#he lost his strength and even then it wasnt enough to have it in the first place

[majorasnightmare]

thinking about dirges dialogue to karlach way back in act 1, "this is all theres ever been for me"

thinking about how hes the only one without any frame of reference for "civilized life" or creature comforts

wyll and karlach have been roughing it for years, yeah, but they USED to have homes and houses in the city, used to live and sleep and eat there. used to have kitchens and beds

gale and shadowheart have only left THEIR homes relatively recently. the feel of their beds and the contents of the fridge are recent memories for them

astarion has been tortured for 200 years but fondly reminisces about the debauchery of the upper city. hes maintained a memory of the life he wants to experience again and the pleasures it brings, even as hes lost so much of his identity

lae'zel yearns to return to her creche. shes used to circumstances LIKE roughing it (she calls the rosymorn creche too soft for her liking) but those were in her HOME, with a community

minthara was a baenre with her own estate and servants

halsin was archdruid of the emerald grove, an environs enriched by the presence of the druids that had comfortably sustained them for years

jaheira has a house close to the upper city, and harper safehouses besides. minsc is familiar enough with them to recognize them despite being a statue for a century

its just dirge

he doesnt know what its like to sleep on a bed. to sleep on anything that isnt a bedroll on the ground, exposed to the open night sky. doesnt know what its like to have a roof overhead to keep the rain off. to have insulating walls that hold off the wind. to be comfortable without a fire that needs frequent tending, lest it go out and expose you to cold, or to scavenging animals. doesnt know what its like to not be woken by rain, to sleep through a storm.

hes never had a meal he didnt scavenge, picking through dead men's belongings and abandoned larders. every meal hes ever had has been raw or something he had to help prepare. hes never experienced being able to roll out of bed and stumble to a kitchen to have warm leftovers someone else made earlier, something made with him in mind thats warm and filling and didn't cost him any time or effort. you cant have leftovers when your trying to survive the wilds as fugitives from a murderous cult. you cook enough for everyone and you eat as much as you can stomach because you might not be able to eat at all tomorrow, and you need the strength to fight for your life later. hes never even seen kitchen equipment besides what could be scavenged that could fit over the campfire.

hes never bathed in anything that wasnt a river. never done his laundry except arduously, by hand, in a bucket of well water pulled from a village ruined long before his time. sweat and blood staining the only clothes hes ever owned, the only clothes he has, so if something rips he just has to make do. scavenging clothes that fit, that can be worn over his horns, around his tail, like looking for a needle in a haystack. soap is a rarity, an indulgence, so you make do with feeling as clean as you can scraping the grime off with water and your hands. he woke up covered in gore. hes never felt cleaner than this.

hes never had a head that didnt hurt. never woken up to a morning where the daylight didn't make him nauseous with its brightness. never had a body that didnt twitch and sway and swoon. never had a life without fear of fainting. never had a rest that didnt carry the threat of traitorous murderous indulgence. never had dreams that dont sicken. hes never felt rested. doesnt even have a frame of reference for what that sensation is even like. theres nothing to compare to. its as foreign as dwarvish to him. symbols without coherence or meaning. alien concepts, utterly novel.

every single day of his life is a fight against encroaching death. against encroaching enslavement. every single night is exposed to the elements in some fashion. theres no walls. theres no roof. a lot of times there isnt even a tent. the softest thing hes ever slept on was grass. there is nothing before this. theres only the tadpole in his skull, only the camp at night. only snippets of red in the fog of his past. the rest is lost to an all consuming oblivion.

theres only ever been...this for him.

[cosmicredcadet]

I been thinking a lot abt the fire removal scene for the rewrite and I wanted to share what I've been brainstorming so far.

The red son chapter does happen. Red son is young in this chapter, likely his first responsibility given to him by his parents so he is taking it very seriously. He see's an opportunity to make his parents proud by kidnapping the monk.

Red son's samadhi fire is seen as out of control. Even after Guanyin comes to grab him it is believed that this kid should not have such a dangerous power that cannot be easily controlled.

Instead of DBK being there he is replaced by Guanyin. She, Sun Wukong, Tripitaka, and Nezha (Who believes he is removing the fire to protect Red son. He is a child protection deity after all) try to remove the fire.

instead of Wukong fucking up specifically, the fire just acts out because it doesn't like being removed from it's source and it shoots off towards Tripitaka. Same thing happens as before with Ao Li protected Tripitaka and becoming a ring for the fire, only surviving having it because of his dragon powers and the fact it's not even the full of the fire.

the fire gets sealed in other rings. the group tries to find a way to remove the fire from Ao Li but because of the sealing it's impossible to do so without releasing the fire again, which is deemed to dangerous.

the group goes to hide the rings. there is no map becuz why tf would they make a map showing anyone who gets it where these all powerful rings are? Ao li keeps the fire a secret from his family as a way to hide the fact that him or his family could be a "ring" (I'm gonna try REAL HARD to just ignore the gentics side of that because it hurts my brain and it's ���MAGIC✨)

So that's the basics. And because I got rid of the map the group will have to find another way to track the fire, which I was thinking maybe the rings react to each other so they do that. Wukong probably went to talk to Guanyin and Nezha before but couldn't get anything out of them. Now Nezha is keeping an eye on Wukong and gets real upset when the monkey king takes his own ring out of hiding. Which leads to some run in's with Nezha as he is trying to stop Wukong from releasing a power that is said to be uncontrollable.

I think once the gang collects Wukongs ring (probably hidden in flower fruit mountain instead because CMON THE GUY COLLECTS EVERYTHING???) is when Mei starts getting visions because the fire is reacting to itself. She kinda just ignores it at first but it gets worse and worse as they collect the rings and ofc it reacts real strongly when they run into red son but she obviously doesn't trust Wukong enough to tell him and she is worried telling MK will make him tell Wukong so she kinda keeps it to herself, but expresses that she isn't sure the samadhi fire is a good idea.

Then the fire gets released and oof babey do things boil over

[manikas-whims]

hello i love your headcanons and was wondering if you could add sylus in some of your older ones? i was reading the "LADS men react to you dating a toxic partner" (it wasnt the title i forgot sorry) and was wondering how sylus would react. i would love it so much if you could add sylus headcanons to some of your previous ones. thankyou so much, your posts make my day🎀💓

i got you dear ♡ i’ll add Sylus to all my older HCs slowly in various posts I'll try to make throughout the coming week :)

thanks for reading my silly lil HCs ♡ hope you like this!

Sylus’s reaction to you dating someone who later on mistreats you

🐦‍⬛ He's actually quite surprised when he finds out you're dating because he genuinely believed whatever him and you had going on was far more than just being close associates. So the idea of you seeing someone else kinda shakes him off his game for a while. Luke and Keiran can see it in the way he acts— slightly distracted during serious business meetings and even when a gang war breaks out.

🐦‍⬛ He isn't the type to get jealous but he will openly express his dislike for this person. Now he may not be a saint but it feels insulting to him that you'd rather date someone else when he can give you the world if you so much as ask.

🐦‍⬛ And he will be displeased every time you come up to him for a favor with your work or anything else, saying things like, “Oh, so now you need me? I thought you'd completely cut ties with my kind.”

🐦‍⬛ If this person ever hurts you emotionally or physically, then they better start counting their breaths cause they won't be spared many.

Sylus may not like this person you're dating but he's decent enough to respect your boundaries. And it would've stayed that way. He wouldn't have involved himself in your personal matters at all until Mephisto, (whom he had still left to watch over you) catches this person yelling at you one evening.

The sight is enough to make Sylus drop whatever work he's been swarmed with.

It doesn't take him long to arrive at the residential area you reside in. He stops his bike and teleports right over to your apartment. In an instant, he's standing between you and this person, the smoky red wisps of his evol holding this person by their neck.

“Is this your type?” Sylus asks, his crimson eyes glowering at this person. “I’m truly disappointed in your taste, Miss Hunter.”

