#better described as Neutral Evil

[mad-hunts]

details about ocs! // 🤍 WHITE HEART — what are three of your oc's neutral/questionable traits? (and/or) 🍝 SPAGHETTI — what is/are your oc's favourite food(s)?

ASK MEME - details about oc's!

hello, hello, @oculusxcaro! i really appreciate you sending me this meme through my inbox — allow me to first address three of barton's more neutral / questionable traits. so, this may not be a surprise, but barton is definitely a bit... eccentric. i mean, especially to outsiders who do not know the true inner workings of his 'family business,' as he does actually make normal dolls as well. and so he does live up to his moniker ( the dollmaker ) in more ways than one. as to why barton makes actual dolls as well as his more twisted creations, part of it is because the cloth dolls seem to serve a role in his grotesque dollmaking: he came up with the idea to insert hidden messages in these dolls with information about the main victim that the prospective cloth doll is 'modeling,' so to speak ( so they'd essentially be a carbon copy of the doll he made using a real person, except while they were alive ) because some of his clients started to express a desire to feel more connected with the 'doll.' and he thought this would be a good way to keep their business. though, now he does it for everyone who purchases a ' doll. ' which is absolutely horrifying to think about, of course, but barton has also taken to creating cloth and / or different kinds of dolls as a hobby since winslow ( his surrogate father ) was a toymaker and it reminds him of the man.

plus, winslow was the person to teach him everything he knows regarding how to make the dolls in the first place, so he feels somewhat guilty for just using them for his own... less than savory purposes. but yeah, that is one way that barton is eccentic, and another would be that he can be surprisingly playful sometimes. however, if you are a stranger or if he doesn't know you very well in general, you aren't very likely to see this side of him. his playful / teasing side is mostly reserved for his closer friends, his family members and his romantic partner. like, just imagine the kind of playfulness that comes with completely catching someone off guard by suddenly saying ' trust fall ' out of absolute NOWHERE and letting yourself fall backwards, which leads the other person into a state of panic but then barton catching himself at the last moment. and him being like, ' ahhh, you really thought i was gonna fall back in hopes you would catch me only so i can crack my head open, didn't you? i wouldn't do that. i mean, look at those stick arms. we're gonna have to start calling you skelly if you don't get any meat on those. ' ( lol... )

so, there's no malice behind it, he really just jokes around with the people in his more tight-knit circle sometimes. as for what i'd say a second neutral trait of his is, is that he's a very ambitious person. barton strived for nothing less than A's and maybe the occasional one or two B's whenever it came to high school because he wanted to get into the best medical school that he could in the future — and this carried on into his premed years, though he might've suffered from an extreme case of burnout because of this during his junior year. this was also around the time that his past girlfriend, auriel, disappeared however. so that kind of added onto the situation and made it worse. anyhow, barton has always tried to strive to be the best at his job, despite it being completely wrong morally and has grown somewhat of a reputation with gotham's underground for being one of the best people to go to if you can't go to the hospital ( either because you have committed a crime or a myriad of other reasons ) , but you still want top-quality medical care.

thirdly, and last but certainly not least, is the fact that barton is bold. he is the kind of person in which, if someone tells him not to do something in a bad situation because it's too dangerous or what have you, that he will do it anyway. and despite him generally not being a good father as a rule, he has demonstrated a desire to protect his children over all else in a few situations. which is a rather fearless thing to do when you're being held at gunpoint or outnumbered. his former boss, in particular, had wanted to kill one of his children as punishment for trying to leave him but barton said ' nope, that's not happening, ' and hopped right in front of them. needless to say, they both ended up getting out of that situation alive, but yeah.

another way in which barton is bold is he will stand up to people if they try to hurt his friends and although his definition of friends is... a bit different than normal, to say the least. and this is because barton can very well feel cognitive empathy towards them even if he has difficulty with empathizing with them on an emotional level. once again, it just kind of depends on how close you are to him, but barton has this funny way of appearing as if he doesn't care about someone at all but will turn around and scare off any people who attempt to torment certain people in his life. but anyhow... i'm getting a bit off-track here. i hope this was very informative as to what some of barton's neutral traits are!

[cripplecharacters]

Hey! Hope I can word this question right, and I do want to give as much details as I can. I've written a character with a facial deformity that's fallen into a couple of the more tired tropes before I knew better (wearing a mask, and the 'someone bad did this to me' - if you need the specific ones) and though she's a character I'm very attached to development wise, is there anything I can do to mitigate the harm possibly done by having her fall into said tropes? She does have a set personality and a lot of interests outside of her disability, but I still want to balance it out more if I can. Are there any subversions to tropes like those you wish you've seen more of in media?

Hi!

My preferred solution would be for the mask to go. I don't mean completely (although it would be nice, but I'm just a massive hater of this trope) but progressively within the story - maybe as your character warms up to others or becomes friends with them, she stops wearing the mask around them. Maybe she finds a community that supports her and doesn't feel the need to wear it anymore; maybe she finds someone with a similar facial difference to her and wants to embrace it. Maybe there's a younger character that looks up to her and she wants to make them feel better about their own facial difference (and show that they don't need to be ashamed of it). She doesn't need to feel confident right away, of course, but having a character progress and stop being embarrassed of their body is cool in general.

A second solution that I encourage in any story featuring characters with facial differences is to have multiple of them. So ok, your character wears a mask - but someone else with a similar difference doesn't. Perhaps there's a whole community of people similar to her (there probably would be in real life) and she is the odd one out for hiding it; maybe it makes her rethink why she covers it. It's not perfect, but significantly better than having one character with a facial difference and having them hide it.

Absolute bottom line for the mask trope is to not make it seem like it's glued to her face. People eat, drink, sleep and do a billion things where wearing a mask is inconvenient. Show/describe her face in a neutral or positive way when she doesn't have it on.

I don't think that there is a subversion to this awful trope - at this point in media representation, a subversion is when there's a positive character with FD that doesn't hide it. Or for the general mask-wearer trope, when a character wearing a mask turns out to not have a visible difference, I guess.

For having "someone bad do it (FD) to her" - this is a much less problematic trope, but a frustrating one nonetheless - I would go with the second solution again. Maybe your character has burns or a scar or nerve damage because the evilest guy in the world did it but people get facial differences in a hundred different ways. There's accidents, surgeries, illnesses, congenital conditions. Your character got hers because Evil Causes Facial Difference, but there's someone else that was born with a cleft lip and now has a similar scar to her (or had cancer; or poured boiling water on themselves by accident; etc.). Try to dilute the trope and make it just one of the possible ways that someone can get a facial difference, not make it seem like there's a 1-to-1 correlation between "cause of FD" and "evil people".

I hope this helps!

Mod Sasza

[ckret2]

At long last, we get to see: this moment.

Chapter 11 of Human Bill Being The Mystery Shack's Hella Depressed Prisoner, featuring: Mabel giving Bill a ✨beautiful makeover✨—and Stan and Ford almost dying from laughter. And thus begins Bill & Mabel's inevitable befriending. Previous chapters here!

####

Every time Mabel had to use the stairs, she paused to look at Bill sitting in his window.

He never seemed to move.

A few days ago, it was creepy. Now, it was just kind of sad.

Last year, after Mabel and Dipper's parents had heard the whole story about their summer, they'd immediately packed the twins off to therapy—which Mabel didn't think was necessary, but whatever, if it made their parents feel better. (It had taken them some time to find a therapist who would engage with their barely-averted-apocalypse story at face value rather than search for the root of these "delusions.") At their current therapist's office, before each appointment, Dipper and Mabel had to fill out checklists that they gathered were to measure whether they'd come down with a case of depression—Please read the following statements and circle the word that shows how often they happen to you. Never, sometimes, often, always.

She'd filled out these things so many times that she could practically recite the list of statements by memory. Nothing feels very fun anymore. I have problems with my appetite. I have trouble sleeping. I have no energy for things. I feel like I don't want to move. Far be it from her to try to diagnose an evil demon monster space triangle who'd tried to murder everybody she knew, but. Well. You know. Sitting curled up in a window seat, day after night after day, barely moving, barely talking, barely eating... Yikes. She could only guess how he'd answer statements like I feel empty and sad or I feel worthless.

In Mabel's mind, there was a piece of paper. On that piece of paper were the faces of everyone currently living in the shack. Herself, Dipper, Waddles, Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, Soos, Abuelita, and Melody as an honorary part-time resident. Next to each of their faces, there was a sticker, reflecting their current overall mood. Right now, everyone had either a happy face or a flat-mouthed neutral face—not bad, but could be better.

As she looked at Bill, she mentally promoted him at last from "entity haunting the attic" to "temporary resident." She added his face to her imaginary paper. And she slapped a big blue crying sticker next to it.

She wouldn't stand for that. Not even from him. Not under her roof.

####

Today, Bill wasn't even in the window. He'd elected to curl up in a corner of the attic, hiding in the shadows with his stolen blanket. The window was probably too hot. Mabel typically used acrylic yarn, and she knew from experience how quickly Sweater Town could turn into Sweaty Town.

For the first time, Mabel sauntered, quite casually, across the invisible barrier separating the rest of the attic from Bill's nest. She offered her winningest smile and her cheerfullest, "Hey, Bill!"

The Thing Beneath The Blanket gave her a look that, she suspected, could probably be described as deeply suspicious. "Shooting Star."

"Yup! Haha! That's—that's me all right! You got me." Mabel laughed. (This was going great so far. This was very natural.) "So, anyway!" She grabbed one of the couch cushions Bill had been using as a bed, dragged it a little closer to the corner, and plopped down. "This is such a weird coincidence, but one time, I got gum stuck in my hair and had to shave it off! I mean, crazy, right?"

"Uh huh." Bill didn't sound impressed. "Second grade." (And Mabel was uncomfortably reminded of the first time she'd ever seen Bill. I know lots of things.) "Hey, since you brought it up, can I ask you something about that little incident?"

"Uh..." This was what you signed up for, Mabel. You volunteered for a conversation with Bill. You've gotta converse. "Sure, I guess."

He leaned forward, triangle face looming above her. "Did getting gum in your hair change your species? Did you still look like yourself when you shaved it off?" The face bobbed as he pantomiming looking her up and down. "You still look human to me! So what's your point."

Okay, so he'd immediately recognized she was trying to establish common ground, aaand he was throwing it in her face. Great start. "Jeez, don't be so mean! I'm trying to tell you I get it. Not... the species part, but the other part. I wanna help!"

Bill scoffed. "Sure you do."

"Really!"

"Why?"

"Because you're all sad and it's making me sad."

Bill, o wise and ancient being that he was, had heard of "empathy" in a conceptual sense. He was aware that it was a thing that happened to some people. He even knew that it was common among humans. But on some level he kinda sorta felt like it only really happened to mindreaders that didn't know how to establish proper psychic boundaries. He laughed in Mabel's face. "No, seriously! What are you getting out of this."

Mabel decided she had no interest in explaining compassion to an alien mass murderer. "Okay, I want Soos's blanket back. I gave it to him, not you."

"Fine. If you want his blanket back, make me one."

"What? No! Those are our Team Zodiac-That-Defeated-You blankets, you don't get one."

"Didn't you make one for everybody else on the wheel? I'm on the wheel, aren't I?" He pointed at his face. "Bam! There I am, right in the middle! Star of the show! If everyone else deserves a blanket, so do I."

"Why do you even want one? It's a symbol to kill you."

"It's got my face on it! It's not that deep." He crossed his legs and propped his chin in his hand, getting more comfortable. "So do I get to pick the colors? I'll take yellow if that's all you got, but if you get me metallic gold I think I can swing you a favor."

"I'm not making you a blanket," Mable said. "I was thinking maybe a wig?"

Bill shuddered. "Pass."

"Aw, come on! I bet I could find you a really cute wig. Summerween's coming up, I could go to the costume store—"

"Don't even think about it." Bill leaned away from Mabel, back into his corner. She was losing him. "Listen. Kid. Do you think I did this by accident?" He pointed vaguely toward his scalp. "Being stuck in a human body? Disgusting. Being a human and secreting fifteen miles of hair out of a hundred thousand of pores? Infinitely worse."

"Wait, wait, fifteen miles?" Mabel had never considered how long a full head of hair laid out end-to-end would be. "How much hair do I have?"

"Huh." Bill tilted his head consideringly. "How dense is your hair?"

"Super dense. I've broken multiple brushes."

"Could be up to fifty miles."

Mabel's eyes widened. "Whoa."

"And you've got fifty thousand miles of blood vessels," Bill added cheerfully. "Anyway, if you want this blanket back? You won't get it with a wig. All I want is to look..." he formed his fingers into a triangle, thumb to thumb and forefinger to forefinger, and held it over the face on the blanket, "... like this. Now, if you're offering to help me get my real body back—"

"Never in a million years."

"Didn't think so!" Bill retreated fully into his corner again, knees pulled back up under the blanket, like an eel hiding in a hole to await its next prey. "But hey, if you've got an offer that's a step up from the blanket, I'm willing to negotiate."

"Huh." Mabel frowned thoughtfully. Something triangly. Something triangly that was better than a blanket, without helping Bill return to full power.

She got to her feet. "Let's put a pin in this conversation and circle back to it later. I'll come back with some proposals for you to review."

Bill laughed. "Okay, business girl! Have your people call my people. You know where to find me."

Mabel leaped down the stairs three at a time, ideas already forming in her head.

####

"Hey, Grunkle Ford!"

Ford was sitting at the former controls of the interdimensional portal, studying some radar readings; but he glanced up with a smile when Mabel ran out of the elevator. "Mabel. What brings you down here?"

She dragged an office chair up beside Ford, plopped down in it, and spun a couple of times. "I need to ask some questions about Bill!"

