#hatred-cultivation-continues

[seresinhangmanjake]

Only His

Feyd-Rautha x Concubine!reader

Summary: A diplomat from Caladan wants to borrow you for the night. Feyd doesn't take that very well. Requested by @midnight-serendipity

Words: 2700

Notes: cursing, mentions of smut (a little), gore, blood, death, typos.

Feyd-Rautha Masterlist / Main Masterlist

Feyd breathed Hatred. 

He bled Hatred. 

When he killed, Hatred controlled his movements. Like a parasite in the brain, Hatred determined the thrust of his blade, how deep it sunk into an enemy’s gut, and the degree to which he twisted the weapon before pulling it from a soon-to-be lifeless body. 

He’d cultivated a bond with Hatred. There was a mutual understanding of one another, he thought. But as Feyd listens to the proposition from the man sitting his opposite, Hatred slowly becomes a stranger.

Turns out Hatred has a claiming side, a how-dare-you-look-at-what’s-mine side, and from that, Feyd realizes he never knew Hatred, not truly. Because this feeling—whatever it is—has revealed that Hatred is more potent than he initially believed.

“You want to what?” Feyd grits out through clenched teeth. 

“There’s no need to get upset,” the man chuckles; a diplomat from Caladan sent on behalf of Duke Atreides who came to Giedi Prime to reinforce treaties and trade agreements with the Baron. Others were sent from their respective planets, but he is by far much bolder than the rest when it comes to stepping out of bounds.

“I'd give you something in return,” Nolas—that’s his name. Feyd could barely care to remember—continues. “Whatever you like. I just want her for the night. Something to make the long trip here worthwhile and the trip back more bearable.”

“You think my concubine can be bought?”

“All concubines can be bought,” he says. “At the very least, borrowed.”

If so, then you are a concubine of untraditional nature. You are not shareable. You cannot be divvied up amongst the group so each may enjoy their slice; not as long as Feyd lives. And should he not live, for reasons foreseen or not, he long ago requested that your life be ended as well. That way you could be together. That way no man could ever have you. 

The thought of another’s hands on you sets fire to Feyd’s veins, threatening to burn his pale skin from the inside out. His heavy brow dips forward to darken the light hue of his irises. He stands and crosses the bridge between his seat and the one occupied by the older, pudgy man, looming over him to the point that Nolas must tilt his head back so their eyes can meet. 

“I will not be giving you mine,” Feyd growls. “Not for anything you could offer.”

Nolas huffs. “Now be reasonab–” 

Feyd fists his fingers into the collar of Nolas’s jacket, twisting tightly and yanking upward until Nolas chokes from the constricting fabric pressing into his windpipe. 

“Let me be perfectly clear,” Feyd spits, leaning forward. He opens his mouth to continue, but just as his next words are ready to leap from his tongue, something odd takes root in Nolas’s vile eyes. Odd, because it is not fear.

The bulk of Feyd’s skills lies in his ability to incite fear, whether through words, or battle, or presence, and with the exception of his uncle, fear has successfully struck the core of any soul who has crossed his path. Civilians, servants, his brother, his mother, even you have not been spared, but the man in his grasp is not cowering. He is not trembling. He is not soaking in the vulnerability of the position he is in where Feyd could snap his neck in a half-second. Instead, he holds the spearing gaze of the youngest Harkonnen. Matches it, even.

Feyd sinks his teeth into his boiling rage and forces it to overpower the shock that has slipped in. “You will not get within fifty feet of her. You talk to her, you surrender your tongue. You touch her, you lose a finger. You look at her, I’ll take an eye and it can sit alongside the rest of my trophies.”

A smirk touches Nolas’s face, practically undetectable before it is gone, and suddenly Feyd feels it. That loss of control. He feels Nolas penetrate his skull and weave spindly tendrils through his brain, poking and prodding for Feyd’s secrets. And then there’s a moment; a moment when Feyd nearly stumbles—the moment Nolas latches on to the one thing Feyd can not afford to have known by anyone other than himself. 

The smirk returns. “Of course, na-Baron,” oozes off of Nolas’s slimy tongue. “I wouldn’t dare lay a hand on the woman you love.”

With another half-twist, the collar tightens, blocking the blood from leaving Nolas’s face. He’s cherry red—or at least what Feyd imagines is cherry red based on your description—and he thinks with a few more turns of his fist, he could get Nolas’s head to pop right off his shoulders and tumble onto the floor. 

“What are you doing!” Rabban snaps, stomping toward the duo. He rams his hand against Feyd’s chest, but despite being forced back a step, he does not release the diplomat. He does not blink, fingers transmuting to steel as Rabban works to pry them open. “Uncle wants him alive for tonight!”

Feyd doesn’t care about tonight. He doesn’t care for some party announcing his uncle’s plans for the future. He does not care that this man, this worm, is considered a vital messenger. Send a fucking letter. 

Rabban whips out a small blade and slashes downward, nicking Feyd’s knuckles. It stings but livens the rush of his blood. His heart pounds harder, teeth gritting and cracking. 

“Feyd!”

Nolas’s eyes begin to redden, threadlike veins almost glowing. No air exits his nostrils and just as he finally wraps his hands around Feyd’s wrist, yanking and jerking to free himself, the tension in the fabric snaps. 

Nolas gasps for air, falling forward and revealing the clean slice down the back of his jacket collar. Feyd’s head turns to Rabban’s disgusted glare. 

His brother sheathes his knife. “You’d defy our uncle’s orders?”

Feyd glances back at Nolas, who has yet to recover, before spinning on his heel and leaving.

—

“Are you embarrassed of me?” you ask, your attention focused on the precise wrapping of bandage tape around Feyd’s knuckles as you sit beside him on the bed. “Is that why you don’t want me to go tonight?”

“Yes,” Feyd grumbles. No, his mind snaps back at him, and he huffs. 

Your arrival on Giedi Prime birthed a conscience within him—a conscience that exists solely for your sake—and because he often fucks up when it comes to you and your feelings, it never shuts up. You’re hurting her. Look at her. Do you not see that devastation? He does, and little pinpricks nip at the organ in his chest. 

You lightly nod as you mutter a pathetic, “Oh.”

With a hefty sigh, Feyd says, “It’s for your protection.” There! Better!

Fingers pause their work and your head shoots up to meet his eyes, a small smile curving your lips. 

“Oh,” you repeat. There’s a hint of excitement in your tone, a glint in your bright irises that causes Feyd’s cheeks to warm. 

You rip the used tape from the rest of the roll and set it aside, and then that smile disappears. “Wait, protection from what?”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re safe if you’re not there tonight.”

You hum, and from that hum alone, Feyd knows exactly what’s running through your mind. 

“And my safety is very important to you, is it?” you ask, lifting the skirts of your dress so it doesn’t catch under your knees as you move to straddle his hips. 

Feyd rolls his eyes. His hands settle on your waist. “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he mildly scolds. 

You lean into his body until he falls back onto the mattress, your chest pressed to his chest, your face hovering above his. 

“I don’t know,” you tease as your fingertip skims over his bottom lip. “I’m starting to think you might like me more than you let on.”

“Think what you want,” he says, turning his head to the side and severing the taut band connecting your gazes. 

You chuckle and grip his chin, demanding he look at you again. “Fine, I will,” you whisper before inching your lips closer until they ghost over his. “I think you like me.”

You give him another feather-dusting of a kiss but it’s not enough. Never enough. Feyd growls, burying his hand into the strands of your hair to hold your head still so he can claim your lips in the devouring manner he desires. 

When you moan, he wraps his arm snuggly around your waist. When you suck on his tongue, his cock flinches in his pants and he involuntarily thrusts upward between your spread legs. 

Your responsive yelp is a drug. Addicting. So different from the yelps he expected to receive from you after he’d chosen you as his concubine. He’d gone into the situation wanting any noise your delicate throat could make to be a product of the pain he intended to inflict upon you, but when he’d taken you that first night, that yelp was of pleasure. He’d hit a particularly sweet spot inside of you and was instantly overcome with a desperate need to hear it again and again and again. 

You pull your lips apart from his. Your gentle pants fan his face. He brushes your loose locks behind your ear. 

“Promise me you’ll stay in the room,” he says. 

“I promise.”

—

He’s gone. Feyd took his eyes off the bastard for one second, and now he’s gone. It’s not as if Nolas will be capable of finding you—he’s not familiar with the fortress’s layout enough to know which room you’re in and you swore you wouldn’t so much as peek through a crack in the door—but still, a sense of dread stiffens Feyd’s limbs. Nolas has no reason to be outside of this room. He has no reason to be doing anything but drinking his fill and mingling with the others of his station. And yet…

“Did you hear me, brother?” Rabban’s voice intrudes upon Feyd’s third scan of the room. He’s not here. He’s not fucking here. 

“Brother–”

“No,” Feyd snaps before descending the short staircase. 

He snakes through the crowd toward the main doors of the vast room. They’re wide, tall, loud when opened and closed, and it’s impossible Nolas could’ve snuck out without Feyd’s notice. 

“Where’s the Caladanian?” Feyd demands of the guards posted on either side of the door. 

“No one has attempted to leave, my Lord,” one says. 

Feyd’s brow pinches. The only remaining exit is a side door specifically designed to blend with the wall. The fortress is speckled with similar doors, all of which connect to an inner walkway that servants and guards use to get around the massive structure quickly when needed. 

“Come with me,” Feyd instructs, receiving a curt nod in return. 

Feyd’s body traces the wall until he reaches the door. He pushes it open and slips inside, the guard on his heels. The noise of the room fades with every step down the corridor and at each new unexpected sound, his head cocks, his ear reaching for the source. 

Then he hears it. 

“Your na-Baron offered you to me,” travels through the wall separating him from the paralleling hallway.

And then your sweet voice. “Offered? N-No, Feyd wouldn’t.”

You’re right there, right on the other side of the thin barrier, but he can’t reach you. You’re trying to remain calm but you’re scared, Feyd knows it, and as he starts to rush to the next closest door, he begs that you keep the bastard at bay just a little longer. 

Once he shoves through the door into the hall, your voice comes in much clearer, but all sight of you is blocked by Nolas’s breadth and height. 

“He wouldn’t give me away,” you say. 

Nolas chuckles. “He hasn’t, sweetheart. I’m simply borrowing you for a little.”

“That’s not—hey, don’t touch me!”

Feyd bursts into the embodiment of fury. Everything goes red. He feels red; he sees red; he tastes and smells and hears red. His vision pulses to his heartbeat’s rhythm. He craves the death of his enemy. To have blood coat his tastebuds. To absorb the scent of freshly drawn iron. 

Feyd’s ears pound with pressure and he worries it will muffle the beautiful screams of his victim, but to his great pleasure, as his blade is stuffed into a meaty back, the screams come in loud and clear in perfectly pitched notes that echo down the hall.

The body collapses, knees slamming into stone flooring.

“Feyd,” you whimper. 

“I told you to stay in our room,” he says lowly, not sparing you a glance as his knife momentarily leaves the body to reenter at the spot where neck meets shoulder. Blood sputters from lips, adorning your dress with a sprinkling of rubies.

“One of the servants said you needed me and I–”

“Take her back,” Feyd orders his guard. “Now.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Feyd!” you cry, tripping over your skirt as you struggle to keep pace with the guard dragging you around the corner. 

It’s better this way. If you’re gone, he can give his undivided attention to the paling body and the scarlet puddle spreading beneath it. 

“You don’t listen,” Feyd says, coming to the front of his victim who is impressively still sitting upright. 

There’s a whimper, another lovely song before Feyd pries open the mouth, digs between a row of teeth, and pinches the tongue with two fingers. He pulls it as far as it can be pulled and then lops it clean off with his knife. It lands on the floor with a wet slap. The fingers follow—all ten—amputated from now lifeless hands. And then the eyes, plucked free from the skull with ease. One of them rolls a fair distance after being tossed aside. The other he keeps.

Feyd steps back to stare upon death at its purest; a flawless display of cause and effect, of crime and punishment. 

“I told you what would happen,” he says. 

He doesn’t get a response. 

