#that's an ancient dying beast right there

[tiny-steve]

glaciers of svalbard, sept 23

[gojos-thot-patrol]

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Starring: True from! Sukuna in a cabin in the woods... Synopsis: You don't see the point in it; chasing myths on Halloween night, going deeper into the woods than you ever had before. You'd rather be at home than chasing ghosts. But, your best friend insists on finding evidence of the local urban legends, and surely she won't abandon you the moment you find what shes been hunting, right? Content Warning: Tonight we are serving True form (two dicks) Sukuna, double penetration, tummy bulges, cunnilingus, kidnapping, marking, slight dubcon, and a soft Sukuna if you squint. reader discretion is advised

“So, remind me again why we’re taking a walk in the woods on Halloween night?” You asked your friend, narrowly avoiding a thorn vine as you pushed past the brush. 

“Because, historically speaking, people tend to see it on Halloween!” She explained, holding up her camera, “It’s our best chance of finding evidence of the spider demon.” You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at her optimism.

“I don’t know if “Historically” is the right word to use there,” you grumbled softly as you continued your walk together. Ever since the two of you had started taking that Folklore Studies class for an extra college credit she had become obsessed with the local urban legend: The Spider Demon. To her credit, it was a genuinely interesting topic. 

As far back as town hall kept records of, there were sightings of the beast: a giant humanoid man that was covered in ancient markings, with four arms, four eyes, and a giant mouth on his abdomen. Rumor has it, he was the one at fault for all the disappearances that plagued your small town, dragging poor, innocent souls into some far off lair and feasting on their flesh. 

The sane people knew the real reason for the disappearances though; most of those kids hopped a train and got the fuck out of that dying town while they still could. You couldn’t say you blamed them. If you didn’t go to school here, one of the cheaper colleges around, you wouldn’t be here either. 

Your thoughts came to a halt as the two of you came up on an old stream. You knew it well as the boundary between where it was acceptable to play in the woods, and where was off limits. Everyone in the town had followed this rule. Your great grandparents had this rule engraved in their soul as kids, just as your parents and grandparents had, just as you had. And just as your kids would one day. No one really knew why you weren’t supposed to cross the water, just that you weren’t.

And your best friend was trying to hop across. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doin’?!” You yelled as you grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She looked at you as if you had just grown two extra heads.

"I'm crossing the stream?" She asked as if you were the insane one here.

"Yeah, I can see that dipshit!" You snapped, "Why the hell would you do that?!"

"To get to the other side?"

"What are you, a chicken?! You know we're not supposed to cross this stream." Your friend dramatically rolled her eyes, making her annoyance clear.

"The only chicken here is you Y/n." She scoffed. "Come on, it's just water. It can't hurt you." She said in a tone meant to mock assurance. It grinded your bones and made you wonder why you were friends to begin with.

"Don't be like that. Everyone in this town has been told since birth not to cross that stream, there has to be a reason why."

"The reason why is probably so little kids don't drown." She explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the entire world. It made you want to rearrange her teeth. "I'm going to cross the stream and keep the hunt going, are you with me or not Y/n?" She asked.

You took a deep breath. You absolutely were not with her. Every fiber in your being was setting off red flags, you could hear your ancestors screaming at you to turn around, somewhere from the great beyond, both Cain and Abel look at you and say "girl, don't do it." 

And yet, you started to jump across the rocks. As annoying as your friend was, she was still your friend, and you couldn't let her go alone. Your ancestors all collectively face palm, your nerves explode, Cain turns to Abel and shakes his head. There's no saving you now. You swore the air temperature dropped by at least three degrees as you made it to the other side of the stream. You cursed softly as you wrapped your jacket tighter around you, and rushed to catch up with your friend.

“See? We crossed the water and we didn’t explode! Some rules are just made to be broken.” She seemed confident in that, but you still weren’t. Something was so…off. Wrong. But you couldn’t figure out what. The moon was still as full as ever, lighting your way as the two of you walked. Your friend seemed fine, as chatty as hell even. And you were physically okay. Leaves crunched under your shoes, and the crickets chirped-

Wait. No they didn’t. “Hey, shush.” You demanded of your friend.

“What!? Why should I-”

“I said Shut. Up.” You snapped, an unfamiliar edge to your voice taking even you by surprise. She shut up, and you struggled to listen to the sounds of the forest. Except, there were no sounds of the forest. No crickets singing, no owls hooting, not even the rustle of a field mouse in the grass. The woods were completely silent, filled with nothing but the sound of your breathing. 

“Do you hear that?” You asked your friend.

“I don’t hear anything.” She scoffed.

“Exactly. We need to turn back.”

“What?! No way!” She protested with a stomp of her foot. You were really starting to think that Darwinism would not look kindly upon your friend.

“The woods are completely quiet.” You pointed out, “That doesn’t happen unless it has a reason to be quiet. We’re not welcome here.” You tried to argue. You would have been better off arguing with the moon itself. Your friend just shook her head as she continued to walk.

“The woods are always quiet Y/n, its what makes it so peaceful, or whatever.”

“But not this quiet!” You pleaded as you chased after her, still not willing to let her die out here alone. “Dude, please, we need to go-!”

“Ooo, whats that!” Your “best friend” quickly changed the topic as she pointed out a building off in the distance, running off to check it out. You felt your stomach fall to the floor. Who would build anything out here? You ran to follow her, deciding to just drag her back home if you had to. 

“Its a house!” She pointed out with a laugh as the two of you reached the edge of a lawn, “And they even decorated for Halloween, how sweet.” You looked at the house, an old wooden cabin that looked like something a pilgrim would have built back in the 1700s. You were shocked to see lights glowing in the window, indicating the building had electricity. That wasn’t what unnerved you the most though.

That would be the bones littering the yard. Animal and human alike, some looking older than others. All strewn about as if thrown there without any care, or sense of design. They looked more like discarded trash than they did decor, and a morbid part of your brain forced you to ask; do those maybe look a little too real to be made of plastic? You blood felt colder than ice as your throat contracted, an unseen anaconda choking you as your knees threatened to give out.

This place was cursed. “You should go knock.” Your friend smirked.

“I would rather die.” You whispered.

“I’m serious!” She laughed, “Go trick or treating! You’d probably be the first one to do so here.” 

“No way, this isn’t right. Why would they “decorate” for Halloween all the way out here? Why are they out here to begin with? It doesn’t make sense, we need to go.”

“Well, I’m not leaving until you go knock on the door.” Your friend shrugged as if she wasn’t signing your death certificate. “These kind people deserve trick or treaters, and I deserve to take a picture of you scared shitless as you knock on the door.” She laughed.

“That’s not funny!” You snapped, your patience growing thinner as your anxiety grew.

“Oh come on Y/n! Don’t be such a bitch, just go knock on the door and then we can go, okay? I promise.”

“...Swear?” You asked softly, at this point willing to do whatever it took to leave these woods and go home.

“Swear.” Your best friend smiled, locking her pinky with yours. Her smile as angelic, enough to trick you into a facade of ease. You took a deep breath as you approached the door, carefully avoiding the skeletons as you walked. Did they looked chewed on? You didn’t want to think too hard about it. You could feel your heart in your throat, the false courage of your friends pinky promise fleeing faster and faster with every step you took closer to this house. It radiated death.

Climbing the creaky stairs was harder than you anticipated, your jittering joints protesting the very act. You reached a trembling fist to the splintering wooden door, knocking as soft as possible. “H-Hello?” You called out, hating the way your voice quivered, “Trick or Treat!” Your entire body tried to collapse in on itself, the only thing keeping you from doing so was the primal instinct to maintain your ability to run should you so need.

You waited a few seconds, then let out a shaking breath as no one came to the door. As you turned back to your friend, you were blinded by the flash of a camera, freezing you in your place. The sounds of her cackle filled you with rage. You really needed you friends. 

You rolled your eyes. “There I knocked. Are you happy? Can we please go home no-” your words died in your throat as you heard the door open.

“Trick.” a rough deep voice said, deeply unfamiliar to you. You watched your friends face contort into fear and her jaw unhinged itself into a scream as she scrambled to get away. Though, you weren’t able to hear her panic, the ringing in your ears becoming deafening as you felt your feet fall from underneath you, a python of an arm squeezing your stomach as you were lifted into the air, and into the house. 

You tried to grab the door frame as you were dragged into hell, becoming aware of your own screaming ripping through your throat as the frame was ripped from your fingers and the door shut in your face.

“Quite mortal.” The voice said again, and you almost instantly shut up. Something primal in your DNA sequencing knowing better than to piss off this devil. The monster turned you over in his hands, turning you to face him. Your soul left your body. You took in the visage of the beast, your panicking brain struggling to process what was in front of you.

 A giant humanoid man, with four arms, four eyes, and a face and chest full of ancient markings. He was holding you too close to properly see it, not to mention the fact that he was wearing a regal robe, but you would bet an unreasonable amount of money he had a sickening smile on his belly. You were in The Spider Demons claws.

And worst of all, he was kinda cute? Like, maybe it was the unshakeable sense of death that rattled your soul and turned your brain into mush, but if he was like- a normal guy with a normal amount of arms and eyes, you would have been smitten! You were kinda smitten now, even if you didn’t want to admit that. God you…really really hoped this whole experience wasn’t awakening something in you. This would be something to unpack in therapy later- if you survived this.

The demon took your chin in a free hand, turning your head as he examined you. You smelled divine. If you had been a sacrifice for him, he would have given whoever picked you out an A++ for finding you, and a bit more leniency for a while. But, he knew you weren’t a sacrifice. The townsfolk had declared him their enemy long ago, and had been facing the consequences ever since. So, that begged the question.

“Tell me, whats a pretty thing like you doing at my doorstep on the most haunted night of the year?” He asked, turning your head to look him in the eye. 

“Wishing you were a myth.” You went with the first thing that came to your head and instantly regretted it. That might have been a little too honest for this situation. But, at least he seemed to find humor in it, snickering at your quip.

“Keep wishing then human, I’m all too real.” He chuckled darkly. 

“Yeah, I-I see that…Are you going to kill me?” Your voice was shakier than you intended as you asked. You hated it, but the anticipation of what he was going to do was more painful that anything he could have actually done.

“I haven’t decided yet.” He mused as he continued his examination of you. He smiled cruelly as he felt your pulse quicken under his hands. He could smell your fear, and it was intoxicating. Your eyes, blown wide with fear, were stirring something deep down inside of him, and making you far more interesting than any other human he had come across in years.

Or, maybe it had just been a while since he had anyone to fuck. Granted, he had stolen plenty of mortals from your small town, but most of the time they died in the process. Corpses held no interest to him for anything other than food. But you? You were alive and warm, and vulnerable in his claws. That fact alone made the notion of keeping you alive for a little longer far more enticing than killing you just yet. 

“Um, anything I could do to help you make that decision?” You asked softly.

“The decision to kill you?” he questioned

“Well, the decision not too!” You quickly clarified, “Dying sounds kinda, well, not fun  and with you being like, a real thing that kinda makes me question well everything as far as mythology goes and that makes dying really fucking scary and-”

“You’re rambling mortal.” He sneered in annoyance.

“Right! My bad I just- please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything not to die.” You begged, tears prickling the corners of your eyes as you grappled with being forced to face the unknown. You had the beasts attention though, an eyebrow raising at your offer.

