#it's about love as devotion to a religious degree and all that

[libraryleopard]

learning that ava reid apparently likes chivalric romances is actually like the most unsurprising thing ever because let me tell you that bit in the wolf and the woodsman when gáspár knelt to declare his love for évike was so chrétien-de-troyes-lancelot-coded of him

[matan4il]

Simchat Torah, which is Hebrew for "Torah joy," has long been one of the happiest holidays in the Hebrew calendar, arguably even happier than Purim. If you've ever been present when we Jews annually celebrate our Torah, the cycle of its reading, a beginning and an end at once, an infinity created by our love and devotion to our scriptures and our customs, then you know what I'm talking about. The dancing, the singing, the shared joy, the circles we form, representing the Torah cycle, where we link arms and are our individual selves and Am Yisrael at once, is something else.

I remember it as a kid, at the synagogue in my childhood city, this innocent joy and wonder as they were bringing out the Torah scrolls and the entire community came together around them, and I remember it as a soldier on duty during Simchat Torah, this exhilaration of the soul at seeing people dancing with uniforms and Torah scrolls, spirit and matter at once, expressing our unique identity and religious and cultural legacy, which taught us to live, and which we were willing to die for our right to have it.

Unlike in the diaspora where there are two days we celebrate to conclude Sukkot, each with its own customs, in Eretz Yisrael the holiday is only celebrated along one day, and for that reason, it incorporates the nature of both days. It conveys the joyous nature of the Torah reading cycle, and it also gives room to solemn blessings for the rain, as well as (for the Ashkenazim) the mention of our departed's names. Simchat Torah is happiness and seriousness and mourning all at once.

It is truly a holiday which is like Jewish history itself: contains stark contrasts, of beginning and end, of happiness and grief, all at once.

We read "And this is the blessing," the last parasha in the Torah, then we follow it by reading "In the beginning," the first parasha. "And this is the blessing" deals with the blessings Moses confers unto the tribes of Israel, focusing to a great degree on the part of the Land of Israel that each tribe inherits. Yet another indisputably Zionist part of our religion and heritage.

But I keep thinking about that particular combination. "And this is the blessing, in the beginning." It is easy to end and remain ended when something goes horribly wrong. It is so much harder (and therefore holds the promise of a blessing) to keep going despite everything, to rebuild, from scratch, from nothing, from the ashes of burnt communities... from the very beginning.

Hamas weren't the first to massacre Jews on this date. The worst previous antisemitic massacre to be tied to this date took place in 1655, at the old synagogue in Krakow, Poland. The Jews there weren't accused of colonizing anything, but when the Poles lost a battle to the Swedes, it was easy to blame the Jews. We were always guilty of something, because there were never consequences for the murderers who defiled our holy celebrations by spilling our blood, unlike there would have been for going against those who were actually guilty, those who had the power to punish.

No, the killing of Jews during this holiday isn't new. But us being able to defend ourselves, that is. That's what they really can't forgive us. But that's okay. We're not asking for forgiveness. We're looking for our blessing. And that's found in the beginning that's born out of every end, in the unbroken nature of our circles, which are these cycles of ours that we keep observing, and these communities of ours that won't stop holding hands. We will contain these stark contrasts. We will sanctify life, even when they try to make us pay for that with our own lives. We will observe Simchat Torah in all of its joy and all of its solemnity and all of its grief. We will talk about what this holiday means to us, in the wake of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. We won't be intimidated out of being Jewish. If anything, by delving into these meanings, we'll be more Jewish than ever before. We will read out the names of our dead, AND we will dance.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[amourtoken]

ykkkkkkk I've been sitting on these thoughts for a while and bounce back and forth between shit so let me just write it out finally.

Here are some Eepy boy HC's of mine

(No edits, we die like men)

*nsfw below the cut, MDNI*

Vessel:

he's definitely the most primal, but I feel like he sees any kind of sexual activity as something to be taken seriously. It's an act of devotion, he's worshipping your body and plans to treat it as religiously as it sounds.

he uses his size to his advantage, big hands splaying across your torso while he's above you or running down your spine as he manipulates you into whatever position he likes. When he's fucking you from behind he can drape his entire body over your back. Loves picking you up like a toy and fucking into you like you're weightless. His favorite position is some variation of London Bridge (has nothing to do with being British but yk)

Speaking of size: the man is packing. Not like this comes as a surprise, you can see him pretty clearly through his usual stage clothes bur seeing him undressed is a different story. His body paint fades the further down his hips you go and frames his cock so nicely. He's about 8 inches and fuckin thickkkkk. Usually I'd say this is a cliche, but he's huge and lanky, ofc his cock is included. He loves pressing his hand on your lower stomach during sex and feeling how far in your guts he can get, makes his head spin when he can see the bulge just below your navel.

Part of being so primal, breeding kink. Every time he fucks you, he's got purpose. He's holding your hips so tight you thought he'd draw blood, fucking into you and dragging you to meet his thrusts halfway. He's draped over you, whispering disgusting praise in your ear about how good you're taking him, how beautiful you are and how much more so you'd be full with his kids. The thought of you bring claimed so permanently has his cock twitching and leaking

this mf has an oral fixation like no other. Needs to feel you between his teeth or taste you however he can, constantly leaving messy kisses all over your neck and chest or leaving littered bite marks all across your inner thighs. Loves having your nipples in his mouth, and dare I say spit kink? Likes seeing you messy and claimed however he can, how much more messy can you get than having him grip your jaw with his big hand and spitting in your mouth?? Alongside his oral fixation, he could happily live between your legs eating you like a man starved. He stops when he's done, not when you're begging him to cause you're cripplingly overstimulated.

Vocal. As fuck. This man cannot shut the fuck up!!! I think all the boys are vocal to a degree but he just can't help himself. Constantly whispering and humming against your ear about how beautiful you are, how lucky he is, all the depraved things he plans on doing to you in painstaking detail. During the act, he praises you nonstop and pants pathetically. The closer he gets the more it seems he struggles for air, voice catching in his throat and moans pitching higher until he actually cums which is when he makes the most head spinning animalistic sounds. High pitched whines mixed with deep chested growls and broken whimpers when he digs his fingers into your hips hard enough to leave bruises and presses his head back into the sheets ughhhh :((((

Big on aftercare, not that he would've been degrading but he can still be intense and wants to be sure you're cared for. Holds you close and continues whispering praises against your skin, he feels blessed to have you. Presses kisses to your temple and cheekbones while breathing in your scent and sighing heavily. He could stay here forever happily.

ii:

ii my beloved ugHhh

I hate to say it but he's a lil mean lol

He comes offstage so fucking amped sometimes, he would never ever hurt you (without you asking) but I'll be damned if he isn't rough. He takes his extra energy out on you, which you happily take. Your dynamic is definitely on a dom/sub plane and he thrives in that dominant caretaker role.

Very touchy. Always has a hand on your thigh if you're sitting near him, lacing his fingers with yours, brushing your hair back behind your ear, sometimes he'll walk up behind you and hold you by your hips, strong hands kneading the soft flesh before he presses a kiss to your temple and heads off. He'd glue you to his lap if he were allowed, you're his baby he's gotta take care of you and it's much easier the closer you are.

Ass man!!!!

The touchiness extends to the bedroom. This man lovesss fucking you from behind and watching your ass ripple against his hips during every harsh thrust. He grabs handfuls of your hips and yanks you back against him to meet his thrusts, more often than not leaving Bruises where his fingers dug the deepest. His absolute favorite position is when he wraps an arm around your throat and drags you upwards, his chest to your back while he fucks into you, held up in a headlock. His free hand roams your body, tweaking your nipples or dragging orgasm after orgasm from you as he nearly abuses your pussy.

Not quite as long as Ves, but thicker. Solid 6.5 inches, but you can barely wrap your fingers around him. The stretch when he first slides in is enough to bring tears to your eyes and he fills you so so fucking good.

