#it turned out the guy had died about a year prior to my seeing him

[bootwearingfairy]

Not me getting emotional cause my coworkers remembered I wanted to try one of the cool bagels they were getting today on the other side of the state.

Man.

[strangersteddierthings]

My Default's Self-Destruct (Oh, I'm Not Used to Normal)

@nburkhardt, this ones for you, since you've been so excited and patient! Title from Jillian Rossi's Not Used to Normal.

-

There is a doctor in his room, explaining the extent of his injuries to him and his uncle but Eddie quit listening when the doctor had started with it's our recommendation that he not start back on the scent blocker until-. Whatever the doc had to say after that was more for Wayne's benefit than his own, anyway. Eddie turns his face away from Uncle Wayne and the doc and stares at the wall.

Eddie knows he's a freak.

He never had an option to be anything else.

He was born wrong, a thing his dad would remind him of every time he was deep in his cups and feeling angry or bitter. Which is to say, he'd heard it every day until he was fourteen and, with his mom long gone and his dad's new prison sentence, he was shipped off to Hawkins, Indiana to live with his uncle.

It gave him a choice for the first time in his life.

It was salvation.

No one here knew a damn thing about him except what he wanted them to know. He got to curate his image exactly how he wanted it.

Loud, bold, mean, scary.

Anything that kept people at a distance because he wanted them to be. That's not to say he didn't let people get close. That he didn't have friends. He does.

He founded Hellfire sophomore year and made acquaintances with fellow nerds and geeks. Some stuck around, genuinely seemed to like him and he them, so he got some real friends out of it. Jeff, Frankie, and Gareth.

The only three people in the world who knew about him because he'd chosen to tell them.

But now with this doctor not wanting him to get back on his scent blockers as soon as possible, the whole town's going to know how much of a freak he really is.

His gut twists thinking about how Erica, Lucas, Max, Dustin, Nancy, Robin, and Steve already know. They have to know. Why else are they not here? There's no way they don't by now. Scent blockers need to be taken every day to work effectively. Missing a day every now and then is fine when Eddie knows he's not going to leave home or if it's just the guys he'd be seeing.

But he's missed sixteen days because today is April 7th, and he'd spent most of the prior three days fading in and out of consciousness trying to claw his way out of a coma. Now he's fully alert and aware. He'd woken up alone, but it wasn't long after that his uncle showed up, apparently summoned by a nurse.

"-ddie. Eddie, you still awake?" Wayne's voice is gentle in a way it never usually it. It makes Eddie want to pretend to be asleep.

"Yeah."

"The doc just left."

Eddie doesn't respond verbally. but he does turn his head back to look at Wayne instead of the wall.

"There's a boy down in the lobby. Been tryin' ta visit every day but, well," Wayne trails off with a one shoulder shrug, which seems the easier way to sum up all the events that place while he was in a coma. Wayne apparently making a fuss when the hospital finally got a hold of him and he'd come into Eddie's room to find his unconscious body handcuffed to the bed. No one's been around to explain the how or why to Eddie, but supposedly ten days after Eddie should have died, three days before he awoke for the first time, the "real" murderer was found and died in a gunfight with the police. Eddie's been pardoned, by some miracle.

"Why wasn't he allowed to visit?" Eddie asks, even as he dreads the answer.

"No visitor for murder suspects except family," Wayne says.

"Okay. But I was proven innocent six days ago."

"I know. This last week's been me. I told the staff no one but me could see ya until ya were awake enough to name 'em. Didn't know if that boy who led the manhunt was gonna try and get in, or send someone else after ya."

Warmth floods through Eddie then, both affection for his uncle and a hope that, maybe, no one's been here because they haven't been allowed to be. Maybe they don't- maybe they'll give him a chance even though he's a genetic freak of nature.

"Is it Dustin Henderson?"

"Nah, ain't him. He's been by as much as his ma will allow, though. Sits down there with the first boy."

If it's not Dustin then- "Steve?"

Wayne gives a one-sided grin before saying, "Steve Harrington Sir, if you wanna full name him."

That gets a laugh from Eddie. Wayne hates to be called sir, and he spent a full year calling Jeff 'Just Jeff Sir' when Jeff had made the mistake of correcting Eddie's introduction ("And this here, is Jeffery") while trying to be polite ("Please, it's just Jeff, sir."). Seems like Steve made the same mistake.

"Oh, fuck, don't make me laugh," Eddie wheezes, more from pain than laughter and Wayne looks only a little guilty for causing him pain. "But, uh, yeah. Steve's a-okay."

"Alright. I'll go let the nurse know. Anyone else you wan' ta come see ya?"

"Wait," Eddie says quickly, swallowing thickly. He has to know. "Do- have they... said anything? About me?"

"About you? What- oh," Wayne says. "Did they not know?"

Eddie shakes his head. "No. Not- I didn't tell them, but I haven't had a scent blocker since the first day of spring break. They have to know, right? Everyone always knows."

"Do you want me to ask before gettin' them approved to visit?" Wayne asks, softly and sincere and it makes Eddie's eyes water. He closes them to prevent the tears.

"No. It's fine. Better to, uhh, get this over with. Learn if this will change anything, y'know?"

"And you wanna start with Steve Harrington Sir? He's an alpha, ain't he?"

"Don't act like you don't already know. Everyone and their mother talks about how alpha he smells. I heard about Steve and his alpha scent before I'd even met the dude."

"Well, no need to be so uppity about it," Wayne grouses.

"Sorry. Guess I'm just... not in the mood to joke about this. People don't- they change how they treat me, once they know."

"Just Jeff didn't, nor Gareth or Frankie."

"Yeah, but they were my friends first. I- they saved my life but that doesn't make us friends."

Wayne shakes his head. "You tell that to the boy sittin' in the lobby right now waitin' to see ya."

That's right. The hope that has bloomed earlier. If they did know, they were still around. Either because they are his friends and they care, or they have... questions, possibly. Still, "You'll be in here? When he comes in?"

"I won't leave unless you ask me to," Wayne assures and then he's gone. Out the door, to retrieve Steve.

Jesus Christ, this is fucked. Eddie feels so anxious and scared and he shouldn't. He's never been afraid before. Just. Fed up with how people treat him. How they scrunch their noses when they smell him. When they look at the whole of him and realize there's something wrong with him and their expression changes to either pity or disgust.

Wayne's gone just long enough for Eddie to regret his decision but then it's too late. The first person to enter his room is Steve, followed closely why Wayne.

"Eddie!" Steve says, and Eddie is confused. Steve sounds... awed? A bit breathless like he's witnessed a miracle.

"Hey Steve," Eddie manages to squeak out and that's all the permission Steve seems to need. He crosses the room quickly, dragging a second chair from the corner with him to the opposite side of the bed from where Wayne has taken up station.

"Fuck, Eddie, we didn't know if you'd- but you did. You're awake," Steve says, even as he's trying to sniff the air. Probably trying to get a read on Eddie's own scent, and therefore his own emotional state. When Steve doesn't find what he's looking for, his brows furrow into confusion, and he looks so fucking adorable with his face scrunched like that. He's glad Steve can't smell that on him, at least.

"I'm awake," Eddie says.

Steve nods, but his confused face doesn't fade. Instead he sniffs the room more loudly, thoroughly. He looks to Wayne, then back to Eddie. He does that a few times before settling on Eddie.

Eddie sighs heavily. "Go ahead. Ask."

"What? Oh, uh, nothing to ask, I guess. Just thought Wayne would have scented you by now, but I don't smell him on you."

"Yeah. Wayne's nose barely works, so no point in that."

"A fact I'm thankful for every time you'd finally drag out the days old dishes from your room," Wayne quips.

"Hey!" Eddie shoots him a wounded look as his face gets hot. Low blow, old man, he thinks.

"Oh. Do you... not get isolation sickness? Is that rude to ask?" Steve asks.

"I don't get isolation sickness anymore, not since long before you were even born," Wayne answers. He's still hovering by the door, expecting to be dismissed by Eddie probably, since Steve's not- since Steve doesn't seem to- Eddie doesn't know. Is he too nice to ask out right? Too disturbed by it to even bring it up?

"And, uh, isolation sickness could never effect me," Eddie says, biting the bullet, looking at a wrinkle on his blanket instead of at Steve.

"What?" Steve sounds startled by the answer, as if he can't understand. Maybe he doesn't.

"I can't get isolation sickness."

"That doesn't- everyone but childr-" Steve cuts himself off, and Eddie hears more sniffing before his startled by Steve grabbing his arm. He looks up quickly, and sees Wayne move closer from the corner of his eye, as Steve shoves his nose into Eddie's wrist and takes a deep breath. A sound between a whimper and a whine comes from Steve. "But you- What?"

"Steve."

"Eddie, I don't understand?"

