#i have faith in humanity because i fucking need to believe that it could one day

[caputvulpinum]

My Anger, or: Dinner Is On The Table And I Am Holding A Knife

(URL of asker censored to protect their identity from the current TERFs going around like a bad orange blight.)

I don't usually like responding to these sorts of asks. But I guess the question "How do you manage to have any faith in humanity left at all?" is one I'll keep getting asked, so here's my answer. I wrote an essay about it. Read it if you want, skip it if you don't, but it has my answer.

===

Are you hungry? Food is my love language. I don't let people go hungry. Food is my love language. You need to eat well. I'm not going to let you not eat well. I made you this, I hope you like raisins. I can’t let you be hungry.

I don't do this because I am nice. I am furious. I am enacting with every loaf of bread and chicken breast and crushed almond nuts an act of terrible, irrevocable rebellion against the state. When I feed people I am throwing a brick at a cop at Stonewall, I am refusing to allow a system of cruelty to keep those around me hungry. I do this because the only way people will know that they're allowed to eat when they're hungry is if they're fed when they're hungry.

I love you. Have this half of my orange. Take a handful of chips. I made too much bread. I love you. Here, I have an extra banana. I don’t like this flavor, do you want it? Sure, you can have a bite, do you want some too? I love you recklessly and relentlessly and without reason. I love you violently and unrepentantly, have this apple, have this pear, have everything I can ever afford to give you and some of what I cannot, because I love you and therefore I must hate what makes you hungry.

I love you, and therefore, I must hate what makes you hungry.

Food is my love language. I won’t let people go hungry.

    -Untitled poem, self. September 19th, 2022, 4:56pm.

Nearly everything I've written for the past four years was just saying the same thing over and over again differently.

In reincarnation matter is not created or destroyed. It is a fermenting apple fallen from the front yard tree, it is the soil mulch it becomes growing the next apple on its branch. It is made of cycles and closed loops. Reincarnation is an airplane in the sky which will never land.

There are smaller reincarnations, though. The memory of something so strong it aches your jaw? The heavy heart heaving blood across its body even after the running was done? The ghosts in that blood, the people you never became seven years ago? There are loops within these loops. The circles are more than circles.

I started cooking only a few years ago. The first thing I ever made was bread. Challah bread, and it was warm and motherly and raisin-filled. But the first thing I remember cooking was ciabatta. Me and mine would tear off hunks of loaf with our hands and stain our mouths red with laughter and vinegar. I am no longer theirs and they are no longer mine but that is my memory of them and I. My memory of that life is one where I knead the dough and bake the bread and laugh with them over and over.

All this is to tell you that every poem I write has been the same for four years, over and over, smelling like plastic armrests and ginger ale. It is all just saying in newer and stranger ways that I love you. I love you, I hope we both eat well.

-”Little Cramped Florida Apartment First Saturday Where I Found Milk And Honey”, self. January 6th, 2022. 11:49pm.

    This last iteration of this narrative was the only one with something worthwhile to say. Anger is overwhelming for me. Let me tell you how I see myself in Sisyphus, pushing a hopeless boulder up a mountain. This time I will try to keep a better grasp on my boulder, which is that anger I am always, always feeling. I wish I could say, “I wish I was not an angry person”, but that isn’t who I am. To let go of that fury would leave me cold, and alone, and unsure of what to do. But those who are always angry have a duty to control that anger, make it a prism from which light can shine into and out of more brilliantly than before.  

    The past year has been about understanding who I am when my back isn’t against the wall. In some ways it’s more terrifying, having the responsibility of making a good life for myself from good foundations. But I remember with every second what it was like to live a life without the luck I’ve been given, and I see the people that get denied it every day. If anger is powerful, I want to use that anger. I want to wield it and make something so angry that everybody will be angry with me. An anger in a single direction, with one edge like a knife, to cut the world down the middle and into a better shape, and hand it to everyone like halves of an orange. I only have two hands to make any piece of art with, and I will only ever have (at most, at my most fortunate) two hands. But I don’t stand alone in being angry at this cruel, foolish world, the one which looks at children and teaches them “You are not worth anything, you have no value or sanctity just because you are human,” and laughs and calls us childish when we say we deserve better than that.

    Because that’s the most formative thing about me of all. The selfish, bitter dregs of feeling hurt and betrayed by the world. The incredibly egotistical idea, “I deserved a better world”. Look at my past self and all of the cruel, flailing, foolish things I did–some on purpose, some not, all causing harm anyway–and think about what I could do about it.

    I think that, on one hand, yes. I deserved better, objectively. There are things in my narrative that no one deserves the agony of. Beyond that, perhaps I deserved better circumstances.

    But I think it doesn’t matter what I deserved in the past, good or bad. What matters more to me is not making the same mistakes in the future. I can’t allow myself to resent the people around me for being maybe a little bit more lucky than I was; there’s art to be made that could change the world. All of it is made out of anger. All of my past, all of my future, it can only ever be anger. Anger that creates, anger that cuts, anger that hardens, anger that stands in front of other people and walks the line for them.

    Anger that stands in front of other people and walks the line for them. I’d almost like that to be the narrative I make for myself. To make a world in which I can say that the events that formed me most are not the ones which hardened me like lava to obsidian, proud like a boar. Instead, a world where I met its hard edges as gentle as I dared. You may have wondered why I sounded so different in the poems I write than the person I am, and the truth is almost simple.

    I learned to write poetry to put to words all the things that I feel which I’m unable to understand or say. That’s the narrative I’ve been trying hard to tell you all, all this time, the one I want to write so badly and yet have no idea how to.

    Writing about anger is so easy for me, except for that one kind, the kind I think I know for certain most defines my narrative, because I can never talk about it except in poems. It lives in me somewhere deeper than anything else, deeper than my heart, deeper than my soul. It can only come out in art, not in words. That anger lives in my belly and it growls like a great black dog every time it thinks it sees someone being hurt. I think that says the most about me that I’ll ever be able to say.

    So we come back to the beginning for the end. As I wrote before; “There are loops within these loops. The circles are more than circles.” I had to try and write this essay three different ways, and this is the third way, the only one worth reading. It’s the only one where I’m angry in a way I think might do good in the world.

    I really hope that whoever reads this can agree.

[heliza24]

Armand and Unbreakable Cycles

So (perhaps unsurprisingly at this point) I have a TON of Armand thoughts after yesterday’s episode. Specifically I want to talk about the function of the 1790s section, and how it perfectly illuminates the cycle of maladaptive behavior that Armand is caught up in and the difference between his stated wants and his actual needs. I think the setup we saw in this episode will also be crucial to understanding how Dubai plays out, so I want to talk about that too.

I know a lot of people love the show and TVC because of Lestat, and there’s some frustration that Lestat was presented in a way that was untrue or filtered. But I really think you have to view this episode as a lens into Armand, which we in turn need in order to understand Louis. Everyone has someone similar to Lestat’s role in Armand’s life; an ex or a situationship or a former friend who takes up so much real estate in your brain because of their outsized impact  on you, who probably never thinks of you in return. We give these people a role in the story we craft of how we became who we are. That narrativizing is kind of the only way to understand yourself and survive (especially if you’re going to live forever). So I don’t doubt that there are things that Armand says that are untrue, or exaggerated, or twisted in his favor. But I do think the important part is the emotional impact his encounter with Lestat had on him, and I do think he’s being honest about those emotions.

(That being said I am of course very excited to see these events play out again in season 3 from Lestat’s POV. Don’t fuck it up AMC!!!)

The main thing that the flashback does is set up the cycle that Armand finds himself in over and over again. He consistently finds himself clinging to control in an institution he is starting to lose faith in, and is then shaken out of his complacency by a new love that seems– falsely– to rescue him.

Depending on how they adapt his very early backstory, I think we can probably assume that this pattern started in childhood for him. Marius rescued him from being forced into sex work, and seemed to offer a much better life. But in reality he was just grooming Armand. (Thanks @toriangeli for correcting a piece of my Marius lore here!)

In Paris he continues maintaining a strictly enforced life of misery for the coven long after he stops believing in it himself, and (by his telling at least) he was grateful to Lestat for having the strength to end it when he could not. It’s so clear why Armand falls for Lestat. Lestat’s refusal to live in shame, his love of the arts, his ability to exist amongst humanity (at least when he is on stage). Lestat is of the world, while Armand and the coven hide from it. 

The reason I think it is so important that we got to see this play out in Paris is the way it illuminates the sometimes tricky relationship between Louis and Armand. Once again, Armand is the head of an institution that operates on strict and oppressive rules. Once again, we can feel Armand’s enthusiasm for this system waning (and see it reflected physically in the lack of ticket sales and general shabbiness of the theatre). And once again, Armand is swept off his feet by this new vampire who refuses to join, who loves humanity, and who has a passion for art. Louis is very much of the world. He refuses to be pinned down into coven life. Armand can’t resist taking what looks like the opportunity for escape in Louis’s love. 

What I think is so fascinating about this cycle is that it allows Armand to remain passive. He never has to be the one to make the hard call to walk away from a kind of life that is no longer serving him. He just has to wait for the next gorgeous man to arrive to deliver him.  As he says to Louis, “those with the most power are often the weakest”. His status and power in the coven prevents him from changing his own life. Or at least that’s what he believes. 

Thinking about this helped me understand the dynamic of what goes down in the sewers, when Armand threatens Louis’s life. Assad says in the behind the scenes clips that Armand goes into that encounter very set on killing Louis, and I believe him.  So I rewatched it a couple of times trying to understand when, and why, Armand changes his mind. The shift occurs when they start talking about Claudia, and Armand says that her mind will break apart soon because she was made too young. Louis says “you don’t know her,” and Armand responds, “I don’t have to. I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen too much.” That admission– I’ve lived through this cycle multiple times before, it is painful, and I don’t want to do it again– is what shifts Armand from being ready to kill Louis to letting him go. 

There is of course an irony here; mentally ill and child vampires do not necessarily need to go mad. Generally they go mad at least partially because of Armand’s actions. And as we’ve already discussed, Armand going to sleep with Louis instead of killing him is really just a repeat of his actions with Lestat. He isn’t really breaking a cycle at all. But I think in that moment he believes that he is. Maybe he even believes that by being with a man who enacted great violence on Lestat, he can drown out the love and anguish he still feels about Lestat. At the very least, Louis has also loved Lestat and can therefore understand Armand’s narration of his own life in a way that not many other people can. 

Ok, so now we are caught up on the past. Let’s talk about Dubai, and how once again Armand is engaged in the exact same cycle of behavior.

The penthouse is Armand’s new coven. He maintains perfect order by controlling the physical environment and shaping Louis’s moods and memories. But just like before, this way of life is no longer serving Armand (or Louis for that matter). You can see that the spark between them has died, only rekindled as a kind of performance when they are in front of Daniel. When Armand is telling Daniel about Lestat destroying the coven, and Daniel accuses Armand of leading Lestat to the coven intentionally… he might as well be talking about himself. Armand has let Daniel into his fortress, and there is at least a part of him that wants whatever destruction Daniel is about to bring into his life.

