#power couple if you ask me
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i'm weak weak weak wEAK for bokuto and akaashi's english va
#haikyuu#bokuto koutarou#akaashi keiji#among my favourites might be#bokuto: *celebrating *#akaashi: you are amazing. you beat a single blocker#bokuto: sHuT UP#power couple if you ask me
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"goodsir is neoliberalism bc he tried to kill those guys blah blah blah" they kidnapped him and then they made him cut up men to be consumed as an act of control and pure humiliation by threatening to kill probably the last man he still liked in that party, forcing him to be complicit in an act he is viciously against, and to be complicit in the survival of the very men who betrayed the whole expedition and who are using him like a tool. and then the guy he's trying to protect comes up to him to sob and monologue at him about cannibalism and religion and acts of survival and belief as some kind of justification for the fact that he's an absolute pussy ass bitch who'd rather lie down and take it than stand up in the face of acts and circumstances he finds abhorrent. and goodsir was supposed to not be a cunt abt that? lol
#it's so important that in ep 1 we see him trying to argue with stanley bc he doesn't want to cut into young bc he asked him not to#and stanely is like. cut into him you loser. and like he does it but he really doesn't like it bc young specifically asked for the opposite#it's desecration of his last wishes#and then in the mutineers camp he is forced to cut into someone again when he absolutely does not want to#he doesn't want to be complicit in the cannibalism and he doesn't want to help the mutineers#which hickey knows. so he uses the act of cutting up the bodies as an act of humiliation#just as stanley standing there like a hardass doing fuck all except be an ass only you know. worse.#so often when goodsir tries to do what he thinks is right someone with more power tries or does prevent him to do so#and the comparison to stanley burning everyone as a mercy kill doesn't hold up for me bc at that point so much just has not happened yet#completely different situations. at carnivale stanley has lost hope where everyone else still has at least some of it#at mutiny camp there's a couple men who betrayed everyone else out of arrogance and selfishness#and hickey gets off on humiliating those who he thinks think are better than him. hodge for his previous position. goodsir for his morality#like goodsir was not needed to cut into those bodies. and he knows he isn't he deadass says that.#the only reason hickey makes him do it is bc he needs to humiliate him.#brother id be so fucking mad id start killing everyone too#the terror#harry goodsir#it's like listen i get where the argument is coming from. but also i think this is a very understandable thing to do from his perspective
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for whumptober: jean or lisa for “magic with a cost”? thank you!!
Thank you for the prompt! :> I was going to just go with Lisa because I've done less whump for her, but somewhere along the development process I went, "why not both?" Which made twisting Lisa's arm (c.f. yesterday's post) that extra bit harder, but it was fun to do! I hope you enjoy it too.
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ETA: Now on AO3.
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Even an illustrious member of the Hexenzirkel can make mistakes at times.
Lisa hadn't been thrilled when Alice co-opted the doors to the restricted section to install a passage to her Theater Lobby. The guests passing in and out of the library are not always quiet, and it makes entering the actual restricted section *much* more difficult. The one advantage is that now, everyone who's poked and prodded her over the years as to what may be down there now believes that it was Alice's little play-place the whole time. Only a handful of people know otherwise.
Unfortunately, the restricted section doesn't just hold books. Not everything there has dealt well with having such strong, otherworldly magic nearby, and Alice... well, Lisa has long known that Alice doesn't bother to cleanly seal her spells. Klee isn't a patch on her mother when it comes to collateral damage.
Though that seems a bit too understated a term for what they're looking at.
"What *is* it?" Jean asks, her voice hushed with horror. "Something of the Abyss?"
"No," Lisa tells her. "I'm not impressed with the Hexenzirkel right now, but I must admit they're very good about keeping Abyssal influences out of any space they decide to meddle with. They would never take the easy way out when making a new domain."
Not that Jean likely knows that partitioning off a space where the leylines touch the more malleable space of the Abyss *is* the easiest way to make a domain. Jean isn't here for her expertise, but because she had been the first one Klee had found to report that there was "something funny" behind the door. In the real space behind the door, not Alice's portal.
Jean is also the only other person currently present in Mondstadt who's actually allowed into the restricted section, or to know what everything in it *is*. She, like Varka, has a general understanding of the tomes and artifacts kept here; unlike Varka, she's put effort into learning which ones are most dangerous and why instead of just asking Lisa to keep an eye on them all. Lisa can sure she's trying desperately to match this sprawling mass, glittering tendrils of elemental energy creeping out of the room it's in to dig into the walls and floor and ceiling, with her own mental inventory of the place.
For her own part, Lisa feels almost preternaturally calm. When they had rounded the corner and seen this glittering maelstrom bulging out of the room it had been in, door torn down and mostly subsumed into the mass--it is, after all, mostly Dendro--she had been terrified for one hot, awful second, the taste of metal all down her throat. Lisa can't think of any better way to have a Nail hammered into the city than to let an unauthorized branch of Irminsul, laden with the forbidden knowledge concealed beneath the Ordo, arise within its walls.
Then she had remembered Jean behind her, and Klee waiting anxiously up in the library, and Sucrose in the lab next door, and Noelle dusting upstairs. All the knights in and around this building. All the people of Mondstadt, going calmly about their daily lives. That was when the calm had fallen. She doesn't know how long it will last, but she'll make every second count.