—

It’s late when Feyd returns to you. He spent the last few hours explaining his role in the ending of a diplomat’s life. He was careful with his words. He had to be. If his uncle knew he killed in defense of his concubine, it would introduce a plethora of complications. No one can know just how far he would go for his woman lest he put you further at risk and open himself up to manipulation. And he can’t have that. 

Feyd expels a relieved sigh at finding you tucked under the sheets. You’re on your side, a palm between your cheek and the pillow. 

He moves to take a seat on the edge of the mattress. As he runs his hand over your hair, your eyes open. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, and you nod. 

“A servant came to the room, said you needed me,” you tell him. “I was led to that man instead of you. I wasn’t trying to go against what you asked of me.”

“I know,” Feyd says. “The servant was paid. Someone witnessed the exchange.” He watches a flash of shock and pain travel across your irises. “He’s dead now. They both are.”

You swallow, biting into your lip as your eyes and mind briefly drift elsewhere. Feyd waits for you to come back, and once you do, you look up at him and nod in acceptance. 

“Will you come to bed now?” you ask. “Please? I can't sleep without you.”

“You were asleep when I came in.” Your head shakes. 

In all fairness, you haven't spent a single night apart since he got you, and he doesn’t view it as clinginess—it’s more his decision than yours—but rather an expression of how much you want him near. And he likes being wanted. It’s different. Foreign. Nice. The both of you need it. Tonight, perhaps, more than ever.

Feyd stands and peels off his layers of clothes, then goes to the other side of the bed to slide under the covers. You flip over, nestling yourself against him and resting your head on his bicep.

“I thought you didn't want me anymore,” you whisper. “I thought–”

---

“Don't think,” he says. “You're mine; you know that.” He presses a kiss to your hairline. “I don't share you.”

And may fate have mercy on anyone who suggests otherwise.

Tag List (if you wanna join)

[mxtxfanatic]

What finally pushes Wei Wuxian into a qi deviation isn’t the fact that Jiang Cheng showed up to hate-crime him and Lan Wangji, but the fact that Wei Wuxian showed up with the best of intentions—informing his dead guardians of his intentions to marry—just to be goaded into attacking their son in front of their tablets, the highest form of disrespect he could’ve performed in front of them. That Jiang Cheng could drag him down to such a level as to engage in something so disrespectful when Wei Wuxian showed up specifically to pay his respects is why it should not surprise anyone that Wei Wuxian’s last thoughts on Lotus Pier is that he wants to leave and never return:

It was only proper to show respect for the deceased. After all, they were at an ancestral hall.

...

Jiang Cheng was exactly who Wei WuXian had wanted to avoid; the last person he wanted to be seen by. Now that Jiang Cheng had found him, he knew he probably couldn’t escape fast enough without having harsh words flung his way. Wei WuXian didn’t want to start any unnecessary conflict, so he said, “I didn’t bring HanGuang-Jun anywhere that contained the Lotus Pier’s secrets. I’m just here to offer a few incense sticks to Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu. We are just leaving.”

—Chapt. 87: Core (Part 9), boat-full-of-lotus-pods

He turned to Jiang Cheng and said, “Jiang Cheng, listen to yourself. Do you even hear what you’re saying? Don’t forget who you are. You’re the leader of a sect. To insult a fellow cultivator from one of the Four Great Sects in front of Uncle Jiang and everyone’s memorial tablets. Where are your manners?”

...

All three of them had weapons out in front of the ancestral hall now. Jiang Cheng’s eyes were bloodshot as he snarled, “Fine! If you want a fight, then let’s fight! You think I’m afraid of you two?!” But just a few strikes later, Wei WuXian remembered, startled, that they stood before the ancestral hall of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect. He had only just knelt and prayed in front of Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu for their protection a few moments ago. And now he was attacking their son with Lan WangJi right under their nose! As if a bucket of cold water had just been dumped over him, suddenly, spots appeared in front of Wei WuXian’s eyes and his vision darkened.

...

Wei WuXian did not answer him. Instead, he said, “Lan Zhan...... Let’s go.” Immediately. And never come back.

—Chapt. 88: Core (Part 10), boat-full-of-lotus-pods

Tellingly enough, Jiang Cheng does not hold the same sense of shame in the fact that he instigated a physical fight in the resting place of his ancestors nor that his intentions weren't to maintain decorum when he followed wangxian into the ancestral hall to begin with. In fact, he is fueled by rage to the point of irrationality before he even steps foot into the ancestral hall, so much so that he cannot even accept wangxian disengaging from the fight and attempting to leave on their own:

All the signs pointed to the same conclusion—there was now something more between Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi. Unable to make himself turn away or step forward to speak to them, Jiang Cheng had concealed himself and followed after them, reinterpreting their every exchange and gesture through a coloured lens. Feelings of disbelief, strangeness, and slight, mild disgust had momentarily been enough to overcome Jiang Cheng’s hatred. It was only when Wei WuXian had brought Lan WangJi into the ancestral hall that Jiang Cheng’s anger reawakened. The repressed, overwhelming rage consumed his rationality and manners.

...

Lan WangJi harbored no more desire to continue the fight with Jiang Cheng. Wordlessly, he pulled Wei WuXian onto his back and turned to leave. Jiang Cheng was plagued by alarm and suspicion. He was alarmed by the terrifying sight of blood suddenly oozing out of Wei WuXian’s qiqiao. Yet he was suspicious of whether the man was faking it for an excuse to run away. After all, it was a prank that Wei WuXian had pulled quite often in the past. At the sight of the two men leaving, Jiang Cheng called, “Stop!”

—Chapt. 88: Core (Part 10), boat-full-of-lotus-pods

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monsters Reimagined: Yeenoghu, Demon Lord of Insatiable Hunger

It's been some years since I did my overhaul on the lore of the gnolls and how they embody the weird de/humanization that goes on with various monsters over d&d's history. Ever since I've had more than a few folks write in asking about how I would handle the default Gnoll God Yeenoghu, who exists in a similar state of "Kill everything that ever existed" to Orcus and a good portion of the game's other late game threats, thematically flat and not really useful for building stories around.

For a while I've avoided doing this post because I thought it might skew a little too close to my personal philosophy, and risk going from simply being influenced by my views to an outright soapbox. I personally hold that despite being part of our nature hunger is the source of the majority of human cruelty, and if society and cooperation are the tools we developed to best fight against the threat of famine, it is fear of that famine that allows the powerful to control society and secure their positions of privilege.

I've also dealt with disordered eating in a prior period of my life, alternating between neglecting my body's needs and punishing myself for needing in the first place. I'm well acquainted with hunger and the hollowing effect it can have, though I'd never claim to know it so well as someone who went hungry by anything other than choice and self hatred.

Learning to love food again saved saved my life. The joy of eating, of feeling whole and nourished, yes, but there was also the joy of making: of experimenting, improving, providing, being connected to a great tradition of cultivation which has guided our entire species.

If I was going to talk about an evil god of hunger, I was going to have to touch on all of that, and now that it's out in the open I can continue with a more thematic and narrative discussion on the beast of butchery below the cut.

What's wrong: Going by the default lore, there's not much that really separates Yeenoghu from any other chaotic evil mega-boss. He wants to kill everything in vicious ways, and encourages his followers to do the same. He's there so that the evil clerics can have someone to pray to because the objectively good gods are on the party's side and wouldn't help a bunch of cannibalistic slavers.

This is boring, we've done this song and dance before, and the only reason that there are so many demon lords/evil gods/archdevils like this is because the bioessentialism baked into the older editions of the game's lore was also a theological essentialism, and that every group had to have their own gods which perfectly embodied their ethos and there was no crossover whatsoever, themes be damned.

Normally I'd do a whole section about "what can be salvaged" from an old concept, but we're scraping the bottom of the barrel right from the inset. Likewise my trick of combining multiple bits of underwritten d&d mythology to make a sturdier concept isn't going to work as most of d&d's other gods of hunger or famine are similar levels of paper thin.

How do we fix it: I want Yeenoghu to be the opposite of the path I found myself on, a hunger so great and so painful that it percludes happiness, cooperation, or even rational thought. Hunger not as a sumptuous hedonistic gluttony but a hollowing emptiness that compels violence and desperation. More than just psychopathic slaughter and gore, it is becalmed sailors drinking seawater to quench their thirst, the urban poor mixing sawdust and plaster into their food because their wages are not enough to afford grain.

This is where we get the idea of Yeenoghu as an enemy of society, not because violence is antithical to society ( I think we've learned by now how structured violence can really be) but because society fundamentally breaks down when it can't take care of the people who provide its foundations. Contrast the Beast of Butchery with one of my other favourite villainous famine spirits: Caracalla the grim trader, who embodies scarcity as a form of profit and control in to Yeenoghu's scarcity as suffering.

Into this we can also add the idea of the hungry dead, ghouls yes but also vampires, anything cursed with an eternal existence and appetites it no longer has the ability to sate. A large number of cultures across the world share the idea that the dead cannot rest while they are starving, which is why we leave offerings of food by their graves or pour out a glass to the ones we lost along the way.

On that topic, there's also a scrap of lore involving Doresain god of ghouls, who has been depicted as an on and off servant of Yeenoghu. Since I'm already remaking the mythology, I'd have Doresain act as a sort of saint or herald for the demon lord, the wicked but still partially reasonable entity who can villain monolog before the feral and all consuming demon god shows up.

Summing it all up: Yeenoghu isn't a demon you wittingly worship, it's a demon that claims you, marks you as its mouthpiece and through you seeks to consume more of the world. It gives you just enough strength to keep on living, keep on suffering, keep on filling that hole in your belly and feed it in turn.

The greatest of these mouthpieces is Doresain, an elf of ancient times who's unearthly hungers elevated him to demigod status. Known as the knawbone king, he dwells within a dread domain of the shadowfell, and is sought out only for his ability to intercede with the maw-fiend's rampages.

Signs: Unnaturally persistent hunger pangs, excessive drool and gurgling stomach noises, the growth of extra teeth in the mouth, stomachs splitting open into mouths.

Symbols: An animal with three jaws, a three tailed flail or spiked whip. A crown of knawed bones (Doresain)

Titles: Beast of butchery, the maw fiend, the knawing god

Artist

[camlovesjace]

HATE ME; 01 , THE PINK DREAD ! (Jacaerys Velaryon)

Summary (there) Warning: Enemies to lovers, you may hate or dislike some characters, not hate allowed, I AM TEAM BLACK my oc is not so...her ideas/opinions are not mine. Someone asked me to translate my wattpad fanfic Hate Me, (there is the link of the original fic, written by me on spanish, available until chapter 40th on wattpad) so here it is, i hope you enjoy it, i´ll try to post a few more chapters soon xoxo

The birth of Princess Deianira Targaryen was one of the worst days of Queen Alicent Hightower, the birth had lasted hours and had been one of the most complicated for the young redhead. And when the girl gave herself into her mother’s arms, the news reached her that Princess Rhaenyra had given birth to a prince… The two babies were born minutes apart, with Jacaerys Velaryon being the eldest of the two. A boy with brown hair and brown eyes, a bastard in the eyes of the green queen. Instead Alicent’s newborn daughter was an embodiment of Valyrian traits in person, her scarce hair was as pale as snow, and the first glow the queen saw in Deianira’s eyes was amethyst.

King Viserys took the news of the Parthians as a divine sign sent by the gods, and perhaps it was… The man Targaryen went to his firstborn’s quarters, to meet the future heir…leaving his wife and daughter alone for most of the day. When King Viserys finally approached his queen he found a sleeping Alicent, hugging the baby. But he dared not do anything to wake them up. The next day the man ordered the newborn children to share a wet nurse, in order to strengthen their bond and try to repair the growing rift that separated their family. He also offered a deal to the princes' mothers, a betrothal between the two children…so Deianira would be the queen consort and Jacaerys the king, when his time came to rule.

Princess Rhaenyra was more than delighted with the idea, but Alicent refused the offer, unable to even imagine her little daughter in the hands of a bastard. And so the years passed in the red keep… The Green Queen’s hatred for her stepdaughter and ex best friend became as ardent as the flames of a dragon, and whenever her youngest daughter was belittled by the presence of Prince Jacaerys, her tolerance for the bastards diminished. Rhaenyra’s dishonorable continuation of childbearing did not improve the situation. Alicent spent her afternoons talking to her children, warning them about her half-sister and her bastard children, especially to her eldest child, Aegon.

