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sscarletvenus · 7 months ago

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yes suguru's plans to exterminate a vast majority of humanity is undeniably evil, but to say that he is murderous from the very start, cruel for the sake of being so, or lacks compassion or any emotional nuance is a gross disservice to his character's writing.

suguru is a case study of a romantic idealist and self-sacrificial saviour whose absurdly rigid, quixotic ideals are shattered brutally by reality intervening. the intense hatred he has for humanity is born out of, is an inverse of, the intense love he once possessesed for it. this is also why even though satoru is portrayed as brash and selfish and arrogant in the hidden inventory arc, it is suguru that turns "villainous."

suguru places his faith in the goodness of humanity, believes the duty of shamans is to protect the weak, their existence solely hinged upon saving the lives of non-sorcerers, and for that he is disappointed so tremendously, betrayed to an extent that makes it impossible for him to recover his ideals and past self.

ultimately there are also more than one reasons why satoru doesn't become "evil" : 1) "protecting humanity" was never his cause to begin with. he hardly cared about preserving human life, as is evident in his intentions to kill the cultists who cheered on riko's death, and 2) he had someone shielding his inner self : suguru. for it is suguru that tells him the duty of shamans is to protect non-shamans and the weak, suguru who asks him to sympathise with riko, suguru who persuades him to not kill meaninglessly.

satoru is indeed attached to riko, as well. he is the one who decides not to hand riko over to tengen if she wishes to return home, and tries to enliven her last days as a lucid person. it would thus not surpass one’s expectations if satoru turned to villainy post riko's demise, since he never even liked non-shamans to begin with. and yet, he doesn't. suguru protects his heart, which is a part of why he is able to steadily process his grief and anguish over riko's death.

suguru doesn't have anyone to do that for him, he is strong in his own right but not the "strongest", nobody notices how deep of an abyss his soul has sunken in, and he succumbs to the lethal loneliness, falters in this marathon of sorcery.

suguru is brimming with love and compassion: it is what drives his heroism in youth and villainy as a cult leader. he is able to protect gojo's heart but not his own. he fluctuates between two polar extremes : utter distaste of humanity Vs. a duty to protect it despite its horrors. three things serve as final nails to the metaphorical coffin : yuki's words, haibara's death, miminana's abuse. he describes imbibing curses for curse manipulation is "like eating a rag used to clean vomit". how macabre, how grotesque, how enlightening - who is he doing all this for? the humans who killed riko? it was these humans haibara died serving, these same humans violently mistreated miminana.

toji and sonoda encapsulate evil very blatantly, and aren't enough to shake suguru's belief in humanity. but the turning point is the non-shaman cultists rejoicing : suguru is thus forced to confront the banality of evil.

and suguru responds by rejecting what he once loved, embraces the darkness plaguing him. believes the only way to eradicate curses is to uproot their source : humanity. humans, for as long as they will live, will give rise to curses born out of their negative emotions. there is no one to tell him any better, or protect his self-identity. he loses himself to his own sense of empathy, his own ideals.

he isn't indifferent at all, cannot pick and choose whom he loves and doesn't. his love and hatred is collective, in both he gives his all. even amidst his hatred, he doesn't lose his love.

who does he choose to target first, once amassing enough money, power, and reputation? sonoda, the man who ordered riko's assassination. someone who lies in wait to enact vengeance does it out of love. if he was nothing more than a corrupt tyrant, he wouldn't remember the circumstances of riko's demise or care enough about them. suguru's rise as a hero and his subsequent fall as a villain has always been about love. and it seems, to me, up until his death, he prioritizes satoru over himself. doesn't see satoru as a weapon at all, or he would have directly asked satoru to join his cause. instead he poses to satoru a question, presents him with a choice - which in turn makes satoru shaken enough to question his identity, his place in the system, becoming a teacher and dedicating his all to a fitting reformist centrism from an isolated and dare i say, individualistic person such as himself, who stands on the pinnacle of power. but he wouldn't have come to such a conclusion without suguru's experiences shaping his worldview (he himself apologizes to riko during his fight with toji because rather than feeling depressed over her death, he feels the pure pleasure of the world in that moment. killing toji endows him with a sense of duty towards megumi, and riko's death but obviously impacts him, but the change from full apathy, to neutral indifference except in the case of his students, was losing suguru.)

as evil as suguru becomes, he is not a hypocrite. that he kills his own parents is to show the seriousness and conviction he has in his ideals. his code of operation is consistent, even when it turns from pro-human to pro-shaman.

reminds you of what mahito tells yuuji: does yuuji ever consider how many curses he kills? so why should mahito account for how many humans he kills? suguru geto presents us with a possible answer : someone has to care about how many shamans are killed.

you can condemn him for his use of collective punishment, but suguru is a villain!

you can criticize his killing of innocents, but jjk conveys the carefully crafted narrative of a villain who once held staunch traditional and moral ideals.

suguru is evil for proposing collective punishment, but it is incredibly consistent with how emotional he is. he is empathetic because he cares about a girl like riko, doomed by the actions of the rest of the world, forgotten in her misery. he cares and it drives him to the deepest pits of despair, where life loses all color and meaning, despite only knowing her for so long and haibara as well, he enshrines haibara in his memory, when no one other than nanami does. hardly anyone remembers riko's existence, haibara's laughing face, but he does! and for that he spends each moment sinking in the quagmire of his grief and torment. his empathy is a sword of damocles hanging over his neck! to say that he is cruel and unfeeling is to contradict the very agony that drives his (wrongful?) actions. and he is indeed wrong for externalizing this indelible pain, wanting to inflict it upon innocents. but suguru is a villain! has been set up as such!

mahito raises this question to junpei,"is the opposite of love really indifference?" to satoru, it is. but to suguru, it is hatred which is the opposite of love.

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illubean · 5 months ago

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ooooh if i can request a fic or hc, can you do the phantom troupe or just chrollo, feitan, phinks, shalnark, and shizuku (if its too many for all the phantom troupe) with like an angelic fem s/o like full on wings and halo and her nen ability is healing?

(if u dont like it its fine :) have a good day everyday! sending virtual hugs!!!)

Phantom Troupe w/ an Angelic!S/o

Characters: Chrollo Lucilfer, Feitan Portor, Shalnark, Shizuku Murasaki Type: Headcanons, written Fem!Reader in mind

this has been marinating in the drafts for a while whoopsies

Warnings: some toxic behaviors

Chrollo Lucilfer

ngl he's prob thought of just stealing your nen then killing you and preserving your wings

butttttt you were interesting to him so he decided against it

he decided it was more worth it to keep you around then have to go through the trouble of all of that

did he massacre an entire clan for their eyeballs? well yeah but like...they weren't THAT special to him

but you?

he thought you were gorgeous

and he was intrigued by your very existence

after you start dating and you start trusting him he probably just locks you up somewhere under the pretense of "keeping you safe" aka making sure no one can kill the troupe's personal medic

despite that he still treats you very well

he likes to bring you stolen gifts and shower you in praise whenever he gets the chance

if he could make a cult around you he probably would

Feitan Portor

very confused how someone meant to be the epitome of pureness ended up with him of all people

he is one of the more viscous members of the troupe

seriously, you chose HIM????

thinking about it brings him to...not so appropriate territory

all I will say is he is a wee bit perverted and his brain is going down the corruption route

n e wayzzz he's probably scared to touch you when you first get together

you're just so pretty and delicate that he doesn't want to hurt you

he often comes to you when he's wounded and won't say a word about it

whenever you touch him while healing him his face dusts a light pink and he has to avoid eye contact <3

he may get a wee jealous if you tend to the other troupe members

sometimes when he's on missions he won't dodge attacks that he could've easily just for an excuse to have you touch and tend to him again (you could've just asked babes)

Shalnark

another confused one but not as self deprecating as Feitan

like why are you with him he's a criminal but also he's not THAT bad right???

he probably asks you if he's going to hell when he dies

actually he asks you tons of questions in general

like how does your nen work, how did you get your wings/halo, how did you end up walking around on earth like every other human??

he is very curious like shinee

sometimes he likes to just stare at you

and he especially likes to watch you work

he is amazed by your healing abilities every time

but most of all he likes watching you do mundane things

like watering the flowers outside or setting out food for stray cats

he thinks you are adorable

Shizuku Murasaki

upon first meeting i see this going one of two ways

either your appearance is so unique that she cannot forget you

or she forgets you a few times and thinks she died but didn't remember

you have to reassure her that no, she is not seeing things and she is not dead

she wishes she can keep you all to herself; not because of your powers but because of how ethereal you are

she thinks your too perfect for the public eye

when she has the chance and if you let her she likes to pet the soft feathers on your wings

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ghostieblr · 3 months ago

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Another AU that lives in my head rent free about Sterek is a time travel au.

In the canon timeline (i'm not counting that movie), which picks up at the S6 finale, things unravel fast. Monroe wages war against the supernatural, and Beacon Hills is ground zero. Except, surprisingly, 80% people support the supernaturals.

So Monroe spreads the war. She learns of the 13 Nemetons from Gerard, and sets out to destroy them all. Stiles and Derek are the first to put together what she's doing based on her traveling pattern; Derek tells Stiles about the legends, and Stiles deduces what she's about to do.

They cannot save all. Beacon Hills' "dead" Nemeton is the only one saved; Beacon Hills has also become a refuge for those now hunted without mercy. At one point, the war turned into a purge. There's no limitation to killing, no law strong enough to hold anyone accountable. There is only bloodshed.

It is the apocalypse brought by Monroe's hatred and people's prejudice, and world ends not because of the monsters, but because of the humans.

Stiles and Derek have grown close over the years. Their feelings are complicated, but they're shared under the moonlight beneath the Nemeton that has slowly but steadily grown over the years; Stiles is 30 now, and Derek is about to turn 36 next week (he's forever a Christmas baby to me idc). The war as it was has been over for a couple years, and Stiles has become the leader/mayor of the town. He knows how to protect and provide, and Derek is always by his side, an Alpha of his own right, the alpha spark ignited in him by the hand of fates and his own will power. Stiles' Spark dances, the silver of thunder against the glinting, ruby jewel of Derek's own.

They've become soldiers. They're surviving together. They're the only ones left from their original pack. Even Peter is dead, and for final this time.

Scott had left in the middle of war because in his dreams he'd seen Allison, alive and beckoning him, and nobody has heard from him since. He had no regard for the war, or the people who had wanted to take guidance from the "true alpha." Even his mother's pleas had fallen on deaf ears, the allure of his first love blinding him to everything and everyone.

Point is, the world has gone to shit. It would be better to restart.

Stiles confesses to Derek, "I wish we could turn back time."

Derek huffs out a laugh, one that speaks not of how absurd the wish is, but how much he needs it. "Only if we could."

Behind them, the Nemeton hums. They both feel it. They're both on the same page, and Stiles does what he does best: impulsively invades the Nemeton's insides. He has no clue how he does it, but he does it, and inside he finds that same white room, except now there's a humanoid shape floating in it.

When he comes out of that place, Derek asks him what they have to do.

Stiles tells him, and that's how they go back: Nemeton's power, fuelled by its rage and grief at having lost the other 12, and channeled through the strongest sparks existing, A True Alpha and The Spark; they conduct a ritual, their blood soaked in the roots, and then they wake up.

