#like surely someone in the world also has this same cycle

[lucky-clover-gazette]

Arceus Forbid Women Do Anything

Chapter 2/3 | 7,558 words | Rated T

Commandment II: Gatekeep

The self-indulgent Volo Wins AU fic has turned into non-diagetic game mechanics timeloop existential struggle with failure fic. Who's surprised

When the champion watched him during their battles, she often tried to imagine him in a different state of mind. She analyzed what she understood of his plans, was reluctantly impressed by his enduring commitment to his own aspirations. She got the best impression she could of the real Volo, a friend and a stranger and her only companion in this endless cycle of failure. She never spoke to him. The idea of conversation felt wrong, as if disturbing a scripted play or painting over a work of art. And besides, even if she managed to change the narrative through speech, her inevitable failure would render the results meaningless. She would, always, try again. Until she won, she would try again. As she approached the Temple of Sinnoh once again, the champion thought that she might be going insane. It made no sense, that she had not yet used her knowledge and practice to end this cycle. But every time she had the chance, she just… couldn’t. She would lose, retreat to the cave, call Arceus, and receive the same answer each time. Thou hast been defeated in battle. Thou shalt try again.

Read the full chapter on AO3 or under the cut:

BEFORE

The Champion of Hisui knew that something was wrong when she reached the temple’s remains.

Volo had been acting more strangely than usual in the past few weeks, as their search for the plates of Arceus drew closer to its end. Restless, lapsing into bouts of discomforting behavior that she’d struggled to explain. She’d always known there was something ironic about his friendly mercantile persona, and appreciated his genuine nature whenever it showed. Having worked retail herself in the previous world, she could never blame Volo for avoiding his job at the Ginkgo Guild, exploring ruins and attaching himself to her adventures instead. With time she had come to genuinely enjoy his company, smiling despite herself whenever he emerged to congratulate her for quelling yet another frenzied noble. And after her banishment, when he’d been the only person to truly care for her, she hadn’t hesitated to accept his comfort.

She didn’t know what exactly to call their relationship now, in the wake of her victory against Palkia and Dialga. By all intents and purposes, it felt like they were a partnership—officially as seekers of the plates of Arceus, but also as friends. He was the closest companion she had found in this world, and she’d grown to trust him near-implicitly. Volo had put himself at risk on her behalf far too many times for her to doubt his intentions now.

But, still. He was being weird. His lecture about Giratina had been pretty normal (for Volo), but the deranged laughter interrupting it? Definitely harder to explain—even for the champion, who usually delighted in Volo’s bizarre behaviors.

Of course, part of that was due to Volo himself, who was easily one of the most attractive people she had ever met. If someone else did half of the weird shit he did, she was pretty sure she’d find it annoying or even creepy. But with Volo, it was endearing. Not just because he was beautiful, or because he had a pleasant voice, or because he held himself with exceptional confidence. She was endeared because he was brilliant, and passionate about his interests, and clever in his humor, and so very sweet towards his pokémon. And he was hot.

She sometimes wondered if he felt the same way about her. But he was so focused on his studies, on the plates of Arceus, that she assumed that any kind of latent attraction would not be made a priority. Occasionally she felt the urge to just straight-up ask ‘what are we?’, but that seemed far too modern an approach. And besides, did she even want her relationship with Volo to be physical, or even explicitly romantic, outside the realm of fantasy?

She didn’t know if she could stand to lose his friendship. Volo, more than anyone else in Hisui, felt real. He was more than a sycophant, a worshiper, someone who idolized her unquestioningly for her gifts. He’d praised her successes, of course, but she’d never been ignorant to the double meanings in his words, the slight contempt of someone who wished for a life they could not have. A life she did have, thanks to the Almighty Arceus plucking her from her original time and place.

From others, praise felt shallow and meaningless. She’d saved them from misfortune, and they’d thanked her because they could continue living as they always had. But from the lonely and mysterious Volo, praise felt meaningful and true. Through his resentment he saw the many facets of her—she was not a flawless hero—and as a result, hadn’t rejected her when she appeared to have failed. He hadn’t abandoned her after she’d saved the region, either, once she’d served her great purpose. And while he was absolutely using her to find the plates, she knew that she was using him too. And that, somehow, was a greater comfort than any other connection she’d forged in this unfamiliar world.

Of course, things weren’t entirely cynical between them. Volo had shown the champion genuine moments of support, even when it had served him no purpose to do so. He’d comforted her during her banishment, blaming the people of Jubilife for their cruelty rather than telling her what she could have done differently to appease them. He had never once encouraged her to apologize. He’d given her a safe haven with Cogita and dedicated himself to assisting her with the Red Chain. All the while, he’d shown no shame about his continued association with the traitor who supposedly doomed them all.

Arceus, meanwhile, had transported its champion to Hisui with only a smartphone as a tether, offering little support beyond a mission and a vague promise upon its completion. At least when Volo was negging her, he did it to her face. With effort. While being hot about it. When he’d asked the champion for her help with the plates, taking her away from the village so they could travel the world together, it had been a no-brainer to say yes. She didn’t even really know what the plates did—just that Volo cared about finding them, and so she did too.

But, still. Something felt wrong. Something had felt wrong, ever since their last conversation with Cogita. Volo was lying to her, and after everything they’d been through she had no idea why he would. She already knew that he was more misanthropic than he acted and negligent in his merchant duties, which were the things he seemed most invested in concealing. He obviously had secrets—she knew very little of his past, for example—but those missing truths had never threatened the dynamic they’d created together. This truth, whatever it was, just felt wrong. She would not be able to proceed until it was revealed.

The champion took a deep breath, more nervous about this confrontation than any that had come before, and entered the temple ruins.

─────────────────

NOW

The challenger returned to Mount Coronet for what would surely be their final attempt at victory.

They only knew what Arceus had told them: they’d returned countless times throughout their life to battle the Champion of Hisui, and each time they had lost. Lost the battle and their memory, returning to the wilds to train the pokémon they wielded. They knew that they were nearing the end of their life, and soon enough would not be able to ascend Mount Coronet at all—yet the voice of Arceus still urged them forwards, and so they climbed.

They understood now that the Champion of Hisui was a faithless traitor, who they would need to defeat in order to earn an audience with the detested false Lord. In their younger years Arceus had not provided this information, simply requesting that she be dispatched. After several losses, though, Arceus had eventually disclosed the entire truth. Ever since that disclosure, the challenger’s mood approaching Spear Pillar was always the same: overwhelming anger towards the fallen hero who had enabled the old world’s destruction.

The challenger reached the temple again.

“Welcome back,” greeted the Champion of Hisui, motioning to a bench at the edge of Spear Pillar. “Please, take a seat.”

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BEFORE

She thought it was rather dramatic, the way he stood at the edge of the ruins. The sky around them was vast and pink, dotted by Hisui’s seemingly eternal clouds as the sun slowly set. Volo did not face the champion and the feeling of wrongness only increased.

“The temple lies in ruins now,” said Volo, still refusing to turn around. His voice was light, distant, a kind of detached calm that she had rarely heard from the passionate researcher. “Columns cracked and broken... like pillars now turned into spears, stabbing into the heavens.”

The champion raised an eyebrow, stopping just before the stairs leading up to the viewing platform. But she said nothing.

Volo turned around then, wearing his winning merchant’s smile. “Well,” he sighed, “I detect a distinct lack of Giratina.”

The champion couldn’t help but smirk at that. It had always amused her, the way he acted like life was a comedy of errors and they had no choice but to play along. The way he’d spoken in the Celestica Ruins had been different, though—he’d been dead-serious about his own suffering and the suffering of others, deranged laughter aside.

And here was that humor again. It should have been a comforting return to form. But this time, the champion could not shake the chilling feeling that Volo was in on the joke.

“Hm?” he asked, resting his chin on his hand. His tone was unmistakably condescending. He hadn’t spoken to her like that in months, not since they’d grown to understand each other as more than merchant and hero. “Is something bothering you?”

The champion nodded stiffly. For all of her trust and confidence in their friendship, she couldn’t help but wonder—

“Ah, I do beg your pardon,” said Volo, having traded his smile for a chillingly neutral expression. “I suppose I must seem to be behaving strangely!”

He didn’t sound like himself. He put a hand on his hip.

“I daresay you deserve to know what I’m really after by now,” he told the champion, and her heart sunk.

She found herself stepping backwards, filled with incomprehensible dread. It didn’t matter what it was, it only mattered that she hadn’t possessed the sense to avoid this situation altogether. And now she had no choice but to accept that she was wrong about the only person in this world who’d ever felt right.

Volo chuckled darkly, his one visible eye noticeably changed. He looked… manic, was the only word for it. She’d seen hints of this before, but had chalked it up to passion. It had even been sweet, in small doses. But this was concerning. She wanted to reach out to him, and she wanted to leave this place before she learned exactly how foolish she had been.

The conflict left her rooted where she stood. The conflict, and the fear.

He seemed to sense that fear, his expression shifting back to an easy smile. He spoke clearly, thoughtfully, just as he had during countless discussions of history and ruins and oh, Arceus, this man might actually be insane.

“Ever since I became convinced that Arceus really does exist,” said Volo, “there has been one question that consumed my thoughts: How can I meet such a being myself?”

The champion struggled to understand the implications of his words. All things considered, that was a perfectly normal Volo thing to say, so why did everything feel so—

"It was in an attempt to answer this question that I originally sought out Giratina and had it tear open that rift in space and time,” Volo told the champion. “After all, Giratina wished to stand against Arceus.”

She blinked.

He…

He’d brought her here.

She was here, because of him.

And when she’d been banished…

“But that didn't do the trick,” Volo continued, still smiling. “So then I had you gather the fragments of the all-encompassing deity, just as the murals of the ruins directed.”

He had her.

He’d had her.

Volo closed his eyes and lifted his head to the heavens, eerily peaceful in his confession. “Eighteen plates said to be the fragments of the all-encompassing deity. You hold in your hands seventeen of them. So, you must be wondering: Where is the last one?“

He opened his eyes and removed something from his apron. A purple plate, shaped exactly like the others. “Why, it’s right here!”

That was not a customer service smile, it was a smirk. She’d seen it last when he’d playfully challenged her to battle, but nothing was playful about this challenge.

The champion stood, slack-jawed, as Volo reached for the shoulder of his Ginkgo Guild uniform. In one smooth motion he removed the jumpsuit and his hat, revealing…

Oh, he was definitely insane.

"Now hand over the plates you gathered!” Volo commanded, dressed in the most bizarre outfit the champion had ever seen in her life. He wore a chiton-shirt with a cold shoulder, a pendant with a teardrop-shaped stone, gladiator sandals, and green capri pants. Had he assembled this look in the dark?

And the hair. He had done something with his hair. His beautiful hair that the champion had always longed to see at its full length, gelled up in a deranged imitation of God itself.

It was too much. All of this was too much.

Volo’s gaze burned into her, his visible pupil having grown noticeably smaller. “I will be the one to bring them all together!"

The champion gripped the strap of her satchel. How dare he make commands, when he was the reason Arceus had brought her here? He should be begging for her forgiveness!

Volo was ranting now, seemingly to himself more than the person he’d just betrayed. "My desire to meet Arceus cannot be contained any longer! I need to know what it is! I must know what it is!"

When the champion was banished for Volo’s actions, he had comforted her. He had cared for her. Why would he have done that? Why would he have done any of this?

He stopped smiling. He spoke to her now, although part of her wished he wouldn’t. "If I can meet Arceus myself, then I may also be able to subjugate its power. And using that, I will attempt to create a new, better world!"

His words at the Celestica Ruins echoed through the champion’s head:

Ever since I was young, whenever I met with something painful or heartbreaking, I couldn't help but wonder why life was so unfair. Why I was cursed to live through such things. Of course, I imagine we all go through something like that.

The champion was pretty sure she was currently going through something like that.

“Of course,” Volo continued, “if I create a brand-new world, then the Hisui region that we currently exist in will be undone and returned to nothing. You, everyone you know, and all the Pokémon living here will vanish in an instant, as if you'd never been."

He’d brought her to this world, and now he wanted to destroy it.

Destroy her.

