#cause who is more retributative than a teenager

[blood-starved-beast]

shout out to the Japanese translation of the game confirming the order of Nyx's children as

the Fates

Charon

Moros

Nemesis

the Twins (Than and Hypnos)

Eris

Honestly doing the heavy lifting the other versions of the games can't really explain without it being out of place

[luulapants]

Do you feel as though war and genocide soldiers, like nazis or the idf or rsf, etc are all able to be redeemed? Is separating them from society more harmful than allowing them to be in it, alongside the population of people they wish to harm? Can a person that willingly and gleefully murders a child be changed? Is it worth the resources to try, as opposed to using resources for their victims? If therapy is not meant to deconstruct and dismantle white supremacy, can it even tackle their issues effectively? I am asking all /gen btw, I am personally terrified of the fact the once they finish duty, idf soldiers will be back with the general population.

Thanks for the question, anon. There's no straight or short answer, but I invite you to consider the following:

One of the all-time greatest challenges in warfare is soldiers who won't fight - now called the "ratio of fire." Military strategists after WWII studies were told to expect 75-85% of their soldiers to either never fire their weapons or intentionally miss, even when their own lives are in danger. The most effective way to "improve" the ratio is aggressively brainwashing soldiers to believe their enemy is evil and wants to torture, rape, and murder their families. We hear that rhetoric from the IOF all the time.

75 countries mandate military service, including Israel. It's not just to maintain a large army - which doesn't make economic sense when not at war. Young people tend to be progressive. Military service allows governments to impose on young people the nationalist brainwashing they perfected to improve ratio of fire. University professors actually struggle to teach military students in the US because they are so brainwashed to not question and not think independently, which is required in higher education.

In countries like the US that don't mandate military service, we find ways to force it on young folks, especially low-income and people of color. One of the biggest arguments against free college is that no one would join the military. That's also an argument against universal healthcare. Folks go into the military just to get access to basic dental care. Recruiters are allowed to lie to teenagers to get them to enlist. There was a proposal to reduce the US enlistment age to 16 because recruiters were struggling to find young Black men without adult criminal records.

The PTSD diagnosis developed during treatment of US Vietnam veterans. Often, it was not the things that happened to them that haunted them most. Rather, it was the horrific war crimes they themselves committed that made them ill. These were mostly drafted men who lacked the privilege to dodge the draft. They didn't want to be there. They were brainwashed, propagandized, and put in near-constant life-threatening danger. Every so often, one of them snapped and massacred a village of helpless people. Doing horrible harm to others, doctors found, even of your own volition in that moment, caused severe psychological trauma.

We very much do know what happened to Nazi soldiers after WWII. Retributive justice saw 8,000 starve to death in US POW camps. Between 1.5 and 3 million were imprisoned in Russian gulags where they were used as slaves until 1956. About a third died. Those that survived were released back to Germany where they lived traumatized but generally peacefully.

We very much have seen successful large-scale restorative justice work done between oppressed people and their former oppressors in the form of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It was a groundbreaking effort, imperfect, and its efficacy is a matter of some debate, but it did produce a functioning, non-apartheid nation, and it did not kill millions in concentration camps.

I try to look at most issues from a systemic standpoint. War, in my mind, is a crime committed by the wealthy and powerful. Its first victims are soldiers, and its next victims are the people those soldiers hurt. Your average soldier has no personal stake in a war, certainly not the way that politicians and oligarchs do. They are indoctrinated and brainwashed until they believe they do.

Many soldiers do work to deprogram themselves after military service. Many don't even know it's something that needs to be done. Undoing brainwashing is difficult but possible, given the right resources and environments. You also can't undo brainwashing while it's still actively occurring, and the brainwashing won't stop until the systems profiting off it are dismantled.

[yourneighborhoodneighbor]

bonus draft!

(masterpost to my fics while ao3 is down)

When the notice came out that known and feared villain Kraken was causing trouble again, no one was surprised by the eager exclamations from famed UA class 1-A that they would volunteer to be the ones to deal with it. 

The higher ups didn't care, never had, which is what had started this whole thing in the first place, and simply had no qualms over sending in a bunch of teenagers, still children really, to fight one of the most dangerous villains in modern Japan. A villain that had even managed to dethrone and rid the world of a man such as All for One. And if one of them died in battle? Well, they were heroes for a reason, meant to sacrifice even their lives, and anyway, there were more heroes in training, so no one would miss the odd one going missing. 

Other students and any outsiders that might for some reason be privy to the situation simply thought 1-A cocky, arrogant, foolish, desperate to be in the spotlight yet again, to shove their self-assured greatness into everyone's faces.

The faculty looked on in pity, mistakenly assuming they were looking for retribution, revenge, against a man that had in so little time of what had passed from the year, barely their first school year, caused them so much grief, so much pain. 

As for 1-A themselves? They were the only ones, save for the villain himself, who knew the truth. Who knew it was excitement and relief, not arrogance or a thirst for revenge, that made them answer the call so certainly, so promptly. None but them knew that Kraken was causing havoc in broad daylight, so unlike his usual MO, for precisely this reason, so that they, and only they, would respond. 

They knew what awaited them was not a real fight, but comfort. Questions between feigned hits about how things had been going, how they were feeling, and did anyone need to be murdered promptly for having hurt them? They knew those who had had the hardest last few weeks would find themselves beaten in battle and then kidnapped, whisked away to comfy blankets and a warm meal and cuddles. Only they knew that what awaited them was not danger, but safety, all in the hands of the most feared villain in all of Japan. The arms of none other than their dad.

[bestworstcase]

Okay so, one thing I will say about the possibility of Summer willingly working for Salem: I hope they don't just do it to make Raven look like a better mother than she actually is.

I have long been of the opinion that Yang disowning Raven and cutting her out of her life entirely will be CRITICAL to her developing into a healthy adult. Ever since we learned about Raven, her arc has been building up to the realization and acceptance of the fact that Summer Rose was her real mother all along, and that she shouldn't waste her life chasing the toxic relationship Raven offered.

Point is, if Summer has thrown her lot in with Salem, it needs to have been out of love for her daughters, an impulsive and foolish decision made to keep her babies safe.

The best part of the juxtaposition of Summer and Raven is how it turns the age-old "wicked stepmother" trope on its head by having the stepmother be loving and kind while the biological mother is cold and heartless.

(That, and Raven's arc concluding with her realizing that she can't use her Semblance anymore because she burned all her bridges and nobody wants her in their lives anymore, and being forced to live with that knowledge, would be the perfect comeuppance for how willing she's been to sacrifice all her loved ones, up to and including her own daughter, just to save herself. Especially if she's given multiple chances to redeem herself and screws up every chance until everyone's just too sick of her nonsense to give her a twenty-third chance she doesn't deserve.)

hm

so

as far as yang’s relationship to raven goes, i don’t get the impression that rwby as a narrative has any interest in resuscitating raven’s motherhood—i mean, she flat out admits that she wasn’t kind to yang when they met and later whispers “i’m sorry” right before taking off again, lmfao. but equally i’m not sure i would agree that complete estrangement is really the healthiest goal for yang; it’s a pendulum swing to the opposite side of the spectrum from where she started and i think restricts her ability to meaningfully process the complicated feelings she has about her mother. there is a very wide band of grey area between emotional dependency on a bad or absent parent and full no-contact estrangement and—speaking here from the perspective of being inside that middle zone—i think partial estrangement is usually the better option, except when the parent is actively and viciously abusive to the point that no form of contact is safe.

with a parent like raven—who is absent and unreliable, not abusive—there can a lot of emotional value in just accepting the relationship as a distant one with minimal contact. and with yang being someone whose biggest emotional problem is bottling up things that hurt her, i think full estrangement stands to harm more than it helps because it puts a solid barrier in front of her feelings toward her mother. even if in practice she never sees raven, leaving herself the option to do so will make it easier to air those feelings out.

i also do not think that anything raven has done demands narrative retribution versus the compassionate framing given to, say, cinder fall or salem; she’s a bandit who abandoned her kid and her cause because ozpin molded her into his spy while she was a teenager or in her early twenties and then she couldn’t cope with the horrors she discovered or the personal threats salem is implied to have made to her. as reasons for being a deadbeat mom go that is a… fairly understandable one, and i do not think there is anything uniquely or egregiously more awful about walking out on your family than other kinds of wrongdoing—and certainly in terms of material harm it isn’t even close to the worse thing raven “some people?? pillage defenseless villages and leave the survivors to the grimm?? to cope??” branwen has ever done in her life.

anyway to the actual point:

summer rose working for salem stands to be compelling in a lot of ways, but the one that appeals most to me is a scenario where she didn’t choose it for her daughters. what have we been told about summer? she was the best of the best. the living ideal of what a huntress should be and an amazing mom—and then she took off without telling anybody where she was going to confront salem by herself, which, reading between the lines? summer rose got put on a pedestal and subjected to such intense pressure that she burned out and attempted suicide by pointless heroic sacrifice—either because she actively wanted to die or because she believed she had a responsibility to throw her life away for the cause.

and then salem offered her a way out.

now—from salem’s insistence that ruby be kept alive, and from her reaction to yang identifying herself as summer’s other daughter—i think it’s fairly clear that, whatever the exact circumstances are, there IS a standing agreement that salem will avoid harming them to the extent possible. but my personal hope is that the decision to join salem was one summer made for herself, to save herself from being the Sacrificial Hero, because she could not live like that any longer. this would be congruent with rwby’s thematic stance on heroic selflessness and self-sacrifice as a corruptive force and introduce layers of emotional messiness that appeal to me, in that summer can love her daughters with everything she has and yet leave them behind because she herself has been driven to an emotional brink where if she doesn’t escape by joining salem she is going to get herself killed on purpose, and the betrayal experienced by her now grown-up children when they learn this is mediated by their own experience of the same pressures that pushed her to that point (and presumably by the revelation of salem’s actual plan being less “nihilistically torch the world” and more “lure the gods back to defeat them once and for all so that this can finally end”).

insofar as there is a comparison to draw between raven’s abandonment and summer’s it’s one that removes summer from her supermom pedestal and renders her in a more flawed—and thus more human—light. not the good mom who died and the bad mom who left but two mothers who chose to leave their children for similar reasons and will likely differ in how they handle the inevitable reunion. (if “red like roses pt ii” is anything to judge by, summer is desperate to give her daughters the kind of explanation and closure yang wanted and didn’t get from raven, and has little if any desire to make excuses. that’s where the true difference lies.)

and i think rwby is doing something more interesting here than simply flipping the wicked stepmother trope upside-down. why is the stepmother wicked? why is the mother good? how do cultural narratives about motherhood create these categories? summer rose is the good stepmother, but she is also the absent mother; she left ruby around the same age that raven left yang, but yang’s memories of summer as her own mother and the presumption of summer’s death give ruby a fundamentally different experience of not having a mother. and likewise a significant amount of yang’s abandonment trauma has less to do with raven than it does her father’s secrecy and refusal to talk to her about it, which allowed the pain and confusion to fester. it’s all wrapped up in the storytelling themes and the reality is that mothers are just people who cannot be neatly reduced to fit inside fairytale archetypes.

[jezmatronwrites]

Not to shill but I wrote a whole ass fanfic about this 🤣

While that was partly a tribute to my uncle, who is sadly no longer with us, it also came from a place of knowledge. I know i used to hold fairly ingrained beliefs and skewed views.

A lot of that came from my environment and the core need to SURVIVE (mentally): conservative parents, a military family, rural upbringing in the UK. It's not as vehement as US conservatism but I'd say it's more insidious. It permeates the culture with how "gently" it's enforced. I was privileged but empathy was weirdly subjective when I look back. A lot of "we have no issues with x people as long they remain invisible and don't cause problems".

