#that was a terrible version of an already bad joke

[ourceliumnetwork]

guess who lacks potassiuuuummmmmmmmmmm

[sonicboomseason3]

a brief recap of what has been going on with the sonic movieverse in the past several months:

paramount has come out in public support of israel

keanu reeves, a man who has publicly rubbed elbows with none other than benjamin netanyahu, reportedly gets cast as shadow for the upcoming third movie

james marsden, the guy who plays tom, got exposed as having written a letter of support for a convicted pedophile

there's fucking??? zionist propaganda in the knuckles series???

kind of connected to the last point but adam pally, the guy who plays wade, is evidently pro-israel too

this is a complete and utter joke.

EDIT AS OF 4/30/24: if people see this version of the post, i'd really appreciate it if you reblog it instead of the other versions, as it's the most updated one with all the information that i want included. thank you :]

you know, it's been a few days since i've made this post, and some of you (not most) are staying determined in defending/justifying/giving the benefit of the doubt to keanu for that photo with netanyahu, whether it's because "it was a decade ago," "him being civil to someone he ran into at a party one time doesn't mean anything," "he's probably just silent because his pr managers won't allow him to speak up," etc. i've made my thoughts on the matter quite clear by directly responding to these people, but at this point, i'm tired of both seeing them in my notes and repeating myself, so take this as my final word on the issue.

i can't help it if you don't think the photo with netanyahu is damning, and i'm done engaging with everyone going out of their way to tell me that. i obviously disagree, especially after finding out that 1. the host of the party, arnon milchan, is a former israeli spy who has a history of developing israel's nuclear program and promoting apartheid in south africa (information that had broken out a few months prior to the party and thus would've been fresh news around the time keanu chose to attend) and 2. keanu has been caught hanging around at least two other weirdos, but if you don't find any of that to be cause for reasonable concern, then there really is nothing else i can say afaik.

with all that said, i'm beginning to realize how strange it is that these people's first instinct when seeing this post is to start debating about keanu's political stances without ever acknowledging any of the other bullet points. you guys realize that this isn't just about him, right? i know tumblr reading comprehension is known for being piss-poor, but like… you realize that i was trying to make a point of how there are MULTIPLE terrible things that have broken out about the people and company involved in the sonic movies, right? and yet, a lot of the people leaping to speak on keanu's behalf in my notes are completely ignoring the parts where i bring up paramount, pally, etc. all in favor of zeroing in on the singular point about keanu and making bad faith assumptions about me for holding him accountable. really makes one wonder where your priorities lie if, in a post that talks about so many other things, me accusing an a-list celebrity with, according to google, a net worth of almost $400 million is where you draw the line and apparently the only thing worth your acknowledgment.

ultimately, what i'm trying to say is that the intention of this post was just to gather up everything that i had been hearing for the past several months and put it all together in one place. there were a bunch of people who didn't know about at least one of the bullet points before seeing this post, and i'm glad that i could help inform them, that was what i was hoping to do! but as for the keanu thing, i've said pretty much all i can say for now, and i don't want to derail the original post even more than i may have already. unless something new comes up, i'm done talking about him.

[moonstruckme]

Hi Mae! I was in a car accident yesterday (car took most of the damage, I’m ok other than bruises and sore muscles) and the whole thing has been a whirlwind of insurance and hospital and half asleep crying. I was wondering if I could request James potter x reader for comfort in a situation like that? I’m going through it rn lol hope you’re having a good day :)

Oh I'm sorry lovely! I had a very similar thing happen a little over a year ago, it's sooooo exhausting even when luckily no one is seriously hurt. Thanks for requesting, hope you're having a good/better day too <33

cw: past car accident, no details but talk of general aftermath of police questioning, insurance, etc.

James Potter x fem!reader ♡ 799 words

The way James half-jogs up to the automatic doors of the hospital, seeming caught between walking and running, feels like someone is pressing down on the bruise of your chest. You wish you’d called him sooner. 

“James,” you call as he comes in, hating how your voice cuts through the taut quiet of the waiting area. It’s worth it for how his whole self softens when his eyes find you. 

He slows to a fast walk the rest of the way to you, the urgency slowly leaving him—which is appropriate, there is no urgency, everything has happened already—like an engine running out of steam. You stand as he nears, and both of you reach for each other before James hesitates. His hands stop midair, his brow tightening for a moment, before they come tentatively to your elbows.

“Hi,” he says, squeezing. “How bad is it?” 

“For me or the car?” you joke. 

“You.” James is feeling too earnest for joking, it seems. “Well, both of you. But you first.” 

You really thought you’d cry when you saw him. Worried you’d make a whole scene, blubbering and inconsolable, but you don’t seem to have any tears left. It makes sense, you suppose; you’ve cried a lot in the past few hours. First the slow, shaky kind right after getting out of your car, and then a real cry when a police officer had pulled you aside to get your version of events. (It had been embarrassing. She’d been nice about it, though.) Now, you wait for the tears to come, but for all your relief at seeing your boyfriend you feel rather dried up. 

It makes you wish, once again, that you’d called James sooner. You’d wanted to, of course, but you’d been nearly certain you’d be even less capable of holding yourself together if he were there, and there wasn’t much reason for him to be anyways. He was at work and you weren’t terribly hurt, so there was really nothing he could have done while you were talking to the police and the tow company and the paramedics and attempting not to drown in an overwhelm of insurance information. The only thing you really wanted him for was to hold your hand.

“I’m okay,” you say, the necessary preface. “A bit bruised up. My chest got the worst of it.” 

Unconsciously, your hand comes to your sternum as if to demonstrate, gravitating towards the center of the ache. James’ hand follows, seemingly just as thoughtless as it covers your own. He can’t see the bruise, but he makes a low, sad sound anyway. 

His care softens your voice. “They said my neck will probably hurt tomorrow, but it doesn’t yet.” 

“Oh, sweetheart.” James sounds really, truly heartbroken for you. “And the rest, it hurts a lot?” 

You shrug. What’s a lot? You know you could’ve had worse, much worse; still, you could do without that frightening soreness that comes with each breath. 

“It’s not too bad,” you say. “I could still hug.” 

It’s the question he’s been dying to ask, clearly. James’ arms are around you in a second, ardent but still gentle, palms pressing to the high and low points of your bag. It’s a good hug. You melt a little against him. 

James tucks his face into the side of your neck, like he’s trying to get as much contact with you as he can. “I wish you’d called me when it happened.” 

“You were at work.” 

“I’d have left work.” 

“There wasn’t anything you could do. I was fine, I just had to…” a little sigh escapes you, exhaustion creeping in now that he’s here “...talk to people. Insurance and all that.” 

James makes a soft, half-agreeing sound. His thumb strokes the base of your neck. “Still. I could have held your hand.” 

A new ache rises in the back of your throat, coming to join the rest. You wind your arms tighter around James. 

After a few, silent moments, he kisses your neck chastely and loosens his hold. “Ready to go home? Anything else you need?” 

You shake your head. “I’m signed out,” you say, so eager you feel like you could float out the doors. You hope you can entice James to lie in bed with you when you get home. You think you’ll sleep until tomorrow. “Let’s go, please.” 

“Alright, you don’t have to say please, sweetheart.” James curls an arm around your shoulders, pressing a smile into your cheek. “We can go. You need one of those wheelchairs for me to take you out to the car?” 

“Ha ha,” you say drily. “No.” 

“Just checking. Think maybe I ought to ask for one, just in case?”

“James. I will take your car home without you in it.” 

“Alright, lovie, I’m coming.”

[ilium-ilia]

In Limbo

simon "ghost" riley x fem!reader | mafia!au | masterlist

Chapter Six: no good deed ever goes unpunished

tw: violence, non-con

Small chunks of salt stick to the tips of Simon’s fingers, dusting them like fresh snow. You were right—a simple order of chips really isn’t enough to keep him going throughout the night. 

If anything, the saltiness makes him hungrier. It pummels his stomach until it’s grumbling at an annoying frequency, and it doesn’t do much to help the dryness in his mouth either. He would have tried to order something if it wasn’t damn near impossible to get anyone to deliver to the club, and god forbid John Price actually install a proper kitchen. But there would be no use for any sort of kitchen in a place like that, as it’s not good food that makes people swarm to Terminus like brainwashed zombies. It’s the booze. The music. A quickie in the stall. 

Shady activities in an alleyway. 

Simon huffs as he tosses the empty chip container in the small bin that sits in the corner of the surveillance room. Monitors upon monitors line the wall on the far side of the room, illuminating the concrete floor with a grey glow as faint music pulses through the air. He hates this room. Small, stuffy, and overheating with the computers and servers; he’d rather be out in the bitter November winter right about now. He’s out of luck tonight, because after nearly two weeks, Johnny’s research has finally bore fruit. 

About time, too. All Simon has been able to think about for the last few days has been you. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, he can still see the outline of your body. It’s ingrained in his mind. He still sees your limp, exhausted form as you rested in the conversation pit—too overwhelmed to keep conscious. It follows him like a bad dream. He doesn’t know why you haunt him so terribly. Perhaps he has Aelin to blame; she knows how he never likes leaving a job half done. 

Or maybe it’s because you’re so… peculiar. For a woman he can only describe as being a skittish cat, you’ve suddenly melted into some other version of yourself. Your dislike of his proximity to you is obvious. Short words, gauche exchanges; yet you have this impulsive need to constantly get even with him, like you’re trying to sweep up the breadcrumbs that lead to your door lest he get hungry and follow you home. 

However, when he visited you a few days ago to check on your hands—as promised—you seemed to be a whole new person. Well, not entirely. If you were the world’s most skittish cat before, you have now become the feral stray that would maybe eat out of the palm of his hand if he doesn’t look at you while you do it. He asked you questions and you responded with something more than simple words or an uneasy, anxiety induced joke. 

I’m… glad that you’re not doing this just for me.

He still wonders what you meant by that. 

“Hey, you paying attention?” Johnny whines. 

Simon blinks the glaze out of his eyes—one which carries a now greenish-yellow hue around his cheekbone—and pushes the thought of you out of his mind as his attention fully settles on the monitors in front of him. A chair squeaks as Johnny settles back against the worn, faux leather. He’s already got everything loaded up for whatever presentation he’s about to give. 

“Waitin’ on you, Johnny,” he playfully retorts. 

“Right,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “So, I’ve been trying to do some research on your dance partner here, and he’s a slippery fucker. Whoever he is, he’s good at covering his tracks up. At least through the methods I use to find people. Nothing on the media or anything like that. Might as well not exist at all in the tech world.” 

A hum rumbles in Simon’s throat as he crosses his arms. “You drag me in here just to tell me you found nothing?” 

Johnny’s neck cranes to the side where he then looks up at him with a wide smirk. “Come on, Riley. When have I ever wasted your time?” 

Both men turn their attention back to the monitor as Johnny begins to rewind through the footage from a few days ago—the day Simon found you in the alley. Everything happens fast as he speeds through the film. Bodies dart across view like ants, and there’s a comedic speed up cars driving along the road as they slice across the monitor like knives. Static streaks across the screen as the footage warps before it suddenly pauses again. 

“Since I wasn’t able to find anything on this guy, I decided to sleuth through the footage again, and I found something a little odd about this bloke here,” Johnny explains as he points to a male figure. Whoever it is, they’re faced away from the camera with their hands shoved deep into their pockets to stave off the cold. “He enters the alley before your pal does…” 

The video plays at normal speed, and the faceless man vanishes behind the brick corner of the building a few meters down, just as Johnny described. He fast forwards, and everything plays at triple speed. Simon’s seen it all before. The man who accosted you enters the alleyway, and then you unfortunately come across him a bit later, but then something happens that he hadn’t bothered to pay attention to before. 

The man Johnny pointed out leaves the alley, this time facing the camera. He’s fiddling with something in his hands, and upon closer inspection, Simon’s able to tell it’s a small wad of cash. It’s quickly stowed away in his pocket, and that’s where Johnny pauses the video. 

“He leaves as soon as Chip arrives, shoving a couple quid into his pocket like he struck a deal,” Johnny concludes. 

Tense fingers grip the back of the office chair as Simon leans over Johnny’s shoulder, squinting at the face on the screen. He scrutinizes every detail possible through the fuzzy footage, and his jaw flexes as he huffs. 

Square jaw, visible stubble, and eyes just as shifty as his character. 

“He looks familiar,” Simon mutters. 

“He oughta. Fucker works here.” 

A rancid taste floods the back of Simon’s throat at that revelation, and his fingers tense so greatly that the imitation leather of the chair threatens to crack beneath his grip. Fury rises in the dark irises of his eyes as he leans back and grumbles. It seems like such a simple detail to miss. Something that he should have caught the other night, even in his sleep deprived state. If he had, he would have been several leaps closer to the real issue ages ago. 

“Who is he?” Simon demands. 

