#it feels…… contradictory
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(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
#the ipad is dead chat#starlo uty#uty starlo#starlo’s family#it feels…… contradictory#like i don’t think she hates it really but i don’t think she likes it#but solomon says…………. that they don’t hate it????#idk. this is really miniscule and doesn’t actually mean anything probably i just noticed it#OH OH and orion is like. he talks about how starlo gets to do allat while he’s stuck with farm work. and he says he’s considering doing smth#then says ‘i’m not bored. just protecting the family business.’ like ??????????#idk. this is probably irrelevant but i like looking at things as i replay the game#just wait til i get to ceroba’s house guys. just wait.
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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?
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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
#ask#long post#i feel like i should tag for the ask bc it sucks but idk what so like. lmk#gender#trans stuff#i love you language philosophy i love you messy human relationships i love you contradictory identities
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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
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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)
#len speaks#les mis#les misérables#les miserables#les mis 2012#les misérables 2012#les miserables 2012#this is incomprehensible but my feelings on the movie are varied and often contradictory#like the fact that i consider it painfully obvious oscar bait but i still think it should have won more awards <3#tho thank GOD it didn't get nominated for best original song for suddenly bc. Bad. that song is Boring and Bad
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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!
#anecdotes by peachdoxie#i just came from a career seminar and i am feeling very cynical#this is about a specific field i won't mention for privacy ig but I'm sure it's widely applicable#some of this advice felt very contradictory#like how can a resume be so short and yet there's about eight gazillion things you can do to strengthen it#where is it all supposed to go???#no shade meant to the presenter btw she was very nice and informative about how to get jobs in this particular industry#but tee bee aech it is depressing
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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?
#it all feels like narrative manipulation#but it's such a contradictory mess I'm no longer sure what even is the point of this manipulation#bnha#bnha critical#boku no hero academia#league of villains#dabi#shigaraki tomura#toga himiko#bnha spoilers
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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
#pjo#hoo#will solace#hazel levesque#lou ellen blackstone#nico di angelo#katie gardner#kayla knowles#cecil markowitz#my headcanons#i have not posted headcanon lists in like what *seven years* i feel old now but here i have some thoughts#they're random but they're true to me#<- says this but will accept even contradictory headcanons because it's more fun that way#disclaimer that i havent read most of toa yet but i know what happens because idc about spoilers#pjo tag
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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.
#I feel like people sometimes flatten Peter's character#but he's actually so complicated and contradictory#rotating him in a microwave in my head#peter lukas#tma#the magnus archives#tma spoilers#kinda???#rambles
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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.
#sakuverse#zsakuva#zsakuva xanthus#xanthus claiborne#yes i had to reference AQOTWF#the painting wasn't the only thing i discovered while writing#did y'all know that wwi ambience is a thing?? like trench ambience#'cause i didn't. and. idk man that feels a bit contradictory#that's just me though
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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
#lise's aggressively bitchy opinions about irrelevant and unimportant matters#re: lrb if it feels contradictory to my complaining#and also to argue about it not being supported by the text.
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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."
#this is specifically about the people reacting to downfall going WOW WHAT IS TAL DOING WITH MELORA SHE WAS SO SWEET AND KIND#and WOW PELOR USED TO BE SO SWEET??#like no people contain multitudes#and it's common in EVERY FANDOM so I'm not tagging it as a specific fandom#because it feels like characters get sanded down to one or two core traits#and anything not related to that either gets ignored or considered a retcon or the writers/players/actors not knowing the character#like going back to CR i saw some people reacting to Tal's VERY COMPLEX view of ashton's contradictory views on his feelings for fearne#as tal not understanding his own character and i'm like omfg have you never been a self-hating person who wants something they're scared#that they can't have??#are you all seriously just One Thing all the time#LET CHARACTERS HAVE THEIR NUANCE#STOP CLAIMING IT'S OOC OR RETCONNING OR BAD WRITING WHEN A CHARACTER IS COMPLEX#I AM GOING TO EAT A ROCK#this isn't even getting into this with my other fandoms#like oh this character did something shitty one time they are now completely defined by that shitty act#and any further kindness is just trying to cover up the shitty thing they did#how dare they#JUST HHNNGSDHSJKJ I AM SO ANNOYED BY THIS#STOP IT#WHY IS THIS HAPPENING
