#or i could expand on it if i feel like it or if people like it

[galene-gothic]

2025 𝗒𝖾𝖺𝗋𝗅𝗒 𝗉𝗋𝖾𝖽𝗂𝖼𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝗌

୧ ‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊ I hope this reading found you in good health, every reblog is appreciated and thank you for everything :) ˖♡ ˎˊ˗ ꒰ 🐇 ꒱

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CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR SALE AND OFFERS

⊹ ! ೀ Pile 1 ꒱

(Note: I started your pile towards the end of the year so terms such as ‘this year’ likely means 2024 when it comes to the summary. Thank you for stopping to read and I hope that you enjoy your reading thoroughly.)

꒰ A summary of 2024 for you ꒱

You started this year with a grand mindset. You wanted to expand yourself, your life and make the most out of it by creating abundance by yourself. You basically wanted to turn your life around. I’m getting that your mindset was fairly good because you seem to have already turned something around for yourself by that point which is why you felt so confident in your vision. You were very driven to succeed and were not going to accept anything lesser than what you wanted. You were also curious, taking ideas from where you can get them, gaining knowledge from where you can so that you could make something out of your vision and you had broken free from many limitations, your mindset was not limited, negative beliefs were not present and you were dreaming big, you were also acting according to your vision like taking inspired action to the best of your capabilities. You were very empowered and driven at that time, you also had the understanding that life is a cycle but now that the year has come to an end, you’re someone who lacks work life balance and is not satisfied with how much you did causing you to feel ungrounded. Due to how much potential and time you had, and how you wasted it, you’re feeling stuck in life. You might have been looking into your past earnings and spendings (like this year’s spendings), and feeling disappointed, and a lack in terms of finances as well. You seem to be adjusting your priorities around this time. You are feeling some financial or career pressure, mostly because you didn’t do as much as you could or wanted to do. You had great potential to create stable foundations for yourself in terms of money, goals and career specifically, you could have truly grown but it’s just disappointing how your investments were either not done well by you, like you seem to have lacked follow through or consistency or things are just going slowly, you haven’t given up, you’re still trying but you’re feeling insecure about disappointing yourself because you know how much potential you had. You probably feel like you spent a lot of money as well.

You’re interested in connections at this moment, you’re hoping that next year things will be different and you’ll have close heartfelt one on one connection(s). You failed consistency and hard work, and you feel shitty about it. Your love life was pretty much non existent or very unpeaceful. If your love life was non existent or even if it was not, you dealt with difficulty with falling asleep at some point within this year, many of you could in fact be dealing with this these days itself. You could have felt embarrassed of the people you dated in the past or looking back at the way things were, you feel ashamed and depressed because you didn’t deserve that. I’m getting many of you being up in your heads in regard to love. There were also worries and anxiety regarding love at some point regardless of whether you were involved with someone or not. When it comes to your family, you seem to have been as responsible as you can be but you realised that you weren’t doing as much as you could and may have recently fixed it or are trying to do so. There’s this thing about you growing your family life in some way but being more focused on money, career, work, etc. than family because that’s the way you seem to care about them? In terms of friendships, you seem to be pretty decisive. It could have been the year when you cut friends or a friend off with a sense of decisiveness that you didn’t possess in the previous years. You are disappointed career wise, it’s not like you didn’t try but you feel like you prioritised comfort and leisure over proper investments and work. You feel like if you had been decisive to what you wanted to follow through in the beginning of the year, you’d not be left right where you started. It seems to pain you pretty deeply to not be able to make as much progress as you wanted to but despite, the disappointment you feel, you’re trying to have an even judgement going forward and not be too hard on yourself. You’re rethinking your mindsets, priorities, etc. and have had an awakening of some sort. You do not want to stray off your path next year and want to do better so that you do not feel disappointed in yourself, and your life again.

꒰ How will 2025 go for you? ꒱

The main theme of the year 2025 for you is going to be to recognise your values, actions and intentions when it comes to romance, beauty, and one on one connections in general. You’re also going to have to acknowledge where you tend to go wrong in terms of connections. If you had a love life in 2024 and are going into 2025 with that person, you’ll break free from them because the situation seems toxic i.e. one that makes you anxious, makes you feel negatively about yourself or life, makes your mind race or/and cause you sleepless nights. However, the rest of you are going to be alone or at least internally focused, causing you to attain a lot of wisdom and also grow to love your own company more. There are going to be hard truths that you’re going to learn about romance, connections and the opposite gender in the coming year. You’re also going to learn how to not put all your eggs into one basket, not out of lack of loyalty but out of self respect, by the end of the year, you’re going to grow into someone who is not going to commit to uncommitted situations. You’re going to be pretty unwilling to commit as well because you’re not going to find what you’re looking for. Your focus in the year 2025 should be on your commitment, attachment and abandonment issues. Protect yourself and keep in mind what people are capable of doing, how they may hurt or abandon you and make peace with it, knowing that that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. I also suggest that you hold back on sharing your feelings, money, energy and presence during the year. You’re being told to save money. Also, hold yourself as your most prized possession. Not from a place from insecurity or narcissism but from an empowered place where you understand that you’re so valuable that anyone who leaves you behind is clearly dumb because someone else would break their back and bank in order to have something even half as precious. “Some people won’t be able to afford me” is the kind of mindset you should have. When I say ‘afford’, I do not mean that you’re a commodity but that you’re very valuable and some people simply won’t have the resources required to match up to the vibration where they could get and coexist with you. Please just have more faith in yourself and don’t give yourself away to people who do not live up to your standards action-wise because as the old saying goes “actions speak louder than words.” You’re going to get opportunities that are going to keep you very busy but there are going to be opportunities for distractions and long term uncommitted connections as well. You could get an opportunity that allows you to grow from within your comfort zone itself or will push you out of it, tiring you out. You’re going to have incredibly strong intuition and an access to information, and wisdom from a higher source out of nowhere or through a medium (youtube, audios, people, etc.) but will have a hard time trusting all of this. It is important for you to push for the truth by being a clear thinker who observes situations well, and spends time putting two and two together. You’re being told that your intuition will often be supported by the physical reality, it’s just that words might fool you so you need to be very vigilant and observant because actions can’t be faked. You’re being told that people can have bad intentions but they usually do have good ones, but even so, their actions are often bad so it should not be that difficult to connect the dots. There might be trouble in terms of education, skill building, team work, etc. You’re going to get in touch with a very unconscious side of yourself and your psyche that you didn’t even know existed, it’s going to be scary, confusing and you might not like many things that you might see but you’ll grow your depth, and will develop a stronger understanding of yourself going forward.

You’re going to see your own darker qualities and will also realise where you’ve faced deceit from yourself or others. I’m getting a lot of truth coming out but also a very glazed energy, like you won’t be sure what’s real and what’s not, it’s going to be difficult to differentiate between truth and illusion, and you’re going to hurt a lot. You could also face major endings this year. It doesn’t even have to be external or something that you’re aware of but you’re going to grow to be more humble, stability and career driven, and will be ethical, and consistent. You’re going to learn a lot about productivity and work ethic during the year. I’m getting that the ending is going to be more a spiritual thing by the way. In terms of romance, you’re either going to have a very light hearted and reckless approach or a very serious one but you’re going to break free definitely. You’ll understand that you’re very powerful and that oftentimes, romance has caused you to think of yourself with a sense of inferiority but that you being fooled back then doesn’t mean you can’t just reclaim your power. If you aren’t involved with people and won’t be at that time, you will try to stop thinking about situations and people because you’ll have realised that the only power anyone or anything can have is the attention that you give it. In terms of family, if you have had a bad past with them, you’re going to be pretty apathetic honestly. Especially when it comes to past complaints or negative memories that you may have of them, you’re going to accept and heal those instead of thinking about them every time something occurs within the household. You’re going to have a lot of empathy for your family but will also have the emotional intelligence to know that you didn’t deserve certain things that you may have had to go through because of them. You’re still going to forgive and love them though, and if you have a good relationship with them with a good past, you’re going to be contemplative and will find that certain members within it truly help you heal, like it will just be something that you’ll be grateful for even if it’s something that you’re so used to that you’ve started taking for granted but there’s going to be a lot of understanding and love that you’ll be extending from your side. Your career and finances are going to expand, and will likely bring in a lot of abundance, and understanding of your own path. You will likely think back to days when things weren’t as good and will be grateful. You should focus on management of money and time, and make sure you don’t spend, work or play excessively. If you’re consistent and manage your time, and resources well, 2025 will bring in so much money and career growth for you. Your own hopeful and well influenced qualities will be affecting 2025 but you’ll not even notice it. You might notice it now that I’ve pointed it out to you but it is going to heavily affect your year despite how unnoticed it will be. You’re going to do most things out of love and the love, and hope that you’ve received at any point in the past is going to help you do your best during this year. You’re also going to be more loved and influential that you might consider yourself to be, you’ll likely not be aware of the extent. My advice for you for next year is to communicate or at least think through emotionally unstable, uncomfortable or unsatisfying moment properly. Try not to react impulsively to negative thoughts and emotions. The outcome is going to be self contentment, you being able to stand up for yourself and possibly experiencing losses. Due to how much ‘breaking free’ energy I’ve received for you, it could be that you’ll start fighting back instead of silently taking it causing people to get upset but even if it’s something different, you will be more regretful about engaging with such people or situations than losing them because it’ll be their loss, not yours. Thank you for reading, much love and take care.

⊹ ! ೀ Pile 2 ꒱

꒰ A summary of 2024 for you ꒱

You started the year with a passionate energy but it could have been overconfident in nature. I’m getting that your mindset was scattered in some way. You were thinking about many things and hence, were feeling a lot as well. You had had enough reality checks by then but these reality checks were the very thing that were causing you to feel overwhelmed. I’m getting a lot of passion, frustration, anger, impatience from you, like your mind was all over but it was still very passionate. Your hard work was paying off in some way. It could simply be that you had grown enough to grow out of certain situations and were persevering to build a better future for yourself. Despite the places your mind was at, you were maintaining patience. You could have wanted to grow something in the previous year, like at the beginning of it but were tired and were trying not to overdo it but you had already worked long, and hard to build yourself to that point as well. You were very committed and perseverant towards your goals. Even situations that caused you frustrations, anger and overthinking were situations that you managed to gain from. It was disheartening for you that what you had previously invested in, thinking that it had grown or wanting it to had disappointed and failed you. You were working on growth and your goals, and giving up was not an option for you. I’m honestly getting a lot of disappointments, anger and passion, like even though these feelings are different, passion being positive and the other two being negative, they were all very strong. The reality checks that you had were something you didn’t want to have, you really wanted situations to work and it broke your heart that you were starting to see the reality of things, and accept it. You also felt frustrated at yourself for not seeing and accepting the truth of situations early on. The illusions that you had previously attached yourself to emotionally were something that you were breaking out of and it felt overwhelming, it also felt good and like you were making progress but it was also heartbreaking. You could have been trying to balance these overwhelming emotions by grounding yourself in reality and having something to do in real life because you had cracked the code by then that the best way to deal with emotions, illusions, excessive daydreaming and just things that feel real but also feel illusive is by immersing yourself in real life, in your daily routines and simply just having a life grounded in reality itself. You had already overcome a lot of instability and feelings of being left out in the cold, isolated, insecure, etc. You were still in the process of healing more of these. There could have been a point when reality was so bad that you were unconsciously or subconsciously trying to hold onto whatever illusions you could find comfort in but they led to nothing but wasted time, pain, hurt and disappointments in the long term of things. At that time, you were getting rid of all of that and had already managed to significantly do so. I’m also picking up on these situations being partially real or at least very real emotionally. For example, if a kid got bullied for being ugly and worthless during their middle school days, even if it never extends beyond harsh words, snickers and humiliation, it will definitely terribly humble them and even destroy their self esteem. It could have not seemed that serious because “people will say things, you can’t take everything to heart and it’s not bullying because it never got physical” but to that kid, it feels real, it felt real, it will feel real even after they’ve grown up and it is just so deeply ingrained in their psyche, and emotionality. They will still feel as though they’re unwelcome, others are trying to ridicule and humiliate them, others think that they’re worthless, others will treat them unfairly, leave them out, etc.

I’m literally crying because these situations that emotionally affected you but didn’t seem to be ‘that big of a deal’ in the physical world seem to have happened a lot, as well as other negative things that were very real but you weren’t aware of the extent of them in the past. At the beginning of 2024, your soul had overcome a lot and was still in the process of doing so. You know how people say that they just randomly got over something? That was sort of what happened but again, the reality is that you didn’t just get over it. Like, you took half a decade to mourn but randomly stopped mourning as much on a random day is the vibe that I’m getting. You also spent so much time by yourself, feeling hurt, lonely and isolated that you got used to it, and not only that but also developed a sense of solace within yourself, and life itself. You might have not realised when this happened but it had already happened by the beginning of the previous year. You were forgiving situations, people and even yourself. There were two paths that you could have followed during the previous year, one was the path of stability but also more isolation and less self expression but you would have accomplished a lot of your goals or one where you were spending more money, not saving, doing your best in terms of work because you lacked consistency and were just burnt out, and tired all the time and not being able to maintain a routine, etc. but were able to develop more of a style and sense of self expression. No matter what path you took, you did it well and I’ve gotta applaud you for that. By the end of the year, you had a major shift in mindset, you had become much more empowered and just felt more in power, and control than you did in the past years. “You’re burning up, I’m cooling down. You’re up, I’m down. You’re blind, I see but I’m free.” When you were younger, you struggled with feelings of inferiority and powerlessness. Especially in the previous years, there was a sense of power, mental, emotional, spiritual and possibly physical poverty. Everything you experienced broke you down little by little and possibly even crushed you completely at some point. Your mindset had become one of obsession, negativity and powerlessness but by the end of the previous year, you had grown into someone who had more control and power over their own mind, and you also had this realisation that your power is yours, and it’s impossible to truly strip you off it. In the past, people and situations managed to make you feel disempowered, helpless and honestly pathetic but by the end of 2024, you had grown out of it. You seem to have learned the lesson of at least trying to keep your mind as clean as possible. “The only power anything has over you is your attention.” You have understood just how powerful and worthy you are, and it did break your heart that you didn’t realise it sooner but by the end of the year, you were feeling confident, warm and authentic. You were happy to have gotten back to yourself and your power even if it took a lot of time for you to get there. You also really value this mindset, sense of power and confidence within yourself because you know what it is like to not have it. You seem to be content being your authentic self again and having an empowered mindset but what I need to address is the way you act. You were not being very honest towards the end of the year and might still be this way. Like, you could have lied about little things here and there, or maybe you didn’t even lie but you just don’t expose what you do, what your life is like, what your emotionality is like, etc. to other people. You seem to be very private and in fact, very secretive. You are willing to take risks and are very strategic. You could be highly interested in keeping up a certain image and might feel like you’re unable to do so. It could be something you’re dealing with right now or die when you were in the end of the previous year.

I’m getting the desire to have a refined ‘persona’ but one thing that I need to tell you and it’s something that you already know is that all you need to do is be yourself. You’re naturally quite secretive. Don’t fake yourself entirely in order to become a persona. You can take good qualities of yourself and exaggerate them but you still do not have to be perfect. You had grown to be very comfortable with yourself by the end of the year but you may be hard on yourself in regards to actions, words and image, you care a lot about how you come across to others by the way you present yourself. You’re being told to be yourself but still keep your inner world away from other’s reach, let little parts of yourself and your life trickle through but make sure it’s out of reach for people until they’ve earned it. You’re naturally good at this though, just reflect on the past, you’ve always been good at this but you’re also good at reaching into other people’s inner world and exposing a vulnerable part of it to them. You had grown to be content and abundant by the end of the year, in terms of emotions especially. You’ve made significant progress when it comes to authenticity this year. You’re being told to refine yourself further and also your persona because you seem to truly want to do it but not to remove authenticity from it. It’s not even like you need to be deliberately crafting a persona, as long as you’re yourself because you’ve already learned how to be very secretive. You’re also resourceful and have found a way to get what you want even if you’re not entirely honest about certain things. Like, for example, I’m currently volunteering at a campaign for underprivileged children even though it’s only for college students but Sir Warrick has fit me in by lying that I’m a university student xD. Is it a big lie? Not really. Did I get what I want? Yes. Your soul has already gained contentment and abundance. I’m getting an almost happy go lucky energy from your soul. 2024 could have been a busy and fast year for you, one where you were constantly on the go. This could have been in two ways, either that you were busy working and had a lot on your plate work wise or were going out a lot, developing personal style, expression, etc. but still had personal and work responsibilities to deal with so the year just passed by in the blink of an eye for you. You learned a lot about the mind, keeping it in the right place, gained clarity about things and have gotten in touch with your reasonable and powerful side during the previous year, and also learned more about the importance of being active. You seem to know by now that having something to keep you engaged is the best way to retain your power because you’ll be grounded in reality and within yourself, and won’t have much time to overthink. You have a desire to retain your power by being reasonable, intelligent, sharp and knowing how to create, and set firm boundaries. You also want to be more active, accomplishing your goals and being someone who leads by action rather than word. This is why you seem to be really critical of yourself when it comes to your image and persona but trust me, as long as you’ve got a firm and strong character within yourself, and are leading with kindness, compassion and well worked out actions, you’re doing fine but yes, you do seem to have people who like to disrespect and ridicule you without you having done anything, make sure that you stand up for yourself but do so as calmly as possible, and just try to avoid such individuals. It’s better to not waste your breath, energy and words on such people, and situations. Prevention is better than cure as they say, if people seem to disrespect you for no reason, just avoid them entirely because these kinds of people only disrespect you the more they get to know you.