“Anything?” He purred, his eyes falling to the swell of your chest and making you greatly regret your word choice. “Anything at all?”

“Anything.” You whispered softly. You reasoned with yourself that this was for your life and definitely not because the thought of getting railed by a blood thirsty demon made you squish your thighs together in anticipation. You for sure didn’t feel a rush of arousal as the thought of something meant to kill you making you cum instead crossed your mind. That didn’t happen, no way, not at all. You weren’t wondering if his dick was as monstrous as he was, or if his markings graced it as well.

“Alright then Human, deal.” He grinned wickedly as he brushed a stray hair behind your ear. “I’ll let you live, if you give your body to me first.” You felt your face burn at his proposal. Something felt fundamentally wrong about spreading your legs for a demon. You weren’t religious or anything, but that had to be some sort of sin. But, if it was for your life, surely you could indulge- I MEAN- endure. 

“Before I agree, we’re not talking about possession, right?” You had to clarify. He smirked at your words. You were cleaver to ask, it showed a familiarity with the supernatural. Maybe you weren’t as foolish as you first seemed after all.

“Smart girl. But no, we’re not talking about possession.” He confirmed. 

“Okay, cool, just checking.” You chuckled nervously. “You got yourself a deal.” His smirk turned into a dark grin as his free hands rushed to your clothes. You panicked, knowing he was going to rip them off and you’d be forced to walk back in the nude. That would have been mortifying.

“Wait wait wait!” You yelped, holding up your arms to stop his hands. 

“What?” He growled, annoyance flooding his tone.

“Let me undress myself.” You requested, “Please? I’ll make it worth your while.” He seemed intrigued and amused, setting you on the ground with an almost unnerving gentleness. 

“Will you now? Lets see.” He hummed. You nodded, taking a few steps back. You took a deep breath and shrugged your jacket off your shoulders. You had never been particularly good at being sexy, at least not in your opinion. But, The monsters eyes could have convinced you otherwise. The way he watched you undress, as if he was a starving man looking at a thanksgiving feast, or a hungry demon looking at his next meal. It gave you the confidence to put on a proper show, teasing him as you slowly shed your clothes.

“I’m Y/n by the way,” You said as your hands reached to unhook your bra, “You got a name, or is it just spider demon?” He huffed humorlessly at your quip. He never liked that title. 

“Ryomen Sukuna,” He said, his eyes setting fire to your skin as you finally dropped your bra for him, “you can call me Sukuna.” 

“Noted.” You nodded as you dropped your panties. His lustful grin showed off his incredibly sharp fangs as he dropped his own robe, the only thing covering him. You confirmed the mouth theory, seeing it spread and hungrily panting across his toned abs. Your breath hitched when you saw when he was working with. 

His dick- or rather, dicks- looked human enough despite the markings, but they were longer and thicker than anything you had taken before. And again, there were two of them. They stood hard and proud against his stomach, twitching to be inside you. You didn’t know if the buzzing in your hands and legs was from regret, or excitement.

You didn’t have time to figure it out either before you were taken back into the demons arms, this time with less violence and more neediness. He pressed you to his stomach, your legs instinctively wrapping around his waist and leaving you open to him.

“You’re pretty brave for a human, you know that?” He complimented as a large tongue lolled out of his stomach mouth and against your soaking core. He chuckled darkly as the muscle shoved itself into your weeping cunt, making you gasp at the sudden stretch, “And such a slut too.”

“Hey, this was your idea, not mine.” You reminded him though breathy moans, trying to ground yourself as your hips bucked against his giant mouth. Every movement of the tongue felt like being touch for the first time, a ripple of pleasure coursing though your stomach and legs, and making you wonder there was something supernatural going on to make a demonic act feel so heavenly.

“True,” He agreed, “But you’re the one that's gushing for a monster when I’ve hardly touched you.” he reminded you, watching the way your face contorted with pleasure as you dropped the act of innocence. He didn’t know what was more arousing to him, watching your resolve dissolve, or just how sweet you tasted as you desperately you rode his tongue. “I was going to kill you just a few moments ago, you know that right?” He growled into you ear.

“Yeah, but you’re fucking me instead. Sounds like a win to me.” You grinned and he laughed at your sudden audacity. He knew he liked you.

“You really are a whore, Aren’t you?” He teased as his tongue slipped out of your cunt and into your ass instead, watching the way your breasts bounced as you flinched and moaned at the sudden intrusion. 

“Not a whore if it’s for my life.” You whined, digging your nails into his shoulders. You were starting to feel light headed from the pleasure pooling in your stomach, your cunt clenching around nothing, pissed off from the loss.

“Whatever you have to tell yourself.” He chuckled as his face fell to the crook of your neck, taking in your intoxicating smell. He could feel his dicks twitch with need as he kissed you there, fighting every instinct in his body to keep from digging his teeth into the thin skin. He tasted your sweet slick as it dripped from your cunt and onto the middle of his tongue, and finally he withdrew the muscle. 

You whined as he did, head dropping to his chest, both holes now clenching around nothing. “No, fuck-” You whimpered, only for him curl a clawed finger under your chin and lift your head to face him. “Sukuna..” You whimpered as you looked into his fire red eyes, darkened by lust. His lips crashed into yours, capturing you in a heated kiss. You sighed against his mouth, hands rising to tangle into his soft pink hair as his tongue tangled with yours.

You screamed into his mouth as you felt him shove both of his cocks into you at once, one for each hole. He growled, biting down on your lip as you clenched around him. “Sukuna!” You gasped as you pulled back from the kiss, your body trying hard to push out the sudden intrusion.

“Relax for me Darling,” He groaned softly, the pet name slipping out without his permission. He pressed his forehead to yours as he rubbed your stomach, trying to ease your pain.

“I-I can’t. Too big..” You panted, trying desperately to release the tension in your shoulders. The stretch was searing you from the inside out. You felt overwhelmed, the pleasure in the pain feeling like static shocks. ���It’s soo much..”

“You can handle it,” He assured you, extremely (perhaps overly) confident in your ability considering you had met less than an hour ago. You shook your head, tears slipping from your eyes. He lapped them up from your face, then captured your lips in a much softer kiss this time. Slowly, your body came to accept his, the tension melting away as his tongue tangled with yours and he eased his way further into you. The burn faded, leaving just the pleasure there, pulsating through you as he pushed deeper. 

He groaned into your lips as he bottomed out into you, stilling both to give you time to adjust and so he didn’t immediately cum in you like a fucking virgin. It was almost embarrassing how good you felt around him, taking him better than any other being had before. You clenched and fluttered around him in a sinful way, bringing him closer to his climax than he would like to admit.

“Told you.” He smirked as he pulled away from the kiss, licking at the string of saliva that connected the two of you. You whined as you looked down to where the two of you were connected, watching a bulge in your stomach appear and disappear with every thrust of his hips. It should have hurt, but no- quite the opposite.

 Every thrust of his hips electrified you with pleasure, sending wave after wave of intoxicating bliss through your nervous system. You had never felt so full before, so complete. You could feel his cocks rub against each other, against your walls inside of you, a dizzying sensation that you had never experienced before. Your hips bucked against him greedily as he fucked you, chasing your high.

“Look at me Y/n,” He demanded, pulling your head up so your eyes connected with his again, “I want you know the demon making you feel so good.” 

“Ryomen-” You whined, forgetting in your sea of lust that wasn’t the name he told you to use. His eyes widened a bit from shock. Mostly because he wasn’t filled with rage by your insolence, but instead a surge of lust from hearing his name fall from your lips. It really had been awhile, he was feeling himself getting attached far too easily. If he knew what was good for him, he would have finished and disposed of you as quickly as possible. He wasn’t interested in what was good for him.

“Say it again.” He demanded, a hand slipping in between you to rub circles into your clit. 

“Ryomen..” You whined, staring at him with fucked out, lust clouded eyes as you trembled in his arms, thighs clenching around his abdomen as the ecstasy crashed through your core and through out your body. You felt your muscles ripple and tense in anticipation. 

“Again,” He growled, pulling you closer to him, and dropping his forehead down to yours. “Who does this cunt belong to?”

“Ryomen..” Your brain was too clouded to make out the rest of his command, your body buzzing and bliss building up inside of you. He picked up his pace, chasing his own high and making you scream out his name in a truly embarrassing and needy moan. 

You clung onto his shoulders and neck, digging your nails into the soft skin there as the euphoria in your veins finally boiled over and hit the fire inside of your stomach, igniting it in an explosion of ecstasy and lust. Your vision exploded with stars and your brain officially clocked out of work as you melted into a puddle. Your legs shaking around him as you leaned against his strong body, unable to keep yourself up any longer.

Your velvety walls quivered around him and sucked him in impossibly deeper, needy and lustful for him. It drove him mad. He watched as your face scrunched in pleasure, your body reacting to him greedily as you melted into the pleasure he he was gracing you with. 

It send him over the edge watching you cum for him, feeling you cum over him, feeling you gush around him. He couldn’t hold himself back any longer, holding you in a grip tight enough to bruise. His fangs buried themselves into your neck, marking you as his and his alone as he came deep inside of you, the warm strings gushing in you and filling you to the point of spilling over.

He held you close to him, head hung back as you both tried to catch your breath. Your mind was starting to clear the fog out, looking up to ask him to put you down before you felt him move inside you again. Your breath hitched as you realized he didn’t even get a little soft. You looked at him with almost horrified eyes as he bucked into you, only acting to encourage him. He looked back at you with lustful and wicked eyes, nipping at your lip as he set his pace and grinned.

“Whats wrong Darling?” He asked, the pet name now fully intentional in its use, “You didn’t think I was done with you yet, did you?” 

🎃🎃🎃

You were warm when you woke up, despite still being in the nude. Probably because of the huge body pressed against yours, radiating heat and holding you close as he slept. Visions of last night ran though your head, making you almost painfully aware of the cum still dripping from between your thighs, and sending another wave of arousal through you. When did you pass out? When did Ryomen?

You stayed still for a few seconds, listing to your bedfellows steady breathing. The bed, despite being made from feathers and thin quilting, was surprisingly soft, and the late afternoon sun filled the old home with a warm hazy light. You realized you couldn’t stay here any longer. You couldn’t get attached to an urban legend. 

You slipped out of his arms, freezing as he groaned and only breathing again once he was softly snoring. You sighed as you slipped out of the bedroom and found your clothes again. You quickly got dressed, and went to open the front door. It didn’t budge. Your eyes furrowed in confusion as you pulled the knob again. What the hell? You pulled with all your might, almost screaming with frustration as the door didn’t even move a centimeter. 

“Don’t bother with that Dove.” You gasped as you heard Ryomens voice behind you, a wave of dread blanketing you as you spun to face him. He was leaning casually against the door frame of the bedroom, a content smile painted on his face. “It has my seal on it. I’m the only one that can open that door.”

[yanderecookierunkingdom]

Six becomes Five

Prev | Next

You were going to crumble Shadow Milk Cookie.

You stood there beside Pure Vanilla Cookie, eyes shrunk as your eyes stared at the weak and dying Elder Faeire Cookie.

You were going to crumble Shadow Milk Cookie, going to crumble him, beat him so badly that his crumbs turned to dust-

A hand gently grabbed yours. Pure Vanilla Cookie looked up at you, eyes filled with concern. "Reader Cookie?" He whispered gently.

