#i am already expecting the pitchforks

[wonysugar]

heyyy… looks at everyone in the room

so here’s the thing! i’ve been thinking and i’ll try and keep this short cause either way you all are gonna murder me with your bare hands!

i love isofm as much as the next person, truly, but i do think there needed to be a bit more planning on my end of things..😭in other words i have no clue where the story is going and i started it TOO QUICKLY? the timeline.. the storyline girl everything is a hot mess icb

therefore, i’ve decided to remake it completely. same general plot, same characters, same ideas! just, yknow. BETTER EXECUTION ALTOGETHER😭😭sorry if this is an inconvenience to anybody but i genuinely hate the story so far i hate it sm I CAN’T KEEP PRETENDING I DON’T💔💔

so yeah😭😭i’ll keep it up for now until i’m 100% done with everything, thank you for readingg~~

[putterphubase]

this was the best scene thus far i am gonna go ahead and put that out there first

the way the entire world faded out around them to the point they didn't even notice the taxi pulled up until the driver had to say something

but also the way that jaewon seems so comfortable doing this type of thing where he fixes/helps jihyun pull his backpack up and PULLS (not lightly either) jihyun closer to him just to what??? stare into his eyes???

he seems somewhat comfortable initiating this but as soon as things get "too real" he seems to get overwhelmed. when jihyun was helping him draw and moved closer to jaewon he had to back away from the situation and make an excuse to get jihyun to go away for a second. this is one of the only times jihyun has initiated this type of contact himself also, other than maybe ep. 1 where he passes the lighter.

(which we saw how jaewon just stood there stunned for a while lmao) i think it's worth noting that maybe jaewon feels more in control even though it's kinda like he almost can't help himself but initiate this type of thing but also when jihyun kinda shows interest on his part jaewon is like hey woah woah woah..........like you can see the world fading away from him in his eyes when these moments happen or when he looks at jihyun.

it seems like jaewon has this own little world with jihyun like in this moment, he basically completely forgets the world is moving around them and other people exist. it's not like he's the character saying "oh but people will see us." he doesn't even seem to consider that really, because they're not even there? which goes back to how jaewon has these superficial relationships with people around him in his daily life.

then he gets snatched back, like it is a visible difference and moment when he gets pulled back into reality. and that is when he starts to pull himself back and kinda push jihyun away even. i would say most of jaewon's pressures seem internal because of all this, even though his "friends" definitely contribute to it. i don't think most of whatever is going on with him is about his friends or outsiders though because i don't think jaewon is even considering them at all? i don't mean in a selfish way. i talked about this briefly in the tags of the great post by this scholarly poster where jaewon always contradicts himself. because he is not being real with anyone including himself at the times we have seen him because that is his entire character and will be his character arc. pretty much everything i said in the tags was confirmed by these eps where he talks to the surf club president who seems to be his only friend he can be somewhat himself with and his therapist.

i mean that as frustrating as it is to watch jaewon's friends be shitty people......jaewon knows that too. but with jihyun we are seeing him put some type of effort into a relationship whereas the friendships he has... although it may be hard for him to be with jihyun because of whatever internal battles he has, it is probably harder for a character like jaewon to confront that everything else in his life is superficial and he's just been going along with it.

one, to confront that makes it real. if you just let it happen then it's whatever. but to tell someone to stop treating you badly even when you know they won't because the friendship isn't real, it's easier just to leave it as is. but also his character literally says it's his flaw, that he doesn't speak up or show his real self. but he also says that it is exhausting living like that so i suspect he's gonna blow up eventually. honestly when he confronted his friend in the bathroom i was like dang hope he bashes his head in the sink weak hero class style

jaewon even started his relationship with jihyun like this too. everything was oh i'm a senior that will be your friend, call me when you don't even have my number....he's stuck between this performance and persona he has vs real genuine interest in someone. when it gets in that grey area in between his persona (especially when he's around others) and how he really feels and what he really wants these contradictions occur. it's easier to play things off in jest too than admit something is real to you. he probably doesn't even know how to navigate that honestly, when he's been playing this part and just letting things happen to and around him. (he also says that the military was an escape for him since he didn't have to deal with all this). i wonder if his relationship with his ex was a performance as well. just to be "normal" amongst his friends and peers, but who knows.

i am willing to bet the closest we get to jaewon's "real" self is when he is with jihyun and even then it is only glimpses so far. that and when he is truly alone like we saw in the early eps but those moments are few and far between. i am glad he is in therapy lol because that seems like a lot for jihyun but also for jaewon too. i am also willing to bet that this will be a central conflict/plot point when jaewon stops performing and loses pretty much everything he has. and who stays will be who truly cares for him and confronting that is scary as hell. either that or something will happen with the friend or his ex where he will be forced to (probably his relationship with jihyun but at this point everything is fake around him except his relationship with the surf president, but even with her i don't know if he thinks he can be completely honest), and he's gonna react badly and i can't blame him

[tabithatwo]

it's yellowjackets / jennifer's body parallels time!

hi hello keep reading if you would like to hear about shauna/jennifer and jackie/needy, here's my totally noncomprehensive, very much off the cuff thoughts on this very complex and interesting dynamic!!

(i'm not getting into the basic parallels, i'm gonna assume you know the karyn kusama of it all, the heart necklace, the homoerotic female friendship, the death)

yellowjackets is so brilliant because it feeds you stereotypes and absolutely does not deliver on them. there could be an entire paper on each girl and how this is true for them specifically, but walk quickly with me because i want to get into the nitty gritty gory fun stuff! a brief oversimplified example: nat is referred to as a burnout, some would assume she's a loner based on that, but she cares about the team as a unit more than arguably anyone else. (this is common in real life too, our stereotypes often don't hold water in reality and yj reflects that beautifully!)

now to the jackie/shauna of it all. it would be oh so incredibly easy to look at jackie and think she's the jennifer of the duo. we are set up to see her as prettier, more popular, more demanding. but that illusion falls apart QUICKLY if you pay attention to the things that jackie actually says and does. she's not a mean girl. she's actually one of the kindest on the team. she doesn't pick on shauna, she clings. there are plenty of takes on this on tumblr so i won't exhaust it, my adhd loves to digress and meander but i'm forcing myself back onto the trodden path to this point: people look at the first few minutes of the pilot and they immediately decide that they know who these girls are. the audience typecasts jackie as a jennifer and shauna as a needy. the popular, bubbly girl and her shy, bookworm best friend.

a lot of people, especially casual viewers who don't study this show like its their job (god, wonder what that would be like lol) understandably stop here. but to me the BRILLIANCE of yj is that they don't actually make it HARD for you to undo your initial impressions. the material is there. it isn't hidden. it isn't some deeper self of each character that is unraveled throughout seasons. they push, push, push to see just how far they can carry our deeply held stereotypes/expectations. how forward and violent can shauna be, with viewers still clinging to a shy and sweet girl, who was really their own creation? how kind and honestly pathetic kicked-puppy can jackie be, with viewers still clinging to a mean girl, who was really their own creation? how far will we go to warp the characters intentions, so that we can keep them in the box we understand them in? they ask this of the viewer and of other characters, but AGAIN i digress.

so, while this might sit strangely with some, yes i think that jackie is very much aligned with needy if you peel back just one layer. but far above and beyond that, shauna is so very fucking jennifer.

the overall veneer is thinned immediately in yj. there isn't one girl in the stands and one on center stage. jackie and shauna are both on the team. they go to the same parties, they play the same sport, i would argue that shauna isn't even coded as "less pretty" (please note the word coded, because i'm not saying needy is literally less pretty than jennifer, i am simply saying that we have hair, makeup, clothing, glasses trends that we use to stereotype characters, are you with me?)

so now what? now these girls are both and neither. shauna thinks that she is the needy to jackie's jennifer. jackie wears the necklace and the introductory shots frame her as important. but we're already diverting from that set-up.

our absolute clearest common denominator here is one that i rarely see people mention funnily enough: JENNIFER IS A SUCCUBUS. she CONSUMES. she KILLS. she WANTS and she TAKES.

now before you get TOO EXCITED!!! i see some of you getting ready to say i'm a shauna shipman hater, put the pitchforks down!! shauna is one of my favorite characters of all time. i love her crazy ass so deeply that it's alarming. (i don't hate jennifer, either, for the record.) i love her largely for WHAT she is. i think sanitizing or sweetening her is a disservice. she's amazing and complex and wounded and capable of deep love. but she also, quite LITERALLY, consumes.

her character is sex and desire and violence and obsession and consumption. and it's AMAZING. she's POWERFUL. she's our main framing character (in this dynamic), rather than needy. the scripts are switched. jennifer dies and needy lives, and that's one story. that's clearer cut, simpler, made for a horror film. but here, jackie dies and shauna lives, and that story is deep and rich and goes on to include a whole lot more death and destruction and chaos.

shauna tells us herself that it excites her. she likes it. she is this girl. this woman. she reminisces and she recreates and she covets.

jennifer tries to consume needy, shauna literally consumes jackie.

there's more to this story, obviously. you could deep dive and mine for the intricacies of the set up and fall of stereotype and expectation, or collect all of the exact parallels. but i'll stick with a few, because this is a quick outburst of thought.

a huge one, who is taking whose boyfriend?

here's another personal favorite of mine, just for kicks

is it too complex to neatly tuck away? absolutely. they're different stories with different themes. shauna isn't simply a teenager possessed by a demon. it runs far deeper. as is the essence of this show.

but if you want to look at parallels, look at the one who has been holding the knife the whole time.

[raccoon-eyed-rebel]

Part 27

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Part 26 🟣 Part 28

A reverse harem vampire AU ft. Mikey, Marshall, August and Sherlock

Series summary: Somehow, you've managed to live with your boyfriend and his roommates for months before finding out they're vampires, but the real shock first comes when they find out you have a special quality. A quality the guys would love to make use of...

Warnings: Fluff, ongoing vampire shenanigans, angst, lore, some more angst. And something called Disgruntled Teenageer Syndrome.

Word count: 3k

A/N: I know I've been teasing y'all with some beautiful warnings on a very lovely chapter involving a ver feral Marshall and a very suddenly present August... Well... This ain't it! (It's the next one, so please put your pitchforks down :c )

@geralts-yenn @deandoesthingstome @ellethespaceunicorn @summersong69 @mis-lil-red

@sillyrabbit81 @livisss @itsrubberbisquit @ktficworld @proud-aroace-beastie

@plaidcat4815 @wa-ni @lovemusicpart2 @lizzystuffsthings @manysecrets2020

@sarcasmoverlordxo

“August?” Your footsteps echoed through the hallway, which looked suspiciously empty and rug-less, unlike the rest of the house — however much or little you’d seen of it, anyway.

“Yes, princess? Why are you—” He probably finished that sentence, but you couldn’t hear, because you’d bumped into something, and your phone was now lying on the floor with a massive crack in the screen. When you looked around to find the cause of your phone’s untimely demise, you were suddenly faced with none other than Charles Brandon.

“Terribly sorry,” he muttered. A suspiciously cold hand landed on your shoulder with slightly too much force. “Priya just called to let me know she’s feeling a lot better. She’ll be back later this week, so this won’t happen again. Were you… calling August?”

You nodded — an answer that clearly confused Charles. “Why? He’s home.”

“I can’t find anyone in this damn house. Where am I, even?”

“About as far away from August as the house allows,” he said with a slight chuckle to his voice. “The others are closer.” You barely spotted him casting a quick glance over your shoulder, and before you could turn around, he tightened his grip on your shoulder, preventing you from moving. “Tell me who’s behind you.”

“Do you think I have eyes in the back of my head or something?” You rolled your eyes at Charles, wishing you could somehow wipe the annoyed expression off his face.

“You don’t need your eyes,” he said on a sigh. And here you were, thinking Mike was the impatient one… “You’re connected to them on a level you can’t even comprehend. You can sense them.”

You glared at Charles. If you could sense them, you would, right? The fact that you didn’t was quite the indication that you couldn’t.

He reached for your cheek, gently trailing an icy knuckle along your cheekbone. “Poor thing,” he murmured. Was he closer to you? Were his eyes bluer? His smile kinder? “They’ve not taught you half of what you can do. I—” The chill left behind by his fingers lingered, but Charles had disappeared.

“I hope for his sake that August didn’t see that,” Marshall muttered behind you. “Are you alright?”

“What just happened?” you asked as you turned around, only to find Marshall a lot closer to you than expected.

“You’ll have to talk to Charles. I doubt he’s entirely sure of what happened… Sherlock should kn—”

“Sherlock already knows.” Another body appeared behind you — Sherlock, of course. “I’m afraid he’s locked himself away for too long…” Something about the tone in which he spoke spread the lingering cold throughout your body, allowed it to seep into your bones.

“Don’t worry about it right now, love,” Marshall said as he wrapped his arms around you. It didn’t help much. Don’t worry about it? Right. You’d worry as you damn well pleased, thank you very much! “We might focus on that point he made, first. It was a good one.”

Before you knew it, you were in the living room — a living room? How many of those did this place even have?

“Two. Not including the one in Charles’ suite,” Marshall helpfully provided, and before you could even think of saying something, he added: “We’re all well aware this house is absolutely ridiculous.”

“Alright, alright…” Mike excitedly flapped his hands at no one in particular. “Why did you drag her here?”

“I’m assuming it’s because she keeps getting lost?” August asked.

“Yes,” you admitted. “And Charles scared me into dropping my phone, which is now dead, so I can’t call you anymore, and…”

“I finally get to buy you a new phone?” He’d been begging you to let him replace your phone for months now, but you’d always refused him. You were not about to enable his tech-buying mania. Besides, your phone had always worked fine. Alright! It had been falling apart at the seams, but it worked, so it was fine. That excuse was gone now.

“More importantly,” Marshall said, eyeing Mike in a ‘calm down’ kind of way, “we were just more or less accused of keeping her in the dark on her own abilities. And rightfully so.”

You watched them discuss your conversation with Charles for a moment, not entirely sure what was going on, but the idea seemed to be that your connection to the guys should allow you to sense their presence without having to be near them, and it was something that needed some training. Training you would be receiving right now.

“And how would that work?” you finally asked, fighting back a smile when the guys looked at you with guilt in their eyes. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

The guys stayed quiet for a while, until… “We’re not doing that, August.”

“I didn’t…” He looked at you with suspicion in his eyes. He didn’t what?

“Looks like August’s thoughts aren’t safe from you anymore, either,” Marshall chuckled, smiling wider as he looked at the increasingly confused look on August’s face. “We recently found out she has an aptitude for my gift.”

Safe to say, August wasn’t amused by this revelation.

“So, since blindfolds are out,” Marshall continued the previous conversation, leaving an unintelligibly grumbling August to his sulking. “Sherlock? Any ideas?”

“Naturally,” he replied dryly. “But I’m afraid depriving you of sight will most definitely be part of the first exercise, darling.”

And that’s how you ended up on a chair in the living room with a blindfold, while the guys took turns standing in front of you, making you tell them who it was. You got it wrong a depressing number of times, if you did say so yourself.

“Sweetcheeks, listen,” Mike’s hands appeared on your shoulders. Wait. Those weren’t Mike’s…

“This is trippy, guys,” you said, trying to yank your blindfold off, but Marshall’s hands were — of course — faster than yours.

“What is?” Mike asked again. The sound came from the right place… Were you wrong? No.

“Marshall touching me while you are talking. It’s strange, okay?” For lack of a better term, because this whole thing had been strange from the beginning, to say the least.

“Okay, so you know it’s him because you know what it feels like when he touches you,” Mike said with a little too much of a suggestive edge to his voice. He continued, and his voice moved away from you, until he was standing in front of you. “You know what it feels like when he’s near you, too. You’ve just never paid attention to it.”