“Marcel Wylder,” Johnny answers as he twists in his chair to face him. “Works part time as one of the bartenders in the VIP lounge. Only really works on the weekends, and according to the floor manager, he’s a good kid. Twenty three years old. Always shows up on time, things of that sort.” 

“Good kids don’t meddle with men who like to scare women in alleyways,” Simon retorts. 

Johnny shrugs. “Guess we all have our dark sides… some are darker than others.” 

It takes a few more moments for Simon to finally get himself to look away from the screen, and his eyes land on Johnny with a malice not meant for him. He’s not quite sure why this revelation angers him so. The sting of failure pricks at his skin too violently for him to ignore it. 

“He here tonight?” he asks. 

“Yeah, he’s working on the second floor right now. Or, at least that’s where he was last, according to the cameras,” Johnny answers. He pauses to lick his lips and tilt his head. “You’re brewing something in that head of yours. I can tell. None of it looks too cheerful.” 

Swarthy eyes glare back at the monitor as Simon commits this new face and name to memory. Marcel Wylder. Twenty three. Square jaw. Stubble. Thin eyes. 

“Thanks for the intel, Johnny,” is all Simon says as he turns on his heels and walks towards the exit. 

A high pitched squeak echoes off the dull white walls of the room as Johnny excitedly watches him leave. All he can make out are a straight set of shoulders, clenched fists, and an aura that demands blood. 

“Go easy on the kid!” Johnny calls after him—his voice is too saccharine to truly mean it. 

There are very rarely any times when Simon Riley feels like a savior, but he can’t deny the fact that he feels like Moses when he’s walking through Terminus. Eyes snap to him, wary of the large brute attempting to slice through the club like a dull axe. All it takes is a single glance or a firm hand on someone’s shoulder and the mass of pulsing bodies splits open for him like the Red Sea. 

This trend continues as he jogs up the wrought iron spiral staircase that leads up to the second floor, and his path to Marcel is highlighted by the mob of patrons crowding the bar. He looks nicer tonight than he did the previous night, and his square jaw almost appears defined now that he’s shaved that fuzz off of his face. Pristine dress clothes mark him as a perfect employee as he quickly fills orders and stuffs tips in his pocket all with a thankful smile. Doesn’t look like he’s doing half bad for himself, considering there’s a near topless woman serving booze next to him. 

“Marcel!” 

Simon’s voice booms louder than the bass of the music and is so sharp all other sounds nearly seem to cease for a moment. That pathetic sod glances up from his work like a schoolboy being scolded, and his face grows pallid. All it takes is a simple gesture of his fore and middle fingers to get the man to slip from behind the bar and join him in the crowd. 

He leads Marcel out behind the building like a lamb to slaughter. Just like a good offering, he’s quiet. Hardly asks anything besides is everything alright? to which Simon doesn’t respond. Biting wind attempts to tear through the formidable fabric of Simon’s clothes, but it seems to really do a number on the kid. Hardly even ten seconds out the door and the poor boy is wrapping his arms around himself and trying hard not to shiver, lest he look pathetic in front of the head of security. 

A flickering halogen light is the only source of illumination in the shady alley, and even in the bleakness of winter the garbage spoils and festers with a stomach-churning odor. Marcel stands cornered with his back to the wall, and he watches with trepidation as Simon’s hand dives into his pocket. Relief doesn’t fill his face until his eyes catch sight of a pack of cigarettes. 

The cancer-stick sits at home between Simon’s lips as he lights it and puffs out a steady stream of smoke until it’s well lit. A gentle breeze whisks it away into the air where it quickly dissipates among the smog smothered stars. Once he’s satisfied, he holds the pack out toward Marcel. 

“You smoke?” he asks. 

“Yes sir,” Marcel answers. 

Simon shakes the pack, prompting him to take one, and a smile pulls at the boy’s lips. “Cheers.” 

As Marcel’s trembling hands work on igniting the lighter, Simon takes a better look at him. There’s hardly a single scar on him, and his hands are much too soft to truly be a part of any violent syndicate. Still, anyone can be a mole, even if they’re a smooth faced kid. 

“What do you do outside of work?” Simon asks. It’s kind enough. Simple, polite conversation—but there’s nothing civil about the look in his eyes as he chews on the filter of his cigarette. 

“School, mostly,” Marcel replies. 

Simon hums. “Uni?”

“Greenwich.” 

“Smart.” 

Another exhale of smoke dances between Simon’s lips as he huffs, dark eyes still trained on Marcel. He’s damn near shivering out of his skin as the black fabric of his uniform is designed to whisk away sweat and keep you cool in warm, humid temperatures. No matter; the boy can warm up soon enough. Simon intends for this interaction to be quick. 

“Since you’re a smart kid, you’ll do well to be truthful with me then, yeah?” Simon prompts as he flicks a bit of ash onto the ground. “That bloke you met up with the other night? Who is he?” 

Trembling muscles suddenly freeze, and the cigarette seems stuck against Marcel's lips. There’s no exhale of smoke. The embers don’t brighten at the tip to show he’s inhaling. There’s nothing. 

“Bloke?” he repeats. 

“The fucker you met up with in the alley a week or two ago,” Simon snaps, already impatient. 

Marcel jumps and the cigarette falls free from between his lips and fingers. It sputters and whines on the ground, where the boy quickly puts it out of its misery by stomping on the embers until they’re no longer glowing. 

“Right, erm, Andrei I think it was.” 

“Andrei who?” 

“I dunno. I just know him as Andrei. Honest,” Marcel insists. 

“What did he want?” Simon presses. 

“Well, he had this picture of someone. Some bitch he didn’t want hanging around here I suppose. Was asking me questions about her and stuff,” Marcel replies earnestly. 

A bright pink dusts the tips of Simon’s ears. The muscles in his jaw begin to flex. “What did she look like?” 

“She was dressed mostly in black, kind of similar to our serving uniforms. It looked like it was taken through the window of some restaurant. I don’t know which one it was. I swear!” 

Sapori. 

Teeth nearly cut through the filter of his cigarette as Simon’s jaw clenches. He rips the thing out of his mouth and tosses it on the ground, not even bothering to stomp it out. This man—this Andrei—is getting too close to you for comfort. He thinks back to the way you reacted in the alley; how petrified you were. A terrible thought plagues his mind as he wonders what has been done to you to get you to fear someone so terribly. 

Simon doesn’t like where his mind is wandering. 

“What questions did he ask about her?” Simon continues. 

“Dunno, just regular stuff? I suppose? He asked when she was here and who she was with. Things like that,” Marcel replies. 

Simon raises an eyebrow. “And?”

“And I told him the truth. About how she was here on Halloween. I mean, I didn’t see much of her so there wasn’t a lot I could tell him. Honest. I think he was mostly looking for confirmation that she was here at all. He didn’t ask for anything else after that, and he sent me on my way.” 

Acid eats away at Simon’s stomach. The chips he devoured before this seem to have a hard time settling with the heavy ire disrupting his mood. Dense feet scrape against the ground as he takes a few steps closer to Marcel, who puts his hands up in defense as if that’s going to do anything against the rating storm barreling straight for him. 

“That’s it, that’s everything, honest! I swear!” he pleads. 

“I know. I believe you,” Simon says through gritted teeth. 

Worn knuckles crash into the tense flesh just underneath Marcel’s sternum, stealing the very breath from his lungs. He sputters miserably as his back crashes against the brick wall behind him, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t breathe. A deep purple hue stains his face as his body begins to jolt and spasm uncontrollably. It’s impossible to keep himself upright with the wind knocked out of him—diaphragm screaming in protest—he slowly slides onto the ground with his hands over his stomach like he’s trying to stop blood flowing through a wound. 

“You’re a smart boy, so listen close,” Simon says as he crouches to Marcel’s new height. He rubs at his sore fist, but his eyes don’t stray even an inch from his target. “Be careful who you call a bitch ‘round here, because if I ever hear you refer to a woman like that again, I’ll knock your goddamn teeth out like the sorry sod you are, ya hear?” 

Still sputtering and heaving, Marcel nods. 

“Good. Now, that woman Andrei showed you? Forget her. She doesn’t exist to you. If he comes ‘round here askin’ about her, you tell him you haven’t seen her, because you won’t. You’ve got nothin’ for him, yeah? Nod.” Simon’s tone is too severe to deny—Marcel complies easily. “If anyone ever starts askin’ about any of our patrons or workers, you bring that shit right to me. Don’t you ever go ‘round behind my fuckin’ back again. You think there’s anything that happens here that I don’t know about? Huh?” 

After an eternity of struggle, Marcel is finally able to get a good gasp in, and a few subsequent breaths after that. That bright purple begins to fade from the paleness of his face, and he quivers and shakes his head. 

“N-No sir,” he stutters. “Sor-ry…” 

“Good. Don’t you ever fuckin’ forget that.” 

Simon pushes himself up to his feet and looks down at Marcel as he writhes and chokes on his achy diaphragm. He haphazardly digs around his pocket for his pack of smokes before he retrieves a single cigarette and tosses it toward the pathetic lump of a man at his feet. It bounces on the slimy ground before rolling to a stop with specks of dirt sticking to the filter—Simon’s half-hearted attempt at an apology. 

“Take a breather. Have yourself another smoke, then get back to work,” he orders. He turns to leave, but only gets a few steps away before he pauses. A stiff finger points at Marcel. “Keep in mind, that's not even half of what I’ve got, yeah?” 

Marcel’s pathetic response is drowned out by the uproar of music that fills Simon’s ears as he returns back inside of the club. A thick wall of heat melts the frost off of his skin as his brooding figure cuts through the crowd like a hot knife through butter. His blood continues to boil with clenched fists and heavy breaths. It’s all consuming. Swallowing him whole. Simon doesn’t like being angry. He feels too much like his father, and sometimes he fears that he looks like him, too. 

Violent, angry, sinister—his intimidating build and threatening demeanor have always been something he’s tried to rage against. A stereotype he’s been attempting to break. Yet now that he’s gotten one step closer to uncovering the monsters hiding in your shadows, he’s grateful for it. For once, it’s a tool he can use to his advantage. Something he can use to help you. 

Except, while Simon is busy taking baby steps through this web of lies, you’re already in the maw of the beast. 

Frayed string tangles around your fingers as trembling hands attempt to keep themselves busy with a solo game of cat’s cradle. It’s already the 25th again, and just like every other month, you’re in perfect position. Sitting properly on a bench with a wad of cash tucked neatly into the envelope that sits inconspicuously on your lap. This is a dance you know well. A dance you don’t think you’ll ever be free from. 

Washers and dryers hum around you and clash terribly with the ringing of your ears and the violent pounding of your heart. Trepidation plagues you worse than it usually does on your due date. Every other month is predictable. Something you have memorised. But this month? You don’t know how Marco is going to react about what Simon did to Andrei. 

You keep going through possibilities in your mind. Things you need to say to keep him off of Simon’s trail. Ways to apologize to keep him from getting upset. You’ve gone through every option your mind can come up with, yet it doesn’t feel like enough. There’s something you’re still missing. 

But you’ve run out of time. 

Frosty air slices through the warmth of the laundromat and you try your best not to shiver. Not that it does you any good—you’re already shaking. Marco’s cologne drifts along the air, mixing in dissonance with the fragrance of soap and fabric softener. Green eyes scan the small room as he takes note of the single mom folding clothes in the back of the building as her young son watches videos on her phone. It should be comforting to know that you’re not alone—but you’ve learned that you’re never safe. Horror does not wait for eyes to turn away before sinking teeth into flesh. 

Your attention stays firmly on your hands as Marco waltzes up and makes himself at home next to you on the bench. The scent of him scorches your nose as his arm wraps around your shoulders. You try not to jump as he involuntarily pulls you closer to him, and you find your fingers clamping down hard on the string in your hands. 

“Long time, no see,” he greets. 

He’s more cordial than he usually is, and that terrifies you. His thumb rubs at your arm through the fabric of your jumper and you feel your heart leap into your throat. He knows. He knows, and you’re about to pay for it. 

“Did you hear about our good friend, Andrei? Got scuffed up pretty bad the other week,” Marco prompts. 

You swallow your heart down your throat and back into your chest. ���Is he alright?” 

“Define alright,” he hums. Long legs spread apart and bump into your thigh, crowding you further like he’s trying to lock you in a cage of your own flesh. “Busted lip, broken nose. His face is so goddamn swollen he sounds like he’s got a cold.” 

Images of Andrei’s wounded face sear your mind. Bright red blood trickling down his lips, an appalled expression on his face as if he had never met anyone capable of putting him in his place before. You should have known then that you wouldn’t walk away unscathed from something like that. Simon’s protection can only reach so far. 

“What were you even doing there, anyway? At Terminus?” Marco then asks. 

“I was delivering food,” you answer truthfully. 

