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yolli-es · 1 month ago

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I’m so sorry I loved your yandere jinx headcanons I was just wondering if we could get a alphabet yandere jinx since we both love it

Yandere!Jinx alphabet 💥

Tags: NO spoilers for season 2, mentions of death, mentions of blood, PROBABLY some points were misunderstood by me due to not knowing the language. LET ME KNOW IF I GOT IT WRONG!

Yandere!Jinx was liked by so many people :D

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Physical contact is number one on her list of "how to show people you're not disgusted by them." She certainly showers you with attention before the relationship begins, but you will notice a dramatic difference once it's official. Jinx tried to keep her boundaries and stay away from you for at least a couple of hours. But why would she do it now? You always hold hands, even when it's awkward and uncomfortable. Even if you're in the middle of a shootout right now, don't worry; she has a gun that she can use with one hand.

Most of the time, Jinx's hands reach out to you unconsciously. She doesn't worry about it much.

Another way Jinx speaks is by suddenly becoming talkative. She is usually not eager to tell anyone anything about herself, even if it's something insignificant like her favorite food or what she did that day. But with you, she can't shut up, she wants to tell you everything, preferably twice. You'll notice that at some point she'll stop talking right in the middle of her story, awkwardly looking down. After the question "What next?" she starts to beam and continue as if nothing happened. She likes it when you really listen.

Over time, Jinx will become greedier about this, and if you tell her "no," she will get angry.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

Not really much messy. Jinx definitely won't just watch someone try to beat the crap out of you, but she won't destroy anyone who looks at you the wrong way either. More often than not, it ends with just one shot to the shoulder or knee. That was, is, and always will be the most clear explanation of why you shouldn't be killed.

She won't let them repeat what they started if one warning wasn't enough.

However, sometimes the voices get loud, and in a fit of rage, Jinx can kill a couple of people. Insecurity and doubts overcome her at such moments, and she sees no better way than to simply remove the threat and competition. She won't be sorry, but it certainly won't be part of her plan or desire.

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Find yourself a replacement for Jinx, say you're going to leave, and she will kidnap you. She will never let you go so easily; it will not happen. Jinx will console herself with the fact that you are simply naive and stupid, that the other person took advantage of this, and now she is simply saving you from an irreparable mistake. After all, in reality, you do not want to leave her, and no one except her is really interesting to you, isn't it?

But Jinx isn't stupid after all. She knows what she's doing, and you definitely won't be thrilled by that. Jinx will be patient. As much as Jinx can be, of course. Yell at her, call her names, and try to break free; she will endure all this. Until you say that you will leave her forever, like everyone else before you. Her emotional breakdowns won't take long to come. During this, Jinx may scream, get angry, and even swing at you. But she will never hurt you, even if you are a pain in her ass. Even if you try to fight her, she will patiently endure the blows, simply immobilizing you and not causing additional damage.

Jinx didn't want to resort to it, and she's really worried that she's only made things worse.

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Jinx will definitely control your every move and will be aware of everything that happens in your life. She sees nothing wrong with forbidding you to walk alone, communicate with certain people, and do dangerous work.

At first you'll even like it, but later you'll understand how suffocating it is. She won't leave you alone even in the shower, won't let you communicate with your childhood friend, and won't let you do your favorite archery. What once seemed like concern to you turned out to be just the whims of her insecurity.

"All this is too dangerous; you know that I want the best for you, trinkly?" Jinx will say for the thousandth time with the most innocent eyes in consolation, knowing full well that your opinion about this is of no interest to her. You know this, but you still fall for it, unable to escape its trap.

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

Jinx tells you a lot, but not everything. She finds it hard to be vulnerable with you, even though she knows how warmly you embrace her flaws. Whenever she thinks about telling you about her past, Mylo shuts her down. Jinx can't help but think that her past makes her a weak Powder, and you only need a strong Jinx. And she can't be a disappointment for you, that's what Claggor said to her.

Only once will she be able to tell you her real name.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

Surprise, adrenaline, pride, affection and a strong desire to suppress it.

She appreciates your fighting spirit, but she can't ignore your attempts at resistance, no matter how much she wants to. After all, it could become a problem in the future, and Jinx genuinely doesn't want to confront you in a serious fight. No matter how strong you are and how seriously you attack Jinx, all your attempts will be a joke in her eyes. You will never compare to her sister in this.

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

It depends on her mood, the weather, her plans for the day, and the noise level of the voices in her head that day. Jinx is very unpredictable, so one moment she's laughing and counting to ten, and the next she's threatening to amputate your legs. You know these are just threats, so Jinx has to chase you around the building until she catches you.

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

That moment when you told her you didn't need her and wanted to leave for the first time. That was when she kidnapped you, and you so desperately wanted freedom.

Jinx had definitely gone crazy, and the echoes of your words still tormented you both. Unfortunately, you said it too confidently, viciously, and sensually. Jinx was silent for a couple of seconds, while her breathing stopped, her pupils became wider, and her face turned pale. After realizing how serious this was, Jinx jumped up from her seat and rushed towards you. But not with the purpose of hitting, but only to put your tied hands on her throat. She didn't even cry while she frustratedly told you to kill her since you didn't need her under your hysterical screams and requests to forget about it. She looked so apathetic, broken, and disappointed that you began to hate yourself for it. Why did you say that? Do you hate this fragile girl so much? You couldn't stop thinking about it while you tearfully begged Jinx to stop strangling herself with your hands.

You apologized more than a hundred times that day, and you will never forget this the scene. It is truly traumatic to watch your beloved girl strangling herself with your hands because of the cruelty of your own words.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

Next to her, and the rest is completely unimportant. Jinx never thinks about the future, wanting to live in the present. It is difficult for her to follow the plan in Zaun, so she can only hope.

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

She's jealous as hell, and there's no better way to deal with it than to blow something up. Someone, to be precise. She won't be able to do this and will simply shoot them. Jinx is very insecure and thinks that everyone around her is a better option than her. She is afraid that you will also realize this as you become more sociable, so Jinx does everything possible to prevent this.

Jinx herself doesn't realize how jealous she is. Just doesn't want to realize. She won't take responsibility for it, so denying the problem is the best way to survive it.

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

If you're here, it means Jinx is nearby and everyone knows it. She'll be back in a few minutes and let everyone see Jinx obsessed, dependent, and loving again. She won't hesitate to hold your hand, body, or even your ass in front of everyone. She doesn't indulge in kissing often, but sometimes Jinx feels the need to do it, even if it's awkward for you while everyone is watching.

She can't stay too far away from you; it physically hurts her.

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

What would seem romantic and loving in Zaun? Protection and shelter for free. That's what Jinx did first. It seemed most logical to her to do it in a way you understand and only then resort to the romance she knows. Without saying a word to you, Jinx will sort out your problems as deftly as she creates her weapons. Still, the years with Silko take their toll, and even the most fearsome thugs are just children to her. Don't think too much, and just enjoy caring from Jinx before she gets too much.

Then don't be surprised when you see burning buildings in Piltover with the words "love my trinkly <3" written on them.

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Jinx with you and Jinx without you are completely different, strangers to each other.

People who have never dealt with Jinx and see her for the first time with you mistakenly think that she is just a petty idiot and everyone around is afraid of her for nothing. Never shows violence, uses small guns, and is just busy with you most of the time.

And then they meet the real Jinx. She still seems harmless, but her aura is suddenly completely different. You don't know what to expect. Laugh at her, but don't shout too loudly when she jokingly rips your arm off because you weren't paying attention to her instructions. "Oh, it's not fatal; don't whine like that. Shut up and listen," Jinx smiles tightly, making funny faces. She'll give him the shimmer, but not right away; maybe it'll teach him to take life-threatening situations right in front of them more seriously. Only then do they get it.

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

Not too cruel, something like "no dessert this time." Jinx doesn't see you as particularly dangerous or serious about escaping.

But what if she senses it? Jinx will lock you away somewhere for an indefinite period of time again. If you were close to escaping, be prepared for heavy security measures and possibly no chance of ever getting out. There are no windows, minimal furniture, and belongings; your hands and feet will always be chained to the wall. Don't make her do soft upholstery in the room; don't hit yourself the walls.

Jinx may punish you during sex, but it will be playful and for pleasure.

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

It's easier to say that you will be allowed to do basic things like eating food, have a safe hobby, go outside, participate in safe deliveries, attend negotiations, and help Jinx in the workshop. Of course, all this together with Jinx and nothing more.

Remember, she does all this out of caring.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

As I said, as patient as Jinx can be. She forgives you a lot of things. A lot, but not everything.

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

No. This will be the end for her.

One can only imagine what she will do. Kill herself? Go completely mad? Blow up all of Piltover? Start a war? Perhaps she will do all of these things in order. Jinx's psyche is cracking every day, and you were the only one who supported her. Someone who would always be there and who she could rely on in difficult times. She did everything she could just to know that you would feel all the love, care, and acceptance from Jinx. If you abandon her like everyone else after all this, then what is left for her to exist for? All the good will be destroyed by her own hands, and she will not be able to forgive for it.

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

She let you go when you confessed your love to her, and your relationship became official. Of course, not right away and only after Jinx was convinced of it. Sometimes she even doubts her sensitivity to the emotions and real desires of other people.

She regrets that abducting you, but she'll do it again if she feels the need. Jinx just hopes it doesn't affect you too traumatically and that you understand why she's doing it.

For love and only for love.

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Jinx has always had her own peculiarities, and after Vi and Silco left her, they only made the problems she already had worse. Insecurity, a sense of worthlessness, and weakness haunt her every day. She desperately needs to have support, someone she can trust and not be afraid of being abandoned again.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

Shit. It's like her soul was turned inside out.

Jinx is very good at understanding people's emotions and their intentions. After spending a lot of time with you, Jinx can tell by just one look that something was wrong with you. And she immediately starts feeling the same way. No matter how good she feels, everything changes if you feel differently. So when you scream, cry, and are completely broken, Jinx feels the same way. It's hard for her to be supportive at that moment because grief has overwhelmed her too. But she still will be there, always. And no matter how shitty or super good you feel, Jinx will always share your feelings.

Only once did she manage to look at you blankly while you cried and screamed, pleading with her to forget your words.

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

While other yandere act by the rule "you will be mine!", Jinx is more like "I beg you to be mine".

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

None. Sorry, but she is too smart and sensitive to understand your true intentions. All that remains is to hope for her mercy.

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

No, no, and no again. Jinx wants you to stay, not break.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

You are the only one who looks good in her eyes in any state and the only one who attracts her sexually. She will definitely idolize you, although she may not tell about it.

Jinx will also do anything. Tell her to make you president, and she will. Don't be silly about it; Jinx will take your task seriously and will expect love and appreciation in return.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap? (This is the question that I couldn't understand, so the answer is short)

Not for long. Jinx is impatient, and her feelings weigh on her more than most people.

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

No matter how carefully Jinx treats you, no matter how loving and patient she tries to be, you will still break. It is impossible to be sane when your entire world is filled with just one person. There will be too much Jinx and too little of the other world. You will also face a lot of manipulation just to stay with her, many of which will be traumatic.

And yet, you love Jinx. You did.

I spent 4 hours of my life on this, and I'm still not happy with the result. It could have been better, but I'm just tired of writing this, and it might be noticeable in the end..

#arcane x reader #jinx x reader #arcane jinx #arcane jinx x reader #jinx arcane #jinx x fem!reader #arcane #arcane headcanon #arcane league of legends #arcane netflix #yandere jinx #yandere alphabet

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bones4thecats · 4 months ago

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Ooh, Okie dokie! (I forgot to label myself in my little question haha - it's me, 😊 anon!)

Can I request Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu having a crush on an Autistic Reader?

The reader is mostly nonverbal - only speaking using short words/sentences - unless they're talking to someone they've grown to really trust, to animals (such as their crow companions), or about animals - which they have learned lots of trivia about. They may also stim - usually by rocking side to side when bored or flapping/clapping their hands when excited. They're happy to receive physical contact but can be overwhelmed by constant loud noise (such as shouting or music.)