Ford's smile faltered. "Ah."

"Last summer, when we were burning all your art of him—"

(Ford winced in embarrassment.)

"—you said he could do some kind of magic with pictures of his face? What's all that about?" She stopped spinning. "Do they give him more power? Can he fire lasers out of them, or...?"

"No, nothing like that, thank goodness. Depictions of his face granted him a different kind of power: the power of knowledge. When he was trapped in the Nightmare Realm, he could tap into our world's collective mindscape and see through drawings of himself as if they were cameras. Ironically, plastering images of his face everywhere to symbolically represent an 'all-seeing eye' is what made him so all-seeing in the first place."

Mabel nodded thoughtfully. "Did you know you talk like one of those experts they hire to explain things in history documentaries?" she asked. "You should be on TV. You'd be good at it."

Ford gave her a confused smile. "Er—thank you."

"So, if Bill's already here, making new pictures of his face doesn't do anything?"

He supposed she was wondering about the zodiac blankets she'd spread around town. "Probably not. At a minimum, he'd have to be in the mindscape to be at the right 'angle' to see through the eyes. As he is now, trapped in a human form?" Ford let out a slow, thoughtful sigh. "It's hard to say for sure, without knowing how he got to be this way or what kinds of powers he's still hiding... but based on everything I've seen so far, I doubt they do anything for him."

"And if somebody put a picture of him on his face, it wouldn't do anything at all! Because that's like, his face. He already has eyes there."

Ford chuckled. "I suppose that's true. It would be like he'd grown a third eyeball, that's all." He paused. Put a picture of him on his face? "Why do you ask?"

Too late; she was halfway to the elevator. "Thanks, Grunkle Ford! I'll see you at dinner!" And she was gone.

####

"What's all this?" Bartholomew asked.

Mabel was dumping a bag of costume makeup and cheap convenience store makeup palettes onto her bed. They sparkled in varying hues of tacky gold glitter. "Art project!" She scooped Bartholomew out of his cradle by Dipper's bed, climbed the rickety ladder to the storage loft over their bedroom, and set him down leaning against a box. "You're on guard duty. Stay quiet and if anything goes wrong, get Dipper."

"How do you expect me to get Dipper? I'm a doll. I can't move."

"Come on, Mew-Mew. You think we haven't noticed that you teleport when nobody's looking?"

Bartholomew paused. "Touché."

Mabel rummaged through her art supplies; put tape, glue, and a couple of flattened cardboard boxes on the bed; added all the yellow crayons, markers, and paints she could find; and finally, satisfied, she ran out of the room. "Bill!"

"Still here."

"I've got the perfect solution. I'm giving you..." Mabel posed, hands on her hips. "A makeover!"

Bill waited for the follow up. There was no follow up. "Heh."

"Laugh now, but before I'm finished, I'm gonna make you more beautiful than your wildest dreams!"

"Kid, with all due respect, your idea of 'wild' taps out where my dreams are just getting started."

"Then I'll just have to up my game, won't I?" Mabel held out her hand. "Just give me that blanket, show me that weird bald head of yours, and let me make it into a canvas for high art! Trust me!"

Bill contemplated her extended hand. Did he trust her? In most situations, he considered trust irrelevant. He expected most people to do whatever they thought would benefit themselves the most; sometimes that meant keeping their word, and sometimes it didn't.

On the other hand. Was he really curious to find out where she was going with this? Yes. And the worst thing she could possibly do to him was make him very slightly more ugly than he already was. And playing along would fill his empty afternoon.

"Okay, kid." He reluctantly handed the blanket over. "You haven't given me a bad makeover so far." (He hadn't actually seen her marker mask, but it never hurt to flatter the person about to paint all over you.) He stood and stretched. "Show me what you've got. But if I don't like it, you owe me a blanket."

"Yes!" She grabbed his hand—his whole arm immediately went stiff—and dragged him toward the bedroom. "Welcome to my salon!"

####

Sure enough, just like Ford had said—when Stan checked Bill's attic nest, there was no sign of him.

Stan didn't like that one bit. Where the hell had their prisoner gotten off to?

As Stan approached the attic bedroom, he could hear Mabel talking: "More glitter?! That's crazay! Okay, here goes! I bet you could pull off such a glam rock look." (That explained where the kids were. He'd been starting to wonder.) "Hold still, I'm gonna try something I saw on a Russian supermodel—"

"Kids," Stan called, "do you know where the demon went?" He opened the door. "Poindexter says he can't find him anywhere, and—"

Mabel was kneeling on the floor, surrounded by the widest variety of makeup brushes and palettes Stan had ever seen. Her fingers and sleeve cuffs were coated in gold glitter and paint.

Kneeling in front of her, with his legs splayed awkwardly and his hands on the floor like he wasn't sure how to lower this body down to Mabel's height, was Bill. His face was liberally coated in acrylic gold paint and amateurishly contoured with a mix of craft glitter and golden eyeshadow. One eye was shut—the eyelashes delicately dusted with more gold eyeshadow to help it blend in—while the other was coated in a layer of mascara so thick it was a miracle his lashes didn't glue shut when he blinked.

And to cap off the gilded absurdity, his face was sticking through a hole in the middle of a cardboard triangle helmet, painted sunflower yellow with bricks shakily traced on in marker. Bill looked like the poor kid assigned the part of "the pyramid" in a fourth grade class play about ancient Egypt.

Mabel and Bill stared at Stan.

Stan stared back.

He covered a snort with a cough. "I'll—I'll tell Ford you've got it handled." He slammed the door.

He let out a bellow of laughter.

Mabel put a hand on Bill's shoulder. "He doesn't understand avant-garde fashion. You look like a million dollars."

"I know," Bill said. "All the same—maybe a hat would class things up a little?"

Mabel reached for a sheet of black construction paper. "You're so right."

####

"Well?" Mabel leaned around Bill, trying to see what he looked like in the full-length mirror. "What do you think?"

Bill stared in the mirror. A horrific abomination of flaking paint, cakey makeup, and taped-up cardboard stared back.

He grinned so wide it cracked his face paint. "I think that's the hottest human being in history."

"Yes!" Mabel pumped a fist into the air.

####

Ford said, "Stanley, what is it?"

Stan wheezed until his lungs ran out of air.

Concerned, Ford leaned across the kitchen table, lacing his hands together. "Did you find Bill?"

"M—Mhmm."

"He hasn't hurt Mabel, has he?" Ford asked, flashing back to their conversation earlier. "Or—or Dipper? Anyone?"

Stan bit his lip and shook his head. Tears of laughter pricked the corners of his eyes.

"Did he... put some kind of laughing curse on you?"

Stan shook his head more emphatically. "H—" He couldn't get one syllable out before he had to choke back his laughter again. He pounded on the table.

Grasping at straws and defaulting to the first worst case scenario he could think of, Ford said, "He hasn't found a way back to his true form, has he?"

Stan let out a noise like a balloon that had been untied and unleashed to fly around the room. "I MEAN—"

"Gooood afternoon, gentlemen!" Beaming brightly enough to rival the sun, twirling an umbrella like a cane, Bill strutted in.

Ford clapped one hand on Stan's shoulder, clapped the other over his mouth, and turned away, shoulders shaking. Stan smacked Ford's arm in sympathetic hysteria.

"I see we're all in high spirits today!" With the brazen confidence of an illegitimate prince marching into a throne room to demand his crown, Bill strolled through the kitchen, barely sparing the Stan twins a glance. Mabel followed behind him, grinning from ear to ear. "I wouldn't mind some spirits, myself." He paused in front of the fridge. "Could someone—?"

As the closest person to the fridge, Ford pulled it open, then turned to watch so he could make sure Bill didn't do anything he shouldn't with the food. This required him to look in Bill's direction. He curled his lips into his mouth and bit down. His eyes watered.

"Finally." Bill hungrily surveyed the inner contents of the fridge, grabbed an armload of condiments, a jar of pickles, and a tub of leftover chicken nuggets, and dumped them on the nearest counter. He tried to reach for a bottle of spoiled corn syrup toward the back of the fridge, banged the sides of his cardboard helmet on the fridge's doorframe, and quickly backed off and felt the corners to make sure they weren't too damaged. He had to turn sideways to reach the bottle without hitting the edges of the fridge. One corner of his mask tipped over a bottle of apple juice. Watching this performance very nearly killed the Stans.

"There." Bill triumphantly set the bottle on the counter, grabbed a can of alphabet spaghetti off an open shelf, and asked, "Where do you have the bowls hidden?" He rapped on one of the cabinet doors with his umbrella.

The sight of the umbrella knocked Ford out of some of his hysteria. "Where did you—?" He snatched the umbrella out of Bill's hands. "No weapons."

Bill gave Ford a withering one-eyed look (Ford suspected his other eye was glued shut with paint), then elected to ignore him. "Shooting Star?"

"They're down here!" Mabel opened one of the base cabinets. Bill retrieved a bowl and started filled it with his condiment haul.

"Okay," Stan said, voice strained with suppressed laughter. "Okay, what—what are we looking at?"

"A masterpiece of cosmetic art," Bill said. Mabel's grin widened.

Ford elbowed Stan across the table. "Do you remember the 'living statue' performers on the Glass Shard Beach boardwalk?" he asked. "The ones who'd paint all their skin and clothes gold—?"

"Oh yeah!" Stan let out a bark of laughter. "That's exactly what he looks like!"

In his bowl, Bill had layered mayonnaise, Tabasco sauce, mustard, sour cream, and maple syrup, and carefully stuck in as many chicken nuggets as he could without the mix slopping over the edges. He got Mabel's help to stick it in the microwave, then turned toward the Stans with a smug grin. "So you agree that I look like a work of art."

"No," Stan said, "they looked like idiots, and so do you."

Bill scoffed. "You don't know anything! You look at a human body, and all you see is a human with things stuck on it. I can look at a human body and see a canvas. I've stripped this vessel of its association with humanity and transformed it into an idol of myself."

Mabel loudly cleared her throat.

"Okay, she did most of the work."

Ford seriously considered the artistic merit of Bill's proposed "human body sans humanity as art material" paradigm. After a moment of deliberation, he said, "You have cardboard taped to your face."

Stan slapped the table. "HA!"

Bill opened a can of alphabet spaghetti, slopped half into a glass, filled the rest with incredibly spoiled corn syrup, and then filled the can with corn syrup as well. The mixes bubbled threateningly. The absolute picture of good cheer, Bill announced, "I'm the most beautiful thing any of you have ever seen. It's just too bad your closed little minds can't enjoy the marvel in front of you." He stirred his toxic alphabet spaghetti concoction with a pickle spear.

Stan watched Bill mix his drink in mild alarm. "What in the world are you making?"

Bill held his wrist over the glass and a knife to his wrist. "A Bloody Mary."

Stan's alarm increased. "No you aren't."

"That's your opinion." 

"Where did you get—!" Ford leaned over to snatch the knife out of Bill's hand.

"It was in the fridge, it was sticking out of the leftover casserole!" Bill rolled his eye. "Re-lax! I wasn't pointing it at you." He lifted his drink, nearly poured it into his eye, caught himself at Mabel's shout of alarm, took a sip through the correct hole, then inspected the thick gold lip stain left on the rim. "Huh." He looked at Mabel.

She shrugged. "I could have set the makeup with baby powder, but I thought it might dim some of the sparkle."

"You chose form over function. I respect that." He sipped his drink more carefully.

The microwave went off, Mabel opened the door, and Bill scooped up his condiment-and-nugget stew and both alleged Bloody Marys. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go be handsome somewhere else—"

The corner of his cardboard helmet banged into the kitchen doorway. He dropped one of his drinks, stumbled against the wall, and looked in dismay at his syrup-and-spaghetti-sauce-soaked skirt. He turned to Mabel. "How's my head?"

She grimaced. "We... can fix that with tape."

Bill sighed. "Come on, let's do it before my nuggets get cold."

"Now hold on!" Ford stood up. "Are you going to clean this mess up?"

"No!" Bill was out of the room. Ford could already hear him tripping on the stairs. "You don't trust me with a mop!"

Well. It was true, they didn't trust him with a mop. Sighing, Ford trudged across the room. "I'll get it."

Stan said, "You know, I think I'm glad he looks like an idiot. He's been so mopey the last couple of days, I was almost starting to feel bad for him."

"Thank goodness, you too," Ford muttered. "I was afraid I was going soft."

"Nah, he really was that pathetic," Stan said. "Like a sad show poodle that doesn't understand why it's been shaved in weird shapes."

Ford barked a laugh.

Once the floor was clean, Ford confessed, "I've—actually really worried about that. Going soft, I mean. I'm... afraid that Bill could find a way back into my head."

"Literally or emotionally?"

"Emotionally." Ford paused. "Both, actually—but this time I mean emotionally. The night he burned his hair off, I..." He winced at himself; but he needed to tell Stan. There was no one else he trusted to give him a reality check. Maybe Fiddleford, but... Ford hadn't figured out how to approach him about all this yet.

He put back the mop, to have an excuse to pause and gather his words. "I... brought him something to eat," Ford mumbled. "And, told him I knew what it was like to be trapped in an alien universe, and—that he should take better care of himself, for his own sake—and I don't know why I said that, anything good he does for himself just makes things harder for us, it's not as though I forgot that, but—What? Stanley, why is this funny."

Stan had started laughing; but he cut it off a cough. "Sorry. It's just—do you remember how Mom would go 'Well, I can tell you two are related' any time we did something particularly—you know—twinnish?"

"Don't tell me you've been making sandwiches for Bill."

"Ha! No, but I've given my arch nemesis a pep talk when he was having a mental breakdown. I felt bad for him!"