He's the least vocal of the group but that doesn't mean he's silent. He likes leaning in and whispering filth to you in public then acting on those words later. Loves how you flush pathetically as he walks off like he's done nothing at all. He's almost condescending as he fucks you, teasing you about how loud you're being for him and how well you're taking his fat cock. You better be quiet, unless you want the other boys to hear? He constantly teases about how he should call them and have them watch as you unravel on his length, maybe they'd tease you for it too. You're just so sensitive, maybe they should all get a turn? Usually not big on moaning but will growl and groan from deep in his chest, breath catching as he cums and it sounds like all the wind was knocked from his chest.

Essentially collapses on top of you after he cums, might laugh as you whine in protest, cock still inside of you while you're both trying to catch your breath. Presses apologetic kisses to your neck and shoulders before pulling out. On nights where he's been particularly rough, loves catching a shower with you and massaging your spent joints. He's enamored by you, he feels so lucky to have you around and needs you to know.

iii:

Switch.

He's the most energetic, not necessarily the roughest but this man has some mf stamina that's for sure.

He's the most experimental. Always wanting to try new things out no matter what, be it toys, or new and somewhat odd positions. He always asks you beforehand of course, sometimes very nonchalantly as you flush pink and reprimand him for being so direct in front of other people. There have been many times where he'll plant himself on the couch next to you, tossing an arm on your shoulder before pointing his phone screen to you to show you an incredibly esoteric amateur porn or some new techy sex toy.

he's happy being in the dominant role most of the time but the moment you show signs of wanting to top him, the blood rushes from his brain directly to his cock so fast he nearly blacks out. Put this man on a leash and tell him he's a good boy while he fucks into you so desperately he could cry and he's the happiest he could be. Other days, he's got you bent into some strange position and growling out about how good you take him and what a good slut you are for his dick. (He apologizes profusely after the fact for calling you a slut but will absolutely do it again)

Breathy, whiny, high pitched moans most often. He's so fucking loud there's no way the others don't hear when he's hammering into you and near sobbing against your ear about how fucking good your pussy feels and how close he is. When you're topping, you're used to gagging him or holding a hand over his mouth while riding his cock just to get him to be a bit quieter. Both of these things only serve to make him louder as his cock twitches pathetically inside you.

Most likely to invite the other boys in for a threesome (or more). Loves getting to please you in more than one way, and can't help himself when he watches one of his band mates taking you. It's almost pathetic how hard he gets when he's watching you put a show on for him with one of them.

Not as thick as Ves or ii, but he's long lol. 7 inches and has a nice curve that always hits the right spots.

Loves when you pull his hair. Whether you're underneath him begging him to fuck you harder and switching between drawing blood on his shoulders and tugging his hair like it's the only thing holding you down to earth or you're lacing your fingers in it to direct him between your legs while he's lazily eating you out. Doesn't matter, makes his cock throb whenever you tug on it. Doesn't mind doing the same for you either, gathering a handful while he's fucking you from behind or pulling it all into a messy ponytail while he gags you on his length.

Cuddly afterwards. Always wants to hold you close and enjoy the afterglow. Presses kisses everywhere he can and reminds you how gorgeous you are and how amazing you are. Due to the fact he goes so many rounds in a row, he's the most likely to fall asleep afterwards, holding you tight to his chest while he dozes off.

iv:

Unexpected, this one.

He seemed reserved when you first got together but that's definitely not the case. He's been growing into himself as time goes and becoming more open to new things.

He's good with his hands onstage and off, his favorite past time his pulling you onto his lap and playing with your pussy until you're literally in tears. He'll hike your skirt up, yanking your panties off as he presses messy kisses to your neck and teases you by running his hands up and down your torso and thighs. He'll use one hand to spread you open and the other to tease your clit till you're shaking. Lovesss doing this in front of a mirror as well, wrapping a hand around your throat to keep your gaze on the reflection of him burying his fingers in your soaked pussy. He loves how easily he can melt you in his hands.

He's an enjoyer of discrete exhibitionism. Absolutely loves the Bluetooth vibrator he got you as a valentines gift one year, he's been reprimanded more than a handful of times for using it at the *worst* moment. Alternatively, loves knowing that just underneath the hem of your skirt or collar of your shirt you're absolutely covered in deep purple hickeys and love bites. Claimed as his and just out of reach for everyone else. He's taken you countless times in endless green rooms, dressing rooms, venue bathrooms, the list goes on. If he wants you, he knows you'll give in wherever or whenever he wants.

bringing mirrors back in, loves watching you from behind in the floor length mirror next to your bed as you're settled between his legs. Your lingerie frames your ass perfectly while you're sucking his cock, his fingers laced in your hair to guide you as he gently fucks up into your pretty mouth. Also absolutely adores fucking you from behind in front of said mirror, tugging your hair so you can watch as he fills you up so fucking good.

Groans and breathes heavily, very languid with his sounds but that doesn't mean he isn't enjoying it. iv prefers things to be deep and hard rather than fast and rough, so he's fine with taking his time. He'll roll his hips against yours just so he knows you feel the tip of his cock right against your cervix or he'll rub the tip of his cock against your lips before slapping it on your tongue. He enjoys the little details and the time it takes to really get to them.

He's the most well rounded of the 4, just as long as ii but comfortably thick and you swear he was made for you the way he feels when he's inside you. He buries his face tight against your neck when he cums, groaning harshly and grinding himself as deep as he can into your pussy.

He's gonna give you his oversized shirt to wear after he's done with you, adoring how you look in his clothes. He'll put on a movie you both enjoy and it won't take long before you both pass out even though you swore you'd finally finish said movie. He'll wake up before you to run you both a bath though and he swears he's the luckiest man alive to have someone like you around.

[phoenixyfriend]

I'm having thoughts about the Jedi and romance and UGH

Listen to me

Listen

(This is a shitpost, please do not reblog to argue with me, it's not for that. This is me, an a-spec individual with a lot of feelings on how society affects the things we view as important, venting in stream of consciousness.)

"Missing out on love" isn't something that matters as much when your society isn't amatonormative

"But they aren't allowed to get married" what if they don't want to?

"But they aren't allowed to romance" what if they don't want to?

When your culture is one that emphasizes compassion for all, and the most important bond is that of child and teacher... Don't you think that people might just not think of marriage as something worth striving for?

And from @jebiknights:

Honestly the only reason it bothers Anakin is bc he already met Padmé when he became a Jedi tbh i bet it wouldn't even bother him as much if he hadn't met her and already had visions of marrying her In general though yeah lol, that's one of the things i kind of miss about legends, is they didn't always deal with the attachment/romance/marriage thing well but you consistently had obi wan exes even before satine where they were like yeah we love each other and always will but we have no need or desire to get married or continue this

When the world around you doesn't emphasize marriage and romance and all that, then wouldn't you view cultures that do as a tad odd? Not weird in a bad way, just different.

I just keep thinking about the real world and how so much of the obsession with marriage and so on is a sociocultural thing. You don't want a big white dress because it's a bit white dress: you want it because it is the symbol that your culture has been pushing on you since you were two. Girls are taught to fantasize about weddings and marriage and to like A Certain Look for it, sometimes to such a degree that they can spend decades in denial about things like their sexualities.

And we're unlearning that as a society, people are being more critical of the institution and how they engage with it, are starting to question what it is that our media teaches us, asking 'why is marriage the most important thing in a girl's life, or in anyone's life' and generally moving towards a world where marriage exists but is not treated as a universal life goal

But the Jedi are just. Already doing that. They are already Not Teaching their children 'you should want this.'

And when you aren't pressured into wanting something like marriage... why would you be offended that your community says "you can have that Legal And Religious Status, but not with us. We'll still be your friends, but we as a community are not compatible with that legal and religious status barring a handful of specific and necessary exemptions."

Just

Marriage is not an inherent human/sapient want

Companionship is! We are biologically wired to be social creatures! We are biologically wired to, on the average, want sex, as well! That's how a species continues!

But marriage? A signed sheet of paper? That's not... inherent.

Fidelity and monamory? Sure, maybe. Plenty of species mate for life. But... humans have been proving that's a choice for most of history.

Other species are other things but anyway

Even if we remove marriage, specifically, and go to discuss attachment as being fidelity and exclusivity and devotion to another...

IDK how to talk about this without just going "devoting your life to a single person for companionship, romance, and sex is not only not necessary, but actually kind of mentally draining and a bad way to support yourself, we all need support systems and if you value one person's friendship or companionship more than others, that's not inherently a bad thing, but if you define yourself around each other or start doing shit like Covering Up Major Crimes That Hurt Real Innocent People (or committing said crimes) then. Uh. That's a problem."

