#instead of just talking abt killing his friends and torturing him

[godlygivenanxiety]

Danny: i’m going to take you out

John: is that so, it’s a date then

Danny: i- i meant that as a threat?

John: See you at five~

[peachburger]

Hey sorry if you already talked abt it so i probably just haven’t seen the post, but could you go more in depth with your AU? I just think it’s really interesting and would love to know more! The designs are AWESOME btw !!

Strange Beginning AU(LMK)

Context: set in the Song Dynasty in China, humanity has never seen demons because they were in hiding to blend into the crowds of humans. However that changes when a certain demon monkey meets the monkey king and his warrior.

MK grew up in a small demon village, living with his adopted father Pigsy and his friend Sandy who supported him during his life. However MK was the only demon monkey in that demon village, that’s when he realized he must have been from The Monkey Kingdom in flower fruit mountain which he wasn’t fully aware of till he discovered the stories from Sandy and Pigsy. MK being quite adventurous attempted to travel all the way to The Monkey Kingdom.

During his travel, he’s met small human villages but knew a couple things of being hidden as he hid his tail and ears from them. It worked successfully and he managed to leave the villages and continue his journey- only to find the wrong location..The Bull Demon Fortress.

MK snuck inside only to meet Mei and Red Son. Who had caused the three to become startled by one another, the two royals were close friends- specifically only friends from being restricted by the outside world. Which makes them astonished to see a demon monkey in person, the two immediately started asking questions and giving MK a tour besides turning him in to their parents. After awhile, they let MK secretly stay for the night and find out MK was searching for The Monkey Kingdom. So the three had agreed to help each other.

The trip wasn’t long as MKs old trips before he met the two royals, and it was a relief for the young simian. As they inch closer to The Monkey Kingdom, they were ambushed by a group of simians who were in the lookout, startling everyone and preparing to fight. However during the fight it was cut off as Macaque had cornered the three down. MK was astonished by seeing many demon monkeys, specifically to Macaque by seeing his ears while Mei and Red Son were too busy trying to escape them.

Macaque had brought them in and informed the king about the three intruders, instead of them being taken to be punished. The king was quite immature than Macaque, laughing and joking towards the children- he was actually excited to see them and introduced himself as Sun Wukong.

Sun Wukong and Macaque had discussed with the three young demons, MKs main purpose was to find where had came from and lead him to travel here. It left the two simians confused as they had never been informed of a missing simian child from their kingdom. Leaving everyone concerned and confused, MK wasn’t originated from this kingdom and it left everyone wanting more answers. During the time, Wukong had decided to give the three children a tour around the kingdom since they never had guests at all. Macaque kept guard of him and Wukong kept teasing about it, MK had noticed their dynamic was strange but he didn’t know what it was.

MK has stayed in the kingdom for quite some time, having permission for Pigsy and Sandy to visit at any time. It was later announced that MK would be trained by Macaque to fight much better, seeing that he was a poor fighter in general. But as the two train more and more, MK learns a lot of things about the royal guard. Revealing that macaque isn’t a regular demon monkey but instead a celestial like wukong. Along with a possession of a strange ability that manipulates shadows. The two had kept it secret till it was the right time to tell the others.

Besides the demons point of view. humans were inching closer into finding out about their kind and beginning a uprising of killing all of them. A couple of demon monkeys were found and tortured as well as being held in captivity. Causing the monkey kingdom to grow worry as they noticed a couple of their friends and families going missing.

During that time, macaque and MK went out of the kingdom to start their routine, but while they head to their spot they found a human village near the kingdom. But what had caught MKs eyes were cages of bloody corpses of familar simians, MK informed macaque immediately and without macaques permission, he had went out to try and help a few escape. It was successful but unfortunately the two were caught and had begun running back to the kingdom, sadly the humans were inching closer to them and Macaque had decided to hold them back to let MK and the other simians to escape easier. Only for the dark furred simian to be struck in the eye by an arrow as he was too distracted fighting with many humans.

MK made it back to the kingdom and informed Sun wukong, seeing the king become pale and shock had startled MK of seeing his cheerful expression disappear.

Sun Wukong went out to save his companion, Macaque, only to see his beloved friend injured and bleeding out on the floor. However he wasn’t dead due to his immortality but he felt regular pain regardless. It had angered the monkey king and left him into a frenzy.

(THATS ALL I HAVE FOR NOW BUT HERES SOME INFORMATION OF THE LOCATIONS)

The Monkey Kingdom

Set in flower fruit mountain, this kingdom is filled with many primates from Large to Small. The main temple/castle is hidden behind the curtains of a waterfall and their emperor is none other than The Monkey king AKA Sun Wukong.

The kingdom is quite far and hidden, but they are known to be a good asset of strength and agility. However, they’ve never interacted with other kingdoms in the last century.

Besides their emperor, they have a second command and also the royal guard who protects Him, The Six Eared macaque.

They celebrate a lot and have many festivals with foods and drinks, known for their tropical fruits.

Sun Wukong wasn’t the original founder of the mountain but instead was the third (and permanent from being immortal)

The Bull Demon Fortress

It’s the second strongest kingdom in China, known for their manipulation of power and flames

The kingdom associates with the dragon kingdom making them close allies (which is why Mei and red son are friends)

Despite their brute force, they have exotic foods as well but mostly meat and spices which they sell and gain more wealth.

The Demon Bull King hates the monkey kingdom because the last time he visit wasn’t a warm welcome (so the relationship of these two kingdoms isn’t good but they keep their distance towards each other)

[berrywantsakiss]

Lady Orchid

★ I just drew her so now I gotta talk abt her too ★

- realmsau

I don't have much art of her bc I'm lame and I suck, but wtvs here goes :3

Orchid Amina was married to Elliott Hark, my best friend (Lou)'s oc.

She was born in the kingdom of Erkin in the Flower Realm, and she and her family lived there for the first 10 years of Orchid's life. They then moved to the Spice Realm and somehow Orchid's father got the title of uh Viscount or smth (I haven't decided, and her lore is more recently being established).

Elliott's family was brought on as servants, and idk that's how she met Elliott and fell in love w him

I have never drawn him young so you get these drawings of him (that I hate) ↓

as you can see I can't decide on how I want to translate lou's style into my own sigh

anyway they get married eventually yk

They both become Viscount and Viscountess after Orchid's dad dies

anyway fast forward a few years, Orchid has Lynch Syndrome (?).

she develops gastric / stomach cancer bc of it. she doesn't tell Elliott and she hides it pretty damn well.

Elliott goes away to war, seemingly smth he'd wanted to do for a long time, this fighting. This is a part of the reason she doesn't tell him — she doesn't want him to not go and do what he wants to do.

but anyway, once he's gone, Orchid hires a nurse, Valeria. I have never drawn Eri and I never will.

She slowly gets sicker and sicker, coughing and vomiting lots of blood, is unable to eat or drink, is constantly coughing and in pain.

she seeks out the Queen of her former kingdom / birthplace, Queen Alba. She begs the Queen to let her have some of the water from the Tree of Life / Lignum Vitae to try and cure her illness. Alba tells her the water will not save her, but only make her suffering worse. (the cancer is alive, not just a virus or smth. the lakewater would just give the tumors vitality or smth).

at this point, Orchid is beginning to regret not telling Elliott and making him stay. she doesn't even hope to survive anymore, only hopes to live long enough to see him come home, to see him for only a second one last time.

well... she doesn't live. she dies like a month after visiting Alba and a few months before Elliott's return. She instructs Valeria not to write Elliott reporting her death as she doesn't want grief to overcome him and get him killed.

so ultimately, he comes home to an empty house.

atp Elliott is like 60 or 70 or smth and the king of the ice realm, Elias wants him SOOOOO BAD. (Elias is Lou's oc)

Elliott (from what I can understand from Lou's queerbait yaoi fics) does end up wanting Elias back (?),, but not until Elliott is like damn near dead from being assassinated.

actually I think Elliott ended up dead at that point, hence how these doodles were born ↓

but uh yea that's it so far fjsnnxbnsnnxnnsnnxna

have her portrait,, my beloved Orchid

this was poorly written, but that is bc she isn't really all that developed outside of existing lowkey just for lou and I to torture each other and for Elliott's character.

she was initially just some idea Lou had, the Elliott had a dead wife in his past — shoulder shrug wtvs — and I was like "CAN I DESIGN HER !!! PLS !!!” and now we are here. bc. I made her really pretty 😭😭

her original concept (from when my current artstyle was still developing </3) ↓

but uh, yea !!! thanks for reading :3

I'm going to go doodle her now instead of.. oh idk.. doing anything else 🤭

[maddestmewmew]

HI IF ANY FNAF FANS ARE READING THIS THE TAGS ARE HERE FOR BLOCKLIST NOT FOR. TRYING TO REACH FNAF FANS…THERES NO HATE UNDER THE CUT ITS JUST ME BEING REALLY FUCKING CONFUSED ABT FNAF LORE

ok now thats out of the way. JESUS CHRIST have i just entered a fucking. rabbit hole?? OH MY GOD??? i was a massive fnaf fan in my preteen years, as was everyone ever in the 2010s..ive dialed back my enjoyment of it, ill watch playthroughs of the mainline games and ive seen the movie but thats kind of it. this being relevent bc i watched an into the pit playthrough, and then saw some tweets about it. MOST of them i understood, until i hit a tweet talking abt some kid named andrew?? and how hes not an sci??? and i was like Hold On. maybe its been some years but i cant be THAT behind can i. i know all the important names..michael afton and cassidy and charlie and what have you..

so i look up the wiki for this kid andrew, and it leads me to a story about a ghost kid attatching himself to william aftons spirit and torturing him and shit. i was a bit confused bc like. isnt that cassidys thing? but Whatevs. also the stories seemed weirdly bizzare to me, like not in a hateful way but like. why is william afton getting an exorcism. anyway it brings up a couple (A LOT) of names i dont understand, but what my brain latches onto is this kid jake, who is described as forcing andrew to Stop torturing english willy, at the cost of Now Hes Stuck Possessing An Endoskeleton. okayyy this is fnaf to me. i didnt know this but its abt what i expect from five nights at freddys.

so i head to jakes wiki out of curiosty, and find out he is from, no joke, one of the most fucking depressing stories ive ever read? i dont mean in terms of fnaf, i mean, FUCKING EVER. JESUS. CHRIST.

its like. in the middle of a fazbear frights book. fazbear frights being these scary stories to tell in the dark type books where its collections of spoooky stories that will shape the minds of children everywhere, but like. fnaf themed.

this story is called “the real jake” and i Highly reccomend you read the wiki instead of hearing it from me like. fourth hand. like im retelling a retelling here. but if you want that ultra telephone sypnosis, here you go:

“the real jake” follows a nine year old boy who is bedridden. with cancer. his mother is dead and his father is overseas. jake is taken care of full time by a nanny, margie.

jake likes to talk with a boy in his cupboard, named simon, who is really his father over the phone, through a walkie talkie. at first, jake and “simon” talk about what jake has done that day, but jake cannot leave his bed, so jake gets frustrated that all his stories are so mundane and depression. so one day simons like, okay, tell me what the REAL jake has done. and its a little game of pretend, where jake tells these silly little stories about what the “real jake” did that day. one day, jakes friend tries to get him to sneak out to go to the arcade, and tries to get him there by dragging him in a wagon, but jake is too weak to make it to make it to the wagon and collapses and throws up, and he explains to margie he wanted to be the real jake for a day.

at some point jake and margie are playing chess, and jake gets super frustrated that he cant see straight. margie calms him down and jake tells her that he loves her, causing margie to break down, and then she Later Finds Out The Doctors Are Ceasing Treatment For Him, which makes margie realize she loves jake as a son.