“I don’t know how!” you cried out in frustration. “What am I supposed to feel?”

“Do you remember our conversation about coven bonds?” August chimed in. You nodded. “Great. You’re bound to us in the same way we are to each other.”

“Interesting, but ultimately unhelpful,” you sighed.

“I didn’t want to bring this up,” Mike said carefully. “But when August divorced us, so to speak… You must have felt that, right?”

You nodded again, wincing involuntarily at the unpleasant memory. The feeling that something snapped. The sharp pain… No! This had to end, you couldn’t go through that again, you…

“Keep going, Sweetcheeks,” Mike encouraged you in a strained voice. Was this hurting him as much as it was hurting you? “You’re almost there, I know you can feel it.”

“God knows he does,” August said, confirming your suspicions and sounding a little too happy about the situation. “He’s right, though, you’ve almost got it.”

“You said the ties weren’t tangible,” you complained, gritting your teeth in a desperate attempt to fight back tears.

“It would depend on your definition of ‘tangible’, princess,” August sighed. “Get on with it. The sooner you get this, the sooner it stops being uncomfortable.”

And just as you thought you couldn’t handle the pain of that horrible memory for a single second longer, something changed. August was right — though you’d think twice to tell him that. ‘Tangible’ wasn’t the right word. It wasn’t necessarily the wrong word, either.

“It’s complicated,” Marshall said softly. When did you stop wishing he’d stay out of your head?

Sherlock ordered Mike to move around the living room. He didn’t make a sound — of course he didn’t. Vampire. — but you didn’t lose track of his whereabouts even a single time. “This is still weird.”

“Can’t be weirder than all the other things,” Mike said as he wrapped his arms around you and squeezed you tight. “That was great!”

“But it’s just you.” You pouted at him, and then looked at the others. “I still don’t have a clue about the others.”

“Figuring that out won’t be easier,” Sherlock explained, “but it will entail far fewer risks.”

“What risks?” you demanded, ripping off the blindfold — this time without anyone trying to stop you.

“I may or may not have risked breaking our bond to help you find it,” Mike said, shrugging. Was he just shrugging this off? Motherf—

“You’ll be the death of me,” you said, glaring up at him and his dumb, apologetic smile. “How?”

“Remembering that feeling tugs on those strings,” Mike explained. “It’s uncomfortable, but it allowed you to find it. There was a small chance of you going too deep and…”

“I would have lost you?”

“You’ve repaired your connection before,” August noted. “There’s a very decent chance you could have done that again.”

“I don’t want to do that again, because it sucked,” you snapped, eyeing Mike angrily.

“Water under the bridge, love,” Marshall said, smoothing his hands over your arms. “Now, all you need to do is find where Mike is attached, and look for the rest of us.”

On special occasions such as this one, you missed the way your life had been before apparently attaching yourself to a bunch of vampires.

“You don’t mean that,” Marshall said with a smile.

No. You did not. But this was still weird.

Weird or not, you did what Marshall told you to do, and you were pleased to find that it was indeed not painful this time around. Only significantly more difficult. “I can’t… get a hold of it.”

“You don’t have to, princess,” August sighed. “You just need to feel it.”

“I mean I lose it before I can figure out where it goes,” you snapped back. It probably didn’t help that they were crowding you. Everything felt tangled in a way you couldn’t put into words. “Can you take a step back? Maybe two, even.”

They immediately did as you asked, and the task didn’t necessarily get any easier, but it sure as hell wasn’t as confusing. “I think I’ve figured August and Marshall out, but Sherlock… I’m so sorry.” Why did this bring you to tears? Seriously. Why were you crying?

“That’s okay, darling,” he said gently. “My age is making this more difficult. It’s not you.”

“You should try this with Melot,” Mike added. “I still have trouble finding him sometimes, because—”

“Mike, later.” August snapped. “This is complicated enough without another history lesson, or biology lesson, or any other kind of lesson.”

He was right: this was difficult, and exhausting, and now that you were starting to get the hang of it, you wanted to get in some more practice before you got really tired, but no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t quite grasp the tether that connected you to Sherlock.

“It will be easier once you’re more comfortable seeking out the others,” Sherlock promised, but it didn’t bring you much comfort at all.

“And his gift doesn’t help, either,” Mike said slightly too enthusiastically. “It’s annoying, the way he kinda pops in and out of existence. It can make it really tough to keep track of him, and—”

“Mike!” August cut through his monologue. “That’s unhelpful, and you’re rambling. She’ll get there when she gets there. I have stuff to do.” No one ever asked August what kind of stuff. You were fairly sure you didn’t necessarily want to know.

Marshall and Sherlock excused themselves as well, and you were left standing around in the living room with just Mikey, who looked at you with a devious glint in his eyes. The kind you knew all too well, and adored more than anything in the world. “Wanna play a game of hide and seek with me?”

Was that a silly suggestion? Sure. Childish, in a way? Absolutely. Did it sound unbelievably fun? Definitely yes. He must have picked up on your enthusiasm, because before you could answer, he was gone, leaving you in the living room all by yourself. Or so you thought.

“What are you waiting for?” Leon was standing right behind you, his lips right next to your ear. “It’s not like you could ever catch up with him.”

“When did you get here?”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” he said, with a devious hint of amusement to his smooth voice. “The lingering tension between you and Marshall is too good to stay away from.”

“So, we won’t be rid of you for a while, then?” you said, faking impatience and disappointment. For some reason, you didn’t mind him lurking around the house.

“I’d like to point out that I live here, too,” he said sharply. “It’s… It used to be tough for me to feed here. A problem that appears to have been solved by your arrival. If you’ll allow me, that is.”

“Allow you to do what, exactly?” Why was it so impossible to get rid of that lump in your throat?

“Napoleon, that’s quite enough.” Charles. “You’re venturing into dangerous territory, as you well know. Though I suspect that only makes the situation all the more enticing to you.” He shook his head, seemingly disappointed.

“Forgive me, father,” Leon said, a devious smirk forming on his face. And then, he was gone.

“Stay away from him,” Charles said on a deep, annoyed sigh.

“Like you stay away from me?” you countered, putting your hands on your hips and conjuring every bit of defiance you could find.

“Yes.”

“I’m trying. He just…”

“Shows up?” Charles asked, quirking an eyebrow. “He does that, yes.”

“So do you,” you huffed. You barely even knew this man, and he was pissing you off thoroughly.

“My apologies.” He sounded sincere. Then again, what the hell did you know? “I’m not quite used to having a guest I attempt to avoid.”

“Then don’t?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much of a choice. I promise it has nothing to do with you, personally.” Well, that wasn’t reassuring at all. You glared at him, but before you could say anything, he was gone.

With a great deal of effort, you pushed your frustrations with both Leon and Charles aside, and concentrated on your connection with Mike. It was faint, but definitely still there. You had no idea how long you were standing there, but with every passing second, the feeling became clearer — and by the time you opened your eyes, the feeling had become so strong you could almost see it. Now, all you had to do, was follow it.

Mike would make for a nice reward for your efforts.

With every step, the pull became stronger, and it was extremely difficult to go in the wrong direction, as long as you stayed focused on finding Mikey, and your feet almost moved of their own accord. You knew where he was. You knew where to go.

There he was. Behind this door. As soon as you opened it, familiar hands grabbed you and dragged you into the room — although ‘room’ was a bit of an overstatement — and you were pushed against the door as soon as it fell shut behind you.

“You found me,” Mike whispered. His tone was playful, as was the way he playfully bit your earlobe, and then your neck. You prevented his descent between your boobs by pulling his face up to yours.

“Is this a broom closet, Mikey?”

“Yes.” He focused his attention on your neck again. “I couldn’t hide in my room, like… that would have been too obvious! Besides… This is fun.”

You knew that if you tried to deny that, you’d ultimately be unsuccessful, so you didn’t bother. Instead, you pulled Mike’s face to yours and kissed him.

As per usual, he didn’t waste time, slipping his tongue into your mouth with his signature impatience as he lifted you up so you could wrap your legs around his waist. Pinned between his body and the door, you spent your time trying not to giggle at his unparalleled enthusiasm. Until the door was gone.

You expected to fall backwards, but Mike held you up — thank God, because you didn’t exactly feel like getting a concussion today. Or any day, for that matter.

“I need a broom.” You recognized Melot’s voice — not that the accent wouldn’t have been a dead giveaway if you hadn’t. To your dismay, Mike put you back on your feet and pulled you into the hallway. “And can you guys get a fucking room, maybe?”

“What’s his problem?” you asked when Melot disappeared as suddenly as he’d shown up.

“Disgruntled teenager syndrome,” August chuckled. You’d stopped wondering where they came from. Vampire fast, vampire here. Simple. “He’s a little lost, now that his role as patriarch of the family has been passed on to Sherlock.”

“He never had much of a childhood, did he?” you wondered out loud.

“Did you hear him when he said he’d been married for nearly six years before he was turned into a vampire at age nineteen?” August asked, showing some of that signature derisive tone he’d always used with you before you entered into your agreement with the guys. You nodded. Of course you’d heard that. “Did you, by any chance, do the math?”

Honestly, you’d been a little preoccupied with the heaps of information that had been flung your way at the time, so no, you hadn’t. But now that August mentioned it… He’d been…

“Fourteen,” August whispered. “He got married when he was fourteen.”

You considered the implications of that for a moment. “Are there therapists for that?”

Both Mike and August laughed at that comment, but you didn’t think it was particularly funny. He’d been married at fourteen. Regardless of whether or not that had been normal at the time, it sure as hell wasn’t now, and…

“There are,” August answered. “And he’ll come around. He’s just looking for his place right now and that’s not an easy thing to figure out.”

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: October 2024

I'm not one for horror so don't expect too much spooky stuff out of this recap.

……….FILM……….

Dredd (2012) Karl Urban deserves greater recognition for this if for no other reason that that frown. I doubt we'll ever get another one of these so to me the ending sends a clear message that the only way to avoid becoming a bad apple is to quit the bushel.

Perfect Blue (1997) Loosely knowing the premise, I thought I was prepared for what I watched but HO BOY was I not! Some truths are timeless and I think the now dated technology makes it all hit even harder. So well directed and a perfect use of animation. This is going to stick with me for a while.

Millennium Actress (2001) After Perfect Blue, I wanted to continue with the director's filmography (Satoshi Kon) and wasn't ready for how this would FLOOR ME. Such an emotional and lovely depiction of the intermingling between art and life and what drives an artist throughout their career. And the trope of characters playing multiple roles in different time periods will always land for me.

Death Becomes Her (1992) I only know Meryl Streep from this, The Devil Wear Prada, and the Mamma Mia series so to me, she's strictly a comedic actor. Given its subject matter, this continues to age surprisingly well.

Hansel & Gretel (2002) Felt like a made-for-tv movie but turns out it had a theatrical release! I did laugh at the Boogeyman subbing in for the Sandman and the design of the Witch's oven is cool, but that's about it.

……….TELEVISION……….

Dandadan (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) Teens fight aliens and ghosts? Heck yes. I will say the first ep has an alien abduction scene that almost turned me off of the entire show but once you get past that, everything else is really great. Fun worldbuilding, clever rules, and at its core it's a charming romcom. Just promise me you'll watch past the abduction.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (Episode 1.23 to 1.26) Okay so that's the ending! Not what I expected but you know what? I don't mind it. I know there's a movie that continues on after this BUT if it ended here I think I'd be okay with it. What a strange series.

Love is Blind (Episode 7.01 to 7.13) I keep thinking "why would anyone still sign up for this?" but here I am into another season asking "why would anyone still watch this?" And dang that reunion was meeeeeeeessy.

Love is Blind UK (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) This iteration feels a little more sincere, but that may be because the cast seems a little older or because the machine hasn't yet pumped out minor celebrities so folks don't know what might lie ahead? Either way I'm a fan.

……….YOUTUBE……….

Dead Man's Bones (Ft. Ryan Gosling) - Documentary Special Presentation by Pitchfork While spooky season is nearly over, the music of Dead Man's Bones is evergreen. Watch this, if you haven't seen it, and especially listen to the album if you haven't heard it. VIDEO

Game of Clones by Just Write As much a reflection on how artists can't create in a vacuum as it is a critique of the modern tv landscape. There's a lot on influence and the different ways artists react to prior work that I found both informative for my own approach and just generally really interesting. VIDEO

Why Are Movies So Obsessed With Trains? and The Infinite Possibilities of Train Action Scenes | Blue Flame Special by Patrick H. Willems I love trains. VIDEO (Obsessed) VIDEO (Blue Flame Special)

Black Cops Won't Save Us by F.D Signifier I'm not going to be able to add anything new to what's already been said in this video. VIDEO

……….READING……….

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie (Complete) Very excited I found this at the start of the month but turns out Halloween plays a very small role. Not one of her strongest, perhaps because I felt like I'd pieced the mystery together far too soon.

Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber (Complete) There's something so wonderful about a story where two guys meet and immediately clock each other as awesome and become best friends. Such a delight. The end may be a worn out trope that you could spot a mile away, but it's all so evocative and swiftly paced that I just have to shrug and accept it was written in 1970.

Beauty by Kerascoët & Hubert (Complete) I wish I knew about where to find more comics like this. The artwork is loose and evocative but filled with details when necessary (and the COLOURS are so fantastic and are contained to each page to really highlight the format). The writing is also killer as it's both mature and whimsical. Every time I read this I'm reminded of just how fantastic it is.

The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure (Complete) Grew up watching the cartoon yet never read any of the comics so when I saw this at a thrift, I was really excited. While mostly self-contained, it really does feel like it's part of a bigger story and I suppose I was expecting a little more pulp adventure? The art is stellar so I'll continue to pick these up as I see them.

……….AUDIO……….

Slugger by Sasami (2024) Two solid songs though I admit I tend to prefer her fuzzier/more dangerous-sounding tracks from Squeeze. Here's hoping the full album has a good mix.

Search Engine (Podcast) Always a great listen but their recent two-parter about why it's so hard to tax billionaires in the united states was a particular standout.

……….GAMING……….

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Tuesday Crew just relocated some migrating birds and are now choosing from their myriads of quests. You can read all about them here!

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (Nintendo) Top down Zelda is always going to be great, and this art style is 100% what I want out of games. Do I like the summoning mechanic? Sure. Do I think it leads to game design feeling half-baked? Yes. But I will say it stuck the landing so overall: big fan.

And that's it. See you in November!

[acewitch-writes]

To be honest, I expected pitchforks and torches in response to my canon Remus post, so I am pleasantly surprised by the (mostly) supportive outpouring I have received instead.

I love canon Remus. I tend to write him closer to his canon counterpart rather than the fanon version that has been around for the past few years. Recently, I moved all of my fics into a private collection because I had people coming onto my fic to tell me that they didn't like the way I write Remus, or that Sirius should ONLY be the sub partner and anything else was "wrong." I came across a comment section on a different app where two users were discussing one of my more popular fics, comparing it *specifically* to That One Singular Fic. It was incredibly upsetting to see my work disparaged and insulted simply because it doesn't resemble a different fic that so many in this fandom have personally claimed as canon.

So yeah. I placed a huge target on my back to speak my mind. Because I am positive that the hate on my fics will only increase from here on out since I dared to speak about their Holy Marauders Bible in a slightly critical manner. I have already been told that I just "didn't understand it", that I must be illiterate or stupid. I've been called ableist for preferring the canon characterization of Remus. I've been encouraged to off myself. I've been told that I am not welcome in a fandom that I have been part of for more than 10 years because I didn't canonize a fic that was published in 2018.

I'm probably on my way out the door anyways. Maybe this fandom will be a more welcoming space in a few years when my wolfstar/marauders hyper-fixation resurfaces again.