Stiles was 30. He is now... 9.

Derek was almost 36. He is now almost, a week shy, of 14.

It's December of 2003. (Stiles' birthday is April 08, 1994; Derek's is December 25, 1989). This is nearly a year before Claudia dies (which is Nov of 2004) and before the romance with Paige (it happens in the summer of 2004) and before the Hale fire (January 25th, 2005, exactly a month after Derek turns 16).

And guess what? They get to change everything.

They have their memories, and their powers. The Nemetons are alive — they help these two hide their powers. They help these two whenever needed.

Claudia's condition (which i can never spell right so i'm not even attempting it) cannot be healed by the bite, but Stiles' belief, his Spark, wills it so that she doesn't get worse. So, when the Stiles and Derek find a way to make them part of the Hale Pack, Claudia becomes Talia's beta.

Derek kindles a friendship with Paige. Stiles tells Derek he can try again with her — these time they'll never let anything happen to her.

"You want me to be with her."

"Yes. If you want it. She was your first love," Stiles says, all soft and honest. "And I'm... I know you love me. But I can't ask you to wait for me."

The tension in Derek eases. "Idiot," he chastises, Stiles' small hands in his, "I might be going through puberty but I'm not a teenage asshole who thinks with the wrong head. What we have isn't about sex either. If you worry that I'll resent you for me not being able to have sex till I'm 23, then you're an idiot."

"You already said that. And you've counted how long you'll have to wait."

"I am going through puberty, Stiles."

In short. Yes, their first time will be with each other — in this new timeline. (if i didn't explain it properly: they are rewriting everything. their past timeline technically will never exist, not even as a branched timeline).

So, yeah. Paige never dies, Claudia never dies, Kate is found dead 5 states over and it looks like a suicide; Gerard is killed before he can blind Duke, so Jennifer/Julia/The Darach and The Alpha Pack are no threats; Deaton is detained by the mysterious "Red" for violating the code of Druids and executed soon after; it takes some time, but Stiles & Derek manage to locate the dread doctors and they kill them, too.

All of the threats from canon are killed by the time Stiles is 16 again and Derek is almost 22.

Except, a faction of hunters are finally able to pin point that those who killed Gerard are from Beacon Hills. They're prejudiced because of Gerard's teachings, so they target the Hale Pack.

And it is because of this attack — during which Stiles gets heavily injured while protecting his mom — that Derek roars loud and ferocious, eyes red, as Talia's own alpha eyes stare back in shock, just like the rest of the pack. Stiles' wound is deep, and Derek orders one of the others to take him to the Nemeton.

It doesn't take long for Derek to almost kill every hunter, except he's hurt now, too, and even the Nemeton can't heal this new blend of wolsbane's wound.

Stiles is healed by magic, by the Nemeton, and he feels the bond with Derek weaken by the second. At once he finds himself back at the clearing of the fight, teleported, and lashes out at the remaining hunters with a fury that raises the hair on everyone.

Then he screams and begs at Derek to not fucking die and as everyone watches, manages to save the idiot with sheer belief.

Because that's who Stiles is.

And then well... I just imagine that the two of them have to provide context to their pack, which they do, and then there's gasps of awe and sorrow; of not being there and of not realizing that they were ghosts to these kids; that Laura had (and of course Peter too) suspected something was off with Derek and Stiles but not this.

(also i love to include snippets of John being equally horrified at finding the truth out and of realizing that his baby boy is essentially tied up for eternity with Derek Hale, whomst he apparently also arrested for the murder of his favorite deputy???)

#sterek #derek hale #stiles stilinski #the hale pack #teen wolf #sh.snippets #kind of?? lol

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see-arcane · 1 year ago

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The Harkers have got me fucked up. Not just from how much they're going through. Not just from how well they know each other.

But in how much is not being said. How much that appears to have been missed.

Mina has just made their friends swear to euthanize her. In front of Jonathan, who she knows cannot/will not make said promise aloud, though she tries to fish it out. A funeral service, yes, but no more than that. She takes the wins she can, relying on the others for the sacrificial slaughter while she pries what she thinks is some mote of acceptance of the Worst Case Scenario in Potentia from Jonathan. Perhaps she's read the vampiric vow of his journal by now. Perhaps not. Perhaps she already suspects either way and wants desperately not to see him damn himself, damn both of them, to avoid raising a killing hand to her.

She is going into the dark. What kind, she does not know yet. But she knows--thinks she knows--she has taken some measure to save her soul and Jonathan's. God's will be done. (Piety trembles in her heart, a fear trying frantically to still look like faith.)

Jonathan, meanwhile, is in Hell.

As it was in the castle, there are some miseries too deep to dwell on for him to stomach writing them down. Hence his tapping Jack to record it all. But the silence from him here, bar the dodge of the promise that goes against his private vow, bar the reading of the burial service, sinks deeper than any horror he suffered from the Count in person. What can he be thinking now?

I made this all possible. I opened the door to England for him. Showed him how to spread his poison. Failed to strike a killing blow when I had the chance. Slept frozen and useless beside her as he drank and made her drink. Lost him by inches in Piccadilly. Now I am here, listening to her claim so sunnily that any man of old would murder his woman to save her from the enemy's touch, as if asking for a trifle. All the while I sit contemplating a hellish betrayal, holding my heart over her wishes, over sanity, humanity, Heaven and Hell. Contemplating worse.

(The kukri is very sharp by now. In time it will have so fine an edge that no one would feel its cut before their head toppled off. Be they in a coffin or a friend with their back turned. Sickly, he finds the thought cold and placid in his mind. Is he not already damned for what he's allowed? Is he not already slated for the Count's collection? He knows whose blood it was on the monster's lips on that final dawn in Transylvania. And when he dies...)

I imagine he has to stop himself from making a mirrored request to the others right there. Has to stop himself from handing Mina the Bible and asking her to read it out for him. If she is lost, he is lost. It is not merely undeath that he would follow her into--whatever she is, wherever she goes, so must he be, so must he go.

Read it for me now, darling. You laid it all out so eloquently. I am already lost but for the wait for the grave. Come everyone, while we're here. Two funerals. Two sets of oaths. I can perhaps save you half the work, if I fall neatly enough on the kukri. Pry it from my heart and take my head when the time comes.

But he bites his tongue. Does not touch his pen. Does not risk heaping another weight on his love who is already crushed beneath existential terrors that are being thrust on her by the actions of others. She does not know what he is planning, even if she suspects it by half.

What she knows: Jonathan cannot raise a hand to her. (He would have me as a monster than not exist at all.)

What he prays she never will: Jonathan will be anything she is. (Mortal. Monster. Dead.)

One last secret to keep.

All the way to the grave.

#I'm fine I'm great I'm having a lovely time #mina harker #jonathan harker #holiest love #dracula #re: dracula #dracula daily

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rootspiral · 10 days ago

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Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 8 part 7

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][+1] ep5 [1][2][3][4][5] ep6 [1][2][3] ep7 [1][2][3][4][5][6] ep8 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] ep9 [1][2])

more Oz references! fury of the elements, one very pissed ex, same thing.

god but how much I love rio going feral?! it's so stupid I'm giggling and kicking my feet about it. you'd think a very old, very wise being would react like a grown ass adult after a breakup, especially because it was such a long time coming. but does rio go home to process things quietly? noooooooo she summons a whole storm and sits on a roof waiting for agatha to come out of her basement, so she can be an ass about it. if they were humans rio would be slashing agatha's tires and smashing windows and throwing rotten eggs at her house drunk at three in the morning, and you know what? good for her!!! she's been fucking trying to work out things in a mature responsible way, and it was never going to work, agatha was never going to grow up. so fuck it. agatha wants to be immature? we'll show her immature! I support my girl going full petty and unhinged, let her cry and scream and eat a whole ice cream tub and then throw it all up, let her piss all over agathas' rhododendrons, my girl has earned it.

AND she's brought her favorite soul-reaping orchid with her! she's like, I'm gonna do it! this time I'm gonna getcha! I will drag your ungrateful ass to our son kicking and screaming if I have to!!!!

...girl. we both know you ain't. like agatha is literally about to die and you still won't reap that soul without her consent. absolute loser behavior.

and agatha... well, agatha never backed off from an immaturity showdown. oooh she's gonna out-toddler you for sure.

but it's so interesting that the Road didn't give her her powers back. tbh I don't think she ever lost her powers at all, seeing as she's first and foremost a succubus and that power works just fine, if alice's fate is any indication. it's more like, three years under the spell completely drained her battery and she desperately needs to feed.

and agatha wasn't planning on joining the Road at all, as far as she was concerned it didn't even exist. like with lilia, jen and alice the Road gave her not what she asked, but what she needed all along: her prize was that moment of closure with nicky

so rio cannot kill people, she can only make them wish they were dead, and I just realized, her special talent is also being fucking annoying, just like agatha

by the way, rewatching wandavision I realized that his name is JOHN, not herb! I'm so sorry I've been calling you the wrong name this whole time, my guy. ALSO MOVE OUT OF THAT NEIGHBORHOOD DEAR LORD

same goes for you two. harold you have a daughter!

(omg a literal harold, they're lesbians.)

agatha sees the fire moon and it reminds her of alice. she draws a circle for the expelle hoc malum protection spell she's learned from her. she had a coven only for a day and look how much they've gotten under her skin.

rio gives an incredulous sigh. are you calling me "evil"? it's like, we've been over this!

I know that baby and I love you, but also you're very much sitting on a rooftop cackling like a maniac. how can these two be both so tragic and so so fucking ridiculous at the same time.

it's like, she's absolutely right, she's no villain and she's no demon, agatha should stop treating her like one and punishing her for it. but also... stop begging her to, for fuck's sake. rio, my love, have some dignity. stop chasing. you did a dramatic exit half an hour ago, WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE

agatha trying to exorcise her ex wife with a spell: clownass behavior.

rio blowing the circle away with a kiss: also clownass behavior.

but is she wrong????

lilia's turn to come in handy!

I'm sorry but... a whole sink? she threw a whole sink at her head?? this scene is so fucking hilarious, like I know some people found rio ooc but to me it makes perfect sense. I'm just sorry she didn't throw a toilet.

GO HOME, RIO. it's okay, we're gonna put up a picture of agatha in your living room and throw poop at it until you feel better or smth, it's gonna be okay, you let it all out.

^^literally rio

jen's moment: vulnus ab aqua curare.

I don't think it's going to help you much though, babe. remember when agatha kept poking wanda with a stick and got her ass kicked to oblivion in return? she's been poking DEATH for two hundred years. what did she expect???!?!

THAT IS THE HOTTEST SOMEONE HAS EVER LOOKED, DEAR LORD

and considering that rio chooses an outfit for each soul she reaps: this is what she chose for agatha??? girl, be for real!!!

aaaand she gets kicked into a wall a moment later. after her devastating sexy ass walk with the high slit dress and all. complete loser behavior.

(also hilarious: agatha's laundry hanging there the whole time)

billy came back to save agatha (awww) but not before conjuring a cool wiccan costume and doing a very dramatic entrance (awwwwwwww). literally her son.

