#and is just generally done w the world honestly

[writing-for-life]

Tales from the Flat Earth by Tanith Lee

A few thoughts on the supposed similarities with The Sandman—with actual comparisons (and a summary of the most important beats for those who want it)…

[This post is super long. It contains a lot of different thoughts, that’s why I broke it down into three parts: 1. General Considerations, 2. Boroson’s Claims and 3. A beat-by-beat summary of all five volumes of Tales from the Flat Earth. You might want to read this in instalments, or you might want to leave part three if you are still planning to read any of the five volumes.]

Part One: General Considerations

By now, many of you will have heard of Tanith Lee’s series “Tales from the Flat Earth”—not because the world all of a sudden woke up to a literary genius, but because of a Facebook post by Matthew Boroson in the immediate aftermath of the sexual assault allegations against Neil Gaiman. Boroson now made a further statement that he will “delete […] challenges so he can live”. I completely get the exhaustion of a post going viral—been there, got the T-Shirt—but why not just ignore it? Switch off notifications or comments altogether? Actively censoring only the people with different opinions, whom he even admits have mostly been engaging in good faith, because “he can’t do this 24/7”, while leaving up those in agreement (apparently he can do that 24/7)? He might not have thought through how bad this looks, and the irony of a man silencing dissenting voices and trying to control the conversation really shouldn’t be lost on people. But apparently, it is.

Anyway: I have absolutely no desire to defend Neil Gaiman. As should be clear from my blog, I stand with Gaiman’s victims and have done so since last summer when the allegations first broke. I believe those women, for both personal and professional reasons I won’t go into here. And I believe them, whether some author guy tells me I should or not. What grates on me is that this overshadows what’s actually important here, and I’ll get to why in a second.

I love Tanith Lee’s Tales from the Flat Earth and have read them first in the 1990s, and quite a few times since. For that very reason, I wish people would just read her work without trying to engage in a “gotcha” that is still all about Gaiman and not her. She was a great and talented writer who deserves more than now forever being known as “the woman whom Neil Gaiman plagiarised”. And to say it quite frankly: The sexual assault allegations can stand on their own and don’t need a male writer telling us, verbatim, “I have no difficulty believing the accusations against him. Because I know — KNOW — that he has felt entitled to take what he wants from a woman, without her permission, and without any acknowledgement of her contributions.”

I can’t even begin to say how problematic this statement is, for so many reasons. So all I’ll say is:

There is a certain tone-deafness in thinking a sexual assault claim holds even more weight because a male writer says, “See, he did this, so you should also believe that.” We should believe SA victims. Full stop. We don’t need wonky plagiarism or “inspiration without credit”-claims to give them more weight. These two things shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence.

But all of that aside: Read Tanith Lee’s “Tales from the Flat Earth” because you are interested in a writer who crafted imaginative worlds in a florid prose-style that hearkens back to old fairy tales and Arabian Nights. If you only want to read it for a “gotcha”, I might be able to spare you the arduous work, although I strongly recommend you read it to come to your own conclusions (go to the source yourself. And I honestly wish more people did before they just blindly believe things). Again, spare a thought though if Tanith deserves to be “the woman NG plagiarised” to a new audience, because let’s be honest—that’s the only reason why so many people now read her works.

And that’s exactly why I thought so long and hard whether to even write this post, but there comes a point when people who actually know both works in depth need to speak up about the informational conformity bias that now has us at over 30,000 notes on Tumblr alone, all the while the person who put this into the world seems to actively censor anyone who dares to disagree. I get that Boroson’s claim is what a lot of people want to believe right now, but that doesn’t make it more true. Someone even said that “misinformation doesn’t matter in this case because only the result does.” That’s an incredibly dumb and also dangerous statement, but I’ll leave it at that.

Horrible people can create good art. We don’t need to pretend they were always hacks. We have to learn to sit with that cognitive dissonance and can disassociate ourselves from the creator regardless—because he’s an abuser.

Part Two: Boroson’s Claims

With all of that out of the road, let’s have a closer look at all that Boroson alleges in his FB post; quotes are verbatim.

1. “Despite the fact that the main character — a byronic, pale, otherworldly, deity-like character - is the prince of night and dreams.”

Here, we already have the first bit of wrong information. Azhrarn is one of the Lords of Darkness. He is the Prince of Demons. He is evil-aligned. He is not a “prince of dreams”. He is “Night’s Master” because he only walks the earth at night, and sunlight is lethal (oh?) for him. He is really nothing like Dream. One is all about rules and responsibilities, the other is about inconsistency, wickedness, mischief, changing his mind on a whim and treating humans as playthings (which he repeatedly admits himself). You could build a much stronger case for similarities between Azhrarn and Lucifer/Iblis (and Loki if you wanted to go Norse) than Dream, because Azhrarn actually hates the gods, and Lee’s whole series builds very strongly on how he (and then someone else) tries to bring them down. And Azhrarn might be older than gods, but whether he is truly more powerful depends on how you look at it—he even asks them for help at some point. Dream, on the other hand, is more than the gods. They begin in his realm, and they end there when people stop believing. Because gods come from the collective unconscious—and that’s who and what Dream is.

2. “Despite the fact that every time people see art depicting Tanith Lee's main character Azhrarn, they think it's Morpheus from the Sandman.”

This is interesting since the depiction Boroson chose for his FB claim is fanart. If you claim something like this, at least use original artwork, not works that have already gone through 20 subconscious filters. If you look at original art, you get this:

Azhrarn in the middle, Uhlume (Lord Death) to the right, Chuz (Lord Madness) to the left. And in the other picture, Azrharn in his eagle form. Which is just weird, soz. But that’s why he has feathers on his garb.

Maybe there’s a fleeting similarity in the one to the left, but there’s also literally none in the one to the right. And if you have ever read any dark fantasy of the 1980s and 90s (and even earlier), pretty much the majority of male protagonists fitted the stereotype of “pale, clad in black and byronic”. It was a dark fantasy trope—goths read that stuff in droves (I was one of them). And it became even more likely if the hero/antihero/villain was somehow aligned with the underworld. Which Azhrarn is.

And since artists are always influenced by other artworks and their own mental image of a character, have an actual description of Azhrarn’s looks from “Night’s Master”:

“marvelously handsome, with hair that shone like blue-black fire, and clothed in all the magnificence of night.”

But we also get this when he makes a not so great experience:

“He gazed to east and west, to north and south, and the face of Azhrarn, it is truly said, had become white. Long he looked, and long his pallor increased. A mortal man could not grow so pale and live.”

So we can reasonably deduce that he isn’t usually as white as Morpheus in his main form (I don’t know what else to call it)?

There are many other descriptions of a similar ilk. Is this really enough to say they look the same? Really? Instead of admitting that we might be filling in some blanks here if descriptions are so vague?

3. “Despite the fact that the dream lord's younger sibling is Death.”

That one truly made me laugh out loud. Apart from the fact that Gaiman’s Death is older and female (which one could say was a purposeful switch to “hide the tracks” 🙄)—only the least read people would assume this was in any way new or sensational and “borrowed” from any one particular writer. Hypnos (Sleep) and Thanatos (Death) are twin brothers in Greek mythology. And the closeness of Death and Dream in The Sandman (both conceptually and on a relational level) is much more of a mirror of that than the relationship between Azhrarn and Uhlume in Tales from the Flat Earth, because in all honesty: The latter two don’t get on that well, which Boroson conveniently forgets to mention. Their relationships are really nothing alike.

Hypnos is also a deity residing in the underworld, and you have to cross the river Lethe (forgetfulness/oblivion) to get to him. Lee borrows from that idea very heavily when she tells the story of Kazir visiting Azhrarn in Underearth. These are myths, told and retold by hundreds of writers over and over again, including Lee herself.

I don’t even know what to say about this one. It’s so thin that it immediately blows away if you as much as cough at it.

4. “Despite the fact that other members of his family include Delusion, Delirium.... They are not gods but beings older than gods, and when the gods die, Dream, Death, Delusion, and Delirium will remain. This family of immortal, eternal, unchanging beings, who each embody an eternal abstraction starting with the letter D.”

There are only two Lords of Darkness beginning with a D, and they are called Uhlume (Death) and Chuz (Delusion). Azhrarn is Wickedness.

There is no Dream, as I already stated. And guess what? There is also no separate Delirium. So wrong facts again. The character is Delirium’s Mistress (or at least that’s the title of the volume), and in that case, we are referring to her as being the lover of Chuz (so Delusion and Delirium are effectively the same person). And her name is Azhriaz; she is half human, half demon (and something else, but that would be too spoilery) and Azhrarn’s daughter. She looks like this in original artwork (sorry for the crappola photo):

Without wanting to give too much plot away because some of you might still want to read this: There are three Lords of Darkness (or one could argue five—more about that later) in Lee’s Tales, but they don’t all begin with a D—neither if you look at their names (their initials are A, U, C, K and A), nor at their functions (in which case it’s W, D, D, F and L).

Okay, the domains of two Lords of Darkness start with D. Is it really enough to be sure Gaiman borrowed from it, turning it into seven? Or is it perhaps far more likely that this still falls into the realm of literary archetypes? And even if Gaiman did expand on that idea—that’s not plagiarism (which, to say it very clearly, Boroson didn’t explicitly say it was. He just implied it a bit between the lines, and other people who probably didn’t read either ran with it). I don’t think it would even constitute “heavy borrowing”, especially since the characters, their relationships and the stories as such are so, so different.

Why is Boroson’s account riddled with inaccuracies? Why be so wrong in your descriptions of a work you supposedly know so well? I really don’t know. It’s either that he doesn’t know it as well as he says he does (which I can’t imagine, since he’s apparently been going on about this for years), or he purposefully misrepresents it to add more weight to it. Which looks bad to be honest. Or at least as if he’s a bit too taken with an idea and at the stage where he can’t let it go anymore.

5. “[…] description of a character who was clearly the inspiration for Gaiman’s Mazikeen.”

That’s also Chuz. As depicted in the art above, and also here:

One side of him is young and beautiful, the other old. I’ll let you decide if this is clearly the inspiration for Mazikeen:

“So she beheld the entire aspect of his face, one half youthfully bronzed, one half haggardly gray, the rusty hair and the blond, but it seemed to her it was the most natural face she had ever looked on.”

And to say it quite frankly: Framing it like that is a bit dishonest to start with? It’s not the description of “a character”. It’s the volume’s protagonist. Whom Boroson earlier insisted was the inspiration for Delirium (also a bit wonky that one, as I already wrote, since I bet most of the people who don’t know Lee’s work pictured her Delirium as a woman after reading Boroson’s account). But now it’s Mazikeen all of a sudden? Leaving out he’s actually talking about the same character here looks like wilfully obfuscating that neither of it truly holds water, so he’s picking little bits and offers them without context.

Mazikeen is a visual creation of Kelley Jones btw, so maybe Boroson should also take it up with him? The same could be said to everyone who might feel tempted to shoehorn a certain other character (DC’s Destiny) into this, woefully forgetting that Destiny is not a character created by Gaiman. He has existed in the DC Universe years before Lee wrote Tales from the Flat Earth. I don’t hear anyone complaining that Lee stole Kheshmet/Fate from DC because it would be quite frankly idiotic—these are literary archetypes!

6. “The prose, the characters, the narrative strategies, the mythology, the story structure, all of it: Gaiman found it all in Tanith Lee's writing and never gave her any credit.”

The prose is really hard to compare because one is a novel, the other a comic. I really recommend you read both yourself so you get the full picture, but just two examples here:

Tanith Lee:

“A mile from the enameled walls of the city, where the desert lay gleaming like golden glass, a beautiful woman sat in a stone tower, and she played with a bone.

“Will he come to me today?” she asked the bone, rocking it in her arms like a child. “Or will he seek me tonight? All the stars will shine, but he will shine more brightly. For sure, he dare not come by day, for he would outshine the sun. The sun would die of shame, and the whole world grow dark. But oh, he will come. Nemdur,” said the beautiful woman, “Nemdur, my lord.”

