#i have been obsessed with the same character for 5 years will it ever end? will it ever stop? will he ever leave?

[criticalamityz]

happy (late) birthday shin

[fantasywater]

Catradora and Stolitz: Same Toxic Ship just Different Genders

This series has always felt like the Catra Show, and so much so that even Hordak never felt like the main villain. And nothing drove that point home more than season five proving once and for all that this series' moral line(or lack thereof) is really about a Villain Protagonist when the character that increasingly became a monster for four seasons still got everything she wanted in the end.   

Catra is the poster child for the moral bankruptcy of this series. 

I can't buy her ''redemption,'' or her relationship with Adora, because she went too far. 

Therefore nor can I buy the mental gymnastics that arise when she is the topic of discussion in the fandom. 

For four seasons I watched this character willingly and gleefully jump rope with the moral event horizon. Then she finally broke it to the pieces when she genocides the planet, and everyone on it, because of her sick, evil, obsession with being better than Adora.

Loved all this time my behind.

Catra was a vile person from her introduction, and just got increasingly more poisonous as the show went on. 

Season Five wants us to treat Catra like she was just a bad friend.

She just said a few mean words here and there, and therefore all she has to do is sincerely apologize then friendship can begin again.  

Here's the thing Catra wasn't just a bad friend she was an abuser and a fascist. 

She had multiple opportunities to leave the horde, and had no reason to stay in the first place, gleefully attacks the resistance, is the reason Angela died, tried straight up multiple times to end Adora’s and her friends lives, and was just an abomination to even the ones on her side etc..   

On the flip side we have Adora who doesn’t give a damn about Catra for four seasons. She’s too busy enjoying life with her real friends.

Try and recall, was there ever a moment where Adora was...concerned for Catra’s safety? Pining for her in any way romantically? Ever? Even once during the first four seasons? Because I don’t.

Honestly, Catra wasn’t important to Adora until Catra showed up on screen. And then they both wanted to kill each other. Any moments of Adora thinking about Catra it was in the context of Catra being her enemy.

But I'm supposed to believe in their romance based on what? Catra's toxicity? Adora's nonexistent romantic feelings for pretty much the entire series?   

It seems in season 5 all Catra had to do was one act of atonement and out of nowhere, like Adora has been possessed by the ghost of Queer Rep, she suddenly can’t get Catra out of her head.

Also, note that Catra didn't save Glimmer because she realized her past actions were evil; no it was all for Adora's sake i.e. the person she is toxically obsessed with. 

Furthermore, the redemption in question is handled with the most condescending of kid gloves.

It seems like she was replaced by a clone for season five. She’s just accepted.

It's like seasons 1-4 didn't happen. The forgiveness was excessive and forced so we could be okay with this abuser/war criminal being chummy and romantic with her victims.

For example, Glimmer cries over her, kisses her cheek, etc... Yet Catra is responsible for her mother's death, the world ending, trying to kill her, war crimes against Bright Moon, etc. 

Then Entrapta also forgives Catra like it’s nothing even though she sent her to die, and apparently, she was in this hell space for a year.

But everything is supposed to be wonderful because an abuser ends the series romantically involved with her victim?   

When Adora said you made your choice and now live with it that should have been the end of any reconciliation either platonic or romantic. 

Even her flashbacks are of her being abusive.

You see her in one of them( in her so-called redemption season at that) scratching Adora's face to the point it left blood, and jumping on her stomach just because Adora dared to be friends with other people.

This was pretty much every childhood flashback they showed.

She would emotionally and physically abuse Adora, and then Adora would take her back.

This would continue even as young adults. It was a pattern(red flag) that Adora unfortunately didn't escape. 

But.....I always loved you,says Catra. 

For Adora's own mental health/closure, she could forgive, but only if she also makes it clear that she doesn't want her abuser/ex-friend back in her life.   

I could have tolerated that ending instead of Adora becoming a couple with her abuser. 

Basically, this Villain Sue ends the show getting everything she wants even after manipulation of several characters, genocide, war crimes against her own people, physical and mental abuse(especially toward Adora), repeated attempts at murder, and just being a complete psychopath to anyone within spitting distance of her toxicity. 

She gets to be pretty much abusive scum for four seasons, on top of actually doing the same thing Prime wanted to do, yet whiplash forgiveness and Lesbians 4 Evah is her ending.   

"So we're all just okay with this?", says Mermista incredulously of the war criminal Hordak. Good question, but then I remember you all seem to be okay with war criminal Catra sooo.....

Her mirror Hordak, according to the showrunner, is sentenced to Beast Island for his war crimes. However, my question then becomes where is Catra's sentence? Oh, that's right if you're Catra you get to be a war criminal in peace, and especially if you're dating the protagonist.   

It's also convenient that Mermista's was chipped, and therefore didn't get to say anything to the girl who helped bring down her kingdom with a smile on her face.

Funny how that worked out. 

It's even more convenient that her victims gave their lighting fast forgiveness.  

Can't have icky things like abuse and war crimes get in the way of that ending smooch you know.

I suppose we also just need to look at Angella as collateral damage while we smile as her daughter hugs and kisses her killer I guess.   

I also find it odd(since we're loving abusers) that Shadow Weaver point blank doesn't get forgiveness from Adora, and she even ends the series dead.

However, she defected to the hero's side in season two(regardless of any impure motivation), and stayed there and helped the protagonists until her season five death.

But Catra, who not only stayed with the conquering organization the Horde for almost the entire series while also eventually becoming their leader, was not only forgiven but also rewarded with a romance with her victim. Curious. 

The only way I can stomach her season five 'redemption', and lighting quick forgiveness, is if I forget the monster of four seasons didn't exist.

Problem is I can't do that. 

Why should I get any catharsis that the protagonists prevailed over Horde Prime when Catra is pretty much him with a sob story attached.

So it seems this show's message is no matter how much emotional and physical pain a person does to you it's okay to not only let them back in your life(damn your mental health I guess), but also enter a romantic relationship with them too.

It’s also hilarious that some of her fans say she’s Zuko.

No.

She’s what would happen if Azula and Kylo Ren were made into one character.

Titles the show should I have had:

She-Ra: The Story of a Villain Sue Antagonist That Gets a Happily Ever After With Her Victim

Another alternate: She-Ra: The Story of Lesbian Reylo or more current Lesbian Stolitz.

[maxwell-grant]

Didn't realize you've read Riddler: Year One, any thoughts on it ? Also, in a more general way, what are your thoughts on the Riddler ?

Someone sent me an ask the past week or so saying that The Penguin is everything that the Joker movies should have been, and I don't think I agree on that in regards to The Penguin specifically. But if we're talking about a "Batman-less Batman villain origin story about a lonely suicidal man struggling with poverty and mental illness exacerbated by child abuse, who is pushed down through the cracks of society deep into the pits of his own mind until he can only save himself by becoming a horrible force of social upheaval and political terrorism, finally discovering joy and a reason to live at the expense of everyone around him, and now he will be Batman's problem someday", well this just completely embarasses Joker (2019) on every level. Impressively drawn, impressively written, impressive on it's own and as a prequel to the movie, WAY better than a movie actor's comic book tie-in has any right to be, and one of the greatest Batman comics ever made. Issue #5 in particular is one of the best and most harrowing comic issues and format breaks I've ever seen in the medium, and even if it's entirely self-contained, it very much belongs in the exact same conversation and should be considered inseparable from The Batman and The Penguin.

We spens 4 issues boiling the frog over every painful corner of Edward's childhood and humanity and misery, taking us through painfully intimate views and perspectives inside his headspace, seeing how and why he justifies his worldview and how easy it even is to do so, feeling truly sorry for this hopeless wretch even though we know he's losing it bad bad baddy bad bad and is going to step off the deep end forever. And then Issue 5 happens and suddenly you are one of the people in Gotham City tasked with sifting through this serial killer's personal diary and you can hear that creep shouting with that distorted voice, you can feel the final death rattle of Edward Nashton's soul ending where The Riddler begins to scream in your head 'I NEVER KNEW I HAD A REASON TO BREATHE", and by Issue 6 you fully understand why and how nobody was prepared for him, and why what he is and does and embodies is going to drag the city into an abyss it may never recover from, and why this was never going to stop even after his arrest, even after his defeat and humiliation in the movie. Everything here adds layers of sympathy and tragedy and heartbreak to the character, while simultaneously making everything he is and does in the movie so much more harrowing and disturbing, holy shit he really staked EVERYTHING, everyone's lives included, on being noticed by his savior.

I was already very much on board with Dano Riddler in the movie, whose execution absolutely sold what should have been, on paper, a storm of unadvisable fandom pitches and uninspired trends and straight-up bad ideas ("What if The Ridder was the Zodiac Killer", "What if The Riddler was a 4chan mass-shooter type", "What if The Riddler was a political terrorist with legitimate grievances but whose final goal was to kill off scores of people for little reason", "What if The Riddler was a creepy fascist responsible for a QAnon cult that ends the movie by metaphorically storming the capitol", "What if The Riddler was really, really, really obsessed with Batman", "What if The Riddler was another Dark Opposite Batman", fucking "What if The Riddler was Hush" even) worked into just this miracle magic bullet of a new take on the guy, fully capturing a lot of the essential bullet points of what makes The Riddler tick as a character while spinning them into new and significant ways befitting this increased role he has in the movie. Rereading the story now, so much of the movie even feels like it's specifically referencing the first Riddler story - The Mayor of Gotham City as a target, Riddler misdirecting Batman with a big target while his real plan involved a flood, Edward putting on a costume and naming himself The Riddler specifically because he wants to get Batman's attention, the glass maze, the written letters to police headquarters, The Eagle's Nest that is a nightclub and also the home of a millionaire with a bird last name (Falcone), a driverless vehicle careening wildly into a public place, even how the very first thing we learn about this fucker is that he cheats to win.

The guy in the movie is a version that fully works on it's own, but it clicks SO much more strongly and cohesively when you read this comic and what it establishes for him. It's the scene in the movie where the section of his diary reads "I must become something more" while Bruce finds the panicked desperate bat rattling against a cage, the thematic parallel between them that is the scariest thing he finds in the entire movie, but developed across six issues. This even begins with Eddie living through his version of the Wayne murders, with the first time he's felt anything other than crushing despair and misery, in part because he's seen the first hint of the puzzle he needs to solve, and where he needs to go. The moment the world stopped making sense for Bruce is the moment that the world started to make sense for Edward.

We understand, around the same time he understands, the childish nightmare that must become the pattern of his entire life from that moment onwards, how Edward Nashton would have killed himself, and no one would have cared, had he not become The Riddler, and how the only alternative to "Hey Edward why don't you crawl into the black hole inside yourself" is to, in fact, find this black hole inside of you and shaped like you and push other people into it instead. Become the creature of the night who can punch crime forever, become the avenging force too great for the Falcones to handle, become the kingpin whose name alone will live forever, become someone that the entire city will never again ignore or forget.

We see how it's less that he's been planning for this for so long, and more that his entire life has been broken and hammered into a Riddler shaped hole, and then when Batman dropped into it, he could start to understand what it is and put a name in it, in the fact that he's been training his entire life for this without knowing. Getting comfortable with flushing rats and making bombs at the orphanage, getting intimately and painfully familiar with self-loathing and alienation and misanthropic contempt for this city and it's people who sit by and allow all of this to happen, surviving his suicide attempts without being able to explain why, searching for answers as to why it hurts so much to live broken and unfulfilled and miserable and why he even bothers to keep on doing so, having nothing to love in his life but numbers and puzzles, spending his entire life invisible while trying to get Thomas Wayne and then his boss to notice and praise him, and then being the wrong man at the right place to begin his campaign, a little nobody accountant who noticed an inconsistency in the numbers, put the pieces together, and then decided he was gonna do something about it because he knew it could be done, because there was someone out there who showed it could be done, and if Eddie joined in, maybe this someone would notice him, let him be his friend.

Batman and R, forever.

(People don't talk nearly enough about how this Riddler's entire life ambition was to recreate Tim Drake's origin story, and they should, it's pretty funny)

And to be honest, I think this is the first Riddler origin story I've ever really liked. Some of the others, particularly the first, have their charms, and this one certainly wouldn't fit most takes on the character, even most of the ones I like, but I've never really been fully sold on the idea of a Riddler origin story until this one, he's always been a very backstory-proof guy to me. This doesn't have any particularly obvious shorthand moment as to why Edward became The Riddler, so much as an entire life twisted and torn and abandoned and rotten in ways big and small until this is what came out of him. No immediately abusive fathers or test cheating scandals or major company backstabbings as defining tragedies, just life for a poor orphan in Gotham City who can't figure out the answer to what's missing from his life until he does.