"*This* actually comes from one of the restricted books themselves. The Lawrences collected many books about magic in their attempts to more and more strictly control Mondstadt. A few thought they could somehow become the next Decarabian. But, well, when you're collecting books about foul magics, sometimes the book *is* the foul magic. This one was written in elementally-charged ink on paper woven in part out of Petrified Trees. Which is a very foolish thing to do. All you need is some resin... which I'm sure Alice used in her own work."
"So when Alice designed her Theater, there was enough resin in it for this to revitalize? Like a tree in a Domain?" Jean asks.
"Yes," Lisa says, proud as she would be of any student making a connection between what they've been told and what they already know, "very good. Not in the same way, of course. But once it woke, it started to take root and seek for leylines. That takes elemental energy, so it's consuming all it can from the environment. You can see how it's going after the Geo in the walls now. There was Dendro in the other books in there, so I suppose they've all been lost."
She sighs in regret. The knowledge they'd held might not have been forbidden, but there was a reason the Librarians of the Ordo had spent generations keeping those books hidden underground, safe from Celestia's gaze. What was in there might have had value, someday, in helping defend Mondstadt against threats the gods would rather they not even know exist.
"All right." Jean's voice is stronger now that she feels she has a handle on the situation. "What can we do about it?"
Her eyes shadowed with worry, but her hand flexes with eager impatience on her sword's hilt. Through the fear and false calm, Lisa almost smiles. Of course it was *'we'*, even though Jean has no idea what she faces or what to do. She won't abandon this to Lisa's expertise.
Perhaps it's unfair to let Jean participate, young and unknowing as she is. Lisa knows what taking control of this situation will cost anyone involved in it. She has paid that fee before, for a much more foolish cause. It would be kinder to tell Jean to step aside and tell her there's nothing she, unskilled in magic, could do. Jean is full of the kind of potential that Lisa has long since burnt out; isn't it waste to risk burning that, too, when Lisa could in theory bear the full cost? But she's too selfish to refuse.
"We'll need a seal. A very strong one. Luckily, that's something I'm very good at. Unluckily... making it will be very dangerous for us both."
Two years of helping Cyrus seal Hermanubis, over and over, until it stopped breaking through to overwhelm Cyno and he could develop his own control. She'd done a great deal of research in those two years. Along with all the other learning she'd been doing at the Akademiya, of course.
She had left her notes for them when she left the Akademiya, and Cyrus and Cyno far surpass her now. But this thing is taking root far too fast. There's no time to send for either. There's only what Lisa knows, from all that research and from one painful trial, about containing anything that feeds on elemental energy. It has to be blocked off before it *does* reach the leylines. There are no emergent outcroppings in the city, or close around it, thank Barbatos (quite literally, Lisa suspects), but if the roots continue to lengthen, they'll eventually reach deeper flows.
"What will we need?" Jean asks, as if Lisa hadn't said a word about danger. She's so charmingly reliable in moments like these.
"That adorable book Alice gave Klee as her catalyst," Lisa tells her, not without regret. "And two more catalysts from the armory. If we have a copy of the 'Skyward Atlas', I would prefer that, but I know we have copies of 'Sacrificial Fragments' and 'The Widsith,' and both of those would work. I already have my Favonius Codex," she adds tapping the familiar tome, passed down from one Ordo Librarian to another over the centuries.
It, like Klee's book, will be a shame to sacrifice, but she's written out copies of what it contains, just as her predecessors have before her. Those are locked away down here too. Binding a new copy in the requisite metals for magical channeling is simple enough.
Jean nods, salutes her, and turns to rush back up the hall to the stairs.
That leaves Lisa to begin designing the seal. This is going to have to be a strong one. *Very* strong, to lock this would-be leyline tree in. Fortunately, it doesn't have to literally encompass the sprouting mess in front of her; it just needs to do so symbolically. Otherwise, Cyno would have had to stand in the middle of a seal diagram for most of his childhood. Such seals rely on the caster's will to give that symbol force.
Will, and magical energy. If Lisa was relying on her Vision, that would be enough for this--the elemental strength she can bring to bear with it, reinforced in this case by Celestia's magic locking the energy that flows through Visions into a rigid and obedient course, would do the job, though it might cost her Vision to do so. That's a price Lisa, ambivalent about that very power, would be willing to pay alone. But an elementally-fueled seal would only serve as more sustenance for this sprout. This one has to rely on another source.
Very little magic in the modern era doesn't rely on the elements. Even when scholars speak of "old techniques," they're talking about herbalism, which still involves the elemental affinities of certain plants, or tapping the leylines, which remains an occasional if dangerous recourse for those without Visions but had been much more common before the Cataclysm. But there are even older techniques from before the establishment of the Thrones, some still practiced in various cultures under the guise of traditional healing, or martial arts, or superstitious rituals, that draw on another source entirely.
Her own lifeforce isn't a price Lisa *wishes* to pay. Neither if Jean's, whether or not she's willing--which of course she is, as a Gunnhildr, even if she doesn't fully understand the danger Lisa had mentioned. The danger Lisa isn't willing to explain, too close to old memory, too likely to rouse the fear that she's barely holding back.