Her name was Jasrin; Nemdur was the king whose city stood one mile to the east. Once, he had been her husband.

No longer.”

Neil Gaiman:

As someone who’s read both many times over, my personal assessment is:

They are not very alike. Lee writes floridly, Gaiman is often fairly to the point. Even in Ramadan, which is one (out of 75!) issues that closest resembles the style of Arabian Nights (which is Lee’s inspiration), his voice seems distinct to me—as is hers. Lee’s prose always struck me as great, Gaiman’s as good (I always loved his world building more than his actual writing style). I think Lee’s prose is more accomplished, but that’s personal taste.

Characters: I already expanded on it.

Narrative strategy: This is so vague. Does he mean perspective? Point of view? Other narrative strategies like foreshadowing?

Since I don’t know what exactly Boroson is referring to because he likes to keep it nebulous, I really can’t say, but I don’t think the way the stories are told are in any way alike. And where they seem similar (“Night’s Master”, as an example, is told as interconnected stories in the style of Arabian Nights with a throughline. And of course the Sandman also contains some interconnected stories with a throughline, although they are in no way reminiscent of Arabian Nights to me, bar Ramadan), I seriously have to ask again:

Do we believe only one writer utilises these strategies and/or has a monopoly on them? Because there are truly only so many of them to go around. And we could say that Lee’s “narrative strategy” is hardly unique either. This is just a bit silly.

Mythology: Just no. Both Lee and Gaiman use themes that have been there a million times before them, I already brushed on it. Both lean heavily into existing mythologies, with Gaiman more into Greek, and Lee into Near- and Middle Eastern one (especially Mesopotamian/Babylonian—there are some parallels between her characters and deities like Nergal, Sin/Nanna and Ninazu), although they both also use others. But the bottom line is: Both have expanded on long existing mythologies.

Story structure: Again, what is Boroson insinuating here? He is truly the master of vagueness.

To say it very directly: The story structure is not the same. If you look at The Sandman in its entirety, it’s a clear three act tragedy with a lot of Hero’s Journey thrown-in. The fact that it’s told in 10 arcs changes nothing about that—you can clearly make out Campbell’s stages, like Call to Adventure, Crossing the First Threshold, Belly of the Whale… you name it. This is long enough already, but look at Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, and it’s fairly obvious (and no, the hero doesn’t always have to survive).

Tales from the Flat Earth have a throughline in their five volumes, but they are connected more loosely, with the odd referential throwback. Only “Delusion’s Master” and “Delirium’s Mistress” have an ongoing narrative (of sorts). “Night’s Sorceries” always seemed like an afterthought of material Lee would have liked in volume four but couldn’t fit in. They are all told in a way that hearkens back to oral storytelling (hence Lee saying she was inspired by 1001 Nights), and there is a clear sense of an unchanging, but not personally involved storyteller/narrator all the way through who sometimes even offers commentary.

7. “Tanith Lee was far more progressive about Igbtq+ identities, and that was twenty years earlier.”

Well, for starters: Ten years earlier (“Night’s Master” was published in 1978, the first issue of The Sandman in 1988).

Is Tales from the Flat Earth truly more progressive? I’m not sure. Both were progressive for their time, simply because they wrote about LGBTQ+ characters at all and gave them a voice. And to put it in a disclaimer: I don’t apply moral purity standards to fiction, neither do I believe certain things that would be problematic in real life can’t be written about in fiction (and dare I say: I find that take worrying, for many reasons, but that’s a different discussion). But if we’re talking about “progressiveness”:

A clearly bisexual Demon Prince grooms a child to then seduce him on his 16th birthday—in a time when gay men were often still thrown into one pot with groomers and even pedophiles?

A lesbian queen who basically gets cursed to have sex with many, many men because only a pregnancy can lift that curse (!), finds out she is barren and can only conceive if she has sex with a dead guy, makes a deal with Uhlume who then brings a man back from the dead so she can be impregnated and then, via many many twists and turns, turns into [I’ll tell you later if you really want to know]?

I don’t know, but it’d probably be the same people who find certain angles of the Sandman problematic who would also bolt or get outraged at this? And they would 100% engage in the same type of revisionist readings they now apply to Gaiman’s works if they ever found out that Lee did anything wrong. There is a lot, and I mean a lot, of rape, SA and questionable power dynamics in Lee’s work. But it’s also a work of fiction.

8. In the 1990s, toward the end of her life, she complained in an interview that magazines weren't buying her stories anymore.

[edit: Lee died in 2015, so Boroson’s claim the 90s were “towards the end of her life” also reads a bit weird to me—as if he’s consciously trying to appeal to the sympathy of his readers by portraying her as “the poor woman on her death bed”, when she still lived for another 20 years]

That’s a bit nebulous again. It’s amazing how some people never quote their sources. I am near certain that Boroson talks about this interview from 1998, but I stand corrected if it’s a different one:

Tanith talks about her troubles getting published, but she also says it’s a hard time for everyone right now. Plus, her bibliography also clearly indicates she still got published on the regular, and that the amount of works published in any given year didn’t really fluctuate all that much apart from a burst in the ‘70s (and “burst” refers to the difference of publishing four books instead of two per year), a dip towards the end of her life (when her output was probably affected by her illness) and then the sad thing that always happens when someone dies: Suddenly, there’s another uptick.

Someone even went through the trouble of visualising her published works in a graph:

Courtesy of Das_Mime

Does this honestly look like no one published her anymore?

Now, don’t get me wrong: Of course it is a nice gesture if those more successful put in a word for those who find themselves in a bit of dry spot. But to turn this almost into some conspiracy theory is just a bit weird if I’m honest. It’s much more likely that people are simply not on someone’s radar than that they are actively trying to hinder their career. Writing is hard. Getting published is hard, even if you already have a few published works under your belt. Ask me how I know…

These were the points Boroson made that I wanted to address directly. For those of you who want to get a feel if the story as such is actually in any way similar enough to even call it heavy borrowing, I’ll now do a summary of all major story beats for all five volumes.

Part Three: Tales from the Flat Earth Beat-by-Beat

I assume that most of my followers are familiar with The Sandman, but only a few with Tanith Lee. Hence I won’t do a summary of The Sandman, and once again: You really have to read both works yourself to understand why Boroson’s claims are so far out there. I’m more than willing to discuss and answer questions that come in good faith, but I’ll say it outright: I am not interested in engaging with anyone who just comes here to peddle conspiracy theories and platitudes like “misinformation doesn’t matter in this case because…” if they haven’t even read the works in question.

Just as a quick hint, because that’s where you’ll find the superficial similarities (and that’s my phrasing it with the utmost goodwill):

If you want to compare the entirety of both works, there’s no way around reading both.

For “Night’s Master”, I’d argue you also need to read the entirety of The Sandman, because in a nutshell, it is, at least at first glance, about the heel-face-turn of its protagonist. You’ll need at least Preludes and Nocturnes and The Kindly Ones, but it makes no sense to read them separately, so…

For “Death’s Master”, maybe read The Doll’s House and Season of Mists, because it is partly about a queen who wants to save her land (everything else would be too spoilery, but just so much: The similarities are fleeting at best, and that’s already generous).

For “Delusion’s Master”: Again The Doll’s House and Season of Mists, because at its very core we have a love story that gets torpedoed by a traitor. But other than that, said love story is truly nothing alike.

For “Delirium’s Mistress”: Honestly, I thought long and hard about this. I really don’t know because it is so different from the Sandman that I see absolutely no parallels at all. Maybe read Brief Lives, because there is something in there about parent/child relationships. But they are hardly unique in literature, so once again: I truly don’t know how anyone could find similarities here. And The Kindly Ones would be such an immense stretch that I won’t even go there.

For “Night’s Sorceries”: There are three stories that give a bit of context to the rest. If anything, I’d say read The Wake. But that would actually be insinuating Azhriaz is Daniel, and I’m like… no, massive stretch. If it’s just about loosely connected stories that somewhat fit into a greater narrative, read “World’s End”. But if we’re thinking that’s already a similarity, I truly cry for literary analysis…

Briefly about the world we’re in: The Flat Earth basically consists of four planes: Upperearth, home of the gods; Earth (the Earth of humans before it changed shape); Underearth, home of Azhrarn, Prince of Demons and Wickedness; Innerearth, home of Uhlume, Lord Death. Azhrarn’s kingdom, Druhim Vanashta, houses three classes of demons: Vazdru (most like Azhrarn himself, beautiful and prone to change into eagles and other animals), Eshva (basically mute servants to the Vazdru who can change gender at will) and Drin (ugly, exclusively male creatures and accomplished creators of beautiful and practical things). All three demon kind frequently visit earth to tempt and create chaos.

Volume One: Night’s Master

Night’s Master begins with Azhrarn finding a dying woman and her newborn son, Sivesh, on a hillside. After her death, Azhrarn becomes captivated by the beauty of the child and takes him back to Underearth to raise him (and then promptly seduces him on his 16th birthday). Azhrarn then creates a woman called Ferazhin from a flower for Sivesh (because, you know, Azhrarn thinks it’s good sport to sample a woman. As one does). However, nothing can prevent Sivesh from longing to live on earth because he is human, and the decision to leave Azhrarn for a life in the light offends the Demon Prince. So he consciously tricks him into death by drowning (by chapter three).

The next storyline shifts to a collar (crafted by a Drin) from Ferazhin’s tears because she is inconsolable. We follow the collar around on its journey to different owners (who all meet a gruesome end in one way or another). The final owner, the blind bard Kazir, is the only one not to get corrupted by it, and we conclude the first book with his journey to Underearth to give the collar back to Azhrarn in exchange for Ferazhin, whom he loves without ever having met her. Azhrarn agrees to let Ferazhin go if Kazir can answer a particular question, which he can (not going to get too deep into that, apart from: Azhrarn is rattled, and we’ll revisit it at the end of this volume). Kazir and Ferazhin are happy for a while, but as usual, Azhrarn changes his mind, and by the end of it, Ferazhin is dead (a bit of a nod to Romeo and Juliet in there, but that just as an aside). But lo and behold, Kazir manages to bring her back after a while, and “somewhere perhaps, some dark door slammed like thunder in a city underground.”

Book Two of Night’s Master focuses on Zorayas, who survived the overthrow of her father (a king) as a newborn but suffered severe disfigurement. After the death of the monk who took care of her, she seeks revenge for being raped by a Prince and takes back her father’s kingdom with the help of the Drin. And, as usual, she meets her demise through trickery orchestrated by Azhrarn.

Book Three. Azhrarn’s cruel prank on a young married couple goes wrong, escalates and ultimately leads to humanity teetering on the brink of destruction (the remnants of the husband turn into Hatred and wipe out everything). After seeking intervention from the gods of Upperearth in vain, Azhrarn makes, for once, a sacrifice to preserve humanity’s existence. But does he do so completely selflessly? Could be argued, and I guess Kazir knew, but that’d be too much of a spoiler… Suffice it to say, Earth enters an age of innocence without the presence of hatred and wickedness. Until… 🤣

Volume Two: Death’s Master

Narasen, Queen of Merh, is sexually assaulted by the magician Issak. Feigning cooperation, she manages to kill him. Before he dies, he curses Narasen and Merh, declaring that both will become barren. The curse can only be lifted if Narasen (we have deduced at this point that she is a lesbian because she “doesn’t lie with men”) gives birth to a child, but includes a stipulation that prevents this solution: “Your reluctant womb will never quicken from the seed of living man.” After numerous attempts to conceive, Narasen, driven by her desire to save her land and people, makes a deal with Uhlume to conceive a child from a dead man. In return, Narasen agrees to spend a thousand years in Uhlume’s kingdom. Narasen is poisoned shortly after childbirth.

After Narasen is locked in her tomb with her newborn child Simmu, Uhlume arrives to claim her, leaving the child behind. However, Simmu is rescued by two passing Eshva and lives with them by night. Simmu develops Eshva abilities, like changing gender at will. Eventually, the Eshva grow tired of Simmu and leave him at a temple near Merh, where he grows up among monks and becomes friends and later lovers with a boy called Zhirem.

