#she can and should be allowed to kill

[mohntilyet]

still i think the one of the more fun differences drawn between illario and lucanis that was lost would be illario's ability to endear himself to others but serious lack of empathy, vs. lucanis' (self perceived) inability to be charming but how much he cares. it's interesting that the game has gone with the "lucanis' ability vs illario's lack thereof" because i think illario being the dellamorte 'best in show dog' vs. lucanis' attack dog would have made me so unwell.

lucanis is... awkward. he's not unlikable, because he is usually very polite, but he doesn't speak much and only seems to care about the other dellamortes. he once sent viago de riva a knife with no note (who knows what he could have meant by this). he does what caterina asks of him, and by his own admission, cannot say no to her. he is a dramatic and prolific killer, and that makes how untouchable he is even worse.

and the crows like illario, sure, AND he's a good assassin! he's even a good crow! he's so good that he can make lucanis smile, and so he is the charming, sociable one. he's the one that stays in treviso and can be relied upon to care, illario's even the one people prefer over caterina and lucanis!

but illario is decoration. he's the prize poodle, and even if poodles were bred to be working dogs, nobody will ever pick him to protect the house over the german shepherd that regularly mauls intruders. anyways the analogy is getting away from me. the point i'm trying to make is that i want illario to have a different kind of jealousy/hatred that's not just over 'being bad at killing' but also an arrogant loathing for everyone around him that is getting harder to hide, because they've forgotten he can bite and is just itching to rip someone's jugular out. illario is very good at hiding his family resemblance to caterina, while lucanis suffers under his grandmother's, and his own, reputation.

[aroaceleovaldez]

the dynamic of demigods thinking which other demigod is the most powerful is always amusing to me because. like, we know the big 3 kids are all the most powerful. That's just a fact of their universe. And then we know nearly every character views Percy as the strongest demigod, and most people are very rightfully intimidated by him.

and you look at the powers of the Big 3 kids and there's Percy, but then you realize Nico is just kind of objectively more powerful than him but simply chooses to hang out in Percy's shadow like he's Percy's scary dog privileges. Like, the two of them are pretty equally capable of causing multiple different apocalypses. Nico just also has like four different instakill powers and it's not like he doesn't use them. He very much uses them! Not infrequently, even! And they don't seem to take a significant amount of energy from him! And other demigods are pretty intimidated by both of them! But Nico makes a conscious point to keep his cards close to his chest and not let on exactly how dangerous and scary he can be if he wants to. People are already scared enough of him without knowing anything about him and he doesn't like that. Percy doesn't think about that nearly as much, and so usually just goes in guns blazing and that's part of why he's considered a wildcard. And then Nico himself puts Percy on a pedestal, so those who do know more about Nico's abilities then presume Nico knows something they don't about Percy that implies Percy is even stronger than him.

And even on a meta level Nico's narrative role requires him to be functionally more powerful than Percy, because he very often serves the purpose of getting Percy out of situations he can't handle on his own. That's just part of his function as a character! But also narratively he can't overshadow Percy so he just takes a backseat of his own accord and that's very amusing to me.

[umblrspectrum]

every ship is simultaneously real and non-real depending on whether it fits my narrative at any given moment. schrodingers ship. schipdinger

[konohamaru-sensei]

ah. it hurts

[somegrumpynerd]

I just think I should be allowed to kill one person setting off fireworks for every minute that they're doing this bullshit and I don't think that's unreasonable

[concrete-3ater]

if I had a nickel for every time I was in a fandom and a child character had a breakdown and did something that accidentally hurt another character, and then the fandom all turned on the character and vilified them because they [the fandom] can’t understand that sometimes 14 year olds make mistakes when they’re going through something traumatic, I would have 2 nickels

not a lot but it really is weird it happened twice

[floofysmallbob]

does anyone have any good fics where vi works for Silco and jinx was in Stillwater?

[mantisgodsdomain]

Maybe it's a bad idea to give a lich access to multiattack.

[edwinisms]

I know how it sounds at first, but I really gotta feel bad for the boys that sacrificed edwin; I mean even the term “sacrificed edwin” paints them in a more sinister light than they really deserve– considering that wasn’t really, actually their intention.

they were bullies, they were homophobic (and/or were self loathing gay boys themselves taking it out on edwin, or were equally likely peer pressured into acting a certain way), they planned something stupid and mean to do to an innocent, anxious boy with the goal of scaring the shit out of him, all because he was effeminate and an easy target. but they didn’t know or expect any of the ritual stuff to be real. they were all laughing and joking during the ritual because it was just that to them– a joke. a cruel joke, but a joke.

teenagers can be mean and stupid and they usually regret it as adults and grow out of it / grow from it. they were stifled the chance to grow out of it, at least while alive. none of those boys deserved to be instakilled and sent to hell; they’re really not that much less deserving than edwin himself. they were all just kids, after all.