Eddie looks to Wayne, who raises his brows as if to ask want me to tell him? He almost nods, but this is going to be the first of many conversations, and he might as well get the practice in. "Steve. You can only get isolation sickness after your secondary gender develops. I can't. 'Cause I don't have a secondary gender."

Steve blinks at him. Then blinks some more. He opens his mouth, then closes it and blinks even more. "I- how- what? It hasn't developed yet?"

Eddie groans in frustration. "No, Steve. It won't develop ever. I don't have one, I won't have one! No scent gland will ever grow, no second puberty as my body changes to be able to send and receive emotional signals, no bonding gland to establish pack or mate!"

"Wha-"

"Don't! What aren't you getting? I'm a genetic fucking freak of nature who can't ever bond with pack or a mate because I don't have a secondary gender!"

Steve jerks back at Eddie's sudden outburst, "Sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't- I wasn't trying to, uhh, offend."

Eddie scoffs and looks away. He wants to roll onto his side, put his back to Steve and block him out. Offend. Eddie's not offended. He's- fuck, he's sad and scared and angry. Because he spent a week flirting freely with Steve, who'd started to flirt back and now it's all back to just being a fantasy in Eddie's mind.

Steve's an alpha. Even if... even if he ever might have entertained the idea of being with Eddie, that's going to be gone now. Alpha's want omega's. They'll settle for a beta, sure, but that's what it is. Settling.

And Eddie's not even that.

He's nothing. No secondary gender, no place in society, he'll always smell like a goddamn child to everyone else. He knows how this goes. Until he's back on the scent blockers, which just make him smell like chemicals, they're going to treat him like a child, or like a pariah.

"Eddie-" Steve says, quiet.

Whatever it is, Eddie doesn't want to hear it. "I'm tired. I hurt. Please leave."

Eddie stares at a spot on the wall as Wayne escorts Steve from his room. He doesn't let himself cry until after counting to thirty in his head once the door's closed.

@i-less-than-three-you @afewproblems @skepsiss

[pluckyredhead]

How exactly was Jon Kent’s introduction handled? Did Clark essentially just bring him out like “hey guys, here’s my 10 year old son I haven’t told you about” ?

Thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about this, because it is Extremely Comics and I love it.

The short version is that Jon and his parents are from another dimension.

The long version is that prior to the New 52 in 2011, Lois and Clark had been married for years, so when that marriage was erased in the reboot, fans were pretty unhappy.

Then in 2015, DC published an event called Convergence. The plot isn't important, but basically they pulled in all these different versions of their characters from different universes: pre-Crisis Green Lantern, vampire Batman, 70s Wonder Woman, etc. And they brought back a LOT of pre-Flashpoint versions of characters. (I've always assumed it was a test to see if they should undo the New 52 and that the answer was a resounding yes.)

And so they brought back the pre-Flashpoint Lois and Clark just for this one event. In the four years since we'd seen the characters, Lois had gotten pregnant, and during Convergence, she gave birth to Jon.

At the end of the event, the pre-Flashpoint world was destroyed, but the Lane-Kent family was able to travel to the New 52 universe. Of course, the New 52 universe already had a Superman and Lois, so the pre-Flashpoint Clark and Lois decided to just...live like normal people, which they'd never been able to do before. They changed their last names to White and moved to California to raise their son in peaceful anonymity.

So Jon spent the first 10 years of his life in California as Jonathan Samuel White, and has no idea that he's from another dimension, that he's half alien, or that his father is Superman. But then his powers start to manifest, and it turns out it's really hard to keep a secret from a kid with X-ray vision, super hearing, and Lois Lane's smarts. Eventually, his parents have to 'fess up.

Here is the key point: when the Lane-Kents came to the New 52 universe, they arrived 10 years in the past. So if that story took place in 2015, when it was published, they actually arrived in 2005. Meaning that Jon developing his powers at 10 is happening in the present day. Does that make sense?

Soon after this, the New 52 Superman dies, and pre-Flashpoint Clark is like, "Well, someone should be Superman," so he puts his costume back on and introduces himself to the Justice League/the world as the Superman of another dimension.

A bit after that, the 2016 Rebirth reboot happened, which was deliberately designed to push DC canon closer to pre-Flashpoint canon.

Then the New 52 Lois also dies, and pre-Flashpoint Lois is like "I guess I'll just go to the office and pretend to be her," which is wild because she is at least 10 and probably more like 15-20 years older than New 52 Lois. Lois Lane ages like fine wine: confirmed.

THEN Mr. Mxyzptlk kidnaps Jon and traps him in a featureless void and makes his parents forget he exists. In that void, Jon encounters the souls of the dead New 52 Clark and Lois and accidentally swaps them with his parents. Then he yells "NO YOU LOVE EACH OTHER" until they remember who they really are and merge with their pre-Flashpoint counterparts to form new, cohesive versions of Lois and Clark who are simultaneously from the current universe but also have been married for years and love their son.

This also, you know, just casually reboots the universe so that everyone remembers Lois and Clark having been married with a kid for years. So Jon was incorporated into continuity as a 10-year-old, but then the rest of his life was retconned into existence so that, like, Perry and Jimmy remember holding him as a baby and stuff. (And Jon has no memory of living as Jon White or anything like that.)

Anyway, very straightforward and normal, not completely bonkers at all.

[wonkyradio]

It was a long drive, but I finally made it. Silent Hill. I was raised here. My father lived and died here. I died here before I had the chance to live at all.

Members of bread bank know him already, but I figured I should officially post him to Tumblr. Meet protagonist of my Silent Hill fan game concept, Last Wish! Will is resourceful but paranoid, and compassionate but cowardly. He's a guy with a lot of baggage, and his connection to Walter Sullivan leads him down a path he can't turn back from. You may see more of him here in the future!

Brief background under the cut:

Silent Hill: Last Wish

William 'Will' Dent had his dad (William Dent Sr. 'Bill') killed by the order for looking into and trying to free the children from the prison depicted in sh4, and was the man interviewed by Joseph in his article about 4S (found by Heather in sh3). He spent a short time in the wish house following his father's murder, as the Order had immediate influence over child services in Silent Hill.

He becomes the roommate of a young Walter Sullivan, a sensitive boy, who starts looking up to Will as an older brother after being rescued from bullies. The two bond during Will's short time there, and he became 'Wally's protector and mentor, despite only being a few years older. For him, it was an opportunity to respect his father's legacy, as he'd been taught from a young age that those with strength should always protect those without it.

His mother (Laura Dent) finds out and comes to retrieve him about two months later. His dad was a stay at home father who preferred to live off the grid, his mother often had to go on business trips. She was out of town when the order killed her husband and basically abducted her son. After weeks of searching for where her son was being kept, Laura finally is able to rescue him from the Wish House. Walter pleaded for the opportunity to go with them, but was punished and placed in the child prison by George Rosten for his betrayal of the holy mother. Will never got to say goodbye to him. The fact Will's mother came to retrieve him was used against Walter, motivating him even further to later perform the sacraments.

Laura and Will immediately moved out of Silent Hill and into the city where she worked - Will grows up, struggles with missing his father and the fact his murder was officially unsolved. There are times he thinks of young Wally, and wonders if the boy ever learned to stand up for himself. He kept a gift Walter made him, a small God's Eye, and carried it with him as a reminder to stand up for his ideals even when afraid.

As the years go on he becomes more and more reclusive and cowardly, fearing that one day The Order would come for him. This paranoia and unresolved trauma eventually led to a mental breakdown, landing him in an institution for a short time. Upon being released, the first thing he decided to do was to visit his father's grave in Silent Hill for the first time since his death nearly two decades prior.

He returns to Silent Hill initially only to visit his father's grave, but he gets drawn into town after seeing someone lingering just outside the cemetery. It was Walter Sullivan, shortly after killing one of his first victims. If he wanted to move on, there was one more thing he'd have to do before leaving: find out what happened to Wally, and solve his father's murder.