(I hope that wasn't too long - I hope you have a lovely day! ✨)

The Kamaboko Trio With An Autistic S/O

Characters: Tanjiro Kamado, Zenitsu Agatsuma, and Insouke Hashibira Requester: 😊Anon A/N: I haven't written for Demon Slayer in such a long time so the characters may be slightly OOC. These are also fairly short, just noting! But, I do hope you enjoy this! Have a great rest of your days/nights!!! ⚠️ Spoilers/Trigger Warnings for: Nothing ⚠️

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Tanjiro Kamado ══════════════════════════╝

😺 When Tanjiro first met you, he was slightly confused as to why you rarely spoke longer sentences. But, in his fashion, he put that behind and stayed positive around you

😺 Whenever he notices your stims getting worse or more erratic, he holds your hand and allows you to mess with his. He also likes seeing how you would help Nezuko with her hair, using the physical action as another way to use a stim

😺 He is amazing with animals himself, getting along with pretty much every creature he finds. So, when you walked around the Butterfly Mansion with small birds and one of your pets, a Japanese dwarf flying squirrel that you named Kiyoshi, he got along with the cute rodent quick and easily

😺 Whenever you are set to be on a mission with him and the others (Zenitsu, Inosuke, and Nezuko), he tries to keep them quieter so you don't get overwhelmed

😺 Sometimes, he enjoys staying awake at night and ask you about some animals that he has either seen around or was wondering about. Such as a Japanese Macaque or a Sika Deer

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Zenitsu Agatsuma ════════════════════════╝

⚡ This guy, oof!

⚡ He had a hard time understanding you at first. But that was mainly because you rarely spoke and were extremely loving to almost every animal that you guys came across

⚡ I mean, you literally would attract any other Slayer's crow, which made Zenitsu roll his eyes stubbornly. How come you were such an animal magnet while his own crow (or rather sparrow) pecked at him whenever he tried holding him!

⚡ Anyways, he does like seeing how you handle demons, putting your own issues behind just to help out anybody in danger, whether they were children or adults or in between

⚡ Zenitsu may not show it fully, but he does like watching you play with your pet Koi fish when they were swimming around in your/Mitsuri's estate's back pond

⚡ No doubt simps even harder whenever you mess with his hands or wear his haori. He literally stands there with a goofy grin on his face as he giggles at your actions

╔══════════════════════════════════════════╗

╚═════ Inosuke Hashibira ════════════════════════╝

🐗 Inosuke is a very rambunctious person by nature. And he is surprisingly good around animals, due to growing up alongside them all his childhood

🐗 So, when you came around and seemingly calmed down a boar in front of him, he yelled your name and asked how you knew what they were thinking, in which you laughed and tried explaining to the best of your ability

🐗 He also had great hearing and understanding of body language. So if you were to speak with a lower tone or not be able to finish a sentence, he understands what you want to say without asking you to repeat like others

🐗 Smiling at him also makes him feel good, so whenever you do so if you can't gain the urge to speak to him, his chest puffs out as he goes on a rant of 'of course you smile at the King of the Mountain' and whatnot

🐗 By far the second best with an Autistic reader when it comes to this trio, the way he grew up helps him understand you better than the others easily

#Demon Slayer #Kimetsu no Yaiba #KnY #The Demon Slayer Corps #The Kamaboko Squad #Demon Slayer x Reader #Kimetsu no Yaiba x Reader #KnY x Reader #The Demon Slayer Corps x Reader #The Kamaboko Squad x Reader #S/O! Reader #GN! Reader #Autistic! Reader #Tanjiro Kamado #Tanjiro Kamado x Reader #Zenitsu Agatsuma #Zenitsu Agatsuma x Reader #Inosuke Hashibira #Inosuke Hashibira x Reader

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chefkids · 5 months ago

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Claire was the Cold Prep.

The Ice Chips episode will be the when he talks to her again because she is the last chip of getting stuck in the freezer he has left over to deal with. They are always connected to cold and fridges. He reconnected with her in the freezer aisle at the grocery store.

They made out in the garde manger which is the cold prep station in kitchens.

And of course they broke up by the walk in fridge.

Claire was a Cold Reading for Carmy. A rehearsal. A practice girlfriend before the real thing. Molly and Jeremy did not even do a chemistry read before they were on set running lines together, and that was not due to poor planning. It was very intentional just like Claire's entire character. Her lack of development, he costuming, their interactions, are all tied up with being a cold prep. Their entire relationship was written as practice for Carmy wanting to be with Syd, which is why he mirrors everything about Sydney into that relationship.

Fak is going to tell Claire that Carmy told him he’s still in love with her to try and get them to fix things. She will probably try to reconcile and tell Carmy that Fak told her he does love her, but I think Carmy is going to tell her he never told him that and that he’s not actually in love with her and can't be with her.

*Season 3 Spoiler Skip this paragraph* That is what is going to cause the fight that we heard, because Fak/Claire will accuse Carmy of lying about it and Carmy will insist he didn’t lie about saying he loved her.

Technically Carmy didn’t say he was in love with her. Fak asked Carmy how much he love Claire and he said he loved her a lot. Carmy does love Claire. But he’s not in love with her.

He loves Claire same way he loves Fak or Tina or even Mikey. He loves her as an old friend and someone in his life he cares about and doesn’t want to hurt her feelings, which why he tried to gently reject her with a fake number but couldn't say no to her face.

He asked Tina how much she loved Mikey and she said a lot. Which is the same thing he told Fak about Claire, because he doesn't love her romantically.

Carmy tried to be in love with her. But he never told her I love you and he was bothered when she said it to him in the voicemail because he realized love and being in love are two very different things.

Claire loves Carmy romantically but he doesn't love her in that way.

In his panic attack he figured out the difference between the two. He loves Mikey and his family and even his mom and Claire. But he’s not in love with them. Sydney was a completely separate type of love and peace for him because he doesn’t just love her, he is in love with her.

Claire was there Christmas after Donna crashed her car. He saw that she saw the mess behind his life. He didn’t want to stay there so he left to New York. She has always been tied to horrible memories for him and it's not her fault, but he can't separate the two.

But honestly, the fact that Claire saw what his life was like that night and the full extent of his family trauma around alcohol makes me even more angry that she took him to that party and the told him that “she knows” about him having to take care of sad drunk people.

She might have said she wants to understand, not fix people. But it seems to me like she thought she could fix Carmy’s shyness and trauma around parties and alcohol by forcing him to be around it, but really she was just bringing up all the past trauma he had and bad memories tied to her.

They both tried to use that relationship for bad reasons, he tried to teach himself how to be a boyfriend and she tried to teach him how to be "normal" because she wanted a boyfriend, but the type of guy she wanted is not who Carmy really is, which is why he was pretending to be Logan at that party and why she loved seeing him act like that, even when it's not him. Carmy wanted to see Syd in Claire, and Claire wanted to see "Logan" in Carmy.

#the bear #the bear meta #carmen berzatto #claire the bear #sydcarmy #the bear season 3 predictions

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mourningsbane · 3 months ago

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Perhaps silly questions, but I'm growing more and more curious of your blog with each new entry/question answered. Love the story slowly unfolding here, cannot wait for the next part and following moons <3

Does Palekit have any further deformations? Or rather that question but in past tense. His tail looks almost fin-like, but I'm not sure if what we are seeing is a) a stylistic "drooping goo" effect, b) a very weird tuft of fur, or c) some malformation of the tail tip, resulting in its split structure.

What's the clan's relationship with Sweetkit, considering so many of its members', em... involvement in the perishing of Honeyspring and her kits. Mostly wondering if Flaildrizzle, Tanglefern and Rootstar feel anything (guilt, sadness, etc.) at all when they see this only kit in clan after a whole litter dies in such horrible circumstances before Sweetkit's arrival? I mean, surely such a tragedy leaves an impact. A followup question-

How much time has passed since Honeyspring's death and Sweetkit's arrival? Do any of LutumClan's cats consider Sweetkit to be like "a second chance" for the clan after losing their only queen and her litter?

A bit of an alternate outcome question! Let's assume Nothing Bad Ever Happened©️ to Honeyspring's kits. What would their warrior names be? What would their basic personalities be? Would any of them pursue high ranks within LutumClan?

Also sending fictional love to Honeyspring, stay goopy queen 💅

There's no such thing as a silly question! Besides, I like answering questions, even if it takes me a while to get to them! <3

My answers are a tad long, so I'll put them under the cut!

1.) Palekit did not have any further deformations! His face was slightly crooked, and his tongue sometimes hung out, but that was about it. He also had severe issues with vomiting; he just couldn't keep anything down and tended to bleed.

2.) Rootstar, Flaildrizzle, and Tanglefern all feel very guilty and upset by what happened to Honeyspring's kits! Still, they, and the rest of LutumClan, saw Sweetkit's arrival as a sign of hope. However, LutumClan as a whole tends to be a tad overprotective of the only kit in the clan.

3.) About 3-ish months have passed since Honeyspring's death! Sweetkit is definitely considered LutumClan's "second chance" of sorts, but a few cats (namely Rootstar and a few others) REALLY wish Sweetkit was in the care of someone who ISN'T Bearface. They're worried that Bearface, being a former outsider who barely respects the clan code as is, will be a bad influence on her.

4.) As for the alternate outcome, let me think! I'll give you my best guesses, but destiny is mutable, so these could've easily changed!

Smallkit would grow into Smallcloud, and would become an apprentice to Tanglefern! She would be on the smaller side, but she'd be a fierce creature for sure! She'd be smart and cautious, but never a push-over.

Flailkit would grow into Flailwhisker, and would likely go on the path of becoming a queen or mediator! She'd likely be about average height and a bit on the chunkier side. I imagine her to be quiet and shy, much like Flaildrizzle, and easy to talk over. Still, she cares greatly about her clanmates, even if she's easily overwhelmed. Smallcloud would've been very protective over her in their youth.

Palekit would grow into Paleclaw, and would most certainly follow the path of a warrior! He'd idolized his aunt, Rootstar, and wanted to become a leader just like her. He's prideful and a little boastful for sure, but not intentionally. He's just very proud of his aunt being the leader, and his mom (Flaildrizzle) being the deputy, and wants to make sure everyone knows it.

Had Honeyspring's kits lived, Sweetkit's role would have also changed, but I can't say it due to spoilers!

#thank you for the ask!#lutumclan #clangen #clan generator #warrior cats clangen #ask #honeyspring's kits

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duskmachine · 2 months ago

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I can't take it anymore. The new Chainsaw Man chapters are so good I have to talk about them. Spoilers for chapters 176-178 below.

Love Yoru here. She undermines the sacrifices Asa has made and describes them as "trifling things" because in Yoru's eyes she has a much bigger goal. She constantly makes fun of Asa because Asa is a child and therefore values things much lesser than the dreams of the War Devil. It's so insane because right in the next panel,

Asa acts like an adult! Would you sacrifice the things you have fought for the sake of your own gain? You say one thing but mean another. Asa is much like Yoru in this regard, she wishes to fulfill Denji's dreams (whatever they may be) and protect him. But in reality, she wants to do these things for the sake of proving she is a "good" person.

This connects back to the church briefly touched on in the previous chapters! What makes a good person? Action or intent? Many people go to church to follow tradition, and follow the values of this religious system because it will secure them in, what they believe to be, heaven. If one does good for the sake of personal gain, can we say that person is "good"?

Yoru and Asa both are willing to destroy what they had wanted to protect in order to gain this "goodness". Asa, without really understanding, is harming Denji while trying to do right by him. And Yoru, who is willing to kill her comrades for...

This! She is willing to give up everything for the sake of proving she is a "more fearsome devil"! She ridicules Asa for the "trifling things" she values, and yet she is sacrificing her own kin for the sake of the most petty bullshit dick measuring contest EVER. One that Chainsaw Man does not even care about. It's not a contest between two of the most "fearsome devils" it's a desperate devil attempting to find any means to remain relevant.