The champion wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to pound at Volo’s chest and demand that he admit that their connection was real, that she wasn’t a fool, that he regretted what he’d done to put her in harm’s way. She wanted him to be cured of this divine madness and come to his senses. She wanted him to be the person she’d grown to love—because of course she’d grown to love him, of all the people in this stupid world, instead of someone normal and unremarkable and disinterested in becoming a god.

Because that was what Volo wanted, right? To become a god? To subjugate God, and take its place?

And then he would destroy everything. This entire reality, gone. The people and pokémon within it, gone. Her, gone.

Did he really care for her so little, that he would erase her along with the rest of them?

And how deranged was she, to be more upset by the loss of his friendship than the loss of everything and everyone else?

Volo crossed his arms over his chest, looking at the champion as if he saw right through her. As if she wasn’t a person at all, but an obstacle in his way. The final barrier between him and Arceus, between his destiny and desires, in which she would have no part to play.

She would have given him the damn plates, if he had just apologized and explained. After all, it had been Arceus—not Volo—to bring her to this godforsaken place.

"If you want to keep this world from disappearing,” challenged Volo, “then face me in battle!”

She would not be giving him the plates. He didn’t deserve them, didn’t deserve to be God any more than God itself deserved to be God. Arceus and Volo—a deity and its unfashionable imitation. Honestly, in that moment, the champion despised them both.

“Not that you have a choice,” Volo taunted, grinning widely because he was insane. “Even if you don't wish to battle me, I'm not above using force to take those plates from you."

He held up a pokéball and stared down at the champion. With the slightest of nods, she removed her samurott from her satchel.

She had Arceus’s blessing and Volo clearly did not. She was going to defeat him, just as she’d defeated every other enemy in her path. Only once she’d sufficiently humiliated him in front of his god would she allow herself to process everything she’d learned.

Volo tossed out his first pokémon with a knowing smirk, his form surprisingly confident and precise. For all of his intellectual strengths, the champion had never known him to be a particularly skilled trainer.

A spiritomb emerged from his pokéball.

Clearly there were many things the champion did not know about Volo.

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NOW

“Please,” the champion repeated, motioning to the bench beneath the heavens. “I really think you should sit down.”

The challenger scowled at her, crossing their arms over their chest. “You know why I’m here.”

She rolled her eyes. The outsider had no memory of meeting her before, but her behaviors felt familiar all the same. “Yes,” the champion sighed, “I know that you’re here to fight me.”

“And then Lord Volo.”

She smirked at that. “Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything.”

Her attitude enraged the challenger. A wicked traitor to the god that had chosen her—unfathomable, really, in her irreverence.

“Seriously,” said the champion, looking the challenger up and down. “Sit down.”

“Why?” the challenger said, suspecting a trap.

“You look exhausted from your climb.”

She was uncomfortably earnest in her explanation. And she was correct.

“How old are you now, anyway?” the champion asked as the challenger sat. To their surprise, she sat down beside them immediately.

“Old enough to finally defeat you,” said the challenger, avoiding her searching gaze.

She chuckled. “Fair enough.” And then, thoughtfully: “It’s been quite some time since we last met. I was beginning to wonder if Arceus had decided against sending a senior citizen in its stead.”

The challenger, naturally, took offense at the insult. “How old are you, then? I assume that your lack of humanity implies a lack of mortality as well.”

She nodded with a face that appeared far too young for the person wearing it. “I do not age conventionally, that is true.”

“Can you die at all?”

“Not by natural means,” the champion said. “Although I suppose I am still flesh and blood, just like you. But you are old and frail, while my youth has been preserved. Your remaining time in this world is incredibly limited, and yet you’ve come here again—do you not have other things to do? Interests, passions? Family? Does your entire life revolve around your mission from God?”

“Does your life not revolve around your Lord?” the challenger deflected. “According to Arceus, you chose him over the entire world.”

“In a manner of speaking, I did,” admitted the champion. “Though I don’t expect Arceus to ever fully understand my decision.”

“Decision? You lost.”

Something flashed behind the champion’s eyes. It felt good to drag her down from the heavens.

“It was once said,” she told the challenger through gritted teeth, “that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.”

It was an odd response. The challenger did not care to understand its purpose. They were indeed old and frail, and this was their final chance.

“Today,” they told the champion, “I will win.”

“Very well,” the champion said, withdrawing an ancient-looking pokéball from her fine silks. She stood up and offered her challenger a hand. They glared at it. The champion sighed, withdrew her hand, and watched as the challenger struggled to their feet.

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BEFORE

Her final pokémon was on low health when she finally defeated Volo’s Togekiss. She had refused to speak a word during the fight, despite his taunting smiles and various confident poses. In addition to being insane, Volo was apparently also an incredibly skilled trainer. Not quite as skilled as the champion, though, as his final and most beloved pokémon returned to her ball.

Volo shook his head, still wearing that deranged smile, as he returned the pokéball to some unseen pocket in his ridiculous Arceus outfit. The champion sighed with relief, grateful that this would be over soon. He’d abandon the temple in defeat, and she would mourn his betrayal in peace. Short of physically attacking her, he had no other way to take the plates by force—and she still could not believe that Volo was capable of such brutality, when his entire goal was to create a better, fairer world.

(Honestly, if he hadn’t hurt her so profoundly in the process of achieving that goal, she thought she might admire him for his idealism.)

She shook her head. He was a hypocrite and out of his right mind. The last thing he deserved was admiration, or even an attempt at understanding. She would return to the village and forget all about him, and try her best to find someone else in this world who made sense. Maybe if Arceus saw her success, it would even return her to her world. Defeating Volo had been her ultimate mission, right?

Which…

If Arceus had sent her to correct Volo’s disturbance of the natural order, it had always known about Volo’s hidden intentions. This entire time, it had watched its chosen champion find comfort in her destined enemy, without so much as a word of caution.

It must have been intentional, then, for Arceus to keep her in the dark. But why?

“Why?” Volo demanded, now despondent in his defeat. “Why you?! Why do you have the blessing of Arceus?”

She didn’t know. He knew that she didn’t know.

“I’ve devoted myself to Arceus beyond any other!” Volo ranted, seemingly towards the heavens themselves. “I worshiped it as the creator of our entire world! I bent all of my passion and interest and study! All the time I’ve spent poring over the legends.. Everything that I’ve done—!”

The champion had served Arceus’s mission dutifully since her arrival in Hisui. Although reluctant at times, she had quelled the nobles and assembled the Red Chain. She had immediately opposed Volo, who sought to destroy the world Arceus created. This mission was her entire life—her job, her hobby, her singular purpose upon being transported to Hisui without her consent.

“You outsider!” Volo hissed, now glaring directly at the champion. “It’s almost as if you were spat out of the space-time rift just to get in my way!”

She felt a lump rise in her throat.

Volo had been the one thing, here, that she’d chosen for herself. To her, their friendship had been disconnected from her holy mission or crushing responsibilities—in fact, it had been a much-needed relief.

But the entire time, he had only viewed her as Arceus’s chosen hero. And he despised her for it.

Silent tears ran down the champion’s cheeks. He seemed not to notice, or not to care.

“No,” Volo told himself, “no, this isn’t finished yet.”

Please, she almost begged, but didn’t. She didn’t know how much more of this she could stand. But she couldn’t leave, either, not when he still posed a threat, not when she deserved answers but couldn’t yet bring herself to ask—

Volo grinned again, his derangement reaching its apparent peak. “Can’t you feel it? The chill creeping through your veins—the eldritch presence icing your heart?”

She felt something, as dark shadows began to appear behind Volo. A massive void, from which a large creature began to emerge. It screeched as Volo began to laugh, its wings unfolding and its body taking material form. The champion recognized Giratina at once, well-primed by Volo’s lecture in the Celestica Ruins.

Volo regarded her in the throes of his mania, unwilling and unable to recognize her as anything but his enemy. Perhaps that was too charitable an interpretation, but—

“GIRATINA!” Volo shouted, clenching his hands as if they already held the plates of Arceus. “STRIKE HER DOWN!”

He laughed again, his eyes wide and his body hunched, as Giratina roared.

The champion released her final available pokémon, which only possessed a quarter of its health. She then turned on her heel, summoned Wyrdeer, and headed for the temple exit, using the ill-fated battle as a brief distraction. She ignored the sound of her fainting pokémon and Volo’s confused yelling as she pulled her Arcphone from her satchel and held it to her ear.

“You have to stop him,” the champion demanded as she entered the passageway beneath the peak of Mount Coronet. The cave was cool and blessedly quiet, and she only stopped moving when she received her response.

Thou hast been defeated in battle. Thou shalt try again.

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NOW

As always, the challenger had put up a very good fight.

“Will this be the last time I see you?” the champion asked, almost bored in her victory. The challenger just glared at her, returning their fainted pokémon to their pocket.

“One can hope,” they said, and revealed their knife. If repetition with the expectation of different result was insanity, then they were no longer insane. Because this approach, this last-ditch effort, was entirely unprecedented—even to Arceus itself.

Using their last reserves of energy and strength, the challenger seized the woman. Short of stature and physically softened by ages of casual godhood, she could show little resistance to even the oldest of heroes. And, of course, there was the matter of the blade held to her throat.

“He will lower himself from the heavens and face me,” the challenger said between gritted teeth. The champion swallowed.

“Arceus has driven you to this,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Lord Volo has driven me to this. Arceus has only ever encouraged me to be better.”

“Thou hast been defeated in battle. Thou shalt try again.”

The challenger’s eyed widened. “How do you…?”

The champion sighed. “I heard it too. Every single time.” She was infuriatingly unfazed by the threat to her life. “How relieving it must be,” she said, “to lose the memory of each of your losses.”

“I find it rather inconvenient, actually,” shot back the challenger, holding the blade closer to her throat.

The champion smiled sadly and shook her head.

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BEFORE

Eventually, she found herself trying to lose.

The fight with Volo had become like second nature to the champion, who since her first attempt had assembled the ideal team to counter his specific pokémon and fighting habits. Arceus knew she had been given enough attempts to observe him, some of which ended before Giratina even appeared. Volo was undeniably skilled, and dedicated to his own victory in a way that consistently astounded the champion. But while each new battle seemed to be Volo’s first, his memory struck of previous victories and defeats, the champion remembered everything.

At this point, she knew Volo almost entirely as the man she’d truly met atop Mount Coronet. Memories of their previous friendship lingered in small instances, but she had lost much of her attachment to his formerly comforting presence. This made it easier for her, as Arceus’s champion, to study and practice and try again and again and again.

She was confident, now, that she could defeat him. Him and Giratina, and then she would finally witness the world after such events transpired. Would he give up immediately, or try to harm her further? Would they finally speak as their true selves, or would he just disappear? If he did disappear, would he be gone forever?

The champion was still far from completing the the Pokédex and meeting Arceus, who only potentially could send her home. In the meantime, she would still be stuck in Hisui, alone. Almost certainly without him.

The outfit was not… irredeemably ill-conceived. With some modifications, she could understand the vision. And it would be easy for Volo to take down the Arceus style, allowing his hair to flow naturally. When the champion watched him during their battles, she often tried to imagine him in a different state of mind. She analyzed what she understood of his plans, was reluctantly impressed by his enduring commitment to his own aspirations. She got the best impression she could of the real Volo, a friend and a stranger and her only companion in this endless cycle of failure.

She never spoke to him. The idea of conversation felt wrong, as if disturbing a scripted play or painting over a work of art. And besides, even if she managed to change the narrative through speech, her inevitable failure would render the results meaningless. She would, always, try again. Until she won, she would try again.

As she approach the Temple of Sinnoh once again, the champion thought that she might be going insane. It made no sense, that she had not yet used her knowledge and practice to end this cycle. But every time she had the chance, she just… couldn’t. She would lose, retreat to the cave, call Arceus, and receive the same answer each time.

Thou hast been defeated in battle. Thou shalt try again.

There had been a few close calls, where she’d almost won. Especially against Giratina, she often stood a very good chance. But then she would remind herself that this was not fair in the slightest, because she had been given infinite chances to practice and strategize. Yes, Volo had technically cheated as well, but abusing Arceus’s blessing in such a manner simply felt cheap.