In this way, Deianira cultivated a resentment towards her nephew, Jacaerys. Who stole all the attention of her father, there were even several onomastics where the king forgot his youngest daughter… Without remembering, many times, that both children were born the same day. But the worst of all those days was the morning when Jace and Nira turned six onomastics old. King Viserys, as every year, had made a feast for the future king…but on that occasion, he had not even noticed to congratulate his daughter as well. Deianira watched as her father spent the afternoon playing with the boy and, sitting on the throne, put Jacaerys on his legs. Proclaiming that that would be his seat when he grew up, and that that day was cause for celebration because he was with them.

After that, the relationship between father and daughter only deteriorated, Nira was fed by anger towards her father for months and months, which led her to develop rebellious and violent attitudes. The last straw for the king was when, during an argument at dinner, Deianira threw a fork into Jacaerys' face. Stabbing the tips of the utensil in the forehead and leaving a small scar on his skin. Viserys tried to talk to his youngest daughter, but Princess Rhaenyra told him that she should be severely punished for her behavior towards the future king, which caused a dispute between both mothers…each trying to defend their respective children.

The fight did not stop until Ser Criston interfered, suggesting to the king that the princess could improve her behavior and calm her anger through disciplined training, practicing alongside her older brothers Aegon and Aemond. A proposal that the king thought carefully and ended up accepting. In this way the life of the white haired princess changed completely, she spent every morning training with her nephews and brothers, her afternoons doing recreational activities with her sister Helaena, and her nights reading or learning High Valyrian next to Aemond. Both children were very close, so much so that Alicent thought about brethroting them…but she never did it.

That specific morning the youngest girl was with her older brother, trying to speak in their father’s language with the dragon keepers, the men nodding or denying the questions the princess asked them. It was not until Aegon arrived with their two brown nephews that Deianira’s mood changed.

"Why do these two had to come?" The girl whispered to Aemond, who pinched her upon hearing her.

"Be kinder, they are our family" he told her, and she headed towards Aegon. Nira frowned and approached barely, unwilling to do so.

"Good morning, Deianira" the youngest child said, seeing her aunt walking by her feet, the princess nodded.

"Good morning too, Lucerys" she says and tries to smile, but her grimace gives her away. Then she looks at her eldest brother "Aegon." she says, in the form of a greeting, but ignores Jacaerys.

The brown haired boy rolls his eyes when he sees her attitude.

"Jacaerys is also here, Nira" murmurs Aemond.

"I know…" she says. And then she does not speak again. Jace is angry to see her behaving so childishly, but he does not pay attention.

The princess get into the pit next to the elders, and from the bottom of the huge cave comes the dragon Vermax…a green animal with golden almost orange horns. Apparently it was a male dragon, because every year it grew abruptly, as if it stretched and enlarged when no one was looking. Deianira and Aemond were the only ones without a dragon of their own, the prince’s egg had not hatched and the princess’s dragon had perished a few days after birth, as it was very weak and small…even it´s wings were thin, so thin that if it had survived it would never have been able to fly.

The dragon keepers incited the eldest Velaryon boy to approach their dragon, and he went towards the beast, somewhat fearful. The animal was unleashed and headed for its future rider.

"Call Vermax, Prince Jacaerys" one of the man's indicated , speaking High Valyrian.

"Attention!" Jace exclaimed, but he stepped back as the dragon approached him quickly, as if to attack him "Stop, Vermax!" Jace said, and Vermax obeyed, the man beside him smiled faintly.

"Well done" the elder murmured, then some caretakers brought a small lamb, Deianira opened his eyes as they approached him towards the round.

"Aren’t you going to…?" the girl’s words were interrupted by her older nephew, who ordered his beast to stop because the dragon had turned to the innocent animal. Vermax growled, but he did as it´s rider told him. "You must keep control over your dragon, my young prince" a young dragon keeper translated the words of an elder, because the prince´s were not yet so advanced in the language, except Aemond and Deianira, who understood each word "As Prince Aegon had it with Sunfyre. Once Vermax is attached to you, it will refuse to take orders from anyone else" he said. The dragon let out a desperate grunt, seeing the pale animal, Jace turned to the leader the excitement on his childish face evident from afar.

"May I?" he questioned, and received a nod from the brown, the brown haired prince turned around to face his uncles and aunt. Aegon had bored, looking everywhere but not there, Aemond looked with a touch of interest and Deianira had a grimace of disgust. That expression was almost characteristic of the princess. Or at least, something Jacaerys always noticed when he was around. And always, no matter what, the boy wanted to impress her. He still didn’t know why, but he wanted her to respect him.

Which always ended up going wrong.

"Dracarys, Vermax!" Jace shouted and the dragon spewed fire through it´s mouth, burning the lamb alive, Nira uttered an almost inaudible exclamation and clung to Aemond’s arm. Not out of fear, but out of indignation. Was it difficult to sacrifice the animal before giving it to a dragon? Could they not spare him the suffering of a painful death? Deianira hated cruelty to the innocent, especially to animals.

The lamb shrieked in pain as the embers clung to it´s body and the princess forced herself not to look away. Vermax went to the corpse of the animal that was once white and devoured it with a few bites, then the dragon keepers took the dragon back to it´s pit, leaving the princes alone. Nira tightened the grip she had on her older brother’s arm.

"Aemond, Deianira" Aegon called them "We have a surprise for you two" he said and Nira rolled her eyes, knowing that nothing good could come from her mother’s firstborn. But she said nothing because she noticed the glow of emotion in Aemond’s eyes.

"What is?" the white haired boy asked. Lucerys said it was something very special with a mocking tone, and the girl looked at the boy with annoyance. Thinking how far he’d fly if she kicked him at that precise moment, but at seeing him run away she preferred to suppress her desires.

"You two are the only ones who do not have a dragon" Aegon spoke.

"It is your fault, you chose the worst eggs for us" Deianira murmurs, feeling how her brother took her back and began to move with them at his side.

"True, it is your fault" Aemond agrees, remembering that their eggs had been chosen by Aegon before their births.

"Well, just…shut up" the eldest prince interrupts them, feeling attacked "I feel bad about my bad choices, okay? Well…we all felt a little bad, so we found something for you two" the younger white haired boy frown frowned, unable to believe him.

"You…find a dragon, seriously?" he asks, his tone full of uncertainty.

"You can’t even find your high Valyrian notes, how will you find a dragon?" Deianira asks, half mocking him and half skeptical.

"The gods provide, little sister" Aegon whispers "The gods provide"

Aemond and Deianira watched as Luke approached…next to a pig, with a harness made of brown strings and false feathers that pretended to mimic two wings.

"Admire the Pink Dread!" Aegon exclaims bursting with laughter, the laughter of the two bastards boys fills the ears of the princes. Aemond feels humiliated, his heart sink in his chest, while Deianira feels only anger. It’s like a hurricane is about to break loose in her stomach "It has room for two mounts, but be careful… the first fly can be difficult"

Nira clenches her fists, but does nothing yet. Aegon and Jacaerys begin to make sounds mimicking a pig and the princess feels an immense urge to throw herself on her brother and tear apart the hairs from his head one by one, and with the disgusting bastard of her sister…the words could not describe how much she wanted to hurt him. She wanted to see him bleed.

A few minutes later Aemond was still petrified beside Deianira, the children were gone and the girl was looking at her brother.

"Now they will know who I am" the princess declares, her cheeks red of anger and her jaw clenching, she sighs before coming out of the pit as soul being chased by the seven devils, Aemond sighs too as she leaves…it was as if a black cloud settled on her head.

"This will end up badly" he whispers, giving up, then he turns around and makes up his mind, starting to creep into the depths of the dragon pit.

Aegon held his nose while it bled in droves. Beside him sat Deianira, who had her shoulders down, awaiting for her punishment. Jacaerys covered his eye with his hand, feeling it begin to swell. Lucerys was the only one who was intact, Nira had not been able to jump on him as her hands and feet were busy beating the two elders.

The first to arrive the room was Rhaenyra, she looked at Jace stunned and worried.

"Who did this?!" she asked, desperately, kneeling to see her son’s face, his right eye was bruised. Deianira smiled at him.

"It is a gift of mine, dear sister" she says, looking at her half-sister, who hardened her gaze when she saw the delicate features of the girl intact.

The crown princess shouldered Nira tightly and at that moment Alicent entered the room, and at the sight of the scene ran to separate her daughter from the hands of Rhaenyra.

"Enough, stop!" the green queen shouted, and held her child in her arms. Then her gaze landed on Aegon "What happened, Aegon?"

The teenager rolled his eyes.

"It was your precious daughter, mother" he says, blood dripping from his nose, some parts were drying up on his skin, leaving crimson spots "Deianira attacked us for no reason!" The girl tried to get out of Alicent’s arms, wishing to throw herself on Aegon again.

"You’re a liar, Aegon, I swear I’ll…-!"she shouted, but a voice rose over hers.

"Enough!" the king exclaimed, drawing everyone’s attention towards him, an Aemond all covered with what seemed to be dust was by his side. The boy walked into Alicent’s arms, taking refuge on his mother warmth.

"These disputes must end, we are family!" the king yelled.

"Father" Rhaenyra spoke, and Alicent took her younger child under her grip as she intuited what the white haired woman next words would be 2Princess Deianira has come too far, attacked two princes this time, she is…uncontrollable2

Alicent sighed, smiling powerless and shaking her head softly.

"I know my daughter has had impulsive reactions before, but I don’t think this was for no reason" the redhead says looking at her lord husband.

"Aemond was locked in the dragon pit… " Ser Criston Cole whispered. "The princes were found fighting outside the place" he ended. Viserys looks at Aegon, then at Jacaerys, asking for explanations with his gaze.

"We were quietly coming out of the pit, father, and Deianira rushed over us" Aegon explained, faking a face to try to get his father pit "She had that mad expression she has everytime she lose her mind"

The silence seized the room, and Aemond broke it. His eyes burning with locked tears.

"They gave us a pig!" he shouted, his voice weak and shaky, the adults present in the room looked at the child and Deianira placed her gaze on the ground, feeling the sadness of her older brother "They said they had a dragon for us, they mocked and left us there."

Rhaenyra looked at her younger half-sister, and then at Jacaerys, disappointed to learn the things her son was doing in her absence.

"A blow, over a joke?" the crowned princess asked, but her voice sank into the depths of her throat. No one had words for what happened.

Viserys was the first to speak after a while.

"Apologize, and forget the situation" the King proposed, but Deianira shaked softly her head

"How many situations can we forget, father?" she murmured "Are you going to keep pretending that this family hasn’t been broken for years?"

Aemond took his younger sister’s hand, trying to shut her up.

"What did you said?" Viserys asks, approaching his daughter, who does not look down or flinch.

"What you heard" Deianira says, her amethyst eyes on her father, piercing deeply on his soul "One day there will come a situation that no member of this family will ever forget, and there’s nothing you will can do about it."

The man could not say anything at the words of his offspring, yet hardened his expression.

"Go to your quarters, Deianira, I have no desire to see your face today" he speaks, his cold and heartless tone of voice makes Alicent feel as her chest sinks into her bones.

"Viserys…she´s is your daughter" the queens whispers, but her voice breaks, the king looks at his wife and understands that his words were too harsh. But he wasn’t going to back down.

"Don’t worry about me, Mother" Nira tries to reassure her "I stopped seeing the king like my father long ago…"

After this, the young princess crosses the doorway and leaves, letting the tension in the room rise. Rhaenyra looks at Alicent and then at Aemond, but not a word comes out of her mouth. And so, the gap continues to open, further separating the house of the dragon.