“Oh, you’re a delivery driver now? I thought you were a waitress,” he digs. 

“Hostess…” you correct. 

“Who were you delivering to?”

“My friend… her husband owns the club and she was hungry… so… I, well…” you stumble over your lie. 

Firm fingers dig into your arm as Marco pulls you closer. You try to keep your bottom lip from trembling. “Ah, right. John fucking Price.” 

Shocked, you finally bring yourself to look at him. There’s faint amusement on his face as he stares at the washers in front of him. A mixture of soapy water and colorful clothes dance around in the machine as it gently spins and agitates the fabric. 

“You know him?” you venture to ask. 

A smirk pulls on his lips as he turns his attention to you, and your blood screams at how close his face is to yours. “Don’t worry about that, babe.” 

His eyes capture yours in a way that makes it impossible to look away—like you’re an unfortunate deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car. He wanders down. Down, down, down until he catches sight of the unmarked envelope on your thighs. He grabs it and isn’t at all courteous about where his fingers brush in the process. 

“How did that guy even know you were in that alley? That prick who fought with Andrei?” Marco ponders. 

As he waits for your response, he hits the envelope against the top of your thighs as if he’s bored. Tap, tap, tap. Each time it touches you, you feel your stomach twist. 

“I, uhm, asked the same thing. Said he heard us like… talking and… he thought I needed help. Guess he was the bouncer outside of the VIP entrance. M-My friend said he’s the head of security,” you reply, weaving truth and lies seamlessly together. 

“Yeah, I know who the bastard is,” Marco mutters in reply. 

Something lugubrious tingles up your spine as you have the slight urge to press him for an explanation. You bite that urge away as he folds up the envelope and shoves it into the pocket of his jeans, not even bothering to count the cash. Your gaze finally breaks away from him as you glance back down at your hands. They’re almost fully healed—nothng but faint scars and scabs now. You untangle the string from your fingers as you begin to wind it up, hopeful that he’ll leave soon after this interrogation. 

“Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m sure it was all one big misunderstanding. No use in getting worked up over it, babe,” he sighs. A pause follows his words, one that’s interrupted by the quiet giggling of the child still playing on his mother’s phone as she folds clothes somewhere to your right. “Still, some damage was done. Andrei’s been an annoying fuck ever since the altercation. As much as I would love to let you get off easy, it doesn’t really look too good if I’m letting some sweet, pretty thing walk all over me, now does it?”

Your eyes flutter shut as he speaks, and you attempt to mentally prepare yourself for whatever blow he’s about to deal. Of course it was naive to think you’d get out of this easily. Really, you were prepared to be hurt in some type of way from the moment you stepped foot in the laundromat. All you wanted to do was throw Marco off of Simon’s trail—to not drag someone innocent into this mess—and though it feels like you’ve succeeded for now, you’re not quite sure you even accomplished that much. 

“It doesn’t,” you pitifully agree.

Marco smirks. “Because of that, your monthly payments will be increased by five hundred starting next month. That ought to be enough.”

The very blood coursing through your veins turns to ice, and tears blur your vision as you try to make sense of his words. Five hundred. A brutal panic wreaks havoc in your chest. You want to sob, and scream, and thrash with frustration but his hand is still on your arm, keeping you chained to him. Gluttonous fingers stain your skin and his leg is still pressed against yours, and you can feel the disgusting warmth of his body and you can’t—you can’t. You want to rage, but you’re cornered and trapped, and there’s nothing you can do about it. 

“B-But that’s… that’s fifteen hundred a month, I… I’ve hardly- I can’t make that.” 

You’re crying now, and you hate it. You hate how weak and pathetic you are. You hate how you have no other choice but to be this way—malluable like molten metal and just as brittle. White hot tears cook your cheeks as they travel down your face, and you’re trying your best not to hiccup. Suddenly, you’re a kid all over again. Fawning, trying not to flinch as his hand reaches for your jaw to turn your face to him. His breath smells minty as it fans across the wet streaks on your face—he’s so close you can almost taste the menthol. There’s a small frown on his lips, something that almost looks sincere. 

Almost. His eyes are too hungry for it to be real. 

“Look at you,” he shushes. One hand moves up to cup your cheek while the other stays steady and firm around your shoulders. His thumb caresses your face, catching the briny tears and pushing them to the side. “Getting all upset over this? If it means that much to you, we can always negotiate lower, babe.” 

It takes an eternity for his lips to meet yours, and once they do, everything freezes. The only thing you can comprehend is the ringing in your ears and the warm shame on your skin. It’s degrading. Humiliating. A terrible reminder that you’ve never really belonged to yourself—that you’ve never belonged to anyone or anything but him. 

Things get worse when his tongue pushes past your lips. Everything becomes overwhelming—the washers and dryers, the video on that damn phone, Marco’s slight moan against your skin. You make a pitiful attempt to fight back by pressing your hands on his chest, but you’re met with harsh resistance and rigid muscle. He pulls you closer, holding you tight like a coiling snake. 

Something in you demands blood. You feel obligated to bite down, to sink your teeth into his tongue until the mint in your mouth is replaced with iron and copper. When you were a kid, your dad had taught you how to throw a punch. You wonder what he would think if he saw you like this. Sniveling and too afraid to fight back. 

Once he’s had his fill of your fear, Marco pulls away, but you still can’t breathe. He continues to wipe more tears from your face as if he can’t comprehend why they’re flowing in the first place. 

“For that, we’ll drop it down to only two fifty,” he whispers. He places another kiss against your lips—something chaste and quick. “Unless… you wanna take me up on that deal?” 

“N-No,” you stutter, then sniff. “I’ll get you the money.” 

Humming, Marco finally releases you as he stands to his feet. He looks down at you with a self-satisfied smirk as he gently kicks the side of your foot. “See you next month, babe.” 

Marco leaves just how he arrived—with a gust of bitter, algid wind. He’s taken something from you that you won’t get back, and it’s left you feeling empty on that bench. So void, so barren of anything that you can’t even bring yourself to move. All you can do is sit there and curse yourself for being just as worthless now as you were the day when you first got yourself stuck in this mess. 

Shuffling sounds on your right, and you nearly jump out of your skin as you look up at the source. It’s that lady and her son. You’d nearly forgotten about them. A small basket of neatly folded clothes sits on her hip as she holds the boy’s hand to lead him out of the laundromat. Her face twists with disgust, like she can smell every single sin that’s ever been forced upon you. As if you are at fault for the grotesque display of affection you were made to endure. 

As if the gaping hole in your chest is your fault. 

As she exits, you try not to think about why she didn’t help you. If anything, you’re grateful for it. No more favors. No random acts of kindness. It never turns out well. No good deed ever goes unpunished. 

Instead, you rise to your feet a few minutes later once you’re able to stitch yourself back together. Wiping your face clean, you brave the cold streets of London as you take the transit back home. You swear to yourself that the moment you step foot in your apartment, you’ll rinse your mouth clean until even the thought of Marco is gone. Then, you’ll call Sapori to see if you can pick up an extra shift.

This is how your life was always going to go—you’ve known this whole time. Pathetically slow, time wasted away at work trying to scrounge up enough cash to keep yourself alive. To pay for the right to continue to draw breath. You think of Marco’s scheming words—his terrible offer that he keeps attempting to shove down your throat—and you try not to squirm in your seat on the bus. 

Maybe one day you won’t have any choice but to endure his whims, but for now you’re content on working until your hands bleed.

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[meanbossart]

ASK COMPILATION: BODY HAIR, BHAALIST DU DROW, BLOOD INQUIRIES, THE MAN'S DICK AND HOBBIES.

Answering more asks! As always, I want to apologize for not being able to get to everyone - literally nobody has ever complained about it, but I still feel bad 😅I appreciate everyone's questions and sweet messages all the same, and even if your ask isn't here I hope you can be entertained by the other replies!

Anon I feel terrible about having to say this because I can tell you were hoping for a specific answer here, plus doing your very best to sell your pitch to me -

But DU drow hates body hair.

I'm not making this up in the spot just to be a contrarian, this is one of various unimportant character details that have come up already at some point or another, for whatever reason. It is no coincidence that many of the characters he finds unattractive do have visible body hair, like Gale and Halsin whose hairy toes he dreads the sight of.

I refuse to believe that elves are truly dolphin-smooth as that would be an absolute biological nightmare, so both him and Astarion have a normal amount of peach-fuzz all over. Otherwise, DU drow finds the sight of anything longer/coarser than that unseemly, and the feeling unpleasant; it is simply what he grew up with and hence what he's used to. In this respect, he wants people who take after his own image.

As with most things, he could forgive it if he were in love with someone - assuming you don't mind the occasional joke about it. And unfortunately I think something as significant as Halsin's case would be too off-putting for him to ever give them a chance. A Shadowheart situation, on the other hand, he could grow to like.

I believe there's some sources that imply bhaal-corrupted(?) blood should taste a particular way, leaning towards the unpleasant. People can make up whatever headcanons they want with that information, BUT since I spent over half of this game supplying the guy with the stuff and he seemed all too pleased about it, I choose to assume it's not that bad.

I think there would be something... Lively about it? Fairly normal taste but it leaves a tingle on his tongue, like it squirms on its way out and dies in his mouth moments before it can hit the throat. Very salty, but it could just be his skin.

[FAR, FAR MORE UNDER THE CUT]

Bhaalist DU drow likes both cats and dogs just fine (again, he considers the animal kingdom to be it's own thing and hence removed from his fate to butcher humanity) and you wouldn't be wrong to assume he has a thing for dogs in that AU because of their unconditionally loving and loyal nature, however Bhaalist DU drow is still very much a cat person. He likes their independence, their little attitudes, their self-sufficiency, plus the fact that they keep the rat population in check inside the temple. He finds those qualities admirable, respectable, perhaps he would even find them desirable in a partner if, unlike he cats, he wasn't so opposed to them roaming free.

In-game DU drow succeeded the check required to spot Astarion before he could jump him - so yes, just not the version where they end up rolling awkward around the sand for 2 minutes, LOL.

He's semi aware of it, or at least he becomes aware whenever Astarion's mask slips. When Astarion is putting on a good performance, DU drow wholeheartedly believes it. Also, It's worth noting that Astarion does manage to have fun occasionally, and have periods of... Superficial happiness? They just so happen to be unfulfilling, and don't make up for all the other pitfalls of his situation when they inevitably come crashing back. He's also great at tricking himself into thinking this is a good time.

Bhaalist DU drow makes vague attempts at "making things better" whenever he catches him in a mood, usually through physical affection or lavish gifts. That works well enough the first year I think, before everything kind of loses its luster. After that, DU drow just gets it into his head that Astarion "doesn't understand what he must do to succeed and keep him safe".

This is a VERY interesting observation and... Maybe? Especially early in the relationship, DU drow finds Astarion's quasi-predatorial behavior very attractive, but only AFTER he notices his vampirism. I think this outlook of the character contextualizes Astarion's condition in a way that he can immediately understand and simpathize with, even if DU drow doesn't know much about vampires themselves. Of course, this is specific to Astarion - he does not extend this grace to the rest of his kind.

I'll be thinking about this one!

I don't know the video in question but from your description I think they would both be VERY confused, LOL.

HMM, I think that might actually depend on a lot of things! Assuming the woman (or just the other partner) in the relationship isn't a drow, and exactly what KIND of devotion we're talking about (is the drow pro-active? Protective? Does he put his neck on the line for this relationship with pride? Does he seem strong and capable and like he doesn't rely on his partner?) he might see enough of himself in him that they could actually get along. This is similar to how DU drow immediately took a liking to Aylin even though she's this moon-goddess child and a supposed beacon of justice.

The quickest way to get on DU drow's good side is to be the idealized version of what he believes himself to be. Oh, and not get in his way.

If they're both drow it's kind of hopeless though, yeah LOL.

Planning on it!!

DU drow never slept with Haarlep! He only took his clothes off and then attacked him full in the nude.

...I'm not sure how to justify that in the lore, but it's exactly what I did and it's too funny to take it back, LOL

I think Astarion was just kind of baffled by what transpired until DU drow turned to while hopping around pulling his pants back on and asked if he enjoyed the show, then he remembered he just loves finding any excuse to take his clothes off.

That's a lovely compliment, I definitely go for a very "organic" look so I genuinely appreciate it. Thank you!

Thank you!!! A lot has actually been said about Gortash in my #enver gortash tag, if you'd like to get all the gritty details. Suffice to say that they had a very odd but significant friendship.

DU drow is the kind of person who shoots awake as soon as the sun starts gracing the sky, but he tends to do whatever he has to do and then go back to bed right after, and stay there at least a bit past noon. He did this both in his bhaalist days and in Astarion's company, though the amount of time he spends asleep during the day definitely increases because of the vamp, especially over time!