You watch with dread as the fingers of his right hand curl into a fist, his arm poised to throw a punch. And though you appreciate the gesture, you can't let him proceed with this. You have seen him in action enough times to know how strong those fists are. You know that using said fists to hurt someone would only get him in more trouble. And you definitely wouldn't want that because even if you stubbornly refuse to say it out loud, you've grown quite attached to him.

“Sylus stop!” You yell.

As expected, he does not.

But right before his fist can collide with the person's face, Sylus blinks. He can feel the amount of strength you're exerting as you hold onto his arm to keep him in place. To keep him from hurting this person who broke not just your heart but also your trust.

He doesn't glance at you but scoffs. “Even now you defend them. Why?”

“I’m not defending them.” You say. “I just think it's beneath the leader of Onichynus to be wasting time on such people.”

He scoffs again. “You’re not wrong about that, Sweetheart.”

His evol lets go of this person's neck, and he gestures with his chin towards the door. “Get lost.”

They immediately run off.

Seeing that, your own fingers slowly loosen their grip on Sylus’s arm but he grabs hold of your hand before you can completely let go.

“Let’s go for a ride.” He suggests.

And you find yourself smiling for the first time in a while. “Where are we going?”

“Guess.”

XAVIER, RAFAYEL AND ZAYNE’s VERSIONS [HERE]

» MASTERLIST «

[gamblersdoll]

“options.”

sum. he likes to play games with you, acting like he big dog, but you can play with him too. trueform! sukuna, fighting to smut, fluff at the end, spitting, deep mating press, (somewhat.)

“whats with the face, woman?” the ancient monster only asks because you aren’t entertaining him, you aren’t throwing tantrums about him not giving you attention. “youre quiet.”

“im not going to feed into your bullshit today.” you snark back, your arms limp and fingers padding away at your phone and he quirks an eyebrow up. “im not fucking stupid, ryomen.”

ryomen?

he nodded his head slow, chuckling to lean back and rub his chin. “do you know who yer’ talkin’ to?” he asks, you must have forgotten, had to be. the fuck was your problem? youve always been an obedient pet, sometimes having your days where he can somewhat understand and help you calm your nerves. was it that time again? no, he wouldve smelled it, if not— he wouldve tasted it. “talk.”

“you keep playing with me, always saying how im your favorite mortal,’ yet, you sneak off to other women when youre done with me.” you bring up, but it didnt hurt when you said that. thats what this was about? his harem?

“because i can.” he leans up and closer to you. “because i can do what the fuck i want to, thats what happens when youre a demon— let alone, king.” he reminds, you tend to forget your place when it came to him.

“you do that, then.” you chuckle, you were sick and fucking tired. “but when i find a man who i dont have to worry about ditchin’ me for other women, dont be angry.”

“thats okay, because you wont see another man.” hes starting to get pissed, because youre over-fucking-stepping. how dare you think you can seek out other men? when you had a demon who can give way more than what a mortal man cannot.

why was he even angry about that thought?

“so its okay for you to lie in my face and say im your favorite, but you seek other women? make it make the fuck sense.” because he wasnt making sense. you couldnt put that together, youre his favorite but he ended the night with other people to get him off. was your offerance not enough?

“lie?”he scoffs, grabbing you by your jaw and pulling you close. “no one has deceived you.” he makes his tone deep, eyes staring into yours snd he has a snarl to his lip.

“prove it, you goddamn liar.” you spit in his face, watching his blink slow and hard as he takes a deep breath in. “do something, i fucking dare you.” you growl, watching your fluids drip down his cheek.

he had to be more pissed at the fact you called him a liar than the actual truth, the truth of the matter being he does sleep around, (and excuses it by saying hes the king, so he can) and he hated that you labeled him as such.

his legs slammed against the back of yours, yeah he was furious— his second row of arms holding your hips down and one hand holding your wrists down together. “got really smart with your mouth, brat. thats not good.” he clicks his tongue, his only free hand smacking your cheek. “youve lost your goddamn mind, woman— did you think id let you get away with calling me a deceiver?”

“fuck you.” you moan out, this was pathetic. but who could blame you? imagine having a giant ancient demon drill his cock into you, while you feel the other one growing harder, and having him focus on you.

“think im a liar, mm?” he asks, his face getting closer to yours and he shakes his head in disbelief. “you want me to stop having others serve me the way you do? mm?” he asks so sweet, it shouldn’t be allowed for him to sound this way.. not with him being a dick and drilling his first dick inside. “cmon, little one— answer. say what you want.” you muster up the strength to speak, only for him to knock it down and him to pitifully laugh down to you. “oh, poor baby.. can you not speak? is it too much?” he asks, slowing his hips and slowly pulling away.

“no, its not—“ you try to say, but he spits in your face, and you knew that he was trying to prove a point.

“see how that feels, nasty thing?” he asks, taking his thumb and smearing it against your face. “say what you want, woman.”

“want you to stick with me only—“ you finally get it out, cut off with a moan only for him to coo at you. your hands pat at his chest, or so you thought.. since his belly mouth opens and licks at your palm.

“that what you want, pet? for me to only have you serve me the way you do?” he asked, watching your head nod and he smirks. “and what makes you think you get that privilege?” he wasn’t fucking serious, whats with all these fucking questions?

“because—“ you moan after, how the fuck long was this going to go, man? “because i can take all of you, thats why.” you let him know that, and now hes intrigued.

he laughs a little, licking his canines and grinding his tip deeper. “thats all you had to say, pretty one.” he blurts, his hold on your wrists become different, his hand holding yours. “takin’ it so good, think you can handle another?” you nod, him slowing just a little and pressing the second cock’s tip up to your slit. “you wanna try again?” he makes sure you know what youre saying..

because no mortal woman have ever taken him before..

until he learns the hard, satisfying truth about how you can stretch really well when you’re attracted to someone. the second cock slips in, your teeth grit and a slight stretch can be sometimes uncomfortable. his eyes blow wide, his mouth opening slightly in a gaze. “oh?” he says in a marveled voice. “fuck, hell yeah!” he laughs in a boisterous voice, spitting on your folds for lubrication and thrusting his cocks inside your cunt. “my absolute favorite mortal, for sure. ill eat my own words.” you nod, looking up to the ancient monster that fucks itself into your walls and feel it in your throat. your eyes roll back, him lightly smacking your cheek and forcing you to look up to him. “take all of it, take all of this king cocks.”

—

“you dyin’ on me?” he asks, him leaning back on the bed as you pull your panties up. “no, no, stay the way you are.”

“not dyin’.” you say monotone, pulling them off and feeling his eyes.

“youre still doubting my loyalty to you, are you?” he asks gruff. he scoffs, beckoning his fingers to you. “come.” come you did, literally and sexually only five minutes ago. “why do you doubt?”

“you never said youd stop, but.. should i have a reason to believe you?” you asked, looking up to him and he feels a pang.

why did they way you look at him hurt?

“i did. you just are too naive to see.” he pulls you until him, hearing your yelp and holding you close.

“you didnt though, you never said ‘ill stop whoring myself around,’ or however you want to say it.” you suggest that he calls himself a whore? him? no, he wouldn’t suffice to that.

“the moment you were able to get two of my cocks inside of you, i decided that.” he pointed out what he thought was obvious, but that only occurs in his mind. “and… i suppose when you spat in my face and i didnt decide to eat you.” he sighs, the side of his face staring down at you. “so be proud of that, youre my favorite.”

the feeling of hurt and betrayal leave you, knowing one thing was for sure.

you were his favorite, and he was yours.

