#reach out to me if it doesn't I can clarify what I mean when I've slept for longer than 5 hours

[burningcheese-merchant]

A Thought About Shadow Milk Cookie

I actually meant to make this post months ago, but I sort of let it fall to the wayside for the sake of other things. Now Blue Gatorade Cookie is coming out tomorrow and I'm like "ahhh shit I'm late" lol. Consider this a sequel/accompanying piece to the Burning Spice Cookie post

Shadow Milk always gave me a bit of the impression of being a Victor Frankenstein type. If you haven't read the book (please do, it's fantastic), then this quote sums up both the character, the story, and my perception of Shadow Milk pretty well:

"Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow."

Knowledge is power. Knowledge is freedom. Equally so, perhaps even MORE so, knowledge is fun. It's fun to learn new things. And with all of this in mind, Shadow Milk did his best to pursue the knowledge he so championed, and share it with the world, whatever it was. You give a man a fish and he eats for a day; you teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. So Shadow Milk made it his mission to teach all men to fish. To teach them to read, to cook, to sew. To teach them magic, to teach them science, to teach them whatever filled the gap between. Perhaps he even went so far as to become a close associate of a certain academy, if not outright being its founder (Blueberry Yogurt Academy theorists, where you at lol). Anything to achieve the ultimate goal of inspiring others to learn and thrive as he does.

But as I said, knowledge is fun. There doesn't necessarily need to be a reason for it. Maybe Shadow Milk never actually needed one; even if there was no one left to teach, he could always teach himself, for he was always his own greatest student. And so whenever he had time, he read every book he could get his hands on. Practiced every spell. Sang every song, recited every poem, memorized every bit of meaningless trivia. Anything and everything to feed his endless hunger for more knowledge. Because it was... fun. It was freeing, to have those little burdens of doubt lifted from his shoulders, however inconsequential they actually were. And - however much he was able to admit it, to himself or to others - it made him feel powerful.

Until he started learning things no one else had before. That no one else could. That no one else should.

Maybe he learned how to peek into people's minds, and saw exactly how vapid, selfish, stupid and cruel so many of us really are beneath the façades we wear. Maybe he uncovered secrets that accidentally tore apart families, scandals that threw governments into chaos, acts of betrayal that may have started wars. Maybe one day, he learned the ultimate truth of the world; who and what cookies were really supposed to be, and what their makers really thought of them. (Not too far off from White Lily, really.)

In his desperation for solutions as well as some semblance of self-comfort, Shadow Milk just kept on learning. Kept searching for answers. Kept acquiring more and more knowledge. Because it was all he ever knew how to do. It was all he believed himself to be good for. But it was never enough. Not only did he never truly find the answers he sought - whether it be because they never existed in the first place, or because whatever he found only made him ask even more questions than before - but he just kept going down more and more rabbit holes. And he couldn't stop himself-

No. That's not true. Of course he could. He just didn't want to. Because knowledge is power, and deep down inside, he was always power-hungry. And besides that, he was just so curious. Morbid curiosity can be a terrible sin. Perhaps a small part of him, one he never wanted to give credence to, relished in being smarter than everyone else. And maybe that same part of him was also hubristic enough to believe he could learn whatever he wanted to, whenever he wanted to, just because he could.

Perhaps Shadow Milk tried to sound the alarm, so to speak. Share those great and terrible truths he uncovered with the world. But nobody listened, no matter how much they believed in and respected him otherwise. Because the truth is stranger than fiction, more often than not, and there's only so much strangeness people can tolerate. Knowing this - knowing how foolish people can really be, how quick they are to shun the truth to protect their own feelings - he looked for another answer, like he always does. Shadow Milk always had a fondness for theatrics; he wasn't just a scholar, he was a poet, a playwright, an artist. And thus, it was with these talents and loves of his that he tried to teach people what he knew. He wrote stageplays that became famous. Fantasy novels that became bestsellers. Poems and essays that were read aloud in classrooms. Everything he could throw at the wall with as much panache as possible. Because that's who he is, and that's what people are more likely to listen to. People like bread and circuses, so he gave them a whole bakery and performed every circus act himself.

But it was never enough. Those threads of truth he so carefully wove into the tapestries of his work; no one felt them. Those easter eggs he hid; no one found them. Nobody ever saw what he saw, whether he snuck it into the picture or plastered it right in the center. And so Shadow Milk came to realize that no one ever actually wanted to know the truth, no one ever actually wanted to learn anything, no one ever actually valued knowledge. All people cared about was what they could personally gain from it and nothing more. No higher purpose of any kind. Just what conveniences and inconveniences them.

And what's the point in helping people like that? How do you teach the unteachable?

Shadow Milk likely became bitter (or sour, because lol milk). Maybe he slowly began turning truths against people. Hoarding people's secrets and spilling them randomly, just out of spite (and discreetly, because he wasn't looking to be caught, and nobody was smart enough to catch him anyway). Making puppets and plays depicting people at their absolute worst, and watching them all smile and clap because they fell for it. They fell for his jokes. For his ruse. They didn't notice he was mocking them without a shred of irony or remorse. The only art Shadow Milk became interested in after he succumbed to despair was telling cruel jokes at others' expense and painting pictures for all the Dorian Grays of the world so they can keep lying and pretending they're good and that they're worth something. Because lies are all people really want to hear, right? Because it makes them feel better about their miserable lives?

I'm sure Shadow Milk tried to turn back, even if only once, for just a minute. He's smart, he's wise, he knew what the end of that road looked like. Maybe he sat up all night just arguing with himself about it. About the nature of his work. The meaning of the knowledge he acquired. The meaning of knowledge itself. What was he doing this for, really? What has he EVER done this for? Was it really for others, or for himself? What if he gained all the knowledge in the universe, then what? What would he do after that? What if he did manage to convince people, what then? What if they panic? Turn on each other? Turn on him? Were they really better off not knowing?

Was he just slowly talking himself through that door until it was closed and locked? Did he do so knowingly? Did he delay the inevitable for... for what? Did he even know that?

All the knowledge in the world didn't save Shadow Milk from falling to darkness, nor did it save anyone from the chaos he chose to wreak afterwards. Maybe knowledge never saved anyone from anything. What is knowledge, anyway? What is truth? What is deceit? The more you know, the more you realize you don't know anything at all. Maybe truth and deceit are one and the same. Maybe reality is only what you perceive it to be. Maybe life is a joke. Maybe people should just have fun. Lie all you want. Tell truths just to drive wedges and shatter hopes and dreams. It doesn't matter. It's all the same. There's no way out.

TL;DR: Knowledge is power, but power corrupts. Perhaps not all truths are worth knowing, after all. Be careful with what you learn, and what you know. And be careful not believing yourself to be smart enough to dictate what truth and lies and knowledge are to others, for no one truly is. That kind of hubris will only lead to disaster.

(I'm sorry if some of this sounds weird or doesn't make full sense. I wanted to get my thoughts out before the update to see if it turns out that anything I say has official merit lol)

[argisthebulwark]

Do I Have Your Attention?

summary: calling your partner by their real name instead of a pet name. gn reader, no pronouns or y/n used feat: Vilkas, Farkas, Brynjolf, Miraak, Erandur, Cicero, Teldryn warnings: joke abt murder in Miraak's lol. masterlist

Vilkas knows you're trying to get under his skin and hates how effective it is. Despite all his grumbling he's grown to enjoy the sweet little names only you're allowed to call him. There's nothing wrong with his name, of course - but it doesn't summon that fuzzy feeling all your terms of endearment do. "Vilkas?" You call again, clearly trying to get his attention. He grits his teeth and pointedly ignores you. Tidying his desk has suddenly become very interesting. "Sweetheart?" "Hm?" He finally grunts, feigning nonchalance despite the color in his cheeks. "Oh, now you can hear me." He ignores how smug you sound, continuing to shuffle through paperwork. "How interesting."

Farkas doesn't like that. "What? No baby? No honey? Did I do something wrong?" He drops the rag, half polished armor entirely forgotten as he turns toward you. "No, I'm not upset with you." You clarify, quelling his nerves. "Why so formal?" Farkas adores the sweet things you say to him - calling him your honey, your dearest, any reminder that he is yours. "Sorry, my love." You crack a smile when he reaches for you, grabbing your hand. "Didn't mean to worry you." "I'm sure you'll find a way to make it up to me." He sighs, doing a terrible job at hiding how much he enjoys all of your attention.

Brynjolf knows you're trying to bother him. He's seen that mischievous look in your eye before and weighs his options - what will be more fun? He could play into your little game and pretend to be upset by the lack of affection, or he could turn it around. The way he says your name is aloof, almost cold. He watches your eye twitch and your grin falter. It's terribly hard to stifle a laugh when you clear your throat and struggle to continue the conversation. Oh, he knows he's gotten under your skin. Brynjolf listens to your request for proper recruit assignments and agrees, biding his time before taking it one step further. When your annoyance begins to wane he begins calling you by your last name, thrilled at the color your face turns. "Bryn, what are you doing?" "Not so funny now, is it? Guild Master?"

Miraak swears that he will kill you both if you don't knock it off. He threatens to burn your entire village to the ground if you don't cease whatever prank you've decided to play on him. In front of others, he will stomach your cold detachment - calling him by his name or title in front of those damned Greybeards. He knows a thing or two about manners, after all. But in the privacy of your bedroom, he is your love. He is the one who relishes in all those silly terms of endearment only you are permitted to use. He stews over your laughter, refusing to give in even when your lips press to his skin. "You are not funny." He grumbles, though he does lean closer for more of your touch. "Perhaps this is what was prophesized - you will be the death of me after all."

Erandur worries that he's done something wrong. He thinks over your day, struggling to pinpoint what social blunder he could have made. He knows that he isn't completely up to date on modern social courtesies but you do not physically appear upset. "I'm sorry, my beloved." He offers, praying that you will educate him. "For what?" "For whatever I've done to upset you. Please tell me so that it can be made right." When you explain that it's a prank, a joke intended to gauge his reaction, Erandur smiles sheepishly and tucks away that information for later. He kisses your forehead, grateful that you are not upset with him.

Cicero is not a fan of that. His brows furrow, trying to figure you out. You only use his name when you call him your silly Cicero, your pretty Cicero... never just his name. His head tilts when he notes the pink in your cheeks and the attentive way you're watching him. "Listener." He ventures, eyes narrowing. "Are you pranking your Keeper?" "I am." "Oh!" Cicero's hands clap when he revels in your laugh. "Silly Listener, you are quite funny." "Not as funny as you, my love." He grins at the kiss you press to his cheek, absolutely giddy at your approval.

Teldryn is a bit taken aback - you've called him Tel for years. And now you're dropping his full name out of the blue? You've never been one for overly sweet terms of endearment but he likes the shortened version of his name you use. He removes his helmet and peers over, trying to figure you out. "What did I do to deserve this treatment?" "What treatment?" "The full government name." He's relieved when a laugh bursts out of you, pausing your trek to slap a hand on his shoulder. "Oh, Tel. You're too funny." He wants to chastise you, but the little pet name and the way you draw near to him is fairly distracting. "It was just a little prank." "A prank?" He snorts, indulging in a short kiss to your forehead. "You have too much time on your hands."

[luvfy0dor]

“Please Don't Cry ♡⁠˖” BSD x GN!Reader ੈ✩‧₊˚

Warnings; crying, Nikolais kinda an asshole

Description; The BSD men seeing you cry, whether it's their fault or not

A/n; hi guys :333 one more request until they're all finished!! It only took me 6 months to do what, 11? 12? I don't know, I'm really slow when it comes to reqs, so I'm sorry it took so long!! I've also decided not to change to a gray theme cuz I don't wanna feel like I'm copying anyone, maybe one day though!!

Osamu Dazai ★

• It's probably his fault in most cases, but for this scenario we'll assume it isn't. Your day has just progressively gotten worse, and you were at the point where any minor inconvenience or annoyance would set you off and make you cry.

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You pushed open the door to your apartment that you shared with your boyfriend, bags in your hands ready to rip from the weight of the groceries inside. You huff and kick the door shut behind you, annoyed when it doesn't fully close and requires you to kick it one more time. You carry the bags to the kitchen counter and set them down rather aggressively, not minding the strength you put into roughly placing them on the surface while you turn to put them away and wait for your boyfriend to arrive home from work for once. You sigh with a hand on your hip and the other on your forehead, opening the fridge and observing your current minimal amount of food and get to stocking up. A few things make it into the fridge before you hear the door open again and your boyfriend call out to you. "Y/n? Home?" A hum erupts from your throat in response and he quickly makes his way to you, following the sound of your voice. "Hey, babe, how was your day?" He asks, grabbing a head of lettuce to hand to you. "Terrible, 'Samu, nothing tragic happened but like, all the little things, you know?" You say, shoving the head of lettuce into one of the bottom drawers of the refrigerator. He reaches over to grab the milk, but realized that the half-gallon wasn't completely full, and upon further investigation (lifting the jug up), he realized that the plastic had broken and milk was spilling out into the plastic bags, onto the counter, and down onto the floor.

"Oh, the milk broke." He says, taking a large, exaggerated step past you and over the milk to bring the half-gallon to the sink. You straighten your posture and stand up straight, head swiveling towards the counter with whiplash inducing speed. You felt your throat close up, making you unable to say anything in response. Before you knew it, your shoulders started shaking and your tears quickly followed that motion. You whimpered quietly into the palms of your hands which attracted Dazais attention again over the milk. "Aw, don't cry over spilled milk now!" He jokes, but when you give him an agitated glare and open your mouth to defend yourself, he switches up and pulls you in for a hug. "No, I was just joking, but it's okay! There's nothing to cry about, we can get more milk. Do you have any idea how it coulda happened?" He asks you, stroking your back. "M-might've put the bag down to roughly.." you say, sniffling and wiping your tears from your face. He gives a pitiful frown and kisses your cheek quickly.

"Well that just means you're too strong for your own good! Oo, see I knew there was a reason why I had to clarify I was joking, you could've broken my neck if I didn't." He playfully says, trying to cheer your up a little bit. You let out a shaky sigh and nod. "Yeah...I guess. We can go without milk for tonight, I'll get some more for tomorrow." You grab some paper towels from the roll on the counter and start cleaning up all the milk. He nods in agreement and pulls you into his body, pressing a kiss to your forehead and squeezing your shoulder. "Yeah, we'll live. We should get take out for dinner, I don't think either of us are really in the mood to cook." A little bit of weight is lifted off your shoulders, one less responsibility for tonight. "Okay, Chinese?" he nods and smiles. "Yeah. I'll call right now, you want your usual, right?" He asks, pulling his phone out of his pocket. You hum against his chest, ready to knock out and take a nap. His words blurred together as you felt yourself slipping into sleep, but with that you also felt great amounts of gratitude for your boyfriend for making you feel just a little better. Or maybe you just needed to cry a little, who knows.

