#at this point I don't even only want justice for all the wrongs done in the world by evil people I want BLOOD

[silvermoon424]

Thoughts and prayers :) :) :)

When do we finally start sending these sewer rats to the guillotine

EDIT: This goes deeper than I thought. The city of Davenport is hurrying to demolish the building even though there are still missing residents and they literally just found a still-living woman in the rubble who would have certainly been killed if the demolition went forward. There are currently protestors raising hell in Davenport about this.

This is disgusting and suspicious as hell. I'm seeing Davenport residents talk about how the politicians of their town are corrupt and are likely trying to cover this incident up while not caring if they end up killing people in the process (because, again according to residents, Davenport's infrastructure has been falling apart for many years).

[demonic0angel]

Dead Silent. One of the batfam ask Danny why he’s more clingy than his siblings and Danny just goes “huh??” Cuz he’s probably the LEAST clingy. Dan is Yandere Levels of clingy, Jazz is Ride or Die clingy, Dani is probably Stalker clingy, and don’t even get him started on their parents.

Danny, by comparison, is the normal one and I feel like that should be appreciated so much more.

(This is SO freaking funny and you're so right omg. It got long bc I got excited again lmaooo)

"You... you think I'm... clingy?!" Danny cried in shock, looking around for a camera. Were they serious? Was this actually real?

Duke said with a shrug, "Well... I mean, I always see you around Cass. We're just asking."

"I am literally the least clingy and the most normal out of my siblings."

Jason snorted from where he stood behind Tim's chair. Everyone was listening in but only Damian and Duke had the graciousness to not pretend that they weren't. Even Cass was staring, blinking as she was held in Danny's arms for a cuddle after the patrol.

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

Danny glared at him and pointed to his shadow, which stretched out beneath him from the Batcave's lights.

"One, the only reason she doesn't follow you around everywhere is because Jazz literally has Shadow following you whenever you go out." As he said this, two eyes blinked from within Jason's shadow and then disappeared just as quickly. "Two, she had all of your medical information on a file in her phone! And just information on you, period! Three, just yesterday, she blew up two ships and took down a trafficking ring by herself because she got reports that they put a hit on you! And don't even talk about how normal she is compared to me, because she definitely isn't! You just think she's a normal amount of clingy because the both of you have your brains rotted from romance novels!"

Jason made a face. It was one of great affront, grudging acceptance, and a wistful adoration. Danny couldn't even feel smug for proving him right because the look on his face was just disgusting.

Cass giggled from within his arms.

Dick opened his mouth and Danny pointed at him aggressively, clutching at Cass as he said, "You can't speak either! Dan is literally the most clingy out of all of us! You know what Jazz said?! He literally has abandonment issues and codependency!! Y'know what his name was before we came here?! It's "World Destroyer"! The only reason he hasn't done anything is because he really likes you and wants to spend most of his time watching you and keeping you safe instead of going around and causing destruction!"

Dick blinked. "But he also—"

"Wrong! He uses clones to do stuff while he keeps watch over you, and you're the only reason he has a moral code at all."

Dick made a considering face and then he smiled. "Aww, that's kinda cute. I didn't know he was so clingy."

Danny muttered to Cass, "Are you seeing this bullshit?"

She giggled again and patted at his arms that were wrapped around her neck.

Duke nodded, amusement on his face. "I see your point. But what about Dani? You're definitely clingier than her."

Danny made an error noise. "Nope! The entire Young Justice is codependent and clingy, so it just looks normal. And Dani just follows around Kon and Tim in intervals so you can't see either of them." He also grimaced at Tim, who was still working at the computer. "And Tim is already watching them, aren't you? You three are a bunch of freaks."

Tim looked up with a small smirk, much to Damian's audible disgust. "You got me there. I keep trackers and cameras on all of them. And Dani's usually just invisible."

Danny smiled triumphantly. "Hah! See? I'm the least clingy!"

There were murmurs of agreement and then Duke said, "I don't know, I think all four of you are clingy and weird."

Danny sulked. "No I'm not."

Duke gestured to all of him. "You're literally climbing Cass like a koala."

Okay, so his legs were wrapped around her waist and he was hanging onto her like a sticker, but so what? She didn't mind!

Cass snickered and said, "It's okay. He's light."

"Yeah, I'm light," grumbled Danny as he squeezed her.

Duke and Damian shared a look, as Duke said, "We should get out of here. Thank god these freaks are taken."

"Agreed. Thank goodness we are the most normal."

Now there were cries of outrage throughout the entire cave all over again.

[pink-amethyst-tarot]

🤍 Why You Should Be Proud Of Yourself 🤍

credit to @crystallilytarot for the idea 💕

P I L E 1 P I L E 2 P I L E 3

Close your eyes, take a deep breath and choose the pile that you think is the one for you ♥

P I L E 1 - You have come so far! Four of Swords, The High Priestess, Two of Pentacles, Eight of Pentacles, Ten of Pentacles, The Fool, The Magician

The first thing I heard before even pulling cards is The Party's Just Begun by the Cheetah Girls and that feels like a sign that you should be having fun, dancing and living your life to the fullest! Your life can be so beautiful if you let it.

You know much more than you think that you do. I feel like you are back and forth between losing faith in yourself and feeling like you are finally breaking through. (I know what that's like, I've been there too much.) You've got to cut yourself some slack. Yeah, it's not perfect now but, you have made so much progress and that is important. You are so much closer to the finish line than you realize. Don't give up now. You've worked too hard and have come too far to give up now.

party cuz you know the future's all yours // dance 'til your feet don't touch the floor // celebrate the day you've waited for // party like you're ready for so much more // do it like you know it's never been done // go a little crazy // have too much fun //today's the day, c'mon everyone // the party's just begun //

Channeled song - The Party's Just Begun by The Cheetah Girls

P I L E 2 - Going With The Flow Two of Pentacles, Nine of Pentacles, Two of Wands (Reversed), Six of Pentacles, Justice, Queen of Pentacles, Eight of Swords

Despite your fear of change, you have overcome, finding your balance in your life and either now or soon, you will be enjoying the fruits of your labor. That could be financial abundance for this pile - it seems pretty likely, considering all the pentacles. You have been a very giving person and now it's time that people start giving to you in whatever way that may fit you.

You should also be proud of yourself for getting yourself to a point where you don't feel sorry for yourself. You've done the work to really see the truth of the situation - where you have been both right and wrong - and you've seen that you aren't as stuck as you once thought.

P I L E 3 - You've opened your heart again! King of Cups, Ten of Swords, Seven of Swords, Seven of Pentacles, Ace of Swords, Eight of Pentacles (Reversed), The Moon, Ten of Cups

You've been through some hard times. I feel like your heart was really bruised and batter but, despite the things you have been through, you have taken your lemons and turned them into make lemonade! I can see some of you turning to writing, journaling, or posting on social media. You have been working on yourselves and you are so happy with the progress you've made. You should be proud of yourself; I know I am! This work you have done on yourself is leading you to a new beginning in your life, a change of pace that you have be dying to have!

Your dreams are coming true and your intuition is spot on! You are about to get everything you wanted and then some so you can relax and know that your life is about to change for the better.

If you are looking for a personal reading, you can look on my shop on Etsy at PinkAmethystTarot, DM me or send me an e-mail at pinkamethysttarot@gmail.com

If you feel called to tip:

C@SH@PP: $oddlycozycottage

P@YP@L: @oddlycozycottage

KO-FI: @oddlycozycottage

Thank you all so much for interacting with me and my readings, it really does mean the world to me!

Page Divider by @cafekitsune

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. THESE READINGS ARE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. no guarantees are implied. These readings are not a substitute or replacement for any professional help or services. My readings are not a substitute for any form of professional legal, medical/psychiatric, relationship, religious/spiritual or financial/ business advice nor consultations. You should always see a professional legal/trained adviser for help in any matter. I am not responsible for any decisions/ actions you take.

[baeddel]

tirade on pirating software. 1.7k words.

i recently read a post by someone who is anti-piracy (better: against making copies of software). they said that if you can't afford something you should wait for a sale or find a free alternative. and then they said that the only time that they find piracy (better: finding a copy online) acceptable is for games that are so old that you cannot buy them from a licensed vendor, but only from resellers, because in that case the developer doesn't get the money anyway.

i feel like i could make a sort of loophole argument in this framework, which is that i can watch ebay until the game is listed by a reseller, and then pirate it, because i'm no longer making a choice between paying the developer or not paying, but paying a reseller and not paying, and i've decided not paying a reseller is morally permissable.

but i think it can go a little further. they specified developer. i should pay the developer. even though i don't buy directly from the developer, but a licensed vendor. but the vendor's surcharge is not worth bringing up.

this is because we don't believe in following the law, exactly, and thus you should follow all copyright laws for that reason. it's because of, usually, one of two reasons: developers deserve to be compensated, or that we have a moral obligation to support the developer.

on the first view, the "just deserts argument", it's not clear to me that the moral obligation to not pirate is watertight in this case (when i said "pirate" before, i made a silly gesture, meant to indicate that i'll say that for brevity, but am not acquiescing). a developer deserves to be compensated for their work; but what do they deserve exactly?

does every developer deserve to become as rich from their game as Notch, and every time they don't there's been an injustice? you probably don't think that.

do they deserve some particular amount that we would say is 'fair'?—it isn't unjust if they do better (although you might think so, and complain about how much of the spotlight they take up compared to others just as deserving), but we only require that much success of them. this might be dependent on the kind of game that it is, for example, a better game deserves more success. if that's the case, then we've exonerated at least some pirates; so long as the developer is as successful on the market as they deserve to be, we've done nothing wrong.

you might say that it's wrong to pirate games that haven't yet reached the threshold of just success, because you place them in jeoprady of never achieving the success they deserve. further, you might say that this threshold is epistemologically unknowable to human beings (see: click), and therefore in practice you can never justify piracy, because you never know if a game has reached the threshold of justice. pirates, therefore, gamble with justice, and only Minos will pay their winnings.

i think this would be a good argument, except that i don't understand why i, as someone who wants to download a copy of the game, am the one who bears the moral responsibility. if the success of this developer is a matter of justice, then surely we all bear that responsibility, even people who don't play videogames. therefore we should all purchase and promote every game, and so forth.

this isn't what any anti-piracy advocate believes, even if they seem to take a deserts line. instead they restrict our obligations to participating in ordinary market mechanisms. the game is being sold as a commodity; therefore people should buy that commodity from a point of sale apporved by the producer, and so forth. it's taken for granted that the anarchy of the market is the right way to guarantee justice, and other possibilities are never explored. ultimately, the deserts argument naturalizes capitalist relations. once you remove these blinders, the mechanism for delivering justice it actually proposes seems obviously unreliable and unsatisfactory (in fact, i believe this criticism applies to all deserts arguments).

