#he's only human-adjacent in the same way a demon would be

[tcfactory]

Dumb SVSSS thought of the day is Xuan Su being one breakthrough away from cultivating a human form and making its (his?) newfound ability to speak aloud to other people everybody's problem.

Unity of the Sword cultivators give more of themselves to their bonded blades than people cultivating other paths, because they have to cultivate together with the sword, as partners. It's both a blessing and a curse, making their swords more... aware. It's not unusual for Unity swords to ascend with their masters or to cultivate humanoid forms to become something like a platonic life partner.

Xuan Su is an old blade. A powerful one, expertly if eccentrically crafted (what kind of cultivator would choose a zhanmadao when a jian is so much more ethereal and versatile?) and wielded by dozens of prodigiously talented cultivators before.

Each one of them set it aside, finding it too heavy and unwieldy for their ambitions. Each and every one of them died for it. It could feel through the bond as they each fell, the lighter, sleeker blades they replaced it with crumbling like paper under the weight of the destinies they all bore.

If it stopped calling out to young prodigies after its history of losses things would have been... much the same, probably, because Yue Qi has heard about the power of Xuan Su before he stepped foot in the sword hall, but there might have been a chance that he might have heard the call of a sword more suited to his level of cultivation, one that could have grown organically along with him.

The problem is, Xuan Su keeps calling out to new wielders and no amount of warning from Wan Jian's masters could convince the ambitious prodigies to give up on the chance to be the one who carried the famed Xuan Su to ascension.

After losing too many of its people, however, Xuan Su no longer knows how to bond normally. It clings too hard, hooks its metaphorical claws into its cultivator's soul, crawls through their meridians until there's no boundary left between them.

The last three people who tried to take it up didn't live long enough to unsheathe it.

For good or ill, Yue Qingyuan will be the last one to ever wield Xuan Su. It will either ascend with him, die with him or Wei Qingwei will throw it in the Wan Jian forge where the cursed thing deserves to be if it manages to outlive zhangmen-shixiong.

The thing is, however, that an old sword doesn't necessarily mean a mature one. Xuan Su wasn't wielded enough for its spirit to have matured fully. The only cultivator who even entertained it past the first few months of realizing that fighting with a zhanmadao is an unwieldy affair, that they could never become the picture of divine grace hauling around a blade that gave some polearms a run for their money, has been Yue Qingyuan, so most of Xuan Su's personality comes from him.

A thousand years worth of guilt and abandonment issues mixed with whatever traits it borrowed from semi-feral ex-slave teenager Yue Qi when they bonded does not make for a pleasant personality. It would remind Yue Qingyuan of a young Xiao-Jiu, expect Xuan Su has a brand of unashamed bloodthirstiness that can't be replicated by anything that's not made of 5 feet of sharp-edged murder.

It's not all bad. Xuan Su mourned with him when they though Shen Jiu was dead and rejoiced when they found him again. It has been trying its best to help Yue Qingyuan fight his heart demons so he could confess to Shen Qingqiu, even when it has heart demons of its own. They are beyond compatible in the physical and spiritual sense, granting Yue Qi the almost inhuman strength he became famous for. The mental component of their cultivation stagnates, however, because they are trying to split their attention between dealing with Yue Qingyuan's guilt and Xuan Su's abandonment issues and they are getting nowhere.

It's Shang Qinghua who accidentally gives them the push to pick one or the other. ("All right, enough!" Shang Qinghua claps his hands and freezes the dozen frantic An Ding disciples almost coming to blows about which one of their three separate crises should get the most resources. "You," he points at a kid with a missing front tooth. "All resources to your problem. And when that's done, then to his,-" Points at another child. "- and then hers. This way all of them will get solved on time and they will get solved better because you don't spread yourself thin trying to do three different things requiring full focus at once.") They decide to address Xuan Su's bottleneck because it's easier: Yue Qingyuan has already proved that he would not abandon it. They will ascend or die together.

They don't expect the backlash from its breakthrough to knock Yue Qingyuan out for several weeks (it's the bond stabilizing, finally, but his body and core need time to grow accustomed to only having his qi and his life force, all contained neatly within him as it should have been all these years). Weeks while Xuan Su is left alone on the peaks, unsupervised and without anybody knowing that it currently wears the form of a fourteen-year-old boy.

So of course the first thing it (he?) does is slip away before anyone could identify him and goes to Shen Qingqiu. The plan is simple: chew the man out for making Yue Qi sad all these years and then tell him what went down in the caves so he forgives Xuan Su's human and they can all be a happy family together! (A lot of its previous wielders sought fame to be allowed to wed various people they would not be able to marry otherwise, so Xuan Su might have acquired a passing interest in romance. Xuan Su approves of Yue Qi's choice, Shen Qingqiu is a sharp, very sword-like human and Xiu Ya is a very nice, well-balanced sword, but they really keep dragging things out way too long.)

Except Shen Qingqiu doesn't believe that the suddenly appearing feral teenager on his peak is actually a sword spirit. Swords cultivating human form are the stuff of legends and Yue Qi is far too down-to-earth for any of that nonsense. So clearly this Xiao-Su is an orphan his idiot Qi-ge has adopted; he's certainly feral enough to be one. No idea where Yue Qingquan has hidden this child before, but he's not quite presentable enough to be among the Qiong Ding disciples, despite the wonderfully elaborate clothes he's wearing. He enjoys food like he's tasting decent cooking for the first time, so he must not have been here long. Shen Qingqiu remembers being much the same when he first got to eat regularly, but hiding it much better, thank you very much.

Shen Qingqiu decides that he's going to keep an eye on his shixiong's charge until the man wakes up, because it's obvious that the kid can't be allowed to wander the peaks unsupervised. This decision has obviously nothing to do with Xiao-Su's instant hatred towards the little beast. Nope. Nothing at all.

Xuan Su eventually does manage to tell Shen Qingqiu that Qi-ge came back for him. Yue Qingyuan wakes up and confirms that yes, that bratty rascal is the great and powerful Xuan Su. They eventually learn about Binghe's demonic heritage and go investigating how the hell that has happened. But not before a few weeks of shenanigans and Luo Binghe accidentally winning Xuan Su (and by proxy Shen Qingqiu, much to the man's annoyance) over by the wonders of his godly cooking skills.

[mayvnwrites]

Fox demon sy au, except more demon and less uwu.

After dying due to expired food, SY wakes up as a fox demon with a natural affinity to poisons and poisoning. He is unamused at the irony, thanks, but at the same time... he IS kind of in some chaotic demon realm adjacent like place and needs all the help he can get, so ... thanks?

His transmigration even came with a subspace for drying and preserving herbs and ingredients, and an encyclopedic manual of all the possible tinctures, ingredients, and handling procedures installed into his brain.

Pretty adequate, although the subspace can only take medicinal ingredients and can't be used for growing/raising ingredients, and the manual is so massive SY feels like it will take decades to read. (Spoilers: it does take decades to read)

Cool, SY thinks, I can be a wandering apothecary and stuff - but of course things don't turn out like that, because why wouldn't this world be full of poisonous plants that require... um ... *alternative* methods of healing.

After the fifth time someone tries to force SY to cure someone with papapa, he says fk it and, unable to escape in more conventional ways, he poisons his way out of the demon lord's castle.

SY is also beginning to understand which world he's been transmigrated to and is cursing a "Master Airplane" under his breath nonstop as he stomps angrily away from rando demon lord's territory, almost no guilt in his heart because the dude and his vassals eat people and are *assholes*.

SY starts using the direct method (aka poison) in refusing persistent inquisitors that want help he's unwilling to give (whether it's papapa or just a matter of principle) and slowly becomes known more for poisoning than cures. Doesn't help that SY has evolved from death-poisons to poisons that would make you wish you were dead.

Soon SY is known as a fox who would rather kill you than speak to you.

At first SY feels upset about this, because after all that work curing people, killing people is what he's known for? But eventually he's like, whatever gets people to stop bothering me~.

After decades, SY has embraced getting his way with his pretty face and poisonings, becoming a bit of a naughty foxy, and is enjoying his life away from the plot and with much less harrassment by the demons.

He's gained the title of Poisonous Shoutao (longevity peach), and his reputation as a venomous fox demon who could cure whatever ails you but would rather poison you has grown far and wide (as well as his foxy bewitching ways as he gloats over poisoning you).

SY has a long list of admirers and haters alike, including those grateful for his healing and those who want revenge for his poisonings, but what good demon *doesn't* have an enemy or 20?

And then one of his haters sets him up to be the scapegoat of a rash of poisonings in some human communities, and suddenly SY is the target of some pony-tailed pretty boy head disciple from Cang Qiong with a mole, who hasn't realized that the Poisonous Shoutao is outside of his capabilities... after paralyzing the boy, SY thinks about just ending the kid but... well, SY has used his pretty face to sway others before, but this is the first time he's been swayed by a pretty face.

B-besides, it's probably better to avoid making enemies of Cang Qiong, no matter where in the plot they are right now! So SY just teases the kid until the kid's practically steaming (out of anger? or...), reveals he's NOT the culprit, and disappears into the night with a faint scent of nightshade lingering behind.

Expecting it all to be done and dusted after that, SY is surprised to find out that the pretty boy now has a vendetta against him and has sworn to take him down.

Cue cat-and-mouse interactions all over the two realms with a poisonous (and slightly flirty) fox demon chased by a serious (but easily flustered - at least when it comes to a certain fox) young cultivator.

[larothoughts]

anti-ship adjacent ships: liujiu and qijiu

so there's this weird thing that's happening in svsss of all fandoms that reminds me a lot of voltron's klance and sheith fiasco AKA the formation of what i like to call anti-ship adjacent ships

basically, when someone's favorite ship is more indicative of them being an anti-shipper of another ship.

i've had to start excluding liujiu in my ao3 searches because more often than not, the fics that come up are yqy-bashing and what?? this is svsss, right? mxtx's trashiest, most problematic, harem-bicycle-shen-yuan svsss? what is this moral outrage doing in my degenerate danmei fic space, and why are you mischaracterizing yqy just to make an excuse to hate on him??

i've had a few thoughts on the rising dichotomy of shen jiu sympathizers both validating sj's bad behavior and hating yqy for enabling the same behavior. and then shipping him with lqg because liujiu is 'less toxic.' As an old lady fanfic reader who's trawled through all the godforsaken dead dove ships of the old livejournal kink_meme, i'm writing these out because making sense of things helps me cope and i am too old for this shit

(this is actually more 'why anti-qijiu' word vomit than liujiu specific--it just so happens that so many liujiu fics are bizarrely anti-qijiu.)

narrative reasons for anti-yqy liujiu fic:

aka why an author finds it easier for the plot to bash qi-ge

accepting either romantic or platonic qijiu means trying to fix qijiu. this is hard. yqy and sj already have a proven history of failure, while sj and lqg (aka author's ideal white-knight love interest) would be the perfect do-over. making yqy a clear abusive villain sj must cut off ties with 'for his mental health' solves the problem without having to fix things. it frees the author to write what they thought qi-ge should have done to 'save shen jiu right.'

on the same note, liujiu have nearly no canon crumbs. the author can write them however they want without being constrained by their canon relationship.

why lqg over other possible ships? other than yqy, lqg is one of the few characters with any sort of previous relationship with sj. lqg is canonically hot, has strong (even if negative) feelings towards sj, and has no textual or subtextual canon ship (beyond a one-sided crush on shen yuan, with lbh getting in his way lol.) he is also the same generation as sj and thus avoids any age gap squicks like with sj's other ship partners (looking at you tlj)

yqy is the only person in cang qiong with higher authority than shen jiu. while other peak lords are antagonistic, all are ranked lower and can't get in liujiu's way the same way as yqy can as a sect leader. not even the old palace master has the same power because he's the head of a different sect. so if you really want to write a villain abusing their (implicit) power over shen jiu, yqy is the only one that fits the bill.

lbh, as sj's disciple, does not fit the same abuse of power trope even if he becomes an op demon lord. as for bingjiu, lbh's brand of diabolical stalkerish yandere is so over-the-top it's hard to equate him to any real relationship. it's easier to twist yqy's passivity to villainy because it's closer to reasonable human behavior.

if one is coming from the tgcf fandom, yue qingyuan is the closest junwu-adjacent character in terms of personality and rank (on the surface.) so it's easy to transfer any junwu hate to yqy by giving him all of junwu's worst traits and making him 'junwu-lite'

same thing as above but with mdzs and the lan xichen hate for his inaction regarding his own little meowmeow (jgy).

personal author-reasons for anti-yqy liujiu fic:

aka when the character himself doesn't matter

let's get a silly one out of the way: maybe the author only headcanons top shen jiu and most qijiu has sj being a bottom. lqg gives off better hot twinky bottom energy than submissive-but-still-tops yqy. this does not explain the anti-shipping though.

less silly: an author is projecting either themselves or other people in their real life onto their fic, and changing the character's personalities to match their real life projected counterparts (even if ooc). sj is a clear abuse-survivor insert, which shoe-horns other characters into roles that real people in the author's lives have. i think yqy is often seen as the insert for someone who 'could have helped but didn't.' there are many valid reasons why someone would be more mad at the person who averted their gaze rather than their actual abuser, but that doesn't change the fact that qijiu's relationship in canon is so much more complicated.

