#it feels…… contradictory

[sixoclocker]

(sorry for the bad quality)

(for those who can’t see what it says, here:

first photo: “I do hope Starlo grows out of this state eventually.”

second photo: “He neees to find himself a wife and settle down.”)

i can’t find solomon’s dialogue but do yall ever think about this. and how solomon says something like “i think he thinks we hate what he’s doing, but that’s just not true”

like hm. hmmmmmmmmmmm. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[meticulousmaker]

another random thing that stands out to me rewatching Steven Universe as an adult:

throughout the show there's this clear Vibe that Steven has inherited some big magical destiny, right? and it makes sense narratively: he's the son of Rose Quartz, leader of the rebellion, now being raised by her friends who were the last remaining survivors of an interstellar war. he's like a human child in most ways, except he has magical powers that start to become more obvious as he's getting older. no one like him has ever existed before. it's a big deal. raising him and figuring out how he's going to grow is its own unique challenge, because nobody knows what to expect. so of course there's this magical destiny vibe, given all that.

What's interesting to me, though, is that this magical destiny is in no way literally, physically present in the story, it's just something everyone kinda feels. Like, there's not some ancient prophecy about a half-gem, half-human savior. He's not the Chosen One in any literal sense, he just happens to give off Chosen One vibes. And I say that's interesting because it means that the fact he was kinda raised with this Chosen One vibe is completely a decision everyone around him made, for better or for worse. And the show is aware of this, because the weight of Rose's legacy and everyone's expectations of him is a constant theme, and as Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all grow and develop, they also realize the downsides of them putting those expectations on a child. Like, Steven spends his whole childhood being told about how great Rose was, and how because he's inherited her gem he will probably inherit her powers - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Imagine how awful things could have been if Steven had no exposure to the Gems and no knowledge of what they were or how they worked, and then his powers started coming in? It was hard enough even when he was surrounded by the most qualified Gem Experts on Earth. But being primed for all of this "you're going to have your mother's magical powers" stuff put a heavy weight on his shoulders, and then the fact that nobody else quite knew how his abilities worked meant he was constantly faced with the adults in his life looking to him with concern because they didn't know what was happening with him. That's gotta leave an impression on a kid - and, well, throughout the show and especially in SU Future we definitely see that it does.

I like the way the show handles the pressure that's put on him, and the fact that everyone is just... trying their best in a completely unprecedented situation. Nobody knows what to do or how to raise this kid, and that inevitably causes problems but everyone is trying. And Steven can feel that everyone is trying without knowing what to do and he just wants to help and not be a burden and none of his caretakers have said that he's a burden but he can feel everyone's confusion and concern and the expectations he's not living up to and he cares so much, about everyone, about everything. He's in an extremely unique position that grants him opportunities to help that nobody else has, and he feels like he's failing everyone if he can't fulfill that, and in the end it never should have been his job to fix things but somebody had to try. Somebody had to try, and he was one of the only people with the ability to stop the Diamonds, stop the war, stop the lies, stop his world and everyone on it from being destroyed... and he was just a kid.

[hyperfixate-on-ninjas]

‘The lore doesn’t make sense anymore.’

Shut up. This is Ninjago. The lore was pulled out of Tommy Andreason’s ass. Get comfy.

[mr-weirdo-mcgee]

Things that can co-exist

Straight trans men, who hate when transphobes say they're a lesbian. & Lesbian trans men who hate people pushing them out of the label.

Lesbians talking about how bad comphet is. & Lesboys. Just like ..existing. (maybe surprising to you but lesboys can complain about comphet)

Lesbians talking about gross men who are trying to flirt with them by insisting that lesbians don't exist and insist they're bi or multisexual in general because they can't accept lesbians exist & Mspec lesbians.

