#an open ended tale;OPEN STARTER

[soulsbetrayed]

"Oh Wings help us this is Passenger Number 56890678-120 isn't it?"

Raising her arms to block a strike from the monstrous aberration the Cleanup Crew Captain grits her teeth. "Hey, you under the seats!" she shouts. "I need some support, get everyone to the next car ahead. I'll hold the line." She lets out a loud bellow as she shoved her shoulder forward sending the fleshy creature stumbling back.

[crystal-grotto]

@therxtking liked for a little starter!

Nice days invited relaxation.

Nice days were hard to ignore, even when you were pointedly trying to avoid rest to try and sleep better at night; thus the prone form that was Alex had been peacefully resting with arms behind her head, face turned to the patchy clouded sky as a gentle breeze blew through leaves and grass... until something made itself known.

Eyes cracking in confusion from the presence (a curious animal maybe?), it takes a second for storm blue to adjust, before groggy brain registers a rodentine shape blocking light above her.

Brows shooting up in surprise as sleep fled senses the shapeshifter took in a sharp breath while teeth simultaneously bore themselves in her flare of nerves. Gods she was vulnerable. Very, very vulnerable!

'Wh-'

[bugged-candies]

TAG DUMP - PT 2

[atsevenseas]

tag drop — general

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Good riddance to the Open Gaming License

Last week, Gizmodo’s Linda Codega caught a fantastic scoop — a leaked report of Hasbro’s plan to revoke the decades-old Open Gaming License, which subsidiary Wizards Of the Coast promulgated as an allegedly open sandbox for people seeking to extend, remix or improve Dungeons and Dragons:

https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634

The report set off a shitstorm among D&D fans and the broader TTRPG community — not just because it was evidence of yet more enshittification of D&D by a faceless corporate monopolist, but because Hasbro was seemingly poised to take back the commons that RPG players and designers had built over decades, having taken WOTC and the OGL at their word.

Gamers were right to be worried. Giant companies love to rugpull their fans, tempting them into a commons with lofty promises of a system that we will all have a stake in, using the fans for unpaid creative labor, then enclosing the fans’ work and selling it back to them. It’s a tale as old as CDDB and Disgracenote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDDB#History

(Disclosure: I am a long-serving volunteer board-member for MetaBrainz, which maintains MusicBrainz, a free, open, community-managed and transparent alternative to Gracenote, explicitly designed to resist the kind of commons-stealing enclosure that led to the CDDB debacle.)

https://musicbrainz.org/

Free/open licenses were invented specifically to prevent this kind of fuckery. First there was the GPL and its successor software licenses, then Creative Commons and its own successors. One important factor in these licenses: they contain the word “irrevocable.” That means that if you build on licensed content, you don’t have to worry about having the license yanked out from under you later. It’s rugproof.

Now, the OGL does not contain the word “irrevocable.” Rather, the OGL is “perpetual.” To a layperson, these two terms may seem interchangeable, but this is one of those fine lawerly distinctions that trip up normies all the time. In lawyerspeak, a “perpetual” license is one whose revocation doesn’t come automatically after a certain time (unlike, say, a one-year car-lease, which automatically terminates at the end of the year). Unless a license is “irrevocable,” the licensor can terminate it whenever they want to.

This is exactly the kind of thing that trips up people who roll their own licenses, and people who trust those licenses. The OGL predates the Creative Commons licenses, but it neatly illustrates the problem with letting corporate lawyers — rather than public-interest nonprofits — unleash “open” licenses on an unsuspecting, legally unsophisticated audience.

The perpetual/irrevocable switcheroo is the least of the problems with the OGL. As Rob Bodine— an actual lawyer, as well as a dice lawyer — wrote back in 2019, the OGL is a grossly defective instrument that is significantly worse than useless.

https://gsllcblog.com/2019/08/26/part3ogl/

The issue lies with what the OGL actually licenses. Decades of copyright maximalism has convinced millions of people that anything you can imagine is “intellectual property,” and that this is indistinguishable from real property, which means that no one can use it without your permission.

The copyrightpilling of the world sets people up for all kinds of scams, because copyright just doesn’t work like that. This wholly erroneous view of copyright grooms normies to be suckers for every sharp grifter who comes along promising that everything imaginable is property-in-waiting (remember SpiceDAO?):

https://onezero.medium.com/crypto-copyright-bdf24f48bf99

Copyright is a lot more complex than “anything you can imagine is your property and that means no one else can use it.” For starters, copyright draws a fundamental distinction between ideas and expression. Copyright does not apply to ideas — the idea, say, of elves and dwarves and such running around a dungeon, killing monsters. That is emphatically not copyrightable.

Copyright also doesn’t cover abstract systems or methods — like, say, a game whose dice-tables follow well-established mathematical formulae to create a “balanced” system for combat and adventuring. Anyone can make one of these, including by copying, improving or modifying an existing one that someone else made. That’s what “uncopyrightable” means.

Finally, there are the exceptions and limitations to copyright — things that you are allowed to do with copyrighted work, without first seeking permission from the creator or copyright’s proprietor. The best-known exception is US law is fair use, a complex doctrine that is often incorrectly characterized as turning on “four factors” that determine whether a use is fair or not.

In reality, the four factors are a starting point that courts are allowed and encouraged to consider when determining the fairness of a use, but some of the most consequential fair use cases in Supreme Court history flunk one, several, or even all of the four factors (for example, the Betamax decision that legalized VCRs in 1984, which fails all four).

Beyond fair use, there are other exceptions and limitations, like the di minimis exemption that allows for incidental uses of tiny fragments of copyrighted work without permission, even if those uses are not fair use. Copyright, in other words, is “fact-intensive,” and there are many ways you can legally use a copyrighted work without a license.

Which brings me back to the OGL, and what, specifically, it licenses. The OGL is a license that only grants you permission to use the things that WOTC can’t copyright — “the game mechanic [including] the methods, procedures, processes and routines.” In other words, the OGL gives you permission to use things you don’t need permission to use.

But maybe the OGL grants you permission to use more things, beyond those things you’re allowed to use anyway? Nope. The OGL specifically exempts:

Product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark…

Now, there are places where the uncopyrightable parts of D&D mingle with the copyrightable parts, and there’s a legal term for this: merger. Merger came up for gamers in 2018, when the provocateur Robert Hovden got the US Copyright Office to certify copyright in a Magic: The Gathering deck:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/14/angels-and-demons/#owning-culture

If you want to learn more about merger, you need to study up on Kregos and Eckes, which are beautifully explained in the “Open Intellectual Property Casebook,” a free resource created by Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/openip/#q01

Jenkins and Boyle explicitly created their open casebook as an answer to another act of enclosure: a greedy textbook publisher cornered the market on IP textbook and charged every law student — and everyone curious about the law — $200 to learn about merger and other doctrines.

As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kit Walsh writes in her must-read analysis of the OGL, this means “the only benefit that OGL offers, legally, is that you can copy verbatim some descriptions of some elements that otherwise might arguably rise to the level of copyrightability.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/beware-gifts-dragons-how-dds-open-gaming-license-may-have-become-trap-creators

But like I said, it’s not just that the OGL fails to give you rights — it actually takes away rights you already have to D&D. That’s because — as Walsh points out — fair use and the other copyright limitations and exceptions give you rights to use D&D content, but the OGL is a contract whereby you surrender those rights, promising only to use D&D stuff according to WOTC’s explicit wishes.

“For example, absent this agreement, you have a legal right to create a work using noncopyrightable elements of D&D or making fair use of copyrightable elements and to say that that work is compatible with Dungeons and Dragons. In many contexts you also have the right to use the logo to name the game (something called “nominative fair use” in trademark law). You can certainly use some of the language, concepts, themes, descriptions, and so forth. Accepting this license almost certainly means signing away rights to use these elements. Like Sauron’s rings of power, the gift of the OGL came with strings attached.”