[toaarcan]

You ever think about how extremely traumatic the first two arcs of the Archie reboot would've been for all the characters?

They're just living their normal lives, when one day Sonic starts babbling about a completely different history where most of them were in extremely dire straits, and starts using Nicole to overwrite their extant memories with those of the previous universe.

Like, imagine being Sally in that situation. You come home from a dangerous but routine mission to find all your friends acting like you've just come back from the dead. They hand you your computer and suddenly your mind is filled with memories of a much different world to this one, a much darker and more painful one, filled with death and constant betrayal. Your last memories are now filled with weeks of watching your mechanised, vivisected body mindlessly serve your nemesis, and try to kill your friends and family. You were (probably) awake when Eggman carved you up with a blowtorch, while monologuing creepily about how smart you are, right before he crammed a cannon in where your brain should be. You almost died because Eggman designed your new form so badly that you ran out of power on your first mission as his pawn, only to be 'saved' by someone who loved you, and now doesn't exist.

But it's not just that. That would be bad enough. You also remember that this other version of you had a living mother. A mother who loved her and supported her and tried to be there for her. Yours has been dead since you were a child. You're still a child, but you've never felt less like one than you do right now. You had a brother too. He had a wife and a daughter, you had a niece and and a sister-in-law. They're gone. In fact, they're not just gone. They never existed. You have memories of people that never existed. All your friends apparently do. These other versions of them all had families. Here, they're all orphans, except for Rotor, who now remembers a world where his father wasn't an abusive bastard that serves Eggman out of some warped sense of social darwinism, something he can never have in this one.

On the other hand, your father, whom you know as a kind, generous, and reasonable man, was in this other world a controlling, emotionally abusive asshole, a major factor in a massive mental breakdown you endured and struggled with for months on end.

And then shortly afterwards, these memories begin to fade. Maybe you're okay with forgetting Mecha Sally. Maybe you're okay with forgetting that Nigel was ever Maximilian. But now you're also forgetting Alicia and Elias and Megan and Alexis, people who only existed in your memory. You won't remember how many people Eggman killed with the Super Genesis Wave. There will never be justice for them, and in a few short days, you won't even remember their names.

[t8oo]

there is some symbolism iv never considered in that one episod of pt5 where zenigata rescues fujiko before she kills lupin

[extravagantliar]

epler possibly writing the regret scene makes me want to lift off as a. this half confirms that mary wanted to leave him in Kirkwall b. mary did not write jail, it was trick and john and that makes it WORSE c. He would have died in Kirkwall

[pagesofkenna]

(arcane spoilers) im not really in touch with what 'the fandom' is saying but i have seen multiple people responding to apparently 'the fandom' being mad that Jayce tried to destroy the weird magic cult thing, which im just surprised at? I thought people didnt like weird cults. like i cant quite parse what was going on with that place but there was definitely some manipulation and mind control at hand (not even sure how much Viktor was even aware of it too)

i mean, i assume people are just sad he had to attack Viktor about it but like... weird mind control cult thing is ok as long as sad boyfriend is in charge? is that really it?

(or am i taking this too seriously and its more just a continuation of the 'Jinx has never done anything wrong and y'all should stop fighting her :(' mentality, in which case i agree but you dont understand that Jayce is literally the one (1) person who's allowed to fight him about this, for tragedy reasons)

[nightfal1n]

with ep12 showing how much stress Mina can be put through and still keep calm I'm now thinking back to everytime Mina showed any expression on her face and like....all of them are either in front of / for Kafka or Hoshina

[idiotsonlyevent]

reiju's situation is awful, but i think it gets even worse when you realize that in fascist states, not only are women generally deemed lesser than men, but also the role of women is primary to be child-bearers and caretakers. germa...... doesn't need that due to its cloning technology.

so, not only does reiju's name have レイ rei 'zero' in it, so she literally Doesn't Count! not only is she not first in line for the throne, because judge has three other sons! but the only position she would normally be allowed to occupy(?) in society is useless, bordering on non-existent. like her only option is to keep doing what she's doing as a mercenary/soldier. at any point, judge could decide he needs her as a political pawn, or even worse: another source for genetic experiments (or both! at once!) and she Cannot Say No

[villain-in-love]

Behold! The elves and the ship chart!