[officialspec]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

first off i hate this ask and i think youre a freak. in any other world i wouldve blocked you for this but unfortunately for both of us i actually like this type of philosophy. dont send this shit to anyone else though

i dont think its right to compare human sexuality to the same thing in animals, to get that out of the way. im sure until a certain point it comes from the same biological impulses, but human beings have way more complicated social structures and reasons for coupling that just do not exist in other animals. our social behaviours are what make us unique in the animal kingdom and that definitely extends to gender and sexuality. so theres that

people love to tout 'gender is a social construct' around like its a criticism in and of itself, which i think betrays a misunderstanding about social constructs in general. theyre the foundations we build language on to better understand each other, and affected by a whole host of cultural and historical factors. just because theyre subjective and complicated doesnt mean they arent real. in terms of the effect they have on peoples lives they may be the most real thing that exists

for example, 'kindness' is a social construct. the definition and ways it is enacted differ greatly across personal and cultural lines. but no one would ever suggest a world where kindness doesnt exist or loses meaning, because its an essential part of the way we interact with each other (in the same way i dont really see a world where gender entirely ceases to exist, mainly just one where people have more fun with it. im not a psychic though so who knows)

similarly, sexuality in humans is another social construct. i think the driving biological forces behind it are very real, but the labels people attach to those impulses are subjective attempts to express their inner world to the people around them if that makes sense. and those same biological impulses are ALSO subject to social ideas of gender, because those ideas are established at birth and reinforced over a persons entire lifetime

to use myself as an example, im a gay trans man. ive identified as other things in the past, because i was trying to pick apart feelings i had and express them to others in an attempt to find community. my identity might change as i get older and experience new things, or it might not. i identify as gay because im not attracted to the social concept of women, and someone i would otherwise be attracted to might lose all appeal after i find out they fall under that concept (this has happened before w transfems pre and post coming out lol)

of course, the real REAL answer to this is that trying to give queer identities rigid and objective definitions is a fools errand, and also lame as fuck. someone might identify as gay and be more attracted to general masculinity than men as a social category, maybe they fool around with a couple of butch women without considering themself any less gay. two otherwise identical people might be a butch lesbian and a gay trans man without either of those identities coming into conflict. they might even be the same person at different times of the week

the labels people choose to use are communication tools, not objective signifiers. if you dont understand them, they probably arent talking to you

social constructs are everything. we as humans have the unique ability to interpret our own messy desires and impulses into words that other people can use to form an idea of someone else in their mind. its how we build connections, and of course it isnt perfect because trying to squeeze someones entire personal history and the centuries of context that defined it into a handful of syllables is going to leave some room for error. but its all we have, yknow? so we keep trying. and i think thats much more human than any imposed objective 'truth' could ever be

tldr we live in a society dipshit. get with it

[some-zer0]

Peter's statement in TMA 159 is so interesting to me cause of how aware he is of sociopolitical issues in it: he's actually really well-spoken when it comes to explaining how he chose his tenants, and how their traits (namely, most being white) contributed to the ritual failing, despite the fact that he's a literal embodiment of the concept of loneliness. But, like, that's really just the core of Peter's character, isn't it? I mean, he says it himself -- he can only feel forsaken if he's aware of the society that he's forsaken from, so of course he would be knowledgeable about sociopolitical exclusion. And that deep contradiction adds so much to him as a character, especially because he himself is an extremely privileged person.

[calware]

headcanons on who would have kids

june: i don't think she'd have kids, she feels more like an aunt to me that lets her nieces and nephews stay up past their bedtimes. that said i am so intrigued by the concept of everyone being gods that are centuries-old and virtually detached from their humanity and she snatches a random kid. and everyone is like june you can't. you can't do that. put it back

rose: i don't think she would have kids 😔 she feels SOOOOO GUILTY about it too because she feels like she's Supposed to have a kid and is Supposed to be a good mother to like, prove something, or make up for her own childhood, but she just can't. i think if she did have kids she would be one of those moms who loves their kid and takes care of them and provides for them but still regrets it and hates herself for regretting it. she likes helping with kids though