So, the urethra in a penis is located pretty much on the underside of the shaft, so the wound actually does not reach it! As far as functions go - peeing and ejaculating - it comes out of the tip's opening as normal. When he first caused the wound it probably did puncture the urethra, but that would have closed up over time. What you see is the injury many years after the fact, after all.

So the implications are pretty minor. Aesthetically, his foreskin hangs a bit weirdly when he's soft (like a tiny little penis curtain) and has more give than usual. Functionally, he has spots within the scarred up injury that are either numb or overly sensitive. Also, you can kind of see the dickhead notch through his underwear which is fun.

Otherwise, that is pretty much it! No worries about the nature of the question I've gotten worse, LOL. Thank you for your kind words as well!

I think he used to write in his bhaalist days - very, very occasionally mind you - like if you scoured the temple you would find a dozen or so ripped up pieces of paper with little short poems on them, written in a very sharp and carefree hand. Anywhere from 3 to 10 lines per-poem, usually less than more. The sentences are descriptive of actions, never feelings or thoughts, but they don't ever seem literal.

Back in those days, he also went to the theater every other year.

Post-tadpole, he ends up dabbling in carpentry, leather-work, and enjoys listening for musical numbers taking place in taverns and inns to go to and watch. He eventually starts pulling Astarion into little slow dances when that happens. I think he might end up writing again someday, but not for many, many years.

[alphajocklover]

What about a story about a sweet, kind 30something gay college English professor who wishes to get closer to his students so he wishes to be more like them. Only he turns into the worst version of himself. His turned into this younger, dumber toxic straight bro. A total docuhebag sleazebag or something. Instead of singing showtunes he's rattling off terrible jokes or rock n roll/rap songs.

Sam McGreen was a professor. A real, actual professor. He still couldn’t really wrap his head around it. It wasn’t that Sam thought that teaching was beneath him or anything, he had never really seen himself as the teaching type. Despite being a fairly successful writer whose murder mystery series had gained him a cult following, he was terribly shy when it came to public speaking. It was why he always avoided writers panels and interviews, which had sadly only increased the amount of speaking offers he got. People loved the ‘mysterious recluse’ persona he had accidentally created, and everyone wanted to be the first to get the inside scoop. Sam wouldn’t have even thought about taking the job offer to become a professor if he didn’t desperately need money. He had come down with a horrible case of writer's block, so the writing of his next book had unfortunately come to a halt, and even with the sales and royalties he got from the books he had already written, it wasn’t going to be enough to pay for the wedding. Sam had recently gotten engaged to his longtime boyfriend Micheal, and the wedding that had planned was looking… expensive. They had tried to keep it small, but both had romantic hearts and expensive taste, so it ended up getting out of hand. So, desperate for a more steady cash flow, Sam had accepted the offer to teach. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He knew he was going to fuck this up. But… maybe he was overreacting? It wasn’t like he was teaching kindergarten. These were college students, mature adults who paid to be there. Surely they wouldn’t be that bad, right?

It took less than 5 minutes for Sam to realize how horribly wrong he was. These people were savages! He knew the school had a bit of a reputation as a ‘party school’, but he hadn’t expected it to be this bad. No one in the class seemed to take anything he said seriously. The male students, who mostly seemed to be athletic jocks, were constantly telling crude jokes, laughing obnoxiously, flexing and harassing the few students who actually wanted to be there. The few female students who hadn’t left in disgust just giggled at the nearest jocks jokes vapidly and flirted with them. No one paid attention to a thing Sam said the entire class. Sam spent all of his first class stuttering over words, getting embarrassed by his own lack of experience, and being either ignored by or laughed at by his meathead students. By the end of the day Sam felt completely lost. Every class had been the same as his first, just as embarrassing and pathetic. Sam didn’t understand what he was doing wrong? At first he thought he had just got unlucky with his first class but as the day had progressed Sam started to wonder if something was wrong with him. It couldn’t be that all the classes were filled with bad students. Maybe he was overreacting. It was only his first day after all, but he couldn’t shake this feeling that he was messing this up. Maybe if he could understand these kids better he’d be able to teach better. He had gone to college himself, but he had spent most of his free time working on his first novel. He didn’t really get the same college experience that most people did, and now it was coming back to bite him in the ass. It was late when Sam left, having stayed late to work on his curriculum. As he walked through campus to his car, he looked up at the sky and saw a particularly bright star. He stared at it for a moment, fascinated. Without even meaning to, he wished on the star. He wished to understand his students better. As he did so his eyes stayed transfixed on the star, which grew brighter and brighter.

And, in a flash, everything was different.

Sam woke up slowly the next morning, his head pounding as he did. What the heck had happened last night? He felt like he had the worst hangover ever. He got up from his bed and stumbled over to the bathroom, splashing water in his face. As his headache began to diminish into a dull throb, Sam looked in the mirror, and felt his brain short circuit. Something was wrong. Really wrong. For some reason it took him a moment to notice but… he had completely changed.

The thirty year old author looked like he was in his early twenties again, and was suddenly in much better shape than he had been before, even in his actual twenties. His eyes trailed down his strong biceps and defined abs, both in fascination and shock. He wanted to yell for his fiancée, but instead he felt himself smirk without meaning to. Without even thinking about it he lifted up his biceps and flexed, reveling in his own body. Sam didn’t understand what was going on. It was like he couldn’t control his body. Someone else was in control now.

As the other Sam, who Sam and everyone else had dubbed Green, went about his day it became apparent that Sam had gotten his wish in the worst way possible. He now understood his students perfectly, because he was just like them. A cock, arrogant, toxic, straight jock. He understood what it was like to find classes taught by pathetic professors boring as shit. He understood how it felt to party with an entire frat full of manly bros. He understood what it felt like to fuck a pussy, not caring how the bitch felt and only caring about how great his cock felt. Sam now knew exactly what it felt like to be one of his students, and he hated it. He couldn’t stop himself though. He was trapped, slowly losing himself to the new identity. Eventually Sam would forget he was anyone but Green. He convinced himself Sam was all just some weird dream. Why would he want to be some dumbass author when he was a fucking college stud?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The fandom can't make up its mind on what's supposed to be a joke and what's supposed to be serious because the show can't either half the time. It's a tonally disjointed mess that wants to have absurd over-the-top humor as well as a plot and moments of drama, romance, and angst that demand you see the characters as people and feel for what they're going through. Except you can't do that without also treating the dumb bullshit in a somewhat grounded way. Like, you're still dealing with the same characters. You can't just go "Oh, that? Let's ignore that!" the moment it's no longer convenient to you. You've opened this can of worms and now you have to sleep in it. So, every character flip-flops between two different versions of themselves depending on what the writers need in any particular scene.

This is not to say surreal humor can't be used right alongside characters you're supposed to empathize with, Teen Titans (not Go) did that and it worked. It's just that the absurdity can only come from the setting (Mad Mod, Mother Mae-Eye, pretty much anything Control Freak is in) or from designated joke characters (Date With Destiny). Teen Titans never had the main characters acting in clearly absurd ways as the butt of a joke unless those characters were brainwashed somehow, because the writers knew that would ruin any of the more grounded moments they wanted to write. The writers of Miraculous missed the memo on that one.

I don't disagree. A perfect example is Derision where the show takes all of the bad jokes about Marinette's crush and decides to take them seriously as if you can possible take them seriously without making Marinette come across as unhinged and dangerous. You can't, which brings us to the topic at hand: how do you even begin to understand these characters when the show is constantly making character-breaking choices?

My approach - and the approach I recommend others take if they're going to keep watching the show - is to focus on the characters' cores and reject anything canon does to violate those cores. I don't argue for this stance because I love the characters so much that I only want the good things to count. I take this stance because, if you don't, then the characters fall apart. There is no way to make them work as fully realized characters while embracing every choice canon has made. Miraculous has massive characterization issues that go well beyond the humor.

For example, Adrien has multiple moments of terrible behavior that are played in a serious manner such as the moment in the episode Frozer where he tries to start a fight with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma attack because she wouldn't accept a rose from him earlier:

Setup

Ladybug: I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already. I'm in love with someone else. Cat Noir: I know, M'lady. But if he weren't here, would things be different between us? Ladybug: Well, you know, I can't even begin to imagine him not being here. I'm sorry, Cat Noir. I really gotta get going, and you better do the same. (Swings her yo-yo to head back home; Cat Noir is sad, looking downwards, with one petal of the rose falling.)

Payoff

Ladyice: Cat Noir. We need to set up a trap for whoever turned the city into a giant ice rink. (throws yo-yo) Icecat: (bitterly) My feline instincts prefer to track and observe before I attack. You go your way, I'll go mine. Ladyice: Please don't tell me you're mad at me about the rose. Icecat: There may be a certain chill now between us. Ladyice: I get it, but we should really focus on saving Paris right now. Icecat: We don't always have to do everything together, after all. It's not like we're a couple. (skates away)

There's no way to argue this off as a bad joke. While Adrien has every right to feel hurt, those feelings don't excuse him acting like a pouting child in the middle of an akuma fight. It doesn't excuse him acting like this at any point! Ladybug is not a villain for telling him no. She wasn't even mean about it!

I clearly fully agree that Adrien looks awful and selfish here, but I'd still argue that it's not something that should be used to define Adrien's character if your goal is to tell the "ideal" version of Miraculous. "Ideal" being the version that canon seems to be going for based on the overall picture we can sort of make out if we back way, way, way up and look at the extremely abstract picture canon is clumsily painting.

Unless canon is going to do something monumentally stupid, Adrien is Marinette's endgame romantic interest. It's also clear that there is no plan to cut him from the team. He's going to be Chat Noir for the rest of his life or at least well into his adulthood. This means that he is supposed to be a good hero who deserves his miraculous just like he's supposed to be a charming and cute romantic lead. These are the two things I keep in mind when trying to shift through canon to figure out what writing choices I should fully embrace and what writing choices I have to either ignore or treat as true flaws that get an actual character arc. In my book, either approach is fine because most of the characters are deeply flawed at this point and you can't give them all arcs without bloating the story to nonsense levels.

My goal with this approach is never to say, "oh, that moment shouldn't count in terms of how people feel about the character." It's more, "that moment goes so hard against who this character is very clearly supposed to be that I can't take it into account if I want to tell the kind of story that Miraculous is trying (and clearly failing) to tell."

As an example, let's list off Adrien's worst behaviors. The things that make him look terrible:

He sucks at communicating his needs and feelings, leading to multiple moments where he gets mad at Ladybug for things she's totally unaware of

He has quit or considered quitting without warning multiple times and only one of those was because of something he did "wrong" (NYC Special)

He puts his feelings before the safety of Paris on multiple occasions, even going so far to purposely miss akuma fights to see what happens

He is incredibly pushy about his crush, often ignoring Ladybug's feelings on the topic by continuing to bring it up even after she asked him to stop

There have been multiple instances where he almost cataclysmed multiple people in a fit of anger

His love for Ladynette isn't strong enough to let him break free of things like akumas and nightmare dust even when he's looking her in the eyes making him a pretty crappy romantic lead

People will argue that some of this behavior makes sense for his character because of the abuse that canon has technically introduced, but that the writers seem blissfully unaware of. I don't disagree with that argument, but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is acceptable behavior for a hero and Adrien is a hero who keeps doing these things. A sad backstory doesn't give you the right to behave poorly without consequences.

At the same time, if I fully embrace these elements of canon, what I get is an Adrien salt fic where he loses his miraculous for good while Marinette finds her real true love or even just a non-salty fic where Adrien leaves for his own meatal health and gets replaced by someone who can handle being a hero right now. Canon's not writing either of those, so the only way to engage with these flaws while enjoying canon or aiming for the same end goals as canon is to say, "I guess this doesn't count" or "I guess I need to tone this way down and work through it via a character arc" or even "I guess that was just a bad joke maybe?"

That is the essence of what I mean when I call myself a writing salt, character sugar blog. It comes from looking at canon and seeing that there's simply no way to embrace the worst moments and the best at the same time. We're not dealing with a coherent plot and/or complex characters. We're dealing with a nonsense plot that will warp the characters to bizarre shapes to make random ideas work even if those idea go wildly against canon's end goals.

As an example, Glaciator and Frozer should not exist in the same universe or, at the very least, something should explain why Chat Noir randomly changed his stance on Ladybug's crush from acceptance to pushiness. As is, the pieces don't fit together. The behavior is too contradictory. Remember, this is how Glaciator ends:

Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like, I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all.

Where did this version of Adrien go? Why did he regress in Frozer? There's no in-universe reason. It happened because the writers weren't ready to let the love square date or grow close, but they also wanted the love square to cause drama, so Adrien ends up looking terrible just like Marinette ends up looking terrible when it's her turn to cause love square drama. Her terribleness takes a different flavor so it can be hard to realize that this is a systemic issue, but that's what it is. It's deeply frustrating, but it also clearly stems from cheap writing and not quality characterization.