[sunflower-chai]

THANK YOU the acolyte for disproving the “jedi steal kids” sentiment held by so much of the fandom. they ask for permission from a guardian before children can be tested! and even if they pass it is their choice to go or not!

also thank you for giving me more physically affectionate jedi!! other than kanan and ezra, and one time with anakin and ahsoka after ahsoka literally died, i feel like we never see masters hug their padawans. sol and osha’s hug gave me LIFE.

really curious about what exactly the coven on brendok is. they don’t seem to be nightsisters yet they call themselves witches. they seem a little sus since they discourage osha from going into/learning about the outside world, which feels slightly cultish. but also mother aniseya clearly loves her girls and they clearly love her. she does not physically harm them (other than the force push during the training exercise) and she is warm and nurturing. it’s very complicated and i hope the show delves into that further. also what is it with force-sensitive children not having fathers?? lol.

i liked the contrast of mae wanting to share everything with osha while osha wants to discover who she is as an individual, creating some interesting tension in their relationship. i also feel like mae was a really good example of what unhealthy attachment actually looks like. if she cannot have osha, no one can. and she does not care about the potential repercussions for everyone else. i think mae might have realized she went too far near the end when she begged osha to jump over to her, but then she fell and it was too late. and her hatred for the jedi has twisted her mind so much that she does not blame herself for what happened but projects it onto them. they are the ones who wanted to take osha away. they are the reason osha is (presumably) dead. she is not at fault. they forced her hand.

it’s a really intriguing thought process, and i’m wondering where it came from. has mae always been this way? did the ascension ceremony change her nature in some way? this sort of goes back to my questions about the coven. mother aniseya said they were exiled for using “dark” powers. so are they dark side users? it’s interesting how they refer to the force as “the thread” and place more emphasis on individual agency over destiny (i.e., “the will of the force”). but mother aniseya also criticizes those who see the force as a “power” to wield rather than something that connects the galaxy. which is just… misinformed? the jedi also don’t see the force as a power? literally “the force surrounds us. it penetrates us. it binds the galaxy together.” so maybe they have some incorrect assumptions.

wondering if mae’s current master finds her on brendok after the fire. i feel like that would make sense. she’s eight years old and the only person left alive on the planet, she would need someone to find her. and continue to cultivate that hate within her and form her into the living weapon she is today.

[stillness-in-green]

Do you think that afo's claim is true that Shigaraki never made a choice of his own?

Okay, so, I wrote about a thousand words answering this, and what I eventually settled on is that you can’t (or at least, my rambly ass can’t) really answer it properly without meandering into a philosophical cul-de-sac about The Problem of Free Will. I tried to rewrite it and it just got longer. Blame the Philosphy 101 class I took back in college.

Consider: What does it mean to “make a choice of your own”?  What is required for free choice, and has Shigaraki’s free choice been not merely hindered but wholly fettered for his entire life?  Is his agency limited in a way unique to him?  Was it possible for him to have made decisions other than the ones he did?  Why or why not?

On top of a bunch of philosophical/biological questions applied to Shigaraki as if he were a real person, you also have the meta-narrative questions.  What does Horikoshi think?  Did he intend AFO to be read as a reliable narrator in his claim about Shigaraki’s lack of free choice?  Are those answers consistent with the way Shigaraki and AFO’s relationship is portrayed and the portrayal of the actions of other characters in the story?

I don’t really want to turn this into a dissertation on the nature of free will, and that’s not a solved problem in the real world, anyway, so any possible answer is going to come down to a practical, situational assessment and a judgement call. With that in mind, hit the jump.

Per this post, the evidence points towards Horikoshi believing that All For One was making a truthful statement, if only because, if it weren’t true, presumably he would have written Deku contradicting the man, which he didn’t.  And, indeed, Shigaraki himself, in his rueful musing that he was just a kid throwing a tantrum after all, would seem to agree as well.  So taking the text purely at face value, AFO’s claim is likely true in the sense that the author intends it to be definitive.  (Which makes Deku killing Shigaraki all the more loathsome, but that’s neither here nor there.)

So the next question is, am I as a reader obligated to agree with Horikoshi as an author, and do I?

Ultimately, my answer to both halves of that question is no.  If I take a holistic view of BNHA, one that accounts for the entire scope of Shigaraki and AFO’s relationship rather than just the stuff at the very end, I do not think that AFO’s claim about Shigaraki was correct—or, if it is correct, then there’s little difference between Shigaraki’s agency and that of anyone else in the world.

See, the thing is, every piece of evidence we have pre-Liberation War points to an All For One who was genuinely trying to cultivate Shigaraki into a powerful force with a strong will of his own, someone able to stand on his own two feet, able to be a Villain to be reckoned with entirely on his own merits.  Post-Kamino, AFO reflects in his own mind—talking to no one and thus with no one to fool—that it is a teacher’s job to raise their ward to be independent.  Tomura relied on him, but now that the Heroes have locked AFO away, Tomura is ready, rage stoked, to take charge, and he’ll be fine, able to use his experiences, his hatred, and his regrets to fuel himself moving forward.

Heck, even the previous, very damning, “He will be the next me,” rejoinder to Ujiko could, absent AFO’s stupid endgame conflation of quirk consciousness with literal consciousness, easily be read as AFO intending Shigaraki to be the next person like himself, the heir to AFO’s position and resources, rather than his literal next vessel.  He’s got no reason to play coy with Ujiko, after all; if he was referencing the vessel business, why not just say so?[1] In a story that wasn’t trying to convince everyone that the continued existence of the quirk All For One is precisely synonymous with the continued existence of a certain orphan boy born under a bridge, AFO would have no reason to be pursuing cockamamie possession plots, and therefore no need for a Shigaraki whose will can be simultaneously stronger than One For All’s yet easily shattered with a single well-timed reveal.

1: See more of my previous posts than I care to try to link where I complain about Horikoshi’s bald-faced, bad faith lying to the reader for the purposes of building drama or misdirection.

Being independent means being able to make your own choices and chart your own course.  There was a point at which AFO wanted that for Shigaraki; the fact that Shigaraki was able to meet his expectations in this regard has no inherent bearing on Shigaraki’s free will.  You get into irresolvable paradoxes real quick-like if you start saying things like, “Shigaraki being independent because AFO wanted him to be independent means Shigaraki isn’t truly independent!”

It’s kind of like saying, “My parents want me to graduate from school and become independent, but if I just do what they want, that makes me their puppet.  I’ll flunk out and keep living at home, instead.  Being dependent on my parents’ income will really prove how independent I am!”  See the issue?  Person A’s desires for Person B do not impede Person B’s free choice unless Person A acts on Person B in a way that limits their choices.  Person A encouraging and supporting Person B in becoming independent of Person A is the antithesis of limiting them.

This portrayal continues into the backstory we see in the My Villain Academia flashbacks.  From what we see, AFO was not teaching Shigaraki that he could only destroy (the common interpretation), but rather desensitizing him to the option of destruction.  My read was that AFO wanted Shigaraki to be wholly amoral and grudge-bearing against Heroes, such that Shigaraki would pursue vengeance on Hero Society without recognizing or hesitating over ethical boundaries; beyond that, though, he was happy to let Shigaraki do things however Shigaraki saw fit, be that raw destructiveness or alliance-building with other Villains.

When his ward was young, this encouragement involved some behavioral modification tactics.  That’s the kind of phrase that sounds bad, but it’s actually a very standard part of parenting; I would argue there’s only one thing AFO does to Tenko that really goes beyond the pale.  Giving him the family hands and telling him to always keep them close is, by any measure, a grossly manipulative and controlling thing to do, explicitly intended to keep the boy from healing.[2]

2: Though it’s notably something AFO has been inflicting on himself, too, since we know he kept Yoichi’s hand.  Given the striking parallel of AFO coming to Tenko as one family-killing orphan “born” under a bridge to another, one wonders how much of what AFO does to Shigaraki is based on his own life, and how much that might have been behind the, “He will be the next me,” quip.  Shigaraki musing that he takes things when they’re offered to him feels of a piece with this.  Sure, it could be something AFO groomed him towards, but it could also just be an outlook on life Shigaraki learned from AFO in the same way any child might pick up on their parents’ philosophies.

As to the rest?  There are two major things I could point to, and both are—while diametrically morally opposite to the standard goals of childrearing—pretty normal in terms of childrearing philosophy.

Firstly, AFO pretty clearly buys Tenko a nice computer directly after he murders the two thugs that had been picking on him.[3]  Secondly, he heaps Tenko with verbal praise for the same act, compared to his gentle scolding when Tenko was previously being reluctant.  As to whether AFO used further methods of behavioral conditioning, that’s less clear.  Him sitting on the bed keeping his hands to himself while Tenko writhes on the floor in an agony of itching is certainly repellant, but he’s not withholding physical comfort in the way behavioral modification would describe unless he had previously been giving Tenko physical comfort and was now denying it.  After that one hug under the bridge, though, we never see AFO physically touching Shigaraki again until the cave, and at that point the two of them are mentally merged enough that AFO can presumably feel safe about touching Shigaraki without the latter having any sudden turns in temper that would get AFO Decayed.  So I think the giving/withholding of praise, and the rewarding of physical objects of value, is more supportable as an argument of AFO using behavioral modification tactics than him giving/withholding physical expressions of comfort.

3: Nothing else in Tenko’s room is 100% provable as a reward in this sense.  The rows of books are there from the very beginning.  The computer monitor definitely only appears after the thugs are killed; previously the only thing on Tenko’s desk was the pile of family hands.  The mangled Hero toys, however, could have shown up sometime in the interim between Tenko being brought to the room and his encounter with the thugs.  We don’t get any angles showing the shelves containing them in the scene where AFO is encouraging him to act as his heart desires, so we don’t know for sure whether Tenko already had them by that point or not.

As to whether all this had a debilitating impact of Shigaraki’s free will, I’m skeptical.  To my eye, and with the exception of the business with the hands, the way AFO raises Tomura is bad because AFO teaches Tomura to do bad things, not bad because it’s damaging to Tomura’s independence—unless, to return to a similar example I used before, you’re prepared to say with a straight face that it’s damaging to a child’s independence to buy them an ice cream cone for making an A on their big math test or give them a time-out punishment for hitting another child in class.  Maybe it’s “damaging” to their sense of freedom in some big abstract way, but the purpose is to teach them how to successfully navigate life, not to impede them, and it’s not anything millions of other parents and teachers aren’t doing all across the globe.  That is to say, it isn’t unique.

So yes, AFO was raising Shigaraki to be a Villain, but no mentor alive has raised a child without intending them to be something, even if that something is just “a functioning member of society.”  AFO’s goal may be different, but his methodology (again excluding the hands) is not, so if the claim is that Shigaraki’s choices aren’t free because of that methodology, despite the numerous instances of AFO openly, vocally encouraging Shigaraki to make his own free choices, couldn’t you also say the same of literally anyone else who was raised using those same childrearing methods?

This question is even in the series, sorta: during the training camp attack, Mr. Compress observes, “You kids today have your values chosen for you.”  Most of the characters in the series act according to the morals they were raised by, without ever attempting to actively evaluate or interrogate those morals.  They may be encouraged to find their own paths, but that encouragement comes with the unspoken assumption that their “path” should be a healthy and law-abiding one, whereas Shigaraki’s path will be that of a dangerous criminal—but one who’s still being encourage to choose what kind of dangerous criminal he wants to be!

I’m perfectly willing to concede that AFO raising Shigaraki to be the Symbol of Fear put more restraints on him than e.g. Jirou or Ochaco’s parents encouraging their daughters to pursue their own passions, but I’m very unconvinced that that disparity is so sharp that we could say Shigaraki has no free will at all while the heroic characters enjoy total self-determination.  Hell, in the early series, AFO has a freer hand with Shigaraki than All Might does with Deku!  All Might has some very specific ideas about the kind of “narrative” Deku needs to establish in order to inherit the Pillar position All Might wants for him—he has to keep the power secret, he has to win the Sports Festival in a blowout, he has to appear confident at all times, and so on.  All Might shakes the mentality eventually, leaving Deku freer to write his own story, but the same can be said of AFO being arrested and leaving Shigaraki to develop on his own.

Want a better parallel for AFO’s impact on Tomura’s developmental years?  Let’s look at Shouto, instead.  He was conceived and raised by Endeavor for a very specific purpose, and Endeavor was way more domineering about it than AFO was!  Does that mean Endeavor deprived Shouto of free will?  Or was he just worse at predicting how his child would respond to any given stimuli than AFO?