AND THEN MARGIE GETS THE CALL THAT JAKES FATHER WAS FUCKING KILLED. and she has full custody of jake. she cant bring herself to tell him his father died, so she says simon wont be able to visit for a while.

AND THEN JAKE FUCKING DIES.

AND THAT IS IT. THAT IS THE END OF THE STORY . THEY JUST MOVE ON AFTER THAT. HOLY FUCK??? IMAGINE BEING LIKE 9 AND PICKING UP THE LATEST FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDYS BOOK AT THE SCHOOLASTIC BOOK FAIR AND THEN READING A STORY ABOUT A LITTLE BOY COPING WITH HIS CANCER AND THEN FUCKING DYING ALONE. FREDDY FAZBEAR WASNT EVEN THERE.

[vivihar]

hello vivi !! it’s ME again !!

im here to yap again so BE READY !!

—

first i love tomerus i want them to smooch but i also want them to have a billford dynamic…please here me out with tired stressed severus being tormented by an entity (tom ahah TOMENTED) who wants to take over the universe and finds fun in torturing humans with a whole ‘let’s see how many times i can rearrange your atoms without you ceasing to exist!!’ but in a TOM way yk ?! like severus who shouldnt like this weird demon but he’s also kind of hot in a way he hates himself for. like please my man wanted to research creatures and potions and instead accidentally made a deal with a god damn trillion year old psychotic masochistic interdimensional demon ????

—

THE SECOND YAP is i want them…sherlock johnlock coded…severus just looking for an apartment and meeting up with an old friend (insert whoever you want here) and who says ‘wow, you’re the second person to ask me that.’ and he’s like ‘wtf r u talking abt’ and there tom is whipping a dead body because he wants to know if bodies bruise after death ?? and everyone’s okay with it except for severus who’s stood there wondering who tf this guy is and why is behaviour is normalised ?? or you could make it sheriaty which i now realise while writing this is slightly better. moriarty as tom and severus as sherlock with their homoerotic rivalry where neither of them actually want to kill the other because what’s the fun in that ?? this is what severus needs, the thrill of the chase and the only person that can give him that is tom and while toms reading out this pre-rehearsed villainous speech severus is thinking ‘this guy talks to much…i should kiss him. or shoot him. both is good.’ and tom is thinking ‘maybe i should kill him…no then i wont be able to see him. maybe i could just rob his grave after. i’ll see what he does first.’ because honestly they’re ALL THE OTHER HAS !! they’re ALL THE OTHER WANTS !! no matter how much tom does, severus will always be there to stop him and the thrill of the chase is what gets them off !! they’re insane !!

and i love them and then concludes my yap LOVE YOU VIVI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello Dori lovely how are you 🧡

I confess it's been a long time since I watched both of them so I don't know if I could make them as you said but I did understand the dynamic you're referring to which thank you love, it's perfect especially the first one.

Maybe not a deity (or maybe could do) Tom has psychopath tendency which if we make Severus some type of a creature Tom would want to play and test everything about Severus like a kid playing with his toys. But if we think him as a 'deity' I think we could go with Canon. Like V winning the war and playing with Severus, torturing him and making him live forever so he could play with him forever etc etc.

I kinda have Moriarty and Holmes thing au. Not really same but similar chasing and playing game. Muggle au where Tom is a criminal Lord or something and Severus journalist or detective who looks for him. More likely journalists tho. Tom would have fun how his newly graduated 'stalker' finds things about him(he lets him) and Severus would be excited to discover more and more things about Tom. And at some point Severus gets good, he finds things Tom doesn't want him and rather than being angry Tom would kinda feel proud lol anyway I hope I tidy the plot soon so I can start making the au because it's fun.

I love you too 😙🧡🧡

[julietasgf]

You see the vision... Honestly as a snowjanus fan I kinda love and hate the change of the picture in the movie, like ofc I love its snowjanus an all, its perfect for drama but MARCUS BE IN THAT PICTURE IT MADE SO MORE SENSE for Sejanus character and all, also it made in certain way a very powerfu statement from Sejanus part, one that I like to believe really hit Coryo where it hurt and torture him from time to time <3

if we go to the Sejarcus perspective specifically, well that is a definitive proof that Sejanus will always love Marcus. How he missed his presence, how he missed everything that was taken from him, not only his childhood but his adolescence and possibly the first real and genuine and reciprocated love he could have had.

And how in spite of everything he still longs and misses Marcus, who even in death continues to guide him with his gentleness to navigate in a cruel world but Sejanus 😭 was already terribly suicidal so he already wants to die making a big change, wants to sacrifice himself AHHH

Alsooo: I give you other caifanes sejanus coded songs

Caifanes - amanece

Caifanes - nada

I adore the tbosas movie, but there are two main things I'll never forgive it for: the first one is for leaving out so much of ma plinth's character, the second one is the change regarding marcus' pic (not only the pic, but cutting a lot of his relationship with sejanus).

the pic with coriolanus in the movie gives another impact: I mean, the fact that coriolanus just got someone killed, someone who consided him sm to the point of travelling with a pic of them?? ouch. but at the same time, I feel a bit conflicted, because we don't need this information to know that sejanus adored and admired coriolanus, and that coriolanus KNEW that, and got him killed anyway.

now, when the pic is with marcus (a pic from 10 years ago he kept with him after so many time), I think the impact is much harder.

first, I think marcus and sejanus' relationship is one of the most interesting ones in the book for a number of reasons. it's been 10 years and sejanus holds the memory of that boy dearly to the point he kept a pic with him after so many years. when coriolanus calls sejanus dramatic for the way he reacted after marcus died, sejanus acted as if coriolanus slapped him or something, he was extremely offended. when marcus dies, sejanus was willing to take his own life, it was his last straw. we know sejanus' character is a lot about him valuing life, he thinks district people's lives are as important as capitol's, but with marcus is just different. and at that point, marcus wasn't even talking to him anymore.

marcus died (probably) thinking of sejanus as a traitor and refusing to talk to him, to associate with him. and still, even after his death, sejanus tried to bring dignity to his death and kept his memory alive. I think you hit the nail when you said that missing marcus is not only missing his childhood, but also his adolescence, what it could've been. marcus showed him a gentleness that marked sejanus so much that it became a core trait of his beliefs and that not even the capitol's cruelty could take away from him.

(also, again about the pic, it's so funny to me the idea of coriolanus expecting to see a pic of himself with sejanus, bc ofc he's sejanus' only friend, and him being there like 💀 when he sees marcus' pic instead helpp)

about the caifanes songs: OUCH. NOT AMANECE BEING LITERALLY HIS WHOLE CHARACTER (the fact that he found hope in D12 and chose to keep going 😭) plus, nada being abt him in his post-death (also, thanks anon for the songs that now certainly are going to get into the spotify playlist I made for his character <3)

[albatris]

getting sad abt matthew today. like. only person who is kind and gentle to nat while he's being held captive even if it is just all another mind game n they're not supposed to actually care. n how they care at least just a little bit. enough to leave a little breadcrumb trail for quinn to follow. n enough to notice nat is going to die if this keeps up and not wanting that. even if a break that allows nat to heal only serves the purpose of continuing the torture later. thinkin about matthew. whom nat rips apart and eats. thinkin about how I don't think nat ever gets to find out this was all another mind game. n whether or not that would change his opinion on matthew or not. probably not. drawing imaginary lines and connecting dots..... abt nat killing someone named matthew out of hunger and desperation and for survival when the name matthew prior to Meeting This Matthew only symbolised a nat too shy and anxious to step on anyone's toes. n a nat too focused on making other people happy at his own expense that he can't even bring himself to correct them when they call him matt instead of nat. thinkin abt nat's grief at murdering a friend and nat's grief at being forced to kill the part of him that can survive by being a doormat. nat's relief and unbridled gory joy at murdering a friend and nat's relief and unbridled gory joy at being forced to kill the part of him that survived by being a doormat. thanks for coming to my ted talk. I'm upset

[yuukei-yikes]

Haruka's cringe compilation also includes him seeing Ene, probably thinking she looks very pretty, but instead of rekindling his high school romance he's living through the worst adaptation of "new phone who dis" ever conceived by man or snake

LMAOOO please and in that point in time haruka also technically spent a lot of time watching konoha try to get hibiya and hiyori out of the timeloop for god knows how long. we dont talk abt this enough. haruka can see everything konoha sees so like... erm. bitch also saw these kids getting killed over and over. lol! (descent into insanity complete as i think abt haruka and hibihiyo dynamic post str)

so like. last haruka saw of takane was her dead body, he had no reason to NOT think she wasn't in a similar state as him. like in some limbo place. bc tbh does haruka even know where he is... and from watching everything thru konoha he might know as much as kenjirou being a danger but that's it. cuz we don't know if he ever explicitly did anything to reveal in front of konoha that he is not Really kenjirou. ofc there are the hcs that the people inside the daze move freely and can see each other but personally i never interpreted it like this. i like the hc theyre all alone bc makes for better post str angst and i like the idea that ayano CAN do this but doesn't because she is too upset she could not save haruka and takane and is too ashamed to face haruka. and also something something self punishment i dont deserve to hang out with my friend and receive updates from what he can see with awakening eyes (but doesnt stop to think it'd be nice for haruka to have someone). i think ayano probably shows up to haruka at least once Largely based on his line in the eighth novel when she appears. he says "she was always unannounced" or something like that and yeah maybe he meant back then when they were alive ayano had always been kind of sudden and unexpected idk lol but i like to interpret it as in ayano suddenly showing up in haruka's daze like. hi. (cries a lil bit then immediately leaves)