".. I regret ever thinking that Shadow Milk Cookie could see reason," you lamented softly. "This.. proves he can't."

You watched as White Lily Cookie accepted Elder Faerie Cookie's plea to become the new Guardian of the Silver Tree.

You closed your eyes.

"HA HA HA HA!!" Shadow Milk Cookie's mocking voice rang out. "No matter what you do, the ending stays the same! Looks like the show is over for our little Guardian!"

"HA HA HA HA HA!!!!"

"That voice!!!" Gingerbrave fumed, gripping his candycane.

"He's still here somewhere...!" Strawberry Cookie gasped.

"I cannot forgive this..." White Lily Cookie narrowed her eyes. "I will bring him down... no matter what it takes...!"

"We'll be right by your side as you do," you declared as you walked over. The Ancient's eyes light up in surprise. "Me especially. Shadow Milk Cookie will pay for this."

"Do you not hold any attachments to him, Sparkling Joy Cookie...?" Silverbell Cookie asked carefully.

"After this.. No." You placed a hand over your amulet. "It's time I finally face the music I've been ignoring for so long."

As White Lily Cookie smiled, and opened her mouth to thank you, but as if to interrupt the sweet moment..

The ground began to rumble, and the bark of the tree c r a c k e d.

"No...!" You and the new Guardian gasped.

Red magic began to consume everything.

"The power of the Beasts!" Your eyes went wide.

"KYAAA HA HA HA HA!!!"

"LET IT BUUUUURRN! LET IT ALL BUUUURN! AH HA HA HA HA!"

"What happened?!" Gingerbrave panicked, bumping into Strawberry Cookie.

As the group began to panic and discuss what needed to be done, a voice began to grow in Pure Vanilla Cookie's mind.

Pure Vanilla Cookie... Pure Vanilla Cookie...! Show me your strength...! The Silver Tree's strength is all gone, don't you see...?! All you need to do is cut it down for good...!

"No... This voice within me..." Pure Vanilla Cookie gripped his head.

"It isn't me...!!!" It isn't you!!!

Cut down the tree...

Don't listen to him, Pure Vanilla Cookie! You know this isn't you!

Cut it down with your own hands...

"No.."

"GET OUT OF MY/HIS HEAD!" The Ancient Cookie shouted, the Light of Compassion echoing with him.

(From his place, Shadow Milk Cookie couldn't help but stumble back. Don't tell him that..

Was the Light of Compassion manipulating you, too? Was it working with the damned Witches?

His anger boiled over, and he slammed his fist against a wall. It was fine! This was fine! He could find a way to make his darling Sparkling Joy Cookie a new Soul Jam.)

You grabbed Pure Vanilla Cookie's hands, and Shadow Milk Cookie could be heard shrieking with anger.

"KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF OF THEM! WHY WON'T YOU OBEY ME?!"

"Focus on me, Pure Vanilla Cookie," you spoke, pressing your forehead against his. "Me and the Light of Compassion. We're all here!"

"YOU! I'M GROWING TIRED OF YOUR PATHETIC CHARADES! THE GUARDIAN LIVES?! WHERE IS HE?!" Shadow Milk Cookie shouted. "WHY WILL PURE VANILLA COOKIE NOT OBEY ME?! WHY IS THE LIGHT OF COMPASSION BETRAYING SPARKLING JOY COOKIE?!"

White Lily Cookie schooled her face. Her staff's end gently hit against the ground as she stood in front of you and Pure Vanilla Cookie. "She." Her grip on her staff tightened. "For I, the Guardian of the Seal, stand right before you! Did you think it was going to be that easy?"

You helped Pure Vanilla Cookie up, refusing to listen to Shadow Milk Cookie's tirade. It didn't matter to you. Even if a new show was beginning.

Half Cookies, who the biggest liar was, and..

"NO!" You cried, watching as strings came and grabbed your helpless friends. "Shadow Milk Cookie, don't!"

"It's alright, Sparkling Joy Cookie!" Shadow Milk Cookie couldn't help a small laugh. He sounded deranged, more than you remember. "Once this little pest of a Guardian is done with, we can deal with these little things together!"

You didn't even think. Your scepter turned to a fork as you pointed it. You glared at him. "We'll see about that."

It was a pity. Once upon a time, you loved all the Beasts. You cared for them deeply. You loved them all in your own way. Your heart beated faster around each of them, but never usually in the way of Shadow Milk Cookie.

As you helped battle him, intentionally taking hits meant for White Lily Cookie, those memories come to the forefront. Times where you would participate in his plays and read stories with him.

A particularly nasty blow reveals some old scars. You keep on moving.

You remembered when you would come to visit him in his tower whenever you were feeling down. You'd cuddle up next to him as he read you some new books he was reading.

There's a nasty blow to your side, and you stumbled. You jam your fork into one of his shadows and fling it away.

You remembered the days and nights following your discovery of their corruption. How it stung and how it hurt. How you wept and wept, praying that it wasn't real. It couldn't be real. They couldn't be gone.

And yet you watched as they descended. As they became obsessed with you. You wished and hoped with all your might that you could save them, but Compassion can only go so far.

Your dance, their cries of anguish, were all so far away, but the memories always stayed. You were oh-so hesitant to connect with your new friends, the Ancients especially. But they proved virtuous, loving, and caring.

Pure Vanilla Cookie, who was practically a foil to Shadow Milk Cookie, gave you the courage to love again.

You'd never experienced pain, as the only ones who could ever hurt you were Cookies of equal power.

Out of the corner of your eye, Shadow Milk Cookie launches an attack towards White Lily Cookie. You don't even think.

You shoved her out of the way as the attack slammed into you.

There was a

CRACK

as the attack intended to crumble White Lily Cookie slammed into you and your Soul Jam. You were flung back, body shrinking as you slammed into the wall behind you, it cracking from the force of the impact.

You fell and hit the floor, your magic no longer able to keep up your Primordial form.

Shades of blue and black were the last thing you saw.

taglist: @snail-noodle @average-crk-enjoyer @looking4userthatworks @ori-stole-the-cheese-again @sqiddgie @justalittledumb @ax0lotly @ihatemyselffromthestart-blog @ravenkake @ohnoivefallen @craixe

HAVE ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER! But I also tried something a bit new for this. Tell me what you think!

This does have a happy ending! But I wanted to experiment with this, mostly in the sense of making SbF!Shadow Milk Cookie more delusional in his desire to have You/Sparkling Joy Cookie back. He'll definitely use this as an excuse to blame White Lily Cookie.

[seffyriath]

okay here is my weird take about what emet-selch might have done regarding zenos and whatever "experiment" was going on

Joke answer: he's a dragon stuffed into a human body

serious answer: it's the same as the joke answer but longer and explained in an incoherent way.

i think we've been given hints about what the fuck was going on with Varis's Large Adult Son even after endwalker, but i need to reference other things to do that, so let's break it down:

-We have been given more insight into how Memories and Souls work and interact in this setting, especially after Dawntrail. We know that it's possible to implant memories onto a soul that didn't originally have them, and it works fine if you have the technology to do this

-Emet-Selch's whole job involved souls and the lifestream

-We've seen Athena also bring back ancients, in a temporary way, by reconstituting soul stuff and grabbing the memories for those ancients, since souls and memories are essentially different kinds of aether. if you've played FFVII at all, you already know this. one would assume that Emet-Selch would manage reconstituting souls a lot better

-there are some memories that are so powerful that they are blasted or etched into your soul, which is why some faded memories can stick around from past lives

-We know that Emet-Selch was seriously thinking of a way to bring the ancients back without rejoinings, and this was probably attempted via his literal large adult sons and their descendants.

-dragon's souls, as far as we know, are unsundered.

-fitting with the Sephiroth and Jenvoa parallel, they are also canonically aliens

about Zenos:

-the devs have said that he was "born wrong" and that's why he's like that. this seems different than "born evil" because Lyse assumes that this wasn't the case, and that's not the normal philosophy for the game. characters have been wrong before, but if he was experimented on, this is likely referencing Sephiroth, who was also born wrong on purpose, as a joke, via tampering in the womb

-people in the world still have vague, ephemeral memories of the ancients, but Zenos is different. Zenos has upsettingly visceral memories of the final days but he also views the world like the ancients do, particularly regarding accomplishing your life's purpose and then dying right after as a positive thing. this is why his actions at the end of stormblood do not read as suicidal to not just me, but the characters. they're really confused about why he does this! Zenos acting the way he does seems to be the answer to why the ancients tried to emphasize a more communal existence, because what happens when the most powerful motherfucker on earth is also a prince in an extremely hierarchical society? you get Zenos

-However, Zenos also follows the rule of beasts and is much more beastlike, similar to dragons. Dragons aren't evil, but they have extremely different cultures and views than humans, because they're functionally immortal and don't need to reproduce. they are power manifest, and can easily take over an ecosystem. Midgardsomr's covenant with Hydaelyn most likely prevents this, but the point is that dragons are pure power, and that's what they respect the most. like Zenos, although being raised as he was probably made this even worse

-Zenos seems pretty dysphoric, but it doesn't seem to be directed at any gender. he's stated that he doesn't care about his name one way or the other, and that he only wants his body back from Elidibus because of how powerful it is. he otherwise doesn't seem to care about normal human experiences, like human food or sex, or just companionship in general with other humans. as far as food goes, he's the only villain to do this, as the writers tend to get into what foods the characters like in the lore books, even the villains. you can't really say that this is just the product of being a royal or someone in power. even Thordan has a favorite food, and even Varis had a childhood friend, who we've actually met.

-both in The Hunt Begins and in general, Zenos actively wants to be able to use and manipulate aether. this is odd, since Garleans are constantly told that magic is evil and bad, but Zenos goes out of his way to try to do this, including piercing himself with a crystal where the aether exchange could kill him. this could be because his great grandfather is a sorcerer of eld. it could be because dragons not being able to use magic would feel extremely unnatural to him. why not both?

-He seems. REALLY excited when he transforms into Shinryu. like, weirdly excited. i get it, it would probably own being a dragon, and you could say that he was just really excited about fighting the wol the first time, but this has happened twice now, and every time he almost sounds like Susano with how excited he is. it's a total fucking mood shift. also in his last fight he still keeps the Shinryu attacks. since it's in a place that's ruled by emotions, one has to assume that he's attached to them

-He literally has a horde (of weapons)? i know we don't see a lot of FFXIV dragons do this, but Vrtra has a horde that he uses as a bank. what's up with that.

-He doesn't really have a coda yet, and while i don't think he's going to be brought back, or that he NEEDS to be brought back, the wol seems like they're just starting to be comfortable with thinking about what Zenos's deal is with enough time and distance

-how d. how did he know that dragons can just lay eggs like that. yeah he could have READ about it but like. how did he figure out how to do that in the fight. and why. why did he just doooo thaaaat.

IN CONCLUSION i think that in a bid to try to bring ancients back into the world through unnatural means, Emet-Selch took the closest recently dead unsundered soul he could find at the time (a dragon's), imprinted some of his memories onto it (as one would do when making the convocation crystals) and put that shit in a baby. thanks.