[yolowritter]

In Offense to Lila Rossi

O...kay! Am I the only one who sometimes takes offense to Lila's entire existence? Even if she just stands there, looking at her on screen makes me want to grab the nearest pitchfork! So please, allow me to explain why I despise Lila Rossi in Miraculous Canon, and what my delusions say should happen for Season 6 regarding her character! Call it a stich, I'm still doing it because I can!

To kick things off, it's worth establishing what kind of antagonist Lila is supposed to be in the show. She's introduced in the finale of Season 1, Volpina (yes I know some lists have Origins last, but Collector picks up directly after so it's the finale), and from the moment anybody even mentions her, we get the hint that something is fishy. I'm quite sure it's Alya who first approaches Marinette and tells her about this "new girl" who's showed up at school. Apparently, "she" knows famous musicians, is very talented, etcetera. Marinette raises an eyebrow at this, but there's no real reason to question it yet since the audience has already seen that some of those things are true for her as well (see Jagged Stone). All in all, good little bit of foreshadowing and getting people intersted without going overboard.

Then we actually meet Lila in the library with Adrien. She seems pleasant enough, if a little infatuated, but this is Adrien. He has more fangirls that there are ticks on a goat, so he takes it in stride. All in all, Lila is cheery and excitable, happy to spend time with him. Not the most likable character in history, but also not malicious in any way. This is the expected behavior for some random teenager learning she's classmates with a supermodel. And since we get this whole thing from Marinette's point of view, the audience is encouraged to share her suspicions about Lila. We all know how the rest of the episode goes, and I'll get back to this in a sec.

Point is, when Lila first shows up, she seems interesting. Her lies aren't immediately obvious (or at least like 20% plausible given past events), and she appears to be infatuated with Adrien, just like Marinette. Sure, it looks a bit superficial, but who can blame her? We don't know anything about her yet, and it isn't completely outrageous to think that she might be giving out small lies to make herself more popular since she's the "new kid" and all that.

But after Volpina...we don't see her again until Season 3! Excepting Heroes Day Part 2, where she gets re-akumatized into Volpina for the whole illusion thing, I mean. Lila remains a mystery, and so far has been a nuanced character who we have questions about and know to be a cunning liar. Especially since in Volpina, Lila actually is being smart with her lies to Adrien! She plays up her persona of infatuated fangirl and extracts general information about the book he has, and plays off it by giving minimal details and still attracting his interest. It's only once Adrien has shown her the page about the fox heroine that Lila makes up a story about having the Miraculous in her family, and then she immediately goes off to cover her back by buying a fake Fox Miraculous from a "Gabriel" store.

Side note: This is the one and only time we see this happen, and I still have questions as to why Gabriel Agreste is selling jewerly that only someone with the Guardian's Grimoire would know how to design. Dead giveaway, but that's a general plothole in the show, and irrelevant to Lila.

The thing is, I love Lila in Volpina! She actually does manipulate Adrien pretty well, makes sure to subtly get all the information she needs, and then plays her part perfectly, to the point where he's on her side when Ladybug swings by to berate her for lying about having a Miraculous. Granted, Marinette's intense reaction doesn't do her any favors, but nonetheless Lila is actually good at lying in this episode! Now prepare to throw this out the window with Chameleon! Oh, Chameleon! What is even left to say about this episode that the fandom didn't tear to shreds back when it first aired? Welp, doesn't matter! I'm grabbing Hawkmoth's cane and beating the dead horse one last time, just because Lila pissed me off this badly when I re-watched it recently!

I have genuinely researched the lies that Lila spouts out in this episode, and I'm honestly baffled as to why the writing team even put them there? I'd think it takes more effort to think of something this ridiculous rather than a semi-believable lie? Let's break the two most ridiculous ones down real quick. Getting tinitus from being behind a plane engine while it was taking off. Now, I'm assuming Lila also lost a few braincells in this episode, because while while yes, if that were to happen one would have severe hearing damage...we're talking about going completely deaf. Not to mention that you'd have to ignore countless airport security measures to even get there, and that in some countries, it's very much illegal to be on the runway when a plane is taking off. So Lila would have gone completely deaf, forever, not to mention sustained actual injury from being right behind a plane as it's taking off. Do you see why this is so ridiculously unbelievable? And okay, for the sake of argument let's say that people do believe her. Miss Bustier has zero reaction to this information, which would have presumably caused a responsible adult to panic at the idea of a child sustaining such an injury. Clearly, this episode is designed to devour braincells from everyone present.

Then we move onto the moment that still infuriates me, the Napkin Incident™. I'm not going to go into too much detail because we all know the gist. Lila catches a napkin thrown by Marinette with her supposedly "sprained" wrist, and explains the reason she "hurt herself" was to protect Max's eyes from being gouged out! By a napkin, while he's wearing glasses! In addition, Lila blatantly lies about being best friends with Ladybug and having sustained other minor injuries, and all of this makes me honestly upset because I see what they were going for! I can see the vision here!

Lila lying about being best friends with Ladybug to gain Alya's interest! Lila making herself the victim and exploiting Marinette's eagerness to expose her to gather support from her classmates and take away her friends! She even says that's what she plans to do at the end of the episode! But...this never goes anywhere. Lila is almost entirely absent from the remainder of the season, and just...doesn't follow up on this? Instead all we get is Lila getting outrageous lies that require every other character in the room to lose the entirety of their IQ to even be plausible in the slightest. And the plot wants to pretend as if she's a master manipulator when all she does is tell extremely obvious lies that can be very easily disproven!

Even when she pretends Marinette pushed her down the stairs, nobody reacts in the way they should! Bustier and Damocles should have called in the school nurse, or a doctor to check her over, especially since Lila claimed to be in severe pain. It's completely unreasonable for adults to behave they way these two do whenever Lila is involved in anything. My point is that for Lila to be what the show says she is, she needs plot armor. People believe her just because they have to. It's demanded by the script. And it's infuriating!

It would be another thing entirely if Lila slowly approached each and every classmate and systematically inserted herself in situations as the "friend", or used small lies to slowly degrade Marinette's connections with others. She could ensnare Alya with little lies about Ladybug, and then act concerned and worried when Marinette denied everything without any proof (like we already see her do multiple times). And yes, obviously they can't devote another dozen episodes to focus solely on this, but the fact that we never see Lila even try to do it very much undermines her character. The narrative presents her as a master manipulator who pulls the strings from the shadows, and addmittedly she has some good moments like when she frames Marinette for stealing her necklace...but that can easily be disproven by checking security cameras, or by Adrien speaking up. Remember, he was there in Volpina when the necklace was proved a fake, and Lila is using the same lie here.

Not to mention that in each and every case where Lila lies, even in Season 5, the believability of that lie is solely dependant on the sheer incompetence of every (allegedly) responsible adult around her, and the fact that Marinette's classmates are contractually obligated by the script to believe her without a second thought. The problem here is that Lila isn't good at lying. What she says is either outrageous enough to warrant genuine concern if believed (ex: Marinette pushing her down the stairs. No adult would have made this girl walk back up that staircase without first asking if she was hurt and calling in a medical professional) or so plain stupid that it has everyone wondering where their lost braincells may have slipped off to. To give credit where it's due, Lila's manipulation of Chloe in Season 5 is actually pretty great and consistent with what we've been told she's supposed to be.

But...considering that by this point, (regarding Marinette's friends now) Alya knows her best friend is Ladybug, hates Lila, and was clearly right about the girl being a walking red flag...why does it take a DIY bathroom and a literal 300 IQ scheme to prove that Lila has been lying about things? Like, Alya, Adrien and presumably Nino (if anybody bothered to clue him in) should know that she's full of crap, and suspect her. Don't get me wrong, I love Marinette's whole fake bathroom plan. Genuinely made me marvel at how smart she is. But it also shows that the script still treats Lila as an Avengers-level threat...even if at this point in the story, her lies are just bad. We know from Chameleon she can't even keep her own stories straight (see Lila forgetting which ear her tinnitus was on), and this could have been an amazing detail the gang utilized to start convincing the others that she is lying.

The general problem with Lila's canon character is that she's underutilized, barely appears outside of when she absolutely needs to, and fundementally fails to be what she's been writen as, requiring her Villain Plot Armor™ to kick in and steal everyone's braincells away. I absolutely love the whole "Lila is a fox" characterization, because Volpina was literal genius! The metaphors and symbolism of Lila being cunning and always scheming? Amazing! But...what we actually get to see of her in action? Really, really bad. Also, I am not touching her three mothers with a ten foot pole, not until we get a canon explanation. Personally I ascribe to the Scarlet Lady AU version, but we'll see. Even the more obviously ridiculous things, like Lila having a whole secret lair in the Parisian Catacombs...I'd buy it. If there's IRL raves happening down there, then she could totally have a secret villain lair tucked away behind a few crypts or something.

What I wish we had gotten from Lila is honestly not a lot. Instead of just walking up to people and lying her ass off, I'd prefer to see her be more subtle about it. For Nooroo's sake, just get this girl to actually be cunning like all the fox metaphors want you to think! It isn't that hard to write a scene where she plays the "concerned friend" as Cerise to plant seeds of discord. Buggachat did it very well in "Open my Eyes", and it made me absolutely hate Cerise! And that's a good thing! Lila/Cerise/Iris/Whatever-other-identity-she-has-in-her-closet is meant to be hated by the audience! She literally is a "love to hate" character! And in Open My Eyes, Cerise actually did act as the concerned friend, she was subtle, she didn't always lie but sometimes twisted the truth just a little bit, enough to get the doubts to creep inside someone's head. I got so frustrated because I wanted Adrien to figure her out, but couldn't find a logical way for him to do so in the first place! Do you guys get what I'm talking about yet?

Subtle but convincing. Small and unnoticable until it's too late. That's how Lila should be, because it utilizes the most plot threads made by her lies. I can go on and on with specific examples, but I want to actually post this someday so I shall refrain. In conclusion, there are only two types of Lila. "I'm going to burn your house down and smile while doing it, then find a puppy and kick it into a sewer before emotionally scarring someone to the point of needing life-long therapy" Lila.

And the "cunning, sneaky and subtly manipulative fox who drives people insane slowly but surely as she makes them have an existential crisis" Lila.

I vehemently refuse to accept her canon version, and fear for Season 6 if she doesn't change into one of the above, or at the very least stops being so incredibly in-your-face about it. It's infuriating (in a good way) when the characters don't know, but if the lie is as obvious as "How was my weekend? Oh, nothing much! I just went skydiving on Venus, that's all really!" ...do I even need to elaborate? Because that's what Lila sounds like 96% of the time!

Alas, I digress. Feel free to give your opinion about our resident lying wretch, I need to go take a break before her incompetence drives me insane. I'll see you all soon...but until then, Stay Miraculous everyone!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 11/05/2024 (The Drake & Kendrick Beef Analysed in Detail. And Dua Lipa, I guess)

Yeah, yeah, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, whatever, we have more pressing issues. Sorry to break the format again so soon, but I don’t really know in what other context I can talk about all of these outside of just dumping it all together so… consider this a prologue, perhaps. I’m cactus, and before we get to the rest of the chart, I guess it’s time to discuss the you-know-whos and whatever impact this has. If you don’t care, skip to the rundown.

Part I: Okay, but what does J. Cole think of all of this?

content warning: language, abuse

The songs did not debut in exact chronological order, so that’s why I’m separating this into a different section - it allows for a cleaner timeline of what’s actually going on and allows me to develop some more cohesive thoughts. I assume everyone reading this already knows what’s going on and has probably heard the tracks or most likely even consumed some opinion pieces on it before, and that’s why I’m not doing a stricter, review-format lyrical analysis like I would for any other lyrical rap songs that appears on the chart. There’s already so much out there, and so many double-triple-quadruple-quintuple entendres on both sides, some vile accusations plastered onto both mens’ legacies and crews, and a concerning amount of discourse surrounding all of it. Am I here to contribute to that discourse? Yes, but even this soon, it just feels a bit tired, right? Pitchfork had Alphonse Pierre writing incessantly about how much he hated it before any woman-beating or child-endangering allegations were in the fold. Rap beef existing in the 2020s, the “thinkpiece era”, I don’t know, it’s exhausting. That doesn’t change the quality of the tracks though, and even that has been discussed to death, including by me - in the past few months, I’ve already reviewed “Like That”, “Push Ups” and “euphoria”, as well as touching upon “6:16 in LA” - so I won’t be retreading my steps, I’ll be attempting to give my unique perspective outside of a timeline or rundown of events, gathering thoughts on ideas I don’t really see brought up as often.

So, where were we? When I last released an episode, it was Friday and the latest diss was Kendrick’s cryptic Instagram posts where he claims he has a mule in OVO feeding him information about Drake and his crew. He’d just dropped “euphoria”, one of the best diss tracks of all time, and whilst “Push Ups” was good, I don’t think Drake really had it in him to respond to such an evisceration. I half-expected him not to acknowledge “euphoria” at all, but sadly, he did, and famously, “meet the grahams” was released just half an hour later to squash the potential legacy of Drake’s new track, which was titled “Family Matters”. The popular consensus seems to be that if Kendrick hadn’t swooped in with something “Story of Adidon” level, Drake’s “Family Matters” would be considered an excellent diss track… and I completely disagree, that shit is trash. Here’s why.

“Family Matters” is a clear emulation of “euphoria” - if Kendrick can release his seven-minute multiple-part diss track, why can’t Drake? He spent as many days as he needed to curate a very similar song - no, I’m not saying Kendrick created the idea of beat switches or long songs, but when the two are dropped directly in relation to each other, it’s difficult to summise from that, that Drake isn’t coming to battle in a very similar way to Kendrick purposefully, using his formula and structure. The problem here is focus. Kendrick, since he’s only focusing on Drake, can outline his issues in such a streamlined and digestible way that offhand remarks are catchy and memorable but hit hard within the context of the full song. All three beats are given room to breathe and transition very smoothly into each other, and the first beat even predicts Drake’s moves over a jazz beat to make the track appear condescending, defining the song’s mood from the start. “euphoria” is a tightly-constructed evisceration of Drake, that Drake simply cannot come back from, because he isn’t fighting one side. He could shut up about everyone else and leave the bars to Kendrick, but he simply doesn’t have enough about Kendrick to do that for a substantially long amount of time, and if he comes back to “euphoria” with just a three minute diss track, he looks like a clown, not that he doesn’t already if he doesn’t acknowledge Rick Ross, Future, Metro, Rocky… or at least he thinks he would look silly not dismissing them, even though realistically, that’s what we all want him to be: focused, not spraying shots at people who no one legitimately wants to see win or fail. Like who cares if The Weeknd wins or fails a rap beef? He’s not even a rapper.

The beats don’t have any thematic purpose, the first beat is one we’ve already heard before, and whilst there are plenty of disses to chew on, a lot of it is actually just completely substanceless garbage. When he’s not repeating himself, he’s whining about how YG or whoever is ACTUALLY gang-banging as if YG wouldn’t hop on “Not Like Us” today. Sure, there’s menace in… the intro, because the only time Drake sounds energetic and venomous is when interrupting his mother - classy - but it’s weak apart from a few lines poking fun at his conscious personality which are somewhat funny if not just… strange considering Kendrick  being private leads to Drake spreading rumours regarding women and children on the idea that well, if Drake says it, everyone will believe it’s true! Also, it’s telling that Drake, after failing in “Push Ups” to prove he was a better rapper or a harder, more authentic image, all he has on Kendrick revolves around women, children and gay jokes towards The Weeknd. He spends damn near a whole beat out of the three on the side characters, which I know must have been, in Drake’s eyes, a demonstration of how he just doesn’t care about those guys… but you still rapped about them for a whole song’s length and the tightest bars come from that section, primarily because they’re easier targets. It also is pretty telling that Drake, who sounds increasingly bored over cheap beats the whole time, attempts to switch the “white boy” insult into a “white flag” wordplay but he still ends up saying “Ross callin’ me the white boy and that shit kind of got a ring to it”, without ever negating it in the punchline. He still ends up calling himself white. What is this?

