#so now its punishing me for my hubris

[swordsonnet]

the most annoying thing about me/cfs is that it's more like 10 different illnesses in a trenchcoat. i'll wake up with a new symptom and be like "oh okay, guess that's what we're doing today"

[oh-no-its-bird]

Please tell me more about force fem Minato being made the shinigami's wife

From this ask meme

I fucking knew someone would single that one out. Anyways, from my notesapp:

Force fem Minato being made the shinigami's wife as punishment for his hubris He and Kushia used to joke about Minato being the wife between the two of them, so he's eventually able to cope w his situation and dissociate by relying on the "I'm Kushina's wife" joke as a crutch to make it all feel slightly less awful The shinigami sends him on errands as his wife (collecting souls lmao) and Minato uses it as an excuse to watch Naruto and Kakashi from affar,, Umm maybe some of the errands involved Minato baiting people into making deals with and summoning his shinigami husband? He is the lure and the shinigami is the stick lmao The shinigami can't actually do things or manifest in the real world without someone first inviting them into their lives, so, like, that's part of what Minato's wife duties are. To get people to open the door to the shinigami. Among other things

+ Bonus which is kind of unrelated but was on the same notes page:

I like Minato for the take that there's something fr wrong w him and he makes a concious effort to appear normal and kind

He's like. Somewhere on the spectrum of sociopathy or has severe borderline personality or just some genuine mental illness and he works very hard, borrowing the mannerisms of those around him, to be charming and nice n stuff

I forget what fic I saw that in but like THATS the fic that made me care ab him

Hashirama 🤝 Minato

'Being friendly to the point that there's smthn genuinley wrong with them'

Minato !! I think he has a lot of untapped potential specifically in the market of fucking w shinigami. Like, what's even up with that? Let's play with that a little.

The man who would kill a thousand people in a day and return home happy to his wife,,, now turned into the wife who the shinigami who would kills thousands in a day returns home to,,, is this karma?

There's a few different directions this could go in tbh— both from the angle of like. How Minato is feeling / what he's going through but also like. Shinigami and yokai lore. What kind of shinigami / yokai lore are we playing with here.

The question isn't just what Minato is going through but also where the fuck is he. Is he in the Shinigami's personal little death dimension? Stuck inside the shinigami mask with him? Or is there some sort of broader shinigami world he's now living in? Is it only the shinigami, who Minato has to deal with? Or does he watch over any of the (no doubt countless) souls the shinigami has in its collection? Does he interact with any other yokai? Are the yokai he meets inside of whatever death dimension he's in or is it that he meets them when he leaves it to run errands? Or in some other, third place? Is Minato even human anymore or does he classify as some sort of yokai now too?

So many fun thoughts!

Anyways ummm. Thinking. Having thoughts. Specifically having abstract thoughts ab some sort of enraged Uzu fox ghost Kushina and new yokai shinigami wife Minato

Kushina's ghost is an Uzumaki one,, she grew up in Uzu where they just kind of have death god shrines n shit, apparently, she was never going to become a normal spirit. And that's not even counting the fox in her + all that weird yin/yang stuff w kurama. She is an angry, angry fox ghost with Uzumaki roots and she wants her wife back !!!

Umm Romeo and Juliet style forbidden love in the afterlife of Minato one day running back into Kushina's spirit (probably while they're both taking a moment to watch over Naruto / check in on Kakashi)

And they like. Do the spider man pointing meme bc HOLY SHIT OMG MY SPOUSE YOURE ALSO TRAPPED IN THIS AFTERLIFE LIMBO and also make out and like tell eachother what they've been doing (Kushina w her cool Uzumaki spirit lore and Minato w his much less cool "yeah so the shinigami um. Turned me into his wife. So.") but then they're forced to separate bc Minato can only leave the shinigami's domain for so long

Forbidden romance under the eye of the shinigami,,, if Minato gets caught the shinigami threatens to make him reap Kushina's soul to add to his collection

Idk but there's just a lot of potential here.

Naruto not from the POV of anyone living but instead from shinigami wife Minato trying to slip in time to see his fox ghost wife again as the plot of Naruto happens in the bg, could be fun

Then the Uchiha massacre happens and suddenly so many more angry spirits are getting added to the mess, oh boy

But yeah thank u for participating in the ask game here is a much longer than I meant for it to be tumblr post as ur payment

[mochinomnoms]

Hi, there :D

I saw the hanahaki event and I found your ideas about the disease interesting so I want to place my resquest:

Type: Romantic, hurt and fluff

Reader: Female but neutral it's okay 👍

Promt: "Here, your favorite flower! Hmm? Where'd I get them? Uh, I just found them, around..."

With Silver

silver x f!reader [tags] – fluff, hurt/comfort [wc} – 2,423 prompt 13: “Here, your favorite flower! Hmm? Where'd I get them? Uh, I just found them, around…” note - hi! went over wc, it's fine. i hope i got the hurt part down? a floral inconvenience

Gardenias - They are often given as a gesture of love and affection, making them popular in wedding bouquets and romantic arrangements.

Peonies - peonies are often associated with love, romance, and prosperity. It symbolizes deep affection, good fortune, and a flourishing relationship.

You attempted to floss out something that had gotten stuck on your teeth during your last coughing fit at lunch. You hadn’t realized that whatever it was was falling out of your mouth while you and Ace argued about who would be speaking during your history presentation until Deuce pointed them out. 

“Uh, Prefect? You got—” He tapped the corner of his mouth. “—you got a little something there.”

You’d swiped at your mouth, confused from where the petal came from, until you started hacking up flowers. Now you were sitting in the infirmary room with a concerned, but slightly amused Lilia, who decided to escort you to the nurse after seeing your three gaggle of friends panic. 

Grim in particular seemed convinced that you’d been cursed and were turning into a tree as punishment for his hubris.

“There, there my dear.” Lilia rubbed a soothing hand along your back as you coughed up another flower. Gardenia flowers, evidently. “It’ll pass, happens to many people during the spring season.”

You gagged as you finally cleared your throat of phlegm and petals. Looking down on your lap, you had what was basically a full bouquet of white, full bloom gardenias. A bit moist from your saliva, but fairly pretty flowers. 

“Egh, what like seasonal allergies?” you asked, murmuring a thanks as the fae handed you the warm cup of soothing potion the nurse left you. 

“You could say that. Spring is the most ideal time of the year for youngins to be twitterpated!”

You raised a brow at Lilia, who was smirking at you cheekily. “So, you want to tell me who’s the lucky man that’s caught the attention of the school’s only young woman?”

“Huh? What do you mean? Twitterpated?”

Lilia’s smile dropped, a more pensive, thoughtful look on his face now as he hummed. “I suppose you wouldn’t know, seeing as it’s a magical sickness.”

Lilia turned to face you as he carefully grabbed one of the gardenias, twirling it in his hands as he explained.

“Hanahaki disease is an illness that typically occurs in the springtime among young individuals whose hearts are so full of love for the object of their affection that their love starts taking physical form as their loved one’s favorite flora, typically flowers. But always the most pristine, beautiful version of it.”

He chuckled at your reddening face as he continued, “It can be typically treated by confessing your love, or it will go away on its own after a while. There are a few cases where it can become chronic, but that’s rare.”

“Cool, cool, cool. So how long specifically until it goes away?”

Lilia dropped the flower in shock, turning to look at you with disbelief.

“What?” you blurted, hastily grabbing the flowers to toss them in the trashcan by the bed. “You said a while, so like a week? Two? I can even do three—”

“Why would you wait when you can get it over with, with just a few words?” Lilia looked disappointed, almost pouting as he crossed his arms.

“Take this as an opportunity to get this off your chest. That’s how the sickness feeds, even if they don’t accept and say no—”

“But I don’t want him to say no!” You whispered, interrupting Lilia mid-sentence as he saw how somber you looked. “I-I can’t. I don’t think I could handle hearing him reject me. I don’t want to ruin what we already have.”

You fiddled with your fingers as you continued, “Even then, if he says yes, what will happen when I go home? Will I just leave him here, alone? After I’ve taken a piece of his heart for myself?”

Sighing, you shut your eyes as you rubbed them, setting into an emotional exhaustion. 

“I wouldn’t want to do that to him either.”

Lilia stayed silent as he watched you lay down in the bed, arm stretched over to shield your eyes from the mid-afternoon sun seeping through the window. He reached down to pick up the flower he’d dropped earlier, twirling it in his fingers once again. 

Switching his gaze to observe you, Lilia’s eyes darted between you and the flower. Then, like a light switch flipped on in his head, he brightened as realization dawned on his features. 

“Gardenias, hmm?” He purred, suddenly giddy. 

“Hmm? Gardeni-whats?” 

“Oh, nothing.” Lilia chirped, smiling as you peaked an eye out. “The flower you’re producing. He must like gardenias is all.”

You hummed in response, making a startled noise as Lilia grabbed your hand and wrapped your fingers around the stem. 

“How about you head back to your dorm for the rest of the day? I’m sure Nurse Goethel would be happy to write you a note for your classes.”

Lilia waved at the nurse who smiled and nodded in affirmation. 