꒰ How will 2025 go for you? ꒱

2025 for you is going to be a year of a lot of overthinking, illusions, etc. but also being so over it that your year will be about clarity, awareness of your depth, lessons from deep within your psyche, etc. You’re going to move on from a lot of your ways that you’re deeply stuck in. “You can’t deny, how hard I’ve tried. I changed who I was to put you both first but now I give up.” In the past, you were under the illusion that maybe you should be more sacrificing for harmonious connections but as you grew older, you realised that the more you bent over backwards for others, the more they stepped all over you, you realised that it was not harmonious but in fact, unfair and harmful to you. It led to a deep dive into your own psyche and hence, shame like were you doing all that out of desperation? If all of this has not yet happened, it is going to happen this year in very extreme ways. There was also this thought of maybe you just weren’t enough because stripping yourself off of who you were and your own needs was not enough for others. By the end of the previous year itself, you had become very aware of your own power and had grown to be less ashamed, and more accepting of yourself - the good and the bad so I would say that you’re going to grow on that, and move on from a lot. You’re still going to be carrying baggage of the past but you’re going to be unwilling to return to places, situations and emotions that had you feeling so helpless. This year, you’re getting the opportunity to free yourself from other people’s over domination over you. You seem to have a dormant sense of dominance and aggression to you that you do not tap into or express but some others can pick up on it, leading to them feeling aggressive too and feeling the need to over exercise control over you, and those who don’t underestimate you, and try to walk all over you. In the past, people succeeded to trap you and control you, pretty much making you work according to them like a marionette, their doll that they’re using threads to control. There seems to be a theme in friendships, particularly opposite sex ones where you find out that they viewed you as an option or someone to rely on, flirt with, share an emotional connection with as a replacement for a romantic one, etc. rather than a genuine friendship and it has left you feeling used, and in romance, there seems to be a lack of commitment that you’ve experienced from others and there was likely a point, when you stuck in such situations, and you’re going to look back at it and go “gosh, I was so stupid”, you’re going to low-key (high key honestly) bully yourself because why weren’t you enough and mostly why did you think that you weren’t enough? Why did you act like you weren’t enough by sticking in such situations? You’ve had a history of being an underachiever because situations in the past caused you to have a crushed esteem and you were not able to have practical routines when younger. You used to lack follow through, resources and were honestly lazy to a certain extent in the past, making it easy for others to underestimate you because you were underachieving and stuck in situations that anyone with a healthy esteem would not even think about entertaining but you’re going to manage to grow out of it this year. This is making me heavily emotional. You could also meet people - acquaintances and friends who help you move on from the past that haunts you in some way but it’s going to be a journey that you’re going to have to take on on your own, you’re going to have to get over it in the comfort of your own home, bed, space and mind. Your inner world is going to bring about a lot of shame, fears and lack of empowerment, you’re going to blame yourself for being so stupid in the past but you’re going to move on from it at some point, finally being able to see light at the end of the tunnel. The laziness and lack of discipline that you previously had deeply ingrained within you is going to be something you break in order to protect your ego.

You’re going to break free from the people, systems and situations that previously abused their power over you. You’re also going to get rid of your own overthinking and powerlessness, and need for control significantly. You’re going to start by feeling angry at yourself for everything that you had to experience but will direct that rage onto those who hurt you and honestly, used you in some way but you’ll use these experiences in order to shape better routines, habits, discipline, common sense, groundedness into yourself and your life. Some of you could have quite literally gotten bullied by your friends, family, lovers, acquaintances, classmates, etc. in the past or a group of all of them causing you to have a lot of trauma. You’re going to struggle with seeing your power and influence, and how amazingly great you are despite your dualities during this year. You’re going to be bullying yourself very heavily. There could be moments when you’re more play than work but there are also going to be moments when you’re very serious, lacking play. You’re likely to struggle with materialising your potential into reality due to your over playfulness or over seriousness. Like, the energy that I’m getting is that when you’ll work, you’ll work so seriously and in extremes, burning yourself out completely. You’re going to have to learn how to manage your time and energy properly, and figure out what works for you during this year but it’s going to be difficult for you because you’re going to have a lot of disempowering thoughts in your mind triggered by the past or of the past itself that will feel very real to you. Your focus should be on your pure heart, try to keep your heart as light as possible because your mind is going to be very heavy and hence, unload onto your heart. I’m getting the siren lore coming through (both the fish and bird ones). You’re being told to beautify yourself and try to present yourself properly without being too hard on yourself. You’re being told that you need to ‘feel it’ in order to become it. Correct yourself to feel the way you want as many times as you need to. You are being told to have faith in yourself and courage, and determination in your path. You’re being told to focus on how pure hearted you are and understanding that it was their loss, and that the more you think about past situations, the more power you’re giving them. You’re being told to pursue your goals and are being told that in regards to love connections, you like pure hearted, childlike, fun and innocent ones, so you should not settle for anything lesser than that. Don’t ever fall for desperation. This year, you’re going to learn how to be more biased and less committal because you’ll know what it is like to be in one sidedly committed situations. Also, you’re going to realise the unfairness of your previous investments, be it in connections or something else. You’re going to understand where you were the one struggling to properly invest time, energy and resources to certain activities, causing you to not reap the ideal results. Basically, you’re going to find out where you’re lacking action wise or are not allotting time and energy properly. You’re going to find a sense of belonging within yourself and are going to close cycles, moving forward steadily. Work wise, you’re going to lack consistency but you’re still not going to lack perseverance. For example, you want to keep a routine throughout the month, you might be unable to do so but you’ll still make sure you complete your work. Everything that will be weighing on your mind and heart will make it difficult for you to work consistently. You’re going to waste a lot of energy thinking about the past and worrying about the future, when you could use it to build your career instead. Still you’re going to go very far from where you previously were or currently are. You’re not really going to be in a bad place, in fact, you’re going to be reaping a lot of what you’ve grown and will be looking forward to more by the end of the year.

What I think is going to happen is that cycles of the past that you’re unable to close, sudden negative changes that have or will happen will affect you without your knowledge. Now that I’ve told you, it’s going to be something you have more awareness of but it’s still going to be quite unconscious to you. You’re going to be morally guided, these morals were likely passed down to you by a teacher or someone you met in an institution like a school, if not it could simply be the institution itself held those values but you’re going to be trying to go about things very ethically and are going to let go of more insecurities than you did the previous year, major healing is on the way. My advice to you is that this year has high potential for letting go of the past without regrets. Forgive and forget because that way things won’t have a power on you anymore. There’s no point of holding onto anger, regrets, disappointment, shame and aggression. Yes, you were wronged but you being wronged is what has caused extreme changes in your life, while they might not feel good and probably make you, and made you feel unstable, it’s only a signal to you to ground yourself further and build yourself more, and more. You do not have to forgive people externally, forgive them within yourself in order to heal your own heart. You’re a romantic person but any sort of romance you’ve experienced, even the slightest trace of it has caused the rug to be pulled from underneath your feet without any warning but embracing these changes is the only way to go otherwise, you’re going to experience lack for a longer time than you have to, you’re going to feel unstable and lack abundance for longer. The main theme of your relationships are forgiveness, grudges, extreme pain and healing. The outcome is going to be - you being unwilling to compromise and work with others, and choosing your personal goals over emotions. You’re going to love people but your sense of responsibility for yourself, your passions and competitions is going to be higher. You’re going to be unwilling to let anyone walk all over you, causing you to have aggressive fights or at least some tension in your connections. In your familial connections, you’re going to hold love for them but it’s going to be stifled in some way. There’s going to be a lack of love, passion, trust, belonging and support in all your connections or at least that’s how you’re going to feel. You’re going to be more defensive and authentic in who you are by the end of this year. You’re not going to be willing to bend down to anyone. You’re also going to be lonely but are not going to be feeling that way. Well, you will feel that way but you’ll prioritise character, actions and the inner world a lot so you are going to have your priorities in the right place, knowing that money is important but still not enough to bring about true happiness. You’re going to be a bit arrogant but will have a lot of silent power because you’re going to prioritise your own character and actions too. You’re going to be unwilling to make excuses and will be hard on yourself when you do something that you’re not proud of but you’ll remind yourself that others walked all over you so much in the past, it’s just the frustrations pouring out and that while it is still not an excuse to be so aggressive at times and have anger tantrums at the wrong time, on the wrong people, and situations, you’re going to choose to do better because you’ll feel a lot of shame but will still be trying to not ruminate over something you cannot change. You’re going to have a strong desire to be yourself at all costs and will be very aggressive, be it internally or externally when someone tries to change or question that. You’re going to set strong boundaries and will mind being an aggressive bitch to others but will understand that you were pushed to such a limit and won’t be too hard on yourself for too long. Thank you for reading, much love and take care.

⊹ ! ೀ Pile 3 ꒱

꒰ A summary of 2024 for you ꒱

The overall theme of 2024 for you was aggression and competitiveness driven towards or by past events, and people. It doesn’t seem to be a bad thing honestly. The past seems to have been on your mind quite heavily but even so, you managed to build yourself a lot. In the past, you could have dealt with competitive friends who used to humble you in subtle ways, in fact you dealt with acquaintances who used to try to humble you in subtle or well, straightforward ways and you used these events of the past to go after your goals, and push forward with passion, and determination because you wanted to be taken seriously and most importantly, you wanted to take yourself seriously. There was also some anger towards a past person who you shared a deep, triggering but oddly comforting bond with even though you knew them for a short time or possibly a long time because they didn’t keep in touch with you or something like that. What I find really funny here is that you probably still have mixed feelings towards this person, like such a soft spot but such a weak one, so much love and affection but equal amount of resentments, anger and complaints. You started the previous year with a contemplative energy, you were thinking a lot about self love and your own sensitive nature, and also how much love and empathy you provided others with, with hopes of receiving basic respect and treatment. You were thinking about desperation, self love and all of that. Action wise, you were breaking free from a lot of limitations, hurt, pain, fears, sorrow, devastation, suffering and powerlessness. That’s how you were building foundations for your new life, little by little, step by step. I just heard ‘baby steps’, so well maybe you were falling a lot before you started walking in a more balanced manner. Emotionally and relationship wise, you were overwhelmed, you just felt like you lacked fulfilment and abundance in this part of your life, and you were closed off to love because you really value the deep aspects of love, and intimacy, and also value emotions, and love beyond just the earthly way in which people seem to love. You don’t want something superficial, you want something deep, all consuming yet still allows you to be yourself. You also value the character of the other person, you want them to offer more than just material value to you and you found it difficult to find people who truly appeal to you. You felt independent and lonely, and unloved but you were extending that love to yourself and trying to nourish yourself, and build yourself character wise as well because to you, your character is of utmost importance. Like, if you do something that you’re not proud of or realise that you’ve drifted away from your true character, it weighs pretty heavily on you. You wanted to become someone who you could be proud of in terms of character. You were honestly sorta sad but you were trying to see the light, find hope and optimism, even if you overdid it sometimes. You wanted to grow stability, groundedness, character, career and money. In terms of life, you could have decided to follow where the grass seemed greener. You just kind of left situations suddenly, not wanting to take negativity into your new year. You were looking forward to your future and were looking inwards for wisdom, and guidance. I’m not getting a lot of human interaction from you at that time or it was just not interaction that affected you in any way. By the end of the year, you had grown to have control over your mind and knew how powerful you truly are. You wanted to grow this power more but for the right reasons. You wanted to become more reliable as a person and felt the need to be responsible, reasonable and have a strong character that you maintain steadily. You had also become very graceful and well influenced by the end of the year. Wanting to be gentle and having a lot of hope despite any chaos that you may have experienced in the previous years.

You’ve become friendly but you had already and were still overcoming obstacles with grace, making you have faith in yourself and life itself. Emotionally, you had developed a deep understanding of yourself already and were in the process of getting an even deeper understanding of yourself, and your own psyche. You were committed to fairness, wanting to be fair to others and yourself i.e. if someone made a choice of any sort, if they did or said anything, they’d have to deal with the consequences of what comes out of it. “You make your bed, you sleep in it” is the vibe that I’m getting here. You had become someone who was slightly hard on yourself because you wanted to remain in control of yourself and have a great character, one that is reliable, responsible and built so strongly, it can’t be broken down. You had already accomplished a lot and built a lot for yourself, and especially within yourself but you wanted to do more, you wanted to be more. “When you’re not growing, you’re regressing” and you didn’t want to regress so you were hard on yourself so you’d not get complacent and instead could continue growing. You were also tired of constantly working on yourself and your life but you were also slightly proud of yourself. You were persevering in life, not letting yourself break or give up. You had developed a lot of courage because your life forced you into situations where you had no choice but to develop and channel such a side. You’ve learned the importance of not yelling at people and having temper tantrums in the previous year. You’ve also learned the importance of equality and healthy power dynamics in relationships. You also learned the importance of giving without expecting returns though, maybe you just learned that you felt good when you gave to others wholeheartedly without any expectations. You learned that power is silent and that you do not need to be externally well reputed or popular in order to have power. You could have quite literally learned the power of silence. “Communication is key but it is better not to communicate with those who are not willing or capable enough to understand you.” You learned the importance of self love and not over empathising, also that being too hard on yourself is something you need to stop doing. You learned that the emotional intelligence and empathy that you give others should be something you extend to yourself as well. You learned how to learn and be more humble, you also learned how to hold silent power by letting others underestimate or try to humble you but not being able to because you have developed a healthy esteem and life for yourself where you’re content and don’t think or feel like you’re superior or inferior to anyone but are grateful to have all that you have.

꒰ How will 2025 go for you? ꒱

2025 is going to be the year of growing to become more mature and wise. The main theme of the year is domesticity of some sort. Your year could revolve around community of some sort, home, stability, family, etc. This year is going to allow you to hide yourself by straying you far from yourself, you’re going to feel like you’re unable to be your authentic self and are either going to be forced to hide by circumstances or are going to do so yourself. Also, despite moments of pessimism, you’re going to have that sense of ‘not giving up’ within you. You’re going to be trying to find hope, some light desperately and will find it but there is going to be a sense of not being your authentic self at some point during the year. Also, being unseen and hiding yourself. Like I said earlier, it could be deliberate or something that life brings to you. You’re going to struggle with emotional attachments and detachments, you’ll probably not want to let go of certain people, situations or ways despite them not fulfilling you. I’m picking up on a sense of emotional overwhelm but also detachment pushing you far from your normal self, making you realise how unauthentic you’ve become, how far you’ve strayed from yourself and hence, helping you grow by making you unseen for a while so that you can learn how to improve yourself instead of prove yourself. You should focus on keeping your zest for life alive and remaining confident with a healthy self esteem during this year. You’re going to grow in big ways, becoming more secure within yourself, valuing stability, refining virtues present within you and instilling new ones, etc. For those of you who earn, you might save up or might have an increase in income. You’re going to be more grounded within yourself outside of external validation because it’s going to be your year of spending more time at home, re-evaluating what domestic bliss means to you and remaining unseen in some way. This is going to be the year when you’re either going to give more than you’re receiving out of responsibility or will realise the unfairness in your connections in the past. If not, you might have already realised it and you’re going to be very weary of give and take during this year. Despite this weariness, there’s a genuine desire to give without expectations of receiving anything. Romantically, you’re going to be someone with discernment. You’re going to be someone who doesn’t place unfair blame on others and yourself. “He did this so I can’t interact with him anymore but no hard feelings” is the vibe that I’m getting here. You’re going to feel like taking things personally and holding grudges doesn’t do anything except make one relive the pain. Familial connections will be healing as by the end of the year, you’re going to want to provide for them and simply just be someone of rich character so you’re going to forgive them and not get mad or at least act out of anger when it comes to them.

