#but also i simply do not understand it and i WILL accidentally destroy any and all formatting without supervision

[mysterycitrus]

I keep hearing people say to ignore Devin Grayson’s Nightwing but I also see people reference it. I feel like I’m getting mixed signals. Should I avoid it or read it? Are there specific issue I should avoid or read? is the avoiding advice only for people who are new to the comics? Or should I really just avoid the whole thing?

short answer — u do not have to read devin graysons nightwing run. i wouldn’t recommend it to new readers, and there isn’t anything significantly important that happens so like. it’s an easy pass. i do encourage people to at least read what she wrote about, though, because devin accidentally kickstarted the next twenty or so years of bad writing in nightwing books.

the long answer — devin grayson was a writer for nightwing volume 2 from like….. issue #70ish to #115ish. she did a lot of weird things during her run — her takes on dick’s relationships with bruce and slade and helena come to mind — but the most popular talking points wrt her writing are issue 93 and maaaaybe the renegade arc but that is literally the tip of shit mountain.

it’s funny u say that people are telling u not to read it cause based on my experience in fandom it is very, very clear that very few people have read any of the run at all, or even #93 and it’s preceding issues. which is fine, because it’s bad. but it’s important to understand why it’s bad, and how it’s affected dicks characterisation in both canon and fanon.

nightwing #93 is the issue people say to avoid because it features dick’s assault at the hands of a former ally that devin refused to acknowledge was rape until like… 2014. it’s bad. the build up to this point — haleys is set on fire, dicks apartment is destroyed killing everyone inside, dick watches this ally kill a man on his behalf while he is helpless to stop her — is rarely discussed in the context of the scene. it’s a lot, but because people haven’t read it they misunderstand the dynamics that devin had created.

the worst parts about nightwing in the present — his lack of conviction and competence, his sexualisation and dehumanisation, the fundamental lack of empathy for his retconned bg as a poc — all started with devin. literal ground zero. i cannot emphasise how her i incapability to understand that she’d written an assault arc with her self insert as the instigator has played into dick’s status as a character in the 2020s. many people accidentally engage with the same tired, racist tropes that devin herself contributed to, because people simply do not know (or care to know) what she’d written. think about much fanon content revolves around dick being an accessory to his own assault, or being literally unable to advocate for himself, or relying on jason fucking todd to kill his rapist. it’s like im rereading nightwing vol 2 all over again, and that’s not a good thing.

however what people also tend to forget about is the racism. devin grayson introduced dick having rromani heritage into canon, sure, but she did it because she thought it was sexy. we see this with her writing for roy’s navajo heritage too — a lack of research and care, though dick’s was clearly egregiously fetishistic. she retconned the character that assaulted dick into a latina character, and retconned her into being an aggressively sexual and violent person that was at significant odds with her og characterisation. that seems to be a trend with nightwing writers — wolfman did the exact same thing like fifteen years earlier with about the same degree of nuance and empathy.

ig my answer is that nightwing vol 2 is very much a pick and choose run, make ur own adventure type experience. bizarrely, u can get better nightwing characterisation in the titans 1999 run, or batman plus arsenal, which were both also written by devin (heartbreaking, the worst person u kno just made a good point). id be wary of people telling u to avoid it entirely, because i think ignoring its existence just exacerbates the problems devin created. just be discerning, ig. but also read nightwing vol 2 #118-#124 (just after devin leaves) because it is gd hilarious

[darklinaforever]

So...

I saw someone say that Severus was creepy and possessive towards Lily... We're talking about the guy who always let Lily have her own friends and left her alone as soon as she asked him to, just for information.

Oh, and also that apparently he was bullying Petunia thus probably destroying any chance of the bond between her and Lily returning. WTF ?! He accidentally dropped a branch on her when he was, what ? 10 / 11 years old ? I do not know anymore. Also, I remember that it was actually James who completely ruined Petunia and Lily's slim chances of coexisting.

Also, quite simply, Petunia was basically horrible to Lily because she was jealous. Severus has nothing fucking to do with it.

Then obviously say he linked up with bigoted racists. You know... during a period where he was experiencing misery at home, his friendship with Lily deteriorating and him essentially being a reject at school ? Like... It's pretty obvious that the guy is influenced. Are people aware that we can also join this type of dangerous stupidity through manipulation and not just by choice ? No ? All right. Because I feel like people forget that Severus is actually a half blood.

The person went so far as to say that Severus loving Lily, was like a member of the Klu Klux Klan falling in love with a black woman...

Also, to say that apparently he hoped Lily would come back to him by saving her from Voldemort and leaving James and Harry to die, which... is false ? He just wanted to save her because he loves her ? He didn't expect her to fall into his arms ? Where the fuck does this shit come from !?

Oh, and also, the funniest thing, complaining that he betrayed the Death Eaters... because then that would prove that this guy has no loyalty.

Or maybe that just goes to show that he didn't really know what he was doing in this big mess ? Just an idea like that.

And so obviously complaining that he's only faithful to Lily which is apparently very unhealthy.

Also, apparently, nothing makes him gray, his redemption is bogus. Harry naming his son after him is stupid and Lily would probably hate Severus in the afterlife.

And this all came from someone hating James & Lily as a character and romance.

Like... how can you misunderstand a character so much ? The HP Saga has many flaws for me, but the character of Snape is clearly in the top tier and an excellent gray character.

And I don't understand why a lot of people find it disgusting, twisted and sick that he did good things in honor of Lily's memory, still loves her and has the same patronus as her. Like... I really don't understand. Why do people try to blacken and pervert everything ? Oh I know. They are allergic to complexity.

Yes, Snape wasn't the best teacher in the world. Favored his house and let the Slytherin students annoy the Gryffindors but frankly with his past, we can understand why he became the way he is. Not everyone is lucky enough to be able to mentally move on from the horrible things that have happened to us. Especially since adolescence has a big impact on our future life.

[nevesmose]

I don't know anywhere near enough about Sanguinius to metaphorically crochet him into a little finger puppet for my primarch fics but how about a little baseless speculation about him and Fulgrim? Please note that this is all based on how I view them in the universe of my silly little stories and is in no way a claim about knowing how they are in canon / lore.

I would probably a) portray Sanguinius as a genuinely sweet adorable cinnamon roll too precious for this world and b) have Fulgrim utterly loathe him because of this.

I tend to write Fulgrim as being a pleasant and charming person who, deep down, is about 50% a deeply broken overthinking ultra-perfectionist and 50% really jealous and vindictive. Please understand that this isn't me saying he's just evil and always was because it really really isn't. It's entirely possible for someone with these traits to function perfectly well in society and not be a bad person in any meaningful sense.

However.

One of his formative experiences as a primarch was almost losing his entire legion due to the Blight corrupted geneseed that almost wiped them out right at the start.

He had to build them up himself from nothing with the constant threat of annihilation both in the sense that "if I fuck up a war and lose however-many thousand Astartes in a terrible accident on the double-ended dildo planet I have no reserves or replacements" and also "every use of our geneseed is a gamble against the horrific mutation coming back and destroying us all over again". In that context the solution he turns to, and the only one that probably makes sense based on his prior experience on Chemos, is perfection.

Make no mistakes, ever, anywhere, because the cost of failure is incalculable, even if it means committing science-treason so you can purge all weakness from your own space dudes. It's not a desire for perfection based on arrogance, although he is of course immensely arrogant in a lot of ways, but one motivated deep down by fear.