Daniel fits Armand’s type completely. Daniel is of course more human than Lestat or Louis could ever be. He knows about telenovelas and Bollywood and all other types of art. He’s whipsmart and inquisitive and is not going to let Armand get away with passively maintaining his old order. He’s of the world in a way that Armand finds irresistible. 

I specifically found it interesting how many of the “Great Laws” Armand would be breaking by being with Daniel. Granted, Armand isn’t in the coven anymore when he meets Daniel. But I imagine old habits are hard to break, and being with Daniel would break almost all of them. Daniel is a mortal Armand has revealed his true nature to and allowed to live, Daniel has written about and exposed vampire secrets, and (if we’re looking at book canon) Daniel begs for the dark gift himself, a thing only the maitre is supposed to be able to approve. 

Assuming that a chunk of Devil’s Minion did happen in the 1970s, something interrupted that love affair, before it could settle back down into a new but still oppressive status quo. Something prompted Armand to actively break his pattern of behavior and erase Daniel’s memories. I think it’s impossible not to think about Nicki’s example here, especially after seeing the 1790s flashback. I’m going to assume that 1970s Daniel was struggling with addiction and mental health issues in a way that may have been reminiscent of Nicki. How intentional was Armand in withdrawing because he saw what vampire involvement- his involvement- did to Nicki? How much was his treatment of Daniel a reparation for past mistakes he made?

These last couple of paragraphs are speculation, really, because we won’t know exactly what Armandaniel looked like until Ep 5. But I think it was crucial that we saw this part of Armand’s story before we see San Francisco, because his actions with Daniel will make more sense if we can compare them with the love affairs of Armand’s past.

Regardless, I do think the disparity between what Armand claims to want (maintaining the status quo) vs what he actually wants (to be liberated by a romantic partner) vs what I think he actually needs (to take action himself, instead of waiting for someone to do it for him) is going to play a role in the way Dubai unfolds. I don’t know that Armand will ever get to the point where he’s actively able to break out of the cycle he’s in, because this is Interview with the Vampire, the show of fucked up gothic romances. Vampire life is a series of bad decisions! It’s a weird arrested development you never quite get out of despite living for forever! So it would make total sense if the ending of Dubai mimics the ending of the Children of Satan and the Paris Coven in an unhealthy way. But regardless, it’s gonna be a fun ride, and I can’t wait to see it.

[farfromstrange]

I Want To Fuck A Priest | Matt Murdock x AFAB!Reader

PART 6 of The Vault

See this post for more information on my Valentine's Day Special & Follower Celebration, but these fics can be read separately!

Pairing: Matt Murdock x AFAB!Reader

Summary: You have a thing for the priest you met at a farmer's market. Thankfully, he has a thing for you, too.

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), porn without much plot, Priest!Matt, blasphemy (!!!), church setting, improper use of a priest's collar, improper use of a confessional booth, improper use of the act of confession, praise, prayer, oral afab!receiving, slight Dom!Matt, Catholic guilt, Fleabag reference, seriously if you are religious or triggered by the improper use of religion DO NOT read this!

Word Count: 2.8k

A/n: This is for those who watched Fleabag and then saw all the 'Imagine Matt as a priest' and 'Charlie Cox once played a Spanish priest' posts and thought, "Same!" when Fleabag said, "I want to fuck a priest." I see you, and I feel you. I wrote this after re-watching Fleabag one night, but I added a little poetic twist while editing because before, it was just completely plotless oral sex. While that isn't bad, I needed to add some vibes. You're welcome.

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

The church bells ring as the clock strikes midnight. The night sky is void of dark clouds. In the darkness above the massive walls encasing the holy ground, the stars shine brighter than the city lights. New York City, the city that never sleeps, makes an exception for the house of God in the dead of the night, it seems.

It’s been…several years since my last confession. 

The graveyard attached to the church looks threatening in its vacancy. It’s void of human souls except for the dead ones buried there. A raven claps its wings in the distance, following the gush of wind that brushes through the trees. 

The bell rings twelve times before it stops, but the echo bounces off the stone walls and shakes the stained-glass windows, which seems to drag on for an eternity. 

The last time I confessed my sins was before my communion. I don’t know if that makes me a bad Catholic, but lately, I’ve been having sinful thoughts, and I need to get them out of the way before I collapse under the weight of them.

You considered for the longest time whether or not you should come here. Faith has been your enemy for the longest time. You don’t believe in the Catholic Church, and yet you have found your way here, in the middle of the night, when everyone should be asleep in their beds. 

This isn’t a normal night, by any means. You often lay awake at night and question your purpose in this life, but lately, you’ve been feeling like you’re drowning. Sins are subjective, and you never paid much mind to the term until now. 

The thoughts you find yourself having late at night when you’re awake and lonely are far from holy. They aren’t ideal. They make you wonder just why you are thinking this way now.

But no man has ever been like him. And the worst part about it is that wanting him alone is an unholy train of thought you should have never submitted to. 

You tried ignoring it, carrying it all by yourself, and trying to heal whatever complex you may have that could have led to this obsession in the first place, but your life has been a mess for long enough that it doesn’t even surprise you anymore, and no matter what you tried to do, you couldn’t stop fantasizing about him.

He is the reason you came to church tonight to confess your sins. But you’re not here to find your way. You’re not here to ask for guidance from God. You told yourself that the unholiness of your thoughts needs to be cured and that is why you came here—to make this situation better for yourself—but the thought is ancient; it’s the twenty-first century and you’re the kind of person who knows exactly what they want and how to get it. The truth is, you’re here to get what you want, even if it will land you in the pits of hell for all eternity. And even if it kills you.

“You don’t do this kind of thing often, do you?” the low voice asks from the other side of the confessional booth.

You shake your head. “Not at all, Father. When I went to Sunday Mass this weekend, it was my first time in a church in a very long time,” you admit to him, “and this is my first confession since I was a child. I…I’m not really a devoted Catholic, you understand. I’m merely struggling right now, and I…I am in desperate need of guidance.”

Your lip quivers. Your voice resembles a tidal wave that comes and goes as nature pleases.

He can’t see you. It’s not the curtain that is separating you and is starting to feel like worlds apart—he can’t see you. He can only hear and smell you, and that alone makes your thighs clench with need. 

Should you be doing this in a church? Should you fantasize about a man of God and want to claim him, coming to his sanctuary to tell him the truth and mess with his head? You know that it’s wrong, but the wrong thing often feels too right to stop. 

When you met him at the farmer’s market the other day, he was so endlessly kind to everyone, including yourself. He invited you to Sunday mass, and you went. You went on a walk with him afterward, and there seemed to be something there, but he couldn’t act on it because he is who he is and what he is. He made a vow. He can’t have you, no matter how badly he wants to, and one look into his unfocused hazel eyes when he took off those red glasses he always wears told you that he does want you. It led to another sleepless night among many, and now you’re here.

You’re so utterly selfish, but God, you can’t stop it. When you want something, you would do anything to get it. He makes you feel things you never felt before. It’s terrifying, but you have to allow yourself to jump into unknown waters if you want to learn how to swim.

He clears his throat, and you can hear the chair creak under his weight as he shifts. Is it possible that you’re doing the same to him that he is doing to you?

“I want to start by saying that you’re really brave,” he says. The sound of his voice is enough to make you shiver. “But God offers people guidance in a symbolic sense. I can take your confession, tell you how to repent for your sins, but I can’t tell you what to do.”

You sigh. “I wish you would though.”

A chuckle passes his lips. “Why don’t you start by telling me what’s weighing you down, sweetheart, and we will go from there?”

Sweetheart. 

Yes, you think, this is your one-way ticket to hell. 

“I’ve been having thoughts,” you confess.

“Thoughts?” he asks.

“Yes. Unholy thoughts.” Your breath comes in weak puffs of air. The booth seems to cave in on you. You wish he would step out of his booth into yours and stuff his cock into your mouth. For him, you would shut up. You would do whatever he tells you to do, and you would do so gladly.

Fuck. You want to fuck a priest. 

But lucky for you, Father Matthew wants to fuck you too. He’s here, at midnight, because you were lost and he was still there—he told you he spends his nights at church sometimes because the city gets too loud for him. You couldn’t go anywhere else because any place where he isn’t doesn’t seem worth visiting.

Matt sucks in a sharp breath. You imagine him swallowing, his white collar constricting his labored airflow. You imagine him pulling at it to free himself, but he can’t. Those sinfully thick fingers of his would feel even better on your skin. 

“Unholy thoughts,” Father Matthew asks, “about whom, sweetheart?”

He’s pushing your buttons with that nickname. It’s so not professional. The lines are starting to blur.

“A man,” you tell him. 

“A man?”

“A man of God.”

The confession causes a bout of silence. You could have heard a hairpin drop. 

His chair creaks again, and his voice reminds you of an animalistic growl right before an apex predator attacks its prey. “And what unholy thoughts have you been having about this man of God?” he inquires.

Your inner walls clench around thin air. Sweat drips down your temples, and the arousal soaks your underwear. Your nipples strain against your shirt. If you grip the seat any harder, you will soon find wooden chips under your nails.

You lick your lips. “I’ve been thinking about him touching me,” you whisper. “And I want to touch him.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

“And in your thoughts, does he satisfy you?”

Your answer comes promptly, “Always.”

There is not a scenario in which Father Matthew could possibly leave you unsatisfied. 

The chair creaks again. Something in the air shifts. 

Your voice is breathless and needy, and so fucking desperate when you speak into the silence, “Just tell me what to do, Father.”

“Okay,” he says. His leather shoes drag across the floor of the booth and toward the curtain that marks the exit of his side. The next word out of his mouth knocks all the air out of your lungs, “Kneel.”

You don’t even have time to question his request. Within seconds, the curtain through which you’ve stepped into the confessional booth is torn to the side, and there he is, in all of his glory, right in front of you, and his thick cock is straining against his black slacks.

You pinch yourself, but you’re not dreaming. This is real. This is what you wanted, and you weren’t imagining the mutual attraction due to delusions. He does want you, and he is about to break every rule in his book—and the lord’s book.

You sink to your knees. The only thing you can see on his face is pure, unbridled lust and the ugly truth of Catholic guilt. He must loathe himself for wanting you. 

Matt removes his glasses, revealing his beautiful eyes to you. In the dim candlelight, they appear almost black.

“What’s my sentence, Father?” you ask.

His hand brushes your cheek. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he breathes.

“I’m sorry, Father.”

“No.” He steps into the booth and closes the curtain behind him. “Tonight, call me Matt.”

That is the last thing he says before he gets on his knees before you, and he captures your lips in a bruising kiss that is strong enough to make the angels howl.

His hand rests around your throat, feeling your pulse. He may not be able to see you with his eyes, but the way he touches you paints a perfect picture of your presence, and you feel every last ounce of his devotion. 

He explores the depth of your mouth with his tongue, tasting you, loving you. His hands feel beautifully rough against your skin, just like you imagined they would be after years of praying. He sees himself as the hands of God. A messenger. His goodness makes your heart swell and your core flood with more than unbridled arousal—this is human nature in all its emotional glory, and you no longer feel ashamed. You can’t possibly when he is holding you like this.

He exhales into your mouth—no, he breathes life into your soul. “You’re the most sinful yet purest thing I have ever laid my hands on,” Matt says.