Chuuya Nakahara ★

• Chuuya is no stranger to annoying co-workers and tiring missions, often wearing him down through the day, but sometimes he's unintentionally snappy. Don't worry, he's always quick to make it up to you.

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Throughout the day, the texts between yourself and Chuuya had indicated that Chuuya was having a rather troublesome day, especially because of the frequent complaints followed by the facepalm emoji. You decided that you'd kick back with Chuuya and relax, opening a new bottle of one of his favorite wines and maybe giving him a back massage or something to relieve his stress. You eagerly awaited that familiar sound of his key in the door, and when you finally heard it, you stood up from your seat. In walked Chuuya, his appearance a little roughed up. He hung up his coat and hat without a word or glance to you, walking right passed you into the kitchen. 'That was kinda rude.' You thought to yourself, but you knew Chuuyas job was stressful and sometimes overwhelming, so you let him walk off on his own for a while. You knew where he was going and it didn't concern you, just to the balcony for a cigarette. You crossed your arms over you chest, hoping that he'd come back in a bit of a better mood. You turned on the TV and occupied yourself with that for a little bit before his familiar, light footsteps were heard coming back into the house. "Chuuya?" You called out to him. You could hear his loud sigh. "Yes?" His tone of voice was clearly agitated and disgruntled.

You were taken aback by how clear it was that he didn't want to talk to you right now, and you knew it wasn't personal, but you couldn't help but be saddened over it. "Are you alright-" you go to ask, but he quickly cuts you off. "Yes, I'm fine, y/n, just leave me alone. God..." His words were followed by the bedroom door closing. You were stunned. Your mouth hung agape for a moment before you had to close it to swallow the shock that closed your throat up. After prying your eyes away from the closed door, you averted your gaze to your feet, feeling tears well up in your eyes. You felt bad for crying, but what could you do? All you wanted was to make him feel a little better and he wouldn't even give you the chance to. He chose to take some alone time instead, which you didn't mind, but he didn't have to be so mean about it. You went into your hands, some of the tears falling through the cracks in your fingers and silently onto the floor. Your sobs became louder and audible to Chuuya, who laid face first on the bed. He felt a bit guilty too, he never once asked how your day was and for all he knew, your day could have been just as bad as his. He knew you only had good intentions, and he didn't need to shove you off like that.

He sighed and got out of bed, opening the door gently instead of swinging it open and walked into the living room again, frowning at the sight of you. "I'm sorry, doll, y'know I didn't mean it..." He whispered quietly, placing a hand on your shoulder. You turned your head to look into his eyes, seeing the apologetic expression that painted his face. "Yeah, I know, but you didn't have to be so mean about it." He sighed and pulled you into a hug. "Yeah, I know, that was a dumb move. I just wanted some alone time, ill be better about it next time though, I promise." He says, grabbing your hand and kissing your knuckles. "Wanna tell me 'bout your day?" He asks, looking over at you. "Thank you. It wasn't terrible, just bland and regular." You tell him, erupting a hum of understanding from him. "I can only assume you already know I had a rough day." He jokes, trying to lighten the mood. "I'm real sorry though." The smile from his laugh turns into a more neutral one, almost a faint frown. "It's fine, just don't let it happen again, I don't like it when you're annoying like that." You punch his shoulder playfully. He groans in response, laughing as he stands up. "I won't, promise." He says, tilting your head backwards to kiss your lips. "I do still want that alone time, though, so I'll see you in a little bit, alright?" You nod in understanding. "Alright." He walked back into the room, giving himself some time to do nothing more than exist. He didn't sleep and he didn't think, just existed. You stayed on the couch, waiting for him to return with open arms, happy to see him giving himself personal time instead of forcing himself to be around people, even if it was yourself. Everyone needs a break sometimes, and Chuuya was grateful that you understood.

Fyodor Dostoevsky ★

• Fyodor came home to you, and that was enough to make you sob your eyes out. Happy tears, ofcourse, but your days had been riddled with anxiety since he left. He knew you'd feel that way, and he was fully prepared to open his arms to you again with that faint smile.

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You watched the helicopter land on the helipad with your heart pounding in your throat. Your fingers fiddled with the collar and fabric of your shirt as you waited for the propellers to come to a full halt and your lover to step off. Leaves, gravel, and dust alike all blew around your feet as the blades finally slowed and your boyfriend came into view. Your body tensed and almost started moving towards him on its own, but your anxiety stopped it, keeping you in your place. Your eyes scanned over his intact body and granted you a sense of relief when you saw no visible large injuries. He took notice of you and gave a small wave, walking towards you with a steady pace. You couldn't stop it anymore and all of a sudden you were moving towards him at an increasing speed. Before you knew it, your arms were once in their familiar spot around his torso and he was quietly chuckling. He ran one hand up and down your back and kissed your forehead. "Someone's excited." You nodded, feeling your tears falling down your face. It wasn't until he got a better look at your face that he noticed you were crying, and his smile widened. "You missed me that much, Myshka?" He says, tilting your head upwards to look at him.

"Obviously! You knew I would." You huff, sniffling and wiping your tears off of your cheeks, but they just kept on flowing. He laughs at you and pulls you back into the hug. "Well i'm home now, and you don't have to worry about me anymore. For now, atleast." Now he's already got you stressing over his next leave, but luckily you're able to push it away from your head in the moment and be grateful to breathe in his familiar scent again. You felt him place a hand on your head and exhale, his heartbeat being your favorite sound next to his voice. The feeling of his hands on your body was easily #1 in the category of touch, and his appearance was, to you, the very best sight. And his kisses, his lips, were by far the best taste. It had been so long until you felt his lips on yours, so you went for it again, cupping his face with your right hand and pulling him into you. He hummed and kissed you back, rubbing your hip with his thumb. When you pulled away, his face was pinker than before and his breathing unsteady. He swallowed before speaking. "Everytime I come back to you it's like adding gasoline to the bonfire that is my love for you." He says, looking into your eyes.

You couldn't help but find his words as silly as they were romantic and pulled him in for another brief peck. "You talk so formally all the time, it makes me giggle." You tell him, caressing his pale pink lips with your thumb. "It's better than the things I say that make you cry, yes?" He had a point. "Very true." He grabbed your hand and held it in his own while leading you away from the helicopter and to your car, more than ready to go home. "Your face is still wet from your tears." He whispers, wiping the remaining dampness from your cheeks with a smile. "Much better." You blushed and nodded. "Yeah, I'm glad you're finally back to wipe my tears for me." You tease. "Was a workout doing it all by my lonesome." He laughs at your remark and 'tsks'. "Well then maybe you should get more active or stop crying so much." He replies, a smug grin on his face. "Says you, the only arm movement I ever see you getting in is moving the mouse of a keyboard around." He shakes his head. "That's very untrue, you see me using my arms for other things rather frequently, actually." He insists. The sun shone down on his raven hair and gave him a halo-like highlight. How unfitting to the rest of the world, but sensible to you. "Fine, I guess so." You leaned your head on his shoulder as you continued to walk, finally liberated from the depression and anxiety that overcame you when he had left all that time ago.

Nikolai Gogol ★

• Nikolai doesn't mean to hurt your feelings with his teasing and jokes, but when you trip and fall face first into the pavement in front of a bunch of people and all he does is laugh with them, you can't help but cry out of embarrassment.

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You walked along a sidewalk with your boyfriend, one hand holding his and the other holding a coffee. Your conversation was filled with mindless chatter as your stride stayed at a steady speed. Your eyes were flickering between him and the pavement in front of you as you were careful to watch where you were going. You saw the feet of many people walking passed you both, avoiding the states they were bound to give you and your clownish boyfriend. Something astonishing must have come out of Nikolais mouth at a point though, because you've never turned your head so fast to look at him and stare for long enough to not notice the tree roots that poked out of the ground far enough to trip you and land you right on your face with both coffee and dirt all over your shirt. All falls silent for a moment before you start hearing snickers and then the outrageously loud cackle of your boyfriend.

You pushed your body up off the ground, clearly embarrassed over the whole thing and shot a glare at Nikolai. "Really? You're just gonna stand there and laugh?" Your cheeks were hot and your heart heavy with both annoyance and fluster. "I'm sorry, dove, it was just so funny! That stains gonna take awhile to come out, though." He says, pointing out the big splatter of coffee on your light colored top. You can't help but scoff. "It was so funny that you couldn't even help me up?" He nods, exhaling audibly and wiping a tear of amusement from his eye. "But ofcourse! If I wasn't paralyzed by my laughter than I would have been the first to help you." He started walking back home along the paved path with you, going to grab your hand but furrowing his eyebrows when you snatch it away. He looks up to your face with an exasperated frown. "Oh, don't tell me that made you cry." You just sniffle and huff, letting your tears drip from your waterline. "Come on, don't be such a baby. It's just a material item, I can always get you a new one." He says, referring to the shirt. Your expression is one of confusion before you snap out of it and correct him. "It's not that, it's the fact that you just let me trip, fall, and spill coffee all over myself and let everyone laugh at me! You even laughed with them! That's so rude." You say, trying to cover the stain to no avail.

He blinks. "Oh. Well, I told you I would have if I wasn't laughing- I thought we were like that, we laugh when the other falls, you know?" He raises an eyebrow. "Okay, yeah, but not in front of other people." You say, chewing on the inside of your lip. "That was....oh my god, I'll never erase that from my memory." You say, still completely overtaken by embarrassment. He bites his cheek and grabs your hand before reaching over to wipe your tears from your cheeks. "I'm sorry." He tells you, leaning his head on yours. "It wasn't ever with ill intention, darling. We'll go home and I'll get you changed out of that ruined shirt and whatever it takes to make you smile again." He says, smiling and opening his portal to whisk the two of you away. Soon enough you were standing back in your living room with a new shirt already in hand. "See how quick that was? Can I take this off for you?" He asks, tugging at the hem of your ruined shirt. You sigh and speak. "I can take it off on my own, thank you very much." You roll your eyes and pull it off, but it's quickly replaced with the new one. He laughs for a moment at your discombobulated expression, but the noise quickly quiets. "I really am sorry, sweetcheeks." He says, leaning in to rub your noses together. You peck his lips and brush his hair from his face. "It's fine, but don't be doing nothin' like that again. That was so embarrassing." You say, averting your eyes. He hums. "Alright, as long as my dove forgives me!" He smiles and pulls you into a hug, happy with your decision to forgive him.

A/n; dawg I'm writing this in the tj Maxx bro forgive me if it sucks lol

[zshiftsrealties]

LETTING GO

i've talked about this a little bit in one of my other posts, but I realized this was a very important topic — especially for people like me (before figuring it out) out here, and so I wanted to expand on it and give my own two cents.

the concept of "letting go" has been taught to most — if not all — of us by life long ago before any of us even found shifting. if you don't like a situation, "let it go". do your best, and "leave the rest and don't fixate on it". if someone you love doesn't respect you, "let them go". anything that doesn't serve you, "let it go". this is the one advice that got many of us through different situations. but everytime I ever came across a post saying "let go of your desire and watch it come to you", this quote always came to mind.

honestly, I couldn't for the love of God even think of letting go of shifting. I simply didn't want to. it felt like a betrayal to all the people I wanted to shift for, to myself, to my dreams — everything. I would think to myself "how do I not care if i'll shift or not? how do I not care about all these people in my dr I want to meet? I want to care. I have people I love, people I want to see, so how can I not care?", and it would make me so upset because I would see people talking about how they let go of it and it came to them. it almost felt like it was wrong to love, to care, to cherish this opportunity, and to want to be excited for it. I didn't want to "let go" and wanted to keep on holding forever. but then, I realized what the problem was. it wasn't my loving too much, caring too much, or anyone else's "letting go" of their desire to shift. the problem was my idea of what "letting go" means.

in any "normal" situation, "letting go" would mean "not caring" or "not giving your energy out where it isn't respected or celebrated". but. and a big but. when it comes to shifting, "letting go" has a totally different meaning.

• "letting go" in terms of shifting

to me, when it comes to shifting, "letting go" isn't about having an attitude of "if I shift, I shift. if I don't, I don't". while this can help some people, it's fairly hard for others to follow, because some of us WANT to shift and not even think about the "don'ts". so what letting go meant to me was being content where I am, because I knew that sooner or later — I will have what I want, because it is mine, and to stop trying to "make it happen" and simply just let it happen. because i'm a staunch believer that anything that happens, only happens for my own good — always, and if I found shifting, it was for a reason.

now, one could argue that both are the same, and I cooked nothing (lol). and yes, they might be. but. and a big but again. the difference is you CAN care about the people you want to shift for. you can be chalant, you can be obsessed with your dr, your s/o, anything — everything, and still shift. the point is being content. and you, yourself, have to give yourself the closure that whatever you want will be yours. because the feeling of being content always comes from within. don't force it, and take time to give yourself this closure. and care, and be excited, and be assured. you can be all of these things at the same time.

and if you're afraid of it being "not meant for you", then my dear friend, if it wasn't meant for you, I promise you, and I swear to God, it would've never found you. not in this lifetime, not in a million others. never. not EVER, okay? so rest assured that it is a hundred and ten percent meant for you. so, you don't have to grip it so hard you leave claw marks on it. it's right next to you, and that's how it'll stay. and if it "wasn't meant for you and still found you", it would've gone by now. it wouldn't have stayed. so "let go". be at peace. your dr awaits you, and you're going to make it.

and that's all. once again, if you don't understand anything, and want me to clarify, feel free to reach out.

[sunnebeam]

in the darkest little paradise.

A 'DARKEST LITTLE PARADISE' DRABBLE.

pairing: min yoongi x reader

warnings: smut (minors do not interact), unprotected sex (bc it's fun to fantasize about in fictional situations but please use protection irl), small mentions of mafia shit (again), sex work

masterlist + disclaimers.

note: yet another smut drabble that's actually just a buildup for a whole ass wip! enjoy

— prev: (none) | next: and all the pieces fall

You're not much of a crybaby, not when life has a way of toughening you up.

But right now, with your legs high up in the sky as you lay on your back, your skin reveling in the soft velvet of the sheets, you blubber incoherently with uncontrollable tears streaming down your face.

The reason for your tears is wearing a smug look as he looks down at your pitiful, crying form.

"Why are you crying, princess?"

His thumb never leaves your clit just as his cock never leaves your warm, wet heat. But he doesn't move.

"Yoongi—"

"Yeah? What do you want?"

He's ruthless, rubbing circles on your sensitive nub but remaining otherwise motionless while he's balls deep inside you.

You hate crying. You hate pleading, as well. But Yoongi singlehandedly makes you do both.

After all, Min Yoongi owns the streets of Daegu. It should be a no-brainer that he owns your body, too.

