#hes hoping he can trick the gods into making her divine

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 9/1

Anonymous asked: has sally been introduced to cursed tavros yet?

[ cursed tavros jumpscare :D ]

Cursed indeed - but mind you, I don't think I could do much better. My handcraft skills are nonexistent!

Anonymous asked: ol tavvy is down with the clown ;o) Anonymous asked: Please, if you will, imagine if when Vriska kissed Tavros, he told her that he was already dating Gamzee.

Heh. I really do think Gamzee x Tavros could have worked out, at least until Gamzee lost his shit. Hell, even if Gamzee did lose his shit, he'd probably still be less of a threat to Tavros than Vriska was.

Anonymous asked: Did you notice Gamzee referenced Earth in his rap? ("6 trillion hemos all up on one rock bleeding as equals") How do you think he learned about it? Some weird pre-game precognition or just his stoned mind being accidentally right?

This isn't necessarily a reference to Earth - but it wouldn't surprise me if it was, because Gamzee's cult seems fully aware of the existence of Earth.

The 'paradise planet' referenced in Gamzee's intro is stated to not exist yet, which is exactly how the narration refereed to Earth in Hivebent's intro. I believe that the 'rowdy minstrels' he's talking about are literally ICP, although he clearly isn't aware of that fact.

@wizardlyghost asked:

A sentiment shared by Eggman, every Space Player, and the villain of Muppets Most Wanted.

Anonymous asked: Now that you've passed where fedorafreak's gray, serviceable hand-held computing device's battery has died, you might appreciate the following short piece of fan art: www tumblr com/vastderp-placeholder/7741061457/savior-of-the-texting-world-rise-up

The fucking implication that the phone is the Player in this scenario is obliterating me.

Also, its God Tier form has wings. Was it a troll all along, or are wings a symbol of divine apotheosis in phone culture, too?

@clueless-rarito asked: Heeey paranatural reference! Hell yeah!

Is anyone else totally stoked to see Eightfold again? I know I am!

Anonymous asked: bilious sick 😭

English's trick made our Bilious sick. :(

Anonymous asked: One of, if not my absolute favorite, quotes/moments in Homestuck is Karkat’s speech to Jade about his failed frog breeding here. Just such a wonderfully tragic moment that stuck with me since the first time I read it.

In a comic chock-full of great lines, that last one might just be the best so far. This was one of the last scenes before Act 5's true finale, and it was an excellent pick.

@drakethedeep asked: One theory I've heard about the Denizen's Choice that tend to headcanon, Is that the choice is to be happy/free or to matter. That much as how God-tiers only grants survival by never having an impact, the denizens have thier playes coose between seeking their happiness and survival, or to struggle to achieve things that while objevtivly monumental, might not be worth the sacrifices needed to achieve it. I like this theory because of how it themes to fit the themes of Sburb.

I really like the space you're playing in, but I'm not so sure if all the Choices we've seen would necessarily fit this interpretation. After all, Davesprite implicitly chose the 'survival' option when he first met Hephaestus, and he's not exactly a happy camper. He didn't end up particularly free, either, since he was almost immediately bound to a Sprite, and later to the Battlefield.

I guess you could say he 'mattered', because he is he reason the Alpha Timeline exists the way it does - but, technically, everyone's actions contribute to the Alpha Timeline being the way it is. I definitely think there's something to this theory.

Anonymous asked: Without the Door to actually enter the universe, all you've done is make a really big frog.

I guess, when you think about it, there's not really anything they can do with their universe without that door. I suppose they could just fly towards their frog and hope for the best, but somehow, I don't think that'll achieve much.

@morganwick asked: Of course, even though he wasn't fooled by Gamzee using Terezi's "voice", Karkat still showed up on the roof anyway. Perhaps he decided he couldn't take the risk that Terezi was actually there and Gamzee might catch her unawares.

Gamzee's been having a lot of fun 'impersonating' Terezi lately. Just like before, I don't think he ever intended to fool Karkat with his transparent ruse - he just wanted to unsettle the guy. It worked.

@morganwick asked: If Typheus is the mailman, does that make him PM's favorite Denizen?

Maybe it makes him the head of her mail service!

We never saw any other mail Carapacians, and I kind of love the idea that they were operating out of a Denizen's Palace the whole time.

@bladekindeyewear asked: You said: "Mind you, I don’t know if it’s necessarily always a good or heroic thing to allow a Sburb Player full agency over their actions, nor is it necessarily a bad thing to restrict them, in certain cases." Oh I'm completely with you there. In fact, you might DEFINE Heroism as denying agency to those who would do ill, in part. This would make both "Heroic" and "Just" deaths result from trying to stamp your own intentions upon reality, halted by others. Neutrality would be ineffectual.

That's certainly part of heroism - but to me, it's not even close to all of it. A firefighter, for example, is heroic in ways which don't involve another person, as their only real 'opponent' is nature itself.

I personally define heroism as the will to do good, in situations where doing good requires bravery. 'Good', of course, is a fairly slippery concept, though, so that definition is just as ambiguous as any other.

Anonymous asked: Doctor Who anon here. Doctor Who has no canon for purely practical reasons. It's so massive - there's the show, but there's also the Big Finish audio dramas, the DW magazine comics, the Radio Times comics, the IDW comics, the Titan comics, the Virgin novels and short stories, the BBC novels and short stories. And no one owns all of it. The BBC don't even own the daleks or K9. And each piece of media will freely contradict others. No one has the right to decide what's canon, so they just don't. It's also because the people running Doctor Who the show have a deep respect for the extended media. In the 90s, it was the non-BBC licensed, fan-led projects which kept DW alive. Russell T. Davies, first showrunner of the modern era, wrote Virgin novels, so did Mark Gatiss. Nick Briggs, modern voice of the daleks, is the head of Big Finish. So they didn't want to decanonise that stuff, but they also don't want to be beholden to it when writing their own stories. So the fanbase tends to operate on tiers of canon. Basically something can be assumed to still be part of the show's continiuity until the show contradicts it. Big Finish would generally be considered the next highest "tier" of canon. The Doctor Who magazine comics probably wouldn't contradict the show, but the show could contradict them any time. The old books and comics are dubious. But that's all just fan categorisation. Officially, nothing has been deemed canon or not. In fact, rather amusingly, the only thing that has been explicitly deemed "canon" by the BBC is the Doctor Who: Battles in Time card game. That's officially canon. Nothing else. Not even the show.

I think I've heard of 'canon tiers' before, in the context of the Star Wars fandom. I think it's a good way to delineate how 'true' a given event is considered to be, especially in a large, complex shared universe - but at the same time, being consciously aware of these tiers might hurt your investment a little.

You'll never be able to escape the fact that your favourite stories or characters are effectively fanfiction, at least from the perspective of higher tiers. They have no influence whatsoever over the more ''real'' part of the story, unless they're promoted its tier some day.

I do like the idea that all the other Doctor Who stories are fanfiction of the card game, though. That's definitely going to be my canon, from now on.

@morganwick asked: Well, back in Act 4 you said that John and Dave would make S-Tier if and when "John [threw] aside his passivity to do something heroic, and…Dave [would] finally drop that poker face and do something sincere", which is why I pegged the suicide mission conversation as when Dave might make the jump.

I think, on reflection, it's almost always a heartwarming event that catapults a character into S-Tier.

In my opinion, that's one of the most impressive feelings that a work of fiction can inspire in you, mostly because it's really hard to get you invested enough for it to hit properly. Homestuck's pulled it off an extremely impressive number of times already, and we're only halfway finished!

Anonymous asked: It is so fucking awesome to see a new reader in the year of our lord 2024 2025 who's actually like. Engaging with the themes of the story. Lotta people just see it for the memes or the "totally random" plot but some of the shit you're reading into what's happening is like. Eerily similar to actual Hussie commentary. Gold star for reading comprehension, you do not piss on the poor Anonymous asked: Your homestuck liveblogs are lovely and insightful and make me remember a lot of details of the comic that have been lost to time. You will comment on something and I'll go "oh huh homestuck was better than I remember it being." Thank you <3 @honestlyvan asked: Truly your liveblog is the best kind of re-experiencing the experience. I'm surprised at how much your thoughts and reads parallel mine, it's kind of fun to see someone else's deductions go along the same routes. I can't wait for you to get to the Truly Horseshit portions of the plot (and I say this lovingly, I think you're in a great position to give us a real raw read on them without having to deal with the various Mega and Gigapauses) Also -- you keep pointing out a shitton of foreshadowing I didn't catch until my second readthrough. I can't wait for you to get to the bits where it applies and be like "son of a bitch", I think where I'm in the reading of your backlog and where you're in the reading of the comic you've passed at least one of those bits already :D @worldweary-walker asked: The liveblog is so cool. It's a lot of fun seeing you put things together, and the posts where you come up with three completely right conclusions and two wrong ones always amaze me. Impressive work!

Thank you so much! I know I say this a lot, but a lot of these sentiments are exactly why I like reading liveblogs myself. I'm just really glad I can do that for others.

I can totally understand why someone would just read Homestuck for the memes. I wouldn't have been nearly as analytical if I'd read it as a schoolgirl, and a lot of the 2010s fandom were even younger than that!

@divineerdrick asked: Now we have multiple explanations for what is wrong with the kid's session. Vriska has made herself responsible for Jack's rise to power, Karkat believes he gave Bilious Slick cancer, and Gamzee created the harlequin doll that would torment John and prompt Jack's rage-fueled act of rebellion. You've already suspected that Doc Scratch probably has multiple plans in play at once, and we can see that here. It seems he insured, through multiple causes, the kid's universe has always been doomed. Gamzee, as usual, seems to be the wild card. But he's acting out during a crisis of faith, a faith tied to Alternia's twisted social structure, which Scratch seems to have had a hand in. So despite how random Gamzee's actions appear to be, it's possible Scratch managed to seed even this seemingly unpredictable action.

I think Scratch probably did 90% of the work in making Gamzee go ballistic, from multiple directions at once. Looking back, it's shocking just how much of the comic was Scratch's doing.

'Caused' is a loaded phrase in Paradox Space, but what's happening is definitely what he planned.

Anonymous asked: It kind of seems like Rage as an aspect is evil, no? Do you think an aspect can carry an inherent moral weight? If not, what are the neutral meanings of aspects that seem to, and if so, how do you feel about it?

Personally, I doubt that any of the Aspects have a moral alignment - not even the scary-sounding ones. After all, you can Rage against tyranny, or bring Doom to a corrupt institution. Yeah, Gamzee is using Rage for evil, but his perception-shielding could just as easily be used to hide an innocent bystander from an aggressive Underling.

I think that more or less any ability can be used for both good or evil. The only real exception would be a power that's deliberately designed to be irreparably, comically evil. 'The ability to torture everyone for all eternity' would be one of those powers, but Homestuck's Aspect abilities would not.

@worldweary-walker asked: have you read Kill Six Billion Demons?

I have not! It's on my long and constantly growing list, which means I'll get to it between now and, uh, 2096.

Anonymous asked: re: the ancestors' story. WHAT IF WE ALL JUST CRIED like. the sheer transition from inane antics to the. that @corporalotherbear asked: There's a very popular fanmade version of the sufferer's final sermon and following vast expletive, voiced by a man that would go on to be the english voice actor of Izuku Midoriya. I can't add links to asks but if it's spoiler-friendly then your vetter can probably send you "The sufferer's last sermon"

Oh, I kind of love this interpretation. It really sells just how unwinnable the Sufferer's rebellion truly was.

@wolygan asked: I forgot how she is so happy when she is running away. This Girl is still able to believe that good is coming. Except Lord English won't let that happen, no matter what. @wickedsick asked:

That was possibly the fastest you have ever been proven wrong about something

That poor girl. She suffered just as much as the Signless did, but she'll only be known to Alternia as a monster - and unlike Troll Jesus, no one will ever mourn the Handmaid.

Anonymous asked: the sufferer cult is definitely independent of the juggalos! the use of the word sectarian to describe the war waged against the signless's beliefs is not a coincidence, imo. (we also see that highblood is most often used to specifically describe purplebloods). they're just two different religious organizations. given that the grand highblood was a juggalo man/subjuggulator and occupied significant power it seems to suggest that clown religion was a Big Thing among the purplebloods, which would not truck with the signless' cult being so small and secretive. there's one theory that part of the reason the neophyte was sent on mindfang's case was bc the GHB (given that mindfang mentions the neophyte was sent by subjuggulators specifically) knew she was a secret sufferite and wanted to get rid of her. mindfang does talk about how it seemed like they were giving up on her case entirely by sending just one neophyte (granted this is partially bc she underestimated her). it would track that while they definitely wanted to get rid of mindfang, they also were fine with the neophyte dying. this also follows with the fact that after mindfang gets out of that trial, she manages to persist without being caught right up until her death at the hands of the summoner. were they happy that the neophyte got killed, enough to stop putting much effort into mindfang's capture?

I think the Highbloods probably did set Redglare up. I speculated that it was possible when we first heard about her death, and that was before we knew she was a Signless cultist.

Also: lmao, do you remember when Hussie told us that the Juggalo Cult was 'obscure'? That's starting to feel like something that was quietly retconned offscreen.

@clueless-rarito asked: In case you like to know, "Dolorosa" is meant to evoke the spanish word "Doloroso" meaning painful but changing the O for an A turn it feminine.

Dolorosa; in other words, the woman in pain.

Fucking hell, she deserved so much better. It's amazing how much bleaker the Ancestors' lives were, compared to their descendants. Modern Alternia is bad enough as it is!

@lon-kasi asked: Fanwork recommendation: The same guy who did the EoA5 reanimation just did Intermission 2 as well. Like, less than six hours before I sent this ask. It's incredible.

Yessss! These are amazing.

My favorite parts are all the extra touches that weren't in the original animation, such as Rose beginning to realizing how badly she was tricked - or Jade, unused to her own powers, almost knocking John on his ass while she teleports him.

Anonymous asked: Now that you've seen what a Reckoning on Skaia looks like, you can see why Karkat was rushing Kanaya to get their frog done. Despite jumping the gun, skipping the lore elements and just killing their way to the end, the troll kids never had enough time. Especially since, now that I'm thinking about it, if it wasn't the Reckoning then it probably would have been Jack as the "time's up, now turn in your work" event. @marinerofthestars asked: With the revelation that Alternia was built to and ended up speedrunning an Sgrub/Sburb session to catastrophic effect (great job reading this far, btw), how long would you expect a “standard” session to take?

We've got two different asks here - one saying that normal sessions are meant to be shorter than Hivebent's, and the other saying they're meant to be longer.

I honestly don't know which I believe. It feels unrealistic for a Sburb session to take months, but Scratch really did seem to be saying that the trolls were extremely effective Players, implying most sessions take longer to beat. Maybe the reboot session will clue us in a little?

Anonymous asked: “How do you expect to out run me, When I Am Already Here.” Is such a hard line, and it’s completely missable in the alt text for the site banner. I know a lot of people missed it when these panels dropped. I remember HS being considered super unique because of how much the comic messes with formatting things like that.

I was super close to missing some of that scene, even though I'd already been warned about the alt text. There was just so much going on at the time, I almost didn't think to look at the banners.

@royalvorpal asked: "I thought words would be exchanged" How do you expect them to talk when they are in person?

pffffffffffffffffffft

Alright, that one fucking got me.

@bladekindeyewear asked: "But no, apparently not, because it took Karkat zero words and sixty seconds to completely shut Gamzee down. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s incredibly impressive - but what did he actually do?" If you look back IN RETROSPECT at some of what Gamzee has been telling Karkat, it almost looks like pale flirting, like he was actually WANTING him to do this behind his threats. p3361: "FTC: i wonder if you can all be at with me in time and make me get my reconsider on?" Anonymous asked: You may not like it, but this is what peak moirallegience looks like.

Yeah, this really does make that exchange read as a little flirtatious.

Still, is this really how a moirallegiance is meant to work? Are moirails really expected to risk their lives to halt their prospective partner's rampage? This is starting to sound more dangerous than a kismesissitude!

@bladekindeyewear asked: I'm not sure how well it applies to the revised Homestuck website and it's probably impossible in the collection, but you could view any past/future page in any CSS format the site gave you with a keyword, like the black-on-green Doc Scratch format. So when Andrew did the "SNOP" to SBAHJ-mode, he was intentionally giving us a tool to view the ENTIRE SITE in SBAHJ mode.

There's a 'theme override' button, but I need to finish Homestuck to unlock it. I guess the comic's theme will change in more spoilery ways, later on.

Anonymous asked: Dolorosa/Mindfang is the true kicker of the “vriska keeps ending up in mirror relationships to her ancestor” belief, bc its the one where there is NO way vriska could know that shes in a mirror relationship. Eridan- orphaner dualscar and mindfangs romance was in the journal. Tavros- she knew about the summoner. But while there are hints to the dolorosas identity- sharp teeth, lower blood color, and a very vague if you stretch it hint about horn shape- no way vriska could have put those pieces together!!!