You gasp against his luscious lips. “I wouldn’t want to make you turn your back on God, or–”

He cuts you off, “I did that when I first thought about your body on mine and coming so deep inside of you that you’ll carry me with you for days. I don’t care about God because if having him means that I can’t have you,” he says, “I don’t want him anymore.”

You swallow his words with a kiss. Turning a priest against God was never your intention, but you are not in charge of his feelings, nor will you ever be. Matt wants you badly enough to abandon religion, and you will carry that with you until the day you die. 

He lifts you back onto the edge of the wooden chair, pulling at your clothes and your undergarments. The moonlight hits his face as the cold air of the church hits your bare pussy. He looks ethereal like this, on his knees for you. His hazel eyes bore into your soul. He wears his heart on his sleeves and a collar around his neck. 

Your priest crosses his chest. He asks God for forgiveness. And then, with one gentle tug at your thighs, he buries his face in your wet cunt, and he feasts as if your sex was the last supper. As God’s disciple, he is determined to eat up every last bite offered to him. Every last drop from your cunt is his, and your lips part in a moan that echoes through the church like the bells did when it hit midnight.

“Fuck,” you cry out. 

He flattens his tongue against you, licking a long stripe over and then through your folds. He twirls the tip of his tongue over your clit, stroking the sensitive bundle of nerves with such precision, your walls clench at the sheer explosion of pleasure. You have never felt anything like it. He turns something unholy into heaven, and you’re drowning in the river to the Garden of Eden.

His lips suction around your clit. The obscene squelching of your velvety walls fills the booth. It sounds deadly noisy to you. You want to cover your mouth to stop the moans from traveling, but he traps your hand with his, guiding them to his hand, telling you to guide him.  

Instead, one of your hands moves to his collar. It’s his turn to moan. You tug at the symbol of his priesthood, forcing his tongue deeper into your hole. He laps up your juices as though his life depends on it. 

“Forgive me, Lord, for I have sinned,” Matt murmurs against you. 

You moan again, louder this time. He is repenting for wanting to dive into your pussy until he gets swept away by the tide, but it is far too late to back out now. Your pleasure has become his priority. 

“Lord God,” he repeats, “in your goodness have mercy on me.”

The pleasure is turning into a tight knot in your lower abdomen. You can feel it consuming you and your senses. You’re floating. The light at the end of the tunnel is not so far out of reach anymore. Every suck and every lick at your folds, and every thrust of his tongue into your tight walls pushes you closer and closer to the edge of ecstasy. 

In your goodness, have mercy on me. 

He bites down lightly on your clit. Your toes curl, and his name comes out in a groan.

Do not look on my sins, but take away all my guilt. 

Right now, you are his God. By drinking your arousal like holy water and pushing you toward an orgasm he is repenting. The symbolism makes your heels dig into his back as you buck your hips against his mouth, and when he adds one of those thick fingers, curling them up against that sweet spot inside of you, you can barely stand it anymore.

Create me in a clean heart and renew within me an upright spirit.

“God, Matthew!” your moan interrupts his plea for penance only briefly.

He swats your thigh. “No blasphemy when I feast at the altar,” he says. The vibration of his voice adds to the knot, tightening it, and threatening it to burst.

You’re almost there. Almost…

“Have mercy on me, a sinner,” he continues. His tongue slides between your folds once again, gathering your slit. His fingers curl upward again. He’s mixing different prayers, or maybe these are his own words, but you are not sure how much longer you can hold it. But he wants you to hold it. You don’t want to disappoint the man who is worshiping at your feet, your pussy, his altar, and you are his salvation as much as you are his saving grace.

“In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good,” he prays, “I have sinned against You whom I should love above all things—but fuck, I don’t.” 

Does that mean he loves you? It is too soon to tell that, but he is devoted, and devotion can be just as sinfully sweet as the rawest feeling of love.

“Have mercy on me, God. Amen!”

His collar is starting to tear under your vice grip. 

Matt thrusts his digit into you until it disappears, and he finally decides to show the mercy he was begging for to you. “Come for me, sweetheart,” he says. 

Your thighs lock around his head as the knot breaks in two. You come, hard, and the wave tears him down with you, shooting his cum into his slacks like the good Catholic boy he is.

You let go of his collar when your orgasm has done its damage. 

“No,” he stops you. 

“No?” you ask, still breathless.

“No,” he says, lifting his head to grin at you, not like a man of God but the Devil himself. “I have not done nearly enough penance.”

As a priest, Matt is used to being on his knees until they’re bruised; until he can’t stand straight anymore, so he has to remain there, cowering before a God he more often than not does not believe in.

Before you can protest, he dives back into your endless ocean, and you have no choice but to lean back and take it. 

He is not the only one doing penance tonight, after all—you both are. 

Matt Murdock Smut Tag List: @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @mcugeekposts @itwasthereaminuteago @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @etanordoesbullsh1t @thychuvaluswife @harleycao @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @sya-skies @amberritonicole @ravenclaw617 @pigeonmama

[homicidal-sheep]

I will defend Eurylochus to my dying breath because what the fuck yall, he is not the malicious monster people are making him out to be?? Like these characters are so morally grey its not even funny.

I love Ody with all my heart but the man did fuck up. He is human, and a plaything of the Gods, which is a very dangerous position to be in at the best of times.

I've seen people saying Eury has no moral high ground on the Scylla thing because he wanted to leave all the men at Circe's. Now firstly, I highly doubt a simple scouting mission would include all the men (see Cyclops saga, when only a fraction went). So they would be running to save what men remained, not ditching the entire army. Secondly, what exactly did you want them to do when facing Circe? They didn't know Hermes was there. All they knew was there was a magic lady who could turn people into pigs. So what, were they gonna ask really really nicely? Somehow I highly doubt that would work. Without the Gods intervention, I just don't see them winning. Eury was cutting their losses because from his POV, there was quite literally nothing they could do for the men. Best case scenario they snuck the men/pigs out and, idk, kept them as pets??

As for the wind bag, yeah it was a really dumb decision. But Ody is the one who decided not to trust his men, especially Eury. Ody has already given up on the crew, and they likely feel that distrust. Why should they put their blind faith in a man who refuses to clue them in? Why should they believe that he has whats best for them in their hearts? Ody's own guilt caused him to embrace an ideology that got a bunch of them killed. (remember when he said the only one who's lines he hasn't crossed were his own?) And we can see some of this growing resentment in Perimedes cut song. We as viewers have context the men simply do not.

Sidenote, people say Eury would have gotten them lotus'd. Yeah maybe. or maybe Ody would have recognized the fruit before they ate it, like he did with Polites. We cannot know.

The other point I keep seeing, that I find absolutely baffling is "well they deserved to die for mutinying, they should have listened to their king and captain" I'm sorry when did we all become monarchists. Kings and captains can absolutely make bad decisions? We should not blindly trust authority?? Yeah Eury kept questioning the captain. He was second in command and the voice of the crew, not only is he voicing their discontent, I'd argue that a good king should have someone who is willing to disagree with them. While Ody is right, that in the middle of a dire situation isn't great, and it would have been better to address those issues in private, they are very legitimate worries. If your captain has admitted he would burn the world to see his son and wife, I think being a little worried is absolutely fair.

The Gods keep appearing and helping Ody but they are also incredibly dangerous beings who constantly play with the lives of mortals.

On to the cow thing. Ya it was fucking dumb. But I can understand why. The man is fucking tired. They don't see a way out and at that point, starving to death slowly, so desperately afraid, probably sounded like a terrifying fate. Better to get it over with.

And he still cares! Ody is his literal brother in law. They bandaged his wounds when they could have idk, sacrificed him to Posideon or something. What Ody did to them was 100% betrayal and I understand why they mutinied, with what information they had. For petes sake he kept singing "I need to get home", I, not we.

Again, I love Ody, but good lord, the man is the definition of an unreliable narrator. Let them all be complicated, tragic characters without labeling them as cookie cutter good guys and bad guys.

[yanderepuck]

@lulu-the-smol-floof and I spent like 2 hours talking about the religions the guys were, so we looked it all up just to be sure. There are so many more arguments happening

Napoleon: was baptized into the Catholic faith as a child, however, he never became engrossed in the faith

Mozart: Catholic (and fairly religious)

Leonardo: more than likely Catholic. He referred to God as a supreme being. Could also be called a spiritual metaphysician.

Vincent: Protestant (father was priest, also nearly was a priest)

Theo: Protestant (father was priest)

Arthur: Catholic turned atheist(after studying medicine) then got interested in the occult.

Isaac: Born into an Anglican family, by his thirties held a Christian faith. Saw worshipping Christ as God was idolatry, to him the fundamental sin.

Jean: Catholic

Will: Protestant

Dazai: Christian but in the way that God is a punisher (in game possibly more Shinto since we see him in shrines)

Comte: He believes...in something

Sebastian: atheist but superstitious

Vlad: Eastern Roman Orthodox Catholic (going off Vlad in Impaler)

Faust: Protestant (was banned from churches tho)

Charles: Catholic

Drake: Protestant

Galileo: Roman Catholic (supported the church and hoped the church would support him, spoiler alert: they didn't)

~~

Fun lil thoughts now

Jean and Mozart are the only ones who go to church every Sunday.

Because here Leonardo is a pureblood, I think that maybe for a hot moment he was religious but very quickly turned his back on that.

Theo is SOOOOO mad that the three he hates the most are the only other Protestants. He's stuck with Will Faust and Drake.

Will actually grew up in the Church of England, which was possibly more Roman Catholic but when you look at his writing it reflects Protestant more.

Best part is that Faust is Protestant but Vlad has him working in a Catholic church. Vlad doesn't know the difference. Faust gives all his sermons in German and they aren't even sermons. He just bitches about this and gives out recipes, but Mozart is literally the only one who knows

Faust: I fucking hate this city. It's so dirty

Mozart: he's so right

Now bc they lean into Drake being more of a pirate, I don't think this man has much religion to him. He sticks to the pirate code. But I feel like if you showed him a sign of God he'd believe you.

Okay so Dazai. When we first talked about this we couldn't really find anything (I was honestly doing a quick Google search, not a deep dive), so we said he's probably Shinto, at least in game since we see him in shrines in some cgs. @tako-cafe informed me that he was first communist (when growing up) and then Christian, but int he way that God is here to punish/torture us bc humans themselves are sin and cannot escape it.

Arthur went atheist once he discovered science basically.

Isaac is actually right with the idolizing thing. It's actually blasphemous to have depictions of Jesus on a cross, or having a place dedicated to God. But that part sort of got lost bc obvs churches don't want you to know that. Also, he's just a god fearing man.

Isaac: going to church is a sin

Jean, across the room: ITS WHAT

That being said, Christmas Day, aka Isaac's birthday, Isaac and Arthur are the only ones at the mansion in the morning.

Dazai is going bc they have snacks. Sebastian is going because ..well.. we shouldn't trust them all to behave.

Back to Dazai. If we stick with him being Shinto, everyone in the mansion finds it weird as hell. Sebastian has to tell them that "no. This is actually the religion, not just weird things Dazai does"

Meanwhile Dazai is like "I need to go feed the frogs goldfish so that we have good weather"

Oh? Comte? Yeah. He believes. In what? He believes

Also, keep in mind that even tho that most of them are Catholic, they are all from different countries and time periods where being Catholic meant different things.

