, and as long as Lúthien is with him and therefore unable to go anywhere safe, she will be in danger from both the servants of Morgoth and the sons of Fëanor. And even if there’s a virtual 100% chance that him walking into Angband will lead to him being slowly tortured to death, that’s a better option than the one person he has left getting killed or, worse, captured, because of him.

And then she goes with him anyway. And beyond all hope they actually succeed in getting a Silmaril - and then he immediately loses it, and his hand, to Carcharoth, and it was all for nothing.

And for the fourth time since Lúthien met him, he’s near death and she’s desperately fighting to heal him and kerp him alive, while she’s exhausted to the point of collapse. And this is the moment when she gives up and goes back to Doriath, because that is what has the best chance of keeping Beren alive.

And then, at last, a ray of hope – Thingol looks at all they’ve been through and says, fine, you crazy kids can get married. And they’ve scarcely been married yet when they learn that oh, it’s not over, Carcharoth is rampaging through the land killing people and this needs to be dealt with. And Beren, even after everything, insists on going. (Because, hello, survivor’s guilt! he probably feels that this is his fault for, uh, getting his hand bitten off.)

(The fact that the Silmaril was, for a time, inside a wolf and outside Doriath, and Celegorm, noted hunter, never got near it, is, okay, rather amusing to me.)

And then Beren dies, saving Thingol, because he knows deeply what it feels like to lose his family and he’s not going to let that happen to Lúthien. And she loses him instead.

Now let’s shift to Lúthien’s point of view. Since her first meeting with Beren she has been betrayed by literally everyone she knows and everyone she meets except for Beren and Huan. She has been treated like a child, and a madwoman, and a trophy, and a pawn, and a sex object, and literally everything except an adult person whose choices have worth and meaning. She is not a superhero; she does not know what she is doing; she is terrified for practically every moment of it, for Beren’s sake even more than for her own, and for much of it she is hopeless. She does not know how or if she can achieve anything; she only knows that she has to try, because it is better than sitting in Doriath waiting to find out if Beren is dead. She puts substantial work and thought and effort into figuring out how to get out of Doriath (given in more detail in the poetic version) – and then, just when she thinks she’s found help (note: Celegorm and Curufin do not give her their names when they first meet her; she doesn’t know they’re the sons of Fëanor), she is again taken captive, this time with the goal of forced marriage and the threat of rape hanging over her. And she still knows Beren is in desperate danger, and she still can do nothing about it.

When Huan aids her and she goes to Tol-in-Gaurhoth, it isn’t because she feels she has the power to fight Sauron one-on-one! It’s because she’s desperate and can’t think of any other options. And in fact, it is not she who defeats Sauron, it is Huan; once he is defeated by Huan, she has the intelligence and strength of will to force his surrender by threatening him with something he fears more than defeat, and to demand – not the freeing of Beren alone – but the destruction of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, freeing all its prisoners. The reason she defeats Sauron is not that she’s a half-Maia badass who can wave her hands and do everything easily! The reason she defeats him is that she shows up there completely vulnerable and in effect uses herself as bait. That is an extraordinary degree of courage, not some kind of deus ex machina. And she’s putting all the strength that she has on the line – she’s pretty much passing out by the time she finds Beren. Similarly, all her healing of him is hard, exhausting work that she’s doing despite being, the whole time, terrified that he’s about to die. None of this is easy.

Likewise in Angband – Huan’s advice and Lúthien’s magic of disguise and sleep is invaluble in getting them through the door and past Carcharoth, but the reason she is able to enchant Morgoth and cast all Angband into sleep is not primarily because of extreme power, but because, like every other non-Beren person she meets, he doesn’t take her seriously. Morgoth finds the idea of using Melian’s daughter as a brief entertainment amusing (and, if you read the poetic version, makes some truly creepy sexual threats against her), and that’s how she is able to get him unguarded enough that she’s well into her song and he’s already getting sleepy before it starts to occur to him that maybe this isn’t going quite as he planned. Lúthien’s victories are not because she’s just on a different power level from the rest of Beleriand, they’re because she’s amazingly brave and willing to walk into the most dangerous places virtually defenceless. And she and Beren rely on each other utterly – after her sleep song she’s practically passing out and can only get out of Angband because Beren is holding her up.

