#everything about them is so tragic it hurts

[wilcze-kudly]

Something about Suyin Beifong feels always so tragic to me. Because she like actually turned her life around lol. Like she grew up in a jouse with a busy, seemingly uncaring mother and a harsh older sister who seemed to belittle her constantly, clearly she got no affection anywhere at home. She got that affection she craved from friends who seemed to coerce her into helping her commit a crime.

She gets arrested by her sister who seems to immediately start berating her, making a scary situation all the more tense. When Su, being a stressed kid, tries to extract herself from the situation, her sister physically stops her. When Suyin tries to free herself, she accidentally severely injures her sister.

She had to leave her hom, had to fucking travel the world and she had to build it from the ground up but she found her peace and family and home and happiness. Everything she's ever needed and wanted.

And from the moment we meet her, that life she's so carefully built up with so much love and affection begins to be ripped apart all around her.

Like the thing that makes me love Suyin so much is that she tried. She turned her life around and was happy. And then she's betrayed constantly, her city is attacked, invaded, her family, her children are put in life threatening situations and she still maintains this stubborn insistence on keeping her family together, even if they've previously hurt her. Because they're all she fucking has and she's clawing at them desperately because she'll fall apart without them.

It's just so sad. Reading Ruins of the Empire and seeing Suyin in it, I can't help but think anout a wounded animal trying so hard to crawl back into its den to at least pretend that its life is peaceful and painless once again.

[asharkapologist]

Fandom Opinion Chart + Explanations Under the Cut

I love Giulietta, it's as simple as that,,, her character growth from her selfish attitude towards her sister before the game, to trying to make her way into high society, to returning to her roots but finding love in a man supposed to be her enemy, to trying to stop the gang war that takes almost everything from her, to later leading a resistance against a dictator is incredible to watch. She's the real main character of Crimson Banks and Capital Peak idc. She endures so so much heartache, I cried both times I played In Love and War, that case genuinely makes me feel ill, and yet she manages to get back up because she's just that strong. I hope she was happy after the game ended.

On the other hand, I despise Jack. He makes several sexist comments throughout the game (I've half a mind to compile them to prove my point), and I have no idea how someone as immature and annoying as him managed to get a job in Interpol. His relationship drama with Asal is insufferable to sit through, and the way he constantly whines about her in South America and North America months after they broke up made me want to throw my phone, especially with the awful way he treats her after she's stabbed and almost died. And then in Travel in Time, he's just boring.

I initially didn't like Samson at first because he killed one of my favorite characters for a stupid reason (accompanied by a confusing message--how was Malcolm supposed to know Archie's death was targeted towards him?) but now I love him because his plan was so dumb and he's fun to meme on and he's REALLY hot.

Nebet is like my favorite main antagonist and it's so sad that she's gone for like two whole districts because even though I saw it coming, her betrayal HURT. Like 99% of s6's writing effort went into her, and she would have been a good antagonist even if she hadn't returned after killing her father, but the fact that she comes back and kills her younger self because she changed in exile makes her such an interesting character. I want to know so much about her, her thoughts while she was working with the team, and especially her epiphanies in exile, how she changed in exile and decided to turn against her parents and their goals. That's incredible fanfic material. She's also incredibly beautiful just LOOK AT HER.

Trevor Finn sucks. Fake af shark "expert" who probably just gave himself that title after watching Jaws but never bothered doing any research about sharks because he just spews misinformation and stereotypes about sharks that aren't true. For some reason, Pacific Bay really hated sharks. But other than that, there's not much else to mention about him, when with Jack I at least have stuff to complain about.

I realllly don't like Rozetta and do NOT think she was redeemed, even if Denise was a greater evil. I feel like people brush over the fact that she was KIDNAPPING AND TORTURING HOMELESS PEOPLE TO DEATH. She abducted who knows how many people and conducted horrific, torturous human experimentation on them that only one person (Zoe) survived, and nothing indicated she felt any remorse for those crimes, she only started fighting against Denise when Denise betrayed her and her friends. And even though Zoe escaped, Rozetta started the chain of events that led to Zoe's death. However, that being said, Rozetta is really, really pretty.