[tanadrin]

Then you have those who legitimately had no idea what gender was even because we grew up in a tiny Irish village in the early 2000s, and because the one book they had was ‘Noughts & Crosses’, and the one film they had was ‘Men In Black II’, they didn’t know what racism was either, thinking America was ruled by black people. Like I was a pasty 9 year old with three sisters. When I was 7 one of my sisters decided to become my brother, then went back to being my sister a few years later, and I didn’t think anything of it, I thought that was accepted, that you could be whatever whenever you wanted. I got another brother the same year (this one born); to date my sister is still my sister, although she occasionally goes back to being my second brother when he feels like it. I thought my aunts in London were married for years, and my uncle got divorced when I was twelve, but no one explicitly told me so I didn’t find out for another twelve years. I have a cousin who became mute after brain damage and claims benefits but I know he can still talk because he swore me out when I was teaching him how to swim, he just doesn’t like his mothers. Now my other cousin also has stage four cancer but has never mentioned it any time we have hung out, I had to find out from my mother, and another cousin of mine died of a brain aneurysm but no one told me until a month later. I am agender, asexual, and aromantic, but don’t often tell anybody because it doesn’t come up. Which has led to me accidentally having to go on dates a lot: my sister who went to Australia to be an architect for a year but never got to be says I have ‘unbelievable rizz’, like I’m so oblivious to romantic tension that I seem interested when I’m just trying to be a person. Like I told someone she had a ‘perfect sneeze’ once and she tried to bring me into a throuple. And I had to stay a while since I was too socially awkward to say I didn’t want to be there. Same thing happened when a friend was moving to Poland and I made my way across the country to see her off. Then when I was going to the cinema last year someone lit a tram on fire in front of it so they gave me three months worth of free cinema, and pretty much anyone I asked to go with me thought it was a date, and I had to say yes because like you can’t turn someone down if you accidentally ask them out. Then afterward I went to the bank and accidentally found a secret door to a speakeasy next door with a password and 70% absinthe drunk out of lemons. And the guy from ‘Django Unchained’ was there, he’d been shooting a game show with his daughter (who was also there) in the country (this was not America), so we drank for a bit until he was done. He was a little annoyed that I didn’t seem drunk before seeming impressed when I mentioned I can’t really get drunk due to some weird genetic thing, the most I get being that I feel like if someone asked me for the truth about anything I would tell them, so basically truth serum, although I don’t really have secrets, so there’s nothing to tell. The most I’ve done is leak television pilots or films I’ve found access to on the internet, that people didn’t know had been leaked. Or spot plagiarism. Like I have the script for the new ‘Nosferstu’, I put it in my bag I carry around all the time, then like the next day my lecturer was talking about the original ‘Nosferstu’ and I said “Oh I have the script for that would you like it?” and he said “Yes.” so I pulled it out and he had expected me to be taking out my computer or something to share a PDF of the old film’s script, not for me to just hand him the new film’s script, and the look on his face had me go “wait.” I have surprised you? And anyway that same day someone tried to pass off a short story of mine I’d shared anonymously in Cork two years prior as their own, and this was Dublin, I didn’t know them, so I was more amazed at the circumstances of my merely being there than annoyed by the plagiarism (like if he’d asked I’d have let him, but he didn’t even know I was the writer, so he was just a massive coincidence). I am 23.

thumbs up emoji

[andreal831]

So, I'm just gonna come out and say it: Despite probably only being planned in S4 - the idea of the Hollow and it's very elusive presence being the mastermind behind the Originals and it's history is actually engenious!

(Keep in mind, I'm talking as if I'm inside the universe - not as a viewer looking in. Also, fair warning, I alternate between "The Hollow" and Inadu since they are the same person.)

Let's start with the fact that thanks to Inadu, we know werewolves are just cursed witches cut off from their magic with interesting loopholes (such as the Unification Ceremony) - everyone from TVD should've called it because it's ALWAYS a witch creating a new supernatural species! The even bigger factors come from: why killing triggers the werewolf curse (Inadu was murdered - by her mother), the history that combined werewolf abilities were once divided and needed a witch-like ceremony to come together, the story of how Inadu's bones were kept/used until she got her body back, and the very idea that - unlike vampires - werewolves are a bloodline curse allowed to reproduce. If I'm not being clear, the story of the Hollow correlates a lot with werewolf lore. My only headcanons are that werewolf venom became a thing as a result of vampires being created - a natural defense with a supernatural twist - and wolfsbane is a weakness because she died in a field of wolfsbane. With the fact that werewolves existed 500 years prior, that's half a millennia of history that's got lost, destroyed, or spread out in time (since you don't watch Legacies: Long story short, a Shunka Warakin - a creature Ioway Native American mythos that hunts werewolves - made an appearance. Liberties aside, that essentially says werewolves had a rival predator/there were so many werewolves that a creature like this came into existence), and that's not forgetting how much that loss was furthered by Klaus & Elijah engineering The Sune & Moon Curse to lift his own - imagine how many werewolves died listening to following that crap. So, thanks to The Hollow, we have an entire lost-to-be-rediscovered lore for werewolves. Who knows, maybe the Fated Mates in typical werewolf novels might have some truth in them as well😁.

Next, New Orleans. The very idea that The Hollow is a corrupted, evil soul capable of dark and impossible feats says so much. For starters, her very presence and influence can turn good people into evil-doing followers. If I had to go back, let's start with Xavier Dumas (Jackson's grandfather and the guy who murdered Elias and Brooke Labonair - my HC names for Hayley's parents if you don't mind). It was bad enough he was already upset with Elias for trying to make peace with Marcel, once the Hollow sunk her hooks into him, she used him to get access to one of her remaining remains and when he was of no use, he was left to accept his crimes as a disgraced wolf. Next, we see Vincent and his then not-evil-wife Eva dealing with Marcel's hold on the witches. When Vincent started practicing its magic with Eva - who took it a step further, Inadu started to influence them and their bodies. But for whatever reason, Vincent stopped practicing but Eva was already in her grasp. Now fast forward. I'm sorry, but did no one ask why a twenty-something witch was able to overcome an Original's possession over her body? Not even Alaric and Tyler were able to do it when Klaus possessed them. Like, that's badass as hell, but now that we know about Inadu and her thing for sacrificing witch children, it's very likely now we witnessed the first acolyte of the Hollow's cult through Eva and we just didn't know it - and considering she'd already had killed witches for her, the juice she got for empowering Inadu came into play in the form of gaining her body back from Rebekah. (I also have a theory Finn was corrupted by Inadu's leftover essence on Vincent - explaining his different behavior as Finncent vs in his own body, but nobody's ready for that talk😝). Now, let's move to the last group, the Ancestors. The very fact she was impressed by them and how it connects to the Harvest is interesting if you wanted to say the Harvest was created to give power to the Ancestral Well and keep The Hollow imprisoned. The killing of young witches, the passing on power to super-witch that Davina went through in S1, coming back not quite right but more to the Ancestors' cause? The very fact of all that the Ancestors knew about Inadu's origin story says they knew what she was and was capable of since the beginning and when the connection was destroyed in S3, in all good intentions, Vincent let a very bad cat out of the bag for Davina.

Lastly were Inadu's abilities. Compared to many others in the TVD Universe, not only was she a master at possession, she was able to practice magic in a vampire's body - which no one has done before, bring somebody back to life after having their heart ripped out, alter her blood to be toxic to a vampire, telepathic moral corruption, create corporal illusions capable of physical attacks, crushing hearts from the inside... honestly, The Hollow was a full package of feats that shouldn't go underutilized. I even say she didn't even need to feel scared when she had her original physical body back because she already had a plan and Hope - being her blood and easily located, helped by the fact she fears her - only says she knew things would work out. My only regret is that if done right, Inadu would have followed Hope into Legacies because she'd be the Boogeyman only she can face.

Most people hate Inadu for writing reasons and some hate her for being the reason the Mikaelsons were divided. But in the case of the latter, isnt that what made her a successful villain? A villain's job is to stop the heroes or antiheroes (the Mikaelsons) from getting what they want. The Hollow was a villain so powerful, so menacing, manipulating from the background while the living were clueless in their own troubles that inadvertently added in bringing her to power so she could be an active threat. TO was all about being a family and sticking together and she gave them no choice but to separate if they didn't want Hope possessed again. So technically, in life and in death, the Hollow is a successful villain as she kept the Mikaelsons apart and got to Hope in the end. Essentially an inevitable that did what no one else could do.

I am obsessed with how thorough this is.

I'll be honest that I don't spend a lot of time thinking about Inadu/The Hollow, simply because Season 4 and 5 are not my favorite seasons. But, not because I didn't like her story or the lore, simply because the writing starts to go off the rails and becomes very rushed.

But I agree, Inadu was one of the best villains in TO. And it's completely because, as you pointed out, she did what every other villain was attempting to do. She felt not remorse for it either. Don't get me wrong, I love most of the villains in TO, but the show, for the most part, would always back pedal at the end and make them "redeemable" villains. Which is why I liked Lucien, even in his last breath he did not try to be a better person. He was a villain through and through. Inadu took it even further because they don't offer any justification for her behavior. Yes, her family killed her, but because she was power hungry and murderous. She was essentially the Kai Parker of TO. And you're exactly right, people only don't like her because she was successful. They only like the villains when the villains are bad at it. Inadu had the entire city, including the Mikaelsons, running scared.

I loved that we finally got lore into the werewolves, they were such an underutilized species throughout TVDU. I'll have to actually watch Legacies if it goes into it more. I love your headcannons of how the werewolves evolved and played out. I would also add that Inadu likely added the "werewolf rage" to make them just like her. She was punished for her murderous mentality, so she wanted her family to feel how she felt, to behave as she had.