Still a horrible nerd hopelessly trapped in a life of trying to intellectually one-up everyone as the only thing he lives for and, like every horrible nerd, knowing that one day he will be recognized for what he is and then they'll all see how wrong and stupid and savage these stupid savage idiots all were to look down on him. Still a man driven to impose order on the world the way he believes it has to be. Still a cheater who loves puzzles and answers and the thrill of intellectual stimulation and victory more than anything else (and in this case, having had absolutely nothing else to even love about his life), and still very much this guy at the end:

I do have a lot of thoughts on The Riddler, and I think part of why I might not talk about him as much is because he's not a character I tend to have really exclusive or particular preferences for. There are a LOT of Riddlers out there, maybe more so than there are Jokers out there, and there's not really with him the definitive must-be-like-this that the other Batman rogues have. Everybody approaches the puzzle differently if they do so at all, and I like a lot of these Riddlers! They connect with each other surprisingly well even, in spite of being incompatible as the same person.

He's gone through some real ups and downs over the decades: given stardom in the Adam West show that made him a definitive Batman villain and spread his modus operandi across all the others, sacrificed in the altar of camp insecurity along with fellow snooty oddball Penguin, defanged and turned into a parody of himself, refitted for joke status, re-refitted for surprise baddie status, given a whole new lease on life and his own gimmicks with the arrival of computer puzzles and the internet and given his fangs back and then amplified, pushed back to the big leagues more horrible and topical than ever before and exponentially increasing as such until his next big movie showing, torn in multitudes across multiverses of takes and ideas, almost too many to even consolidate them all.

I like the first Riddler of Bill Finger's original story in Tec #140, this curious satisfaction-seeking master cheater growing exponentially more dangerous and more varied and more assured the more he fades into his endless barrage of traps and toys and puzzles,. I love Frank Gorshin's Riddler, and everybody loves Frank Gorshin's Riddler, he is the reason The Riddler became an iconic Batman villain overnight. I like John Glover in TAS, and I like Robert Englund's cold ghostly showman in The Batman (2002) much more. I love the Arkham games version of Riddler, probably because I never actually played the games and had to collect his dumb trophies. I love Paul Dini's Detective Riddler, and I especially love Brent Spiner's take on the guy for Justice League Action. I LOVE the more classic take on Riddler as played by John Leguizamo in The Batman Audio Adventures, and I LOVE Paul Dano's Riddler in The Batman, and they couldn't be more incompatible with each other.

I love the Riddlers who continuously undermine themselves in the name of criminal artistry and who look down on the profit-seeking rubes who think any of this is about money, and I love the Riddlers who are ultimately con-men doing money heists because they want to be the only crooks in town smart enough to have something to show for all their work at the end of the day. I like Riddlers who are widely despised and regarded with annoyance and disdain by the city and their fellow rogues, and I like the Riddlers who have good professional relationships with the other rogues, and the Riddlers who managed to become darkly inspiring figures in their own right. I love the Riddlers who've subsumed themselves into the mysteries and horror they embody, and I love the pathological pattern-finders trying to find a way out of this weird pathetic life, even if their efforts will be doomed to failure - The Riddler couldn't out-think his way out of Batman's toybox no matter how much he tried, and he has no desire to - where would it leave him? Down there with all the troglodytes? Please.

I can get on board with very human, conversational Eddies, the Eddies that did stints as sideshow carnies, that can tell on some level that they should be doing better things than this, who'll do bored stick-em-ups to fund the attention-seeking tantrums they're actually passionate about, and I can get on board with Eddies who are truly uniquely vile and scary even compared to the other Rogues in the room, who uphold this terrifyingly cold perversion of fairness, imposing a stark and utilitarian worldview on the city by which the penalty for falling short of his games is murder, that sheer calculated murderous menace that Frank Gorshin brought when he ended his first episode leering on a helpless Robin strapped to an operating table. And if I ever thought I couldn't get on board with the Riddler as a major serious scary existential threat to life on Gotham, well, The Batman sure proved me wrong. I may not love him as passionately as I do The Penguin or Hugo Strange, but I love too many versions of this guy to ever be able to narrow them all down, and there are even more still to be discovered.

Endlessly adaptable, able to change and mutate with the times on the same kinds of grand orchestral shifts and minute beats that Batman does, a greater variety of personalities than the Joker if not quite the same versatility (and where would we be without these two always pissing each other off or making out or both, living in each other's respective negative spaces), always an enduring and entertaining opponent regardless of whether he's the most pathetic man alive or a malevolent genius beyond understanding who routinely puppeteers an entire city and it's greatest hero into putting on their greatest performances for him. Always an adapting puzzle box, always leading into the next version of himself, always beguiling, and always becoming the most frustrating thing that Batman has to deal with, whether he's systematically destroying Batman's rationale and will and ability to be Batman or just being naturally the worst guy to deal with at the most unfortunate possible moment, in itself another key to his endurance. The Joker can murder sidekicks and torch the city and routinely try and drive Batman to breaking points of rage and indignity and despair - but sometimes The Riddler can get Batman there just by being himself, as anyone who's had to deal with this asshole in the Arkham games can attest.

It is imperative to believe in and understand Batman's worldview that his villains can be saved because everyone can and must be saved, just as it is to understand that, out of everyone in his Rogues Gallery, if The Riddler was drowning, Bruce would be inclined to throw him a cinderblock, and The Riddler would be glad to receive it, so long as his last gasps of breath could be spent laughing at Batman's inability to match wits with him.

For a villain who is meant to be fixated on knowing the one correct answer to every riddle, he’s uniquely able to be reinterpreted in endless new ways. He’s gone from being a camp and colorful performance artist to one of the most sadistic and sinister villains Batman can ever go up against. There is no one way to write a Riddler. There’s no single solution! And writers will always like the challenge that presents.

Just when readers think they’ve seen everything the Riddler has left to offer us, and the character is finally exhausted… a new lime-green envelope pops through the door of Wayne Manor to challenge us all once again. It seems we’ll never get tired of trying to unravel the Riddler, and writers will never give up on unraveling the character’s fullest potential. It unites readers, writers, and caped crusaders alike: this time, surely, we’ll crack him. - Batman's Greatest Enemy is...The Riddler, by Steve Morris

[thegreatyin]

@blastlight fallen london is a browser game ive been just. super duper really totally absolutely subtle and low-key about liking. it hasn't driven me to any sort of state of perpetual bat-centric madness or folly or obsession whatsoever. it definitely hasn't taken over my blog and also every single one of my remaining 5 braincells or anything like that. nope. nada. not in the slightest.

jokes aside, it's a free text-based browser game you can find here. if you've ever read a choose-your-own-adventure novel, it's essentially that, but in online form (with the "small" bonus of having over 4.5 million words and counting). it's got a big focus on both humor and horror in equal measure, and a huge depth of worldbuilding and choices- enough to keep one occupied for years to come. and it's still updating, to boot!

to cut a long and very complicated story summary short: roughly 40 years ago, victorian london was dragged underground by a swarm of bats. now you, the player, arrive in the dark and marvelous world of "the neath", seeking to fulfill one of four ambitions- and things only escalate from there. it's full to the brim with love, loss, and a lot of heart. and also The Horrors. The Horrors are there too.

if you're looking for a more traditional gaming experience, i highly recommend you check out one of the spinoff games set in the same universe- sunless sea, sunless skies, and mask of the rose are all individually good and serve as great standalone experiences if mainline fallen london isn't precisely your style. the lore is charmingly batshit insane, the characters are memorable and delightful, the OC-making potential (as i've thoroughly displayed over the course of the past year and a quarter) is off the charts-

it's a good time!! i can't recommend it enough!! go play it!!!! it's free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(also please go check out the song the stupendium made about it because "all ends / swords, pens" has lived in my head rent free for months now. it's so good.)

[yeetmeoutthewindowdaddy]

A deep dive into Zevlor's devotion (Part 1) Everybody hates tieflings, and how discrimination impacted a young Zevlor:

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BG3.

These series of posts were originally one loooooong post— but apparently Tumblr has a character limit, and I found it; so now it's been split into several parts/posts.

((Part 1, this post, is mostly to give context to the discrimination faced by tieflings in Faerûn. The third part is where the meat of my Zevlor analysis is.))

(Part 2) Elturel's history and culture, the Hellriders, and Zevlor's paladin oath. (Part 2.5)

(Part 3) Zevlor's actions during Act 1, an analysis of a man who is barely holding on.

(Part 4) Zevlor's actions during Act 2, an analysis of a broken man.

(Part 5) Zevlor's actions during Act 3, an analysis of a man with his faith restored.

(Part 6) Zevlor's actions during/ after the epilogue, not all endings are happily ever after— especially not for a tiefling.

(Part 7) Zevlor in a romantic relationship.

I don't think many bg3 players understand just how dedicated and loyal of a person Zevlor is. This ADHD hyper-fixation fueled multipart-thesis is meant to show how Zevlor's past is as tragic as any of the origin characters'/ Durge's. It's meant to show how horrifically broken Zevlor was when he "betrayed" the other tieflings. It's also meant to show that our beloved blorbo would probably be fervently obsessive if he was in a romantic relationship.

Most importantly: It demonstrates how our favorite man Zevlor was most likely a fanatical religious zealot my dudes. He was (probably) a part of the Faerûn equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition lite.

I have kept this as factual as I am able to. Please keep in mind that Baldur's Gate 3 plays it fast and loose with the DND/ Forgotten Realms canon and lore, on top of DND/ the Forgotten Realms itself regularly disregarding and changing it's own lore and canon. DND lore and canon as a whole is a mess. It has multiple universes that sometimes interact and are maybe separate from each other. Full disclosure; I've mixed 1e-5e lore together FUCK 5.5e, because parsing through what is currently considered canon is a nightmare. As far as I'm concerned, as long as a piece of lore was canon at some point in the past 50 years— it's fair game. @y-rhywbeth2 in this post has a more in depth disclaimer. Also please check out their headcanons and lore breakdowns, they're so good.

THIS PROJECT TOOK ME OVER A MONTH TO WRITE. I've tried to find all grammatical and spelling errors. I've tried to ensure that I've cited the correct sources in the correct places.

I have given up on trying to understand Tumblr's inconsistent post formatting. Why does the 'small' option for text sometimes actually make the text smaller but other times it makes the text larger???

______________________________________________________________

● (Section 1) The Origins, Anatomy, and Physiology of Tieflings:

AN: It used to be that tieflings could only breed with other tieflings and humans. This seems to have been changed recently— one no longer has to have a demon somewhere in their genetic lineage to be a tiefling, one of their ancestors having contact with a demon is enough to produce a tiefling descendant. Which has interesting implications for Warlocks. There are also special versions of elf and orc tieflings.

(From what I can tell) tieflings live for about the same amount of time, maybe ~10 years longer than, humans do. (AN: Remember how I said the Forgotten Realms loves to retcon and disregard it’s own lore? The wiki states that their life span is from 90–150 years, but this source is from 2004 and the lore has greatly changed in the past 20 years. I am choosing to ignore the wiki here for my own sanity.)

Tieflings were humanoids with fiendish ancestry. They came about due to one of their ancestors (even many generations prior) getting freaky with a demon being "touched" by the evil planes in some way.

"Tieflings... were infused with the touch of the fiendish planes, most often through descent from fiends—demons, Yugoloths, devils, evil deities, and others... Although their evil ancestors could be many generations removed, the taint lingered."

Before some warlock shenanigans happened, tieflings had a much wider range of appearances than the ones we generally see now.

"In 1358 DR, a warlock coven...the Toril thirteen performed a ritual that cursed most tiefling lineages... [changing] their original lineage with that of the archdevil... Asmodeus [who] became a god... giving most tieflings... a similar devilish appearance... [whereas before] infernal blood could be diluted through intermarriage... afterward, the union of a tiefling with another race always produced a tiefling child."

Their infernal ancestry gave them some very powerful abilities.

"Tieflings had a number of abilities gifted to them by their fiendish heritage... an innate resistance to heat and... a hint of bloodlust that gave them a slight edge in combat. Tieflings also had access to an ability known as infernal wrath, which channeled their innate rage and potential for evil into their attacks for added effectiveness... [they] tended to have better reflexes than their human kin... [Tieflings are] alluring and intelligent creatures, with a seductive aura in spite of their obviously evil ancestry...

Along with some not so great traits that fed into the prejudices against them.

"Other, more unusual characteristics included a sulfurous odor, cloven feet, or... an unsettling air about them... a general aura of discomfort they left on others... most people were uncomfortable around them, whether they were aware of the tiefling's unsavory ancestry or not... Tieflings were carnivores. They consumed blood, blubber, bone, gristle and meat... [and] raw bone marrow..."

Tieflings tended to be resolute and tenacious, with a strong internal drive to rise above their circumstances.