here i will quickly add my complaint against the second argument, that we should support the developer. the argument runs: if you like a developer, you should support their work by purchasing their products. i am a lot more sympathetic to this argument and so i won't spend much of the post attacking it. it's enough to say that it suffers from the same problem we just mentioned: why is participating in ordinary market mechanisms the best way to support the developer? capitalism is likewise naturalized by this case when it is advanced as a moral argument against piracy. therefore we can run the same argument: if we have a moral obligation to support game developers, then it's not clear to me why only potential players have that obligation, and so forth (but this time the criticism doesn't apply to all similar arguments, just this one).

however, it often isn't advanced that way, and as a pragmatic argument i tend to agree with it. in fact sometimes they actually have a case for participating in normal market mechanisms: DMC fans want you to buy DMC games because then Capcom will look at their sales figures and decide it's worth making another game. you could argue that they still have capitalist blinkers on because they only advocate you buy one copy, the one you'll play, which is how the game is sold. maybe they should be asking you to buy a hundred copies or whatever. but we don't want them to do that, LOL. and the feeling is usually that there are limits of what you can ask out of someone; when one DMC youtuber was spending quadruple digits on a DMC-themed gacha, his viewers expressed concern and encouraged him to stop. so cheers to DMC players.

in fact, there might be ethical reasons to only ask someone to purchase a copy of something in the normal way: when i try to get you to buy one of Xraftstar / Charity / Porpentine's games, i am doing it because i personally want my friend to succeed, and i want to see their art recognized. this is a kind of moral motivation, but it's the morality of rendering personal obligations; you are not likewise obligated. however, i of course feel there are limits on what i can ask of you, and so, unlike when i make donation posts for my friends who are struggling, i'm only comfortable encouraging you to purchase a copy of something i think will actually render a use-value to you (even if you could still obtain it in other ways and get the same use-value).

but anyway, why specify the developer in the first place? the work put in by the publisher, the developers and maintainers of the platform its sold on, the bandwidth of the payment processor, and so forth, all get left out of the question, even though they are all more or less necessary parts of the normal market mechanisms we're encouraging you to participate in.

i think it's obvious that the anti-piracy advocate of this kind doesn't actually want to advocate for participation in the market economy, like Bush during the recession. they want to be just by the developer because they see the developer as a fellow individual like themselves; they actually want to cut through the market alienation and simply do right by another person. therefore all of the other capitalists who make money off the sale—publisher, platform, payment processor—are just more big companies, perhaps even leeches we'd be better off without.

it's funny, because historically this view was used to support piracy when it came to music. you used to see a lot of charts like this:

how much of a CD goes to the label, manufacturers and distributors, to show how little really goes to an artist, to shut down people who said you should buy the CD to support them. there's a sort of naive anarchism underlying this: i want to help the individual who made the music i love, who needs manufacturers and distributors anyway?

in this kind of simple moral reasoning, resellers really get shafted. they're seen as scalpers, taking money without producing any value. no one says: 'make sure to support resellers!' thus we never ask who the individual behind all of the market alienation the resller is. whoever they are they don't deserve the money. then, when you are poor and struggling, and cannot afford to buy things for yourself, what do people tell you to do? sell your games, CDs...

but i don't want to be too sarcastic here, because there is nothing funny about this impulse to reach through market alienation and connect morally with another individual. it is the essence of emancipation. but hear my argument: purchasing commodities from them is an unsatisfactory way to realize it. it's true that you can certainly help someone by buying what they sell; many of us rely on this to a greater or lesser extent, and, pragmatically, i hope we'll all buy Nadia Nova's next game and put food in her belly. but systematically, not in this or that case, but as a general moral principle, the commodity form, the exchange of cash for things or copies of things—this is the very thing that reproduces these conditions of alienation in the first place. and these relations—their predictability as a feature of the market, or even their scarcity as a part of a volatile and impermanent system—is what habitually places the developer in a condition of alienation from their labour, coaxing them to give up their so-called intellectual "property", then forbidding them from using the games they made; or by seducing them into placing their music on a platform, then offering them increasingly small margins and less control; or to post their content (qua sex workers) on a paywall platform, which then imposes complex payout structures to keep them from claiming their earnings. and so forth. the desire to reach through all of the noise and support the individual is inevitably captured, redirected, and fed upon in as many ways as it can be, until the whole thing crashes down and the cycle starts again.

therefore, should you purchase or pirate the next game you want to play? Remember Ptahhotep: "The noble who sitteth before food divideth it as his soul moveth him; he giveth unto him that he would favour."

[theoncomingchaos]

Who loves Rook: Spite or Lucanis

I've been seeing a lot of discourse about this, and I just want to add my thoughts.

I might be totally wrong about this, but here we go. When Spite was put into Lucanis, he was still Determination. The fact that he changed throughout the torture, forced insertion, and imprisonment suggests to me that they have been put into a speedrun of a similar situation to Anders and Justice/Vengeance where they have started to meld. (As Anders put it, you wouldn't know where one begins and the other ends). Just like Anders and Vengeance, Lucanis and Spite can have separate consciousnesses and even disagree about things, but their core values have started to influence one another and become a part of one another- heightening certain aspects.

I think this melding is why we see some dialogues where Rook tells Lucanis that he sounds like Spite and similarly it's also the reason for the shared attraction- which I fully believe is coming originally from Lucanis.

I'll be honest my first time through I romanced Lucanis and was very disappointed. I didn't even see him and Neve ever flirt (she only ever encouraged us!) But still, it seemed to go from 0 to 60 with him. Now, I am on my second playthrough and I only just met him, but I am starting to see some really subtle looks and dialogues that suggest that Lucanis wasn't lying later when he said he was attracted to Rook from the beginning, but was afraid to really pursue anything or even acknowledge the possibility of being with them. With his fear of trusting people, ptsd from the prison, failed history in romance, and his new situation with Spite that he still hadn't worked out yet, he never thought anything would or could ever come of his feelings. We know Lucanis loves romance stories and likely longs for one of his own, but in such a situation it must have seemed truly impossible and terrifying to let someone else in. Especially someone you really care for and are starting to trust. So, he pushed it all down. Rook flirts? Maybe a small smile, but then quickly lock it all up with everything else he can't handle. Focus on work. Don't think about Spite, or Rook, or anything difficult.

However, if the melding has already happened as I suspect, then the feelings Spite is expressing are shared with (and likely sourced from) Lucanis, he's just better at expressing it directly- which makes sense for a spirit that was once Determination. When you first talk to Lucanis after the rescue, the thing Spite says about Rook changes accordingly to your tone, but to me the responses still sound like they come from Lucanis and are then echoed in Spite: "He doesn't want to hurt us." Even the "He's more fun than you" is something Lucanis seems to think about himself as he is fully aware that much of his life has not been his own and believes "all he knows is death."

Leading back to the main point, Lucanis's trust and interest in Rook would be heightened by Spite the way Anders' anger towards the templars was heightened. Even though they are finally free from the prison, their is a sense of constant suffering from still feeling trapped by fear, regret, and pain- Spite feels that suffering too. The elements of determination are still within him the same way justice is another side to vengeance. Both spite and vengeance are the results of failing to achieve their goals of Justice and Determination. Spite sees Rook as a way to free them from pain and restraint, a glowing and beautiful key to the prison door, and he is determined to do what needs to be done to solve the problem. That's why he doesn't hesitate. He has no fear. He wants to talk to Rook. He wants Rook to come in and free them.

After Rook has freed them, they become a source of comfort and safety, once they encourage Lucanis and Spite to find a way to cohabit comfortably, the two continue to meld, and the need to protect Rook, to love Rook, to keep them, is very deeply shared. Now, IF Spite was somehow removed or even somehow restored (Both of which I think are impossible) that would likely change. Determination outside of Lucanis would likely become more like Compassion. He would likely forget the horrors he experienced to return to his original purpose.

So, that leaves some final questions, particularly one Hawke helpfully asked Anders- Is Spite an unwilling party in the threesome?

That's up to everyone's own morality. While both Spite and Lucanis didn't have a choice to become like this, it is the situation they are in and the way they have to find a way to accept and live with because there really doesn't seem to be any real way to change it. Through their time together, Lucanis and Spite have influenced each other and grown into something new. Part of that is Spite also loving Rook. In that way, for those who are feeling (rightfully) underwhelmed by Lucanis's romance, Spite can almost be seen as a symbolic expression of Lucanis's love.

All that being said, I think there were some small things they could have done to make the romance more satisfying over all...but I'll save that for another post.

[utytimeline]

I might make some people mad, but I'm gonna say it, anyway.

So, Ceroba's reason for choosing Chujin over Star was because she wanted someone more mature. At least, that's my understanding. Star was playing cowboy and role-playing with his friends while she wanted to settle down and raise a family.

And... yeah, Star had a lot of growing up to do. And he did almost none of it until Ceroba stopped him from shooting us.

Star's main character flaw is his ego, but it's even worse than just an ego. Half the reason he set up the Wild East was to help everyone else. He wanted to bring in money to help his family when the Swelterstone's effects caused a drought; he wanted monsters to get a taste of what the surface is like so they don't drown in despair; and he wanted to make Ceroba happy after she lost both her husband and her child. All of this on top of feeling like he was a "nobody farmer" that couldn't do anything or help anyone.

So Star's primary character flaw isn't as simple as just having a big ego. His primary character flaw is trying to fix others as a way of fixing himself.

Sometimes this is a good thing, tho. I often think of Star as the "papa" of the Feisty Five. He's the protective one, he's the one teaching them ethics (reminding Mooch that they're not supposed to be bandits, playing dead to teach Clover about the responsibility of potentially hurting someone), he takes care of the town, he's made ALL his own money from this town that he built himself (enough that Mooch wants his inheritance, so it's a sizeable amount), he even gave his posse a designated nap time, gave Ceroba a home (and possibly gave her his bed while he crashes on the couch), sews his own clothes, set up all the rules and regulations... and I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Star is not wholly irresponsible. He's not perfectly responsible- he, and the rest of the posse, have a habit of breaking and losing Blackjack's weapons, they're all loud and rowdy, and they have a tendency to forget to turn off their boulder machines out in the Dunes.

So, yeah, Star does still have some growing up to do. But he's got a good start.