And here’s where it starts to get interesting. Since the OGL launched in 2000, a huge proportion of game designers have agreed to its terms, tricked into signing away their rights. If Hasbro does go through with canceling the OGL, it will release those game designers from the shitty, deceptive OGL.

According to the leaks, the new OGL is even worse than the original versions — but you don’t have to take those terms! Notwithstanding the fact that the OGL says that “using…Open Game Content” means that you accede to the license terms, that is just not how contracts work.

Walsh: “Contracts require an offer, acceptance, and some kind of value in exchange, called ‘consideration.’ If you sell a game, you are inviting the reader to play it, full stop. Any additional obligations require more than a rote assertion.”

“For someone who wants to make a game that is similar mechanically to Dungeons and Dragons, and even announce that the game is compatible with Dungeons and Dragons, it has always been more advantageous as a matter of law to ignore the OGL.”

Walsh finishes her analysis by pointing to some good licenses, like the GPL and Creative Commons, “written to serve the interests of creative communities, rather than a corporation.” Many open communities — like the programmers who created GNU/Linux, or the music fans who created Musicbrainz, were formed after outrageous acts of enclosure by greedy corporations.

If you’re a game designer who was pissed off because the OGL was getting ganked — and if you’re even more pissed off now that you’ve discovered that the OGL was a piece of shit all along — there’s a lesson there. The OGL tricked a generation of designers into thinking they were building on a commons. They weren’t — but they could.

This is a great moment to start — or contribute to — real open gaming content, licensed under standard, universal licenses like Creative Commons. Rolling your own license has always been a bad idea, comparable to rolling your own encryption in the annals of ways-to-fuck-up-your-own-life-and-the-lives-of-many-others. There is an opportunity here — Hasbro unintentionally proved that gamers want to collaborate on shared gaming systems.

That’s the true lesson here: if you want a commons, you’re not alone. You’ve got company, like Kit Walsh herself, who happens to be a brilliant game-designer who won a Nebula Award for her game “Thirsty Sword Lesbians”:

https://evilhat.com/product/thirsty-sword-lesbians/

[Image ID: A remixed version of David Trampier's 'Eye of Moloch,' the cover of the first edition of the AD&D Player's Handbook. It has been altered so the title reads 'Advanced Copyright Fuckery. Unclear on the Concept. That's Just Not How Licenses Work. No, Seriously.' The eyes of the idol have been replaced by D20s displaying a critical fail '1.' Its chest bears another D20 whose showing face is a copyright symbol.]

[sadistic-kiss]

🐺House of Alphas Chapter 54: Blank🐺

(Jujutsu Kaisen Omegaverse )

Summary: Waking up in a world that was not your own was problematic enough. Being the villainess was another. However, the possessive alphas might take the cake.

Disclaimer: Angsty but I ain’t Gege

Omega!Reader x Alpha!Sukuna x Alpha!Gojo x Alpha!Toji x Alpha!Nanami x Alpha!Getou

~

…

"Are you insane!?" Nanami threw up his hands as he paced back and forth.

You had a quiet walk to the inn. You felt like a child who knew wrath was coming for you once you were behind closed doors. When you got into Nanami's room boy did he go off. So much so your other alphas sat around quietly as the blonde paced a furious path.

You sat on the edge of the bed, Toji comfortable in one of the armchairs, Sukuna leaned against the wall. Getou was in the desk chair with Gojo on top of the table.

You were in the center. It felt like you were in the hot seat... well you were...You had disobeyed your alphas.

"What were you thinking?" Nanami paused, looking toward you with his fists planted on his hips, angry eyes glaring from over his glasses.

You took time to gulp, readjusting yourself on the bed, "I...was thinking-"

"Speak up."

You jolted at his harsh tone. You didn't enjoy being yelled at. Or disciplined, especially by Nanami. So already your voice was cracking and your eyes were starting to sting. You fluttered your wet lashes as you wiped under your eye, "I-I was thinking...th-that Yuta could help me... regain my memories...and save Junpei-nh!” at the end of your sentence you did let out a sob. Yet your tears seemed to be ineffective this time.

Your blonde flicked his fingers at Gojo who hopped up to give you a handkerchief but then he returned to his spot. You thanked him quietly while dabbing at your face.

Your throat tensed, you just wanted to say how sorry you were. But unfortunately, you can't go back on this. You can apologize all you want but you had to go down there. You had to save this Yuta character just like you saved Maki. These were canon events that were linked together. You didn't want to go down there either- truly you didn't…but with how the plot is plotting... this was a must. This wasn't just a simple side quest of give me ten wolf skins or a silly escort quest- these quests felt extremely important. Like you just opened up a whole world of important missions that will affect everyone's lives greatly.

For starters the witches are holding the shadow creatures in their home, protecting the gates. That means that they cannot be summoned out in the world. They can be trapped there until you are ready to go in blasting the holy light up their asses.

Already you have saved countless people's lives just by saving them.

This just felt like a start to a bigger picture. Your alphas just didn't understand how dire this was.

"Listen..." Nanami pushed up his glasses with a tense shove, "I know you've been in the omega home for some time and read books or what have you about things, but the Land of Ruins is no place for any creature let alone a pretty little bird like yourself."

"I know-"

"You don't."

"Or..." Sukuna drawled shifting to his other foot. "...She does know about what she's getting into. Just like she knew about the shadow spirits. How do you know so much? And don't tell me it's in the books because I know damn well there’s not a word about shadow curses anywhere.”

You opened your mouth and blinked left then right while shaking your head, "Well I-"

"I saw it." Toji pointed.

"That was an easy one." Sukuna smirked.

Oh what the fuck-

"More lies and tales?" Nanami crossed his arms tight, muscles bulging with tension.

You were in shock, now you didn't know what to do. Quickly you looked toward your silly alphas for some aid.

Getou shook his head, "Don't look over here, darling."

"Yeah, this is like the first time we aren't in trouble."

“Feels almost strange doesn't it Gojo?”

“You said it.”

Well, they were no help!

...

~

Read More

[lapis-memes]

Aggressive Sentence Starters

"Back off!"

"I should kill you for that."

"Don't make me come over there."

"What the fuck is your problem?"

"I'm going to rip your throat out."

"Come over here and say that to my face!"

"What did you just say?"

"How dare you."

"I will hurt you."

"Do that again, and I will end your life."

"You and I have some unfinished business."

"That's enough!"

"Think very carefully about what you say next."

"I'd like to see you try."

"I'm going to kick your ass!"

"Get away from me!"

"Sleep with one eye open tonight."

"You're pathetic."

"Go ahead! Just try and touch me!"

"Not so brave now, are you?"

"Remember where you belong: on the ground, at my feet."

"You're going to regret that."

"Tired already? How pathetic."

"You won't live long enough to tell the tale."

"What do you think you're doing?"

"You got a problem?"

"What are you looking at?"

"On your knees."

"I have a score to settle."

"I won't take this kind of shit from you."

"Touch me again, and you'll lose that arm."

"You need to leave. Now."

"So, you think you're tough?"

"I don't fear you."

"Come over here and find out!"

"This is the part where you apologize."

