#has truly been a curse

[raineandsky]

#138

The hero makes a haphazard swipe, and the villain sighs as they leap out of reach.

“This doesn’t feel right,” they comment idly.

The hero doesn’t care too much how the villain feels. They go for another strike and the villain blocks it without thinking, like their mind is elsewhere.

“Does it?” the villain adds after a moment.

So this isn’t one of the villain’s one-sided monologues. The hero scowls, more so than they already are. “It’s never been right.”

“Right! It just isn’t—”

“Because I’m always having to take you on when you should’ve been in prison years ago.”

“Okay, we’re on two different trains of thought.” The villain leaps aside as the hero’s kick meets nothing. “[Hero], it doesn’t feel right. It seems… I don’t know. You hate me with your fists.”

“Most people like us hate with violence. What’s your point?”

“It doesn’t feel I hate you in the way you want me to.”

That gives the hero pause. Their fist hangs in the air, like the confusion has frozen it in place. “What the hell is that meant to mean?”

“You’re so angry when you hate me.” The villain shrugs, their gaze turned away like they’re awkward or something. The hero’s never seen anything like it. “I’m just… nervous. I’d rather shoot you from afar with my death ray. I don’t like fighting.”

“You’re always fighting.”

“Because I don’t have a choice, [Hero]. You never give me any other option.”

The hero can only blankly stare at them as they shake their head at nothing in particular. “I don’t think we’re hating each other the way the other wants us to,” the villain says after a long moment.

“I don’t know what to suggest.” The hero’s suspended punch lowers. “What are you trying to say?”

The villain sighs again—deeper, more tired. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

“… Sure,” the hero manages after a baffled moment. They’re not entirely sure what else to say.

The villain nods once, the motion curt. “Okay. Good.”

“Good.” The hero shuffles on their feet awkwardly. “Can we get back to it now?”

“Oh.” The villain glances about like they’re searching for an escape, and it takes the hero a moment to realise that their nemesis’s car is sat not that far away, escape ready. “I’m not really really feeling it anymore.”

“Oh,” the hero echoes.

The villain turns on their heel. The hero doesn’t stop them as they slowly make their way to their car, the black paint merging slightly into the darkness of the night. “We’ll figure this out, [Hero],” the villain says sombrely as they pull the door open, “together.”

The hero watches dumbly as the car turns on with a dull roar, the headlights blinding them as it swings out with a screech and disappears into the city beyond.

The hero stands there for a moment, just listening to the hum of the city, punctuated every now and then by the crackle of the villain’s fading car. Their mind is blank, thrown by the turn of events.

What just happened?

[hellchilde]

seanan mcguire writing Feed in 2010: there was a presidential election, and a perfectly normal and reasonable human was running against the personification of evil

me in 2010: i dunno that seems like a caricature, surely that would never happen

me in 2024: uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[clouvu]

Nothing in the world belongs to me But my love, mine, all mine

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: death mention / sibling death mention / isolation / ]

Thinking about how Leo’s portal and teleportation powers have both directly (and in one instance, indirectly) been the cause of him being separated from his brothers at least four times now.

There’s that time in Portal Jacked, where his inexperience leads to his portal being messed with and his brothers ending up in Tahiti.

There’s the Bad Timeline, where Leo’s portaling led to them losing the Key, therefore indirectly leading to the apocalypse and in turn, ending with Leo being the last of his brothers alive (though just for a few minutes.)

There’s him teleporting him and Krang into the Prison Dimension, cutting him off from his family so wholly that the only way to fix this was a literal mystic miracle.

Then there’s the comic, where Leo’s powers act up again and make him lose months of time completely isolated from everyone and everything he knows.

Just, looking at all of this, it’s like the universe gave him the powers of distance on purpose to test him (and his bros), literally seeing if they can overcome unimaginable space and still make it back together. Imagine if it doesn’t stop here, and Leo has to learn to either deal with the occasional complete isolation or deal with time travelers coming back to stop some terrible event his powers (whether directly or indirectly) have caused, events that always lead to separation in some way, shape, or form.

It’s worth noting, too, that his portals often led to accidental separation, but his teleportation was the one power of his that was used to isolate himself on purpose…and was also the one that in any other scenario would have been the most permanent.

[tubbytarchia]

(edited post after the last ask, oops!)

I keep thinking about what that anonymous said "If Jimmy is the canary then (almost) every other player is the coal miner for being complicit in his suffering and bringing him down in the mine with the expectation that he will die before them, for his life has been chosen to be of less value" because that's the only interpretation of the "coal miner" assignment that makes sense to me. I've been informed/reminded that a canary brought into a coal mine doesn't actually have to die and can still fulfill its function, but the whole "canary curse" idea is reliant on the thought that Jimmy WILL and HAS TO die

And now I'm genuinely curious as to why Tango and Mumbo have ever been assigned coal miner specifically? Because Tango died together with him in Double Life? Whilst the canary may not have to die, Tango didn't necessarily try to stop it and in fact expected Jimmy's death instead and quickly accepted it, even if he did care for Jimmy in DL. Did the canary just fail its function and whole reason it's brought down to the mine to begin with by dropping dead at the same time as the miner instead of giving any forewarning? Assuming everyone else isn't also a miner