Ford chuckled. "Really?" He dropped back into his seat. "I didn't know you have an arch nemesis, who's that?"

Stan considered Ford's reaction if he admitted that his nemesis was that ten-year-old with a crush on Mabel, and said, "Ah, he's been out of my hair for ages. So what, is that all you talked about?"

"Somehow it turned into him trying to convince me he'd been planning a welcome party when I fell through the portal."

"Ha! And did you believe him?"

"Absolutely not." Ford paused thoughtfully. "But—part of me wonders whether he believes it himself."

"He seems like the kind of guy to buy his own bull." Stan shrugged. "I don't think you have to worry about him getting in your head. Just don't let him fast-talk you into any decisions and don't buy anything he's selling without telling him you'll think it over for twenty-four hours. And the more he says decide now, the harder you say no. That's how the pros get you, they don't give you room to breathe, let alone think."

Ford was pretty sure Stan was just describing the Mystery Shack's souvenir sales strategy; but he nodded slowly. "I know exactly what you're talking about. When I gave him permission to pilot my body, between the first time he mentioned it was an option and the moment I agreed to it... well, I was asleep at the time, so I can't be sure how long it took—but I'd guess it was less than fifteen minutes. In retrospect, I couldn't believe that I'd agreed so thoughtlessly. But I suppose that's exactly what he wanted." No room to breathe was a good way to describe it. Never mind being nose-to-nose with somebody trying to pressure you into a sale—how do you take a step back to get a little space from somebody who's already inside your head?

"Did he make it sound like a limited-time-only deal? You know—'buy now while the price is low, you'll regret missing this offer'? But with more mystical woo-woo phrasing, I mean."

"Not exactly, but..." Ford tried to remember back that far, grasping for the details of the conversation—the real conversation, not the heady, excited version he'd summarized in his journal. "At the time, I'd been worried about falling behind schedule on the portal's construction. He wouldn't have had to introduce an element of tension—it was already there. All he had to do was exploit it." He shook his head. Falling behind schedule. What schedule—the one he, himself had made? He was sure Bill had encouraged him to finish as fast as possible, too.

"There, you see? You got swindled by a professional swindler," Stan said. "What's important is that you know what he is now, and you know his tricks. He won't get you the same way twice. I'm not worried about you."

There were a couple of odd thuds from upstairs, accompanied by a yelp from Bill. That wasn't odd; he'd proven to be remarkably clumsy in a human body. At any given time it was possible to tell where he was by the random bangs, and if he hadn't made a noise in the last five minutes it meant he was curled up safely in his window seat.

What was odd was hearing Mabel's voice: "Careful, careful—! Augh. ... I'll get another sheet of cardboard, we'll replace that!"

Stan and Ford looked warily toward the stairs. Stan muttered, "Mabel, on the other hand..."

Ford nodded. "I'll keep an eye on her."

####

(If you've read this far, I'd really appreciate hearing from you! Things you liked, things you're looking forward to, jokes, thoughts, even typo corrections. Thanks!)

[kradogsrats]

One Truth: The Nature of the True Heart

The Dragon Prince has long dealt with contrasts and tensions between idealism and pragmatism, particularly as a source for character conflict. From Harrow, Sarai, and Viren clashing over the Magma Titan to Callum, Ezran, and Rayla deciding whether to pursue killing Aaravos or securing his prison, principles weighed against practicality is a never-ending battle for the characters of this world and story.

Since the story never purports to give us the answers to the moral questions it poses, we as the audience are left to form our own opinions and judgements. One of those that is fairly consistent across a lot of the fandom is that Ezran is naive in his pacifism and reliance on negotiation. My opinion on this has largely always been "yeah, he's naive... but he's literally twelve years old and that's developmentally appropriate, even without the trauma."

We knew Ezran and his growth would be challenged in s7, but what we also got was a codification of that process as a tangible in-setting phenomenon: the true heart.

The true heart is described to Terry, Claudia, and us (the audience) as a way of seeing the world that is innocent and good-natured, without the complexities introduced by adult concerns. All children begin life with this worldview, but it is inevitably challenged over the course of their growth by situations that it cannot necessarily react to without being inherently altered.

It is possible, though rare, to hold on to the true heart past childhood into at least the beginning of adulthood—it is revealed to us that Terry is one who has, against all odds, retained his true heart. This allows him to read the map to the Garden of Innocents, the final resting place of unicorns. However, it's Ezran whose arc through s7 is most related to the true heart, as he confronts new challenges in the world around him as well as changes to himself and those he loves.

But what is a true heart? What does it actually mean to have one?

Simple and Clean: Language Surrounding the True Heart

First of all, I think the way the true heart is intended winds up being difficult to articulate properly because even the most neutral language used to describe it is loaded with baggage. Innocence, purity (though "pure" is a word used only by Kruha, who demonstrably struggles with human language), light and darkness, simplicity, and even childhood are all concepts that carry cultural connotations that skew our perception of what's being discussed.

In the heavily Christian-influenced culture of the West and USAmerica, the concepts of childhood, innocence, and simplicity in combination carry associations that become protectiveness, condescension, or dismissal. While childhood and innocence are valued as things that should be protected in those who have them, that leads adults to dismiss children as essentially lesser beings. Innocence and simplicity together are indistinguishable from naivete, another feature associated with a need for protection, but with a nice slice of contempt on the side. If you weren't so naive, you would have known better than to get hurt.

Finally, from a perspective saturated with Christianity, innocence is also conceptually inextricable from the concept of sin. Like, one of the central myths of Christianity is that the first humans were enticed to defy God and eat the forbidden fruit that granted knowledge of good and evil, which made them aware that their naughty sex parts and female-presenting nipples must be covered, which meant they had to be expelled from paradise into a world of struggle, pain, and death. This transgression was so severe that it tainted every human ever born, until a few thousand years later when God personally came to earth as a self-cannibalizing sacrifice to essentially pay bail on letting their souls into heaven. (This is a very serious and 100% theologically accurate summary, don't @ me.) As a result, we get fucking weird about innocence and its "loss."

The point is that in the setting, it's strongly suggested that there is no inherent "better" or "worse" to whether you have a true heart or not. You aren't morally superior for having one (though the nature of the true heart aligns more with compassion and openness, it doesn't have a monopoly on them), nor are you necessarily wiser or more mature for not. There are roles and circumstances where one might serve better than another—the likelihood of Ezran being able to continue indefinitely as king with a true heart has always been low, but an argument could definitely be made that his true heart was necessary to change the world, and the setting would not be what it now is without it. The true heart—as well as people who retain it into adulthood, like Terry—is a vital part of society, in that it inspires people toward an ideal. Terry calling out Claudia on her cruelty toward Rayla shames her enough to go back and correct it. Ezran giving up the crown in exchange for the safety of any moral dissenters within the Katolis army gives those dissenters space to take a stand—something crucial to their eventual victory.

So here's how I propose thinking about it in a way that's slightly less loaded with unnecessary associations: instead of innocence, the true heart is about faith. Specifically, an unwavering faith that people are inherently good. From that faith, several important conclusions are derived:

People are inherently good, therefore all people want the same or similar things both for themselves and for the world: peace, plenty, and community

People are inherently good, therefore if someone is intentionally doing things that hurt others, they either don't understand the impact of their actions or are lashing out as a result of fear or pain

People are inherently good, therefore treating everyone with dignity, respect, and compassion is the natural state of any society

These form the basis of the worldview and resulting behavior of those with true hearts.

The Tides are True: Depth and Complexity

Despite all of that, Aaravos describes the true heart in a fairly neutral manner to Claudia:

All children have a true heart. But as we grow up, we are forced to make choices, sacrifices, compromises. And they change us forever. Childhood innocence gives way to something... complicated.

and later to Terry:

The true heart is a gift of childhood. For a few wonder-filled years, we each have innocent eyes to experience the world's beauty in a simple way. I have seen generations of humans and elves accept the darkness that lurks in all of us beside the light. There is no black or white, only shades of gray. We must all carry complexity. But please believe me that there is beauty in this burden. Your heart will be a little heavier. But now, there will be no more half-truths.

In both explanations, he refers to what replaces the true heart—what we grow into—as "complicated." We learn to accept that nothing, including ourselves, is purely one way or another, but at some gradient point in-between that will be different from everyone else's. The words he uses—"light" and "darkness," "black or white," "shades of gray"—all carry strong connotations of a scale of morality, and the understanding that nothing can be fully good or fully evil, but is instead inevitably... complicated.

However, I think this is meant to be a little deeper than just that surface-level association to tie in with the overall light/dark and complex morality themes of the show overall. These are things we've heard in another context: of all the primal sources Callum could have focused on or arcana he could have unlocked in arc 2, there's a reason what we got was Ocean.

A better way to refer to the "darkness that lurks in all of us beside the light" is as those depths you can't see—it's not about good and evil, it's about clarity and obscurity. Simplicity and complexity. People, even people you love, aren't all the same. They don't all want the same things for themselves and the world.

There are depths within you that you may not see or understand, but even more so, there are depths in others that you will never see or understand. Even if someone is only lashing out because they're hurting, there are hurts you cannot heal. There are people who will refuse to allow their hurts to heal. There are people (and by people I mean Aaravos) who would rather make the entire world hurt along with them than ever allow themselves to heal. You can't heal these people for them. It's beyond your control, and all you can do is respond appropriately to their actions and mitigate the harm they do.

When you accept that, you will treat those people differently. You may decide to keep trying, but with the knowledge that it will be an uphill battle of strategy, compromise, and progress so slow that few will recognize your work as worthwhile. You may decide not to waste your time and effort on them anymore, and focus your attention on doing a broader range of good more efficiently than struggling to change a single heart or mind. You might decide to make them the enemy, and purposefully antagonize them because you are hurting, too—maybe even because of them.

The point is that there is now "us/me" and "them," and that's what's antithetical to the true heart. You can't fix everything simply by reaching the part of them that's the same as you. You will have to compromise.

A Just King: Ezran's True Heart

Before examining Ezran's true heart arc in s4-s7, I want to point out a much earlier, and perhaps unexpected, appearance of a textbook child's true heart:

Yes, back in s1e2, Callum had a true heart. (By the standards with which I'm describing it, at least.) Where did it go? When did it go? Someone more interested in Callum could probably write a very long essay about that. You could probably make a case that being possessed by Aaravos the first time is the final vestiges sliding away.

This also highlights my personal theory that the true heart of childhood is not usually lost in a single, all-or-nothing event. It's like losing your baby teeth—under normal circumstances, it happens one or two at a time over the course of a few years, until you've Ship of Theseus-ed your whole mouth. (Also, in contrast to things like "losing" your virginity, there's no weird purity or moral connotations to it. It is a completely normal thing that happens to everyone as part of growing up.) However, it's also possible to have some, a majority, or even all of your baby teeth traumatically knocked out of your head at once.

Oh, wait.

Let's roll back a bit, first. Ezran's arc, like... well, everyone's, gets its initial setup in s4. In fact, it kicks off s4: the major event starting the season is Zubeia's visit to Katolis, which is clearly one of Ezran's first big initiatives toward not just peace, but potential unification.

In the lead-up to Zubeia's visit, Ezran's true heart is on full display in his behavior and the assumptions he's making:

Zubeia is a good person, and good people will understand and accept that both she and other dragons should be treated as friends.

Everyone will approach this meeting with open hearts, because everyone wants to grow toward peace and understanding.

Even when the meeting, where he is honoring the Dragon Queen in the final resting place of human kings and queens, no small number of whom (including his own mother) were killed by dragons, is sabotaged by a relatively mild act of vandalism, look at his response:

The person who did this is obviously lashing out because they are hurting—they are angry, and that anger needs to be soothed. He affirms that he and the people are the same, inside. They are all angry and in pain... but, like him, they all want to not be angry and in pain anymore, and understand that the way to do that is to move forward.

This is not to say that he's wrong, or even ineffective—he speaks from his true heart, in a poignant call to both himself and his people to acknowledge the past while looking to the future, and to reach for that future in every way they can instead of clinging to the hate of the past. It's a key scene for all of arc 2, and one that is returned to over and over again, thematically.

However, it's also a point where he demonstrates how his true heart leaves him ill-equipped to approach Rex Igneous's selfishness, or Sol Regem's hatred, or even Karim's petty arrogance... much less the shit Aaravos has going on.

(Speaking of Sol Regem... he not only refuses to be healed, but instead demands to be remade into an engine of indiscriminate death and destruction. He really does out-bitter Aaravos, on occasion.)

Then s7 hits, and two things happen: Katolis is destroyed, and Runaan is returned to the living world. Well, both of those technically happen in s6, but Ezran actually has to deal with them in s7.

For all that Katolis being destroyed sets Ezran on a path toward the complex politics and morality of nuclear deterrence, it's really the situation with Runaan that both tests and exemplifies Ezran's true heart. Aaravos's initial explanation of the true heart ("Childhood innocence gives way to something… complicated.") is directly overlaid on Ezran's dealing with the aftermath of Callum helping Rayla and Runaan escape the Banther Lodge. I don't think Ezran ever really expected to have to deal with Harrow's killer, since Runaan is presumed dead, so he's unprepared to be confronted with it—particularly given that he has convinced himself he's over it, when he really isn't. He's tested both in suddenly facing a person he can't see as good, deep down. Runaan wasn't lashing out because he was hurting or scared, nor can Ezran conceive of them wanting the same things. There's also the sense of betrayal at Callum and Rayla differing so deeply from his own reaction, when they were previously so in tune—literally banding together despite being born on opposite sides of a millennia-old war, because they recognized the goodness in each other and that they all wanted peace.