As for... everything that went wrong... That was entirely due to Star's worship of humanity. Star fell in love with westerns and with the justice and overall sense of romance that they portrayed, so much so that he not only tried to make himself into one of his western heroes, but he then extended this worship to the first human to ever set foot in the Dunes- namely, Clover. And because of this, Star completely threw everything that was good about himself out the window. He sees a human an immediately decides "this is my deputy," without even really giving Clover a fair chance to see if they even are deputy material. He forgot the safety glasses, got so worked up he forgot how to pronounce "duel," became extremely temperamental, apparently forgot that Vengeful Virgil was scheduled for the train mission that day, locked up a Royal Guard against her will (arguably committing treason in doing so, I might add), and just generally began running over everyone's words and emotions, including Ceroba's.

So when it came down to the Showdown... Star blamed Clover. Star's not an idiot. He knows good and well it's not Clover's fault. It's Star's fault- or more precisely, it's his worship of humanity that is to blame. But the problem is, he's taken it upon himself to guard the feelings of other monsters, to make them feel hope and joy. And he just screwed up and stole all that from them. So he's conflicted, not willing to admit that he has done the exact opposite of everything he set out to do. And since it's his worship of humans that led him to this point, he decides to blame the human.

Hence, the Showdown.

But he doesn't want to do it. He says himself, "Monsterkind's Hero is a title soaked in blood." He loves humans. And he sees Clover as a friend. He doesn't want to kill them. He's not a killer, and he doesn't want to be one. He doesn't believe in it. Justice is one thing, but... how is it just to kill someone that did nothing wrong?

So. Here's where Ceroba comes in. Telling Star he needs to calm down and go back to who he used to be. And Star points out that she's changed, too. Even Ceroba says, before taking Clover to the Steamworks, that she doesn't know if she has room to tell Star to go back to the Starlo she used to know.

Ceroba, tho, is no different than Star (this is the part that I said might make some people mad). Ceroba worships Chujin just as much as Star worships humans.

Ok, look. Chujin was a great craftsman. He built so much- furniture for Dalv, his and Ceroba's house, the space heater at the Honeydew Resort, many other items in use throughout the Underground, Kanako's toys (even programmed a video game for her), and so much more. So much that even Star respects him for all that he did for everyone.

However, there is also much that indicates that Chujin wasn't the best at his job. His only award is "You Tried at Engineering," and it took 14 tries for him to build a working robot. In Chujin's defense, I will say that it is impressive that he did build a working, sentient robot without the use of a SOUL, which is how Alphys made both Mettaton and Mew Mew; however, if Chujin is really such a genius, why did it take 14 tries to get Axis to work, when it apparently only took 1 try for Guardener?

And then Chujin didn't just stop with robotics, but went on to SOUL research. Two completely different fields. (And before anyone starts commenting on Alphys, I just want to point out, yet again, that both of the robots she built did use SOUL power; so, realistically, Alphys never was a great robotics genius, but rather, everything she did was a part of SOUL research- hence, the reason Asgore hired her as the Royal Scientist). But Chujin decided to press on with his SOUL research, despite there being no indication anywhere that he had ever done any such research before.

Now, I'm not trying to say that Chujin wasn't remarkable or a genius. I'm just pointing out some things that indicate that maybe he wasn't quite the genius that Ceroba wanted to make him out to be. And... Ceroba's reaction to his "You Tried" award. She's proud of him. More pride than what is warranted by such an award.

Ceroba said she met Chujin when he pretty much rescued her after she twisted her ankle, fell into a ditch, and laid there for several hours, unable to move. She also said that she had considered dating Starlo before meeting Chujin. So... hate me for this if you want to, but I feel like she may not have the best judgement when it comes to guys. Now, that's not to say she picked losers or creeps. Both Chujin and Starlo were/are sweethearts that care deeply about everyone around them. But the fact remains that Ceroba left behind the guy that she'd known all her life for a guy she just met, just because he rescued her from a bad situation.

And I'm not even saying she made a bad choice! By all accounts- including Ceroba's, Martlet's, and even Starlo's- Chujin was a good, kind-hearted, hard-working monster, and a wonderful husband and father. But... he wasn't perfect. And I think Ceroba, even though they had to have been married at least 10 years, just always had stars in her eyes where he was concerned. He was her everything. She believed he could do no wrong. She believed it so strongly, she was willing to do... many horrible things.

Ceroba's drive to kill Clover started with her love for Chujin. She wanted to do anything to keep him alive in her own heart. And when their child begged and pleaded for a chance to help, Ceroba agreed, because Kanako woshipped her father, too. Ceroba's misguided belief in her husband guided her to do things she would never have done otherwise.

Thus the reason for her guilt. It's not just guilt over killing her own child. It's also guilt over knowing that it was her own misguided worship of a monster that wasn't as perfect as she thought he was, that this was what led her to kill, and to kill again.

Ceroba worshipped Chujin. Just as Starlo worshipped the ground Clover walked on, Ceroba worshipped the ground Chujin walked on.

So when people point to Ceroba's comment that Starlo didn't grow up... yeah. She's right. Starlo needed to grow up.

But so did Ceroba.

One of the hardest parts of growing up is realizing that the people you worship are just people. They make mistakes, and you, yourself, are mistaken for believing they can do no wrong.

So, anyway. There's as much Staroba (Starfox, I call them) hatred as there is love for the ship. I've seen both sides of the argument: Starlo isn't mature enough; Ceroba is insane. Yeah. You're both right. And that's why they're perfect for each other. They both made the mistake of changing everything they were in an effort to continue worshipping their idols. They both went nuts. They were both driven to kill. This is the inherent danger of idolatry, believing so much in something that isn't real, that you will do anything to make it stay real to you.

[vidavalor]

I've had to disconnect from my dash because of all the negativity; I honestly do not get why people are acting like a semblance of justice+a movie is the worst thing in the world?

I'm mourning for the full six-episode season we lost because ng couldn't pass the utmost basic sub-zero bar for not acting like scum and of course I wish amazon had kicked him out and then sprung for it anyway (and honestly, as long as you're blaming the right person, I think it's fine to feel upset? We deserved better, the cast and crew deserved, Terry deserved better, and this one guy ruins it for everyone because the bar was buried six feet deep beneath the ground and he still managed to go lower, and that does suck, and it is miserable and unfair, so take a moment if you need it 🤷‍♀️) but let's face it, we got off lucky. Arguably, considering this was a standalone novel from the nineties, that then got made, in one of the best book adaptations I've ever seen, into a limited standalone tv miniseries (and, again, emphasising the standalone here, so even if it all goes to hell in a handbasket, we'll still always have S1 and the book; people have been ignoring the Jurassic Park sequels for nearly three decades), and then got a surprise sequel, we were pretty lucky the whole way through.

And regarding the whole what if it's bad thing, I was always going to be worried: I was anxious long before this shit went down, and I was anxious before S2 and even S1, as well. It's not like we ever had any guarantee it was going to be good beforehand either, and at this point, knowing what we do now, I'm not at all sure I'd have trusted ng to write this anyways. So while, yeah sure, I'm maybe a little more anxious now, I trust Michael and David with these characters and I trust Rob and Rhianna with Terry's legacy and story and that they wouldn't have fought so hard for this ending unless they planned to keep fighting and thought they could pull it off. Isn't the problem with this kind of thing normally that what happnes is the creator who cares deeply about the work gets pulled in favour of someone out-of-touch who cares not a jot about the story and needs to leave their own grubby fingerprints all over it? More the other way around here, no?

Anyway, what I also wanted to say was that I really appreciated your 'think of it as the final two episodes of season two' (and all your takes on this situation so far, very level-headed and optimistic, thank you). I mean, you're right, and it's hardly wildly out-there for a series to finish on a feature-length special, and although the filler material in S2 and the compression of S3 maybe means it doesn't exactly resemble what the second book would have been, it was only ever meant to be two books. (Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed S2 and was very glad to get it, even though I am a book/S1 fan and also had the most fun in that time fandom pre/post/around the time of the S1 release, but why does it exist? Ego? You can't tell me you couldn't have fit the important parts of S2 into one season with the S3 plotline.)

Basically, I'm grieving the could-have-beens (imagine if he'd been exposed way earlier and the TP estate had had control of this whole production from the very start!) and I'm a little worried that that hurt'll stick around no matter how good S3 is - which I need to fix, because that's more power over my favourite show and what it means to me that I want to give anyone, let alone someone like that - but at the end of day, I do think it definitely can be done with what we have, and I'm choosing to be hopeful it'll be done well, because, well, why wouldn't I?

(I will say this hasn't been great for my faith in humanity, because I really want to believe not all men are shit and some of them are making it very difficult right now, but that's an entirely different problem and so far believing most people are mostly good has always prevailed in the end so. y'know. we'll get there. might reread discworld, that's always good for that.)

Sorry for venting all this at you! I just kinda felt the need to write it all down once to get it off my chest... have a snack on me? I'm partial to cherry tomatoes, green melon and mandarines at the moment (I stop eating salads in winter, which means I default to eating even more fruit) but I can also offer homemade baked goodies fresh from this morning? 🥧

Hi there. 💕 You are welcome to vent away & thank you for the delicious-sounding snacks and kind words. I'm glad my posts on the movie boosted your spirits about it. I agree with and can relate to almost everything that you said here so assume that anything that I don't address just has a 'yes, absolutely' nod happening. 🙂‍↕️

The one thing I want to touch on here is S2 and this idea of it being "filler" that you mentioned that I think might not be quite accurate. I think you (and anyone else who reads this) might feel more enthused about the idea of a good ending in 90 minutes after reading this so hopefully this'll be another way that I can help?

On why S2 is really the whole story and actually had a lot more going on in every way than S1...

Ok, I'm going to explain something that drives writers like myself bonkers 😂 and that is how some readers or viewers of fictional stories mix up plot and story.

Nothing grinds our gears than reading things like "filler" and "unnecessary subplots" because, while everyone is within their rights to have an opinion on written works, 95% of the time, the person who says phrases like this isn't talking about the quality of the work but of its very existence. They're saying "why did we have to read/watch this? it didn't connect to anything" and that's where they are very, very, very... argh, just tell them, Crowley...

...thank you, dear. Right, so, why is it wrong?

Because what many people who don't write don't understand about subplots and more character-driven story arcs is that the writers sat down and decided to do that stuff for very, very specific story reasons. Readers and viewers mistake plot for story. Plot only exists in service of story and, so, all plots exist for a purpose in the story. They're all relevant. In fact, the stuff people usually label as "filler" in a story is really exactly where they should be looking to figure out what the story is saying. If you're big mad about all this time you spent with Maggie and Nina in S2, I'd say you might not still understand what S2 was about because you won't understand Aziraphale's story without understanding both Maggie and Nina's struggles in S2, for example.

