#but I’m not ready for the torture

[loversamongus]

I didn’t know who else to tell because none of my friends are reading the Fourth Wing series yet so I’m posting here… I’m about 300 pages into Iron Flame and IM SO AFRAID TO KEEP READING

[silverhalla]

Back at it again with another theory: What if Lucanis’ betrayal wasn’t a betrayal at all?

(obviously, spoilers below the cut)

During The Wigmaker Job, we have some dialogue between Illario and Lucanis about their position within both the Crows and the Dellamorte family. Illario wants Caterina to step down so he can take the coveted First Talon spot. Lucanis reassures him that his time is coming, to which Illario makes a snide comment about whether his cousin would ever go against their grandmother’s wishes. When they continue the conversation after the job, Illario states that Lucanis is the potential heir, that he’s her favorite, and that he’s unlikely to say no to her. Lucanis doesn’t argue, only insists that he doesn’t want to be First Talon, and that he hopes she’ll see reason before that. It’s mentioned again in Eight Little Talons - Caterina favors Lucanis. It’s well-known enough among the Crows that Viago and Teia discuss it in front of her (not on purpose, but she doesn’t deny it). He’s her prodigy through and through.

In the opening scene for the Lucanis quest in Veilguard, Caterina is poised, as you’d expect of the First Talon. She’s certain that the body they buried wasn’t her grandson, that it had been altered with blood magic. She doesn’t pose it as a theory, though: she poses it as a fact. It could, of course, merely be her confidence, but there’s another very unusual aspect to the scene – everyone else discusses how Lucanis was clearly betrayed, that someone must have sold him out in order for the Venatori to capture him. Caterina is the only one in that room who never speaks on it. She doesn’t ask for justice, doesn’t mention vengeance, never acknowledges that her grandson was sold out by someone he trusted – perhaps because he wasn’t. 

What if, when Caterina comes to him with a plan, with an impossible request, he’s still her favorite prodigal grandchild, and he still does whatever she asks? She’s had him tortured before as a child, has tortured and starved and beaten him herself before, because it makes him stronger and more resistant to it in the future. He says in The Wigmaker Job that he used to hate her for it, but now he understands. He justifies it. All Crows justify it, because they have to - if they don’t, then the cruelty wasn’t for survival’s sake, and their suffering meant nothing. Perhaps he doesn’t even question it. When Caterina tells him that she has a job for him, he takes it. 

What if the contract has a caveat? Sure, Calivan must die by his hand by the end of it, a little treat for a job well done, but what if his primary mission is reconnaissance, is discovery? The Venatori are using blood magic to torture and corrupt prisoners. It would behoove the Crows to find out what it entails and how to resist it, before it’s turned back on them. It would have to be someone so deeply, unabashedly loyal to her that when she asked them to infiltrate a Venatori prison, expecting torture at best, their own death at worst, they’d take the job anyway, no questions asked - someone Caterina can trust, certainly, but also someone who has never once said no to her.

And Lucanis has always been a loyal grandson. 

[draculovemp3]

she’s his saving light !!!! If anyone cares at all perhaps!!!!!!

[kingkatsuki]

[azrail-has-a-vendetta]

do you ever think that Epic Odysseus spends a good deal of time trying to be extra “greet the world with open arms” after the war because he can’t look at the world the same way when there is a crying in his ears? He sees the blood streaming down the giants face and all he can see is the crushed and bloody and small body? That every time he thinks of his son, his tiny heart beating in his arms, he hears the heartbeat that rang in his ears as he held a swaddle of cloth over a wall, trying not to think about what lay inside? As he spare another life he thinks about the one he didn’t? As they sail through the underworld there is a form the swirls along side the others, one that he purposefully doesn’t acknowledge, a tiny thing wailing and oh gods it sounds like his son. And then he stops, he decides to “be the monster” and he stops holding the infant, he finally drops it and the blood on his hands is brighter and it won’t come off and he can’t touch his son cause he might drop him too. But Telemachus isn’t a baby, the crying sound is just in his head, besides Odysseus couldn’t hold his son like that anymore. Odysseus is a different man, and stopped trying to balance the universe by saving another when he already has so much blood on his hands. What is another drop going to do?

or are you normal?

[permian-tropos]

I predict that Daniil is gonna go from one of the most discoursed (sic) and hated characters in p2 to everyone's little meow meow going through a situation the moment everyone gets to play through his pov in p3

ahah well he’s definitely a meow meow now and he is playable in classic and marble nest but I just hope he gets to have compelling nuances and flaws without discourse coming back and being too toxic

but having players suffer alongside him in the tormentous nightmare is promising for evoking more empathy

[ms-ss]

Only 30 minutes until I’m about to get my shit absolutely rocked! ✌🏾😄🥹😖

[ladyamanda123]

🎶 They’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one…..so light me up! 🔥

As I’ve been listening to TTPD, Who’s afraid of little old me keeps scratching something in my brain.