Archie is a millionaire and yet he dresses so drab. Lawson isn't as rich as Archie, and yet he dresses more fancy. Also Archie's collar looks weird and like his tie would be strangling him or something

I don't really talk about Penelope, but she (besides Nebet) is my favorite main character of s6! I relate to her a lot because we both like history and writing. I think we'd get along great talking to each other about story ideas, fangirling about fandoms, and talking about history.

Seamus x Giulietta is my favorite because Giulietta is my favorite character and I'm a sucker for tragic, star-crossed lovers. Got really emotionally attached to them even though I knew they wouldn't have a happy ending. Honorable mentions go to Arthur x Bernadine, Archie x Elisa, and Hope x Gwen.

Speaking of Hope x Gwen, they should have been canon instead of Gwen x Pierce. I hate this ship so much. Hope and Gwen had much more chemistry, and the FIRST DISTRICT in s7 proved why Gwen and Pierce wouldn't work out, and then out of nowhere Pierce shows up??? And gets back with Gwen randomly??? Huh??? And they have a kid??? Why. Hope was RIGHT THERE if you wanted someone to comfort Gwen after her mother's death and the complicated relationship she had with her.

I also don't talk about her as much as I should, but I love Priya! I love her character arc, her relationship with Zander is very sweet and well built up throughout the season, and her being a werewolf made her character arc all the more interesting. She's also just a very genuinely kind person, and I feel like she would have been a really good chemistry tutor when I was struggling with it in school lol

Given how annoyed I get with classmates and coworkers who are poor communicators, I would despise being around someone like Frank who's always late, drinking whenever he can, and who treats his female boss incredibly disrespectfully. Plus he eventually becomes a corrupt police officer and yeah, not a fan of those. Wouldn't want to be around one irl. He certainly needs professional help, but I am not the one to give it.

[dracocheesecake]

Today’s thoughts are spent on thinking about Kai and Oogway. Guy who probably really didn’t expect to make friends on a battlefield because it’s a battlefield but found a fast friend who could match him. Guy who rags on said fast friend to hide the affection he has for him because this is still war and he wants to push down those feelings as much as he can. And then the ambush happens. They are the only ones who make it out alive (or…I assume they’re the only ones who do? Because the alternative is there were others still alive that Kai could have helped and in a split second panic he chose Oogway over any survivors of their army. Chose Oogway over the duties and responsibilities he held as a warlord of China) and despite the inner thoughts of pushing down how much he cares about this person who has matched him in every way and become his equal, his balance in life, it jumps out of him instinctually.

Kai has lost everything but Oogway, and he’s on his way to losing him too. And probably for the first time in decades, he feels fear. And that fear isn’t even for himself. He only knows how to create death and suffering, not fix it, there is nothing he can do to salvage Oogway except desperately hope he can make it to someone who can do it for him. And sure, he does, but how powerless can it make someone like a respected, venerated warlord like him feel that he has to stand by and watch this healing happen? Death is the one thing Kai can’t protect the people he cares about from, this is the one thing he feels he can’t do. He can’t heal. He can only destroy.

And he takes that information, and the knowledge of Chi and uses it in what he thinks is the only way he’ll be able to: power and strength for himself. Because if he’s just powerful enough, with more strength than any number of forces could put in an ambush, he’ll never have to lose any of the people in his care again. He can’t protect the people he cares about with the strength he has now, he needs more. And if a few innocent lives need to be taken advantage of to do it? That’s the price of war anyways. There’s always a price, and Kai has always been prepared to pay it.

And then Kai not understanding why, of all people, Oogway is the one to tell him no. The same man who has been by his side for all the atrocities they’ve already committed, all the deaths of husbands, sons, daughters, wives, has decided to draw the line here. There is finally a way for him to overcome the weaknesses he has and protect everyone who matters to him- to protect Oogway himself and prevent this would be tragedy from ever happening again- and he’s just supposed to ignore it? He’s supposed to have empathy and care in his heart for strangers, or worse yet, enemies that he could use this against? The utter heartbreak in Kai’s mind of risking your career, honor, everything to keep this man protected and alive, only for him to turn around and essentially kill you for the act of trying to make sure the same man never meets this fate again.

