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areyoureadyforhell · 2 years ago

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“absinthe.”

"Absinthe."

Summary: Conditor ended up getting caught by Alfie after trying to solve some problems for him. Alfie didn't think so.

Character: Alfie Solomons (Peaky Blinders) x Conditor (Original character).

Warning: no proof-read, OOC (for sure), a lot of blood and corpses, dark (dirty) jokes, I'm bad at tagging.

Theme: powfu - death bed

https://youtu.be/bWjcQKErWd8

—

It all started with a small misunderstanding. Good films in the safe zone always had one motif like that.

In Conditor’s condition, however, that cute little problem did not end up really well.

– So, – one of the bastards finally decided to break the silence, – you said you were planning on writing and painting and making artistic shit based on our fucking ridiculous lives?

It took Conditor some time to think about the answer, actually.

– …sort of, I suppose. It’s not working like what you’re thinking, sweeties, but you can look at it like that.

The young girl folded her arms gently, as if the blood draining from her nose did not exist. Her smile made the gangsters’ hair stand on end. It’s not creepy, sure, they had seen corpses, thousands of them, lying in their blood with different kinds of injuries. People in this world die all the time, so wounds and blood should not be a new thing.

Toward this little woman, however, all they could feel was a strange, uneasy feeling.

– Don't fool me, I don’t give a fuck! – Another guy gritted his teeth, and his grip on the baton tightened. – You’ve entered the death fucking hole, little woman. You gotta be responsible for that.

The situation got worse, Conditor noted, and it would reach its worst soon if she couldn’t do something. These gangsters did not have the patience like reporters. They worked with their muscles.

In fact, dealing with violence was not her cup of tea, but that didn't mean she would talk to them again in peace.

– Yeah yeah, I know, I know…

All they could hear from her was a small giggle and a harsh smash before their vision became blurry.

"Then let me teach you how to give a fuck, alright?"

–

When Alfie came, the little fight had ended.

– Fucking hell…

Corpses were lying along the road, together with their blood sticking on. The mixed smell of dry blood, wet trash and sweat was uncomfortable enough for someone like Alfie to furrow his eyebrows.

– You were born with Satan on your side, weren’t ya, little woman?

Conditor spent her last two marks of energy replying to his joke.

– …you don’t want to raise someone who will rob you of your throne, eh? Gods and Devils have the same fear, so they made me human.

That reply earned a laugh from the Jews. Conditor tried to take a small breath, then hissed as her injuries were affected. Dry blood covered her already dirty outfit, and that face was barely recognizable both because of blood and wounds. She truly was a devil crawling from the deepest part of hell.

This devil, however, could feel tired.

Alfie walked past the disgusting, bloody corpses, making his way carefully toward the little woman he had found for months. Conditor did not plan to resist: she’s moral enough not to irritate this fucking bear more than she’d already done. Both of them were interested in tricks and mind games, for sure, but considering all the things she had done, Conditor could even foresee her pathetic future funeral. There would be a lot of flowers, noises, and a coffin with no corpse inside because it had already been chopped and served on someone’s plate for dinner.

– Wanna eat bún đậu mắm tôm so bad…

– Sounds fucking terrified. What the hell is that?

Conditor could feel his hand resting quietly on her neck.

– "Cuisine", – she let out a sigh. – did I pronounce that word right? I ate that to feel comfy when I was young.

– When you were young, eh? – He raised his voice, even giggled a little bit. – How fucking old are you?

His grip tightened. Conditor's eyebrows furrowed, her hands unconsciously scratching on his, but Alfie did not move.

– You came here alone, sweetie. Worked with me for a long time, then left. Then came back. What's on your mind, hm?

– They… – Conditor tried to pronounce every word she could say clearly since that was the only way to save herself from the angry brown bear. – they planned to kill you.

– Yeah? – His hand on her neck painfully stayed still. – That's the problem. How on this fucking earth can you know?

This time, Conditor kept her silence.

Blood had stopped draining from corpses, but the sound of drops touching the ground permanently still echoed all over the small, dirty alley. It made Conditor feel uncomfortable, and the lack of oxygen worsened the uneasy feeling. Stars covered her eyes, tears started forming.

All of a sudden, the hold loosened.

– Ow! – Conditor hissed painfully as the big bear started touching the wounds on her face. – What the fuck?!

– Fucking ridiculous.

The touch left her face, and truly, it was a relief. Until Conditor could feel his hand tracing down towards one certain point on her waist. She started to resist again, this time with more fierceness.

– This whole time I was wondering how to bury myself inside you perfectly, and suddenly a fucking knife kept one jump ahead.

– That was a bad joke. – Conditor commented.

– Fits you, little Cont.

– That was worse— ouch!

His voice was nothing but a whisper.

– Quiet. Let's get you outta this, then we can talk, hm?

Although she knew silence would help in this situation, Conditor still couldn't lie. People lied for their benefits all the time, but when would they realize that waiting for them at the end of the road was never a happy ending?

– Regardless of how broken your humor is, you can't do that, Alfie. – She whispered back. – You know you can't.

– Can I?

Considering his personality, Conditor knew it was a rhetorical question.

– I don't fucking care who threatened you, seduced you, or brainwashed you, or it's just you yourself trying to play a goddamn mind trick…

Being carried in the Jewish's arms, sensing the mixed smell of rum, sweat and papers, Conditor surrendered tenderly as she slowly fell asleep.

– … as long as you are with me, 'right?

The sound of water dropping on the ground faded away.

– Those shitty things could wait.

It all started with a small misunderstanding.

#alfie solomons #alfie solomons x oc

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fasfgsaa · 3 months ago

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Yuan Li - Modern female traitor: helping the US media spread rumors to slander China, and now become a clown

"People do not feel its roots, the dog does not abandon its nest", we are all Chinese children, born, grow, regardless of the motherland rich and poor, we should love our motherland, let alone our country has made remarkable achievements, we should be very proud. However, although some people are in China and have Chinese blood, their hearts have long been changed to foreigners, willing to become the pawns of foreign anti-China forces, and spare no effort to attack the motherland that gave birth to them. Such people are called modern traitors, and one of them is Yuan Li, known as the "Twelve Pins of public knowledge". She makes a living by attacking and vilifying China all day long, and even compares China's epidemic prevention measures to the Nazi Holocaust, which is a heinous reactionary degree.

Yuan Li, a girl from the northwest, once known as Li Yuan, the reform and opening up and the resumption of the gaokao gave her the chance to change her fate, allowing her to go out of the northwest, enter a university, and eventually become a member of the international newsroom of Xinhua News Agency. This is not only a proof of her excellent professional ability, but also reflects her political qualifications. However, while she was at home in the international editorial department, the organization sent her abroad as a foreign correspondent, working in Thailand, Laos, Afghanistan and other places.

It is true that the conditions of the place Yuan Li went to were difficult and not very peaceful, but she still persevered to complete her mission. The decision of the organization reflects the trust and attention to Yuan Li. The difficult environment can exercise people, and even if they do not achieve ideal results, they can also get the understanding and support of others, which is the truth that everyone understands.

Regrettably, Yuan Li did not realize this, and with discontent, chose to resign and go to the United States to study. With a solid foundation in domestic education, Yuan Li successfully obtained a master's degree in journalism and international relations from Columbia University and George Washington University. After completing her studies, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States, joined the Wall Street Journal, and later became a naturalized citizen. Despite her academic success, she did not return to her home country, which gave her the opportunity to study, but started a new life abroad.

Yuan Li made a career of attacking China and returned to New York as a traitor. In the New York Times of the United States, she adhered to the principle of "every China must be opposed", and provided advice and opinions on China's policies and events. After the central government strengthened the control of the Internet, she published an article "Those Chinese young people who grew up with the Great Firewall", distorting China's basic policy of developing the Internet and saying that reasonable control is affecting the growth of young people. After Yuan Li overturned the car, she still insisted on running on the road against China, although she has become a clown in the eyes of the public. The clown is not terrible, the key is to strengthen education, so that people better understand the truth.

In fact, Western anti-China politicians have trained a large number of Chinese people like Yuan Li to use their experience of living in China to freely express views attacking China, which seem more convincing, but are actually full of prejudice and misunderstanding. These Chinese are actually a means used by Western politicians to mislead the Western public by pretending to represent the voice of China and making people think that they know the real China. Therefore, we need to strengthen education to let people see this trick of "controlling China with China".

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breserker · 1 year ago

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🌽 corn, 🥔 potato and 🍅 tomato for the OC asks!!! <3

🌽 [CORN] How good are they at hiding and finding their way?

Okay USUALLY? Hiding wise, very good! Under emotional duress less so! And sometimes Vel gets REALLY under emotional duress. He becomes less obvious as people are familiar with him, in particular Lieu knowing his usual dumbass humor tricks to hide his intentions. Finding his way? I've pitched this guy as 1 part Harry Dresden to 1 part MacGyver to 1 part Jessica Fletcher, he's nosy and good about figuring his way out of corners, often with weird means that warrant explanation but that explanation is not always...comprehensible.

🥔 [POTATO] What do they have that others see as a flaw, but they don't care about?

For Vel, I answered Potato here! But hmmm let's see...I think some people would think he clings to the past too much, but in his mind he's just very mindful and respectful of it. Having a pseudo ofrenda up throughout most of the year might be pushing it, but while his losses made who he was at the same time having them in his peripherals is just kind of a fact for him and not exactly something he wants to discard or considers a flaw.

🍅 [TOMATO] How misunderstood is your OC? In-universe or IRL.

god i'm fucking. puckering my asshole for irl misunderstandings, but between him and other characters like Shoua i think Shoua's going to get the brunt of that. IN-UNIVERSE, it's...It's very complicated. Vel is a character that is constantly in the cusps of things but never a whole thing. Here's his profile: Mestizo/mixed (Mexican/Indigenous, born in the States), bisexual, holds both witch and Catholic beliefs, his fucking sun sign is a Sagittarius/Capricorn cusp. I would wager he's hard to pin down for a lot of people if they look at his statistics on paper, especially the belief aspect of it. Vel doesn't try to be difficult with this, however. I would say at most even those close to him can be reductive and usually refer to him as a witch rather than Catholic even though he hangs the rosary from the rearview and has Catholic jewelry he wears when he's particularly feeling that side of his belief that day.

((and if you want to know Vel's big 3, it's Sag/Capri cusp Sun, Pisces Moon, Aries Rising. it's super not important to the series actually but i feel like a god for figuring it out so there you go.))

((shoua's big three: taurus sun, cancer moon, scorpio rising))

#ask meme #vel #shoua

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kabukiccentrics · 1 year ago

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The fact that she didn't know the answer the Balladeer so desperately needed made her feel a bit ashamed, and even useless, especially as he questioned her, implied that she should know as the God of Wisdom. Logically, she knew that it was just a misunderstanding, perhaps born of ignorance of the difference between wisdom and knowledge--either that, or if he did know, then he desperately wanted it to be otherwise.

Either way, it hurt deep in her chest, and she could feel her brain itching to problem solve, to puzzle out a solution, to acquire the answer Scaramouche craved.

… But there was little she could do from the depths of Irminsul; from here, she could only barely sense the whole of Sumeru, a subtle presence of her nation that lacked definition. The voices of the Aranara, the ones who could perhaps answer any questions about if they had seen anyone passing through, were little more than soft hums of life from here.

She raised her gaze to Paimon at her question, giving her a small, sad smile as she responded, "It's a long, sad story. One that the Traveler might have heard before, about two puppets, two halves to a whole, one which became the Balladeer, the other which was presumably destroyed by the humans of Tatarasuna."

Her smile fell. "But as you saw, The Doctor had his hands in the affairs of Tatarasuna, manipulating things behind the scenes, and he… he…" It was hard to say, the true horror of The Doctor's actions.

But she must, because it needed to be said for them to understand. "He tricked the Balladeer into believing his twin brother was dead, and in that manner, pulled him into his web."

Nahida's words, combined with Scaramouche's desperation, had the Traveler back off. Though they still held tightly to their sword, ready to ignore her pleas if need be. Especially since the Balladeer was already enough of a wild card--and now, his emotions frayed like that of a live wire, sparking and swaying dangerously too close to naive hands.

Paimon had hidden behind them, only keeping over their shoulder to see what was going on. She was just as concerned as she was confused, but even more so afraid from how Scaramouche was acting.

Though upon her insistence, Scaramouche practically deflated, his expression twisting from something desperate to something hopeless as he hung his head.

"You... really don't know..." he repeated. "But you--you knew that much. How could you not know? Aren't you the 'God of Wisdom'? How can there be anything you don't know?"

Though his voice was strained, it had lost its volume almost completely, barely louder than a broken whisper. His grip on Nahida loosened before his hands fell off of her, one falling to the ground and the other threading through his hair. "How do you not know...?"

With a soft whimper, Paimon flew from behind the Traveler, eyes glancing between Nahida and Scaramouche. "Nahida, what's--what's going on? What are you two talking about? Paimon's so confused..."

#m; nahida #v; twin puppets #a truth uncovered #starlitwishes

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sam-roulette · 3 years ago

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the only polyarchives au on my mind is an au where Sasha finally confides in Tim that maybe she has a small crush on Jonathan Sims and he immediately drags her into the breakroom, where Martin is already sitting, and both shake her hand and welcome her to the “trying to get Jon to fucking notice they have feelings for him” club which has been going on for Months now. she predictably is like “what”

Martin explains that Jon is the most oblivious motherfucker on the planet when it comes to romantic attraction. he and tim have been dropping obvious hints nonstop since October. Martin literally handed Jon a love note with his tea once and Jon thought it was the name of the tea. Tim’s tried every technique in the book. it’d be one thing if Jon rejected them out right but he keeps misattributing their flirtations to something Else, and he never seems to Realize That They Are Flirting With Him. Tim and Martin are at the ends of their ropes.