[anna-the-undertaker]

The Price You Pay

Mammon x MC

MC gets hurt, and Mammon is pissed.

Warnings: mentions of blood and injury, insinuated torture, death

Everyone conveniently forgets that Mammon is the second most powerful of the avatars of sin. His nonchalant attitude, rebellious nature, and notorious failures overshadow his true capabilities. For the Avatar of Greed, this reputation had its pros and cons. On one hand, they believed him to be a fool; on the other, they never saw him coming.

One of his abilities was the power to always know the true worth of an object, deed, or debt. He could immediately determine whether artifacts, jewels, or gold were genuine, or if a service or action was worth the debt owed. Anything of value, he would know.

Mammon often did work for Diavolo on behalf of Lucifer, making deals to boost the future Demon Lord's reputation or acting as a debt collector. Despite his sticky fingers, he knew better than to try anything shady during official transactions for the crown. These weren't the same as stealing Lucifer's wallet or Levi's figures. If he did, the punishment would be far worse than being strung up by the Avatar of Pride.

Years after MC arrived in the Devildom and turned his and his brothers' world upside down, long after he and MC had started a romantic relationship, Mammon was tasked with collecting an artifact gifted to the future Demon Lord. It was an act of good faith and support for Diavolo’s ascension by one of the many noble houses.

This noble house, in particular, was known to oppose Diavolo's exchange program. While many shared their views, they had never acted against the Prince, fearing Barbatos and the Sins first born.

Upon being presented with the artifact, however, Mammon knew it was fake. The replica was detailed, but nothing could escape his gaze.

"What the fuck is this, huh? Ya think ya can just hand over this fake, and I wouldn't notice? You'll be hearing from Barbatos," Mammon barked as he stormed out.

Days passed, leaving the situation to the Demon Lord and Lucifer. Handling dissenting nobles required delicate care to avoid rebellion or war.

Mammon, meanwhile, was at one of his modeling gigs. He planned to surprise MC with a road trip in the human realm, having noticed their homesickness. He'd already gotten permission from Diavolo and Lucifer as a reward for his help, and because they couldn't say no when MC was involved.

In his changing room, the familiar he'd given to MC appeared, squawking frantically.

"Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Chill out! What's wrong with ya?" Mammon yelled, confused. Then it dawned on him: this familiar wasn't supposed to leave MC's side unless it was an emergency. His heart raced.

His D.D.D rang, Lucifer’s name glowing on the screen. Mammon answered faster than ever, panic gripping him.

"What's goin' on? Did they rally the other noble houses? Did they attack? Is MC okay?"

Lucifer’s silence was heavy. "Stay calm and listen carefully. I need you to come to the hospital immediately."

Mammon's blood ran cold. Rage took root in his mind. If it were one of his brothers, he knew they could defend themselves. But this was MC.

His D.D.D shattered under his grip, the call severed. He bolted from the room, his speed amplified by his barely contained emotions. He was outside the hospital in an instant, where his brothers waited.

He tried to push past them. "Where is MC!? Take me to them now!"

"Mammon!" Lucifer's hands gripped his shoulders, holding him back. "They are being operated on. The damage is significant, but they will live. You need to calm down."

Mammon’s anger turned toward his brothers. "Why weren't any of you with them? We're supposed to protect them! Why didn't they summon one of us? Why didn't they summon me?"

Lucifer’s eyes tightened with emotion only Mammon could decipher—an expression of powerlessness.

Satan spoke up. "The attacker used a suppression spell, making MC unable to use their magic. It was premeditated. MC is important to us and the Demon Lord, making them the perfect target."

The silence that followed was heavy. Mammon felt more angry with himself than anyone else.

"Who found them?" he whispered.

"If you hadn't gifted MC a familiar, we might not have known what happened or where they were," Lucifer answered. "The familiar guided us to them before coming to you."

Hours passed, and little was said even after the angels, Solomon, Diavolo, and Barbatos arrived. It felt like an eternity before the doctors came to take them back.

Mammon was the first to enter MC's room. They were unconscious, looking worse for wear. Bruises littered their body, and bandages covered their torso, speckled with blood. He could smell it in the air. The beeping of the monitor and the sounds of the respirator created a haunting song ringing in his ears. He gently rested his hand on their cheek, his thumb moving in gentle strokes. He buried his nose in their hair, inhaling their scent, tears pricking his eyes.

"Wait for me, okay?" he whispered, unsure if they could hear him and pressed a searing kiss to their temple.

Then he stood, feeling as if his entire body was on fire. A dark aura overtook him, and no one tried to stop him as he made his way outside.

The Devildom's sky was dotted with stars, the moon casting its gaze like a massive eye, offering no comfort. An infernal incantation slipped from his mouth, summoning a murder of crows as his true form emerged.

"Find the bastard," he ordered. The crows scattered, and he took flight. It didn't take long before they found their target. Mammon crashed through the roof of their hideout, dust billowing around him.

The noble's guards lunged at Mammon, weapons drawn and faces twisted with determination. But with a snap of Mammon’s fingers, they all fell lifeless to the ground, their bodies collapsing like marionettes with severed strings. Mammon then raised his hand, and a dark, malevolent spell engulfed the room, sucking all light away and plunging it into a pitch-black void. The noble found himself trapped within this inescapable darkness, his breaths echoing in the suffocating silence.

Mammon’s voice cut through the void, dripping with disdain. "While you were trying to hide yourself and the artifact from the Demon Lord and his allies after you fucked up during our last meeting, you somehow believed you wouldn’t be found."

The noble’s voice trembled, yet he tried to maintain a facade of confidence. "I am in the business of souls. If we are on peaceful terms with the humans, my livelihood would be at stake. But if this is about the artifact, go on and take it then. There are other ways to get what I want."

Mammon’s eyes blazed with fury, his aura crackling with barely contained rage. "Oh, I'm not here for the artifact. You owe a blood debt and won't be leaving here until I have received every last drop."

The noble's bravado faltered, fear seeping into his voice. "Come now, your Highness, Prince of Greed. Surely you can just take the artifact, yes?"

"Not good enough!" Mammon’s voice boomed, growing deeper, more demonic. "Someone laid their filthy hands on MC... MY HUMAN! No amount of money or artifacts or jewels in the Devildom can pay for that transgression, my lord. No, for that... I want your flesh."

The noble’s face paled, his eyes wide with terror. "Flesh...?"

Mammon's grin was cruel and predatory. "It matters not to me where on your anatomy it is withdrawn from. If you don't have the stomach to take it for yourself, my familiars here..." He gestured, and millions of pairs of golden eyes, now stained red, appeared all around them, their hunger palpable. "...are very adept at tearing flesh from bone, and as you can see, they are quite ravenous at the moment. But! A grim short or a gram shy, and I will savor the fact that you won't leave here alive. Am I clear?"

The noble was silent, frantically searching for an escape, but there was none. The void was absolute.

"Good. I was hoping you'd resist," Mammon barked out a command to the crows in high infernal. They descended upon the noble, their claws and beaks ready to tear their organs from their body. Mammon turned and left, the noble's screams echoing behind him as he stepped into the night, his fury only partially sated by what he had wrought.

Days later, the noble's dilapidated corpse was found strewn through the trees, dangling in little pieces. The scene was macabre, the remains a grim reminder of the wrath that had been unleashed. Crows circled overhead, a harrowing warning.

The air was thick with the scent of decay, and the gruesome display left no doubt about the message: MC was not to be touched. The flapping of countless wings and the haunting cries of the crows drove the point home. This was the fate awaiting anyone who dared harm MC, so long as the Avatar of Greed breathed.

[hwangism143]

treat you better

synopsis: in which changbin gives you a pick me up, while making you realize your feelings along the way

pairing: non-idol!changbin x fem!reader

genre: fluff, comfort, platonic to something else (?)

warnings: mentions of eating, starvation, fatphobia, self-hate, fatshaming

word count: 1.1k words

requested by: @kayleefriedchicken

now playing: treat you better - shawn mendes

a/n: i'm open to writing a part two, if kaylee and the rest of u want me too!

"when you could be with me instead?"

Society's view of women was so fundamentally that it led women themselves to believe that they were fundamentally flawed.

The obsession this wretched society had with a women's appearance and the amount of hatred they displayed to a woman when she didn't fit the bill was enough to ruin somebody's faith in humanity. Maybe that's why you were so wary of people.

They thought their comments were passable, needed constructive criticism. Hell, they thought their words were encouraging. But in truth, every sentence felt like a deeper stab wound, pushing you to the brink of exhaustion in an effort to just be acceptable.

You rarely made friends. Each time you did, it just took a few weeks for them at most to say something along the lines of the way you look. The distaste, covertly disguised as concern, was so familiar to you that you instantly knew it.

It was the same situation you had to suffer through at the hands of your family for eighteen years.

And so, when you met Changbin for the first time, despite taking an instant liking to him, you kept him at an arm's length. You waited, waited for him to say something and anything about your weight, your face, you skin.

Why? Because Changbin was somebody who genuinely seemed to look past the way you appeared and having never felt that, you constantly thought he was taking advantage of you. But he never was. Over five years of friendship and he was still here, with you.

He took you to the gym and helped you get on top of losing any harmful weight. He introduced you to his friends, as kind to you as he was. (Except maybe Seungmin. Seungmin was a little shit.) But most of all, he was always there, a shoulder to cry on and an ear to talk off.

Whenever you felt like you were posing to be a bother to him, he replied with a quick, "You can always talk to me, I will always be here for you."

That was why you were currently sitting on his apartment sofa, your eyes red and puffy and his full of concern.

Once again, un fucking lucky you, was regarded based on looks, not merit. You were passed over for a promotion you had worked relentlessly a whole year towards in favor of a younger, prettier college fresher.

To make it even better, you had dinner with you loving family. Your mother prodded at you, forbidding you from eating anything more than a morsel which was unfit to fill the stomach of a baby. Your father joked around about how you looked less 'whale-like' from before, but still retained some of it's qualities. Only your sister gave you a reassuring smile, reaching over to squeeze your hand.

It was ironic. Your parents acted as if you invited yourself to dinner, as if it wasn't them begging for you to join them for just one meal.

You were spiraling again.

Maybe not eating would be better.

You weren't obese. You weren't even overweight. Just curvier than the beauty standards that accompanied most women these days. But the world was so fucking dystopian that people were ready to come at you like sharks to chum.

This world was so fucking dystopian that even you were quick to berate yourself.

It had taken a very, very long time for you to finally love the way you looked standing in a mirror. It had taken a long time for you to even face a mirror. And yet, you still poked at the skin the hung loosely on you, pinching yourself until you felt like crying.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

To say that Changbin was worried would be an understatement. He had seen you at your best and worst, and could say with his full chest that he preferred you at your best.

Watching you cry made it feel like his throat was drying up. Making you happy came as naturally as drinking water to him; so you not being happy had severe consequences. The repercussions were deadly, but then again, Changbin was spending a lot of time as of late with Hyunjin.

"My curves are in all the wrong places," you huffed, picking at your skin.