This is some teenager angst coming from a centuries old horseman of the apocalypse.

Armless, mouthless, and with zero agency she comes to realize her pettiness and chooses to steal the freedom of choice from her children. They must serve her as her mouth and her arms. Children then are:

Asa was saved by her mother from the Typhoon Devil. In reality, despite Asa's flaws she is a teenager. She wants go to college, have a home, have friends. Her story reflects Denji's. She wanted a normal life where she was loved and yet, her agency was taken by a devil much more powerful than her and now she must find meaning and power in a position stripped of those things.

In a way she is attempting to find a silver lining, "If I can protect Denji, that means I'm still a good person despite everything". Which is so tragic, because in more ways than one, she was never truly able to make a sound decision due to the lies she was told and the possession of her body.

And come this horrifying sequence of events. Where Asa finds herself as the War Devil, hollowed out of her original heart. Her dream desecrated by war waged for the most petty bullshit dick measuring contest EVER. And isn't that all war? As the Statue of Liberty reveals itself to be a cocooning child of war. True freedom, in the hands of law makers and of devils, is defined by one's ability to wage war and decide who, in the end of mindless violence, is the true victor.

Individuals willing to kill children understood to be a parents' property, or a state's property, are devils through and through.

This is the fundamental horror of being a child, of being poor, of being irrelevant. This is the fate devils and humans similar to Yoru avoid by constantly participating in petty bullshit dick measuring contests.

Denji and Yoru are children who have been hollowed out so devils and humans can wage violent wars that destroy colleges, homes, and families with these children's bodies and hearts.

#chainsaw man #chainsaw man spoilers #csm #csm chapter 178

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arimiaromage · 7 months ago

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I do not trust wisely.

throwing out my thoughts before chapter 251 of d.gray-man releases. spoilers for up to chapter 250 below!!

disclaimer: I don't hate wisely. I really like him. but I don't trust him right now.

I don't trust his actions right now. before chapter 250, I was sure wisely was going to be the new "leader" of the noah now that the earl is somewhat out of commission, either outright or by pulling the strings/giving suggestions to other members. road wasn't really the leader of them but they looked to her for answers about the things they didn't because she was the one that had stuck around the longest (such as when tyki's scars are aching) and was clearly the closest to the earl.

wisely is already suspicious of nea before this...

and when he approached the earl, wisely made a few comments about it, urging the earl to leave.

but he has an extra thought in chapter 224 about how he specifically won't let him cross paths with nea ever again. not really sus, I mean nea did kill the noah and try to kill the earl and the earl is clearly Not Over It, so makes sense.

but as they leave, wisely and tyki have a very specific exchange.

not only did wisely apparently let bookman go before they could find out more info, but wisely seems to know full well about nea- possibly being the reason he let bookman go, before bookman could tell the others who the earl and nea actually are.

specifically, wisely says "even if you don't find it out from me, you'll find it out eventually" and thinks to himself how this information will hurt tyki. that, to me, sounds like he knows most of the secrets of mana/nea. otherwise, how would he know that it will be so damning to tyki?

that brings us back to chapter 250, where they're interrogating apocryphos. I suspect the main goal of this was to find the heart rather than information on nea.

however, apocryphos can't help but jab at the ignorant noah who are in way over their heads, letting it slip that tyki has some deep connection to nea. wisely of course responds naturally by—

—destroying apocryphos' head, preventing him from talking until he heals. he claims it's because there's no use in interrogating him any further, that they've already got as much info as they can. that marks the 2nd interrogation victim he's let loose before the rest are ready.

with nea and the mention of 35 years ago being brought up, there's still tension in the air and sherril isn't about to let it go. remember, he's still pissed about road being hurt so badly trying to protect allen (because she wouldn't protect nea, right?)

and here it's finally brought up that, despite road being the only true survivor (aside from the earl), wisely has more knowledge about the events due to his demonic eye. he's finally being called out for possibly withholding the truth from them.

and what does he do? deflect it immediately. "it's not my fault, it's the fault of the previous wisely!"

okay, let's really dissect this page.

he starts off with apologizing, saying that the reason the other noah can't remember the tragedy is because the knowledge was so devastating the previous wisely locked it away (I guess before he died?? how does that work).

specifically, "to know nea is to know 'mana'". wisely knows who mana is, whereas the other noah only know that nea called the earl mana which made him cry.

the part I think most important is this- how conflicted he looks when thinking about the earl. he's not thinking about the noah here, he's thinking about the earl's safety. about mana.

why is he so conflicted?

let's go over some more stuff real quick.

wisely knows tyki looks suspiciously just like nea

2. nea isn't just a noah, he's the earl

3. SOMETHING happened to adam to make him disappear/split into mana/nea and is most likely connected to the noah & innocence

with all of these things in mind, this leads me to believe this...

wisely is keeping the info about mana secret to get the earl to destroy the world

not really a big shocker, but let me explain. the goal of the noah is to see the end of the world and aid the earl in that, but we've learned that the earl acts somewhat as a ticking time bomb, as he is the one that brings about the end days.

that is the goal of all of the noah, but road has been apprehensive about it because the current earl is mana. she wants him to be safe, and when cross urged her to help him save mana, instead of scoffing at the idea she starts crying and saying she can't because she's a noah. she wants to save him but being a noah cancels that out.

but our wisely didn't grow up with mana & nea. wisely didn't witness nea kill their entire family, mana kill him in return, and quickly descend into madness. wisely has secondhand memories so he doesn't have that emotional attachment.

this is why I felt wisely would be the new "leader". he has the insight to know that the earl = mana and that nea is part of the earl but doesn't have the emotional baggage road has. this gives him the best opportunity to see the noah's goal to the end, to push the earl over the edge and make him destroy it.

how would the rest of the noah feel if they found out the earl they've known their entire life isn't 7000 years old? that he was raised as a human just 50~ years ago? that the earl can die?

and worse-

how would the noah feel if they found out a personality of the earl was the one what slaughtered them all?

it would absolutely fracture them, possibly worse so than the exorcists finding out about apocryphos. the man they trust as their leader, who they feel in their souls a deep connection to, isn't even actually him and the man that killed them was supposed to be their leader.

that's why I feel like wisely is still keeping secrets. if he does actually know who mana/nea are, then it doesn't make sense for him to reveal this info so easily. I don't know what he's going to do next as the scene cuts there with him supposedly revealing the secrets, but I have a fear he's either only revealed a small part of it or worse, created a new lie about mana/nea to show them.

maybe he's telling the truth??

there's always a chance I'm grasping at straws, but from what I've seen it just doesn't make sense to me for him to reveal "everything" about mana/nea to the other noah, ESPECIALLY TYKI, so quickly. sherril snaps at him and he immediately folds. we've seen such careful character motivations thusfar from everyone else and I doubt hoshino would stumble here, on such a pivotal plot point.

so yeah, I don't believe wisely when he says he's going to reveal everything. he has the best shot out of all the noah to bring about the apocalypse and it doesn't make sense for him to fumble that now.

thanks for being a lil shit wisely, love you

#dgrayman #dgm #d gray man #wisely kamelot #dgm spoilers #dgm theories

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mikimakiboo · 3 days ago

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I was wondering if you were doing anything for/with the apple incident. Since it would be like, a clarifying moment for the guys in the tt gang. Like that’s why he’s jumpy and scared all the time. That’s why he was so rude and scared. That’s why he stopped talking to them, he thought they would be aggressive and violent. The servants could think he was cursed by the devil, or a witch or smth. Till it reached a high note, then him and Dream slowly reconciled and reconnect. Then night just starts pouring his soul out with him bc he’s so lonely and scared.

My time to shine and ramblllleeeeeee

Btw since you asked something about my AU just assume I'm in love with you, okay ? I'm your wife now /jk

As you can imagine the answer will contain spoilers regarding Nightmare's backstory SO I'm putting it under the cut :D

So regarding the apple incident, whenever I make AUs including Nightmare he is always corrupted, however the tree of feelings doesn't always fit the narrative, like in Time Travelers AU where Nightmare was born and lives as a noble in the 17th century and not 500 years ago as a guardian

So since there isn't any tree of feelings there isn't any apples either so there technically can't be an apple incident

So that's when the second scenario comes in handy: magic overdose :D

Basically at the age of six Nightmare's magic starts to grow a little too much, he would often choke on a black goop that would form in his soul and go in his throat for him to throw up, and it's a long and painful transformation, I'm talking about years here, from his six years old to his ten years old his magic would slowly overwhelm his soul more and more, come out of the joints, mouth, nose, eyesockets, he would choke and develop quite severe chronic pains until he's eventually covered in goop just like his original corrupted self

One good thing with that scenario is that it allows me to give him a softer personality as he wasn't exactly corrupted, his magic just got messed up, but he's still the same person as his passive self

Now, as Nightmare is living in a very religious time, everyone thought that his messed up magic and black goop was due to some demon possession or that he was cursed by either God, Satan, or any other divine force, and so Nightmare had to go through a lot of exorcisms, lots of different covens but of course none of it worked

He was always insulted and looked down upon as he was seen like a curse by himself: his father died young (when Dream and him were babies), his mother died young too (when they were young adult) and everyone blamed him and his mere existence for it and every other bad thing that happened to other people he ever talked to or looked their way

His own mother, Nim, was part of the people insulting him, by telling him that he was her biggest failure and she should have left him in a coven if only Dream didn't insist so much to keep him

So yeah Nightmare doesn't really think very high of himself and is fully focused on being as good as he can so hopefully people won't see him as a curse anymore

Dream was actually the only one to never turn his back on him, even when they were in different covens/schools (nobles were placed in special schools from 10yo to 18yo, very strict, they had to speak Latin too so that's why Nightmare is fluent) he would always send him letters, so their relationship never got too bad, Nightmare did have a period when he didn't respond to the letters but he never felt resentment or anything toward his twin because he was actually his only friend, so when they were back home together when they got out at 18 they actually became even closer because Dream was really the only one who would listen to him and genuinely love him

So yeah the two brothers are inseparable and rely very much on each other, Nightmare tells everything to Dream and Dream also talks about anything and everything with Nightmare

Now regarding the tt gang, when they learnt about the backstory they did assemble some pieces regarding Nightmare's behavior

Because his obsession with being perfect and not mixing with them, hardly talking to them and keeping his perfect noble image is actually trauma response after years of being talked down and seen as God's mistake, so now he has to appear perfect at all time so he won't have troubles anymore without realizing that this image hurts him too as he bottles up everything he feels and do not act like himself AT ALL

So yeah the backtory do make them understand his behavior better and they do feel very bad for him because obviously it wasn't his fault, he was only a child who should have gone to the doctor to have some magic drained out instead of being exorcized every two days and treated like shit

They'll eventually work through the trauma together

Hope that answers your question :D

#original post #ask #anonymous #time travelers au #tt au #nightmare sans #nightmare!sans #tt nightmare #dream sans #dream!sans #tt dream #dreamtale #dreamtale nightmare #dreamtale twins #dreamtale brothers #dreamtale dream

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chuckeroo777 · 3 months ago

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Laios got Eaten AU Chapters 53-85

Chapters 1-52 <- Be sure to read part 1. Falin being alive does cause some ripple effects which will continue in this part.

Welcome back! Today we continue where the anime cut off. We'll be going all the way to right before the final confrontation. (Mainly because I haven't figured out how to resolve that yet. I might do two versions, a good end, and a bad end.)

Let's get going! Massive spoiler warning for canon, if it wasn't obvious.

Chapter 53-54:

Same as canon.

Chapter 55:

Everything is mostly the same except Laios shows up instead of Falin. When escaping, Laios is much less gentle with Thistle.

Falin gets turned into a gnome by the giant changling. She is quite smitten by ogre Marcille, though she tries to hide it.

While Seshi and Chilchuck prepare the burgers, Falin assists with the ointment. With her healing expertise, it turns out even better, and she prevents Senshi from using it to cook.