“Go home, I’ll make sure to send you a few things later this week to lift your mood!” Lilia chirped, patting your head before floating out of the infirmary with a self-satisfied smile. 

Goethel had emailed your excuse, sent you with another soothing potion for your throat before the next bell rang. By then you were already sitting on the dusty lounge couch, texting back an angry Ace, who ended up having to do the presentation by himself. 

@traaaaaaaaapola: boo u whore i cant believe u got sic specifically to not do the presentation smh @deuce♠️: dont call her a whore @traaaaaaaaapola: i mean it affectionately, u whore @deuce♠️: dont call me a whore @traaaaaaaaapola: whore @traaaaaaaaapola: kladsjaljs65&^(_)H)*H(R*F*F%DHElp;lksglka;sga’jm  @notaschooltherapist: u good? @traaaaaaaaapola: ace is not available to come to the phone rn, please try again later 😊 @notaschooltherapist: lol rip

You sighed and looked at the single gardenia in the cheap glass vase you got from Sam’s while picking up some soup for your throat. You hoped that Grim wouldn’t mind that you took some of his tuna money for it. 

The light from the setting sun shone through the window, making the white petals a silvery glow, mocking you.

You felt the tickle of petals creeping up your throat as you coughed up three more gardenias. Gagging, you stood up and grabbed the offending flowers to rinse the spit off in the kitchen. As you were placing them to join the first in the vase, a knock at the door alerted you to a visitor. 

“Ah, gimme a sec!” you called out (a bit hoarsely from the earlier fit), walking over to the entrance to greet your visitor with a smile. That was until your heart leapt into your chest as the door opened, Silver entering with a paper bag in hand. 

“Y/N? Where—ah.” Silver gave a soft smile as he noticed you in the living room. “There you are. Lilia told me you were sick, he said that you might need some help?”

That sneaky little—

“Oh! Um—ahem—sorry my throat is sore, um.” You stuttered nervously, shifting in your spot as you remembered the flowers behind you. 

Silver was still giving you that gentle smile that made your heart pitter-patter like a bird as he walked to the kitchen to unpack the bag, placing an amber colored potion on the counter, some water bottles, and more cans of soup. 

While his back was turned, you swiftly snuck the vase under the coffee table, covering it up with the raggedy table cloth. 

Once you were assured that the bouquet was sufficiently hidden, you walked over to meet Silver in the kitchen.

“Um, yeah. It’s nothing though, I didn’t realize he was gonna send you over.”

“Ah, well he didn’t really.” Silver blushed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. “I woke up just to hear him mention that you weren’t feeling well, I just wanted to come check up on you.” 

“Oh!” You felt your cheeks warm at that. “That’s so nice of you, thanks.”

That led you to this moment, wanting to curse whatever deity existed in Twisted Wonderland for putting you in this situation. For the last four weeks, Silver had been visiting you in the morning, noon, and evening with a fresh new honey-colored potion to accompany your meal. 

After a certain point, Silver had started falling asleep outside of your dorm, classrooms, and even the bathroom during your coughing fit. Waiting to hand you another soothing elixr. 

It was sweet. It really was. It just sucked that every single interaction with him ended with your heart pounding in your chest and gardenias popping out of your mouth like some sort of illusionist. 

Silver, in his unending kindness, started checking in more often, not realizing that he was the one making it worse. It had gotten so bad that small blooms started popping out of your ears and your head. 

Every single time you yanked the offending flowers out and threw them away in the nearest trash can or fireplace. But, it seemed that the Hanahaki sensed your animosity, because it became harder to hide. 

Everytime you locked eyes with Silver across a busy hall, the ground beneath you would bloom white flowers. Everytime you heard his voice as you passed a classroom, petals fell from the tips of your fingers. 

Even the mere mention of his name caused an entire gardenia bush to sprout next to you, which actually wasn’t the most disruptive thing to have happened during yours and Hornton’s nightly walks. 

Similar to Lilia, he recommended that you take advantage of the flowers and confess. 

“After all, why not make a blessing out of a curse? Much easier than unnecessarily prolonging your suffering, yes?”

Hornton’s words echoed through your head as you lay across your shabby couch, head smashed into the cushions as you groaned. 

As you turned to lay on your side, you noticed lush, white flowers underneath the coffee table. Crawling to investigate, you’re met with the small gardenia bouquet you’d hidden nearly a month ago when Silver first came to care for you. 

Reaching for the vase, you were surprised that they were in such great condition, considering you forgot about them and left them to suffer under the dusty dark table. In fact, the blooms seemed to have grown. 

It looked like one of those fancy Valentine’s bouquets you’d see at flower shops. 

Lilia and Hornton’s words echoed in your mind. 

Their love starts taking physical form as their loved one’s favorite flora, typically flowers.

Why not make a blessing out of a curse?

Maybe you didn’t need to explicitly confess, but perhaps getting this off your chest would help some. 

The next morning, you greeted Silver bright and early. His face of surprise was endearing as you whipped the door open, his hand raised and posed to knock.

Before he could utter a simple ‘good morning’, you shoved the bouquet of large, waxy cream flowers into his hands. 

"Here, your favorite flower!” 

Silver held the bouquet in his hands, slightly puzzled with a soft blush on his cheeks,

“O-oh, may I ask what for?”

“For helping me with my sickness all month.” You replied, clenching and unclenching your fist behind your back. “To show my appreciation and…uh—um…you know. That stuff.”

You were hoping and praying that indirectly admitting your feelings, rather than outright admitting you loved him, would do the trick.

Silver looked pleased, almost flustered as he met your eyes with his own auroral ones. 

“That’s kind of you, Y/N.” He smiled bashfully, eyes crinkling ever so beautifully. “Can I ask, where’d you get them?”

You thinned your lips before popping them and answering, “Uh, I just found them, around…"

“Interesting.” He admired the flowers, rubbing a soft petal between his fingertips. “They’re not in season this time around, they’re a summer flower…you really lucked out with these ones.”

Your heart stopped as he lifted the gardenias to sniff their aroma, whispering under his breath, “I really lucked out with you, hm?”

Like a tidal wave smashing against a rocky shore, your entire body warmed as you realized that you really were completely, foolishly in love with the man in front of you. Your heart resumed beating, harder and faster this time like a patient in cardiac arrest. Your mind felt like it flew out of your head to sing in delight. Your throat tickled as it—wait.

Your throat tickled. Your throat was tickling. 

Before you could turn to run somewhere private, like your bedroom or bathroom, you started coughing up a flurry of petals. The wood beneath your feet was slightly breaking as pinwheel shaped flowers emerged from the ground, crawling up the doorframe, as well as yours and Silver’s legs. 

The white bulbs popped up between hair strands, creating the illusion of a flower crown, and finally another large, magnificent gardenia bouquet fell out of your mouth. 

Breathing heavily from the lack of air, you shakily held your flowers as you looked up to see Silver’s shocked face. 

“D-did you just? Are those gardenias—hanakhaki.” He sputtered in realization, looking back and forth between the gardenias and you. “They came from you?.”

“I’m sorry!” You blurted out, tears starting to form as you shut your eyes, afraid to make eye contact. “I was trying to make them go away, but they just wouldn’t, and got worse and worse until I-I-I—mpft!”

Silver’s lips covered yours, effectively shutting you up mid-rant. You yelped as his arms snaked around your waist, tightening until you were pressed up against him. Whimpering into his mouth as he deepened the kiss, you wrapped your own arms around his neck, warmth spreading into your body as he let out a pleased hum. 

You two parted, though your arms still kept each other entwined in each other’s embrace. Silver’s arms tightened as he pressed your foreheads together, sighing.  

“I wish you’d told me sooner, I felt awful knowing you were sick and there wasn’t anything I could do to fix it.” 

Hiding your face in his neck, you murmured, “I’m sorry, I was just scared that you didn’t feel the same way. That I’d ruin our friendship”

“It’s funny, I thought the same thing. I wanted to wait it out, make sure I didn’t make you uncomfortable” Silver chuckled, rubbing his thumb in soothing circles on the small of your back. “But peonies are your favorite, right?

Reaching down to pull a delicate, pink peony that remained in perfect condition despite being in his pocket, he continued. 

“I started coughing these up a few weeks ago, they go well with the gardenias, don’t they?”

[katerinaaqu]

Wait did Odysseus really get like insulted as sisyphus' bastard son is like he related to that guy who tried tricking death twice

Yes it appears so. In many plays like Sophocles or Eurypedes, characters who dislike him or wish to offend him seem to be calling him "Son of Sisyphus" and het the chorus always chants him as "Son of Laertes" which I find it interesting so it seems to me more like a rumor or an insult for him rather than his real heritage.

As I answred to another amazing ask by @autumn0689 in the past here It is a very interesting subject. So forgive me for the length!