People like to clown on Fulgrim based on Jaghatai's infamous "I hear you do strange things to your warriors 😂👌" sick burn, but to be honest, viewed from his context, what Fulgrim's doing is somewhat understandable.

That is if we assume that the Khan isn't just making a cheap insult but rather is implying he knows a lot more than would be preferable about Fabius dicking around with Astartes genetics in order to detect and eliminate carriers of the corrupted gene-seed so that the III Legion, one of the smallest of all numerically, can still survive. And then a lot of other things too because, like Fabius could believably say in one of the weirder McNeill stories, forbidden science is akin to the ancient Terran delicacy known as Pringles. Once you pop you can't stop.

With that in mind it feels like a lot of Fulgrim's post-heresy actions, not just the snake orgies but the general distance and lack of care for his sons, comes from revelling in just finally being free of that level of stress and pressure weighing down on him at all times. Even Perturabo doesn't withdraw from the Iron Warriors that much and he's a dick.

Anyway, back to pre-heresy days. He has all this going on and then in comes Sanguinius with his giant fucking angel wings who everyone loves and who turned his legion into One Direction (not really but you know... perceptions vs reality and no one in this setting actually communicates with one another since they'd probably have a lot in common regarding fears of being mutants etc)

It's the kind of thing that I think would feel like a dagger in the heart to someone like Fulgrim. Directly highlighting and literally embodying all of his fears about mutation and imperfection and yet somehow appearing to get away with it while he has to exercise constant control and do horrible things simply in order for his legion to exist.

So for that reason I think he would absolutely hate Sangy and do everything he could to undermine him.

"Oh no, brother! I've accidentally spilled this entire Big Gulp cup of bright red Tizcan wine all over your beautiful white wings, and only moments before you were due to make a speech to ten million people about how wonderful the Imperium is! Let me help you clean it up."

And then he pulls out a Looney Tunes sized bottle labelled Fabius's Finest Molt-O-Matic Guaranteed Feather Remover and starts spraying it on him.

[pouralaura]

This is like THE question of the ages but here goes. Is your Raphael capable of love? It is my understanding that devils are capable of an obsessive, manipulative, perverted version of it; but the Raphael in your fics has a particular human fallibility that is endearing, and a willingness to entertain those follies (for the sake of his favorite mouse) that I’m wondering if it’s possible that he would (accidentally) fall in love in a mortal sense, going against his fiendish nature (it would have to be a very special mouse). I’d love to hear your take on his fiend/human dichotomy. 🫶

what a fabulous question. thank you for asking! I've thought a lot about this and I always come to the same conclusion: yes, my Raphael is in fact capable of love. there is a "however" which I will get to shortly.

let me first say that I really simply do not care about canon. bro lives in my head rent-free as his own entity and does not necessarily fit DnD/BG lore in that space. that's just a disclaimer, take it as you will.

Raphael's love with my Tav (both generic and my Eris specifically) is definitely just magnetic obsession at first until they realize how hard they match each other's freak. he power plays and power plays and power plays, letting his mouse in ON HIS TERMS ALONE until it's too late and she's as much a part of him as he is of her. fwiw, Tav/Eris's love is the same as his - but his makes him more human and hers makes her less, all for better or for worse. and I think his capacity for love has so much to do with the other person in the equation, which is extremely human of him - Tav pushes him back and needles him but also worships him in her own way, taking on some of his traits the more time she spends with him. some of that is unconscious and some is fully intentional. it's all a part of the Game, which, for her, is Understanding (literally figuring out what makes him tick), while for him it's Winning (taking what he knows of her and using/manipulating it however he wants). Raphael is a narcissist and naturally loves himself most of all, but once he sees himself reflected in another person I think that unlocks a new layer of longing and deep connection within him.

I've used the lyric I won't speak of love since the beginning of writing about the two of them and it's always gonna fit. Tav/Eris knows what the feeling is on both sides, because she is 100% human and overly perceptive, intuitive, and insightful. but she is smart enough not to push that understanding onto Raphael because attempting to force him to admit what he perceives as a weakness would destroy their dynamic.

which brings me to my main point: again, yes, he is capable of love. he is even capable of unconditional love.

BUT

he will not accept that about himself, even for a moment. his love is obsessive and manipulative and perverted OF COURSE but it's also his purest emotion, which is an embarrassment. he will ignore the truth of what it is fully out of pride. if Eris pushed him to acknowledge it he would drop her in an instant and shed all remaining traces of his humanity. it's simultaneously the strongest connection he has with anyone and the thinnest tightrope of a line they could possibly walk - but they complement each other so well that they've somehow found that perfect unacknowledged balance. Eris is prideful too but understands that to maintain the status quo she MUST swallow some of her pride and allow Raphael to keep up appearances for his own sake - which is one of her major ways of showing love from her side.

he loves her purely and earnestly and deeply but he will ALWAYS love himself and his image more. some might say that means he is not capable of real love but I think the two can coexist! people are complicated!

this is fun to think about and I really hope it makes any kind of coherent sense all written out.

[unholydeukae]

Hi hello how are you? I hope you are doing alright.

I'm not sure if you will do this one but do you think you could write anything about a reader, who has sexual trauma, wanting to take that step with their Dreamcatcher GF? I'm not sure if this is allowed to be asked. I read the "will not write" list but I wasn't sure if this counted under the noncon no's...

If you won't write this one, I understand

Hello anonie :) your request is absolutely fine, no worries! We say that we don't write non-con and made that post because we don't want to write the members as neither sexual predators nor victims of SA, but your ask doesn't include that, so you're all good!!

I hope you like it 🫶🏼

JiU:

Upon hearing about the trauma, she keeps calm to the outside but is boiling inside

If she ever sees that person in real life she definitely needs a good alibi, because there will be blood (hopefully not literally)

She never pushes anything sexually of course, even makes sure you’re okay before she pecks your lips

Since she’s a service top often, she listens to everything you say and ask her to do very attentively and doesn’t rush anything

The thought of taking the lead doesn’t even cross her mind, she simply does what you tell her and stops at the slightest sign of discomfort

SuA:

She definitely doesn’t keep calm on the outside when she hears about it

It wouldn’t have taken much more for her to run outside to find the person and slap them in the face (in her imagination - in real life she’s all bark no bite but that doesn’t make her reaction less strong and valid)

Tears of anger run down her face and she nearly starts yelling at the monster that did those things to you, despite them obviously not being there with you

Touching others is a difficult thing for you because of what happened to you, but her clear instructions help you a lot and you never feel pushed about anything

It’s very important for her that you never feel like it’s a problem if you can’t or don’t want to do something and that you never ever have to feel bad for stopping, even as the top

Siyeon:

When you tell her she looks at you blankly for a moment, struggling to process that someone would actually do something so awful to you

Upon realizing she’s so worried she’ll hurt you that she holds your hands tightly between hers and repeats a hundred times that you didn’t deserve that and that she’ll never do something like that to you because you’re the most precious person to her

(also, if she ever accidentally crosses that person’s way, she’ll definitely be tempted to make it look like an accident)

She always thought it’d be an amazing experience to make you feel good and while it still is, she’s also very scared to hurt you

Everything goes very slowly over the span of days and weeks until she even touches your bare chest, because nothing would destroy her more than be too rough and hurt you even more

Handong:

As soon as you tell her you want to talk to her, she shifts into her serious mode and listens attentively, but despite her best efforts to be solid as a rock for you, her eyes widen when you tell her everything (and the gears in her mind start shifting if she should maybe do some undercover digital psycho terror)

Feeling her arms around you as you quietly cry into her shoulder is all you need in that moment

When one day you tell her you want to go further than kissing, she asks once if you’re sure but doesn’t repeatedly ask again to not make you insecure about your decision

She asks you for some time and after cooking dinner for you, you walk into a decorated bedroom, candles burning that emit a relaxing scent and rose petals on the bed

During all of it she makes sure that everything is slow and gentle and is assertive to any signs of you being uncomfortable, not wanting you to think she wouldn’t care about you enough

Yoohyeon:

When you tell her about it, she freezes first, then starts bawling her eyes out until she’s calmed down enough to listen intently to what you say

She feels really helpless and doesn’t know how to support you because she thinks holding you and listening to you and making sure you feel valid is not enough

(You tell her that it is but she doesn’t believe you)

Your wish to take things further makes her be a little bit panicky and anxious, she’s really worried she’ll accidentally make everything worse

Checking in what feels like every five seconds is nearly a bit much for you but you know she does it with the best intentions possible, so you’re more than fine to give her what she needs

Dami:

Probably the most collected reaction, together with Handong

Hot chocolate is prepared when you tell her you want to talk about something and she listens quietly the whole time, only rubbing your hand or drying your tears when necessary

After you’re done explaining and getting some cuddles, she asks how you would like to proceed regarding sex

You two talk about boundaries, yes’s and no’s intensely and agree upon the light system and two nonverbal safewords just in case

So once you actually decide to take the next step with her, it goes very smoothly and you feel safe at all times, not doubting a second that she would react immediately once you put a stop to it

Gahyun:

Cries with you at first when you tell her, then gets angry and wants the person’s name and address but you calm her down quickly

Tells you that she’s more than okay with it if you don’t want to do any sexual stuff at all or for as long as you’re not comfortable

After the conversation, she collects a ton of information online and in books, doing a lot of research about both the best ways to go on about such an experience when it comes to sex and the psychological aspects of it

She’s actually the one to approach you about how to continue, suggesting and explaining things she found out and asks about your opinion and stance about it all

You’re so touched that she did so much research that it’s easy to relax enough with her - she made it very clear how much she wants the experience to be the best for you

[please-help-this-little-lesbian]

So I want to talk about The Bane/Pearlpelt, because his story is not going the direction I expected at all, and I have a lot of thoughts on it.

So when Gregor didn't kill Pearlpelt in book 2 I was like great good for him. I figured The Bane would grow up and we would see that Gregor and Nerissa were right, and The Bane would grow up to be a normal rat and everyone was freaking out for nothing. But this was not the case at all. But Suzanne Collins has taken this plotline in an entirely different direction. Instead, The Bane has grown up to be a violent, power-hungry, naive menace to society. I honestly didn't expect this at all given the anti-war themes of the books, but I do think it's interesting. Now, I'm only on chapter 4 of The Marks of Secret, so I don't know how this story ends yet. But I would like to share my thoughts on why I feel the Bane turned out like this. I think Ripred deliberately neglected The Bane, and now he's suffering the consequences for it.

When we first meet Pearlpelt, he's a sullen, angsty teenager. Gregor describes him as "an oversized, bullied child” (Collins, 24). This is pretty typical of any teenager. Pearlpelt also holds a particular hatred for Ripred, who has, despite his failings, been his primary caretaker. Also normal for your average caretaker. However, The Bane says of Ripred that he “‘hates me!’” (24). He says he humiliates him and treats him like a prisoner. Ripred argues that he has not abused the Bane, and reveals to Gregor that Pearlpelt has gotten in dangerous fights with other rats, (accidentally) killed his friend, and then proceeded to cannibalize his body to destroy the evidence (25). Pearlpelt has also fallen under the influence of other rats, who are trying to groom him into becoming king of the rats, and presumably overthrowing the humans (21-25). Ripred claims that he "got him too late” (28), and that the only option is to kill him so he doesn't become an even bigger threat. But I disagree. Ripred was not too late for Pearlpelt, he simply didn't bother to take proper care of him, and now he's trying to cover up his mistake.

One of the first things Gregor notes of Ripred's attitude toward The Bane is that he is being particularly cruel to him. He even asks Ripred to “lay off him” (24). Ripred does indeed humiliate him, making fun of his name (20), insult him (22), goad him (23), dismiss his feelings (24), and I would argue even emasculates him saying “‘King indeed! Do you really think anyone will take orders from someone who sucks on his tail?’” (26). He treats Pearlpelt like crap, and that’s when he’s around him. The Bane also reveals that he was mainly raised by a rat named Razor, which Ripred dismisses saying he spared his life, kept him fed, and protected him from the plague (24). This is a very common tactic of abusers, attempting to guilt their victims by bringing up all the positive things they’ve done for them.

Look, I love Ripred. He’s my morally gray dilf king, and I understand that being an asshole is just part of his personality. But he is genuinely abusing Pearlpelt right now, and it’s not okay. And, more importantly, his behavior is directly responsible for The Bane’s behavior. And that’s not even counting all the shit that happened before Ripred.

Ripred tells Gregor that Pearlpelt’s father killed his siblings so he wouldn’t have to compete for food, abused him and his mother, AND Pearlpelt witnessed his parents kill each other (28-29). That would fuck anybody up. We know Ripred has a soft side and he's capable of showing it. We also know he knows when it is and isn't okay to push people. Yet he doesn't apply this to The Bane. I understand that he got dropped on him out of nowhere, but he could have at least tried.

Again, I'm only on chapter 4. For all I know Suzzane may have Ripred take responsibility (nobody tell me). But right now, this is my assessment of the situation, and I'm really disappointed in Ripred.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Hi :) I'm new here, I accidentally chose the best time to finally watch GO, some 2 weeks ago, not knowing there's gonna be S2 in 2 months lol. I've watched the show a couple of times and I'm in the middle of reading the book but I still don't quite get Aziraphale's thought process after he figured out where to find Adam. Why didn't he tell Crowley at first and why did he break up with him? Did he have any ideas what to do when he did eventually try to tell him? I'm sure the fandom has worked it out and I could find it somewhere but the search function is hopeless and wading through 4 yrs worth of meta would take a lot of time lol. So could you explain please or point me in right direction? Thanks and also greetings from a fellow ace 😁

Hiya! :) Welcome to the fandom! :) The breakup is in the show, in the book not so much :). I do feel the book and the show a bit different - the book more witty and the show with more emotions, both absolutely brilliant. The break up in the show is there because it is more focused on the love story of Aziraphale and Crowley :), the angel not telling him is part of what I believe is Aziraphale's story and growth and realization of what Heaven is truly like.

In the book Aziraphale it is I think nicely described by this part:

Aziraphale was dithering. He'd been dithering for some twelve hours. His nerves, he would have said, were all over the place. He walked around the shop, picking up bits of paper and dropping them again, fiddling with pens.

He ought to tell Crowley.

No, he didn't. He wanted to tell Crowley. He ought to tell Heaven. He was an angel, after all. You had to do the right thing. It was built-in. You see a wile, you thwart. Crowley had put his finger on it, right enough. He ought to have told Heaven right from the start.