That was what she told herself. Eventually, someday, she would see an opportunity for victory that she could truly call fair, and she would take it. But until then, she would just have to lose.

And he would still be here. Insane, but here.

Insane.

She was going insane.

“I think I’m going insane,” she told Arceus after yet another loss.

Thou hast been defeated in battle. Thou shalt try again.

“I know I’m going insane.”

Thou hast been defeated in battle. Thou shalt try again.

“Why don’t you try, for once?” the champion challenged, gripping the phone tightly.

Thou hast been defeated in battle. Thou shalt try again.

And then, she thought it. For the first time in what felt like an eternity of repetition, she finally thought something new:

“Why can’t I lose?” the champion asked, her voice shaking as tears ran down her cheeks. She did not understand what she was asking, exactly—she could not lose because Arceus had blessed her, that much was already obvious. The world, this world, worked in her favor in some unearned and unwanted way. Yes, she could retreat from the mountain at any time to train her team, but that still left Volo up in the temple, nearly indistinguishable from the person she had grown to love. He would not follow her, would not attempt to seize the plates by any other means, seemingly frozen in time and place by divine circumstance. She would never have her former friend back, and if she moved forward, Arceus would never allow her to befriend him as he was now.

And she—

She would just keep going, in Volo’s absence. If not this battle, she would be fighting another. Again and again and again, until Arceus deemed her worthy. Arceus, who had lied to her, manipulated her, taken her from her home without her knowledge or consent. Who had created this world and its mysterious mechanics, blessing—no, cursing—her to endure.

Thou hast been defeated in battle. Thou shalt try again.

God’s champion hung up the phone.

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NOW

Much to the challenger’s surprise, Lord Volo had not immediately arrived to save his champion.

“He can see this, right?” they demanded, as their arms grew increasingly tired around her.

She scoffed. “Of course he can.”

“So why isn’t he coming? Perhaps he cares less for you than you believed.”

The champion met the challenger’s gaze. “He knows that you would never actually murder me. That is not becoming of the world he designed.”

The challenger narrowed their eyes. This had always been a possibility. “Fine,” they said. “But would your Lord stand by while you are in pain?”

For the first time, the champion looked afraid. “I—”

The challenger plunged their knife into her fine white silks.

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BEFORE

The champion surrendered.

It was not a victory, nor was it any sort of defeat she had experienced before. Instead of intentionally losing the fight, she had refused to even allow its commencement. She had approached Volo where he stood, suspended in space and time, and offered him her satchel containing the plates of Arceus.

He stared at it, pupils shrunken and hungry. A smile crept onto his face. “How precious,” he said, almost tenderly. “You only needed a moment to think, before deciding to see things my way.”

The champion scowled. To him, it had been only a moment.

“You’re insane,” she said, showing no resistance when he began to take the satchel from her. He paused, though, upon hearing her first words towards his true self.

“Did you not listen in the ruins?” he asked, slight irritability piercing through his mania. “My reasoning is entirely rational. If God did not want to run the risk of its power falling into our hands, it should not have created its plates on our mortal plane. It is my right to seize them, and use that power to create a better world.”

“You could make this world a better place.”

Volo shook his head, smiling sadly. “Can’t be done. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

“You made it better for me.”

The words left her mouth before she could stop them. She was so, so tired.

Volo narrowed his eyes, pupils still tiny but slightly more focused. “Whatever could you mean by that, hero?”

“You know my name,” said the champion, cursing her voice for cracking at the last word.

Volo looked properly confused, now. Especially as the champion began to shake. “What are you—”

“Just take it,” the champion said, feeling that lump in her throat again. She had felt so strong, when she’d hung up the ArcPhone in the cave. Self-assured, energized by the notion of ending this vicious cycle. It had seemed, if only for a moment, that she had found a way to truly win.

This did not feel like winning.

“Just fucking take it,” the champion repeated, shoving the satchel towards Volo. He did without further comment, but did not immediately dig inside. He only watched her, still far from sane but seemingly calmer at least.

Volo furrowed his brow. “You said I made the world better, for you. But I was using you. I am the reason for your existence here. You should hate me.”

The champion shook her head as a tear ran down her cheek. “I don’t hate you.”

“Don’t be foolish.”

She winced.

Volo studied her carefully. “What,” he said, “do you think your god would say of this?”

The champion shut her eyes. “Arceus doesn’t care about me.”

“Of course it does. It has chosen you to receive its blessings. It loves you, as it will never love—” Volo cut himself off, though of course she understood how the sentence would have ended.

The champion felt pathetic as she met his eyes. “I love you.”

He blinked. “How?”

“I just do.”

Volo began to pace, shifting into a paranoid state. “A trick from Arceus,” he muttered to himself, clutching the satchel close to his chest. “A test? No, a safeguard—a temptation…”

A temptation?

“This is all by design,” Volo continued to ramble, “If I allow for this endearment, for this enduring desire—”

Enduring desire?

“I must be strong. There must be a better world. I must not allow myself to—”

“Was any of it real?” the champion asked, point-blank.

“Yes,” Volo said at once.

“Which parts were fake?”

“The parts that mattered.”

She narrowed her eyes, trying to understand. Volo sighed.

“The parts vital to my mission,” he clarified, “were false. The merchant charade, the search for the plates.”

“And that’s what mattered?”

Volo avoided her eyes. “Nothing else can matter in this world,” he told the champion. “Nothing else will remain.”

He looked haggard, as if this was a truth he’d refused to admit to himself before having it forced from his lips.

“It has never been my intention to carry over unwilling parties,” Volo reluctantly explained. “Involuntary acquiescence has no place in my better world.”

“What about lying and manipulation?” the champion asked. “And erasing everyone and everything that came before it?”

Exhausted, Volo gave his response: “I said ‘better.’ Not perfect.”

After a moment, the champion replied. “It mattered,” she said quietly. “To me.”

“Your mission?”

“Us.”

Volo regarded her as if for the very first time. “Us.”

She stepped forward slightly, reaching for his hand. He allowed her to take it, using the other to clutch her satchel.

“Do you want them to remain, in your new world?” the champion asked, looking into Volo’s wide exposed eye. “The parts that were real?”

He gave the slightest of nods.

She could not have him in this world. She could either continue this endless loop of suffering, or defeat him and likely never see him again. And it wasn’t just Volo who mattered, but the champion herself—with Arceus as her god, she knew that she would never truly be free.

“Is this the right decision?” she asked Volo, squeezing his hand tightly. He gently leaned down to place her satchel on the temple floor, then used his other hand to stroke her face.

“Must there always be a right decision and a wrong decision?”

“I should be ashamed.”

“I disagree.”

“What if I’m insane?”

“I would say that you are just as sane as I am,” Volo reasoned, “if you wish to remain by my side.”

The champion frowned. “That is not a reassuring statement.”

“It is all I can offer,” Volo said, holding her hand to his heart. Then, with a small smile: “That, and—”

He kissed her on the lips. When he pulled back, his eyes were almost back to normal.

“So?” Volo asked, eager and curious just as the champion had remembered him. Her heart ached with the comfort of familiarity—lost in the cycle of repetition, she hadn’t even realized how much she missed her former friend.

“It’s not perfect,” she said, “but it’s better.” She allowed herself to finally relax as Volo held her close.

Keeping one arm around his champion’s waist, Volo leaned down to retrieve the satchel once again. Despite her divine mission, the champion did not intervene.

“Very good,” Volo praised. His voice was warm and earnest, lacking the condescension one would usually associate with such a statement. “Now, rest. You’ve done more than enough already.”

And with that, at least, the champion could wholeheartedly agree.

─────────────────

NOW

Lord Volo appeared at once.

The challenger stepped away from the champion, their hands shaking as the knife clattered to the temple floor. Violence was a rare occurrence in this world, and murder was almost entirely unheard of—yet here they were, resorting to the former and possibly the latter as a desperate final effort.

“This was my mission,” the challenger prayed to Arceus as a figure descended from a shimmery stairway to the heavens. “Now please, give me strength...”

Thou hast been defeated in battle. Thou shalt try again.

“No, I haven’t! I’ve won—look, he’s coming now!”

Lord Volo was a tall man, appearing much as he’d been depicted in historical records and famous works of art: blonde, pale, draped in white silks resembling those of his champion. He reached the bottom stair and stepped onto the world he had created, barely giving the challenger a glance as he walked right by.

Thou hast been defeated in battle, the voice of Arceus said. Thou shalt try again.

But the challenger was not beaten yet.

They reached for the knife, even as their joints ached. Lord Volo disappeared the weapon with a flick of his wrist. He then took his champion in his arms and placed her onto the bench, speaking words that the challenger could not hear.

She seemed to be speaking, as well. Alive. Despite everything, the challenger felt relief at that.

There was a sort of peace, in knowing that this was the challenger’s final try. Their pokémon were fainted, their god had seemingly abandoned them, they had compromised their own values out of desperation after a lifetime of repeated failures. Now, Lord Volo would disappear them just as he had the knife.

At least in oblivion, the challenger would finally be able to rest.

The champion muttered something more to her god, who then turned to face the challenger. He did not look happy, but seemed to be exercising some kind of restraint.

He looked back at the champion, who nodded. Lord Volo sighed.

“Very well,” he said, and flicked his wrist again. The challenger inhaled sharply, and then they

─────────────────

In the heavens, he saw to her healing.

“I’m sorry,” Volo said for what felt like the millionth time, although it would never truly be enough. He held a hand over his champion’s wound, glowing gold with healing light. “I’m sorry, and I love you.”

“Don’t be sorry,” the champion said, kissing the side of his other hand. “The rosiness had begun to return to her skin, her deific attire now clean of the blood that had stained it. “I understood the risks of going down there undisguised.”

“That isn’t supposed to happen, though,” Volo said, trying to mind his temper as he channelled healing towards the champion’s wound. “Violence and murder, they’re not—not a part of our world.”

“Neither is the voice of Arceus,” the champion countered. “But even from within its containment, it still finds a way to haunt its champion.”

She glanced pointedly towards the pokéball on Volo’s hip. He had wielded its power to destroy the old world and create this one anew, to grant himself and his partner endless life and a home in the heavens above. He supposed it made sense that if Arceus’s power still existed in this world, its voice could never truly disappear.

“What will happen now?” Volo asked, shifting slightly against the headboard of their bed. “Will there be another challenger?”

“Probably,” said the champion. “Eventually.”

“But the one who…?

“I think they’re safe. An infant without memory of their past life, reborn free of Arceus’s influence. Of all the people in this world, why would it choose them again?”

Volo frowned, thinking of the recent confrontation. “I wanted to destroy them, for what they did.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m here,” teased the champion, “to make sure you don’t repeat old patterns.”

He smiled fondly, thinking of the many way they’d helped each other create this new world from the ashes of its predecessor. Not only was his champion beautiful, but she was also brilliant—always had been, although he’d been rather slow on the uptake. In Volo’s defense, he’d very much written her off as a loss before her surrender on Mount Coronet. It had been a matter of strategy, to avoid considering her inner life.

“Can I ask you something?” said Volo, watching his champion with endless interest. She nodded. “What changed your mind, in the cave?”

She looked surprised by the question. “What do you mean?”

“On the day that the old world fell, you initially ran away,” Volo recalled. “Disappeared into the passageway for only a moment, then emerged again to hand over the plates. Why?”

The champion appeared conflicted, which was not the desired outcome of Volo’s questioning. He had his suspicions, based on previous reactions around the subject, that this was not a memory she often wished to revisit.

“I felt defeated,” the champion said, “so I tried something new.”

Volo couldn’t help but think of the challenger, who his champion had always seemed to care for despite the annoyance they caused. Even after their unfathomable act of violence, she had insisted that Volo reincarnate them rather than destroy them entirely.

“Something new?” he asked the champion, as he felt her pain ease beneath his fingertips. “Had there been… something before?”

She nodded. “Over and over again. And I remembered everything.”

A chill ran down Volo’s spine. With this revelation, the champion’s requests to borrow his spiritomb while facing Arceus’s challenger made an entirely new sort of sense.

“You never told me,” he said.