For starters Odysseus is being insulted as a bastard, an illegitimate son. As I answered to the amazing ask by @leynaeithnea about illegitimate children here being illegitimate was a source of shame on its own. I mean even nowadays to call someone "You bastard!" is an insult. Back then it ran even deeper because being an insult of one's heritage (since they believed nobility runs in blood especially the Athenian writers that imposed this). Odysseus is technically a king to mention that as a king he is not legitimate son is like saying he has no right to his position; that he is not even supposed to be there; that he is not worth of it. They also indirectly insult his family as well; Laertes has no legitimate son, his wife was disloyal to him and had a child with another man and Laertes chose to take that child as his own. Calling Odysseus "bastard of Sisyphus" is basically an insult to his entire famiy (thus me making Odysseus go mad at Philoctetes in my random story here

And as I answered to the previous ask it all melts down to who is Sisyphus; a sinner, someone who cheated on the gods twice, someone that as you said cheated on death himself and now he is being punished eternally. Sisyphus was in a way used as the embodiment of human arrogance, shame and example for punishment. They basically call Odysseus the bastard son of the most sinful man. That was to insult him by the way Odysseus too often uses indirect methods to achieve his goals. They basically say "the apple fell under the apple tree". Odysseus cannot be the spawn of a possible Argonaut. He must be the child of a sinful person given how he is not the ideal warrior for his time. Indirectly or not they were saying that Odysseus was the embodiment of trickery, of human arrogance and of someone that will mock even the gods to achieve his goals (ironically that is not the case at least with Homeric hero as we know he was one of the most pious to the gods among his peers -praised by Zeus himself- despite him being known for his great hubris to Poseidon) Another thing him being accused as son of Sisyphus does is to diminish his godly line. Anticlea, his mother, is the grandaughter of Hermes in many sources. Once again Odysseus cannot be possibly sharing his bloodline with the gods! He must be the spawn of something sinful! Thus again the insult.

So far the worst mention of it I have heard was in "Philoctetes", where Philoctetes is so furious at Odysseus that not only does he say he is the illegitimate son of Sisyphus but he takes it a step further and insinuates that Sisyphus sold Odysseus to Laertes. So not only does he call Odysseus the illegitimate spawn of a sinner and a result of adultery but he also says that Odysseus is not worth more than the average slave, given how Laertes buys him from his father for money. But again what intrigues me is that the choir around still calls him "Son of Laertes". Even when Menelaus calls him "son of Sisyphus" in "Iphigeneia en Aulis" the choir still calls him "Son of Laeretes". So it seems more like a rumor or an insult among his peers rather than an actual irrefutable fact.

Hahaha I have come to the conclusion that at this point "Son of Sisyphus" means "son of a bitch" really! XD

For Odysseus himself being called basically a "cockroach that refuses to die" might as well be almost like a compliment and in many cases he has spoken as if he doesn't care for other people hating him (for example in Philoctetes he mentions how he can be literally anything the situation calls for) but I have to be honest by the ideals of his time I do not think he would like it. That would imply not only that his blood is impure but also that he is not equal to the others, that he is not worth to be at their presence and let's face it no one likes the prostect of their own family being dragged to the mud. Odysseus himself doesn't seem always affected by talk on the surface (in Philoctetes he even gives permission to Neoptolemous to do so in order to persuade Philoctetes to trust him) but judging by his reactions quite often when insulted, he explodes. So he is not entirely immune to insults. In fact it was one of these insults that made him explode his anger to Polyphemus and comit his blasphemy to Poseidon (and yes I have written something on that too! Hehehe)

Sorry if this was too long! I hope it helps!

[the-magpie-collective]

The Absolute is Baldur Gate 3's A-plot villain. The plot revolves around the Absolute, and in the end Players must decided either to work with it or destroy it. And for every origin character, it also has a B-plot villain to drive their personal story arc. For Astarion it's Cazador, for Shadowheart it's Shar/Lady Viconia, for Lae'zel it's Vlaakith, for Karlach it's Gortash and Zariel. Gale's villian is a bit more abstract, but I would argue Lorroakan acts as a narrative foil/mirror to Gale, though Gale's hubris is his true "antagonist".

And then there's Mizora.

Look, I will say, Mizora's initial introduction does a good job of setting her up as a villain. She swoops into camp and either gloats about succeeding in fooling Wyll into killing an ally (Karlach) or punishes his insubordination by dragging Wyll through the hells. Most Players will have already received warnings about devils well before they meet Mizora (vis a vis Raphael) and here they are faced with the consequences of what it means to try to cross a devil. Wyll is irreparably changed into the visage of a monster, or he feels himself a monster for having killed someone who didn't deserve it. Mizora comes off as clever*, powerful, and an unapologetic antagonist. This Mizora is actually kind of terrifying.

*(Taken on its own, using the "heartless, demonic, infernal, and soulless" language in the Pact feels clever. In light of all the other Pact bullshit it feels shoe-horned in for plot purposes only and like lazy writing to me)

It goes downhill from here.

In the next scene featuring Mizora, she begs Wyll for help. I might have had more grace for this, but all the Player needs is to pass an extremely low perception check of 5 to determine that Mizora is desperate. This both immediately undermines Mizora as a credible threat, and takes control of his story away from Wyll as the Player negotiates with Mizora to release him from the pact on Wyll's behalf. How does a devil, one who is supposedly one of Zariel's most competent, get captured by the Absolute cultists? We don't know. It's never explained, but given the fact that Raphael is traipsing around there without a care and even Yurgir is giving the Absolute cultists trouble it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of Mizora's abilities.

(I'm not going to get into the Pact again. I think it's incredibly stupid and the story never bothers to clarify whether or not Wyll is actually freed from his Pact at this point or not. But let's just say he is freed from his pact by Mizora when he rescues her from the illithid pod for the sake of my sanity.)

Now we come to Act III, where Mizora offers Wyll a deal: his father's life for his soul.

Let's ignore how dumb the Iron Throne is and how it railroads the player. Let's ignore the Pact and how apparently devils can just force anyone's death to happen so long as it's written into a Pact, even if they weren't the one to sign over their soul. Let's just focus on the fight.

Because if the Player (not Wyll, because we can't give him autonomy in his own narrative arc) chooses Wyll's soul over his father's life, there is a confrontation with Mizora in the Iron Throne. She appears, commands his father to kneel (how is she able to do this?), and then sicks a dozen exploding spiders on him. Except the spiders can be entirely avoided by a single level four spell slot (Dimension Door). One, single, level four spell slot, to completely evade Wyll's main antagonist. In Act III. That's it.

And we're supposed to respect her as the villain of Wyll's story?

Once this is over, you'll find Mizora back at camp, just hanging around. While she doesn't make another attempt at Ulder Ravengard's life, she is now, inexplicably, untouchable. She apparently has unlimited magic to teleport back and forth between camp and the hells when before she tripped herself straight into an illithid pod and the best she could come up with to kill Ulder was a few exploding spiders. That's totally makes sense /sarcasm

A protagonist is defined, in large part, by their antagonist. We know that if the antagonist is clever, the protagonist must be more clever to beat them. If an antagonist is powerful, the protagonist seems stronger by comparison. So what happens when the antagonist is written into an incompetent nitwit halfway through Act II? The protagonist looks stupid by comparison.

And it's blatantly obvious why Mizora is written the way she is. Somewhere along the way instead of Mizora being an actual villain for Wyll, she just becomes a sex object for the Player. She could have been a terrifying, competent villain AND still propositioned the character, but I guess that was just too much character depth to give her. And I think that's really, really sad. Mizora could have been a fascinating villain, but they chickened out and didn't even so much as give her the cool claws and fangs from the concept art.

Is Wyll boring or does Mizora's writing just suck, actually?

[shellem15]

Anyways I'm still not over my devil boys. Thinking about all the parallels between them:

Because like, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, right? Draws in and punishes people for trying to be good, trying to *help* those they care about. And whether they succeed or not is irrelevant because in the end they're damned either way. That's the lie, then, that their sacrifice would ever actually change their fate.

And its just: HELL IS LIKE THAT BECAUSE IT’S A REFLECTION OF ITS LORD AND THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO *HIM*. THAT’S WHAT MADE HIM REAL IN THE FIRST PLACE AND NOW HES STUCK LIKE IT FOREVER!!!

That's what happened to Asmodeus and then he did it to Vespin Chloras and Zerxus and then Zerxus tried to do it with Pike too (in tlovm). It's a never-ending cycle where the one who's burned then becomes the fire for the next person!!! UGHHH

And it all starts with that one act of good intent, that act of sacrifice! Imri throwing himself to the flames, knowing he would burn, to protect his family at the cost of himself. Luz saving him but in the end he chooses to burn anyways, this time out of hate. Zerxus selling his soul to save his son and his world, knowing that damnation would be the end result. Nydas giving him an out, killing him before dawn struck but Zerxus stubbornly, hubristically clinging to life, to his ideals and pride, anyways. Choosing to burn and losing himself entirely in the process.

(Ironically enough Vespin kind of breaks the cycle? Trying to replace a god to remove a great evil from the world and instead damning it in the process. But when given his mind back he takes this chance and stretches it as far as he can, choosing not to be the fire but to give his world a chance at survival. Doing it knowing he will be hated anyways. Learning from his mistake, humbled at the consequences of his hubris where Asmodeus and Zerxus grew proud. Burning for it anyways. I get the sense that if he was given an out he would take it, unlike the other two.)

Love becomes sacrifice becomes resentment becomes hatred. Hatred towards those they sacrificed for because why did it have to be them who burned? Why do they get to be whole while I am broken? How dare they get to have light and love and happiness while I burn in the dark. Why didn't they burn with me? If they really loved me they would burn too!