Chapter 56:

Chilchuck has been noticeably grumpier than usual. Not only has Marcille been bugging him about his wife, but the tension between Marcille and Falin is really getting on his nerves. As before, he claims to have cheated to shut her up.

They spot the bicorn and Falin looks it up in the guide. They come up with the plan to be sinful.

When doing envy, Marcille can't help but be annoyed how Chilchuck has been giving her and Falin such judgemental looks, but then he goes and flirts with Senshi.

Without Laios, greed is a little tricky. Falin yoinks Ambrosia, and plays keep-away for a bit. She's giggling so much, she nearly forgets about the bicorn.

Then Lust gets brought up. Chilchuck and Izutsumi stare at Falin and Marcille, but before they can defend themselves, Senshi points out that it isn't lust when it's between two people who respect each other. Marcille then tentatively suggests that maybe Chilchuck's infidelity counts.

After Chilchuck gets attacked, Falin and Senshi rush into action. Falin can't body check it, but a mace to the face has the same effect. They manage to restrain it, then Senshi beheads it.

Falin is very impressed by Marcille's romantic acumen. Chilchuck is mostly left wondering why the romance expert is having such trouble admitting her feelings.

Chapter 57:

The dullahan is a type of ghost, so Falin has no trouble warding it off.

Much to Marcille's chagrin, Senshi decides to start with the head, since those parts don't preserve as well as the muscle.

Chapter 58-59:

When Senshi is discovered, it's Chilchuck who fills the party in about succubi. Unlike Laios, Falin doesn't rush off to grab milk, but she does start sweating profusely.

Thanks to there being three of them conscious in the room, they last a bit longer against the succubi, but when a succubus appears targeting Falin, things quickly break down.

Falin's succubus... is Marcille. But not merely Marcille. Due to a rather lonely childhood, Falin has a few fetishes she had been repressing. The succubus reflecting them for all to see. If she hadn't had her life force drained, she would probably have fainted from the shame and embarrassment.

Izutsumi saves the day, and everyone slowly recovers.

Marcille and Falin are mortified, and can barely even look at each other. Chilchuck finally reaches his breaking point and demands that the two of them talk about their feelings instead of continuing to bottle them up.

They end up having a heartwarming conversation where they confess their feelings. Marcille confesses that she always felt caring and protective of Falin, but the strangely fluctuating age gap made her way too uncomfortable to admit she was developing romantic feelings. But now that they are both adults, she wants to give this a try. Falin confesses that she always admired Marcille and wanted to get closer, but Marcille kept (unintentionally) rejecting her advances, so she just assumed she wasn't into her, which is why she stopped trying. Falin is so glad she was wrong. The two share a loving hug.

Chilchuck is happy for them to finally have these feelings out in the open, and they don't seem to be the sort that used to cause issues in his old groups. However, as the resident dad, he puts his foot down and insists that until this adventure is over, no sleeping together.

Speaking of sleeping together, that reminds Marcille of the dream she had while unconscious.

Chapter 60:

Marcille's dream with the Lion is similar to Laios', but with a few key differences.

Instead of appealing to Laios' care for the monsters and environment, the lion talks about how it IS the power of the dungeon. The power that the ancients discovered and misused. The very power that Marcille has desperately been looking for.

This is all very tempting for her, but she's still uncertain about becoming queen of the golden country, so the lion creates the hypothetical dream.

Marcille 'wakes' to find herself in bed with Falin. After changing out of their pajamas, they explore with the lion. Marcille's kingdom is a place where all the races are treated equally, with magic prolonging their lives to match hers.

She has also incorporated her ideas about a 'safe dungeon', expanding on the golden country's monster domestication to allow the harvesting of all sorts of useful things. Laios is in charge of this program.

Overall, it's all very nice and reasonable. As the audience, we know the lion will actually convince her to try and envelop the world, but for now the scope is realistic.

Marcille doesn't remember most of the dream, but relates that the lion is watching them through Falin's pearlipede. She talks a little about the 'safe dungeon' stuff, but keeps the whole age equalization thing close to her chest. And of course, beware the canaries.

Chapter 61:

Mostly the same, though Kabru's reaction to having to eat monsters is a little less severe. He hates it, but Falin and her group seemed sane enough. He isn't worried about going insane like Laios, he's just severely repulsed by it.

Kabru's nightmare is about the Laigon, stalking and hunting him down before eating him whole. Somehow, despite the massive changes, Kabru still manages to be disgusted yet intrigued about Laios.

Chapter 62:

The first half is identical, with Mithrun's story.

But when they start talking about Falin, that's when they get a bit confused. Despite Kabu's skill, he couldn't get a good read on Falin's desires. She is friendly and kind and thinks monsters are neat, but he's really unsure what would happen if she became lord of the dungeon. The only strong desire Kabru could identify was her unyielding determination to save her brother.

Mithrun begins to suspect that Falin isn't the one the demon is targeting, but unfortunately, Kabru doesn't know enough about the rest of the party to deduce who it could be.

Once the bell goes off, Kabru isn't worried about Falin, but with the demon involved, and so many unknown variables, he decides to go after them.

Chapter 63:

Falin's pearlipede leads them to Thistle's house, and they cautiously make their way in after shooting the bird.

The phoenix proves difficult, but Falin's flame wards buy them enough time to realize it's keeping its distance from the table with the bodies. They manage to weaponize Yaad and defeat and eat the bird.

Chapter 64-65:

Marcille wrenches open the book and they meet the lion. They begin thinking of a way to take down the Laigon.

Falin points out that if the Laigon is hanging out with Thistle, then it hasn't been sleeping or hunting, so her brother is probably really hungry. Senshi points out that flight is very energetically demanding too, and his mouth is real small.

They quickly get to work. The rest of this chapter and chapter 65 are skipped, since they still have plenty of bicorn meat. Notably, due to the Laigon being able to fly, they will arrive quicker, but the gang doesn't need to hunt, so it works out.

Chapter 66:

Between his panicking and self-harm, Thistle takes a bit longer to figure out what to do, since the Laigon doesn't comfort him like the Faligon did.

Chapter 67:

As they watch Thistle and the Laigon arrive, Falin is having second thoughts. Seeing him again is making her think about the plan to eat the dragon parts later. After all, isn't this exactly what Laios always wanted? But can he even survive on the surface like that? What if they save and restore him... and he's furious with her for ruining his dream.

The Laigon takes the bait and excitedly (and messily) devours the bicorn curry and rice. He then curls up and goes to sleep.

Unlike Laios, Falin doesn't consider that the chimera might have more than one brain. Tears in her eyes, she carefully approaches, and swings her mace-staff with all her might.

Falin breaks down crying. Marcille sees the results, and heals Laios' fractured head without reviving him. Now he's just sleeping. After a group hug to comfort her, Falin redoubles her determination, and they go to confront Thistle.

Chapter 68:

Identical, other than some slight name-drop changes.

Chapter 69:

Marcille has long term plans for being dungeon lord, but for now they plan to just use it to help Laios.

Falin isn't surprised to hear that Marcille is a half-elf. She suspected for a while. However, Thistle's callous taunting quickly pisses her off, and when he mentions the sterility, he nearly falls over as a stone spike erupts through the table and nearly impales him.

Infuriated, Thistle warps the room and unleashes the dragons.

The rest of the chapter plays out the same, with everyone getting separated. Falin escapes to the shelf, but everyone else gets got.

Chapter 70:

As the dragons begin fighting each other, Falin hides behind some bowls and starts chanting something while keeping an eye on Thistle.

Once he is distracted shouting orders at the dragons, she takes careful aim with her staff, and unleashes her spell, teleporting right behind Thistle, and disarming him. She may not be as burly as Laios, but Falin is a tough girl, and is easily able to overpower the elf twink.

Chapter 71:

She ties him up to her back and starts retrieving everyone's bodies.

Thistle cries fraud, and Falin explains that teleportation is actually a fairly recent invention. No wonder Thistle was terrified of Mithrun. This is the sort of magic not even the ancients were aware of.

Falin is still furious at Thistle, but decides to make a deal with him. He may choose. Either she kills him, and the party does as they please, or he may dispel the dragons and restore the room, and remain as their prisoner. If he does this, he has her word that they will do nothing to harm the people of the golden country.

Chapter 72:

Thistle, terrified what they may do to his people (An empty implied threat, but Thistle doesn't know that), reluctantly agrees. She lets him have his book just long enough to dispel his magic (Under threat that she'll teleport a rock into his head if he doesn't return it right away. Another empty threat), then she ties him up again, using proper rope, so he can't even move.

Falin revives the rest of the party. Marcille is very distraught that she died, and hugs Falin tightly. They are all very impressed that Falin managed to pull it off.

The lion is miffed that it can't feed on Thistle's desires while its current marks are watching. To make matters worse, Marcille is in no hurry to unseal the book, slamming it shut so she can rest after being revived.

Marcille and Falin talk about half-elves while Isutsumi and Chilchuck go grab drinks. Thistle continues to seethe.

Senshi prepares the tiny green dragon. He doesn't have the plant nectar, but it still turns out great. They feed some to the tied up Thistle. He reluctantly admits it's pretty good.

The gang take shifts over the night to watch the prisoner. As a curse of immortality person, Thistle doesn't need to sleep.

Chapter 73-74:

Marcille wakes up with a massive hangover. For a moment, she conflates a dream she had with last night, and panics that her first 'time' with Falin wasn't in her right mind.

Kabru arrives with the canaries. No one knows about Marcille's black magic, and Falin is pretty reasonable, so Kabru is optimistic about this meeting between them and the canaries.

Izutsumi and Marcille hide upstairs, Senshi prepares tea stuff, and Thistle sits in the corner, still seething.

Negotiations... go shockingly well! The canaries are impressed they were able to capture Thistle alive, and after a little questioning, it's clear Falin hasn't fallen under the dungeon's spell. They are a little grossed out by the bavarois, but most adventurers are a little weird.

When Falin mentions the lion, Kabru asks for permission to explain the danger. After all, the reason demon discussion is banned is to hide the existence of wish granting, and they already know about that part.

With Chilchuck and Kabru's help, Falin ends up coming to a very satisfactory deal with the elves. They will hand over Thistle and the books, on the condition that the canaries' forces provide all the assistance they can in preserving, transporting, and eating Laios. Falin is even able to cite the phoenix as evidence that this plan is viable.

Falin and Pattadol shake on it, and everyone is excited that the danger has passed.

Unfortunately, this premature happy ending is disrupted by something everyone forgot about.

Falin's pearlipede is privy to this entire conversation. And so is the lion. It manages to pop out of the unsealed half, and warns Marcille about the canaries, fueling her fear, and when Mithrun breaks into her room as the negotiations are being finalized, Marcille panics and unseals the lion.

Chapter 75:

Chaos erupts in the house as no one is quite sure what is going on. The canaries rush upstairs to help Mithrun, but they fail to stop Marcille before she declares her lordship.

The canaries are attacked by giant spiders while Marcille absconds. She vanishes before Falin or the others can see her. Falin's party heads upstairs to find Marcille, but only find dead spiders and wrapped up elves.

Chapter 76:

They help Lycion and Kabru carry everyone outside, including Thistle. Lycion fills Falin in on what happened upstairs and she is mortified. They leave Thistle with them, and head out into the remixed dungeon to try and find Marcille and talk her down.

Chapter 77-78:

Everyone receives word that Falin has taken down the lord of the dungeon.

When the chaos starts to unfold, Flamela receives an update from Lycion. Negotiations had been going well with Falin, but a member of her party went rogue, and is now the lord.

With Falin's party confirmed to be working to stop Marcille, the canaries do not attack them, instead focusing on finding Marcille.

Worried that the elves will kill Marcille, Namari, Toshiro, and the Orcs head out to try and find Marcille or Falin first.

Chapter 79-80:

Marcille has approximately 25% less longing in her eyes as she stares at Laios frozen in ice.