This is also why my stance is that canon as a whole only supports my Doyalistic core-character analysis style of approach. The writing is too poor quality to do Watsonian analysis where you embrace the full picture and try to put it all together. The closest I'll get to Watsonian analysis is pointing out how much the writing botches a Watsonian take by showing you all the way the writing contradicts itself, twisting into a nonsense pretzel of frustration where the payoffs never satisfy! (See the season four rant for an example or anything where I talked about Chloe's supposed damnation arc.)

There are even characters where canon is such a total mess that you can Doyalistically argue for two separate takes! Gabriel is a perfect example. He is all over the place and his ending was so poorly handled that you can make strong arguments for writing him as a cold-hearted villain or a sympathetic villain without the end result feeling like it spits in the face of canon because both takes maintain his one core element: villain.

That's the big thing I keep in mind when I look at the characters and the lore and the plots and try to come up with versions that the average fan would like. I don't think that there's one true version of any of these things, but I do feel comfortable saying that there are versions that will very clearly only appeal to people who are salty about a specific thing that canon did poorly. That's not who I want to appeal to in my adaptions, so while I'm not going to argue that those takes have no backing in canon, I will argue that those takes are not supported by canon as a whole. Embracing them requires you to take the worst parts of canon at face value while ignoring what canon is clearly trying to do with the overall story.

I get the appeal of that, but it's not fun for me because that approach feels like rolling around in the mud with the pigs. I don't want to sink to canon's level! I want to have fun! That's why I talk about how to make canon into its best self, not its worst self. If you want its worst self, just go watch the actual show. I will be shocked it if disappoints you.

[molinaskies]

hey, i'm a new sonic fan (really digging your writings btw!!!) would you mind explaining a bit of this tag of yours? i get the feeling youve been in the fandom for a while haha X)

hello, I am SO sorry for the late response. I am terrible with my asks and kind of disappeared for much of the winter. Some might say this particular hedgehog was hibernating! That said, welcome to the fandom!

You are right! I've been here since 2012, but I've done many blasts to the past to learn about the things before my time lol.

This is gonna be an off-the-cuff answer, so bear with me, but this ask was in reference to this post where I mentioned some "questionable Amy Rose characterization." In short, it's only within maybe the last eight or so years that North American Sonic has been in decent sync with Japanese Sonic, as a franchise. While there are still plenty of localization differences between these two realms (from characterization to plot/lore implications), they are largely on the same page, now. This wasn't always the case.

When Sonic first appeared in the 90s, there was essentially a version of him for every "video game region" (North America, Japan, and Europe). Sonic was characterized very differently depending on where he was. Again, super off the cuff, but American Sonic was a super cocky, sassy speed demon who made fun of his enemies and had no fucks to give. Japanese Sonic was still arrogant and sassy, but a lot less flashy about it. European Sonic, I am the least familiar with, but I know him to be somewhere in the middle of NA and JP. NA and EU also have their own cast of characters on top of the official characters we know.

To the core of your question about Amy, Amy chasing Sonic is a trope in JP media between young lovers and was largely meant to be shown as a game between the two. Amy also reads as a lot more "cute and endearing" in Japanese iterations of her in the 2000s.

However, NA Sonic, as a franchise, played up her romantic feelings for Sonic to an absolute extreme for laughs, but it ended up with some really dubious results. Amy's NA characterization makes her out to be more of an active aggressor. Words you might see floating around about this include "stalker," "fangirl," and "obsessed." These things led a lot--like, A LOT a lot--of people to dislike or vehemently hate Amy Rose.

Some iterations of this aren't so bad, but the ones people really point at are Sonic Battle (she mistakenly believes that Sonic intends for a robot named Emerel to be their son), Sonic Heroes (Amy's reason for hunting Sonic down is to "get him to marry her"), and Sonic Adventure 2 (Amy says that she will only free sonic from his prison cell if he agrees to marry her; she is unsuccessful and frees him anyway).

To be clear, I FIRMLY believe that the latter two examples I gave were meant to be understood as jokes and that IS how Sonic takes them. People also point to a moment in Sonic 06 where she says she would choose Sonic over the fate of the world, but I also firmly believe that people misinterpret her meaning (more on that here). However, the fact this is a hill I need to die on shows that it wasn't made clear enough by the American writers. And anyway, this really starts to simmer down around 2008 with Sonic Unleashed.

The general consensus in the fandom, to my knowledge, is that this happened for two reasons. 1) Amy's crush combined with Sonic's (at the time) purposefully ambiguous feelings for her made for the type of gag humour that was big in the 2000s, and 2) Sonic already had a highly popular love interest in Sally Acorn, a NA-exclusive character from the 90s cartoon (Sonic the Hedgehog/SatAM) and the Archie comics that largely acted as a continuation of that cartoon's story.

Sally was so much "in Amy's place," as it were, that the NA instruction Manual for Sonic CD (Amy's introductory game, mind you) deliberately refers to Amy as Sally.

I'm not super well informed about Archie Sonic, but Amy has kind of a bad rep in those comics too. She has a uncomfortable back story (she uses magic, basically, to make herself older so she can join Sally's freedom fighters and be with sonic), is consistency depicted as overbearing and mean, and I've even seen people complain about the way she's drawn (she always has this unbecoming, large mouth that makes her unpleasant to look at).

However, the Archie comics underwent a total reboot in 2013 (the comics ended in 2017), and my understanding is that Amy's characterization is dramatically improved from there on out.

Again, SUPER off the cuff. There were a lot of micro details I skimmed over. I 100% encourage you to go on the deep dive and draw your own conclusions, but I hope this gives some good background to get started!

In summary, NA Amy Rose (and, to a lesser extent, Amy Rose in general during the early 2000s), is kind of rough to watch. SEGA over-corrected a little bit around 2012 by taking her down the hyper-independent route, but settled on something really solid for her in 2017 starting with Sonic Forces and the IDW comics.

[northhopest]

7x13: April Fools

The good, the bad, and the wtf-are-we-doing

Lucy Chen wants to be with Tim Bradford. She knows he wants to be with her. They love each other. They know they’re endgame. But she’s not ready to fully forgive him yet.

I've said this many times before and others are picking up on it now: since the beginning, Lucy has trusted Tim with her body but not with her heart. He’s protected her physically since S1, but he didn’t protect her emotionally. He used to be harsh with her, sometimes even mean, yet even then, he always had her back in a life-or-death situation. That hasn’t changed. So she does what she always does—she finds a way to protect herself. She finds an excuse to be close to him. To sleep with him while also sleeping with him. To be emotionally near him. Because if she didn’t wrap it in a joke? She’d be breaking her own rules. She broke them anyway.

Lucy Chen doesn’t do one night stands. She doesn’t give herself away to just anyone. But she knows this version of Tim is willing to do whatever she wants and needs. She has needs—and he’s ready to help her meet them, she trusts him to help her meet them. No questions asked. 

Cue: the world’s lamest April Fools’ prank.

Cue: A terribly written line. 

“So are you gonna keep talking about April Fools or are you gonna take your pants off?”

Some fans *think* they spent the night having sex and didn’t get any sleep. I don’t think they did. This wasn’t about passion. It was about *intimacy.* Lucy used April Fools as a shield. An excuse to sleep with him while also *sleeping* with him. To be close to the man she loves.

Last time they shared a bed, they woke up on opposite sides. This time? I don’t think that happened. This time was warm. Cuddly. Married. In love. They slept in each other’s arms and woke up that way. You can see it all over her face the next day. She’s glowing. She hasn’t had *that* since the breakup. Sex? Sure. But emotional togetherness? No.

The station makeout wasn’t lusty. It was soft. Sweet. Lovey-dovey. Married. The last time we saw Lucy this happy was in S5. 

BUT.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. 

She’s acting like a guy. He’s acting like a girl. In 7x06 and 7x13, she’s leading with her *body*. He’s the one thinking with his *mind.* That’s a flipped script—but it’s also unhealthy. Lucy needs help processing her emotions. And Tim’s usually the one who helps her through them. But she can’t talk to him. So she processes through her body instead.

It’s messy. It’s out of character. It hurts to watch.

And don’t even get me started on the “prank” part of it all.

Lucy has two roommates. She has girlfriends. She has people. Melissa has *said* she headcanons Lucy as someone with girlfriends, a support system. So why, WHY, is she dragging her relationship into the middle of the station’s gossip mill—a place where she’s already been the punchline several times, where Tim has even set her up as the punchline?

This wasn’t a UC kiss in her apartment or 35,000 feet in the air. This wasn’t a laundry room moment with no one around. This was at the station. On shift. Where at any moment anyone with a key could enter that office. It was unprofessional and *so* OOC for both of them.

You don’t prank your coworkers into thinking you’re screwing your ex. Especially not when you’re trying to rebuild your career, your reputation, your *boundaries.* Especially not when everyone knows what your ex did to you. Especially not when you’re a woman of color in a male-dominated workplace where judgment and scrutiny are already at a 12 and cops gossip like 12 year olds.

And *that’s* what really breaks me.

Lucy Chen is one of the very few fully developed Asian American female characters on network television. That means she carries a representational burden—whether Melissa and writers like it or not. Every choice she makes, every plotline she’s given, isn’t just about *her.* It becomes about how Asian American women are portrayed. She’s a piece of the puzzle that countless actresses of Asian descent before her fought for.

So when she’s written as the girl who throws herself at her hot ex and calls it “a joke”—it doesn’t just cheapen her. It reinforces old, tired tropes. It’s a slap in the face to anyone who thought maybe, just maybe, we were finally seeing something new. Something real. Something different. That maybe, just maybe, we’re making progress.

Lucy lusting after Tim wasn’t merely about "whether the dick is good," as crudely put in viewer discussions. For all we know, the dick could be mediocre. But their emotional connection, being IT for each other, is what makes it good. Why reduce the integrity of her character? 

In isolation, hooking up at his house is awful but not the worst thing that could happen. But when she enforces herself as the butt of a joke to the entire station; when she wears a low-cut, heart-shaped, completely unprofessional two piece to work; when Lucy (Melissa) fixes her uniform outside in the hallway, making it clear that she was hooking up; it’s fair to interrogate why everyone involved in Lucy Chen from the writers to wardrobe to the actress undermined her emotional growth, character integrity, and responsible representation.

Because there are so few Asian American women main characters on network TV, Lucy’s character carries an outsized weight in terms of representation. Every choice made—whether it’s about her romantic relationships, her career arc, or how she’s treated by other characters—feels amplified because there aren't enough other portrayals to balance it out.

Let Lucy be messy. Let her be confused. Let her *feel.* But don’t reduce her to a punchline.   And don’t make her the damn architect of her own punchline either (again. See 7x02: food truck scene).

Chenford deserves more.   Lucy Chen deserves better.   We all do.

[katyspersonal]

So like... thoughts on Messmer's crew? Not the man himself, just the guys he hired.

I actually found the remaining two Fire Knights just recently! :D I didn't post about it yet, but I assume this is all of them! ...I hope. Shadow's Keep has too many turns. Who knows.

This is sweet how they all are close with Messmer and stood with him no matter what.... Unlike THESE traitors:

(Sorry I forgot to copy the screenshots so have bad phone images fshhds) Like @heraldofcrow said earlier, it is really stupid how they could accept like genocides and whatever but drew the line at him being a snake sdfhfghds Well, Fire Knights definitely didn't!

Queelign was the first one I've met, and apparently in the wrong order since I missed him in Belurat and had to go back there! And I instantly hated that zealot, even before I had the picture of what exactly Fire Knights were!

^ As if Queelign's dialogue was not enough, he also dropped THIS! The reason I will ALWAYS respect Miyazaki no matter what is that he always finds the way to throw a jab at this particular grudge at human race fsdhfdsh

He is still a terrible person, but since then I warmed up to him when I've found some potential in him! He is not only the most fleshed out from the Fire Knights, but also in JUST the right way! He is very passionate and fanatical, but also very genuine and naive with his feelings. And he not only wants to be like Messmer, but also has very strong fixation on Marika! Like I keep joking, she is such a bad mother that even people who aren't her children have mommy issues over her fhhdsf

But he also, interestingly, reflects that weaker, childish part of Messmer that still wants his mom to love him. Whereas Messmer is at least good at repressing it, with Queelign it is completely loose and earnest, and the guy is probably not aware! He IS like a little version of himself in this way.. Not sure whether Messmer dislikes him, or pities him, or maybe at least several times told him to NOT try to be like him! In any case, it is really cool how there is the guy who gives that interesting insight. You could write headcanons essays on the psychology between Queeling and Messmer, or just Queelign. I wrote an essay on what could transpire if Tarnished healed him instead (I believe he dies when we find him, from deadly wounds since we only access his chamber after beating him twice).