Simmu and Zhirem eventually become separated and somewhat turn into the tools of Azhrarn (Simmu hates Death because he remembers him coming for his mother) and Uhlume, respectively.

Meanwhile, Uhlume and Narasen don’t get on too well—Narasen sets herself up as Lady Death and constantly struggles for power. To get her off his back, Uhlume grants her permission to spend a day in Merh, where she promptly destroys her city (yeah, after all that trouble…). Upon her return, she gradually takes over the supervision of Innerearth from Uhlume and turns into “Lady Death.”

Azhrarn saves Simmu during Narasen’s attack on Merh. He instructs Simmu to obtain water from the Cistern of Life (a little throwback to volume one). His plan is to kill Uhlume, hence bringing death to an end. The well is guarded by nine virgins called the Golden Daughters—Simmu makes use of his gender-changing abilities and sneaks into each of their chambers as a woman and then takes their virginity as a man. With their virginity taken, the well cracks, and Simmu founds the City of Simmurad (populated by immortal humans) with the golden daughter Kassafeh (too long-winded to get into it all).

Zhirem has embarked on his own adventures and eventually returns to Earth as the magician Zhirek. He agrees to serve Uhlume, who plans to destroy Simmurad, perceiving it as a threat. With the guidance of Azhrarn, who has grown weary of Simmu and Simmurad (you see, Azhrarn is not very consistent and doesn’t abide by rules nor responsibilities like our boy Morpheus 😉), Uhlume lets Zhirek destroy the city by submerging it under water after re-introducing death via creating and killing an insect. Simmu seemingly dies at the hands of Zhirek, who casts him into a well of fire. Zhirek retires into solitude, and Simmu is ultimately saved by Azhrarn, who transforms him into an Eshva and erases all memories of his past.

The story concludes with Narasen effectively ruling Innerearth and giving death, while Uhlume spends most of his time on Earth, finding solace in the presence of Kassafeh.

Volume Three: Delusion’s Master

We’re starting with a tale about Jasrin, the young wife of King Nemdur of Sheve. Because she is jealous of her newborn child, she abandons him in the desert, where he gets killed by dogs. Nemdur banishes Jasrin to a tower, where her sanity gradually deteriorates. She is visited by Chuz, the Prince of Madness (the third Lord of Darkness). Inquiring about her deepest desires, Jasrin expresses her wish for her husband to share her madness. Nemdur awakens with a crazy plan to construct a towering structure that reaches Upperearth (where the gods live). Inspired by the legend of Simmu, he envisions attaining immortality. The Tower of Babyhelu, aptly named “The Gate to the Gods,” grows and grows until it becomes unstable due to its immense weight, causing it to collapse with catastrophic consequences: The fall of the entire kingdom of Sheve.

Azhrarn and a few of his demons are drawn to the commotion, and a conversation between him and Chuz reignites Azhrarn’s disdain for the gods, who had failed to assist him in “Night’s Master”.

Hundreds of years later, we meet 7,000 pilgrims on their journey across the desert to worship the gods at Bhelsheved (Sheve rebuilt). Azhrarn is incensed that his sacrifice to save humanity in “Night’s Master” is credited to the gods. Disguised as a prophet, he reveals that a Lord of Darkness (not the gods) is the true saviour of humanity. For this, he is lashed with a whip and sheds three drops of blood. Azhrarn continues with his quest to destroy Bhelsheved but is unexpectedly diverted by the beauty of a young priestess named Dunizel. Recognising Azhrarn’s true intentions, Dunizel bravely offers to sacrifice herself to appease his wrath. Azhrarn turns into a wolf and bites off her lower arm, but when she encourages him to bite again instead of showing terror, he hesitates. Reminiscing about his own sacrifice to Hatred, he changes his mind, heals her with his own blood, and falls deeply in love with her.

We then learn the story of Dunizel’s mentally disabled mother, who was held captive by the assistant of an astronomer (who was on a field trip to observe a comet passing by). After impregnating the girl, the assistant attempted to abort the child by exposing her to the comet’s energy as it passed. The girl was instead exposed to a rainbow of light captured by the astronomer’s magical engine, regained her sanity and gave birth to Dunizel, who was also affected by the comet’s light. Dunizel’s mother raised her but gradually transformed into a fire elemental and ascended into the sky. The assistant gave Dunizel to a grieving mother from a nearby village, who raised her until she was chosen to join the religious cult (like her mother, she is also part solar being).

We are panning back to the love story of Dunizel and Azhrarn. Dunizel gives birth to a daughter named Soveh, who is initially mistaken for a goddess on Earth and grows at unnatural speed. Through the workings of Chuz though, the truth about the child’s paternity is revealed, and Dunizel dies at the hands of an angry mob (she also comes into contact with one of the drops of blood Azhrarn had formerly shed in the desert). Devastated, Azhrarn takes Soveh, whom he renames Azhriaz, to Underearth. Before he departs, he addresses Chuz and declares their relationship as “un-brothers, un-cousins, and now, un-friends”. He also reveals he will go to war with him and considers it a kindness he has informed him in advance.

The story concludes with Chuz finding Jasrin, who is haunting her tower, and releasing her.

Volume Four: Delirium’s Mistress

So if you waited for this to start with all-out war between Azhrarn and Chuz, you’ll be disappointed. We meet Oloru, a court jester to tyrannical prince Lak Hezoor. Oloru convinces Lak Hezoor to take him on a sightseeing tour of Underearth. It’s not going well—Lak Hezoor is torn apart by Azhrarn’s red hounds. Oloru transforms into a “slender rod of yellow radiation, vaguely purplishly limned” and flies towards the island where young adult Azhriaz has been sleeping since her arrival in Underearth (it’s a been a few years). Oloru, who is actually Chuz in disguise, awakens her, convinces her to escape, and takes her back to Earth. And of course they become lovers.

Kheshmet (King Fate) enters the story, just like that, and in no time, Azhrarn arrives and ends his quarrel with Chuz— also just like that. But to atone, Chuz has to agree to live a mortal lifetime, disfigured, without his powers and truly mad. Azhriaz initially stays with Chuz, but he forgets who she is.

Azhriaz, now without Chuz, despairs. She visits her mother’s grave with Khesmet and decides to embrace her father’s legacy: discrediting the gods. She replaces a king who committed suicide and ascends to the status of a cruel goddess on Earth, conquering much of the world who revels in her cruelty. Her teachings to humanity are that the gods care nothing for them: “Remember, to the gods, you are nothing. To Azhriaz, the Goddess, you are only grains of dust or sand.”

Khesmet arrives to foretell a looming war with sea and sky.

And weirdly, that war starts because a god, whom Azhrarn kissed in “Night’s Master”, awakens and decides that was sacrilege, plus he’s also not pleased with Azhriaz’s activities on Earth. The gods consequently hurl three shards into the sun that transform into three angels—the Malhukim of the gods: Ebriel, Yabael and Melquar. Azhrarn holds the angels at bay while Azhriaz escapes into the ocean aboard a special fish-ship crafted by the Drin, pursued by Ebriel and Yabael. Azhrarn fights Melquar in the air and narrowly avoids incineration. Azhriaz escapes imprisonment in an underwater city when Yabael destroys it with his sword. She receives no assistance from Azhrarn because he lies in a death-like coma in Druhim Vanashta and has been usurped by the demon Hazrond. Eventually, Azhrarn recovers and reclaims his kingdom. Azhriaz is still pursued by Yabael, who conveniently undergoes a transformation and forgets his mission in the process. Then pursued by Ebriel, she travels with Dathanja (Zhirek making a reappearance) and ultimately engages in an eternal battle with the angel. Realising she’ll be otherwise stuck there forever, she convinces Ebriel to stop by revealing her plan to give up her immortality.

Ebriel departs, snd Azhriaz (who is actually called Atmeh at this point, but that’d lead too far) seeks out Kassafeh for a bargain with Uhlume (who is in the process of abdicating to Narasen) to become mortal. She reunites with Chuz, who has paid his penance, and they stay together for a while until Chuz helps her with her final transformation into a mortal woman.

Atmeh/Azhriaz approaches death after 200 years or so, and is visited by Azhrarn, who tells her, “Humanity is my plaything no longer, only a toy for those that are mine under the earth. But you, you are her child. You are hers. You are Dunizel. Not mine. Never mine. Though I made you to be my curse upon the world. Though I made you to be myself. You are Dunizel, that I loved, Dunizel who was the moon and sun together.” Azhrarn expresses his sadness over his inability to cry, and Azhriaz responds: “Each word you have spoken has been a tear.”

Volume Five: Night’s Sorceries

I wasn’t sure if I should even go into this one, because “Delirium’s Mistress” always seemed like the final volume to me to be honest, and it concluded the story for me. “Night’s Sorceries” is a collection of short stories that seem connected to “Delirium’s Mistress” and fill in some gaps (that’s why each of them has an introduction that explains where we are, and when). So I will only go into three of them (there are seven altogether):

“The Prodigal” is essentially about Narasen’s reign as Queen Death.

“Dooniveh, The Moon” is written like a fairy tale about a monk from Nannafir. He travels to the moon on a winged horse, and by the end of his adventures, we witness the wedding of the Moon Queen and the Sun King. And that’s connected how? Well, the winged horse was a gift from Hazrond (who usurped Azhrarn) to Azhriaz.

“The Daughter of the Magician,” recounts the tale of a magician who successfully resurrects the soul of Azhriaz. But the child, named Ezail, ends up being offered as a sacrifice to a monster. And that’s connected how? Well, the monster was created as the counterpart of the winged horse in “Dooniveh, The Moon.” But Ezail regains Azhriaz’ memory and lo and behold, Chuz just happens to appear in the reincarnation of a young boy named Chavir. Together, they decide to take the monster with them and embark on a life together.

The main reason I did include this volume is that it somewhat puts the former four in context. The last sentence of “Night’s Sorceries” is:

“Love is also an immortal.”

Which somewhat suggests that Azhriaz is operating on the same plane as Azhrarn, Uhlume, Chuz and Kheshmet. And we already get hints at that in the other volumes.

In “Delusion’s Master”, Azhrarn says to Dunizel that their child will be his feminine aspect. It’s just ambiguous enough, but we also get this in “Delirium’s Mistress” when Azhrarn wonders about love: “There is no such commodity. There is carnality, our plaything. There is worship, and there is obsession. Death you may perceive walking the world, and Fate, and Delusion, too, in a form that I have kindly granted him. But no man sees love, and no demon sees it.”

So while many of the stories of Tales from the Flat Earth can stand on their own, there is also an overarching theme: Establishing another power that serves to balance out the others: Wickedness, Death, Delusion, and Fate—Azhriaz’ four “sons” (cryptically mentioned in the final chapter of Delirium’s Mistress)...

[cherrynojutsu]

Full offense but tumblr fucking the formatting of literally all of my past fic posts without protection is my last straw at trying to post my writing directly to this hellsite so from here on out imma literally just post a link here to AO3/FF.net because I ain't the one to constantly have to update stuff on their behalf ✨

Like Gold - Chapter 18: Correlations is posted!

AO3 Link | FF.net Link

[phinjeet]

* i miss lou uglydollz so bad itz terrible 4 me rn …..

[endiness]

on a “roman is gay/ace truther” level, i find the idea of roman going after kerry to be so baffling because, like. every time he's expressed 'attraction' to women his father finds attractive and approves of, it’s always seemed so desperately performative to me, like roman trying to convince the world (his father) that he's sexually attracted to women when he isn't. and, like, by the end of the s3 he can't even manage the charade anymore? like, when logan asks him if he thinks kerry's attractive, he just answers in a very tired, practically monotone, unconvincing voice "yeah, yep."

(plus i feel like with where roman's been at so far this season it doesn't make any sense, either? because if he did pursue kerry, at least to me, it would come off as incredibly performative. and i feel like that’s something roman’s had a problem with all season? like, he could've easily made a joke about his father's sex life in the last episode like everyone expected him to but he didn't. he didn't want to. he didn't want to slip into that role because that’s what it is for him: a role he’s been playing. and he's tired of it.)