Not being in quite the same rush as canon, they don't accidentally fall in the water, instead running down the stairs.

They find the mushrooms and retrieve their stuff. The familiars are disconcerting, but at least they are ostensibly on their side.

They attempt to head in the direction the mushrooms were heading, but don't get far before hitting a dead end. As they try to figure out what to do, a massive flying snake pounces and gobbles them up.

The party panics as the long thin chamber begins to slowly fill with fluid. With the mouth clamped shut, they decide to run as far back as they can. Falin is pretty sure intestines don't have acid, right?

After a harrowing few minutes, they are pooped out in Marcille's front yard.

After reuniting and bathing, Falin tells Marcille about their deal with the canaries, and implores Marcille to reconsider.

Marcille refuses and reveals her dream. Falin doesn't laugh at her, but is concerned. She remembers how miserable the people of the golden country were. Surely the dungeon's power can only extend lives through that same curse.

Notably, due to not eating Thistle, the lion is still in its quadrupedal form. The lion does its best to convince Falin and the others, but after what Kabru told them about the demon, it rings pretty hollow.

Falin refuses to help the demon, not wanting Marcille to become another Thistle.

Marcille is upset, and decides she can make her dream come true by herself. She has the gang confined to the kitchen. She'll do it herself, and they'll see how lovely her dream is later.

Chapter 81:

Falin has no idea what kind of monster Donato is.

Operation Hometown Cuisine proceeds as normal, though Falin doesn't have the realization about Marcille's fears, since she didn't pry into her nightmare.

After failing her persuasion roll on Marcille, Falin gets fed up and grabs Donato's hand, then teleports the doppelganger out of the tree.

Chapter 82:

Identical.

Chapter 83:

Mostly the same. Kabru isn't a prisoner. While the canaries prepare to fight the monster army, they have Kabru escort Thistle to the entrance. Thistle is mostly just resigned at this point. He spots the golden country as part of the new patchwork dungeon, and notices it is off in the corner away from the action. At least Marcille isn't putting them in danger.

Kabru meets up with Toshiro, Namari, and the orcs.

Chapter 84:

Ofc Falin also comes up with the mushroom disguises. Toshiro isn't sure how to feel seeing Falin dressed as a big dumb shroom.

Falin frantically explains how she's pretty sure the lion had been grooming Marcille to be the lord the whole time. That's why she's so out of control.

Lycion explains that when things get this bad, the only solution is to kill the dungeon lord. Thistle calls bullshit. He lost the position without being killed. Lycion clarifies that as long as the demon supports them, there is no other solution.

So Falin proposes they deal with the demon itself.

Lycion shoots that down too. As everyone heads out to fight the monsters, Falin is left despondent.

At Marcille's behest, the lion possesses the pearlipede, engulfing her arm, and speaks to Falin. It tries to convince her to join Marcille. After all, don't they love each other? Chilchuck retorts that if you really love someone, both sides have to be willing to compromise.

The lion tries another tactic. It asks about their favorite foods. Falin's favorite food is ice cream, particularly a swirl of orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream. (If she had been given the chance, she would have discovered exorcism sorbet to be her favorite.)

Unlike Laios, who realizes the lion's weakness in this fight, Falin is just left feeling even more hopeless. But ultimately, she decides to head for Marcille, not knowing what else to do.

Chapter 85:

Falin is quite delighted to see Laios, and is sure it means Marcille isn't too far gone.

Things proceed mostly the same, except Falin again poofs the doppelgangers away. As the party keeps climbing towards Marcille, Falin throws out the armor piercing questions. If Marcille is so callous to create fake versions of her parents, why not just create fake versions of her friends that agree with her dream.

Because a fake isn't the real thing. And what Falin wants is Marcille. The real Marcille.

Marcille starts to break down, admitting that the whole reason she's doing this is because she can't stand the thought of losing Falin and the rest of her friends.

Falin gently embraces Marcille, and explains. If Marcille spends all her time worrying about when their time together will end, then they won't get to enjoy the time they do have together. As they look deep into each other's eyes, Marcille's eyes swimming with tears, she leans forward and-

Senshi ruins the moment by explaining that they already know how to live longer healthier lives. A BALANCED DIET! A HEALTHY CIRCADIAN RHYTHM! AND MODERATE EXERCISE.

The moment is ruined, but it's okay. Marcille clings to Falin as she can't help but laugh as she sobs. Falin smiles and gently rubs Marcille's back. Everything finally feels like it's going to be okay.

Right?

Chapter 86-Finale

#delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi #manga spoilers #anime spoilers #alternate universe #marcille donato #spoilers #laios touden #falin touden #farcille #fanfic #role swap au #Laios got Eaten #dungeon meshi fanfic #chimera laios

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justmenoworries · 10 months ago

Text

some unorganized thoughts about Vox and Valentino Hazbin Hotel

Spoilers For Hazbin Hotel episode 2

TW: Discussions and depictions of abusive relationships, sexual assault, extortion and financial abuse

So going by the promo material shown to us, a lot of fans seem to think that Vivzie has changed course on VoxVal and that it's going to be a much more healthy relationship than previously implied.

Not gonna lie, that disappoints me.

Because depicting an abusive romantic relationship with an imperfect and unexpected victim would have been extremely interesting. We already know Valentino is a piece of shit who doesn't care about anything but himself and profit.

The "Addict" music video and the prequel comic "Dirty Healings" make that very clear.

Valentino regularly assaults Angel, keeps Angel's earnings for himself and tries to keep Angel in the studio as long as possible, even getting angry when Angel goes out by himself. Even if it's to get money for Val.

And for all of his faults, it's very easy for the viewer to feel sympathy for Angel. Angel is a likable character who's been shown to have a much kinder side to him via his friendship with Cherry and him trying to comfort Charlie in the pilot after her pitch for the Happy Hotel flops.

Vox though?

Vox is slated to be a main antagonist. He's a fellow Overlord of Hell. Someone for whom it'd be much harder to believe that he'd let anyone treat him like Valentino treats Angel.

And yet...

To be fair, this artwork is from the in-character Instagram accounts, which were already confirmed as non-canonical. (The accounts themselves are sadly archived now due to some really messed up stuff that happened with the Octavia and Stolas accounts.)

Still, depicting Vox as one of Valentino's victims would have been pretty intriguing. It shows that this kind of thing can happen to anyone, no matter the gender or financial or social situation. It would also acknowledge that just because someone is a victim of abuse doesn't mean they're pure, innocent or weak. And that no matter the circumstances, no one deserves to be treated like Valentino treats Vox and Angel.

I'm honestly hoping that this aspect of the VoxVal relationship isn't entirely gone and I kinda think it isn't.

In episode 2 we see right off the bat that Vox doesn't really like Valentino. And it's easy to see why.

Valentino is a spoiled angry manchild with no self control. He needs Velvette and Vox to reign him in, otherwise he's going to do stupid shit like waltz up to the princess of Hell's doorstep with a gun in hand. Because he can't handle the idea that one of his employees is living somewhere he didn't approve.

If Vox hadn't stopped him and talked him out of it, Val would have gotten the VVVs into some serious shit. His violent streaks can also not be talked down completely, they need to be satisfied somehow. Vox needs to offer Val the lowest earners to shoot at and work out his aggression on or Val's going to continue to go on a rampage and most likely tear apart more of Velvette's models.

Speaking frankly, Valentino seems way more trouble than he's worth. Vox and Velvette appear to be doing all the work in their shared empire while Val just throws tantrums and forces them to go out of their way to calm him down.

So if that's the case, why do the other Vs puts up with Val?

In Alastor's and Vox' duet in episode 2, Alastor has this very interesting thing to say about Vox and his relationship to Valentino and Velvette:

"Is Vox as strong as he purports? Or is it based on his support? He'd be powerless without the other Vs."

What's also interesting is Val's and Velvette's reaction to it.

They're smiling. Like they agree.

Alastor also reveals that Vox was trying to get Alastor to join the Vs. Alastor declined.

Vox of course tries to deny all of that, but in the process gets so worked up he short-circuits himself and causes a city-wide blackout.

If Alastor is telling the truth here (and we don't really have a reason to believe he isn't), that puts everything in a whole new light.

Vox is he brains of the operation but is he also the only thing that's keeping it together? Val and Velvette don't really get along (Velvette insults Val behind his back, Val rips apart her models when he's angry) and both don't seem to respect Vox that much. Velvette lets him deal with Val's bad moods, Val doesn't hesitate to throw stuff at Vox when he's pissed (the fact that Vox nonchalantly dodges the glass Valentino throws at him implies this is not the first time). They both have a look of disdain on their faces when Vox hugs them during "Status Quo".

So why does Vox go to all this trouble to keep these two assholes in line if he doesn't really care for them and they in turn have no love for him?

Maybe for business reasons, but Vox already has a giant multi-media empire, right? So again, what does he need the other Vs for?

I think it has to do with Vox's need to be admired and liked and at the top.

See, another thing this episode tells us about Vox is that he's deeply, deeply, insecure.

He has a dozen different programs where he changes his outfits, approach and demeanor to cater to every single sinner possible, he throws out new business ideas on the fly so he'll always be the newest trend everyone follows. If something (or someone) comes up that cracks his cool confident businessman facade even a little he can't handle it and literally breaks down.

Really, Alastor puts it best:

"Is Vox insecure? Pursuing allure? Between this fad and that, is nothing working? Every day he's got a new format."

So Vox doesn't just want to be powerful and popular, he wants to be the most powerful and the most popular and his shows alone aren't going to cut it for that.

That's why he needs Velvette and Valentino. They provide the content that draws the viewers Vox so desperately craves. Without them he'd be all on his own, might lose large chunks of his viewership. And that's something I think Vox is deeply afraid of.

So no matter how little he might actually like them, regardless how shitty Valentino treats him, Vox needs these two. In his view at least, he can't afford to lose them.

#hazbin hotel #voxval #staticmoth #hazbin vox #hazbin valentino #tw rape mention #tw abuse #tw rape #hazbin hotel theory

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butterflydm · 7 months ago

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The Queen of Attolia (plus some WoT comparisons)

Haha, it's been a few months but I got my chance to read the next book in the Queen's Thief series and it was so good! I am going to have two sections in this review -- my overall thoughts and then some specific thoughts that are mostly for @markantonys due to the series being her recommendation and I have a lot of thoughts about the comparisons between the Queen of Attolia x Eugenides and Mat Cauthon x Fortuona, because you can really do a point by point comparison, though I don't think it was intentional -- I think that Megan Whalen Turner and Robert Jordan were both going for the same idea but Turner was, imo, wildly more successful than Jordan at it.

But first, thoughts that don't particularly relate to The Wheel of Time:

We open with a tense cat and mouse chase between The Thief and the Queen's guardmen and that is really the heart of this book when it comes down to it -- a cat and mouse game between two extremely complicated people, and how they have to navigate in the world that they share.

Turner is really good at writing these fun action scenes where you're very much in the PoV of the character.

The (apparent) foundation that is laid here (that later gets overturned because Gen got to me again and he was once again acting on personal information that he kept from me for the majority of the book, lol, love him for it) - is very much beginning as enemies who have respect for each other's skills. At this point in the book, I knew that they would end up married due to spoilers and I know that it's considered a good romance, so I was really looking forward to seeing the journey, especially since I did get spoiled about the huge upcoming traumatic event.

But we start from this strong narrative place where they are aware of each other and have respect for each other but they belong to two separate counties that have some political tensions and they are both important parts of those countries and can't set that aside.

Because of how bold Gen is, Attolia has been backed into a corner by his actions and we actually see this affirmed by Gen's cousin (the Queen of Eddis) and her thoughts on the matter -- she is aware that Gen going into Attolia's country to spy on her is a dangerous thing for him to do.

And then the cutting off of his hand. This is brutal, and it feels brutal, and then we also get these hints of Attolia's reaction afterwards (that we get into more later) but especially her reaction when he begs her not to hurt him anymore and you can really see her feel the impact of what she did. She doesn't allow herself to show her remorse but even this early on, we're getting hints of it as readers.