A story is the whole, overall thing. It's the meanings, themes, and messages in the work. It's what's being said. It's the ideas being put forth by the piece. It's what it's about. It's different from plot, which is just the stuff the writers are making the characters do or not do in order to tell the story that they are looking to tell. Story is the art; plot is a tool used to make that art. Fiction writers can come at their story from almost anywhere to convey what it is that they are trying to say so there is meaning in the fact that they are choosing to tell their stories the way that they are telling them. They came up with these ideas for reasons.

When you dismiss stuff as filler, you're saying that it's lesser than more in-your-face and bigger plots (when, often, it's very much not), and you're telling a writer how they should have written their own story-- most of the time, without even fully seeing the ending of that story or giving any consideration to why it is that the writer wanted you to read or watch the stuff you're saying wasn't necessary. I'm not arguing that every story is perfect but you aren't getting anywhere near close to being able to evaluate a story if you're not willing to dive into what you were given and consider why it was that you were given those things and what they might mean.

Until the main question that you're asking about every single aspect of a story is "what is this saying?", you're not really fully engaging with a work. You won't get there by dismissing what the artists are telling you is important.

The secret sauce to interpreting fiction are subplots, actually. They exist to help highlight the themes of the main story, often in a slightly more direct way. If you want to understand Good Omens, starting with Ineffable Bureaucracy is actually one of the best ways to get at the core of the themes of the story. It's far from wasted time in the story.

There's actually a funny nod to the importance of subplots in 1941 when Aziraphale references Sophocles, the playwright who basically created the concept of the supporting character whose story mirrors and parallels the main character(s). The mention of Sophocles shows up in S2, the season that brings Gabriel more fully into his purpose as exactly that.

The reason why S2's plot is centered around the honestly pretty easily solvable mystery as to what's happened to Gabriel is because Gabriel, from the get-go, has been the entire story distilled down.

If you follow nothing but Ineffable Bureaucracy in Good Omens, you're going to be closer to getting what it's about and where it's going and what its end game is than you are if you are dismissing it as wasted time when we only have few episodes left. If you haven't yet seen the secret wisdom in Jim-- not to mention understand that Jim and Gabriel are the same person-- then you're probably wigging out more about the movie.

You likely think that S2 was wasted on stuff like Gabriel, or Maggie and Nina's romance, when they should have been getting to Armageddon and The Second Coming already!

You haven't yet noticed that Armageddon has more than one meaning in the series.

It's not always the literal destruction of Earth but also a person's own life crisis. We are all worlds of our own and those worlds can be put at risk if we don't let others in and take care of ourselves and those around us.

When you realize this, you can start to see that S1 goes hard with a freight train of plot all over the place that is related to Armageddon in a more Biblical, apocalyptic sense while it establishes its universe for us but that, once we know how it all works, we can get something like S2... a time where we can step back and start using Armageddon in the more figurative way that the story is also presenting it.

We need to because the story isn't about Heaven or Hell-- it's about being a person. S2 is emphasizing the deeper aspects of the themes and rolling that out at a pace more in line with a person having a few days of inner crisis. When you see that Aziraphale's crisis is the point then you can see how S1 can be about The Four Horsepeople riding to the end of the world and S2 can show War (inner conflict), Pollution (mental health issues), and Famine (symptoms of the other two; lack of food and pleasure and connection; self-starvation and self-denial) as a mental health crisis.

The point is that if you're thinking these characters need to come together to overthrow Heaven and Hell and get to the South Downs Cottage and there's no time slajdflkfwjlkejlje!?!?, then you aren't realizing that not every revolution involves guns and bombs.

People all over the world can start a love train that's far more effective. You might think a subplot about The Hellhound and The Ginger Cat learning to play nice and that they have a fuckton in common and should maybe bury the hatchet and just become eternal bffs already is filler but Crowley and Gabriel aligning is set up for the end game. It's strength in numbers and finding peace and family. They can't overthrow Heaven/Hell without help and Gabriel is the Supreme Archangel. They literally will never have a South Downs Cottage ending without a plot that helped Crowley and Aziraphale see that Gabriel and Beez are on their side.

This is the revolution in Good Omens:

It will take all the characters coming together to overthrow Heaven/Hell and set up something new for us to get a happy ending and we absolutely will. S2 is Gabriel-centric because Gabriel is the key to all of the characters getting a peaceful ending and because he's a split-directly-down-the-middle mirror of both Crowley and Aziraphale. In a season that is more about Aziraphale's inner Armageddon than about an external threat, Gabriel is vital to telling that story. The plot of S2 is every bit as important to the story as S1. I'd argue that it's even more important because takes the time to go at the themes in a slower, deeper way. It needs to because it's a story of a fall that sets up for a story in S3 of a recovery from one.

Good Omens is the absolute perfect combination of a show that is both very, very detail-oriented and full of depth while also being, secretly, an incredibly simple story. I do not mean simple in a negative way but in a chef's kiss sort of way. Simple in a tight and elegant sort of way. This is something that I think some people might not see when they're theorizing but it's something to keep in mind ahead of the movie. Not just because the movie is shorter-- this would have been relevant if we were having a longer S3, too.

Good Omens has a very engaged fan base that looks for the details, yes. *raises hand* I'm one of them lol. And there will be plenty to pour over in the movie, but... the big thing to keep in mind is that your theory needs to be something that is simple, that can be explained in under a handful of scenes, tops, and that is focused on where Aziraphale's story arc is going above anything and everything else.

If you're beginning with time loops and the birth of a new antichrist baby, I'm telling you from ages of experience reading and writing stories, you're going to be way off. If you are over here composing theories of the story that you are arguing are correct and this theory involves, idk... *makes something up* Crowley is really Elvis and Elvis is really The Bentley and when a rainbow hits Whickber Street at exactly 4 minutes into the new season, Satan will be revealed to really be Jesus, I think maybe you might be missing the point of the details that the show has given already. Like the plot, these details exist to reinforce the themes of the story. Story beats everything else-- it's what this is all about.

And what Good Omens is about? Is best summed up by Michael Sheen, in this single sentence that I really, really agree with and have paraphrased more than once in posts:

Good Omens is about the business of living. It's about the human experience, which is the experience of being a person. Everything related to Heaven and Hell and good and evil and Armageddon and supernatural things is plot that only exists to highlight a story about the complexities of being a person.

The supernatural is human and the human is supernatural.

That is what Good Omens is about.

While Crowley and Aziraphale are built as two halves of a whole and are both main characters, Aziraphale is the main character from a technical, story perspective, because he is the character whose story arc is driving both the plot and story forward. He's heading for a happy ending with Crowley in the South Downs by the end of the film. If you're making theories, start with what kind of plot would truly get him there and still fit with all of the themes of the story.

This 'it's about being a person' business is why if you look at S2 as filler and not as a season that is exploring the continuing themes on a deeper level, you're still worried about things like there being no time in a movie to show the story of a new antichrist kid being born or how they're going to fit the whole Second Coming into the movie. You don't yet see that Aziraphale parallels Adam and that being an antichrist is basically just being a person and that Aziraphale is presently the antichrist in the story. There is no antichrist child yet to be born. They won't be cutting it because it's not the story.

Armageddon since S2 has been Aziraphale's own personal one and the story from the end of S2 on is now how, if all the other characters can't come together to help him, it could also trigger Armageddon of the S1, Earth-destroying kind. It's tying a more literal Armageddon into a more figurative one. Because this story is about being a person so Armageddon is just metaphorical for going through a mental health crisis and shutting people out.

This story's themes include that every person matters and we all have to let others in and look out for one another. That there's strength in numbers. That found family and adopted family is as much family as biological family-- often, even more so. That labelling and categorizing people is bullshit and you should always open the cover and read the first sentences of people and help people whose stories begin with the same letters find one another. That it might be surprising who has things in common. It's about all of Heaven and Hell versus all of humanity, in the sense that ideas of being a perfect angel or being seen as an evil demon are concepts felt by human beings that get in the way of peace and healthy, happy living, but that fighting them is a common, human struggle, regardless of from where you come.

If you are too focused on the religious plot being the center of the film, you haven't yet seen the meaning of why the end of S1 was an eleven year old kid saving the world by telling off the bio-dad that was never there for him. You might be one of the people who thought this a silly, anti-climatic ending to that story, and don't yet realize that this is the entire story in a nutshell.

Adam can only reject Satan and keep the darkness at bay because he is surrounded-- here, literally-- by a family that supports him. He has good people for parents and was lucky enough to grow up with resources that all kids in this world should have. He has an absolutely terrific group of friends. He has this witch lady and her boyfriend and these two gay uncles that just showed up out of nowhere 😂 and his human incarnate self has what it needs to make it through this crisis, in this moment, even if he'll probably have others throughout his life, just like all of us. He's not evil incarnate and he doesn't have to be perfect-- he's just a person.

Aziraphale tells Adam this but struggles to see himself in the same way. That's what S2 is about.

S2 is about that other kid who, like Adam, breaks the season down into a single line of dialogue, David Tennant's apparent favorite from the season:

Jemimah knows who she is and she is happy to claim ownership over her art and contributions to the world. She's living her life with excitement and enthusiasm in a way that gets more complicated as we become traumatized adults. Crowley and Aziraphale struggle with this. They have been making a life together on Earth for thousands of years and each struggle, in their own ways, to truly accept that they are people who are allowed to have a life because they struggle to accept that they are people, just like everyone else.

Their story is about getting to a better place with that. That's really all Good Omens fundamentally is. That's why their ending is going to be to go live in a little cottage together that isn't a business that covers up an angelic embassy that covers up a secret love den. It's just their house-- theirs together for the life they're going to live openly together.

If you want some peace with the film, I'd advise throwing over your theories about The Second Coming and Armageddon needing to happen and antichrist kids and how Jesus fits into everything. Jesus in Good Omens is Crowley romancing Aziraphale at the crucifixion and Aziraphale using what Jesus said to Crowley to reject temptation as invitation to fuck him. I thought Jesus in a single scene or less was the most likely thing for S3 and the same holds for the movie. It's not the story. The only time The Second Coming is mentioned in S2 is by the villain and, to get there, Earth would have to first be destroyed. It won't be.

