#also the horse isn't grimm's horse specifically

[ichorblossoms]

normal, everyday animals

[the-teapot-hatter]

The one who sent Y/n being nicer to the Saintess ask (pt.3)

Don't apologise for not being able to do my request quickly, especially if you are unwell or have other things to do, take care of yourself first!

Also, I was more on leaning to you writing it with any characters you like or feel inspired to do. I like your writing and don't mind.

But if you need me to ask about anyone specific. How about Epel and Sebek? I love the first years and haven't seen much of them in the au yet! Thank you and have a wonderful day/night!

I heard the original concept of Epel before the Epel we have now was that he was going to be a crossdresser. So this inspired Epel's part quite a bit.

If this isn't want you wanted, feel free to let me know and I'll give it another go, otherwise, I hope you enjoy!

| Epel |

Epel stood on stage, performing his given part to the best of his abilities, all the while he cursed Vil in his head. Really? Vil just had to give him the role of the damsel in distress?

And to make matters worse, well, as worse as they could get considering Epel was on stage with a big frilly dress and a face full of makeup, was the fact that (Y/n) was watching his performance.

Now, Epel had been wanting (Y/n) to come to one of his shows. He was proud of the effort he put into it, even if he still didn't always agree with the assigned chorography given to him.

But of all shows they had to come to, it had to be the one he where he was wearing a big frilly dress!?

Epel supposes this is what he gets for giving Cersei tickets. He knew she was going to be attending the show no matter what he did, so he had decided to save her some money. That was clearly a mistake, seeing as she must have given the extra tickets to (Y/n) and Grimm.

One such grey cat that had a suspicious looking camera pointing at him, all the while laughing.

Cersei and (Y/n) weren't laughing, thank the Seven Spirits for that. But Cersei had an abnormally large grin on her face while (Y/n) was staring at him with an intensive contemplating look.

He was going to burn this dress the moment the show finished. There was nothing Rook or Vil could say to get him to put this damn thing on again!

And why did (Y/n) accept Cersei's invite when they hadn't even accepted his?

Only, (Y/n) truly had been busy when Epel had asked, and Cersei truly just so happened to have great timing. Too bad for the boy Cersei couldn't help but decide to tease him, knowing he would probably burn the dress soon there after.

| Sebek |

Sebek was more than a little affronted. Being left to gap at both Cersei and (Y/n), the two at the town stables. (There's no way, not even Cersei, would be able to drag (Y/n) to a nobles home.)

Cersei was showing (Y/n) the horse that she had personally be given for when she goes on any expeditions.

Not only was seeing (Y/n) here of all places (and not covered in trash) a surprise, but it wasn't as if Sebek hadn't invited them here before! In fact, Sebek had gone out of his way to invite (Y/n) on a day His Highness Malleus would be present! (Sebek knew that his young prince also liked the strange human, so he had wanted to do something nice for the both of them.)

(Y/n) had informed him that they simply weren't interested in seeing the stables, but clearly that had been a lie!

"Humans, what are you going here!" Sebek yelled, approaching the pair. Cersei looked over waving at the taller boy with glee.

"I'm showing (Y/n) Zipper here! Isn't he just gorgeous (Y/n)?" Cersei inquired.

(Y/n) didn't look nearly as enthused, seeing as said horse was attempting to chew on their clothes.

"Zipper is....certainly something." (Y/n) responded, backing away from the horse in a slow manner.

"Have you suddenly gained in interest in horses human? Last time I attempted to show you, you declined." Sebek pointed out, a little annoyed at having been lied to.

"It wasn't the horses I wasn't interested in." Came (Y/n)'s reply, all the while Cersei watched sheepishly from the background as Sebek squawked in shock and began lecturing (Y/n) in earnest.

The poor boy not having realized the reason he was rejected was because (Y/n) didn't want to get put through some gruesome training. Maybe Cersei should have tried getting a different surprise for the lime-haired boy?

[bestworstcase]

@dudethatswhack

I mean I *kinda* see your point but I feel like you can just as easily make the point that Salem's attitude towards Tyrian isn't so much her disdaining his worship of her but more her *using* the way he worships her to make him a more effective pawn. When he fails to capture Ruby she throws her disappointment directly at him causing him to break down and effectively turning him even more determined to never fail again with his following mission in Atlas

( replying in a rb bc i have a lot of thoughts abt This Specifically )

i don’t disagree per se in that Yeah Absolutely salem leverages tyrian’s religious devotion in order to control him. i’m not arguing that she isn’t manipulative, bc she very much is. But,

the critical point of difference between how i read salem and how…most folks seem to is that i really don’t get the impression that she’s this emotionally numb, hyper-calculating manipulator; she instead strikes me as a very emotionally-driven person who is also, as a consequence of having spent the last few hundred million years mostly being rejected and ostracized and treated alternately as a monster or a goddess, entrenched behind some very thick emotional walls.