(it's easier to hate enablers instead of abusers, because hating abusers and inviting confrontation is dangerous. most of the time, enablers won't hurt you directly. they are the safer person to hate.)

an author thinks they could have saved sj better, that qi-ge had more than enough time to fix things and his failure not to do so must be punished by taking away his sj-simp-card and throwing him into the villain bin. this is similar to the phenomenon where an author hates the wife of canon anime couples b/c the author could clearly wife him better. and then writes a fic bashing said wife.

an author sees a messy relationship and equates messy with abusive. in reality many relationships can be messy but not abusive, messy but still fixable, but due to their personal experiences they see any attempt to do so as toxic. in this scenario yqy is often the abuser-insert and his ooc characterization takes after the author's own abuser.

specifically in fics where lqg has the personality of a cardboard cut-out: using liujiu to tell others they are still pro-ship, when in reality they dislike qijiu for their own reasons (and can't help but write it in their fic). it really reminds me of middle school lol like kids trying to find their identity by hating another identity. the whole 'ew pink is overrated, i hate preps which means i must be a nerdy rebel' and then two years later you realize you're not a nerdy rebel after all, you just based your entire identity on what you thought was the opposite of what you hated.

why i try not to read anti-qijiu liujiu fics:

aka write whatever you want, but sometimes i have to choose not to read

authors can write whatever they want. we're all doing this for free, so it's expected that a lot of fanfic have venting and some self-imposing onto a fictional character. i don't expect authors to NOT put themselves in their fic in some way. at the same time, however, i hope authors are self-aware enough to not bash another character just because that character reminds them of someone irl.

aka i get uncomfortable when i read a fic that has an author's obvious real-person insert. i'm not reading svsss fic anymore, i'm reading the author's version of punishing their abuser using fiction. i love transformative media that adds onto the canon! i love different interpretations even! but i'm here to read svsss? where are the svsss characters??

i'm not into character-bashing in general. i think the point of svsss and all of bingqiu's misunderstandings is the fact that good/evil is not a binary. sy spent the whole series fearing the 'evil' binghe despite the fact that post-abyss binghe was a complex person, causing a chain reaction of disaster. hell, shen jiu is the king of gray characters! he is a scum villain, evil and misunderstood, to be a sj-fan means to understand that no one is entirely good or evil. so it's even more cognitively dissonant when a pro-sj fic is so categorically anti-qijiu, as this often paints sj as good/misunderstood and yqy as bad.

(the only character-bashing i don't care about is the old palace master mxtx clearly wrote him to be bashed so throw him in a fire)

i don't mind liujiu actually, i think the dynamic has potential (see all the sj harem fic i've read lol) but qi-ge is such a big part of sj's character that vilifying/getting rid of him does sj a disservice too? sj has a shit ton of bad coping mechanisms, these aren't going to be magically fixed if yqy gets his limbs chopped off as 'just punishment' (??) for not stopping sj from abusing his own students (????)

in conclusion

there is no point to this rambling, and you don't need to agree with me on anything. these are just thoughts i had when trying to figure out why anti-ship adjacent ships even exist. the moral outrage is giving me war flashbacks of anti-sheith klance fans using their age gap as justification for their own ship, rather than liking klance for... being klance.

(I briefly considered going over all liujiu vs qijiu morality arguments, but if you're an sj fan i feel like morality arguments are pointless. he is an angry feral scum kitten who hits kids, no sj-fan has the moral high ground here.)

it's always unfortunate to see so much anti-shipping spilling into fandom, since by default most of us are living in the fringe minority anyway. further dividing us is just going to sink the whole ocean ala the death of livejournal and chinese ban on ao3. there's no point in ships if there ain't an ocean to sail in! aren't we all here because we are fans of these stories???

bonus

to make up for what must feel like a huge anti liujiu wall of text, here are some of my general thoughts on how their relationship would work. i'm more familiar with sj so most of these are from his pov.

while sj often has schemes upon schemes upon schemes, when it comes to anger/criticism/negativity, he's scathingly honest. lqg, a fellow honest asshole, is often on the same wavelength. once misunderstandings are cleared up and lqg realizes sj will do whatever it takes to protect big bro yqy (and thus the sect), they're able to work together as a ruthless team against cang qiong's enemies.

let's also assume fixing sj's emotional issues stops him from the worst of his scumminess aka whipping his disciples half to death.

teamwork -> enemies to lovers -> only one bed trope???

sj needs someone who will overtly believe in his goodness, and lqg, once he realizes the mistakes in his assumptions, is a loyal wall of support. unlike qi-ge who must always play diplomat, lqg blazes over all social cues. who cares if this looks bad on cang qiong, he'll throw down with anyone if his boo is insulted.

lqg is upfront and honest. there are no hidden plots for sj to be paranoid about in lqg, he's a Good Man through-and-through. if lqg has problems, he'll tell him. if he needs to apologize and sj tells him why, he'll do so. and if sj asks him a question, he'll always do his best to answer.

while lqg knows sj has trauma and a dark past, he will never truly understand what it was like. and that's exactly what sj wants. he likes how lqg knows him more as he is now in the present vs. someone who has lived through the same past. being with him is a reminder that he is now a powerful peak lord, not the starving street rat he once was.

for lqg, sj is like a complex puzzle box. an enigma so outside of his understanding of how the world works, he can't help but be drawn to it. he used to equate scheming with evil, but once he realizes much of sj's scheming was for the good of the sect, he lets himself be impressed by sj's intelligence. the fact that sj became a peak lord from nothing shows a certain type of strength-- and lqg has always appreciated strength.

a big roadblock in their relationship was sj's antagonism towards yqy (their sect leader whom lqg respects.) once qijiu reconcile (or sj stops being so disrespectful to yqy in public) lqg is better able to see him as an ally vs. an enemy.

sj rewards this loyalty by taking care of lqg's hidden enemies, because straightforward brutes are especially susceptible to devious snakes like that. sj would know. whether or not he tells lqg can go either way. he tells lqg if only to stop lqg from hearing it elsewhere and assuming the worst; or he doesn't tell lqg because he knows lqg trusts him and confusing his mind with schemes would just make him grumpy for not understanding.

...even if he's cute when he's grumpy.

[koolades-world]

Hey! I'm sorry if your (inbox, is it called?" Is closed, I just read your little story on how the brothers would react to an MC with a British accent.I was wondering if you could do a reaction to a Puerto Rican MC? Again, I'm sorry if your inbox is closed.

OMG HI inbox is open no worries!

so excited for this!! had to do a double take at first. I'm actually half puerto rican half indian! weird combo i know BUT I absolutely love this request! sometimes it's hard for me to be positive about my background and who I am. usually any mention of my race or ethnicity feels like a knife to the back, but I'm so excited for my chance to be happy about who I am

I know it just came in but as soon as I saw this I knew I had to write it right away! this is something that has every puerto rican gene in my body infused into it and despite being so short, it probably has some of the most love i've probably ever put into a piece of writing

thank you :))) please enjoy

Puerto Rican Mc

Lucifer

at first, it doesn't mean a lot to him since you're not that close yet

but later on, he begins to understand why you're so proud of your background

he totally understands being loud and proud about who you are and not being afraid to shy away from others about it

any demon who comments on this negatively vanishes mysteriously

Mammon

bonding over being poc and being able to share the struggle with each other

you understand each other and he knows what it feel like to look around and realize you're the only poc in the room. you're not alone with him by your side

lots of sweet moments and tears shared together and an inseparable bond

at the end of the day, you have each other <3

Levi

once you get close, he introduces you to all of his favorite puerto rican characters

admires how protective and loyal you are of those you're close to

values you so dearly

he doesn't regret opening up to you because it was the best choice he ever made

Satan

he begins to collect books he'd think you'd like written by puerto rican authors or have puerto rican characters because he knows how excited you'll get

he goes out of his way to introduce you to his favorite puerto rican adjacent restaurant in the devildom

takes you on plenty of trips to the human world to experience home again if you need it or just to eat good food

could listen to you talk for hours about why being puerto rican is great

Asmo

think the fact that you speak spanish (or some) is so hot (a/n: I myself speak very little haha)

immediately asks you to teach him some and to say something that sounds sexy even if it's not actually

gifts you all sorts of things that either have the puerto rican flag or have the same colors as the puerto rican flag, like clothes or little trinkets

acts as your personal cheerleader whenever you need it

Beel

loves the culinary journey you take him on through your culture

he especially loves coquito and limber (a/n: my personal favs)

asks you to teach him how to make several puerto rican dishes that practically makes your heart explode with joy

he knows food is always a huge part of the culture and in honored you showed him all the ins and outs

Belphie

likes to poke fun at you from time to time to see how defensive you'll get

you poke fun at him right back with lots of cow jokes

you two playfight a lot, usually with you being victorious maybe because he let you

however, there's always room for you under his covers where ever he might be

[shutupineedtothink]

Ok this has been sitting in my drafts for a minute but since nobody asked for it, here’s my full Nicky headcannon. It leads into an insane MCU witch movie with Agatha, Wanda, Rio, Billy, Tommy (?), maybe Jen and even Alice. All the witches! I got yall.

So, Nicky Scratch. That boy is Agatha and Rio’s but most prominently he is Death’s Son, right. A demigod something or other, an entity, Something Else. Not really human/mortal, but certainly not dead either. He’s in the same class of whatever Rio is. Rio knows this from day one. Agatha does not.

That means two main things: Nicky isn’t really “dead,” (he wasn’t even supposed to be “living”) and that kid should have hella powers. We should have seen some indication of that imo in the show but I can explain it away easily enough in a minute. Either way, under the surface he should have scary magic along the lines of Billy if not far more powerful.

Except while Billy has essentially Wanda’s magic, creator magic, Nicky’s is much, much darker. You know, something fitting of a child of Death.

Let’s say Nicky has Black Magic. 👀 haven’t seen that one on the color wheel of magic colors yet amirite. (Except the Darkhold I suppose, which is an interesting connection potentially.) Or maybe it's like Dark Magic, as in literal darkness. Darkling style. Maybe it's somehow a dark/light binary, like how Rio is technically a death/life binary. Idk I'm working on it, but you get the idea. He's on another level, something adjacent to Rio but not quite the same.

His magic is so strong, corrosive, not evil necessarily but heavy and consuming, that it was killing his mortal body from the beginning.

That’s why he was never meant to live in the first place — like Rio he is Another Being, his magic is Something Else. It’s too much for a human little boy. He needed to join her to really “live” and have any hope of control over his magic.

His powers also make him a massive target for who knows what demons and underworld beings. … you see where this could go.

So in this version, let’s say Rio has a much deeper connection to Nicky on a magical level. She can tell when his magic is about to manifest in the world of the living and takes him right before that happens, otherwise both him and Agatha will be in danger. Perhaps she even tells Nicky what’s happening, and he can feel it coming too, which also accounts for why he goes with her so willingly, to protect his mama from his own power. Kind of a lot for a six-year-old to understand but again, he’s Special.

Maybe Rio’s even been keeping the monsters off Nicky and Agatha’s trail while Nicky was human. Tbh it was a miracle she managed it for six years alongside her other responsibilities. She never told Agatha a) because she didn’t want her being more afraid than she already was, b) because would it have really made any difference, Agatha would hate her either way and c) For The Drama.

When Rio takes Nicky, maybe she stashes him in some kind of purgatory space. Pocket dimension? Idk we have no idea what she has access to but let’s say she hides him away somewhere so that she can teach him to use his magic and keep him away from the demons. This is where I would pull in Alice if possible, after we see Rio take her into the smoke in ep 8 Rio makes her an offer to help her protect Nicky in purgatory for a while, because his powers are only getting stronger and she's starting to get worried something's going to happen. Yes, diverting a soul like that is wildly against the rules. She does it anyway for her son.

All of this of course makes Agatha’s hatred for Rio that much worse, because Nicky is still “alive” in a sense and Rio is doing everything she can to protect him and raise him and help him control his magic. She can’t tell Agatha any of this because anyone else who knows about Nicky is a liability. Again, she really shouldn’t have even let him live with Agatha in the first place, it was a massive risk to everyone involved. But she did, and Agatha has no idea what a gift that was, for her and for Nicky.

All of that said, this would set us up for some CRaZy MCU witch/underworld stuff. So here’s the rough outline of my movie: let’s say the demons finally find Nicky wherever Rio has him hidden and take him to the underworld, Mephisto, blah blah whatever. I’m not worried about the motive at this point. Age Nicky up to Billy’s age roughly so he can be a real character. Btw, in my head Nicky is still the sweetest bean, total opposite to either of his mothers, too good for this world, cursed with this insane power he doesn’t know what to do with. Obviously, we have some opportunity to develop him from there.

Anyway, once she finds out he’s gone, Rio is forced to tell Agatha the truth. There’s no one else she can trust to get Nicky back. (I’m imagining a juicy confrontation between the two of them where we just let Kathryn and Aubrey cook with the exposition.) Rio can’t go to the underworld herself for some reason, because of The Cosmic Rules, and the Jac Schaeffer rules of Rio can’t hang around on screen for too long (which I like, actually).

Rio only deals with the mortal plane and directing souls to whatever comes next. So it has to be Agatha who rescues him, but as a ghost she’s stuck on the mortal plane too. So now we gotta “bring her back to life,” because I need real life Kathryn Hahn in this full movie not as a ghost, you feel me. And she has to be able to use her magic. So we gotta manifest a new body around her ghost form. At first they think Billy can do it, but even he’s not that powerful, not to mention still relatively untrained.

… Do you see the vision yet?

There’s only one witch, who may or may not be dead, who can manifest Agatha Harkness back into a living breathing body. And Agatha HATES it with every fiber of her noncorporeal being, but she needs the Scarlet Witch to make her mortal again, so that she can go to the underworld and save her son. Of course, chaos and shenanigans ensue, and Wanda and the boys end up going with her.

