#the lie is the headless corpse

[born-to-riot]

Cassian: Azriel, Two truths and a lie, who would you fuck if you had the chance?

Azriel: alright bet.

Rhys: Give us three names and we’ll guess which one is the lie.

Azriel: option one, Hybern’s headless corpse

Cassian: woah, woah, woah bro WHAT—

Azriel: option two, bryaxis

Rhys: Azriel what?

Cassian: HOW DARE YOU?

Azriel: and finally option three, Eris Vanserra.

Cassian: …

Rhys: …

Azriel: tell me brothers, which one is the lie?

Cassian: …

Rhys: …

Cassian: I…

Rhys: I think it’s better off if we don’t know.

Azriel: suit yourselves 🤷‍♀️

[queer-n-here]

Fucking Sangwoo dumb because why not.

Also, I got the idea to write this fic from this piece by @karmasadistic69 Lemme know if y'all want a part 2.

Also, fair warning, this one is not gonna be romantic. At all.

Contents: Reader kidnapping and fucking Sangwoo.

Warnings: Rape, kidnapping, mature themes, mentions of murder, mentions of suicide. Like I've said before, this is gonna be darker than what I usually write, you have been warned.

Oh Sangwoo.

The one behind all those serial murders.

The public didn't know yet; the cops were running around like headless chickens trying to find him.

But you knew.

You knew everything. About his mother, about his fist murder, about every single one that had followed ever since. Even about Yoon Bum, you knew.

And you hated him for it.

Yet here he was, tied to a metal bed frame and slowly regaining his consciousness as you watched his profile.

Sangwoo lifted his head slowly, eyes blinking open as his brows furrowed in confusion. The moment he realised he wasn't anywhere he knew, his eyes widened, and he whipped his head around, trying to figure out just where he was. And that's when his eyes fell on you.

You hadn't bothered to cover your face. For one, you knew Sangwoo would never manage to get past the measures you'd taken to keep him locked in your basement. For two, you wanted him to know who was going to ruin him.

"[Name]," Sangwoo said, and you saw fear in his eyes at being at the other side of this situation. He was supposed to be the one sitting in that chair, smirking; not the other way around. "What the fuck?"

You chuckled. "Surprised, are we?"

You got up from the chair, walked over closer to him and sat down at the edge of the bed. Sangwoo tried to scuttle away, to shift back, but the chains you had put around his legs and wrists would only let him get so far.

"Let's see..." You tilted your head at him. "How does it feel to be at the receiving end of this situation? Does it excite you? Does it help you understand your victims better? Or..."

You looked down at his sweaty hands, and then at his pale face. "Does it scare you?"

Sangwoo grit his teeth. He knew what you were thinking. That's what he thought every time he dealt with a victim.

Ah, he's trying to struggle away. How fun.

But he wasn't gonna let you have that satisfaction.

"How did I get here?" Sangwoo's voice was barely stable.

"Hmm," You debated internally whether or not to be like those typical movie villains that explain their plans before failing horribly to kill the hero. And then you realised, no one's a hero here. You were both deranged.

And so you said, "D'you remember me handing you that bottle of water after your match?"

You watched as Sangwoo remembered, and his eyes grew dark with hatred, but his expression remained casual. "So that's how I blacked out... Not bad."

You chuckled at his attempt to look aloof. "Oh, please, I learned from the best."

The implication of your words hit Sangwoo in the face. He narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?"

You got up from the bed, walking over to the only barred window in the room. "It's funny, really, how the cops could never figure out it was you when you left behind all the evidence you did."

You didn't look back at him, but even in the silence you could hear the cogs of his brain turning. Should he admit to it? Or should he act like he didn't know what you were talking about?

Fuck it, if you had blackmail material on him, he had some on you, too.

"So you knew." Was the only thing he said.

"Of course I did." You turned around now, slightly excited to see his reaction. "I know everything, Sangwoo. From the body in your walls to the boy locked in your basement. Or should I say... Corpse?"

Sangwoo's face paled further, and finally, finally, a fraction of the fear he felt showed on his face.

Silence.

Then, "You killed Yoon Bum."

You laughed. "Oh, did you get attached to him?"

Sangwoo shook his head, a lie. He was attached to that boy. That's why he made him murder that bitch, so Yoon Bum could never leave him without the fear of cops. Yoon Bum was the only one he had.

He didn't love Bum, fuck no. He needed him to stay alive.

But now, he was gone, and standing in front of Sangwoo was you instead, just as insane as him, if not more.

He didn't say anything after that, and you left him to his thoughts.

The next day, you put your hands on him for the first time.

You'd thought about it many times, fuck, dreamt about it, even. And now he was here, in your hands and all yours to ruin.

When you first stripped him of his clothes, he tried to struggle. It was amusing how scared he was to have the sort of things done to him that he'd been doing to people for years now. Maybe it was because he could tell what thoughts were running through your brain, having had them himself.

You freed Sangwoo's legs, keeping his hands bound still. The next few hours were hell for Sangwoo, and heaven for you.

He gave up on struggling half-way through, using his bound wrists to hide his face instead, as if he could somehow forget you existed if he couldn't see you. His chest was heaving with each breath. As you fucked into him nice and fast, he bit down on his lips, hard, not willing to allow a single sound escape his lips to give you satisfaction.

The humiliation, the shame, the hatred he felt in those hours was so, so much more intense than anything else Sangwoo had ever experienced in his life. He wanted to kill himself, wanted to cut off each inch of his skin that you had touched. Anything, anything, if only it meant this would stop, if it meant you would stop. If it meant that he would wake up in his house again, with Bum locked up in his basement and the freedom to move his arms.

But you wouldn't let him struggle away, wouldn't even let him look away. You slapped his hands away when he tried to cover his face, and roughly grabbed his jaw to make him look at you.

"The second you break eye contact, Sangwoo," You muttered, your hips bludgeoning into his. "I won't hesitate to use these chains to choke you out of your miserable life, do you understand?"

And as much as Sangwoo wanted to die already, as much as he wanted this to end, he gulped and obeyed, lips and lashes trembling with fear.

There was no doubt that you'd do it. No doubt that you'd kill him if you got sick of him.

And so he lay there, letting you fuck him again and again and again.

[capybaracorn]

Gaza’s mass graves: Is the truth being uncovered?

Calls for an independent inquiry are mounting as more burial sites are found across Gaza, but experts say bringing the truth to light will take time.

At least 392 bodies were recovered at the Nasser Medical Complex in the southern Gaza Strip [AFP]

(11th of May 2024)

Palestinian emergency workers continue to uncover mass graves in and around three hospitals in the Gaza Strip, months after Israeli forces laid siege to them, claiming they were being used as Hamas command centres.

More than 500 bodies have been recovered with Palestinian officials saying several of them showed signs of mutilation and torture amounting to war crimes. Israel’s military has rejected the allegations as “baseless”, saying the bodies were buried by Palestinians during the fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas in the area.

The United Nations, the United States and the European Union have called for an independent investigation to determine the truth and ensure accountability. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said: “It’s important that all forensic evidence be well preserved.”

But as Israel intensifies its assault on the southern city of Rafah, having closed the crossing into Egypt and preventing any possible deployment of forensic teams or equipment into Gaza, burial sites are being dug up and evidence haphazardly collected.

Experts said the disturbance of sites where proof of war crimes might lie will make the search for truth harder – yet not all hopes for justice are lost.

How is evidence being collected from the mass graves?

Three mass graves have been found at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, three at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and one at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya.

Mohammad Zaanin, a member of the Palestinian Civil Defence in Gaza, told Al Jazeera on Thursday that a fourth gravesite containing 42 bodies had been found at al-Shifa Hospital. The bodies were decomposed and unrecognisable, but some had IDs on them or were identified by relatives from clothing remnants.

Civil Defence teams have been documenting the remains through photos and videos, working with little protective gear and no forensic equipment. “We have some body bags and a little equipment to protect our hands and noses, but in reality, this is a local effort, and it puts a lot of pressure on our team,” Zaanin said.

Thani Nimr Abdel Rahman, who works with the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp and has visited the burial sites at al-Shifa Hospital, said she witnessed the ground being excavated using bulldozers.

Before the dead are reburied at a new site, relatives of the missing search for pieces of clothing around the remains for a sign of their loved ones. At times, the corpses have been left unattended. “The dogs came to devour the bodies, and the smell was deadly,” Abdel Rahman told Al Jazeera. “[This work] requires more capabilities and forensic experts, none of which are available in Gaza.”

Has evidence of war crimes been found?

Several Civil Defence members have claimed to have found evidence of ill treatment, including torture, extrajudicial executions and unlawful killings of noncombatants that could amount to war crimes.

Rami Dababesh, a member of the Civil Defence team who took part in the exhumation work at al-Shifa Hospital, told Al Jazeera that his team had found “headless corpses”. Paramedic Adel al-Mashharawi said he saw bodies of children and women dressed in hospital garments.

Civil Defence member Mohammed Mughier said at least 10 of the bodies had been found with bound hands while others still had medical tubes attached to them. He added that additional forensic examination was needed on about 20 bodies of people who they suspect had been “buried alive”.

Yamen Abu Sulaiman, the head of the Civil Defence in Khan Younis, said some of the bodies found at the Nasser Medical Complex had been “stacked together” and showed indications of field executions having taken place. At least 392 bodies were recovered at this site alone.

Is the evidence gathered reliable?

Mass grave investigations are typically a highly complex, lengthy and expensive process, requiring significant expertise and resources. The overarching operating principle underpinning the forensic scientific approach is “do no harm” because interference with the site may prejudice the evidence.

“The first reaction from pretty much everyone is to dig the bodies up because it’s a very emotional thing,” Stefan Schmitt, a forensic scientist at Florida International University who has investigated mass graves in multiple conflicts, told Al Jazeera.

“But bodies are safer underground when it comes to identifying them and determining what happened. Particularly in this case, where the truth is so incredibly important and where all sides are propagating their own version of the events, it’s especially important to be able to determine what really took place.”

[See article for embedded video]

Digging up bodies, especially using invasive methods such as bulldozers, wipes out clues that could help determine responsibility and archaeological evidence that could reveal when a grave was dug and with what tools, Schmitt said.

Every exhumation also scatters evidence as decomposing body parts are left behind in the original burial site. Once a corpse is moved and reburied, information on where it came from can be lost.