In Mumbo's case, because of Mumbo's tendency to die second? So the implication is that he took Jimmy down into the mine but failed to leave in time after the canary's death, whilst everyone else remains above ground? In that sense the canary has also failed its function which contradicts the whole canary curse labelling to begin with

Again I'm genuinely curious lol

Also the "Tango is the coal mine" type of thought too. That one I have absolutely no theories for so I'd love to hear any explanation. I guess the coal mine could be taken as a passive factor, but in my mind all the players are already complicit by being passive (except for BigB. That is the only truly passive guy in the series because he lives in his own world and doesn't take to almost anything anyone else says. Although I wouldn't call him a coal mine? He's like. A fly on the wall somewhere completely detached). Not all of them necessarily wish to take the canary down in the mine but it's something that's continued to be done so they just go along with it, it's just the order of things, and they're unaware that the canary's life can be preserved whilst still fulfilling its function, versus people like Joel and Pearl who have said or done things contradicting the general belief of Jimmy's incompetence and explicitly believing in him/wanting him to not die

[elinordash]

now if only he could get the 90-minute equivalent of justice for his actions huh

[theghostinabadbook]

My children!! Look at them!! They are together again!! And happy!!

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

sometimes i remember that gojo wanted to tell geto “we’ll meet again, right?” just before he died but forced himself not to knowing it would have cursed him and then i start thinking about how kind and thoughtful gojo is as a character and how he hasn’t been able to lean on another human being since geto defected and then i want to . Scream

[michelsens]

If I think about it it’s a little weird that Jacksonville has an NFL team and Orlando doesn’t. Then again I guess Tampa Bay already covers central Florida and North Florida doesn’t really have any pro teams in any sport other than the Jags and minor league baseball and hockey. To be fair there’s kind of nothing up here but. Not that I’m mad. I like my stupid football team. I just never talk about them because they’re kinda shit.

[longagoitwastuesday]

Every day I am haunted by the fact JJK could be amazing but it will be just idk Bleach or something

[mjrdm]

.

[nexus-nebulae]

so. for A Long While now we've considered officially pursuing converting to judaism. and we've finally really started the whole research process and getting familiarized with the religion and everything and. does anyone have tips on how to feel comfortable in a new religion when you've been so harmed by specific religious groups in the past (especially when the religion you have bad history with is so close to the one you're converting to, like being another abrahamic religion)

[valyrfia]

Okay but “X fell first but X2 fell harder” trope Lestappen edition WHO???

okay anon I've been pondering this I've rewritten this ask about five times arguing one side or another and I have to put a disclaimer that they are both obsessed with each other and have been for a very long time.

That being said I think I've arrived at the conclusion that Max fell first and Charles fell harder. Evidence for this includes Charles being one of the only drivers Max ever followed on instagram (which imo indicates HIGH levels of respect), Max seemingly being the first to initiate contact via Lando in quarantine, the way Charles has always been the n1 maxsplaining victim. I think Max fell sometime around when Charles joined F1–they hadn't competed for a few years so that childhood rivalry fizzled out somewhat and Max is like "oh I'm actually proud of him for living our shared dream and I'm just as obsessed as I always was." (you'll be surprised how close of a paraphrase of DTS s5 ep1 this is). Austria 2019 happens and Max then cries himself to sleep.

Then Charles falls, in my opinion sometime around early/mid 2022. Just as Max's fall was caused by their rivalry cooling down, Charles's fall is caused by their rivalry heating up again. Finally in (earlier) 2022 Charles is in a decent car and he's fighting Max for the championship. The media, smelling drama, jumps on their past and tries their hardest to push this epic rivalry. However, they're not at all what the media (and Charles in his own head) has painted them out to be. Instead, Max is concerned when Charles crashes out, he celebrates Charles's podium wins with such glee (Austria looking at you), and they remain each other's favourite to talk to after the race. I think this is when Charles falls, when they're supposed to be fighting each other for a championship but all they can think about is how excited they are to be fighting each other for a championship.

So yeah, Max fell first and Charles fell harder, but they've been obsessed with each other since before they learned basic math (Exhibit A: Max knowing all of Charles's old karting helmets).

[wyrms-in-formaldehyde]

okay this is a thing i've legit been ruminating over for almost a year and by now i can 1000% tell that it's a thing that i just Won't be able to resolve w/o peoples' input because i'm very sick in the head and Don't actually know any better believe it or not. is it okay to show a character getting a cursed item that gives them joy at first only to bring them physical and emotional pain until they are driven to their demise, or should i keep that to myself. the whole story is not well written and is more of a "would that be fucked up or what" than any kind of lesson if that matters btw

[scarletspider2the2ndpower]

Chasm: Curse of Kaine (Vol. 1/2024), #1.

Writer: Steve Foxe; Penciler and Inker: Andrea Broccardo; Colorist: Brian Reber; Letterer: Joe Caramagna