Then when Gen goes home, we actually see that the Queen of Eddis also maintains a mask in public, just like Attolia does, so we see another hint here that Gen understands that kind of masking. Eddis looks just as cold and impenetrable to Attolia's guards who return Gen to her, as Attolia looks to everyone else.

I really appreciated how long the recovery time was after the loss of Gen's hand and how much time we spent with him to feel him get used to the changes (and how economically Turner is able to pass that time). We get these tiny looks at Attolia as well, and her difficultly sleeping at night, which we expand on later.

Then we get the return of the Magus from Sounis! It was really nice to see him again, dropping in to visit Gen, but he's also here to give us that continuation of the division between personal and political -- as a person who genuinely likes Gen, the Magus was upset about what Attolia did to him, but as the advisor to the king of Sounis, he knew that they would be able to use Eddis's reaction to Attolia's act on the political stage.

But what a way to learn that the two countries are at war!

It takes some time for Gen to really believe that Eddis went to war over him, and we see him processing that over the course of the book as well, and they talk about it more. I do think that Gen does not always realize how deeply other people care about him.

Turner really is so good at giving us these pieces of information that reframe the earlier story -- now we know that during all those snippets of Attolia that we had earlier, she was also dealing with realizing that her actions with Gen led to the war that she's currently embroiled in.

The progression of the war was really well done (again, Turner is very economical with her narrative here), with what details she chooses to focus in on, and we see that Gen, even though he has gained more of an ability to have that cold and impassive mask like Attolia has, still does things like make sure that no one is on the ships that he's destroying, because he doesn't like getting people killed.

Turner also does a really good job showing how destabilizing the war is to all three countries involved, and how the war is hurting everything.

We take a little mythology story break here in the narrative, which was a fun story about love and choice, both of which are very relevant. This story definitely does end up applying pretty heavily to Gen and Attolia in the themes, and I like the style that Turner tells these stories.

I love how perceptive Gen is once he's been apprised of the situation and we get to see the thought process that leads to him blaming the emperor's ambassador more for the loss of his hand than he does Attolia herself, because he sees that ambassador understood that seeing Gen maimed and returned to Eddis would be more like to spark a war than just killing him would, and a war is exactly what he needs in order to try to justify getting his troops onto Attolia's land. All the politics here are pretty complex but I feel like the book does a good job explaining the reasoning.

And this is also the point where it's really confirmed that Attolia knows that the ambassador is underestimating her, and that she also understands a lot of the things that he thinks that he's pulling over on her. But because of the fragile position that she's in, she needs to entertain the ambassador's advice and his attempts to sidle in on her country.

Quote about Gen: "It was like him that if he had to have a thing, to have the fanciest thing of its kind."

I really like all this about the cost of war; the price of war; and why this outside party has been trying to urge war on the three countries.

We also get Eddis admitting to Gen that she thinks that she could have possibly controlled herself and not started a war if he had only been killed, rather than treated in a way that she finds so insulting, and that it made her so angry that she made a choice that had now brought a lot of damage to their own country that she wishes could be avoided. And Gen can see, basically, that the ambassador of Medes is the one who put both Eddis and Attolia in this trap, and he was used as the tool to start this war.

We really move into Attolia's PoV and we get the story of the broken amphora (she thought about it when she saw Gen after she'd had his hand cut off) -- it was, essentially, the moment that marked when her life changed and she couldn't be a young girl anymore.

This really is a heartbreaking story -- how after her brothers died and she was the heir, her father essentially sold her off to be married, and her fiance was actively plotting against her father and how to suck her country dry for his own benefit after they were married. And how she kept herself quiet and small and just listened, but then poisoned him at their wedding feast, also having her captain of the guard kill the next man who tried to force her to marry him. We also see here that she only trusts loyalty that she can buy in gold (because every other kind of loyalty failed her).

Then we finally get the big reunion! This scene is so tense, with both Attolia and Gen wearing these cold masks (we later realize that Gen has pretty much directly modeled his mask on Attolia's) and we get this private negotiation that is only for the two of them. And this moment when it is literally just them, together on a boat, with no one else to interrupt them... just exquisitely done.

It's been implied before, but this is where we get our confirmation that Attolia has been just as haunted by Gen this entire book as he's been haunted by her. They've been separated for most of the book but constantly haunted by each other. I gotta share the quote:

"He was too young to have bones that ached. No matter what he thought of himself, he was hardly more than a boy. A boy without one hand. She reached up to push the wet hair out of her face, wondering when she had sunk so low that she had begun torturing boys. It was a question she had asked herself night after night, lying awake in her bed or sitting in a chair by the window watching the stars slowly move across the sky."

We've been seeing her do those things the entire book, but this is the first moment when we're told what she was thinking about in those moments.

We also get our Big Revelation here that Gen has had feelings for Attolia since before the events of The Thief! How does he hide these things from us so well! Gen! We learn here (and we get even more detail later) that he's been feeling drawn to her for literal years. That part of the reason that he made those trips that she thought were mockery was because he wanted to be close to her and get a look at her and see if she really was the monster that their spies reported that she was, or if she was just a woman who was being forced to make difficult, maybe impossible choices.

And then we get our story reversal where Attolia gets 'rescued' by the ambassador and his people, and we get to see how she behaves in these circumstances where she doesn't believe that she can trust Gen (sure, he said he loves her, but she cut his hand off! And he's a known liar! how can she trust him?) vs this dude that she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she absolutely cannot trust.

The moment when she tells her handmaidens not to put on her golden bee earrings, I knew exactly what she'd done, especially when we got Gen's reaction. The writing doesn't have to tell us in the moment what's occurring (that she put on the earrings that he left for her one time and that she said she would only wear if she'd decided to marry him) for us to know, and I love that. This coded sign that only he will understand.

It's the most unique and fascinating marriage proposal I've ever read. Well done. Haha, and I did guess that the gray-haired man that he fought so well with was his father. <3

Love the moment when we see him process that marrying the Queen of Attolia is going to mean... that he'll be the King of Attolia. He just wanted to marry her because he liked her! <3 <3

And everything after that was just so delightful. Working together for the double-cross and then the process of Eddis and Attolia working out the treaty and Eddis trying to convince Gen that they can have the treaty without the marriage, and his rejection of that, and then essentially testing Attolia with that offer as well.

I also really like one of the moments when Attolia realizes that she can trust Gen, which is when Eddis tells her that of course Gen also lies to her. Constantly. And I feel like that reframed a lot of her interactions with Gen for Attolia. Realizing that Gen wasn't being maliciously deceitful towards her; he's just Like That With Everyone. Plus, I can't forget the moment when, after the battle is won, Attolia and Eddis return to where Gen is being held and Attolia believes for a moment that he's been poisoned as a parting shot by the Medes ambassador and we can literally watch as her heart completely shatters and she is completely undone and devastated in her head and even shaken where people can see her. It's beautifully written.

And we get the moment with the gods (who are very real in this series but very carefully choose how they interfere) and it's just as well done as it was in the first book. The windows in the palace shattering as the goddess responds to Gen's sacrifice! And basically laying out to him that his suffering was required to reach this ending and would he trade it back if he could -- if it meant that Attolia would have been forced to make that deal with the Medes ambassador. And Gen would rather have Attolia in his life and wanting to marry him than have his hand back.

Just that whole final section that leads up to the ending of the book, with Attolia really being able to believe Gen when he says that he loves her... it's so good. How the narrative (and Eddis and Gen) are able to tease out Attolia's feelings for Gen, and how we end on that final quiet moment between the two of them. Really powerful ending.

It's a really good book and it's a really good romance. Gen and Attolia are both fantastic characters and even with all the twists and turns and revelations, their relationship felt incredibly captivating and believable. I really believe that Gen wants to break through Attolia's walls and, just as important, I feel like there's a person on the other side of those walls who is worth being loyal to and loving. You understand why Gen wants to be Attolia's husband, even after she ordered his hand cut off, which is very impressive storytelling.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to read the The King of Attolia soonish, and not in, like, four months.

And now onto the Wheel of Time/Mat & Tuon comparison section of the review for @markantonys 💖

It really does feel like a point-by-point improvement on Mat & Tuon, though I suspected unintentionally (it looks like this book came out 3 years before CoT).

Starting with the characters: wow, Attolia really is so much the person that I would have wanted Tuon to be. And she feels like the person that Jordan wanted readers to believe that Tuon was. Every place where I was going through my WoT reread and going "footage not found!" about something the narrative tried to claim about Tuon is something where the footage is very much found for Attolia. While Tuon's potentially heartbreaking backstory really is just backstory and ends up have zero impact on her active storyline, Attolia's tragic backstory is the entire spine of what her character is going through and what Gen can help her with.

We get to see and really experience Attolia's context, which is not something that we got with Tuon. Jordan makes an attempt, I guess, with Karade's sob story about Tuon and the doll, but he made the bizarre choice to frame this story in Karade's PoV (Tuon's slave), not from Tuon's PoV. For whatever reason, Jordan always insisted on making Tuon the most insufferably smug person in the world in her own PoVs.

With Attolia, we get those breaks in her mask that I kept desperately wanting us to get with Tuon but we never did. Again, this is mostly only for the reader, not even for Gen -- the reader gets to see behind Attolia's mask. And so Attolia is captivating and fascinating and I understand why she felt like she had to do these horrible things.

With Attolia, we actually get her being removed from her power base and feeling helpless, which Jordan never had the guts to do with Tuon (when Mat kidnaps Tuon, he lets her take her slave along with her, and then some of his allies decide to support Tuon over him despite having zero narrative or character-based reason to do so), which means that when Attolia regains her power, it has a much bigger impact on the narrative, while it felt like Tuon never really lost hers. Attolia and Gen both manage to be scrappy underdogs, in their own way, and that's something that Tuon never was.

Both Attolia and Tuon commit horrific acts, but while we see Attolia's remorse and how it torments her, Tuon always seems to shrug off the horrible shit that she does. It doesn't ever affect her emotionally and she never seems to think past it after it's done. She is a character without remorse or reflection (I think she vaguely thinks that it's a shame one time when she's pondering how she will break Mat's spirit but that's about it). And Attolia has those two qualities in spades. Attolia feels like a real woman to me in a way that Tuon never did. We see the brave face that she puts on, we see her regret and remorse, we see her loneliness, we see her jealousy over the Queen of Eddis, who is able to trust the members of her court in a way that Attolia has never felt she could trust her own. Tuon just feels really shallow in comparison to Attolia.

Even in the first cat and mouse scene with Attolia and Gen in this book, you can see the push and pull and the narrative equality of the characters. Gen has been in and out of four different strongholds of hers, and she feels that he's pretty much taunting her with his abilities. There's a mutual respect for the other person which was one of the big things that was missing for me with Mat and Tuon. In her final PoV in KoD, we learn that she has not had an ounce of respect for him during this entire journey -- it's not until she sees how the Band respects him that she considers whether or not there may be more to him than just being a pretty and dumb sextoy. And the big problem with that is that was the period when the 'romance' was being developed. During the time when she didn't have any respect for him as a person. And that makes it very difficult to find their relationship compelling, even apart from the fact that I found Mat himself profoundly unlikable in CoT & KoD.

Now, Mat being a terrible person (in CoT & KoD) and Tuon being a terrible person (always and forever) are not things that would stop me from shipping them in general. I am capable of finding Awful4Awful pairings compelling (like Louis and Lestat from Interview with the Vampire). They don't have to be good people, but there has to be something in the relationship that grabs onto me at any level, and that's where Mat and Tuon failed.