I agree tbh

agatha's face when she realizes billy is choosing to give her magic: this is the first time someone does it willingly. and sure he is super powerful (she drained poor alice in a second), but I keep imagining a world were agatha is an important, cherished member of a community, maybe playing the vital role of teacher and knowledge keeper, and the community willingly donates magic in return, all together and on a regular basis, like people donate blood, so that no one dies and she doesn't starve.

look at how the beam changes color, and just how happy she is to finally eat. it's just the way she was born, you know? I hate that evanora turned it into something horrible when it didn't need to.

oh god, that stupid outfit again. that is agatha's "I'm such a scary merciless bitch and I don't care about your feelings" outfit. as if.

and then she realizes she's killing billy. look at her face, a moment ago she even said how good all this power feels. she could easily take it all. but of course for billy she has to stop.

so, can agatha actually control her powers? well, it's complicated, isn't it? she definitely couldn't when she was very young. possibly she never sought to learn how to as time went on.

(thank you for your patience, everyone, I'll update more regularly from now on. and you all know what happens next entry.)

go to episode 8 part 8

#agatha all along #agatha deep dive #agatha harkness #rio vidal #agathario #billy maximoff #character analysis

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reverie-obsessingtime · 4 months ago

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Is Jiaoqiu a Self-Annihilator?: an analysis into the Self-Annihilator condition (with Acheron and Jiaoqiu as case studies)

Soooouuuu pink fox man huh so pretty right? Sure nothing sad going on in the background..... *sobs*

This be the kind of brainrot you get as a Acheron main and Jiaoqiu haver 😮‍💨 :,)

sighs....WE ARE BACK IN THE BUILDING AGAIN!!!😭

Ok ok, enough fooling around let's get to business *rolls sleeves*. I'm gonna be using S-A for short to refer to Self-Annihilators through all this cause it's a mouthful to write.

TRIGGER WARNING: this post tackles depression and speaks of the nihilistic feelings it brings. It's not too major but if talking about stuff like this can be triggering, please advance with caution.🙏

What does it mean to be a Self-Annihilator? And the similarities between Acheron and Jiaoqiu's stories

Tldr: basically to have severe depression but much worse! :D (yaaaaay! :D)

From the ever so gracious Data Bank, S-A are described as people who have unintentionally but ireversibile stepped into the shadow of IX

To better understand these flowery words by giving Acheron as an example:

When it comes to Acheron, she stepped into THEIR shadow when it all lost meaning to her. She fought against the kami with other blades only for everyone to die. She managed to finally slay the kami but at what price? Why could that sword only be forged from this situation? Why did all have to be swallowed by naught for this blade to be made? What was the point of all this fighting and struggle if it all ultimately ended this way? If the ending never existed? If they all walked into IX shadow a long time ago?

Two worlds how pointlessly fought against one another, only for the ending to be even more pointless.

Because of all this trauma, like all soldiers coming back from a pointless war that had to witness all their fellow soldiers die, Acheron developed severe depression aka unintentionally stepped into IX shadow.

Depression isn't something you actively choose or agree with, it (annoyingly) chooses you and clings to you all the time and whispers in your year even when you don't agree with it anymore or actively try to fight against it.

You develop it from trauma (also H2O is water) and even when you are out of the environment that traumatized you, even when life is going great for you, when you have a limitless future ahead of you, it still exists and clouds ur judgement about those said things. It is something that you are stuck with. It's illogical nihilism and is sadly very hard to shake off...

But you CAN do it. Acheron and the other Self-Annihilators are proof.

There are two types of S-A: the ones who give up and succumb to it and the ones who fight back. Much like in real life (sadly)

Acheron is someone with severe depression who, despite it being uncureable, chose to show defiance against the predicament it brings by fighting back against it and actively trying to prove it wrong. Wrong not to herself, cause she knows THEIR wrong, but to prove THEM wrong to THEMSELVES.

How does this all connect to Jiaoqiu's story?: A Moment Among the Stars and Character Story Analysis

Both Acheron and Jiaoqiu have trauma from war, war that asks them "what was the point of everything you've done in the end?"

For Acheron:

What was the point of fighting if the ending was predetermined?( "Even if the ending is predetermined, that's fine. There are countless things that humans cannot change. But before the end, there are many things that humans can do while on their journey.")

For Jiaoqiu?

....

"While the Alchemy Commission is a good place to be, it is ultimately not compatible with my wish to practice medicine for the masses. The one place that requires a healer the most is undeniably the battlefield where the Yaoqing's forces are."(-Character story I)

And mah man was NOT ready for what the battlefield will ask of him and his master knew this but sadly also knew he couldn't stop the ambitious youth so he let him go. ("The elder looked as though he wanted to talk the youth out of his decision, but he ultimately decided against it.")

"A healer's purpose is to mend wounds and save lives. You pull the dying from death grip....only to see them march back into it. Saving one person is child's play. Saving the world is as hard as reaching the heavens. Do I press forward, or run away?"

Faces with this, Jiaoqiu can't help but be consumed by nihility. Question what's the point? My purpose as a healer is to save them from death grip but despite me doing that they will have to go charging back into it again and again until I can no longer save them. Doesn't that make my actions are, ultimately, pointless? I save them from death, give them hope and then they have to go back out there again and have it ripped away by an arrow. The hope of victory, of living to see it, of making it, I give it to them by saving them from death and then they have to die anyway but live through the pain of the hope I gave then being ripped away from them along with their lives.

So why save them? Give them hope? If they are gonna ultimately die? Why just not let them die at this point? And if I do that? Then what's my purpose? My purpose is to be a healer and save them from death no matter how many times but I just CAN'T bring myself to do it anymore faced with the pointlessness of it...

( -Jiaoqiu.... probably.....for legal and anti-missinfo-spreading reasons he, in fact, did not say all that)

Saving one is easy, but saving them all from death grip? Not so. Faced with the weight of that? Does he keep going or run away? Should he keep going through the pain of the pointlessness of it all or run away from it(like a coward, because it's too much)?

"You can't help but ask yourself... How does a healer heal himself?

Faces with all this nihility, he is at loss as just HOW to heal himself, the healer, amidst all this. Jiaoqiu's at an impasse, not knowing what to do, emotions conflict with each other.

"They answer with victory- Every life saved makes for the salvation of all."

"They" probably refers to all the soldiers, the ones that got healed and made it, the ones who didn't and the ones on the bed getting bandaged up.

Which is interesting. Interesting because despite them giving this answer, he still hasn't returned to the battlefield.

"Those I saved only ended up as another dead soul when they dived head-in back into the battlefield. I prefer to no longer engage in such futile efforts." ( -Jiaoqiu Character Story IV)

That despite being given the answer, the scars and terrors of the past will not make it easy to accept it or march forward with it. And that's ok. That is human and ok.

We don't actually know when he was given this answer, if it was after he started working on Feixiao or not. (something to further note on)

"Now you must make another choice... Will the result of this treatment be "life" or "death"? Are you ready to face the end... Jiaoqiu?"

Here he is probably talking about Feixiao. The choice he made to return, in a way, back to the battlefield, the place that traumatized him so much he accidentally walked into IX shadow. Only this time, it's for one person only.

Will he be able to heal her or will she die? And is he ready to face the conclusion of the case that is Feixiao, whatever that conclusion and the answer it gives might be?

The physical changes that come with being a Self-Annihilator and the suspicious desing choices in Jiaoqiu

WOOOOOOO welcome to section two of this analysis that is gonna be so much more easy for me

Now, let's have a refresher of physical and other changes that come with being a S-A:

-skin turn into something like rotten wood, full of holes and scars

-endocrine system disrupted

-becoming unable to distinguish between pleasure and pain and turning numb to everything

-loss of memories

-loss of senses

-corporeal body, mental cognition, and personal memories will gradually fade away

(Ik what makes me violently rage? WHY ISN'T HAIR TURNING WHITE IN HERE!?!?!?!)

Now based on all of that and using Acheron as comparison (while being mindful that her Emnator powers might make some parts of her S-A different) let's look at Jiaoqiu and take some notes:

-both her and Jiaoqiu have two white hair streaks that are in the same place just mirrored.

-in Jiaoqiu's lightcone description he asks himself "How many springs has it been?" suggesting that he MIGHT have memory problems like Acheron.

-in his character story IV Jiaoqiu says the spicy food boarders on pain and Owlbert commented that the pain might make him feel alive so maybe dulled senses as well (?)

-both of them have their hair turning white. While Acheron's Emnator powers make her able to hide it (refer to one of her idle's when she lets her guard down and her hair starts turning white) Jiaoqiu's hair is a light pink but not THAT light and you can see how the white hair fades into his normal not yet discolored hair. This change in hair is not recorded in the Data Bank oddly enough so we don't know how much time this takes to fully happen. 🤷😮‍💨

-lack of taste. Both Acheron and him can't taste the flavor of any food that isn't heavily spicy or strong in flavor. Acheron directly tells us that through the peach and her favorite drink being Wake the Heck Up. Jiaoqiu's like for spicy foods can easily be brushed as him just being a spice fanatic until you read his character story.

In the first one he eats lotus petals and comments "Sweet and refreshing, it delights the plate" showing a liking to them. But in IV he comments "Ugh, too bland" when eating them again. Even his master comments, "I remember you preferred bland food before joining the army." to which he responds "People... tend to change.".

The change comes from his III story, after Lan hit the battlefield with THEIR arrow, killing both enemies and soldiers. A moment that traumatized him so much that after it all died down, he felt cold from the inside and put EVERY spice he had into his cauldron and only then was he able to feel the taste

"When his already numbed sense of taste finally picked up on the spice, a jolt of current ran through him. He felt alive for the first time! It was a sensation that bordered on pain."

And all of these similarities, ARE FUCKIN SUSPICIOUS!😁😁

--------------------------------------------------------------

Tldr: I'm going insane (the end)

I hope Hoyo's headquarters burn down actually cause I'm tired of getting brainrots from these characters!!!😭

Hoyo literally allergic to leaving pink foxes alone (and melanin- HOW SAID THAT!?🫢)

Anyway who wants to join hands and pray in a circle for Jiaoqiu S-A confirmation cause at this point you don't make Acheron and this mf after and add all that to him with it being completely coincidence ESPECIALLY THE HAIR AND SPICY FOOD HOYO YOU BETTER CONFORM THIS OR ISTFG OSNDODBDODDBODDN

I'm so normal!!! 😁

Anywaaaayyy if you read this far thank you soooo *mwah* muuuuuch🙏 hearts and repost are very much appreciated as it keeps me posting here :,D If you liked this I have some other stuff posted that might pick ur interest. Ik I'm not the best at putting it all together in a neat way but I'm trying my best, I usually keep all this in my head 😅

May the sunlight brush your cheeks, flowers tickle ur skin and butterflies kiss ur nose! :)

#honkai star rail #hsr #character analysis #character exploration #acheron #acheron honkai star rail #acheron hsr #jiaoqiu #jiaoqiu hsr #jiaoqiu honkai star rail

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thrashkink-coven · 2 months ago

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Okay here’s the hard part.