[tigerincahoots]

closed starter for: @dethenryquinn

IT WAS HALLOWEEN NIGHT. That one time of the year when all the fucking psychos would go even more psycho than usual and end up making a mess of things. Just ask Michael Meyers and Art, the Clown in that department. And Kevin HATED Halloween with a burning passion. He respected the whole spun tales on how the veil between the dead and the living became thinner that day – he had seen some shit – but he absolutely despised the insurmountable number of brats running around and ringing bells asking for a trick or treat. The only good thing about that was that he was working that night. Not that detective work was for him but new assignments required new rules and he had to pose as a damn homicide detective to track down the monster he was supposed to neutralize. His background had been flawlessly constructed to fit the bill and now...? Now he was just playing the waiting game in his office alongside his new-but-maybe-not-that-much partner.

HE FUCKING HATED BEING SOCIAL.

”HOW TYPICAL IS IT FOR A MURDER TO HAPPEN TONIGHT?” His question is carefree. His glance turns to the other detective – Henry Quinn - as Kevin tosses random coloured gummy bears into the air to catch them with an open mouth. He would much rather be out there. Hunting. That’s what he was good at. Tracking people down and bringing them back dead or alive. The waiting game was not for him. Being idle drove him insane, which could be reflected in the occasional grumpy comment addressed to no one. “Like, are we just supposed to stay here? Sitting down, scratching our balls and comparing dick sizes while waiting for someone to just call us?” Gods, that shit was tedious. “We hit the road back on my old precinct.” A lie but he needed to play his role as a detective. “Fuck knows how many psychos are going out tonight. And I am not talking about the brats…”

[mayhemhq]

Our event, Grim's Hollow Haunt, is just 11 days away, and we're excited to share all the details of what's happening that weekend! The 19th & 20th is the is the weekend that it will take place. All shows and ppvs on this day are prerecorded, regardless of if your character participates or not.

The setting takes place in a secluded cabin on the outskirts of Salem, MA. We’re bending reality a bit for this experience. The sprawling three-story cabin is isolated, surrounded by vast open land and eerie trees. Despite its remote feel, it’s just a short drive from Salem, where your characters can explore the city if they choose.

We invite you to click THIS link to read the fictional tale of Barnabas Grim and the legendary events that inspired this experience. It’s designed to feel like a local legend—stories pieced together over time through rumors and hearsay, blending elements of the supernatural with Salem’s own rich history.

With that in mind, we’ll be sharing starters the 19th and at least posting one dash game on the 20th to spark interactivity and creativity. Starters / prompts will mostly be one-liners inspired by the story and the cabin. During this trip, feel free to let creepy, unexplained things unfold—have fun with it!

Again, both important links worth checking out: here and here!

Now, to explain how the weekend will go:

We're all staying in the cabin—or at least, that’s the idea! There are plenty of rooms, and even multiple couples can share if they’d like. Remember, this isn’t just about romance; it’s about enjoying the experience together. When else will you get to do something like this? Of course, it’s perfectly fine if your character isn’t affected by the supernatural—after all, not everyone has those experiences in real life. But, at the end of the day, it’s all for fun!

Saturday during the day, feel free to explore Salem and whatnot. Do whatever you wish until nightfall.

The carnival kicks off Saturday night around 6pm CST. In canon, it will be set later to capture the feel of darkness and mystery. We encourage everyone to dress up in Halloween costumes for the event! Feel free to share your character’s look, but it’s not mandatory. For those managing multiple muses, use this time to draft posts or brainstorm outfit ideas. You can find all the carnival highlights on this page—just imagine a spooky yet thrilling carnival atmosphere. Keep in mind, this is the only October event featuring Halloween costumes, so take advantage and get inspired by the attractions listed!

Sunday night around 6pm CST, we’ll be hosting the final dinner: Grim’s Last Supper. You can find more details about it here. We encourage everyone to wear Victorian Gothic-inspired attire—think dark, rich colors, suits, dresses, and the like. Feel free to get creative, but keep in mind it’s a dressy, elegant, and formal dinner party. To keep things lively, we’ll also share a drunken Truth or Dare / AMA dash game that night for a bit of fun. One of us will link a drunken text generator if you really want to embrace the vibe!

Please, please make sure to reach out to inboxes that night and get as wild and weird as you want! Just keep in mind that it’s all for fun, and we want everyone to have a great time. Also, be considerate and avoid reblogging the game IF you will not be around to participate. Reblog to only the number of muses you can handle, too. Don’t get overwhelmed. Let’s make the most of the night!

We know there’s an NJPW PPV that weekend, but we decided to host this event a weekend earlier since the actual holiday weekends tends to be packed. Many of us have other OOC gatherings then, and some will be busy on Halloween night itself, so this felt like the best choice for an engaging and interactive event!

Quick question for everyone: would you like to have a plot twist during the final supper? Maybe something fun and unexpected, like a dare gone wrong or a creepy scenario that could (somewhat) realistically unfold? There’s always the classic power outage, but we know you all are super creative and might have other ideas! It’s not a must, but feel free to share your thoughts below so we can brainstorm together if something comes to mind.

[dragonologist-writings]

Title: Love & War Fandom: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Rating: M Status: Complete (19/19) Main Characters: Knight-Commander Cleo Ironbark, Queen Galfrey Supporting Characters: Yozz, Arueshalae, Woljif, Wenduag, Ember, Irahai, Nocticula, Hand of the Inheritor Ships: Knight-Commander/Queen Galfrey Additional Notes: Complicated Relationships, Angst, Rivals to Enemies to Lovers, Demon to Legend Mythic Path, Canon-Typical Themes, Minor Character Death Word Count: 72.8k Summary:

Galfrey was a queen, a paladin, an icon for all that was righteous and just in the Crusades. Cleo was a barbarian, a tiefling, a personification of demonic chaos. By all rights and logic, the two should have been at each other's throats- and often, they were. But somehow, through war and struggle and sacrifice, they ended up finding more in each other than either ever expected.

read here on ao3

Chaper 1 Below:

The first impression Queen Galfrey of Mendev formed of Cleo, warrior of the Ironbark tribe, was not a kind one.

To be completely fair, the Queen’s opinion was not wholly condemning, either. It was quite impossible for Galfrey to condemn the woman who had pulled Kenabres from the burning jaws of the demons. Every report given to the Queen repeated the same story: Cleo of Ironbark had bravely led the charge against the evil cultists and demons who threatened the city. Cleo of Ironbark had stormed the Grey Garrison and saved them all from the poison of the corrupted Wardstone. Cleo of Ironbark was a hero.

But Cleo of Ironbark was also…raucous.

“Another round!” the warrior cried, holding her tankard aloft, and the celebrating soldiers cheered along with her. The tankard was refilled without a moment’s hesitation, and after taking a long drink, Kenabres’s champion resumed her dramatic recounting of the day’s battle. Her voice carried across the tavern, rising above the din of the crowd and filling the large room with echoes of her bravado. Irabeth and Anevia sat at her side, listening to the tale with fond weariness and open amusement, respectively.

Galfrey kept to the corner of the tavern, holding her tongue and a humble mug of ale as she watched the theatrics unfold. Her retinue was waiting outside; she’d ordered them to give her fifteen minutes of peace before following her in. The guards were always so touchy about letting her out of their sight, as if she couldn’t handle herself perfectly well.

The Queen sighed at herself. That was unfair; they were merely doing their job. Under normal circumstances, she would have been content to let them do so. But a procession of guards was something that tended to be noticed, and in this instance, she’d wished to make her observations from a place of relative anonymity. She’d feared she might be noticed anyhow, but no; the people’s attention was centered solely on the sword-bearing storyteller who had already nearly drained her third serving of ale. This could only be the famous Cleo- who else would be drawing such adulation from the victorious crusaders?

Yet, she was not quite what Galfrey had expected.