Hatred towards those who seek to help them, because how dare you pity me. I chose this, I chose to burn! I knew the costs! How dare you spit in the face of my sacrifice! Did it truly mean so little to you that you would wipe away all trace of it!? Trying to heal me, trying to fix me, trying to redeem me, I did this for you! I didn't do anything wrong!

Hatred towards their corrupter, towards their damnation because everything was fine before they came along. Before they ruined everything! It's their fault for breaking it and now I'm going to make them pay for it! It doesn't matter who I hurt because nothing else matters except making sure they regret ever touching me.

Hatred towards themselves because how could someone be so stupid as to try? Love is weakness and sacrifice is for fools and those who throw themselves to the pyre deserve to burn. I'll prove it, to anyone who thinks themselves good and noble and true. Come find out.

And how could they not become resentful, to not have their love turn to hate? It's one thing to choose to burn and another to burn *forever*. A martyr is not supposed to live through the martyrdom, they're supposed to die. Their sacrifice is meant to have an end. They never got to have an end. (Though I will say, its very interesting that Zerxus chose not to die while Asmodeus seemingly *didn't*. He was dying, and the Everlight healed him. Gave him life but took peace with her.)

And the horns too! The symbol of their damnation, of corruption. But they didn’t get it that way, the horns were protection first, before anything. A testament to their love and sacrifice scarred into their flesh, on display for all to see. But that love born of protection is forgotten, both by others and themselves. Twisted into something rotten.

(No wonder Asmodeus is so good at manipulating good. He knows how good people think because that's how he thought, once. He could be so good at being good.)

They're burning. Always. They hate the fire but also, also-- they want to burn. They choose it every time because the alternative is to sacrifice the one thing they cannot, will not--their pride. They would have to be honest to do that, wouldn't they? Honest about the hurt they've caused, honest about how broken they've become. That they do not deserve their fate (that no one does), that while they were burned once they do not need to burn forever. There is always a choice. They'd have to be honest to change and they never will because the Devil sometimes tells the truth he is never honest. He can't be. He won't let himself.

[fisheito]

i lied. i'm still here

WHAT GIVE SYOU THE RIGHT

first of all, straight up 14 minutes spent staring athis stupid eyes. what are eyes? squishy orbs with holes in them? dunked in saltwater? connected to a bunch of vermicelli? ludicrous. they don't even know how to stand up straight. duymass orbs standing upside down all day relying on the brain to make sense of its wonky projections. i'm staring at salty upsidedown spheres for too many minutes. ims o anrgy

THE EARRING IS UNMOVED. UNCHANGING. STARING AT ME WITH ITS BEADY SALTORBS. mocking me. this is its everyday. this is normal. you twine that obsidian with the mundanity of the 9-5 grind and i just fume at you. STOP MOCKING ME

WHEN THE HFIOK WAS HE ALLOWED TO EXPOSE SKIN? WHO PULLED DOWN HIS SHIRTT? evil puppyfan whispering in my virtual ear: are those scratches on his back?!?! me: NO THEY AREN'T, THEY ARE JUST DECORATIVE BRUSH STROKES LIKE THE ONES USED FOR BLUSHES

IF THOSE WERE SCRATCHES THEY WOULD BE A HELLUCA LOT DEEPER AND ANGRIER BECAUSE THIS SNAKEY BITCGHJ AINT GETTING OFF WITH JUST A WARNING

wait hold up a minut

who pulled this thing down. doesn't he have a rather tight collar around his neck? there's no way someone could so easily just drag his entire torso's worth of clothing down past his shoulders-- *checks my notes*

DID THEY ONLY GIVE HIM HIS SECOND LAYER ? WHERE'S HIS SHIRT? i don't see any of that telltale white-

ok, well, there it is,? so, he's wearing it after all, but HOW DID THEY PULL DOWN THE UNDERSHIRT SO EASILY IS IT BAGGIER THAN EXPECTED? bruh i don't THINK so the waay that silk vacuum-seals to yakumo's skinnyarss chest in his regular sprite DID THEY TEAR IT APART?!?!?! just ripped at the neck. he can sew. he can fix it later on his own time. we got shoulders to expose here

WAIT. WHY IS HE WET? WHO THREW A BUCKET OF WATER ON HIM? other evil fan whispering in my alternate earhole: oh, they're ALL wet in their bday pics. don't worry, fish. it's like misting the vegetables in the grocery store-- me: I AM NOT MOLLIFIED BY THIS NEWS. WHY IS HEWET!!!!

way too godadam wet..... downright sopping😡

actually, that's a mighty fine bow. i wonder who tied that. it's a picturesque bow. i can never get my bows to look so perfect irl. very even. no lumpy sides. honestly, i wouldn't put it past eiden or olivine with their crafty hands to be able to pull that off-- EXCUSE ME WHAT THE TFOKF

WHO UNDID HIS PANTS W H A T

HE ALREADY HAS BARE SHOULDERS THAT'S AS SLUTTY AS IT GETS FOR THIS EXCESSIVELYBUBBLEWRAPPED SPAGHETT NOW YOU'RE PULLING HIS PANTS DOWN? HIS HIPS ARE GONNA GET COLD

stupid fkin hipbone on the bonyffikin snaek i'm gonna rip[ his greeater trochanter clean off his pelvis

WHATEVER. i'm fine. i'm totally fine. .......... bony snass out.....

you slap that thing and it's gonna shatter......couldn't even afford basic padding......economy-fare-level-buttmeat gotdamt taunting me with its fragile slappaibility

WHEN will this hoe learn. he beteter put those ankles away befroe he LOSES them i am THIsc lose to BITING THEM OFF his SNAPPABLE fibula PUT SOME SOCKS ON YOU WHORE

stupid anime legs. makes no sense. too frghign long couldn't even be contained by the border of the image. got cut off by the edge because his frivolous stilts had to stretch beyond reasonable restraints. surrender your left kneecap to customs. punishment for your femur hubris.

HOW FAR DOWN HAVE THOSE PANTS BEEN PULLED IVE NEVER WANTED TO SUCK A------

you're barely even tied up you dweeb there's nothing tethering you here if you stood up i bet the whole thing would unravel and you'd be completely unencumbered by that lightweight ribbon. i bet if we turned you around we would only see the ribbon loosely draping across your chest like a celebratory sash . congratulations on your self-contained imprisonment you wibbly reptilian beansprout

GOD HE DOES NOT STOP WIBBLING EVEN HIS ACCURSED LIPS ARE 〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜〜

UGH HE IS ALL NECK I'M GOING TO ROAST HIS SPINAL COLUMN AND TURN HIM INTO GRAVY

I HATE IT HERE

[actuallyprobablyafaerie]

pjo episode four parts that made me scream

Them starting with sally trying teach percy how to swim and percy being scared is fantastic for two reasons: number one, its a normal kid thing and number two it ties into later in the books when we find out percy has a fear of drowning. Its like hoe thalia has a fear of heights and kind of ties into the idea that forbidden children are often afraid of some part of their parents element. I love that theyre bringing in elements of that idea so early!!!

percy’s “can i ask a stupid question” and annabeths “are you trying to make me make fun of you” akdbdkbaaksbdkjsbakks shes so funny

I LOVE THAT THEY BRING UP PAN AND SPECIFICALLY TIE HIM TO MANIFEST DESTINY AND AMERICAS HISTORY OF KILLING ITS INDIGENOUS PEOPLE!!!! ITS IMPORTANT FUCKING HISTORY AND IM SO GLAD THE SHOW ACKNOWLEDGED IT

percy and annabeths little banter, percys stupid accent and then him collapsing on her. That and the scene where theyre talking on the train is the percabeth we deserve!!!!!! God i love them so much

ALSO going back to the scene where theyre talking in bed on the train i love how annabeth knows that grovers grumpy in the morning and percy doesnt. Grover was her protector once too!! (Like they said last episode) and theyve traveled together before!! He was annabeths friend before he was percys

ok everyones already said this but the parallels between annabeth and medusa?!!??? With medusa saying “i was you” last episode and now annabeth getting punished for something percy did ghe same was medusa was punished for something Poseidon did????? Absolutely insane i love it

also the fact that it hurt athenas pride specifically, much like how medusa mentioned the “pride of athena” in reference to annabeth last episode, which all ties back to the fact that hubris is annabeths fatal flaw and she gets it from her mother

THE CUT TO PERCY IN THE FOUNTAIN AND THEM SPLASHING WATER ON HIM AHSKSBJAHAJSJSB theyre so funny for that

Percy just looks like a wet rag this episode and its so well done you can even tell the makeup on his face was done to make him appear paler and sicklier and it works so well

ok PERCY PULLING ANNABETH INTO THE STAIRWELL AND SHUTTING THE DOOR???? Because hes loyal to a fault!!!! And theyre becoming friends!!!!!!!!! And he cares about her more in like a week than athena ever has and its shown to us so clearly in this episode!!!!!!