And then centuries later, making your way back to the mortal realm and finding out your so called “brother in arms” erased you from history because he was so ashamed of your actions (and his, and yet he still gets to be honored and revered). I mean, hell, I’d try to destroy his memory too. They make for such a tragic pairing whether it’s romantic or platonic augh AUGH I LOVE TRAGEDYYY. (Sorry for the rambling but man-)

Never. Ever. Apologize for rambling about Kai and the intricate (and honestly quite unexplored) tragedy that is Kai and Oogway's relationship. You left an entire poetic ficlet in my inbox and I could not be happier because DANG this is practically spot on.

Just...imagine losing everything you could have to lose, and then almost losing the last two things you had left to lose (your sworn brother's life and potentially your own), and then lose him again- this time because (in Kai's view) he turns on you without reason. After everything you did for him, trying to save his life, trying to use this second chance you've miraculously been given to reclaim what you've lost and ensure you never lose it again- and he turns against you the first chance he gets. I could understand Kai's rage, there (of course he was still wrong but I can understand it). Maybe there's a deep sorrow there, too, buried under the rage, but you know we'll never see it.

They are absolutely tragic and it's a shame it's not talked about enough. 😔😭💔💔💔

[justafriend-ql]

I love you, Ray. I'll never abandon you. ONLY FRIENDS Episode 4

[artheresy]

The legacy of a craftsman

The amount of space that Blade and Yingxing takes up in my brain is feeling increasingly concerning. I can't stop thinking about them...

Like now that it's finally not just a leak, has anyone else read Baiheng's Travelogues about the Xianzhou Zhuming? Featuring Baby Yingxing??

Literally the second one devastates me emotionally I can't even explain it. Yingxing being so discouraged by the masters on the Zhuming who are long life species degrading him to the point he, a child, talks about how he'll probably never live to see his parents be avenged after what the Borisin did???

THAT HURTS

And God I can't even,

GOD if I could properly put into words the fact that Yingxing is a craftsman being so important to his character and identity and how Hoyoverse making a point to specify the injuries that occurred to his hands in whatever gray transition period happened between Yingxing and Blade that made him unable to craft weapons again is such a tragic visual to completely severe the two identities, that is ALL you would hear from me ever.

Because see the thing about Yingxing being a craftsman is that all stems from a goal in his past. As a child his home planet was taken over and turned into a weapons nursery, his parents were slaughtered, it became his goal as a child to create technology and weapons for the Cloud Knights to fight terrifying monsters like the Borisin. And that goal ended up defining the rest of his life, going on to become the Legendary Furnace Master on the Xianzhoh Luofu. That ended up becoming part of his legacy with the HCQ. It's clear how heavily important that part of his identity is defining not just his time in the HCQ but his time on the Zhuming, and everything that occurred to him as a child to lead him to that exact goal. His whole past.

And for Hoyoverse to specify how Blade's hands have been hurt to the point of no longer being dexterous, to the point of no longer being able to forge a weapon ever again, as those injuries cannot be healed by whatever Abundance shit he has going on since they likely happened before he became immortal(?). It just... it is devastating. It's something used as a way to severely separate the two of them so people realize they are two different identities on top of Blade already making it clear he sees Yingxing as dead. The way that they went about his hands... it's not merely that he relinquished that identity, which would be him no longer making weapons out of choice. It is that he can't connect to that identity anymore, the change he went through was far too severe. Thus he cannot make weapons anymore, he has been stripped of any ability to.

I'll make like a better post explaining this later, but I believe the use of Yingxing status as a craftsman and Blade's inability after he was revived TO craft anything is fundamentally used as a tie to the separate of identity between them and it's so well used and so tragically used.

Because again, it is not that he lost Yingxing's passion for it or decided on a different path. It is a wall that separates him from being able to do what Yingxing did in the past just as he is unable to connect to the identity his body held before death.