He loves you like this, loves when your tough facade breaks just for him, loves when you whine and beg and plead to him, loves when you fall apart because of him.

"Yoongi," you whimper when he twitches inside you, "move."

If someone else tries ordering him around, they'd lose a limb.

But here you are, your pleas commanding him to fold to your every whim, your moans and lewd sounds spurring him to give you what you want.

And he does.

Yoongi starts off slow, knowing just how much you love the buildup despite your whining. He gathers a generous amount of spit in his mouth and lets it drop on your waiting cunt, groaning when he observes the mix of juices pooling between your spread legs where the two of you are joined.

"I've spoiled you too much," he teases, his hips starting to pick up a faster pace. "Bossing me around. Never saying please."

You're too fucked out to respond and it's not like he expects you to, anyway. Not when he starts jackhammering into you just the way you like it, and he begins to feel the fluttering of your walls.

"Yoongi," you sob, and as if to appease him, you chant, "please, please, please—"

And then you fall.

Yoongi loves it when you climax. You thrash around, hands gripping anything you can reach – the sheets, the bed posts, your hair, your tits. There's a beautiful vulnerability to the sight, a stark contrast to the tough, closed-off act you normally put on.

In truth, the both of you are closed-off people. But right here, with your cunt squeezing the life out of his dick, with your naked bodies connected in the most intimate of ways, he allows himself the same moment of vulnerability.

He falls. He reaches his peak and spills inside you, leaning down and groaning into your neck as you wrap your arms around him in a tight embrace.

Anyone looking at the two of you right now would think you're two lovers basking in the afterglow.

In another world, maybe. But in this dark little paradise, you can only wish.

Because he's Min Yoongi, the ruthless mob boss, the topdog of Daegu. And you're just a no-named prostitute, a whore, a nobody.

You know better than to dwell on it. So you suck it up, put on a face for him, and try to make the rest of his visit worth his while and worth his money.

After all, he's paying for you.

"Hey," he calls out just as the two of you are getting dressed. "Are you available tomorrow?"

"Oh, it's my day off tomor—"

"Not to work," he clarifies. "I mean, to go out."

Your eyebrows furrow.

"Out?" you repeat. "Out where?"

"To dinner."

You blink. "You want to take me out to dinner? Why?"

"Don't people usually go out for dinner to celebrate their birthdays?"

"My... birthday...? Wait, what?"

Yoongi just smirks. He then kisses your cheek before walking out the room with a quick, "I'll pick you up at seven," thrown over his shoulder.

You're dumbfounded. You're flustered. And truthfully, you're a bit excited. But most of all, you're confused.

Because how did Yoongi know tomorrow's your birthday?

COPYRIGHT 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

[kairos99]

I've seen a few posts talking about how it doesn't make sense for romance to be added into the game because the characters are in the middle of an armed conflict and that they don't have time for that kind of thing, or that they're too traumatized to fall in love. I'd like to explain why I disagree with this position. Let me clarify though that this isn't me saying everyone should romance one of the Hex members. If that's not your thing then by all means, don't romance anyone, you're completely within your right not to. What I'm disagreeing with is that it doesn't make sense for romance to exist in this game and setting whatsoever.

The reason I disagree is that, put simply, humans aren't machines. We're not a set of directives that disregard anything that doesn't align with them. We're animals that have a lot going on at any given moment. We're driven by several purposes, some of which clash with each other. This creates tension, which is something storytellers have exploited in the name of creating stories about the human condition for millenia. Without it, stories are empty, sterile.

Here's an example:

You're fighting two factions that want to wipe out an entire city in order to save innocent lives. You've been doing it in a loop for a very long time, but that doesn't matter because saving civilians comes first. Eventually a powerful new ally from the future appears and helps you and your team change your fates and succeed in holding back both factions from overtaking the city. You're pleased and hope to continue working with this new person to keep on making sure no more civilians are killed.

Does this story sound compelling to you? Maybe a little bit, but it's missing something, don't you think? A little bit more flavor, a little bit of a spark.

Let's try that again:

You've been at war for as long as you can remember. You're tired, stuck on a loop that has no ending in sight, but you have to keep going for the sake of your companions and doing what's right. Enter a new person, a new variable in a sea of sameness. They're not just from the future, they have extraordinary powers that allow them to do extraordinary things, and they seem to be on your side. And they prove it by saving you and your companions from a terrible demise. You start to believe things might turn for the better, you allow yourself to hope for a better future. You wake up from your combat-induced slumber and you feel your attention drifting from the misery that blanketed your existence to things you'd neglected in the name of the common good, including your need for connection and belonging. Including your companions, who still struggle to see themselves as a team. Including your new teammate, who's interesting and merciful and just as starving for connection as you are. You're awake now, and you're going act like it.

Much better, don't you think? Does this story sound more unbelievable because the character has other needs beyond their main objective of saving their city? On the contrary, I think it gets closer to the human experience than the previous story. Your character, a random Hex member, gets interested in the new person, the Drifter, after being saved by them and the situation in the city gets under control, and thus reaches out to them and develops a relationship with them. And they do it because they finally have the space of mind to do it. And not just the Drifter, they also learn to nurture the bonds they have with the other Hex members, as is seen in the text messages when you rank up the syndicate.

What I'm trying to say is, it makes sense for the Hex members to get close to the Drifter, storywise. Hell, "love triumphs over indifference" is a major plot point! That's why it doesn't make sense to me when someone says the Hex doesn't have time for romance. It's like saying the Hex doesn't have time for friendship, or any relationship for that matter, and that goes against what the game's trying to tell you.

As for the characters being too traumatized to fall in love? I'm nowhere near qualified to be speaking about trauma, but what little I know is that traumatized people don't want to be defined by their experiences. They fight day and night to live fulfilling lives, and saying they can't fall in love because they're traumatized sounds downright disrespectful to me. Maybe trauma has permanently changed the way some of them relate to others, but this doesn't mean no traumatized person can ever fall in love as a rule. Everyone's experience is different, and we shouldn't generalize what a group of people are going to be like anyway.

This applies to other mental health conditions as well. Depressed people fall in love. Anxious people fall in love. People that worry about making ends meet fall in love. People that are burnt out fall in love. People at any point in their lives fall in love. There's always something else going on, whether that's something minor like a pending homework assignment or something major like a neverending war, but people still have time to feel all kinds of feelings in the meantime, including romantic love!

That's my take on things. Thanks for reading this far! If you disagree with what I'm saying here, feel free to leave a comment. It's healthy to consider other points of view. :)

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Congrats on 1k!!

for the ask game!

J: “dont touch me, get away from me”

in Someone who cares

hurt/comfort

book

and if I can make a special request that Eddie is the hurt party?

Thank you so much! 🥰 Always thrilled to write more about my favorite family.

Some dreams come true

Words: 954

Rated: G

Tags: Modern AU; No UD AU; Established relationship; Married Steddie; Steve is Dustin’s dad; Author Eddie; Hurt/comfort; Fluff

Notes: Set in the same universe as Someone who cares

“Eddie?” Dustin knocks on the door of the study. It’s slow and hesitant, and that alone is enough to tell Steve that the kid was not exaggerating when he called and told him to get home immediately. “It’s me. I’ve brought Dad. Please open the door?” 

There’s no answer. 

“Damn,” Steve murmurs. “What the hell happened?” 

Dustin scowls.

“No idea. He opened that package that arrived for him, and then he went all silent and weird and locked himself in there, like- … oh, do you think it’s a bomb?” 

“A what?” Steve squawks. “What the fuck, Dustin? Of course it’s not a- who’d even send us a bomb?” 

“Dunno, grandpa?” Dustin is wibbling in his spot, weirdly elated with the notion. “He must still be pretty damn pissed, right? I mean, last time you saw him, Eddie punched him in the-” 

Steve groans. “Jesus Christ, Dustin, I promise it's not a bomb. Go do your homework or whatever, I'll handle this.” 

Dustin deflates, but sulks off towards his room, grumbling under his breath. Steve sighs and turns back to the door.

“Eds? I'm not leaving, just so you know.” 

For a few seconds, everything stays silent. Then, something shuffles and footsteps approach. The lock clicks, but the door doesn't open. When Steve steps into the tiny room, Eddie is already back in his desk chair, elbows bracketed on his knees, head almost level with his hands. He's holding something. A book.

A familiar mix of feelings stirs in Steve's guts. Alarm. Worry. The overwhelming need to find out who hurt his husband and slowly tear them limb from limb.

“Eddie? What's-” 

“Don't touch me. Get away from me.” 

Eddie doesn't raise his voice. Steve catches himself wishing he had, because the quiet brokenness of the words is somehow infinitely more scary. His feet stop dead in their tracks, halfway between Eddie and the door. From where he's standing, he recognizes the book Eddie has in his hand. 

“Author's copies arrived,” Eddie says, almost as if he read his mind. His head jerks weakly at the package sitting by his feet, holding a stack of identical books, all bearing Eddie’s name on the cover. 

“But…” Steve mutters while his brain is still parsing through the situation. “But that's amazing, honey. You've been looking forward to this so long, why-” 

“I know,” Eddie groans. The book flops to the ground as he brings his hands up to cup his own face. “I was. I am. It's just that …” 

He exhales a long, shaky breath. 

“It's all real now, Stevie. It's here. And- … and next week, it's gonna be in stores, and everybody will be able to pick one up and what if it sucks? I've been dreaming of this for as long as I can think of, but that's all it was - a dream. But now … I dunno, I'm just … I'm scared.” 

“Hey,” Steve whispers, sinking to his knees to bring them face level. “Hey, look at me.” 

Eddie does, big brown eyes peering out from between long fingers. Steve chuckles, reaching for those hands to pull them down into Eddie’s lap. 

“Do you remember the pizza party?” 

Eddie blinks at him. “Huh? What are you-” 

“That was the first time I wanted to kiss you. I had only known you for a few weeks, but somehow, I was already falling in love with you.” Steve smiles, running his fingers over the familiar shape of Eddie's hands and arms, tracing the black ink of his tattoos. “I didn't do it then. Do you know why?” 

“Because Mike puked on your sofa?” 

“Yes,” Steve says automatically. Sputters. “I mean no. I mean- God, you're such an asshole.” 

Eddie’s mouth twitches. Steve sighs. 

“The reason I didn't do it,” he clarifies, “was because I was scared. Because I thought I'd rather spend a lifetime dreaming of having you than turning it into a reality and somehow messing it up. But you know what?” 

“Hm?” Eddie hums, melting into him as Steve leans in to touch their foreheads together. “What's that, love?” 

Steve smiles at the pet name, pressing a kiss to the dimple at the corner of Eddie’s mouth. 

“I'm so incredibly fucking glad we got our shit together in the end,” he says. “Because the reality of it is so much better than anything I ever could've imagined.”

“So much fucking better,” Eddie whispers against his lips, and then neither of them says anything for a while. When they pull out of the kiss, Steve presses the fallen book into Eddie’s hands. 

“This'll be fantastic,” he promises, smoothing over the wrinkle in Eddie’s brow with his lips before he can argue. “You just wait. Now, come down and help me with dinner? Dustin’s convinced you have a bomb in here.” 

Eddie snorts a laugh and stands from his chair, carefully putting the book back with the others before slipping his hand into Steve’s. “What, seriously? And here you are, wondering why I’m doubting myself. With the things that kid comes up with, he should be the author in this family, not me. A bomb, fucking hell!” 

Steve laughs softly as they make their way down the stairs. “You just wait until that book blows up and it turns out he was right.” 

“Yeah, as if,” Eddie says, but there’s no bitterness left in his voice. He smacks a noisy kiss to Steve’s temple, pulling him into the kitchen with a dorky spin and twirl. “Keep dreaming, honey.” 

He definitely will, Steve thinks as they get to work between a constant stream of bickering and kisses. His dreams have a habit of becoming true, after all, and he's no longer afraid of that. 

More celebration ficlets

[judasofsuburbia]

Jonathan Byers might be the stupidest person on the planet. Because why...WHY did he ask Steve Harrington to model for his photography final? Why did he think he would ever be able to focus enough to capture what he needs to? Why did he wait until the last week of the semester and now, there's no time to ask anyone else and he doesn't want to hurt Steve's feelings—

“Hey,” Steve says, interrupting Jonathan's thought spiral. “Is this where you want me?” 

Jonathan looks up from his clipboard and camera to see Steve standing on top of the stool. Jonathan had sent him away with a costume he borrowed from the drama department and hadn't heard him come back in.

Steve is dressed in a toga. The crossbody strap is smaller than it would be on anyone else across his broad, hairy chest. The end of the toga rests delicately on his upper thighs, an inch away from being too short. Steve has quaffed his beautiful hair up and a plastic, golden crown of leaves sits amongst the brunette locks.

All of the moisture in Jonathan's mouth evaporates as he takes in Steve in this, what should have been, almost ridiculous outfit. Instead, Steve is absolutely striking in it and Jonathan is going to lose his mind before he even gets the lights set up.

“Uh, yeah, just hold there,” Jonathan croaks so he clears his throat. “I still have some things to set up.”

“Cool,” Steve replies simply. He shifts from foot to foot, tied up in lacy sandals. He looks around the studio that Jonathan has set up and smiles.

“Excited to see you do your thing,” Steve says. Jonathan trips over a cable.

“What?”

Steve glances over his shoulder and his face is so genuine when he says, “I wanna see you in the zone, you know?”

Jonathan blinks and ducks his head. “In the zone,” he repeats lamely.

“Yeah,” Steve smiles. “I mean, I've seen you take pictures before but never all done up like this. And this concept is really cool, I hope I can do it justice.“

Jonathan's assignment was to take from an existing piece of art, something not photography related, and recreate it. He's always been fascinated by the coliseums and marble statues of Greece, all the Gods and warriors of that time. As he was researching, the only thing that came to his mind was “Steve, Steve, Steve” and before he could even think twice, he shot him a text asking for his help. 

“You will, man,” Jonathan barely speaks above a mumble. 

Steve hums a song Jonathan doesn't know in the silence that follows. Jonathan finishes setting up all the lights and drawing the curtains of the room. He tries to pull up the screen behind Steve but can't get it to sit on the designated pole.

Steve reaches over him, his stomach resting on Jonathan's shoulder, and hooks the screen into place. Jonathan glances up at Steve's towering figure and swallows dryly. His muscular arm is bulging, his head is cast in the light from behind them like an angel. 

Steve winks and says, “You can put me to work, Byers. I don't mind.”

Jonathan's not sure that the thing that tumbles out of his lips is a laugh, per se, more like a weak, nasally huff of air. But he can't focus on that right now because he needs to stop breathing in Steve's cologne. He escapes to the other side of the room.

“You're going to be doing plenty today, I promise,” Jonathan responds while he sets up a little table next to his camera for his notes. “Why don't we start with you sitting?”