"I am of the humble opinion that wherever your curves are, those places instantly become the right places," Changbin retorted.

He handed you a bowl of ramen and gave you a glare that sent a resounding message of 'eat. or else you will be attacked by tickles.' You bit your lip nervously. Maybe not eating really, truly would help. But you knew that he damn well knew that family dinner meant you were coming home hungry.

Changbin looked at you, his eyes softening. "Everything will feel that's it's not okay but don't forget - you're not alone this time."

You give him a small smile. You would never be alone when you had Changbin. But you wouldn't be free from the demonic voices in your head either.

"I know, it's just-"

"Stop," Changbin interrupted you gruffly, "and eat. And let me speak."

He brought his face level to yours. "You, Y/N L/N, are beautiful. I am so sorry that you have never had anyone to say this to you, but it's true. You're so beautiful that quite frankly, the first time I met you, you took my breath away. So stop making yourself feel inferior because I care for you and I will always be here to tell you that you are an incredible woman."

He turned quickly, as if he had committed some forbidden act. You felt a blush creep up your cheek. The lined between 'just friends' and 'something more' blurred indefinitely. But that was a headache to deal with for another day.

"Changbin?" you said softly.

"Hm?" came his steady response.

"You're very beautiful too," you told him.

A smile slowly stretched across his face, his eyes still trained on the wall in front of you. You were entranced by the way his hair fell into soft curls and the way his eyes sparkled like stars were embedded into them.

You were so lost in his features that you didn't even notice Changbin reach for your ramen and take a bite, munching on it silently.

And so, two beautiful people sat on a couch. One, who slowly came to terms with how she really felt about the person next to her, the way his very presence lighting her up ignited flames that friends don't feel. And the other, who had been in love with her since the first time he saw her.

Changbin decided to ask you out on a date tomorrow.

please reblog and comment if you liked this fic! it means everything to me and I love reading your thoughts <3

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[drdemonprince]

also a good-faith question: what do i tell some of my friends who are terrified of the collapse of the current system for like, survival reasons? like in ways that mutual aid and community support can't really help.

i was trying to explain all this stuff to my friend the other day who is on government support and needs a lot of intensive, expensive medical intervention to live, and she accused me of being willing to sacrifice disabled people for the sake of ideological purity but like, i wasn't saying she doesn't deserve to live, but that she doesn't deserve to live more than palestinians do? and that she also doesn't deserve to specifically live on stolen land. and like, there are palestinians who also could really use those medical treatments that she has the privilege of accessing, why does she deserve them more?

she said she can't afford to not care about the election results because if anything happens to the aca or medicaid, or if anything happens to the medical supply chains, then she's fucked. like, yeah, but same goes for all these people our country is oppressing??

i feel like i just didn't explain this well and i want to give her some other stuff to read.

Great question! I think when people believe that all social care systems will collapse without the government, they are buying into a very colonialist idea that human beings are at their most basic level selfish and irresponsible and won't care for their communities. This is not the case! Thousands of years of human history prove this not to be the case, and so do the behaviors of humans right now during moments of crisis.

Look to the people of Gaza -- they are not leaving their disabled behind. People are sacrificing all that they have to care for their elderly relatives, neighbors, and friends. The only reason that disabled people in Gaza are dying is because the region is being deliberately deprived of resources by Israel. If aid were let in and the Palestinian people were free, they would feed their hungry, treat their sick, supply insulin, teach children, and perform everything that we currently in the US rely upon the government to supply.

Another example of this can be found in how humans respond to natural disasters. Rebecca Solnit's book A Paradise Built in Hell is a beautiful read on this, following numerous real-life disasters across the globe. In every case, people did not riot and pillage or dissolve into violence--- they formed stable encampments, doctors and pharmacists worked their jobs without pay, cooks made food without expecting a wage, everyone pooled their resources and looked after one another.

We also see examples of this when other governments have fallen -- and all governments eventually do! When a nation-state ends, life doesn't end. People keep going to work to make the medicine and put on the leg casts and wash physically disabled people's bodies and make the food. People WANT to feel useful, helpful, included, and looked after, and they will do these things without being forced to by an authoritarian power structure. We see this in the campus encampments and the incredible outpouring of generosity they are experiencing too.

It is quite common for a person to mistakenly believe that the government is all that is keeping our social order working, and that we are all just one moment away from violent chaos and deprivation without it. But that really isn't true. Even without the government, we will still have the *people* who understand how food production and logistics work, the *people* who research and test the drugs, the *people* who watch the children and nurse the elders and fix the roads and butcher chickens.

Without the alienating, exploitative economic structure we currently have, it would actually be EASIER and more efficient for us to take care of one another with these skills, because our time wouldnt be wasted on bullshit jobs that don't contribute to society.

There are lots of great readings about all of this on the Anarchist Library, but I recommend starting with David Graeber's books! Bullshit Jobs, then Debt the first 5000 Years, then Utopia of Rules, then Dawn of Everything. Bullshit Jobs is the easiest read.

[stalkedbytrains]

“Cheryl? Where is the file for the next appointment? I can’t find it anywhere.”

“It’s the folder with the green tab,” Cheryl called from her desk at the front of the tiny office.

There was the sound of many papers shuffling around and finally an “aha!”

“The Rainbow Snake?” Came the voice from the office. Cheryl’s boss often read out loud when they were studying a client. Just a weird quirk of theirs. “Australian Aboriginal Deity. Oh I do remember them. We were at a party together… 2,000 years ago give or take. I don’t think they’ll remember me, ah well thems the breaks. Let’s see… hmm… I can see that this is going to be a problem Cheryl. Damn colonialists. I wish we could make the British gods fade away. Fucking King Arthur deserves to be relegated to the dust bin. I can tell that we’re going to need some deep cuts on this one. Start making a list of Australians we can contact, I have a feeling.”

Cheryl did as she was told. Her boss was almost always right about these things. She knew what the gods wanted before they even got here.

Several minutes later there was a knock at the office door. Cheryl got up to open it and invited in the dark skinned person and the beautiful snake they wore like jewelry but that might have only been because the snake itself was a living work of art. Like living breathing stained glass.

As Cheryl escorted the Rainbow Snake in, her boss came out and bowed deeply to their guest.

The chipper woman had tied back her full brown hair and smiled widely at the Snake and their human escort.

“A pleasure to meet you again,” the boss said, “it’s been many centuries but I am glad to see you once more. Please come in to my office. Would you care for any refreshments?”

After settling and getting water for the Rainbow Snake, Cheryl sat back down outside the office and listened to the pitch. She never got tired of listening to it.

“How can I help you?” Her boss asked.

“We heard that you can help us gods. Stop us from fading. We need faith. We need followers. The people are dying, the language is dying,” said a dual voice. The voice from the snake, and the voice from the human.

“We can do that. Sort of. I am sorry to say that it’s not a direct thing. I don’t just snap my fingers and make you some new believers. Human beings a wonderful little creatures. They crave us. They need us even if they don’t believe in us anymore. They want our stories and our myths. And that is what I provide. Stories.”

“How does that help us?”

“Do you know how down bad the Norse were? The Christian’s basically destroyed their religion, all we know of it is this bastard version of what was left after the Jesus freaks invaded. But then the comics happened. The Mighty Thor! And don’t get me started on Neil Gaiman and his Sandman and American Gods stories. I send that man a fruit basket every year. I love him. Have you seen how well the Norse pantheon is doing? Loki has seventeen penthouses, and more belief than he knows what to do with.”

“Bah. Western religion. White religion.”

“You are right. I am sorry that was a poor example. Perhaps I should have started with Māui and how well he’s doing with that Disney film Moana. I set that up.”

“You did all of that?”

“Well. Not directly. You know how us gods work. I gave some inspiration here and there. Got a writer to have an idea. Got a director and a bunch of executives to see the bigger picture and how it could be a hit. They did the rest themselves. Like I said, whether or not they know it, humans want us.”

“You can make me a hit movie?”

“Or a TV show or a video game. Those are hard though. Movies are kind of easy now a days, TV is having a resurgence now but you run the risk of cancelation and things like that, video games can be hit or miss honestly. Only the Greeks and Norse really pulled that one off and hoo let me tell you they paid for that one. Great games but still. I don’t want to look at those God of War games ever again. Books are easy. Worked really well for the Greeks and some of the Egyptians. Rick Riordan does great stuff. It all depends on what you want.”

“I can have anything?”

“Sure. Internet stories are easy. Quick and cheap but you are really gambling with the payoff. Could be either a total wash or go viral. Not something I can really recommend but if you need something now it can be done. Movies or tv can be great but there are also risks. It might be two or three years before you see anything.”

“Do I get to choose who does the work?”

“A little. I can influence certain people but sometimes the best person for the job is some down on his luck writer in a hovel in LA. Sometimes it’s Neil. But Neil is expensive.”

“I want a movie, I want it to be written by one of my people.”

“I can do that. But the problem is that reach might be very tiny. There are plenty of Aboriginal writers, I’m sure some can even be extremely talented, but something big and grand and bringing in all the faith and worship and stories you may way may be limited. If you want the Disney treatment you have to give up a whole lot of control.”

“No. I want it to be of the people.”

“Very well. Now, I can influence and give inspiration all over. I can even get this in the right people’s hands. But it is always a crap shoot. All I need to do is channel some of your power into the right person when I find it. Then creativity takes over, they do their work, I nudge some agents and companies their way and if we’re lucky you see some return on investment in a couple of years.”

“What do you get out of this process?”

“My dear, I’m the Muse. I feed off the creativity. These artists come to me most of the time. I just set them up with gods who need a little faith. And six points on the back end. I have a lot of alimony to pay.”

[fromthemouthofkings]

A thing about LOTR that I actually find quite charming and endearing is that a lot of our protagonists are so good, wise, thoughtful, articulate, poetic, kind and emotionally astute, they are constantly asking those wiser than them for council, discussing what weighs upon their hearts, supporting each other, reciting songs, making Very Serious Plans and listening to each other–they are so Good and emotionally literate that it almost, at an uncharitable reading, starts to feel a little bit like Ye Olde therapyspeak.

Except it never hits, for me at least, that threshold of "he would not fucking say that" such that it breaks my suspension of disbelief, which is what makes therapyspeak so annoying to me personally in writing. Partly I think it's that there are plenty of other characters who inhabit this world that clearly don't talk and behave this way, so our protagonists stand out, but it feels intentional–but also I think it's just because it feels true to the characters that they would fucking say that. They would make these choices. And it's just very interesting and comforting to read a story that is actually full of very kind, decent people. Our protagonists are not always perfect, not always in agreement with each other–but they are allowed by the narrative to struggle really really hard against impossible odds while remaining good, kind, honorable people, and they aren't forced to sacrifice that for the sake of doing the right thing. Tolkien is, in general, very very leery of the idea that you can put in bad means and get out a good end result–he emphatically does not believe in using the devil's own power against him. To a one, everyone who tries to do that fails because their choices end up biting them in their own ass.

And Tolkien is realistic about the fact that those who choose to hold true might be dooming themselves to death or failure by doing so. He's honest about the fact that it's fucking hard. I don't think anyone could read Frodo's journey in particular and come away with the idea that choosing to do the kind, decent thing is easy, or glamorous, or destined to automatically succeed. But these characters are allowed to keep faith anyway, to hold out hope, to do the kind, decent thing trusting that, even if they don't succeed, it matters that they tried.