[tothepointofinsanity]

what are your thoughts on Madoka and Sayaka's relationship? I always thought it was underrated for how complex and tragic it is.

Madoka and Sayaka's relationship function similarly to that of a knight and a princess, so both their friendship or couple pairing are interesting to me. It seems to be intentional that Sayaka was crafted with a knight motif in mind to click with Madoka's vulnerability. The tragedy is that Sayaka was way too young and inexperienced to be shouldering such expectations in a friendship. Taking up the role of a protector at every turn because she wanted to protect everyone has always been a contributing factor to how fast Sayaka burned out.

Contrarily, Madoka's struggle with her own helplessness throughout the show was also part of the reason why Sayaka said a lot of terrible thing to her, but deeply regretted her actions to the point where she succumbed to Witching out away from Madoka. Madoka, at least in this "final" timeline, was not there to see her own childhood best friend change into something else. To, in a way, "die", and be reborn as the same monster that all magical girls were hunting after in a frenzy. Homura was right that Sayaka brings Madoka grief — it seems that in almost timeline, since Sayaka becomes a Witch as long as she becomes a magical girl unlike Mami or Kyoko, Sayaka is a consistent source of Madoka's grief. Whenever Madoka becomes a magical girl, then, her aspirations are based on Sayaka's sacrifice and ideals, except Madoka actually has the power to "save everyone". I believe Madoka loved Sayaka as Sayaka may not have been an "effective" magical girl, but she was the one who was willing to sacrifice her soul for her ideals, regardless of how naïve they were. To Madoka, who was so ensnared by her sense of uselessness, Sayaka was the closest thing to an idol or a star for the courage required to be a magical girl. Sayaka's desire to make the world a safer and justified place for people was so inspiring to Madoka that even when Madoka becomes Kriemhild Gretchen, the Witch's whole gimmick is "creating heaven on earth, a Witch content only if there is no more grief in existence". A prospect deeply held onto by Madoka that even Gretchen embodies it.

It's probably why Madoka's wish to save all magical girls would definitely sound equally impossible to he audience and the incubators, but Madoka herself says, "If someone says it's wrong to hope, I will tell them that they're wrong every time." Sayaka was often called foolish for her ideals and hopes, and Madoka was the only other person aside from Kyoko who understands Sayaka's struggles so much that she outright tells people that Sayaka was never wrong — this is how Madoka protects Sayaka. Madoka would never want anyone to say any of the magical girls' wishes were wrong or foolish. It was how Sayaka also found her peace at the end of the show: to be understood and not viewed as an object that would eventually be replaced in the cycle of magical girls and Witches.

Madoka and Sayaka eventually learned how to protect each other. Sayaka doesn't need to suffer from her own overbearing expectations anymore, and Madoka can finally be something even more to protect her angel: A God.

[rhythmic-idealist]

Chase Trinaeste POV Shepherds of Haven fic? Yeah………….. Chase x MC fic? Yeah.......

And another friend’s OC is also mentioned in here? …..Yeah…………… dw about it..........

Listen though. L-listen:

---

You gotta learn to braid.

Thinking about it, your head is immediately gifted with images of him irritatedly brushing it out in the morning and chewing you out for bad technique. Better yet, he wears it to breakfast, thinks it’s good, and then chews you out only after Trouble makes some no-brained comment and he looks in a mirror for the first time. After all, you’ve got nimble fingers, makes sense to assume you were trustable.

Rock’s head is in your lap.

And his hair is going everywhere, and he’s always clearly taken his time with it (at your best guess he uses five different products at least), so that’s why you’re thinking about it. Don’t people with long hair sleep with braids, sometimes? Lavinet would probably teach you, and do you the favor of not announcing that you’re about to use your skills for evil.

He’s been like this since about five in the morning. You’re a light sleeper. As needs be, you rise either with the sunset or with the sun. Or elsewise, if you’ve got to— you have what some might call an uncanny sense for a well-timed catnap.

