#and leaving with just an aspect would be.

[woodle-isbae]

Ambessa treating reader like a prized pet please please please 😫🙏 and maybe also being very condescending and lowkey mean 🫣

Flaunted like a trophy

Ambessa.M x fem!reader

Warnings: Trophy reader, suggestive(very), Drabble.

There you were, in the bedchambers of the one and only Ambessa Medarda. You stood there, draped in the finest jewelry she could get, the softest fabrics and a personal stylist to meet your demanding fashion choice.

Spoiled rotten.

That's what you were, given everything you wanted on a golden platter- never settled for anything she deemed low quality. You had one job, very easy and simple considering that she made sure you did it every day- dress like a little trophy so she can flaunt you around.

Most people would've given up by now, having to constantly show out- even in private, making sure she liked your outfits. Being put on a strict care routine- all so she can brag about your beauty.

"Stunning."

Her voice rung through the large room, the glint of heavy golds and jewelry around the place partially blinding you at angles. You were posing infront of her, showing off the new outfits she had designed for you to last a month at most.

"Everyone's going to be set on you, my dear."

She stood up, placing her glass down to strut towards you, her rough hands tracing every stitch on the thing gold material. She only stopped when she made it to your breasts, examining you for a brief moment before snapping her fingers.

"It's not pushing them up enough, I want every aspect to be shown."

"I think there should be a deeper cut, they're out enough honestly."

You huffed out, shaking your head in annoyance with how it didn't fit the standard you had set, pouting from the simple mistake.

"We'll get it tailored, don't you worry y'little head off."

"Ugh, make sure it arrives back soon."

She turned to you, a brow raised at your sparky and demanding tone, running her larger hand on your cheek.

"Don't catch an attitude with me."

To anyone else, her voice was calm and hushed, but to you -she was giving you a clear warning, just do as you were required to and it won't be a problem.

"Hm."

Your eyes darted to the door, the guards standing there staring seemingly into the distance. Ambessa had lifted her other arm, waving them off so it could be just you two in the room.

"You know...I really like the gold on your skin, it really suits you."

She had led you over to the sofa, signaling for you to lay down besides her as she sat, leaning on the back rest.

"Strip, I..want to see how it would slip off your body."

Her dull attempt at a lie made you giggle, uncliping a few knots and buttons before sliding the dress off your body, Ambessa grabbing the clump of fabrics and tossing it aside.

You leaned back onto the sofa, spreading your legs in anticipation for her next moves, your arousal seeping through the thing lace pair of panties she picked for you.

"Ah...you are really inpatient huh?"

She chuckled, pulling you in my for a kiss by the back of the neck, her tongue slipping into your mouth. Pulling back for some air, she gave you a smug smirk before pulling back and standing at her full height.

"Get ready for tonight, mabye if your lucky...I could finish what we started."

She walked past you, her hand brushing past your shoulder before she left the room. Leaving you alone to cool down before getting redressed.

Oh, how you couldn't wait.!

[letskilltimetogether]

Omg I’m so sorry for leaving you hanging ;-; I can only offer the excuse of crippling school projects, but I’m back!

Dr. Stone Spoilers for most of the story

Okay so your point about him being a good leader actually opened up a can of worms in my brain. This is def kind of off topic? But I think it’s interesting so I want to write it down for my own sanity.

For a while know I’ve been coining Senkuu as a bad leader, or at least not ideal for personal writing purposes, but your comment made me rethink it. Looking at things with a fresh start, I realized Senkuu is a good leader, but not in the way I was originally imagining. (Doing my best to keep it as canon as possible) Senkuu 1. Cares deeply about people, not just his own 2. Is very strategic and thinks of the future 3. Does not want power. These 3 aspects make him a good leader, especially in the setting of Dr. Stone.

To use an analogy, He would be a very good science club leader, which is kind of what he is. He is dedicated to the craft, and can manage a small group of people with similar goals, and rather than excluding others, he encourages and fights for them to join his club of nerds.

However!

For the first part of Dr. Stone, that works fine. It’s just the Kingdom of Science and the Empire of Might. It’s like 140 people, who although need some coaxing, can work together. But once America hits and they have Zenos people how have very different ideas, and all sorts of other civilizations across the globe… people are going to have conflicting ideas. There’s always going to be Tsukasas, misguided people, and Hyogas and Homuras, people who don’t mean well and try to shape the world in their making. This is where I believe Senkuu is no longer the best choice, as I don’t think he could handle managing and keeping peace between all of these people, in addition to perusing and steam heading science projects. Obviously there’s people to help him do these things, but it’s a lot.

Many people instead make Ryusui the main leader, which is not a bad decision. He’s used to leadership and thrives in positions of power, and cares about the people around him, even if they don’t like him(most of this comes from his confidence/arrogance, but still). He is great at planning and managing people, and is decent at working with people who have different views than him. However he doesn’t really understand the differences between what people say/think they want, and what they need, and he could make bad decisions based on that misconception. In addition, Ryusui is pretty disconnected from the people around him as he had a very different upbringing, and can’t always relate to people. This makes him a caring leader, but unable to properly act this way.

Both he and Senkuu are decent leaders on their own, but still not great. In conclusion, I say the best solution is to have the 5 generals, so some other council, in charge. They balance each other’s faults, this sharing of power relieves the pressure of leading the entirety of humanity from 1 person’s shoulders.

Main tangent over lol.

I def agree about Senkuu trying to save everybody, including Tsukasa, with all of the stuff happening at the beginning of Treasure Island Arc being a lot to juggle. This means to me that his decision to give Hyoga and Homura to the “authorities”/legal system is weak evidence for him being lawful.

I feel like we’re running this thread dry, so I pose another question: How do you feel about the ending of the manga, and how would you change it? I have some strong thoughts about those last few arcs lol.

*offers microphone in one hand and a bag of chips in the other*

Also happy holidays!!

Your honor they're homosexuals

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Probably the most interesting experience I've had as a player in any edition of D&D was in a GMless campaign I was playing with my husband in B/X D&D a couple years ago.

I was playing a fighter who, through a combination of a not-so great constitution score and very bad luck in my initial hp roll, started the game with a maximum of 4hp. By contrast, my husband was playing a thief who, thanks to a very lucky roll and having an unusually high constitution score for a thief, started the game with 7hp, almost twice as much as my fighter. And he stayed having more HP than my character for most of the time we spend playing, because im B/X thieves require a lot less XP to level up than fighters, so even though my fighter would have eventually caught up in terms of HP at level 2 or 3, the thief was consistently a couple levels ahead of him.

Us being a party of only two people where the most combat-effective character could easily die in a couple hits (or even one if I was really unlucky) resulted in using a lot of ambush tactics to take advantage of the thief's backstab ability before combat started, and also a lot of avoiding combats and fleeing when I was at 1-2hp.