But he'd known him for thousands of years. They got along. They nearly understood one another. He sometimes suspected they had far more in common with one another than with their respective superiors. They both liked the world, for one thing, rather than viewing it simply as the board on which the cosmic game of chess was being played.

Well, of course, that was it. That was the answer, staring him in the face. It'd be true to the spirit of his pact with Crowley if he tipped Heaven the wink, and then they could quietly do something about the child, although nothing too bad of course because we were all God's creatures when you got down to it, even people like Crowley and the Antichrist, and the world would be saved and there wouldn't have to be all that Armageddon business, which would do nobody any good anyway, because everyone knew Heaven would win in the end, and Crowley would be bound to understand.

Yes. And then everything would be all right.

Here we can see that Aziraphale really wants to tell Crowley, but feels his angelic duty to tell Heaven and then convinces himself that if he tells Heaven everything will be fine - Heaven will dispose of the Antichrist and everything will be tickety boo - Crowley will surely understand that.

And then when Metatron talks to him and Aziraphale understands what Heaven is like and then they don't want to avoid the War and don't care about destroying Earth, he calls Crowley :).

[kibutsulove]

tell us more about hideaki!!!

sorry I didn’t answer this sooner I spazzed out from excitement. cuz like. I get to INFO DUMP!!! YIPPEE!!!! finally……..

I’ve stated before that I’ve got like multiple versions of him but I guess I’ll just be focusing on on his Avatar self because that’s really my main audience here UH

A rlly funny thing abt this guy is that he’s a lightning bender that can’t firebend. At all. His bending isn’t tied to it at all. I wouldn’t even call it lightning bending at this point, what ever the fuck he does is like its unhinged cousin from Tallahassee. I’ll just call it electrobending.

What is his goal as a villain? <- you may ask

nihilism. fuck all yall, EVERYONE DYING. he literally just wants to destroy every single cell of life that’s exists on the planet, including himself, but that comes last. He undervalues the concept of life so much it’s genuinely crazy.

Originally, when he was younger, he had a wife and a daughter but then he accidentally KILLED them. Because he’s an IDIOT. And as he was staring at their corpses like a lost child in the supermarket, he went “is life this important if it can just flat out die this easily? No” and then he left.

And mind you, Hideaki as a person is not able to understand the concept of grief or regret, or literally any other emotion besides the drive to achieve his goal. So essentially, he is not “ruthless” or “barbaric”. He simply cannot comprehend that shit. So the Earth Avatar has to deal with an opponent who cannot emotionally nor mentally experience what to be human is.

Sulove what the FUCK is electrobending <- GOOD QUESTION

like I said before, lightningbending’s deranged cousin from Tallahassee. Electrobending is only just the generation of lightning, it’s also the manipulation of lightning and allows the convergence between the user and the lightning itself: meaning that he can just. Fucking teleport essentially. It also has something to do with magnetism, so if you’re wearing anything magnetic, you’re COOKED.

And with how cyberpunk-ish the new earth avatar’s era is, a villain being able to manipulate electricity and magnetism on a wide ass scale is not rlly good

[autumnistic-danmei]

FantasyFQ AU

I've been bored in my classes so I decided to just sit down and make something so like- Here's this thing lol.

-Roughly based in the Dark Ages (Early Mediaeval times), but with the fun little added addition of a touch of ✨m a g i c✨

-Yes, I have an obsession with Fenqing. No, I will not be shutting up about them. Yes, those two idiots are a central part of this AU. Yes, I also have an unhealthy obsession with He Xuan.

Humans:

Feng Xin - He was a royal beast tamer/slayer from the fallen Xianle monarchy, who now just wanders the lands in search of the creature that destroyed his kingdom. Over the years, he has encountered Mu Qing multiple times, but he doesn’t really understand why. He also thinks he’s being followed by an unnaturally large black cat, but he really doesn’t mind its company, and he has nicknamed the little creature “Fu Yao”.

Ling Wen - A scholar and mage living in a coastal merchant town who gains most of her income through dealing with literally everyone’s paperwork and taxes.

Qi Rong - He used to be the irritating younger prince of the Xianle monarchy, who now rules over his own little hidden town of lesser demons.

Quan Yizhen - A wandering beast slayer searching for his old teacher, who has just a touch of the tisms, but really, who doesn’t?

Shi Qingxuan - They are a young noble from a kingdom in the south, who has been cast from their kingdom due to the actions of their deceased brother and now lives in the streets of a small town nearby. They hate seafood of any kind.

“Ming Yi” - A reclusive beast tamer that prefers to live near the coast and specialises in creatures from the caverns, who has ties to the royal family and commonly attends the banquets purely for the food lol.

Pei Ming - A beast slayer from the same town as Ling Wen known both for his flirtatious attitude and his impressive feats.

Ban Yue - She’s a young beast tamer, but she is surprisingly skilled for her age, already having tamed a whole den of lethally venomous scorpion snakes.

Lang Qianqiu - The only remaining descendant of the Yong’an monarchy, but as of yet, he has ruled over the kingdom quite fairly.

Xiao Mengyou (Little guy!!!!!!) - He’s Lang Qianqiu’s best friend and the royal mage of Yong’an.

Creatures:

He Xuan - Very few people have ever seen him, but the few witness accounts say that he is a siren of sorts with black octopus tentacles instead of a fish tail. He rules over the waters in the south, where his bone dragons sink every ship that tries to sail, earning the area the name of the Black Water Demon Lair. He seems to still have some feelings of attachments to Shi Qingxuan, but has yet to act on them.

Hua Cheng - An infamous fox spirit known for his unpredictable behaviour, mysterious past, and his rule over the massive beast den known as the Ghost City. He usually stays in his foxlike form, and very few have seen his human form.

Yin Yu - A ghoul serving under Hua Cheng who was once Quan Yizhen’s teacher, but he accidentally caused the deaths of many during an accident with a dangerous beast, so he was banished and later on, killed.

Yushi Huang - She’s probably the most chill faerie you’ll ever meet, who lives in a large farming town in the north and blesses their crops. She can and will beat you up if necessary.

Bai Wuxiang - An ancient white dragon known for destroying kingdoms and sending mysterious plagues into cities, wiping out large populations of people in a single sweep. He has been missing for years now, but people theorise that he is simply resting in the northern mountains.

E-Ming - An infamous lesser spirit possessing a large silver longsword, which is tied to Hua Cheng and is by his side almost constantly.

Ruoye - A lesser spirit possessing a long silk band, which has a rather playful attitude when it’s around Xie Lian.

Who knows what they are at this point:

Mu Qing - He was born human, but most (everyone except Feng Xin and Xie Lian) do not consider him to be one anymore due to his curse that causes him to have catlike features and an alternate form of a large black cat with a white spot on its chest. He follows Feng Xin around out of curiosity, but he refuses to admit that he’s actually following him.

Xie Lian - We’re pretty sure he’s a human, but his eyes reflect light like a cat’s, and he’s practically poisonous from all of the weird stuff that he eats, so he’s just the neighbourhood cryptid at this point. He lives near Shi Qingxuan, residing in a small village a short distance south of them, and he used to be the crown prince of the Xianle Kingdom.