I think a lot about that guy, so called Jesus, and his philosophy of radical forgiveness and empathy. For a long time I thought that was just a line abusers use to force their victims to forgive them (AND IT IS)

But! I also think about Lucifer and the things he taught me regarding the concept of hell. If I was the ruler of hell and I had to manage all these terrible people, what would I do? Torture them? Give them endless suffering so they feel guilty? Do to them what they did to others so they can understand how bad it feels?

Latinos who voted for Trump, oh you disappoint me, but no, I don’t want you to be deported. Women who voted for Trump, *sigh*, no, I don’t want to see you get an ectopic pregnancy or carry your dead baby. No I do not want all those conservative gays to lose their right to marriage. And no, I don’t even want all of those fucked up fascist nazi racists to die.

It would be SO satisfying to see them get what they deserve, right?

God, I’m so sick of being apart of a species that loves to conquer. We bleed, they win, they bleed, we win. I’m sick of patching wounds. All I see is hellfire.

My friend Taylor Mcnallie is facing fraudulent charges because of an altercation that happened while she was protesting in Calgary. The bitch of a cop who assaulted her not only received no punishment, she got a fucking promotion. I remember during one of Taylor’s speeches someone said something like “I hope she gets arrested and goes to jail,” and Taylor said, “I don’t hope she goes to jail. Jail shouldn’t exist. I just want her to get fired and apologize. That’s all I want.”

Pacifism, true pacifism, like the kind that guy preached about, doesn’t mean laying down and accepting every terrible thing assholes do to you with a smile. It means taking away their ability to harm without harming them yourself. Eliminating the evil without becoming evil. Punching nazis does not make you a nazi, but praying for the death and destruction of people, human beings, because you hate them as much as they hate you? *sigh*

The hardest part about this whole radical empathy thing, is the fact that I cannot even wish harm upon those who want me dead. Isn’t that funny? That literal neo nazi, yeah, I hope he has shelter. Fuck I hope that rapist still eats tonight. I hope he feels shame until the day he dies, but I don’t hope he gets raped in prison. I don’t even want him in prison to be honest, I want him to be cared for, and I want his ability to do harm stripped away.

“Even if he hurts a child?”

God damn it, yes. I can’t add more suffering into the world, even if it is inflicted upon the people I’d love to hate most. I want to take away his power to do evil, I want everyone to know what kind of person he is and the terrible things he does so they can keep themselves safe… and then I want him to be safe.

I want all those terfs to have clean drinking water. I know they hate my guts, ugh, it is what it is. But praying that they experience the pain they’ve caused me, hoping that they die or suffer only makes me more like them.

WHICH SUCKS. This way of thinking is NOT satisfying AT ALL!!! Being vindictive and petty is FUN and it FEELS GOOD!!! That’s why it’s so fucking easy, and that’s why we keep eating each other over and over again.

Having said all of this, we should definitely bring back the guillotine lmao. I’m not saying that we should be super nice to people who are trying to kill us, do fight back. If the people need to kill their oppressors to be free then, hey, I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong for that. This isn’t a “we should all hug and sing kumbaya together! Kindness is always the way!!!” take. If the only way to bring death to the empire is to bring death to its owners, then so be it. Do so in the way that produces the least amount of degradation to your soul.

But wishing natural disasters on Texas, hoping that that racist woman’s parents get deported, out of spite and hatred… what are they doing to you? What are you doing to yourself?

Humanity is disgusting, truly truly abhorrent. I want to be able to look at us and embrace us with acceptance of that. Every single fucking terrible person on this earth deserves liberty, life, and freedom. Even when you spit in my face and hurt the people I love, damn it, I won’t hurt you. I see you as a rabid animal that needs to be sedated and slowly acclimated to compassion. And I will keep trying, even if you never learn. I can’t give up on humanity.

This is the most important and the hardest part. I’m not telling you to forgive, forgiveness is for you. If it doesn’t serve you, don’t forgive. But don’t let people without humanity kill the humanity that exists within you. Don’t let hatred fester in your soul. You’re allowed to be mad, hell, you should be furious. Let that fury keep you warm, but do not become a monster too.

To all you stupid fucking fascist pieces of shit, I hope you get exactly what you deserve. And what you deserve is not death, pain or suffering. It’s self reflection and growth, guilt and humility. As much as I would enjoy seeing you hurt, I refuse to become like you. And damn it I love you, I love every human being on this planet. I love you so much that I cannot become you. I love you so fucking much that I will continue to fight for your rights even when you’re trying to take mine away. and I hate that I love you like this, but I can’t stop.

So I will stop you.

- James Baldwin

#america #pagan #paganism #witchcraft #luciferian witch #luciferism #luciferian #lucifer devotee #theistic luciferianism #lucifer deity #lord lucifer #lucifer #demonology #demonolatry #election 2024 #us elections

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rwby-encrusted-blog · 1 month ago