Lisa draws her seal slowly, carefully, refusing to let that fear, however bitter in her throat, impede her work. She does use her Vision to crack two blocks in the walls, creating niches where she can set the catalysts she'll use as anchor-points. Her Codex she goes ahead and sets on the floor beneath one niche before drawing the appropriate lines around it.
Sumeran seals tend to use threes, Liyue prefers sevens, and Inazuma likes fives. Khaenri'ah was emphatically locked into pairs, and Fontaine has a terrible, unstable tendency to use just one anchor-point that Lisa hopes will change now that it's nearly wiped them out. Mondstadt doesn't have a sealing tradition in the first place as far as the Akademiya is concerned, but Lisa knows better. What else are the Four Winds and their Temples?
"I have them," Jean says, appearing behind her with her arms full of books.
The armory did have a Skyward Atlas; Lisa places it above the Codex, and Klee's book in the other niche. She hesitates between the small stack of copies of Sacrificial Fragments (ones Lisa had very precisely copied herself, each blurred and illegible line, while demanding exact replicas from Wagner for the binding) and the single copy of The Widsth before choosing one of the first. It may matter that it's in her own hand.
"It's growing fast," Jean says, audibly unnerved.
Lisa had been deliberately keeping her eyes averted as she worked. Now she looks. The tendrils have grown thicker, plunging deep into the stone--not breaking it, but absorbing it as they go. The door is gone, and the mass is taking on the distinct shape of a trunk. There are at least three questing taproots.
"We'll take care of *that*," Lisa tells her. She reaches up to undo her Vision from her throat, passing it back to Jean. "Our Visions will only get in the way. Set them by the exit, please. Mine will reinforce the wards on that door nicely, just in case."
She feels naked without her Vision. Even with all her suspicions about what it is, what it means, the cost of using it, it's still a part of her, and a well-worn and familiar tool. Which is why she can't risk drawing upon it in a panic.
Facing the burgeoning growth before her, Lisa breathes in deeply, tasting more bile bitter and metallic in her throat. By the time Jean returns, she has the shape of what they need in her mind.
"We need to extend this seal to encompass the whole root, and block it off," Lisa tells her, and holds out her hand. "Put your right hand within the circle on the wall, and your right foot within that one on the floor. Good." Lisa follows suit on the left. "Now, look with your Elemental Sight. Can you see the seal?"
"The square closing off the hall? It has no elemental signature...."
"If it hadn't already started eating the walls and Albedo wasn't up on Dragonspine, Geo might have worked. Though with that much Dendro, I doubt it. The technique we're using does have a physical cost," Lisa adds, because it wouldn't be fair not to warn her. "We both may end up incapacitated, or worse, when it's over, but we have to put up with it until the end unless we want this to go *very* badly."
Jean squares her shoulders and straightens her spine. "If that is so, place as much of the burden onto me as you can. I am the better suited. Though I mean no offense."
The fond affection that warms Lisa at that so-characteristic declaration is tinged with guilt. "None taken, cutie. Now, focus on the right-hand corners of the square, and imagine them pushing outward, into the corners of a box. Try to do so as you imagine the dandelions of your breeze," she adds, aware of Jean's personal mnemonics, "so that it will manifest in your Sight."
Jean nods and sets her jaw, and Lisa feels the seal start to shift. Lisa has to moderate her own efforts to match Jean's pace and not deform the spell. Already Lisa can feel energy starting to siphon out of her, a gradual lethargy like an afternoon slump, not yet the torrent she knows will come.
The far corners of the box slide past the trunk, laying out the dimensions of a boundary not yet formed. "Stop," Lisa says, and Jean stops pushing, holding steady, maintaining position with a warrior's rather than a mage's discipline. It's good enough. "Now the walls of the box. This will be the hard part. That tree is aware enough to resist."
"We won't let it pass," Jean vows.
Already, the tendrils are reaching further, closer to the intended boundary. "Jean, *now.*"
Walls shimmer into existence in their Elemental Sight. For a moment they simply glow, clear and white, not yet fully solid, but drawing more and more strength. Lisa blinks against the growing lethargy of it. Then a creeping tendril brushes against one forming barrier.
Confused, curious, more tendrils react out, seeking along the boundaries of its confinement for a way through. They pause for a considering moment as they determine there is none. And then the roots *erupt*.
The tendrils lash against the barrier of the seal, and Lisa hears Jean cry out. Her side holds steady, though, even against such onslaught. Lisa's waver as she feels her skin ripping open, as if she herself had borne the lash. She gasps, tasting iron, and steadies them by force of will.
"This will harden them," she manages to say, "but it will get worse," and then she starts to recite the verbal seal.
More tendrils slam against the walls of the box, and more open welts bloom with them. Lisa's voice falters. Ripples appear, on her side, where the tendrils rake the seal.
She can feel Jean reaching out within their joint working, the visualization that's far closer to what Jean has trained in before, and take hold of Lisa's half of the box. Taking more of the burden, as she'd asked. With guilty relief, Lisa lets the brunt of that go and focuses on the chant.
Her fingertips and toes are beginning to tingle. Fatigue, not merely lethargy, creeps into her bones. Jean's fingers tighten on hers in a way that suggests she can feel the numbness, too, while welts continue to split her flesh. Lisa adjusts her grip to hold her wrist. They can't lose this connection.
