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ticklishfiend · 7 months ago

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A Toy Smile (ATLA)

(lee!zuko , ler!sokka and ler!aang)

A/N : AAAHHH!!!! fixating hard y’all. it's impossible for me to be normal about anything ever. this one's got more story than the last one but i hope u enjoy anyway lolll

Summary : a day off at the abandoned vacation home and zuko has a lot to think about. though, it’s kinda hard to think about your place in the world when your friends are being annoying (and u still love them for that)

Word Count : 5106

hope u enjoy!!

Being back at his family’s old beach house was remarkably strange. Zuko kept getting flashes of bittersweet nostalgia, images of his mother building castles out of sand with him, just for Azula to knock them all down. Running through the halls in shrieks of laughter, getting chased by the tickle monster (his mother always had the perfect balance between her calm and nurturing nature, and her more silly and playful side. Feeling okay with play was something that ended almost immediately after she left his life), always before being interrupted by a stark glare from his father.

Zuko’s father was usually absent in these beach house memories, but that’s because even when he was there during their vacations (which honestly wasn’t often, he was usually off tending to the business of being an up-and-coming Firelord), he always stood with a glare that Zuko could still see in his head clear as day. Looking back on it, he was glad that Ozai was usually preoccupied during those old vacations so he at least has a few good memories left of this place.

Zuko pondered on it alone in the house.

The rest of the group were off at the beach, doing their own things. If he had to guess, Toph was probably practicing her sandbending right now. Maybe she’s teaching Aang, or maybe Aang was practicing some moves Zuko taught him earlier in the week. Zuko felt weirdly proud at the idea. He imagined Katara was probably soaking in the ocean, bending and feeling one with the water. And Sokka…Agni knows what Sokka’s up to right now. Maybe he’s fishing.

All he knows is that they’re probably keeping themselves preoccupied right now, taking the day off to do whatever they pleased. The group needed to keep their minds sharp, but not overworked.

Zuko could sort of relate to that, trying to keep occupied. It was at a much lower scale, sure, but when he wasn’t training Aang, he took to wandering the grounds of this place that felt distantly familiar to him.

Zuko still feels a little uncomfortable with the thought of hanging near everyone during an off day like this. He knows they don’t hate him anymore, but guilt and shame have become chronic pains he hasn’t learned to aid yet. He’s happy to help them, but hanging out on a casual level is something he’s still getting used to.

As he walked through the abandoned home, he couldn’t help but gaze at old photos, taking some out of the frame to burn in his hand. For some reason, watching the memory physically char and fall to ashes from his fire felt like a medicinal release in his system. He sat on beds that had been dressed by old maids years ago, untouched for so long and yet the sheets still had a smell that burned into his sinuses like a forgotten memory.

It was so quiet in the house. Every footstep seemed to echo. It was dark, too. Each flame he set gave light to the entire room and the hall with it. It felt right that this place had been abandoned for so long. Justified. It deserved to lay dormant with the rest of any happy memories his childhood had to offer. That part of his life was laid to rest some time ago, but revisiting it lit something in him he hadn’t expected.

When he suggested they settle here for a while, Zuko hadn’t thought too hard on what it would be like to revisit this place. It was obvious this house, these grounds, the beach itself, would bring back memories he used to try hard not to think about. That was only logical.

What Zuko hadn’t anticipated was the way it would make him feel about the new people he’s surrounded himself with. The last time he was on a beach with people he thought were his friend group, it was a disaster. Fights and arguments, insecurities thrown around like weapons of war. That used to be normal to him. That was just what a vacation was.

But everyone here was having a good time. Yes, stress was definitely high and in the air, everyone was still keeping their guard up for what they knew was to come after they left. But that didn’t mean good times came to an end altogether. Zuko saw how they still played and teased each other, telling stories at dinner and laughing when they trained. Stress was high, but spirits might’ve been even higher.

Walking through this empty house, he realized that’s what this place was actually for. It wasn’t just a house you stayed in away from your home. It was a place built for bringing people closer together.

And here he was standing in it, alone in the dark.

Zuko sighed, dragging a hand down his face. He knew he should probably go out there. They trusted him now, what was he waiting on? He’s allowed…fun. That sounds so gross. But it also sounds like something Uncle would be telling him right now. If Zuko was any good at impressions, he’d give himself a famous Iroh Special about the balance of work and life, the importance of close friends in times like these. But Zuko sorta sucks at impressions, so he’ll just have to imagine how good some advice like that would sound and suck it up.

He should probably go join them on the beach now. Ugh.

As Zuko walked out of the dimly lit house, the sun felt really good on his skin, warm and filling for his soul. He took a deep breath, in and out, as he made his way toward the beach. The sounds of splashing water and shrieking laughter filled his ears as he got closer, his bare feet now warming in the sand.

“Zuko’s back,” he heard Toph announce from her self-made throne of sand, a little umbrella over the top for shade and flavor.

Zuko made his way next to Toph, watching the other three play in the ocean. Sokka had Aang in some kind of hold with his arms behind his back, while Katara stood in front, doing something with the water that seemed to have Aang in stitches. Zuko was utterly confused.

“What are they doing?” he puzzled, sitting down criss-crossed next to Toph.

“Why, do you want in?” Toph teased with a grin, making Zuko blush and nearly start defending himself (for what, he wasn’t sure) before she interrupted his clear stammering, “Katara figured out how to tickle with her water. She can be a little ruthless sometimes, and I really like that side of her.”

Zuko just nodded, really not sure what to say right now. He felt so awkward, maybe this was a bad idea after all. He’d be better off alone back in the house, it was probably good for him to think about his past the way he was before. Maybe he should just turn back, Toph will notice but none of the others have even acknowledged he came back yet so it’s not like–

“Hey!” Sokka called out, “My arms are getting tired! One of you come hold him for me!”

“Nohoho! Just lemme gohoho!” Aang cackled, kicking the water but not doing anything to actually stop them.

Zuko sighed, regretting saying anything before the words even left his mouth. “Aang, just bend the water!” he yelled their way, “Did you forget you’re the Avatar?!”

Aang just kept laughing for a moment like he hadn’t heard a thing, and Zuko nearly smiled at the boy’s blatant silliness. But in a blink, Katara was suddenly lifted and thrown about ten feet away by a small but powerful wave, Sokka getting launched not long after in the opposite direction.

Aang shot a thumbs up Zuko’s way, so Zuko gave him a quick nod back. Real smooth.

“Wooo, that’s right Twinkle Toes! Show ‘em who’s boss!” Toph cheered like she was watching a wrestling match, throwing an excited punch to Zuko’s shoulder. He winced and shot a hand up to comfort the ache, but otherwise said nothing about it.

He watched as Aang launched a tickle attack of his own against the siblings, Katara squealing and using her own water to try and counter or block any of the water she could. Sokka threw his head back in loud laughter, having no way to defend himself and pretty much succumbing to his fate, screaming with his head above water.

Zuko felt weird just spectating like this, so he started fidgeting with the sand in front of him. He thought for a moment on building a castle like he had with his mother so many years ago, but that was so far from who he was now that he chose to keep it to himself. That can just stay a happy memory for the time being.

He looked up to Toph, who seemed content on bending miscellaneous sand shapes in her hand while she listened to them play.

“Why aren’t you out there with them?” he couldn’t help but ask. Zuko didn’t feel as weird around Toph as he did the others. He still felt awkward at times, but not weird. She was the first person here to really trust him, vouch for him even. She was strong and resilient and damn was she stubborn. Zuko really liked that about her, and even though she loved to tease, he felt comfortable having a conversation with her. That was just who she was.

“Eh, water’s not really my thing. I can’t see jack when I’m in the water. Well, I kind of can, if my feet are still touching the ground. But it’s sorta foggy that way and it freaks me out. I like knowing where I am, and in there I just feel all over the place,” she cringed, forming a little sand sea lion in her palm. “Why aren’t you in there with them? Is it a firebender thing to hate the water?”

Of course she’d turn the question onto him, why didn’t he think of that? Ugh, this was not something he felt like getting into right now. “Yeah, sure. Something like that.”

“You are such a bad liar,” she chuckled, chucking her sea lion at his head playfully. He grunted at the impact and dusted the sand from his hair while she grabbed another chunk to fidget with. “I don’t even need my feet to figure that out.”

Zuko sighed, bringing his knees to his chest to lay his arms down and make a makeshift headrest. “I don’t know how to just…play, like that. That’s not natural for me, it would just be weird. It’s better if I just stay up here,” he said, suddenly feeling very weirdly insecure and unsure of his words, “If, like, y’know–if that’s okay with you.”

She laughed openly at his hesitance. “Sparky, it would mean the world. I like your company! You’re funny to talk to,” she said, and her choice of words made him squint.

“‘Funny to talk to?’” Zuko questioned.

“Yeah, you’re always so uptight. And awkward. It’s really funny,” she chuckled, making him deflate a little. He knew she probably meant the best by it, but her bluntness will always take a little blow to his already fragile ego.

“Is that really the only reason you talk to me?” Zuko huffed, not even looking for an answer if not to just air out his insecurities a little.

“No, you dingbat. You’re really different from the others, it’s a nice change of pace. You’re stiff, and your heart rate might be faster than anyone I've ever met which can get pretty annoying. But you’re very real, and I like that in a person. If you have something you need to say, then you say it,” she paused. “Well, most of the time.”

Zuko sat in that for a moment. He’s pretty sure she was…complimenting him? Maybe? It’s hard to tell with Toph, it’s rare she ever gets sweet with her words. But he’s pretty sure that whatever she meant by that, it was supposed to be a good thing. So he’ll take it.

“Thanks…I think.”

“I know it’s hard but…they can be fun if you try,” she shrugged, forming a little sand-Zuko in her palm and handing it to him. He took it gently, worried it would crumble in his hand. But it didn’t. It stayed sturdy and solid, like a real doll. Zuko turned it in his hand, getting a good look at his mini-me.

“How do you…”

“Know what you look like?” she finished for him. “The others described you to me a while back. It’s probably not perfect, but–”

“No, no. It’s…” Zuko stared at the thing in his hand. It was small, pretty much the size of his palm. His scar was there, but that’s not what he was looking at. Zuko couldn’t stop looking at the smile on its face. On his face. How natural and meant to be there it looked. “It’s really good. You captured my essence,” he remarked playfully, sliding the doll into his pocket. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, Sparky,” she smiled. “Seriously. Don’t.” Zuko couldn’t help but chuckle at that, looking up to see Sokka dragging himself out of the water towards them.

“Teaching Aang waterbending was a mistake,” Sokka groaned, leaving puddles of water in his wake as he plopped in the sand next to Zuko. Zuko flinched, some water from Sokka’s clothes splashing on him when he sat down with so much force.

“Watch it, you’re getting water all over me,” Zuko complained, wiping droplets from his face with the back of his hand.

“Oh I’m sorry, were you the one that just got nearly tickled to death by the ocean?! No, I didn’t think so!” Sokka exclaimed, every big movement he made just splashing more water on a frowning Zuko. “I could’ve drowned!”

“Well that wasn’t my fault, so keep the water to yourself,” Zuko rolled his eyes at Sokka’s dramatics.

“You’re such a baby, Sokka,” Toph chuckled. “Aang took it like a champ. You don’t hear him complaining about a couple of tickles,” Toph cooed in a mocking baby voice, making Sokka squint in contempt.

Sokka pointed a finger toward Toph over Zuko, “I don’t wanna hear it from you. You don’t get attacked like I do!”

“Yeah, cause I set boundaries,” Toph grinned, tossing a foot over her knee. “You guys don’t tickle me cause you know if you even try it you’ll never have use of your fingers again.”

Zuko’s brow shot up at that, and he nearly smiled, but made no comment.

Sokka had no smart comeback to give, instead bringing his hand back in to cross his arms over his chest, pouting. They sat in silence for a moment before it seemed like a light went off over Sokka’s head, the boy perking up quickly and whipping his head toward–

“Zuko,” Sokka started with a grin. “You should help me get back at Aang.”

Zuko’s brow really shot up at that, “What?!”

“Yeah, he’d never expect it from you!” Sokka said, his smile wide and excited.

Zuko stared incredulously, “Did that water hit you over the head or something? I am not doing that,” he scoffed, refusing to look at Sokka right now. He is so stupid, what makes him think Zuko would ever do something so childish?

“Oh c’mooon, you said you were here to help us, right? Well…this would be helping me,” Sokka smiled a toothy grin, really hoping to win him over.

“Just ask Toph, don’t involve me in this. I’m sure she can do some…earthbendy thing and help way better than I could,” Zuko said, looking toward Toph for help.

Toph shook her head, “Nope. This is all you, Sparky,” Zuko could see her smile beneath the shade. He growled in frustration, peeking over toward Sokka.

“You can do it yourself then. Figure it out,” Zuko said, staring back off into the ocean. Aang and Katara were bending and splashing water at each other, their laughs and happy voices blending with the sounds of the ocean waves pushing and pulling against itself.

Sokka grumbled, falling onto his back in the sand. “Was just trying to see if you wanted to have some fun before we get serious again tomorrow,” he mumbled, picking at the sand with his fingers.

Zuko tried to ignore him, but felt a poke to his shoulder on his left. He looked to Toph and saw her just staring at him with this look, like she was disappointed. Or, maybe not disappointed. More like she was saying with her eyes, “Didn’t we just have a heart-to-heart about this two seconds ago?” He felt the doll in his pocket jab into his thigh.

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose like he often did when utterly frustrated. “If I help you, you have to do something for me in return.”

Sokka shot up, his eyes wide like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Yeah! Anything!” he paused, “Or, I mean, almost anything.”

Zuko clicked his tongue, he cannot believe he is doing this. “There’s some spices left over in the kitchen cabinet. They haven’t gone bad, I checked,” he peeked over to Sokka. “For dinner tonight, we are using those spices. No offense, but I’m tired of eating bland stew every night. If you grab those from the house…” he sighed, saying the words like they crawled from the pit of his stomach, “I will help you get back at Aang.”

“Say no more!” Sokka shot up from the sand and strut toward the house with his head held high. He was obviously very proud of himself for convincing Zuko to do something silly for once, and honestly, Zuko couldn’t blame him. He was surprised himself.

Toph dropped her throne back to the ground, the force of it shaking the ground under them as she stuck her toes in the sand. “You really gonna do it, Sparky?”

Zuko dropped his face into his hands. “I think I just dug myself into a hole.”

That made Toph cackle, and Zuko couldn’t help smiling into his palms.

–

The fish stew Katara was cooking smelled amazing. Zuko had forgotten just how much he missed the smell of real, seasoned food until he found those spices in the cabinet earlier today. At least he was getting something good out of this mess he’s got himself into.

In the living room of the beach house, Toph was proudly showing off all the sand dolls she made today. It was mainly weird shapes or animals she was familiar with, but everyone got a kick out of it.

“Oh, oh, can you do me?!” Aang practically bounced on his heels, clutching the Appa doll to his chest.

“Remind me when we go back to the beach, Twinkletoes,” Toph smiled, tossing a solid ball of sand to the ceiling, up, then down. “I made Sparky one, since he didn’t abandon me on the beach like some people.”

Aang deflated in guilt, “I thought you said you didn’t care…”

“I didn’t care, I’m just messing with you,” she grinned, throwing the ball at a quiet Zuko’s head.

“Ow! Hey, watch it–!”

“Show ‘em your doll, Sparks!” Toph said, the ball launching itself back into her palm. Zuko frowned, feeling weirdly embarrassed by it. He just sat there for a second with everyone staring at him, waiting.