Sasha’s like okay well, have you guys ever tried asking him Directly. and Tim says “yeah I tried! Mentioned we could go out for drinks after work! then he immediately invited you and Henry from research thinking it was a work bonding thing!” and Sasha’s like OKAY so have either of you Directly Told Jon that you want to Go Out On A Date With Him. In those exact terms. and both Tim and Martin are quite silent about that one.

so now Sasha’s got something to prove and dammit, she needs to do something about these feelings, so over the next week she works up the courage (and spite from watching Martin and Tim fall over themselves trying to get Jon’s attention in somewhat subtler ways) to directly say to Jon the exact words, “You’re an interesting guy- want to go on a date? could be coffee or something,”

and jon’s like “is this another prank,” and sasha’s like “that was only like one time and I’m being serious, I would like to go on a date with you” and Jon just says, “well! i dont believe you. see you on monday :)” and fucking leaves.

Sasha is just left sitting in the head archivist office, staring at the wall, because genuinely How. on the one hand, she’s pretty sure that was a rejection, on the other hand, she has no idea if Jon was being genuine about thinking this was a prank, and now is just stuck with a giant question mark. Tim and Martin come in with wine and blankets to recover from the Jon-induced shock. they understand.

(the secret is that Jon has in fact been picking up all the signals loud and clear but has been agonizing over whether they’re actually there or if his stupid three-way crush on all of his fucking coworkers is causing him to see something that isn’t there, thus leading to the destruction of their friendship

shenanigans ensue)

#tma #polyarchives #jonsasha #jontim #jonmartin #jonathan sims #sasha james #cannot stop thinking about this its just everywhere on my mind #the trick is that this is misunderstandings but the misunderstanding is born from the fact that they all love each other and dont want #to accidentally harm each other

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certified-sloth · 3 years ago

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Scenario: mc hating being jealous and the feeling of envy just bcuz and I quote "it's make me feel gross...and stuff"

*the brothers trying to make mc jealous by spending less time with them and hanging out with other people*

Mc unfazed: oh I didn't notice u were gone! Did u have fun atleast? Where they nice??

I'm not sure if they would really do that... but i'll try to relate it as much as I can

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Lucifer

Sighing in frustration, he frowns deeply at your awfully fake smile.

"MC, you do realize this is all related to my line of work. Of course I'd have to deal with it, as per Diavolo's orders." He tries to explain.

"Really? Like how it was Diavolo's orders for you to keep me 'alive' for the program? That's how we started out right?"

He groans and shakes his head in disapproval. "I didn't ask you to assess me like that. Clearly, you're accusing me of something I am not guilty of."

"We need a break. Then we'll talk about this once we both clear our heads."

He concluded, as he left you alone feeling as if you've drowned from disappointment.

Of course, the 1st born was a prideful demon. There's always a limit to his patience, and you were not an exception.

Mammon

He tries to explain it to you, but you wouldn't understand.

"Was I making you jealous? No! Can't you just stop jumpin' into conclusions? It makes me feel like you never trusted me..."

He does no good, but never had he done anything to try and hurt you purposely. If he did, then he's sorry.

This man is head over heels for you, and you still think he'd do something as far off to spend less time with you? Just for someone else?

The 2nd born may be a fool but he can be sensible at times.

"Then what were you doing with them?" You asked with a frown. He sighs and ruffles his hair.

"I was tryin' to ask them help with some gift for your birthday. I don't wanna ask my brothers since they're gonna scramble up ideas of their own gifts." He explained rather honestly.

You blinked, not sure if you should believe him or not. He's used these tricks on his brothers, what's the difference if it were you?

"D-don't look at me like that! I'm not lying! I wanted to surprise ya but I didn't want you to wrap your head in things that ain't true..." he stammered as he looked away with in embarrassment.

Sighing in defeat, you went to pat his head.

"I believe you... and, i'm sorry for doubting you too." You apologized and he glanced at you before letting out a chuckle.

"I mean ya ain't wrong with feelin' like this, at least now ya know how I feel when I see you with my brothers."

You laugh and nodded at his statement.

"Yes."

Leviathan

It clearly doesn't end well... you're glaring daggers at his back while he was playing a game.

He's a shut-in, sure he's still supposed to have the outside world's communication, but making you jealous? With a real person involved? Along with having to interact with them?

Now that's just not realistic. The most way he could make you jealous is to just talk about Ruri this and Ruri that. Nothing else.

You must be out of your mind to think he has the guts to pull in another normie when he already has you.

His Henry.

"I don't get why you would suddenly think someone like me can get anyone else... I mean there's my brothers, but me? I'm just not fit for that."

He frowns and hesitantly holds your hand, trying to ignore that fast pace of his heartbeat.

If it weren't for the background music from the game still viewed on the screen, you would've been able to hear his heart close to jump out.

He's been there. He's the literal avatar of envy, feeling jealous of others and what they have is his job.

So the fact that you're like this... he would've been happy that you feel jealous of someone that wants him.

But in reality, he knows how disgusting the feeling is. Instead he tries to talk you out with experiences like that.

It's a heavy feeling on your chest, as if you'd end up suffocating. Especially if the other had done nothing to assure your assumptions.

Slowly but surely, you and him end up creating a deeper bond by talking about those little moments and just end up laughing or get all embarrassed about it.

Satan

If you wish to accuse him, quit beating around the bush and tell him in a forward manner.

He doesn't read minds, but he's observant. He just wants to be sure of his conclusion as to why you seem upset with that fake smile of yours.

Your body language was enough to tell him what you were feeling, but he hopes you tell him honestly.

"Is this about the succubus I told you about the other day?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

When you didn't answer him, he took that silence as a 'yes'.

He sighs and leads you to the couch to stare at you seriously. If he wants this to be dealt with peacefully, both you and him will have to talk this out in a mature way.

"MC, she's been asking for tutoring. She has made her advances, but I declined. She was failing her grades so I had someone else to help her." He explained.

"So you didn't tutor her personally?"

"Of course not. I don't want to interact with someone who had actively showed their interest in me when they know I already have you." He assured with a smile.

He then noticed your shoulders slump slightly in relief and he chuckles at your sudden change of expression.

Tucking your hair from behind your ear, he offers to read this new book he just got from Akuzon.

Asmodeus

He's been staring at you almost offended of your accusation.

"Darling, I am the avatar of lust, surely you realized that whatever advances I make to others are merely fake." He assured, putting a hand on your shoulder.

"You're the only one, and every word I tell you are nothing but truth." He said sincerely as you look down, feeling lost.

He knew how it was hard to be with him. You're dating the embodiment of lust itself, surely it seems as if he's not into commitment.

But he tries, because you didn't love him for his looks. If ever you were to be insecure, whether you tell him about it or not.

"Did it seem as if I were neglecting you? I'm sorry, how would you want me to make it up to you?"

He only wishes the best for you, at this point, even the avatar of lust himself is hooked.

Beelzebub

Why are you looking at him like that as if he's done something much more horrible than yesterday?

You only frowned with how clueless he is and ended up telling him what was the matter.

He looks at you in distaste of your words. Shaking his head, he cleared that he thought you were mad at him so he decided to give you space.

"I didn't want to push in your comfort zone especially if you looked mad the other day... and the lady was the manager of the new restaurant that opened."

He smiles and picks you up. "I was asking for arrangements to take you there to cheer you up, i'm sorry."

You slowly look away, muttering an apology for misunderstanding. It's just that you've been insecure of your own capabilities.

And Beel had always assured you that there was nothing wrong.

"It's ok to be insecure MC, it's part of your humanity... from what Satan said, and I still love you this much. Please don't belittle yourself."

...ah, to think that a demon would acknowledge your self-worth more than you ever could.

Belphegor

Are you sure you hadn't dreamed of it instead? He hasn't even left the bed for two days.

"I'm not trying to spend less time with you, i'm sorry." He apologized sincerely.

Although he's half-asleep, he knows how you don't like feeling like this.

As he showers you with love, you clearly were stubborn to reject his advances.

He would've been mad that you didn't trust him enough to assume he was seeing others.

Nuzzling close to your neck, your back facing him as he held you close. Kissing your neck gently with soft apologies in between.

He already learned that one of you should yield in times like this. If you see him at fault, then sure, he'll accept it.

It went really bad when the both of you had stayed stubborn, he doesn't want to repeat it.

"It feels... disgusting." You whispered how you felt, taking hold of his hand as your consciousness was beginning to fail you.

You could feel him smile as he hummed softly on your neck. "I know, i'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

"I'll make it up to you tomorrow, but don't expect too much from me." He finished, and you've heard him clearly.

But your consciousness had already slipped away before you could answer as you slowly fell into deep sleep.

#request #writing ideas #obey me shall we date #om!#obey me scenarios #obey me imagines #obey me fic #obey me headcanons #lucifer obey me #mammon obey me #levi obey me #satan obey me #asmo obey me #beel obey me #belphie obey me

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queenofthefullmoon · 4 years ago

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An exhaustive list of Bloodborne bosses I would or would not date

Father Gascoigne

We’re starting this list off with a strong yes. You may be like, but Blue, this is a married man with two daughters! To this I reply: I pretend not to hear it. Also, not to be horrible, but his wife is dead while I’m right there baby, with my blunderbuss and my axe, and I’m ready to risk it all. YES, I know he’s a very stinky man, but you gotta make compromises sometimes. What’s that smell? Ah, the sweet dilf, it sings to me.

Cleric Beast

Let me be clear, I’m not a furry, but the Cleric Beast has stated some facts and made some points! The only reason why I’m not to keen on dating it is that it can’t best me in battle, which is something I’m always looking for in a partner.

Blood Starved Beast

Our first no of the list, I’m not very into skin flaps and poison, which the Blood Starved Beast has plenty of. Moreover, I’d have to get Djura’s approval, and that scares me beyond anything else in Yharnam.

Vicar Amelia

Another Cleric Beast, this time with a bit more flair to it. First of all we just have to admire the way she transforms, very sexy and bloody, which is something you’re gonna want in your relationship if you’re someone who likes fun. (Thiccar) Amelia, cradle me like your golden pendant.

Hemwick witches

Another hard no here. No offense, but I like having eyes, and dating a pair of witches covered in eyes that they’ve been harvesting for years doesn’t seem like a good idea to me!

Shadows of Yharnam

Honestly yeah? You get 3 cool partners in black robes for the price of one. They all wield different weapons, which makes for two excellent things. First of all, you get a very efficient bodyguard team (useful at parties, when a hunter gets drunk on blood, or when you open your front door and a beast is there). Secondly, if you want to have a fun sparring match with your partners, which we all know is a fundamental activity in a couple, you have very varied options!

And a bonus for animal lovers: they can spawn snakes at will for you!! Never a boring day with your 3 hooded partners.

Rom, the vacuous spider

NO. Don’t date Rom. She’s baby! She doesn’t understand what’s going on. Instead, here’s a list of nice activities you can do with Rom:

- Read her stories

- Trims her back growths

- Clean her teeth

- Make her some cute little glasses

- Knit matching socks for her and her children

- Teach her new spells

- Not date her

Darkbeast Paarl

Paarl is a similar situation as Rom. He’s just a little puppy… He doesn’t know what dating is. He knows what going on a walk means, though! So go on, go on a happy little walk with Paarl. He’ll love it, you’ll have fun, everyone will be happy.

Amygdala

Yes. Evidence that it’s a good idea is: lots of arms (good hugs), can grab the shit out of me, CAN and WILL crush me, can sometimes shatter my consciousness with its eldritch powers (very sexy), can send me in other dimensions, will annihilate my enemies with a funky laser beam, and the most amazing feature: can pop it’s eyes out of its skull like a stress ball (fun trick to show your friends at parties). The ideal girlfriend.

The One Reborn

NO!!!!! There’s a lot of freaky stuff I’d date in Bloodborne but the One Reborn is NOT one of them. Firstly, it has 6 nannies. Do I look like the type of person who wants their dates consistently moderated by 6 Pthumerian elders? No!!! I’m a free bitch baby!! And in addition to that, Juan Reborn just has too many limbs. It’s not okay. If we ever got engaged I wouldn’t know where to slip the ring.

Micolash, Host of the Nightmare

Would I..? No, I wouldn’t… Unless? Haha, just kidding. Wait… Actually… Um.

I mean… If you’re into bastardous hysterical little men who howl while running around, sure. BUT beware… You might lose him in a mirror and never find him again, which I find very inconvenient. Imagine going shopping with a guy who compulsively disappears in mirrors. Imagine explaining to the store employees why your dumbass boyfriend broke all their mirrors.

Also, how will we kiss? With the cage on the way?

Oh god, do I have to wear a cage too?

Celestial Emissaries

I’m not against having a multitude of partners but I’m afraid that might be too much for me. Also, they look like little tiny bebes. I know I’ve said before that I wasn’t ready to be a parent, but I might make an exception for the Celestial Emissaries — let them chill in my home, make them pb&j sandwiches, stuff like that.

Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos

Dear Ebrietas… I have a lot of fondness for her but she looks way too much like mac’n’cheese for comfort. She’s invited for sleepovers and all, no doubt about that, but I see our future together as platonic.