The walls are holding strong by the force of a Gunnhildr's will. Word by word, Lisa hardens them further. They begin to take solid form, almost, *almost* visible without Sight as well as through it. The tendrils beat harder against them, those three thick taproots trying to bore through. Jean sets her jaw, only a low moan escaping through gritted teeth. Her breath hitches, then steadies.
Under Lisa's tingling fingertips, her pulse hitches, too. Hitches, steadies, then hitches again, beating too-fast and uneven, fluttering and frantic with more than just the palpitations of fear and fatigue. Lisa tastes iron again, and this time the terror isn't for herself.
"Jean, let go," she says, between verses of the chant. "I can finish this alone."
Jean's grip tightens around her wrist. "I will not fall before this is done."
Lisa feels the walls soften and takes up another round of the spell, but she dares a sideways look at Jean as she does. She's white-faced where her cheeks haven't cracked bloodily open, and her lips are going blue. The clumsiness of her grip says that the numbness must be all through her hands, and she has the wide-legged stance of the unsteady.
She is the stronger of them, it's true. Physically, she has more stamina. But she runs close to her limits all the time, no days at peace, no time to recover. Lisa hoards her strength and barely ever expends it. She has more reserves than Jean has endurance.
Twisting her arm free, she slams her elbow into Jean, pushing her backwards. Jean stumbles, crying out in fear and horror as her foot leaves its circle, and her hand slips from the niche. Lisa steps into them, spread-eagle, and seizes all four points of the seal.
For a moment the box's corners weaken. Sensing weakness, the tendrils lash out again. Lisa feels her skin split, raw and red, and doesn't try to hold back her scream. Then she launches shakily back into the spell. One more chorus--two more, maybe, with the interruption--and it *will* take permanent form.
Numbness crawls up her arms, up her legs, tingling at her joints and beginning to tighten her scalp and turn her face to rubber. It's worse than the welts, though at least she can't feel them in the spots where it touches. The fatigue crushes downward; she can feel the drop through her body as it tries to crash into unconsciousness, jerks her head up against it, and feels her heart hammer with adrenaline as fear and fury buy her the time to recite the last line of the last round of the spell.
The Skyward Atlas and Klee's Dodoco Tales are gone from beneath her hands, the Favonius Codex and Sacrificial Fragments no longer at her feet. Barriers shimmer into place between the eight anchor-points of a Hypostasis-perfect cube. The tendrils flail wildly and the remaining chunks of wall within the box melt into pure Geo, the sprout consuming the last dregs of elemental energy it can touch. Then, its taproots having failed to set, it starts to dissolve.
"Give it a few hours, and we can take that back down. Though we'll have to do something about that hole it's left behind," Lisa says, and then the drop hits again and this time takes her with it, right into Jean's arms.
She's only fully out for a moment, though she's groggy and fuzzy-headed as Jean hauls her up to the section door, lays her down, and summons up a breeze from her Vision. The scent of dandelions revives her. The open welts still burn, tender and raw, but the breeze has at least stopped their bleeding. Her limbs and face and scalp are still numb.
As are Jean's. Lisa can see her, breathing steadily and easily now, pinching her own fingers. "Is this permanent?" she asks with all the worry of a knight who depends upon her body's skills.
"No, cutie," Lisa assures her, heady enough with relief to give her an indulgent smile. "It may last a few weeks, though, so you'll just have to take a break until it fades." She tries to reach out and take Jean's pulse, but she can't feel it, either; she'll have to trust in the color coming back to her face, and insist they follow up with Barbara as soon as they're able to leave. "I do mean you'll *have to*. If you don't rest and recover now, you may pay for it for the rest of your life. I have some experience on the subject."
"You do? That would explain.... Is this why you're so often tired?" Jean looks at her with too-keen eyes.
Lisa smiles up at her. "One of the reasons. Don't worry, Jean. The last time I did something like this, I was all alone. There's much less risk when working together."
"I am grateful you allowed me to take it on at your side, for so long as I could," Jean says, reaching out to clumsily grasp Lisa's hand.
She squeezes it, the pressure dull and distant through layers of nerveless skin. Lisa squeezes back as best she can.
"I couldn't have done it without you," Lisa tells her, and feels the truth of that, the relief of that, humming in her chest.
#fun fact: most of these prompts are unapologetically first drafts but this is like a 1.5#because i had to go back and pull out SO much in the way of meandering parentheticals that did not work with the pacing#give me lisa pov and vision vs. visionless magic and apparently i wander into the weeds REAL fucking fast XD;;#asked and answered#why not meme i guess#lisa isn't lazy she's just efficient#jean and lisa: mondstadt power couple#(since you didn't request jeanlisa i tried my best not to make it shippy. but that's my only tag for the two of them regardless XD;;)#ascended fic
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senior year nancy is so funny because here she is, editor of the school paper right, and she has this nosy freshman breathing down her neck and whenever he starts to annoy her, whenever he pries too much, she’s like: okay how can i insult him and get him to shut up, how can i hit him where it hurts the most. then she settles on
“FIRST of all you’re not jonathan” or alternatively…
“[jonathan’s] not like YOU…(explains why jonathan is her favorite boy in the whole world)”
she’s just so high strung and DONE and snappy and ready to graduate and you know what she is right; sometimes the best way to put someone in their place is reminding them that they are simply NOT (and will never be) jonathan byers™
#hello such a power move#i guess thats how they got the power couple reputation by the time senior year came?#i need to ask robin what exactly she meant by unstoppable power couple#and if it was a little sardonic#maybe not#fred stranger things#you have to feel bad for him like i would cry if she told me i wasnt jonathan#nancy wheeler#jonathan byers#jancy#text#jonathan x nancy#st4#stranger things#jonathan byers most darling boy in the world!