[sergeifyodorov]

POLL RESULTS JUST DROPPED!!

My hockeyblr experiences are largely catered to my own personal tastes -- mostly Leafs, a little Penguins and Stars, one or two who post about Stevie Y and Sergei Fedorov. These are obviously not the only teams out there.

This study was designed to survey as much of hockeyblr as it possibly could, gathering data on which teams people like and to what degrees. There were five questions and a free space -- my attempt to ask people to rank the teams they enjoyed in three levels, from religiously followed to casually affectionate, and an additional couple of questions on love for players versus team. I received over 500 responses. Here are the results.

Yeah, yeah, you all want to know: The most popular team is the Penguins, by a long shot, then the Leafs.

Because my sample size (n = 523) is actually fairly small compared to the number of NHL teams there are, I find definitive rankings tend to be difficult. It’s also worth noting that, as a mainly Leafs blog, my numbers are definitely going to be skewed a little in favour of the Leafs.

Your Guys

These are the teams closest to your heart: the ship you go down with, metaphorically or, depending on how married your old men are, literally. For me, I picked just the Leafs.

The average respondent had 1.9 teams in this category. The most popular, by far, was the Pittsburgh Penguins. Below is a table of teams, arranged roughly into tiers by the number of respondents. Each team has the number of respondents in brackets next to their three-letter code.

I allowed people to pick as many teams as they would like; the average person picked 1.9 teams, but here’s a distribution of how many teams they picked:

4 people picked 0 “your guys” teams, and 2 people picked seven, nine, or ten each teams. Just about half of people had one main team.

I then wondered: what teams were people most likely to only follow? That is, if you hold [x] team in the closest part of your heart, are you more or less likely to also hold any other teams? Almost exactly 25% of picks were solo; I wondered if there was any correlation at all.

Only a little bit! Of the samples large enough to actually consider (so: nothing in that cluster at the bottom left, who all received fewer than 10 picks total, and a few of whom -- CGY, CHI, NSH -- received zero solo pickers), the most devoted fans chose the Sharks, the Bruins, and the Leafs. The fans who liked the most other teams chose the Avs, the Kraken, the Canucks, Panthers, Sens, and Ducks.

Probably a next step would be to look for correlations: if people are a fan of one team, are they more likely to be fans of another? THAT BEING SAID that’s a lot of regressions. Maybe keep an eye on that for the future, but I don’t know!!

Objects of Enjoyment, and Generally Nice

These two were successive tiers meant to distinguish teams that people like from the ones in the category above. I admit I probably could have phrased the questions better; I received several comments saying that they’d watch any hockey when they wanted to put a game on. The dynamics between Your Guys versus Objects of Enjoyment versus Generally Nice would best be described as devoted fan of versus casual fan of versus favourable opinion towards. 

As I said a few paragraphs back, people picked 1.9 “devoted fan” teams on average. Again on average, they picked 4.7 “casual fan” teams and 6.5 “favourable opinion” teams. Not all ratios are equal, though! Some teams had significantly more casual than devoted fans, and others still were much more liked generally than average.

I gave each team’s “devoted” count an index number of 1 and measured their casual and favourable count as a ratio against the index number. The teams assembled themselves into a few groups.

No Commitment

Arizona and Anaheim have decided to be soulbonded (Excel refuses to let them have different-coloured dots) and it took me three hundred million years to attempt to (and unsuccessfully) fix, so let’s ignore that. These teams all have a fairly high slope of interest -- a range of casual interest at about five times the pace of fervent interest, and good opinion at about ten times fervent interest. The Calgary Flames are an outlier on the entire graph, not just here. 

Casual Interest

I gave up on trying to colour teams according to their real colours shortly after the Anaheim/Arizona debacle. Please employ the legend. Nashville is included on all five graphs for reference. These teams all have a casual interest factor of about 3, and a favourable opinion factor of around 5; the same ratio as the casual fans of the teams in the first category to their fervent fans.

Saturated Market

These teams have a much lower ratio of hardcore:casual:favourable fans, at about 1:2:3. 

We Get It, Those Are Your Guys

Pittsburgh and Toronto; these teams have an almost equal ratio of all three categories.

...Whatever This Is

Every other category is defined by its ratios; this category is defined by its shape. While all teams have their rate of hardcore fandom set as 1, the other two tend to increase in a roughly linear form, without too much significant difference between the first interval and the second interval.

These teams, though (again, Nashville is for scale) don’t do that: they have a set increase between hardcore and casual, and a significantly smaller increase (or, in a couple cases, a decrease) between casual and favourable. This suggests perhaps some kind of divisiveness; if you’re not already in there, do you really want to get in further? Either that, or it’s something closer to what the Leafs and Penguins have: that is, a devotion. Like you’re in or you’re out.

Taking these values together

Because the casual:hardcore ratios are measured as indexes and not absolute values, they say nothing about the actual popularity of the team in question -- Calgary is one of the least popular, which is why I assume it’s so weirdly high up; small sample sizes lead to higher error values!

But we do have the absolute values, so we can measure them against each other.

If we consider the “In or Out” to be a category of its own while the other four are along more of a continuum, then we can absolutely see a correlation here -- larger fandoms tend to have more involved fanbases.

Players or Teams?

I also asked participants if their guys tended to be players or teams -- and if those they liked at a more casual level tended to be players or teams.

The results are… not particularly surprising.

On a hardcore level, people tended to prefer teams, although the variability was pretty slight. On a casual level, individual players were much more popular.

I also wondered if people who chose more teams in the hardcore fan question tended to do that because they prefer players.

On average, people who picked players on their hardcore level chose 2.1 teams. People who picked teams chose 1.7 teams. That’s definitely a difference!

Fun Shtuff

I got way more write-in responses on the hardcore player/team question than on the casual question, including this:

Three separate people answered “Minnesota Wild” for their guys and chose no other teams on any level. Hell yes. (One person also did this for the Kings.)

It took about 300 responses before the first Flames fan (at the hardcore level.)

On all three levels, the Seattle Kraken are really popular -- they’re in the top five in each.

What's Next?

If I were to update this survey, I would probably include a question about where all of you are from -- some people (like me) follow their hometown team, while some people most certainly don't (shoutout to the one person from Edmonton who dislikes the Oilers) and others still don't have a hometown team (shoutout to my brasilian + european + etc mutuals and everyone else!!)

Feel free to shoot me an ask if you want me to do anything else with this data -- examine a specific team, give actual casual fan/etc counts and total aggregate rankings, anything else!

[morallysuperiorlips]

6 Tips That Are GUARANTEED to Help Make Your Villain More Unsettling!

There's cunty villians, there's over the top villains...but what about a good old villain that just makes your skin crawl? Here are some ways to help you achieve such a character in your own writing (with personal examples of my own :>)

1.) Juxtaposition is Your Friend: I like to say that a nuanced villain is a good villain, but it really works well on the "unsettling" factor when you're finding ways to pit their more amicable side against the side that makes them as deplorable as they might be. Nothing is more disquieting than a villain who gushes about something innocuous, then turns around and summons a wall of quantum dark matter to swallow up a children's nursery in the same breath.

EXAMPLE: The villain in my WIP, Chaos, is a #GirlDad who really does try to make attempts to be a decent father. But, not only is he the founder and head of the world's most prominent blood cult and genocidal terrorist organization, but he perpetually feeds his lackies who disobey him to his blood magic eldritch beast pet, and keeps the heads of his most hated enemies on spikes in his office for "tasteful decoration" and because "the look of terror in their eyes keeps him going through the day."

2.) Radicalize the Things They Love: Hear me out. Everyone, even our baddies, have things they enjoy or might positively be in love with (whether it's tangible or intangible). Another surefire way to ensure your villain ruffles your readers is to take that thing they love, and find a way to blow it up to the most extreme degree.

