#holy this whole concept makes me WEAK

[farmhandler]

Tumblr ficlet prompt: I've been obsessed with the concept of Logan doing sneaky little romantic things like taking Wade on a date but he doesn't know it's a date/logan doesn't want him to know it's a date, getting him little things and trying to pass it off as no big deal

Here's a little combination!!

---

"That was fun," Wade said as soon as they walked in the door. He immediately dropped his coat to the floor and slipped on his crocs, bending down to gather Mary Puppins into his arms. "Who's a good girl?" he cooed. "You are, my little precious baby!"

Logan picked up Wade's coat and hung both on the rack. He walked over to Wade who was still kissing Mary Puppins's head in repeated affection. "You had a good time? I wasn't sure you'd like it."

"Oh, I hate bowling. I haven't been since I thought I was straight," Wade said. "But watching you work so hard and shake that little tush to impress me was so adorable. And we had the whole place to ourselves!"

Wade wearing his full suit might have had something to do with that. Not that Logan had been complaining.

"Were you impressed?" Logan asked, only half teasing. He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a couple of drinks.

Wade cocked his head like he was thinking about it. "If I could remember what an impressive bowling score was, I'm sure I would have been. My eyes were on your ass for ninety percent of night. Why did you want to go to a bowling alley anyway?"

Logan tapped the drink to the back of Wade's head and dropped it in his hand. Wade immediately unscrewed the cap and lifted his mask to start drinking it.

"Holy fuck, that's so good," he gushed. "What is this?" He looked at the label.

"It's new, I think? Thought you might like it," Logan said. He scratched his neck. "You kept saying you were craving chocolate the other day."

He shrugged while Wade watched him, sipping on his drink.

"Are you having a mid-nearly-immortal-life crisis?" Wade asked.

Logan turned to him, brow furrowed. "What? No."

"Yesterday you gave me that Hello Kitty keychain you 'thought I would like'. And last week you brought in a bunch of outfits for Mary Puppins to try on out of fucking nowhere and the whole day became a photoshoot sesh, which you normally hate."

"One of the X-Men was getting rid of them," Logan said.

"You've been dropping random shit in my lap for weeks. And last week we went thrifting for four hours and you didn't complain even once."

Logan hadn't thought he'd been keeping track.

"And now bowling? What's up, peanut? Are you dying?"

Logan sipped his drink quietly for a second. "Wanted to take you out. I always liked bowling. Makes for a solid date spot."

Wade ripped off his mask and just stared at him.

"Date? That was a date?"

Wade slapped his hands over his mouth.

"Holy fuck. You've been wining and dining me? That taco truck you tracked down for me three days ago after we took care of that warehouse situation...Logan!"

Logan lifted his shoulders like it wasn't a big deal. It really wasn't.

"You sneaky little motherfucker. Is this your plot to make me fall in love with you?" Wade stood up and marched over. "Because it'll work! Food trucks after doing a bunch of murder is my weakness. But you should know..."

He stopped in front of Logan and walked his fingers up his chest. Logan snatched his hand and shifted closer, wrapping his arm around Wade's waist.

"What?" he said lowly.

"I'm wearing my rubber masturbating shoes," Wade whispered loudly. "Meet me in the bedroom after you shower. We are not fucking while you smell like a bowling alley."

Logan leaned his head forward, chuckling. His head bumped into Wade's, so all it took was a shift in angle to meet his mouth in a kiss.

[theblackcatspeaks]

A Youji Sakiyama analysis

A living hell in your own body.

CW: Pregnacy, rape, male pregnancy, abuse, violence, etc. Basically, a whole NitroChiral+ game.

Please be aware that this analysis will contain spoilers from the route of Makoto and the game itself.

So, here it is.

Basically, I've been meaning to write this analysis for a while now. I waited until I finished the route of Makoto, but I'll continue on making these analysis while I do the rest.

I can admit that I wasn't not expecting to connect to Youji that much, but I surprised myself. I connected to him quite A LOT, something that hasn't occurred when referring to masculine leaning characters.

From the beginning we can see that he's the protagonist of the story, suffering from an illness that makes him weak. Having to lose time out of school due of it, Youji doesn't really seem to care about his surroundings. There's an anxiety that keeps him still, between the looks of his classmates and his daily routine.

Of course there's not a direct mention of the figure of Mary, if you're someone who has been in a catholic environment; you can tell that the feminine concept is what makes the game so important. Youji, as we soon discover through the playthrough, he is a Mesu. A parasite lives inside his body and makes him suffer symptoms of pregnancy and PMS.

From the beginning of the game we learn that there's a lot of biblical references, later we find out that the cult that exists in the Sweet Pool universe worships Sodom. For those that are not familiarized with Biblical Mythos, Sodom was the city of sinners and sodomy. God punished the citizens for their sins. The cult worships the city.

Now, going back to the virgin Mary figure. Who's Mary? Mary was the Mother of Jesus and the most important female figure for Catholics, second is Mary Magdalene.

Right in the beginning of the game we can see that in the shoe racks, there's an statue of the Virgin Mary holding a baby, her son, Jesus. Mary was impregnated by the Holy Spirit, without a sin. Her body is pure and an example of what an ideal wife and mother should be, faithful to her faith.

Youji is the opposite.

When Youji gets his first "period", I couldn't help but feel sadness. It reminded me when I first had mine when I turned 11 years old, coming back to school and suddenly feeling hot blood between legs; realizing with horror that I was able to get pregnant. Youji doesn't understand what is happening with his body and t his terrifies him.

In that very moment, Youji turned into an object of desire to others. Makoto, who was his only friend at school started to get attracted to him due the pheromones he is emanating. Zenya too, realizing that he is also one of his kind, since Zenya's family is part of the cult that I mentioned later.

Zenya couldn't become an Osu, a High Class male, with the Sodom parasyte, ending up severely traumatized and wanting to prove himself and his family that he can become one. In his ending, he ends up abusing Youji and violently does do so.

There's no happiness for Youji in his routes, but I'll mainly speak about his ending in Makoto's. Youji ends up cannibalized and raped by his best friend. If you are a someone with fem traits or appearance, you'll get definitely targeted by people who desire to touch you, or in the worst cases, to abuse you.

What I am explaining in this analysis, if you have female traits, you'll become an object of desire. If you bleed, you become something to produce. Youji turns into a whore and a virgin if you know about the Madonna complex.

As someone who deals with PCOS, having periods turned into a nightmare. Back in summer of 2022, I remember bleeding for almost two months, never knowing when it was going to end. I felt like there was a hell inside of me and that's why I connected so deeply to Youji and the parasite inside of him.

I think I'll write more of Youji later, but if there's something I can say about Sweet Pool that makes it different than DMMD, (I love both, truly, I had a very deep obsession with it back in 2014-2015), is that Sweet Pool connects to the female monstrosity.

Bleeding is something feminine and a monstrosity. Hence why is there so many horror movies that depicts motherhood and the female body like an Alien for example. I wouldn't say Youji accepts the parasite, but he ends up talking to them in a way.

Nobody was there for Youji but the statue of Mary in his school, observing how his body turned into the object of adoration and hate. Like hers.

[archer-kacey]

On the Bendy books not being canon: this might be a good thing??? Because at least Adrienne Kress can keep doing what she’s doing without having to work around BATDR. With the ink clone concept (is everybody an ink clone? What actually did happen?) and Joey’s intentions for the cycle (from making living cartoons to torturing ink Henry?), it feels…unclear what is canon anymore. I mean BATIM is stated to be cannon but in what regards? The cycle happens but what about the audio logs? Are we even sure of who died and how anymore? There’s just a lot of things left open enough for the meatley to softly retcon things while not technically contradicting BATIM. And while BATIM is vague enough to fit BATDR’s changes…what about the books? What are we supposed to make of Joey “murders teens” Drew from the books being the same Joey in BATDR who’s being painted in a goodish light at the end of BATDR and in the archives? Hell, Tom’s characterization in BATIM has already been pointed out as inconsistent with the books.

It just strikes me that the meatley always told stories installment to installment, throwing out a flashy twist and vague storytelling. And this is coming from someone who likes BATDR. While Adrienne Kress, as a novelist, has to tell a complete and satisfying story within each book. And like you mentioned, a lot of what she gave us in those books were what people loved about the characters. At least those versions of those characters get to be preserved in someway?

I'll try to address as much of this as possible lol!

I have a lot of thoughts about this ask, and there are some points where I flat out disagree, but I do see where you're coming from! I do agree that the books not being canon leaves things more open-ended, which is a strength in some aspects and a weakness in others.

"...at least Adrienne Kress can keep doing what she’s doing without having to work around BATDR."

I agree in the sense that BATDR is messy. I don't think she had much trouble working around it, though? I mean, we see Wilson in Fade to Black, so I don't think she's afraid of bringing up BATDR.

"(is everybody an ink clone? What actually did happen?)"

Henry at the very least is an ink clone, expressly made for the purpose of Joey having a Henry-shaped stress ball to kill at his convenience (as stated in BATDR.)

If we look at the novels and games, there are three main ways to end up in Cartoon Hell: First, just be created there, like Ink Henry. Second, you can basically be teleported in via the Gent glasses, as shown in Fade to Black. Thirdly, you can just Die In Ink, like Audrey in BATDR. These technically don't contradict each other, but holy hell that's a lot of ways to end up on the wrong side of a Gent Pipe.

"Are we even sure of who died and how anymore?"

Yes, for the most part. We have letters from Allison (who also mentions Thomas), and Wally Franks. We also have confirmation that Henry left to go live with his wife. And we see Joey himself at the end of BATIM.

As for the rest of the cast, we have to think of Henry's Cycle as an imperfect reflection of real events.

The audio logs in particular do line up with things that really happened, and usually we can rely on them. Take Shawn, for example. In BATDR he mentions that he's leaving the studio. Notice that there's no coffin in BATIM with his name on it. In BATIM, Susie mentions that Joey has a proposition for her. Notice that she does have a coffin, and the outcome of her inferred death is...well, Alice Angel. (The details of how she and Sammy ended up in Cartoon Hell are a little fuzzy, but that's a whole other discussion entirely.)

"What are we supposed to make of Joey “murders teens” Drew from the books being the same Joey in BATDR who’s being painted in a goodish light at the end of BATDR and in the archives?"

Oh boy. If you want my opinion, BATDR really shits all over Joey Drew's victims, regardless of his kill count in the books.

Let's pretend the books don't exist for a minute. Joey still manipulated a woman with the end goal of getting her killed for his own selfish gain. He almost worked his best friend and business partner to death and kept him from seeing his wife for days on end. His accountant died in a horrible and unspecified manner on studio premises. Norman, Bertrum, and Lacie all died as a result of working at JDS as well. Not only did Joey kill real people, but he made an artificial world in which basically all creatures suffer. Don't even get me started on the Lost Ones in Chapter 4 (which include children, by the way.)

It's also confirmed by Grant in BATDR that Gent was "pouring in some funds", and while you could argue it's just for research without killing anyone...they still made the Ink Demon. Nobody's gonna sit here and tell me that A. the Ink Demon never escaped, and B. His kill count was 0. No way.