I only wish that we could have had a full season with Inadu. There was still so much to explore and a lot unanswered. She was incredibly powerful and I love that they never really defeat her. I agree, she should have gone on to Legacies. I hated at the end, Elijah and Klaus die to "kill" Inadu, but they had tried that before. I'm forgetting who it was, but Inadu was possessing someone and they killed that person and Inadu just went back to the ancestry plane and then possessed someone else. You may remember more and maybe I'm forgetting exactly why it worked, but to me, it was too easy.

I would have also loved to see the werewolves more invovled in the Inadu plot line, since it was their ancestor. But we only ever see Hayley. The werewolves completely disappeared after season 3.

I love this breakdown so much and I'm definitely holding onto it for future stories!

[victoriadallonfan]

Mistborn: Well of Ascension Review

Is It Good: Yes

Does It Have Flaws: A lot

Is It Problematic: Sometimes

Would You Reread: No

Would You Recommend: Yes

Spoilers below

I’ve listened to positive and negative reviews of this book to help formulate my thoughts

So overall, I think there’s a great book buried underneath a slog of really repetitive material.

Brandon is great at writing a mystery, but it’s hindered by the fact that we get incredibly uninteresting scenes that just have Elend, Vin, Zane doing the same song and dance over and over again.

I was 200% more invested in Sazed investigating the Hero of Ages compared to the political drama Elend and Vin dealt with. Or Vin dealing with “wanting to wear a dress” (more on that later).

I really love how Eldritch and Sinister the cosmology is, even as I knew from Stormlight Archives what it would be. It’s handled far more horrific here in a good way compared to Stormlight, which was a letdown imo, so this was enjoyable.

I also really love Sazed’s magical abilities. Allomancy is neat, but the story points out that Mistborn are just.. so powerful they make other Allomancers feel pointless, worldbuilding wise. But Sazed’s powers are more limited while also being far more interesting in applications, so I loved that we got to see that more in depth.

Most of the characters are good, and enjoyable, even Breeze.

Now for the bad.

Breeze and Allrianne relationship is just… disgusting. I really don’t understand the purpose of having a near 40 year old man having sex with a barely legal woman who just recently turned legal iirc. Why was this added as a story beat? Why are some of the characters that aren’t Vin and OreSeur not more grossed out by it?

And no, having the “she seduces me!” reveal does not help.

Secondly, none of the antagonists are good. Sure, they are hateable, but they all lack any sort of impact. Zane is the worst because he is quite possibly the most cookie-cutter CW Bad Boy stereotype in existence, monologuing like a bad anime character about how “we are different”/“why do we listen to them?”/“they just don’t understand us” ala Lysanderoth. And he dies from the worst “reveal” I’ve ever seen; it was so cool how Vin used pewter dust to blind the Inquisitors and improvised weaponry to bypass the skill gap. Here it’s just: “Lmao I just wait to attack bypass your precog, get good”, which I’m pretty sure does not track at all with what we see in the first book (or this one).

Despite Lord Ruler having little presence in the first book, he at least had PRESENCE

Finally, the way this book handles women and skaa is just so odd. It feels as if the story/characters/Brandon treat women as having a hive mind for being obsessed with fashion; in fact, it’s part of Vins struggle that she loves dresses but can’t find the “strength” to wear them. Meanwhile, no male character obsessed over fashion nearly as much, even Breeze who admits part of his design is an act for others. Likewise, there’s no woman who thinks fashion is stupid or just indifferent.

I don’t hate the idea of Vin struggling with newfound femininity vs her own biases, but it’s just so blandly set up that I can’t feel invested.

And I will lose my damned mind if I have to hear one more “you can never understand a woman”/“teenage girls aren’t rational” comment, even from other women characters!

Also, besides Tyndl and Vin, there aren’t any really any women in power nor is that explored. Even Allrianne - who is just… meh as a character over all - has no political power without her father and she’s basically a femme fatale cliche as well. None of the Skaa have female leaders, for example.

And speaking of Skaa, those poor guys. Going from brave freedom fighters and rebellions, even prior to Kelsier, to idiots who are treated as fools who need the privileged Elend and his like to guide them all to the right answer (or they become manipulated or are in fact corrupt). I don’t even hate Elend, but the way Brandon puts him in this position is just such a shame. The story doesn’t even let him explore his ingrained classism or racism/specism for the Skaa or Kandra

Like I said, there’s a great book under all this stuff. But it’s pulled down by - in my opinion - a lot of faults that verge on problematic.

Good but it could be better

[foone]

OK so you know what's a good horror trope? The reveal of the previously invisible/camouflaged interloper. We've all got this instinct from back when we were little mammals living in a jungle full of tigers, where being watched is a bad thing. We want to know who can see us, because they might be seeing us and planning to pounce. So the idea that someone has secretly been watching us and we never knew? Obviously scary, in a very primal way.

There's plenty of examples. Most "Invisible Guy" movies, that clothesline scene from The Conjuring, the pool monster from Are You Afraid of the Dark becoming visible when they dump dye in the pool... But I'm gonna give a detailed example from the most unlikely of horror sources... Star Trek: The Next Generation!

So in season 4, the episode Identity Crisis focuses on Geordi. He meets up with an old friend, who he had served with on another ship, prior to coming to the Enterprise. She, Geordi, and three other people had gone on a mission to investigate a spooky colony where everyone had disappeared. They found nothing, and returned with no answers.

But now, many years later, it's getting weirder. Two of the other guys have apparently gone mad and fled back to the Spooky Colony, and the episode opens with the third guy dying on his way to the Spooky Colony. Everyone else on the mission to the Spooky Colony those years ago has either returned & vanished, or died trying to. So it's not looking good for Geordi and his friend, Leijten. They do some investigating, don't find much, and Leijten starts falling ill. She's in sick bay, apparently turning into an alien, and Geordi decides to go visit the video footage of that mission they went on all these years ago (since it's the future, this is fancy 3D video that he's looking at in a fully immersice holodeck environment).

He's watching it, and sees nothing weird. Except at the last moment, when they go to turn off the camera, there's a shadow. An odd shadow. He asks the computer to alter the footage, deleting characters and their shadows from the video, and one by one the shadows vanish... Except this one. He asks the computer to assume it's being cast by a person about his size, and where would that person be if it was?

And a humanoid figure appears into the footage.

Someone had been standing there along with those 5 visible people, all those years ago. They were being watched. And they never knew.

And this is just one of my favorite spooks! It's such a good innate fear. Something is there and it can see you but you can't see it.

(As for the episode? Geordi has been feeling sicker and sicker the whole time he's doing this footage investigation. He ends up turning invisible and running out, and transporting himself down to the planet. We see as he transports that he's turned all blue and translucent. Down on the planet, Leijten beams down, feeling better. Dr. Crusher cured her parasite. Apparently this planet is full of some kind of microorganism that infects you, lays dormant for years, then makes you come back and turn into a spooky invisible guy. That's what happened to their crewmates, that's what happened to the whole colony, and it's happening to Geordi. She's able to talk him down, since he's only recently transformed and she knows what it's like, and he's cured. Everyone else, the colony and the former crewmates? They're gone for good. They're not human anymore, and haven't been for a long time.)

[arece]

hii love!

could i request john x reader (platonic ofc) within the perfect storyline that you created?

ive always wondered what happened to aurelio when the reader thought he abandoned her while he was just trying to protect her. maybe they have met after john died and he apologized and maybe reader forgives him??? i just need to know he is not the bad guy 😭

thank youu

It'll All Work Out

♤ Summary: Reader gets closure she never knew she needed from Aurelio. The series

♤ a/n: You're right my dear anon, he was never the bad guy. Reader was just a baby who needed someone to blame at the time. This one's really short but it has a bittersweet tone that I love and I hope you enjoy it too!

⋯♤⋯♧⋯♢⋯

You ended up staying in Berlin for three months, learning all that you could from those in the Ruska Roma about John’s childhood. You decided that it was time to go back when you realized the first year death anniversary was fast approaching.

Though you could use the comfort of your new family, you’d never forgive yourself if you weren’t with him on the day. You wanted to do something special for him, some part of you hoping he sees your gift from wherever he is.

You took Dog’s leash off, letting her rub against his headstone as you reached for the packet in your pocket. You sprinkled the wildflower seeds around his and Helen’s graves, giving them something that would come back each year, never leaving them.

You were moving the knife he gifted you back into place when you heard steps behind you, quick to turn you held it threateningly before becoming shocked at the person you never expected to see in front of you.

“Aurelio?” You faltered before dropping the knife completely. The man gave an awkward, unsure smile, “look at you, not so little anymore.” You stood from the ground, calming Dog with a pet as she watched him anxiously.

“That’s what seven years does.” He winced at your blunt tone and you felt bad, not intending for him to feel guilty. By now you’ve grown to realize why he had sent you away. “Look I-”

“It’s okay, Aurelio. I don’t blame you, you saved my life by bringing him to me.” It seemed he’d been carrying the guilt for a while by the way he slightly got choked up. He cleared his throat, stepping beside you to look at his grave.