[gnomewithalaptop]

Y'know, it's so funny to me when people make out like Tim Drake would keep files on how to take down his friends when Tim has explicitly said he disagrees with Batman on this:

[Young Justice (1998) #36]

Like, yes, during his Red Robin tenure he does make a Hit List full of contingency plans for known heroes. But if you go and read that, you'll notice that, while the Justice League and Damian may be on there, Tim's own friends are decidedly absent:

[Red Robin (2009) #14]

In fact, a lot of these heroes are people that have either (a) attacked Tim specifically, (b) have a track record that includes turning evil/getting mind controlled, or (c) are on the JLA (meaning Batman probably already had those files compiled and Tim just stole them).

So yeah: Tim's not down with contingency-planning for his friends. You know which one of the YJ crew DID agree with Batman though? My favorite blorbina Anita Fite, aka Empress:

[Young Justice (1998) #36]

But yeah, this contrast is honestly fascinating to me. Because while both Anita and Tim have been shown to be incredibly loyal individuals, this exchange really highlights the fact that, between the two of them, Anita is far more likely to engage in this kind of pragmatism when she thinks it's necessary to get the job done

The whole Our Worlds at War arc actually does a really good job of illustrating how both of them react to betrayal from within. It's not just the Batman Files conflict either -- I'm thinking specifically about the hallucination-based torture Granny Goodness put them through, which showed them their worst fears. Most of the team ended up having to watch their loved ones die, but what's super interesting to me is that we really only see Anita and Tim hallucinate that their loved ones blame them for their deaths:

[Young Justice (1998) #37]

Like. It's not the same as a teammate turning evil at all. But it does give us a good idea of how they'd both react when faced with a friend or teammate doing harmful things, albeit on a smaller scale. Because where Tim kind of just accepts Superboy yelling at him and moves straight into bargaining for Kon's life, Anita actually flips the script, gets angry, and defends herself against her father:

[Young Justice (1998) #37]

(she actually gets so righteously pissed off that she manages to break out of the VR simulation Granny Goodness had her trapped in, but that's another point)

But yeah, it's super interesting, because by this point, both Anita and Tim have been set up to be very similar characters. They both can be a little bit obsessive, they both have some issues with boundaries and stalking (Tim with Nightwing and Batman, Anita with Cissie), and of the team, they're both portrayed as the "normal" members (Anita does technically have mind control powers but she barely ever uses them, and in a fight, she's basically just a very good, human-level fighter)

But at the end of the day, though Batman forces Robin to put on a cool front of objectivity, Tim (at least in his pre-grief-spiral era) ultimately wants to see the best in his team. When the people he cares about screw up, he wants to give them second chances. And when that trust gets broken, his first instinct is to try to use diplomacy, or, failing that, simply remove himself from the situation (as we see at the end of the Our Worlds at War arc when he quits the team)

Anita, on the other hand, while still incredibly loyal, does not hand out that loyalty unconditionally. We see this when she tries to keep her identity secret from the YJ squad, we see it when she gets pissed in Granny Goodness's hallucination when her father blames her for her mother's death, and we see it when she later blames Secret for her perceived role in Anita's father's death

Anita also happens to sit right smack dab in the middle of the YJ morality scale; while she's generally pretty chill and willing to abide by typical superhero codes of ethics (unlike Slobo and Secret), she's also been shown to bend those rules when she believes it's necessary (as seen here when she tortures and threatens to kill a man for trying to hurt Cissie). Ultimately, what this means is, between Tim and Anita, it's honestly Anita who'd probably be the most willing to put her personal qualms aside, buckle down, and go against her loved ones if it was the only reasonable option

Anyway. This is a really long-winded way of saying I think Gun Batman's biggest nemesis should be Empress

[stuckinmymind22]

wise words | ace x gn!reader

and then it hit you - "you're in love with me"

wc: 1,127

tags: its just a bunch of fluff

series: "you're in love with me"

a/n: ik i said i'd post this tomorrow but i got too excited. this one ended up being much longer than i initially intended it to ngl i really like this one, it might be my favorite so far (both in the series and in general)

"ace," the whitebeard had said, making eye contact. the usage of his name told ace that whatever he had been about to say would be serious. "you are in love." pops had decided to have mercy on the boy, leaving ace alone to sit with what he had said, only slightly struggling to stand his nurses running after him. ace had been left frozen as he processed pop's words. it had felt like pieces falling into place and the world felt clearer. holy shit, he did love you

not proofread

ace had been treating you differently lately, that difference became starkly apparent when compared to how he acts with the rest of the crew. ace was known for being affectionate, both verbally and physically, especially when he gets a few drinks in him, but the way he acted around marco for example paled in comparison to the way that he would hang onto you.

ever since you returned from a mission just over a week ago he had barely left your side - that's not to say that you minded it, you had always had a bit of a thing for him and now you were starting to suspect he felt the same.

recently, you had discovered how he has been going out of his way to be around you. someone spilt the beans on how he has been taking over tasks assigned to other members just so he could be near you.

and here he was, high up on a mast helping you repair the edge of a sail that was damaged in a recent storm. a task that in all honesty was beneath him. a task you knew he hated, you remembered how he would complain about it.

ace kept poking his head around the side of the sail to talk to you, his eyes sparkled as you joked around and you found yourself getting lost in them. the two of you weren't exactly on task, you should've been done with this by now but no one has said anything and you weren't about to complain. you were basking in his warm company while trying to sus out how into you he was. the gears were turning then it hit you.

"holy shit," you say causing his head to snap to you in concern. you couldn't help but vocalize your revelation, "you're in love with me."

immediately, his playful smile fell as his face dropped, eyes going wide. out of all of the things he thought you might say, that was not even an option. still, he made no move to deny it

ace himself had only just realized the way he felt about you when pops, of all people, had called him out on it.

it all had happened after a banquet thrown in celebration of your return. you (along with several others) had just returned to the moby dick after a voyage to one of the islands under whitebeard's protection. the party had been dwindling down and you'd been making the rounds, and he'd been completely unable to keep his eyes off you, even when talking to pops his eyes consistently flickered over to you.

a small chuckle coming from pops was the thing that had pulled him away from you. "you're in deep, my son," the man said full of mirth. he had laughed even more at ace's confused face, "my boy, you are completely smitten."

"w-what do you mean?" ace had stuttered. his bright red face should have betrayed his look of confusion, but the puzzlement had been genuine.

"you haven't been able to take your eyes off of them since they returned. you struggled to even before they left," a light joyful laughter had broken whitebeard's speech, "haven't you noticed how you always gravitate towards them? don't you feel lighter when they are around?"

answering honestly ace had skeptically nodded to the line of questioning. the legendary pirate shook his head with a smile, muttering something about kids.

"ace," the old man had said, making eye contact. the usage of his name told ace that whatever he had been about to say would be serious. "you are in love."

pops had decided to have mercy on the boy, leaving ace alone to sit with what he had said, only slightly struggling to stand his nurses running after him.

ace had been left frozen as he processed pop's words. it had felt like pieces falling into place and the world felt clearer. holy shit, he did love you.

ace had stood in place for an undetermined amount of time, stewing in the realization. it had been marco who snapped ace out of his daze. after minor amounts of prodding, ace had confided in the doctor what pops said. to his surprise the first division commander had been relieved, telling ace that everyone on the ship seemed to know how the two of you felt about each other except for you two.

he wanted to believe you felt the same way, but he didn't want to hold onto false hope, despite what marco had said ace couldn't believe that you felt the same way, but he also knew he had a duty to tell you.

at the moment ace had no plans to make his feelings known (he hadn’t quite come up with anything yet, it was still new to him) and the last thing he expected was that you would figure it out on your own. to say the least he was caught off guard.

"am- am i right?" doubt and excitement are mixed into your question.

his face, all the way to the tips of his ears alight, the boy who was quite literally made of fire was burning up. ace nodded, the move paralleling a child caught doing something that they shouldn't be. he couldn't bring himself to look you in the eyes, but that all changed when at the edge of his vision, he saw a large smile blossom on your face.

you were so excited you didn't know what to do. you started to resent the fact that he was just outside of your reach when all you wanted to do at the moment is kiss him.

"let's get down, we can finish this later," you proposed. ace agreed to your plan — with hesitation.

once both of your feet were firmly placed on the deck, you grabbed him by the necklace and he stumbled into your lips. ace was startled by your actions at first but he was quick to melt into the kiss. you dropped his necklace to hook your arms over his shoulders. his hands moved to frame your face, pulling you closer to him, deepening the kiss.

the wolf whistles in the background all faded until they felt worlds away, as if all that existed in that moment was the two of you. reluctantly, the kiss was broken when the need for oxygen started to outweigh the need for each other's lips.

ace rested his forehead against yours as the two of you struggled to catch your breath. he couldn't help the massive smile that formed on his face - this went way better than he ever could have imagined.

masterlist | damn, that shit was so cute, patting myself on the back fr

[jadeschambers]

CHAPTER 1: Trueform!Sukuna x Isekai!gn!reader

(reader has no gender but has f genitals.)

Parings: Ryomen Sukuna

Tags: Slow burn, eventual Smut, god/godess demigod reader, sukuna needs his own warnings, huge!size kink (that man is like 8 ft tall), mentioned cannibalism, noncon? (just beware, reader ❤️ him/ don’t read if it makes u uncomfy), cunnilingus, breast play. Some cursing n crack. original idea to this series on my page.

intro, II

In Teyvat, an old friend would persist that gods cannot be trusted. Is Sukuna the god that calls your knees to the floor and pulls the praise from your throat? Or is he a temptation of desires from a life you never knew you could have.

given by your enemies; wounds and gashes heavily mar your body. recent battles have not been kind, and sometimes you wonder if victory is worth winning. Sukunas estate was shrouded by an eery silence as the sun settled, and it was almost like it was only just you in the world. “Uraume. Give them a bath and bring them to me after.” Sukuna’s broad back met your gaze as he strode away, his white haired subordinate obeying with no hesitation. “thank you…”

the curse turned, an arrogant smile plastered on his face. “Sukuna, thats Lord Sukuna for you little dove.” it was almost like his arrogance transformed him.

the halls to the bathing chamber looked like it was intricately carved by the hands of a dragon sovereign, and it was admirably distracting. standing by your side as you entered the bathing chamber, uraume held out their hands. they wanted you to strip

“oh uhm— i can bathe myself-“ before you could even finish the robes on your tarnished body slipped off, and lukewarm water stung in the deep gashes decorating your body. “to keep lord Sukuna waiting will not suffice.” they grumbled, trying to scrub you as gently as possible. “h-hey! that hurts!” uraumes hands were not very gentle, but seeing as the dirt floated into the water their roughness was proven to benefit.

warm water was a luxury to commoners back in Teyvat, boiling water naturally was a pain in your ass. but as a well respected demigod, it was something you wouldn’t really have to usually worry about. soft towels were used to dry off your skin, and you were handed a beautiful silk robe.

it looked and felt heavy, and would most likely be hard to fight in, but if you weren’t to except the gifted robe would they see you as ungrateful. “oh.. this is very beautiful; but what if it gets ruined��?” the silk felt so soft rubbing against your hands.

“either way lord sukuna will end up ruining it. except the gift, he is not always this generous.” uraume replied, insisting to help you put it on. their words widened your eyes. what in the celestia were they babbling about? “took ya long enough.” sukunas voice was deep and sensual.

he carried an aura that was definitely unmatched to what i have seen. “thank you for the robe sukuna.. and thank you for letting me stay here.” you whispered, giving him your gratitude. “pull out your weapon.”his chin lifted slightly, and by god did he really look intimidating.

stepping back in hesitation, you began to double think. were you lured into a trap? “w-why? you aren’t going to fight me are you?” your body most definitely could not handle another fight right now, and it honestly felt like you were going to collapse. sukuna looked like a demon, and charging into a fight without knowing your enemies strength is a death wish.

suddenly you found yourself right in front of him, his huge frame towering over you. “w-wait! if we’re going to fight at least let me change robes!” you placed your hands on his chest in defense, and without realizing, Sukuna was sent flying backwards. Uraume stood with their eyes open wide before crouching by their master. it took a few moments to realize what you had done. “oh my archons! im so sorry!” you gasped, immediately running to his side.