[crispy0nion]

takes a deep breath. ik it hasn't even been a day but we need to talk about the umbrella academy season 4. obviously spoilers ahead. and a long, long fucking post full of complaints.

this season got me shinji chairing so hard. what the fuck. six episodes that last barely an hour each and all for THAT ending? don't get me wrong, the ending itself is... not the worst possible outcome, ig, but like. plot holes so big i can fit five's ego in there and still have spare space.

yeah, let's start from there. what the fuck was that? a half-assed five/lila romance was the last thing we needed. call me a hater, tell me i don't know how to appreciate complex stories, idc. that sucked ass. not only is it creepy in so many ways, but it also brought absolutely NOTHING to the story. "oh but if that didn't happen then five wouldn't have accidentally wandered into the station's coffee shop and met himself" I DON'T GIVE A SHIT!!!! IT COULD'VE HAPPENED IN SO MANY DIFFERENT WAYS!!!!!! AND FIVE KNOWS BETTER THAN TO THROW HANDS WITH HIS BROTHER OVER A GIRL WHILE THE REST OF THEIR SIBLINGS ARE FIGHTING THE DAMN BLOB OF DEATH!!!

moving on ig. i don't like how allison's past actions seemed to be simply forgotten. i know they acknowledge it a couple times and that it's been six years, but lord almighty she assaulted luther, got him killed, and betrayed her entire family for a father that never cared about any of them. i don't think i could forgive that so easily (i'm looking at you klaus).

about the plot holes. first off, i would've appreciated even just a slight explanation of what the fuck reginald and abigail are? are they aliens? are they robots? are they alien robots? also, side note, what the fuck did reginald even do to grace atp? did he create a robot in the image of a human lady or did he turn the human lady into a robot???? and back to abigail for a moment: ?????????? and also the obsidian hotel????? AMERICA EXPLAIN. EXPLAIN

more plot holes: the solution to the cleanse problem. five said that the only way to fix the timelines is to let the cleanse happen, aka absorb them, so that the marigold inside them is destroyed since that's what split the timelines, no? and they made a big deal out of lila leaving because they needed all of the marigold holders to partake in this. except that YOU EIGHT IDIOTS ARE NOT ALL THE OCTOBER 1ST KIDS IN THE WORLD. THERE'S MORE, THAT WAS LIKE 43 WOMEN WHO GAVE BIRTH YOU DUMB FUCKING CUNTS. WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER 35 KIDS. uhm. sorry about that. moving on.

did not like how jennifer's character was treated at all. no time to develop, no time to get us to know her. straight to the blob of death without even explaining what was going on. how did the durango end up in her body? who even created that anyways? how did she end up in a damn fucking giant squid? why was she talking about the cleanse? what the fuck? listen im sure the comics explain this and ik this show is supposed to be a bit... confusing and nonsensical, but this is info you can't just leave out. feels like lazy writing.

and how the fuck did the cleanse cult even know that this nonesense that a kid coming out of a squid was blabbering about was connected to them having dreams of other timelines? how the fuck did jean and gene know? what?

yk what, im also gonna throw in some more personal points of view in here. i did not understand a single thing about the timeline/universe/whatever they ended up in at the end of s3. is it a new universe? if so, why is everything the same and WHY is the timeline still fucked? and where's the academy in this timeline? does it not exist? why? why and how is abigail still alive? was she even dead in s1, on the moon? or was that a cryo capsule? if so, why keep her there?

and there's more folks! why did the timeline train not stop at lila and five's stop? that was random and never explained, and feels like lazy writing, again. or like an excuse to get a specific two people to mingle just to create an unnecessary and unwanted love triangle? perchance?

lastly, how can claire and lila and diego's children still exist if their parents were erased from existence? and since they still exist but their parents never did, how does it work? do lila's parents just look after these random kids? without reason? wouldn't not having existing parents at all create legal problems?

overall, i have a lot of issues with this season. it feels extremely rushed, and honestly quite boring in comparison to the other three. and the lack of explanations makes it so hard to enjoy because i'm busy being confused. im not so mad about the ending, i kinda saw it coming (my choice was between they all die or they get stuck in a loop), and I don't think it's necessarily a bad ending for a story like this one. i am a bit sad, yes, and i will miss these characters and regret the fact that they didn't get the lives they deserved, but i think it's an ok ending. not the best, but ok. but the rest of the season? ass. yet another show absolutely ruined by netflix's inability to see past money and actually produce a good ending instead of rushing things. peace ✌️

[kranagok0]

I remember reading a post or some comment from someone about what season 3 would have been like if Anders hadn't been taken to the fairy island but Johana had.

First we must clarify that Johana would end up on the same island as Anders, meeting Victoria and cooperating together to survive.Anders would now be taking care of Hilda and learning to be a responsible father, and with this understand how hard Johana's life was having to take care of an 'adventurous' girl (I imply that Anders lives the life of an adventurer and therefore that goes where it wants without worries. Well, now Anders will know what it's like to have to take care of another adventurer and try to understand why his daughter does such dangerous things)

*Anders and his daughter would be looking for Johana all over the place. Obviously they wouldn't find her, nor would there be any trace of where she could have gone. Hilda fears the worst, and Anders tries to calm her down by telling her that he may have gotten ahead of Trollberg and that everything is fine. After that, Anders takes Hilda back to Trollberg to wait for her mother.

*After spending the night waiting (and sleeping) on the couch, Anders realizes that Johana is not coming back. Hilda obviously starts to worry, even more than when Twig ran away.We will see the topic of how Hilda and Anders feel about Johana's disappearance in another post that I will do over the course of this weekend, so pay attention (it is both a warning and a threat because I don't know if it suits me or not)

*For a whole week Anders has had to do the things that Johana did in her daily life:*Anders gets up early, earlier than he is used to, just so he can cook something for his daughter to eat (even if it's just a little, worrying about his mother took away most of his appetite). On the first day Anders tried to cook something for his daughter in record time (it was 5 minutes before Hilda's classes were to start and both of them hadn't even fully woken up). In the end everything burned and Anders had to quickly go to a store to buy his daughter lunch. That's when Anders realized that Hilda didn't eat meat (he literally saw her open the sandwich and take out the ham while looking somewhat disgusted).

*Anders was learning to drive the new family car (that car that wouldn't start and seems to be closer to being junk than being a vehicle). They were late consecutively that week, it was a miracle if they arrived 30 minutes after the bell rang.Cleaning clothes should be easy as long as you had a washing machine, that's what Anders thought when he put as many clothes as he could into the washing machine and started it. For obvious reasons, the washing machine overheated because it had exceeded the maximum load and exploded (the family washing machine was also a bit old). Anders had to wash everything by hand (at least what was not destroyed after the explosion) (Hilda got very angry that day with her father for accidentally destroying the sweater that Johana had knitted for Hilda, Anders felt very bad that's why).

*Every day after school, Hilda left school to look for her mother everywhere. The first time Anders came for her after school was a little after 30 minutes when the school had closed. (Yes, it was the same day that the washing machine exploded and Anders arrived in the car while his clothes were still wet from quickly washing all those clothes by hand).And we're just getting started with parenthood.

*Every time Anders brought Hilda home from school they didn't spend much time together. Hilda simply arrived home, changed her clothes, and went outside to look for her mother with Twig and her friends (Alfur had even sent a report to gather information to find out if anyone had seen Johana). At first Anders saw no problem in searching for Johana separately, so they would cover more ground. However, with each passing night, Anders noticed how Hilda came home later and later. It was the last straw when she returned at 03:00 A.M. Anders thought something horrible had happened to his daughter or that someone had kidnapped or tricked her. Anders tried to ask Hilda about where she was and what she was doing... And well, the situation escalated just like when Johana started asking Hilda about her adventures.