“Loving father, huh?” For once the tears that stung at your eyes weren’t from a place of pain, rather one of remembrance, something you thought you had surely lost three months prior. “He was the best one I could’ve ever asked for,” you turned towards him, “I was too lost before to thank you.”

“I’m glad you’re okay.” The sarcastic snort you let out had him raising an eyebrow, “I was a mess.” You explained to him your journey with grief for the past year, struggling to move on and almost falling back into the underworld, your panic with forgetting, your arguments with Caine and Winston.

“Why do you have to find someone to blame?” It startled you slightly, how easily he revealed to you another direction your grief was driving you to. If it wasn’t yourself, it was Winston or Caine. Why did you need someone to put at fault?

“I don’t want to be angry at him.” Aurelio sighed, wrapping an arm around your shoulder, still seeing you as that feisty fourteen year old who had a talent for stealing. “You’re too hard on yourself.”

For the first time you allowed yourself to seek comfort from somebody that wasn’t John, from the man who had also chosen to let you go to protect you, a recurring theme it seems. “You seem different. Like him.” The passive comment brought a smile to your face, reminding you how Katia told you he lived on through you. You were glad that someone saw it too.

“Do you have any regrets?” He asked. You thought back to all the pain, loneliness, confusion, grief. But you also thought back to when you were loved. That made it all worth it ten times over, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

You called Dog over to put her back on her leash, inviting Aurelio out for a memorial lunch for John. He agreed, stepping back to allow you room for your goodbyes. You leaned forward, softly kissing his grave, “I’m doing better now.”

With a parting touch you left feeling more fulfilled after gaining closure, healing a wound that had added to your suffering, one that now left a scar, a memory.

⋯♤⋯♧⋯♢⋯

taglist: @khaleesihavilliard @ihatemyselfmorethanmydepression @tamnight  @hesvoid34 @scarletmeii @romanreignsluver1 @wi1steria @not-a-big-slay @howlerwolfmax @mizzy-pop @sarapaprikas-blog @angrykitsune01

[blackch-rry]

The Summer of ‘89 (IT au) (Teaser)

Pairing: Sunghoon x reader, Heeseung x reader, Enhypen x reader

Synopsis: Derry, Maine, and all its residents thought the disappearance of a high school student was the first and last tragedy to occur in a long time, but once summer started in 1989 a terrifying nightmare had just begun. You had just moved to the small town a year prior; no friends and certainly no love life, but just after graduating high school you find yourself suddenly having a lot in common with a group of seven boys.

Warnings/Genre: Inspired by Stephen King’s IT, (the movies mostly), not really canon idk, horror, gore, angst, romance, more to come each update.

A/N: hi! I love horror and IT, so I thought it was time to finally write something about it. If you don’t like horror, my attempt at least, gore, and all that stuff, then this is not for you. I’m hoping the end of this series or near the end will come out near Halloween because that’s just perfect. So please be patient with updates! Enjoy this teaser :)

***

Fall 1988

Three teenage girls rode aimlessly down the street in their quaint town of Derry. Senior Year had started for all of them and as a last-ditch effort to cling onto summer, the group of friends hopped onto their bikes. One last late-night ride before the crisp autumn air took over. 

After an hour of aimless riding and chatting, the three had bright smiles as the wind wrapped around their hair as they sped up a slope in the road, that eventually died down when the trio came to a slow glide side by side. 

One of the girls, Chaewon, quickly smoothed down the back of her hair. She had a mischievous thought and voiced, “Hey, Kazuha…” 

Once she got her friend’s attention she continued, “Are you finally gonna find the courage this year?”

The last girl, Yunjin, laughed loudly, immediately knowing what her friend was getting at, but poor Kazuha was lost. 

“Huh? Courage to do what?”

“Oh come on,” Yunjin started, “It’s our last year of high school! You’ve had that crush on Jay since freshman year! You need to do something about it before we graduate.”

 

Kazuha let out a shriek of embarrassment, “No way! I can’t do that!”

Chaewon quickened her pedaling so she could get ahead and come back around to circle her best friends.

She said, “And why not? He hasn’t dated anyone for two years and when he was it broke you, remember that? The least you could do is confess and then he can take you to prom! Your dream!”

“The least? I can’t even ask my teachers to go to the bathroom during class. I can’t just go up to him and tell him I like him!”

The two giggled at their friend’s worrying. Chaewon stopped circling and joined the line, “Ok fine, you don’t have to freak him out by straight out confessing, but I think you really should talk to him at least. I just hate seeing you so down in the dumps, staring at him all day.” 

“I don’t stare…that much.” 

“Sure,” Yunjin said with a smile, “Hey, my house is right around the corner. I’ll see you guys tomorrow!”

The girls said their goodbyes as Yunjin took off. Kazuha knew Chaewon was about to head off since her house was close by as well, but before she did, she said, “Zuha, I’m serious. I know you’re scared about talking to a guy you like first, but we just want to see you happy. You know that right?” 

“Of course, I do… and yeah I guess you guys are some-what right. I should just go up to him after algebra and ask him out. Plain and simple…and it would ruin me again if he took another girl to prom.” 

Chaewon smiled, “There you go! Plain and simple. And if he doesn’t say yes, which he won’t do, it’ll be alright. You have us to cry on and eat ice cream with.”

“Gee, thanks.” 

Chaewon laughed before her house came into view, “Alright! See you later!” 

Kazuha let out a small goodbye before it was just her, alone, riding down the dimly lit street. Two minutes passed before she made a turn that would lead her home. One more block of easy riding and late-night breezes sending chills down her body, until something on the road up ahead caught her stare. 

She’s not really the type to stop for things out of her way, but something about it poked at her curiosity. Coming to a slow stop, she saw what it was in its entirety. 

A gasp left her lips. On the side of the cracked pavement laid a bloody cat. She hopped off her bike and let it fall to the ground. Kneeling so she could get a better look, a wave of disgust hit. The closer she got she could see the terrible state the cat was in. It was on its side; dark crimson blood stained the fur surrounding its stomach…where a whole chunk was missing.

Kazuha didn’t have a clue as to what could do this. For a second, she thought another animal attacked it, but the edges around the wound couldn’t have been bite marks from an animal, not around here. And the part bitten off was way too big. 

She had to look away when more blood and parts of the remaining organs spewed out. With a hand covering her mouth, she took a deep inhale to rest her stomach. A second later, she turned back towards the poor cat, but something beyond her by the side of a house made her pause. 

The backyard of the house she kneeled before was not well lit, but she saw more red. 

A…balloon?

With a surge of fear and uncertainty, she got up from the ground. The dying cat was far from her mind when she saw it clearer. A single red balloon stayed floating next to the house. Her steps backward were slow and quiet. How could this be possible? Shouldn’t it be floating into the sky?

As if the object could hear her thoughts, the red balloon started ascending. Her eyes stayed glued to it, watching and watching until the bright color was consumed with the blackness of the night sky. She stayed staring at the distant sky as she continued to back away until the heel of her shoe hit her bike. The sound and abruptness of the impact brought her back out of her daze. She quickly snapped her head back to the ground and the fear she had grew. The cat was gone. 

She couldn’t believe it. Any of this. Was she going insane? First the mangled cat and now a floating balloon? Maybe she was hallucinating. Yes, that was it she concluded. She must be sleep deprived because everything was becoming nonsense.

With a sigh, she touched her forehead trying to calm her racing thoughts and nerves. A gust of wind rushed by her, and she startled. God, it must be so late by now. My parents will be so mad…

Kazuha stared at the empty spot on the pavement, wondering again what that was, before turning around to grab her bike. 

A second more and she would have been on her bike.

A minute more and she would be rounding up on her house. Home.

But the second she turned around her head was being swallowed whole.

***

Spring 1989.

“That time of the month, yeah?” 

Looking bored, you give a half assed smile, “You always know what to say to a girl don’t you, Jeno?” 

He leaned over the counter between you, hands placed on the edge, “Well, you can come back to mine and I’ll say a lot nicer-”

“Just ring up my damn tampons.” 

His charming façade wiped away, he stood back upright and lazily scanned the box. 

“A dollar fifty.” 

You gave him the money, took the bag, and said, “That wasn’t so hard. I mean you’re a cashier at a shitty drug store. I think you might need some more training on how to click a few buttons.” 

You left before you could hear the rest of his angry rambling. 

With the ringing of the store’s bell, you’re outside. The sudden uproar of summer was evident and it wasn’t even June yet. The sudden heat had you craving a cigarette. You walked until the nearest alley to reach into the back pocket of your jean shorts. You pulled out a cigarette from its box and placed it in between your lips before reaching back around for your trusty lighter. Once lighting and taking a deep inhale, you watched the smoke billow out in front of you. When it cleared you were met with a face. 