Text

Based on this Mafia/Hitman Au from @novankenn/ Based on this Artwork from @pilot-boi

~~~~~

Menagerie. A rather upstanding Nightclub and Burlesque show, with a rather specific ideal for clientele and workers; that is to say, it's a preferred haunt for Faunus, with what few humans joining usually being just as downtrodden and unfortunate as they are respectful.

Its owner and Manager, Kali Belladonna, was an industrious and respectable woman. she did her best to be, at least; though in these times, in these places, the dirty hands of the criminal underworld still reached out and held tight.

Thanks to her fervor and staunchness she managed to hold Menagerie as a neutral zone. Anyone may come so long as they respect the dancers and they leave their problems at the door, and not drag the 'mud' in.

And in that way it was a perfect meeting place.

The Faunus sat at a table, joined by several others. Roman Torchwick representing Miss Malachite, Someone sent from the Schnee family who gave the name "John Doe," Athena Nikos, leader of her family, and standing at the head of the table was the one that called them all together.

Prismeya Arc.

Her prosthetic whirred with each step as she paced, before she turned to the table, placed the foot of said prosthetic on it, and pulled a silenced pistol out its calf.

She inspected it, sliding it over to Kali.

"Just out of respect; I forgot it when I entered."

Kali Said nothing, sharpening her gaze at the Matri-Arc, her ears flicking in annoyance. She knew Prismeya Didn't forget, but she didn't quite understand what this play was yet.

"Now, as I'm certain you all know, I'm out of this game, out of this world. I dotted my i's, crossed my t's, and payed every debt I owed of both Blood and Money."

She pressed leaned over the table, glowering at the members of it.

"So I wish to know why my dear, Sweet Jaune, my Precious Baby-Boy Has such a Large BOUNTY ON HIS HEAD."

Her teeth were grit, clearly restraining herself from shouting.

Everyone looked to one another, offering no information.

Prismeya glared at each of them individually.

"Prismeya, you know I wouldn't have anyone- I'm in too deep as it is! It's hard enough to stay neutral, I wouldn't go after anyone on my call!" Kali retorted, clearly concerned that she was being threatened.

Prismeya pushed off the table and stood tall, taking a deep breath. "Then pray tell-" she focused on Kali "Why Jaune mentioned making friends with a certain Black-haired cat faunus named Blake?"

Kali's eyes went wide as dinner plates. "SHE'S SAFE? BLake's okay?"

Prismeya was taken aback "You didn't know?"

"No."

"Then take this as a favor; she was last seen at a Department store in a mall in Vale proper, Retrieve her. That being said-" Prismeya ran her eyes across everyone, standing at her full height "Whoever set the Hit can call it off, and I will forgive them. No harm; No foul. But, should the Hit be fulfilled, Whoever Claims it, dies. Whoever set it Dies."

She let the words sink into the four at the.

Athena stared at her, eyes set right upon her.

Roman Put his cigar out, clearly considering her promise behind the otherwise aloof look in on his face.

Kali set her ears flat, grim knowledge sitting uncomfortably in her gut.

The Schnee's pawn had no notion of concern or care, unseen behind his sunglasses.

Athena turned slightly in her seat, her whole body now facing Prismeya.

"I assume one of mine has taken it upon themself?"

"You Daughter, Pyrrha."

Athena went rigid. One of the few things could sent chills down her spine was her daughter being in danger, and to be beholden to the Ire of Prismeya Arc was to be declared dead.

Roman slung his cane over his shoulders, rest his arms on it. "So we're here to deliver a warning, yeah? Good to know. Could've been an email though."

Prismeya walked over to the man. "An email is ephemeral; non existent. An email is not physical; It cannot hold water."

She tore the cane from him, emptying the round out, snapping it over her knee, her non-prosthetic knee.

He seemed truly taken aback by it first angered, but his rage was quickly supplanted by fear.

The Schnee Spokesman drew his own weapon, a silenced 22. pistol, and aimed it at Prismeya

Prismeya cupped Roman's chin, ignoring the burly man in the black suit, and tilted Roman's head up. "This is far more important to me than you could possibly imagine with what little grey matter exists under that mop of red hair~ I needed to have this meeting so people like you could understand that~"

And then she turned to the Schnee Representative, who hadn't lowered his weapon.

"I Suggest you put that down. It was rude enough for Mr. Torchwick to bring his weapon, but at least he had the decency to make it inconspicuous~"

The lilting of her voice was laced with a venom that could curdle the blood of any living being that understood what she was saying.

The Man, John Doe, Set his pistol shakily on the table.

Prismeya returned to her place at the head of it.

"So, I would like you all to spread the word; Should this Hit persist and come to fruition ... The Bloodmoon will rise, Drowning All in its Tide; Painting with Red, with The Blood of the Dead; For each life cut short, an Equal retort."

Prismeya smiled, the corners of her mouth wrinkled with age. In any other context it would have been warm, delightful, outright motherly. To all at the table it was deadly; The Rattle of a Snake, the fin of a circling shark, Click of a Hammer being pulled back.

Everyone there knew her Threat- nay, her promise.

Whether they comprehended the depth of it was a another matter entirely.

#mafia au #hitman au #mama arc #mama nikos #athena nikos #prismeya arc #roman torchwick #kali belladonna #novankenn #pilot-boi #rwby au #microfiction #fanfiction

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myslutwritings · 1 year ago

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Hi! :D Can I request headcanons on the upper moon demons (1,2,3+ Muzan) reactions to finding out their fem s/o is suffering from depression? (Especially after she’s tried to hide it from them and everyone else, not once admitting to having it - frankly because she feels as if they wouldn’t care or take her seriously anyway (due to past experiences with her own family and friends), until she couldn’t keep up the facade of acting cheerful, laid back and positive all the time, it being obvious that there is something quite not right with her, even if she denies it, trying to downplay the situation, knowing full well herself that it’s getting bad).

(Aaaaaaa, I love ur headcanons 😭💓 I’m sorry if this topic is not something you’d be comfortable with writing for, it’s just something I’ve been experiencing myself lately for the past couple of months, it’s getting harder each day, kinda have been feeling empty, exhausted and genuinely depressed lately, no one that I know cares or takes me seriously, nor tries to help me overcome these emotions :), I appreciate you reading my request anyway!<3 sorry for kinda pouring my heart out, ik it’s cringe and unnecessary, sorry).

No, no! it’s completely okay. I suffer from depression myself so i’m comfortable writing for topics like these! I honestly love writing angst/hurt/+comfort so ya!! Thank you for requesting, anon!! (Also i’m happy you like my headcanons! Tysm for your kind words. I do hope you feel better and i hope these hc’s can cheer you up!)

➤ Uppermoons with a Fem!S/O who suffers from Depression

➤ SFW headcanons

including: Muzan, Kokushibo, Douma and Akaza.

•

warnings: non-canon reactions, mentions of suicidal thoughts, angst, etc.

Muzan

Muzan isn’t an idiot.

He can sense from a mile away that something is in fact wrong.

I mean, you always seem off.

He just cannot tell WHAT exactly is wrong.

You’re a strange one after all. (Not in a bad way obviously)

Muzan has asked you a dozen times prior, seeking out answers, at least an explanation for your change in behavior and emotions.

He dislikes change.

But wanna know what he dislikes more? You being upset.

“My dear, could you please tell me what’s wrong?”

Of course he never gets anything out of you. You just cast him that alluring yet suspicious fake smile of yours and reassure him that you’re “okay” or “fine” or even “couldn’t be better”

Your response are so.. dishonest.

Honestly, Muzan not knowing what exactly is wrong with you drives him wild. He ALWAYS wants to know what’s wrong, what you’re feeling, how you’re feeling, etc.

And whenever he isn’t aware of what exactly your feeling or is catching on to the suspicions that your lying it does in fact anger him.

Not only does it anger him but it upsets him incredibly. Like, do you not trust him? Are you scared of him because he’s the demon king? If you were secretly terrified of his existence he wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest. That’s how truly humans are after all.

But for you this isn’t the case. You aren’t even scared of him. Just scared of your own thoughts and feelings.

A part of you wishes you could open up but the other part of you is like: eh, fuck it.

Who could blame you for not wanting to open up to the demon king himself though?

You may be his girlfriend, but still, like he would actually bring himself to care.

You see how vicious he is towards other humans. So why would he even bother with your silly yet powerful emotions?

You desired to open up yourself but however that never came so Muzan had no choice but to force it out of you one day.

Toxic, sure. But you were driving him nuts!

Like he snapped when he came home one night to find you rotting in your own filth, an empty stomach, disheveled hair, god, have you been sleeping all day?

He will ask you ONCE again if you wanted to talk.

To which you respond with a sorrowful “no”

Then you for real have the gull to make up excuses saying you’ve fallen ill.

Yeah, right.

That is Muzan’s breaking point.

It startles you when he snaps at you and actually gets mad.

This is his way of caring everybody. 💀

Whenever you’re depressed the feeling of getting yelled at by someone you love can hurt you or make you feel numb on the inside, you know?

I’m this case, it all just caves in and you sorta have an emotional break down in front of him.

Muzan is at a loss for words as you spill out your deepest and darkest feelings.

At least you’re finally opening up.

But damn, bro is shocked. Please give him a minute to adjust to all this.

At first he doesn’t know how to respond, instead, he will respond physically and just let you cry in his embrace as you vent to him and babble “i’m sorry” literally over 1000 times.

Muzan knew humans had depression, he reads a lot and is well aware of what it is. He’s just distraught this his own partner felt this way for so long.

By the way, did i mention he’s going to kill anyone who’s ever wronged you?

But worry not! He is going to be there for you every step of the way even with his low tolerance:)

Kokushibo

In the beginning, Kokushibo has absolutely no clue what’s going on inside your head.

I mean, if you say you’re fine then you’re fine right?

That’s all until your seemingly bad mood increases more and more everyday.

Yeah, that’s when his suspicions SKYROCKET.

Kokushibo has asked you before but gave up on it after many failed attempts.

He still has his mild concerns though so instead he observes you from afar.

He can tell something if off but assumes that just because you’re a human.

Honestly, he had some suspicions here and there that you may or may not be dealing with severe depression.

Guess what? Those thoughts he had were correct.

You immediately assume he doesn’t care and won’t care due to his demonic nature and his expressionless behavior.

Kokushibo began to catch on more and more when you started to refuse to eat dinner, you just refused to get up from bed and even take care of yourself.

FINALLY drops that stoic personality.

Caretaker Kokushibo to the rescue. Is immediately scooping you up, siting you at the table and convincing you to eat.

If you don’t eat he’ll just spoon feed you.

That night he took care of you.

That’s when he found out of your depressed state. No confession needed.

The two of you aren’t the greatest match because of your lacked communication.

No, you two aren’t toxic. Fights don’t even exist between y’all.

You guys just can’t express feelings properly.

But Kokushibo is always waiting for you to further explain how you feel. He’s satisfied that he now is aware of what’s wrong with you but also deeply destroyed on the inside.

You don’t deserve these harsh feelings. Why must the world be so cruel?

From that day onwards, Koku keeps a close eye on you and takes care of you more often.

Sometimes even ditches missions for you.

Yeah, he gets chastised by Muzan for it but he doesn’t care.

As long as you’re safe then he feels content.

By the way he’s killing off ANYONE who made you feel this way.

Douma

very, VERY dense.

Like does not notice anything.

He just presumed that’s how you are.

Now, Douma does feel emotions around you. You’re the only thing that has ever brought him joy.

You make that cold heart of his beat.

He’s very clingy around you, like, SUPER.

Wants to be around you all the time.

Which is why it’s a shocker that he didn’t notice immediately your drastic change in behavior.

Douma only really took notice when you began to distance yourself from everyone.

Even him.

Now he couldn’t care less if you ran away from everyone else but him? Yeah, there is something wrong.

So, he simply asks you if you’re okay.

In which you lie and say you’re doing just fine.

Oh, you are? Okay!!

Is immensely confused when you continue to distance yourself though.

Haha, humans are so silly.

Douma becomes really confused but brushes it off.

It’s all surprising that he can come off so dense when it comes to this. I mean, you’re a demon? come on mannn…

Yeah, he does feel emotions around you but doesn’t fully understand them, you know?

I swear, Douma can be naive around you sometimes despite being the sadistic and masochistic demon he is.

It takes him a long ass time to realize how much you’ve been suffering.

Please do not get angry with him though. Remember that he is new to all this!

So the first emotion he feels once he finds out about your depression is EXTREME guilt.

REAL GUILT.

Flabbergasted by how fucking long it took him to find out the truth.

*Mentally facepalms himself*

His petty little followers don’t count. The man may have spend his last few hundred years listening to peoples woes and worries but his emotional responses towards their feelings were never even genuine.

To be brutally honest, Douma is hopeless.

Yeah, he wants to help you, he really does.

Just has no idea how to:(

However, if you show him how to then he will catch on fairly quickly and become the master when it comes to taking care of you and helping you cope with your depression.

Similar to Kokushibo, Cue caretaker Douma to the rescue‼️‼️

He doesn’t mind taking care of you. Honestly he absolutely adores it.

You’ve always been there for him, you taught him how to feel again. He’s so grateful that he’s finally helping you after all this time.