Man, it's still so fucked up that the Dolorosa went out like that. I still think it's at least remotely possible that she revived as a vampire, but I'm not gonna kid myself - her story is over. We're not gonna see her.

Anonymous asked: You've mentioned "ratfic" and something called "the Methods" before, is that something you've read?

If I could write an essay about Steven Moffat, I could write an entire thesis about Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality - but it'd be radioactively critical, and it feels mean-spirited to just post a rant about something unprompted.

If people want my thoughts in detail, I might stick them on the sideblog later - but for now, I'll just tell you that if it wasn't for that fic, XAE A-12 Musk would never have been born. Not a joke.

Anonymous asked: i love the complete about face on gamzee lol. "clearly the fact that he's gone nuts is something wrong with the timeline" gamzee is revealed to be responsible for lil cal "actually fuck this guy"

If we do ever recover the original Gamzee, it's going to really suck for him to face his friends. After everything he's done, will anyone ever really trust him again?

@elkian asked: Love the Exiles. So glad nothing bad happens to them, ever, (I assume the pause before the third s175 post is bc you, like me, took a break to cry over AR hesitating to kill his friend :,(

I was so bummed, guys. Carapacians don't have ghosts, I assume - so the Exiles, sans PM and maybe WV, are gone forever.

The Red Miles will probably have obliterated their corpses, so we can't even prototype most of them - but I'm holding out hope for Waywardsprite.

Anonymous asked: heh, you aren't alone in preferring god tier dave without his hood. i was around for when cascade dropped and wasnt able to watch it straight away due to the various troubles, but one of the first things i heard about it was people talking about how stupid they thought dave's hood looked.

I know, right? Like, yeah, it definitely says 'knight', but Dave's got great hair, and it feels like a shame to cover it.

@bladekindeyewear asked: "PCG: SHE WAS CONSTANTLY FIXING MY FUCKUPS. PCG: ROBOTS FROM THE FUTURE ALWAYS COMING BACK TO TELL ME HOW SOME HASTY SHIT I DID WITH FROG BREEDING OR WHATEVER WOULD MAKE IT BE IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN. PCG: MY OWN PERSONAL MISTAKES PROBABLY ACCOUNTED FOR MORE DOOMED ARADIABOTS THAN ANYTHING ELSE." Now that the Tumor's revealed for the precision device it was, it's also clear that Aradia, likely following the Horrorterrors' instructions, FORCED them to breed the frog JUST RIGHT to create the Sun.

Yeah, the existence of that precision device really fucking threw me. Whatever it did, the frog cancer probably was deliberately engineered to cause it - and I think it was engineered by Scratch, rather than the Horrorterrors. He was also talking to Aradia during the session, and this event was key to his plan.

Anonymous asked: (And one more ask from the person without a tumblr. -DJ) The thing is, Scratch could have just said "you must create the Green Sun, it is essential for the existence of the multiverse, not doing so will create a paradox". But either he chose to trick them, by only but saying "true words", just for fun…or there is some reason telling them about their true mission wouldn't work - RM

Either is possible, and it's pretty much impossible to say. That said, the Vast Glub is proof that he does just like messing with people, so I'm going with the former answer.

Anonymous asked: (forwarding another ask from the person without a Tumblr account -DJ) Do you think there are interesting parallels between Scratch and Tarquin from OOTS? - RM

Well, they are both meta-aware villains with extremely wide-reaching plans, and they're both pretty weird about women. Hopefully this means that Scratch's much cooler son will kick his ass in a later Act.

@bladekindeyewear asked: One tiny cute detail in Cascade I love is how when the Green Sun lights up in the distance for the trolls, Terezi tries to point at it, and Karkat gently takes her arm and re-points it in the right direction. XD

Shoulda brought the Smelloscope, Terezi!

Anonymous asked: The first time i read homestuck my shit bugged out and I literally just missed the entire scrapbook section and cascade. The SECOND time I read homestuck cascade gave me such a neuron firing high that only harrow the ninth has ever gotten close to

That's exactly how to describe it. Cascade blasted my neurons, in exactly the same way that part of Harrow the Ninth did.

@rwbypro asked: Ngl one of my favorite parts about homestuck is the fact that Doc Scratch Won, like he got Exactly what he wanted, and he played everyone like fiddles, one of my all time favorite villains in anything!

He did, the bastard! Scratch managed to pull it off without a hitch.

These are the exact kind of convoluted masterstrokes you want to see in a time-travel story, and I think English's machinations will only grow more intricate, going forward.

@sanctferum asked: The juggalo cult believes in a pair of mirthful messiahs rather than just the one, so if English is one of the messiahs, that's only half the equation. Presumably, the other messiah would be Scratch.

That works! I originally thought that the Messiahs were the two members of ICP, but let's be honest, they still could be. I absolutely would not put it past this comic to reveal that Lord English was Shaggy 2 Dope the whole time.

@sanctferum asked: So now that you've seen Lord English's true appearance: he's got a peg leg, and that peg leg is a golden cuestick, filling in the last missing piece of the Felt analogy - the one that moves the billiards around in the first place. For good measure, English's peg leg, single golden tooth and his garish coat give him a stereotypical pimp appearance, which is fitting given his treatment of his female servants so far (not to mention Scratch's own treatment of both the Handmaid and whichever female player he is manipulating at any given moment. He even explicitly uses the word grooming to describe raising Handmaid!). If there was ever a pimp for Dave to lock in his own crib while dropping it like it was hot, this would be him.

Ayy, you're right! I've been waiting for the Felt's cuestick since the Intermission days!

You're also right about the comic's villains. Scratch and English aren't just screwing over female Players - they've also been fucking with Mindfang, the Handmaid, the Condesce, and even Snowman. It's absolutely a pattern.

These guys aren't just cosmic villains, they're misogynist cosmic villains. Mundane evil and supernatural evil, all together in one convenient package of shit.

Anonymous asked: Now that we've gotten past this point in the comic- I just wanted to say I forgot Expatri8 was ever a name used to refer to Darkleer- mainly because all I ever see people refering to him as is Darkleer. And at first it kinda threw me for a loop when you called him that even though it's the only name you knew for him- Anyhows- You probably noted this at some point but only upper middle class to high blood colors seem to have name names, with some exceptions. Like, they're weird, but Mindfang, Redglare, and Dualscar are all fesable names. Meanwhile the lower bloods just have titles.

It is absolutely in character of Alternia not to allow lowbloods to have names.

Anonymous asked: Just read your liveblog over the last two days. I adore your analysis! I second that one person’s reccomendation of In Stars And Time. Also I reccomend the Blue Lips homestuck video, it’s lived in my head for ages. I’m 99% sure it’s safe to watch now? It’s about the events of murderstuck and I don’t THINK it references anything you don’t know. Anyhoot! I know you mentioned vriska being like Azula when you first started getting to know her. Now that you’re as far as you are, I’d like to argue… Vriska is more like Zuko, in a way? Like. The way she wants to wipe things clean, the way he wants to restore his honor. The way they both have a “parent” that leads them to how things are, and for a while they cling to that as “right” and how things should be… One time I saw a post that Vriska is girl Zuko and Eridan is boy Azula and all the comments were arguing that no, vriska is Azula, but lowkey that post changed my brain chemistry and idk why people were SO vehemently against changing the genders of the characters in the comparison

I think Vriska works well as girl Zuko. You're right - they both started off under the thumb of an abusive parent, and they both try to 'fix' their past mistakes without understanding the wider context behind why they made them. Now, does this mean Vriska will also be getting a kickass redemption arc, which turns her into one of the comic's most straightforwardly heroic characters? Possibly, but I ain't holding my breath.

It's a little harder for me to see the second comparison, though. Like her brother, Azula was made into what she is by her horrible father, whereas Eridan became what he is on his own, with some assistance from Alternian culture.

Perhaps there are layers here that I'm just not seeing. I haven't read the Avatar sequel comics yet, so they might do more with Azula's character that I don't know about.

@mrjocrafter asked: I was trying to think about what the characters' moon alignment means in terms of their characterization, thought "Prospit dreamers are relatively passive while Derse dreamers are relatively active", then realized that's only true for the humans, the Post-Scratch Trolls' 6 Prospit dreamers (excluding Sollux, as his 'official' alignment, according to the Extended Zodiac, is Derse) are the more active characters. Then I realized that on Earth darkness and dark-associated characters are edgy and countercultural, while on Alternia light and light-associated characters are countercultural instead! Goddamn this comic just keeps coming back for more themes Also, I know you've compared Taylor to Vriska in the past, but she really strikes me as more of a Terezi. Beyond the surface level stuff (like going blind and then relying on a supernatural sense), Taylor, like Terezi has a strong moral compass but will twist it into pretzels to do the most horrific shit and there's a 50/50 chance she even regrets it afterwards. Meanwhile, Amy, who I think makes a much better Vriska, does her atrocities either under manipulation (like Vriska) or just does it without thinking about it and feels bad about it later (hey, also like Vriska). Also, Taylor Hebert and Amelia Dallon are coincidentally both valid troll names.

Yup! Which means Kanaya is a troll goth, which is still amazing.

And... hmm, I'm not sure whether I'd call Dave active or passive. He certainly acts more on his own initiative than John, but he also spends a lot of time getting bossed around by Terezi. He's kind of in the middle, really.

I do think Terezi's reframing of her violence as 'justice' is very Taylor-coded - and Amy is absolutely a Vriska, if we're working off the 'female, controversial, and morally ambiguous' definition given by a previous asker. Plus, well...

...yeah. And let's not even talk about Ward. (Because I haven't read it.)

Really, all these characters are multifaceted, and you can draw many different parallels in many different directions. If I had the time, I could probably draw lines from each of the trolls to a different cape in the Wormverse - but for now, we must continue!

@morganwick asked: Bec's influence on Jack is so strong that not only is he reduced to following Jade around like a puppy, he kills CD for completing the mission he gave him and leaves Jade, one of the players he's supposed to be killing, on her quest bed, the nature of which he didn't seem to know about when it came to John. Bec = absolute king.

Bec is a king.

It really does seem like his influence over Jack is increasing as time passes. Is Davesprite going to get more birdlike, as well? Or is Bec just a special case because he's a First Guardian?

Anonymous asked: oh my god you really just cleaned the board with the last minute Dave+Rose quest slab guess??? Like. You were going on about other things and then you just casually mention "oh I guess this could happen too" like okay!!! Seer!!!!

Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that one. I was just thinking about how Aradia might help the Derse kids, once she'd met them at the Sun, and then it hit me: she's been in exactly the same situation, in exactly the same place, because of exactly the same sun!

Anonymous asked: dogtier IS in fact what the entire fandom calls her, if you came up with that yourself congrats on the authentic 2011 homestuck experience, move over carcinisation this is the new big thing in convergent evolution

I did, but come on. That pun makes itself.

Anonymous asked: Fun fact: the music used in [S] Begin Intermission 2, "English", is the same when reversed. It is an EXTREMELY excellent detail. And another example of Toby Fox being a brilliant composer. @sanctferum asked: English by Toby Fox is a really cool song in that its a musical palindrome, playing the same both forwards and backwards, as befits the titular entity. The whole Felt album it's from is based around creating songs with time gimmicks in them, so it serves as a very good semifinal track to almost close the album out. @emotionallyglued asked: You finally got to the part where our big bad man appears! Simple question to ask but I'm looking forward towards the answer: what do you think of Lord English's theme? Grandiose enough to fit a villain of his caliber or did you expect something more/else?

Oh, shit, that's cool!

I liked the song a lot. Sure, it's not as bombastic as the boss theme I went with myself, but it is much, much scarier. It was the perfect way to remind us that this wasn't really a victory - that English's plan went off without a hitch. Our heroes are still in terrible, terrible danger.

@morganwick asked: post/756751870755733504 Still think of Doc Scratch as "Big Cal"? @sanctferum asked: You've heard of Lil' Cal and Big Cal, now get ready for the deadliest and dastardliest villain of all: Biggest Cal. Anonymous asked: you've seen lil cal, now get ready for BIG CAL @lon-kasi asked: finally, Big Ca- well. actually. Scratch was Big Cal, wasn't he? so finally, Bigger Cal

This is the real reason Scratch wouldn't tell Rose his boss's name - because if she'd known her manipulator worked for Bigger Cal, she'd have been too god damn scared to go grimdark.

Anonymous asked: T1ck T0ck goes the God Tier Clock. Its chime signals the Br8k of Scratch's H34D. And with the arrival of Lord English, he lets loose two great, Vast honk HONKS. Anonymous asked: Did you notice something about the English sequence? First, we see Scratch's clock. t1ck, t0ck. Then, his head breaks. 8r8k H34DS. He releases the Vast Honk. honk HONK.

This motherfucker died to the very words that birthed him.

I guarantee you that this was deliberate on Scratch's part. He didn't need to foreshadow his plan so blatantly - but this horrible little troll knew that nobody would get the joke until it was too late.

bladekindeyewear asked: "S u c k e r s ." The bioorganic-looking Tumor opening up to reveal a precision device. Twice the mass of a universe. Doc Scratch fucking played EVERYONE SO HARD. We couldn't believe THEY CREATED THE GREEN SUN, so hard many of us watched without REALIZING IT. If you reread the talk Doc and Rose had from p3627 onward, the amount of TRANSPARENT DODGES AND WEASELING he did in that conversation to mislead Rose and the entire readership is so blatant and shameless, oh my fucking god!!! Anonymous asked: Not only did Scratch never said the tumor would destroy the green sun, he also specifically said they would travel to the green sun LOCATION, not to the green sun itself.

God damn it!

Scratch may have been stoic on the outside, but you mark my words: he was absolutely roaring with laughter on the inside.

@sunbluethinking asked: Regarding 'a dozen or two sweeps,' you do have to remember that it seems like one sweep is roughly equivalent to two human years? (See Terezi's and Dave's 'I'm six' conversation, or whatever it was.) So my impression is that a dozen sweeps would be equivalent to 24 years and two dozen sweeps would be equivalent to 48 years. Still really short, but not quite as absurdly short. (Which actually reminds me of the question of the problem of rate of maturation in fictional races with different lifespans. (Dungeon Meshi touches on this, but) in the case of Homestuck, I think it seems like the trolls mature to adulthood at about the same rate. It's just their adult lifespans that are different.) @bellcarved asked: If my math is correct, "a dozen or two sweeps" is a range of 26 to 52 years. Still not great, but 26 would be the low end of the life expectancy, while they tend to live around half as long as a human.

So either Aradia was about to die, or she wasn't - but either way, she was always going to die young.

We still don't know whether God Tier stops you aging, do we? I have to assume so, because death by old age isn't really Heroic or Just, but I'd feel a lot better if it was 100% confirmed.

Anonymous asked: And here we learn the story of Jesus and the second coming- @bellcarved asked: Now you know the truth: Karkat Vantas is the second coming of Troll Jegus Christ. Anonymous asked: I doubt I'm the first to say this but, the story of the Signless is undeniably based off the story of Jesus Christ. @skelekingfeddy asked: you do realise that the sufferer is Troll Jegus right. the irons/cancer symbol is the crucifix. his method of execution turned into the main symbol of a religion. the dolorosa is mary. karkat is the second coming. hes literally just Troll Jegus lmao @sanctferum asked: turns out, Terezi was right all along. troll jegus was real after all, and he was indeed the best jegus. shame on you for not believing, Dave

God damn it, Karkat. You hate yourself so much, even though you're literally the second coming of Christ.

And really does add weight to Terezi's claim that Alternia had the 'best' Jesus. Sure, says she's joking here, but... well, her Ancestor was a follower of the Signless, wasn't she? Could Terezi have inherited more of Redglare's legacy than we thought?

Anonymous asked: now that you know about the signless i recommend you take another read of karkat's long password on page 3972

...huh.

It almost makes it seem like Karkat's vaguely cognizant of the Sufferer's life, the same way the Sufferer was cognizant of his pre-Scratch incarnation. Funny, that.

@morganwick asked: "For a bisexual alien, his shipping is awfully straight, isn't it?" Well, consider that when he drew that he was trying to adhere to the human model of reproduction with its explicit requirement of one person of each sex, as best he could from his alien perspective. Note that in the same conversation he's struggling to understand the "human taboo of incest". @manorinthewoods asked: Karkat's humanshipping is straight because John told him he wasn't gay, and presumably, he extrapolated. ~LOSS (28/12/24) Anonymous asked: Karkat's very straight shipping chart is the way it is because John's Not A Homosexual:tm:

I totally forgot I came to the same conclusion, back in that legendary group chat.

Man, Rose x Kanaya is really going to throw Karkat for a loop. He'll probably think that John was just bullshitting him.

@skelekingfeddy asked: steven moffat is a valid troll name Anonymous asked: You've brought it up too much not to ask, what did Moffat do that pissed you off so badly?