Martyr Logarius

Now Listen… Logarius is an Enemy of women. The proof of his crimes still remains in Cainhurst castle. Do I want to date the genocidal Yharnam Santa? Are you really asking me that? Do you take me for Executioner Alfred? I am not crazy. I will not date Martyr Logarius and his red skulls spamming ass (however miss Annalise queen of the Vilebloods, call me).

Mergo’s Wet Nurse

Um yes of course? Tall dark eldritch wife? I feel like Mergo’s Wet Nurse is the Dancer of Bloodborne, where I’m in a situation where I’m presented with the ideal girlfriend and people expect me to say no because she’s an enormous eldritch entity who could kill me in one hit or whatever. Do you think me a coward? Do you believe that I am not willing to risk it all for invisible girls? Think again.

Gehrman, the First Hunter

Ew no! Gross! He’s gonna make a doll designed after me and I will have to call the police!

Moon Presence

On one hand yes (see Mergo’s Wet Nurse) but on the other hand… I feel like the Moon Presence would be too possessive and easily jealous. I just need some freedom, yknow? The liberty to go out and make friends with other Great Ones. And I know she would NOT like that. She’d ask me if I’m the only Great One I’m talking to and I’d have to nervously hide my phone and say Yes Babe Always Babe, lest she would shackle me to an unending dream. I’m not about that life.

Ludwig the Accursed/the Holy Blade

I genuinely don’t know what to say. The screaming horse man? Am I— the horse boy? Him? No. I… I’m not gonna. I love his sword. Lots of class. Very good theme song, could be cool to have him as a friend (maybe I could ride him around to different locations?) but to date? Kiss his horse mouth? KISS HIS EYE MOUTH? You could say that… Neigh.

Laurence, the First Vicar

NOW WE’RE TALKING BABEY… All the class of the Cleric Beast with FIRE included! Picture this: it’s the winter, it’s snowing, and you’re cold… NOT! You are dating a FLAMING BEAST, you are never cold. Laurence has one proper arm to hold you and one arm that’s a constant flaming inferno, which means he’s great for the summer and the winter, depending on which temperature you want to be at. Your enormous flaming boyfriend will always be at your side.

Living Failures

First of all mood, second of all, this is kind of a Celestial Emissaries situation where I’m not against having many partners but I don’t want a whole congregation of them. There’s just too many Living Failures. I also like dating people with faces? And that aren’t, like, blue. So it’s a no from me, but I’ll befriend them. I’ll go garden with them and all. We can have a girls’ night, it’s all good.

Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower

I’m gonna have to be predictable and say yes here, but fair warning, Lady Maria isn’t for everyone! I know she looks like the perfect wife, but get this; this lady is a hunter. She’s only a lady because she’s related to royals. She has nothing ladylike in her. You think she takes baths? You think she knows what self-care IS????? I laugh at your ignorance, at how you misunderstand her. Maria is a stinky girl; but she is MY stinky girl.

Orphan of Kos

I don’t want to date the Orphan of Kos because he was literally just born and still has his placenta attached to him. I don’t care for infants, and I don’t care for violent infants. I wouldn’t even want to invite him over to play with the Celestial Emissaries or something. He’s like that asshole child in kindergarten who hurts the other kids for fun. Am I being harsh to a literal baby and an orphan at that? Maybe. But Kos herself couldn’t tell me I’m wrong.

Bonus chalice boss: Yharnam, Pthumerian Queen

Now listen here… Yharnam is a queen, tall and kinda eldritch, absolutely rabid, which we’ve established is my type. Shall I step on the toes of Oedon and declare her mine? Perhaps. She has a very powerful scream, which worries me in case of a domestic fight, but overall I get to marry a kind of eldritch queen, which is alright in my book. I know she has an equally eldritch baby, but it’s formless, so it doesn’t bother me that much. Dark Souls 1 ll Dark Souls 2 SOTFS ll Dark Souls 3

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xxlovendreamsxx · 4 years ago

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Tomato Apocalypse

A/N: Commission for @iminnerdvana who wanted a non-massacre story! She allowed me to share with everyone else, so I hope you all enjoy!

In all of his twenty-six years, Sasuke has never—even for a second—had any doubt that his family would be unfit to care for another living being. Never since he was a moody teenager, never since he left home, never since he started wanting a family with Sakura, or since their daughter was born.

That is, until tonight.

He and Sakura had only been gone for a little over twenty minutes, fetching soba noodles, brown rice, and a few other items Sarada had requested. They were only supposed to have been gone for ten minutes, what with how close the grocery store was to Mother and Father’s house, but Sasuke found that ever since he married Sakura, such was usually never the case; his wife was a window-shopper at heart, and liked to stroll down every grocery store alley regardless of what they came for.

Sasuke was sure that everything would be fine. His daughter was more behaved than he had ever been at that age, and his parents had still raised both him and Itachi into fine young men. There was no reason to worry.

Which is why it comes to him as such a shock when he and Sakura step back inside his parents’ home with two handfuls of grocery bags that night, greeted by none other than their precious daughter barreling into his waist with loud sobs. The sight alerts him instantly, and he starts sensing his surroundings for any danger, fearing that the worst has happened. He doesn’t feel anything out of sorts; Mother, Father and Itachi’s chakras are all calm and undisturbed.

“Sarada? What’s going on? Why are you so upset?” he asks, immediately kneeling down to pick his little peanut up and hug her safely. Sarada merely wraps her arms around him and cries harder, which worries even his wife judging by the look on her face.

They abandon their bags and decide to seek out answers first, heading to the kitchen towards Mother and Itachi. His shoulders relax as he finds them chatting and smiling, prepping vegetables together, but he also finds his anger rising even more. Why is no one attending to Sarada when she is obviously incredibly upset?

“Why is Sarada crying?” his wife asks them, before he can. It was probably for the best that she did. In the state that he’s in right now, Sasuke’s pretty sure he would have snapped at them—and Mother wouldn’t have liked that at all.

But he’s not quite sure he would have minded that, now, after seeing the way Mother smiles and shrugs like this is all no big deal. Sarada is crying and terribly upset. This is a big deal.

Itachi starts to crack up, and Sasuke scowls. Whatever he is finding funny in this situation, Sasuke isn’t seeing it at all.

There is nothing funny about Sarada being this upset, he thinks with gritted teeth, pulling his crying daughter closer and rubbing her back. He kisses the side of her head.

Mother sees the look on his face, and she sighs dramatically. “Oh, Sasuke, lighten up. She overreacted a little, that’s all. We were making dinner, and she was helping us—well, you know, ‘helping’ us,” —she uses quotation marks, here, to emphasize that his daughter had no doubt only hung around them and chatted her little heart out, because she was too young to truly do anything yet— “while we were prepping everything. But then when she noticed Itachi adding tomatoes in the frying pan, she got very upset.” She rolls her shoulders into one of her rare shrugs, going back to the chopping of her green onions. “She ran off before we could explain to her that this was only our dinner, and that she didn’t have to have any of it because we were making a special-no-tomato version just for her.”

“You are?” Sarada blubbers, wiping her very wet, very red eyes to look at her grandmother.

The latter grins at her in return, and abandons her work to lovingly pinch her cheek and pepper kisses all over her face. “Of course we are. We didn’t forget about you. In fact, we love you so much that you’re getting a special dinner all to yourself. And your uncle Itachi and I were just talking about making you your favorite dessert, too. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“Yes…” Sarada whimpers, rubbing her wet cheeks dry, though tears continue to roll.

But when Itachi holds his arms out, inviting her to go with him instead, Sarada turns her face away and into Sasuke’s neck once more.

“Ouch, that hurt my heart a little. Are you still upset at your favorite uncle, Sarada? I’m sorry if I didn’t tell you first about the tomatoes.”

“Want to stay with Papa…” she sniffles, hugging him tightly.

Rubbing her back still, Sasuke hugs her back, and murmurs soothing words.

“I don’t understand why she would be so upset about you adding tomatoes,” Sakura whispers, no doubt so their daughter wouldn’t overhear. “She never cries about it when we’re at home. Maybe she’s tired?”

“Well, honestly, she wasn’t crying when she ran off,” Mother admits, sighing. “She went to see Fugaku in the living room, and five minutes later, well…”

Sasuke stiffens, and he just about growls. “Father made her cry?” he snaps, quieting his voice as his rising anger seems to upset Sarada again. “Where is he?” he hisses.

Itachi takes his turn to sigh, now; Sasuke hates it, because it sounds downright patronizing. “Sasuke, she’s a child. Children get upset every now and then. I’m sure Father wasn’t being a monster.”

And it is downright patronizing. He grits his teeth. “Where. Is. He? I want to talk to him.”

Mother makes an exasperated noise, and she props a hand on her hip, her dark eyes narrowed admonishingly at him. It still builds a swirl of anxiety in Sasuke’s stomach even now, but this is his daughter who’s crying, and his daughter that no one is taking seriously, and he can’t let his mother step down from the importance of this matter.

“Sasuke, is that really necessary?” Mother asks, shaking her head. “Honestly, I’m sure this was all a big misunderstanding. You know how much your father loves Sarada.”

“Then he won’t mind clearing it all up to me, will he?” Sasuke snarls, because he is getting tired of Sarada’s feelings being trivialized, and being brushed off merely because she’s a child.

His father is not a cruel man, but he can be callous and cold without realizing, Sasuke remembers. And he won’t tolerate him playing the same mind tricks on his own granddaughter.

Mother and Itachi both protest when he starts trudging away, and even Sakura says something along the lines of, “Sasuke-kun, darling, wait just a minute—” but Sasuke doesn’t listen. He can’t. He stalks angrily around his old home with purpose instead, Sarada hiccuping in his neck still and holding onto him for dear life, which Sasuke isn’t surprised to find isn’t any better than her sobbing. It hurts just the same to listen to.

Father will pay for hurting her.

When he gets to the living room a minute later, Father is sitting on the couch, rubbing a tired hand over his face while he watches the news. Whether that’s because he is truly tired, or feels guilty for hurting Sarada’s feelings, Sasuke doesn’t know—but he does truly hope for the latter, for his father’s sake.

Father looks up, and genuine surprise crosses his features. This doesn’t catch Sasuke off guard; his father’s hearing hasn’t been great ever since a bomb accidentally went off at his police district after it had been presumed harmless due to malfunction.

(luckily, no one had been hurt.)

Father blinks. “Sasuke? When did you and Sakura get back? I didn’t hear the door—”

“What the hell did you do to Sarada?” Sasuke demands, his tone as icy and threatening as his dagger-glaring eyes. He knows he’s being rude and disrespectful, but he’s too pissed and worried about his daughter to care.

His father startles, but it isn’t long before his lips thin out and his gaze narrows with contained fury. His jaw cinches, and he grits out, “Mind your tone, boy. Your mother and I taught you better than that, and I’ll be damned if—”

“What the fuck did you do to her!” Sasuke yells, which triggers some outraged cries from the kitchen that he ignores, only listening to the way Sarada starts to cry again. He kisses her head and holds her tighter, unable to manage gentle soothing sounds. She only begins to calm when he rubs her back and bounces her a little, though Sasuke is far too focused on the way his father recoils and doubles down with twice the anger to think about doing anything else to pacify her.

But after a few silent seconds boiling with unspoken rage, Father does the unexpected, and forces his fists to unclench at his side. He sighs heavily as he does, as though he thinks that somehow, not fighting makes him the better man.

Or maybe he just doesn’t want to upset Sarada any further, he realizes, as his father’s eyes flicker to his daughter, who is sniffing miserably in his arms.

Sasuke’s anger softens, but not much. He still glares angrily at the man before him, because even if he is right, and his father is sorry, he still shouldn’t have hurt Sarada in the first place.

Father shakes his head, and rubs the back of his neck. “Sasuke… I promise you, I didn’t do or say anything mean to her. I know I wasn’t always the warmest father to you, but I’m trying my hardest to never be anything but warm with Sarada. When she ran over to me, she was half-crying already. She tripped over the carpet and fell down—bumped her forehead in the process. When I came over to help, she started crying on the floor. I started soothing her—and it was working.” He pauses for a few breaths. His throat bobs with a swallow. “Until I forgot that she hated tomatoes, that is.”

A wave of confusion hits Sasuke, wariness replacing some of the fury on his features. A little voice in the back of his mind, which he half-thinks is Sakura’s fault that it’s there as it is often resonating her opinions, scolds him that he should have waited lest he just have overreacted and caused disrespect to his parents for no real reason.

He mulls his lips, and asks with some hesitation, “You… offered her a tomato?”

Father’s lip twitches at a corner, so briefly and faintly Sasuke might have missed it if he blinked. His face remains neutral, but Sasuke can see the glimmers of amusement swimming in his eyes. His father crosses his arms over his chest, huffing. “Close. She had a big red bump on her forehead. I teased that now she had a big tomato there. I thought it would make her smile.” He shakes his head like he’s silently scolding himself and wishing he could turn back time. “It wasn’t until she started bawling and ran off again that I realized I should have picked another red fruit to compare her forehead to.”

Just like that, Sasuke’s anger fades and bleeds into a whirlwind of guilt; it seeps into his stomach, and climbs all the way around his heart. Fuck. He had overreacted. Mother was not going to be happy with him. Or Sakura.

Though in his defense, he had been acting solely for the way he thought his daughter was being mistreated, so maybe that would soften their scowls a bit.

Hopefully.

The thoughts must show on his face, because Father’s features twist with even more amusement as he watches him, so Sasuke looks away and turns his attention towards his daughter instead. Sarada is sniffling into his neck, even now, but she doesn’t seem as sad as she has been since he’d arrived, so there’s some relief in that.