[thegnomelord]

PLEASEEEEE UR IDEA WITH MAGE M!READER AND MONSTER!COD MEN I'D LOVE THAT SO FICKING MUCH AND YES I AGREE THERE IS A LACK OF ALL THE VIOLENCE

Pov of how the world sees the reader Vs how TF141 reader :D. I'm in the middle of writing the first chapter of a fic with this idea, but guess who contracted TB like some coal miner 😞, me! So here's a sneak peak for the sort of vibe I'm going for while I'm trying to recover:

P.S: Ya'll are free to suggest/requests with this idea cause!

P.S.S: Check out bluegiragi who came up with this AU and give her some love!

Mages and Monsters

Mages are strange creatures.

In a world so full of monstrous hybrids and mythical creatures, mages sit on the proverbial line separating man from monster, stuck in both worlds without any hope of fitting in either one.

Because outwardly, they're average. No different from the billions of other humans. They're not born with the marks of monsterdom; they don't possess horns or leathery scales to shrug off small caliber bullets like dragons do, nor the claws and bone crushing jaws of werewolves, not feathered wings and razor sharp talons of harpies, nor the wraiths ghostly ability to become immaterial.

Outwardly, they're average. Ordinary. Mundane. Human...

Almost.

Because Price and Ghost are experienced enough to see the thing laying beneath the paper thin veneer of normality, are seasoned enough to quickly notice the one thing that puts an 'in' before a mage's 'human' description — Magic. Not the smoke and mirror kind magicians or charlatans use to swindle tourists out of money, but real magic.

The ancient kind, the capricious kind, slumbering like a beast inside the hollowed out cavern of a heart until it awakens with a terrible bloodlust. Each of them can attest to this; Price sports gnarled patched of scar tissue on the scaleless parts of his arm from ice burns, his draconic breath having saved him from frostbite that had devoured more than a few good men. Though Ghost doesn't show much skin, one can sometimes catch sight of branching fern patterns on his neck where lightning magic had shot through him. Gaz's back is peppered with hundreds of little cuts where a glass mage's summoned elegant ornaments had shattered into millions of shards, aiming to take out his wings.

And now Soap sports a mark of his own, his side tender red and blistered with a second degree burn. It could have been much worse, your flames were hot enough to melt steel, the only thing having kept him from an early cremation being the two solid concrete walls your magic had had to travel through to hit him and the enhanced regeneration of his thick hide.

But such power demands a cost — one paid in blood. For magic is as fickle and capricious as a rabid dog, just as eager to lunge for your throat as it will at the enemies, leaving lasting wounds for all to see; rough and calloused palms, skin blackened from blazing heat and freezing cold or marked with fern patterns of electricity, fingers stiff and marred with cuts from thorns and crystals and rock and glass, bone deep cuts where the liquid mana had burst out from the skin, leaving faintly glowing scars that never heal right.

All mages are born with this grievous gift, though one never knows whether it will present itself with a pitiful flicker of embers in a man's dying breath, or with a maelstrom of an infant's first hiccup. That's why most mages are sealed, by choice or force, a process which puts chains on the magic, making it and the mage docile.

But you are unsealed. And you flaunt that fact readily by melting the tail of their APC helicopter with one spell, not even waiting for them to crash before flooding the terrain with suffocating ash, the lenses of their gas masks already fogging up from the heat as they get out of the cloud of heavy sediment before it bursts to flames.

Sometimes the magic becomes unsatisfied with the weakness of the body, demanding more than just its pound of flesh and molding the body like clay to better suit it— Mage Marks, they're called — the subtle glow of magic in your eyes, the mana visibly pulsing inside your chest, the skin of your arms slipping away like wet paper before growing anew, this time mimicking the surface of magma, or the rocky barnacle encrusted reef, the gnarled bark of a tree, the crystalline inside of a geode, the ice spiked ground of tundra, or any other form that suits the magic in your veins.

The process is excruciating, the mana burrowing and gnawing on every nerve like a parasite that replaces what it eats with itself. But to you, that's an acceptable loss, because marked mages far surpass their unmarked fellows, your magic stronger and wilder, feral and viscous like the primordial force of nature.

So it becomes concerning when you're laying on the floor, captured, battered and bruised and calm.

Ghost had been waterboarding you for a while now, your body tied to a chair that had been tipped back so you were parallel with the ground. With water pooling around your head, your top half would have been soaked to the bone had your magic not been simmering in your veins, the magic suppression momentarily reducing the raging inferno in your chest to a meager flicker of flames.

They can't kill you, but limiting your magic for even a second is death in and of itself.

Your breathing is harsh as Ghost pulls away the cloth over your mouth, asking you a question as steam rises from your skin. Most would give in long before this point, but you just grin, eyes glowing with a burning glow, and make a comment about how good his arse looks from your viewpoint.

You manage only one small note of laughter, pitiful embers sparking at the corners of your lip, before Ghost drops the rag back over your face and begins anew.

Price watches all of this, sharp draconic eyes noting how the mana glows in your chest, pulsing like a second heart (assuming you had one to begin with), noticing how the water turns to steam a little faster when it splashes over your skin.

And Price knows.

You... You are going to be trouble.

[bridenore]

HD Hogwarts founders fic recs

Here are a few Harry/Draco recs revolving around the Hogwarts founders. Listed in alphabetical order, as always.

Annus Mirabilis by Ren [39k]

Harry and Malfoy are trapped at Hogwarts around the time the school was founded. Stuck with a different way of doing magic, with no chocolate, and with each other, they have to find a way to work together if they want a chance to go home.

In Plain Sight by oldenuf2nb / @dianacopland [37k]

Draco Malfoy had stopped believing his wishes would be granted long ago. He could perhaps be forgiven for being startled, then, when one of them came true.

Manticoria by @lol-zeitgeistic [70k]

In the dangerous days after Voldemort’s fall, Harry struggles to find a way to be with Draco—again. But as the magical world threatens to die all around them, it might be more difficult than he thought. Includes dying wards, dying beasts, and love struggling to live; sentient magic, wandlore, Founder lore, potion lore, and ward lore; and of course there is Zacharias Smith to ruin everything, as usual.

Turn From Stone by @harryromper [45k]

Something happened in the hours after the final battle, after the evacuation of the living and the dead. As the last of the survivors left the castle, and as the castle itself turned its wounded back on them all. The loss of Hogwarts has been felt by their entire community. And it’s something that needs to be put right.   Harry knows there’s nothing he can do to stop Hermione (war hero, historian, author of the reissued “Hogwarts: A History”) once she sets her mind to something. Even an extremely risky last-ditch effort to restore the ancient castle and lay its newest ghosts to rest. What he wasn’t counting on was her insistence that Draco Malfoy be part of the plan.

Until Dawn’s First Light by valinorean [50k]

Harry and Draco find a mysterious portrait in Hogwarts that tells them about different stories of people in the past. But suddenly, strange things begin to happen as each story unfolds.

Wish Upon a Star (As Dreamers Do) by @icmezzo​   [27k]

There’s plant magic and celestial magic and dark magic and the normal magic that allows Harry to use a spell to clean his socks when Myrtle’s taken up in his laundry room again. Then there are wishes, and dreams, and love, and those are even more magical still.

I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did!

[blueteller]

Hi, dear person! Do you happen to know around how old Bud was when he used the cup or if he was already mercenary king? I feel like he probably became that afterwards but cannot remember if it was mentioned for the life of me or even what did bro have that he was dying TT

Sorry for bothering you with this but idk who'd be able to answer. The fandom wiki didn't mention it.

Hello, dear person!

I honestly did not recall whether Bud ever used the jar himself or not at first. So I searched for any mention of it. Here's what I found:

‘Based on the history left with my family, the jar has been used three times until now.’

-TCF Part 1 Chapter 347

And:

‘Is it fine to just bring that jar out? Isn’t it an ancient artifact?’ ‘Yes.’ The Mercenary King then continued in a serious tone. ‘You just need to return it within three days.’ […] ‘…Does that mean Eruhaben-nim can’t break it when he uses it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Why?’ Bud Illis had looked down. ‘The curse of the wind blades around Wind Island will chase after the person who took the artifact and destroyed it.’ One of the gatekeepers in the Mercenary King’s household had tried to steal the ancient artifact and run. However, that gatekeeper was killed like the other corpses of Wind Island three days later. Even the gatekeeper’s family members were all killed except one person to continue the line. They were killed even though they were not at Wind Island. The wind was said to have chased after them no matter where they were. As for the ancient artifact, it was swept up by a whirlwind and returned to its proper spot. ‘Nobody dared to desire that ancient artifact after that. Many gatekeepers never even went into the temple because they were afraid of the curse.’ They were worried that they might get greedy and try to run with the ancient artifact. They were also worried that they would use it to heal someone and the jar would reach its limit. Many different fears prevented the gatekeepers from taking it. ‘But you were a gatekeeper who went in and used it?’ ‘You’re right. I am a bit brave. Thanks to that, I was able to determine the approximate number of remaining times it could be used, as well as its limits. What do you think? Friend, don’t you think you’re going to lose this drinking bet?’

-TCF Part 1 Chapter 349

Bud Illis said that the jar had been used three times, according to his family's history. Which means there were two before himself, with additional one who tried to steal the jar. Making Eruhaben the fourth and last person to use it.

Bud's age isn't specified, but since Adin's men found out a rumor about an aritfact that could "give a person a new life", I assume it was old news; there is quite big distance between the two continents and international information flow is slow, even taking Arm into account. And the jar was supposed to be a secret, so. So the events when Bud used it took place probably quite some time before canon timeline.

Bud is a regular human, he can't be REALLY old like Beast People or Elves or Dragons; his age is never specified, but the fact that he's never described as very young or very old makes me believe he's somewhere in his 30's. Personally, my headcanon is that Bud found Glenn Poeff injured when they were both young (I imagine them as teenagers, maybe around 14-18, it would fit with the timeline of when the Eastern Assassin Households fell) and used the jar to save his life. It's exactly the sort of thing Bud would do, "being a bit brave" and all, and it would make sense how the rumor would start. It would also explain the bond between the two and the sort of dynamic they have, with Glenn not being surprised when Bud acted reckless. It would fit well with how TCF friendships work in general.

I couldn't find any more information about Bud and the jar in the novel, but I might have missed something. Remember, most of that are my personal speculations. In any case, I hope it can be useful :)

[insipid-drivel]

Toxins, Venom, and Poisons in Historical Western Medicine: How Are We Not Extinct From Doing Some Of This To Ourselves?

This piece is an involuntary piece inspired by @writing-with-sophia's awesome post "Poison list", which is an accurate and succinct list of commonly known (and ancient!) poisons, venoms, and toxins that have been and were used for causing poisoning in ancient and recent history. I wanted to write this because what struck me by their post crossing my dash was, the sheer number of poisons listed that were - and even still are - used as mainstays for healthcare around the world throughout the ages!

OBLIGATORY DON'T BE A DUMBASS PSA: If you're planning on incorporating these poisons into your HISTORICAL-era writing, it's also important to remember that many of them were used for medicinal purposes at one time, too, and it's great you're interested in learning about the subject! And also, you shouldn't try ANY of these! I will not tell you how to do it at home if you DM me, so don't! You are not appropriately trained to do it! You will harm or kill yourself and possibly your loved ones if you fuck around with any of these and it will be 100% your fault and you absolutely should feel bad bout it! I've seen some of you idiots believe 4chan posts about making home-grown crystals using recipes for actual mustard gas and seen you being wheeled into the ER on the news! I will not feel bad if you get yourself hurt if you screw around with any of these plants, elements, or animals!