“I thought you said not to mention it?”

“Well if Aang’s making commissions, he should probably see what he’s buying,” Toph said, clearly just proud the others were liking her art so much.

A little shy, Zuko reached into his pocket and pulled out the doll, holding it up for everyone to see. Aang immediately rushed over, not taking it from his hand but still looking at it really close.

“Woah, little Sifu Hotman! Toph, this is so cool!” Aang poked at the doll’s face, “Aww, she even made him smile!”

Katara barked a laugh from the kitchen close by, “Really taking some artistic liberties with that one, Toph.”

Everyone snickered at that, and Zuko couldn’t help but frown (unfortunately proving their case). “I can smile,” he said, shoving the doll back in his pocket. “Maybe I just don’t find you guys that funny.”

Sokka gasped, “What, do we not amuse you enough, Your Highness?” He said in a mockingly fancy tone.

Zuko knows he’s just teasing, but Sokka can really be annoying sometimes.

“That’s not it,” Zuko glared. “I don’t know, maybe we just have different senses of humor. But I can smile.”

He saw Aang glance over his shoulder to Sokka, who was lying comfortably on a pile of pillows. There was a weird, silent exchange happening between them that Zuko couldn’t pinpoint, but he was smart enough to know something was up.

Sokka sat up and looked at Zuko, trying a little too hard to look casual. “So…what does make you smile, then?”

Zuko raised a brow. Kind of a loaded question, if you ask him. “I mean, I don’t know. That’s sorta vague.”

“On purpose,” Sokka corrected. “I can think of a ton of things that make me smile off the top of my head. Like, uh…shopping!”

“Cartwheels,” Aang butt in.

“Sea prunes!” Katara called from the kitchen.

“Feeling the enemy crumble to the ground,” Toph said, way too casually.

Zuko felt a little cornered. This was hard for him, okay? Thinking of something like this off the top of his head was difficult when he’s spent the last three years with a resting frowny face. “Um…” he started, really digging into his brain for an answer. “My…Uncle was really good at telling jokes? They got annoying sometimes, but some of them made me laugh. If that counts.”

Aang really smiled at that, moving to sit next to Zuko on the ground. “That definitely counts,” he said, before shooting another look toward Sokka. Hm…

Sokka got up and sat next to Zuko on his other side, throwing an arm over his shoulder way too casually, “I think that’s a wonderful answer. But there’s just one problem…”

Zuko shot him a confused side-eye, almost shrinking away from Sokka’s touch. “Uh, okay?”

“I don’t think we’ve ever made you smile,” said Sokka, giving a small jostle to Zuko’s shoulder.

Toph snorted across the room, getting everyone’s attention. “You can be real smart sometimes, Sparky. I don’t know how you haven’t figured out what they’re up to.”

Zuko shook Sokka’s arm off his shoulder with a furrowed brow, “What are you talking about?”

She grinned, feeling through the floor how both Aang and Sokka were slowly inching closer to Zuko on either side. “I think they’re gonna tickle you.”

Without a second more to think about escaping, Sokka shoved his hands under Zuko’s arms, followed by Aang throwing himself over Zuko’s lap to wrap his waist in a ticklish hug.

Zuko shrieked, the sensation throwing him off guard so hard he nearly toppled over onto the ground. He would have toppled over, if Aang didn’t have such a strong grip on his waist, not to mention those fingers digging into his sides with a terrible, gentle accuracy. He was a cackling, giggling mess immediately.

“Nohoho-! Wahahait! Waitwaitwaitwaitwahahait-!” Zuko cackled, his eyes scrunched up and his smile wider than it had been in some time. He had forgotten just how ticklish he was until those fingers wouldn’t leave him alone, the digging into his armpits and the scribbling at his sides, it was all so…ugh, it was so ticklish.

“Tried to warn you!” Toph smiled, hearing Katara enter the room to watch while the stew finished cooking.

“Woowww, didn’t know you guys had it in you,” Katara remarked as she leaned against the door frame, watching with a grin. She pointed at the scuffle with her spoon, “I really expected you two to wuss out!”

Aang scoffed with a grin, having to use a lot of his strength to hold the very squirmy Zuko in his arms. “He’s not scary anymore, Katara. I mean, just watch this,” he said, before pinching at Zuko’s hips and making the boy squeal.

“Guhuhuys! Ahaha–wahahait! Hold ohohon!” Zuko twisted in his laughter, his arms sealed at his sides to no avail. If Sokka didn’t get his stupid fingers out of his armpits right now he was pretty sure he was gonna keel over and die any second now. From laughter or embarrassment, he wasn’t really sure which.

“Wait, wuss out?” Toph questioned. “Did you guys plan this?”

Sokka snickered, switching to just using one finger under each arm at a time, and somehow that was even worse. “Yeeeeah, I might’ve pulled a fast one at the beach. Sorry buddy!” he said, before, “Well, not too sorry. This is pretty funny.”

Zuko’s face felt so hot he was almost worried it was gonna catch on fire. Quite literally. “I’m gonna kihihill you twohohoo!” he cackled, finally gathering enough strength to push Aang off him, kicking his feet to make sure Aang kept his distance. But Sokka was unrelenting. “Sokka! Cuhut it out!”

“Ohhhh fine,” Sokka pulled his hands out, bringing one up to scruff Zuko’s hair for good measure. “Before you get mad, we only did it cause you looked a little left out on the beach today.”

Zuko wished so badly that Toph would let the floor swallow him up whole right now. “So your solution was to—do that!?”

“Well, yeah,” Aang smiled a little shyly, “It looked like you felt left out when we were playing earlier. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong…sorry if that was too much.”

Katara had slipped back to the kitchen for just a moment during their conversation, coming back now with a tray of bowls. She handed Zuko his bowl first, which he took while still glaring at Sokka and Aang. (Well, mainly Sokka. He could tell Aang felt bad, and Zuko’s not like, actually mad. Just so utterly embarrassed and shy that he doesn’t know how to express himself right now.)

Katara gave him a sympathetic smile. “They really like you. They just don’t know how to…express it with you, sometimes.”

“Don’t put this on me, it was Aang’s idea!” Sokka looked a little embarrassed himself, like he’d been caught saying something he didn’t want Zuko to hear. He took his bowl from Katara but wouldn’t look her in the eye.

Aang took what Katara said with stride. She always had a way of putting exactly how he felt into words. “Yeah, it was my idea. You’re really cool, Sifu Hotman! But, I don’t know…I never wanna make you mad, but I still want you to feel included, yknow?”

With a mouthful of stew, Sokka chimed in, “Wha’ he said.”

Zuko wasn’t sure what to say right now. He still felt warm up his neck, and all the eyes on him right now weren't helping. But…he also felt really appreciated? These people certainly had a weird way of showing their affection, but they were trying. For him.

Ugh. They’re so sweet it’s almost sickening.

“We won’t ever do it again. Just…know we meant well,” Aang gave a sad little smile before taking a bite of his stew. Well now Zuko had to say something.

“No, it’s okay,” he stared into his bowl. “Affection, and I guess play, are…sorta new to me. I don’t hate it. I don’t…mind,” Zuko cringed at his own phrasing. Telling them that he actually sorta kinda had a little bit of fun just now felt impossible. He sighed, “What I’m saying is, I won’t get mad if you ever do it again. I know you’re not being mean. And it doesn’t bother me. So. Y’know…yeah.”

Sokka squinted toward Zuko over his spoon. “So, you didn’t hate it…” he shot a grin, “...which, in Zuko Speak, means you had fun right?”

Zuko sincerely wanted to singe the brows right off Sokka's face. Because, unfortunately, he was right. Zuko bit the inside of his cheek, “If I say yes will you drop it?”

“Actually, if you say yes you’re just giving me permission to turn that frown upside-down whenever I want,” Sokka wiggled his eyebrows, making Aang laugh beside him.

Zuko could only roll his eyes and take another spoonful in response, which they all knew in Zuko Speak was a definite yes.

“Ahem,” Toph turned the attention back toward her from across the room. “Now that that’s over, can we please go back to talking about how awesome my new sandbending tricks are? I’ll be generous and take free commissions for the next five minutes, but after that you suckers are gonna have to start paying up.”

Aang shot his hand up immediately, “I call a tiny hat for Momo!”

“Ok, but how about a tiny sword for Momo?” said Sokka.

Katara giggled, “We could give him little sand boots.”

Toph hummed with a nod, drawing up plans in her head before pointing toward Zuko. “Sparky? Any suggestions?”

Zuko looked around the room, everyone’s eyes on him once again. It wasn’t a bad feeling, though. They liked hearing what he had to say, even if it was just for a silly game. Zuko was allowed in on the conversation; actually, more than allowed. Encouraged.

“Um…he could use some sand shades. Really bright outside, y’know.”

There was a small beat of silence, and for a second Zuko almost regretted joining in, before everyone burst into giggles.

“Momo’s gotta be beach ready!” Aang laughed, poking the lemur in the belly. “Toph, he needs sandals. He needs them!”

Zuko couldn’t help but smile along as they kept throwing insane suggestions Toph’s way, his cheeks almost hurting by the end of it. Every once in a while, he’d catch himself glancing around the room, taking in how different it looks full of good company. It was somehow brighter, obviously louder, and the air didn’t feel as tight. Even when they circled back to Zuko’s newfound ticklishness later in the conversation, he felt comfortable to tease back about how weak they all were against the spices he had Katara throw in their stew.

Sokka’s threat of future tickles his way kept creeping its way to the forefront of his mind every once and a while. And he wasn’t…not excited about it. It’s not the tickling he’s looking forward to, exactly. Although, every time he pictures that future attack, he feels the ghost of fingers digging into him again and feels a weird smile pulling at his lips. Zuko puts it back to normal immediately when he catches himself, but it was there, and he knows that. But no, no it’s definitely not the tickling. It’s not just the tickling.

Zuko’s glad they’re not scared of him. They aren’t scared to touch him the way they do the others. It’s different for him, and he knows he’ll have to get used to all this newfound affection. But that’s something he’s willing (happy) to do.

When the night was finished and he found himself in that old familiar smelling bed, Zuko pulled the doll out of his pocket. He traced its details with his thumb under the light of fire he lit in his other palm. Sand took another shape with his friend’s help, and made him smile.

At that moment he decided, that’s what he’ll do with this house. It doesn’t have to feel so dark and alone. Zuko can reshape it.

pls consider reblogging if u enjoyed!! love yall, smooches

#tickle community #tickling #tickle fic #atla tickling #lee!zuko #ticklish!zuko #lee!aang #ticklish!aang

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zirconika · 3 months ago

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nine lives of a thief

TWO | the first life

NAVIGATION . MASTERLIST

This chapter is part of a series entitled 'Nine Lives of a Thief,’ but you may choose to read each part as a oneshot. Click the link to view the series masterlist!

PAIRING: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader WORDS: 4.7k SUMMARY: While on a supply run with Aaron, Daryl is eager to learn more about you. Getting pieces of you and your story then propels him to revisit your history to determine the best way to make it up to you. It goes awry when he discovers a secret you've been keeping for years. WARNINGS: Angst. Fluff is only in the childhood flashback. Uses scenes from S05EP16 SETTING: Pre-Negan Alexandria and Pre-Apocalypse A/N: omfg sorry for the late update i’ve been busy taking care of my college requirements and i took driving classes HAHSNDHDHAJA anyway hope u guys like this one

Daryl Dixon was a man who was wired to function solely on just destination—get to it, do it, and leave it. It confused him that a part of him now ran on motivation. It was not the drive to operate that confounded him, but that he was always eager to return.

To you. To see you.

And if he’s lucky, maybe even speak to you. It bothered Daryl that the last real conversation you had was the first time you spoke since ever. There never seemed to be an opportunity anymore, and if there was, you always seemed like you were in a hurry or that you were busy as if you had a nine-to-five corporate job you had to tend to.

He knew you were somewhat avoiding him, whether you knew it or not.

Right now, Daryl was focused on one thing—getting food for the community. Coming back to you was a close second. Even as Aaron made conversation, you were all he could think about. How he’d initiate a conversation without starting one.

The longer he listened to Aaron, the more he thought of ways he could bring you up: That girl, how’s she been? No, it’s too upfront.

“You okay?” asked his friend.

Daryl perked up. “Hm? Ah, m’sorry, just distracted.”

“You wanna ask me something,” Aaron guessed as they kept walking.

“Yeah, I… Wanted to ask ‘bout Eric. Er—how is he?” Daryl worried Aaron would catch on, but it was clear he loved talking about his beloved. His enthusiasm for Eric reminded Daryl of your spirit back when he first met you when he was all but six.

A bright smile broke on Aaron’s face as Daryl opened a wired gate. Aaron’s smile stayed as he talked about Eric. “Says he misses being out here with me. I do, too and…”

Daryl swung the gate open, entering the deserted courtyard, thinking only of you while Aaron talked about Eric. It wasn’t that Daryl didn’t care—he did, but it wasn’t exactly easy to act like he did when his mind did him a grizzly favor bringing you up every single time. How much older you looked…

He felt he missed a great deal of your life, and he was hoping he’d get to see more of it now that you’d reunited. If only you just weren’t so damn hard to reach then—

“You ever felt that way about anyone before?” Aaron asked him as he followed from behind. He could sense the question in Daryl’s eyes. If he knew Daryl wasn’t listening, he didn’t give him too much for it. “Love, I mean.”

He hadn’t heard of that word in a long time. In fact, he thinks the first time he ever learned of the word was decades ago.

“That Dixon kid spells trouble.”

It was your father’s routine to comment on your then next door neighbors whenever he visited you at your grandparents’ home in Georgia. It was usually that specific combination, but it also differed each day. Sometimes, he was talking about the younger kid, while sometimes the older one.

It mattered to you a lot. You knew them more than just trouble. You were keen on making sure your family never found out you had a crush on ‘that Dixon kid.’

The first time you met Daryl, you were instantly hooked by his eyes. To you, it was the greatest shade of blue you’ve ever seen. You were just settling in your grandparents’ home, saddened to spend your childhood away from your parents as they worked in the city. They figured it wasn’t exactly the best place to raise a child, so they sent you to the scorching land that is rural Georgia, in the safety of your grandparents’ care.

You hated the Georgia heat, hated that you had to say goodbye to your friends in the city. That is until you saw that charming fella, sporting worn out overalls as he rode his bike away from home.

You just had butterflies fluttering in your belly. At first, you thought he had pepper or some sort of dirt just above his lips, but you learned the hard way that it was only a mole, but that’s another story for later.

Rejection from a crush is usually a direction to stay away. To you, however, you were only more interested in getting close to the much shorter kid. You planned on befriending him first, then riding a horse to a faraway castle to get married second.

The first time Daryl met you, he despised you. He loathed you, even. Hated the way you wore your hair in braids and the way you couldn’t take a hint even if he tried. It was on the first day of first grade, only on the way to school.

He always sat alone by the window in the school bus, his lunch nothing but a juice carton he could fit in his tiny pocket. You had sat down next to the boy, his feet barely enough to reach the floor.

“Y’know, you’re gonna starve if you call that your lunch later,” you told him.

He only scowlded at you in response, ignoring you to watch the world pass by the window.

You smiled at him nonetheless. As far as you were concerned, you liked this boy. You knew right then that you would be safe in his company. “I’m [Y/N]. You are?”