Regardless, “Family Matters” debuts at #17 on the UK Singles Chart this week. It was produced by Boi-1da, Tay Keith, Fierce, Kevin Mitchell, Dramakid, Preme, Jordan Fox and… Mark Ronson of all people, who I assume had something to do with the third beat, since it’s the only one that actually sounds good. Minutes after Drake dropped, we get “meet the grahams”, produced by The Alchemist and well, it left a lot of people speechless. Once again, Kendrick goes for being condescending and systematic instead of the unfocused slop we get from Drake, directing his disses not for Drake initially, but directly addressing each member of his family. It’s not the most replayable in terms of its beat bouncing or having much in the way of a hook, of course, but it is villainous and deceptively straightforward in ways. The beat is basically one loop from Alc with basic but eerie piano and one of my favourite details in this entire beef: that yelping scream in the distance. For drumless jazz beats like this, those atmospheric intricacies are so necessary, and the instrumental break refrain that separates verses, something Kendrick would do again on the second track, is too cold. I’m not a lyrical analyst, I’m not a sociopolitical analyst, so here’s why “meet the grahams” makes J. Cole look like a fucking idiot, actually.

Cole stepped out of the beef before it got personal, probably because ScHoolboy called him up and said it wasn’t about rap, and since then, if anything, Kendrick has been slightly defending Cole in his raps whilst Drake has been dismissive and insulting. Again, telling! This should make Cole look smart, slick and the bigger man for apologising and not getting himself involved in the personal, frankly gross allegations made by both men against each other, and whilst we’d all like to hear Cole and Kendrick go back and forth on bars alone, what we got was much more impactful and cinematic, something that just wouldn’t fit Cole’s homegrown image. Whilst this is true on the surface, I beg you to go back to Might Delete Later after all of that. After all the talk about how he doesn’t take Ls, about how he’s taking everyone’s girl, about how his bars are like clips or whatever, all of his boast talk - and then he slides out of this beef before shit gets venomous. Then consider all his talk about how he can’t get cancelled like Dave Chappelle and how it’s all politically correct these days, and that trans… “fellas” are still pussies… given what’s been addressed here, with a back-and-forth by the two ACTUAL members of the big three involved essentially TRYING to cancel each other, the mixtape becomes dated and purposeless so quickly that it gives credit to its name. Cole has always seen himself as the “middle child” of rap, but really, his dichotomy isn’t between mumble rap and oldheads, it’s between being pretentious and anti-intellectual, simultaneously. At least Drake embraces that he is an asshole, which is the one reason to root for his character - I don’t like “Family Matters”, but it pretty effectively places himself as the villain of the story, at least if we’re willing to accept this as a narrative, and “meet the grahams” does an even better job at that than Drake could! Cole decided to align himself with the anti-intellectual crowd whilst being all intellectual about that approach, and let’s just say that when Kendrick is winning a beef, it looks really idiotic to be blissfully ignorant. I’m sure Cole has written a few songs about all of this, but what’s telling is that Kendrick and Drake will never delete these records, because they’re a cemented part of history in their careers and really, hip hop culture. I don’t like “Family Matters” or really, “Like That”, but there are moments in those tracks now iconic and quotable that Cole has completely lost out on. Drake got his ass handed to him, but it would be even more of a loss for him economically and in the media to delete those diss tracks. Kendrick, I would assume, somewhat regrets some of the statements made because his last album presented him as slightly above it all, and he does face an increasing number of abuse allegations now that whilst I’m sure he doesn’t sweat too hard, really aren’t great for you to have around. And sure, whilst Drake might be bringing up the size of his penis in “Family Matters” for no reason, the most homoerotic moment in this dick-swinging context might be the fact that Kendrick’s biggest song in years is focused entirely on another man’s sex crimes. Neither come out clean, but they come out with more dignity than the guy who thought he was hot shit and ended the beef with less streams, less name-drops and less tracks on his album because I bet you forgot, but he’s actually started to back track and delete the records. The only person to see this as a genuine stain on the legacy, a genuine piercing of the armour, is Cole, which is why he can’t be in that big three. Because he cares too much to prove he’s there in the first place.

On the UK charts, “meet the grahams” debuts at #28, but it doesn’t matter because the night after, he drops “Not Like Us”, a DJ Mustard banger, beats Drake at his own game and has people all across the world in clubs singing “OV-HOE”. It debuts at #10 and is co-produced with Sounwave and Sean Momberger, but the idea that Mustard is on the beat, giving Kendrick a classic West Coast banger to end out the beef whilst Drake is stuck with a myriad of identity-less tracks (ironically, one wherein he shouts out YG), is a diss in itself. Nobody cares about how much of this is true, if any of it is, because people believe that reckoning with that fact takes us out of enjoying music, which I think it’s silly but also a story for another day. I don’t idolise either of these guys - Hell, I preferred Drake’s last record to Kendrick’s - but through sheer lyrical dexterity and chess moves, Kendrick won the beef and shattered Drake’s PR statement of a comeback, “The Heart Part 6”, into pieces before it could even be rebuilt from the fragments of Drake’s pride. You can’t release a diss track that has you defending yourself against false allegations, if 1.) you yourself made false accusations and 2.) no one cares if the accusations are true, just who says them louder and harder, which is exactly why Kendrick knew “meet the grahams” wasn’t enough and that’s why he needed to drop the Mustard joint. Drake may be calculated, and a master manipulator, but he cannot out-guess the biggest hypocrite of 2015. And 2024. And maybe forever, I don’t know, he could drop something tomorrow. Now let’s shut my hoe ass up and review some charts.

----

Part II: REVIEWING THE CHARTS

content warning: The Chainsmokers

So, Kendrick has four songs in the UK Singles Chart right now as a primary artist, which shouldn’t be allowed according to OCC rules normally, but I guess even the Official Charts Company just wants to see blood. As for the songs that actually dropped out of the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, after spending five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40, we say farewell to “II MOST WANTED” by Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus, as well as Bey’s cover of “JOLENE”, “if u think i’m pretty” by Artemas, “Wasted Youth” by goddard. and Cat Burns (shame that one didn’t reach a higher peak, I really like it), “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish and, perhaps most vindictively for this week, “H.Y.B.” by J. Cole featuring Bas and Central Cee. Ha.

We see two kind of inexplicable but also irrelevant returns with “Whatever” by Kygo and Ava Max at #74 and “As it Was” by Harold Styles at #41, but otherwise we do have a handful of notable gains, including “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers once again at #65, now the biggest song ever to never hit #1. It just never dies. Aside from that, there are boosts for Dua Lipa’s “Training Season” at #61 thanks to the album, more on that later, “Love Me JeJe” by Tems at #52 - a little detail I missed with the debut last week is that the phrase in the title was adopted from a well-revered track in Nigeria of the same name by Seyi Sodimu, which I thought was notable enough to consider sn error of research. Whoops. Put that in the corrections column. We also see “Slow it Down” by Bento Box at #23, some boosts for Kendrick as “Like That” with Future and Metro Boomin and, Ye I guess now, is at #20 whilst “euphoria” stalls at #11, and finally, Tommy Richman gets his first top 10 with the smash hit “MILLION DOLLAR BABY”. Really can’t complain.

As for our top five, it consists of “Fortnight” by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone at #5, “Beautiful Things” by Benny the Butcher at #4, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey at #3, “Too Sweet” by Hozier and #2, and finally, for a second week, Sabrina Carpenter is at #1 with “Espresso”. We still have five new songs debuting this week that aren’t disses, so let’s have some fun with songs that hopefully won’t be as heavy, and we start where every good night of fun starts. With the Chainsmokers.

New Entries

#75 - “Addicted” - Zerb, The Chainsmokers and Ink

Produced by Zerb and The Chainsmokers

Zerb is a Brazilian DJ who’s found his way into a collaboration with everyone’s favourite duo The Chainsmokers and smooth R&B singer Ink, with a Joel Corry remix probably helping this one end up at the bottom of the chart here. Now I do like The Chainsmokers, but not necessarily their work with other vocalists, as they’re not nearly as willing to experiment when it’s not just the two boys embarrassing themselves. Ink, who really just sounds like a BTEC The-Dream on here, doesn’t command much of the track due to that wispy tone, but Zerb being on board probably helps the squibbling synths spiral into more of an intense, detailed drop that traces bassy future house amidst some genuinely weird and oddly full percussive elements and sound effects, especially that incessant shaker in the pre-drop. You can tell these guys are professionals, as the sound design is very intricate and makes so much use of its available space whilst not being too fluid or syrupy, it goes decently hard, and whilst Zerb may not be The-Dream, he gets close. And I like The-Dream. I like this too. It’s a jam. Give it a chance, it kept growing on me like a brain parasite as I was listening.

#71 - “Right Here” - Becky Hill

Produced by Chase & Status

Whilst rap rivalries are brewing, EDM DJ duos seem to be having a good week by sticking together - with Chase & Status on board, this is pretty much confirmed to be at least decent before taking a listen and, well, obviously it’s good. At this point, I might just like Becky Hill’s output overall, at least from this upcoming album, and the decision from the boys to position an 80s pop rock melodrama with the soaring synths and plastic guitar below an absolute rolick of drum and bass feels very much like a throwback to the dancefloor DnB era from the early to mid 2010s, and I may like more atmospheric drum and bass tracks a lot of the time but I’m not above some unabashed pop, and this really has the momentum and kick to justify itself. Sure, the mix is a bit awkward, but the same can be said for a lot of drum and bass, and it’s not like that genre has ever suffered from being loud or overwhelming, especially not in festival mood, and the layering of Becky’s belting over those classic 90s hardcore pianos is an interesting touch compared to what I probably would have done, drowned her in reverb and echo like they sometimes did back in the day. The explosive approach taken here backs up an already infectious hook and results in yet another damn good track by Becky Hill, which would be a foreign idea to me throughout the rest of my time doing this show.

#68 - “The Door” - Teddy Swims

Produced by Julian Bunetta and Ammo

I didn’t even think we’d get a second song from Teddy Swims, but I was wrong about that when it came to David Kushner, Noah Kahan and  that Boonetown Rat over at #4 so maybe this is just the year of the edged-up white boy. I still think “Lose Control” is okay, and in terms of pure singing process, Teddy’s got a lot more soul and presence than them. That’s really carrying this one though, and whilst the groove’s a solid throwback, the reverb dampens its impact and it sounds like he’s recording the whole thing from a cave, but not a vintage chasm like Spector’s best stuff, just… a small cave near a river or some swampland. The songwriting also feels a bit basic, it isn’t all too compelling and goes for some very typical tropes, predictable rhymes, even if the “oh no!” is a bit of a fun inflection. Bunetta and Ammo also don’t let the song progress much, even just from verse to chorus, it feels stuck. I figured that when that soaring disco string section came in, we’d get a proper bridge that made it all feel satisfying, but it does tampers off into a post-chorus and we get a basic repetition of the chorus again. If you’re going to try and replicate a vintage sound, at least show respect to how they composed their tracks too, not just cosplay within their soundfont.

#67 - “Risk” - Gracie Abrams

Produced by Aaron Dessner and Gracie Abrams

Producing for Taylor Swift is the best idea the Dessners had ever. Now these indie folksters are going to have labels calling for them to prop up their attempts at making pop stars - I don’t like The National, like… at all, but get the bag, guys, I prefer them over The Monsters & Strangerz, or God forbid Julia Michaels. The largely-failed Gracie Abrams experiment has been an industry push for five years now, but the daughter of film director J. J. Abrams finally has a hit of her own and… okay, maybe calling her “own” hit was a misnomer, because this has O-Rod and T-Swift written all over it. You could genuinely run the whole thing through a Taylor Swift AI filter and I’d believe you, I imagine this is like hearing the track the “Heart on My Sleeve” guy recorded before he put the Drake effect on. It has Olivia’s wordy teenage anxiety and acoustic tones, but to be fair, Abrams is a lot more optimistic than her inspirations, with her breathy pleading that this relationship is going to work out over acoustic guitars that don’t feel relentless,  but do feel like they never end, just keep going, and the song keeps on adding elements that don’t stop them or alleviate the anxious playing at all. The same thing can be said about Gracie’s vocal take, or the wonky synth subtly placed into the chorus - classic Dessner - and the little lyrical details that make this feel as real as it does - if she’s invested, then damn, so am I, it feels like my friend is rambling or venting to me about the “tea” as the kids say and I’m on the edge of my seat. Surprisingly enough, of all things that sold me on this ballad, it’s the intensity, and the drums ramping up by the end into a rolick makes me forgive how derivative this feels… mostly because it’s doing a better job at this sound and concept than Swift is, statistically, half of the time, and emulates O-Rod’s youthful authenticity a bit less obnoxiously than she typically pulls. I know that’s a feature, not a bug, but I still prefer when it’s patched out. Excellent song.

#40 - “These Walls” - Dua Lipa

Produced by Danny L Harle and Andrew Wyatt

I wasn’t over the Moon with Radical Optimism the way I was with Future Nostalgia, mostly because outside of a nice vibe, the songs felt artifically short, awkwardly constructed and not nearly as adventurous or even cohesive as the people involved, or “Houdini” as a lead single, would have suggested. I wrote about her latest #1 album more at length on my RateYourMusic listening log - account name’s exclusivelytopostown, check it out if you care - but this was an obvious choice for the next single, because it’s one of the album’s tightest, with that psychedelic guitar lick blossoming amidst a mixture of trinkling keys before we slap right into an actually fittingly stiff pop rock groove, with a nice, subtle crunchy drum fill in the mix that I find a really interesting, distorted inclusion. It really helps the song feel claustrophobic and fed up, as the content is about the pre-empting of a breakup wherein both Dua and her partner are stuck in a frustratingly disappointing relationship where the love just… isn’t really there anymore, but they don’t want to face the reality of separation because that might be harder to grapple with than just keeping silent. For once on this album, the bridge doesn’t feel smashed in post-haste, Hell, it might not even need a bridge, and Harle’s attention to detail is on full display here, as the post-chorus keeps the dissonance going by making Dua just slightly off-key, it’s brilliant. A very tightly written and composed pop song, as well as possibly the record’s most vulnerable and honest moment, in an album that otherwise coasts off vibes. I definitely think this one could help a great deal with the record’s success later down the line.

Conclusion

Whoo, that was a lot, huh? Well, Best of the Week goes to Kendrick Lamar, obviously, for both “meet the grahams” and “Not Like Us”, but it was closer than you’d expect for Gracie Abrams who takes the Honourable Mention with “Risk”. This was actually a pretty great week overall for song quality, at least within the new tracks, so despite Teddy trying to hold his ship together, it still sinks and grants him the Dishonourable Mention for “The Door”. As for the Worst of the Week, I’d say I feel bad for Drake considering he got destroyed this week already but if what Kendrick is saying is true, I think I’d rather not say I feel bad for him at all. And if what Drake is saying is true… well, let’s just say “Family Matters”. Thank you for reading, rest in peace to rock engineering legend Steve Albini, Eurovision next week, and I’ll see you then.

[ickletheficklepickle]

Get ready to grab your pitchforks for what I am about to say.

I’m equally sad yet happy they cut the karaoke scene, cause I’m sure I would be having second hand embarrassment from that scene alone.

The party already looks lit and crazy and If it appears in a montage, I think i will be okay with it.

And I’m more excited about Maddie and Chimney finally getting married. That’s what it should be about.