EXAMPLE: Using Chaos as an example to illustrate what I mean--I mentioned in the previous point that he is a #GirlDad and a relatively devoted one at that despite being a genocidal cult leader. However, he's taken this devotion to his daughter up about 800,000 notches by 1.) Attempting to kidnap her from her mother multiple times over the course of her childhood, 2.) Convincing his entire cult congregation to worship her as a religious "prodigal daughter" figure as he has, and 3.) Setting up the HQ of his cult in the country his daughter was born in (after realizing he can't kidnap her) so he could "be closer to her."

3.) Make a Show of Their Humanity: This all somehow ends up looping back into how nuanced your villain should be, but I think focusing on just how humane you can make a villain at certain points will pile on to their disturbing factor. And I don't just mean little acts of kindness here and there; I mean things that might make you pause and wonder if they're actually a villain. I'll never forget that part of Beastars where the lion yakuza boss was asking Haru how much she liked school and telling her how he held her in "high regard" knowing damn well he was going to kill and eat her within the hour. Things like THAT. Find ways where your villain can be in a position of "they're not so bad" before they turn around and make you realize "oh wait. Yes they are."

EXAMPLE: Chaos is a genocidal maniac with a steel-clad cruelty streak, but one of the key conflicts in my WIP is the relationship he soon develops with his daughter, the protagonist. My protag knows he's deplorable, and knows he's all-powerful and fully capable of committing these atrocious acts against the world she inhabits, yet the pedestal he puts her on leaves her deeply questioning and fighting herself about how she actually feels about him. He goes out of his way to protect her, love her, attempt to be her father (despite some clear obstacles), and just show her such a deep humanity that she struggles to comprehend how he can turn around and be a murderous blood cult leader.

4.) Be Sure Their Presence is Always Felt: Your villain might not always be "on stage" in your story. But, even so, to ensure maximum unsettling factor, you should attempt to find ways to make it seem like they might as well be. They're not physically occupying space on the page, they don't have any direct dialogue, but something is happening that makes it clear that their presence is still being felt. Do they have spies out and about? Are there any residual effects of their previous scheme? Do your characters keep replaying something they said over and over in their heads, and it constantly weighs them down through the story?

EXAMPLE: Before Chaos is even fully introduced as the primary threat of my WIP, his presence is known by all even if they aren't quite aware of it just yet. His cult is the rumored cause of a deadly drug epidemic that has the country of France, and other scattered places across the world, in a chokehold. Nobody really knows if this cult is actually real, and nobody has any leads on how to locate them, just that this drug is causing a lot of issues. Only when shit hits the fan does the protag group actually know what they're dealing with.

5.) Show Your Reader the Absolute Grit of the Fight: By this, I mean, try to find ways to showcase how deep both Team Hero and Team Villain have to go to get at each other. I believe an unsettling villain usually has some form of a methodical approach to their schemes, so with that in mind, show readers the absolute mind games and 4D chess your heroes have to play to even have a chance at coming face to face with your baddie, or even be noticed by them, and how your villain responds in return. Bonus points if your villain immediately catches their drift and pivots, thus wrecking whatever semblance of plans your heroes might have had.

EXAMPLE: It's not quite known until later in the story that Chaos is the big bad, but even before that point, there is a secret organization set in place to hunt him down and knock him out. My protag eventually comes into contact with this org, and discovers the tactical, 4D-chess-esque measures they've had to take to even scratch the surface of figuring out where Chaos is and what his actual motivations are.

6.) Take Your Time in Unveiling the Chokehold They Have on Your World: This might feel like an obvious one if you've read my acting examples, but it's pretty straightforward--don't lay down all your villain's cards from the get go. Give your protagonists time to really dissect and unearth just how powerful your villain might actually be. What might start as a small, maybe almost innocuous little case might slowly but surely evolve into a realization that your protags bit off way more than they could chew, and they're up shit's creek without a paddle. There's a sinking, disquieting "oh my god" moment that might come to your readers as they also realize, along with your protags, that they were only scratching the surface of what your villain was capable of, and now that they've found it, there's no going back.

EXAMPLE: The pure reach that Chaos' little cult actually has isn't felt until my protagonist meets him face to face. Only then does it really dawn on her that the man had so much more power than she, or her team, ever imagined.

As always, happy writing <3

[throughtrialbyfire]

more cicero thoughts because i've been thinking about this so much. this post will specifically focus on the dynamic between he and the night mother, and is sorta headcanon-based but i have so many thoughts and need to get them out.

i definitely think there's a lot to be said for how cicero's attachment to the night mother can almost be described as oedipal, but i also don't think it quite extends that far, nor do i think he hates her. i believe his experiences, his emotional attachment, his investment in her is religious devotion. it's worship. it's a deep and unwavering sense of loyalty and duty, to sithis, to the brotherhood, to the night mother.

yes, i do think he loves her. yes, i do think to some degree he despises her. wouldn't you? alone, for eight years, with nothing but a corpse you're expected to take care of every single day, to keep clean and sanctify, falling into routines, the only one to talk to who can never talk back? this also probably leads to an unhealthy degree of emotional projection on cicero's part towards her, but i won't get too into that here.

this desire to be chosen by her, then, must feel like release. it's relief from a silence never-ending, it's a sort of validation, a grasping back of hands he's been extending for eight long years. the silence he describes in his journal is cruel. it's rage, wrath, it's ever-present and makes him feel small. but then, as the years pass, he accepts the silence as all he will get. because even though he's done everything (the only survivor of two sanctuaries, three if you spare him. the only one who has tended her, devoted his entire being to her and worshiping she and sithis, carrying her casket from cyrodiil to skyrim and spending every damned day thinking about the night mother and sithis and his loyalty to them) he is not the listener. he knows. he knows he will never be the listener, the night mother has not chosen him (as he states, he remains "unworthy"), despite sacrificing everything.

still, he is the keeper and he would do anything for the night mother, even if it destroys him, because now she's all he has. he has nothing else attaching him to a former life, and he's devoted his entire life as keeper to her. he's reverent towards her because she's all he has, perhaps she's his god more than sithis in a way, because at least she's tangible. she is something dependent on him, and as such, he's codependent on her. and this devotion is religious and unholy. it's a mixture of hatred (feeling unworthy, feeling as though all his effort has gone unappreciated) and the intense love (she is quite literally a divine being to the dark brotherhood, tantamount to a mother mary - would this make him a Christ or a Magdalene or something else entirely? anyways) and the religious devotion and the earthly rage of not being enough. being passed over by her hand and her voice reaching someone who only just joined, or only recently became aware of the night mother.

frankly, in cicero's shoes, i'd lose my mind a little bit, too.

[cookinguptales]

Y'know, I post a lot on tumblr about what a shit Guillermo is, and I stand by that. He is a marvelous little shit. But honestly I only talk about it so much because people on tumblr and AO3 send me so many messages about how he's never done anything wrong in his life. When I'm presented with the opposite, that Guillermo is uniquely awful and selfish and he victimizes the poor uwu vampires (thinkpieces that you saw a lot more often during s3) I am fully like "I STAND BY EVERY DECISION THAT FOOLISH MAN HAS EVER MADE."

Being real with you, I feel like talking about Guillermo like he's totally blameless and put-upon or like he's totally selfish and wholly evil flattens a really complex and interesting character. He's selfish and self-involved and cruel and sweet and insecure and giving. He's all those things, and I love that about him.

I love Guillermo as a character because he has these carefully constructed categories in his head, these rules and boundaries that he sticks to like glue. He contains multitudes, and it's because he carefully follows the rules he has in his own head, even when they don't make a lot of sense to others.

I think the best way to think about Guillermo's actions is to think about him having two very different sets of rules for in-groups and out-groups. He will bend over backward for people in his in-group, will be the kindest, most patient, sweetest man in the world -- but he can be downright vicious to people in the out-group.

This is a pretty common occurrence IRL, though not always to the degree that Guillermo does it... I mean, you're going to treat your best friend's birthday differently than you're gonna treat a stranger's, right? When you start seeing it happen the way Guillermo does it, though, it's often to create and preserve power. You see it in politics, high school cliques, religion, etc.