It took a lot to break my enforced preconceptions (enforced by basically never really being allowed to disagree or having alternative views mocked or denigrated).

I went from brash, mocking, sneering teenager who was the subject of bullying (and who transferred that to others at times), to someone who (I hope) is a kinder, more supportive person. I've defended work colleagues from bigoted bosses and advocate now. I look back at my younger self with pity, seeing a scared, indoctrinated, naive person trapped by their environment and pressure.

I hope I've changed and I hope I can continue to repay for past mistakes. I'm not brave enough to do some things but I try to be better than I was.

As humans we love a good comeuppance. But there has to be a point where we let go if the need for retribution and... See somehow someone has changed. Yes, in our lives there will be people you will never forgive. And honestly that's fine too. But assuming people never change or fundamentally shouldn't be given a chance is a tricky one. I have seen kind people become as cruel as anything, changed by a belief or toxic media. Likewise I know friends who have become philosophical and kinder after being awful people. You can feel their guilt.

Sometimes it is a change in environment. Sometimes it needs to be The Bad Thing happening to them to shake their world, or someone they care about. And sometimes it is a moment when their internal logic finally clicks and they go "this doesn't seem... Right."

I think it's why I love she ra. People screw up, but kindness wins. Love wins. Oppressiveness and cruelty and resentment don't have a hold on people, they experience it then move AWAY from it having processed it and embrace kindness.

And I want a world where that is the norm.

I actually love hearing about reformed people's stories. I love hearing about people who were in toxic communities or people who used to objectively be dickheads talking about how they got out of that. How they made themselves better.

I hate how most people's initial reaction to stories like that are things like:

"How could you have ever done those things?!" "Oh my god, you believed those things?!" "Well it doesn't un-do the harm you did!"

People incessantly advocate for change but then refuse to allow people who have changed the grace of being acknowledged and given opportunities and chances.

I love hearing about ex-antis talking about how they don't spend their days being angry and sending death threats anymore.

I love hearing about ex-homophobes who realized there's no magic law about what is "natural."

I love reformed bullies talking about how they made amends with their victims and spend their days being considerate of others.

You can't scream about wanting people to change but then expect them to spend the rest of their lives stuck in the past and on who they used to be. You can't expect people to spend the entire rest of their lives grovelling and apologizing and demeaning themselves.

Instead of clinging to who they were, latch onto who they are.

Ask how they got out of it. Commend them on changing. Enjoy that there's one less cause of harm in the world.

[taiishii]

❝     In fact, up to this time, in his heart, Chang Geng was still that gentle and simple young man. Perhaps he was more brilliant than others, but he would never look down on people because of his talents. Perhaps he had a little bit of petty temperament, but he did not get angry easily. Even if it happened, it happened in a proper manner, only to express to the offender that ‘I’m angry’. The person would at most only feel like they were being scratched lightly by a dear little animal, only leaving a little white mark and not breaking the skin. Could make one love him down to the bones.    ❞

A private + extremely selective roleplay account for Chang Geng from PRIEST's Sha Po Lang / Stars of Chaos. 21+ over only. Exploring drama, political intrigue, tactician types, young and enduring love, and lots of love for ancient chinese history.

ABOUT:

Chang Geng is named after the evening Venus, sometimes called Lucifer, which is believed to be an unfortunate star.

Chang Geng is the son of the previous emperor Yuan He of Great Liang and a captive northern tribe princess. Hidden away by his aunt, he grew up in a faraway village watching as steam powered ships and airships took over the skies. His aunt was not kind despite stealing him away, and he was often subjected to abuse both physically and psychologically that when he was a child he tried to run away multiple times. 

Saved from wolves on the outskirts one winter when he attempted to run away, one of his saviors was a young man named Gu Yun and his friend Shen Yi, he dubbed this man ‘Yifu’ out of gratitude and cared for him in his half-blind and half-deaf state for a few years. When it’s revealed that Gu Yun is the Grand Marshal of the Great Liang Empire who has come to protect Chang Geng, he takes him to the capital to claim his royal title as the Emperor’s fourth son, Li Min later known by the title of Yan Wang.

Described as having an appearance like jade, his features are sharp, which could make him seem unapproachable but he has an air of calmness around him that mellows it out, even making him look sweet when he smiles.

Thoughtful and brilliant, Chang Geng works constantly to solve national crises of Great Liang. With his heart firmly planted in seeing his country prosper without war, he assists in new banking, creating railways, and even pushing invasions from the West from their borders. But under the high functioning exterior, he fights to suppress a violent curse called the Bone of Impurity placed upon him by his aunt in retribution for his father’s crimes, who over time during his childhood had slowly poisoned him. 

The curse itself has the long-term effect of being unable to differentiate between reality and dreams, causing the afflicted to go insane, bringing violence and destruction anywhere they go. In multiple instances, when emotions were high, Chang Geng would begin to bleed from his eyes and seemed to grow two sets of red pupils in his agitated state.

In order to control this he followed a monk named Liao Ran for a great portion of his teenage years who taught him stoicism to contain his emotions, and in his adulthood learned from a master healer and doctor named Chen Qing Xu who later would find a ritualistic cure to help rid him of the Bone Impurity.

His love for his country and the people, coupled with his decisiveness on when to be kind and when to be ruthless led to his ascension after the death of his brother emperor Li Feng and made him the best Emperor Tai Shi that Great Liang has had in 3 generations.

RULES:

25+ // genderfluid // mst . due to my demanding schedule i am low activity and appear here and there like a cryptid . i require patience and understanding from my partners please!

i. i am not associated with the author or fandom . nothing here is owned by me unless stated otherwise . that being said my interpretation is my own and will largely be divergent, though i will take pieces from canon & incorporate it with chinese mythos/culture .

ii. i have a very demanding schedule outside of rp . i work a lot & game like a second job . so please understand that my replies may be very slow some days & quick others . i do not require a post length , so please do not expect one from me !

iii. i have d*scord available upon request & i am always down for plotting . if you need clarification on my interpretation or on a thread feel free to DM me too , i prommy i don't bite! that being said , i am here for long-term rp partners/friends and only rp with people who are 21+ . minors please do not follow .

iv. i don't do drama . don't involve me in any shape or form with yours , i do not come here for online squabbles . it will be a quick unfollow from me if that is all you post about . i will however reblog callouts on predators & known manipulators that have cause genuine harm to the rpc if it pops up .

v. while there may be mature or potentially triggering content and spoilers on here , i do not ever tolerate pedophilia , incest , racism , ableism , fetishization & homophobia/trnsphobia to any member of the lgbtq community . if i post triggering or nsfw content , i will post a tw after the trigger or nsfw in the tags . i don't do fancy tags as this is a safe space .

vi. multis please specify which muse you want dan feng to interact with if you like any starters or send me an ask . i am really chill about establishing relationships + shipping but know that i reserve the right to turn you down at any point if it's not my jimjam .

overall , please be kind to each other . we're here for a good time , not a long time .

[springcatalyst]

5, 11, 14, 17, and 19 for julian pleaseee =) <3

OMGG THANK U QUEEN

5 - What's one hill your oc will die on?

This might sound like a stretch but he has a very transactional worldview. People do favors if they're owed, or seek retribution if they're wronged. He doesn't really conceptualize about doing good for the sake of helping people, or doing harm for no reason (to an extent. he's a hypocrite in some ways). So if he thinks he owes someone something, he'll repay that debt- if someone does him dirty, he'll get what he's owed. This causes problems when he doesn't want to be indebted to people, actually. Or when other people don't abide by the same rules and he's like dude. you owe me. It's one of the very few consistent rules he follows, arbitrary as it is. So yeah, he'll die on that hill, kinda.

11 - How are they seen by people around them?

HA. Well, depends on who u ask. As far as first impressions and strangers go,,, earlier on in life and also the storyline he's just kind of a weird little freak. There's somethin not quite right about him but most people are just like 'there goes the Kil child again, up to some weird bullshit.' The weird bullshit he gets up to changes slightly as he ages but he still doesn't quite mesh with the world he inhabits. LATER tho, he's still an outsider, but in a different way? It's more on purpose now. He doesn't exactly have a friendly face, he makes an active effort to ward people away from him. He looks like trouble no matter which side of trouble you're on, he looks like a guy you might give a wider berth than usual.

Colleagues are functionally closer to strangers than to friends with him. They see what he wants them to, and while they're at a point where they can work together and socialize casually, he's still got a shorter than average fuse, and this becomes apparent pretty quickly. Most crewmates fall somewhere between slight distrust and annoyance, some get the idea that he's not actually as dangerous as he acts, and some end up actively despising him. It's a grab bag. At the very least, he avoids physical fights with crewmates. Usually.

And he's got, like, a pathetically small amount of close friends. Liliana gets him pretty easily, to her dismay, sometimes, because they are incredibly similar. But then sometimes he does shit and she just. Does not get the logic. It seems like there's no in-between for her. She thinks he's selfish (she's right). Diana knows more about him (they grew up together), but gets him less. She frequently oversteps or misses the plot because she can't really update her image of him to the present once they reunite years later- he's changed a lot, but she hasn't really, and doesn't know what to do with this new, hostile Julian. She's figuring it out.

14 - How comfortable are they relying on others?

NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT. God he hates it sooooo much. Relying on other people means things are out of your hands and he has GOT to have total control of himself at all times or he dies. The times when he has to depend on someone else for something, even someone he objectively trusts, just do not sit right with him. It feels like a debt to repay, it feels like someone else making decisions for you, it feels like not being capable of doing it yourself. It feels like helplessness and it feels like autonomal paralysis. And he can't trust anyone but him to not fuck it up (at least if he fucks it up, he fucks it up). He cannot STAND it. He is independent to his detriment.

17 - What are three moments in their life that impacted them the most?

wellthethingsaboutthatis

one - ever wonder why he walks with a cane? When he was a kid (teenager? whatever) he had a nasty fall as a result of, surprise, doing some stupid reckless bullshit for no reason. Frankly he was lucky to survive, but it didn't quite heal right and he's got a fucked up leg and varying degrees of chronic pain as a fun little remnant. That in of itself would make the list but also the thing about the fall is that he knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn't trying to get hurt but he knew damn well it was likely, and figured 'if i die i die, or i survive and i'll have survived something that should've killed me.' Obviously he lives, and so gets a sense of invincibility that never really goes away. Kind of a 'well nothing's killed me YET' kind of a situation. This is not the beginning of reckless behavior, but it is the centerpiece, and the one that scared him enough to flip all the way back around and make him immune to that healthy fear.

two - sorry about this. so i have some stupid ass lore but long story short humans A: marry eldest to youngest amidst siblings (particularly daughters) and B: cannot be married until their elder sister is. On account of the transgender, this does some things. Julian's younger sister is just as impatient and narrow-minded as he is, and so when he puts off (and puts off and puts off) being married, she gets mad. as does their mother (do what you're told), as does their eldest sister Naomi (you're being childish). So eventually the choice is no longer his. and it just doesn't exactly take well and eventually leads to his leaving and not coming back, and drives a sort of frigidity and resentment that he takes out on the general public for the rest of ever. and gives him those control issues. as a treat.

