#there also are still a bunch of other children left that were affected by the marigold what about them?

[symeraid-s]

Finally watched the final season of the Umbrella Academy. Gotta say, I don't think I have ever felt this betrayed by a series before.

[fatkish]

Demon Child Pt. 12

It had been a few months since the final battle with Muzan. After the battle, the Kakushi helped clean up the town while the surviving slayers healed up. Gyomei had lost a portion of his left leg and now walks with a prosthetic wooden leg. Giyuu’s and Tanjiro’s arms were reattached. Kanao’s vision was restored. Everyone’s injuries were healed. Kyojuro and Sanemi are missing a few fingers. And everyone who manifested a demon slayer mark had their marks sealed, they can no longer use breathing styles. All they can do is total concentration constant.

After everyone was healed, there was a final pillar meeting. After that meeting, the demon slayer corps was disbanded. Mitsuri and Obanai have started to go on dates and moved in together. Kyojuro returned home to his brother and father, they now run a small dojo where they teach swordsmanship. Sanemi and Genya moved in together and have also started a family dojo where they teach women and children self defense. Kanao and Aoi have been studying to become doctors. Giyuu continued to live on his own but was starting to open up. And Tanjiro, Nezuko, Inosuke and Zenitsu moved back to Tanjiro’s old house and lived together.

When Muzan died, the demon half of you died as well. Your health has since been on the decline. You lost half your body weight and nearly died from loss of your demonic half. But Aoi managed to keep you alive and Gyomei has let you move in with him and he helps take care of you. You have trouble moving around and get fatigued very quickly. You’ve lost a significant amount of weight but thanks to Gyomei and Aoi’s diligence, your health has been increasing steadily.

You’re able to speak in full sentences now and you’ve aged a bit. You’re now 8 years old. When you were half demon, your demonic half slowed your aging. Now that it’s gone, your body is struggling to cope with the rapid increase in age. Gyomei has become like a parental figure for you and has adopted you. You live with him now full time and he brings you to visit the others. You’ve had to do lots of physical therapy to gain back your muscles and strength.

After half a year, Mitsuri and Obanai got married. Sanemi was the best man, Nezuko was the bridesmaid. Gyomei was the officiant. The wedding was beautiful and was in spring. They got married on Mt. Fujikasane, underneath all the wisteria. The wedding was beautiful and the reception had a bunch of food. Mitsuri and Obanai were so happy. Everyone wished them well.

Moving forward was very difficult. There were many goodbyes you weren’t ready to say. With peaceful times now abundant, you struggled with facing an uncertain future. With everyone now moving on with their lives, doing their own thing, a small part of you felt an overwhelming sadness. Maybe it was that you felt like everyone you loved was leaving you. Maybe all the change was starting to affect you. You somewhat believed that you’d always be fighting demons, that everything would stay the same. But life is always changing. Nothing ever stays the same.

As you grew older and the years went by, you started to feel lonely, despite Gyomei saying that you’re always welcome to live with him. Your friends were all out there doing their own thing. They had their own lives to live, and you really were happy for them. But something inside of you was breaking and twisting itself into something dark. What no one knew, was that your demon cells didn’t all die. Your demon cells went dormant when Muzan died. They are still alive, just waiting for the time to reawaken.

After many years you came to terms with your feelings and talked it out with everyone. They reassured you that they would always be there for you whenever you needed them. You all promised to have annual get togethers each year as a means to keep in touch and bond over shared memories. As time went on, you learned to live on your own and made a life for yourself, writing stories from each of the pillars and others. You wrote about the adventures that everyone had and published them as a historical/sci-fi novel series. You even accepted your last name, Kibutsuji.

You grew up and you eventually got married and had children. Unaware that your demon cells were passed onto your children. Your novels became popular and sold well. The only people who knew the truth about the novels being true stories were the demon slayer corps. You made sure to throughly document each breathing style and how to properly use breathing styles. You preserved Shinobu’s poison knowledge as well. You made sure that the notes of the breathing styles were well maintained and they became a family heirloom.

~112 years later~

It’s the modern day and everything is peaceful. In a small house in a neighborhood, a little boy was rummaging through his great grandparent, y/n’s, things when he found an old book. It had a bunch of flowers drawn in it and a bunch of writing. As he looked through the pages, he saw a picture of a blue spider lily. He was fascinated by the picture and became enamored with it. Unaware of his family’s dark history with the flower. He kept the book and put everything back the way it was. This little boy suffers from asthma and was unaware of what exactly it was that he had found.

The book this little boy had found was Muzan’s personal journal that he used to write the results and processes of his experiments in. These experiments that he conducted were in attempts to recreate the medicine that turned him into a demon. This journal contained the notes of the doctor that created the medicine, the notes that Muzan took in order to hopefully make the same experimental medicine. After the battle in the Infinity castle, y/n had combed over the wreckage and found their uncle’s journal among the wreckage and secretly kept it

As time went on he began to study the book and became fascinated by the sciences written in it. He later began to conduct experiments in his room as he grew older. He made his own notes and learned the old ways of making medicine. He also began to grow medical herbs and made remedies with them. He learned as much as he could about science, medicine and chemistry. Despite his sister’s remarks that he was a nerd. As an adult in college, he later became a scientist and made a friend. He had told his friend about the blue spider lily and together, they began their search for it.

Eventually they would find the blue spider lily, but the lilies died due to a mistake in their care. However the boy kept a few and took them home so he could experiment with them. He followed the instructions and notes that were in the old journal. Unaware of what he was making. He began to test the medicine on sickly mice, recording their responses to it. He made sure that each mouse had the same illness, Asthma. After numerous attempts and experiments, he finally succeeded in curing one of the mice’s Asthma. Recreating the drug, the man cured the rest of the mice. Seeing the mice cured, he foolishly decided to take the medicine himself.

He took the medicine and documented the results. Unaware of what was happening to him. The dormant demon cell passed down from his great grandparent, y/n, were starting to awaken. As his breathing improved and he grew stronger, he documented everything. After a few weeks, he was shocked when he discovered that he was cured, but he could no longer go in the sunlight. He had been drawing his blood to examine it. He made sure to properly store his blood so it wouldn’t spoil. He hadn’t realized that each of the cured mice had disappeared, turned to ash when the sunlight came through the window.

Having used the last of the blue spider lilies that he took, he realized his dilemma. He also felt an intense hunger. He waited til it was nighttime and went and bought a lot of raw meat. He got home and devoured it, but something just wasn’t right. He noticed that the people he passed by on his way to and from the convenience store smelled really good. Despite having eaten the raw meat, he was still hungry. He tried as hard as he could to stifle his hunger, he became a recluse, he avoided people. But he just couldn’t fight the need to eat.

One night, he went out and followed a drunkard from a bar. With his newfound strength and speed, he knocked the guy out and brought him back to his house where he ate the man. He made sure to clean up the mess, but as he was cleaning, he saw the box containing his great grandparent’s things. He remembered that y/n, his grandparent, wrote novels that they always insisted had some truth to them. Cracking open the box, he began to read the novels. After reading them, he realized what had happened. He became a demon. He became the new demon king.

Looking through the various memorabilia, he found a picture of his grandparent and a bunch of other people, the writing on the back of the paper said ‘the demon slayer corps’. On it was a list of names. He began to search through everything and came to a conclusion. The only way for him to die now, was to walk into the sun. As he put everything back, he accidentally cut himself on a broken blade. His cut healed, so he didn’t think anything of it. So he waited until sunrise, where he would step out into the sunlight. He didn’t wish to become a monster, and he didn’t wish to hurt anyone else.

So when the sunrise came, he walked outside and burned to death. Unaware that his blood was still on the broken blade. The very blade of which his own unsuspecting sister would cut herself on. Unaware of things, his sister simply cleaned the cut and bandaged it. But it was too late. The dormant cells inside of her slowly began to awaken from the small amount of blood. The process was very slow, enough that it went unnoticed. Until it was too late. Unlike her brother, the sister was mean spirited and rude. She didn’t care much for others unlike her empathetic brother. When she realized her newfound strength and abilities, she used them to her advantage. She ate people and became an uncaring monster, the new demon queen. Thus the cycle began anew.

Tag list: @shortneko @tomiokasecretlover @jspidey5 @nousija

[flamingpudding]

Lost in memories

A/N: personally I am currently hating myself and the writer part of my brain for this. This idea got stuck in my head after I read a couple of amnesiac Danny fics and prompts. I needed to get it out of my head because it occupied to much free estate and distracted me from other things. So with all ideas that bother me like this I write it out. Also I have no idea if I will continue on this or if I will leave it like this that depends on how much free estate it continues to occupies in my head. But here a warning. It's Angsty (?), but if I continue this it will probably be Angst with a happy ending.

Things were good. Danny was happy. After having lost everything before and after many struggles he was happy again, having gained a second family. They weren't replacing his previous family but they helped him fill the emptiness that nearly tore him apart before. They helped him over his grief and hurt as well as protected him from himself and others.

He had more brothers and sisters than before, he even was a big brother now. There was a father figure now also, one that was at least somewhat better at parenting that his father was before but well not perfect with still a bunch of faults Jazz would have loved to analyse. And a grandfather that made the best cookies he had ever eaten before. Best of all they had accepted him the way he was too, even his ghostlyness.

It was also an added bonus that his new family put in the effort to help him have a better schedule and a more regulated life. It came in handy when your entire new family was in the vigilante business and had experience in managing and balancing it. With them he was truly feeling safe and happy now and wished for it to last for as long as possible.

To the Waynes Danny was the baby of the family. Sure he wasn't the youngest, that was still Damian. But Danny was the most open about his feelings and his show of affection from the moment they had saved him and managed to keep him. Alfred wasn't even sure if it was Bruce that had initiated the adoption or if it were the children that did it. After all Jason had stated his brotherly claim on Danny first before Dick AND Damian fought him over it, leaving an opening for Tim and Duke whisking in by having shared interests only for Cass beat them all by gaining his trust first and giving her the favorite sibling spot.

Eitherway Danny had wormed his way into the Wayne family after all the initial struggles and trust issues and became the perfect addition. His way of openly showing how much he loved and cared about his new family quickly stirred the protectiveness the entire bat clan had over him. He might be not as innocent as he appears but to them Danny was the baby.

That was why they were in a close to panic state now.

There had been an oversight on their part. They thought that after dealing with the Anti-Ecto Acts and the disbanding of the Government branch dedicated to hunt beings like Danny that he would be save with them. That there was no danger to him anymore. That he could be free now and do what he wanted, be it a vigilante or life a semi normal life. Sure they knew about the small reminds of these people but, the bats had made sure they never would get even remotely close to Danny.

Jason especially had enjoyed hunting these guys.

Yet somehow a small group of them had managed to evade their attention. They had napped Danny from them. Tim and their ghost boy had been out on a coffee-run they had been discussing on of their latest invention they were working on together. Something that was going to emulate Danny's ice to make it easier to catch certain rogues. Tim had left Danny's side only shortly to get their coffee order but that little time frame had been enough.

At first Tim had thought that his little brother was pulling one of his vanishing pranks on him again. But when Danny didn't reappear no matter how long Tim waited or how much he looked for him, he had grown more and more worried. To the point that he messaged the group chat, alerting all their other siblings.

From there they quickly figured out thanks to the surveillance cameras that Danny got abducted. The fact that the group that took him used tech that Danny personally had shown to them before was the glaring fact that a leftover group was the culprit.

Of course they had instantly gone to rescue their brother. They hadn't forgotten the horrors they had seen before when they had disbanded the original government branch. Even Dick came from Bludhaven to help, knowing the seriousness of the situation.

Yet when they finally got to Danny, it made them feel like they had been too late. Unconscious and a lot of green red blood and wounds placed right where years old scarring was. It had driven Jason into a green haze, something that hadn't happened since Danny had joined the family.

Right now Danny laid unconscious in the medbay. Jason and Cass were with him. The second eldest Wayne had refused to leave Danny's side ever since they had recovered him. Tim wasn't too far away from there either, guilt making him unable to leave. Duke was the one staying next to him for comfort. Damian was pacing by the Batcomputer with Dick trying to help their youngest calming down while Bruce was working on finding if there was anything more they might have overlooked.

A crash in the medbay caused everything to stop. There was only one second of stillness before shouting resounded from there. Making them all rush towards it. But that was what appeared to make the situation worse.

The moment they burst through the door of the medbay they found their brother hovering near the ceiling, staring at them all wide eyed. One hand was clutching the area around his stomach, no doubt having reopened the wounds Alfred had stitched up with that special thread that was only used for Danny, while his other hand was outstretched towards them with a green glow.