For example, let's take new religious movements (or NRMs, i.e. "cults".) They are famous for this behavior. When you create distinct in-groups and out-groups and can behave very differently towards both, you give your followers a strong incentive to stay in the in-group. It makes them feel like they're the "good" ones, the superior ones, the ones with power. The ones that belong. And when they see out-groups being mistreated, well. No one wants to be in the group with no power who's mistreated, y'know? It simultaneously gives people in the in-group a sense of community, belonging, and social superiority and makes them afraid to leave.

But really, you see it all the time. If you have a "good" group that you can never harm and a "bad" group that you can do anything to, that really helps prop up power structures in a lot of ways. Look, I'm not going to get into this too much more because you don't want a freaking academic lecture on your dash, but suffice it to say that I think Guillermo is largely using his in-groups and out-groups in this way, mentally speaking.

He has in-groups (his friends, his family, his boyfriend, the vampires he lives with) and out-groups (literally everyone else, including other vampires) and he badly mistreats the out-groups because he does not want to be one of them. I've noticed he's particularly awful to human prey that reminds him of himself (nerdy, socially awkward, powerless, virginal) and I think that's because he wants to distance himself from them. He wants to make sure no one mistakes him as being part of that group, so he very strongly pushes them into his out-group by not only killing them, but making fun of them and often making sure they suffer before they die.

And then he's even more slavishly devoted to his in-groups, partially because he does truly love them, but partially because he desperately wants to stay in those groups. Or because he's trying to protect his own hide.

I don't mean to say that every kind thing he does is calculated -- I do think he very genuinely wants to make the people he loves happy -- but there's a sort of desperation to it sometimes. When he does these kind things, sometimes it's this desperate bid to be valued and accepted by others in his in-group, which makes him feel like he's earned his place there.

I've noticed that Guillermo has a tendency to do things for people to stay in their good graces (buying his mom a fridge, doing chores for Nandor, giving Derek money) when what they actually want is his time and attention. There often is a vibe that he's trying to earn his way into a group he doesn't quite feel entitled to when actually he's already very much a part of the group and he just needs to maintain those relationships. It's insecurity, frankly, and a nervous sort of self-preservation.

In fact... I'd say that Guillermo's greatest emotional struggles often come when trying to reconcile (and protect) different members of his in-group because he's trying to reconcile (and protect!!!) the different parts of himself.

Like... when he protected Jeremy, he was protecting a friend, but also the idea that some weak, virginal nerds are not prey. He had to protect this member of his in-group, partially because he loved him, but partially because he had to protect himself by extension. If Jeremy could be an exception to the predator-prey dynamics, so could he. Some humans could be valuable.

When he protected his fellow familiars during the familiar fights, he was protecting fellow humans whom he thought had "earned" a better life (and death) than prey humans, but he was also protecting the idea that a familiar could be loved and valued. He was protecting himself and the hope that Nandor would love him.

When he protected his family, he was protecting his beloved family members, but also the idea that vampires and slayers could coexist. Of course he doesn't want his family to die, but he's also doesn't want his hopes that he can have it all to die with them.

Let's all be real with each other here. Guillermo kills humans, and he does so without compunction. He is able to utterly dehumanize prey humans because he has a vested interest in emotionally distancing himself from them. But he gets kind of freaked out when the humans that he has mentally removed from that prey group (his friends, his family, people "like him") are not placed into that same exempt group by others. And this is definitely because he wants to protect those he loves!

But it's also because it means that he isn't special, either.

Let's talk about Freddie, who I think is probably the most complicated example of all this in the entire show. (Save perhaps Derek, who could probably get an entire post to himself because he went from out-group to in-group without Guillermo's consent.) When Freddie first arrived at the house, Nandor mistook him for prey. This understandably freaked Guillermo out, partially because he wanted to protect his boyfriend and partially because it was violating Guillermo's group dynamics.

(Insert meta here about Freddie representing Guillermo's ability to have a happy life outside of the weird, insular one he'd created for himself prior to s4.)

Freddie ended up being kind of special, though, because Guillermo considered him to be part of his in-group and Nandor considered him an out-group until he realized that Guillermo valued him. And then Nandor wanted him to not just be part of his in-group, but a portion of it separate from (but simultaneously representing) Guillermo. It's complicated!!

So we had Freddie 1 who was Guillermo's and Freddie 2 who was Nandor's, but... in the end, Freddie really belonged to no one but himself, right? In the end, he very literally chose himself. He left the -group dynamic altogether.

So Freddie is moving in and out of these groups like a fuckin' oiled-up eel that Guillermo cannot keep a hold of, and that really challenges his control issues as well as his ability to feel like he belongs in the in-groups he's created. It challenges his ability to feel worthy and loved and like he belongs anywhere. It challenges his ability to have faith that he'll ever become a vampire. Suddenly he does not control these groups anymore. If anything, they're controlling him.

While a lot of Guillermo's angst at the end of s4 was about, y'know, normal heartbreak... I think a lot of that was happening, too. He was really seeing the abrupt overturning of the carefully established rules and groups and boundaries and power differentials in his head, and that made him just want to be free of the whole thing.

So he took a step out of all of his preconceptions about what he did and did not have to do to belong in these groups, and took hold of his own destiny.

...unfortunately.

Guillermo's decisions in s4, both regarding his family and his turning, really did permanently shake up a lot of the group dynamics in the show. For better? For worse? (FOR GOOD...? lmao) It's hard to say, honestly. But I'm eager to see how he irons it all out in his head!

Our able-to-self-justify-literally-anything bitch. 💜

[megabuild]

actually i know i just wrote an essay in your replies but i have more to say and would like to open it to forum so im in your inbox now. the problem with naming a character as a komaeda is that you are asking two different questions: 1. is the character a komaeda (a la being a vriska, in the way fandom interprets and interacts with them) or 2. is the character a komaeda (in narrative ans archetype)? usually these are not phrased as exclusive questions, but in order to truly understand a komaeda, we must acknowledge that these are two different distinctions. they are not mutually exclusive, but they are separate questions. for instance, traffic!scott is a komaeda (in sense 1 but not in sense 2.)

to understand why type 2 komaedas are rare, we have to understand that komaeda is a deeply contextual character. komaeda is both the amalgamation of many different white haired anime boy archetypes (most notably kaworu nagisa (nge)) and exists within the context of foiling naegi makoto. komaeda in canon exists to answer the question, what if naegi makoto was dialed up to ten? he exists as naegi's traits amplified to contrast the moral of the first game; while dr1 is about hope & despair, sdr2 is about rejecting this binary.

so what do we look for in a type 2 komaeda?

1. religious-like devotion to a concept or principle that may be considered as fantastical in reality, but governs factors in universe either preternaturally (luck) or societally (talent). this obsession must have affected the character's life in the past to the utmost degree, and thus is the basis by which they examine the world.

2. relationship to a protagonist. i cant expand on this without explaining why komahina is important to the dr universe lol but its part of point 1

3. black and white thinking, blue and orange morals. must be seen as an outsider, offputting to the rest of the cast

4. contradictory self esteem. both having complete confidence in their abilities and seeing themself as inherently more enlightened than others, but also putting themself beneath those they deem to be the saviors of society. the character must be at odds with both these traits, and desire to be part of the savior class, often via self sacrifice

optional narrative traits:

1. deuteragonist

2. exists to reveal flaws within the status quo and to make the viewer/reader/player question things; exists as a watson

2a. must be exemplary of the problems within the system

2b. must foil a character who upholds the system

i hope this is helpful and not confusing. i have danganronpa autism and i take it very fucking seriously. love, evan

im nodding so hard THIS IS AWESOME and also so much more thought than i expected anyone to put in butthats a good thing this is good. i love your mind. sorry i just woke up and immediately saw this and now im going to be thinking about it all day. Scott is a type 1 komaeda but bdubs is (not but probably the closest we have) a type 2 komaeda. Sure. Lets fucking go majordubs wins again

[hualianisms]

camilikha on twitter posted with mtl the part of the TGCF Audio Drama production team's talk where they discussed hua cheng's character concept, and i love what the AD team said so i attempted a rough translation of the CN text:

"The core of Hua Cheng's character: Ultimate beauty, ultimate danger, ultimate devoutness The simultaneous contradiction and balance in his feelings: On one hand, he has a yearning desire that is blasphemous; on the other hand, he sees Xie Lian as sacred and inviolable, so he simultaneously possesses a devotee's sense of worship and sacrifice [1], and restraint [2]. His love is akin to a fire in the abyss; on the surface he approaches everything with effortless skill and ease, but in his heart he is always simultaneously suppressing and yet burning with fervour and zeal."