ERM. SORRY I GOT SIDETRACKED. LIKE ALWAYS. i think haruka Knows where he is bc ayano told him, but it's also so appealing to me that he's just confused the whole 2 years (plus the 10 years it feels he's watching hibiya and hiyori die) cuz. heh. angst. but yeah i think he'd know but not much (until konoha meets the dan yknow)

ANYWAYS YEAH my point was he just went through all that, been alone for 2 years plus all the time worth in the hibihiyo timeloop and finally. HE GETS TO SEE TAKANE. except he is not really himself and konoha is just making her freak out and cry and haruka's just having a mental breakdown bc he's been in this place for so damn long where he cant feel tired or sleep or eat and he is just laying there in a room perfectly designed to fit his worst nightmare like he is by all means dead but alive enough to be tortured like this lolllll and now he gets to see the person he's been begging to see all this time like YOU KNOW in the third novel the first konohas state of the world chapter he says "if i had a final wish i would reach out to that girl who used to yell at me all the time" (insanity) like i truly think the i want to see you takane bit from the anime is from there. anyways. the fact that line happens while konoha is actively trying to stop the timeloop for hibiya and hiyori AUGGHH

um. yeah he gets to see her again. but all his other self is doing is making her cry lmaooo

but also i think haruka is rly touched that takane refuses to see konoha as him and calls him a fake LOL bc haruka hates konoha bc it acts so much like him, clueless to those around him and just being a burden but takane refuses to see it as haruka because it's NOT haruka like she knew immediately it wasn't him. and maybe from takane's pov its just her in denial of haruka having his memories erased but still she was right, it wasnt haruka in his body. and i think he would be so touched abt this (which is why he's so desperate for her company post str not only for obvious reasons like he loves takane and he was alone for god knows how long inside the daze but ALSO BECAUSE.. everyone else became great friends with konoha and he feels so bad replacing it and fears the dan resents him hehehehehfhejdjjdjfiekdkoeoeo

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

and then once the damn breaks it fucking breaks, and the months of nonstop raids and slaughtering innocents with no mental health days and not getting paid and also whatever weird thing he had going on with izzy and his toes, and then everything suddenly escalating to guns being drawn and izzy being shot and trying save his life and izzy getting shot a second time and steering them into a storm and getting rid of the wheel and making them fight to the death and trying to fire a fucking cannon into the mast—it all fucking comes out, and they beat the shit out of him. the anger and the rage and the fear and the hurt, the betrayal, all this mental torture from someone they were starting to consider a friend (all bc ed was so scared they’d do… well, not the same, but something similar to him), they take it all out on him. and he doesn’t even put up a fight.

this is where i despair at all the conversations i see about how ed traumatized the crew because god, so many people frame the source of the crew’s PTSD of the kraken era as just “ed was really violent and scary.” and yeah, sure, that’s part of it (altho he really wasn’t that violent until the very end), but that’s like, the tiniest part. everyone is missing what was really fucked abt the kraken era and the mutiny.

yknow how a lot of war vets have PTSD that’s not about the horrors that they saw so much as it’s about the horrors that they did?

yknow how when someone kills themself all the people around them are left wondering what they could’ve done, what signs they missed, if it’s their fault for not doing more?

it all started the day of the wedding raid. that was the raid where they finally ran out of room for the treasure, where they first pushed back against ed. “no, we’re not throwing out our paychecks,” they said.

and we know that that’s not what brought ed out of his cabin, but they crew doesn’t know that, they don’t know what izzy said to ed. all they know is that ed’s suddenly out of his cabin and pointing a gun at them, and then at himself, what the fuck???

and then he shoots izzy. and then they save izzy, and then he shoots izzy again, and all of this is fucking crazy but some of are hoping that maaaaybe he’s in a better mood now, maybe he’s getting be—oh no, nope, nevermind, he’s trying to kill them all. fuck.

and it’s self-defense. obviously. he didn’t give them any choice.

but he didn’t fight back. and right before jim dealt the final blow, ed smiled. and he said something. it was hard to tell over the wind and the rain and the thunder and the sea, but it sounded like he said finally.

ed’s mental health was in a bad fucking place for three months, they knew that much. they were worried about him, and yeah, the raids were exhausting and he was being a dick, but if he’d talked to them they would’ve listened. he just didn’t really give them a chance to give him that support. or… maybe they didn’t try hard enough. maybe jim should’ve snuck into his room and held him at knifepoint and made him talk about it. maybe fang could’ve gotten him alone during one of their raids. maybe frenchie could’ve pointed out some dying rich man’s stupid wig, said “hey, doesn’t that remind you of the one guy from that hoity-toity party? remember those assholes?” and he could’ve started the conversation there. maybe they waited too long hoping for him to come to them.

maybe if they hadn’t pushed back about the treasure. like, honestly, they had more than enough onboard already for all of them to leave with a small fortune. maybe they shouldn’t have made such a big deal about it.

maybe… maybe it was something to do with izzy? maybe they should’ve figured out what the deal was there instead of trying to know as little about what was going on as possible. maybe they could’ve done some sort of, like, relationship counseling? for the two of them?? sounds like a nightmare, but. maybe.

they definitely could’ve stopped him from steering them into a storm. they should’ve checked up on him instead of hiding below deck, they might’ve caught him before he had a chance to destroy the ship’s wheel.

that smile. that finally.

maybe they took it too far. he was down after fang’s first punch, they didn’t need to keep pummeling him. they could’ve locked him up, kept him away from any weapons, rode out the storm and then… talk, maybe? the adrenaline and the anger and the fear and the hurt all got to them in the moment. does that make them horrible people? for viciously brutalizing a man long after he had been rendered physically defenseless? for viciously brutalizing someone who might’ve once been their friend?

he had been awful to them. but he had done it so they would kill him, so he could die. their friend wanted to die, and he made them do it, he gave them no choice—or maybe that’s just what they’re telling themselves. maybe they did have a choice.

the raw bird, spread out and torn to bloody shreds on the table in the captain’s cabin.

ed’s body hidden in the lowest part of the ship, beneath the beams and floorboards holding the ship together. auntie’s probing questions, the hot sun beating down as they sweat.

the spot on the deck where they bashed his head in. the stain they can’t get out no matter how hard they scrub.

the trauma ed gave them is so much worse than just “he was really violent and scary”

wait fuck ok i’m back to being sad about it now

like the thing is that ed doesn’t really hang out with anyone but stede in season one, not really. and whenever he is talking to other ppl on the crew, stede is right there. the only exception to this is in episode 8 when jack brings the party energy and everyone is getting drunk and rowdy together specifically as part of jack’s efforts to exclude stede.

and as a fandom we always make jokes and theorize about what the relationship between ed and stede must look like from the outside, if they were all placing bets for when they’d finally hook up or if they had zero belief in stede’s ability to pull THEE blackbeard

but now i’m thinking about the crew’s perception of Ed Himself. of the crew’s perceptions of The Legendary Blackbeard and how that must’ve changed over the course of the first season. because when they first meet him they’re all impressed and starstruck bc yeah, duh, this is Pirate Beyoncé we’re talking about. they’re also in varying degrees “worried he’s gonna kill them.”

but they quickly see that the real pirate beyonce isn’t all leather and murder and head made of smoke. blackbeard swaps clothes with their cringefail (derogatory) boss for fun. he dresses up and goes to a fancy party just because he wants to—he’s not even trying to get anything out of it, doesn’t have an angle the way frenchie does, he genuinely just wants to go to a very un-Blackbeardy party and have fun. he tells them scary stories. he shows them some of his trade blackbeard secrets. he hypes them all up after their first fuckery (and i will never get over how cute that is exchange is, “scared the pants off me” and “i thought blackbeard didn’t feel fear” and “and i didn’t, until tonight” and the crew’s genuine excitement and pride). he goes on a treasure hunt with their cringefail (affectionate, now) boss and lets him dig in the ground to get it out of his system. they learn that ed isn’t just a scary pirate, he also can be silly and goof off and enjoy things that aren’t exactly compatible’s with the Blackbeard Brand

and beyond just not adhering 24/7 to the Brand, they learn that ed—that blackbeard—is human. is fallible. they see his first plan to escape the spanish fail, and they get to participate in the backup plan that he and stede come up with. frenchie sees ed get hurt at the fancy party in a way that he completely understands. lucius realizes that ed is just as into his cringefail boss as his cringefail boss is into ed, and over the course of giving ed a shovel talk he maybe learns that The Legendary Blackbeard might actually be nervous about a boy liking him back.

and none of this—NONE of this—makes the crew lose any respect for him. even pete never has a moment where his perception of his idol is shattered, where he’s disappointed that blackbeard isn’t all nine guns and zero mercy all the time. instead, pete expands his idea of what The Ideal Pirate (the ideal MAN) looks like.

i think by the time jack rolls around, ed is no longer on that Pirate Beyoncé pedestal to them. he’s still on a pedestal, a bit, but instead of seeing ed as this untouchable badass legend, they see him as like. the coolest guy on the ship. still a badass, still somebody they all respect and admire, but someone they can hang out with. someone they really want to hang out with. they want to impress ed because they want him to like them, they want to be his friend. and yeah, it’s played as a “your father and i are getting a divorce but we still love you very much” joke, but they really are so sad when ed leaves with jack.

and ed showing up with no beard and no stede, ed hiding in his cabin for. a day? multiple days? ed singing a song about his feelings. ed saying he no longer wants to go by blackbeard.

the crew is confused, but they’re on board. they don’t laugh at him for his (bad) singing, they don’t think less of him now that he’s sans iconic beard. ed, to them, is still The Coolest Guy On The Ship, and they want to be his friend. they’re excited to be his friend.

they want to put on a talent show.

and ed, right after getting stabbed in the back by jack and izzy, and then stede, and then izzy again—ed, who was so affected by the jeers of the rich fuckers at that fancy party, who grew up in a culture that doesn’t allow for friendship, a culture of everyone in various stages of fucking each other over—can’t see that. he’s got fresh heartbreak and fresh betrayal that are compounding on years of trauma and he hears them all chanting his name and he can’t trust this crew. he couldn’t trust his first mate, and he couldn’t trust his old shipmate, and he couldn’t trust stede. he cannot, cannot risk vulnerability with the crew. not again.