[xshimaeraxx]

okay ik that the fandom LOVES making logan the one who’s the cat-like mutant in the relationship and i LOVE that and it is so canon but like

hear me out here! catboy!! wade!!

a wade who was a mutant long before francis got his grubby little hands in him, wade who was a mutant but it wasnt crazy regenerative abilities or an inability to stay dead/immortality or super-human strength, but a wade who was (still is) a mutant who had the abilities of a fuckin’ cat

a wade who has semi-night vision, not entirely but good enough to help out on jobs; a wade who has lil pinprick pupils like a cat’s and who hisses damn near 24/7 on bad pain days (bc chronic pain-having wade has my entire heart and i will go to the grave w this hc alr); a wade who purrs when happy or in the middle of slicing someone’s head off during a job; a wade who has a cat’s heightened senses- hearing, sight, taste, smell, all of that; a wade who has a cat’s un-fuckin’-canny ability to jump from heights that would’ve killed a human and have at most a small, gone-in-a-day bruise; a wade who has tufts of kitty-cat fur on his elbows and on + behind his knees

and then francis comes along, and the torture happens, and he loses his looks, and then the fur grows back bc fuck but he’d thought he’d lost his og mutation when francis torture mcgee had triggered this new one, had lost the one thing that ness might still recognise him for,,,

and then the start of d&w happens, and during the birthday scene wade’s purring, happy, quietly (so quietly no one hears it half the time, and when they do they assume it’s the faulty heating of wade & al’s shitass apartment, but ness looks at him with a pleased, proud little smile when the sound starts back up after the others’ initial investigation for the source of the sound proves fruitless and it, he gets louder, purely for the way ness’s smile gets wider, prouder in a way that is purely, unabashedly so ness wade wants to go other and kiss her, right then n there) yes but he’s still purring like he hasn’t since pre-cancer-diagnosis him & ness (and also bc francis’s little angel-killer had found the sound annoying as all hell [bc wade also purrs to self-soothe bc I Say So)and so he’d rarely done so since, half out of new-born habit, half out of some primal, hard-learned fear he still hasn’t managed to completely shake, even years later)

and then the honda odyssey scene happens, and wade’s purring, purring, purring, loud and proud and rumbling and happy and he’s also hissing playfully at logan- a motion logan doesn’t notice due to how distracted he is putting his claws thru wade’s left thigh and christ, kittycat, how long’s it been since you had a good hookup for you to be THIS tense?- and logan only notices after wade’s pinned him and his minorly blood-soaked grin freezes; doesn’t drop, but freezes.

wade’s purr stutters a tad, doesn’t stop. he asks, licking the blood off of his cheek underneath his mask and for some reason logan’s sharp eyes follow what he can see of the movement underneath wade’s mask: what’s wrong, peanut, cat got your tongue?

are you- are you fuckin’ purring? asks logan, and the sound abruptly stops, and then deadpool’s stabbing him through the gut with not one word and then they’re fighting again, and while logan notes the moment to think about later, wade also doesn’t say another word other then excited/frustrated grunts and little “haha!”s for the next half hour, and for some reason that about takes up the majority of logan’s attention until he finally, finally, punches wade’s already-broken nose literally not even a millisecond after he’s broken it hard enough that it actually takes a few seconds for wade’s healing to kick in, and for some reason he feels strangely relived when wade lets out a muffled-by-blood ugh! foulplay, wolvie, foulpla-

logan interrupts him via stabbing wade and a like you don’t play just as foul as i do, bub, and wade stabs back in response with some quippy comment or another, and by then the fight’s back on, deadpool-typical quips and all.

like. when i say catboy wade, here, do you see my vision. do you see what i’m imagining. dO YOU SEE IT I SAY

[artbyblastweave]

i only learned recently from a friend's who much more comic literate than I that magneto's backstory as an Auschwitz survivor wasnt planned from the start, which surprised me since it seemed to me a really integral part of his character. anyway, twofold question: how common is it to see capes with backstories tied to very specific historical events, and, as time inevitably passes and real world survivors of those events pass, how do they justify having their characters still alive and kicking? (stay safe on your mountaintop friend)

Depending on how wide you cast the net, this is a pretty big list! There are a lot of comics who's characters cutting-edge ripped-from-the-headlines origin later became a very specific historical event, or at least Of A Specific Moment, in a way the writers had no reason to anticipate the franchise would run long enough to have happen. But to shed pedantry and hone in on some specific ones;

The big one, of course, is Captain America. Superficially Cap's contemporary origin comes with a baked-in means of him making it to the present day- he gets stuck in the ice and then gets unthawed. The fly in the ointment, though, is when he unthaws. When they first brought him back into rotation in 1964, his stint in the ice was only around 20 years; long enough for there to be a significant culture shock, but not long enough that his entire social circle was dead or even culturally sidelined. Nick Fury is still around and kicking ass as a zeitgeist-appropriate 60s superspy. But the further the sliding timeline hauls forward his implicit date of release, the more it changes the tone and tenor of the resulting story. Losing twenty years is different from losing fifty years (as was the case in The Ultimates, where he very explicitly comes back during the Bush years as part of the book's commentary on The War On Terror) and those will both be way different from when we inevitably hit the point where he's lost 100 years and he's the cultural equivalent of a Civil War Vet or something. There's strength to all of those stories but they're undeniably different.

Iron Man's origin was originally explicitly tied to the Vietnam war; he was captured by a detachment of "Red Guerillas" while consulting for the US military and the South Vietnamese government. Unfortunately U.S. foreign policy to this day has prevented this from ever becoming an unresolvable storytelling issue.

The Fantastic Four are a case where their origin was intimately tied to the space race; their untested, cutcorner spaceflight was expressly an attempt to show up the Russians. The extremely specific political context of their test flight is something that sort of gets brushed off; the Ultimate incarnation (written by Warren Ellis) threaded this needle deftly by having the accident be a dimensional expedition instead, circa the early 2000s. I'm not actually sure how the urgency of their test flight is currently contextualized in 616 continuity. Anyone got their finger on that pulse?

The Punisher was also originally a Vietnam vet- but through the jaded cynical lens of the 1980s rather than the straightforwardly peppy and jingoistic lens that defined Iron Man's debut in the 60s. Current continuities I believe have mostly bitten the bullet and updated his origin to the invasion of Afghanistan. However, an interesting decision in the Garth Ennis-spearheaded Punisher MAX continuity of the early 2000s- where Punisher is literally the only costumed vigilante- is that they bit the bullet and posited a version of Frank Castle who really has been killing criminals nonstop since shortly after his return from Vietnam in the 70s, a man well into his 60s who's survivability and efficacy at killing are edging up against the boundaries of magical realism.

Hulk I feel sort of deserves a mention here- he's in a sort of twilight zone on this issue, as there was, uh, a pretty goddamn specific political context in which the Army was having him make them a new kind of bomb, but you can haul that forward in the timeline without complete destruction of suspension of disbelief. Pretty soon it'll be downright topical again.

To circle back around to The X-Men, Claremont introduced a lot of historical specificity with the ANAD lineup. Off the top of my head, Colossus was explicitly a USSR partisan (updated to a gangster forced into crime to survive in the mismanaged chaos of the USSR's collapse in the Ultimate Universe) and Storm was orphaned by a French bombing during the Suez War. More to the point, the timing was such that Magneto, in his upper-middle age, had a pretty strongly defined timeline vis a vis his ideological development vs Xavier; child during the holocaust, Nazi hunter who eventually rifts with Xavier during the mid-to-late 60s, and then the two of them spend their years marshalling their respective resources before coming to blows during the quote-unquote "Age of Heroes," whatever the timeline looked like for that in the 80s. And it was a timeline that held together pretty damn well in the 80s, but it's gotten increasingly awkward as time's gone on. The Fox films completely gave up on having it make sense, near as I can tell. In the comics they've had all sorts of de-aging chicanery occur that very pointedly ignores what an odd timeline that implies for everyone else in the X-books besides Magneto. The Cullen Bunn Magneto standalone from 2014-15 I remember actually leaned into playing up the idea that he's just old as shit and dependent on so many superscience treatments to remain functional that he's basically pickled, which was a take I liked; the comic ended when he died of exertion trying to stop two planets from crashing into each other, right before a brand-wide universal reset. When the MCU was at it's peak and people were wargaming how to integrate the X-Men (lol) you occasionally saw people float "fixes" for the issue, such as making Magneto a survivor of the Bosnian Genocide, or making him black and a survivor of the Rwandan genocide; I remember that this consistently drew a lot of ire from people who (reasonably) thought that his Judaism and connection to the holocaust were deeply important to his character, continuity be damned. But yeah, he's a character dogged by specificity in a way only Cap even slightly approaches. If this is a tractable problem I'm not going to be the one to tract it.