Resource blog plugs and PSA over, now for the Hilariously Poisonous Medicines:

If you're writing something that's meant to take place prior to the advent of our more modern understanding of poisons, venoms, and toxins, factoring in "this is toxic to me NOW, but what about 500 years ago?" can add a lot of opportunities for interesting plot elements to your story.

These can include someone accidentally poisoning themselves with a toxic drug or substance that wouldn't have killed them if they'd handled it properly - like tansy? Grows all over the place in Europe and England? That'll kill you if you harvest it too late in the season, but it's good for intestinal parasites when it's harvested early in the year and processed right.

Did the lady's maid really kill her mistress with belladonna? Or was she trying to secretly help her mistress get rid of an unwanted pregnancy?

The protagonist's children can't survive to make it to weaning age! Is the wetnurse a poisoner, or does the milkman hide that he sells sour milk by pouring Borax into it so no one could taste it and has no idea he's killing his clients' babies?

Nuance and cultural mores regarding historical views about poisons and toxins can make writing even more fun, dynamic, and interesting! Explore 'em!

Just... please don't try any of this crap yourself. You will poison yourself, it will hurt, you will die, and you will hurt the entire time you're dying. Using OP's master list alone, here's the flip side of these lethal beasts through the eyes of our distant ancestors who believed illness was caused by "vapors", "bad air", and "imbalanced humors":

Hemlock:

Used across multiple different cultures in history. When properly administered to treat a disease, poison hemlock was used to treat asthma, whooping cough, bronchitis, joint/bone pain, muscle cramps, and insomnia. Hemlock was most often used as a sedative and antispasmodic.

Arsenic:

Arsenic is a heavy metal, and so has been used in everything from making specialty dyes for wallpapers (Scheele's green is the most infamous arsenic-based paint; Queen Victoria once had a guestroom in her palace redone with Scheele's green wallpaper. The first dignitary to stay there had to be carried out and taken to emergency care after breathing astronomical amounts of arsenic dust from the wallpaper's paint), to medicine. Arsenic was especially commonly used in history to treat skin ailments ranging from acne, to psoriasis, to syphilis sores. It was also sometimes prescribed for menstrual cramps, upset stomachs, colic, and arthritis, among many, many other things.

Cyanide:

Uh... I have literally never found any evidence of cyanide in medicine, outside of its use in modern medicine as part of certain chemical lab tests for measuring urine ketone bodies that involve no contact with a patient whatsoever. Cyanide literally works in less than a few seconds to render your entire body incapable of absorbing OR using oxygen in your lungs or already existing in your blood. Cyanide is really only good at making things that breathe not breathe anymore.

Nightshade:

There are a lot of different "nightshades", so being specific is essential here. Potatoes are nightshades. Tomatoes are nightshades. Calling anything a "nightshade" does not inherently mean it's lethally toxic. Belladonna is probably the most notorious of the "deadly" nightshades, but to this day, is still used medicinally, and would actually be seen as a health and cosmetic mainstay in historical fiction, especially if your setting is in Italy!

Belladonna is an Italian portmanteau for "beautiful woman", because tinctures (water-based drops) of belladonna were commonly used by Italian women as eyedrops to dilate their eyes and appear more attractive, aroused, and desirable. Today, belladonna's eye-dilating effects are still used by optometrists to dilate the pupils! Belladonna has been, and still sometimes is used as an NSAID, general painkiller, motion sickness treatment, asthma medication, and even as a treatment for IBS.

Ricin:

As OP said, Ricin is derived from the toxin found in Castor Beans, and is surprisingly new as an official "the only reason this is made is to make someone dead" poison. Not only is ricin a popular "nobody would think to test for this!" choice in mystery/thriller writing, but it has been used for political assassinations in real life before. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian anti-Communist dissenter and writer, was killed in 1978 with a 1.7mm diameter ricin-coated pellet shot into his thigh muscle by an unidentified assailant using a modified umbrella as a gun. He died 4 days later.

Historically, castor OIL has been used for medicinal purposes, especially for treating constipation, inducing labor in pregnancy, and as a topical skin moisturizer. If you've ever watched the opening scene in Disney's "Peter Pan", when the childrens' mother is trying to give them a spoonful of medicine each, she's actually giving them castor oil! Castor oil tastes really bad (so much so that flavorings like cinnamon were often added to try to muffle the taste), so the childrens' reluctance and disgust at their mom making them take their medicine is very realistic for the era the movie came out in!

Strychnine:

Another lethal poison that started life as a medicine/food additive. Strychnine is no longer used medicinally at all today, but historically, it was used to stimulate the heart, treat bladder and bowel incontinence, and limb palsy. Strychnine is a deadly-powerful muscle stimulant that, as a poison, causes horrifyingly painful full-body strictures (spasms) and destroys the cardiovascular system. (Fun fact: Strychnine and hydrochloric acid were historically mixed into cheap vodka to make knock-off gin, especially during the Georgian Era in England if the brewer didn't have or couldn't afford juniper berries!)

Snake Venom:

Seriously, do your research before you write an actual, real snake species using venom they don't produce! The Big 3 Forms Of Snake Venom are: Hemotoxic, Neurotoxic, and Cytotoxic. Specific snake species exclusively generate the same kind of venom (so a hemotoxic snake will ALWAYS produce baby snakes that also make hemotoxic venom). Aristotle himself wrote in 380 BC that certain snake venoms could be applied for treating fevers, smallpox, and leprosy, and there is even some evidence in the historical record prior to the 1800s that different cultures have experimented throughout the eons with using venom for converting into antivenom, but I've never found a source citing anyone making a successful form of antivenom until around the 1850s.

Digitalis:

OP really nailed the important thing about Digitalis, and that is it's cardiac benefits for certain people - particularly for treating congestive heart failure. Vincent van Gogh was actually prescribed epilepsy medication that likely contained Digitalis, aka Foxglove, and there are some prevailing theories about van Gogh's love of bright yellow paint as being either caused or exacerbated by the symptoms associated with digitalis use, which can cause an attraction to and increased visual sensitivity to the color yellow. In several portraits, including one of his own psychiatrist, van Gogh shows subjects presented alongside foxglove flowers. Digitalis is absolutely lethal if consumed or taken without expert guidance, however, because it's the mother ingredient of Digoxin. Digoxin isn't used as frequently as it used to be a few decades ago, but it's still used and prescribed today for certain forms of heart failure and heart disease. Digoxin was also, at one time, was also sometimes used to induce chemical abortions.

Lead:

Dear god, lead. Not only is it so slow to kill you that you'll think that the only way to manage your symptoms is with more lead, but lead poisoning can be a life-long crisis for a person who is regularly exposed to it. Humans have used lead for everything from plumbing, to paint, to our cutlery, to cosmetics, to medicine. While yes, it is very possible to ingest enough lead in a single sitting to die within hours or days, most sufferers of lead poisoning experience it for years or decades before the symptoms become obvious. Some archaeologists believe that the Romans used lead cutlery because lead has a unique reaction when we lick it: when you have lead coating your tongue, it makes EVERYTHING you eat suddenly taste 10x better. I learned this myself from going target-shooting with my mom at a gun rage as a teenager, inhaled gunsmoke (which contains lead), and went for lunch immediately after. Even though I was just eating a $5 meal from In-N-Out, my burger tasted so good I thought I was gonna have to change my pants. When I asked the rangemaster at the target place about it later, he literally said, "Oh yeah, lead makes the worst cooking taste like heaven."

The ancient Romans ate a lot of rotten, spoiled, and sour food, and so lead would've made it easier to eat it back then. But the neurological effects of lead poisoning are nightmarish. It's suspected that, in America, the #1 reason we had so many active serial killers in the country from the 1940s-2000s was because of leaded gasoline. Ever since leaded gasoline was banned? Serial and random violent crime rates have dramatically gone down, especially in metropolitan cities. Ancient Rome, too, gradually became an increasingly violent city as its population went up and its reliance on lead did. We're only just now starting to figure out how toxic lead actually is, so go nuts with using it as a plot element regarding subjects like "Why Are You Like This?"

Mercury:

Mercury is also known as quicksilver, because in spite of being a heavy metal, the temperature at which it melts into a liquid is very, very low compared to most other metals. The first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, was rumored to be so obsessed with the notion of immortality that he would send his doctors on doomed voyages around the world searching for a legendary substance that would, indeed, make him immortal. Legend has it that some doctors who were tasked with the job found out about the last guys, and produced mercury before Emperor Qin Shi Huang and cried, "Here it is! I got it!" so they wouldn't end up doomed to drown at sea. Qin Shi Huang became so obsessed with ingesting and medicating himself with mercury that, when his legendary tomb was being constructed, he had a small-yet-accurate-to-scale map of China+the known world about the size of a football field with every body of water full of fountains of running mercury in his burial chamber. His tomb was rediscovered in the last couple of decades after archaeologists found suspiciously high levels of mercury in the soil on top of a "hill" that had been sitting in the countryside untouched for thousands of years. It turned out to be Qin Shi Huang's long-lost tomb.

Since those days, mercury has closely been associated in early medicine as a sort of cure-all, since it literally kills anything it touches (including people). Captain Blackbeard himself, the most notorious pirate in Western history (Western specifically; google who Zheng Yi Sao was), was known or widely believed to be a syphilis sufferer, and desperately sought infusions of mercury from ships he'd capture (and the doctors onboard) to treat it, believing like everyone did that mercury could cure syphilis. It can't. They just didn't understand back then that syphilis starts off surface-level, and then eats your brain years after the initial infection.

Aconite:

Again, ridiculously toxic outside of specific medicinal applications that still aren't safe today! Aconite, or wolfsbane, has historically been used as a heart sedative (for slowing the heart), diuretic, painkiller, and even used to induce sweating. Evidence of wolfsbane being used for medicinal purposes has been spotted here and there over thousands of years throughout the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Empires, but its original use came about in Ancient Greece for hunting and culling wolves by poisoning bait-food with it. That form of hunting died out long before the European Middle Ages, but the name "wolfsbane" stuck. Mostly because in the Middle Ages, a lot of people believed werewolves were a huge problem, and kept wolfsbane handy to deter said werewolves.

Thallium:

Today, thallium is mostly used in the production of camera and eyeglass lenses. Before its toxicity was known about, it wasn't strange to hear of thallium being used topically to treat fungal infections like ringworm. Thallium was also sporadically used in treating typhus and tuberculosis, along with a wide array of sexually transmitted diseases.

This list doesn't even touch the tip of the toxic iceberg when it comes to the sheer quantity of hilariously dangerous toxins people have, or still continue, to use for medicinal purposes! In a Victorian-era English London middle-class townhouse setting alone, there were dozens and dozens of ways to poison or otherwise harm yourself just by going about your daily life. So, if you've got a period piece you're working on, or are just bored, you can pick an exact date and time in our history and learn just how terrifyingly comfortable our ancestors were with upsettingly dangerous substances and home remedies. You can also watch a massive docuseries, called "Hidden Killers" and hosted by historian Suzannah Lipscomb, among other historians and archaeologists, which deep-dives into the hidden and unknown dangers of living in eras from Tudor-Era England, to the Post-WWII Reconstruction Age.