Platonically, you could have conversations with people through texting but I’m getting quality time and fun with people being fleeting. You’re should be more patient when it comes to finances, studies, career, skills, etc. You’re being told to put in work consistently and wait for results to show instead of fearing the unknown, and stopping to reanalyse things again and again. Time management, money management, etc. could be really tricky during this year. You could maintain a delicate balance but you have to make sure that you keep your priorities straight because there is definitely a chance that you’re going to feel disappointed at the time and resources you wasted when looking back. For those of you remaining focused, you’re simply going to be busy and maintaining things very delicately. Yes, you might make mistakes here and there but you’re going to manage to have something to show for the efforts that you put in throughout the year. Besides, even if you do not have anything to show for your efforts, your success will be found in your daily routines and I think that’s a lot xD. You’re going to have pride and a desire for recognition that you’ll be unaware of you that will be motivating your actions during the year. For example, when reevaluating your needs and desires for your domestic life. You might feel like it’s ideal to look after your family and provide for them to the best of your abilities because you’ll want to feel a sense of pride in doing so, and will want to be seen as someone who’s doing all of this. You’re being told to remain even tempered and level headed, trying to balance things out properly instead of blaming yourself or anyone for anything, or letting your anger or emotions get to you. “DO NOT LISTEN TO SAD MUSIC AND IMAGINE SITUATIONS THAT NEVER HAPPENED OR EVEN REPLAY THE SITUATIONS THAT DID SOON!” If you disappoint yourself, don’t be too hard on yourself and be as gentle as you would be with a child who made a small mistake. The outcome is going to be you stopping to seek love and nurturing in ways that could violate your self respect. Developing stronger ethics and following them, possibly starting to understand and value some old school systems. For example, sex only after marriage. I’m picking up on you feeling really weak and vulnerable by the end of the year due to lack of love, nurturing and understanding from others but learning from it by diving deep into your own psyche, patterns and actions, and also accepting other people’s actions for what they truly were, even if it hurts. You’re going to be a very ethical, respectful and slightly old school person who desires to be a recipient of ethical, respectful and old school treatment by the end of the year. Thank you for reading, much love and take care.

[gatorbites-imagines]

wait come back-

please expand on that one tasm!peter parker dirty secret hc and the injecting venom thing, I actually can't get it out of my head. peter and his spider thoughts and tendencies

Peter Parker (TASM) spider behavior

Headcanons

I had to look up different spider facts and look at so many pictures of spiders and now I feel icky. Ive always loved how they made Peter extra spidery in TASM and I miss it. I may have caught myself spending too much time on mating behavior…

Spiders don’t have ears and do a lot of their hearing through hair on their body. But we all know that Peter has ears, instead he just has heightened senses and is very sensitive to vibrations and physical touch.

I believe that he would be able to turn off parts of his sensitivity to be able to make it through the day, like an instinctive reaction to settle. But when he’s in a situation with high emotion or stress his senses heighten to assist in survival, or so his body thinks.

Peter doesn’t have actual fangs, but his canines are just a bit sharper than the average person. It’s nothing too extreme or enough to be weird, but it’s there. His teeth will also ache sometimes, and he will salivate when he sees food he likes, or you.

I said in the alphabet that he doesn’t produce venom or poison, but I could imagine his saliva could cause a mild tingle if his adrenaline or hormones are very high. If you find yourself in a situation where the spider mutation advances, he grows venom glands though.

One of spiders main ways to communicate is through pheromones, so Peter would be very sensitive to it. Like his hearing, I think it’s something he instinctively turns on and off without noticing. If he finds himself in a situation where he needs extra attention the ability flicks on.

it’s also almost always on when around his partner, since his instincts are saying “we need to keep an eye on our mate and make sure they are thriving”

Peter doesn’t have claws on the bottom side of his fingers like Miguel, but I do believe there would be some small unnoticeable ones if you looked at his fingers and feet under a microscope, like on actual spiders. It’s to assist him in climbing. But it also helps him in hanging on when you ride him too quickly or he’s feeling a little more feral in his rutting.

Peter doesn’t personally produce his webs unless the mutation advances, where he develops silk glands in his wrists. His abdomen is still a bit more sensitive than average, but it’s mainly spider instincts that’s telling him to protect his eggs, even if he doesn’t have any.

His abdomen also allows him to eat a lot of food and not feel too full, its kinda cute when he gets a little food bump when he just indulges himself. Peter always gets extremely embarrassed, but his speedy digestion means it’s not there for long.

Since he doesn’t normally produce venom, he salivates a lot when it comes to food or you. After the bite he gains an attraction to foods he can drink with a straw, so expect a lot of smoothies.

Did you know humans have stripes and patterns in our skin, we just can’t see them? Well, peter can, to a certain degree. It’s not that they’re right there in his face, but if he focuses hard enough and is in a situation where all his senses are turned on, they become more noticeable. He obviously thinks your pattern is the prettiest.

Peter will love to curl up on a web when he’s stressed or just needs to hang out and think. He doesn’t do it a lot because he thinks it’s embarrassing, but sometimes you’ll catch him hanging in a massive pretty web he’s spun on the ceiling. It freaked you out the first time.

He can also jump extreme distances and heights, but most people think that comes from his super strength. It does, to a degree, but it also comes from his whole spidery thing.

Peter is extremely flexible, sometimes you think hes bones are liquid in the ways he can bend and turn, it’s amazing in the bedroom though. It also means he can easily curl up in your lap in a small seat, no worries.

Peter also purrs, because I want him to so he will. It’s not anything loud and can sound a little weird sometimes, but you love it. think of that little almost popcorn noise newborn kittens make, that hasn’t fully become a purr yet. Peter only does it when hes really comfortable and without stress, so its rare, as hes always stressed.

Now we have come to his dirty secret. Did you know some spiders commit cannibalism? Especially the females after mating have a tendency to eat the male. This is why peter has had a thought once or twice to bite you and eat you. And that one fever dream, that felt like something out of an erotic gore movie.

Peter also likes to hunt. Its not something hes proud of, but theres a thrill in hunting down criminals (prey) and webbing them up (for later). He never does eat anybody obviously, but the thrum it puts in his blood is used elsewhere (with you).

If you ever offered to play prey/predator with him, Peter would act hesitant but you can see the interest in his eyes and the way he starts moving from foot to foot, and swallowing the spit gathering in his mouth.

If he tops or bottoms would also change his behavior in some ways, and how strong his instincts are in that moment.

When he tops, Peter would set a fast pace, his instincts telling him to breed his partner before hes eaten, since that’s what a good chunk of female spiders. He might even use his super strength or webs to restrain you, if you guys are into that.

When he bottoms, different results can happen. Did you know that some male spiders go limp and play dead when breeding, to avoid being killed and/or eaten by the female? The first time Peter went from moaning and groaning to just going limp scared the life out of you.

Turns out its just because he was really in tune with his spider side and the excitement and pleasure had made him black out for a moment. You guys make a deal that you will keep going if its clear its just one of these moments, since he wakes up a few moments after.

He can also become quite bitey and demanding when bottoming, depending on his mood. There are times where you just gotta lay back and let him ride you, his eyes clenched shut and drool running down his chin as he digs his canines into his lip. You’ll feel wrung out afterwards, but its great.

Peter has a thing for tying you up as well, or himself, if you guys can find something that will hold him when he uses his full strength. This is almost impossible, outside of maybe his own webs. You end up learning to use his web shooters.

[thevictoriousone]

This reminds me a little of my women’s lit class in undergrad. We read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents, in which a religious cult group known as “Christian America” takes political control of a rapidly-falling-apart US and enacts horrific violence (especially against women) in the name of their religion.

As we started discussion, one guy raised his hand and asked if we, in our discussion, could distinguish clearly between the Christianity being presented in the book and the Christianity of real life. My professor said, “No. The author named it that on purpose and deliberately didn’t distinguish between them, so we won’t either.”

Then a girl in my class, who had otherwise been quite a lovely and intelligent discussion peer up to this point, raised her hand and very angrily stated that she was so disgusted by the book’s treatment of Christianity that she didn’t even finish it. I don’t remember exactly what she said next but the idea was that it was lies or propaganda and she refused to engage with it. I was stunned.

I’ll add that as someone who is Christian (in the loosest definition of the term) and who grew up Catholic…Parable of the Talents was an amazing book that I found terrifying in its ability to take something true and real and expand upon it in a not-so-impossible “what if” situation. Like, I look around at the US today and what I have heard real life Christians say and that book feels even more terrifying than when I first read it. It’s an extremely relevant comment on what horrific things people can do and justify in the name of religion and how Christianity in particular has and continues to serve as that exact kind of vehicle.

When I was getting my associates degree I took a Mythology class that I loved. But one of the girls in class was absolutely off the rails conservative Christian which made things… interesting.

The professor started off the class by being like, “Mythology is stories associated with religion.”

This girl. Haaaated that. She was like, “No, Christianity is true. It’s not mythology.” Mythology was delivered in the same tone as someone trying to spit excrement from their mouth.

The professor raised her eyebrows and said laconically, “Yes, most people believe their religion is the real one, that’s part of it, and the stories surrounding religion are referred to as mythology.”

The girl stewed in a hateful sullen rage. I truly don’t understand why she didn’t drop the class but perhaps it was court mandated education. We all expected her to drop the class but she dug in like a tick and derailed discussions as often as she could.

On a different occasion the professor was drawing a comparison between social constructs like gender. The girl raised her hand. The class hushed to hear her announce, “It’s just a fact that women like domestic work and even though men are awful and stinky we just have to love them anyway. It’s biology, we’re just hardwired like that.”

I was sitting next to my friend a baby gay Jewish girl and our eyes met in mutual hilarity while the professor tried to pretend she hadn’t just been stricken with a stress induced migraine while she steered the class away from that landmine.

The next sticking point was a week later when the professor informed us that many mythologies have overlapping events like floods but these didn’t necessarily happen in such literal terms. It was a metaphorical way to process and understand the world.

This girls hand shot up. I watched the professor exercise extreme self control to keep her expression bland before calling on her.

“The world did flood. And Noah saved all the animals. Before the flood all the water was in a dome outside the earth and then the dome broke and the world flooded. All of it.”

The whole class stared at her as if struggling to comprehend the overlap of her acceptance that the world was round while also firmly believing that there had previously been a barrier that held up all of the earths water before god smashed it in a fit of pique.

She raged under the attention, glaring balefully at our astonished faces.

The professor stared at her blankly, unable to form words to such a bizarre belief. I wanted to ask clarifying questions- what they’d drunk before the dome broke, if there were rivers or lakes prior, or did the dome allow some rain in somehow, but then I really looked at her.

She had the eyes of a feral, cornered animal who regarded any deviation in worldview from her own to be a physical assault on her person. Like the professor, I said nothing, and after a wretchedly long pause class moved on.

[floralscented]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤGOTHIC HORROR! — vampire!dean

the most loyal of soldiers build their armies, expand their ranks. they do not get attached to their underlings. they do not find solace in you.

content warnings, devotion to the highest, unhealthiest degrees. slight emotional manipulation. blood & gore depictions. minor self h/rm, but not with harmful intent. bloodplay. nsfw elements & insinuations, undetailed. voyeurism? undetailed. bi!dean. nick saint cameo. i made up this vampire lore as far as i'm aware, so discrepancies to the media you know is purposeful!

dean was far used to the act of bleeding a person dry; it was you that was troubling him.

there came times in which he could not bring himself to take the victim out of their misery. it gnawed in the back of his mind, as they choked and spluttered on the blood pouring from their lips, that this life he’d carelessly taken had been cut too short. this one, his mind would tell him, was meant for something greater. 

and he’d singlehandedly snuffed that flame.

dean was far too old, now, to wallow in guilt or feel bad for actions he willfully chose to make. but if there was anything keeping him human, it was his conscience.

his mouth was still crusted with the blood he’d ripped from your throat when he brought his wrist up to tear into his skin. no blood naturally pumped through him anymore, but the accumulation of his immortality and abilities kept a supply cycling through him so that the body he inhabited did not wither or concave in on itself.

droplets as thick as cream and as dark as the richest wines pooled in the teeth marks he’d left on himself. his body was, for all intents and purposes, dead; he did not feel pain when he tore open his wrist, and he did not feel pain as it already began to stitch itself together. 

his unmarred arm slips beneath your upper back, raising you enough to cradle you into his chest. your eyes are as vacant as his must appear — death tended to get impatient, and steal the souls away before the heart finished its thrum. your breaths are ragged and thick with the blood pooling in your lungs. death’s rattle. he was here, then.

death always seemed to follow the dead. it was why genuine, true hauntings usually ended in death, too, for those involved. that place is cursed, the mortals whisper about the homes, the abandoned buildings, the decimated ruins of destruction, everyone dies there. 

it is lonely to die and be dead. sometimes the spirits or the creatures are impatient, and need something new to play with. sometimes, their conscience wakens from the deep slumber it typically stayed in, and reminded them that the people they feed from deserved second chances as much as they believed that they did not.

even in your semi lucid state, you struggle against him, trying to force your mouth away from the skin he presses to it. 

“don’t make this harder,” dean grunts, your struggles surprisingly strong for how little life essence still lingered in you. the adrenaline burst before your body gives, he imagines. it makes him more forceful. 

you choke and splutter, and he knows by now what his blood looks like on the skin of the lives he takes. yours, fresh and the color of ripe strawberries. his, thick and deep red, the color of decay.

there will be three minutes between your subsequent death and the revival. he does not have many that he sires, but each one was personable enough to remember these details. four of them, portraits lined on the walls of his dusty, towering home. portraits the only thing that dean has left of them, as they all unceremoniously left him when they realized how unhealthy it was to linger.

maybe you would stay. dean hoped that you did not.

he hears your heartbeat splutter out its last revs of life, and feels when your body becomes a heavier weight in his arms. three minutes, one hundred and eighty seconds, for him to look at you without you trying to claw through his clothes and pierce a vein. 

if you’d asked, dean would not know how to explain why he’d chosen you. there were many bodies that he left in his wake in the century that he’d been alive. there were exactly a handful now of ones that he’d chosen to keep. 

his first was because he was his friend, once. closest friend.

his second was because she was lovely, and he thought he might have loved her. 

his third was a child, and he torments himself about this one constantly.

his fourth was a mistake, by all accounts of the word.

his fifth was… you. pretty? yes. significant? he didn’t know. you had to be, or else his conscience would have stayed silent and slumbered on for another decade or so. but there were no indicators that you would have any impact on his life.

dean has always called it the shift, because the vampyr that had sired him called it such. when a soul slips away and the body is lifeless, and then suddenly, a jolt, as if what had been set free had been sharply snatched back. 

another wave of adrenaline pumps your heart back to life for a split second, enough to propel you conscious. 

dean lets you fall from his arms gracelessly. he takes a step back that is quick enough to instead be feet away from you.

this is the part that dean does not ever get used to. the rage. how angry the bonded are to have been spared. did they not know that dean did this for them? 

you look ravenous. it is no surprise that your speed is the first part of your new undead abilities that you tap into, when you launch yourself at him, fingers fisted tight and unwavering while you desperately try to claw at him. 

“don’t,” he repeats, fiercer this time, as he twists away before your teeth can sink into his skin, “make this harder.” 

he predicts the next words out of your mouth before they’re even spoken. “i am hungry.” 

hungry, and his blood, to you, would taste sinful and addictive. salted caramel and bourbon, a friend had once said, tracing his tongue over dean’s throat and sinking his teeth in.

it is always the shift of a new youngling vampyr that draws the memories of the others from the depths of his mind. if he isn’t careful, dean is going to end up doing something stupid — like writing them a letter, like calling, like…

you’re screaming, now. thrashing in his grip as if you were seizing, desperate to break his hold and gnaw the marrow out of his bones. 

he tightens his hold. snaps your wrist with nothing but a little more force from his fingers. that is what brings you to a halt. your broken wrist, hanging at an awkward angle. 

“behaving now?” dean asks, still keeping the hold on your wrist, only tight enough to feel the bones beneath the surface of your skin knitting together, the skin pulling taut. 

you rip your hand free from his, as if only then realizing the lengths of your strength. good. dean was not restraining you to hold that power over you, but mostly to keep control of the situation. it is best for the fresh vampyrs to discover their abilities on their own.

“what have you done to me?”

that one hits closer to home than dean wants it to. 

it does not strike as deep in his heart as it could; there are words he hears, still, from previous decades that remind him of his first four bad choices.

you would be different.

you had to be different.

trust does not start with secrets. but it is not something that should be handed out so freely. and so it is a conscious choice for dean to hold out his wrist in offering while still maintaining the physical distance between you two.

“it will be better if you drink,” he starts, his voice low and nearly apologetic if it wasn’t so self satisfied. “some things are hard to hear on an empty stomach.” 

it was the same, though, as it always was. dean, letting you feed from his wrist like someone starved, while he tried to piece together the sugared down version of what he’d done to you. he always puts so much strain on himself; rushing the time with those sired to him, attempting to speak coherently as if his mind was not thrumming with the effects of your venom in his system. 

you closed yourself off into the room of his manor that he designated for the freshly turned vampires. they were closer to being human than he was, and humans needed space for themselves.

the door was always locked to him. never once, in all five of his sired, had one of them invited him in. and so he spends a week outside of said door, listening in out of fear of what would happen if he did not.

he'd gotten chaotic with the one prior to you. reckless, impulsive. dean would not let himself make the mistake again.

at least he was busy in those moments that he waited on your reappearance. dean was never one to make use of his time, usually; he had forever, why would he clean the bookcases now when in his equivalent to a blink, they'd be dusty again?

he wrote letters. four letters. olive branches extending blindly into the dark. the ravens carried them away. the birds were the only ones who knew where they were, after all. like he'd never been invited into their space, his original underlings had never bothered to send a postcard, either.

that little fact hurts like a bleeding wound, in one instance.

it aches like a bruise, in another.

it tears him open, in terms of the third.

it feels like solace and healing, with the fourth.

perhaps they would take up the invitation to come back to the manor tomorrow, if only for a night. more than likely, they would ignore him, and continue to let him rot.

out of the seven days he'd lingered outside your room, it is now that dean finally opens his mouth to speak. he will not let you abandon him like the others.