I’m calling the movie — Agatha Harkness and the Scarlet Witch. It’s a team up babyyyy! It’s about women and power, Wanda and Agatha being two sides of the same coin, mothers and their sons, rewriting your story, reuniting and letting go, etc etc etc. Yes I have entire scenes already written in my head, no I’ll never actually write the fic or the screenplay, if somebody wants to run with this please let me know and I’ll give you what I got.

The point is, the story potential on Nicky is insane to be The One Who Brings Everyone Else Together and I really hope they don’t just throw it away.

[chuckeroo777]

Dungeon Meshi Volume 13 Part 2

Welcome back! Things are about to get crazy, so let's dive right in!

Is it any wonder the community unanimously decided this was Marcille's chimera-sona? She's cute, she's sky-fish adjacent, she has a flower crown (A hallmark of only the most mentally stable characters). What's not to love? And as Mithrun will agree, snake women are sexy.

Later, Kabru suspects Laios stumbled into saving the world, but my man was seriously planning six steps ahead. He came up with the ultimate plan to kill the ultimate monster.

Marcille is understandably upset that the lion stole her cool outfit. She wanted to show that to Falin later!

Nothing personal kid.

The demon isn't malevolent my ass. It knows what Mithrun wants. It just can't be assed to bother.

I know the right page is the important one, but oh my god. Laios, did you seriously doodle blueprints of your stupid "Falin lives in a hole now" plan? Did you seriously doodle your "female faligon" idea?

Anyway, as is tradition with ultimate chimera appearances, here is another one of my creatures!

I'll leave it to the viewer to try and figure out what inspired this freak.

Of course Laios' takeaway from the succubus was that Scyllas are cool. Fun fact, some of these details are actually relevant. The ability to change shape is apparently how he managed to return to human form, and the poop thing explains why New Melini is forested despite being underwater for 1000 years.

Marcille isn't even surprised at this point. Just deeply disappointed.

Toshiro, why are you smiling? Kabru, that looks more like awe than fear.

Bitch, I'm fabulous.

Marcille, you're the one who created the monster that vores people, that's it's whole job.

Don't worry Marcille. This disaster is due to an incredibly complex confluence of unpredictable events. In other words, it's everybody's fault! Hooray!

God, this is so funny.

Leave my boy alone! At least we can all agree the collar is cool.

Oh, that's a neat detail. Time is stopped for all the humans, but the monsters can still move.

When I first read this, I thought the plan was that now that the lion is in a finite body, we can eat it. Like, I thought that was how it was going to end as soon as they swapped. But Laios is way ahead of me.

Good to see the rest of the party came to the same conclusion I did. And Marcille's eyes are still on the prize.

Famous last words.

Rude.

Yeah, but we're expressing a desire regarding his treatment you raging douche-muffin. You're freaking infinite. We've seen you have the power to pacify monsters peacefully.

It's so fitting, that Laios, our favorite dog, saved the world by eating something he really shouldn't have.

👏Full Circle!👏

Oh Marcille. I'd have thought you'd have learned by now to have a little more faith in your brother-in-law.

Ah, dungeon food. To eat is the privilege of the living. There is no hierarchy.

That sounds like the words of a loser to me.

And that's it for volume 13! Didn't have as much to say as I thought I might. Guess this climax speaks for itself. What a powerful and thematic ending to the demon. See why I'm having trouble figuring out what direction to take my AU? Figuring out the changes to monster of the week chapters is easy. Figuring out how to do the big thematic battles against Thistle and the Demon are hard. It's hard to imagine anyone but Laios prevailing against such opponents.

Anyway, see you next time for the finale! Here, have a couple of extra Marcilles. I thought I would need more of them.

Cannibalism?

A precious image.

[ticklishfiend]

A Joint Effort (Good Omens)

(lee!crowley / ler!aziraphale)

Summary : in which aziraphale and crowley created tickling together many years ago (alt. and reminisce on it many years later)

a/n : lowkey this is very conversational abt tickling but i do (personally) love a fic that discusses the topic :D there is tickling tho dw LOL i just wanted to write some tickly dialogue

word count : 4065

hope u enjoy! pls consider giving a reblog if u liked it <33

. . .

A lot of things went through Crowley’s mind as he gazed at that all too familiar lake. Mainly all the times he and Aziraphale met here to discuss their “private affairs,” a secret team-up only one angel, one demon, and dozens of ducks could know about.

More recently it was all that dreary “end of the world” business he’d quite frankly prefer to Men In Black himself out of remembering (by the way, what a fantastic film that one was, the humans couldn’t have been both more far off and somehow right on the nose with it). The lake was lucky it was still so pretty after all these years, otherwise he’d have stopped visiting after everything resolved itself some time ago.

Humans had a phrase for what he tended to do alone on the bench. “People-watching,” they call it. Such a funny phrase considering it’s technically been his job since the creation of man itself. Maybe that’s why he enjoyed doing it so much. Technically, it’s kinda what he was made for.

He listened as a man adjacent to him across the lake was thinking and thinking his little head off. The man pondered over a woman, a lover Crowley presumed, and apparently how good their date had gone last night. Crowley noticed him fiddling with something in his pocket. Oh yes, a ring. What a disgustingly adorable tradition.

Crowley tapped his ring finger against the bench with an unknown impatience.

He saw that close by, a woman made her way towards the man (ah wait, it’s the woman, he could hear the man’s heart rate pick up and blood sloshing towards his cheeks, kinda gross how their bodies betray them), her hand finding his as she laid her head down on his shoulder. Crowley’s throat made a funny sound as he crossed his arms.

Crowley didn’t care much for the conversation, much more of an observer than a listener. Out of habit, he almost sent an evil little miracle their way, a “no” from the woman catching at his fingertips and becoming clenched in his fist. Actually…this might be the first successful proposal he’ll ever witness. He can hear the yes before she’s even said it, so much love radiating between them it's like radiation to his skin.

But he wants to see this play out. Just because he actually can now. Yeah…trying new things and all.

So it plays out just like the movies. He gets down on one knee, she cries, yadayadayada, blahblahblah. But this time, Crowley can actually feel it. This isn’t like seeing it through the screen. Those emotions become one with the air, making the whole park’s atmosphere thick and sugar-scented. It makes his skin crawl. Or he got goosebumps. He can't tell for sure, maybe it’s all one and the same.

He keeps watching the couple, telling himself he’s invested like one would stare at a car crash (even though nothing about this is a wreck at all, it’s a tad beautiful and Crowley knows this, but there’s still something so wretched about how his eyes stay glued to that spot across the lake).

They keep giggling and kissing, snapping a few photos of the moment and basking in each other. The man lifts the woman and twirls her around, her sun dress twirling with her and making the scene look so…ugh, romantic.

Or…just romantic. Maybe there’s no need to groan so hard at that.

Then the woman does something that snaps Crowley out of his little haze (call it jealousy and Crowley will treat your legs like snap peas). She pokes and squishes around her new fiancés sides, and said fiancé begins to giggle. The woman gave the man a tickle.

Tickling is far from a new concept to Crowley. Actually, he may have had a little hand in creating it. It wasn’t his idea exactly, he didn’t sign off on the paperwork or anything, but let’s just say laughter wasn’t the first possible noise option. He thought it’d be a bit more creative if there was less screaming in hell from time to time.

Most people would probably assume tickling came straight down from above, a place of innocence and love and, yeah, laughter. Others may even say it’s a hellish creation, but those tended to be the ones that drew the short end of the ticklish stick (that is to say, they’re probably really fucking ticklish).

But honestly, this one was kind of a joint effort. Is the paperwork technically written on a heavenly scroll? Sure, yeah. But who was the one that signed off on that scroll in the first place?

Well, Aziraphale did always have such an obnoxiously perfect signature.

Near the beginning, Crowley had overheard some demons discussing new torture methods for the humans to use on each other, something easy that required less machinery on their part. One brainstorm talked of the humans being able to do nothing but poke at their enemy to get them howling in pain.

And, well, Crowley thought that sounded laughably absurd.

So the next time he saw Aziraphale on Earth, he gossiped like usual. Talked of how stupid it sounded, how the humans would get so out of hand using it they’d never get anything productive done. And of course, Aziraphale agreed (though he was at first quite shocked a demon was against any brainstormed torture method, no matter how ridiculous).

Together they devised a little scheme. Nothing major, just something to beat the demons to the race. They had to though, right? It’d just be stupid to ruin something as precious as humanity over a few pokes.

So, instead of screaming in pain, the humans would scream in laughter. It wouldn’t hurt, unless the human was too rough of course, and really the worst it could do was embarrass the victim (except when Crowley snuck in that sometimes they may wet themselves, as a silly little gag. Aziraphale may have been too distracted trying to find a mysterious, strangely itchy dark feather in his garments when he wrote that one). It was such a silly invention, and Aziraphale even felt a little embarrassed bringing it to Gabriel, but oh how the other angels adored it. It was a new game for their humans to play, to occupy and fill the time of their short useless existences. It was a perfect time-waster.

And so became tickling. A joint project created by Crowley and Aziraphale, one of the first little schemes they pulled together that only dipped their toes into everything that came after. And now Crowley got to watch as his invention created a positive memory for some random romantics at his favorite park.

It was weird. He’s never felt funny about tickling before, but since he and Aziraphale have gotten rather…um, close recently, seeing this couple be all flirty and affectionate and tickly was making him feel funny feelings about it he’s never felt before.

He’s not blushing. That’s a human thing. He’s just…warm.

Crowley shakes his head, emptying his mind of all that weird mushy shite. He brings his eyes back to the couple, seeing them kiss and talk and bask in each other’s otherness. Part of him made that happen, in some cosmic butterfly effect sort of way.

Maybe everything is a circle, just as they say. Like it’s all meant to be. One particular word stings at his tongue, he’s heard it a thousand times before out of Aziraphale’s mouth when the subject of a great plan is brought up. He’ll just have to save it for when his angel comes back around.

…

—( alt : s2 ending never happened and crowley goes back to the bookshop afterward and everything is fine and dandy and happy :D )

…

The bell above the bookshop’s door rang a familiar chime when Crowley stepped through, announcing his presence to the one and only being it should matter to. He practically beelined for the drapes, figuring it far too bright for a cozy bookshop even with his sunglasses on.

Crowley heard behind him the soft angelic clunk of each foot making their way down the staircase, the room brightening on its own as Aziraphale made his way down.

“Well that wasn’t a very long outing,” Aziraphale rounded into the main area, cup of tea in hand. “Did something happen?”

Crowley dusted the drapes with his hands, “Such a worrywart, you are,” spinning around and brushing his hands as he met eyes with the one on his mind all afternoon. “The park just got boring, don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes, “Excuse me for noticing that you’re home earlier than usual,” he muttered, taking his next sip with attitude. “But since you’re back so soon, maybe we could…hang out, as the youth say,” he smiled that thin-lipped smile, and Crowley groaned in the back of his throat, following Aziraphale towards the back room (yknow, the one with the couch that Crowley can stretch his legs on as long as he needs and nothing ever feels uncomfortable).

“Grahk, angel, there’s a reason that only the youth should be saying these things. Sounds…unnatural, on your tongue,” Crowley plopped down on his favorite couch, his hand in Aziraphale’s (he’s not even sure when that happened, but who is he to complain?) leading him down to the spot next to his. Aziraphale did a wiggle as he sat, like getting the cushion ready for him.

“I like integrating new shortened language into my vocabulary,” Aziraphale pouted behind his cup.

“Helps me understand everyone better.”

Crowley tutted, “Okay, well, one: it’s not called “shortened language” anymore, you boob. They say slang now. If you don’t even know the word slang, you definitely shouldn’t be using it in the first place,” Crowley propped his feet up on Aziraphale’s lap, the only acknowledgment of his position being Aziraphale’s zero hesitation in using his shins as an armrest. “And two: you already have the most extensive vocabulary on the planet. You can know all the words and phrases you like, but I doubt you’re in dire need of any new ones to use.”

Aziraphale sat his glass down on the coffee table, leaning against Crowley’s legs. “I think you’re just jealous. Envy is one of the seven sins, correct?”

Crowley merely huffed, throwing an arm against the couch’s own and propping his cheek against his hand. He gazed a bit longingly at the angel, who seemed more interested in picking lint off his trousers at the moment. “Saw something at the park I thought you’d like.”

Aziraphale’s ears perked, but more or less remained focused on grooming Crowley’s pants. “Oh?”

“Want you to guess.”

That caught his attention, an annoyed glare thrown Crowley’s way. “I hate this game.”

“Naaaah you love it. Cmon, guess.”

“I’ll at least need a hint, Crowley. It could literally be an infinite number of things,” Aziraphale sat back against the couch now, finally interested in the conversation even if he continued with the annoyed charade, hands folded on Crowley’s shins. “At least tell me if it’s good or bad. You know how I hate bad surprises.”

“It’s good, trust me,” Crowley grinned. “Has to do with something we created a looong time ago. I’m talkin’ B.C, baby.”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows raised, really curious now.

“We created it?”

“That we did, angel.”

Aziraphale hummed, fingers fidgeting with the fabric, before gasping in excitement, “Was it a chihuahua?”

Crowley’s own eyebrows shot up at that, nearly having forgotten they created that wretched animal.

“Oh but they’re so cute, Crowley, look at how tiny!”

“Fine, but that thing’s gonna be a beast, I don’t care how little it is.”

“Heheh, no but good guess,” He chuckled, sliding his glasses off and tucking them into his front pocket. His hands mimicked Aziraphale’s, fingers crossed but against his chest. “One more hint: I saw some very…giggly humans.”