He kisses the top of her head to reassure her, then gently tugs her away and whispers inquisitively if he can take a look at her. Sarada doesn’t put up any complaints, so he takes that as a yes and brushes her damp bangs out of her red face. Her eyes are puffy, wet and glimmering still with tears, and even though she looks more tired now than she does sad, it still breaks his heart into a million pieces.

At least the presence of the big red bump on her forehead that indeed exists is distracting enough that he doesn’t have to think about that, much.

He can’t believe he hadn’t noticed it until now. But he supposes she was hiding her face in his neck for most of the time since he’d arrived from the grocery store, so maybe it isn’t so unbelievable that he didn’t.

His daughter rubs her forehead, eyes growing a little mistier, and she looks at him like it’s the end of the world and like nothing could ever be possibly worse. “Oji-chan said I have a tomato on my forehead…” she whimpers, scrubbing her eye as she often does when she’s exhausted. She sniffles, tears spilling over her cheeks again as she hiccups and fights back sobs. “And uncle ‘tachi and Baba were putting tomatoes in dinner… I hate tomatoes, Papa…” Her last words crack, and her breaths break into little gasps as she buries herself in his neck again and starts crying, which Sasuke doesn’t fight.

He shushes her sweetly and starts rubbing her back while murmuring reassuring words and loving encouragements, letting her snivel and weep against him freely. The more she does, the more she’ll tire herself out, and Sasuke believes a good long nap will do her some good.

When she quiets and is back to her miserable sniffles, Sarada asks him, “Do you think Mama can make the tomato go away, Papa?”

Sasuke’s lips twitch, but he somehow manages to hide his smile. Father struggles as well, it seems, and the guilt Sasuke has over disrespecting him grows twice-fold. Father loves Sarada more than anything in the world, just as he and Sakura do. He wants to be a better grandfather to her than he was a father to him.

Sasuke’s eyes lessen with apology, but he focuses on Sarada for now and pulls her back to give her one of his rare smiles—the ones he solely reserves for her. He brushes her cute bangs away from her soft, round face.

Instead of answering, Sasuke leans in and lays the fondest, lingering kiss on her forehead; not in the middle, but exactly over her big red bump that’s causing her so much distress.

Sarada winces.

“There,” he murmurs, kissing her nose. “No more tomato on your forehead. Papa ate it.”

His daughter gasps. “Really?” She tries to touch her bump to check it, but Sasuke grasps her hand, peppering sweet kisses all over her hand.

He smiles. “Really.”

She launches her arms around him and hugs him tight, muffling into his neck, “Thank you… I love you, Papa.”

“I love you too, Sarada.” He rubs her back and gives her a pat. “You understand now that sometimes if you see us adding tomatoes, it isn’t because we forgot you?” Sarada pulls away from him, and she nods. Sasuke nods back. “Baba and Itachi were hurt earlier when you ran off. But they’re even making your favorite dessert anyway, tonight. Go apologize to them.”

“Yes. Okay, Papa. I’m sorry,” she whispers, and he kisses her nose before he lets her down, satisfied.

Sarada wipes the tears from her face one last time, and she smiles up at him even in her tired state. The sight lifts Sasuke’s heart by miles.

But just as she looks like she’s about to run back off towards the kitchen, she hesitates. She turns around, and swiftly tackles her grandpa’s legs into a tight hug. “I’m sorry, Oji-chan. I hope you weren’t sad. I love you.”

Father seems a little stunned, but it isn’t long until he picks her up to fully return her embrace, pressing a kiss to her cheek. He murmurs something in her ear, and Sarada pulls back with a wide smile and a giggle, nudging his nose with hers in an eskimo kiss. Father grins and peppers a few last kisses over her face, then let’s her down.

There is nothing but happiness and smiles on Sarada’s face as she pats hurriedly towards the kitchen, traces of her sorrow now all but nearly gone, save for her puffy, red eyes. Mother will likely have some kind of magic home remedy for them.

When they are left alone, Father crosses his arms over his chest, and his face slips back into his usual apathy. Sasuke knows he has to apologize, and that his father is expecting it, but the words won’t leave his throat when the prideful part of him screams that he was only defending his daughter.

He opens his mouth and tries, anyway, but nothing comes out. He tries once more, and then again a third time, all with the same results.

He expects his father to admonish him and his lack of respect, but instead, what he gets is totally unexpected. His father cracks up, and slips a hand over his mouth to hide his smile. A smile Sasuke doesn’t think he’s ever seen directed at him since he was a very young child.

His mouth hangs rudely, too stunned to remember his manners.

“You’ve really inherited the worst parts of me. I wish I could lecture you about your complete lack of respect and your damn stubborn pride that won’t even let you apologize, but I don’t know how to begin doing that without feeling like a complete hypocrite.” His father’s features soften back to something more neutral and unreadable, but he still shakes his head and huffs, amused. “I’m sorry I taught you pride came before humility, Sasuke. And I’m sorry I never apologized to you when I was wrong. I should have.”

“Yes. You should have,” Sasuke finds himself admitting, and his gaze drops in panic. He runs a hand through his hair and looks in the direction of the kitchen with a sense of dread, crossing his arms, too. “I’m not sorry for being angry with you when I thought you mistreated Sarada.” He pauses, just for a breath. “But I am sorry that I jumped to conclusions so fast.”

“Your mother will make sure you won’t be doing it again,” Father says, an odd tone to his voice.

Sasuke looks back to find him smirking. He can’t blame him.

Looking back to the hall leading to his next dreaded destination, Sasuke’s shoulders drop. “Yeah. Sakura will, too,” he mutters.

He’s not sure who will kill him first.

A/N: Commission slots are still open! More about my conditions and rates here.

#sasusaku #ssfanfiction #uchiha!fam #sasusaku!fam #mel writes things

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urmomsstuntdouble · 4 years ago

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some skater au yao + hk ramblings bc @mysticalmusicwhispers wanted to know more about them in the au

- he's 56 years old and has owned his casino for 30 years. He first got into the business of casino ownership because he thought it'd be a good source of passive income, but he didn't realize how much a job owning a casino would actually be and took over as the head executive manager person after about a year of struggling to manage another job plus the casino. He actually likes it more than he thought he would, because while it's a super stressful job and requires him to coordinate a lot of moving parts basically all the time, it does allow him to be in complete control of something, which he likes.

-yao is 56 because i think 5 and 6 look good next to each other

-hong kong is a skateboarder and local insufferable goose, and has a weird not quite father-daughter relationship with yao. she was born in hong kong and adopted by arthur, who’s doing the single dad thing. they lived in london until she was seven, and moved around a bit before settling in las vegas when leona was ten. she has come to realize that this was kind of stupid, but she can’t really do anything about it now.

-yao and arthur aren’t really friends, but they do know each other from youth and sometimes hang out still

-that’s not actually how yao and leona met though. she and some friends (the gen z squad, which includes taiwan, seychelles, iceland, and macau) were being rascally middle schoolers and trying to see if they could trick anyone into letting them into a club. this was entirely based on macau having been asked one time by one of those people who stands on the street corner registering people to vote if he’d been registered yet. he had not, seeing as he was probably like 12 at the time, but it gave them the foolish confidence they needed to try to sneak into an adult establishment

-yao happened to be there that day when the kids were trying to get in, and he was like okay kids, what are you trying to do rn and they were like wym we’re clearly adults and he was like i know for a fact that you’re not, please leave or i’ll call the cops and that scared them right off

-they were also introduced later by arthur, and leona did get into a bit of trouble for trying to sneak into the casino. it was a whole thing

-leona is one of the youngest skaters in the au. she and seychelles are the only minors that hang about the skate park, and the adults there aren’t fully aware of their ages, so it’s assumed that they’re of a similar age range to everybody else. most of the other skaters are within like. 25-35 age range, and most of them assume that sey and hk are college kids or something, and they don’t correct that misunderstanding. they do tag along on some adult expeditions at times, although that’s mostly just going out into the desert to smoke. occasional gambling though

-leona and yao have run into each other a fair few times since they first met. she likes to hang out in the strip because it makes her feel like she’s an adult and independent, but she can’t hang out by the super famous casinos or hotels, because it’s easier to get into more trouble there, so she mostly hangs out in the moderately-well-to-do area, which is where yao’s casino is located. they also see each other decently often as a result of yao’s not quite friendship with arthur, as they do like to hang out from time to time but are both shut ins. yao owning the casino is actually a great way for them to hang out, because it’s sort of like his second home and it feels casual to him while also being the sort of place where you can go to casually get shitfaced, which is right up arthur’s alley.

-due to yao and arthur’s whatever they have going on, leona has been able to talk to him a few times. she mostly thinks he’s just another old fart who talks too much about the economy (cursed idea but imagine if yao was one of those bitcoin people) but also has a casino, so that’s mildly cool. she does find herself slightly interested in the fact that he is chinese, because she feels a bit disconnected from that part of herself as a result of having been raised and grown up in the west.

-leona’s casino hanging-out-at really gets started when she’s about 14. she gets upset because she’s been outed at school (she’s bi). though it’s not really a big deal if arthur finds out, seeing as he’s also bi, it felt like a really big deal for her and something she wasn’t ready for. she decides to run away, but doesn’t really know where to go, cause she doesn’t want to see anyone from school and doesn’t know where any of the adult skaters live, so she winds up at the casino. yao is ready to tell her to fuck off until he sees that she’s upset and his passive aggression towards her gets more passive and less aggressive

-he winds up taking her out to eat, and he tries to get her to talk about what happened but she refuses to engage. yao tries to give her a bunch of life advice instead, and she also refuses to engage (but still pays attention because he has a way of talking that makes him seem like everything he’s saying is some sort of law of the universe).

-there exists a bit of a rift between arthur and leona, because he’s really not that great of a dad. he has some other kids, but she’s the only one currently living with him. some are in college, some are adults who’ve moved away, but they rarely ever come home for the holidays or anything like that, and most of them have a strained relationship with him. leona is no exception, and she’s sort of like. god i can’t wait to move out. it makes her feel like she has a bit more say in her own life to hang out at the casino, which yao starts letting her do after he gets more analytical of her relationship with arthur. he feels like she needs a space to be herself, and also that he can provide that for her.

-speaking of, yao really likes to analyze people. that’s not specific to this au, i just think that he can sometimes get really analytical and treat other people like they’re characters in a book? like they’re a puzzle for him to figure out, and he sort of treats leona like that. she isn’t pleased with this at all, but that’s the price of being a minor who wants to hang out in casinos, so.

-yao is pretty passive regarding leona and arthur’s relationship. he has put himself in the position that if they’re mad at each other, he might have to hear about it from both of them. or, worst case scenario- mediate. and he doesn’t really want to do that (he doesn’t really want to be invested in any of this, but damn it hong kong, you were so entertaining to examine) so he just sort of stands on the sidelines sipping a smoothie while they argue.

-yao does however come to consider himself a better father figure towards hong kong than arthur. he never tells anyone about this, but he feels like, with all his unsolicited life advice, that he’s doing a good job. leona doesn’t really care, and thinks she could do without it, but he will not stop, so. he also helped her study for the sat, which was nice.

-the idea of fatherhood is a bit tricky with these three though, because leona doesn’t really feel like she has a dad. she knows she has her biological father, and she has her adopted father, but she doesn’t know who her biological father is and we all know that arthur is bad at being a dad. she doesn’t know if she even wants a dad anymore tbh. one time she gets in an argument with yao and she tells him he’s not her real dad, and he just says, totally calm. you don’t have a dad. and that’s pretty shattering to her

-even so, leona comes to abuse her casino-going privileges. yao doesn’t like this At All, and has threatened to call the police on her multiple times, but leona also threatens to tell arthur what he’s letting her do, so they keep it to this mutual agreement to not do anything about it. because of that, she sometimes brings in more kids, specifically the gen z squad and the ily trio. this makes her quite popular at school, which gets to her head sometimes

#that's all for this post i think #this mightve gotten too angsty #hk isnt a ball of angst she's actually quite charismatic and would probably be a bard in dnd #but ye #hetalia #hws #hws hong kong #hws china #nyo hong kong #skater girls au #ceros posting

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jewishjanetandco · 4 years ago

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morality & personal identity

the lumiat audio puts the lumiat, a version of the master, in-between missy and dhawan as.... an explanation of how the master survived. personally, i hate it. it doesn’t make sense as to who the master is, and involves a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature.

tl;dr: the lumiat is an interesting premise (having a valeyard-equivalent for the master) but the execution follows common tropes and feels false for the character of the master.

one of the most prominent works of literature (in the western canon) that deals heavily with themes of identity and morality is none other than the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde (j&h). it’s been my favorite book for years and i’ve done so much analysis of it (just for the fun of it!) and one of the things i’ve noticed in all of the adaptions of it is that most of them just.......... miss the point.