"if you starve yourself in there, i'm not permitted to enter and lay you to rest," dean calls from the heavy wooden frame.

your silence on the other end is unnerving. dean is in the middle of opening his mouth to call to you again when your voice rings out, finally. "go to hell."

"i am also not permitted in there, either," he says back, with a little twitch of his lips. "you may hate me and be angry with me all you want, i will never deny you the human feelings you cling to. but your strength is important."

it's a conscious choice of words. calling it livelihood when there is no ounce of life left within you did not go over well with the others.

his ears strain, but he hears it. the padding of the bedspread dipping, the near silent, inhuman steps to the door, the harsh click and turn of the lock. useless, he wants to say, your invitiation is the only thing that keeps you from him. but there are little human things that every single one of his underlings still maintained. he was not cruel enough to take them away, too.

dean suspected that you'd look weary. seven days denying yourself what you wanted tended to do that. he does not offer his wrist this time, but he does nod backwards down the darkened hallway. "it is my due diligence to wean you off, not encourage the bad habit."

"that does not make any sense," you snap at him, your sharpened vision blowing the pupils in your eyes wide. you are trying to study the portraits hung on the walls. he quickly extends a hand, not crossing the threshold of your room, to stop you. "i do not want a tour of my prison."

dean's mouth quirks again. you remind him of himself, and his first love; second sired. "it is not a tour of the prison, it is a lead to the kitchen."

"what could you possibly have in there?" your words are fierce and vile, spat at him like they will somehow poison him. "the dead do not eat vegetables."

"the dead keep their blood cold and from spoiling in the refrigerators. do not try to explain to me what you know nothing about."

you stare at him for a long while before one of your feet steps out of the boundary. "i do not want to drink blood."

dean nearly snorts. he did not want to, either. "but the second i spill my blood, you will be clawing at me for a taste."

your pupils are still huge when they land on him. the hunger has been wearing you down; he sees it in your lack of inhibitions. he lets his hand fall when it is clear you will not take it. "but it is my responsibility to not let you become addicted, even though i know the temptation to tear my clothes off and tear into me must be unbearable."

"you have a lot of arrogance for a man who must force all of his playthings to stick around," you say, and it hits a little too close for comfort. he is glad that you did not take up his hand, because he might have lashed out.

he leads you down the hall regardless, this time in a silence that feels as heavy as lead. he breathes deeply, slowly, though it is entirely useless of a gesture. it'd been a long time since dean had to take ten deep breaths, to maintain his composure. while you and his others had your habits, he'd considered his long forgotten.

as he promised, the ancient kitchen is empty. the fridge is nothing more than a metal box on claw feet, the table coated in a thick layer of dust. the cabinets, once deep mahogany, were grayed.

dean grabs a wine glass from the cupboard and sets it on the dust coated countertop. he opens the fridge door and, lo and behold, there is a severed arm lit up like a halo in the center rack. if he was capable of it, he'd blush. how embarrassing to leave leftovers scattered around when he knew he had guests.

he shoves the fingers out of the way and closes his hand around a vial of blood instead. you would probably like it from the source better, but you would not like anything until he acclimated you off of his taste, and onto human blood.

another mistake that he has since fixed.

he pours the vial into the glass, and then shatters it on the edge of the countertop. the shard is what he uses to break the skin of his wrist, letting the blood pour in a slow stream into the glass too. less than how much you took from him a week ago, though still more than he should. he was bound and determined, it seemed, to let history repeat itself.

your control is better. the little one that'd turned, a week in, was still climbing over the counters and throwing furniture to get to the open wound in his arm. a week in self-proclaimed isolation had done well for you.

when dean turns, he holds the glass out. "won't be as good as you will wish for it to be," he says, his arms folding across his chest, "but it is a necessary evil, i assure you."

"i do not want this," you try to argue, but your voice is weak, and you take a sip anyways in the same breath. a sip becomes a long drink becomes the glass is emptied.

dean doesn't bother making a comment on it. you'd still poked an open wound earlier. grudges were more often than not held longer by those who lived forever. "we all do things we don't want to do."

"is that how you justify it to yourself?"

at least this time, you have the decency to regret it. it is easier to be kind to him when his blood is in your system. hard to be angry with when you want to devote your every breath to him.

dean is not in the mood to play tonight, though. his other bonded might come the next day. it was important to him that he was prepared for it, and not wallowing in the cruel words you weaponized against him without knowing how true they were.

"goodnight, beautiful," he says anyways, as he turns to leave.

he has never been good at denying himself indulgences.

you sense the stranger's presence before you see it. undead, like you, like the one who turned you. there is no heartbeat but there is a steady thrum of blood, still as a stagnant pond.

"interesting," the person says. deep voiced. heavy footsteps indicate big, heavier shoes, thudding hard on the hardwood of your room's floor. male, you imagine. "and here i thought he wrote because he missed me."

your eyes fly open, and there he is. you did not see much of the paintings on the wall, but that was the first, the one closest to where your room's door was. broad shoulders, tall in stature, and looking entirely too amused for your comfort.

sleep was not necessary for you, but it was peaceful, in a way, to imagine you still could. the act of going about your every day routine brought comfort that you hadn't imagined you'd feel lost without.

"who are you?" you ask, unable to tear your eyes from him. dark mop of hair. piercing light colored eyes that, too, have not left yours.

his eyebrows bounce, and the lift of his lips indents dimples into his cheeks. "i'm the first you."

the riddled, vague speech was becoming old and frustrating at once. "explain it."

"what, this whole situation? or what i mean?" he tips his head to the side, eyebrows raising even higher on his forehead, disappearing behind the soft, dark bangs. "words hold meaning, little fang. you live too long now to use them so uselessly."

the man from the painting is nearly as infuriating as the one who'd bitten you. "the whole situation. he is keeping secrets from me."

"because dean winchester does not know how to properly treat the toys he feels entitled to play with," the man's response is immediate, shrugging off the coat from his shoulders. "i feel the best place to start is the hall."

you sit up slowly in the bedspread, your expression twisting. "the hall?"

something akin to bitterness drapes across his face like a mask. "get up. there's not a lot of time between the flicker of the switch and him noticing the light is on."

riddles again. this time, you do not argue. instead, you clamber out of the bed and follow in silence behind him out of the room. right beside your doorframe is a light switch you both never noticed the presence of, and never noticed was always off.

he flips it up, and the hall lights golden.

peeling maroon wallpaper gives way to wooden boards. the trim is curling in on itself, deep mahogany exposing the pale splintered wood. but what somehow remains untouched, undusted, well kempt, are the paintings.

four large portraits evenly spaced along the side of the wall that your room is on.

a man, a woman, a child, a husk.

the one closest to you is identical to the man stood beside you; the same but younger. fresh clothes off of the rack, unmarred by the long life that you imagined he'd had so far, if he was truly the first.

the next is beautiful. warm skin that's golden underneath the hall's lights, curls spilling down her shoulders, a little smile on her mouth. on her shoulders rest the straps of a sage green dress that cuts at the cups and turns into picture frame.

the third is like a punch in the stomach. a little boy with terror in his glossed eyes, his lips parted like he was shuddering down gasps that did nothing to alleviate his panic.

the fourth used to be a man, you think. a long mop of brown hair, warm eyes. but the humanity ends there, and in its place is greyed skin, a vacant expression, dirty and thin clothes from a time period that was no longer.

"i don't understand," you breathe out, unable to look away from the sight laid out before you.

the man beside you straightens. "his best friend, his first love, his first save, and his brother."

it is a plain enough answer, but there's not enough detail to lessen the blow of it. there's a lot to unpack, and so you land on a starting point. your finger reaches out to tap the wooden frame of the first portrait. his portrait. "it's you."

"not really," the man says, stepping forward to brush a finger's worth of dust from the tops of the frames that you could not see. "he picked to preserve my memory from a time when i actually liked him. that has not been me for... hell, decades now."

you step forward to examine it better. the bottom of the frame is engraved. nicholas.

nicholas steps around you to stand in front of the woman's portrait. he dusts along the top of this one, too, with his finger. "cassie." his voice is wistful, memories and history you don't know built in between the words. "i imagine she will not be around today."

"what's today?" you ask, even though the answer feels so disconnected from you. here are people that the man who turned you — dean — cared for desperately, and now... you. how did a person even go about unpacking decades worth of history and find a place for themselves within it?

his smile is spread thin across his mouth. "a day of desperation for him, i imagine. it comes every decade or so, when dean feels the need to line his mistakes up and check in."

"is that what you think this is, nick?"

dean's voice cuts through the silent buzz in the hall, and your eyes shoot to the end of it, where he takes up the entire width of it.

"well, you certainly don't love us anymore," nick says back, that bitter smile leaking into his words, now, "that sentiment is made exceptionally clear when you make a fifth and then think of the others you subjected to this life."

you want to shrink away. you did not want to stay here, but being used as a weapon in their argument feels like poison in your veins. you did not know dean, especially did not know nick, but already you had become a thorn in the sides of both of them.

"don't spoil the mood before the others come." dean turns on his heel before he glances over a shoulder. his eyes land on you, and then nick's, and all it seems to do is rub salt into wounds you did not mean to make exist.

"you are a fool to think that cassie will show, let alone bring jude."

jude. the child, or the man who looked more like death than he did like a person?

dean's jaw visibly ticks. "i was a fool for thinking that, at the very least, you wouldn't show."

"don't be unkind in front of the baby vampyr, dean, it's unbecoming."

it was not unbecoming to you. uncomfortable was the better word for it. there was no comfortable way to witness an argument rehashing itself after decades of time elapsed.

you begin to walk through the middle of their argument, not making any sort of eye contact with dean as you brush past him. it is not your business, and you will not make it as such.

the men do not follow you to the kitchen. part of you is desperate to listen in, well aware that you can now. the other part does not want to get involved in their drama anymore than you've already become.

it would be easier to detach from them, you'd thought. but there was no easy way to unwind from around dean winchester when he'd sank his teeth into you. you just didn't know it yet.

dean does not know how this always happens, or he does, and it is just not something he wants to address.

nick was his first mistake. everything a vampyr creating a sire bond could do wrong, he did. he let nick feed on him whenever he wanted. he let nick become addicted. and then he let nick leave, knowing that nothing would ever be able to satiate him; no person, no experience, nothing. not unless it was dean. and it was made clear, the day that nick left, that dean was the last thing that nick ever wanted to see.

and yet every time dean got lonely, confined to his own solitude, he could send a raven and know that the only one who would come was nick.

cassie was successful in cutting dean off. was the only one that was, really. jude might have come if cassie hadn't declared herself his caregiver, and ran off with him in the night. it is wishful thinking at best.

sam...

he didn't think about sam if he could help it.

no matter what, though, dean ended up here, in this exact position. knelt on the soft mattress of his unused bed, letting nick sink his teeth into dean's shoulder, his throat, his mouth. blood coated his skin like a second layer. it didn't ever bother dean; nick always cleaned up after himself.

"a new one," he all but snarls into the curve of dean's shoulder. "do you think so little of me, of us, that you dare repeat the same mistakes you always end up making?"

he's a little heady with nick's venom working through him. there's a lot of it, too, because nick is incapable of stopping himself. he's starved until dean makes the decision to call on him, and so he does not hold back on the fixes he feels entitled to.

and dean could never be mad at him for it, because this is the monster that he created.

"it will be different this time," dean slurs around his own pointed teeth. the sired taste like nothing to him, but he's always finding himself lost in the moment, with nick. they were both gluttons, in a sense.

nick leans in to capture his mouth in a kiss that is more teeth than lip, puncturing dean's bottom one with his fangs and sucking on it. "you said that about sam," he dares to say, dares to, because there was an unspoken rule that no one could talk about sam, and only nick ever seemed to breach it.

"sam was—"

"a mistake," nick interrupts, lifting his mouth off of dean's. his eyes are pitch black, his mouth is stained and glossy red. still, as weak as it's making dean, his chest swells at the sight of the color staining his skin now. no longer so pale and death-stricken. "we were all your selfish mistakes, dean, and now sam is in the caverns—"

dean grasps at nick's throat with his fingers, pushing him backward, creating space. "enough."

"staked," nick strains out anyways, and maybe he would have kept pushing, would have forced dean to confront his worst possible choice, if not for the floorboard outside of the bedroom door creaking.

you, stood watching, mouth agape. it must have been quite the sight. two men, nearly naked, coated in the deep dark of one of them's blood.

not to mention how the conversation steered. nick had reacted the same way to hearing about dean's slip in judgement. black magic to restore as much humanity back to his long dead brother as possible, and then the turning process to try and prolong him.

black magic was never simple, and never gave without taking. sam was less than human, less than vampyr, and now permanently staked in a coffin in the caverns so that he could not tear through the fabrics of the world and destroy it.

nick's mouth curves upward in a bloody, toothy smile at you, which only serves to make dean grimace. you were not safe around him; not when nick was always the most possessive over what he deemed to be his sire. "little fang."

mortification shifts onto your expression now. as dean always could, he sensed the general sense of where your head was at. he always could with his sired. nick needed dean in every way he could possibly imagine, and still, it would never be enough. you were beginning to realize why dean was so adamant on breaking the addiction quick, because your head was beginning to swim with the same thoughts that tormented nick.

dean did not want him to invite you in here. for some reason, this felt too intimate and intense for you to be thrown into. dean was doing so good with you, keeping you at arm's length, close enough to get your fix until you were free from him, far enough so that breaking away would not be difficult.

it is to his horror that dean is the one to say it. "come in." it's barely a breath. it weighs a thousand pounds on his chest. "if you'd like to."

nick's gaze is a physical weight on him. it speaks a thousand words that he does not utter out loud. i told you so, it seethes in dean's ear, you are the same as us, as much as you despise it. addicted and foolish. desperate and needy.

it is both relief and torment that you turn the other way and leave. relief, because you still have a chance. torment, because the voices were right.

he was not a good man.

dean was going to end up hanging a portrait of you, too.

notes. lots of lore cld still be unpacked with this random au i threw together starting last night. so if u want a part two or something ... let me know hehe. i tried to make it as gothic as possible bc u know ... the title or whatev ... but if it's not good or it's too much MINDDDD UR BUSINESS ACTUALLY. anyways thank u for reading love u!

tags. @titsout4jackles @moonstruksandco @starzify @ultravi0lence14 @itzavahere @sagegreen17 @bruceewayne @jays-bonnie-on-the-side @deansbeer @blushpinkdoll @warpedless @sabrinasopposite @k-slla @deansbite @foolinthera1n @honeyryewhiskey @angelblqde @whyyouegg @bluemerakis @fallbhind @florchids @figthoughts @beausling @chevroletdean @mccartneyqp @bluestrd @sthefferrete @rubyvhs @tortureddarkstar @aileenunfiltered @frosttbitessam @theosaurous @blushpinkdoll

[kykyonthemoon]

7 Days the mini-series

About this series: ✈️

Day 05: Sunshower

I was used to just him and me, always together. However, as we grew older, our own worlds expanded, and more people came.

I didn't think about it until one day.

That day, I headed to Caleb's school after class. We went to school and returned home together day by day. There was going to be a volleyball tournament between high schools in the district, so he often had to stay after class to practice. I chose a good spot in the grandstand, and finding him among the players on the field was not a problem to me at all.

Whether it was studying or playing sports, I loved seeing him putting all his mind into it. Occasionally, he would glance towards the stands, then smile when he saw me there. When he scored, I wouldn’t hesitate to stand up and scream: “YAYYY!!! CALEB YOU'RE SO COOL!!!” And every time, his teammates would constantly make fun of him till his ears turned crimson.  While in the stands, the girls in the upper grades would glance and me and whispered:

“Who is that girl?”

“I don’t know. She must be crazy about Caleb…”

“Who wouldn’t like him? Caleb is so handsome, and kind!”

“OMG!!! He’s staring at us!!!”

A few seats ahead of me, the females began to conceal their faces and laugh among themselves. I had no idea why my stomach felt uneasy. I sat down and remained silent throughout the practice that day.

Of course, Caleb didn't understand what upset me so much. Even I could not know what it was. I was too young to start dating, yet old enough to acknowledge the most beautiful emotions of my youth were blossoming. Every afternoon, I waited for Caleb at the sports court before we came home together. And every afternoon, I caught him surrounded by so many other girls.

There was no doubt how popular he was at school. I should be happy for him, since he was everyone's favorite. Yet why could I not get rid of this uncomfortable feeling in my heart? Was it because I was used to being the only one by his side? Was it because I disliked the idea of sharing him with anyone else?

That day, after his practice, I saw Caleb talking to a classmate. She was proposing that they take a stroll home together, it seemed. My fists clenched, head bowed, I walked away. There was a tint of soreness on my nose.