Taped to the brick wall before you is a poster of that girl who went missing at the beginning of the school year. 

Kazuha.

Staring at her black and white photo and her parent’s information made you slightly uncomfortable. No, you were never friends with her personally, but she always smiled at you in the halls. 

You moved to Derry at the end of Junior year and making friends was never your forte, but it never hurt to see a smile directed at you, even if a stranger. 

You remember that day at school like a haunting nightmare. The somber voice of the principal over the speakers announcing her disappearance. You knew who was in Kazuha’s close group of friends and the chilling cry from Huh Yunjin sitting two rows in front of you still gives you goosebumps whenever you replay that moment. She had to be escorted out of the room by the teacher. 

Suddenly, smoking your cigarette in front of her missing poster feels disrespectful. You don’t put it out, instead you make your way back to the busy sidewalk. As you go about, you ponder over it all. 

Her weird absence from everything, the sight of her parents sometimes idling outside the high school wishing she’d magically burst out the doors after a long day at school, the way the halls got quieter the first two months after, and the rumors. 

The police never brought up too many details about her case on the news. It’s a fact that the police found her abandoned bike but nothing else, yet somehow gossip started to spread amongst your classmates. Some said they found her bloody shoe. Others said she was abducted by aliens. (That one you find incredibly hard to believe). 

No one said it out loud, but everyone has a feeling she’s dead. It’s been about seven months since then and she hasn’t been found. Never a good sign. The cloudy gloom her disappearance brought upon the town has finally subdued with the beginning of summer. 

Everyone has moved on besides her family and close friends, but seeing her face around every turn and corner makes it hard for you to forget. The whole thing really. 

You’re quickly brought out of your thoughts when you see a group of seven boys zoom past you on their bikes. While getting the last you can out of your fix, you keep your gaze on their backs. One of them stands on the pedals and shouts, “Fuck you high school! We’re free at last!” 

You hear the rest of them holler in agreement, but all it does is give you a headache. 

You forgot graduation is tomorrow.

You stomp the cigarette out in annoyance. 

[thebisexualdogdad]

Dating Celina Juarez headcanons (GN!reader)

● Celina didn't feel the need to talk about her personal life at work

● which is why everyone thought she and Aaron had started seeing each other and tried to warn them about dating fellow cops

● Aaron "are you sure about this?"

● Celina to Nolan "we should come clean, Aaron and I have indeed gotten close… playing dnd with my partner whose right out there"

● she points to you standing in the station lobby waiting to drive her home after her shift

● you see her through the window and smile and wave at her

● Celina patting Aaron on the shoulder "see you Saturday for our next session"

● she leaves Nolan very confused about the whole thing "the entire time Celina was staying with me and Bailey not once did she mention she was dating someone"

● Aaron "Oh yeah I think they got into an argument that week mercury was in retrograde afterall"

● John "mercury was in what??"

● speaking of, just like Celina you have your entire astrological chart memorized

● and regularly see psychics, tarot readers, spiritual healers etc to keep everything in balance

● you and Celina going to all sorts of comic cons

● and you always cosplay together

● you even get Aaron to go with you to a convention

● but he refuses to dress up with you guys

● you "but I made you a costume that goes with ours??"

● Aaron "yeah no thanks the only time I dress up in a costume is for halloween"

● Celina "that's great we'll save it for next halloween"

● Aaron "... sure we can do that"

● Celina coming home with cuts and bruises

● "another exciting day at work?"

● "just another holding cell brawl"

● "I bet you kicked all their asses"

● "damn right"

● Nolan invites you two over for dinner to officially meet

● he ends up having to spend the entire night listening to you and Celina talk about all the crystals Bailey should get and all of the very specific purposes they have

● Celina "so did you ever look into the history of your house?"

● Nolan "no I've been meaning to get to that…"

● you "Oh if you need help I know some local historians who can tell you if anyone died on the property, there was some bad energy in our place when we moved in, turned out a guy died from a heart attack in it ten years prior, saged him right out and it's been good ever since… I didn't want to say anything but I did get a bit of a weird vibe when I first walked in"

● Nolan "you two really are made for each other aren't you"

[squid-procrow]

As Gale's on the mind again, time to bring up BG1 lore about mystra!

For anybody who truly doesn't think Gale was groomed, that a good god would NEVER!

This isn't even the first time she's done something like this, sure it wasn't grooming for Dornar Silverhand but she did take over his love interests body so she could manipulate him into children...

Tldr She takes over a girl (who was enthusiastic to be a goddess's chosen, then unsure once she realized it was for this) to convince a guy (her very loyal follower who was already in love so he said no) for kids.

He watches his wife become a literal shell of herself so that she can have seven children with the energy of both their parents. And he ends up having to kill his wife because she's become a lich shell of a person.

To which after he cuts her head off mystra shows up and goes "yeah sorry, my doing." And he loses it, running from Neverwinter up to the north and disappearing until he dies for 30 years where she continues to protect him.

The worst part? Dornar goes back to her after it all, helping her find more chosen. What Gale could have been.

I feel like a big part of the story that the writers were trying to tell us was that even if you were formally mortal the second you go on to the pedestal of a previous God you inhabit who they were, and mystra is the weave before all.

It fits perfectly with the Durge (and Astarion) storylines, if you don't remove yourself completely from the cycle you will inevitably become what you dislike, even if you intended for the best.

Below is the full txt

History of the Chosen of Mystra:

The reason why Mystra, the Goddess of Magic, invested a portion of her divine might into mortals is not known. One of the popular theories, and one that is gaining more support in light of the other goddess' during that period, is that Mystra foresaw the Time of Troubles (and her own passing at the hands of Helm) and chose to give some of her powers to mortals in order to ensure that her successor (the female mage, Midnight, as it turned out) would have a number of nearly immortal allies in the struggle against the schemes of the gods (the now dead Bane, Myrkul and Bhaal) who precipitated the Time of Troubles by stealing the Tablets of Fate.

The theory goes on to suggest that Mystra informed Azuth at approximately the Year of the Rising Flame (0 DR), more than 1,300 years ago before the Times of Troubles, that some of her power must be put into the hands of mortals who would then become known as Mystra's Chosen. The power would sleep within the bodies of those mortals, allowing Mystra only to call on it only with their permission. It would give the Chosen to innate ability to heal quickly, and would give them life spans far greater than those of ordinary mortals. Mystra speculated that these mortals might be able to call on her power and thereby gain some special abilities, but that these powers would not rival those of a deity. (See "Powers" below.)

The Goddess of All Magic then began to select mortals she thought to be suitable. One of the first was the young mage Elminister, and she also singled out a promising wizard named Khelben Arunsen. Both of them proved to be worthy and capable receptacles of her power, but Mystra's other early attempts to invest her power in living humans were unsuccessful, and she came to realize that only a very few mortals were of stern enough substance to contain such power within themselves without being destroyed or corrupted. Even though some people aside from Elminister and Khelben may have possessed the requisite strength, it is possible that having lived for years prior to being visited by Mystra had set them on a path from which they were not able to deviate. Whatever the reason, the problem needed to be solved. To get around the difficulty, Mystra devised a plan to use herself as a vessel to breed individuals who could be nurtured and acclimated to her power from the very beginnings of their lives.

For the father of these individuals, she picked the best example of human stock she could find: Dornar Silverhand, a nobleman and a former Harper who lived near Neverwinter. Mystra then possessed the body of Elue Shandur, a helf-elven sorceress whom Dornal was already attracted to. Mystra revealed her presence and her plan to Eleu, who happily and eagerly agreed to have the goddess share her body. Eleu had been reluctant, but under the influence of Mystra the woman became a seductress, and Dornal found his advances being suddenly returned with great fervor.

Dornal and Mystra/Eleu were wed in the Year of the Drifting Stars (760 DR). The first of the seven daughters, Anastra Syluné, was born the following winter. Sylune's six sisters emerged at one-year interval thereafter: Endue Alustriel, Ambara Dove, Ethena Astorma (she prefers the name "Storm" these days), Anamanué Laeral, Alassa Shentrantra (known today as the Simbul) and Erésseae Qilué. These siblings have become known in Realmsian lore as the Seven Sisters.

Dornal, who had been kept in the dark about his wife's true nature through the years (presumably because Mystra didn't want to risk losing his services), was disappointed and distraught by the time his sixth child was born; he had always wanted sons as well as daughters. More importantly, he was seeing his wife deteriorate right before his eyes. The strain of coexisting with the goddess all these years had turned Eleu into a withered shell - in essence a lich, clinging to life only because Mystra's power was within her.

When Eleu was carrying the seventh child, Dornal consulted a priest who told him his wife had been possessed by a entity of great magical power. To spare both of them any further agony, he attempted to slay his wife's physical form by severing her head from her body.