dave: depends on the scenario honestly there are so many ways this could go

jade: i think she would have kids, i imagine she ends up like a grandmother with 100 grandkids lol. they all get together for big family reunions with lots of food and warm rooms and laughter and music

jane: LOL no

roxy: i also don't think she would want kids, i think this is something she would realize later in life, maybe even after having a kid

dirk: allergic to the idea of having a kid so so bad. despite this he cannot help but unwillingly end up as some kid's mentor/guardian/pseudo father-figure because he's cursed. with a support group he's okay though once he chills out for 2 seconds

jake: take a wild guess

karkat: doesn't decide to have kids but he somehow ends up taking care of like 5 random ones. where did they come from? maybe they were adopted. maybe they all started following him around and never left. maybe they were all left at his front door in a milk crate. either way, they're his responsibility now. he's not the stepfather, he's the father that Stepped Up

kanaya: i also don't think she would have kids but i do think she would be very involved with kids. i like the idea of her working with grubs in the brooding caverns before they find families/communities/lusii/etc to take them in. or a short-term foster parent. again i'd like to think rose helps her with this

terezi: realistically i cannot see her raising a child by herself unless it's in a very comical context like the paradox space comics, which i imagine would be VERY entertaining from an outsider's perspective. terezi teaching a baby legal jargon. terezi wearing those baby carriers that you strap to your chest while careening down the interstate. terezi fingerpainting with a baby, but she's picking up the baby and using it like a baby-shaped paintbrush

vriska: 😬

gamzee: he's already kind of calliope's dad? in a way

[hickeygender]

enjoying 2012 les mis is like. yes i love parts of it. yes aspects of it are absolutely sinful and straight up bad. the acting is terrific. the singing is dogshit (please give jackman a glass of water) except when it verges on angelic (redmayne, barks, and seyfried). the casting is iconic (blagden served cunt for his .2 seconds of screentime and barks is legendary). who let tom hooper direct this (it was mackintosh (derogatory)). why did they cut parts of the songs only to ADD an entire new number. would i recommend watching it? absolutely. should it be your first exposure to les mis? absolutely NOT. was it mine? you know it babes! is it the most well known/popular/easiest version to find? again, yes, but i'm begging you on hands and knees to watch it live or find a bootleg or the 25th anniversary concert or ANYTHING else as an introduction or i promise that the version of the musical that burns itself into your memory will include ugly singing (i speak from experience)

[peachdoxie]

Your resume should include any relevant work experience and skills you have and it's good to include your volunteer work and internships (ideally four of them) as well as your multiple graduate degrees and the certifications you've earned during the process, and also your resume can only be one page in a font that's easy to read. This field is hard to break into because we have a lot of applicants for not a lot of openings and we'll keep them open for years until we find the perfect candidate. A great way to distinguish yourself is by taking any adjacent job you can find even if it means you have to work two or three part time jobs to make ends meet until a new opening is made. It's also good to tailor your resume to the companies and jobs you're applying for so that they know you researched the role and didn't send out mass applications, and oh, I highly, highly recommend that you keep your resume updated and a digital copy on hand so that you can email it to people at a moment's notice because it's good to keep an eye out for opportunities as they come up. Everyone around you has a master's degree and it's basically the new bachelor's and a PhD is the new master's and we really like seeing several years of work experience because there's a lot of stuff you can't learn in a classroom setting. It's a great field and I love working in it and you should pursue it if you're passionate about it!

[haine-kleine]

The fact is, had the League and especially the LOV trio started trauma dumping on each other, by the war arc they would have been undefeatable.

And now that we are at the finishing line of the story, it's starting to stand out as a fairly odd fact that they hadn't. The culmination of all three's stories was the part about unblocking their tragic backstories, and the heroes being the ones to hear those backstories first is kind of. Weird? You could argue that Shigaraki, Dabi and Toga weren't particularly inclined to open up about their past, but wasn't the entire point of LOV being a place where all the members felt accepted, when their previous environments never allowed them to feel this way?