Steve sits on the stool with his legs spread, not even realizing that he's near exposing himself through the skirt. Jonathan squeaks and Steve glances down. 

“Oh shit,” Steve says, crossing his ankles. “Not used to that happening.”

“It's fine, I didn't see anything,” Jonathan mumbles, writing down nothing on his clipboard of notes. 

“I didn't go full commando under here,” Steve clarifies with a small laugh. “I'm just glad I wore white boxers today--”

And yeah, Jonathan didn't need that image either. He starts adjusting his camera on the tripod and says, “Sorry, I should have been more clear about your costume.”

“Nah man, it's alright. I kinda dig it. If we shoot outside, I'm sure the breeze will feel so good.”

Outside? No, Jonathan can't see Steve basking in the sun like this. He wouldn't survive that.

“Gonna have to settle for the AC, I'm afraid,” Jonathan says with a fumbling laugh. “Okay, first shot. I'm thinking you tilt your legs to the side, almost like you're lounging on the stool. Then pop the shoulder closer to the wall up while keeping the other down. Look up at the ceiling.”

Steve follows his instructions but he tilts his whole head up instead of just his eyes. 

“Chin down a bit, look with the eyes.”

“Like this?” Steve asks, voice innocent though it runs hot through Jonathan's ears.

Jonathan looks through his viewfinder to see Steve absolutely glowing. His brown eyes holding so much casual emotion that it tugs at Jonathan's heart. 

“Mhm. Perfect,” Jonathan captures a few shots like that before directing him to the next shot. And the one after.

Steve nails it over and over again, looking exactly like the ethereal Gods and tragic heroes Jonathan read about. Jonathan keeps telling him he's doing amazing, that he looks amazing. He can see Steve try to fight off his smile for the sake of not ruining the shot. Jonathan wonders if he could shoot that smile someday just for the sake of letting him be happy.

“You're going to give me a big head,” Steve says when they take a break. 

“Please,” Jonathan scoffs. “You already have one.”

Steve pouts playfully when he's done sipping his water. “I'm better than I was.”

Jonathan shakes his head with a fond smile. He looks at Steve directly and says, “Yeah, you are.”

Steve's lips part in surprise but then he quickly tilts his head away, sipping more water. Steve tsks. “Compliment after compliment, Byers. I should be your model more often.”

Jonathan's cheeks burn hot. “Yeah, yeah, tell your friends. C'mon, let's get back to it.”

The new few shots require Steve to show off his muscles which had to have been an idea of a deliriously horny Jonathan Byers. He could kill that guy.

“Okay, hold your hands up and behind your head. Then, uh,” Jonathan stammers, “Flex your arms for me.”

Steve raises his eyebrows but he does flex. It's not that Steve Harrington is absolutely shredded; rather, he has the toned muscles of a casual jock. He just cares about his body and his strength. It doesn't make it any less debilitating to witness. 

“G-good, that's good,” Jonathan mumbles.

“You good, Byers?” Steve asks. His smirk grows less subtle every fleeting second it takes for Jonathan to respond. “Wishing for someone more buff?”

“No,” Jonathan defends immediately. “No, uh, no, you're good. Great, even.” 

“What should I do with my face?” Steve asks.

“Keep it smug like that,” Jonathan says, a little bite to his words that comes from the roaring zoo currently in his stomach.

“Smug,” Steve scoffs, voice still teasing. “Just trying to figure you out.”

Jonathan ignores that, he does not need to be figured out today and especially not by Steve Harrington.

He takes the shot and instructs Steve to hold one arm up to the side while the other pretends to hold something. Steve stands awkwardly, clenching and unclenching the fist that's supposed to be acting right now. 

“Can you show me?” Steve asks. 

“Sure,” Jonathan says. He rounds the camera and is about to demonstrate making an “O” with his fist but Steve holds out his hand and Jonathan doesn't think before he takes it. He shapes Steve's fingers gently and places his arm outstretched to his side. Steve just watches him. 

“Should I actually hold something?” Steve asks.

“No, I'm gonna edit something in later,” Jonathan explains, awkwardly dropping Steve's hand because he realizes he's still holding it. 

“Like what?”

“I can't decide if it's going to be a sword or a lightning bolt. Armor, maybe,” Jonathan shrugs then looks up at Steve who is beaming at him.

“You can do that?” 

“Y-yeah. Photoshop and all.” 

“That's so fucking sick,” Steve exclaims. “You're gonna send these to me, right?”

“Yeah, if you want,” Jonathan says.

“Of course, I want,” Steve assures. ”Not only because you're making me into some Greek god but also because it's your art and it's fucking cool.“

“Thanks,” Jonathan breathes.

Steve reaches the posed hand up and pinches Jonathan's chin. Jonathan can feel every nerve vibrate as Steve's fingers fall away too soon. Steve gives him a curious look but returns his hand to the pose. Jonathan shuffles back behind the camera and continues shooting the pictures.

Steve showcases different smolders that make Jonathan's stomach tighten but he keeps pressing the button, keeps seeing how far Steve will go without his instruction. 

“What if I shot my arm back like I'm about to throw it?” Steve asks, demonstrating his point. 

Jonathan's eyes trail up his torso to the arm in question and he swallows. “Mhm. That looks really good.”

Steve's lips turn upward and he whispers, “So do you, Byers.”

Jonathan's whole body freezes. His finger trembles over the button but his mind is so blank that he can't tell it to push. Steve keeps glancing at him but Jonathan's not registering it. 

Steve coughs awkwardly and mumbles, “Just tell me to fuck off, man.”

That gets Jonathan's brain back online. “What?”

Steve jumps, not realizing that Jonathan was actually listening. He drops his stance and rolls his shoulders back, bones popping as he does. He sighs and says meekly, “If you don't like me flirting with you, just tell me to stop and I will.”

Flirting? Flirting. 

“You're flirting with me?” Jonathan asks, exasperated. 

“I was trying to,” Steve explains, a sheepish look on his face. “But it's obvious you're not into it so--”

“Wait…no, hold on, I honestly thought you were messing with me,” Jonathan admits, walking around the camera again. Steve steps down from the stool to be at eye level with him and Jonathan swoons a little in their new proximity. 

“I do love messing with you,” Steve confirms. “But no, Byers, I’ve been flustered all day having you stare at me and do your hot artist thing. That’s not a joke.”

“Really?” Jonathan whispers, his skin flushed. 

“Really,” Steve whispers back.

"I am into it," Jonathan responds quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Put you into a toga because I'm so into it--" Jonathan doesn't finish this sentence because Steve is kissing him and he would much rather be kissing Steve than talking.

With the curtains drawn and the studio booked for the rest of the afternoon, Jonathan finds himself in Steve's lap with Steve's tongue in his mouth. He decides about two seconds in that he's got enough pictures for the day.

[pizzaronipasta]

It deeply confuses and saddens me that people so readily dismiss older video games as being lesser. Several of my favorite games of all time are among the oldest in their genres, and frequently get unfairly written off as "dated." It's a shame really, because these titles are diamonds in the rough, and ought to be recognized as the absolute gems they are.

A perfect case study for this topic is Metroid, released for the Famicom Disc System in 1986, and for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987.

This game is immaculate. It features some of the best design I've ever seen. Its atmosphere, aesthetics, narrative, gameplay, and controls are all on point. Its worst flaw is its buggy programming. And yet, a lot of people seem to hate it. They respect it as the precursor to its widely acclaimed sequels, especially Super Metroid, but not a lot of people appreciate it for its own merits. Why is this? I suspect there are three main reasons.

The first reason is that it doesn't directly tell you much. Most people nowadays play it on an emulator, and don't think to consult the manual, which would have come with a new physical copy and clarified some points of confusion. The manual even has a partial map of Brinstar, the game's first area, and suggests making your own maps as you play.

Even so, the manual doesn't tell you everything. The game conveys most of what it needs to through gameplay. Its opening moments demonstrate this expertly.

When you start a new game, Samus appears facing the camera. There is nothing visibly stopping you from going left or right, and nothing to indicate which way the game wants you to go. If you're used to games like Super Mario Bros., you might assume you have to go right.

If you do, you'll come to an impasse. The only way forward is too narrow for you to fit through. So the only way you can go is left.

Doubling back, you'll find you can go left from where you started, and come across the morphing ball. When you grab it, you'll seemingly be trapped. The place you jumped down from is too high to jump back up to, and the only other visible path is a narrow passage like you saw earlier. Obviously, you need to use the morphing ball to escape. The game has taught you this without a word.

You'll probably remember the impasse from before. Since you were given the tool to solve a similar situation, you'll naturally think to try it there as well. Thus, the game has taught you the core elements of the search-action genre, or as it eventually came to be known, the metroidvania: as you explore, you will reach obstacles; further exploration will reward you with the means of clearing those obstacles; and remembering where you encountered obstacles will reward you with swift progress.

But Metroid is not done teaching. Once you resume progressing to the right, you'll reach the bottom of a tall vertical shaft.

When I say this thing is tall, I mean it. The same pattern of platforms is repeated around a dozen times before you reach anything of note, and the whole thing is crawling with simple enemies. Up until this point, a player will probably have fought nearly every enemy they could; after all, defeating them removes them as obstacles, and rewards you with health pickups, which you'll need since Samus starts with only 30 out of 99 units of health. But here, attempting to kill every zoomer (yes, that's what the spiky things are called) will make your climb either extremely slow and tedious or extremely costly in terms of health. Unless a player is unreasonably persistent, they are likely to get bored or frustrated and begin evading the enemies instead. The fact that you can't damage the rippers, the only other type of enemy in this room, further helps to signal that the player needs to pick their battles. And so, yet another critical lesson is wordlessly taught: that you don't generally need to go out of your way to kill enemies, and that avoiding combat can save you time and resources.

Metroid continues teaching the player like this from start to finish. With patience, caution, and observance, you'll learn the game's ins and outs without even realizing it. The problem is that many players don't play with this approach, because of...

The second reason I think people dislike the game: preconceived notions of what old games are like.

NES games have a reputation for being unfairly difficult. The usual explanations for this are that they were still being designed like arcade games, which were meant to get as many quarters out of players as possible, and that they also used difficulty to artificially bloat play time, creating the illusion of better value for people buying them. There is some truth to both of these, but the phenomenon is largely overstated. Nevertheless, this reputation precedes games from that era.

As such, when players today approach a game like Metroid, they aren't expecting an actual well-designed game. They're expecting a brutal experience full of cheap bullshit and cryptic nonsense. When they get to that vertical shaft, they don't consider that they might be doing something wrong, they just assume that it's supposed to be tedious and frustrating. And so they never learn the game's lessons. When they find themselves turned around in the sprawling nonlinear level design, they're predisposed to getting overwhelmed and giving up, at which point they consult...

The third reason I think people dislike the game: walkthroughs.

The way people perceive old games, as described above, has led to the proliferation of walkthroughs. Now, there's nothing wrong with referencing a guide when you're stuck, or when you're trying to track down things you missed, or in other such situations. However, following one to the letter for the entirety of your playthrough ruins games like Metroid. When you have a handy set of step-by-step instructions on how to win, you have no incentive to engage with the game. You have no reason to even try learning level layouts or remembering what's where. Metroid ceases to be a game, and instead becomes a checklist.

It gets worse, though. When you always know precisely where to go next, the time you were expected to spend exploring and getting better at the game gets completely cut out. You don't have time to master the combat. You don't have the opportunity to get a feel for where secrets are most likely to be hidden. As your progress increases, your skill does not. Therefore, following a walkthrough like this leaves you sorely unprepared for the challenges in store for you. And so games like Metroid end up feeling like brutal experiences full of cheap bullshit and cryptic nonsense. A self-fulfilling prophecy.

In conclusion, please give older games a fair chance. Engage with them as earnestly as you would with modern games, and never rule out the possibility that you might be doing something wrong. And above all else, keep your walkthrough usage to a minimum.

There's a whole world of fantastic new experiences waiting for you. Enjoy.

[kyokutsu-sama]

💓💓 can i request for yami?

reader and yami are together. she knows about charlottes crush on him and feels insecure and starts comparing herself to her. yami notices that something is wrong with her and asks her what's wrong. she tells him and he comforts her and tells her over and over again that there's nothing to worry about

Hii!!

Okay, I think that many of those who have a crush on this man are like that when these two are together in some scenes. (I speak for myself cause I get jealous, but also, who doesn't? She's beautiful😮‍💨)

Tw: Insecurities and comparison

_____________________________

You and Yami had been together for some time and it was a normal and healthy relationship, although there was something that made you a little frustrated but that you didn't want to expose either to him or to others.

You knew that Charlotte, the captain of the blue rose squad, had a crush on the captain of the black bulls and that made your mind go in circles. You thought that getting into a relationship with him would make these insecurities go away but it only ended up getting worse. You wanted to be better, you wanted to prove your worth to him and to also show him that you were better than her. You wanted to show him that only you could love him like that but the more you did each day, the more you got the feeling that it wasn't enough and that you would never reach her heights. She was beautiful, strong and stood out wherever she went, it made you think that you wouldn't be enough and that Yami wouldn't love you if you weren't like her.

Yami has even started to notice some strange things about you, since a while ago. He knew you like no one else and contrary to what many think, he is not a fool, oblivious to others, he is very observant and protective of his squad members and you, being the person he loves, he knows you like no one else.

He began to notice a certain distance from him and you incorporating a strong and somewhat cold personality, something that wasn't very common in you. He also noticed that you started to dress really well, look prettier and train even more than Asta, which left the squad members and the captain wondering what was going on, since the boy was the one who trained the hardest there and now you were surpassing him. Yami knew he had to clear up those doubts with you sooner or later.

You entered HQ, extremely exhausted and with your clothes dirty and full of sweat, you wanted to rush to the shower but Yami, who was sitting in the chair smoking, waved at you and you shivered a little, not realizing he was there.

Vanessa was also present and she could already guess that it was today that the captain would clarify things, just by the look in his face.

"Wow!! That's what I call hard work, you're look really tired. I can read it from your face and your Ki." He said, blowing smoke through his lips

"If you don't mind, I'm going to take a shower. I don't want you to see me covered in dirt and sweat." You said, with some nervousness that he noticed.

"What's the matter? I've seen you in worse conditions than that, you don't need to be nervous about it."

"I'm not nervous, I just don't want you to see me in this state because it looks bad on a woman." You said, before retreating to the bathroom, leaving the captain even more confused than he already was

Both Vanessa and the captain, looked at each other as if they were wondering what was wrong with you.