I get really sussed out at BATDR saying "Well, Joey kind of raised a kid so he's paid his just desserts!" In short, that's not a Bendy book issue, it's a BATDR issue.

"...a lot of what she (Adrienne) gave us in those books were what people loved about the characters."

I'm not gonna lie...I really wish she was a writer for the actual games. Lol.

[livefromcastledracula]

Odd thought, but what's your personal take on the vampiric weakness towards religious objects and places? Now obviously the myths, legends and folklore where our modern concept of a "vampire" originated, as well as the literary works that would popularize them in pop culture originated in deeply Christian Europe.

However distancing a bit from that context, I kinda like the idea that vampires as a rule are repelled by ANY religious object and place of worship backed with legitimate faith and belief. Could probably lead to a quite comedic scene where a Theistic Satanist of all things manages to have a better time warding off a vampire than a con man televangelist who doesn't actually believe a word he's saying.

There's a fair bit of debate about the cross thing, and I think it's important to separate the crucifix/cross repelling vampires in mythology and folklore from the depiction in pop culture.

Because pop culture vampires and folkloric vampires are quite different beasts, most of the time, and the underlying intent is different. And yes, pop culture does often query the "is it the power of the symbol or the power of the faith" and come up with different answers - the Netflix Dracula series as an example makes a big plot point out of this.

For Stoker, I think, his vampires are specifically demonic. They are not so much just the person they were in life but with fangs and blood hunger, they are a ravenous unclean spirit posessing the person's corpse - this is why Vampire Lucy is such a 180 from the sweetheart we knew her as - so the repulsion of the crucifix comes from that good vs evil thing.

And it's worth noting that whilst Jonathan is a Christian, he's Church of England and 'regards such things (as carrying crucifixes and rosaries) as in some measure idolatrous'. But the symbol still works for him, so it's possible that either his baseline Christianity still empowered it, Stoker (a Catholic definitely not a Catholic, my bad, but that makes this more interesting to me) was implying that Jonathan was wrong and the symbol DOES have power, or...the repulsion wasn't about the symbol or the wielder, but was on Dracula's end. Because there's also the argument that perhaps the vampires repelled by religious imagery, many of them (like Carmilla and Dracula) being themselves from that Christian old world in life, are repelled by the holy symbols because the symbol reminds either the demonic spirit or the shreds of the person that was of all the faith they once had that is now lost, of their severing from God, of their eternal, damned fate, like Mephistopheles in Faust mourning being cut off from the light of heaven, it's too overwhelming for them to bear. It's also plausible, of course, that both Carmilla and Dracula were not actually Christian in life, with Dracula having studied black magic at the Scholomance and Carmilla being born to the notoriously wicked and decadent Karnsteins, so then the implication would be that they were in life witches, devil worshipers, or dabblers in sorcery, and therefore find the whole Christian faith and all of its signifiers repulsive and hateful because of their own opposed faith (and may be afraid of the Christian God's power and judgment, in the context the authors are writing them in) In that case, a vampire from a non-Western culture, or a vaguely analogous creature like say a jiangshi or a manananggal, would arguably only respond to superstitious or religious repellants related to its part of the world and specific to its folklore, and not be repelled by a symbol that meant nothing to that creature, regardless of the faith of the wielder. On the 'mythology' end the cross, like the garlic and the wolfbane and the wild rose and mountain ash and all of the original folkloric vampire countermeasures are part of a much broader aspect of folkloric creatures being repulsed or warded off by specific symbols, rituals, superstitions or cultural practices. Some of these have connections to the religion of the culture they're from and some come more from local and community tradition. This is a very broad and complex topic, and it's hardly restrained to vampires - revenants, fairies, ogres, demons, witches, and evil spirits of all sorts have their specific wards and charms. As always with myth and folklore, it's not about what is 'true' or 'canon', because such things get very, very blurry with oral traditions that are centuries or millennia old, it's about the people telling the story - the people the story belongs to.

Anyway, the question you're really asking is - is the vampire repelled by the holy symbol because of: A) A spiritual power inherent in the symbol itself. B) The wielder's faith and belief in what the symbol represents. C) The vampire's belief in or fear of the power of the symbol or what it represents. D) Something else.

I think there's validity in each answer and a lot of fun to be had exploring them in fiction.

[incesthemes]

final thoughts: supernatural season 15

holy shit. i did it. i finished supernatural. i actually finished it a couple hours ago but i'm still having trouble processing it. i've been working at this for six months (but with a one-month break back in december) and i'm finally finished. honestly i don't think i really believed i would do it because shit this show is long, and i am not predisposed to enjoy shows like this. so this is a huge mark of pride for me, that i can finally say i did indeed sit down and watch all 327 episodes of supernatural :)

anyway all that to say i hated this season with a passion lmao, hasta la vista baby ✨

honestly i think i'll end up keeping this short because frankly most of my criticisms boil down to

how did you fuck up your own lore this badly

holy plotholes batman

this is so disrespectful and irreverent toward kripke's supernatural

nothing about this writing makes any kind of sense

well, that's convenient (in the most boring way imaginable)

so it's basically just a game of spin the wheel and see what it lands on.

the season started super weak; the concept was bad from the get-go and executed only to a mediocre standard, so i couldn't help but cringe my way through it. rowena's death was really well done, but her character was never well developed, in the same way most side characters on this show are never well developed, so while i appreciate the care that went into that scene it felt rather empty. it made me regret how poorly and inconsistently written she was. and yeah most side characters get this treatment—hell, cas gets this treatment which is why i don't care about him much—but she had such a provocative death scene that it had me lamenting that she didn't get a better foundation and better development. alas, that's just what it means to be someone other than sam and dean on supernatural.

after that was... the eileen subplot. i do really like eileen despite her being a rather flat and uninteresting character the way most women are on this show (y'know, kickass independent "girl power" women without nearly any other significant personality trait), but i really didn't appreciate the substantial pivot sam took from dean-focused to eileen-focused in this season. yes, season 12-14 did go to great efforts to make sure this wasn't The Sam And Dean Show anymore, but season 15 is so dramatically incongruous from even 12-14 that it just boggled my mind. the sam/eileen stuff was a major part of that, and it just didn't feel good because it was one more nail in the coffin with regards to how little the showrunners respected the foundation of the show (y'know, "the epic love story of sam and dean"). the only real salmondean moment in the entire season was the 7-minute incest speech in the finale—like what? i couldn't even properly enjoy that because of how poorly it was set up, thanks to the four seasons of retconning their relationship and making it less important to the series overall.

anyway all that to say, they had this massive sam/eileen subplot and then nothing even came of it. sam didn't even call to check if she was alive after jack resurrected everyone? he didn't meet up with her on screen even once? like if you're going to give him this season-long romance with someone other than dean, you could at least have the balls to commit to it. i find that just. godawful writing. eileen didn't have to be sam's blurry wife or anything, but he should have had some kind of resolution, literally anything at all, if we're meant to believe she's in any way important to him. c'mon.

more incongruous moments: dean got weirdly angry in this season. like what's with episode 17 man? there is nothing about dean in that episode that feels even remotely in character. from "jack's not family" to dean pulling a gun on sam, it all felt wildly overblown, way too melodramatic and sudden, and just not anything dean would do. yeah he's an angry guy, but???? this was too much, even for him. and the whole jack argument between sam and dean made me roll my eyes hard. because how do you expect me to believe that after all of the developments up to that point, that

dean wouldn't consider jack family. first of all that's stupid, dean drops the f-bomb on literally anyone he thinks is useful to further his goals. second of all it contradicts the bond they've formed since season 13, and it no longer fits with the parallel themes set up between sam, dean, and jack. it undermines what's been established, what's been developed, and what jack means to them on a thematic level. so so so stupid. cannot stress how dumb this move was. it just felt like the writers pulling out yet another OOC moment just so they can conveniently move the plot in the direction they wanted. so annoying.

sam and cas are equals in dean's eyes. like that's just hilarious to me. the last time cas died dean got sad for a little bit and burned his body on a pyre. the last time sam died dean committed suicide. these are not equal reactions. and sam and cas have never been equal to dean because dean always chooses sam over everyone, again evidenced in the series finale. so it was just hilarious for this one episode to pretend like sam and cas could ever be equal.

of course season 15 did really push a destiel agenda in the most unexpected and bizarre way. like wow, and i thought seasons 12-14 were a totally different show. no, season 15 is so much worse than that. i have absolutely no idea why they made the choices they did with this season, but they were not good, they routinely disrespected kripke's foundations of the show, and they ignored every theme ever laid out up until then. all for... what, exactly? so dean and cas can have a weird little non-romance together for 18 episodes only for them to slip wincest back in at the end? what's up with that? no like seriously, what were they trying to do here????

i told my friend this earlier, but i do think it's funny how cas's death speech is just straight-up factually incorrect regarding dean. i'm 100% fully willing to believe that castiel was blinded with lust by dean winchester that he simply made up some guy in his head who looked like dean. and that will be my headcanon going forth because wow it's shocking and funny as hell how much he got wrong while waxing poetic about dean. "you're the most selfless man i know" when kripke spent 5 seasons pounding it into our heads how fundamentally selfish dean (and sam, obviously, but the speech is about dean) is. girl what are you saying. dick so good he rewrote dean's basic character traits to be more convenient to him. i respect it truly i do.

anyway the finale. i hated it! to absolutely no one's surprise. a few days ago i wrote out what i thought would have been the most thematically cogent endings for supernatural. i knew what actually happens, obviously (hard to miss tbh), but my resolve on this front was only strengthened by actually watching it. yes the 7 minutes of incest were very nice and compelling, but... wow. this episode has some of the worst pacing i've ever seen in my life. dean died halfway into the episode? and the rest of that was... a sequence of short scenes that are too drawn-out to be a montage??? like there was no tension, no buildup, and no setup for what they did. it felt so lazy and underdeveloped, lacking any kind of poignancy or thematic cohesion. and then i had to watch TWENTY MINUTES of half-baked scenes of dean in heaven and sam growing old. i wouldn't have hated this ending so much if they had better pacing, i'm serious. like the outrage i feel is predominantly because of how badly it was written. the concepts aren't good, but they were par for the course. but TWENTY MINUTES OF MONTAGE. A MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH WITH NO EMOTIONAL BUILDUP, WHICH ACTIVELY CONTRADICTS THE THEMES OF THE SHOW. WHAT!!!!!!! WERE THEY THINKING!!!!!!!!!!

anyway i disliked that a little bit.

so overall i pretty much hated every part of this season and there were very, very, very few redeeming features sprinkled in. it's fine though! i'm fine. it's all over now :)

a few brief thoughts on the series overall: i regret ever speaking badly of kripke's supernatural; i didn't know how good i had it until it was gone. in hindsight, a lot of the seasons i thought were dogshit were actually not the worst things ever—i just didn't realize how bad bad could get. i know now. i will carry that knowledge with me forever.