No response. You let that go on for a while—just sitting right next to each other as he watched the small world pass him by, acting as if you weren’t even there. Unapologetically, you touched the surface of his face just above his lips, trying to swipe away the supposed dirt stain.

“What’d ‘ya do that for?”

“You have something on your face! I couldn’t just let you go to school with that,” you argued. You could almost see it: the kids laughing and pointing at him all because he forgot to wipe off a stain from his face! You were just concerned is all.

The boy wiped at his cheek with his hand, only to realize what you were referring to. “Heavens to Betsy! S’just a mole I’ve had since I’s a baby!”

“Great! We’re making conversation.” You smile at the boy. “You’ve gotta think it’s silly that I know about your mole and not your name.”

“Not gonna. Yer piddlin’, talkin’ so loud ‘ya could piss off the Pope, actin’ lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut!”

You frown, confused at his Southern lingo “Piss of the Pope? Lower than a snake’s what?”

His frown dissolved. “What, yer not from around here or somethin’?”

He was relieved to see your smile return, glad to not have pissed you off to send you running back to whichever father you had who, he assumed, probably had a shotgun.

“Yeah! I’m from Brooklyn.”

The boy grunted, crossing his arms. “You’ve got an awful lot to say for someone who just moved.”

“Oh, I only have this much to say to people I like.”

“Well, I don’t like you,” he interjected.

You only smiled as you unzipped your bag to pull out another smaller bag. “Didn’t say you had to, because I can make you!”

Before he could argue, you tore your sandwich in half, handing one half to him and keeping one the other for yourself to munch on. “Try it,” you tell him.

“How do I know ya ain’t trynna poison me?”

Rolling your eyes, you took a bite from the snack. You handed it to him insistently. “I’m still alive.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Just try it!”

Daryl’s never had enough good things in his life that your sandwich appeared to be more of a threat than a peace offering. He was used to getting the shortest end of the stick, or not even any.

He opened his mouth to debate against it, but he gave in. One bite in and something told you he hasn’t had something quite like it for the past year. You decided right then and there that you wanted to be the one who could put a smile on his face.

“This—sh’good.” The young boy admitted in between loud chewing. “You made this?”

“Meemaw did,” you replied, grinning as you ate your own half. “I’ve got more snacks in my bag, if you wanna share them later. But I need to know your name first!”

The bus came to a halt. It was the first time you looked at him clearly, and him you. “I’m Daryl.”

That night, he was all you could think of. The blue-eyed little boy who you were determined to make yours. His pretty nose, his funny walk, his everything. You weren’t particularly secretive with your feelings, bringing a sandwich for him after you asked your grandma to pack you two every day.

It wasn’t just the sandwiches, though. You’d often pester him, asking if he’d ever want to marry you one day, to which he’d respond with, “Ew, never!”

“Daryl,” you called to him as he ran away from you, retreating back to his house.

“What?” he turned back to yell.

Grinning, you braced yourself for his outburst of anger. You made it a hobby to rile Daryl on your quest to make him yours. “I loooove you!”

“No!” he spat back, running even faster back to his house. You laughed the entire time, thinking of when he’d eventually wear down and say it back. Little did your young self know, she’d be able to turn the tables around in just a decade. But that’s a story for another time.

Little Daryl, on the other hand, lay in bed, staring at the ceiling racking his mind on ways he could get rid of you. That day, he was guilty of something grave, something dangerous. Thieves are born once they do the honor of their first theft, and you were just unlucky enough to be Daryl's first victim, having done you the untimely inconvenience of stealing your heart. That day was the first of many lives he would lead.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

“I dunno, I was young. But I guess I did, once,” Daryl said after recounting his earliest memory he had of you: stubborn, ambitious, and determined. “Whatever it was, I screwed it up.”

“Screwed up how?” Aaron asked, and Daryl wondered if you had opened up about your past to the guy. He wishes he’d brought you up in the conversation earlier on so that it wouldn’t be suspicious for him to suddenly talk about you after he’d just given a glimpse into his history.

“Drove her away when I drove away,” Daryl said lightly. He was relieved to find a confused Aaron, but more so when they reached a couple of cargo containers lined up in an organized fashion marked with the text: How the harvest gets home.

Aaron wanted to ask, but his interest was piqued by the promise of food to take home. They made their way through the gap between the two containers, eager to give it a look. Daryl noticed the two cans hanging by the sides before he followed suit, but he followed anyway.

The pair climbed up the short length of stairs, pleased to find more containers.

“Huh,” Aaron chuckled, enthused about what awaited behind the doors. The can on the door was certainly appetizing. “Woah…”

Daryl watched as Aaron mused about the container, who bent down to loot his pack for a tool to obtain another license plate, this time from Alaska—K4Z 816, with the subtext ‘The Last Frontier.’ There was definitely something… Strange and unsettling about the place. However, the promise of something to bring back weighed more than the thought of coming empty-handed. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?

“Hey, listen,” Aaron called out, triumphant while Daryl explored the small space enclosed by the containers. “I don’t like giving up either. But… The guy is in a red poncho. You could see him from miles away. We’ve got a lot of miles here, and no sign of him.”

The lock of the container caught Daryl’s attention.

Aaron began to walk over to Daryl after getting a new addition to his collection. “We’ve come away with… A trailer full of cans. I’d say that’s a good trip!”

The pair stopped in front of one of the containers. Daryl bent down to tinker with the lock, eager to get out of there to return to you. “Here you go.”

The archer was already picturing the many things he wanted to do when he saw you again, and the ways he could approach you. Daryl grunted as he swung the handle open.

The choice to open the door was certainly a choice, albeit an absolutely fatal one. Wires snapped from all directions as the door slid open upwards. There were no cans inside of the container, no. The pair jumped in horror as they were met by the gruesome sight of the dead, some impaled by a hook and some able to chase freedom.

One by one, all of the doors swung open to reveal the very same scene in front of them. The pair dashed out of the scene upon discovering their mission was a total bust.

The walkers were already pouring out into the open space, blocking their only way out. Daryl plunged his knife down one of the walkers making its way to him, its groans speaking only of its lethal appetite. Aaron, on the other hand, made a weapon out of the license plate he’d just looted, smashing it against the temple of a walker twice until its head split open.

“Over here!” Aaron yelled to Daryl, pointing to the space under one of the containers. The archer followed Aaron in a haste and for the first time in a long while, Daryl feared death.

He felt his heart beat faster every passing second that the dead clawed their way to them, crawling with an undying thirst for their flesh. He wondered if you’d miss him if he were to die now, if you’d look for him…

No. There was no way in damn hell he’d die without explaining himself at least twice. That’s right—twice. And even possibly more just so you’d take him back. He’d make it up to you. Daryl stole one glance at the walker crawling towards him with a ‘W’ blatantly itched on its forehead before obtaining a long metal chain as a weapon.

The troubled pair hurriedly got out of the small space, with Daryl whipped the chain on three incoming walkers, ruthlessly determined to get out of there. He was already drafting a plan in his head: get out of there, get to you, talk to you. He was no longer going to spend more time waiting around for the right time, if there even was such a thing.

He plunged his dagger deep into the head of the walker that had gotten ahold of Aaron’s bag before running out together. Aaron wasted no time slicing the head of a walker clean with his own machete, eager to be out of there as soon as possible. He did the same for another one coming his way.

Holy shit, was it terrifying having to push through the walking dead as if it were just a mosh pit in a concert. The two couldn’t even begin to catch their breath as they jumped into the same door of a car, especially as a head of a walker just peeped inside in time when Aaron made to shut the door close. He had to do it multiple times until the head was crushed enough for him to finally close it.

The shelter of the car was no use, though. Walkers gathered from all sides, clamoring to get inside. They both knew it wouldn’t hold and would eventually give up. For sure, more walkers would be drawn by the commotion, curious to get a piece of what was inside the damn car.

“Glass will hold for a while, right?” Aaron asked, observing the crowd of hands and brutal groans from the dead on all sides of the car’s windows.

“Maybe,” Daryl replied, still holding a dagger in his hand. Daryl thought of ways he could salvage this mission for the sake of returning to you. “Maybe we can make it so they can't see us. In a couple hours, somethin’ will come by, they’ll follow it out. There’s gotta be somethin’ in here we can use to block the view.”

Aaron began to rummage through the compartments. “We can cut up these seats.”

He only found an eerie warning written on a crumpled sheet of paper in one of the cup holders, stating, ‘TRAP. BAD PEOPLE COMING. DON’T STAY.’

Aaron showed it to Daryl, who could only think of how damn helpful it would have been three minutes ago. Just like that, he was drained of the hope he could ever return to you.

They sat there for a while like that, hopeless. Daryl chuckled.

“What?” Aaron asked.

“I came out here to… Not feel all closed up back there. Even now, this feels like me… Than back in them houses. That’s pretty messed up, huh?”

“You were trying,” he assured Daryl.

“Can I tell ya somethin’?”

Aaron nodded. “Lay it on me.”

“[Y/N]... I’ve known her since we were kids. She’s—er—the one I been thinkin’ of back there when ya asked me if I’ve ever felt it before. I did. I… I thought I’d never even see her again, so I put her in the back of my mind ‘cause the last time I did, I ruined her for good. I thought she was livin’ the perfect life I always pictured for her if I left, thought she was better off. Then I met her and… Shit, I’m an asshole.”

Aaron sat there, taking in everything Daryl had just told him. You had shared a fair piece of your history to him, entrusting him with a small part of your past you thought you’d never end up facing again. He knew of a first love that broke your heart, knew you have your fair share of regrets and grudges. He just didn’t expect it to be Daryl Dixon.

“I see.” Aaron only nodded. “She used to be my partner out on these runs, yknow.”

“Yeah?” Daryl asked, intrigued. He was never able to learn much about you for the past week, having been cautious about who he could and could not ask. “Why’d it stop?”

“Well…” Aaron sighed, his eyes focused on the unsightly crowd of dead clamoring to break the glass. “I don’t think it’s my story to tell.”

“You don’t think we’re gonna die in here?” Daryl asked with a smirk.

“Yeah, I don’t. We’re both gonna get out of here and you’ll ask her about it and she’ll tell you.” Aaron looked around the windows. “You’ve got a lot to know. It wasn’t easy for her back then.”

“Right.”

“Listen, I saw you with your group out there on the road. Then you went off on your own by the barn. Storm hit and you led your people to safety. That was it. I knew I had to bring you people back.”

Daryl could only give him a hopeless smile.

“You were right. We should have kept looking for that guy in a poncho,” Aaron said, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have given up. You didn’t.”

Daryl licked his lips before pulling out a cigar and placing it between his teeth. He didn’t mind having a heroic end anymore, because it meant earning him at least an ounce of redemption. It would be a sort of repentance for what he’d done to you all those years. “I’ll go.”

Aaron looked back up to him, confused.

Daryl had to explain as he lit his cigarette. “I’ll lead them out. You make a break for the fence.”

“No, no, no,” said Aaron. “This was my fault.”

“It wasn’t a question.” He’d made up his mind. Daryl took away the cigarette from his mouth for a moment. “And this ain’t your decision. It ain’t nobody’s fault. Just let me finish my smoke first.”

Aaron looked at Daryl, and he was sure the archer did not want to die just yet. He wasn’t gonna let that happen to his friend. “No. You don’t draw them away. We fight.”

And fight they did, braving the outside. It was simply luck that the man in the red poncho happened to be their very savior, and he was just looking for the man that led them to shelter.

︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

Any half-sane man should have been concerned with the matter at hand—the crime scene unfolding before him. Rick stood there, blood the main component of his gait, having just executed the community’s only doctor.

And yet Daryl couldn’t tear his eyes away from you, couldn’t help but stop the questions running in his head: Is she alrigh’? What is she thinkin’ right now? Is she okay? Is she fine?

When your eyes met his, we raised his brow in question. You only looked down, avoiding his look. You always did that. You’ve been avoiding him. This time, he let it slide. After all, you did just witness a murder.

For a while after that, you continued to avoid him. He let you. Maybe because he wanted you to, but eventually he grew tired of it. A couple of nights after the incident, he decided he’d take matters into his own hands with you.

Daryl watched you from below. You were on watch duty at this hour of the night, manning the gates in the event a threat presented itself.

You were so lost in thought you almost fell off the wooden watch tower when someone offered you a sandwich.

“I don’t think ya should be on watch if ya didn’t even catch me climbin’ up here,” the archer said, his hand outstretched with a wrapped sandwich in hand. “Made it myself.”

“Sorry, I was just…”

“Avoidin’ me?” he asked.

“What?” you asked back with a nervous laugh that faded into silent confession. You took the sandwich, scrutinizing it with a nostalgic burn in your chest. This has happened before, but you didn’t want to ask him about it or bring it up in any way at all.

Daryl looked into the distance, the night sky with a lot more stars than he could recall from when he left. “Stars are brighter nowadays, huh?”

You’re grateful he was kind enough to give you a break from the subject. But he wasn’t trying to change it. He was just thinking of the night he left… “Light pollution’s gone down, so… Yay apocalypse?”

His gaze returned back to you, and you wanted to beat yourself up for feeling that familiar rush of butterflies in your stomach like you did back when the only thing you felt for him was love. “Ya ain’t gonna try it? S’gonna get cold.”

“How do I know you’re not gonna—?”

This time, Daryl took the bread from your hands to take a bite. “Poison ya? I’m still alive.”

You took the sandwich with a laugh. “I was gonna say drug me into liking you.”

“Don’t need drugs for that.” Daryl gave you that same old damned smile he did, and suddenly the air smelled like the leather seats of your parents’ car that you stole. You held his stare, but you refused to return the smile.

“I should go,” you told him, shoving the bread to his chest as you rushed down the ladder. You heard Daryl’s frustrated and confused grunt while you were hurrying down.

By the time you got down, Daryl was just close behind. “[Y/N|,” he called out calmly. “Goodnight, Daryl.” You felt the tears prickle in your eyes. You refused to face him, you just felt the fire in your legs propelling you forward, pushing you to run home. It was all so familiar, everything he did. You hated the way you felt so stupidly attached… You were an idiot. You’d give in, and everything would just go like it did back then. “[Y/N],” he called out once more, this time with the slightest hint of indignation. He just wanted to talk to you so he could say his piece, would that be so bad? “Stop, damn it.”

You heard his footsteps getting louder and closer just as he grabbed you by your wrist, purposeful yet so gentle like he always was whenever he touched you back then. Your heart was beyond just beating quickly. You were sure it would eventually break through your bones and run free. You didn’t even realize your face was wet with tears until Daryl wiped it off for you. You were seventeen all over again, crying to him and asking him to take you with him if he was going to leave. You were nine once more, crying yourself to sleep after moving away.

“I can’t,” you utter out. “Can’t what? Tell me.” His eyes were hungry for answers, but you didn’t even know either. You just knew you couldn’t stand to see him anymore. It broke your heart, because you thought that if you would ever run into him again, you would be okay. That you would have moved on, and you could remain civil. So many words you wanted to tell him.

You swat his hand away. “I can’t keep talking to you just because you’re here. I can’t—can’t keep pretending that you’re—you—that what happened for around thirty fucking years ago is no longer bothering me, because I know damn full well that it is and it always will! And you being here I… I just… I can’t!”

“Ya want me to go?” he asked, gentle as ever.

“No, Daryl,” you said, out of words you could say to even come close to saying what it is you felt. “I just… I just wish you never left.”