After a while, I heard Caleb calling my name. My feet didn't stop, they wanted to go even faster. He caught up with me and took hold of my wrist.

"Pip-squeak? You didn't wait for me today?"

His naïve expression infuriated me even more. I pulled my hand away from him and replied:

"Go home with her."

Every step I made now vented the path that had done nothing wrong. Caleb casually strolled beside me and said:

"Who? Is there anyone else other than the two of us?"

He took notice of my silence, then pulled my hand to stop me. “Come on. Tell me, what have I done wrong?”

The radiant smile on his lips forced me into the situation where I failed to keep my poker face. I pouted and gave him an unkind cheek squeeze, saying:

“Stop smiling.”

“On't ou ike it en I ile?" (Don't you like it when I smile?)

Caleb said as I rubbed his cheeks to let out my sulking though he did not do anything wrong. That very moment, it began to rain, even though the golden sun was still shining brightly.

“Oh, a sunshower?…”

“This is also known as fox rain. Legend has it that when it’s both sunny and raining, it’s the time for the fox to welcome his bride. But our Gran said that this type of weather indicates a quarrel between the Sun God and the Rain God.” Caleb explained and turned to face me. “It seems that you are mad at me too, pip-squeak. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but... could you kindly forgive me??”

I didn’t answer right away, yet the smile on my lips gave him the answer. I held his hand in mine and we continued walking on the long path.

“Caleb… Will you… date someone else in the future?”

“Huh? Dating? Why are you curious about it?”

“Well… I was just thinking… When I grow up a little more and you’re not with anyone, I… I will be your date... Is that alright?”

Our hand squeezed, he grinned, as bright as the sun and the rainbow in the rain in front of our path home.

[mortallyfuzzytyrant]

Expanding on being Olrox's best friend.

My genuine belief is this friendship would form on mutual respect. It's clear Olrox is someone who doesn't take his true loyalties lightly. And he is beyond tired of people who are power hungry or buy into group mentalities.

I believe you would have met Olrox during a time of hardship for yourself. You being a humble individual who merely wanted to exist. Though, of course, the world wouldn't make such a thing so simple.

Olrox has basically spent his entire life forming alliances to get by. He found you trapped as an abstract entity being used by vampires. He found it distasteful but didn't do a thing at first.

Discovering you had a consciousness was a point of intrigue for him. You could think and feel. Hearing you speak wasn't surprising but amused him nonetheless.

You two held conversations now and again. It became obvious to you that Olrox merely sought out for himself and couldn't care less about the ambitions of the vampires that held you. You decided quite quickly you liked him.

He quipped about your abusers and boasted about his lover. Admittedly, it rubbed you the wrong way he sat by as you were made into a toy. But this man was the closest thing to what it was like to be treated like a person, so you clung to your brief interactions.

Plus, he was funny. At least you were getting something out of this. Olrox was keeping you sane.

You within an inch of your mental capacity each day. You were in pain and long past tolerant of others.

You were aware of what happened to Olrox's lover. You have no idea why he told you. He did it so matter of factly.

The way he always smirked when talking to you was replaced with a bitter scowl. His demeanor was a far cry from how playful and snarky he was before.

Instinctively, you offered your wish for his peace with the matter. You even complimented his lover. You saw him briefly. You were....more perceptive than average, let's put it that way.

Olrox's expression was unreadable but it was clear he absorbed your words.

Olrox had been put in charge of commanding you at some point. You spent more time together. Your being was still confined but your consciousness good stretch for eons.

You didn't mind Olrox commanding you. He was far kinder and just did what was necessary. Perhaps he wasn't exactly overly familiar. But he treated you as something akin to a lieutenant. Rather than a dog.

You formed a habit of calling him "master".

He never said anything. But somehow you could tell it bothered him. You thought it was because he wasn't fond enough of you to even consider you a servant. Still. You were attached and refused to stop.

One day you were pushed too far by the vampires that kept you. You were in agony.

After they left, you begged Olrox to set you free. You called him master like you always did. His green eyes pierced into you. You must've looked absolutely pathetic. Even without a face or body.

Something about the way he stood there enraged you. And the next time the other vampires came to make use of you, you did away with them all. Many more came to attack but your blind rage stopped them.

Olrox's smile as he watched you was irritating.

As much as you liked the guy, you were beyond tired of being viewed as a pass time. You aimed for him. And funnily enough, you did your fair share of damage.

Olrox got close enough to your prison. Imagine your surprise when he released you.

"You almost killed me." The laugh in his voice was baffling.

You had a better chance of doing that now that you were free. You didn't find it worth being impressed over. At least, not from his perspective.

You blinked as he simply turned to walk away.

Odd as it was, you instinctively thanked your master. Your previous rage was dwarfed by your confusion at Olrox's contradictory actions. All you could muster in your daze was gratitude.

Olrox replied with saying he had no idea who you were referring to.

You blinked.

"You're smart enough to slaughter a group of fools beholden to their delusions of grandeur. And another who stood by even as your screams carried over the ocean." Olrox smirks. "I think you're long past that."

You blinked. Smart, he says.

Olrox shrugged at your confusion. "You choose now of all nights to end them. Or us. I suppose I'm included in that. You've been watching the moon, haven't you? Being free now...Why, I don't think the night has ever been so beautiful. Wouldn't you agree?"

You were baffled at what he was implying. You insisted on calling him master.

He tutted your fixation on that.

"That's what no one ever told you. You don't need masters."

You gaped.

He smiled. "You figured that out all on your own. Everyone here is dead. You made an attempt on my life for my inaction. In what world does someone like that need anyone?"

You went quiet. Olrox was going to leave. You watched him go.

"You may follow me. If you wish." Olrox said without turning or stopping.

Your breath hitched at him reading your desires so easily.

"On one condition."

You bristled. Of course no one ever offered company without a catch-

"Never call me 'master' again." Olrox frowned pointedly at you.

You gaped. An odd request. But...You found yourself silently agreeing, following quickly.

Olrox smiles. A lot softer than you were used to. "I would like to see an actual form in front of me."

You blinked. Was that his way of...encouraging you?

You flushed, solidifying yourself the moment you were outside.

Olrox hummed. "Imagine hiding something this captivating. You're foolish about the strangest things."

You felt you should have been offended. But tears found their way to you. As shrewd as he put it, he undoubtedly called you beautiful.

You two knew each other for centuries and now you were attached to the hip in the open world. You were there for the murder of Julia. Olrox thanked you greatly for assisting in tracking her down but told you to stay out of the fight. You kept to the shadows and proudly watched your beloved friend triumph.

Richter was hardly conscious of everything around him. He froze at Olrox kneeling before him. Your presence felt more like a dream rather than what he was actually seeing. He wasn't sure he had actually seen another vampire there. It was intentional on your part, you hadn't wanted to give Olrox trouble and used your abilities the moment you spotted Julia. Your eyes have haunted Richter's nightmares for years. Though he is unable to tell if it was Olrox's or not. He doesn't remember you.

Mentioned this before, but Olrox allows you to hang onto him.

It's incredibly common place for you to rush to Olrox and put your hands on his chest and lean on him.

He responds with a hand on the small of your back. He'll fully embrace you if you've been separated during battle.

He will full on guard you with his body if it is needed. Though, it's rare. You are a strong vampire.

Full disclosure if he despises someone that flirts with you. Massive protective brother energy.

"Cunts need washings before they speak."

"Olrox!"

Olrox and you use endearments on one another. "Love" and "darling" are the most prominent. But pick your poison of birds, flowers or gems you compare each other to.

You were not amused by Olrox targeting Mizrak. Out of all the men he chose to ove on" with, a hypocritical human of the cloth wasn't in your pickings of the list. You saw Olrox running into his bad habits with him. It worried you.

You had a distaste for Mizrak from the start. It was sealed when he barked at Olrox.

You hissed. "Small mutts shouldn't bark so loud."

Olrox couldn't find it in himself to listen at first. It had been a while, but you knew he was still grieving.

You stayed by his side to offer support but you were waiting for him to throw the whole man out.

You whimpered and touched Olrox's forehead after what Drolta did to him.

"Olrox, love, your pretty little head is hidden."

You were enraged but simply allowed Olrox to take a breath and hold your hand while offering a soft kiss.

It's actually funny how much you have a "you can do better" attitude regarding Mizrak.

To a point Olrox has tickled you with a feather when you go on too long.

Thankfully, your intervention wore Olrox down and he was thinking far more clearly.

Either you healed Mizrak or let him die peacefully.

Regardless, he was weighing down your best friend over your dead blood sucking body. Watching Olrox chose immortality for someone a second time wasn't something you were going to allow.

I feel like being Olrox's best friend would be so nice. Olrox having all that love and trust in you to keep you close and being able to vulnerable. Olrox is the type of friend that you would be attached to the hip with at all times and would be so gentle and caring. Especially considering it's clear Olrox's orbit is scarce due to his past and how he feels about people in general. So his best friend is someone he'd be incredibly protective of and would cherish.

Olrox and his best friend would have tons of witty banter that both pokes fun at the other while also remaining wholesome and affectionate. Though the ones directed at others is ruthless and cutting. Olrox is for sure that friend you sit by and judge others with. You two have this telepathic connection (either literal or metaphorical) where you don't even need to look at each other and you just- react the same way to situations and people's stupidity, both facial expressions and body language. You two are menaces when it comes to being in other's presence. Regardless if it's holding a conversation or being in combat.

Olrox has gently tutted you to behave yourself on rare occasions but you can tell by his grin that he was absolutely encouraging your mischief. He even whispers his own quip in your ear every now and then, adoring when you giggle in response. You two are the biggest gossip buddies in private, making each other howl with laughter discussing what you think about recent events or the people you've ran into. Olrox would be helping you either bathe, do your hair, or simply sharing the bed with you all the while.

Olrox's voice is noticeably softer and thinner with you. Olrox keeps you close by having a gentle hand on your shoulder, waist, or having you cling to his arm. Olrox will often pull you to him and kiss your temple. Or on the side of your cheek. Either as a simple gesture of affection or giving you a swift goodbye in the rare times you two have to separate. Olrox will also hold you to his chest if you're hurting. Olrox seems harsh but for you he actively practices the utmost tenderness when comforting you.

Goodness forbid someone else caused your distress. Olrox will be absolutely feral if anyone dares cause you harm. You are his dear friend and he cherishes your spot in his life. He'll be damned if he lets someone disrupt that, even in the smallest ways.

[hiddengiggles]

Let’s talk about consent and smart ways to play

Yes, consent can be revoked at any time. That’s normal and your boundaries should be reexamined regularly as part of your own check ins.

No, it doesn’t mean either party did anything wrong, it can just be a change of what either wants. Shaming either party for changing their mind serves no one. Don’t act like the person who was receiving the action is unfair or a “tease” for changing their mind. Don’t act like the person giving the action was bad or wrong for doing the thing for which they had consent at the time because you didn’t like it.

Yes, it’s awesome to be able to open yourself up and be vulnerable for different activities and kinks. When you don’t have a partner to engage with regularly, it can be thrilling to finally find a person to play with, I know.

No, blanket consent for EVERYTHING right from the jump is NOT a good idea. If you’re connecting with a play partner the first few times, start slow and expand. Feeling enough trust to give consent for some kinks can and probably should take time so uou can be really comfortably vulnerable

Yes, it is exciting to safely meet play partners from the online world when you are BOTH ready for it! When you’re safe about meeting (getting to know them slowly, setting a neutral meeting point, letting a few people know where you’re going and the name of your friend, etc) it can be a great way to get time with your kinks. When it isn’t forced, rushed, or for too long a time period, the organic connection can be magical!

No, you should not assume each party is on the same page unless you’ve communicated multiple times, especially in writing. If you had a phone call a month ago that talked about boundaries and assume all is well, you’re not actually playing safely. Some people write out rules, some BDSM players sometimes make it a “contract”, but a verbal conversation will not protect you or help you if worse comes to worst. This is especially important for partners still new to playing together. Record the hard conversations in some way.

Yes, you can start a conversation on boundaries and kinks with generalization. Example on my end, my husband and I both are okay with pictures and videos taken of us and posting them. In the early days of our relationship, we checked every time we played “Is it okay if I film this?” but after years together we’ve both agreed it’s okay to take them anytime, though we check with each other if we’re comfortable with what was captured regularly.

No, a general conversation is not enough. Continuing my example, we both have boundaries for ourselves and for each other to make sure we’re okay with it being posted (or sometimes sold). Earlier today, I put on a really pretty lingerie set for some birthday giggles. However, I stopped and asked “If you wanted to film this, would you be comfortable with me being seen in this publicly? Our usually boundaries call for a top and bottoms covering”. He paused, considered, and said no, so I put on a tank top and shorts too. Get specific with every aspect of your play, from your comfortable clothing levels, to where content can be posted, to areas you don’t want touched that day that you might normally be okay with otherwise. Assuming you already know the answer is not enough, say it again.

Consent is a lot bigger and more complicated than just this post, so talk about it A LOT with your partner(s). The biggest key to a good relationship in and out of kink (friendship, mentorship, romantic relationship) is to NEVER STOP TALKING. Communication is key, talk about your boundaries and consent over and over and over. They will change and grow, and so will you.

Mistakes and miscommunications will happen, but it’s important to talk about them like the grown people you are. A lot of consent issues with new partners aren’t malicious, they can easily stem from either party being unclear or simply not thinkinh to ask about something that could be a boundary issue. Unless it was a blatant “I KNEW the boundary and disregarded it purposely because I wanted to do it” situation, be an adult and talk about it. If you’re adult enough to be engaging in activities or kinks for adults, you need to follow through and talk about what went right and wrong. Learn and grow from the stuff you didn’t do as well before, accept responsibility for your part, and move on, with or without that partner.

[hiddentoadstoolkey]

Screaming Into the Void: 

My Thoughts and Theories About the Past, the Present, and the Future 

(Of Chasers, of course)

Here's the text version of the document I had made eariler this week <3

It’s mainly unfiltered ramblings that I plan on editing later (and adding visual references)

Spoilers for the finale below

Breaking Down the Season 1 Finale:

Chase

He had clearly grown so much over the course of the season and honestly this entire arch has been such a great arch of seeing who he is now 

The guilt he has for bringing in Pru and Deacon into the story and feeling responsible for their deaths

A part of me fears of how he’ll take it when more people join the story, but he has gained a sense of responsibility 

Also that face he make WITH THE LITTLE HEART EYES AHHHHHH 

Deacon & Prunella

There isn’t much to say about these two if were just talking the finale as neither of them are alive for long enough

I do wonder what their paper death means for how they proceed going forward

There’s no doubt that all three of them would add some precaution in future stories, especially if the team expands

Buddy 

HE’S A KEY!!!!!! THE THEORIST WERE RIGHT?!?!??!?!?!

Add this alongside [insert massive Miraculous s5 spoiler]

Nox - presumably IroN OXide (peep jthealien for pointing this out in the comments)

He has a moon on his back, in the same spot as Goldie’s sun and Bronze’s Apple - its his character symbol

Moon opposing the sun as a symbol (plus the book, will continue that later down) - he’s likely the Villain key

Something clearly happened in his past that makes he regrets - could be what led him to ex-libris or why he’s specifically the villain key…. 

This makes the comment “he looks 20-ish,” the “dreams are often not what they seem” note at the end of Dreams by Night, and the “do they not feed you?” debacle during the beach boys arc more understandable

Re: Dreams By Night - I revisited the episode to find the quote and noticed that Nox (this feels weird typing that) has a metal ring around his neck, maybe mimicking a keychain???

More key related thoughts:

“Don’t you want to be human again” - does this mean that the keys were all human, or is Buddy (and maybe some others) were originally human and then turned into keys

If this were to be the case, you would assume Silver (or Bronze/Goldie) would have brought it up, but 

1. We know their memory is foggy

2. Silver has failed to mentioned big factors to Chase before (e.g. Chase needing all the keys to make his wish; she lowkey gives “you didn’t ask” energy and she’s so real for that)

Also, note that she say “Don’t you want to….” and not “Don’t you want us to”

Design wise, Buddy differentiates from the keys we’ve seen so far in that he’s not solely one color, his hair and clothing appear to be much darker than his skin

He appears to be established as an outlier from the the rest of the keys we know - suggesting there’s something different about him. My guess is that he’s not the original villain key, but rather a replacement of sorts 

We’ve seen damaged keys before, peep Silver at the start of the comic, but is there a point to which a key can no longer be repaired by narratonin? Could this be how and why Nox (and Ex Libris) know about the outcome of specific scenarios (e.g. when a book gets damaged)

Now that we’ve gotten a full look at Violet’s key, I wanted to point out how Silver is the the only key (out of what we’ve seen) to have a different Shank, with hers being twisted and everyone else’s being straight

The Book:

The front of the Book displays the symbols of the keys in a circular manner - with (presumably) oppositional characters placed across from one another.