“In a way, I did,” she replied with a soft smile. “When you suggested that we were both insane, I didn’t disagree.”

Still so very cryptic. Volo kissed the champion’s forehead, vowing to someday learn every secret within it.

“And how do you feel now?” he asked as the stab wound faded entirely from her skin. Good as new.

His champion regarded him knowingly, lovingly, shamelessly.

“I feel better.”

[m00n-pr1sm]

I keep on forgetting I was the insanest arrowverse fan for a good 5 years of my life, and by that I mean I spun a wheel and every year I would just chose a character from it to be obsessed with and would memorize every important scene and watch them like 4 times a week at least. and think/talk abt them constantly, the works

5th grade was Caitlin snow, 6th grade was nora darhk, 7th I chilled out for a bit,,, but it was Caitlin snow, 8th grade was also Caitlin…, 9th grade was Caitlin again… BUT I also had a brief laurel phase, caught up w legends (to like s6 + really liked astra), and then had a Lena luthor/supercorp for a few months during the summer!! then bbc Merlin consumed me and morgana became the next character subject to my brainrot!! I’m excited to see what other characters will enter my hall of fixation !!

[icewindandboringhorror]

I still very loathe the Media Trope of ‘’cold genius man doesn’t feel emotions and never has relationships... UNTIL.. one random relatively bland Preddy Woman comes along and warps his entire personality and ability to think, his heart has grown and his seeming asexuality has evaporated, he is now Normal :)” or whatever like... AS a walking generic hermit archetype myself.. we would NOT act like that .... just let people be detached weirdos in peace, you cowards .. OR, don’t bother to write one in the first place if you find us too boring to exist realistically in our natural state lol.. pathetic 

[splitting-infinities]

the barbie movie is not "anti-man", it's anti-oppression.

in the real world, that oppression takes the shape of patriarchal power and women feeling like an afterthought or an accessory. in barbie land, it takes the shape of kens not knowing who they could become as independent beings because their existence has been irrevocably tied to barbie. barbie occupies the place of power, and ken is the afterthought and accessory.

the point of the movie is that any imbalance in the equality of any group of people makes the world a bad place to live in. ken feels unfulfilled and unappreciated in barbie land. He's been told his purpose is Barbie, but he's failing at that and doesn't understand what's wrong. He doesn't think he could be more than Barbie's love interest. Similarly, women in the real world feel forgotten, stunted, and held to impossible standards. Their purpose has been warped by other people telling them what it should be.

That's why it's So Important that both ken and barbie have their own reckonings of how they've reaped benefits at the expense of each other. neither of them wanted to hurt the other. Barbie just liked being a hero in Barbie Land and Ken liked feeling appreciated (and horses) when he was in the real world. But they both see and dislike how the other has been hurt by the power disparity in the real world and in barbie land. And they resolve to not perpetuate that cycle of hurt.

the reason barbie is a good movie is precisely because its main thesis is not Women Better Than Men. Nor is it a preservation of the binary or gender roles.

It's main thesis is that your identity is not the same thing as what you are to other people. And that's not exclusively a moral for Barbie herself. Sure, Barbie isn't Barbie because she's Ken's girlfriend - she's her own person to the point that the actively chooses humanity at the end. But a large portion of the movie also is devoted to explaining that Ken isn't Ken because he's Barbie's boyfriend. That Ken is his own person and should be allowed to be that, because that's (k)enough. Even Alan exists separate from the binary convention and has his own identity and story arc. He serves as a foil for the falsely symbiotic Ken/Barbie role dynamic.

anyway, my point is, no one should be (exclusively) defined by what they mean to someone else, or by what they have (whether that's power, a casa house, or a romantic partner). Everyone is a person deserving love, equality, and their own story, whatever that is.

[findmeinforks]

Understanding - Paul Lahote X Fem!Reader

A little break up, make up one shot while I work on part two of stay 💕 as always, let me know what you think! 2.4K Words ❤️

You had been understanding. You had been so, incredibly, unbelievably understanding. You had been kind, patient, considerate. You had thrown every insecurity away in your mind. You shoved your feelings right down your throat.

But that was over with now.

Now, you faced him. In the middle of the yard, your throat agonizingly raw from yelling. You were shocked he hadn't phased yet, but he knew the minute he did you would take off. The pack, watching from afar and unbeknownst to you, were also shocked at his restraint.

"I would NEVER do anything to hurt you. Why won't you believe that?"

You laughed wetly through the tears. You were down right manic over what he didn't comprehend.

"Really?? You don't understand why I would be upset by ANY of this? Are you that fucking blind?"

Paul huffed through his nose, attempting to control his temper.

"I have a job, Y/N. There's new bloodsuckers popping up every day now and we have to make sure we're ready for anything. That means stacking up our numbers against them. Guy or girl, they have to be trained."

You scoffed, rolling your eyes,

"And don't you find it at all peculiar that everyone else is out on their own but you're STILL having to train this same girl? DAY IN AND DAY OUT?!"

He sighed.

"She should be ready, I know. But every time we get on patrol, she gets fearful and fails at basic exercises. Sam has me spend extra time with her."

You threw up your hands as if the answer was obvious, "Then TELL Sam to have someone else take a turn?"

"She only likes training with me."

Your eyes went wide, and all you saw was red.

"AND THAT DOESNT GIVE YOU ANY FUCKING CLUE THAT MAYBE SHES FAILING ON PURPOSE FOR YOUR ATTENTION? THAT MAYBE SHE DOESNT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT IMPRINTS? THAT MAYBE PERHAPS SHE HAS DIFFERENT INTENTIONS?"

Paul shook his head, him now scoffing.

"It's actually really hard to learn to navigate being a wolf. That's something YOU don't seem to understand."

You think you had lost your mind. It seemed as though the world crumbled around you, his words ringing in your ears from the impact. That was not something the imprint you knew before this would have ever dared say to you. It wasn't that you believed Paul would ever be disloyal, but your instincts were damn sure this girl wanted him to be.

You nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat.

"You're right. I don't. You need to be with someone that understands. We're done."

Paul stepped back like he had taken a blow to the chest. His eyes softened now.

"You....you don't mean that."

You headed towards your car, not being able to face the broken look in his eyes.

"Y/N, wait," he reached out, and even though you were mad, a part of it killed you to deny him.

You shook your head, new tears rehydrating their original streaks.

You sniffled, and took a deep breath.

"I'm tired, Paul. I'm tired of waiting up for you. I'm tired of being left unanswered for hours. I'm tired of making plans that just get canceled. Im tired of being lonely. And most of all, I'm tired of being disappointed."

He grabbed your arm before you could fully get in, and you saw Sam emerge, still at a respectable distance from the two of you.

"Baby listen, okay, I'm sorry. I can do better I-"

"You've said that before Paul. This is not the first time we've fought about this."

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes now.

"Please. Don't." He whispered.

He almost made you cave. You so badly wanted to stay. But you also knew if you did, it would be the same reoccurring cycle. He had to know you were serious. You wanted the relationship you had before she came along. Until you were sure you would get that again, you had to leave.

"I have to go. Call me when your priorities change." You said as you gently pulled out of his grip and shut the door. And with that, you took off to your father's place.

-

Paul stood planted in the same spot you had left him, shattered. What had he done?

He felt a small hand on his shoulder, a feminine voice in his ear,

"Maybe it was for the better. She seems like a total bitch."

Paul's blood turned cold. It was as if in that very moment, he had come to his senses. The smoke had cleared in his crowded mind. You were right. Of course you were right. All the stress that had been on his plate, he hadn't been thinking clearly at all.

He came to realization now, and it was too late.

Paul yanked away his arm, turning with a fury in his eyes to the woman behind him. She shrunk back under his gaze, feigning an innocence he knew good and well was all fake.

He trembled with anger, barely registering that Sam was now in between him and the girl. Paul pointed a finger at her, teeth gritting with anger.

"Get. The FUCK. Away from me."

Paul ripped apart as he phased, having it bottled up for far too long, and dashing off like a mad man into the woods.

The woman gaped like a fish, starting to babble, turning to Sam for reassurance.

"I didn't do anything I-"

Sam huffed a breath through his nose, "You heard him. I think it would be best if you left. Embry's cousin or not, you are no longer welcome here. That's an order."

Sam shook his head, running a hand through his hair as she stormed off. He felt guilty for letting it get like this. He had some suspicions about her joining the pack, seeing as she was always gravitating towards Paul, but he had shrugged it off, too occupied with everything else going on.

Sam also knew too well what it was like to hurt an imprint. Physically or emotionally, the bond felt all the same. Strict alpha or not, he valued Paul as a brother, and just hoped you would come back for him.

-

As Paul laid his head onto his pillow, he watched the days go by before him. Being forced to come eat dinner by Emily and whenever he had patrol were just about the only times Paul left his bed. He would call you once a day, sometimes with a small hope you'd answer, and sometimes just to hear your voicemail. After his patrol shifts ended, he would often sneak off to your house, just to make sure he'd know you were safe, if even from a mile away.

-

"Do you think she'll ever come back?" Kim asked Jared quietly one day, after watching Paul barely eat his food and sulk back up to his room.

"I don't know honestly. Y/N is just as stubborn as he is. But I do miss him. I've never in my life seen Paul like this. His internal thoughts are depressing as hell..."

Kim sighed, "It's not like she's doing any better. She finally answered my call yesterday, and I had to double check who I was talking too. She's miserable, Jare."

He shrugged, "I mean what can we do about it babe? You can't get involved in people's business like that."

"They're not people. They're family." She mumbled as she clutched her coffee mug.

-

Another week had gone by, the pack all sitting in the kitchen getting ready to eat.

"Boys. We have information on the new vampires in town," Sam announced as he walked through the door with Jacob.

"They're after Bella. She had a run in with that red head we keep chasing to the border every night. Her boyfriend had tried to kill her so the Cullen's killed him, and now this bitch is assembling an army to take her out for revenge." Jacob relayed.

This grabbed Paul's attention. If they were after your sister, that meant you were in danger.

"We're going to help them fight. Our people are at risk if we let this get out of hand, or if the Cullen's lose. But until the army comes here, we're going to be sharing shifts with them to watch over the Swan house," Sam said, looking at Paul who was heading out the door.

"Paul."

"You can watch Bella from a distance. I'm taking my imprint home," he slammed the front door.

"I can't imagine that's gonna go good." Embry mumbled.

-

Your body jolted upright from the couch at the abrupt knocking on the front door. You hadn't been expecting anyone, Bella out doing who knows what with Edward, and Charlie hours away on a fishing trip.

Opening the door your breath caught in your throat.

"What are you doing here?"

"We have to go. Now." He said sternly, ignoring your bewildered look as he flew past you and up the stairs to your room.

"And just who the hell do you think you are?!" You stormed after him, appalled he was barging in your house like this.

"There's an entire army of vampires on the hunt for your sister. You're not safe here, I'm taking you to Emily's." he said as he grabbed a suitcase and started throwing random clothes in.

"You don't own me Paul Lahote. I'm not going anywhere with you." You crossed your arms as you looked at him incredulously.

He refused to look you in the eye as he spoke, his breathing heavy from your scent,

"It is still my job to protect you whether we're together or not. You don't have to talk to me at all if you don't want too, and you can sleep in the spare bedroom" He said as he continued to pack.

You laughed.

"Come to Emily's with her there? I think the fuck-"

"She's not there anymore."

"Ohhhh so because she's gone you care about me again."

He stopped, this time turning to look you in the eyes for the first time in two weeks.

"Don't you ever fucking say that. I could give a shit less about her. It's always been you. I'm....look, I'm sorry I didn't make you believe that before. You were right. And I was so unbelievably wrong. I understand why you don't want to be with me anymore. I'm not asking you to forgive me. Im asking, just for the time being, that you do this so that I know you are safe....please."

You wish you could have stopped the tears that welled up in your eyes. A part of you wanted to stay mad forever, just to make a point. But the other just wanted to wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him. Two weeks felt like two years apart from him, and your heart so desperately ached to be near him again.

"Fine," you whispered.

Paul looked like he wanted to say something more, his eyes lingering on yours, but he decided against it, zipping up your bag and heading to the truck.