But also, since we were playing with a pretty common OSR houserule (often called "broken shield rules" or "shields shall be splintered") which essentially says that, if you have a shield, you can use it to block all damage from a successful enemy attack at the cost of your shield being destroyed, this eventually resulted in my character always carrying at least a couple spare shields with him. We decided that my character probably shouldn't be able to just pull out another shield from his pack in the middle of a fight, so it was a trick that I could use to save my ass once per combat.

Which had interesting consequences for the encumbrance and resource management aspect of the game, of course. Because consistently having to buy a couple shields every time we came to town was a significant expense for my character, but also, and most importantly, because in B/X most of your XP comes from the value of treasure that your party is able to gather and carry back to town. And this created an interesting conundrum for me because every extra shield I brought along was a chance for my character to survive a hit that would otherwise kill him, but it also meant possibly being able to carry less loot, and often resulted in us having to leave treasure behind and either accept that we couldn't have it all, or us getting stubborn and making plans to come back for the rest of it later, which resulted in some pretty interesting situations when coming back to dungeons where the denizens were probably prepared to deal with us if we came back.

So anyway. My point being, "annoying" mechanics like high lethality and resource management and carry weight are good and they can take you to amazing and unexpected places if you decide to actually give them a chance to shine instead of immediately excising your game of anything that's mildly inconvenient.

[thewertsearch]

AA: hey what are you doing out here! TA: 0ut where? AA: out of your bubble TA: oh, i dunn0. TA: am i not supp0sed to leave? AA: i just didnt think you could

Sollux’s dream projection can leave the Bubbles, which I didn’t expect to be that noteworthy. Aradia mentioned that it’s easier to move between Bubbles when they naturally intersect, but she never said it was impossible to leave them entirely.

By her surprise, I assume that dream projections, at least, are normally unable to exit bubblespace – so there’s something weird going on with Sollux here.

AA: i guess you must have a foot on either side AA: cant say im surprised!

Aradia seems to be saying that this unusual Dream Bubble interaction is unsurprising to her because it gels in some way with what we already know about Sollux.

Maybe he's employing some sort of Aspect ability? He's a Doom Player, and interpreting his as Aspect as death would imply that he’d have a stronger-than-normal affinity for the afterlife.

AA: i am waiting for friends to arrive [ AA: they will need my help […] AA: first AA: there will be two humans AA: they should be joining us any minute

Wait, shit - I just realized there's a really easy way for Aradia to protect the Derse dreamers from the Sun's destruction. She could simply spirit them away through time, the way I originally thought she'd escaped Perfect Jack.

I know that time is weird in the Ring - but space is weird, too, and that doesn't stop people from physically moving around. This definitely feels like it should work.

[radical-revolution]

In Memory

After I got the call that Ram Dass had died yesterday, I closed my eyes.

He is still here.

I could feel the vast field of love that was shining from Ram Dass when Trudy and I taught with him just a couple of weeks ago. And I always will.

On the final day of this last retreat, called “Open Your Heart in Paradise,” Ram Dass was frail and didn’t have access to many words. But he was there in the most powerful way. He swam delightedly with the group in the ocean, chanting “Oh Joy, Oh Joy.”

And on the retreat’s last morning, he put his hands on a basket of 350 wrist malas, each tied with a thread of his guru’s blanket, to tenderly bless them. Then, as participants came by slowly to receive their malas, he silently looked into each face, offering to all what is sometimes called “the glance of mercy,” a gaze so full of love that it left many of us speechless and weeping, drunk with blessing.

I have known Ram Dass for 48 years, as master teacher and inspiration and role model, as a dear friend and benefactor who helped me begin to teach, as a companion on the path, as a truth teller and prankster, as a profound healer and whisperer of souls, as a kind of prophet for a generation. Out in public with him across the years, over and over people would come up to him and speak lovingly, tentatively, urgently, offering thanks, “Ram Dass, I just want to let you know you changed my life!” And he did… for so many of us.

Yes, his book “Be Here Now” changed countless lives. Yes, his work with Seva Foundation cured 5 million people of blindness. Yes, he taught almost nonstop for 50 years, spreading wisdom and humor, wild devotion and love and a vast timeless mystical perspective across the world. His obituaries will be filled with his many other accomplishments.

For me he is family and Sangha, even now still spreading his playful, tough, delicious love everywhere, connecting with our hearts. “Yum, yum,” as he would say.

He was so ready to leave the wheelchair and skinny and broken body, to go home.

Home is not somewhere else.

It is here, in life and death, in the eternal dance of consciousness, weaving together form and the formless mystery from which it all comes.

Ram Dass is the vastness reminding us that in the end, there is only love.

~ Jack Kornfield, two years ago🙏

Be Here Now

Please read aloud, pause in-between, and listen to the poetic heart-words of a Great Teacher...a Beloved Guru, and a true inspiration for so many of us throughout this life.

_________________________________________

We're fascinated by the words--but where we meet is in the silence behind them.

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.

The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. As long as you want power, you can't have it. The minute you don't want power, you'll have more than you ever dreamed possible.

I would like my life to be a statement of love and compassion - and where it isn't, that's where my work lies.

In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.

The heart surrenders everything to the moment. The mind judges and holds back.

Your problem is you are too busy holding on to your unworthiness.

As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be you can't see how it is.

Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.

The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it's in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I'm caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability. Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.

Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.

What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.

The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can't be organized or regulated. It isn't true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.

Let's trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let's lay down our righteousness and just be together.

Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.

Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.

We are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we are so deeply interconnected with one another.

A feeling of aversion or attachment toward something is your clue that there's work to be done.

The next message you need is always right where you are.

I would say that the thrust of my life has been initially about getting free, and then realizing that my freedom is not independent of everybody else. Then I am arriving at that circle where one works on oneself as a gift to other people so that one doesn't create more suffering. I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.

I'm not interested in being a "lover." I'm interested in only being love.

The game is not about becoming somebody, it's about becoming nobody.

Learn to watch your drama unfold while at the same time knowing you are more than your drama.

If you think you're free, there's no escape possible.

Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.

It's only when caterpillarness is done that one becomes a butterfly. That again is part of this paradox. You cannot rip away caterpillarness. The whole trip occurs in an unfolding process of which we have no control.

We're here to awaken from the illusion of separateness

We're all just walking each other home.

~ Ram Dass now, just as before,

at home with Divinity

[anonymousewrites]

Lavender for Royalty; Sage for Wisdom Christmas Special

Kyoya Ootori x Reader

Christmas Special

            “Is this place really so new to Tamaki? Don’t rich people have Christmas events?” said Haruhi.

            Tamaki had insisted on bringing the Host Club to a commoner’s Christmas Market, so there they were. The lights were dazzling, sweet scents wafted from every corner, and couples and families were walking around together as far as the eye could see. Stalls were set up for every type of gift and cultural holiday food imaginable, and Tamaki was intent on experiencing every single aspect of the market.

            “Christmas events are times for networking,” said (Y/N). “Businesses getting togehtr for goodwill. Gifts show off their wealth and are all tailor-made for each person. They’re not bought where there’s stuff for random people like a place like this.”