dramatics aside, i honestly did enjoy watching the show. as much as i hated so many of the writing choices, the plotholes, the retcons, the way the writers just handwaved away anything inconvenient and rewrote characters entirely just to force them into the story they way they wanted them—it was still, like, fun. the agony was enjoyable (things masochists say). i think it helps that the fandom at large generally agrees that the writing is bad; it gives a sense of community and solidarity in the misery. there's no uneasy disconnect between myself and the rest of the fanbase, and that honestly does make all the difference. it's fun to suffer together, and i don't regret watching this show one bit :)

so with that said, here's my final ranking for every season:

season 1 (thematically strong, tight writing, incredible vision, truly foundational in its establishment of overarching themes, tone, and genre)

season 2 (such an interesting plot which builds on what was established in season 1. this is where the meat of the show is, where the heart is exposed to daylight as the chest is ripped open)

season 3 (well written, though disappointing in some areas largely due to kripke dropping the special children plot thus leaving a hole. not very noticeable due to the good writing, but still there. i'll never forgive them for killing off henricksen)

season 4 (this is the first real drop in quality imo, but it's relatively insignificant. the writing feels more meandering, and the tone shifts rather drastically away from the horror of its origin. the introduction of angels destroys a lot of the religious anxiety that formed the foundation of the show, but at the same time introduces a fantastic story about fate and doom)

season 5 (same as season 4, but with the flaws a bit more glaring. castiel's unclear motivations and underdeveloped shift in perspective are a major point of contention for me; i don't think it was handled well and could have been written better to make him a stronger character from the get-go, possibly allowing him to be a better character in later seasons instead of the conflicting mess we ended up with)

season 9 (the writing is atrocious, but the vision is so good. i still don't know how they managed that. they had such a great idea and they took kripke's supernatural and expanded on it in such a satisfying way. it drove me crazy! but holy shit the actual writing is so bad)

season 8 (i feel largely the same about 8 as i do 9, but i just think the writing was overall worse. it does get brownie points for having benny in it, though)

season 10 (boring. boring and paced so, so, so badly. the sole redeeming feature was how committed it was to its vision. it has the exact opposite problem as season 6 in that it has too little content to fill out the season. but god, the vision. you'll hear me waxing poetic about the season 8-10 vision on my death bed)

season 7 (it did a lot to pave the road for seasons 8-10 which i can't ignore. it also got itself fairly settled after the mess season 6 was and didn't try to bite off more than it could chew. i didn't love it, but it had a lot of moments that were provocative and interesting, and it provided pretty good setup for season 8. the writing was not good, but i think that goes without saying)

season 6 (introduced really interesting ideas, but tried to cram so much into one season that it failed to deliver satisfying payoffs for any of its setup. soulless sam was an interesting exception and really redeemed it for me)

season 12 (12 and 13 are about equal for me because i hate the plots, i hate the intense diversion away from The Sam And Dean Show, i hate the writing, i hate the concepts, etc etc. but they both introduce supporting characters which show off new and interesting sides to sam and dean: mary in 12 and jack in 13. it allows for focus to stay on sam and dean's relationship a little longer even though they're no longer generating any organic conflict between them, so i appreciate that at least)

season 13 (i fucking HATE the apocalypse world. that is my deciding factor between seasons 12 and 13. also i hate what they did to mary here)

season 14 (honestly an inoffensive season. i still hate the writing way more than anything else pre-12, and it doesn't have the benefits of a new character introduced to provide external conflict between sam and dean, so while it was relatively inoffensive it was also boring, lacking, and really obvious how little the writers cared about maintaining sam and dean's relationship as the emotional core of the show)

season 11 (the writing all things considered wasn't the absolute worst thing i've ever seen, if i'm being fair. on the other hand, i hated everything about this season conceptually, and i hate that it vouched for christianity as the ~one true religion~ which again undermines kripke's original series. this is me being petty and i'm okay with that)

season 15 (see above. oh but i'm honestly surprised it managed to surpass my ire toward season 11. like honestly it's impressive because i hold a massive grudge toward 11 which should have been insurmountable. a feat has certainly been achieved here!)

anyway. i said this wasn't going to be long but then i just kept on writing and writing. because that's what i do. i never learn 😔 i'll end it here then. i intend to go back and rewatch seasons 1-5 now that i'm finally finished, so i'm looking forward to that. i want to see if my rose-tinted glasses that i've been looking at kripke era with are based on reality or simply a longing to return to less terrible times :P

[asrainstorm]

Might i ask yandere eli(lunar phase), naib (man in red) and joseph (azrael) seperately for nun reader who kills devils as a living?

Hcs please! Also hope ur day is going well! ^^

Well of course, darling, it would be a great pleasure for me :)

Personally love the concept of yandere!Naib/Eli/Joseph, so yeah, I’d write hc’s with joy. Also thank you very much for your request, it’s very interesting: I adore the dynamic of a holy x obsessively in love demon, and everything, so I’m really pleased with it! My day is quite nice, by the way, but I hope that yours is much better! Wish you like these hc’s, hehe

Includes: nun!reader x yandere!Eli (Lunar phase), nun!reader x yandere!Naib (Man in Red), nun!reader x yandere!Joseph (Azrael) — separated

Warnings: headcanons, yandere, obsession, partly religious themes and interactions, references to murder, blood and violence.

[ "The blood moon brings destruction" was his revelation on the night before the moon dissipates ]

— Eli met you in the marble hall, full of aspirations and revelations. His heart had a mystical light before you, but when your presence enveloped his whole being the world lost its meaning.

— Your calm expression was felt on the edges of his hearing almost physically. It was like a flash of light that lit up the entire universe. He will never forget that moment.

— You hardly spoke, but your voice was like the singing of angels. Ah yes, the moon went through all its phases at the moment when you gently asked Edgar how he was feeling, or when you spoke with Fiona's cards. There was no one kinder than you, although you never smiled, never laughed and remained amazingly calm even during matches.

— Oh, there was no limit to Eli's happiness when you were assigned to the same team! Every time! He didn't notice any obsession behind him, of course, but, in fact, there was a problem. Now he didn’t care about the rest of his teammates at all.

— At first he was a little surprised. Although Eli commanded the connection of stars and the light that reflected from the giant solar ball, and his flesh woven from this radiance felt almost nothing... Before you, he made sure that all members of his team remained under the supervision of an owl. Now he didn't feel the need to it, and the main focus of attention was always on you.

— However, it is worth noting that he tried. Sometimes forgot, but mostly sent an owl to everyone. Mostly rescued others from the chair. Mostly helped when being asked. Mostly… Argh, well, you see, it’s very hard to pretend that he was worried about the fate of his teammates, except yours, so soon he just stopped.

— And maybe it wouldn’t be noticed by himself at all, but the main problem among other "after-Y/N" problems was the fact that you were openly against him.

— During the matches, no Hunter avoided your rifle, especially if that Hunter was someone in a demon form. You greatly hated them. Hated them to death. At the same time, Eli was partly a demon.

— It was lovely to dream about you: so elegant and so distant. Your sacred presence was burning nearby, when he himself was like an ice; there would be no moonlight without the scorching sun after all, so to look from afar and take care of you forever – why not? Eli could certainly do it.

— But you couldn't. You were brought up harshly, radically, your hands were striped with a ruler, fingers were rough, and every movement was honed to the smallest detail - you were never a fragile girl in trouble, because from the position to which life threw you, weakness and inability to cope on your own were available to anyone else except you. Not being able to get rid of the distracting burning sensation in the back of the head, almost boring into the hole? How pathetic.

— Eli didn't approach, just watched; there was nothing wrong with that for him, because everything came from pure care. It's hard to love, but if there is you for him, then it's okay. And he will do everything to make you happy. Even if he has to stay up all night, holding on to a thin cornice by the window and looking into a thin strip between the curtains - he doesn't need sleep anyway, he can be patient. Even if he has to learn you like an open book, learn your schedule, your tastes and interests - there is a lot of space in his head, not that he has time to find something more interesting. Even if he has to hide in the closet while you're lying down after surgery in the medical wing, where they just don't let him in, Eli will do it to make sure that you're okay, no matter how many days he’d stand there. Just let him enjoy from afar, that's the only thing left. Be kind.

— And look: the one who hurt you is now writhing among his own guts. It's incredibly easy to achieve, don’t worry, no one even realized what happened. Hardly they will suspect the unctuous young man in white robes as a murderer, haha!

— As long as you're fine, he's fine, too. Really, he’s even smiling, look! Smile too, smile for him just once!

— He deserves it!

— But when the ouroboros of your health is unexpectedly interrupted, Eli's blind pupils break, and he, lightened by syzygy, tears the enemy with his claws; snow-white feathers frame the disfigured corpse, but no one cares. Eli is a saint. You're a saint. And only you know how the gilded cloth darkens under the dirty blood…

[ Your fear, "his" blood, and one final bout ]

— You weren't afraid of anything. In a monastery with stained-glass vaults and old crumbling whitewash, you found shelter in a stormy night that took the lives of mom, dad and older brother. Later you were told that what attacked them on the way was a demon.

— To believe in this fairy tale at first seemed utter nonsense. Really, demons? Why then did the angels not descend and pierce them with golden arrows of pure justice, ha? However, very soon your doubts were shattered.

— First of all, of course, they faced the destructive power of the belt, punishing disobedience and the so-called "freedom of thought", and then - the ugly face of a real demon in two inches from your face.

— It turned out that the local nuns were not fragile god’s servants at all. They stood day and night on guard of human peace, tracking down infernal creatures and quartering them, and you, hardened by frequent punishments and awareness of the involvement of the devil's spawn in the incident, did not take long to become one of the best demon hunters.

— So yes, you weren't afraid of anything. However, only with "his" exception.

— "He" was the Man in Red, or so they called "him" in the mansion. Unsociable, closed and straight to the bone piercing with one look… you knew for sure that "he" was a demon, and not just any, but the most malicious of all. The one you should exterminate before everyone else. And, probably, "he" saw this confidence hidden under a layer of crushing horror in your eyes.

— No one knew where "he" came from and why, no one wanted to be in the team with "him", no one, in principle, was eager to be with "him" within a radius of ten kilometers, and the Man in Red "himself" showed no interest in others.

— This attitude towards "him" was quite familiar. People are greedy for their lives, it’s the nature: they grab at the thinnest straws, hanging over the abyss, even if they know that they will not be able to survive, because for them there is nothing more valuable than life. If rebirth is real, then they will never know anyway. "He" knows. In a previous life, "his" name was…

— "Damn it, faster!" you shouted, stunning the Hunter with an ultra-precise shot and quickly freeing "him" from the chair. "It's just the two of us left, so try to survive. I won't come next time!"

— Oh...

— You reeked of fear, your hands trembled treacherously, and you ran away from "him" rather than from the recovered Hunter, but, in fact, it didn't matter. You came to the rescue, even if only for your own salvation, just as irrationally selfish as any other human, and yet, yet you came to the rescue. Perhaps it will be nicer if you just kill "him" yourself? It won’t work, of course, but let this dream continue to warm up your instincts.

— Since that match, the Man in Red has been interested in you. If "his" attention fell on someone, everything in itself became disastrous, and you were just asking for trouble; the barrel of a highly polished rifle always felt like it rested on the back of "his" head. It's only a matter of time before a shotgun is roughly shoved into "his" mouth and the taste of gunpowder is smeared on his tongue…

— However, again, neither one nor the other wouldn’t work, since the Man in Red, fear itself in the flesh, couldn’t be killed. And, unfortunately, "he" suddenly wanted to see the imprint of this truth on your face to the point of itching longing.