For starters, Cleo was clearly not of Kenabres. Not a fact all that odd on its own, perhaps, but she was no ordinary traveler, either. She wore the furs and leather armor of the northern barbarians, and when she called out to the crowds, a Kellid accent made itself clear in her words. As if a lone tribeswoman in the middle of a Mendevian city wasn’t odd enough, the people’s new hero was also a tiefling. With skin of deep green and small horns that poked through her dark, close-shorn hair, her abyssal heritage was impossible to miss.

Even so, the notoriously suspicious Mendevians around her watched with high-spirited adulation as she spoke, her tail lashing enthusiastically behind her all the while.

“-and then,” she was saying, “just when we all thought we were well and truly fucked, I charged for the Wardstone. Minagho tried to stop me, but it was too late for her- I had my blade in my hands, and I took the biggest swing of my life, and with just one strike I shattered that corrupted chunk of stone!”

She mimed the motion of her attack, and the crowds shouted their appreciation. Their cheers brought a cocky grin to Cleo’s lips, revealing sharp-tipped teeth.

“And of course once that was taken care of, Minagho didn’t stand a chance. Shame she’s so good at running away, but there’s plenty other demons out there to slay!”

This declaration brought another round of victorious shouts, but Galfrey remained reticent. The scene so far had only served to cement her final impression of Cleo of Ironbark: that she was in possession of a concerning degree of reckless arrogance. Cleo spoke loudly and cursed often; she lauded her own daring exploits; she relished in stretching out her arms to display the scars lining her well-toned muscles to her crowd of admirers.

Galfrey was hardly unaccustomed to such personality. The thrill of victory could go to any soldier’s head, especially when aided by ale and applause. But she had been hoping for something more substantial from the savior of the city, and to find behavior which bordered upon unseemly was…disappointing.

Across the room, Cleo let out a loud laugh and leapt to her feet, very nearly tripping over her chair in the process. She teetered over Anevia, leaned down, and- inexplicably- blew a kiss onto the small charm in Anevia’s hands. They both laughed again at the action, even as Irabeth swatted at her wife’s shoulder in half-hearted chastisement.

In spite of herself, Galfrey felt her lips pull reluctantly into a smile. Her judgments were harsh; revelry could certainly be permitted in times like this. This was a celebration, after all, and here she was sulking in the corner and thinking dour thoughts. It must be the endless war meetings taking their toll, fixing her into this permanently somber state. After so many decades, it was growing increasingly difficult to escape such a mindset, especially when she’d spent the majority of the march to Kenabres half-expecting to find nothing but a funeral pyre.

Instead, she’d found a city in the throes of exhilarating victory. Such a state was infinitely preferable, and the leader who’d made it possible had more than earned herself a carefree night.

With that thought in mind, Galfrey threw back a swig of ale and strode forward to join her subjects at their table. Her fifteen minutes of peace were almost up, and it was time to make her presence known. Better to make a jovial introduction, she decided, rather than be a weight upon the soldiers’ high spirits.

The reactions her reveal garnered were much what Galfrey expected: Irabeth snapped to immediate attention, the nearby soldiers backed away to a respectful distance, and even Anevia straightened her posture and pushed her drink away.

But not Cleo. Cleo just watched, dark eyes giving away nothing as she granted the Queen a lazy smile. “Have I had too much to drink, or are you really who I think you are?”

“That depends a good deal on who you think I am, doesn’t it?” Galfrey countered evenly. She kept her voice lighthearted, welcoming, and held out her hand in a simple greeting. “Galfrey, of Mendev.”

Cleo regarded the offered gesture for a moment, her gaze sliding from Galfrey’s hand to meet her eyes. The edges of her smile grew more pronounced. “I see the rumors were not exaggerated. Pleasure to make your royal acquaintance.” Without breaking her stare, Cleo wrapped her calloused fingers around Galfrey’s, and she brought Galfrey’s hand to her lips.

The kiss she laid on Galfrey’s skin was short, but her eyes stayed fixed on the Queen- testing her, Galfrey realized. Pressing to see how quickly Galfrey would pull away.

Indignation surged through Galfrey’s veins, but she had decades of practice in disguising her annoyances.  She did not pull away, nor did she flinch under that taunting gaze; she waited until Cleo’s touch retreated, and only then did she withdraw her hand.

“Thank you for the compliment,” she said stiffly, and Cleo chuckled.

“Didn’t say what the rumors were, did I? But you are quite welcome, your royal highness. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

The words were simply dripping with mockery, and Galfrey almost changed her mind right then and there. The mission she’d meant to bequeath upon the hero of Kenabres required some modicum of respect and discipline, and she could just as easily enlist any of her current generals who actually displayed those qualities.

Except…none of those generals, in all their years of service, had accomplished anything like the feat this woman already performed. If even half of what Cleo claimed was true, she should be dead ten times over. That meant that this woman was either a braggart lying through her teeth…or she truly possessed the type of power the Crusades so desperately needed.

It was a risk, to gamble on the latter option in such a way. But the war had been locked in a stalemate for far too long. Perhaps a certain amount of risk was warranted.

And besides, Galfrey reminded herself, Cleo was currently deep in her cups. In all likelihood, she would wake in the morning somewhat sheepish and ready to approach their arrangement with a bit more propriety.

“The Queen graces me with her presence, I see.”

Galfrey stifled a sigh as she entered the Cleo’s tent. Outside, troops bustled in preparation for the march to Drezen, their shouts and orders mingling with the familiar clang of plated armor. The soldiers had been all too eager to accept the hero of Kenabres as their new Knight-Commander- much more eager than Cleo was to actually act the part. The obstinate woman lounged at her table of maps, not even rising to her feet as she greeted Galfrey with her usual taunt.

This was a worthy gamble, the Queen reminded herself. This inexplicable hostility was a small price to pay, if her newly-appointed Knight-Commander truly had a chance at cracking Drezen.

“Indeed. This mission is a matter of great importance, Commander,” Galfrey said, happy to hear that her voice came out smooth, betraying none of her frustrations. She allowed the weight of her authority to creep in on that last word, hoping to emphasize the importance of the title. “Reclaiming Drezen would be an unimaginable boon to the Crusades…as I have told you. The people believe in you. You have ignited their courage, and their hope. It is these virtues which will bring us to victory.”

“You can ease off the speeches in here, you know. Save us both the time,” Cleo drawled, not bothering to lift her attention away from the maps spread out before her.

Galfrey scowled and moved closer, setting her hands firmly over the maps and papers covering the table. “We are all putting our trust in you. This is not something I say lightly, and I cannot leave without knowing that we have an understanding.”

For the first time, Galfrey’s words actually seemed to have an effect on Cleo; her lazy smile disappeared, and her dark eyes narrowed as she studied the Queen standing before her. She even rose from her seat so as to meet Galfrey eye-to-eye across the narrow table. She shucked off her fur cloak as she stood, revealing broad shoulders laced with scars and decorated with geometric tattoos which wound around the back of her neck.

“And where will you be,” Cleo asked, steady and sharp, “while we charge off fearlessly to victory?”

Galfrey arched an eyebrow, surprised, but it seemed an honest question. “I shall be preparing the defenses at Nerosyan and its sister cities, and planning the future of the Fifth Crusade. Does this satisfy your curiosity, Commander?”

Cleo gave an undignified snort, a look of self-satisfaction flashing across her face. “Should’ve known.”

“Do you have something to say?” Galfrey demanded harshly. Such a rebuke would have shaken any of her courtiers or generals. Even now, knowing Cleo as she did, she half-expected the other woman to step back at the sound of her cutting displeasure.

But of course the Commander did not such thing. She actually leaned closer, eyes flashing, as she hissed, “Just that what you mean to say is that you’ll be watching the battle from the rear, safe and hidden away in some cushy palace while your soldiers bloody the battlefield. Can’t say I’m surprised. I’m sure a throne room is much more amenable to your sensibilities than a war camp.”