If the story is about being a messy human walking the Earth and we're in the end game now, then the story is about Aziraphale and only Aziraphale. Everything-- everything-- will be in service of Aziraphale's story arc. We already had just a few episodes with S3 and we now have even less time but the way this is going is still the same. The story is Aziraphale's fall and the other characters coming together to challenge Heaven to keep Aziraphale from eternity in Hell. That's how Armageddon is stopped this time around-- overthrowing Heaven with Aziraphale's fate as the motivation to take on The Metatron. It's nothing to do with Jesus. It's everything to do with Aziraphale.

When you see that, you can see how feasible that is in 90 minutes, with plenty of time for things like 1941, Part 3 and other flashbacks.

I think, when all is said and done, you might wind up appreciating S2 more after the film but you can get there already if you start looking at it less as meaningless fluff and start asking why it is that we were shown this story, in this way, and what that can tell us about the story we're watching.

[linkemon]

Too late (Runaan x Reader)

Friendly reminder that English is not my first language. You can check my Masterlists both in English and Polish here. Consider supporting me on Ko-fi. You can also check out my commissions if you’re interested.

Other oneshots can be found here.

"— ᴛᴏᴍᴏʀʀᴏᴡ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ʙᴇ ꜰʀᴇᴇ, ʀᴜɴᴀᴀɴ."

ᴀᴅᴅɪᴛɪᴏɴᴀʟ ɪɴꜰᴏʀᴍᴀᴛɪᴏɴ: 1. ᴛʜᴇ ꜱʜᴏᴛ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀɪɴꜱ ᴀ ꜱᴘᴏɪʟᴇʀ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴇᴘɪꜱᴏᴅᴇ 8 ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ 1ꜱᴛ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ. 2. ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀ'ꜱ ᴏʀɪᴇɴᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴡᴀꜱ ɴᴏᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡɴ ᴜɴᴛɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀꜱᴛ ꜱᴇᴀꜱᴏɴ (ᴛʜᴇ ꜱʜᴏᴛ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴡʀɪᴛᴛᴇɴ ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ ᴀʟʟ ᴏꜰ ᴜꜱ ᴋɴᴇᴡ).

What was Viren trying to accomplish? The question had been on Runaan's mind for days now. How long, he couldn't remember exactly. After he'd murdered the king of Katolis and been thrown into a cramped cell, he'd lost track of time.

[Reader] would visit him sometimes. At least, that was how she introduced herself. She brought him both human food, elven juice and messages from Viren as well. So far, he had not drunk anything, nor admitted to anything. But he found that the girl was a diversion during the slowly dragging time. The time that was still left before he died.

He was more certain of nothing in his life than his imminent end. Raised as an elven warrior, he learned from an early age to push fear into the recesses of his consciousness. And years spent training and the oath sworn with his brothers allowed him to do what had to be done and accept the consequences.

He only regretted that Rayla, whom he had trained for so long, was unable to shed her scruples. But he had little control over that. He only knew that she would lose her hand instead of her life, which might have been a silver lining but in reality she would be covered in shame for not keeping her oath.

The value Runaan fought for was justice.

Or at least he believed with all his might that it was. Even if, from the perspective of the human race, he dreamed of revenge, he considered it righteous.

That was why he was hanging almost helplessly from the handcuffs connected to the ceiling. They locked his arms, legs and prevented him from moving most of the time. But he still held his head up with the pride typical of elves. Unfortunately, his strength was gradually failing him, which did not go unnoticed by Viren.

Runaan had already examined every inch of gray stone beneath his feet and the mold at the other end of the cell. Every now and then he caught a glimpse of a mouse scurrying by. At that unremarkable moment, [Reader] entered the cell. Her demeanor, however, indicated that something was clearly wrong because she usually moved quickly and quietly but now she turned her head a few times, as if checking to see if anyone was behind her and then, right in front of him, drank some of the juice.

— You should take this. — She held the bottle to his lips. — I assure you it’s not poisoned.

— What you did doesn’t prove anything yet — he replied in a hoarse voice.

He didn't really believe in the girl's intentions. She could have just as easily drunk the antidote or let herself be sacrificed to the governor.

— Viren doesn't want to kill you. He needs you. For now, at least — she added quietly. — And I'm going to get you out of here.

— Why would the woman from Katolis want to release her king’s killer from prison? — he snarled.

— Harrow was never my king — she snapped quietly.

— I still don't see why you would do something like that.

— I don't have time for your idiotic questions.

— My dear, I have all the time in the world. — He smiled.

She looked at him, then resignedly pushed her hair to the side. Despite the darkness, lit only by the faint glow from the corridor, he saw that it carefully covered her long, elven ears.

Runaan, unable to believe his eyes, moved his gaze to her hands, where he saw five fingers.

— Most people are at the king’s funeral, so we have some time — she explained briefly, glancing back out of the corner of her eye. — My grandfather was an elf. — She pointed to her ears again. — He fell in love with my grandmother, who followed him to Xadia, where my mother was later born. A year later, humans stole the dragon prince’s egg and, at her husband’s urging, she fled to Katolis. Hoping for his return, she raised the child. It wasn’t that hard. My mother was physically fit but her appearance was deceptively close to human. When she grew up, she met my father and the genes weakened even more. That’s why I have five fingers and I’m not much different from anyone else. After my mother died, I ended up at the castle by saving the life of Claudia, who is Viren’s daughter. Since then, I’ve been under his watchful eye and...

— I don’t understand what you’re getting at — he said.

— I want to get to Xadia safely. I received a sealed letter from my grandfather half a year ago. There is no mistake. He is waiting for me there because he is unable to get to Katolis without getting involved in the conflict. By holding back, he pays tribute to my deceased grandmother.

From the elf's perspective, [Reader]'s grandfather had lost his honour by failing to fight for his people but Runaan was not about to throw away a potential ally. So he stuck to the neutral statement of fact:

— I understand that in exchange for your help I would take you to Xadia.

— Yes. — She rubbed her fingers nervously.

— Why do you think I'd agree? I've already achieved my goal. Besides, I might as well slaughter you right after you escape.

— Elves aren’t like that! — she interjected.

She hesitated but quickly regained her composure.

It sounded like she'd said this denial many times before.

— I know that... people believe the nonsense they're told but my family didn't ignore the truth when I was learning about your culture. If I hadn't chosen to trust you, I wouldn't be here.

Runaan held her determined gaze.

— Let's say I trust you, too. What's your plan? Assuming you have one...

— We'll have to wait until the coronation, when the perfect opportunity to get you out of here quietly will present itself. Especially since Viren put spells on the shackles but I've already stolen a few things, so that shouldn't be a problem. You should also try to regain your strength by then, so I brought you some juice and some formula. — She pulled out a second vial, previously hidden in her wide skirt.

The elf eyed both bottles suspiciously, then sniffed as she unscrewed the cap. The first definitely contained juice. He wasn't so sure about the second but the liquid reminded him of something the medic had made him the last time he'd had a nasty wound and needed a quick fix.

He was aware of the risk he was takin but he had already completed his task. The only thing that loomed before him was death or the betrayal of his already dead brothers. He had no other choice.

So he did what cold calculation told him and drank the contents of both bottles.

— I’ll be back tomorrow. — She smiled shyly in response to this act.

Then, looking around carefully, she left the cell. Leaving Runaan with doubts.

The elf was finally able to let his guard down for a moment.

Being suspended in handcuffs was already making it hard for him to sleep. Now, on top of that, he wondered if he had just made a mortal mistake. As a result, he didn't sleep a wink until Viren's next visit.

[Reader] came to him when she received such an order and she was exactly as quiet as she had been at first. The elf guessed that the governor must be watching her.

Their meetings were completely different when she came while Viren was unaware.

She brought him bits and pieces of information about his kin that she had managed to overhear in the castle, told him about her past and corrected her knowledge of elves. Oddly enough, she managed to get close enough to Runaan to tell her about himself. He had never confided in anyone like that in his life.

[Reader] also made an ointment that would partially numb the pain but didn't get rid of the prisoner's scars, cuts or bruises. They didn't want to risk a failed operation by acting too suspiciously.

The girl applied the medicine with such delicacy that the elf could have sworn that if he had even hissed, he would have stopped feeling that anyone was there.

Oddly enough, her touch and presence seemed oddly soothing to him, even though he had hated the human race so much up until that point. He explained it to himself by saying that she was the only one who resembled his people to some extent.

The night before her escape, [Reader] went over every step of the journey and the details with him once more, and then, before she could change her mind, she walked over and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek.

— Tomorrow you will be free, Runaan. — She left.

The elf was confused as he felt a warmth around his heart but decided to put the budding feeling aside as the day had come when he would regain his freedom.

However, the governor thwarted the plans by bringing something the prisoner had not expected. A mirror was brought into the cell.

Runaan was well aware of the danger that lurked within the ancient relic, especially considering whose hands it had taken. He also knew that if he so much as uttered a word, death would befall many, so he proudly refused to cooperate.

He kept the secret.

But it cost him pain, suffering and endless nightmares.

Even Gren on the other side of the castle dungeons heard his screams.

He had lost all hope of any escape.

Because how could one try to escape from inside the coin?

He lost his chance at something he had never experienced before.

Two hours later, [Reader] entered the cell.

However, she found no one there.

She arrived too late.

[j4keluver]

baby, i'm here to love you

pairing: boyfriend ! jake x girlfriend ! reader genre: established relationship, angst, comfort warnings: reader calling herself stupid, crying authors note: this is for my pookie @luvj4key. i hope i did you justice love </3

jake has always been the best boyfriend - like a golden retriever to your beck and call. his smile radiates through the entire room and his laugh could heal the souls of millions. he has loved you endlessly and never once have you ever doubted it.

so how did you end up yelling at him over not washing the dishes? "jake i asked you to do one thing for me ! and you couldn't even do that," you yell out. whatever those girls said about mercury being in retrograde, were right. it felt like the earth was rotating backwards with finals week around the corner. you have summed up about an average of 3 hours of sleep a day, the rest of the hours hunched over in the library.

it was getting more frustrating with the days going on and jake has been busy with his own school work. you knew jake was busy, either studying for his own finals or gaming with his friends. jake was always a smart guy, being in honors classes and passing them with ease. you. on the other hand, struggle to grasp concepts until they are fully immersed after countless hours of practice.

you had given jake a heads up to ask him to please wash the dishes before coming home. you wanted to cook dinner but you didn't have any clean dishes to use. jake, on the hand, had just got home and decided to take a small nap before doing some cleaning around the house. he sets an alarm and it doesn't ring.