As a final note: I am NOT bashing Chinese or Eastern medicinal practices here, and in fact deliberately have gone out of my way to not include any references toward culturally-sanctioned medicinal practices in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. This post is specifically related to the history of WESTERN medicines and their associated history. I am not, nor have I ever been, a doctor of any traditional Eastern medicinal practices, and do not pretend to know better. Sinophobes are unwelcome in my blog space.

[hogwartslegacyreactions2]

Hello I am a big fan of your work But I have a request (if request are even open then u can ignore it) how would the HLC characters react to MC being able to transform into a Hungarian Horntail dragon? (Btw have a great day or night and drink water please)

A/N: Blog rules and request updates are put on the pinned post at the top of the blog! If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a DM :3

HLC REACT TO MC TURNING INTO A HUNGARIAN HORNTAIL

MC still doesn't know the limits of ancient magic, but apparently, it includes being able to transform oneself into a powerful magical beast of their choice for a time. Today, the beast of choice was the ferocious Hungarian Horntail dragon. Admittedly, MC was just showing off.

They show their closest friends and mentor the full transformation and even a fireblast demonstration. Then they sit pretty to soak in the praise. They know they look cool.

SEBASTIAN SALLOW: His jaw was already on the ground when MC transformed, but it somehow got lower when he witnessed the 40ft jet of fire rise from MC's maw. Such POWER. He wants to see MC decimate a dark wizard outpost. Set fire to EVERYTHING!

OMINIS GAUNT: He can feel the rumble of the earth beneath him with every step MC takes. The heat of the flames makes him turn away. Just the low rumble from MC's throat sends shivers down his spine. This is the closest he EVER wants to get to the real thing. Even though he knows it's MC, it's a scary experience.

ANNE SALLOW: She's more collected than her brother, but still as excited over MC's ability to burn everything in their path. Just thinking about what MC could do with a single breath makes her giddy. She's as much a firebug as Sebastian, she's just better at keeping her head.

IMELDA REYES: She is a simple woman with simple interests. See dragon, must race. Fly MC! Show her what you're really made of! Bet she could fly circles around them. Bet they can catch her? Prove it!

NATSAI ONAI: She'll beat Poppy to the punch about asking for rides. The spines make it challenging but she'll figure something out. She grabs MC by the nostrils and gets in their face. "Let me ride you! ...wait, that sounded-... You know what I mean!"

GARRETH WEASLEY: He NEEDS to hear them roar. Dragons are so strong that they don't even need to use fire. A roar from a fully grown dragon at close range can shatter eardrums. You feel the shockwave of sound go through your body. His ears ring for a bit even though he covered them.

LEANDER PREWETT: He's feeling so inadequate as a wizard. He can barely balance on a broom right and MC can transfigure themself into a mother loving DRAGON. No fair...

AMIT THAKKAR: He's dying to know how this works. This is magic that's either never been seen or never recorded, because he's never even heard of anyone capable of this without being some sort of rare animagus. MC needs to be studied, and he's the one to do it. Next to the stars themselves, MC is the universe's greatest mystery.

EVERETT CLOPTON: Dragons scare the ever living shit out of him. They're big, powerful and sometimes go after broom flyers when hungry. Hell admire MC from a distance. Like, way back behind the stoney hill, distant. Please don't come closer, he will cry.

POPPY SWEETING: She's absolutely ECSTATIC! She can examine a powerful dragon up close that isn't trying to eat her. It's a dream come true! She does circles around MC, taking in every detail. She takes out a small, leather bound book and a piece of charcoal and sketches every part MC lets her study. When MC puts their snoot right up against her, she actually squeals a little with excitement. She gets to TOUCH a live dragon. She's on cloud nine and never wants to come down.

ELEAZAR FIG: When MC tells him this is something they could do thanks to ancient magic, the only thing he can think is: "Miriam would have loved to see this." He's so proud. MC is capable of way more than he ever thought. He only hopes to live long enough to witness the rest of the wizarding world realize the same.

[crkstuffidk]

So I was listening to the FNAF song you can't hide, and decided to assign the lyrics to the beasts(and the ancients for like one verse) So here we go.

Bring you down here in the dead of night Shadowmilk

Keep you working Eternal Sugar

Try to survive Mystic Flour

We are secretly watching you too Shadowmilk

Trying our best to get at you Mystic Flour

Run Burning Spice

You can run, you can't hide

We'll always seek, we'll always find

You can run but you can't hide

We'll always seek we'll always find

You can run, you can try

You can run, but you can't hide

You can run, you can try

You can run, but you can't hide

They're laughing while finding Pure Vanilla/Hollyberry

I'm hiding I'm trying Hollyberry

I feel like she's lying Dark Cacao/Pure Vanilla

I feel like I'm dying Golden Cheese

She's guiding me quietly White Lily

Instructing me blindly Dark Cacao

Afraid of what might be Golden Cheese

I feel like I'm dying White Lily

Hide

I hear a sound (It's probably just a mouse) Shadowmilk/Eternal Sugar

See them in the dark (Only saw a spark) Shadowmilk/Eternal Sugar

I know there's someone there (Not as far as I'm aware) Shadowmilk/Eternal Sugar

Why don't you believe me? Shadowmilk

Maybe you're right (It's just another night) Shadowmilk/Eternal Sugar

But I heard a creak (Just go back to sleep) Shadowmilk/Eternal Sugar

I'm always quick to rage (So go back to your stage) Burning Spice/Eternal Sugar

Wait now I hear it Eternal Sugar

Run

What's that sound? I know someone's there Burning Spice

Hiding in the shadows thinking I was unaware Shadowmilk

Well, who's that I see? Shadowmilk

The birthday-boy-to-be? Shadowmilk

Well let's invite him over, hurry up before he's boulder Burning Spice

Oh, Bon-Bon, let's make this fun

You cant deter me this time, no I'm done

I won't go back to my stage, it's my new trend

Well, let's go say hi to the new friend

I knew I was right to think I would find you over here

Hahaha, well, isn't it intriguing that

You seem to be just a little bit wary of Bon-Bon and me

Well, there's no need

We know you want to deactivate us

But we just can't let that happen

Every night, always, it never changes

But we can make accidents happen

We can make accidents happen

We can make accidents happen

We can make accidents happen

We can make accidents happen

And that's all I can think of rn, and the last four lines would be all of them, but I'm to tired to add it, feel free to share what line you think matches with them too. Idk why I felt the need to do this

[yeyinde]

continuing to the ancient mage narrative:

"s'for your sake." he'd say it, words clipped into some song of finality, but at the same time one that's desperately trying to be convincing.

to whom? himself.

he repeats it to you again and again which becomes more confident as time passes on and each time you go out, something bad just pointedly happens. your friend dying protecting you from some mystical beast? hm. getting lost in the misty forest, all alone, hungry and tired? hm, how funny, you were sure that was the right path just a few days ago.

as time bleeds, these kinds of things continue, which leads into a spiral. is price right? he's too paranoid—

another terrible thing happens, and your doubts turn into whispers you find yourself believing.

okay, maybe he's right—

is he?

you try again, and yet as you step foot into town, and seeing them call you names and wanting to see your head rolled of the guillotine, you reluctantly turn to price yet again.

he's right.

but don't worry, price is here for you. he'll protect you.

the sound of the chains echoes across the empty room. a lock clicks into place, and you find yourself in the tower.

"it's not so bad, sweets." johnny would tell you. "you have us."

"where's price?"

they don't say anything, but soft whispers that get exchanged at dawn—

"christ, price. the whole town?"

"it had to be done."

dgmw. i love that i get first peek at this masterpiece honestly, but you should absolutely post this. it's too good to be a shared ask.

but gaslighting, grooming, and general manipulation are some of my favourite things in writing/romance, you know? and Price sacrificing everything/everyone you love for the "greater good" (aka his own happy ending) is just incredible. he's def the type to the burn the world for his family or those he considers his, and by the time you realise what actually happened, it's much too late.

plus, once the outside forces are gone, and there's nothing standing in his way that could possibly cause a wrench in your relationship or take you away from him, i doubt you finding out about his machinations even bothers him anymore. what are you gonna do? leave? where would you go?

and the power dynamic makes things even better because there is literally nothing in this world that can stop him from getting you back in the end.

incredible. i love this au so much, op.

[marcel-game-boy]

Crepe's Escape

This feels like I'm writing her diary than making a fanfic but anyways Beast Ancients AU by @cuppajj I runned. I panted. I gasped. I wheezed. I escaped. What is wrong with Vanilla Kingdom? Since the change of Pure Vanilla and disappearance of Black Raisin, this world is not the same again. Why? Why would this be ever happen? WHY?! Without my headphones, I cannot control everything… My Waffle-bots, my robotic arms… not anymore… I'm in complete pain. Not literally, but it hurts. I tried escaping from his watch, but it seems to be extremely futile. I always hearing him saying: "Come to me, little crepe…" While I screamed: "LEAVE ME ALONE!" What is HE WANT?! FROM ME?! One by one, I saw people dying, fading, right into my eyes… This is unfair… The orchids… they are watching me… But I can't give up! I must survive and persevere from this situation… No matter what… Black Raisin… Just you wait… I won't let your sacrifice be in vain…!

[velidewrites]

A prompt for Elain week (if it inspires you!) : tired/cranky Elain coming home to a surprise prepared by Lucien & baby Elucien.

Also, a duckling offering, keeping in the spirit of Elain week 🦆🌸

Elain was dying.

Her mind felt as though it had been turned into a puddle—a soggy mess deserted by all thoughts but one: sleep.

She should’ve known better than to exhaust herself like that. Still, she’d insisted—had begged Feyre to go one more time until her sister crossed her tattooed arms and firmly told her to go home.

So Elain did. Rhysand, Cauldron bless him, had winnowed her onto the large landing on the upper levels of the Day Court Palace, usually reserved for the High Lord’s Pegasi—though, as a winged beast himself, Elain thought with a small smile, her brother-in-law had fit in just right.

He rolled his eyes playfully, ever the daemati—as if, despite her mental shields sturdy and high up, he could read the thought only by looking at her face. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he told her before flying off into the night sky.

She could barely walk as she made her way inside—today’s lesson, it seemed, had managed to take its toll on her physical strength as well. Fortunately, her rooms were located on this level. She wasn’t entirely sure she would’ve survived a walk up the stairs tonight.

A thrum of a mighty, ancient magic welcomed her from a shaded corner of the hall, as it swirled around its owner like bright rays of sunlight.

Elain didn’t even bother to look in his direction—to the wide, knowing grin, no doubt blooming upon his face. She was well aware of how utterly ridiculous she looked without his insight.

“Not a word,” she muttered.

Helion’s low chuckle echoed off the golden pillars, trailing after her until she stood in front of the large, ornate doors of her quarters.

They opened before she even managed to reach for the handle, revealing a very tall and very handsome male waiting on the other side.

Lucien’s lips twitched. “You look like hell.”

Elain shot him a glare, and he laughed. “This isn’t funny,” she warned, but Lucien’s laugh only deepened, a rich, honeyed sound that seemed to wrap itself around her skin.

Cauldron damn him, but she couldn’t help but smile. “Fine. Maybe it is a little funny.”

Lucien’s auburn brows shot up with amusement. “I have never seen your hair look more like a bird’s nest.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And we’re back to not funny at all.”