(and like, cmon, who is ed even kidding? he’s not made for things like softness and friendship and genuine camaraderie. trying to be anything other than blackbeard is like a wolf trying to fit in a sheep’s clothing, but the clothing is too small and everyone can see right through him and they’re all laughing and laughing and he’s the only one who can’t see what a joke he is. ed’s not an idiot, he knows there’s no way the crew is up their chanting his name and asking for another song because they like him. they just want the great clown pagliacci to come out and make them laugh.

so sure, ed’ll give them a show. they think ed’s funny? well he’s about to be fucking hilarious.)

[lucky-draws]

hi lisette. please give me your bingo opinion on REVOLVER OCELOT from METAL GEAR SOLID

hello animalscamo "grace" "weezer" snake. i will gladly give you my opinion on REVOLVER OCELOT from METAL GEAR SOLID.

UMMM SO...where do i even BEGIN....i could talk abt my precious ocie for hours xD <3 no but erm seriously good god. i've never liked a character as much as ocie before. like i dont have brainrot of this level for anyone else like i dont usually give a shit but for him? i do. he lives in my mind. there's like a little room for him inside my skull like fully furnished with a little sofa + tv for him to watch westerns on.

(gonna do a read more bc im probably going to write a novel's worth of insanity.)

i put he's a blorbo but not in an i want to fuck him way just in a he's my friend and he's a funny little man that i love to see way. i want to carry him in a handbag like a dog yes but also scrunch him up like a sheet of paper and throw him in the bin but also carry him in my pocket like a doormouse and feed him crumbs.

i put he needs more screen time bc why wasn't he in peace walker :( he should have been on that beach instead of nasty kaz :( (i am only half joking i wish he was in peace walker but it's fine i can rotate my own idea of 70s ocelot in my mind.)

i half filled in everything i like abt them isn't canon because admittedly sometimes i think about him too much in relation to big boss. big bosselot even. and in general i think i have created my own specific ocie and my own "headcanons" if i can use that word about him HOWEVER.

well. i think i've said enough really. i tried to be normal. i wasn't. there's a lot more Thoughts i have that i can't quite articulate. but yeah. um. <3

canon ocelot on his own is just a fucking epic character. like he's so cringe and funny and such a cartoon villain whilst at the same time being highly intelligent/powerful/mastermind megamind quintuple agent etc. mgs3 ocelot is so horrible and silly but it's like this contrast of. he's 19 or 20 or whatever and acts it, he acts like an insufferable brat and is so silly in his meowing and his pridefulness but then it's like. his fucking MOM who he doesn't KNOW is his mom is being fucking killed amidst all this. killed by the very same dude that he's got this insane childish crush on. it's just the ridiculous tragedy of it all for me !

also i just LOVE his mannerisms. like his finger guns/arm flourishes are so STUPID but so endearing. he's really just a joy to behold.

i put got done dirty by fans because i guess i dont like to see him uke-fied (or woobified in a way that isn't the way that i (correctly) woobify him) and made to be a blushing little maiden when he's like . not that. like even in a sort of bosselot context it's like. it's the fact that he's this cold, uncaring, double crossing spy who kills in cold blood and has a torture fetish and is just as dangerous in fact MORE DANGEROUS than big boss . and yet. his (canon basically?) motivations are because he never got over his teen crush. because somehow, throughout all his double crossing and billion different affiliations, he's doing it all for one (1) person. which. ironically. is kind of the very definition of "loyalty to the end". but while he has the intelligence to see through any need to be loyal to a country/government, or to any organisation, he doesn't have the moral desire to fight for anything or anyone good. so he fights for big boss. (AND FOR WHAT? like he doesn't even get anything for it in canon. big boss doesnt give a shit. so he's somehow "selflessly" doing all the shit he does. expecting no reward. like it's the weird martyrness of it all. big boss as the devil and ocelot as his evil apostle. idk. sorry. im not being normal.)

he also fights for himself of course because he enjoys murder and evilness and misogyny and well i mean he needs to get the money for his authentic vintage cowboy boots from somewhere and well the patriots are very rich or so ive heard. a secret billion dollars in an underground vault or something. so yeah he's simply the worst BUT he's such a fucking funny stupid meowing cowboy also . he has the RANGE!!! he deserves to rot in hell but he's also my best friend in the world and i feed him kibble.

ALSO ALSO i forgot to mention but just on a purely aesthetic like character design level i can't help but enjoy his fucking stupid dinky red scarf and gloves and cowboy drip like it's just FUN to draw him.

put simply, he is my silly boy. i guess i cannot put it more succinctly than that !

[greensaplinggrace]

honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...

not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..

like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.

alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???

honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.

Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.

HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.

👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!

Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".

Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.

Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.

I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.

And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.

And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?

The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.

His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).

And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.

She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.

Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.

And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.

Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.

Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.

The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.

In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.

The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.

Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.

Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.

This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.

So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.

[tomster1274]

THAT WOULD BE EPIC ACTUALLY IF YOU EXPLAINED IT.i have the most basic understanding and know there's two little guys involved BUT YES GO AHEAD EXPLAIN PLS!!!!!

Ok I know this ask is MONTHS old but. I just infodumped abt the plot all the way to the latest canon vid so. I didn't talk abt everything here in the screenshots though so I'll comment underneath some.

All of it under the cut, suicide m+religion m and spoilers for vol. 4;

Alternates are basically Gabriel's creations used to trick people into killing themselves by disguising themselves as other humans and using psychological torment on them, usually has to do with religion however.

More detailed explanation of Vol 1, the video you watched; the gov took notice of alternates and asked people to stay inside w/ locked doors+etc. Then there was three types of alternates, doppelgangers (look like humans), unspeakable (Gabriel, possibly Intruder/Six/Stanley) and type 3 (they're exaggerated humans in a way). Dispatchers are told not to help people who call about an alternate attack. Mark calls his 'friend Cesar'(an alt replaced him) and turns on cameras in his house, which was Mark's old home where he saw Intruder, and Mark is followed home by N, locked in his room for 3 days while being tormented before being told 'who he's been praying to'(Satan/Gabriel) and opens his bedroom door to shoot the alternate but instead shoots himself.

Thatcher+Ruth are apart of Mandela police department, Mandela county is the main place all of this is going on in.

Sarah is Mark Heathcliff's younger sister who was not a baby at the time of his death but definitely a younger child who likely created BPS+etc bc of her brother's death and Thatcher not doing much abt his case.

In Vol 2, Adam+Jonah take on a case about an alternate cat meowing in a 'woman's'(actually an alt) home, that looks suspiciously like Mark's home. While there, Adam and Jonah unearth some unnerving footage like somebody copying Jonah's voice over the radio to tell adam "LOOK OUT BEHIND YOU". Adam wants to stay but Jonah wants to leave and they get into a fight, so Adam stays inside the house where Preacher tries to give him MAD and only succeeds in getting him to the basement, where after Adam tells Jonah he's going in, Jonah leaves Adam behind in the house with the car they stole to drive there, as Adam is met by Six who tells him "nobody is coming for you" and etc, while this happens Jonah is tortured by an alternate through the radio, guilting him by saying "YOU LEFT HIM BEHIND" b4 seeming to make him kill himself. In vol 4, it's revealed Adam survived and took the car once discovering Jonah's body with the footage of what happened to give to Sarah to upload a video about it all.

Dave Lee was at first a joke character appearing in a annoucement about an official plushie, but eventually turned into his own important character who helped Thatcher for years with his investigations of his cases by helping to unfuzz VHS tapes and leading to Dave going MAD from being exposed to alts by said help.

[kajenus]

Oughhh alright I need to add my own thoughts because first, I was also thinking about that a while ago and I agree with your observations, and second, Waxaklahun is such an interesting character to me, with his moral compass being a literal russian roulettte, I need to study him under microscope and get him vivisected maybe /silly.

I'll keep this under read more because I feel like I am going to ramble A LOT, both abt his character and what we see of him (+ mythology connections, of course!) and the dragon society after arrival of Heavenly Principles in general, because there seems to be a lot of infighting here. Even among Sovereigns.

FIRST OF ALL. I did that quest with Legba wayyyy later than I should because somehow I missed it and I did it after doing 5.3 AQ (and by extension, the 5.0 and 5.2 world quests). Ngl, the mention of "many such brilliant children" threw me off guard because. What the fuck do you mean by that. Literally the only time we see you interact with your child you call him a foolish creature (I mean, Och-Kan needed a reality check, but way earlier, BY HIS FRIENDS PRESUMABLY, and not in such way. That was just kicking a man when he was down. Good job Dragon Sage).

Live Kajen reaction at the moment (liveblogging these to my friends is always an experience. Thank you Dora and Wich for bearing with me, and thank you for the dragonfucker jokes. I am not escaping them now).

Honestly, these could be, in fact, true Legba's words - as the Sage doesn't strike me as a type of person... dragon... to be anyhow family-oriented - but also he's an ancient old fart, it could make sense he fathered at least a couple of kids thru the millenniums of his life.

It's either this scenario or, like you mentioned, Waxaklahun being different before. Tbh? I could see him as way chiller/not unhinged before arrival of Heavenly Principles in the Light Realm, you know, the type of guy who is indeed eccentric and going into discussion with him isn't recommended because it's been 2 hours and you're losing your argument and he's still talking, but nonetheless, not hostile in any way. Honestly, I could imagine him with a personality similar to Spock from Star Trek - self-control and logical thinking above all, putting emotions aside. Completely not like it's gonna bite him in the ass later, right?

Speaking of that, the emotions he classifies as incomplete sign of evolution, are. The very negative ones. I wonder, does he filter which emotions are allowed and which are not, then?

A matter of interpretation, I say. Obsession with the individual is a human weakness — just like the fruit of your foolish hysteria. A sign of incomplete "evolution."

Turning from a somewhat decent/good father into a person who turns his son into a literal weapon and puts him both in physical and mental torture? It's so fucking tragic and grotesque and ohhh. Waiter, more of that please!