"They are adaptable and resilient to hardship, and possess strong aptitude at whatever pursuit they dedicate themselves to... When facing adversity, the tiefling instinct is not to withdraw from the world, but rather to challenge it head-on... Tieflings seek to make their own fates, defy the odds, and take risks that... most... would not dare."

For some awesome insight on tieflings check out this post [alt] by @gortashs-skidmark, it's a good source on tiefling appearances and traits. Along with this post [alt] by @pikapeppa providing evidence-based headcanons on tiefling appearances. And this post [alt] by @y-rhywbeth2, which talks about how a tiefling's physical traits are influenced by their specific infernal heritage.

Their infernal appearance and weird vibes are why almost

● (Section 2) Everybody Hates Tieflings:

Even before Elturel's Decent into Avernus, and subsequently the events of BG3 (both of which I will cover later), Tieflings faced an incredible amount of discrimination— even from their own kind.

"Few tieflings were raised with the love a normal human child might expect to receive... Tieflings who had strikingly inhuman features were often killed at birth by their horrified parents or others. Only those tieflings with subtle features or born to someone indifferent to their appearance, either out of acceptance or cruel purpose, were likely to reach adulthood... Tieflings often distrusted one another, sometimes even casting the same preconceptions on one another that others did on them."

This post [alt] by @underdark-dreams highlights the discrimination tieflings face in game. And how the Flaming Fists should be called the Flaming Shits, but I'll get into that in another part of this series.

Understandably, they didn't easily trust others. But once someone did earn a tiefling's trust, they were an incredibly loyal friend.

"…[Tieflings] expected eventual rejection from all... However, members of other races would find that once they demonstrated friendship and trust towards a tiefling, it would quickly be reciprocated in full. Once that bond was forged, it was rarely broken."

While some tieflings wholeheartedly embraced the preconception that all tieflings were evil, others would endeavor to prove it wrong.

"Their attitude regarding their heritage... while some tieflings embraced it, others were repulsed by it... tieflings, who were proud of their fiendish past... chose to... thwart... dark plots and schemes. Others sought to... emulate these evil deeds. Other tieflings were ashamed or even frightened of their heritage and wished only to escape the shadow that lurked over them... Some did this through constantly doing good, as though to make up for the evil that begot them. Others instead hid [their heritage]…"

Looking like devils made people think they were devils, or acted like devils.

"Tieflings are widely stereotyped as wicked, cruel, and criminal individuals... [with] a tendency to be solitary loners... known for their quick temper, stubbornness, self-confidence, and fickleness in relationships."

And since people thought tieflings were, or would act like, devils they treated them like devils.

"The social rejection they typically face often leads tieflings to enter a life of crime, which furthers social prejudice against their race." 

"We're distrusted and viewed as evil malcontents for so long that we start to believe it ourselves. It's hard not to try to live up to the hype, eh?"— Enkillo the Sly, tiefling

It's not a stretch of the imagination to assume that people would believe that: the more devilish a tiefling looked = the more they'd behave like devils (evil). It's also safe assume: that the more infernal traits a tiefling had = the more, harsher, discrimination they'd face.

This leads into my next topic,

● (Section 3) Zevlor's Infernal Appearance:

He looks like a combo of Sylvester Stallone and Willem Dafoe.

He and his Habsburg jaw lookin ass face seems to always have a 5 o'clock shadow. (Probably because he's a refugee struggling to survive, so his personal grooming habits have taken a back seat.)

Zevlor has more infernal features than the other tieflings do in-game. (As shown in this post [alt] by @lolliputian and @haru-sen) He has very prominent cheekbones, a thick brow ridge, and BIG horns. (Look at @cinnasalmon's post [alt] on Zevlor's horn anatomy.)

HC: The reasons his face bones are so protuberant is because they need to support the weight of his huge horns, as without them his (face) skull would fracture/ cave in from the constant pressure. Poor guy probably lives with a perpetual headache.

Zevlor's prominent infernal facial features make him look older than he probably is— as they emphasize the traits we humans commonly associate with aging; such as defined nasal labial folds, a lack of facial fat, and big ears. The striations by his eyes look like wrinkles, but I think that they're mostly infernal markings.

Stress prematurely ages people, and Zevlor had multitudes of stressors throughout his life: Contending with the discrimination from being a tiefling with prominent infernal traits, joining an elite military unit at age 12, rising through its ranks to become a Commander of said unit, having his city dragged into the literal Hells (more on that in part 2), defending the civilians/ city trapped in the hells, surviving the hells, then being stripped of his rank and banished from his home because of racial prejudices, and then leading a group of (mostly civilian) refugees to Baldur's Gate— all while desperately trying to keep them alive in the face of Faerûn's many, many, dangers.

Combining all the factors above would make any man look 10+ years older than he actually is.

Zevlor looks scary. His irises look like they're on fire, and his teeth are scarier than Astarion's. I was browsing Tumblr alone in my room, at night, 😳 and this photo of Zevlor popped up on my feed giving me a good scare. I have an unhealthy obsession with Zevlor, he's made it onto my official husbando list! And yet, I can't look at certain screen shots of him at night because they scare me. I'm a wuss.

I simp hard for this man, and yet I am still frightened by his appearance sometimes. Imagine how people in Faerûn react when they see his sleep paralysis demon lookin ass him in person? Screaming and running away is completely understandable.

Which brings us to,

● (Section 4) How Discrimination Impacted a Young Zevlor:

Even as a young child Zevlor would've know that his appearance othered him.

"Most tieflings were aware from an early age that they were different from others around them..."

Even as a child Zevlor most likely knew that many people would dislike him and refuse to trust him because he was born a tiefling.

Tiefling families in the traditional sense are rare. Many tieflings, born to human parents who possess a latent infernal bloodline, are abandoned at birth and raised by a monastery, church, orphanage, or adoptive parents.

I headcanon that he had at least one loving parent—before he was orphaned, but it's entirely possible, and likely, that he was abandoned at birth.

Young Zevlor would've known that he would have to work very hard to be seen as something other than a criminal or evil monster.

"While some [tieflings] would... [turn] towards evil, others rejected it wholeheartedly and sought to make a good impact on the world around them, sometimes becoming the most heroic characters of all. Few could maintain this discipline however."

AN: Elturel was a theocracy (more on that part 2)— Zevlor likely grew up in a deeply religious family/ community.

All these factors combined would lead to a young Zevlor who:

Was determined to prove his goodness and rise above the adversity he faced. The force of will and work ethic he needed to become not just a Hellrider— but a Hellrider Commander, while being a tiefling, meant that he would've grown into a stubborn man. (See this post [alt] by @ohsayit)

Was so deeply religious and devoutly pious that he became a paladin. (More on this in part 2)

Internalized the impossible standards he was held to.

Developed a guilt complex (my "grew up Catholic" is showing)

Viewed any mistake he made as a personal moral failure, and as an indication of his inherent evil nature. (Hello again, Catholicism)

Would be hyperaware of how he's perceived by others.

Would learn how to read people's true intentions/ motivations.

Learned to vigilantly monitor, and strictly control his facial expressions and body language. (Is my autistic masking showing?)

Learned how to show deference to others through body language.

Leaned how to make himself appear smaller and less threatening.

Figured out how smile and laugh without showing his teeth.

Mastered the awkward and tight-lipped polite smile.

Figured out how to intelligibly speak with a tight jaw and lips so that his teeth wouldn't be seen by others while he spoke.

Developed self worth/ self esteem issues. Even other tieflings would've looked at him with suspicion and maybe even disgust.

That's it for part 1, here's another link to (Part 2) Elturel's history and culture, the Hellriders, and Zevlor's paladins oath. (Part 2.5)

and the other parts,

A deep dive into Zevlor's devotion series (master list)

[jjs-brainrot]

2024 is coming to an end, all my anime from the current season finished up and next season has yet to be begin. it's time for me to actually sit down and figure out what my top 10 anime were for this year!

God damn was this an amazing year of anime for me. Every season had multiple shows I was hardcore obsessing over with a surprising amount of them outright entering into my top 10 of all time. I'd say I'd be surprised if 2025 can match it, but a lot of the shows I was obsessing with are getting continuations next year so I might end up with back to back peak years.

10. Yuru Camp S3

The greatest propaganda camping has ever received is back again to try to convince you that you should totally buy some camping gear and drive out to the nearest camp ground. You will surely not regret both of these decisions!

Yuru Camp feels like it's the platonic ideal of the iyashikei genre. It has just the right mixture of beautiful scenery, slow and chill vibes, the right amount of goofy humor and some really delicious looking food to make you feeling rejuvenated (and a bit hungry) every episode.

Season 3 has been particularly notable as its the first season being handled by Eight Bit instead of C-Station. While I'd say it's still as strong as previous seasons, the environmental backgrounds definitely felt like a step back compared to the previous 2 seasons and movie. It wasn't bad enough that it put a damper on my enjoyment of the series but it was a noticeable downground. The rest of the animation was pretty solid though with some of the later episodes (7 and 8 in particular) being incredibly creative and fun.

It's Yuru Camp. You should watch Yuru Camp if you haven't already…. You will not regret any purchases you make after watching Yuru Camp…

9. Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf

The classic medieval fantasy/economic/romance/drama series has returned to once again lure unsuspecting otaku with the promise of a cute wolfgirl, only to lock the door behind them and reveal that they've been signed up for an econ 101 class.

It's an updated adaptation that's much more faithful to the light novels then the first anime was. Not too much to say until we get season 2 as it covered a lot of the arcs the first anime covered. The one exception being that it actually animated book 3 which the first anime skipped over in order to cover book 5 (or rather 90% of book 5… I'm still salty about that…)

Holo is still a complete charmer, Holo and Lawrence still have excellent chemistry together and the economic drama is still top tier.

8. Dungeon People

Dungeon Keeper Yuri or the other show from this year from a mangaka thinking long and hard about how a fantasy dungeon would actually work. Though Instead of looking at it as an ecosystem like Dungeon Meshi, it approaches the idea as a workplace with its own logistical and management issues that need to be addressed in order to function.

It's mostly a pretty chill series but it also doesn't shy away from exploring darker topics like how the dungeon management deals with sexual assault and murder amongst adventurers.

Both of the protags (Clay and Belle) are fairly morally grey characters with neither having any qualms about killing when the job calls for it. There's also some strong coworkers yuri going on between them as well.

Kinda got overshadowed by Dungeon Meshi, but it's another really interesting examination on the idea of fantasy dungeons with some light yuri elements on top.

7. 'Tis Time for "Torture", Princess

The princess will be pampered, cared for and provided more friendship then she's ever experienced in her life until she divulges state secrets of frivolous quality.

An extremely chill little comedy that manages to be both extremely funny and incredibly relaxing as the same time. The closest series I can think of to compare it to is Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle (and maybe The Helpful Fox Senko-san to an extent). Just a nice series of skits about a character getting pampered.

Each of the "torturers" having the own niches (i.e. the titular Torture Tortura (yes that's her name) being a foodie, Krall being an animal lover, Youki and Inki basically playing around as the princess' best friend, etc) does a good job of making skits varied enough to never get stale.

Very good series to chill to after long day at work. Also has a season 2 on the way.

6. Dungeon Meshi

It's Dungeon Meshi, one of the best fantasy and foodie series to come out in decades.

In truth, the fact that I've been keeping up with and recommending this series for like 8 or 9 years now kinda does lower it a bit on my list since most of the novelty has faded over the years and most of the stronger moments of the series will be in the second season.

That being said, this adaptation has been fantastic so far with it easily being a contender for one of Studio Trigger's best works.

5. Mayonaka Punch

Desperate simp vampire girl wants to suck a cancelled youtuber girl('s blood) dry, the cancelled youtuber wants to reach 1 million subscribers. Win-win!

An absolutely hilarious comedy that also manages to pull out some pretty strong emotional guy punches when it feels like it and has an absolutely exquisite cast of girls who suck (pun intended).

Easily up there with Shirobako and Ya Boy Kongming as one of PA Works' best anime.

4. Shangri-La Frontier

A trash game loving birdman plays an actually good game for the first time in his life. Alternatively: LetMeSoloHer the anime.

One of the very few VRMMO anime that's… actually about the joy of playing an MMO? Honestly it feels weird to say but it feels like almost ever other anime that takes place in an MMO is either an isekai or a romance where the MMO aspect is just a forgettable backdrop. The only other series I can think of that did something similar to Shangri-La Frontier is Bofuri. So it's weirdly an untapped aspect of the genre.

Shangri-La Frontier really does nails every aspect of enjoying an MMO excellently though. The fun of first loading into a game and trying to figure out the basics, gushing about the game to one of your old gaming buddies and getting them interested in it, finding another old gaming buddy you didn't realize was also playing the same game as you, learning and mastering a raid with your friends, getting real into the lore of the game and even taking a break from your main game to play other games to recharge your love for the main one.