I am just happy that the show is back after being on hiatus for 2 weeks. Okay! My Thursday nights have been “oh i guess I’ll just watch something else” when I rather would’ve been watching a new episode of 911.

EDIT:

Thought of something else.

Also if something happened between Buck and Eddie during that scene that could be like “OH SHIT” then I’m glad they cut it.

Considering one is in a relationship and one is just starting one, the cheating troupe from both of them is something that I don’t want at all. And how well received Buck/Tommy are, which I bet you they aren’t expecting, maybe they re-watched there footage and were like “yeah, that has to go, because look at XYZ” then it had to go.

Also- the episode should be more on Maddie and Chimney okay. Thought I’d say that again. This is their day, they can do a little shout out to the Hangover, for a bit of the episode but it mainly should be about the wedding and finding the groom.

[pengychan]

[Baldur’s Gate III] Hell to Pay, Ch. 30

Illustration by @raphaels-little-beast

Title: Hell to Pay Summary: Assassinating an archdevil is a daunting task, even for the heroes of Baldur’s Gate. Some inside help from ‘the devil they know’ would be good, if not for the detail their last meeting ended with said devil dead in his own home. Or did it? Characters: Raphael, the Dark Urge, Astarion, Haarlep, Halsin, Karlach, Wyll. Rating: E Status: In progress

All chapters will be tagged as ‘hell to pay’ on my blog. Also on Ao3.

*** Okay but is it me or is having a sister a really bad idea in BG3? Never seems to go down well. (Also there's art in chapter 10 now, check it out!) ***

“... Well. I can see why they call this layer the Circle of Ruins. I really didn’t think anything could stink worse than the Scab, but I stand corrected. This makes lovely Ethel’s swamp look and smell like a wildflower meadow.”

“I warned you, did I not?”

Astarion made a face, looking down at his soiled boot. The road they were on had half-crumbled into the stinking mire all around them, and his left boot had sunk into rotting mud almost all the way to the cuff. He’d managed to pull his leg free with considerable effort, and with a rather disgusting sucking sound. “You didn’t warn us of the stench nearly enough, devil. I’d have insisted on getting some nose clips before leaving if you had bothered to.”

“I am not certain I could stand listening to your voice if it got even more nasal than it already is,” Raphael replied, his own voice somewhat muffled from behind the Dark Justiciar mask. 

Astarion huffed. “Careful there, devil. You’re hurting my feelings.”

“All three of them?”

“Oh, wonderful. Now he thinks he’s funny. Who gave him the idea he’s funny?”

“I mean, it was a little funny.”

“Et tu, Karlach?”

“Bless you.”

Walking at the back of the group, Durge chuckled and turned to glance over at Halsin. He was stoic as always, but his lips were pressed together in a thin line, and it was a pretty good indication that all was not well. Avernus lacked anything resembling nature, but Maladomini was different. The polluted mire and canals all around them, the sickly green light from fires flickering on its surface, rotting stumps of dead trees emerging from the sludge like the hand of someone drowning, gasping for a last breath… it was worse than the absence of nature. It was the utter corruption of it, and Raphael had warned them of that well enough. 

“Cania is a wasteland, but Maladomini is diseased,” he had said when Durge asked. “I am not saying that the Eighth will be much better for him, but I guarantee it certainly won’t be worse.”

Halsin had known what to expect, and had still chosen to come with them, even as the desire to return to Reithwin Town, to his new home and the children who looked to him like a father, must have been almost overwhelming. Of that, Durge would always be grateful.

“We won’t stay for long. Just enough to be granted passage,” they promised once again.

Halsin smiled, even if it clearly took him some effort. “Do not worry for me. I can bear it.”

Durge blinked. The beginning of a headache pulsed in their skull. “... Really?”

“Oh. I did not intend that as a pun.” Halsin chuckled, and this time it was a little more heartfelt. He glanced ahead, and so did Durge. Before them was a dilapidated structure, by the side of the road - a tollhouse perhaps, with a cornugon perched on top, a pitchfork in hand. He did not immediately turn hostile, but did come down the roof with a few beats of huge wings, and landed just ahead of them in the middle of the road. 

“... Let me do the talking,” Raphael spoke quietly, as though any of them would have suggested otherwise. He stepped forward and spoke in Infernal, pulling something from beneath his blazer - a letter Lord Bel had given him before they left, the seal in it glowing red with arcane power. Proof of its sender, and of its intended recipient. The cornugon must have sensed something, and narrowed his eyes before speaking. Raphael replied again, and the devil grunted before throwing his head back and letting out a screeching call.

As more cornugons landed, Raphael turned to look at them. Mask and all, Durge could tell he was smirking. “We have been granted safe passage and an audience with Lord Baalzebul as envoys of the new Lord of the First,” he said, and nodded ahead of them. In the distance, against a blue-black sky, through a greenish mist, was the outline of a sprawling city.

Malagard awaited, and there was no way to go but forward.

***

The reeve of Dawnrift, Raphael found, was a particularly unpleasant creature. 

With how he clung to any gold coin thrown his way, it was a small wonder Mammon had not laid a claim on him long before Raphael made contact, pretending to be a wealthy merchant - not entirely a lie, that - interested in establishing a trade relationship. That, and he was an imbecile who was not nearly as good as he thought he was at hiding the fact he skimmed money from the tax he collected.

Still, an imbecile in a position of power is generally a useful one. Particularly when as vulnerable to blackmail as that one, but for now blackmail was not needed. There was no reason for Raphael to rush into anything until he’d worked out precisely what he could get out of him.

“My apologies, sir,” a servant spoke at the door, causing the man to trail off in the middle of a long-winded, rather excruciating ramble about a long family history which Raphael knew for a fact to be false. “Craric insists on seeing you now.”

A scoff. “Can you not see I am--”

“He has concerns about the trade route through the mountain pass. He has brought your new armor, but won’t hand it over until you hear him out.”

The reeve was a man whose fighting days, if there had ever been such days for him, were well and truly behind him. But he was also vain and with a tendency to take creative liberties with the image of himself he presented, and the armor was clearly a vital part of that image. So he sighed, and gestured for the servant to let the armorer through. 

“You’ll have to forgive Craric, he’s a stubborn goat as most dwarves are. He got it into his head that something is happening near the mountain pass, but the trade route is as safe as it’s ever been. A couple of cargos went missing because he trusted the wrong people with the goods, if you ask me.”

A lie, that; Raphael could tell without even needing to peer into the man’s mind. He did know that the route through the mountain pass was not as safe as he was trying to make it sound, even though he was not concerned enough to take action - yet. Raphael nodded along, pretending to be none the wiser, taking a mental note to take a look for himself. There was a monastery along the road, one dedicated to Lathander, and he knew for a fact they held at least one valuable relic there. If trouble brewed, he mused, he may yet find a chance to get his hands on it. 

He was still mulling over it when the door opened and the armorer walked in long strides. Well, long strides compared to his stature, at least. He was carrying no armor: that dubious honor went to another gold dwarf, a woman who looked much younger than Craric and staggered a little under the full weight. 

“Well, here I am, sir, with your armor,” he spat, entirely ignoring Raphael’s presence. “Are you going to do something about shipments going missing the second they leave this godsforsaken place?”

The reeve cleared his throat. “I am certain we can speak of this at a better--”

A scoff. “No better time than now, if the gentleman,” a glance at Raphael, “is looking to do business here. He should know that - excuse my elvish - shit goes missing on its way out and in. Shit, and the people who carry it. Bet our reeve didn’t tell you that.”

The reeve in question scowled, red-faced. Raphael held back a sigh, and turned to glance at a small table in a corner of the room where a game of lanceboard had been abandoned. The white knights were all but lost, placed as they were, vulnerable to the rooks.

A good enough player could move the blacks to victory in five moves or perhaps less; a truly ingenious player could salvage a seemingly unwinnable game for the whites, but it would require several more moves and a certain degree of idiocy from the opponent. Still calculating the outcomes, Raphael idly listened to the discussion unfolding. 

“Craric, enough! Nothing is amiss on the trade way--”

“Nothing amiss my ass! Two shipments--!”

“You’ve been hiring unreliable couriers, new to the job - they probably left with the goods once they got the first half of their payment!”

“Different people, twice in two months? I don’t think--”

“Or they took a wrong turn, if they were so new to the job. Wrong enough to find themselves up in the shadow-cursed lands.” Raphael’s voice caused both man and dwarf to fall silent, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. Raphael glanced back at them, and smiled pleasantly. “If that is the case, I doubt any of them shall be seen again.”

“I… that…” the armorer seemed to hesitate, then he cleared his throat and scowled at the reeve. “Very well. Tell you what - I’ll make sure to give clear instructions to the next couriers, but if one more load goes missing, you’ll have to look--”

“It’s not just goods!” The other dwarf, the young woman, spoke suddenly. She had placed the armor down on a nearby armchair, and had been listening in silence until now. “Letters are not going through either. I wrote to my sister at the Rosymor--”

Craric smacked her across the face with a hand clad in tough leather, causing her head to whip to the side. The woman’s curly hair covered most of her face as she pressed a hand against her mouth, but it was clear that he’d either split a lip or made her nose bleed: a few drops of blood had splattered on the white cuff of Raphael’s sleeve. 

He frowned, and scratched at the stain with a fingernail while the dwarf snapped.

“I didn’t give you leave to speak, girl!” He lifted a hand again, causing her to flinch. “I ought to--”

“I did not give you leave to stain my clothing either, and yet you did. What ought I do?”

A scoff, a glare. “You ought to take your clothing and stick it up your--” 

He did not finish the sentence: a look from Raphael, a silent spell, and the words faded in a sharp intake of breath as fear took hold. Craric stepped back, cowering, under the stunned gaze of both the woman and the reeve. He fell in a corner and there he remained,  trembling and whimpering,  both hands over his head.

The reeve stared, taken aback. “What did you--”

A gesture from Raphael and he, too, fell silent. He stared in the distance, jaw slack, and remained motionless in his seat while some drool dripped from the corner of his mouth. “Much better,” Raphael smiled,  and turned his attention back on the woman. 

The hair was off her face now, revealing a split lip and blood on her chin, as well a still healing bruise on her cheek and the vestiges of a black eye. She stared at him with wide eyes, and flinched when Raphael cast a healing spell with a gesture and a murmur. She took in a sharp breath, touching the now unbroken lip before she spoke. “... What are you?” she whispered.

Raphael smiled again, and poured some of the reeve's wine in two cups. He took one, and leaned back on his seat. “I am a man of great compassion and boundless curiosity,” he said, and gestured for her to take the other cup. She did, but did not drink until she saw Raphael drink some himself. “My name is Raphael. And yours, if I may enquire?”

“Korrilla.”

“A pleasure to meet you, truly.” He bowed his head slightly, and took another sip from the cup. This time, she did too. “Now, you mentioned letters to the Rosymorn monastery going unanswered. I may be inclined to look into it, if you tell me more,” he added, and she did. 

When he’d arrived at Dawnrift that morning, Raphael had yet to truly get a feel of what he may gain out of this small town a stone’s throw from the Trielta Hills, other than a good place to keep an eye on the Rosymorn monastery and the Trade Way. Looking back many years later, he’d have to acknowledge that a new warlock and a decades-long obsession were not precisely among the possibilities he’d envisioned. It had been an unpredictable outcome, truly.

And Raphael had always, always hated the unpredictable.

***

Very much unlike its ruler, Malagard did not seem to have changed since Raphael had last visited it as the Steward of Avernus.

Granted, walls and buildings had been torn down, others yet rebuilt; heaps of rubbish may have been moved one way or the other, as the denizens of the Seventh tried desperately to restore the city to its long lost glory - but it was a lost cause if there ever was one, and the city remained a crumbling ruin. The palace itself, at least, was no longer made quite literally of filth.

The Lord of the Seventh himself looked vastly different. Gone was the bloated, slug-like creature he’d been turned into as punishment, one year for each lie he’d ever told another devil. His crimes paid for, he had left the most humiliating part of his punishment behind, and seemed intent on never risking such retaliation from Asmodeus by lying to a devil again.

He remained a far cry from the archon he had been when he’d been called Triel, rumored to have been beautiful even by celestial standards, but he’d reverted back to a humanoid form which was at least pleasant to behold - once one could get past the compound eyes, everything like those of a fly. Those eyes glittered as the cornugons led Raphael and the others into the dimly lit throne room, the cracked and crooked walls covered in priceless tapestries. 

Raphael gestured for the others to stand back, and stepped forward. “They bring word from the new Lord of the First, Lord Baalzebul,” one of the cornugons spoke as Raphael knelt, face still covered by the mask, and he held up the sealed envelope. The arcane magic in it made it shine, and the Lord of the Seventh smiled faintly. 

“An interesting development, that in Avernus. I suspect I know who hides behind that mask,” he said, and held out a hand. The envelope floated from Raphael’s own hand to his, and Baalzebul easily broke the seal, the magic in it recognizing him as the recipient. He read the letter penned by Bel and then, finally, he smiled. He gestured for his guard to come closer and said something in a low voice.

A nod, and the guards left - all of them, not deigning Raphael or any of his companions of another look. They closed the door behind themselves, leaving them alone with the Archduke of Maladomini. Then, and only then, did Baalzebul speak again. 

“I shall not pretend the Hells are a place to make friends, but the enemy of an enemy comes close enough. And your sire has been my enemy for a very long time, child of Mephisto. Please, rise, and remove that mask. Your companion should be at ease, too. You’re my guests now, if for a short time, and no harm shall befall any guest of mine. I know you’re not planning to stay for long.”

Raphael bowed his head a moment before he rose, and took the mask off his face. “Thank you, Lord of the Seventh. It has been a long time since I last had the chance to visit Malagard. I understand I look quite different now.”

Baalzebul stared a moment before letting out a laugh. His teeth gleamed white amidst sable skin. “Hah! Not as different as I do, certainly. And I mean to keep it that way, which means I shall not lie to you.”

Again, Raphael bowed his head. “You have my thanks, your lordship, although you are sworn not to lie to other devils. At present, I am not one.”

“Not in form, perhaps, but it is not an assumption I intend to test.” Baalzebul paused for a moment, and looked over at the others, standing a few paces behind Raphael. He smiled. “I heard of your companions too, although admittedly of some more than others. Karlach the demonsbane, of course, was already a known name. Of the Blade of Avernus, too, I have heard. And the chosen of Bhaal, who rejected his maker and lived to tell the tale. Tell me, how was it possible?”

Durge bowed their head slightly. “I did not live, Lord Baalzebul. Bhaal did extinguish my life.”

“And yet, here you stand.”

“A seneschal brought me back, so I may fulfill a mission.”

“A mighty powerful seneschal, it must have been.”

“Very.”

“I see.” Beelzebul nodded. His gaze paused a moment before he chuckled. “Ah, a perfect glamor. Most devils may not even see through it, but I can indeed. You must be Haarlep.”

Haarlep tilted their head, or at least the head or the tiefling whose form they were using at the moment. “You know me, Lord Baalzebul? I’m flattered,” they replied. While sultry as always, their voice betrayed a hint of nervousness to a trained ear. They had not expected it, clearly. 

“I heard of you from our common source. One which we are both sworn not to name until Raphael reaches Cania,” he added.

The nervousness faded, and Haarlep nodded back. “Ah, I see. Of course.”

Baalzebul turned his gaze once more, and the smile became apologetic when his gaze fell on Astarion and Halsin. “I’m afraid I know little of you, if not that you are both fierce fighters.”

“He’d have heard about me if I’d Ascended,” Raphael heard Astarion muttering, although his words did not seem to carry to the Lord of the Flies. He cleared his throat and was quick to speak up before Baalzebul could ask him to repeat himself. 