Like, you can work with this character, you see what I mean? I never found a similar rambling potential in, say, Alfred or Lautrec. They're religious fanatics too, yet that was exactly ALL I could tell about them. MEANWHILE I've made like FIVE posts about Queelign already and they are all substancial! And, boy, any writer WANTS a strictly cruel, fanatical, irredeemable, negative character to give something to talk about besides just kicking the topic of them being bad. If you are writer, remember to similarly give the topics of discussion to your villains! I agree with what Izunia said earlier:

+ Correction though: Petrus does NOT belong in the list of fanatics xd He has opposite problem! He is a selfish, opportunistic, corrupt, cowardly parasite that benefits from the religious institution and doesn't actually HAVE any beliefs he will kill and die for. He kills for his benefit, like how he killed Reah after her being rescued clearly so she would not rat him out, ie risk his position as elite cleric! There is a good reason why of all cleric/religious/etc characters he is the only one who has no simps!

This guy kicked my ass a couple of times, but if Fire Knights are Messmer's most important people, that makes him second most important person in his army? ...okay third, after his wife Rellana fsdjhdfhssd Really clever how only the captain wears a helmet fashioned after this creature, since he keeps Messmer's military forces in check here

1) I also assume that the "loneliness" Wego experienced was from having outlived the people he held dear as not only being in the military but also elder! Because why else would he be strictly lonely, if he has friends within the covenant? Like look right here, he had a pupil! :p 2) This implies that disagreeing with Messmer was a huge risk.. but not only Messmer spared him, but also actually listened to his request!

So basically, Salza is okay with burning people and their homes, but he draws the line at destruction of like, culture, knowledge and ancient architecture fshfds And not he alone:

It were Fire Knights who asked Messmer to have the Specimen Storehouse, so there is at least historical remains about the species they destroyed! So as funny as the double standard looks, it makes a lot of sense; like it was mentioned earlier, all Fire Knights were nobles at the Erdtree! Of course they have it internalised to preserve culture and knowledge for the future! They all had to be well-educated and well-cultured people, not sympathising with the type of hatred that aims to erase as much as history! And at the same time, being educated didn't help them to consider not participating in the HoLy cRuSaDe to begin with..

And this is so human. It is very realistic. There is a lingering misconception that it is ignorance, poor quality of living, low class, bad past or all at once that makes people prone to crime, but in reality there are criminals in every class and every demographic. We should not attribute the root of all evil, crimes and harmful prejudices only to concrete group, because this is always just a matter of multiple people gathering and deciding to do something. When it is not mistreatment and despair that drives people to evil, it is power and corruption, because people ARE evil by nature.

_______________

So yeah, I really like what they did with this covenant! They did well with giving the sense of each of them being an individual by naming and distinguishing five characters like this! For Soulsborne games, this is rich x) They have some tweaks to their outfits or weapons, they have characterisation that makes them unlike each other, and THIS is what's wild; how so many people that clearly can and always could think for themselves ended up here! Queelign too! I could speculate that Alfred has been indoctrinated and brainwashed since young age, or that Lautrec lost his marbles after some sort of grasp by Fina, but Queelign apparently was no less of a noble that decided to go like his peers, nor he'd be any more embraced by Marika than everyone else with grace! He is Just Like This fshdfhs

They made the covenant very real an interesting. (Also rich for creating OCs if you like writing awful people and want to be close with Messmer 😔)

[lewkwoodnco]

buy me presents! - Lockwood x Reader

A/N: jealous!lockwood, gift giving (lockwood's version), I like to think I'm funny hehhe, maybe maybe veeery borderline crack fic? this is MY christmas present to myself and I WILL indulge in my favourite tropes so if you saw me kicking my feet like a thirteen-year-old, no u didnt. (I needed a concrete holiday for this so i used christmas but its all the same hehe) I've thrown the schedule out the window, it'll be a christmas miracle if all 12 fics even get written so happy holidays!!!!! wc 2.6k!!

TAGLIST | MASTERLIST

She was sitting at the kitchen table, agonising over the horribly organised financial records of Lockwood & Co. As tedious as it was, she enjoyed the work the most out of the four of them, and had taken on the extra role of being somewhat of an accountant. She had lightly teased him about receiving a boost in her pay until she saw their dismal financial situation. The joke stopped being funny alarmingly quickly after that.

Lucy was hurrying through some last-minute packing, while George was trying to locate their train tickets, sporadically yelling through the house for Lockwood. She didn't have quite the heart to tell him that Lockwood had unfortunately escaped hours ago, winking at her as he had shrugged his coat on while she had been looking particularly ragged in the sea of receipts.

She hears the front door open, and after a minute or two, Lockwood walks into the kitchen, rosy-cheeked from the brisk morning air.

"How are the accounts?"

"Terrible. The only thing more astonishing that these bank statements is the fact that we somehow haven't gone bankrupt..." she presses a few more keys of her calculator. "...yet."

George yells again and they wince in unison.

"How long has that been going on?"

"Long enough. He's going to leave you here if you don't find him soon."

He sighed. The three of them were getting ready to leave for the holidays. Lucy was going back North to visit a friend, Lockwood and George were headed to George's for the holidays. She would have come to, but they were already at the max capacity and she had waved off their worries smoothly, since she had spent most of her Christmases alone as an agent. So, as much of a fuss Lockwood kicked up about it, she'd be celebrating Christmas in a cheery if empty 35 Portland Row.

"Are you sure you'll be alright on your own?"

"One of us has burnt a house down and it's not me. I like my chances."

"Still. Christmas, all alone?"

George yelled again, his voice entering a new octave.

"Christmas with peace and quiet, more like. You know, maybe they'd have space for me if you weren't bringing your mountain of hair products for you fancy hair."

He pulled his gloves off with a lazy smile.

"You think my hair's fancy?"

She rolled her eyes as Lockwood revealed a small delicate pastry box, sliding into the seat in front of her. She had had a feeling it was coming from the way he had been lingering in the kitchen.

"What's this?"

"Red velvet doughnut with those tiny candy cane sprinkles you like."

She traced the box longingly, feeling torn. "I thought Arif was fully booked with Christmas orders."

"He made an exception for you."

She raised her eyebrows.

"I might have...tipped him extra."

"Lockwood."

"You're going to be alone for the next week. It's the least I could do."

She looked at him sternly. Lockwood had the particularly bad habit of impulsive spending. She had carefully broached the topic of gift-giving with him before; namely, after the time he purchased an ornate decorative set of glass robins which she had casually expressed a vague interest in in passing. She tried to explain how gestures like that made her feel obligated to him, and he tried to explain it was the least he could do, given how much of their accounting work she shoulders. They never reached a satisfactory conclusion, and though he did tone it down afterwards, she would still come across the occasional trinket adorned with a frilly bow in her belongings.

It was this very spirit, in fact, that had inspired her to tediously and secretly work on creating a snow globe of 35 Portland Row for him. She couldn't find anything commensurate to the loving thoughtfulness behind each of his gifts, so the next best thing was one decent, homemade, meaningful present. Even though he was going away, she still wanted him to receive it on Christmas, so she had passed it to George. It had been a bit of a nerve-wracking decision, especially if she was being too forward, and she had a pair of snowmen socks at the ready for a backup, but now the snow globe was tucked safely in George's trunk and there was no going back.

"The least you could do is save your limited funds for things that actually matter." She pointedly flips her notebook close.

He reaches out towards her face but gets interrupted by Lucy yellnig at him from somewhere in the house for blocking the stairs with his bags. He scrambles off apologetically, nearly tripping over himself as her threats grow more vivid.

Their reserved cab, courtesy of George ("flagging down a cab one week before Christmas? In this economy?"), arrives and the four of them start piling way too much luggage in it. Just as they're about to leave, Lockwood hesitates and turns to her.

"It's not too late for me to stay."

She pushes him out the door, waving to the others as Lockwood stumbles clumsily down the steps.

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

"Y/N!"

"Lockwood? Hello?"

"Ho - How have you been?"

"What?"

There's a lot of commotion at the other end of the line. She had been waiting for them to call the past few days, and was eagerly settling down to hear all about the festivities. She can hear a thousand different sounds overlapping and the thuds of footsteps criss-crossing, mixed in with some familiar threats from unfamiliar voices. Huh. Though it did make sense that of all the things George might have inherited from his family, it would be this.

"Just a moment." She hears the kerfuffle die down and the crinkle of the telephone wire shifting. "Sorry, had to find a closet. Now, where were we?"

"Sounds busy."

"Oh, it is. But it's nice, meeting George's family. Had to fight them off with a stick to get to the telephone, though."

He hears the smile in her voice. "I can see that. So what have you been up to?"

"So much. Too much. Y/N, you cannot repeat this to George but...they take Christmas far too seriously."

"Really?"

"We spent an entire day picking out the tree. I am sick of Christmas cookies and it's only my second day here."

She frowned. "I told you to pace yourself."

"My fingers - oh, my poor fingers - worn down to the bone stringing popcorn and cranberries together."

"What's the popcorn for?"

"Hell if I know! They make Christmas look like an extreme sport."

She tried to suppress her smile, putting on a grave voice. "You have my sympathies."

"Good. Though I suppose it hasn’t been all bad. I liked the ornament painting. Plus, Belinda’s been helping me loads.”

“…Belinda?”

“George’s cousin. George’s somehow even busier than I am and I haven’t got a clue what’s going on sometimes, so she’s been a real help.”

“That’s nice,” she says bitterly. An uncomfortable silence follows.

“So, I was just saying, earlier, that I hope you're not feeling too lonely."

She lets him trail off, unhappily aware of how the only life and excitement the house had seen in the past three days was emnating solely from the telephone. She hadn't expected it to be this difficult to have a quiet Christmas.

"Oh, I'm fine." She stares at the Santa Claus figuring opposite her cynically. Saint Nicholas, indeed. "Just having a whale of a time with...Nicholas, here."

"Nicholas?"

An impulse brews in her head. It's a poor one, but she's got nothing to do, and it's Christmas.

"Yeah, Nicholas. I met him at the Christmas market. He's amazing, really."

"...Nicholas."

"Yeah."

"Never heard of him."

"He's a little bit older. I wouldn't expect you to know him."

"Hm."

"Anyway, I've hardly even noticed you've left, since we hang out together so much."

"So, you're spending time...with him?"

"Oh, he's not here right now. He's been a bit busy today at his..." she cast her eyes around wildly, landing on a a porcelain figurine of some grinning elves. "...workshop."

"Workshop?"

"He carves wood. He's a wood carver. You should see some of the ornaments he makes. He's great with his hands."

"I'm sure he is."

Lockwood gets too irritable to continue the conversation much further and they hang up soon after. By the time they were done, the sun had set and the house was in complete darkness: the perfect atmosphere for brooding. So what if he'd rather spend Christmas with girls like Belinda? She didn't care. Good...riddance.

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

A few days later, she collects the mail and finds an envelope addressed to her in Lockwood's narrow, slanted handwriting. She rips it open like a kid on Christmas morning, but her smile twists when she sees the Christmas card inside. There's a picture of George's entire extended family-and-friends, and Lockwood's hunched over in the corner, next to a girl with effortlessly pretty hair. They're wearing matching sweaters. Not the whole family, just the two of them. While she had always reluctantly accepted the occasional gift from him with an appropriate amount of embarrassment, nothing could have prepared her for the sight of undeniable proof that he just might do the same for others. Picking out a present, spending his money, on her? Disgusting.

It's enough to make her jam it forcefully under the telephone. Next to it, she spies the slip of paper with George's personal telephone number jotted down, in case of an emergency. She drums her fingers impatiently while the phone rings, eyeing the clock while she adds in the time difference. She feels so stupid over the snow globe now. What on earth had possessed her? If she's lucky, Lockwood might have gone to bed by now and she just might catch George-

"H'llo?" Lockwood's sleep-roughened voice strains through the static hum.

"Nothing, go back to sleep."

"Y/N?"

"You're dreaming. Hush now. Good night-"

"Y/N." He sounds wide awake now, and she can hear him start to sit up. The plainness in his voice starts to fade as he gets steadily mroe assertive. "Is something wrong?"

"No, everything's fine. I didn't realise it would be so late for you. Listen - is George there?"

"He's helping with the caramel apples."

"Ah. Do you think you could tell him to phone me when he has the time?"

"Oh, no worries, I'll see him at dinner later. I can pass the message."

She swears internally. "Oh it's nothing. Just wanted to have a chat, see how he was doing."

"He's doing fine."

There's an awkward silence. She can tell he's barely convinced, and the discomfort from the Christmas card prickles at the back of her neck.

"Get anything in the mail?"

"I haven't checked," she lied, clenching the card in her hand. Stupid, lousy card. It was ridiculously childish but really; her acquired expensive taste was his fault for encouraging it in the first place. "I've just been so busy with Nicholas, you know."

"I see."

"Why? Did you mail something over?"

"Just a Christmas card. No big deal."