And yeah, it's oversimplified. In the hands of a lesser writer, I think this world could end up feeling very flat. Like oh, we have our heroes who are good people, and the bad guys who are ontologically evil and a lot of boring sometimes-misguided ordinary folk in the middle. And there are major criticisms to be made for sure–like how the orcs are handled, for instance.

But still, it's comforting, it's aspirational. It's escapist in a hopeful kind of way, a gentle kind of way–self-aware, I mean, that this goodness isn't destined to win, but–wouldn't it be nice? What if we tried–what if we hoped–what if we charged out and did our best, to whatever end? What if that was enough?

I don't know that I believe it, exactly, but something something about how humans need the little lies to help them believe the big ones. Show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. Maybe it's a lie–but it's a good one.

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

Finding character motivations for everything Talia Al Ghul does and says in Lost Days

People say she was manipulating Jason to be more violent but like... was she?? Why would she be doing that??? She spends years trying to heal him for Bruce and then tries to make him more violent towards Bruce because... ????????

I've read Lost Days a fair few times and it never felt like she was being cruel or manipulative and this has confused the fuck out of me for a long time. Since I'm going to be writing her into my Jason centric fic pretty soon, I figured it would be good to go back to Lost Days and really focus in on her and her character motivations.

This is a post because I do my best thinking through the act of writing essays, and figured someone out there might also be interested.

tl;dr In the text as written Talia does her level best to guide Jason to become a Hero again out of genuine compassion. It is her explicit goal to make Jason less vengeful, less violent, and more like the hero he was before he died. She is not predatory towards him, and the only times she works in ways that could be damaging to him are when she feels her own safety is threatened by him. Talia is depicted as a good but flawed person shaped by the trauma Ra's and the League has put her through.

So yeah, wildly over detailed analysis of everything Talia does and says during Lost Days under the cut:

Scene one: Ra's and Talia yelling dramatically on a lawn right after Talia uses a Lazarus Pit on Jason.

Her stated justification for doing so is "I did--what--needed to be done" (em dashes for choking). Considering she risked a LOT to do this, I figure she's probably telling the truth. She believed this was necessary.

Then we flash back to her first learning about Jason's death. She posits that his death will essentially break Bruce.

In the panels directly after this she's shown looking at a picture of Jason and Bruce, face in hands, clearly upset. Probably primarily for Bruce, but like idk she's an empathic human I feel like it's safe to say she's upset for the kid who died too, especially since the picture centers Jason prominently, with focus/close-up panels on both Bruce and Jason, with Jason's scanning first.

Then we have the sequence of her learning that Jason is still alive, through her agents who have been instructed to keep a very close eye on Bruce.

Her first big decision is to bring him to her Father. She doesn't make any attempt to hide him, so it's either a good idea to her or a necessary one. Ra's obviously wants to figure out how he managed to cheat death, and it seems likely to me, given that she's loyal to him, that she'd also want to do so. She doesn't seem to want him dead, even if she's at odds with him pretty much the whole time to one degree or another.

Then we get her investigating Jason's ressurection and the doctor she's got telling her about his brain damage and the Doc claims he's not getting better

We're just gonna breeze on passed that autistic affect weirdness...

She disagrees.

This is the third time now that Talia has had faith in the humanity and emotional capacity of people the rest of the League write off as being capable of nothing but violence. Considering she's been right the other times it stands to reason that she's right about this too. It also says a lot about her character that this is something she's repeatedly done.

She attempts to prove he's getting better by slapping Jason across the face, declaring, "He never fights back when it's me! Explain that! Never when it's me!"

This strongly suggests that she must treat him differently than the rest of the league, specifically that she treats him with more kindness and more attention. He recognizes her as someone safe, who he doesn't need to fight.

This is further backed up by the next page

Ra's then decides that all this has been a complete waste of time and demands that Jason be put out to pasture so he can't distract Talia from her work for the League.

During this argument Ra's posits that she thinks handing over a healed Jason would make Bruce love her, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I think Ra's is misreading her, in exactly the same way all of the League has been misreading everyone all issue: he's failing to understand that people are capable of actual love and compassion. He's interpreting her acts of kindness and love as something manipulative and selfish. Maybe that's something she believes or hopes for on some level, but it's obviously not her "real" motive here like Ra's thinks.

This is what makes her decide that it's necessary to make one last attempt to heal him, and get him out somewhere safer than with the League. It's a desperate last ditch attempt, but she's a competent motherfucker.

The rest of the issue is narrated as a letter Talia sends off with him in the bag of supplies she gives him. In it she says that she had other reasons for attempting to save him.

So, at the end of issue #1 we have three clear motives for why she healed Jason:

To heal Jason is to heal Bruce.

She has a basic sense of decency and wants to help a murdered kid recover. Jason healing is its own reward.

She wants to find out how Jason "survived" so that her Father might be able to replicate that for himself.

Healing Jason might bring her emotionally closer to Bruce.

ALL of these are based in love, and thus could qualify for what she meant in those last few lines of her letter. However, I think I want to emphasis that she almost certainly has to be including love for Jason himself, not just for what Jason represents to Bruce, though Bruce is still a huge focus for her.

And she didn't tell Bruce because Ra's might kill Jason. He doesn't want Batman to know he's alive, ever, and may very well kill Jason to keep that secret.

ON TO ISSUE #2

This is where it gets a lot harder to figure out why she's doing things.

Talia's first act is to refuse to tell Ra's where Jason is. Her second revealed act is that while tossing Jason into the ocean to help him escape she says this:

"Do not seek him out. You remain unavenged."

Third thing she does is check up on her loyal agents who tell her "We know where he's going You're not going to like it." This is immediately followed by the reveal that Jason is going to Gotham.

So uhhhh... Why doesn't Talia want him to go to Bruce now? Also, why does Talia think that being unavenged would mean Jason going to Bruce was a bad idea? Like how is the unavenged bit not a complete nonsequitor?

Cause the thing is, we the audience know what Jason is like in the future, Lost Days was written after UtRH, but Talia doesn't know Jason's personality, she's only met him while he was incapable of communication, so what reason does she have to assume this would impact him like this?

Hypothesis one: She knew about Felipe, thinks he killed him, and thus counts him as a killer of abusers, someone who would want revenge.

Seems pretty unlikely. There's absolutely nothing in the text to support this, it's completely made up conjecture. Also, she doesn't seem to think Jason is the type of person to do revenge all that harshly in later panels.

Hypothesis two: She's counting on the temporary adrenaline-rage-pain boost from the Pit to convince him to be mad about the whole unavenged thing.

Why tho? Like, for realsies, there's no reason for her to try to do this? If this is a plan to keep him away from Bruce, it's a dumb one, like why would that be her choice of strategy?? Also the letter contradicts this.

Hypothesis three: She believes it was wrong of Bruce not to avenge him, or at least thinks that most people would be incredibly angry to find they weren't avenged

Baring her just being fucking precognitive and knowing the future for no good reason, this seems like the most likely cause. Growing up in the League hasn't exactly given her a view of how healthy people handle their anger, and violent retaliation is a nigh daily obstacle for her to navigate. It means she told him that because she thought it was important and she probably always intended to tell him whenever he healed enough to understand it.

Hypothesis four: She assumed him finding out was inevitable, and wanted to do that in a controlled manner... uhhh... and the best controlled manner avaliable was... while flinging him off a cliff??? Instead of in the letter?????

Not buying this one.

We see Jason try to kill Bruce and then get him explaining himself to Talia.

That's... that's not how sociopathic works I'm pretty sure... whateves...

Talia seems to have believed there would have been a fight about the Joker, but not that Jason would have actually tried to kill him. Or at least not that Jason would have tried to really, truly kill him in such a cold, calculated way once all forms of Laz juice were out of his system.

So again, why the fuck was she preventing him and Bruce from meeting?! Would the Dark Knight not have survived a fist fight with an angry sixteen year old??

I don't get it. That's uhhhh- that doesn't make any sense to me. I guess she was just wary of how bad the confrontation might get, but not fully expecting this kind of rage? Maybe she was acting much more confident of her decisions in front of her father and was really worried about this outcome? I dunno, and that's all the evidence we've got!

And now we have a new problem! Why does Talia agree to help him?

She believes she's released a curse into this world. She believes that she has kickstarted a nasty cycle of violence spiral. She doesn't want to see Bruce hurt or killed by his kid.

So the only conclusion left is that she thinks she can better mitigate the damage by helping and misdirecting than she can by actually confronting Jason. Considering who she interacts with, that seems perfectly reasonable.

ON TO ISSUE #3

We get some proper answers here hopefully

Our previous idea about why she was helping him was correct, this is an attempt to keep him less violent, steer him towards other things, and let his desire for revenge fizzle or find a different target.

She's not giving him over to Bruce because Bruce would never forgive her for having kept Jason from him... And also Jason will fucking kill Bruce.

Make special note here of the idea that sex is why she isn't beating the crap out of this guy. Put a pin in that. It'll be important later.

Back down at the murder ranch, Jason finishes killing his teacher and then explains himself

I believe she's genuinely happy about this, because it is actually a step in the direction she wants him to take. He went from being completely obsessed with just killing the father who didn't avenge him, to saving a bunch of kids and delaying his own revenge goals to do it. The tin man IS growing a heart. Her plan is, miraculously, kinda working!

ON TO ISSUE #4

Further proof that her plan is working: Jason leaves Rip, the mercenary driver, alive. He's developing standards for who he is and isn't willing to kill, and those standards are evolving because he is being pushed outside his conflict with Bruce.

His treatment of the bomber's connection with the mob is further proof of this.

That little smile and her gently nudging him towards the idea that he's picking "old habits" back up is very telling. She's guiding him back to the path of actually being a Hero. I think this is meant to imply that Talia is deliberately throwing scumbags towards him to not only distract him, but also to remind him of the heroism he did before he died and give him new purpose beyond mere violence towards Bruce.

And again, her plan is working! He's doing hero stuff!

Aaaaand now we have another curveball. Why show him Tim?

Again, him finding out about this was probably inevitable. He seems more chill, the dark circles under his eyes are gone, I think she's hoping that while in the middle of a new investigation Jason will be in as good a place as she can find to tell him about this.

It's better than mid cliff dive, if nothing else.

Now, to head this off at the pass, because I've seen people assert this in other posts before: this is definitively, absolutely, 100% guaranteed, NOT WHEN TITANS TOWER HAPPENS. He hasn't even come up with using the red hood as a persona when she shows him this picture, so even if he let the extremely time sensitive bombing plot go for a day or two worth of private jetting to beat up the new guy, there's no way in HELL Tim would be able to recognize the Red Hood as Jason. Heck, Tim wouldn't even be with that set of Titans yet, the fucking HUSH plotline hasn't even happened yet!! Okay moving on...

ON TO ISSUE #5

Talia isn't in this one

Jason acts as a Hero. Tim man definitely has a heart.

I really like this plotline tbh, it's just great.