"baby i'm sorry, it was a mistake, i didn't mean to forget," he says as he tries to pull you in for a hug. you shake off his advances and you roll your eyes at him, "it wasn't that hard of a task to do but you still couldn't do it? i've been endlessly studying in the library for finals week because i'm not a genius like you and i don't understand the material ! i keep trying all these practice problems and i keep getting everything wrong and i just wanted one thing to be done. i'm starving all day and i wanted to come home and cook us dinner but none of the dishes are done and.."

your voice breaks with ease and jake's demeanor immediately softens. his tone is so soft that you would miss it, "baby..."

the emotions that you've been holding for however long comes breaking down as tears streamed down your face. jake feels like his heart is chipping away, "oh baby, come here." you take a step forward before jake fully wraps his arms around you, his cologne wafting into your senses. his arms rub soothing circles on your hip as he plants soft kisses into your hair. "hey it's okay, i got you, i got you."

your tears start to slow down as you slowly catch your breathe. jake slowly pulls you to sit on his lap while the sound of your breathing is only heard. jake whispers to you, "what happened baby? tell me."

you only let out a small exhale, "i've just been so stressed with finals and i just can't grasp the content and i feel so stupid. i just don't know how to get these formulas down and i didn't want to bother you because i know you were busy with your own finals. i just didn't want you to become annoyed at me or think i'm stupid."

jake reaches up his hand to cup your cheek and softly caress it with his thumb, "my sweet angel, i can't believe you've been holding all of this in. it's okay to not understand content after studying it, sometimes you just need a little more time for things to click. if it doesn't, you know i'm here to help you always."

he continues on, "you are not stupid because you don't understand something, okay? you are very smart and work very hard and you can never bother me. baby, i'm here to love you."

your eyes soften at his words and the only thing you can say in this moment is a 'thank you.' jake points to his watering eyes, "look baby! you even got me crying." you only softly laugh and give him a kiss which he gladly returns.

"let's order some takeout and we can work on some of your material tomorrow morning? how does that sound?" jake says and you nod. for the first time in weeks, you finally smile.

© belong to j4keluver. do not copy, translate, or repost.

[ladyofthehightower]

Leaving Driftmark discourse in 2024...

... but i still have two more days to speak my mind, so i will.

Long post, but do bare with me.

One of my biggest issues with HoTD discourse is how moments like everything that goes down at Driftmark are treated. The events—from Aemond claiming Vhagar to Alicent's knife attack—aren’t standalone; they’re deeply rooted in the show's prior dynamics. But people loooove to ignore that!

SO. For the last time, before we leave it behind in 2024, let's discuss Driftmark, and everything that led up to it.

Let's start with Aemond, as we only have one previous episode to go through for him.

We learn that Aemond is being bullied by Aegon and his nephews, mainly for not having a dragon. But we can assume that his bullying has been going on for a while, and goes beyond the dragon, judging on scenes/dialogue in the episode (we have Viserys and Alicent discussing it, Alicent confronting Aegon about it, and of course Alicent comforting Aemond. We also have the training scene in the courtyard).

We can easily assume that his lack of a dragon is a big source of insecurity, as he literally risks his life to remedy it. It must be especially difficult that Jace and Luke have dragons, as Aemond knows they aren't "true" Targaryens. It's unclear to what extent, but we can assume that Alicent and/or Aegon have been talking to Aemond about Jace and Luke being bastards. I mean, it is pretty clear to see, but the animosity comes from somewhere.

In s1e7, at the funeral, Aemond tries to approach Jace, but doesn't when Jace ultimately return Aemond's attempt to reconcile or comfort.

Now Alicent!

Let's think! Looking at episode 1-7, strictly from Alicent's perspective, completely ignoring "factual truth" and other character's views and opinions- Just kidding! We don't even have to think at all! Because Alicent tells us, with words, why she is upset with Rhaenyra!

What have I done but what was expected of me? Forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law. While you flout all to do as you please. Where is duty? Where is sacrifice? It's trampled under your pretty foot again. And now you take my son's eye, and to even that, you feel entitled.

Essentially from s1e2 forward, Alicent watches as Rhaenyra get's away with anything and everything, while Alicent suffers at the hand of her father and her husband. It does not matter what it is, Viserys seems blind to Rhaenyra's faults. Alicent is jealous of the freedom she sees Rhaenyra enjoy, of the crimes she gets away with. It's clear that Visery's only priority is Rhaenyra, he cares little for his children with Alicent, which is of course very frustrating.

Alicent loses all her happiness because she does her duty. While Rhaenyra gains all of hers from ignoring it.

Let's then look at s1e7, Driftmark, THE moment.

Aemond claims Vhaegar, a huge feat for a child. He risks his life for it! Is it insensitive? Yes. Laena has just been buried, Baela and Rhaena are mourning. But what Aemond did was not a crime, it was a child being insensitive at most.

Luke, Jace, Baela and Rheana (with a knife) go to intercept whoever claimed Vhaegar, and they find Aemond: Luke and Jace's bully victim. It's a 4v1 where they're all on top of Aemond at one point, punching him. Aemond rises a stone to Luke, but lowers it. Jace pulls a knife, tries to attack Aemond. Aemond rises the rock to Jace, but does nothing, which is when Luke attacks with the knife.

After this, we watch as Alicent, heartbroken, demands justice for her son's lost eye. Is she wrong to demand an eye for an eye? Yes. They are all children, and demanding an eye from a child is crazy, but in that moment, Alicent is crazy. Because no one cares! Her son lost an eye, and somehow the discussion is about Rhaenyra and her children being insulted? Aemond lost an eye, and now Rhaenyra wants him sharply questioned? I think any mother who loves her children, who has never strayed from the path of duty while watching someone ignore it and get away with it for 20 years, would go crazy when her son is maimed and the conversation shifts to someone else, making her son's attackers out to be the victims.

I think it's also pretty clear that Alicent runs for Rhaenyra, not Luke. She has her knife raised high, she is looking at Rhaenyra who his in front of Luke. I don't genuinely think Alicent was trying to harm Luke, but more so Rhaenyra, who is the actual source of her pain in that moment.

ANYWAY.

That's what I had to say. To understand Driftmark, both how Alicent and Aemond act (and why I disagree when I see people blame the fight on Aemond), we have to look at the previous episodes, and we have to be able to see things from Alicent's and Aemond's perspectives too.

Like Viserys, the fandoms very easily sides with Rhaenyra and tends to overlook all other perspectives. Which is why I ignored her perspective in this post. But I will say, how she acts is incredibly smart. With her "thank you, father", she actively drives Alicent to lash out, to appear crazy, in order to discredit her. She knows which buttons to push.

[scoobydoodean]

#okay wait do y'all think that she wasn't going to try and murder Dean?#Do you think he was going to get through to her?#convince her somehow to not try to stab him?#that she was telling the truth at all in that scene?#because she was totally going to try and kill Dean#like 100% that was going to happen#and if Sam hadn't shot her then Dean would have had to kill her and that would have been so much harder on Dean#like it was disturbing that Dean had a 3 day old monster child that wanted to kill him but who was then killed by her uncle Sam instead#and even more disturbing that they then never mention her again#but these are also the guys who left their half brother in Lucifer's cage and didn't lose any sleep over it so...#and I love Dean but killing Amy was an asshole move#and there's kinda a difference between killing an active imminent threat and killing someone in cold blood after the fact @jinkieswouldyoulookatthis

I didn't want to clutter someone else's post but this was partially directed at me? I've talked about the whole "Emma vs Amy" debate quite a few times, but I'll share a few thoughts.

Amy is a present, unrepentant, fully cognizant, adult, serial murderer. She is not actually sorry about what she did in any way. She believes that slaughtering humans like cattle to feed them to her son was the morally correct action even if it wasn't the ethical action because it kept her son alive. She is not correct.

Emma is a brainwashed child who's been psychologically conditioned for a few days. She has never killed anyone and only wants to kill Dean because some women who abused her told her to.

Hunters like Sam and Dean primarily deal in punitive justice, not preventative justice—and what I mean by that is that Sam and Dean try not to kill people (with powers or without powers) who have never killed anyone.

While I think you're right to point out that a preventative justice component is in play, that is not primarily how Dean makes the decision to go after Amy, and the reason we know that is because Amy's son swears to kill Dean and Dean does nothing about it because the boy has done absolutely nothing wrong.

Dean's application of his personal code is consistent here. He kills Amy, who is a murderer who killed four people, but he does not intend to kill Emma or Amy's son—both of whom wanted to kill him—because neither has actually killed anyone and both may choose not to.

You say that Emma was going to kill Dean 100%, but you don't actually know that because we never got to see that future. You assume Amy would never have killed again, but when you add up "murderer who regrets absolutely nothing" and "child vulnerable to catching illnesses" you get "Mom who absolutely would kill again as necessary and who would feel zero remorse doing so just like the last time".

I don't personally think SPN gives us any reason to suspect that three days of psychological conditioning from a cult is too much to overcome. We have seen other characters overcome much more serious levels of psychological conditioning intended to make them killers. For example, Cas and Alex. I'm not saying Emma wasn't trying to pull the wool over Sam and Dean's eyes in the scene where Sam shot her, but I am saying that doesn't actually mean in any way that she couldn't be convinced to actually choose a different path.

Under the same litmus test with which you suggest Emma's condemnation, we'd also condemn season 2 Sam for his potential "future" crimes. We are killing monsters before they actually become those monsters... because of the dark path someone else intends for them to go down. Amy—again—is an active present unrepentant serial killer.

I think sometimes people misremember the scene where Sam kills Emma—recalling the scene as a scene where Emma lunges at Dean with the knife and Sam steps in just in time to save his life, or where Dean is unarmed and Emma has him at knife point. But that is not what happened. Emma quite literally brought a knife to a gun fight. Dean had a gun pointed at her, and if she was thinking straight at all, she would have left to avoid being killed if given the chance—especially when Sam arrived. And had she not, Sam could have shot her at that point—but Sam didn't wait to see what she'd do. He wanted her dead, because even if she ran, he didn't think they were equipped to deal with surprise attacks from Dean's Amazon child. That is the decision Sam made after a brief moment to consider, and it makes sense to me given the headspace he was in at the time and his assessment of Dean's headspace as well, but it does not make his decision consistent with his previous or future behavior regarding people who have been psychologically conditioned to kill.