"Danny calm down! You're safe!" They heard Dick shout as he tried to get closer but stopped when Jason held an arm out to stop them from getting closer, shaking his head as he glared. It wasn't a glare directed at them but something was clearly making him angry. That was when Damian noticed it, Danny had flinched back at Dick's shout.

He flinched back, from them, looking every bit like he was about to run away.

That was when the rest of them finally saw how Danny watched them with eyes blown wide and filled with fear and panic. But worst of all there was no recognition in his eyes. He looked like one of those affected by fear gas, even though that stuff didn't even work on Danny. He wasn't in a rational state of mind.

"Danny?" Tim carefully asked, he didn't step closer. Doing that right now would most likely trigger their brother even more, he remembered all too well how flighty Danny had been with them in the beginning. He exchanged side glances with his siblings. They needed to calm Danny down before he ripped open even more wounds. They could already see green red stains showing through the shirt Alfred had dressed him in earlier.

"Who…" Danny's voice was barely hearable, cracking even. There was a glass of water by the bedside table prepared for this. But there was no way they could get Danny to drink it right now.

"Who are you people?"

It wasn't often that one simple question could cause so much heartbreak at once. But if your loving brother that has known you for a little over a year or two, the one family member that showed you openly affection and constantly reminded you how much he cared and had come to love you, says it then there was no other way to avoid the pain it caused. None of them showed it but they all felt it the moment Danny finished his sentence.

All the bat siblings had one collective thought as Damian clicked his tongue in an especially frustrated and annoyed way.

I am going to murder these Guy's in White.

[ultimate-marysue]

To all interested in toxic, dysfunctional Batfam/Bad or Abusive Dad Bruce I have a proposition of sorts. As much as I love a Bad Dad Bruce where the kids all comfort and help each other standing up to Bruce, I think it's more likely and more interesting if they're completely isolated and desperate for Bruce's approval.

(If this isn't your cup of tea ignore this post. I'm also a fan of Good dad Bruce and wholesome Batfam but I understand some people are only interested in one or the other and that's valid. There's space for everyone in this fandom. Also TW for discussions of psychological Child Abuse)

How abuse (especially the brand the comics accidentally depict at times and the fandom enjoys portraying) works is more complicated that a Mean Bad Guy and a bunch of sweet and adorable perfect victims that unionize together. You make your victims fight each other, you choose golden children and scapegoat kids to rotate between so none of them gets too comfortable. That creates friction and rivalry even on a subconscious level. You may know logically the abuser is the one creating the situation and yet your brain is annoyed whenever a sibling knocks you down in the Favor pyramid.

No one wants to be the scapegoat and when your abuser seems so big and inescapable, the only way to avoid it is pushing someone else under the bus. Not to mention how you believe their logic. When you're compared favorably to another sibling, you internalize said criticism as moral flaws that you're above off. Which makes you resent said sibling even more when they regain favor and you're left thinking "I did everything right, and yet this failure gets dotted on???!". It's the prodigal son parable, Cain and Abel.

I know this makes your fav character extremely morally grey but I find it fascinating. Like, Tim absolutely despising Jason for being a failure and a killer (victim blaming him), seething when he comes back to the family and Batman begs him to come to dinner because how dare he. Tim's done everything right and he doesn't get half the attention. How he tries to steal the spotlight from Damian, clawing at his role as Batman's side quick because that's all that's ever gotten him positive reinforcement.

Dick constantly compares himself to Cass because he was Batman's original partner, she doesn't get to come and suddenly be the apple of Bruce's eye. He thinks he's over the mind games, moving away and trying to encourage his brothers to raise above this nonsensical competition for Bruce's attention...and yet when it comes to Cass (the only one that threatens his status as Golden Child) he can't help but feel just as defensive as his siblings are with him.

Jason who claims to not need Bruce's love and yet is completely addicted to the intermittent reward of his affection. How he still resents Tim for making it a point to be Bruce's obedient little lapdog, how he still blames Dick for being too perfect to reach.

Damian who is constantly being compared to Tim. Perfect Tim who is so smart, and obedient and socially savvy. How do you get your father to approve of you when your competition is 1) The Original Boy Wonder 2) His most perfect and loyal soldier in the cause 3) The World's Most Dutiful Sidequick. He'll never be as great as Dick, as Devoted as Cass nor as obedient as Tim.

Cassandra knows she's the favorite, and even when Dick briefly usurps her place in Bruce's made up mental hierarchy she knows it won't last. She's too good, and that drives all of her insecure praise-starved siblings up the wall. She may not be purposefully mean, but the end result is the same.

Duke may be the only one escaping mostly unscathed. He's playing along with the whole family thing, but his real parents are alive, he's going back to them as soon as he fixes their situation. He's been in the system since they were jokerized and this is not his first encounter with this kinda dynamic so he's not engaging. He admires Bruce's work, but Batman was never his inspiration. There's no hero worship to blind and entice him, and that low-key scares Bruce. Which is why Duke also gets the golden child treatment, an instinctive attempt at winning him over.

Steph and Barbara often find themselves reeling from the shit they hear from the "Waynes". Because everything makes sense to their internal logic, but the second you talk to an outsider they feel the need to call CPS. I can see them arguing with Tim and Dick respectively and calling them out on the twisted way they talk about their siblings sometimes. Same with Cass.

These are just raw ideas, but I just think if you're going to play around with the concept of abusive Dad Bruce, you can enrich the analysis by reflecting on the consequences of said upbringing. It doesn't mean they can't talk things out and fix it, but acknowledging how abuse twists your brain can give depth to your interpretation. Victims aren't perfect martyrs, if you grow up in a fucked up environment you're gonna think fucked up things. And not all of those are self afflicted and cute, sometimes you're going to think very mean things about your fellow victims. And I'm not even bringing Alfred Sneaky Enabler Pennyworth into this, that's already its own post.

I'm not saying you should never write them banding together for comfort, I'm not even saying that this interpretation is canon (like, at all, it just isn't). I'm just saying I don't see enough of this idea and I wanted to share it.

[youkaiyume]

So had my consultation with the Oncologist today. (That's a doctor specializing in cancer btw) And it was a lot and also not a lot of information. But also, I finally saw the imaging of my bffs the ovarian cysts. Gross medical things under the cut:

HOLY SHIT I know the left one was huge but apparently both my right and left ovaries are sporting cysts larger than grapefruits each. They're literally shoving all of my organs out of the way what space is there for anything else down there???? And I have a small pelvis, no wide child bearing hips on this gal. The doctor said they are probably dermoid cyst which can have all sorts of things floating in there in addition to fluid like... hair and skin--and she said they detected calcium so I possibly have TEETH in there??? TEETH.

She also said that the cancer markers were high. like really high. Like normal is 30 and my readings were 3600--100x more than normal. She still said that she doesn't think it's cancer because nothing else internally looks like it's affected and there have been one other case who was like, in the 7000 marker that turned out to be nothing. But Also it could mean if it was some type of cancer that it was in the early stages. HOW FUN.

They won't know for sure though until they test the cysts themselves and that can't happen until they surgically remove them. After making sure I don't want children she says that they'll still try to leave me some ovary... nubbins? Nubs of ovaries. just enough to still produce estrogen because they don't want to force early menopause by taking out both of my ovaries cuz apparently that causes a bunch of other health issues I'm too young for. But also if worst comes to worst and it IS cancer they might have to just take all the girl bits out. The ovaries, a hysterectomy. The works. Which is fine I don't ever plan to have children and if I did I wanted to adopt anyway. Again, can't know until they test my GRAPEFRUIT CYSTS.

I have yet to hear back from the scheduling lady for a confirmed surgery date but hopefully it will be two weeks from now. They did warn me that hopefully they can just peel the cysts off and they will do their best to make sure none of it is left but there is an unlikely event that the cyst could burst mid surgery. Which they said they'll try to clean up if that happens but if it does I might have to be hospitalized again just so they can flush all the...cyst juice out. But ALSO because it is potentially cancerous and they don't know we really don't want that to happen cuz you know. the cancer could spread. And ALSO hopefully in the time that I am waiting for surgery we also hope that the cysts don't burst.

I'm totally not an anxiety puddle HAHAHA. I'm staying optimistic but it's still a big waiting game of I don't really know and I won't know for weeks. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

[mrose2000]

Bellatrix and Voldemort: My Meta

My Bellamort Meta 

My opinion on the relationship seems to be a bit unusual. A huge chunk of the fandom, somewhat stubbornly (and against evidence, in my opinion) will insist he only cares about himself – and maybe Nagini. A smaller amount do acknowledge that there is definitely affection there, but sometimes it is read as romantic/sexual rather than platonic. I’m in the latter category and going to explain why:

His reaction to her death

There seems to be a lot of debate about this is and whether it’s motivated by strategy or motivated by affection? I ask, why can’t both be true?

Strategy is a part of it. She’s referred to as “his last, best lieutenant,”. He has lost everything at this point, and I do believe part of why his reaction to her death is stronger than that of Nagini’s (that said, he does still try to scream when she dies too) is because he’s now well and truly…well…ducked. He has no Horcruxes left, and his servants have all now either been subdued beyond help or have been killed.

But I also believe, whilst the relationship is complex and he’s nevertheless an absolute d!ck to her at points, it was also a personal loss to him. He tries to attack her killer (ofc we never see him cast the spell so we don’t know for certain it was going to be the killing curse, however I believe that’s likely what he intended – or at least one hell of a cruciatus lol), and it allows him to finally overpower his opponents.

However, I don’t believe there’s considerable evidence to suggest it’s a romantic loss. He moves on pretty quickly, taunting Harry in the same way he does at the Graveyard and at the Ministry. We don’t hear about him glancing back at her body, tearing up or acting in a strong emotional way following the scream and subsequent “explosion” and attempted attack on Molly. To me, this reads like friend or familial love and loss.

The Ministry rescue

Same as above. It’s definitely a sign of his care and compassion towards her, but nothing points to romance to me. I’ve also seen people use it to justify the Cursed Child (suggesting he did it because she was expecting Delphi), which….what?!

I also find people overlook the fact that he was physically unable to get to 9/10 of his Death Eaters. Whilst I can believe she was his favourite of the bunch that went, I don’t think him rescuing her and “leaving” (again, he had no choice) the others supports that she's the only one he actually cared about.

Also, whilst Fudge physically seeing Voldemort on his way out was definitely beneficial to Dumbledore and Harry, I think the man’s goose was cooked regardless. It would be hard to have 9 captured Death Eaters without explanation (and I have no issue believing Lucius, at least, would have no hesitation whatsoever in throwing Voldy under the bus if promised with either freedom or a shortened stay in Azkaban), plus they had tons of new eye witness accounts (the entire Order, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna) to support that Death Eaters were back taking orders from him. So why not take his most loyal servant with him, even if he is seen in the process?

I also see people mentioning that he could have freed her at any time. But could he? It took a year to get Lucius, Dolohov, the Lestrange brothers and the rest out. Whilst he was definitely pissed at the lot, it seems unnecessarily harmful to his own cause to let 9 of his servants rot in jail needlessly. He has around 30 in the previous book, so that makes a quarter of his overall army.

“Bella”

Does it show strong affection that he calls her that? Yes, it does. Nobody else is nicknamed by him. But “Bella”, let’s be clear, is a nickname, not a pet name. Nicknames are used more casually by family members, or by friends.

We never hear of him calling her Darling, Dear, Sweetheart, My Love etc., which are all pet names. Pet names are what couples use for each other, and in more intimate familial settings (usually from parents to their children). They suggest a (much) higher level of intimacy than nicknames do.

Some people have suggested he calls her “Bella” out of emotional manipulation. It’s an interesting point, but I think he calls her that because he likes her – pure and simple.

Horcrux Harry

This is, I think, the most interesting argument I have seen put forward to suggest they are together. However, I do think there’s an explanation for why Harry’s attention is always drawn so quickly to Bellatrix (and no it’s not because Harry himself – as in not the Horcrux, just the boy - has the hots for her lol. I’ve seen that argument, not actually from Bellamort truthers but the opposite, and it’s always made me roll my eyes.)

She is the only one of the ten Death Eaters that Harry has a personal connection with (through Sirius – also Draco). She’s also the only one with any real relevance to the plot. Dolohov was always cool to me, but you could take the guy out of the story and it would literally make no difference (it didn’t matter who Rowle went to the café with).