It took him a moment, but finally Aziraphale grinned, giving Crowley’s knee a few squeezes and delighting in the squeak and kick against the other arm of the couch. He giggled as he watched Crowley turn pink and grumble. “That may be one of my favorite things we created together.”

Crowley shoved his glasses back on as if hiding, more embarrassed than he’d like to admit. “You’re ridiculous for miracling that shit into me all those years ago.”

“I only did it because you did the same to me!”

Crowley chuckled, regaining his confidence to reach over and squeeze at Aziraphale’s side, relishing in the angelic giggles.

“Well obviously. I’m a demon. Had to mess with my angel somehow.”

Aziraphale pushed his hand away, his smile remaining with pink cheeks. “Yes, but an angel is nothing without an even better miracle than yours. We both know you got the worst of it,” Aziraphale said, throwing wiggly fingers in Crowley’s direction when he tried to argue, “Don’t make me tickle your ribs and prove it, Crowley. We don’t want a repeat of—“

“Say it and I’ll pluck each feather off your back and go to town on those ears of yours.”

Aziraphale just grinned, retracting his fingers and letting his demon relax as he held his hands up in defeat. Aziraphale sort of has the high ground here anyway, considering their differing levels of sensitivities; he’ll just bring it up later.

“So you saw some people in a tickle fight, then?” Aziraphale tipped the conversation away from them, a little wary of the threat. “Quite a public spot for something we made to be so embarrassing, don’t you think?”

Crowley waved a hand, “Aaaaah they don’t all find it embarrassing. The guy seemed too happy to care, anyways,” he said, scrunching his nose. “He had just proposed.” Crowley said the word like there were worms crawling under his clothes.

Aziraphale gasped, “Oh how lovely! You should’ve congratulated them, Crowley!” He whined, knowing Crowley too well, sensing there was no way he had given them a proper congratulations. Aziraphale hated missing out on precious human moments like that.

Crowley smiled at his enthusiasm, “Don’t worry, angel. They’ve got each other for that sappy shite.”

Aziraphale huffed out a happy giggle, giving Crowley’s leg a little shake and pat. Crowley always found it gross how giddy the angel got over others happiness. It made his heart and belly feel funny, maybe he was going into cardiac arrest or something. Well, not literally of course, but maybe like metaphorically.

“So the newlyweds had a little tickle tussle in the park? Oh that’s just precious,” Aziraphale held his hands close to his chest. “Thank you for letting them have their moment, dear.”

“Whatever, just didn’t feel like working too hard today,” Crowley sniffed, leaning back against his arms. “Yknow, the guy seemed to be loaded with those tickly nerves. I don’t blame that girl one bit for going at ‘em. Kept making these funny noises and wigglin’ like a worm. It was honestly very amusing to watch.”

Aziraphale grinned all smug. “Weeelll…”

Crowley frowned. “Well…what?” Aziraphale just shrugged, giving Crowley a quick up and down. Crowley shot up, pointing a finger, “No. That is not how I am.”

“All I’m saying is, if you can’t blame her for tickling her husband because of his funny reactions…weeeelll…” Aziraphale giggled, throwing shaky arms up in defense when Crowley leaned forward.

“Keep at it,” Crowley warned, throwing his legs off Aziraphale so he could corner the tittering angel into the couch, “And I swear, I will have jars of ticklish angel tears to display on my shelf,” he poked Aziraphale in the chest, awfully close now. “I’ll make sure you discorporate with a smile.”

Aziraphale gulped on a giggle.“I-I was merely…Crowley, come on now, I’m teasing,” he stuttered out. Crowley was right up in his face now, a smile that may as well be fanged making Aziraphale’s voice quiver. Crowley was eating up the sight.

“Yeah? Well so am I,” Crowley grinned in his face, glasses falling to the tip of his nose so Aziraphale could see the endearment in his yellow eyes. Aziraphale sighed, bringing a hand to the demon's chest. Crowley leaned into the touch, humming contentedly as he started relaxing against Aziraphale’s form.

He curled up against the angel’s side, Aziraphale’s fingers playing at his cheek. Crowley pressed his face into Aziraphale’s shoulder, mumbling, “It’s not my fault you’re a literal God-gifted tickler.”

“Mm, well it isn’t my fault you’re ticklish enough to break my vessel’s nose—“

“Okay, fuuuck you, I thought we weren’t bringing that up, you twit,” Crowley flicked Aziraphale in the temple, “Also, it quite literally is your fault I’m this ticklish. Prick.”

Aziraphale kept a frown after having his face assaulted like that, “I feel like you’re just asking for it now. Insulting and flicking me as we talk about how horribly ticklish you are. Yes, quite a wise decision on your part, Anthony.”

Crowley pressed his face further into Aziraphale, mumbling something incoherent that probably made no sense anyways. Something like, “your mum’s horribly ticklish…” but who's to say. Aziraphale caught on with a giggle.

“Oh is that it?” Aziraphale asked, squeezing Crowley’s shoulder.

“Is what it?”

“Do you want me to-“

“No. Fuck you.”

“Are you sure? Because it sure seems like-“

“Noooo.”

Aziraphale held back a laugh, trying not to embarrass Crowley so much he fled from the scene. Instead, he just slid a hand up Crowley’s side, decidedly not tickling. Crowley tensed under him, his hand squeezing tighter on Aziraphale’s lapels, but made no move to leave.

“I used a word before,” Aziraphale tapped one finger against the clothed side, not ticklish but definitely threatening. “Envy. Is that what you’re experiencing, Crowley?”

Crowley tried to grumble, but it sounded more like a whine with his face smushed into Aziraphale’s coat.“Wha’ would I even be…envious of,” Crowley muttered. “S’all stupid. Not the proposal, that’s for damn certain.”

“Oh no, surely not the proposal,” Aziraphale used his one finger to scritch gently. Crowley tittered in his throat. “I wonder what else I could be talking about, hm?”

Crowley was vibrating. He could feel how warm his face had gotten against the coat, hating himself for it but refusing to leave. This was…this was something. “Beats me,” he shrugged, but quickly brought his arms back down when he felt Aziraphale’s hand trail up even further, fuck. He growled, “Sssstop.”

“Stop what?” Aziraphale pinched once, and Crowley growled. “If there’s something on your mind, I’d love to hear it.”

“Hhmmhhmmhehehmm,” Crowley hummed a whine, squirming in Aziraphale’s hold. Part of him desperately wanted to sprawl out onto his partner's lap and let the angel have his ticklish way with him. The other part of him was screaming to push Aziraphale away, tell him off for being so silly and stupid. He didn’t actually think Aziraphale was stupid in the slightest, but fuck he couldn’t really think of anything worthwhile to say with Aziraphale’s fingers doing that to his lower ribs.

He didn’t do either of those things, though. Instead, he stayed curled into Aziraphale’s side with fingers also curled right on that spot that made Crowley feel all…all squirmy.

“Crooowleyy~,” Aziraphale sang into his ear, smiling against the shell of it as Crowley jerked and snickered in giggly fluster.

“What do you waaaant??”

“Did that couple make you think some…” Aziraphale pinched a quick line from Crowley’s ribs down to his hips. Crowley choked out a surprised giggle, body arching with a flinch. “…ticklish thoughts?”

“You’re such a dihick,” Crowley slapped Aziraphale’s hand, barking a laugh when he just squeezed his hip in response.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“…mmmmm no.”

“Crowley. You’re pushing into my fingers.”

“Shhhut up!”

“Admit it and I’ll get this over with,” Aziraphale said, abandoning his fear of embarrassing Crowley too much as it seems he was actually enjoying that part of it now. Who knew demons were so fond of being a little flustered?

Well, probably not most demons. But, come to think of it, when has Crowley ever been like “most demons”?

“I can’t, angel,” he whined, words a bit breathy as Aziraphale has switched to gently, slowly clawing at the clothed skin. It wasn’t enough to make him laugh, but damn if it still didn’t tickle like hell. If anything, this was probably worse. He can’t use the excuse of, “well I can’t talk when you’re tickling me!” because really, Aziraphale wasn’t. Not yet at least. Now they both knew he just can’t talk because he’s too flustered, and isn’t that a horrifying thought in itself.

“I never realized you actually liked it,” Aziraphale said genuinely, but his tone really made it sound like a tease.

Crowley shook his head, “I d—“ he bit down on his rebuttal with a growl, the word ‘don't’ falling down his throat. By now, they both knew that wasn’t true. No sense in fighting it, he guessed. “I didn’t know.”

Aziraphale made a surprised sound. “Really?” He gave a scribble to Crowley’s side, longer than the usual ones, and Crowley whined through a giggle.

“Uuugh maybe. Just when…whehen the couple—when they wehehere—Angehel I can’t speheheak when you’re—!” Crowley squeaked when Aziraphale started pinching up and down, giving focus to that little spot below his ribs. He couldn’t keep his giggles down, falling into breathless, flustered laughter as Aziraphale actually, finally started to tickle him.

“Too ticklish for words, Crowley?” Aziraphale teased on purpose this time, bringing his hand up, up, up to tickle a single finger in the hollow under Crowley’s arm. Crowley spasmed, choking out high pitched giggles as he squirmed and tried hiding his face even more into Aziraphale.

Aziraphale merely brought his other hand in to play with his exposed ear, bringing Crowley’s smiling face out as he jerked his head around to defend.

“Nohoho! This can’t be fffffuhucking fahahair-!” Crowley agonized, his laughter all over the place in pitch.

“I suppose not, considering I have quite the advantage here. More ticklish and enjoyable for you? What a pickle, my dear,” Aziraphale said, giggling as he heard the words come out of his mouth. “Aha! A tickly pickle! Isn’t that funny, Crowley?”

Crowley cackled as he shook his head around madly. Words weren’t easy when Aziraphale’s hand moved from his ear to his previously untouched side, pinching and squishing at the devastatingly sensitive hip bone.

“Refute it all you want, but with how hard you’re laughing you must think I’m very funny,” Aziraphale said, digging both hands into Crowley’s hips while dodging a headbutt to the nose.

Crowley’s mind felt like tangled wire. The tickling, the teasing, the knowing that he’s enjoying every second of it (and tickling and teasing him for exactly that). He’s been tickled before, been tickled by Aziraphale a few times in the past, but this was…it’s different.

They’re closer now, closer than they’ve ever been before. They know each other so intrinsically and still manage to learn new things about each other every day. Today’s discovery just happens to be Crowley’s apparent love for being tickled silly by his favorite angel, and he’s having trouble coping with the embarrassment of that when Aziraphale’s hands won’t leave his fucking hips alone.

“Yohohou-! AHA—! You’re diabohoholical! Ffffuhuhucking wanker!” Crowley insulted through hysterical giggling, squirming and kicking as his hips were tickled to the nub.

“Oh? Does someone want me to go back up to the ribs?~” Aziraphale’s hands finally left his hips, but slowly scribbled their way back towards his awful rib cage. Crowley thrashed with a cackle, it doesn’t even tickle that much on his sides but even the thought of those fingers back on his ribs has his stomach feeling ticklish on the inside.

“You dohohon’t—! Dohon’t have tohoho—ahAHAha nohohoho-!” Once those fingers found his ribs on both sides, Crowley gave up all the fight he had in him. He melted into Aziraphale’s side, merely squirming and twitching as he let his ribs be plucked by angelic hands. It was a torturous bliss he never expected himself to be found in.

“A ticklish demon,” Aziraphale cooed, leaning down to press his nose into Crowley’s hair. When Aziraphale talked now, it felt like the words went straight to Crowley’s brain, vibrating through the skull and making his neck scrunch. Crowley wanted nothing more than to let his angel play with him, and Aziraphale loved doing just that. “My proudest creation.”

. . .

a/n : hope u enjoyeddd it was very fun to write lol. pls consider liking and reblogging!! happy holidays <33

[sloppyneedybmxboy]

why supernatural 4x16 is the best episode (so farrr in my rewatch)

sickly&tired, pale looking cas concerned and covered in raindrops at the beginning "goodbye sister", he looks heavy, i feel so sorry for him

dean "im tired of burying friends sam" he's so done with angels and demons and walking into yet another crappy motel they'll have to leave in the morning someone needs to give this man a break! someone give him a break!

"cas you remember pamela right? you burned her eyes out?" cas looking horrified and concerned 4 dean's sake is so sweet like my human seems to be having a mental break down ….. what do I do in this situation …. dean … dean please …..

HE LOOKS SO TORN between his duty as an angel and dean winchester oh my god I forgot the homosexuality of this show truly it's rewiring my synpases

everytime cas and dean speak or even look at each other or are in the same room there's like there's this unspoken push and pull going on between them with cas torn between his father/faith and .. homosexuality and dean torn between obeying the angels aka being daddy's good little soldier again/breaking free like a spooked wild HORSE

Like dean is noting that cas has been demoted/punished/answers to uriel now and of course he is, he's daddy's perfect little soldier hasn't he had this all so deeply ingrained in him since he was just a child, he sees cas being put down and he doesn't like it one bit u can see him champing the bit and looking concerned for cas. Like even though dean outwardly is pissed off by cas' inconsistency and lack of answers and um soldier-like mentality at this point in their story and is quite often hostile adjacent towards him, you can tell he has a soft spot for cas already and is like eyeing him up like bbz you ok, bbz who got you down. bbz do you need me to step in and save u

like you have cas' struggle with faith, cas having been punished for his developing feelings for dean, cas taking orders (sexy), dean angsting, dean having to torture his torture-daddy from hell, deans daddy issues and machismo exposed, the beginning whispers of cas' fall from heaven foreshadowed because of all the sillly obsessed feelings he's started to develop towards an actual human, all the intricate power struggles going on in this episode and it's so cas centred that it's really sexy and hot. so much angst. cas hasn't had a feeling in millions of years and now he's starting to feel and he's terrified

ahh what I find so hot and gleeful is how you can see dean absorbing the whole situation. and castiel's position. castiel compromised in his position (as an angel and a soldier of god) because of his feelings for DEAN WINCHESTER. everytime the angels are in the room (ie uriel and cas, and sam and dean) there's this power struggle going on between the secret intimacy/sleep paralysis demon/night visits weird boy bestfriends shit those two got going on between them contrasted with cas' position as an actual ANGEL and it's like deans seeming him erring and questioning his orders and having DOUBTS and he's absorbing it ALL and it's like a blast from the past in a way for dean because wasn't god and castiel like him and John? didn't he follow daddy's every order without a thought of his own? didn't he try so hard to bend himself into whatever shape john needed him to be? and he can see castiel going thru the same motions and having the same problems and deans like how can I exploit this situation. and make you my boyfriend at the same time.