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“It’s a romcom!”
their breakup has a body count, which is neither especially romantic nor particularly funny 🤷♀️
#man I hope certain people experience what it is to have friends whose breakup becomes everyone’s problem#let’s see if you still think they are cute together after they tear the whole group asunder with their drama#and make everyone miserable before getting back together#and then act like they did nothing wrong and invite you to their way-too-soon wedding where you have to grit your teeth and smile#knowing one of them will be crashing on your couch for a week after the inevitable divorce#if ppl choose to be optimistic and believe in their love and their ability to work things out#that’s great more power to you. just stfu to me when I point out red flags that worry and sadden me#I DIDNT ASK YOUR OPINION. I LEFT IT UNTAGGED FOR A REASON#(to be clear I do think the show is funny and has cute love stories. but definitely NOT because of the main couple. yikes)
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you know when you see pics of older people from when they were in their early adult-hood years and and turns out they were BANGIN’ hot. like they-definitely-had-a-line-of-lovers type of sexy. Pierro.
YOURE SO SO REAL FOR THIS LIKE GENUINELY. Like. Pierro is that brand of old man crunchy where like.. he aged like a fine wine most certainly, but its so easy to tell that he looked like a greek god in his youth - chiseled jawline, striking eyes, that easy confidence that comes from a life of having pretty privilege thrust upon you from pretty much the moment you came out--
Like.. i feel like he wouldve looked like the grunge aesthetic young adult they slap on the front of album covers where he looks sunken and tired but in a totally dashing way, with wind-tousled hair (honestly i never even thought of his original hair colour until now. i just imagine it white/grey because thats SO him. i could see it being brown, maybe blond?) and eye bags that look like they were dabbed on delicately with eyeshadow and a brush.
but even with all of that i do also just see him looking like he was just straight up carved from marble with his broad shoulders and the confident way he stands. Like he was drop dead gorgeous, the folks of khaenri'ah swooned over him, most everyone assumed he would go on to become a knight simply because of the whole 'dashing knight in armour' stereotype.
He's the sort of guy you see playing someones grandpa in a film and you're like "wait hes so hot though. now i wanna see what he looked like when he was younger" and then you get mad because HOW CAN PEOPLE BE SO GORGEOUS THEIR ENTIRE LIVES HUH. HOW IS THAT FAIR.
I feel like his looks are not really something he openly acknowledges or even really realises - I guess this ties in to my oddly specific Pierro headcanons ((gives that old man a million mental illnesses and refuses to elaborate)) but i imagine he gets really really caught up in the minor details and just sort of passively sees himself as very just .. 'whatever', despite just how many people have always told him how handsome and beautiful he is.
Like, of course he'll thank them for the compliment but in his head he has like 90 rebuttals and genuinely convinces himself that theyre just saying it to be nice/polite/to get in his good graces/whatever. man has imposter syndrome out the wazoo .
I think he definitely aged very finely and gracefully, all things considered, but his obsessive fear of aging physically makes him feel like he hasnt. but to me . old man pierro is the most gorgeous . perfect.
#you know.. people always told me i was beautiful... but i never really FELT like it.#not until i met you.#asks#(trying so hard not to be an old man simp on main)#ALSO a tsarierro idea uhh something something type beat @ the tsaritsa .#like idk exactly how you imagine the narrative but i think theres something really special and unique about them both finding each other at#a later stage in their lives. and instead of mourning their youths and the times they couldve had together. they enjoy every moment they#have in the present. and keep moving forward. (and very importantly age fucking gorgeously. power couple.)#i feel like pierro is a big baby about the whole “we didnt meet until so late” but tsaritsa is a “we met when we were meant to. im glad tha#we have each other now" truther.#tsarierro#pierro#pierro headcanons#general barks#general howls#my writing#the tsaritsa
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I hate that people on a whole don't understand a narrative. Like...your English/literature teacher should've flunked people over this.
Probably the people who understand it best are the ones marginalized in life, because hey, we see ourselves in those characters. Other people have the luxury of just going "eh" and moving on.
But when hugely popular shows and movies and even books keep killing off their marginalized and suffering characters as the "only way this could've ended" I want to reach through a screen and choke them out because stop telling me the world is better without me in it., Or I will take you with me, and we'll see who's mourned.
It's not even just Bury Your Gays. In Outer Banks, they kill of the kid who is told from season 1 that you'll never make anything of yourself. You will always be poor, homeless, unloved, and alone. And then spend three and a half seasons showing you that this character absolutely will beat his own narrative - he finds friends that are his family, he finds a life he loves with the people he loves and they love him back, and then - they kill him. BUT THE RICH BITCH FUCKING PSYCHOPATH GETS A REDEMPTION ARC? I don't care how good the actors are, the narrative has now wildly swung from 'you can make it if you don't give up' to 'don't even bother - life will find a way to beat you down to where you belong' and airing two days after the catastrophic American elections - where the billionaires and greed and hate win?