It makes sense that she always catches his attention for those reasons. It’s not because Voldy’s Horcrux is panting away inside Harry*, in my opinion, and it’s certainly not because Harry himself is turned on by her (as if lol, he always hated her).

*God that sounds wrong…

Hufflepuff’s cup

This just doesn’t work as a pro-Bellamort argument to me. Lucius had a Horcrux too (I personally believe they were his duel right-hands in the first war and that’s why), plus Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange also have access to the vault with the cup in it.

Yes she calls it “my vault”, but a wife might say “my bank account” even if she shares it with her husband. So I think it was equally used between the three of them.

Voldemort’s affections aren’t limited towards Bellatrix

Voldemort seems to be exceptionally fond of Snape (many have theorised this is because both men share some similarities and he has some paternal-ish affection towards Severus, which I agree with). He even makes a point to honour his promise to leave Lily alive, an enemy combatant who “defied him three times” (and we know how that worked out for him). That is very significant indeed. It is every bit as big an indicator of his affection for Severus as his rescue of Bellatrix, in my opinion. Yes, he killed Snape in the end, but he “had to”. I believe, without the shadow of a doubt, he would have killed even Nagini had he believed she was the Master of the Elder Wand. Nothing ever would have stopped him in his quest for immortality and to kill Harry. Narcissa and Draco also call Snape “[his] favourite” (during the Spinner’s End and Dumbledore’s death scenes), even though both should have a bias towards Bellatrix. Narcissa also isn’t corrected by Bellatrix, in spite of how defensive of the Dark Lord and their relationship she usually is, which I find interesting. And, as others have raised, we are to presume Voldemort taught Snape how to fly.

He also rather likes Barty. They seem to have had pretty intimate conversations about Crouch Sr and the difficult relationship between father and son. He also allowed Barty to see him in an extremely vulnerable position, and he was the only one allowed to other than Wormtail (although Wormtail is merely tolerated, and kept around because he has limited self-respect and will do demeaning tasks with little pushback). Barty even expresses his desire to be “closer than a son”. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but…that sounds kind of romantic? To me at least. Of course, it would be unreciprocated as with Bellatrix IMO (I’m on the fence about Voldy being asexual, but I definitely consider him aromantic). But for Barty to have developed any such feelings, there must have been genuine platonic intimacy between the two as with Bellatrix. He also calls Barty “his most faithful”, in absence of the man himself, which suggests to me he truly thinks it. He doesn’t have to butter up Barty when he’s not even present. He only calls Bellatrix that to her face, meanwhile.

And then, of course, there’s Nagini but I don’t think I need to go into detail.

The Cursed Child

The Cursed Child isn’t canon to me, nor is the Fantastic Beasts series (or even the main movie series). The seven books, and them alone, are. I also highly suspect the two men who wrote the Cursed Child didn’t even bother reading the books. The characters act more like their movie versions (especially Ron the Useless Idiot and Perfect Girlboss Hermione – by the way, Kingsley Shacklebolt is canonically the Minister for Magic when the events in TCC are going on. They couldn’t even get that right!). They added Voldemort’s weird, erotic whispering of Harry’s name (seriously, why?) which was only ever in the movies. Plus the random obsession over Cedric Diggory (pretty much a non-entity in the book but played by an A-list actor in the movies), of all people. And Delphi wears a very similar necklace to HBC's Bellatrix.

“No Higher Pleasure”

Like most readers, I just interpret this as an excuse for Voldy to be a d!ck, setting Bellatrix up with a fake compliment (with quite sarcastic delivery IMO) and then ripping her a new one in front of everybody. I agree it’s a gross-sounding phrase for Bellatrix to use though. It reminds me of “Aberforth’s inappropriate charms on goats,” which sounds dirty but likely has a comparatively innocent explanation about it (I think Rowling phrased it that way to get a laugh out of the adults, but I highly doubt he actually SA’d any goats – we’re meant to root for him after all). Also the “Harry thought of Ginny and her blazing look, and her lips on his…” It can make your mind go to dirty places, for sure, but I doubt Rowling actually had fellatio in mind when writing it.

Hidden Romance?

I just don’t understand the logic for Rowling to have been required to hide their relationship. The physical side, sure, but that would be a given (the Weasley’s sex life is never alluded to, but obviously all those kids didn’t come from nowhere and we don’t need to be told that).

We never see them interact in a way that suggests the romance is anything other than one-sided. Voldemort never calls her anything romantic (nor does she him). They don’t hold hands, caress each other, embrace or kiss at any point in the series. He also seems to dislike when she talks to him “as if to a lover” and refuses to let her take his hand.

Torture/ Murder

Now, she definitely isn’t a butt monkey a la Lucius but it is very clear to me that Voldemort has and will torture Bellatrix if needed. She’s absolutely bricking it when he finds out that she and the others messed up their Ministry mission, and given how long they’ve known each other I don’t think she would have reacted that way if he was above physically harming her. She also runs like a bat out of hell, shoving people out of her way just like Lucius, shortly before he murders everyone he can following the cup incident. Again, I don’t see her behaving like that if she trusted him not to hurt her.

I’ve also seen people argue that she looked fine at the Battle of Hogwarts just a day later. I think this is the movie timeline confusing people, because in the last movie there only seems to be about a day between the Malfoy Manor and Battle of Hogwarts scenes. However, in the books there seems to have been several weeks between both events. So I think she was harmed, but had time to recover(same with Narcissa and Draco). Lucius obviously got the brunt of it though, as Voldemort had no affection whatsoever for him by that point.

As for the possibility of death, we have the “we shall all perish if [he] comes now” line (again, why would she say this if she doesn’t believe it?). But, more damningly, the cross of killing her (and her family) seems to cross Voldemort’s own mind: “They would suffer his retribution if they had no good reason for calling him back”.

Other reasons why I’m not pro-Bellamort:

Various quotes such as “longing for closeness”, “staring with worshipful fascination”, “breathless and imploring” etc. They all suggest that there’s something of a barrier between the two. I just don’t see her acting that way if she’s getting d!cked down by the object of her affections, presumably on what would be a rather regular basis, behind the scenes.

Rowling, until she sold out by stamping her approval on the Cursed Child (which, like others, I don’t even think she read before she did so), never suggested in interviews or elsewhere that the relationship was anything other than one-sided. Take, for example, this interview where she talks about B’s love/obsession for V in very clear detail, even mentioning the fact that she wanted to have sex with him, but no mention of him reciprocating (she also says “he only ever loved power, and himself” in response to questions about his romantic history):

Source: http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html

The fact it isn’t alluded to by any other characters. Not even one of the Malfoys. Narcissa, in particular, pulls no punches. I can definitely see her bringing it up to annoy/anger Bellatrix during one of their many moments of conflict/disagreement.

I hope anyone who chose to read all this enjoyed it.

If you don't agree with my takes, am happy to discuss.

[fandomsandassortedgoods]

i need your thoughts on ts5 STAT, i like your account and posts on prideyear so id love to here your opinions on the current info we have atm.

Oh well I’m flattered asghgdhj I had some thoughts saved I was gonna post sometime, so I’ll finish it off and put it here.

Guess I'm one of the few people that don't find toys vs electronics an inherently cringe premise, I trust Pixar enough not to have the message just be IPAD BAD (though given Wall-E maybe I shouldn’t lmao), there are legitimate issues concerning children and screen use that can be explored, and how that affects how kids play with actual toys is interesting to me.

My issue is more with the time period. Were "tablet kids” even a big thing by like 2007-2009 (giving a range here on the years TS3-4 seem to take place in)? Bonnie could be older (though she doesn't look it), but even then that seems early for kids with tablets to be a major thing yet. It just feels like too modern an issue for what should be just before the 2010s. But maybe that's just drawing from my experience and tablet kids were a problem by then?

Also a bunch of defective Buzzes is... potentially interesting in concept, but by now I feel the "delusional Buzz" schtick has gotten very, very tired. It's fine to repurpose ideas that got left on the cutting room floor, but again? Really? You can't even use the excuse of "well every movie has a delusional Buzz moment so this one must have too" because there was no delusional Buzz in 4. The concept worked in 1 because well that was the plot of the movie and wasn’t done before. In 2 it worked because it a) was a funny callback to the first movie that played on the humour of how Buzz used to be compared to how he was now and b) didn't interfere with the main story so much, as in, didn't bloat up the story with unnecessary detail or ruin the more emotional scenes. In 3, it worked because it was once again a subversion on the concept: while delusional Buzz was played for laughs before, here we are shown a darker side to it, with someone being able to turn your friend against you just like that and losing yourself with the flip of a switch (ofc it still had some laughs because it's Pixar, but ykwim).

In 5, what will the fresh twist be? I really can't tell. It feels like they've done what they can with the concept and they should just let it go now like they did in 4. How many times can the characters say “not again” before the audience is thinking the same thing?

As for showing Woody back with the gang and the lack of a Bo Peep mention of all, that’s probably the most interesting part for me personally. Bonnie doesn’t seem much older, if that’s who’s under the sheet in that picture—how much time has passed since the ending of 4? How long are Bonnie’s remaining toys separated from Woody before he returns? How do they meet up again? That was a travelling fair, it’s unlikely they would be seeing each other again any time soon. Did Woody/the toys deliberately seek each other out, or is this a happy coincidence? Are they working together towards a common goal and that’s it, or will Woody be returning to Bonnie’s room for good? I’ve got a lot of questions here.

If it isn’t Bonnie under the blanket, that drastically changes things. Is this set decades ahead with a grown-up Bonnie’s kid? Or perhaps in this future, Bonnie returned her toys to Andy, and this is Andy’s child instead? (Though the presence of Forky calls that into question, unless she just threw him in as a gift because she doesn’t gaf about this spork anymore lmao). If it’s Bonnie’s kid and we know for a fact that Andy will be in the movie again, what if Bonnie’s kid befriends Andy’s kid, and that’s how his old toys eventually find their way back to him (I feel Bonnie would at least offer Andy the toys back first, but who knows)? At any rate, I’m putting heavy money on the ending being the toys returning to Andy and being passed down to his children, maybe with this new kid imitating the opening of 1 as he plays with Woody just like Andy did.

I’ve joked before about 5 opening with 4 just being a dream and they retcon the whole movie away, but these new details make that reality seem a little less insane lmao

and okay but the REAL question is: what does the 6+ hour ts4 reviewer think about all this?

[seeminglyseph]

listening to a podcast discuss The Orphanage and it keeps bringing up like. "It's sad enough that they're dead orphans, why are they also disabled??"

And I keep feeling like. I get. technically. that the film being a weird tragic horror film where like everyone dies basically and there's a bunch of like. dead disabled orphan children. which is really like both sad and off-putting in multiple ways in the film like. it prompts the question of 'why?'

but like. part of the point is like 'who are the most vulnerable people in society?' as well as 'who is most frequently villainized in horror movies?' because like. initially in the movie it impression of the disfigured and disabled ghost children is 'these ghosts are evil' because on top of being ghosts, one of them wears a mask to hide a disfigurement. And then the rest of them were murdered because they were very vulnerable and left in the care of someone who actively hated them and wanted to do them harm, and could because of how little disabled orphans like. matter? that sounds callous but like. it's not my perspective I very much mean it in the like. "Less Dead" kind of way. Like how much investigation and stuff gets prioritized. At some point people start feeling like 'they didn't have *that much* of a future anyway, so it's not like the murder is *that much* of a tragedy' and ultimately if you don't have a family to fight on your behalf then like... sucks to suck.

Something that's really terrifying about being disabled is like. if you don't have a community or no one really knows or likes you? like. you're kind of fucked. it's kinda been exemplified by the GoFundMe Healthcare Situation, but like. if you're not popular enough, if you don't have a family to advocate for you or support you, if you don't have people to give you advice, sometimes you just don't get help and you don't get acceptance and you don't get treatment and you don't get safety. But being disabled can also be extremely isolating because people really quickly lose patience for your limitations and for the idea of making accommodations.

I'm not gonna pretend it's always easy to be friends with someone, disabilities are as varied as the days are long and I can only speak from my perspective and I have more comorbidities than I technically even know currently. It makes things difficult for me, let alone people trying to work around me, and not everyone is willing to do that. Some of them suck eggs and some of them just have their own lives they have to prioritize. It's complicated, but it does leave me (and I will assume many other people in similar situations) in a complicated situation where our support network is very small but our need for support is very large.