 The pairs are:

Sun & Moon (12 & 6 positions): Goldie (Hero) & Nox (TBD) 

Since they are symbolic opposites, Nox is expected to be the villain key (+ some of his dialogue throughout the season hinting towards this)

Bell & Bow (1 & 7): TBD

The Bow maybe the Thief key mentioned by Deacon in Episode 42 (Reasoning: Robin Hood, notable thief used a bow and arrow)

Crown & Feather (2 & 8): TBD

The Crown is plausibly the Ruler key mentioned by Deacon in Episode 42

Diamond & Rose (assuming) (3 & 9): Violet (Villainess) & Silver (Heroine)

The 9 o’clock position is covered in both panels, and thus I’m working on the assumption that the rose is there

The only other position for the rose would be the mark at the 4 o’clock position

Unidentifiable & Apple (4 & 10): TBD & Bronze (Sidekick)

As mentioned before, I could not determine what the symbol after Violet was, if it’s Silver’s rose, then the pattern breaks

Following the pattern, the symbol probably belongs to a henchmen archetype (FREDDY BELIEVERS RISE)

Heart & Star (5 & 11): TBD

The Heart is plausibly the Lover key mentioned by Deacon in Episode 42

The Key in the middle!!

We can think its different than the rest of the keys as we see Violet locked into the book (the 9 o’clock position, where the rose should be)

This is what I assume to be the primary factor that allowed Buddy to go into the same exact stories as Chase, sort of acting as a master key allowed to unlock anything

Since Violet is stuck into the slot of the Rose, the book sends the user into whatever story the Heroine key is in

Side note: This circle pattern would make a very sick looking clock, and that will be my objective goal if we get a closer look at the book (or symbols)

Stargoth

So, um, the kiss…

It has not registered in my mind

The lore of the keys have taken up most of my mind 😭

The sky tear -> there’s an emphasis on the true love’s kiss!!! What if Nox and Chase are meant to each other's true love (at least in the storybooks)? 

Alt. there may be something to do with true love and they keys (maybe breaking the spell/curse, or something)

Outside of that, I just love how we get to see a reversal of the requiem hug as they start to show how much they care for each other!!!!!!

Final thoughts

This finale was honestly so shocking to me in the best way possible and it makes me really excited for what’s to come 

It honestly feels a lot like the ending of Stagtown (in terms of lore drop and whatnot), and I don’t think I’ve been this hyped about a fandom (or finale) since SVTFOE season 2 finale bro 

I’ll probably add more to this document when I’m more organized and when the episode comes out and we can discuss ☺️

[rongzhi]

(Apologies in advance for typos.)

^ My original tags on this, but actually, I wanted to expand on my views about this a little bit based on some other collected musings I had about the XHS move (which—now that the dust has settled a bit, is it still going on? I don't even know). I'll preface this by saying that my own XHS has been pretty much spared of the wave of American signups, since my feed is mostly art/tattoos and not so much lifestyle/vlogs.

Mainly, I wanted to dig into that feeling of being "over it", a sentiment I've seen circulated on Tumblr by other Chinese diaspora. I think it's a IYKYK situation in some ways but I wonder if non-Chinese diaspora are precisely aware of why there is a underlying sense of caution and this side-eyeing toward everything going on. (To an extent, I think non-Americans who have to deal with us Americans dominating internet spaces probably also have some insight into this.)

Essentially, after that initial cute "haha" feeling of seeing people jump into a new space and meeting all the new people, for me personally, just from having run this blog for 4 years now, I feel distinctly aware that things could go wrong.

Others have said it better, be it pointing out the infantilising or inherent sinophobia, but there is a slant to that attitude of jumping on a new app and discovering that Chinese people can be funny, that they can be kind, that they are sociable and, in basic terms, "just like you", that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Oh, you just realised that? People can argue that it was never possible to connect with Chinese netizens before all they want, but in fact, clearly, it was as easy as downloading an app that's free on U.S app stores. Next, you could say, well, there's cultural exchange happening now, which is better than nothing, so what are you so pissy about! I agree, I'm not saying it's a bad thing that some Americans are finally making some attempt to converse with someone outside of their Western, Anglo internet bubble (even if they did so as in the comfort of what is essentially another bubble, as part of a trend). Obviously there is a net good to a person joining XHS, and my wariness mostly comes down to this sense of "discovery" coming with a feeling that Chinese people are still getting lumped into a monolith. Maybe now the monolith is nice and friendly; now the monolith is cute and funny and helpful.

What happens if the Tiktokers realise that some Chinese people also are more socially conservative, or that there are societal issues that Chinese people still have to work through, which aren't ideal or progressive enough for the Enlightened Americans—then what? I've already seen the answer in smaller doses over the years, so I don't know about others, but this is something that I—maybe—hopefully just cynically—can't help but keep my ears tuned towards: the other shoe dropping. Again, for Chinese diaspora (and no doubt, diaspora of any culture in a similar situation), it's "if you know, you know"; we've seen the fickleness of attitudes. The xenophobia and sinophobia that run rampant in U.S society (and I'm sure other western countries, but I speak as a USian) is well known to us in a way that mainlanders often don't take heed toward. Even if there is a sinophobic backlash over anything that arises online, the brunt of it won't be felt by Chinese netizens but us Chinese diaspora who spend the most time in Anglo internet spaces. So, I'm a bit over it all. I've seen how interest in China can play out—for example, how learning Mandarin or being a fan of cdramas or hanfu hardly frees a person of their sinophobia or from regurgitating xenophobic talking points.

It's nice but naive to think that the majority of the tiktokers playing around on XHS right now, trading memes and basking in the numbers of Chinese social media, will truly self-interrogate all too deeply. If some of them seem to have only just realised that Chinese people are ~so nice~, how Other have they been seeing Chinese diaspora? Is that still the case? Will they necessarily make the same effort to know and listen to Chinese diaspora? (People in cfandom will know the answer).

Again, I think there's an overall positive to all this, especially in this ~political climate~ (altho I doubt the people who need positive interaction with Chinese people the most downloaded XHS lol). I guess I just wanted to add all this because because I feel like my first response was quite vague and on second thought, I figured I might as well try to unravel some of my thoughts and impart them to anyone who maybe had no idea there was this perspective to things. Call me jaded or no fun at parties all you like, but that's literally just how it is.

Lastly, I'll just say that from me scrolling douyin, I've also seen how people in China have reacted to the influx of Americans on XHS, so I can tell you a little bit of the other side. It also corresponds a little with what I'm trying (but maybe failing) to say about Chinese diaspora: the people who have been having as much/equal fun with the convergence of internet spaces have been mainlanders with no general dealings with Americans. In the past week, the bloggers I've seen who've been vocal/warning about Chinese people not bending over backwards to start speaking English all the time, or just following/kissing up to Americans because they're white*, have been Chinese netizens—mainly students—who live/study abroad.

* Yes, obviously there are non-White Americans, but white people are, as ever, uplifted the most by society on the basis of being white. We know this.

how do you feel about so many americans getting on 小红书?

[isavulpix]

Late Nights

Jason Todd x Fem!Reader

I wrote this after watching a lot of sad DC edits in TikTok, I need more happy edits about the Batfam and Dickkory. This was mostly for funsies so sorry if it's shit.

Warnings: English isn’t my first language so there will be errors, and characters may be OOC. Fluff? Fluff.

Isavulpix masterlist

It was late at night, and you had a bad night after stopping Mr. Zsasz from killing some innocent people, you guessed they were tourists because who walks in Gotham streets at night with no protection? The good thing was that the night was over, and you could head back home to wash the day off.

Entering the apartment, your gaze falls on the dirty boots beside your shoe rack, and then the black leather jacket on the couch. You sigh annoyed and move the items to their respective places, how many times will you need to remind him of these things? You walk into your room knowing that he is there and as much as he annoys you, you can’t help but feel happy that, for a change, he is the one home first.

Inside the room, you see the familiar figure of the man you love sprawled on your bed reading a book. It must be that special edition Jane Austin book he ordered some months ago. “How did patrol go?” He asks you while turning a page of the book and you walk behind a folding screen to undress from your suit.

“It was fine, nothing I couldn’t handle” You walk to your bathroom to take a quick shower. When you come back, he moves your suit to where you usually place it, and you can't help but roll your eyes. “If only you did that with your stuff” You smile when he wraps his hands and arms around your form. He was saying something, but you were more occupied robbing his body heat, it was a cold night and Jason's big form was enough of a heater for you.

What makes you come back to reality is the sudden push. “Jason!” You groan when you feel his body waiting over you. “Ugh! Scoot over, you're too heavy” You try to move away but he tightens his hold so you it was more you moving like a wiggly worm.

“No, now shut up and stop moving. I'm trying to relax” You scoff at his response, but do as he says, letting him get comfy. That’s how he ended up with his head between your breasts, arms around your waist, and one of your hands caressing his hair. You liked to twirl the white strikes of hair he had, sometimes even braiding them.

 “I guess work was good today since you’re here early”

“Mm…it was fine, nothing I can't handle” You roll your eyes when he uses the exact words you used earlier so you tug the hair you were twirling.

“Very funny, Todd” Jason moves his head up, now his chin resting between your breasts while smirking.

“I know, sweetheart maybe I should quit and become a comedian” He leaves a kiss where his chin was resting.

“Please, don’t. I love you, but not enough to maintain you after your comedian career crashes, plus you would grow too bored without some action in your life” You could feel your cheeks heating up when you feel him smiling against the skin of your chest. “Not that kind of action!” Now you can feel the heat of your cheeks expanding to your ears.

Jason only laughs at your embarrassment. “Really?” He moves his hands to touch your hot cheeks. “Because this is telling something different” Jason smiles when you groan and try again to move away from him, but he doesn’t let you. He wraps his arms yet again around you but this time you two lay facing each other.

“Your so annoying” You mumble when you feel one of his hands grabbing your ass, but you move your arms to hug him closer.

[ladypiscesmoon]

year ahead Armie Hammer (personal year card: The Hermit

Ask me anything that needs to be clarified)

What has Armie to release from 2024:

Bluebell fairy: (mistakes happen when you're not clear-minded. Forgive. Step forward in a lesson learned and know that you can achieve more wisdom as a result. Forgive yourself and move on with the lessons learned.) Doorway to fairyland (lift your spirits after you were held back in life. dream and view the world from a different perspective. That way you expand your mind and develop your imagination) Armie's is aware of the need to move on, but he cannot always see the way to go. It's time to release the past.

Overall 2025 (Feeling)

Camel (trust that you have the resources to get through the challenges before you) Sometimes it looks like the journey he's on is like crossing a desert with no end in sight. But he has to think about how far he's come already. He has to identify where he wants to go and proceed slowly but steadily, toward his goal. He's got to cast away his fears, doubts and hesitations. Ease his mind and heart. He will get through this, like he got through other challenges.

Walrus (remain vigilant about the current situation; pay attention to signs and omens and let them dictate your choices)

He's got to ask for specific signs to show him the way in life purpose, relationships and career, or even everyday concerns. He's got to allow his thoughts to flow (like meditation) and he'll pick up the signs and clues, maybe in lucid dreams. Trust these signs.

222 Alignment (how do you move forward toward your life's true calling? Do what makes you happy. Your enthusiasm is what's keep you going. Follow your interest if it's piqued by something. Following these routes will help you discover your life's purpose)

222 means good fortune in finances, relationships and career as well as a reminder to work towards your soul's purpose. For singles it's considered as a sign a true love is coming or that your soulmate is near

0606 Commitment (applying honesty and light daily is a fast track to creating a peaceful and meaningful life. It's how you find solutions and comfort. Release worries by speaking your truth and expressing emotions regularly. Open up for the best is yet to come)

The double zero's in 0606 emphasize a sense of commitment. For twin flames there's an underlying equilibrium and cosmic plan. The combination f the 0 and 6 suggests a focus on spiritual awakening and enlightenment. Twin flames encountering 0606 may interpret it as an invitation to delve deeper into their spiritual journey during the time of separation. Despite physical or/and emotional distance there's a stable equilibrium in the cosmic orchestration. The twin flames have to channel unconditional love. They have to express love that transcends physical boundaries understanding that their connection is timeless and eternal. With everything Armie has gone through in the last years, he's a lot further on his spiritual journey than his twin flame. The twin now has to catch up and they can reunite. I think Armie could be teaching his twin flame a lot.

Overall 2025 (Lenormand)

The heart( love, romance, infatuation, art, beauty, joy of life), the man(the significant card for a man, the partner for a woman), the coffin(death, endings, mourning, transformation, manipulation) The book(secrets, hidden knowledge, keeping a secret), the snake (lies, deceit, misguidance, illusions, chaos, temptation, seduction, cunning), the ring(relationship, marriage, cooperation, togetherness, cycles) The stork (change, movement, beginnings, flexibility, changeability, moving house), the whip (strife, fighting, argumenfsdebate, perseverance, competition, energy), the ship (travel, a journey, finances, navigation)

Combinations and thoughts: (they read like a sentence) -A loving man, a desirable man, a flirty man, transformation (new beginning) in a relationship -Backstabber is discovered (people not liking this relationship) -Secret commitments (trying to have a private relationship) -Hiding a ring (maybe having a symbol of this love, but hiding it) -Repeated change -Thinking about moving (could be overseas or out of country)

Overall 2025 (LOVE)

Abundance (keep a positive mindset, manifest exactly what you want, gratitude, bliss) The snake (competition, energy, clever, malicious, look over your shoulder, the other woman) Boat (receiving what you need, closure, progression, arriving, moving on from issues)

This seems to be a better year for Armie in love. Some people will not like him having found love though. But as long as he doesn't let him influence him, he will be fine. There's always someone jealous, or hateful or disappointed. As long as he's happy he should go after what he wants

Overall (CAREER/MONEY)

2 of swords (at a crossroad, avoiding the truth, tough choices) The star reversed (hopelessness, boredom, uninspired)

Career: stalemate, conflict at workplace, lack of motivation, pessimism about work Money: difficult or unpleasant decisions as well as an inability or refusal to face reality. Not quite what he hoped for his financial situation. Trying to save up money. He has fought a lot to get back a resemblance of his earlier career. He would very much like to provide for his children. Some of his thoughts are very traditional, but he should know that he's come a long way. Even if this year may have a bit more of a stagnation in his career, its doesn't mean it will always be like that. It may also be that he's feeling inspired in the roles he gets, or filming is not as satisfactory as it was for him. He might still think about another direction, or a combination of things. I still see him writing or producing

Overall( HEALTH)

8 of cups: (abandonment, walking away, disappointment) 4 of cups reversed (gratitude, focus, seeing opportunity) overload/excessment/obligation/overwhelm

Your environment and your way of thinking has negative effects on your health. Don't worry about things that are out of your hand. You will re-energize and upbeat in a healthy context if you go with the flow

Month for Month

January

The tower reversed (fear of change, avoiding the inevitable, liberation) Death reversed (resisting change, inevitable endings, stagnation) Citrine: abundance in creativity and healing as well. Armie has to let go of his fears. They bring him stagnation and delay in being truly happy.

February

Queen of coins (mature, successful, practical) 3 of wands reversed (returning home, holding on to the past, unhappy with choices) Snowflake obsidian: inspiration, ideas and talents In the last years Armie has kept hidden, nurturing and protecting his own creative ideas and projects. He feared change and was avoiding it. It stagnated his own process. He is going to change that. He already started it with his podcast, but we will see more examples of his brilliant mind (and he's funny too. Love that man)

March

4 of swords (mental overload, sanctuary, solitude) 10 of coins (inheritance, financial security, family) Calcite: more vitality and enthusiasm for life This month there will be an increase in finances, but also he will find someone to express more of his ideas and feelings. He will need a bit of solitude, to think some things over.

April

9 of swords (depression, intense anxiety, feeling hopeless) Strength (courage, overcoming, control) Kyanite: Pay attention to your intuition, rather ingenious idea will surface that will radically change your views on life, especially your career. Strangely enough it feels like Armie will be helping someone to make some decisions, especially on the subject of career. This will drastically change this persons life. So it doesn't have to do directly with Armie's career in this month, at least it feels like it to me.

May

The chariot reversed (lack of direction, aggression, powerlessness) Knight of cups (Chivalry, hopeless romantic, idealistic) Petrified wood: a magical transformation is about to occur through an unexpected turn of events. It's the result of the strength and commitment you have long shown to something. Many who have, until now either ridiculed or attempted to discredit you, will all of a sudden want to jump to your side. Long time there was stagnation and hopelessness in Armie's life, but the times are changing. Also, a very romantic month for him.

June

King of swords (intelligent, head over heart, logical) 3 of cups (Parties, indulgence, happiness) Rhodochrosite: We all have negative and positive aspects in our characters either currently or in the past. Taking the person he loves as they are, loving them with their vices and their virtues, seeing them for the human that they are. Forgiveness.

July

6 of cups reversed (growing up, childhood issues, letting go of the past) The devil (vices, temptation, manipulation) Molybdenite: There is nothing you have to fix or change in your life. Start to accept all of who you are. All is in perfect divine order. Accepting who he is, will all his vices and virtues. Letting go of the past.