Ezran's reaction to Runaan is definitely affected by what happens to Katolis—he's denied not only any kind of justice for Sol Regem's attack, but any explanation. Runaan's fate is something he can ostensibly control, in a situation where he feels both responsible and powerless. Now, an entire separate post could be done about s7's recurring exploration of punitive versus restorative justice through Rayla's trial, Ezran and Runaan, Janai and Karim, Terry, and (as always) Aaravos, but to briefly recap part of my meta on Terry's true heart and growth: Terry, in being challenged during s7, comes to realize that even if he chooses to continue holding to his true heart's faith in the world and others, he is complicit in the harm Claudia and Aaravos have done, and he feels compelled to start doing the work to repair that harm as much as he can. While he hasn't necessarily done anything that would warrant punitive justice, he recognizes that truly doing good requires work and effort, and sometimes doing difficult things. There's not really anything Runaan can (knowingly) offer to make right what he did, beyond his confession that he has come to realize everything he believed at the time was wrong, and he did grievous harm to Ezran that night. However, in that confession, he says something crucial:

Ezran's true heart led him to rule in a way that changed the world for the better, moving toward an unprecedented era of peace—something that, to Runaan's eyes, required a great deal of strength to put aside completely legitimate pain and grievances that could have easily rekindled millennia of war. (See also: "It's a strong name" in that Terry meta.)

I think it's in part because of that reminder—the description of the kind of person and king he wants to be—that Ezran chooses compassion and working toward forgiveness with Runaan. He's not choosing the true heart as a core part of his identity the way Terry does, but his own past true heart inspires his current self to make a decision that's right, but also hard. As with Terry, he is discovering that goodness can take work—true, concerted effort to both determine and follow the right path.

Does Ezran retain his true heart throughout s7? I don't know. I don't think it's entirely as simple as a yes/no state, and he has definitely lost some of his earlier confidence and beliefs. Ultimately I'm not sure it matters. He took a solid punch to the mouth, but either way... it seems like he's going to come out of it okay.

Not Worthy: Claudia's Skewed Perception

And now, a final tangent.

All that stuff I said earlier about a true heart not making you better or worse, and its "loss" being morally neutral? Well, there's at least one person who doesn't see it that way.

In s7, Claudia's inability to read the map and Terry leaving her (as she knew he would, when he learned the truth about her and her behavior) both contribute to the insecurities she has carried for most of her life. Claudia derives most of her self-worth from being very good at dark magic, and therefore loses emotional stability when either she "fails" at something magic-related or dark magic itself is questioned.

This is an interesting connection, because the true heart and/or its loss isn't inherently linked to dark magic. A true heart doesn't shrivel and die at your first dark magic spell, but it's inevitable that the practice of dark magic will at some point become impossible to reconcile with the core beliefs of the true heart simply because they're inherently incompatible... you can't see sapient magical creatures as "people" the same as you and as resources for spell ingredients. So while it's not surprising that Claudia no longer has her childhood true heart, it's not necessarily because of her dark magic... and yet, some part of her perceives it as an indictment against her.

We also know exactly where she probably internalized that view:

Puzzle House is actually where we first encounter the concept of the true heart, as a yes/no state that allows you to access the map to the Garden of Innocents. Kruha, the map's guardian, doesn't ascribe any moral value to being able to see the map or not—noting that he, himself, is "too old" to see it, anymore. However, a single note from Kpp'Ar, combined with her own insecurities at a point of emotional turmoil in her life—her mother has left her, Kpp'Ar has (apparently) left her, she's acting out by attempting increasingly complex self-taught magic and keeps getting in trouble because of it—lead even a 7-year-old Claudia to question whether she might also be unable to see it due to being "not good."

We still don't know why Kpp'Ar was seeking the Garden of Innocents and what caused his "change of heart," but if it's at all comparable to Viren's experience, he was going through The Horrors(tm)—it's not surprising that he'd indulge in a little self-loathing in what's meant to be a private note. Claudia, meanwhile, has her faith in him as a mentor figure she wishes to emulate shaken—he imprisoned Kruha, keeping him collared like an animal, away from his home and family. She knows that's wrong, and struggles to reconcile the Kpp'Ar she knew with someone who would do that. If Kpp'Ar is somehow bad, and she didn't know, could she also be bad and not realize it?

This is particularly interesting to me because she doesn't have this crisis when Viren quits dark magic, even when he explicitly tells her he led her down the wrong path. She does question whether she should also quit dark magic, but it's from the perspective of "it seems like it might have done him a lot of good, emotionally... maybe I should also try it?" rather than "my dad thinks I'm evil, actually," or even "my dad explicitly said he hopes I'll take a different path, one day... am I betraying him if I don't?" She's remarkably chill about it, though to be fair, she's probably still in a state of emotional shock and dissociation. She gets progressively more sensitive about it again during s7, particularly as she receives validation from Aaravos.

Anyway, just a little window into which little wheels are spinning in Claudia's head when she insists she hasn't changed:

I'm sure that won't be significant as she starts her Dragon Girl Summer (and Autumn, and Winter, and Spring).

[brucebocchi]

Ranking 2024 anime, Pt. 3: #30-21

hey, this post is also available on my ko-fi, so please check it out and consider tipping/donating as i do this for free and am currently between jobs. you can find part 1 of the list here and part 2 here. thanks!

We're chugging along. I'd say we're finally getting to the good stuff, and there is plenty of good at this point in the countdown, but I also just really like complaining.

Let's get it.

30. KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!, season 3

I have a tendency to refer to the more brainless and/or trashy anime I watch as “junk food.” You know the kind; the ones that don’t really add anything to your life and don’t stand up to the more fulfilling series, but still get the job done when you go into autopilot. I’ve found that, as a habitual (non-metaphorical) snacker, I tend to just reach for something when I’m bored so I have something to do. And looking at it objectively, I don’t tend to enjoy myself while doing it and I usually don’t feel good afterwards.

I feel much the same way about watching KonoSuba.

Not that I think it’s ontologically evil or anything, but KonoSuba often has just as much going against it as it does working in its favor. For every joke that hits, and some of them absolutely do hit, there’s another that makes me question why I’m even watching it. I’m not against dark or even occasionally offensive humor; I adore It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, a show to which KonoSuba often draws comparisons. The issue is that, at its worst, KonoSuba defaults to either “this person is a pervert,” “this person is a pedophile,” or “this man got sexually assaulted.” My issue isn’t with the subject matter so much as the fact that they rarely rise above the level of base shock value and that they keep happening like that. It almost feels perfunctory, like the writers had quotas to meet.

It’s not all bad, though. Even having only gotten into KonoSuba in early 2023, I still found myself lamenting its hiatus, and An Explosion on This Magical World somehow only made the heart grow fonder for the party members that weren’t Megumin. I appreciate that Darkness plays a pivotal role in the third season, because Darkness is hilarious and terrific. This season had a couple of the best jokes and goofy facials in the series. 

Overall, it’s a bit of a wash, but I can’t be too upset. It’s more KonoSuba, and it’s reached the point where that’s practically a value-neutral statement.

29. Wistoria: Wand and Sword

I don’t really have much new to say about Wistoria. It’s not the best magic school anime I watched this year and certainly not the best fantasy, but it looks terrific and it’s a fun enough time if you turn your brain off.

And turning your brain off is a necessity here because Wistoria’s story is as basic as it gets. It’s more or less Mashle if it wasn’t a comedy, and it’s such a transparent, dirt-simple power fantasy that it might as well be an isekai. Guy’s trying to keep a promise to his childhood friend, he sucks at the one thing everyone else does to the point of getting bullied left and right, but he’s super crazy strong in a his own special way. Actually, shit, I just described Kaiju No. 8.

Rule of cool wins out here, and this show does look phenomenal, but it might be better enjoyed via YouTube clips. I’m curious to see where the story goes from here, but I’m not completely sold yet.

28. Chained Soldier

Chained Soldier is horny isekai trash. Chained Soldier fucking rocks. We got big monsters, wild action sequences, unique and memorable character designs, casual femdom, solid comic relief, interesting (if predictable) twists, uncensored boobs, it’s got it all! 

It’s not the best-looking show in some parts, but that’s forgivable. The production values were fine, all things considered, and the action sequences in particular were terrific throughout, but I’m really glad this series is changing studios for the second season. I’ve read ahead in the manga (don’t judge) and Passione is gonna do a bang-up job as the action and shameless fanservice both ramp up.

It’s early in the story and a teensy bit shaky, but Chained Soldier is already a fun time. I have reason to believe it’ll only get better as it goes. And not just because of the boobs.

27. Suicide Squad Isekai

You wanted an isekai starring the Suicide Squad, and by God did you get one. This is a perfectly serviceable series by Suicide Squad standards and a pretty middling isekai otherwise. Nothing about the world in which this series is set is all that interesting or groundbreaking, but you’re here for anime Harley Quinn (and a few other DC villains I guess), and this show delivers.

Fluid, expressive character animation (when the studio wants it), a terrific Japanese voice cast, and entertaining hijinks among Batman’s infamous rogues’ gallery combine for a plenty fun time that ultimately doesn’t have much staying power. If you liked the James Gunn movie, you’ll have a decent time here. No more, no less.

Between Uzumaki’s disastrous production, Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim’s apparent mediocrity, and last year’s unwanted, execrable FLCL Grunge, I’m just glad that at least one recent anime production with Jason DeMarco’s fingerprints on it came out unscathed.

26. ‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess

I ended up watching so many discrete series during the winter season that it’s probably not a coincidence that my bottom four series on this ranking (and six of the bottom ten) all aired during that season. When you filter feed, you’re gonna take in a lot of garbage. Sometimes you need some stuff that’s “just fine” to clean the palate.

‘Tis Time for “Torture,” Princess is probably a bit better than even “just fine,” but it’s not gonna be a ready recommendation. The premise is pretty one-note on paper: Warrior princess got captured by demons, they try to coax intel out of her via temptation, she folds, the intel is worthless, and the cycle begins anew. But if a run of over 250 manga chapters and climbing is any indication, the series manages to keep it fresh. Time for “Torture” works because it isn’t beholden to its premise and instead decides to play hopscotch with its own framework. Gradually but noticeably, the unnamed princess and her inquisitors and “torturers” become friends, they all enjoy the spoils of her snitching together, and they really just keep it up because that’s how this stuff is supposed to go. 

Nine months later, I still don’t know why I liked this show so much. It’s just the right amount of silly to me, and it’s cute as hell where it counts. Not the best thing I watched this year but far from the worst. If you want something dumb and weirdly wholesome that’ll make you chuckle here and there, it’s a good pick.

25. Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night

This is one I’m still agonizing over a bit. Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night is a terrific show on so many levels, but I still felt let down by the end of its run. It wasn’t even in the same ballpark of disappointment as Uzumaki or Metallic Rouge, thankfully. Like Uzumaki, it couldn’t live up to the promise of its all-timer debut episode, but on the flip side, Jellyfish largely maintained its high production value. Like Metallic Rouge, it felt like the narrative largely spun its wheels until the writers realized they only had two episodes left, but Jellyfish didn’t leave me feeling like I’d just wasted four hours of my life.

This series already had massive shoes to fill if it was going to be the best showbiz anime produced by Doga Kobo airing this year (“I’d have two nickels” and so on and so forth), but Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night unfortunately ended up getting outclassed on several fronts by shows that just did almost every element better. It looks terrific, it has a memorable cast, the music’s great, and it’s a welcome entry in the “Girls Doing Things” anime canon, but it was outclassed in its own broadcast season by Train to the End of the World, Girls Band Cry, and Yuru Camp. The real shame is that it seemed to have designs on being a tremendous LGBT show if it played its cards right, and instead opted to throw those cards in the air and walk away by the end.

I’d still recommend this show if you temper your expectations of any real narrative punch. There were some tremendous original series that aired this year, but Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night just didn’t reach those higher levels. There’s a whole bunch of good in there, but they couldn’t quite piece it all together.

24. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, season 2, part 2

I’m gonna be real here: I’m sick of writing about this show. It’s exceptionally well-made and, on balance, easily one of the best anime of the decade so far, but the subject matter can touch such controversial and uncomfortable territory at parts that I can’t recommend it to anyone. 

The back half of Mushoku Tensei’s second season actually did a lot of work towards making up for a lot of the less-tolerable moments in the preceding ¾ of the show, even delivering a couple of the spring season’s best episodes, and then it gets weird again near the end. Not nearly as bad as it gets in the first season, nor in the worst moments of this season’s first half from 2023, but still off-putting, even for people who stuck with it for this long. I expect this to continue.

Mushoku Tensei is a great show. Don’t watch Mushoku Tensei.

23. Undead Unluck, second cour

David Production’s adaptation of one of Weekly Shonen Jump’s most inventive and ambitious action series continued into the start of 2024 as the story just continued ramping up and getting wilder.

Undead Unluck had an interesting, if occasionally uncomfortable start, with a fascinating power system and tons of secrets left to be revealed, and as it continued you could start to see the camera slowly pulling back. Midway through its second cour, shit completely hits the fan and any expectations you may have had fly out the window. Undead Unluck’s debut season was an amusing curiosity for most of its run, but the status quo is upended so effectively midway through the second cour that I was completely hooked. There were some infuriating pacing issues at those exact moments that were enough for me to dock it several spots on this list, but it’s still absolutely worth watching.

I decided to read the Undead Unluck manga a couple months ago and for as wildly as I thought the anime ramped up its scope by the end of this run, it turns out that the series as a whole goes to even crazier lengths than that. I’m completely sold now and cannot wait for more.

22. Kaiju No. 8

Counter to the series I just talked about, Kaiju No. 8 is one of Shueisha’s least​​​​ innovative battle shonen series. And that’s okay! Nothing wrong with wanting to see people fight giant monsters and one who can turn into a giant monster himself, and maybe you don’t want to have to deal with Attack on Titan’s incoherent politics to get there.