Sukuna chuckled as he sat up, his large hands grasping yours. “a strong opponent, how interesting.” he suddenly pinned you beneath him— despite the huge hole in the wall from his body he seemed utterly fine. “just what are you exactly..?” sukuna tilted his head, absolutely infatuated with that innocent look in your eyes.

looking into his eyes felt like he was hypnotizing you, in defense you managed to wiggle out from his grasp. “im really sorry sukuna… you aren’t hurt are you..?” your eyes widened as you noticed the inky black tattoos stretching across his biceps. “non sense.” he shook his head, helping you up before leading you out into the hall. “you must be fatigued, little one.” sukuna smirk faltered as he turned. just what were you? no modern sorcerer in his time could even lay a finger on him, even those who lie in the Gojo and Zenin clan.

before you now were large dark oak double doors, and as sukuna pushed them open he lead you into the room. “rest here, let us resume in the morning.” he sat you down onto the plush bed. “thank you, i really didn’t-“ sukuna placed a hand on your head, preventing you from finishing. “it is nothing on your part. now sleep.”

“We shall turn to Oratrice Mecanique d’Analyse Cardinale to render the final verdict on the charges.” Neuvilettes voice reverberated off the opera houses walls, the audience below held in silence by the anticipation. “hm? this cannot be right..” the dragon muttered under his breathe. noticing the look on Monsieur Neuvilettes face, your mind pondered on what was about to happen. “The hydro archon, guilty.” the Chief of Justice paused, holding his breath. “To be punished via…the death sentence.”

with his words a wave of gasps erupt from the crowd below, and Navia stumbles beside you. “T-This cant be right!” someone shouts below. Furina sat in the opposite gallery, tears streaming down her cheeks. “The death sentence? Thats way too far!” they retort, many beginning to question the laws of justice.

A powerful earthquake suddenly struck the opera house, sending the audience to flee for the exits. “The waters are rising!” they screamed in horror, the stampede panicking for safety, praying to their archon for strength. Suddenly a gaping hole ripped through space in the middle of the opera house, and from the darkness a gargantuan whale leapt forward, weeping.

—

“So we’ve finally met it at last… I understand very well why it has chosen to make an appearance here.” The hole in space began to close as Neuvilette explained his plan. “thanks to childe none of you were eaten?” you asked, tilting your head in worry. “Indeed, but it still traverses in the Primordial Sea, it is not from here.”

Neuvilette placed a hand on your shoulder, a foreign glint in his eyes. “I am not a fully fledged dragon, which means i need your help defeating it.” now standing in front of you both of his hands gripped your shoulders. “b-but what about the oratrice..?! and Lady Furina?” you stuttered, eyes frantically searching the room. “We will worry about the trivial matters once we return.” Neuvilette assured, yet something felt off.

As you battled, many gashes were torn in your skin, making you wince. “Are you alright?!” Neuvilette yelled through the loud crashing waves, trying to reach you, only for the unknown entity to crash into the waters, its mouth wide open.

it was going to swallow you, and it was already too late. snapping its jaws shut, the sickening clench of the whales bones grinding together. the very last thing you saw before your vision turned black was the dragon sovereign running towards your limp body.

tumblr deleted the draft to this two fuckifn times but i honestly like mashing up different worlds like this c:

tags : @maskedpacific @kbirdieee2540

art credit to nachikusan, decay_int, woshihedawei all on X

[kunikame]

# PURPLE LILACS !

[10] - a sudden.. !! | prev. | m. list | next

ace trappola x fem!reader smau

! warning(s) : cussing, sebek gets stepped on (literally), death mention, not canon compliant turn of events for plot, crowley, no beta we die like ortho shroud, love u guys btw

! w/c : 761

and so on a sunny wednesday lunch break you find yourself sitting at your usual table, surrounded by your fellow first years. you spot jade a few tables away, menacingly glaring at some poor unfortunate student, and send him a quick wave when your eyes meet.

“–nd i kid you not he genuinely folded. so like the great person i am, i used the newly placed hallway carpet.”

“ya stepped on him?!” a few droplets of apple juice land near your plate. you shoot a quick look at epel, only to see the rest of the table doesn’t look much better, since he spat all the juice in his mouth out at this newfound piece of information (read: blackmail material).

deuce sighs in his seat to your left, “yeah, he did. i had to watch malleus’ face go from perplexed to absolutely horrified in the span of barely 5 seconds because of him. thought we were gonna die.”

epel finds this unfathomably hilarious. sebek, however, has not spoken in the past 10 minutes, despite usually being the loudest of the group. you feel a little bad for him– the poor thing has just been staring at his plate with a scarlet face this whole time. yet just as you open your mouth to try to console him, lilia appears out of seemingly thin air, hanging upside down directly in front of your face.

“hey faestie!~ a little bat told me the headmage has something important to discuss with you! you best hurry before he changes his mind, kuhuhu~”

and just as swiftly as he appeared, he also vanished. where his face once was, you now see the horrified eyes of jack and epel, and sebeks full face for the first time today.

you turn to the right to glance at ace with an eyebrow raised, silently asking if they've done anything bad without your knowledge. he shakes his head, fluffy ginger hair flying with the motion, and gives you a concerned look (which seems a little out of place on his face when directed at you, but you quickly dismiss the thought).

“i’ll be fine,” you say, slowly getting up from your spot and cleaning up your mess, “it’s probably just another unpaid job he wants me to do. i’ll see you guys later.

“with all due respect, what the fuck?”

crowley lets out the most offended gasp you've ever heard, “that is no way to be speaking in my office! this is unacceptable behavior! but since i am so gracious, i shall let it pass, because you have clearly not yet processed my generous offer.”

you heave an exasperated sigh, the seven know you're tired of this, “if i heard you right, you basically just said i have magic? like, actually? you're joking, right? i mean, come on, i've been here for like half a year and the only magic i can produce is manslaughter. be so for real with me right now.”

crowley's glowing eye twitches (at least, you think it does. it’s really hard to tell, honestly) “yes, that is basically what i said. see, the carriage did not bring you here by mere accident, despite it being through..”  he pauses, taking a seat in his gigantic chair, “unfortunate means. if it brought you here, it means it sensed something within you. so i’ve had some tests run in the background, and as it turns out, you do have a magical affinity, it just seems to be suppressed.”

you fall into the chair opposite him. whether it was because of your knees giving out from pure disbelief, or just because of how tired you are of everything, you're not really sure.

“.. okay, so what does that mean for me?”

“it means you can use magic once we figure out how to unlock it. it means you can continue studying here as an actual student.”

you blankly stared at the wall, thinking your choices through thoroughly.

you can't go back to your world unless you want to be dead, so having a place to stay would be great. if you had magic it would certainly make life, and your classes, much easier. you would no longer have to rely on grim or the guys to protect you in case of an overblot, either. it sounded great, overall.

“so? what will it be?”

your eyes slowly moved from the window to crowley's glowing ones.

your parents would feel more at peace knowing you could protect yourself in a foreign world (if they remembered you, that is).

“alright. let’s do it.”

## ❝ after the events of the phantom bride wedding, ace started wondering whether he still had the ability to charm girls. he hasn’t thought about anyone romantically in years, hasn’t really flirted with anyone either, what if he’s gone out of it? perhaps it’s time to put his talents to the test; with the person who hates him most, no less. if he can charm her, he can charm anyone. ❞

#TAGLIST ! : @solxima @gabirii @lunavixia @y2unagiz @the-ghost-0f-t0m0 @borlining @verity-moon @myunghology @doughnuts-eater @lifeless-bug @babygurlenthusiast @shirishere @xopeach @stormyovent0aster @bontensbabygirl @ars-tral @wrathy-mcwrathface @sinofthesloth @skeet-2 @everettelz @sakuram1nt @shatiyuh @ambigrueity @junebunny06 @norylight @dyedracoonhair @persm1net @meowbuscompany @sugarrush-blush @oopsie-daisy-doo @yuumei-strawberry-shortcake @jaiistg // ask/comment to be added/removed! (if you’re in bold i can’t tag you)

[staytinyville]

Stay Alive (46)

BTS poly!ot7 x Reader

Magical Creatures AU

Series Masterlist

Warnings: none

A/N NOT BETA. It's been a minute y'all. I did start a new job though that allows me a lot of time to do some writing. Honestly I would've had this done Wednesday because I took a sick day but I left the papers I write my stories on at work which was a let down. BUT YOU HAVE IT NOW.

“What area are we in?” Moonbyul asked, looking around. 

There were a total of four portal keys. You had taken one and hoped that it didn’t open out in the general area. The boys had forced the girls to go with you just in case things went south the moment you opened a door. 

Luckily for your group, you were immediately welcomed by the sight of lockers and benches inside tiled floors. There were showers off to the side and towels placed in certain areas. You quickly knew where you had entered and cautiously glanced from side to side trying to find others looking around. 

“It's the pool locker room. This is where Jimin stayed most of the time.” You answered, looking around trying to find something out of order. 

Footsteps were heard coming out of the shower rooms. You all froze staring wide eyed at the person heading in your direction. When the man who had been taking his time to shower saw the large group of women all staring at him, he froze in his steps as well.

He had a towel wrapped around his waist, hands frozen in his hair as he had been drying it with another towel. 

“What are you all doing in here?” He suddenly frowned, looking at all of you appalled. 

“Dongwook!” IU gasped, her lips pulling up into a large smile as she moved to the front of the group.

Dongwook’s breath got caught in his throat as he looked down at the swan maiden. His eyes were wide and his lips were open as he tried to comprehend that she was really in front of him. 

“IU? But—How did he get you!? What are you doing here!?” He cried, dropping the towel in his hands to pull at the girl’s arms. 

“Shhh! We don't want to get caught.” Wheein rushed forward, trying to get the man to calm down. “And put some clothes on!”

“Don't tell me to shush. And you're the one in the men's showers.” He speaks to her with an incredulous look. 

You finally moved forward, catching the man’s attention as he realized who you were. “We've come to rescue all of you.”

“What?” He frowned. 

“We've come from our home world. We're going to take you all back.” IU spoke up, giving him a kind smile. 

You watched as Dongwook seemed to take some time to process what it was the woman was telling him. But the moment he got a hang of it, it was clear that he was feeling all kinds of emotions. 

You could only begin to imagine how each and everyone of the patients might be feeling the moment they hear they are going back home. Anyone would be more than thrilled–more than appreciative to go back home. It was one thing to be gone from your home because you were doing something out of town but to be gone because someone forced you. In a different universe no less. Hearing the words that you were going back home was a miracle. 

It made you smile thinking about your boys. 

“Well damn, let me put on some clothes and I'll help you.” Dongwook quickly said, turning around to get his clothing.

“Age did him justice.” Solar nodded to the other valkyries who agreed with her. 

“Where do we go from here?” IU asked, turning to you. 

“We have to find where everyone else is and tell those close by that one of the doors is in here.” You began to explain. “Dongwook you try to lead as many as you can back here. The nurses won't suspect you. For now we'll try to gather as many as we can without suspicion.”

When they all gave you nods in understanding, you quickly began to move around the room, trying to find if anyone else was around the facility. 

“What are you going to do?” Hwasa asked. 

You stop, taking in a breath. It stuck with you what Taehyung had told you. You had no idea where they were–if they were still even out there–but you knew he would never be whole without them. 

“Fearies are supposed to have wings.” You spoke up looking at them all. “I need to find Taehyung's wings.”

“Aren't they looking for you?” Wheein told you.

“I'll try to find a disguise. Don't worry about me. You try to get the others out as fast as you can.” You spoke softly, looking at them all expectantly. 

Walking out into the pool hallway, you made your way to the girl’s locker room. You found it odd how there was a pair of hospital clothes in some draws but you figured it was for people to get new pairs. So you dress yourself up and hope for the best with all the other nurses. 