Remember when Och-Kan described his physical pain in one of the notes? I'll just show my friend's comment.

Also, based on his interactions with Och-Kan, he really seems like a control freak. His fool-proof plan on making his son kill Xiuhcoatl and be the next Sovereign, uniting both humans and dragons, even if in... Ubermensch-esque way, sounded pretty simple and straight-forward, right? Even so, Och-Kan failed and instead Xbalanque came along the way, making Waxaklahun lose all of the control he previously had. And if you like being in control, losing it is fucking awful and you'll start reaching for any weapon possible to regain that control or at least keep what you have left of it. I believe that if not for Och-Kan's betrayal and Xbalanque gaining the authority, Waxaklahun probably wouldn't take such drastic measurements. Or maybe he would do something as awful. Who knows what is going on in that head.

This also made me think about his tendencies to be in control. We walk in on him talking to Little One and when we see that our little companion seems to be stressed/worried, he dismissed it as both of them being concerned about our safety. Traveler doesn't understand what Saurians say, so he already has an upper hand here. Which brings me into another thing which you already pointed out, growing pragmatic and jaded because of decline of the dragon society, which is EXACTLY what Obsidian Codex talks about.

"I see light fall upon the rootless earth, the dragons prostrating before their ruler's deathbed." "I see great wisdom, great art, great civilization — and all shall perish." "But endless cycles are the law of the world, and history will not cease on account of our sorrows." "But tragic are my kin, for they see not how their folly serves to aid history's iron rule." "Servants today shall be rulers tomorrow. Past slaves shall be future masters." "Our race is mired in spiraling contradiction inexorable. Only in sowing seeds shall we find salvation." "Perhaps, out there in the abundant primordial wilderness, there is a land that has yet to know the touch of filth and decay."

When the priests of smoke and mist lit bonfires tall enough to block out the sun and offered the blood of other species to their valiant ancestors and invisible deities; When the hero who had drawn from the flame rode a tamed beast to the fortress built from massive stones through the guidance of the tribal Wayob; When the reptiles that dwelled within a city so ancient that none knew its builders scaled its twisted towers in terror, Only the wisest among dragons stood within the stagnant void, a silent observer of the grand, drawn-out tragedy.

Disagreements born from blades can only be resolved by the blade, and delusion born from ambition can only be subdued by ambition still greater. And the one who had thought itself master over evolution never imagined that those with strength would give it an answer beyond conquest and slaughter.

(Flower of Life, Goblet of Eonothem and Circlet of Logos descriptions, respectively)

Honestly? It just clearly screams PTSD and survivor's guilt to me, especially the "silent observer of the grand, drawn-out tragedy" part. Which is valid, if I were to partake in two, world destroying wars and seeing three of major rulers killed by an usurper (more on that later) which plunged my nation to collapse, I'd just kill myself on the spot /lh. It's just the fact that in Waxaklahun's case, what he does afterwards can't even be called unhealthy coping mechanisms anymore - this is a drowning man looking for anything to grasp on. And honestly, him solely trying to save dragonkind from going exctinct was hopeless from the start, compared to pressing a band aid kit to an open wound. Or, ngl, as I keep writing this now, I thought about the "I Can't Help Myself" artistic installation by Su Yuan and Peng Yu, where the most common interpretation online is about working to live - the robot keeps cleaning his fluid/"blood", but it still spills, coming back to where it was before. And yes, that's how it looks like when you're trying to keep yourself in piece and failing - BUT how about trying to keep people around you in shape while they're just not willing to cooperate (once again, more on that later)? That's also how it feels like, speaking from a personal level. Dragon dilf man is not only based off of Prometheus but also pulled Sisyphus move on himself. DUDE.

(One must imagine how dragon society would've been like if not for Phanes' arrival)

Speaking of Prometheus and both Mayan and Aztec deities Waxaklahun is based on! <3

K'uk'ulkan, and by extensions, Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl and Postclassic period K'iche' deity Qʼuqʼumatz, are all feathered serpents - something that in all of these pantheons is REALLY symbolic. In general, Mesoamerican deities were very dual in their nature, both divine and human-like at the same time (and if you look at, I don't know, Greek or Slavic mythologies and its gods, you won't find that here) - in the case of Feathered Serpent, said feathers represented the divinity, ability to reach skies, fly, while being a serpent represented the human parts, being able to walk among humans. Sounds familiar, eh?

I remember when we got first mention of the name Xiuhcoatl (and the war in comments on Genshin Wiki because FOR SOME REASON they didn't want to connect the name to Pyro Sovereign. "We didn't get direct confirmation!!" then why is Dottore's real name listed as Zandik, we didn't get that told outrightly too), I was really surprised that we actually don't get a dragon named Quetzalcoatl, as I'd argue that name is more known than the name of spiritual part of Xiuhtecuhtli, even if you're not into Aztec mythology. Turns out he's here, but also not really, but also yes. And and interesting fact, I'd say Quetzalcoatl's descriptions fit our Genshin Waxaklahun more than what we have of mythological K'uk'ulkan:

Among the Aztecs, [Quetzalcoatl] was related to wind, Venus, Sun, merchants, arts, crafts, knowledge, and learning. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood.[5]

Animals thought to represent Quetzalcoatl include resplendent quetzals, rattlesnakes (coatl meaning "serpent" in Nahuatl), crows, and macaws. 

(via Wikipedia)

Now I am going to stop here for a second. This may be a stretch on my part, but while we can clearly see that Waxaklahun has feathers(?) in his design, I can see some similarities to horned rattlesnake as well. Maybe it's because of something like supraocular scales above his eyes and the sandy, beige color scheme. Not sure if it was intentional, but with Hoyo, I doubt there is something like "coincidence" when designing their characters (even when they're gooner baits, but that's completely another topic).

They both look like they're constantly pissed off lmao

Last thing about Mesoamerican mythology before I move on onto his Prometheus inspiration, you know how Teyvat has Samsara going on? Certain Nahua cultures have a myth called Five Suns.

In the Aztec and other Nahua creation myths, it was believed that the universe had gone through four iterations before the current one, and each of these prior worlds had been destroyed by Gods due to the behavior of its inhabitants.

(via Wikipedia)

I'd really recommend anyone to go deeper into the topic and myth itself themselves, because I am going to talk about it very briefly, mostly it's connection to our Genshin dragons and Samsara cycles. Because the basics sounds a bit familiar.

FIFTH SUN Quetzalcoatl would not accept the destruction of his people and went to the underworld where he stole their bones from the god Mictlantecuhtli. He dipped these bones in his own blood to resurrect his people, who reopened their eyes to a sky illuminated by the current sun, Huitzilopochtli.[2] The Centzonhuītznāhua, or the stars of the south, became jealous of their brighter, more important brother Huitzilopochtli. Their leader, Coyolxauhqui, goddess of the moon, led them in an assault on the sun and every night they come close to victory when they shine throughout the sky, but are beaten back by the mighty Huitzilopochtli who rules the daytime sky. To aid this all-important god in his continuing war, the Aztecs offer him the nourishment of human sacrifices. They also offer human sacrifices to Tezcatlipoca in fear of his judgment, offer their own blood to Quetzalcoatl, who opposes fatal sacrifices, in thanks of his blood sacrifice for them and give offerings to many other gods for many purposes. Should these sacrifices cease, or should mankind fail to please the gods for any other reason, this fifth sun will go black, the world will be shattered by a catastrophic earthquake, and the Tzitzimitl will slay Huitzilopochtli and all of humanity.

(via Wikipedia)

"Fun" fact: irl, our current era would be in fact the fifth.

Now, how THE FUCK can we connect this to Genshin?

I want to look at the quote that introduced Nevuillette, from the man the legend himself, Xbalanque.

Someday, when [the Sovereigns] return, their true ordeal shall begin.

Hydro Sovereign got reborn. Xiuhcoatl is dead, BUT I wouldn't put it past someone trying to resurrect him somehow or maybe even Waxaklahun trying to obtain the authority of flames from Mavuika, or at least, challenge her - now, with his oath to Xbalanque unfulfilled and his own son failing him two times, it seems he could have nothing else to loose, no? He has no clear modus operandi anyway. The rest of Sovereigns.... Well, Apep is here, Azhdaha most likely is the Geo Sovereigns and he's. Somehow going by and Apep mentions that Nibelung got reborn.

And now, this might put me into a dispute with half of Genshin theory/lore community, but I don't think Nibelung was the Second Who Came and he got reborn AFTER shit with SWC happened. Apep mentions his return in the same sentence as her feelings after Deshret's death. Deshret, as far as I can recall, died after war with second throne of the heavens.

So, does that mean in Teyvat, Samsara cycle is complete when Sovereigns rise to their power again? Will we see a showdown of Sovereigns fighting against the usurpers (in this case, current Archons) happen once more? Who knows, but Teyvat might really be cooked then. It's a theory/guess my friend and I came up with and it might as well turn out to be very wrong by the time of 5.5 or 5.6 update.

Uh. Back to the topic of our Genshin modern Prometheus. Haha, get it, because not only Waxaklahun's role in history is similar to that of Prometheus, but also because the Frankenstein novel full title is "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" and the Sage pretty much frankenstein'ed Och-K- cat_explosion.gif. Anyways! Prometheus, on a surface level, might seem like the most morally good and selfless guy, a true hero. He stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, granting them knowledge, power, technology, and so on. Pretty amazing, right? Well. If you then think about it more, his motives were not to help mankind (rather, to spite the rest of the gods and Zeus), and later on, it led to the opening of the Pandora's box. It brought good things, but bad things also. Sounds pretty familiar to how we thought of the Sage of Stolen Flame back in 5.0 and how he seems now, doesn't it?

I don't like people comparing him to Dottore (or talking how he's better written Dottore), because while yes, he definitely isn't good... He also isn't evil incarnate. I don't know. He's morally grey, maybe drawing a line between immorality and amorality (hey fandom kids, remember that morally grey doesn't mean a character who is an asshole but can be also nice, but a person who does both good and wrong stuff! <3). They share a thing for experimenting and having weird/no morality, but that's as far as their similarities go. Giving Phlogiston to humans, in a long run, was a good thing, looking at modern Natlan history. It's difficult to put him into a certain category and I think that's also because, above all, he's a dragon - he tried to live among humans, yes, but he never tried to become one of them. Like you said op, maybe it's because he was somewhat close to Xiuhcoatl and that also made him different from other dragons.