*Anders hadn't screamed that loud in years, neither had Hilda (and even though she had argued with her mother a few times, it was strangely new to try to scream louder than her father).

*After the sun rose they both apologized, curiously they both had a nightmare where the other also disappeared like Johana did. Nobody wanted that to happen. They hugged and reconciled (I would add more drama and other ideas, but I would like to know how you would develop this father-daughter situation)Well, these are some of the things I thought about Anders being a single dad.

However, I would like to know what you think. Seriously, I love reading other people's opinions and thoughts regarding all kinds of fanfics, AU's and also their head-canon of the series. I will be reading them all (if they post anything)

[latenightcinephile]

Film #489: 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God', dir. Werner Herzog, 1972.

"My men measure riches in gold [...] I despise them for it."

One of the difficulties in evaluating any film directed by Werner Herzog is figuring out exactly how much of what Herzog says can be believed. The director is known as much for his fanciful exaggerations of the difficulties of filming as he is for his collaborations with the actor Klaus Kinski. In Aguirre, the Wrath of God, the first of these collaborations, Kinski plays the title character, a conquistador who usurps control over a party of Spanish explorers, driving them deeper into the Peruvian jungles in search of the lost city of gold. Aguirre's steadily-disintegrating sanity leads to exactly the kind of results you might expect for a group unprepared for the harshness of the conditions. If Herzog's descriptions of the film's production are to be believed, though, it's perhaps one of the more astonishing examples of 'Method production' the world has ever seen.

In late 1560, Pizarro's army of conquistadors are in search of the fabled city of El Dorado (in reality, Pizarro had died more than a decade before, but Herzog is playing around with truth and fiction throughout the film - Don Lope de Aguirre, like Pizarro, is a real historical figure). Running low on supplies, Pizarro elects to send a scouting team ahead, across swollen rivers and treacherous jungle. The scouting team is led by Don Ursúa, with Aguirre as his second-in-command, as well as Don Fernando de Guzmán and Brother Carvajal as the representatives of the Spanish crown and God, respectively. The group is immediately faced with difficulties: their rafts encounter rapids or are swept away overnight. Faced with the prospect of wasting time trying to rescue some of their party members from a trapped raft, they are instead killed; Aguirre renders the discussions about retrieving and burying the bodies by having the raft 'accidentally' destroyed by cannon fire.

Pizarro has ordered the scouting party to return after a week, but Aguirre mounts a rebellion and Don Ursúa is injured. Aguirre continues to manipulate the survivors, forcing Don Fernando de Guzmán into the role of the party's leader and pressuring him to sign a declaration of independence. The group continues further into the jungle, holding a show trial for Ursúa. Guzmán exercises his powers to grant clemency, but alienates the others by consuming most of the party's dwindling food. As their numbers grow lower and lower, the party begins to turn on each other more - Carvajal's zealotry results in him having two indigenous Peruvians murdered for blasphemy (when in fact they simply do not understand the concept of books), and before long Guzmán has been murdered. Aguirre takes control of the group and has Ursúa executed. Starvation and illness take root, and the survivors begin to hallucinate, imagining a large ship stuck in the branches of a tree, and failing to recognise when they are being shot at with arrows. Before long, Aguirre is the only survivor. As his raft is swarmed by small monkeys, he imagines starting a new dynasty in Peru with his (now dead) daughter. The film ends with a long tracking shot around the ruins of the raft, Aguirre cutting a lonely and delusional figure.

Themes of madness and obsession are common throughout Herzog's films, especially his collaborations with Kinski. Herzog has also prided himself on making his films on location and writing events from filming into his scripts. The destruction of the rafts in Aguirre, for example, is purportedly the result of the rafts being washed away during filming, necessitating a delay which Herzog immediately incorporated into the film. This commitment to experiencing in reality the fictional events of his film is similar to Herzog's approach to Fitzcarraldo (1982), another film in which Kinski starred, which tells the story of an opera buff who had his ship moved across a mountain range in South America. Despite the fact that Fitzgerald had the ship dismantled before moving it, Herzog conceptualised the film as a man having an intact steamboat pulled up a mountainside, and then set about 'replicating' this imagined scenario. Herzog seems drawn to - sometimes literally - larger-than-life stories about ambition, and these are often drawn from very brief pieces of inspiration. Aguirre, according to the film's audio commentary, was inspired by half a page of text in a book Herzog had borrowed, from which he constructed his entire initial screenplay. It also seems apparent from what Herzog has said about the experience of filmmaking that he views his craft in much the same way. He is a director driven, to an almost amoral degree, to make films. It is commonly agreed that the film with which Aguirre was made was stolen, a subject about which Herzog has said that he had a right to do so. Herzog has also said that Kinski's temper was so bad that, in a rage, he fired multiple gunshots at a hut where the production team were playing cards, resulting in an extra getting injured. If this is true, it suggests a level of neglect within the production bordering on outright criminality. Herzog thus comes across as a director who either has no compunctions about embellishing the real circumstances of his films as much as the fictional narratives within them, or who views these circumstances as a necessary peril. It says a lot about who Werner Herzog is that I genuinely cannot tell which is more likely. His apparent belief that someone as volatile as Klaus Kinski was the only person who could play Aguirre suggests, at the very least, a profound lack of understanding about how acting works.

For all that, there are moments in Aguirre, the Wrath of God that are nearly transcendental. I don't mean to suggest that there were no ways of achieving these results without putting everyone at risk, but I can see how Herzog might have seen the finished film and considered it a vindication of his production process. The difficulties of filming on a low budget and on location, in an environment spectacularly ill-suited for this, have created a very specific type of intimacy in the early scenes. The camera lens is frequently splattered with mud and water, implying to the viewer that there was no luxury of a retake for any of these scenes, and no ability to keep the camera and crew distant and safe from the action. As the film progresses, however, the camera seems to grow more distant and objective as the characters descend into madness. Whether this is a side-effect of Herzog's budget-based decision to film in chronological order, or an accidental aspect of the second half of the film being no longer hip-deep in mud, is difficult to say. These final scenes take place on the raft, which at the very least provides a flattish surface you could put a tripod on. Kinski's performance, which at first seemed erratic, takes on a kind of measured intensity in his final speeches, which makes his psychological collapse more mesmerising than I thought it would be.

None of this is to say that Aguirre, the Wrath of God is a perfect film. What it excels at is its portrayal of madness, and in merging this with a series of images that is at first gritty and embodied - full of blood and bile - and then increasingly removed from the corporeality of the world. However, this doesn't mean that Herzog is a particularly skilled craftsman. Many of the most spellbinding effects of Herzog's film could be accidental. Instead, Herzog's true calling is as a mythologiser. He makes his films seem like urgent missives, worthy of their troubled productions and all the worthier because of the difficulties involved. In this regard, it doesn't matter how good Aguirre is - it represents Herzog himself, and the limits and benefits of following your particular madness as far as it will take you.

[broken-clover]

Ayo hope you're doin good as of reading this, I do have a quick question regarding the Cloverswap AU (if you're still doing that btw)

Does Terumi feel guilty about the first world (I.E the Age Of The Origin, and the start of the Prime Field Device War)? Also, does Terumi consider Izanami a sibling, seeing as she IS apart of The Master Unit, does he like bothering her or surprising her with affection (if he does)?