Once more, I am very tempted to make this a full essay, but I'll save time by just pointing to Hbomberguy's famous Sherlock video, which I agree with, like, 80% of - particularly the Doctor Who segment that I've timestamped.

In a nutshell, Moffat was always really good at generating intrigue, and building hype for future events - but as a showrunner, he never really delivered on his promises, and was very fond of handwaving established canon to the side. Pet peeve of mine, as you can imagine.

@rwbypro asked: We warned you bro, we warned you about the most important character @skelekingfeddy asked: carcinoGeneticist may have engineered the cancer…but terminallyCapricious was the one who made it terminal. ;o) @capribornio asked: Honk, honk :0) Heyyyy you reached the part where Gamzee became my favorite enemy. Forget Vriska, Jack and Doc Scratch - Gamzee may have his buttons pushed by the good ol' Doc, but he managed to make things worse than even Vriska got to (and killed more main characters, too!). Anonymous asked:Congratulations on reaching this point. So, Gamzee chucklefucked the universe. Crazy, right? @bellcarved asked: Gamzee's "Bard of Rage" title is looking more accurate than ever, now. His own rage lead him to put the clowns in John's dreams, which ended up inspiring the rage that made Jack Noir go to the lengths he did. Bardic inspiration, if you will. …also, this makes Perfect Jack a collaborative effort between Vriska and Gamzee. @capribornio asked: I feel like you get Gamzee much better than most livebloggers (and a part of the fandom, too). Gamzee is an orchestrator, on a much bigger level than any could have predicted. The silly little troll dissappeared once he got off the slime, got his religion destroyed, and got Lil Cal.

I told you, guys! I told you Bards were overpowered!

Yeah, he's already getting pretty crafty, isn't he? Maybe, instead of manipulating Gamzee like he did the girls, Scratch has actually been coaching him. After all, his own manipulating days are over, so maybe he saw fit to train a successor...

Anonymous asked: if vriska was presented with a choice about the creation of bec noir, it would have had to be before the veil because the trolls only flee into the veil AFTER bec shows up and wrecks their reward- and that's their first introduction to him. any choice she could have made about bec/jack after that would result in a doomed timeline, because it would break the loop. that's why it has to be before the veil. @manorinthewoods asked: What I mean is that the Choice that would have prevented Bec Noir is something that would have made Vriska change who she was, in such a way that she wouldn't later make Bec. Vriska's Choice that made Bec can't have occurred in the Veil, because there wasn't a Denizen to give it, so whatever it was, it must have been something to do with character growth that she failed to do. ~LOSS (28/12/24)

Oh, right, that makes sense!

Yeah, poor Vriska simply wasn't self-aware enough to make such a Choice before the Veil. It's interesting what-if, though.

@flambeaufelid asked: ICP albums liveblog maybe??? (Do people liveblog music reactions? They should.) Anonymous asked: Since you mentioned the possibility of having to listen to ICP albums to understand Gamzee better, I figured I’d better let you know that while reading a bit about juggalos, ICP, and ICP’s music does help with understanding Gamzee better if you’re unfamiliar with them (though I wouldn’t say it’s crucial), I don’t recommend listening to their music unless you’re comfortable with graphic depictions of gore, murder, and other forms of violence. (Speaking from personal experience here; I tried listening to them because Gamzee’s my favorite character and quickly realized I didn’t enjoy that.) Anonymous asked: I would say listening to icp is not necessary… I tried myself and failed not even half way through one album so I admittedly could be wrong but… I think it was never intended to be THAT serious

I checked out Miracles, back when ICP was first brought up, but I haven't seen any of their other music. It's probably not actually necessary to listen to the band to understand Gamzee, but I might still do it for fun, since the graphic content wouldn't bother me much.

@skelekingfeddy asked: according to hussie the fifth wall is what divides two narrators/authors @sanctferum asked: According to Hussie's comments, if the fourth wall is the wall between the character and the author/their audience, then the fifth wall is specifically the wall dividing omniscient narrators from each other. or something like that

I, uh, guess that makes sense. Presumably Scratch would be our second 'author' in this scenario, even though he's not literally another author of Homestuck.

[somepsychopomp]

A Fair Contest

So a little bit ago I drafted an idea for an AU where, instead of the golden apple saying 'to the fairest' it says 'to the most amorous king'

And instead of the ladies fighting over the apple, it's Zeus & Poseidon. In order to determine who exactly is the superior lover (and king + who gets bragging rights), the two brothers select one (un)fortunate mortal that both of them shall take to bed...

and the judge they select for their little contest is none other than Odysseus.

(Takes place pre-Trojan War. In fact there's basically no Trojan War to begin with. Also Odysseus is betrothed but not yet married to Penelope)

Consider this chapter 1 of this fic. I really hope I can finish it because I stayed up to almost 4 am writing this, which is amazing because I've been dealing with a major cold and writers block for a while now

Word Count: approx. 4400

There's no smut yet but I do confess to giving Ody a bubble butt. Also in a world where Ruthlessness never happened/is yet to happen... Poseidon has a thing for strong thighs & is absolutely smitten with Odysseus

Also in my head, I'm imagining Neal's character designs but I think I've kept it vague enough for now that you can imagine whatever designs you like

+++

The wedding had been a most splendid sight, with revelry among both men and gods. The small mortal king, Peleus, was of course honored to host such a wide variety of the gods and have them witness his union with the divine Thetis. Zeus gave the couple his own blessing and permitted Dionysus to pour out his strongest wine for the occasion. 

Well into the night, the attendees danced to a tireless band and feasted upon the finest foods available. Gods mingled with mortals, some sneaking off with a young maiden or cupbearer for some more illicit fun. 

All was going well until the first beam of daylight shone upon a pedestal that no guest noticed before, where a golden apple awaited. 

Curious onlookers clustered around it, wondering where it could have come from. The mortals believed the apple to be made of real gold, thinking it was a lavish wedding gift. The gods were equally mystified, knowing that something so perfect and beautiful could only be given by one of their own. Hera pursed her lips at the sight of it. 

The king of the gods made his way to the center of the crowd, the other guests parting for him with their eyes averted in deference. He regarded the apple with mild curiosity, having a treasury greater than all of Greece’s wealth upon Olympus. A ribbon was tied neatly to the apple’s stem with a message embroidered upon it. 

“To the most amorous king.”

Zeus chuckled at the oddity of this little present and moved to take the apple. 

Only for another hand to grab it at the very same moment. 

The two gods stared at each other. 

“What do you think you’re doing, dear brother?” Zeus asked, the smile falling from his face. 

Poseidon rolled his eyes and scoffed, “Taking my prize.”

“You?” Zeus said, his voice dripping with outrage, “You dare defy your king like this?”

Poseidon’s voice turned sharp and cold. “I am lord of the seas! The gift doesn’t say ‘to the king of the skies’, now does it? No, you read it yourself.”

The mortal guests, including King Peleus, began to make their quick exit from the venue. Some of the lesser gods were also making their sneaky escape, fearing the worst was about to come. 

Hera approached her husband and wrapped her arms around his own, “Darling, it’s just an apple. If you want one, I’ve got a whole orchard full.”

It was true that Gaea, the very earth itself, gave Hera a grove of enchanted apple trees as her wedding gift. The trees were immune to all illnesses and sprouted fruit of pure gold all year round. In all likelihood, this very apple was stolen from the Queen’s orchard.

The god-king’s most favorite child appeared at his other side in an attempt to soothe his growing rage, “Father, listen to Queen Hera. This is a trick meant to sew discord, nothing more.”

Zeus ignored his daughter Athena as if she weren’t there. 

“Let it go, my love.” Hera said, “After all, why have one apple when you could have hundreds?”

Zeus gave her a sharp look, his golden eyes burning with a harsh, radiant glow. The queen of the gods was so taken aback that she shrunk away under the weight of his glare. Zeus said, “I am the god of judgement! No matter how trivial of a token it is, I will not let my brother take what does not rightfully belong to him!” 

Poseidon threw his head back and laughed, not one to be daunted, “Oh, is that so? And how will you prove that it doesn’t belong to me, hm?”

He tossed the golden apple into the air, catching it in his other hand. Zeus bared his teeth and snatched Poseidon’s wrist, unwilling to let elder brother even hold the thing. 

It was now apparent to all the remaining gods what this was really about. 

Neither king would secede when their pride and egos were in jeopardy. For either of them, letting the other take the apple now, after they’ve already started bickering, would mean admitting they were the more feeble lord, a less competent lover. And such a slight against their reputations would never stand. 

“Ahem,” a voice said. 

A lovely woman with flawless bare skin for all the world to admire, a translucent shawl draped around her arms and roses in her pale tresses, stepped forward. 

Zeus barely spared her a glance. “What is it, Aphrodite?”

She smiled, though not without a hint of mischief in her eyes, “I think I have the solution to this little conflict of ours, one that will minimize any substantial damage to our family… or the known world.”

Zeus inclined his head in interest. Poseidon gave the goddess his ear, as well. Zeus let go of his brother and the sea god set the apple down. 

Athena bit her lower lip, knowing that Aphrodite’s schemes were almost never more than just that: schemes. Games to amuse herself with. She had something else in mind. 

Aphrodite snapped her fingers. A large, circular mirror gilded in silver and gold appeared in the air behind her. The surface rippled the same way a pond did when met with rainfall. 

A beautiful young maiden with a long braid of black hair tended to her garden. The image rippled and was replaced with what was clearly a princess being dressed for the day by her servants. Again, the image shifted and showed a handsome young man in a short chiton as he shepherded his flock of sheep. 

Aphrodite said, “Now, I’m sure you two could spend eternity bickering back and forth, boasting of your skills and past conquests, but as the goddess of love myself… why not have more of a practical examination?”

The two brothers exchanged a look, coming to the same conclusion. 

“You want us to share a lover?” Poseidon asked. 

Zeus added, “And have them decide?”

Aphrodite winked and gave them a cheerful smile. “Well, what do you say? There’s no shortage of pretty boys or girls across the land. Come, take your pick!”

Zeus stroked his beard, a few sparks crackling across his fingertips. Poseidon crossed his arms in contemplation. 

“Father, Uncle!” Athena said, trying to catch their attention, “This is madness, can you not see?”

But neither god answered her. Athena was in disbelief. 

All this over a golden apple that neither needed or really wanted. This was all about their reputations as accomplished lovers, which they shouldn’t even have considering they were both married men. 

And Aphrodite, it was clear she was only doing this to make a story out of it, the way she and her son Eros loved to couple mortals together, only to break them apart. No doubt some terrible fate will befall the chosen victim, no matter who they named the superior lover. 

In Athena’s mind, she could only imagine the loser of this game casting some bitter curse upon the poor mortal as revenge. But that was the fun of it for some gods, to see the doomed fate of some poor soul after getting mixed up with the divine. 

Behind Zeus’ back, Hera threw her hands into the air before storming off, summoning her chariot pulled by winged horses to return her to Olympus. 

Athena threw a disappointed look at Aphrodite before leaving as well, deciding to go where her counsel would be appreciated. 

+++

By mid-morning, Odysseus’ back and brow were already covered in sweat as he endeavored to finish the roof over his wedding bed before an unfortunate rain could sully his hard work below. 

The house he was raised in was perfectly fine, but with all the servants and guards on top of his family, it was not the largest of castles. It was also an old thing in constant need of repairs. Odysseus always envisioned a proper palace atop Ithaca’s mountains, one where his own family could grow large and have plenty of space to themselves. 

So, before the eve of his wedding, he endeavored to complete the house of his dreams for his new wife to enjoy. He started with their olive tree, a living symbol of his devotion to his betrothed. Odysseus labored day and night to carve part of it into one of the four posts for his wedding bed, taking extreme caution to not cut away so much that the tree would die. 

The largest bough of the olive tree would overlook one of their windows, with a perfect view of the vast ocean beyond it. Odysseus already carved the other three bed posts and constructed the frame, but there was always more work to do. As the common larborers constructed the foundation and walls for the other rooms in the palace, Odysseus went to work constructing the roof for his bedroom. 

With a sizable living tree in such close proximity to his quarters, he trusted no one but himself to complete the project without damaging it. 

Taking up hammer and nails, hauling wood and stone, and fitting everything into place almost entirely on his own was unusual for a king. Odysseus knew this, but the labor brought him joy like no other. He couldn’t help but smile to himself, imagining opening the door for the very first time as a married man. He would carry Penelope to their wedding bed, built entirely by his hand, and spend the rest of his life with her. 

Focus, he told himself. 

For now, Penelope still dwelled in her natal homeland of Sparta. As soon as her new home was completed, she would set sail for Ithaca.  

Odysseus wiped the sweat from his brow as the sun beat its rays upon his back. Maybe it was foolish to fear the coming rainfall, but he could see the grayish clouds on the horizon.

By midday, he was hopeful he could have the roof finished by nightfall. As Odysseus dropped from one of the wooden rafters into his nearly-complete bedroom, his tunic must have caught on a nail or perhaps a large splinter. He heard the sharp tearing of fabric and grumbled at the gash across his front. One of the room’s alcoves had some of his clothes, since he didn’t have time yet to build the chests or wardrobe. 

Thinking better of a tunic, Odysseus merely replaced it with a rectangular length of cloth fastened at the waist. It was something his mother wove, a lovely shade of blue to match the sea, embroidered with red and white thread. 

From somewhere nearby, he heard the familiar clicking of an owl’s beak coming to greet him. He smiled and turned around, draping his tunic over his arm as his mentor approached him in the form of a brown and white speckled owl. She sank her talons into his arm and flapped her wings as if in outrage. 

He let her perch on the alcove’s lip as he fasted a leather pauldron to his left shoulder. She hopped back on and Odysseus could feel her talons clench and unclench even through the tough leather. 

“What troubles you, Athena?” Odysseus asked. 

He set out through the bedroom’s heavy oak doors, finding himself in a long hallway that was finished, but not yet furnished or cleaned. 

She spoke into his mind, Sometimes, I wish I could belong to any other family but my own. 

Odysseus chuckled. “I’m sorry to hear.”

While he loved his parents and sister dearly, he knew that Athena often butted heads with her siblings and uncle. 

Odysseus counted the windows that still needed shutters and curtains, along with the patches in the roof that had yet to be filled in. Farther along, the great hall where they would entertain guests was still only a skeleton. Only half of the supporting beams and columns were installed and the whole place reeked of sweating men. 

Athena paid the laborers no mind as the citizens of Ithaca bowed for their king as he walked by. 

You know I’m not one for gossip, but I fear something terrible is about to strike the land. 

“Is that so?” Odysseus asked, his smile dropping. 

Yes, a terrible tragedy yet to come in the form of my Uncle Poseidon and my father. 

A servant approached Odysseus with a serving platter. He took a cup of water and drank deeply, and snatched a small bowl of olives before going on his way. 

“They’re angry with us?” Odysseus asked, fearing what this might mean for his people.

No, Athena said, accepting an olive and biting into the tender flesh with her sharp beak, Not quite, but their egos are yet again showing themselves. If you find unusual weather patterns in the next few days, pay them no mind. 

“Ah, I see.”

In truth, he didn’t understand Athena at all. But she seemed in the mood to vent about her personal feelings and seeing as she didn’t do so often, Odysseus was careful to listen. 

Athena clacked her beak in irritation. Odysseus bit into his own olive as he felt a sharp nibble on his ear before she started combing through his damp hair. She must’ve found something in his hair, a bit of dust or a wood chip, because he could feel her tugging at him. 

How goes construction on the new palace?

“Every day, I can see the way it’s growing.”

Odysseus passed by a group of men sitting in a loose circle, taking swigs from a water skin as they fanned themselves. One caught sight of Odysseus and they all scrambled to their feet. 

Odysseus held out a hand to put them at ease, “Catch your breath if you must. A tired man is more prone to making mistakes, and I will not have any in my new house.”

The men all sighed in relief and went back to their break, waving goodbye as he continued onward. Athena cooed to show her approval in his decision. He thought her mood was improving, but not a moment later, she said, I just can’t believe them sometimes. 

“Oh?”

Odysseus thought Athena said her piece already. She clicked his beak right in his ear. 

You would think that the god of law and order would have some sense in his head. But no! Apparently my mother Metis still possesses it. If only Father would listen to her, if not me.

Odysseus said nothing, having never heard Athena speak like this before, especially about her father. He thought it best to remain silent; perhaps Athena could complain about Zeus without punishment, but he knew far better. 

Athena clicked her beak with a different sense of urgency and Odysseus gave her another olive. She held it in one foot while balancing on the other, dropping the pit when she was finished devouring the flesh. 

“You seem awfully worked up,” Odysseus said, “Anything I can do to lift your burdens?”

Athena shook her head. No, I’m afraid this is something that no one man can solve, as frustrating as it might sound. 

He crossed the central courtyard and approached the war room, one of the few nearly-complete parts of the palace, where his chief architects and advisors were waiting to update him on their progress. 