And many people, through ignorance rather than malice, assume that there are already systems in place that care for people. The argument against larger social care networks aren't necessarily that they think people like me shouldn't have our needs met, they just have always assumed that these systems already exist. They think their taxes already pay for it and everyone is already being cared for and expanding the system is about a desire for overindulgence because they simply do not know what the reality is. They have been taught that if you work hard enough you can stay healthy, and if something happens you will be taken care of because there is some sort of social safety net that will catch you, and only the very few fall through because they failed in some way. That's why advocacy is so important, it's important to know that many disabilities can affect *anyone* at *any time* and the holes in the safety net are much larger than people have been led to believe, and are much easier to fall through. You can do *everything right* and still fall through. Your body can destroy you no matter how "healthy" you are. You can follow every piece of advice your doctor gives you, and be failed because you 'looked too healthy' to get sent in for scans on time. Sometimes working too hard will literally destroy your whole future and there's no one there to help when that happens. But it's important not to treat ignorance like malice because people will shut their ears to hard truth delivered with anger. So sometimes a message has to be tailored to an audience.

This has gotten away from me a bit.. but like. I think what I mean to say is like. sometimes I feel very frustrated. and this is my blog so often this is a place of venting and anger and ranting and stuff. But I do understand like. a majority of people are speaking out of ignorance rather than malice, and have their own troubles they feel overwhelmed by. I often try to tailor conversations personally to where people are at, rather than where I'm at because like. I can't expect everyone to prioritize my problems over theirs, especially if I don't even bother to learn what theirs are. And that's been a problem with some of modern political debate as far as I've seen it, a lot of 'your problems don't matter as much as mine' and everyone immediately gets angry if they're told that. like. universally. No one wants to be told their problems don't matter...

anyway. idk. the point of The Orphanage is that disabled kids without people to protect them are especially vulnerable and often the people who are supposed to protect them fail, and the people who need the most support have the least. And people assume those supports are in place and normal and far more sufficient than they are, and will lash out when that failure is pointed out to them. It's a difficult dance and exhausting, and so many people are lost to it because they don't do it well enough or fit in or fake the dance to a sufficient degree. and it's important to try and become aware of that with grace.

[hy2ka]

so to my understanding. genshin 4.0 fontaine lore spoilers ahead:

the initial cataclysm happens in sumeru/khaenriah → hydro archon dies → around a 100 or so years later there was still (at least) one oceanid left in fontaine, who became the director of the narzissenkreuz institute (an institute for the family of convicted criminals?)

siege of poisson → mary-ann and alain guillotin were brought to the institute as children/pre-teens and jakob was taken in by karl ingold, rene petrichor was also taken to the institute, but jakob and rene are probably younger kids

alain is a child genius who contributes to the institute as a child. establishes the institute of natural philosophy (around teenage?). (rene also seems to be particularly gifted, but maybe not as impressive as alain, or he was in alains shadow, possibly the same for jakob. theyre both still part of the narzissenkreuz institute). mary-ann joins the marechaussee phantom?

fontaine goes through an energy crisis → alain does research into khaenriahn energy sources and sourced khaenriahn machinery from the sumeru desert. karl ingold went to sumeru to get those, for some reason he took rene and jakob

during the expedition, rene conducts his own research (possibly to try and help alain?) (and also mistakes ruin guards for agricultural machinery because they were officially called field tillers). (jakobs permanent teeth are still growing in, while rene's permanent teeth just finished growing in, meaning theyre pre-teen)

rene says he and jakob are similar to the lotus in the desert which was made by the dendro archon and holds the consciousness of the previous hydro archon, but at this point (100 or so years after the fact) was filled with abyssal energy and in need of purifying (which of these things was he talking about?)

jakob and rene come into contact with abyssal power somehow and falls sick, but rene is more affected by it than jakob. they hide this from karl ingold and head back to fontaine with a bunch of ruin machines and constructs (and a self-healing ruin grader somehow?)

renee is assigned to alain's lab at the institute of natural philosophy. atp, rene is more interested in abyss power than the research alain was doing (on pneumousia energy)

elynas and a bunch of other abyss monsters are released into fontaine. elynas is heavily wounded in battle against the director and vice director of the narzissenkreuz institute and goes to what will be his final resting place. the vice director follows him, but her fleet (the fontaine armada?) is overtaken by abyss monsters, and the flagship is used as a last-minute 'weapon' against a sea monster. director and vice director dont return from their battles, but elynas died a while before the vice director did

the following all happen while the fontaine armada are following the trail of elynas' blood and fighting abyss monsters(?):

rene and jakob sneak inside elynas (closed off by the marechaussee hunters?). they take some of elynas' blood to do research on it. before this happened, rene and jakob were doing research on the ruins around elynas (which have the same architecture as enkanomiya and the inverted city, meaning it was from the time during which teyvat was one unified nation)

rene discovered a "world formula", and using it, found out that the world of teyvat would be destroyed. him and jakob take it upon themselves to make sure that future won't come to pass. this is the reason rene becomes more interested in abyss power

they take their findings to the institute of natural philosophy and at some point jakob goes back to elynas to drink his blood. this kickstarts his transformation into an inquitous baptist. rene dubs him a "neohuman" and says in his notes that if they could harness this power, everyone could survive that future they had foreseen (meaning he wants to turn everyone into abyss creatures)

around a month passes at this point and alain has (mostly?) perfected (?) pneumousia and makes seymour to keep mary-ann safe during her marechaussee hunter career. rene gains a following in the institute and creates a secret society

a friend of theirs and alains assistant, carter, is sick with an incureable disease. jakob suggests (to rene) that they should have carter transform. rene brings it up to carter, who agrees to it even after rene explains the risks and drawbacks

carter dies because his body is not resistant to the toxins in elynas' blood, but his organs keep regenerating even in death. rene and jakob feel immensely guilty for this. renes secret society is found out, and they are deemed (by the marechaussee phantom?) to be a threat. this causes a rift between alain and rene. after carter is found to be dead, alain becomes hostile to both rene and jakob. rene tries to transform but it backfires on him as well

mary-ann is assigned to stop jakob and rene. alain joins her. theres a battle in elynas, which doesnt last very long, because jakob and alain both are trying to keep mary-ann safe, but she dies in battle in the end. after the battle, the melusines start to form from the wounds left inside elynas. before (or maybe after?) mary-ann died, her wishes and dreams resulted in the creation of an oceanid

the institute of natural research and the narzissenkreuz institute are overtaken by abyss monsters as well, which forces alain to move his operations elsewhere. he establishes the fontaine research institute near the fountain of lucine (and the opera house hadnt been built by this point)

before this point, jakob finds out about the vice directors death, but it was probably the second mate who had abandoned ship after a lot of hopeless fights with abyss monsters and three sea monsters closing in on the fleet, reporting the hopeless situation, and everyone knew the vice director wasnt gonna come back from it.

at this point, the vice director actually faces off with a sea monster and sees ahes, a melusine, before she dies.

jakob carries on with renes research and eventually stumbles upon the primordial sea water, which he conducts experiments on, the results of which are left for vacher/marcel to find

and that is that confusing ass timeline sorted. i think

[butleroftoast]

Stream-of-consciousness notes on the wider Skullduggan family tree.

Contents: copious parentheses abuse.

House Skullduggan typically has a lot of children on different branches of the family tree at any one time, but as time goes on, a lot of them die young in wars, riots, or simply stupid accidents. The result is a lot of different branches and a lot of confusion, so inheritance (and child guardianship) works on a "whoever can be bothered at the time" basis.

The longest surviving members of the previous generation were Ren, Sib, and Lamb (short for Lambert). With the usual caveat that nobody is entirely sure, Ren is probably the Marquis [Gideon]'s parent, Sib is probably the Twins' parent, and Lambert is probably their younger sibling, or possibly cousin, or maybe one of the Ren/Sib combination married into the family and both were the Marquis's parents, making them and the Twins half-siblings? Nobody knows. There are also a bunch of cousins and second cousins, possibly one lucky grandparent (Sim, short for Simeon). Maybe one of the cousins had Gideon and couldn't be bothered to raise them, donating them to Ren instead.

(Gideon was nicknamed "The Kid" because they were the first born of their generation ["Has anybody seen the kid? I swear I left them here an hour ago..."]. It caught on because Ren liked saying "Gid the Kid", and eventually "Gid" got dropped. Most people who don't call them "Cuz" still call them "Kid")

Ren was the oldest, Sib a little younger, Lambert the youngest by a significant amount - there were almost definitely other children between Sib and Lambert.

Only Lambert is still alive. The Marquis sees them as a sort of older sibling, although Lambert thinks of them more as a niece/nephew, maybe a young cousin.

Combined with the headcanon that the Marquis had several younger siblings, all of whom died, their affection for the Twins and Lambert is creating a kind of sad situation where they instinctively try to rebuild the family they lost, without thinking about or realising what they're doing.

The role of representing the family in court as the Marquis Skullduggan has most frequently been filled by Sib and Gideon. Robin takes it reasonably often as well. She prefers doing it to Cherry, who considers it a hassle.

The Skullduggan line is less of a family tree, more of a garden gone wild and overgrown with weeds. Nevertheless they have a strong sense of loyalty to one another - they might scuffle and bicker, and they don't really understand being supportive in more emotional matters, but when push comes to shove one Skullduggan will defend another to the death (enthusiastically, even).

Very few have ever considered leaving the family, despite how unhealthy it is, and the only ones who do are the black sheep who never subscribed to its worldview in the first place. People like the Marquis and Twins would never leave, no matter how many good, kind, supportive people offering an escape they might meet in their travels - they definitely inherited the "likes to cause trouble and start fights" gene. Also the family is rich and powerful (compared to the proletariat, that is, not to other noble houses). That helps make up for any shortcomings.

Names usually used by other Skullduggans for their family:

Sim, Grander

Ren

Sib

Lamb

The Kid, Cuz, Gid (rare)

Rob

Cher (pronounced Chair)

"Here is a name for you, Young Skullduggan." "Thank you I will never use it"

[paragonrobits]

naruto but all the tailed beasts hosts ARE tailed beasts in humanish forms

Naruto AU where everything is the same except the sealed beast hosts are, drawing on the pilot manga where Naruto WAS a nine-tailed fox and was specifically the son of the character who would eventually be reworked into Kurama, new incarnations of the specific tailed beasts they are hosts to in canon; one idea that comes to mind is that usually when the Beasts die they just materialize after a while, but if they die a hard way and their energy exhausts themselves, sometimes they’re reborn with new minds and personalities, with the memories of their older lifetimes influencing them especially as their power expands

so a few vague ideas on how this might go

sealed beast hosts are possibly still a thing, potentially expanded on from canon; potentially all the really plot relevant hosts WERE containers for them, but a whole bunch of events around the time they were reborn ‘reformatted’ the Beasts and their previous hosts had some influences on them, either by raising them as children or they imprinting onto their former hosts.

Naruto is not biologically related to Minato or Kushina, nor is he the son of Kurama, he IS Kurama (in a new form and identity, with some commentary on rebirth and if that makes you accountable for the actions of a past life); his current form was based off of Minato and Kushina possibly because Kushina still had enough influence on him to affect his human form, and neither were expecting him to effectively be their kid, or as a young boy Naruto voluntarily set his base form to match them out of a desire to belong. (Notably this does not rule out their extremely antagonistic relationship to Kurama in canon; he was so desperate for affection he sought it from people who openly viewed him as a monster better left impaled in Kushina’s mind, which gradually made them realize that this was kind of fucked up once they were forced to view him as his own person and not a rampaging monster to be exploited)

Gaara’s character is largely unchanged, apart from being a new iteration of Shukaku. Here, Shukaku’s relatively low position on the Tailed Beast ladder may translate to him being particularly prone to constantly reinventing his personality and nature every time he ‘resets’.

The other tailed beast hosts, particularly those who didn’t get much attention in canon like Yugito Nii, are still around and have a greater presence, with much less awareness of their previous incarnations, Rin is definitively the Third Tails here, though actively suppressing her powers (whether she is alive or not in the present is flexible but i figure it would be cool for her to be alive and do more with her, with Kakashi growing more frustrated with the ninja world as he has observed how the desire to be loyal while being hated for her inhuman origin has motivated him to be more of a cultural rebel). Most of the others are as per canon, with the twist that they were mostly adopted into their families or voluntarily took on forms to suit their feeling of belonging, which Killer B likely did with his brother.