August

9 of cups (dreams come true, satisfaction, abundance) The emperor (dependability, authority, structure) Gold with Quartz: a newfound sense of joy Feeling on top of the world, basically

September

4 of wands reversed (feeling unwelcome, family issues, animosity) 8 of sword reversed (self-acceptance, seeing Cleary, release) Pyrite: feeling emotionally imbalanced, because you have yourself allowed to believe another's critical judgements of you Feeling insecure, but someone having your back means you remind your strength. Let people judge, they will always do it, no matter what you do.

October

knight of wands (fearless, risk-taker, free spirit) 2 of cups (mutual respect, love, equality) Aquamarine: in this period greater empathy and insight is necessary. Someone loving him and having his back. It gives him strength and makes him feel free

November

Ace of coins (financial opportunity, prosperity, manifesting money) Page of coins (young but grounded, solid beginning, strong foundation) Amber: something that's causing friction and tension comes to a head I feel like there will be a financial setback or something, but the person in his life that loves him is helping him through it

December

2 of wands reversed (doubt, fearing the unknown, being restless) The high Priestess (sacred knowledge, divine feminine, unconscious mind) Sodalite: keep your calm. Meditate, keep the dream alive. positive confirmation If he wavers and feels restless, he has to find ways to unwind, and nurture himself. He has come a very long way.

*This reading is alleged and for entertainment purposes only*

[rochand]

Oh man hope you don't mind this random reblog (plus rambling)! But I agree with so much of what you said here & I think it’s helped clarify some of my thoughts on it.

I feel much the same way about the reboot vs. the original. I enjoy a lot of the reboot for what it is, and like you said, I think it’s fairly clear what they were trying to go for in terms of theme. (i.e. tell a story about "the power of family" in the same vein as stories about "the power of friendship.") But . . .

I do think it's less satisfying in many ways because the core premise of Shazam/ Captain Marvel is the (extreme, literal, divine) empowerment of a child. It's not just a "scrappy underdog" story, it matters that Billy Batson is a child, specifically.

And while it does make sense to connect Billy to other people (including adults and/or family figures) to help the story stay grounded and relatable to readers . . . you have to be careful with how you do that or else you can undermine the "extreme child empowerment" so crucial to the character.

So like . . . take Victor and Rosa. There’s something about them I really like, which is the way they fill a particular role that got left open with changes the reboot made to Shazam.

in the original, the wizard is the first one to believe in Billy, for lack of better words. He’s seen Billy at his very "lowest" and most downtrodden, but singles him out for recognition due to how well he’s born up under those hardships and come through them with good character. In the reboot, though, this is different; Shazam takes a much dimmer view of Billy’s character and openly doubts that Billy is good enough (or explicitly says he isn’t, depending on version).

Instead, Rosa and Victor are now the ones who first believe in Billy as an inherently good kid and stick up for him, even when things "look bad." Ex:

(Shazam! Volume 1 (2013) by Geoff Johns & Gary Frank)

I kind of like this because . . . where the original Shazam basically has divinely perfect knowledge of Billy's life and character, Victor and Rosa largely have to do this on "faith." IDK, I find it interesting in that sense!

But the fact that Victor and Rosa are put in the role of Billy’s foster parents sets them up to fail in other ways, imho. Like, I would argue that a consistent barometer of adult “goodness” in Captain Marvel is the extent to which the adult empowers children vs. imposes adult authority/ control over children in a way that’s unwanted/ unnecessary.

To expand a little bit - like, we know that in real life children have various “needs” from adults. Material (food, shelter, clothing); emotional (love, affection, emotional support); psychological/ behavioral (routine, structure, help with self-regulation, you get the idea). Some of these things are actively “wanted” by the child, but others will be “imposed on” the child in their best interest.

I’d say that the former are . . . implied to be “okay” to give to Billy, according to the underlying “rules” of Captain Marvel. But the latter are not, if that makes sense.

Golden age Billy, for example, could benefit from “wanted” things like parental love and affection when made available to him. But I’d say he’s never really shown to "need" limits being placed on him for his own good?

He’s never really shown to have a problem with, say, emotional self-regulation (or anything else kids might struggle with at various developmental stages) that interferes with his life socially or as a superhero. Like you pointed out, he's highly responsible, good-natured, and self-sufficient. Were his golden age characterization being used today, Billy would come across as more of a candidate for emancipated minor status than someone who needed ongoing adult supervision, imho.

Reboot Billy, on the other hand, often does have more obvious problems with emotional maturity, or other things that get in the way of his social/ superhero life. I'd say reboot Billy's problems aren't necessarily "because" he's a kid (adults could also struggle with them), but are still the sort of thing you could point to and say “well, clearly Billy could benefit from some kind of adult guidance here, regardless of his personal thoughts/ feelings on the matter.”

From an out-of-universe perspective, the departure from golden age characterization is partly because we now expect our comic book protagonists to go through some kind of emotional arc and have a certain degree of psychological realism (or w/e). But I’d argue that the realism still has to serve the narrative and defer to fantasy in favor of the theme, only the reboot is axing some of the "child empowerment" aspect in favor of the "power of family."

Golden age Captain Marvel has you suspend your disbelief on Billy (and what a 12-year-old boy should realistically need) in a more wide-ranging way, so it can really hammer the child empowerment angle. But because the reboot is angling for a more modern/ realistic take on a child superhero, it only asks you to suspend your disbelief on certain “external” things fundamental to the superhero genre, like the existence of magical powers, and not so much on things "internal" to Billy as a child character.

What you then end up with is a more circumscribed version of Captain Marvel. One who is still empowered in the literal sense, with the magic of the gods, but is not empowered in other ways that are more abstract.

For example, as reboot Billy’s foster parents, Victor and Rosa have to have Billy attend school. For one thing, this is arguably in Billy’s best interest, but also, truancy laws exist and Billy is almost certainly not old enough to drop out. (And from an out-of-universe perspective, we can argue that it’s more realistic and relatable for school-aged audiences as well.)

But compare this to golden age Billy’s job at WHIZ radio:

(from "Introducing Captain Marvel", Whiz Comics #2 (1940)

Golden age Billy actively wants the job! And he's able to convince an adult to give it to him via his literal empowerment (as Captain Marvel) as well as a more intangible empowerment. (Ex. the way Billy refuses to allow adults to dismiss him, and advocates for himself and what he wants. And possibly in defiance of child labor laws, lol).

It does give Mr. Morris a position of authority over Billy as his boss, but that authority is limited in scope, and ultimately due to the nature of their relationship as employer and employee. Not because of their status as adult vs. child.

Arguably, school “shouldn’t” have a much worse impact on Billy’s ability to be Captain Marvel than a job, if you’re thinking about it in terms of like, realistic time commitments and so on. But IMHO it “feels” totally different in terms of how it implies adult authority and Billy’s relative empowerment.

To bring it back around -

I think this is one reason why Freddy, Mary, and the newer kids introduced in the reboot enjoy more acceptance from fans than Victor and Rosa do.

On the one hand, the Shazamily kids make Billy less "special" in the sense that Billy is no longer uniquely empowered (and depending on the version, they sometimes make Billy less powerful when he shares his powers with them). But we are more willing to tolerate this because they are also children who are disadvantaged in some way, just like Billy is.

When they, too, get empowered, they are reinforcing the story’s overall theme and extending it to allow for a wider exploration of the different types of struggles kids face. Even when they clash with Billy, they're doing so as peers, not as adults trying to impose some kind of higher authority on him.

In this way, the Shazamily kids further the reboot theme of "family = strength," but never challenge the original theme of "child empowerment" in a way that matters. Victor and Rosa, on the other hand, support the first but (arguably) not the second.

I don’t think this is an insurmountable problem or anything - or that they (as parental figures) need to be axed for the sake of the story. But I do think it’s something we’re kind of picking up on and responding to a little bit.

(And I think it's one reason why "homeless Billy Batson" is still very much a thing even in reboot fic!)

I've finally realised why I fundamentally disliked the New 52 version of Shazam/Captain Marvel.

I've had nitpicks about it before, but I always chalked it up to my personal preferences, and not anything inherently wrong with the retcon. It just wasn't my thing.

However, I could never shake the feeling that there was some deeper flaw to it than a mere difference in taste. New 52 Billy is a very different character to his older versions, but the core of his backstory (homeless orphan, history of abuse, extreme independence) was arguably retained, just in a new modern rendition. So why did I feel like the new 52 had lost something important?

Then it hit me.

Any version of Billy Batson would, realistically, never let himself have parents again.

Now that is not to say they don't have merit, I can see the vision with them. A perfectly normal, loving, and safe parental unit to contrast the insanity of Billy's life and give him that sweet hurt/comfort goodness. In the end, though, I could never get used to them. Even with all of Billy's changes in the new 52, it always felt deeply ooc whenever he would respect their authority or consider their comfort more important than his responsibilities. In fact, the new 52 version of him is even more distrusting of adults than the golden/silver age version, so Billy compromising his independent personality (especially after he gets his powers) feels like a huge contradiction to both his original and retconned selves. The Vasquez's aren't developed enough characters to make such a huge narrative trade off satisfying. This weird "distrusts authority figures + is proficiently independent yet let's them dictate his responsibilities and make choices on his behalf" characterisation extends beyond the Vasquez's and into Billy's professional relationships with the League. I love reading things where the trinity try and parent Billy, but the fun of it is how he never let's them in the end. Billy's been treated like an equal long enough for him to have seen his colleagues true selves, there is no chance in hell he'd let Superman dad lecture him when he's seen the man at his worst before.

While I never enjoyed the new 52 "Shazamily" brand, I could tolerate it. I never found any of Billy's siblings aside from Mary and Freddy compelling for various reasons, but Darla, Pedro, and Eugene were alright as far as superfluous characters went. What I really never liked were the Vasquez parents, Rosa, and Victor.

What I love about Billy Batson as a character is how inherently tragic he is, but in more subtle ways. Billy was orphaned/abandoned which is sad in and of itself, but the real meat and potatoes is what came after. Billy's been failed by everyone in life, but will not give up faith in people irregardless. He is the world's most competent 12 year old, with wisdom beyond his years and hard won skills that helped him survive on his own. All of this is what made him worthy of the lightning, what made him different and less likely to misuse such power.

Billy Batson in any era of DC always starts out as one of the weakest members of society. His misfortune always stems from the selfishness of others, who's proclivity to abuse their privileges make the boy intimately acquainted with the worst mankind has to offer. He has been robbed at every turn of good choices, and left with the hard ones instead. Education or food? Entertainment or work? How far is he willing to go for survival? If he lies, cheats and steals will he still want to survive by the end? if it means losing who he wishes to be?

If I were in his circumstances, I would be insulted by any attempts to parent me. Acknowledging that I deserved better wouldn't negate a childhoods worth of untrustworthy adults. By that point I'd be so used to living on my own that any well-meaning adults attempt to "lessen my burden" would certainly chafe. God forbid anybody try discipline me in the hopes of providing structure. I would never respect them again. Put the fucking mantle of Champion of Magic on all that, with an ancient wizards seal of approval, and I'd be out of any foster home faster than you could blink.

Why the hell does Billy stay in a house with a bedtime, and lectures, and restrictions on his ability to choose if he can transform into an invulnerable demi-god who can teleport into a safe, warm pocket dimension? Why doesn't he sell off some old junk from the rock, impersonate an adult, get a cheap apartment and load it up with magic wards and runes and just live there? This kid is divinely sanctioned as worthy of responsibility, why the fuck would he listen to life advice from two adults he barely knows? Billy can still be humble about his power while also having a spine about it.

Billy can have as many siblings as he wants, even if I don't find them all that interesting, but I don't think he would ever want parents again. Not if it meant losing the security that comes with full self-determination. He deserves to have had parents, but the tragedy of Billy Batson is that he can't. He has power unimaginable, is a beloved public figure and successful superhero, all these things that only existed in dreams before, but he doesn't have parents, arguably the one thing universally all children should get to have.

[monkesupreme]

ref

a satisfactory answer for Selina

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Y'know, it's unfortunate more people don't compare Louis and Violet in good faith.

Like, when I do see people compare them, it's usually through the lens of one is good, and the other bad. One is more canon than the other, and here's why. One is objectively better for Clementine, and the other is less impactful, worse written, didn't have chemistry with her, insert several insults here, etc.

I don't think it's inherently bad to express why you might not like one of them, or why you prefer one over the other. That's fine, that's a matter of opinion. It only gets to me when it becomes hostile, or passive aggressive... but even then, I've learned to just roll my eyes and move on. Some people make it very clear that they're not worth having a discussion with.

However, I wish I could read more nuanced comparisons of the two that didn't default to the "and that's why this one is better." At least some are kind enough to tack on a "for my Clementine" at the end.

You know how it goes: Louis is cute and he makes Clementine laugh, whereas Violet's boring, her love is shallow, she's still not over Minerva and she's using Clementine as a rebound. Violentine's a bad ship because Violet's actually a traitor, and they're practically the same person and that's bad.

Violet's loyal and reliable, whereas Louis is annoying, he never takes anything serious, he's a traitor for his vote, and he's nothing but a distraction. Clouis is a bad ship because how could any Clementine possibly like him after he voted her and AJ out? That's bad!

That's always the conclusion, right? One good, one bad.

This is incredibly limiting and it drives me nuts.

They're foils. They contrast one another, highlight each other's strengths and flaws, in such an interesting way that it makes Clementine's choice between them all the more meaningful.

One is not good and the other bad, they're different, and I think that's worth exploring.

Let's start with a common argument: Violet is the more impactful option due to her connection to Minerva.

Now, to be fair, I can understand why someone on Team Violet would believe this. Yes, it's true that the confrontation with Minerva is more impactful for a violentine shipper who has more investment in Violet as a character. Louis doesn't have as strong of a connection to her.

However, what they're failing to recognize is that Minerva isn't the only ghost to haunt this narrative. Violet may have Minerva, yes, but Louis has Marlon... and that doesn't just go away once Marlon's dead.

Violet's route has Minerva as her ex-girlfriend, and her bond with Tenn that all comes to a head on the bridge. Louis' route has Marlon's death and how that specifically impacts his relationship with AJ and Clementine, and the slow burn of forgiveness on all sides.

Marlon and Minerva are also reflective of Clementine's worst outcomes.

Clementine and Marlon were tied together through Brody's blood splattered on their hands and faces. They both killed a part of Brody, but only one of them lies about who killed her first.

After Marlon dies, Clementine gradually replaces him throughout the game; Rosie is her dog now, she uses his bow [which Louis gave her], she becomes the leader. Clementine gets them to fight back, and when three of her people are captured, she doesn't cut her losses. She does what Marlon couldn't; "we're getting them back."

When she chooses Louis, he does for her what he never did for Marlon: he steps up.

Clementine proves she won't become Marlon just as she proves she won't become Minerva.

After getting James to agree to help them, Clementine and AJ talk about what to do if she ever gets bit. AJ says he'd want her to bite him, too. He repeats this sentiment after she's actually bitten, telling her he wants to stay and they could turn together, peacefully.

When Minerva confronts them on the bridge, she's dying... and she wants Tenn to die with her. She doesn't care who she has to kill in the process. She's more monster than human at this point, and most times, she succeeds.

They're both bitten. Clementine could've become a monster like Minerva in the end. She could've killed AJ, and they could've become walkers together. But she didn't. Minerva wanted Tenn to die for her, and Clementine wanted AJ to live for her.

Also, I should mention she has Minerva's axe. She carries the key weapons associated with Marlon and Minerva throughout different points in the game, further solidifying these connections. She uses Marlon's bow to save her friends, and she uses Minerva's axe to save AJ, who in turn uses it to save her.

What's also so interesting about this is how Marlon's alive in episode one, and Minerva is thought to be dead. Louis has his best friend, and Violet's lost hers. But, at the end of the episode, Marlon's dead and Minerva's revealed to be alive.

Marlon becomes the ghost, and Minerva becomes the monster. Clementine becomes to Louis and Violet what Marlon and Minerva never could... how does that not drive anyone else insane?

So, no. One is not objectively better, or more impactful, because of a connection to Marlon or Minerva. They're different. It just depends on which storyline you personally find more compelling.

Actually, let's talk about that a little more.

In my opinion, the most intriguing point of comparison between Louis and Violet stems from their perceptions of survival, and how that impacts Clementine.

An argument I see made against violentine is that Violet's boring because she and Clementine are too similar. This usually comes from clouis shippers who prefer the "opposites attract" dynamic Clementine and Louis have.

On the flip side, there's the counter argument that Louis is reckless, that he doesn't take survival as seriously as he should and Clementine wouldn't want him because of that.

These are interesting to me because I get where they're coming from... but they ultimately miss the point.

The other day, I replayed TFS. Except this time, I did something a little bit differently. I played my usual clouis route, but then I had the violentine route pulled up on my laptop so that I could watch these scenes, comparing them side by side… and something occurred to me. 

Louis is about challenging Clementine's perception of survival, and Violet is about validating it.

Louis challenges Clementine from the very moment we meet him—he’s playing music. His initial philosophy on survival butts heads with Clementine’s. The fact that hunting with him and Aasim challenges your perception of “your choices have consequences.” These games have conditioned the player to think along the lines of, “Yeah, Louis is more fun… but if I don’t hunt with Aasim, we won’t have any food.”