Inaccurate information may also be added as part of the documentation process. Schmitt said misidentification by grieving relatives who are psychologically inclined to want closure is frequent in the context of war. Claims of bodies having been decapitated or buried alive were also hard to back up without autopsies being carried out.

Photographic and video evidence alone may not be sufficient to remedy confusion. For visual evidence to be viewed as reliable, a chain of custody must be ensured, Schmitt said.

The process of documentation must give a clear sense of the exhumation process both spatially and in regards to timing with pictures containing information including metadata and geolocation taken in a sequence. Shots must be framed to feature landmarks before zooming in on the details. The information is then methodically collected in a spreadsheet, from which each entry is hyperlinked to the relevant visual data.

“I have been shown pictures that came from Gaza, but I couldn’t see the chain of custody. I don’t know where they’re coming from,” Schmitt said, adding that this means he has consequently unable to give an expert opinion on what they show.

“What is happening right now is destroying evidence. I know that that’s not deliberate, but it plays into the hands of those that don’t want the truth to be told.”

Can international organisations help?

The UN has called for “a clear, transparent and credible investigation” of mass graves in Gaza. The EU backed the call, saying the discovery of bodies at the hospitals “creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights” while the US said it wanted the matter to be “thoroughly and transparently investigated”.

It is unclear which organisation would heed the call, or who in the future might take up the hefty task of investigating.

UN human rights spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told Al Jazeera the international body was not providing support in evidence gathering at burial sites in Gaza “because it requires specific expertise that does not exist on the ground”.

[See article for embedded video]

Is there any hope of justice for victims?

As the Rafah border crossing with Egypt remains closed, the prospects of foreign investigators being sent in to investigate allegations of war crimes appear slim.

However, not all hope for justice is lost. “What you have got, as opposed to what you haven’t got, might itself be extremely revealing,” said Geoffrey Nice, a British barrister who led the prosecution in the trial of Serbian politician Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

“Because you haven’t got it all doesn’t mean you haven’t got enough,” Nice told Al Jazeera about forensic scientific evidence.

In the former Yugoslavia, remains were dug up for decades, and DNA testing ensured identification even many years after the events. “Efforts on identification never end, and there is a huge body of evidence. Never worry about what you haven’t got. Use what you have got,” the barrister added.

Evidence gathered at the mass graves could point to specific offences or be merged into a broader inquiry into war crimes. An unbiased judiciary and investigatory organisation may be set up, but this will take decades of work and cost a large sum of money, requiring the support of wealthy countries.

According to Nice, should a tribunal for Gaza be set up, “it would not be sensible to have participating members from any countries that supported Israel with weapons.”

“The Israel-Gaza conflict is hopelessly sensitive. The funding body, be it the EU or someone else, has got to be prepared after having funded it to have absolutely no further engagement except when asked,” he added.

Is justice being pursued elsewhere?

Legal proceedings are also already ongoing at top courts. The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is overseeing an active investigation into the atrocities on October 7 by Hamas and the response by the Israeli military. The office of the prosecutor has jurisdiction in the Palestinian territories but has not made any public comments about the discovery of mass graves.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), a separate court, is considering a case brought by South Africa in which Israel stands accused of committing genocide in Gaza. It will take several years to reach a verdict, during which time, the court is expected to investigate a litany of alleged offences.

Among key provisional measures issued to prevent the crime of genocide, the ICJ ordered Israeli authorities to “take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence” related to the allegations. It also ordered unimpeded access to humanitarian aid, which humanitarian organisations said has been blocked since the offensive in Rafah began.

“If the general conclusion of any court is that what is going on in Gaza is beyond the limits of warfare, then it is not difficult to track the chain of command back to the top,” Nice said.

Then, the barrister added, “you can start to see if there is individual responsibility.”

[See article for embedded video]

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 12 thoughts

didn’t watch an episode last night because i was sad. and by consulting the people, i knew that this episode would ALSO be sad. but now in my infinite wisdom, i realize: how better to distract yourself from your own sorrow than to watch some fictional characters writhe in their own grief? which brings us here.

“a headless corpse walks out of a hospital morgue” well that actually just sounds silly. i know it’s not gonna end up being silly, and i’m sure my heart will be on the floor, but you have to admit, it sounds silly.

author’s note: the episode about the dude with no head is now the second episode EVER to make me cry. and editing these notes is gonna SUCK SO BAD😭😭😭I WAS WRONG ABOUT DROWNING MY SORROWS IN FICTIONAL WOES. I HAVE NO INFINITE WISDOM. ONLY TEARS.

let us begin below. join me. hold me. comfort me.

ambulance time :3 we see a guy named leonard, who i presume will be the star of the episode given its title. he tells michele driving the vehicle that this guy having a heart attack is “up to his ass in alligators”, and idk what that means, but it doesn’t sound good

oh a needle. mmmm no no. NO. no. <- girl who cannot look at the screen

NO! no. crash. oh god, that’s my worst fear. EMS lady michele who made the mistake of looking behind her while driving is now covered in blood. i assume that we will see leonard's head soon.

(little did i know!!! little did i know. i have a fear even deeper than causing a car accident that decapitates someone)

ah, yes. the head is not attached to anything. michele, covered in blood, is leaving after leonard is dropped off in the morgue.

the guy in the morgue is trying to stream casual by chappell roan (obviously) but he hears some thumping in the distance. leonard has escaped! without his head!

oh god, he killed morgue guy. you see, i thought we were going to get an episode where the mystery was how the headless man got around and lived his daily life, not that the headless guy was also going to be a murderer. i thought we were gonna get scenes of his headless body using sign language to communicate and question how he’s gonna eat in a semi-comical fashion. but now. now he’s evil. sigh.

and leonard is naked. do they put you in the morgue naked??? i always assumed there’d be a little bit of dignity…

SCULLY TIME!!! i can feel all pain in my body evaporating. she is looking in the little morgue case he escaped from. there are a lot of bloody footprints. and mulder is here, too!

it’s funny how i sit down to watch the scully and mulder show and then when i see them on screen i think “oh boy, it’s scully and mulder time :D”

good news! the morgue guy who was certainly streaming chappell is NOT actually dead. he was just knocked out. and had all his clothes taken, which is unfortunate.

scully is gagged at the idea mulder thinks a headless body escaped from the morgue, and me too girl, but i feel you should be used to it by now. we probably both should be, actually. 

she thinks it’s some sort of coverup for body snatching! oh, compelling. even mulder seems to nod along. god, wouldn’t it be funny if they just had a normal case once? please. i beg.

they’re looking at security camera footage from the night it all went down, and see the clothes that were stolen from morgue guy being worn by someone. scully thinks maybe the thief got scared and dipped, which led to this wonderful exchange: “where could he hide an adult body where it wouldn’t be found?” “i’ll show you” <- YEAHHHH I LOVE WHEN SHE SAYS WEIRD AND UNSETTLING STUFF

time to check the medical waste. are you telling me surgical byproduct gets turned into roads??? i don’t think i can handle that information, so i’m going to simply not fact check it. but she would never lie to me.

mulder looks freaked tf out as he hands the flashlight to her to inspect the waste LMAOOO

“mulder i think i’m gonna need your help, your arms are longer” (cut to visible distress on his face) LMAOOOOO

he’s groaning as they rummage through bags of human stuff, but they find leonard’s head!! noticeably, NOT the rest of him

they are going to split up, and mulder will go to leonard’s house while scully looks at his head. and she makes a pointed correction that he is no longer living. damn. 

his head weighs 10.9 pounds! the head looks a little… wow, i was gonna say it looked fuzzy, but now we get a closeup and it’s actually very convincing. no rigor mortis or clouded eyes, which is inconsistent with the time of death. and she’s gonna go to brain town when he opens his eyes!!

well, bodies do that sometimes. and he’s opening his mouth. and closing it. so uh. what’s that all about?

something or someone is running as mulder enters leonard’s house. he finds a bathtub full of blood, which is not promising. and blood out the window. 

bro stuck his fingers in the blood and sniffed it….. OH! it’s not blood. it’s iodine. okay. that’s less freaky. 

scully says it seems the head has been effected by radiation that is preventing any sort of scanning, and also that she hasn’t cut into the head yet, even though she knows it’s just extra energy stored in the cells that made him blink, but still! aww mulder be NICE TO HER!

“maybe he was home” "leonard betts." “yeah” “without his head.” “yeah :)” LMAO

OMG his headless ass was IN the iodine!!!

WAIT.... HE HAS A NEW HEAD??????

wait… he was a really good EMT… and his head somehow grew back… is he one of those aliens that can heal people???

(author's note: it was a really good guess on my part, but i think he was some sort of new freak not previously established in canon)

he could diagnose illness very well… but he kept his distance from his coworkers. hmmmm. and he never got sick. hmmmm. or injured. HMMMM. michele is suspicious.

they’re gonna mummify his head. sort of. and mulder is smiling at scully over his own stupid joke, and i want to punch his stupid face (affectionate).

man. i do not care for this slicing of heads process. 

oh no!! leonard was like, entirely made of cancer. was he absorbing the cancer of his patients… is that a thing you can do….?

he should have died a looooong time ago. or maybe the process of slicing distorted the findings?

michele is pulling into the hospital as she deals with another case, but she hears someone say “up to your ass in alligators” over the radio… and she recognizes leonard’s voice! he’s making another correct ID on what is wrong with a patient!!!!!!!

the agents are off to one of the professors at a maryland university that mulder keeps on call at all times, who is going to look at the head slice. oh…. this guy does aura photography. okay, so not super promising.

she’s like yeah yeah yeah i know about eastern medicine but WHAT does it have to do with this. i respect her knowledge and her focus.

it looks like the aura photography captured some shoulders? that i guess mulder thinks proves leonard is still alive somehow?