Her sensibilities? Galfrey’s jaw clenched. This feckless stranger hadn’t the faintest idea what she was speaking of- what did she know of the battles Galfrey had seen, the blood she herself had spilled in the name of Iomedae? She knew nothing, and Galfrey owed her no explanation for any of it.

“I have already overlooked many instances of insubordination, Commander,” Galfrey said, her voice low. “Do not test me further.”

The warning was a serious one, and perhaps Cleo sensed it. She paused, her face still close, searching the Queen’s expression for- well, Galfrey still wasn’t quite sure. But at last, she let out a quiet breath and turned away.

“It’s only insubordination if you’re the one in charge,” she said, almost conversationally. “From where I sit, you’re not the one doing the leading on this particular mission. If you’ve really got the mettle, march on Drezen with us. You’ve been making all your speeches about how pivotal this mission is for your Crusade. So prove it.”

A few seconds passed in which Galfrey could not form a response. Cleo made no secret of her disdain for the Queen’s presence- why would she make this offer now? Cleo tilted her chin, boldly staring down Galfrey as she waited for an answer.

“It has been a very long time,” Galfrey said slowly, archly, with as much authority as she could muster, “since anyone has dared to speak to me in such a manner. I must ask, what is it you are hoping to accomplish?”

Cleo shrugged. “Believe it or not, I’m not actually trying to offend. I don’t know you well enough to know whether I want to offend you or not. And that’s the point. Where I’m from, we don’t give respect based on fancy titles. We respect the people who’ve earned it.” She paused, her eyes roving over Galfrey’s polished armor. “Whatever you believe about me, I do want to win this war. But I also like to know the people I’m fighting with.”

“On that, at least, we can agree.” Galfrey frowned as she found herself seriously considering the offer- no, the challenge. That was what this brash, impetuous tiefling had thrown at her feet. A challenge.

“Very well,” Galfrey said. “We march together.”

A grin crossed Cleo’s face, catching Galfrey by surprise yet again. “Looking forward to it.” She laughed, and the grin widened to show off her pointed teeth. “We’re gonna make those demons wish they never crawled out of their mothers’ hellholes.”

When Galfrey left the tent, she told herself this was a sound decision, made for sound reasons. The advance would benefit from her presence, and this way she could keep an eye on her new unpredictable Commander. All her reasons were all true, which made them all that much easier to believe.

But a small part of her whispered that the truth of it was…it had been so long since someone had truly challenged her. Maybe she just wanted to see what would come of it, and of this unprecedented Knight-Commander.

Gods above, Galfrey thought, shaking her head at herself as the thoughts rattled through her mind. What have I just unleashed upon the world?

[soulsbetrayed]

"You wanna know what's textbook insanity? Trying the same thing over and over again expecting a different result"

[tabletopgayventures]

My current list of Tabletop Roleplaying Games.

13th Age

1879

A Grim Hack

Aberrant 

Absolute Power

Abyss

Accursed 

After The War

Anima Beyond Fantasy

Animal Adventures:  The Faraway Sea

Apocalypse World

Arkham Horror The Roleplaying Game Starter Set

Ars Magica 4th Edition

Arzium

Avatar Legends Starter Set

Babes in the Wood

Badger + Coyote and their Daring Adventures 2E

BattleTech:  A Time of War

Beacon Tabletop RPG

Beam Saber

Blades in the Dark

Bulldogs

Bunkers & Badasses

Cairn

Call of Cthulhu

Candela Obscura

Cantrip

Cats of Cathulhu

Chaos 6010

Champions Now

Collateral Damage

Contagion 2e

Cortex Prime Game Handbook

Cosmic Patrol

Cowboy Bebop Roleplaying Game

Coyote and Crow

Cthulhu Awakens

Cthulhutech

Cypher System 

Daisy Chainsaw

Deathmatch Island

Defiant Role Playing Game

Denial & Yearning

Dialect

Dinocar

Dinosaur Princesses

Discworld RPG

Dragon Age Roleplaying Game

Dragonbane

Dread

Dream Machines

Dresden Files Accelerated RPG

Dungeon Crawl Classics

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5

Dungeons and Dragons 5e

Durance

Dwelling

Epitaph

Epoch

Essence 20

Fabula Ultima

Fantasy Age

Fate Core System

Fever Nights Role-Playing Game

Flabbergasted

Fragged Empire

Fratboys Vs

Girl By Moonlight

Glitter Hearts

Goblin Quest

Goblin Slayer TRPG

Gods of Metal:  Ragnarock

Hannukkah Goblins

Have Axe, Will Travel

Hellfrost

Here, There, Be Monsters!

Hero Kids Fantasy RPG

Heroes Against the Darkness

Hopes and Dreams

Hounds 

I’m the Badguy?!?

In Nomine

In the Ashes

Inevitable A Doomed Arthurian Western

Ink

Interns In The Dark

Into the Dungeon

Jiangshi:  Blood in the Banquet Hall

Jordenheim

Katana-Ra

Kids on Bikes 2nd Edition

Killshot an Assassin’s Journal

Konosuba TRPG

Leverage The Quickstart Job

Lilliputian Adventure on the Open Seas

Little Fears Nightmare Edition

Lost Roads

Marvel Multiverse RPG

Mermaid Adventures

Micro rpg book

Modern Age

Monster of the Week

Moonlight On Roseville Beach

Mork Borg

Motel Spooky Nine

Musketeers vs. Cthulhu

Mutant Year Zero

My Mother’s Kitchen

Necrobiotic

Never Going Home

Night Shift:  Veterans of the Supernatural Wars

Night Wolves

Numenera

Odyssey Black Tales

OneDice Pirates & Dragons

One More Quest

Ork! The RPG

Our Woodland Gods

Outcast Silver Raiders 

Outgunned

Over the Edge

Overlight

Pasion De Las Pasiones

Pathfinder 1st Edition

Pathfinder 2nd Edition

Pathfinder Savage Worlds

Perils & Princesses

Pirate Borg

Power Rangers RPG

Prism

Psychic Trash Detectives

Punk’s Been Dead Since ‘79

Queerz!

Raccoon Sky Pirates

Raven

Rebels of the Outlaw Wastes

Reign

Rhapsody of Blood

Rivers of London

Ryuu Tama natural fantasy role play

Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse

Scum and Villainy

Shadowrun 5e

Shadows Of The Past

Shield Maidens

Shiver

Someone in this Tavern is a fucking mimic!

Spell The RPG

Squeeze

Star Trek Adventures Captain’s Log 

Star Trek Adventures The Roleplaying Game

Star Trek Adventures Second Edition

Star Wars 

Starfinder 1st Edition

Starfinder 2nd Edition

Stoneburner

Syma

Tangled

Temples and Tombs

The Bleackness

The Dark West

The Dread of Night

The Play’s the Thing

The Quiet Year

The Revenant Society

The Void

The Watch

Thirsty Sword Lesbians

This Discord has Ghosts in It

This house is Fucking Haunted

Thousand Year Old Vampire

Tomorrow City

Troika!

Unisystem

Urban Decay

Utopia

Vaesen

Vagabond

Valiant Universe

Variations On Your Body

Venture and Dungeon

Waffles For Esther

Wanderhome

Warcraft The Roleplaying Game

Werewolf the Apocalypse

What Lurks Above

What Lurks Beneath

What Lurks Beyond

World Ending Game

Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast

Xianta Cyber Wuxia

Xoe Microplayer

Zweihander

I'll update this list as I get more. Feel free to send me ideas and also reblog this!

[boyfiejay]

Never too late.