He kills all but one of the Russian mobsters that come to kill him and then he runs out of ammo on the last, and that guy offers up the Joker's location in exchange for his life.

This is when the Tin Man relapses.

ON TO ISSUE #6

CONTENT WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF CONSENT ISSUES

He hunts the Joker down and fails to kill him. I want to emphasis here, that failing to kill the Joker is a failure to adhere to the morals that Jason has established for himself, and a failure to keep being an anti-hero the way Talia was encouraging him to be.

This is not him being a good guy. This is him getting worse again. This is him failing to care about the world and things other than his own revenge.

Once again he explains himself to Talia, and reveals that he's known for a while now that she's been stalling him.

And then they fuck, and Jason wakes up alone.

So what just happened and why?

First of all I think the fact he KNEW he was being stalled combined with his heroism prior to the Joker being brought up strongly implies that Talia's plan would have kept working and that Jason would have kept letting it work, drawing him more and more into just being an anti-hero. He has a heart, he has morals, but his rage for Bruce and the Joker eclipses those morals pretty completely. Talia's plan was always to guide him away from revenge and it might have worked if he hadn't run out of ammo at the wrong time.

Secondly, Talia has just been given a bunch of reasons to feel threatened. Her plot was revealed, and Jason no longer has reason to believe that she isn't an obstacle to his goals.

Considering the sheer amount of violence that Talia regularly narrowly escapes only through manipulation and leveraging men's emotions, it seems pretty reasonable to me that she'd assume she needed to do both those things in order to protect herself.

She tells Jason about Ra's death, claiming that she's angry with Bruce for that. I don't know if this is the truth, but it would serve this purpose either way. She's giving him reasons to believe she's still on his side. Then she gets emotional leverage on him by sleeping with him. Take that pin out of the fact that she didn't beat that other guy for talking out of turn to her because she was fucking him. Then she escapes while he's asleep and only contacts him again from afar.

She does both of these things because she is afraid that a freshly refocused on vengeance Jason will hurt or kill her if she doesn't. After all, she herself is a killer. Jason might just decide it's her turn to join his other teachers.

The scene of them sleeping together isn't framed as traumatic for Jason; he seems to be perfectly willing.

There two very important questions that need answered before we cast judgments though: Is Jason still a minor when this happens? How old is Talia in comparison to Jason?

The only indication of timeline that we have is that it takes place JUST prior to Hush, as the story ends with Jason meeting Tomas Elliot. According to the Batman Chronology Project, Tim should be 16 during the events of Hush. We know Jason is about two years older than Tim, making him 18 during this scene.

According to Dennis O'Neil "I’m pretty sure that Talia is still a young woman – young by our standards, not just her father’s." According to some random fucker on an ancient comicvine forum going by the handle "brock4618", O'Neil said in a different interview that she was 18 when Bruce kissed her and is about Dick's age, not Bruce's age. I can't find O'Neil saying that, but it does line up with the quote we know is real.

So this was a case of an extremely traumatized 18 year old boy agreeing to sleep with a woman in her twenties after he accidentally made her feel that she needed to use sex and emotional manipulation to protect herself from his possible violent retaliation.

This is still a deeply unpleasant situation, but it's so much better than the initial impression that I got!

CONCLUSIONS TIME

Talia healed Jason because

She's a kind and loving person, and was especially kind and loving when she was younger. She wants to help Bruce, she wants to help Jason, and she wants to help her father. She did it for love.

Talia kept Jason's existence a secret from Bruce because

Her father demanded she keep it a secret, then she was afraid Bruce would hate her for it, and by the time she ought to be warning Bruce about Jason, well he was a scary motherfucker and she was in too deep.

Is Talia portrayed as a sexually predatory monster?

No. A woman using sex to escape violence is not predatory; I will fucking fight you. That whole scenario was bad, but acting like she's evil for this doesn't pan out unless you disagree with some of the facts of the case. It also really doesn't feel like Winick intended for the audience to assume this was predatory. Jason never seems uncomfortable with the fact it happened, and he even gives Jason a bit of beard scruff to help convey that he's older now. (it uh... it didn't work. Because I thought Talia was like 52 at minimum. Also just the timeline. But that was the intent I feel)

Is Talia attempting to make Jason more vengeful?

No. Exact opposite actually, every lie and manipulation is in service of preventing him from going on his vengeance quest, guiding him to be a better person, and protecting herself and others.

As a side note: I haven't touched the potential misogyny or racism angles, because that's simply beyond the scope of this analysis. I don't have the time, energy, or resources to dig into this myself, you'll have to find a different post for that angle, sorry.

So... yeah. That's my findings, I hope at least one other person finds this useful!

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i dont know how to articulate this correctly but... sometimes i think about how saiki is so mentally disconnected and isolated from other people, and his powers make it feel impossible to understand them, esp because he hasnt had any faith in humanity since he was a kid (hes also so autistic but shh he probably doesnt know yet)

and so he truly doesnt understand the nuances and complexity of love+friendship+relationships etc... so imagine how confused he could get during times where his relationships get deeper/more complicated

examples ?? (warning for very brief sa+abuse+suicidal thoughts mention in the second one) -

accidentally making one of his friends mad and hearing their thoughts, which are purely from frustration and anger in the moment, about hating and not wanting to be around him.. makes him think they genuinely dont want to be as friend at all anymore, so ONE argument makes him think hes ruined his friendship with them forever and he doesnt think to just apologize, immediately shutting down and just "going away" instead because he thinks thats actually what they want

not understanding why people feel sympathy for him when he talks about tragic things in/about his life, especially when he even dulls it down as to not reveal his powers, (ie: his brother literally trying to murder, humiliate, and borderline sa him OR having one or multiple bullying incidents in elementary school that caused him to lose all his friends and change schools OR saying that the only reason he decidedly hasnt offed himself yet is cuz itd make his mom sad) and mentioning those things a little too casually, then thinking people are trying to pity him and telling the people who are just trying to help to shut the fuck up ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ

^a specific but not quite as angsty one, offhandedly mentioning once that he had a big crush on a guy from another class but he helped set them up with someone else even though it upset him, because he just wanted to see him happy and he never had a chance anyway (bro was def straight too) and his friends being like ...hey thats really sad im sorry you felt like that :(( and him being like ?? whats sad about that. hes happy, and its not like im completely devastated or anything. shut the fuck up.

teruhashi getting over her crush on him and no longer seeking him out as often, and he's immediately upset and confused because now he thinks that she ONLY cared about him when she thought she was going to get something more than friendship from it so he doesnt believe she ever saw him as a true friend..

(similar to the first one, slightly different situation) getting into an argument with one of the friends he sees every single day and still expecting them to at least BE there the next day, and when they arent because theyre avoiding him, his first thought isnt "i should seek them out and apologize" its "wow it was so easy for them to just let go of me, i clearly have formed a dependency and feel like i need them more than they need me. especially now that i know they dont feel the same, i should sever that attachment."

SO YEAH anyway, he genuinely does not believe that he has anyone he can trust enough to actually talk through this stuff with+doesn't even think its that bad so he just sits and tries to feel numb at the bottom of the ocean or on the moon haha what a guy...

[trigunsbbygirl]

Human Things that Confuse Knives Part 2

Made a second one since I had more ideas lol

content warnings: teeth, use bomb in an analogy, mention bruises. this one gets more into the body/anatomy idk what all people are comfy with so just in case

•Knives already thinks dreams are kinda weird, but those surreal ones and the utterly weird ones that just make no sense or seemed so real you wonder if it actually happened? he wants to know what's going on in your brain. Knives will listen to you as you recount your dream, he won't say much or make any facial reactions, but part of him is kinda amazed that your can brain come up with the weirdest, coolest and/or creepiest things ever.

•the concept of having baby teeth and adult teeth weirds Knives out. when Knives learns that you do lose your teeth as a kid he's staring at you like you've just grown a second head. don't tell him that you have wisdom teeth that usually need to be taken out via surgery as a teenager. (Vash is kinda grossed out by it. found out when a kid he was playing with ran up to him and was like 'look! my tooth fell out!:D' he panicked, thinking they got hurt, but it's replaced with horror, disbelief, slight disgust and concern when he finds out every human looses a set of teeth. he hates it a little. has no idea what to do when a kid tells him that a tooth fell out. help him)

•also. imagine Knives surprise when he learns about the appendix. you had been talking with a friend when you mentioned appendicitis and that you had to have surgery. it peaked his interest and when you're done talking, Knives asks about it. he stares at you in uncertainty and disbelief the further you explain. what do you mean there's a small pouch in your stomach that serves little to no function that can essentially become a bomb? Knives doesn't actually believe you until he looks it up. he wonders how humans have survived with bodies like that.

•same wonder when it comes to you having to take vitamins and other supplements because sometimes a body won't produce enough of something or too much.

•the fact the humans shed/lose hair. Knives knows that, but it kinda grosses him out a bit. he hates seeing your hair strands, makes you clean them up. (I hc that the twins just have little to no body hair and they don't actually lose hair strands.)

•double jointed people also weirds Knives out. what do you mean you can twist or bend a joint further than normal? it doesn't exactly creep or gross him out, but he doesn't like it. he'll never admit that, but he won't look/talk to you for a bit after you show off that flexibility.

•Knives is fascinated by the way your skin can change colors. (don't mention that he can turn a lovely shade of red, he gets all huffy.) but, anyways, he loves examining your face, watching as your face gets darker with certain things he does. (also likes seeing your facial expressions. humans are so expressive..) he also likes seeing your bruises and watching as the bruise changes colors over time as it heals. you joked one day that you could give him a bruise of his own that he can watch. he didn't like the joke (he prefers to give you (consensual) bruises.)

•now let's get into reverse Isekai for a bit.

•Knives does not fucking understand social media lmao. why the hell do you have to tell people you've never met what you did or thought that day and why are so many people interested? why do people do stupid things for views??

•he hates online discourse and always tunes you out when you try to talk about something that happened online. he doesn't care and thinks it's stupid.

•do NOT let him find out about stan culture or chronically online people. he's gonna lose any faith he had in humanity again. I wouldn't worry about that too much though. he has zero online presence, never uses social media outside of YouTube and even then he only uses it to watch documentaries or how to videos.

•memes confuse him a lot, especially how fast they come and go. you don't even know how to explain them to him. "why is this picture of a man just standing so funny?" "it just is? I don't know either." how do you even explain memes and internet culture to someone who's never been on the internet lol

•Knives thinks you're really weird if you've got a skewed sense of humor where something dramatically falling over makes you laugh(thinking of that waffle video.) he watches those types of videos with a straight face and when the video ends he just stares at you, wondering if you seriously think that's funny.

•he hates those youtube poop and deepfried videos. not only does he find them stupid and doesn't understand them, but they just bother his ears.

•bonus: Vash thinks the circadian rythym is pretty neat and that some people just know when to wake up. it took Vash a while to develop one, or at least, something like that since he doesn't technically need sleep. it'll never quite be the same though since he doesn't exactly get tired like humans do. it took decades for that type of tiredness to become present, but even still, he doesn't need it to survive.