“are we happy with the results?” <- something about the way he said this made them sound so married. i'd be happy to live in that brief moment forever.

scully looks pissed off into another dimension at this whole process LMAO

mulder wants to know if there is a good kind of cancer that is actually regeneration…. and the iodine helps regeneration! which has been used in labs for creatures whose limbs regrow, i guess 

“there isn’t a creature on earth that can regrow its head” “worms. you cut a worm in half, you get two” <- and that’s why you’re the FBI’s most unwanted, because you advocate for worm murder 😭😭

“mulder, they’re worms” <- LMAOOOOOOOOO STOP i saw that line out of context once 

scully gets a phone call! and it turns out leonard had an alter ego named albert- whose fingerprints match his? but albert has a living relative. visit time?

yes, it is visit time. oh! the picture his mom has on the table is the same as the picture we saw earlier of leonard when he was featured in the newspaper!

they try to tell his mom that “her son” died recently, but she says he died 6 years ago!! well, that is confusing.

michele is also on the case, looking for whoever it was who she heard on the radio earlier using that distinct phrase and accurately diagnosing people. the others pointing him out to her refer to him as “the new guy”.

and it is leonard! michele is chasing him…. he hugs her and reassures her that it’s okay. at first it's touching, and i realize too late that he is going to kill her, which he does while apologizing. then he lays her down???? but he gets caught!!

he is running and running…. but he gets tackled by the cops and handcuffed. with a very conspicuous head bruise.

OH MY GOD he PULLED HIS THUMB OUT OF THE HANDCUFF BLEUGHHHHHHHHH all the cops return to is some blood and a finger 😭😭😭

no no bad…. body horror… bad…. not for junis, who are weak and frail… 

michele was given a lethal dose of something that occurs naturally, so it usually misses detection. and leonard was ID’d as the attacker!!! oh i just know everyone at that hospital is SO confused

mulder and scully are fighting over evolutionary theories…. while holding umbrellas in the snow… sigh. so beautiful.

GAG! the trunk of leonard's car is filled with cancerous tumors. that scully can name as she sees them. a massive flex of her knowledge.

OH. maybe he eats cancer. well. this is a bold theory, mulder, and what a lovely time for you to propose it, as i am just thinking of how lovely they look in the snow, and how they should go ice skating and other such winter activities. sure. the guy eats tumors.

and the car leonard was driving traces back to the mom!!! so they go to her place with a warrant. scully confronts her, saying they know she’s lying about her son being dead, and he killed someone, so lying to protect him isn’t gonna get her anywhere except JAIL.

mulder finds iodine while she recounts a tale of her son being beaten up as a kid. and she says god means for leonard to stay even if people don’t understand. crazy thing to say about a guy who just killed someone. 

leonard is at a bar watching someone smoke and looking at him hungrily. while his baby thumb pulsates and regrows. NASTY! nasty. 

he’s getting up after the cigarette dude and following him outside like he’s hunting some prey. he says that “you’ve got something i need” and whips out a tiny knife. uh oh.

back at mom’s house, they find a storage locker receipt. off to track it down.

oh. leonard was straight up eating that dude inside the storage locker. see, i don’t care for that. and also he is screaming while this happens and also his body is pulsating and oh my god. OH MY GOD HE JUST GREW A NEW HEAD???? out of his mouth. whyyyyyy

at the storage unit, the agents find blood flowing from beneath the door, and then the dead cigarette guy. but leonard comes out in a car at them!

i like how mulder grabbed scully to keep her safe... it was very nice. 

leonard is speeding off. and they shoot at him, which causes the car to go up in flames. damn. good shots, those two.

so the cigarette guy had his lung removed, but now leonard seems to be burnt to a crisp. BUT! when they dig up the guy under the pseudonym who had allegedly died 6 years ago, he looks also very dead!!

so he just keeps dying and coming back? i ask myself.

no! mulder thinks that the car crashes- both times- were decoys, and that “leonard” is still at large. scully does not seem pleased by this. 

and back at his mom’s house, she’s washing him in iodine, saying they “found your friend”. she says the FBI aren’t going to leave him alone…. you know what you have to do…. WHAT TF DOES THAT MEAN???

the agents are watching her house. but then an ambulance rolls up, saying that an old woman has had massive blood loss. did he eat his mom?? how would anyone know?? is this a trap???

scully finds his mom, who has a surgical cut…. and they’re taking her to the hospital… scully is helping her out…. she is so kind

but as they take leonard's mom out, scully notices IODINE ON HER HEAD! is he waiting on top of the ambulance? she tells mulder to get over here RIGHT NOW. 

and leonard grabs her!!!! and says she has something he needs. NO!!!!! no that means…… no. 

she’s beating the hell out of him though which is a major slay. she defibrillates him. queen.

it seems he really died. for now.

mulder’s telling her she should be proud, but she just wants to go home. that's what she says: "i want to go home". oh my goooooooood. oh my gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood.

wait it’s still going. she’s coughing. NO, SHE’S COUGHING BLOOD?????!

no it’s her nose. oh my god. the end.

FUCK YOU ALL I HATE EVERYTHING (punches wall) (punches table) (punches everything in an arm’s reach) (keeps punching until i collapse into a ball of sobs)

well. for most of this, distracting myself with fictional character’s problems worked. but now i’m just sad about my own life AND scully’s.

okay. i won’t lie. you want me to tell the truth? fine. i’ll tell you. i’d never lie to you...

i knew about the scully cancer arc. 

there. i said it. i know, i know, i too wanted everything to come as a surprise. but in all honesty, i’m glad i knew about it, because if i didn’t i’d probs be straight up ugly crying right now. 

yes, i saw it in a gif set a while ago- not this part, but from a later episode- and i find myself still deeply saddened despite knowing it was going to happen. i think it’s just so awful that cancer is a thing that happens, and even knowing that scully isn’t real doesn’t it make it less of a reality for other people, and that breaks my heart. of course i want my fave fictional girl to be okay- and this was foreshadowed after the abduction arc anyway- but cancer…. god, it’s just horrific. i think we all know someone who has it and have had to see what they endure. and it’s so genuinely and horrifically fucked up. luckily i can look at this leonard guy and be like damn, wouldn’t it be fucked up if a guy grew a new head? and i can rest knowing that it shall never happen to anybody alive, but this? like. you just don’t know. it could happen to anyone. 

and that really scares me, i think. more than anything else. so at least we learned about my deep set fear together? glad we had that bonding experience.

gooood. i’m gonna cry. okay yes, check it write it down- the tears are in my eyeballs. you can’t see it, but it is happening. yes, and now they are leaving my eyeballs and going down my cheeks. okay so. that’s fine i guess.

fuck me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this episode was fine, other than that, i guess? i mean i laughed a bit but then i laughn’t. the laughter was cancelled. his face when he was digging around in the body part jumble was really funny, i love when he is squeamish. and i liked him laughing at his own joke and how beautiful they looked in the snow. the idea of this as a monster was kinda interesting and very disturbing in practicality- body horror is always gonna get me- but leonard himself wasn't super compelling. you can't really be that good of a healthcare worker if you're in it just to eat people. his mom was more interesting to me, but also she was annoying because how tf are you gonna sit there and say your baby boy eats people because he is so special?

scully, why do they do this to you……….. i need to save you from chris carter myself……. 

s4 loyalists: you scare me, because how can you endure this willingly? bro, i love angst too... but this is just straight up masochism 😭

[voids-ideas]

So... how are you doing?

I'm... I'm all right, I'm just trying to get some rest, take it easy.

Really? Because I'm pretty sure I heard you talking about a screaming headless corpse right now.

MAG 145 Infectious doubts

Jon, if you're going to lie... at least make it a little believable, please

[chasing-bandages]

Chase wakes up to gentle rain showering his hands and hair.

Compared to the pounding storm he was subjected to earlier, it's quite the welcome change. He sits up groggily, reaching up to rub his eyes. His hands hit a familiar solid material, though.... as soon as he realizes what it is, he groans loudly.

Stupid fucking mask again, goddammit.... he thinks bitterly, the rainshower seeping through the mask's eye holes. It's not too much of an inconvenience, other than once again being quite a hassle to wash his face or eat again. But he was starting to enjoy the feeling of wind on his cheeks again.

Whatever, he thinks, enjoying the gentle rain. Chase looks around, seeing the dark cloud of rain, wind, and lightning in the distance. That must be where he died.... he, Dusk, Lennie, Steph, and Camila.

He wonders where they all spawned before remembering Dusk isn't from this world... she's probably not around anymore. Chase looks down bitterly, hugging his knees to his chest.

He's starting to really hate being alone like this.

That's something he never thought he'd think.... he likes being with his brothers or girlfriend, but aside from them, Chase prefers solitude and no one around.

None of them are here with him, though, and probably never will be. Chase is completely and utterly alone, with no hope of ever escaping or seeing any of his loved ones again.

Chase finds himself thinking of the others. He wouldn't ever admit to trusting any of them, but their company definitely makes him feel a little less alone. They're all just trying to survive, after all, just like him.

..... survive.....

Survival. Life. Death.

His mind drifts to Camila. To what she told him. It's faint and foggy in his memory from the alcohol, but the fragments loop in his mind.

He's still baffled by the logistics of it, how one's conscience actually gets inside the computer and how they stay alive even though they're dead in the real world.... but eventually, he pushes it aside. He's not smart enough to try and figure it out.

Chase still wonders what it feels like, though, to be Camila. He has so many questions, and also a rather unfortunate amount of sympathy for her situation.... how did she die? How old was she? What about her family?

Chase groans and stands up. He really, really, reallyreallyreallyreally hates her and hates that he's feeling any sympathy for her. She's a prick, a bitch, an asshole, a pain in the ass who's probably only keeping him alive as someone to bully. She's horrible, she's annoying, she's cruel, she's selfish, she's......

..... human. She's still human, and she's the only one who could even understand my situation.

Chase looks down at the wet, sandy ground, fingers picking at themselves. If it was anyone other than the bitch who betrayed him when he first arrived, maybe he'd be more willing to open up. But her? Why's it gotta be her of all people?

He walks in the direction of the storm, silently scolding himself each step of the way. Why the fuck am I doing this? I could just wait for a train. I could just lie down by the tracks and wait for the train to pass by. I could stay out in the rain, in the SAFE rain.

..... I'm such a fucking idiot for this. She better thank me for this.

The rain and wind grow more intense as Chase travels deeper into the storm. The mask definitely helps to keep the water out of his eyes, although it still all pools into the bottom of his mask, and he has to dump it out of his eyes quite often. And without the hangover, he's better able to keep his balance and avoid any flying debris.

All of a sudden, he trips and falls, almost slamming his head into a tree trunk. The vague shape he sees glancing back both chills his blood and eases his mind.

His own headless corpse.

Chase stands and steps over the body, noting that his head is completely out of view, wherever it is. But this is almost exactly what he was hoping to find. Now, if only he could find....

There she is.