            “That’s…impersonal,” said Haruhi.

            “It’s not necessarily impersonal,” said (Y/N). “People can get individualized gifts that their loved ones appreciate. However, Tamakis family…falls on the impersonal.” They smiled. “That’s why he wants to do this with all of us.”

            “Oh,” said Haruhi, looking at Tamaki as he showed off two hats to the twins and shoved them on their heads to “tell the difference.”

            “Takashi, help me reach the tree,” said Honey.

            Mori lifted him up so he could put the star on a small tree.

            “Haruhi, come and look at the gingerbread houses! Teach me how to make one!” said Tamaki.

            “We’re going to make a castle,” said Hikaru and Kaoru.

            Tamaki suddenly looked alarmed. “We have to beat them, Haruhi!” He grabbed her arm. “Come on, come on!” He dragged her over towards the stalls while Haruhi flailed and reached towards (Y/N) for help.

            (Y/N) just chuckled and waved. “Bye, Haruhi.”

            “Wait, no, senpai, help!”

            “Merry Christmas,” sang (Y/N) playfully.

            “Leaving her to fend for herself against Tamaki, how cruel,” said Kyoya.

            “Says our resident Scrooge,” said (Y/N). “At least I went along with Tamaki’s Santa-hat theme.” They smiled. “If you don’t go along with him this year, he’ll put you in a Grinch costume.”

            Kyoya smiled coldly. “He wouldn’t dare.”

            Okay, maybe not, thought (Y/N), a shiver going down their spine. “Well, I plan to enjoy myself. My aunt and uncle love these things. We have a ton of ornaments from people we know because of these stalls, and it means our tree is filled with memories. I want to find another one to remember today with the Host Club.”

            “I’ll accompany you,” said Kyoya. He had no reason to follow Tamaki—he had enough people for his hijinks—so he would go with (Y/N) into the market.

            The pair walked in together, and (Y/N) led the way to the craft stalls filled with ornaments.

            “What would fit us all? A giant heart for flirting with girls?” joked (Y/N).

            “What about money if you’re going in that direction?” said Kyoya.

            “Okay, maybe not,” said (Y/N), chuckling.

            “What if you got an ornament for each host?” said Kyoya.

            “I don’t have the money for that,” said (Y/N) casually. “That’s for gifts.”

            “I’ll pay for them,” said Kyoya.

            “And I pay you back with interest?” said (Y/N).

            Kyoya smiled “innocently.” “That would hardly be in the Christmas spirit.”

            “And you’re embracing it now?” said (Y/N), amused.

            “Why not?” said Kyoya. His smile turned slightly more genuine. “It’s not my tree they’re going on.”

            “Okay, then.” (Y/N) smiled. “If you’re going to help pay, then you have to help pick. That’s the rule.”

            “Very well,” said Kyoya, oddly endeared.

            “Now, Tamaki first,” said (Y/N).

            “Obviously the crown,” said Kyoya. “He insists on calling himself the ‘King.’ ”

            “He does,” chuckled (Y/N), picking up the ornament. “Oh, here’s a piece of cake.”

            “Honey, undoubtedly,” said Kyoya.

            “His is the most obvious,” said (Y/N). “And a katana for Mori. I’ll hang them together.”

            “How about the comedy and tragedy masks for the twins?” said Kyoya.

            “I like it,” said (Y/N), adding to the small pile. “I think the vase for Haruhi.”

            Kyoya smirked. “Very appropriate.”

            (Y/N) chuckled. “Now it’s you…Hm…Glasses or journal. Both are just so you. Or how about a snake? You are the Shadow King, and everyone knows you plant all of the ideas for Tamaki.”

            “Amusing. Should you be the seventies disco ball based on your style, then?” said Kyoya with the same smile of innocence.

            “You joke, but I like it,” said (Y/N). “And I’m choosing the snake for you.”

            “I certainly can’t stop you,” said Kyoya. Except he could. He was paying, after all. But he wouldn’t.

            “You can’t because it’s Christmas,” said (Y/N), smiling.

            “I guess I did get into the spirit somewhat,” said Kyoya, handing them the disco ball ornament. His hand brushed theirs. “Merry Christmas, (Y/N).”

            “Merry Christmas, Kyoya. Thanks for going around with me,” said (Y/N).

            “Of course. Anytime.” Strangely enough, Kyoya meant it.

Taglist:

@roo024

@jmclouds

@yappydoo

@ramblingsoftheill

@girgal73

@rockerica

@nosoyyo1213

@ritzes28

@grippledee-galaxy

@rory-cakes

@neenieweenie

@k03ume

@constellationguy

@paastaboi

@introvertathome

@chaseyui

[novembermorgon]

TELL US ABPUT YPUR BLACKFYRE ERA OC PLS PLS PLS

alarra ... i realize i posted her on twitter but never on here !!!

she's kind of a product of mine and oomfs au that deviates a bit from canon but that's kind of a given for ocs . she's the third child of daemon blackfyre and rohanne, about a year younger than aemon and aegon (so she's born in 186 ac). she's betrothed to aegon when they're both young, him and aemon like to pick on her lol but they're just kids so everyone's kind of just like well its fine they'll grow out of it.

when the first blackfyre rebellion happens, daemon once again loses and aemon/aegon die but daemon survives and gets imprisoned etc. by daeron and bloodraven. this definitely isn't really in line with what would realistically happen lol but he's stripped of whatever influence and power he has and gets put through the wringer a bit lol - he's tortured a bit in a way that leaves him physically disabled to keep him from that kind of physical prime that sets him apart from daemon and then gets a really tiny, meaningless bit of land and a keep somewhere near king's landing and gets dragged to court to be paraded around once in a while in his not so impressive state . essentially an extensive humiliation ritual for him lol

in the same vein as the end of the dance, alarra is married off to daeron's brother (the baby that died in labor with naerys - except this time he does live and is named aenar . oomf's oc ...) to sort of solidify that peace between the targs and the blackfyres.

given the whole blackfyre situation her and aenar really don't like each other at all . he connects her too hard to her father, and she tries but gets nothing in return - he isn't really outright cruel to her but he ignores her a lot and kind of wants her to know that he doesn't want to be there . they have a really awkward marriage for a long time, and when they get a little older they're kind of put through the weird uncomfortable process of needing to consummate and have babies that are supposed to tie the realm together again .

their first baby is a girl named rhaenys :-) alarra suffers from really really intense postpartum depression and struggles really hard to bond with this baby, and in an attempt to sort of make it better her and aenar travel to tyrosh for a while which helps mend their marriage a bit and he tries to make more of an effort (put extremely simply . theres a lot of aspects that go into it but id be here all day ...) . he becomes a bit of a girldad and she continues to struggle with parenthood

otherwise they sort of slowly fall into a normalcy when more time passes . they have another daughter named naerys and a son named viserys. alarra is really frail though and struggles a lot physically - they end up having one last fourth child but he dies after a week or so and alarra never really recovers . they move to dorne for a while to live with daenerys and maron where she dies from just her general ailing health .

ermmm.. thats about it :-) here she is as a little baby right before shes married off ARRGHGHGHHHHH 💔💔💔💔

[bibibbon]

As much as I loved season 2, this is the only criticism I have for it because the shafting of politics really damaged all of the characters' plot lines, some more than others.