— Now others didn't approach you. The survivors were afraid to contact once again with the person who somehow constantly found herself with a Man in Red nearby, and this fact did not please you, as well as them. There was nothing you could do, left in the gnawing loneliness.

— At night you felt "his" presence at your door. In the morning - behind your back when you were walking towards the bathroom. During the day - in the shade of the far corners of the library, in the evening - among the plants in Emma's greenhouse, where you could breathe deeply. It used to be possible, but now constant fear held down the lungs and let in only as much air as "he" wanted. Unbearable.

— Prayers didn't help. As you later found out, the lead and the claws of the Hunters too, because there were not even scratches left on the body of the Man in Red that could be healed.

— The sisters in the monastery used to say that if something cannot be achieved by killing, then it remains only to accept, but how could you accept the constant presence of a demon, gradually turning you into his puppet through the fetters of fear?

— You put thirty-four bullets into "him", six knives, with one piercing through "his" throat and the other through the temporal wall, also tried poisons, strangulation and all this with holy water, of course. "He" didn't care. Only the fact that you sometimes came pretty close to "him" for killing made it possible to tolerate the damage to "his" shell.

— Besides, the horror of a new defeat was very becoming to you, and the Man in Red... Naib-in-the-past liked it damn much. It had been a long time since he had felt emotions.

— So yes, he showed no interest in others. However, only with your exception.

[ He fell from the heavens and brought with him the first falling leaf of the season ]

— Since the tragedy, someone has been visiting your dreams. Color, attire, any details of appearance mercilessly slipped from memory, leaving no chance of identification, but you knew that this wasn’t the enemy. His angelic voice has never left your mind.

— In sorrow and in joy, in sickness and in health, the voice delicately whispered words of consolation or instruction to you, pointing, as it seemed, the right way. And you, brought up in the walls of the worship of divine creatures, trusted him implicitly.

— So, of course, when he ordered you to go to the Oletus Mansion, you didn't throw around questions. Because it was him after all.

— Everything that the Lord decides to send down to us, we are able to overcome, right? And all the trials, no matter how unimaginably difficult they may be, will serve us as a great lesson. You didn't know if this was really the case, but your first match was amazing; really, no one expected that a nun would suddenly take out a rifle and start shooting right and left? You're the best, the one and only.

— "Good girl," his voice whispered that night. "I'm proud of you"

— And suddenly that's all you needed.

— Over the years, no, just a couple of decades spent in terrible conditions of cruelty and isolation, you managed to become, without exaggeration, very dependent on the kind words of a mysterious "friend". They were the only support that saved you from despair, so, of course, hearing praise was all you wanted. Is it possible that someone's brain can lose the craving for life without the simplest set of sounds, called a "voice"? There is a chance to check.

— But you didn't consider your, uh... "little addiction" to be anything bad. The "voice" was there and supported you, and also sounded so angelically beautiful; if he is an angel, which there can be no doubt, then it’s your duty to adore him.

— Well, so the sisters and the holy mother (although there is nothing holy about her) kept saying, but doesn’t matter.

— You loved the "voice" in your head. He was mesmerizing. Gently whispering words of approval, its owner was very eloquent and could convince you of what he wanted; it was always important for a person who grew up in isolation from the kindness to be gently treated, and the "voice" seemed to know it very well. You two have never argued, never quarreled, and couldn’t break the connection. But even being so smart as you are, it was to hard to realize that these conversations were boiling down to one thing: your absolutely and unstoppable addiction.

— "I know you're good, good girl, and we're good together; only I can support you. And I know you feel it. Everything will be fine..."

— These words were not hard to come by, slipped through the convolutions of your brain and ate into the bones; every time he said it, you got a sip of great joy. "Of course," you thought, "because I'm a good girl."

— And then you touched the bare skin of William's forearm while helping him during the match, and he instantly collapsed on the ground, not breathing. Eyes opened. He died at your accidental touch.

— Your face has never lost its steadfast, calm expression since the days of the monastery. A steel lady with an apostolic on her head, instilling fear into the souls of demons and serving as a stone wall for ordinary people.

— But now, in this damned second your beautiful face was distorted with such tearing horror that the world has turned upside down, knocking out your organs with a tension wave, and then returning them to their place, leaving them there soft-boiled. Nightmare. It's just another nightmare, a bad dream, you just have to wake up. Need to... wake up, wake up, open your eyes, please open your eyes! No. You couldn't have killed an innocent man. You couldn't have killed William Ellis! No, no. This can't be happening. It's impossible. Not fair. It’s scary. So so scary. Scary, scary, scary, scary, scary scary scary scaryscaryscaryscary

— ...Wait, please.

— Why does the Photographer smile so strangely from afar? Why does this cruel fucking Photographer, a disgusting demon..?

— "Good girl", a voice sounded softly and quietly in your head, while the Hunter in the distance opened his mouth absolutely in time with the words. "I'm proud of you"

— ...

— What?

— What is it? Wait. Why?

— Dumbfounded, you numb stared at the rich blue skin, shimmering with starry matter, waves of thick silver hair, curls of horns. Long nails tapping on the sword guard. Eyes that were absolutely black, but shining with unshakable warmth to you.

— Why? Why, why, merciful God? It just can’t be real. It can't be him!

— You had no idea that in that incident on an autumn night your life was to be cut off forever. Remember? Legs ached from the cold, viscous earth due to the downpour, hair stuck to your face, tangling with eyelashes and closing the sight. Tree. It should have fallen, breaking the fragile child's body, but for some reason you took a couple of extra steps…

— Azrael, who came down to take your soul, could not understand how it happened. His lists have never changed. Your name was in it. Right here. However, you were standing there, alive and alone; it was... somehow amazing, he thought. Interesting. Why not?

— So he followed you. He wanted to find out what kind of human being managed to escape his hands, but, unfortunately, the longer Azrael watched, the more he wanted something. Whisper a few words in your ear - are you being offended, feel sad, need praise? He can probably do it if you smile at your reflection in the mirror, because it’s just a small gesture of good when he is the fallen angel. You see? It made a very well sense, didn’t mean much. But gradually Azrael began to notice a desire to stay in your head forever. After all, you thought of him so kindly, and no one ever loved him before.

— Love... That's right. Borrow this feeling, please, and fill him to the limit. He can run his tongue along your neck, because you are such a wonderful person - you secretes love physically, make people happier. What is this power called? He’d like to know.

— He’d like to know everything.

— Oh. Unbelievably. A couple of decades, and a fallen angel feels something for a mortal. It's just ridiculous.

— He hugged your brain so tenderly, and everything that distracted him from you infuriated incredibly, to such an extent that he wanted to make an exception and kill the innocent. Why not? Really, why? Azrael has been asking this question all the time since he met you; so much has changed. He lived a little less than Adam and Eve, so long and so alone… Maybe he should think about himself a little bit?

— Yes, that’s right. Love. Burning and big. When he was looking down at his stomach, he practically saw love rising, spinning, writhing like a bump shining through perfect skin. When he ran his fingernail over it, the knot, gradually tied somewhere below the guts, tightened tighter and tighter, and he just couldn't help himself. Would he have fallen again for what he whispered to you in the confessional? How lovingly praised you for mere trifles, tying to himself with unbreakable affection? And for things he did in your dreams, taking away every bit of memories from last night at dawn so as not to spoil everything? How human-like. How satisfying.

— And then, then he decided to direct you to a place where it won't be difficult to reach.

— And then, then he put a grain of his death-providing power into your hands, because no, no, NO, when he think about himself, Azrael knows that you don't need to touch other people.

— And then, then… You’ll join him in heaven.

— "Go here, be the good girl. I know you can do that"

[demonsfate]

FINISHED THE TEK8 STORY. Under the cut, I will be saying how it affects my blogs and changes i may make to my own depiction, as well as how my blog will be canon divergent (for some obvious reasons). under the cut will contain MASSIVE SPOILERS. so, do not peek unless you don't care or you've finished the story already. if you've already completed the story, I highly recommend you look as it will be crucial to my blog and depiction as well as writing with me in the Tek8 verse. thank you.

I liked the story but I was also a little disappointed by a few things. I will disclose that later, for now I want this to focus on primary the depiction and what will change or stay for this blog and how this blog handles Tek8.

-JIN STILL DIDN'T START THE WAR. Honestly this is something that made the story so hard to really really like is that Jin's just good again and there was no real explanation as to why he is back to his old self. Before his character episode, they said he was consumed by the devil's blood ... but it still felt so unclear to me. Regardless, Jin didn't start the war nor was he responsible for it. DJ still started it in hopes to do what Kazuya did, awaken Azazel and take its power. Jin's guilt and suicidal tendencies are still there. However, his guilt, as always on this blog, comes from his weakness, his body being used, and feeling as though he should've killed himself and DJ sooner.

-DJ AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH JIN. Holy shit. This is definitely gonna be the hardest for me - as I am struggling to even know how to push forward with this. As yes, I didn't expect DJ to be precisely what I believed him to be, but MY GOD, the story basically went against almost everything I've written. So I'm gonna do my best to make it work with my own concept. So there will be a lotta points regarding DJ and their relationship, starting with -

-DJ AND JIN KNEW EACH OTHER SINCE THE END OF TK3. Tek8 seems to imply that it's Jin's first time actually meeting DJ. This blog strongly rejects that notion. Why? This blog's biggest focus has been on Jin and DJ's relationship and how they live with each other. It's actually the most fun about writing the two. So, to say they never actually really knew each other would just destroy a lot of fun and love I had for this dynamic. DJ's been talking to Jin ever since he woke up after Jin was killed by Heihachi. Not only do Jin and DJ know each other, they know each other better than anyone else.

-DJ IS NOT IN ANY WAY JIN, HE'S HIS OWN ENTITY. This is pretty self - explanatory, but no. Jin and DJ may share the same body, but they are not the same person. I'm never changing this.

-DJ REGARDING JIN. Okay, as sweet as Jin looking to DJ and saying "you've always been protecting me..." and DJ saying with a small smile, "I'll go anywhere with you" or some shit. But... that does go against my whole depiction. Y'know... DJ did attempt to kill Jin and came close to it before he started the war. So this is something I'm struggling with the most. I THINK I might have an idea of how I can better fit this in my depiction, though. Since whenever I write his Tek6 verse especially, I always strongly imply that DJ misses Jin. However, I'd make it unclear whether or not DJ genuinely misses Jin and thus cared about him to an extent, or if DJ is just uncomfortable by the change and new silence in his head. Because of the "you've always been protecting me" line, I suppose I'll just go completely straightforward and say yea, DJ does care about and genuinely likes Jin. However, as I've also stated many times on this blog - even if DJ likes somebody, when it comes down to it, he'll always put himself first. But DJ liking Jin is also one reason why he's so possessive of him. It's his own fucked up way of expressing that like - so a very toxic relationship.