Though Odysseus was primarily trained in the art of war, he was also well-versed in song and poetry, history, oratory, and arithmetic, all courtesy of Athena. He wasn’t an expert in architecture yet, but he had his own hand in designing the layout of the palace. 

“Good day, my friends.” Odysseus said, parting the curtains that served as a makeshift door until the palace was fitted with proper ones. 

One of his elder advisors squinted at Athena upon his shoulder. “My liege?”

Before they could go over any potential issues in the construction or their budgetary concerns, Odysseus wandered over to the window and let Athena take off. She disappeared through the trees, though he knew he’d see her again soon.

+++

Despite the fact the sun was about to set and the two godly kings had been bickering all day long, Aphrodite hadn’t lost her patience yet. In fact, she was even reveling in her task at hand. 

They moved their business to her abode on Olympus, where her many mirrors were put to good use. Zeus and Poseidon scoured the lands for a suitable judge to measure their sexual prowess, each of them interested in different aspects of what made up a potential lover. 

Zeus was pleased with just about any pretty face that breathed, but Poseidon was a bit pickier with appearances. He didn’t want his maidens or young men to be too skinny, and he seemed to have a preference for those with strong legs. Aphrodite could certainly work within those bounds. 

At the same time, Poseidon was more open to sharing a lover with some previous sexual experience, thinking it’d make the whole process easier. Zeus wrinkled his nose at the idea and insisted he wanted someone “new”, not wanting to muck about after some vastly lesser mortal man had his way with their chosen judge. 

Aphrodite agreed that was a good point, so instead of letting the two kings squabble, she put her talents as a matchmaker to good use. After a brief consultation, she put together a list of minimum requirements that satisfied both gods. 

One, their shared lover had to be attractive, preferably with appealing legs. 

Two, they had to be virginal. 

Three, they all agreed that the mortal should come from high standards, so some form of royalty. They could be a princess or a prince, or even someone lesser than that, but anyone of a noble bloodline would be preferable to a random maiden. Of course, both kings had their fair share of peasant-girl chasing, but for such an important competition, Aphrodite understood their concerns well. 

And lastly, the judge should be someone intelligent. Someone who wouldn’t buckle under the pressure of their assigned task and would be able to use not just their body, but logic to determine the true and indisputable winner. 

No doubt each god had their plans to bribe the judge, but who wouldn’t?

If it was Aphrodite competing for the apple, she wouldn’t hesitate to pull out a few tricks of her own. An idiot might be easy to bribe, but that also meant they’d be easy for the competition to bribe as well. To each of the male gods, an intelligent lover would certainly be able to recognize a superior bribe.

“Sadly, your stipulations exclude Helen of Sparta,” Aphrodite said, waving away the image of Helen in her largest mirror, “She’s had children by now, though she’s still quite lovely.”

Poseidon made a noncommittal sound, as if he might reconsider, but Zeus urged Aphrodite to move onto the next candidate with a flick of his wrist. The two of them sat before her best mirror, looking almost comical in her rose-colored, dove-ingrained armchairs. 

They went through a few more potential candidates, including Penelope of Sparta and Ctimene of Ithaca. Neither god was very impressed by her choices, but just as Aphrodite was about to move onto the next candidate, Poseidon held out a hand. 

“Wait a moment,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “Who is that in the back?”

“Oh?” Aphrodite asked. She returned to the image of Ctimene. She was bathed in the golden glow of the setting sun, her veil fluttering in her wake as her handmaidens walked with her. They seemed to be exiting some great ruin, but on closer inspection, the gods could see men at work. They were building a great palace, it seemed. 

Well, great by the standards of mortals. 

Behind Ctimene, a bare-chested young man held out a hand and seemed to be directing a group of others. Aphrodite’s mirror rippled and showed them the young man in greater detail, leaving young Ctimene out entirely. 

“Oh,” Zeus said. 

Aphrodite concealed her eager smile, more thrilled than ever at this sudden twist. She examined the young man’s features, including the sharp angles of his nose, his dense locks of dark brown hair, and his high cheekbones. He bore a striking resemblance to Ctimene. As the goddess of love, there were a few other details Aphrodite could parse out just by looking at him, but she would conceal her thoughts for now. 

She said, “Why, that would be none other than King Odysseus of Ithaca!” 

Though the young ruler was about the same height as his sister, he was no slight-of-frame weakling. His broad shoulders complimented his strong chest and arms, certainly the build of a warrior. His stomach was a flat plain and below his garments, well muscled thighs teased them almost playfully. 

A pale scar ran along the inside of one of his thighs, but it only added to his character. Though Poseidon maintained his interest, Zeus scoffed. 

“King, you say?” Zeus nudged his brother, “You know what that means.”

Poseidon was still appraising Odysseus’ thighs, “Plenty of whores in and out of his bed?”

“Actually!” Aphrodite said, clapping her hands, “You’ll be beyond pleased to know that young Odysseus here… is virginal.”

Now that had both gods’ attention. The King of the Gods seemed incredulous.

“How old is he?” Zeus asked. 

“Twenty years, my dearest king.”

“And he’s still a virgin?” Poseidon asked, his eyebrows flying up in surprise. “Why? Is he stupid?”

Aphrodite giggled behind her hand, “He’s determined to save himself for marriage, like a maiden! But it can’t be helped. I do believe he’s Athena’s pupil, after all. And I’m sure she holds him to what she perceives as a high standard.”

Aphrodite rolled her eyes, “Whatever the case may be, he’s remained celibate thus far. Perfectly ripe and ready to be plucked, if you would.”

The gods of the sea and sky shared a look. 

Zeus said, “Show us more.”

Aphrodite was more than happy to do exactly that. She waved her hand and the stationary image of Odysseus began to move. There was no sound to accompany the vision, but all three of them remained silent as they watched Odysseus work. 

He carried multiple rucksacks full of supplies up the spiral staircases of his house while other laborers stopped to eat their dinner. He seemed more than intent to get somewhere, not stopping until he came across a large bedroom with the roof still letting in sunlight in a few patches. Interestingly, while the bed was large and well made, it lacked a mattress or rug thrown over the rungs. Perhaps that would come later. 

Odysseus hopped out the window, seemingly ignorant to the fact there was a steep drop right below him, as he grabbed hold of a tree bough and climbed into the roof. It looked like he was intent on using every last bit of sunlight to his advantage as he finished laying out the clay shingles. 

The sweat across his body glistened like stardust as the sky above him glowed with the most beautiful shades of red and gold. He put his strong body to use by covering the few bare patches of his rooftop, stopping only to retrieve a shallow clay bowl from his pack, filling it with oil and floating a wick on top before igniting his lamp to give him a bit more light. 

Zeus snapped his fingers. In an instant, Hermes was fluttering at his side. 

“Yes, Father?”

Without taking his eyes off of Odysseus, Zeus said, “Contact Helios. Tell him to wait a while longer before dusk arrives.”

Hermes spared Odysseus a brief glance before nodding and flying off. Though the mortal didn’t seem to notice, the sun did indeed stop setting. 

Odysseus set down his hammer to dab his sweat-soaked face with a rag. He was tiring now, but intent on finishing his job if the determined look in his eyes was any indication. 

Poseidon held up one hand and curled a finger toward himself. 

The hammer that Odysseus just set down began sliding toward the edge of the roof. 

“Brother…” Zeus warned. 

Poseidon said, “Trust me.”

Odysseus snatched the hammer before it could fall, but found himself quite close to the edge now. 

Poseidon cupped his hands around his mouth and blew softly. A wind coming off Ithaca’s coast kicked up, carrying the salty scent of the ocean with it. As Odysseus stood with his hammer, he raised his other hand to shield his eyes from the sudden gust of wind that ruffled his hair and clothing. 

Aphrodite’s eyes widened, instantly recognizing the game Poseidon was playing. She added her own flare as well, using just the slightest twirl of her finger to undo the belt holding young Odysseus’ garments in place. 

The poor young king seemed baffled by his sudden misfortune, moving swiftly to capture his garment before the wind could steal it away. Aphrodite froze the image without being told to do so, but she was quite proud of her timing. 

Odysseus stood in all his mortal splendor, revealing his tan skin scarred by past adventures. He was healthy, with the body of an athlete and his arm outstretched to better display the toned muscles under his skin.  

“What a surprise!” Aphrodite said with mirth, tracing her finger along the surface of the mirror, “Look at his little dimples!” 

Indeed, a twin set of dimples rested over his lower back, no longer concealed by his clothing. But that was not all. Some men were cursed to be rather flat in their rear, leaving them looking awkward or incomplete at times, but Aphrodite was equally pleased that Odysseus had something worth looking at below his dimples. In addition to the well-defined muscles in his shoulders and back, he sported the most grabbable bottom. 

If Odysseus was not doomed to be the plaything between kings, Aphrodite might have been tempted to take him for herself. 

She held out her hands as if Odysseus was nothing more than an exotic animal on display. Poseidon was leaning forward in his chair, his head tilted with interest. Zeus, too, seemed sold at last. His golden eyes sparkled more brightly than usual as he traced over the little king’s backside. He ran his tongue over his teeth. 

Aphrodite smiled, “So, my dears… what do you say? Is Odysseus of Ithaca to be your judge?”

[moltensmusings]

how did zeref create the dragon slayers?? and are natsu and zeref still brothers

As I answer this I want to note: a lot of these ideas are from 2022 and not as fresh in my head, and rewriting the lore of fairy tail has taken a backset to my own personal story so things can get muddy and may change.

First zeref has a parent/child dynamic with the dragon slayers. None of them really know him but he is their creator and has a certain level of fondness for all of them. Natsu he's actually disappointed in. I'll explain in a moment.

Zeref is cursed due to hubris and how he dug into every type of magic no matter how taboo just to learn and gain power in this au. He had a love of learning and a zest for life that ultimately leads to him corrupting the very core of magic causing death and desolation around him.

He's only able to be killed by people blessed by divinity, however out of pettiness as gods can often be, no truly blessed mages have been found since Zeref was cursed.

And by divinely blessed I don't mean magic based in divinity. I mean a child the gods claim as their own. Someone made holy without training for it.

He takes matters into his own hands and crafts children to act as sponges for dragon magic since in this version dragons are children of God's who have taught humans before. Zeref's idea is that maybe this could work in killing him.

Irene would have known him from this point and she's the reason the dragons take in the children at all. But when it comes to Zeref, anyone who assists him is worthy of sharing in his punishment and she's given a similarly horrible one to endure for it.

The thing is he knows for someone to kill him of their own free will he'd need to be hated. He'd need people who are angry and volatile. And natsu being the fire dragon slayer really should've been perfect for that but the dude is just too friendly and happy. Causing zeref to think him the biggest mistake of all.

Again: I really would need to sit down and spend a few hours/days figuring it out and most likely rewatching fairy tail to refamiliarize myself with the finer details but this is the gist. A lot of Zeref meddling in humanity is for the sake of finding his own oblivion. He's in a way killed what magic once was and can't find peace in the world because he corrupts everything. He absorbs things around him to keep himself alive unwillingly. If he doesn't absorb life he starves but exists until something appears that he can take from.

I hope this is good enough for now! Sorry if it's a garbage answer, I'm aware I need to revise and focus on it. Unfortunately my mind goes where it wants and it hasn't settled into lore building in a while.

Thank you for the question!

[somereaderinblue]

Warrior!Penelope God Games

After writing Odysseus's Challenge, I was still on a creative high & decided to do this too. NOTE: The swaps between gods were taken from @too-much-flynnolium’s art.

[ARES]

Mother, God Queen, rarely do I ask for favours

Now, I'm kneeling on your floor

With hopes to save a friendship

With one who's a prisoner far from home

Penelope

[HERA]

Divine intervention, so that is your wish?

To untie apprehensions that were placed on that Greek?

You are braving such dangers for a girl full of shame

But if she's worth the risk of going under

Why not make it a game?

Convince each of them that she ought to be released

And I'll release her

[ARES]

Who's them?

[HERA]

Artemis! Hestia!

Dionysus! Athena!

Demeter! Or me

What do you say?

[ARTEMIS]

Sure.

[HESTIA]

Very well.

[DIONYSUS]

Hic!

[ATHENA]

Alright.

[DEMETER]

Interesting.

[ARES]

Bring it.

[ARTEMIS]

You all know I'm a fan of nature and all

So with so many sirens gone

I think Penny's in the wrong

[ARES]

They had planned to do their worst

All she did was reimburse them

Now they'll tread with caution first

To live another day and sing even more verse!

[ARTEMIS]

Good point, release her.

[HESTIA]

Trust is not wasted, it’s forged

Why should I give her my support?

She turned her back on her cohort

[ARES]

Did you forget they failed to listen?

She was betrayed and now imprisoned

But if you make the right decision

She can still have a future with those who miss her!

[HESTIA]

Fine, release her.

[DIONYSUS]

Your little high and mighty Penelope

Claims to love another, but keeps him chained to a broken heart

[ARES]

She was busy fighting

[DIONYSUS]

More like busy spiting the cyclops

Let her feel the pain that the others feel and rot

[ARES]

Wait!

You must reconsider this!

[ATHENA]

Really now, Ares, no new tricks?

[ARES]

Athena!

[ATHENA]

What kind of so-called fighter holds back her power

Just lets her friends get devoured?

She couldn’t fight Scylla, but didn’t even try to outwit her

Hides with naught but a sword to get the job done

Tries to handle things upfront

Dim-witted and weak like her son

[ARES]

Hold your tongue now, her son's my friend!

And tell that drunkard that all kinds of hurts can mend

You want more mind games? Then set her free

To get back to her homestead, she'll make everyone’s brains bleed!

[ATHENA & DIONYSUS]

Then release her.

[DEMETER]

So many talents, so many tales

Give me one good reason why yours should prevail

[ARES]

She's got the hands of a weaver!

[DEMETER]

Dig deeper

[ARES]

She's pretty skilled with words!

[DEMETER]

You can do better than that!

[ARES]

She's very sassy…?

[DEMETER]

Eh

[ARES]

Never once does she give up on her child.

[DEMETER]

Release her.

[ARES]

I’ve played your game and won! Release her.

[HERA]

You dare to defy me? To give me more shame?

No one beats me, no one wins my game!

Marriage, bring her through the wringer

Show her I'm the judgement call

The one who makes the final call!

.

.

.

.

[ATHENA]

Is he dead?

.

.

.

Penelope had told Ares that for mothers, childbirth in itself was a difficult battle and the parenthood that came after a race with no finish line in sight. Personally, Ares would’ve likened it to war. If family had truly been something as linear as a race then surely Hermes would be on their father’s throne by now.

She placed her spawn in his arms. Said spawn miraculously didn’t squirm or squall against his battle-hardened muscles and cold gauntlets. 

“His name is Telemachus.” Far from battle. The irony wasn’t lost on anyone. Then again, considering how eerily squishy the infant was, perhaps the name was fitting.

Ares blinked as tiny fingers gripped his, the pudgy digits unable to full wrap around it. Yet, the grip was strong. No, it was simply alive. He’s bathed in blood so often that he’s forgotten even the tiniest of hearts can still beat.

“Telemachus.”  Penelope and Odysseus smiled. Smiled at him, smiled because of him. They were happy. He was happy.

.

.

.

[ARES]

Let her go…..please

Let her go……

[al0v3w1tch]

݁݁˖ ❀ ⋆｡˚ Lady Persephone… Yesterday was Lady Persephone’s worship day. Because I hadn’t gotten much sleep the previous night, I completely forgot to make a post for her. I hope this helps teach you how to worship Her and Her mythology. ✾ Who is Persephone? Persephone is the daughter of the Olympian Gods, Zeus, and Demeter, she is the Goddess of spring, agriculture, reincarnation, and Queen of the Underworld; She is widely associated with growth, fertility, and love as well as everlasting pureness/youth. Her most famous myth is Her abduction by Hades, Her husband/uncle. ✾ Mythology. After Persephone was born, Her home was the Overworld alongside her mother Demeter. While she was picking flowers alongside the spring nymphs, the earth opened and She was abducted by Hades on His chariot. After Her abduction, Demeter struggled to keep up her divine duties and the earth started to die without Persephone, due to this, Hermes was sent to the Underworld to collect Persephone but before She left the Underworld; Hades tricked Persephone into eating pomegranate seeds. Due to this, Persephone now spends half the year in the Overworld and the other half in the Underworld which explains the seasons. Depending on the myth, Persephone is the mother of Dionysus after Zeus assaulted Her, however, the myth was changed later on as the ancient Greeks believed that having their chief God assaulting His daughter was too evil of Him. Nowadays, Dionysus was changed to Zagerus and He is known to be Hades’ son instead. Melionë was also a result of Zeus assaulting His daughter as He tricked Her by disguising Himself as Hades, although, modern interpretations of the myth have Hades be Her father, like Zagerus. Persephone also was associated with the Orpheus and Eurydice myth; when Orpheus descended into the Underworld to retrieve Eurydice, he managed to make a song so beautiful and heartbreaking that Hades became sympathetic toward him and offered Orpheus that he could take Eurydice back but the catch was he wasn’t allowed to turn back to see if Eurydice was behind him or even touch her to lead him out of the Underworld. Hades did this to test Orpheus’ love for his wife and how much he cared for her. 

