#they were a gift and curse

[medicalunprofessional]

sorry guys they finally showed me peak fiction . Its called “phantom of the paradise”

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

As per usual, it’s DP crossover with (probably) DC, although you could probably adjust it for other fandoms

ANYWAYS

A little kid and his mother are trick or treating in another city, perhaps at some kind of event rather than knocking on doors, and the kid is dressed as Phantom. It’s very adorable, with his little ghost-shaped bucket and clearly homemade and already stained costume—listen, white only works if you can just fly over street grime or phase it out of your clothes—and his slightly I’ll fitting wig. The kid is SO happy to be out and about dressed as his favorite, and maybe even showed it off to Phantom back in Amity Park before his family left.

The hero, insert whoever you wish here, is probably in civvies and just enjoying the event. The kid, meanwhile, is so glad when people ask who he is so he can explain, and so- the hero gets to hear ALL ABOUT the local town hero who is probably pretty small time despite the kid’s clearly exaggerated stories. The hero certainly never heard of him, but the kid’s mom confirms that Phantom really was the town hero, despite some mixed reviews of the poor guy.

“Did you manage to show him your costume?” the hero asks.

“Yeah! We went down to the cemetery to leave flowers and I got to show him my costume.”

Wait. Cemetery? Maybe it was part of theme, because Phantom had to be named that for a reason, but… it sounded like…

The kid ignores the suddenly VERY still hero and instead turns to his mom. “Momma, do you think we should bring him candy? He doesn’t get to trick or treat like we do, and I can work super hard to get him a bunch!”

The kid’s mom just smiles. “We could, but maybe we should bring him something homemade. I bet he’d like something more filling, teen boys like him have a hollow leg.”

The kid wrinkles his nose. “Like Vernie with the pizza bagels?”

“Like your cousin, yes. We can make some cinnamon rolls and take them to his memorial, maybe bring some of the apples from your grandpa’s garden…”

The hero is pretty much forgotten as the two-part family wanders off, not quite intentionally forgetting the hero is there so much as the hero somewhat accidentally ended the conversation when they just froze and didn’t ask anything further.

Not that the hero didn’t want to. But they’d learn something very serious.

One—there was a small town hero they’d never heard of. Two—that hero was apparently a teen. Third—most pressingly, the teen hero was both beloved enough to have kids dressing up as him and dead enough to have a grave.

This… might require some phone calls.

[door]

the trouble with having a pretty niche job that you like and are good at is that sometimes i accomplish something difficult at work and want to brag about it and eventually must concede to myself that wow…nobody will understand how cool this is

[anotherferalrat]

Has this been done yet?

[soranatus]

THE CHEETAH: Wonder Woman’s most iconic archenemy in every incarnation

Priscilla Rich (1943) Debbi Domaine (1980) Barbara Ann Minerva (1987) Sebastian Ballesteros (2001)

[dear-ao3]

well well well it’s that time of year again and by that time of year again i mean the time where my best friends birthday is tomorrow and i have no present for her

is this a big deal? no there have been many years where we haven’t gotten eachother anything cause we’re lazy but! i feel the need to do something awful. and i am also seeing her in 48 hours (for the first time since august) so… does anyone have ideas…

previous gifts that we have gotten eachother include:

-a singing card in the shape of a sushi roll that sang a birthday song from sushi rolls everywhere

-a “merry chris mas” card that had all the chrises of hollywood on it

-hedgehog salt and pepper shakers

so. pray tell people of tumblr. i have 48 hours. a rather large mall with weird stores at my disposal and about 25 dollars. give me your worst.

[sincerely-sofie]

Twig buffers for a minute at this revelation and then says “Well, duh. You’re super old. Of course it would take work to look like you’re not ready to keel over at any second.”

Celebi laughs so hard she completely ruins the wing she was drawing and Dusknoir sulks for the rest of the day.

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

sorry about the slight audio glitch. it was part of the stream

Transcript:

W-why?

Why?

WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FUCKING VINE BOOMS?!

End transcription

Audio Source

[quaranmine]

doing the unexpected: washing + drying a pair of wool blend hiking socks HOPING they will shrink because they're a liiiiitle too big

[egginfroggin]

Things were basically fine during Ingo and Emmet's childhood until they were like seven.

Ingo basically came out of the womb sneezing snowflakes, and that was perfectly fine. By the time he was about three, he could make tiny flurries -- and often did so unintentionally -- around him and some lumps of snow. Freezing cups of water by accident.

Five, and he was making snowballs. He accidentally froze the entire fountain in the courtyard just walking by.

Seven, and we've got a tiny prince making snowmen and freezing small ponds to go ice skating with his brother.

After his isolation, Ingo never really experimented with his powers, but they were clearly getting significantly stronger, because by the time he ascends to the throne, he's. well. capable of accidentally causing a blizzard to cover Nimbasa, freezing the rivers that run in from the coast on either side of Route 4, and generally causing a catastrophe.

Things went from 0 to 100 very fast in the interim, clearly.

Conversely, Emmet is a grown adult and the worst he does is sneeze flakes of ash and spit embers when he's mad. Has he set things on fire? No. He's not cursed.

Also I want you to know that I'm listening to "Once Upon a December," hence the abrupt icy au posting.

Hehe.

Sno.

[acourtofquestions]

The fact that this opens with the Prince & then the Princess — A DOUBLE EPILOGUE FOR MY SHIP — Sarah, are you trying to kill me?

[sketchinfun]

I finally went to Margaritaville after repeatedly watching Ted and Eddy’s videos of “Ate at Every Margaritaville in the Country” and man it was…an experience

[rockwgooglyeyes]

sorry for barging in your inbox again rock (this is para. unfortunately)

but I can't stop thinking about your new sillies..... first of all I notice the necklace around mentos neck, is that something of sentimental value given to her? it would be pretty fitting for memento to have a memento of her own

second, would mori and nyx know each other? in what way? (if this was answered already I'm so sorry) also will say that mori gives me very six little nightmares vibes and when I saw her profile I got flashbacks. she is Normal and possesses very concerning traits. What A Gal

third. memento mori 🤝 jioku

I think a lot about their relationship and how handshake emoji it is with jioku. and I love them both because they're both similar for the most part but they turn out differently during the important points

they were both originally best friends... then something went horribly wrong in their friendship that lead them to being essentially strangers.

while for memento mori they're both still haunted by the incident that caused their strained relationship (their actions around each other are poisoned by the memory of it and they are no longer on speaking terms), jiokus whole thing is about trying to bury the issue and make it seem like it never happened in the first place, essentially wiping the slate clean and attempting to build something on top of it while the monster lies under the surface. only one of them can remember what happened and he's dug a grave for himself trying to repress the memory.

also jioku 🤝 memento mori: being unfairly blamed by the other person which causes the inciting incident.... though the person who did it for each pair differs

kioku and memento spinning in a circle while jiu sees himself in mori and has a crisis

NEVER UNFORTUNATE PARA!!! i love you and your asks make me so happy, literally I was stimming so hard and squealing happily when I saw this . . . hhngfhfhh

^ literally me when i received this ask. Anyways let me get to the meat of this.

Mento's pendant is a memento, you are correct! It was given to her as a gift by Mori when they were children and despite the fact that they aren't really friends any longer, Mento keeps wearing the pendant. (also one of Mento's symbols in general is rings. Mori has lightning for hers). The joke of Mento's necklace is that it's her "memento" heh, great catch, Para!!