"you can't ask me to do this cas. not this" UHHHHMMMMMM the hitch in his voice, the rage in his eyes, the angstttt. his trust in cas hurting dean so bad. he would do a lot for castiel already and they've only met 7 times. but not this. this is too far. the sexiness of saying no to the angel that pulled you out of hell idk

the framing of the shots between them and when they are both in frame is really interesting too, like cas positioned just behind dean, almost like he's sitting on his shoulder or whispering into his ear, positioning cas as his guide, his confidante,

they're still figuring out the dynamic between the two, who calls the shots, he orders who around, who can say no and when

"you can't make me do this" dean saying NO to heaven the loudest he ever has . why should he retraumatise himself for heaven. why should he step into that room. dean ANGST

something like a plea in castiel's eyes the whole episode, torn between his orders and his feelings for dean, hesitant about the whole thing like no he doesn't want his poor human going in there and torturing alistair actually because it will put him in harms way and the lack of agency cas has over their orders now and the struggle ooo the struggle ! "this is too much to ask. I know. but we have to ask it" AND THEN LOOKING SO FRIGHTENED, looking frightened that they have to ask it. I castiel have to ask this of you, not because I want to but because I've been ordered to by my father god and I have never questioned him not once in millions of years. And now you. And now this. And now this opening to fear, doubt

and DEAN seeing through the facade and being like. I need to talk to castiel alone actually. like he's confused and he can't completely read cas but he sees that he's frightened, like his angel is actually frightened by what he's been asked to do and he can recognise that

as soon as uriel leaves and its just the two of them alone dean is completely different with cas, so much more personal

"uriels the funniest angel in the garrison. ask anyone" dean looking like he's reconsidering all his feelings for cas like why this angel . why him. jesus christ

his slutty little walk up to castiel why does he always do that flirty walk towards him! what hte fuck is up with that!

I think cas is pleasantly surprised at how quickly dean can see through the shitshow that is going on in heaven (and also himself) rn, like oh. yes. I chose him for a reason. He's shocked that dean has seen thru him just like cas has seen right through dean's facade in the past, but also proud. "Since when does Uriel put a leash on you?" OKKKKK PUPPY CAS

"My superiors have begun to question my sympathies - I was getting too close to the humans in my charge" looks down, looks up "- you." SCREAMINGGGG why does he say it like that? only he could say it like that I swear tofuck. dean not quite believing his ears or knowing what to make of it all. he's looking at cas' lips AGAIN and seems amused for the first time the whole episode. Personally I think he's blushing inside.

is this the moment when dean starts to accept that he will torture alistair? he seems to start softening from this convo with cas onwards, is he doing this FOR cas????! does he think it will help cas? or is he just like buttered up by this whole speech because tbh it is really so sweet it hurts and I think the autistic rizz is really starting to work its wonders on him . like how many times has dean been told that someone cares about him without an ulterior motive (maybe just by sam, and even then)? cas has no ulterior motive, no manipulation under what he's saying, he's just saying it bluntly like. yeah. they've begun to have doubts about me in general even though I've been in this position since the beginning of creation and whatnot. because I have begun to develop feelings for the first time ever. for YOU specifically. HELLO????? Who wouldn't be charmed by that? Oh dean u eternal 14 year old who just wants someone to love him

I think he's too scared it might disappear or not turn out to be true so he doesn't push it, he just absorbs everything cas is saying and is like. ok, time to cover that one moment of exposed vulnerability back up with XTRA machismo now.oh dean.

"You ask me to walk through that door and do this, you will not like who walks back out" "For what it's worth, I would give anything not to have you do this". CUT TO DEAN CLOSING HIS EYES. TAKING IT IN. UGHH

ok so why was this whole scene like so sweet and angsty. gosh these two. dean knows now that he's cared for, and by all people, an ANGEL. his angel, the one who pulled him out of hell and who has seen right through his facade since the very beginning. and in the same moment that care does come with a price, whether cas means it to or not, because in accepting cas' care he also has to accept what cas wants him to do, right?? right? I feel like love for dean has always come with price, could he ever get any care from john without having to sacrifice ridiculous things to earn it? so it hurts because. Dean you should really say no to this actually. You should trust your gut. But he trusts castiel instead and it hurtsssss. Because cas doesn't know any better at this point, and hasn't started to act for himself. I think it would've benefited castiel too if dean had said NO WAY because cas doesn't want this to happen either, he senses it is all wrong, and in the end we find out the orders were made up by uriel or whatever so weren't even legit orders from heaven. idk its all a mess up there rn. oh baby dean. oh baby cas. dean sees love as coming with the price of pain cut to roman roy having his stitches burst open by kendall when they hug each other so its totally natural he would accept that he has to torture alistair now after cas reveals his emotions? for dean? JESUS

castiel (Angel of the lord) (didn't feel anything for 4 billion years) (feels things now)

castiel this whole ep is just like 🕴️ dean … I am conflicted ….

anna has cas' feelings for dean so clocked she's just like "cas baby, the father you love would never ask this if YOU specifically" specifically you. he would never put u through watching the man u have feelings for hurting like this! Cas is just like .. oh….

cas closing his eyes because he can hear alistair screaming and he knows dean is hurting and he cant take it my poor baby

cas looking like a lost little boy in his sad man trenchcoat. there's something so fragile about him this episode

bloody resigned dean getting beaten within an inch of is life by alistair is so inexplicably hot

YES castiel stepping in and saving him just in time, his dean's in danger radar was going off!

cas' little cunty walk in the hospital when he's talking to sam lmao he's so overdramatic no one's doing it like him

cas realising the whole thing was POINTLESS & the fact that dean of all people was so endangered by his 'orders' …. he's having feelings ….. waging a war against god in his head …. oh poor cas

cas being like 🧎 ANNA? ANNA!!! HELP "I'm considering -disobedience" hahahahaha

I don't think even cas knows exactly what he feels, just that he does feel and it terrifies him

YES anna my queen, force him to think for himself for once YESSS

Uriel made such a huge mistake when he told cas his plan was for alistair to escape and KILL dean like that's cas' baby. That was the last straw for cas I think this episode no wonder he went at uriel like that

BLOODY CAS ON HIS KNEES BLOODY CAS ON HIS KNEES. DONT YOU UNDERSTAND?

Anna's so iconic for killing Uriel when he says there's no god left and saying "maybe. maybe not. but there's still ME" such a queen

CASTIEL AT DEANS BEDSIDE OH LORD. "Are you alright?" He cares so deeply. "No thanks to you", he feels the weight of letting Dean down so heavily on his shouldersss. Why does Cas tell him he needs to be more careful here, I never really got that? What's he trying to warn him about?

Dean asking Cas if it's true what alistair said, was dean responsible for breaking the first seal, and Cas saying yes and dean breaking down and Cas looking upwards because god help him what can he say to this man he feels so strongly about who is so broken and beat up and tired. yes, you started the apocalypse dean. he just looks so regretful that this ever happened to him, that he was too late to save dean, he looks repentent for so much that he's got wrong this ep at the cost of dean. oh cas. oh cas. you can tell her bares the weight of being too late to save dean on his shoulders.

Cas telling dean he is also the one who will be responsabile for stopping the apocalypse like leave this damn man alone he has enough on his plate. "Don't you go disappearing on me you son of a bitch, what does that mean?" dean still sounding like he's going to SOB and telling cas dont u dare abandon me you bitch

"I can't do it Cas, it's too big" Cas chewing his lip and looking so upset that dean has to take this all on himself like yes, it is too much, he knows it

"I'm not strong enough" whispering it his voice breaking oh my god dean :( Cas looking at him with such concern it's making my heart hurt ache. Dean looking away as he cries because he can't bare to show weakness infront of another man even his angel

"I guess I'm not the man either of our dads wanted me to be" IT HURTS BECAUSE he believes he's letting castiel down somehow in this moment by not being strong enough but castiel also believes he's letting dean down by placing this burden on him when's he's clearly broken THEY BOTH THINK THEY'RE LETTING THE OTHER ONE DOWN (miscommunication between super masc human and autistic angel)

dean thinks he has to WORK to be worthy of Cas, worthy of love and care, and he can't work right now, he's too beat up and tired and he's in hospital and he can't move and he's worn down, he can't take anymore, and that is so deeply shameful to him. He hates to feel helpless but it's all he's ever felt. Little does he know cas is head over heels for him anyway and doesn't give af what he can or can't do.

[fandomtrash-whataboutit]

Fairy Tail Freed Justine Thesis

This is where I go rlly into headcanon, but bare with me

Backstory. Part 3 (of ???)

As far as I’m aware, there is little to no information provided on Freed’s backstory. In fact, the same is true for Bixlow, Evergreen, and even Laxus himself to an extent.

Hahaha guess who read the spinoff story about the thunder legion which includes information about how the thunder legion came to be after drafting this post?? I hate everything. But academia waits for no man!

So I will start by explaining what info I want to bring to your attention:

Freed uses forbidden magic

Freed uses some form of demonic/demonic adjacent magic

Freed is extremely knowledgeable about magic as a subject, about the history and function of a wide variety of magics

Freed has spells including causing extreme physical pain, mental anguish, and instant death a.k.a. He uses very brutal magic.

He is a very formal, strict person

He is intensely loyal to the guild and has an equally intense loyalty to Laxus

He formed a team with Bixlow and Ever, but was quickly endeared to Laxus when they met

He started by challenging Laxus

Everything here is Pre-Thunder Gods, but is a significant part of my personal Freed insanity, so it stays in:

As one does with their favorite character, I like to imagine Freed is deeply traumatized. However I’ll start with some simpler stuff. The funny thing about the headcanon backstories of side characters in FT is that for several there needs to be some way to justify them going to a guild as a child. From the flashbacks, I consider that Laxus got especially angry and at odds with Makarov in his latter teenage years. I believe he would have to become friends with Freed before this, because at that point he would be extremely closed off and antagonistic. I say all of this because i believe it is canon that Makarov encouraged Freed to befriend Laxus. So here it is:

I have a couple of different ideas that never made it into full fics, but here are the more realistic basics. I come back to cults a lot, because it is easier justification for general demons and evil magic, but any sort of malicious group suffices. For any cult, you can have him born into it, but my original idea had him kidnapped as a child. Either way, it centers around child experimentation, mostly because of the demon aspect. I built a sort of world wherein demons are rare, because demonic gates are randomly created, so demons can’t cross over into the world FT is set in very often (considering ‘Demons from the Books of Zeref’ are labeled as such, I assume there are naturally created by some method). From here I have a couple of theories.

One could be a cult or malicious group find some way to open gates, but obviously can not fully do so, mixing in the concepts of demonic possession and hosts. For this one, I fooled around with the idea that children are easier hosts, because young children can not pose the mental opposition from a foreign entity trying to take over the body that a fully grown adult. However, children’s bodies likely could not handle demonic possession for very long, and deteriorate rapidly. In Freed’s case, he was a child with very strong magic potential but there was a second, very important factor: he got lucky. If we are operating under the function that demons are their own species in their own world, then they are not all ‘evil’. Any fully sentient species (ya know at a human’s level of awareness) does not only contain the capacity for evil, especially among hundred of millions or billions of members of the species. They might see humans like dogs, because the average human is def weaker than the average demon. But most humans have varying empathy for dogs. The demon that possessed Freed was not interested in slowly, brutally slaughtering a child for the sake of a chance to run amok among humans. And then the magic counsel, with the help of various wizard guilds, finally raid the malicious group, and there is a wild battle. Among the bodies and skeletons, Makarov Dreyer finds one living boy, curled in on himself, surrounded by felled guards. The boy’s magic is clearly out of control and very strong, which is how Makarov gets the government to release the boy into his custody.

That is the most thought out one, but the main points are the same. You have some malicious group, child experimentation, lone (or one of few) survivor Freed, out of control magic, and Makarov (or Gildarts in some cases). I believe his behavior and personality as well as childhood friendship with Laxus suggest that he came from a difficult place. If he joined the guild in his tween years, then he likely had magic already (who in FT could teach him that anyway) and there must be some explanation from where his insane magic comes from.

New Thoughts

I think it is super interesting that Freed formed the team, but it gives insane extroverts adopting introverts. You think Freed initiate that social interaction? Nah it’s just that once he became comfortable enough he could not in good conscience allow the combined might of Ever and Bix to make decisions. However this does do a couple of important things for me. I do think my important timeline point of Freed becoming friends with Laxus before all the really bad arguing with his grandfather began. Bc yes Laxus was pissy in that scene but that was normal teenaged pissy, if he was full asshole mode he wouldn’t have complimented them right after. Or started teaming with them. I really like the idea of borderline empath Bix, like he can just read people. And when you think about it, Bix absolutely saw wet cat teen Freed and was like ‘oh hell yea, mine now’. I hadn’t thought about the thunder legion as a team forming independently of Laxus, but I really adore that.