"Do you know what's going on with her?" Yami asked her

"Well, I don't know but I, as a woman, think she's just looking out for herself." Vanessa guessed

"But she wasn't like that, I mean, she used to walk around, always looking sloppy and sometimes even wearing dirty clothes and I never said anything about it. Did some son of a bitch said something to her?" Yami raised an eyebrow in doubt but Vanessa just smiled

"I don't think so, she wouldn't be put off by stupid comments. You know Y/n, she's don't care about what others think of her."

"Yeah, I know. Still, I'm going to see what's going on in this idiot's head." He put out his cigarette and went to you

You had already gotten out of the shower and were now adjusting your clothes in front of the bedroom mirror, giving a little jump of fright when he came in and closed the door, with his arms crossed and looking at you who froze with the sudden entrance.

"Y/n, did anyone say anything to you?" He asked

"What are you talking about?"

"Y/n, you've been acting strange, to say the least, these last few days and don't think that I'm not paying attention to you because I am. I'm the here captain and besides giving these brats a good kick in the ass, it doesn't mean that I'm not a good-hearted guy. But for you, I'm not just a captain, you know?" He smiled, approaching you and placing a hand on your shoulder

You thought it was a little selfish of you not to tell him what was happening since he always told you everything, all the good and bad moments of his life. You felt your nervousness increasing and you lowered your head so he wouldn't see your sad eyes.

"Yami...I-I feel very insecure about myself..." You confessed in a low and melancholy voice

"What? My girl is insecure ? That's rare thing to hear!" He giggled but stopped when he saw that you weren't laughing and looked increasingly sad. "But why?"

"Because I know that Charlotte likes you and she is very beautiful and strong, you two go on missions together and I'm afraid that I'm not enough and that I can't give you the same as her." You said, moving away from him, trying your best to hide the slight blush and nervousness but everything didn't seem to work

"Wait a minute...Are you thinking that I have something with Charlotte?" Yami raised his eyebrows, confused by what he just heard. "Are you really serious?!" He approached you, holding your face and you just shook your head, confirming

He never thought that you felt that way about the other woman, he already suspected that Charlotte felt something but it wasn't reciprocated and besides, it was you who he loved, not her, so he wanted to make that clear to you.

"Y/n, you're such an idiot. Come here." He picked you up and sat on the edge of the bed with you on his lap, hugging you with his strong, protective arms. "Now you broke my little heart. I want you to know that I don't have nothing with this woman, absolutely nothing. I go on missions with her because Julius sends me on them but it's just work. Another thing, I don't want to see you compare to her. It's okay if you want to walk down the halls in those cute dresses you've been wearing recently but listen, I really prefer it when you come from the battlefield, looking like a warrior and after surpassed your limits." His hands caressed your back as he spoke. He wasn't good with words but he would do anything to please you. "I love you princess, everyone here loves you just like the way you are. Don't change to look like someone else." He looked you in the eyes and gave you a peck

You felt a tear roll down your face and he brought his hands to your face, wiping the small drop with his thumb and smiled. You felt your heart lighter after his words and gave him the peck back.

"Thank you for the words, I love you so much." You confessed hugging him

Just like you, his fragile little heart also seemed lighter, now that everything seemed clear. But of course he couldn't help but have the last word, as always...

"I also really like seeing you training like a beast, you know? You become a thousand times hotter." He whispered in your ear and you giggled

[sharp-rosee]

Hey funny story: I haven't been around Tumblr at all for months, but today someone told me menalez had deactivated or something so I came on here and looked it up. First result was a post by you, i checked out your blog and wouldn't you know it your most recent post had you defending me post mortem lmfao. I sent an anon to the other woman too but it seems she won't post it so to clarify to you: when I supposedly said "studies showing violence suffered by bisexuals are cringe and useless" what I remember thinking about that is that those studies that I've seen are never used to try to understand why bisexuals suffer such insane rates of violence (more than homosexuals) and trying to stop it. I've only seen them be used as battering rams in discourse when homosexuals criticize bisexuals. Which is crazy for such a serious issue and totally trivializes it lol. Also that my explanation for it was that such studies show that many abused people incorrectly id as bi for a time. You can disagree or wtv just those were my points, she made it sound like I'm cheering on women beating if they're bi or something. Also your defense of me (thanks queen lol) is accurate if you were wondering. I used to be sorta pro strict separatism but I outgrew the anger/ denial phase of "most women will partner with men" and reached acceptance. Most people are built for romantic partnership, that's just human nature, I can't be hating het women just because their lot in life in that means they're more likely to be abused. Just because I'm not drawn to men, or even much to romance, doesn't mean I should act like that's everyone else too and judge them on that standard, I accept reality and want women to be safe within that rather than pointlessly hate on them and get all worked up because some women have boyfriends..

Well I'm also a mean asshole, I'm sure you noticed, and I definitely would give the bi girlies on radblr a hard time here at the time lol. I don't have the "one side" sort of takes on this divide on radblr. It was funny but I can't feel the energy to that anymore since leaving tumblr, way too few bis or gays irl to care about that stuff. But at the end of the day these are my actual takes on all that disk horse. Funny to see it immediately on such a causal stroll around here lol

-sleep3r4gent

QUEEN I used to follow you ♡ at least when I was crypto a few years back I did.

Also, I'm glad you clarified because the way some women on here seem to hallucinate things they read almost makes me feel insane as well. Like you sending an ask saying you never thought of a certain perspective is not indicative of you agreeing and obviously one can change their opinions over time.

I really have no opinion either way tbh, I myself am straight and in a relationship, and have had others on my last blog send some anons calling me a "dick worshipper" and other misogynistic BS, but they stopped once I didn't let it bother me much. It's so obviously a group of trolls that it's embarrassing that they still believe it enough to keep bringing back the same users, some like you who aren't even misogynistic, to further their persecution complex.

It even is more annoying because these are the women who made Mena/Moideater leave, the above drama is a big reason why. The way radblr will still reblog posts from very racist blogs and not bat an eye but then freak out over a clique of women who aren't even radfems really does show what demographic makes up this site.

I know it gets exhausting to be involved in arguments, but it's nice to know you're still somewhat around. I hope you, Mena and Moid come back someday. If not I understand. But I'll never forget any of them and I haven't forgotten you 😭😭😭

[raayllum]

The Celestial Elves & Aaravos' Plans

Going into s6, there's been two big questions at the forefront of my mind: what can we expect from the Celestial elves, and what exactly is Aaravos' plan?

I've speculated briefly on the former, so I want to clarify further what I mean when I say the latter.

Aaravos' plans, seemingly, have at least two pretty clear steps, if you will:

To be freed from his pearl prison

To get revenge on the Startouch elves for his banishment / some other wound

This was as much spelled out to us in TDP's short story, Patience, before S4's release:

I have not seen the stars in centuries. But when I see them again—when the stars are forced to look upon me, their dark brother—they will know how I have waited. And when everything they have built lies shattered, I will savor their fall from the sky. For I have been patient.

I don't think Aaravos has much of a plan beyond revenge, as the Cycle is thematically and literally unsustainable in comparison to rebuilding and the Narrative of Love. What would be left for him, after all, besides seeing his 'family' (and Xadia) suffer further for what they've done to him? And I'm not here to say that there's a secret third step or anything (though there might be).

What I want to talk about is Aaravos' Plan timeline in regards to getting what he wants.

We know that around 1,000 years ago, humans were exiled from Xadia for dark magic use. It isn't clear if Aaravos was banished before or after this event, but given that Ziard saying "one of the Great Ones" doesn't seem to immediately give away Aaravos' identity, there seem to have been a few still kicking around, although this contradicts the Midnight Star poem, which clearly indicates the Stars leaving ("Elarion, unworthy whelp, / Wept as the stars turned black the sky, / They donned their masks / They turned their backs, / And left Elarion to die") and then humans receiving dark magic ("‘till the last star / Reached from afar / His touch: a blaze, a gift, a spark / [...] Elarion, black-eyed child, / her twisted roots spread deep and far, / The humans’ might").

It is possible, of course, that the Startouch elves could've left but hadn't actually expelled / cut contact with Aaravos directly, but that gets even dicier timeline wise.

Either way, to stay on topic: there's roughly a 700-1000 years, if not more, between Aaravos' banishment from the First Elves and achieving his final aims (which we'll likely see the beginning of in late S6).

Why?

Why does this period of time in between Banishment and Revenge exist? If Aaravos is so powerful...

Even after [Zubeia] and Avizandum allied ourselves with the other Archdragons, we could not risk a direct confrontation. We had to beat Aaravos as his own game. [...] We had to conspire and plot, and deceive this deceiver so that at the exact right moment, he would lower his guard, and we could imprison him forever.

then what could've possibly existed that he couldn't just take outright? Why even make nice with the Archdragons at all, and not stay focused on using his human mages in the west? And what, why, was he using them in the first place pre-imprisonment?

A young human girl uncovered a great secret of history. A dangerous deceiver was revealed: it was one of the Great Ones, the Startouch elf, Aaravos. For a thousand years, Aaravos had been pulling invisible strings like a puppet master. Every great crisis the world faced had seemed the work of some ingenious and powerful leader, but in each case, it was secretly Aaravos, whispering in their ear.

Now, of course Aaravos just could be a sadistic bastard who enjoys messing with people (and I'm sure there's spades of that) as well as ideas of being "elegant and efficient" in that why take things by force when you can convince other people to do stuff (and take the fall) for you. But in my mind, there's one main reason to maintain secrecy around people you're trying to use or convince: you want to maintain their trust, and you want their trust because you want their Knowledge.

Additionally, the more I've thought about it, the more sure I am that Aaravos was ingredient collecting for Something before his imprisonment (300 years ago, and still a thousand years at least into his grand plan). We see two powerful figures disappear close together — Luna Tenebris, who "mysteriously died" and Queen Aditi, who vanished — and we already know Aaravos "swallowed" the latter.

We know from Viren and Claudia that dragons, particularly archdragons, are incredibly powerful. Zym, just as a baby and with the staff as a conduit, would've been enough for Viren to "transcend his moral form" and presumably let Aaravos out of the mirror permanently by... taking over Viren's body, maybe? The details are fuzzy, but the intentions and initial endgame stage (freedom) was probably plain.

Moreover, if Aaravos did need a Powerful Sun Object and a powerful Archdragon (moon? sky?) Object to get things underway, it'd also explain the choice to go to Lux Aurea to get the Sun staff and corrupt it, as that choice inadvertently led to another 'downfall' (if he and Viren hadn't gotten the staff, their army probably would've had enough time to take the Storm Spire before the dragons even arrived; they were only held off so long because the Sunfire elves were there).

Like before, with Aditi, there's also a potentially powerful Sun source in both the sun seed itself and in Sol Regem, particularly if either or both become corrupted. Zym still exists as a possible source of energy to exploit, and there could be something Moon wise with Luna Tenebris' unsuitable heir or even Rayla.

I'm also not going to pretend to have definitive answers. That said, given that everyone else has been on a perpetual chase for knowledge throughout arc S4 and S5 ("I don't even know if she's alive" / "How do you know?" / "Having knowledge isn't the same as knowing it" / "If Akiyu knows helped make it, then she must know where it is" / "To love is simply to know this...") it wouldn't surprise me if the Mystery of Aaravos is about him, yes, but also one he's been trying to 'solve' all this time.

And on the one hand, this has also already been sort of true, given that despite his powers, Aaravos genuinely seems to 1) have no clue of where he was imprisoned or 2) in what (the pearl). The idea that his powers and foresight as a Fallen Startouch elf weren't extended far enough for him to be able to go back to the 'Heavens' whenever he wanted, that the Startouch elves are somewhere currently beyond his reach... That would kind of track and explain the 1,200-1,000 year interim and Why it's taken him so long to figure certain stuff out.

If he doesn't need Objects (which might play into the lack of coercion or construction, perhaps?) or at least not entirely, then Knowledge of something he's missing may be partially the clue needed to go back Home and wreck shit up. Not needing objects per se could also explain why things that may be useful to him — like the Nova Blade, if he wants to kill his own kind; or potentially the cube (but who knows) — weren't confiscated as it were before his permanent Fall to earth.

This is where we get to the Celestial Elves.

The Celestial Elves, in spite of being a late stage addition to TDP's lore in comparison to most other elements, have always felt very purposeful. As laid out in my post above, there's some very particular choices made about them that seem Obviously intentional in a way that say, other design choices regarding the elves aren't necessarily.

For example, original concept of Aaravos featured him bald, in robes, and blindfolded, but were scrapped for being "too obvious" / on the nose, leading to a very different final design. While blindfolds in TDP don't have much of a negative association largely thanks to Lady Justice and Harrow, the idea of not being able to see clearly (hi Viren!) is absolutely a motif the series returns to over and over until it reaches fruition: "I finally see the truth."

As mentioned in my linked post, the fact that all the Celestial elves are Skywing elves feels intentional as well. Sky (freedom) in the series is the opposite to Star ('destiny') if we're just going by primals and not looping in dark magic. The choice to make the Celestial elves Skywing specifically, when they could've been any kind of elf or even a grouping of different kinds of elves living together (which we haven't seen before) is probably because their understanding of the Sky arcanum and the concept of Star magic is going to be radically different than Callum's; I wouldn't be surprised if they've partially turned their back on the idea of "nothing is pre-determined" by instead saying everything is, which is his ongoing worst fear with the possession plot line.

Then there's the fact that they are devoted to Stars, and Startouch elves have had (as far as we know) little to no contact with anyone since they all left a thousand plus years ago... except for Aaravos, who would have an interest in the Nova Blade at the very least (and maybe the Corona of the Heavens belonged to him, too). The way they're called "an ancient sect" of Skywing elves is also not a point in their favour given that outside of Ancient Draconic, everything else that's been labelled that way has been negative ("the relic staff" / "the cube is an ancient relic" / "wounds from an ancient and disturbing practice" / "Infantis sanguine. It's one of the old spells").

Furthermore, the true sight serum Viren poured in his eyes in 2x02 is also what inspired the bulk of today's thinking meta, as the season two novelization states:

He held the last of an unusual liquid that he had inherited from Kpp'Ar. The liquid was a rare serum that the Oracles of Ophidia were said to have used long before the fall of Elarion in order to see through the illusions of the world. They would harvest venom from the fangs of eyeless vipers; and it was said that the venom had to be extracted on a moonless night. All it took was a single stray beam of moonlight to taint the serum and bring out its most dangerous qualities. Instead of clearing one's illusions, a dose of tainted serum would drive a person into a permanent, irrevocable madness.

Oracles are fortune tellers, which is already very Star arcanum-y adjacent. Ophidian is derived from the Grecian root for snake, which is very dark magic-y accordingly. We know that the Oracles were ancient if they predate Elarion, and we don't know whether they were humans, elves, or both. The fact that this lore is 1) here and 2) connected to Kpp'Ar, who it seems Viren likewise 'inherited' the staff from AND who had a perfect twin box that matched the one Aaravos has in his mirror... None of it bodes well, and I think there's reasonable speculation that the Oracles had some connection to a Startouch elf at least, once upon a time, and possibly ties to the Celestial elves as well.