ONCE AGAIN LUKES MOTIVATIONS ARE GOING TO MAKE SO MUCH SENSE BY THE TIME WE GET TO THE END OF THIS AND WE DONT EVEN HAVE TO SPEND TIME WITH HIM TO UNDERSTAND THEM god this series is so well done

Also the chimeras design looks so cool i love it so much

AND WE FINALLY GET AN ANSWER AS TO HOW PERCY GOT IN THE RIVER FROM THE TOP OF THE ARCH!! (At least in the tv world, in the book world the arch might very well just be in a different spot lol)

Poseidon saves him!! Hes a better parent than athena is apparently

god the episode ending with percy breathing underwater is so good i was on the edge of my seat until the very end

OK LAST THING is that they are continuing the theme sally brings up about monsters not always looking like monsters and heroes not always looking like heroes so well!!! Echidna bringing it up and saying that to her, demigods are more dangerous was fantastic i love how dedicated they are to this

OK ACTUALLY THE LAST THING i love the dichotomy of different mothers in this episode. We start with sally and percy and immediately see how much they love each other and care about each other!!!! Then we get to echidna who cares about her children too by teaching them to hunt!!! And then we get athena who ducking punishes annabeth for something she didnt even do. And its like. That was a little monstrous athena. Im understanding why someone might want to kill their godly parent

GOD THIS SERIES IS SO GOOD

[boinkyyy]

o fello lacroix connoisseur i need 2 know all your hcs about prince sebastian lacroix

bruh you can't ask me this i'm not gonna remember all of them at once and then i'm going to remember or come up with some more 3 hours later and then furiously be forced to reblog this 80 times because tumblr doesn't apply my post edits to every reblogged version of that post (literally 1984)

but you've already seen some of them so let me just compile them here for easy reading (HUGE text block--MASSIVE--read under the cut):

LaCroix has an engraving in at least one of his weapons that has something cheeky in French like "If they bite thee, bite them"

He used to be Catholic during his mortal years and still sentimentally carries or even wears an old, discolored and worn wooden heirloom rosary under his clothes because I thought of the mental image of a cross necklace over a hairy chest with light blonde hairs and I immediately got COVID

He's got a mostly average build with some wiry/understated muscle from his time in the military, along with some various unnamed pockmarks and scars from combat. Waterloo probably left its mark

Alongside his rosary, he probably has some kind of signet ring from his noble house somewhere that he keeps in a box

He wears shirt stays and sock garters

He slips into his native French when agitated or sometimes when on the phone

He's like 5'4-5'5

He probably wakes up with a bit of stubble every evening because he was Embraced very shortly after the Battle of Waterloo

During his time as an officer, he was awarded a cross of the Ordre Royal et Militaire de Saint-Louis, minimally Chevalier rank

He descended from a minor noble house and was (or still is) an equestrian

Basically stealing this from Iravaid but I'm hcing him with Protean now due to that thing with the game files revealing that he technically has access to claws (probably unintentional if we look at it from a meta perspective but I will take literally ANY LaCroix content and RUN with it, and I decree that an ancilla should have access to auxilliary disciplines) and that his animal shapeshift is an albatross

As he was from Calais, which is a port town with ties to England, he probably knew some [UK] English even before being Embraced

His relationship with his Sire was either incredibly boring or tumultuous and difficult emotionally, given how little he's inclined to talk about him. You'd think if his Sire was particularly prestigious that he'd brag about his lineage as Ventrue so love to do, but perhaps he didn't because he knew the significance would be lost on the Fledgling

That's probably also why he brings up his military service to some extent if you pick the "Yes sir" dialogue option. Most Kindred probably perceive past mortal accomplishments as virtually worthless, so it would really only be interesting to someone like you (the player character)

Given that he mentions that he spent some time helping the Camarilla claim unprecedented/new territory in Europe, L.A was probably not his first rodeo in stabilizing the Camarilla in hostile lands. Not by a long shot

If he pursued L.A in particular willingly, despite knowing the danger, this would be good justification for why. Otherwise, I like to imagine that his station here was something of a punishment from multiple persons of interest who wanted him dead

I don't have any particular headcanons for his feeding preference but if I had to put up a list, I've always liked a) firstborn sons and b) men of military service

His internal clan ranking would be that of an Aedile

I headcanon his methuselah of descent to be Antonius (strategy, administration), although Arakur/Lantla (Tiamat) would be a funny pick if you were to go for the irony angle (history of diablerie, extreme hubris, power-hungriness and drastic decisions)

Did we forget that LaCroix mentioned that he was in New York during the time when it was still a Sabbat-dominant domain and presumably present for the decisive battle of 1999? I didn't. And that shit was brutal. Day haven burnings, extensive counter-intelligence and the cooperation of multiple large factions/clans/several Archons and a Justicar in the largest Camarilla military offensive mustered in the modern nights. While he certainly appears to be more of a "lead from the war-room, not the frontlines" kind of person in the game, I don't think Sebby boi is slacking when it comes to PACKING THAT HEAT. He can hold his own in a fight and his time in Europe or New York is probably where he picked up Protean. Just the night vision and the claws alone would help massively to defend himself or even go on the offensive in a place that's in a constant state of urban warfare.

It would also explain why he happens to have Mercurio, a highly connected arms dealer from NYC, under his thumb as a ghoul

Whatever went down between him and Bach in Africa, it was probably also how he picked up his Sheriff, who I'm pretty sure is supposed to be a Nagloper

I feel as if, despite his unusual emotional reactivity for a Ventrue, he's not at all unused to failure or humiliation. You really can't be, having lived for 200+ years. You telling me he lived that long and has never eaten shit and taken some enormous L's? Nah. Ventrue don't coddle their brood. So I think, his final moments where he's literally injured and about to die aside, he can pivot pretty quickly from a setback, and more smoothly than most would think. I think this is demonstrated pretty well when he finds out that you know about his alliance with Ming Xiao and immediately begins manipulating you and trying to flatter/appeal to you/earn your trust while making the snap decision to set up your swift removal from the picture...AND a contingency plan for if his first assassination attempt failed. Wow. And even when THAT fails, he STILL always leaves room for plausible deniability, continuously trying to play you even still. It's got me to the point where I genuinely don't know if he ever intended to keep his promise of granting the Fledgling a scrap of power if his plan ever succeeded or if that was all just bullshit to keep them motivated to help him, because if he was truly powerful beyond reproach then there would be no reason not to just squash them like a bug since they've served their purpose...but there'd also be no reason not to give them their reward anyways since they can never hurt him now. Anyways, his dots in manipulation must surely be a 4-5 with a specialty (gaslighting)

He's probably generation 7. I doubt he's generation 6 or lower

In addition to everything else, I'd be surprised if he didn't also have some low dots in Auspex, Celerity and Potence. For in-clans, he's definitely Dominate-heavy, with maybe Fortitude secondary and Presence tertiary

His exceptionally dead and corpse-like appearance when unBlushed likely has to do with a lower Humanity rating

Standard fare for Ventrue, but he's no doubt got a collection of French poetry and literature somewhere. Ventrue tend to be very erudite, and he's likely no different. I hope he journals as well

Given that his hometown was a port city, I wouldn't be surprised if he made his money in the 1800's up until his move to New York from merchantry/trade/transport/stocks, and on the Kindred side of things, accrued and traded boons from transporting Kindred to/from the New World and to other locations in the Old World. His current business appears to be some kind of indeterminate, vague money-moving, finance operation, or so it seems

This is pure nothingburger baseless headcanon but I think it would be fun if he was a Hound during a stint in the Courts of Love as a neonate before moving on to bounce all over Europe under many different patronages/tutorships

He maintains unflinching, unblinking eye contact with inferiors/juniors as a form of etiquette and asserting dominance as the old crusty fucker in the room

Likewise, he doesn't retract his fangs in private or safe settings because why would he be ashamed of being Kindred

He picked up tobacco as a soldier to make the grind of warfare bearable and never dropped the smoking habit even as Kindred. He never flinches at lighters now. As uncomfortable as it makes his Beast, that brief moment of recoil followed by the relief and familiarity of ritual has become an old friend

As he likely hadn't had to speak it regularly in a while, his French is a touch antiquated, moreso than his English ("malingering mollycoddlers?" What??)

He intentionally doesn't bother to correct people's pronunciation of his surname because as an immigrant, he knows that everybody is going to fucking butcher it anyways

His mother named him after the saint Sebastian

He's most definitely a switch in my eyes, with a preference for being the dominant one/the one to set the pace and a slight preference for bottoming

Learning the clan history during his Agoge and how Clan Ventrue had no small share of meddling with the Catholic Church at various points in time probably contributed significantly to him becoming a more or less non-practicing Catholic/virtually secular, as well as the general trauma of being undead, but he still regularly uses Christian phrases or sayings/idioms that allude to Christianity when speaking French due to his upbringing and force of habit

His favorite color is blue. His eyes probably also used to be bluer before the Embrace made them an almost preternatural white

I could easily type more but Tumblr is begging me for mercy and taking up like 80% of my CPU right now so I think that's my cue to stop--

[edelgarfield]

god damn it all this Aeor and Calamity lore has me liking Ludinus a lot more than I ever wanted to. I find him so fascinating and compelling as a villain, in the way that he reflects a lot of my favorite characters' flaws particularly from CR2, but CR3 in Bell's Hells at times self-defeating pursuit of power in order to win.