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me: oh my god izzy dying after he finally got his chance to feel like part of a family and let love into his life is so unfair
also me: the love was still there. it didn't save him but it was there and changing without knowing what the future holds for you is beautiful and brave
#feelings can be contradictory it's okay to feel many ways about this#ofmd#izzy hands#con o'neill#ofmd s2 spoilers
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me and like two other sukuna stans making posts about how miserable he is
#I'd say tragic but I wouldn't go that far... YET#even tho he's already a deeply sad character to me#its almost... all I talk abt here lol#he seems kinda depressed to me idk#you cant really see it when he fights someone but the thing is he's only happy and excited WHEN he fights someone#any other time he's bOred#hes looking for pleasure and fighting gives him that pleasure but its all surface lvl cause once there's no one left to challenge#he's left feeling not only bored but empty...#you can even even see it after he kills jogo#his face is devoid of any emotions and his gaze seems soooo....... empty#only after uraume arrives we can see for the first time a genuine joy on his face#its that connection w another person sukuna not only lacks but actively rejects claiming he doesn't need one#but yet here he is being genuinely happy after seeing uraume#this man is not only contradictory but also in deep DEEP denial#ryomen sukuna#god this got longer than I expected lol#anyway#it’s sukuna angst hrs#I ALWAYS reblog an angsty suku post whenever I find one
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Slcbsks its okay no worries I just wanted to know if there was a fic of it!! I’ve read your other works and gosh darn it they are so good!! Omg embarrassing that I also got the name of the bleeding wires au wrong km😭
Anyway, I hope you’re having a ✨fantastic✨ day!! I hope there will be another part to the drabble!! I wanna know what happens after ✨the kiss✨😩🤌
dw about getting the name wrong, ‘bloodied’ is basically the same as ‘bleeding’ LMAO. also thank you for reading my other works!! it means a lot that you enjoy them so much 💞💞 do u have a particular fav :3 (other than bleeding wires LOL)
im assuming youre talking about that suggestive obedience drabble that ended w a kiss. i wasn’t planning on writing a direct continuation for it tbh LMAO. buttttttt okay ill let you in on a secret on how i imagine it to go since ur so nice <3
sun kisses you and it’s like the entire world freezes. you don’t know how to react—don’t know how to process anything of what you’re feeling. the frigidity of the room along your bare skin. the way his hand grips at your side squeezing squeezing squeezing. the intensity with which he presses the lines of his static smile against your mouth.
it—you recognize faintly—is a bit like pressing your lips against a wall. immovable. there is no motion, no push and pull, give and take. there is only him, him him him. pressing down onto you. holding you. letting you feel the gentle vibrations in his chassis, the almost violent whirring of his fans. you feel like you’ve been coated in static, numb and distantly tingly. you have to suppress a shiver.
and beyond the buzzing emptiness of your brain, the shock and surprise of what is now happening—it clicks that sun is kissing you.
the same sun who makes jabs at humanity more often than is comfortable. who criticizes you from time or time or gives you backhanded compliments. who bothers you even if you don’t feel like talking. who tells you about all the nitty gritty thoughts he has. who looks down at all that you are and doesn’t really see you, you think, past your blood and flesh and bones. who has never shown an ounce of interest in you in this manner.
(you don’t realize that he has been showing interest, all this time. he just never realized it himself, never quite processed that certain actions he has taken is his way of showing he actually… likes you. more so than others.
and you were just too unused to his quirks and particulars to be able to properly read him.)
and you are so, so confused.
you’d just wanted to poke back at him, for his stupid experiment he said he was conducting. that’s what you tell yourself—incessantly in your mind, repeating it over and over until it seems less like a lie. you wanted to see if there was anything past that complex he wears like some kind of thick skin. you never.... you never imagined things would come to this. you are afraid of what it means, deep down.
and so, you reach your hands up to his chassis, and give him a gentle push back.
it's like he has to tear himself away, staring down at you with pupils that have dilated so much, it's like there are full moons in his eyes. your gaze flicks across his faceplate, analyzing.
"sun," you say quietly, your lips numb. that's all it takes.
he steps back—abrupt and sharp—the rays along his faceplate twitching and stuttering. his hand snaps away from your side like it has been burned, and you can see the way his gaze darts about. like he is a cornered animal, confused and startled.
"friend, i—" he starts, then forcefully stops. his hand clutches at the front of his chassis for a moment, scrambling for something you're not sure he has. he shakes his head, minute, then turns his back to you.
"your shift is over," he says, oddly stilted. something sinks, deep within your chest. "put your clothes back on and get out."
and then he leaves. you can only stand there, getting steadily colder and colder, your heart a jumbled mess.