Chase approaches Camila's corpse, dodging a few flying branches. He takes a few seconds to observe the damage.... parts of her face and body look bashed in and cut, but judging by the deep gash over her throat, the rest of it must be post-death damage.

Her body isn't what he wants though.

Chase grabs her shoulder, smiling as his hand wraps around the bag strap. He quickly pulls the bag off of Camila's body, probably dislocating her arms in the process but not caring as he slings it over his shoulder and books it back in the direction he came. It's definitely a heavy bag, about half his size, but he pushes through and uses the wind to his advantage.

Eventually, the rain starts to ease, and he can see more than a few feet in front of him. Chase's sprint slows to a walk until he's far enough that there's nothing other than the gentle drizzle that woke him up in the first place. He sits down on a flat rock, legs and back aching from the weight he carried. But he's safe now, and he has exactly what he was looking for.

"Alright.... what's in here...." Chase mumbles, opening up one of the compartments. There's all the butcher equipment and cutlery, even a spare cleaver. Chase's eye gleams at the sight of so many sharp weapons. He grabs a small paring knife and stuffs it in his hoodie pocket before searching the rest of the bag.

It's all typical cooking supplies and various foods, including chunks of meat from that rabbit man. Chase wonders how preservation works in the digital world as he seals it all up and continues to marvel at the utensils, dishes, and seasonings she has. He's watched his brothers cook in the kitchen a few times, but a couple of things look quite foreign to him. He doesn't think he ever could learn to cook with most of this.

Eventually, he also finds a large canteen and weighs it in his hands.

Empty... he thinks, hopping up and walking into the rain once again. Chase unscrews the cap and holds it up, waiting as the water fills the canteen. It doesn't take long, and after the container's full, he turns around and gets back to the rest of the equipment. Other than a few rags being soaked, everything seems undamaged.

Chase lays back on the rock, kicking his feet a little and humming. The storm continues to move on, away from him and passing over the town. Hours past, to which Chase spends nibbling on carrots and trying to dry his clothes off.

The more he thinks about it, the less the thought of Camila pisses him off. Her methods for killing people and tricking others into eating them is fucked up, but it's not like she can do much else. He's seen first hand that she can't exactly help herself, and a vegetarian diet wouldn't really be the best for a cannibalistic vampire. She's trying to survive.

And she's never getting out of this place either, no matter what. That's the most disturbing fact of her situation, and Chase has so many questions. How does aging work? What if the system shuts down? Can someone die of old age? Are they, in the grand scheme of things, immortal?

He bites his tongue, looking down at the ground. The way she treats him is..... familiar. She's a bitch who toys with him and doesn't care if he's a bitch back, she matches his energy but treats him like a kid.

.... she treats me like my brothers.

A familiar clunking sound jostles Chase out of his thoughts, prompting him to stand up. In the distance, he sees a train with a yellow mark chug along, heading straight towards him and the storm. Time to go.

He groans and lays face down, cringing at the realization. That's something he DEFINITELY doesn't want to accept because she's not them. She never will be them. No one will ever be them. No one will replace his family, and he'll be damned if anything makes him feel better about it.

He puts the bag on and rushes to the side of the tracks, internally cursing himself for not adjusting the straps first. Whatever, it doesn't matter. The train's getting closer.... and closer.... and closer.....

Chase leaps forward through the open doors.

And not a moment too soon, either. Just as he regains his balance, the train chugs straight into the storm. Rain, wind, and debris smatter through the open doors, immediately drenching Chase's clothes again.

He grumbles with a yawn, dragging the bag over behind several crates that block out the majority of the rain. He's far too exhausted for this, and eventually just lays down while hugging Camila's bag. For being full of cooking supplies, it's shockingly comfortable to hug.

Chase yawns again, shivering from the water soaking through his clothes. At least the rain crashing against the windows is soothing, a familiar sound that slowly lulls him to sleep. He squeezes the bag just a little, thinking one final thing before fully drifting off.

Guess I'm trying to find Camila instead of avoid her now.

[like-rain-or-confetti]

Henchman y/n who’s got venom(the symbiote) in her and just gets mad at her and transforms into him for a second, bites whoever was annoying her head off, then goes back and acts like nothing happened

Help I'm thinking a mix between among us and venom and I'm wheezingggg.

Symbiote

Your fellow henchman, Max, yelped as you crawled out of the vent. "What the hell are you playing at!?" He cried out. "Oh relax, I was making sure the vents were clear. We don't need any rodent problems now do we?" You asked pointedly. "You couldn't be any more suspicious!" He hissed.

The Riddler: "You two are vexing me." He grumbled with irritation. "Yeah, Max, quit being annoying!" You muttered. "You are just as annoying, (Y/N)." The Riddler retorted. "Ha!" Max fired back. The Riddler rolled his eyes when he suddenly heard a squelching sound and then loud 'chomp' noise. The Riddler spun on his heel, just in time to see a headless Max fall to a crumpled heap on the ground. You looking at him with a confused expression. The Riddler looked between you and the corpse. "Did you-?" He began and you shook your head with a quick. "Nope." He narrowed his gaze. "Really? You're going to blatantly lie?" "Hey, if you knew why did you ask?" You shot back. "You better get rid of this." He scowled. "Then I need your help." You replied and he groaned. "Then why did you kill him if you weren't prepared to get rid of him!?" "Why do you think I have a choice in this!? He was annoying me and then he lost his head. That's life!" "That is not-" Edward cut himself off, dragging a hand down his face. "Fine. You do this again and you're on your own. I'll teach you one time and one time only." He grumbled.

Scarecrow: "Children, play nicely." He said as he looked around the warehouse. His two henchmen grumbled, sending each other dirty looks. He continued to scan the warehouse with his eyes. It looked relatively old- abandoned. He was certain he could at least hide his fear toxin here if not produce it. As he continued his considerations a few moments of silence passed. Then there was a wet squelching noise and a chomp! Jonathan turned to see a headless Max and you, rocking on your heels, hands behind your back trying to seem innocent. Jonathan blinked at corpse. "Anything you wish to add?" He asked you. "Hm?" You asked. Jonathan gestured to the healess body on the floor. "Uh...he might have deserved it?" You suggested. Suddenly you grimaced and rolled your tongue. "Ew! Hair in my mouth!" You yelped before trying to remove it from your tongue with your fingers. "How does that even happen!? It wasn't even my mouth!?" "So it was you." Jonathan deadpanned. You whined, a reluctant admission of guilt.

Two-Face: "Will you two shut up?" Harv' huffed. "Boss, I don't think we should let (Y/N) out of our sight given their...condition." Max sneered. You glared at him. "If you're chicken shit then don't stand next to them." Harv' grunted. "I-it's! It's not that!" Max said hurriedly. "Then shut your mouth!" Harvey snapped. When he turned back around he heard a squelch, a cut off yelp and a chomp. Harvey paused before turning around to look at the scene behind him. He wasn't surprised Max was dead. He was surprised it was only his head that was gone. You looked at each other in silence for a moment. "Was that necessary?" Harvey asked flatly. "That'll show him I can do it whilst he's looking at me." You grumbled. He sighed. "Well at least the childish arguing is over with." You let out a loud burp before covering your mouth quickly. "Damn!" Harv' exclaimed. "He's salty." You winced. "So...you gonna finish the poor bastard off or are you gonna tell us that we gotta hide his body somewhere? You know, people don't just lose their heads. It'll be obvious it isn't an accident." You sighed. "I'll get him...you know I get he didn't like me much but why is he so salty!?" You whined. Two-Face clapped you on the back. "Get it over with. You'll get to shit him out later." Harv' chuckled. "It's not me eating him!" You cried out exasperated. "I am." A low gravely voice came from your mouth, tone smug. "You shut it! This is your fault!" You huffed to yourself. "It's almost like looking in a mirror." Harvey said flatly. There was another squelching noise as the symbiote revealed itself. "Until that happens." Harvey added.

Black Mask: "Shut it!" Roman snapped making the two of you flinch. "No, you won't!" You protested quickly making Roman and the two other henchmen look at you. "Sorry...not you guys...the...you know. I have a parasite." "Parasite!?" You responded to yourself, voice lower and deeper and very offended. You slapped a hand over your mouth. Roman rolled his eyes shaking his head before he turned back around. The second he did there was a squelch and a chomp. He turned back to see a headless body of Max. Roman immediately looked to you. "Wasn't me!" You said quickly. "What the fuck do you mean it wasn't fucking you? Who else could have his fuckin head off in seconds!?" Roman asked icily through a clenched jaw. "Georgie!" You pointed to him. "He's a big guy!" Roman pointed to you. "You better consider yourself fucking lucky you've got that thing in you, freak." "Yes, boss." You squeaked. "Georgie, get rid of him." Roman ordered. "Where do I put him?" Georgie asked. "Fuckin' anywhere!? Dangle him off one of Gothams bridges for all I fuckin' care!" Roman snapped. "Put him in the room with all the electrics?" You offered.

Mad Hatter: "Enough of your squabbling! It's nothing but troubling!" Jervis scolded. "He shouldn't even care where I've been or going to." You grumbled. "You're the first person we should be-" Max cut off his retort as Jervis turned, pulling out his pocket watch. "Which one of you wants to go first?" Jervis asked and the two of you stayed silent with a wide eyes, pleading stare. Jervis turned away once more, pocketwatch returning to his pocket. Max reached out and pushed you. You pushed back, he pushed again, as did you. Before he could push you for a third time there's a squelch and a chomp. Your eyes were wide, staring at a headless Max. "Oops." You whispered as Jervis turned back to see the scene. "He pushed me." You said quickly, pointing at Max. "So you bit his head off? Literally?" Jervis tilted his head. "Well...not me specifically." You replied. "Regardless this is not ideal. I don't know how else to feel." He replied dismayed. "It's fine, I can...finish him off." You winced at the oddity of your sentence. Jervis sighed. "Don't ruin your dinner, (Y/N)." You nodded. "I won't." He quickly left you to it, not keen on the thought of witnessing such a thing.

Now i just want to write the rogues playing among us. Thanks fam😂😩

[trollplaying]

A Minor Inconvenience

Another one yaaaaay Trigger warnings: vomiting, blood, death, gore

You jolt forward onto your hands as your stomach lurches painfully. When the first heave shakes you you aren't even fully awake. Eyes closed tight, all you can do is hold yourself up as your stomach feels like it's trying to wring you of everything you've ever eaten. You faintly register the ground under your palms, a small hope that focusing on the trampled grass and dirt will distract you.