The entire cast is a wonderful collection of gamer cryptids with the main 3 protags being up there as one of my all time favorite trios as they're just as easily likely to help each other out when it counts as they are to stab each other in the backs for the laughs. They absolutely nail the "gaming buddies who've known each other for years" vibes.

It easily has the most stellar fight scenes this year with The multi-episode Weathermon fight alone absolutely deserving to top everyone of those "top x anime fight scenes" lists people put out there.

It's painful how under talked about this series seems to be for how good it is.

3. VTuber Legend

Lesbian VTuber gets drunk and loudly talks about how much she loves to fap to women. Proceeds to awaken a new fetish in every one of her coworkers (never the same one).

Hilarious, unhinged, gay af, probably the second kinkiest yuri this year and is the gold standard all future VTuber anime must be compared to. It gets it. It fully understood the level of unhinged insanity it needed to be to represent what watching VTubers is actually like and does so with flying colors.

Awayuki Kokorone is my oshi of all time. May she forever suffer the consequences of being a human lightning rod of fetishes by becoming a chew toy for every woman in her life.

Easily the one of the funniest comedies to come out this year and is well worth watching even if you have 0 interest in VTubers.

2. Gushing Over Magical Girls

Girl who really, really, really, REALLY loves magical girls gets black mailed into joining the evil organization that fights them. This turns into an unexpected positive for her as she finds out that she really, really, really, REALLY loves domming magical girls.

As wild as "the extremely smutty, borderline pornographic bdsm yuri magical girl show was one of the most compelling and interestingly written shows this year while also being the most hilarious" is to say… The extremely smutty, borderline pornographic bdsm yuri magical girl show was in fact one of the most compelling and interestingly written shows this year while also being the most hilarious.

It's easily one of the most kink positive anime series I've seen, and I think out of every anime from this year, this one might well have had the biggest impact on me. The general themes of self-accepting ones own perversions and kinks genuinely got me accepting and being way more open with my own and others'.

The bdsm magical girl show made me a better person which is a hell of a thing to say.

1. Girls Band Cry

RAISE YOUR MIDDLE FINGERS WITH ME! (or at least you pinkies as we sadly can't have the actual members of TogeToge flipping their audience off every live show…)

Hands down the best band anime yet, easily a rival to Studio Orange's work as one of the best 3DCG anime out there and without a doubt the best completely original anime released this year. It's writing was consistently strong from beginning to end with a few episodes outright being some of the best 20 minutes of anime this year (episode 8 and 11 in particular). The entire cast was super fun with Nina in particular being an incredibly interesting protagonist. And god the music is some of the best out of any band anime with Togenashi Togeari easily being up there in my top 3 bands of all times and I've basically not gone a single week without listening to every one of their songs on repeat.

Girls Band Cry might be the most near perfect anime in years and is easily the series I'd most recommend everyone pick up from this year (now that you can actually do so legally cause god damn was it a crime that this one wasn't picked up by streamers when it aired).

[theraddestfemalive]

Y’know what? Fuck it. I’m going to say this

I don’t think any non-gc or tra lib gives a fuck about what im about to say, even considering that im going to tag the cr fandom.

I’m only adding one radfem tag because this post is centered around another topic.

i feel like ever since the trans population has tripled, it hasn’t been the same. Before any of you cucks think im talking about the idea of being trans, im also talking about the community behind it. Their ideas within the concept of it.

the concept of being ‘transgender’ was built on the foundation of sexist stereotypes; although the origins had a different purpose in ancient societies (varying ofcourse), it was ultimately used as a weapon to oppress women in the modern times, the goal was to make a person ‘feel’ like a male or female and now trillions of micro labels and gender identities are used to describe people who feel slightly above the normal and they’re treated as if they’re some kind of clothes that you put on instead of an identity.

Because of this, most people don’t even know what a woman or a lesbian is. They try to replace the definition of something that was exclusive to one sex to cater to the whims of men.

Ever since last year, most my friends that weren’t into that shit now identify as trans and I saw a dramatic shift in their personality. Most if not all of them were autistic women that did not conform of societal standards of what a ‘woman’ is. Some people may argue it’s because of how lightly a transgender identity is perceived. But on my end, I think it also has to do with the lack of representation of quirky female characters in media.

likely I would’ve fit into one of those micro labels or some shit like that but I was lucky enough to discover characters and things that I aligned with so I didn’t have to deal with shitty gender dysphoria (alongside with my very obvious mental issues and me being neurodivergent myself)

When I look at the older cookie run art (2016-2021), or even from eastern countries (eastern countries aren’t really politically correct) I could truly see the characters in the scene. There is passion behind it. The artists are either older or they know what they’re doing. And it doesn’t seem like an overload

when I see newer cookie run ‘fanart’ esp when there’s a lot of people within the western community, I don’t see a lot of what the characters truly are. All I see is their interpretation of what their character would look like if it was an unoriginal copy of a 14 year old gendie’s oc. Alongside with that, they add a thousand headcanons and sexualities, making the character unrecognizable. And if that wasn’t the cherry on top, they’re so obsessed with lgbtq and race stuff (no im not a bigot, don’t even try to fucking label me as one im a bisexual woc ) that’s all what they talk about besides stupid discourse topics. Oh, and also changing a dough color is ‘racist’ (they’re fucking COOKIES. Their dough color was based off of their ingredients and complimentary colors, even the devs had to explain and yet the western community still bitches about it like whiny 5 year olds. They come in all colors, not just fucking skintones.)

I think the characters and ships of the community would be much more likable for me if it wasn’t infiltrated by the discourse gang.

I think instead of giving drugs and cosmetic surgery to children, we should get deeper into the psychology of why there’s a lot of trans people on the rise. Don’t you think it’s weird that it has to be an ‘urgency’ to get surgery or children will kts? Maybe instead of thinking it as a life or death situation, think of how most of these people are mentally ill compared to the other lgbtq demographics.

I probably sound like a fucking dick here and im going to get a lot of hateful notes and messages, but honestly.. idgaf

Before you water this down to ‘trans people bad’ im just highlighting the problems of their community and its immense effect on teens my age (13-15 age range im not telling you) before dickriding the movement, I think *again* we should get deeper into the psychology of these people, thank you for reading.

maybe one or two people know who i am because of the image i will show below, who cares lol

i will block if I receive any threats :)))

[lovezbrownies]

Is this an act of love? (Yan!Military Chief x GN!Reader.)

Masterlist

Synopsis: You ignore your wife in favor of a book, which has her infuriarated. But what happens when you become upset over the destruction of the book?

Gen Ludenhart x Reader

Warnings: Past physical torture to reader, reader fears Gen, Gen threatens you, no use of Y/N, possible minor character death.

It’s been 5 years since you’ve been forced to marry Gen Ludenhart. You had tried as hard as you could to get away from her— yet she always found you and when she did she would make it very clear how upset she was with you. Using various methods of torture, letting you stew in the pain and suffering before healing you with her magic. The honorable Chief of Military Gen Ludenhart was all but honorable.

However, now that 3 years have passed since your last failure you’ve accepted the situation. You will only ever die if your wife allows it, which means you’re essentially immortal. Since you’ve been so good, Gen would buy you everything you’d want, no matter the price. This meant you had every new gadget and every book that has ever piqued your interest.

You were okay with this arrangement. At least now you aren’t being tortured, and you can focus on whatever activity you want– well with your clingy wife in tow, but you’ve gotten used to her presence and can completely forget if she was there to begin with. Which brings up the newest issue in your marriage with the coddling devil.

The past two months you’ve been obsessed with this book series that Gen bought for you one random day. It was a very long series with very long books, so to say the least it has consumed much of your time. Whenever Gen would nag you over the lack of attention you would hum, give her a hug, a few pats on the head and you’d go back to reading the story. Gen usually wasn’t bothered by your occasional hyper fixation on certain things, they always come and go, you’ll always come back to her for affections.

Yet. Gen stood behind the library’s couch tapping her foot furiously against the floor. “Well? Aren’t you going to greet me, my love.” Her voice was angry and strained, glaring down at your laid back form, you were relaxed and very immersed into your book. So much so that you hadn’t heard your wife call out for you when she got back home. “Hm..? Oh, uh, sorry…  I’m… a bit busy…” You’d trail off every now and then from how focused you were on reading how the main character is going to triumph in her final battle.

Gen, tired with all the lack of affection, yanked the book out of your hands. “Hey!! Give it back! I haven’t finished it yet!!” You got up, reaching for your book but Gen hid it behind her back. Pushing you back down on the couch she began lecturing you about how hurt she felt over how you’ve been neglecting her recently. But in all honesty every word went in one ear and out the other, all your brain could possibly think of was the book and how the hero will prevail in her battle.

Your wife knew that you weren’t there at all, you’d do the same expression anytime you wished to escape the harsh reality and put yourself into your fantasy worlds. Sighing she softly threw the book next to you. “Nevermind, just come to me when you finish the stupid book. I will know if you don’t.” You smiled as you tried to find the page you were last on, Gen walked away dejected and hurt.

Thankfully you weren’t stupid, and immediately went to her when you finished the series, finally. But this is not how she wanted it to be. You and Gen lying on her bed, your body on top of hers, head snuggling into her chest as you blabbered on about the book’s hero, Liya something or other. “-And then as soon as the battle ended Liya looked all over for her lover, but she found them half dead, and so with the last bit of her power she gave it all away just to make sure her lover stays alive, then-”

Gen loved that you were talking to her with little to no fear but if she hears you squeal over this Liya woman one more time she might kill the author and burn every copy of the series. “Darling,” Gen cut off your rambling. “Has anything else happened to you today? Have you left that book at all? Gone out for a bit of fresh air, hm?” You looked up at her, shook your head no, and continued with what you were saying. Gen could only rub her hands across your back and nod along whenever you looked up to check if she was actually listening.

It’s been a long tiring week, most of the time Gen’s been busy with work, so when she would come home she would always ask for peace and quiet and for you to cuddle her to sleep. Come Friday morning, what she didn’t expect was to wake up and find you reading one of the wretched books of the series. It’s been a little over a week since you’ve finished the series and you’re still consuming that garbage? 

Usually in these types of situations she’d let you go shopping with her, but not even the outside world can pull you away from the imaginary fairytale you’ve been so obsessed over. “Dear. Get back to sleep.” Gen commanded, she used a tone of voice she knew you feared, and yet, it had no effect. “Yes, Gen, just a moment… One more chapter…” Gen sighed, her anger bubbling up. “No. No moments. No chapters. Sleep now or I’ll burn every book I’ve bought you.” Thankfully this time you listened, your body tensed as you quickly put the book down on your bedside table and laid back down. You woke up an hour later to Gen’s arms caging you to her, not allowing you to pick up your book at all.

You tried as hard as you could to weasel your way out of her grasp and run off to the library with your beloved book. Gen only squeezed you harder, pulled you tighter, and buried her head into you further. She was tired of your games, maybe this was some sick twisted way of getting back at her for all the pain she’s inflicted upon you.

Today, Gen finally managed to pull you away from your fantasy world and outside to a restaurant. Yet you still kept talking about the book, well that was before Gen cut you off. “One more word about that book and I will slam you on this table and fuck you in front of everyone here.” Her voice was low and threatening, the threat shocking you into silence you didn’t dare speak, allowing Gen to dominate the conversation as she usually does.

Today’s outing was actually quite enjoyable for once, aside from that one threat, all went smoothly. Gen took you out to your favorite restaurant, let you go wild in your favorite stores, and then finally went to the park to enjoy the scenery and eat ice cream together, which you were currently doing. It almost felt like a normal relationship, but it wasn’t, you won’t dwell on that however since it only ever brings pain.

At the moment you were both sitting on one of the park benches, ice creams in hand. “Gen?” Your wife hums in response, you snuggled closer to her side. “I really appreciated what you did for me today.” Oh. Oh, she could just eat you whole. Her sweet spouse. If she can keep this up for a while you might completely forget about that stupid character and focus on her once again. “Anything for you, honey. I love you.” Of course you never reciprocate her “I love you’s’’ but it doesn't matter. A little more solitude and isolation will fix that.

Gen and you finally made it home, it’s now late at night you move ahead of your wife, looking around for your book in the living room. “Oh would you look at that, my love, you walked 10,000 steps! We should go ou-” A sharp pained gasp interrupted Gen. Gen, concerned, hurried over to the fireplace, where you stood. Looking down at the blazing fire she saw small remnants of your book, used as fire kindle.

It was quite- No, it was silent, not a single peep was uttered. You were staring down at the fire, emotionless, while Gen was solely focused on you and your reactions. You just stood there, unmoving, unchanging. “Do you want me to buy the books again, dear?” Gen broke the silence, trying her hardest to stay cool, so you don’t break down in tears. If this has been at the beginning of your relationship she wouldn’t have been so quick to offer something like that, she’d tell you to suck it up and move on. You’ve obviously affected her over the years.