PAIRING : Jake Sim x gn Reader

GENRE : friends to ???, open ending

Warning : jake is dumb and kinda a loser, reader gets cheated on, curse words, reader is adored by everyone

Word Count : 0.4k

Author's note : wrote this 4 days ago in physics and fell sick 😝

Jake is a normal guy, who can solve and explain physics better than his teacher. And despite his good grades, isnt considered a nerd due to his extremely active social life.

So you would think that for such a smart person, Jake should realize the difference between attraction and crush right? Yeah well so did everyone else but seems like thats not the case.

So you two weren't exactly close, but used to hangout due to mutual friends. And jake has always found you pretty, maybe never say it out loud to you but he wouldnt deny it either.

Jake was clueless as to why his friends sent him a teasing look whenever you talked to him. And why his blood boiled when you talked about a guy in your class, your friend group teasing you. Why he felt like shit when you scored a date with said guy. And when you got into a relationship with him.

The guy you were dating was good looking, tall and an athlete, all tell-tale signs of why you liked him. Jake personally never talked to him, avoiding him like a plague, he himself was confused as to why he was so hell-bent on avoiding him.

Maybe it was because he was getting some bad vibes from this guy, because lets be honest which athletic guy was actually good? (bro just ignored the fact that he also plays sports). But he pushed that thought away to not upset you, especially when you look so happy around him.

And soon enough you were crying to your friend group about how that guy had cheated on you. Sunoo is side eyeing him so hard for standing there while you cried.

Jake couldnt understand how someone could cheat on you. Well for starters, Jay was going to murder that guy and secondly you were simply too good for people around you. You were adored by everyone around you, and everyone had good things to say about you. And he's pretty sure Sunghoon had a crush on you sometime, and meeting that guys standards is no joke. ( you're perfect bby i love you >3<)

Jake never considered himself as dumb but in this moment where everyone around him was trying to make him realize his feelings, he truly looked like an idiot.

Maybe he didn't realize his feelings because he thought you were simply too good for him, and that you were out of his league. But he still was an idiot for not realizing this sooner.

But maybe, just maybe, it wasn't too late.

Maybe he still had a chance.

[stilesgrace159]

Steddie Fairy Tale AU Open Starter - Looking for a Steve - Discord: Olliegee21

Once upon a time...

There was a beautiful fairy tale land where all the creatures lived together in peace and harmony. Well, most of them. All the ones born heroes anyways. Born into wealth and royalty, trained to be strong and proper, given everything on a silver platter. It was the perfect life. They were born to serve their duty and live happily ever after.

That was the case for some, but for others, they were not so lucky. Born in slums or swamps or bogs, living in cellars and the rubble of old castles, forced to fight their way to the top, outcasts from society, unloved. That was the case for Eddie Munson. He was abandoned as a child and grew up alone in the haunted forest. Well, not entirely alone. The creatures of the forest raised the poor boy as their own and one day became their sell proclaimed king. The haunted forest was his kingdom now. He had priced magic and potions while living there as a child and his powers only grew as he did. Vengeance can do that to a person. Soon, word spread about his evilness and he gained loyalties with others like himself. The enemy of my enemy is a friend after all.

The king was dressed in darkened clothes to match his darkened soul along with a crown grown from thorny vines from the sentient trees of the forest.

Now that Eddie had grown up, he was finally ready to seek revenge and claim all the kingdoms for himself. He wanted to bring everyone to their knees and rule evil all across the land. And the next closest good kingdom to him was Hawks End.

[princeasimdiya12]

Bucchigiri Utena Parallel-The Depravity of Sad, Strange Little Men

While there have been various comparisons that can be found between Bucchigiri and Revolutionary Girl Utena. From it's parallels with the main protagonist duo, the usage of fairy tales and their influence towards the heroes, to themes of self-stagnation & it's consequences. But for me, something I've had a hard time finding was direct comparisons between it's core cast. While they do have some similarities, not all of it is ideally parallel with the Bucchigiri delinquents having different personalities and arcs compared to the Utena duelists. That said, I was able to find two characters who came close with paralleling each other: in terms of their designated roles, their origins, their stance on gender and what becomes of them afterwards.

Shindo Akutaro and Kyouichi Saionji

Disclaimer: Just as a warning, there will be light spoilers from Revolutionary Girl Utena that will be discussed, though mainly in relation to Saionji's character and less of the series in general. There will also be mentions of domestic and sexual abuse.

Part 1: The Starter Villain

One of the first similarities that both Saionji and Akutaro share is that they both start out as the first official antagonists in their respective series. The way they're presented in the series makes them come off as genuinely dangerous men who intentionally cause harm for others.

Saionji's first scene is him slapping Anthy over an unheard conversation which is made worse when it's established that she's "betrothed" to him. He "justifies" the abuse because of the engagement which he treats as being in a relationship with him as the domineering boyfriend and Anthy as his loyal girlfriend. But what drives Utena to confront him is when he (supposedly) posted Wakaba's love letter in a public space for everyone to mock. Utena and the audience are meant to find him despicable for his behavior and want to see him be taken down ASA-NOW.

Akutaro also serves as a despisable human being who is presented as the first major threat in the series. He's portrayed as the most bloodthirsty and cruelest of the Big Three Banchos introduced in the story. While Marito rivals him in bloodthirstiness and sadism (and was technically the first adversary Arajin was forced to confront), he is shown to have some redeemable traits such as his friendship with Outa and his genuine respect towards Kenichirou. The same cannot be said for Akutaro who has no redeeming attributes. He frequently mistreats his NG Boys with threats and violence viewing them as inferior to him, forces them to steal from non-gang affiliated students, and is preparing an elaborate plot to force the rival gangs to destroy each other so he can take over.

It's also worth mentioning that his role as the first villain was even foreshadowed in the opening song. Whereas Marito and Kenichirou only looked big and scary in front of Arajin, they never actually grab him and look as though they want Arajin to face them. Akutaro is the only one who interacts with Arajin by binding him with his whips, stripping him to his boxers and tossing him down a dark hole.

The audience recognizes Akutaro as the least likable but most dangerous of the bancho leaders and are hoping to see him be taken down before his wicked plots can take effect.

But despite being presented as major villains, they didn't actually start out that way. They were once regular kids who ended up falling into the dark side because of a falling out between them and a man they once looked up to.

Part 2: Now You'll Respect Me, Because I'm a Threat

As explained in Episode 5, Akutaro actually started out as a humble nerd who was an easy target for delinquents to pick on. But that all changed when he was rescued by Kenichirou and was given the opportunity to join Minato Kai alongside him. Akutaro accepted and trained himself into becoming a man worthy of Kenichirou's respect. But that all changed when Akutaro brought a weapon to the fighting ring, something that was strongly discouraged in MK which lead to his banishment.

And in Saoinji's case, he once had a close friendship with Touga Kiryuu, the Student Council President and future antagonist following his defeat. Both boys started out caring for one another and saw each other as equals. But that all changed when they came across a young girl in a coffin who just lost her parents and wanted to join them. The next day, the girl disappeared and Touga's attitude about the mystery girl causes Saionji to think that he showed her something eternal to help her leave the coffin.

Both boys started out as genuine and harmless friends to someone they once admired. But after a conflict involving ideals, the friendship became strained. Akutaro swore vengeance against Kenichirou for tossing him aside and vowed to destroy him while Saionji, despite still being friends with Touga in the present, would develop intense levels of jealousy and and inferiority complex.

But whereas Saionji was driven by envy because of Touga's manipulations and desire to stand out on top between the two of them, Akutaro was the one who broke his friendship by refusing to accept Kenichirou's ideals and how he was in the wrong to use weapons in a true fight.