Shouto gets rebellious and lashes out and makes the decisions he does because of the abuse he suffers and his feelings about the parents perpetuating that abuse: can we really say, then, that he’s acting of his own free will in a way Shigaraki is not?  Does AFO having a better understanding of human nature than Endeavor inherently make Shigaraki less capable of defining his own sort of Villainy than Shouto is of defining his own Heroism?   Shouto, after all, became a Hero rather than deciding on literally any other career path; can we thus say he had no choice in what he became?  If he “chose” to be a Hero because Endeavor was pressuring him to be one but also because he wanted to become someone who could reassure others, can we not say that Shigaraki “chose” to be a Villain because AFO was pressuring him to be one but also because he wanted to avenge himself on the society that abandoned him?

AFO may have engineered the circumstances that led to Shigaraki wanting that revenge, but Endeavor is equally responsible for the circumstances that led to Shouto wanting to become “a Hero who can reassure others.”  Does AFO doing so knowingly while Endeavor does so unintentionally change the level of agency expressed by their respective children?

Would an omniscient God knowing what decision a certain human will make when faced with any given problem mean the human is less free in themselves to make that decision?

You see how deep this question winds up taking us into the philosophical weeds?  Let’s refocus somewhat.  Up to this point, I’ve been talking exclusively about Shigaraki’s path as a Villain and whether or not he made any choices of his own when walking that path.  While AFO—and Deku, for that matter—certainly try to reduce Shigaraki to a helpless infant incapable of free choice, one of the things that’s so compelling about Shigaraki is that he’s not wholly defined by his Villainy.

Think back to that big collage we get in Chapter 419 as the background for Shigaraki’s psyche shattering.  All of the images in those fragments are people Shigaraki has harmed.[4] Indeed, with a few exceptions, we see them right in the moment that Shigaraki is inflicting that harm!  I’ve seen this moment explained on many occasions as indicative of Shigaraki feeling a sudden surge of realization and guilt, that he hurt all those people and it didn’t even mean anything because AFO set him up for all of it.  That reading never quite sat right with me, though.  Shigaraki is not a character prone to expressing much in the way of guilt, and him suddenly doing so feels like…  Well, it feels like Woobie Tenko to me, a construct I loathe.

4: Give or take Gigantomachia, who I don’t think Shigaraki ever actually managed to put a scratch on, despite six weeks of dedicated efforts to do so.

As an alternative reading, then, consider that moment being framed as “all the choices Shigaraki thinks he made that were actually just him following the path AFO set for him.”  And if we read it that way, then it’s very notable what isn’t there.

All his scenes bonding with the League.  Taking and then returning Twice’s mask.  Telling Toga that going to Overhaul is for everyone’s sake.  Playing video games with Spinner.  Telling Dabi he looks forward to meeting his recruit.  Remembering Mr. Compress wanting sushi.

Expand the lens out.  Also not included in that collage are any scenes of him working with Kurogiri, trading quips with Ujiko, or winning over Gigantomachia.

Expand again: talking with Overhaul about the alliance, the bar meeting with Stain, accepting Re-Destro’s pledge of loyalty, addressing his new army?  No, no, no, and no.

I said in the post I linked before that even Shigaraki’s affection for the League is suspect based on the order of events around the reveal, but it’s telling that when AFO bellows to a shattering Shigaraki that all that he is was granted by AFO himself, the scene conspicuously omits any and every interaction that involves Shigaraki meeting with others in a non-violent way.  If we’re meant to believe that he is a creature who can only destroy, one who never made a choice of his own, those are some pretty serious omissions!

It’s not as if Shigaraki’s relationships with the League and other Villains couldn’t be attributed to AFO’s influence!  It’s AFO’s resources, after all, that allow Shigaraki to make enough of a splash that he starts attracting other Villains’ attention to begin with.  If AFO taught Shigaraki to value his subordinates,[5] it might have only been so Shigaraki could become even more determined to be a Villain because the friends he made were equally harmed by Hero Society as Shigaraki believed himself to have been.  There’s practically no decision Shigaraki makes that the reader determined to take AFO at his word couldn’t say he was groomed into making.

5: Which AFO himself very much does not, give or take how much you think that might have been different for Early Series AFO, with his stirring lines about the nice view All Might must be enjoying, standing atop the mountain of bodies of AFO’s allies.

But if that was intended to be the case, why aren’t the League in that collage, or the scene preceding it?  Why not call out even the aspect of Shigaraki that seems most genuinely and truly his, if everything he is was decided for him in advance?

And that takes me back around to whether or not AFO is supposed to be read as correct.  The conspicuous absence of the League and Shigaraki’s other allies in the “all that you are” collage would suggest AFO is wrong, but if AFO is supposed to be wrong, why doesn’t anyone ever tell him so?  God knows Deku’s not shy about pushing back against Villain statements he disagrees with!

To me, it feels like Horikoshi couldn’t bring himself to let AFO claim ownership of that aspect of Shigaraki.  Horikoshi wrote those friendships, those alliances; he has to know what they mean for Shigaraki, as a person and as a character.  The fact that he doesn’t allow AFO to retroactively poison them says to me that Horikoshi doesn’t want to let AFO have that win.  He can’t have Deku or Shigaraki call AFO out, either, though, because then AFO would be obviously wrong, and that would undermine Deku’s (presumed) decision to just go ahead and murder Shigaraki because he’s an entity that can only destroy, just as AFO intended him to be.

So instead we wind up with a story that says AFO is right while furtively, guiltily leaving out the many, many puzzle pieces that prove the complete image of Shigaraki Tomura is something other than what AFO describes.

Well, I’m not obligated to follow the story’s lead on that.  When I look at the whole picture of Shigaraki’s life, his relationship with AFO, the friendships he made, the allies he gained, I see a character who very much did have choices and, particularly in the stretch between Kamino and the first war, made them with just as much freedom as any other character in the series.  Shigaraki’s baseline morality being influenced by AFO does not limit his free will any more than Deku’s morality being influenced by Inko and All Might limits his.  Shigaraki’s circumstances being set in place by AFO does not limit his ability to make free choices once he’s out from under AFO’s direct supervision anymore than the same could be said of Shouto relative to Endeavor.

Summing it all up, I would really only buy that Shigaraki never made a choice of his own in the sense that AFO set up every choice he made, so all those choices were made under false pretenses.  But even this, the story fails to bear out thanks to scenes like AFO giving Tenko/Tomura freedom to roam around basically unsupervised, and AFO’s (as well as Kurogiri’s, insomuch as Kurogiri had the ability to steer Shigaraki towards AFO’s preferred outcomes) later arrest. AFO can't set up every choice Shigaraki makes when AFO cedes supervision of the situations Shigaraki encounters!

The question of free will versus determinism is a thorny one; it’s very normal to be hugely uncomfortable with the idea that free will does not exist, and everyone in the world is basically a highly sophisticated robot whose programming is determined by a combination of their life experiences and their physical makeup.  But if free will does exist—independent of genetics and life experience, and not fatally curtailed by the basic tactics adults use to prepare children for the world ahead of them—then yes, I think Shigaraki has as much or nearly as much free will as anyone, and AFO's claims to the contrary are just him being self-serving and inflating his own influence.

Thanks for the ask!

[essekknits]

Can’t help but wonder what the dynamics of the Jiang family would’ve been if Wei Ying was a little girl instead of a little boy.

First change I think would have to happen is that madam Yu would have to find different reasons to hate her, if she even continues hating her this much. This Wei Ying is not a threat to her son’s inheritance, or to her daughter’s prospects, so that is one part of the hatred not really being there anymore.

As a result of this, Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying’s relationship would be a bit less fraught, I think. Jiang Cheng is no longer constantly being compared to Wei Ying as “he’s the son your father actually wanted, he doesn’t love you”. He can instead take more joy in a second older sister, one who likes to wrestle with him and race him in the lakes, which his sister can’t really do, but who he also might be a bit more comfortable leaning on emotionally than he might’ve been a brother.

In this AU, Yanli might bear the brunt of the comparisons, but I also think she’s more well-equipped to handle it? Female Wei Ying would still be a strong cultivator, which Yanli very much isn’t, but Yanli’s identity doesn’t revolve around her cultivation the way Jiang Cheng’s does. She’s slightly older, and as sad as it is, more used to being looked down on. She doesn’t resent Wei Ying her success the same way she doesn’t resent Jiang Cheng his.

There would also have to be a change in the rumours. I feel like one of the rumours, instead of being “Wei Wuxian is Jiang Fengmian’s bastard with Cangse Sanren” (although that rumour isn’t completely gone either), would turn into a slightly more sinister “Jiang Fengmian couldn’t have the mother, so he’s raising the daughter to become his concubine/second wife/replace his bitch of a wife”.

Which brings us to the final point: Jiang Fengmian. A lot about that man and his motives is left to speculation for the readers, and I saw many beautiful and incredibly valid interpretations of his motives. Maybe he genuinely just wanted to find his friends’ child to honour them. Maybe he wanted to earn a loyal guard to his son. Maybe he was trying to use Wei Ying as a replacement for the friends he lost.

Maybe he couldn’t have the mother, so he took the daughter.

I just think having a female Wei Ying can cause some interesting ripple effects that I’d love to explore, and isn’t just “slap different pronouns on character”.

[teufelsabbiss]

Story-idea: Alliances and political marriage

Tianlang-Jun/Yuè Qīngyuán, Mu Qingfang/Zhuzhi-Lang, Mobei Jun/Shang Qinghua

(This would be hilarious if it was mostly from the POV of Cang Qiong's former generation sect leader, so lets run with that.)

A whim changes the fate of the world. Tianlang-Jun can't decide whether to go watch a theater play in a certain city or visit the festival in another. He makes Zhuzhi-Lang choose between a ribbon and a pebble (ribbon for play, stone for festival). In this universe Zhuzhi-Lang picks the stone and this changes everything!

The play is in a city in Huan Hua territory and had they gone there, Tianlang-Jun would've met Su Xiyan. But the festival is in Cang Qiong territory and he is noticed by members of the local sect. The two just stick out too much despite their disguises and there's a brief scuffle in which their demonic aura is revealed before they ditch the cultivators in the many alleys of the city. Tianlang-Jun thinks the chase was a lot of fun. Zhuzhi-Lang very much disagrees with this sentiment.

Cang Qiong's sect leader, after getting informed of this event, sends his head disciple to investigate and assess the threat. Yuè Qīngyuán finds Tianlang-Jun and is really baffled by the joviality of this powerful demon. Since their interaction is very amicable, Tianlang-Jun agrees to drop his disguise. Yue Qingyuan then brings back the weird news.

His shizun is very perturbed that the heavenly demon emperor himself is roaming the human realm, let alone his turf. Just the description of his behavior doesn't make sense! He orders Yuè Qīngyuán to continue spying and glean more information about the demon's motives.

They get along surprisingly well and Tianlang-Jun is flirting rather heavily pretty soon. Cang Qiong's sect leader sniffs a chance for a powerful alliance with the demon realm and arrogates the role of guardianship for his future successor and begins brokering a marriage between the demon emperor Tianlang-Jun and Yue Qingyuan.

His fellow peak lords are not quite as on board as he thought they would be.

More surprisingly, though, is that the head disciple of Qing Jing peak, who always seemed to hate Yuè Qīngyuán, is the most furious out of everyone in the sect on Yuè Qīngyuán's behalf and even dares to snarl(!) at the demon lord. Until he's convinced that Tianlang-Jun is (in SQQ's words) just as much of a silly idiot as Yuè Qīngyuán and that both have genuine feelings for each other. After that he approves. And somehow Yuè Qīngyuán and Shen Qingqiu seem to have overcome their problems too and are really close now. A bit as if they're brothers. Isn't that weird? The sect leader won't complain, though. Take that, shidis and shimeis, he knew his idea was great!

(Unbeknownst to the sect leader, the complicated relationship of Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu led to a great deal of questioning and meddling on Tianlang-Jun's part. This luckily worked to clear up their misunderstandings. But now Shen Qingqiu has a great deal of hatred reserved for the current sect leader. Yue Qingyuan has to muster all his talent in diplomacy and insist and beg to get both Shen Qingqiu and Tianlang-Jun to drop their murder plans toward his shizun.)

Somehow, without the sect leader noticing, the snake general Zhuzhi-Lang strikes up a friendship with the head disciple of Cian Qao peak, Mu Qingfang. And Tianlang-Jun is nudging them towards courtship. And it works.