“Druid Halsin was instrumental in ending a sharran curse in the Material Plane, and Astarion stopped a ritual which would have granted Mephistopheles seven thousand souls.”

At that, the Lord of the Flies laughed, long and loud. When he spoke again, he was still smiling and his visage was, for a moment, beautiful once more. “Seven thousand! Ah, it does please me greatly to hear. Your sire owes a great debt to many of his fellow archdukes, as I’m sure you’re aware, borrowing divine energy in a mad gamble that I doubt shall pay off. Losing a contract such as that must have made him furious.”

Raphael grimaced. “... That it did. I felt his fury quite keenly, believe me.”

“Ah, was it your doing then?” Another smile, delighted, telling Raphael in no uncertain terms he had just made the archduke’s day. Or year. “Well then, I have yet more reason to be of assistance if I can. Do tell me, what do you need from me?” he added, as though he did not know. Even if the letter he’d just read did not spell it out, it would have been an easy enough guess. Still, there was a pantomime to keep going, and Raphael obliged. 

“You know what has befallen me, Lord of the Seventh, and certainly you know I intend to be whole again. I have come to you to humbly request your help in securing passage to Cania. I know your Maladominaar guard the passage fiercely, as do my sire’s gelugons on the other side. But surely, you would know a way through that may allow us to go through from the Seventh to the Eighth with Mephisto none the wiser.”

Baalzebul said nothing for a few moments: he just observed him with those compound eyes of his, almost shimmering in the faint light, and finally he stood from his throne. He towered above them all, the six-pronged horns making him taller still. 

“Of course. We stand above the most extensive network of tunnels in the Hells and, I suspect, in any Plane. I do know of ways into Cania which your sire is not aware of, as he likely and rather annoyingly is aware of passages I know nothing of. And yet more, I suspect, neither of us has discovered. There is one not too far from here, and I can offer you a guide who knows it well.” There was the sound of a heavy door being pushed open, and steps. Baalzebul looked beyond Raphael, and smiled. “Ah, there she is. I believe the two of you already know each other,” he added, and Raphael turned.

Standing in the doorway in her elven form, in a gown of green and gold, Lady Antilia smiled.

“Hello, little duke,” she said, her voice musical as ever. “It’s good to see you again.”

***

By the time Raphael reached the Rosymorn monastery, it was all over.

The monastery itself still stood, even if parts of it were damaged, and its doors were locked tight with a spell… but the corpses which littered the ground outside it told a clear enough story. Corpses of monks and clerics, for the most part, but what truly caught his attention were the bodies of several warriors who were obviously not from that Plane. Githyanki. 

Raphael frowned, crouching to examine one of the corpses. Flies were buzzing over the still open eyes, crawling over empty sockets where a bird of some kind had clearly helped itself to the softer bits. Still, the body was remarkably fresh despite the warm weather. A couple of days old at the very most. And quite helpfully, it carried a slate which gave some insight as to what githyanki had come to do.  

 Location - good. Close to road, but secluded. Building looks well-fortified. Defense - minimal - seems to be a religious building. Space - ample, underground, hidden. Was easy enough to sneak in without being observed. Prime spot for a crèche. Suggest immediate occupation. - M'lar Rih'al.

A créche - interesting, and it explained quite a lot. The couriers going missing with their cargo, letters not being delivered… they couriers must have had the bad luck of coming across githyanki scouts, and were readily dispatched as a result. Messenger pigeons had likely too been shot down, to isolate the monastery prior to the attack. If any of the worshippers of Lathander were still alive by the time the battle was done, they were likely dead by now, somewhere inside the newly established créche. Githyanki were not known to keep prisoners… not for long, anyway. 

Raphael looked over at the sealed door, pondering his options. There may be something very valuable in that monastery, but odds were that the githyanki had already sent everything of value someplace else… and whatever treasures they held was probably not worth angering them, and their queen by extension. He’d parted from Vlaakith on quite good terms, after all, and he saw no reason to change that just yet. 

Raphael sighed, and stood upright again before he turned to survey the rather ruinous scene. A day wasted, but he could yet cut his losses and head to Daggerfort that evening, to see if what remained of the once esteemed Exeltis family was willing to take him up on his most generous offer. There was no need to head back to Dawnrift to tell Korrilla that her sister was certainly dead: breaking such news would gain him little gratitude if any at all, and was not worth the effort. A shame, that. She seemed clever enough, and an extra pair of eyes in the region would not hurt, but he had no time to deal with some grief-stricken--

A loud, yowling sound snapped Raphael from his thoughts. It came from the rocky outcrops below, just out of sight. He’d have dismissed it, if not for the fact it was followed by more yowls, hissing noises, and suddenly - a voice.

“Nonononono! Keep away! I like cats, but I don’t like you! Stay back!”

Well. Someone was alive after all, and it didn’t sound like a githyanki. Raphael walked up to the ledge and looked down. Several feet below, a dwarven woman was sitting against the rocky side of the precipice. She was holding a quarterstaff, which she was using as a club to keep a pack of seven gremishkas at bay.

She was wounded; Raphael could see she was keeping a hand pressed against her side, and the armor there was pierced and stained with dried blood. A lone survivor, although the gremishkas were looking to make her their next meal. Raphael may have walked off and let it happen, if not for the fact that she was a gold dwarf. There was certainly more than one dwarf who happened to be a cleric of Lathander, but Raphael supposed it would not hurt to check.

“My, my. You seem to have run into some trouble,” he spoke, causing the woman to wince and look up, and the gremishkas to hiss. She stared at him for a few moments before she smiled; it took Raphael aback for a moment before he realized it was more akin to a panicked rictus than a real smile, the expression of someone scared out of her wits. She had, after all, seen the entire monastery slaughtered… and was now moments away from joining them.

“Oh! Congratulations! You do have eyes!” she exclaimed, and her features twisted into a grimace when she tried to move. One of her legs, Raphael noticed, was bent at an unnatural angle. “Yes, I am in an awful lot of trouble. Also in an awful lot of pain. Everybody else is dead - not a great day - and I could really use--”

“Hope?”

“Wha--” A gremishka tried to leap on her, and she whacked it with her staff just on time. It struck the creature in the head, sending it tumbling off the ledge with a cry. “I mean, yes, I do tend to have that, but a little bit of help would also be appreciated. You know. Once you’re done standing there looking handsome.”

Raphael bit back an admittedly childish urge to congratulate her for having eyes as well. “Why, thank you kindly. What I meant to ask is - are you Hope, by any chance?”

“... How do you know my name?”

Well, it looked like the day had not been completely wasted after all. If he took her back, that would make two mortals indebted with him. Even without a contract spelling out exact terms, mortals who felt they had a debt to pay back could be quite useful: you never know when you may need a favor repaid… and getting a cleric of Lathander to serve him would be quite the delicious irony, really. So Raphael smiled, and lifted a hand. Casting spells against  gremishka was counterproductive, but close as they were to the edge of the precipice it really was no issue. One thunderwave and they fell off it, screaming, to their deaths. 

“Huh.” Hope stared a moment, blinking, and finally put the quarterstaff down with a long groan while Raphael cast misty step to join her on the ledge. He preferred not to reveal his true nature until he had to, and like nearly everyone else she was none the wiser. 

“Oh, thank you. Sorry I got all snappy. As I said, bad day. I really thought I was done for.”

“It does seem you were luckier than most. I found no other survivors.” A healing spell, and he stepped back to watch her stand up again with a groan, cautiously trying her weight on the injured leg while leaning on the staff. “A githyanki attack - I don’t imagine you were able to hold them back for long.”

She sighed, her features twisting in sorrow. “The best part of two days. We couldn’t keep them out, though. One had a dragon, for pity's sake. Myself and a couple of the monks came outside to try and distract them long enough for…” a pause, a sigh. “Well, it didn’t work. I fell down here at some point and when I woke up again, everything was quiet. I’m not even sure how long I’ve been out. Where did the githyanki go?”

“They’re inside, I’d wager. They were keen to establish a creché inside the monastery.”

Another mournful sigh. “This was not needed. We’d have sheltered them, if they’d asked.”

“That is not how githyanki operate, I fear,” Raphael replied, and once he could tell she was able to stand, he opened a Dimension Door. “It may be wise to head back to Dawnrift. Korrilla was quite concerned.”

Her saddened expression melted away into a smile - a real one, this time, and she followed him into the door and onto the trail some distance away. “My sister! Oh, I missed her so much, when her letters stopped and-- I thought I’d never see her again, when the githyanki came. Did she send you?”

“In a manner of speaking. I simply took the chance to offer assistance.” And shall welcome future assistance in return. But we’ll get to that later. Once you know how convenient it is to serve me. “My name is Raphael,” he added, bowing.

“Mine is-- oh wait, you already know.” A chuckle, and she shifted a little to keep using her staff as a walking aid. “Pleasure to meet you, Raphael.”

He smiled. “The pleasure is all mine,” he replied, and neither of them had any idea yet how true that statement would prove.

***

“The High Cantor has been spying on your sire’s court on my behalf for a very long time. She knows how to slip out of Cania and back in unnoticed better than anybody else. I can think of no better guide.”

Durge was not entirely sure Raphael was comprehending the words Lord Baalzebul spoke, even if certainly he must have heard them. While the others turned to look at the newcomer - an elf dressed in fine silks, with hair of silver a few shades darker than Astarion’s own which tumbled down her shoulders in loose curls - Durge kept their gaze on Raphael. 

He seemed stunned beyond words for a few moments before he worked his jaw and spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. 

“... Lady Antilia?”

A low laugh and she walked past them as though she had not even noticed them, green eyes fixed on Raphael. “So formal,” she said. “It would not displease me to be only Antilia to you, if I am still allowed to call you little duke.”

Raphael blinked, and smiled back. It was not a guarded smile; he looked incredulous still, and relieved. “I told you before, you may call me however you like.”

“It was a long time ago. Much has changed, including yourself.”

“That has not,” Raphael replied, and she chuckled before suddenly pulling him into an embrace. Durge noticed Karlach’s eyebrows shoot up almost to her hairline.

“Oh yeah, they sure have met,” she murmured, and Durge held back a chuckle. They still were not certain who they were even looking at, but Raphael was returning the embrace, and they figured it was a good sign. When they broke apart, he chuckled.

“Baalzebul’s spy. I see. Is this the reason why you always cautioned me not to trust you?”

“I can’t hide a thing from you,” she replied, her voice just a touch too soft to come across as truly mocking. A hand cupped his face. “But you could hide yourself even from your sire and his entire court, including myself. I believed you were dead.”

“I don’t expect I was mourned by many.”

“You were by me.” A long breath, and she pulled away the hand. “Lord Mephistopheles knows that you live, and has given orders to capture you. He’s seeking the incubus, too, and…” she paused, and turned to glance at them for the first time. “Well, any who’s aiding you.”

That seemed to remind Raphael that the rest of them, except perhaps Haarlep, had absolutely no clue what was going on. He cleared his throat. “Lady Antilia is the High Cantor of Mephistar,” he explained. “And an agent of Lord Baalzebul, as I am just now finding out.”

She chuckled. “What can I say? To be duplicitous is in our nature, and this form has served me well so far in keeping my activities a secret. But what you’re seeking to do is far more dangerous than anything I’d ever dare, Raphael. And it is precisely what Mephistopheles is expecting from you. He’ll be preparing as we speak to capture you, as soon as you step one foot in his domain.”

“And what would you suggest I do?”

“If you had any sense? I’d suggest you leave now. Return to the Material Plane where he may not find you. A mortal life may be short, but not as short as your sire would cut it.”

Raphael set his jaw. “Is that what you’d do, if it was half of your own soul trapped in the vaults?” he asked, and it caused Lady Antilia to pause before she sighed. 

“... No. I suppose I’d risk death before resigning myself to such a fate,” she conceded. She turned back, to Lord Baalzebul; he’d been watching, saying nothing. She bowed. “We shall make haste now, your lordship, before our presence is noticed and we may put you in a compromising position. I know a route which shall take us close to the glacier on which Mephistar stands,” she said. 

And that, love, was that.

***

“Hey, uh… sir?”

“Raphael will do, if I am allowed to call you Korrilla.”

“Right. Raphael. I-- wanted to thank you. For bringing her back, and for paying the healer.”

Reaching to put the white king back in place, Raphael let out a hum. The inn was on the small side, but it had some surprisingly decent vintages; he’d had the innkeeper being him their best, and taken a seat on an armchair by the fireplace, where a table stood with a lanceboard set. 

A pair of halflings had been playing when he stepped in - a mediocre game, too - but both had quite suddenly and conveniently fallen asleep. Raphael had taken the seat while the half-orc tasked with dealing with drunks took them outside, and was putting the pieces in place for a new game as he waited. 

Korrilla Hearthflame had not stayed upstairs for long: just long enough to help her sister settle before the healer arrived - one she had certainly not called. She could not take Hope to the armorer’s shop where she lived in conditions Raphael could only guess were rather squalid, and what little gold she’d squirreled away could barely cover the room’s rent for a few days. A healer was obviously beyond her means. 

“You are quite welcome,” he said in the end, putting the last rook down. He was entirely aware of the fact she was frowning, biting her lower lip, but he pretended not to notice - nor he spoke again until she finally did. 

“... Look, what is your game?”

Raphael drank some of the wine before looking at her, raising an eyebrow. “Are you not familiar with lanceboard?”

“Not that-- ” a pause, and she sighed. “Listen, no one does anything for nothing. I’m not so gullible I don’t know that - no one is. No one except Hope, I guess. She thinks you’re a really nice man who decided to come and help her out of kindness.”

Raphael hummed, and gestured for her to sit on the armchair across him. He filled another cup of wine as she did, and handed it to Korrilla. “And you do not?”

“I know better,” she replied, but did take the cup. “Craric said he wanted to help, too, when our parents died and he took me in to work. Said he’d teach me a trade, and pay me enough to provide for Hope - she’s my little sister, I had to take care of her. Guess we did all right, so there is that. She went to the temple, became a cleric and all. And I was left in his shithole.”

“I imagine treating you fairly was not among the promises this Craric made. Or feeding you well,” he added. She was naturally stocky as dwarves were even when malnourished, but hunger was plain in the hollow cheeks, in how she kept eyeing the food being taken out of the kitchen. Raphael tilted his head towards the kitchen door. “I’ve opened a tab. Go on.”

Korrilla bit her lower lip, and frowned. “Not until you tell me what you’re looking to get out of helping me.”

“I am a man who likes having eyes and ears on the ground, and I don’t have many in this charming corner of the Sword Coast. Dawnrift is close to the Trade Way, not far from the shadow-cursed land, and now there is a githyanki créche a scant day’s walk away.” Raphael took a swig from his cup. “Is it any surprise that I’d want to be informed of anything of note that may occur? Information is a valuable currency. Of course, you would be paid in gold.” 

He snapped his fingers, and two things appeared on the table before her: a small pouch with enough coin to get by for some time, and a sending stone she may use to contact him. She stared at both for a moment before she took them, and nodded. “... Very well,” she said, and asked no more questions. Smart, that. Raphael smiled, and gestured to the lanceboard.

“Do you know how to play?” he asked.

She did.

***

“Oh gods, I’m exhausted. ”

“I do apologize,” Lady Antilia spoke, her voice soft as velvet, while the mortals accompanying them proceeded to drop on their bedrolls with varying degrees of dignity. “I failed to account for your need to rest.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Raphael replied, with a rather remarkable attempt at not looking like he was absolutely exhausted from the day’s march. Not remarkable enough to fool Haarlep, of course, but then again they could see through him like it was their second nature. They were kind enough not to comment on that… and Durge was kind enough not to say anything when he leaned in and told them quietly, if not quietly enough , to get the good wine out of their bag instead of the usual muck.