All of this to say is that whatever the Celestial Elves stance on Aaravos is will inform their practical role in the story, yes, but will also inform what he's been Waiting patiently for all this time, I think.

If the Celestial elves are largely against Aaravos, then them hiding themselves and hiding these powerful and dangerous objects makes sense; cloaking themselves from him would take time and effort and if he's not willing to go back to 'Heaven' without being able to kill people, then maybe he's been waiting all this time to locate the Nova Blade (which Callum is now taking him directly to; great!) or one of the quasar diamonds is his missing piece, or whatever.

This would give me more pause as 1) said info was found in like one afternoon of searching in the Great Bookery, which Aaravos presumably would've had access to and 2) the Starscraper is probably the Star Nexus if there is still one, so I'd imagine Startouch elves would know where it is. That said, Callum and Zubeia never made the mirror connection (Callum had no reason to think it was stolen, and Zubeia had no reason to think that if Viren still had it Callum wouldn't have noticed upon inheriting the mage study right away, so wires got crossed) so who knows. Sometimes story's gotta story so reality's gotta bend a bit!

If Aaravos has been looking for information and/or an object outside of the Starscraper's walls (a spell? the cube?) then the Celestial elves pivoting to being a more antagonistic force makes more sense to me. If they have no reason to hide from him, then they have significantly less reason to be narratively Opposed to him. That doesn't necessarily mean they're exclusively evil or anything (though they could be!), but I could see internal fracturing and having our one named Celestial elf, Astrid, be a contrarian force for good as things go to shit (much like how Ethari is our one Silvergrove villager because he breaks the Ghosting spell, or we spend more time with N'than because he's willing to go against drake rider traditions).

We know regardless of anything else Callum and Rayla can't just waltz in and have everything they want immediately handed to them on a silver platter without a hitch, so at best there might be a trial or two to pass (which speaks to some ambiguity about the danger Aaravos poses) and at worst, they might lure the two in with a false offer of help and security / trials only to actually just rip the floor out from under them.

Conclusion sort of

The good news is that by the end of S6 we will probably know most of these answers, excitedly enough! Given that the Merciful One has their stardust quote to Aaravos in 6x01, and that 6x09 is called Stardust, Aaravos referencing that line while he gets some of his vengeance would track accordingly (especially because know he says it at one point, thanks to the first teaser trailer).

Additionally, it's likely that since the end of S6 is the most 11th hour "worst possible things ever are happening" moment, Aaravos getting to have some of his revenge is I think a fair expectation to close out the season, and give us lots of high stakes for S7. Whatever he's been patient over, his waiting will finally be over, and the apocalypse of sorts will start, for the Stars that he's finally strong enough to 1) return to and 2) wreck havoc upon but also for everyone else, too.

But yeah - this was definitely a more rambling meta than most and I hope it got you thinking! It's hard to believe that in under two months we'll have answers to some of these questions we've been asking for so long, and I can't wait to find out what they are!

[manic-sapphic]

one of the scenes at the heart

between adora and catra that absolutely makes me feel like the earth is giving way underfoot - every damn time i've watched it.

initially, it seems to me like adora reads catra's "no" as the beginning of catra trying to talk her out of it again, but catra quickly clarifies. she's not going anywhere, no matter what happens. cause if it doesn't work and everything ends, there's no where else catra would rather be. and if it does work but is going to destroy adora, catra's honestly probably more than willing to have it - and likely is even hoping it will - destroy her too, if she's by adora's side.

cause sure, maybe catra tried to leave in the middle of the night after adora took the failsafe, feeling like, once again, adora was choosing to leave her behind- only in a far more heartbreaking and permanent way. and even after melog reads that bitch and bucks her off to give her a good lil shock to her system and tries to push her to go back, she refuses. but then melog tackles her to the ground and gets her to let some real feelings out - says them, even if just to melog - still something she'd never have done before. give her true feelings a voice and let them exist. let them be real & fully accepted that they are.

which we all know is immediately followed by a clone appearing, melog cloaking them both just in time. but once they follow and catra realizes prime's found a way to go after the heart sooner than expected and is undertaking that endeavor at that very moment - all the uncertainty, her insecurities, her reflex to suppress her feelings for adora due to the emotions triggered by her abandonment issues & sw meddling - all go out the fucking window. she hops on melog and they rush back to warn adora. but of course she's already headed to the heart - somewhere i'm sure, given the circumstances with prime infecting the planet - catra knows is bound to be dangerous for adora to be.

so catra sees her only way to get there in time, and takes the hand of the last person she'd ever want to, and goes to find adora.

and after everything that happened between going to look for adora and reaching the heart together, only to find she couldn't transform and had no hope of surviving it - catra refuses to leave when adora tells her to get as far away as she can, hoping it would keep catra safe. but if i was catra, i'd be thinking "don't you fuckin tell me to go away - if you get to choose to stay down here, so do i." which is kinda how i read her refusal to leave.

and i think maybe it's part of why adora doesn't protest. but also, i think she realizes it would be a waste of breath in her fragile state - catra's not going anywhere no matter what she says. and honestly, watching the tears that stream down adora's face when catra says she's staying with her no matter what - i think that's what adora really wanted anyway. it wasn't about having someone with her so she wouldn't be alone - she wanted catra with her. but likely felt it would be too selfish to say.

luckily, catra saved her the trouble of having to. cause catra finally realized that whether adora wants to leave or stay, no matter the situation, she can always choose to stay with adora, so long as she wants catra there. no pride in the way, nothing petty left to prove, no more interest in winning. where adora goes, even if it's into the abyss, catra wants to choose to stay by her side from now on, where ever that might lead. cause that's where she's always wanted to be.

just as catra says to glimmer and bow when she runs into them after appearing w shadow weaver, she'll stay and find her cause she "can't lose her again." which, to me, means - if it comes down to it, and adora does go - catra wants to go with her.

[messrsrarchives]

i've had a LOT of people message me about the reboot video and the other discussions that i've had recently about jkr, about fandom, about being trans in fandom.

and i just remembered about this draft from before i even posted that video, and i think it sums up how i feel pretty well.

as a fandom, i think we need to clarify again what reclaiming a space means.

because it is not removing ourselves from the artist, especially not one as problematic as jk rowling. it is impossible for us to separate from her views as they are the forefront of her person and are heavily embedded into her works. to separate entirely is not possible, and to strive to do so is, in my opinion, optimistically ignorant.

we cannot separate art from artist when confronted with two-dimensional female characters that we have to bulk out through fandom. we cannot separate art from artist when gender norms are prevalent in the works (see here: rita and umbridge - villain women - being described as masculine). we cannot separate art from artist when queerness is attacked in her works (see here, less vividly: harry being treated awfully at a primary school called. stone. wall. (arguably a reach, i agree)). we cannot separate art from artist when names likes cho chang and kingsley shacklebolt are a thing. we cannot separate art from artist when, in books published during the irish troubles, the one irish character's entire personality is blowing stuff up.

the nazi imagery (see also: jkr denying the holocaust), the antisemitism, the oppression of women, racism.

her entire transphobic platform that has now gone on to harm cis women (which, by the way, trans people have been screaming for years that transphobia harms cis women, and we weren't listened to. see again: rita and umbridge. if you are not feminine and pretty, you are bad).

we cannot separate art from artist and we shouldn't.

reclaiming a space means that those marginalised communities? every single one of them? every single person who was harmed by her works and her subsequent platform? they can find a space in fandom.

they can find works that represent them, works that rectify the harmful stereotypes in her books, works that are inclusive and safe that still allow us to engage with the world that we love.

they can be safe.

you can engage with fandom however you want. whatever ships, headcanons, stories, ANYTHING. you can engage with it however you want.

as long as your wants do not harm others.

and even then, we cannot stop you from doing that. all we do is ask that you acknowledge that this is not reclaiming.

you cannot reclaim a space that causes harm by causing harm, no matter how indirect.

we cannot separate art from artist, no matter how badly we want to.

we can 'separate' our works from her views, absolutely. we can say that these works do not align with her views and alleviate the harm caused by what she wrote, i agree.

but that is all.

her merchandise, her parks, her books, her films, her reboots. everything with her name on and her bank account attached?

we cannot reclaim those. we cannot separate those.

and i will not pretend to be perfect. i will not pretend that i don't have merchandise, or even that i haven't considered purchasing more. i was literally contemplating going to see cursed child a few months ago, arguing with myself to try and justify why that would be a once in a lifetime experience for me.

but so was starting hormones. so was getting my top surgery approved. so was coming out and subsequently moving out of an abusive home. so was changing my name. so was living.

going to see cursed child would have been a once in a lifetime experience for me, yes. but at the cost of funding a woman who does not want me to have the same lifetime as cis people. at the cost of providing money to a woman that does. not. want. me. alive.

and it's so easy to say that one person doesn't make a difference, and i agree! i have literally said this before!

which is why i have used the collective we throughout this post.

but i also think, it's worth acknowledging that one person can make a difference. and that one person is jkr.

it is not reclaiming a space to simply say that you do not stand with her.

it is not reclaiming a space to exist as something jkr hates - i am not reclaiming this space by existing in it as a trans man. my existence is not a form of protest.

boycotting is.

it is not reclaiming a space to say "fuck jkr" and then profit her.

it is reclaiming a space when your actions reflect your words.

and that is the bare minimum.

we cannot change the source text or the views that went into them. we cannot change jkr's personal views or the way that she chooses to use her money.

we cannot use the term "reclaiming the space" to feel better about our actions, and to avoid accountability. not when funding her account.

and i don't want to hold people to account. that's not my goal; never has been, and never will be. i am not typing this to cause further harm, or to point fingers, or anything like that.

i am typing this to clarify what i mean when i say reclaiming a space, and ask that those who disagree do not enter the space i have forged for myself here.

to ask that those who put once in a lifetime experiences over me living a full lifetime do not enter my life. here for a good time, not a long time, right?

i am not in this space to explain why jkr is a bad person. i am not in this space as a form of protest. i am not in this space to explain to people that their actions have consequences - that's for teachers in nursery to explain.

i am in this space because it's fun.

and i feel annoying talking about it. i feel like i'm annoying people by bringing this up time and time again, but, to be honest, i hope that they feel the discomfort. i hope that they do get annoyed, and i hope that they recognise that any annoyance they feel about me speaking up about transness in the marauders/hp fandom does not come anywhere close to the annoyance i feel watching these videos.

because i shouldn't feel the need to take a step back from engaging interactively in fandom.

i shouldn't need to cater my online experience in a fandom that claims to be all inclusive, to get rid of people that aren't?

and these conversations are uncomfortable and, yes, to the people that it addresses, they likely are annoying.

but it makes my space feel safer. it makes me feel safer. it's allowed me to talk to now over 100 trans people in this fandom about their experiences, and made me feel less alone in this.

so yeah, i feel annoying. but i won't apologise for making my space feel safer, and i certainly won't do so to people that have shown inconsistent/no regard to the safety of these marginalised communities.

this is me ✨reclaiming my space✨ if you will

[yuseirra]

Commentary on Ai and Kamiki's character

I just can't shut up about them, can I? Since the new chapter will be dropping in just a few days from now (and I personally think there will be more reveals) this is probably going to be my last chance to discuss about them before things get clarified and set in stone once and for all (since we NEED to learn about just what HAS been going on about Ai's bf and his motives!! It's going to be shown to us in this final arc, right)

Here's how I feel about Ai/Kamiki as a character so far from all the things I've seen about them. Let's see how much of it will stand by the end of this manga(and/or the upcoming chapters)

I think they're well-written/would be well-written. I like how Ai's written for one thing, and Kamiki's past made a lot of sense to me, I think it can add on to something really interesting. I thought I got where it's going to get at.. that's why I've been drawing them so much since the latest chapter... hope I will be able to retain this interest and passion because having something to be excited and inspired about is a wonderful thing!

The following post was originally written in a different language and translated in bulk by ChatGPT! Thanks, ChatGPT..; you're a lifesaver

I wasn't meaning to translate these posts at first so that's why they weren't written in English but I feel it'd be such a waste to leave these.. I'd love to share it with everyone! 'v')9

There might be various changes when the next episode comes out... so if it's going to be uploaded, it seems right to do it now.

I'm writing a lot, like light writing (when I focus on something, I think about it a lot), and it might decrease or, depending on the situation, increase when the next episode comes out. There's nothing revealed yet, so I end up thinking a lot.

I think Ai is really a strong person. To survive in the entertainment industry, there must be so many things to think about. When I see that character, I think about those things. Although she has a soft side, she fundamentally seems like a character who lives really hard. Thinking about it, she was young herself, yet she protected her boyfriend and helped him escape from his abuser. She endured quite firmly under tremendous stress.

She's the type to bear everything alone... There are many things she endures, and in that situation, she worked hard to reach the top, and she wanted to be a good mother to her children. The most heartbreaking thing for me in this character's dialogue was when she said in her dying breath, "I wasn't a very good mother, but I still think it was good that I gave birth." That was so sad to me. I thought that was the saddest part. She had many thoughts. I noticed she thought she had to earn a lot to provide good education and conditions for her children. Middle school kids aren't necessarily shallow in thought, and while there's a range between people, I felt they were still serious and mature considering their age.

For a character like her, if she were in front of me, I would want to say that she's amazing and went through a lot of hardship. Before pointing out what she did wrong or lacked, I'd like to acknowledge that she lived with a lot of effort and loved those around her. Ai's efforts were not just for herself, but she had a rather humble character, and it seemed her motivation to strive was significantly for the happiness of those around her. Like when she wasn't sure if a dome concert was such a big deal but then thought it must be good since it was the president couple's dream, and she smiled along with them. For this character, what's important is resolving the curiosity about the lack in her heart, and achievements as an idol seemed secondary. That's why her saying she wanted to live with Kamiki and raise children together struck me, because for Ai, being an idol felt more like a means than an end. That doesn't mean she didn't try hard; she seemed like a responsible person who strives to meet expectations in her work.

Ai is a character who, through hard work, perseverance, and talent, eventually gets what she wants. Ai has a great curiosity and desire for areas she doesn't know well. She knows what she doesn't know but has the tenacity to not give up until the end. I think that's a strong aspect of her.

As for Kamiki, since it's unclear what his plans are at the current point in time (although I have a guess), if I were to describe the impression of him until just before he separated from Ai,

He's simply pitiful. He self-deprecatingly said that his relationship with Ai was one where he was unilaterally dependent on her. While he might have depended on her a lot, it seems Kamiki had to endure alone until the point they met. He grew up in such a broken situation that I don't even want to deeply think about what it must have been like... From what we see, it seems he wasn't just harmed by one person. Ai had President Ichigo at least worrying about her, and people to take care of her children when they were born, but Kamiki didn't seem to have a proper guardian at all. His exceptional looks might have made his situation even worse. He was just left alone in the world, and it wasn't just being alone, he had to endure all the malice and exploitation by himself.