Obviously the line “So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street” gives an immediate “they’re burning all the witches” call back. The whole concept of the crazy hysterical dangerous woman who dared to stand up for herself and tell the truth.

But every time I hear that line I picture The Chicks standing together in their Salem Witch Trials looking attire in I’m Not Ready To Make Nice, holding hands and telling the world fuck you! I’m pissed!

So I finally sat down this morning and watched the music video (which I haven’t for years) and WOW! 🤯 Watch it guys!

The black and white imagery….the dress….the insane asylum….so much Fortnight music video connections!

The way they start off in white then end up on black just like Taylor in Fortnight.

We know Taylor loves The Chicks and how they were used as a Clara Bow of sorts in her early career…..warning warning….don’t be like them! Be the nice girl!

I think this link was intentional. It’s sad seeing how the entertainment industry takes women and chews them up and then brands them as crazy dangerous hysterical women when they break the status quo and start speaking up. That has been Taylor’s whole career. When she does what the world wants…plays the nice girl, dates the football star, writes the love songs, it’s all good. When she gets messy and real and speaks the uncomfortable truths…

(Like say….. “I choose the 1830s but without all that racism and toxic patriarchy”)

Everyone recoils…..no one wants to hear those things because then we would have to acknowledge them and change them.

One other image kept coming to mind as well. The intro to the movie Practical Magic….the whole leap from the gallows….

Combined with the Burning all the witches line it definitely ties this album to the reputation era.

I really hope reputation tv and those vault tracks she herself says are 🔥 (more burning the witches imagery!) will be her claiming her failed coming out. It really does feel like she’s replaying that whole time of her life again for us. The performance art is so loud. TTPD is the very veiled first step like rep was.

It makes me wonder if maybe someday we might get a new version of Lover….the way it was supposed to be. One can hope!

[septembersung]

When you’ve been really sick for a really, really long time and then it starts easing up and at first you’re excited, you’re elated, because you start to feel human again, and then you realize recovery is a long, long road and it doesn’t happen all at once and the exhaustion hits and then it’s incredibly hard work to want to do the work because you are so weary and it is so hard and now that the pain is less or gone you just want to… rest

[dawnlotus1]

what do u think is gonna happen next vtm session. laughing evilly

YOUUUUU. 🫵🫵🫵

Okay. Sits down. Hm. So uh.

Next session is likely the battle against Marisa. You’ve been teasing a ‘sad scene’ that I can’t seem to parse out what it is you are planning, but it’s only going to happen if chance goes your way .

First of all literally everything between Mortis and Marisa is sad, but the fallout is gonna be.. well.. oh man

Okay so. I think Bart if going to convince the rest of us to go and try to help Mortis. We go and we confront Marisa, and we fight her and stuff and hopefully win.

Personally I think disagreement within the party about Mortis won’t be too much of an issue or what it is you are hinting at.

I also don’t know what Mortis is going to do during the battle, whether she’s going to fight half hearted on our side or half hearted on Marisa’s or remove herself entirely but it’s gonna be torture for her..

My only guess I can come up with is that maybe Mortis will change her mind last second and throw herself back to Marisa..? In some sort of last grasp at her genuine love for her. And then maybe she dies by accident? Or not dies. I am pulling at straws here.. But that you think the factors for that happening isn’t set in stone…

Uh….. hmmmmmm hmmmmm. Cuz I think it has to do with Mortis and Marisa. I doubt you are going to try to kill a different character..?

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

Very curious as to when Taylor decided to switch gears and focus on finishing up and releasing The Tortured Poets Department and put the rollout for the re-recordings on pause.

[iknowwhereyousleepatnight]

what if i cancel my graduation and add a second major rn and just completely fuck up my plans and decide to suffer through more school but w a different major for like another 3 years

[safenstranded]

the “he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor” to “and you deserve prison but you won’t get time” pipeline…. :(

[macbethz]

Jughead riverdale is like what I would have been if I had been born a cis man and Archie riverdale is like who I pretend i would have been if I were born a cis man for sexual reasons

[skyward-floored]

mannnn I’m so excited for tomorrow’s fic but I gotta get through today’s first lol

[variabels]

This is how I feel rn cuz I finished reading obbligato for the 5th time