Imagine falling in love with a crazy woman that barged into your dungeon and continuously tried to kill you. Press F for Thistle. As well as for Kiera, for that matter, since she also didn’t expect for things to turn out like this.

This relationship is such a mess that nobody (even the pair themselves) can figure out what the hell is going on between them anymore.

Clarifications are, as always, under the cut:

♤ The age gap goes in several directions at once. Technically, Thistle is at least 700+ years older than Kiera, since he was a dungeon lord for a thousand years, while Kiera is only 302 years old. On the other hand, he’s younger in terms of physical and perhaps mental maturity. In my narrative, Thistle stopped aging when he was an equivalent of a human 17-19 years old. In the same way Kiera would be somewhere around 21-23 years old if she was human. (In any case, both are equally emotionally stunted and immature...)

♤ They’ll be together forever because Thistle is the living embodiment of “Bold of you to assume that death will get you out of this relationship”. Also after all the shit they went through (including what they personally put each other through), they became so attached to each other that they will kill you if you try to separate them.

♤ Though they don’t dress up much while in the dungeon, both are naturally pretty, but their deeply unpleasant personalities ruin everything. Therefore not a 100% cute couple.

♤ They were not thrilled about being in love. They more or less calmed down about it by now (mostly Thistle) and took on a new approach, but at first it was nightmarish.

Thistle also used to be especially infuriated by that fact because, like, he’s got a dungeon to run! The Golden Country to protect! He needs to find his brother! Meanwhile Kiera is literally the number one hazard. He already had to think about her a lot lately because of how troublesome she is, but now he completely lost the ability to get her out of his head. He’s so busy, he already knows what he wants, and he simply has no time nor need for this nonsense. The worst part is that Kiera started to slowly replace thoughts about Delgal in his mind, and Thistle is truly horrified by that.

Kiera took it all with a bit calmer “Damn, I need to hurry up in killing him”. She hates experiencing those kinds of feelings, she hates that she wants to be closer to someone again, she doesn’t want to get stuck with him in this dungeon for eternity, how can she possibly fail- She had one job, goddamnit. It’s her own fault for wasting time because of her own curiosity. Giving up because of falling in love with a target is pathetic and nothing like her. Especially when those feelings endanger her freedom.

♤ I don’t think Thistle would eat dry noodles even in the modern AU, but nutritional value is almost the only thing that concerns him about food. Would probably eat something incredibly bland or barely cooked and wouldn’t care as long as it keeps him functioning.

Kiera's relationship with food is a long and complicated story... In any case, she is rather picky and her eating habits are all over the place, but she genuinely finds healthier food options tastier most of the time.

♤ Just because Thistle rarely brings up Kiera and the fact that they’re in a… “relationship” (if you would call it that) doesn’t mean that he doesn’t spend a frustratingly large part of his day thinking about her. He’s just the type to obsess quietly.

And in any case, who is he going to tell about her? Soulless bodies of his family sitting in his dining room? His monsters? Villagers of the Golden Kingdom who are all terrified of him?

At least Kiera mingles with other adventurers from time to time.

♤ What draws them to each other is not only being able to understand each other due to their similarities, but also the fact that both of them are really fucking lonely. That’s the glue here. That’s why they latched onto each other so hard and so quickly. (Kiera might claim that she’s okay with being alone, but she’s still human)

♤ Regarding "What stands in the way". Basically, the problem is that they stubbornly cling onto their old priorities because it’s the only thing they have ever known. Thistle is nothing if he doesn’t serve the Golden Kingdom. Kiera is nothing if not a war machine. I guess they both see themselves as tools that are only allowed to have one purpose.

On another note, at this point Kiera tries to kill Thistle not only “for sport” and because she hates giving up, but also because she’s terrified of attachment. Thistle doesn’t make things easier for her, since he tends to get too attached, as well as controlling, and his idea of expressing love includes putting Kiera in the safe terrarium that he controls, so he could take care of her fo-re-ver.

So what we have is a “control freak vs free spirit” kind of problem. This does get resolved by the end of the manga and they come to a "compromise". Not willingly by themselves, though, but because of the circumstances.

♤ Regarding Thistle and “haven't experienced any genuine human connection in centuries” – yes, he had Delgal, but I think that that after everything Thistle has done, their relationship most likely became way more emotionally distant in the last few centuries, at least on Delgal’s part.