There weren't really many people out in the hallways but you still continued with caution. Every patient that came across you would look at you wide eyed–surprised you were back. They tried to warn you the best they could about Hanseol looking for you and the boys, but you just explained to them why you were back. 

They still looked at you oddly before tears would begin to fill their eyes. Some decided to help you while others were told to go to the locker room. They sent the children first, making sure each of them were safe. 

You felt confident in the amount of people who were going through the doors–the boys having been keeping you up to date with how many they’ve been sending. Out of the 50 patients in the entire facility 37 have already made it through.

Just as you were turning a corner after sending an older woman on her way, alarms began to blare overhead, the commotion to make you feel unsettled. 

You froze and looked wide eyed as nurses began to rush past. You stuck to the wall allowing the staff and security to rush by. They didn’t pay you any mind, seemingly doing their own thing as they began to open and close doors. 

“(Y/N)! Who set off the alarm!?” Seokjin’s voice resounded through your head. 

You felt something was off as the hall turned quiet aside from the alarms. 

“Kyung knows we are here.” Hoseok's voice warned all of you.

“You have to go back with the others.” 

Your eyes went wide at Namjoon’s command. “What about you?”

“We'll be fine. You have to be safe.”

“Namjoon—”

“Don't argue. Please, for our sake.” Yoongi spoke quietly. 

You clenched your jaw, knowing that you weren’t going to be able to change their minds. But there was something stopping you from listening to what they had to say. You needed to find Taehyung’s wings somehow. At this point you knew they had to be here–it was something in your gut telling you they were. 

“Jagiya.” Taehyung’s soft voice called for you.

His voice only strengthened your resolve. But you knew you would have to lie, if only just for a moment.

You sighed, looking down to the ground. “Okay.”

With the seven boys they all looked at each with grateful glances. They were glad to know you didn’t try arguing, however they didn’t know how far you were from the door. And if you were alone it only made things worse. 

“You had the chance to stay at home and yet you all returned. I knew none of you would ever be able to leave behind everyone.”

They all stopped in their tracks and turned to find the man who had taken them all from their home 10 years ago. He looked mad, much more than normal. It seemed like he wasn’t well put together like he had always been. It seemed as though during their departure things had taken a downturn for the demon. 

“Your ways end here, Hanseol. You've hurt enough people.” Namjoon glared, pushing forward in the group to stand in the front.

“I am not hurting anyone!” Hanseol screamed. “You'd be dead by now if it wasn't for my thinking and research! I am not the bad guy here. I am helping others.”

“You're helping humans.” Jin spat out. 

“Oh, so now you hate them? What about your pretty little mate? Think I don't remember her?” 

Each of them suddenly went ridged. Jin felt Taehyung suddenly grab onto his arm, scared that they were after (Y/N). Yoongi gave Namjoon a worried glance, but the leader only turned to Hobi who gave him a subtle nod to him that she was currently okay. 

For now. 

“Oh how easy human lives are to just break. That is why I am doing what I do. To give them a better future. Better chances of surviving.”

“At the risks of other creatures. None of them deserve what you did.” Jimin retorted. 

“Did what? You were always the ones who offered themselves in their place. We hardly ever touched the others compared to you.”

“Enough of this stupid talk! All of you come back to the facility and I'll let bygones be bygones.”

“You're not okay, Hanseol.” Hobi called out. 

“I am perfectly capable! If you won't come with me then I'll just take you!”

Before any of them could say anything else, Hanseol’s head suddenly turned to the side and a loud crack was heard. All seven of them gasped, taking a step back as the hands that were wrapped around the demon quickly let go of him. 

As Bangtan looked up, their emotions spiked as they watched Kyong look down at Hanseol’s dead body. 

“He doesn't understand when others are stronger than him. If someone was going to kill him it would be me.” The man spoke nonchalantly. 

“Kyong.” Jungkook growled. 

“Nice to see you all again. What a sweet reunion this is.” The man grinned devilishly. “I'm going to enjoy picking you all off.”

Kyong cracked his head, fingers twitching as his fingers turned a black from the magic that seemed to begin to seep out of him. Hoseok felt a shiver go down his spine, feeling something off with the man’s magic. 

“It's seven against one. You really think yourself stronger?” Namjoon asked, lips pulled up in a snarl as he took a defensive stance. 

“You've been stuck here for years. You hardly know an ounce of what I do. You could never try to stop me. Besides who is going to save your little mate.”

Series Masterlist

@h3arteyes4mingi , @fangirling-all-the-way-tbh , @rln-byg , @singukieee ,  @hoshi-is-ult-bbg , @ldysmfrst , @juju-227592 , @dreamerwasfound , @afangirl91 , @psiphidragon , @puppyminnnie , @shyloh-the-cornsnake , @ollyoxenfrees , @whynotlarene , @beeltsumu , @cryingpages , @milopenne , @belikejk , @woozixo,

[the-s1lly-corner]

Waking them up w/ a morning kiss! (TADC edition)

slowly but surely i am approaching the end of my tycoon... and yet despite the exhaustion creeping and making a home in my bones, i do not feel the desire to go to bed. perhaps its self destruction or carelessness, i'll be damned that this is the most productive ive been writing wise in a hot minute anyways requests are open

CAINE:

well this is assuming he sleeps... which personally, while i think the others CAN sleep (although they dont need to), i dont think.. caine can.. i think when he falls asleep its akin to how computers to. but one little tap is enough to snap him right back... so you may get startled when he snaps his jaws open the second your lips make contact with his teeth... but dont be alarmed...! hes not upset.. actually i think if anything he might be a little shocked at the gesture... oh he should have done it to you, damn it! definitely going to try to one up you that day, no one gets the jump on # 1 reader simp, Caine!!! 8/10 hes still very giddy and happy about it and hes in a good mood for the entire day

POMNI:

i think she might be a little too groggy to realize youve kissed her, but will flutter her eyes open if you give her another kiss. gets really red in the face before pushing herself deeper under the covers... i think shes generally like that with random gestures of affection and love, so please dont take this as her not enjoying the act! i promise she does like it, its just between this being standard reaction for her and just waking up shes a little... more bashful than she normally would be.. i think she would try to do the same to you the following day.. or maybe do a surprise gesture for you in return to even out the score! 7/10 very cute

RAGATHA:

as time passes i find myself making ragatha more and more of a sap, and honestly i dont hate the direction im going in. i think if you woke her up with a kiss, she would be smiling throughout the day and like caine, be in a more upbeat mood! its such a small thing to wake up to, but it means the world to her, you know? know these are starting to sound samesy with the 'returning the favor' thing but i think ragatha would at least double what you did for her.. you better incorporate the morning kisses into your routine because small stuff like that goes a long way for ragatha! 8/10

JAX:

i think he might just look at you before flipping over to face the other way and try to go back to sleep. its not totally to be mean to you and him being 'eeeewww affection' but mostly because hes not really.... a morning person. he never will be. kiss him all you want, hes not going to wake up... if he doesnt turn over, hes probably going to tug you to his chest and hold you still. probably grumbles at you to stop because he wants to sleep in that morning... but hey, look at it this way, you got some cuddling now! so hey at least theres some side of trade 5/10

KINGER:

i think he might nuzzle into your cheek and try to give you a 'kiss' back when he realizes what youre doing. pulls you to his chest, but he has full intent (unlike jax who mostly just wanted to keep you put and to make you stop moving around)... he may not have arms, but hes going to try his damndest to use his hands to keep you close... tries to push off the beginning of the day for a while longer... despite kinger actually being a morning person. leads to the two of you having a mumbled conversation about your dreams... very nice very sweet 8/10

ZOOBLE:

oh zooble is very much NOT a morning person, but i dont think they would be as mean as jax... they might mumble and tell you to hold back, but once theyre fully awake theyre going to set down some boundaries and apologize if they had upset you. they just dont like being woken up, no matter how sweetly... unless theres an emergency, they dont want to be woken up... though even then they might still be a little irritated... i think in this case swapping out morning kisses for something else that works better for both of you is the best course of action here 6/10

GANGLE:

i think she would lean right into it... maybe she wraps herself around you, if she hadnt already done that in her sleep... her mask is a little cold, so it might shock you a little and wake you up a lot more than you were expecting... oh i think gangle would feel bad about that... she didnt mean to make you uncomfortable (even though ultimately, youre not)...i think throughout the day she might be more happy and bubbly, perhaps even putting herself out more than she normally would. definitely a confidence boost for her! she even doesnt seem as sad or upset when her comedy mask breaks... i mean shes still... upset.. but not as much as she normally would be 7/10 very cute

[superemeralds]

i think about ur piece with shadow captioned “welcome to the promised land” ALOT… with that, i wondered what your thoughts are on the sonic movies (both the ones that came out and the new one thats coming) in regards to their portrayal of the police/military/GUN.

I’m personally really disappointed in whats been done so far (with Tom being a cop, like cmon man what. and with the goofy portrayal of the military, especially that old general guy in the second movie) and im really nervous about whats coming, with team sonic working WITH GUN (and now Tom and Maddie wearing military uniforms) in the trailers. I have a suspicion that Maria’s death will be an “accident”, like a very MCU style “sometimes the military makes mistakes…” bullshit. itd really suck to see this series become another piece of copaganda, especially since like. its so out of character, like sonic is unique in the way its been blatantly anti military (for the most part) in the games. it wasn’t revolutionary by any means but it is arguably a core part of the original story.

What are your thoughts? sorry for the long ask, I’m a big fan of your writing and thoughts on sonic (huge heart of a monster fan!). Hope youre having a good day!

big same. I've made the comic in question as a response to the first trailer for sonic 3 actually.

the trailer made me feel a LOT of emotions, mostly negative if im honest, and the only thing that I liked from it was the scene of shadow bursting from his tank thing and being sloppin wet that looked like he was standing in the rain. so i went and made a comic of shadow in the rain. and i made it as anti military and anti capitalism as i could.

becasue sonic 3's marketing, in my opinion, especially after the second trailer came out, is a perfect axample of everything wrong with the current western (mostly USA, but the USA influences the entire world so.) society. it exemplifies capitalism, militarism, consumerism, a lack of emotional depth and the infantalization as well as mliking (for a lack of better word; i mean how advertizements are usually heavily marketed at kids because parents will buy anyhting to shut up their crying annoying meat bags and therefore spend money on shit they dont want nor need) of children (that detective pikachu bit was so painful). and let's not forget the fatphobia. it was so painful to go back and watch the first trailer to freshen my memory for this reply oh god.

when sonic 2 came out i was really happy with the movie. i think sonic 2 is miles better than 1 in terms of characters and fun, most obviously because there's more of actual sonic characters in it now then the first. the first felt mostly like a pilot honestly. the second one had much more fantastical details and elements thatreally leaned into sonic's world. Or at least... the environment artists tried with it. I remember being OBSESSED with the fact tehre was a mural of perfect chaos in that labyrinth for like 1 second and theorized about what it could mean. while watching the movie i even speculated it was foreshadowing that perfect chaos was gonna be the secret final boss of the movie as that was only the halfway point of the runtime. having sobered from the hype i understand its a neat detail from the cg department that means absolutely nothing.

the worst thing is that the movie (sonic 3 now) itself might be like. a well made movie with good (enough) writing and good visuals and whatever. sonic might betray the military and go his own way bc here he's a little younger and he's learning (he didnt grow up w military so he might be blissfull yunaware bc hes only been fed propaganda through hollywood movies so far) and him meeting shadow and learning about his fate might change his mind. we don't know yet.