Huh. Well, two marriages would make the alliance more steady, right?

The rest of the cultivation world is not fine with this development. The largest sect mingling with demons in such a scandalous way is outrageous! There's only two ways this can go: Either 1) let them do as they please and keep civil, if not outright welcoming of their ways. Or 2) eradicate them. The latter means war with the sect that has the most powerful cultivator's of their era and a heavenly demon and his half-heavenly demon general and their forces combined. Few are brave and stupid enough to demand the war option and those who do are forced to give up for lack of support and are left to stew in the distance.

After a while it's clear that the alliance is actually going well for Cang Qiong territory, the surrounding areas and the human realm in general. There are no protests from the mortals. Especially the tiny villages and outposts along the border to the demon realm are a lot safer now. There's more trading going on and this benefits a lot of people, too.

Then one day the An Ding peak head disciple, Shang Qinghua, is dragged into one of their meetings by a powerful ice demon who demands to marry him. The future ruler of the Northern kingdom, Mobei Jun, was informed of the courtships that went on in the sect and realized what he actually wanted from his human. The mousy little guy misunderstood his intentions up until he makes this declaration in front of everyone.

Now the sect leader is a bit worried, though. What if things go on like this? Will there be more demon suitors? Will their sect be half demonic later?!

And no, his shidis and shimeis are very much not allowed to make fun of him for starting this! If their successors play their cards right, they can assure lasting safety and prosperity for the human realm! And they will ascend soon and it'll not be their problem any longer anyway, so...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[syzygyzip]

The Soul Still Burns: Analysis of the Lords of Cinder (DS3)

What follows is a short essay on the Lords of Cinder from Dark Souls 3, exploring their symbolism on spiritual and metatextual levels. After that is a related reading of Slave Knight Gael, the final adversary of the Dark Souls trilogy.

The Lords of Cinder are in many ways the primary adversaries of Dark Souls 3. This title they share, “Lord of Cinder,” refers to a personage who has rekindled the first flame, keeping the cycle of light and dark going.

Cinder is a substance which continues to burn without the presence of fire but does not reduce to ash. So euphemistically, it seems that the Lords are somehow stuck in their process of purification, and the game suggests that the world is stuck along with them; this is why it is the Ashen One’s task to “set them upon their thrones”—to hurry them along and thus allow the world to follow its natural decline. As individual characters, each of these Lords represents a different attitude that complicates and prolongs the cycle.

Through these stubborn Lords the game is commenting on at least two things. On the metaphysical level, it reflects the Buddhist idea that certain attitudes keep people reincarnating over and over again, unable to extricate themselves from the material world of suffering (samsara). While on the metatextual level, the game is suggesting that certain attitudes keep players coming back to Dark Souls again and again, starting new games, making new builds and revisiting old files.

The idea there on the metaphysical side finds an easy analogy in Buddhist doctrine: the “three poisons,” the three root causes of suffering. These are hatred, greed, and delusion. What’s interesting is that these essential vices also fit pretty easily onto the different types of players that are being caricatured by the Lords. We’ll break these correspondences down in a second.

But First: Why Do They Correspond? So we have these sets of three. Three lords, three poisons in Buddhism, three types of Souls players. How convenient. When we analyze art, we sometimes ask, “Huh, is this structure really there, or am I projecting it into the material?” And if the structure is really there, baked into the work, that doesn’t mean that it’s due to developer intention. Archetypal forms sometimes show up in work via an unconscious influence, be it due to the cultural milieu, personal psychology, or some a priori biological disposition of the human being.

And the thing about Dark Souls is that it’s an unusually honest piece of art, in that its creative team allows their own free associations and intuitions to show up in the work without too much self-censorship or questioning. They make space for a mystery to show up on its own terms, and in leaving its riddles unanswered, there is more space for discovery by the people who play it.

It should also be said that cultural ideas persist for a reason. Beneath the ethics and ideology of the people who originally named the Buddhist “three poisons,” there may be something timeless, something perennially descriptive of human nature. If that is the case, then it would make sense for this same triplicity to unfurl itself in other cultural products. So for one reason or another, these three poisons, these addictions, show up diegetically in the characters and are also expressed in player psychology.

I say all this just because sometimes I feel very aware of the disconnect between much of Souls lore discourse and the broader field of mythological study. Since we are gamers first, there may be this tendency to want to “solve” the lore, but that’s not what we’re doing here. Myth functions because it elaborates our experience of the world through affective resonance; it attaches images and characters and stories which help us anchor our own prelinguistic impressions of the world, cultivating our sensitivity there.

Anyway, let’s look at these Lords.

Abyss Watchers Poison: Hatred The lore of the Abyss Watchers is pretty clear: they have an obsessive fixation on the abyss, and are ready to raze an entire town if they suspect abyssal encroachment. This obsession has literally possessed them, as they are now “abyss touched.” Gaze too much into the abyss, etc. They carry such strong contempt for the disavowed object that they don’t care what comes between it and their sword. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that they are a brotherhood yet are unhesitatingly slaughtering themselves again and again. Hatred has made them blind, and has also caused them to resign their individuality (they are identical, mere instruments of a transpersonal grudge). They cannot die, their hatred keeps them locked in combat.

Type of Player: competitive | Interest: combat The Abyss Watchers are a representation of PvP addicts. They have no powers other than tenacity; they perform the same combos repeatedly. When you are really gripped by a PvP binge in Souls, you often end up doing the same thing again and again. The fight takes place in a mausoleum, on top of many chambers filled with human remains. The fact that this boss fight is instructional about combat, specifically about looking for tells (a cloud of dust always signifies the end of their combos) might be another clue. There is no limit to how good you get at Souls PvP; every foe is an opportunity to improve timing and strategy. You can just keep stacking anonymous bodies under yourself.

Aldrich Poison: Greed Aldrich invokes the concept of supremacy many times: he is in the supreme area from Dark Souls 1; in the supreme boss room of that area; he wears as a crown the former supreme lord of that area. This is because he devours lords; he tries to take prestige upon himself through acquisition and incorporation—greed.

Type of Player: completionist | Interest: content Aldrich is a commentary on completionist players. He is someone who “plays the game to death”, acquiring every object, reaching every achievement, devouring the soul of the game through taking everything into himself. He becomes bloated by consuming as much of the game’s content as possible. The old God whose likeness he has adopted is Gwyndolin, who was, in narrative terms, the one pulling the strings in the land of the Gods. And in gameplay terms, he is a secret boss. So on both counts we have someone who is elusive, and exists more or less at the boundary of the gameworld. When a player tries to see every last little morsel of a game, they become somewhat like Gwyndolin, a manipulator of a virtual world. If you know too much about a game, you have the risk of being less immmersed.

Yhorm Posion: Delusion In Buddhism, the poison of delusion secretly underlies the other two poisons, as the impulse toward hatred and greed are ultimately born of some false view about reality. This is akin to how the profaned capital sits below the rest of the kingdoms. To beat Yhorm you essentially have to “play pretend” with him, picking up a fake super-weapon, or fighting alongside Siegward, a knight who appears to be somewhat deluded about the state of the world, enthralled in the same fantasy as Yhorm himself.

Type of Player: lore researcher | Interest: meaning The profaned capital is full of statues—fixed images of myth; and empty goblets—treasures with no utility. Not to mention the area with the swamp which is full of symbolic imagery, but serves no narrative or mechanical purpose. The entire profaned capital challenges us to make sense of it; it is the ultimate temptation of lorekeepers in DS3. It throws at us a disproportionate amount of reference to DS2, which is famous among Souls players as the least thematically sensible Souls game. The Greatshield of Glory is found right outside Yhorm’s room, in a conspicuous room full of treasure, and yet it is a very impractical shield and offers very little lore value. If a lore-minded player picks it up, it directs them to a legendary personage from the War of Giants, which raises far more questions than it answers. The same is true of much of this area—the Eleanora, the Monstrosities, the Profaned Flame itself—they are all there to get you to speculate. These are the players who come to Souls games again and again, trying to find the “ultimate meaning.” They seek the grail, claim to find it, and then chuck in a pile with the others.

Yhorm's story also imitates the primordial Artorias myth: forsaking his shield in preservation of something more valuable. Other than that Yhorm is largely a cipher when it comes to biography, with a void for a face, which itself epitomizes what must remain at the center of mythology and storytelling: mystery.

Sit Down and Seek Guidance So we have the three reasons that people become fixated on Souls: the combat, the achievements, and the mystery. But there is a fourth lord of cinder boss, who is conceptually apart from these three: the Lothric Twins. They represent yet another kind of person who must keep playing Dark Souls: the developers. Lothric is striving to produce “a worthy heir,” a proper sequel to Dark Souls 1. The Princes are bound to their chamber as the developers are bound to their project, as that is their curse—“but you may rest here too, if you like.” In this context we can see their duality as the dual nature of having to work on the game and also play it to death. The privilege and the loftiness of the promise of a great piece of art (Lothric), and also having to go back "into the trenches" of the work itself (Lorian). Notably, neither of them can walk, they just teleport around. They are stuck at work, trying to bring the new world into being. Also I can’t go this whole essay without mentioning the obvious: that the Ashen One is bringing Lords to their thrones, and we players and developers have to assume our little chairs and couches when we access this world.

Playing Beyond the Point of Pleasure Of course the most extreme example of someone stubbornly remaining in the world no matter what is Slave Knight Gael. He is looking for pigment, which seems to be a euphemism for the substance of humanity (the Dark Soul). He wants to give it to the painter, the world-creator, so that a new world can be made. He is willing to indulge in a wasteland of abject violence for as long as it takes in order to renew something. Ironic that he is probably only prolonging the current world in his obsessive drive to recycle it faster.

Let’s examine the relationship between the figure of the painter and her relationship to Gael. That she is a spiritual entity is obvious: we never see her touch the ground, she is always in an upper room and lifted on a piece of furniture. Among other things, she is a clear metaphor for life springing eternally. A creative child who continues to paint despite kidnapping and imprisonment. She is the heart of the painted world, itself a place that symbolizes the idea of the representation of reality.

I want to make sure this is clear, because it is a bit of a kaleidoscope to consider. Any subject in Dark Souls stands for many things, but something that the painted world specifically represents is the very concept of representation. So of course the places in our imaginations are painted worlds, but so is this physical world of appearance, the maya of mundane reality. Not to mention that a work of art is a painted world, and the game we’re discussing is a painted world. When a work of art is able to recreate itself in itself, we can see this funny effect of mirrors reflecting mirrors infinitely. This results in seemingly inexhaustible symbolic content—there is so much potential to find meaning and create connections. Because Moby Dick represents a work of literature; the Tempest represents a play; Twin Peaks represents a TV show, these works can offer extensive insights not only into their medium but into the nature of reality. In these and other examples, the representation of the medium within the work may or may not be a single subject, but since Dark Souls is formally a game about levels and level design, the painted world is the heart of its self-reflexivity. The painted world can be pointed to as the summary of this fractal device. And the personification of that device, its ambassador to the player, is the painter.

The miracle or divine child is also an archetype familiar to us from Lothric, in their struggle to produce the “worthy heir.” Reality seeks salvation through the appearance of grace. They want it in a clear, incontestable form—to be able to point at it and say, "thank goodness we went through all that, because look, now here is the meaning, here is that which validates all that came before." In the world of Dark Souls 3 the religion of the masses is the Lothric stuff; meanwhile knowledge of the painted world is much more obscure. Lothric’s religion is obviously regulated and hierarchical, while Gael’s devotion to the painter is highly personal and private: he carries around a scrap of painting; he prostrates to a hidden idol in a small chapel; he considers the painter his family. He is emotionally close to the object of his worship.

But whether it’s Lothric or Ariandel, they are anticipating the divine child to redeem the world. As an archetype, the child ultimately represents surprise. The possibility of being delighted by life in its creative novelty. The child as an archetype appears in our own behavior when we do something without any sort of contrivance or mental interference, doing something in the world which doesn’t seem to have come from who we conceive ourselves to be. This is miraculous. Such an action enchants the world, and there is no explaining it, even if it may weave all kinds of stories around itself, retroactively framing things that have led up to it as portents or promises. (Though not exclusive to him, this trait is well-known in characterizations of Christ, and DS3 is clearly indebted to Christian iconography, so do with that what you will). Regardless of the specific cultural invocation, the divine child is a personification of something that happens within the human spirit. TFW you are renewed by a fresh and spontaneous engagement with life.