The story takes so much time to explain this fact in great detail but then becomes short-sighted when it comes to LOV's actual relationships with each other and always jumps to the 'they are villains' point. Sure, they are, but they are also human individuals, who have spent around a year being extremely close in conditions that naturally encourage bonding. They didn't commit crime 24/7 and it's not like they stood around AFK the rest of the time when they weren't actively breaking law lol. All of them save for Shigaraki could have left at any moment, but they didn't, even when they became homeless and had to go on the run, even when Shigaraki's life became a non-stop battle with Gigantomachia, no one exhibited any desire to leave the League despite the fact Shigaraki had never forced anyone to stay. They were loyal to him, and to each other. The friendship was there. The trust. They even had time at their disposal.

So why is it the ones who get to hear their stories and sympathize for the first time are the hero kids, literally minutes before their deaths?

[thorntopieces]

assorted pjo/hoo headcanons

part 1 - part 2

autistic!will. i mean. i was one of the first people to write it (and post it on ao3, but i had stuff about it on my long gone old blog before then). this is true. to me. it's not incredibly obvious unless you know what you're looking for because 99% of the time he's eloquent and very passionate and maybe it's just the hyper healer in him and he'd like to think he passes well. but for people who know they can just tell. it's the voice, man /gn. gives you away every time /lh

pots!hazel. she ends up (mostly!) recovering from the fainting episodes associated with her flashbacks but still faints and feels unwell a lot of the time. she spends a lot of her energy and magic on staying conscious and aware, leaving her foggy and with flare-ups. will ends up diagnosing her half-way on accident during the three days nico stays in the infirmary. she doesn't faint a lot, but she will frequently have her vision black out when she stands and feel nauseous if she has to stand still for more than ten minutes (more or less depending on the day). together with jason and nico the three of them make up the fainting trio

reyna speaks excessively formally and politely when she's uncomfortable and the moment she feels safe around you she will just loosen up completely. it becomes very clear very quickly how much of her time is spent being uncomfortable

genderfluid!lou ellen. most of the time she's happy to be referred to as a girl, but some days it just feels wrong and she prefers to be referred to either gender-neutrally or masculinely. it's not something she's out about to anyone but her closest friends, partially because there's kind of enough stigma around being the child of hecate and also, it's not all that obvious, even to her.

nico is a bit like a social interaction vampire. he's not as shut off as others seem to think, he just needs to be given explicit permission to talk about his interests because he's worried about annoying other people, especially after bianca essentially abandoned him. he could talk for hours and hours about his special interests (because yes, he's probably autistic too) like mythomagic (he picks it up again with percy's encouragement), ancient languages and literature

will and katie (gardner) friendship. they bond over liking star wars and when lou ellen join their circle she manipulates the mist to recreate scenes from the movies. as she gets better at it she manages to make the light sabers glow, much to will and katie's delight

after the battle of manhattan and will/kayla/austin almost dying from being overworked, the camp gets together with mr d and chiron without the apollo kids' knowledge and figure out how to run the infirmary in a more sustainable way than just forcing apollo and athena kids to be there. eventually they settle on apollo kids doing 8-hour shifts but none at night unless someone is severely wounded. for the night shift, other campers work in rotating pairs where one sleeps for the first four hours and the other for the last four hours. a lot more campers gain appreciation for the amount of work the apollo (and athena) cabin put in to keep them alive and healthy and the apollo cabin doesn't die of burnout

t1 diabetic!kayla. she's been sick with it since she was six, but thanks to having a very supportive dad and a team of professionals around him considering his status as an olympic archer, her condition is well-managed (most of the time, war time is unpredictable) and she knows how to treat and manage it considering her demigod lifestyle. accompanying headcanon to this: while ambrosia and nectar is mostly to heal injuries and wounds of a divine and/or serious nature, it can short-term manage blood sugar. mortal intervention is always needed to fix the problem though. a bit like how narcan delays but can't entirely fix an opioid overdose