-DJ'S JOURNEY IN 8. DJ is still mad at Jin for taking away his chances during the war. DJ still tries to gaslight Jin and isolate him as a means of getting back. Jin ends up defeating DJ regardless - like what happens in the story. However, Jin learns that DJ is something - no, someone that will always be with him no matter what. Perhaps using his Kazama powers, or Jun's influence, he/she "purifies" DJ and brings out the best in him. DJ admits his true feelings to Jin, and how they both do need each other if they want to take down their common enemy. Jin, of course, can't so easily forgive DJ for y'know... the selfishness and war crimes. But he also learned from his mother to show mercy and give second chances, as he felt he's been given a second chance. And plus, with a more purified mind, Jin feels DJ in a different headspace than he once was. DJ willingly gives his powers to Jin to fight Kazuya. In a way, DJ and Jin's relationship has improved and they've reconciled.

-DJ'S FATE? Since Jin seemingly lost the ability to activate the devil (or angel's lol) powers. I, uh... I don't know what this means for DJ at all. I really don't know if this means DJ is "dead" or just "dormant." At the point of writing this, I don't know if I'll say that DJ is dead - therefore he can't be interacted with during post Tek8 verse. Or... if I'll say he's still around, but Jin only hears him in his head, and there's no way that DJ can actually take over. Therefore, still kinda hard to interact with DJ in this verse :')

-JIN'S FATE. I'm still unsure what I wanna say Jin's fate is. It seems like he's going off with Xiaoyu, but... I don't think he's necessarily becoming a hermit like many think? For now, I'd like to think he's making up for loss time with Xiao and they're exploring the world together. Jin is absolved of his crimes due to Victor getting to actually know Jin, seeing how Jin has helped saved the world, as well as choosing to believe that Jin was indeed not the one to blame for the war. Jin's also learned to forgive himself for his mistakes, and learned that with friends - he is stronger. Jin is at his happiest, and is no longer suicidal. He wants to live!!!

-JIN ACCEPTING HIMSELF. Yes, Jin is willing to use Mishima-Style again, but NOT because of Heihachi or that Heihachi was actually a good guy (I swear this game felt like it was doubling down on Heihachi actually being noble - barf). Jin accepts Mishima-Style because he realized not all Mishimas are as bad as he originally thought. (See Lars, Jinpachi and himself, - even if Lars doesn't practice Mishima-Style)

[goodveigar]

okay first act rambles (spoilers) below cut

So pre-Arcane, Viktor was probably one of my favorite characters lore-wise. I loved how he was just a guy trying to help his city, albeit he was doing it by replacing flesh and metal. Even then, that concept was so interesting to me. Like, "I am going to help you even if you lose what makes you you." And the whole cult worship of him just made it all the better.

So, in season 1 of Arcane, I was a bit afraid for his character story when he wasn't yapping about how flesh is weakness etc etc. I definitely had hope that he would get there, as I doubted fortiche would change a character that much. And Holy Shit. Just these first 3 episodes delivered. His detachment from being human on an emotional level but still burning with the need to help those in the undercity. The staff...the way he walks...EVERYTHING. They managed to both change his character while still keeping the fundamentals that made me love him in the first place.

2nd topic, HOLY FUCK THE BLACK ROSE. So, The Black Rose has to be my favorite "faction" in all of league lore. LeBlanc is another one of my favorite characters. Part of this love definitely originates from head canon as most of the lore is that there is no lore. However, The Black Rose has definitely not been presented as the threat I believe it to be. The whole "childern clowning on the Black Rose" thing that has been pretty much the only updates for it recently. Like everything has been the Black Rose supposedly fucking up (Annie, Rell, Briar etc.) So to see Arcane present them as the threat I KNOW them to be...amazing. I was fucking literally kicking my feet and squealing when I saw the black rose form in the woman's hand. The aestheics...the everything...Amazingly done. The truest gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss.

And a more minor note, I love how Ambessa is just such a true Noxus champion. Like it is one thing to just be "grrr fight...grrr..." But Noxus isn't just fighting people head on. There is so much lying and backstabbing and manipulation. And Ambessa really shows that.

More minor minor note, Ambessa guard guy (to lazy to google his name) uses a runic weapon. Yknow, the thing produced by the Black Rose. Ambessa is absolutely fucked if she decided to piss them off by taking it. So excited for the next episodes.

[kandisheek]

FIC REC WEEK 44 - HORROR

The Ghost in the Machine by Frankensteins_Monster

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: E Words: 3,393 Tags: Married Couple, Character Death, AI Tony

Summary: Steve Rogers and Tony Stark have been together for seven years and married for three of them. They work and fight and dance and laugh together. Steve secretly believes that the only wedge in their otherwise perfect marriage is the time that Tony spends in his lab, working on some super-secret project for days at a time. And in a way, Steve's right.

Reasons why I love it: The whole concept of this fic is beyond terrifying, holy shit. I know Tony was trying to do something good here, but if I were Steve, I would never recover, let alone be able to move on. I love everything about this fic, and you should definitely read it!

Once the Brain Fog Clears by Impala_Chick

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: M Words: 5,945 Tags: Psychological Horror, Lovecraftian Monster, Angst with a Happy Ending

Summary: SHIELD HQ loses contact with their Arctic Base, and they ask Steve, Sam, and Nat to go recover their agents. But there is a monster lurking in the ice, and it knows Steve's weaknesses.

Reasons why I love it: Wow, the descriptions of what the monster is making Steve see really got under my skin, they're so chilling. I love the bits of lore we get at the end, and the resolution with Steve and Tony is super sweet, a perfect way to balance out the dark. This fic is wonderful, and you should definitely read it!

Hypnagogic by CaughtAGhost (ghosthan), ghosthan

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: E Words: 4,225 Tags: Hydra Steve, AI Tony, Major Character Death

Summary: [Hypnagogic state: the period immediately before sleep, or between wakefulness and sleep, during which hallucinations can occur.] “Fine. You want an enemy?” Steve says, bloody saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth, “I’ll give you someone to hate.”

Reasons why I love it: I think I'm gonna have to breathe into a paper bag after this one, Jesus Christ. It's gloriously dark and gory, and the underlying terror of it all is so good it makes me want to cry. Steve and Tony's characterizations are incredible, and the ending literally made my jaw drop, it's amazing. Definitely check this one out if you haven't yet.

Potshot by jellybeanforest

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 2,765 Tags: Zombie Apocalypse, Survival, Bearded Steve

Summary: In an expansive wasteland infested with hordes of the undead, Steve, leader of a group of ex-military operatives known as the Avengers, searches for survivors and supplies in the ruins of the old world. That’s all well and good, but Tony would do just about anything for an American cheeseburger.

Reasons why I love it: The things you do for a meat grinder. I love the contrast between Tony's somewhat fresh-faced naivety and Steve being already hardened by battle, it makes for excellent drama. And the attack scene is fantastic, I could really feel the urgency. This fic is amazing, and you should definitely check it out.

Six Feet Under by SummerKnight717

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 5,391 Tags: Buried Alive, Team as Family, Rescue Missions

Summary: They should have known the fight had gone too well. They should have suspected. But they didn't. Now Captain America has been captured, and the Red Skull has entirely too much to do with the matter.

Reasons why I love it: I've always found being buried alive to be one of the most horrible ways to go, and this fic does a great job at conveying that particular horror. It's raw and awful and everything you'd want out of a fic like this, and I loved every second of it. Definitely check it out, because it's amazing.

[lawlietscaramels]

I think you and 🍰 have mentioned it before, but I’d love to hear your thoughts about the way the musical portrays L. The concept album was my introduction to Death Note as well, but I feel like the L in the songs is a much more dramatic take on L? Which, y’know, makes sense, since it’s ✨musical theatre✨ and all. Like, “The Game Begins” is SO fun, but we’d never get a monologue like it from L in the manga or anime. Idk, the musical paints a bit of a different image of L to me. Not a bad one at all, just a different one.

-🎲

holy space cows 🎲 anon okay let's go! again answering this before my other asks because it's more me rambling than an actual story

GOOOOOD musical L when I first watched the musical I wanted to pick him up take him out of the screen and squeeze him like a stress ball. honestly I loved (love?) him maybe even more than anime L dhdhhdh

I'll put a break in here because I think I'm gonna say a lot

like. he did so many things like anime L (I've never read the manga so I see that L as "base" L) but also I feel had his own quirks. like how he hopped onto chairs (Teen Angst L did this too but because it was screen not stage it felt different. I've done stage acting before so maybe it's just me but screen doesn't feel as close, I just loooove stage acting, UGH. This was also why it was more dramatic in some places, you have to act for the whole audience but, I'm assuming you didn't see it live, WAIT have you even watched the recorded version?? It's on YouTube it's sooo good the subtitles are great too, you can sing along to the songs. it's in Japanese tho. Anyway my point was going to be, because you're acting for people really far away, your movements will be big and dramatic and you'll notice this if it's recorded up close).

HIS VOICE WAS SO NICE TOO like damn this is a fine ass man. His songs, I agree looking back at them they aren't all things anime L would say, especially not unprompted. But I don't think that it was so far out of character that it was unbelievable, you know? I actually think that though yes, the Game Begins was dramatic, that was just the song and not the tone of it, if that makes sense. I'd say songs like Playing His Game and (I can't remember the name but the one LawLight duet they sing at the college? not the tennis one. UGH I know the Japanese...) Anyway, I'd say those songs are more ooc. Cause I think L sees all of his cases as a game, his job as a game. Like yes he cares about human life but he also only takes on interesting cases. I've heard this is more like his manga version, which is kinda cool that this "headcanon" of mine is "canon."

AHAHA anyway the point I was actually going to make with that paragraph was: in the final song (a little ooc but in some lines very in character) L holds this one "O" note that makes me go WEAK IN THE KNEES and of course Light is singing over it at the same time, sobs. This is in the Japanese version. I prefer that version overall, but I like some of the English songs too, like Playing His Game and Requiem. So if you haven't listened to it YOU SHOULD!! It's on YouTube music, you can search up english song name + death note musical. A lot of them are by "LyricNear" I think. and you can ofc watch the full musical. but aaaa the final song breaks my heart but I have to listen to that goddamn note... you guys... you don't understand.