The canonical way the Tailed Beasts interact with their hosts as unpredictable spirits that must be placated or bargained with may still be present; the most recent and powerful tailed beasts (that is, the ones who have the most presence in canon) act as literal incarnations of the past, potentially the bulk of their power sealed away into what is considered the wildest parts that must be chained, which correspond to the aspects of themselves that are pretty much their canonical depictions. These are also false distinctions, and are still rightfully angry at their abuse by greedy humans; whether or not the canon dynamics are present or if, say, Naruto struggles to awaken his inhuman powers while restraining the overwhelming hatred and rage from countless lifetimes of human evil done to him.

(All transformations are exactly as body horror-tinged and gruesome as they used to be in earlier parts of the story. Their powers are monstrous, inhuman and resist the urge to make them pretty. If Naruto, say, channnels his full power by going super saiyan and glowy, that is a deliberate affection that costs more energy that is needed, so part of the character development is going ‘fuck it, Me At Full Power is a mass of bloody spirit energy surrounded by a kaiju skeleton’.) Some other ideas I’ve been thinking about (such as Hinata being a much bigger presence in Naruto’s personal friend group from the get go, if not actively part of his team) will definitely be contemplated, as well as working in later retcons to be present throughout, making the story more internally consistent.

[mymanymerrymuses]

I made myself cry thinking about Ray today so... it's time to talk about his mental health and how it is not good. I'm sticking it under a read more because, it's bad mental health stuff. Also mentions of death - specifically child death, because that's what's made his mental health so bad, and mentions of suicidal thoughts. Typical Promised Neverland stuff really. It's a dark story. This kind of became an essay, but it gets a little lighter at the end.

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

So I only got through season one of the show and I'm only four volumes in in the manga, there is a bunch of plot I do not yet know and a bunch of character development I have not yet seen. What I'm saying about Ray here is specifically my version of Ray that I play on this blog, with what I know of canon and plenty of my own headcanons thrown in.

To start with, Ray in my mind is almost always twelve years old. But at twelve, he's already very depressed. He's spent the last six years of his life plagued with guilt and grief that he couldn't share with anyone, having nightmares he couldn't tell anyone about because they were true and nobody could know.

He stood alone as each of his siblings was shipped out and couldn't even warn them about what was coming. Everyone around him was happy or even jealous, and he had to learn to cover up his own feelings pretty damn quickly. The guilt only added up each time someone left, and each time a new baby arrived at the house. It must have hurt so much to know what was happening and not even be able to grieve. He can't do anything that would make Isabella think he's going to tell anyone, or he'll be shipped out, and he needs to stay so that he can find a way to get Emma and Norman out.

At six years old, he thinks he's evil. He knows Isabella is his biological mother, and that really messes with his head for several reasons. First, because he knows what she's doing, and if she can be so casual about farming children, lying to them and leading them to their deaths, then she must be evil, and what does that make him? But also because he wants her to love him. Here are all of these children longing for families, longing for parents, and the woman who gave birth to him is raising him alongside all of them and...doesn't care. She doesn't love him any more than the rest of them, in fact she loves him less - he has to spy on his siblings just to stay alive, and he doesn't get the physical affection that, say, Norman does.

Add that on to his grief, guilt, and depression, and it's no wonder that Ray devises an escape plan that involves his own death. I don't think even he realises quite what that means for him. He's seeing himself as a necessary sacrifice, a distraction so the people he loves can get away. Maybe in a way he's right, but he's also really wrong. He wants to be a distraction because if Isabella is so focused on saving him that the others can get away, it means she cares more about him than them. It means that he means something to her, and she loves him. He wants to be a sacrifice because if he escapes, if he lives after standing by when so many of his siblings dies, that's guilt he can't handle.

So when Norman figures out the plan and Emma saves Ray, he's glad, because at least his triplets love him enough to do that for him, at least they care that he's alive, but the guilt is still very much there. Why does he deserve to be saved when he didn't save anyone else? Well, because he's as much a victim of the farms as any of them, is why, but Ray can't see that.

In any verses I write where Ray gets adopted by somebody, it doesn't matter how much they love him or look after him, he almost always resents it at first. He'll say it's because he doesn't need to be babied and he's independent enough to not need parents at all, all that sort of thing, but really it's because he can't accept that he might deserve it. For a really long time, Ray still believes that he should have been in the orphanage when it burned down. So he rejects every attempt to make him feel happy or comfortable, and only sticks around at all because it's good for Emma and Norman.

After that, and we are deep in headcanon country now, he'll sometimes decide that he needs to leave. When Emma and Norman are happy and settled, Ray realises that he's dragging them down. They're living the lives they were meant to, and Ray's just...there. He doesn't fit, he doesn't belong, so he'll essentially run away. And when he does, he winds up going home, getting as close to Grace Field as he can without being caught. That's where he thinks he should be, because he still thinks he shouldn't have left. Except he gets there and he realises that even though he didn't feel it happen, he's changed. He's fought and he's tried, and yes, a lot of his siblings were lost and he couldn't do anything about it, but a bunch of them are alive, they're free, and he had a part to play in that.

He's not good, sure, but he realises that he's not all bad either. He also realises that there's no point in adding to the number of children that were lost here. The children that came before him wouldn't have wanted that. They'd have stood by the gates, staring at death, and maybe, for some of them, their last thought would have been of their siblings, a prayer for them to survive, somehow. He can't bring them back, but he can live on and honour them.

It takes a lot of soul searching, and a lot of tears, and - sometimes, Emma and Norman following and finding him - but Ray does realise that in coming back to Grace Field, he hasn't come home at all. That Isabella might have given birth to him, but he was never really her son. He left home, he left somebody that wants to be his parent, that is his parent, and now he needs to go back. When he does, he's not fixed, but his recovery can actually start.

[baelmoder]

it really is a godsend that nobody is here

i've always felt like i lived in a shadow, maybe of some building that nobody else could really see, despite all of them living within it. now i think that building is god, but it is a dead and uncaring god, or it is asleep, and i dont want to awaken it. everything is sunlight, and god is the sun, and sunlight burns me because i am unfit for it. who knows what kind of unholy bullshit is going to come out of that building when i tickle its belly the residents already hate me lets shelf that for a second lol

i left twitter, let's say, more than two years ago. i was on it for a few years? and before that i was basically never actually on social media. there were a few moments where i /tried/ to enter some community or another? like i joined a souncloud mashup server once (the atrium), and i briefly entered a discord for an anime essay channel, but i left and i got kicked out because i was saying ass backwards reactionary logic shit. so the biggest thing i ever did was Be Kae Dotmoe, and what that meant was, plunging blindly into anitwitter, orbiting around the plasuible deniability right wing podcaster losers like Polyphemus, until I found kayfaraday, resident extremely weird christian chiptune artist who at least creatively had the same affect as me, of the sort of nonsensical schizophrenia on which postmodernist ficiton thrives and upon which fascism subsists. nazism, like, relies on genocide to build the pyramids, and relies on people like me to put aliens in its thrusters.

and then i met good people. i met a bunch of lesbian lolicons is the insulting thing to call them. i like women, and i am a girl, and i hate the world of adults so id like to think we were cut from the same cloth? but maybe because i still have something i havent gotten diagnosed, which i doubt because ive met therians, ive met littles, ive met people with adhd and bpd and clinical schizophrenia, people who are plural and shit. but i havent met people like me. they couldnt put up with it. i hurt them a lot. so i had to leave. also i got bored of the nazis when they started being predictable, and also, like, obviously evil and wanting me dead i guess but who doesnt right.

So i left, not for Drama and not for Discourse, but because, like much of my life, i felt like i wasnt welcome and i wasnt making much of it. also? I just couldnt handle it anymore. i grew incredibly jealous, it made me feel physically sick to see people happy. to be themselves, to be with the people they loved. to do things that expressed this happiness about themselves and others, and the things they shared. i lived more than an ocean away. it felt like i never had a chance, and that feeling overwhelmed me. i've always been living under the ocean, but i guess the submarine depressurised? i dont know. im still alive anyway, im here, but its so quiet now. anyway, i was also getting really paranoid, on one hand nobody talked about me so i was going to die alone and never get to be kae, on the other hand the few people who did were surely badmouthing me in places i wasnt invited to. they let me hang around but i was never invited to the parties. i know of this metaphor because i read it in american stories about school children and stuff. i dont relate to it personally because when i was in school i didnt even "get to hand around". the only two people i talked to was a kid with aspergers and a furry. we talked about ytp and mlp. well, the point is, they dont talk to me anymore anyway. i randomly came out to a schoolmate i knew from back then? i helped her out a few times? I printed her musical score, she was in chinese orchestra. i asked for a favour in return, that being a hug. i didnt love her or anything, i just really needed it? and in all that time twitter is basically over anyway. tumblrs still alive, but like. im not Doing A Thing. Im never going to Do A Thing again. im "over it".

i guess what im really getting to, though, is, im trying to figure out what I /Am/ or what Im /For/. like, what is this machine or tool or toy built for. Me and keffie clicked, we hella schizoposted? I wasnt putting it on. i know the nazis are completely disingenous but theres a trace of genuine fun behind all the larping, costumes is fun. but i wasnt even slightly cynical, i was really just.. fully sincerely and desperately myself, all the time. i cant help but be myself, even if myself never works. so like Im SOMETHING, that nervous energy and constant bullshit and rambling sentences and trying to link concepts. and yea? I figured out im a girl? Im like, another one of the million trans girls with a mommy kink who identifies with being a puppy but who still likes cock or whatever. im not denying that im not special, i dont hate to be one of many. but also im a failure, even around these people. i cant live up to them, even if theyre nothing to honour. they hate me, because im marked by something i cant even see. So like, what is that

Why, even when i found an ensemble cast, do i never succeed in contributing to the narrative? to canon or episodic structure? Im like an npc, im a wandering trader,the comic relief, except not very well liked anyway. im like if the doctor told me to see the master clown pagliacci but i was jared leto. i dont fit here. i didnt feel right, when i was in the army. i dont feel right when im working right now, in a medical lab. i couldnt fit in with the girls even when they were closer to me than any other group of people i could classify.

so, really, i think im starting to get sympathetic to machines, to ai. i briefly edated a schizotypal adhd trans girl (lol hi vicky) and she was talking about like, uhhhh, D&G and like, machines. I didnt like Machine because machine + autism to me always sounded very teleological, very speicfically western philosophy and consequently Science as we know it, the modern material physical consensus reality thingamagic with dialectical monism. but im getting it now maybe

Im not built, for being around people, or relevant. I was born, to be put in a plastic box, in the middle of nowhere, with holes on all sides, where, among a nest of scaffolding structures, unlimited paper, plush toys and string, i develop weapons of mass destruction in magic systems that have never existed and will never come to exist. and every once in a while, id be let out, for a walk, or for a treat, and to remember long lost friends, who spin in axes i cannot comprehend in a magic system i cannot understand

[steelcladbutterfly]

Archdemon(Prologue): Dagon

Honestly, at this point it feels a little weird to tack on arch when this is really more of a straight up fantasy demon, but whatever.

I’m releasing this work in parts on here, partly because of how freaking long it ended up being and partly because I can actually edit it in parts more easily. Anyways, this here is the prologue and whenever tumblr finally decides to fix the link issue, that’ll be heading up there soon, but until then just search the tags if you want to find this again!

You gritted your teeth, hacking and slashing your way through the horde of monsters, feeling the inhuman force within you take over your movements, guiding you through motions otherwise foreign to you.

“How many more of these are there!” 

Okay. Maybe not the best place to start. Going back about a year to when it really started, you thought of what you had gone through to bring you to the point of battling monsters to get into the capital.

~~~~~ 

You groaned, sitting up with a raging headache, still shaky from the panic attack you were still suffering, covered in the blood of your town. You looked at the sword in your hand, silver only partly shining through the thick layer of blood slowly getting sucked into the metal.

“Shit,” you proclaimed emphatically, echoed by the deep voice now in your head.

Hmmm. Still not right.

~~~~~

It started slowly, mid summer, with autumn slowly starting to show only when it was too late to do anything about it.

First, one man appeared, apparently staying with family, but eyeing everyone he walked past with a gleam in his eye. Then, a woman appeared, claiming to be the man’s fiancée. Simple enough, but she also had a gleam, even as she stayed in the center courtyard of the marketplace, telling stories to the children who gathered. 

Then more people began appearing, first one at a time, then two, then three, before twenty or so were scattered throughout town, some with proclaimed family members, others at the inn. But for a bunch of perfect strangers, they certainly spent quite a bit of time people watching during the day and having heatedly discussions in the darkest alleys and corners of town. Some hovered around the busy docks, while others appeared to spend most of their time searching the hills rumored to be the lair of a demon.