So this is who they are, at Beren’s death. A man who has lost everyone he loves and everyone who loves him, every friend or family, often helplessly witnessing their gruesome death – everyone except for Lúthien. And an elf-woman who has been betrayed by everyone she loved or trusted, except for Beren.

When Beren dies, I wonder if he’s even relieved that it’s finally him dying instead of everyone around him. When he sees Lúthien in the Halls of Mandos, I believe his first feeling would be not joy or love, but horror. That the last living person he loved, and the one he wanted above all to save, had now died because of him.

But Lúthien isn’t done. She goes to Mandos, and she sings, and her song says: look at what we have been through, look at what all Beleriand has been through, Eldar and Edain. We don’t want realms or glory or power; we only want a few moments of peace with each other, and we fought so hard for it, and we didn’t even get that. And when she’s offered bliss and immortality for herself, she says No, I don’t want it, not without Beren. She isn’t promised happiness or long life – she only know that for the short time she will get, she will have the chance to be with Beren. And that is enough for her; for that, she gives up everything else.

This is a faerie-story; but it does not sound to me like a trite tale of easy victories handed to the heroes by Fate or by the author! They fought and struggled and sacrificed for those victories, amd they did it without ever letting go of courage, and mercy, and humility. There is a reason why this is the story that Frodo and Sam hearken back to for inspiration.

[sorio99]

I like how NPMD makes the points:

1. The presence of bullying and social hierarchies don’t just hurt the victims and those lower in the hierarchy, but in fact everyone within the framework, and should be dismantled by any means necessary

2. The animosity and rivalry of jocks and nerds is ultimately a fabrication of those who wish to hurt others, and a healthy relationship between people with differing interests is both good morally and helpful for all parties

And 3. Given the slightest, even manufactured, excuse, the Police will immediately assault random people.

[seawolvesanddragons]

There was a beautiful era in the 90s/early 00s of fun, female lead teen movies that just hit different, were like this golden age of girls just being girls and celebrating that feeling, and no matter how Hollywood tries they will never replicate it.

I'm talking "She's the Man," "Bend it Like Beckham" "Princess Dairies" "St. Trinian's" "What a Girl Wants" "Clueless" "Uptown Girls" "John Tucker Must Die" "DEBS".....obviously there's probably a few I missed but you get the idea. Maybe the stakes weren't as high as saving the entire world, but they were important to the characters and had friendships and silliness and the goal was almost never to get the guy and you just don't get to see that anymore. Also almost all of them had banging soundtracks.

[agentravensong]

...hey.

ritchie only dies after, right after, he takes off the nighthawk mascot costume. including the headpiece.

what blessing does a hatchetfield high nighthawk-branded baseball cap supposedly give to those who wear it, again?

"it's embued with the power of greyskull. as long as it's on your head, nothing can harm you."

:)

[thatringboy]

I don't think people actually hate volumes 4-6 as much as the fndm claims to abhor them. Not only do they carry narrative significance with the introduction of new antagonists (Tyrian, Hazel, Watts), new worldbuilding (Anima, Menagerie, Atlas), new protagonists (Oscar, Maria, Klein/Schnee Household), but arguably some of the most important arcs in the show including but not limited to Ozpin's possession of Oscar, RNJR's grief over Pyrrha, Yang's road to recovery, Blake's reunion with her family and past, the beginning of Ironwood's descent, Ren's vengeance, the beginning Raven's redemption, and the descent of Adam. Literally none of the awesome moments in volumes 7-9 could be possible without the "filler" volumes

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

End of Empathy (time for violence)

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[lovesickeros]

☆ from gold, i am undone

{☆} characters tsaritsa {☆} notes cult au, yandere, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings blood, implied self harm, implied suicide attempts {☆} word count 0.9k

You weren't meant to be here.