[irrealisms]

svsss and sexual violence pt. 3: non-bingqiu sexual violence

standard disclaimer at the beginning: i am not saying that this is the Only thing svsss is about, or that other readings are invalid; i am not intending to character-bash most of the characters here (while i will freely admit to thinking e.g. old palace master or qiu jianluo are pretty one-dimensionally shitty, lots--probably most--of the characters in this series who i mention as perpetrating SA are characters who do have depths & who i in fact like a lot! despite this meta, or perhaps because of it, my second-favorite character is luo binghe, and i am in fact a bingqiu shipper!); and, obviously, huge fucking CW for sexual abuse and adjacent topics. this section is about 2k.

(also: shoutout to @rooses40stepskincareroutine for motivating me to actually write all this out!)

TABLE OF CONTENTS pt 1: shen yuan's realization of himself as a target pt 2: gender and homophobia pt 3: non-bingqiu sexual violence (you are here) pt 4: shen qingqiu's body pt 5: we live in a society

so, in parts 1 & 2 i talk a lot about bingqiu as a site of sexual violence & shen yuan as a victim. but to establish that this is a theme of the book as a whole i want to talk more about the sexual and sexualized violence done and experienced by other characters! this one will be broken into a few subparts lol

volume 3, chapter 16

one of the things i noticed is that a lot of this ramps up all in the same chapter--in chapter 16 of vol 3 (i'm working with the official translation; in the web novel this is chapters 59-63, and I don't know which parts are in the same vs different chapters), we get four different references to sexual abuse of/by different characters, of varying levels of explicitness. some of these, on their own, i wouldn't necessarily take as evidence of sexual abuse, and i don't necessarily stand behind all of these as definitive proof of sexual abuse for the characters on a fully watsonian level--but to have four references, all incredibly close together, after spending a lot of the book on scenes of sexual assault and sexualized violence, is not an accident of writing, either. this is supporting my take of svsss as broadly concerned with sexual violence, as a text.

the first two happen at the same time, and are the most explicit: old palace master.

No wonder the Old Palace Master had always been so good to Luo Binghe, to an almost unsettling extent. No wonder that Su Xiyan, despite being his most beloved disciple, had held absolutely no attachment to Huan Hua Palace and had readily betrayed her sect to run off with a demon youth without ever looking back. This “love” must not have been much different from molestation. And the Old Palace Master’s favorable interest in Luo Binghe was definitely founded in the shade of a former beloved disciple that the sect leader had seen in him. He had extended his perverse possessiveness of Su Xiyan to Luo Binghe, deluding himself into thinking he could groom Luo Binghe into an obedient darling child.

it is IMO explicit text from this (and from what we hear later of Old Palace Master, Su Xiyan, and Tianlang-jun) that Old Palace Master groomed, raped, and generally sexually abused Su Xiyan. It is also explicit text from this section and the section surrounding it, in which Old Palace Master looks at Luo Binghe like he would touch him if he had hands and talks about how he looks like his mother (there's feminization as a site of sexual abuse again!) and SQQ thinks about how OPM was unsettlingly doting on LBH and that he was "thinking he could groom Luo Binghe", that OPM wanted to sexually abuse LBH in the same way.

It is not canon whether he successfully did sexually abuse LBH in the same way, but, well... I observe that (a) Luo Binghe was part of Huan Hua Palace for a while post-abyss (b) after SQQ's death, Luo Binghe makes OPM into a human stick, which in PIDW he does to SQQ--his abuser (c) OPM comments on LBH looking most like SXY "when his eyes are closed", and it's not like he would have been lacking in access to asleep LBH while LBH was his ~beloved disciple~ at huan hua palace (d) SQQ, known Most Oblivious Man Alive who is terrible at identifying when people are sexually attracted to each other & thinks that LBH (both versions) is Immune To Abuse Probably, after, like, a page of seeing OPM interact with LBH (who isn't even conscious for it), is going "OPM groomed LBH". It's not conclusive, but it's really fucking suggestive. At the very least, he extremely textually really wanted to rape Luo Binghe. We've got some Unsettling Implications going on in there!!!

the third implication in this chapter is Qiu Haitang, witnessing Shen Jiu's past:

“It’s not possible… Not possible…” she said, her lips trembling. “It’s fake! It’s all fake! It wasn’t my brother. My brother didn’t do anything wrong—it couldn’t have been him! You’re lying!”

now, on its own this isn't obviously sexual, and whether the Qiu Jianluo-Shen Jiu relationship was sexually abusive at all is something that is left ambiguous through the end of the book, and which I will discuss further later in this post. But this is a major reference to that relationship, which is...well, whether it was sexually abusive was ambiguous, it's not an unambiguous "no" either. this is my weakest point of the four IMO but put next to the others i don't think it's nothing.

the last implication in this chapter is actually from Tianlang-jun, and it's one I haven't seen talked about at all:

“Peak Lord Shen, don’t forget, your immortal body was in our hands for no short amount of time,” Tianlang-Jun replied, his words quite suggestive and teasing both. “There’s really too much we could have done.”

this is in the context of having forced him to drink demon blood while he was unconscious--something that luo binghe did earlier in the book in a very sexualized manner, which was both emphasizing the threat of sexual assault and deliberately analogous to being sexual assault (it's a very literal, physical violation of autonomy). and TLJ is insinuating (suggestively!) that they could have done more, that they had SQQ's unconscious body for a long time, that they could have done anything with it. his words quite suggestive. again, i don't think we have an unambiguous "TLJ raped SQQ" here; i'm not sure if, on the watsonian level, I think that he did? but certainly we have strong implications and threat of sexual abuse. which, again, we are getting a LOT of. right in a row.

qiu jianluo & shen jiu

okay, i said i'd come back to them, right? it is...never stated that shen jiu was sexually abused. i have read and enjoyed interpretations where he isn't, even. but he was, very much, a slave--someone who has to do whatever their master tells them or get punished. someone who is not allowed to say no. the history of slavery, especially when you look at people who were slaves to families instead of companies/factories, is very obviously full of sexual abuse. one of the word choices i'm not sure if i'm reading too much into is that it refers to the slavers as "human traffickers"--which is a phrase that can be and is used for a lot of nonsexual slavery (construction and agriculture have huge human trafficking problems) but in english it does also have very sexualized connotations such that the first thing most people think of wrt human trafficking is specifically sex trafficking (and the implementation of "trafficking" as a word is very racialized, and the combination of these is such that I generally prefer avoiding it altogether and using "slavery", but that's a tangent). and shen jiu, who is a slave being abused by his master...kills all the men of the qiu household, is afraid of men, and only feels safe around women. his master tries to marry him off when he's fourteen and this is one of the inciting incidents of him snapping and killing everyone! can you read this as "he was, as we see onscreen, being physically abused by qiu jianluo, a man, who didn't physically hurt him when he was around qiu haitang, a girl"? sure, i guess. it's not definitive. but....again, they tried to marry him off when he was 14 and unable to say no; even if it didn't happen, that is enough for me to say that the threat of shen jiu being forced into sexual relationships is present in the QJL-SJ relationship. much like OPM and LBH, it's...certainly extremely suggestive, even if it's not onscreened, especially when paired with the novel's overall themes. i'd also like to draw attention to the following quote:

“Gege, he’s so much fun! No wonder you purchased him even though you’ve always hated bringing in outsiders. I rather like him.” Young Master Qiu smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “I too like him very much.” Upon hearing the word “like,” Shen Jiu couldn’t help but shiver.

(there's also something to say about his relationship with how he's iirc somewhat afraid of men even before the Qiu family buys him, and how his position as a slave begging on the street was also a very high-risk one, and about how his relationship with Wu Yanshi is clearly pretty predatory on Wu Yanshi's part + Shen Jiu at that point has no other support system, but that's more speculative; and there's a quote that i think fits better with the point i make in the next part but which provides additional support for shen jiu as having been raped.)

@regicidal-optimism also drew my attention to another very specific word choice that i'm not sure if i'm reading too much into--

Having witnessed the incident in its entirety, Shen Qingqiu was stunned. Such a brutal first time!

and...this is about SJ's first time killing someone. but "a brutal first time" without specifying is...well, it's a very, very specific wording choice, which is (IMO) clearly evocative of the way people discuss sex.

bing-ge

man i have enough to say about bing-ge (mostly wrt svsss's themes of gender) that it could really be its own full post BUT most of that would be a ~tangent. i'm pretty sure "bing-ge is a violent serial rapist" is, like, uncontroversial and i don't need to get textual evidence there, but for exactly that reason i didn't want to fully leave him out of discussion about sexual violence? so instead in this section i mostly want to draw attention to something that @wolffyluna pointed out to me last month, which is a section from book 1:

The girl thought, “Since I’m about to die, I must leave behind some memories to ensure that my life won’t have been in vain. I don’t have many days left, after all, so I won’t suppress my feelings anymore.” Then, using her weak and fragile body, she pushed Luo Binghe down. Luo Binghe put up a brief show of resistance before telling himself “She did it all for my sake. I don’t have the heart to reject her final wish.” He yielded, still half-reluctant, and went along with it…

this is...not framed by Shen Yuan, or presumably by PIDW, as rape. but it is at the very least dubcon, and it's most likely rape. resisting someone who is pushing you down and trying to have sex with you before yielding, "still half-reluctant", is not. good consent. that's sexual coercion and assault at the very least. but because he's a man--the epitome of masculinity, even! the great stallion novel protagonist, bing-ge!--this is framed as him progressing, as him gaining a wife. which is...really, really horrifying, and once again Says Some Things about how Shen Yuan sees gender. i also recommend these posts which were linked to me today by @rooses40stepskincareroutine about bing-ge and sexual violence!

gender

this is another short section but: something i noticed while writing this up is that the primary unambiguous case of sexual abuse (other than, well, bingqiu, but bingqiu is more complicated for other reasons) is that of old palace master and su xiyan; and that, at the end, when a crowd is decrying su xiyan (for, in large part, having been abused by old palace master), misogyny is a major part of it, and (for obvious reasons) his attempt to coerce her into an abortion bc her child is by someone he sees as a romantic rival is ... a very historically female sort of abuse to experience. given how deliberate mxtx is with gender/feminization and its ties to sexual abuse in svsss, and on a less positive note how few female characters she has, i think the choice to make the one "this character was, unambiguously and repeatedly, molested/raped/sexually abused" a woman who is then subject to sexist victim blaming and entitlement to her body is probably a deliberate one.

[shadows-writing-lounge]

Enjoy pig demon/monster stuff. You can tell when I got sleepy of I did not edit it out.

Content: Monsterfuckery of course, inhuman genitalia, hardcore domination?

Reader Info: you/your Gender neutral, body neutral.

General Headcanons

Ganon's Goods

There's multiple types of ganons all are large and have some pig/boarish(with exceptions) attributes but their severity varies. I'm going separate them into categories.

Pigish Ganons

LoZ Gannon, OoS/OoA Ganon, Four Swords Adventures, AltTP/ALBW Ganon (and Yuga Ganon.)

Rounder chunky boys. Piggy faces usually wielding a trident and without Ganondorf appearing in the game.

They appear around the same size and have equal chance of having humanoid cocks vs one more accurate of their pig counterpart. Which has a more corkscrew shape. Feel free to pick and imagine which one you want. They'd probably be around the same length. The human cock being fatter. The corkscrew cock being thinner but curved.

Big balls. That's all.

Imagine them having little pig tails. Tease them a bit over it.

Boarish Monster Ganon

OoT Ganon, Hyrule Warriors,

Sharper features, at least semi humanoid. Welding weapons and are direct transformations of Ganondorf. Also have long tails.

Oot is probably taller with standing at full height since he's bipedal. Hw has a more hunch posture making it hard to gadge.

Same as before with probability of both humanoid or corkscrew cocks. Though I feel Oot is probably more human leaning.

They have good solid horns/tusks so feel free to give them a tug.

Monster Ganon

Calamity Ganon from both BoTW and AoC

Humanoid but clearly monstrous.

BoTW is sort of built like a malice powered drider with extra limbs. I'm torn on if it would have the equipment but you're here for dicks so you'll get them. It's probably fleshy akin to his not mechanical arms. Would a condom protect you from malice? Let's just assume it would. Horny defeats Malice and Gloom. The shape of their dicks could literally be anything. No balls sadly.

Looking up AoC the most common pic you'd see is him literally presenting his crotch so he fucks.

Where's his dick you my ask, genital slit I answer. It's invisible unless aroused and then a dick comes out. People who read stuff with monster/non human characters know what's up.

I want to say he has a ridged cock but it's just as likely to be smooth. No external testicles.

I can't help but think about the Pyronite from Ben 10 when I see him.

Dark Beast Ganon

BoTW Dark Beast Ganon and TP Dark Beast Ganon.

They mostly resemble wild boars. I was hesitant to put BoTW Dark Beast Ganon but decided he was fine he's a demon boar made of malice.

Most likely to have inhuman junk. Though you're definitely not taking BoTW. You can try if you want.

Small Bonus: Agahnim

An alter ego of Ganon that I remembered while looking at sprites and models for Ganons to get sizes and such. He's probably the shortest Ganon adjacent character. Either average height or just breaking above average. Same with his sizes. Probably willing to use magic in kinky ways though.

Ganon's Kinks

-They share kinks with their Ganondorf counterparts though you probably aren't going to top or dominate any of the Ganons though some would like to see you try.

-Really the closest you get is pulling tusked/horned Ganons around maybe guiding them down between your legs.