Lends you extra cuddles and kisses but if you’re the type to want your space when you’re depressed he’ll try his hardest to understand and be there for you emotionally instead! He just wants to be over you all the time and make sure you’re doing well, ya know?

Okay, he may lose his touching privileges but don’t think he isn’t gonna let his guard down!

From there on out, He keeps an eye on you at all times. He needs to make sure your taking care of yourself!

Douma also developed the tendency to whisper sweet nothings into your ear, his advice is surprisingly effective by the way. I mean, his advice towards you is actually genuine so that must be why.

“Oh, Y/N, my lovely lotus, i despise how you carry such a heavy burden. I wish i could take all these negative feelings away from you!”

Akaza

Like Muzan, he isn’t easy to take for a fool.

Notices the very second your behavior changes.

Akaza, being the most amazing boyfriend he is will obviously attempt to strike up a conversation, desperately wanting you to open up and communicate with him properly.

Becomes disappointed when you just brush it off as “not important”

Like what? It IS important!

YOU are MORE than important to him.

Akaza is not blind, he won’t submit nor play dumb towards your responses

Absolutely hates making you uncomfortable and would hate to force you to tell him how you’re feeling but desperate times call for desperate measures.

This is just his way for caring about you.

At first, he will try each and every day to be there for you and try and talk with you.

Sits on the side of your bed as your laying down, curled up, unmoving and will just kiss your forehead and give you time to open up.

Akaza will bug you consistently, fishing a response from you, anything, just anything!!

“Sweetheart, could you tell me what’s going on with you?”

Nothing. Just that same old response he hears every damn time.

“I’m fine”, “Nothing is wrong!”, “It’s okay, i’m doing well, just tired.”

Hatessssss when you lie to him:(

Akaza feels beyond powerless.

Your feelings are very important to him!

Sure, he hates weak people, hates any other human being he encounters but you’re different!

Akaza knows deep down you’re suffering from depression but desires for you to confess it yourself in your own time.

But at the end of the day he had to force it out of you.

Felt insanely guilt but what else could he have done?

Everything else he’s ever done for you got him nowhere due to your own stubborn dds

Akaza is not mad though.

He could never be angry with you for having depression i mean, you can’t help it.

We all know how overwhelmingly overprotective he is so the very moment he finds out a friend of family member caused you to feel this way and shut the world out he is going to throw hands.

Like, how dare they?!

Akaza is another caretaker! Skips important missions for your sake despite him knowing the punishments that come along with it.

Akaza won’t mind taking care of you but he also needs you to learn how to take care of yourself if you want to truly heal so he’ll be there for you every single step of the way in order for you to accomplish that!

Another thing that’ll happen is that Akaza will become more needy and clingy than usual. He must protest his precious girlfriend at all costs.

Kisses you and reminds you how much he loves you.

Fucking HATES it when he’s forced to leave you (when he’s summoned to the infinity castle)

But the very second he’s home he’s relieved.

On those days you’re feeling super depressed to the point where you can’t get up Akaza will cool you breakfast and serve it to you in bed. Will even feed you if he has to then eventually he’ll help you get up and offer you all the motivation and energy you need to make it throughout the day.

Bro is a gentleman.

Literally is always going to be there for you, love you unconditionally.

And most importantly…

Beat the living HELL out of whoever worsened your depression‼️‼️

I hope you enjoyed these headcanons! To all those out there suffering currently i can promise you that it’s going to be okay. You got this! <3

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mdhwrites · 3 months ago

Note

I'd like your thoughts on the segment of TOH fandom that attributes Luz' behavior to her having been bullied and ostracized in Gravesfield. Canonically there is nothing showing Luz being bullied or says that she was bullied in Gravesfield. Quite the contrary. Yesterday's Lie had Vee, who had been living as Luz for months, living a good life where she had made friends at camp and at school. She resented Luz' return and castigated her for not appreciating how good a life she had. The episode Thanks to Them had the guidance counselor ask Camila if she had been bullied in school to which Camila answered that she had. He then asked if she wanted Luz to struggle as she had. That question strongly suggests that Luz was not yet having any social difficulties beyond those of her own making and that sending her to camp would keep that from happening. When we see Luz back in Gravesfield HS she was having no difficulties dealing with other students and that some of her contacts with them were friendly and admiring.

So what are your thoughts on this insistence of certain fans that Luz had suffered this bullying and ostracization when the show itself not only doesn't support it but contradicts it?

Because it's necessary for Luz's character to function.

That's really all it comes down to. Luz is kind of monstrous if she has never actually known strife. She wants to be seen as the victim after all. She wants to be justified in abandoning her mom for her fantasies. For rejecting the consequences of assaulting people. Heck, that's still true in S3 where she needs to be able to claim that the human world would be some torturous hell hole for her so that her self martyring actually comes across correctly instead of someone going, "Oh, that sounds like a lot of work and might actually be dangerous so I'm just gonna stay home with my loving mom instead."

If her home life was good, was kind, was what we wish our home lives with a parent who will enable us to do whatever we want short of breaking the law... What the fuck is she doing? The audience insert, who goes entirely unquestioned in the show besides "Hey, you kind of messed up, go apologize," (which she doesn't do well all the time) is suddenly this whiny brat who wants to be enabled by literally every person in existence because she needs to be the most special person there. It's the antithesis of what people want "I just want to be understood!" to be about. She wants to be understood so you go "Oh, I get it, you keep being you," and never hold her accountable. Otherwise, she might not lie all the time because she might be willing to actually face the consequences of her actions.

It is a shift in Luz's character irreversible in its damage. You just cannot like the show in the same way when you have to admit that Luz is a self entitled little shit. And mind you, her normal archtype is of that sort. Danny Phantom and Randy Cunningham and even to some extent Kim Possible are all flawed teenage characters who are clearly growing. Who need to be better people so while they're protagonists, you're supposed to learn as much alongside them as from their example, if not more. You are meant to take from Luz by example though. She is meant to be the audience surrogate after all. And, you know, if she's unjustified in her actions... What does that say about you all of a sudden who connected so deeply with her?

That's all of why this can't vanish. I actually want to add onto your proofs though because people will go "What about her panicking during Knock Knock Knocking?" Yes, that is the ONE time we are ever given the idea for her being mocked for something and even that one... Well, she's worried about going too over the top. How much do we want to bet Luz came to school in her suit to ask the person she liked out like she was in some sort of soap opera? That's gonna get you reasonably laughed without a VERY specific sort of partner like Amity.

HOWEVER... That's the one time, a season and a half into the show, her actions imply someone who has been bullied. Otherwise, she is very confrontational, she does nothing to hide herself, she gives almost no shits about what anyone thinks about her besides "Fuck you, I am totally the greatest" everytime Eda doubts her. The closest before then is her worrying about Amity seeing her as lame but Amity is the only one she cares about for that. Even then, she never seems bothered by the fact that Amity is a bully. She is willing to stand up to her regardless. This is further reinforced by what she does with Boscha where she either just brushes her off during Once Upon a Swap or is entirely confident in confronting her in Winging it Like Witches. NONE of that is the behavior of someone who has been bullied, harassed and hurt by constant bullying. Add all the elements where she clearly could have found people like her but chose instead to chase more popular clubs like cheerleading and acting and it paints a REALLY bad picture of Luz.

It paints her as Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, or Goob from Meet the Robinsons. Both people who claimed the world hated them when the reality was that they were awful to reality, one being a bully and the other ignoring all signs of kindness and acceptance that was attempted to be given to him. This is far worse when you remember that Luz never appreciated her mom properly, like Goob, and also is genuinely an asshole to both King and Hooty for their interests, like Liz Lemon.

Luz is a bad person. But for the show to function, you cannot believe that. Once you do, it will only to start to collapse faster and faster as the contradictions pile on top of themselves.

So why not just twist the truth instead into the pleasant lie Luz is actually the archtype of the bullied nerd that the first episode tried to imply she was but then failed to ever deliver on? It's easier that way, even if it's dishonest. Luz wouldn't judge you for it, not so long as you didn't try to lie to her. Because all that matters in the end to Luz is Luz.

======+++++======

If the idea of a fact that's not well supported by the show being critical to a character functioning sounds familiar, it's because it's the same reason why people need Odalia to be pure evil. Both Amity and Luz need to use having been hurt by others to justify their own behaviors, even when their behaviors don't correlate in ways that actually support those excuses.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #toh #the owl house #luz noceda

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ariiadnes · 2 months ago

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ㅤ╭ ⿻ ･ PSYCHO HOLE

tomorrow / either i will murder you / or you will rinse the knife in water.

-ˋ ♡ ◞ arlecchino. genshin impact. cw : angst (?) ; mention of blood. quote cr : garous abdolmalekian. ashwarya. tagging @pixelcafe-network. repost.

act one : BUT THE STAIN OF A CURSED EXISTENCE IS A TREACHEROUS BEING : HIDEOUS , HORRIFYING , HUMANIZING.

the first time you witness the black that adorns her skin is the first time your heart beats in vast terror. a battle gone wrong, tattered clothes and gloves, and then the reveal of the truest & highest self of a harbinger.

you do not know what to do, what to think. you are unsure if it is the adrenaline of survival that makes the life in your chest ache violently so, or if it is the fear and wanting of the unknown.

arlecchino stands before you, yet you do not dare cast your gaze upon her. you swallow hard, eyes following the drips of sanguine that fall from wretched claws. oh, dearest, how they sink into the hollows of the world, forever fragmented into existence in remnant of death. the blood is too much. it's too much-- the way it splatters across her skin, nearly drenching all black until it is an ocean of madness and crimsons and massacres.

your hands tremble. your stomach churns. you look elsewhere, searching for refuge, but the blood follows, and somewhere in its meaning is the death of those it once belonged to, and that makes your heart beat faster and faster until you feel your mind on the verge of break.

"stand."

the blood is too much.

you listen, but still, you do not look. you are afraid, but you are unsure of what.

a sharpness digs into your face, sudden. harsh. her claws press into your skin-- not light, but seldom hard enough to draw blood. you know very well that she could harm you if she desired, yet she doesn't. she jerks your chin up, forces you to meet her gaze.

"it's ill-mannered to not look your savior in the eye."

your mouth runs dry. something unfamiliar gnaws at your humanity.

"i... am thankful that the blood on your hands is not mine."

and in the abyss of black and red, there's just the faintest trace of amusement in the echoes of apathy.

"a simple thank you would have sufficed."

act two : BUT THE STAIN OF A CURSED EXISTENCE IS A TREACHEROUS BEING : FRIGHTENING , FOREIGN , FATED.

you do not know what draws you to her, this harbinger. it has been a long while since your first encounter, and still, you have remained by her side. you do not know why. you do not know why she agrees to your companionship. you question it more often than you'd like.

she is a complexity of things you have yet to unravel, and truth be told, you doubt you will ever understand her, her past, or who she truly is, and maybe it's better that way. that's what you'll tell yourself, anyway, even if it might hurt.

because she is both safety and danger to you, and you wish that frightened you, but it doesn't. you wish that it would drive you away, but it doesn't. she is no sanctuary, no haven, and though she is lined with cruelty, there is not always a coldness in her heart. you know this.

"i did not save you with the intention of keeping your presence." she tells you one day, and you cannot help but smile.

she washes the crimson off her hands. an all too common sight you have grown to adore. you watch in fascination every time, searching the bright red that fades into an everlasting black.

"yet you do not push me away, arlecchino."

she does not respond. she stares at the bloodied waters, the hazy red a familiarity. in her muddled reflection, there is nothing but vacancy.

"no, i don't."

( she doesn't. she should. you both know this. )

act three : BUT THE STAIN OF A CURSED EXISTENCE IS A TREACHEROUS BEING : ADORED , ADMIRED , ANTAGONIZED.

the world is not meant to be viewed in good and evil, but how it is deeply desired so. it would make things simpler, wouldn't it? the truth would be so easy, the war between logic and emotion dissipated into black and white and seldom gray.

that's what you'd like to imagine, anyway. because even in a world full of good and evil, you do not know where you stand, nor do you know where arlecchino stands. your heart beats dearly for her, but you do not know whether it is with love or infatuation or with warning of the end to come.

perhaps it will be a happy ending. perhaps you will not be in it, whether in death or other means.

you are unsure.