So many explanations, and yet it was all reduced to you pushing him away. You just needed to get out of there. And that should’ve been the end of it. Daryl respected your preference for isolation. That really should have been the end of it for at least that night. He stood there, his heart half-broken. He just decided that maybe he deserved it, that he was stupid for thinking he deserved even another chance.

As Daryl watched you walk down the street away from him, he decided he’d give you more time. As much as you needed until you were—

In the short distance, you fell to your knees. Daryl halted in his tracks, his brows furrowed in confusion, trying to make sense of what you were doing. Even though your back was to him, he could make out that you were doing the same habit he was used to seeing you doing, only this time, your back was heaving up and down.

God, he didn’t need to see anything else anymore. He was already on his way the moment he felt something was wrong. His mind raced with so many terrible scenarios he refused to verbalize.

“[Y/N], what’s wrong?” he asked, worried as he knelt down in front of you. “What’s happenin’?”

“I—” Your mouth was locked shut from the static that spread from the tips of your fingers all the way to your jaw. It was cold, and it was burning hot.

You felt Daryl scoop you in your arms without question, and you let him. You heaved short, heavy breaths you couldn’t begin to catch. You felt and heard your heart in every direction, beating as if it was taunting you.

“...Bringin’ ya to Denise,” you heard Daryl say over the racing pace of your deafening heartbeat. You shook your head, the static finding that safe spot of yours, too.

“No, I—please—home—don’t—Denise,” you managed to say in between the uncontrollable hitches in your breath.

Daryl shook his head, slowing down as he tried to think of the right thing to do. But he felt your fist tighten its grip on his vest in request.

“Please. Now—Now, Dar—Now.”

You felt him caressing your hair with the gentlest of touches, just as you remember it. You felt him whispering soft promises against your ear, but you couldn’t make any single word out of it as everything went pitch black…

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asvterias · 6 months ago

Text

𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟥: 𝖮𝗎𝗋 𝖥𝖺𝗍𝖺𝗅 𝖥𝗅𝖺𝗐𝗌

the cast // series masterlist

chap. 1 || chap. 2 || chap. 3 || chap. 4 || chap. 5 || chap. 6 || chap. 7 || chap. 8

‼️ DISCLAIMERS FOR THIS CHAPTER ‼️

Main Characters Deaths, Just An Overall Sad Chapter & Angsty Ending

word count: 4.5k+

tag list: @s0r0ws @starvviss @kjisbae17 @lov3rgiiirl @starless-nightz @random-girls-loves

author’s note: anyways, i hope you liked this chapter! please don’t be a silent reader and interact within the chapter. also, i hoped you cried immensely because that was the ideal intention of this chapter; to make it as depressing as it could possibly get (for now 😉)

🌊 🐚 ✘ 🔥🗡️

CHAPTER 3, EPISODE ONE

Everyone’s huddled up in the car with your parents in the front seats and the children in the back. You hated the middle seat so you told Grover to get comfortable there, for the greater good, and you sat on the left side, right behind your mother.

Right now, Grover is updating you and Percy about everything demigod-related.

“My job has been to guide you to this moment. It’s always an emotional rollercoaster for young demigods, so providing a support system is really–“

“Who are you?” Percy interrupts him.

Grover stared blankly at your brother, “I’m Grover. I’m your best friend and–“

“What are you?” The blonde recorrects.

“That is a very good question,” You chirped up, “I would like to revisit my previous question.”

“No, Y/N, let it go!”

“I’m asking the important questions here!”

“Irrelevant questions!”

“To answer your question, Y/N, no, I was born like this,”

“You sure? You know parents tend to lie a lot too,”

“I’m fully aware of adult tendencies to lie frequently, but I was born like this. I’m serious.”

He removes his tam, revealing two small goat horns. “I’m a satyr, and I’m your protector, both of you.”

“You’re our protector?” Your brother asked rhetorically.

“If I hadn’t gotten you kicked out of school, you’d never have survived the night. And what’s chasing us now would have found you there easily.”

“Oh, because that’s so comforting to hear.” You cross your arms.

Percy turns his head to the car window and Grover looks dejected at the action.

“I’m sorry.” Grover breathes out, sincerity laced in his tone, “Usually, I can sense danger coming a mile away, but this time…Well none of us saw Dodds’ coming.

“So you knew about that…creature?” You inquired, gaining Percy’s attention back onto his friend.

“That thing that Dodds turned into, you saw it happen? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I saw some of it.”

“What part did you see? Where she flung me across the sky or when she attacked Percy?”

“Well, yes and no. The Mist kept her hidden even from us until it was too late.”

“I think I have a concussion from that,” You wince at the memory, holding the back of your head. “Besides, what the hell is Mist?!”

“The Mist is a veil that hides the magical world from the human world. My legs, Dodds’ wings, Even Dodds’ absence, but it isn’t supposed to hide things from me. That never happens. Something more powerful is at work here.”

“Maybe we’re the power sources.” You shrugged.

“Yeah, right,” Percy scoffs.

“The sooner we get you two to camp, the better off you’re–“

“Camp?! Who’s going to camp?!” You backtracked.

With a baffled expression, Grover turned to your parents, completely unimpressed by their timing, “You told them about camp, right?”

“We were getting there!” Your parents shouted simultaneously at Grover.

Grover nods his head, leaning back into the seat.

“Camp is a sanctuary for half-bloods. A safe space where you can learn who you are and what the world is like on the other side of the Mist.”

“Wait, hold up this an actual summer camp with mosquitoes and other dangerous animals lurking in the woods?!” You deadpanned. “Nah, you can keep that, I’m not going.”

“You don’t have a choice.” Your mom states.

“Uh, it’s not far, actually, just a little way past the bend up there.” Grover directs your mother.

“Mom, what else haven’t we talked about?” Your mother, Sally stayed quiet, anxiously glimpsing at her son. “What else haven’t you told us?”

“There are more secrets?!”

“Oh, there’s more like you wouldn’t believe, sweetie.” Jessica grins.

“Jess, that’s not helping whatsoever!” Sally exclaims.

“Sorry, it just slipped out of my mouth.”

“And you wonder why Y/N is a mini you.”

A flash of blinding light appears from mid-sky and disposes of a creature, which instantly starts running on all fours, chasing after the speeding car.

“Is that the Minotaur?!”

“Holy shit!” You and your mom said simultaneously in bewilderment.

“Once the attacks start, they never let up. Okay? Dodds was just the beginning.”

“Then who’s the freaking ending?! Because I’m ready to slain as many monsters as necessary.”

“He is next. He- he is brutal, he is relentless–“

“He’s still wearing underpants.”

“Out of all things, you could have noticed, Percy, you chose that?! Us trying not to die should be your main priority, not if the Minotaur is playing goddamn dress up!”

Percy and Grover kept their eyes on the large bulky monster.

“It’s gone!” Percy shouts, astonished.

“Gone?! Gone where?! I hoped it vanished back to wherever it came from!”

“Like it’s ever that easy!”

Then, the Minotaur’s loud footsteps and rough grunts halted and it almost calmed everyone’s racing heart rates.

“I think it’s gone for good now.”

Until it reappeared, now gaining up on the speeding car, The Minotaur ran up closer to the car front, beside Sally’s car door, aiming for severe damage.

“You just had to say something, didn’t you?!”

“How was I supposed to know that would happen?!”

“Because you jinxed us!”

“Don’t blame me because I’m stating the obvious!”

“I will push you out of this car!”

“Do it! I dare you!”

“Little Blondie, don’t tempt me with a good time!”

“Who are you calling Little?!”

“Someone who hasn’t had their growth spurt yet.”

“Hey, I’m still developing!” Percy gasps.

“Yeah, just very, very slowly.”

“Can we sacrifice Y/N to The Minotaur?”

“Oh please, you don’t have the balls to do it anyways,” You scoffed, “Besides, you need me. I’m always saving your dumbass, you can’t get rid of me!”

“Stop! Nobody is going to push anyone out of this car!”

“He started it–“

“No, I didn’t you, liar–“

“That’s it! Don’t make me come back there! I don’t care who started it, just know that it's ending!”

“Is there any more insight you’d like to add, Grover?” Sally calmly questions, acting like her children and wife didn’t have a screaming match a few seconds ago. Your family was truly a chaotic mess whenever they wanted, dismissing the matter as if impending death wasn’t lingering over their shoulders.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then, go right ahead,”

“The Mythomagic cards were training. Everything has been training for what’s still ahead of you.”

“What’s ahead of us?!”

“Kids…”

“I’m actually 24,” Grover confesses quickly, causing two heads to turn in unexpectancy.

You and Percy shared the same shocked expression, “Wait? What?”

“Hold on, please.”

The Minotaur roars loudly.

“Moonlight…listen to me.” your mom looks at you through the mirror as your gaze hesitantly meets hers. “You and Percy are forbidden children, monsters are going to attack you every day, this camp can protect you both.”

“Why can’t you and Sally come with us then?” you bargained with her, tears forming in your eyes. You couldn’t imagine, much less experience your life without your mother and Sally. The same women who nurtured you since you were babies and taught you everything you knew. You refused to give up on them, everything they did was to protect and love you, and now it was your turn.

Sally starts to talk, eyes stuck on the road, “We humans are not allowed there. Only demigods like you two.”

“But we don’t wanna leave you two.” Percy persisted.

“You’re our moms.”

“You’re gonna have to, that Minotaur isn’t gonna stop until he kills both of you.”

All of a sudden, a collision hit the car with enough brute force to send the car off the road and everything went black. It was all so quick, the collision, the swiveling of the car and landing on the side of the road, far from bypassers to rescue.

The rain pattering against the car turned into a heavy rainpour as everyone in the car, hanging upside down with the seat belt anchoring them, remained still, all unconscious.

After a while, the dulling pain in your head sharply woke you up, being the first to recover from the crash. Holding your head in pain as you slowly opened your eyes, feeling the blood trickle from your head, surveying your surroundings as you saw Percy and Grover still unconscious. Quickly unbuckling your seatbelt, you got out of your seat, repeating the same action to your younger brothers.

One by one, you carefully got everyone from the car as they began to wake up. A growl from the distance urges you to move faster as you help your other mother, Sally, get out of the damaged car.

Sally, Percy, and Grover were recovering, standing on their feet, checking for any injuries and your mom was the last one who needed rescuing.

“Mom…” you shake her but her body is motionless as the tears well up in your eyes.

You felt Sally’s arm pushing you back, sending you into Percy’s and Grover’s embrace as you nervously observed.

“Come on, come on, Jess…” Sally murmurs, kneeling down, searching for a pulse. “You gotta survive, we have children together, we can’t lose you right now.”

“Is she okay?” Percy chirps up, deciding to speak for you.

You found everything incomprehensible around you, your senses became deafening and a high-pitched ringing in your head matched the loud heart beating in your chest.

When Sally stayed silent, it only worsened your anxiety, “Mom, is she okay?!” Percy speaks again, adding some base in his voice yet his tone slightly wavers.

“She has a fading pulse…” Sally whispers, sparing a sad glance at you and quickly turning back to Jessica, “It’s decreasing rapidly,”

Dropping to the muddy slippery ground on your knees, tears quickly filling the brim of your eyes, threatening to fall as you moved closer to her.

“Mommy…” you cradle her face into your chest, saddened by her face, eyes closed as blood trickles down her forehead.

“We can revive her, right!” Your voice cracks, whipping your head to Sally, “Tell me we can revive her!”

“Y/N…” Sally sighs deeply, trying to contain her tears. You turn around, looking down at your mother, resting on your lap, body motionless yet her face looks peaceful.

“No! We- I can save her. We can do heart-to-heart compressions,” you shake your head, starting to do heart-to-heart compressions. “Why isn’t she waking up? Mommy, this isn’t funny anymore now, you have to wake up and help us. Please I can’t do this without you, I can’t do this whole new demigod thing without you.” your voice was dry, as you leaned down, blowing air into her mouth, hoping for a miracle to occur.

You didn’t truly believe in miracles, but for your mother, you’d start believing it. Right now, you would do whatever it took to bring her back even if it meant wishing on the impossible.

“We didn’t do plenty of things yet, I wanted you and Sally to meet my first girlfriend, attend my graduation, be there when I move out and eventually get married, and get grandkids from Percy because we both know I’m not going through that torture.”

Your senses became intensely heightened, catching onto Grover’s whisper to Sally, ignoring him as you spoke up.

“I refuse to leave her alone, she isn’t dead, just having some problems waking up and getting a pulse back.” You were in extreme denial, “Come on, mum, you focus on her face, giving her air and I’ll do her chest,” you beckoned Sally forward.

“Sweetheart…she’s already….gone.”

“She’s my mom and Percy’s mom, your wife. She wasn’t supposed to die this early. If all you’re gonna do is stand there and be useless, don’t bother talking to me.” It wasn’t intentional to snap at your other mother, but your emotions were driving you crazy and brazen.

“You’re the sun to my moon, Mommy, I can’t shine when you’re not there with me. Y-you promised me, you pinky promised that we were all going to survive, but you lied. Why did you lie to me?” You sobbed. Despite being physically exhausted, you weren’t giving up on trying to revive your mom, she would have never given up on you so you would stop trying until you had something, anything; a pulse, a gasp, her eyes shooting up. “Remember…” You weakly asked, holding onto the moon-shaped necklace on your neck, staring at your mom’s sun-shaped necklace.

The sky crackled with slight thunder as the rain poured down heavier. Finally understanding the meaning of your nickname, you sobbed desperately until the broken cracks of your voice gave out.

There was no sunshine without her moonlight, always them being in a pair, nothing without the other. Sadly, you lost your sunshine, darkening your moonlight to its deepest depths, harvesting it into something vengeful and heartless. Something that even scared you to a certain extent, like this was another new side flourishing because of the horrible circumstances.

You rested your mom on the ground, ignoring the cold rainpour.

“She’s gone…” Sally cries, grabbing your arm and pushing you into her body for a hug. You cried into the hug, tightening your grip as your wails echoed throughout the forest. Maybe this was all a nightmare, where you’d wake up and relax in reality. This was the time that your mom needed to wake you up and reassure you that she was right there, staying with you and protecting you.

Your chest clenched against your rib cage, devastation wracked throughout your entire body as the tears relentlessly spilled out.

“But she- she can’t be gone!” You hiccup, eyes glossing over with fresh tears, feeling another arm snuggle around your side.

“I know, sweetheart. I’m so sorry,” she caressed your face.

“What kind of demigod I am, if I was blessed with all these supernatural powers, can’t even save my Mom from death? What kind of daughter am I to just stand by and watch her own mother die? I don’t want this demigod life anymore, please take it all away if it means my mother is coming back, to me, to home. I’m so fucking tired and I just wanna go home! Home is wherever the four of us are!”

“Don’t you ever say that again, you did everything you could, your perseverance is one of your strongest qualities that Jessica adored very much. She wouldn’t want you to doubt yourself like this nor would I,” Sally reassures you, resting a thumb on your cheek, “Our beautiful daughter, she’s so proud of you, I want you to know that.”

Your eyes were puffy and red from tears as you listened to your mother’s words of encouragement and reassurance.

Much to your dismay, another loud roar broke the semi-family grievance, reminding them of the harsh reality.

“We have to go now!” Grover hastily urges.

“I’m not leaving my mom here like this,” you point to her still figure on the ground.

“We won’t, I promise you, sweetie. I’ll give her a proper burial, but right now we have to go!” Her tone was urgent as she quickly scanned the dark forest with the illumination from the car light.

You hurriedly rushed towards your mother’s still figure on the muddy ground, leaning down.