Here's another thing, which also FINALLY leads me to the second and last part of my long, long rambling - the infighting between dragons and decline of their civilization after Nibelung and other Sovereigns kicked the bucket or lost their powers/minds. I'll also talk abt Waxaklahun here but about Xiuhcoatl and other dragons as well. Bear with me, please, I know this is getting really long but I have sooo many thoughts and interpretations </3

(But the difference in their attitude is kinda funny tbh. "Oh, I shall seek an audience with the new Hydro Sovereign. Though I'm afraid I do not count as a Dragonborn now😓" vs "THE PYRO SOVEREIGN MUST DIE. MY SON FAILED TO SLAY HIM." What did Xiuhcoatl do that merited that attitude bro😭)

FUCKING EXACTLY! To me, the main difference between Xiuhcoatl and Waxaklahun and by extensions, the source of their beef, might be how Xiuhcoatl pretty much self-sacrificed himself and lost his mind due to Abyss. Waxaklahun later on starting to sacrifice others. This could be either a disagreement with philosophies, beef over the use of Huitzilopochtli after Nibelung acquired the Forbidden Knowledge, or rather, "I would sacrifice pieces of my flesh but I'd still be considered selfish for waiting to keep my bones" kind of situation. Personally, I feel like all of them could be true at the same time.

Why the last one, tho?

This will be a bit anecdotic and sour for a sec, but I want to use it as a point in the commentary of dragon civilization after Xiuhcoatl faked his death.

As a person who comes from an ethnic minority where a nation pretty much took what it wanted from our culture to make it into its own (happened in Teyvat, look at description of Heavenly Principle's benevolence and creation of this world from that one book from Enkanomiya - I believe it's bullshit lmao), and then did everything to destroy our own perception of culture and individuality and language (to the point it is almost extinct and now, we are just recreating what was left and recorded), I cannot help but somehow see this in the history of dragons in Teyvat. Light Realm had its own rules, its inhabitants, it most likely had normal fauna. And then, Primordial One came and took what it wanted to make its own world there.

>be me >wake up and think about dragon history in Teyvat >start crying

Primordial One killed Nibelung, previous Hydro Sovereign and also Xiuhcoatl faked his death at that time. Imagine losing three major figures (on top of that, looking at descriptions of Primordial Sea and one dialogue during boss fight in 5.3, it seems like Hydro and Pyro Sovereigns might have also been gods of life and death, respectively?) in one battle. I am not sure how much dragons in Natlan knew about Xiuhcoatl plan or what the fuck did he even exactly do, but no matter what, everyone in Light Realm and their mother must have been unsettled.

And of course, when situation is getting uneasy, people are prone to jabbing at each other. And it's especially easy to jab at infulential figures who failed. Like Sovereigns. (something I also see among my people and even friends. Always trying to put blame on somebody for our bad luck or bad opinions about us going around.) Xiuhcoatl was described as a corpse sitting on the throne after he regained Natlan and dragons there devoured angels. Now, Waxaklahun is nowhere being a reliable narrator, but both his description of dragon society regarding Nibelung and Xiuhcoatl are the same - with dragon king dead and Pyro Sovereign becoming shell of his former self, now with his will to fight only, other dragons also became more aggressive. Something something following a hierarchy and knowing your place. I feel like Waxaklahun, with his own trauma, might have been taking his anger and guilt on Xiuhcoatl; and it's especially easy to do when the other side can't defend themselves, right? And without defending the Sage himself, because he was awful father, maybe that's also why he was so pissed off at Och-Kan in their last interaction. In a way, Och-Kan's story and descend into madness parallels Xiuhcoatl. He seems to be awfully sarcastic when speaking both to his son and about Xiuhcoatl later on, when talking with Little One. It was quite literally coming to a full circle.

Speaking of Nibelung. Someone pointed out that out of three Sovereigns that speak of him, Apep seems to follow his footsteps, while Neuvillette's narration voices some doubts about his actions in his character stories. And Xiuhcoatl?

OhohohohOHOHO. HOHOHOHO. Remember how during the battle against Lord of the Primal Fire, the Abyss mocks and plays mind games with Mavuika and Traeveler by using voices of previous Pyro Archons?

There is a certain "he" mentioned a couple of times, and coincidentally, these lines are spoken in Xbalanque's voice. And you know what? I certainly believe this is Xiuhcoatl's consciousness referring to Nibelung. Maybe they also disagreed about using Forbidden Knowledge, as Xiuhcoatl tried to oppose the Abyss. It appears Nibelung also was a morally grey figure, with three of seven Sovereigns having different opinions on him. Interesingly enough, there are two murals depicting Nibelung in Natlan, both of them showing him destroying everything, and both of them are shown to us/narrated by Waxaklahun.

You witness with your own eyes the gargantuan wings from beyond the world, the once glorious and grand figure now pitiable, having completely sunk into the terrifying shadow. The pitch-black flames scorch the land, and even the white tree nearly withered, and the final envoy's glow shattered and smashed, only able to subsist on the last leaves of the severed roots.

(from the world quest Revelations from the Past; in the Hall of Parting Vows, Xbalanque's side of mural leads to a mural of him triumphing over Xiuhcoatl, and Waxaklahun's shows us Nibelung. Hmm.)

One last thought (I hope?), coming back to the myth of Prometheus for a second - you know how opinions of ancient Greeks about the thief of fire were often negative? Not only because he didn't want to help humankind, but also because according to them, he wanted to put himself above Zeus. It'd be interesting if something similar happened within Natlan dragon society - after all the Sage stealing Phlogiston from Xiuhcoatl, the sharer of heat, light and wisdom, to give it to the weak, beloved creations of the usurper, could have caused quite a ruckus. Could he even be considered traitor by them while he tried to reason to himself he did for the good of his own kind? As much as Waxaklahun is a bitch, he's also a really tragic character, and if you think about it, he's really clinging onto the past that will never come back, and restoring it - connecting both humans and dragons together - also won't replace that.

It seems like not only Heavenly Principles killed Nibelung, but also managed to indirectly cause infighting between them, which in the end led to their civilization collapsing.

... Alright. I hope this is ALL I wanted to ramble on. I went from analzying Waxaklahun's behavior to analzying his design briefly to talking about blaming failures of your own kind on others and especially figures of influence. Goddamnit, I don't know if I want to check how many words this post has, but this got real long. Pretty sure I could find even more stuff to talk on and some of things I already wrote might be a bit incoherent or GOD FORBID I GOT SOMETHING WRONG, but I am stuck at home sick and having nothing better to do than overanalyze my favorite fictional war criminals from a gacha game.

I might have strayed a bit from the original topic of op's post, but ughhhh when I get to talk about stuff I observed abt dragons I cannot seem to shut up. Sorry not sorry.

To end this on a more lighthearted/funny note. Thought about one Polish Facebook post and edited it:

"With my brother Xiuhcoatl. He's been dead for 2 years. Xiuhcoatl you were such a dick"

That's basically them, right?

TL;DR ESH (everyone sucks here). In their own way. Falls off the stage and dies.

So I have a lovely discussion with Ozerix, one of my readers in NotHS (Notes on the Holy Sovereign. Imma shorten it bcs man is it mouthful😅) regarding dragon's morality and Waxaklahun's cold and insane attitude. I think I want to share it in here too !

Regarding the dragons' morality... I wonder, how much of it was ingrained in their biology, or the result of their culture instead ?

Neuvillette probably the one that popped first in the mind, he needed 500 years to adapt to human society, but even then he was still quite reserved until his SQ. But remember, Neuvillette is a Sovereign. They're the gods of the dragons, & gods have different psyche than mortals. So I think Neuvi couldn't be the representative of all dragons in regard of their morality.

And in Natlan, it seems the Saurians have a rather similar concept of family to humans. For example ;

• Chasca's Qucusaurus family, complete with human drama & all.

(Chasca's momma bird even nags her about grandchildren like typical mothers lol.)

• The family of Ayo (Kachina's tepetlisaurus) in 5.3 AQ. He had grandparents who behaved just like human grandparents ! I was actually quite shocked when I played that part of the quest.

(I HATE the AQ with burning passion, but this part ? I have to admit, it's genuinely heartbreaking.)

• One could argue that their similarity is the result of them evolving alongside humans, thus attaining some of our behaviours, but it seems this familial relationship has been there for a long time. Remember Lianca ? She was raised by a dragon matriarch, & she proudly call herself her daughter. That sounds very human-like to me.

(From Chain Breaker lore, page 1. Lianca's mother sounded so sweet🥹)

I also theorized that WUK is the same type of dragons as Scylla from Remuria, the Prince of the Vishaps, or at least a Sovereign's attendant. It wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that WUK used to serve under Xiuhcoatl. And since these kind of dragons directly served under the Sovereigns, perhaps they too have the Sovereigns' detachment from mortal feelings. Kinda like Zhongli & his adepti, a god & their immortal servants.

(But the difference in their attitude is kinda funny tbh. "Oh, I shall seek an audience with the new Hydro Sovereign. Though I'm afraid I do not count as a Dragonborn now😓" vs "THE PYRO SOVEREIGN MUST DIE. MY SON FAILED TO SLAY HIM." What did Xiuhcoatl do that merited that attitude bro😭)

So maybe WUK's cold attitude towards his son is caused more by his personality/belief. Plus, seeing your civilization declining probably makes anybody to become more jaded & pragmatic, anyway. But then again, this is just my personal interpretation !

Btw if WUK is truly masquerading as humans in Natlan’s WQ, there's Legba, who claimed that "I, too, had many such... brilliant children." I find it disturbing tbh. Och-Kan had siblings ??? I wonder if we'll meet them- the ones who are alive, if there's any- in the future.

(But ngl, Waxaklahun/Legba here sounded more... nostalgic ? Soft ? Towards his children ? Perhaps it was the human Legba's true personality seeping in, but I find it... very contradictory with how he treated Och-Kan. Maybe he does not find his previous children to be failures, hence the praise. Or maybe... he used to be kinder ? Tbh I think the second option will be intriguing from the narrative perspective. Imagine seeing the evolution from a caring father to a cold sage driven mad by the fall of his civilization.)