now part of that reading is personal—i have a very blunted affect, so when i see a character who likewise has a blunted or flattened affect my tendency is not to read them as emotionless but to look for signs of emotionality coming through to the surface in ways that are familiar to me, and as it happens salem has a lot of those. but also there are Several Scenes whose core narrative function is to showcase salem’s emotionality, in particular (whacks the dead horse) her half of 6.4, which overtly reveals a crack in the facade with regret/weariness bleeding through while her back is turned, and then hinges on her extreme fury and distress upon finding out that ozma has already reincarnated—fury and distress which leads to an immediate, radical change of plan as she panics and jumps forward months ahead of schedule to deliver an open siege to atlas. that’s… not something a cold, conniving chess master type would do. send someone to atlas to manage the setback, sure, but devote months to raising an army so she can lay siege to the city herself? huge, emotional overreaction.

so, the malicious smiles whenever she has the chance to fuck with tyrian (“find the girl who did this to cinder… :) and bring her to me” + “inform tyrian that i wish to have a word with him :)” after she learns that qrow is not, in fact, dead) in combination with the cold reception she gives his groveling and that he is the only one of her followers whom she seems to be willing to kill over failure (throwing a beowolf at him while he was sobbing on the floor suggests that tyrian getting ripped to shreds by a grimm was an acceptable outcome here) says to me that she actively dislikes tyrian and keeps him around solely because his slavish devotion and amorality makes him useful.

( similarly, her responses to cinder in the first half of V8 read to me as coming from a place of true irritation and disappointment; cinder let her down at haven and despite notionally ‘redeeming’ herself by recovering the lamp salem is still upset about it, so she takes that feeling out on cinder to her own detriment, squandering all of cinder’s loyalty within a matter of hours. in terms of manipulation her handling of cinder throughout V8 is an abysmal failure, bc salem is acting out of emotion for most of it. )

( i think her relationships to cinder and, to a lesser extent, watts are also instructive vis-a-vis her relationship to tyrian, in that salem treats both of them a lot better than she treats tyrian; if she enjoyed or felt entitled to tyrian’s worship then i do not think she would indulgently tolerate watts’ cavalier irreverence and she certainly wouldn’t directly reward cinder’s open defiance by conceding the power struggle. given the choice it does seem like salem would prefer not to be worshipped, because her two most favored lieutenants are the ones least awed by her. )

I don't quite agree with some of the things you have said. But I won't debate most of the specifics, and just say that Ozma and Salem are not equal to eachother in any way.

Salem's plan in the old days was to kill off humanity. She wanted to 'replace them with what they could never be'. And that is what turned away Ozma. That he was not willing to do this or let their children be a part of it.

And yes I do think we are supposed to take her goal as apocalyptic. The writers have said that Tyrian knowing her true goal was a result of him being perceptive, so we are supposed to take his view as the truth.

as i have said REPEATEDLY, i read the “them” in that statement as “the gods” and the proposition itself as a reiteration of salem’s Two Hundred Million Year Long ambition for humanity to overthrow and replace the gods, with the corollary that If she really meant “humans” ozma had a moral obligation to like, At Least go “salem what the hell” about it because if your wife who has hitherto been cynically pragmatic but keen to support your stated ambitions of uniting people is Suddenly talking about genocide that merits some clarifying questions and a harsh conversation maybe. “Salem Can’t Be Reasoned With” Literally Has Anyone Ever Tried

idk how to tell you that things the writers say in the DVD commentaries are not going to contain major spoilers and “tyrian knows The Truth because he’s insightful” has to be taken in context with the fact that this man burst into tears and started worshipping salem On Sight Literally Before She Spoke which is to say that yeah he’s probably grasped that she wants to destroy the world (in the sense that she despises the world ozma has created because It Sucks and she wants to put a final end to the world ruled by the gods) and is merrily reading into this his own nihilistic desire to End Everything because salem is a mirror onto which her followers cast reflections of their own motivations, something the narrative is Very Clear About.

and like it bears repeating that salem and tyrian are not at all in sync emotionally or on the same page of what is and isn’t acceptable with her: she disdains his groveling, doesn’t care that he killed qrow (and in V5 seems to take considerable pleasure in the prospect of telling him that qrow is Still Alive), easily tolerates the casual way watts talks to her vs tyrian flying off the handle, all but snarls at him when he tries to soothe her distress over ozma returning so fast, listens to ruby’s broadcast with obvious approval while tyrian is furious about it and so forth. when hazel lies to her she yells at him and picks on emerald to punish him and then just moves on; when cinder disobeys her salem does this whole song-and-dance of an apology; when tyrian crawls home with the consolation prize of a dead spy she’s flatly like idc and throws a beowolf at him. she doesn’t treat any of her followers particularly well but her dislike of Tyrian Specifically is tangible and his certainty that he’s her most loyal and most favored acolyte is equally tangible. what i’m getting at here is, They Are Not Living In The Same Reality.