“Goodbye, Mom,” you whisper hoarsely, kissing her forehead for the last time. You stared down at her neck, gazing at the sunlight necklace she wore yanked it off, and shoved the meaningful jewelry into your back pocket. Your heart broke again, realizing she can’t respond, despite being in extreme denial.

Percy struggled to plant you on your feet as Sally walked over to Grover.

“Grover, I am entrusting you to protect my children, my only son and only daughter.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Jackson, Percy, and Y/N will be totally safe at camp–“

“Swear it.” She commands.

“What’s happening?”

“Swear it, Grover! Keep my children safe from anyone or anything that comes for them, that wants to harm them, that looks at them in the wrong way. Do you understand me?”

“I swear!” Grover persists, with determination and sincerity in his voice.

Sally nods at the boy, venturing over to you and Percy.

“I gotta go now,”

“Go? What do you mean go? Y/N stop her from going on this suicide mission,” He stares at you, waiting for a response. The first time you didn’t respond to your brother’s words caught him off guard, knowing you’ll always be his first defender.

The boy winces seeing your shaken body and red puffy eyes. It didn’t take a genius to know that you were still traumatized from witnessing your mom’s death. Seeing this sad broken-hearted face of yours, devastated Percy beyond any words to ease the pain. All those times, you’d reassured and defended him countless times, and yet he was speechless about how to comfort you right now. He felt like such a horrible brother to you.

“Your sister isn’t in charge, I am and what I say goes!”

“But–“

“This is no buts! You’re gonna be brave now. Remember what I taught you, remember the stories I told you. Especially the stories, they will tell–“

“No way! Mom, I’m not leaving you, not like how we left Mother stranded and alone to die.”

“Perseus!” She snapped, tired of his persistent attempts, cupping his face, “Listen to me! You…are not broken. You are singular. You’re a miracle and you are my son. Hold fast, brave the storm.”

“And Y/N,” She caresses your face, her saddened expression increasing at your blank eyes, “You are not neglected in this family, you’re just as important. You are one of a kind, my beautiful baby girl. You are my daughter and I don’t ever want you to forget that.”

Those words melted in your heart and words rambled from you without hesitation, the guilt of everything came crashing down.

“I’m so sorry, mother, for not being able to protect any of us. I failed at what I was best at.”

“You’re a kid, be a kid, stop worrying if you’re not going to save everyone. That’s too much of a heavy burden on yourself, it’s not good for your mentality. Live life, get a girlfriend and don’t force yourself to grow up too fast because you'll regret it. Let me tell you something unfair; you can’t save everyone all the time. I love you two so much,”

“We love you too.”

Just like that, The Minotaur had the worst timing of moments erupting with a loud search roar.

“We need to move!”

“Give me your coat.”

“Why?” Percy asks but removes his coat anyway, “What are you gonna do?”

“He smells half-blood, that’s what he’s tracking, yeah?”

“That’s right.”

Sally grabs the coat from her blonde son, “So if he smells you in two directions at once, maybe I can confuse him, buy us both a little time to get away.”

“Mom, please don’t…we can’t afford to lose another parent on the same night.” Percy pleads, stepping forward, gesturing to you, “Y/N is one of the strongest people I know, and a few hours into this demigod madness, she’s broken, possibly going to recover from trauma at the camp where we’re supposed to rediscover our true potential for a man who wasn’t even here our whole lives.” He whispers, a string of desperation in his voice, “You can’t do this to us…please don’t do this to us. You’re all we have left.”

“Hey! It’ll be okay.” She reassures the blonde boy with a weak smile, “Y/N bounces back, she always does. For the first time, she needs you more than you need her right now, so be her anchor for right now, and don’t ever let go.”

Another yell echoes throughout the forest and trees falling down a few feet away meant the Minotaur was getting unbelievably closer. Your heart raced in your chest, once you saw the bulky overgrown monster, standing on its hind feet, intimidating everyone who bore witness.

Sally wastes no time, giving Percy a forehead kiss and then moving over to repeat the same action with you.

“Go now!” She shoves you away into Percy’s and Grover’s arms, now facing the Minotaur as the trio escapes into the rainy forest night.

Her plan for using Percy’s coat as bait to seemingly distract him and draw him away from the two demigods was successfully executed.

After maintaining some far distance from your mother, Sally, and the Minotaur, the trio still kept on running, nobody turning back. Until a loud roar reverberated across the forest broke your concentration on getting to safety and intensified your worries for your mother. You stopped running, turning around as your heart hammered inside your chest, the adrenaline pumping.

Despite being miles away, you and Percy viewed the fight, flinching when the monster knocked your mother down with its horns.

The Minotaur held in its hand, lifting up something in the air…someone more life-like…that’s someone who was your mother, Sally! You gasped and shoved at the revelation, wondering about your mother’s fate and you continued to watch the heartbreaking scene. Your body wasn’t acting upon cooperation with your mind, telling you to run away before it gets you next or attempting to save your mother. Having already lost one parent was devastating as it is, and losing your other parent would cause a lifetime of trauma for you.

Your heart clenched in fear as Sally struggles to escape from his grasp.

You felt Percy’s scared face hide into the fabric of your cotton shirt, clenching onto the shirt as he squeezed his eyes as tightly as possible.

For the last time, your mother, Sally looked over at you, stretching out a hand, guiding you out to safety, content you’ll be fine. Just like that, she closed her eyes, slowly disintegrating into gold ashes. Huh, that was weird. Humans don’t shrivel up and fade into ashes like that. That definitely was magic.

It was quiet, the rain pattering over you was now a background noise as you struggled to process the incident.

You gulped down the harsh lump in your throat. “It’s…mother’s gone, too…” You informed Percy, tone hoarse as he slowly pulled away from your body.

He looked ahead again, seeing nothing, Sally wasn’t there and the Minotaur was staring into nothing, seemingly distracted.

“Where did she go? What happened to her?”

“…She disappeared into gold ashes.” You whispered slowly, trying to comprehend your mother’s demise in your mind. Once again, your vision becomes blurry and the tears start to form at the loss of yet another parent. “It looked so unrealistic,”

After that Percy began to speak, but your focus wasn’t even directed on him, but rather at that charging furious Minotaur, hungry for more blood.

The pain and suffering became a dangerous mix of anger and hatred directed at the Minotaur.

Grover’s statements fall on deaf ears, partially drowned out by the heavy rainfall. “Y/N and Percy come on, we’re almost there.” you glance at your blonde brother who holds the same on his face.

‘So what happens when the protector is unable to protect? Do they give up instant hope and cower in shame? Or do they fight back, willingly seeking a second chance to redeem themselves? Whether you make a change or just be a bystander like others? This time the answer to that is simple, mourn your losses later and avenge them now. For all you can do right now is fight on the battlefield, because this is no place to cry and admit defeat.

No, you refused to give up hope and you weren’t going down without a fight. This monster had already taken your worlds away, so you had nobody else to lose.

Grabbing the pen from your pocket, holding it out, and witnessing it transform into a golden sword at will. The fight with the Minotaur was brutal and intense, alongside the heavy downpour of rain that attempted to slow down the intensity of this fight. Despite double-teaming the monster, he resisted surrender, determined to win and kill you both. Surprisingly, you gained the agility to climb onto his back while Percy distracted him.

Somehow, you gained the ultimate advantage with the lighting sword in your hand and stabbed the monster in its eye, ignoring his roar of pain. If anything, its pain only further encouraged you to continue.

Too full of adrenaline, you grab his two horns, gripping them and pulling them out with your utmost strength. A new sudden strength you just obtained. Gasping in shock was quickly outlived when your sword slipped out of your hand and dropped onto the muddy ground, disappearing from your eyesight. Stumbling onto his feet, inflicted by the pain, you groaned, gripping the monster by his rough skin as he attempted to shake you off.

“Percy the sword!” You yelled at him. Your brother throws the sword upwards as you catch the weapon.

You stab the monster in the neck, wincing at his loud screeches, but continue to stab his neck. Once the monster was deemed weak enough, you sliced the sword right through his neck, seizing the opportunity of successfully killing it. To be certain of killing that wretched monster, you deactached its horn from its head with your uppermost strength, then using it to pierce its own eye, another terrifying wail leaves its mouth.

This was all this stupid monster’s fault. If it hadn’t chased after you or slammed itself into the car, your mom would be alive. If it didn’t have such a bloodthirst for demigods, Sally, your mother would still be alive. Alive. Alive. Alive. You just wished your moms were alive, to see you mature into such a courageous daughter to avenge their deaths.

Soon enough, the monster staggered on its feet and its body began to disintegrate into black dust before your eyes.

“Y/N!” The voice becomes disoriented as you stumble on the ground, two arms catching you as you faint, everything fading away into a black abyss.

“Is she okay?”

“Did she do it alone?”

“Is the blonde boy, okay too?

“How is that possible?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, he’s okay.”

Grasping onto your fading eyesight, there were four shadowy figures above you, all their voices sounded childish except the girl’s voice which sounded very mature.

“They must be the ones.”

“Hush, Annabeth.”

“They’re waking. Everyone give them some space, please.”

Obeying the command, the four unknown kids gave the siblings some space, revealing a half-man with the…bottom of a horse. Okay, it’s finally official, you’ve completely lost it!

“Welcome to camp, Percy Jackson and Y/N Matthews. We’ve been expecting you two.”

Oh my god! Who are these people?! What in the absolute fuck is going on?! This demigod shit is not cut out for me.

likes, comments, and reblogs are highly appreciated!

#her pretty girl series #clarisse la rue series #dior goodjohn #dior goodjohn x reader #clarisse la rue #clarisse la rue x reader #clarisse la rue x fem!reader #clarisse la rue x black!reader #clarisse la rue x black!fem!reader #daughter of poseidon

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maxwell-grant · 8 months ago

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Thoughts on the master of fear, Scarecrow? Also, fave design, he has so many good ones (second BTAS, his trading card one, mistress of fear, Gaslight,, fear for sale, the Arkham Games etc)?

Hey so, do any of you remember Batman Live? It was this really fun, extravagant stage show that touched on a lot of Batman hallmarks and was generally a really fun time as far as I recall. I went to the São Paulo premiere with my family, and I was a little too young to really recall most of it now, but some things I definitely remember like the huge Joker hot air balloon made of performers in bodypaint, or the comedy sequences in the Iceberg Lounge. The one thing that stuck with me the most was when the Scarecrow showed up. Batman goes to Arkham Asylum and the entire comedy camp tone drops dead, as he walks in and finds all these bodies in straightjackets hanging from chains, and the doors open as The Scarecrow walks towards him in stilts, summoning loud smoke eruptions that are poisoning and weakening Batman as he leers over him. That part actually did scare me as a kid, and it was probably the first time I had any kind of feelings on Scarecrow imprinted in me.

I was introduced to The Scarecrow as this uniquely horrifying villain who could terrify through presentation alone. I didn't particularly understand what the fear gas was, I was too taken with that ungainly thing up there with the stilts and all those people turned into cadaverous decorations, lurking from the endless halls of the asylum, who towered over everyone and placed Batman into a writhing breakdown with a few gestures, and never appeared again until the cast roll, completely absent from the rogues gatherings after. Granted, of course that's because the stilts prevented him from joining the fight scenes, but that helped to reinforce his mystery. He wasn't someone Batman was going to punch back, no no, the Scarecrow simply vanished as soon as he was done with disarming Batman, and you'd just have to pray for that unfathomable creep to never show up again.

And I'd say this might be part of why I've never been too big on the fear gas, in part because I was first enraptured by a version of The Scarecrow who clearly didn't need it that much, or at least, could do much more besides it. The Scarecrow is, I'd say actually one of my top 10 DC characters, half of that on the basis of his designs, but he's a character who tends to really, really struggle under a lack of cohesion and being subordinate to his gimmick, much more so than the other rogues. The fear gas is a good gimmick, but it is just that, a gimmick, and one that's usually reliant on how far can the story push the horror and the visuals to at least make it effectively scary for us, otherwise it gets incredibly boring very fast, and it's not even a gimmick exclusive to him since so many other characters have similar mind control/illusion abilities/gadgetry at hand (and to say nothing of Hugo Strange, who first used fear gas and who quite frankly kicks the Scarecrow's ass in terms of quality storylines, although Hugo does that to most of the other Batman villains too)

The Scarecrow has become the go-to character for hallucination sequences / revisiting character traumas, which frequently makes him less of a character and more so a convenient plot device, a problem heightened by the larger issue here that is his inconsistent motivation, or lack thereof. He lacks the kind of "breakout" stories that his fellow major Batman villains have had that usually cement an ongoing characterization, and his most famous/celebrated appearences in mass media don't really do much to combat the assertion that he is shallow and weak and whose only asset is the gas (namely, his boss fights in Arkham Asylum, which are all about the fear gas hallucination scares, and his role in Nolan's Batman, which is very fun, but also purposefully plays him up for ridicule and lack of depth next to the other villains)

These days, the Scarecrow is a tedious pip-squeak. His schemes lack verve, his cruelties stir little in the way of frissons. Haunted by cliché to an even greater extent than the other rogues, he’s often brought low with a single sock to the jaw delivered by Batman, or by finding himself on the receiving end of his own fear-inducing concoctions. He often acts as a pawn in the hands of bigger, badder third parties. He’s ostensibly a stand-in for the figure of the reductive, smug and hypocritical psychologist, nicely bundled up for the audience to humiliate in effigy - TheMindlessOnes's rogue review for Scarecrow

In "Nothing to Fear" it is explained that Jonathan Crane has always had this "thing" for scaring people. (Just as Snidely Whiplash had his "thing" for tying women to railroad tracks, I suppose.) But this is a wan kind of motive. One senses sadly that the real motive for the Scarecrow's behavior lies in the writer's need for someone to do something reprehensible. At the root of the matter may be a difficulty in sorting out the Scarecrow's ends from his means, with a consequent confusion between the goals the Scarecrow intends to reach and the tactics he employs in reaching them.

As a psychologist specializing in phobic disorders, Crane knows how to induce fear and trembling in his victims. But this tells us nothing about what the Scarecrow wants to accomplish. And without a sense or statement of what those goals are, the writer will be tempted to substitute means for end and make the Scarecrow's goal simply the scaring of people. Usually his actions are woefully underexplained - Dreams in Darkness' review by Toonzone

You might think that I'd be advocating for the Scarecrow, then, to disregard a need for a motivation and become as unknowable and horrific as possible, to recapture the awe I felt at his Batman Live self, but no, not at all. For one, I don't think the best version of anything is necessarily the one that made the most impact on me as a kid. Two, there have been some attempts over the years to remove Scarecrow from the toxin or seriously amp him up as a threat, and frankly, most of those have only made the character dramatically worse and more boring (I don't remember the name, but there was a Batman story a while ago where he goes on a big scary killing spree with no toxin just to prove he can and it was fucking terrible). Three, and the big one here, is that this pretty much forces you to get rid of Dr. Jonathan Crane, and I think that does a disservice to the character's potential. I think that's giving up on trying to make him work as a character and I don't think you have to do that.

My preferred characterization for Crane is one that emphasizes his nature as a scholar turned supervillain. The cold and misanthropic and neurotic nerd professor who spent most of his salary on books and took to terrorizing the city as a costumed criminal in part because he wanted money to buy more books. Who takes off the costume mid-crime spree to school his henchmen on specifics of brain chemistry, who gets revenge on those that wrong his students or even employs them as henchmen, still the same guy who thinks there's nothing wrong with firing a loaded gun in a packed classroom as a demonstration. Far less interested in human connections than he is in human reactions, things that can surprise him or that he can catalogue or research or write about. Someone who's not a sadist for sadism's sake, but who doesn't really see you as a person so much as he sees a test subject. I like Crane as a snarky humorous heel who thinks of himself as amoral and mature while doing horribly immoral and childish things, the Herbert West or Rusty Venture of Batman villains (James Urbaniak is definitely the voice I'd pick for him).