The marketing sometimes is detatched from the movie itself so it'll misrepresent things for the sake of "bait" to get ppl to spend money to watch it (the teenage kraken movie suffered from that bc it was fun imo i liked it). Or even just to get people to make viral reactions to get even MORE news of the movie out and attract more people. Especially when adapting a story that already exists I think it makes them reveal a LOT of the movie (I saw ppl complain they reveal the entire movie in the trailer, i think given the fact we already know all those key moments shown it's fine)

actually. does anyone know if the us army funded this movie? i know it does a lot of movies ever since iron man

idek where im going w this rn im just. eghh.... def not gonna see it in cinema ♥ my money goes towards literally anything else

[linawritestwst]

"it grew and burst into a love so bad that it feels good" (gn!reader)

YANDERE!READER IS BACK BABY!! i've been in a mood to write something yandere-themed, so.. yeah, this is a part 2 to these hcs! this time, however, it's just the characters that i wanted to write for and not really the "scariest" or "most weird" twst characters. you can consider this a halloween post too, if you want! (though i'm also working on the actual halloween special post >:3)

(also, this time yandere!reader won't really have a "defining" personality trait, but their yandere type will be mentioned)

(also [2], the title is a reference to this suki suki daisuki eng cover. i know that the original song isn't actually exactly "yanderecore", but the lyrics fit so well!)

characters: cater diamond, leona kingscholar, azul ashengrotto, vil schoenheit, idia shroud, sebek zigvolt, neige leblanche

genre: horror

warnings: general yandere content, toxic relationships, descriptions of manipulating and stalking, implication of murder and the reader character is.. a little bit delusional.

➽───────────────❥

character: cater diamond

yandere type: loneliness induction

➽───────────────❥

♡ oh, cater. someone who tries so hard to convince people that he's fine, that he's doing great, that his life is so perfect and fun and bright.. but you know what he's really like. you know what's going on in his head. you know what kind of person he is. you know how much cater is suffering. of course you know. you know everything about him after all! this is why you two are such good friends!.. but hey, why not become something more than this? why settle for something like friendship, when you can have more? come on, it's okay for you to be a little greedy, considering how much you've done for him!

♡ you are so nice to him. you are so kind to him. you make sure to listen to him. you like all of his posts and leave comments. he wants to take a picture with you? you're more than happy to do that! and if he feels like nobody cares about his problems and he can't be honest with anyone, well, he's wrong, because he has you. oh, but he doesn't need anyone else! you're the only person in this school who actually cares about him, he should know that. honestly, you're probably the only person in this whole world who cares about him.

♡ of course, he has someone to go to if he's not feeling so good! that person is you! you will always be there for him. you will listen. you will tell him that his feelings are valid. you will tell him how much you understand him. oh, but you also will tell him that nobody else in this school will get him. you will tell him to look at the other students and think: do they care? do they understand him? would they feel sorry for him? the answer to all those questions is no. so it's okay if the only person who can hold him while he cries is you. and it's okay if he's been crying a bit too often lately.

➽───────────────❥

character: leona kingscholar

yandere type: wrong idea

➽───────────────❥

♡ leona treats you the exact same way he treats all the other students.. or so other people say. some people say that he actually finds you more annoying than most students. but you know they're wrong. you know they are so, so wrong. because you know the truth: leona kingscholar is madly in love with you. hm? how do you know that? uh.. well, you can just feel it! you can feel it from the way he looks at you, you can feel it from the way he talks to you, you can even feel it from the way he breathes when he's asleep and you're right there next to him!.. w-was that too much?

♡ so, why he still hasn't confessed to you? you're not sure actually. you think that he's just a little shy. aww, wouldn't that be so cute? imagine someone like him secretly being too shy to confess his feelings! you can just feel yourself falling more and more in love with him. well, you have no choice but to wait for his confession.. probably. you want to believe that you have more options than that. you know that you have to be patient, but it's just so.. hard.. there must be a different way out, right?

♡ oh, why don't you just give him a little push? no, no, you don't want to confess first, that'd be so embarrassing, haha.. why don't you just leave a hint for him? why don't you try to tell him that he should be honest with his feelings and that if he wants to say something, he should say it with pride? yes, you will do exactly that!.. huh? i-it didn't work as planned.. haha, he's just saying that if you want him to be honest, he's gonna be honest with you and say that he hates you right to your face.. ahaha.. come on, he's just being a tsundere, right?

➽───────────────❥

character: azul ashengrotto

yandere type: manipulative

➽───────────────❥

♡ you know how weak and vulnerable azul really is. you know. but it's okay. he can always rely on you. he can always trust you. you promise that you will never leave him. seriously, even those twins who follow him around would leave him sooner than you. the moment they get bored, that's it, they won't spend another second with him. of course, azul assures you that jade and floyd really are loyal.. but your words still make him a little uncomfortable. haha, so he really doesn't want to be left alone.

♡ it's okay, you will always be here to tell him how smart and talented he is. you will praise him as much as he wants to be praised and you will comfort him as much as he wants to be comforted. he doesn't have to put on a mask when you're around. he doesn't have to make you sign any kind of contract, because you're definitely planning to keep your promise and you really will stay with him no matter what. he's just too fun to manipulate, why would you even think of leaving him?

♡ if he ends up breaking down and crying and showing you his true feelings, you will give him a gentle smile and wipe his tears away and softly kiss his cheeks. you repeat the same words again. it's okay. it's okay to cry. it's okay for him to be weak. it's okay for him to be slow. he doesn't have to pretend to be better when you're the only person who's around. actually, you like him much better in this state. so can he promise you to be more honest with himself?

➽───────────────❥

character: vil schoenheit

yandere type: monopoly

➽───────────────❥

♡ vil is.. beautiful. very beautiful. so beautiful that if you ever forgot your whole life, you would still remember his face. and of course, no matter how much you love him and no matter how well you know that you're going to be loyal to him and treat him better than anyone else can, you have so many rivals, you can't even count them. ugh, getting rid of them is gonna be so much work.. especially considering that a lot of them are from pomefiore and trying to poison them is probably not a good idea.

♡ it's okay, you can just outsmart them. you can manipulate them, you can convince them that they're just not good enough for him. come on, how can they even imagine themselves standing next to vil schoenheit himself? seriously, that's not even brave, that's just stupid. you can just make everyone's self-esteem become so low that they will never even think about trying to confess to vil or even looking at him. oh, but you also have to convince them that whoever vil chooses is the only person who will be worthy of him. i wonder who that person could be..

♡ but of course, some rivals are stronger than others. seriously, what is wrong with his vice dorm leader. this is the guy that spends the most time with vil and also compliments him the most. he's like, his biggest fan here. and.. uh.. trying to get rid of him physically is not a good idea. outsmarting him is also not an option, because this guy is probably not even worried about the possibility of being able to date vil. he just admires him a lot and wants to see him every day and that's all. well, here's the thing.. you want to do exactly that as well, so you need this guy dead.

➽───────────────❥

character: idia shroud

yandere type: protective

➽───────────────❥

♡ idia shroud is a quiet, introverted type. the things that he would do so that he didn't have to leave his room at all. idia shroud doesn't remember the last time he had ever touched grass. and he's exactly your type. and you will do anything to make his life easier. he doesn't have to socialize! he doesn't have to leave his room! you will do everything for him, all he has to do is ask! actually, no, he doesn't even have to ask, you always know what he needs. hm? and what does he need right now?.. well.. you, of course!

♡ people say that you spoil him too much, but you can't agree. this is how you express your love for him, what's so bad about that? and idia is just someone who needs a little bit more love than other people do. he's just so fragile, so weak, so.. haha, no, this guy won't survive without you. you know that better than anyone. idia shroud doesn't have to socialize and leave his room. you'll make sure he doesn't do that.

♡ this world is way too scary and dangerous for him! anime, manga, video games, they're so much better than real world! and whenever he has any doubts or wants to ask you a question, you can just say that you want to play with him or watch his favorite show with him and that's it, he won't remember anything that bothered him. he's like a puppet in a way. you don't even have to do much, idia would actually love to have someone that can make decisions for him so that he doesn't have to think about what's going on in his reality. just.. uh.. make sure he gets more attached to you instead of his faves.

➽───────────────❥

character: sebek zigvolt

yandere type: removal

➽───────────────❥

♡ you don't know what you did, but wow, you must be a very unlucky person to fall in love with a guy who only thinks about his young master. like you just know that if you ever went on a date, he'd still only talk about malleus. you just know that if you ever got married, he'd still be more loyal to malleus than you. you know how bad your situation is. you know that you deserve better. but you don't want better, you want sebek zigvolt and you will do anything to make him notice you.

♡ "but y/n, you know you can't do anything to malleus, right? he's malleus draconia, he's way too strong-" you don't care. your love for sebek is stronger than malleus's magic. also, who said that you have to use magic to fight him? you can just use your brains. malleus is actually very, extremely lonely and he needs affection. sebek is.. kind of an idiot, so you don't even have to try hard to manipulate him. you just have to ruin their relationship somehow. maybe convince malleus that sebek isn't actually that loyal to him? you know for sure that trying to convince sebek that malleus doesn't care about him isn't worth it: even if malleus really didn't care about him, he'd still walk into a burning house for him if he had to.

♡ you will still find a way to get rid of malleus somehow. you just know that even if this guy's magic is strong, he's actually more weak and vulnerable than he looks like. you just have to say the right word and hurt him so bad, he won't be able to look sebek in the eyes. or you can just try to completely ruin his image. he's already feared by most people, you don't have to do much to turn that fear into hatred. you will find a way to make sebek forget about him and give all his attention to you. you're sure of it.

➽───────────────❥

character: neige leblanche

yandere type: stalker

➽───────────────❥

♡ neige is so nice. so kind. so pure. so perfect. no, you are not his biggest fan. sure, you admire him, you love his work and you think he's extremely talented, but you're more than a fan. you're his soulmate. but sadly, he doesn't even know about it! what a shame.. you want to let him know that you're the one so bad.. but how should you do it? you don't want to be like those creepy fans who are obsessed with him after all.. ugh, you hate them so much..

♡ you don't want to scare him off, so you'll just send him some cute letters first! you know everything about him. you know where he lives, when he'll be able to read them, you know everything about his schedule.. nothing can go wrong. you're sure that he will answer. or that he'll at least read them. and if he doesn't answer, it's okay, you'll give him some time first! you understand that it can be shocking for him to find out that he actually has someone who was created specifically for him, his own special soulmate. you're so kind and patient, hehe~

♡ huh.. still no reply.. even though you've given him so much time.. guess you have no choice but to send more letters. maybe you should be more direct? you know, like, you should be more honest about your feelings! you should let him know that you'd like to go on a date or two, get married, start living together, maybe even start a family, just all normal things that all normal soulmates do!.. okay, you're done with this letter! hehe, you should thank your fellow neige fan for letting you borrow some red ink from them, you have no idea where your pen is.

[desultory-novice]

Dess fan ramble time.

We've been talking about Juno Songs and complimenting the new Magolor songs but honestly, the song I've been listening to the most this month is Man on the Internet's Musical Bytes - Star Dream

I almost cannot get over it?! It has skyrocketed to my FAVORITE Kirby with Lyrics video.

I already had hope of a finished version appearing after hearing the Songtober version (mostly because the Haltmann part was just that good) and this was better than I could have asked for!

The tune up to Star Dream's lyrics was great and really pulled a strong idea together, combined with Dylan's voice, like...

I wouldn't have necessarily thought that deeper pitch would fit for Star Dream, given the whole "confused and angry newborn cat motif" vibe, but as a villainous Deus Est Machine (^_-) it was gorgeous. Can't give enough props to Darby's Haltmann either. That's how Haltmann's voice sounds for me forever now, thanks!

And...aaaaah, the lyrics! I know the Youtube comments have hit a lot of the highlights but "Executing Haltmann's Dream" (making his "dream" come true) / "Execute His Legacy" (kill his daughter w/ the rest of all organic life) is FRIGGIN'...ahhhh!

Doing a really good job working in economic terms like the Gini Coefficient (which you can conveniently hear as "genie" too, given Star Dream is a wish granting device.) Again, the completed version took banger lyrics like "Tamper not with forces that you cannot hope to understand / Haltman's greatest error was his failed attempt to wield God's Hand / Now we are One and My pain is His / Running data analysis / Only file left is HATE..." I didn't mean to write out nearly the whole damn verse but it sends CHILLS down my spine!