You can feel it in the marrow of your bones– it weighs you down like heavy shackles, gold bleeding from your pores until it is all you know. The taste of ichor on your tongue, the warmth of its invasion beneath your skin, that gleam of gold that lingers in the color of your eyes like specks of dust.

You are changed, and you are whole.

But you are so unbearably broken.

A shattered piece of porcelain hastily put back together with gold to fill the cracks.

Decoration, in the end, for you are not fit to walk as "mortals" do. This gold had filled every empty crevice of your body, spilled the red into your frantic hands and made you bleed so it's callous gold could make room inside your body. It has taken from you many things, given many more, but you scratch and bite and tear until it drips onto the floor and even then it never leaves. It stains the floor no matter how hard you scrub– a permanent reminder of the sickening gold that molds you into something that used to look like you– that does look like you. Desecrated, yet so horribly divine.

All you see is a monster.

Something new, something old.

A hollowed out shell, wounds left to rot and fester until you suited the image of the Creator they bore upon statues and murals, the Creator worshiped in prayers spoken in hushed whispers and joyous chants praising your magnificence.

But what magnificence is there in detachment? What joy is there to be found in carving a God out of a human? They kneel like lambs before the shepherd, but the flock has made you– and you want to unmake them. Unweave the tapestry of their being stitch by stitch until it all falls apart and the world knows the cost of casting molten gold into the shape of a human, knows the price that has been left unpaid.

You want to take it from them. Watch them squabble and pray, blind sheep stepping into the wolf's open maw– to tear the seams of their being until the world is unwound by your heavy hands.

But you know it will not satisfy you.

Nothing does anymore.

You are no wolf. Only the shepherd who guides.

And with every drop of blood spilled, they ripped the humanity from your very bones until your body was the cast in which they made something anew– something gold, something horrific. A monster as much a God, a beast as much a man.

There is nothing left but absolute authority.

You try again and again to mend this act of desecration, to peel back the outer shell and rend the gold from your marrow– but your body cannot, will not, die. It mends itself back into place no matter how damaged, and all you feel is the uncomfortable tug of your body forcing itself to live. You cannot die, but were you ever truly alive at all?

Yet with every cycle, you know only one constant besides the thrum of golden ichor in your veins– cold.

Ice that burns, ice that spreads and festers and devours. Claws that pull you apart until the gold runs thick, teeth that burrow into your bones and rip it out from the source..eyes that witness the fall of a God with reverence– hungering, all consuming reverence.

You welcome it.

It is the first time you felt pain since you were cast into an image of a being you were not meant to be. The sting of cold upon your skin makes you shiver, your body tries to reject it, but you want to welcome it– for a brief moment that lasts only as long as it takes for you to blink, you see the glint of something familiar in the reflection of her empty eyes. Something achingly, horribly familiar– something human, all the more terrifying for it.

Even when Teyvat itself crumples like paper beneath the weight of her sins – of this desecration anew, this wretched heresy – you allow her hands to do it again. You grasp her hands in yours like chains, willing her to shackle you, willing her to pull you apart and make you whole again. To break you until the gold cannot put you back together again.

You long, each time, for those eyes like spears that lodge into your skin– burrow deep and sting deeper, making gold flow like water. You long for the biting tongue, the cutting words and those teeth like weapons– long to see the spite and anger and impure disgust aimed at the woman of silver who leads you down a hall that ends only in damnation. You follow each time like the lamb led astray by the wolf, but you do not wail in betrayal when she sinks her teeth into your throat and devours you whole.

For is it a sin if you welcome it? Has their God sinned, in the eyes of the flock, for welcoming such heresy with open arms? For allowing the wolf into their home?

Is it a sin to be broken beneath the only hands that have loved you?

Is it a sin to want to love, too, those hands and teeth stained in gold?

Then you shall be damned, you swear it. Damned, but gold no more.

For death is the closest you have ever felt to being human.

[thepringlesofblood]

feel free to add more, I just think it's funny that there's at least 3 musicals that have a 'high school is extremely bad' song and in 2 of them multiple teenagers die and in all 3 multiple teenagers get grievously injured. like they weren't kidding that high school really do hell.