✾ Symbols and Offerings. Symbols:  -Pomegranate. -Torches. -Seeds. -Flowers. -Skulls. -Bones. Offerings: -Any type of flowers (can be fake). -Pomegranate (fake, scents or food). -Found bones (Remember to thank the animal and leave an offering for them as a way of respect).  -Tarot decks you associate with her. -Nuts and seeds. -Fruit. -Anything with grains. -Anything minty. -Jewellery. -Poetry or any kind of art related to Her. -Floral/fruity scented candles. -Dried herbs or flowers. -Crystals: angel aura quartz, rose quartz, and opalite. -Drinks like tea, hot chocolate, water, milk or honey. -Bat, ram, deer or dog imagery. Persephone shares an altar with Lord Hades so if you wish to see altar inspiration, here is the post I made for Hades: https://www.tumblr.com/al0v3w1tch/766671508589477888/%E0%BD%90-%E0%BD%8B-lord-hades-today-is-lord?source=share ✾ Prayers. -Fair-haired Persephone, daughter of Demeter, friend of the nymphs, merry-hearted girls who dance bearefooted and play, carefree, in grassy fields, wreathed in bright spring flowers.

The joy of life is yours, goddess, the comfort of sun on skin, the dear bonds of friendship, the refuge of a mother’s love.

Well-crowned Persephone, bride of noble Hades, queen of the afterworld, clothed in fine silks, adorned with jewels, enthroned in glory, friend to those who have passed from this world into yours, advocate of the dead and the wronged.

Kindly Persephone, womanly one, of transformation do you know much, of the ways of the earth do you know much; of the life after life do you know much.

Gracious goddess, friend of mortals, I praise you and thank you for your gifts.

-Persephone, glorious goddess, fair one with hair that flows like ripened grain, eyes that catch the clear blue sky, a smile sweet yet shadowed, O light-footed one who dances in flowered fields, I praise you.Persephone, lovely one who knows the feel of sun on skin, who knows as well the press of cold stone against warm flesh, in the world of the living, no maid is so alive as you.

In the world of the dead, Persephone, you reign as queen, crowned with riches unsurpassed, enthroned in splendor, honored above all others.

Goddess, child of earth, bride of the darkness, I honor you. -Persephone, glorious goddess, fair one

with hair that flows like ripened grain, eyes that catch

the clear blue sky, a smile sweet yet shadowed,

O light-footed one who dances in flowered fields,

I praise you. Persephone, lovely one who knows

the feel of sun on skin, who knows as well the press

of cold stone against warm flesh, in the world

of the living, no maid is so alive as you.

In the world of the dead, Persephone, you reign

as queen, crowned with riches unsurpassed, enthroned

in splendor, honored above all others. Goddess,

child of the earth, bride of the darkness, I honor you. ✾ Blessed be.

[iloveacaibowls111]

Adoption???

SYNOPYSIS: Satoru adopts Megumi and Tsumiki without telling you (uh oh).

A/N: Cute little fluff, very short. Obviously Satoru is a bit aged up because I can't really imagine two 17 year olds living in a penthouse by themselves unless they're in Gossip Girl.

“SATORU GOJO?!” Your voice screeched down the penthouse hallway. “Tell me, you did not adopt a kid?”

Satoru visibly winced, glancing over at where he stood with Tsumiki and Megumi. They were trying to sneak into the apartment after Satoru had finished settling them down. The three had been out buying flowers so that, when he told you, you *hopefully* wouldn’t get so mad.

“Um, sweetie, it’s a long story and everything happened so fast. I would’ve told you,” he said with a hopeful grin, holding out a lovely bouquet of blue hydrangeas – your favourite. To his side, Tsumiki smiled sweetly while Megumi struggled to suppress a laugh at Gojo being scolded.

“Oh my god, you did. And you adopted two.” You smacked Satoru lightly on the chest but then happily accepted the flowers, placing them on the kitchen table. Your gaze softened as you turned toward the two siblings. “So, who might you two little ones be?”

“I’m Tsumiki Fushiguro, and this is my younger brother, Megumi,” Tsumiki answered with a hopeful smile, while Megumi just stared at you, his expression unreadable.

“Tsumiki? That’s a beautiful name for a beautiful girl,” You said with a wink, making Tsumiki blush slightly. You then turned to the younger boy, your eyes twinkling with warmth. “Hmmm, Megumi. I like it.” You ruffled his spiky hair which reminded you of a sea urchin, though he remained stoic.

“Can I bring my two dogs with me? If not, I don’t want to be here,” Megumi said, deadpan.

You chuckled, amused by the boy’s seriousness. “Of course! I already live with an animal, so why not two more?” She gave Satoru a teasing glare, and he tried to shuffle away, pretending not to hear the comment.

“Divine Dogs!” Megumi called out excitedly, and two shadowy forms materialised, taking the shape of large, ethereal canines.

You blinked in surprise but then smiled as the dogs approached, wagging their tails. “Well, aren’t you two handsome,” you said, kneeling to pet the creatures. They happily licked your hand, their tails wagging even harder.

“So you guys want to help me cook dinner?” You asked, standing up and brushing off her hands. “I was thinking spaghetti.”

“What’s spaghetti?” Megumi asked, looking up from where he was patting the dogs.

“You’ve never had spaghetti? Well you’re in for a treat.” You chuckled, pinching Megumi’s cheeks. “Tsumiki, do you want to help me make it?”

Tsumiki’s face lit up. “Yes! Yay!”

“And you, Megumi, Any culinary talents?” You smiled warmly.

Megumi shrugged, his hands in his pockets. “I can stir,” he offered.

“Well, stirring is very important,” You replied, your voice light and playful. “And maybe you can teach me some tricks with those dogs of yours later.”

Megumi’s lips twitched into a small smile – enough to make Satoru’s and your heart swell.

Once the kids were out of sight, you turned to Satoru, your playful smile slipping into something more knowing. You placed your hands on your hips and raised a brow at him.

“Satoru,” you started, your voice light but firm, “you and I need to have a little chat.”

Satoru grinned nervously, scratching the back of his neck. “Uh, chat about what?”

You narrowed your eyes slightly, stepping closer to him. “You adopted two kids without asking me first.” Your tone wasn’t angry, but there was a clear warning in your words. “You know you can’t just make decisions like this, right?”

Satoru chuckled awkwardly, trying to brush it off. “Well, I figured you’d be cool with it! I mean, look at them—they’re adorable!”

Your expression softened into a smile, but she kept her hands on her hips. “Oh, they’re adorable, alright. But that’s not the point, mister. You still should’ve talked to me first.”

Satoru put his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to stress you out with the details.”

You sighed, stepping even closer and poking his chest playfully. “I get it, Satoru. But next time?” You poked him again, your eyes sparkling with mischief. “You better run something like this by me. Or else.”

Satoru grinned, catching your hand gently before you could poke him again. “Or else what?”

You leaned in, your eyes narrowing teasingly. “Or else you’ll be sleeping on the couch. With the Divine Dogs.”

Satoru’s grin widened as he laughed. “Oh no, not the couch! That’s cruel and unusual punishment!” He held his hand dramatically to his chest.

You laughed, shaking your head. “You better believe it,” you teased. “Now go help me with dinner before I actually make good on that threat.”

Satoru leaned down and kissed your forehead, the warmth in his heart growing as the tension between them melted into playful banter. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

As they headed toward the kitchen, Satoru couldn’t help but smile to himself. Sure, he probably should’ve talked to you first—but with you by his side, he knew they’d be able to handle whatever came next.

[riicky-ye]

I was writing another post and suddenly got reminded about how terrifyingly unhinged Focalors — the original Focalors — was. This twink is so damn smug, but her plan is literally falling apart. One variable change and everything is ruined. She’s either a genius, a gambler, or just fucking dumb. Most likely she’s all of it at once.

She cut herself apart, leaving behind two incomplete shards meant to suffer and eventually be sacrificed. She deprived one of her halves of body, the other - of power and memory. She was dreaming of judging Celestia. She cursed herself and was so freaking proud of it. She knew defying fate is impossible, so she tricked it. She killed herself 500 years ago to give way to Furina and Oratrice Mechanique d’Analyse Cardinale. She was the god of Justice, and her statue is holding the sword, not the scales. It’s not the most obvious thing, but she was representing the vengeful, unforgiving face of Justice, especially compared to Neuvillette’s scales symbolism in his design and his soft, compassionate approach. Her plan was to lure Neuvillette into loving humanity so he will give them a verdict of innocence. And she succeeded. Her body left behind is named Furina, and some of you may say this is a reference to the goddess of springs, but the most obvious association are Furies, the entities of vengeance. She’s paranoid. She trust no one, even herself. She killed herself twice — once her memory, and secondly her divinity manifested personality. She’s awful, a complete psycho. I hold her very dear.

Her plan is equally stupid and absolutely genius. Teyvat is so very lucky she’s good because she WOULD find a way to tear the world in shreds if she had the motivation to do so.

It also makes me mad how people can say Furina’s story is ended when we have all of this. Like, I will not find peace until I learn what the fuck was wrong with pre-split Focalors. I hope I’m not the only one thinking this way.

[jellyfitzjelly]

Zevlor in a fresh relationship, his partner is not yet aware of ruts. One day, Zevlors rut begins suddenly (I imagine he usually has a good idea on when they come on) and his partner comes home to him being completely wrecked trying to fuck his fist, saying her name over and over. When he sees her enter the room he is first ashamed but she practically drools and drops to her knees to take care of him. He is in for a long session of worship and care. Never has someone taken care of him like this during his rut. Zevlor is so filled with horny thoughts and love he cries a lil

After three thousand years it is here.... I apologize for the delay anon, IRL is crazy right now. I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless!

While the cat is away... | NSFW | AO3

Zevlor was reading when he felt a rush of heat inside him. He frowned as his nipples pebbled and his heartrate picked up. He cursed loudly in Infernal, panicked. His rut was coming right now! How come he didn’t expect it? Zevlor could always pick up the signs, but this time it came completely unexpected! Why?

He huffed with annoyance when he realized that it was probably because of Tav’s presence that his rut got triggered unexpectedly. They had gotten together a few months  ago, but Zevlor hadn’t told her about his biology. He just felt too embarrassed and had foolishly thought he wouldn’t get a rut until next year.

Sighing as his skin started itching,  a sign his rut was minutes away from beginning, the ex-Commander undressed hurriedly and went to the bedroom to grab the puss-box he kept hidden under the floorboard. He was thankful Tav was absent for a few days. She was visiting her friend Shadowheart. That would leave him time to get through the worst of his rut.

He chose a table with an ideal height. He murmured the gluing spell that would allow the puss-box to stay in place on the table. Gods  who in the nine Hells came up with “puss-box” as an actual product name? It was stupid and ridiculous, but even the tiefling couldn’t deny that this toy did him well when he was alone. Just in time: Zevlor’s cock was hardening, his knot swelling as he felt an overwhelming rush of arousal. Zevlor bit his lip as he felt the need for Tav’s scent. He hurried to their bedroom, rummaging through his lover’s clothes but none did the trick. The scent wasn’t strong enough… His gaze turned to the dirty laundry basket. Reddening, he looked through it and found panties Tav wore during her training yesterday. He brought them to his nose and breathed in the divine smell. Arousal shot down his spine, making his mind hazy and his cock twitch. He needed to fuck something now. He came back to the living room, eagerly oiling himself before lining his cock with the entrance of the toy. He brought the panties to his nose, closing his eyes as he imagined himself diving into Tav’s cunt. He snapped his hips into the tight walls of the puss-box, groaning. He fucked the hole urgently. Sweat started to pearl his brow as he took his pleasure, imagining stretching Tav with his knot, having her bear his children from all the seed he fucked into her. He threw his head back to moan as he breathed into his lover’s scent, his knot pulsing and aching. His release was building fast in the pit of his belly, he was going to come–

A gasp made him snap his eyes open. Tav was standing there, watching with shocked, wide eyes. Zevlor pulled out, panicked, dropping the panties in horror. His cock twitched despite the situation.

“I’m sorry–” Zevlor began, but his lover strode over.

He flinched, expecting blows, but she dropped to her knees in front of him and took his cock in hand. He moaned, frozen in place. He didn’t know what to expect. Disgust? Anger? Fear?

“You’re so big,” she murmured, practically drooling at the sight of his cock.

“Tav, I can explain…” he trailed off, scrambling for an explanation that did not involve the fact he hid the peculiarities of his biology.

She didn’t seem to have listened to him. She mouthed his knot, sucking on it and making Zevlor howl. His knot was sensitive, especially since he was so close to release. Tav sucked eagerly on his knot, trying to fit it entirely in her mouth. The Hellrider groaned, carding a hand in her hair. She finally let his cock slide into her mouth, letting him thrust. He could not control himself anymore and snapped his hips forward into the heavenly wet heat, being careful not to choke her. He keened when he felt a hand rolling his heavy balls. He tried hard to keep his wits about, to warn Tav about his rut but the pleasure was draining all thoughts from his mind. All he could think about was that mouth sucking on his knot and then on his balls. His thighs started quivering as his partner brought closer and closer to the edge.

“Please! Please! I– I can’t–” he stammered, trying to pull her off his dick but Tav was clearly decided to have him come in her mouth.

He was going to come, but it felt wrong, all wrong. Zevlor snarled, teeth baring as he roughly yanked Tav off his cock. He grabbed her arm and lifted her up to her feet before dragging her to the bedroom where he threw her on the bed. Tav looked so beautiful like this, ready to be filled with his seed. But he wanted to taste her first. He shoved her pants down and ripped her panties apart to dive into that cunt he had been hungering for. He lapped at her vulva like a thirsty man finding an oasis in a desert. He grabbed her by the hips, digging his claws in her skin as he kept her in place, pleasuring her and making her moan and whimper. She grabbed him by the hair, trying to shove his face into his cunt. Zevlor brought her to release, sucking on her clit even when the overstimulation settled in. He enjoyed her moans and her writhing, making his cock pulse. He brought her to another release, never getting enough of her taste and smell. Zevlor could not wait a second longer. He must have her. He stood up and showed off his cock, rubbing it against her sopping cunt. Tav moaned brokenly, snapping up her hips for more friction against her clit. The Hellrider pushed inside her with ease, groaning. This was so much better than his miserable toy. Her wet heat was simply heaven. Zevlor could not help a guttural, animalistic moan as he fucked her hard and fast. His release built up and up in his gut, his knot pulsing faster and faster.

“Mine,” he growled, wrapping a hand around her throat as his knot caught on her entrance.

“Yours,” Tav cried out and the Hellrider could put off his release no longer.

He pushed and pushed until his knot popped in, coming with a long moan and his head thrown back as he filled her up with his seed, feeling her walls constrict around him. He fell down on her, out of breath and blissed out. Tav wrapped him in her arms, petting his sweaty hair and purring into his neck.

“Didn’t know you were into choking,” she chuckled.

Zevlor blushed, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, hiding his face.

“Don’t be, I enjoyed it,” she grinned. “I like it when you get bossy.”

His cock twitched at the praise. They stayed in each other’s embrace until his knot deflated. Tav switched their positions and let him slip out of her.

“Stay in bed,” the Hellrider murmured, but the young woman had other plans.

She got up and came back with a basin of water and a cloth. She gently wiped him down, refusing any help as she tenderly wiped his sweat away. Her gentle touch seemed to break something in his heart. There was reverence in her eyes. Reverence for him. It brought tears to Zevlor’s eyes to see her kissing each of his infernal ridges, looking upon his features with adoration. Nobody had ever done so. All his past lovers had been accepting at best, nothing more.

“Don’t cry, my love,” Tav told him with a smile, wiping his tears away.

He took her hand into his, kissing her knuckles. She kissed and fondled every inch of his body from horns to toes. By the time she was done, Zevlor was hard and aching again.

“I love you,” he choked up. “By the gods, I love you more than I love myself.”

She straddled him, caressing his face. She took his hand and put it over her heart.

“And I love you too, Zevlor. My heart is yours and only yours.”

She grinded against his cock, her folds wet and inviting. Zevlor groaned like a wounded man. She let him slip inside, moaning as she felt the ridges rub all the right spot.

“I want your knot so bad,” she panted, looking him right in the eye. “I want you to knot me, Zevlor. I want to bear your child.”

“Tav,” the Hellrider whimpered. “Please…"

“I mean it,” she told him seriously, and that more than anything else drove him wild.