Meanwhile, you stood still, unfeeling. You knew she’d do something like this, Gen’s loyal little maid. Reina. “No… It’s fine. This was inevitable.”  Inevitable? What the hell are you talking about? Gen frowned, she turned her body fully to you, head tilted to the side. “What do you mean ‘inevitable’? How would the torching of your beloved books be inevitable, my love?” For the first time you finally showed a hint of emotion. Your lips pursed, your eyebrows furrowed and you turned to sit on one of the armchairs in the room.

Gen followed after you, kneeling on her knees in front of your seated form, her eyes begging for an answer. Wow, did she turn soft. Gen grabbed your hands, engulfing them in her much larger hands. A sigh escaped out of you, noticing how open she’s been emotionally, how loving she’s being, how sincere. “I- Well. You’ve been so open about how you’ve hated my books… I just thought eventually you would do something about it,” You looked off to the side sheepishly, not used to being so vulnerable to her.

You continued, ‘’I thought you’d probably tell Reina to burn it while we were gone and I guess I’m right…” Gen frowned, never would she ever do something like that! Why in the world would you ever assume that! Sure she threatened to burn the damned books for a while but they were all empty threats! You had to have known she was just kidding! Right? But then it clicked. The only person to be able to do something like that would be Reina. Sure the mansion has its fair share of servants but Reina served the parts of the mansion you resided in.

Gen got up, gave you a quick kiss on your head and said, “Give me a moment, dear, this will all be resolved soon.” You stared at her as she walked off, curious as to what would happen. You wanted to follow after her and see what she’s doing but knowing her she probably is going to rage at Reina. So you stayed put, not wanting to incur her wrath anymore. You’ve experienced enough pain for a lifetime.

And it seems you were eternally grateful for not following her. The next day Gen told you to accompany her and interview new personal servants for your wing of the mansion. You don’t know what happened to Reina and you did not want to know. She never really liked you to begin with. So why bother to worry for her?

‘Gen’s attitude is rubbing off on me too much…’

[i-dream-of-libraries]

Thank you for the tag, @theonceandfuturequeenoftarts 🍰🖤

"Self-rec time! What are your favorite five fics that you've written and why? After replying to this ask, feel free to pass on to five other writers to spread the love. 💗"

This was actually pretty difficult for me to decide, because the fics I would rec and my favorites are not necessarily the same. 😅

1) Eat Your Heart Out (E, 229k words, complete)

An obvious choice if you know me because this fic was my obsession for an entire year. My take that Harry should have turned from the path of an auror and decided to feed others instead was soul fulfilling to write. The journey he went on in regards to his relationship with Tom was the most complex I've ever written. His own development was very personal to my own healing journey with food, and doing a few "characters read the books" type chapters was so challenging and so hilarious for me as well!

2) He Will Slay You with His Tongue (M, 7k words)

This oneshot really gave me a lot of confidence in my writing. Everything came together just as I wanted it to, I was cackling in delight at the comments, and it's probably my most recced fic by others. This was also the fest fic that made me fall in love with writing fests, and helped me meet some of my closest friends in this fandom. 🖤

3) We Both Know How This Ends (G, 5k words)

My first animagus fic, but definitely not my last! There needs to be more Niffler Tom. This fic just made me smile throughout the writing process and when I finished it, I felt like baking cookies. Wholesomeness is rare for me, looking at what I usually write.*coughsmutcough*

4) In Perfect Unity (E, 9k words)

In my opinion, this is the most artistic of the fics I've written and has the most vivid imagery. Full of metaphor and more poetry than I'd previously allowed to slip into my works, this fic has a special place in my heart for many reasons. Mostly, writing it made me want to write a lot more and explore things that I had been hesitant about before.

5) Less Romantic but More Effective (M, 11k words, WIP)

I'm only a few chapters into this one, but it's already one of my favorites. Incorporating muggle tech into the magical world is just. Why didn't I do this before? Anna_Hopkins on ao3 knew all along, y'all (a brilliant writer if you haven't read their fics). I'm so excited to have more writing time to dedicate to this story! It's self indulgent and cracky with a surprising amount of smut, and I think that's the secret to happiness. 😂

No pressure tags!: @tommarvoloriddlesdiary , @penrot , @obsidianpen , @apocalypsewallflower , @isalisewrites 🖤

[milaisreading]

Wedding nightmare

Pairing:

Itoshi Rin x Reader (hint of Itoshi Sae)

Warnings ⚠️: characters are aged up. Reader uses she/her, there is angst but read till the end, it doesn't end sad! Requests are open

⚽️Blue Lock belongs to: Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura⚽️

Rin for a long time didn't know what exactly his dream was. At first both him and Sae dreamed of becoming the World's number 1 and number 2 players. Slowly, after Sae left for Spain, that dream dissipated and the silly childhood promises turned into nothing. He wanted to crush his brother after he humiliated him at the playground, for stealing the childhood dreams they had and for... for just not being the big brother he knew and loved. Now, at the age of 24 Rin pretty much forgot all the resentment he held for Sae. He had accomplished a lot ever since he entered Blue Lock at the age of 16. From becoming one of the World's best strikers, to playing for a well-known French club, to winning the World Cup, Rin had it all. The fame never got much to his head and he pretty much stayed the same, stoic and somewhat sarcastic man he used to be in his teenage years. Well, he was like that towards the outside world, to his beloved girlfriend it was a whole other story. As much as Rin didn't want to admit that Blue Lock changed him as a person, it was the truth. He entered the project and boom fell hard for the manager. (L/n) (Y/n), Rin sighed dreamily as he remembered the day they met. Just after the 2nd selection started he met her in the hallway as she was helping one of the players. And boy was he whipped! From her looks to her caring personality, everything drew him in and he was determined to get to know her better. At first it was hard, with (Y/n) having a close bond with the players of Wing 5, to them also liking her and to his standoffish personality. But he somehow made it work, he somehow got her to agree to go out with him and here he was. After 3 years of dating, he was getting married. Rin chuckled a little as a blush made it on his face as he remembered the day he proposed to (Y/n). It was a intimate proposal, in the safety of their shared apartment on their anniversary day. He still remembered the happiness he felt when she said yes, hugging and kissing him. Rin was finally at peace. And today was finally the day Rin had waited for so long. The wedding ceremony itself was a pretty small one, only family members and a few close friends.

"Ahhh~ my baby is getting married! I never thought of seeing this day!" Rin smiled as his mother shed a few tears. His father fixed up his tie as Sae stood coldly to the side, glaring at Rin from time to time.

"I honestly didn't think that either of you would get married, with how obsessed with football you are. But it's finally happening!" His mom hugged Rin as his father tried to calm her down.

"Honey, you are being a little dramatic. Both Rin and Sae are pretty young. Who knows, maybe next thing we know Sae will surprise us with a girlfriend he kept hidden." The father teased as they looked at the said redhead.

"You are in a really foul mood today, Sae." His mom noted, wiping a few tears away.

"Yeah, cheer up or else you might scare (Y/n) away." Rin teased, satisfied that Sae never got and never will get the chance to know (Y/n) the same way he did. Sae let out a sigh and looked at the trio.

"I just didn't sleep enough. After all, it's not everyday Rinnie gets married." Sae said, faking a smile. Rin frowned at the nickname, he didn't like it when Sae used it.

"Besides, it's not everyday that a girl like (Y/n) is joining the family, am I right?" Sae asked again, directing the question to the youngest.

"Yeah, true." Rin gave a fake smile back as the parents stayed oblivious to their rivalry over the girl. There was a knock on the door and the maid of honor peeked into the room, nervously looking at Rin.

"Rin-san? Could you come with me?"

"What is it? Weren't you with (Y/n)?"

"I... it is about (Y/n), she has been crying for the past hour or so." She answered back. This caused Rin and Sae to look at her in panic while the parents gave her a worried look.

"What?! Why didn't you call me an hour ago?!" Rin yelled in worry as he walked towards the door.

"Rin, please calm down!" His mom tried to argue and Sae watched him storm out.

"I will go and take some fresh air. All this wedding stuff is ticking me off." Sae sighed and walked out, ignoring his father's calls.

Rin stormed towards the room (Y/n) was in, worry written all over his face.

"Ah! Rin-san, good that you are here! She doesn't want to talk with us." Her step-brother said as he and his wife were waiting in front of the door. Rin nodded his head and told them to go freshen up while he deals with it.

"(Y/n), baby what's wrong?" The teal-eyed man asked as he walked into the room, his heart breaking when he saw her crying. She looked up and flinched when she saw Rin.

"Rin... I am so sorry..." The woman cried out, getting up from her chair as Rin ran over to her.

"What are you apologizing for? Come here." The teal-eyed man said trying to hug her, but to his surprise she rejected the idea.

"No... Rin, I can't marry you. God I should have said something earlier..." Rin felt his knees shake at that, but spoke up.

"Haha... (Y/n), don't joke like that-"

"It's not a joke! I can't marry you... I love someone else, Rin."

The football player felt his heart shatter when she cried out those words.

'No no no... this can't be real. She loves me, she told me that last night.'

"(Y/n), you can't be for real. You told me last night that you loved me." The woman let out another sob and shook her head.

"No Rin, I lied. Truth is, I am in love with someone else, have been for 2 years and he knows it." (Y/n) admitted. Rin felt like he couldn't breath, this couldn't be real! They were supposed to get married, have a family and live a happy life! What was this?!

"And... and who? How did you fall for him?" Rin asked, although he wasn't really sure if he wanted to know her answer. After all, his world was falling apart because of him.

(Y/n) glanced at the person standing behind him and sighed, wiping her tears away.

"You remember the time you couldn't come to Madrid with me?" Rin thought for a moment, then his eyes widened in realization as to who the man was.

"Sae... You fell in love with him?!" Rin yelled in disbelief.

"Don't blame her, little brother. After all, it was you prioritizing your career over (Y/n)'s feelings." Sae spoke up as he walked past him and to where (Y/n) was, giving her tight hug.

"You... you bastard! How could you do this to me?! And let her go!" Rin yelled in anger.

"Rin, it's my fault, don't be mad at Sae. Back then, you just barely ever made time for me and just talked about football. You acted like I was am afterthought, Sae on the other hand... he really made time for me, made me feel special and we kind of hit it off." (Y/n) said, burying her face into Sae's chest.

"(Y/n)..." Rin muttered as he watched the two, realizing what she meant.

'Why can't I move? I want to punch Sae so bad! But my feet won't listen to me.'

"Sorry Rin, but it looks like you will forever be the 2nd best." Sae chuckled, kissing (Y/n)'s forehead.

'No way... not (Y/n)! He can take my fame and talent for all I care, but not her!'

"(Y/n)? Please don't, I will do better, but please don't go for Sae! Please!" Rin begged as tears started sliding down his cheeks.

"It's too late, Rin..." (Y/n) shook her head.

"No! It's not! Please (Y/n)!" The room started spinning and Rin felt like he was about to lose consciousness any time.

"Please!" Rin cried out and sat up on his bed, panting and sweating as he looked around.

"What was... where am I?" The teal-eyed boy thought as he frantically looked around the room.

'This is my room? Was that a dream?' Rin thought as he took his phone from the nightstand. Unlocking it, he quickly dialed a number and waited for an answer. After about a minute, a voice spoke up from the other side and Rin felt a few tear drops fall down his face.

"Hello, Rinnie? Are you alright?" (Y/n) asked, clearly startled from his call at 4 in the morning.

"(Y/n)?! Thank God... how long have we been dating?" He asked, trying to calm his racing heart down.

"What... like a year? Rin, why are you asking me that now?" (Y/n) asked in worry as Rin laid down again.

"No reason... say, did you make any plans for next week?"

"I thought I told you... but we made those plans for Spain, but I have to cancel them tomorrow, since you have to prepare for the championship." (Y/n) yawned.

"Why would you cancel? You told me you wanted to visit Spain, my championship has nothing to do with it." Rin raised an eyebrow.

"I am not going alone there. I want to spend time with you." Rin wanted to say it was stupid and to go without him, but then remembered the dream he had a stopped himself.

'This is my chance... the dream was like a warning.'

"You are not canceling anything! I am taking next week off and we are focusing all our energy on Spain and going wherever you planed." Rin said sternly.

"But the champion-"

"Screw that! We are going there next week and the championship is in like a month anyways. That can wait."

"O-ok..." Rin could clearly hear how startled she was, making him realize just how much he put his work before her. He will need a balance, he will make this work.

'I will be the only one to make you feel special. I promise.' Rin nodded to himself as they spoke on the phone for the next hour. Slowly Rin forgot about the nightmare and he became calmer, enjoying his conversation.