If the shows writers were to fully address the political aspects of arcane and have the dufficult conversations between characters, the show would have been 100 times better and would have allowed for complexity to be painted. Characters like Ekko and the firelights being sidelined this season pissed me off, especially because it robs ekko of his own arc and leaves us with not that much to analyse about him.

I also think it's a huge shame that arcane never fully explores the class struggles within both piltover and zaun. Due to this, you get the takes of "pre hextech jayce is an elite or is just as wealthy as mel/other council members," which is just false. Yes, jayce is privileged, and as a lower house in season 1 is somewhat wealthy but that wealth doesn't at all compare to the council members or to caitlyn kirraman. The same thing goes for zaun. A shimmer factory owner in zaun would have more privilege and wealth than a small miner.

Kiss on the check accepted! :3c

And your response reminded me of a detail I always pick up on rewatches but hadn't fully untangled yet—in the flashback of her childhood, Mel steps into that broken throne room with blood still drying on it. At Ambessa's prompting, Mel goes right into talking about how to renovate the place. "Paint the walls gold"...like gilding over the horrors of conquest that got that power in the first place.

And when she describes the regent they should have, she finishes with, "she should be pliant, so we can mold her." That IS what she was doing with Jayce, slowly, over a decade, and then quickly through Acts 2 and 3.

And then in the scene, after Mel finishes describing a "pliant" regent who can be molded, her mother suggests MEL could be that regent. Young Mel is excited at the idea, entirely missing the implication that she too would be an asset of her mother's reign.

That's why she takes off her Medarda ring right before casting her vote for Zaun's independence. She's finally realized she's just as subject to her mother's games as anyone else and Chooses to stop working in the interests of her family's power.

And augh, I wish her s2 plotline hadn't taken her out of Piltover so we could have seen more of the spycraft against Ambessa she was up to in Arc 1. I can't help but think of how much stronger her confrontation with Ambessa would have been if we had a full season of "daughter works against mother" instead of just a few scenes and a lot of getting kidnapped. More ambiguity with Leblanc would've been great too instead of her killing Elora to say hello.

[continued from here]

EXACTLY the way they shafted the politics in s2 (specifically so they wouldn't need to have hard conversations) genuinely had a negative impact in the ENTIRE story. The systematic horrors were downplayed and plotlines were dropped with very short acknowledgements - this is why we get people complaining about the jayce/mel breakup scene "coming out of nowhere" despite the fact that it made perfect sense for these characters!!!!!! It was just too short and they changed the subject too quickly, so we don't have TIME to think about the economic issues again.

It's so clear to me that jayce, viktor, ekko, mel (each representing a diff political facet. curious!) etc were carefully removed from the actual real world so we never have to analyze or push back against the notion that cait/ambessa are doing a hostile military coup and HAVE gotten people killed, imprisoned, and tortured en masse. So they can neatly resolve all of the plot with an avengers-style montage and never talk about the stuff with real world implications. There is no war in piltover and zaun. Just a cartoony last second villain. We just need to unite to protect... piltover...? And now viktor is randomly forgetting his proud zaunite commie stance and teaming up with the imperial invaders that were plaguing the earth moments ago........? We never talk about the class inequality ever again? Forget everything. Nothing ever matters.

The end result was that we spent far less time with these characters and they ended up being pretty underdeveloped. I know this happened for marketing reasons, its so incredibly clear aspects of the story were dumbed down so they could sell more ingame skins or pitch new champions, and that was seen as more valuable and desirable for the company than politicking - because at heart riot don't care about the political stuff anyway. But it still makes me throw my hands up in the air. such an asspull

In a reality where we had enough time and investment to touch on this, Mel could have actually gotten to push back against ambessa/cait and directly deal with the consequences of her actions. SEVIKA could have gotten a proper payoff for her underground character arc, instead of vanishing halfway through and then randomly accepting a diversity hire seat on the council (insanity. that was insanity) Ekko and the firelights would have obviously played a key role in rallying people against ambessa and helping Jinx recover from her displacement crisis (sorry isha, but even you could have been better used as part of the firelights dilemma) Jayce's mounting disillusionment with piltover and his loyalty to Viktor would be much better explored if they were still in conversation about the cities, the world they wanted to help, and the chaotic blurry lines of personhood/citizenship that decide who is an 'acceptable' target under the fist of the state. Vi could have built a self-reliant identity for herself, something better to fight for that isnt 'being a cop'. This show could've been awesome. I wish it existed

[noodle-is-unstable]

Hey, just a question but why were you fine with the abusive power dynamics between Sukuna and Uraume (Ume being so devoted to Sukuna and Sukuna only that they killed themself and Sukuna being fine with this blind devotion + Sukuna, a curse/cursed user, making Uraume, a human, cook human meat, including children, for him) so far but the moment he might have met them as a kid/teen you aren't fine? It was a "problematic" ship from the start, idk why everyone is acting horrified that the villains do villain things. But also meeting as a kid and dating as a kid is soooo different, they're both thousands years old in current days so like...

So first of all, you're more than welcome to ask questions and have a discussion but the tone in which this is written is coming off as agressive in my opinion. I don't appreciate that. Perhaps I'm reading into it wrong and that wasn't your intent, but it still has an unnecessary agressive tone to me. Especially in how you chose to end it with "so like..."

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume I'm misinterpreting the tone because it's very possible I am.

Now onto the actual question.

So unless something happened in the epilogue I missed I don't agree with your assessment of their relationship at all. If this context is given in the epilogue the point is moot because it was still something I wasn't privy to.

So I'm going off the manga for my knowledge of their relationship.

I think it's possible and valid that this is the interpretation you got from this, but it's simply not the same one I have.

I don't see their relationship as an abusive dynamic. (this can change with the new knowledge or context in the epilogue but we're taking about my perspective and why I wrote about it before this)

I saw Uraume as a very loyal servant, but not an abused or manipulated one. I didn't see Sukuna forcing things onto Uraume, I saw them choosing to do these things. (Remember this is in the context where we didn't know how Uraume and Sukuna met). I saw Uraume as choosing to follow Sukuna, choosing to cook humans, choosing to be devoted to Sukuna. They chose to follow him. They chose to be reincarnated to stay by his side. Uraume isn't some innocent little lamb being tricked by a wolf. They killed many people too. Also I think you forget Sukuna was a human too. Sukuna was a human eating humans and Uraume was a human cooking humans. They both participated in fucked up activities. Uraume isn't innocent and being forced to do anything. If they were I doubt they would have worked so hard to bring him back rather than just leaving and living their reincarnated life without him.