"Aw. Thanks." She wants to curl up and die. The snow globe was most definitely overkill. She should have gone with the socks.

"Did Nicholas get you anything?"

"He really only goes by Nick."

She can hear the distaste in his voice. "A nickname. How...quaint."

"We went to see The Nutcracker, and took a walk in the park, if you really must know." It had been more like her sitting alone in the park, miserably tossing the pigeons with small kernels of roasted chestnuts.

"Oh. Did he...get you a gift?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"I don't. He just sounds like a..." His voice changes and she can tell he's pulling some kind of face. "...like an interesting person."

"He is."

"Good."

"Great."

"Glad we cleared that up."

They fume at each other through the phone for a while.

"I talked to George, by the way. He doesn't remember a Nicholas either."

"Yes, well, that's because...he doesn't stay here. In London. No, he's part of a, whaddyacallit, travelling group with the, er, Christmas market."

"Like...a circus?"

"...yes."

"Well. As long you're having fun..."

"I am. So much fun." She had a white-knuckle grip on the telephone. Why was she tearing up?

"Merry Christmas, Y/N," he whispers. His voice somehow still manages to sound soft and measured over the telephone, as if he were sitting right next to her. And even through the telephone, he sounds sad.

"Merry Christmas Lockwood."

She pulls the card from under the telephone, staring at the family picture. She flips it and sees a short message scrawled hurriedly at the back.

'Thinking about things that matter. Thinking about you.'

The dial tone reverberates through her skull.

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

She wakes up suddenly the next morning, and she can't figure out why. It's so cold and quiet that it takes her a minute to remember that it's Christmas Eve. She has approximately two seconds to wallow in self-pity before the racket starts back up. Someone's knocking firmly at the door, loud enough to make her head pound, interspersed with some heated yet unintelligible conversation with someone else.

She opens the door and almost immediately gets the wind knocked out of her. It's Lockwood, wearing a ridiculously tinseled Santa hat, hands full of shopping bags. There's also a majorly peeved George standing behind him, carrying their bags and, surprisingly, even more shopping bags.

Lockwood hands her one of the bags, which she numbly takes, before pulling her in for a hug, and it all happens so quick it takes her a minute or two for her mind to catch up with what's happening.

"L-huhh? George? Wha- Aren't you supposed to be -"

"Surprise! Couldn't bear the thought of you having to spend Christmas all alone. Close the door behind the presents, George, you're letting the cold in."

George grumbles something about his mother never letting him live this down and where he can stick the presents. She gapes at the presents in alarm, dizzy at the sight of the avalanche of multicoloured bows.

"These can't all be for me. Right? Right?"

Lockwood bulldozes past her as if she hadn't even said anything. "Unless, of course, Nicholas is here! Is he?"

"Lockwood, wai-"

"I wonder if he got you these many presents. I'm sure he tried his best, of course, poor chap."

"Will you stop, for a minute?"

"That's his jacket, isn't it? He stayed the night, didn't he? Wait." He stops so abruptly and looks so crestfallen that something tugs at her in her chest. "He stayed the night?"

"Lockwood." A lot had happened in the past minute, but she was finally caught up. Even though she knows it's her fault for making him up in the first place, she never meant for it to get this far. "Nicholas isn't here, because there is no Nicholas. It was a joke. I'm spending Christmas all alone, I had to do something. I made him up for kicks.

George throws his head back and starts laughing, dropping the shiny shopping bags around the two of them, laughter fading as he wades his way to the kitchen. Now that he's calmed down, even Lockwood has enough decency to look slightly embarrassed.

"Dear God, don't tell me you came all the way back over Nicholas."

"I...I didn't. I had...all these presents..."

It's a lame excuse, and even he realises it when he looks at her face. He stands there for a very long minute, and then very suddenly walks to his room, leaving her surrounded by the sea of bags and frenzily wrapped presents. He turns stiffly at his bedroom door with a mildly stern, completely unabashed expression on his face. She has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop from grinning.

"Merry Christmas."

TAGLIST: @mischivana @dangelnleif @avdiobliss @mitskiswift99 @elenianag080 @houseoftwistedspirits

[shadowfloofster]

I've seen people say you can't compare the QSMP to the DSMP because they're both completely different servers with different starts.

The thing is you can compare them. Not the stories told themselves because of course they're going to be different as they're 2 servers with different starts with 2 nearly completely different sets of people.

You can compare the treatment of the creators by the fandom, players (other cc on the server) and admins though.

Foolish for example. He made SO many amazing high quality builds to use and be shown to people. Ranboo and Tubbo had him build a giant mansion for them to live in! Yet it was entered maybe once after being finished. Foolish was able to use his builds for his own lore maybe once. Only a few people like Bad really acknowledged them by messing around in the area of them or adding something easy to get rid of to them as jokes.

Bad's treatment on the DSMP was frustrating to watch. He was the butt of the joke every time he was around. People would constantly swear on his streams because it was so funny for them! They constantly destroyed his and Skeppy's house and griefed the front of it. No one other than his friends really listened to him about things. And the egg arc was supposed to be something that was a massive danger to the server! But how does the server and fandom not directly involved treat it? Like a joke. Bad and his friends clearly worked really hard on this arc to include more than just the 'main characters' and their small circle, yet it was brushed off as if nothing by the players and fandom, treated like it was stupid.

Quackity's lore just kinda- happened. There isn't much I can say as I don't remember a lot of it tbh which isn't a great sign.

Philza and Wilbur probably got the better end of the stick for lore due to being connected to the main lorr, but it still wasn't great for them either.

A lot of CCs not on the QSMP have mentioned how the communication for the server was terrible too. At the start of lore on the DSMP, it made sense as they were purely doing improve so there wasn't really anyone to run things through. But the fact the issue was bad the entire time made the CCs on the server feel ignored and not want to play on it.

It was rare for people to interact with others outside their already established circles unless they're friends outside the server.

Now with the QSMP

Foolish has built multiple things on the server and has been acknowledged by everyone at this point. Bad might mess with them a lot still and encourage others to join him but you can tell the respect people still have for each one. Vagetta wants a version of the statue Foolish built him on other servers. People and fandom admire his builds and always make sure that if there's any damage to it, it's easily undone. Cellbit has made the castle Foolish built him his home the moment it was finished, he's been using it since. He paid him fully and made sure he was fully supplied and had company while building, staying on for hours to talk to him as he built.

Bad is respected by everyone on the server. He's taken seriously by everyone. Everyone trusts him with their kid's lives. Phil asks Bad to babysit Tallulah and Chayanne if he can't. The french trust Bad more than anyone outside their language group. Forever trusts Bad the most on the server other than Baghera. If someone needs something they'll go to him. All the eggs love him and so does the fandom. He's part of the joke instead of the butt of it. He can laugh along with the jokes made, even ones directed at him. When people swear on his streams and he languages them, they immediately apologize and switch to one of Bad's replacements (fudge being the main one) and no one makes fun of it either! They don't start swearing relentlessly at him to annoy him.

Even though Quackity doesn't show up often, when he does people are happy to interact with him and update him on what's happened if he wants it.

People can be off the server for weeks without being isolated because they're not keeping up with major lore, especially as people are happy to update anyone on anything they want to know. Hell people can be on a lot without being involved in lore but still be included as much as anyone else! As soon as there's a threat to the eggs or a new way to protect them, it spreads to everyone like wildfire and everyone's taken it on within a week.

The new arrivals are always welcomed by the islanders already there. They support them and treat with the same respect they do with everyone else. They merge with everyone else nearly immediately and become part of the community without hesitation.

The communication with the admins is clearly amazing too. Philza has pointed out how appreciated he feels compared to other servers. When an egg dies unfairly they're quick to get back to them within hours. If there's a general issues they're quick to get back to them and fix things. People are allowed to have their own stories alongside the main one. Events are planned and discussed so everyones aware before it happens. Anyone who wants to take part is welcome to if it's a big thing due to how open they usually are (rescuing Cellbit and Felps, travelling to Bobby's death site, etc). Thinfs are adapted and changed when needed and all CCs are in the loop.

Being able to watch the QSMP and not feel like any POV I watch is being mistreated or ignored is great. I couldn't watch anything but lore streams with the DSMP because Bad was my main POV and it made me so uncomfortable to watch him being made fun of constantly and be treated as a joke.

The QSMP feels like a community of people, instead of factions trying to go against each other. DSMP was my first and only smp experience and while it was great at first, it quickly soured. The QSMP treats it's CCs and fandom as if they genuinely matter, making sure everyone is welcomed and no one is isolated.

[one-blaze-of--glory]

I think this is a good day to tell everyone all my rent opinions. yk with new rent dates announced and stuff

Benny is my favorite character I think he's right about everything. the others are just ungrateful

Mark x Roger is the most important ship in the entire show !!! they're definitely gay for each other, I see no issues with this idea

on that note, i fucking hate Mimi so much she's selfish especially when she almost dies :/// why would she do that

kind of rude of Joanne to be upset about Maureen cheating on her. biphobic much?

on that note i wish the biphobic nytw version of Mark was kept that was so cool of him

I hate Angel for killing that dog, which is a thing I can very easily take seriously and make moral judgement of this characte based on. btw he's definitely cis, everyone is just seeing too much into it

i hateee Collins and Angel their relationship is so unrealistic like they just met and they're already so in love? weeird

Mark is so selfish for quitting his job. and for being upset about being the one to survive. he should just suck it up and go to business school (because business is cool)

I'm so glad valentine's day was cut it's just not a good song. very boring.

and now some opinions on the hungarian revival of rent !!!

i mean it's terrible. no one likes this. i already don't like normal rent but this is worse

the actors are so bad and they don't fit the characters at all

they also have zero chemistry. especially Roger and Mimi, i hope those actors break up or something

Collins and Angel? just as bad! even worse maybe!

I think Ekanem Bálint just can't act at all I don't buy that Collins is in love with Angel in this version

I don't understand why they retranslated it the first translation was perfectly fine, it was better even

the costume designs are terrible. especially Roger's act 2 shirt. "i believe in angels"? well they're not real! grow up, Roger

in case it wasn't clear this is all a joke, happy april fools

[mastercrownmonday]

Without further ado (Kirby reference?!): new Mistilteinn pfp!!! Magolor Soul banner is still on the way.

If you don't remember (and I wouldn't blame you), the subject of this pfp was decided in March with a poll. I haven't really commented on the results yet—so if you want to see my thoughts and ALSO discover the lore behind my love for the Master Crown, read on, because it has a whole lot to do with this titanic and terrible tree!!!

Here are the results for your reference. There were 48 votes:

I guess I was slightly? ish? surprised Mistilteinn won; I had my not-so-strong bets on Magolor Soul, which came in second. But hey! The ranking was a nice surprise, because clearly the BEST Master Crown is the Master Crown, pure and simple—without some... begrudgingly hijacked, weak-willed catboy wizard in the mix.

I didn't vote officially, but I did ask myself the question: which Master Crown is best!? And I think, if I had voted... I might have gone with the tiny, classic version. (I guess that's why I had to sneak it into the pfp anyway.) I mean, it's so cute! I am sure it would never become a literal accessory to any sort of evil!

If I remember correctly, @katlynthecat bravely arrived on the last day of voting to represent the OG MC. I was happy it got at least one vote, so special thanks to you :)

I was also pleasantly surprised that every form got a vote. Even the cutscene-exclusive Crown shards (which is actually a really cool form imo. it's ominous: inexplicably moving and spitting out a magic aura but showing no other signs of life. spooky)!

With all that in mind, I still don't know if I could pick any one of the Crown's forms as the true overlord. The tree has the most historical significance, though, because the Kirby buzz that RTDLDX caused is what got me seriously invested in the series again (I've been a longtime fan off and on).

Clearly, I was a weakling in terms of Kirby extended lore expertise, because at that point I knew nothing about RTDL and I had never heard of this Magolor character. He seemed popular though. Wonder what his deal is.

...OH! So that's why everyone jokes about the fandom having trust issues from multiple adorable offenders. (I did already know all about Marx. Gotta love that guy.)

Hey... wait a minute. Is the boss of Magolor's game mode... the very artifact that consumed his soul? That's pretty metal. I guess it's sapient? A living little conglomerate of hatred, back after over a decade to torment the fandom darling? Though it would earn no thanks... no acknowledgement... it crafted a perfect, Bible-referencing hellscape for Magolor's torment, returning long after time had forgotten its days as the big bad to prove to theorists once and for all that it was alive, it was autonomous, and it was angry!?

...I had to respect that. I respected that a lot, actually. I liked Magolor but I liked the Crown even more. (That renewed passion for the Kirby series is actually what brought me here to Tumblr!)