We can see in Attolia's thoughts that she envies the relationship that Gen has with the Queen of Eddis -- she envies that loyalty and wishes she could have something like that of her own. That sort of envy was also missing from CoT & KoD (I am going to mention, briefly, that some of these elements were present in the Mat & Tuon relationship in AMoL but at that point, it was just too late for me to give a shit about their relationship, because CoT & KoD thoroughly killed any interest that I had in them). Whether because of his own personal kinks or because of the plans that Jordan had for the Outriggers, Jordan made Tuon too much of an island; too much of an wall. The way he wrote her made me feel like nothing Mat could do would ever really matter to her in any way; that she was content to use him up and then throw him out and that's just not my thing. It may have been Jordan's kink but it is not mine.

So I definitely understand @markantonys's point about this feeling like a well-written version of Mat and Tuon! It really does feel like this is the sort of relationship that Jordan wanted to write with Mat and Tuon but didn't have the skill at romance writing to pull off. Something like Mat and Tuon is Hard Mode Romance and Jordan wasn't even always good at Easy Mode Romance.

Two of the key elements that really makes Attolia and Gen work for me is just getting to sit and exist in Attolia's emotional reactions to the wrong that she has done to Gen; and Gen acknowledging and processing the harm that she'd done. And both of those things were desperately needed with Mat and Tuon, both as characters and as a romance.

A major major part of why Mat and Tuon failed for me is because I didn't feel like Mat was actually reacting to her realistically for the vast majority of their page time together; she threatens to invade a city and he laughs it off, she assaults his companions that he freed from slavery and he thinks it's hot?!?, she talks about how she likes to torture women and he ignores it.

If Tuon had cut off Mat's hand, the way that Attolia cut off Gen's, it feels like Jordan would have just had Mat shrug it off and then buy her a puppy as a reward or something as his response. Here, we get Gen begging Attolia "please don't hurt me again" after she cuts off his hand and then we have months of separation and recovery and processing before the narrative takes him anywhere near her again. And Attolia is forced to reckon with what she did, first by being haunted by the memories of him crying from the pain and loss, and then she has to face it directly by seeing his stump, seeing the pain that he's still in (because of her). She has to admit (not just to herself but to him) the damage that she did before they can move forward together. This is something that Tuon never shows herself capable of on any level. Tuon is never allowed to grow as a person the way that Attolia is, or to be vulnerable with the audience or with Mat.

I definitely still really felt the Mat-Gen comparison in this book too. Lots of places, but there's a great moment in the meadow with him, Eddis, and the Magus, where Eddis explains that Gen has deliberately made people believe that he can't fight but he also still gets miffed sometimes if people fall for his carefully constructed facade.

And the moment when Gen tells Eddis that he plans to steal the Queen of Attolia. It really feels, again, like this is the sort of vibe that Jordan wanted us to believe existed between Mat and Tuon: "She may be a fiend from hell to make me feel this way but even if I've got to hate myself for the rest of my life, this is what I want. I dream about her at night." This intense draw and this pull that he feels towards her. Jordan appears to want us to believe that Mat feels this kind of draw towards Tuon at the end of KoD but has not created any kind of foundation in Mat's characterization as to why.

We also got the long separation between Attolia and Gen where they are haunting each other with their absence. Attolia and Gen just get the time that is needed to develop this relationship in a way that's believable. Time in the story, not page time. This book is shorter than CoT & KoD, and probably shorter than if you made a "Mat and Tuon" novella out of their scenes in those books. It's the actual 'in world' time that matters, that gives Attolia and Gen time to think about each other and miss each other in a genuine way.

For another comparison -- Gen 'steals' Attolia to marry her like Mat kidnaps Tuon, but the context is so incredibly different on every level. Mat gets, essentially, tricked into kidnapping Tuon by the 'finn (it never would have happened if he hadn't heard that prophecy) while Gen acts with intention the whole way through. Technically, in both cases, Gen and Mat are 'saving' Attolia and Tuon by kidnapping them, but we feel the weight of it with Gen and Attolia in a way that we don't with Mat and Tuon. And a lot of that is because the bulk of Gen and Attolia's build-up happens before the kidnapping, during the times when they're separated and haunted by each other. So once the kidnapping happens, it's quick-paced and moves the plot forward rather than, you know, just fucking around with a circus for a month.

We also know that Attolia has complicated feelings about Gen already. I talked about this with @markantonys but that really is something that needed to happen with Tuon so much sooner than it does in the books (there are two big Mat & Tuon scenes in AMoL that desperately needed to happen back in CoT, imo -- Tuon trusting that Mat isn't trying to kill her; and Tuon going wild trying to protect Mat in the command tent).

Attolia and Gen also genuinely have things that they can each offer the other person, while with Mat and Tuon, none of the things that Tuon offers are things that Mat actually wants (slaves bowing to him; being dressed up like one of the Blood; being formal at all times - these are things that some of Mat's fans want for him, but not things he wants for himself) and she just feels like this ravenous black hole that constantly takes and takes and takes and gives back nothing of value. When Gen is startled at the realization that marrying the Queen of Attolia makes him the King and he'll have to actually be a king, it's this incredibly sweet moment, because it illustrates so clearly that he wants Attolia for herself and not her country. When Mat reacts against the idea that marrying Tuon makes him royalty, it just kinda makes him look dumb, because we've been given nothing of value in Tuon herself as a person, and no reason for Mat to care about her.

With Tuon, Mat talks about how she's better than other nobles, but nothing she actually does on the page is better than any other Seanchan noble. It's all 'footage not found'. By contrast, every single positive thing that Gen says about Attolia is backed up by the text and we even get shown additional positive qualities that no one needs to talk about because it's right there in the text.

With Tuon, it feels like Mat is attempting to gaslight me (and himself?) into believing that an interesting character exists there despite all the evidence against it, while Attolia simply is a compelling character based on what happens on the page.

That fact that there are so many raw similarities between the two pairings, but my reaction to them are so different really does illustrate the importance of execution, imo. Attolia and Gen's romance manages to travel so much further than Mat and Tuon's, while also being considerably more economical with how many pages it took to get us there.

The point-by-point comparison (aka WoT's failure of execution):

Tuon's interior life is poorly illustrated in comparison to Attolia's; because she starts off as an even worse person than Attolia but so much less character work is done on her than on Attolia, who is haunted this entire book by how she has "sunk so low as to torture boys" (on that note, Turner's choice to make Gen the younger and more openly vulnerable one really works here).

Seeing that Attolia's handmaidens are genuinely affectionate and protective of her at the end of this book is so incredibly touching, because she had no expectation of their loyalty (she believes in the loyalty of gold, and gold alone, for the most part). Tuon, otoh, has slaves that she expects to be subservient and loyal unto death, so her slaves' affection for her (that was trained into them) is something that completely fails to move me. This difference in the expectations of the character also makes a huge difference in how their PoVs come off -- Attolia's walls are due to her internal vulnerability and we get to see that vulnerability in her PoVs; while Tuon comes across as full of herself and incredibly arrogant, taking everyone around her for granted.

We're told that Tuon is smart and perceptive but rarely get any evidence; while Turner shows us Attolia's intelligence and how she sees a lot more than people like the Medes ambassador believe that she does. We get to see Attolia's intelligence in how she tricks the Medes ambassador into believing that she's so much less perceptive and intelligent than she truly is. This is another place where Jordan's unwillingness to ever place Tuon into a genuinely vulnerable position really hurt the character. Turner wasn't afraid to make Attolia the underdog and knew that it wouldn't undermine her as a character, it would strengthen her, because we would get to see who she was in adversity. The set-up of Crossroads of Twilight should have led to us seeing Tuon in adversity but Jordan was allergic to allowing her to be truly vulnerable, and gave her people to hide behind (Selucia & Setalle Anan) the entire time.

Mat as an agent of chaos is wildly downplayed in comparison to Gen as an agent of chaos. The Seanchan end up getting spared the chaos that the end of the Age brought to pretty much every other society, even though Mat seems clearly positioned to bring their society crashing down even as late as Winter's Heart. Gen's actions, otoh, are constantly throwing other people's plans off.

Mat does not behave realistically to the horrible things that Tuon says and does -- with Gen, even though we find out towards the last third of the book that he was already in love with Attolia before the book begins, we still get his raw reactions to her doing things that hurt him. He has nightmares after she orders his hand cut off, his pained begging of her not to hurt him again, and how he develops his own mask of impassiveness that is modeled on her own. Gen also never throws away his moral code in order to try to force himself to be at peace with the relationship -- he grows and changes as a character as a result of his trauma, but he stays himself at the core.

Something else that Jordan could have used more in the books that would have helped develop an understanding of why Mat believes that something exists beyond Tuon's 'cold Empress mask' would have been to make the comparison between Rand's mask and Tuon's mask more clear in the narrative. Because there's too much separation in time between Rand and Mat's interactions with Mat and Tuon's interactions. In this book, seeing that Eddis also needs to put up a queenly mask of not caring about Gen at first (in front of the Attolian guards when they return him to her after his hand has been cut off) helps illustrate why Attolia needs the mask that she uses -- Eddis doesn't trust the Attolians, but Attolia feels like she can trust absolutely no one, and so she always needs the mask and feels like she can never take it off. That's compelling! It could have been compelling in Tuon too, if it had been written better.

On that note: Turner personalizes the damage that Attolia's cold mask and her ruthless defense of herself/her country is doing by having her hurt Gen directly, and that being something that she struggles with over the course of the book. With WoT, Jordan basically did everything he could to hide away the damage that Tuon/the Seanchan were doing from Mat in order to try to justify why he could ~fall in love~ with her (was it intentional? to set their relationship up for a fall later in the Outriggers? we'll never know) without ever actually changing Tuon/the Seanchan for the better, which also meant giving Tuon no reason to have any internal struggles over the choices that she's made.

Gen and Attolia get another thing that Mat and Tuon desperately needed but that Jordan refused to give them: privacy. They negotiate getting married (after Gen has kidnapped Attolia in a much more narratively satisfying kidnapping than Mat and Tuon's!) in privacy, just between the two of them; when we get the conversation about their feelings at the end, again it happens in private. That makes a huge difference. Jordan being unwilling to ever actually yank Tuon away from her full power base and her slaves was a huge hindrance to ever allowing her to be vulnerable. And I do chalk this up to unwillingness and not failures due to plot set-up because there is no good reason to have Selucia tag along on the kidnapping and then it's even more bizarre in CoT & KoD, when the character of Setalle Anan goes from being fond of Mat to all of a sudden acting like he's the worst person in the world and she must protect poor helpless baby girl Tuon from him.

Both Attolia and Tuon get tricked by their respective love interests about who they are as a person because of the facade that they put up, but Attolia still has respect for Gen and his skills, even as she doubts his character, and it is Gen's own actions that show her who he really is and make her believe in him; while with Tuon and Mat, she spends over a month with him and still refuses to look past his surface until she literally has her face rubbed into it by seeing the Band's reactions to him. This difference is a key one in making Attolia's failure to see Gen as a failure due to the protective walls that she has up; while Tuon's failure comes across as her just not being very perceptive or intelligent. And the fact that we don't get the moment when Tuon begins to have even the faintest shred of respect for Mat until the end of Knife of Dreams just meant that I felt even more like all the pages time that Jordan spent on the two of them in CoT & KoD was a complete waste of my time.

We got to have genuine reactions from all of Gen's loved ones about the relationship! This is a huge place where, I guess, Sanderson is the one who failed for a change instead of Jordan because wtf was Perrin's "lol you married now bro? haha" reaction to Mat being married to a slaver? Though Jordan also does this to a certain extent with Thom, who we are supposed to believe is in love with Moiraine, and yet who never calls Mat out on courting a woman who would enslave and torture Moiraine if she had the chance. By contrast, Eddis is genuinely hesitant and worried because of everything they've heard about how cold Attolia is, and because she's the reason that Gen's hand was cut off.

We get to see Attolia and Gen develop a shared language and see behind each other's walls. The moment when she wears the earrings that he left for her, and he knows that it means she's chosen to marry him of her own free will is such a huge and impactful moment, and the only people who are aware of what it means are Attolia and Gen! This is really a failure that happens based on earlier failures of execution: because Mat and Tuon are never allowed to be alone together, it's impossible for them to develop this kind of shared coding and shared language.