THREE - There's a few i could go with here but they're similar so I'll go with the later one cause it's more solid: he kind of gets mutinied? But not really because he wasn't the one in charge, but he does stick with her against the rest of the crew. The crew he's a part of decide they've had enough with Liliana's quest that they have no stake in, puts them in danger, and gives them nothing, and so get rid of her. Except they include Julian in those plans because why wouldnt they? He's a member of the crew. But by now he has a sort of understanding with her, trusts her, and also just resents mutiny because loyalty is the one thing he believes in. (this is also slightly hypocritical but that's DIFFERENT he would NEVER (lie)). so he warns her, they end up just killing both of them, but also not really because obviously they don't die. So now it's him and Liliana just out on their own and she's still trying to kill the bitch she's been after for years and he's just along for the ride because he can't leave her behind (not that he'd admit it) and he gets to be her first mate when they get a new ship, new crew. This is a positive change, actually, because it's when they go from colleagues with an understanding to friends, when they know they can really rely on each other, and when he finally gets a crew that he's not as on edge around. He's been with shitheads for a while.

19 - How do they connect with the people around them?

He doesn't? There's exceptions I GUESS but for the vast majority he simply doesn't. He doesn't feel the need, he doesn't extend the hand, doesn't choose to trust people, he avoids meaningful connection because that means he has to stop lying. The moments he is genuine with people are few and far between, usually in extraneous circumstance in which he is forced to stop performing. People seeing through the falsity is more a threat than an olive branch- he doesn't want to be seen.

But he does (reluctantly) care about people SOMETIMES, and that is definitely more an actions over words situation. Because the words WILL be cruel. Doesn't matter how much he cares about someone, he will be saying some bullshit eventually out of frustration, defensiveness, inability to stop being a cunt, etc. Liliana is only his friend because she does the same thing, Diana is only his friend because she doesn't know when to save herself (only kind of kidding). But he will defend them both with his life and has, will follow them across seas and has, will kill the people that wrong them and has, you know. He's met them in sheepyards to hide from consequences and pierced ears as a declaration of loyalty. It's easy to forget, sometimes, but it's there. The most genuine connection even they will get out of him is the sort of chilly contemplation that happens late at night, that sort of stargazing-and-not-looking-at-you conversation that he will still cut off if it gets too close to something he's not touching. But they're kind of stuck together by now, you know?

THANK U again u know i love my stupid fucked up guy <3

[melancholia-of-departure]

Scarecrows, 2017 (Dir. Stuart Stone)

For any cinematic group of teenage slasher victims to serve as protagonists and windows into the world of their characters, there must of necessity be a cinematic slasher villain to give them victim status. Ultimately, the question of the film's quality is decided by the relationship between victim and villain and the triggering Event that causes the slasher to snap into action against that particular group of victims. This transgression against transgressors makes horror movies tantalizing.

This relational Event can involve a historical connection between the two terms, like the Meyers house in Halloween which ties together Laurie Strode, Michael Meyers, and his other victims in the first Halloween film. It can be a heavily telegraphed psychological motivation, like Pamela or Jason Voorhees dishing out misguided retribution to anyone who resembles a libidinous camp counselor in Friday the 13th.

Or it can just be a farmer who turns trespassers into scarecrows, and he can just find a new group of people to turn into scarecrows. What did they do? Nothing special. A little bit of sex and trespassing. None of them are interesting characters. The hillbilly who kills them doesn't even seem that into it.

Scarecrows is simultaneously mean-spirited and disinterested in its own status as a slasher movie. I feel like it's important to tell audiences that none of the protagonists make it out alive at the end. It's more like Terrifier than anything, in that it seems to resent its protagonists for being protagonists. Also like Terrifier, the villain sucks and ends up winning just to spite the audience's expectations of closure. It's not an interesting choice or a twist or even a statement about fate in this case. It really seems like a movie that someone made because they wanted to go out in a cornfield with a couple of young women and get them to take their clothes off.

[lilcrespin]

I wouldn’t call myself that -

In this time of frame, I believe in a way we are own nihilistic person. So many lost causes and a few spaces to let something in. I don’t know if anyone reading this will be able to understand what I’m writing about but I’ll try my best to explain it. There’s a society and it’s counted or tagged as a group or representation of a word. Nihilism, empathy, empowerment, or freedom. Seeking different differences in life. How a mother seeks adulthood in there child, how teachers seeks education in purposes, how even a teenager seeks retribution and a foot in the door. I’ve spent most of my time in the background, building my own personal foundation, it’s a cluster fuck of feelings. Regrets with one, trauma in the other and numb to feeling okay because I simply wouldn’t understand what it means to be okay. I would say take life head on because I haven’t felt like I’ve had before, an other person would say don’t, take it easy and let things fall into place because they haven’t had it like that before. Anyways knowing that there is a timeline and a day where I’ll go away forever, I want to leave one thing behind. Literature, thoughts and thoughts, piled on top of each other for days and poems and songs that reminisce on life. Life for what it was for me and the ones close to me. I’ve cried, nearly a million times, these tears signify sadness, loneliness, a never ending burden. I just hope when I do reach the age I’m able to pass it on. A book, a tale or even a copy of a song. In this time frame, I believe we are own nihilistic person and a different kind of person, more human than we know. A kind of human that makes tears not so sad. A kind of human that can make writing this not so bad or embarrassing. A kind of human that let’s it all be, a kind of human that sees things as a bigger picture. I’m sorry for being an odd ball, but I would never be sorry for expressing myself. It can be wrong, it can be hard to understand, it can even be just fall out dumb. I’m just so human I’m numb to think twice about a mistake, an effort or any kind of accident. I’ve dealt a hand of cards that was no luck Death in , having my own scared I realized one thing before my eyes turned closed. I never really got to share this human side of me, this life of mine. The songs and endless amount of literature, from praise to poetry, an autobiography of a good friend. An autobiography of a young kid who said fuck anything or anyone in the way I’ll do what I exactly want to do even if it means killing me. Words so powerful aren’t they, I’m in it for the long ride or a short ride if it means giving up because I won’t. If you’re here right now just know that I’m not okay. I’m in pain with a bleeding smile. Walking these miles don’t seem dumb anymore. I’m not a nihilist, I’m not a forgiven, I’m a subject of something that’s bigger than me. So I wouldn’t call myself that, I’d call myself a writer even an influencer, influencing a new audience that won’t make the same mistakes that cost me and my friends, or family. Kindness is only shared when happiness is the outcome these days. I’m only pictured as a bad guy when I stand up to the temptation. I’m here to say I am a person that stood up to it all, tribulation, passages, time in hell, where the hounds yell into the night. The other end of a barrel. If you ever read the finale pages of the Bible, you’ll stumble upon “The revelations” or “ REVELATIONS” talks about a good man leaving a women behind for another and it sparked the end of the world, day by day hell came upon them. Changing the world day by day, hell finding its way onto the planet. The good man didn’t even bother to feel regret but just took it on, head strong, not giving up. Four horsemen, angels and demons, satan slaughtering, Catastrophes one after another. You can say I’ve experienced it. Four people, starving one period of time, sick for another and depressed and deprived in another. Satan taking advantage of my kindness taking me closer to hell than ever before. I might just be stuck in my own head, an imaginary nightmare

F

[yourdeepestfathoms]

a little unconventional (part one)

[foster au]

this is set in America because i don't know how Romania works

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rapture rising

“Alcina, my beloved sister, are you sure all of this is necessary?”

Alcina shot a glare over her shoulder at her toddling younger brother, who she was making carry in several boxes full of various items into one of the many rooms in her mansion. This one wasn’t one of the bedrooms, but rather a temporary storage room for all the things she had recently bought. She was going to have everything set up for the children to choose from when they eventually arrived. Just thinking about them getting to pick out their bedsheets and paint for their new rooms made a smile come to her lips, excitement rushing through her like dozens of butterflies flying for the first time.

…And then her idiot brother bumped into the doorframe and caused an avalanche of boxes to come down on top of him.

“Be careful!” Alcina barked, whirling around to him. She bent down to start picking the boxes up. “You’re lucky there was nothing fragile in here.”

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” Heisenberg grunted, rubbing his head.

“And to answer your questions, dearest brother, yes, this is all very necessary,” Alcina said. “I need this to be perfect for them. This may be the first time those little girls get a real home.”

“Inflating your ego, aren’t you?”

Alcina stepped on his foot.

“I have the paints.” Moreau, Alcina’s other brother, shuffled inside, holding several cans of paint on his arms. If they were hurting him, he didn’t say anything. He seemed pleased with himself for being so useful.

“Thank you, Sal,” Alcina said. She took the cans from him and placed them against the wall. “Yellow, green, red, blue, pink, purple… Do you think that’s enough? What if they want, like, a mauve room?”

“Mauve?” Heisenberg echoed as he was crow hopping on one foot, still recovering from being stomped on.

“It’s a shade of purple,” Moreau supplied.

“I know what mauve is, asshole,” Heisenberg hissed. “I was just saying.”

“And I’m just saying, what if they want a lighter-colored room?” Alcina said. “This purple is dark. Should I go buy more?”

“You could mix white into the paint?” Moreau suggested.

Alcina thought it over, then nodded. “Yes, I could do that. Good idea.”

“Who wants a mauve bedroom, anyway?” Heisenberg muttered.

“Alcina!” A fourth voice echoed throughout the house, and Alcina’s sister entered the room. Donna looked uncharacteristically bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She was clutching something in her hands. “Alcina, I have finished them!”

“When did you get here?” Heisenberg looked at her.

“Just now,” Donna said. “It doesn’t matter. Look!”

A beautiful doll was presented to Alcina. It was hand-stitched and dressed with great care. All the little details, down to the freckles and shiny eyes, were incredibly-made, and Alcina couldn’t help but pick it up tentatively, as though she were afraid of accidentally destroying it.

“Oh, Donna,” she said. “It’s beautiful! Thank you.”

Donna beamed. “I have also made stuffed animals and toy clothes for them. An entire wardrobe, in fact. Many selections.”

“Damn,” Heisenberg looked impressed. “Toys dress better than I do.”

“We know,” the other three said in sync, eyeing his ratty trenchcoat and old cowboy hat that he insisted on wearing everywhere.

“You weren’t supposed to agree!” Heisenberg barked like one of his dogs.

“Shouldn’t have said anything,” Alcina shrugged daintily. She looked back at Donna and smiled. “Thank you, Donna. I really appreciate your support. I appreciate all of your support. Even yours, Karl.”

“Sure, sure…” Heisenberg said, though Alcina didn’t miss the glint of fondness in his eyes.

“This is so exciting,” Donna said. “It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing, Alcina. Do you remember when we were all adopted by Mother?”

Heisenberg snorted. “I remember being kidnapped as a child and held for ransom, and then being one of the abduction victims to be actually found alive, only to discover that my parents had been killed while trying to get me back, to which I was then thrown into a home with you three.”

Donna winced. “Not…quite what I had in mind.”

“And you say ‘you three’ like we weren’t your best friends growing up,” Moreau pointed out idly, not looking at Heisenberg as he was helping unload some of the boxes. That one in particular held a wide selection of different bed sheets, ranging from leopard print to floral to plain blue.

Heisenberg raised his nose and huffed. “Well. Still.”

Alcina shook her head with a warm smile.

She vividly remembered life with her adoptive mother, Miranda, and her three other siblings. She was reborn from ash and flame after her old family estate burned down to the ground, smoldering the life she used to have and taking her parents with it. Yes, she could still smell the smoke, taste the embers on her tongue, even now, thirty-five years later. She was so small back then, only nine years old when the fire started, and she watched her home crumble to pieces right before her teary eyes. She thought it was over, that she had nothing, that she was going to be alone forever without her mother and father, but then a woman in a black cowl whisked her up into tender arms and took her under her wing as though she were the chicken to a nurturing mother bird.

She was the first of Miranda’s ragtag rascal children with harsh upbringings. For two years, it was just the both of them, reading books and watching movies in a beautiful countryside manor that quickly became her new home. Though the wounds had still been raw, the burns were very fresh, Miranda filled the void in her heart that her parents’ death left behind, extinguishing that eternal fire of survivor guilt and mourning.