[prose-for-hire]

Hopelessly devoted

Pairing: Faith x vamp!reader

Request: I was wondering if I could request something for a sort of ,,reformed'' vampire(theyve had their soul for a while) falling for either Oz or Faith and trying real hard to get on their good side? similar to that of spike I think only they arent as much of a creep abt it aojsbdis thanks

Requested by: Anon

Warning: Mention of killing in reader’s past.

A/N: There... might need to be a second part 💖

Hope was a concept you had always detested. It wasn’t tangible and it made people cling to things that often should have been long forgotten. Hope was something you had tried to remove from everyone’s hearts. Something that you detested more than the lives you had taken.

You had been around for some decades now. A lot of it was very similar. Human nature, for instance. They mistrusted you and for good reason. They could sense it although they did not know what the feeling was. The hair on the back of their neck would stand on end. Their heartbeats would quicken.

In the old days, this would excite you. Make you laugh even. The fear had been intoxicating. Like a fine seasoning. But now, it didn’t interest you. It just made you feel embarrassed.

You fought for your soul. Almost half a century ago now. You had come to terms with it, for the most part. Although, it wasn’t something you could get over in a night.

One thing, that had made your life brighter since was a sudden growing affection that had creeped up on you. For a Slayer.

It had given you a feeling inside. A small ember of something you hadn’t experienced long enough to name in the recent past. Something you hadn’t believed would be possible for someone like you. After all the ways you had tried to snuff the light from everyone else.

It was Faith. You were hopelessly devoted to her. In every sense. You would lay down your un-life for her. Commit every waking moment of yours to her. It was an unending, eternal affection that consumed every inch of you.

You hadn’t known what to do with it to begin with. How to express it. It soon became clear you would need to find a confidant as you couldn’t even begin to express these feelings to her. However, when you had bumped into Spike who you had known from the old days, he wasn’t much help.

For one, he was crying over Drusilla and completely drunk. Wasted out of his mind. The only advice that hadn’t been a slurred mess was when he advised you to watch her every movement until she wore down and gave you the time of day. Which, you had told him firmly that you wouldn’t be doing.

However, tonight, it did appear that this was what you were doing. She was walking through the graveyard alone and her scent had caught your attention as you walked through the streets looking for something to fill your time. Her natural scent was like a sweet perfume. It called to you. Sung heady notes of affection.

You had followed her to the graveyard. You weren’t skulking from the shadows. You weren’t prowling behind gravestones. You were just casually walking up to her. About to announce your presence.

What you didn’t realise was that she had been listening to music. Buffy had always warned her not to take her earphones to patrol but she trusted her instincts. And plus, she was so very bored without it. She often patrolled alone whereas Buffy got all her friends around her.

So, you were about to tap her on her shoulder and say hello when she swung around, taking you by the throat and slamming you against the closest mausoleum. You had squeaked in surprise and then subsequently coughed to try and cover it up as she did.

From nowhere she whipped a stake out and held it to your chest. Your eyes widened and your mouth opened slightly but no more sound came out. You just stood there, almost in awe of her as her hand clasped tight around your throat.

A thought came to mind, that you would at least be happy that she would be the last thing you saw before being damned to an eternal hell dimension.

“You wanna move that heart away from my stake?” She asked, when she finally registered that it was you.

“Sorry, I-I was just-” You stuttered as she moved away from the hold she had on you. You felt yourself move with her, trying to feel her touch for as long as possible.

“Following me? Actin’ on this massive jones you got for me?” She teased. She was joking but it wasn’t a joke to you. You looked away as she stepped back allowing you space. Your eyes had bulged in horror as you looked down, averting your gaze.

“I’m sorry, I was just trying to help”

“Yeah, well, don’t need my own stalker” She warned and you looked so beyond embarrassed it almost hurt her. She wanted to take her words back but she knew you would notice if she did.

“No! N-no not stalking, just making sure that you were, um, okay. I sensed you and-”

“I’m kiddin’, man, don’t freak” She punched your arm in a friendly way and both of you looked at each other slightly awkwardly. You frowned for a moment before you began to smile. She enjoyed the way it made your features brighten and it instantly made her feel better for having spoken the way she had.

“Sorry, I’m not really used to modern humour, I kind of shut myself away after I got my soul… I’m getting used to it though, it was… funny!” You blurted all of this out really quickly before adding the part at the end, trying to make her feel better. Her brow was furrowing again.

She found this admittance endearing almost. She watched your lips as you spoke. She wanted to kiss you. Usually she would make a move. She could give a person a look and end up taking them home. But this meant so much more. With you. She found herself getting a little nervous around you, wanting to make a move but feeling as if she would be rejected. Laughed at, although you had never been like that.

She couldn’t express her feelings. Instead she made jokes about you liking her, trying to gauge your reaction. Which, of course was neutral. Your mental health was still fragile ever since your soul had returned and you couldn’t risk the emotional reaction you may get if she tore your heart from your chest and crushed it with her bare hands.

“I can go though, if it would make you more comfortable-” You insisted, all you wanted was for her to feel comfortable around you.

“No!” She shouted, cringing at the note of desperation she heard in her own voice, “Uh, no, it’s nice to see you y’know? B’s always there when we’re talkin’ now”

You nodded, having noticed this too. When you and Faith would talk when you were able to meet the others in the library, Buffy and the others would always have something for one of you to do on the opposite side of the room. Or just plant themselves into your conversation.

It embarrassed you, that these people could tell that you liked her so much. That they were trying to save Faith from you. Your cursed love for her. Your heart was hers but you understood that just because it was reserved that way, it didn’t mean she would want to choose it from the pile.

This, actually, wasn’t entirely true. That Buffy was ‘saving’ Faith from you. And in some sense, Buffy was trying to save you from Faith too. She knew exactly what it was like to fall and be in a relationship with a vampire. The slayer and vampire love was one she wouldn’t wish on her own enemy. Not even Faith.

You were both good people, Buffy was sure of it, and so she was trying to prevent the inevitable heartbreak that she could sense building between you.

The blonde slayer had been surprisingly accepting of you on the whole, even in your more demonic years you had been more about survival than torture. Plus, you hadn’t been cursed your soul had been sought out - so you weren’t seen as that much of a threat.

This kept happening after a while. The two of you crossing paths on patrol. Until you began to plan where to meet in the evenings rather than hoping to bump into the other. You would meet and patrol together. Both of you enjoying these moments, Faith needed the company. She had felt very lonely until you had begun to power through your worries and try to befriend her the way you had always wanted to.

She enjoyed that it was you though. Your company she was keeping. She would run your interactions through her mind as she sat in her motel room. Just as you would from your crypt.

When you first got to know each other, you had begun talking and found commonalities. Reasons to become fond of the other. You noticed how she didn’t flinch away from you when she first learned about your past the way many others had.

You had been getting on so well that one evening as you were paying for your blood at the butchers, it dawned on you. You hadn’t been doing anything particularly meaningful. Just staring at the jars of blood, salivating guiltily. Until you thought it.

I love Faith.

Such a simple thought, but with such a rush of feelings behind them. It began to descend on you at once after this. A waterfall that you were sure would never stop flowing. You adored her. The way she moved, the way she acted. The softer side you had caught from her on occasion. When you had made her feel comfortable enough to let it slip even for a second.

It was another evening, after you had agreed to meet near the gargoyle that looked a little bit like the Mayor. You walked beside the other, where you would both wish for a demon to occupy your time if you were alone, you began to hope that nobody would interrupt your time together.

You would laugh and swap stories. It was everything. You stole glances at the other when you thought they weren’t looking. Your hands became so close when you were walking that you wanted to reach between the space and entwine your fingers with hers.

Faith had some trouble with getting the hang of this fighting technique that Wesley and Giles had insisted every Slayer should know. Buffy could do it with her eyes closed, of course and Faith was feeling like the understudy again. She wanted to hone her skills like Buffy did but without the ancient old guy staring at her while she did.

As you walked through the exit of the cemetery, you steeled yourself and decided to be brave.

“I could help, if you like…” You offered with a smile. You were experienced at fighting after all.

“Yeah?”

“Sure, as long as it’s not on a sunny afternoon” You joked which made her laugh.

“Hey, you’re gettin’ it” She nodded in approval of your improved humour since you and her had been spending more time together. You grinned gleefully at the compliment and she walked ahead of you, hiding her own smile at the way your face brightened at her words. She loved seeing you smile. Even more so when she was the reason you were smiling.

She stepped into the road and turned to you, wanting to get another look. So she could picture it later, when she was cold and only had the broken tv for company. You were looking at each other and just smiling.

Your smile suddenly dropped. You panicked, sensing the danger before she did. In the past, it would have been a good feeling, the lick of terror. It snapped through the air like a whip. Struck your senses in a way that would elicit a human’s hair standing on end. Goosebumps rising.

Accidental death meant tragedy. Blood. It meant adrenaline. Easy prey. You had enjoyed the taste. You hated that you had enjoyed the taste.

But the feeling was still identifiable. The warning signals still there but it now only meant dread.

Especially when it came to her. You ran at Faith, just hoping you would get to her in time.

“Faith! Watch out!” You screamed.

You tackled her, moving her out of the way of the oncoming traffic. Her slayer senses hadn’t been quick enough for the van that was heading her way. She had been so distracted by the way your features were lit up by the moonlight.

All of the time you had been spending with each other, hidden away from the others. Not telling them that you were together so often. She held onto this, needing this. Needing you. You were sweet, which she hadn’t ever thought she could call a vampire. Even less she wouldn’t think she would have fallen for such a seemingly sweet person.

You couldn’t lose each other, not now you were just finding each other.

You landed, tumbling together onto the other side of the road. Just in time. You landed above her, almost pressed flat against her. You couldn’t help just staring. Holding yourself up slightly so you could see her face.

She was trying to catch up with what had happened, her breathing heavy. That had gone so fast, she could have been really hurt. But you had saved her. Protected her.

She had always prided herself on the way she was so independent. On how she could look out for herself. But the truth was, she wanted you to be there. She wanted to be allowed to fall into your arms, just as she would hold you in hers.

You looked at each other and time stopped. Your eyes flickered from hers to her lips, if she blinked she could have missed it. Her eyes were scanning your face. She loved the way you looked at her as if the entire world revolved around her. You were so close you could feel her breath on your face. All you wanted to do was lean in and kiss her. Catch your lips with hers. She shifted slightly and you thought she might move in, but when she didn’t the feeling of desperate yearning turned into concern.