cecil wasn't properly accepted as a child of hermes at first considering he didn't express exceptional skills at the more obvious and everyday traits associated with the cabin (multilingualism, athleticism, thievery). first when he was found to accidentally being an exceptional saboteur was he properly accepted by the rest of his siblings. due to this he tended to hang out with the unclaimed children in the hermes cabin rather than his own siblings, especially lou ellen

hjs!cecil (hypermobile joint syndrome; double-jointedness). he's not good with most physical activities because of this and easily discouraged to even attempt most sports due to how his cabin alienated him for not being exceptionally agile, a trait associated with their cabin. it's not uncommon for his wrists and ankles to not work well (such as the twisted ankle in boo). however, he feels like he "compensates" for this by working in the shadows. when properly encouraged and supported, he prefers fighting with knives (close combat or throwing), relying on being obnoxious to throw the enemy off

[pareidolla]

i've been thinking a little about the belief that true freedom can only be found in isolation. reasonably, you can do whatever you want when not constrained by laws or the public eye. yet, without limitations, what's the point of doing anything? it's connection which give you purpose and it's other people who define your reality.

and, where the princess is imprisonment, i think abt how the long quiet represents freedom. without the narrator imposing his limitations, tlq can accomplish whatever he wants if he believes himself capable. according to the shifting mound, even after escaping from her shackles, the princess recognizes, if subconsciously, that the long quiet is a gateway to her freedom.

and then i think abt cold. and i think about how he wants us to do whatever we please without fretting over emotions or morals. the long quiet is Nothing, but the only way for him to encompass Nothing is through isolation. to be freed of the princess who gives him shape.

and cold helps you but at the same time he urges you to chase new sensation because even then he represents longing. he uniquely understands the princess's since he, too, has spent an eternity in the cabin, and he longs for connection with her. to feel anything other than oneself. it's not only rage and sorrow he hopes to repress but Love.

and then i think abt the new ending. how if you choose again and again to choose cruelty, to deny your connection with the princess and slay the shifting mound then you'll lose the voices along with her. true freedom at the expense of losing the sums which makes you You. is this anything

[soscarlett1twas]

Dulce et Decorum est

↳ Xanthus serves in World War I. ↳ 2.4k words / also available on ao3! ↳ This fic is far from accurate to the actual Ypres Salient. I wanted to explore Xanthus' mentality as he canonically served in WWI. So, while I did some research, most of this fic is inspired by wartime poetry, particularly 'In Flanders Field' by John McCrae and both 'Dulce et Decorum est' and ‘Exposure’ by Wilfred Owen. Also! I discovered this painting while writing that's basically the exact setting of the fic. ↳ Content warning for blood, disease, guns, and (specifically trench) warfare.

It was hard to believe that, even in the midst of war, silence could envelope the world. Thick layers of it painted the Ypres Salient, as disturbing as the starless midnight it shared the hour with. Not the skuttle of a rat, not grass in a breeze. Death, it seemed, had a way of silencing. 

For all intents and purposes, it was all quiet on the Western front. 

Xanthus didn’t trust it one bit. 

How could he trust the very thing he cheated? His eyes drifted across no-man’s land, the scorched earth left by the Germans, with a tremble he hadn’t felt since his first time serving in the British army. Fog obscured the skyline. Corpses of trees barely stood, crooked and black. For as far as he could see, there was no green. Just the torn-up dirt and puddles of not-quite water. 

Xanthus’ grip tightened on the rifle. His nails were bitten to the quick. 

His gaze never left the scene. Even from the shallow view allotted to him by the firestep, shadows and whispers danced, him a beat behind their rhythm. They would disappear as soon as he glanced at them, then reappear in the peripheral gloom. Still, he chased them, eyes darting from ghost to ghost.  