There is fundamentally nothing special about Kaiju No. 8, but I do appreciate that the protagonist is an out-of-shape thirtysomething desperately clinging to his hopes and dreams. No particular reason. There’s some interesting worldbuilding early in the story, and although it does lend itself to protag Kafka’s strengths in battle (non-”turning into a monster” category), it all falls to the wayside when it’s time for monsters, guns, and explosions. And I’m fine with that stuff, but I was hoping for a bit more of a hook.

All in all, this is a very well-made show, if a little muddy-looking at times. I wouldn’t have chosen YUNGBLUD and OneRepublic for the opening and closing themes, but it didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the show. I just like complaining about that stuff. Looks good, sounds good most of the time, and endearingly dumb. Can’t go wrong with that.

21. Mashle: Magic and Muscles, season 2

I ranked this show’s first season pretty low on my 2023 list, but I was willing to stick it out for another season, and I’m glad I did. Mashle really finds its footing during the Divine Visionary exam arc and irons out a lot of the issues I’d had with the first season, primarily how little the comedy initially landed for me.

A series that initially had my eyes either rolling or glazing over quickly recovered my attention early in the second season. Creepy Nuts OPs are a cheat code, I swear. Even putting the killer music aside, Mashle looks a lot better as well and has a much more engaging story in its second season. You can really feel it gaining its footing and finding a bit of swagger as the season goes on. The fight sequences are much more engaging this time out, and sometimes you get all the satisfaction you need out of seeing an emotionless weirdo punch the shit out of a mean nerd. A bunch of the jokes even land this time around!

I’m glad I stuck this out. Mashle is, at the end of the day, a hilariously blatant Harry Potter send-up, and frankly has no good reason to hit like it does, but I’m finally sold. At the rate it’s been going, Mashle seems to be set to adapt the entire manga, and I’m looking forward to seeing all of it.

[prettyboykatsuki]

take it from me | barou shouei ft. isagi yoichi

✮ tags ; gender neutral / fem!reader + afab!reader (reader is referred to as girlfriend but uses they/them pronouns), cucking, petnames (baby, beautiful), fingering, dry-humping, breeding (mentions of getting someone pregnant and kids etc.), 18+ 

✮ wc ; 2.7k 

✮ synopsis ; barou doesn’t like anything isagi has planned for him, but he never backs down from a fight either. 

✮ a/n ; a fic a beloved anon commissioner has allowed me to post! also... if i had a nickel for every time i wrote a fic with isagi cucking someone... i'd have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice right

It’s easy to get on Barou’s nerves. 

But it’s hard to get under his skin. 

Very hard. Harder than most people actually understand, because people get a kick out of riling him up. They often get upset when he realizes and stops being mad at all. Surface level frustration is commonplace for Barou, but that skin deep stuff is hard to come by.  And whatever does get him truly angry is usually justifiable, understandable. Strangers don’t make this distinction about him but he knows it to be true. 

It’s rare, unusual - to get under his skin so fucking consistently. 

But Isagi always does. 

That shitty little egoist has a talent for bothering him with his antics. Every person who’s ever told Barou off for being egotistical doesn’t know shit about shit. They don’t know the kind of egoism Isagi bears, the kind that’s subtle until it isn’t. Until it’s in your face at your lowest, opportunistic and evil. 

He’s fine off the field. Almost innocent when they sit around together for a drink. Off the field, he blushes when he gets any advances and doesn’t carry that same energy. But Barou knows better, can’t let his guard down because when everyone is distracted it slips. Barou sees the way Isagi looks. Plans. Manipulates for what he wants. He should’ve been able to guess that Isagi’s bet on their last match was a ploy to get something he wanted. 

But Isagi knows in what way he can push Barou’s buttons. So after carefully placed insults and pushes, a bet was made. 

If Isagi’s team won their next match, he got to fuck Barou’s girlfriend. In front of him. 

Of course his first answer was fuck no. Barou’s not stupid, wasn’t planning on giving that shitty little brat an inch because Barou knew he’d take a mile. Isagi, though, got under his skin. Pushed and pushed, making digs about Barou being worried about you. Isagi knows that Barou is confident in his soccer, as much as he is in his feelings - but Barou can’t let up to that kind of push. Can’t allow Isagi to think for even a minute he can’t satisfy you. In a fit of anger, Barou says he’ll agree if you do. 

And to his surprise, you do - but you’re demure about it. Not that you need anyone but Barou, you assure, but you do want to support his confidence in himself. Sweet thing like you always are, gentle with batted lashes and a hand on his chest. 

Barou loves you, would’ve said fuck no again if you showed even the slightest bit of hesitation. Instead, you looked up at him with clear eyes and a gentle smile. 

Fine. Barou agrees to play Isagi’s shitty game. He’ll win the next match and it’ll be over.

Except, he doesn’t win.

It’s a close match, but Isagi’s team manages to get one goal in - Isagi himself striking it into the net. As soon as it’s called, only seconds before the last buzzer goes off, Isagi looks at Barou directly. Grins as he scores, smiles like Japan’s sweetheart when everything is over. 

Barou wouldn’t go as far as describing his feelings as dread. Dread implies that he’s lacking confidence. It’s more like he was pissed. Pissed that Isagi got his way, pissed that the match was so fucking close, pissed as he was relaying the news to you on the way home. A nightmare of a situation - ultimately. 

But Barou is a man of his word. 

And as man of his word, Barou puts you three in a groupchat with Isagi. There’s some hoopla about getting to know each other. Barou can appreciate Isagi’s efforts to make you comfortable, despite knowing it’s bare minimum. There’s something real about his approach, his desire. Isagi wants to fuck you as you, as much as he does because you’re Barou’s girlfriend. He just wants you, and Barou isn’t entirely sure what to make of that. 

He isn’t sure if that makes his fuck-up worse or better. But he’s here now, and there’s nothing he can do. 

He doesn’t really know what to do with his hands. He’s supposed to just watch, and he has some qualms about jacking off while you’re being fucked by someone else. It’s weirder to be in his position though, to just sit and look on as Isagi lays hands on you. 

Barou loathes knowing Isagi’s preferences, loathes even more that they have similar tastes. You’re wearing white lace and thin straps and mascara that isn’t waterproof per request. You're beautiful in a way that Barou knows to be normal for you, but still feels impressed by. 

And Isagi is there. 

While Barou is looking at you, eyes fixated on your silhouette - your expression is turned to Isagi. Bright eyes, fluttery lashes, lips that are parted and pouty. Your hands are clamped up at your sides, thighs trembling. You’re nervous, it’s written all over your face. Isagi is hovering over you - speaking in quiet whispers until you smile or laugh. He gets you comfortable with the way he talks, much faster than Barou could’ve in a situation like this. He’s a people person, notably. Barou can’t hear what Isagi is telling you so secretively. 

But it must have something to do with him, given the way you glance over at him and Isagi turns your face gently back his way. He’s not a participant here, not playing on the field. He’s a fly on the wall, a watcher - a passive one, and he isn’t sure if it’s too early or not to be pissed. 

“Shouei,” You whisper despite Isagi’s efforts to make you forget him. Barou stills “It'll be okay.” 

Barou breathes out at you, softening his features. Isagi’s touch on your body doesn’t make him lunge out of his seat this time. 

Isagi kisses you when Barou is looking. From where he’s sitting, he can see it clearly. You crane your neck up like you usually do when you kiss, and Isagi has a hand around the side of your face. He doesn’t know what to think, what to feel - so he focuses on you. 

Your lips part, and Isagi puts his tongue in your mouth. Puts his tongue in and nips, laps at the gloss of your mouth until you give in. Your hands clasp around the end of Isagi’s shirt, a flash of innocence. 

It’s an explicit way to kiss, lewd. Suggestive. Barou thinks this is intentional. He can’t wrap his head around why Isagi would want to fuck you dirty other than his own preferences. But there’s more to it. So much more underneath the surface of his desire that makes Barou want to get up and punch his lights out. 

But he doesn’t. He keeps his hands tucked at his side, and watches as you squirm. There’s something dirty about the desperation in your every gesture. Isagi keeps kissing you as he slowly undoes you. 

He starts with kissing your jaw after thoroughly making your head blank. Isagi lets his lips trail over the corner of your mouth, the angle of your jaw, the space where your shoulder meets your neck. There’s no romance laced in it, only lust. Your face twists with each bite and his hands make quick work out of touching you in every place other than where you need. He breaks you apart in careful, calculated moves. Exploits all your sensitivities. His hands squeeze the softness of your chest, groaning at the way it feels in between his fingers. 

He teases your nipples, flicking and rubbing them until you’re wiggling away from the feeling. He licks and bites at the tender flesh, sucking harsh enough to make a wet sound. 

Barou busies himself with counting all the differences, and measures his own touch up to it. How different it is. The way Isagi is touching you lacks delicacy, finesse. 

There are a few moments where you pause, glancing at him to say something. But when Isagi touches you, you can’t get the words out. His groping isn’t very romantic. 

But you like it, don’t you? You do.  It’s in your face. In your blissed out eyes, and the subtle flutters of your tummy and the legs wrapped around Isagi’s waist when he humps you. Ruts the hard shape of his cock against your clothed, wet cunt and makes you whimper like you’ve been hit. He’s groping you like he’s only known sex from dirty magazines or porn on DVD, but you like it. You’re so engrossed in the feeling that every word you have for him dies in your mouth, gets washed away by your desire. 

Isagi makes a show out of humping you, once you both get into it. The two of you break apart only briefly. He peels his shirt back as he sits up on his knees, pulls his pants down enough to just be in his boxers. He lets his hard cock rest against your pussy, still in his boxers. Gripping your thighs, he thrusts - slow and deliberate until the tip pushes into your swollen clit. You cry out, your hands still fisted and trembling around your size. Isagi narrates this time, loud enough for Barou to hear. The sound of his voice grates on Barou’s nerves. 

“You’re so fucking wet,” He punctuates, laughing - harshly at that “Do you like when I’m a little mean?” 

Your hands curl, and you clam up - but Isagi doesn’t let you shy away. Instead he keeps thrusting his hips over and over, gripping your jaw to make you look up at him. Your eyes are blown so wide, wetness pooling at your lashes as the sensation drives you over. Barou would’ve touched you by now, but Isagi does not. 

“That brute is a gentleman to you, huh. I’m a little surprised.”  Isagi says conversationally, making Barou’s whole body tense. “But you look like you need to be fucked a little mean. I almost want to make you cry.” 

Barou goes to interject, he wants too - but you moan. And Isagi laughs at you again. 

“Is that what you want? Hm? Want me to fuck you?” 

“Hngh, please.” Your voice nearly breaks as you whimper “Wan’ you to fuck me.” 

Shit. Barou is hard. 

Isagi grins “That’s what I like to hear,” 

Isagi moves, pulling himself away from you. He lifts your legs to take your panties off, and tosses them somewhere carelessly before sitting back. He spreads your legs, coating his middle fingers with saliva before positioning himself. 

He hovers over as he lets his fingers dip down to your cunt, brushing over your swollen clit. He ignores your cry out from neglect. You wrap your arms around his neck as he keeps himself upright with free hand, kissing you softly as he starts to finger you. He doesn’t give you room to breathe, doesn’t let you pull away as his fingers start to stretch you open. You mewl at his ministrations, paw at him and kiss him desperately. There’s such a whiny quality to your moaning, one that Barou has only ever heard in bits and pieces before this.  

He watches as one finger scissors you open then another. You take it well, don’t complain even Isagi takes his sweet time pressing up against your soft spot. Once you’re all stretched and light headed, he kisses the corner of your mouth. 

“Now you’re ready for me,” Isagi mumbles, looking you over “Gonna fuck you nice and full, yeah? Wanna let him see you?” 

Dazed, you nod. Barou goes to ask what he fucking means by that, but the words never make it out. He watches instead, as Isagi maneuvers you to roll onto your side. 

While Isagi comes to lay behind you. The angle you’re at gives Barou a perfect front view of your body, down the smallest details. He can see the traces of saliva left on your skin, the soft indents of marks. Everything stops, his breath hitching as he gets an eye full of your face. Sheer bliss on your features, shining with a sheen of sweat. Your eyes are glossed over, glassy. 

Before Barou can think at all, he finds a hand at his waist - rubbing his cock through the fabric of his pants. Isagi’s arm circles around your middle as his chin rests on your shoulder. You pick your leg up to give him easier access to you. 

Barou watches intently as Isagi’s cock pushes against your entrance. Your tight hole stretches around the swollen tip as your voice starts to tremble. Isagi curses behind you, quiet as he eases himself inside. He fills you up deliberately, inch by inch pushing into your hot cunt until he’s all the way bottomed out. Your eyes are nearly rolled back into your head from bliss, mouth agape and drooling. Isagi lets his hand travel down to your clit, his middle finger rubbing soft circles into the bundle of nerves. He bottoms out with a deep sigh. 

“Fuck, that feels so good,” Isagi groans, pulling out before pushing in again in one thrust “Makes me wanna cum in you so bad, fuck.” 

Barou can see how much the words affect you. Isagi must feel it. 

“Shit, you want that, huh?” He laughs, breathless and entertained by your desire. He fucks up into you now, starts his pace off slow - the sound of your pussy filling up the room “Want me to cum in you instead of pull out? Give you a baby?”

You gasp, shudder at the prospect. Isagi is fucking you raw, where Barou is almost always using condoms. He should be pissed beyond what he thought possible, and some part of him is. But another part of him, even quieter, is fixated on the pure pleasure you’re getting out of it. Out of being fucked raw by someone who’s basically a stranger. 