Uh, the musical did of course take some creative liberties. There was no Matsuda which I will always bring up because it is a crime, MUSICAL REMISA WAS THE BEST, the limited runtime cut plots and explanations (I kind of appreciated the ending, though I cried because I was hoping it would end differently), and I don't think they had a Watari. Actually thinking about that, that's probably the most ooc L thing in the whole movie: being able to take care of himself. (well presumably to some degree considering he's still alive at the start)

But yeah... I love musical L... I don't mind when he's ooc because it only disrupts soft headcanons of mine, not hard ones. I also haven't watched it for a while so I may be misremembering some things, but still. Gosh I really want to hug him... his clothes look so soft.... maybe I'll just steal his voice box/j

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

ARI IM BREAKING IN AND SHAKING YOU SO HARD RN. u think u could just drop those tags on my post AND LEAVE???!!!! im literally so giddy rn because u get it……u get it so bad

“knightly demeanour vs animalistic tendencies…gentle nature vs his violent actions” my knuckles are white im clenching my fist so hard rn because!!! ur so right there IS something just Off about the guy isnt there?? “simmering” UGH THATS SUCH A GOOD WORD like its there but it isnt so obvious at first because he truly believes hes a good person, fighting for a good cause, helping the weak, protecting vulnerable towns and villages!! but its also the fact that like that isnt really what hes fighting for deep down in his heart. im still messing with this but tell me what u think!! i think hes just the slightest bit misguided (by slight and bit i mean a lot❤️) and has no clue how to view his knighthood because he doesnt get to choose!! he doesnt get to choose who he has to raise his sword for and who he has to bend the knee for

BLARGG i got carried away but im so glad u liked the little drabble🫶🏽🫶🏽knight!sugu lives in my head rent free, im so glad someone else is crazy about him hes so hot

PEHJDJSJD MOSS????? ur making the brainrot worse pls stop 😭�� this is gonna get extremely long i think just bear w me </3 god i adore ur take on him SO much i cant even explain it

moss. grabs ur shoulders. no because youre actually a genius. i was already sold but i never even considered how perfect a knight au is for suguru holy shit????? UR SO RIGHT. ALWAYS. he is ABSOLUTELY misguided and i think there are so many possibilities for his character in an au like this…

its so similar to his canon circumstances but also Not. and there’s that whole other factor of knighthood and honour thats so different from sorcerers because sorcerers can be (and SHOULD be) a little insane in the head but knights have to be Perfect. but then they also have to be Human and the tragedy is that u cant be both at once. (more on that later 🔥🔥 im normal abt this concept)

this is just my own take on sugu but!! i see him as like… Obsessively Moral. in the sense that he follows his own morals without thinking about anything else. almost destructively. and god moss the way that could translate into a knight au…..

just. suguru being born with so much empathy and strenght (and also that one simmering Thing that makes him a bit off) and immediately being recognized by the people around him. being branded a knight and given a sword to Protect people with. a purpose that he devotes himself wholly to, pledging himself to the protection of the people around him, and finding genuine satisfaction out of helping them (while also getting his kicks out of killing monsters bc it satisfies that one little simmering Urge he has). and the people love him and he loves them!!!

but then we get into the concept of knighthood (which im extremely normal about) and how fucked up and paradoxical it is. bc knights are supposed to Protect but also Kill. and they have to do both. suguru is given a sword to Protect people with but swords only do one thing and that is Kill. so how could he not get a little addicted to the way it feels?

its just sooo… messed up. honestly. knights are branded as heroes and saviors and theyre loved by all but deep down theyre more like dogs who have to lunge in whichever direction their superior throws a bone at. ”he doesnt get to choose who he has to raise his sword for and who he has to bend the knee for” <- LITERALLY THIS. he has to be obedient because knights are defined by Loyalty above all else and there are…. SO many ways that could fuck suguru up mentally.

him being seen as a Perfect Knight… having love for the people hes sworn himself to protect but also an undeniable love for violence…. and having no choice but to do what his king tells him to. its just bound to go wrong!! and when it does he’ll have no choice but to bear the blame alone bc thats what a good knight is supposed to do.

like im just imagining knight!sugu having a similar crisis to canon sugu in which he fails to protect someone, or has to sacrifice a certain amount of people to save more, or maybe just has to Kill something in a very gruesome way. and then slowly people turn their backs on him. maybe not entirely shut him out or anything, but now there’s this tension when he walks in and he sees a hint of fear in the eyes of the people he used to speak to so warmly.

and its just this nausea that he cant get rid of because hes spent his LIFE protecting these people. its all he knows. its what he was born for. and now theyre afraid of him? when he does nothing but devote himself to them? when all he ever did was save them over and over again? i can just imagine that contempt building up inside his stomach. slowly rotting.

and then suddenly all he can think is how ungrateful they are, how weaklings who cant protect themselves should just sit still and let him do it for them……. Yeah. i just think knight!sugu could be corrupted so easily because of how kind and moral he is (the traits that made him a Perfect Knight in the first place . throws up blood)

anyway all this just to say knight!sugu is genuinely the hottest sugu ive ever seen in my life not even kidding thank u for feeding me 🙏🙏🙏 i SCREAMED when i saw it in ur masterlist. if i saw him beat the shit out of a monster w his bare hands i would fold instantly and follow him wherever even if he went crazy and got banished <33 rip to the rest of the village but im different

[hyperray]

Just watched the finale and...

I almost feel nothing. I feel weird. I am both excited from the cool moments, and dissapointed by the cringe moments. Its like the cool matter and cringe matter met and they annihilated eahc other to zero. My mood swings about the finale is comparable to the infrared wavelength. Actually let me visualize this by showing the peaks as + and cringe moments as - +Vox laughing at the hotel's preparation -Vox swearing (Actually I'm giving a minus to all the swearing, which OH MY GOD!! There is so much of it, I have an extremely hard time to find this cool and interesting. Viv, STOP IT, PLEASE!) +General Pentious +Charlie's speech +The whole scene where everyone is enjoying themselfes before the fight -Besides Pentious expressing his feelings for Cherri (Which I do ship) the whole concept is rushed, she only appeared one time and when they are eye to eye the ship thing if forced quickly, and she only starts considering him after Angel tells her that he might have two dicks. Like, hmm, that would make it a very one sided relationship -The Charlie and Vaggie song having the same style as the Charlie and Lucifer song makes this all feel somewhat incestious. Am I the only one who feels that way? -Lute is being uncharacteristic with how she is swearing, feels a bit like the Striker treatement +I love everyone's battle outfits! I think Charlie's shield might be a reference to that one christian folklore how someone was using a shield made by Lucifer himself which later broke from another holy weapon +Alastor's shield -Yeah it is pretty weak how the angels can be killed with their own weapons, though I also find this interesting, maybe their own weapons can kill them not out of holyness, but from power-level essence, you get me? +++Besides the swearings and the Lucifer vs Adam fight, this battle was AWESOME!!! Especially Adam vs Alastor -Vox' hard on, or his entire appereance in the episode and Alastor swearing. I really hoped Al would be outside the swearing curse --"Vagatha!" "Not my name" I really feel like this is Viv's spiteful way of saying "Fuck you guys, the way I name my characters is completely fine and stop whining like there is anything wrong with it." +Angel Dust protecting the Egg Boi ++Pentiou's build up of attacking Adam and manning up to kiss Cherri ----------Pentious being casually whiped out by Adam in one pew and everyone imemdiately mourning for him. Seriously WHAT THE FUCK!!! That was the most UNDERWHELMING SHIT I've ever seen! +Razzle and Dazzle becoming Dragon and Vaggie vs Lute fight, as well as her speech to humiliate Lute +Charlie and Adam's fight and interaction +Lute ripping her arm out --The entire Adam vs Lucifer fight and interaction. Okay I expected there to be a large power gap between those two, it is Lucifer after all, but it felt too one sides, and I got second hand embarrasment for Adam by being so casually humiliated by all these silly animal transformations and insult ---Also did Lucifer really sleep with Eve too? That makes the whole view on the Morningstar family relationship so wrong. Luci and Lilith supposedly were deeply in love, but if Lucifer must've slept with Eve too it must've been soon after he met Lilith too, and Luci was trying to be a sort of prometheus figure to Eve, what a massive downplay on so many things! Though I hope he wasn't serious about it and just wanted to get under Adam's skin ----Lucifer saying "I'm going to fuck you" to Adam was the MOST VRINGE INDUCING thing here! --Adam's true face. Look I don't care if this is suppose to reflect his actor's face, why is he this white boy hill billy? Jeez, does Viv even care about the Bible lore and trying to make it more accurate than just the surface level stuff?Would it have been so hard to just make him more lore accurate? I'm seriously starting to think Viv might have a kink on that.

[mdhwrites]

You know, I think Dana didn't plan Belos at all in s1.

The whole eating palismen wasn't even a thing till s2. And what frustrates me about it the most is Lilith, most of her actions in s1 created a huge plot hole in s2 with that decision. He confiscates and eats all the palismen yet she's allowed to keep hers while Hunter is on a stress marathon at the idea of Belos finding Flapjack, and I couldn't care much since Lilith was right there. Same about the coven sigils, why does she not have one????? She was the freaking E.C head not just a regular.

And another plot hole about the sigils brands, one coven scout mentioned switching covens (Severine was her name don't remember the episode), was that meant to be a silly joke? Or considering that Dana voiced her, people assumed she did it to poke fun at Disney's decisions. It still creates a contradiction to the brands being permanent tho, people did consider a possibility that there's a way to debrand someone, and there should be in this case right?

Sometimes I feel like Dana cares more about hating Disney than writing sense in her story and I'm tired to pretend it's not like that, which pisses me off. Can you forget about that mouse for a damn second to consider that maybe you shouldn't write some things that make no sense? Or be aware of your time limit to not write certain things, like the freaking collector? But god forbid you'd be mad at her in this fandom smh🤦

So... I could talk about each of these subjects on their own. Belos/Philip as just a complete mess of a character and inconsistencies, Palisman and how they're a good concept that got fucked over by what this blog will actually be about and the EC/Coven system which... Holy fuck. HOOOOLY Fuck S2 fucks it up sideways.

And because I've talked some about some of these topics, here are three different blogs covering

Belos' asinine rise to power and TOH wanting to mirror historical fascism in his rise.

Talking about why people are mad about Stringbean is the closest I've actually come to talking majorly about Palisman.

And I did some talk about metatext and plain text to do with the magic tracks in TOH that is about to become VERY relevant to this blog.

It's actually your last paragraph I want to talk about though. Because... The problem isn't that Dana was too focused on hating Disney. That would only explain, realistically, the problems with S2B and S3 and the jokes at the Mouse's expense take very little time and don't really detract from the show. It is not a major issue about her as a writer.

Now before I get into what her biggest weakness, at least as you can tell from TOH, is as a writer: Don't attack creators. I am attacking her writing and criticizing it but I am not attacking her as a person or getting mad at her. Her creation does nothing offensive, nothing cruel, etc. like that. Are there problems with it? Yes. Do I have issues with how she has used excuses to shield herself and TOH from criticism? Yes. But we still need to be good people and I just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone about that.

Anyways: I've talked at LENGTH about the fact that TOH has a focus problem. That it is effectively three shows at once. I even just yesterday talked about how this lack of focus damages its ability to have coherent themes because nothing is given enough time, attention or is actively contradicted eventually.

As the show runner, it's Dana's job to keep focus. To not let writers do whatever they want and keep the show consistent and in continuity with itself. Her job, effectively, is to follow a line I ADORE:

A great piece of art knows as much what it isn't as it knows what it is.

The problem is... Dana quite obviously doesn't agree with this. She appears by her writing to have a mentality that there is no idea she doesn't like. There is no statement, regardless of the contradictions it makes.

If you want to talk about how early this happens, just look at Covention. Dana, as the creative lead, should know that the covens are a very serious thing, that the nine covens are important to Belos' plans and she should know about glyph magic.

That is the episode that introduces there being potentially HUNDREDS of covens simply for the sake of a job fair joke and setting and also the power glyph EXISTS. Yes, the power glyph is used to make Amity more impressive in the fight, cranking up the spectacle, but notice how it has NEVER been brought back up? And Construction magic explicitly isn't what was described when we were first told about it? Almost like witches using paper goes against Amity's shock at seeing Luz use a piece of paper to cast a light spell.