But, you only knew that because there was little else to do besides get stuck with more work on your days off. So, you would saunter around town, eventually noticing the pattern with them. You wondered what they were planning and how badly it was going to end up affecting your life and the lives of those closest to you. 

Your mother was too busy caring for the youngest of your family and your father hadn’t been able to find new work after the accident at the dock the last time the demon appeared. Life had been steady with him as a fisherman, pulling in profit as easily as he pulled in the nets and lines laden down with fish. But then disaster had struck as the demon living in the hills, who caused havoc and mayhem every time he appeared to torment the people in your town, struck your father with a blow that severed his arm and sent him tumbling into the waters. He recovered, but his lost arm and the chill of the waters worsened his condition to the point he could not work on even the easiest tasks at the docks. 

Ever since, it had fallen to you to try to pull together as much as possible, taking every odd job you could, to help your family scrape by. Your brothers and sisters helped as best as they could, but they were too young to be able to take the jobs that paid more than loose pocket change. 

You grumbled, your face scrunching at the thought of the demon once again. If he could have just left your town alone none of this would have happened. Your father would still have his arm and his job, your mother wouldn’t be as stressed trying to stretch the budget as thinly as possible, and you would have had enough time to be able to see the darker picture before it was too late. As it was, when everything finally tipped over, you were more surprised by how swiftly you moved to take action. 

~~~~~ 

The sound of faint screams broke through your slumber as you groaned into the pillow. Trying to ignore it would probably make things worse, so you moved to get up, the sounds of your shuffling as you dressed yourself muffled the noise as it rapidly grew closer until your door was suddenly slammed open and the terrified cries of your mother filled your ears and a vaguely familiar symbol on dark red robes greeted your eyes.

The cult of the Forgotten Blood was somewhat obscure, mostly seen traveling through small towns as a recruitment method. Few knew anything about what they stood for, but what was spewed by the ones targeted for ‘membership’ spoke of an eerie plot boiling under the surface of the land you lived in. Your mother’s sister, Anita, if you remembered correctly from the one time your mother told you her name, was one such recruit; a perfectly normal and happy girl until the Forgotten Blood sunk its claws into her. 

She began to distance herself, only making contact just before her sudden disappearance with the rest of the recruiters to try to get your mother to join her. She still spoke of the fanatic gleam in her eyes with horror even to this day. Your mother, when asked for more details by her curious children, would only say that her sister spoke of some weapon that would bring ultimate power through blood that would be able to give them the ability to get anything they wanted. After that, her family moved here where she met your father. 

But, judging by the fact that your mother was clutched roughly in the grasp of a large, cloaked figure with the elaborate symbol of the cult; a blood soaked sword pulling out of a seemingly bloodless corpse, as if all the blood within the body was now on the sword, sewn into the front and back of the cloaks, told you this was no recruitment. 

You were grabbed by another figure during your shock and pulled alongside your mother out the door to join the rest of the street’s residents. You shivered, feeling your terrified siblings clutching at your pants and pulling on the rumpled shirt you had been able to tug on. You could smell the faint iron tang of blood on the wind. Distantly, you noticed that your father had managed to hold onto the baby through this terrifying endeavor.

Soon, everyone was out and huddled in a mass, surrounded by more cultists brandishing weapons to keep you in line. The sound of screams grew louder as you began to shuffle along with the crowd surrounding you, egged on by the spears brandished at the back. Your father tried to soothe the youngest as they began to bawl, but the cries of the infant were soon drowned out by the screams resounding from the square ahead. 

The smell of blood began to get overpowering, you could almost taste it from how thickly the smell filled the air. And soon, you saw why. A large pile of corpses greeted your horrified vision as you tried to shelter your siblings from the sight. More cultists roamed the square, grabbing those still alive and dragging them closer to a sword hovering in the air, a sword that looked almost exactly like the symbol the cult adorned. 

A large broadsword, with blood only partly covering the sharp edges on both sides with a solid, slightly curved cross hilt for the hand guard, hovered a few feet off the ground with a large puddle of blood seemingly stuck flowing from the tip onto the ground below. However, as your group drew closer, you found that the blood was actually flowing upwards to be absorbed by the sword, which had numerous pulsing, glowing symbols engraved into the metal that seemed to be the main draw the red liquid was sluggishly moving towards.

Your neighbor was grabbed suddenly and you had no time to cover the eyes of the kids as the cultist grasped his head and shoved his neck into the edge of the blade with tremendous force. The blood spurted out, falling towards the ground before making a sluggish reverse and being sucked into the spirals of blood coursing into the blade. You watched in morbid fascination as the corpse was pulled away that the trail of blood left on the ground began to inch towards the sword. 

You were tugged from your slowly overwhelming panic when they grabbed one of your siblings. She screamed, tiny hands grasping fruitlessly towards you as tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Still stuck in your panic, and now knowing exactly what will happen if you do nothing, you leapt forward, intent only on getting the cultist away from your sister. 

The blood pounding in your ears blocked off all but the loudest of sounds and you found yourself in a sudden state of panic tinged determination as you began to wrestle with your adversary. The adrenaline pumping in your veins let you gain the upper hand, but as your sister pulled herself up and tried to run, another scooped her up and rammed her tiny body into the weapon. 

In slow motion, you watched as she was nearly split in two, her blood sucked right back as her body was uncaringly dropped to the ground to rot. You felt like you were being closed in on you as you stilled at the tragedy of someone you watched grow up, someone you loved, someone who deserved better than this, all of this, was treated like garbage as cultists stepped over and on her corpse in an effort to pull in more victims and drag you in to meet the same fate as well.

The blood continued to pound in your ears as you let out a scream of fury and terror, surging forth with eyes on the only weapon easily in reach. Before they could kill another innocent, they had to be stopped and what better way than with the weapon that they seemed to praise so highly. 

As they realized your plans, the suddenly silent cultists burst into noise, all converging to stop you, familiar voices of those shifty men and women who had infested your town, killed your people, and slaughtered your sister called out for you to stop, for someone to kill you. But they were too late. Your hand fell upon the hilt and as you lifted the weapon, blood falling and spiraling and following the swing, your first clumsy swipe connecting with the first cloaked figure, and as blood sprayed and twisted, covering the blade in a gruesome, hovering cloak, everything suddenly went black.

~~~~~ 

The sound of screams. How familiar. It is always present during the mayhem you cause. No matter the fact that it was simply the only way people ever saw you. If you can’t fight their vision of you, just become it. It’s so easy to sink into another’s perception of you. The last time was especially fun, messing with dock workers, pushing them over, nothing too serious. But your father, you caused his arm to How strange. You hardly remember your father after all these years. You hardly even remember your mother, Calloused, gentle hands, right beside you, she’s not safe beyond the lessons she drilled into you about swords and axes and knives and many more. Maybe that’s why you felt yourself gripping at a sword. Your mother always was tough on you with teaching about the proper grip and swing for each weapon.

The scent of blood on the wind, that’s strange last time that happened was an accident, the man father stumbled back just as you flicked your claws to send a small gust of wind his way it ripped through his arm why didn’t you control it, your father lost his arm lost his job injured and hurting because of you! No he didn’t. Maybe this is a dream. It would explain why it is still dark and the strange echoing words in your mind. But then why are there so many bodies distracting you, pushing you around and clashing with your their body.

But there are bodies going through your blade, filling you with blood. Your little sister, grief and rage at the sight of her broken, lifeless body. You have no sisters. You were an only child. What a strange dream, almost as strange as the one about being taken by cloaked figures Forgotten Blood 

You furrowed your their eyebrows, clenching your their hand around the your hilt. What was going on. Trying to pry open their eyes was hard, but as you squinted through your their lashes, you finally saw the pests that were bugging you. A knife flashed across their slow human vision but despite your grogginess you managed to lift a hand THAT’S MY HAND MY BODY WHAT IS GOING ON 

The knife slid through like it was butter, leaving nothing in its wake other than a blinding pain that did nothing but distract you. How strange. You knew you could recover, but not to that extreme that should have removed your hand entirely Why is it still okay Why Is There Someone Else WHAT IS GOING ON 

How rude, interrupting your dream. Did you get an infestation or something? Your cave has no pest problems usually but your bed is high enough but rats still scrabble by unseen below Seriously! What is with that other voice? Why is this happening do you have something to do with this? 

Great, now you’re talking to nothing. The town around you is familiar it is a great place to live to visit even if just to torment to get some ounce of attention after nothing for so long. It’s so tiring to put on a disguise every time, so you sometimes don’t bother and get what fun you could from the fear the people showed. That’s why you avoided killing anyone, where was the fun if they all cleared out. There would be nothing else to do and no one to talk to no matter the lengths and magic you used to blend in for even just one friendly interaction. What is going on these aren’t my memories how can someone live like this are you okay am I okay What Is Going On! But considering the attacks and the voice, you figured it would be best to kill now and find out later. Company was nice, but not like this. You They lifted the sword you and swung, cutting through more of the cloaked vermin cultists Murderers BASTARDS GIVE ME BACK MY SISTER

The screaming and crying really is annoying and heartbreaking I know them why is this what is Why and your their grip falters strengthens. The cloaks cult is are finally still, but the annoying awful this shouldn’t be happening screaming still fills your their head. It seems in your movements you caused the piles of bodies to tumble over and block more vermin people good safe family where can’t see them where are they? from escaping your sharpened sides. 

The blood continued to halo your body sword and it seemed to be entering the sword at a much faster pace are you what is powering this? Demon? What is going on? I want to go home. My sister is dead dead dead dead dea 

Alright, enough! Shut up already and let me finish this! I have no sister and everyone here is too noisy! This baby sibling NO is too loud! These children siblings STOP IT are too snotty! This couple mother father RUN GET AWAY STOP STOP YOU’RE KILLING THEM STOP IT is disgusting! 

JUST SHUT UP NO STOP SISTER NO SHUT UP STOP IT NO NO DEAD NO SISTER NO FAMILY NO SHUT UP!!! 