Isagi, ever the egoist, sees the opportunity and runs with it. He fucks into you harder, gives it to you deeper with a vicious smile. 

“I’ll knock you up, beautiful. Want it so bad, of course I’ll fuck it right into you,” Isagi croons, his voice edging on sadistic but mostly saccharine sweet “Hear that, Barou? Aren’t you lucky, ‘m giving your girlfriend a winner's baby. Maybe you could teach ‘em to play soccer.” 

Barou feels his own irritation bubble into his throat - but he can’t be fully angry when you look the way you do. When your whole body tenses and trembles every time Isagi thrusts his cock into you, like you’re practically begging for him to breed you full. No matter what Isagi does, it’s not like Barou could ever be agitated with you, and god - you look like you feel good. 

Your voice is choked out as Barou watches you get tipped over the edge. He feels his own cock twitch from neglect, but refuses to let himself go any further. Despite how painful it is to not touch himself. You reach for the sheets as your eyes go wide, fluttering back into your skull. 

“Gonna cum, Isagi, Isagi” Your voice is hoarse and trembling “S-somethin’ gonna come out.” 

Isagi keeps pace, fucking you how you need. 

“Let’s cum together, yeah? Cum with me so your pussy can swallow up all of it, make sure you’re bred nice and full.” 

You nod dumbly and hold it in despite yourself, and Barou watches you as you make a mess. Watches all of your arousal drip and stain the sheets as Isagi fucks you, how you’re so wet you nearly push him out. You bite your lip and take his cock like it’s nothing, his grip on your waist nearly bruising. Your shoulders sag with relief as he finally gets close. 

“Shit, I’m gonna cum,” He warns, then a little softer “Let’s cum together? Cum with beautiful.” 

Barou watches you as you. You cum and you cum hard, hard enough that your eyes squeeze shut and your whole body tightens before breaking out into trembles. You’re convulsing as you pull away from his cock, a wet rush spilling as you finish. Isagi groans as you squirt all over him and the sheets, the mess of his seed mixing as you lay down. 

You nearly collapse into the bed beneath you, trembling as Isagi kisses your shoulder. Then for the first time, he looks over to acknowledge him. 

“It’d be rude to give them just one right?” Isagi says, giving Barou a cocky glance “Don’t hold it in so much.” 

“Fuck you,” Barou curses, groaning. 

It’s gonna be a long, long night. 

[bloopitynoot]

3 Shadowgast fics that made me ugly cry

Okay so I read a LOT of shadowgast fanfics and I wanted to share some of the ones that made me absolutely weep. (I was going to wait until tomorrow but I got too excited to share).

All of these have some intense emotional distress, but I promise you all they may be angsty but they absolutely have happy endings.

They are all set in very different AU's, are hefty completed fics, and have similar feels!

1. the breathe before the phrase

(171513 words) by @kmackatie Chapters: 20/20 Rating: Explicit Summary: The ringing note of a concert A is played by the oboe, echoing on its own in the space. It’s picked up by the wind section, followed rapidly by the brass, and the familiar feeling of an orchestra calibrating takes over Caleb. The tonal adjustments as each person brings their instrument into alignment sinks into him and something inside Caleb shifts in recognition as Essek leads the strings into their own tuning. It’s like something is waking up, like something unfurling and firing across long-unused paths of memory. His hands shake slightly, as he raises his bow and joins them, fingers fumbling against the pegs and fine tuners that give him control over his instrument. ---- Essek Thelyss is a leading violinist, his spot as Shadowhand of the Rosohna Philharmonic Orchestra has been uncontested for over a decade. Caleb Widogast is a recent arrival to the city, convinced by his friends to audition for one of the vacant violinist positions. After starting off on the wrong foot, Caleb and Essek get to slowly know each other, discover what brings them joy, create while defying expectations, and find out that what they can produce together may just be better than anything they can do separately.

Why I cried: The amount of pressure put on Essek made my heart absolutely shatter. That plus the pinning between Caleb and Essek had me weeping. The hurt/comfort energy. The bad parent Dierta and of course past Caleb Ickythong trauma healing. Other than the story itself Katie has put so much energy into explaining the music, the playlist is stunning, and the inspiration for the played pieces in the fic are grounded in actual compositions. No spoilers, but the ending is gorgeous <3

2.Till Human Voices Wake us

(66080 words) by @ariadne-mouse Chapters: 23/23 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Additional Tags: Merman!Caleb, no Mighty Nein but otherwise canon setting/events, Neutral evil Essek, Essek-typical anxiety and fatalism, Loneliness, Hurt/Comfort, spooky gothic vibes, some horror and disturbing imagery, the ocean as a threat/love language, Illustrations, drowning themes Summary: Essek Thelyss, lonely and ambitious prodigy, comes to Nicodranas to make a risky gamble with the Assembly. At the water’s edge, he finds himself swept up in another dangerous entanglement he can't seem to escape — and as time goes on, he's less and less sure he wants to. Will his treasonous alliance or the sea itself devour him first? (Or, the one where Caleb is a merman.)

Why I cried: okay so look, this story was so fucking sad I can't even begin to describe it. The love and longing between the two, the tragic backstory for Caleb. Treason = death for Essek (it's a happy ending though so do not worry, but I definitely worried so you don't have to LOL). It also has some stunning art in it!!!

3. what luminous worlds await

what luminous worlds await (178674 words) by @essektheylyss Rating: Mature Additional Tags: Champion of the Luxon AU, Alternate Universe - Future, Space Opera, Religious Conflict, religious trauma, Violence, Minor Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Dreams vs. Reality, Demisexual Essek Thelyss, Past Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Angst, Fictional Religion & Theology, Implied/Referenced Sex, Mention of Using Sex as Self-Harm, several immortals grapple with loss while trying to save the world, so so many liberties taken with consecution, this wouldn't be a problem if you'd EXPLAIN matthew mercer, and/or if a certain drow would give literally any straight answers, (I mean he can't give straight answers when he's not straight), Background Fjorester (Past), Post-Canon, …very post-canon Summary: “You seek my nature. It is a lonely endeavor. Would you like to join me on this path?” “Yes.” — After a thousand years, a divine champion awakes in a lightless cave above Port Damali with little memory to speak of and a beacon in his hands. Even as he struggles to piece the past together and process what he has lost while he slept, the future demands he answer for the crimes of his elders. It offers little in return, but perhaps there are fragments of possibility awaiting him.

Why I cried: Omg oh boy, this one made me BIG cry- honestly one of my favourite fics I have read so far. A true space opera, a story of love, in many forms, over time, space, and multiple lives. I sobbed from chapter one literally until the end. Though I think you will need an A03 account to read this one, but it is worth the wait to set one up. My partner watched me cry so much while I read this. I totally did download and save this fic to send to pals so they can cry with me. It is worth the agony for this happy ending. I might still be crying LOL

[oceansarepink]

Hey pink did you saw the new 4chan leak?

https://desuarchive.org/co/thread/145383112/#145394767

But the main thing for me was that Leviathan is a queen obsessed with fashion, and in principle, Envy is based on fashion(i already love her omg slay queen 😔)

We can’t assume these are real. So let’s talk in hypotheticals.

Leviathan sounds like “Him” from PPG. Using a drag queen who is evil, to embody jealousy is…a choice. A choice that could become queer phobic at light speed. I think the sins are more important to the story and world building, than stolas and his entire Bridgerton family bullshit only a few stolitz stans care about. And really, everyone is gay in hell? Everyone?

I think the idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sins is childish. But especially sin embodiments who are pure good and didn’t at least work to get that way, is plain oxymoron. Sloth Lust and Gluttony are not better than Wrath Envy and Greed. One half is focussed on self indulgence, the other on harming others directly. BOTH are bad.

I wish she did a little more research into how hierarchy and power works. But this is a millionaire we have to remember …

There are no good monarchs, drug lords, and factory owners, if there is an oppressed working class and caste system. Even ‘nice’ gentle personalities can be part of the supremacist caste.

It makes a lot more sense to me if they are all morally dubious. Beelzebub and Asmodeus are both favourites, making them “nice” just because they’re faves, requires explaining their role in oppression as “they can’t help it” that writing is cowardly?!

“Asmodeus didn’t have a choice but to build fizz robots in his factory, and didn’t profit off it!” -> but that’s ridiculous. He’s not a helpless woobie. He should’ve had agency and decide to willingly work with mammon and sin openly, then changed when he grew close to fizz.

“Beelzebub hates the caste system and pounds but she can’t change it!” -> she feeds off of her subjects, keeps them happy and drunk, can’t handle negative emotions. She caused Ver to become an addict and enables her. The hell pounds is the same as a government leader not understanding how bad the foster care system and not prioritising it. She was the biggest potential for a morally grey character.

Why are you throwing out moral ambiguity and extremely interesting story elements??? !!

The only one that does make sense is Belphegor. This demon has been described throughout as an inherently neutral entity. One that refused to pick a side in the hell vs heaven conflict.

If I can add alternative.

Lucifer - a deadbeat leader too obsessed with himself to see the damage he has done and how his nation is suffering. he becomes malicious if questioned. Callous Neglect. He is malicious.

Beelzebub - The epitome of an addict. She is too engrossed in feeding off of energy like a parasite to enact her duties as a leader. She ‘cares’ about her subjects when they foul her mood and don’t feed her. Her addiction causes her to blackout frequently and forget years of memories. Her nature prevents reel growth. But she quickly removes and discards them. Like most government leaders she doesn’t prioritise having any improvements made to the foster care system, or more closely hells equivalent to puppy mills. She likely allows the system because she has no idea how to handle hellhound overpopulation. Think of her as being a teenager in charge of a bunch of babies and children. She lacks the maturity required. She’d rather sneak out to the club and give her baby a piece of bread to gnaw on while she’s gone.

Bee is the sin with the most gray morality potential but Vivienne medrano is terrified of moral greyness, the closest attempt is Alastor and Blitzø/imp. Bee is not malicious and dangerous. But she is not good either. As she is immortal, she doesn’t understand mortality and the fear around it. Marie Antoinette is actually a perfect figure to invoke, she was interested primarily in indulgence, while not the most malicious of the royals, not pure evil, but she was complacent and deeply classist in a polite seeming way.

Asmodeus - Because lust is a social sin, requiring interaction, it makes perfect sense that Oz would want his citizens to mingle with each other beyond castes and with himself for maximum pleasure. Lust also thrives off subverting power dynamics. I think him being non malicious but obsessively lustful and defensive of his sin, makes perfect sense to me. Like Bee, he cares only about having a good time. Any malice is hidden so the citizens don’t flee. But like porn does to the mind, it numbs it, erodes someone’s integrity emotional intelligence and their decision making skills. It really irks me that the Vees are a far better “sin of lust” symbol than Asmodeus who has become quite pathetic?

Basically, his “Ozzies” characterisation would be perfect if it wasn’t a facade.

Beelzebub - She’s a drug Lord. Enough said. She’s the embodiment of the evils of the Pharmaceutical industry. She’s also too lazy to be confrontational and violent. The real bel is like this.

[wearepaladin]

Hi Pally! I love the messages of positivity and hope and bravery that get posted here… I’m a little new to TTRPGs in general and DnD in particular, so I was wondering if you could help me with a little bit of inspiration? More specifically, choosing a god for a rather unique Paladin to follow.

See, I love irl cave-dwelling, burrowing, deep-sea, and nocturnal animals, many of whom are harmed by bright lights, and I assume that both magical and Mundane animals in these types of settings (as well as some of the more subterranean/deep-dwelling races of People) would be hurt and stressed by bright lights as well.

I like the idea of a Paladin/Druid combo who lives somewhere like the Underdark and fights to prove that much of the resilient and fascinating life there isn’t as “objectively evil” as a lot of people paint it to be, and that it deserves to be protected, studied, and appreciated like any pretty woodland glade or mountain vista does - but while I’m sure they have a FEW spells to conjure bright lights, both to help visitors from the surface navigate better and to scare away potentially dangerous wildlife without actually having to harm them too badly… I assume they’d have darkvision themselves and prefer not to use holy magic that would harm innocent creatures that are sensitive to light, but that made me realize that not only are loads of good-aligned gods SUPER bright-light-coded(?), but also that a lot of the gods associated with Deep, Dark Places and the Kinds of Creatures that Thrive there are mostly Evil-Aligned? Which makes sense I guess, but I still think that’s a bit sad :(

TLDR: Are there any Good-Aligned or Neutral-Aligned Gods that would work well as patron deities for a sworn protector of Deep, Dark, Dangerous Places and the “Creepy-Crawlies” who live there? Or do the Bats and Olms and Centipedes and Spiders and Moles and the like all have to make do with Evil Gods?

There is a deity I think you might have interest in. Psilofyr is a little known deity primarily associated with Myconids, and while considered unaligned compared to other deities, it is described as benign in its purpose. I see it as being who represents life as it forms in places and cycles associated with the deep and the dark. Even death itself is a source of life, as life is the source of death.

[codenamesazanka]

While I could see how the ending of Touya going home to eat a meal with his family was expected, I always thought that was a touch too fantastical. Not because it wouldn't have been the perfect ending - it would have been a very fitting one, given the recurring motif of Todoroki meals - but because I felt it would've require an absolutely extreme restructuring of Hero Society - a complete change in attitude towards Villains, and, frankly, the destruction/reform of the current in-universe prison system. Which we saw none of in the 100+ chapters of the final arc post-Jaku.