And then the others came along.

At the time, Alcina had been rather indignant at the idea of having siblings. She was an only child with her birth family and she preferred to stay an only child with her new one, too, but she never voiced this opinion to Miranda. She grinned and bore it, even if it meant losing the attention of her mother.

Though, they didn’t end up being that bad…

The first of the “intruders” as she used to call them was Salvatore Moreau, a boy her age, though three months younger, and with a story similar to her own. He had been in a car crash after his drunken father got into a pretty nasty collision. The engine caught fire and it wasn’t long until the rest of the car followed. Moreau was trapped in the inferno, but managed to get out, running towards a nearby lake to extinguish the flames that were trying to make him its newest pyre. Unfortunately, the event left him badly burned, the scar still lingering all these years later, and nobody wanted to take in such a “disfigured child.” Miranda, however, stepped up to the challenge and fostered the boy, eventually adopting him fully later on.

Alcina was, admittedly, rather uneased by her new brother’s appearance at first, but she quickly got accustomed to him, even protective. There were several moments in school where she verbally (and sometimes even physically) pummeled any kids who dared to make fun of him, drilling into the bullies that he was not to be messed with while she was around. Some of her best retributions were when she threatened to leak unwarranted dick pics to the entire school, as it wasn’t uncommon for horny teenage boys to try to get into her pants, and that always shut them up quickly, especially when she loudly proclaimed details on their pathetic excuse for a penis, like the size and shape.

She and Moreau grew close rather quickly, much quicker than Miranda had been expecting. They both enjoyed more mellow things, like reading books and going on walks through the forest. Moreau was the sole reason she passed any English assignments done on Shakespearean literature, as he actually knew how to discern the confusing text, while she had to reread the same page over and over again to simply get a loose grasp on the grammar. He enjoyed cheesy romcoms, birdwatching, and swimming, the last of which he had a strong affinity for because of how the lake beside the car wreck very well could have been the only reason he survived. Now, he owned that very lake and made it into a popular fishing and boating destination for locals and tourists alike.

The second to arrive was Donna Beneviento, when Alcina and Moreau were both twelve. She was a full five years younger than the two of them and didn’t talk very often, at least for a good chunk of the first year she was there. She was put into the foster program after her parents commit suicide, leaving her with nothing but anxiety, trauma-induced selective muteness, and a doll named Angie.

It took time, but Donna eventually started opening up. First to Miranda, and then to Alcina and Moreau. Alcina strongly remembered a time when her little sister came to her room during a thunderstorm, lips quivering, tears glistening in her eyes, Angie clutched in a vice from her thin arms. She didn’t say anything, just stared from the doorway, whimpering and shivering.

“Alright,” Alcina had sighed. She flipped open her comforter, welcoming Donna. “Come on.”

Donna had brightened and skittered into the bed, snuggling right up against Alcina’s side. Alcina didn’t mind and resumed the book she had been reading before--Animal Farm, she believed. Donna pointed at the pages and then looked up at her curiously.

“Oh, this?” Alcina had said. “It’s called Animal Farm. It’s about these talking farm animals overthrowing their farmer to gain freedom, only to then be ruled by a communist pig.”

Donna blinked. “What’s a communist?”

“Well, you see…”

Her late-night explanation was certainly aided by the fact that they were in the middle of the Cold War at the time.

Overtime, Donna slowly grew out of her shell. Though she was still soft-spoken and reserved, she was also very kind-hearted and incredibly creative, which she showed through paintings, arts and crafts, and doll making. She would make dolls out of anything she could find--wood, thread, clay--so it made sense when she eventually became a toymaker once she grew up.

Finally, there was Karl Heisenberg when Alcina and Moreau were thirteen and Donna was eight. Right from the start, he was a loud, spitfire ten-year-old that broke the serene silence that used to hang over Miranda’s estate. He caused a great amount of mischief and mayhem, though Alcina would later discover it was to hide the fact that he was deeply traumatized by what exactly had happened to make him a foster child.

Even now, so many years later, Alcina still didn’t know the full story. Miranda said it wasn’t her tale to share and Heisenberg simply didn’t like talking about it very much. But from what she did know, Heisenberg used to belong to an incredibly wealthy business owner that ruled over their company with an iron fist. Due to the harshness his parents inflicted on their employees, it caused the workers to revolt against the abuse. A certain group took this way too far and kidnapped Heisenberg, holding him for ransom so they could get better treatment and pay at their work. Something ended up happening during the time between Heisenberg being held hostage and his parents paying up, and it left his mother and father in a way that he could never bring himself to explain. She only got snippets of the brutality of their deaths through brief moments when he would come to after vicious nightmares, one of which she actually stepped in to stop when she heard him struggling one night.

“Their heads, Alci,” Heisenberg had gasped, clawing manically for a desperate grasp on her arms, his body jerking and spasming in terror as his nightmare was still releasing his small, twelve-year-old body. “Their heads-- their brains were--” And then he stopped and keeled into her chest, sobbing in a way Alcina had never seen him do before in the two years he was living with her before that moment. Despite her occasional vex towards the boy, he was still her little brother and she was still his big sister, so she had wrapped her arms around him and held him close while he trembled and cried.

She never did find out what Heisenberg meant by “their heads,” but she had a hunch. Still, she never asked.

Nowadays, Heisenberg ran his own factory, where he treated his employees the way his parents should have treated theirs, learning from their mistakes. He also fostered all different kinds of dog breeds until they found their forever homes and rescued the more ‘vicious’ ones, like pit bulls and rottweilers, all of which he treated like royalty.

A freakishly tall girl, a burned boy, a selective mute, and a dog lover… They certainly weren’t the epitome of the stereotypical nuclear family, but they were family through and through, if not by blood, then by bloodshed.

“Do you guys remember the time Karl tried to clean the dishwasher with Kool-Aid?” Donna reminisced with a giggle.

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” Heisenberg said.

“Absolutely not,” Donna grinned at him.

“I still don’t know how you came to the conclusion that that would work,” Alcina shook her head.

Heisenberg threw his arms up into the air. “John said it did!”

“John also tried to steal a school urinal.”

“Also, you’re supposed to take all of the dishes out before you try to clean it with Kool-Aid,” Moreau spoke up. “You left all of the pots and plates and silverware in it.”

“And he didn’t even put it in the right spot!” Alcina joined, cackling. “You’re supposed to put the powder in the detergent dispenser. Karl, you just poured it out all over the dishes!”

“It wasn’t even the right powder,” Donna put in. “You’re supposed to strictly use unsweetened lemonade only. You used tropical punch!”

Alcina, Donna, and Moreau all burst into laughter, while Heisenberg crossed his arms and glared at them.

“John never specified any of that!” he blustered.

“Never trust John, dear,” Alcina tittered.

“Well, it happened!” Heisenberg said. “It’s over! What other boxes do you need to move!”

More laughter.

“I’m serious! I’ll get the boxes! Also WHAT IS THAT.”

They all turned to see a patchy tortoiseshell cat lazily strolling into the room with them. It looked like it had been run over, dismembered, run over again, and then put back together by a blind surgeon, but it held itself like it was the most pristine lion to ever walk the earth. It glanced over at the four siblings, meowed at them, then continued on its stroll to one of the empty boxes, which it jumped into and made itself comfortable inside.

“It’s a cat,” Donna said as if it should have been obvious, earning a snort from Moreau and then a glare from Heisenberg.

“It’s not funny,” Moreau said quickly after Heisenberg glared at him, too, but it was obvious Heisenberg’s leer was all in good fun.

“No, no. Tom from Tom and Jerry is a cat,” Heisenberg said. “THAT is an overgrown street rat.”

“Well, one could assume the same about you, but you don’t see us pointing it out,” Donna said breezily.

Another bout of laughter, this time with Heisenberg included.

“Okay, okay, you got me there,” Heisenberg said.

“Must you insist on reacting the same way every single time you see Tea Cake?” Alcina finally spoke up through the playful bickering. She crouched down next to the cat and stroked its back, which caused it to purr in content.

“It’s my trademark,” Heisenberg said with a shrug. “That old woman is still alive?”

“And kicking,” Alcina smiled fondly at her pet.

Tea Cake had been with her for a long fourteen years, witnessing more than a few existential crises and drunken concerts put on to chase off her lurking PTSD. That cat came during the worst part of her life, and Alcina owed everything to that little beast. She learned how to laugh and smile and genuinely feel again, not hide behind the facade that she was a strong, powerful woman who could take on everything and come out without a scratch.

And, yes, Alcina had known- still knew, that she had Miranda and her siblings, but sometimes they were not enough, not back then, not when she was filled with so much shame and self-hatred and disgust. Animals were different in a way people couldn’t be. Animals didn’t lie, they didn’t judge or think about how messed up you were in their heads. They didn’t share your secrets or give you false hope. They just--be there. They listened and lent their presence and, sometimes, that was all that was needed, and some people didn’t seem to understand that.

Tea Cake’s fur had dried more of Alcina’s tears than anyone else ever had because she never let them fall in front of others. Tea Cake didn’t get upset when Alcina touched her; she didn’t understand the concept of emotional trauma and sexual harassment and body image issues. She just cared, even if she didn’t quite get it.

Alcina would probably be dead if it weren’t for her.

Yes, she remembered that fateful night… The wind in her shaggy hair she hadn’t washed in days, the moonglow on her ashen skin, the tears burning in her eyes--all of it was so clear, even now. She remembered how horribly, hopelessly depressed she had been and how she drove out to a field with a note on the dashboard and a gun in the passenger seat.

At the time, nothing had helped her. Her antidepressants weren’t working, going out only made her feel unsafe, and her family’s presence no longer brought her comfort and happiness, rather guilt and shame. The only thing that ever helped was when she drowned herself in the alcohol she made for a living, drinking away her despair and trauma until her body tingled and the phantom hands went away. She was surprised her liver never exploded inside of her during those awful few months.

She had sat in her car for a while, leaning her head on the steering wheel and wallowing in silence and darkness. Then, she got out, made sure the note was visible, and grabbed the gun.

She considered calling or texting her mother and siblings, but that would make it hurt worse. It was better to leave them with their last memories of her than to have this sudden news of a goodbye that they wouldn’t be able to stop.

She placed the pistol’s barrel in her mouth and rested her finger on the trigger. Her life didn’t flash before her eyes like some movies or books say it did, and she was quite thankful for it. She didn’t want to relive the agony she had been put through that led her up to that point. She just shut her eyes as tight as possible in preparation for the bullet to pass through her brain…

Then, there was a rustling from the grass nearby.

Alcina hesitated. The metallic taste of the gun left her tongue and she looked in the direction of the noise.

“Hello?” she had called out in her best possible not-about-to-kill-herself voice.

A tiny meow answered her.

“Your roadkill wants you,” Heisenberg’s voice cut through the daze that had momentarily descended upon Alcina’s mind.

Blinking, Alcina realized that Tea Cake was gnawing on her finger and meowing. She smiled.

“It’s probably dinner time,” Alcina said. She stood up straight. “Come on, children. I have news to share.”

Curious, her three younger siblings followed her out of the room and to her kitchen, Tea Cake padding after them eagerly. Her house was a beautiful creation of the finest wood and the most luxurious stonework. Top-of-the-line appliances filled the space and every little detail, down to the hanging droplets on the chandelier and the grooves in the staircase railing, were customized to her preference. 6 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, 17,182 square feet, 14.99 acres filled by lush vineyards, and $5,500,000 later, and you had the Dimitrescu Estate.

And it was a barren prison.

It had always been there, ever since she moved in: that lingering loneliness that seemed to shroud every hallway. She had so much space, but nobody to fill it. Nobody except herself, Tea Cake, and her maids, of course. Lying awake one night, thinking about this issue as she often did, a solution had finally come to her.