-

Once you both arrived to Emily's the pack headed out to train with the Cullen's, leaving you both and Kim at the kitchen table.

"So you guys.....didn't make up?" Kim asked disappointed.

You shook your head, "He just wanted me here. He apologized and said he wanted me to be safe. It was left at that."

Emily reached her hand over into yours,

"Do you want to be with him?" She asked genuinely.

"I.....I mean," you sighed. "Of course I want to be with him. I just was so angry, you know?? I didn't like feeling that way in our relationship. Alone."

The girls nodded understandably.

"If it helps, he's been an absolute wreck without you. I think if anything it was a wake up call." Kim offered.

"I haven't been exactly living the best either," you slightly chuckled.

"Well. We are more than excited to have you back in the house. That being said, I'm going to need both of your help with dinner." Emily smiled as she looked at the clock, standing up.

You grinned, happy to at least be here with your friends.

-

It was the night before the fight. Everything was quiet, but you lie awake, your mind racing. You hadn't said much to Paul in the three days you were here. There were lingering stares, brushing past eachother occasionally in the hall, but no conversations had been had. You felt a pit in your stomach at the idea of this fight. What if something happened and you never got to see him again? What if the last thing you had between you two was this awkward tension? The more you thought about it, the faster the tears spilled down your cheeks. You sniffled hard.

A gentle knock at the door startled you, getting up you frantically tried to wipe them away.

There he stood on the other side, leaning against the frame. His eyes looked so exhausted, like he hadn't gotten sleep either in days. "Whats wrong?" He said softly, taking a look at your face.

His gentle voice was enough to send you flying into his embrace. You arms wrapped around him as you sobbed into his neck.

He held your waist as he walked you both backwards into the room, shutting the door. His hand caressed your face as he leaned his cheek on your forehead.

"Hey, hey. Shhhh. I'm right here. It's okay. You're okay. You're safe."

You leaned back just enough to look at him, shaking your head. Your voice was broken and trembling,

"I-I don't care that I'm safe. T-tomorrow. A-and you. What if we never-"

Paul used both hands to cradle your face.

"Hey. Listen to me. Everything will be okay. This is what we've been training for. It's us and the Cullen's against them, our numbers are stronger. I'll be fine, alright? I'm just happy you're here and away from harm."

"I can't live without you. I love you." You whispered.

Paul instantly kissed you. It was like a wave of relief and happiness washed over you as you kissed him back with every ounce of passion you could muster.

Both your tongues danced as you refused to pull away from eachother. Paul bent down only for a moment to hoist you up in his arms, taking you into his room instead.

Unfortunately due to advanced hearing, the house was no longer quiet that night.

[glitteryinknotes]

There is a level of deep, bitterly poetic and cruel irony in Astarion's death and his eventual fate as a vampire spawn. Laughable, even. Lamentable.

Where do I even begin. I once posted here my thoughts on who Astarion was before Cazador took him; and all my thoughts were based on what we can assume to be canon from scraps on information in - game and interviews with Neil. That Astarion Ancunin who was laid into the ground at Baldur's Gate cementary was a corrupt magistrate, a shining example of power abuse, indulgence, hedony, existence in privilege without any service to the world around.

We also know for a fact that Astarion is not a good person in a moral sense. Again, Neil Newbon himself talked about it. He has capability to grow, mature, open himself up, soak in the positive influence and feel for others, but he never will be the default upstanding type. That is simply not at his core.

This is why (I am aware we're talking a fictional character, headcanon is free to all in whichever way they think it suits and pleases them) I cannot for the world believe in all the fanfiction based on the notion of the tragic, tortured soul unjustly attacked and turned into a vampire, because to me - it misses the entire depth and essence of Astarion's personality and arc. He was not a "worthy" persona before Cazador; in fact, the beating he got from the Gur was well - deserved and the near - death experience... Probably so as well. Maybe if anything, this would open his eyes and force him to reflect at least a bit on his choices in the position he was occupying. (But given that he mentions begging Cazador to turn him to be able to take revenge, I highly doubt that.) So yeah... The man got what was coming to him. He deserved it.

But what he got in the end once Cazador allowed him to drink his blood and had him in his hold? Two hundred years of misery and abuse beyond description, being completely stripped of any identity and personhood? No one deserves that. Such fate should not be thrust upon anyone. Ever.

It is the cruellest, most wicked twist of fate that it took that kind of ordeal to change a corrupt little elf's view of the world and force him to even acknowledge the existence of evil deeds and abuse of power - something I am quite sure he never gave any thought to before. It took being transformed into an utterly helpless victim to make him truly see that there is good and bad and perpetuating the bad leads to pain and misery for the innocents (and you can never be sure if not for you as well), and only then, at his most pathetic, most vulnerable, after centuries of torment, it took meeting, trusting, admiring, being grateful to, befriending / loving and being influenced by a genuinely good and kind person (probably the exact opposite of who he was before) to shake and cause some shift in his inner moral compass, or rather the way he was choosing to use it. The full circle, a poignant, unwilling journey from the one abusing power, to the enslaved puppet of someone with considerably more power abusing it in the most inhuman ways possible, and this time to his own woe, to the one person able to break the abusive cycle given the right influence.

Isn't that simply poetic in the most sickly sense? A tragicomedy, if you will.

Forget about Astarion Ancunin. The grave was good for lovemaking and sharing an important moment, but whoever was laid there was not anyone worthy of your time (just like "Ascended Astarion" )The one who stands by your side now is. Your Astarion. The new Astarion, the same "lovable rogue" with a taste for theatrics, drama, debauchery, beauty, murder mayhem and loose morality, but - a better person all the same.

[follow up post here

https://www.tumblr.com/glitteryinknotes/733162725841289216/a-little-follow-up-to-my-previous-post?source=share]

[thatdeadaquarius]

Topic: Genshin impact.

au: Sagau.

idea: So what if you had the powers of every character you played as in every game you played and then get isekaid into genshin impact with imposter au. I imagine it goes smth like

Zhongli: “I will have order!”

reader, Who played Roblox as someone who lagged the game (explanation: I’m pretty sure ping is also how time works in games. If you can control the flow of ping you can control the flow of time in games.): “ZA WARUDO!”

Heyyy!! Thanks for waiting for the reply/response from my slow ass :0

So they did clarify what they meant/expand so imma just copy paste that here!

“k now I remember. So basically imma write it here since it’s easier: Basically you don’t have to (but you can) transform into the character that has those set of powers but if you do those powers are enhanced.”

Sun: Reader (”you”/they/them)

Orbit: Headcanons-ish, Light Imposter AU (as in, NOT Yandere/Dark), mild crossover elements bc Shapeshifter Shenanigans™️

Stars: bro idek

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: mild cussing, genshin typical mild violence, & Trigger Warnings: none known.

Please comment if I missed any. /gen

☆

so fair warning,, ive never seen jojo bizarre, but i appreciate i come off well-read/watched? LMAO

so im just gonna kinda,, guess? like just cycle thru diff. random media, and im hoping both me and you reading this will have a fun time (as this is a little challenge, but i like it so ill give it a shot, dont kno if its a good one but- 😅)

so to set the scene, of how u got to this point, ykno of running like ur life (maybe?) depends on u running around different teyvat countries,

u thought it was weird everyone knew a little too much about you?? (ofc theyve heard u during gaming, they know u the same way we all know Markiplier, get it?)

then a bunch of NPCs/Vision users/Archons?? were REALLY invested in talking to you, which freaked u out even more

and by the time you saw Zhongli, yknow, just the oldest god in game, making a fast-walk towards you, ykno the retired god who didnt move an inch when an old water god attacked Liyue for a test, is now hurrying to you???

ur logically get so fucking scared sm shits abt to go down, u just start running

it isnt until ur reaching for a ledge and some webbing shoots out of ur arm (from a glitchy little spot on ur arm, where it could be coming out of ur skin, but sometimes its a blue and red bracelet)

it latched onto the nearest building, and thats how u find out u can grapple ur way, literally Spiderman style, out of the harbor

and bro, idk if it would be fun, or confusing and stressful, or maybe both?? to just find out u can use any video game power from any game youve played before as you go running from countries bc for some freaky reason they know too much abt you/are pursuing you-

dUDE- they had small statues of you in like every little section of their cities

u head to Mondstadt and as Venti comes screaming and flying at you (in excitement, but ur freaked), u go to hold a hand up and suddenly ur holding a heavy stone tablet that unleashes some holographic yellow chains that freeze him in place-?? why is this familiar-

oh my god u have the sheikah slate from Breath of the Wild,

and as ur booking it out of there, u manage to get ahold of a sword, and u know exactly how to use it to knock back favonius knights trying to stop you (they are concerned for their god who is just unleashing random powers on ppl, pls let Grandmaster Jean just talk to you Your Majesty-!!)

by the time you teleport ur way to Inazuma, (bc u still have this worlds access to ur player/traveler’s powers), ur trying to find a nice place to stay for a little bit

at least in that sweet spot of the Raiden not noticing/finding you, while things cool down on the main continent, before moving on,

and u get some tools to help fashion just a little shelter, bc u dont have any money/mora rn, and ur able to literally build a house???

a mailbox pops up and thanks you for renting with Tom Nook???? As in Animal Crossing-

and rlly if the BOTW/slate thing didnt clue u into video game powers, then this definitely would tbh lmao

right as u see Yae Miko circling ur house, with an armful of books? ..is she planning to thru them at you??, u get the hell out of dodge before her favorite god can follow along

(she knows ur prefrences in books and got authors/trends to start so youd have plenty to read, and she was making sure it was ur house before politely dropping them off! how was she to know thatd spook their favorite God, Ei?!)

u get to Sumeru and think ur safe, hiding in an abandoned forest watcher outpost (1 person treehouse rlly) when Nahida shows up in ur dreams,

and u just,

walk out of the dream, into reality, and possess a nearby ruin guard so u can sleep in peace, bc she cant access a robot,

that one baffled u as you re-possessed ur own body before realizing-

Five Nights at Freddy’s. 💀

U cant do that forever, so u try Fontaine, hoping Neuvillette/Furina wont rlly give af abt you, plus theyre the latest region, so maybe they have the least exposure to whatever the other archons didnt like abt you??

u get there and are immediately summoned to court, and right as the mekas show up to escort you, jfc they have a mecha army

(meanwhile, theyre thinking, yknow. high profile guest/our god of gods. ofc we need state of the art mekas to escort them, its only polite-)

meanwhile ur cape has now become wings, and a mask covers ur face as you glide and fly ur way over the city in an attempt to get to where u assume Snezhnaya is

it doesnt occur to you the game until ur running out of stamnia and catch ur reflection in the waters of fontaine, Sky: Children of the Light

u hope the Tsaritsa’s dislike for other gods/Celestia doesnt extend to ur otherworldly presence so ur just hoping for the best atp tbh

tbh youd forget what all powers you have, and the absolute chaos ur causing urself as u try to desperately rememeber what games youve played thru ur entire life is NOT helping to reduce confusion when u randomly wake up with elf ears (legend of zelda/botw) or get dragged into another ruin machine when u fall asleep/faint/do smth u guess mimics death lmao- (fnaf) 💀

…

(meanwhile the Tsaritsa does get wind ur coming this way, and just, makes the people have a parade/festival to celebrate you coming,

she did also have to get Pierro/Captaino to physically restrain some of them from going ahead to meet/escort you to the palace, she’d heard how the others scared u off, and was, ironically, hoping the warm welcome would clear things up)

☆

well that was, something. 😃🫠

sorry lil car, that was such a fun idea idk if i did it justice!! i thought itd be too op to include every media youve consumed ever, so i kept it to video games, (which, could u cheat the system if youve played smash bros??)

i hope it was at least a decent read, and sorry im half asleep so i was not v funny this time around, but, again, hope u got smth out of it 😭

</3

on another note, im having my wisdom teeth surgery this friday, send whatever u got my way, prayers, blessings, good vibes, ill take anything im nervous 🙃

have a good week guys!

Safe Travels Lil Car,

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/[specifically this AU/fandom] please!")