The funniest thing to me about Jioku/Memento Mori parallels is while Jioku tries to wipe the slate clean and pretend like nothing happened, Memento wishes that she could pretend and honestly she kind of does but Mori's vibes towards Mento are so absolutely hostile that it's impossible for Mento to fully play the part. This is one of the reasons that Mento is much more well liked that Mori, I would say- because Mento seems like the victim out of the two of them, when in reality, she's not. That's actually on purpose, as well. I wanted Memento to look really cute and harmless in comparison to Mori while Mori was actually the one who was betrayed out of the two of them. . . it was meant as a subversion of expectations >:)

Memento and Kioku getting along well while Jiu is horrified by how similar he is to Mori is so hilarious to me actually. Mori looks at Jiu and doesn't really think of him as similar to her but I do think she recognizes the immense guilt he carries and that said guilt is the reason why he's so cold. . . She doesn't know why he's guilty but she recognizes it. It's also really interesting how Mori and Jiu are kind of inflection points of each other? The way that they are both pretty similar and yet one was the one who was blamed and the other. well. the other was the bystander.

[fuckmeyer]

oooh bestie i just read your jasper gift-as-curse analysis (agree 100%!!! it fucks severely!!!!) and in your tags you mention thinking of all of the cullen "gifts" as curses and...i am going actively insane thinking about rosalie in that frame. like? her beauty carries over! and it's a curse in that people see that first and her second and assume that she's shallow...but also that was true in her human life as well and becoming a vampire seems like it maybe allowed her to transcend that and realize what was fucked up about her human experience??? WILD

Rosalie's gift is also a curse, but unlike Jasper's, i find it heartbreaking

it's a curse in that people see that first and her second and assume that she's shallow

VERY true. but the consequences of extreme beauty go beyond people chalking her up as shallow.

part of Rosalie's curse is that there are many aspects of her life where her looks play a role. & going through life requires either a degree of illusion or a degree of doubt.

for example: how many times as she been given— or been overlooked for— opportunities or merit because of her attractiveness? how many relationships has she tried to make, only to find the foundation of said connection was built on— or marred by— her looks? if Edward bothered to see past what he perceives as Rosalie's vanity, would they be closer as siblings? or, put another way:

In the first second that Emmett saw Rosalie, he saw a goddess whom he had worshiped without cease ever since. (Midnight Sun, Ch 6)

i'm not saying Emmett's love isn't real. but it's also clear he's immediately attracted to Rose physically; even decades later, their love is described as "intensely physical" (Ch 7). worshiping implies a degree of separation; there's a pedestal, a blindness, in the kind of love Emmett shows her. if she was average-looking, would he love her as she is, as an equal, without worship? would he even give her a second glance?

part of the curse is never knowing what's real. either she lives with a degree of doubt, or she lives with a degree of illusion.

another part of Rosalie's curse is that she also falls into the trap of seeing her face first and herself second. now, do i think Rosalie is vapid & a "stagnant pool of few surprises" (Ch 1)? no. she has a personality, she has hobbies outside of tending to or enhancing her beauty. but we do see her mesmerized with herself:

She’d caught sight of her profile in the reflection off someone’s glasses, and she was mulling over her own perfection. No one else’s hair was closer to true gold, no one else’s shape was quite so perfectly an hourglass, no one else’s face was such a flawless, symmetrical oval.

& we also see her play up her beauty in the vehicle she drives & the clothes she wears. she cannot look away from herself.

however, this is where i think we see yet another facet of Rosalie's curse. that is, being the most gorgeous vampire of the Cullens, there is a degree of intense scrutiny that comes with Rosalie's beauty. for all the illusion/doubt it brings her, she must be constantly aware of it. because this scrutiny is two-fold:

1) unlike someone like Alice who can pass as androgynous & is overlooked physically, Rose does not have the luxury of breaking traditional gender expectations lest she draw even more attention to the coven. in a sense, Rosalie is under more pressure to flawlessly perform the rituals of gender conformity because anything outside of the norm will be noticed more easily.