Interestingly, I'm genuinely having a lot of trouble coming up with stuff that's analogous to this at DC comics- almost universally the core roster updates into any given time period much more smoothly. Furthermore, DC stuff has always been much more willing to eschew Marvel's World-Outside-Your-Window philosophy in favor of deliberately obfuscating the time period via the Dark-Deco aesthetic of BTAS's Gotham or the retrofuturism of STAS's Metropolis.

The closest you get to this kind of friction is The Justice Society, who, pre-crisis, were siloed off in a universe where superheroes had existed since the 40s and there was no comic book time, so they were all in their upper-middle-age to old age now, with their kids and grandkids as legacy capes. Post crisis they were (and are) kind of an awkward fit in DC continuity; in the scant few JSA comics from the 90s and early oughts that I read, surviving members of the WW2-era lineup like Alan Scott and Jay Garrick were absolutely written as dependent on their metahuman physiques to have endured up to the present day. I think they're still doing stuff with those guys. I don't know how. I do understand the impulse, though. I also never throw anything out.

[vanderdyks]

We dont talk enough about the fact that Goku wasnt born strong. Gohan, Vegeta, Broly, Goten, Trunks... all born with innate strength. But Goku... Goku was weak. His entire life growing up, there was ALWAYS someone stronger than him.

For a saiyan to be outmatched by earthlings... ridiculous. But he was. Several times over. Every bit of strength Goku has, he had to work for, train relentlessly for. Its easy to forget because hes so strong now and continiously comes out ahead. But thats the POINT.

Vegeta grew up knowing he was the pride of the saiyan race, born strong, elite, a prodigy. He was hopelessly outmatched by frieza and some of his army, but for a saiyan, vegeta was the strongest (or so he believed).

Because the saiyans put so much belief into power you were born with, power you were destined to have. You either had strength or you didnt. And Goku didnt. So he was third class. His destiny wasnt power, it was weakness.

Its why Vegeta is so constantly thrown off by and therefore obsessed with Goku in the beginning. Because how could someone born so weak be THIS strong? It didnt make sense.

Then we have Gohan, born with incredible hidden reserves of power. Unlike Goku, Gohan was born with potential. His strength was always there. And sure, he had to work incredibly hard to unlock it but its a story arc we keep seeing repeated with gohan. Either its unlocked with anger or someone unlocks it for him (the grand elder, old kai, etc.)

And then Goten and Trunks, both super saiyan by the age of 7. Power came EASY to them. It was as natural as breathing. Goku, Vegeta, and even Gohan all struggled to reach super saiyan. It took a toll. But Trunks and Goten take that power from literal legend and make it a game.

No one has ever had to work as hard as Goku to achieve strength. And you can argue with me on this all day long if you want to. He didnt have hidden powers. There were no hidden reserves, no one to unlock his innate abilities. When he was a child, his unnatural strength compared to human made him special. But for a saiyan, goku was one of the lowest of their race.

Every bit of strength, every morsel of power in gokus body, was built through training. He didnt unlock hidden potentials, HE CREATED them. Its why Goku is the mortal who figures out how to unlock ultra instinct. Because he almost never won a battle purely based off a sheer power, no. Goku had to be smart, needed to be clever. He was forced to hone technique just as much as power, was taught by all his masters the importance of harnessing his mind as well as his body. He grew up meditating, sensing energy, learning not to rely on his eyes, but all his senses. He was training to filter out his own extra unnecessary movements all the way back when he first met Korin and then later again with Kami.

Goku lost fights a lot. All the time. But everytime he lost, he learned. Because he was forced too. Because when Goku lost, there was no backup. He was it. And so he would HAVE to come back stronger, have to find the way to win. Or everyone would be dead.

Maybe its just me but i just think theres something incredibly special about a saiyan labeled as "weak," a saiyan no one bothered to pay any mind to being the first to become legend. He avenged their entire race. That little boy with a tail, born with a power level of 2, became the strongest of them all.

[nightskyfoxyy]

You know what? screw it.

Blyla Oneshot

When she woke, everything was red.

It must have been late in the evening, as much as one could tell from within the thick forestation of this planet.

Aayla remembered, when the pain returned to her.

She curled in on herself, at least she tried to, as much as the burns on her back would let her.

It was then, that she noticed she wasnt alone.

That she, no, they, were moving.

Forcing herself to look up, she found herself blinking wearily at an all too familiar visor. Though for once, he did not return her gaze.

He simply looked forward, anywhere but her.

Reaching out, she found him faint, somewhere lost in the force, far away from here.

But not gone.

Not like before.

He was close enough that the grip with which he held her, pressed so tightly to his chest, shook his arms with the effort.

Every step, a conscious, forceful command against this awful, suffocating something she had felt take over, just this side of too late.

A small consolation.

As tired, as hurt as she was, she wanted nothing more than to find the refuge of his embrace again, as she had so many times, when the night had been too dark, and the cold wouldnt leave her bones.

She let her head fall back against his chestplate. There wasnt enough strength left within her to sob.

What had happened, for all of them, for him, to turn so suddenly?

No, that couldnt have been the right word for it.

Interwoven as they had been, it had felt more like death.

He had been there one moment, all warmth and steadyness and devotion, as he always had been. Gone, the next.

Replaced with nothing but a shell.

At least now, she felt him.

So dreadfully distant, but there, refusing-

As jarring as her stint of consciousness had been, it would be brief.

The last things she felt before darkness took over was that there were bandages covering her wounds, and the frantic, racing beat of the heart in Blys' chest.

He carried her until the sun had nearly set.

A part of him remembered them coming through this settlement, less than a day prior.

Standard procedure for clearing the area, for both their own and the residents' benefit.

Somehow, he remembered, forced himself to remember, the smile on her face when they had shared some local fruit they had been offered.

She had tasted of it still, when later, he had leaned in to-

His arms shook, pulling her closer to his chest regardless.

The pain in his head was damn near blinding.

Not much farther, now.

Luckily, there were enough people still out and about to notice them swiftly.

He waited, until two concerned, friendlier (familiar? He wasnt sure, anymore) faces stood before him, the questions heavy in their eyes.

"Help. Her."

One of the women nodded, expression growing ever so frightened at the growl in his voice.

So odd, how much force of will it took to release her to them, when it should have been so easy. When she shouldnt even be alive still.

And yet, he felt empty, when she was gone, and his feet carried him back to camp.

The pain in his head remained.

He felt sick.

Mhi solus dar'tome.

[yellowbluemoonshine]

In one of your posts (the favorite ship list), you mentioned that Ochaco is the more "masculine" in IzuOcha relationship, care to explain the reasoning behind that assessment?

Soft Boy & Tough Girl

Yeah, sure, and here’s what i mean in this post when i said Uraraka is the ‘masculine one’ in their relationship;

Izuku is unique shounen character for having alive mother because most of the shounen male characters lost their mother in some way or another and  Izuku’s father doesnt seem to be around either. Which is also why having a loving mother is the reason why Izuku is soft.

Something i really like about Izuku’s character is; Izuku cries when he is sad. He just cries, feels scared and he doesnt feel shame for crying or being scared. He doesnt feel any shame for being vulnerable. And i really like that about him because it is really rare to see in a male character.

Traits traditionally viewed as masculine in Western society include strength, courage, independence, leadership, and assertiveness.

Basically, Izuku is not masculine guy. He doesnt have any strength, he is scared, he is more follower type than leader, he has very low esteems. Especially at the start of series. This is who Izuku is.

He is just a normal boy and the reason i like this is because in media, we get many male characters who is most likely masculine, most of the time, they suffer from toxic masculinity, they feel insecure and lash out and sadly, audience seems to like it.