The Umbrella Academy had three seasons of fun, quirky, broken people who tried so hard to fix their mistakes, to fix what they broke, and canonically, are representing marginalized groups that never get the happy endings. But dammit, this family tried. They didn't always get along, they were dysfunctional, but they still came together in the end, and loved one another despite the bad they have done. And then - the narrative again spins a wild one eighty and the story ends with "the world is better without you in it - die". Which is a very real narrative a lot of us live with.
The MCU - kills off Iron Man/Tony Stark, one of the very first popular characters who suffers from extreme CPTSD along with an alphabet of mental disorders; Loki, who is the adopted child and queer across the board, loses absolutely everyone and everything; Steve, who while he isn't dead, his character most certainly is because he goes from the one who does sacrifice everything to making a selfish, personal decision that winds up fucking over everyone; Bucky, who again isn't dead but he is openly blamed for the things he did while he was a prisoner and a mind-controlled assassin for the bad guys against his will by his mental health professional. And the narrative is "no, you should sacrifice yourself so the rest of us who treated you like shit can live a better life."
The stupidity of wanting to punish your audience who is punished enough in the real world often enough we don't need it or want it in fiction is just...mind boggling. And when those are the real words used by writers to justify their shit decisions?
I hope your death serves a narrative purpose, since you seem to think that is the noblist way to go.
#I am all for grim dark fanfiction#I am okay with pretty much everything in fanfiction because we are a niche audience and is a million different ways to write something#but to have the CANON storylines always tell you you're broken beyond repair#that you don't deserve a life at all never mind a happy one#That's some straight up bullshit#If at the end of your story the story itself didn't matter then it's a shit story#if nothing would've changed if the story didn't happen that's some lazy fucking writing#I hate that death is the noble sacrifice#and I can only think of 3 shows right now where they actively go no that's stupid#one is stargate where Jack is repeatedly asking if they can possibly make a plan that doesn't involve dying#second is discovery where the writers realized their mistake in killing off one half of the gay couple#and bring him back with the explanation of the power of love or willed back alive by his husband#Third is surreal estate where the characters have multiple opportunities to change their 'weirdness' for normal lives and they refuse#but seriously#where the fuck is my narrative of I will live to spite you#I will love to spite you#My very existence is an open rebellion against what you want me to believe
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柄本 佑 || 「光る君へ」 (2024) · 第三十回 「つながる言の葉」
#柄本佑#tasuku emoto#光る君へ#hikaru kimi e#1x30#made by me#fujiwara no michinaga#藤原道長#I love the heian no F4 reunion so much#mustacheeeeeeeeeeeeeee#new kimonoooooooooooooo#sigh Idk what to say I love this episode but michinaga's grown so much I barely recognize him#this episode got great aesthetics#cinematography#and nostalgia#oh right one thing I wanna point out:#he complained about Mikado asked him to be frugal#which is textbook double standard bc when sadako judai'd#he wouldn't even approve of giving her a fancy cabinet#and now he's complaining mikado being frugal????????#I also feel sad bc to me Genji Monogatari should be the token of the unfulfilled love between michinaga and mahiro#to me it's always like that even for the reallife!them#so it's kinda disappointing that michinaga saw it as a tool to help his daughter from the beginning#he probably didnt get to read the last couple of chapters but#the hidden cloud chapter didnt exist for u to see it as a tool to get to power#she loves you so much. and you? michinaga?
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Woah dang, waking up to 99+ notifs on tumblr almost always means that an old Homestuck piece is going around again... imagine my delighted surprise to see it was all notifs about Soli! That was a great thing to wake up to. Felt an actual flutter in my chest. Thank you so much, everyone! And apologies for how Elias' hair keeps subtly changing. You always kind of figure out exactly how a character looks and how to draw them as you go along with sequential art. It, funny enough, largely comes from figuring out their acting (so lots and lots of different angles and features that need to shift/change slightly to carry the weight of looking like they should feel, for lack of a better way to describe it ) At any rate, glad to see people are excited for chapter 3! next update will be next week, and will be a two page spread.
#solivaga#yackin#it isn't the first time by a long shot that I've woken up to see my inbox full of soli notifs#but that usually only happens when I'm actively updating the comic or have posted a new big fancy illustration#that dies down considerably ofc when we're at a between chapter pause because old fandom work has the power to stay searchably relevant#and it's probably common for comic authors to worry that if they don't get back to updating ASAP they'll come back to no audience#so coming back with the main storyline of chapter 3 and a couple of preview snippets filling my notifs for this project that I love so much#definitely made me happy#there's just a joy in sharing something important to you and introducing characters and their stories to others#ofc I say all of this and have been going through my askbox like an absolute slug lol#if I could choose the world's most niche and specific superpower I would ask to split my creative attention when i'm really deep in it#but my brain demands to Live in the Scene when writing it or drawing very acting-heavy or important scenes#and I become Slug#Rat slug#new animal for the veil
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it's been a strange arc so far
when I was 19-21 and having an extremely imbalanced relationship with someone in their mid 30s I was like 'we are both adults so the fact that this is fucking me up is my fault'
when I hit my late 20s and saw how young people in their late teens and early 20s seem now I was like 'oh wait I was so fucking young I didn't know shit about my own limits or about managing relationships and I don't know why someone in their mid to late 30s would be into that except for nefarious purposes'
the weird bit is now I'm into my 30s - not even that far into my 30s - and while I still wholeheartedly believe that last thing about how young (and self destructive) 20 year olds are, I'm also kind of like 'huh, actually nobody I know that age has their shit remotely together and frankly the reason this fucked me up is because NEITHER of us knew what the fuck we were doing it how to cope, for different reasons and at different life stages, and there probably wasn't any malice or intent to control as much as there was Blind Flailing.'