He grabbed her hips, digging his claws into the soft skin as he drove up into her cunt, slapping his knot against her entrance in a concert of slick and obscene sounds. His release was swelling inside of him, merciless and unstoppable. He could see how Tav’s thighs were quivering, her clit erect and swollen. She was close too. He snapped his hips up one last time and pushed forward, unrelenting, making her cunt yield to his knot. He shouted when it popped inside the tight wet heat. Zevlor spilled deep inside of her, a primal urge satisfied to see his mate filled with his own seed. The hope she would conceive a child crossed his mind, bringing another spark of arousal to his core as Tav slumped forward. He wrapped her in his arms, mirroring the tenderness she had shown him earlier.

“You are the greatest blessing the gods have ever given me,” he murmured, eyes moist.

Tav lifted her head, still flushed from their round. She smiled wide.

“I love you, but I really hope this thing of yours don’t last a full month. People would be concerned over my disappearance.”

Zevlor laughed.

“It lasts only a few days. A week at most. But my love for you will last all my life.”

“Good thing I will be yours forever, then,” she whispered before kissing him.

[tiddygame]

Ghoap god type au part 4! Now on Ao3!

part 1 /// part 2 /// part 3 /// part 4 /// part 5 /// part 6 /// part 7 /// part 8 /// part 9

I have not slept in A While because meds are meds so I don't know if this makes sense! Let's Go!!!

And shout out to these people for making me happy stim by requesting to be tagged! I hope this chapter is worthy of such an honor lmao:

@imjustheretofightforlove / @pieckyghost / @life-as-a-gamergirl

Ghost doesn’t know why he continued to give offerings to the god. He should have stopped when he had the chance, but he didn’t. Flowers, jewelry, rocks he thought looked cool, even an entire wallet he stole from a soldier who got on his nerves; It all went on the offering table. 

Something had changed. He doesn’t know what, but there was a difference. And not knowing was terrifying. Ghost liked to compartmentalize, to think things through and sort them into organized boxes. Decluttering the unknown was how he stayed sane.

If there is a problem, do not panic, just figure out what you can do. And if you can do nothing, then you have no reason to panic. The rigid line of thought was the only way he could trick himself into thinking he had any control over his life, that fate hadn’t already woven her strings.

So how do you think through something beyond your comprehension?

Try as he might, he could not and would never be able to truly understand divinity. There was no rationale he could apply to Soap that didn’t make his ears ring. It was all well within arms reach but firmly out of his grasp.

He shouldn’t continue to show patronage to something so unpredictable, so volatile.

“Besides,” Soap said, making eye contact once more. He grinned. It didn’t look human. “I’m not letting you go that easy.”

And yet, every night he would take his dinner to whatever lousy altar he’d created and sit down to eat with an entity that could kill him without raising a finger, would eat and talk to him like they were friends. He’s not sure of when he lost his fucking mind, but it was certainly long gone.

Everything about the god terrified him. It was ancient, domineering over one of the most prevalent parts of humanity. Everything had to die someday, and at the end of it all, Soap would still be there, even as it died too.

So when he appeared behind Ghost at a bookstore of all places, he damn near shit himself. 

He just wanted a book to occupy his time between battles, a distraction from the boredom of downtime. It was the same town as before, barely a few weeks since their impromptu meeting in the temple. He had been perusing the shelves and grabbed a book that caught his eye, some book about the history of the town, and was reading the back of it when someone was very suddenly right next to him.

“Anything interesting?”

Ghost flinched, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there as he turned to face the person who somehow got the jump on him. And just like everything else with the god, he doesn’t know how he knew that the person was Soap in disguise.

He looked nothing like the renditions he’d seen of the god; The man before him was short and had pale skin, light brown hair, and brown eyes. He looked about as non-descript as a human could get. Yet, he still knew that the man was no man at all, but a god that came from the heavens just to make his life miserable.

“Why are you here?” Ghost was too on edge and confused to put the fearful respect in his tone that he normally used when speaking to the god.

“I just came here to look for books, the same as you,” he replied, trying to keep a straight face and play it earnestly but smiling far too much.

Ghost didn’t dignify that with a response, continuing to stare down at him, book still in hand.

Soap sighed, “Alright, alright Mr. Grumpy, maybe I wanted to talk to you again.”

Ghost asked, “Why?” But he realized that probably wouldn’t get him the answer he wanted, “What do you need to talk about?” He was hoping to cut through the small talk and jump right to the essentials.

“I said want. Not need.” Soap corrected. When Ghost looked even more exasperated, he whisper-shouted, “I’ve been stuck in limbo for who the fuck knows how long! I need stimulation! Interaction! Conversation! Anything!”

Oh, gods above, this is the worst torture the god could have devised. He’d rather take eternal pain and misery over becoming a chatty god’s only conversation partner. Fuck, he’s done a lot of bad shit, but nothing to deserve this!

The god grabbed the book out of his hand from where he was still standing petrified and dumbfounded. Soap looked at the book, hummed, and then began browsing the aisle himself.

Soap mused aloud, “I’m not surprised you’re a history nerd… Is there anything else here that’s more interesting?”

A few weeks ago, the god had been so weak he could barely conjure a physical form, now he was in a bookstore to make fun of him?

“The god of death is calling me a nerd with shit taste.” Ghost hadn’t meant to vocalize that thought, but he was still trying to mentally catch up. 

It seemed to catch the god off guard as well, with him snorting as he tried to cover his mouth to stop from laughing, “I didn’t mean ye’ have shit taste, I meant history isn’t an interesting read when you lived through it.”

And at Ghost’s core, he was nothing if not a pain, so even as he was scrambling to figure out what was happening, he pointed out, “But you weren’t alive. You said you were in limbo.”

“Okay, smart-ass. Alive, limbo, whatever. I need a story — one I haven’t heard before.”

“Do you even know how to read?”

His accent became thicker with indignation, “‘Course I do!” 

“This language?” Ghost asked, gesturing to the shelves.

Soap immediately responded, “Ye—,” he cut himself off, looking at the book he grabbed from Ghost. It was upside-down and he twisted his hand awkwardly to have it back upright, squinting at it as he answered, now positive, “Yeah!”

Ghost mumbled, “Hmm, I figured you’d only be able to read dead languages.”

That one got a full laugh out of the god, he desperately tried to quiet his chuckles before they were told off for being too loud. Ghost isn’t sure why, but he felt oddly proud.

Soap was still smiling in an effort to stop laughing as he said, “That would make sense I suppose.” It seemed that not being able to laugh only made the situation funnier, huffing air out of his nose in a quiet giggle. “Well! What book would you suggest?”

Ghost pointed to the other side of the bookstore, “I’d suggest you stop looking in the non-fiction section.”

Soap looked around, muttering a curse under his breath. Seeing where Ghost had pointed, Soap grabbed his hand and dragged him along. Ghost was too surprised by the sudden contact to fight it, which was probably for the best. He may love his personal space, but he loved not getting smote even more. 

“Okay, well, now what book would you suggest?” Soap repeated himself, this time not bothering to browse the shelves as he looked at Ghost for a recommendation. 

Sighing in resignation, “What genres do you like?” If he could get this done with quickly enough, he might still have some time to himself before he had to return to camp. 

“I don’t know. All of them I guess.”

He is not going to get this done with quickly enough to have some time to himself before he has to return to camp.

Ghost let out an even longer sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose before coming to a solution. The store had their books sorted by genre, so it would be easy enough to grab one or two from each and then get Soap to pick one. 

The god of death’s personal shopper. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Luckily for both of them, Ghost has had an exorbitant amount of downtime and knew of a few popular ones that weren’t complete garbage. Death seemed content to trail behind him as he picked out the books, admiring the simple building.

The store had large windows facing west, golden light stretching over the shelves and reaching across the floor to tell Ghost how much time he was wasting. The smart thing would have been to just grab a random book, sing its praises, and hope he didn’t get called out on his bullshit. Of course, that would require being smart, so instead Ghost went through almost the entire fiction section, ending with a total of seven books. 

The stack of books was ridiculously tall as he set them down on a table at the back, intending to explain them to Soap and let him pick a couple. 

“This is everything, one book each from most of the genres.” Ghost backed away when Soap stepped closer, looking like an owl as he turned his head sideways to read the spines. Ghost gave up trying to understand the god. 

He pointed to the one on top, “This one is—“

“Fantastic! I’ll take them all,” Soap said, completely ignoring what Ghost was about to say. 

“What?”

“I’ll take them all!” Soap repeated, as if he hadn’t been clear enough the first time. He grabbed the stack of books, adding the one he’d snatched from Ghost to the pile as he walked to the counter.

“But… You don't have any money…” Ghost’s quiet protest went unheard as Soap walked away. He had a small existential crisis as he wondered what mistake he made that led him to this exact moment. He decided the mistake was being born as he followed after the god of death, knowing he probably wouldn’t have enough to cover the books.

Soap set down the books next to the cash register and gleefully asked, “How much for all of these?”

The shopkeeper looked a little surprised at the size of the stack but began checking them and adding up the cost. Even without seeing the number, Ghost was already bemoaning having to explain to a divine being how the economy and poverty work.

But apparently, Soap wasn’t done confusing him as he grabbed a wallet out of his pocket and began pulling out credits as the shopkeeper gave the total. 

At first, Ghost checked his own pocket thinking Soap had managed to steal his wallet and was in for a rude awakening when he found out Ghost was broke, but his wallet was still there. He wasn’t going to ask in front of the shopkeeper where he got it, but curiosity was eating at him. 

Ghost stared at the wallet. He recognized it vaguely but didn’t know from where. It was only when Soap was putting it away that he realized it was the one he’d stolen from that annoying soldier and offered to the god.

And who said your misdeeds come back to haunt you?

Once the books were all bagged, Soap gestured towards it and Ghost sighed as he grabbed the paper bag, supporting the bottom as it was lifted off the counter. Mirroring the same motion, Ghost gestured towards the door. Part of him was curious if the god would pop back out of existence when he walked into the light like he did last time.

Ghost whispered once they were far enough away, “You know I stole that wallet, right?”

Soap snorted, “That’s what made it one of my favorites.”

Ghost let go of the handles of the bag, only holding it from the bottom, and opened the door for Soap. Soap nodded in thanks like everything that had transpired over the last two or so hours was a normal interaction. 

Fortunately, the god did not vanish upon stepping outside, disproving his theory.

No, it was unfortunate. He wanted this to be done with. He didn’t want to keep talking to Soap.

His mouth didn’t seem to get the memo as he started to ask, “Why did you actu—”

“Ghost!”

The shout from someone behind him immediately sucked out any positive feelings he had. His usual glare was back as he turned to face the voice. There were two soldiers, a miserable little search party that looked disgusted at even having to go near Ghost.

“The General needs you for something.”

Of fucking course he does. He risked a glance to where Soap had been standing, unsurprised to see that he’d vanished. Ghost didn’t give them a verbal answer, just glared at them until they both began shifting where they were standing.

He felt a little relieved at being able to put the threatening tone back in his voice as he informed them, “I’ll be back before dinner.”

The one that spoke before looked to his partner and tried to forcefully say, “He needs you now.”

Ghost stepped closer, looming over them as he repeated, “I said I will be back before dinner.” He waited a moment, making sure they were properly threatened before he turned around and walked in the opposite direction of camp.

“Why were you at a bookstore?” One of them called out, almost accusatory as if it would stop him from leaving. He had forgotten about the rumor that he couldn’t read; He doesn’t know how it started, but it was a favorite amongst his fellow soldiers.

“What bookstore?” Ghost yelled back, not bothering to turn around.

The forest looked beautiful in the orange light of the setting sun. He was heading back to the temple, not because he missed Soap, but because it was the only place they wouldn’t be able to find him. If he really was needed, there would be soldiers crawling all over town searching for him.

He didn’t like going somewhere so secluded without his sword, but it was back at camp and he was not going back yet, wanting to piss off the general as much as he could. He hadn’t wanted to walk into the village with such an obvious weapon on his hip out of respect for the residents, but now it meant he only had a hunting knife to defend himself with. Nothing to sneeze at, obviously, but he would have felt a lot more comfortable making the hike through the forest with a heavier weapon.

A chill began to take hold as the sun dipped below the horizon. A cold front came through a few days prior that made sure the days were a lovely charming example of the upcoming fall weather and that the nights were frigid enough to make anyone regret not being on a tropical island.

He made the trek much quicker this time, now knowing the path. Which was a very good thing as the shadows grew stronger as he made his way through the trees, trying to make him trip on roots that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

When he got to the temple, he set the bag down and made quick work of gathering a small amount of firewood and kindling with the last of the waning sunlight, the chill turning into a freezing wind. His fingers shook slightly as he made a small campfire near the empty doorway to the right of the statue, paranoid about proper ventilation even with all of the cracks in the roof.

Using the light to see, he pulled down some of the vines, setting both them and the greener wood near the fire. Hopefully, they would dry quickly enough to be used later in the night. He quickly sorted through the books, taking them out and setting Soap’s collection to the side. 

He was trying to read the first page of his book when Soap appeared again. He didn’t look up as he greeted, “Good evening.”

“I do not like the way they treat you.” The god was blunt and Ghost couldn’t help but huff a small laugh at the amount of simmering anger the god held over what was a standard interaction for him.

“No?” Ghost asked, wondering why being told to return to camp was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

But he may have underestimated Soap’s anger as the god answered, “No. They don’t get to speak to you like that.” The sentence was punctuated by the campfire flaring slightly, the flames suddenly rising higher, illuminating more of the temple before they rescinded.

Ghost looked up at that, moving the book away to stop it from getting singed. He was not ashamed to admit that he was nervous, he just would never tell Soap that. To have him suddenly swap from someone friendly and charming to an undeniably pissed-off god was alarming.

“Uh—”

“They treat you like a fucking dog and can’t even speak to you with a shred of respect?”

The god’s form was flickering. This is what Ghost wanted, to know the tipping point for the god, but he wasn’t sure if this was the scenario in which he wanted to find out. He’d prefer for it to have been on the battlefield, the god having lost its patience with protecting him, not next to a campfire in his own temple.

“Soap—”

“Why do you fucking stay? They have no fucking right!”

The flames flared again and Ghost grabbed the handle of his knife. Just like the last time he was at the temple, he knew it would do nothing, but he could at least find comfort in the lie.

Soap noticed the movement, making eye contact. Soap was still breathing heavily and Ghost was doing the same, albeit for very different reasons. The god heaved a sigh, slouching over as he covered his face with his hands.

Once more, despite all rationale screaming otherwise, Ghost stayed. There was a long silence, the only noise being the crackling of the fire and the whistling of the wind. 

The god was sitting with his legs crossed, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands propped up his head. He was still staring at the ground when he asked, “Why? Why do you stay?”

“It’s complicated.” 

Soap looked unimpressed, “No, it isn’t.”

“No,” Ghost agreed. “But it’s a story I don’t like to tell.”

The god let out a long breath like he was trying to calm himself down as he rubbed at his eyes, “Didn’t you say you’d be back for dinner?”

“I lied. Late morning at the earliest.” Soap chuckled, much more tinged with defeat than it had been a few hours ago. The silence was back and Ghost hesitated before grabbing his book again.

“Thank you.”

Ghost wasn’t expecting that and felt a bolt of panic strike through him, not knowing what the god was thanking him for. 

Soap gestured towards the stack of books, “For humoring me today. I haven’t laughed in a long time. Thank you.”

The somber tone settled over him, the emotional whiplash from the past ten minutes alone was enough to make his head spin. Unsure of what else to say, he stuttered, “You’re welcome.” It sounded a lot more like a question than he intended.

Soap nodded and let his head fall again. 

And, just like that, he was gone, fading away with the wind. He stared at where the god sat, ruminating over his words. When he came back to the present, he saw that the books were gone as well.

He would have laughed, Death having grabbed his haul of books and scurried off in the breeze, but the honesty behind the god’s not-quite confession weighed on him. He tried to read, but was only flipping pages as his eyes ran over the words, not taking anything in.

He’s been in this situation before, waiting out time to piss off the general and he knew how it went. Sleep wasn’t an option; He always found something to occupy himself with to stave off the inevitable boredom. He was lucky to have a book this time, but try as he might, he couldn’t focus on it.

He gave up on reading and instead turned his focus to the campfire in front of him. He added another log carefully, taking care to not smother any of the other sticks. He didn’t have much fuel and he’d need to make it last until sunrise. 

Ghost woke up to light streaming in through the open doorway and birds chirping obnoxiously loud. He grumbled and tried to go back to sleep before remembering that he was never supposed to be asleep in the first place.

He tried to get up quickly, to stand to attention and scan for any threats or changes that indicated someone had come in during his nap. Instead, he sat up slowly, having to prop himself up on his arm to not lie back down.

His fire was miraculously still burning. The temple looked the same, there weren’t any assassins hiding in the corners, and his stuff hadn’t moved. It took him an embarrassing amount of time to remember that he never went to sleep with a blanket or pillow, yet now had both.