You know how some adults appear in the movie arc, like Kaburagi and Kindaichi? This shows that the adults failed to protect the kids. The adults might have been busy with their own lives, but I don't think they can be entirely absolved of responsibility for the kids being in such situations.

Anyway, in that situation, Ai appeared to Kamiki, and I think Kamiki couldn't help but love Ai, who understood, accepted, and loved him more than anyone else. Ai also saved him. The fact that he sought help from someone only a year older than himself shows how vulnerable he was. It's just so heartbreaking. He must have liked Ai a lot... Fortunately, they connected emotionally, and Ai also liked him and wanted to help him. But Ai was powerless. Until just before she had her children, I think Ai tried her best in her own way. When Kamiki came to her, completely broken and crying, she took him in because she wanted to help him somehow.

But it’s sad that Ai couldn't even rely on her boyfriend... This really needs to be shown from Ai’s perspective too. She became Kamiki's emotional support, but it seems Kamiki couldn't do the same for her. However, I think Ai’s defensive nature also played a part... She absolutely didn't want to show weakness. She was a perfectionist. The others also played a part in this, as shown in the song IDOL. she was pressured by those around her to not forgive herself for not being perfect, so she couldn't let herself crumble or break down.

Still, Ai must have really liked her boyfriend. From the content of the video, it seems she was more worried about him getting better rather than feeling it was hard to help him. If she left a request to her children because she couldn't do it alone, that means she truly loved him. Asking her children for a personal favor about her boyfriend (even though he is biologically their father) shows that she was deeply concerned. (There’s a reason she left the request to her grown children; asking when they were young wouldn't have been fair, and adults are supposed to help children, not the other way around. For Ai, anything related to Kamiki was a lingering concern.)

I've drawn this couple a lot recently, not only because of Fatal being.. really obvious to me?? that it should be Kamiki's feelings and that it clicked and let EVERYTHING make sense but also because it’s confirmed that Ai loved Kamiki a lot too. Considering this, I think the storyline is not fully revealed yet. Kamiki is someone Ai desperately wanted to help, borrowing the strength of the protagonists, even. This is revealed not at the beginning but at the very end, indicating his significance. That must mean there are some things that we'll be able to find redeemable about him. Or at least, he must be a character who evokes a lot of sympathy.

Looking at this narrative, if Kamiki is willing to do anything for Ai, it makes a lot of sense. I was holding off on judging the depth of Ai's feelings until that video scene (you see how careful I'm about it in the analysis I've made about Ai), but it’s been clear that he was truly happy with her on his end. When I saw the lyrics for Fatal, I immediately knew it was from his perspective... it’s clear he has deep feelings about her. The emotions in the song matched, so I looked into the song's content, and it was quite unsettling, giving me the strong impression that he took a wrong path. His character was exactly as I thought, so I wasn’t surprised. He suits well with Ai. Isn't the younger version of him, really soft?? Ai isn’t the type to be dragged around. If she had a boyfriend who's younger than she was, she would have acted like a big sister. If he had been older, it might have had a different sort of dynamic, but at their first meeting, he was even smaller than Ai, so instead of her being swayed, I figured he'd have been the one drawn to her. Seeing Ai hide who the father of her children was, yet genuinely loving them purely, suggests that she wanted to protect him. Their relationship must have been good. The calls felt like Ai had the upper hand. However, you can't predict when someone will snap, so until his appearance, it was all speculation. But everything turned out as expected, along with the emotions they had regarding each other.

I don't know the current state of this character, but it feels like something significant has happened. Because of that, there's been a drastic change about him, but it's clear that this character really loves Ai. I keep mentioning it, but from the character's perspective, it couldn't have been any other way. So, I thought, "Wow... the writing was well done." The key point is how far Kamiki can go with such deep feelings and how it might become distorted, deviate, or turn into a mix of love and hate, depending on how it's handled.

At least, as the lyrics suggest, he loves her to the extent that he would do anything he can. I believe that has been made clear, so I think the development will inevitably go that way.

His past is just so miserable that I want to hug him and tell him he suffered a lot. Both him and Ai. And I want to arrange for them to be protected by adults who can give them lots of love and care in a clean, good environment. It’s no wonder Kamiki felt like there was no one in the world but him and Ai, which is such a sad situation... But there must be lonely kids like them out there. I hope those kids can receive the love they deserve.

I was actually a bit interested in the area of social welfare. However, it’s a very tough path, so I didn't dive so deep into it... While reading the manga, my thoughts wandered in that direction because the characters were in such vulnerable states. This sort of situation isn't 100% fiction.

I once did volunteer work in education, and honestly, the kids who have gone through tough times are much more mature and resilient than I am... They know things I don’t, and I believe that. But they are still young. It’s not about underestimating or dismissing them; at that age, they shouldn't be experiencing such things... It's an age when they should be receiving love.

In my opinion, the likelihood of major character inconsistencies or setting errors with the protagonist’s parents is quite low. The scenes they get are significant but short, so the characters are likely to come out as initially planned. And honestly, how cunning or wicked can two middle school kids be? This isn’t pure fantasy; the manga heavily borrows from reality. So, I liked how their past was revealed in this manner. The key is how things will unfold next, and it’s hard to predict completely.

When I first heard the song IDOL, I immediately thought, "Oh, this character is really struggling." (I mention this a lot but) I can't claim to understand everything since I haven't led such a turbulent life, but I still felt sorry for them. If I were in that character's position, I don't know if I could have lived as earnestly... However, when considering why the character made such choices, I can sense that it seems to come from their own efforts and concerns. Many situations arose consecutively, and I think Ai, as a character, tried her best within them.

And Kamiki is really something else. When he was breaking up with Ai, I didn’t mention much about what he heard, but Ai is really sharp. Even if she didn’t know what the consequences would be later, she said exactly what she needed to achieve her desired result (Kamiki leaving her). It wasn’t cursing, but the words were very cruel. I predicted that he wouldn’t be able to hold onto Ai when they broke up, even before the episode was revealed... LOL. But he ended up hearing such devastating words that he couldn't say anything back and was just left dumbfounded. Those words must have really hurt. I even felt emotionally wounded along with him! Ai is truly remarkable... When you watch the video, you can see that she really loved him, but to be able to say such things to someone she cared about... I don’t think I could do that because it would break my heart. As I mentioned when analyzing Ai, she just did what she thought was the best. She didn’t like herself very much, so it was more important to protect him from the burden of being with her than worrying about him hating her.

Kamiki, on the other hand, talked about those words to his son, saying, "Ai left me because she found out what I did, and it was natural and unavoidable." He has no anger. His self-esteem is very low, and he feels very sad. Although he mentioned that Ai had selfish and cruel sides, the first thing he feels is self-loathing... He believes it was natural to be abandoned, and he thinks he has never been loved by anyone. There’s a scene where he is walking hand-in-hand with Ai, looking so happy, and it’s described as if just being with her made him feel like he could overcome anything. But he accepts that she thought of him that way, which is so pitiful, isn’t it?

Would a character in such a state try to harm Ai? I don’t think so. If he were going to be angry, it would have been then. But I think both Ai and Kamiki knew that he wouldn’t retaliate even after hearing such words. This shows their personalities very well. When Ai said they should break up, he's able to suggest that they get married, this character... has no pride when it comes to Ai... It’s pitiful. He must have been like that in the payphone call too. It’s obvious that he wanted to meet again, saying he “clung on.” People say clinging isn’t attractive, but it seems he did so timidly. He probably couldn’t even speak firmly, and when Ai said no, he was likely left speechless again.

What happened to make him like how he is now? (But if you look at his lines, it doesn’t seem like he changed that much. He still says, "Because of me, because of me," in front of that dying actor. He blames himself for what's happened, and I wonder how it happened) I think this character needs to see a psychiatrist. He seems extremely depressed. It’s not a fair comparison, but his self-destructive behavior feels even worse than Aqua’s, and it’s understandable... Aqua still has people who love him, but this person!! He really has no one!!

Seeing the video of Ai and being so shocked... yeah, it's totally a natural reaction for him. He really didn't realize that Ai loved him in the SLIGHTEST. But if we consider whether it was Kamiki's fault that he didn't know, I don't think it was. Aqua showed the video as part of his revenge, but although Kamiki's heart must have been torn and he felt like dying... did he really do something deserving of revenge? I say that’s actually questionable. If he had killed Ai, then "revenge" would make sense, but it seems like he contributed less to her death than what he even told Aqua. Now that he knows he was loved all along, it will be interesting to see what kind of reaction comes out. Sigh.. so they had mutual feelings towards each other, so it's good, right? Their lives have been so unfortunate. Depending on what Kamiki did in the middle, it might determine whether he deserves such harsh words, but for now, that's my impression.

These two characters seem to be well-written (from a constructed perspective). Ai is really well-written, and Kamiki seems that way too. The chance for them to be happy together disappeared with Ai's death... who knows what will happen next...

Songs like "Mephisto" or "Fatal" really seem fitting. That's why I think those songs are related to Kamiki... the lyrics are so intriguing, so there must be something there.

I hope it all ends well.

[bestworstcase]

So, I recently had a discussion with a friend regarding your angle that Salem respects humans/Faunus, convinced Summer to get onboard with her plan and has the explicit goal of taking out the gods to save Remnant.

Conceptually I don't strictly mind any of this, its certainly not impossible for reasons you've outlined and it'd be suitably subversive of CRWBY to take the woman scorned/heretics villain and have her not be about that but some way bigger issue.

However, I run into a bit of a hurdle with embracing the concepts because it always hits what I deem to be some narrative and structural hurdles. Not one's that "Can't" be overcome, but that I am unsure I have seen be covered in outlines and theories.

My main concerns tie into a few angles that I'll try to break up for clarity:

Focus A big concern for me with the current theory is that it feels like it shifts the focus of the story away from the main characters.

You know how people treated Ironwood or Adam, or Ozpin & Qrow like they were the main characters and RWBY were or should be just supporting characters in their narrative?

While I don't think this is intentional on your part, it does beg the question of how this would be avoided.

Shaggy Dog Story Tied into the above is the potential for it to make the main characters journey feel a bit like a Shaggy Dog story. IE, a story where a lot of bad stuff happens for no reasn and they'd be better off having stayed home.

Again, I don't think this is intentional.

But, if Salem has a plan to take down the gods, if this plan is good and workable and would succeed... Haven't they made everything worse by fighting her and dragging it out?

Agency & of not and Salem is happy about them rallying the world behind them because then she can do this alone, we go back to the Focus issue.

Salem seems to become the main character and the story feels less about RWBY and more about them being caught up in Salem's narrative.

Consistency Meanwhile from Salem's angle, it does beg some questions about her thought processes. I can accept the idea she is varying shades of paranoid ad not used to being trusted...

But at the same time she has an inner circle she trusts a fair bit and is willing to reach out and align with large organizations like the White Fang, or try to cut deals with Atlas. Plus she might legit have Summer on her side.

So the idea I've seen proposed that she feels compelled to go to war, that she cannot envision another way. When most of the world doesn't know or care about the gods, when she has humans & Faunus on her side already who could speak for her.

Simply put it feels inconsistent to say that Salem is pathologically incapable of reaching out to others. She certainly struggles with communicating, but she can do so and can get people on her side.

Satisfaction This one is a bit more vague, but the general point is I am unsure what a satisfying conclusion with the seemingly proposed ideas looks like.

If Salem is right, then RWBY and co are to one degree or another supporting characters, whose actions had little impact. Or their narrative significance is in basically clarifying that Salem is correct and should be worked with. Or perhaps serving as her nominal therapists/communication advisors.

I swear I am not trying to be reductive, I am just basing this on conversations I've had and posts I've seen.

But yeah, basically I am wondering how you envision things going down that ensures RWBY remains the focal characters and that their journey and decisions have real meaning. While keeping the nuanced Salem and ensuring she doesn't come across as inconsistent. I am sure it can be done, and have tinkered with some myself, but most of them don't seem to in the direction I've seen suggested by others.

rubs hands. all good questions

#1: focus

i will say i do think the story of rwby is foundationally about ozlem—in the sense that the plot of the story revolves around this ancient and deeply personal conflict between them that is tearing the world apart and the narrative goal is their reconciliation, because you can’t have true peace until These Two immortal fucks stop fighting—and that team rwby’s the main characters because they’re the ones whom the narrative has, in essence, asked to put the broken pieces of this fairytale back together the right way.

as ruby herself says, remnant isn’t like a fairytale but that’s why they’re here, to make it better. on a character level that’s a statement about how ruby sees the world, her youthful optimism mingled with sadness, but on the thematic level it’s a very. literal description of what the story’s about. 

points at oz. look at where he started, look at where he is now. this man is under a curse designed to make it impossible for him to change and at the top of the show he has not fundamentally changed in any sense except gradual decay for, literally thousands of years. right. and then he admits ruby into his monster hunting school two years early because she has special magic eyes and he’s in need of a new chosen one since her mother disappeared, and then salem sends cinder to maul him, and—oops!—his “simple soul” who was never supposed to become anything more than another symbolic guardian is the one actually. like. making all the decisions.

once he gets oscar to mistral his “authority” over the gang lasts for exactly as long as ruby trusts him, which is [checks notes] One Month and Two Weeks. and then she explodes his whole situation by asking jinn what he’s hiding, which incites his long period of self-reflection while oscar becomes more oscar followed by the atonement arc in v8 and now he’s in vacuo fighting against this curse tooth and nail. 

now ruby did not Set Out to wrench ozma free of his divinely-enforced rut, she just did the protagonist thing of seeing a problem (bad guys attacked her school, and they’re planning to attack the other schools too!) and trying to fix it (she won’t let anyone else die!). but directly because of her actions, oz undergoes this seismic character development precipitating his part in the Ozlem Reconciliation.

and ruby is also indirectly the cause of the (subtler but just as necessary) character development salem has undergone since her proper introduction in v4 because all of that is constructed on the foundation of cinder’s near-death atop beacon tower.

so v1-8 are—in this very high level, bird’s eye view of the narrative—about ruby being more or less the butterfly who flaps her wings, by just Being There and responding to the events unfolding around her as best she can, having these cascading impacts on the world and on ozlem. thats step one. 

step two is the ever after, where all of team rwby but ruby in particular start having to confront. The Ideology. of ozma’s mandate which they’ve not yet thought about because they’re focused on the more immediately urgent problems of Not Dying and Not Letting Innocent People Die. so they need to get a little time to stop and breathe and feel the weight of “atlas is gone and salem has two of the four relics and what are we going to do” before they meet the demiurge who tells them, very gently, that the god of light is wrong and that they can’t solve this conflict with more conflict. 

and then they go right to vacuo, which is on the brink of civil war. this is step three. they need to figure out how to resolve the situation in vacuo, and this is why i do not think salem will arrive in vacuo until the end of v10 if at all; vacuo is sort of a proving ground for team rwby. 

can they take what they learned in the ever after and put it into practice in vacuo? can they make that mental leap from ozpin’s idea of unity (conflict avoidance, fear of disagreement, keeping secrets and hiding problems to maintain the appearance of peace while propping the whole system up with warriors trained to kill monsters and not ask questions) to true balance (which is messy and complicated and requires talking instead of fighting, negotiation and compromise instead of placation or condemnation, honesty and trust instead of manipulation and secrecy)? 

their coalition wants to protect vacuo from salem. the crown also wants to protect vacuo from salem. the two sides of this nascent civil war want the same thing, but have very different ideas about how to achieve it. v10 is about team rwby solving this, finding common cause with the crown, in preparation for step four.

which is finding common cause with salem. they want to save remnant from destruction. she also wants to save remnant from destruction, but has very different ideas about how to do it. The Rest Of The Show is about bridging that divide. she isn’t the main character so much as the final goal. 