Concern that she may reject you. That you would no longer get these stolen moments. These patrols where all that made your soul feel relaxed. Comfortable. As if your soul could only feel safe when hers was near. She meant too much. You pulled away, moving your gaze from her.

You got to your feet and heard her exhale. You couldn’t tell if it was from relief or because of the same tension you felt. You weren’t sure you would ever know. You had tried so hard to get onto her good side. To show her you wanted to be friendly. But, this was so much more. It meant too much.

You offered your hand, helping her up and she took it. As she got to her feet, your hands clutching hers. The touch lingered. Until she pulled away. You didn’t realise but she had been about to lean in. Press her lips to yours, the way she had been imagining so often recently. But you had moved away too quickly.

You both looked at each other for a moment in silence before Faith nodded her thanks. You didn’t speak, as if it would be too much after what had happened. Both of you had known that meant something. That this was new. You dared to hope that the other felt the same, but both were too nervous to say. Because rejection, the thought of losing the other. The company. The understanding. Was too great.

You wanted to be hers. Wanted to tell her what she meant to you. You wanted happiness… love. But not at the expense of her feelings should she not reciprocate. So you parted ways, as you always did just before sunrise. You went your way, she went hers.

Your souls, they lingered together like your touch had, not wanting to leave their fate. Maybe one day, they might be allowed to stay together. Once you both worked on prising open your hearts. Allowing the other in.

All you had left now was hope.

[aks3raao1]

Uhhh, well first there was this torture game involving my family (everyone died in front of my eyes by different methods(Mom: Hand mangled, infected and blood loss; Grandpa: Pecked by a bird, crushed by an aeroplane, Rest killed off screen by drowning in a flooded chamber)) and then I went to Egypt to look for a cure with Shuichi Saihara and Korekiyo and Shuichi was telling me a story about how two rivals became two rivals (which was exactly what had happened in the beginning of the dream where Nagito talked about his love™ for Hajime except he introduced a fan of the spy character (me) and made the spy character a male) which caused me to become wary of him. Then we all reached the Pyramids where there were people cosplaying the gods from the Egyptian Pantheon and Korekiyo began monologuing on The Book Of The Dead (which talked about resurrection due to dream logic apparently). And Shuichi and I became extremely involved in that resurrection drama. Shuichi was also trying to unlock the mystery behind Korekiyo and he is a serial killer who kills girls to send as "friends" to his deceased sister. However there are multiple theories behind what actually happened which Shuichi talks about later on) while I was more interested in the resurrection and the ways to do so.

And then there was an abrupt scene change to my school which had opened after the quarantine (and I was weirdly relieved because I had successfully done something but after the teacher thing, it became apparent that the success wasn't about school) and my mom was somehow alive again but I was shown to be staring at her hands and remembering what had happened (I had memories of the last two incidents) while she was just being normal and called a teacher to ask about me while I shrunk away (#just student things) and our school resembled a church in the middle of a garden type thing. There were white chairs laid out and I remember thinking that they looked like gravestones and shivered and then told mom that I was going inside because I didn't want to think about *that* now.

Our school looked....weird to say the least. They had renovated it so everything felt wrong because the colours were darker and earthy instead of the light ones I was used to and the stairs were all arranged differently as well. I grabbed a friend and we both went to find our class. Instead of two sections, we had four sections now and were very confused where to sit because we hadn't been informed of it prior to this. We sat down in a random section and I began doing my English work (which I had actually been doing when I fell asleep irl) but the time came and went and no one entered the class (Class eight for some reason), so we realised that we had made a mistake and we remembered that we were in ninth and I was like, "Oh fuck, the time is nearer than I thought" and we ran to our actual class where our classmates were. She went and started talking to another friend and I was left alone to find a seat. I saw Makoto Naegi (Protagonist of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc) who looked extremely nervous for some reason and said in narration,

"All the protagonists have been sent back in time to steer their respective classes away from the Killing Games and prevent the apocalypse before it starts. Will they be able to do it?"

Then the POV went over to Shuichi who had extremely distorted memories from the Killing Game was playing Detective on himself to figure out what they meant. He remembered that he desperately needed to figure out what was going on with Korekiyo, that Tsumugi was important and that Kokichi was dangerous but the other memories were too disjointed for him to figure out.

He tries to get Kokichi who's trying to. Uh, nail Tsumugi to the bulletin board with actual nails and hammers. Shuichi's horrified and believes that Kokichi is the one responsible for his Killing Game due to this kind of malicious attitude (and also because Tsumugi is a damned good actor at playing the victim + she might not be actually planning the Killing Game then) and he tries to actually restrain Kokichi who sees Shuichi and flees while Tsumugi falls to the ground crying. Shuichi runs over to comfort her and thinks of how Kokichi while pranking others never felt malicious at all but now he realises that he could have made a mistake. However it's also implied that he wants to get information about why Kokichi behaved the way he did since he obviously knows more than he lets on.

POV shifts over to Kokichi for a brief moment to show that he's the one with all memories intact but he cannot divulge them for game balance.

Then we see Shuichi who has remembered Korekiyo's case and is devising two theories on it:

a) Korekiyo is a loony delusional serial killer who loves to kill girls and is just using his own sister as an excuse (who he has killed himself too)

b) His sister was a dangerous psychopath (visualised by her turning into a snake and wrapping herself around his body in a sexual manner while he's in pain™) and that she emotionally manipulated him to do this and her ghost didn't abandon him even when he died.

As he's ruminating on this, the POV shifts to Hajime who's talking to Nagito and Chiaki and has a brief flashback to his time as Izuru Kamakura.

Now this is a divergence from actual canon in terms of backstories as we see Hawks grab Izuru and tell him that he will make him feel (in a fatherly found family way) something. A time period elapses where there is a part where Hawks takes Izuru to a fair and is talking about how great chicken nuggets and other chicken dishes are while Izuru emoily licks an ice-cream.

At the end of the time period, Izuru claims that he still can't feel anything and Hawks goes, "Well....I failed then" and flies him to a rooftop. Izuru is confused slightly when Hawks bends over him (no, not sexually, enough sex is enough) and then blood splatters onto Izuru's face and he realises that Hawks is bleeding from a fatal wound and that he had done that to save Izuru from being attacked. Hawks falls down, heavily injured as Izuru sits up and sees Tanizaki who's somehow an assassin here and is flying as well somehow. Izuru asks Hawks why he did this since Izuru could have saved himself too and then Hawks goes, "Because I am a hero", not really expecting Izuru to react much. (Note that chronologically, an apocalypse is going on now and Tanizaki has probably fallen into Despair and Hawks is tryna save the world or whatever). However Izuru does react and starts crying because this is the first time anyone saw him as a person who needs to be saved too.

It's implied that Hawks died here in actual memory but then Hajime pushes forth and invents a part where Hawks actually doesn't die there and instead gets up and fights Tanizaki.

Now Hawks's death was the reason Izuru wanted to save the world (mine was my family, Shuichi's was basically everyone but mostly Korekiyo, Makoto's was everyone), but since Hajime wanted to save everyone, he wanted to save Hawks as well.

However if he saved Hawks, then his reason to save others would vanish in that instant, causing a paradox and things to be reset.

Then I woke up with the message that, "Our traumas along with our happy times influence who we are now".

.............you be waking up to life lessons daily mah dude * finishes popcorn and claps* talk abt inspiring. Other than that, do you need a hug?

[bedlund]

OKAY! what was all that then!!! how are you gonna say cas obliterates himself with drugs and booze and numbs himself with orgies but he remains dean's partner and like. i was gonna say his second in command but this dean doesn't exactly share power. i hate this. the sheer devotion has me reeling. like there's no reason for him to be that involved or that high up. he calls himself useless and hapless and hopeless but then WHY be part of the inner circle or whatever. why be on dean's final mission. im also pretty sure that he knew dean was lying and he was gonna sacrifice everyone. i think he knew from the discussion with the map and everything.

also 2009 dean saying youre gonna feed your friends into a meat grinder? cas too? like hello why is cas separate from friends. are they not friends. are they frenemies.

5x04 the end is so... dean becomes hard and he pulls in. he hardly makes a joke the whole time. cas loses his rigidity but not his devotion, which is the thing that is most likely to harm him in the long run. also let's talk about sam! i missed that bitch! at least they let cas talk shit abt dean in his absence. god.

the cut lines are so. i was watching the scene in the car and thinking about the intimacy of it. cas likes past dean. he wants to 2009 dean to ride with him. dean doesn't trust 2014 him, and he doesn't get this cas, but he's looking for context there instead of from himself, bc dean shuts himself out and in (i know your lying expressions ive seen them in the mirror).

overall i feel insane. ben edlund be my best friend im tattooing bedlund 5:4 on my ass

i wish i was smart and could write meta to answer this properly but alas. YES it’s insane like dean at that point has known cas for like a few months, he’s a weird dorky dude, he doesn’t know personal space and they become allies and they start to become friends (let’s not forget the previous episode is free to be you and me where they have their first genuine moment of connection, up to that point they always meet when it’s some big cosmic stuff happening, dean needs cas’ help, cas needs dean to obey heaven’s orders etc they never up to that point spend time together as just friends) AND THEN bam next episode dean sees the worst version of himself (torture? classy) who’s in a horrible toxic relationship (however you interpret the nature of that relationship) with cas and they ruined each others lives but they still won’t be separated. also re the second in command thing, Exactly like cas isn’t in that meeting to help dean, (perhaps this is a bit too dta but i can’t separate it from endverse in my mind now) cas pretends to be the ‘cult leader’ with his psychedelic orgies but it’s dean the ‘fearless leader’, who could kill someone in full view of the camp with nobody even batting an eye, you can bet cas is the Only person in that camp who would to say anything to counter him in that meeting.

i can’t talk about endverse cas at all without it devolving into talking about dta cas so i won’t even try.

and then there’s so much hidden stuff to unpack! ben edlund’s original idea for endverse cas (in a catatonic state sitting in a corner killing and resurrecting a cockroach over and over again), the “what? i love like past you”, THEE cut line (unadorned sincerity) which confirms that cas knew it was a suicide mission and still went along simply because dean asked/told him to. LiTERALLy all they have left is each other (HEAD IN MY HANDS) if dean is going to die why would he want to keep living (sigh. hello mountain goats fandom)

anywaysss if you are interested in more endverse may i suggest a little fic called down to agincourt, the writer sure had a lot of thoughts on the matter :)