(I suppose I need something soft to take my mind off of things...)

Trying to wrap my brain around everything to do with the Prime Fields feels like a losing battle (I have genuinely tried to understand Blazblue's story but I really cannot parse all of the random stuff they keep tossing in so I've kinda just given up)

For the most part I just keep the general strands of Terumi's background since weirdly his motivations are mostly straightforward (and, admittedly, perfectly reasonable at first? I'd get bored if my entire job was tied to destroying the things my sister made.) Like with a lot of the stuff about Kazuma I think a lot of Terumi's fuckups were done either accidentally or out of ignorance since he'd spent eons floating around in nothing.

Like, oh! There's something new here! I wanna play with it! Maybe I can show it to my siblings- wait no no no fuck stop poking my sister you're making her angry!! Uhh well now there's someone inside my sister, are you my sister now? I guess that's nice, I wanna see where she came from- wait where did the world go. Did I mess up. Shit.

Though the Boundary is stuffed full of information, since he was basically just floating in the void smashing things as necessary Terumi didn't really understand a lot of mortal concepts. At best, the idea of them was very abstract. He's the baby sibling of the trio, his job isn't to understand, it's to destroy the things he's supposed to destroy. The idea of him causing a war because he wanted to play with the Weird New Thing swimming in his home never crossed his mind as a possibility since, well, why would it? He's just playing, why would that he a bad thing?

When the idea sinks in that technically, the destruction of the old world was his fault, he's veeeeery upset by it. Susanoo curls up in a dark spot somewhere for a few millennia, even hesitant to destroy Amaterasu's creations like he's supposed to because he's worried about breaking everything again on accident. But with enough time, he's simply too curious to not take a peek at the new reality his sister is in charge of now. He wants to know about the new world, but he now also knows that flaunting himself and his siblings to mortals is a bad idea.

I imagine in addition to being easier to travel around in, having a human body gave him some additional reassurance that most people wouldn't find him very interesting. When he first met Relius, he was very apprehensive at the idea of giving arcane knowledge to mortals, even if his curiosity won out in the end. He did spend several minutes making Relius pretty please cross his heart to not use the boundary knowledge for evil. Had he not encountered sweaterdad Relius the world probably would have been fucked because Terumi also barely understood what lying was at that point, Relius is like the one guy that would have said 'yes' and meant it.

Imagining Terumi and Izanami is weirdly funny because I figure he'd be very confused about their relationship, at least until someone mentions the mere idea of her maybe being considered his little sister, and then it's all over because Terumi's just hung up on the thought that he's not the youngest anymore (given his experience with Amaterasu and Tsukiyomi he automatically assumes older = in charge and makes the rules).

I am still not 100% on how Cloverswap Izanami works but in any case I could see Terumi being overenthusiastically overbearing and that ending up with him getting stabbed by her for it. he's more emotionally wounded than anything.

[your-absolute-destiny]

Hello, hun. My name is Augustine, but please just call me August or Augie. Whichever you like more. I came across your blog not too long ago, and I'd love to ask you some questions if you don't mind. I promise I'm not trying to be rude or start a fight or anything like that. I'm just trying to get a feel for your logic here.

Question 1: I can understand your reluctance for dark, ghost, and psychic types. But why Fairy? They're cute, pink , and honestly sort of an LGBTQ icon. I mean, they can slay literal dragons for Arceus sake.

Question 2: And if said types are evil and act on instinct, why are poison or bug types not considered evil as well? Bugs can destroy plants and crops and poison types. Well, it's in the name.

Question 3: Or what about a pokemon's morality based on pokedex entries? I mean, take, for example, my pokepal for life. His name is Oliver, and he's a Cubone, a ground type. His pokedex entry states that he wears the skull of his dead mum on his head. Kind of brutal, right? And yet he can't fall asleep at night unless he gets swaddled in his favorite blanket, and he hasn't evolved despite his higher level stat. (He is a rescue, so I blame whatever trauma he has been through for that.)

Once again, not trying to attack you or your beliefs. I'm just curious.

1: Fairy types are some of the most dangerous pokemon out there. Hatterene are known to cause deaths just because people are slightly too happy around them, Sylveon strangle whatever they can get their feelers around using their abilities to keep them calm and unable to fight back, Grimmsnarl fake surrender before attacking brutally, Florges will mercilessly attack people who hurt any plants in their garden even if accidentally. These are just some examples. Also, being cute and pink does not inherently make a type an LGBTQ+ icon, and deciding that an entire type or pokemon is queer just because they're pink honestly seems to be playing into harmful stereotypes about all queer people being feminine, flamboyant, and girly.

2: Many bug and poison types actually eat the other pokemon that cause crop failure and issues. Many poison types are also incredibly important for waste removal. Most poison types don't actually harm the environment by simply existing at all. Those that do are few and far away. A single venipede does more to protect crops, hunting harmful bird pokemon like murkrow. Instinct isn't inherently bad. It's that dark types instinctually are evil and cruel.

3: How is a cubone mourning its mother brutal or evil? Do you consider people who display their loved one's ashes brutal, too?

[teecupangel]

Reading a new fanfic on AO3, do you have any plot idea's for both Desmond and Clay being transported to renaissance italy and saving the auditore? (fic name is 'we were born for this' des/ezio, and some clay and federico bromance, it's so good, lots of angst but also some funny moments and clay helping desmond heal, i would recommend!)

The fic in question: We Were Born For This by the wonderful @saberamane. It's truly a great read and I second the recommendation!

For Desmond not leaving the Farm and the ramifications of what that entails + Clay helping Desmond heal, you might be interested in this idea.

Now, this ask specified Desmond and Clay being transported to Renaissance Italy and saving the Auditore so let’s set that up.

Everything up to AC3 remains the same but, this time, when Desmond dies, he gets transported to the Gray.

Clay is already there and this seemed to be some kind of twisted reward from Juno as ‘gratitude’ for playing their part.

Desmond is the one who accepted his fate, Clay will be the one who goes ‘fuck that shit’ and starts trying to connect with the Gray.

Technobabble that Desmond won’t understand but Clay’s main point is that this isn’t magic. The Gray is based on tech they may not understand but that meant they just need to understand it.

His plan was simply to be able to do what Juno had done and connect to the real world via the POE… or the Animus perhaps… although Clay is thinking Juno was connecting to the memory of the POE in the Animus-(“Uh, Clay, dumb it down?”“Juno’s using the Calculations to predict our actions and left voicemails that sounds like she’s talking to us using the POEs so we can get them when we’re in the Animus.”)

Now, this can go either:

Clay accidentally fucked the Gray and it threw the two of them out and into Renaissance Italy

Clay accidentally opened a line of communication with a POE BUT it’s the wrong time period and POE: The Shroud that Giovanni was going to hide. Now the Shroud thing will be complicated because there is an Isu conscience already there so we’ll have to include him in the plot. Also, this meant that they won’t be physically there and will primarily use the Shroud to talk to Giovanni and the Auditores. Of course, we can bypass that by having Giovanni get Ezio’s Apple earlier then use the Apple to create holograms for Clay and Desmond (kinda like the drone holograms in Zero Eclipse).

Whichever plot you decide to go for, it would be Desmond who decides to save the Auditores. Clay agrees because he wants to fuck up the Isu’s plans.