After pouring some wet food into Tea Cake’s food bowl, Alcina grabbed a bottle of sweet butter wine out of her wine fridge and poured a glass for herself and each of her siblings, all of which were staring at her curiously. After taking a long sip, she finally began: “As you all know, I have plans to foster a child. And I greatly appreciate all of the support you three have provided me up until now.”

“Is this an award ceremony or something?” Heisenberg joked light-heartedly. “Can I have the award for most boxes carried? I think I deserve that one.”

“You mean most boxes dropped?” Donna giggled, earning her a playful poke in the side.

“No, it is not an award ceremony,” Alcina glared at Heisenberg without any fire in her gaze. She opened up a drawer in the stainless kitchen island they were gathered around. “Though, this may very well be an award…” She pulled out a blue folder packed full of papers and set it on the marble countertop, grinning brightly. “I just wanted to let you all know first that my training is done. I’ve completed all the classes.” Her heart swelled in her heart as she spoke her next words: “I’m a foster mom now.”

All at once, her younger siblings lit up brighter than the sun’s supernova, throwing their arms up into the air and letting out a celebratory shout. Donna and Moreau even raced around the island to hug Alcina, which she returned with a laugh.

“Oh, that’s so wonderful, Alcina!” Donna said, squeezing her with surprising strength. “I’m so happy for you!”

“Me too,” Moreau agreed.

“Sal, are you crying?”

“No!” Moreau yelped, then sniffled. “I just have something in my eye, that’s all.”

“You mean tears?” Heisenberg teased. He then looked at Alcina. “That’s amazing, Alcina. I’m really happy for you. You deserve this.”

“Aww,” Alcina crooned. “Is my little brother going soft?”

Heisenberg instantly steeled himself. “Me? No way! I was just saying what you would want to hear.”

Still being embraced on either side by her other brother and sister, Alcina chuckled. “I see.”

“Do you know your placement yet?” Donna asked, looking up at Alcina as though she were a child again.

“Placements,” Alcina corrected. She couldn’t help but grin again as she spoke of her future children. “Two. I’m getting two little girls.”

“Aww!” Donna and Moreau both cooed.

Heisenberg was nodding. “Girls. Yes. I can do girls.” He looked up at Alcina. “I’m getting them a puppy.”

“Oh, you don’t have--”

“I’m getting them a puppy,” Heisenberg said again, and it was clear he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

Alcina chuckled. “Alright. A puppy it is.”

Donna and Moreau began to join in on plans for being the greatest aunt and uncle, with Moreau saying that they needed to come to his lake for a swim and Donna listing off all the toys she would make for them. Alcina listened to them with a fond smile, happy to have such a supportive family. This was exactly what her daughters were going to need.

Daughters.

Just thinking about that word made her heart flutter in her chest. Her grin turned giddy. She was going to be a mother soon.

As she sipped from her wine glass, she thought about her placements. She had gotten the call four days ago and was scheduled to meet the little ones in the next two weeks. She could still hear her caseworker’s words in her ears during the conversation as she recalled it to her siblings.

“The first is named Daniela,” Duke had said. He was a studious, patient man with a warm smile and hands like chipmunk paws, keen on helping Alcina ever since she started her training to become a foster parent six months ago. “She’s a little girl and eleven years old. Her parents have, unfortunately, recently died due to a car crash. Her living relatives are unfit to take care of her, so she’s been placed into the foster system. Right now, she’s staying with her aunt and uncle, but she cannot be kept there much longer because of, ah…jealousy issues with their actual child.

The second is named Cassandra. Another girl, this one twelve years old. She’s been in the foster program ever since she was a baby when she was given up, as she was born from a teenager who couldn’t take care of her. She’s had…quite a few foster homes, all of which had given her up to someone else due to…issues. I understand if you don’t want to take this child. She’s been known to cause problems in her houses and pick fights. There is-- woo, that’s a lot of complaints… There are some notes on her left by her former families and-- Goddamn. They’re writing of her like she’s a monster or something…”

“Of course, I couldn’t turn down either of them,” Alcina concluded her retelling. “Especially the second one. Cassandra. The poor thing sounds like she needs a good home.”

“You’re so sweet, Alci,” Donna said, smiling at her.

“Think you can handle it?” Heisenberg asked. “I’m not doubting your abilities, but from what you said about the kid… Well, she just sounds difficult.”

“You were difficult,” Alcina said, grinning at him. “And everything turned out just fine, didn’t it?”

Her youngest brother’s concern didn’t diminish. “Yes, but… I don’t want anything to happen to you or my niece.”

Alcina, Donna, and Moreau all cooed. Heisenberg huffed.

“Oh, shut it! I have a heart!”

“You do,” Alcina’s smile lightened slightly. “But don’t worry: everything will be okay. I can do this. I need to do this. Those two little girls need a mother.”

Heisenberg considered her for a moment, then nodded. He smiled at her. “You’ve got a good heart, Alcina,” he said. “If you ever need any help, I’m here.”

“Me too!” Donna joined in.

“Me three!” Moreau piped up.

Alcina laughed. “Thank you. Really. This means a lot to me. Now…” She raised her glass. “Let’s drink before we have to cut back because there will be children around!”

Her siblings laughed and mimicked her gesture.

Alcina couldn’t wait.

[kaijurakunsobs]

If requests are open could you do a Heisenberg fic with a teen or young adult reader(no older than 20 please) who stumbles into the village trying to get away from their parents and after they get attacked by Lycans Heisenberg patches them up and takes them in trying to hide them from his sister and mother miranda. Could you please do it with an AFAB reader who doesn’t identify as female? I am currently dealing with borderline verbal abuse from my conservative father who doesnt like that though I am AFAB I don’t identify as female.

first, baby, I'm so sorry that this is happening to you. I know how bad and mentally taxing that kind of living situation can get, I was in a similar situation and somehow managed to pull through.

you are not alone, you are loved and I hope everything gets better, never forget that it's you who defines yourself, your self worth should NEVER be defined by others

All you can think is...how cold everything is around you, how the freezing air burns your skin and lungs, but, you have endured something worst, physical pain can be healed with time, emotional and psychological pain is what hurts the most, what feels eternal and haunting, it coils around you, it grows and never let's go, like being branded, it leaves marks that never go away.

Running aimlessly through the snow feels like nothing.

What made you get out of the car?

Was it anger?

Desperation?

Does that even matter anymore?

You can't hear their voices anymore, so that's a win.

Farther away you see smoke and fain lights, distant sounds beckoning you closer to that place, and you let yourself smile widely when the silhouette of someone standing so close to you, you could get help, start somewhere new, be happy!

But it's so short-lived, that you question if there's divine retribution, karma, or just the universe laughing in your face.

Your "savior" is covered in blood, a man with a perpetual expression of agony lays in the snow, dead. The monster turns to you and finally the cold freezes you where you stand, it's not alone, and all the other creatures are looking at you, dark soulless eyes fixated on their new prey.

You have felt like that before under his gaze like if you were vermin, it made you furious how you were treated and consider as something lesser than a person. These things look at you the same like you are just a speck of dust in their path, and maybe you are, if the mangled body is any indication that taking a life will be nothing for them.

You see it from the corner of your eye, one of them lunges for you, and then? everything is a blur.

You remember kicking and punching wildly, adrenaline making you forget about the pain of the bites and scratches, there are memories of you running and using something to smash the head of one of the monsters, a rock, perhaps? But in the end, cold, blood loss, and exhaustion are enough to bring you to your knees. One of them grabs a fistful of hair and roars in your face and you know, that, this is it, you fought and did your best, but this is the end of your travesty...so much for your new life of freedom.

"Get the fuck away...I SAID FUCK OFF!" his voice is so loud that it makes you whimper and recoil "LET GO, CAN'T YOU HEAR ME? LET GO, DAMN IT!" the smell of blood and a warm liquid hits you hard, but at least you are free, letting your body hit the snow

"What do we have here?...this one is alive, but ya ain't from around here, do you?" he's smoking and something small and silly wants you to tell him that smoking is bad, which makes you smile so softly "...Interesting"

Heisenberg rarely gets intrigued by anything, he hasn't found anything to spark his curiosity in so long, so of course, he had to come and see what was causing such a commotion. What he thought to be a villager, fist fighting the lycans so valiantly, turned out to be a teenager, he saw you from afar,  furiously kicking lycan after lycan, you didn't even notice the growing red spots in your clothes and the black eye, it was survival and feral like behavior. Truly interesting.

Now, what made him pick you up with care? years from today he will say it was just "Scientific interest kiddo! nothing more", but, it's the pain in your face that makes him act so soft, it's not the agony brought by your wounds, this goes deeper, it's different and he knows it very well.

Under normal circumstances, he would have taken you to Moreau, but he knows the loud mouth will give you to that bitch Miranda and that will be it for you. Dimitrescu is OUT of the equation, so does Beneviento, hell knows what her psychotic ass would do to you. So he brings you back to his home and takes time to clean your wounds, true, his stitching abilities are amazing...on corpses, and a lack of anesthesia and your occasional movements makes it hard for him to stitch you properly, but by the end of everything, you are bandaged and clean, isn't that the important part?

He’s done his part, the rest is on you. If you had the strength to fight and even kill a lycan, you might live to see another day

How long were you out?

You are warm and so fucking sore, cracking your eyes open is a big task and even harder to sit up in the bed you are laying on. The room is black and smells like tobacco, oil, and something you can’t place but it’s nice.

Barefoot and curious you start to get up, wincing deep and loud when pain floods your body, but you get up non-less, you feel the cold air hit your legs, and immediately pull down the shirt to cover yourself. Then it fully clicks, the jagged memories of what happened slaps you in the face and make you lose your footing, falling back on the bed you pry the shirt off from your body, you see bandages and patches placed on smaller wounds, your head is killing you and your right eye hurts like crazy.

With small breathes you pull the shirt back on and force your body to get up and investigate the room. There are piles of clothes and pieces of paper everywhere, picking one of the pants you sigh, these are yours, but they have been destroyed either by the beasts or by however brought you here. Looking around there’s nothing more, time to go out.

The only door leads you to an open room, the kitchen and living room placed together, in one of the sofas you can see someone laying down, their chest rising and falling softly, their face obscured by an old hat.

You try to be as quiet and sneaky as possible when getting back into the room “Where do you think you are going, kid?” his voice is thick with sleep but the sound is enough to make you yelp, slamming your shoulder against the door frame, the man jumps up and in a couple of strides he’s beside you “Can you more fucking careful? the stitches gonna get open and if you get an infection I ain’t risking my neck to get you meds”

He’s a bit taller than you with squared and wide shoulders, his face is stern and it seems like he’s annoyed about something, is it you? Did you anger him? You try to remember what could you have done to make him so mad but nothing comes to you, is not like you remember much, and what you do, is better to be left forgotten.

Heisenberg has seen many people look at him with fear, reverence even, but he has never been in the receiving end of a look like yours, he has to close his eyes for a second, carefully grabbing your wrist and dragging you to the kitchen, almost forcing you to take a seat in on of the wobbly chairs he owns.

“Well now that you are back with us, I can finally cook something to eat. You must be starving! I would too after the way you fought back there” he lets out a howl while he busies himself with pulling ingredients for whatever he’s cooking “I saw ya, you know? That was one hell of a show and I know about putting up good entertainment, you gave those lycans a good beating”

Lycans? So those things have names...uuuh, who would have thought.

"What's your name kid?" you get pulled out of your mind by his voice and the smell of cooking eggs, for a moment you wonder and think, that this is the time to be addressed by YOUR name "...I'm Y/N, sir"

"Cut the sir bullshit, you ain't trying to impress nobody here, you can call me Heisenberg, Karl if you wanna get my attention quickly, got it?"