My own frustrations are more with fandom, for a thought process that really really does not make sense to me, where Emma deserves to die but Amy deserved to live. I do not agree with that premise. I do not understand why so much of fandom has the perspective that a child who hadn't shed a drop of blood and who was acting in response to a cult's torture, who brought a knife to a gun fight and had already been driven into a corner where she had no choice but to surrender or run—doesn't deserve a chance to choose something else before she's barely lived and before she's heard a loving word in her entire life, but an adult with full cognizance of their actions who went through with killing four people and doesn't regret it should go on with their life and is "just a good mom doing what she had to" and killing that person is the bad thing. I don't understand that. I don't think Dean killing Amy was wrong at all in the "hunters kill supernatural murderers" show. The only thing Dean did wrong was lie about it and not take enough care to keep her son from seeing it happen.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I read your rewrite of Chapter 2 (which was great, by the way) and would like to clarify some things. Of course, you wrote that the fixes were just you exploring possibilities, so you don't need to justify anything if you don't want to. 1. How would Leona join the investigation? Correct me if I am wrong, but Leona didn't seem to know about Yuu and co. until Riddle and Qater confronted Ruggie. For him to know about them so soon, someone (like an injured Savanaclaw student or a Savanaclaw student who overheard Yuu and co. questioning others) would need to let him know. Even then, would he be able to join without looking suspicious? 2. How does Leona plan to frame Diasomnia and get it to stick? He can point fingers all he wants and use the circumstantial evidence they gather to prove it, but Diasomnia has no reason to sabotage others when they have Malleus. Leona would most likely be aware of Crowley's biases, so is he just hoping casting enough suspicion would force Crowley's hand? Does he intend to convince students from other dorms to demand their disqualification despite the lack of motive?

[Referencing this post!]

Wow, people are still reading that?? 😭

As I said in the original post, my book 2 rewrite was more of a compilation of shower thoughts without much care given to fleshing out the finer details. It is by no means perfect, nor is it meant to cover everything.

There’s enough wiggle room left for various different interpretations using my book 2 rewrite as a basis. It’s meant to be flexible!

Just for fun, here are my thoughts:

To your first point, I don’t think Leona would come off as suspicious if his introduction was framed a certain way (which I’m sure he could plan around). Yuu and co. would be investigating all the dorms (since they’re all suspects), which includes Savanaclaw students. Leona could easily hear it from Savanaclaw mobs and then reintroduce himself to the group, claiming he also wants in on the investigation to seek justice for his injured students. Since Riddle is already investigating with Yuu, Leona could easily use that to distract from his true intentions. He would come off as just another pissed dorm leader trying to stand up for and avenge his dorm members. (And if we really want to get technical, we could reason the other dorm leaders are not getting involved due to other reasons, like Azul being busy with the inter-dorm event organization, Jamil not trusting anyone with Kalim but himself, Vil preoccupied with his professional gigs, Idia being Idia, and no one knowing where the heck Malleus has wandered off to now.)

To your second point, I think Leona definitely has the capacity to trick/manipulate other students into believing Diasomnia is responsible. He could set up situations which incriminate certain Diasomnia students (based on their unique skillsets), then leave the other dorms’ students to come to their own (false) conclusions based on that. Obviously, it would look too suspicious if he and Savanaclaw students are the only ones pointing fingers, so he has to convince the others to parrot the rhetoric he wants them to. If it was done this way, we achieve many things: 1) Leona comes off as way more intelligent than in the original book 2, 2) it sets up more parallels between him and Jamil (who also tried to get a lot of people to side with him under false pretenses to convince someone of higher authority to change their mind) for delicious book 6 payoff, and 3) it adds to the sense of betrayal the other students experience at the end when it turns out Leona deceived them.

Something I feel that the main story fails to do well is to define the rivalries between each dorm. It’s only mentioned a few times off-handedly, like how Octavinelle and Scarabia students are intelligent and are thus always neck and neck in terms of grades. In my revised book 2, an opportunity arises to utilize this untapped potential. Think about it: what if the other dorm members are more likely to suspect Diasomnia because the main story calls more attention to how the dorms do NOT get along with each other?? Diasomnia is described to us as a place where skilled all-around mages go, and this has resulted in the Diasomnia students being more arrogant than your average NRC student (which by itself is already very arrogant). From that point of view, it’s not too hard to believe that the other students could think Diasomnia is injuring other students “just because they can”. They’ve grown too arrogant and think they can get away with doing whatever they want because they won’t face the consequences of their actions. (Malleus himself is THE poster child of that across multiple events and vignettes too.) There doesn’t necessarily need to be a motive in the traditional sense; people could suspect that Diasomnia has gotten too high and mighty, so they are conceited and feel entitled to doing whatever the hell they want. It would be a perfect way for Leona to weaponize the preexisting animosity and pride of the NRC students against them. The injured students would then feel slighted because Diasomnia are being held up as the metaphorical “golden children” (despite their theoretical unethical behavior) while their suffering is looked over. These feelings ironically also parallel how Scar feels cheated of the throne because of his careless older brother and son, or even how the hyenas are not seen as part of the Pridelands.

[lasnevadaslaborunion]

Okay, finally caught up on the full VOD and here are some messy thoughts

...

So. UHHH. On a gut emotional level, I fucking hated that lmao. Whole chapter of my life finished with a bang and a whimper. Las Nevadas Labor Union is over, y'all. The boss just deny, defend, deposed himself. Holy shit.

On an intellectual, thematic level... I... can't really... argue with that? Like, we didn't actually expect a character that cc!Q explicitly said was inspired by Walter White to receive a happy ending or a functional relationship, did we? We were really high on our copium supply, good grief.

I could, and still might, write a whole meta about how c!Quackity has been passively suicidal with a foreshortened sense of future for a very long time. As far back as Doomsday, he didn't care if he lost his life, as long as he got to watch those who hurt him go down first. He declared so many times that he would die with his country. He was incessantly compared to c!Wilbur, both by other characters and by the narrative itself. He was fucking terrified of being betrayed again, but he always expected it, and moreover did nothing to prevent it. He told c!Foolish and c!Purpled outright that they would have every right to kill him for what he did to them. Didn't even consider making himself immortal with the revival book, instead focusing on making sure c!Dream would no longer have it. Didn't fight back when Slime killed him. Doubled down on his mistakes, and in hindsight rationalized everything as inevitable. Wrested back control the only way he knew how, following another's model. Las Nevadas was a broken institution, built by a man who had given up on fixing anything. His story was always about the self-perpetuating cycle of power and abuse.

This... isn't shocking, unfortunately. If anything, it was too obvious an ending.

I won't go too deep into the OOC implications, because they will make me sound... way more parasocial than I want to be. But I don't think it's controversial to say that the DSMP holds a lot of complicated, difficult, bittersweet memories for many of its former members. It does not surprise me at all that the ending cc!Q chose for his arc was an unhappy one. There are several possible conclusions I would have greatly preferred, but none could have realistically happened without Certain People returning. I wonder how aware the creator was of that, and how much those emotions bled into the writing.

And while I'm... still not certain how I feel about c!Quackity blowing himself up even after being given a second chance (I will always prefer "live and try to do better" à la Bojack Horseman for characters like this), I see the in-universe logic behind it, and everything up to that point was completely in character. Right down to his denial of having ever done the deed, boasting that his enemies deemed him important enough to kill, while ironically taking hollow pride in denying them the chance to take the revenge he so desperately sought for himself, showing no mercy to who he maybe subconsciously believed was his greatest obstacle to true glory... ughhh, c!Quackity makes me so fucking SAD you guys-

Ahem. Anyway. Could he have forgiven himself? Would he have ever accepted the forgiveness of others? Perhaps, perhaps not. In two other lives, those he unknowingly gave a second chance to, he did. q!Quackity went on living for the sake of someone he loved, knowing he, too, was loved. k!Quackity went on living until he found justice, knowing he did not deserve to be wronged. c!Quackity... what other legacy would he have left? Does he know what he truly wanted, before all that fear and hunger for control tainted his heart? Was he content to know someone would remember him with a shred of fondness? That he left a single positive impact? That his life did have a purpose?What if he knew that even some of those with the most reason to hate him still wanted him to be better?

I suppose one might imagine an open-ended resolution, exchanging that last shot of c!Q's last life vanishing with him riding Boner/Ossium away from the explosion and into the sunset to build a better legacy. What would that new legacy look like? I have no idea. I don't think he knows yet, either. But we can pick our favorite based on the day. Time travel is real, and canon is made up. We can do what we want forever now. Enjoy.

...

He's not a fucking gringo, though. c!Quackity is Mexican, importantly so, full fucking stop. Stop infecting him with more Trump particles than he already had. "Oh great, a foreigner" honestly FUCK you Alex. 0/10 for that

[punprincess321]

So... why didn't Bruce just lobby for Joker to get executed? Like you’re telling me this man doesn't have the cajones to kill the man that killed his son (he couldn't because Joker had diplomatic immunity but in recent years he just subscribed to "I'd be as bad as him if i did") but he couldn’t just... I don't know... USE HIS VAST WEALTH AND INFLUENCE TO GET HIM A SEAT IN THE ELECTRIC CHAIR!? Like if you're not gonna do it yourself, I get it, Batman should not be seen killing, but Bruce Wayne can absolutely be seen lobbying for Gotham's judicial system to give Joker the death penalty. Joker has never ONCE shown signs of improvement unlike the rest of the rogues gallery, he is fully aware of what he is doing, yes he's insane but he legit takes pleasure in the chaos he creates, there's no saving that, at this point he doesn’t even deserve the chair, he deserves to be held down and have a car battery clamped to his nipples. This fight between batman and joker doesn't end until one of them is dead and joker legit went to work at the DMV after batman died, there’s no saving joker while batman is alive.

"But he could break out with the help of his goons!" Bruce could use his wealth to pay them all off, every petty criminal and goon for hire gets a nice cash gift if they turn joker down, get lawyers that Joker threatened top notch security, HE HAS THE JUSTICE LEAGUE ON SPEED DIAL! If Joker was getting executed, Bruce would absolutely get Clark and Diana to personally escort the clown to the exection room, both are wearing heavily armored gasproof suits so he doesn't try anything funny with joker venom or kryptonite or anything else.

"What about Harley?"

Do this when she is in a 100% hates joker mood, keep her with Ivy and her doctors and more security, I say flash because he's a nice guy who wouldn't taunt her and rile her up to save joker. Don't let the path to the execution room go by where she is, one look and she could be back under his spell.