It doesn’t.

After what feels like far too long it finally stops, leaves you panting and your arms trembling. Tears blur your vision when you finally open your eyes.

Your mind felt like it was skipping a beat as your gaze wandered until you spotted an ax covered in purple blood lying not far away. Your blood-

You sit back on your calves, still shaky as you run a hand over your face- only to pause when you feel something wet and sticky covering it. Only then does scent of iron floods you, causing your still sensitive stomach to flip as you yank your hand away. A mix of rust and blue colored blood covers it, covers both of your hands- You heave again even though nothing comes of it when you recognize the taste of iron on your tongue as well.

Iron and...ash? Something old and heavy... Swallowing heavily, you turn your gaze on what you had thrown up. The horror you are met with isn't what you expect. What you had expelled looks like a black goo rather than blood and gore. Yet it still leaves you shuddering.

What had happened to you? You wrack your memories as you look around- only for regret to flood you once again as your eyes lie on two mangled corpses. You wanted to look away but found your gaze frozen on them... It looked as though they'd been mangled by a beast. Their chests ripped open, flesh and organs missing, you cannot tell what could even be their heads as destroyed as they are, yet the bites taken out of them were too small for a beast, too familiar...

“No- no, th-this cannot-” You try to stand but collapse back down when your legs refuse to hold your weight. Instead you finally clench your eyes shut, wrenching your head side to side as if it would fade away if you just wished hard enough. This couldn't be real- it had to be a daymare! 

But when you open your eyes the gruesome sight remains. The rust blood... You remember finding them injured. You had tried to help them, and then-

And then-

You jolt. Your hand flies up to your neck at the memory of the glint of the blade before you felt the weight of it crush down upon you. You feel a seam on your neck there, tacky and circling around like a necklace. Your breathing turns to heavy pants as you feel your nails sink into that space a bit, a dull ache easily overshadowed by the terror of finding that the flesh wasn't connected.

A gasp escapes you as you feel yourself tip forward and you reach out to catch yourself. You feel your hands touch the ground, brace you, yet your head slams into the dirt still.

”—!” A hiss of pain before you try to lift yourself up. And there's a disconnect again: you can feel yourself sit up, hands on your legs searching, but your head... You crack open one eye as you reach up to your face, only to find nothing here. Just the stump of your neck, tacky yet not quite bleeding. Out of the corner of your eye you see your body at an angle you never should be able to, headless as it mirrors the movements you feel.

... Something in you wants to laugh at the situation even more than it wants to cry. How was this real? How was this happening? All you could remember was the pain of the ax before you woke up like this... The pain and then... darkness.

Your stomach churns again as you blindly search the ground in front of you. There was something about the gap in your memory that nags  at you. That makes  your head cloud with a choir of static... Your hands grasp your head and you lift it up to place it carefully on the stump of your neck.

It's awkward at first, as you feel along the seam to make sure it's set right. When you remove your hands you feel that dizzying, slipping sensation and they fly up once more to stabilize your head.

“Please, just stay...” Your voice sounds broken to your own ears, on the verge of crying or screaming or both. It's only when you take a shaking breath to steady yourself that you realize you haven't been breathing properly for some time now. And it should scare you, you realize that, but all you can feel is a dull numbness.

You just want your head to stay on your neck. You don’t want to think of the way your lungs do not ache when you don’t breathe or how your pusher isn’t thundering in your chest or how your body is still shivering. You want your head.

To.

Stay.

Put.

With a hand keeping your head still, you awkwardly open the fetch modus on your wrist. It takes a moment to find your bandages and eject them. At least, you think so. It could have been several moments, or even half an hour. Time has already begun to blur.

'It must be shock.' You realize belatedly. But that doesn’t really matter now, does it? Especially not when you need your head to stay on. Then you can go hive. Where you should have been hours ago. In bed with your matesprit, clean and well fed. That’s where you would be soon enough. Like none of this had even happened. 

In a haze you bandage your neck tightly, you barely feel the compression of it as the desire to return to your hive becomes stronger. You don't spare another glance to the gore around you when you get up to do just that. The forest is full of creatures that would enjoy cleaning up the mess themselves. You wonder why they hadn’t done so sooner, but the thought is soon gone with the thought of a warm bath.

...

It's only when you're on the doorstep, the first rays of morning lightening the sky, that you come back to yourself. You fumble through your modus again for your keys- then manage to fumble them as well when you try to unlock the damn door. You had dropped your keys for a second time when the door was yanked open instead.

You stare blankly at the blue blood before you. She was not even dressed in her nightgown, still in the rumpled dress she had wore this night when she kissed you goodbye. Her face was pinched with worry and hair a ruffled mess. A strong light, perched in on the windowsill to guide those who are lost home, shaken by a sudden and rough gust of wind.

‘Ruffled feathers…’ You think faintly. You do not notice that as she takes in your appearance in turn her expression slowly shifts to panic. 

“Komata... What has befallen you!?” Her soft voice shakes something loose inside you. It cuts through the haze and you can't find the words to explain, to even begin. You didn’t even want to think of the past few hours.

You can't do anything but stumble forward, arms enveloping her, as the first sob wracks your body.

You lay in bed wide awake after it all. Clean, in your night clothes, and skin still warmed from the bath. Your sweet songbird lays sound asleep next to you like you've never seen her before: still bright and flickering, a bit unsteady from the wind, yet refusing to be extinguished.

——————

'A gift...' Amid the crackling static of the darkness, you remember hearing it.  Before a pressure had been lifted off of your eyes. You did not know if it was an echo or final words, but you knew the shadow with horns like yours hadn't been speaking to you when she said it. She had spoken to the yawning, feathered darkness itself before it turned its multiple eye on you.

[waheelawhisperer]

For the character building questions. If you did want to answer some for your doctor or an OC.

How about 1, 3, 4, 15, 19, 20, 27, 31 and 42?

I'll do this one for Doctor Waheela. They're in numerical order.

What’s the lie your character says most often?

"I'm fine. I'm okay" (he's not fine)

How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just the audience knowing?

If he's on the landship or in a secure location around people he trusts, Doctor Waheela usually shows his emotions pretty openly. If he's out in the field or around people he doesn't know, he's basically a blank slate. You won't know what he's thinking unless he wants you to.

What’s a hobby they used to have that they miss?

Give his backstory, probably decapitation. Prior to his stay in the Chernobog sarcophagus, I'm not sure Doctor Waheela had time for things like "hobbies".

What’s the most obvious difference between their behavior at home, at work, at school, with friends, and when they’re alone?

Doctor Waheela is a Lupo (a waheela, to be precise - an Elder Lupo variant), so he tends to be pretty friendly and outgoing when he's around people. Obviously, things change a bit depending on social context, but he will generally be nice to anyone who hasn't established themselves as a threat and gets upset when rebuffed or treated curtly.

He needs alone time sometimes, but he generally prefers to be around others, and if he's still isolated once his social battery recharges, he has a tendency to mope. Absolutely will cuddle if given the chance.

What would they do if stuck in a room with the person they’ve been avoiding?

This actually happened to him during the events of Chapter 7 when he and Kal'tsit were traveling through Chernobog together, and it almost resulted in the two of them trying to kill each other in preemptive self-defense.

I'll go on a tangent and reveal my Doctor's backstory here. My lovely friend @norondor did a lot of the work coming up with it and she deserves a thousand hugs for that because I absolutely love it.

Doctor Waheela used to be an assassin known as the Saberwolf of the Headless Valley (based on the actual, real-life legends of the waheela cryptid) known for appearing out of nowhere in supposedly-secure locations, killing a target, and leaving without a trace except for the decapitated corpse. Prior to the Kazdel Civil War, he had left that life behind in favor of contributing to the sciences, with the intention of healing instead of hurting.

I'm giving a much-abbreviated version of the lore here, but Doctor Waheela eventually made his way to Theresa and Babel, and the necessities of war demanded that he dust off his old skills and start killing again. Theresa used him as, essentially, Babel's attack dog, sending him to eliminate key enemy targets when not commanding troops on the battlefield.

As the war went on, much of his humanity was stripped away, leaving only a ruthless killing machine. Kal'tsit watched and was troubled by this transformation, and her feelings were borne out by his eventual execution of Theresa. She was adamantly against retrieving him from Chernobog, fearing both his capacity for manipulation and his proficiency in combat and assassination. After his awakening, she treated him with even more contempt and suspicion than she treats the Doctor with in canon, viewing the Saberwolf as both an existential threat to all that remained of Theresa and her legacy and a direct personal danger to the people she loved. She hates and fears him in equal measure and is not shy about letting either show.

Unfortunately, this is exactly the wrong way to handle Doctor Waheela after his emergence from the sarcophagus. He's very friendly and open and not all that emotionally mature, so Kal'tsit's hostility hits him pretty hard. He's very hurt by it, especially when the Rhodes Island members he met in Chernobog (mostly) readily accepted him, and doesn't really know how to process those feelings. His forgotten assassin training is also telling him that Kal'tsit is Dangerous, and that combined with the fact that she really obviously hates his guts makes him extremely wary of her.

What this means is that when Rhodes Island started the operation to stop Chernobog from crashing into Lungmen, Doctor Waheela almost refused to team up with Kal'tsit. Once they actually entered the city, he spent most of their journey together wondering if this was the time she was going to move against him and growing more and more agitated, which in turn put Kal'tsit on edge and made her question whether he was going to attack her, which caused the world's worst feedback loop. If not for Kal'tsit's oath to Theresa and the fact that Doctor Waheela simply lacked the physical ability to challenge Kal'tsit at the time, one of them would've died.

Who do they like as a person but hate their work? Vice versa, whose work do they like but don’t like the person?

Doctor Waheela adores Blaze, but he cannot stand the way she fills out paperwork. Same with Skadi.

On the other hand, his relationship with Kal'tsit on a personal level is godawful (to the detriment of everyone around them), but she's really freaking good at her job and they work incredibly well together specifically in crisis situations (they're not great at working together in a day-to-day sense, but when the chips are down, they put all that aside and get the job done)

What’s the worst gift they ever received? How did they respond?

SilverAsh sent him a bunch of bondage gear once. Doctor Waheela just opened the box, looked at its contents, and then carefully closed it back up and forwarded it to Gnosis.