"Yes...Heisenberg?"

He's rather harsh from what little you have seen of him, but he's careful when serving you breakfast, a steady hand serves you tea and makes quick work of a loaf of bread, whit that you two eat in relative silence, he eats like a wolf and that's enough to make you hide a smile.

"Once you are...better..." he's speaking between bites, eew "I'm taking you to get some new clothes, staying here ain't gonna be free, ok?" with his fork pointing at you he waits and continues without you answering "I'll have to teach you...that's gonna take time..."

"I'm a faster learner!"

Heisenberg laughs at the offended tone in your voice, taking a big gulp from his mug once he stops "I like ya kid, there's a fire in you and I respect that, we gonna get along"

It takes you almost 2 weeks to fully recover and be able to move without crying out in pain. On the day he announces that he must take off your stitches, he's kind when pulling on the thread, talking about how that same day he's taking you to the seamstress cuz he's "done" having you wear his stuff.

The seamstress in the Village seems flabbergasted when "Lord Heisenberg" comes into her house, demanding she makes you good sturdy pants and easy to move in shirts. From that sole visit is enough for people to call you "Heisenberg's assistant" whenever you are sent to the village or just went spotted by anyone. The Duke, the merchant that sometimes you have found yourself talking to, does nothing but fuel the rumor, people already fear Heisenberg on a god day, now they fear you might be spying for him.

You would be lying by saying that, Heisenberg is a normal man, he's flamboyant and loud, filled with pride, and what you can describe as...showmanship, he speaks with passion when explaining to you the ins and outs of the factory. He's always close, never breathing down your neck, just close enough to hear if you need help.

The first time you see him use his gift is the most embarrassing and awkward moment of your life.

You are working on some molds for pieces he needs to make from scratch, he taught you where you should work on that, away from whatever lurks in the lower areas of the factory. You were so engrossed in getting the mold out perfectly, tongue sticking out and heavy gloves helping you to pry open the damn thing open, you don't even jump when a hand lands on your shoulder, but you do when the ghoulish face of a corpse appears beside you.

He's running the second he hears you, a high pitched sound tearing through the noise of the machinery, he sees you bolting it towards him and a Zwei Soldat quickly catching up with you, the drill in its arm too close to your back, the moment you are close enough he pulls you towards and behind him, a metal sheet flying to the thing and beheading it in an instant.

"Kid...Kid, look at me, hey, eyes on me" you are not crying, there's no blood anywhere and nothing seems to be missing, you seem more startled than anything else, but you listen to him, concentrated on him and his voice "Y/N, it's ok kid, I'm here"

Then it happens, you let it slip. "Thanks...thanks dad"

You feel him go tense, the hands-on your shoulders shake for a second and embarrassment comes crashing down on you, you are ready for him to yell or push you away and order you to see if the mold is still useful, but he pulls you close, patting your back like you never said anything.

There are days when you can hear him talking on the phone, his voice growing irritated, and his explosive temper getting worst.

You are curled up in the crawlspace that he turned into your room, listening to him talking with someone, he sounds exasperated and nervous. This time he takes longer to come out from his room, a new cigar in his mouth and hammer over his shoulder, usually, he would tell you that he's leaving for a couple of hours, this time he's just there, tapping his foot and sparing quick glances at you.

"Get your coat, we need to leave"

That's new...he never takes you with him to wherever he goes, but you don't feel like arguing and do as he says, slipping your boots on and grabbing your coat.

Heisenberg is unusually quiet this time, only the snow crunching under your feet make enough sound to fill in the void, he takes you farther from the village and into a rundown church, you can hear new voices and the unforgettable sounds of the lycans snarling.

Inside the candlelight is soft and cast strange shadows of the people already waiting inside. There's a woman in a white dress that probably towers over you, another lady dressed in black and her covered, she sits in a corner with a creepy doll on her lap, and finally, a shy man who battles to cover himself with the torn cloth of his jacket.

"Is this why mother Miranda called us? Did you brought a new toy and never informed her? what a bad dog you are Heisenberg"

"Non of your business, Dimitrescu" Karl does everything to keep you behind him, away from the doll or the twisted man, but especially from the woman, Dimitrescu as he called her.

From where you stood, you could see how beautiful and regal she is, sitting with grace and a sarcastic smile plastered on her face. Noticing you, she moved slightly to get a better look, narrowing her eyes, making you feel small and like food. Before she can't even speak the sound of feathers caught your attention, giving Karl enough time to guide you to one of the pews, making you take a seat beside him.

The four adults greeted the new woman, the infamous mother Miranda, you have heard about her in the village and through small stories shared by the Duke, but mostly, you have heard Heisenberg curse the woman and call her every single name under the sun.

"Usually I wouldn't care for what my children do in their dominions, but, Karl, I must say I'm disappointed in you...to hide this child and avoid telling us?"

"I apologize, Miranda, the right opportunity never came" ooooh he's pissed

"I say you take his toy, Mother Miranda, and if possible, give me that lovely lady to me?" at that your gut twist uncomfortably, it's been some time since you were...addressed like that

"Excuse me?" Heisenberg cocks his head to the side, looking at Dimitrescu over his shades "Are you talking about my SON?"

"YOUR SON?! Don't make laugh, child, I can smell the sweet maiden blood running through her veins, that's a lady not one of your dirty lycans"

"And you are bitch no matter how well you dress!"

"ENOUGH!" Miranda's voice breaks them apart, everyone looking at her "Care to elaborate, Heisenberg?"

Karl takes a second to take a drag from his cigar and blow a cloud of some into the air "I found Y/N here, they fought hard to survive and I took them in, just like Alcina, and her lovely daughters...I decided it was my time to have a child of my own"

"That doesn't change the fact that you brought an outsider and didn't inform mother, and now you are trying to do what exactly? have...them...play house with you?"

"Lady Dimitrescu, that's enough" she's looking at you, mother Miranda in staring, and Heisenberg as a hand on your back, suddenly you are hyper-aware of everything, the sounds and smells, the movements each person in the room does, the way the candles flicker "I allow it, may this never happen again, Heisenberg. Next time there will be consequences"

You feel like passing out after that, the screams of Dimitrescu and the doll get drown by the ringing in your ears, everything keeping you together is Heisenberg's hand on yours cursing up a storm as he pulls you along with him.

The cold air feeling nice against your burning skin.

"Kid? I think you are ready" you are halfway through the trek back to the factory when he speaks again

"Ready for what?"

"To be introduced to the Heisenberg family true work, of course! What kind of father I would be if I don't involve you in our family's business"

You trip with your feet hearing him say that, so...he meant it? what he said in the church...that you are his son?

"Come on Y/N, I won't go easy on you because you are my kid now, quick quick"

Catching up to him is easy and you feel at peace when one of his arms wraps around you, he begins to talk about how many things he's gonna teach you and how exciting is to have a young mind to shape.

For the first time, you are eager to get back home.

[veliseraptor]

thinkin about what you said about xy wanting to be in a position to cause harm and how he's probably always been in a position in which people could and would and have tried to end him

uh huh, yep.

I just...augh, am on some level never not thinking about just how much of Xue Yang’s dysfunction and general behavior is based around that core trauma of no one is ever going to be able to hurt me again.

and to him that looks like the power to hurt others - and more than that, I think having the power to hurt others means that they won’t or can’t hurt him. especially given his enthusiasm for disproportionate (?) retribution - if someone causes him harm he will destroy their entire life so they can’t do it again. :)

cause...yeah. I mean, it’s obvious in terms of his childhood that he lives a very precarious existence. as far as we’re told, he has no family and no home, no protectors and, it certainly seems, no one looking after him. in CQL we have the line about “I was beaten a lot as a child” that certainly doesn’t make the incident with Chang Cian sound like a one off, and just in general very young children on their own are gonna be...vulnerable to harm.

and even after that, after he’s gained some power (and notoriety, which has its own kind of power), his existence is still pretty precarious and vulnerable - if someone with actual authority had decided during his teenage delinquent years that he was causing too much trouble, I doubt it would’ve been a challenge to get rid of him. 

and then there’s the Jin in novelverse, which is a pretty good deal for a while but given how that ends...and I assume personally that Xue Yang always knew it wasn’t going to last, or always expected that eventually he’d outlive his usefulness and become too much of a liability to keep around, and then he’d be in trouble cause he knows too much to just let him go. in CQL there’s the added interval with the Wens at some point, and Wen Ruohan makes clear that he’s pretty disposable there, too - or at least he’s trying to indicate as much.

I’ve talked before about how Xue Yang’s value to others has always been contingent on his usefulness to them. and when that value expires, then it’s his life on the line. there’s no safety, no security. no guarantee that he’s not going to end up hurting, and odds pretty good that he will, sooner or later (or at least that someone will try).

but he’ll do his best to make sure that there are as few people who can do that as possible - and hurting others is, I think, sometimes a way of proving to himself that he isn’t helpless, isn’t weak, isn’t at the bottom of the food chain anymore.

somewhat but not completely relatedly: I also wrote a while ago and I’m just going to repeat it here that I think there is something about when you know that your life is worthless to literally everyone else, it maybe makes a certain amount of sense to drastically overvalue it (relative to everyone else’s).

[daughter-of-royalty]

Out-of-DL!Kazuha Headcanons

[Admin!Danny: OH, BOY! Prepare for this one, because there’s much more pain for Kazuha than Mystic. And her story changes a lot due to the lack of a father.]

ᴋᴀᴢᴜʜᴀ ʟᴀᴜʀᴇɴᴛ, ᴛʜᴇ ғᴏʀɢᴏᴛᴛᴇɴ ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇss

After Kazuha’s father dies of a mysterious and incurable illness—alongside his family (except his brother, who was killed in war)—the crowd turns to her mother, Elle Laurent, a powerful witch with blood connections to the royalty. They accuse her of having created this sickness, spiteful of the family’s treatment to her and her daughter.

The accusations, though untrue, created a violent crowd wanting to kill them both in retribution of Kazuha’s father’s family.

This forces Elle to run away with Kazuha and go into hiding for a long time. The luxurious life they knew under the care of their husband/father is left forgotten as they find themselves sleeping in slums and rundown, abandoned homes.

Elle had been kicked out of the status her parents had left for her in the family before they passed, due to having a child out of wedlock with a man “not fit” for her. So, after they were scared out by an angry mob threatening death for both, they really had nowhere to go.

From then on, Kazuha adopted her mother’s name: Laurent. She refused to let go of the name his father had given her. Making her: Kazuha Laurent. She does tend to use “Kassandra” as an alias when out in public.

Kazuha was decently young at the time this all went down, having the appearance of a kid midway down their teenager years.

By then, her entire personality had been built. Like always, she is poise, calm and collected, but a hothead. She does tend to think things through before acting—that’s how she was raised, after all—but will blow up without notice.

The kicker here being, Kazuha doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty now. She would still prefer not to, if given the option. But she will if she has to. And she will make it as enjoyable as possible for herself.

The more the mother and daughter pair venture through the Demon Realm, Kazuha learned of an underground kingdom directed by none other than that one maid who took care of her and then went on to become he uncle’s lover.

She sent a letter via one of the Familiars (who are basically the only companions they had after being chased out). After receiving a response, welcoming into the kingdom, the family reunited at last.

Kazuha is still the little girl DJ took care of and Elle is still the same friend she had all those years ago, but now they look battered. Their clothes are shabby and nothing like the fancy dresses they wore once in the past. They themselves are covered in grime from head to toe, setting to questions just when was the last time had a decent bath.