♡the beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily / @justinsomniachild / @nanithefuck / @questionotmystopit / @chinuneko / @silvers-tongue

If ur tag doesnt work, pls check ur settings to see if ur a "searchable blog"!! Its not the same as the Ai selling data thing.

[lizardsfromspace]

What's the worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years, and what's the worst thing about fandom that's always been true of it?

The worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years has been the incentivizing of fandom-as-conflict: not merely as a field in broader culture wars but as the field for endless intra-group battles.

This manifests in many ways: as seven hour videos complaining about The Last Jedi, as Twitter backlash campaigns, but also as stans defending their faves from any and all criticism real or imagined, as the endless boom-and-backlash cycle to any fandom meme or joke you see on Reddit, and as the drive for people to look for evidence other people discussing a thing they like are hysterical illiterate dolts, before anything else.

Or, in other words: a lot of fandoms are full of assholes these days, whose main interaction with fandom is using it as a reason to be an asshole, and to defend being an asshole. The actual “fandom” part of fandom no longer really exists for them. The discourse more or less is their fandom; someone whose main fandom activity is sharing videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) isn’t in the Steven Universe fandom, they’re in the videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) fandom. I mean, the chief fandom for many people is their side in the fandom war. What type of fanfic you write is secondary to what your affiliations are vis-a-vis battles over fanfiction

(One trend I've noticed is people who aren't at the stage where they only talk about what they hate and not what they love, but are at the stage where they can only talk about what they love in relation to what they hate. "I love this movie...and it proves this other movie is bullshit made by a hack". No ability to say just "I love this movie", period, end of sentence. This is how like two-thirds of Film Twitter talks about film, the remainder are all the grindhouse people going "man you've GOT to see Wrong Turn 5")

Another one, that I think is related, is that fandom’s become...more transitory, maybe? There’s Big Fandoms that are inescapable and then everything else feels like it’s here for a weekend and then it’s gone. And we’ve always had fandoms that endure and fandoms that vanish quickly, when the show runs short or turns out to be bad/boring, but we did use to have a lot of enduring if small fandoms for Okay shows most people hadn’t heard of and now you don’t really. Or they burn themselves out fast.

So we’ve reached this stage where fandoms are either so big they have seven hour long discourse videos, or they’re a smattering of fanart over the course of two weeks last August. But that isn’t really the fault of fans so much as modern media release schedules.

A lot of fandom activities of old are just...impossible now, with many shows? The slow build of speculation and fan works and in-jokes and theorizing and analysis simply can’t exist in a world where the premiere comes out the same day as the finale, and you can’t talk about the finale because you have no way of knowing if the person you’re talking to binged it all in one weekend or is still on episode four. That was the kind of thing that sustained the fandom of something that wasn’t a big hit, or even something that was. My fave fandom experience ever was watching the online Lost fandom wildly theorizing for all six years of Lost, and we’d never get “and what if the Smoke Monster is a dinosaur but only the head?” under a Netflix release model. Now at a base level, we either have shows nobody can discuss because nobody’s sure who’s seen or what, or shows where everyone just discusses the finale right away, and where you get One Week of Show and then a massive hiatus, which either kills all momentum or...drives fandom in the direction of hyper-analyzing everything and fighting because, well, what else is there to do? And that plus the outrage cycles of social media plus the fact that “man who yells at Star Wars” is now a viable career choice result in, well. *gestures upwards* All that

(Really, shout out to Cartoon Network for engineering the Steven Universe fandom to Be Like That through their inscrutable strategy of dropping episodes during one random week every five months or whatever)

As for something that's always been with it...cliques and a certain fannish elitism, like, that sees engaging with media in a fandom sense as more creative or analytical or intelligent than your average person. You see it now in the form of, like, people holding up fanfic above published fiction as more representative or authentic (I’ve seen more than one post on here strongly implying queer rep doesn’t exist in mainstream non-fic storytelling???), or going “well, we think about shows, unlike those normies watching sports”. But that was probably way more pronounced a thing in the past, in the 40-50s sci-fi fans were calling non-fans "mundanes" and calling themselves "slans" as an in-group signifier (a reference to a book with superintelligent psychic mutants known as slans). Like at the very least we should be happy no one’s calling non-fans “muggles” anymore. In the evolution from “mundane” to “muggle” to “normie” normie’s probably the least bad one

[meanbossart]

Okay but I would love to hear your thoughts on the other spawn

Twirling my hair shifty-eyeing to the side OKAAAYYYYY WELL IF YOU INSIST 🛀

(This is a continuation of this post where I go into some detail about my thoughts on Dalyria, Violet, and Leon ((or "Leonard" as I apparently dubbed him as by mistake))

Let me start with the one I love the most after my sweet well-meaning-child-murdering-doctor Dalyria: Pale Petras.

First of all, just look at this fucking guy. What a goober.

I pretty explicitly go off-canon when it comes to my theories about Petras. According to him, he has been with Cazador for a hundred years - I find that very, very difficult to believe. Whether I would scrap that line entirely or just tack it as hyperbole is irrelevant - though he does seem to have a knack for the dramatics, or at least he tries to.

Petras immediately strikes me as a newcomer in the group. He's the most lively out of the spawn we chat with and seems to still retain what is a pretty strong, bold personality. He's antagonizing towards Astarion and pretty much sides with Cazador up until his life is on the line - and, most interestingly to me, his immediate reaction after being freed if you instruct them to lead the spawn into the Underdark seems to be one of fear and reluctance, unlike Dalyria who almost immediately takes the responsibility upon herself and seems warm towards Astarion and the player for what they've done.

Abusive relationships don't start abusive. If you've ever been friends with someone who's hooked up with a known serial abuser, chances are that you have had to sit through their attempts at justifying their behavior as foretold by previous partners - "oh, they just weren't a good match", "they both enabled abuse towards each other", "his ex was just crazy, man." This honeymoon period can last anywhere from a few weeks, to several years - until said friend inevitably finds themselves in the exact same cycle that said ex escaped from.

That's Petras. Petras is fresh meat. He's compliant. He's gullible. As a human in a world where you're surrounded by races that live up to several hundreds of years, he's attributed power to longevity - he loves being a spawn. He loves knowing that he will never lose his youthful looks and that his newly-acquired "curse" makes him desirable in it's own, odd way. He thinks this gig is easy - go out, get laid, get fed, rinse and repeat. Sure, sometimes there's a misunderstanding and he gets his joints broken or nails ripped out, but whatever! They grow back! To a vampire with powers of regeneration, dismemberment and scalping might as well be equivalent to ten belt-smacks to the backside just like his father used to give him as a child. Plus, it's never really his fault - If Master knew the truth, he would never set his goons on him at all!

And Oh, he adores Cazador. Not as a friend, a lover, or even a family member - but an aspiration. He sincerely believes that through hard work and resilience he can one day also have his status and fortune. And it shouldn't even be hard to stand out among this angsty little crew - what are they so bent out of shape about, anyway If they spent less time moping and more time working, maybe they wouldn't have such a tough time. Especially -

Astarion.

While it is likely incidental, I find it very ironic that Petras was put in Astarion's early-access outfit. And much less accidental than that: his mannerism and word-choice are a blatant imitation of Astarion's behavior. The flair, the flirting, the flattering and the abrasiveness; I've heard it theorized that this must be how all of the spawn act - I disagree. Petras is the only one we see exhibit that type of demeanor. I think he actively models himself after Astarion because as thick as he might be, he did catch onto the fact that his master has a particular interest in the white-haired elf.

And, of course, Petras hates Astarion for it. He sees him as someone who could have had it all, but gave up on it in favor of being bitter, angry, and naively wistful over his lost life. He has the looks, he has the charm, he had his master's favor, they go out and Petras watches men and women alike swoon over him and laugh at his shitty jokes, to then return home with a long-faced, bratty little shit-head of a toddler-man who would never even understand what the paralyzing loom of mortality is like in the first place - an ungrateful, nepotistic bastard whose had it all handed over to him by daddy, who was loved and fed and given a well-paid job fresh off his teens - but now he has to put a little work in. Now he has to do things that he might find unpleasant. And all he fucking does is whine about it.

Astarion is the personification of everything Petras ever wanted to be before being turned into a spawn, and he accidentally wears it on his sleeve day in and day out. I have no doubt that Astarion is blatantly aware of that fact and it makes his skin crawl - but Dalyria tells him that Petras is too young. Too new. Cut him some slack.

And frankly, I don't think he's evil, either. He strikes me as naive and star-striken. I don't know how long he's been with the Szarrs for, but certainly the light in his eyes would eventually fade over time and he would have had all the zest beaten out of him, same as the others. But, for now - he just doesn't know his own luck.

Admittedly, I have much less to say about Yousen and Aurelia. We don't hear as much as a word out of Yousen, but I've chosen to read the silence of and about his character as indicative that, maybe, he was able to hold onto his sanity and honor the best out of all of them. He had to do what he had to do to survive, but he did it while attempting to withhold any standards allowed to him for his own peace of mind - I like to imagine he had a lot of sincere empathy for all of the spawn, and, while they were never close, him and Astarion exchanged sincere words about their situation a few times during their stay at the palace; just enough to remind the elf that he wasn't alone, but never so much that Yousen would intrude into his space, or add strain to his already fragile state of mind.

And Aurelia... She strikes me as so young and already so beaten. I'd wager that what was once a sweet tiefling girl is now a terrified animal who does absolutely whatever she can to avoid pain and punishment - the snitch of the group, the reluctant ass-kisser, the one who desperately clings to any relief in whatever form it may come - be her master's approval or the shoulder of a sibling she has damned to the kennel more than once out of fear for her own life. Everybody has been hurt, betrayed, and irritated by her - but she's just so god damn pitiful that they can't push her away forever. While she would live, I believe she would have the hardest time adapting to freedom after Violet - just completely dependent on others and burdened by what she's had to do.

[witchhazelevesque]

We actually have no confirmation whether the characters are living their first lives. Like. Percy saw the Isles of the Blessed in the very first book and thought “that’s where I want to end up”. But what if when he dies eventually expecting to go through judgement and hopefully get Elysium (he obviously will but he’s prob not gonna let his guard down about it til he’s there and maybe even after) only then he’s ushered past it and onto the Isles.

Can you imagine how he’d react?

But that also opens up some sad possibilities because honestly what are the odds that every single one of them are on the same stage in this possible cycle? And this goes back to some theories I had about how the three different lives thing works. And in the Last Olympian Percy insists that all the demigods and hunters that died in the war get granted Elysium and Hades agrees. He might have said something about paperwork or something for the on going joke about the Underworld as a business, but there was something to that? Either way, Percy wouldn’t know for sure when he made that requirement.

And it’s an interesting element that the books never really get into. Maybe because the characters are so young they just automatically assume it’s their first life. Also tragically they probably haven’t thought they would live long this life so they can’t imagine having done it successfully before. At least for the Greeks, the Romans are a whole other thing in that regard.

And since their souls are literally preordained to do certain things in the prophecies, I wonder if how new a soul is might relate. Not like dictating it but just if there’s any patterns or correlation. I think Leo and Hazel I’m most curious about. I guess the narrative has sort of implicitly set the reader up to operate with the mindset that this is the first lives for them, like again, Percy’s comment about the Isles. Silena’s last words were about seeing Charles, and the logical conclusion is that yeah they’re going to be in the same place, but there’s a layer to that that wasn’t addressed. And there’s the fact that both PJO and HoO start with the main characters (except Jason) being fully introduced to the mythical world, essentially casting them as beginners.

But by the nature of the world we’re being introduced to, it’s ancient, and looking at it that way it could totally seem like it’s plausible or probable that some of the characters have lived lives before.

Circling back to how that affects them in the afterlife though, it wouldn’t be clear to them automatically after their first and second lives. Are they told during judgment? Are they told in Elysium? Do they just innately know if they have the opportunity to be reborn?

For example, maybe this was Jason’s third life and he finds himself on the Isles and has to wait to see if his friends come there immediately when they die. Can those on the Isles go to Elysium? Are they confined there or is just that the residents of Elysium can’t go in? Time probably works weird in the Underworld, I think that might have been established. It might not be super painful if it turns out that Piper and Leo and Frank and Percy and Nico and everyone else aren’t bound for the Isles yet. He’d be at peace and have eternity to wait for them.