Simply put I saw Uraume as a very willing participant in everything that happened. I don't see their dynamic as abusive. You do and you have every right to, but I don't.

I also don't agree with your logic that their villains and do villian things so I should be okay with everything. Stealing is against the law, but so is murder. They're both bad, but they aren't equal. There is so much nuance to situations like this it's not realistic to just make it all equal.

Not to mention there is zero feelings that aren't platonic shown in the manga, that's all headcannons. It's not actually apart of the series at all. This is something fans have put onto the characters. This whole argument is in a fan made concept.

I am uncomfortable with pushing a romantic relationship on them when the situation is that he took Uraume in as a kid. I don't like it, it gives me the ick. So shocking, but if I don't like or agree with something, I'm not going to write about it.

Like I said in my last post I don't give a shit about the argument they're 1000 years old now, I don't like it.

He met Uraume as a child

He helped raise them

I'm not going to push a romantic aspect to that situation

You're allowed to disagree. You're allowed to not have a problem with that dynamic. You're allowed to see their dynamic differently than I do. But at the end of the day this is my page and I'm allowed to decide what I do and don't want to write for. And I don't want to write for that dynamic

[noxsspace]

Pretty Gift for a Pretty Lady

merry christmas y’all! hope you enjoy this little piece☺️ i just know that Arthur is the sweetest with gift giving.

summary: Arthur puts together a gift and gives it to you. just sweet romantic fluff basically.

It’s almost Christmas and Arthur is determined to give you the greatest gift he could possibly find. He’d start out by browsing the sections in the store you had an interest in, noting down what you’d commented the beauty of, sure of himself he’d create the most gorgeous gift you’d ever laid eyes on.

Picking out some articles of clothing you’d liked, and bringing them back to camp discreetly in order to embroider tasteful flowers (that were your favorite) into the cloth, before setting out to hunt for feathers and eye-catching flowers he would arrange for a headpiece.

He’d admit while he wasn’t creative in the aspect of structuring what he had in mind, he tried nonetheless, pinning flower petals to a clip with feathers shifted for flair.

The night of christmas eve, he brought you into his tent, closing the cloth curtains, then sat you down with him.

“Now, you know I ain’t talented in a sense of…well, what you often do,” He started, watching your face contort in confusion. He then handed over a neatly wrapped box, tied with a small bow made with string. You blinked in shock, eyeing the gift, and then back up at Arthur. He smiled a bit, proud of his endeavors, then gestured for you to open, and so you did.

The blouse that emerged from the box had you almost in tears, a smile forming when the realization of his hard work had hit you, your fingers delicately running over the stitches of color. “Oh, Arthur,” you began, almost speechless. “This is beautiful! You did this?” You asked, mouth agape while he bashfully looked away, his hand reaching to the back of his neck. You turned back to the blouse and hugged it, continuously commenting on the placement and stitches of the flowers, each and every single one leaving you in awe. That was more than enough for him, he’d never felt more content.

“Oh, there’s one more, darlin,” He said a bit quietly, ushering you to look further into the box. The gasp you had made in result of seeing the gorgeous piece before you made him smile yet again. You took in every inch of the piece, examining the feathers and petals with such care that made him felt warm.

“Allow me, my pretty lady,” He said, taking the clip from your hands and brushing your hair back gently, adjusting the piece to flatter your features. “Beautiful.” You smiled, touching the decorative piece and then Arthur’s cheek, a reminder of the love you felt for him.

Nothing else could be said at that moment, however, you wrapped your arms around him, the tightness of your warm embrace, your head resting gently against his chest, that was the best part of it all.

He laughed a bit when you began to thank him endlessly, his arms never wanting to let go, though his mind begged to see your expressions once more. He pulled away and kissed your forehead, then your lips with utmost care, a hand placed lightly under your chin, while the light worked in his favor to portray the gleam of happiness in your eyes.

“So, I take it I did okay?” Arthur then spoke, resulting in a light hearted laugh. “More than so, Arthur.” Once more, a light kiss to seal the night ensued.

[ripplestitchskein]

I’ve been mulling it over and I think where the Octavia storyline falls apart a bit for me when it comes to understanding and empathizing with her character is that the valid reasons for her to be upset aren’t what she’s upset about and we have no indication that the major reason she would be in the frame of mind she’s in during the final confrontation ever came into play.

Stella and Andrealphus haven’t really hidden how they feel about Stolas. Octavia knows his punishment, all of hell does. She knows that he’s been trying to reach out to her, Stella takes her phone and then loudly and for a very long time laughs about how he’s been repeatedly trying to reach her for a month. Like it would make more sense if that had been hidden from her, but it wasn’t, she has been shown that he is trying to reach her. They could have taken the thread that she was mad that he took awhile to reach out to her, Andrealphus even comments on it in the scene, and we the audience saw Stolas too caught up on his own shit and then realizing “oh shit I need to call Via. “. A perfectly logical route to take, we’ve seen it on screen several times that Stolas’s first impulse is to act and then remember he has responsibilities after. But Via doesn’t seem to be mad about that aspect.

And this isn’t a misunderstanding where we the audience see Stolas trying to contact her and she doesn’t know he is. She did see him calling, she heard that he was repeatedly trying for a month, so I don’t see how her major issue is him leaving her when he kept trying to get in contact with her and then showed up at her house putting himself in extreme danger to do so.

I could see her being mad that he got himself banished because of his choices, not knowing the reason it was brought into court was because of her Mother and Andrealphus. Stolas did break the law for Blitz, and doing so resulted in his exile, but she doesn’t mention that in her final speech either.

The episode talks about the cheating and the broken family aspect but Octavia doesn’t even mention that, we see it in her song, her house crumbling around her, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue when she confronts him. She doesn’t mention that he destroyed their home. It’s heavily implied she’s upset he destroyed the image he built up but because of the addition of the antidepressants it comes off as being more about that than the actual cheating and divorce.

We see Stolas being willing to die for Blitz and leaving her that way, he doesn’t in the end, but she would still be understandably hurt by him just being willing to make that choice. I thought for sure that was going to be the crux of her issue after Mastermind. But she doesn’t really even focus on that aspect of the situation. She never really mentions it at all outside of the same nebulous you promised you wouldn’t leave me, you chose him that has been her issue since LooLoo Land. A “You were willing to die and break your promise to not leave me” would have made more sense to me than “You faked your way through a relationship with my mother and lied about being happy all these years”.

Like Stolas’s actual issues we’ve seen are NOT what Octavia seems to be ultimately upset about. And they could have been if we leaned into the precautionary heir aspect of it but they really haven’t.