DJ demanded for answers as to how they ended up like this and Elle proceeded to answer, causing the Queen breakdown in tears out of pity for the two. At that moment, Kazuha saw something she hadn’t in a long time: her mother crying, desperately clinging to her old friend.

The cousins relationship is rocky as always. They have good and bad days—much like siblings—but the fact that they would give their lives for the other has never changed.

Kazuha takes care of correspondence in the castle and sorts it out for the queen and king. All to have something to do as a thanks for taking them in. Now she didn’t have to worry about hers or her mother’s safety every time they laid to sleep. She didn’t have to worry about what they would eat or how they could get it.

I’m still not sure if she will start those business of bounty hunter (where she would hire Mystic to work for her), but it’s very possibly that I make it happen.

➤ Out-of-DL!Mystic

[morsking]

honestly i feel like matsudaira's sacrifice would've been a lot more impactful and relevant to the themes of ooku if either amakusa shirou (an event servant no less) would've been there for matsudaira to see that his actions eternally doomed a teenage boy to seek a salvation that will be constantly denied to him by fundamentally misunderstanding what it means to love and save. or if the player got to call him out on being a participant in the horror of the shimabara rebellion whose aftermath has transcended time and space. it feels like such an awful half-measure to have yagyuu say that the massacre was hell itself but not to hold one of its commandants accountable for it when he's present for it to happen.

the story just handwaves that part of nobutsuna by making him helpful and tragic towards the end because he gives his life for the tokugawa despite simultaneously being a traitor without actually that being a retribution for the awful things he did do under them. one of the overarching themes of fgo as a whole is how yesterday's enemy can be today's ally, how circumstances can lead to unlikely outcomes where a good person can do bad and a bad person good. i think matsudaira could've been a lot more complex than ooku bothered to by making him confront that perhaps the tokugawa really weren't that glorious precisely because of loyal warriors like him who enabled their worst atrocities and prevented them from declining and dissolving later down the line.

that would've resonated a lot with parvati as well. a huge part of why ooku happens is because parvati enabled and was enabled, and that lack of empathy and foresight is what killed kama and turned them bitter, resentful, and traumatized enough to lash out and become a demon when they are fundamentally a good god who tried their damnedest to give everyone what they wanted only to be scorned and hated for it. a love that isn't tempered is disastrous, and as such we much teach ourselves and each other to love meaningfully, to love in such a way the people we love understand how to not hurt but enrich, whether others or themselves. by seeing how matsudaira's rigid love caused only pain, by seeing how amakusa shirou's indiscriminate love caused only ruin, then she would've seen how her short-sighted and naive love caused havoc and driven her to make amends with the person she broke and annihilated with her negligence.

how much more interesting would it have been if matsudaira had decided to help you by realizing how mistaken he had been in his love for the tokugawa? if he had realized how wrong it was to slaughter amakusa shirou and his followers? how wrong it was for him to make things stay as they were rather than try to help his lord find compromise between him and the christians to achieve a more prosperous future? that would've been real atonement, and that would've done a hell of a lot more to make kama's defeat deep and significant, because it would've proved them wrong and caused them to seek and regain the meaning of true love by witnessing firsthand how a love that is indulgent fails.

[numinousdread-a]

☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙ MEET THE MUSE 4/? // CHANG GENG 🐺🏹

ᴘᴇʀsᴏɴᴀʟs ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʀᴇʙʟᴏɢ !

❝     In fact, up to this time, in Gu Yun’s heart, Chang Geng was still that gentle and simple young man. Perhaps he was more brilliant than others, but he would never look down on people because of his talents. Perhaps he had a little bit of petty temperament, but he did not get angry easily. Even if it happened, it happened in a proper manner, only to express to the offender that ‘I’m angry’. The person would at most only feel like they were being scratched lightly by a dear little animal, only leaving a little white mark and not breaking the skin.

Could make one love him down to the bones.    ❞

Chang Geng is named after the evening Venus, sometimes called Lucifer, which is believed to be an unfortunate star.

Chang Geng is the son of the previous emperor Yuan He of Great Liang and a captive northern tribe princess. Hidden away by his aunt, he grew up in a faraway village watching as steam powered ships and airships took over the skies. His aunt was not kind despite stealing him away, and he was often subjected to abuse both physically and psychologically that when he was a child he tried to run away multiple times. 

Saved from wolves on the outskirts one winter when he attempted to run away, one of his saviors was a young man named Gu Yun and his friend Shen Yi, he dubbed this man 'Yifu' out of gratitude and cared for him in his half-blind and half-deaf state for a few years. When it's revealed that Gu Yun is the Grand Marshal of the Great Liang Empire who has come to protect Chang Geng, he takes him to the capital to claim his royal title as the Emperor's fourth son, Li Min later known by the title of Yan Wang.

Described as having an appearance like jade, his features are sharp, which could make him seem unapproachable but he has an air of calmness around him that mellows it out, even making him look sweet when he smiles.

Thoughtful and brilliant, Chang Geng works constantly to solve national crises of Great Liang. With his heart firmly planted in seeing his country prosper without war, he assists in new banking, creating railways, and even pushing invasions from the West from their borders. But under the high functioning exterior, he fights to suppress a violent curse called the Bone of Impurity placed upon him by his aunt in retribution for his father's crimes, who over time during his childhood had slowly poisoned him. 

The curse itself has the long-term effect of being unable to differentiate between reality and dreams, causing the afflicted to go insane, bringing violence and destruction anywhere they go. In multiple instances, when emotions were high, Chang Geng would begin to bleed from his eyes and seemed to grow two sets of red pupils in his agitated state.

In order to control this he followed a monk named Liao Ran for a great portion of his teenage years who taught him stoicism to contain his emotions, and in his adulthood learned from a master healer and doctor named Chen Qing Xu who later would find a ritualistic cure to help rid him of the Bone Impurity.

His love for his country and the people, coupled with his decisiveness on when to be kind and when to be ruthless led to his ascension after the death of his brother emperor Li Feng and made him the best Emperor Tai Shi that Great Liang has had in 3 generations.

genre tags: drama, historical, court politics, intrigue, tactician, magic, steampunk

[rnelodyy]

C!Dream, the status quo, and why conflict is okay sometimes.

In this fandom, there is a lot of talk about conflict, who causes it, who avoids it, who is to blame for it, et cetera. An argument often heard from c!Dream apologists to justify his abysmal treatment of L’Manburg in general and c!Tommy in specific is “He was just trying to stop people causing conflict! He was protecting the server by stopping these conflict-causing maniacs!”

And it’s not hard to see where they get this idea from, because c!Dream repeats this sentiment a lot, from his “happy family” speech, to the speech during the final disc war about how c!Tommy causes constant conflict, to the fact that he always portrays himself as a reasonable authority figure trying to calm down these feral creatures always fighting with one another (and we’ll get to that idea…).

My reasoning for explaining how c!Dream’s worldview is deeply flawed may be a bit controversial, so I decided to write this essay to explore the following idea:

Sometimes, conflict is good actually.

(all /dsmp /rp, names refer to characters, not content creators)

Conflict, in itself, is morally neutral. It’s the context surrounding the conflict that allows us to ascribe morality to it. This fact makes this topic a LOT harder to discuss, because morality is subjective. What I’m writing here is all my own opinion, you may agree or disagree on some points, I just ask that you read it through and please don’t start shit over this.

Anyway, the context. It’s dependent on a number of factors.

Justification. Why was the conflict started?

Intent. What is the desired outcome for either party?

Proportionality. If the conflict is started out of revenge or punishment, is it proportionate to the wrong committed?

Power Dynamic. Is the person on the receiving end more, less, or equally as powerful as the person starting the conflict?

For example, let’s compare the L’Manburg War for Independence with the intervention during the Final Disc War.

Justification:

Dream declared war on L’Manburg because he saw them as traitors, and the land they occupied as rightfully his. Therefore, them making a country of their own where his rules didn’t apply was a violation of the status quo he wanted to uphold.

Punz and the others intervened because they didn’t want Dream to kill Tommy and/or Tubbo, and were tired of his constant meddling in their affairs.

Intent:

Dream’s intent was to attack L’Manburg until they surrendered, no matter how much hurt he’d cause or how many lives he’d take.

Punz and the other’s intent was to stop Dream from killing Tommy and Tubbo, and stop whatever plan he had to keep the server under control.

Proportionality:

L’Manburg declared independence in response to brutal violence as retribution for clumsy attempts at crime, on land nobody except Wilbur was using, were explicitly pacifistic and invited Dream to make an embassy in their land to discuss trade. Dream responded by declaring war, destroying their land, luring them into a trap and killing them, and continuing to beat them down until they surrendered.

Punz and the others intervened after Dream dragged two teenagers out into the wilderness to fight him, with little chance of them ever returning. This was after months of Dream’s meddling in conflicts he had nothing to do with, trying to control people’s actions, ripping Tommy away from his home and abusing him in secret and, in the end, destroying the place most synonymous with freedom from his rule. They intervened by getting Tommy and Tubbo to safety, letting Tommy (the kid who arguably suffered the most at Dream’s hands) take his items and beat him to death twice, then locking him up in prison.

Power Dynamic:

L’Manburg was significantly less powerful than Dream and his goons, with less skilled fighters and heavily inferior gear. They held their position fairly okay at the start, but after the Final Control Room, they were basically defenseless against Dream’s assault.

Dream had always had unprecedented power on the server. He’s leveled entire countries, crowns and dethrones kings when he feels like it, overruled the decision of a court of law, and in the end, had Tommy and Tubbo completely at his mercy before the intervention. Even beating Dream was seen as such an insurmountable task that it took fourteen people (excluding Clingyduo) to take him down.

The thing about conflict, even violent conflict, is that it’s not always negative. If your sister is being abused by her boyfriend and refuses to report it out of fear, you’re gonna be hard-pressed to find someone unable to sympathize with you if you go over to his house and break his nose.

What is a defining feature of conflict, is that it disrupts the status quo.

That’s not to say that some characters are always disruptors and others always preservers of the status quo. For example, during the Disc War, Tommy is the one trying to preserve and Dream the one trying to disrupt (the status quo being: Tommy owns the discs), and during the L’Manburg War for Independence, Tommy and Wilbur are disrupting while Dream is preserving (the status quo being: Dream has absolute power and the entire server needs to follow his rules).

It’s ALSO not to say that this disruption is always bad, because sometimes, the status quo fucking sucks, and throwing it on its head is the right thing to do. Overthrowing Schlatt is seen by everyone on the SMP and pretty much every fan as morally correct, as while Schlatt being president was the status quo, it meant he was ruling as a dictator, exiling his political opponents, imprisoning and heavily taxing dissenters, being verbally and physically abusive to his cabinet members, and forcing a guest at his festival to execute a sixteen year-old boy for spying for the political opponent he exiled.

Conflict being a genuinely good force of societal change isn’t usually brought up in the fandom though, at least not consciously. A lot of people, both on the server and IRL, see conflict only as a source of hurt and pain, and try to prevent or avoid it as much as possible.

And here’s where Dream differs from someone like Ranboo. Because while both Dream and Ranboo operate on the assumption that all conflict is bad all the time, Ranboo shows this by becoming conflict-avoidant to the extreme, to the point where he refuses to pick sides in pretty much any conflict, no matter how obviously good or evil one side is. Meanwhile, Dream shows this by becoming controlling to the extreme. Mitigating conflict isn’t enough, he needs to control everything to prevent all conflict ever.

In Ranboo’s case, this is less due to ideology and more due to personality. Ranboo is a deeply anxious person, and hates being in the middle of fights. He’s also… not very self-critical? He has issues with self-worth, but he very rarely takes a look in the mirror to inspect what it actually is he believes and says, making him very gullible and convinced of his own righteousness. But while that’s a VERY interesting character trait, Ranboo’s conflict-avoidance doesn’t make him a very good character to examine in the context of conflict and what it means.