12. We also have the 'footage not found' issue, where one of the characters (mostly Mat) tries to tell me something about Tuon but the narrative completely fails to back it up: this is the case with Tuon being intelligent and perceptive (in the narrative shown to us, she never picks up on anything until her nose is forcibly rubbed in it); and this is case with Mat thinking near the end of Knife of Dreams that Tuon belongs in the same 'better than other nobles' bucket as Talmanes when she has never shown herself to be willing to make better choices than other Seanchan nobles: he is still, at this point, worrying that she might enslave him and turn him into her cupbearer; she has not only threatened but actually assaulted his companions; whenever she's placed in a position of power over other people, she takes advantage of it and them. We're told that she's not a child but she also throws a tantrum (and pottery) at Mat at the start of Crossroads of Twilight. This could have worked if Jordan had leaned into the fact that Mat is deliberately lying to himself in order to make his marriage bearable, but that's where things like randomly having Setalle Anan go over to Tuon's side messes with that narrative.

13. When Jordan has Mat think about how Tuon dying would be a deep loss to him, it's just baffling because she has not done a single thing the entire 'courtship' that has shown why in the world Mat would feel that way. All of the attempts at reaching out during the courtship are Mat's, while Tuon just smugly accepts it as her due. Because Attolia doesn't just accept Gen's love as her due, because she actually doesn't believe him and challenges him on it, we get to hear his justification of it and why he feels that way, and then we also get to see her reciprocation. The relationship is a two-way street in The Queen of Attolia.

14. Which ties into the fact that Jordan chose to make Tuon not just a slaver but an enthusiastic slaver who enjoys the slave-breaking process and that is an incredibly dark place to start a character but it could have worked if it had been the beginning of Tuon's character arc and we'd actually watched her change and grow from that position. And she had the narrative set up for it! In her very first chapter, the reader learns that Tuon has the ability to learn to channel! She was created with the narrative juice to have a compelling arc about accepting the truth about herself and her people. And then Jordan gave that arc to Bethamin instead, lol.

15. In both of these stories 'fate' does kinda serve up Gen/Mat to Attolia/Tuon on a silver platter, but the execution of the storylines makes the reveal that fate was acting to push the two of them together so much more effective in The Queen of Attolia. Choice is a much larger consideration in Attolia and Gen's relationship than it is in Mat and Tuon's. There are elements of the higher powers of the world at work in both relationships, but Attolia and Gen have to put in the work themselves and have to face hard emotional truths in order to get us to the satisfying ending. I get the impression that Tuon wouldn't know an emotional truth if it spit in her eye. We actively see both Gen and Attolia consider and reject the idea of solving their main problem (about the war) without needing to get married; we see them choose their marriage and each other.

With Mat and Tuon, this is a lot more muddled. Fate/the Pattern/the 'finn want them to marry each other but we never get any kind of payoff as to why, and this is primarily because of Jordan's other storylines imo. He should not have had Rand already willing to make peace with the Seanchan in his separate storyline. Convincing Rand to be willing should have been Mat's job (because that also would mean that Mat would need to make the arguments to convince the readers). Jordan showing at the end of KoD that Rand is willing to make a deal with the Seanchan, even at the cost of giving in on the matter of slavery, basically completely voided any narrative reason for Mat and Tuon to get married, but without the satisfaction of seeing the two of them grow to a place where they would actively make that choice rather than being motivated by what they believe is necessary (due to prophecy).

There really were the bones of a potentially compelling story with Mat and Tuon, and I really do hope that the show (when we get there) is able to take those bones and turn it into a genuinely compelling story.

#the queen's thief #butterfly reads tqt #butterfly book club #wot book spoilers #a memory of light #wot #wheel of time #seanchan cw #wot meta #my wot meta #irene of attolia #eugenides #mat cauthon

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ddollfface · 10 months ago

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God, I love golden retriever men so much.

*Intensely staring at my fav athlete*

Now, that I have a brainrot~

1. Our lovely Athlete with a nerd darling.

- This would be funny. It is giving black cat × golden retriever. So hard.

- Darling has anemia? She's used to sitting around and reading? Can't walk too long to save her life? He's fucking carrying her everywhere.

- Can you imagine darling bringing a book about his sport (I don't know if you've mentioned what he plays) to the game and reading as they watch him play cuz they don't know crap about sports? He'd be so, "But you're supposed to be watching me." :Insert puppy eyes:

- He's isolating darling? Eh, Darling needs a 4 hour nap after every social gathering anyway.

Ok but-

2. Him with a nerd darling who's a childhood best friend, where darling has a childhood filled with emotional and physical abuse. (I'm finna design a whole ass character to ship him with. If you don't mind, of course.)

- This.

- Don't let me get started on this.

- They would be so power couple coded fr. (Darling knows Athlete is trying to manipulate her. Doesn't care as long as she's getting taken care of.)

- Darling is snarky with a S.

- Darling: "The cheerleader was flirting with you."

Athlete: "I know. :3"

Darling: "Go marry her."

Athlete: "But you're the love of my life. :("

Darling: "Oh, really? I could've sworn it was Cindy instead. Go to her, shoo."

Athlete: "No."

Darling: "Who's bestie are you?"

Athlete: "Yours."

Darling: "Exactly."

- Don't let this fool you, tho. He's def the dominant one in the relationship.

Athlete: "You're my baby :D."

Darling: "Mhmm. Don't say that infront of anyone else."

Athlete: "Why not?"

Darling: "I'll bite your head off, that's why."

(spoiler, he says it in front of everyone and darling does nothing but get shy.)

Darling: "Why would you say that?"

Athlete: "Becuz you're my baby?"

Darling: *cuddles closer to him.* *Whispering* "I'm his baby."

- 💗 anon (if I may) (also, he's my baby now, thank you. I'm keeping him in my head and heart.) (It's so late at night. I just keep thinking about this 😭 and I can't put my thoughts into proper words rn, bear with me on this)

𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐈

𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗦𝗶𝗰𝗸!𝗔𝘁𝗵𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝘅 𝗮𝗳𝗮𝗯!𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿

Trigger Warnings; yandere behaviors, possessive behavior, talk about trauma bonding (both reader and yandere or mentally ill), yandere masking, bad writing, and me rambling (I'm so sorry 💗Nonny lol) If I missed anything, then please let me know ♡ I offically declare you 💗Nonny!! And I don't mind you coming up with your own interpertations of reader and LoveSick!Athlete! Just share 'em! Also, I may or may not have gone on a tiny, just tiny, tangent, so sorry 💗Nonny... Feel free to submit more asks if 'ya want

LoveSick!Athlete can really mold and mend well with most personalities and darlings, this is due to his manipulative personality. A little off-topic, but he really has a hard time understanding who he is because he's always pretending to be what others deem "acceptable". This causes him to have a multitude of identity crises, but when his darling, you, comes into the picture, it makes it easier for him to find himself. He feels like he's the real him whenever he's with you. You just feel so natural, he feels natural, too. It's just right.

And for that reason, I think LoveSick!Athlete would go really well with a childhood!reader, seeing as she's been with him since they were young. And, I'm not too sure if you've read my Yan!Alphabet for him, but I mention LoveSick!Athlete's childhood; let's just say it wasn't the best situation for a kid.

LoveSick!Athlete would feel a special bond with his darling now, seeing as they've been together threw thick and thin. He's trama bounded to you, and you to him. We'll run off the assumption that reader has also had a bad childhood, whether it be an absent parent, abusive sibling/family member/or parent, whatever it is allows you to feel a connection to LoveSick!Athlete, seeing as you have a mutual situation. You both have something to bond over, something that locks you together.

He has a bad home environment, you have a bad home environment. He doesn't feel at home, so you become his home, and he to you.

And I like to run on the assumption that reader is all talk, no bite. And if you've read any of my writing where the reader talks, you'll see that I prefer to write reader as more "real" (to me anyway) because I'm personally not the hugest fan of the "helpless" reader. I like to write a darling who has a mouth, someone who's bratty (but that's 'cause I'm a brat lol).

Anyway, I'm getting off-topic, back to LoveSick!Athlete.

To your idea about a snarky reader, I totally agree. Honestly, LoveSick!Athlete would eat that shit up, no joke. He would love it, as he enjoys the back-and-forth between you two. He loves to press your buttons, wanting to see what sarcastic reply you have ready for him.

The thing is, he knows your just talking shit, never willing to actually do anything. You just run your mouth, and he lets you, but whenever you step outta line, sometimes, he's gotta put you back. Though, you'll never think of it like that. No, no, he's too sweet for that. He's gotta keep that golden retriever vibe going, y'know?

He just swat you on the ass, telling you that you got such a dirty mouth, mamas? I thought you were my little princess, no? Girls with a face like yours shouldn't be speakin' that like-

He'll just move on, as if he didn't just grope your butt, nope, not at all. And you'll be standing there awestruck, face red, and biting your tongue as you try to not overheat in embarrassment!!

It never ceases to entertain him, watching your face widen with surprise whenever he refers to you as his girl, his cute little girlfriend. The way your face heats up when he wraps his strong arm around your waist, putting his cap on your head (a silent sign of possession over you, trying to get the guy in the back to keep his eyes to himself, but you don't need to know that ;)).

In your little monologue, you go over some cheerleader girl (named Cindy??). Though I would agree that chicks (and some dudes) practically flock around LoveSick!Athlete, I would say that he doesn't even pay them any mind, not even entertaining the thought. Don't get me wrong, he'll talk to them, but make it painstakingly clear that he's only got one girl on his mind, you.

Most of the time, the girl will just find it endearing, slapping his shoulder, and telling him that he'd make a great husband or some shit like that. Of course, the chicks joking, making some nice comments to leave the, now awkward, conversation, but LoveSick!Athlete will take it to heart. Now, he's imagining a pretty ring on your finger, something he paid for, he got you. Because he'd be such a good provider for you, don't you know?

Another thought, 'cause I'm on a role, but I'm not sure if I've directly said this or not, but LoveSick!Athlete is a hockey player. I've tried putting strickly hockey photos on all my posts (you should see my Pinterest feed, it's filled with hot guys lolol).

Hockey is an aggressive sport, I would know. I used to ice skate every day for an hour or two. And, trust me, I got to see a lot of hot guys, though I was always too nervous to say anything, that's beside the point.

I can imagine that reader would be the same, intimidated by these testastrone-filled, young men who just wanna get all sweaty and gross. And I prefer to think that reader also doesn't know how to skate, much to LoveSick!Athlete's enjoyment.

Just to torture you, he'll take you to his ice rink, partly wanting to show you off, and also wanting you to rely on him to move around. He won't even let you hold onto the side, nope, all you got is him, babes.

And anyone who's been to a rink before knows that if you're not on the wall, or smack in the middle of the rink, you're in traffic, especially if it's busy. And this means that you gotta go fast, keeping pace with everyone else. And there's always a handful of assholes (usually hockey players) who will purposefully do a hockey stop, flinging a shit tone of ice at newbies.

I imagine that this shit would happen all the time and LoveSick!Athete is enjoying it sm. He gets a rush every time you flinch, clinging onto him tighter, especially when the really fast skaters zoom by you, scaring the crap outta you.

And he won't let you go at your own pace, forcing you to follow his lead. This means you're going far too fast for comfort, leaning on him for support. You're arms wrapped around his bicep, which isn't recommended btw. Your cheek pressed against his arm, holding on for dear life.

You'll snap at him, telling him to shut up and stop enjoying this, you dork. I'm only clinging to 'cause I gotta!

And he'll just take it, giving you a lopsided smirk.

#𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙠!𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚 #𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡'𝙨 𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙚'𝙨 #💗!𝙉𝙤𝙣𝙣𝙮 #lovesick #anon #ask away #yandere x reader #yandere x you #yandere oc x you #yandere oc #yandere male #yandere imagines #obsessive love #x reader #oc x reader

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