#red said#this is about one specific relationship btw.#wanted to clarify that because there have been several men over 30 who fucked me up between the ages of 16 and 21#and i adamently do NOT want to keep pretending that was incompetence. that was predation. sometimes incompetent predation.#but with the person I'm thinking of? she really hurt me and the age gap and difference in life stage was a not insubstantial factor#but mostly she was just spiralling out really badly and i offered her something to hold and she did try to keep things balanced and safe#but she was very off balance at the time. so the fucking up was more that than it was about power or control#we were just both very stupid and very sensible at the same time which is a great way to dig yourselves deeper#and idk I'm like 2 or 3? years younger than she was when we met iirc#and the closer i get to her age the more I'm like yeah you know that's a human reaction. i can see how that happens.#and i kind of feel bad for the amount of bitterness I've held and malice I've ascribed because ultimately#i think it was just two people having different crises trying and failing to figure out boundaries around them#but this has come on really suddenly and it's kind of fucking me up as well#cause I'm frightened of falling back into patterns of oh it's never anyone else's fault that i got hurt#but i don't. thiiiiink so? bc it's really only this one thing. i am not making these excuses for other people.#idk. sometimes people just fuck each other up.#I'm not even sure i think it was a bad thing that it happened. a lot of bad happened but we also catalyzed a lot of change in each other.#i feel like the reason i keep picking at this is that it's complicated. it was not good. it was good.#she really fucked me up and she was a terrible friend to me at times. but she was also the first person to really look after me.#and she kind of helped me start to learn how to need other people. which was good.#when my grandma died she wrapped me in a blanket and cancelled her plans to watch TV on the couch with me#even though she barely knew me at that point#and she was one of the first people to consistently ask for consent and check in. and she did genuinely care about me.#but she also truly fucked me over a couple of times.#but mostly that was just because she was buried in a pit of despair and self loathing.#she seems a lot happier now. i hope she is. i don't know if i want to know her particularly but i think if she's happy she'd be nice to know
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Hey what’s your opinion on the show domina if you have seen it?
I don’t like it!
#like Crassus is here but at what cost#more directly I think the first season is such a fucking disaster at exploring the role of women and power on the imperial scale#and just BARELY finds it’s footing in that regard in the last stretch of season 2 that it’s like. ehrhrhrhghh#I also don’t find any of the character drama interesting and the costuming is offensive to me (it’s bad)#screen test your goddamn fabrics challenge. mostly I was just so so so bored the whole time#anyway if you name your show Domina and set it during the Augustan Age/Early Imperial Rome it’s like.#go big or go home but don’t take the better part of two seasons to get it together#ask tag#sorry to all domina enjoyers btw. they have to endure me saying i dislike this show every couple of months lmao
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Jashtober Day 19 - Devil
Redraw of the thumbnail from Chonny's Inferno & Shutup You're Stupid technically
[Alt versions below of course] v
- TW for bright colors!-
Og image I mostly used:
#im so happy he did handsome devil for many reasons but one of them is that i had NO fucking clue what yo make for this day#like the og “idea” i had was something to do with his song devil's tricks.#which is my least favorite chonny jash song#its a fine song just not my vibe. so i had NO clue what to do#thank you for going to hell CJ! it gave me a better idea to draw about#anyways i like this a fair bit#i drew a couple more screenshots from the music vid that i wanna post eventually#bro is fun to draw#or at least practice drawing#also I like bright colors apparently lol#love it when i burn my already blind eyeballs#chonny jash#cj thdph#why did he spell it like that btw#i mean makes sense but wack to say#the that handsome devil power hour#such a clusterfuck of words to say#*the that* especially#mans is amazing with lyrics but never ask this bitch to title something#/lh of course#but i stg if he titles something else & he makes it more complicated than the og I'm fighting him in the back alley of an olive garden#he is stronger & taller than me and i most definitely will lose but that doesn't matter#its about sending a message#okay stupidity over ill shut up now#its 6am alright give me a break#jashtober#jashtober day 19#-atlas art-#KJ stop writing essays in the tags challenge (impossible)
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slams hand down do it you know you want to do it,,, sugar daddy au and now its just awkward as fuck but they get to Deal with It. bonus points for people laughing at them in the background. i am your inner demon whispering that this is a good idea and you should absolutely write it (no pressure ofc!!! take your time and its fine if you want to!!!)
for ship names. yeah very sad. i havent settled on like. a combination of their names that sound appealing to me so im just. sitting there awkwardly in Yun Taeheon x Shin Junseo. simple but it works. ill bonk my brain for ideas later,, i have cut down on thigns i need to hand in tomorrow im procrastinating because the thing i need to do is so horribly boring
maybe the korean side of the fandom has something going on but that would require me to go on twitter and figure out what korean words to put in the search box and I'm already failing at "go on twitter".
sdkhldfkhg the inner demons are winning. now I'm kinda contemplating how this would even start, which made me realize we know fuck all about Shin Junseo's past??? We only knew that apparently he had a shitty job before he awakened and didn't have any friends and seemingly also has no family.