My preferred kind of motivation for him is something along the lines of how he's portrayed in most of Kings of Fear, where he puts Batman through the wringer in part as an attempt to get to him and cure him once and for all, or issues #4-5 of The Batman Adventures where he induces city-wide illiteracy in part as a protest against the city's failing education. In Gothtopia he makes all of Gotham hallucinate their perfect ideal lives, eliminating the crime rate but causing the suicide rate to spike up in return, and yes it does turn out to be the set-up for a really generic "fear gas everyone with blimps and make everyone twice as scared" pay off when his involvement is revealed, but I always thought Scarecrow being able and willing to do that, to create these huge and even benevolent-seeming social experiments, as an idea with legs. Fear State was frustratingly halfway there, with the initial set-up of Scarecrow pursuing a theory for fear-based social upheaval, but on top of not being very good, it also wound up that he was just doing the same old thing again and had Batman call him out as someone who just wanted to gas the city and make everyone scared again and never changes and does anything different, which seemed like Tynion defeating his own purpose of trying to make a defining Scarecrow story and address his lack of one, completely failing to address the why the character has that kind of problem and upending itself for meta commentary before doing anything interesting.

Even Kings of Fear, easily the best Scarecrow story of the past decades if not outright ever, kinda ends in a bit of a cop-out where The Scarecrow has to be wrong ("Even when he's telling the truth, he's lying, and even when he's right, he's wrong", Gordon tells Batman to reassure him, to nullify the past 5 issues criticizing and tearing into Batman from every angle imaginable), and he has to be a sadist who just wanted to fuck with Batman and uncover his worst fears because it's what he does. Why does Scarecrow want to unravel people and wrench their worst fears into the surface? Because he's a sadist who gets off on it? I guess that's the canon answer most of the time, but it's such a boring, weak one. Because he wants revenge on the world / bullies? Still weak, done better by other villains even. Because of an unspeakably traumatic childhood that taught him the world was ruled by fear and therefore driving him to become it's master? Okay, but it still doesn't actually answer what he wants to get out of doing what he does.

We know that Jonathan Crane was a fragile youth routinely terrorized and abused by others and plainly traumatized by his experiences. We know that he is learned and brilliant and given to introspection and fantasy.

From this base it is not hard to imagine Crane turning into a man fiercely devoted to solitude and study and capable of a murderous rage when his privacy is violated. It is possible, in other words, to imagine him as a reactive force, in the mold of Freeze, systematically terrorizing and destroying anyone who crosses him but rarely wanting to start trouble himself.

Or we can imagine him as a mercenary, a specialist hired by others for nefarious purposes, but who is not himself strongly motivated by particular rages or desires.

But if the Scarecrow is going to remain a sadist and a sadist only—if he is going to be moved only by the psychotic desire to harm others—we ought to be made to feel the seductive power that sadism has over its practitioners; we should be made to feel and appreciate the hot and sour joy that comes from the purposeful humiliation of another - Dreams in Darkness review by Toonzone

It's kind of a frustrating pattern in a lot of his stories where he gives a reason for doing something, and it turns out to be a cover for yet another sadistic fear gas attack, but his cover reason was a more interesting motivation for him than what he actually was going for. A villain who mainly just gets a kick out of hurting people and concocts bullshit excuses and reasons to justify said hurting? The Joker does that already, but the Joker always clearly states what he wants and has all those ways to make cruelty for cruelty's sake entertaining. If that's all The Scarecrow is also, no wonder he's going to be so incredibly lacking most of the time (nevermind the fact that he's never going to be the guy most infamous for gassing Gotham City).

Yes, he may be sadistic and cruel, he may enjoy what he does too much, and maybe there really isn't any kind of realistic explanation as to why a man would dress up as a scarecrow to commit terrorism and spray innocent people with chemicals to make them terrified, but refer to the guy he's fighting. "Realistic" is the wrong term. The issue here is less "why" the Scarecrow does what he does, and more what is he hoping to get out of it. Granted, this is less of a concern if you're playing The Scarecrow as a figure of horror, someone who's not even really human underneath that outfit. But I think that locks away much of his versatility. The Scarecrow needs Jonathan Crane, and I think there's good stuff to like about that awful man.

I like Jonathan Crane the sardonic pragmatic scientist who still embraces his hopelessly ridiculous life, a guy who's not nearly as above it all as he'd like to be and has wants and needs moreso than he really likes to admit. I like him as a book lover, as a fan of horror, I like him as the kind of guy who'd send fan mail to Elvira and break out of Arkham just to catch a Halloween parade and guest star in a Scooby-Doo movie for a change. I like him as someone who'd have a decent working relationship with the other rogues and pal with the Legion of Doom and get into a physical spat with Riddler over a chess game. Someone who custom-makes his own outfits and equipment, who makes scythes out of animal bones to fight Batman with, who picked the scarecrow motif in part because it was a term of derision his colleagues used on him.

Who pours himself over his research as he records his theories in a tape recorder, the kind of guy who grouses at having to clean another cell because he's getting annoyed at his test subjects killing themselves, seriously guys the cleaning supplies for this batch were as fresh as they could be, and the iguana amygdalas I used should be stopping your neocortexes from overreacting this strongly. Subject #3 over there got over his fear of centipedes yesterday and he hasn't screamed all morning, I'm gonna need the rest of you to stop being such babies, okay?

It must be terribly liberating for Crane, to transcend mere ugliness and become inhuman. Of all the rogues, he’s easily the one who takes Batman’s “I need a disguise; I shall become a beast of the night” schtick and runs with it the farthest - TheMindlessOnes's rogue review for Scarecrow

And that's for Jonathan Crane, man of science. The Scarecrow, however, is not science, he is unreason incarnate, and to me what most makes The Scarecrow work as a Batman villain has nothing to do with "they both use fear as a weapon", I always thought that was a bit shallow of an angle to pursue (most, if not all, the villains rely on fear, it comes with the whole "crime" thing). The two have a stronger connection via the costume, the theatricality, the becoming a creature of the night angle. None of the other major Batman villains are going into their costumes the way The Scarecrow is. They have their personas and varying degrees of division between them and their "real selves", but few of them are wearing outright identity-separating Halloween Monster Costumes with separate names and personalities they can dip in and out of at their convenience.

And I'm gonna interrupt myself to answer your second question. I couldn't pick just one design, so counting the Batman Live one above, I picked 10. These are not in order and they're not necessarily how I'd design him, I'd say my actual favorite Scarecrow designs are fan-made, but if I was going to pick out of "official" material these are the ones I'd go for. It's time for:

(Left-to-right: George Pratt's Scarecrow pin-up, Phil Jimenez's Scarecrow design, Ed Natividad's concept art for Suicide Squad)

(Left-to-right: His TNBA design by Bruce Timm as drawn by Luciano Vecchio, Alex Ross's design for Justice, and Tim Sale's Scarecrow)

(Left-to-right: Kelley Jones' design for Kings of Fear, Jeremy Raapack's design for Legends of the Dark Knight #25, Scarecrow's design in Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo!)

*cough*, anyway: Most of the other rogues with their signature suits or masks or body distortions don't tend to have closets full of different variant Batsuits and scarecrow costumes to choose and devote to their cause and ideal, that they sit at night tailoring on how to make scarier or more loaded with weapons, that they might even have conversations with, things that sit in their closets waiting because both of these brilliant men, men who have (or at least had) different civilian lives, men who could stop doing this at any time, who both decided that becoming a Halloween monster prowling the streets to inflict terror is a necessary, even productive use of their time.

And I think that's the key word I want to end here, productive. I think The Scarecrow needs to be more productive. Because even if he's not aware of it, he is achieving progress via his research, and there is one way he's proved his ideas: Batman walks out of every fight they have stronger. Every encounter they have is a test that Batman resists and walks out of more able to cope with his own traumas, or at least, better able to resist them being weaponized against him. I always wanted to explore the idea that Crane is genuinely convinced he's doing people a favor or at least achieving something via all these horrible Scarecrow campaigns, and one thing he has achieved is that Batman is never not prepared for chemical attacks or assaults on his mind, Batman resists ungodly trials of willpower and determination and courage, in part because he has to deal with the Scarecrow pumping terror juice in his brain semi-regularly.

The fact that Crane loses and gets beaten up and has to retry schemes again and again and kill people and join the costume parade just to lure Batman is fairly inconsequential to him, so long as it gets results. He's not interested in dissecting Batman's brain or being more like Batman, that's Hugo Strange's thing. Hugo Strange needs Batman to be fearless, allmighty and perfect, where as Jonathan Crane wants nothing more than to unearth and study the fears and kinks in the armor, the dead last thing he wants is a perfect man. Hugo Strange wants to crawl naked into the mask of the great and terrible fascist and never come out, where as The Scarecrow wants to crack open all the masks in the world and feast luridly on whatever seeps out.

Batman isn't just the ultimate trial against his fear-ruled worldview (or even affirmation), and he isn't just a breakthrough waiting to happen: he might be his greatest success as of yet. A case study on the success of exposure therapy, proof of potential medicinal applications for his formula, the greatest guinea pig of all time because he won't die no matter what you pump into him, you name it. So what if all those other people couldn't stomach the procedure, so what if those precious innocents are too weak and stupid and useless to not get in the way of research, it's clearly worked wonders for those who could take it.

And if the future belongs to men like Batman, if all of these superheroes and supervillains are the way things are going to be like forever, if the future is Bat-shaped and as vast and uncertain and horrible as the forces shaping it, the future needs to be prepared. The future needs to grapple with it's past and face it's greatest horrors and become stronger for it. There is no such thing as overcoming fear, there is only living with it, embracing it, bowing to the primordial instinct that knows the answer before you do. Mankind grew and developed it's intelligence and tools out of fear, fear of the bigger predators out there, fear of the other cavemen, fear of starvation and death and everything they couldn't understand and master until they learned to fear it. What better knowledge to pass along than fear? And who is better qualified to teach about fear?

Maybe Crane isn't just another monster with a grudge, maybe he isn't another costumed revenge killer, maybe he isn't just a power-tripping sadist bully out to torment others because he can, and maybe he isn't a hopeless traumatized madman who destroyed his professional and personal life in a monstrous quest to satisfy an obsession ruling his soul.

Maybe he is a sane response to an insane situation. Ever heard that one before?

#replies tag #superheroes #batman #dc comics #scarecrow #the scarecrow #jonathan crane #gotham city

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abybweisse · 9 months ago

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The fire, revisited

I have a crack theory that might not be too cracky.

Previously, I'd thought the fire at Phantomhive Manor was started by either the attackers (and/or John Brown) or by Tanaka (on Vincent's standing orders, in case something like this happened to him).

Well, I'd be surprised if Tanaka somehow managed to do that, considering he'd fallen from that stab wound to the back. Either John Brown or the other attackers on his/the queen's orders is still a good possibility. Particularly since I expect that John and the queen already know by then that Undertaker is a reaper.

But there's another possibility I'd never really talked about before: the reapers who came to collect all those souls. I was thinking of this during discussions about ch209, because this new reaper states there're no additional comments to make about Snake's death, even though he's in a space underground where there are body parts stored, blood transfusion equipment, and a bizarre doll who is actually Snake's killer.

You'd think he'd at least mention the odd circumstances of Snake's death, especially when there's a hunt for Undertaker and his latest bizarre dolls. I don't think this reaper is completely oblivious to what's going on; it seems to me he might be trying to actively cover up what's happening, so he's not including such details in the official documentation. It could be for selfish reasons (to avoid overtime), or it could be based on special orders he's been given.

I say that because for a long time, the reapers weren't talking about Undertaker, and Grelle didn't even know about Undertaker's past as 136649. Othello knows because he was there and he was trained with 136649. But if he's a "fugitive of legend", why aren't reapers like Grelle and Ronald aware of his history? William has been at least somewhat aware of him for a while... but he's in management. The "superiors" are finally getting reapers in collections involved with this ongoing case against Undertaker, and I suspect it's only out of necessity. If they could, they would keep the vast majority of the reapers in the dark about this deserter.

Because they consider him to be that much of a threat to their organization. For quite some time, I've thought he knows something (bad) about the organization itself, and if he spread that knowledge around to the reaper masses, there could be an uprising. We've seen it with the maids turning against Heathfield, Ada and the patients turning against the Aurora Society, and now with the top students against the orphanage. When people realize they are being controlled and harmed for someone else's benefit, they tend to rise up, and I think that's what could happen if enough of the reapers learn whatever Undertaker knows.

The "superiors" finally got serious about it, according to Othello, when they sent him from his lab to the human realm. They seem to have hoped he could make this problem go away by talking to the deserter, destroying him, or capturing him. But once Othello realized it really was him, of all reapers, he knew he couldn't handle the situation on his own... and that he and Grelle wouldn't be enough, either. That's why he sent the dove for backup.

But I think someone else in the reaper organization already knew Undertaker was involved and tried to stop him without properly documenting anything -- they tried to cover up his activities. The night of the attack, one or two reapers were sent to collect souls from the dying, as per usual. While looking through their cinematic records, the reapers saw occasional instances of Undertaker showing up in them, but the most instances would have been in Vincent's records.

Vincent's records would have had extensive chunks of memories involving Undertaker, and the information in those records (things they said to each other) could have been damning somehow. To the organization, at least. What if Undertaker admitted to being Vincent's father? What if he told Vincent secrets he knew about the reaper organization? What if he mentioned the experiments he'd already been conducting on cinematic records and corpses?

Any reaper reviewing such records might think the best thing to do is destroy all this evidence, which might hopefully destroy the information, too. Why would a reaper destroy evidence about the organization's activities, if that information could help spawn a revolution? Too much of a hassle? Doesn't understand the full implications? On someone else's orders? Perhaps the reapers sent to collect these souls were specifically told to burn Vincent's body and the manor, and those reapers did as they were told, regardless of the circumstances. I wonder what happened to any reaper who saw whatever they saw in those cinematic records.... 🤔

Whoever ordered the fire to be started, or whoever decided to start it... they did so to destroy evidence.

As well as to keep Undertaker from collecting Vincent's body and cinematic records. Because whoever this person is, they know Undertaker would have found those things useful. And they didn't want him to have access.

The end result is pretty much the same, except that now I think reapers might have actually done it, instead of attackers/John or Tanaka.

#black butler #kuroshitsuji #theories #crack theory #reapers #grim reapers #fire at the manor #john brown #superiors #reaper superiors #reaper organization #undertaker #observation #vincent phantomhive #ramblings #feb 22 2024 #long post #long reads

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the---hermit · 2 years ago

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How to get out of a reading slump

A while back posted a list of ten books to help you get out of a reading slump, but I also wanted to post a more general list of tips I personally think are useful when you find yourself in a reading slump. (I have also talked about this topic in this ask). So here's some of my tips:

Take a break. Sometimes you can get in reading slumps because you are burned out, maybe not just because of reading, but that can be affected as well. You have no obligations when reading (unless of course if you have to do it for school/uni, in which case I would still recommend trying to get some time off or at least slow down a bit in order to get some energies back). Sometimes accepting that you are in a non-reading place in life it's the best solution.