So let’s look at Dream. Because, despite claiming to want to stop conflict, Dream CONSTANTLY starts conflicts or escalates existing ones. The L’Manburg War for Independence could’ve been entirely avoided if Dream hadn’t lashed out so heavily at a nation of pacifists who made their own area to avoid violence from authorities. As I explored in my George Vod Analysis, the griefing of George’s house would’ve been a lighthearted dispute between two people if Dream hadn’t taken over the entire thing and turned it into one of the biggest diplomatic crises in the server’s history. Mexican L’Manburg hadn’t even existed for an hour before Dream came by to kill its residents and destroy its land.

So why is Dream so focused on stopping conflict, despite constantly starting it himself? Why is THAT his hill to die on?

Simple. Dream wants to prevent disruptions to the status quo. That status quo being “Dream is the one in power and everyone has to listen to him.”

But you can’t say that out loud. If you say “everyone needs to listen to me otherwise it’s not fair”, you sound like a whiny five year-old at best, and a tyrant at worst. So, instead of saying that, Dream says “I just want to prevent conflict, keep the server peaceful.”

Remember what I said about one party being the disruptor and another being the preserver? Well, Dream’s status in the early days of the server is almost always preserver of the status quo. The only times he’s the disruptor is if disrupting that status quo serves to strengthen the status quo of him being in power. For example: Stealing Tommy’s discs is a disruption of the “Tommy’s discs are his and his alone” status quo, but strengthens the “Dream is the most powerful dude on the server” status quo, because the discs give him power over Tommy.

By fighting L’Manburg, he was trying to preserve the status quo, because having a government on the server meant he no longer had absolute power. Hell, REALLY early on, he decided to kill George and burn all his stuff because George had full diamond while everyone else was still running around in iron armor.

However, after L’Manburg’s independence, Dream’s focus shifted. Instead of preserving the status quo, he’d disrupt it in order to return to the status quo as HE wanted it, with no nations, and himself at the top.

But again, that wouldn’t look good. Making yourself the undisputed ruler of the entire server is not good for optics, so instead, Dream hides behind the excuse that he’s just trying to stop conflict, or seeking retribution for slights against his nation.

By this point, Tommy, the only person who CONSTANTLY refuses to bow to his demands, becomes his scapegoat. Tommy is loud, enjoys chaos and getting on people’s nerves, and causes, admittedly, a LOT of conflict. Lighthearted, non-serious conflict with very little actual consequences, but conflict nonetheless. It’s not hard for him to start smearing Tommy’s name, painting him as this feral child at fault for every conflict ever, mostly because a lot of people already believed something like that to be true.

The idea that Tommy is uniquely destructive or chaotic is complete bullshit. Tommy is definitely on the more chaotic side, but he’s not that much more chaotic or destructive than your average server member, he’s just really loud and annoying about it, which makes the things he DOES do stick out more. But Dream, especially during the Exile Conflict, continuously pushed the idea that Tommy is the only one creating conflict on the server, that Tommy is responsible for all conflict ever, and that without Tommy, everyone would be at peace.

And at some point… Dream started believing this himself.

His speech during the Final Disc War illustrates this perfectly. He tells Tommy that ever since he joined, there’s been nothing but war and terrorism and conflict, and that those originated from the attachments Tommy brought to the server. That, by cutting off his own attachments, exploiting everyone else’s, and getting rid of Tommy, he could restore the old status quo, before L’Manburg, before Tommy, when everything was peaceful and no conflict existed. Except, Tommy is too fun to fuck with, so instead of killing him, Dream was going to lock Tommy up in Pandora’s Vault, probably for the rest of his life, to continue breaking him.

This is a prime example of Dream falling for his own bullshit.

First of all, Tommy didn’t cause all those wars, he was actually on the receiving end of most of them. A vast majority of the wars and terrorism Tommy got caught up in were actually started by Dream, or Dream was actively helping the guy who started it.

Second, Tommy didn’t bring the concept of attachment to the server. He gets very attached to things, true, but attachment is a very basic part of the human condition. Even Dream, the guy openly shunning all attachment, isn't immune to it, in the end, he’s attached to the server as a whole, and Tommy, who he gave almost biblical importance in his narrative. Like Tommy said, if you have no attachment to things, why does anything matter at all?

Third, getting rid of Tommy and controlling the entire server with their attachments… that wouldn’t have restored the status quo, because the status quo exactly as Dream envisioned it never existed. He’s not chasing a past that was ruined by Tommy, he’s chasing an idealized fairytale version of the past where everyone was friends and frolicked around in the fields and there was never any conflict, before Tommy came along and ruined everything. Before Tommy joined, there was a SHIT ton of conflict, from minor disputes over theft, to the above-mentioned incident where Dream destroyed George’s stuff, to the lemon tree conflicts that wound up being taken to court!

Except, even this idea of Dream wanting to restore an idealized, made-up past is only partially true. What Dream is looking to return to and uphold is a world where he was the only authority and nobody questioned him. The status quo he wants to return to, no matter how much he denies it, is the one where everyone was at his mercy and he could do whatever he wanted without impunity. However, because he’s convinced himself that conflict is the issue, not disobedience, even if his plan succeeded, he’d have to keep the entire server in a chokehold to get them to follow his ideal plan.

Because conflict is inevitable. Anywhere where there’s two or more people sharing a space, you’re going to run into conflict at some point. People will have disagreements, they will fight, they will have miscommunications, they will have a bad day or accident and antagonize someone else.

Resolving these issues through conflict, whether it’s verbal, physical or legal, will result in a healthier community in the long run, because people’s pent-up frustrations will get an outlet, and people will try to hash out compromises or accommodations based on the reactions they get. It’s not always the ideal solution, but it’s better than just sitting everyone down, telling them to play nice, and smacking them over the back of the head as soon as they start complaining.

But conflict threatens the status quo. And as Dream involves himself in more and more conflict, they increasingly start threatening HIS status quo. So in order to maintain his status quo, conflict needs to be stomped out as soon as it crops up, no matter how minor it is.

So, now to paint a timeline through this lens.

Dream started off as the ultimate power on the server, able to do whatever he wanted without consequence. Tommy joined and threatened that status quo, but he was just one guy, so keeping him away and occupied wasn’t too hard. It was fun, even.

Then L’Manburg came, and posed the first substantial threat to Dream’s rule. Dream tried crushing this rebellion before it had a chance to take root, but in the end, Tommy traded his discs (the things Dream was using to control him) for L’Manburg’s independence. The status quo changed, L’Manburg was here to stay.

However, L’Manburg still posed a threat to Dream’s rule, so manipulating events to destroy it became Dream’s next priority. He supported Schlatt during the election in the hope he’d destabilize the nation, then sided with Pogtopia in secret to help overthrow the government, then helped Wilbur with the TNT to blow L’Manburg sky high, then betrayed Pogtopia for Schlatt’s side for the revival book. When Pogtopia won, Dream was egging Techno on through whispers to try to get him to go ape shit, so with Techno’s withers and Wilbur’s TNT, L’Manburg was gone, and the old status quo had been restored.

Except it hadn’t been. L’Manburg was rebuilt, with Tubbo at the helm this time, and a new status quo was put in place, with L’Manburg still there and still a threat. However, with Wilbur’s death, Tommy was left almost completely unprotected, and Dream took his chance to get Tommy thrown out of the country, hoping to get his biggest threat out of the way, as well as being able to sink his claws into the L’Manburg Cabinet.

Dream isolated Tommy in exile and tried to break him to the point where he wouldn’t put up any resistance. During this time, he also commissioned the prison, which he claimed to only be for the most dangerous members of the server, but is a pretty transparent attempt to enforce his rule by making a place where he can stick anyone who disobeys him. The server is slipping more and more out of his control, with more factions popping up and more people outright defying him, so like any dictator, he takes harsher and harsher measures to stay on top.

Tommy escapes exile, and while Dream is keeping tabs on him, he can’t directly control him anymore. So, to prevent Tommy from returning to L’Manburg and stopping his plans at disrupting the status quo, he blows up the community house, frames Tommy for it, and goes to Tubbo to demand Tommy’s disc, the only reason destroying L’Manburg was disadvantageous for him. Tommy jumps in to defend himself and takes L’Manburg’s side, but in the end, Dream takes both the discs, then destroys L’Manburg with Techno.

By this point, the status quo Dream wanted to craft is almost complete. L’Manburg is gone, there are no other major factions threatening his rule, and he’s pretty much set a precedent for what happens to dissenters. All he needs to do now is get rid of Tommy.

Except he can’t kill him. Over time, Dream has become obsessed with Tommy, to the point where he’s started seeing Tommy as the lynchpin of the server that everyone else gravitates around. Tommy is almost a living MacGuffin: he brings chaos and attachment which gives him power, but in the right hands, that power can be harnessed to create order.

(This is absolute nonsense of course, Tommy is just A Guy, his presence itself doesn’t create chaos, and controlling him doesn’t mean controlling the entire server because a lot of people just plain don’t give a shit.)

So instead of killing him, Dream tries to put him in prison. He even outright says that he wants to finish what he started in exile, this time with even tighter control and no possibility for escape.

He goes to kill Tubbo for multiple reasons: Tubbo is no longer useful to him, Tubbo can be used as leverage to keep Tommy compliant in prison (the possibility to revive someone’s best friend is a pretty valuable bargaining chip), and Tubbo would absolutely raise hell if Dream threw his best friend in jail for no reason.

If Dream had gotten his way, he’d be able to blackmail everyone on the server into compliance. Tommy, his scapegoat, would’ve been in prison, so now without a scapegoat, he could’ve probably gone one of two ways.

He could’ve created a new scapegoat to blame all new conflict on. Quackity would’ve been a good candidate, he’s VEHEMENTLY anti-Dream, and would’ve had no qualms about starting shit with him. Whether it was with El Rapids or with Las Nevadas, Quackity would’ve been the biggest anti-Dream voice in Tommy’s absence. So c!Dream would keep Quackity around, blaming him for everything that goes wrong… Until Quackity would get too uppity and either gets murdered or put in jail with Tommy, and the cycle repeats until either people rise up, or everyone who isn’t completely subservient is in prison.

Or, he could’ve cracked down EVEN HARDER on conflict. Anyone creating a new nation gets stomped into the dirt, anyone fighting over resources gets murdered, anyone squabbling over griefed property gets thrown in prison for weeks at a time, all the while their property and pets that they care about more than anything else get dangled in front of their noses. Anyone who’s ever read any more than five pages about the dynamics of dictatorships can see that this kind of repression is basically ASKING for revolution, especially since Dream has shunned all friendships at this point and his only ally is only there because Dream pays him.

(this is all speculation, we don’t know what would’ve actually happened, dont yell at me)

The status quo Dream is trying to return to never existed, and the one he creates in the process isn’t sustainable. Stopping every conflict ever is completely unsustainable and detrimental to the larger community, which Dream knows, because he uses conflict CONSTANTLY to get his way, while still presenting himself as a peacekeeper. What he’s really against is disruptions of the status quo, because the status quo allows him to do whatever he wants and control the server as much as he wants.

Conflict isn’t inherently bad. Some conflicts are harmless, some are necessary disruptions of the status quo. Conflict itself is morally neutral, and trying to prevent all conflict ever leads into some… iffy territory. Remember when Ranboo yelled at the L’Manburgians for participating in conflict the day before Doomsday?

Anyway. Please examine situations with more nuance than “conflict bad”, it’ll make for much better analysis. Trust me. /nm