*translation notes:

[1] "献祭 worship and sacrifice" here refers to the religious act of a worshipper making sacrificial offerings to their god. the sacrifices offered to the god can be other people/things, or oneself.

[2] for the part about "restraint 禁欲", the CN phrase used refers to religious asceticism or abstinence (the AD team used many phrases with specifically religious connotations in this description of HC). however, "asceticism" felt to me like the wrong eng word for HC as he is not ascetic at all, nor is his devotion or love chaste. I struggled to find an eng word that fit here, but this is what the AD team was likely referring to (his abstinence during the centuries before he met XL):

(I think the AD team may also have been referring to how HC initially attempted to hold himself back early in Book 1/Arc 1 for fear of overwhelming XL at first (during the period before they started kissing and HC realized XL fully reciprocated his attraction and desire).

and just my thoughts but i love how the AD understood HC as character so well! i love how they highlighted how he is simultaneously the concept of the most faithful devotee, and the most ardent lover. whether it's his religious devotion or his romantic/sexual love for XL, it's intense & passionate to the highest degree

i also love how they described the juxtaposition btwn HC's effortlessly calm & competent exterior, vs the intense passion he holds within. i really love how well the AD understands his character and allows HC to be as layered, multi-faceted and gorgeously romantic as he's meant to be

[blondeboyfriend]

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐍𝐈

[ PAIRING ] Wolfwood x f!reader [ AUTHOR'S NOTE ] Yes, this is a repost. Yes, I didn't write this my brain. [ SYNOPSIS ] idk you fuck your best friend's brother. I truly didn't think that hard about any of this. [ WORD COUNT ] like 1k [ CONTENT ] Porn without a stitch of plot, you're besties with your roommate, vaginal sex, "just the tip", he hits it from the back (ayyy), dubcon (drunk sex), alcohol, overstimulation, pet names (girlie, baby), barely edited, and nothing about this is serious like in the least.

You alwaaaaaaaaays thought your best friend’s older brother was cute in a fucked up kind of way. He was tall, legs toned and long, and broad shouldered. His clothes were always disheveled in some way: pants that were too short and revealed his ankles, shirts with several buttons undone that showed off his chest. His black hair was always in a state of perfect disarray. He wore dark sunglasses all the time and chain smoked.

But the biggest appeal was that he was a seminarian. A priest-in-training. You assumed those types were stuffy, good boys that went to bed sober every night.

Nicholas, however, was anything but that. You wouldn’t say he was an alcoholic, but he felt no guilt when it came to imbibing. Anytime he stopped by he brought a bottle of dark rum and made you play drinking games. When your friend would go to bed, you would jokingly confess to a multitude of sins of varying severity.

And you alwaaaaaaaaays wanted something more to happen, but getting caught by your friend deterred you. She already thought her brother was a bit of a loser and she would have judged you endlessly for having poor taste.

She loved him of course; she simply didn’t hold him in high regard. His existence was too contradictory, the juxtaposition too much to reconcile. He was a lout of the first degree, but also was relatively pious and devoted to his studies.

Your friend wanted more for you (not her weird, religious brother). And as long as she was around you could fight off your desires with zero issues.

That’s why you were set up for failure the night he stopped by without warning. Your friend wasn’t home and your fantasy started to feel more tangible. Everything was falling into place; this was the perfect opportunity to indulge in your crush.

You scurried around in search of something slutty yet comfortable to wear which ended up being a pair of booty shorts, a cropped sweatshirt, and absolutely nothing underneath. You knew if you stretched your arms over your head he’d get a tantalizing view of your breasts.

You opened the door and told him that his sister wasn’t home, batting your lashes. He smirked and asked if you were doing anything, his voice like honey, endlessly beguiling. You invited him in.

“You tryna have some fun?” he asked with an impish grin. He held up a bottle of Bacardi.

“Hell yeah. Let me grab some shot glasses.”

You strutted to the kitchen with a little spring in your step. You looked over your shoulder to make sure your guest was following. His eyes were firmly pointed at your ass, noticing how the cheeks poked out from the bottom of your shorts. The swing in your hips successfully hypnotized him, pulling him deeper into your clutches. You were going to make this night count.

He took a seat at the table and watched as you grabbed two glasses from the highest shelf. He smirked as your sweater rode up, revealing the plush underside of your tits. You pretended not to notice.

“Shall we?” you asked, handing him a shot glass.

The two of you took shot after shot, rarely speaking to one another. You didn’t need words. A smoldering glance, a flirty wink, said it all.

“You got a drinkin’ problem, girlie,” Nicholas finally said, pointing at the nearly empty bottle of rum.

“You drank just as much!” you laughed, elbowing him.

“I’m shouldering the weight of God’s words. What’s your excuse?”

“I’m trying to get the courage to fuck a priest-in-training obviously.”

He cocked an eyebrow and genuinely seemed surprised by your bold initiative.

“Nah. My sister’ll kill me… And you too probably.”

“She will never know,” you purred, grabbing a hold of his hands and leading him to your bedroom.

You undressed immediately, tossing your clothes at him. You got on the bed on your hands and knees, and arched your back. You gave him the perfect view of your glistening cunt. You heard Nicholas fiddling with his belt and dropping it on the floor. He positioned himself behind you, rubbing the tip of his cock along your dripping folds.

“I’m only puttin’ the tip in, alright?” he said, flicking his lighter. You immediately smelt the acrid smoke of his cigarette. “I don’t need you fallin’ in love with me.”

He guided his cock into your cunt, stopping halfway, and began to massage your clit with his free hand. The pads of his fingers were soft and warm. 

“I want all of it,” you whined pathetically.

You craned your neck back and pouted at him. His cheeks were pink, jaw clenched. He was a man in trouble, a man weighing his options. He took a drag off his cigarette and put it out in the cup of water sitting on your nightstand.

“Alright. You want my cock that bad, huh?” he asked, playing with your aching clit.

“Yes!”

He sank his cock inside you and he let out the most heavenly moan. It was thick, stretching out your cunt in a euphoric way. His thrusts were fast and deep, with an air of desperation to them. He kept his fingers firmly placed on your clit, furiously rubbing it. It was almost too heavy a burden to bear. You felt like you were going to collapse under the weight of your ardor.

“To—too much,” you choked out.

“Nah. Lemme show what too much really is, baby.”

He pinched your clit between his fingers and you yelped. It was already so sensitive, the pressure he was applying was dizzying. You struggled to hold yourself up and buried your face into your pillow. He was right. This was too much. But you loved it.

Nicholas chuckled and slammed his cock into you. His thrusts were relentless. Each one was punctuated with one of your dreamy moans. You were seeing stars, ascending into the arms of God, or something… you didn’t fucking know. Your brain was leaking out of your ears. And it didn’t matter; it served no purpose. All you needed was his cock throbbing in your slick cunt.