Each of them had different reasons for their falling out, but they shared the same dream of becoming stronger then their former friends in the hopes of surpassing them. And surprisingly, both boys are successful when it comes to building themselves up as men worthy of respect and power.

Saionji would grow up to be the captain of the school's Kendo Team, amassing horde of fangirls who were swayed by his bewitching good looks and is also an official member of the Student Council. It's also implied that he was a worthy duelist as he started out with Anthy in his possession before Utena became involved, meaning that he bested the other duelists (minus Touga) beforehand.

And in only a few years time, Akutaro managed to create a delinquent gang that's on the same level of credibility as MK and SS who've lasted for several decades. The NG Boys have a large number of followers, several bases for meetings and weapons manufacturing and even having territorial rights in certain locations in Honki City. Though it isn't specified on how much of the NG Boys' creation and success was due to Akutaro's own merits or if Ichiya was involved in it's genesis, but it stands that he succeeded in making a fearsome group to command with many of the other rival gang members acknowledging them as a threat that shouldn't be messed with on a whim.

Part 3: Gender Politics in My Anime?

To maintain their power and assert their authority over others, both Akutaro and Saionji rely on traditional gender norms to maintain their respective identities and influences. The problem being is that the norms they rely on fall heavily on toxic masculinity.

In RGU, Saionji's toxic masculinity is shown towards his mistreatment of Anthy and his resentment of Touga. And while the other men in Utena are also guilty of engaging in toxic masculinity and strict gender norms, Saionji's practices stand out as being the most noticeable and easy to identify.

He views Anthy as an ideal girlfriend who should obey and follow along with his will regardless of what she thinks. Any opposition is met with slapping her and scolding her for thinking differently. His views towards Touga is someone who challenges his status as the superior man. He's constantly in conflict with him when it comes to kendo competitions or how they should go about the dueling tournaments. And in each instance, Touga always comes out on top which fuels Saionji's insecurity which leads to anger and violently lashing out at anyone or anything to cross his path.

It's also mentioned that he makes several misogynistic comments about the roles men and women play which would contribute to his ongoing hatred of Utena. A girl who refuses to play her role and stands between him and his supposed Rose Bride. Although it isn't outright stated, it's also implied that Saionji did come from an abusive family which would explain how he obtained his callous mistreatment of women, his ideas on gender roles along with his casual usage of violence.

Akutaro also shares similar beliefs when it comes to power and respect. His use of weapons and lack of an honor code when fighting contribute to his belief that a great man is one who will do anything to win. Even if it means being violent, cruel, sadistic and merciless, it all will be worth it as he stands above everyone. The Emperor for the World to see. He even forces these ideals to his NG Boys just before the big war by encouraging them to embrace the ideal of kill or be killed. As in they kill the other gang members or they'll be killed by his own hand for failing to meet his expectations.

As for how he views and mistreats women... Before we can go into that, I'd like to take a quick detour and bring up how Minato Kai and Siguma Squad engage with gender norms.

Bucchigiri doesn't exactly go into detail with gender politics due to it's significant lack of girl characters and how the main boys rarely mention their own beliefs about girls in general. (With the exception of Arajin who only shows interests in girls by seeing them as potential girlfriends and tools used to lose his virginity and the narrative is more than willing to punish him for his beliefs). Not to mention it is rather questionable why there haven't been any girl members to be part of either Minato Kai or Siguma Squad, especially since there isn't a rule saying girls aren't allowed. Despite this, it is worth bringing up how the two clubs are rather lenient when it comes to how the boys defy traditional gender norms.

In Minato Kai, Matakara is presented as the most sensitive, friendly and warm-hearted boy of the group. He's always shown as easy to warm up to and welcoming of other people provided you aren't a threat. None of the MK boys have any issue with his sensitivity and how he boasts on how Arajin is better than him in terms of strength. It even comes as a shock for everyone when he turns to the dark side and begins his quest of fighting everyone for the sake of getting stronger. In a traditional shonen show, a man engaging in this behavior while closing his heart would be applauded since that's what's commonly expected. Whereas in Bucchigiri, it's portrayed as a tragedy that Matakara would go against his beliefs.

Other examples include Komao who dresses in a feminine manner but is never subject to mockery or being made fun of by his peers or the show. Zabu is also able to express emotional honesty towards Matakara regarding him being the reason the war started which is made better as Matakara accepts his apology and still treats him as a friend. Not to mention that he does make beautiful paper decorations and takes pride in it.

Siguma Squad also follow a similar acceptance of emotional vulnerability among it's core members. This is most evident in Episode 10 during Jabishiri and Hagure's confrontation with Corrupted!Matakara. Following the brutal defeat, Jabishiri who's presented as the most aggressive, moody and masculine of the duo expresses genuine disappointment in front of Hagure and comes close to crying. And in the following episode, when he tries to hunt Matakara despite his injuries, Hagure slaps him and cries his heart out while calling him out for his thick-headenness. In any shonen series, the masculine one would snipe at their friend for acting like a sissy and not like a real man. But Jabishiri lets him and realizes that he's right. And even Outa, who can be interpreted as a traditionally masculine man, never chastises the duo for their behavior or how they're not acting like real men. He instead acknowlegeds their emotions and promises them that they'll still keep Siguma Squad alive.

So both gangs are shown to be accepting of emotional vulnerability amongst their groups and are pretty okay with their members expressing gender-non-conforming actions without fear.

As for the NG Boys, that vulnerability is nonexistent as the Emperor uses a brutal and heartless manner of keeping his underlings in check. The boys can only discuss in secret with each other over their own feelings on the matter out of fear of being victimized by the Emperor. Mixed with the lack of individualization of the NG Boys, they exist in a space controlled by Akutaro where only his voice and beliefs, belonging to the greatest man, can be acknowledged and obeyed.

And that is in relation to how the boys in the three groups are able to relate to each other. But there is one component of the NG Boys that neither their rival gangs have but also gives an understanding of Akutaro's toxic masculinity.

The NG Girls.

The existence of the girls highlights how it is possible for girls to be affiliated with any of the gangs. But how curious that instead of fighting alongside the NG Boys as potential fighters and delinquents, they instead only work as flashy showgirls. Wearing cute outfits, performing elaborate dance choreography and acting flirty with anyone that their boss sets in their sights. And given that Akutaro is the boss and prime founder of the NG Boys, it's within reason to believe that he came up with the idea of NG Girls and their roles in his gang.

So sad to say, their existence and jobs falls into gender stereotyping with what is expect of boys and girls. Boys are expected to be tough fighters who show no fear, cannot confide in each other and will hurt others without restraint. Girls are expected look cute, be desirable and attend to the needs of the boys they come across. It's also implied that they work as prostitutes based on Akutaro promising Arajin to "pop his cherry" using the girls mixed with their seductive actions during the dance scene.

And of course there's the whole scene with Akutaro proposing on turning Mahoro into a trophy girl aka sex slave once he takes down Marito. He sees her as a prize to be claimed after defeating her older brother and would consider sexually exploit her for the sake of dragging Siguma Squad's reputation into the ground. So it is rather concerning that he views girls as objects to be claimed and toyed with as a spoil of war. Something a power-hungry man would enjoy having.

Thankfully, both boys are clearly presented as being in the wrong for their beliefs and practices of toxic masculinity which makes their defeat at the hands of the heroes very satisfying.

Part 4: How the Mighty Have Fallen

Once the antagonists are defeated by their respective protagonists, they end up falling into two roles as the story continues: pawns for the fairy tale villains and comic relief.

As mentioned before, Saionji's friendship with Touga is presented as a constant power struggled fueled by jealousy and insecurity. Touga actually knows of Saionji's feelings and purposefully exploits them for his own gain. First in Season 1 by tricking him with a fake letter as part of his grand scheme of making himself look good in front of Utena and later in Season 3 when he starts to collaborate with End of the World.