I know she’s a teenager, but I have a hard time believing the impulse to learn that someone you love was so unhappy for so many years they just faked their way through it and had to be medicated to cope, and then be mad at them for that? Like, isn’t that a very obvious act of love? Like someone being willing to make themselves unhappy for you for so many years is at its crux a sacrifice. I understand what they were trying to convey, that she feels like he had to use medication to carry out the obligation of being her dad, that she believes that the whole time he was just putting on a show of loving her like he put on a show of loving her mother, but without the tie in of her being a duty he had to perform and “get through” it falls a bit flat when she never mentions that detail, when we’re not even sure if she knows that is why she exists. It would have been a much stronger motivation if she did. If Octavia had found out that Stolas didn’t necessarily want to have a wife or a child, that he was forced to by duty and obligation, and that he had been medicating himself and faking it the whole time and as soon as he had an out he took it, would be a far stronger case for her rage than what actually happened: her finding a box of medicine bottles.

I think we had a strong setup in a variety of directions but in the end they didn’t really commit to any of them. I’ve seen a ton of “I relate to Octavia because I too come from a home where a partner cheated.” Or. “My parents also divorced and that sucked”. And the show was heavily implying that was her issue, with the client having a parallel to their situation, but in the actual confrontation it’s more about the idea that someone taking medication is using that medication to create emotion and feeling where otherwise it wouldn’t exist, but why that fails for me as a reasoning is that just the act and willingness to do that, to force yourself into a loveless marriage and to do everything you can to maintain that facade implies love and care from the outset.

Maybe I’m just too old and being a parent with a now adult child skews my perception, but there were a number of much better reasons than what they ultimately went with, imo.

[achillesuwu]

(hehehehehe thank u ♥️

Ok that take a completely different turn but I can still cook *put my hat on* So, Merlin knew Arthur was his soulmate in canon era but decided to hide it (I always love to put cultural aspect to soulmate in soulmate au! Like Soulmate have many the rights, like if Arthur or Guinevere find their soulmate post being married they could terminate their marriage,... Which mean that Merlin revealing he is Arthur soulmate would destroy any marriage alliance of Uther so that's why he decided to hide it at first. Then he didn't want to break Gwen's heart) BUT he kind of started to put a spell around him 👀 so he would "half" forget that Arthur is his soulmate

By that I mean that Merlin didn't really think about their bond but thought about it enough that he would not get naked in front of Arthur

BUT the spell he did was an uncompleted amnesiac spell that he would need to destroy and refresh often (so he would stay at that balanced state of remembering without remembering) HOWEVER 👀 when Arthur died Merlin was far too gone to even think about it. It went beyond the tipping point and the spell fully took. (if Merlin came back to Camelot, Gaius just didn't have the heart to tell him and break his heart even more)

Also I see that I haven't wrote this part of the au on tumblr but in this au sorcerer have the capacity to bring their soulmark to life when they start doing magic 👀 Merlin always had a blue little (at first) blue dragon following him (and living in Camelot's forest) and no long after Arthur died an even smaller red dragon appeared too 👀 so actually when Merlin arrives Arthur see an gigantic (like vaghar sized if you watch House of the dragon) version of his soulmark blow the trees as it lands and then see a smaller figure approach as (still gigantic but way smaller) red dragon start landings too.

So Arthur is at first like : omfg

Then : Merlin!!! ✨😍

Then : Wait MY SOULMATE IS MERLIN 😲😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

Then he is 25% crying inside because Merlin doesn't remember him 15% worried at Merlin amnesia 10% glad Merlin seems to still have his sassiness 🥺♥️ 50% weak in the knee because that's the first time he actually see Merlin being the greatest 😵‍💫 and He is his soulmate omg omg *Arthur using all his training to stay standing when Merlin's eyes glow as he strips him and turn him with magic to see his soulmark without a by your leave✋*

The social magical worker is sure as hell not pay enough to deal with all of this so they leave to deal with that "kid who drank a purpling potion" (there is, in fact, no kid)

Au where merthur have soulmate identifying mark but merlin is the only one who know they are because if Arthur knew he would find out about his magic 👀 (arthur's mark being a beautiful dragon mainly on on his back but its tall is draped on his torso, a wing stretch on his right shoulder, another end on his hip and its head rest upon his stomach. As if it were jealousy protecting him. its scale are of a blue so dark it nearly look black. It has golden eye and tread of gold on is horn, gold shimmer on its body highlighting its scale at some place.

It screams powerful sorcerer.)

And thus it doesn't change anything from the show. Merlin doesn't tell him not even at the very end (Merlin's mark is a smaller red dragon with its head on his shoulder and who is is holding itself on his shoulder)

It would be very angsty but also SO FUNNY if in a post return futur where arthur (Gwen, the knights) are very confuse and lost but luckily for them there exist multiple center for "People who got Teleported at the wrong place/Bought back from the dead? We are here to help!/ your five yo drank a weird potion? No problem! Etc" basically Magic help center.

Just imagine basic social worker sorcerers who tries to do their job at 3 am and see THE Emrys mark ™ on a random dude and they are like *gasp*.

Them : what the fuck

Arthur :???

Them :WHAT THE FUCK

the others :????

Them : we are calling your soulmate RIGHT NOW. WHAT THE FUCK should I call the government too???? I'M NOT PAY ENOUGH FOR THIS.

Arthur : my???

Them : YOU. DO NOT MOVE IF I LOSE YOU I'M DEAD. DEAD.

You can imagine arthur pendragon pacing like a 13 years old stressed before an oral presentation because even if he was afraid then thought he globally didn't really care about his soulmate. He realised that it wasn't so much that he didn't care but he thought it would simply never be so he just... Kinda forgot about it. Now he just can not put it away because is soulmate IS coming and WHERE IS MERLIN WHEN HE NEEDS HIM (he is blocking any thoughts about Merlin potential dead thank you very much)

(Gwen is currently finding the situation extremely funny because she figured out in 5x13 and she is 80 yo (in a younger body but still) . And she is waaaayyyyyy to old to see her former husband stay in his denial.

Leon is 78 years old and he is slowly recognising the dragon in question that look very much like Merlin's family crest. He is looking at his wife in a very conspiracy way.

Gwaine is currently not really giving a damn about the whole soulmate thing. What do you MEAN you can send messages to people in less that a second?!?!?

Elyan would usually not give a damn but he is very much not happy ™ to find out that his sister (first) husband had a soulmate mark who isn't dead and he is glaring at Arthur but he is also getting a hug from gwen so it doesn't look menacing at all.

Perceval (57) is right behind Gwaine but he is currently watching himself in the mirror because seeing his younger self again is weird asf

Meanwhile Lancelot is talking with the assistant (on the verge of a break down because they are going to see the GOD OF MAGIC OH MY GOD) about magical history

[tubbytarchia]

Do you also feel as if the reason Scott always survives so much is that, besides being a good pvper, he just stays in the corner (sometimes literally) and doesn’t engage in the same risks as most others? I remember feeling really frustrated about it in Limited Life specifically but idk if that’s just a me thing.