Dana also should be the one most acutely aware of how dangerous it is for a witch to be a wild witch. How much deciding to use multiple forms of magic is hazardous to them. Well... Dana was on the writing team for First Day (linked in the metatext blog) and Reaching Out was SOLELY written by Dana. You know, an episode where Amity treats joining a coven like going to college, Alador has no objections about this and the twins both get a bad girl coven shirt like it's something to purely celebrate for them.

And if we look at what Dana hasn't explicitly written, she still doesn't appear to be willing to say no to anyone. Hollow Mind was written by other people and includes the line that the Titan was believed to be dead when Belos rising to power. In King's Tide, an episode Dana DID write, Belos talks about Luz must having been blessed by the Titan in order to have already gotten glyph combos despite Belos being the LAST person who should think the Titan is alive, especially since he's been in the things skull and made a fake religion around it.

Worse yet is that while Dana has never met an idea she doesn't like... She's never met an idea she likes enough to commit to. So much of the show is about presenting potential, even with what I've described above, but then doing nothing with it. In fact, more often than not, ESPECIALLY WITH THE COVEN SYSTEM, it will be discarded, ignored or changed for the sake of a different concept. Amity's parents are like this where Alador seems 90% on board with anything Odalia does in his first two appearances but then he's only a little neglectful but still moral come Reaching Out. We can have Luz and Amity try to have a healthy relationship and agree to not lie to each other but that would make the reveal of Luz's dad being dead so much harder so just... ignore that. It's okay that Luz is still blatantly lying and breaking her girlfriend's trust.

Remember: It was Dana's FIRST solo episode, Eda's Requiem, that setup how important the coven heads were for the sake of the Day of Unity. That even one going missing at this point would be a MAJOR problem for it.

Buuuut that is a problem that a lot of prophetic fantasy faces and usually doesn't have an answer to. It's a hard thing to have an answer as to why the heroes don't just keep one mcguffin away, let alone what TOH did with three of them being on the side of good. So what did other writers do with it when they actually had to deal with what Dana had written?

Throw that shit out in one line that implies replacing coven heads is as easy as replacing paper plates.

The show is, to put it lightly, a disaster. And you know a better show runner can do better than this because Amphibia doesn't have these contradictions. Gravity Falls doesn't have these contradictions. Hell, we go to less renowned media, to stuff like Randy Cunningham Ninth Grade Ninja or Danny Phantom and THEY don't have the same sorts of inconsistencies despite being about as serialized as TOH just not touting that as some sort of revolutionary aspect of it.

And the worst part? At least to me? It... It's a fanfiction writing problem. And in fanfiction, it's fine. Fanfiction is meant to use a piece of media to explore every potential part of the world and characters it wants. A professional piece of media, that takes so much money and effort to create, is meant to have greater focus and coherence so as to actually have a point to its story.

And if you want a comparable example for professional work, look no further than 50 Shades of Grey. I'm not saying TOH is as bad as 50 Shades but they both suffer from whenever the writer loses interest in an idea and just writes it out or has it vanish for no reason. Both go on tangents when the writer has some new idea that comes into their brain.

It reminds me of when people would ask while I was writing Crises Girlfriends, "What are Gus and Willow doing in this AU?" Because I am more of an original writer than I am a fanfic writer, and Crises Girlfriends was a story that I always planned to convert to original fiction, I'd never even considered them. Not for even a second.

Because... Could I have given them a role? Yes. But like TOH, it would have been performative, dilute the point and focus of the story and just felt like a waste of word count. So I didn't include them because they had no point.

But it was also fanfiction and Willow and Gus probably mean a lot to the people who asked. That's not their fault. That's part of fanfiction. I didn't get mad or anything, I just described what I just did as to why they wouldn't show up.

Because I knew what Crises Girlfriends was. I can make a one sentence pitch for it. It's about two girls who find love through the person they are with, but find help through the place they're in. It gets across how the two give support and care for each other but that love isn't the answer to mental health so within the story, you can actually expect some treatment of their mental health issues.

For Amphibia, you can say "It's the story of how another world helps bring light to the flawed friendship of three girls and makes them better people" and that works for explaining the main thrust of Amphibia.

What the hell is the main thrust of TOH? I can say what its main theme is, that self expression is king, but that's even an awkward placement when it clearly wants to be about reality versus fiction. But then it also is way too much wish fulfilment. It wants to be subversive of the fantasy genre but it uses too many of the tropes and excuses of it.

It doesn't know what it isn't, which doesn't let it know what it is. And that's such a shame. =======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead,

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[scribeforchrist-blog]

Persistent ,Powerful Prayers

MEMORY VERSE OF THE WEEK

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 + Romans 12:10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.

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VERSE OF THE DAY 

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 + Jeremiah 29:12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.

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** SAY THIS BEFORE YOU READ; HERE’S SOME CHRISTIAN TRUTHS **

I AM HEARD BY GOD

I AM A PRAYER WARRIOR

I AM FILLED WITH JOY

I AM NEEDING GOD

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THOUGHTS:

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     We use prayer to let God know we need him, and when this happens, we release our strength, our ways or concepts, everything and say I need you, God; I need you to make me better. I need you to make me stronger because, without God, we can't do it; a lot of times, when some people say they don’t pray, they are too prideful to pray because it shows we need help; it shows weakness.

   Some people will say I have tried that before; it doesn’t work; God doesn’t have to answer us, but he does; he answers us when our heart is in the right place, where is your heart position? Is it after gaining a quick blessing, or is it on building a genuine relationship with God?

In order to have success in our prayer sessions we have to be Persistent and believe that we have Power because of what Christ has given us which is the Holy Spirit ,When we activate our faith and we are praying in His Will Not ours and most of all when we are being Persistent we will always have what we need .

  •Hebrews 4:6 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need

  It says right here that we need to draw near, meaning we need to come to the throne; we need to approach the Lord so that we can receive mercy and find grace when we need it; that’s the only way to do it, is when we call out to Jesus and say I need you. How many times have you said I need you? How many times have you talked to him about your situation ?? how many times have you done this to let him know he's the only one who can turn everything around?

  When people in the Bible needed Jesus, they called out to him. Jesus, son of David, called out to him because they knew no one else would show mercy to their needs. That’s what some of us are looking for now: more mercy, but have we shown and given mercy? Do we deserve mercy?

  •1 John 5:14-15 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests we have asked of him.

  We must have faith that many people forget this part if we ask anything according to his will. Have you asked him what is his will? Have you asked him what did he want? Many of us are still looking for something he doesn’t want us to have because he knows that once some of us get what we want, we will stop communicating, stop reading our word, or stop seeking him.

     We must seek him every day with our whole hearts. Then, whatever we ask, he will give to us. It might not look exactly what we want, but it will be what we need. To know God's will, we must ask him; we must seek him and say, God, show me your will, please, because I want to be on the path you desire. We have a path we must go through or a season of our life we must endure before we get to where we are going. This will help us grow, but we must seek him for his will.

  • Matthew 18:6-7 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?

   The Lord is telling us to be persistent; he’s telling us that he will hear us because we are the chosen ones, but we must pray according to the will of God; a lot of times, we are mad at him for not giving us what we wanted but have we lined ourselves and life according to his will??

•James 5:6 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

  When we pray, we have power; we are strong by God's power, which gives us power, but this is given to the righteous. Many people think that healing and miracles only work through the elite. No, my friend, when we follow the will of God, and we have faith that he will move mountains, and we do as the Lord says to do every day, we become righteous and holy. That’s called living the holy life by sustaining from things of the flesh and heeding his will. 

    When we do this, he will give us power, power to conquer situations, power to heal the sick, and power to succeed because God wants us to succeed, but he wants us to do it through his power. When you pray, do you pray for his will to be done, or do you pray for whatever you want? However, you pray, and it must be the right way because sometimes prayers aren’t heard because they aren’t his will for us today. Pray for his strength to help you conquer every vise that you have so that you can have the power to walk in his will.

  *** Today, we learned about our power in prayer through the power of Jesus. Peter prayed for a man once, and that man received healing because of the power of God; a man fell out of a window while Paul was teaching, and he died, and Paul brought him back to life; how?? all because of the power he had gotten from the Holy Spirit we too can have this same power when we build a powerful prayer , when we walk in the light and pray we can have tremendous power because of God. 

   Some of us don’t understand the power Jesus has left us because we don’t want to sit down and pray or sit long enough to hear his voice. Jesus can answer any prayer, but it must be what he wants for us, and we must have faith. The weakness that we have, the vulnerability we have when we pray it, ’s nothing to be ashamed of; he wants us to come to him when we are weak so he can show us how to become strong, but if we never go to him if we never say what we need we will forever be at a disadvantage. Allow Christ in so that he can show you what you need!   ©Seer~ Prophetess Lee

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PRAYER

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Heavenly Father, thank you so much for everything; we ask you to see our hearts and see how much we need you; we ask you to help us to become stronger in you; we let down our guard and seek you with our whole heart. Lord, we are sorry if we disappointed you. We are sorry if we offended the Holy Spirit. Lord, please hear our cry and take care of our pain. We thank you for everything, and we thank you for grace and mercy; in Jesus' Name, Amen

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REFERENCES 

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 + 1 Timothy 2:1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,

+ Luke 1:37 For nothing will be impossible with God.”

+ Luke 11:1 Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.

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FURTHER READINGS 

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 Proverbs 6

Ecclesiastes 3

Ruth 1

Jude

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[kaesaaurelia]

Made little Hero Forge guys out of every single character I've ever played at least one session of in a TTRPG. (The ones with closeups I've played for more than one session.) Details under the cut.

Top Row:

Literally Just Terezi Pyrope, Pathfinder; half-orc Investigator Made for a Pathfinder oneshot wherein my friend was playing a Vriska-inspired character. I feel the need to disclaim that we did not kill or maim anyone out-of-game. I don't even remember if we killed anyone in-game because I remember it being pretty puzzle/trap-focused?

????; Ryuutama; Crafter/Autumn Sorceress I'm kicking myself that I don't remember her name. She was a seamstress, and in the specific world we were playing in we were the descendants of space colonists, so I decided her ancestors would be from a culture with really pretty fabric patterns.

Ylva Truehand, D&D 5E; half-orc monk. A herbo if ever there was one. Accidentally became the figurehead of a coup d'etat at home and had to Leave Right Now Immediately. We only got to the part where we all met at an inn before outside circumstances meant the campaign fell apart.

2nd Row:

Katja, 3.5E D&D; human cleric prestige class (maybe a Radiant Servant of Pelor?) My very first TTRPG character! I played her in a high school friend's historical-fantasy-inspired homebrew setting campaign he ran one summer in college. She was meant to be an army doctor for Fantasy Imperial Russia and we were doing an escort mission across a desert that was, iirc, disputed territory between three superpowers? Mostly I remember killing a lot of ninjas and then stumbling across a magical oasis where the water was magically pacifying, finding the mineral that was responsible for this effect, grinding a bunch of it into powder, and then making our GM's life a living hell by slipping it into NPCs' drinks whenever we wanted something from them.