War, it seemed, had a way of invoking paranoia. 

Xanthus’ trench was along the front lines, and he, given the honor of being on nightwatch during the tense time. Just two years ago, Ypres had been fought for again, and the Entente had lost. Badly. The Germans overran the old British and French trenches which had cleaved into their conquered territory, the Allies calling upon their own for assistance. Canadians, Indians, Algerians, and Moroccans now fought for a war forced upon them, the same way Belgians had to step up and defend Ypres as the Germans marched ever-forward. 

New allies were not the only introductions during the second fight for Ypres. Chlorine gas had swept through the battle and choked out countless men. 

Apparently, that wasn’t enough. 

Xanthus’ gaze flitted back down to the ground. Glass pools replicated the hell above. Swirled in them, the only color was a murky red from the slaughter of soldiers. It was an easy trick. But below, sunk to the bottom of the mixture, was a colorless poison. They had all thought it to be the same as the chlorine; when the smell was faint of mustard and men didn’t immediately drop, they even spat about how the Germans were growing weak.

It took a few hours for the effects to set in. 

Xanthus darted his sights back up to the wasteland. He had known better than to trust hope – the Americans had joined the war not long ago, and the news managed to enhearten some, but not Xanthus. This was penance for that longing for a better future. 

Even still. Xanthus Claiborne: A murderer, an unnatural; and Lawrence Claiborne, the soldier. All his duplicities should have shielded him from this horror. All it managed was to kill his dreams – war was still carnage, and for as much as he could pretend he was distanced from it, bloodbaths would still reflect his face when he bore down on murdered men.  

When the men in his regiment blistered and screamed and died, Xanthus knew that this was a new evil. 

The rifle shook in his hands. Pointed out into the graveyard of a clearing, Xanthus’ memories reminded him of just how futile the gun was. Not when the gas wiped them out. Not when it still lingered.

Xanthus’ teeth bit into his bottom lip, for a moment forgetting his fangs. 

Xanthus had survived the chlorine’s initial deployment, back in 1915. His healing worked wonders in keeping him alive, if incapacitated. The same happened with the new mustard gas. He hid the blistering well enough so as to not alert suspicions, and they dissipated within the day. Most everyone else had dropped like bullet shells. 

But this gas remained. Not just in the soldier’s bodies – it polluted all water and sunk into the dirt. The other faded, but this time, standing in the dug-out trench, the smell and chemicals never wafted away.

Even with each hollow breath he took, Xanthus could smell, could taste, the abomination. And even with his miraculous healing, it was a cancer. His eyes burned. Blisters he thought were gone popped up across his body in changing places. A cough clawed up his throat (he feared his lungs were regularly filling with fluid, then draining, then refilling – a vicious cycle which murdered the rest). 

He was nothing more than an animated corpse, and for the first time in these long centuries, he felt like it.

Xanthus’ rifle loosened in his hands. He scrunched his eyes and drew one hand up to massage his temples. Memories of medical bays fueled his mind. “The lucky one,” they all said. They weren’t all from the Great War. 

For a few more minutes, he stood, gun propped on the parapet. But marionettes could only dance around him for so long. A trickle of sweat ran from his forehead to jowl. 

He knew they were not coming. The silence echoed back. He did not trust it. 

When he jerked to the side, dangerously slinging the gun as well, he collapsed back into the trench.

A sight of mud turned to gray. The small enclave he used for nightwatch was nothing more than piled stones, but a respite nonetheless. 

Xanthus sat for a few moments, heaving. When his gun dropped and rattled to the floor, he grunted, and slammed his knuckles into the bricks. Hot pain instantly rushed from his shaking hands and he watched, in more agony than the impact, as the wounds healed over. Surfaced blood streaked, but dried in mere seconds. 

His breath was ragged. He shoved his fist into the stone, over and over again. 