"Oh in this comic they tried to execute him and it failed" okay I wanna see that and tell me where it went wrong, and if killing him STILL doesn't work, then make LIFE hell for him. If killing joker still doesn't work here's my pitch for what to do with him:

Lock him away from everyone, lock him in a secure painfully beige house, he eats nothing with color just potatoes, well done steak, eggs, onions, milk, water, bread, and beans, his only utensil is his hands, no paper, no glass, no plastic, no metal, nothing to be used as a weapon, he just gets food put straight onto the table and he eats it with his hands, he has to drink using those fancy water bombs made with seaweed. Every product he has access to is 100% natural, no chemicals he can use to make his laughing gas to poison the guards, all he gets to watch is the news and documentaries about stuff like how taxes were thought up or who invented sliced bread. He speaks to no one, no phone calls or human interaction, his only entertainment is tv which he can only watch through a window of 12 inch thick glass and the speakers can't be reached to mess with, all chairs and tables are built into the floor. The house receives routine maintenance to make sure nothing is loose or messed with, he's knocked out for each inspection with a lot of knockout gas, all security cameras are hidden so he doesn'tfeel the satisfaction of knowing people are watching him. He doesn't get to see batman either, his one reason to live is messing with batman and he doesn't get to do that. Everyone is just hoping he gets depressed and drowns himself in the bathtub.

Like I am seriously wanting one of these to happen, either Bruce walks up to Jason with passes to watch the execution or hands him security footage of joker crying in his boring cell as a birthday present and a big apology for not handling this asshole in so long.

AND FOR ALL YOU THAT WILL SAY "You can't permanently off the most popular batman villain!" I DIDN'T SAY THIS WAS PERMANENT! I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SEE THAT THERE IS A UNIVERSE WHERE BRUCE MADE UP WITH JASON BY GETTING RID OF THE JOKER AND NO CONSEQUENCES! And don't say "he did it for superman to prevent the injustice timeline once" that ain't what I'm talking about, I'm saying he does this for JASON. HIS SON.

I'm taking this shit seriously if you can't tell. If you want to add something I missed in either plan go ahead, I am basically wait for the day I get sucked into the DC universe and I can tell all this straight to Bruce's face and I need it perfect.

[pinkcottoncandyss]

After Yellow

What's it's story anyway?

After Yellow will not have a comic for some reasons;

I'm too lazy to do this

I have trouble thinking that nothing is good enough

To be quite honest, the comic is bad and poorly written.

There's no point in having a story made without knowing how put it into practice

But I don't want to leave my au without having it's story shared! I have a lot of affection for this, it took me a long time to write anyway.

Anyway, let's get started

What is the story of the AU?

Chara and Asriel's plan went very wrong, and while the prince returned underground, an adult with the soul of justice followed him wanting to "avenge the child" that Asriel carried in his arms.

The monsters were devastated, they lost both heirs to the throne on the same day! So his protections were down when the human attacked. Half of the population was killed, Asgore and Undyne were two of the thousands of victims. Toriel, seeing everything around her, laid down a new law; The next human to fall would be killed and their soul would be used to break the barrier. She no longer had compassion for humanity, her entire family was killed by a human! Anyway, when Frisk fell underground, he was the third human to get there.

Looking around, they had no idea where they was.

Frisk was playing in the forest when this happened and they didn't even see what they had done.

Anyway, on their way underground, they found Flowey. The flower desperately tried to feel something, but nothing worked. When he saw the human, he was initially with one foot behind, but realized it was just a... child.

Flowey decided to follow Frisk on their journey and help them get out of here. Heading to Snowding, the human met MK, also a child whose parents were victims of the massacre. They didn't remember what a human looked like, when it all happened, MK was just a baby, so they didn't realize that Frisk was one of them.

All the monsters would hide wherever the trio passed, all afraid of what the human was capable of. That's why Frisk at no point had the obligation to defend themselves against anyone. Anyway, MK guided Frisk to snowding, where Sans was. Sans was the first guinea pig with the determination experiments, and also the only one so far. He thought that what was the point of living in this place when some human could fall and kill his brother? But unfortunately, his body couldn't handle the determination within him. His bones are slowly melting and rotting from the inside out. Sans at this point can no longer walk without crutches. That's why, when he saw Frisk together with MK, he couldn't stop their journey.

The children continued walking until Watterfall, where Mad mew mew showed up! the leader of the royal guard and the second scariest woman in the entire underground (second only to the queen). She wasted no time and tried to kill the human, hunting the child with anger in her eyes. When MK tried to stop her, she told him that Frisk was a human and why she wanted to kill them. Even knowing this, MK didn't let her do anything to Frisk and helped them escape to Hotland. Unfortunately, having to stay behind.

Frisk continued their journey with only Flowey hidden in their backpack, their only company. They continued until they found a restaurant, where they met Muffet and Grillbys. Both best friends.

Grillbys helped Muffet get the spiders out of the ruins, their fire keeping them all warm until they reached Hotland, their home. They both started a restaurant together! It was a success! The food there was genuinely delicious.

Anyway, Frisk stopped for lunch there (they hadn't eaten anything since they fell underground, they was hungry). However, they was unable to eat their meal in peace, as the chief cook, Papyrus, attacked. She took that job because Mad Mew mew "didn't want weaklings in the royal guard" (her words) and kicked him out. Not letting him even want to be trained. Seeing Frisk there, a flame of hope lit up inside him! He could finally follow his dream! But of course, he couldn't kill Frisk and they both ended up becoming friends.

They both talked about various things. Papyrus mentioned a friend of his who hadn't left the house in months and even showed a photo of her to Frisk. He also gave the idea for the human to convince Toriel to repeal the law of kill humans. After a long conversation, Papyrus gave Frisk his number (even though they said that they didn't have a phone) and went to work.

Frisk and Flowey even tried to continue their journey, but some lasers blocked the way. The talking flower said there was a control panel in the lab that could make them deactivate, so they went there.

Frisk tried to open the door, but it was locked, they also tried to ring the doorbell, but no one answered. Flowey, already bored, picked up a rock and threw it at the window. The human reprimanded him, but still entered the laboratory.

when the lights came on, GOD WHAT A MESS! The laboratory stank worse than a dump, everything was overturned and spread across the floor.

Looking around, Frisk noticed that a woman was lying on the floor, it was the same woman that Papyrus had shown her. She was sleeping amidst stacks of paper and packets of snacks, her white coat was dirty yellow.

The human couldn't see everything so, against Flowey's pleas, they approached the woman and woke her up. Standing up startled, Alphys stared at Frisk for a moment before realizing what they were. The child assured her that everything was fine and that they would not hurt her. Frisk asked if she was friends with Papyrus, to which Alphys nodded and buried her face in her hands. After Undyne's death, she had entered a phase of mourning and depression. Even though Frisk was a child, they could see what was happening.

They both ended up talking, Alphys couldn't hold back her tears and even though that human didn't even know her, they helped her. At the end of the conversation, Alphys gave Frisk a cell phone and let them continue their journey.

A lot of things happened in the meantime, puzzles were solved, soldiers tried to kill Frisk, but managed to reach the palace. The queen was waiting in the garden, irritated by the human's insolence in appearing like this.

Frisk tried to talk to Toriel, but was almost hit by her scythe. The queen seemed in no mood to talk. The fight began, Frisk tried to act, talk and convince Toriel in every way, but she just ignored it. Eventually, she hit Frisk squarely, leaving them with just 1 HP. Flowey was about to intervene, but Frisk decided to just spare Toriel. And when she tried to make the last blow, she couldn't. She couldn't hurt a poor child, even a human one, they was still a child.

She fell to her knees, dropping the scythe. Toriel couldn't do that.

At the end of it all

I would like to say that I had the courage to make a sad ending, but I really couldn't

In the end, Frisk was adopted by Toriel. They and MK were officially siblings!

The law was changed, every human who fell would be a friend, not an enemy.

Mad mew mew was obviously angry with all of this, she didn't like the new terms, but she had to accept it

Alphys finally sought professional help and talked to Papyrus and MTT again

MTT got a robotic body too :D

Papyrus continues to work at the restaurant

Unfortunately, the barrier will never be broken. It takes 7 human souls to do this, something that will never happen.

Bonus; Sans and Toriel are a Canon couple here

My notes

It's really not the best thing in the world and it could be much better, but I'm satisfied and that's what matters!

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask me.

[yannisdesk]

Just saw someone say that making Caitlyn feel all-consuming misery over her actions is "misery p0rn" but her not being held accountable for her actions at the hands of any sort of justice due to how Piltover is structured is realistic.

Okay.

The last part is true. I don't expect Caitlyn to be thrown to whatever the Runeterra version of the ICC is (there is none) by the new council she just reinstated that only has its power back because she surrendered her power. I personally have never argued that. I don't even want Caitlyn to serve time in prison or die in battle. By being held accountable I mean held by the people she's personally hurt, such as Vi. Face some tangible consequences from the people of Zaun, who she gassed and oppressed for nearly an entire year. Idk, something.

Maddie doesn't count. Caitlyn never did anything wrong to Maddie to deserve that specific betrayal; it was made kind of obvious that she'd been under Ambessa's yoke from the beginning. Also, that was not "holding her accountable" - that was a spy doing what a spy does, or a jilted lover getting petty revenge if you want to interpret it that way. For all we know, Caitlyn could've rejected Ambessa's offer to becoming the leader of Piltover, and Maddie would've either been placed as a plant to whoever ended up taking that position, or still sent by Ambessa to somehow undermine whatever plans Caitlyn would've ended up having at that point.

But her feeling all-consuming guilt is unrealistic "misery p0rn"? Frankly, that's a load of bullshit. People who commit atrocities like that should feel bad about doing those things. When you become the head of a military dictatorship, co-sign locking up masses of civilians on trumped up charges, and engage in chemical warfare, the realization of what you've done should shock you to your core. You should feel like shit. Coping with what you've done should be difficult. That's a part of growing as a person and anyone that has ever had to face the fact that they've done something to seriously hurt another person, me included, recognizes this. The argument that she should get to walk away self-righteously patting herself on the back because she freed Jinx and sacrificed her eye is absurd, and not even something Caitlyn as a character would agree with.

Am I personally saying there's no way for Caitlyn to move forward? No, I was fully expecting to her to come out of her dictator era, and to have some sort of well-done redemption arc that would make sense and add depth to her as character. But much like Vi, her character just wasn't given that space because it was a lot of moving from one plot point to the other without being given time to breathe.

This isn't even about disliking or liking Caitlyn as a character, I personally have always been fond of her and even identified with her to an extent; it's really about not agreeing with how her arc was handled and the greater implications of it.

Sidebar: And let's keep this a buck-fifty - y'all only make this argument because you like Caitlyn or identify with her in some way. Other characters simply do not get that same grace. A lot of you who make this argument are the same ones that pop blood vessels over Ambessa to the point where people can't even express interest in Ambessa as a character without you jumping down their throats.