You screamed at the body you were inhabiting, angered at the panic attack they were going through when you killed their family. But really you did didn’t you? Regret regret? You feel regret? You didn’t want this? coursed through you, but the underlying panic of the other remained. This is no dream and your body is stuck in the sword now, growing stronger from the blood but still no where close to escaping the bonds put on you by the cloak wearing freaks. But you could form something couldn’t you? Interact without taking over their body. You killed them I killed them I lifted you? You’re the weapon? Seems like there is more to this story than a trap in a sword. Now, how about you finish calming down and I can see about manifesting in some way? We need to fix this, see if we can right these wrongs. This shouldn’t be happening. Now wake up.

~~~~~ 

You huffed, pulling yourself up and trying to ignore the way the voice seemed to echo before falling silent again as the sticky feeling of blood slowly pulled from your skin and clothes and into the sword. Into the demon? You had no idea. A lot of information had just been shoved into your head by a strange presence which just as quickly vanished. You woke up covered in blood with a deep voice echoing your thoughts before fading away as you came fully back in control.

It seems the demon from the hills was captured by the Forgotten Blood cult to be used in this ritual whatever they were planning to do before you ruined it and everyone died but you and your family is on you covered in their blood and- 

Right, deep breaths, calm the panic, ignore the heat in your cheeks, just wait. The demon said to wait and as much as you hate this idea of taking orders from a demon, no matter how much his thoughts? yeah, probably his own thoughts, shifted your view off its axis, it was much better than being stuck in another panic attack. You distracted yourself with the thoughts of a lonely demon, no matter the blood shed, and thought on your view of everything else. Fading panic and a desperate want to not bring it back somehow brought more clarity to your views and the egocentric way you had taken in just what you were told. Seems you had been kind of a jerk just because he was a demon. You giggled, humor taking over despite the horribly unideal circumstances, somehow even funnier when taking into account you were reconsidering your views to be more positive of the demon who had just, more or less unknowingly, helped to slaughter everyone you had ever known.

You walked on shaky legs away from the carnage and silence, humor fading as you came back in control once more, only vaguely noting the blood still following the sword. You collapsed against a fountain somewhere deep in the town, focusing only on the sound of rushing water. You were almost dozing off by the time something changed. 

“Hey, wake up human! Come on, I finally figured it out! No more listening in on each others deepest thoughts and memories anymore!” 

The voice was deep, but no longer echoed in your head, sounding more like someone speaking directly in front of you. You shifted, and snapped back into focus as you realized your shirt was no longer soaked with blood. In fact, upon opening your eyes, you found there was not even a trace of blood left anywhere around you or on the now gleaming blade. All that was left was a glowing wisp coming from the tip and leading to the lower legs of the demon that had terrorized your town in the past in a desperate attempt to interact with others when all other forms failed.

“What the…” you trailed off dumbly, eyes drawn farther up to meet the faded blue eyes of the currently see through demon, horns and tail only vaguely visible. Said eyes rolled in annoyance as his clawed hands fell to his hips at which point he puffed out his chest, drawing back his broad shoulders. It was made less intimidating by the fact you could see through him. 

“Good you’re finally back. Now, human, as I’m sure you could tell from the memories, that cult thing managed to stuff me into that stupid sword by your knee. And since we accidentally killed them all, we’ll have to find a curse breaker on our own. At least you managed to interrupt the ritual by grabbing me before they could finish and put an obedience spell or something like that on me.” 

You blinked again, mouth wide open. He grumbled before continuing; “Oh stop looking at me like that. Those fools thought I couldn’t understand them while I was trapped in the blade but it’s all coming back to me now. They were gonna put all the blood of the town in it before sealing it up and using my power boosted by the blood to take over the land. Pretty stupid idea really, especially since they planned on stopping at only one town before marching straight into battle with no other power or plan as back up. But since you stopped them and bonded yourself to me, we should have no problem finding a solution. If it gets to hard, we can just kill some monsters or beasts to get a little boost, especially since this whole thing has been horribly awful and I think I know exactly where to go to solve this, it’ll take a while to get to the other side of the lands, but it’ll all be worth it to get my own body back, and… Wait, where are you going?” 

As soon as he started rambling about more murder, no matter his attempts to tone it down by not attacking any innocents, you found it in yourself to walk away from it all. Or at least you tried to because as soon as the indignant shouts of the demon began to fade from ear, the sword came whistling through the air to hover before you, where you startled and took a few sudden steps back as if to run once more. The demon leered down at you smugly, flashing his fangs in a smirk as reality came too you once more.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” 

“Nope! You’re stuck with me until we get rid of the curse! By the way, you startle like a rabbit, I was almost afraid you’d try to bolt. And I will annoy you until you decide to go with my plan!” 

You grumbled, annoyed and grabbing the hilt and pulling it from the air. You sighed, examining the large weapon you were now saddled with for trying to save your sister who is now dead and so is everyone else and you did it you did it you did-

“Alright, calm down! Your breathing just picked up again and I am not sitting through another panic attack just to get this show on the road. Look, blame me, alright. Use it as motivation or whatever to get rid of me. Please, just calm down, it’s terrifying enough without the only other being breaking down because of the circumstances forced on us.” 

He was so awkward, trying to calm you down. You let out a wet chuckle, suddenly choking on a lump in your throat as tears began to blur your vision. 

“Sorry, I can’t help it, please just give me, give me a…” an ugly sob erupted as you couldn’t get the words out. A sudden cold feeling running through your body startled you as you cried, peering through squinted, reddening eyes as the demon hesitantly ran one hand along and partly through your back in his best attempt to comfort you. 

It was so surreal that you felt yourself break down even more, sobbing and wailing as a demon trapped in a sword and currently unable to physically interact with you tried to comfort you. 

~~~~~ 

Your throat hurt as you picked up the overturned bench and settled upon it. After your breakdown, the demon mentioned needing a map to mark out the best route for the both of you, so you headed towards the cartographer’s office off the port. 

“They usually make maps for ocean travel, but since we also do a lot of in land trading, they should have some fairly detailed maps for land travel.” 

He hummed, floating along as you dragged the sword behind you. If it really is magic or cursed or whatever the cultists did to the blade, then you doubted anything you did would really affect it. Before you left town, you should probably find something to hold it in though, as well as food and money for the road. But first, was plotting the route, so here you were, settled on a bench before a large map of the land, with a ghostly demon directing you on what to mark along the route he was having you draw out. 

“So, we’ll need to get to the mountain range over here,” he dragged his hand along from where the town resided by the ocean to the other side of the map where the Fractured Spine, though you have heard it called the Broken Spine, mountain range broke the land in two, at the base of which was the capital. He tapped at the largest mountain in emphasis before continuing, “the Silent Mount is our destination and despite the height, we’ll only need to go about halfway up to get to the sage that can break our curse. The climb is fairly easy up to there. I remember going up when I first entered these lands about twenty years ago. That ethereal bastard probably knew exactly what was going to happen to me, that’s why he kept on mentioning being able to break curses. His stupid vague sayings make so much more sense now, I mean ‘look out for the bloodless bodies’ makes no sense without context. I honestly thought it was some warning about a monster or something, not a stupid cult that would trap me in a sword!” 

The demon fumed, trying to get back control before going back to the map. 

“You said this map was made about a year ago, so most everything on it should still be here. So, since you can’t fly, this will probably take about a year rather than a couple weeks or months, maybe more or less depending on the weather and any obstructions. So, if we pack enough supplies and forage and hunt, we should be able to cut down on most stops with a bunch of people who may ask questions or try to fight us.” 

He trailed his finger back to the beginning as you finished circling the final destination. 

“Alright, from here, we can head through the farmland and brush right along the Caverns of Night, this has a lot of chances to avoid too many people who might ask questions. We just have to keep a fire going during the night else the wyverns will attack. They’re usually easy to deal with one on one, but they like to bunch together. They have the vision of bats though, so they stay away from bright lights. If you doze off, I’ll wake you when the fire starts going out. I’m not really sure what this town is about,” he gestured at a town situated right by the widest part of the caverns, “but we may have to stop there since it’s on the way.”

You hummed, marking a note by the caverns about the fire and wyverns before he continued on. 

“The next part should be fairly easy to slip through mostly unnoticed, if somewhat tediously. The Tiger River is always overflowing with fish and sights, which means there will be a lot of fishing and touring boats. We can make a stop at Welltop to stock up before continuing if needed. If we can find a big enough touring boat we could probably sneak on board and blend in with the crowds without worrying about paying. The only problem is that the large ones really only come once or twice a year since they go the entire length of the river, so if we miss it then we’ll either have to find a way to boat hop, going with whatever boat is easiest to get on until we get up to here,” he now tapped at a point about halfway down the river where it began to curve away from the direction needed where a number of small towns dotted the bank with a large swath of green stretching nearly from Welltop all the way along the water before making way for a large forest jutting away from the curve of the river until it ended about three quarters of the way through the journey, “this is where it’ll get interesting. The quickest route will be through this forest. When I last flew over it I didn’t sense too many monsters, but that might have changed. I’ve heard tales of six legged tigers being spotted along the parts that cover most of this side of Tiger River, but we shouldn’t have to encounter them as long as we stay on the river. The rest of the forest, however, is somewhat of a mystery for me so I have no idea what exactly resides within, but if there isn’t anything too dangerous it should be okay to travel through it. The other way would be to work our way around it which would add more time and effort. The best option is going through, but we’ll figure it out when we get there.” 

You noted down the options, and circled forest as the best possible route before he continued once more. 

“Now, either way we’ll come out around the longest stretch of the journey. Between the forest and the mountains is farmland as far as the eye can see, this is also where a lot of monsters terrorize people. Try to get rides from the residents if possible, maybe offer up your services for hunting monsters or something in exchange for the rides or a place to sleep. It will be a lot of walking with very few interesting sights. Once we get through that though, it’s either stocking up at the capital or continuing on straight into the mountains for the final leg. As I said it’s not that hard of a climb, the hardest will be if there are any strong winds or flying monsters around. Otherwise, that should be the entirety of the journey.” 

He huffed, seemingly proud of himself as you finished marking the route and rolling up the map. Then, before you began to stock up for the journey ahead, you turned to the demon for a final questioning. 

“By the way, what’s your name? I don’t really feel like calling you the demon for this entire journey.” 

”My name is Dagon.” 

“What, no last name?” 

“Of course not. What point is a last name when you have no reason to have one in the first place? Demon, remember?”

You paused at that, feeling slightly bad at the bitter resignation in his tone. Still, there was little you could do for him on that front.

“Hmm, you have a point there. Think I should go by something other than (Y/n)? Something longer, something shorter? What do you think?” 

You lightly swung the blade back and forth as you waited, checking checking out the faint lines of the now dark sigils etched in the blade as you did so, mostly just trying to distract yourself from waiting for his reply lest you manage to bring yourself to the edge yet again. Finally, he spoke, snapping you from your ever devolving thoughts once more.

“...No. It suits you.”

You snickered, almost sure you felt the blade heat up slightly. 

“Well, thank you. I like your name as well. Suits you too. Pleasure to meet you in spite of the circumstances. Even if I still don’t like you very much.” 

“You as well. And I’m sure I’ll grow on you. You’ve certainly started to with me.” 