In a way, yes, I do think he stays out of the action more than others. In fact there is this one time in Secret Life when him, Bdubs and Impulse were in a game of tag, and Bdubs was with his horse. Scott stole that horse and told Bdubs that it was unfair for him to have it and he would get it back at the end of the session, Bdubs reluctantly agrees. And then later in that session, this mf rolls up to Bdubs on that same horse, saying "I just wouldn't be able to escape otherwise". That is just a direct contradiction of the "fairness" that he claimed himself to want to provide for the sake of the other players. He has been a massive hypocrite or just unfair on multiple occasions for the sake of self-preservation but he knows how to paint his actions as bearing less weight than they do and make others feel like he's doing a favor and being a friend

But it's not even so much that as it is him generally staying in people's good graces, even when it's borderline manipulative or he antagonizes someone else to achieve the desired effect. Pearl wasn't exactly innocent in DL but it was Scott who ostracized her and stayed in good favor with most people by virtue of painting himself as the sensible one between the two of them when he instigated much more harm. He just intentionally doesn't leave strong enough impressions for anyone to want to kill him and will rather partake in small gestures of kindness; most times anyone's wanted to get him was because of him just being on more lives or time and not because he'd done anything to them (And people like Joel have actually been wronged by him in a very tangible way, justifying their desire to get back at him)

I'm confident that everyone within these games knows how to SURVIVE better than they do. But the point isn't survival, the point is content - conflict, interaction, etc. Scott also knows how to play it safe and stay in relative good favor with people by not offering up too much, but I have to agree that he seems to prioritize that more than anyone else. The most compelling aspect of his character is his self-sacrificial nature, and without any context, him sacrificing himself for others seems like a high and respectable toll, but he knows exactly what he's doing, he knows how much he can give and be fine and in control. When he sacrifices himself, he's prioritizing the benefit that will offer him and not the recipient. He's just very good at the social mindgame of it all, which is what makes things most interesting about his character, but it becomes less fun when he's this focused on survival and always gets away with it, almost never facing any punishment despite being equally as guilty of wrongdoing as any other member of the series

[rios-bug]

Little Aggie comes out to play

So a little about the au. It’s a non magic au. They all have a complicated past. Rio and Agatha were on and off for years. Agatha gradually meet the others before her and Rio got together and stayed. Rio had always been Agatha’s little but Agatha used to slip to she masked it. And now Alice and Rio slip the most but their all flips Lilia and Jennifer just slip older. Agatha hasn’t slipped in a long time but when she does she’s very young.

Agatha was many things,a psychopath, manipulative, narcissistic ..she could go on and on about her reputation over the years. But the other aspects of her that only a few people in her life got to see the caring,soft,nurturing side she had which only her lovers could see. But what’s Agatha harkness without a bit of secrets. Agatha had a side no one but her lover over centuries before the others came along got to see. She was dependent,needy,everything she wasn’t allowed to be when growing.

Agatha had taken care of Rio for years before they spilt the Frist time. Agatha was Rios mama..Rio was Agatha’s little one. And Agatha loved ever bit of Rio. And when the others came she loved all her little ones. Mostly was Alice and Rio she had gotten Jen to slip twice but Lilia she never witnessed. But she was fine with taking care of her loves.

But today was a bad day for Agatha. She woke up feeling sick and exhausted she reached over in her bed where Rio had slept but when she reached over she didn’t feel anything. She sat up with a groan “Really Rio. Never telling me when you leave.” She grumbled as she pulled her robe over herself. She walked downstairs as she looked for any of her lovers.

Usually she’d smell Lilia cooking breakfast,seeing Jennifer do her (unneeded) hour self care routine,and Alice rushing around cause she woke up five minutes late. But none of that she scoffed and rolled her eyes. As she walked into the living room she stubbed her toe on one of Rios toy dinosaurs when she slipped last night.

“I tell her to pick them up. But noo Lilia sent her to bed.” Agatha muttered as she started to pick up the toys. Agatha was picking up when she stopped as she picked up a stuffed animal. She paused as her hand ran over it finding the softness comforting. Her mind went to the purple rabbit plush sitting in her closet that Rio had gotten her years ago when she accidentally was caught slipping.

She’d held the rabbit dear to her and she shook it off as she wiped her nose that was running. Agatha hated being sick especially if she was alone. She tried to ignore the stuffiness she felt and fuzziness in her head. Agatha knew the fuzziness in her head but she hadn’t felt it in years.

She placed the stuffed dinosaur on the couch as she shook it off. She grabbed her phone seeing a text from all her lovers in their groupchat saying they all made it to where they were supposed to be and they’d be home later. Agatha texted back a k and Purple Heart words weren’t her strong suite.

As the day went on Agatha found herself looking at Rio and Alice’s toys,sippys and all their little things. And she knew she wasn’t getting any better as she felt her stuffy nose and her head pounded. As she was typing on her computer her phone was buzzing with a call from Lilia. She picked up.

“What hun?” She asked as she kept herself from sneezing knowing Lilia would worry at the smallest sign of sickness. “Me and the other are all meeting up when we get done with our activities dear. Want us to bring you something.?” Lilia asked gently. Agatha tensed..they didn’t invite her..were they mad at her. Her head was getting fuzzier. “Why wasn’t I told about your little randevou.” Agatha asked ignoring the pounding in her head.

“Agatha it was last minute i swear baby.” Lilia tried to reason. But the word “baby” made something in Agatha crack, she sniffled. “No want me to go..” Agatha wiped at her eyes. To Lilia every alarm in her head went off, “Agatha baby..what’s wrong.” Lilia had never heard her so distressed. Rio had told them all when she got the ok from Agatha that Agatha used to slip but hasn’t in years. “M’fine go eats yours stupid foods..” Agatha sniffled as she wiped at her runny nose feeling littler as time went on.

Lilia immediately felt her caregiver instincts go off. “No baby..stay right where you are ok.? Your mamas are on their way ok luv?” Agatha heard the term and she wiped her eyes. “My mamas.?” Agatha asked softly sounding the most unsure and scared Lilia had ever heard her.

“Yes my luv your mamas. We’re so sorry we left you alone baby. We’re on our way ok.? Just stay on the phone with mama lil ok.” Lilia said lowly as she looked at her other lovers. She took the phone away from her ear and covered the speaker. “Girls. Agatha is..little at the moment, she sounds sick we need to get home.” Lilia’s voice left no room for arguments not like any of them wanted to argue with that. Rio was the Frist to stand up.

She knew Agatha hadn’t been little in so long so she was probably really young and scared. They all made it to their shared flat as Jennifer was the Frist one inside. “Agatha? Where are you.” She hollered out as she slipped off her coat and shoes. Alice and Rio walked in without taking their shoes off protective instincts flaring ignore Jennifer’s rules about shoes inside. Lilia hung her coat up as they all started searching for for their girlfriend.

“Aggie baby,.come out it’s mamí.” Rio said gently as she peaked under tables looking for her. Alice heard a small sniffle from the broom closet she hid a small smile on her face as she knelt down and opened the door. When she seen Agatha her heart soften and broke at the same time. Her girlfriend who was usually taking care of her when she was little herself was clinging to a stuff rabbit her hand chewing in her sleeve and teary eyes with a stuffy nose.