The best one was Mlynar's positive pregnancy test

When do they feel the most guilt? How do they respond to it?

Doctor Waheela's backstory is revealed during the Victoria arc and he's devastated, especially after seeing the impact learning that about him has on the people he cares about. A lot of the people he's close to are very traditionally heroic (think Nearl, Gavial, Saria to an extent, etc.) and knowing he used to be a ruthless killer absolutely destroys them. He basically shuts down, it nearly shatters his relationships with Nearl and Gavial (the two people on Rhodes Island he's closest to), and it takes Texas and Lappland to snap them all out of it (Texas is just kinda like "yeah, that tracks" because she senses something familiar in him despite his affable demeanor and Lappland's response is basically "holy shit dude that's awesome").

If invited to a TED Talk, what topic would they present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

jk, but there are a lot of solid options here. There's obviously military strategy, but despite being a total himbo under most circumstances, Doctor Waheela is actually an intelligent and capable medical professional. He's an expert neurologist and Originium/Oripathy researcher, as well as a qualified dietician/nutritionist, physical therapist, and personal trainer. He plays a large role in developing the operator training programs Rhodes Island uses and helps his operators develop physical fitness programs tailored to their needs and goals. He's not really an expert on fashion, but he can give a good presentation on how to make sure your cowboy hat, coat/jacket, t-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots all match, as well as how to pick appropriate accessories.

[gods-chariots]

Tap to download.

I remember letters, voice messages, pictures, and videos.

We existed nowhere whole, but between the lines of poems, lyrics, and conversations,

in a plane of code and pixels where I didn't have touch to remember you by.

We hid each other there.

Segments parallel to each other’s lines, rushing, electrocuting. 

I used to hope just not to lose you, but toward the end hoped to keep you somewhere with a pulse, inside my chest, so when you sent me your voice, you spoke from within me.

I am reminded of how similar I am to the machine that bridged, limited us.

I had signed up to become it, become preordained for confinement,

and it was my soul that became desperate

to disrobe my flesh and bone and reveal the metals, glass, and wires that puncture the heart pumping pleas to exist differently, someplace else.

There, under the tree breaking the pavement, scribbled with the aging marks of slides and flips.

In the field of the fenced airport. Along palm trees. Outside your window,

where we would gift each other cities, skies, trips.

Why did I pretend I felt nothing for the picture 

of the scatter of toys and strollers around your feet,

your gentle company, long kinks of hair stark against the pin-straights of your baby brothers?

How could I keep in my throat the erupting ache to be there? To show you, really try to show you how much I wished we could be next to each other? Why didn't I? Why couldn't I? Why couldn’t I break the language of grit and grudge and guilt and find a way to reach into you through clicks, keys, scrapped files of pictures with slow shutter speeds, under that palm tree, make you look me in the eye and feel my palm?

Why was I a machine then, but when temper was lost, and you were dead to me,

and I was remembering other people by what I could not remember you by,

and when you found out, you wished to hurt me, and you intended to inflict pain on me,

why was I real? Why am I human when I miss you, hate you, when I want you gone?

Why did I care about being real only when we hurt each other for it? When I condemned you for showing what I couldn’t? When you spat at me for it? I did not know what any of it meant, and I still do not.

Why do I care about being a real girl for you now only when you have found someone there? Your true heart beats for them, and while I prayed to soothe you in the muscles of mine, I only hear myself from a silent ringer. I am a bar in a panel and bubbles of text and dropped calls.

I miss stitching what I remember. I remember tender offerings of comfort from across the world that I am glad never have been fulfilled,

for if I smelled you on your corpse bride jacket and saw your fingerprint on the ruby pendant, I would die.

Images, letters—they were enough. They were too much and too little. I feel like you would have loved to take care of me in images and letters. Look at me in tilts and pans. Find me in code and clouds. Love me in ones and zeros. You said you love me when I told you how you miss home when you I can't remember which was only something you would have said I can't remember from learning your brightness,

that harsh gratitude that translated far more profound than a wild, extrinsic, real life end. What I remember is how much I bled for you and how much guilt I harbored. I remember clearly all the violent wishes and bouts of painful anger.

We were always relieved to be okay and crawl and grip the phones that called and rung, no matter how unresolved, how futile. I thought it wasn't. For a couple of days. I could've done it. I could've become more. I felt it. I love you.

I remember us saying not to say it, but it always came back, so let us have had it.

Let us have had the privilege to have loved within the confines of screens,

through rushes of wired bolts of lightning, survived by millions of deleted letters, voice messages, pictures, and videos. I lie headless there where it all is. Thank you for knowing we are alive.

[kingofdinosaurs]

3 6 8 9 12 14 24

feel free to answer however many of em you want for any media you're into (that I actually know)

sorry, unrelated, I just found out they let you DM people images now? What the fuck?

no yeah you can send people images now it rocks thank you for the bridge. going through all of them because im airport bored

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

ok well the worst one EVER was someone saying they thought potemkin should have died in xrd IN THE TAG which was. fucking rude and also totally stupid. honourable mention to that time so long ago i barely remember how it happened when i saw a pokespe fan assert that "wally could never have done what emerald did!" hey why do you think that. when wally was literally in the oras version of the battle frontier (I know oras was out because that's how i was a fan of wally. is it because he's disabled. i want you to fucking say it.

6. already answered!

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

hmm... idk if it's even a common thing anymore because i avoid it like the plague but if i ever have to see "the knight doesn't have a mind or will" arguments again I'll like find whoever started it and put them in a jigsaw trap fuck you fuck you fuck you did you even play the game??? the delicate flower quest alone should be enough to prove you wrong. if the knight can't have its own agenda why the fuck would it go out of its way to do this small unnecessary kindness? also the narrative itself doesn't make sense if you assume the pale king is right about the knight, both in terms of "what was the fucking point then?" and because of the fucking. REASON THE KNIGHT CAME BACK TO HALLOWNEST. BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO HELP THEIR SIBLING. idk if this one is even common anymore but it was frustratingly common back in the day

9. worst part of canon

for persona there's so many choices i feel paralysed, as with blazblue, so I'll go with a wild card: dead cells! anyway anytime when someone acts like the beheaded is just cut and dry easy peasy The King like it can not be that fucking simple that's fucking stupid. he's literally the ship of theseus but a slime piloting around a headless corpse. like at this point you're just giving annoying youtubers ways to be more annoying quit itttttt

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

SYSTEMMMM i love system so fucking much I'm crazy about her. nobody gives a fuck about her because she's a relatively easy boss in a fighting game many people do not like (a crossover, no less!). but she fucking rocks so hard!!! she's so funny in every scene she's in, i really appreciate that about her. she's kind of like queen from deltarune if that helps anyone. it's not even hard to go watch like cross tag story mode it is literally all on youtube everyone who hasn't go meet her! she deserves some attention!

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

actually i can't lie i just like don't have it in me to trawl the fanfic mines anymore so idk what they're doing right now like it is No Longer my problem

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

oh god i have no clue. i don't get involved in arguments like this anymore for my health so i have no clue

[offwilds]

Skellige, 1030

She is silent but rarely still, stalking the edges of the room as he holds audience; fidgeting with the moonstone hang about her throat, with the silver rings upon her fingers that glow with strange magics, even as she stands beside his throne. You are my right hand, jarl Drummond says, when she asks why she must remain at his side through these dull proceedings. I would have your counsel, in such important matters.

It is not my place to counsel you, lord Skjordal, she answers, her expression ever cold and placid as still water.

Still, he learns to read her mood in the set of her shoulders, the sureness of her step. An Craite riders come from the east, wearing the colors of the old noble houses; Harald, the Cripple, comes, a storm of a man, hard with all his old blood and older fights, and her hands curl into fists, fury and mistrust flaring in her violet eyes. Jarls cometh from the lands beyond the southern cliffs of Ard Skelling, they all lie, the an Craites lie, and she nearly chokes on her laughter, deep and charming and menacing all at once, equal parts outraged and amused at their daring.

Once, only once, does she stand still and cool at his shoulder—silent, as he moves through the blighted and burnt-out halls of his keep in Undvik. He chokes on a cry upon seeing the blackened corpse of his throne; still, he climbs the steps and lowers himself gingerly to sit. The charcoaled edges crumble beneath his shaking hands, but his seat, the seat of Hemdall long before him, was carved of heartwood. It holds. It will hold, until the ending of the world.

Nereinne comes, wordlessly, to stand beside him.

Nereinne, who's feared and despised both by his retainers who whisper malice in his ear; Nereinne of the wilds, of strange, unfriendly lands, whom upon they lay the blame when the blood of the jarl's daughter is spilled and the land darkens with all his sorrow and rage; Nereinne who gathers the blood of their jarl, his headless body after Harald the Cruel, Harald the Cripple, Harald of clan an Craite slays him. Liar, they call her, later, traitor; lies they whisper from tongue to tongue and mouth to mouth, cruel untruths who maim her name, to cleanse themselves of any blame; every fault , they say, lays with the wicked witch, daughter of blood Chaos.

Still, she remains, cold and still as water; still, she says not a word: it does not matter, whether they blame her, or themselves. Their jarl is dead.

She flees with blood on her hands, but neither guilt nor shame in her heart. Only fury. Only grief.

[suchawrathfullamb]

That's so interesting, and why I love when we discuss things as a fandom in a civilized way, we end up realizing many perspectives. To me, Wendy was Will's perception of Hannibal. Not who he truly was, because we see it in the dream sequence, specifically after Hannibal tells Will he loves him (in the script and implicit on the final scene), H transforms into Wendy. In the script we're able to understand that scene better because it states that, after H says "I love you, Will", Will "has had enough", meaning he thinks it's a ridiculous lie, because he states at the beginning of this sequence that he didn't know Hannibal had a "better nature". Also in Season 3, where he has many lines that indicate his belief about H having no real capability to care ("he's playing with us", "Hannibal doesn't worry", "it's all for entertainment" etc).

So to me, I've always seen the Wendy as Will projecting this monster creature unto who he thought H was. In the script of the dream sequence this is also evident as it states that when he transforms into Wendy he is "soulless", which used to be Will's perspective of him.

Wendy is the pitiful creature sometimes born in hospitals.

Which is why he exclusively appears when Will perceives him as evil.