But on their end? Probably it depends on if the people on the Isles could visit. And again with those possibilities about their three identities and lifetimes worth of memories, it depends on who they are now. Are Piper and Leo going to find a Jason that is their Jason but also someone(s) else? That winner of the poll linked above and the possibility I agree with myself is that they get all their memories and decide what to do and who they are now. What would it be like if it was their first life and eventually they get reborn and then come back to Elysium as someone new, without those memories of their old friends? But again they have eternity so while it’s painful, it’s not permanently tragic.

Someone suggested they split into three different people and that is a really cool concept. It also adds an element of what the gods can do, splitting their essence and being multiple places at once. Not exactly like it since they’d be different people with different memories even if the core of them is the same technically. But just like demigods can’t understand what that’s like for the gods, those who haven’t lived three times can’t understand what it is to have three lives in your consciousness. And all of their minds are probably more elastic and more ‘godlike’ for lack of a better term after death since they aren’t confined to a mortal body. But it still not the same for those on the Isles and those in the outer sections of Elysium. I doubt it would stop people from being close, but it is a marked difference they’ll need to learn to navigate. It’s also really sweet because this means they get to have more of their loved ones to learn about.

[shearlin]

Hot take about Sky angst, regarding the curse of Demise, because I haven't seen anyone talking about this possibility in all those years I've been in LU fandom.

Guys...

Sky has no idea about the curse

Because think about it. Why would he know about it?

My man has been electrocuted multiple times, with magical - basically divine - lightnings in attempt to defeat Demise. All the while fighting for his life with a literal GOD OF EVIL, after spending an entire afternoon fighting an army of monsters and a Demon Lord/creepy ass Sword Spirit. Not even mentioning how worried sick he must have been that entire time, if this time he was also too late too save Zelda.

(always too late too slow not enough and late late late)

I don't know about you, but I don't think he was in any state of body or mind to listen to some dudes last words, when he had to focus on not passing out because he has to make sure Zelda/Sun is alright.

(It got a bit long so rest of the rant under the cut)

Fi gave him clear, that Demise received a mortal blow and that now it's only a matter of time until he dies and that was all Sky needed to stop paying any attention.

Just go through the motions. His vision is blurry, but that's alright just stay awake. Fi chimes to rise his sword. He does. There is some black smoke suddenly surrounding him, but Fi get's rid of it with her light so it's fine. It's probably why she asked him to rise her skyward. The last fifteen minutes he's been following her directions nearly blindly anyway, because his mind is still foggy, he's not sure where he is or what he is doing he just have to get to Zelda.

And then she's there. And everything is fine.

Impa fades, Fi sleeps and he finally rests. Or rather crashes as the exhaustion finally catches up to him.

But he recovers, as best as he can, and live on.

And then eight other heroes, just like him, appear and take him on a quest across the time. They become friends. Then brothers. Soon he feels like they knew each other their entire lives and can't imagine how he can move on after the inevitable goodbyes.

He is so happy that no matter what, there will always be someone among his people, someone from or even outside of Hyrule, to stand up against evil, no matter how many times it will try to show it's ugly face. He's a bit bummed that there even is a need for a hero to show up, but hey! He is not so naive to think people are and always will be only good. Things happen. Some people are just terrible, and some take it out on the entire world.

But somewhere along the line, he starts to notice... something weird.

They all fought that same guy (some of them even multiple times!) called Ganon or Ganondorf. And while he is overjoyed that none of them even heard the name of Demise, he feels kind of singled out. Few of them mentioned an idea of reincarnation. Mentioning Zeldas' connection through blood of the Goddess and their connection through a spirit.

A spirit of a hero.

He always though it was a figure of speech. A way to describe someone courageous who fulfills the quota of being a hero.

But it's not about a spirit of a hero.

No.

It's the Spirit of the Hero.

His Spirit.

An idea begins to form. A distant memory he didn't even knew he had. Maybe nightmares about that fateful fight starting to get clearer by night. Maybe he spends some time talking to Fi and he does not like the feeling he gets from her chimes, even if she can't really talk in her slumber. Maybe he even prays to Hylia in some distant era in an unfamiliar place, so she can deny or confirm his suspicions.

Goddesses, please, may he be wrong.

Because he loves them all like a family. Because they are family. Because he has seen their haunted expressions and blank eyes, he has heard their stories and horrors they went through and nearly all of them were so young, too young, and the thought that he was the direct cause of it-

Sky had no idea that Demise trapped his spirit in a cycle of reincarnation. He had no time to process it or find coping mechanisms before the adventure with the chain happened. He found out during it, slowly putting it together and coming apart at the seems before their eyes.

Sky didn't know about the curse.

And I say, it could be really interesting to watch Sky fall.

(And if anyone knows a fic exploring this idea please let me know! I searched but couldn't find any)

[genderqueerdykes]

i think people who doesnt like men and despise them are just traumatized. i mean its the experience of being mistreated for years that it makes them unable to trust men again. their reactions is maybe too harsh but i can see it being "i just doesnt want to be hurt anymore"

i agree with this take and i don't care if that bugs people

it is okay for a person to say that they have experienced trauma due to the current patriarchy we live under. it's okay to say that. however it's not okay to project one's trauma with those specific things on to every man they encounter. we must not project our trauma on to people who are not hurting us. it does not help us heal. it keeps us trapped in the cycle of negative thought loops, paranoia, fear and disgust

i agree with you completely, people who take this trauma to the extreme without reflecting on their experiences and admitting that the trauma was at the hands of that one person, those people, or that organization just lose they ability to trust an entire gender and decide that pathologically avoiding and hating men is the way to move on and cope. it's not, it never is. to avoid one's trigger for the rest of one's life is to not going to help someone get over it. it has to be addressed at one point or another

there are many men out there who are horrible but there are horrible people of any gender. our current patriarchal society is flawed because we designed a structure built around worshipping men and placing them in positions of power over everyone, especially women, but only if they fit into a narrow box of what a man 'should' look, act and sound like. we torture men, women and everyone else in this society.

men are forced to be the 'perfect' man in order to be validated and accepted as 'real' men. men cannot have long hair or else they 'look like a girl' or are 'too faggy'. men have to be physically fit or else people are ashamed of them or tell them they are unattractive. men are forced to be the 'man of the house', boys are forced into this at young ages. men are only allowed to dress in certain ways depending on one's culture. in the US men have to wear very plain clothes with muted colors. gestures and mannerisms are also scrutinized as well as career choices. only 'masculine' career choices are approved of

we place insecure men into positions of power and tell them to control everyone and make sure that women don't get those same rights and abilities and that's a huge issue but not every man is doing this. our issue with men is systemic due to the patriarchy we live under- men are not genetically or inherently violent, evil or shitty. we are grooming men and certain men catch on to the programming and take it very seriously and many wish to live outside of it in order to be themselves

the way we treat women in this patriarchal society is abysmal. it is shameful to behold- yes women are treated in an absolutely subhuman fashion in most regards of life when it comes to what we experience. it's maddening. but we have to understand that if we stop programming men to behave this way, this will not continue to happen anywhere near as badly as it's happening right now

the average man you meet on the street is likely not a danger to you at all whatsoever. most people aren't. most men don't really want to be a macho stereotype. most men just want to go about their own personal interests. it's okay for them to do so its their right. opening up one's self to average men who are honest and in touch with their interests is pretty eye opening- men also come in all kinds just like anyone else. men can be gentle and caring just as much as they can be difficult to be around. men are people

i agree with you. people project their trauma of what theyve gone through on to people who have not hurt them and it's not a good way to approach community and how one interacts with the world. it's fine to call out men when they do something shitty, when they're misogynistic, when they're being violent, but we also have to let men be gentle, quiet, caring, creative, passionate, loving and so on. because men are capable of those things. it's that simple

hope you have a great day, thanks for stopping by to chat

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

The first time I saw Stede held at gunpoint by Chauncey, I believed it might be a night terror. They’re repeating the Nigel guilt-ghost motif, I thought. Or even his fever-induced nightmares. This is what Stede does. Big emotions writ large shouting the worst parts of his self-loathing. The words Chauncey says is probably the exact noise playing in Stede’s head. In fact he ‘completely agree[s]’. The repeated death-injury to the eye, and Stede’s subsequent amnesic journey home, barefoot in underclothes, just seemed to play out perfectly as a full-blown, hallucinatory panic-attack.

And then I realised the consensus was this event likely occurs, it truly happens within the narrative. Stede also remembers both Badminton brothers alongside the line ‘I’ve been the cause of death.’

Fast forward to 204, and Stede doesn’t mention the event to Ed during the couch scene. I’ve said before it wasn’t the right time to say ‘…but, Chauncey’. However, it did happen, didn’t it? And Stede does need to tell Ed eventually. Because then it might mitigate some of Stede’s responsibility… right?

Well, I’m not sure we’re looking at it from the best angle.

Chauncey arriving at the barracks to kill Stede is likely meant to be understood as real within the fictional setting of the show. But this is a magical realist world, and Chauncey’s turning up did not occur in the same way as it would in our reality. There is a different significance and meaning.

I think two seemingly-contrary things can exist here: Chauncey really did show up of his own choice, and Stede is somewhat responsible for his showing up, because this could be read as a metaphysical event. Stede partly manifests Chauncey. The show often uses mirrors as a way of exploring identity, and Stede is right in the middle of an identity crisis. Chauncey is an accurate reflection of Stede’s internal chaos, a judgmental dark angel on his shoulder. And until Stede is able to go back to Bridgetown, and deal with the guilt and mess of leaving his family, Badminton brothers, cousins, and half-uncles are going to keep showing up, insulting Stede at the deepest level, then Darwining themselves in front of him.

The lesson here, I think, is we help create our own reality: if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. Stede needs to change his internal narrative to free himself from this twisted pattern.

It’s not that Stede deserves the bullying of the Badminton brothers; he absolutely doesn’t. But his state of mind lays the groundwork for the external manifestation of his thoughts within this universe. Chauncey is the personification of Stede’s self-loathing, and Stede co-creates the situation, somehow drawing Chauncey (and Nigel) towards him. As a character within a fictional world we are being asked to watch Stede’s transformation after this event, and one of those changes is his breaking this particular cycle.

That is why I’m not too bothered if Stede ever tells Ed about Chauncey. Like someone once said similarly of god, if Chauncey didn’t exist, it might be necessary for Stede to invent him. Chauncey’s intervention gives Stede a sort of permission to act as he does. There is no mitigation for Stede here. He has to own it, no matter how distorted his thinking at the time; and he does just that to Ed later without resorting to sackcloth and ashes.

The complexity of what happens that night might well be outside of physical reality. It’s Ed returning from the gravy basket largely unscathed. Or Buttons becoming a bird. It isn’t easy to understand fully because the laws that govern our reality are suspended here. But our role as viewers isn’t to reach a definitive conclusion or worry ourselves in circles over narrative gaps. It’s to consider what the Chauncey event triggers and then leads to.

This is Stede’s rock-bottom. From here on in, we see character growth in which Stede overcomes a good portion of the self-loathing lurking within his soul, replacing it with a kinder internal narrative, and helping him in turn to love and be loved. And Stede has also hopefully exorcised the possibility of any future Badminton visitations.

Stede returns, and he returns a better man than he left because he did much of the internal work he needed to do.

He changes his stars - and Ed’s. That’s all that matters.

[generallemarc]

Both gaining and losing hope that Metaphor Refantazio will say something new/interesting about religion.

So far the official state religion, Sanctism, is the typical only-opinion-allowed-at-Atlus take on organized religion, where it's all the worst elements throughout history crammed together and that's the end of it. They even went as far as to make the prayer gesture covering one's eyes with both hands-gee, I wonder if that symbolizes blind faith? So far, so formulaic, right? Well, yes...but also not entirely. See, I randomly decided to do the activity that raises your Tolerance stat(it's just like persona where you have 5 characteristic stats, only they're called kingly virtues instead), and the NPC offering it was of a tribe that has it's own religion. It started off typical enough, with a description of how the Sanctist church denounced them as pagans, but then something interesting happened. The NPC stated that his tribe's faith was exclusive to them, while Sanctism could be followed by members of every tribe which was, in his words, "a problem". A religion being mutli-ethnic is... a problem? And then it hit me-I'm increasing my Tolerance stat. Tolerance-as in, tolerating other viewpoints that you don't immediately agree with. I'd expected just a simple overview of the tribe's culture followed by more lines about how awful all this discrimination is and wouldn't it be nice if that wasn't happening, but no, Atlus actually went the extra mile and made the dialogue fit.