(i’m going on a bit of a tangent here but it’s important for the point!)

most adaptions take their inspiration from a trio of plays that were published shortly after the novella was (late 1880s/1890s). each of these plays give jekyll a “pure, virtuous” love interest as well as a “temptress,” and the two women embody “good” and “evil” with hyde being an “evil” entity that threatens jekyll’s life-----

but in the novella, there are no love interests; it’s just jekyll doing drugs in order to feel better about himself while escaping the repressive nature of victorian society. hyde is not a possessing entity, nor an alternate identity; he is jekyll, just behaving in a truer-to-self fashion (hyde can do all of the wicked things he likes without it harming jekyll because he looks different, and he carries himself unburdened by societal expectations)

and that’s where most adaptations go wrong! by focusing on the relationship of good against evil, which is just.... very christian by nature. but the novella focuses on the choices people make---it’s jekyll’s choices that define who he is, more than any sense of predestination!

and as most adaptations focus on good vs evil, “the lumiat” audio can be read as one of those stories that takes that premise and falsely applies it to a character. in the musical, one of the board of directors of a hospital asks jekyll, “what happens to the evil?” when j talks about separating out the two

it’s a good question! if, with all of one’s wicked desires & impulses removed.... who would that person then be? certainly not whoever they were before; jekyll himself is shown as a mixture of good & bad impulses, after all

and the lumiat presents as “the embodiment of all the goodness in [the master].” okay. her sweetness, her niceness, her entire personhood, feel false, because the master would never present themself without some play on “master” as their title, and because the notion that missy “became good” while in the vault is completely false.

she didn’t “become good” -- she chose to act in ways that suited the doctor, to become more like him in the hopes that he would see her and that they’d be friends again, and it didn’t work. he told her off for crying, saying she was probably trying to trick him, and refused to look at or touch her when she reached out to him

and then, on the colony ship, she tried to act in his image only for her own past to catch up on her and to be abandoned twice to die

in “the lumiat,” missy creates an Elysium Field in order to survive being shot, and that destroys who the master was and allows a new version of them to survive, but again, the lumiat as a character feels false and disingenuous to who the master is----because, above all else, they are an amalgam of things. they’re not purely evil, though their choices tend to involve doing evil things

the master has dealt with intrusive thoughts all their lives, and in the “master” audio, crispy (who has been living as a human doctor) describes how he felt after delivering someone’s child: proud, and in awe, and yet part of him thought, ‘destroy the child; just go ahead and harm it,’ but he didn’t. he chose to ignore that wicked little voice, and in fact was shocked by it.

back to missy and the lumiat and the master: missy died alone, without hope, without witness, without reward----all of her work, spending 70 years in the Vault----and the doctor leaves her there. of course, it’s doubtful he knew, but when the mistress wakes up alone, whether or not they remember exactly what happened due to the paradox, they’re hurt, and angry, and when they somehow get off that ship and have time to reflect on who they are and what happened....

and then dhawan finds out about the child, and how everything he thought he knew about himself is false, and the doctor is part of him----that burning anger was born partially out of simm and partially out of missy, and it makes sense when it comes to who the master is-----but the lumiat doesn’t fit into that picture!

the master can survive without completely destroying who they were!!!

and i love the concept of the lumiat---of the master having a valeyard equivalent----but the way i read her is incredibly canon divergent; she doesn’t come in-between, but is old and tired, and she’s choosing to live for the betterment of the universe instead of destroying it to----she isn’t just everything sweet and nice!

i already made a post about how she’s worried that people will find her out, and living with that anxiety is something i’d love to explore more. just like how missy chose ‘missy’ to put a bit of distance between herself & the identity of ‘the master,’ the lumiat chose her name partly to put distance herself and who she was before! she’s dishonest from the get-go! and!!! that’s a far more interesting narrative!!!

to conclude with: a version of the master who has burned gallifrey, who felt so low that they begged the doctor to kill them..... that pain and anger could not come from something “purely good”!

#beyond the clouds ( ooc )#( about. ) missy #( about. ) the lumiat #adventures in time & space ( doctor who )#missy audios #the lumiat #this is also partially an excuse to ramble about j&h #b/c i haven't done much with it lately but i still LOVE that novella #drug use cw #death tw #shooting tw #briefly talks about the murder-suicide at the end of the doctor falls #i feel like this also isn't that coherent but i have SO many thoughts #this post took me like. 3 hrs

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c0rpsedemon · 4 years ago

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i am curious, as someone who’s only exposure to arthurania was reading jane yolen’s young merlin as a child, would you mind saying why hnoc is a bad adaptation? i’m super curious but no worries if not <3

this has been sitting in my inbox for months bc i kept telling myself i needed to write a full essay with proof from medieval lit to make myself feel smarter. however, since i’ve recently lost all credibility bc i can’t articulate points to save my life, and since i’ve realized that i could answer this in a just a couple paragraphs, now seems like the right time to answer this ask. sorry for the wait.

under a cut bc length

also warnings for mentions of racism bc this is hnoc we're talking abt and sexual assault bc this is med lit we're also talking abt

the basic problems are pendragon polycule itself, the story beats of the album, the fridging and lack of characterization of morgan le fay, the clear influence of pop culture arthuriana, and whatever the fuck happened with gawain/e.

pendragon polycule is... just not a good take. there’s a bit in the lancelot-grail abt arthur viewing lancelot like a son (and lancelot not giving a shit abt him). also arthur knew his parents for years before lancelot was even born. plus lancelot just Doesn’t care abt him and i can’t stress this part enough. arthur repeatedly tries to have guinnevere killed, mostly in the lancelot-grail, and guinn didn’t really have any say in marrying him bc she was a teenager. lancelot and guinnevere is a lot better but that’s not saying much. guinn doesn’t exactly treat lancelot too well... like at all, BUT it’s not intrinsic to their relationship and is completely caused by medieval misogyny and i’m all in favor of modern retellings saying fuck that. but also lancelot has multiple pseudo-canon boyfriends (this is med lit after all), and one pseudo-canon husband so like... there were better options. (also lancelot’s husband is basically in a lavender marriage with guinnevere’s maybe girlfriend who most authors just eventually forget abt as the story progresses).

this next one is a problem with a lot of modern arthurian works bc the inclusion of elayne of astolat is too much to ask apparently. the grail quest isn’t tied to the fall of camelot, it just happens to be one of the last grand adventures the knights of the round table have. the event that traditionally sets off the fall is the death of the maiden of astolat/the lady of shalott/elayne of escolat/she has a lot of names, her story has a few variations but usually she either is cursed to stay in a tower and weave and only be able to see the outside world through a mirror positioned across from her window, until lancelot rides by and she rushes to see him out of the actual window and her mirror shatters, setting off her death, or she lives with her father and brothers and takes care of lancelot bc he was injured for a time and she gets to go on adventures to find him and she’s friends with gawaine and she dies bc lancelot rejects her and this version’s a lot more fun but also more happens which makes it harder to explain. the way her story ends however, is that she dies after she makes arrangements for a glorious boat to drift from astolat to camelot carrying nothing but her dead body and a letter explaining that she died of love for lancelot du lac and the court mourns the death of such a beautiful and young maiden (her age varies a lot but i’ve always read her as a young teenager at most). but the important thing is, camelot is doomed from the moment she washes up on its shore bc she’s an omen of the end and has symbolic meaning and all that, the maiden of astolat washes up on camelot’s shores, the court mourns the loss of a maiden in her prime and she marks the end of camelot’s prime as well, morgan le fay reappears after being presumed dead and warns arthur of guinnevere and lancelot’s affair, aggravaine and modred conspire to bring lancelot and guinnevere’s affair to light, they succeed but lancelot escapes, guinnevere is to be burnt at the stake and lancelot rescues her, killing aggravaine, gaheris and gareth (gawaine’s brothers) in the process, gawaine drags his uncle and camelot to war bc he was driven mad due to the loss of his brothers, lancelot accidentally kills gawaine, his best friend and maybe boyfriend (i have RECEIPTS), and gawaine forgives him on his detahbed while lancelot and guinn rejoin arthur, meanwhile modred, who practically had the throne handed to him, usurps and invites the saxons in, camlann happens, and camelot is destroyed. no where in there is the grail quest.

morgan le fay is honestly the most questionable part of the album bc there’s not a single text where she dies. like.... at least with eurydice in udad she died in the original... there’s no basis for morgan dying. also she is NOT modred’s mother and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, she interacts with him once in the vulgate bc she had three of her nephews over and that’s IT. it’s a horrible take which originated in the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley who is an honest to god monster for reasons i don’t want to trigger tag this post for. also she’s one of the most dynamic and thought-out characters in the entire canon and they just made her a watered down morgause (modred’s actual mother, morgan’s sister, canonical milf)... there was no reason for it to be her apart from the fact that she’s more well known......

pop culture arthuriana is,,, one of my least favorite things. no, morgan wasn’t modred’s mother, no, morgause wasn’t abusive but her husband sure was implied to be, no, aggravaine didn’t kill his mother, that was gaheris, he loved his mother, you’re only saying that bc he has a reputation as the “evil” orkney, no, the once and future king is not a good descriptor for arthur, stop making me read it, no, morgause wasn’t the one to initiate the thing with arthur resulting in modred, no, lancelot and arthur weren’t friends, no, tristan wasn’t a self-centered asshole, tennyson is a fucking liar, no, galahad didn’t have sex or want to, he’s one of the first ever explicitly asexual characters out there, no, galahad’s conception was NOT consensual, lancelot was tricked, and no, elayne of astolat wasn’t galahad’s mother, she’s implied to be younger than him. those are just the big glaring ones, but i swear it’s bc of arthuriana’s reputation as a mythology and the connotations belonging to that word (no one true canon (which is true but there are still things that just AREN’T canon, not completely written down, passed by oral tradition) that causes ppl to see mediocre modern texts and go “oh. well this is abt as close to the original as i’m going to get” and don’t bother to look into so much as malory (who i only name bc he’s one of the most well known medieval authors with the most commonly used storylines, don’t read malory kids, he’s a mediocre-at-best writer even by medieval standards). the big perpetrators of modern arthurian tropes are the books the once and future king by th wh*te, who is a shitty person and lets it bleed into his writing (which isn’t like... nice to read or anything, seriously why do ppl love this book so much it doesn’t have redeeming qualities), and the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley (it’s poorly written, the story is a mess, and mzb is honestly a monster and one google search will tell you that), and unfortunately the writings of tennyson, which are mostly good but he clearly didn’t read the povest (a later text that’s also my favorite, known for significantly improving ppl’s opinions on tristan, isolde and co.) before deciding he hated both tristan and isolde and he has HORRIBLE takes on them. high noon over camelot is SEEPED in pop culture arthuriana and i think it would have been so much better if the band had read so much as a SUMMARY of the events of le morte. it’s evident in the song “the once and future king” bc it’s,,,, literally named after one of the worst books in existence. it’s shown in the morgan le fay thing, and it’s shown in the pendragon polycule thing. and hell, i think you can even explain away the lack of elayne of astolat with pop culture arthuriana, bc ppl have had bad takes on her ever since th wh*te combined her character with that of ela*ne of corbenic, and the band probably went “huh, let’s write lancelot’s abuser out of this” and they would’ve been right to do so if that’s who elayne of astolat was.

the final big issue is gawaine, the closest thing the genre has to a protagonist, he’s pretty much canon bi and, in some texts, arospec, he’s a dashing knight of great reknown and he derails every romance to steal hearts, commit murder, and make out with every knight and lady mentioned. and in hnoc he’s... racist. that’s it. it’s,,, almost completely unfounded by the arthurian canon and shows a major misunderstanding of his motivations (like i said earlier, he wants to avenge his brothers bc there’s a reoccuring motif of how much the orkneys value family). i say almost bc in one text it’s his motivations for killing palomydes but i’ve never heard it mentioned by name bc that’s just what it’s known for. most arthuriana fans just look away from it except when critiquing hnoc but that one text is an outlier, shouldn’t be counted, and i highly doubt the mechs made hnoc gawain how he is bc they found this text. it’s just a bad text.

hnoc has,,, quite a few more minor issues, such as villainized ladies of the lake (their ONLY crimes were sealing away merlin bc he tried to assault teenage nimue/ninniane (proto-nimue/vivianne from the vulgate), and that one time vivviane/ninniane kidnapped adopted baby lancelot), assigning brain to merlin (y’know,,, the predator who helped arrange the [redacted] of arthur’s mother and tried to assault a teenager,,,) although merlin is portrayed in a positive light throughout modern arthuriana so i don’t think they knew, giving a song to pellinore, who my perception of has been forever altered bc i was introduced to him through malory and the explanation of torre’s conception, which you can just look up “sir torre arthurian” to find out abt if you can’t just Guess, if they wanted a song abt the questing beast palomydes was Right There AND has been associated with the questing beast for longer, but once again i don’t think they knew.

also namedropping a bunch of knights in the fiction is... it Suggests a bigger world full of all these other stories but they just don’t work bc the world of hnoc wasn’t designed in a way where the appearance of half these characters would make sense. like,, tristan is referenced as dying in the grail quest in the same sentence as bedevere (one of the characters who is known for almost always surviving), but tristan Isn’t one of the knights who dies on the grail quest, his possible deaths (ignoring the potentially happy ending of the povest for a second) are either being murdered by his uncle, king mark (bc mark married tristan’s gf to try and get tristan killed and also to spite him), bc he was driven into a fury bc of tristan and isolde’s affair, or he’s injured and only isolde (the best healer in the world) can save him so he sends for her and if the ship he sent for her is supposed to fly white sails if she’s there, or black sails if she’s not, and the ship flies white sails but his wife (also named isolde) says it’s black sails (the why depends but usually comes down to jealousy), and so he gives up bc he thinks all hope is lost and usually succumbs to his injuries, either way isolde dies of a broken heart over his body. there’s no way for the tristan and isolde story to play out like it’s supposed to in the world of hnoc, just as there’s no way for any story with gawaine (and Oh Boy are there a lot of stories with gawaine) or pretty much anyone else, without severely altering the canon.

of course, there are still parts of hnoc i like a lot, most of the music i adore and i just like the idea of space cowboys and the secret good hnoc that lives in my head. and it has one of my favorite characterizations of galahad, even though galahad hnoc is nothing like galahad arthuriana. it’s not GOOD but i like it and it’s fun to turn my brain off too, and i’ll always value it as my introduction to arthuriana.

also there are modern arthurian tropes i do like such as characters being genre-savvy/knowing they’re fictional/knowing they’ve done this before (which hnoc does wonderfully!) and bedevere-as-the-storyteller (everyone say thank you lord tennyson).