you sit before her, staring at the translucent water in the basin. it has yet to be disturbed by another, pure. your reflection is curious, though you are unable to study it for long. your gaze shifts elsewhere as she grabs your jaw; it is a familiar feeling, the way she forces you to look at her.

it's a dark nostalgia, you think. the blood on her claws, the digging sensation in your face, though much gentler than before. you aren't afraid this time. she stares at you, visage empty. she waits.

your lips curve, subtle. there is a strange exhilaration in the mourning of it all, and one day, you will understand it.

"i wonder," you begin, hand wrapping around her wrist, "when it will be my blood on your hands one day."

something in her expression changes. you barely catch it, but even then, you cannot read it. she leans forward, closes the distance between you, her lips just inches away from yours.

"will you be thankful, even then?"

her grip on your jaw tightens, but still, the claws do not draw blood. you wish it did. you grin.

"of course." you answer, and slowly, you press your lips against hers. "i will always be thankful."

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #arlechinno x reader #arlecchino #ෆ fic #ෆ genshin impact #ෆ banner cr @ v6que

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savagewildnerness · 1 month ago

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Part V - The Vampire Armand

Posting my book club notes here once again... oof - only just did 'em!

Questions:

"If you had ever felt real longing for any other one, you would know that what you feel for your son is nothing at all.” - Armand says this to Gabrielle. Is it true? I think Armand understands longing, but not really love. Whereas Gabrielle doesn’t long for any other human. But she does love Lestat. I think, speaking honestly, she often doesn’t love Lestat *enough*, but it doesn’t mean that it is not love. She *does* love him unconditionally, as I see it. Still, in later times, when Lestat is in despair or near death or in terrible trouble, Gabrielle usually does not come to help her son…

Seeing as Daniel is a vampire now, Lestat could show him his life story wordlessly in his mind. He doesn’t need to speak it aloud. Do you think this could be part of the TV show?

P290 Lestat talks of the intimacy of opening your mind as a vampire - it’s described as beyond even the satiation of blood-sharing… so if Lestat verbally talks to Daniel, could this be contrasted with him opening his mind when sharing parts of his story with Louis? Surely so…? Also, there’s something about how you can interrupt a spoken conversation, but you have to just listen to something shared directly from the mind…?

Gabrielle speaks in this part of what she desires from immortality. Has she found the answers she sought?

Will we get any of Armand’s story in S3? I feel like maybe not.

P305 & 307 Armand’s despair is redolent of Nicolas’. Do Armand and Nicki meet in mind in some way here in this core-of-self where they need to believe, but instead there is an empty void?

“…he knew no hope, and no grief, and no joy. All those things had come from the Master, and the Master was no more.” - Nicolas could almost say this of Lestat, although Nicolas is FAR more strong-willed and individualistic and obviously an artist.

“And the other secret, which he kept from his followers for their sake, was simply the extent of his ever deepening despair.

That he craved nothing, cherished nothing, believed nothing finally, and took not one particle of pleasure in his ever increasing and awesome powers, and existed from moment to moment in a void broken once every night of his eternal life by the kill” Armand doesn’t rail against it in madness as Nicki does… but the way everything is now meaningless reminds me of Nicki

I began to think of the vampires as elements:

Lestat - the infinite star-filled sky

Nicolas - the bird, flying over the vast wasteland of The World

Armand - the deep, undulating ocean

Louis - Land. Home. Safety. Respite.

Gabrielle - waterfalls and rain and running water in streams and rock pools

Marius - the mountains - proud and eternal

Maharet - Earth: clay and soil

Akasha - blood.

“I thought of the night in the inn when I had seen the meaninglessness of life, and the soft fathomless despair of Armand's story seemed an ocean in which I might drown. This was worse than the blasted shore in Nicki's mind. This was for three centuries, this darkness, this nothingness.”

Again, a shared desolation at the core of both Armand and Nicolas.

p310 Trying to work out Lestat’s philosophy as a vampire and to get to the root of what Lestat cannot abide about the Theatre des Vampires…… Lestat does not wish to deceive mortals. He wants to live amongst mortals, but without deceiving them. His philosophy appears to be that it is fine to enjoy life as a mortal and for mortals to perceive you as a mortal. Where it gets confused for me is when Lestat starts to think on his human topics of art and expression and goodness and emotion and humanity. He says that when *he* stood on the stage at Renaud’s and terrified everyone he was revealing himself, not being deceitful… yet he finds Marius’ art - which replicates human art - painting angels and skies to be “good” whereas he finds Nicolas’ art, in which Nicolas does not lie about the monster he is, but rather reveals it… to be “petty”. Lestat, I think, realises his hypocrisy as attested by this here - “I saw the little stage at Renaud's and I heard myself sing and the singing become a roar. Nicolas said, "It is splendid." I said, "It is petty." And it was like striking Nicolas. In my imagination he said what he had not said that night: "Let me have what I can believe in. You would never do that.”” Here it is Marius who is deceiving and Nicolas who is not here, yet it is Nicolas’ art Lestat cannot abide. This makes me wonder whether it is about the art at all? Lestat loves to tell us what a fabulously wonderful, evil vampire he is - the beastliest beast! But he hates anything that reminds him of the inhumanity that’s in his core. Maybe this is in fact a thing he and Louis share? Lestat knows this of himself (whereas Louis has to learn to understand and accept it as part of himself as he splits himself into good-Louis and bad-Louis-who-is-not-Louis). Anyway, all this to say I think there is a lot of hypocrisy in Lestat’s stance here and denial of his own terror of what he is - understandably so!

The theatre for Armand is actually Gabrielle’s idea and it is Gabrielle who pushes Armand to it. Does she see something at the heart of Armand and Nicolas that could connect since she can hear both of their thoughts?

I wonder if we’ll see Armand in the theatre much in this era?

I adore the prose of the start of this section. In terms of the way the prose is written, it’s perhaps my favourite moment in Anne’s writing - like an actual poem; resonant, sensual and satiating. I love it so much that I would personally have this entire section as VoiceOver to this scene in S3 myself! I especially love the bold quote

“Spring rain. Rain of light that saturated every new leaf of the trees in the street, every square of paving, drift of rain threading light through the empty darkness itself.

And the ball in the Palais Royal.

The king and queen were there, dancing with the people. Talk in the shadows of intrigue. Who cares? Kingdoms rise and fall. Just don't burn the paintings in the Louvre, that's all.

Lost in a sea of mortals again; fresh complexions and ruddy cheeks, mounds of powdered hair atop feminine heads with all manner of millinery nonsense in them, even minute ships with three masts, tiny trees, little birds. Landscapes of pearl and ribbon. Broad-chested men like cocks in satin coats like feathered wings. The diamonds hurt my eyes.

The voices touched the surface of my skin at times, the laughter the echo of unholy laughter, wreaths of candles blinding, the froth of music positively lapping the walls.

Gusts of rain from the open doors.

Scent of humans gently stoking my hunger. White shoulders, white necks, powerful hearts running at that eternal rhythm, so many gradations among these naked children hidden in riches, savages labouring beneath a swaddling of chenille, encrustations of embroidery, feet aching over high heels, masks like scabs about their eyes.

The air comes out of one body and is breathed into another. The music, does it pass out of one ear and into another, as the old expression goes? We breathe the light, we breathe the music, we breathe the moment as it passes through us.

Now and then eyes settled on me with some vague air of expectation. My white skin made them pause, but what was that when they let blood out of their veins themselves to keep their delicate pallor? (Let me hold the basin for you and drink it afterwards.) And my eyes, what were those, in this sea of paste jewels?

Yet their whispers slithered around me. And those scents, ah, not a one was like another. And as clearly as if spoken aloud it came, the summons from mortals here and there, sensing what I was, and the lust.

In some ancient language they welcomed death; they ached for death as death was passing through the room. But did they really know? Of course they didn't know. And I did not know! That was the perfect horror! And who am I to bear this secret, to hunger so to impart it, to want to take that slender woman there and suck the blood right out of the plump flesh of her round little breast.

The music rushed on, human music. The colors of the room flamed for an instant as if the whole would melt. The hunger sharpened. It was no longer an idea. My veins were throbbing with it. Someone would die. Sucked dry in less than a moment. I cannot stand it, thinking of it, knowing it's about to happen, fingers on the throat feeling the blood in the vein, feeling the flesh give, give it to me! Where? This is my body, this is my blood.

Send out your power, Lestat, like a reptile tongue to gather in a flick the appropriate heart.

Plump little arms ripe for the squeezing, men's faces on which the close-shaven blond beard all but glitters, muscle struggling in my fingers, you haven't got a chance!

And beneath this divine chemistry suddenly, this panorama of the denial of decay, I saw the bones!

Skulls under these preposterous wigs, two gaping holes peering from behind the uplifted fan. A room of wobbling skeletons waiting only for the tolling of the bell. Just as I had seen the audience that night in the pit of Renaud's when I had done the tricks that terrified them. The horror should be visited upon every other being in this room.

I had to get out. I'd made a terrible miscalculation. This was death and I could get away from it, if I could just get out! But I was tangled in mortal beings as if this monstrous place were a snare for a vampire. If I bolted, I'd send the entire ballroom into panic. As gently as I could I pushed to the open doors.

And against the far wall, a backdrop of satin and filigree, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, like something imagined, Armand.

Armand.”

Lestat seeing the skulls beneath the flesh reminds of of vanitas-based art.

I notice that Lestat often talks of the apple trees in the orchard when his mind goes back to his and Nicki’s mortal life back at home. All sorts of connections here - from Eve, to innocence and to the actual memory [p51] “Spring was approaching, the mountains were dappled with green, the apple orchard starting back to life. And Nicolas and I were always together.”

Armand is so cruel here - the way he gives Lestat a vision of being mortal here and then attacks him - he literally uses Lestat’s greatest, impossible yearning against him and then also replicates his rapey turning - what an attack… but I guess in retaliation, Lestat *does* nearly kill him, so…. I would love to see Armand give Lestat (& Daniel) these kinds of overwhelming visions on the show! And I am sure he will to Nicolas and Gabrielle too…

In any case, this betrayal, Lestat will never forget. And though he loves Armand, he knows his danger and he will try to resist him from here on.

Armand’s warnings on page 284 & 285 & 286 about the fledglings he will make - surely it will be on the show - I also love how closely Armand’s words match Lestat’s deepest fears.

“Citadels against time” is such a beautiful phrase (and where the books eventually reach…

Armand proffers the promise of understanding Lestat and Gabrielle, which is really very sad, given how he cannot even understand how to exist himself.

In this whole section, there is so much where each vampire seems to be telling another exactly what they want to hear OR their deepest fear… and it makes me realise - how genuine a conversation can you have when you can read each other’s thoughts. “Does anyone else know the size of your soul.” Is SUCH a Romantic thing Armand says… and exactly what Lestat would want to hear.

During all of these encounters, I notice how little Gabrielle speaks compared to Lestat. I wonder if some of Lestat’s words will go to Gabrielle on TV? I partly hope not, as her silence is part of her, and the way when she does speak it is with her own intent also matters.

Armand references how Nicolas will be destroyed by the dark gift sooner or later pretty much every time he mentions him.

Can we have Assad playing lute please?

The first thing The Children of Darkness teach Armand is the sin of vanity and OH how Lestat is an embodiment of that as Armand would perceive him.

It’s crazy to me that Armand never thought Marius could have sent the dreams of himself being alive… it didn’t occur to Armand in all these centuries to hope? That’s the saddest thing!

“That is why mortals must be chosen with skill. Those with great passion and indomitable will should be avoided as well as those who have none.” - The Children of Darkness would NEVER have chosen Lestat (or Nicki, or Gabrielle!)

"All things have eluded my understanding," he said. "I am as one whom the earth has given back, and you, Lestat and Gabrielle, are like the images painted by my old Master in cerulean and carmine and gold.” - I love how poetic Armand can be.

It’s funny how quickly vampires get used to hearing each other’s thoughts. The concept seems hideous to me!

There was so much talk of Armand caging Louis in Dubai, but p308 - Armand has always been caged himself

Lestat wonders how Armand could believe in The Children of Darkness… not after they burned Maris… but after they burned ART! “"How could you have ever believed anything that they told you after they burned those paintings?" I asked. "How could you have given yourself over to them?"” “Kingdoms rise and fall. Just don't burn the paintings in the Louvre, that's all.”

P310 “You say things that mean nothing to me.” LOL! Speak your truth Armand!

P311 - Armand and Lestat arguing over which one of them is more heartbroken made me laugh; Lestat longing for mortality; Armand for belief

P312 - Armand truly was never much part of the real world, even as a human.

“The theatre of the Vampires! I should rather the fire.” - Armand the comedian. Desperately want Assad delivering this, deadpan.

“"What did Lestat call it? Petty?"