Will hunts the stag in his dream just before he vomits up Abigail's ear; at the end of the dream, the stag first assumes the form of the wendigo. Subsequently, Will sees the wendigo twice more: lurking behind the one-way mirror in the interrogation room just before Jack enters, and standing behind Hannibal as Will mentally catalogues the "copycat" murders. (Savoureux)

Will sees the stag on the shore when he is fishing in his mind palace, then sees the wendigo rise from the stream. (Kaiseki)

When Alana tries to help Will recover his memories, he sees himself sitting at a huge feast in Hannibal's dining room with Abigail's ear on the plate in front of him and the wendigo seated across from him. (Kaiseki)

In his vision, Will sees the wendigo peering through the top of the silo in Hannibal's place. (Sakizuke)

Will sees the wendigo in Hannibal’s place when Hannibal takes the stand. (Hassun)

Will sees the wendigo lurking behind the display of Beverly’s corpse. (Mukōzuke)

Will dreams of using the black stag to decapitate Hannibal, who himself transforms into the wendigo/man-stag before his death. (Shiizakana)

In Will’s perspective of Randall breaking through his window, Randall takes the form of the stag, then alternately becomes the wendigo and Hannibal himself as Will kills him. (Naka-choko)

In an abstract opening scene, the wendigo stalks the wounded black stag. As the wendigo watches, the stag dies and an antlered Will emerges from the corpse. (Kō No Mono)

After Hannibal says “God is beyond measure in wanton malice and matchless in his irony,” Will and Hannibal appear to both see a giant wendigo rise in the form of the sox-armed Hindu god Shiva (god of creation and destruction), echoing the pose Hannibal put Will’s murder victim “Freddie Lounds” (actually Randall Tier) in. (Kō No Mono)

The stag reborn: Will imagines the "Valentine" Hannibal manufactured from Antony Dimmond's corpse unfolding into a crawling, skinless, headless semi-human form with black stag's hooves and antlers sprouting from its neck. It advances ominously on Will. (Primavera)

In the surreal sequence after Hannibal drugs Will, Will sees Hannibal turn into the wendigo, then sees the wendigo’s horns become smoky versions of himself and Hannibal. (Dolce)

Will sees Hannibal as the wendigo as Hannibal slices into Will's skull. (Digestivo)

Hannibal is reflected as the wendigo when he picks up a mirror shard in the Jacobis’ bedroom, while he and Will are sharing mind-palace space. (…And the Woman Clothed with the Sun)

The thing with him reaching climax after seeing Wendy, to me, was always a reflection of how Will's mind intertwines sexual pleasure with violence (an extremely common occurrence).

we don’t talk about naka-choko enough. and yes, i mean that scene specifically. i’ve had a few people say to me they didn’t understand why the wendigo was there, and of course i just have to yap about it on the internet too because i don’t shut up. what i love about the wendigo is that not only is it a representation of hannibal, but it is a creature that looks like it fits right beneath hannibal’s skin. it amplifies bedelia’s “tailored person suit” comment, suggesting there is something underneath. the wendigo is hannibal’s rawest form. his most powerful, but also his most vulnerable. that is why only will sees it. it’s why will imagining the wendigo rather than hannibal himself is so special. he got off to hannibal in his rawest, most true and natural form. so yes, that is the importance of the wendigo in the infamous naka-choko doink scene.

[caranelguild]

Our adventurers rest among the kobold corpses. Krieg idly begins stripping the scales and flesh from the wyrmling's head with the ambition to fashion a decorative pauldron. Vola sits next to a small cleft in the wall, which turns out to be a cleverly painted tapestry that is hanging a little crooked, hiding an alcove in which sits an iron chest. Quagoon happily picks the lock, revealing a small horde of gems and a few rich garments.

After treating their wounds and catching their breaths, the party moves on, following their bound kobold prisoner down the corridor whence the fire newts came. They pass through a couple empty rooms (one full of headless kobold statues) before listening at a stone door and hearing scuffling feet and draconic argument beyond. "Just the guards of the leader, you know, you'll get your answers soon enough," says the kobold, and he leaps eagerly to open the door. Vola catches him and Krieg holds him down. He sticks to his story, which results in Krieg chopping off one of his feet. At that, the frantic prisoner screams out loudly to alert the residents of the adjoining room.

Well, nothing for it, then. The door is opened, revealing a room full of kobolds.

The little dragon folk in the large room are outfitted curiously with sacks and pots and bags and many-pocketed trousers. A handful even have small cages upon their backs housing small animals! Doesn't matter - they'll die like any other minion. Battle is joined.

Vials and clay pots fly and crash, spreading acid, alchemist's fire, and hungry grubs. A few sacks are opened to liberate swarms of angry wasps, and two cages relinquish a couple of startled skunks. Vola is slapped by a scorpion on a long stick, Krieg is stabbed by daggers, and Quagoon's hireling Pip embarrasses herself by slipping in some fluorescent slime. In short order, however, the kobolds all lie dead.

Except the kobold dragonshield with only one foot, who is now crawling with parasitic grubs and in the throes of a fever.

The large room has many exits, and the prisoner is not cogent enough to give any sort of direction, so a door is chosen more or less at random and the party moves on.

After a few turns, Quagoon volunteers to scout ahead down a winding corridor.

He comes running back on silent feet, warning of running footsteps soon to follow. The party considers traps, using the pots and vials picked from the kobold corpses, but ultimately all planning is abandoned when the promised footsteps threaten an imminent meeting, accompanied by clanging armour and heavy breathing.

The gang retreats to a doorway and turn around to face the enemy. A frantic half-dragon turns the corner, dressed in full plate armour and wielding a longsword-as-shortsword in one hand and a shortsword-as-dagger in the other.

Krieg and one of the lackeys meets them in the corridor. Then Vola gets her feet under her and joins - but the half-dragon had been waiting for another foe, and bathes the three in its fire breath.

Then, around the corner, come two burly men sweating hard, their eyes wild, crossbows swinging from their backs and maces at their belts.

The combat is swift and fierce. The half-dragon is betrayed by their breastplate, which shatters at a blow, leaving them exposed to a killing strike. Then the thugs are dispatched one after the other.

Krieg spends a few minutes stripping the half-dragon of its surviving armour, which fits him decently enough.

Then it's, as always, onwards!

This passage ends between a rock (a stone door) and a hard place (an iron door). Both have swollen in the subterranean, draconic heat and are stuck in their jambs. (Speaking of the heat, some of the party begin ailing under its effects.) Vola batters at the stone door with her maul, breaking it down in ten strikes. The room beyond is an empty barracks, spread with rudimentary beds and collections of poor belongings.

The party tries a door in this room - a stuck iron door, like the one they left behind, and Vola takes a couple of runs at it before it screeches open to reveal a corridor.

In a rare move, however, the party goes back to the untouched iron door. Vola has the measure of these doors, now, and busts it open with a single shoulder-ram.

Inside is a round chamber dominated by a massive, but not quite life-sized stone statue of a dragon. Its head lies in stone dust beneath the arched neck, iron rebar protruding from its stump. A beam of sourceless golden light shines upon the statue, a reprieve from the flicking red and orange that has dimly illuminated the rest of the dungeon.

Moved by the ruin, perhaps by the light or his shared ancestry with its subject, Krieg goes to the fallen head and asks Vola and a lackey for a hand.

Together, the trio lift it above their shoulders to slot the rebar back into its slots; the head is returned and the statue is again whole. The "sunlight" glimmers upon its eyes, turning them almost gem-like.

Soundlessly, one of the statue's paws rises a foot above the floor, revealing an object in its shadow.

Quagoon withdraws an arrow made of black iron and the statue's foot returns to rest.

[grampstaxidermy]

Volturi incorrect quotes

(Aka adventures of the vampire genz support human,(Y/n) )

Caius, reluctantly after an argument: Fine!…You're right.

(Y/n): Wow, that's... That's an unusual phrase for you. Did you just learn it?

————

Aro, in a coven meeting: My policy is if you see something, say something.

(Y/n),trying their best: I saw a squirrel in a tree today!

Aro, with the tone of someone who is used to (Y/n): Outstanding.

Aro: This is what I’m talking about people.

————

Felix: You know, not every problem can be solved with a sword.

(Y/n): That's why I carry two swords.

Felix, both scared and into it: Fair enough.

————

*Alec and (Y/n) skipping stones on lake*

Alec, smiling peacefully: It’s such a beautiful evening isn’t it?

(Y/n), whispering: Take that you fucking lake.

————

Demetri, standing in front of the corpse of readers creepy coworker: Am I in trouble?

(Y/n),looking down at Afton’s headless body: Take a guess.

Demetri: No?

(Y/n):

(Y/n): You’d be correct.

-Bonus

(Y/n) and Demetri, standing in front of Afton's body in the gardens holding a shovel: We can explain.

Marcus, amused having witnessed the whole ordeal: Can you?

(Y/n): If you give me thirty seconds to think of a lie.

Marcus: No need, carry on.

____

(Y/n): You're my best friend and the little sister I’ve always wanted, you know I would do anything for you.

Jane: I want you to eat three meals a day and have a decent sleep schedule.

(Y/n): Absolutely not.

————

Aro: You see little one, I am what most would call a reverse necromancer.

(Y/n),the drunk human Aro stumbled upon: Isn't that just killing people?

Aro: Ah, technicality.

————

Felix, stuck on babysitting guard duty: Okay, truth or dare?

(Y/n): Truth

Felix: How many hours have you slept this week?

(Y/n):

(Y/n): ...Dare

Felix: Go to bed.

(Y/n), pouting: I don’t like this game.

————

Caius, tending to (Y/n)'s wounds: How would you rate your pain?

(Y/n),high on pain meds: Zero stars. Would NOT recommend.

————

Jane: I’m gonna need a human skull and I can't have you ask any questions why.

(Y/n),the goth receptionist who is absolutely thriving in the volturi: Only if you also don't ask why.

(Y/n): *Pulls out 7 pristine human skulls from their bag* Take your pick.

Jane:

(Y/n):

Jane, impressed: This one is fine.

————

(Y/n): Afton and I have the kind of easy chemistry where we finish each other's-

Afton: Sentences.

(Y/n): Don't interrupt me.

————

Demetri, Storming into the receptionists break room: Can you keep a secret?

(Y/n),not even looking up from their book as they sip their coffee: Do you know anything about my life?

Demetri: …..No I do not. Good point.

————

Aro: If there's going to be a big dramatic scene, wait until I get back.

(Y/n): Obviously. I can't flip this table by myself, it’s heavy.