[detta-pica]

Fanfic Writer Interview

This should be a nice way to wrap up the year.

How many works do you have on AO3?

11. I was actually surprised when I checked. It feels like I’ve written 6 at most.

I started writing fanfic in 2013, then took a really long break from posting. I still wrote (mostly unfinished novel-length stories) and read a lot, but no fandom pulled me in enough to publish my own stories. Until JJK in early 2024.

It’s the tragedy, I think. It’s not that I want to fix canon, I love it for the pain it’s caused me, but I am strongly motivated to write happier outcomes for my ship.

Your top 5 stories by kudos/likes:

The Darkest Deluge - Kingdom Hearts series, Strifehart & Soriku, 123k words (unfinished, on hiatus)

This is a plot-heavy soft sci-fi story with a big cast and four major POVs. At first, I managed regular weekly updates, but then life happened and I took longer and longer breaks. I still intend to finish it. In fact, everything except for the final battle and dénouement is already drafted. The second my JJK obsession fades a little, I’ll sit down and finally get it done.

Born to Die - JJK, stsg, 40k words

My first JJK fic, a plotty, vaguely futuristic vampire AU. I got to play with very interesting themes in this one. I’ve promised a sequel and I will deliver, though I’m not sure when.

So far from you here next to me - JJK, stsg, 25k words

The first part in a magic realism/witch AU. I expected the series to get barely any traction, since it starts with the unresolved romantic tension tag. Each installment is a self-contained case fic, which is my favourite genre, centred around a theme. For this one, it’s grief.

Wisteria, sufficiently looked at - JJK, stsg, 23k words

Part 5 in the same series, themed around forgiveness. This is where the romantic tension finally gets resolved.

Unknown-C - JJK, stsg, 2k words

A silly, fluffy getting together fic. Technically canon compliant, but I’m always hesitant to use that tag when writing about a non-canon ship.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Every single one, and usually in a timely manner. I also try to match the commenter’s energy, so I’ll leave a long reply to a long comment, and respond to an emoji with an emoji. I want to make sure that each commenter feels appreciated and knows how grateful I am, but also, the reason I write and post fanfic is that I want to be an active participant in my fandom, to be a part of the community. The best way to achieve that, I think, is to interact with people.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

There he is, happy - it’s a canon compliant stsg fic with the MCD archive warning 🤷‍♀️ Alternatively, it’s The Deep Well, but I’m not saying why.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I’m not sure. I guess Unknown-C is the most lighthearted. Aside from the two stories mentioned above, I haven’t written any properly bad endings, but I mean… I’ve been focusing on themes like death and grief. I can’t claim those are happy fics.

Do you write crossovers?

No. I just don’t find the idea compelling. I might do a fusion someday, though. Specifically, JJK characters in the world of Stardew Valley.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not once. I have a small audience, so the likelihood of getting hate is really low for me.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Since September this year, yes. What kinds of smut are there? I guess I’m not super interested in writing penetrative sex? I’m a switch/vers shipper focused on mlm ships (unfortunately; I hope to get hooked on a wlw ship some day).

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I sincerely doubt it.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Also nope. I’d love to try it, but as a discovery writer that plans primarily in themes, I imagine I would be horrible to work with.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Listen. I don’t have an all-time favourite anything (except maybe Assam tea, but I haven’t tried every variety out there, so this could very easily change). I go through phases, come back to old ships after years and years, and just generally follow my whim.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I have a bunch of WIPs for the early Assassin’s Creed games that I will definitely never finish. They are a decade old.

What are your writing strengths?

Plot? Despite planning in themes, I think my stories are usually plot-driven. I’ve been told my characterisation tends to be true to canon, though that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s strong… Oh! I think I’m good at echoing the original material in different ways, usually through AUs, to explore canon themes from new angles.

Also, worldbuilding. I mostly write AUs, so it’s kind of a given, but I think of myself as a worldbuilder first, writer second.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Action scenes are definitely one. I find the choreography of a fight horribly boring (to read and to write), so I tend to fast-forward through them.

Character voice. I’ve seen people do absolutely incredible things with POV characters. I want to be that good. I will probably never be that good.

Originality of structure, if that makes sense. I think fanfic is an incredible medium for trying out new formats, pretty much without any constraints. But even though I really want to do fun things with story format and structure, I end up falling into safe habits.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It can be great if it serves a purpose. Sometimes, hiding information from the reader/achieving vibes over understanding is the goal. It can also be useful for settling the reader more firmly in the POV. But it’s the sort of tool that should be used very sparingly, or else it will become frustrating.

What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

The Old Guard’s Joe/Nicky. Maybe when the sequel finally comes out? Also Arcane’s Silco/Vander. Unfortunately I can only do one fandom at a time, and I haven’t yet been released from my current obsession.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh wow. Hm. I’m gonna say Born to Die, because it was the beginning of my writing journey in a new fandom and it got me out of a fanfic writing slump that had lasted years. Also, it was my first, raw attempt at working through my JJK-related feelings, so it’ll always be special to me in that way.

Thank you @hollow-lime-green for tagging me! This was fun :)

Tagging @poolnoodling and anyone else who’d enjoy doing this!

[jaydenix]

Miraculous Ladybug is so disappointing to think about - it could have been way better

I probably sound like an NPC at this point but I just need to get across a brief amount of the totality of the thought I've put into this mess of a show

So, Miraculous Ladybug has received a wide array of critique over the years. One of the key reasons for this is the writers overblowing the characters' personalities. Marinette is a commonly cited example of this, it's okay to write a young girl infatuated with a good-looking wealthy boy, but Marinette is obviously not an example of this. To say her obsession with Adrien is unhealthy would be an enormous understatement. We all know what she's like - she's a stalker, knows everything about his routine and everything else, it's genuinely hard to put into words how insane she is without just listing off everything she's done but if you've watched the show you know what I mean. Marinette just goes way too far and the show never challenges her on what is obviously wrong behaviour, it tries to make her seem like she's just a little too boycrazy like isn't she so quirky? But it's just frustrating and wrong. Similarly, Chloe also is just way over the top, she is indisputably abusive to Sabrina, in general treats everyone horribly, and she's only gotten worse since the beginning. Every time she opens her mouth its the same old shit you've heard 1000 times it's bad to begin with but it gets so old very fast. And all the while I'm constantly reminded that show decided so deliberately to miss out on what could have been an awesome redemption arc for her, maybe they'll do that in the later seasons but like I don't have masses of hope + the show should've ended with season 5 but not with fucking GABRIEL getting redeemed are you SERIOUS??? The S5 ending is horrendously bad but that's a story for another time. There's plenty of other issues to like Adrien just... not getting anything to do and other stuff but sufficed to say: MLB has a laundry list of issues that hold it back significantly.

But there's another side to MLB: at times the show has proven that it can take itself seriously, and this is what really gets me. It's few and far between don't get me wrong but in these moments I start to see the MLB that could have been. The one I like the most is at the end of S4E3 - Gang of Secrets, Alya is with Marinette and she finally confesses the truth, that she is Ladybug. This point in the show definitely has a "calm before the storm" kind of vibe, things aren't so bad right now but it feels like it's gonna get really bad sooner or later. Marinette is the new guardian and so the pressure to keep her identity a secret is higher than ever, but she finally breaks. It's a beautiful moment and feels so real and very serious. One of either Marinette or Adrien were gonna break eventually and this felt like the perfect time to do it. MLB really could've been a serious show that had its comedic moments but knew at the right moments when to not mess around, it's disappointing there's not more like this.

[myloveforhergoeson]

ash's september 2024 reading round up

find all the books and fics i read (or didn't read...) this month under the cut with a link to the synopsis and my reviews/ratings attached :)

this is just for fun! i'm not a professional, i just like to read <3

booklist:

Summer Reading by Jenn McKinlay(18+!)

• review: this was a solid read. nothing incredible, but definitely better than some of the other crap i've read this year lol. i enjoyed the dynamic between the fmc - a dyslexic chef named sam - and the mmc - a librarian named ben - and the interesting relationship between someone who hates to read and someone who's life revolves around books. honestly i was really interested to see how this played out between the two of them, but like one week into them fooling around he begins to read a book aloud to her and the conflict is magically solved. sam just loves audiobooks now and i wish the author had done more with that. both sam and ben have goals they're striving to reach and i love that ben is able to see his through to the end, but the reader is kind of left wondering about sam's and i would have loved for that threat to have been tied up, but overall this was a cute read. my only real issue with this story was the quality of writing. there were some parts that were super cringe and were clearly written by a millennial emulating the 'how do you do fellow kids' meme that i could've gone without... anyway. i really enjoyed the relationship exploration between sam and her budding teenager brother. after not being in each others lives for a bit, i thought their bonding over the summer was adorable :) would've loved to read a book just about them tbh. neither of the main characters were the kinds of characters to write home about, but overall i did enjoy the progression of their relationship. just kind of a middle-ground novel.

• rating: 3/5 seasons of the bear that taught me all i know about cooking

fic list:

assorted works of @ceruleanmusings <3

look around your world, pretty baby

Blood Diamond; Year Four

i could always write literal essays on your work i swear to god but these two works this month really got to me as per usual. the first mickames one shot for james canon bday was so freaking adorable. i had literal butterflies in my stomach like i was there on the date with them... despite the urgency of the time crunch, which you did exellent in making it seem like it was somehow slow and fast at the same time, god i read this like three times over. mickey and james are just my favorite ;-;!! and blood diamond always hitting in the feels of course... this one in particular really got to me though. the combination of brooke's annoyance with james the last few chapters really came to a head here at the hair salon. he's just a kiddo!! let him play in peace!! and then her figuring out a way to potentially exploit his singing talent... i'll wring her neck i swear. as always tysm for sharing and tagging me in your works 😭 i could read them forever and ever and ever <3

2. assorted works of @partiallypearl/ @praetoravila <3

it's nowhere close to closing time

all over again

be my weekend lover (but don't be my friend)

can i have this dance?

lolive kissssss

you got me paralyzed

you know all my deep dish

this is such a STACKED LINE UP AUGH!! from the beginning with it's nowhere close to closing time... kogan... save me.... i love the first chapter introduction to both the characters and the setting. it's been so exciting theorizing how the story will play out from here and i can't wait to read more!! and of course... all over again with olive my beloved... i just can't get enough of logan and olive and their fucked up little relationship. jo's party chapter literally had me shitting my pants ngl and you already know im thinking of lolive on a daily basis. they're my roman empire i stg... the other three lolive on shots had me by the neck too - from the conversation with kendall 👀 to the quinceañera chapter to their KISS augh im too obsessed for my own good... and saylors introduction one shot!!! ahh!!!! you always have such interesting and well-rounded ocs i'm so jealous!!! i can't wait to learn more about saylor and their relationship with both kendall and lucy :)) macie's story too... she and katie are so adorable. i love the dynamic you've set up between the two of them as they both navigate hollywood!! obsessed as always. im up in your dms literally every single day gushing and i wouldn't have it any other way!!!!!!! <3

3. assorted works of @selangkir <3

mrs. knight one shot

girl time rush (anniversary reread🙏)

iconic work as ALWAYS!!!!!! i truly think your character interptetations of btr/side characters/ocs are so unique and bring such a fresh perspective to the story! the mrs. knight one shot, on top of being hilarious, began to expand on her pretty one dimensional characterization in such a short story and it blew me away. unmatched creativity!! lord knows she needed the j anyway if im being COMPLETELY honest. and i cannot believe gtr turned one year old this month what the fuck!! what the actual fuck!! i swear i've read all three chapters about a bazillion times. ty for being so accepting of roxy and using her as a vessel to tell your story too <3 i'd be lying if i said i wasn't so inspired by sabrina carpenter rn i already have another chapter draft of my own cooking in the google docs..... <33

4. assorted works of @inkameswetrust <3

the windowsill pt. 4

the windowsill pt. 5

oh LORD such incredible updates to this sweet story. these chapters always pack such a punch! i expect nothing less from kames fan #1... im obsessed with the continued relationship between katie and kendall in pt 4. btrtv lacks so heavy on their sibling-ness so i always love seeing it expanded on in fic! and JAMES AND KENDALL GOING OFFICIAL AOAJFOBOBGA i had knots in my stomach! you've also so clearly set up stakes and kendall's future fears it's so genuine and just real it hits so hard. pt 5 with brooke had me almost throwing my phone at the wall if im being honest. the way she spoke to kendall was bonechilling and i'm nervous yet excited for their future together <3 never stop kamesing the world needs it so so sos sooo bad !!!