If you feel like it's a book you are reading that is putting you in a reading slump dnf it, or at least try to switch between that and another book. I personally tend to get stuck when I have only one book in my currently reading pile, because I need to vary often, so I like to have at the very least two books that I am currently reading. Realizing this about myself made me read much more, because I have avoided a lot of reading slumps. I'd also like to add that there's no shame in dnf-ing a book, if you are not enjoying your time with it there's no reason you should keep forcing yourself to read that. Maybe it's not the right time, and you'll enjoy it more in the future, or simply the book is not made for you, which is totally fine.

Graphic novels are a great compromise to get some reading done when you are in a reading slump, but you still want to something to read. This is specifically my solution for when I am in a reading slump caused by being burned out. Graphic novels tend to require less brain energy, and the illustrations usually help a lot with the flow of the story. I think this is the safest option when you are in the worse reading slumps.

Audiobooks are your best friends, whether you want to listen to it while doing other activities, or you want the narrator to help you while you follow the page, I feel like this is another great option. I personally love audiobooks, and I like to always have one on the go. This is again a great option if you are feeling burned out, in those cases I really like to listen to the audiobook as I take a walk, or even as I play some mindless games online like tetris, and similar things. These are also a great option to help when the book you are reading is putting you in a reading slump but you really have to read it. I have used audiobooks a lot in high school to help when I had to read poems or big classics.

Short story collections can be one of the best options to get back into reading. These take off the pressure of being consistent in order to remember things, because you can pick them up and leave them as you like, since most stories won't be over 25 pages usually. There's also some great options of collections that include multiple genres, which can be very helpful when you are stuck and don't really know what you want to read.

Fairytales and kid's books might not come to mind as soon as you think of what to read, but they can be very helpful to get you out of reading slumps. They are short and lighthearted which are two fundamental characteristics of good books to get you back into reading. And rivisiting some childhood favourites is always a great choice in my opinion.

Reread an old favourite or a comfort book. I know some people don't love revisiting old favourites, but I personally love them. You always get something new out of the story, and rereading a plot you know already can take off a lot of the pressure of reading, because you don't have to pay the same attention as with a story you know nothing about. This can be very helpful when getting back into the habit of reading.

Set up a cozy place to read. I am all about romanticizing the small things in life, and this is a very effortless way to put you into a good mindset to read. I personally like to light a few candles, make myself a nice cup of tea, maybe get a little treat to eat, cuddle up under a blanket and just read. Of course your set up might change depending on your preferences, just have a little fun with it, you could even try to read a bit while you are taking a bath.

Try to read outside. Similarly to the last tip, changing your enviroiment can be helpful sometimes. Some people like to read in a cafè, but you could also go in your garden if you have one or in a park.

Consume bookish content. This might seem stupid at first but sometimes seeing other people be excited about reading and books is very motivating. It has personally helped me several times.

Start a buddy read with a friend you feel comfortable with. Sharing your thoughts with someone as you read a book can keep the motivation up and a buddy read can be a great option to help with motivation, but be sure that you are comfortable with this person so that you don't feel too pressure upon you. Be clear from the beginning set a small goal and have fun with your buddy.

At the moment these are all the tips that came to my mind when thinking about getting out of a reading slump. Of course different people might have different methods, but changing things up can always be helpful. As I said at the beginning you shouldn't feel pressure when reading, and if it's a no reading moment in your life there's not shame in it, but I have also been stuck in reading slumps where I actually did want to read but I couldn't bring myself to do so, and many of these things helped me.

original posts/tips masterlist

#this has been in my drafts for months but i finally edited it #idk why it took me so long #how to get out of a reading slump #reading slump #reading slump tips #tips #reading #studyblr #bookblr #booklr #bookish #reading tips #og post #study tips #original post #books #mine #the---hermit

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yanderes-galore · 1 year ago

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Anon couldn't be here for the request period so I reserved two requests for them, this is their second one

Anon Said: "With “Dittophobia” generating renewed interest in FNAF 4, how about we revisit the nightmare animatronics a bit? Could we get some rivalry headcanons between Nightmare Bonnie and Nightmare Chica? I want to see some nightmares throwing hands (or claws in this case)."

A/N: Sure! This is based off the small behavior talk I did a long time ago! Been awhile since I've written for the Nightmares and I'm excited for this!

Yandere! Nightmare Bonnie vs Yandere! Nightmare Chica

Pairing: Platonic/Romantic - Rivalry

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Biting, Jealousy, Possessive behavior, Blood, Cannibalism mentioned, Stalking, Violence, Kidnapping implied, Supernatural forces, Mentions of death.

When it comes to the Nightmares I'm pulling from other works I've done.

Both Bonnie and Chica, they're cruel, sadistic, and crave attention.

You need to pay attention to their presence or you could get hurt, right?

Plus, I'd write these two similarly to how I wrote Nightmare Fredbear and Freddy in the past.

How I tend to write the Nightmares is they're demons.

Which would mean you have strange anthropomorphic mechanical animals haunting you.

I've said in the past they take a twisted form based on things from their target's past.

This would imply you've been to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza at least once in your lifetime.

It would only be better if you were fond of Bonnie and Chica as a young child.

When you could have first encountered these demons can vary.

Maybe similar to the Fredbear fic I've done in the past they were masquerading as your imaginary friends?

Since you were young and you came home from Freddy Fazbear's, you were always greeted by a large bunny and chicken.

Maybe when you were younger you never saw them as demons.

With your childish mind you only ever saw your friends from Freddy's.

Perhaps here they play nice, although often argue about your attention.

Play more with the bunny and the chicken appears jealous that you care more for the bunny's songs.

Play more with the chicken or eat her food she made for you and the bunny appears irritable.

It's then you meet them again as an adult.

Only to learn they aren't quite imaginary.

It's this or you meet them as an adult with no prior knowledge about them as a child.

However I feel them originally being your imaginary friends is the best case scenario.

Unless you want something similar to the Nightmare Freddy fic I did where you're babysitting a kid they are haunting.

Either way, this Bonnie and Chica are much different from their usual counterparts.

Not only in appearance either.

Bonnie still wants attention, especially from his favorite human...

He just hopes you don't mind his games getting a little violent or his music haunting your ears.

Chica also wants your attention, to the point she craves it like a meal.

The demonic chicken even still makes, she just hopes you don't mind if she puts a bit of blood in her cakes.

Maybe it could even be yours, she bets it will taste amazing.

As expected, both of them like the idea of biting you to get a taste of you.

Chica seems a bit too fixated on it.

They're demons, demonic creatures that happen to be haunting your home.

In the corner of your eyes at night you'll see them slink back into the shadows.

Maybe you'll even see the small cupcake Chica sends to watch you.

Both of them would be possessive as they're territorial.

They wants to be your tormentors but they want to do it alone.

Since they've known you it's always been one or the other.

Bonnie tries to lure you in with songs written just for you, a twisted form of mimicry compared to the real Bonnie.

Meanwhile Chica tries to lure you to her with meals she mysteriously prepared in your kitchen.

Everything from pizza to cakes, the smell wafts through rooms and into your nose.

Yet it's all strangely metallic smelling when you look past the tasty smells.

Don't be fooled, when either of them get you close, they'll dig their claws into your flesh and claim you as theirs.

They yearn to bond to you, lapping at your wounds to devour you like prey.

They're monsters, way worse than just nightmares.

Unlike nightmares... you can't escape their terror by waking up.

This is reality.

The haunting songs and smells don't stop.

You can't do anything but hide in your room as the two fight.

They pounce at each other, clawing and growling like wild animals when not trying to lure you to them.

The smell of brimstone pierces your nose as mechanical clicks and clangs rings through your ears.

Being demons, they're immortal.

However, you are not, you are merely mortal.

One of them will take you and your soul by force if they have to.

Sure, hold them off as long as you can.

Soon you'll give into one of them

The question is which one?

Will you follow the bunny's songs and be lured in like a siren?

Or will you follow the scent of food the chicken made like a rat to a trap?

The two could battle it out for seemingly forever...

But you'll fall victim to them at any moment in your life, as they'll follow you and fight until the day you rot just to take you away.

Only then could their quarreling simmer down... and that isn't even guaranteed.

#yandere five nights at freddy's #yandere fnaf #yandere fnaf 4 #yandere nightmare animatronics #yandere nightmare bonnie #yandere nightmare chica

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astrosouldivinity · 1 year ago

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Astrological placements in a natal chart that may indicate Bipolar Disorder or BPD 😶 🌊

Part 2:

⚠️ Disclaimer: I am not saying these placements are inherently borderline or bipolar. But they may be more prone to borderline/bipolar behaviors. You can use astrology to observe your subconscious patterns. Essentially, you can use it for shadow work. But these may not apply to everyone so take what resonates and leave what does not. The last mental illness I will be doing is OCD/Anxiety then that’s it for this series. I may revisit this topic in the future.

I want to clarify that I am not demonizing, diagnosing, or generalizing mental health disorders. Astrology & psychology can intertwine with each other. You can use astrology for deeper introspection & pairing both psychology + astrology together can help with healing. But I am simply observing my understanding of specific psychological disorders & how they connect to astrology via shadow work. But you can use astrology to predict certain mental illnesses. But it’s still a prediction so it may resonate or it may not.

Leo Sun/Moon/Mars/Venus/Saturn: They feel things intensely. They are the sun after all. Their emotions burn through them which can be painful for them especially if they don’t know how to control their fiery, & passionate side. They may be prone to a more extremist mindset. It’s all or nothing for them essentially. But these behaviors may intensify especially if negatively aspected.

Libra Stellium: Has a strong desire for equilibrium they may even stress themselves out trying to get to their perceived peaceful state. They are constantly perceiving multiple perspectives trying to choose the fairest one. This can apply to their emotions as well. If they don’t choose they can be self-destructive in their process of coming to their conclusions.

Aquarius Sun: They can be emotionally suppressive & chaotic at the same time especially if negatively aspected. They don’t like to share their emotions & may even ignore them but that usually tends to backfire on them. When pushed to that point everything they have been suppressing comes spilling out. They feel things deeply but it can be difficult for them to connect to their emotions since they try to stay logical vs. emotional overall. These behaviors may intensify especially if afflicted.

Scorpio Saturn: I forgot to add them to part 1 but the same thing applies. Can be emotionally unpredictable when they feel emotionally slighted or vulnerable. This may cause them to be able to see things in only black & white. Essentially, there is no gray area when it comes to how they perceive situations. But they can be vengeful & petty when they feel a real or perceived betrayal.

Moon Square Mars: These individuals fear vulnerability & just intimacy overall. They may even suppress their emotions out of fear of being judged for their innermost feelings. This can be detrimental for them because they naturally tend to have very deep, & intense emotions. But even though they hide them from others that doesn’t stop them from coming out anyway. May be quick to anger & just emotional volatility in general especially if they feel emotionally exposed as well.

Mercury Square Neptune: May be prone to more escapist behaviors. They can struggle with reality & expressing their innermost thoughts to others. They may also struggle with separating their thoughts from their emotions. Essentially, they will both get muddled which creates much confusion for them. However, they may be prone to paranoia because of their difficulties staying grounded in the reality of their emotions/communication overall.

Afflicted Sun: They may struggle with maintaining relationships with others. They can also struggle with low self-esteem & just lack the confidence overall to authentically express themselves. Can be prone to egoistic & moody behaviors. They can get trapped in their ego & may even find it difficult to break free.

Sun Neptune Aspects: Can struggle with having a distorted sense of self & may even find it difficult to stay present in reality. They could feel like how they perceive themselves is not being presented accurately with how others perceive them.

Moon-Pluto Aspects: They have trauma surrounding vulnerability & intimacy overall. They may fear bonding with people on a deeper level. It can be hard for them to emotionally express themselves because their emotions are all-consuming. But they operate comfortably in chaos & can be more prone to self-destructive behaviors. But others may find it difficult to understand & connect with them as well.

7H Moon/Venus/Saturn: Can struggle with maintaining their interpersonal relationships. Their relationships with others might manifest as being emotionally volatile & just karmic overall.

~Part 1~

#astrology #zodiac signs #astroblr #shadow work #astro placements #astrology observations #bpd #bipolar disorder #bpd thoughts #bpd mood #healing journey #spirituality #mental health matters #mental health awareness #mental illness #zodiac placements

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cripplecharacters · 2 months ago

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hi!!! i hope i'm not bothering you, but I'm writing a character I hope to use for a dungeons and dragons campaign I'm playing. She has both her legs amputated, and works together with a haunted set of armor so she can achieve her dream of becoming a knight. Issue being, she's a little bit evil. She hates her sister for becoming a knight when it was her dream, even though her sister loves her and became a knight specifically for her, and they way she was bedridden for her whole life because of her overbearing and ableist parents. she is undeniably a little bit insane because of her isolation and she tends to lash out at people and things just because she can now. my question is, is this an okay character to write and play? she is evil and even if she goes through a redemption arc, she still was evil. she's not evil because she's disabled, she's evil because of the way she was treated as a disabled person. Is that still okay?

Hello!

Although the reason she's evil may be how she was treated because of her disability, it's just a sidestep from the 'evil because of her disability' trope and honestly reads the same way.

You say that she's evil because of how her overbearing/ableist parents treated her but then there's this...

She hates her sister for becoming a knight when it was her dream, even though her sister loves her and became a knight specifically for her...

If the way her parents treated her is the reason that she's evil/angry, why does she hate her sister for becoming a knight? It doesn't sound like her sister treated her that way. If your character hates her sister because she became a knight when your character couldn't, that has nothing to do with her parents' treatment of her. That's making her disability the root cause of all this.

There's nothing wrong with playing an evil disabled character and your character sounds like a very interesting concept but if you want to avoid the trope, you'd need to put much more distance between her disability and the reason for her evilness/hatred.

As it is now, it still reads as villainizing her disability.

Something else I'd like to address is this portion here:

She is undeniably a little bit insane because of her isolation...

What do you mean with this?

The term 'insane' is incredibly vague and doesn't actually describe any particular set of symptoms. Instead, it's usually just used as a catch-all (And often derogatory) term for somebody that has mental health struggles. I'd strongly suggest revisiting this and determining exactly what it is that makes her ""insane"" and why it does.

Cheers,

~ Mod Icarus

#mod icarus #eldritch-soup #villains with disabilities #amputee representation

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darkcircles4lyfe · 3 months ago

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Regardless of the ending i think Hori seriously needs a giant time to rest, which is why i personally don't want a sequel. At least, not one so soon. I still remember all the times i read him non-chalantly comment on stuff happening to him that actually sounded incredibly concerning, couple that with how mha was a WEEKLY series with the amount of quality it had (and he still has to take breaks). I saw his own comment on the series ending, and i think it will take a lot of him after such a big, hard part of his routine that lasted for 10 years to be revisited like that, and he still has a lot of work to do. I hope he'll be okay.

I agree 100%. I cannot fathom the amount of work it takes to produce a weekly serial and the kind of toll it takes on a person regardless of their talent. Burnout seems inevitable. I sincerely hope Hori can rest properly, without guilt or restlessness or depression or too many nagging responsibilities. I hope he can find some genuine joy and peace in things he didn’t have time for before.

If he gets a new project, whatever the content, my dream would be to have monthly chapters instead, and online, like SJ+. I imagine it’s still a lot of work because chapters tend to be longer, but the pacing could be so much smoother, more polished. The amount of forethought and depth that went into bnha despite its weekly schedule is astounding anyway, so imagine what he could do if he wasn’t being rushed.