————

(Y/n),trapped in a warehouse with Alec: Don’t worry, I have a few knives up my sleeve.

Alec: I think you mean cards.

(Y/n), pulling knives out of their sleeves: No, I do not.

————

Caius: You love me, right, (Y/n)?

(Y/n): Normally, I’d say yes without hesitation, but I feel like this is going somewhere and I don’t like it.

————

Aro: English is a difficult language. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.

(Y/n),in physical and mental pain: You need to stop, please.

____

Felix, after some guy said something awful about the twins: Violence isn't the answer.

(Y/n): You’re right.

Felix: *sighs in relief*

(Y/n),cracking their knuckles: Violence is the question.

Felix: What?

(Y/n), bolting away: AND THE ANSWER IS YES!

Felix, running after them: (Y/N) NO-

————

Witch!(Y/n),keeping Caius captive at their house: Hey, it's your turn to wash dishes.

Caius: I'LL WASH THE WALLS RED WITH YOUR BLOOD.

(Y/n): 'Kay, but before that, wash the dishes, also use soap this time?

————

Afton: Three words, say them and I’m yours.

(Y/n): Go Fuck Yourself.

————

Felix: I trust (Y/n).

Demetri: You think they know what they're doing?

Felix: I wouldn't go that far.

(Y/n),having been standing beside them the whole time: Fuck you guys.

————

Jane, in a high voice, holding Barbie: Hey ken! I was thinking about going back to school and starting a career!

(Y/n), in a deep voice, holding ken: Nonsense, Barbie. You’re staying home and having my kids.

Felix: What the actual fuck are you guys doing?

Jane: Playing systemic oppression.

————

(Y/n), walking into the throne room holding a python: Guys I found a snake, what do I name him?

Caius, absolutely horrified while Aro is laughing hysterically: You WHAT–

Marcus: William Snakepeare.

————

Felix: Hey, (Y/n)! Tell the twins about the birds and the bees.

(Y/n),An idiot: They're disappearing at an alarming rate.

————

Some new guard: I really like this whole ‘good guy, bad guy’ thing you guys have going on.

(Y/n): It’s not an act, it’s just that I’m mean and Felix isn’t.

————

Heidi: (Y/n) and I are having Twins.

Jane and Alec: That's gre-

(Y/n), slamming adoption papers on the table: It's you two, sign here.

————

Demetri: If I accidentally sat on a voodoo doll of myself, would I be trapped forever in that position, doomed to starve to death?

(Y/n),the goth receptionist: How am I supposed to know?

Felix: You say, as if we don’t all use you as a source of knowledge of the occult.

(Y/n): *sighs*

(Y/n): You wouldn't be trapped.

————

Alec: Truth or dare?

(Y/n): Dare

Alec: I dare you to kiss the hottest person in the room.

(Y/n): Hey Afton?

Afton, blushing: Yeah?

(Y/n): Could you move? I’m trying to get to Heidi.

[aegor-bamfsteel]

The HoTD showrunners decided to make the Velaryons blck, and then promptly ignored them. The show cut Laena and R's friendship, reducing her to a minor, forgettable character who only appears on screen for one ep and then dies. L is a irresponsible man who makes a big speech about stepping up on his duties as a father, but the next time we see him, he's running away to the free-cities with his bf (facilitated by the death of a black guard), pretending to be dead. V dies for telling the truth (1)

Corlys abandons his wife after their children's death, openly states that he prefers Strong bastards to inherit Driftmark over his own granddaughters, and eventually allies himself with a woman he believes murdered his son. Rhaena and Baela are one-dimensional characters, existing only to cheer Jacerys and Luke. The showrunners discarded the importance of the Velaryons in the books, and turned them into minor characters that can be depended upon to make the most illogical decisions (2)

I agree that they reduced and downplayed the Velaryons with taking away their personalities (Laena and her daughters), although I don’t think they were even written well in the novella (Laena has more depth but she still dies without doing much of note, Laenor is a stereotype, Corlys isn’t written consistently because would “a proud man” consent to the Strong scheme? Lol no) However, having the Velaryons played by black actors adds otherwise avoidable racial subtext that is never questioned when it comes to the Silent 5. The Velaryons were marginalized to prop up the Targaryens who did horrible things to them in the novella.

The theft of the Velaryon lands—Rhaenyra passing a child by a non-Velaryon father as the heir to Driftmark, reducing Rhaena an actual blood descendant to a consort—was already an outrageous sign of selfishness, but now in the show it’s attempted thievery of the lands/titles of what seems like the only black family in the continent by an entitled white woman in favor of her white son, over a black man/biracial girl. But what’s egregious in the show is that it tries to get us to sympathize with Rhaenyra over Vaemond, who instigated the theft. In the novella, after Laenor’s death and Corlys’ illness, Vaemond claimed to be his uncle’s heir on the grounds Rhaenyra’s children were Strongs. Rhaenyra sent Daemon to decapitate Vaemond and fed his headless corpse to her dragon, in an over the top display of cruelty. When Vaemond’s family sued Viserys for justice, he had their tongues removed because they had repeated the “lie” that the children weren’t Laenor’s, essentially giving Rhaenyra a blank check to hurt anyone to protect the kids’ (false) paternity. In the novella, it was during this order to mutilate them that Viserys cut himself on the Iron Throne, which nearly killed him and forced Maester Gerardys to amputate two fingers to save his life. Not some random stag hunt that was never mentioned in the books. In the books, a ruler cutting themselves on the Iron Throne is associated with them being lacking somehow, especially during that moment. Viserys wasn’t hurt because he failed to catch an ancient sign of kingship in the woods, he got hurt because he ordered the mutilation of a grieving family in order to protect his daughter’s right to do as she pleases. The show made Vaemond into an overt asshole, calling Rhaenyra a “whore” and her children “bastards” which he didn’t before, putting the focus on the sexism she faced in hopes of us forgetting she was trying to steal lands from a black family (it’s not gonna work because book readers know the politics), and ended up killing a rightfully angry black man. Instead of Rhaenyra ordering a hit on him and having Syrax eat his corpse—foreshadowing for when she gets fed to a dragon despite being “the rightful heir”—she just barely nods at Daemon (it had to be pointed out to me she okayed his murder) who cuts the man’s head off. There’s no Silent Five that shows Viserys to be a horrible enabler and tyrant by ordering Vaemond sons’ mutilation for telling the truth, and the implicit condemnation when he nearly dies after cutting himself while giving the order. So there’s no consequences for any of the Targaryens, because in the novella 3 of the Silent 5 joined the Greens in that war out of protest for what Rhaenyra/Viserys did, but in the show, Vaemond is graphically decapitated and it never comes up again. Alicent according to the episode synopsis even feels badly for Rhaenyra because of Vaemond’s words…even though Vaemond died for those words, whereas Rhaenyra gets coddled by her uncle-husband and father. The show allegedly focuses on sexism as a form of oppression, but casting the Velaryons with Afro-British actors adds racial dynamics to what the Targs do to them, and so far that’s been ignored in order to make the Targs look better.

Laena in the novella has a better personality and ending, even with her minuscule page time. She was a tomboy who tamed the fiercest and oldest dragon at 12, who was amenable enough to be friends with the difficult Rhaenyra and married to Daemon. She did die in childbirth, but it was with her husband and friend with her in her childhood home Driftmark, while she tried to ride Vhagar one last time. In the show, she gets barely any personality—they have a Stepstones battle with the Velaryon men and Daemon, so what was stopping them from adding Rhaenys and Laena on their dragons?—and instead of a peaceful end, the writer Sara Hess has her commit suicide (which must’ve been lovely for those who are triggered by suicidal ideation) by asking Vhagar to burn her alive; she says that’s “a dragonrider’s death”, but if that’s true, then I guess the victims of the field of Fire, King’s Landing Massacre, Varys, the Tarlys, the Rhaescape, the Stepstone warriors, were all dying like dragonriders too. It’s repeatedly shown how painful burning to death is in books and show. It’s not a dragonrider’s death; it’s a dragon’s victim’s death. Then her widower has sex with her sister-in-law after her funeral, so I guess she didn’t matter. Someone referred to show!Laena’s Suicide scene as a “strong black woman” death as opposed to her more peaceful send off in the books, and I agree to the extent that it was needlessly cruel and nonsensical.

Somebody wrote to me that “the writing was getting stupid” when they watched Laenor’s send off episode. I mentioned it before, but while I’m glad the black gay man wasn’t killed to facilitate the white uncle-niece from getting together, the fact they had him abandon the children who were legally his, abandon all of his old life even his dragon just for Qarl (basically exiling himself with no chance to return), and not even tell his parents who just lost their daughter and his mother at least is alone with grief…well, it makes him look terrible just to make the Targaryens look better letting him leave (see? We knew Daemon would never kill an innocent man! This is Game of Thrones “civilians don’t count”). That Rhaenyra just illegitimized her entire line hasn’t been brought up yet, and considering the writing’s approach to politics in this fantasy political drama, might not be. Her explanation to Jace that she’d tried with Laenor undercuts how the Strong children—and her efforts to silence those who pointed out they weren’t Velaryon—were an example of her selfishness and entitlement, that she could have children with whomever and the realm would have to accept they’re legitimately Laenor’s even though it’s obvious they weren’t. Needless to say, her crack about Laenor’s sexuality—saying he’d prefer her 4 and 7 year old half brothers, which just like Cole’s comment about him liking boys was equating homosexuality to pedophilia—was cut out completely, because Rhaenyra can’t be politically incorrect ever.

Rhaena and Baela don’t get much characterization in the novella—and Baela’s characterization in F&B including retconning away her burn scars made me furious—but they should at least be distinguishable from each other. Baela has short hair, is loyal, likes swords and riding Moondancer. Rhaena has long hair, more accepting of authority, likes dancing, and feels jealous she doesn’t have a dragon. HOTD took most of that away in their few scenes, leaving only the dragon jealousy and bravery.

Basically, nearly every character suffered so the show could focus on the Targaryens, who had many of their horrible actions downplayed, changed, or ignored (imagine trying to make the land thief the victim in the situation). Casting the Velaryons with Afro-British actors, but not doing anything to address the racial subtext of the Targs neglecting/abusing/murdering them (as well as turning them into absentee fathers or sexists to make the Targs look better), in addition to flattening their already thin characters, just adds to the mess of this show’s writing and themes.