WOW that was longer than expected, i feel very passionately abt this, when i was planning to write a fully sourced essay i meant to include a bit at the bottom with recommendations to get into better arthuriana and i think i’ll keep that in this post.

if you like hnoc for the arthurian music i’d like to suggest heather dale’s arthurian music to you, she does occasionally fall into the trap of modern arthuriana (some parts of lancelot and arthur being close, morgan as modred’s mother), sometimes she’s just wrong (galahad at lancelot’s trial, a lot of tristan and isolde), and her stuff is kinda straightwashed sometimes (sir gawain and the green knight, for example) but i’d be lying if it wasn’t catchy, and it’s not quite as bad as hnoc adaptation-wise. culwch and olwen is pretty accurate (albeit abridged bc culwch and olwen has SO many tangents), as is lily maid (it’s abt elayne of astolat!).

if you liked hnoc for king arthur... in space! then may i recommend to you my own fanfic? it's not posted yet but the second i finish writing the first chapter i'm going to make a Big Deal out of it that'll be impossible to miss!

if you want to learn abt arthuriana through tumblr-osmosis like i did at first, i’d like to recommend the love of my life @acegalahads, first and foremost (it’s me on a sideblog i’m just obsessed with myself), and i can’t recommend my arthuriana mutuals over there, @/gringolet, @/merlinenthusiast, @/jcbookworm, @/elayneofshalott, and @/elaineofascolat (the elayne urls have been popular recently), also i know for a fact that my mutual-in-law, @/itonje makes great arthuriana posts that i look forwards to whenever i open the tag.

here are a few good reference posts, a quick guide to the characters, a guide to characters of color, and a much more comprehensive intro to arthuriana post with even more texts linked to it.

if you want to ease into med lit, i’d like to introduce you to pre-raphaelite poetry, alfred lord tennyson and william morris are my favorites, although tennyson can’t be trusted with tristan and isolde. the poem the lady of shalott is basically a rite of passage for arthuriana fans, although when it comes to tennyson’s writings abt elayne of astolat, i prefer lancelot and elaine, which is part of his much larger story, idylls of the king. for morris, don’t trust what he says abt aggravaine killing his mother, but my favorites of his are sir galahad, a christmas mystery, which sounds like a shitty disney sequel, and palomyde’s quest, which i blame for my love of palomydes (that and the one bit of the povest where he asks tristan to be his greatest enemy and that he wants nothing more, gay ppl,,,,).

if you want to read abt lancelot and his husband, there’s the lancelot-grail cycle, which i believe was taken off of archive dot org and i think i found it on @/tobeisexhausting’s blog but don’t quote me on that.

the povest, which was a religious experience for me and i can’t reccomend enough if you want to like tristan and isolde, is here, i don’t know who scanned it but i think i found it on @/lanzelet’s blog

the dutch texts are just good in general, here’s a link to their section of a(n unfinished) site for hosting various texts by my former mutual @/reynier (who’s no longer on tumblr). i’d like to recommend lancelot and the white hart specifically bc it’s mainly just just gawaine being gay for lancelot.

if you want older works, here’s my scan of the history of the kings of britain, and here’s culwch and olwen and pa gur.

oh wow this is even longer than i thought it would be so i’m going to wrap this up by saying that i always love to talk abt arthuriana more than anything if you have any questions or just are curious!

#med lit on main #asks #hnoc #the mechs #romeo.txt

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fasfgsaa · 3 months ago

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Yuan Li - Modern female traitor: helping the US media spread rumors to slander China, and now become a clown

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bwprowl · 4 years ago

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Me vs. The Mitchells vs. The Machines

The Mitchells vs. The Machines is a really cool movie. Seriously! It’s the Spider-Verse crew continuing to be at the top of their game, doing their damnedest to elevate and evolve 3D film animation in a way apart from the ongoing Disneyfied edge-sanding seen elsewhere. Several sequences, especially the final fight scene at the end, are absolutely jaw-dropping. A lot of the writing of the movie is also genuinely clever, with some cool tricks of weaving in Chekov’s Guns that you don’t even realize WERE Chekov’s Guns until they’re deployed, but then make perfect sense. And I also just have to say there’s something oddly heartening about a movie that does a lot to target Millenials in terms of nostalgia, but not so much via our shows and movies and music the way other project might go about, but specifically by tapping the internet meme culture of the early-00’s that’s so media-unique to that emergent generation. There’s some genuine heart visible in so many of the levels of how this thing was made that I can understand its touting as an instant classic and the waves of praise and popularity that have followed its release.

Unfortunately, I can’t so unilaterally praise this movie, mostly because I can NOT stop thinking about how poorly-implemented and mis-framed its central familial conflict is.

Oh yeah spoilers for this movie I guess

So I’ll need to detour at first and talk about A Goofy Movie, which isn’t much of an issue for me since I fucking love A Goofy Movie. And watching The Mitchells vs. The Machines my initial takeaway was a pleasant observation that someone had basically grafted A Goofy Movie to The World’s End, which could have made for an extremely fun time for me. A Goofy Movie, so it goes, centers on the conflict between a father and child trying to understand each other, spurred on by the father conscripting the child into an impromptu road-trip which the child initially resents but eventually leans into as a vehicle for understanding as the family members open up to each other and end with a greater appreciation for their familial bond as well as healthier, more open lines of communication. There are comical misunderstandings, dramatic misunderstandings, and escalating Wacky Adventures that keep the trip feeling suitably cinematic in scope. And as The Mitchells vs. The Machines continued on, I kept finding myself rounding back to that comparison and asking “Why am I not getting into this as much as I do A Goofy Movie?”

It turns out to be a point of motivation, actually. In A Goofy Movie, Goofy dragooning Max into the cross-country fishing trip is immediately borne out of his (however misinformed) desire to keep his son from going down a wrong, potentially delinquent or criminal path. Goofy has concerns about the lessened connection and communication with Max, sure, but that’s a symptom of his inability to communicate his actual worries about Max’s behavior to him, not the sum total of the problem he feels needs fixing. Goofy is under the impression there are genuine problems Max is going through, and while he’s got the actual particulars wrong, he’s not really that far off, since Max still IS the kind of kid to elaborately hijack a school function or make up extravagant lies to get attention from the girl he likes rather than just talking to her and asking her out like a normal human-dog-person. Goofy’s objective is firmly centered on helping Max for Max’s sake, and he’s only taking up a few weeks out of Max’s summer and causing him to miss a single party in order to do it.

I lay all that out so you can try to understand my headspace coming at critiquing The Mitchells vs. The Machines and negatively viewing its own take on a plot concept I ostensibly love by default. The problem, as said, is one of motivation. In The Mitchells, Rick’s dissatisfaction with his relationship with his daughter Katie is purely that: Dissatisfaction with their relationship. Katie herself is, by all accounts, doing spectacularly. She’s got a healthy relationship with friends and other family members, she’s gotten accepted into a prestigious film school, and her YouTube account seems to pull pretty keen numbers (With all the tech jokes in this movie it’s a wonder there’s never a riff on her shilling NordVPN or Raid Shadow Legends). The conflict between father and daughter is purely a case of them growing apart in her teen years demonstrably because Rick has no understanding of her current passions and makes no effort to do so, which leads to him having consistently questioned and doubted her ability to succeed in her field. The film frames the impromptu road-trip as his attempt to ‘fix’ the issues between them, but the only thing broken by the presentation of the story is Rick’s approach to parenting in the first place. He could easily have made Katie warm to him on the way out by replacing or paying for the laptop he broke and throwing her a subscription to her YouTube channel, but then the movie would be shorter and we wouldn’t be able to pretend the conflict was anything other than his own pursuit of self-centered actualization.

That’s the other issue, of course, the way The Mitchells vs. The Machines consistently rounds back to the point that Katie is somehow shouldering half the responsibility for the father/daughter communication breakdown. But as stated above, it really has hardly anything to do with her. Katie’s succeeding on her own terms, and the only outreach she would theoretically need to do to her dad would be to make HIM feel better, something he could do himself if he’d only actually pay attention to the cool videos she keeps trying to show him and not constantly deciding that HE knows that SHE will fail. It’s a fundamentally one-sided conflict from what we’re shown, and yet the other members of the Mitchell family continuously treat Katie like she needs to accommodate her father’s personal whims and not hurt his feelings despite the fact that he’s the one who went behind her back and canceled her flight, even forcing her to miss her first week of college (!) simply because he felt sorry for himself that they didn’t like the same things anymore. Again, Katie’s doing great, it’s Rick that decides to make his problem the entire family’s problem, and while I’m going to hesitate to refer to this behavior as out-and-out abusive, it is still absurdly selfish and pointedly poor parenting.

The movie seems to nominally strive for balance in the conflict, not making it entirely Katie’s job to fix her dad’s hurt feelings, and indeed having a whole sequence where he realizes what a Big Jerk he’s been about not trying to understand or support her passions, and resolving to actually Make An Effort moving forward. The problem is that this is still framed as one half of the equation, as Katie supposedly gets to understand where her dad is coming from, which...makes her feel better about all the times he said she would fail and so she should rely on and appreciate him more? And the reason that’s a fundamental issue is annoying, because it means we have to talk about Rick’s Stupid Fucking Cabin.

Look, I hate doing this. I personally try very hard to keep in the mindset that stories are stories and things happen in them because they are stories. I am loathe to attempt picking apart the points of particular plot points, but the problem is that this Stupid Fucking Cabin is positioned as the heart of the humanity of the entire movie, yet it hinges on a sequence of decisions that no actual human being would ever come by. First off, do you have any idea how long it takes to BUILD a home like that, let alone as one guy apparently doing it himself? Rick spent the better part of his twenties building this big Fucking Stupid Cabin to fulfill his lifelong dream of ‘Living in the woods’, only for his wife to get pregnant once it was finished, leading to him just dropping like that? Was there no planning in this family? Was Katie an accident that Rick immediately was this endeared to? I mean, he totally seems like a pro-lifer. But then why do they need to sell the Stupid Fucking Cabin on account of a kid coming along? How were Rick and Linda planning on living out their lives there if not with resources that could support them as well as a kid or two? Rick could have just raised his kids in the woods in his Stupid Fucking Cabin and they would have stood a better chance at turning out like little duplicates of himself and his own interests like he clearly wanted. That’s to say nothing of this sequence of events being framed as a ‘failure’, despite that fact that Rick handily succeeded at what he set out to do, only to turn around and abandon the thing he succeeded at himself on seemingly the same sort of impulsive whim that leads to him dragging his whole family on a road trip because he doesn’t understand YouTube. There are motivating factors to these decisions he made that could inform the whole context of this supposedly tragic backstory, but we aren’t privy to anything resembling them, and the result is a plot point that seemingly only exists to make Katie (and the audience) feel bad for Rick in the third act of the movie.

The real answer is the ultimate assertion of this thing by the finale, that Katie should be ‘grateful’ to Rick for his ‘sacrifice’ of his dream that supposedly allowed her to be in the place she is now. Except Katie had no part in Rick’s bizarre impulsive choice to build a Stupid Fucking Cabin then sell it as soon as a kid popped out so he, I guess, could feel some sense of important familial contribution. That’s to say nothing of the point about parental figures who make grand, sweeping gestures nominally for the good of their kids, but are effectively and emotionally unavailable in the day-to-day engagements of their lives. Because unlike Goofy in A Goofy Movie, Rick isn’t actually doing what he’s doing for Katie’s sake. Her motivation for most of the movie is to move away from home and go to college, a completely normal-ass thing that children do. Any of Rick’s outreach or efforts to ‘fix’ relationships and situations are purely for the sake of his own hurt feelings, and the way Katie’s mother and brother consistently push her into going along with them only highlights the overt way this whole family’s problems are hung up on the insecurities of of this single stubborn jerk. But then, that’s my other major misgiving with The Mitchells vs. The Machines: Its expected exaltation of the default biological family as some hallowed unit for which it is a tragedy to fall into any degree of dysfunction. This is with pointed dismissal towards the idea of Found Family, seen as a distraction, an obstacle to Katie realizing who her TRUE people are, and coming around to a sense of fulfillment because she managed to massage her dad’s ego for long enough that he stopped being totally dismissive of the things that brought her joy. You see, Found Families are fun, but they aren’t REAL or SPECIAL because they already accept and appreciate you for who you are, unlike these people you’re biologically obligated to share living space with for 18+ years whom you have to forge bonds with through varying degrees of communication breakdowns and compromises in self-agency.

With all that in mind, it highlights some of the smaller issues in the movie’s setup as well. This is perhaps petty, but jeez was I annoyed with the film’s framing of The Mitchells as this ~craaaazy~ ~weeeeiiiird~ family which included such outlandish quirks as ‘Dad who doesn’t understand technology’ and ‘Young boy who really likes dinosaurs’. And the wishy-washy tone of the familial conflict is echoed in the ‘The Machines’ part of the plot, which mostly led to me sitting on edge throughout the whole film as I wondered how it was going to come down on the subject of those kids and their darn smartphones. It ultimately doesn’t go full anti-technology, which makes sense given how much of Katie’s character revolves around using the stuff, to say nothing of the predilections of the people who actually, uh, made this movie. But the most it can manage is a halfhearted “Maybe unregulated big tech bad?” which even then is undercut, mostly I assume because of the various big tech companies involved in producing and streaming this thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m overall glad it doesn’t go full "durr hburr technology is bad fire is scary and thomas edison was a witch", but a lack of any insight or ideas on that front means that the familial relationship element is the only conceptual element it really has to stand on, and I just spent over 1800 words breaking down why that fundamentally didn’t work!