But until that probably far off time, I don’t feel right about demanding more out of this manga or judging it too harshly. It’s just not fair, knowing how much he cared about it even while it sucked the life out of him. I want to focus on being happy he made it.

I’m even having a hard time deciding where I want to go with my first big fanfic project. Do I want to build on what’s there, or do I want to take one of my old theories/metas that didn’t pan out and run with it? Idk I feel weird because I don’t have the usual attitude of wanting to throw canon to the wind out of spite, but at the same time I’m aware it’s possible Hori didn’t end the story quite the way he wanted, either. I’m thinking about it nonstop and my brain is like a game of pinball. AUs are another subject for another time. Right now there are two wolves inside me, “canon compliant”and “canon divergent.” In any case, “fix-it fic” is too strong a word for how I feel. I’m just sad. I want to feed this story a nice bowl of homemade soup, wrap it up in warm blankets, kiss its forehead, and say, “don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

#asks #lin answers #bnha manga #bnha #mha #boku no hero acedamia #my hero acedamia #bnha finale #bnha 430

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choosingwhatmatters · 3 months ago

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Music in The Loyal Pin, Episode 2

Welcome back to my music rambles. Y’all, thank you so much for your kind words! I am enjoying this show so much and sharing thoughts with you makes the whole experience infinitely better.

So, I unknowingly lied to you in my last post, and I am sorry. I claimed that there was little repetition in the music in episode 1. The truth is that I just didn’t notice. I have since done my homework and I am blown away by how much depth the music has. There are so many different motives and themes, and I am beyond excited where the music leads us in future episodes. Today, I would like to talk about two pieces. I call the first one “Pin and Anil’s past” and the second one “Pin’s heavy heart”.

Pin and Anil’s past

I talked about this piece in my last post and speculated that could be connected to childhood and adolescence. It sounds a little bit likes this:

After revisiting the episodes, I realised that we have two different motifs here. My theory is that the first represents Pin and the second one Anil. We can hear the first in the beginning of the recording. It is comprised of long notes that descend and then climb up again. It’s gentle and a little melancholic. When it repeats, it is joined by the second motive. This one features shorter note values and is more playful. As different as they are, they’re beautiful together and oh, if that isn’t telling us something.

The first motif is usually connected to Pin. It appears in a lot of scenes, among them the following: Small Pin exits the car in the very beginning of episode 1. Patt embraces her after promising to take care of her. Small Pin meets Small Anil for the first time and, later in the episode, Medium Anil discovers her pinwheel in Medium Pin’s room. During the voice-over after the opening credits, Medium Pin introduces the royal family. After the night market, Medium Pin gets scolded by Patt and Anil defends her. In episode 2, Medium/Adult Pin remembers how Medium Anil showed her the designs for her small palace.

The second motif, that in my theory belongs to Anil’s past, is not featured as heavily as Pin’s. We can hear it in episode 1, together with Pin’s motive when Small Pin and Anil meet for the first time and, again, when Medium Anil discovers her pinwheel. In episode 2, the melody changes slightly, but it's still very similar to its origin. We can hear it when Medium Anil cries on her letter to Pin and, most notably, at the very end of the episode. Prik has just uttered Anil’s name, Pin looks up, and there Anil is: smiling and beautiful. The costumary cheeky glockenspiel playing her melody is now accompanied by a whole orchestra. This is a new Anil: grown up, beaming, majestic.

Pin’s heavy heart

The second piece I want to talk about today sounds somewhat like this.

It’s not 100% of what is played in the show, but the melodies as well as the harmonies should be similar enough the recognise, should we hear them again.

This piece is very melancholic, and I want to talk about two musical concepts to explain why: major and minor harmonies, as well as suspended notes. Major and minor harmonies first. So, a chord in its basic form is comprised of three notes: first note, third note and fifth note. The third is a very powerful one because it determines the mood of the chord. If we have a minor third (three half tones away from the first), the chord tends to sound wistful and melancholic. If we have a major third (four half tones away from the first), the chord tends to sound more cheerful. In the beginning of the piece, we can hear the melody swing between to different notes a lot, g sharp and b. These are a minor third away from each other and thus, evoke the sombreness of a minor chord.

The second thing I’d like to talk about is suspension. Suspension means that there is one note that our ears want the melody to go to. But before going there, the melody lands on a note that is achingly close to the one we want to hear. It’s so close that it feels like a little stab to the heart that is then soothed by the arrival of the actual note that we want. In our piece, suspension happens when the melody starts from its lowest note and climbs up again. If you want to listen out for it: there are two notes that are repeated before being suspended by a higher note.

I call this piece “Pin’s heavy heart” because we can often hear it in scenes when Pin is sad, most notably the following: After being bitten by the snake, Medium Anil tries to stop Pin’s punishment. While eating cotton candy, the Medium girls talk about what life would be like if Anil had to go away. After the night market, Medium Pin realises that Anil is serious about being punished together. In episode 2, Medium Pin gets told by Patt that Anil is to leave within the next two weeks. In Medium Anil’s memory, Medium Pin is carving a mango after a bad exam. At the waterside, the Medium girls are about to float their Krathong.

There are three more instances where we can hear variations of the piece: Medium Anil is preparing for her trip and the girls don’t meet at all. After floating the Krathong, Medium Pin is crying. And, lastly, Medium Pin puts Anil’s picture next to her on the bed.

I adore this piece of music. The melody is quiet yet haunting which I think suits Pin’s character well. And it’s not that I enjoy seeing Pin sad but oh, I’m looking forward to seeing her happy again.

That’s it for my music rambles today. Thank you for riding along! I still find it hard to put into words how much it means to me to have this show in my life, as well as humans that are as invested in it as I am. What a life!

#i am very sorry for the crappy sound quality in this post #I am travelling and had to get creative in order to record #sorry also for my mediocre playing #due to my travels I am also very late to the party #sorry #there's now a spreadsheet with all the different melodies that have caught my ear #I am so excited to compare scenes that feature the same music #the show has just started and it’s already fantastic #the loyal pin #Utsch choosing music #thai love you

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arikitari-josei-osaka-naru · 5 months ago

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For @smlgbtqweek 2024, theme: "Twist", as in, the feelings between characters are a twisted web XD (I kinda just draw things and then fit them into themes afterwards, okay)

I got the impulse to try a less conventional pairing than my usual, since I usually draw a ton of NephNaru (with my silly transgirl HC Naru) and their little V-polycule with Umino. For MLM usually KunZoi is the more logical choice, and I've drawn them on a previous year's event (and would like to revisit them in the future more too), but the much rarer, less canonical NephJade has low-key intrigued me for a long time and I decided to give it a shot, since this pairing almost never gets any food. I hope somebody somewhere is rooting for them! Then, the reactions from the peanut gallery on the right crossed my mind, and I decided to roll with it for fun. I'm a big proship multishipper and love to see lots of different takes, and am not against any given pairing of the characters in this image. If anything, I tend to like the idea of a big convoluted polyamorous web of all the things XD

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onesunofagun · 1 year ago

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The implications on Ganondorf and his background in TotK suggest some very interesting things to me.

First of all, like. I love him. He specifically did not disappoint me. His JP audio fucks so hard. I love his design. He's glorious.

And Hyrule as an imperialistic divine hegemony is not a new concept in the slightest, obviously, the Ganondorf corner of the fandom have known and discoursed about the potential story ramifications of those themes since OoT, but Fujibayashi really went ham on it in his run. (And look. Zelda is made in Japan. Framing a divine imperial authority as a good thing narratively is pretty par for the course JP nationalism, to be really blunt. It is what it is. Grain of salt.)

But I do appreciate that it revisited some OoT plot beats even if it... really drove that point home again in retrospect

I guess new fans are in for a treat unpacking that;;;

Anyway in the BG of that, I'm interested in the particular minutia of what was happening with this Ganondorf specifically to flavour his particular brand of 'fuck you'

And a few important points that give broader context to things are these and I'll put under a cut bc spoilers obviously--

Rauru's repeated 'invitations' to join Hyrule and benefit from their protection (presumably some advanced technological access or strong magical allies as part of that promise, which I believe is probably anti-monster focused within world context) which Ganondorf as a King has very much ignored (and good for him tbh).

Clearly, he has an interest in keeping Gerudo independent.

Ganondorf is acknowledged as a Hero to his people. Not only does this heavily resonate with the very particular themes of his actual character design and both its Buddhist reference and Samurai trope homages, but like-- we're actively shown an explanation for WHY he may be considered such.

Being who he is, he's already magically inclined with a kinship to monsters. We are unapologetically shown him in command of a Molduga Army. Trained Moldugas, under his command-- and not under specifically his mystical command, either, but musically conditioned. Trained to follow sound based command cues, which makes plentiful sense given Moldugas are sound sensitive and Ganondorf usually has musical inclinations. Plus it's Zelda franchise, magic command music is also very much a thing but--

Moldugas are, at least medicinally, very important resources. On a larger scale, they're also a very present threat to desert dwellers and travellers, and from the looks of it in much larger numbers, back then.

Given the context of everything, Ganondorf was a badass even before 'he took a magic relic and fucked up the Hyrulean Royal Family' as he tends to do. Sporting as ever, he fights Link one on one as just a Gerudo, also showing once again that he does in fact have some personal code of honour when it comes to fighting worthy opponents. But it gives us a yardstick of how capable he probably was even before he nabbed the tear.

Capable enough of tangling with most big uglies in the desert, such as Moldugas, which he has at least trained and at most maybe even raised.

Exemplified Power as he ever is, I'd like to point out that in this case, he's demonstrating a flipside of what Power looks like-- benevolence, protection, guardianship. Once again, we have the pieces that indeed he is capable of that and showing that to his own people. He also flexes the Molduga Army as a show of Gerudo and its own power.

To anyone other than Rauru, who is an incredibly powerful Sage already, a Molduga Army would have absolutely won the day, I think. The reaction of the other Gerudo is pretty telling.

Ganondorf's faction were deeply shaken by the display of Rauru's power. And as a guy that's been knocking on your King's door and saying 'you should come and bend knee to me' when Gan already has the worst problem in the sands sorted out?

Very understandable.

From their perspective -- what do they need protection from, exactly, if not Hyrule itself? Their monster problem is a non-issue. From the viewpoint of Gerudo loyal to Ganondorf, everything about this looks like a pressured threat.

Which comes back around, of course, to what Ganondorf plainly lays out to Rauru when he gains the tear-- this is because Rauru tried to control him. And yes, that's Ganondorf and his pride and his nature in full tilt too. He will not be pulled beneath anyone or anything.

But that's the point about that hubris on Rauru's part, he felt superior and he underestimated both Gerudo and Ganondorf-- as a warrior and a leader, and as somebody who was likely managing things very well on his own.

But I mentioned factions. This is something that should be made clear.

Pointed ears are, canonically, associated with faithfulness to Hylia and/or the worship of Hyrulean spirits. This gets debated all the time, but that's the fact of it. We have been shown again and again that humans from outside of Hyrule have round ears (as long ears are associated with hearing the voices of the gods; ie being open to them). Exposure to Hyrulean aligned divine elements can lend pointedness to previously totally round ears. We see this happen.

It has been doubled down upon that the ancient Gerudo (such as in oot and FSA, with FSA having the introduction of the floral association in Gerudo design and OoT heavily centering mirrors in their spiritual practices) worship different deities, whether derivatives of Din or Hylia or completely different myth. The Goddess of the Sands has been confirmed as a deity that Hyrule itself views as evil and false.

I generally interpret this to mean that part of the reason boils down to this-- Hyrule's main concern is that pointed ears are living lives closer to the gods, and therefore more insulated against corruption and demonic influences. Rather fittingly, their patron's foremost spiritual antagonist tends to find his reincarnation in unprotected, non-Hyrulean tribes who are 'open' to demons.

Now that may be another layer to what Rauru means when he says protection, also. Worshipping the 'right gods' affords certain protections (and certainly supports the security of Hyrule itself).

In SkSW, by the way, there's a really cool point of questioning early human society too-- the fire temple depicts demons and monsters and snakes quite a bit, and these were built in a time when I suspect the humans were mostly a large proto-people.

Sidenote: I think Hylia's faithful went to Skyloft and generally shook out to be the Hylians we know later, where some stayed on Earth to serve Hylia's plan and became Sheikah, many more people were transformed into demons in a reverse-Batreaux situation, and some humans just scattered far and wide to avoid conflict.

Anyway that temple depicts Bokoblins making hand signs and long story short, the overall motif and meaning of that temple shows demons offering to teach things, approaching humans with a different kind of enlightenment. Whoever built that temple was very much in a state of open spiritual and mystical curiosity.

Now the takeaway there is, ultimately, the ancient Gerudo very much seem to be descended from such a sect of people. They have their own gods, and they're not part of Hyrule proper, and they have round ears because of it.

Botw departed from that very clearly, but in doing so, also erased and replaced almost all traces of the ancient Gerudo deities with new Hylian analogues.

The Seven/Eight Heroines count as Hylianised deities, and I believe the reason for this-- first suspected in botw but I feel it's weightier after totk-- is that they represent tear holders / Hylia aligned Sages in the seven group (edit: and apparently a Hero in the Eighth) such as those in the decline timeline. They are functionally the reason that the Gerudo of modern day possess long ears-- even where they are selective in what they worship, they are still worshipping Hylia aligned aspects of Divine Hyrule.

And in case this wasn't absolutely irrefutable to me beforehand, the ancient Gerudo Sage from Rauru's time is both loyal to him, and possesses pointed ears under her camel mask.

I would also point out the Hylians of Rauru's time seem to have longer ears in general, probably owing to having a Zonai King, ostensibly a Hylia aligned Deity himself.

Ganondorf's ears are rounded, of course. He clearly doesn't believe in Hyrulean worship even in lip service, and it's little wonder why.

But following another beat of OoT, that ancient sage is a very obvious Nabooru type character. And, in much the same way, that suggests that even when Ganondorf was King of the Gerudo only, there may have already been factions splitting up amongst their people based on spiritual practices.

I don't think it's beyond the pale to speculate there may have been a mixture of Gerudo at the time who had both pointed ears and round, signalling the confusion from and conflict between their spiritual leaders.

It seems likely that a schism probably existed, regardless of ears, but that schism-- and the sage who may well have been leading it-- may have been caused by people who decided respond to those calls from Rauru and join Hyrule without their King.

Which gives a lot more context to why Ganondorf would be in the mood to send a giant Molduga shaped "back off" Rauru's way, also.

I take particular note that Ganondorf's destruction intentions are faced towards Hyrule and her allies, and specifically those who oppose him in that goal. And while I concur that his whole Red Inheritance party ran hard and may well have had a decent hand in frightening the bejeezus out of the Gerudo who were previously faithful to him-- maybe even inadvertently sent some running for camp Hyrule-- it seems he considers modern day Gerudo, fully converted to pro-Hyrulean status, to be traitors.

We have no idea what happened to the Gerudo who followed him, so that's really up in the air as to how messy that may have gotten.

Even the woman who plays to summon the Molduga has pointed ears though, so I tend to lean that his camp got converted to Heroine worship (or at least those with pointed ears mostly did if the mixed ear situation was happening).

But heck, it would not be the first time some Gerudo got ran outta dodge after a King went belly up.

Food for thought.

#ganondorf #legend of zelda #ocarina of time #long post #totk #totk spoilers #botw #gerudo #zelda #zelda meta

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