5. assorted works of @naquey / @ithinkyouhealedmyheart

ghostwriter chapter 1

ghostwriter chapter 2

hi <3 welcome to the reading round up! i love your story sm i'm so grateful to be here for the very beginning of kenonnie and their sweet relationship. ronnie is such a cool character! there is so much depth and dimension to them and i love that every single chapter we learn something new about her!! from her relationship with addy and callie (who i also ADORE and can't wait to learn more about) to his struggles with his father's health... god... the amount of thought you put in is clear and i'm just astounded! the second chapter was also super cool too; i love how you took existing characters and tweaked their relationship so we could learn more about how you view the two of them. i'd never thought to write something with just kelly and rebecca - it's so inventive, just like the (spoliers lol) other chapters you've published since <3 tysm for sharing your writing with us, i'm so excited to see ronnie's journey progress!!!

[11queensupreme11]

Hi Sweetie ❤️ Heard you were looking for some rankings, so here am I once again... Now that Bloodflood is on hold, let me gather my thoughts. How long can this get 😮‍💨...

First, the ranking based on the anime only:

1) Toji--> I know he's not part of the yanderes but hear me out THIS HOMELESS GROWN-ASS MAN HAS BEEN HAUNTING MY DREAMS, MY DAYS AND MY NIGHTS FOR ALMOST A YEAR, THIS IS NOT FUNNY ANYMOOOOOORE 😰.

2) Suguru--> Me trying my best not to cry seeing my all time favs not being included 🥲. Joke aside, really liked the fact he wanted to "mercy kill" Mizu cause he knew what it was like to be Satoru's prey. Really heartbreaking, my poor babies.

3) Choso--> Well... my type is hard working, muddy guy 😅. Finally we enter the yandere grounds 🥳. Fun Fact: Absolute first jjk man who stole my heart, seeing only 2min of him in season one.

4) Sukuna--> Me looking at my RoR Ranking with Shiva on top 👀💧. What can I say... Four-Armed Men=Best kind of Men, certified Monster-Lover here.

5) Yuuta--> My sweet cutie babyyyy 😭😭 made me scream when we saw him at the end of season 2 with his big ass weirdo eyes...

6) Satoru--> Well... I understand. He's like, bred to be perfect, but I never was any Gojosexual to be honest (all my homies love Toji-).

7) Megumi/Yuuji--> I love them as characters, really, but the ranking is mostly based on the HoRnY... they're adorable, but... not in a sexy kinda way?

8) Kashimo--> To be honest, like every character introduced during the Culling Games (the only exception being Gigami Chadguruma) , this one absolutely never impacted me in any kind of way. I'm utterly neutral about him. Nice buns tho.

That being said... oh boy, time for the Tsunami ranking!

(1) Megumi/Yuuji--> Look at my bois, how sweet they are😭. They climb at the top because I just reaally loved their interactions with Hime. They have yet to disappoint me, and I just feel they would treat her the "best" out of all the suitors. I could be wrong tho. Also the way you write Megumi😳, it made me realise the potential of HoRnY- Was wishing he would fu** her in front of Yuuta's camera-

(2) Sukuna--> I stayed up all night just to read your Shisui flashback. It may be my favorite segment of your story, how talented can you be? Ryomen Sukuna... he is the one who has the most reason to be obsessed with Mizuhime, he helps her with exorcism when Gojo puts her down, he has four arms 🤤... He could have been my favorite but to be honest, I feel like his ending would be the absolute worst for Mizuhime (being the King of Curses, the final antagonist etc...). And I just love her so very much, she needs at least one good ending 😭

(3) Choso--> Ok hear me out- I know I may be biased, we hadn't really seen him yet, but it seems he would be kinda like Yuuji. I think he could treat her well. And he's just so clueless, how cute🥺. I makes me wonder: would he be aware of Yuuji's love for Mizuhime? If so, would he try to be a good "big bro" and support his little brother, or would he be selfish and try to keep her for himself? (I think I already know the answer-)

(4) Satoru--> Like someone famous said: "Certified LoverBoy, Certified Ped******"! Maaaan, no wonder Hime wants him to stay in his box, he's so nasty🤣. Gross, disgusting, pathetic, obsessed, overpowered, terrifying... He's the worst, but he's so funny to read at the same time. Let's not even talk about his Heian counterpart... As I said, I never was a big fan of this character, but with all the Jjk fic I read, I can say your portrayal of Gojo is my favorite in all the FanficVerse. It may be the same with other characters, but especially for him. How dreadful, to be the object of obsession of the Strongest in the World... He is still at the bottom tho, we don't need this creep around Hime ever again.

(5) Kashimo--> I have no expectation with this one, as I've said earlier. The electricity power seems interesting, but honestly write him however you want. Seeing your blog he seems like a little shit too.

(6) YuUtA🤬--> Well... if you paid attention in the Pjo/RoR ranking, you already know where this is going. Don't you wonder, what's the point of the dual rankings anyway? I use this to compare how high can a character climb (Megumi/Yuuji, Loki) and how low can he fall. And man, HOW LOW DID YUUTA FALL. It breaks my heart because during the first part I was the biggest YuutaHime apologist. He has seen her fucked up family, he bought her books, plushies, he was sweeeet 😭... If he was a yandere "on his own", maybe I could have let it slide, but how can you go from "Damn Hime your relatives are a bunch of creepy weirdos" to "No u can't unfiance me uwu cause I'm ✨️Daddy's Special Boy in Law✨️" Do you know what happens when you do shit like that? I'm gonna tell you, you earn the [Whiny Little Bitch] stamp. Actually, maybe it was my fault. Shouldn't have put all my faith on the Panty Stealer to begin with. I may be harsher with him because, unlike Gojo or Sukuna, this kind of yandere is not cartoonish evil. The way he acts (manipulation, baby-trapping, forced union enabled by the relatives), it seems... way more realistic. It's not funny or entertaining, it's just... sad. I don't want my best girl to end up like the 2nd Sanyu. Not to say the way you wrote him is bad, it was the best to show us how much of a LOSER he is. My last words about him: I hope he dies in a meaningless way.

Well well well, that's quiet the long rant. I would like to have your thoughts about it. I know you're currently focused on Arsenic Blues (great last chapter btw, Nubby for life) but I really wanted to share with you my review about Tsunami. Really, your fics are the best stories I've read in a veryyy long time and it's the first time I ever interact with an author, so it means a lot to me. Hope you have a great day, week, month. U dropped this 👑

PS: Pls help me I'm gonna cry in non-english what's the difference between "tho", "though" and "thought"-

omg im so sorry, so "tho" is basically just a shorter way for me to type out "though" and it is not a real word, i'm just lazy LMAO i'm sorry!!!!

"though" is just another way of saying "despite the fact" and "however" -> "even though my mom was angry at me, we still went out to get ice cream!"

and "thought" has two meanings:

noun: an idea/opinion in your head -> "I had just had a thought!"

verb: the action of thinking -> "I thought my answer was wrong!"

NOW ONTO YOUR LIST

i was so shocked that gojo was ranked so high LMAO. I THOUGHT HIS NAME WOULD BE DEAD LAST!

though I can kinda get it since kashimo hasn't been introduced and he's kinda been... eh in the manga (sorry bro), BUT OMG YUTA IS LAST??? I wasn't expecting that. I thought he'd be second last with gojo as last 😂😂

but your explanation makes sense. yuta started out sooo cute (creepy though), and at first he was helping her with her dad....... only to become just like him.

and also "No u can't unfiance me uwu cause I'm ✨️Daddy's Special Boy in Law✨️" 😭😭😭😭😭

honestly, he might as well be calling susanoo "daddy" at this point with how much ass kissing he's been doing 😂😂😂

[vamos-chilli]

My god people are so miserable in your tags, trying to find a problem everywhere . And btw haven’t you guys wondered that the vibe was maybe just a bit “off” because Carlos was just probably disappointed that he didn’t win that’s it, no need to insult or blame Charles when he did nothing. He won his race beautifully, so no need to be bitter. Some Carlos fans are being really annoying lately sorry

im ngl i dont even think the vibe was weird charles went to celebrate w whoever was collecting the constructors trophy i can’t remember and both of them gave carlos a spray before carlos went to spray max and they chatted before they left the podium like it wasn’t weird to me

but the main thing is people are always going to be like this in fandom . it’s a form of parasocialism in believing that we as viewers can understand the inner workings of our idols from ‘knowing them’ through the screen and coming to ‘recognise’ what we see as behavioural markers . happens all the time that’s why we end up with prominent shipping and rpf cultures in a lot of fanbases bc of our interpretation of how people interact with one another .

it can become obsessive for people, the majority of fandoms i’ve been in have been centred around real people and the subject of ‘truthing’ comes up a lot- the strict determination of a trait or personality of a person based on a second hand perspective of them, where the f in rpf is made redundant and people start to genuinely believe their headcanons of a person are applicable to their real life person . larry stylinson is knocking at the door .

because of parasocial and truthing behaviours peoples perception of drivers becomes tilted on what will best fit the subconscious narrative they are building- lando for instance i believe doesn’t deserve the mass hatred of mischaracterising as an awful person he’s been getting this season. nothing has changed between this season and the last except for the number of wins under his belt .

last year people felt the same hostility towards max . a few years ago it was lewis . its the relationship to our drivers as a competitor that’s changed . and those that pose a bigger threat receive the harsher penalties to their character .

it’s not an issue with carlos fans . it’s not an issue with lando fans or max fans or charles fans or anyone . it’s an issue of parasocialism that’s prevalent in every fandom for every character ever . we see it more for these drivers because they are top 5 drivers and they have larger fan bases . none of us are the big bad .

sometimes it feels like us vs them and i’ll tell you first i felt that way at the start of the season because genuinely i was being flooded with carlos hate in my asks and people posting the most insane negatively parasocial conspiracy theories about carlos having paid out the media to talk about him as if he didn’t just win a grand prix 2 weeks after surgery and be one of the most valuable drivers on the market for 2025 (i still get heated about that bc it was just plain disrespectful) . and yeah it did feel like it was carlos fans vs the lecfosi . because sometimes we let it be .

we build these insanely negative parasocial relationships with drivers and it consumes us. i’ve had to block ferrari fans for constantly posting carlos negativity and no doubt charles fans have had to block some carlos fans for constant driver negativity. lando fans will have gotten death threats over a race result even though that’s an insane thing to do and so have oscar fans .

everyone is annoying all the time we all annoy each other with our parasocial truthing of drivers personalities and the only way it’s actually going to change is if

1) we all take a step back to analyse our own behaviours and how we engage with negative parasocial behaviour

2) we stop making call out posts of ‘x drivers fans are so annoying’ because all it’s doing is reinforcing the narrative we want to build

[yeetmeoutthewindowdaddy]

A deep dive into Zevlor's devotion (Part 2) Elturel's history and culture, the Hellriders, and Zevlor's paladin oath:

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BG3.

These series of posts were originally one loooooong post— but apparently Tumblr has a character limit, and I found it; so now it's been split into several parts/posts.

(Part 1) Everybody hates tieflings, and how discrimination impacted a young Zevlor

((Part 2, this post, is for providing historical and sociological information on Elturel, paladins and their oaths, and the Hellriders. The third part is where the meat of my Zevlor analysis is.))

(Part 2.5)

(Part 3) Zevlor's actions during Act 1, an analysis of a man who is barely holding on.

(Part 4) Zevlor's actions during Act 2, an analysis of a broken man.

(Part 5) Zevlor in a romantic relationship.

(Part 6) Zevlor's actions during/ after the epilogue, not all endings are happily ever after— especially not for a tiefling.

(Part 7) Zevlor in a romantic relationship.

I don't think many bg3 players understand just how dedicated and loyal of a person Zevlor is. This ADHD hyper-fixation fueled multipart-thesis is meant to show how Zevlor's past is as tragic as any of the origin characters'/ Durge's. It's meant to show how horrifically broken Zevlor was when he "betrayed" the other tieflings. It's also meant to show that our beloved blorbo would probably be fervently obsessive if he was in a romantic relationship.

Most importantly: It demonstrates how our favorite man Zevlor was most likely a fanatical religious zealot my dudes. He was (probably) a part of the Faerûn equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition lite.

I have kept this as factual as I am able to. Please keep in mind that Baldur's Gate 3 plays it fast and loose with the DND/ Forgotten Realms canon and lore, on top of DND/ the Forgotten Realms itself regularly disregarding and changing it's own lore and canon. DND lore and canon as a whole is a mess. It has multiple universes that sometimes interact and are maybe separate from each other. Full disclosure; I've mixed 1e-5e lore together FUCK 5.5e, because parsing through what is currently considered canon is a nightmare. As far as I'm concerned, as long as a piece of lore was canon at some point in the past 50 years— it's fair game. @y-rhywbeth2 in this post has a more in depth disclaimer. Also please check out their headcanons and lore breakdowns, they're so good.