And later in series, even Deku gets stronger, even he gets confidence, become leader, or braver, he is not trying to look himself more masculine. He is not trying to dominate other people in any way. Basically, he doesnt show toxic masculinity.

And i like Izuku is not like that. We always gets to see bad examples of when a boy shows his vulnerable, he gets to hear ‘you are not man enough’, ‘you have to be strong’ but i like that story tells Izuku opposite.

‘Is your burden so heavy that it doesnt even let you cry? It looks like something you should share with us.’

Also when Izuku says 'heroes dont cry', Shouto is the one who reminds him again that its okay to cry. (This is also why i ship Tododeku too.)

The thing is some people is more sensitive to emotions, some people cry more easiely than others and thats how Izuku is. Izuku is very soft boy, he is very empathic, he is sensitive to other people’s emotions and he cry easiely and that is okay.

Compared to Izuku, Ochaco is kinda opposite.

She is tomboy but not your usual tomboy you see in media. She is not wearing boy clothes or extreme feminine clothes. She is just tough and she has the confidence. She wears whatever she feels comfortable with. Its like it doesnt matter to her and i love that.

Though, Ochaco is the one who seems to repress her sadness and any other negative feelings compared to Izuku who shows it freely. Which is why i think Ochaco is comfortable with him, even in novel she says, the first day at school seeing Izuku like that made her comfortable because she realized she wasnt the only one who felt nervous.

Also, unlike the ‘boy save the girl’ trope, in their relationship, its opposite. Its the ‘girl saves the boy’. Ochaco is Izuku’s hero since day one. The fact that before he was powerless, before the time he proved his worth to others, the fact that she showed kindness to him means a lot to Izuku. She was always kind to him, even when he was at his worst. Their helping each others happens too. Ochaco feels admiration towards him and think about him a lot, (writing has its flaws) but whenever Izuku thinks about his most important people in life, she is always part of it.

And another reason why i like izuocha and not other ships with her that much is because even though, Izuku was never masculine guy, Ochaco doesnt seem to see him as less guy or less attractive. Actually, seeing him so true to himself is what makes him attractive to her. Instead of populer guys in her class such as Bakugou who is good example of toxic masculinity or Shouto who seems tough and perfect, at least from outside. She just loves Izuku. She loves the boy whom everyone sees him as loser but to her, he was never a loser, she never sees him crying as annoying or bad thing, it is just part of him and she accepts it. And not only Ochaco doesnt mind Izuku's being vulnerable but also Izuku doesnt mind being protected by her, it doesnt feel him any inferior, actually it only makes him happy.

And when Izuku is vulnerable, instead of judging him, she holds his hand and says ‘Its okay’ and she is like ‘i am gonna protect this boy’. Unlike the usual romance where men always protect the women, Ochaco protects Izuku and thats fine because it doesnt matter if its a boy or girl. The one who needs help deserves to be protected. In this relationship, boy is the more vulnerable and emotional one and she helps him. Thats okay, this is normal, this is what healthy, supportive relationship is.

And this is the reason i love Izuocha at first place. Yes, writing has so much flaws but i love their origin relationship. And i hope we get better writing but well, its very nice ship.

[red-elric]

no one reminded me but i remembered anyway lets talk about broken swords :)

we see a lot about what dave thinks of swords. the apartment is littered with 'shitty anime swords,' but bro's katana is real and badass. he hopes to have a sword as cool as that one day, but he's still learning. he's heard a thousand times from rose about the phallic imagery he surrounds himself with, and closes his eyes to it because its not a gay thing (and thats neither here nor there, but it IS a masculinity thing. it represents the ideals dave has been learning from bro. heroism. strength. coolness. irony. stoicism.) the swords are a symbol of what bro stands for. every time bro helps him, its with a sword; every time bro hurts him, its with a sword. its the thing dave wants to be better at, believes he can learn how to use, and then bro cuts his sword in half. scratches the record, permanently fucks up his strife specibus, saves the day by splitting the meteor in half before it kills them both.

and now, dave is hounded by shitty, broken swords. every sword he touches splits in half in his hands, except for the one sticking out of his bro's corpse. (that one repels him, throws him off into an undignified heap.) its comical. its stupid. its yet another reminder that hes a failure, that he wasnt good enough to be a real hero, that he couldnt and never will live up to what his bro wanted him to be. but hes given the ability to fix his own mistakes, to still fight anyway. hes given a sword with the ability to travel back in time to an unbroken state. he can still hold a real sword, even if its just through a loophole. but hes still, fundamentally, a kid who deserves nothing better than a broken, shitty ass sword. davesprite sends him the legendary (piece of shit) sword on derse, when he's ready for a suicide mission, when he's being more honest with himself than he ever has been, and it falls apart like putty in his hands. he carries it with him to become a god.

and then we meet dirk. dirk, who calls dave's bro's sword--HIS sword, now--the unbreakable katana. and for dirk, a sword still means the same thing, but different. its a connection to a brother he loves, lost through time. its HIS strength, not a paltry imitation of someone else's. its tied up with masculinity, sure, and not a small amount of homosexuality, this time, but above all else its the symbol of a hero. its the sword that eventually kills the condesce.

and three years of trauma processing later, dave meets dirk. he meets this genuine, excited kid who shares his brothers face and feels older than he ever has. because dave is a broken sword kid, and dirk has a childs faith in an unbreakable katana. dirk doesnt know what it was LIKE. and dave realizes that his bro is gone. that dirk isnt him. hes never coming back. and dave enters the final battle with a complete, whole sword. the hero's sword, the one he was fated to kill lord english with, the one from his quest. and he fights the closest stand-in for lord english, and eventually is the one to kill him in a three for one deal. and with that same strike, the unbreakable katana breaks; the boy who shares his bro's face is killed. dave is a hero. dave can fight on his own terms. and the shadow of his bro hanging over him has been split in two.

[merrysithmas]

I know you said you haven't watched it, but just to inform how dumb it is, clearly Hayden is the only one on set having fun and is clearly trying. And the fight between him and Ahsoka is bad. Anikan is clearly so much better then her and they try to frame it like shes capable of overpowering him.

His movements are so fast and fluid, his strikes are so precise and specific and you can see how important all behind the scene training was to Hayden even for his small appearances like this. And it's so bad because Ahsoka is really awkward. She is slow, her movements are stilted and clunky and she does not fight with any grace. Anikan is so much faster and better then her, then he fights a young Ahsoka who is noticeably much better. Only a kid and shes fast and more graceful and can keep up much better.

Only to cut back to adult Ahsoka is once more is slow and stilted, but Anikan is slow now. Like it's very clear they had to tell Hayden to slow down, because now Ahsoka is supposed to be able to beat him. But its obvious because hes so fast, fluid and precise but he moves so slowly while doing it that you can tell Hayden's been instructed to slow down and hold back.

They have to hide Ahsokas movements to gain the upper hand in the editing because you can tell Anikan would never have lost if you could see what was happening.

Rosario Dawson either wasnt interested in learning real fight choreography, or Dave didn't care enough to try. But it's so painful because not only does acting wise Hayden steal the show, but he is so much better and so impressive that they literally had to force him to be slow just to make it even remotely possible that this Ahsoka could beat him.

Kid Ahsoka was actually pretty good, with more time with her I think we couldve seen an Ahsoka more on the skill level she was in tcw. (Like Ahsoka is literally better in combat in her 30 second fight with Mando in season 2 then she is against Anikan the whole episode).

I just don't understand why they brought Anikan in, but didn't actually put the work into Ahsokas fighting because it makes her look really bad compared to an actually skilled fighter.

Just make the episode her having some weird drowning flash before her eyes shit of her as a kid, because the Kid Ahsoka actor did a good job paired up with Hayden.

Rosario acts and fights like she just downed a bottle of melatonin.

i totally see that. i think dawson is horribly miscast and since Ahsoka is supposed to just be a continuation of Rebels - you'd think the live-action Soka would act like the animated Rebels Soka ... which she does not.

At all.