So like? Local man signs up on an app bc honestly at this point being a sugar baby would not be worse than another horrible shift at whatever minimum wage job he has to pay the bills?
And cool, he hits it off with Yun Taeheon, something something business man. It's a lot less hollywood-pretty-woman than he expected, more nice dinners with genuinely entertaining discussions, and sure getting laid is nice too, and then, well, the world goes to shit for a hot second and well, the contract written before runs out, isn't renewed and Shin Junseo has a moment between picking up a shitty job again and awakening where he comfortably lives on his savings while his,,, ex? well, no, ex would be implying they dated. boss is also not quite the term, his previous situationship, made himself a guild master.
whatever.
and then the world goes even more to shit and he drags corpses and the memories of a world annihilated out of a dungeon. He makes his plan, keeps his head down and then fucking Yun Taeheon is standing in front of him again.
#ask#anon#weapon creator#btw i need you to know that i think YTH would be the one who is most awkward about it#like oh no that's the guy he was paying to spend time with bc he's a loser who can't find someone he'd like to date like a normal person#side note: i think yth is the kinda guy who'd text you at 1am like 'what flowers do i bring to meet your mom for the 1st time'#and while i think sjs was 100% telling himself all the time this is Just Business given how apparently starved for human connections he was#yth was probably genuinely going 'should i talk about just. being in a relationship with him?????' a couple months in#step 1 of being a sugar daddy FAILED#ANYWAY and he probably thinks 'okay i can play this cool'#and then sjs takes a look at the first contract he drew up#and says sth like 'oh wow you'd pay me more now' and yth would simply perish#sjs meanwhile is just awkward bc he suddenly has a lot more 'power' and is specifically wanted#god im so obsessed with how the only thing sjs wanted was to be useful and a friend#insane trauma to toss into the start of a story#dlfghdlfjkh anyway i am so sorry im just rambling
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I've been mutuals with you for a while and really want to reach out but I am lowkey terrified to do so-
GET OVER HERE AND LET ME LOVE YOU. But in all seriousness, there is nothing to be frightened of. I am as scary as a pink butterfly stuck on a marshmallow. I will always welcome anyone who wants to interact with me; like don't ever be scared to answer my open starters or even send in ask either from ask memes or just yeet the character in the box. The only warning I will give is I can be very slow at times...like a snail through molasses slow. BUT that does not determine if I want to roleplay with you — just be sure to check my rules (I try to update them when needed) and if you have any questions about the muses you can ask. Otherwise, come and interact, I would love to start something between our muses.
#Loss of Powers | {OOC}#ask#answered#anon#anonymous#I am not very fast at times...and I have a couple other blogs I hope to as well#Plus hyperfocus sometimes on one thing...#BUT OTHERWISE#No need to be scared of me; I am super shy of you tbh#But I welcome all who want to roleplay with me UwU#Gimme your muses
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@florietiae asked: ❝ i might need your help with this spell. / sam @ jess! witchy power couple, witchy power couple ! ❞
"Sure thing. Two witches are better than one." A breath slipped past her lips, the hint of a laugh. "Imagine if I'd said that in front of Dean a couple of years ago. Do you remember the look on his face when I told him my grandmother was basically a witch?" A bit like Jessica had grown another head and one might need to come off. Not funny in the moment, but certainly in retrospect.
One last grind of mortar and pestle left the cedar ground fine, and Jess rose from her seat. She carried it over with a smile. "Here. Could always use the protection, right? So," she reached out to take Sam's hand, "everything's in place and cleansed. Do you just need my energy, or is this about to get complicated?"
#☽—— ⸢ ask ⸥#s p n /#florietiae#˖ ☼ 𝒸𝒽. » ( jessica moore )#☆ —— verse ↳ f e l l i n t o o d e e p.#((witchy power couple witchy power couple!!!))#((you 🤝 me: taking every opportunity to makes our muses witchy or witchier. i love that for us <3))#☽—— ⸢ queue ⸥
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baizhu eating chocolate,,, if he can
151: can and should are two different things
#baizhu#genshin impact#baizhu genshin impact#okay i was not paying much attention to the ask box details the past couple of days and this seems....suspiciously targeted 👁🤔#i Suspect i know who sent this based on the timing and the 'if he can'#and i Suspect that this is about my Moste Tragic And Melancholiful Discovereigh.#in which i discovered that chocolate is too caffeinated for me APPARENTLY#maybe pretentious dairy free hot chocolate powder has more caffeine. idk :(#but Fine i can do a projection 😤😤😤#anyway this is all to say chocolate is good and you should eat it as long as like. it doesnt make u all nausea and heart poundy#i know without tag context it could look like something else is being implied but no i am implying that baizhus organs are mean to him#bc mine are mean to me so its like a power fantasy kind of. the power of a doctor saying oh yeah problems arent good#(as opposed to problems dont exist have u considered youre making things up?)
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