This war was an assault on all senses, Xanthus thought as he brutalized himself. Sure, the smell and the taste and the sight, but by God, it was the hearing that came first. How ironic that now it was peaceful, now there was quietude, after the dread took its strongest. 

Where was it when Xanthus stood, more attuned than anyone, to the rattle of gunfire and men screaming? Rushing across no-man’s land left him able to hear out to the German trenches and everything between. He simply had to suffer it. And where was it when he laid at night, a being without need of sleep, but desperate for it so he could drown out the tanks and the roaring aviation? When he heard the few friends he made hearts stop pumping? 

Where was it when Xanthus turned his rifle on an ear, and shot the organ clean off? 

And where was it when it, after he blamed it on battle, regrew in four months?

Xanthus’ thrusts into the wall slowed, his hand going limp and running down the bricks, until it rested beside him. 

It didn’t matter. He could not get hurt, not in a meaningful way. He could already feel the wounds closing, the battery insignificant. 

He threw his head against the stone wall carelessly. 

The flesh stitched itself back together in the passing minutes. Meanwhile, Xanthus fueled his disquiet with memory. 

Lawrence had known war. But it was never this, never all-encompassing; there was, after all, a world beyond England and Scotland during the Second Bishop’s War. Xanthus, it seemed, did not – or at least, not the stratagem of modern warfare. He had followed the stepping stones, ignorant until they dropped, himself caught in the freefall. 

A cough ground up his throat, and bile rose with it. 

He had witnessed humanity’s descent – ascent? – into this madness. Hell, he was older than the country his fellow soldiers lauded as their savior. And yet he was here, with them. Suffering, dying in the great quiet, knived by the mental games their very species played. 

Because the gas was a game. Its purpose was the tricks, deployed with shells that broke into a giggling hiss. 

War could not kill Xanthus. But it could do everything else.

When his fist curled, the nails bent into his palm. Briefly, he panicked without the familiar weight of a gun. He snatched it off the ground and brought it to his chest.

He had never expected to truly be hurt, to be affected. But in their efforts to decimate each other, they managed to even wound immortality. A vampire reduced to human fears, because of humans, without the possible human release. 

In some small way, Xanthus felt human. Artificially – their misery, their desires, fitting for a finite life. He knew it was a false mirage. But still, he reached for his gun in comfort, as if his teeth weren’t markers of a much more vicious retribution. 

He hated it. 

He fucking hated it. 

Finally, he and his kind were welcomed back into ‘personhood’ – not because they were deemed more acceptable or humanity grew collective empathy, but because even humans stooped to their level: fodder. 

The vast silence was cut with bitter laughter. 

Subconsciously, Xanthus curled into himself as the laughter turned to coughing. He forced himself to swallow down the mucus. The rifle sat between his legs, pointed upwards, with his hands clenched to it. 

As his fit died down, he rested his forehead on the warm metal. 

And the silence was back, as deafening as ever. 

Except for the heartbeat. 

Xanthus didn’t move his head, but slit an eye open to watch the opposing side of the trench. The beat was coming from inside it – not an enemy – but there was no due for a guard switch. 

A man stumbled around the corner. His pulse was faint, barely a whisper – more powerful was the sound of liquid sloshing in his lungs. Sucker-like sores grew along his arms and chest. His wool coat was unbuttoned and rolled up to the elbows, and he wore no hat. 

He paid Xanthus no mind as he crept forward, walking like it was his first day out of the womb. With too hard of a sway, he collapsed against the wall opposite of Xanthus and sunk to the floor. His eyes remained, though bleary, attached to the sky. 

Closer, the rush of blood echoed. Xanthus’ tongue flicked across a fang. 

It had been so long. He’d staved off desiccating with enemy soldiers or, when in a ward, blood saved for transfusions. He hadn’t properly feeded since his conscription. As if answering his thoughts, the hunger struck, a well in his stomach. 