#star gazing with shay#a nonny mouse#bleeding wires au#i like to imagine tht during arc1 sun actually shows u quite a bit of kindness at times#he brushes it off of course and so do u#but he just has these instances where he's soft with u in particular--waaaay down the line#and then he realizes one day and hes like why am i like this? why do i keep thinking about u like this?#and of course comes to the wrong conclusion#<- that may be a bit contradictory to stuff ive said before for this au but i think sprinkling in some nice moments at the plex#is better so that reader can like... have a bit of a soft spot for him? like their exchanges cant all be passive aggressive all the time yk#maybe you have a hard time with a parent and sun swoops in to help you#or maybe you stick up for sun to someone who doesnt believe he's sentient#and it just builds up and up and up for sun until he catches feels for u--but he doesnt know it and misinterprets it#cuz he's bad with emotions#and poor u... u dont realize he's down bad for u until it's too late
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"consent is the sexiest thing ever" -dude who doesn't even care to respect someone's boundaries online
#ran into plenty of people who don't care and yknow whatever. ppl online will do stuff#but these two things combined feels so contradictory
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(idk if anyone wants to keep hearing my opinions on totk book stuff but-)
apparently it says that rauru DID have kids, multiple even, which yeah... is kinda necessary for zelda to even be connected to them so much so that sonia can SENSE a blood connection (which, even with all the excuses with magic, is just a little too far for me to suspend my disbelief bc its over, OVER, ten thousand years worth of generations that seperate her from them that one lil touch of the hand can sense that (feels more like an attempt to make you care about them or .. see them as zeldas "better" parents just bc they exchange a few nice words, i never got the feeling they were 'better' parents and its also kinda disrespectful to her actual parents, like sure rhoam wasnt the best but i wouldnt call rauru better just bc he was polite)- i could see maybe the light power of hylia or sth but since its the coolest dude that ever lived rauru now that had it which still doesnt make sense and makes me unreasonably annoyed and she can sense BOTH of their powers in her? nah) the fact theres NOTHING about them in the game itself is just so ... no way they planned any of this
i dont think theres anything they can do or say that wont make be believe they either
are making it up alla 'fix it in post' mentality trying to hastily explain stuff the game never bothers to do to try and appease fans or let it appear as if they thought about it at all
something went really REALLY wrong during development, which kinda seems likely given how the game turned out (im sorry i cannot let go, its not just the writing, the game design too and how little was changed in the map while being so damn expensive, i dont know how people dont feel scammed q_q)
given that they (allegedly) spent the last entire year of development on polish (where??? where????? huh??? like it would make it more understandable (EXCEPT for the price) if there was alot of trouble, which was also bc it got delayed and ... turned out like this, but they dont want to say it, especially given their reputation, with that quote i have heard way too many times 'a delayed game blah blah') i just??
are they just gonna go and do it like they did with kashiwa (kass)? "they uuuh where flying around the whole time ony cool sonau tech maschines, you just dont see or hear from them ooooorrr they were uuuuh out of the country at the time" (sending invitations to other continents to join their glorious kingdom ;) )
(bet they are also gonna say they did all the stuff like ... moving the shrines around (lol?) and lifting the islands up into the sky- which is still weird bc ... didnt they also say they were living in the sky before coming to the surface?? so where?? did they park all their islands on the surface and the mystery kids had the keys so they had to repark them back into the sky after they returned off camera?? xD also why are the islands so different as an environment if they where from the surface? like even the STONE up there is different- and if they were first in the sky then on the surface and the nback in the sky .. why is there not a single yellow tree or grass in the past- you cant really argue that it changed bc they were up there so long bc .. nothing else changed, the suddendly and totally always there sonau buildings are largely in prime condition, only some slightly moldy, and what we see of the glorious past looks barely any different from the present, aside from like ... some standard trees shuffled, no castle yet and that glowy uwu filter DESPITE that stupidly long time frame between it)
#ganondoodles talks#zelda#ganondoodles rants#idk if others feel like that too but i cant shake the feeling there was something that either went horribly wrong during development-#-or the entire thing was neglected the whole time which is why its so .. i hesitate to even call it bare bones#...which is WILD given that its the supposed sequel to their best seeling zela game#like wtf where you doing#i get that the pressure can be immense but imo it wasnt that hard to make a sequel to thats better than totk#like i think it was harder to make totk like it is NOW bc it scraps and throws away so many things you could have easily used-#-as sequel material#its all so weird to me#my tin foil hat theory is still that they saw the success of the mario movie and immediately shifted everything to make more movies#bc it made so much money#and a movie is easier to make than a good game#so totk or botw2 at the time got the short end of the stick#which is why everything feels like .. so ... bare bones .. untested .. unfinished .. non sensical...#like an alpha build that got enough visual polish to look like a full game when its still an alpha build at its core#some main ideas like the abilities implemented and the basic map layers#mechanics functioning but untested on how it feels to play#like the sage controls and arrow fusing and ... contradictory game mechanics that dont work together#like the bulding WORKS but its clunky and underused- everything can be cheated so easily you dont even feel good cheating-#-bc it feels like the teacher just allowed you to mark your test with a green circle and you still got an A (or however USA grades work)#despite not even reading the questions- why attempt to solve a puzzle if you can just skip it#and how they tell you to be creative with it yet creativity gets punished and only efficiency is rewarded#which completely undermines the entire thing#...theres so much more you know i have ranted about it all before#ALSO rauru and sonia seemed like a rather newly wed couple to me- not one that had multiple kids that never appear-#since it only mentions rauru ..... if its only his then ... that doesnt explain anything bc zelda needs both sonia and rauru dna#................do sonau leave eggs to incubate somewhere heavenly or sth#watch out the springs where built to hatch rauru eggs bc they need the gods holy blessing bc they are oh so holy to hatch
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