As if that is going to make much difference in a meal of cold cuts and cheese consumed sitting on the ground, for someone used to the finest banquets Mephistar has to offer.

It was almost endearing, really. Almost two thousand years old, and the youthful infatuation was still there. Haarlep chuckled and sat, choosing to say nothing either. 

They had decided to stop in one of the many subterranean caves in Maladomini’s vast underground network, and an empty one at that. Lady Antilia truly did know her way down there, and it was good: the last thing they needed was to walk into one of the many hidden and heavily guarded underground storehouses which abounded in that layer, and find themselves with a fight on their hands. 

But the journey up to then had been uneventful, a close brush with a giant centipede aside. A couple of glyphs of warding at the entrance and exit, a daylight spell to give them some light, and it felt… safe enough to eat and rest in the cave. Much like Haarlep, Lady Atilia had no true need to eat, but she accepted the food gracefully, and seemed to enjoy the wine. 

She was still in her elven form, but she certainly didn’t hide the fact she too was a half-fiend. With an incubus among them as well as Raphael, none of their companions seemed to think much of it… although the tiefling did seem guarded, her weapon never far from her side.

“We’ll reach Cania within a few hours once we get going again,” Lady Antilia was explaining, holding her cup of wine in both hands. She tied her hair back in a braid and was still dressed in her silks; despite the long trek her clothing did not show a single wrinkle, not a smudge. “The passage opens on the side of a peak, near enough the base. From there, it won’t be long to go before we reach Nargus.”

Astarion frowned. “And Nargus is…?” 

“The glacier on which Mephistar is built,” Durge replied, pushing a bowl of candied almonds towards Raphael. If anyone other than Haarlep noticed him grabbing a handful to shove it in his mouth - with none of the dignity he’d been trying to carry himself with since the instant Lady Antilia had made her presence known - they were kind enough not to remark on that. 

Durge’s reply caused Lady Antilia to look over with a chuckle. “Ah, of course you’d have to be well-informed. It was quite the heist, what you pulled with the Crown. To say Lord Mephistopheles was furious would be quite the understatement. How did you accomplish that? Even with a portal to Mephistar, getting inside the vault itself can’t have been easy.”

Durge tilted their head. “I don’t suppose it was, no. But unfortunately, I recall next to nothing of the heist. My memory has been… damaged by events that followed.”

“Oh?” Lady Antilia frowned, her curiosity piqued. “Was it the illithid tadpole?”

“Their sister wanted to be daddy’s favorite and performed an impromptu lobotomy on them,” Astarion replied. “As someone with a few less than ideal siblings, I have to admit Orin was a bit much even for me.”

Durge chuckled, but they had that distant cast to their gaze that Haarlep had noticed they tended to get whenever their sister or father were mentioned. “Children of Bhaal were encouraged to turn their blades against one another. After all, there could only be one Chosen. I’d have done the same if our roles were reversed. Although perhaps I’d have slaughtered her on our father's altar, rather than planting the tadpole.”

“Not anymore, you wouldn’t,” Halsin spoke, gently, and Durge shrugged. 

“I am not what I was, and it’s partly because of her. She meant to destroy me, but only set me free. I regret I never had the chance to do the same for her.”

Wyll reached over to put a hand on their shoulder. “There was nothing else we could do,” he reminded them, gaining himself a nod. 

“Yes. I know,” they replied, then seemed to push such thoughts in the back of their mind and looked back at Lady Antilia. “Either way, I fear my prior experience of entering the vaults won’t be of help. I recall next to nothing of that event, and my accomplice is no longer alive to give an account.”

Lady Antilia, who’d been staring in silence for a few moments as though lost in her own thoughts, seemed to recoil. “Ah-- yes, of course. It is a shame you do not recall, but then again Lord Mephistopheles has taken measures since. It’s likely that whatever weaknesses in security you may have exploited then are no longer there,” she said, and Durge nodded.

“It makes sense, yes.”

The next hour or so was mostly considerations of how long it would take to cover the distance between their entry point and Mephistar - no more than a few hours - and possible ways to gain entry unnoticed. It was at that point that Haarlep spoke.

“... I know who may help us get inside,” they said, causing everyone to look over. “But again, my lips are sealed. I have no leave to speak of any of it until we reach Cania and I am given leave to talk.”

“A pact of silence, then. Interesting,” Lady Antilia muttered. “It’s something akin to what a patron will impose on a warlock.”

Wyll nodded. “I know something of that,” he said, passing the plate with the last of the cheese to Karlach. “It renders you physically unable to reveal relevant information in any way.”

“Precisely. And I’ve been warned that if I try too hard to speak of it, my tongue will freeze and fall off.” Haarlep sighed. “It may be an empty threat, but I am not going to take the risk. As Raphael can attest, it would be a terrible loss,” they added, causing Raphael to nearly choke on his wine and glare at him over the cup. 

They responded with the most innocent smile in their repertoire which was in truth not innocent at all - and which, elegantly as always, Lady Antilia pretended not to have noticed.

“Well then, once we’re in Cania you shall hopefully be able to count on their assistance to reach the vaults,” she said. “I am afraid I can help you no further than getting you to Nergus.”

“It is more than any of us could ask of you,” Raphael spoke, bowing his head. “And I am grateful for your help.”

A pause, a faint smile. “It’s little help, in the face of what awaits you. But I understand why you don’t feel you have a choice,” she said, and those were the last words she spoke before the time came to extinguish the lights and get some rest. 

For Raphael and the mortals, at least; fiends and half-fiends had no such pressing need for sleep, and thus it was only natural that Haarlep and Antilia stood guard. As they sat next to the entrance to the tunnel they had come from, Haarlep looked over to see the High Cantor of Mephistar - and, as they had found, a spy of Baalzebul - settle down by the tunnel they’d travel forward into once their rest was done. 

Still, glancing over, it didn’t escape Haarlep how she wasn’t always focused on the tunnel at all. Over and over through that night she’d turn to glance to the spot where Raphael slept, chewing her lower lip bloody, saying nothing.

***

“You’re doing it wrong!”

“No, I am not.”

The knife slices through skin and fat, through muscle and sinew as if through butter. The incision opens to reveal the organs inside, some still almost pulsing, saturated with blood. He can open bodies artfully and efficiently, a skill he took great pains to master. But his unholy Father was right - to slaughter and butcher with a clear mind keeps the urges at bay. 

He knows now that the Urge only takes him when he’s gone too long without shedding blood in Bhaal’s name. As long as he keeps at it, as long as the Chosen of Bhaal gives his master his due, that madness shall never seize him again. What does the pouting child trying to snatch the knife from his hands know of all this?

She never experienced the Urge.  Though born and raised in the cult of Bhaal, she is no pure bhaalspawn like himself. It is as his butler says: weeds that sprung from Bhaal's loins, her and Sarevok both. He is the Chosen for a reason, and Orin could use a reminder.

“You’re making it boring. Dry as bone.” Orin huffs, barely tall enough to reach his hip and yet so convinced, somehow, that she would make a more artful work of it all. She has talents - her mother’s corpse could testify as much, if it could speak - but knowing when to keep her mouth shut is not among them. “Grandfather was right. It made no sense to make you the Chosen. You didn’t even grow up here. Lord Bhaal made you and threw you out, and then the butler found you and dragged you back in like a stray.”

“Yet, I am Bhaal's Chosen,” he replies, breathing out slowly as he makes the next cut. The liver comes out whole, not a nick on it, and he places it in the first empty jar.

“And it’s not fair.” A whiny quality to her voice, the kind which may be expected from a girl of twelve but certainly not from an Unholy Assassin of Bhaal. And somehow, Orin is both. “I did everything right. I am  the youngest ever assassin. You didn’t claim the mantle until you were six-and-ten!”

The Chosen of Bhaal scoffs lightly. He doesn’t so much look up from the corpse he’s gutting, almost inebriated by the scent of blood. He has never looked towards Orin, who is just a voice somewhere on his left. “If you wish to question Bhaal’s judgment, do go ahead.”

“... I will be his Chosen one day.”

She may as well have told him that she intends to kill him, because that is precisely what her words amount to. Twirling the knife between his fingers, a heart in his other hand, the Chosen knows that there is a simple way to keep her from ever trying - slaughtering her, there and now. It is nothing, he knows, which would cause all that much anger from his lord father. Nothing he could not atone for before she is forgotten, one more bhaalspawn that failed to make a mark, never to be mourned. He’s thought of just ending the girl many times. 

And yet, he never does. He does not know what stays his hand, nor does he wonder too hard about it. She lives and one day, it will save him - put him on a path he would have otherwise never had a chance to walk. Orin will save him, not meaning to, in her pettiness and pain.

And she will be doomed either way. 

SHE WALKS IN MY DOMAIN NOW.

Bhaal’s voice is everywhere, and the Chosen cries out, dropping the knife, grasping his head. It screams and pounds, his brain a mass of shrieking agony. The smell of blood chokes him.

BATHED IN BLOOD, UNDER A RED SKY WITH A RED SUN, AT THE END OF TIME. A DOMAIN YOU SHALL NEVER SEE. YOU ARE NO SON OF MINE. BUT SHE BELONGS TO ME STILL. MINE FROM THE START, AND YOU COULD NEVER SAVE HER. 

Durge lets out a gargling scream, and falls on their knees. There is a voice through their own scream, through the pain - voices, several, and they’re voices they know. 

"Durge!"

"Love, can you hear--"

"Hey, soldier--!"

They follow their companions' voices as they pull them, again, away from the nightmare of Bhaal’s grasp.

***

“It was only a nightmare, I promise. I’ll be fine.”

It was the truth, but it still took a while for the others to truly believe them, and to sit back. Astarion was still grasping their hand, and Halsin too was not moving far. Out of the corner of their eye Durge had seen Raphael reaching out, too, before he seemingly thought better of it and pulled his hand away. He still looked concerned, though, and Durge made a point to grin at him. 

“My apologies. I suspect you had better awakenings than that,” they said, and Raphael stared a moment before he scoffed. 

“Rest assured, I had worse ones as well,” he said, and breathed out.

Durge chuckled, but in the back of his mind he could still hear it - Orin’s cries at the dawning realization of how she’d truly come to be, of the horror of it all. For a brief moment, there had been an opening… one Bhaal had been quick to close, before Durge could try to reach out. 

“No. Not him, not him... I did all this for him. Everything... everything ...!”

“No, Orin. You did this for me.”

"Bhaal... Father, they lie to me. They lie!"

“Hush, child. No more doubts, no more fears, no more Orin. Become murder.”

And that had been the end of it, with the sound of bones and sinews snapping and reshaping - the Slayer forced upon an unwilling, screaming Chosen who’d found out in the worst way that to be chosen is to be owned. The only reward that came from serving Bhaal was pain, blood and death. The only gifts he bestowed upon his children, at the end of it all. 

“How’s your head, soldier?” Karlach was asking, snapping Durge from their thoughts. They grimaced 

“Hurts as usual, but it will dull. Don’t worry. I am quite used to--”

“May I?”

Durge hadn’t noticed Lady Antilia coming closer, but there she was crouching before them. She held up a hand over their forehead, not touching but almost, and then she began to sing. It was not in any language Durge recognized - it was Infernal, so grating and yet so oddly melodic - but they could recognize a song of healing. 

A powerful one, too: soon, the agony in their skull had shrunk to a dull throb. That never went away, but they had long since learned to live with it. By the time the High Cantor pulled back, Durge was letting out a long sigh of relief. “Thank you,” they said. “That was very helpful.”

A smile. “You’re quite welcome. Your sister must have been unpleasant indeed, for you to cry her name in your nightmares.”

Ah. They hadn’t realized as much. Durge drew in a long breath, and looked away. “She met an unpleasant fate at the hands of Bhaal. I’d hoped I could pull her away from the brink, too, but there was never a chance.” They cleared their throat. “How long did we sleep before…?”

“Before you began screaming like a gremishka in heat?” Astarion quipped, still holding onto their hand. “Not a clue, love.”

“I’d say about six hours,” Haarlep replied, and glanced at Lady Antilia as though to seek confirmation. She nodded. 

“That seems accurate. But I am unfamiliar with the amount of rest mortals need.”

“Ah, it varies. Halsin and I are good to go.” Astarion shrugged. “But the others are usually at least functional after six hours. Are you?” he asked, glancing over. 

Karlach grinned. “Let us have some breakfast, and we’re good,” she said, and that was it. It was an even simpler and quicker meal than the previous dinner had been, and soon they were on their feet again, ready to march on towards Cania with Lady Antilia leading them.

And as she walked ahead of them no one noticed - how could they? - the somber expression on her face.

*** [Back to Chapter 29]

[On to Chapter 31]

[Back to Start]

[yourlocalsonia2]

I read this book full of short 'scary' stories, and one caught my attention.

At first when I read the title, I thought it was a meme tbh. The title was something like "They said he moved to Ohio"...that immediately made me lower my already low expectations. BUT, I WAS WRONG

The story starts out with this guy (who I think is in high school) walking to his school. On his way he noticed something strange, THE FUCKING DEVIL HIMSELF WAS ACROSS THE STREET, he sees the red skin, horns, goat feet and legs and his pitchfork. He decides he's going to talk to him, bc he's not like other boys. While walking to the devil, he notices that he looks bored, he's looking at nothing in particular or just his claws. When he starts to talk to the devil,he just ignores him and starts to walk away. But he doesn't back down, he keeps following him and tries to spark a conversation until the devil finally stops and acknowledges him, and asks him to stop using formalities. After he does, the high schooler starts to talk without formal words, like the devil asked, but he kept talking about random stuff. They both start to have an actual conversation after a few minutes and the devil tells the boy "you can ask me three questions" and that surprises the boy "how could i only ask three questions?"he thought. He asks his first question after some thinking(I forgot what it was so I'm guessing), "what is hell like?". The devil responds with a short answer and waits for the boy's second question. The boy ponders and thinks about what he could ask, then he notices, "Is his mouth ON FIRE?!". He then proceeds to ask his second question (I forgot the wording but I know it's something like) "does your mouth hurt?" Or "why is your mouth on fire". This time the devil answers with "it hurts at first and it would burn my tongue, but you get used to it over time" and that confused the boy, he asked some other things and the devil responded with "is that your third question?". After the boy realized his mistake, he immediately responded "NO!", and he wondered about his third question. He looked around and his eyes focused on the pitchfork. His last question was "can I hold the pitchfork", the devil smiled and responded "yes" and handed the boy the pitchfork. At that moment the pitchfork was in the boys hand, a searing hot pain entered from the boy's throat and into his mouth. He gasped and covered his mouth, was it burning his tongue?! He felt another pain but at that time, it was on top of his head, like knifes coming from his skull. He realized that he needed to get rid of the pitchfork, he looked up in desperation to the devil..but..wait, where was he? In his place, there wasn't a goatman with horns and red skin. There was an old man with greying hair and he spoke to the boy in an English accent "sorry I did this to you, in due time you'll find someone else like you to trick". The boy was shocked but he couldn't say anything else, the pain was getting worse. Right before the newly old man turned away he said "like I said, you get used to the burns"

Holy shit, I just kinda rewrote the entire thing. It is currently 2:47 am and how tf did I write all of this, I don't know. The power of fnaf???? the power of horror???