Lucien’s grin turned feline. “So cranky, my mate,” he purred, reaching to brush his fingers over her cheek.

Elain’s heart quickened, but she looked down—down to the pink bundle nestled in his strong arm, to the tiny face buried within, small, rosy lips parted in a gentle dream. “How long has she been asleep?” she asked, her voice a tad quieter now.

“Not long,” Lucien told her. “Come inside. We have a surprise for you.”

“Oh?” Elain asked, but she stepped into the room anyway.

Lucien jerked his chin to the right. “Bathroom,” he instructed.

So to the bathroom she went.

What she found inside made her sigh with delight.

The grand, marble tub, stationed in the middle of the open space, was filled with bubbles to the brim, the soft scent of warm, sparkly water filling her lungs deliciously. But it was the flowers floating atop that made her eyes burn—the roses, daisies and violets, all a lovely gift meant to raise her spirits and make the experience even more special.

“You deserve a moment to yourself,” her mate’s voice sounded quietly behind her. “You’ve been working so hard, Elain.”

She turned to him with silver lining her eyes. “Thank you.”

Lucien winked. “It was a team effort, you know,” he said, gesturing to the babe still sound asleep in his arms.

“Oh, I’m sure.” Something tightened in her chest at the sight of them. “I missed you both so much.”

His gaze softened. “My offer still stands, if you want it. I can teach you how to winnow without you ever having to leave.”

“I know, I just—” she sighed. “I feel like I hardly ever see them anymore—my sisters. We’re all always so busy—it’s nice to see them, to spend some time together. Even if Feyre’s being a pain in my ass.”

Lucien chuckled. “I can only imagine.”

“I’m getting better, I think,” she told him. “I winnowed into Rhys’s office from the hallway. He didn’t expect it, of course, though I admit, seeing him jump up in surprise was—what?” she asked, brows furrowing at the sight of a soft light, glowing gently from Lucien’s face.

“Nothing,” he said, something gleaming in his russet eye. “I’m so proud of you, Elain.”

Elain smiled. “I’m proud of myself, too,” she admitted. “And of you—for being so brave and watching over our daughter all by yourself today.”

Lucien nodded sagely. “It was quite a task, if I do say so myself.”

“Well,” Elain grinned openly now. “There’s enough space for two in that bathtub.”

Those beautiful, shining eyes slowly slid down her body—then, back to the babe, cradled in his arms.

Lucien said, “I’ll be right back.”

For @elainweekofficial

[wilanserulia]

FFXIV Write 2024 - Prompt 12 - Quarry

Wilan put himself between the Watcher and Zenos at once. An instinctive motion, more than anything. He knew that the ancient shade wasn’t the target of his pursuit, it was against himself that Zenos bared the steel of his scythe.

Zenos Yae Galvus had been singularly obsessed with the Warrior of Light ever since they first crossed blades a few years earlier, during the Empire’s raid at the rebels’ base of Rhalgr’s Reach. Wilan had lost that encounter. And again he lost when they faced off in the Doman territories. Yet in neither occasion Zenos killed him, waxing instead poetics about how he could one day give him the challenge he desired if he spared him. The next time they’d meet, Zenos had his wish granted. Their final confrontation had been grandiose and spectacular, and saw the Imperial Viceroy finally defeated. But the high of having finally been outmatched proved too much to handle, and he’s been stalking the Warrior of Light ever since for a rematch, transcending even his own death.

A bead of sweat slid down Wilan’s brow. He had his eyes trained on Zenos, his posture firm and resolute, and while his left hand was on the hilt of his sword he did not draw it. He held his breath.

He didn’t like his chances. He had just survived a battle with the elder primal Zodiark, and even sundered as it was he had to resort to the incantation in Azem’s crystal to have a chance. And despite being tired and hurt, he was already rushing back down to Hydaelyn’s surface as conflict and turmoil seemed to have inexplicably sprang out all over the star as soon as he emerged victorious. Although truth to be told though, he didn’t like his chances on a good day either. Not against Zenos.

Wilan actually did enjoy fighting. And if the list of accomplishments from the last fifteen years of his life were of any indication, he was pretty good at it too. But fighting had lost its charm ever since the fate of the world had started depending on his prowess. It had been a very long time since he had the luxury to lose a confrontation without it meaning a lot of people dying. But Zenos saw things differently. In his words, he wanted to burn through the candle of his life, and somehow ended up deciding he was his friend for helping him achieve it. It was utter madness, and it made him extremely dangerous.

In other, perhaps less charitable words, Wilan was scared. He always was, when Zenos was around. He was on edge. He felt in danger. He wanted to turn around and flee, put as much distance as possible between himself and that rabid dog. Which is exactly why he didn’t take a single step back. He stood resolute, his feet squarely planted on the ground, his shoulders wide, his chin high, his eyes staring right into Zenos’s. “I will not fight for your amusement, Zenos.” he declared. His voice was loud, carrying no fear or uncertainty, leaving no room for compromise. A simple statement of fact.

You can’t show dangerous beasts any sign of fear. Because that’s when you stop being their enemy and start being their prey.

[spidermanifested]

💔💛🖤 for FMA because you're always correct somehow

💔: If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

i cant just say roy mustang a fourth time im challenging myself to come up with a creative answer

honestly? and if you can believe it mostly unrelated to the third question down there. i think if you took out hughes, and had to reframe the military protagonists' motivations to make them less reliant on "we need to avenge this one guy we liked", youd have room to explore more of the actual bad things about the amestrian government. that might lead people to want to rebel. like at least the nina chapter provided insight into why the state alchemist program is inherently corrupt, all we learn from hughes dying is "Breaking News! One Weird Geometry Fact The Homunculi Dont Want You To Know About"

youd have to restructure the maria ross parts too but i figure you could work something out without too much trouble. blame her for lab 5 going down or something idk

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

takes a deep breath. This may come as a betrayal to almost all of my devils nest mutuals. it may break my streak of always being correct in the eyes of the masses. but i dont........really see what everyone else sees......... in greed/dolcetto.........

"wow big shocker from captain grido" i hear everyone saying but llet me explain myself. i can rationalize why somebody might like it. and its not even the ship itself i have beef with really. its more, the widespread fandom elevation of dolcetto as Greeds Loyalest Guy, with mainly vibes-based justifications (hes a dooooooog!!!!) instead of textual evidence, that tends to accompany it? which to be fair exists outside of a shipping context as well. like on tv tropes for example

[CITATION NEEDED]

so. My bido loving soul naturally despairs. also the fact that it seems to have achieved almost default status in the fandom spheres im most interested in, so when you go looking for nest related stuff it crops up before long and you know how it goes with overexposure

my final reason is that i do love dolcetto as a character. That guy rules. which means it does me psychic damage to see his personality replaced with that of a shy blushing puppyboy, as he so often is in the ancient fanart i find combing the google search results,

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

As Per My Last Email: hughes lol

like i know in series hes meant to be a heroic figure but thats kind of my problem. hes just your average nuclear family loving gun toting red blooded american i mean amestrian, who joined the army to defend his definitely-under-attack right to have said nuclear family, and then started dating a girl while he was on the front lines and then used her as an internal justification to keep committing genocide, and then when he has a kid he threatens her (3 YEAR OLD) friends with a gun, and one of his Bonding Moments with winry is giving her a lecture on gender roles because dont you know men never talk about their feelings, and do you see why i thinkmaybe tje fact that he buys his daughter a lot of toys and waves around pictures of his family doesnt inherently make him the best dad on earth. like its really easy to be a good dad when your kid is a toddler and your wife does all the hard work taking care of her and all you have to do is bring home the paycheck. wild beasts are xoming to attack me once hit post on this one i think

[sablegear0]

Finished TotK Finally

As in, finished the story. End numbers after buying the last boss pictures and completing the Compendium were 87.72% complete. I may go back and do koroks and minigames sporadically when I want to wander around in the world again.

So I suppose people might expect my thoughts or a review. Idk if I have anything unique to say but I may as well so: Plot and BIG ending spoilers under the cut. Also extremely long detailed opinions. Like this one got REALLY long. TL;DR at the very bottom.

The End Bits The Light Dragon In a previous blog I applauded Nintendo for letting their women characters turn into incomprehensible beasties lately (TotK, Dread). For the record, I posted that shortly before being spoiled on the fact that Zelda changes back at the end. Needless to say I was re-disappointed. I get WHY they did it. Permanently removing the title character from the game via 10,000 years of ego death doesn't really seem like a great reward for the player seeking out the plot; BotW/TotK Link and Zelda have gone through more than most of their incarnations to get where they are, so it's nice to give them a happy ending, etc. It just... kinda sucks because that was a really cool move otherwise. But Nintendo will not tell us an intentionally tragic (or even bittersweet) story so we got our girl back.

Also she was fine, by the way. She just woke up fully able to move and speak like she'd just had a bit of a rough nap. She also canonically does not remember her millennia spent as a dragon in any fashion. I know the fan writers are probably having a field day with injury/trauma recovery fics for her and I don't blame them. 10k years of ego death and a monstrous transformation should come with some consequences, shouldn't it?

To be honest the nature of the deus ex machina in question bugs me more than the fact that it happened. "Idk Sonia and Rauru did something" is the actual explanation we get (thanks Mineru, you're a real one tho) and it feels... hollow. Like, if the two dragons had clashed and injured one another, and "dying" knocked Zelda out of the transformation the same way destroying the Secret Stone that Ganondorf had taken destroyed his dragon form, that would make more sense, right? You still get your dramatic ending that's a cinematic reflection of Skyward Sword and a symbolic close (presumably) to Ganon's cycle of reincarnation. The arbitrary "power of love" (and not even the Hero's love, come on) ending just doesn't sit right.

Ganondorf Neither did the actual fight with Ganondorf, to be honest. I prepped some pretty high-value weapons, assuming that like BotW I'd have to break a few swords on him before the fight was over. But they just, again, deus ex machina'd that the Master Sword was indestructible for that fight and at no other time. My big scary weapons did see some good use in the wave fight beforehand, which was kind of neat but also kind of underwhelming. I guess that's the point where the game checks if you can handle that many enemies (ie. did you bring enough friends), similar to how doing the Divine Beasts halves Calamity Ganon's HP in BotW.

The duel-style fight for the first two phases was kind of cool. Made a bit annoying by TotK's tighter timing on parries and dodges. And the fact that the legitimate pressure of having your HP outright destroyed (cool, stressful) was removed by the third phase (annoying, no consequences for doing poorly in that part of the fight).

Third phase was neat. It was cinematic, but with no actual danger. I don't think I took any damage that wasn't just gloom-ticks from standing on the demon dragon to attack it. Didn't even get to use my cool bows in the aerial battle. Additionally I didn't have any need for the cool armour I had worked so hard to upgrade. I spent quite a lot of time and effort upgrading the Ancient Hero's Aspect and a second high-defense set (Champion's Leathers, Soldier's Greaves, Amber Earrings). The latter I did use in the demon dragon phase because it looked cool. The former I completely forgot that I had (despite having had to kill an ungodly amount of King Gleeoks to complete it). I used the Depths set for the first two-thirds of the fight because of the Gloom resistance it offered.