Except that’s just it. I hate to say it, Aasim, but in the grand scheme of things… hunting with you doesn’t matter. It's actually less rewarding. You know why? Because in the next section, we get food from the train station. It would’ve been more beneficial to spend time with Louis over hunting, hence how he challenges you.  

This then primes you for the choice between choosing to follow Louis or follow Violet. I know people complain about how this is presented with Violet doing something productive [checking the walls] and Louis playing piano… but that’s the point. If you’re going through with Louis’ full route, you need to meet him at his level, and in turn, he will meet you at yours. You need to accept the challenge, the idea that Clementine isn’t entirely right about the way she’s gone about survival.

Oh, and do I even need to mention the vote? The debate over Louis’ vote is exhausting. Often times, people tell on themselves in how they talk about it. It’s not actually about the fact that he voted against them. If it was, these people would have a bigger bone with pick with Mitch, Willy, Ruby, and Omar… and yet Louis is the one who takes all the blame as if he’s the only one personally kicking them out. 

Louis is reacting to the death of his best friend, and the complicated feelings that come with it being caused by AJ. He wants accountability, even if he knows something's wrong. You can either agree with him that it was murder, and set AJ on the path of atonement… or, you can double down and tell him to fuck off, AJ was justified. 

But here’s the thing… the vote adds to the appeal of Louis’ route. To someone who hates him, or at the very least is critical of his vote, that sounds mad or delusional.

Except it’s really not.

Ever heard of a thing called tension? Because there’s a lot of it in ep2 between clouis + AJ and it’s fantastic.

Yes, Louis voting them out is problematic because we need a problem to solve. We need something to feed the tension between him and Clementine. He stepped in front of a gun held by his best friend in order to protect her, forever changing their relationship… only for that to seemingly be taken away from us the moment AJ shoots Marlon. 

Yes, Louis’ route is about being challenged, but it’s also about challenging him. That he’s able to forgive them, that he’s able to question his own survival philosophy and understand theirs, that he’s able to apologize and actually change for the better… that right there is what makes clouis so damn good. 

He becomes hardened whereas Clementine softens. By the end of the game, they’re on a similar level now without neglecting their differences, and they can move forward together. 

That’s what makes Louis’ route appealing… and it’s also what makes it unappealing to people who prefer Violet. 

By contrast, Violet’s already on Clementine’s level when it comes to this perception of survival. She validates that Clementine’s on the right path.

They have other similarities in the way that they’re both female, queer, they both have a kid they look after, they’re not always great with other people, etc. 

People who prefer Louis might consider this boring, but I think to Team Violet, it’s comforting. It’s comforting to have a partner who takes this as seriously as you do, who wants to get shit done. They’re playing Clementine with a similar attitude, and don’t believe it needs to be challenged. It’s comforting to feel validated on something you already firmly believe in. 

We also see this if we compare the hunting and fishing scenes. You have to make an effort to choose Louis by choosing to neglect hunting, but the game makes you fish with Violet no matter what.

Violet’s prioritizing fishing because they need food. That’s what they’ve set out to do, so let’s do it. The game is letting you know that’s the case, and if you value that, continue pursuing her. 

While fishing, they discuss why things are weird with her and Brody. Violet doesn’t take well to Clementine’s blunt, “Because you make it weird. Brody tries and you just make fun of her."

That’s understandable because I think she already kind of knows why and is looking to have her feelings validated. She prefers it when Clementine suggests that it’s because Brody never said sorry for what happened to the twins. 

There’s also comfort and validation in the way Violet sides with Clementine and AJ after Marlon’s death. She votes for them to stay, vocalizing how much she disapproves of the results. There’s this feeling that I recognize from a lot of the sapphic romance I read; “it’s you and me against the world, I’ll always have your back, even if you’re in the wrong, I’ll fight for you.”

In our case, it’s violentine + AJ against the rest of Ericson, save Tenn and Aasim. Violet validates that AJ was justified because Marlon was a liar and murderer, claiming that AJ and Clementine did nothing wrong. Violet fights to keep them. 

The tension between violentine in ep2 is different because instead of one pushing the other away, they’re being forced apart by the vote and there’s nothing they can do about it. That tension is somewhat released when Clementine comes back and they’re reunited, working out a plan to best defend the school. 

It’s also why Violet’s presented as doing something productive when you follow her instead of Louis, and why she asks if you want to hang out after checking the defenses. 

All that being said, allow me to reiterate that one is not good and the other bad, they're different. These concepts of challenge and change/validation and comfort exist on a neutral road as diverging paths. It’s up to the player to pick what path they prefer, but that doesn’t mean the other path isn’t worth acknowledging or analyzing. 

I should also mention that they’re not exclusive; there is overlap with validation being present in Louis’ route and challenges in Violet’s. They’re just more present in episodes 3 and 4 after we’ve made our decision. 

There are several more examples of how this all fits together, buuuuut–

Ya’ll wanna compare some allegories?

Those familiar with my content might already know where I’m going with this as I’ve made a post about Louis and the piano in the past. 

You see, I believe that there are allegories for Louis and Violet’s hearts present in their routes: Louis’ piano, and Violet’s pin. 

I already have a thorough, in-depth analysis of Louis and the piano that you can read, so all I’ll say about it is that on the night of the raid, he asked Clementine to carve a piece of herself into his heart so that no matter what, their initials will be immortalized together in its wood…

And that makes me fucking feral. 

But I'm also so normal about it.

As for Violet, her heart is the star gazing pin she gives to Clementine. She gives it to her so she’ll always remember that night… but she doesn’t give it to her until after Clementine’s saved her, and that fascinates me in the context of it being allegory. 

Louis asks Clementine to carve herself into his heart right before the raid, cementing that from that moment on, he is utterly devoted to her. I believe this is part of the reason why Louis is still happy to see her if he’s the one who’s captured. Yes, yes, he’s also incredibly traumatized from having his tongue cut out and he’d be happy to see anyone, yada yada… but listen, if you romance Louis and he’s captured, his heart remains with her—that piano with their intitals is on full display. When he sees her, he’s still so devoted to her that he refuses to accept that it’s at all her fault. Even when she says it is, he shakes his head... and he so easily accepts her when they’re together in the end. From the moment Clementine puts knife to wood, he’s hers. 

Now, look… you might think I’m going somewhere not great with this but hear me out. 

I think after Clementine’s gone star gazing with her, Violet is fully ready to give her heart to her. Y’know, give her the pin. But, think about what Violet said about how people have left, but Clementine came back. Plus, with the impending raid to think about, maybe Violet should keep the pin until the right moment. 

I believe a key difference between her and Louis is that Violet needs one last thing to solidify that Clementine’s the one. 

Louis gives her his heart prior to the raid because of everything that’s already gone down between them following Marlon’s death. Violet needs to know that Clementine’s willing to fight for her the way she fought before. When Clementine saves her from the raiders, it’s solidified. Even after she sees Minerva again, it changes nothing.

It’s also worth noting that the pin is something Clementine wears. Like the piano carving, it’s a piece on display for everyone to see, to let them know whose heart Clementine has.

Violet literally handed Clementine her heart as a means of saying, “I’m yours. I’m devoted to you.” 

This is why romanced/captured Violet is devastating, and is why she behaves the way she does in the cells. She was so ready to give her heart away and then nope, sorry, Vi! You get knocked unconscious by raiders instead! 

If anything, you kind of deserve to be told to fuck off if you romanced her and then let her get captured. Just sayin’. 

Look, I have a lot of complicated feelings about the captured violentine route, mostly with Violet being as forgiving as she is after her eyes are burned—yes, yes, I know, her eyes are burned and Minerva messed with her head so of course now she’s not hostile, yada, yada. 

But I think it’s rather telling that you don’t get the pin in this route. Sure, Violet’s willing to forgive and possibly pursue this romance in the future… but she’s not ready to hand over her heart, not truly. Not after everything that’s happened. 

And if you want to get extra angsty about it, imagine that Violet made the pin right after they parted ways, but before the raiders came. Meaning that if she’s captured, it’s possibly still sitting somewhere, abandoned. 

Mmhmmm, very normal about this. I feel normal. My normalness about this continues... normally. I'm not losing my shit thinking about that. Nope. Why would I? I wouldn't! So normal.

Okay just let me talk about their reactions to Tenn's death and then I'll shut up.

This makes me want to gnaw my own foot off, I can barely handle it.

AJ shoots Tenn on the bridge because Clementine trusted him to make the hard calls. This saves Louis or Violet's life.

When Louis jumps across, he's completely silent as he watches Tenn die... and then he's pissed; "What the fuck?! How could you just shoot him like that?!"

AJ explains himself, that he did it for him, and Louis is so upset that he forces AJ to look at what he's done, to watch the walkers eat Tenn; "Tenn's dead. He's dead! Do you realize that?! Look! [...] He's... he's gone, because of you. Just fucking gone."

If Clementine says AJ saved his life, Louis says, "So what, we just cut him loose? Gun him down like he was nothing?"

If Clementine says nothing, Louis says, "Tenn was just a little boy!"

The reason Louis responds this way is because in this moment, he just relived Marlon's death all over again, but worse. So, SO much worse!

When Violet jumps across, she breaks down, begging, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! No, no! No, no, no..." as she watches Tenn die... and then says to AJ, "No! What the fuck?! How could you do that?!"

AJ explains himself, that he did it for her, and Violet is faaaar from okay; "For me? I can't... Tenn is gone! That soft little boy who liked to draw, he's gone, because of you!"

If Clementine says AJ saved her life, Violet says, "You think that's okay?! Just gunning down one of our own?!"

And there it is.

Louis is hardened in this situation because he already went through this... Violet hasn't, not with AJ. She softened up throughout her route due to her relationships to him and Clementine... but this is the moment where she realizes that maybe AJ wasn't as justified as she believed, and this is the consequence.

This leads us to the ending where AJ asks if they're still mad about him killing Tenn, and I just... I'm biting my foot right now because the script has flipped.

Louis is forgiving and understanding. He's soft, he's sympathetic, he shakes AJ's hand to let him know that all is forgiven and they're okay; "I... AJ, I guess it's like... You saw something I didn't. About the situation, I mean. Minnie and the walkers and Tenn, it's just all this chaos in my head when I think back on it. [...] Clem says you saved my life? Well, then, that's exactly what you did. And how can I stay mad at anyone for doing that?"

Or, alternatively, "He was your friend, AJ. I know you are hurting just as much as I am."

As for Violet? She's understanding, too... but she's not quite ready to forgive yet; "The thing you said on the bridge...that he was messing up all the time. It wasn't something new, you know. Tenn got himself or other people into trouble all the time, long before you guys got here. He was always so lost. He lived in a world that just...isn't there, you know? And that's why I tried to look after him. But when I was pulling him away from the walkers, and Minnie, I could also see...he just wasn't there anymore."

"So you're mad, but sad."

"Can I be that for a while?"

And it's completely understandable that she's hurting and struggling with how she feels about AJ moving forward! She wants to be okay, she wants to forgive him, she just needs time.

Now, because I'm forever bitter, but I'm gonna mention this as well: whenever I see someone point at Violet's scene and say, "See!? This is how LOUIS should've acted in ep2!" like... they're telling on themselves again. Not just that they don't understand Louis as a character or his route, but that they don't fully grasp Violet's part in this either. Or time frames, for that matter.

Let me put it to you in simple terms... they react the same.

After Marlon and Tenn die, they're upset. They're pissed. They blame AJ and yell at him. After they've had time to process what happened [Louis after the two week time skip, Violet after time passes between the bridge and the ending] they share the same, "I'm still upset about Marlon/Tenn. Can I be that for a while and still be your friend?" sentiment.

The difference is that Louis is treated poorly for it because of the vote, and because we feel it first hand for longer... Violet got to grieve off screen and come back after she's sorted herself out.

It's a disservice to both of their characters because it's rooted in that same mentality that I criticized at the beginning: "This is why one is better than the other."

Do I need to say it again? I'm gonna say it again.

One is not good and the other bad. They're different.

There are so many fun discussions that could come from putting Louis and Violet side by side, and examining them. I haven't even covered the different ways they're introduced, or compared their ep3 dates to see what it says about them and the overall narratives! What about the cell scenes!? How they react when Dorian's about the cut off their fingers! The way they approach James upon meeting him!

That last one in particular is especially funny! They're all under stress about blending in with a herd of walkers to infiltrate a boat to save their friends, and yet Louis easily saunters up to the guy wearing walker skins with a smile, and makes him laugh by saying, "Functional and fashionable. I'll take two."

Violet approaches James like he's an injured wild animal that's going to bite her, and bless her heart, she tries with, "I, uh… hey. Hey there, James. Sorry about Willy." Then James gives her this judgmental side-eye, like buddy? She's not the weirdo here.

There is so much potential to dissect here, and I want to see people do it... but I want them to do it fairly, in good faith.

I want to get away from the idea of comparing them to "prove" which is better because there is no objective better. There isn't! That's a waste of time!

I'm so done with The Debate™; it's unhelpful, it's annoying, and it's boring as shit. I've heard it all before, and you probably have, too.

I want to put Louis and Violet under a microscope and study them with the thought process of, "one does this and the other does that... what does it mean!? what does it say about the narrative!? Oh my god, they have the same opinion on this thing, WRITE THAT DOWN!"

So yeah, that's my ramble for the night.

I'm gonna go replay TFS for further research.

[mollysunder]

The pacing in s2 really distracted us all from really inspecting how funny and genuinely fascinating Jinx and Viktor's one and only direct interaction was. I don't mean the snark, I mean Viktor had to have known Jinx fired the rocket, either from gossip in Zaun or being literally in a bunch of Zaunites (and Salo's head).

There's no way that Viktor didn't know practically killed him and irrevocably altered the trajectory of his life. In fact, he's likely gotten all kinds of angles on who Jinx is from everyone in the commune. Viktor really could seen from the periphery if his followers' minds the Jinx's growth from Vander's black sheep to Silco's darling terror. And after seeing all the things she's done, he invites her live at his commune!!!!!!

Insanity.

[shanblackrx]

ADDING TO THIS:

I've talked briefly about this when analyzing the marriage pillow talk scene, but quote on quote, "those (forehead to forehead scenes) were not that lowkey confessions in my book" is right. And I think these forehead touch scenes basically show the development of Jack's feelings. So to expand the logic about these scenes a bit:

this one - Jack has just realized and accepted his own feelings, and gave hints. Even if he was uncertain about Joke's (or if Joke realized his own feelings, bc by now it'd kind of be pretty clear lol but he still didn't want to pressure him), and didn't outwardly say he's in love, he still made Joke promise to be by his side in the most important moment of his life - when he achieves his dream. It's the easiest way to be by someone's side, when they're at their best, but he did want to share that moment with Joke. Confession 1.

the one at the hospital - it was when everything went to shit, he didn't have a choice but to pause any further development of their potential romantic relationship, or it'd put everyone's life on the line, especially grandma's. He asked, almost pleading, if Joke would still be by his side if the worst would happen, because he wanted him to. He wanted Joke to be by his side even when he'd be at his worst. It's not easy at all to be by someone's side when they hit the bottom of the barrel, and especially Jack who never wants to bring people down with him, he still wanted Joke there with, FOR him. Confession 2.

the kiss - Kind of self-explanatory since he literally confessed, but something important to note: not only did he get free of what was holding him back, I think the whole deal with Rosé made him reach his limit. After staying so long with someone he didn't love and having a bad falling out with Joke because of it, he could no longer starve off his feelings and that's why he told Boss he couldn't do it anymore. He left Rosé and her house with the goal of coming clean. And even then he didn't do anything on impulse - he still 'baited' Joke into asking who he liked. There was literally no other reason for the truth or dare game after saying he turned Rosé down because he liked someone else. He pulled more or less the same move of the first scene, creating a chance for himself to confess, but this time he wasn't just testing the waters. I'm pretty sure he'd confess either way. He did it because he wanted to be with Joke that very moment and no later than that. So, Confession 3.

We don't see Jack's POV too often, and even when we do, the feelings are so subtle, so under so many layers of self-protection, self-sacrifice and self-control it's hard to see them clearly. So that's why I think these scenes say a whole lot about Jack and how his mind works, even if it's hard to see.

Most of you probably already know this but I guess it doesn’t hurt to say it.

We all know how Jack is.

He is methodical. He thinks things through. He doesn’t do things by impulse.

So this? Why would he pick those words, particularly? Love, Confess, Promise??

WELL

I think Jack was already thinking of confessing, cause he already knew his feelings here

and this

was a test run.

So, when all Joke gave him was that cute little “huh?”

it became too much, too real, suddenly

so he of course chickened out, which is understandable.

and backs away from it

I think about this all the time and I haven’t seen anyone mention it so I thought I should, cause like I mentioned, Jack isn’t one to act on impulse.

No, he gave himself a chance to confess his feelings by creating the perfect setting for him to throw a smoke bomb if it didn’t go well so he wouldn’t have to do any damage control.

Jack you’re very smart, but I see right through your thirsty ass, my babes.