As soon he had done this, Mystra was forced to reveal herself to him, and she went on to explain her scheme. Just as she had worried would happen, Dornal was aghast at how he and his wife had been used by the goddess. He turned his back on the corpse of his wife, abandoned his lands and his children, and vanished into the North. Mystra bore him no ill will, and in fact protected him for the final 30 years of his life. When Dornal finally did meet his end he called out to Mystra, and the goddess granted his continued existence as her servant. Now known as the Watcher, Dornal Silverhand travels the world unseen by mortals on a continuing mission to locate candidates to swell the ranks of the Chosen and to identify possible threats to Mystra and her minions

[bohemian-nights]

Swear Daemyra shippers are the only ones whom can look at a man teach his niece who at the time was a minor by real standards and fantasy standards sex acts, and say he loved her. I was reading a fic where Daemyra popped up in the background and they had Daemon say “I’ve loved Rhaenyra since the time she was a girl” and it’s like no shit. Then again in the show it’s just so…. Like I can acknowledge that Matt and Mily had chemistry (which would’ve been great for a book!Daemyra where he is very cleary a groomer) but even then all their scenes had an underlying pervy feel to them. Also Daemon is always ABANDONING Rhaenyra when it counts. Instead of staying with her after the death of her brother and mother he goes out drinking and makes the “heir for a day” comment. Then ( knowing Dragonstone is the seat reserved for the heir) he takes possession of Dragonstone (which also could’ve lowered her standing as heir) and the dragon egg that Rhaenyra placed in the cradle of Baelon. Then he leaves her alone for three years fighting in what was technically an illegal war before coming back and trying to ruin her reputation in order to attain the throne. He does this by taking her a crown Princess into a whore house, ensures that she will be recognized, engages in light sexual content with her before leaving her ALONE in a whore house half naked. And the worse part? Not a single fuck was given. Then later on at her wedding she practically begs him to take her to Dragonstone and marry her. In response to this he marries another woman (who he also treat like shit R.I.P to book!Daemon and Laena). Fast forward ten years where they (on the day of his wife’s funeral) have sex on the beach (sex that didn’t even look pleasurable) and she wakes up ALONE. Mind you prior to the sex she’s essentially begging him to fuck her as well. Following him around like a lost dog. Then we once again have the begging for marriage only this time he accepts. Fast forward down the line he’s not showing any support really in Kings Landing (why didn’t he go with Rhaenyra to talk to Rhaenys) but yeah he killed a man for her so the fandom ate that shit up. Back on Dragonstone she experiences a still brith where she calls out and begs for him so she won’t be alone and he just doesn’t come(I’ve seen some people excuse this staying maybe he had trauma from Laena so I’m 60/40 on it) and then upon learning that she doesn’t want to immediately jump to WAR he chokes the shit out of her.

Their fans are special.

Even if you want to take out the obvious grooming or only want to focus on book canon, Daemon still ends up abandoning her after she ordered him to return back to her, saving another woman(Nettles) after she ordered her to be beheaded in her sleep, and then either offs himself or lives out his days with Nettles.

How they turned that into Daemon died to defeat her greatest enemy(which the text specifically states is Daeron and not Aemond) will never not be absolutely hilariously.

If you only want to consider the show as canon(why?), he’s physically abused her (and is allegedly going to do so again) and abandoned her on countless occasions (after seeing her beg for him to love her 23 million times) with no concern for her physical or mental well-being.

(The trauma excuse is a poor one when he chokes her out 5 seconds later. That is not how you respond to trauma or your brother dying).

Book canon, show canon, grooming, no grooming, it doesn’t matter. It’s a hot mess any way you slice it(which is why they start crying when you bring out the actual text).

I get morally ambiguous ships(all but one of my favorite ships fall into this category). Still, I don’t get shipping something where the guy outright does not care about whether the woman lives or dies and then claiming that those who aren’t deluded are the crazy ones. This shit is straight up pathetic.

I’m all about ship what you want, but these are the same people calling characters the n-word and actively wanting a Black character to be cut cause she “gets in the way” of their ship so they use the excuse that there are already enough Black people on the show. So if this comes off harsh it’s because this ship attracts racist assholes who need psychiatric help on top of them being so fucking delusional they can’t see the forest from the trees.

[zerolostwalks]

Oooh I got Vampire Slayer AU + Family AU xD

 No lie, I read this and my immediate thought was Buffy?? But let’s see if we can do something a little different. 

Also, this got kinda long so I have put it below the cut:

So instead of the Slayer being a random chosen one from anywhere in the world it’s a bloodline thing. Sort of…like the potential is in the bloodline but not every member gets to be a Slayer, the previous Slayer has to pass the mantle down. 

Rose was the prior slayer, however things had significantly slowed down since her grandmother and great great grandmother had the mantles. Victoria and her parents insisted it was because the Slayers were winning (There a few dozen slayer families around the world) and that Rose should live her life. 

Rose tries, she really does but she can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. She starts working at nightclubs and bars to try and get a casual peak into the nightlife and she does hear some interesting rumors and urban legends but they all turn out to be that, urban legends. 

She meets Ray and they begin dating and eventually he manages to convince her she should focus on living. It doesn’t help that she’s witnessed some deaths that aren’t paranormally related and it sort of cements everything everyone has been telling her. Life is too short, and it will pass her by entirely if she isn’t careful. She and Ray settle down and they have Julie and Carlos and Rose wonders if since the world has gotten safer if she should just let the mantle die with her. 

Cut to (or open here and we learn all of that as back story later, not sure yet) 17 year old Julie is dealing with the recent sudden death of her mother, just like the rest of her family. It’s become this massively speculated rumor mill of an incident. She fell off a building at a height that should have killed her instantly but it didn’t, it was a slow and agonizing night for her and her family. Many speculate she was attempting suicide. Rose insists she was not, insisting she was thrown and that they were all wrong, it’s so much worse than they realized. 

Julie doesn’t know what to believe in the months leading up to her Mother’s death her mother had turned into an entirely different person. Even got into some fights with Victoria and her Dad. 

Mostly Julie just wishes the incident would stop haunting her dreams. Tired and guilty for feeling tired of hearing her mother’s final words repeating over and over. “I’m sorry Julie, I should have prepared you better. You deserve better and I hope you can do what I couldn’t.”

It’s not even been a month since the funeral, Julie hasn’t even has time to process all of her grief when one night she’s home alone and she hears rummaging in the garage. She knows what she should do, the sensible thing, duck her head, get inside, don't mess with the things that go bump in the night. Even if she’s sure it’s just a stray cat or raccoon.  It’s her entire thought process even as her feet move of their own accord. 

Inside she finds three boys and during hers (and theirs panicked screaming) she instinctively grabs one of them and rather sloppily gets him pinned to the ground. It’s Reggie, after the initial panicking dies down and while Julie tries to process what the hell she just did he tries a cheesy line about their positions. 

This immediately knocks Julie back to the fact that she’s found three strange teenage boys in her garage and demands to know who they are and what they’re doing. They introduce themselves as Luke, Reggie, and Alex and say they were looking for Rose. Which just angers Julie thinking of course they have to be trying to prank her because who hasn’t heard about what happened to her mom by this point. 

The guys genuinely didn’t know. They’re kind of cut off from many news sources at the moment. 

It takes a bit of back and forth before Alex straight up just asks if that makes Julie the new Slayer now. Julie is confused and doesn’t know who to be mad or upset with anymore as they finish telling her about how her mom was one of the last remaining Slayers, as many other Slayer families had allowed themselves to die out in the extended time of peace. 

The guys (who refuse to tell Julie how they know everything they are telling her) say it’s all one big plot led by a vampire who gained a lot of power in the late 1920’s. (Again, not sure of this would be revealed up front or discovered through the story)

Julie decides they are pranking her, and tells them to leave her alone. Her dreams only get weirder from here on out. 

The next day at school she tells Flynn all about it. Flynn does some digging on her own during school, while Julie has the world’s weirdest school day (think all the stereotypical I’ve got powers now type scenes only Julie is in major denial) By the end of the school day Flynn is fully convinced Julie is this Slayer figure and Julie just wants to drop out of school and sleep for a year straight. 

Though Julie does get incredibly intrigued by the fact that one of the pieces of evidence Flynn found was a series of missing persons reports throughout the years. Particularly the article about a band from the 90’s named Sunset Curve. 

After school as Julie gets home she can see that all the garage windows have been boarded up and goes to confront the guys. Who all of course panic when she throws the garage doors open. They admit they’re vampires, but don’t know why or how their turning got botched, but they know it did because they do not act like a good 90% of the other vampires they know. 

They managed to evade Caleb and had been getting updates from their friend Willie who went missing. Worried and more than a little desperate they turned to Rose for help. Which just immediately sours their relationship with Julie more because now she has someone to blame for her mother’s death. 