[dojunie]

DOJUNIEEE IT'S BEEN TOO LONG AHHHHH. hello it's covid anon HAAHAHHA i haven't sent a message in so long BUT OH MY GOD ch 4 & 5 did NOT disappoint and as always, you always leave us with the WORST cliffhangers RAHHHHH. i can't wait to see how jeno and y/n's conversation turns out ESPECIALLY since you said that things start developing between them after ch 5. LIKE I REALLY WONDER HOW SHE'S GOING TO REACT ONCE JENO FINALY SAYS THAT HE LIKES HER AND WANTS TO BE WITH HER AHHHH.

but also holy fuck i was not expecting the soyeon and mark subplot. LIKE???? i thought soyeon was just an insignificant character BUT NOOOO. how genius of you i swear. i also was not expecting there to be riff with mark and y/n in that manner like things about him choosing soyeon over her holy shit.

i just AHHHHHH no words can describe how excited i am. (any hints for the next chap HAHAHAH just any tiny crumb will do. but if u wanna surprise us completely that's good too. u never disappoint)

ANYWAYYYY that's all for now. i really missed your writing and have been going insane ever since ch 4 got released and ur back.

P.S. in the masterlist, ch 5 is marked as VI but if i recall correctly 5 is meant to V. just thought i should let you know HAHAHAH

-covid anon

COVID ANON MY LOVE!!!!!!!!

hints??? you know i love me a little hint. i love spoilers. i love them. so i'll give you one (or two. or three)

don't bring out your pitchforks for mark just yet... u must remember that mc isn't as all-knowing as she seems, despite how insistent she is that mark is helicopter hellspawn... he has his own angle in all of this too

ch5 is going to be good for jeno/mc in terms of things moving forward, definitely, but these people are still VERY, VERY BAD at reading subtleties! if it's not explicitly laid out, things normal folk would take as obvious cues will not only be missed but will be completely misinterpreted

we still have a little ways to go before they even hold hands, dear anon. ch5 will not be the beautiful smooch and hug and confession we all deserve. there's some more rough seas to navigate before we hit the sunshine ending LOL

AND YES! someone else also mentioned the numeral thing, you're a real one for pointing it out im kissing u 🫂 do u know how many people have seen it already. im embarrassed. LMFAOOO

[crimsonxe]

Rant below the cut:

Just a reminder: Bees are officially canon, the crew hasn’t been shy or withholding on the fact that its a thing and they love it. Doesn’t matter if there is or isn’t a huge merch line for them or tweets for them. First was the “if they don’t become canon by x then its bait and grab the pitchforks”; now its become “if they don’t do merch or tweets about it then grab the pitchforks”, under the misguided view that RWBY is a shoujo-ai/yuri type series thus is going to do some massive spotlight on BB that involves resources being specifically put to it. This is the exact sort of thing I mean by “shooting themselves in the foot”, because guarantee you that BS’ers wouldn’t be doing the same thing and instead would be relishing in it being canon. Which is for a while BB’ers were doing but now its shifting towards the usual self-sabotage.

Let’s dive into what doing a big showing, tweet, or merch-line does:

- Stirs up drama

- Pulls in harassment towards the crew and supporters of it. I’ve seen people going after Arryn and Barb already over their daring to celebrate BB. Vile and disgusting ass comments about them personally, borderline slander at times. Hell even Lindsay had the one person calling them a bad wife cause they dared be part of the fun of Barb and Arryn’s ship-captaining.

- For the twitter side specifically: Twitter has devolved further into a toxic cesspit that enables homophobia and punishes pro-LGBT+ things and people. Many of the RT crew have mentioned lessening their interactions on it.

- Requires artists specifically for a RWBY line instead of a general Pride line (”hire more artists”, you going to restructure the finances to make room for that? Or going to let Michelle go in order to make room for a different artist to specifically do a BB line?)

- Gives antis things to point to for “its not about what fits the story, just about the money”. Which was already something done when the first hoodies and shirts were announced.

- Doesn’t make huge sense for a series that is in a limbo till whoever gives the official greenlight for v10

At the end of the day it doesn’t matter, I don’t need to think RT higher-ups care or don’t; the crew cares and put in the work on the show to more than deliver an official LGBT+ pair that will continue going forward as exactly that. RWBY isn’t a shoujo-ai/yuri, it isn’t aimed at specifically an LGBT+ audience, and instead is aimed at a general audience seeking to tell its story. On top of that its not like there’s a huge history of RT putting out ship-merch, I’d wager they actively avoid doing it; cause Renora has nada and Arkos has nada.

This is just like with Warrior Nun, I absolutely definitely do NOT at all need Netflix’s acting like they give a shit (they couldn’t even be bothered to put WN in with their Pride category even though it has a main wlw pairing); all I need is to see the crew for it showing their love for the show and for Avatrice. All I need a Netflix, WB, CR, Disney, or whoever to do is to keep hitting the greenlight button and putting out shows with LGBT+ in them. I don’t expect them to fight in culture wars.

With all this said, am I disappointed with the lack of BB merch? Totally. Do I see it as some bitch-slap that shows anything about RT’s values? Not even remotely, for the exact reasons I already mentioned. Not to mention if they were that worried about “homophobes”, Arryn, Barb, Lindsay, and others wouldn’t be loudly talking about canon BB; like they are.

ftr this isn’t aimed at one person, but at a general idea that I’ve seen from multiple areas. Like it puts me in a difficult spot, cause no one should have to trudge through the shit of the HTDM/shitdom; but in cases like this I actually waver thinking maybe some should have at least a dose of it to get some perspective. The reality is that again BB IS CANON and will be going forward.

[thatnerduknow98]

“Quick! Put your fake pointy ears and vampire teeth on!” Satan shouted at his minions.

He grabbed the trash bin next to his throne and scattered the debris across the room. Then he set the curtains aflame.

“Dude, why are you freaking out?” A minion called Chad asked.

“Because, bruh, He’s coming down today. He thinks this place is an eternal flame pit of pain and suffering that he damns the bad souls too.”

Chad was perplexed. “Bruh… What?”

Satan momentarily stopped shredding his bearskin rug, threw his head back and sighed. “Look, I begged for equality once and he damned me here. It was already a clusterfuck dumpster fire when I arrived. I wallowed in my guilt and misery for a while, but then when other souls started arriving I decided He was unfair, unjust, and quite frankly I don’t want to torture people. Sure, if they want to set their own lives aflame and go down like a burning circus tent, I’m gonna make some popcorn and watch — I mean, who wouldn’t? — but I’m not gonna light the tent.”

Chad furrowed his ephemeral brow. “That’s absurd. So He made a place that burns forever and then sent you to rule it and hurt others?”

Satan nodded. “Yeah. But if he knows I’ve cleaned it up a lot and actually made it somewhere Earth like, where souls can be truly free of anything, even consequences, and can roam peacefully, he’s gonna make a second hell even worse than his original and damn us all there.”

“So you’re fucking up your haven because you don’t want him to destroy it,” Chad said smugly.

“Well, only the part where the unjustly damned go. The actual hellraisers on Earth are locked away in an actual fire pit with heavy chains, way underneath my castle. Now get off your lazy bro ass and help me!”

The two worked diligently to tear apart the meticulously crafted wallpaper and tapestries. Outside, throughout all of Hell, word was spreading about how God was coming to damn them all a second time, this time to an actual awful place. Minions put on fake wings and pointed ears, grabbed pitchforks and apologized to the souls prior to beginning to spike them with their farming tools. The souls forgave them and played along.

Other souls wailed horrendous sounds. The three headed dogs, understanding what was happening, stopped being cuddly and barked, growled and hissed. The cats — well, they weren’t always friendly anyway. Only the friendly cats go to heaven.

God arrived with a thunderous boom. Satan met him with the same flair, and a little bit of sarcasm.

“Hi DAD. How are things in your cloudy fake paradise?” Satan shouted.

God squinted his eyes at the devil and then looked around. “My angels tell me there has been less wailing than normal. I am here to ensure you are doing your part in keeping my universe balanced.”

“Balance, shmalance,” Satan replied. He lit a cigarette. “Earth is for balance. Hell is for chaos.”

God floated his way around Satan’s palace and stopped at the large arched (now broken) windows behind the throne. He looked out to see every minion and soul playing some kind of fake torture game.

“Your minions aren’t as vicious as I expected them to be,” he commented.

“They suffice,” Satan said through gritted teeth.

God whipped around. “You wanted to be my equal so I gave you a world to rule in the monstrous way that you are!”

“I just wanted to be your equal, not cause pain! I was an angel before I was this!” Satan shouted. “Equality is not evil.”

“What if you made your souls and minions equal to you? Then what?” God retorted.

“I know what! Everyone leaves everyone alone!” Satan shouted back.

Chad, who was standing in the corner silently, chimed in quietly, “We minions are content to remain in our positions of torturers. We have no desire to do anything more.”

Satan cooled himself off. He took Chad’s hint to shut up before he blew everything. “You’re heaven can’t be that great. We’ve seen how fucked up your Earth has become. What good could human souls do in your clouds? Or do they, too, have clouded vision?”

“They know no pain,” God said. “They know true peace. It is their reward. Your souls are to know only pain and suffering.”

“But they get bored I bet,” Satan replied. “At least down here the souls aren’t bored. You know what happens when people are bored? They act out. Then you have to damn them.”

God sighed. “Perhaps it is true I’ve had to damn a few more souls after they’ve reached heaven.”

“I know, they’ve told me,” Satan said. “They tell me all about how Heaven was like a vacation at first, but then became hell like after because there was nothing to be done. Down here, we do everything.”

God returned to his thunderous cloud. “I know what you’ve done, Lucifer, and I am angry. You have sucked more life to your Earth-like afterlife than I have gotten in years. And you’re not even torturing them. My souls in heaven are ready to leave, to return to work and the vices that grip them.”

“To be fair, dude,” Chad interrupted. “We do torture the truly bad people. The Bin Ladens and the Andrew Jacksons, and the school shooters are locked away in chains down under. But you damn a lot of people here who really don’t deserve to be here.”

God zapped Chad. Lucifer sighed.

“This is why I go against you, Dad, because you punish people for calling you out on your wrongs. You fucking hypocrite. Leave my realm. Go to Heaven for all I care.”

Satan’s usually pretty chill in the way he runs Hell. Today he’s scrambling to make it look as miserable as possible because God is soon to visit

[hekate1308]

Hushed, Dark, Familial

A Drowley Advent Calendar December 2

Masterpost

An old-fashioned bell rang out when he opened the door, and he couldn’t help but like the fact. There was something to be said for the classics.

When no one came to greet him immediately – far from an alarming sign, some people around here preferred an aura of mystery – he browsed the shelves and soon noticed there was nothing dangerous here, as long as one knew what to do with the stuff. Of course the owner would have to be careful what to sell to who, but really, having such a shop, that was just to be –

“I assume you’re the local factotum.”

He turned to find a guy in a suit standing in front of him, or what most people would have believed to be a guy in a suit. But Dean had been in the game for too long to let himself be fooled by appearances. “What is it then? Witch? Banshee? Demon?”

“Good morning to you too, Mr. Winchester” he said smoothly as his eyes turned red. Demon, then.

Dean didn’t bother asking how he knew his name. He’d built up quite the reputation over the last few years, that had to be it. “Thanks. Right back at you, Mr –“ It was a good test. There were several creatures who would never freely give out their names, and even some magic users who hesitated. A demon who denied the use was usually Abd news –

“Crowley. Just Crowley.”

Like most demons, then. He nodded. ”Glad to make your acquaintance. Anything you need?” Yes, eh was a demon, but this appeared just to be your normal magic shop. Of course there’d be a back room, with God only knew what in there, but if he started going through those… and if something happened, he’d know soon enough. He didn’t have his friends in the right places (or wrong ones depending on how you saw it, but that was another topic he had never truly discussed with Sammy, it was for their best) for nothing.

“You plan on staying here long?” he asked because as opposed to humans, demons could easily move from one Stroe to the next. Powers really were practical.

“For a while, I think.”

He would not get a clearer answerer but he had not expected one, either. Most demons he had met were – and yes, eh was ware how that sounded – decent enough, the important part being demons he’d met. Demons how wanted to cause trouble and harm humans tended to avoid places like the quarter because the creatures in there did not take kindly to those who would show them in a bad light, and furthermore, could be rather territorial. But whenever a demon showed up who just wanted to go about his business, or his day really, there was no reason to show up with pitchforks, metaphorically speaking, and chase them off. And it really looked like this place was mostly alright – he couldn’t rule out that there might a backroom with a few more-…. Adventurous items, naturally, but even then, most people who had one of those knew how far they could go.

So he nodded. “Good to know. So seems like you already know who I am, so I’ll just tell you – you have a problem, you know who to call.”

For just one moment, Crowley’s eyes narrowed, and he realized he was being seized up whether or not eh truly meant what he had just said, but that was hardly surprising. While most wide-spread harassment of creatures had petered out over the centuries, when it came to demons, there would always be those who clung to their prejudices. And don’t get him started on the satanic panic. He was still glad he hadn’t been around back then.

Then, finally, he nodded. “that is very good to know, Mr. Winchester.”

He ironed the slightly sarcastic undertone for now because – again, demon. Some things had to give. “It’s Dean.” He wouldn’t start differentiating between who got to call him what now. As long as someone hadn’t done anything wrong, they’d be treated like equals, the Malleus Malificarum be damned.

“Dean”. He nodded at him once again, and Dean decided he might as well bid him goodbye.

All in all, it could have been much worse. No obvious dark magic, no curses, no dangerous objects (again, not in sight, but he would take what he could get) and it would be easy enough to ask a few people to keep an eye on all of this.

It also didn’t hurt that the guy was pretty easy on the eyes. Which of course didn’t matter, but dean didn’t mind at all, because it was – well – if you had to check up on someone regularly, you might as well enjoy it, right?

But back to the problem at hand, by which he meant October in general.

[enigmaincrimson-personal]

Honestly, it's not like I can just roll in and ask them what is going on these days... Usually, I get ghosted, soft locked, blocked, or just plain yelled at for asking.

I'm a constantly stressed and anxious person and well... I haven't had the best track record when it comes to tripping over Tumbler's worst... So I just happen to find these periods of long and sudden silence to not be all that good for either my mental or physical health.

The soft blocking trend hasn't helped either, causing me to question my already fractured sanity... And inadvertently bother people I didn't intend on bothering.

I'm constantly expecting the axe to drop and the witch hunts to start happening in the open like they have before. So much hate, so much obsessive anger... So many other people getting hurt and people going "you know what you did!" While making impossibly nonsensical demands.

As far as I know, I'm the bad guy, the walls are closing in, everyone is demanding my head, no hope, no Future, and all because someone wore pink on Tuesday and told someone that I did it.

I know I make mistakes... Even if I'm pretty much stuck here listening to myself most of the time... That I sometimes wonder... Are things so slow for these people that they decided to make the way you scramble eggs into a moral issue and start gathering the torches and pitchforks?

What makes this extra dumb is that oftentimes it's some big for their britches, I spent hundreds of bucks on this, I am the fandom, self-titled professional, questionably sane brat of a blogger wanting to blame someone, anyone for some issue of the day... And that poor sap just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Like... It could be anything from the Tumblr blog acting up, people interacting with a new mutual, a slow day, the sky being blue, and it being a tad toasty, it has to be this other person's fault. Often times, it'se or someone like me that gets blamed for their bad day.

Getting treated like vermin, the worst thing to ever exist, and generally toxic sludge over every single thing, and never letting up is a bit... Much. Like when is the punishment going to stop? I know I'm not the only one in this situation... Like everything is a sin and no matter how hard I try to do better, it isn't good enough.

It constantly feels like I'm little more than a burden, my existence is something foul, and I don't deserve forgiveness as well... Who forgives garbage?

Maybe those people are right, I should be in the grave, they sure have tried hard to put me there, but I well... I have no idea how in the world I keep going.

I'm constantly expecting things to explode again, people getting hurt just because I won't go down, and the already growing silence to become all the more vast.

It feels like everything I do is a mistake, even trying to fix my mistakes, and I really don't know how to explain it as just trying to say it is somehow a big Tumblr crime.