I'm sure if I keep going with this guy I'll get to the inevitable "there are no right/easy answers" conclusion, but getting there by showing a viewpoint that your average joe would normally be adverse to both humanizes this nameless NPC(yes, I know that "human" means something else in Metaphor, I just can't think of a better term) by assigning him a somewhat intolerant viewpoint while simultaneously not denouncing him for it, because all tolerance has to start somewhere and in this world it's pretty much gotta start from absolute zero: with everyone hating everyone else, someone has to be the first to break the cycle and say "ok, you may be judging me by my tribe and faith, but I'm not going to judge you for the same things because that's always the wrong thing to do even if I've been a victim of it in the past". I'm still wary about this whole idea of the Elda tribe being condemned directly by Sanctist scripture(it really seems like there's no point to it beyond Atlus grinding its eternal axe against religion), but I'm not even past the first dungeon yet and we've already gotten deeper into morality and religion than almost any other Atlus game I can think of.

[thunderboltfire]

I have a lot of complicated feelings when it comes to what Neflix has done with the Witcher, but my probably least favourite is the line of argumentation that originated during shitstorms related to the first and second season that I was unlucky to witness.

It boils down to "Netflix's reinterpretation and vision is valid, because the Witcher books are not written to be slavic. The overwhelming Slavic aestetic is CDPR's interpretation, and the setting in the original books is universally European, as there are references to Arthurian mythos and celtic languages" And I'm not sure where this argument originated and whether it's parroting Sapkowski's own words or a common stance of people who haven't considered the underlying themes of the books series. Because while it's true that there are a lot of western european influences in the Witcher, it's still Central/Eastern European to the bone, and at its core, the lack of understanding of this topic is what makes the Netflix series inauthentic in my eyes.

The slavicness of the Witcher goes deeper than the aestetics, mannerisms, vodka and sour cucumbers. Deeper than Zoltan wrapping his sword with leopard pelt, like he was a hussar. Deeper than the Redanian queen Hedvig and her white eagle on the red field.

What Witcher is actually about? It's a story about destiny, sure. It's a sword-and-sorcery style, antiheroic deconstruction of a fairy tale, too, and it's a weird mix of many culture's influences.

But it's also a story about mundane evil and mundane good. If You think about most dark, gritty problems the world of Witcher faces, it's xenophobia and discrimination, insularism and superstition. Deep-seated fear of the unknown, the powerlessness of common people in the face of danger, war, poverty and hunger. It's what makes people spit over their left shoulder when they see a witcher, it's what makes them distrust their neighbor, clinging to anything they deem safe and known. It's their misfortune and pent-up anger that make them seek scapegoats and be mindlessly, mundanely cruel to the ones weaker than themselves.

There are of course evil wizards, complicated conspiracies and crowned heads, yes. But much of the destruction and depravity is rooted in everyday mundane cycle of violence and misery. The worst monsters in the series are not those killed with a silver sword, but with steel. it's hard to explain but it's the same sort of motiveless, mundane evil that still persist in our poorer regions, born out of generations-long poverty and misery. The behaviour of peasants in Witcher, and the distrust towards authority including kings and monarchs didn't come from nowhere.

On the other hand, among those same, desperately poor people, there is always someone who will share their meal with a traveller, who will risk their safety pulling a wounded stranger off the road into safety. Inconditional kindness among inconditional hate. Most of Geralt's friends try to be decent people in the horrible world. This sort of contrasting mentalities in the recently war-ridden world is intimately familiar to Eastern and Cetral Europe.

But it doesn't end here. Nilfgaard is also a uniquely Central/Eastern European threat. It's a combination of the Third Reich in its aestetics and its sense of superiority and the Stalinist USSR with its personality cult, vast territory and huge army, and as such it's instantly recognisable by anybody whose country was unlucky enough to be caught in-between those two forces. Nilfgaard implements total war and looks upon the northerners with contempt, conscripts the conquered people forcibly, denying them the right of their own identity. It may seem familiar and relevant to many opressed people, but it's in its essence the processing of the trauma of the WW2 and subsequent occupation.

My favourite case are the nonhumans, because their treatment is in a sense a reminder of our worst traits and the worst sins in our history - the regional antisemitism and/or xenophobia, violence, local pogroms. But at the very same time, the dilemma of Scoia'Tael, their impossible choice between maintaining their identity, a small semblance of freedom and their survival, them hiding in the forests, even the fact that they are generally deemed bandits, it all touches the very traumatic parts of specifically Polish history, such as January Uprising, Warsaw Uprising, Ghetto Uprising, the underground resistance in WW2 and the subsequent complicated problem of the Cursed Soldiers all at once. They are the 'other' to the general population, but their underlying struggle is also intimately known to us.

The slavic monsters are an aestetic choice, yes, but I think they are also a reflection of our local, private sins. These are our own, insular boogeymen, fears made flesh. They reproduce due to horrors of the war or they are an unprovoked misfortune that descends from nowhere and whose appearance amplifies the local injustices.

I'm not talking about many, many tiny references that exist in the books, these are just the most blatant examples that come to mind. Anyway, the thing is, whether Sapkowski has intended it or not, Witcher is slavic and it's Polish because it contains social commentary. Many aspects of its worldbuilding reflect our traumas and our national sins. It's not exclusively Polish in its influences and philosophical motifs of course, but it's obvious it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And it seems to me that the inherently Eastern European aspects of Witcher are what was immediately rewritten in the series. It seems to me that the subtler underlying conflicts were reshaped to be centered around servitude, class and gender disparity, and Nilfgaard is more of a fanatic terrorist state than an imposing, totalitarian empire. A lot of complexity seems to be abandoned in lieu of usual high-fantasy wordbuilding. It's especially weird to me because it was completely unnecessary. The Witcher books didn't need to be adjusted to speak about relevant problems - they already did it! The problem of acceptance and discrimination is a very prevalent theme throughout the story! They are many strong female characters too, and they are well written. Honestly I don't know if I should find it insulting towards their viewers that they thought it won't be understood as it was and has to be somehow reshaped to fit the american perpective, because the current problems are very much discussed in there and Sapkowski is not subtle in showing that genocide and discrimination is evil. Heck, anyone who has read the ending knows how tragic it makes the whole story.

It also seems quite disrespectful, because they've basically taken a well-established piece of our domestic literature and popular culture and decided that the social commentary in it is not relevant. It is as if all it referenced was just not important enough and they decided to use it as an opportunity to talk about the problems they consider important. And don't get me wrong, I'm not forcing anyone to write about Central European problems and traumas, I'm just confused that they've taken the piece of art already containing such a perspective on the popular and relevant problem and they just... disregarded it, because it wasn't their exact perspective on said problem.

And I think this homogenisation, maybe even from a certain point of view you could say it's worldview sanitisation is a problem, because it's really ironic, isn't it? To talk about inclusivity in a story which among other problems is about being different, and in the same time to get rid of motifs, themes and references because they are foreign? Because if something presents a different perspective it suddenly is less desirable?

There was a lot of talking about the showrunners travelling to Poland to understand the Witcher's slavic spirit and how to convey it. I don't think they really meant it beyond the most superficial, paper-thin facade.

[respectthepetty]

What is tradition?

I finally watched this week's episodes of The Eighth Sense and

Episode six was NOT a dream

Ji Hyun is alive but whatever happened is serious

This is a giant "fuck you" to tradition

First, Ji Hyun brings light to Jae Won's dark world. Jae Won is in a very dark place (and head space) after the confrontation with his dad and the camera breaking, so he reaches out to the light.

Ji Hyun is at his peak brightest because Jae Won is about to experience the darkest period of his life . . . again

Jae Won is also in a haze due to his mental state. The colors become less ethereal as their time together continues during the trip because Jae Won is becoming more grounded.

Next, since episode six is not a dream, that means something did happen to Ji Hyun, and it's serious.

Because it needs to be serious.

Someone already compared Jae Won to Team from Between Us. They share the same trauma. They share the same burden. They share the same mentality. Team loved Win but was too afraid to say it. He was too afraid to lose someone he loved like before. He was too afraid to push because the last time he pushed, there were fatal consequences.

Jae Won specifically voices this last concern. His brother died in front of him, and much like Team, I'm sure it is partially due to a rash decision Jae Won made, much like this one:

Someone pointed out that the back of their wetsuits read "RASH" and this entire beach trip was a rash decision by Jae Won.

If Jae Won feels responsible for his brother's death, he will definitely feel responsible for whatever happens to Ji Hyun, and because of that he will resort back to his old self even more.

Jae Won was an overachiever. The hospital staff thought he was older because he was mature and put together. He did exactly what his parents wanted. He did what society expected. He dated a girl. He befriended the masculine men. He did all of that, but lately, he has been rebellious. He's been drinking. He broke up with the girl. He is distancing himself from his friend(s). He doesn't want to go into business.

But this incident with Ji Hyun will put him back on the straight and narrow. It will scare him and shake him to his core because it is a reminder of what could happen when he doesn't stay in line - he could lose the one he loves the most. So to protect his heart and Ji Hyun, he will pull back, date the girl, hang out with his friends, and do what his parents ask. He will follow tradition.

But the problem with tradition is it's really just history repeating itself again, and again, and again.

The show is about the troubles with tradition. Tae Hyung is hellbent on keeping tradition alive. He wanted the freshmen to drink until they passed out on the beach trip. He wants them to cater to him. He is, at his very core, a traditionalist even though it has been pointed out several times how tradition hurt him. Yoon Won mentions every time how Tae Hyung was essentially bullied and hazed by his seniors, but instead of wanting to change for the better, Tae Hyung wants to continue the cycle of pain.

Ae Ri refuses to drink anymore at the beach. She rebukes traditional mindsets and gender roles. She speaks casually with the seniors and even when Yoon Won comments that the freshmen need to use formalities with the seniors, Ae Ri scoffs. She doesn't respect Tae Hyung and won't simply because he is a senior.

Tae Hyung needs tradition because it is predictable and structured. Ae Ri hates tradition because it is confining and restrictive.

Jae Won told his therapist that life after the military has been difficult. This is a common feeling. Military life is structured. Civilian life is full of choices. Military service is riddled with tradition. Jae Won is lost without the structure of tradition. He wants to break free, but the way he has been handling it (drinking, partying, not applying for jobs) is an extreme. Instead of one thing holding power over him, he is giving up power to anything and everything just so he doesn't have to make any decisions because when he does, people get hurt.

Jae Won wears a mask with everyone, but he was beginning to lean on Ji Hyun in hopes that Ji Hyun could make those decisions for him. Ji Hyun is the light in Jae Won's dark world, so why couldn't Ji Hyun just be Jae Won's entire world?

In the bar, Jae Won got upset at Tae Hyung but Ji Hyun was there to calm him down, both in the first episode and the fifth. But we saw in the trailer that Jae Won will hit Tae Hyung in the classroom because Ji Hyun won't be there to calm him down since Jae Won pushed Ji Hyun away after the incident.

Jae Won must take control of his own life instead of living in these extremes. He needs to find a balance within himself. He needs to define who he wants to be without depending on others to do it for him.

The accident with Ji Hyun is going to push Jae Won back into his comfort zone, so he will be alone again, pretending with everyone and masking his true self.

But he will realize his comfort zone is his hell, and HE is the only one who can rescue himself from it. Ji Hyun can't be around while Jae Won figures out who he needs to be. He can't keep repeating the same mistakes.

Because

Jae Won's biggest problem is himself

And

Jae Won's only solution is himself.

He must be his own light.

Sidenote: I'm gonna marry this queen.

I have an answer for you @wen-kexing-apologist. I have thoughts for you @waitmyturtles and @dribs-and-drabbles. I agree with you @bengiyo