Unorganized ideas:

Clay is in it to fuck shit up. The fate of the world? Assassins versus Templars? They don’t really matter all that much to him. He’s too broken to care about such things. Destroying the Isus’ carefully laid out plans though… that helps him focus. That keeps the madness at bay.

On the other hand, Clay definitely does everything to help and save Desmond. As far as he’s concerned, it’s him and Desmond against the world.

Desmond doesn’t believe Clay truly doesn't care about the world or the Assassins. He thinks Clay is only saying that to not be reminded of how he had to die to save the world and about Juno’s manipulation. Desmond doesn’t buy it. Clay tells him that Desmond just wants to believe Clay's a good person but he's not. Whoever is right is up to you.

Also, Desmond definitely has a soft spot for Ezio. He wants to save the Auditores because he believes he knows them and loves them even.

Clay is helping for two different reasons: 1) It’s what Desmond wants and 2) He’s doing it for Ezio. While his synchronization with Ezio wasn’t as high as Desmond, he still believes he knew Ezio. Perhaps not as closely as Desmond (and he believes that Desmond cares for Ezio too much that it's detrimental to Desmond himself) but he does care for Ezio. (“Like a distant cousin”“Just say brother, Clay.”“Second-cousin… twice removed.”“Do you even understand how that works???”)

Giovanni would see them as two Assassins who had gone rogue with Desmond being the ‘mentor’ to Clay’s ‘acolyte’. Giovanni is sure their Brotherhood isn’t a good one if Clay’s trash-talking of William Miles is any indication.

When the whole Desmond may be Altaïr’s descendant blows up, Clay milks it before Desmond could try to say no. Just full-on “Yes! That’s right! This is Desmond Miles, great great great… great?… grandson! Some even say he’s the second coming of Altaïr!” “No, they don’t, CLAY!”

Clay lives for the chaos. Desmond just wants to save people and the Templars.

Maria is actually the one who sees that Clay thrives in chaos because he hates the silence. To be more exact, the silence reminds him of the bedroom in the Animus Room where he slowly lost his mind.

When Clay loses himself to the Bleed, Desmond is the only one who can snap him out of it. They were worried that staying in Renaissance Italy would make Clay’s Bleed worse, especially as they near the day of the execution, but it actually has the opposite effect on him. The longer they stay in Renaissance Italy, the fewer episodes Clay has.

Desmond thinks that having an actual support system (him and the Auditores) is helping. Clay thinks it’s because his mind is adapting to the time period and the fact that his Bleed is of Ezio and Ezio is right there is keeping him stable. (“So it is because you have a support system!” “It’s because Ezio’s there.” “To help you! To be your friend!”)

[lenny-rambles]

About "SpyxFamily: Short Mission 13"

Manga: "SpyxFamily"

Update: Short Mission 13

Author: Tatsuya Endo

Relevants tags ig: the dog has ptsd, again

Honestly, I was mad when I initially saw it was a Short Mission. It's gonna be a month now since the last regular chapter came out, the plot was moving, my heart skipped at beat at the last double spread, the story was thriving, I could sense a lore drop any minute now. Then we got two short missions. TWO!!! But the newest short mission took me by surprise and now I'm sad about the damn cartoon dog.

Spoilers for the SpyxFamily manga and anime, more as in, characters that appear and not exactly plot stuff, BEWARE!

IT'S A GODDAMN SHORT MISSION, WHY DID YOU SHOW AGAIN THE SAD DOG'S BACKSTORY?!!! ISTG. You know what I was expecting? I was expecting a "funny haha, future seeing dog has a boring day home alone" maybe break some stuff by accident, maybe he goes to the neighbors' for attention, cute, sweet, nothing heavy slice of life chapter. BUT NO, I WAS FOOLED.

Like, most of the Short Missions are just, not that relevant. Like, it is more of a day-to-day life than the manga normally is. As in, last short mission (the chapter before this one) was about Anya sending Lloyd, and WISE, to an early grave with a High-Fashion dress for prom. It was funny, sweet, Anya wanted to help, then Damian messed up again and she wanted revenge, you know, the usual.

Why? Who gave Tatsuya Endo the idea to give Bond MORE flashbacks?!!! Poor dog's been through a lot, the Forgers becoming his safe place is just beautiful. THE WAY HE AND ANYA RESONATE, BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH SECRET EXPERIMENTATION SURVIVORS!!!!!! Fucking dog making me sad because a big ass Penguin plushy has stiches. Stupid dog making me emotional over fish, FUCKING FISH. I HATE FISH!!!!

SpyxFamily makes me happy and sad. I think it's a great story to show how connections, friends, family, define a person more than what we'd like to imagine. No person is an island, so seeing characters like Nightfall or Franky, doing missions or getting bits of their backstory, makes it feel more real. Having a character like Anya, being capable of reading mind but not truly understanding most of it makes you think about how children navigate the world.

Oh gosh, I could talk about how SpyxFamily shares an anti-war message through its main characters, all of them victims of the war, one way or another. But it won't, 'cause this was supposed to be about the dog having what I'd call panic attacks because he accidentally broke a glass. BUT WE GET TO THE PENGUIN. In case you haven't read the manga (why are you reading this?) or simply forgot, Bond broke Mr Penguin!

It was an act of jealousy, Anya started playing with the plushie more, and he got lonely. So he destroyed it. He might be an oracle dog, but he is still a dog, I don't blame him. And he felt Bad. He made Anya cry. And he felt terrible because he just wanted Anya back and now Anya's crying and he can't undo it (dogs can't sew). In the end they made it better. I don't remember if it was Lloyd, Yoru or the neighbors, it was probably Yoru though, who fixed it. And the Penguin got cool looking stiches and "he and Bond made Peace".

That was nice, UNTIL THIS GODDAMN CHAPTER. I used to wonder if Bond also felt survivor guilt from being the only dog that managed to escape. TURNS OUT HE DOES, THE DOG HAS SURVIVOR'S GUILT FFS!!!! Poor Bond, realized that he inflicted damage to something like him (unable to defend itself, new/young, a play pretend animal and an animal no longer treated as such) and he tried to make it better. I can't change what I did but I want you to feel better, I'm sorry.

I'm overanalyzing here, it's probably Not That Deep. It's a funny haha manga about a family of dangerous people who end up loving each other by accident. But sometimes it's about Lloyd burying himself in a nameless grave by the time he was 18. It's about Yoru sacrificing her innocence for her brother only to do the same for her. It's about Anya needing validation from everyone because if the people in the lab didn't like her they'd get rid of her. It's about Bond feeling lonely and distressed because a vision he got is especially terrible and he is just a Dog.

I read the interview where Tatsuya Endo said he didn't like the characters that much. Maybe not Gege Akutami (you're going dow Gege) levels of hate, but a blunt indifference. And sometimes I find that hard to believe. Maybe he didn't want Anya to be cutesy-dumb-pink-haired little girl, or Lloyd a super-intelligent-spy-ikemen at first, or even now. But I don't think he doesn't like his story, or characters; we wouldn't have the short missions in the first place if that were the case.

All this to say, cartoon dog made me sad, and then happy, because there are better things coming for everyone in the end. Thank you for reading this far! I'd recommend SpyxFamily if you are up to something a tad dramatic, with a happy ending and endearingly funny. (Or if you have issues with your parents and want a bit of escapism, that's also fair)