I'm thinking abt a couple quotes from Essek, bc he & Ludinus obviously have so much in common. By Essek's own admission, it was his inability to trust people that made his pursuit of knowledge at the cost of others so appealing, that made him lose sight of the hurt he was causing

In particular the second quote: feeling personally responsible for doing something because of your inability to trust anyone else. I think that encompasses Ludinus's ideology & motivation so well.

The idea of longevity/immortality being a barrier to intimacy is something that gets talked about with respect to elves a lot, and I think Ludinus encompasses that to its logical extreme. Ludinus is one of the last survivors who actually lived on Exandria during the Calamity. Most elves actually fucked off to the Feywild and didn't return until long after the fighting was over. Given Ludinus was a child when Aeor fell, I would assume that means his parents chose to stay on Exandria & he was born afterwards. (Which if that's the case, adds another layer to his resistance against the gods bc he was doomed to live through the war on the surface of Exandria bc of a choice his parents made before he was born.)

All the elves born at the tail end of the Calamity are dead by now, Ludinus lived at least 160ish years of it, and most of the elves born around that time would have been in the Feywild and wouldn't have the experience of seeing what happened to the world. Everyone else who survived the Calamity would have died hundreds of years ago, not to mention that only a third of the population even survived it in the first place. The thing that's saved the PCs (& Essek) time and time again is their bonds with others, having other people to support them & remind them that all the power in the world means nothing if you lose yourself in its pursuit, that there are good things in this world worth living for.

Anyone that might have had the chance to sway Ludinus from his path is long dead, either from the Calamity or old age. Liliana seems to be the only person he feels close to, but they're both bonded through their shared cause. Even other elves, the people with the longest memories, don't understand what living through the Calamity was like. They weren't there.

I know it was mostly a joke when Laudna suggested Ludinus go to therapy, but at the same time where would he go? One of the things that helps PTSD is a sense of community, feeling like there are other people who share your experience, but there isn't anyone that shares Ludinus's experience (Not to mention anything resembling a therapist on Exandria would most likely draw power from a deity, which Ludinus is understandably opposed to).

That sense of isolation is something that comes up again & again among CR PCs. CR2 is the most obvious, but it's something plenty of the CR3 characters have been through as well. Ludinus would have been alone in his trauma for hundreds of years. That's completely incomprehensible to us. He would have watched the world move on and forget something that's so deeply affected him. Any attempt to confide in someone about his anger & pain would often be met with "this is punishment for our hubris" "the gods love us" "don't question their will." The very, very few allies he had would die out over the years until one day he's the last and he would be the last for centuries more. I feel like that sense of isolation, feeling removed from the world, bottling up centuries' worth of emotion would make anyone numb. he withdraws further and further into himself bc he doesn't belong. he works for centuries at removing the gods, becoming more and more desperate as he grows older, without anyone else to provide perspective as his plans grow more and more ruthless. (i also have a theory that this loneliness is part of what makes him sympathetic to predathos but that's a separate post)

Given his age & being the last survivor of the Calamity, I think it's nearly impossible for him to connect with other people. The only thing that gives him any sense of connection or community is his crusade against the gods; he only feels connected to others through their shared pain & anger, which never allow him to move past it. He can't trust anyone bc no one else understands what the gods are capable of like he does, nobody else understands what's at stake. He's the only person remaining who does, which means he's the only one who can do what he believes needs to be done.

There's a sense of duty. He needs to eliminate the gods because he doesn't trust the future inhabitants of Exandria to be able to protect their world. He owes it to all those who've been trampled on by the gods to do what they no longer can. I think he genuinely cares about mortals & he wants to defend them from a threat that he believes only he can see, but I think he cares far more about the thousands of dead he carries on his back than anyone alive. He can't simply live a happy life bc everything that once made his life worth living is gone. He can't let go of that pain & anger and move forward. His trauma is what gives him purpose and meaning; healing from it would be a betrayal to all the people that have suffered beneath the gods.

I don't think he's wrong about the gods, but I think he's seeking freedom from the gods' control, not realizing that he's letting himself be controlled by the dead. I think it's been a very long time since he spared a thought towards actually living. Bell's Hells keeps accusing him of wanting to take the place of the gods, or wanting to be seen as a messiah, but I truly don't think that's it. I don't think he cares about what comes after, if he's even thought about it at all. I don't even think he wants to be a martyr. His goal has never been for him to live in a free world, it's to ensure that there will be a world after he's gone, forever. he thinks if he dies without securing that future, he'll have failed Exandria & all the souls that have ever lived on it.

He's been completely ruthless in his pursuit of power because to him, he is fighting for Exandria's survival. That's exactly the trap BH has fallen into in the past, pursuing power even when it hurts themselves & their friends, losing sight of the actual people they claim to be protecting. Ludinus surrounds himself with terrible people; Otohan and Trent to name two, bc he wants the power they hold without getting his hands dirty himself. but in doing so he immediately removes any possibility of emotional intimacy. the people he works with don't trust him & he doesn't trust them. the one exception is Liliana & unfortunately I think she just met him far too late.

so much of CR is about the importance of feeling connected to other people, how those connections remind us of what's truly important, and keep us grounded, how when we begin to lose sight of ourselves, it's those we're close to that remind us. I think of Caleb & Essek, they both had goals they wanted to pursue, but in finding a place to belong realized those goals wouldn't actually make them happy. Ludinus doesn't want to be happy, he wants to have a purpose, and I know I'm a bleeding heart, but I think there is something incredibly tragic in someone who can't even imagine what it would be like to live a happy life.

I think of Fjord & Percy & Imogen & Laudna & Dorian, people who nearly lost themselves in pursuit of power, but chose to turn away because living for their friends was more important that dying for the world. Ludinus is the pendulum swinging in the other direction. It's incredibly tragic bc imo his intentions are genuinely good; he's arrogant and selfish and ruthless but i think he truly does want to protect Exandria.

I think there was a point in the past where someone could have reached him & he could have chosen a different path. i don't even think he would have necessarily had to give up his goal of removing the gods. if he had other people working alongside him instead of under him, who knows what he could've come up with? if he had people to pass the torch onto once he was gone, maybe he would feel like there was time to come up with a solution besides Predathos.

But he doesn't and he can't trust anyone bc no one else believes in his cause as fervently as he does. he can't trust anyone else to make the sacrifices he's willing to make so he never tries. He denies himself the aid & perspective & closeness that comes with trusting someone and becomes further and further entrenched in his mission to remove the gods at any cost. He's the only one alive left to remember the trauma of the Calamity: he has to carry all of it because no one else can.

[corvidaes-crow]

Turning Non-Awakener War AU

1tl AU with Infantry Commander Yuder and Cavalry Commander Kishiar; Yuder gets transferred to the infantry from Kishiar's cavalry (maybe as a punishment or consolidation of power by Katchian). Yuder wears Kishiar’s old Commander rank badge. Kishiar wears what was meant to be Yuder's new badge. The dirt and grit of war, the futility of it all.

Break for content warning (just in case, it's super short and hasn't really delved into heavy themes): Death and violence, friendly fire, war imagery

Yuder trying to process the new-found horrors of his first battle as infantry commander like, "I loved you before I watched your horse crush one of my men's skulls while he still cried for his mother, and now I cannot look at you without the heavy realisation that there is no one human on the battlefield. I can no longer fight alongside you the way we used to, of one mind we are not, though my body still remembers your sword strokes like second nature."

When he broaches similar topics, Kishiar sighs, expelling gunpowder air from lead balloon lungs, "You're still young, Yuder. Commander Ail. You'll learn what it feels like when your grief finally runs dry."

"I would rather practise to be stronger, Commander Orr, so I do not have to learn."

Kishiar's lips curl, and in them Yuder can read his warning, Hubris will be the death of you. Instead, politer, perhaps, he asks, "Do you think your skill alone will change anything?"

"Why not? It's saved me countless times. Surely it can save others too."

"You would throw yourself on an enemy's blade to save a recruit?" Kishiar probes cautiously.

Yuder closes his eyes against the taste of bitterness and blood in his throat. "If it's the right thing to do, I'd throw myself on yours, too."

I guess you could call this next bit a proof of concept snippet?

“Your horses trampled my men to death again,” the infantryman states in lieu of greeting.

“There is nothing to be done about it, lest you wish us as dead as they. Your valiant sacrifices are not forgotten.” The cavalryman soothes his horse’s flyaway hay mane and tips his head down, contrite despite the smoky drifting curl of his smile.

“I was not asking anything to be done. I am young, Commander, but I know war.” Ail raises his hand to stroke the wiry cream hairs of Kishiar’s latest horse’s muzzle. The creature’s ears flick forward, then back, disinterested. Ail’s dark eyes trail down as it shifts its weight, before they dart to the muddy path from whence Kishiar came. “You wash your horse’s hooves by the graves?”

“I am old, Commander, but I know loss,” the cavalry commander echoes, wispy smile listing off his face with fatigue. “Their blood, their flesh, I return to them. If it were your body underfoot, my dear commander, I might dismount.”