THIS PROJECT TOOK ME OVER A MONTH TO WRITE. I've tried to find all grammatical and spelling errors. I've tried to ensure that I've cited the correct sources in the correct places.

Before reading this way to long of a post please check out (the much more succinct) @gortashs-skidmark history of Elturel and Zevlor headcanons [alt].

______________________________________________________________

● (Part 1) Elturel's History and Culture:

[A/N: I refer to Elturel as a city, a city-state, and a realm. They don't mean the same thing, but I've used them interchangeably here because Elturel is simultaneously a city, a city-state, and a realm (known as Elturgard). Kind of similar to how the UK, England, and Great Britain are all used to describe the British Isles.]

Elturel was a port city located in the Western Heartlands along the Chionthar River.

"The river linked it... to Baldur's Gate on the Sword Coast... it was a center for agriculture and trade in the region, and was renowned for its elite mounted defenders, the Hellriders."

All Elturians were horse girls loved horses. Just as every child in Waterdeep leaned how to swim, every child in Elturel learned how to ride a horse.

"Elturians were practically raised in the saddle, learning how to ride and growing familiar with how horses behaved in any situation, even those that never became Hellriders. The downside was that, rightly or wrongly, some folk thought Elturians always smelled of horse."— https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Elturel#Culture_&_Society

Elturel claimed ownership over nearby cities and lands by declaring themselves their "protectorates"— thus becoming the realm Elturgard. (In other words they were holier-than-thou and patronizing in their attitude towards the cities they took over.)

"In the late 15th century DR, it was the capital of the realm of Elturgard... through a variety of excuses, Elturel had laid claim to the lands of its neighbors, placing them within "Elturel's Guard" as they called it... with the aim of bringing righteous judgment to all the Realms and "setting Faerûn aright"..."

Elturel was an authoritarian theocracy which was so pious that you could get into trouble for cursing in public.

"Elturel was known as a holy city... and it was ruled by its high priest, the High Observer of Torm… Even bad language and irreverent humor could draw the ire of authorities. Elturgard's laws were rigid, intolerant, and persecuted evil with inquisitorial zeal..."

Saying they had inquisitorial zeal was not a figure of speech, they actually had inquisitions.

"They ensured the city and countryside remained safe and well-policed... [through] rigid laws, intolerant attitudes, and inquisitions circa 1479 DR... Just rumoring about a possible band of thieves was enough to see one interrogated by zealous Hellriders."

Elturel had a 3 strike policy, where upon the 3rd strike a criminal would be sent to the mines— which never had a shortage of prisoners. (By reading between the lines, I'm assuming that the law did not have much nuance or account for the severity of a crime. i.e.: Littering 3x would get one sent to prison along side murderers.)

"Those who broke the law three times were sent to the Dungeon of the Inquisitor... they were punished and set to work mining tunnels. The inmate population was always being replenished."

They were even willing to risk a loss of trade revenue if it meant that outsiders wouldn't bring their immorality into the city.

"After the founding of Elturgard, the port officials who handled trade in the city... were overly righteous and handed exorbitant taxes and penalties to traders who showed even the slightest impiety, even banning them from setting foot inside the city. The caravans and riverboat convoys now feared to pass through..."

The official religion of Elturel was Torm, but almost any good or neutral aligned god was allowed to be worshiped.

"In the late 1400s, the city's official faith was in Torm the True, the state religion of Elturgard. However, the people commonly worshiped Torm, Helm, Lathander, Amaunator, and Tyr."

Baldur's Gate was a rivaling competing port city and moral antithesis to Elturel, who they were constantly on the verge of war with.

"Its chief rival now was Baldur's Gate... Elturel regarded Baldur's Gate as lawless and corrupt, and disapproved of its religious tolerance... There was much animosity between them… [but] neither was looking forward to an armed conflict."

Along with the city guard (more like a military than a city guard, but I digress) every citizen swore a magically binding oath, the Creed Resolute, to defend the city.

"...He [Thavius Kreeg] eventually made all Elturians swear the Creed Resolute, binding them by oath to defend the city... The Creed Resolute was a set of oaths and maxims sworn by the paladins of the Order of the Companion of Elturgard and the Hellriders of Elturel, and eventually all Elturian citizens... Citizens who were old enough to read were required to put a hand on the Tome of the Creed Resolute and recite the oath. Once done, their name magically appeared in the book, thus recording all those who'd sworn to follow the Creed."

Elturel's primary city guard/ military were known as

● (Part 2) The Hellriders:

Training started as young as 12. (Which is how old Zevlor was when he enlisted.)

"Enlistment and training could begin as young as twelve. People came to Elturel from other lands just to join the Hellriders."

They swore an oath not only to the defend the realm, but also uphold its moral codes of conduct.

"...Hellriders followed the Creed Resolute... This had them swear to serve the High Observer and the greater good, uphold Elturgard's law, and permit no difference in faith to come between them... among other codes of behavior. If a Hellrider overstepped the limits of law or proper behavior, their comrades would admonish them to "recall the Creed"."

Hellriders were revered— and as the protectors of Elturel they were held to an even higher moral standard than the average citizen. Children dreamed of becoming a Hellrider, but it was difficult to actually become one.

"It was said that every [child] of Elturel and the lands around dreamed of being a Hellrider some day. To call such a child a 'hellion' was... a compliment, marking one as having the courage and drive to ride the Hellriders' destriers...the Hellriders and the Companions were held in highest regard. Both inspired the people to be devout in both their faith and the pursuit of justice."

Hellriders were not only revered in Elturel, but in many other places too. They were more powerful than some other nations entire armies.

"...an elite cavalry unit who acted as the primary armed force of the city of Elturel in the Western Heartlands...The Hellriders helped Elturel establish and maintain civilization in these harsh lands. They were one of the most renowned and well-regarded military forces... For a city guard, they outmatched the armies of whole realms."

The Hellriders were named as such because of their loyalty to one another. They were family. **insert Fast and Furious family meme**

"The warriors were close-knit and exceptionally loyal, both to each other and to their commanders... It was said that a company of Riders had once ridden into the Hells themselves— namely Avernus, the first layer... to rescue one of their own, such was their great loyalty to each other... and from this story, the Hellriders were named."

Becoming a Hellrider was for life. They were the literal definition of ride or die.

"To be a Hellrider was a job for life, no matter how short it turned out to be... In the mid-1360s DR, there were no living ex-members of the Hellriders—too many had died in battle."

The only way to resign from the Hellriders was to be sent on a suicide mission. If they somehow survived the mission then they'd be publicly known as a deserter, considered a heretic, and subsequently banished from Elturel without a pot to piss in.

"Those determined to resign were given a final mission involving very difficult tasks, and even if they succeeded, and survived, they were stripped of their gear, exiled from the city, and named a heretic in the eyes of Helm, God of Guardians, for abandoning their post."

These are merely the conditions for an average Hellrider-- we haven't even touched the diehard paladin sect known as

● (Part 3) The Order of the Companion:

Before Zevlor's time in the Hellriders there weren't many paladins in their ranks.

"There were few paladins in the Hellriders. However, in the late 1400s, members of the Hellriders could aspire to join the Order of the Companion, a paladin knighthood..."

But by the time Zevlor joined there was the Order of the Companion. And they were religious fanatics. They didn't just swear an oath to the city. No, they went the extra mile by swearing an oath to Elturel/ Elturgard on their personal patron god.

"...A well-armored mounted knighthood of paladins who defended the city and wider Elturgard, swore oaths to the realm and shared its goals, even if the members did not all share faith in Torm. Courageous, righteous, and zealous, they were proud of their dedication to the cause of good, their clear morals, even their intolerance... Although the state religion of Elturgard was that of Torm, and they all swore oaths to the realm, the Companions themselves followed various different gods...Many of the Hellriders now aspired to join the Companions."

The Order of the Companion, despite being newer and thus having less established prestige than the Hellriders, were revered with an amount of reverence similar to the Helriders.

"In the late 15th century, Elturian citizens still often dreamed of joining Elturgard's paladin knighthood. This time, many succeeded. Inspired by the Hellriders and the Companions, the folk of Elturgard were typically devout in both their faith and the pursuit of justice. Both troops were loved and respected by the people... The Companions were seen as the undoubted champions of the people of Elturgard, with even the lowest-ranking ready to sacrifice their lives to protect them, and in turn the people adored them. Disrespecting the Companions and their Creed would incur the rage of the common folk."

I'm speculating here, but I would imagine that the former head Hellrider being a vampire lead to the Hellriders losing the people's unwavering trust. The Order members did not have this mark against them. Their PR was also probably boosted because joining the Order was easier than joining the Hellriders.

(They were maybe racists? Interestingly, on the wiki for the Order of the companion only humans are listed under the race(s) of those who are members.)

Also they were fascists. [A/N: In Faerûn choosing a patron deity is akin to choosing a political party.]

"The paladins swore to follow and uphold the Creed Resolute... {A/N: the same creed the the Hellriders later adopted and (along with citizens) swore to.} If one of the Companions... even questioned the policies of the realm (such as exactly why there was a temple to Bane in Soubar), their comrades would admonish them to "recall the Creed" and the matter was resolved."

The Hellriders and the Order of the Companion were not one and the same-- but they often overlapped (so much so that I have simply given up in trying to parse which is which), in a similar vein as the army and the marines. This reddit user described it best:

"Order of the Companion are Paladins. Hellriders is a general name for the Elturel cavalry. The Knights of the Companion are all Hellriders, but not all Hellriders are Knights of the Companion. It's a club within the club. Previously, Elturel was ruled by a "High Rider" who was the highest military leader of the Hellriders. After the Companion arrived, rulership changed to a "High Observer" who was the leader of the Church of the Companion..."

You may be wondering; what in the sweet hells is

● (Part 4) The Companion:

~50 years before the game Elturel was being swarmed by vampires after it was found that the (now former) leader of the Hellriders and the city itself, the aforementioned High Rider, was a vampire.

"...the High Rider himself was discovered to be a vampire, with a vast network of vampire spawn, charmed minions, undead allies, and sycophantic collaborators that surprised even the Hellriders. Now exposed, the undead infested Elturel..."

The Hellriders could do little to tide the flow of the undead.

"...and whatever victories the Hellriders won during the days, they lost sorely in the nights."

A priest of Torm (and later the ruler of Elturel) would perform a "miracle" and summon an entity known as the Companion.

"...Thavius Kreeg, then a priest of Torm, pleaded to any power to save his city, and... his reckless prayer was answered—by the archdevil Zariel with a deal to which he hastily agreed. Though the city would receive its much-needed aid, it would last but fifty years, after which Zariel would take the whole city and its people. Thavius also swore to serve her in all ways for all time..."

And so Zariel created the Companion— which was actually the Solar Insidiator that would cause the city to fall into Avernus (Hell).

"The Companion, also known as Amaunator's Gift, was a magical second sun that hovered over the city of Elturel in Elturgard… It was the symbol of the realm and of its defenders, the Order of the Companion. However, it was in fact the Solar Insidiator, a device created by Zariel, archdevil of Avernus, as part of a plot to trap and steal the city away to the Nine Hells."

The Companion was basically a 2nd sun that always shone in Elturel.

"The light of this second sun illuminated the land day and night, and suffused all of Elturel... it produced no heat. Creatures and things vulnerable to daylight in some way, or... destroyed by it, were... vulnerable to the Companion's light. Thus it prevented darkling races and monsters from assailing the city. Undead of all kinds found it painful or were even burned by it, while creatures of darkness could not even bear to look at the city."

AN:A tweet by Adam Lee, the lead creator of Decent into Avernus, confirmed that DiA took place in 1492 DR (the same year that BG3 is set in). Which seems to be a retcon of the previously canon year in which Elturel fell, 1494.

Don't feel too bad for Kreeg here, he's not like Wyll who made a selfless deal with a devil to save his beloved city and people. Kreeg was corrupt. He was why the people of Elturel unknowingly swore their souls to Zariel by having all citizens swear to the oath of the Creed Resolute.

"Taking the credit, Thavius was acclaimed as the savior of Elturel, and few would doubt his goodness or his intent. Only he knew the true origin of the mysterious second sun... [From this] Kreeg was raised to the position of High Observer himself some years later, following a crisis of leadership in Elturel and the unexplained but convenient disappearance of the likely successor, and his rival..."

Go read the wiki page on Zariel for her backstory and connection to Elturel and the Hellriders themselves, it's very fascinating.(LINK) Long story short: Fallen angel turned archdevil is salty about the Hellriders. She needs more souls for more power, and wouldn't you know it— there's a whole city that she already has some beef with she can claim from a desperate priest who's all to willing to sign it, and its people's souls, away to her.

That's it for part 2, I made (Part 2.5) Zevlor's Paladin Oath (link): because this post got too long.

Link to the other parts:

A deep dive into Zevlor's devotion series (master list)