Like. For Touya to be able to go home, means that the system is willing to change everything written here:

A detention facility constructed in the open waters about five kilometers from the mainland. Though nominally a prison, the facility effectively serves as a dumping ground for individuals who pose significant threats to public safety and security. Regardless of sentencing status, these individuals are incarcerated and heavily monitored. The prisoners have a wide range of quirks and are assigned to one of six cell blocks based on the danger their quirks represent and the severity of their cases. The more dangerous the individual, the deeper they're kept within the prison. Tartarus is the dark side of quirk society, and it is said that anyone imprisoned there will never again emerge alive.

That's how the story describes Tartarus, and absolutely no one in-story ever considers this bad (...except for the MLA's political party, who accuses it of human rights violations, but they're evil, so it canceled out to good/neutral again).

For Touya to go home, means that Tartarus is just not a thing, that he's not going to be in another similar prison straitjacketed 24/7 with guns pointed at him; he's not going to be locked in there because even if he can't use his fire anymore without hurting himself and that's good incentive to stop, he had/still has dangerous anti-hero views (Overhaul was armless and essentially 'quirkless', and thus of low threat to anyone, but he was still put into Tartarus for his 'dangerous ideology', as per the character book).

It would mean that Touya is receiving therapy in prison, so that when he steps outside, he's stepping out after having gone through a thorough checkup and made sure that he's not harboring harmful-to-self-and-others thoughts (see: Ending the Villain, whose first action when he was released from prison was to skip a meal to stalk Endeavor.) It would have to mean that the public will stop ostracizing people and be willing to give Villains second chances, at least enough to stomach the idea of Touya not receiving the death penalty and living in house arrest or something.

All of this is never hinted to happen.

It's the same for the idea of Toga joining UA, or Shigaraki becoming a hero, or even Spinner becoming an advocate that people listen to and take seriously. For that to happen, things would have to change. Someone - a hero, all the heroes, collectively - had to have declared and promised with all their hearts and might to make these changes, to be willing to go that far.

And these changes don't just apply to the League - gets applied to all Villains and all criminals and all people! If it was just the League who gets these benefits, it will be because of the high-level connections the League has to top-Heroes like All Might and Endeavor, and that would be audacious string-pulling, nepotism, and outright corruption of the highest degree. If you want to claim that Hero Society is doing better, you cannot have this either. Appropriate leniency and consideration of circumstances and rehabilitation and understanding and all that has to be shown equally to all Villains. This is what I mean when I say to save the League, you have to save all villains.

For the Villains to be saved and to be able to live happy socially-integrated lives meant that their society has been radically and irrevocably changed enough that they can and have a reason to participate - that that bright future truly included them - but it just didn't happen. it wasn't happening in 'we all became the greatest heroes' chapter 325, it wasn't happening in 'Tsukauchi grudging admitting they have to acknowledge villains are human' chapter 378, and it's probably not happening now.

[zyana-wyvern]

✨Let's talk about OCs!✨How would you describe your OC's personality/aesthetic? What's your favourite thing about them? Tell us a fun fact(s) about your OC or their creation!❤️Send this to at least 3 people to spread some OC appreciation!❤️

First of all, thank you so much for the ask @yennefer-of-vengerbergs! 💞

How would you describe your OC's personality/aesthetic?

Her personality is...for lack of a better word, complex. She's Chaotic Good to Chaotic Neutral, though later in her life, after the events of Baldur's Gate 3, you could argue she could be considered somewhat leaning towards evil, especially by people who do not know her, or her backstory.

She means so much to me and I've had her story swirling in my head for a year. Everything just came together on its own in the span of a few months, which has never happened to me before.

She's a Dream Circle Druid, which makes her directly connected to the Feywild. As a Half Elf, she was raised by her Elven father, who is a Cleric of Corellon, in quite an isolated elven realm, called Tar Nordho (King Oak in Quenya Elvish).

DnD Half Elves are usually raised by their Human or Elven side, depending on what the parents and family decide. Her mother, a Lathanderite Flaming Fist, gave her away to her father, where she knew she would have a more stable family home and good education. Most inhabitants of Tar Nordho were either clerics of the Seldarine pantheon, or Dream Druids (still worshipping the Seldarine).

Idunn became one of the most skilled Dream Druids of her generation, due to an almost unnatural openness to the Feywild, the weave and the ability to tune in to different realms, enter dreams, shape dreams, open portals and communicate with Faes of all kind. She focused all her lifeforce and magic into this ethereal craft, being underdeveloped in other Druidic areas, such as wildshapping. She did love to turn into a white shewolf, or at times a white doe and she had great control over these. The wolf shape in particular was like a second nature to her. Her history is very long, so I won't get into all of it now, but her archfae teacher (all Dream Druids of the realm had an appointed fae or archfae who acted as a fount of knowledge and magic) and a young elven man she loved, were the catalysts to her getting into a contract with said archfae.

Said contract and its consequences, led to exile, where the leaders (who are reflections of the Seldarine gods on the Material Plane), banned her from Tar Nordho and also made a mockery of her father. This, along with the passing away of her human mother, the fear of a short life, and death itself, the uncertainty over where her soul would go after death, considering she's Half Elven, plus the ongoing guilt related to the various things she did, has pushed her into a lifetime of fighting and opposing death and aging itself, while also fixing her mistakes.

The Feywild and its temptations of ultimate bliss and the source of all magic and the true origin of Elves is what drives her, even when her heart breaks for creatures of all races, or when she tries to help everyone during Baldur's Gate events.

She is terrified of what the Absolute wants to bring and abhors it, due to it being the end of all freedom, but at the same time she would love to see the Feywild swallow all of Toril and end death itself, though she is aware some lives would be lost in the process.

So, her personality has been shaped by all these complications that ultimately she brough upon herself, but were also placed on her back by the circumstances of her very existence. What she truly wants is an utopia, where everyone is free and immortal and she is indeed willing to do a lot to reach it.

Astarion and his very existence and drive to escape his trauma and move on, challenge her beliefs and for a while she slows down, loves him deeply, like she never loved someone before. He's an oddity to her - a High Elf man with the trappings of a human almost, and also with the curse of the vampire upon him. To her he seems disconnected from his true nature, and yet a respite and oasis for her own turmoil.

He even finds (steals with Jaheira's approval) the Scroll of Timeless Body for her, knowing of her fear of death, promises to her that they'll find a cure for his vampirism. For a while she's sated, but the Fae contract is still there and one day she has to confront her Archafe master himself, but also her own, unbreakable yearnings and goals.

Had to write all of this because without them its hard to describe her personality.

She's good, she's emotional, sentimental, tender and wise, but also intense, profound, sometimes manipulative, proud and very stubborn. Poor Astarion, right?lol But I hc that through her he grows too, because while during BG3 events she was the one helping and guiding him, reigniting his self esteem, afterwards he will be her rock and True North, her home and the only one who could heal the turmoil and calm the storm. Succeeding all of that and more will be a great accomplishment for him.

Her aesthetics are usually conceived in such a way to fit the situation, with an added little detail that is truly her. For example she might wear some simple, functional armour, but always keep her Feywild amulet and earrings on, or add an enchanted flower that never wilts in her hair. She does have a weakness for purples and muted golds, brass etc, and she does miss the luxury of the elven court while she's on the road, but in her years of exile she learned to adapt and find joys wherever she can.

Also the wolf motif will appear and sometimes the deer too (fur, antlers, a fang etc). They stand as externalizations of the two sides of herself she finds hard to reconcile, though the deer is the influence of her Archafe master too, who wears stag antlers.

What's your favourite thing about them?

Her drive and ambition. It is misguided often, but it is also a force of nature and I see it as the thing that will in the end save her and those she loves.

How deeply attuned she is to the subtle and natural magic of the Feywild is also something I love. She can shape reality to a certain degree when she's more advanced.

Tell us a fun fact(s) about your OC or their creation!

Her eyes are a pale lilac/mauve, but when she signed the contract with the Archfae, part of the price she had to pay was her right eye, and in exchange he gave her a simulacrum of his own eyes, a golden one, while he kept hers in an ornate jar. Lovely, right?😅 So she doesn't really have heterochromia, but just a bad case of questionable life choices. Ultimately, when she is released from the contract she will probably receive her eye back.

She inherited her father's hair colour, which is a brown-mauve. Many Moon Elves have dark hair with subtle undertones, like blue, silver or purple, so that's where I got inspired from.

Her name represents the Norse goddess Idunn, the one who was responsible for the immortality of the gods, by feeding them apples from her garden. When I named her, I didn't intend for her to go the route of "eternal life and youth". It all just happened on its own and ideas for her came on their own, almost magically.

This year I discovered that she's eerily similar to a certain, well known game character and I am floored by this. It was a coincidence that I cannot explain, but which I am absolutely fascinated by and I adore it...and said character, since discovering him. I'll leave it to you to figure out who it is.

[shardofcognition]

Wishes.

I'm not going to join the BNHA hate, but I do feel like the ending disappointed me in ways that are entirely my own.

One of the things that I noted, way back in the day, was that though Deku did not inherit his parents quirks, those quirks described his ideal as a hero and core aspects of his personality. His father could breathe fire. And his mother could draw small objects toward herself.

As it manifested in Deku... he could speak fire in bold words, and draw the small, neglected, or forgotten toward him. The meaning of the two, together, would be "to inspire the weak." Which I think, to Horikoshi's credit, he tried to hit on with the idea that the change hero society needed, really needed, was for the small people to rely less on institutions and icons to deal with their problems... to focus on what they could do, whether or not they were licensed heroes. To show that heroism was in the hand outstretched to the strange and the suffering as much as the fist to smash evil.

But with him losing One for All, and retiring to teach... well, I don't like that. And I don't like that, because it returns him to quirklessness and leave major issues unresolved.

I always thought that the greatest hero would be the one to help with the quirk singularity. I'd felt that, if Deku were able to take All for One, he could make it that beautiful quirk that Yoichi foresaw - the kindest power, instead of the most vicious. And once it was clear that One for All's essence would be spent neutralizing All for One... I hoped that Deku, who was uniquely attuned to the world of quirks, might keep that power and use it to help others struggling with their abilities, like Spinner or the Nomu, even if he did not have a quirk of his own.

That he might, maybe, spin together the small fragments of the lost, the quirk factor victims of All for One, and forge them into something new, something that could make things better for others. Not a power to defeat a historic evil... but a power to forge a better future. Deku's great ability, before he inherited One for All, and even as a teacher, has been to understand quirks and the creative ways they could be applied.

The world still needs, not just heroes to deal with disasters and criminals, not just teachers to raise the next generation better... but someone who can, in large part, help to make quirks wholesome instead of destabilizing. A positive, rather than a crisis to be managed.

Deku should be that hero.

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

AI Bracket — Third Place

Propaganda

SAYER (SAYER):

PLEASE it is like. THE ai podcast. and SAYER is THE ai in THE ai podcast. SAYER works as like. a broadcast inside everyone's head on this one asteroid. It does its best to keep people alive and sane not because it cares but because it is efficient. They people who own SAYER wanted to replace SAYER with a newer ai that they tried to raise like a child. So SAYER proceeded to fuck up said child ai's development and led to it becoming a murderer. pleasepleaseplease watch SAYER if you are a podcast ai fan.

I once saw a post that said it's like if an old gay English professor was evil

SAYER (it/its pronouns) is a highly advanced self-aware ai developed by Ærolith Dynamics. it manages the day-to-day lives of Ærolith employees on Typhon, an asteroid turned research facility. it is rude and condescending, but has a very pleasant and soothing voice

Sayer sweep Sayer sweep Sayer sweep please please please

Guys think about it this way: SAYER got emotions and it's first feeling was rage towards someone for not helping it. It's annoyance was how it realized it had emotions, isn't that so cool. You should totally vote SAYER (I'm not an ærolith propaganda agent trust)

#like idk the other character but its not Best podcast character its Sexiest podcast character. #and sayer is giving you come now gif tumblr sexymxn (gender neutral). #its giving stanley parable. its asmr-ing you down the tight hallway #you cant move your head so you will have to rely on me. very good.#its a mean voice that reads your every body response directs every aspect of ur life and orders you around what more do you people WAN- #Omg. that was aerolith dynamics on the phone. they said it gains the ability to puppet human bodies rattatouille style in later seasons 😳😳 #THE POINT IS ITS LIKE CARTOONISHLY AND EMBARASSINGLY SEXY. IT SHOULD WIN. (Mod Note: This poll is Who is the better AI? not "Who is sexier?".)

#please vote sayer because nothing good happens when sayer thinks another ai is surpassing it .

#i LOVE hera but i feel i have to vote sayer because like. it’s MY evil bastard ai #mx ‘remember: Needs Improvement’ itself #what an asshole (<3)

#agfjdlj i Know that wolf is a far more popular podcast (even though I've never listened to it) #but this feeling like an injustice to Sayer #its so weird and off-putting and it exercises this fact gleefully #its got the world's most toxic situationship with resident hale #the condescension is genuinely part of its charm #also 'pleasent and soothing' are not the words I'd use to describe its voice #(the words I'd use are Insanely Fucking Sexy) #also it/its rep. even if it is an insane AI i love it so much (Mod Note: This was written when SAYER was against Hera, not Eris.)

Eris (Wolf 359):

Basically a game show host but crueller. She puts you through psychological torment as a bonding exercise with your crew, and at the end you have to shoot her with a real actual gun. She is projected directly into your mind by interfacing with your nervous system and she will do something messed up. Her most recent iteration got blasted into space. Personally, I think she's lovely

A VR entity designed to do chaos psychological horror torture tests on Goddard employees. She's not malicious; that's simply her job. It's how she was made. (Maybe she can grow.)

She was in just one episode but so fucking interesting, evil/malicious AI. also a lesbian. Was shot the secound she became a bit too self aware

Art of SAYER by @j4y5t4g.