So you’re up again, working out the couple little kinks in your back from dozing upright like that. It’s another of the perks of the job: learn to sleep anywhere. You have a lot of little resume filler skills like that, just a tragic lack of resume to put it on. Idly, you wonder over the nonsensical notion of putting one together for the Order once your writing gets good enough to, and you’re kind of attached to the idea now. Blade wouldn’t read it, especially considering you’re already in, but there’s some small giddy joy you get out of the idea of putting it in his possession anyway. Maybe Trouble would read it. Maybe Shery would think it’s juicy enough that she can’t keep her hands off it, and then roll in the guilt about it for a few weeks after. ...No, you can’t do that to her. Funny as that is, she could read with permission. You might be cruel, but she’s a horrible choice of target.

Anyway— So you’ve been watching him be like this since about five in the morning, and thus have evidence of him being like this since about five in the morning. You remember falling asleep late last night, though. Waiting for him to drift first. It was probably one, two AM.

When six-thirty rolls around, you’ll have to wake him, you have a bright and early morning dose of espionage on the schedule today (it’s why the two of you are all the way out here, plus Lavinet and Ottilie graciously hosted in another wing) and you can’t have a grouchy Hero of Haven who hasn’t had a good hour or more awake to put his silver tongue back on.

Something something joke about that tongue’s many talents.

Head in lap is a surprise at all. It’s one of those things— Rock has done this thing to you where all your defenses are the ones that keep coming down first.

It feels a little like getting grifted. When you’ve caught onto a grift, though, and you’re playing along to see what or whom or where they take you to, you don’t feel like you’re in danger, because you’re good. You’re in as much danger as you want to be, or more like: when there are unpredictable variables, you know more or less where they’re going. Rock makes you feel like you’re teetering on the edge of something you don’t fucking play with, and it doesn’t help that he likes to open his mouth sometimes just to remind you you’re rolling off a cliff.

Anyway. Then you get this, and you wanna be a charming shit about it, as usual (and you intend to), you just also wonder how much he’s falling off a cliff.

He gets bad nightmares. You know that because of the trip to the Reach. You do also know it because of the tightness in Blade’s lip when you mentioned it offhand later— there’s history there; they’ve been worse than that. You also know it because you picked the brains of a couple recruits who were standing around griping after Trouble sent them for something like twenty laps around the compound (not a real intuitive head for numbers on that man): apparently, it was Captain Nomura they’d been gossiping about, and Trouble was a hardass about it.

It’s the one thing that makes you feel borderline… even. If not even, then at least okay with it.

That’s a lie, you’d probably feel okay with it anyway, you got down to being okay with whatever he’s doing to you the minute you realized you were this invested. It’s just something you use to put things in perspective. There are things you didn’t exactly expect to peel open for him, about you. But there are also things he’s not asking to broadcast publicly to every hard-luck-fleer who wanders onto the Shepherds compound to recruit. Rumors about the head of the Thieves Guild abound, but the unflattering ones are usually less true, and the untrue ones abound so plentifully that no one knows heads or tails of that, anyway.

Feels fair he should have secrets from someone. You’re still gonna fucking dig your way into them before they bury him alive, it’s just. Yeah, you haven’t had your brain pulled open onto a projection screen.

So he has nightmares. You’re not actually sure how often. Technically, you don’t have proof they haven’t gotten better since you last heard. But since you’re not bound to the same evidence requirements as a court of law, and since it’s become a roulette game of how grouchy Rock’s gonna be minute-to-minute, he was dodgy about the prospect of rooming with you or anyone on this mission at all, and he’s recently had a god or demon or trick of the light try to tell him (plus all of the rest of you) that he’s less Mage and more something else’s torn out rib, you can look at two plus two plus two and say probably.

You’ve learned how not to dream. It’s basically the same as learning how to wake up when you want to. When you did dream, you dreamt of mutiny, imaginary holes you left and getting torn down through them. You were always yourself in your dreams—some people are characters, tropes, or other people they know, apparently; you wouldn’t know. Now you keep that in the waking world, and you keep ten paces ahead of it.

That’s the thing you’re deadly sure about in him. That he’s keeping ten paces ahead of something. You—your whole tether to his side—account for anything from like one to like eight of them, as far as you can tell. That’s all you know.