[ritsukaaoyagi]

loveless volumes 5 & 6 both have a lot going on with Believing ♥ in someone most specifically on soubi's part to obviously a kind of like devotional (don't know if I'm using that word right) degree and with ritsuka being kind of suffocated by that pressure put on him by soubi as he is soubi's Sacrifice... ummm and it goes without saying that soubi also in his way "believed" in seimei in like a religious sense too what with literally everything starting in volume 1 and then in volume 5 he even outright says "seimei was my god" and yeah but the way the believing and whatever functions in each of their dynamics (seimei/soubi vs ritsuka/soubi) is different and fun... and also demonstrates the differences between how soubi functions in his bond with ritsuka vs. his bond with seimei in that it is "safer" for soubi to put that pressure of belief i mentioned before onto ritsuka. because it isn't as if ritsuka is a similar figure to soubi as seimei was to soubi, like that much is clear but it is especially clear because of how soubi doesn't only want to believe in ritsuka but he wants ritsuka to believe in him as well and vocalizes that with some desperation in volume 5.

though ritsuka does kind of kickstart this himself before the above scene, during the initial Seimei Might be Alive reveal

and while ritsuka's way of believing is obviously much less devout than soubi's believing as soubi is soubi, it still comes with a pretty significant level of devotion or like... there is a certain "clinging" kind of vibe to it............ evidently............. i was gonna say there is some level of delusion to it as well because it's sooo so obvious seimei is alive but ritsuka keeps going around before goura saying or thinking that seimei must be dead solely because soubi tells ritsuka that seimei is dead (also because of his own belief in seimei, "if seimei's alive, he would be here with me"), but by this point soubi has proven time and time again that his word cannot be trusted regardless of whether or not soubi actually believes himself that seimei is dead, and obviously ritsuka is aware of this but chooses to believe soubi as an expression of trust more than anything else.....this crazy girl scene

AND THIS IS LIKE. A NOT TOTALLY QUESTIONABLE WAY OF THINKING arguably... I mean there's a lot going on what with betrayal and forgiveness but generally speaking the idea behind this is that ritsuka isn't going to revoke his trust or belief in soubi even if soubi is wrong or slips up or "betrays" him in that Believing in someone is kinda just like Loving someone. but "betrays" holds a lot of heavier connotations so yeah and then this says enough about unconditional love and unconditional love is just not a reasonable concept at all which is a major theme in loveless HAHAHAH OR AT LEAST WITH HOW LOVELESS TALKS ABOUT IT LIKE existing without boundaries and/or self respect. again it's one of those things where ritsuka clearly has some pretty """""normal""""" ideas on what it means to love someone and what a relationship needs in terms of healthy trust and belief, but because ritsuka is ritsuka and soubi is soubi, and with their respective relationships w/ seimei, nothing is ever that simple and ritsuka's beliefs and ideas manifests in a more co-dependent or like devout kind of way like he def has his own soubi moments... and then of course comes this scene in volume 6

and then this from soubi... so fun

ya i don't know i had more to say i think about soubi and seimei but i shouldn't have brought ritsuka up too soon because now idgaf. no analysis sorry i just wanted to talk about sourit... I guess

[queen-beefcake-sqx]

Please do your Sanctifying Kim Take!

Perceiving that man through HDB coloured glasses put me off of most fandom depictions of him. Not to mention how absolutely tiny he's depicted when he's of completely average size. (2-3inches shorter than Harry who is above 6ft. Like I get people do be havin size kinks, but that man's not short)

Canon Kim is the most trigger happy cop depicted in the entire game. He shot 6 kids people between working in juvenile detention and processing, is a severely repressed speedfreak with unprocessed grief (still working Dom's cases) and a wild card (not above using Harry's amnesia to manipulate Joyce when he knows him for a couple of hours), who can maybe have 2 Auth over world soggiest superstar but let's be honest don't we all?

He is so petty that he will die in the tribunal if you give away his pen lmao. Like that man is literally two steps above Harry when it comes to being a weird cop, and that's being lovingly understanding. He needs Martinaise just as much as HDB does.

op I am holding your face gently and shaking like a wet chihuahua. you, you get it.

Here’s my thing — as a general theme, I’ve noticed fandom takes seem to lean into the belief that because Harry’s deification of Dora crashed and burned so spectacularly, that (1) deification of Kim would be just as unhealthy and (2) Kim would outright reject that kind of worship.

And like. Okay. I can see how you’d make a case for that, sure. Except as you pointed out Kim is actually really fucking weird, and damaged in his own way, and most importantly — Kim wants to be cool. There’s a purple check that outright states Kim values being perceived as cool FAR MORE than he lets on. I’ve already written a post that mentions how significant it is for Kim that Harry thinks he’s cool, and what I’m gonna say next is an extension of that:

I think, somewhere deep down and repressed, Kim would actually love being deified by someone, and if Harry put in the work to have a healthy relationship with religion, they could actually make that dynamic work.

Long thoughts and explanation under cut:

Alright a little background on me: I was raised Unitarian Universalist and have a history of deifying my lovers. Harry’s anguish over Dora was very heartbreakingly familiar (although I didn’t destroy my life quite as spectacularly), and the way Harry uses inquiry to engage with belief systems (personal, political, scientific, and religious) is VERY Unitarian. One of our precepts is literally the constant and continuous search for truth and meaning in the world, and that’s Harry’s whole MO. So a lot of this is personal experience coloring interpretation.

A few years ago I wrote a piece of meta about why Tian Guan Ci Fu, a novel about a worshiper’s love for a prince turned god, is better treated as a fairy tale instead of a typical character-driven novel. I bring this up because in the meta I set forth that there were three really big themes that the story teaches us about divinity:

Books Two and Four encapsulate Xie Lian’s biggest lesson - that no one person can hope to end all suffering, even a god, and that putting a person on a pedestal places unachievable expectations upon them.

The rest of the books deal with two different but tangential lessons — devotion means seeing the best in people, regardless of their flaws; devotion also means inevitable destruction when you are not valued to the same degree.

I bring this up because, incidentally, these are the EXACT same themes that Disco Elysium deals with in regards to deification and devotion. I firmly believe the rest of the text about Innocences corroborates this, but even just looking at Harry and Dora, these themes are SCREAMINGLY relevant. Harry destroyed himself when Dora, his Innocence and god, left him. Their relationship was never really equal — there was a class difference, the abortion and difference in want for parenthood, the fact she walked out on him at least one before. Harry placed Dora on such a high pedestal that he set her up to fail him when she couldn’t handle Harry’s addiction and deteriorating mental health at a job she encouraged him to pursue.

Because a really important caveat about those themes I didn’t elaborate on — “regardless of flaws” doesn’t mean never acknowledging them. I really think Harry got into his head that Dora could truly do no wrong and found himself increasingly hurt and floundering when she proved just how wrong that was, and instead of acknowledging things they BOTH needed to work on — to do better, to improve, to grow — Harry got angry, resentful, and depressed and Dora got out of there.

And I don’t blame her, nor anybody else who did the same. I don’t blame Jean’s anger with Harry’s carelessness with his life, even if the way he expresses it is actively harmful. But the problem is Harry is a vast, vast soul — he feels things very deeply and extremely. I like fics where he learns to work through it and love a person to a Normal(tm) degree, but there’s a part of me deep down that feels like that is impossible for him. There is vitriol or there is devotion and there is little to nothing in-between for him, and for him a healthy relationship isn’t less devotional/religious as much as it is reconceptualizing what it means to be divine — stealing from my TGCF meta, he needs to remember that deities were human before they were ever his god, and as someone who’s worked as a cop, he should KNOW how messy humans are.

And minus himself, fuck if there isn’t a human messier than Kim Kitsuragi.

I’ve written a bit about Kim’s self-image and the significance of Harry finding him cool before. Kim is honestly a mess. He’s implied to be still struggling with the death of his partner some time in the past, is trigger happy and hates it, and is also implied to be ostracized from his coworkers. Kim does his job because he genuinely thinks it’s one of the only ways he can do good under a military regime that’s got airships ready to attack at a moment’s sign of rebellion. He smokes one cigarette a way to challenge his own volition and give off an air of untouchability because he has to be cool, he has to, he has no power in his life if he doesn’t!

But I genuinely believe that cool is tested at every turn, and I think there’s very few people who see the cool without seeing everything else about him — all the things he’s ashamed of, that make him feel lesser or othered. And Harry sees all those things over time, with a thorough enough run — he learns about “Kimball” and the bad eyesight and his fierce protection of his status as a “true Revacholiere”.

But it’s day one that Harry can call Kim cool. Regardless of flaws you uncover or not, Harry can see Kim as someone to be admired. Because that’s what Harry does with people he likes. And when was the last time anyone called Kim cool and meant it genuinely?

I think it’s noteworthy that Kim tries to stay humble when Harry gets excited about Kim — he downplays himself or pulls Harry out of flights of fancy about the degree of his “coolness”. He reminds Harry that he’s human… even if inwardly he preens at praise and recognition. (I’m too lazy to go through the Fayde viewer right now to back myself up, but just really pay attention to his Empathy checks sometime). Kim keeps Harry from constantly putting him on a pedestal like he did to Dora.