You rolled your eyes at the slightly flirty tone, pushing yourself up and getting ready to rifle through the town for everything you might need.

~~~~~ 

The heavy sword was wedged somewhat uncomfortably into your side and your shoulders were already starting to ache from the pressure of the large waterproof bag of supplies you had put together. It was awkward trying to get everything put together as the sword was slightly too long to carry at your waist and the bag was too heavy and awkward to carry in your hands for long stretches of time. The first few days had been spent trying to get everyone a proper burial in between preparations, before Dagon pointed out how long it would take and that panic attacks would likely surface once more, so with a heavy heart, you opted to finish putting together a travel pack. 

You found a bag big enough for a few months supplies and managed to wrangle together a makeshift sheath on the side for the large sword, and crafting your best form of a scabbard for when you would actually need it, grumbling all the while. 

“Those cultists really have no idea of a proper length for a blade do they? I’m pretty sure without all the magic and you in this, the stupid thing would probably be utterly useless.” 

Dagon had laughed at that, agreeing with a smile as you continued to measure and cut and sew cloth and leather into a large enough slot for the sword to slide in and out of easily. 

“Hey, at least you can carry it on the pack. Much easier than having a floating sword by your side.” 

“Ugh, that’s another thing! If you weren’t able to make it float, I doubt I’d be able to get the stupid thing out of this sheath in time to actually use it. Use you? I’m still confused on that whole thing.” 

“Tell me about it. Honestly, I’m more surprised they actually managed to shove me in it then I am at the fact I can make it float a little. It still takes a good deal of effort to do even that though.” 

He reclined in the air above you, crossing one leg over the other as he idly observed you working. He flipped over to his stomach and leaned closer to your work as you finished one part of the stitching. 

“By the way, how exactly do you know how to do this?” 

“Took on a lot of odd jobs after what you did to my father,” you glowered at the demon, who then backed off with an apologetic look, you sighed, giving up on the glare at his cowed look, “one of which was helping out at the weapon smith. I mostly worked on grips and sheaths for knives though, so this is new territory really. Should just be glad the fabric of the actual bag is strong enough to hold everything up. Not to mention a scabbard is usually needed for something this large, but I don’t have the time or supplies yo make more than just the one separate from the pack, so I’m just hoping the stupid magic will keep the stupid sword in place. I’m sure you can help with that considering everything you can already do, even while stuck in it.” 

After that, silence fell, Dagon unwilling to aggravate your nerves any more. With the sword taken care of, you got to work filling the bag with clothes, food, money, and the map. Various other items slowly filled in any remaining pockets and space until the bag was almost too heavy to lift. In fact, while you were having trouble with it, Dagon finally piped up. 

“If it’s too heavy, I could probably lend you a little of my strength. Sort of like when I killed all those cultists?” 

Your eyes narrowed at the reminder, but, with a deep inhale and exhale, you let it go, still exhausted even several days after the fact. 

“Fine, but if you try to take over I will not go down easy.” 

He nodded frantically, and concentrated, focusing only on how much power he filtered through the sword and into your body. His eyes snapped open at the same time you inhaled sharply, a shudder going down your spine as you felt something seem to course through your veins. 

“Alright, so, first time stuck in a magic, cursed sword obviously, but I don’t think I can undo what I just did, so you probably have super strength until we get this curse removed.” 

You groaned, throwing your head back in exasperation as Dagon chuckled nervously, the statement and your reaction finally bursting the growing tension.

“Great! Really, just great! I mean it’ll probably help a lot but it’s still permanent!” 

A sigh filled the air as you deflated slightly, smiling faintly as you acted more put out then you really were. This whole mission or travel or whatever you wanted to call it was already tedious and tiring. You were stuck with the demon who, unintentionally or not, ripped off your father’s arm and killed your entire town and he managed to permanently give you super strength. At the same time, you saw many of his memories and feelings, and knew there was a lot more to him and anyone else for that matter than just what was shown to the world. Either way, you were stuck with the sword. It really was a curse and you still regretted grabbing the sword, even if you slowly grew accustomed to your new lot in life, but with nothing else to show for it, and little you could do after the fact, you hefted the bag over your shoulders, shuffling it around when the sheath began to dig into your side before setting off into the great unknown with nothing but a trapped demon, some lines on a map, and a compass to show you where to go.

[prianya]

This might be a bit specific and long so I apologise, but I really like how you write Xisuma and was wondering if you write parent-child dynamics? Because this thought has been on my mind and I cannot for the life of me write xD

If yes, then could you write a Xisuma + teen!reader who was originally from the DSMP, but ran away from it after Dream got locked up? Thinking of them being like familiar to Tommy and Tubbo - a bunch of scars and trauma, trying not to do anything that could get them in huge trouble that could result in them getting hurt/killed. Xisuma let's them stay at his base and helps them out, adopting them and seeing them as his own child!

Maybe the reader has a really bad nightmare at night, which makes them go to find Xisuma (he's either probably sleeping himself or working on something idk), not wanting to be alone for long. All of this leads to Xisuma comforting them while the reader explains what is bothering them, just soft hurt/comfort :D

Late Night Reassurance

Xisumavoid x Teen! Reader ▪︎ Platonic

Word Count ▪︎ 1,011 words

Summary ▪︎ Sometimes nightmares can affect you more than you think. It's okay though, you've got your adoptive dad to help!

Note ▪︎ This fic does mention scars and a nondescript injury, so if you're uncomfortable with that, please don't read. I tried my hardest on this one, and I'm not sure how good it actually is. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy!

Xisuma had never thought that he’d become a father, especially with how a lot of the hermits on the server were just as chaotic as children. He had enough on his hands, and yet he couldn’t help but feel obligated to take you in. He wasn’t the only one that had offered, many other hermits offering up space in their bases for the new teenager. Sure, he wasn’t your first choice due to your extreme fear of admins, but Doc had deemed him one of the only people on the server capable of responsibly caring for a minor. The decision had been met with little resistance from you, and you were quickly moved from your temporary rooming in Doc’s base to a more permanent room in Xisuma’s.

 The only thing he could say was off about this was the fact that you were so quiet. You never really spoke, and when you did it was quiet. That also tied into the fact that you never argued with any decision made. There was never any disagreement, never any type of difference in opinion when you were confronted with something. He will admit that, yes, he was worried about it. He knows the basis of how people your age act– due to the many parenting books he had read in a hurry– and to say your behaviour was abnormal was an understatement. He tried to push his worry away, pinning it to the fact that this was a new environment and you were still not used to it.

 The scars lining your arms and legs, though, were not only abnormal, but extremely worrying. Most of the scars were obviously not self-inflicted, like the healed scar from a burn that marrs the surface of your left leg. That was one of many, and not the only concerning one. While wearing a tanktop you had borrowed from Grian, twin scars; both the size of Xisuma’s palm, had been revealed due to the low backing made to fit Grian’s wings. For once, Xisuma was happy for the tinted glass on his helmet, because the horrified look on his face when his eyes caught the scar would have made you more skittish than you were. Later that day was when he confronted you gently, and when he found out most of what had happened on that godforsaken server. There wasn’t a moment in the day that he didn’t feel resentment towards the corrupt admin. From what had happened on the server, it was easy to see that it had affected you due to how you acted. You were scared, even months after you were away from what had caused you such pain. He was happy, though, that you finally got a supportive and safe space to heal.

 Tonight was the same as your routine had set. Xisuma paused his admin duties to cook and eat dinner with you, something that you had said you enjoyed. The two of you had grown closer since your arrival on Hermitcraft, and he had become the closest thing to a father to you. Your dinner was nice, and you got to tell Xisuma about your day with Scar, who you had taken to well. You had once said Scar reminded you of an uncle or brother; and when he told Scar you said that, the man cried. You had grown, definitely, and you flourished under the protective attention of the admin. After dinner, you said good night to Xisuma, giving him a hug and then heading to bed. He wouldn’t sleep for a few more hours, staying up and working on some backlogged projects he had.

 Hours after you had gone to bed, Xisuma was alerted to the sound of floorboards creaking, and the door to his office cracking open. He looked up, surprised to see you standing in the doorway to his room with puffy eyes.

 “Are you alright?” he says while pushing his chair away from his desk, and makes his way across the room to you. You silently shake your head and lean against him heavily. He frowns, wracking his mind for some type of solution.

 “Do you want some tea?” His words make you look up, and you nod at him. The two of you go down to the kitchen, and you stay silent as he makes the both of you Sweet Berry tea. After a short period of silence, he speaks.

 “Are you feeling better?” he asks you as you stare at the tinted visor of his helmet. You can see your reflection in the glass, you note. Noticing your stare at his helmet, he removes it and sets it on the counter. You finally process his question, and you nod again.

 “That’s good. Did you have a nightmare?” he guesses. You looked so much like you did when you arrived, and he was worried that whatever nightmare you had had set you back in your recovery.

 “Yea, I did. ‘M fine now, I’m over it,” you practically whisper, the concern in him growing stronger. It was clear that you weren’t over it, and something was still bothering you.

 “Are you sure? You can talk to me if you want.” His words are soft, and the look on his face holds nothing but concern. You suddenly change your mind, and begin to speak.

 “It was about you. It wasn’t a really bad nightmare, it just made me worry. Somehow, He was here, and you were hurt. I know it’s stupid, but it still made me afraid.” Xisuma just pulls you into a loose hug, leaving you enough room to back out of it if you want. You don’t, and you hug him tighter as the two of you stand in the middle of the kitchen, your cups of tea forgotten.

 “No matter what happens, I would never let him hurt me, let alone hurt you,” he reassures you. It was then that Xisuma realised that he thought of you as his child, and it was then that he realised that he had somehow become a father.

[lollytea]

My fun spooky scary OCs, the Santos-Umbra family!! Designed by @ask-artsy-oncie who made them look SO cool!!

I took a lot of inspo from the Addams family and the Munsters (obviously) but also stuff like Billy and Mandy, Edgar and Ellen, Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School etc. Anything with weird monstrous kids just living day to day lives.

Some info about each family member 

Paul Santos - What can be said about Paul really? He is a simple man. As mentioned above, he likes to grill and mow the lawn and he probably plays really old Rock n’ Roll in his car way too loud when he pulls up to the kids’ school. He collects 70s-80s memorabilia and is currently learning to knit. He is not very good at it but he figures he’ll improve some before winter when he’ll need to start churning out a bunch of little hats and mittens. His family knows full well that these garments will be terrible but they also know that they will be wearing them anyway as not to hurt Paul’s feelings. 

Paul strongly believes that the reason to be alive is to find joy and help others along in finding their joy, whether it be through humour, affection or an ear to listen. This was the disposition that convinced his wife, Venus, that he was a keeper. 

He’s always wanted a big family but he never expected....a family like this. But hey, life is all about taking left turns and he couldn’t be happier with how things turned out. Paul doesn’t always understand his non-human kids. He doesn’t know much about vampires or werewolves or any of that stuff but he knows about love, so he’ll live and he’ll learn and he’ll love. And hopefully he’ll do a halfway decent job. 

Venus Umbra -  A true lady of mystery. Is she a vampire? A ghost? A witch? Something far more frightening entirely? Nobody really knows for sure. (Except her lovely husband of course but he’s not gonna go blabbing about his wife’s business.) Some believe she dresses herself in shadows, that she eats the hearts of men to keep herself alive, that she was summoned to this world via some taboo ritual. If you ask her about any of this, she’ll just smile secretively, shrug and say “I’m a mom~” and she’s not wrong. 

One thing for certain is that Venus is not human and this has certainly had an impact on her life. She spent her entire childhood being passed around the foster care system but never managing to find her forever home. Potential families found something so eerily off about her that no one ever wanted her in their house for long. Venus promised herself that when she was grown she would take in children that were like her, so they wouldn’t have to feel that sort of rejection and over and over again. And she did just that! :)

Venus is a lot more equipped to handling her childrens’ “monster-y” problems than Paul but she still struggles when it comes to their “kid/teen” dilemmas, which Paul excels at. She’s not much of a people person and isn’t very good at making friends in this squeaky clean suburban neighbourhood. But she’s in the adapting phase. 

Killian (Age 15) - The oldest kid, a baby grim reaper with some crazy levels of power over death. When he was younger, he was an absolute terror. He really sold the whole “hellspawn child” thing and was constantly raising the dead and scaring the absolute fuck out of his classmates. 

But now that Killian is a teenager and he’s calmed the FUCK down and has basically decided “Ok enough being evil I want to be loved now” so he’s trying his absolute best to keep his head down and fit in at school and be a normal kid but obviously he’s still very eccentric and naturally spooky and now that he’s not actively trying to use his death powers, it’s become harder to control it so he’s struggling a lot with this whole “being a normal kid” thing. 

And also his little siblings keep dragging him into trouble because OF COURSE they need his powers for their shenanigans.

Killian is very insecure about being seen as scary and it’s sort of affecting to ability to be the person he wants to be. Fortunately, he has Elroy, his best friend who is scared of everything remotely creepy. But not of Killian, he would never be scared of Killian <3

Zosia (Age 12) and Nikolai (Age 11) - A baby werewolf and a baby vampire respectively. 

Zosia is prim, proper, sophisticated, studious and is absolutely hell bent on causing as much problems in this town as she is capable of. A Disney Villain in the making. She’s training to become a witch and her spells are coming along excellently. (There is very little Zosia is bad at. Except being nice.) 

She is usually the one behind and in charge of most of their evil little plots but she is also a very fluffy little puppy dog girl and her dad has a very hard time staying mad at her. Even when she commits atrocities.

Zosia has naturally acidic tongue and uses it on everyone, even her own family. She can be dismissive of them at best and outright disgusted by them at worst. And yet, by this stage, her family has come to understand her strange love language. She is furiously loyal and protective of her siblings and still likes to have Venus sing to her and Paul read her a story every night. And that’s not even mentioning Nikolai, her best friend in the world. 

Nikolai is just a very fun very very energetic vampire who likes to dye their hair wild colours and talk about anime but also they are here for the chaos. They don’t have the same diabolical drive that Zosia has but they’re prone to boredom so they’re often like “Yeah, sure, I’ll help you summon an eldritch abomination to unleash on the town. That sounds wild and I wanna see how that plays out.”

They are very much the sibling that deliberately pesters the others the most. Nik is annoying all the goddamn time but especially with Zosia who they annoy to the point that she’s screaming at them. And yet for whatever reason Nik and Zosia are constantly a duo. They’re just as much of a trouble maker as her so they work as a team. Together they are fucking unstoppable. 

Nikolai has a fascination bordering on obsession with humans depiction of monsters, especially vampires. They have gathered as many forms of media as possible, from the original Dracula novel to Twilight. They are a walking encyclopedia on the topic. Please ask them their opinions. Please for the love of God they are dying to talk about their opinions. 

Lizzy (Age 5) - The most stereotypically “creepy child” who is unnervingly polite, speaks in a monotone voice, stares at you with huge unfathomable eyes and tells you the time and date you’re gonna die and shit like that. But that’s just her way of making conversation. 

She means no harm whatsoever. She’s probably the sweetest of all the kids and doesn’t have a lot of evil in her. Unless it’s stuff like not wanting to eat her vegetables or being picked on at school. Then it’s like the fucking exorcist. Horrifying screaming, shit flying all over the room, the gates of Hell opening up. But that’s just Mog'drannel (Age ???) the demon who channels itself through Lizzy, either using her body to communicate or choosing to take up residence in her doll. They don’t really mean any harm either but they don’t like it when anybody is mean to Lizzy. They can usually be pacified by peanut butter sandwiches.

Cobra (infant) - Paul and Venus don’t know exactly where Cobra came from or what he is but he has snake eyes, a forked tongue and venomous fangs (which he has had since he was born weirdly enough) so they thought the name was charmingly fitting. 

There are allegedly prophecies all over the place about this child being the anti-Christ but his parents are all like “eh maybe? It’s too early to tell. We’ll see. Maybe he’ll be a dentist, who knows. We’ll support him in whatever he decides to do.” And people are like “he is LITERALLY an abomination. His bite has killed people” and they’re like “that doesn’t prove anything.” 

Be nice to Cobra. Sometimes he plagues the neighbours with terrible misfortunate if their loud music or leaf blowers wake him up from a nap. (Allegedly. It can’t be proven that he was responsible for anything.)