The grace of the miraculous often comes to us through play. Play is more of an attitude than an activity; the feeling of play may come to us through making a painting, or chatting with a friend, or moving around in a video game. We can play video games idly, competitively, experimentally, creatively, studiously, whatever, the feeling of “play” can show up regardless. We can sit there playing a certain game from a certain motivation, and feel totally rote and joyless, and question, “Why am I doing this?” Or we might sit there and play the same game with the same motivation, feeling totally lit up by it, its purpose to us obvious and self-validating. We are not even questioning why we are doing it, we are enjoying life.

This is really the ground that the miraculous tends to land on. Grace, meaning, and an immanent love of life are more likely to show up when we are in flow and not exercising our capacity for self-assessment. But like everything in life, we mistake the images and objects around us for the feeling of grace. Any given object might only be the catalyst once; it’s not about the object. This is extremely easy to see in cases of acute nostalgia; adults chase enchantment through collecting Zelda memorabilia or going to Disneyland, in pursuit of what kindled their spirit as a child. It was never really the game or the character that was doing it, it was what they were able to access within themselves.

So anyway Gael has yet to realize this. He thinks the Dark Soul is out there in something else. That it will be yielded as a drop if he just kills the right enemy, or 10,000 enemies, or goes to the right place at the right time. You can see that this is something of a synthesis of all the other Buddhist defilements: there are elements of completionism/greed, violence/hatred, mysticism/delusion. There is even the suggestion of the developer of these games again, in that Gael is a “slave,” forced into participation in the world to assist some creative apotheosis. (Isn’t it funny that his weapon is a worn-down executioner’s sword?—whether the person coding or the person playing, we are all “executing” command after command). The thing that really keeps him on the wheel is something beyond any of the player types and their vices; it is almost some sort of pure, amoral automatism, a churning drive that on one side resembles wanton nihilism, and on another side single-minded piousness. Is one disguised as the other, or has Gael somehow stepped beyond this binary? Yet another dichotomy in Dark Souls that begs to be reconciled, but whose tension creates the opportunity to participate creatively in its expansive mythology. When things are held apart we can move between them.

To really understand Gael, we have to contend with the question of a person’s relationship to their own soul, since that relationship is so plainly suggested by Gael and the painter. (This question, by the way, is much elaborated in Elden Ring, with its repeated foregrounding of the image of the maiden or “consort”). If we were to see Gael and the painter as partitions within one person--whether she is his soul, or his inner life, or his better nature, whatever—then in any case Gael is the side which goes out into the world and experiences it. He is the creative extension into the world as its active participant and realizer. Yet he is clothed as the warrior, the executioner. While the one who is dressed as the artist, the painter, just stays in her room and imagines the world—but this is where the magic of creation is really felt. We involve ourselves in life, or in a game, but we are only really changed and renewed when that exterior experience is “brought home” into the inner life. We do something “in the game,” but the act of “painting,” in renewing the world through our creative interpretation, is a decidedly interior experience.

[demonsreverie]

More Demon Lord for the… me.

I like to think he'd be so proud of his people for cultivating mangos in the desert (EoW). Against all odds, they continue to survive in the harshest of environments, producing something so… so… my gods, have you ever had a mango before? Nectar of the gods, silky and sweet. In some alternate world where this prideful, arrogant, ambitious bastard is free of Demise’s Hatred, I can imagine him savoring it with a quiet satisfaction. Because the desert, and his people, they’re his roots. And this? This is a testament to their strength!

I really want to draw him enjoying a mango… juices dripping down the back of his hand. You know, THE GOOD STUFF. Maybe one day 🤣

~

Instead of putting our poor, dying Wii Through the torture of me playing WindWaker my wife has decided that she wants to play Majora’s Mask! GLORIOUS DAY‼️ MM is the one I grew up with the most, but I didn’t beat it or OoT until somewhere in my teens 🤭

[joachimnapoleon]

What are your thoughts on Caroline Murat’s (alleged) affair with Junot?

It’s been a long time since I’ve browsed Laure Junot’s memoirs, but I recall her saying that Caroline had told her nothing had happened between them and Laure claiming to believe her, but her non-stop vitriol and overt hatred of Caroline throughout her memoirs makes me believe otherwise. I’ve seen it argued that Caroline’s affairs were motivated more by politics than by romance, and there may be something to this. Junot at the time of the alleged affair was the military governor of Paris and one theory is that Caroline wanted to wrap him around her little finger to use his political influence if necessary. Her affair with Metternich later on has been brought up as another instance of her cultivating a politically useful alliance (and realistically, it probably did have some impact on the Murat couple’s negotiations with Austria in 1813; she also continued corresponding with Metternich during her exile). The alleged affair with Junot also occurs during a period in Murat and Caroline’s relationship where Caroline was growing disenchanted because of Murat’s affairs (I’ve written a lot more about their complicated relationship here), and Hortense says in her memoirs that Caroline was during this period “now attracted to the charms of a pure liaison.” Lastly, during this period Caroline seems to have derived a certain satisfaction from charming the men of her rivals, probably just to prove she could do it; aside from Junot, Caroline also tried to lure away Charles de Flahaut from Hortense, out of what seems to have been nothing more than sheer jealousy over the fact that Hortense could get more attention than Caroline from one of Murat’s aide-de-camps. So, if the affair with Junot did happen, I think it was a combination of a revenge fling, political maneuvering, and Caroline just enjoying the thrill of being able to seduce a rival’s husband. Whatever happened between them apparently doesn’t seem to have lasted very long and there’s no indication at all that Caroline was ever really in love with Junot.

[mxtxfanatic]

"If He Catches Me..." a Meta on Lan Wangji's Unconditional Support Pt. 2

Not only does Lan Wangji unconditionally support Wei Wuxian in the latter's second life, he actually does the same in the man's first, too, despite many instances being either overlooked or outside of his knowledge. Lan Wangji physically protects Wei Wuxian on multiple occasions:

Wen ZhuLiu couldn’t attend to both sides at the same time, blundering amid the chaos. As he looked to the side and saw Wei WuXian’s cold smile, he threw himself at him. Both of the two on the roof frowned. Lan WangJi smacked down. The tiles shattered and the roof collapsed. Through the roof, he descended into the second floor of the courier station and blocked Wen ZhuLiu from Wei WuXian.

—Chapt. 62: Evil, exr

Jin ZiXuan dodged to the side and returned to him a sword attack, “If I don’t grab her should I let her walk randomly around the mountain alone?!” However, the sword glare was hit to the side by another glare, shooting into the sky. Seeing who it was, Jin ZiXuan was shocked, “HanGuang-Jun?” Lan WangJi unsheathed Bichen. Standing between the three, he maintained his silence.

—Chapt. 69: Departure, exr

At this point, Wen Ning pounced on him. As though he was hit by a large boulder, Wei WuXian flew back from the force, crashing onto a tree. He felt warmth rise up his throat and cursed. Lan WangJi saw this happen just as he returned. His expression changed at once and he rushed in front of him. Wen Qing had just shoved Wen Yuan into another’s arms. She wanted to check on Wei WuXian’s injuries, but he got there before she could. She paused with surprise. Lan WangJi was almost embracing Wei WuXian as he held his hand and passed spiritual energy to him.

—Chapt. 75: Distance, exr

“Not many of the people left were still conscious at the time. I myself could barely move. I could only stare as WangJi limped after you, grabbed you, and flew off on his sword even though his cultivation was clearly near its limit. ... Lan XiChen continued, “When my uncle reached him, he’d scolded him and asked him to explain himself. However WangJi seemed to have already expected us to find him, he only said, ‘There’s nothing to explain. This is what it seems.’ All his life, WangJi has never defied Uncle and I on anything. But for you, not only did he defy Uncle, he even drew his sword on the fellow cultivators of his own sect, and severely injured all thirty-three seniors of the Gusu Lan Sect that were with us......”

—Chapt. 99: A Hatred for Life Part 2, boat-full-of-lotus-pods

...offers him aid, at times without even needing to be asked:

Wei Wuxian’s sword was optimized for agility, and consequently, its strength happened to fall just short, and they were nearly pulled to the surface of the lake. Wei Wuxian steadied himself and held on to Su She with both hands. “Someone help! If I can’t pull him up soon, I’ll have to let go!” he shouted. Suddenly, the back of Wei Wuxian’s collar tightened, and his body was lifted into the air. He twisted his neck and saw Lan Wangji holding him up with one hand. Though the boy’s indifferent gaze was directed elsewhere, he and his sword alone had no trouble bearing the weight of three people, even fighting against the mysterious force inside the lake. They rose higher and higher at a stable pace.

—Chapt. 17: Elegance VII, fanyiyi

Lan WangJi put into Wen Yuan’s palm the butterfly that he dropped. He didn’t answer the question, but instead asked, “Why do you not mount your sword?” Wei WuXian, “Forgot to bring it!” Without saying anything, Lan WangJi took him by his waist and brought him onto Bichen as they rose into the air.

—Chapt. 74: Distance, exr

Wei WuXian pulled out Chenqing, “Lan...!” He wanted to entrust Lan WangJi with saving the others as he stayed to deal with Wen Ning. When he turned around, he had already disappeared. Just as he was beginning to panic, sounds of the zither vibrated through the sky, sending off a murder of startled crows. Before he could even ask, Lan WangJi had already gone over. Wei WuXian felt his heart settle.

...

Wei WuXian whipped out twelve talismans, “Don’t know where I put it!” The twelve yellow talismans formed a line in midair and began to burn. When they landed on Wen Ning, like a chain of fire, they held him down at once. With a flip of his wrist, Lan WangJi strummed the strings of his zither. Wen Ning’s footsteps seemed to have been hindered by an invisible thread. He paused, but continued to struggle forward despite the difficulty. Wei WuXian put Chenqing to his lips. Due to the blow he received, some blood sprayed out from his lips. He frowned, but he endured the pain and the blood churning within his chest, playing without a single tremble. Under the two’s collaboration, Wen Ning kneeled on the ground and let out a roar skyward.

—Chapt. 75: Distance, exr

...and defends Wei Wuxian against other cultivators who attempt to bad-mouth or slander him:

Nie MingJue’s gaze turned over again, “Why does Wei Ying not carry his sword?” Carrying one’s sword was like wearing formal attire. In such gatherings, it was a non-negligible indication of etiquette. Those from prominent sects saw it as especially important. Lan WangJi responded in a lukewarm tone, “He had probably forgotten.” Ning MingJue raised a brow, “He can even forget something like this?” Lang WangJi, “It is nothing out of the ordinary.”

—Chapt. 49: Guile, exr

He was the only one left to clean up the mess. How could he leave the scene? He reassured the crowd as he ranted, completely exhausted, “Young Master Wei really is too impulsive. How could he speak in such a way in front of so many sects?” Lan WangJi spoke coldly, “Was he wrong?” Jin GuangYao paused almost unnoticeably. He immediately laughed, “Haha. Yes, he’s right. But it’s because he’s right that he can’t say it in front of them, correct?”

—Chapt. 72: Recklessness, exr

Jin GuangShan shook his head, “In an event as important as the Flower Banquet, he dared throw a fit right in front of you, leaving however he pleased. He even dared say something like ‘I don’t care about the sect leader Jiang WanYin at all!’ Everyone who was there heard it with their own ears...” Suddenly, an indifferent voice spoke up, “No.” Jin GuangShan was in the middle of his fabrication. Hearing this, he paused in surprise, turning along with the crowd to see who it was. Lan WangJi sat with his back straight, speaking in a tone of absolute tranquility, “I did not hear Wei Ying say this. I did not hear him express the slightest disrespect towards Sect Leader Jiang either.” Lan WangJi rarely spoke when he was outside. Even when they debated cultivation techniques during Discussion Conferences, he only answered when others questioned or challenged him. With utmost concision, he overcame, without fault, the lengthy arguments of others. Apart from this, he almost never spoke up. And thus, when Jin GuangShan was interrupted by him, he experienced a far greater shock than annoyance. But after all, his fabrication was exposed right in front of so many. He felt a bit awkward.