For Akutaro, following his defeat and exposure at the Gang War Arc, he's tricked into helping Ichiya reach Matakara with the promise of revenge. But as soon as Ichiya makes official contact, he abandons Akutaro leaving him powerless and resentful.

And during the time they're used, they essentially fade into the background as the protagonists turn their attention to other pressing matters regarding the plot and their relationships with their friends. The starter villain that once posed as a significant threat is casually ignored or brushed off without a care. And given what heartless monsters they were since the beginning, who wouldn't want to ignore them or give them a death glare to shut them up?

Because of Saionji's brutish behavior, Utena and friends rarely pay him attention, even when he has "important" things to say, and instead focus on other events in their daily lives. It's even more apparent when he's temporarily expelled from Otori Academy and loses his influence among the student body. Thus forcing him into becoming a nobody.

And with having lost the great war, his former NG Boys have no reason to continue following him and beat him up as retribution for his past transgressions. They along with the NG Girls openly laugh at what a loser he is and promise each other not to let someone like him boss them around anymore. And with no influence or status, all Akutaro can do is watch from the sidelines hoping that fate will be kind enough to defeat his enemies for him.

Though a major difference when it comes to both boys in regards to their pathetic states is that Saionji continues to have relevance in the story while Akutaro remains a bystander. Despite losing a fourth time to Utena in Season 3, he still sticks around as a Student Council Member and even works alongside Touga when he decides to stop Utena. He even brings up how questionable it is to follow the End of the World's ideals when he and the other council members don't know his true motivations. And although Akutaro does warn Arajin of the Honki People's true agenda and the danger they're in, he doesn't actively do anything afterwards. He mainly stays on the side watching the final battles play out. And it's more than likely he won't be able to do much when Matakara has his ultimate battle with Arajin.

Conclusion

Both Akutaro and Saionji start out as the first villains of the story that the audience is meant to dislike because of their cruel and power-hungry behaviors. The reason they transformed into dangerous men was because of a falling out they had with men they once admired in the past. As a result, they would work hard into becoming men with great authority all in the hopes of vanquishing the ones that wronged them and to prove how much better they are then them. The two are also shown to have practiced toxic masculinity given their horrid views of how women should be treated, their ideals on "might makes right" and how they refuse to engage in emotional vulnerability. And once they're defeated, they're brushed off to the side as comic relief while spectating the new battles that the heroes engage in.

And those are my thoughts on the similarities between these two jerks. I never imagined I would make this type of analysis post since I personally hate Saionji. I respect his role in RGU and understand his character in the long term, but men who hurt women while calling it love is something I will never forgive. Either way, I saw the similarities so I decided to put up with him for this analysis So what do you think of these thoughts and the roles of the two villains? If you agree or disagree with anything I’ve written, please feel free to reblog and/or comment with your own ideas. Thank you and may you have a great day/night!

[frangipanilove]

Hello, I’ve asked this question to a few TD theorists before and was wondering your thoughts. I still don’t feel like I’ve received a solid answer on this it seems to be overlooked by most of you. I don’t mean this to be an insult but I do think it’s particularly important. Emily appears to be in LA and we know Season 3 is filming and has been for a month now. She posts almost everyday on social media mostly Instagram stories. She tags LA places she is at daily such as concert venues, restaurants, coffee shops. It’s also obvious when she is filming at her place in LA she films in the same spots and it’s easily identifiable for anyone who looks at her daily posts. I know Emily was at a Manchester and French con but so were many other actors that are dead or aren’t on any of the other spinoffs. She was also only there for about a week or so. She even has a concert scheduled in LA tomorrow. I guess my question is how can we continue to ignore Emily’s whereabouts? She isn’t in Europe when they are filming for a show we are saying she’s going to be on. Symbolism in a show means nothing when the person we need to be filming is not filming.

Hi friend! I just want you to know I don’t take your question as an insult, it’s a perfectly valid thing to ask. And right off the bat, I doubt I’m going to have an answer for you that is more satisfactory than the ones you’ve received in the past, and I’m sorry about that.

Being in TD definitely does have an element of blind faith to it, there’s no way around that. When I place such high emphasis on the symbolism of the show, it’s because I really do interpret it as a story of Beth’s resurrection. Having said that, the exact details of when/where/how are almost impossible to decipher. We’ve been wrong in the past and will probably be wrong again, in a variety of different ways.

In previous asks, I’ve talked about how the TV industry has changed so much in so little time. While I don’t have any type of inside information into that, I can imagine that plans that originally looked one way might have been scrapped due to unforeseen changes, such as the show ending, the Rick movie trilogy tuning into a limited mini series, other spinoffs etc. It’s stuff that no one really could have foreseen just a short while ago. I’ve also speculated that perhaps it was Emily herself who wasn’t ready to return due to mental health issues which she opened up about on social media a few years ago. Again, I want to stress that I don’t necessarily have a solid theory on that, it’s just one of a million legitimate possible explanations for why she still hasn’t returned.

You mentioned the Manchester con. While I enjoy reading other people’s theories on things like that, it’s not really something I personally pay much attention to. For starters, I don’t follow the actors’ schedules particularly closely, so chances are I don’t even know these things before someone else writes about it. While she technically could combine these types of things with filming, I think it’s entirely possible to film even without these events as “cover”. MMB spent time in Paris being locked up in a hotel while filming TBOC, and I believe that’s possible for others as well. If that’s what they need to do, they’ll find a way to do it.

So you say that Emily spends her time in LA at the moment, and that’s worrying for everyone who wants to believe she will be returning to the show. I agree with that, I would have loved to see something suggesting she was off somewhere filming.

I’ve got a couple of things to say to that. First, while I believe and hope she’ll return for s3 in Spain. I’m not locked on to that. There are other spinoffs, filming other places, such as Dead City. Hypothetically she could return there. @wdway theorizes that she might return in a potential season 2 of Tales of The Walking Dead. She could also appear in any of these shows in the form of a flashback or flash forward of some kind, and she doesn’t need to be in Spain to film that.

Something else I’ve been thinking about lately, which might not be a popular opinion but I’ll share it nonetheless, is that her role in the show might look different than we first thought when we joined TD. I’ve already mentioned the rapidly changing TV industry. When I joined TD almost a decade ago, the mothership TWD was a massive enterprise, with 16 episodes per season. There was infinite room for an elaborate, well fleshed out Beth/bethyl storyline.

Now, not so much. I’ve watched the leaked episodes of TBOC, and while I won’t spoil anything here, I will say that it’s only six episodes, and not even very long ones at that, and it’s super condensed and action packed (it’s a great show though, I loved it). There’s simply less room for the type of storyline we anticipated when we first stated theorizing. I’m not spoiling anything when I say that TBOC is full of Beth callbacks and Beth dialogue parallels (I’ve already written about it here and here, and rest assured there’ll be more posts, because holy mother of pearl…). But I think we should probably adjust our expectations in terms of how big of a role she will play when she returns, at least for the foreseeable future, simply because there are so few episodes per season.

And finally, as I always say, I don’t watch the show exclusively with Beth in mind, I’m a fan of the entire TWDU, and I love the show regardless of whether Beth returns or not. I fully believe she will, because that’s how I interpret the symbolism, but I don’t hate every episode or season where she doesn’t. Everyone’s different and I’m not judging anyone, but it’s probably easier for me to thoroughly enjoy the show even when Beth isn’t here, simply because I love it regardless.

So while I would love to see spoiler pics of her in Spain, I’m not terribly distressed when she seems to stay put in LA, because there are still a number of ways in which she could be “resurrected”😘