The guys help defend Julie as she now has a giant target on her back as an untrained Slayer. Still a dangerous threat but one Caleb thinks he can take out. Flynn thinks Julie should talk to her dad or Aunt about it but Julie doesn’t want to cause her Dad more grief and is kind of mad at both of them for keeping something like this from her. 

Flynn, Julie and the guys, slowly learn the whole Slayer thing together. Albeit begrudgingly on Julie’s part especially as far as the guys are concerned but there is no denying they make a good team and seems to be their way of trying to make amends. 

Eventually Julie does confront her family about things. Mostly because, thanks to Carlos, the rest of her family discover her Slayer thing and try to get upset with her first about not telling them. Which of course leads to a huge fight about them keeping it from her in the first place. 

Victoria and Ray absolutely do not like the fact Julie has teamed up with a trio of vampires. But Ray quickly changes his mind when the three start helping out around the house. Victoria also trains Julie what she remembers from her training with Rose when they were younger, she may not have been the one chosen for the mantle but that didn’t mean she didn’t need the training. 

It all builds up to a showdown with Caleb, who initially tries to just do the vampiric seduce Julie to be a vampire thing. But then he makes the mistake of letting it slip that he was the one who killed Rose and Julie sees red. Just before she manages to kill him Caleb drops the “you kill me then your friends are going to die too” which does cause Julie to hesitate for a bit but she does what she knows must be done for ‘the greater good’ and kills Caleb.

In the aftermath of that, and the vampires Caleb sired dying as well, the world a whole have to recover from the sheer number of people who’d actually been vampires hiding in plain sight. 

Fortunately for Julie and the guys(including Willie) Caleb wasn’t the one who turned them. Unfortunately that does leave them all to contemplate what it is they should do. In the meantime, they all just let themselves enjoy life for a bit.

[phoenixkaptain]

Hey, hi, Flirting With the Villain’s Dad is a great comic and only partially because Euredian occasionally looks like a sad puppy (made all the better with the knowledge of Laurus being his ancestor. The wolf god made a puppy king I love it)

Anyway I just wanted to put my thoughts out, mainly for me so I can remember that this comic really cheered me up during a bad week.

Laurus says “I like that one” about Thierry and the story only continues to prove that Thierry is his favourite by having Laurus be so happy to see his favourite little guy and taking his favourite little guy on a trip :D

Thierry is the best. He is just there. He is the most tiredest archdeacon, please someone let him rest

The part after Yerenika knows about baptismal names and gets all flustered when Laurus starts speaking secret names next to her

Ferric. Poor Ferric. Almost always presented in chibi and almost always crying for the king to please do some of this work please

Yerenika starts the story by constantly proposing to Euredian which turns into Euredian constantly proposing to Yerenika which turns into a very long honeymoon period consisting of the entire length of their marriage.

The difference in age between how old Seo Eun-Seo was when she died and how old she was when she woke up as Yerenika is mentioned a few times. And every single time it is a different number. Which makes me assume that she’s thinking “I got a year older, which means I’m a year closer to the age of my prior body” which is just kind of funny to me

The longer she spends as Yerenika, the more Yerenika looks like her. I like that. That’s fun

Ghost Seo Eun-Seo is great, I love that her clothes are only considered weird by one character briefly one time and then never brought up again

I saw a lot of people call Yerenika oblivious. The word I would use instead is “distracted.” I mean, she’s trying to keep everyone she loves and herself from dying by changing things even though she’s starting to think she can’t actually change things. I would not be emotionally tuned into other people either, in those circumstances.

I actually really liked Yerenika because I found how proactive she was to be nice. She proposed to that man half a dozen times. She actively tried to improve her situation. She was so used to being an ignored child that she completely forgot she had a family and country that loved her. She was so used to being an ignored child that she was afraid she wouldn’t be a good mother herself. She rescues people because she can’t live with herself if she ignored them. She’s not really stupid, which is a common complaint I’ve seen, she just doesn’t know the intricacies of a country she’s never been in. She doesn’t realize that the disembodied voice is the god of the world because I’m sure she’s used to being in religious buildings where gods don’t talk to her. Like, would any of us assume god is the one talking to us if a voice started speaking in a church, like really.

I like that the only one showing Laurus any respect is Thierry. Euredian yeets his ancestor. Yerenika constantly talks back to and makes fun of him. Thierry is appalled. He calls something blasphemous and Euredian literally says “you always say that.” Maybe he’d stop if you were less blasphemous, Euredian.

I really like Yerenika and Euredian’s relationship. It is two people smitten with each other. The height difference is adorable. Euredian is so whipped. Yerenika remains weak to his face even a decade after being married to him. Euredian casually carrying her around from the start and seeing nothing strange about that (it’s normal to carry foreign princesses, I promise, we all do it, you can trust the guy who doesn’t spend time with foreign princesses, he knows) and Yerenika casually spending minutes on end staring at him because she thinks he’s so pretty (which does not mean she loves him, I promise, we all do it, we all stare at pretty men and don’t fall in love with them, it’s normal-)

So glad that Euredian gets to be Dek’s dad after all.

All in all, I liked the story. Euredian and Yerenika are equally weird and protective of each other. Thierry and Ferric are both so tired and it is entirely Euredian’s fault at any given moment. Laurus is the best god and also the funniest and cutest one. The children are adorable. I really liked Soleia as both a villain and an ally because she is really cool all the time. The parts where Soleia and Euredian are forced to work together are the best. Brigitte is adorable in thinking that her cousins are the absolute best-looking creatures known to man and calling Euredian “pretty man” upon first meeting him. Yerenika is constantly cooing over how cute her husband is and flirting with her husband and riling up her husband and her husband just wants her to stop jumping out of windows, pleaSE-

Great story, 10/10, would read to laugh at these weirdos again

[allaboutandrew]

New interview with USA Today:

It struck me that you really dislike the word "guncle." I'm wondering if your nieces and nephews refer to you as that?

That term wasn't really a thing when I started having nieces and nephews 25 years ago. And now it's become a thing. I just feel like it's so often with gay men specifically, there's an infantilization of we're "boys." It's always "the boys." It's never like, "you men. Come over here." We're always like "boys," which I just think is sort of funny.

When people recognize you on the street, do you usually get "Girls" or "Book of Mormon"?

It's kind of an even split between those. Although it's been really interesting being here in Italy. There's a lot of "How I Met Your Mother" – and I only did two episodes of that show, and it ran for 10 years. It's a lot of episodes, and I was only in two of them. But people will say to me, "You were on 'How I Met Your Mother'!" I was like, "I guess I was?"

You talk also about in the book that Aaron Tveit replaced you in (Broadway's) "Hairspray." You mentioned something about how you were told that he was younger and straight, per your recollection. Do you think that this would still happen in 2023? Do you feel like you maybe miss out on roles due to your queerness in any way?

I feel like I probably did earlier in my career. I know I did. I think the benefit that I've had, especially when I started working on television in 2012-ish, was that there was more opportunity for queer characters, there were more queer voices being heard. And that's just continued. So I feel like there have been a lot of opportunities for me in the last 10 years that didn't exist 10 years prior.

One celebrity name drop in the book I love was Murray Bartlett being the doorman at an underwear party you attended. He's having a bit of a moment right now. Have you been in touch at all?

Well-deserved. We did "Welcome to Chippendales" together. I got to play his boyfriend. And he was just off "The White Lotus," had already filmed "The Last of Us." We cranked out that "Chippendales" show pretty quickly last summer, and then it was airing. I know he has a few film projects. But the thing I love about Murray is that he keeps a pretty low profile when he's not working. He keeps his life pretty simple. He doesn't live in Los Angeles or New York and really just has a very low-key life, which I really respect a lot. Because I think he's always just been such a cool guy. Just to simplify it. But man oh man, did I have a crush on him.

Who wouldn't?

It was crazy. He had the mustache going, it was like 2003, he had just been on "Sex and the City." I was like, that's for me. I was not for him, as I discuss in the book, but then later, I got to play his boyfriend. So, you know, it kind of worked out.

Switching gears here a second. I know you've written about your grief in the past. My dad died about a year ago, so that totally resonated. Where are you with your grief right now? I know it's been a long time. But how are you?

Thank you for asking. It's an odd feeling to know that I've been alive longer without my dad than I was with him.

As I creep closer to the age he was – he was 61 when he died. Not that it seemed old, but it just seemed very far away. I will turn 45 this year. So it's getting closer. I know it's not tomorrow, but if all goes well, I'll get there. So that has brought up some strange feelings.

Then there'll be great moments that happen in your life and you're going to feel this pang of loss that they're not there to see you do these things.

You never quite recover from it, and I watch it with my siblings too, as they have kids, and they all navigate it in a different way having children, and how they relate to their kids as parents. We laugh about things that my father used to say to us that certainly would not fly today that he said in the '80s. So it's never something that really leaves you, and that can be a very comforting thing too.