For a little comparison, here are some of my first drawings of the Master Crown (circa June last year?) compared to this most recent one:

In the left image, you can actually see the first inklings of Master Crown Soul! 😳 It didn't take me long to start cooking up some ideas to flesh out its backstory, and I think the design and themes have come a long way since then. (some of which anyone interested will eventually get to experience in all their glory via my fic. prommies)

In summary: thanks for growing on me, Mistilteinn, and congratulations! It's a great day to be a tree-hugger :)

[pikuniku53353358]

wait what did a-rabid-snake do?? I heard you guys had a serious argument??

Yes, it's true... If you're so interested in what we quarreled about, then fine, I'll tell you. So... She sent all the members of my group in a telegram several times simply because she was in a "bad mood". And when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE (there were also her friends and her ex-girlfriend and boyfriend in this group). She was offended by the fact that we did not comment on her art and ignored her, and when we began to comment on them, she accused us of making stupid jokes and in general we offended her (although there were jokes at the level of a Chinese Saint, since once she drew a Saint in a kimano)

And also she sometimes asked us to give her ideas for art, and when we offered her these very ideas, she said that: "oh, why did I ask you at all, you didn't help me in any way" and other similar hypocritical words. Why hypocritical? Because she herself could say rude words to someone and "joke" about my art (and there were already jokes at the level of the fact that when I drew the spear master in my imagination and there he had something like a skirt made of a piece of SRS fabric, she said that the spear master forcibly tore off this piece of fabric from him and when I said, that this was not the case and that it was done voluntarily, she said that "I like my version of events better." Excuse me, but what the hell?! ). In general, she was constantly offended by any trifle, presented herself as a victim and we had to endure her hot-tempered behavior, for which she NEVER apologized. Do you know why she left the group? Because once someone sent her shooting range list with ships with slugcats in Russian Discord server. Some of us were on this server, and when they noticed this, they sent her a screenshot and said, "Snake, did you send your tier list or did someone else do it?" She said that she did not do it. And one Of the members of our group, he said that he knew this person, found such a coincidence funny and began to laugh at it. That is, it had nothing to do with the Snake at all, the person was laughing not at her or her tier-list, but at the absurdity of the situation itself and the fact that he knew this person. But the Snake misunderstood everything, she thought that they were laughing at her, although we tried to explain to her that this was not the case and she left. And instead of keeping silent about this whole most stupid situation, she told about it in the tumblr and made the members of my group look bad and herself a victim. It's terrible. She did not think about the consequences of her actions, she never seemed to think about the consequences at all. But even after that, I tried to treat Snake well. She also wished my friend death once because he had created a meme for my band and one of her artworks appeared there for a few seconds. In this excerpt, no one insulted anyone or anything, this art was in the public domain, and this meme was not published anywhere outside of my group, which is a LOCAL place, and this meme is also LOCAL. But she somehow found out about this video, showed it in her telegram channel, got attached to the fact that no one has the right to use her art in anything like that, and, as I said, wished him dead.

But the last straw for me was that one day in her telegram channel the topic of discussing ships iterators and slugcats began, and one of my very good friends told Snake to just not pay attention to this if it is unpleasant for her to watch. Person expressed his NEUTRAL attitude towards all ships, but the Snake believed that she treats all ships POSITIVELY and that she supports ships with bestiality, pedophilia and incest, although she did not lay such thoughts. She doesn't care about these ships, but the Snake began to say how this person is disgusting. Another friend of mine, who has a real depression, stood up for my friend. And Snake in response literally sent him to hell. Moreover, before that, she left him to the mercy of fate, stopped supporting him in difficult times and, in principle, somehow communicating with him. The nickname of this person is "Just". That is, she began to insult two people who did NOTHING bad to the Snake, and one of the people had depression and she just sent them to hell. At the same time, she herself is offended by any "rude" word said to her. She is hypocritical... As a result, I got tired of enduring everything And after that incident we have stopped to communicate. If you don't believe me, I can provide screenshots with all the evidence.

[self-spaghettification]

Looks like we’re getting a lot of crazy things in 6x05

which,

1. Considering the potential title “Moonless Night”, 6x05 will possibly be including Rayla being hurt or moon being otherwise metaphorically swallowed, (paralleling s3 swallowing/corruption of the sun’s power),

2. Considering episode 5 follows an episode titled “The Starscraper,” in 6x05 Aaravos is potentially freed at the end of 4 or during 5 and potentially possesses Callum which will lead to all sorts of trouble

3. Considering the connection of a scene between soren and viren with “until 6x05” and all the hints that the most impactful scenes between soren and viren were yet to come…. it seems likely that in 6x05 Soren and Viren will have a very emotionally charged moment together, also possibly with Claudia. Maybe with a confrontation of some kind, also involving the moon?

Let’s delve into this more though—As this potential title has ignited a spark to finally set ablaze and reveal the idea that has been percolating in my mind for months.

Moonless Night (and Why I Believe the Moon is Metaphorically Going to Be Swallowed) A S6 Speculative Meta

with arc1-arc2 parallels, norse mythology examination, reflections analysis and more

As far as I can see, the clue most directly points to Moonless Night. (Edit: which ended up being right!) And there are other reasons I’m on board.

I already went insane over this so let’s get started

A. S3-S6 Parallels

So, I’m a big fan of across arc season parallels as they’ve existed very overtly S1-S4 from the first moment, as well as some other things which in many ways are setup and reestablishment of dynamics (Rayla hesitating and breaking from her duty twice to help/see Callum instead, Harrow and Ezran respectively attempt to break free from the past but they have to acknowledge it, etc) as well as persistently in S2-S5:

and, it seems, *possibly* S3 to S6–

1. If we get another plot against Ezran that’s not a joke (as it is in s4 and many throwaway lines and jokes in tdp come back to bite us)—+“This coming season will test Ezran's pacifist instincts”

2. If Viren returns, something like this—

in contrast to the “I’m sorry it had to happen this way”/“No you’re not.”/“No, I’m not.” because Viren cannot doubt Ezran would be genuinely sorry

Viren would say I know because he gets it now, the new hesitant, less certain version who also feels bad for all he has done, but he wouldn’t have before.

SO… 3. If the Moon were to get metaphorically/literally swallowed on some level in S6, it would parallel 3x07, Hearts of Cinder.

Corruption via Aaravos’s…child.

which, coincidently, brings me to my next point!

B. Norse Mythology

I’ve briefly discussed this before here, but let’s review:

Aaravos’s similarities to Loki

Source: Twitter

But while we’re on Loki’s similarities to Aaravos, let’s consider what his other children are up to during Ragnarok, the end of the world in Norse Mythology, which seems fitting considering all the foreshadowing of what chaos Aaravos has wreaked in the past (Xadia) and present (Lux Aurea) and even future (ominous wording in the reflections) when given the chance.

Loki’s children during Ragnarok:

World Serpent — rises up from the depths, encircles the world and causes great waves and destruction (“The seas churned” 👀)

Hel — From the underworld, “leading an army of the dead, she marches against the gods, uniting with her brothers and other forces of chaos. This culminating battle signifies the cyclical nature of Norse myths; an end that's also a beginning.” [1] Speaking of which, sounds familiar, right? In Ripples:

“While one may say it ends with a sunrise, [beginning] another will insist it ends at nightfall. [end]”

“With its impact came a long and terrible night: The earth bled! The seas churned! The sun and moon hid for weeks behind the sky’s screaming storm!”

“And when the long, dark night had finally passed—for the sun must always rise, mustn’t it?—they gazed out upon an unfamiliar landscape.”

Fenrir— He was gagged with a sword and was destined to lie bound to a rock until the Ragnarök (Doomsday), when he will break his bonds and fall upon the gods. According to one version of the myth, Fenrir will devour the sun, and in the Ragnarök he will fight against the chief god Odin and swallow him. [2]

It’s interesting how Fenrir has even more parallels than Loki to Aaravos here. Trapped by a blade, chained against rocks like Prometheus (one of Aaravos’s primary inspirations) was when his liver (modern heart) was eaten every day, and when he’s freed all hell breaks loose, including swallowing people (see Zym and Aditi) and the sun. But was it him with the sun? Or…..

There’s something there about killing a god and being killed in return and making the stars fall and all the damage Claudia has suffered thus far, but anyway.

That’s right, Fenrir has two children, one who swallows the sun, and one who swallows the moon. During Ragnarok, while, also, the sea shakes. Ahem, back to this:

“With its impact came a long and terrible night: The earth bled! The seas churned! The sun and moon hid for weeks behind the sky’s screaming storm!”

So… earth blood?

Check… churning seas?

World Serpent — rises up from the depths, encircles the world and causes great waves and destruction

Check… sun and moon gone?

Check.

So, what do we do with this information?

C. Interpretation

So Aaravos with two children, one who swallows the sun, one the moon.

Swallowing the Moon

-Involving a Child

1. Most literally: Aaravos has that… homonculus child, which takes and poisons the power of the sun. Maybe we’re getting another of those? I’m honestly scared for what that actually means like is he having another kid for that because 😭

2. What I favor- a metaphor— If you can consider Claudia Aaravos’s child, well, child in law isn’t that far off for the sake of this theory I think it’s possible they team up and somehow metaphorically swallow the moon like Viren and Aaravos did in S3. ….Just taking the moon, corrupting it and using its power— like they did with the Sunfire power— to make troops invisible in their effort to conquer xadia part two (2!) (although this is probably like the nth time that Aaravos has attempted his plan.)

-not involving a child

3. it could also just be disrupting the moon nexus in some way. Aaravos tends to break reflections in one way or another, from mirrors to ripples.

in Ripples he talks about how he dislikes how the stars look down on their perfect reflection (the sea of cast out)

@parroset has written an excellent meta elaborating further on it here, but essentially, he breaks reflections. A reflection is key to the moon nexus, that lake is the moon nexus because it so perfectly reflects the moon. So… there’s something to that. And it would have to come in handy manipulating the veil between life and death.

4. Taking Luna Tenebris’s power in a flashback.

I’ve talked about why I think we’re finally getting Luna Tenebris content before here, but essentially we already got all the dragons in the 4 corners of the map via flashback or interaction, and now only she is left. A flashback on what really went down that day would be perfectly in line with us learning more about Aaravos’s past, perhaps interaction with Kim'dael as well as, hopefully, blood magic—and dark, star, and deep magic. It also fits in with swallowing the moon’s power, as she was a Moon Archdragon. Moonless night. This also ties back to the blood moon cult because they harvest the power of the moon to begin with.

Last but not least and most obvious and exciting to many,

5. Rayla= “Moon girlfriend.” Callum is already being targeted, and likely some terrible thing is going to happen to him up with the rating being up, creators crying over this episode and calling it “heartbreaking” and all of that, so swallowing the moon could be symbolism for her dying or something equally terrible (so he’s forced to exploit dark magic/Aaravos to save her.)

This also ties back to this being the episode following the star scraper and the theory that Callum is a Trojan horse and, once he’s there, all the shit is going down. Maybe Rayla gets in the way and tries to sacrifice herself. I wouldn’t be surprised. or maybe it’s an intentional harm so that Callum has to bring her back… who knows?

It is for you to think about as you see fit.

@beautifulterriblequeen also wrote about other possibilities for the Moonless night here!

D. Symbolism & Misc.

Now let’s talk about the other symbolic evidence pointing to the swallowing of the moon.

The first thing that got me hooked on this theory was actually this page, which we see Viren flipping through, and then in Callum’s sketchbook.

I already analyzed the markings surrounding Aaravos’s signature symbol, but I also found the eclipse and crescent moon especially interesting considering how important the eclipse motif has been in the series and uniquely tied to Aaravos.

Thus far I figured the moon also had to be significant right it also almost seemed to me as if both the sun and moon had a bite taken out of them.

Then, we have the Reflections.

After Darkness

“The writhing, tainted darkness of Lux Aurea’s night sky spread infinitely above him, the stars all swallowed up inside it.”

Ripples

“While one may say it ends with a sunrise, another will insist it ends at nightfall. ” (swallowed sun) (falling stars)

“With its impact came a long and terrible night/And in that endless dark the humans despaired. The humans huddled together, scarcely daring to breathe, awaiting the rise of the sun.”

which, side note- sol regem saying the sun will never rise again for me, karim saying the sun is setting on their kingdom, and aaravos telling viren that the sun will rise and he will not like augh.

Then there’s the more literal interpretations of swallowing the moon and or sun along with the stars - Consider

1, Aaravos is giant

2, Star eating sword

3, Star devourer dragons

And, let’s go back to the crescent.

Waxing Crescents are associated with growing power, which would also be fitting for Aaravos gaining power, possibly a literal powerup.

Let’s also consider what new moons mean- considering the possible name, moonless night, and all the swallowing of the moon, and starting a new cycle, new moons are certainly significant, right? Moonless night- A fresh start. Could be something!

In summary, I believe the moon will be metaphorically swallowed in S6 in one way or another.

I hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading my thoughts! Please feel free to share any insights or reactions of your own!