"That was to Nicolas because Nicolas would build fantastical philosophies upon it,”” - Spoken by Gabrielle as if Lestat didn’t spend his entire mortal life constructing fantastical philosophies around the meaning of and goodness in art!

I feel really sad for Armand at the end here. Gabrielle and Lestat are telling him what he needs or wants to hear, rather than speaking their truth. A horrible, sad, inevitable ending they leave him to.

But Armand still speaks *his* truth, and I love when he does. - “"I have asked myself that question," Armand answered, "many times. Was it spiritual or was it voluptuous? Was the angel painted on the triptych caught in the material, or was the material transformed?”” UGH, I love you, Armand!!! His thoughts on art are a mix of philosophy and magic and yum yum yum.

The only thing important to ME is to go to an extreme!

I think Lestat simultaneously wishes Nicolas didn’t exist anymore at this point and he cannot bear the prospect of him not existing. I think Nicolas will remain forever a cipher to what a human life could have been for Lestat - his only experience of mortal love and life and creating art as a mortal, and loving art created by another mortal. The idea of them living together: loving, creating, laughing, growing old and dying and it all as beautiful as the orchard of apple trees… it’s the eternal “what if” that can never be reached. The only impossible in an eternity of possible. Nicolas no longer existing is the last thing that makes this truly unreachable, in all certainty. Nicki is Lestat’s link (LOL, I typed KINK there! Hahahahahahahaha!) To his human self. Their conversation is the unreachable. In a way, Lestat needs Nicolas to exist for himself more than for Nicolas - this aching circle of tragedy in which it is partly kinder for Nicolas to die rather than to suffer as he does.

“"Maybe as the years pass," he said, "desire will come again to me. I will know appetite again, even passion.” - Armand sounds so Louis here!

There is so much grief here - Armand’s emptiness feels like grief and Lestat speaks of his own grief - for himself, for Nicolas, for Paris and for Armand.

Gabrielle: “"I tell you, I don't care if I never look upon another one of our kind," she said coldly. "I am done with their legends, their curses, their sorrows. And done with their insufferable humanity, which may be the most astonishing thing they've revealed.” LOL - how hilarious that Gabrielle should say this to Lestat of all beings, hahahahaha! Also, Lestat is mean to say Armand has no imagination - think of all the wild conjurings Armand can create in anyone’s mind!!!

The very end of this part is sad as the chasm between what Gabrielle desires and what Lestat does really splits open. Gabrielle’s desires frighten Lestat and Lestat’s desires are a horrible trap to Gabrielle. Lestat, remembering his conversation with Nicolas while with Gabrielle who doesn’t even want to tell Lestat one story - still unwilling to teach him any thing for 5 minutes of time, even now.

Gabrielle going to sleep in The Earth, digging like a beautiful witch will be visually STUNNING on TV!

The sadness of the end of this part, juxtaposed with the amusingness of Lestat’s postcard to Marius is very funny!

#interview with the vampire #anne rice #amc interview with the vampire #lestat de lioncourt #the vampire lestat #amc iwtv #iwtv amc #iwtv lestat #iwtv louis #louis de pointe du lac #Gabrielle de lioncourt #Nicolas de lenfent #vampire chronicles

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sharoo · 2 months ago

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Canto 7 thoughts

So me and my pals finished canto 7 yesterday and just. Projmoon how do you keep one-upping yourselves. How are you going to keep one-upping yourself we still have 5 episodes of Inferno and god knows what more after that.

So like a lot of fans i'm gonna leave my thinkpiece here and try to sort out the emotions I have about it all. This is going to be rambly as heck.

Family and how messy that can be

Bloodfiend families kind of make me short-circuit when I get thinking about them. A chosen family of blood, but one with an unfortunate power dynamic, where the children cannot willingly disobey or harm their parents.

Old Don Quixote was a good guy. He was an idealist, he treated his kids well, he wanted the best of for them. But so often they did not have a choice in his antics. Sancho herself even says, during the Bloodfiend war days, that she could not leave him.

And the fall of La Manchaland involves several instances of him making choices for others without considering them. Forcing Sancho to leave when, as the story clearly shows us, DQ is in large part her reason for living and happiness; forcing the family to first live off of flavourless mush for 200 years and then locking them away to endlessly keep on starving as they're unable to die, all for the safety of humanity.

Don Quixote has the air of someone who centres his actions on what he feels is right or wrong, not necessarily considering others?

But as someone once said, any action committed in the name of love exists outside the framework of good and evil.

I do not think DQ was evil, nor were the bloodfiends. They were just trying to survive and do what felt right. And really, Don sums it up best - he was upset with them, they were upset with him. It's not black and white.

Really, the villain here is their illness and what it forces them to do to stave it off.

But also we have another family. The family of a Bloodfiend who all her life insisted she'd start none. A chosen family who forged their closeness in blood, yet do not share it.

Heathcliff's line about your coworkers being kind of like family (of course it's him saying that, seeing how the dead rabbits replaced the Earnshaws) and then the entire group talking about how much Sancho means to them, how much her bravery inspired them...

All culminating in her telling her father about this wonderful family of twelve she's acquired. God, that just killed me in the softest way possible.

Both Don Quixotes have large families of those younger than them who are ready to fight with them, who are going to support them.

Except our Don does not have the undertone of an imbalanced power dynamic over the sinners that her father had over her and her siblings.

Even just how Sinclair, the youngest of the Sinners, looks up to Don, wants to be like her, mimicking how Sancho wanted to be like DQ as described in Hero. It's so good!

Choice

During the dungeon, we had a discussion with my friends over the postulates older Don posed - that bloodfiends cannot change their nature.

I am of the opinion that you cannot change if you are not given choice or are not aware that you have a choice. And there's a difference in meaning. When people in a state of depression bemoan unchangeability, they often are blind to the tiny changes, they wish they could drastically alter themself in an instance in order to remove whatever part of them poses them trouble. That's what Don the elder sees - they could not change.

For most of the canto, Sancho denies her ability to be better too. Bloodfiends cannot den their nature, it's useless to try. Her choices were either made for her (leaving la manchaland on Rocinante) or were made in the name of avoiding pain (forgetting oneself and slipping into a dream delusion).

But in the end, she realises that the dream of Don Quixote is one she and her father shared. That he did not force her into it, but that she inherited it through choice, through interest, through being inspired, little by little.

She chooses to continue it for them both, now that her father is too exhausted to dream it. The title of Don Quixote, much like in our world for some, becomes a symbol of daring to have a dream.

The duality of "dream as delusion" and "dream as tomorrow"

I love the dual meaning here. I love how the canto is called the Dream Ending yet in its final minutes our Don's rebuttal is literally "The Dream Un-Ending". I love how it flips her "needing to wake up" on its head.

It's not the idea of heroism she has to abandon, it's her dream of escape. Sancho became Don Quixote to escape pain. But she cannot change and become better if she just leaves all choices to her amnesiac self.

Sancho's Don Quixote act really began as wilful delusion. An escape from pain into this hope that she shared with her father, really, the most valuable elements of the memories she'd be erasing.

But that "delusion" ended up genuinely inspiring others. Especially our boy Sinclair, who wants to be like her, brave and strong.

Now she's awake to actively engage with the world, to strive for the better, to consciously dream. To hope.

The line between hopeful ideal and delusion is really just... in the eye of the beholder. At what point is it alright to chastise hope?

To wake up from it, to abandon it... it's not worth it, especially in this City ready to crush you into pieces the moment you stop hoping for a better tomorrow.

The Christian undertones

They put a confessional in La Manchaland, I get to discuss the christian undertones of the entire set up. Is it thematic? Idk, it's fun for me tho :]

Of course I in no way want to imply that this is universal for Christianity, just that, depending on your religious surrounding, it can lead to such interpretations; speaking from a perspective of a former Catholic who used to be really religious, I do see this theme of selflessness at all cost emerging here.

Selflessness and sacrifices for the sake of others can, in the right amount, be necessary and beautiful and noble. The issue is where that line crosses into indirect harm.

How much happiness must you deny yourself for the sake of others in order to be "good"? Is it even worth it?

Bloodfiends, by their nature, crave blood. It's not something they can just deny themselves. It can't kill them but the emotional toll of it is not much better.

And now imagine framing that necessity as "sin". I mean for goodness' sake, they built a confessional where bloodfiends could talk with a priest about their forbidden craving. They have to be penitent for something they cannot control.

Blood is their forbidden fruit. They disobey the teachings of the Father who built them a paradise in order to taste it, and they are subsequently punished.

#limbus company #canto vii spoilers

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unfinishedslurs · 2 years ago

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stobin kidnapped- no upsidedown

Robin doesn’t know why she comes out to Steve Harrington of all people.

It could be the drugs. It could be the way he’s been pretty good-natured about her ribbing all summer. It could be the fact that they’ve bonded, painfully and irreversibly, in the last 24 hours in a way she never has with anyone else and hopefully never will. It could be that she’s almost certainly going to die in this tiny, awful basement, and Steve fucking Harrington’s shitty homophobic spiel won’t matter because they’ll be dead.

Tammy Thompson won’t matter, either. She’ll never, ever look at Robin now. Probably won’t even think about her as she cries over Steve Harrington’s tragic fate.

“Have you ever been in love?”

They’re pressed back to back next to the hole that serves as their toilet, even if they’re not tied together that way anymore. Something about being able to see from all angles is comforting. No surprises.

It also means she doesn’t have to see Steve’s face when he tells her how amazing this new girl is.

“Robin?” He asks when she doesn’t respond. “You OD on me?”

“I’m alive,” she confirms. Unfortunately.

Nope, too soon to be making jokes about wishing she were dead when there’s a high possibility she ends up dead before she gets out of here.

Steve’s presence leaves her back, and she almost panics before she realizes he’s scooting backwards until he can meet her eye. She scoots back until her back hits the wall, and he does the same.

“This floor’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve already got a bunch of blood and puke on my shirt, so…” he points out. “What do you think?”

“About?”

“This girl.” Why are his eyes so big? Is it the drugs in her system making her hallucinate again? Some great, cosmic consequence for being the kind of girl who can’t fall in love with this apparently amazing guy who protected her the best he could? She feels like she’s going to vomit again.

Eventually their singing dies down, and they exist in comfortable silence for a moment.

It’s Steve who breaks it. “You know Jonathan Byers?”

“Didn’t he punch you and steal your girl?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I lied.”

“About what?”

“Only ever having been in love with Nancy.”

She blinks at him, squinting in concentration until he shifts uncomfortably and she gasps. “No,” she says.

“‘No’ what?”

“You were not in love with Jonathan Byers.”

“Okay, yeah, I wasn’t in love with him,” he protests, squirming. “But, like, he’s cool, right?”

“No!” She exclaims. “No, he’s not cool, Steve. I can’t believe you made fun of me for Tammy, at least she didn’t give me a concussion!”

“I deserved that concussion,” he protests. “Besides, it was a tiny one! That was, like, nothing compared to what Billy gave me.” Or the one he probably has right now, but neither of them point that out.

“He stole your girlfriend.”

“Why do you keep saying that? There was no stealing anything. Nancy’s a human being, with, like, agency and shit.”

“Didn’t he take naked pictures of you guys?”

“What?” He sounds alarmed. “Is that what you heard?”

“Did he not?”

“Well…”

She laughs, disbelieving.

“He apologized!” He says. “And he’ll never do it again, and I broke his camera for it anyway, so I kind of got retribution. Maybe too much retribution. I cannot overstate how much I deserved that beat down, I was an asshole to him.”

“God, you are not helping your case at all,” she giggles. He pouts at her, until he starts giggling too, and then they’re both laughing their asses off on the shitty basement floor until they lose their breath.

They get lucky, she’s told while they’re in the hospital for smoke inhalation and a dozen other things. They were only in that basement for 24 hours until the police (re: Dustin and Erica) found them. It felt like a lifetime.

She gets to sign out after six hours. Steve has to stay for two days.

The nurses have to practically boot her out the door before she’ll leave his side.

“I’m fine, Rob,” he says, rolling his eyes. “I’ve had worse.”

“I sure hope not!” The nurse exclaims as she’s checking over the monitor. “Young man, you are suffering from a Grade 3 concussion, bruised and broken ribs, smoke inhalation, multiple lacerations—“

“Jesus, okay, we get it!”

She gives him a scathing look before sweeping out of the room. Robin raises her eyebrows. “You’re fine, huh?”

The look he gives her could kill a lesser man. “Go home, Robin.”

“I’m staying the night.”

“You’re definitely not doing that.”

#stobin #no upside down #stobin kidnapped-no upsidedown au #steve harrington #robin buckley #sorry to jonathan for the slander i promise i love you #jonathan was steve's bisexual awakening truthing #stranger things fanfic #season 3 au

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