It’s also noteworthy that regardless of what a hot mess you are re: addiction, Kim still respects you as a detective and will defend you to your precinct. Remember that third theme, about relational devotion? Devotion doesn’t work if you’re deifying someone who doesn’t respect you, and thus won’t hold you to the standard of their divinity. There’s a thing in teaching where teachers want to shy away from difficult or disruptive students, thinking we’re accommodating them when in reality we’re not challenging them and are disrespecting their right to learn. Respect also means setting boundaries and trust, and I don’t know how much of either Dora and Harry had by the end.

Kim sets boundaries right off — No, we will not talk about the pissing contest until the field autopsy is done, don’t even try asking again. Yes, I do think now is a bad time for a drink and you should stop being careless with your life. No I will not tell you a secret about myself. Kim isn’t afraid to draw lines in the sand with Harry, because not only does he respect himself, but he wants to see that Harry respects him, too.

And in exchange, Kim displays his respect openly in front of peers — in front of the organization he’s worked to protect his reputation within — to defend Harry. Known drunk, bad-cop-or-cop-with-bad-days, sad sack Harry Du Bois. It’s acknowledgement from the object of his devotion that he’s done good work and can do more, if he keeps putting in the work to get better.

The point is — I don’t think Harry can change how he loves people, I think its just inherent to who he is as a person, but devoting himself to the altar of Kim Kitsuragi might actually work, if only because Kim wants that worship and will hold Harry accountable for not letting it consume them both.

[swordsmans]

Huge fan of Zolu stories with religious imagery in them, especially when it comes to gear 5 and the whole king of hell thing. Zoro just being so devoted lot Lufffy and the Straw Hats to a worrying degree-

yes yes uggh i feel the same way. i feel like their relationship within canon is so closely tied with devotion that their sun/moon—sun god/king of hell motifs are a natural progression. although we typically think of foils as “antagonists”, they’re really just characters who contrast in ANY sense and i really love the fact that zoro is luffy’s foil (and vice versa) in so many ways and could go on at length about how they compliment one another THROUGH their differences. their individual qualities stand out so heavily when you stick them next to each other in any scenario (combat, straw hat shenanigans, etc) but that also makes their similarities all the more obvious. and both are extremely devoted as a core character trait!!

obviously, there is the devotion to their respective dreams—and obviously, there’s zoro’s devotion to luffy, and luffy’s devotion to his crew. then, tacking onto that—as the series has gone on, zoro’s devotion to the crew itself (like you mention!). the fact that either would give up their own dreams, their own lives for the sake of that devotion (which we’ve SEEN on more than one occasion!!) makes their dynamic absolutely rife with religious flavor. dial that up to eleven and combine it with their heaven/hell-adjacent aesthetics? i am literally so weak for that shit.

they’re a little crazy! a little unhinged! they’ve got the kind of full-body, whole-soul loyalty that you only get at a level that’s a little bit religious and god damn, i’m here for it.

[wing-ed-thing]

Hidan x Reader x Kakuzu Love Triange Headcanons

𓆃 So... you're dead.

𓆃 Not to say that Hidan or Kakuzu are completely incapable of love... but it's not going to be traditional, healthy, and even the chances of the best case that you're even satisfied in this partnership is slim to none.

𓆃 And it all depends on you. Because the most important factor here is that you can hold your own with these two. It's like a bad choose your own adventure novel.

𓆃 Even that is pretty high stakes considering that they're both practically immortal and also prone to outbursts of anger and violence.

𓆃 Hidan's affection is like a puppy love. He gets attached quickly, impatiently, and possessively. And given things don't go quite his way, he will lash out without thought. Not to mention his inevitable bordom.

𓆃 Kakuzu's affection is slow and creeping. There's a fondness that must never overstep onto things he deems more important, because the moment you slip in the hierarchy of things holding his attention, he will strike as suddenly and quietly as his initial affection.

𓆃 Your best chances come if you happen to be a near-perfect match for each other. Because Hidan isn't accepting anyone that he cannot share his faith with— remember, Lord Jashin comes first— and Kakuzu won't let anything stop his prioritization of money.

𓆃 Ideally, perhaps you may be more skilled or offer a unique ability that compliments the two. Perhaps you are a religious scholar or are a cut-throat loan shark. It's a tricky balance to strike.

𓆃 The most promising thing about this scenario is that Kakuzu and Hidan will likely get distracted by each other. As possessive as they are, it's likely that their pride will get in the way and they'll duke it out with each other.

𓆃 It's probably best if you keep it this way, as you don't have to deal with the inevitable boredom that will likely come with actually partnering up with one or the other.

𓆃 Throw your weight around, show your skill, and don't show interest.

𓆃 The safest option would be Kakuzu. He's more predictable, and while money is king, this is something that can be more easily shared. Any rule-breakers around money can be avoided as he is the more logical of the two.

𓆃 While Kakuzu isn't easily impressed by any means, his respect can be won over (which would guarantee a degree of safety and may lead to a thriving partnership).

𓆃 Competence in negotiating, a fair but aggressive bargainer (without being cheeky), knowledge of politics... Kakuzu can be won over in a series of discussion.

𓆃 Compliments by Kakuzu include, but are not limited to, "You have a good head on your shoulders," "You drive a hard bargain," and "Hmp," accompanied by a surprised, yet impressed dip of his lip and nod of his head.

𓆃 (Bonus points if his arms are crossed.)

𓆃 For Hidan, Jashin will always come first. Failure to join or follow new edicts will result in your death. Failure to be as devoted as Hidan would like would likely result in your death. Hidan is also more distractible.

𓆃 Compliments from Hidan don't go much past crass comments about your body, but sometimes he'll say random out of pocket things that make you laugh and he really likes making you laugh.

𓆃 He's really bad at it because he doesn't quite understand what it is that makes you laugh, but he gets such satisfaction out of getting you to laugh.

𓆃 You have to play it by ear. If you hold them off too long, they'll get bored. Really, you have to just pick one eventually and pray it works out.

Thank you to all who liked, reblogged, followed, and supported. Your support means so much and is greatly appreciated.

Three-Man Squad Relationship Headcanons with Kakuzu and Hidan

[ghostaholics]

sᴇᴠᴇɴ ᴅᴇᴀᴅʟʏ sɪɴs [ 𝑔𝓇𝑒𝑒𝒹 ]

Pairing: Johnny MacTavish x fem!Reader Warning(s): [ 18 + only ] oral smut, mentions of religious imagery and sacrilegious behavior from both parties; purely indulgent A/N: drabble about blasphemy to the highest degree; according to Wiki Johnny is a Roman Catholic; will write the other six when I stop being lazy

He starts with, "Bless me Father, for I have sinned."

GREED

A Catholic boy to the core, but he can't find it in him to feel all that sorry for saying that the closest he's ever gotten to humbly worshipping someone is the sacred act of settling his face in between your legs. As far as he’s concerned, the only thing that matters to him in this moment is helping you reach that fucked-out state of bliss with his mouth alone, and God, he's got nothing but a single thought while the world around him ceases to exist: you taste like heaven and you feel like sin, divine and wicked and everything in between. If there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s that he’d gladly devote the rest of his life to lapping at your core, slick and hot as it is – always, always wet and ready for him – just to coax out as many orgasms as he can before his chin is soaked and stickied by the end. He’s reverent with every accompanying touch, like how he can’t help but leave a trail of soft kisses on your inner thigh while he works his way up to your entrance, or how he has to reach for your hands, interlocking his fingers with yours throughout the entirety of it; sure it's nice, but really it's so that he can keep you right where he wants you. Johnny doesn’t think anything of all of this as less than holy, but the truth is that tasting you on his tongue makes him greedy like nothing else.

With that being said, he feels just as privileged to be in your presence when he’s on the receiving end. It goes like this: he caresses your cheek, affectionately stroking the pad of his thumb across the skin there. He gets breathless, barely-contained moans slipping out in between statements voicing his appreciation. Johnny's not shy about giving his praise – he loves telling you how good you look, on your knees, pupils blown out wide-as-fuck, with your mouth stuffed full of his cock. "Steamin' Jesus... thas' it, hen," he curses softly, words slurred with desire. The site of your lips all swollen, your mouth engulfing him in a wet heat – it’s godly. "Can y'take me deeper?" he asks. Of course you can. What kind of question is that?