…Well that’s the quick way to tell it. He’s keeping ten paces ahead of something inside the Shepherds. Could be Blade, but you’re not sure why. Could be the Autarchy, but that’s too simple for you. Doesn’t feel like it. Could be Ottilie’s God-given plans for a pretty obvious heathen, but your nose also says it’s not that easy.

He looks dead asleep right now. Comfy, you’d kind of go so far as to hope. And anyway you look at his face, still waters, and you’re a little afraid to even brush his hair out of it.

You don’t even know if he meant to lay his head down on you at all, if that’s a cliff he made his shaky peace with (or if it’s a cliff at all, if means anything to him, Hael if you know) or if he was just miserable.

You don’t know if it’s you, like the stillness might be the effect of having another body in the room that he’s willing to lay his head against— …or if maybe he just doesn’t get them every night. Or if there is one under there. But you hope he’s not dreaming.

You try to bask in it, for now. Try to pose like a king with a sweet little kitten in his lap, like a guy painted on the front of a romance novel with the sweet, innocent angel he’s seduced to lay over him, nightgown slipping down her shoulder. You spend an hour with only walls to watch, dutifully still so he can finish sleeping, and it’s only a small handful of times that you have to stop and breathe through a creep of bile up your throat.

Six-thirty hits.

“Good morning, Sunshine.”

“Mmf. What.” Rock spits a strand of hair out of his face. Yeah, you probably could have done him a favor on that instead of leaving it there for him to wake up to. But it’s funny, so, you know. Win-win.

“The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, Ottilie’s slaughtering her morning chicken—” (she is not).

Rock seems to parse the reality of where he is, and peels himself up from you, sitting facing away from you— and then he glances at you over his shoulder, for a moment, and everything about it is horribly, disressingly raw.

He looks at you a little too long. The thing about Rock is his rules are a lot like yours, and you are not supposed to say anything about it, but he’s looking at you, like he’s asking you to, and it lasts a long time.

Then he goes to brush his teeth.

[upsidedowngrass]

im thinking abt liam and bryce SO much rn now. theyre dynamic is so. sorry liam. sorry bryce

[failed-inspection]

Queerplatonic Sunstone, like and subscribe

[alchemiclee]

I hope someone writes a good fic about the high cloud quintet with all the messy pieces of lore we have because i'm very unsatisfied with what we got and I want MORE OF THEM. don't know why i'm so obsessed with this tragic group of friends but 😭 IM SO FEELINGS ABOUT THEM but also empty because they didn't satisfy me with what they gave us lmao I require more. but that was the end and i'll never get more....unless someone writes a great fic about them.....!

[professional-termite]

im considering giving lore bpd or at least trying to code him like he does in my fic..like im always iffy on explicitly coding "evil" characters (a concept i dont really like, especially in the context of a character as traumatized and neglected as lore) as having specific mental conditions but it would make sense for him. and actually it would make him Less Evil to me. like idk man maybe im just projecting onto this guy but he really does strike me less and less as someone whos Aughh Evil Maniac Horrible Person and more as a traumatized kid (using the term kid since, while he is an adult man whos like over 30 by the time brothers rolls around, he was deactivated for most of that time) with an emotional disorder who needs therapy instead of Being Yeeted Into Space

[smol-tired-binch-blog]

No one talk to me I'm thinking about Yuko Lives AU

(ask me questions about Yuko Lives AU)

[cashweasel]

Bitches will say they don’t have feelings for each other and then hold hands like this

[ladsofsorrow24]

the hokkaido vacation never failed to make me smile

[laireshi]

do you ever just cry about how much the venerate loved each other

[terrainofheartfelt]

Dan made Blair happy. He got her our of the depression she was in from Chuck. Blows my mind to this day it wasn't Serena

the show did Serena wrong in so many different ways, and one of the ones that irks me Most is that they made her one of the people who made Blair feel responsible for Chuck's behavior and well-being. >:(

and, per your comment about Daniel, as the prophet taylor wrote: do I really need to tell you how he brought me back to life?