-(All) Size kink returns as well as power imbalances roleplay. You're so small in his fist/underneath him surely you know your place and will submit. He only achieved this form due to his sheer power you won't win.

-(All) Exhibitionism except without jealousy as a factor he doesn't care as much in these form. He's already the most powerful should he not conquer what's his?

Reader Insert Headcanons

For the pigish Ganons his underlings rely on you to keep him relatively calm. They are grateful even if they have to catch eyefuls of you tending to their master.

-Often any aftercare is done by the underlings. They clean up after you're done. OoA/OoS Ganon has Veran and Onox to care for you. The dark fairy and dark dragon will be willing to finish the job as well if you're unsatisfied. Just don't tell their bosses.

Being Oot Ganondorf's partner and after he defeats that pesky hero of time comes to you in this monstrous form. Adrenaline running through his system and not wanting to admit he was possibly, a mere inkling, worried about his own demise.

-It's not hard to recognize your lover in this form. Easier still is recognizing his arousal. It's probably the most gentle fuck out of all the Ganons. If you wish for roughness there's plenty of time later. Ganondorf is still adjusting to this form after all.

AoC Calamity Ganon stands out in appearance both other Ganons and somehow the blights and BoTW Calamity Ganon. While BoTW Calamity Ganon would spread Malice on contact AoC seems to burn it?

Either way it'll have the same sensation. If you have ever put ice inside a hot drink and drank some and there's a sensation of like swirling hot and cold, that's what I imagine touching Malice feels like. It's warm but also leeching your warmth. So imagine that sensation while getting reamed.

[dextixer]

What Vtuber Ruby and Miles cameos say, matter (kinda).

So, a day or so ago we have had people discuss about Rubys Vtubing appearances and the things she has said on video. People have had mixed opinions on what was said, some people think its not a problem, others think its a problem, some others dont care. So, i wanted to chime in on this entire discussion and why in my opinion this, and the cameos that Miles makes matter and are not "irrelevant".

Disclaimer

Before i start, i will note. I dont really think that these things are HUGE problems and "OH NO, THIS RUINS THE SHOW" or any other nonsense. Some people have seen these things way too negatively. But i also think that people who say that it doesnt matter at all are taking 2 way too extreme positions.

Lore Swiss Cheese

One of the main problems of RWBY has, for a long time, been the very vague concepts of what is canon and the in-show lore. From the very start of the show, it had commentary tracks, the creators talking about the show etc. Despite not being in the show itself, we have had many tidbits of information (such as Rubys favourite food) and the like given to us in outside of canon content. And it has not just been some minor things either. Ironwoods semblance basically does not exist in the show, and yet it seems to exist in lore, and it was shared with us from outside the show.

And later on, after V3, RWBY has received a lot of different media that expands on its lore and are considered canonical, despite sometimes never appearing on the show, or even creating very weird situations where something is conspicuous by absence in the show itself. For example, we have a very often discussed topics of V7-8 of the defense of Mantle/Atlas. One of the discussion points have always been how weirdly weak the defenses of the kingdom are. While one could chalk that up to people having an "inflated" view of Atlas military, but we have been canonically told and shown a lot of Atlas tech that is conspicuous by absence in the show.

Automated turrets, different versions of Atlesian Knights etc, which were said to be canonical in Amity:Arena. Or for example stealth tech. Yea, Atlas has stealth tech, like, genuine stealth. Its in one of the books. And yet nowhere in the show.

We have two canonical games, Grimm Eclipse and Arrowfell, with characters and concepts in them that have never been seen in the show. Has anyone ever seen team BRIR in the show? Heard of them? Maybe the tech from Arrowfell would kinda be useful, even if outdated against the Grimm invasion? What about the outlying Atlesian villages? Are they just dead at this point? Where the heck is Thornmane? He gets captured and hes nowhere in jail even as a cameo? And why does noone talk about Grimm Eclipse? Tech enchanced Grimm seem like a bit of a topic that kinda should be discussed sometime, no!?

We also have the comic books with various questionable canonical decisions including Raven turning into a bird to fuck with child Ruby. Blakes involvement with Adam which is somewhat weird because the comic books try to humanize Adam while the show demonizes him.

And let us not forget the whole "Canon Adjacent" nonsense where RT cant even come out and say that its obviously non-canon stories like Ice Queendom and even crossovers with DC are not canon. They cant even come out and say that!

Oh, and of course, i just remembered, the Grimm DnD campaign which is also apparently canon!

The reason i am listing all of these summarized versions of the multiple lore issues that the show has is that the lore of RWBY, is swiss cheese. It has lore that is given partially in so many different places, including in out of universe that its almost impposible to follow it properly, and if you do try, you are only going to get more confused because the main show feels like completely separate from it all, despite being in the same lore.

Vtubing and Cameos matter

And this brings me to of course the very simple claim, that due to the fact that the lore is already swiss cheese, these statements made in Vtubing and Cameos actually matter. Because even if they are not stated to be directly canonical, the lore is already so incredibly fucked and unclear (To the point that some people cant even decide if DC RWBY comics are even canon or not!) that adding these examples to the mix? Its just bad practice. Because at the end of the day, Vtubing Ruby, IS Ruby. She is played as in-universe Ruby, by the same Voice Actress, hosted by the SAME company.

And it matters especially because these things DO affect the FNDM. People who say that these things should be easily ignored are missing one key aspect. A lot of the FNDM are affected by these. BB being a key example. No, im not going to argue that the FNDM forced RT to make it canon. What i WILL argue is that the toxicity of BB community and its rabidness was intentionally cultivated AND enabled by RT. Does it matter that the BB song is not canon? No, it did not. Its not canon in the show and yet it made pro-BB and anti-BB crowds hysterical. Same for the song that was made for Blacksun. These songs directly contributed to the shipping wars. The various moments of people like Barbara also indulging the shippers just further fueled that entire movement.

Hell, the same can be said for Qrow x Winter shippers. While it was never a big thing one of the main "fuels" it had for a long time was because Vic and the VA for Winter interacted in a single panel. Or lets remember the whole "Vibrator function" which is OBVIOUSLY not canon, yet has become a part of often referenced and established fanon.

RWBY does not have a stable FNDM, i know, im a part of it. It does not matter if something is or is not canonical when not only are the lines of canon/noncanon blurred to barely existing, but the FNDM can often take things very far to fuel their expectations, wishes, and behaviour.

Especially when it can fuel what i will refer to as simply exploitative behaviour.

Cameos. Cameos, in my opinion are a fine way for VA's to make money. Such as many other things like, for example, music producers reviewing songs, voice coaches evaluating singing etc. Such content has cropped up maybe 4-5 years ago now and imo, is a fine thing.

But like any thing, imo, there are good and bad ways to do this kind of content. When for 40 bucks, one can ask one of the main WRITERS of the show questions about the shows world and opinions about things like ships. That is, imo, a bit far. Not only does that give an incentive for people to pay money for extra snippets of lore, but also, a way for people to validate their beliefs of ships and other such things. Because that is what his Cameo is all about. Its not VA work, its his words, in relation to his work as a writer for the show. And considering the earliest cameos and Ironwood discussions, that in my opnion is NOT a good thing.

The BB Onlyfans thing is ALSO an example of that, that i think was bad. Once again, disclaimer. I think that OF is fine, you want to do it? Go ahead, i paid for Markipliers photos, i aint ashamed, hes hot. I think it becomes at least slightly concerning however, when the VA's of a controversial ship decide to do an underwear photoshoot together with the same theme as their character in-show relationship.

Because...

Parasociality

A parasocial relationship is feeling a connection with a persona/thing that does not know of your existance or only humours you. Celebrities, sports teams etc.

RT has, for a long time cultivated a STRONG parasocial relationship with the FNDM. There is a reason why they pretend to be down to earth, why they pretend that they are not a corporation and why even to this day, some RT fans STILL believe that RT is some kind of "indie company". There is nothing inherently wrong with having it. Its kind of even unavoidable.

But what RT does is Cynically abuse that relationship. Just like any other corporation. Overworking animators for example? Part of that has been parasociality, people willing to work for their "loved" company etc.

Things like Miles Cameo, the BB photoshoot? The Vtuber Ruby? They are meant to encourage parasociality. To make it seem like the people, the watchers are "closer" to people performing or related to the show. Its all a cynical ploy to get people to pay money, to watch RWBY etc.

There is a reason why even after the RT expose not too long ago, people just went ahead and forgot about it. There is a reason why RWBYTubers that have previously condemned RT for their BS are now shouting at people to support RWBY, supressing those who criticized V9 and are encouraging people to buy merch.

Its all parasocial BS. BS that leads to extreme behaviours.

Such as, but not limited to - Biphobia, Homophobia, calling people facists for liking characters, calling people abuse apologist, groomers, Stalking. Just to name a few.

Also... On an ending note

Its just shit Vtubing

Consider this an unrelated tangent. I watch Vtubers relatively often, usually clips but sometimes i catch streams. Vtuber lore is usually irrelevant even in corporate settings. What people come to watch are the streamers themselves who usually partially play a character but mostly just act like themselves. Not really being lore accurate is not really of importance.

The thing is, those Vtubers usually dont have really established settings and they stream Multiple hours a day, so it all makes sense.

Why in the fuck is the Vtuber Ruby Rose, not acting like Remnant Ruby Rose!? Im not expecting deep lore drops here. But for crying out loud, why make statements that Rabbits or magic dont exist? Ruby Rose being visiting Earth is an AMAZING roleplaying set-up!

There is no dust, no aura, no Grimm! So many differences between the worlds that Ruby Rose can notice and act out! "Oh anime? We have our own version of that! One of the most watched shows is Sailor Sun! (Because the moon is broken)".

Its just a concept that can pay-off so much! Its an isekai in Vtubing form! As far as im aware Vtuber Ruby Rose doesnt even stream daily so its even easier to stay in character! So why in the bloody hell are we getting Dora of Explorer levels of childishness?

Anyway... Here are my thoughts. Peace out.

[pyr0cue]

WAHOO thank you for answering my ask!!

while i certainly agree that satanic aspects in horror movies is, at this point, kinda beating a dead horse, but i think it's also considered the 'root' of all horror, in a western sense at least. unfortunate because it sort of shoulders away not only other religions, but other wild ass concepts like how far you can push something like Cosmic horror, but at the same time, i feel like Longlegs can even be viewed through THAT lens, simply because there's a lot of 'well, what if?' scenarios.

like for example! Lee's 'psychic' abilities- i've seen people come up with ideas that Lee isn't psychic at all and it being even kinda confirmed in the film with her saying 'i also missed eight,' when discussing how she got eight right on her test, so she's right half the time, which isn't really that remarkable, it's only made remarkable because of the scale of the things she predicts (her partner not listening to her, being the biggest)- but it could also be something as it's not her at all, it's simply Longlegs in her head. at the point of her predictions she was still 'possessed' to a degree, Ruth begged Longlegs to not hurt her, who's to say he wouldn't go out of his way to drop little hints and gut feelings for her, for the sake of keeping something he perceived as a 'little angel' safe? but also, why would someone so evil really care in the first place? what does Longlegs believe he's doing? is it human at all, or something else? is it really dead? i think its neat!

i do feel that towing the line of uncanny valley with a character like Longlegs would be interesting- making limbs longer, doing something that just makes him a bit more unnerving to look at would be a tight rope to try and walk. i think the details of his makeup now, wary as it may be to some viewers, was excellent in the 'what am i LOOKING at' type of way- how is hair looked punched in like the dolls, his eyes that were difficult to look at for long, how he looked like a 'something isnt right' with how he spoke and moved- i think they made a good representation of what a nightmare could look like, or what the antichrist would present itself as. his appearance of course is going to stir the pot, and i think that may be intentional, because people are going to try and make sense of a walking nightmare, of something evil, and some peoples nightmares may be something that just doesnt look right, while others may be horrified to see a nightmarish portrayal of an overplayed stereotype that may, inevitably, harm them. kind of like a pennywise in a way? but then again, i may be looking into that aspect way too much!

i really think like comparing it to Silence of the Lambs was something that was't really intended, but more of a way for the director to be like 'it fits in this category' of a thriller/ crime-genre, this with supernatural undertones, to the point where i'd compare it more to something like Sinister despite how silly that movie got towards the end. the plots are pretty similar, with a wildly different protagonist, but again with the 'it's a demon!/ it's got something to do with satan!' aspect kind of shoveled in. it had a lot of people going in expecting something different and walked out disappointed because it wasn't that, and at the end kind of boiled down to 'this antichrist-adjacent character uses dolls and balls and a loving mother to commit horrible atrocities', and i can see where people are like 'thaaat is not the type of horror i like, that's actually pretty silly.' i think theres some substance to chew on even if the film feels a little hand holdy, because there's always a question that can be asked that sometimes doesn't have an obvious answer. BUT!!! that is why we have opinions!!!!! and thats important!!!!

HOWEVER, yes, the marketing deserves all the praise it can get, it stirred up an audience already pretty well fed when it comes to horror this year and made a ton of money, and i hope they get their cut because it is WELL deserved.

i am YAPPING but honestly fr you get it- saw 5's banter was top tier for the franchise, and as a big hoffman fan myself, for sure one of the best ones. 6 is near and dear not only because the traps but the very loud and blatant 'hey the way shit is run through dogpits picking out errors from the sick needing help sucks, actually' which is, as faaarr as i remember, one of the loudest messages from the saw franchise (other than, like, 'dont be an asshole,' i guess?).