The man’s chest heaved, face still upwards. 

He would die anyway. 

Xanthus shifted off the firestep slowly so as to not start him. His movements drawled with a predator’s muscle-memory, though more ridge with the discipline of a soldier. 

He drew to the man. It was only when he towered over him, rubies starch in the darkness, that the man looked at him. 

“Hello,” he muttered. It would’ve been unintelligible to anyone else. 

What happened next was methodical. The vampire slid down to his level and applied weight to the others hands, constricting him. His knee buckled on the other’s leg. He leaned forward, and with a swift motion, released his arms (only now did he drop the gun), hands jerking to maneuver his neck as he bared fangs. They sank into the skin with ease. 

It was bitter, he instantly noticed. The blood pumped lazily, carrying with it the poison which seeped into his skin. Despite his own cyclical conditions, Xanthus pressed on, refusing to let his only meal waste away. 

Naturally, the man resisted. He was weak. His burned arms tried to push the vampire’s away, off his neck, though managed nary a scratch. His legs bobbed. His neck strained. Still, it was futile to Xanthus. 

The man continued to mutter to himself. Xanthus pressed on. 

Even as the blood replenished him, it was sickening – he was starved and drank like it, but it was a drunken haze brought on by spoiled wine. Xanthus doubted he’d ever willingly eat mustard again. 

Just as he was about to break for air, the man’s fingers threaded into Xanthus’ hair. For some odd reason, it eased him out of the spur, as his fangs gently retracted. Both of their breaths heaved off-sync. Xanthus was still so close, the heat he expelled onto the man ricocheted back to him. 

The vampire tilted his head slightly, glancing up through mangey threads of hair. Playing on the man’s face, in the depths of night, was the hint of a smile.

His lips still moved, though silently now; Xanthus still recognized their shape. A common soldier’s prayer, said by those dying or over the beds of those who were. 

He didn’t understand it, not until the man looked down at him. With a bleeding neck and a shattered voice, he made a sound below silence, the illusion of words more than anything – “Thank you, sweet angel.”

His fingers stayed soft in his hair. 

“You have come to save me. I am welcomed into His kingdom.” A wiry grin now broke across his face, peeling the skin taut. He was missing a front tooth.

He thought Xanthus was saving him. That he was an angel, ready to take him to Heaven. To his God. Away from hell on earth. 

For a heartbeat, Xanthus could not move. He suddenly felt carved out, nothing but bones and skin. 

There were memories of another dying soldier-boy, the wound-up toy which had marched itself right into the tinderbox. For glory. For God. 

And he remembered his death. Another soul believing they were being saved, only to be taken advantage of by a vampire. 

And it was that thought which frightened him the most. 

If you could believe it, the soldier’s heartbeat slowed even more. Yet in his eyes, the dullness now shone without dust – not reflecting the monotonous shattering of a psyche, but heavy with the need of sleep. He was so close to it. 

Xanthus could become Audric. To ‘save’ as many as he could from this war, only to force them into a future more brutal than anyone could dream. 

So instead, Xanthus gave him what he wanted – what they both wanted. He could not tell which side of him it belonged to, if there was anything truly mortal or supernatural about mercy. 

A soft lullaby drifted from his lips, a soothing command. And the man closed his eyes and mouth, relaxing into Xanthus, like a child in his mothers arms.

The blood stayed warm, even as a body turned to a corpse. And Xanthus, who could do nothing but remain, drank. 

[veliseraptor]

the thing is that i do firmly believe that people have a right to their interpretation of a text and to do as they please with it, i just also have a right to find their interpretation/what they choose to do with it really fucking annoying

[gothcsz]

damn unscripted desire is lowkey doing numbers…. *goes into hiding*

[grayintogreen]

Respectfully, but a character can be and SHOULD BE allowed to be more than one thing without it being considered "contradictory", "retconning," or "negative character development."