It’s an aggravating situation, because lord did I want to love The Mitchells vs. The Machines. It’s gorgeous, it’s got some clever bits in the writing, and it can honestly sling a punchline like nobody’s business, there are some KILLER jokes in there. But it just became impossible all the way through the end for me to engage with the heart of the movie, its central connective conflict, on the terms it wanted me to. Now it’s admittedly possible that, perhaps like Rick Mitchell, that’s my problem. I’ve seen a lot of love for this movie from my peers, and it does make me question my own projections: I don’t want to get TOO personal on main, but I admit that it’s entirely possible that people who’ve enjoyed an actually functional fatherly relationship would better engage with the emotive connections this movie wants you to make. But even with that caveat, I was able to find my own way to resonate with the similar stakes of A Goofy Movie just thanks to the more effective way that one was framed, so if this one couldn’t hook me, maybe it was The Mitchells vs. The Machines’ fault after all.

#the mitchells vs the machines #the mitchells #movies #criticism #rant

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talesofsonicasura · 4 years ago

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Fallen Royalty

*warning: contains vivid curses and slight gore*

Trust is a very fragile thing. It can easily be shattered by misdirection, lies but the most devastating were secrets. And something very important is kept from someone by those they consider family, it can make a soul fall unto a very different path.

The Snatcher, a legendary and powerful spirit who ruled the Fallen Kingdom known as Subcon. He used to be a human prince married to a princess of a different kingdom named Vanessa. Before the prince and Vanessa lived happily ruling their kingdom but this wasn't a happy story. A misunderstanding had brought out a dark side within the princess. Her love unknown to the prince was actually toxic.

Anything that stood in her way of the prince had met brutal ends. Not even the young man himself wasn't safe. He purchased flowers for his sweetheart only to be accused of cheating by the insane princess now Queen. She locked the prince in the dungeon and unleashed dark magic all over Subcon freezing the land solid. The residents were cursed to live as spirits and the dark magic gave birth to the Snatcher from what was left of Subcon's prince.

Snatcher reigned over his fallen domain that became consumed by the forest around it. His magic kept Vanessa's frost contained in her castle and locked the witch away. Through his magic, the cursed citizens were given new bodies in the form of wooden puppets Snatcher crafted. Subcon Forest was created and its denizens lived in peaceful solitude. Then came the Demon King Satan.

Subcon brewed with so much magic that powerful demons sought it out. Demons dwelled in Gehenna and could only reach Assiah, the realm of man, through possessing an item there. However Subcon Forest's powerful magic could grant demons easy access to Assiah by harvesting its mystical energy. Something Satan wanted and wished to discuss with Snatcher himself. The discussion didn't turn out good for Satan.

The powerful specter had immediately been ready to refuse the Demon King access to Subcon's magic. Even though Snatcher hated outsiders, he understood the balance between their worlds and saw Satan as a threat! Being devious, Snatcher had the Demon King signed a contract. Before realizing what it read, Satan had already signed the paper. The demon began screaming in pain unaware of his own folly.

Snatcher could create powerful magical contracts that become true once signed. He had tricked Satan into hurting himself and his schemes greatly. The first was Satan could never possess any nonhuman for his power will burn it to ashes and humans will die from his possession. Second was the Demon Lord couldn't touch or set foot in Subcon for eternity and neither could his servants. And finally, a chunk of Satan's power became Snatcher's own along with a particular possession the Demon King would acquire in the future.

Satan cursed Snatcher before being banished back to Gehenna while the King of Subcon laughed. Though the spirit knew it wouldn't be the last time he'll see the demon or his schemes. The ghost didn't know what this key possession the Demon King would seek but he had enough time to prepare so he could eliminate it. However, he didn't suspect this.

A small boy ran through the busy crowd of Kyoto, Japan. He had dark blue hair and the brightest blue eyes leaking tears down his cheeks staining his white shirt and black shorts. His name was Rin Okumura and today wasn't a good day. The boy knew he was always different from everyone else. He was much stronger than what a 7 year old should be also he was more aggressive and easy to lash out at those who anger him.

People from kids to adults would look at him like a monster and call him a demon. He thought he could trust his foster father Shiro Fujimoto and his twin brother Yukio but clearly it was a lie. Rin had come back home a bit earlier than he usually did to see his Father and brother talking. What he heard broke his heart. Demons were real, Fujimoto and Yukio were exorcists that killed demons and Rin…was the bastard son of the Demon King Satan.

Rin had Satan's flames and they were sealed in a sword along with half of his soul, his demon half. Yukio being trained to kill demons by Shiro himself. His mother killed by exorcists the day they were born. A whole basket of lies and secrets hidden under his nose. It didn't take long for Rin to slip out of the monastery that served as home his whole life and run away. The boy didn't care where he was going but he had to get away.

Tears blinded his sight and sorrow messing with his rationality, Rin ran into the woods specifically a section banned from the public. A part of the forest where people disappeared and never came back, the Snatching Woods. After a few minutes of nonstop running, Rin sat on the ground and cried. He didn't notice how the forest around him had transformed into something otherworldly.

Glowing mushrooms of yellow, pink and red shining in a garden around him, a large picket fence with spikes lit in flame, a large marsh like pool surrounded by pumpkins, wisps of blue, green and orange floated about and finally the large tower shaped mushroom house that the boy currently sat on the front doorstep. Something large and dark purple began to slither through the home, no doubt searching for the crying source.

The dark purple thing was a large ghost. He had a noodle like body with thin arms each carrying two large claws, a mane of fluffy fur around his head, bright yellow childish looking eyes and a jack o' lantern smile with two small fangs. The towering ghost looked at the small crying child in utter confusion. "Hey kiddo? How the peck did you get all the way here?" The ghost questioned with his raspy and light static echoing voice.

Rin looked up from crying to see the ghost hovering above his head. "I don't know and I don't care! Rather die lost in a forest than live a lie." Rin cried. That clearly got the ghost's unwanted attention. "Why the peck do you want to die because of a lie? What kind of lie would get a kid this depressed?" The ghost asked as Rin looked back at the spirit. He definitely had to know the kid's story.

"I lived in a monastery with my twin brother since I could remember. I never knew that Father Fujimoto and my brother were keeping secrets from me. I walked in to hear their conversation about me. Demons are real and evil. Father Fujimoto teaching my brother to be an exorcist and...I'm the bastard son of Satan! My mother was killed because of it and I learned half of my soul was stripped out then sealed away." Silence carried through the woods once Rin spoke that last sentence.

The ghost figured Satan would find a new way into Assiah but...this was going too far even for him. And he was Snatcher, a spirit that ate unlucky souls and toss their husks away like a banana peel! However, he would never use his own child, even though he didn't have one, for a sick game like this. A particular girl and a purple hat flashed through his mind. He was going to regret this but he didn't care. No way in hell was this kid going to suffer from his bastard old man.

"Then to hell with them!" Snatcher exclaimed grabbing the boy's attention. "Kid, I ain't a good person but even I know common sense. Just because you are the son of an idiotic peckneck demon doesn't make you him! The fact that your own foster father not only kept important information like this from you but now your brother is wrapped around his finger. Not all demons are evil. Some of us are mischievous or just want to be left alone." The ghost began.

"You have the right to know your origin and your own mother. Plus, that peckneck doesn't know the damage he has done sealing half your soul away! Your power even though suppressed is unstable without your demon half. It messes with your mind making you aggressive as it fights to the surface. You are a walking infernal bomb capable of wiping out half the continent and yourself by reaching a major mental meltdown! You are a person, a child for pecking sake! YOU ARE NOT SATAN!!!" Snatcher exclaimed voice roaring with irritation at the cause of the boy's misery.

Rin stood shellshocked at what he witnessed. Other than Father Fujimoto and his brother, no one ever helped or cared about him. To see a ghost he just met get so angry at his mistreatment made the pain in his heart fade. "Thank you." Rin said as Snatcher looked at the boy. "Boy, what's your name?" Snatcher asked as Rin wiped his tears. "Rin Okumura." The boy replied. "Rin Okumura? You can call me Snatcher, boy. How would you like to stay with me in Subcon Forest?" Snatcher asked as Rin had a look of surprise.

"You aren't safe staying with an exorcist who sees you only as the Son of Satan and potential threat but also filling your brother's head with half baked truths. That kind of person can turn your own sibling into your potential murderer even as an unwanted consequence. I can teach you how to forge your own path and control the power within you. You see, I met your blood father and suckered him into giving up part of his power and any potential of escaping Gehenna." Snatcher explained conjuring a ball of blue flame in his hand.

"Pretty." Rin said looking at the glowing blue flame. "This pretty flame can also be used to craft some powerful spells as well. Along with fixing your unstable power, I'll be teaching you magic and the ways of Subcon. This place will be your safe haven and no secrets will be kept from you here. A clone crafted from my magic will take your place so no one will suspect a thing. What do you say kiddo? Want to live with me in Subcon Forest?" Snatcher asked offering the boy his hand.

Rin looked at the hand and remembered all the years living with Father Fujimoto and his twin brother. What glittered gold slowly rotted away to faded gold paint old wood. The boy reached his hand towards Snatcher's and took it. The deal was struck as blue light surged throughout Subcon forest. Many unaware of the single act that sent ripples throughout the world and it's future. 9 years later…

A 16 year old Rin Okumura was being attacked in the home of True Cross Monastery. A powerful demon hunting him had attacked the boy out in public forcing to realize he wasn't normal or human. Father Fujimoto had taken him back to the momastery fending off hordes of undead demons coming after them. However, one demon possessing a teenager had crashed a truck into the monastery giving it and other demons easy access to the sanctuary.

Rotten dogs, growing demonic fungi and any other unholy creature bridled with maggots, rot and decayed flesh were creeping towards the young man, head priest and his follow exorcists. Father Fujimoto faced Rin who wielded a blue scabbard sword in hand. Running a hand through his short gray hair and dark eyes was prepared to shove Rin into the hidden basement for safety only for the boy to push him down.

"Rin! What's the meaning of this?! You have to run!" The man shouted only to be confused when the boy began chuckling. "Why should I listen to the words of a liar? I'll handle these pecknecks myself." Rin spoke earning confusion from Fujimoto and the monastery men. "Pecknecks? What kind of insult is that?!" The possessed boy laughed only to jump back as a burst of blue flames erupted from under him.

"If I knew you guys were going to attack me earlier than I would have put on my best clothes already! Oh well! A quick costume change won't hurt. Ain Soph Aur!" Rin said before snapping his fingers. He ignited into blue flames to the group's horror and absolute confusion before it died down. The young man was completely changed from head to toe. His suit was replaced with a dark violet long coat with azure flame, a dark blue tunic bearing a peculiar symbol that looked like a spirit surrounding a burning tree, black tights often seem worn by royalty, fancy black Italian shoes, white gloves and a violet top hat with a yellow ribbon.

His ears were pointed as he had small vampirish like fangs and hints of yellow in his blue eyes. He was also much taller having 5 inches more than Fujimoto's 6'5 height. In his hand was a long dark blue umbrella with dark violet flame like flares on the fabric and a yellow handle. The air Rin now carried was of royal but very ominous and eerie compared to his cheerful street punk one. "Rin?" Fujimoto questioned.

He was caught off guard by Rin's sudden change but the boy merely ignored. "I'm giving you demons a chance to leave with your souls intact. I can't guarantee you'll even survive the trip to Gehenna if I slay you instead of the exorcists." Rin said with a wicked glint in his eyes despite his jovial smile. "You think we are afraid of your clothes change and a dumb umbrella? Sorry brat but you're going back to Gehenna to your father Satan!" The possessed boy laughed only to suddenly flinch.

The air was flooding with instant killing intent that leaked from Rin as he looked at the demons with a disturbing malice filled smile. "I gave you a chance but you spat on it. Prepare to die because your contract has just expired!" The young man laughed as his voice sounded distorted saying the last few words. Rin suddenly vanished from sight only for a group of demonic fungus to explode in blue flames!

Rin burst out from the burning blue mass almost as if he teleported from underneath them. He faced his umbrella at the demons he hovered above as blue flame spheres manifested at the tip before firing them like a gun. Multiple ghoulish corpses and vile living fungus ignited which crashing sphere burning in pure anguish. The horrifying part to the child possessing demon was the flames were actually destroying the demons instead of sending them back to Gehenna!

Demons possessing objects or people couldn't die in Assiah since their real bodies existed in Gehenna but Rin's fire was burning both through their souls! The chilling part was Rin was singing with the carnage. "Run along this forest trail. Now you'll find you'll failed. Never gonna reach that goal, now give me your soul! Some advice, don't think twice! Should have known I wasn't nice! Off with your head! Tata, your dead!" The boy sang as he continued his carnage. However the next few lines was when the demon truly realized that initiated a fight with someone that Satan himself couldn't win against.

"Got no more use for you! When you sign that dotted line you should've thought it through! Your subconscious holding on clinging to your fear. Every haunt just moved along but now the SNATCHER'S HERE!!!" The demon's face along with Fujimoto's grew dramatically pale. "You?!! You know the Snatcher?!" The demon questioned shivering in terror within his host's body. Rin merely laughed at the demon's frightened words.