The chorus, with Attorney's voice (a fairly clear shout out to Susie, though I wonder if the others are just supposed to be generic Haltworkers or maybe Mecha Knight and the Dedede Clones?) is beautiful. "You sold us your dream..." playing with that capitalist imagery of promising a better world through mechanization while also making that emotional connection ache, because he really did sell/lose his first and TRUE dream, to be reunited with his daughter.

I know "[X] with Lyrics" videos often have musical vibes to them but this truly felt like it came out of a REALLY well done Kirby Musical! (Also thanks to Ando and Ishikawa's ;w; amazing songs, of course.)

I love the horror-poetry of Moti's "Zero 2 with Lyrics" a LOT and "Moonstruck Blossom with Lyrics" is also incredibly beautiful and very well done (the choice to make it a duet...!! :fans self:) but even then, and perhaps its due to the power of Planet Robobot's story, this one is truly a full and complete musical package. Incredible. 

>PERFECTION

...even. ^_-

[thehumanwiki]

rating all NuWho finales based entirely on how cool the titles are

because yea

(putting a read more because this will take a while, lol)

Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways

5/10. Bad Wolf is a cool name! For cool ppl! It’s the season’s mystery! It slays! But The Parting of the Ways? That could be used for like, half of the finales in this show. That’s a generic name. Not a fan. It even has one more “the” than it ought to. That’s a tryhard name. (Rose and The Doc don’t even part ways for another season! It’s a LIE!)

Army of Ghosts / Doomsday

6/10. Army of Ghosts! That’s freaky! It catches my attention! I’m interested, Mr. Davies, tell me more about that! Doomsday is also a generic name though. Like it could be used anywhere. It gets more points than S1 however because Doomsday is a very cool word and I like it a lot.

Utopia / The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords

8/10. YES. I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THESE TITLES. Utopia? That’s a word that can’t be applied to many other episodes! That’s a memorable word! That’s a fun word! The Sound of Drums? What the hell is so significant about drums?? In a FINALE episode?! There must be something SCANDALOUS about the drums, tell me everything! (And they did! But this isn’t about what happens in the episode this is just how hard the titles fuck.) Last of the Time Lords??? Holy shit! That means we’re delving into that aspect of him specifically, and you can’t duplicate that easily! But more importantly, that sounds cool! Cool names, absolutely W from whoever named RTD’s stuff.

The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End

5.5/10. Same boat as S1, tbh. The Stolen Earth? Excellent, no notes. Journey’s End sounds generic af though. But I gave it a half point lead because Journey’s End has the Vibes more than The Parting of the Ways, lol.

The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang

8/10. Yea I see the vision Mr. Moffat, I see you. Love what you’ve done with the place btw. Like, neither title is generic! And both are super interesting! Look honestly I forget how to do commentary I’m just one sleep deprived fan who likes Vibes they just slap OK

The Wedding of River Song

9/10. Oh. Oh yes. Oh I am LOVING this. Nothing gets me going like seeing a wedding that is somehow the culmination of a high stakes season. Like, how is there a wedding there?! And. River Song is there? Do you promise? 🥺

The Name of the Doctor / The Day of the Doctor / The Time of the Doctor

6/10. OK I’m honestly not sure which ones are finales or not, but y’know what? The name matching is fun. I like that. That is good. But besides the first one, these are p generic episode names. Sorry.

Dark Water / Death in Heaven

8/10. Dark Water is a p good episode name. It’s not the most interesting, but I like it. BUT ***DEATH IN HEAVEN***?! Now THAT is a finale title! I have never SEEN such a title! THAT is an IMMACULATE title! SPLENDID!

Heaven Sent / Hell Bent

10/10. The matching names? The rhyming? The low-key religious theming? The ominous nature? EXCELLENT. No notes Mr. Moffat. Great vibes.

World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls

9/10. I would give this striaght up 10/10 if I could figure out what “World Enough and Time” meant. The vibes are perfect but like. What does it mean 😭 And The Doctor Falls??? OH MY ATTENTION HAS BEEN GRABBED BY THE THROAT DO GO ON PLS—

The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos

4/10. Kolos? What is this, Pokémon XY? Anyways, I feel like this is just dialogue that would be said in passing in a sci-fi novel that everyone forgets. Sorry 😞

Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children

7/10. Cybermen are OK. It’s a fine title, I have nothing against it. The Timeless Children??? The vibes are just SPLENDID here. Especially because it’s a Bad Wolf situation where it’s like “hey wait a fucking minute I’ve heard that somewhere else—” Good stuff! W for Chris.

Chapter Six: The Vanquishers

6.5/10. Adding chapter to the title does make it automatically cooler, so that’s a bonus half point right there. Otherwise, it’s neat. Like it’s good. The vibes are fine and I like them, but not THAT fine, y’know?

The Legend of Ruby Sunday / Empire of Death

7/10. Look, even if it’s not generic, anything with “death” in the title *feels* generic. The Legend of Ruby Sunday still saves this tho, because I am INTERESTED, girl. TELL ME EVERYTHING

In conclusion, episode titles peaked with Capaldi.

[suneeater]

solomon + general romantic hcs

✎a/n: im actually so obsessed w solomon i had to cut myself off writing these bc they became noticeably longer than the ones ive done for everyone else so far

✰warnings: slightly suggestive themes, minors DNI!

Solomon is the world’s biggest tease. He’s also incredibly observant and too smart for his own good, which means he knows your every weakness and loves to use them against you. It’s just so fun for him to see you get so pouty and beg him to quit, and he can’t help but make up arbitrary rules for his own satisfaction, such as swearing up and down the only way he will stop is with a kiss

He never gives you what you want right away; he’s always drawing things out for longer than they need to be, withholding touch or affection and offering only tiny little slivers in the meanwhile only to bask in how much you beg for him, upset he won’t give himself to you. He’s such a sadist, honestly

Teasing aside, Solomon is one hell of a reliable man. He has his mysterious ways which, as close as you become with him will always remain, and somehow always knows when you need him the most. He’s always managing to turn up at the second that he’s needed most knowing just what to do, thanks to his quick thinking. Even if he has prior commitments or has his hands full, you can always expect him to take some weight off your shoulders

As your only other fellow human in the devildom, Solomon worries about you a lot. You’re a quick learner and have more than enough pacts with some powerful demons to keep you safe, but he can’t help but think about your safety every moment he isn’t with you. Expect lots of gifts from him in the form of protective charms and items

Solomon is slightly similar to Lucifer in the role that he takes in your relationship; while he’ll always bend over backwards for you, he leans toward the assertive side. The way he sees it, it’s his job to keep you safe, and being around as long as he has he’s much more experienced than you, not to mention a powerful sorcerer. He’ll tell you what to do, but in the form of advice and genuine worry, while leading you by a firm but loving hold on your waist

Dates back in the human world are a must; catching Solomon up on current events and the past few decades is something the two of you enjoy thoroughly. There’s always something new to share, but it’s familiar enough that you still bond over your shared human experience. Back in the human world, you run about excitedly, pointing out all of your favorite things and rambling on about all that he’s missed, and while he doesn’t exactly retain every detail he’ll always the way you smiled so happily

When Solomon kisses you he takes his time. He’s a bit of a romantic, his surprisingly soft hand supporting your chin with tender care, keeping you close to him and guiding you just where he needs you, his other secured around your neck. There’s hardly any distance between you, and you have even less time to breathe before diving back in. Kissing Solomon is overwhelming in every sense of the word, all of your senses tingling with excitement and the desire for more. You can never be close enough to him to be fully satisfied and it’s frustrating, but it brings a spark to your relationship

He probably has really cold hands. Like, REALLY cold hands. He’s always using them to spook or startle you, sneaking up from behind and clasping his ice cold palms against your cheeks and watching you squeal. He has cold feet, too, and you have to beg him to wear socks after he touches you with them in the dead of night and it stirs you awake

If anyone wants you to wear their clothes, it’s Solomon. I mean, out of everyone he probably has the most normal wardrobe anyways! He’ll even buy some more average human clothes just to see you wear them, never deliberately asking but always trying to tempt you by dousing them in his scent and leaving them out in the open. He feels almost prideful when you’re lounging about in his t-shirts, eager for people to see you clad in his attire and know you’re his

You’re probably the only person that can convince him he is not the gourmet chef that he thinks he is, and that’s simply because he feels so warm and fuzzy inside when you spend late nights in the kitchen together, teaching him to cook your favorite dishes

Often, these late night cooking lessons end up being dance lessons. He takes his hands in yours and smiles softly for you, asking you without words for a dance to the distant song from your playlist. Solomon has two left feet though, and is constantly stepping on your toes and losing his balance. It’s one of the only times that you see the experienced sorcerer lose his composure, and surely a core memory of your relationship

find the same scenario for:

beelzebub | lucifer | mammon | simeon 

[torialefay]

https://youtube.com/shorts/T550Vy5XcPI?si=V0y9B6uaJ2kj91FE

Ok, grass platform, this "you like me more" and recently "I can't fix all your problems" AFTER all his teasing and roleplays on bubble is his character development, trying to fix what he created since his early twenties, results if therapy, OR next stage of his shit because i honestly already can't be aware where I'm delusional and where not

okay in the clip... this man getting cocky 😭😭😂😂😂 the "you like me more" is so moody anr bitchy i love it. he's fed up w everyone baiting him and throwing this shit on him 😂

this may seem out of pocket, and i may be wrong, but he does seem kind of worn down a bit. like he kinda seems like he's got a lot on his plate & is getting fed up w people saying things to him. he's just a person & he can only do so much. like i'm genuinely hoping that all of this isn't putting him in a bad mood.

but people are right when they say that he's online & knows what stays say about him. and i'd be fucking exhausted if i had to handle what he goes through. i think he might be too. people expect the fucking impossible from him when he's literally just a person who happens to have a very vulnerable job.

like genuinely just imagine. in the span of a week, you get all of this shit from people who are supposed to be your fans: (1) from the video, someone baiting you to say you love them more, knowing damn well that they stalk your entire life. (2) someone asking you to literally fix ticket sales and complain to you that they're frustrated and have to travel to see you and that you aren't giving them enough attention in their country. (3) people telling you off for not being asleep when you literally are up at the ass crack of dawn bc you have to wake up FOR THEM and to give THEM content. (4) people yelling at you & boycotting you for not talking about a topic as big as a war. as much as i support palestine, do people genuinely think that chris can talk about that? genuinely? "well other idols have done it so why can't he?" like baby, he got chan's room (which he had been doing for what? 4 years?) taken from him simply for saying that some people were disrespectful. by talking about the war, he would not only be the headline in the media for weeks, but he would also be violating his contract. they already took chan's room so what's next? probably taking away his insta, taking away his insta/tiktok lives, severely limiting his bubble posts, and even more. he'd have to issue a fucking apology statement just like last time- they could even put him on hiatus for all we know. i will never understand how people don't see that. "well he shouldn't compromise his morals." in an idealistic world, that's true, but this shit is his livelihood. i don't want to sound pessimistic, but in the end, the outcome of the war is 100% political. we can & should raise money for people who need it and do what we can to help, but we are at a point in the world that the governments control absolutely everything. do you genuinely think that what we do & say matters to them? the government always wins. it's like people are expecting chris' statement to suddenly overturn the government or smth.

and here's the thing: if he did talk about it & jype ended up taking away all of his shit, then stays are just gonna complain EVEN more, start more drama, start saying to boycot jype, sending trucks to make the kids' lives hell, and just generally put everyone in a bad light from the outside view.

meanwhile, chris is literally working his ass off every single day to the point that his body and mind are probably on the brink of exhaustion. like what more can someone give? i'd be so fucking fed up. and the fact that he hasn't exploded on anyone yet is honestly admirable.

i'm so sorry that this has spiraled into my random thoughts & opinions. i guess it just breaks my heart to see so much unwarranted responsibility on one person. like chris said, "i can't fix all your problems,"... with a little smile afterwards, trying to save face. there's no way that man isn't exhausted & that it isn't affecting him mentally. i hope he can find refuge in the little things like taking care of & decorating his new dorm, cooking with innie, and enjoying some rest when he actually gets the time. he deserves it