[necrotic-nephilim]

au for the ask game: omegaverse where omega dick grooms ealry-presented alpha tim in "prodigal son"

dick is going through one of the worst periods of his life after breaking up his wedding with kory (maybe she, like a tamaran, couldn't understand the secondary gender of humans and during the breakup said something bad about dick as an omega) and then tim appears with stars in his eyes and believes that dick is the best human being on earth.

bonus points if the society has progressed enough and mating with children is strictly prohibited, even if they present early.

for the ask game!

gdfdsfdgbf anon i'm kissing you on the mouth. this is my favorite flavor of Omegaverse, especially for DickTim. i'm a proud believer in the dominant omega!Dick/submissive alpha!Tim propaganda. also a big fan of how terrible Dick's life is during Batman: Prodigal. and i just. man i love the Omegaverse concepts of alien characters like Kory not understanding secondary gender and it causing rifts.

what's fun about the Prodigal era is just how isolated Tim and Dick are during it. Bruce is off.. being fucking Bruce, and Alfred is also away, so it's really just Dick and Tim for a bit. they've always worked with each other and have a repertoire, but a lot of the conversations they have about each other's pasts are happening for the first time. so it's such a fun time for Tim to present as an alpha. and of course, his hero worship for Dick (especially after having to deal with Jean-Paul) makes it so *easily* for Dick to just. slip his fingers into. Dick's isolated from the Titans, he's lost Kory, he's on the rocks with Bruce, and so there's just something so nice about this kid who still holds utter faith in him. he doesn't see any of the societal stereotypes about omegas in Dick, he just sees Dick. and then, he presents and he trusts *Dick* with that information, lets Dick guide him through the most awkward parts of presenting. how can Dick not want to take advantage of that? a young, fresh alpha who he's currently in charge of mentoring, with no one to stop Dick or notice what he's doing.

it's still tricky, of course. Dick not only has to make sure he's not breaking the law, but he also has to keep Tim from noticing, immediately. Tim's hero worship crush is the most obvious thing about him, but that doesn't mean Dick can jump on him. it needs careful time and planning. Bruce might not be around, but Tim still has his dad who could notice the scent of an omega on Tim. so instead of marking Tim, Dick starts marking himself with Tim's scent. it starts small, using the same blanket Tim has used in the Batcave, grabbing a couple of Tim's oversized hoodies and wearing them. things with plausible enough deniability, but enough that Tim starts to subconsciously associate his scent with Dick. when he can't smell himself on Dick he feels like something is wrong. and when he's finally brave enough to bring it up to Dick, Dick is able to spin it on Tim. make it seem like Tim is the one coming onto Dick, assuming things. Dick plays it cool, pretending to be shocked by the idea of it. he gently explains to Tim what he could be implying about their relationship and Tim is *mortified*, apologizing and tripping over himself to try and fix it. but Dick just calms him down, promises Tim he isn't mad bc hey, Tim is a fresh alpha and he presented so *young*, it's difficult to navigate.

so you have Dick offering to help navigate this with Tim and using it to get closer and closer to Tim. grooming him into the type of alpha that Dick wants in a relationship. anytime there's behavior in Tim that Dick doesn't like, Dick can pretty easily redirect by dropping comments about how Tim just "can't help" acting like this because of his alpha nature, which instantly makes Tim scramble to fix it. Dick likes Tim for who he is, this cute, sweet kid who's such a handsome little alpha. but he's rough around the edges and Dick puts it on himself to smooth those edges over. he's playing the long game with this, and he doesn't mind waiting it out. and Tim can't complain when Dick pushes the boundaries, making him uncomfortable, because he doesn't want Dick to think he's a *pervert* for thinking that way. it's one big mind game.

i do think, Dick would cave and sleep with Tim before Tim's an adult. he's smart enough not to mate Tim, and he's definitely smart enough not to sleep with Tim enough for Bruce, a beta, to notice what's going on. but when some sort of sex pollen incident triggers a simultaneous heat and rut for Dick and Tim respectively, it's the most convenient in that Dick needs. Dick acts like they're doing this out of necessity, that he's giving in even though he doesn't want to, just because of how Tim's acting under the aphrodisiac. it gives him complete control over the sex because Tim is so desperate to not give in to his "alpha ways" and hurt Dick by being violent or animalistic. Dick gets to pin Tim down, possibly even tie him down "for his own safety" and ride him until Tim is a crying mess under Dick. after the first time, if Dick orchestrates more scenarios where they end up in "fuck or die" situations well, it's not like anyone's noticing. at the height, he even manages to have sex with Tim without that sort of pretense, he just has to act like he can tell how needy Tim is and sigh, pretending he's the one doing Tim a favor "just this once" by letting Tim fuck him.

in the end, it's a long con that pays off. it takes until Battle for the Cowl but Tim's a legal adult. and Dick is Batman again, which really does feel like everything coming full circle. part of the reason Dick makes Damian Robin is to remove the pretense of Tim and Dick being sidekick and mentor. it makes it easier for Dick to insist he really does see Tim as a full adult (even if he doesn't, deep down. Tim is still a fresh teenager, just because it's legal doesn't make it any less morally questionable) and something more than Robin. Dick makes a comment about them being mates so offhandedly it makes Tim stop in his tracks. Tim, who's about to go on his Red Robin arc and isolate himself, now has a chance at being mates with his hero. a chance to smooth over their differences and be actual equal partners. of course, Tim jumps on it. maybe deep down, after they mate and Dick is all too pleased with himself, it clicks for Tim that this was all a set-up. he puts the pieces together while they're cuddling in bed. he knows deep down that Dick will never *actually* see him as an equal. but, the deed is done and if Tim is going to give himself over to anyone, of course it's going to be Dick Grayson.

[inamindfarfaraway]

Stumbled across your post on Carmilla and Cain from one of my favorite artist and just wanted to say that I loved that post incredibly!!

I loved the way you articulated the ability for free will to shatter heavens expectations! It had me thinking about free will in general so thank you for sharing that goodness!

Thank you! This analysis just came to me as a fun little observation, I wasn’t expecting it to gain so much traction. Free will is very thematically important to Hazbin Hotel, isn’t it? Lucifer believed in the good it could do, but accidentally created evil by giving it to humanity and fell for it. Since then he’s seen all the pain free will can cause and become embittered. Charlie, however, believes like he used to and fought for human souls passionately and selflessly enough to bring him back around. The Elder Angels who ordered the Exterminations and the Exorcists who carry them out seem to alternately hate and fear free will’s power, and by their indiscriminate condemnation of sinners as inherently irredeemable, not want to acknowledge it at all.

If the theory that Adam could live on as a sinner in Hell turns out to be true, I’d love to see his character and thoughts on his mortal family and free will explored, because he must have SO much baggage, which could explain (though not excuse) him being The Worst. An interesting detail in the backstory Charlie reads is that he’s never actually stated to eat the forbidden fruit. We see Eve take it, but not him. Maybe the reason that he’s in Heaven, but we never see or hear of Eve or their children in either afterlife, is that in this canon’s version of Genesis, he’s obedient and didn’t commit the original sin, only to be cast out anyway. Regardless of what exactly happens in Eden, he and Eve are forced to fend for themselves in the wilderness. Suddenly they need survival instincts. They can bleed and starve and get sick and loads of animals want to eat them. They have existential dread. Not to mention the marital tension. Why? Because the same angel who stole his first wife messed with his second one! As a result, people can sin. They can hurt each other. This allows Cain to invent murder on his brother. He’s then cursed to wander the Earth, eternally living with his guilt and grief. Oh, and where can dead souls live on now? Where might Abel be trapped forever? Hell, a dimension made of evil, everything bad about the new and degraded human experience taken to the ultimate extreme. You’ll never guess why it exists (Lucifer. It’s Lucifer again). So Adam loses two kids with one stone that was indirectly thrown by one fucking bird guy. Can you imagine how you would feel, having lived that life?

You would have issues. A lot of issues.

No wonder he scorns redemption so much. In his eyes, free will is synonymous with sin - with suffering. But thinking damned souls to be evil incarnate at least lets him take vengeance. It lets him feel the wrathful satisfaction of physically stabbing and hacking his way through representatives of the force that cost him paradise. Broke his family. Killed his child. Maybe he was a genuinely good person when he died. For the most part. Maybe stewing in all that unprocessed trauma while watching the horrors of human history unfold and being venerated and indulged in the perfect afterlife without any of his family changed him for the worse. If you can have a redemption arc in Hell, you can have a corruption arc in Heaven.

After all, Lucifer lost faith in humanity over time. But he has Charlie. Adam’s ‘daughters’ in Heaven are the Exorcists (he calls them “[his] girls” and names them, so he probably creates them), of which I bet Lute was the first. That’s a really twisted dynamic. Like, “From now on, my kids are killing people on MY terms”. Lute having parallels with Charlie makes her being the new main villain even better!

This got out of hand. What I mean to say is, the first human family and how they relate to the theme of free will have huge potential for exploration and development. And if Adam is reborn as a sinner, it would be precisely the Hazbin Hotel blend of heartbreaking and hilarious to have him reunite with Eve, Abel, Seth, etc. in Hell and they’re all like “What. The FUCK?” and his whole horrible personality just collapses in on itself.

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

I can empathize with being disappointed that your favs are losing, I do. So you want to know why Garrus has so much support? Are you wondering where the propaganda is? I'll give it to you.

Let's set aside the fact that the Mass Effect series is in itself a highly influential piece of sci fi that has been around for 15 years and has a greater hold on pop culture than most games. And let's honestly set aside sexual orientation - if being bi automatically makes you more dateable, then that should have been in the rules - because we often choose our genders in games, and a dateable character will make you want to play as another gender just to be with them (e.g. the only time I ever played male in Dragon Age Inquisition was because I fucking love Cassandra so much, istg).

So, Garrus. Yeah, he's a former cop, one who watched criminals get away with murder or worse, often because they could grease the right palms - the guy he asks you to help him find was a geneticist using human test subjects to grow organs and sell them illegally, who used hostages to stop the authorities from firing on him. You don't have to agree about how he wants to handle it, but damn, it's hard not to feel for someone sick of injustice and watching good people get hurt.

After your character dies (don't worry, you get better), he is disillusioned with the entire system and runs away to a place on the edge of the universe where crime and corruption runs rampant. He makes the gangs' lives hell and saves innocent peoples' lives until his team is killed, and when you find him, he's cornered by the gangs and ready to lose all hope. He literally takes a rocket to the face and is permanently disfigured for the rest of the series. He eventually asks you to help him find the man responsible for his team's demise, themself a member of his team that sold them out. And you know what? You can let the guy go and convince Garrus to end his need for revenge, because he respects you so damn much that he will question such things because you ask it of him.

In the third game, when the galaxy is on the verge of annihilation, and when his planet is under attack and he doesn't even know if his family members are alive, he will still join you and stand by your side because he has so much faith that YOU are capable of saving the galaxy, and he's willing to bet the lives of his family and all of his species on YOU. And he does this whether you are romanced or not.

So we have a disabled, traumatised veteran who is willing to question his values for someone he respects, who literally believes you are capable of saving the galaxy and will protect your back while you do it. He befriends someone from a species his people severely warred with, he will callibrate the shit out of your guns so you never lose a firefight, and for an alien, he dances a mean tango.

This is why we love Garrus Vakarian.

^