3rd Row:

Safira, Stewpot; Paladin/Artisan. This one's pretty obviously an expy of my angel OC Vehuel. Stewpot is a game about retiring from adventuring so the character concept for her was "Holy warrior chosen by prophecy to kill a great evil with a magic sword; accidentally fell in love with the great evil. Eventually killed it anyway. Deeply traumatized."

Yarrow Tunneler, Mausritter; Acorn sign wireworker. Yarrow came out so cute here! A lot of stuff in Mausritter is randomly assigned and I think her class was one of those things, but I liked the wireworker thing (basically she's a mouse electrician) and one of her starting bits of equipment was a spool of wire. There weren't any good wire spools on Hero Forge, but I managed to make a battery-looking thing for her to carry around on her back.

Esca Glowfin, Ocean Tides; mermaid. Yeah so the game wanted me to choose whether she was going to be a mermaid or pirate but I wanted to be both so I made it work. The actual character concept I had in my head does not look much like this but turns out one of Hero Forge's weaknesses is deep sea benthic horrors with needle teeth. So I just made her hot. Sorry, Esca, you probably deserved better.

4rd Row:

Minu Darzi, Shadowrun 5E/Definitely Not Shadowrun At All; elf face. This one's an expy of my demon OC Nisroc, but like, a very very tiny sliver of Nisroc's whole schtick. I tend to describe her as "what if Grendel's mother was a shitty grifter who wanted to be an influencer?" but she shoots a lot of people so I feel like her sphere of influence is powerful but limited to like. Influencing people to die.

5th Row:

Royse, 5E D&D; Aasimar rogue. Another Vehuel expy, this one much younger and less traumatized. Royse was made for a West Marches group I didn't really vibe with. The one session I played was great but the out-of-game downtime stuff felt like a part-time accounting job and I don't have any interest in accounting. Anyway Royse was fun and she was gonna be a Swashbuckler.

Pandora (& Scylax), Worlds Without Number; mage (Necromancer/Beastmaster). For the oneshot group I'm part of we've started doing a test combat session at the end of Session Zero to make sure our characters aren't going to die immediately, and after that our GM decided we should be using the Heroic rules. In the combat trial, Pandora used her one (1) spell slot to mind-control one of the wolves that were attacking us and it killed a bunch of the rest of them, so given the opportunity to add another 1/2 mage specialization I picked Beastmaster and gave her a wolf. I really liked some of the lore for this game but oof, it's super unforgiving. (I think it might be a good starting point if you wanted to play a Locked Tomb campaign, though?)

Zamira the Magnificent, Blades in the Dark; slide. This character was a disgraced stage magician who accidentally killed her assistant (maybe sawed them in half?) and I liked the concept but our Blades in the Dark party really didn't end up doing much RP, even though we are a very RP-heavy group; I kind of wish the game had facilitated it more.

6th Row:

????; Tempus Diducit; Weird Scientist. Tempus Diducit is a no-prep chaotic game about a time travel crisis where a lot of things are randomized; mostly I remember there being superintelligent octopi and making strong acids, and also me having a lot of very annoying ideas involving my specialized knowledge of both cephalopods and chemistry.

????; Subway Runners. I remember very little about my Subway Runners character but basically this is a no-prep game where your character sheet is entirely randomized and every character is probably at least a little Done With This Shit because every Subway Runners PC is a gig economy worker whose shitty gig job is fixing an urban fantasy public transit system full of extremely weird shit. I think by the end of the session all our characters had cat ears.

Miriam; You Awaken in a Strange Place; marine biologist. Once more my specialized cephalopod knowledge comes back to bite me in the ass! (Also, this is the second Miriam on the list; 'Zamira the Magnificent' was a stage name.) YAiaSP is another no-prep chaotic game; you also get to make up all the skills your characters have, and Miriam was good at Identifying Marine Animals but bad at Working Under Pressure, which was great because they were in a locked submarine murder mystery and identifying marine animals was basically of no use whatsoever. I think in the end she failed a Using Scientific Equipment roll and then bluffed that she had actually gotten the DNA results to get the murderer to confess. This is unethical if you're in law enforcement; if you're a professional marine animal identifier it's still unethical but I think it's also kind of impressive. Only I forget if it actually worked, so maybe it wasn't.

7th Row:

Heshky, Pathfinder 2E; half-orc investigator. I have literally only ever played half-orc investigators in Pathfinder, which is very funny to me. [Edit: This is no longer true! I have a dwarf ranger now.] Heshky here is not much like the Terezi expy, though. He is an expy, but of one of my OCs rather than someone else's and his backstory is that he's a former mob accountant whose boss died in circumstances that were technically not his fault, so he had to leave town for a while. I would absolutely love to play him somewhere else; he was made for my one-shot group but we ended up stretching that Pathfinder one-shot out to like 5? 6? sessions and I got very attached. (If I played him again I miiight not start him out as an investigator though, because he almost died like 3 times.)

8th Row:

Zirane, I'm Sorry, Did You Say Street Magic, baker. ISDYSSM is a cooperative worldbuilding game so I kind of forgot there was a character I played in it, but apparently I did! This guy lives in a fantasy city and works at a cafe owned by some mystery person (possibly a vampire?) but he's not worried about that. He is good at baking, but likes experimenting with weird combinations of flavors, which sometimes means his extremely well-made baked goods taste regrettable.

Kjersti, Session Zero; war-witch deserter. Session Zero is a character creation/development game without character classes; it can actually be played solo as a writing exercise too! So I just kind of went wild here. I really like the concept I ended up with and keep meaning to post what I wrote up for her; over the course of the game she went from annoyed arcane college student to spoiled rich girl to army deserter trying to survive a magical war crimes-induced apocalypse and daydreaming about overthrowing her own government in no time at all.

Edie, Genesys; dwarf mad alchemist. The setting we decided on for the Genesys one-shot was cyberpunk fantasy, a bit like Shadowrun but if magic had always been in the world, so I decided to pull out one of my old, old LJRP characters (Ed Espis) and repurpose her. Edie grew up a third- or fourth-generation corporate citizen and very privileged, but when her parents died under mysterious circumstances and she was fired shortly thereafter, the company decided she had to pay off all the resources they had invested in her entire family so now she's broke and has to do crimes (petty) instead of crimes (war) to live. She ended this session by shooting a guy in the head but listen, he extremely deserved it.

[joviantwelve]

Oh boy, probably should have gotten this out for the ol’ worldbuilding wednesday, but...here’s a big one!  An elemental system for Rixile!

The tl;dr is that the group of ten is split into two separate main groups, creating five dichotomies!

The dark star is “chaos,” and the light star is “order.”  Each element represents a specific categorical role in the cycle of elements, with the ones directly across each other on the opposite star acting as the "poles.”

I enjoyed integrating order/chaos this way, because I’m starting to really dislike how it’s the new version of “good vs. evil” in things.  BOTH are productive and useful to have in a world’s magical systems!!  They’re not objectively good or evil!  The gods of Rixile represent more “balance” or “harmony” this way.

I typed up a formal introduction of the system and its related concepts at Toyhouse, which you can read here.

Below the cut is further elaboration on the creation of this Double Pentagram Chart specifically, and things I would like to do in the future with this system.  It will make more sense if you read that TH post, but admittedly it’s mostly me being excited about possibilities, where before there weren’t many.

This is something I had been chasing for a LONG time...sort of a holy grail of worldbuilding for the setting.  I never mentioned such a “system” before, because, well.  I just.  Didn’t have one.  If I wanted to incorporate one, I wanted it to be interesting at the very least, so if I couldn’t manage that, I just wouldn’t bother.

In my various revisions of Rixile there’s all sorts of silly charts I attempted to make, but I often followed Pokemon-esque principles of rock-paper-scissors strengths and weaknesses, but it felt very...phoned in to do it that way, and I could never make the circle include all 10 in a way that felt right.

Here’s one from 2008, for example:

I have no idea what the fuck this means.

Also, hey, including Light and Darkness in your elemental system actually sucks, because they’re SUCH a dichotomy that it’s hard to integrate them with anything else.  This is probably why every mobile game with elemental RPG mechanics out there just has light/darkness counter each other all alone, because it’s a hassle...

BUT LATE IN 2021...THE IDEAS CAME TO ME.  Thank you FFXIV Shadowbringers.  By embracing a dichotomy structure for EVERYTHING, I don’t have to worry about rock-paper-scissors at all, which I think is a good way to start attacking this.  I don’t necessarily WANT a system of strengths and weaknesses...more just...Interactions?

Here is a gif of the “opposites” thing btw.

I realize now it was a mistake to have this transparent and the line be white, but oh well.  It will look better on my blog itself.

For Rixile proper, opposing elements interacting creates dangerous conditions such as disasters, and may explain things like demons.  I wrote another TH post about how including EVERYTHING as “elementally aligned” works in Rixile thinking, as well as an attempt to include like, fairly modern real-world science within this magical framework regardless.  I don’t want “magic” and “science” to fight in this world, either.  Like order and chaos, both work in tandem to create a further unified whole. 

If we take the elements as introducing harmony, then I guess Rixile’s big dichotomy is harmony vs disharmony, which is not the same thing as order vs chaos.  Lmao.  I guess it could be seen that way, because “disharmony” in Rixilian terms means disease, disasters, haywire magic, etc...but “chaos” in Rixilian terms means “natural fluctuations.”  Natural vs unnatural?  Hmmm.

Well, whatever the case, I feel comfortable about how this turned out.  I think I should also mention, mostly because I can’t think of where else to put this in the post, that you could consider the gods as “elementals” for the setting.  It’s just that, being purely one element is also a quality of divinity here.  Everything else is a mix.

Back to the chart, I love that it’s a shape!!  A cool shape!  I think having some sort of cool-ass graph for your magic system opens up a lot of possibilities simply by connecting lines.

But also, it’s kind of where I fall short...because I can see other places this layout can go, such as:

(Again, looks better not on a white BG, sorry!!)

But...I’m not sure what these mean.  All I’ve figured out so far are the opposites and their relationships.  Which, admittedly, is largely helped by there being rivalries in the pantheon in the first place...the only one that didn’t really exist before is Volt/Phyll.  (even now, it’s not really a “rivalry,” they just don’t really vibe with each other.)

So for this, I guess it could be complimentary forces?  The “warm” elements of fire/earth/light are up there as a trio, with “cold” metal/dark/ice below...There does seem to be a kind of progression to the perimeter, similar to what I think I was going for with my old 2008 draft, but I haven’t figured out what it exactly means in worldbuilding terms yet.  But I would like to integrate it!  You have Terra/Volt/Galvan all in a line there, SURELY it means SOMETHING.

I think leaning on the five categories I gave the elements would help me come up with something, like how they’d interact in terms of the “cycle,” or whatnot.  Much to think about.

The final geometry I can see in the double pentagram...

I guess I’d call this “triads”?  Trios within their singular side of order/chaos.  The previous two relationships involved a chaos one and an order one, so I feel like this would have to emphasize how it’s only one side.  But what, again...dunno.  I love how Nocturne/Ignus/Mist is one of the triangles, though.  It’s perfect!!

And that’s part of the magic of making this, for me...seeing interesting relationships potentially manifest through mere proximity.  I might not have ideas for the full system, but the basics have been planted, and I’m interested to see what it could produce for the setting in the future.