2) beyond that, the degree of attention she receives means she must constantly perform in a human sense, too: twitching, blinking, moving, behaving, etc. in this way, her looks become a hindrance to her vegetarian lifestyle.

so, she is cursed in that she's the face of the Cullen family & under pressure by the coven & society to perform. even if she wanted to escape her beauty, she cannot.

becoming a vampire seems like it maybe allowed her to transcend [her beauty] and realize what was fucked up about her human experience

but it kinda...didn't?

don't get me wrong, it did in some sense. as mentioned, Rose has picked up hobbies, dreams, & a personality. we do see her transcend her appearance; however, her beauty still traps her for the reasons above.

& to be honest with you bestie, it wasn't vampirism that allowed her to transcend her beauty. because if she had been turned, say, the day she got engaged, what kind of vampire would we see? her final days, her looks gave her everything she wanted, & now she ends up as the most ravishing creature on earth in the socioeconomic class she wanted. Rosalie wins. i'm not saying she would have wanted vampirism if she had been turned in better circumstances. but she would certainly be more divorced from reality, & i doubt she would find it as necessary to transcend her beauty since it got her what she wanted & confirmed her worldview.

it wasn't the vampirism that allowed her to transcend her beauty. it was the rape.

the rape tears the curtain back. the rape shows her all that glitters isn't gold. the rape teaches her that in the end, her beauty couldn't, & would never, save her. the rape tells her what a woman's place is in her world. the rape forces her to realize: for all Rosalie's beauty, she is awarded nothing, she is entitled to nothing, she can do everything right & still lose. the rape is what necessitated a change in Rosalie's beliefs.

i find Rosalie's curse heartbreaking because i do not doubt she has thought about this when she looks in the mirror.

she's more attractive now than ever, but that is what put her in that position in the first place. she's come to this horrific realization at an even more horrific cost. & everyone around her compliments how beautiful she is; everyone dreams about how wonderful their lives would be if only they could be so beautiful; everyone wishes they could be as beautiful as Rosalie Hale...

meanwhile, Rosalie sits with the uncomfortable idea that the thing that gave her everything she wanted is the same thing that led her to her rape, to her death— hell, Carlisle figured she'd make a good wife for Edward, so even her turning was a result of her beauty— & is now the very thing that traps her in a life she never wanted, performing eternally in a spotlight that will never dim.

[thecoolerhamtastic]

yes, hello? i think there's a raccoon living in my chimney

[murderyn]

i keep thinking about a line from jaheira i got on my durge (darci) run, and now i know more about bg1/2 and what happened to char/name, it kind of just is sticking more with me and i just need to scream

"This is your father's true legacy. Not his children - but the fear they plant in us. The savagery it blossoms into."

in bg1 siege of dragonspear, everyone finds out that charname (ryn, in my context) is a bhaalspawn. immediately the attitude towards her shifts from "this is our HERO" to "this person is a danger and i dont really want her around"

then later, after ryn saves everyones asses again (and i mean everyone!) and she's hailed as a hero again.... for five seconds. that same night she gets framed for murder. and she insists she didn't do it. but-

she gets arrested, put on trial which is a fucking sham that ignores a vital piece of evidence (the girl she's accused of killing was killed with a very specific dagger, one she did not have on her when found next to the body) but it's a public trial, and the citizens of baldurs gate are watching.

she's locked away until they can decide her fate - which is most certainly going to be execution (the person who she was framed for murdering was a child of a grand duke) and one of her companions, an officer for the flaming fist even tells her that she should confess and face the consequences, even if she didn't do it.

but she manages to escape, fleeing the city through the sewers. but of course corwin and bence manage to track her down

and even when she surrenders (she does not want to hurt them!!) bence tries to kill her anyway! not even waiting for the sentence to be passed! corwin comes to her senses and lets ryn escape, and she does. reuniting with with her friends who were waiting for her escape- but

even her friends, her most trusted friends, don't think she's innocent.

"This is your father's true legacy. Not his children - but the fear they plant in us. The savagery it blossoms into."

she's the bhaalspawn, but as soon as the people discovered that... they were calling for her death. she is the child of the lord of murder, but they were the ones wanting to murder her. they were afraid, and their fear blossomed into savagery.

and i just... keep thinking about it