5 did have HoffStahm golden moments and the glass coffin - and Strahms death is probably the one that actually made me gagging in the theater with just the brutality of it. here's to the next one with (hopefully) some more hoffman because his little ending in the most recent with john & the tummy tickler trap has me hoping we'll see some more of him :""")

Again I do like this reading it’s so much more interesting then what i got out of the movie lmaooo im choosing to think about it your way because it’s so much more fun than what I walked away feeling

I think you are super right about the difference between expectations and reality, I actually didn’t read anything or watch more than the first trailer because I find I like movies more when I don’t go in with a lot of prior knowledge. But I definitely let the rounds of “this is the scariest film I’ve ever seen!” Get to me, so I think I walked in wanting a film that was very scary rather than more of a story focused film. And yeah I think it’s just not my cup of tea, if my horror film is story based i want much more thought out and nuanced story than I felt I got with longlegs (I am spoiled by Jordan peele and Ari aster lol) but as much as I think the story wasn’t well thought out in reality it DOES give a lot of room for speculation and filing in the gaps

I do like the speculation about Lee’s abilities, and I do subscribe to the theory that they’re somehow tied to her doll/its ‘brain!’ My biggest question walking away from the film was ‘why are the brains so significant in the dolls?’ I like to think it’s longlegs way of making them feel whole, and the satanic stuff was incidental in why Lee could sense stuff from them, that they’re a part of the child they’re made for and not special on purpose. But it’s probably connected to a satanic ritual if I had to guess? Idk, I think there are some interesting questions left I’m just not sure if they were intentional.

I also think my favorite part of the story was longlegs being connected to Lee’s mom, but I really wish there’d been a bit more of a build up to it, and I wish Lee was more of a PI than an FBI agent, I feel like a lot of the crime/thriller aspects were ruined by how fast the crime got solved in favor of Satan. I did love the dynamic between her and Lee tho, the character work in this movie was really good!!

And yeah, I don’t really think longlegs is like….intentionally calling to some stereotypes I think it was just something they thought would be creepy and didn’t think about the implications of. And I can definitely see the makeup and voice and everything being creepy, i also went in after watching 2 nick cage movies with some friends and the whole time i could NOT unhear cage which ruined that effect. Word of advice, don’t watch more than one nick cage movie at a time all you will see is nick cage

YESS I love how like 90% of the saw franchise is like being an addict is bad get saw trapped and suddenly saw 6 is like “the systems of capitalism we live in promote dishonesty and immorality because exploiting people for money is easier than being honest” with a side of “im john Kramer and you fucked me over” my favorite switch up ever. It also has the added benefit of the gallows trap where jigsaw just bullies that young guy for not having any friends, I love that one. The oxygen crusher too…man that was evil and I would die immediately (<- asthmatic) so i can like. Feel that one everytime I watch the movie

I always say the only franchise I support is saw because. Well I think they are fun. I really do hope we finish Hoffman’s story and I hope they continue the tradition of showing “the younger version of himself” by smacking on a backwards baseball hat.

[ysabelmystic]

PLEASE tell us about the shadow boi

Thank you to the at least four people who humored me on this one.

(Using it/he pronouns for the shadow in a gender neutral way)

This took place during my freshman year of high school. I was living in a newly built tract home at the time. This is the last place you'd expect a haunting to occur, but in my experience, California is funny like that. Despite the southern US seeming far more likely to actually be haunted, most of my and my family's experiences have all taken place within the California central valley. This was just the craziest and most undeniable of those experiences.

One morning around the start of the school year, I woke up at exactly 4:15am. My alarm wasn't due to go off until 5:30. Catercorner from my bed was a tall, vaguely human-shaped shadow. And by shadow I mean a dark blob that hovered in the corner rather than being attached to the wall.

Now, this was almost immediately at the start of my Exvangelical era. My parents and I were wading into deep edgy atheist territory. "Facts and logic" and all that. Instead of freaking out, I decided that I was probably hallucinating and went back to sleep. After getting home from school, I rearranged some of my furniture and put my violin stand (I was forced to play against my will but I digress...) in the shadow's corner.

This did not work, because the next morning, at exactly 4:15am, I woke up to the same shadowy blob in the corner, now covering my violin stand. This time, I turned on my phone light and shined it in the corner. The shadow didn't disappear like a normal shadow would. Instead, it seemed to rapidly melt into the adjacent closet.

I might've been an "atheist", but I couldn't completely commit myself to the idea that the supernatural was a creation of human ignorance and imagination. What I was committed to was the belief that the vast majority of "evil" and "demonic" beings were deeply misjudged and at worst just needed a friend. I did some research on shadowy beings and creatures, and found that this thing most resembled "the hat man" (despite being hatless). And since "the hat man" was "evil", surely, it either neutral or friendly. I would treat this thing with respect, and if it was just a hallucination, then wasn't it better to make friends with my hallucinations instead of demonizing them?

This was my train of thought for the next several days, as every other day or so, I was woken up at a 15 minute increment between 3:45am and 5:00am to this shadow in my room. Usually, it was in the corner, but some days it edged closer and closer to the center of the room.

About a month in, one morning, I woke up to the feeling of pressure on my legs. The shadow wasn't in the corner, but at the foot of my bed was the obvious indent in my mattress that could only come from a person sitting there.

Instead of panicking (probably because I was fucking tired), I said something along the lines of, "I don't care if you're in my room, but you have to stay in the corner".

The indent vanished and the pressure disappeared.

Nothing notable would happen for the rest of the school year. As annoyed as I was to be woken up early, in some ways, I started to appreciate the shadow in the corner. I would say good morning to him or gripe about being woken up early. I asked it for its name a few times, but I never got anything. He was just a nameless entity who lived in the corner of my room.

Sometime around February, I went off of my mood stabilizers cold-turkey. I didn't sleep for three days, and when I finally did start sleeping again, I was afraid that the change in my brain chemistry would mean that I'd never see the shadow again, and when I did, I told him that I missed him. The fact that nothing changed in the pattern of appearances is part of what convinced me that it was real.

The final time I saw it though, things changed.

It was either late May or early June. My family was about to move, and it was my final night in the house. The only things in my room were my mattress and blankets, my art desk, a couple of art supplies, and a wooden stick in my windowsill that kept it from being opened. And that final night, I said something to the effect of, "You're free now. Have fun haunting the new family," and went to sleep.

I woke up at exactly 6am. There was no shadow in my room. Instead, what I saw was the stick in my windowsill levitating in the air. It lingered for a few seconds and then fell to the ground. My window slid open, and the bag of colored pencils in the middle of my desk was knocked to the floor.

I was a little shaken, but I was more exhausted and in total disbelief than anything else, so I went back to sleep.

Later that morning, I woke up to my mom opening my door and scolding me for not being awake and for opening the window when it was so damn hot outside. The stick and pencils were also still on the floor. I asked if she had opened it, and she said that she absolutely had not.

I have no other explanation other than that it was the shadow, and that I had somehow set it free. When we moved across the country, I was actually upset with myself that I hadn't invited him along, and tried a few [failed] demon-summonings to see if I could fill the void. I don't know where he come from or why he was there, but it happened. It was weird, but given that I never felt outright afraid (and with some entities, I have), I assume he was friendly. Given that I spent most of that year being actively suicidal, he was one of the few things that brought me any joy, and was probably one of the reasons that I bothered staying alive at all. Regardless of who it was or what he was, I hope that he's dong okay.

But yeah. That's the shadow boi, and he is my number 1 reason as to why I believe in ghosts.

[greatwyrmgold]

I remember watching maybe two-thirds of the first episode of Misfit of Demon King Academy back in 2020, deciding it was garbage, and moving on. It seemed like another dumb isekai-adjacent power-fantasy action/harem light novel adaptation.

The next month, Geoff Thew published a video about how MoDKA is a great action-comedy, a parody in the same vein as One Punch Man, if OPM tried to pretend it was an ordinary superhero comic. A month ago, seeing that MoDKA was getting a second season, I decided to give it a second chance...

...and it's amazing what a change of perspective can do. MoDKA isn't high art, but it's a lot of fun if you don't think you're supposed to take it seriously. I'd compare it to Looney Toons before One Punch Man, specifically the parts where Bugs Bunny pulls one over on Elmer Fudd or Daffy Duck or whatever jerk deserves to be shamed this week.

There are a few things that I think make it work, beyond the simple absurdity of what Anos does.

Anos isn't a show-offy prick. He doesn't mind showing off, but he doesn't go out of his way to do so and often lets others take center stage when they can handle it. Anos is unflappably confident, but he's not arrogant—certainly not when compared to most of the purebloods and heroes he clashes with.

The central conflicts of the show are ones that Anos being super-strong doesn't trivialize. Sure, he could beat up everyone who disagrees with him, but that's clearly not enough to make royal-blooded demons stop believing in Avos Delhevia or treat half-demons any better (or make humans). It's easy for Anos to pick up a castle, spin it like a basketball, and chuck it across the woods, but that alone doesn't accomplish anything.

Anos isn't the only guy who does cool stuff; the supporting characters get their moments to shine. Part of this comes down to Anos encouraging his comrades' growth, but a lot of it comes down to the fact that characters other than Anos are allowed to have cool stuff. His closest friends could even surpass Anos in their respective specialties, with a bit more training. Everyone gets a chance to shine, even Anos's dorky dad and the technically-not-nameless students in the Unitarian political movement/Anos fanclub. (It makes sense in context. And isn't as dumb as it sounds.) Some of the biggest things Anos does are just him supporting his friends.

The characters are surprisingly detailed. Not incredibly so, but it's obvious that the author put a lot of thought into why the secondary cast is the way they are. Sasha and Misha Necron are absolutely a tsundere and a kuudere, but their backstory does a pretty good job of explaining why they treat each other and the people around them the way they do, and they have character traits outside their archetypes. Hardly anyone has the depth of an average Wildbow tertiary character, but plenty have more depth than the average isekai hero, or even the not-harem member who everyone agrees would make a better protagonist.

The series has thematic ambition beyond just making Anos look cool. The main villains, aside from the enigmatic Avos Delhevia, are demon institutions prejudiced against half-breeds and the legacy of one long-dead human who spent his life making sure humans would never let go of his hatred for demonkind. "Racism is bad" isn't the most sophisticated message, and it's not delivered in the most sophisticated manner, but it's also not delivered in the most basic manner. It doesn't make racism a matter of a few bad eggs, but of worldviews that the powerful use to justify fucking with the weak—worldviews that don't go away just because they're demonstrably, empirically wrong. It has its flaws*, but it has fewer flaws than ~90% of stories that try to tackle this subject.

So yeah. It's not a masterpiece, but if you want a dumb fun show to watch, you could certainly do worse.

*Like how the main reason that humans hate demons is a spell one dude cast that projects his angry Alex Jones rants into every human's mind for two thousand years. This could be turned into something that works without much effort, and if someone said that plot point wasn't so blunt and braindead in the light novel, I would probably believe them.

[hollers-and-holmes]

This might not be controversial in your circles, I don't know; it certainly has been in my life.

Your take on miracles seen as 'supernatural' still happening in this day and age? Such as healing someone 'stand up and walk' style or transforming substances? Adjacently, interacting with the unseen things - not only the demons we rebuke but the angels that are our allies?

Alright, this one could get proof-texty if I let it and that would be not so much a take as an essay, so I’m going to splatter up a handful of short bullets instead and you guys can poke me for further clarification or to object if you want.

👻 I’m a cessationist, which is a schmancy term to describe what I believe about the miraculous gifts of the Spirit we see in the New Testament accounts, namely healing, prophesy, and speaking in tongues.

👻 Definitions matter. We are talking here of the ways these gifts manifested themselves to members of the early church. I am not saying that God does not still heal people or that no one has ever miraculously understood a language not their own.

👻 I am saying that these gifts are no longer dispensed as gifts, that is, as abilities that the gifted person can wield at will. If you have the gift of teaching, you carry it around in your pocket and can apply it whenever you like all your life without a special zap from the Holy Spirit to kick it off. If there were still members of the Body who could do this with healing cancer or raising the dead, we would have records of it.

👻 But the main reason I believe this is not evidential, but theological. In Scritpure, miraculous abilities were given to men who were speaking with the authority of God Himself. Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Christ, the Apostles… “The God of Abraham has told me to tell you…” The fact that reality itself obeyed them was was meant as an evidence to the fact that God had chosen them to speak His word to the people.

👻 We no longer need men like this. Why? Because we have a perfect spoken Word. Hebrews 1 says:

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”

God has spoken to us with authority and finality in the revealing of Christ, and this speaking needs no improvement. The apostles were writing Holy Scripture and so the miraculous gifts they wielded (at will—Paul could heal anyone he pleased, but even this gift shows evidence of decline in his later writings as the completion of the written canon approaches) gave credence to their words, in a similar way to Moses who came before Pharaoh, spoke the words God had given him to speak, and then backed them up with real physics-breaking miracles.

👻 As for the question regarding the angelic realm, I’ll quote Jack regarding the dark side:

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

And regarding the light side I’ll say that we have zero scriptural evidence of human people being the ones to initiate angelic contact (I mean this like—no one summoned a “good” angel at will, as far as I know—they arrive on the scene at God’s bidding and not man’s). We have no instructions from the authors on how to lawfully interact with angels besides being hospitable to strangers, because we might be unknowingly entertaining a messenger of God.

I grew up in charismatic circles and learned many unscriptural things regarding the supernatural and the ways Christians should interact with it, so it’s very possible I am overcautious now to compensate for that. God seems to wish for us to let Him worry about the heavenly hosts and their fallen counterparts, because there just isn’t a lot of solid teaching on our relationship with them. We’re to be obedient: this causes the devil to flee and causes the angels to rejoice. But still our orientation is toward Christ.