He can see the words on the infantryman’s pale lips: Do not call me that. But Yuder Ail stays his tongue and shakes his head, those same lips pressed thin in disbelief. Kishiar’s badge glints on his decorated breast. There should be more medals there, but perhaps his fingers do not miss their absence; he plays with the rank badge of a commander no longer his own.

Yuder sighs, shakes his head again. “But that would be the death of you, too.”

Just... exploring war and grief and humanity/dehumanisation, whether that be as a survival strategy (derealisation) or otherwise. Deromanticising love. Love when it has been cored out along with all the other good in you, and all that's left are the machinations of love, the muscle memory movements of it. One day, the good will find its way back. You just have to live (to love) long enough to let it.

[ranticore]

Forward by the Author [Qedivar's research, prologue]

My friends, this biography almost killed me. At the conclusion of my thesis work and the culmination of months of dangerous study, I write to you now from my bower at an undisclosed location, where I currently rest with three broken limbs and more than a few shattered nerves.

Effete shortwing academics such as myself are not particularly known for venturing across the water to West, where land is so rare as to be the continent’s most precious resource. But this continent was where our ancestors first arrived to this world—and yes, it is now unequivocal truth that we are not natives to our planet, as I was first to discover at the ruins of Atom on that wretched continent.

The coarse facts have been spread throughout Intun and East at large, ferried by news-mongers who have yet to finish my associated published paper. They will soon realise that they have missed the most fascinating details of our history. Naysayers have already decried me a heretic and I regret to agree with them, but it is true that my findings are heretical. Is that necessarily a bad thing? I say that a little bit of heresy might vastly improve the quality of our lives and understanding of the world at large.

A martyr, however, I am not. For this reason I do not attach my name to this record. Shortwings being as we are – all quite alike and common as muck – I am confident in my ability to remain anonymous to my readers while still revealing enough to prove myself a credible source. You will need to take rather a lot on faith, when you read this. You will need to suspend your disbelief that we are aliens on Siren. And you will need to accept that every one of us is a product of intentional design – not by some god, and not by so-called ‘evolutionary theory’, but by the ancient first settlers at Atom.

I will write a detailed account of my explorations another time, when I have healed from their rigours. I felt it more important to release the results of my study first, rather than let it become a vanity project with myself its hero. Instead I will preface each chapter with a description of the relevant source texts, including where and in what condition they were found.

On to the source texts themselves. I have created this biography to provide an introduction to the first Sirenian, Ishmael. The phocids of the Southern Spiral know Ishmael as offspring of the moon of the same name, and the ruler of the high tide. The inhabitants of Odr’s Sleep in the far North take a less literal interpretation of Ishmael’s moon and consider him a common ancestor. Harpies in my home Spire know him less, though–without revealing too much of my own bower–we have a mythological figure of the same name; Ishmael, who arrives to punish the crime of hubris.

It was a great surprise to me to find that Ishmael was a real person, and indeed that he was the first person born on this planet. Others arrived, yes, but he took his first breath here, before anyone else. My phocid companion was remarkably unsurprised by the discovery, and could even provide a little local Spiral folklore to illustrate the stories told of Ishmael’s life, which I will include as footnotes in the relevant chapters.

My source texts are extremely varied. Some describe Ishmael from the point of view of those who settled in Atom. Some are his own writings. Some are even a format which projects moving images onto walls, which I will also describe in a coming paper to be published. The technologies many visored longwings preserve sit in rot and ruin in Atom, proving, once and for all, that it was a society more advanced than our own. For the purpose of this introduction and my prefaces, I will refer to this as Precursor society, though in the source text they did not refer to themselves as anything but ‘settlers’ or ‘colonists’.

In those ruins, my party and I discovered things which we still have no words to describe. As a result, many of my interpretations are direct and untranslated, in the hopes that later, with greater understanding, we might return to the source and make more accurate interpretations. Many of these concepts were considered so commonplace to Precursor life that no one bothered making concrete definitions for the benefit of the scholars who might once hope to study them. Precursor society stems largely from a place called ‘Earth’ which we surmise to be the Precursors’ location of origin.

From this, we move on to the most puzzling concept of all. The concept of Humans. I took it to be a clan name at first, given the texts’ referral to Ishmael, a type of proto-phocid unique at Atom, as Human when the other people in the records did not very much resemble Ishmael at all. But Humans were in fact a species. Humans were bipedal and lacked feathers, though their faces will be familiar to any modern Sirenian, because they resemble our own. Once I succeeded in translating the scientific notes surrounding Ishmael, all became clear, and it was this shocking truth which forces me to write under a pen name.

Every modern Sirenian is a Human. We descend from the first-born Sirenians, who were designed – by techniques as purposeful as an artist’s brushstrokes – to occupy the particular range of morphologies which we now inhabit.

Precursor Humans arrived here, to this world, and knew their bodies were poorly adapted to survive here, lacking mechanisms of flight or aquatic mobility and being unable to breathe our air, or eat any of the foods we take for granted. So they engineered those mechanisms to develop in other Humans, which were birthed and raised at Atom in its prime in a series of successive generations, the last of which will likely be my most controversial uncovering. The engineered Humans – Sirenians like you and I – were not privileged members of Atom. In fact, we were a sort of labour underclass to them, who would brave the sea and sky of Siren outside Atom’s bubble where the Precursor Humans could not venture.

Ishmael was the first of this underclass, and was originally intended as merely a first concept, a rough draft of what phocids and selkies would become. He was a fascinating person who I believe is deserving of the great length of this biography and worthy of being the first introduction to the lives of Precursors that many modern Sirenians will experience. Where at all possible I have avoided editorialising Ishmael’s life, instead presenting it as it happened. We find not a revolutionary hero or an icon of tidal vengeance but a person born into a state of great confusion and neglect. He was a Human like his peers but was treated as inherently lesser, hardly a person at all, and he did not conform to expectations of graceful victimhood.

Welcome to the beginning of the world.

[waterdeep-weavemoss]

Visitations

There was no rest in the Lighthouse. Not for Rook. While her friends slept soundly in their beds, tucked into the little nooks they'd carved out for themselves in this strange place, she pushed wearily into her room with its underwater spectacle, collapsing onto the chaise. Her muscles ached, her feet bled, and all she wanted was to sink into deep dreamless sleep. But for the chosen few, that luxury could not be. She closed her eyes, drifted, the weight of her deepening.

Perhaps this time will be different, she thought hazily as sleep stole over her.

'Rook.'

She pinched the bridge of her nose, refused to look across the chasm. 'Why won't you let me be?'

'How could I?' he asked, tilting his head curiously at her. 'You rest, unburdened, and I...?'

'Hardly unburdened,' she snapped, meeting his eye then. 'There's plenty to be fucking worried about.'

'Doe...'

'Don't you dare call me that,' she hissed, incensed. 'Not you. People earn that name and you're too proud for that, Dread Wolf.'

'You did this to yourself,' he said bluntly. 'Had you not interfered-'

'The world would be awash in blood, Solas.'

He growled in frustration. 'I had to right this wrong. There was no choice.'

'Just as you give me none,' she shot back. 'Why must you haunt me so? Is this...' she gestured angrily, pacing the edge, glaring. Wolfish. 'Some kind of punishment?'

'For you?' His lilting voice turned cold, incredulous. 'Tell me Rook, is it you trapped here? Or can you go wherever you please, in my sanctuary, prying open memory and wounds however you see fit, digging in your fingers to make it hurt? You have no idea the freedoms I afford you. The safety. Venture outside the Lighthouse, outside of your cosy, safe, Antivan little room, and the blight will devour you whole.' His lip curled. 'One day you will be grateful. Until then I will be on your heels to remind you that the war you wage in here with me is nothing compared to how they would rip you apart.'

Rook bristled with fury, the tide of it rising to meet the shore of his hubris. 'I just want to sleep.'

'That gift I cannot give.' The landscape shifted and he was gone, the gulf between them vanished. The hair on the back of her neck rose as she realised he was at her back, breath stirring her hair. 'Unfortunately for you,' he said softly, 'we are bound. Your companions cannot reach me. They cannot know me. But you can.'

Ice slipped into her stomach. 'Nothing good will come of this.'

'Perhaps,' he said, lips brushing the shell of her ear now. 'I see potential in you, Rook. Let me help you.'

I am not clay for you to crush and change, she thought. He snarled like he heard, elegant hands finding her hips and squeezing, pointedly. A mortal body, changed and marked by time, or the fingerprints of the wretched divine. 'This isn't wise.'

'You need not be wise,' he whispered. 'Only willing.'