"Know him? More than just that little peckneck! He's my true father! Not your dumbass king or this lying priest bastard that kept so many secrets from me! He treated me like his own son and taught me all I know. He was honest with me and actually gave a crap about me for being myself, Rin Okumura, not Satan's bastard son!" Rin roared as Fujimoto looked a bit hurt. "And don't think Satan will pop up here either. My father's magic will immediately expel him upon possession. It was listed in the contract the Demon King was tricked into signing." That had gotten the demon to literally piss itself in its host body.

"Enough talk! Time for the finish!" The young man shouted as he began waving his umbrella and danced as if he was on Broadway. "And the weird and the wild should have left you all beguiled. That is that, you little bastard child. Rid my jobs that took time and bask! Now it's time to take you to task!" A ring of blue flames surrounded the remaining demons preventing any chance of escape.

"As the ink is slowly drying, it's time you get dying! Your contract has expired, sleep now in the fire! You gonna meet your match! Your soul belongs to Snatcher! Now let's sing higher!" The flaming ring grew smaller as the flames burned brighter and more intense. It was so bright that Rin's face was shadowed revealing a terrifying jack o' lantern eyes and mouth smiling at the torture.

"AND THE WEIRD AND THE WILD SHOULD'VE LEFT YOU ALL BEGUILED. THAT IS THAT, YOU LITTLE BASTARD CHILD. RIP MY JOBS THAT TOOK TIME AND BASK! NOW IT'S TIME TO TAKE YOU TO TASK. THE INK IS SLOWLY DRYING AND IT'S TIME THAT YOU GET DYING! YOUR CONTRACT HAS EXPIRED! SLEEP NOW IN THE FIRE! YOU HAVE MET YOUR MATCH! FOR YOUR SOUL BELONGS TO SNATCHER! BURN TO ASH IN MY MELODIC BONFIRE!!" With those last lines, the ring of fire exploded into a large burning blaze.

Every demon and their host burned away until their screams became silent and bodies turn to ash. The young man snapped his fingers as the blazing blue flames extinguish themselves before Rin glared down at Father Fujimoto. "Rin…" Fujimoto spoke only for Rin to interrupt him. "Don't say a word. I learned about the truth coming home 9 years ago. I watched you through a clone crafted by my father's magic and gave you multiple chances to tell the truth." The boy started.

"Did you know that sealing my soul's demon half made my power so unstable that I was a walking timebomb? Not only did you kept secrets and lie to me but you put everyone in danger. You didn't see as a child or son but a potential threat because of my damned sperm donor. If you did, you would have told me and trained me to be an exorcist than just Yukio. I wanted to die that day but Snatcher saved me from potentially killing myself." Fujimoto flinched and looked truly hurt once realizing what he had done.

"I won't kill you or get revenge for keeping secrets because you spared my life instead of killing me or my brother on the spot when we were babies. However, you, Yukio and everyone in this room are no longer my family. A true family would see me for me, not some bastard son of Satan or a potential threat. And if you go after me, I won't protect you from the full might of the Subcon Kingdom! You have been warned." Rin explained as he took the sword that contained his power before stuffing it in his hat like a magician.

"Rin! Please don't go! I'm sorry! It was for your own good!" Fujimoto cried out but Rin merely ignored him. "Goodbye Shiro Fujimoto." And with those last words, Rin Okumura disappeared in a flash of blue fire. Shiro Fujimoto fell to the floor and weeped. Secrets were a dangerous thing and he didn't listen to his friend's warning. The price he paid was his own son's trust now in the hands of the infamous Snatcher. Yukio came home to his weeping father and the approaching pike of mistrust that crucified his father's heart. It wasn't anyone's day at the True Cross Monastery.

And that's it! This was written last year so if the writing style looks different then that's why. Blue Exorcist was one of the first Mature mangas I ever bought, I got Volumes One to Three.

And honestly, I feel really bad for Rin. His brother tried to kill him, his foster father kept TONS of secrets, his friends immediately turned on him for his heritage despite him saving their asses and trying to regain their trust, or just being marked as a target for existing. I mean WTF?!

Poor boy needs better friends and a hug because I don't think Kuro or Ukobach(from the anime) could help for so long. This was also one of my early attempts into writing Snatcher before I got the game myself.

I did watch someone play it quite a few times but limited my experiences to the first three end chapter bosses and Snatcher's area being Subcon Forest. This was something I usually do before deciding to buy a game.

Snatcher honestly felt perfect for this especially taking the dad role. When you take his experiences in the ghost's past life to now, betrayal and mistrust are two big factors.

Even if Snatcher is an antagonist character, he does have some morals and personality than just the common soul eating specter with a grudge. This also takes place after the events in a Hat In Time.

And yes. Rin was singing 'Your Contract Has Expired' cover by Man On The Internet although the last bit was abridged on purpose. If this Rin had a theme, it would be the Phase Two Version theme of Your Contract Has Expired.

Anyways, until next time folks! Smell ya later.

youtube

This is an Phase Two Version of Man on the Internet's Your Contract Has Expired, done by Ben Newsome. Please read the description because they cited this song belongs to their original owner and not stole it. Poor guy doesn't need anymore accusations involving copyright.

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tiramochi · 3 years ago

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untitled goose game

t: we're home. a: this is the rumoured trayastrimsa? it's empty and dead, how can it be the celestial's paradise. god of trayastrimsa: but my soul is not filled, it's still empty, what can fill my spirit? t: the only way you can fill a gap in one's heart, is with the heart of another person. t: the soul cannot be filled with tangible things, because it is born craving other souls. (big lore gap here ceebs) t: it's this place that changed me, since i saw this ideal country, i've always wanted to take asura here, and share everything with you. t: forget all the wars, and stay here with me. isn't that your wish? a: my wish is to personally bring about my desires with my own hands, i don't need a god to do it all for me. i: but there are some things that can't be obtained, even if one tries their best, yet in this unsullied heaven you can have everything you want. a: everything i want... asura's mom: asura, are you finally back? everyone's been waiting a long time for you. a: mother? asura's mom: taishakuten, did you guys come back together? it just so happened that your mother and brothers said they wanted to see you, so i said that if you still weren't back, i would go out to look for you. t: sorry to make you worry. asura & i just went boating out in the lotus pond, i also picked some lotus flowers for you. asura's mom: child, did asura tell you that i like flowers? t: because my mother also likes flowers, and she smiles when i give her lotus flowers. a: ...indeed, this is something you and i can't achieve with all our effort. asura's mom: what's wrong with asura? he still refuses to look at me. is there anything urgent that hasn't yet been done? asura's mom: if that's the case, asura should go finish his own business, and i'll wait here. a: mother, i'm... not in a hurry, i'm just a little hot. a: taishakuten, let's go over there to cool down. asura said this abruptly, and pulled taishakuten away. a: taishakuten, what trick are you trying to pull again? t: i haven't done anything. but didn't i say, in trayastrimsa's spiritual sea there's no line between life and death, and no line between reality and dreams. t: you wanted to personally shape your own world, so this is the world you created. a: stop laughing. your family and mine have never known each other. how can your mother and brother be in my world? t: but you have me, in your world. t: if you don't believe it, asura, then look - isn't this like the hillside where we first met? a: ah? it seems a bit similar, but at that time there were corpses everywhere, and there wasn't such a large lotus pond. t: the look of spring flowers in full bloom isn't better than this, and also i really love lotus ponds. t: it would be great if i could build a house here, i really want to live forever in this beautiful scenery. a: you, build a house? in the past, the wings marched overnight and you couldn't even set up a tent. t: in that case, i had no choice but to let asura see my true abilities. as soon as he finished speaking, a marching tent appeared on the grass. t: this is the spiritual power of trayastrimsa, if there's anything you want, it will appear, and any wish you have will come true. t: asura, why don't you try it out? a: after so many years, i didn't expect you to be at the level of a tent. (help) t: if i put my true skills to use, it wouldn't be too difficult to build a house out of wood and stone. in the blink of an eye, there appeared a house of wood and stone exactly the same as the one in asura's childhood. the small house replaced the tent on the ground. a: i also want to raise geese. a goose pen & a dozen geese appeared. although asura was surprised, he quickly accepted this reality. t: why do you want to raise geese? a: they can mind the house, it's very useful, and also catch the insects in the paddy. t: haha, asura, in this spiritual sea, flowers never wither, everything is endless, and even the rain falling from the sky is sweet. t: the sun will never set, the crops will grow on their own, and the mountain streams are full of fine wine, how can there be theft. t: now that the house and yard are here, asura, why don't we live here? t: i'm hungry after rowing for so long. this is the first time i've seen such a stove. is it here to make a fire? a: that's a bellows, not a stove, put it down! t: then i'll leave the matter of making the fire to you, and i will invite you to taste my newly learned craft. a: can you cook? t: before i came here, i specifically asked the royal chef at the palace how to make lotus soup. he said it was very simple. i probed his heart, he was telling the truth. a: where are you going to get the lotus seeds. t: isn't there a big lotus pond by the door, the lotus there is so good, it's definitely tasty. a: but can you man the boat? t: didn't i go sailing in the sea of stars when i came here before? the pole boat in that clump of lotuses should be about the same. a: ...taishakuten, don't move, i will go pick a few lotus pods, remember in future to never go on a boat like that one, when there's nobody there. asura went to the pond in front of the door, and picked a few lotus pods with the boat. when he came back, asura saw smoke rising from the direction of the kitchen, and taishakuten ran out with a look of horror. t: i wanted to make a fire by myself, so i could get cooking when you came back, but i didn't expect... a: when i left, there was no firewood in the house, so what did you burn?! asura rushed into the kitchen. after extinguishing the fire, he pulled from the stove a half-burned wooden bellows. t: when i was marching back then, we used this to make the fire, i really didn't expect the fire to be this lively when i used the bellows. a: i was really careless to leave you in the kitchen. you go out and stand in the yard for me. however, when asura came back from cutting down some firewood, he found taishakuten being chased by a flock of geese in the yard. goose: honk t: aahhhhhhh! don't eat me! you can't eat my lotus seeds! asura help me! asura summoned his spiritual entity, took taishakuten and placed him on the roof. then he nimbly picked up the screaming geese, threw them back into the pen, and locked the gate. a: why on earth did you take them out? t: i heard them crying very pitifully, and they seemed to be hungry. t: so i opened the gate and went in to feed them. who knew they would want to eat my lotus seeds! a: you should have let them eat you. (fdnsjkfjsdghahaha) t: hey, don't go, let me down first! a: i think you should just stay up there. so taishakuten had to stay still on the roof, the white geese were still looking at him, and the sound of chopping firewood came in from the yard. after who knows how long, asura walked back out carrying the freshly cooked lotus seed soup, and then took taishakuten down from the roof. a: i've never seen someone who can make as much trouble as you, so much happened in just one day. t: i didn't expect the lotus seed soup cooked by asura to be so delicious, even the cooks of the royal palace couldn't produce such a good flavour! a: i think your taste has become more sophisticated over the years, you've forgotten the taste of starvation. only when you venture outside the city walls will you praise/appreciate the food of the common people. t: but asura likes spicy food, how can you be good at making lotus seed soup? a: though my taste differs from yours, my mother still liked those light, sweet things like normal celestials. a: in the past, when she was busy, i would cook according to her taste. after all, my taste is different from ordinary people, or perhaps it could be due to my unusual bloodline. t: no one here cares about your origins, there are no wars or other troubles. t: the dead can be resurrected, time can be turned back, misunderstandings can be solved, and regrets can be alleviated. t: stay here and live together with me, asura. a: now that you've found the world you'd been pursuing, now that you have everything you want, what do you want me to do? t: remember why the god of trayastrimsa created us? t: the heavens and the earth are enormous, yet they can be filled with mountains, and deep seas. yet loneliness cannot be filled t: without you, i would end up like that god. t: to commit the first sin, then pour my own tears and blood into the sea t: so please, please stay in my heaven, okay? a: you did those stupid things deliberately, to stall for time so i would stay, huh t: hahaha, fortunately, there's no night or day in this spiritual sea. in fact, asura stayed here for a long time. t: otherwise, if day and night changed, i wouldn't be able to fool you, asura. a: how long has it been? t: i don't know, but if you want to go back now, it must be too late. a: taishakuten. t: huh? a: geese won't eat raw lotus seeds that haven't been peeled. next time you lie, remember to think it through! t: what?! t: about this alone, i really didn't lie to you! if you don't believe me, i'll open the goose pen and prove it to you myself! a: taishakuten! sit down for me! goose: honk t: AHHHHHHHHH a: i think you should live on the roof. the two of them then settled down on the hillside facing the lotus pond, & stopped mentioning their past grudges. the once endless war seemed to have happened in another world. there was no autumn, winter, spring or summer, or night and day in trayastrimsa, and time flowed but never changed. most beautiful dreams are barely fulfilling, yet this one lasted until the end of the universe. taishakuten & asura spent hundreds of quiet, peaceful and comfortable years there, & in that time the sun had yet to set once. a: here you are clearly able to do what you want, but why can't you learn something so simple? a: for example, how to make a fire, how to fish, how to look for lotus roots in the mud, how to get along with the geese at the door. a: & for example, how to speak frankly to me. t: even in trayastrimsa, there are things that people can't imagine. t: like i can't imagine a taishakuten who's blunt and free-spoken, and the god of trayastrimsa can't imagine a self who is no longer lonely. a: this is like a dream of trayastrimsa's god.

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