Rebels' Ahsoka still had the same pluck and nerve and strength although she was burdened by sorrow. She was still a hero.

I saw some gifs of young!Ahsoka fighting and it did fool my eye with the same energy and style as animated Ahsoka which I thought was cool.

It's too bad they picked Dawson, honestly. And then they covered her with all that bad makeup. She looks more like Ahsoka without it, ironically.

[missingn000]

okayokayokay, listen, i started a TPG reread after the last chapter you posted because i was hopped up on my love of this fic, and i finally had to enough free time to get to the chapter where shoko comes over to dinner for the first time aND I JUST LOVE HER (and nanami) SO FUCKING MUCH??!

shoko was a character that i genuinely almost never thought about before this fic. she was simply just, there, when i watched the show, and while her small parts in the hidden inventory arc were enjoyable i basically just went back to never thinking about her. AND THEN YOUR FIC COMES AROUND AND ACTUALLY I LOVE HER SO MUCH AND SHE MAKES ME SO SAD?! you just write her so well, and everything about how she is written by you makes so much sense. one of your utmost strengths as a writer is being able to extrapolate character personalities into their highest potential. every time you've introduced a character and forced us to contend with their emotions and thought processes, i'm astounded by how seamless it is. it never feels out of place or tacked on. it's always just "yeah, obviously this is how this character would think/act/feel, makes total sense with everything we know of them from canon."

AND THEN NANASHOKO WHICH I HAVE ALREADY YELLED ABOUT SO MANY TIMES BUT AGHAFDGKHFDAHJL (<- had to be tazed) their interactions have me eating drywall. like, she has his hoodie?? from highschool??? i'm going to go insane!??? also i am realizing how beautiful it is that really the first big thing nanami does after coming back to sorcery and accepting that loving people even at the risk of hurt is worth it, is he goes and begins the process of rescuing shouko from the same fate he was heading towards??? he wants to protect people now and he goES AND GETS HER (even if that wasnt his original intent when he went to visit her but i digress) anyway, i love your writing, you have made me love a character i did not ever expect to ever really care about, and then handed me a ship for said character that makes me want to go koolaid man through my wall <3 also sick of losing soulmates by dodie is such a nanashoko song it came on my spotify shuffle and i then lost my mind

PLEASE OH MY GOD YOU ARE SO SWEET...honestly, i wish shoko got more attention in canon!! even in the arc where we saw more of her backstory, the spotlight was still on stsg basically the whole time and we didn't learn much more about her. i've had to do a lot of extrapolation from what we know of her in canon, but it's so flattering that you think her more fleshed-out characterization in tpg is compelling and believable!!

AS FOR NANASHOKO...THEY OWN MY WHOLE HEART. i feel immensely accomplished by how many people have said they never considered the ship before but love it now. i think there's a very delicate balance to strike in terms of shipping characters that are similar -- they need to be able to relate to each other in a way no one else can, but also be different enough for their dynamic to still be interesting. and shoko stealing nanami's hoodies makes me feral too like ohhh theyre so. oughh. i love them. anyways i listened to that song and it ruined me so thank you for that and for this lovely message!!!

[solardick]

Mr. Sir has a whole new walk. Detrack from mimicking the ways of an older sibling. Pretending to be cool. Mr. Sir being an Aries Pisces mix. The brother being a leo cancer mix. One can see the idealization of a younger more impressionable youth upon the older more charismatic influence. Considering there being no connection in that light upon the “parental caretakers”. Too lost in their own bs to be available.

The man, if one may call him that, gave e pause to the idea of marriage. When a cousin got married after joining a church. He said, “ theres another one lost.” One christmass he was there late, made everyone wait through the whole morning, for him to finnaly show up at the tree looking like the whole thing was a joke and he didnt want to be there. Mr. Sir, mimicked he’s emotional position and tossed out the magic for a disheartened response.

He taught me that as long as one is charismatic and lively. One could be a total peice of shit. And people don’t care.

Pet killing mother fucker.

And it feels off but, feet are the most maleable body limbs. And years of walkimng and sitting in habitual way and the posture adjustitself yo be as level as it can with what its given to endure.

You dont see anyone raping his

Life. God knows

He deserves it.

Or you can be like me and framed up into a certain disposition. Which you camt gove in to because its isnt entirly true.

Yeah, im a huge homo or whatever whippy do.

Sorry i started improving so they fallowed through on another dosage. Gave me a week off or so.

But made sure it was mounting in stress.

But dont mind me. Its inly been 40 straight years of being owned by assholes. And look at hiw sell that turns out

But now that im a queer the probability of finding someone to spend my life with has gone down to a fraction of a percentage.

Well, im out of a job. For the thirtiest fucken time. Start looking for another one.

So much for building a life for myself.

Now that i have dick in ass deasease inhave no will to do anythinv anyway.

Welfare till i hang mysrlf.

Been trying for over 9 years nine. But nope. Theres prescribed plans to rape my life several times over instead. Hahah

Like 20 years under my families thumbs wasnt enough. 5 years of anguish before that. Amd total trash for my entire childhood. Yay! Its great being alive. 9 fucken years of hints to their plans. Always a happy disposition. Strength in superiority over another through knowledge.

People

And power trips over my life. Always been. Forced to see nothing but bs. But i knew at day one. God told me in a dream. When i still had them. Meanwhile, and prewhile, constant of violence in my surroundings. Directly affecting my person intentionally or not. I dont even know anymore. So its all in the same pill. Of intentions. Always been. Disnt matter if it was them or me. Violence cane to me regardless. Disregards for acts and means. Even if i said dont do it. It gets done anyway. But. Yeah. No sleep. Little sleep. Im ok.

Think im becoming so damaged i cant even takenof myself anymore.

If i die the shadow upon will last a generation. Far retching.

Im just gonna shot bad guys in the vagina. Look at me, im part of a culture now.

Guess imnit going i work tomorow. Yay. Mo sleep.

Well lost about 20 % of the hair on my left leg. I dont think its cominng back. Patchy all the way up

My thy. Less so on the right.

[crossover-enthusiast]

soo thinkin bout the everyone dies au again, i'm brainstorming exactly how each character would cope with the whole situation and what deaths would effect them the most, i mentioned patty but i want to get into the other characters more.

For Kevin, Streber's death would definentally effect him the most. He'd go from being irritable with a soft side to borderline raging. His patience is GONE. He'd quit his job and probably find a work-from-home job, not wanting skid and pump to bring any more pain to his life. he knows its not their fault, but hes aware that they bring trouble along with them even if its not their intent; he doesnt care if they mean it, he just doesnt want to deal with ANY supernatural or murderers or ANYTHING anymore. he closed himself off, slowly seperating from the friend group and snapping at them whenever they tried to reach out. but deep down he is MISERABLE, he doesnt know what to do anymore and is so so damn lost. Patty's death just adding to that, making him feel even worse and adding guilt for leaving his friends but still not having the strength to reach out.

For Rick, Patty's death hit him SO, UNBELIEVABLY hard. Patty was his sister in this au and she was the light of his life, they were always there for eachother from the moment rick was born and then never left eachothers sides. Losing Patty was like losing a limb. Like Kevin, he isolated. but ended up moving in with radford because he was just not in the right headspace to work or even take care of his apartment, he entered a DEEP depressive episode that really freaking scared Radford. and, well, as mentioned, Rick in my normal timeline headcanon used to deal with self harm- and he ended up relapsing into that in his grief. I'm not sure if Radford would really even know, but if he did? god, he'd be beyond heartbroken and worried for his buddy. Rick was already at his lowest when Kevin died and couldnt really get much lower, he of course cared a LOT but there wasn't really much left to change for him.