#2: shaggy dog story

following from that: i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, salem can’t get the Good Ending by herself either. i think whatever plan she has for dealing with the gods is probably something that will work but, gestures at the apocalyptic destruction she’s leaving strewn in her wake, she does not care how much blood she has to spill to get there, and the best case scenario for her if she continues on this path is that the gods are gone forever but the entire world reviles her and she’ll find no quarter anywhere. 

right-but-evil vs wrong-but-good. 

now in the abstract, if the relics had been just sitting on an unguarded plinth somewhere and team rwby had taken it upon themselves to keep them away from her… then sure, they’d have been better off staying home to let her scoop the damn things up and stab light in the heart, figuratively speaking. but ozpin had the relics locked down inside fortresses guarded by children, three in the middle of major urban population centers. salem. can’t get to them by herself without killing a whole lot of people.

so if nothing else, if literally nothing else, team rwby saved thousands of people who would have died in mantle/atlas and i am pretty sure they’re going to save thousands of people who are now trapped under mountain glenn, to bring that full circle. EVEN IF making peace with salem were to look like the heroes just adopting her plan with no notes and handing over the last relic, they’d still be the sole reason hundreds of thousands of people survived to see the world get saved. 

but i can also guarantee that’s… not what making peace with salem will look like. the stakes are very high for everyone and there is a lot that needs to be addressed. what happens to the grimm? to the huntsmen academies? how does her vision of a new world conflict with the future they want? (how do they deal with the way fear of collective punishment shapes her plans, because i do think her plan for dealing with the gods depends on the whole world being credibly united against her as a failsafe against round two of “we killed the world to punish you”?) what compromises do they demand from her? how do they challenge her? etc.

this is a type of narrative arc rwby has already proven to be pretty good at handling—look at ‘cordially invited,’ look at the whole amity-or-mantle split underpinning the plot of v8. there are even more moving pieces in negotiating with salem than in either of those combined, and team rwby—by virtue of being the main characters and by virtue of being the ones who brought the vacuo coalition and the crown together—will be the ones shepherding all of this. 

#3 agency

salem is pleased about the broadcast for, i believe, two reasons:

in the short term, it hands her an opportunity to force the sword out of the vault without risking cinder’s life on a silver platter, because if she takes a rain check on showing up to be the Great Evil they’ll eventually have to mount a counteroffensive to hold that coalition together, and

in the longer term, once she has all four relics, if the entire world fucking hates her then the gods are less likely to kill them all to punish her if she fails. 

this is also why she razes vale to the ground (and the first is another reason i anticipate a lot of survivors trapped in mountain glenn—hostages). 

i don’t see that either of these reasons reduce the agency of the main characters or make salem the main character, any more than e.g. cinder’s pleasure when the black queen virus hops from ozpin’s desk to ironwood’s scroll makes her the main character of the beacon arc. villains have motivations and agency as characters too and one of the basic building blocks of narrative is action-reaction pushing and pulling between hero and villain. 

ruby takes action. salem reacts to turn it to her advantage, because that’s how she operates. the vacuo coalition will react to her destruction of vale (and probable hostage-taking) with either a counteroffensive or an attempt to save people without handing over the sword, or both, or take the riskier but higher reward option of talking to her, which she doesn’t expect (and may react quite badly to, because of the second reason). 

the reason i discuss salem’s motivations and plans so disproportionately in comparison to the heroes is that she’s more opaque and teasing out what she wants and why she does things is a lot more challenging than it is for the main characters; they are, always, trying to protect everyone they can from those who do harmful destructive things. there is an abundance of other very interesting things to talk about with regard to the mains, but within this broad overarching narrative their motivation is Extremely Simple. they don’t want bad things to happen to people. 

so when it comes to speculation, if you can puzzle out “what will salem do?” it tends to be self-evident what the good guys will do in response. because the response is always “stop salem” and will continue to be that until it turns into “help salem,” which is really just a different means to the same end of protecting people from salem but one that requires her to cooperate, and she isn’t going to cooperate if they don’t surprise her.

it’s similar to “what is ozpin hiding from us?” in that there’s another key change coming—so far salem has taken the initiative in every arc. she attacks beacon, she attacks haven, she attacks atlas, she razed vale. villainous action, heroic reaction. they need to, in essence, react and then act in a way that she doesn’t anticipate. and then she reacts. 

but narratively, the way this plays out—the focus and momentum of the story is with the main characters. it’s going to cut away to salem only as much as is needed to set up her reaction when the main characters take the initiative. the story is how the main characters get to the point where they can do that. 

#4 character consistency 

the key point here is that all of salem’s relationships within her inner circle (and more broadly the factions she aligns herself with) are strictly transactional; she is able to trust and feel secure in these relationships only as long as they don’t care about her and she doesn’t care about them. but the instantshe becomes consciously aware of caring about cinder in 6.4 she goes kind of nuts. 

dropping everything to rush to atlas after saying she was going to leave cinder to toil in isolation. then being mean to her. then doubling down on being mean. then folding like wet cardboard when cinder called her bluff, landing on “good for you for defying me when i was cruel,” and immediately razing vale rather than send cinder after the summer maiden. 

this is what salem caring looks like; going to extremely destructive lengths to protect someone whom she is, in almost the same breath, trying to shove away. remember all the ruby-salem parallels that began to really erupt in v9? “if you stay with me, you’re going to end up dead, too” is one of them. salem:

lost her mother in childbirth. her father blamed her and locked her up with a wet nurse from infancy because he wanted nothing to do with her except insofar as he could treat her like a defective imitation of her mother once she grew older

grew up imprisoned in a tower, watching her father execute not just anyone who tried to help her but anyone who spoke to her; being caught offering her kindness was a crime punishable by death. 

fell in love with a man who then promptly grew sick and died, and got brutally punished by the gods for asking him to be restored to life.

told people her story and gathered a following of a few hundred, maybe a few thousand people who agreed to stand with her against the gods, and the gods murdered not only these people but also everyone in the world, to punish her defiance.

refused, millions of years later, to help ozma enact his mandate from those gods; he left her and they attacked each other and fought so brutally that their children (and entire household) died in the crossfire and their whole kingdom collapsed overnight. 

has spent decades watching ozpin treat children as expendable cannon fodder, bloody grist in the mill of an imaginary war to get rid of her. 

salem blames herself for at least the latter two (#5 is made clear by the framing in 6.4 and underscored by paralleling with jaune in 9.7; #4 is implied by salem glossing over her rebellion out of fear that ozma would reject her, a fear she could only feel if she felt guilt), and i will not be remotely surprised if it turns out she’s blaming herself for the first three as well. certainly ozpin implies in his commentary on ‘the girl in the tower’ that the blood her father spilled is on her hands because she asked for help.

the point is, i don’t think it’s possible to understand salem as a character without considering what it would do to a person for this to be the defining narrative of her life, literally from birth, that she is the reason others die. she killed her mother; it’s her fault that her father murdered anyone who showed her kindness; she was selfish and arrogant to plead for her lover’s life; her turning other people against the gods who enforce this rule is cause for genocide; her children are dead because she is a monster. if you stay with me you’re going to end up dead too.

ozma was her last and only hope—the one who saved her from the tower, who knew her before, who chose to come back for her—that anyone might ever see something in her worth helping, worth loving, worth protecting. his betrayal shattered her trust, but that isn’t why salem is the way she is. 

she always felt unlovable. she always felt monstrous. the foundation of her identity is guilt. she is the scapegoat. she is the reason everyone else must die. and it’s her fate to be the one left standing with all that blood smeared on her hands, because she is always, always the justification for the killing. all this endless death! salem calmed down when yang spat that in her face instead of getting angry because it rang true to her.

it isn’t that she’s incapable of trusting or making emotional connections or seeking common cause with others—although her preferred method for doing so begins with inflicting violence on herself or inviting others to inflict violence on her so there is severe dysfunction there—but rather she feels a deep conviction that doing so is materially harmful, that she endangers people by asking for help, and therefore that no one who understood her could ever want to help her. 

if no one sees her clearly, if she performs her role as the fairytale witch and allows people to cast whatever distorted reflections of themselves onto her that they like, she can maintain the emotional detachment that makes her feel safe. as long as she is alone, no matter how painful it is, she feels safe.

but once she notices herself caring about cinder… she desperately wants to keep cinder safe and that motivates her cruelty, because if she cares about cinder then cinder will, eventually, be killed to punish salem. and if cinder knew that she would run, and she should run while she still can. this is woven into the foundations of how salem sees herself.

#5 satisfaction

the conceit of this reading is that there is one way to resolve the central narrative conflict, which is the war between ozma and salem. the Problem Of Salem is that she cannot be killed and never gives up, so even if they defeated her now and sealed her away in a vault somewhere or whatever, nothing would really change. the world would still be broken and endangered by this conflict. oscar would die; ozma would gradually decay again until he became another ozpin.

moreover, it’s becoming increasingly clear that they can’t defeat salem. oz wiped out hundreds of thousands if not millions of grimm in the blink of an eye—and half the fandom kept treating that like the inflection point, as if salem had exhausted all of her resources and now had nothing left to bring to vacuo—and then what happened? she turned around a few weeks later and flattened vale.

if this were a conflict ozlem could resolve on their own, they would have done so long ago and there wouldn’t be a story, or at least not this story. the reason the story is happening right now is that team rwby are the ones who can make what needs to happen, happen. 

the only thing that makes this narrative different from a bog standard fantasy war story is that, well, as ‘for every life’ put it, some heroes chose the wrong side. so instead of a straightforward narrative about good guys persevering through trials and tribulations until they triumph over the bad guys it’s a narrative about the good guys—team rwby—learning that doing the right thing is actually really difficult and complicated, because there’s no such thing as pure evil and because the things they were taught to believe aren’t always true. 

salem is evil (she kills people) but right (she refuses to surrender remnant to a genocidal tyrant) and just a person (she deserves compassion as does everyone). ozma is good (he wants to save people) but wrong (he serves the genocidal tyrant) and just a person (he deserves compassion as does everyone). 

narratively, the purpose of team rwby is to take right and good and put them back together. with ozma this means team rwby is the driving force that causes him first to be honest with himself and others, then to rebel against his role as the god of light’s servant—because his problem is that he’s wrong. with salem, team rwby first have to tear down all the obfuscating false narratives built up around her (this arc began in v6 and is ongoing) and then hold out a hand and challenge her to meet them halfway. which she will, because the cinder stuff is challenging her in the same way that “what is ozpin hiding from us?” challenged oz.

this is not anything different from say, what blake does narratively for ilia or what penny and weiss do for winter, or what oscar tries to do for ironwood, or what ruby and yang do for raven, or what ruby does in forgiving neo. it’s at a larger scale because salem is a central character—the main villain—but the same in principle. they open a door and she has to walk through it. 

this remains true even if salem is notionally the one who initiates the conversation, e.g. by revealing the existence of hostages in mountain glenn and demanding the sword, because if she does that then obviously team rwby can’t and won’t play on her terms. this remains true even if salem initiates the conversation in earnest, e.g. by putting all her cards on the table and asking for help, because the focus of the narrative then will be on team rwby grappling with the very daunting question of whether to take the risk of hearing her out and the emotional stakes of agreeing to negotiate.

again, gestures at jax and gillian. the crown wants exactly the same thing that the heroes do, but their methods are destructive and harmful and while they might be able to achieve a victory against salem if they won, it would be a very pyrrhic victory indeed. this is precisely the narrative set up regarding salem and dealing with the crown is the last set of training wheels for team rwby before they’re ready to tackle the Salem Problem. 

it may help to think of it in terms of negotiation being equivalent to the battles in a standard fantasy war story. typically you would expect the main character to face a series of increasingly difficult fights against increasingly dangerous opponents until they’re ready to bring the fight to the villain, and then they win. if they lose a battle they’ll train and become stronger and eventually face that opponent again and win this time. yeah?

well. rwby is doing that but with talking. weiss and blake have their blow up fight over weiss’s bigotry in v1 and weiss has to listen and apologize. v2-5 team rwby lose every important fight against salem’s agents except for the one that forces qrow to reveal himself and bring RNJR into the loop and the one where yang confronts raven and persuades her mother to give her the lamp. v6, ruby triumphs over cordovin and the bees defeat adam only after making a serious effort to reason with both of them, and then the leviathan is defeated because cordovin ultimately took what ruby said to her to heart. v7 is centrally about trying to talk ironwood down from the fascism ledge and get everyone to the table to negotiate. v8 is in many ways an examination of why they couldn’t get through to ironwood in the end—that intense fear of division and consequent inability to handle disagreement constructively—while setting up, through salem’s erratic treatment of cinder, the idea that salem is not beyond reason or incapable of change. v9 is literally just an extended training montage where they practice empathy and critical thinking and learn to ask questions and listen instead of making snap judgments. 

see how it builds? their journey isn’t about becoming better fighters so they can beat salem, it’s about developing the skills and perspective they need to talk to her. but that really only works narratively if salem wants something that the heroes can find common cause with—there has to be a connection, something they can listen and then say “we want that too, so work with us” about. in the same way thatif this were a story about defeating salem, she would have to have a weakness, something they could do to negate her power or make her mortal again, so that defeating her isn’t impossible. 

and again if you have trouble envisioning how this can happen without displacing team rwby as the main characters, look at how things shake out in v7 and v8 with the negotiations and disagreements the kids deal with in those volumes. because those are preludes for averting the vacuan civil war in v10 (or ending it in a truce) and that’s the prelude to dealing with salem.