Instead of thinking about that, he stood slowly, his joints popping along the way. He yawned as he gathered his stuff, smothering the fire and folding up his bedding. Still not even half awake, he dropped the pillow and blanket at the base of the statue.

He grumbled out what was meant to be an expression of gratitude, but he’s not sure he got any of the syllables out. Taking as deep of a breath as he could to try to wake himself up, he began the walk to the river. 

It’s a miracle he didn’t get lost as he stumbled through the woods, listening for the sound of rushing water. When he finally got to it, he was sure to avoid getting too close to the slippery bank, not feeling like drowning so early in the morning.

He walked over the ramshackle bridge that crossed the river and led into camp in the early afternoon. Just like last time, most of the soldiers quieted upon seeing him. And, just like last time, the general came stomping out of his tent, though this time significantly angrier

“I need you to listen to me carefully,” he began, seething with so much anger over Ghost’s disobedience that he was twitching. “I am going to give you ten seconds to explain yourself. If you do not have a good reason for why you went AWOL, you are going to wish you had never been born, am I understood?” 

Ghost had mastered the voice of false innocence and remorse, “I’m sorry General, I wasn’t paying attention and got delayed by an hour.”

“An hour?” The general had a deceptively calm tone, one that spoke of being on the edge of doing something drastic. But the general was no god and Ghost had no qualms about giving him a shove.

“Yes sir, I know I said noon. I’m sorry for being late.” Ghost hung his head like he was ashamed. He was already mapping out a lie to explain why he arrived almost a full 24 hours after the search party said he would.

“Noon?” The general asked. Both of them were playing a very dangerous game, weaponizing an unstable but calm facade and putting on a little show for the rest of camp to sit back and watch.

“Yes sir.”

“I was told that you said you’d be back before dinner.”

Ghost lifted his head and glanced around, furrowing his brow in faux confusion, “Before dinner? No sir, I was trying to hunt for something to bring back to camp. They caught me right before I went into the forest; I might have said I was trying to find something for dinner, but I knew it would take me much longer than that.” Oh, how Ghost loved gaslighting.

The general’s lip curled, thinking he found a thread to pull, “Do you normally go hunting at night, son?” The words were full of poison, but Ghost already had an excuse.

“No sir, I looked for tracks yesterday afternoon, set up camp, and woke up early this morning to hunt. Unfortunately, I was no—”

“He’s lying!” One of the soldiers shouted, walking closer and shaking off his friend trying to pull him back. “He was walking out of a store! He wasn’t hunting!” Ah, that must be one-half of the search party.

Now emboldened, the other half approached from the stables, and joined in, “Yeah, he was leaving a bookstore with some guy.”

Uh-oh, that’s not good. He didn’t realize that they saw Soap. 

He was trying to figure out if he should outright deny it or try to claim that he, the notorious loner, had made a friend in town. A friend that just so happened to leave that day so they couldn’t ask for him to verify Ghost’s story. Hmm…

“What? No, he was alone.”

Never mind, that’s perfect; Only one of them saw Soap.

The two began arguing over whether or not Ghost had been alone and Ghost “timidly” chimed in, “Bookstore?”

The first one that had spoken paused his argument and turned back to the general, “He even had a shopping bag!”

Adding fuel to the flames of their anger, Ghost made a point of looking at his hands to show they were empty. He gently corrected like he was just trying to help the two remember, “I was walking out of a general store. Alone. I needed berries for bait.” 

The rest of the camp gave odd looks to the search party, the rumor of his inability to read not helping their legitimacy. Now he just had to hope they didn’t ask why he didn’t have any camping or hunting supplies aside from a small bag. 

The general looked more irritated than irate, “That’s enough. All three of you are being punished for insubordination. For now just get the hell out of my sight until tomorrow morning.”

Ghost tried not to smile too wide as he nodded and walked away, very happy that the general reached his limit before more glaring holes could be poked in his story. The other two looked offended at getting punished with him, one standing slack-jawed as the other even tried to argue before getting dragged away by his friend before he could dig himself a deeper grave.

Ghost was going to be punished regardless of what he did or when he returned, but dragging the other two down with him was well worth it. Plus, the rest of the camp would now think they were liars as well who tried and failed to get him punished.

All in all, it was a rather successful trip to the bookstore.

…

Had he been paying more attention, thinking more clearly, he might’ve thought to hide his tracks, to not leave an obvious trail to where’d been, to hide the evidence of his time spent at the temple of the god of death.

[libraryscarf]

this is my fic for night divining: a noragami tarot zine project - leftover sales are happening now, check it the heck out!!!

the fool ( ao3 )

1.

Your purpose , he has been told from the earliest age he can remember, is this.

He carefully watches his parent clip branches from the fruit tree.

If we leave the unfruitful and corrupted branches, it will stunt the rest of the tree. The purpose of the tree is to make fruit for us—you like the fruit, don’t you?

He nods. The figs from this tree are delicious. He reaches up for the smallest one on a lower-hanging branch.

His parent pulls the branch out of reach, smiling.

If you don’t fulfill your purpose, you will disappoint me. You will have to make up for it, otherwise I might be very angry with you.

His parent looks at him, head at a slight tilt, cheeks still lifted in a gentle smile.

I could make another of you. Did you know that? And I could unmake you, as easily as I could break these shears. You are my creature, Yaboku. My tool.

He is given the shears, handle first.

Now, little one. Do as your father tells you.

2.

“Alone, alone, alone…alone again!!”

There is a guttering spark of hope still in his heart that Tomone will hear him and turn back, offer herself as his shinki, apologize for abandoning him so cruelly—just so he could laugh in her face, and maybe kick some dirt on her clothes as well.

But he wouldn’t do that.

If Tomone turned around—which didn’t seem likely, since she had in fact vanished a good ten minutes previously without a glance backward—Yato would take her again. He’s familiar with the feeling of being weaponless, but that doesn’t make it particularly nice.

He grabs a can of spray paint as though it could serve as a divine blade, and begins busily defacing the nearest bridge with his phone number.

He lifts his voice in a misery-laden crescendo:

“Aloooooone…AGAAAAAAAIN!!!”

“Shut up!” shouts the red-faced, wild-haired wino camping under the bridge. He chases Yato down the street, brandishing a half-empty bottle.

Yato loses his pursuer quickly��it’s nice to be able to fade into the background in such moments. He slinks into the shadows of a shrine, fingers tight around the neck of his own glass bottle. The heavy clink of the coins is comforting. Now that Tomone is gone, it is also his main weapon.

He lies down under one of the benches, trying to trick his mind into spinning a dream of his own lavish shrine. Covered in gold, studded with gems, absolutely lousy with shrine-maidens…it will be the best shrine, certainly for any god in the country, perhaps even the world.

Yato goes to sleep, smiling, hugging his bottle, the grandiose architecture of his imagination wrapping him as soundly as any blanket.

He won’t fade forever.

3.

As Yato watches his new shinki sleep the dreamless sleep of the dead, he considers his options.

He just wanted a weapon. What he got was…this.

Responsibility.

He hasn’t had much to do with that concept for a number of years. Perhaps, in fact, he never has had a single responsibility, which is what makes this situation so damn uncomfortable.

Now he has two charges: a foul-mouthed, broken-hearted child ghost, and the human girl who guilted him into keeping that ghost around.

“He’s your responsibility,” she had said, ad nauseam. What she hadn’t said was: So am I.

It should be so easy to be rid of them both. And they are both truly massive problems for him.

The kid would be easy enough to get rid of, as long as he doesn’t think about it too hard. That girl though…she might be more complicated. But his cuts have always been clean. For now, she’s not the problem.

Yato knows, even before he spends the rest of the night convincing himself how bad an idea it is, that he won’t revoke Yukine’s name.

It will be the hardest thing he’s ever done.

4.

The work takes less time than he thought.

He makes sure the hole is deep enough, and digs an extra two feet for good measure. He takes up his light burden and lays it within the earth. He entrusts it to the living soil that will make new things, growing things, out of something that should have been new and growing itself.

Because it takes less time than he thought, and also because he cannot yet make himself leave the little mound alone there on the hill, he sits there for a time. He wanders off after a while, comes back with a pack of cheesy buns, and eats all but one. The last he sets, carefully, on the overturned dirt.

Then he walks away.

5.

In the end, the decision is his.

A soft, helpless voice deep inside him—a voice that sounds like Hiiro’s—asks:

Will it be worth it? Will they be happier without you? Really, truly happier?

Then growing to a shriek inside him, nearly physical in its desperation: Is this the only way?

And it is. The only way he can go, after all, is toward the thing that made him, and toward the thing that will unmake him. He doesn’t mind that. He’s already been lucky enough to find happiness twice, which is two times more than he deserved.

He closes his eyes, feeling Kazuma’s impatience growing with every second of delay. His newest shinki’s willingness to toss both their existences on the fire without a second thought is something Yato never thought he would value, but it certainly serves his ends now.

The image of the little shrine flashes through his mind, hooking his heart like a struggling fish. The scarred fingers that built it—how long can their owner keep waiting for him? How hard can she possibly believe in him? How much does he deserve that faith?

After all, he tried so hard to chase her off. Her first prayers to him were in the form of ghosted texts and screened calls. She had been his first, his only, his most relentless worshiper, and he had spurned her for it.

Here, at the start of the day and at the end of the world, Yato only knows that he owes her a debt.

You’ve been my god of fortune for a long time.

He opens his eyes, and across the dark and silent space between them, he senses Kazuma sit up. The dawn is gray and still, holding its breath, until Yato says:

“All right. It’s time to go.”

[ross-theartist]

Intro for blog

Hey there! I’m Cele! But you can also call me Ross! I’m an animator and a traditional and digital artist.

She/Her [Fully a silly girl]

CEO of Zoss (Ross x Zip), Skull x Kat, Toyweathergambler (Goob x Ace x Gigi) Embmars, and Monster killer!

Let’s get the fandoms I’m in out of the way.

FPE

Murder Drones

Fnaf

FNF (Back in my phase again-)

Eddsworld

Pokémon

Bad Parenting

Gravity Falls (Also back in my phase)

Ramshackle

Rise of the TMMT

Mouthwashing

Dandy’s world

More that I forgot to list that I can’t remember

I love to draw digitally and traditionally, so I’m both!

I have made some AUs that I hope are interesting!

If Ross Died (IRD)

My Swap Fpe Au (Ross’s swap)

Our Little Fun Circus (OLFC)

Five years later Au(5Y) (5Y is still in the making)

Go follow my pookie wookies, they are..

@ryxnsx

@kiya-buggie

@hi-imlilac

@victorialovesskittles

@revevoire

@lycanloc

@theswedishcatlord101

@excitedoflife

@3dward-th3-s1lly

My online child: @kiya-buggie

Socials that are me

Twitter: @Mars_Daplanet

Pinterest: @ThatOneZipLover_Ross

Roblox: @alecxxxboy, display is Ross

Uhh.. here’s a dead acc I have if you care

Cele from CapCut

CELE’S LIKES

Drawing

Sometimes teases friends (only lightly)

Friends (both mutuals and irl)

music

Odetari

Sharks

turtles

Asteria

9lives

Sometimes like talking about politics that I know

history

science

CELE’S DISLIKES

Bullying

Pedos

R@pist

NSFW (like wtf-)

People talking abt bad about a politic that isn’t even true (do research please!)

People talking bad about our lord and savior (Jesus Christ himself, the goat)

I’m a Asexual + Straight Ally

I’m a Christian who is a multi-shipper. Incase you don’t know what a multi-shipper is, a multi-shipper is someone who ships more than one thing in a fandom. For example: Zipward. I ship Zipward but I also ship Zipclaire, Edward x Engel, Bubble x Zip- you get the

Edit: I’m starting to not ship Zipward anymore but I still respect the ship

Now let me show you my ocs and who they are..

ROSS: A 16 year old girl and pansexual, she’s also part of the bullies (along with Roxer, Abigail, and more ocs that are part of the bullies that are friends with me). She’s in a relationship with Zip (OC x canon real!!) and is related to Mars as they are cousins. Ross works for Kyle as she was tricked by him. As there are ups, there are downs about her. She has done SH! on herself because of her depression, but she’s getting better as she is healing.

MARS: A 17 year old who is bisexual, he’s a junior and maybe the only surviving junior in this school for all he knows. He’s a dog shark that’s is very welcoming and friendly. He is in a relationship with Ember (side oc), I mean he’s a good doggie so yeah I can see why Ember be smooching his doggie ahh-

KYLE: A 19 year old shark boy whose attitude is not welcoming. There is a reason why he’s like that, his parents were killed by scientists that wanted to test on him, and he saw the whole thing at the age of 7-9 years old. Kyle escaped at the age 12-14 after learning a way out. He lived in the forest throughout his teenage years. He’s now a killer/assassin that forces Ross to help him out with his dirty work to kill the remaining scientists. But he’s in a relationship with Divine (side oc that will be part of the mains).

VUNET: The son of the sun that was placed on earth to protect it from any harm. He has befriended the main crew, including Kyle. (The sun father told Vunet to not always befriend everyone because they can hide secrets…) But Kyle treats him harshly like they are rivals. Vunet is not stronger than Kyle as Kyle is way more experienced in combat.

KAT: A 15-16 year old bisexual dinosaur girl who has the perfect grades as she always aces them! She’s in a relationship with Skull. (I just realized that Vunet got no beaches, that’s a fat L) Anyways she is very kind and sweet to everyone so don’t be shy to talk to her!

I have more but they are my side ocs.. so yeah🎸 THATS ALL FOR NOW

Little reminder that God loves you ✝️

He will never leave your side <3

[whiplashprompts]

EPIC THE MUSICAL BASED SENTENCE STARTERS (WISDOM SAGA) PART II

~ PART I ~

~ Feel free to make minor changes to the sentence to better suit your ask ~ OP: @whiplashprompts ( x )

~ Love in Paradise ~

"It's been ten years since I last saw you." "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." "One wrong move and you're done for." "We won't take more suffering from you." "Drown in your sorrow and fears." "Morning, sleepyhead. You've been resting for a while." "I swore that you were dead." "Did you know you talk in your sleep?" "Anyways, I've got all you could want here." "I'm not your man." "From here on out, you're mine, all mine." "Hell no, I could kill you where you stand." "But last I checked, goddesses can't die." "You're adorable." "Bow down now to the immortal _______, here to entertain." "But fear not, I bring no pain." "Under my spell, we're stuck in paradise." "I don't belong here." "There's something wrong here." "I won't be drawn to love in paradise." "You're mine, all mine." "Seven years, she's kept you trapped, out of your control." "Time can take a heavy toll." "All I hear are screams." "You don't know what I've gone through." "You don't know what I've sacrificed." "Every comrade I long knew... Every friend, I saw them die." "It will be fine, dear." "Come back inside, dear." "Let me close my eyes." "I know your life's been hard." "I'll stay inside your heart." "I love you, my dear." "I love our time here." "Life would be so much worse." "Please stay from away from harm." "Stay in my open arms." "How much longer 'til we all fall down?" “He needs my help…”

~ God Games ~

"Rarely do I ask for favors." "Now, I'm knocking on your door with hopes to save a friendship." "Divine intervention, is that what you seek?" "You are playing with thunder for a man full of shame." "But if he's worth the risk of going under, why not make it a game?" "Who's them?" "You all know I'm a fan of catchy songs." "They were trying to do him worse." "Now they'll tread with caution first." "To live another day and sing another verse." "Trust is not given, it's forged." "Why should I give him my support?" "He sacrificed his own cohort." "Did you forget they failed to listen?" "He was betrayed and then imprisoned." "He can still build a future with those who miss him." "He claims to love his mother but let her die of a broken heart." "He was busy fighting." "Let him feel the pain that his mother felt and rot." "Really _______? These old tricks?" "What kind of sick coward holds back his power while his friends get devoured?" "He didn't even fight ______, didn't even try to kill her." "He never handles things upfront." "Pathetic and weak like his son." "Hold your tongue now!" "His son's my friend." "And tell your lover that a broken heart can mend." "You want more bloodshed?" "So many heroes." "So many tales." "Give me one good reason why yours should prevail." "He’s got the mind of a genius." "He’s pretty skilled with words." "You can do better than that!" "He’s kind of funny?" "Never once has he cheated on his wife." "I've played your game and won!" "You dare to defy me?!" To make me feel shame?!" "No one beats me, NO ONE WINS MY GAME!" “Let him go, please…”

[epic-kotlc-crossover]

God Games

last chapter of Wisdom!!!! and on a weekend :O vengeance will be out starting Monday!

@myfairkatiecat @sombrathedragon @bookwormgirl123 @justalunaticfangirl @ham-cheese-toastie

@thesfromhms

Athena was ready. And she was mad. At Zeus, at Poseidon, and mostly, if she was being honest, with herself. Odysseus had been suffering for two decades, and she hadn't helped.

Her uncle drowned five hundred people. Her dad had killed the remainder of the crew. And Athena...