For Hanna, Streber's death effected her a LOT. He was like a brother to her, she was shattered. Her anxiety and worries god much worse and got a fair bit depressed herself, yet tried her very best to keep up her cheerful persona just to be there for her friend group. Patty's death effected her less, but GOD did the state it sent her boyfriend into absolutely horrify her. she did everything she could to reach out to him, visit him, making sure he was ok, loving him, all that. but even after being paranoid and she still felt she wasnt doing enough. when Kevin died, her anxiety, depression and downward spiral only worsened. wanting to fix the friendgroup. wanting to patch it all up and show everyone that it was going to be ok. however? when rick died? she snapped. she died in barely a weeks time after he passed, her heart just gave out from the unimaginable heartbreak she felt and the immense guilt feeling she shouldve been there and that it was all her fault.

ANYWAYS i'll write Radford's tommorow cuz i'm sleepy, enjoy the suffering

MAN

This all delicious angst but OUGH IT HURTS MY HEART

[wrightfamily]

oh my god. kh dq11 au

i dont have many thoughts abt kh characters going in erdrea unfortunately (im sure if i thought hard enough about it i COULD. easily.) HOWEVER. i already had thoughts about keyblades for most of the dq11 cast :3 (as in which keyblades would they have that already exist in kh im not much of a designer for anything)

i'd go with either master's defender or starlight for eleven! they just feel right to me. you could also go with kingdom key if you wanted to do a classic look!

erik: lost memory (god i wish this was bigger) OR wheel of fate. well he loses his memory at some point but also he has a pirate costume. there are no viking inspired keyblades also fjhdsfjkds. i also think the pirates keyblade in kh2 is ugly so...

veronica: counterpoint. it's a magic keyblade and also has a funny little hat (plus reality shifting and. well act III). hidden dragon is also a good one for her considering where you meet+its got magic boost but idk.

serena: ever after, it's magic based and a little bit green! plus her love for romance :) also fairy harp for similar reasons, but instead of the romance bit it's because she plays a harp :)

sylvando: lady luck. i had a hard time picking one but? idk. he grew up in a town with a casino, plus like... circus? magicians? even if he isnt technically one. but all for one isnt a bad option either considering his arc w his dad? idk im so sorry my beloved sylvando

jade: rumbling rose. i IMMEDIATELY knew what i wanted to give jade. it's strength based, big, green, and it has a giant claw. though i think that divine rose also works beautifully with her (i included the kh1 and leveled up ux versions)

rab: winner's proof. wasnt sure, but i thought a silly one would be good for him! its a good mix of strength and magic, but grants you 0 exp. perfect for someone who's seen everything

i had a hard time with hendrik but because i felt like there were so many that fit him... it's either oblivion, guardian soul, ends of the earth, end of pain, or kh3's ultima. ouchie!

jasper: actually. if i go with oblivion for hendrik... oathkeeper would be an excellent choice for jasper. but i also think you could reverse it... i can also see him with void gear OR. unbound. bc of his. you know.

ok thats all i have for now but u are free to suggest or ask for other characters 👀

[pinkseas]

[parasocial bestie] NAWT ME TRYING TO GO BACK MY OWN TAG AND LIKE. REMEMBER WHICH TF RESPONSE I HAVE NOT RESPONDED its compulsory i must answer to Everything or i will die so Anyway im throwing everything in one ask HAHA

THE POST WITH THE LYRICS,... XIAOCORE,..... "When you said that I was killing myself / I've killed everything but my shame" indicating xiao wasnt regretting all the hurt he's done to himself be it from his duty or the repercussions bc he knows he Deserves it and takes it without caring any dignity like YOU JUST CANT

and adnd and!! GOWSH IT MAY BE A SHORTER SCENE OBV NOT MAIN FOCUS OR WHATEVER u gonna add in the next xiaolumi fic but i am just. gosh they mean saur much 2 me,..... he's concussed. zhongli frets like a mother. he's concussed what did he do to reach that point how serious it is to get zhongli fret like a mother. i am jUSTTTTTTT

and u. the. the xiao's mom you really went there you madmanwomangirlgnc. i read it all and i am crying sobbing at 4am that time. i am not okay i jsutcant believe this i cannot believe. the traits that she used to have that unconsciously influences xiao and at some point used in an unhealthy way than she intended for him to learn. "she sees no use dwelling in the past", he sees every. single mistake of it, of what he did even if it's out of his will. but also disregarding how he used to be, of that suffering if others know, and with the goodest of intentions- to point out what he's been through makes him deserving of care. my guy twists the morals so he can have his existence barely known so he can continue that quest of redemption he never had to do, or has long been redeemed.

"(she names him alatus, gives him wings the only way she can. may he never be trapped as she was for so long. may he always find a way to fly.) / (funny, really, how that works out.)" I AM LITERALLYYYYY NOT OKAYYYY I AM SO!!!!!! OK BUT I JUST,SF.FSFLDF THINK ABOUT HIS WINGS THE MOMENT U MENTIONED IT like. yeah bird adeptus yes absolutely its always canon but the thing about his wings. like how do you hc he lost it. ppl would go for amputation, or its still salvageable but it's been rendered so bad it doesnt have the strength for him to take flight. id pick one but i cant cuS MAN BOTH HAVE THEIR OWN UNIQUE PROGRESS OF GRIEF FOR HIM,..... to lose flight entirely is to lose part of himself and that's been like that for millenia it gets even harder once he knows lumine had wings before that HAS a chance to be obtained again,..... but for now they share that loss of wings, to feel the wind in your face as you fly higher and higher into the clouds.......

"it isn’t her fault or negligence or neglect that leads to him being taken. it’s the cruelty of the world and bad luck, plain and simple. he remembers missing her. he remembers missing her so much it ached." everytghing that comes after thsis. everything. i just,. im so,... sogdgfg im SO

"he makes her a grave. it takes a very long time. there’s no name and a marker only he would recognize. it’s nothing special. he thinks, distantly, that she deserved more than this. but it’s all he has, and that will have to be enough. and then he does what she always did, what she always taught him to do: he moves forward." dead on the floor

"you cant stop turning to talk to them only to realize you’re facing an empty space. paimon helps. paimon really, truly helps. but she’s her own person, a friend, not a sibling or a twin. not a replacement. not even close." WITH THE WAY I HOLD PAIMON FOR DEAR LIFE, THIS IS A REALITY I HAVE TO FACE AS MUCH AS HER!!!!! SHE IS NO REPLACEMENT!!! so i had to dig one of my other brainrot drafts where paimon had been a lil guilty for not contributing anything to the chasm, snapping at lumine for trying to reason her. pasting that sht here cus it still gets me despite im not exactly a Writer (and i like to put a lil sad quirk that paimon can go off third person in her speech if she's serious on it)

Her outburst was over with a harsh sob, and the pixie looked even smaller than physically possible. Paimon wiped her eyes roughly with a puffy sleeve, and Lumine wondered how contradictive her companion is when it comes to self expression. “... I wanted to do something.” “Not just talking, not just… being like this.” The pixie kicked the air weakly, fiddling with the folds of her shirt. “But it’s why I talk most of the time, so you don’t have to. Maybe then I’ll get to know Teyvat better, and how to get out of things faster. The Chasm was… scary.” 

"Getting trapped there is different than when you were almost split in half most of the time." Paimon rubbed her eyes again, a sniffle too quiet to be heard.  "'Cause your brother won't find you that way, and it means I broke my promise to you."