[gold-rhine]

For the ask game :tell me why you love nuevi or kaeya! Feel free to talk A Lot I like your long posts

i also love reading my long posts, i wish i wrote them more asdfghjk its hard for me to just talk unspecifically about character without like pointed theme bc to me it feels like everything is obvious and everyone understands same things, why am i spelling it out.

anyway, KAEYA. my prettiest cursed princess. noble daughter of the fallen aristocratic family with generational curse coded. jon snow AND daenerys targaryen vibes at the same time. why noble daughter? bc instead of how heirs of nobles are kept close and taught to rule, his family treats him like pawn, like currency, his fate determined at his birth with no agency, sent away to another family he has to fit in. he's not a bastard, but he is half blood, and he cannot return. he's brother to diluc, but not equal, no matter how much they get along, like jon to robb stark. dawn winery is not his home, he's only welcomed conditionally, when diluc allows it. told to be "last hope", but what he's last hope of is a rotting cursed shambles of hubris. but even with how badly he was treated, he's still torn with loyalty to them, with duty, he still tried to ran away to khaenriah as a kid, just like dany wants to go to westeros. terrible prophecy hangs over him and he knows it. we don't even know if alberichs were really regents or if clothar is just delusional and sees himself forming abyss order as "regency"! he wants to walk off the stage, but he can't. and even if he could, he won't, not in the end, because against his will he still cares about people left on that stage who do not know what they are in

and he's coping with all of that by not letting people close even though he's lonely bc that curse and prophecies hang over him, bc he learnt from diluc he will not be accepted unconditionally no matter how loyal he is, no matter how good of a friend and brother he is, no matter how much punishments he takes for diluc and how he follows him like a shadow. he tried so hard to be a perfect child in dawn winery, polite and sweet and it didn't matter in the end. and now he's hating himself for secrecy and underhanded ways he was forced into as a child and deeming himself bad, finding ways to blame himself even for doing good deeds bc he's such a manipulator, treating relationships as transactions of favors to keep score, to keep in control.

mask worn for long, it grew into him and is impossible to take off now. "and they say my charm is fake" he IS naturally charming, he just had to learn to use it as a weapon. he IS sweet and interested in people, he just had to learn to get profit out of it. the worst thing he could be is himself. sad adult with a fake smile. and at the same time he's proud, he's talented, he's funny and sarcastic, he likes goofy jokes and slipping clever metaphors into silly stories, he likes writing books for people he cares about with advises on how to solve problems and deal with people, and also likes telling stories and can improvise a monologue on a stage. he should have been an actor and a writer, but duty to one father threw him into mond and duty to the other locked him into knights, so now he's just miserable, he's a hedonist, a cynic, he can't have real connections, so he will take pleasure and attention and use it for his greater means, he's coping with substance abuse, but he is so paranoid he will not be caught actually drunk bc that's weakness. he wants to belong so much, but think he's not allowed to. traveler finding him in the shadows after he tries to leave community event HE organized and dragging his reluctant ass by hand is THE theme for them tbh.

[nellie-elizabeth]

The Legend of Vox Machina: Hell to Pay (3x04)

Another great episode, turns out!

Cons:

This is going to be a bit difficult to articulate but it almost felt like we were missing a narrative beat somewhere before Pike and Zerxus began their card game. We know that there's a vestige, we know that the vestige is supposed to be instrumental in defeating Thordak, we know the stakes are high to get it... but it's also just a mostly abstract tool at this point. The others have powerful vestiges, is one more vestige worth the eternal damnation of not only Pike but also all her friends? I think I was missing a beat where the group seriously contemplates turning around and leaving, and then there's one more nudge as to why this is worth the astronomical price of failure. I also felt like it was a little silly that J'Mon apparently sent them down to Hell with absolutely no context or warning other than "this one dude has the armor, go get it." Wouldn't they have gone in a bit more prepared to have to offer something in return?

So there's this interesting tidbit with Zerxus (who I loved and will praise in a moment) where he says "we are his blood," and it seems like he's maybe working for the Whispered One? That would be a cool little tease for potential future seasons, but I feel like viewers who aren't really dedicated and deal-oriented might be confused by that, so I felt like a more concrete reminder might have been warranted.

Pros:

Despite that little wobble in the stakes-setting, I overall really enjoyed this episode. Great for us to get some Pike-centric story going, here!

The setting of Hell was so cool and creative, I felt like every moment gave me a fresh opportunity to enjoy a gruesome sight or creative character design. Scanlan's disguises for the group were also a lot of fun, I especially loved seeing Pike all furry and snugly.

This was a strong episode for Keyleth comedy, I loved her trying to lean in to being a disgusting Hell beast and eating the worm, and Vax's reaction of horror. Plus just her trying to do a scary Hell voice instead of her usual more timid register.

Pike's struggle to figure out the right thing to do is really interesting here, with the Everlight trying to warn her but also wanting her to choose her own path. I appreciate the way her relationship with her goddess functions in this show; it feels like a lot of what the Everlight is doing is empowering Pike to make her own fate, rather than doing more direct divine intervention, which is great for keeping the stakes balanced. Also, whenever we see that light flickering out in her little pendant, we know it means Pike is going to be without the backup/security of her goddess's presence. We've seen how bad that's shaken her in the past, so it was extra cool to see her buckle down and be a bad-ass even when she had those doubts planted in her head.

Let's talk about Zerxus!! So hot! Luis is here! I loved loved loved seeing him. What a cool added element for those of us who have seen Calamity, but also I feel like narrative-wise it's a perfectly reasonable swap-out for how the story went in the original. It felt like having secret forbidden knowledge when he was like "my friends ruined everything with their hubris, and then Asmodeus tricked me." Like, sir. Sir. Are you mayhaps editing the truth just slightly? But I also thought it worked on its own terms. I noticed that the backstory was slightly different as to his husband, but thought that was interesting too, feeding into this idea of his punishment being about being forgotten.

I loved Pike's moment of triumph specifically - the way it tied into Zerxus's story, and Pike's understanding of what it means to have ugly, uncomfortable, and selfish thoughts. Pike has admitted that she wonders if her life would be better without the Everlight, and now she gets Zerxus to realize that his loneliness overrides his desire to keep his family safe.

We didn't have much of a check-in with the Draconia crew, but we did see them briefly, on the cusp of finding out if Kima is okay. I'm excited to check in more with that story when I get around to watching the next episode!

That's all for now! Still loving this show, still hitting on all cylinders. It's interesting to watch the show when I feel really unsure of how things are going to shake out! Things are so different from what I've seen before.

8/10

[galemancer]

the dekarios folly

MAJOR BALDUR'S GATE 3 END GAME SPOILERS.

[ short monologue. — first person from gale's pov. — past and present tensing. — angst.]

In the pursuit of greatness, he lost who he was.

Godhood... is lonely.

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50362192

---——-

Victory isn’t the first word that comes to mind at the mention of Baldur’s Gate.

We defeated the Netherbrain, but somehow victory is not the word I associate with it. There is no happiness, only temporary respite. There is no celebration. There is only defeat, because those memories are plagued by the loss of you.

I thought that you would be proud of me.

I thought that claiming this crown would prove worthy enough, man or god alike.

And yet, it seems I have fallen short...

Was I to forgo the opportunity to ascend to greatness? While I stand on the precipice of power, relinquish it? The gods refused to aid us no matter how often we cried, prayed, begged. A mortal with the power of a god to help mortal kind… I could have prevented the pain the Absolute wrought while the gods cowered.

‘Your hubris was your downfall once, Gale.’

Your voice resonates clearly despite all these years past, laden with hurt and fear. I can still see your face, stark as you attempted to keep me grounded. I couldn’t accept your inability to see the potential for good, and I wasn’t to be held back any longer.

I left you distraught, stunned on the docks as I departed. I remember the crease in your brow and the hurt in your eyes, the sparkle I’d fallen so deeply in love with dwindling. I remember my heart pulled back by your pleas, and I almost acquiesced. The restraint of your grip on my hand as I pulled away, silently begging me not to go.

But you let me.

And by the gods, I wish you hadn’t.

For some time after, I sought you in your adventures along the Sword Coast, Tara in tow. “Mr. Dekarios, is that you?” She’d call out, ears perked up in anticipation, saddened eyes turned hopeful as they followed the trails of my magic. She wished to talk to me, to scold me likely, and deservedly so.

In my absence she’d found a new companion, and there was no choice better than you. You were good for each other — two kind hearts to look after each other amidst the aftermath of it all.

She brought you to Waterdeep where you spent time with my mother. I could feel the hesitation in your voice as you spoke upon meeting her, the too familiar features sending you back to the dock. You told Morena the tragedy of her son whose hubris consumed him, under the guise of an ambitious wizard reaching his full potential. Even in my most grave mistakes you spoke of the good you saw in me.

I visited you in dreams, visions, every possible sign besides the blatant, and they remained unanswered. Could you see the glimmer of magic calling out to you by name? Was my existence in your life as this divine being one you wished to reject?

In your deafening silence, I found time to reflect on every decision leading here. The prodigal Wizard of Waterdeep spurned by Mystra herself. He who managed to piece together the Karsus Crown and in turn control the Karsite Weave, at the cost of losing the only real love he’s ever known.

It is sure enough to say that the realization of my own folly proved devastating.

Now every waking moment, I wait patiently for you to summon me, call me out by name so that I may appear in front of you. Waiting in an endless timescape is excruciatingly painful, and yet I continue to subject myself to its punishment. I remain hopeful that some day you would willingly be by my side again as my Chosen, and better yet, lover.

It’s... quiet without you. The pain of your noticeable absence never fails to astound me, and wracks my heart with immeasurable regret. I miss you quite terribly, and yet there is no one else to fault besides myself. Of all the things learnt in our time together, of all the things conquered… the only thing I failed to overcome was my own pride.

And now I’ve damned myself to an eternity without you.