The Mechanics Devices All that said, what TotK set out to do it did decently well. It expanded on the physics-heavy improvisational gameplay of BotW with the addition of the Ultrahand fusion mechanic and Zonai Devices, improving on their base engine to create a system that I have heard other devs consider basically magic. Devices and weapon fusion, however, were clearly balanced with the early-to-mid-game in mind. The devices were tools, not weapons, even the ones that were nominally weapons. They simply did not put out enough raw damage to be used offensively, and were better as deterrents or distractions for enemies.

Weapon Fusion I know people weren't crazy about weapon degradation in BotW and I think TotK managed to make it slightly worse. In BotW, all you had to do was find where a desirable weapon spawned and make note of it so you could come back to pick it up after the Bloodmoon respawned everything. In TotK, you have to do that AND fight a monster with a good fuseable part to improve it. You have to do twice as much farming for about the same amount of gain. And that's not even accounting for the weapons you'd break fighting something big like a Lynel - sure they drop good parts, but you might break 2 or 3 weapons taking one down, even with help from your sages. You're operating at a net loss.

Granted the fused part of a weapon does the bulk of the work, but TotK did the interesting thing of making each flavour of weapon ("Soldier's", "Zonaite", "Gerudo", etc) have its own unique properties. This is very cool, until you find a type you like and struggle to find enough of them. Again, you have to trek around to find them and also hope you have the materials for a good fusion. It has its moments, like sticking a Silver Lynel horn on a Gerudo weapon to get a damage value over 100 (which is absurd, most "good" weapons cap out around 50 on average, barring any extra effects), but again, you're usually operating at a slight loss with respect to weapons.

Armour Upgrades To be frank: It's bad. It's bloated and way too resource-intensive. In BotW there were a limited number of sets you'd actually want to upgrade, as each had its own unique thing and that's it, there's one of each. Even doing all of them for completion's sake was achievable. In TotK they have those basic sets, plus a few more unique sets, plus a few redundant sets, and a frankly absurd number of generic aesthetic sets (which flavour of Link would you like? Ocarina of Time? Twilight Princess? Link's Awakenng Remake?) And in all of this they never thought to rebalance the amount of materials required for upgrading.

And on top of THAT, I think they messed with the item drop-rates too! Most enemies can drop 2 kinds of resources, some potentially have more, some only drop 1. in BotW I don't think (thought I may have to check) each type was a guaranteed drop, but you saw every type fairly frequently. In TotK each enemy now has distinct rare drops. And they can be RARE. And the worst part is you need a LOT of them for some armour upgrades. For example; Lizalfos tails are the Lizalfos rare drop, and the armour sets that need them can need up to 15 of the stupid things from a particular species of Lizalfos. Have fun grinding, because now you're playing Monster Hunter instead of Zelda.

Vehicles and Horses The vehicles both did and didn't trivialize crossing the map; a significant amount of grinding is needed before you have enough batteries to cover any distance, Wings (the bird-shaped gliders) have a limited lifespan to keep you from just flying everywhere, and the overworld is generally complicated enough that any fast wheeled vehicle will not be useful for long, and any all-terrain vehicle moves only at a modest speed. Ironically, just use horses where available. They're faster, more versatile, and can be called to you if they're within earshot. Also horses can spawn with overall higher stats than in BotW, and can be upgraded, though with significant resource investment. (It is worth noting that the "best" horse in base BotW, the royal white horse, is only middling to above-average stat-wise when compared to a good wild-caught horse in TotK. They power-crept the horses!)

The most interesting vehicles/movement devices, to me, were the rockets and hot-air balloons. Both add a lot instant verticality in a game that is all about traversal. Fusing a rocket to a shield gets you a huge boost for little resource expenditure (rockets are a bit rare until you can purchase devices). And once you find the Autobuild schematic for a hot air balloon base, all you need to add is a flame-emitter and you can ascend as far as your batteries allow.

Shrines In my humble opinion, TotK knocked it out of the park with its shrines. The ones that have actual puzzles, anyway. There is an unfortunately large proportion of "blessing" shrines that have no puzzle in them, and not all of them even need to be worked for that hard. The ones that do have puzzles are excellent. There are quite a few that highlight different uses for devices, and a good handful that take the Eventide Island/Master Trials-style challenge of stripping you of all your gear and put some twist on it. (Notably these are most interesting in the mid-game, when you have enough hearts to survive but not to trivialize the no-armour combat difficulty.)

They also did the very classy thing of not locking outfit parts behind hidden chests in Shrines. All the hidden chests were perfectly optional bonus chests that required no frustrating re-visits after finding out where that last piece of armour was hiding. Also the slight variations on the music theme was a nice touch that kept the shrines feeling fresh. No shade to the Sheikah Shrine theme, but the strong synths could get a bit grating at times. TotK's gentle, plinky shrine theme variations were an improvement.

The Map The Overworld Probably(?) the most common complaint about TotK and one I share. It's too damn big. In addition to mostly recycling the map from BotW (which bothered some people more than it bothered me, I think), they added an equivalent-sized map for the Depths. Now, BotW's overworld already felt a bit sparse, but it fit the tone of a literal post-apocalyptic world and encouraged you to poke around looking for koroks and investigating enemy camps. TotK's surface overworld is dotted with far more enemy camps and significantly fewer koroks, so it is about as dense but more dangerous/annoying (depending on your hp and gear) to traverse.

There are some major changes to the surface, beyond adding ruins to some spots; most of Death mountain is now safe to travel on foot (probably to encourage use of vehicles) and is no longer superheated, and there are a few spots where the road network is broken, dividing the map into 2 halves that cannot be crossed between on horseback. (In BotW, by comparison, all the roads were connected and you could auto-pilot a horse from one end of the map to the other, provided you took roads marked on the map.)

The Sky The Sky islands were relatively few, for all the hype they got in the promotional material. However I think their self-contained structure and handful of unique features (the "death star" islands, the dive challenges) helped them not overstay their welcome. Besides, the islands themselves are technically also ruins, 10,000 years old and finally visible to the naked eye from the surface, It's a wonder there's as much left and it's as functional as it is. They are beautiful, though. I did enjoy just loitering around in the sky to take in the view and the relaxed atmosphere, as there are fewer enemies up there.

The Depths The Depths... I think I share the majority gripe with the Depths. They're too big. The Depths are another whole open world that is more hostile with even less in it. It exists to grind for resources and pad the playtime. The challenge of the depths is in initially traversing it, having to light your way through impenetrable darkness and navigate dense enemy encampments and find Light Roots to fill out the map. After that, provided you have enough battery power, it can generally be ignored by flying over it. Which is unfortunate. If I were to fix the Depths, I would make it more akin to the Sky Islands; more self-contained, make it a series of winding, interconnected discrete caves, like one big dungeon crawl, rather than a second open world to ignore. Still have the Light Roots be important to vision and mapping, but have the general landscape be more contained. Maybe even have a few more areas that are inaccessible at first except by dropping into the correct chasms, like they did with the Eventide Island and Tingle Island Chain areas of the Depths.

Everything Else Side Quests and Koroks Honestly I enjoyed the variety of sidequests in TotK, and also enjoyed that some of them were quite involved. TotK had two "Tarrey Town"-equivalent long-form side-quest lines; one being visiting all the stables with Penn (I am counting this as one quest because you get drip-fed armour pieces from a unique set throughout it), and the other being the Mayoral Election / Local Cuisine questline in Hateno Village. There were also side-quests to optionally construct the Champions' weapons, which was neat, and to build a house with crazy Ultrahand powers, which was totally frivolous but fun to do. The one thing that bugged me a bit about the side-quests was running into NPCs that reasonably should have remembered Link but didn't. It felt odd, especially poking around Tarrey Town initially.

The Korok puzzles had some new variety to them, which was nice. The block puzzles were given the extra interest of being able to rotate things with Ultrahand, and the vehicle/towing mechanics were given a chance to shine with the "help me reach my friend" puzzles. Having Hestu appear in some less-than-ideal places to begin with (and the whole Lost Woods thing omg what a pain) kind of sucked, but getting those sweet sweet inventory upgrades is always worth it.

The Characters I love all the Sages, I'm going to say it right now. It was really cool to see some familiar faces from BotW (that actually recognized me) and learn what they'd been up to in the ambiguous time-gap. Teba being the slight exception but honestly - meeting Tulin and realizing this sweet bean bird boy looks just like both his parents hit me right in the heart. Mineru was also very cool and I'm glad we got to hang out with her (and bid her a tearful goodbye... my lovely lanky lady...). I also appreciated that doing the Ancient Writings quest teases Mineru's introduction. That was a nice touch.

Penn and Purah are fun, and the Lucky Clover Gazette and Monster Control Crew quests add some depth and background progression to BotW's Hyrule. You get to see how ordinary people are faring and how things are advancing post-Calamity. Seeing the various peoples of Hyrule gather at Lookout Landing after clearing a regional temple was neat, even if it was really only for show.

I know some people have beef with Rauru and that's maybe a blog for another time, but I don't think I have a strong enough opinion to bother. I didn't mind him, I think his arc was clear enough, I think I would have liked to see more of him and Sonia interacting with Zelda in a more everyday fashion - it seemed like she had a lot of fun in the distant past and something more than just a text log of that and a couple cutscenes might have been nice. Honestly I think I would have liked to see more of Sonia especially, she seems like an interesting lady (again, something more than Chaucerian text as proof would have been nice).

I'm honestly kind of mid on Matt Mercer's Ganondorf? I get that he's a big name and people were excited to hear him in the role but idk if the voice was entirely a good fit. They rocked the hell out of his visual design, though. Very good updated look, borrowing elements from some of his previous incarnations. Again I would have liked to see more elaboration on him though; what was the Gerudo tribe like under his rule? Were there dissenters? Give me more worldbuilding or I'll be forced to do it myself.

Music Mostly the same, actually. Overworld themes were recycled. Shrine themes were different and an upgrade imo. Combat themes were slightly different but I probably wouldn't be able to tell them apart at a listen. The Temple music though, oh boy. I loved these themes; they took the ramping instruments from the Divine Beasts control panel gimmick and mixed the Divine Beast Approach themes with each Sage's unique motif to create some really cool but pleasantly unobtrusive tracks. The Depths ambience was appropriately spooky, and the dynamic theme that kicks in when you high-dive was a nice touch, especially since there are distinct versions for diving to the surface and diving to the Depths.

But the standout tracks for me? First, the intro sequence where you descend with Zelda into the foundations of Hyrule Castle and hear the ever-layering Zonai chanting with the spooky reversed voice clips? MMM. 👌 So spooky, so tasty. Genuinely had me on edge even though I knew nothing would happen because it was the intro. The return sequence by the endgame has it build even more intensely as you descend even further and it's fantastic. Second is the Gloom's Approach / Gloom's Source battle theme. The distinctly electronic drone and beat associated with the Depths/gloom-related stuff gets room to shine when this tense bass-heavy track kicks in.

The Little Things I am actually going to stop this one here because I think this part deserves its own blog. There are a ton of little details in TotK that I absolutely adored and I want to gush about them with proper space allotted.

TL;DR TotK is alright. I know I'll catch flak for saying it's "good", so I won't. Settle down. It's alright. Some things it does extremely well, some things could have been edited for time, and some things remained just kinda mid from the original.

If I have to give it a number, it's a solid 6.5-7/10 . Competently constructed, technically impressive, mostly cut-and-pasted, mildly bloated, narratively kind of boring with no sense of stakes and an ending that undoes some otherwise interesting choices.