SO. YEA. paimon my emotional support flying nugget

"it def influenced my own thoughts on the travelers and their powers and how strong they were Before teyvat and how its changed them after" "i keep lumi and aether in that space between mortal and god / theres so much wiggle room and them as gods outside of very specific portrayals doesnt feel right to me / but theyre definitely VERY powerful and very inhuman imo"

PERSONALLY i looooooooove the different interpretations of the twins being primordial gods,.. or like as you said, that space between mortal and god, though to me i dont have a strong enough picture when it comes to defining what exactly they are in nature but def in that little space. cus i like to characterize lumine AND aether as human as they can and are, probably bc im projecting probably bc im a bitchass on a god's ego and personifying that. i revolve the story of the twins' journey regarding humanity, but more on them leaning to feeling human and mortal than a god, bc they HAD been gods before. or at least something equivalent.

and actually? my first impression of the twins to push the hc isnt through these typa fics, its from the theory that tied the twins with hyv's other game honkai impact 3rd; that theyre sort of 'scouts' that travels throughout space for a habitable world while honkai is close to its own cataclysm by Advanced Development being a threat to gods; just like khaenriah. so like. its a mess of a theory i saw long ago but ye kno!! its been stuck in my head since, and it solidifies my thought to lumine acting like a human bc she is, or was, with whatever happened in between turning her and her brother into who they are now. in that little space between.

so like!! for these twins. aether is more empathetic, he understood far more than lumine ever does, bc he doesnt focus on the duty more than the ppl he meets. lumine being the more calculative and speculative twin, doing strategies and being first in the offense- altho aether is the one ready to back her up and in the frontline, her tank and shield. hes more carefree, more kind, what nara varuna had been to the aranara is what he had been still. to cry for the forest people, to cry for those even if he thought; lumine would tell me to think this again, to not rely too much whats in his heart. now without him in the picture, she asks herself her own question. she looks back at how ae would do, would act and think thats not as far as she does. that lumine thinks through logic, and aether thinks through compassion. and then to the present where he's gone and she'd slowly fill the space he had been into her own personality, learning how he had been bc the aether she saw now was not there anymore. like gooooshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh IDKKKKKKKKKK

NO BECAUSE ME HANDSHAKE YOU GOING THROUGH THE TAG TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAS AND HASN'T BEEN RESPONDED TO PLEASE THAT'S SO FUNNY OF US

"indicating xiao wasnt regretting all the hurt he's done to himself be it from his duty or the repercussions bc he knows he Deserves it and takes it without caring any dignity" exactly <3333333333333 no bc like. he doesnt Care he doesnt care about how much it hurts him hes so convinced that he DOES deserve it, its just part of his life part of his duty nothing more and nothing less. but that doesnt stop the shame that comes with anything he perceives as failure (which is definitely A Lot Of Things) or shit like being too injured to continue fighting im so. fmgnfgmnfmngmf

it may not be the Main focus but zhongli and xiao's relationship in this fic is basically the second biggest focus beyond xiao himself/the xiaolumi of it all tbh, even before we started talking before The Brainrot Festivals i knew i really wanted to highlight their relationship and dynamic and the way i was portraying them, zhongli will definitely be a very important part of it !! as for. what led to xiao being concussed and zhongli fretting that much. well. smile. im a fan personally although i DO really need to polish up the scene i did it so long ago its such a mess...... god thats ognna be SO fun i should try to do that today

"you madmanwomangirlgnc" GIGGLING SM HELP

"the traits that she used to have that unconsciously influences xiao and at some point used in an unhealthy way than she intended for him to learn." yeah <3333 "my guy twists the morals so he can have his existence barely known so he can continue that quest of redemption he never had to do, or has long been redeemed." NO BECAUSE LITERALLYYYYYYYYYYY its so fucked up i am going to Squeeze Him i am going to pour so much love into him that it overflows and turns into self love on god.

"but the thing about his wings. like how do you hc he lost it. ppl would go for amputation, or its still salvageable but it's been rendered so bad it doesnt have the strength for him to take flight. id pick one but i cant cuS MAN BOTH HAVE THEIR OWN UNIQUE PROGRESS OF GRIEF FOR HIM" w. well you see. the problem is. i have basically Never Thought About This. ive considered him with wings and thought about the Having but not the losing. so here are some thoughts off the top of my head, not all viable in canon but yknow

he still has them, but has rendered himself incapable of true flight. got rid of the flight feathers after rex lapis freed him, quite literally grounded himself in liyue. devotion and punishment all in one. i dont actually like this one too much but it was one of my first thoughts just in terms of wanting him to still have them but flight being out of reach

the god who enslaved him injured them beyond repair very very early on when xiao was doing his best to fight back against it, caging him in more ways than one. a show of control and power over him, a way to further force xiao to bend to his will. with proper care and healing they may have recovered, even as horrifically mangled as they were, but naturally that never happened

he still had his wings serving that god, but those victims who fought back against xiao when he came for them eventually damaged them beyond flight and/or beyond repair in an attempt to ground him and make him less dangerous/take him down

^^^^^ in either of those two above scenarios i like to imagine that the remains still cling to him when he's freed, and either zhongli or the other yakshas eventually help him fully remove them. they're a mess, they're dead weight, and they're never going to heal- he'd rather them gone completely than dragging on him like this, a constant reminder of what he'd (rightfully, in his own mind) lost

zhongli and/or some of the other adepti end up fighting xiao himself before the god who he serves is killed, and it isnt until then that his wings are damaged truly beyond repair and taken from him. he kneels and they're mangled, bloodied and broken, hanging limply from his back, and all he wants now is to die free. he doesnt deserve to live, not after what he's done. but death would be too kind, too, and so he accepts it when his life is spared, swears himself to morax instead. whoever it was who fucked his wings up like that feels awful about it, they approach him eventually to apologize. xiao doesn't know how to tell them how relieved he was to be rid of them in that moment, to have the ties to his past self fully cut. it's easier like this, if he's made anew, made to serve a new purpose, if he can abandon any semblance of love or naivety or innocence he once carried. it hurts something deep inside of him to imagine that that child survived. easier to see him buried, easier to separate himself from it all.

okay i think that's all ive really got id have to take some more time to think abt it ummmm. i think i like the last one the most? combined with the idea that it's zhongli or the yakshas who finally get rid of them? something about someone else being there, xiao not so much as flinching as an entire limb is severed from his body, the literal and emotional weight that vanishes with them. the scars are clean and smooth. xiao neither regrets their loss nor blames the one who ruined them. the wish to have them back goes hand in hand with the wish to have the rest of him back, to be who he used to be, and there's no use in thoughts like that. not anymore.

"it gets even harder once he knows lumine had wings before that HAS a chance to be obtained again,..... but for now they share that loss of wings, to feel the wind in your face as you fly higher and higher into the clouds......." o(-( crying shaking sobbing on the floor YEAH............ that shared loss. god. both of them mourning the freedom it granted them, both of them holding anemo so close to their hearts because it's not the same but it's enough.

LOSING MY MIND OVER YOUR PAIMON BRAINROT GODDDDDDDDDDDD

"'Cause your brother won't find you that way, and it means I broke my promise to you." this broke me. this Broke Me. SHE DOESNT WANT TO BREAK HER PROMISE SHE WANTS THEM TO BE REUNITED....... EUEUEUUEUEUEUUEU

"i revolve the story of the twins' journey regarding humanity, but more on them leaning to feeling human and mortal than a god, bc they HAD been gods before. or at least something equivalent." this FUCKS this is such a good way to look at it and direct it holy shit ??? learning to feel human learning to live as mortal people do learning the values of life itself learning how to love the little things....... man. Man.

"that theyre sort of 'scouts' that travels throughout space for a habitable world while honkai is close to its own cataclysm" i dont know SHIT about honkai but god that sounds so fucking cool and also huge rip to them oh my god... going out to scout a new world On A Time Limit and suddenly its 500+ fucking years later giggling sm

"with whatever happened in between turning her and her brother into who they are now. in that little space between." THIS IS SO GOOD them having been human once and eventually reaching the point where they are now......... g o d

"he doesnt focus on the duty more than the ppl he meets. lumine being the more calculative and speculative twin, doing strategies and being first in the offense" YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH this is something that can be so <3333 and her looking back and thinking about what aether would do THE AETHER SHE'S SEEN NOW ISN'T THERE ANYMORE.... GODDDDDDDDD im so. the mourning that comes with losing a twin, not knowing if they're dead or alive or where or how to find them, the mourning of your other half of always being known of living spent together. and the desperate hope of seeing them again only for that to come crashing down because this isnt who you knew, isnt who you remember, not at all. you are standing in front of a stranger. they still act like they know you, but you dont know them. not anymore. not at all. and that's its own unique kind of grief, to have someone who used to be your everything right there and to know nothing about them.