“Oh baby..can I get you out of this stuffy closet?” Alice asked gently as she opened her arms up to her. Agatha looked between Alice and the floor with a slight nod. Alice might have been smaller but she was very stout she picked Agatha up and brought her in the living room and sat her on the couch.

(Part 2 soon)

[microwavesaferat]

This is a different topic than my usual stuff, but I was relistening to Epic: The Musical and wanted to talk about my personal interpretation of Calypso's character both within and out with the musical.

So a couple things to consider when going into this:

The original material and the biases/lense that it was created through

The long game of telephone that has moulded the current view of her character

The changes made from the Odyssey to Epic

In the original material, Calypso is trapped on the island of Ogygia for supporting her father, Atlas, in the battle between the Titans and the Gods. When Odysseus washed up on her shore, she took a fancy to him and proceeded to attempt to court him. She did not take no for an answer and in fact cast spells on him through song to force herself onto him. It is noted that, later in his stay on the island, Odysseus would spend most of the day crying on the shore before being forced into bed at night.

TLDR: in Greek Myth, Calypso is a horrible person.

In Epic, some liberties are taken for a multitude of reasons:

Dramatic effect

Narrative flow

Thematic storytelling

Making it more 'PG'

The big one here is the last point, although Epic covers a lot of violent acts and tough topics, but some aspects do need to be cut in order to not make the musical too graphic. For example, in the original myth, Odysseus and Circe definitely have sex, in fact, she has a child with him. So Jorge trimmed down the complicated relationship Odysseus has with Calypso, that is perfectly fine, in fact, it probably works better in the medium than being 100% accurate.

To talk about the version of Calypso in Epic; she was cast away as a child and naively fell in love with the first person she saw. My interpretation lies somewhere in-between these versions. I believe she was isolated on the island (something present in both), but I do not believe she was entirely well meaning yet harmful.

Calypso, at least in my eyes, became obsessed with the first contact she has had in a century and did, like a school-child, gain a naïve crush. But I believe she was cruel and manipulative to Odysseus and is not free of blame for what she did.

Based on the lyrics present in Paradise, she does not reveal her Godly nature until after Odysseus threatens violence if she does not leave him alone, this is a threat to him. She will play nice as long as he does, but she always has the upper hand. She also uses his friends' words against him to manipulate him (open arms), plus she almost completely ignores everything he says during the song to continue her fantasy of a perfect couple.

In Not Sorry for Loving You, she sings a very half-hearted apology that sounds like a YouTuber apology video where she apologises for how he interpreted her behaviour (I'm sorry if my actions offended some people), she blames her actions on her own problems (I've been having a real hard time you guys and wasn't thinking straight). My interpretation is that, she is (as she says) not sorry and is fully aware of what she did, just hoping he would believe that she was simply trying her best and that he would choose to stay.

An important factor that stops Calypso from being 100% awful is that she is a goddess with a skewed interpretation of mortality and of human emotions. She doesn't understand why this is such a big deal to Odysseus to be faithful and get home soon, they have all the time in the world. 7 years is merely a moment in her lifetime. It is also important to note the general reception to Calypso's actions at the time of the Odyssey. It was common for mythological characters to take war brides and the like in many Epics, even Achilles has a bride given to him as a spoil of war. The use of an action like sex in the Odyssey is to demonstrate a power imbalance and a sense of ownership. Calypso takes Odysseus like a spoil of war because he has lost and the Gods have won. In the Odyssey, Calypso does not do this because she is a horrible person, but because Homer wanted to demonstrate the loss Odysseus has faced.

I also find it weird that Calypso is brought up so much surrounding the topic of consent when, in the original myth, Circe does the same exact thing. In fact, it's like her main thing. She turns Scylla into a monster for being with a man she likes, she turns a king into a beast for noting accepting her courtship and has sex with Odysseus in exchange for help home, giving him a child.

The changes for Circe in Epic work because Circe's job in the story is to demonstrate Odysseus's wit and his devotion to Penelope, so she can still help him after he proves he's 'not like other men' (he's a monster rah rah rah). With Calypso, you cannot make it so that she respects his choice, or that would make for a pretty chill 7 years.

TLDR: In both the Odyssey and Epic, Calypso is more important as an idea than as a character. She serves to show how far Odysseus has sunk, lost the war and has been taken as a spoil, defeated and broken.

[super-hero-confessions]

In response to that “I need the anti romy’s to shut up” confession - y’all are the reason there is a need for romy hate confessions.

People are entitled to their own thoughts and opinions on these fictional characters, that’s kind of the point. Criticism, more so vocalising that criticism is jumped on so hard by romy fans that for years people would rather put down their favorite characters than be involved in the toxic environment romy fans have created for Rogue/Gambit fans.

People are allowed to express their critical views on how their favorite characters are being portrayed, especially when romy fans are taking over every aspect of these characters like y’all own them personally. You have canon (crappy canon but you do you), let people express their views without jumping on every critical romy point like it’s a personal attack to YOU, be sane for once… these are fictional stories with fictional people. It’s supposed to invoke critical conversation, sorry y’all aren’t intelligent enough to understand the complexity of stories, characters and concepts of how real life is portrayed through fiction.

A lot of anti-romy’s aren’t concerned about who’s “boning” who, they’re rightfully upset that characters they love are being reduced to boring, toxic sex-trope drama in a franchise that’s supposed to be about superpowers and fighting monsters. As someone who used to enjoy romy until fandom became all consuming and unhinged I am so glad more people are speaking up on how bad the ship is and the disservice certain writers have put the characters and storylines through. romy is a really crappy ship but if people like it good for them, doesn’t mean everyone has to and just because it’s canon doesn’t mean people have to take that as gospel, fans are entitled to like different things. You have canon, if anything y’all should be the ones shutting up.

I’ve looked over several anti romy confessions and I rarely see people being mad about fictional characters sex lives… that’s the romy fans who can’t cope with people liking other ships for Rogue and Gambit. Being abusive and sending hate to people who think based on canon events that the couple shouldn’t be together is the most childish shit y’all could ever do. It’s there in black and white for people to see the bad the relationship is even if there’s a “happy ending” which it’s marvel so… good luck with that… that’s for them. Leave people to their own opinions and thoughts, put on your big kid shorts and use the block for tags etc if you don’t like seeing anti romy/critical talks and opinions instead of hopping on other fans blogs/art/fics to gush about how much better romy is compared to what they like. Grow up, weirdos.

I really loved that one confession that talked about how you can’t change what’s in canon for people to see, if you bother to read over the history of romy, if you care so deeply for the characters as individuals you’ll see how bad the ship is. Doesn’t mean you can’t like it, just means you shouldn’t run your mouth on people who are simply speaking facts. Romy hurts both Rogue and Gambit, it hurts other characters too since they get overshadowed by the pointless drama that comes with the ship. Love it all you like, it doesn’t entitle you to shit on people who don’t.