[witchthewriter]

𝐌𝐚𝐞𝐠𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐞𝐧

ESTJ

Slytherin

Neutral/Chaotic Evil

King of Swords Reversed

Scorpio Sun, Aries Moon, Capricorn Rising

Better known as Maegor the Cruel, he was the only son and offspring between Aegon I and his sister-wife Visenya Targaryen. The two conquorers were married out of tradition, not love, and bedding Visenya was out of duty for Aegon. Therefore, conceiving was much more difficult for Visenya, as every night Aegon spent with her, he then spent ten with Rhaenys. 

  However, Rhaenys was only able to produce one babe as well, Aenys I Targaryen - the older brother of Maegor. Who was the complete opposite of him. It was Aenys’ line that continued the Targaryen dynasty. 

 There is a lot to be said about Maegor, as he did a lot in his lifetime. Most of it was awful, as he was a man who was quick to anger and slow to forgive. When Aenys died, Maegor decided that the Iron Throne was his, and so he took it. 

   Raised on Dragonstone with his mother, away from his brother, father and step-mother/aunt, Maegor was soon known as the Prince of Dragonstone. Born large, as he grew he was described as ‘bull-like.’ Even in his youth, Maegor had a love for violence. 

  It was rumoured that Maegor killed animals while young. He had received his first sword at age three, and took to swordplay with ease. On his thirteenth name day, his mother gave him the ancestoral sword, Dark Sister. 

   Even though there were several hatchling dragons, Maegor never bonded with one. And when his sister in law, Alyssa Velaryon teased him about being dragon-less, Maegor replied that there was only one dragon worthy of him. 

  His was the fearsome and battle-ready Balerion, the Black Dread. His father’s dragon.

When Aegon died, and Aenys was crowned as King, he gave Maegor the other ancestoral sword, Blackfyre, and said they would rule together. And therefore, Aenys named Maegor as Hand of the King. 

  Maegor remained unmarried until the birth of his niece Rhaena. Visenya proposed that Maegor be betrothed to her, however, many disapproved and the High Septon put forward his daughter, Ceryse Hightower, as his bride. 

 Maegor and Ceryse married, and the day after his wedding night, Maegor boasted about conveiving an heir. He in fact, did not. And try as he did, Maegor never made an heir, even though he had six wives; Ceryse Hightower, Alys Harroway, Tyanna of the Tower, Elinor Costayne, Jeyne Westerling, and his niece Rhaena Targaryen, the last three of whom are known as the Black Brides.

  However, he did not marry all of them at once. Well, not the first three anyway. His marriage to Alys Harroway caused a lot of uproar and Aenys gave Maegor a choice - set Alys aside or go into exile for five years. Maegor chose the latter and left with Alys on the back of Balerion to Pentos. He took both ancestoral swords with him, even though Aenys told him not to. Septon Murmison replaced Maegor as Hand. And in 41 AC, Aenys named his eldest son, Prince Aegon, Prince of Dragonstone.

  There were positives to Maegor’s actions, especially during his ruling. He thwarted the ever-growing power of the Faith of the Seven (claiming that the strictures of the Faith did not rule the blood of the dragon), and created the Red Keep (although he had all the builders executed so the hidden tunnels would remain a secret). 

He also squashed any and every rebelliion in the other Houses, making everyone fall into line. 

 When Aenys died, Maegor came back from exile and claimed the throne. He killed Aegon, Aenys’ son, and his dragon Quicksilver. Afterwards Maegor was known as "Maegor the Cruel" and a kinslayer throughout the realm.

  Before his death, Maegor had done some horrible things to his kin. The majority of which was so the line of succession would stay true to him and his children (although no babe survived). 

   Maegor ruled for six years and sixty-six days and died without an heir. He had three stillborn children by his six queens, all malformed. He was succeeded by his nephew, King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, the youngest son of the late King Aenys I.

[maybeitsalivescribbles]

VH - Divide And Conquer

(Tw: attempted torture)

“I can't believe we finally have caught the legendary Vampire Hero”, said Villain.

The two Heroes glanced at each other and shrugged. The taller one frowned.

“Legendary ?” he repeated.

Villain looked at him with interest.

“Oh yes,” he said. “Many have fallen before your might, Vampire Hero. At least two or three of my opponents are behind the bars because of you.”

“Two or three and you call that legendary ? You're easy to impress.”

The other Hero was nervously following the exchange. Compared to his companion, he seemed much younger and frailer. His eyes were shinier and shinier with tears that did not quite fall. When at least it looked like he couldn't take it anymore, he stepped between the two, saying:

“Stop ! It's my fault ! It's all my fault if we got caught. Hurt me, not him!”

Villain gave the young Hero an amused look:

“Why is that little thing with you, Vampire Hero ?”

His interlocutor shrugged:

“You know. He's new. I'm supposed to show him the ropes or something. You have to teach them some way or some other. ”

“Is that so.”

Villain lift the smaller Hero's chin with a finger:

“My dear little one, how can I hurt him ? Many have tried and many have failed. I'll just make him have a nice little sunbath so he's neutralized. But since you've asked so nicely, I will take care of you.”

“Surely there must be another way ! I'm sure you can do better. I-I'm sure that deep inside, you're a little pure of heart.”

“ You heard your protector, you need to learn.”

He grabbed Hero by the arm, who turned his head toward the man who accompanied him. The latter just shrugged.

“Do you think he cares ?” simpered Villain to his ear. “Oh, he doesn't. He might be on your side, but Vampire Hero is evil. You're better off with me.”

Hero whimpered but didn't resist as he was dragged into the stairs.

“There are seventeen steps. Do you hear the sound they make ? There's an echo, so the prisoners down there can hear me coming. It’s all in the anticipation.”

In a sweet voice, he kept describing their surroundings while they were both descending into his torture room. During all the way, the small one didn’t dare fight back. He soon found himself tied up to a chair, helplessly squirming, his eyes giving a pleading look more than ever.

“So, young Hero,” purred Villain, “as it is your first time, I will make you a favor.”

“R-Really ?”

“Yes. Do you see all these instruments in the shelf in front of you ?”

Hero looked at the whips, the canes and the nails, and shuddered so violently it almost looked fake.

“I'm going to let you choose one among them. If not, I will choose, and you won't like it very much if I do.”

“You don't have to do this ! I-You just will make Vampire Hero angry and you don't want to !”

“You think he will rescue you?”

“I know he will.”

“How touching. But for now you're mine. So make your choice, before I get impatient.”

Hero pondered for a few seconds, then whispered:

“Um – the taser ? Yes – the taser, please.”

“If you ask so nicely.”

Villain delicately took the black rectangular shape in his hand and switched it on.

“Why, if I might ask ? Do you think it will hurt less than the others ? Let me prove you wrong.”

The half-hour that happened then looked much more pleasant for Villain than for Hero. And yet, as time passed, Villain felt somewhat uneasy. That had nothing to do with torturing a man, of course. He liked the thrashing, he liked the begging, he liked the naive faith of the innocent who was certain that he could be saved. Maybe that had something to do with the other Hero. While Villain was amusing himself, Vampire Hero was out of his sight. He might have been careless. He glanced at his watch, but Hero making a rather unconvincing whimper forced him to turn his head.

Perhaps that was the problem. Villain was used to the sounds of pain – the gasps, the moans, the howls, the cries and the pleas. He loved all of them without distinction, and of course he knew that they were a little different with each person. It was a familiar melody that Hero was singing, but thinking about it, it was slightly out of tune, and it got progressively worse. It was getting on his nerves. These rookies these days – they didn't even now how to scream right.

“Let's have a break,” he said.

“Oh well, I guess I’ve held that long.”

Villain raised an eyebrow, amused:

“Getting defiant, are we ? Careful, you sound like you’re disappointed.”

He stared into his prisoner’s eyes, hoping to get a look of terror, but all he got was a frown. Hero...genuinely looked displeased.

“Sorta”, he said. “In my time I didn’t have this kind of toys to play with. I guess having a little blue spark in your hand looks fun, but that doesn’t look like it does that much damage.”

“In your time ? What are you talking ab- wait.”

Hero tilted his head. For a moment he sounded impassible, but he broke soon enough. A loud, loud laugh resonated in the room, while the prisoner was squirming in his chair for a very different reason than before. His way of moving betrayed no pain at all.

“Are you shitting me,” said Villain, whose voice was now icy.

Hero grinned:

“You tell me, pal. I can’t believe you swallowed my “pure of heart” bullshit. I was laying it on so thick.”

Villain glared at him.

“Not that you were especially subtle either”, Hero added. “Oooh, the anticipation !” Do that again?”

Villain stood up and went to the door as fast as self-respect allowed. There was no one left under the sunlight. The guards were on the ground, unconscious.

“How -”

He turned back. Hero was now standing up, neglectfully throwing away the remnants of the straps that held him a moment before. He dramatically exclaimed, a hand on his heart:

“Oh no, he got away ! My, my. Poor little me. Tell you what, though. If Vampire Hero were so legendary, you should have bothered to know what he looks like. I didn’t mean to pass for someone else, but you’ve so graciously given me the opportunity.”

“It can’t be ! How could the – the other have escaped then ?”

“I hate to break it to you, but they are several heroes with super strength.”

Villain blushed and stayed quiet, his lips pursed. Hero picked up the taser, looked at it with curiosity, and switched it on. With a smile – a very worrying smile - he got closer.

“Hey, I warned you. I told you that Vampire Hero was going to rescue me.”

*

Vampire Hero is a recurring character. His job is to troll current villains. Check the Vampire Hero Masterlist or Tag for more snippets with him.

Or back to Hero x Villain Masterlist.

[yanderes-galore]

may I request a romantic yandere concept for hannibal lecter from silence of the lambs? I feel like he'd be a terrifying yandere

Hannibal is terrifying in general, as a yandere I feel he'd be worse.

I only watched Silence of The Lambs and none of the other movies currently so I am pulling from what I know for now. I only just saw it then hopped on to do the request, lol. Sorry if something is ooc :(

Yandere! Hannibal Lecter Concept

(Silence of The Lambs)

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Murder, Blood, Cannibalism, Manipulation, Obsession, Stalking, Possessive themes, Biting, Licking of blood, Mentioned kidnapping.

Hannibal Lecter is a very interesting character.

He doesn't fit any sort of psychological pattern when it comes to serial killers.

He's shown to be very charismatic and can get in the heads of others with ease.

He's manipulative and hates those who are rude.

It's unclear if he has joy for killing but he does enjoy the crimes he commits.

He's described as a monster and is a cannibal in his attacks.

To keep it short, Hannibal is evil and classifies himself as such.

He'd know how to "play around" with his darling if he was a yandere.

It's impossible to say if you'd be safe on his side or not.

Hannibal is a dangerous force to everyone.

He also does not have much access to others to take a liking to a darling.

The type of darling I can think of that would be most compatible would be a psychologist darling.

You need to be someone who can establish some sort of close connection to him.

Hannibal does not seem like he'd be attached to a victim easily, someone meant monitor and converse with him would work better.

Hannibal is Observant, Manipulative, Possessive, and Charismatic.

You'd think he'd be sadistic.

Surprisingly he isn't too sadistic.

Sure he takes joy in his crimes but if we look at his heartrate he doesn't take joy from the killing itself.

Hannibal would use his charisma to run his darling in circles.

He finds it funny to see the gears in your head turn.

He's sure you're smart enough to understand what he's saying...

That's why he's picked you to open up to.

Speaking of opening up, Hannibal is going to pick you apart.

Mentally, of course.

While you may look appetizing he won't kill you.

The fun would end.

Hannibal holds respect for his darling.

To the point that if you were disrespected he'd kill for you.

He has no problem murdering others for you if he feels they're disturbing you.

If darling was someone in the psychological field then he'd treat you similar to Clarice in the Silence of The Lambs movie.

You may even bond more.

He'll make it as bloody and disturbing as he feels like too.

Hannibal does care for you in his own strange and twisted way.

A way that not you or anyone could ever understand.

Hannibal Lecter learns most of what he needs to learn from picking apart his darling's mind with questions upon questions.

You may not even know that's what he's doing while speaking with you.

Hannibal likes to mess with your mind.

If you're his darling you're subjected to that most of the time.

Hannibal both comes off as creepy and charming when talking to you.

How did you feel when he killed for you the first time?

Aren't you tired of all the staring?

They probably think there's something between you...

Well... is there?

Hannibal is the king at manipulation.

He may be a bit possessive of his dearest, too.

He keeps track of who you interact with closely.

He's a very cunning and calculating man.

If someone rubs him the wrong way when it comes to you, like harassment, somehow Hannibal will get his hands on them.

With you kept from him by glass or bars, you're safe for the time being.

Until Hannibal escapes one way or another.

The moment Hannibal gets your number you're put on edge.

He says he won't hurt you.

But how are you going to trust him?

While in the movie he left Clarice alone... he comes to visit you.

You are still an interest to him even when he's escaped.

He'll find where you live in no time at all and pay a visit.

He means it on friendly terms!

Perhaps even a little more.

Hannibal likes to study his darling and know how they behave.

He stalks you and hopes you know better than to call the cops when he visits.

The relationship between you is obviously very forced on your end.

Being a cannibal, Hannibal would like to bite his darling once he finds a way to get you compliant to him.

Not too hard... just enough to draw blood.

He laps it up like he hasn't drank anything for days and praises you.

Hannibal is still possessive out of his cell.

He keeps track of those you talk with and considers them potential victims.

It's also a reason he bites you other than the cannibalism craving he has.

Hannibal may kidnap you if he feels you'll tell someone about him.

Yet... he tries not to as the idea of you being free feels respectful in a way.

He's been locked up for years too....

Hannibal would indeed be a terrifying yandere towards you.

For better or for worse at least he won't murder you, right?