Athena had left him alone when he'd needed her. She'd left him to fend for himself.

And now, she needed to fix that.

"Father!" She called out, stepping into the gold-plated throne room. Zeus sat at the end of the hall, looking regal and pompous as ever, his hair crackling slightly. "Rarely do I ask for favours, but I'm asking in hopes to save someone who's a prisoner far from home,"

Zeus looked up, bored expression slipping slightly. He stared at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue.

Athena knew he'd hate this. "Fitz." She told him, fighting to keep her voice from waivering.

Storm clouds instantly crackled, and Athena could feel her hairs stand up.

"Divine intervention? Is that what you seek? To free that Greek?" Zeus spat the last word, almost like an insult. It probably was, Athena thought.

He laughed, a booming sound. "But if he's worth the risk," Zeus shrugged. "Why not make it a game?" Athena's blood ran cold. The god's games were never any good, and were always a trick.

"Convince them—Apollo, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Area, Hera—that he should be released. Or, convince me." He grinned, teeth glinting.

The aforementioned gods appeared in a circle around the room.

"Bring it on," Athena turned her back on Zeus, enjoying his surprised expression for a second. He'd thought she'd choose him.

Athena walked over to Apollo, who looked vaguely annoyed and extremely impatient. He sighed, and half-heartedly plucked at his lyre.

"You know I like music, and with so many of the sirens gone because of Fitz, I think he's wrong." Athena scoffed internally. Zeus couldn't even pick gods who cared enough to put up a proper argument?

"They were trying to kill him," she told Apollo. "He only did what they wanted to do to him."

He shrugged. "If that's true, go ahead and release him."

That was easy.

Next, Hephaestus. He, in comparison to Apollo, actually looked like he had an opinion. "Trust is not given, it's forged! Why should I give him my support if he sacrificed his own men?"

Hmmm. This would be harder. "They didn't listen to him, though," She said slowly, knowing she was using extremely flimsy logic. "He got betrayed, and now he's on an island with a woman against his will." Hephaestus paused and scratched his chin.

"If you let him go home, he'll build a better future with the people who miss him." Athena finished, hoping it would be enough to convince him.

Hephaestus scowled. "Fine. Release him."

Two down. Three to go.

Athena turned to the goddess of love, bracing herself. Athena wasn’t a “loving” god. She was planning, strategy, wisdom. Not the best qualities to use against Aphrodite.

“Athena,” Aphrodite said with a singsong voice. “How can you defend Fitz? He claimed to love his mother and promised her he’d come back. But he let her die of a broken heart.” 

“He was busy fighting!”

“More like busy taunting a Cyclops,” Aphrodite responded. 

“I…” she couldn’t argue with that. 

“Let him feel the same pain his mother felt. Leave him on that island to rot forever.”

“Wait! Please reconsider this,” Athena begged.

“Really, Athena? This old trick?” A metallic voice growled from behind her. She spun around, tensing up as she gazed at the speaker. 

Ares. God of War.

“What kind of sick coward stands around and lets his friends die? He didn’t fight Scylla! Didn’t even try to kill her! He hid in a wooden horse to win the Trojan War. Fitz is as pathetic and weak as his daughter!” Ares roared.

“Hold your tongue!” Athena shouted. “His daughter is my friend!”

“Of course you befriended him. You really can’t stop protecting mortals,” Ares spat.

Athena ignored him. “And tell your lover that broken hearts can mend!” Maybe if she said it enough, it would be true… “You want more bloodshed? Then set Fitz free. He’ll do anything, kill anyone, to see his family again.”

Ares and Aphrodite exchanged a glace, but then shrugged and said, “Ugh, release him.”

Yes! Only two more to convince. Let’s see….

Hera. Goddess of marriage and family. Uh-oh.

“Hello, Athena,” Hera murmured. “There are so many heroes, each with such terrible tales. What makes you think yours is so special?”

"He's got the mind of a genius."

“Try harder.”

“He-he’s pretty skilled with words,” Athena stammered.

“You can do better than that!” Hera chided.

“He’s…kind of funny?”

“Eh.”

Then an idea came to her. Hera was the goddess of marriage, after all…. “Never once has Fitz cheated on his wife.”

That seemed to do the trick. Hera snapped her fingers and simply said, “Release him.”

I can’t believe that worked. 

“Zeus!” she told her father, staring up at him. “I’ve played your game and won! You have to release him now.”

“Ha!” the god laughed. “You think I’ll allow you to beat me? No one wins my games!” With that, he called out, “Thunder, lightning! Show her I’m the judgment call, the one who makes her kingdom fall!”

The sky opened, shaking the palaces of Olympus. The sky darkened in seconds, sheets of rain falling as the clouds roared. Lightning surrounded Athena, and she smelled singed owl feathers mixed with electricity. 

An arc of white light crackled down with a massive wave of thunder, and then the goddess of wisdom collapsed. 

“That was a little dramatic, dear,” Hera observed.

“Is she dead?” Ares added.

~

Not…...yet.

Fitz stood over the body of the dead boar, a triumphant grin on his face.

“Maybe one day I’ll reach him, and I can build his skills as I teach him…”

“If there’s a problem, I’ll find the answer!” Fitz assured her.

“We are the warriors of the mind!”

“I have to be legendary,” Marella whispered, curled up in a ball in her room.

Maybe you’ll be a warrior of the mind, too.

“It’s all gonna turn out great! I know you’ll be fine…”

“Let him go, please…..Let him go.”

[smartestmammalintheuniverse]

Rick and Morty

(very short fic in third person of Rick’s perspective during/right after Unmortricken)

“I gave my life for this. My whole life for you to just...die. But you didn’t. You came back over and over again. And then... even when I thought that I had finally killed you, you still didn’t die. You didn’t die, because even when I killed you, you were still there. Every time I walked by a reflective sureface, there was your face. Every time, I dared look in the mirror, my worst enemy was staring back at me. Any time, I ever dared to try and do anything at all. I coudln’t help, but think that this is what you would do. Because this is what I would do and you are me.... were me... and I am you or I was...

Rick stared down at the corpse in the chair. Prime was dead. He was finally dead and it was over. He had gotten justice for Beth and for Diane. He had gotten revenge for Beth and Diane. He had gotten revenge for every Rick who had them taken away. It should feel triumphant. It should feel like divinity. But it just hurt. 

Now, as he walks out of the room, all he can think is that that can’t be it. It can’t hurt to kill him. It can’t, because that is a betrayal. He has betrayed his wife and child all over again so now he’s gone. Gone. Just a shell of a being, because hurting is so much worse than nothing. Because nothing is less of a betrayal. So the shell of a being walks away with tear tracks down his face. He refuses to be called a man or a god. He’s just nothing.

He stops when he sees Morty. Morty, his grandson, who he loves more than anything. The only person he couldn’t trick himself into hating. Morty hugs him. Rick’s heart thaws just a little. He knows that Morty doesn’t care that he doesn’t hug him back. That he can’t. He knows that when they get back home that Morty won’t mention any of this to anyone. That he wouldn’t dare, because that is what Rick has taught him to do. And if anything, Morty learns.

So, they fly home. He cleans off. He watches it all in a dream. He makes jokes at the dinner table. This is the first time that he can have dinner with his family and not think about how if his Beth saw this she would cry. How if his Diane saw this, she would ask why? How stubborn she was. How strong she was. How her spaghetti will always beat anyone else’s. But now, all he can think about is the robots who had stolen her face and her voice. How even he had done the same thing. How sick was he that he had gave his AI her voice? He couldn’t live without her so he wrote her into everything he did.

After the dust settles, he’ll sit and think and wait. Wait, for everything to fall apart. Wait for Prime to come crawling up out of the dust. But after that doesn’t happen, he’ll sit with himself and admit that finally it’s over. Finally, every version of Diane can rest in peace and maybe if they’re lucky enough their Rick’s will rest with them. He can only hope that one day, he will have the privilege.

[lazodiac]

It's time once again to ramble incoherently about magic cards. Lets try and divine where each of the cards of Outlaws of Thunder Junction are from, why don't we!

You can find the first two parts here and here! And today we're covering...

BLACK

Starting us off with a native to Thunder Junction. God this critter is spooky looking. Love it though!

Aaah, the Hellspurs. I'll get more into them once we meet our first creature Hellspur, but for now just accept that this magmatic thread of doom is native to Thunder Junction.

Another native creature of Thunder Junction! Vultures are important and regal birds and shouldn't be so villainized, I think... but I can't deny they do sometimes look this nasty.

While we've seen a number of vampires in magic practice ye ol' Sanguimancy, the plane most often shown to do this (and the plane most likely to pop their collars THIS ridiculously) is Innistrad.

As mentioned with ghosts in the Blue cards, dead and revived means you're bound to the plane- zombies are native to Thunder Junction, regardless of where they're from previously.

Sweet lord kill it with fire! This abomination is from Thunder Junction and if it's not I never wanna see where it's from. Snorses are wonderful an idea but god they look comfortable.

Gonna say something controversial about this one- the way the lady is posing, her culty robe, and the predominance of ash in her fire, makes me think this is a deep-cut to Azgol, last seen in MOM. It's got similar vibes to various Hellspur aesthetic stuff, but the woman is clearly just too alive to be one of them- more on that later.

Okay this is probably the best place to bring this up. Hellspurs! One of the criminal factions of Thunder Junction. Lawbreakers, murderers, and thieves to a man. Each follows the brutal scorpion-dragon outlaw Akul, and almost every single one of them is mutated beyond all belief by the Chaotic Thunder of the plane.

As a result, much like with zombies and ghosts, these guys have fully stripped away all of their previous life in exchange for lava hands and shit. So, there's gonna be a lot of folk who are native to Thunder Junction purely by this metric, and it'll skew things a little. This is why I'm counting the numbers by colour, since the Hellspurs are predominantly red and black.

A natural (and very spooky!) magical mirage of death. I love this art.

See? This is what happens when you don't "lower" yourself to feeding on animals. You end up shoving your stupid ass face into a cactus. This is a Ravnican vampire, since we've seen before they're often stupid enough to pull this exact trick.

*Dry bones falling apart noises* Tinybones' funny trick and/or prank! This is from Dominaria since that wonderful friend is from Dominaria too.

Raised on the plane, native to the plane. This skeleton owns by the way, this is a good ass skeleton.

Gisa Cecani is, much like her brother, one of my favorite characters in Magic. She's Innistradi born and raised, and seems to fit in like a glove on this plane.

Really unsettling art on this one! Ghost, so native to Thunder Junction... though we can actually, likely, identify the body here; four arms suggests a Mirran Vedalkan. Neat!

Our first actual look at the main antagonist of the set (for as much as that means in a villain focused set). Akul, the Scorpion Dragon of Gastal- a fact revealed right before I started doing this!

Kaervek! The Merciless! The Conqueror! The "too big a deal to be dealing with this shit", imo. Everyone's upset at Marchesa being here but Kaervek is the one that bugs me the most- this man is a country-conqueror, not a petty crook!... but, it's fine, because it's clear in the story Kaervek is insulted Oko's recruited him for such trivialities.

Anyway, he's from Zhalfir. I hope he gets to kill Oko.

Swing your partner round and round, rip their corpus from the ground! Gisa doing a barn-raising in the most literal sense, a uniquely Innistradi way of waking up the dead, with a Thunder Junction flavor.

A hellspur bursting his way out of a shallow grave- oak box included. Funny, and native to the plane.

No real way of figuring out where this guy is from or his gaseous death-cloud... so I'll say Eldraine, based purely on the fact that it's the plane most likely to have such a simple burst of "sleeping" poison.

An easy one! He may be a rat man but he's called out as a Nezumi and that's a Kamigawan thing.

There are a couple places this delightful fellow could be from... but given the pickpocketting and the general demeanor, he's from New Capenna.

Azul, laying a horrific waste to his "friends" to benefit. The scorpion claws being a vent for his breath weapon is exceptional a design, incidentally.

A ridiculous piece of art for many reasons, this one is native to Thunder Junction purely by the fact that this is where the gang was born.

The reason why this is ridiculous is because every single height here is wrong. Vraska is taller than basically everyone to the left of her. Oko is using magic to make himself look taller that's literally canon so that's fine, but Kellan? Annie? One's a baby (described as small for his age) and one's a grandma. Tinybones is also probably far too big. The only person here who is the right height is Rakdos, whose height is "whatever height he wishes to be he can change shape depending on how excited he is". Wild shit.

The only plane with actual snakes-for-hair gorgons is Theros, and even then only half of the time. So this lady is from there. Fitting too, apothecaries making booze and poison is within Pharika's perview absolutely.

As fun as it would be to say this is a raven from Dominaria, implying the presence of Omenpaths are allowing the (currently suppressed and trying to fight his way out of Lili) Raven Man is doing some work, naw. This is just a normal raven.

An all-natural undead member of the Hellspurs, double erasing his identity. God dangit.

This being an ASSASSIN vampire suggests New Capenna. It's kind of their jam, you know?

Gisa showing she is more impulsive than a monkey-goblin obsessed with explosives is why this story spotlight (that isn't given a story spotlight tag) is happening. Innistradi magic running wild and giving us a real Train to Busan energy.

A later card explains that the demons that are natural to the plane grant gifts like this, so this scorpions and their soon to be scorpionman friend are native to the plane.

Fun fact; scorpions do just glow like this. Bio Luminescence is fun!

Jana has the exact same vibe (and the same demon-snake familiar) as Elnor from Yuma's story, so I'm calling it for New Capenna here. Also, funny flavor text AND reminder text. Fantastic work.

And that's it for part 1. Tune in momentarily for part 2 of Black!

[cringecannon]

ive been reading ur posts for a while and i had a vision from god recently that i needed to share with like minds, so i hope this will be to ur taste... i've been trying to find others who i know this will appeal to (besides me)

but...... bhaalcest-- orin being incredibly possessive over durge and jealous over gortash and durge's relationship, so she changes into gortash when she knows durge is expecting him and has her way with durge, while they're none the wiser.

for the sake of everyone else (and urself) i wont get into the nasty gorey parts that really makes this so much better, i love me some knife"play" (is it really play if orin just outright stabs u) and woundfucking (that i really want to get into but!!!!! i have to find the right audience... hoping i can rant insanely about all that here i just didn't wanna outright plop it down when this scene is good by itself too LJDLASJFAL) -👻

To be fair, I already wrote about Orin fingering a wound. I’m all for insane fucked up knifeplay rants in my inbox. Anyway, obligatory Dubcon, Orin, and Improper Use of Gortash’s Body warning

Something’s wrong with Enver.

You only notice it sometimes. The look in his eyes is wrong, or his grip on you is far too tight. Whenever you mention the change in demeanor, he brushes it off. Or he gets angry. Yelling, throwing things, veins in his throat bulging kind of angry. There’s something wrong with him. The man you know wouldn’t act like this.

You love it.

You almost pounce on him the first time it happens, so turned on you don’t even bother removing anything but the bare necessities. He’s confused for only a moment, but quickly falls into place. You ride him until his eyes roll back, nails digging so hard into your hips that they draw blood. You leave your own bloody scratches down his chest, marking him.

Imagine your surprise when you get to see him again a few days later and the marks are gone completely. It throws you off- your hips are still bruised. You call him out on it, he waves his hand and says he had an image to uphold. He can’t walk around looking like he was attacked by a feral cat. The comment irritates you. You like seeing him marked up, proof that he’s yours. You reach for your knife subtly. You think he needs to be reminded of your real claws.

You’re frozen when instead an ornate dagger is suddenly held to your throat. That bastard. He’s stolen your trick.

He presses the point of it to your throat, drawing blood. You feel the warm drip of it down your skin and into your shirt. You should kill him for this. You should play in his guts while he begs for the mercy of death. However, feeling him cut through your clothes with no regard for your safety excites you more. Every thin slice into your skin as he hurries to get you nude is exhilarating. You’ll get him back for it, eventually. You just need him inside you.

He shoves you back hard, splaying you out on the table. You eagerly spread your legs for him, throwing your head back with a gasp when he bends down to lick the trail of blood all the way back up to your neck.

He groans into your ear, hips grinding against yours with a stuttered breath. He wants to savor your blood, forever remember it staining your pretty skin. He leans to the side to hold the dagger against your stomach, dragging the blade across it teasingly. The cut is thin, barely drawing blood. You arch your back, desperate for more. He laughs breathlessly, pulling the dagger away to instead hold it over your thigh. You ask what's gotten into him. He laughs again, biting down on your shoulder. He asks a question of his own- how far would you let him go?

The dagger dances on your skin and you writhe, holding back a grin. Anything. You'd let him do anything, so long as you could play with him too. He groans, mouthing at the junction where your shoulder meets your neck. Of course. It'd only be fair, he wants you to play in his blood too. Wouldn't it be divine, love?

He's never called you love, ever. You're not sure he's called anyone love in his life, but when the blade finally bites into your flesh... you can't seem to make yourself care. You just beg for more.