—Chapt. 73: Recklessness, exr

While most of these instances are left to be revealed in the second half of the story, it makes clear that Lan Wangji has always tried to be there to catch Wei Wuxian, even if his efforts only bore fruit during Wei Wuxian's second life.

Pt. 1

[weiwuxianismybae]

wei wuxian isn't sin-free either. that's the point. no one in mdzs is. the purity police mentality is why so many in the fandom turned their backs on wangxian. wei wuxian is not a perfect uwu little angel. he committed more atrocities than jin guangyao

???????????????????????????????

How to say you missed the point without saying you missed the point.

Anyway, sorry, I'll stop joking around. Let's take this bit by bit, shall we?

Not sure what you mean by "pure" and "sin". I don't know enough about Buddhism or Chinese culture in general, so I won't speek much on this matter. (Yet, I'm pretty sure the book wasn't written with Christianity in mind🙃). Anyway, making mistakes doesn't make you "bad". Making mistakes is what makes us human and it doesn't make you morally "grey" or "bad" and especially not when you regret them:

He was only stating a simple fact calmly, but the cultivator felt as if he was scorned, fuming, “What do you think we’re talking about here? How could there be bargaining for debts of blood?”

Wei WuXian, “It’s not that I want to bargain about such a thing, but that I don’t want my charges to be doubled just because of some words from another. I won’t shoulder what I didn’t do.”

ExR ch. 79

Note that he said that he won't shoulder what he didn't do, not that he won't shoulder anything at all.

Finally, Wei WuXian spoke up. He said, “Then what do you want me to do?”

Fang MengChen paused in surprise. Wei WuXian, “Then what do you want? Nothing but my miserable death to soothe your own hatred?” He pointed at Yi WeiChun, who lay passed out among the crowd, “He’s missing a leg, while I was cut into pieces; you lost your parents, while my family had long since been gone. I’m a dog who was chased out of its home. I’ve never even seen the ashes of my parents.”

Wei WuXian, “Or do you hate the Wen Sect’s remnants? The Wen Sect remnants that you speak of already died once, thirteen years ago. And right now, just then, for my sake, for your sake, they died once again. This time, they’ve all become ashes.” He continued, “Let me ask you—just what else do you want me to do?”

[...]

Wei WuXian, “Nobody told you to forgive me. The things I did, not only do you remember them, I remember them too. You won’t forget them, and they’ll stay even longer in my mind!”

ExR ch. 82

Wei Wuxian's goodness shouldn't be debated. All his actions were justified. He was never the initiator. Let me repeat myself: Who attacked whom first? Who massacred Wei Wuxian's home? Who send the Wen remnants, who lived peacefully on a small piece of land that was given to them by the winners, to the work camps where they were tortured?

As for the remnants of the Wen Sect, they were herded into a small corner of Qishan, not even a thousandth the territory it onced owned. They were crammed into the place and struggled to live.

ExR ch. 72

Who ambushed whom on Qiongqi path? Who went on offensive because he grew up with his cousin and didn't like Wei Wuxian anyway? Who promised to let the matter go if Wen Qing and Wen Ning turned themselves over? Who went back on that promise? Who gathered 3000 cultivators to kill 50 innocent people? Who killed those innocents?

"He committed more atrocities than Jin Guangyao"

...

...

I recommend you to read the extra Villainous Friends. It's a real eye-opener.

Just then, two disciples from the Jin Clan of Lanling dragged over a cultivator with disheveled hair.

"Weren't you going to refine a new set of fierce corpses?" Jin Guangyao said. "As it happens, I've brought materials for you."

[...]

A young girl and boy, both trussed with rope, kneeled on the ground and shouted miserably to He Su.

"Ge!"

He Su was stunned. His face blanched white as paper. "Jin Guangyao! What do you mean by this?! You can just kill me. Why implicate my entire clan?!"

[...]

Jin Guangyao shot him a glance, then turned back around and said in an even-tempered tone, "You can't say that. The He Clan of Tingshan used the full force of its power to start an uprising and plot to assassinate Sect Leader Jin. All of you were caught red-handed. How can you call this 'no reason'?"

A number of the captives cried out, "Ge! He's lying! We didn't. We really didn't!"

"What a crock of shit!" He Su spat. "Open your damn eyes and take a good look around! There's a nine-year-old child here, and elders who can't even walk! What uprising could they start?! And why would they assassinate your father out of the blue?!"

[...]

However, no one here would listen to his defense. Sitting before him were two vicious villains who already considered him a dead man and were enjoying the sight of his last-ditch struggle. Jin Guangyao leaned back with a smile and waved.

"Gag him. Go on, gag him."

Wei Wuxian never killed his father, brother, son, wife and then pretended that he had no choice. Wei Wuxian didn't slaughter a whole clan just because they were standing in his way and he saw them as annoyance. Wei Wuxian was never besties with other mass murderers (Xue Yang).

I wanted to argue that the only thing that made Jin Guangyao better than Jin Guangshan was that he had never forced himself on women... but then I remembered how Jin Guangshan died...

SiSi, “The middle-aged man wanted to shout and struggle, but his body was weak. The boy who led us inside opened the door again, grinning as he dragged him onto the bed again and tied him up with a rope, stepping on his head. He told us, carry on, don’t stop even when he’s dead. Have any of us been through such a situation before? We were scared half-dead, but we didn’t dare disobey. We had to continue. At the twelfth or eleventh round, that sister suddenly screamed, saying that he really was dead. I went over and checked. He’d indeed kicked the bucket, but the person behind the curtain said, didn’t you hear me? Don’t stop even when he’s dead!”

ExR ch. 85

Don't spoil Wei Wuxian's good name by comparing him to the likes of Jin Guangyao!

+ bonus:

"You little hooligan," Jin Guangyao said with a laugh. "Wreck stalls if that's what you want. You can burn down the entire street, for all I care, as long as you mind two things—don't wear the Sparks Amidst Snow uniform, and keep your face hidden. Don't let anyone find the culprit and put me on the spot."

Btw, the excerpts from Villainous Friends were taken from Seven Seas translation.

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

It’s really disappointing to see how people - including some swifties - are using the recent terrorist threats to platform their own Islamophobia and bigotry.

There are so many false claims being made in the wake of these atrocities. For example, Palestinians have nothing to do with this and yet there are people who are trying to link these events to October 7.

I challenge the fans to rise above xenophobia, hatred, and ignorance.

Use your critical thinking skills, and ask yourselves why this racist rhetoric is being used? How was ISIS created? Who does it benefit when we are led by bigotry? The data to support “migrant crime” does NOT exist, so why do we still turn to Islamophobia? I encourage everyone to read this TIME article on how misinformation about the Southport dance class attacks was used to push violent, far-right riots in Britain. The attacker was NOT Muslim and he was NOT an immigrant; he was born in Wales.

What happened in Vienna is a tragedy. It’s a relief that no one got hurt. However, we need to remind ourselves that misinformation and racism lead to more violence against innocent people. For example, after the dance class stabbing, police presence was required at 56 violent, far-right riots. During one coordinated riot, this happened:

“In Rotherham on Sunday, a crowd of around 700 predominantly men began to congregate outside a Holiday Inn Express, home to asylum seekers. The group clashed with police clad in riot gear, throwing chairs and other debris at the officers, before setting a bin on fire and throwing it through a smashed window at the hotel. One video, taken by a migrant trapped inside the hotel and shared by a journalist at The Times, shows a rioter miming the cutting of a neck. The incident saw at least 10 police officers injured.”

As swifties, we are a powerful fandom. We should reject this divisive rhetoric and continue to cultivate a culture that is grounded in compassion and empathy.

[mahayanapilgrim]

Transforming Three Poisons into Seeds of Virtue: A Path to Liberation

In Buddhist philosophy, the concept of the three poisons—attachment, aversion, and ignorance—lies at the core of understanding the human condition and the path to enlightenment. These poisons continually arise in connection with objects in our lives, shaping our perceptions, actions, and ultimately, our suffering. However, within the framework of Buddhist practice, these poisons can be transformed into seeds of virtue, paving the way towards liberation and compassion for all sentient beings.

1. Attachment (Greed) :

Attachment, or greed, manifests when we crave objects that are pleasant or beneficial to us. Whether it's material possessions, relationships, or experiences, attachment binds us to the transient and often illusory nature of existence. This clinging creates a cycle of desire and dissatisfaction, perpetuating suffering and preventing true contentment.

To transform attachment into a seed of virtue, practitioners are encouraged to recognize it as soon as it arises. Instead of succumbing to the grasping nature of attachment, one can cultivate the aspiration for the well-being of all sentient beings. By dedicating one's attachment to the welfare of others, the self-centered nature of greed is transcended. Through this practice, attachment becomes a catalyst for cultivating empathy, generosity, and the altruistic wish for all beings to be free from the chains of attachment.

2. Aversion (Hatred) :

Aversion, or hatred, arises in response to objects or situations that are unpleasant or harmful to us. It is characterized by feelings of anger, resentment, and hostility towards that which we perceive as threatening or undesirable. Aversion not only creates inner turmoil but also fuels conflicts and divisions in the external world.

In the practice of transforming aversion into a seed of virtue, individuals are encouraged to confront and acknowledge their feelings of aversion without judgment. Rather than allowing hatred to consume them, practitioners can channel its energy towards cultivating compassion and loving-kindness. By extending thoughts of goodwill towards those whom we perceive as adversaries, the barriers of animosity are gradually dismantled. Aversion thus becomes a catalyst for developing patience, tolerance, and reconciliation, leading to harmony both within and without.

3. Ignorance (Delusion) :

Ignorance, or delusion, represents a lack of understanding of the true nature of reality. It obscures our perception of ourselves, others, and the world around us, leading to misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and misidentification. Ignorance lies at the root of all suffering, perpetuating the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth in the realm of samsara.

To transform ignorance into a seed of virtue, practitioners embark on the journey of awakening to the inherent wisdom within themselves. Through mindfulness, meditation, and the study of Buddhist teachings, individuals gradually dispel the clouds of ignorance that shroud their minds. As clarity dawns, the interconnectedness and impermanence of all phenomena are realized, leading to a profound sense of liberation and freedom from the cycles of suffering.

In conclusion, the transformation of the three poisons into seeds of virtue is a central theme in Buddhist practice. By recognizing attachment, aversion, and ignorance as they arise and skillfully working with them, individuals can cultivate qualities such as compassion, loving-kindness, and wisdom. Ultimately, this transformative process leads to the attainment of enlightenment and the ability to benefit all sentient beings with boundless love and wisdom.

[w-s-kibela]

Part 1

Part 2

I've got carried away so this is Part 3🙈 I love Cheong Myeong, why do I make him suffer?!

Tw: past and present sexual abuse, past child abuse

Route 3. Baek Oh is alive

Okay, but what if CM, despite all his efforts, was unable to deal with the damage alone? Without dual cultivation, his body started failing, systems giving out one by one. And CM had to turn to the only person who knew what has been going on and how utterly, irreparably broken he really was. To the man, who single handedly made his life a living hell, who he hates and despises with all his being. To Baek Oh.

Why him? Because CM is ashamed of his weakness, of himself. And he knows that his Cheong Mun sahyung loves him, but he can't bear the thought of disappointing and wounding him. So he keeps quiet. He looks after his sajils, watches BO like a hawk. He can beat the pain and humiliation, but he won't let same things happen to anybody else.

CM still travels all over Kangho, but his trips are shorter and less frequent. TB, enamored and pining, companies him. He doesn't usually stay at Mount Hua, preferring to stay in an inn, but this time he makes an exception. Plum trees are in full bloom and CM invited him to a drink under the trees.

He knows that something is wrong as soon as he sees the man, sees how CM's body goes rigid beside him, eyes filling with hatred and contempt, bu there was a flash of fear just for a moment, almost unnoticeable.

And so TB starts his little quest to learn more about his hyung-nim and his mentor and why there are such feelings between them.

What he uncovers shakes him to the core. Needless to say, he has no intention of letting things continue as they are.