#they're a matched set and cannot be separated

[ltleflrt]

Your OC's Personality

Thanks for tagging me @he1chouarts! I love taking opportunities to talk about my sons 😁

Kestrel Tav (Left) and Caelnir Tav (Right)

How would you describe Kestrel's personality?

Ray of sunshine, who sometimes slips behind storm clouds. He's always got a smile for people, and he wants to be friends with everyone he comes across. He's empathic, often seeing the core of someone before they're ready to reveal it, though he's careful not to reveal what he's learning about people too quickly; outside of his family that makes people nervous. He's not a mind reader! He's just very good at reading between the lines! And he likes to see people happy, so he does what he can for them, in big and little ways. He's flirty and loves to tease people out of bad moods.

From the outside it looks like he doesn't have a care in the world. And he's careful to keep it that way. His emotions are Very Big, and when the bad ones get out of control, so does his magic. Very few people see his anger and his sadness, and if he has his way, it'll stay that way.

What brings Kestrel joy?

Spending time with his brothers Caelnir and Demagh, cooking a nice meal for people, making people laugh. If the people around him are happy, Kestrel is happy. He loves to travel and meet new people, try new foods, new clothes, new languages. Exploring the world and meeting the people in it are his greatest joys.

What does Kestrel strongly dislike?

Seeing his friends and loved ones suffering. Or anyone, really. There's a reason he's a hero. And he hates anyone who causes harm deliberately. Slavers, thieves who target the poor, and anyone of that ilk.

Is Kestrel scared of anything?

He's terrified of spiders. When he was little, he lived in the underdark for a little while, and he got snatched up by a giant spider. He only survived because she was saving him for her hatchlings, and his older brothers managed to rescue him in time. But the spider and her hatchlings nearly killed him and both his brothers, so he has severe arachnophobia.

He's also afraid of being the reason someone is suffering. It comes from watching his mother grow ill when he was small, and feeling like he was doing something to make her that way. He understands that it wasn't his fault, but there's that seed of fear deep inside of him that sometimes blooms at unexpected times.

What is Kestrel's alignment?

Chaotic Good. He's kind and heroic, but he'll break rules and laws if he thinks they're unjust. For instance, he has no issue with stealing if it's from someone greedy or cruel, and he'll kill without blinking to save another life (though he'll try to find a way around it first). He's got a very strong moral compass, and he'll follow it before he follows the rules.

How would you describe Caelnir's personality?

Smart and curious and kind-hearted, and viciously protective of those he loves. He's easy to befriend, but is a very dangerous foe, who WILL hold a grudge. But he's also a caretaker, and can be incredibly gentle with those who need it from him.

What brings Caelnir joy?

His brothers, his music, and his goddess. Being with his brothers makes him feel whole in a way that he isn't sure how to explain, and he's very good with words, so that's saying (or not saying lol) something. There's nothing quite as delightful as that moment when a melody starts to form between his ears, and he's always got his mandolin nearby so he can start plucking it out and bringing it into the world. And when he puts on his prayer mask to commune with The Masked Lady, he feels deep comfort, all the way to his soul.

He also very much enjoys nipping a coin purse from assholes, or shooting a slaver in the eye. Simple pleasures lol

Oh, and pretty clothes. He doesn't indulge a lot, because it can get expensive, and his life on the road means he doesn't have the ability to carry a wardrobe with him. But oh, he loves a beautiful outfit.

What does Caelnir strongly dislike?

Injustice. He hates slavery, of course, but he also hates to see people ground down to almost nothing under the heels of the rich and powerful.

Is Caelnir scared of anything?

He has arachnophobia too; see previous answer about Kestrel's fears. And he's also scared of losing his brothers when he's not there for them. Because his mother left when he was 9, and came back 9 years later just to die, and he knows there's nothing he could have done to save her, but he could have had more time with her. (Don't be mad at his mom, she invited him to come with her, and he chose to stay with his dad.) It's why he follows Kestrel on his adventures. While he's very close with his older brother Dem too, he feels a stronger pull to stay at Kestrel's side.

What is Caelnir's alignment?

Neutral Good, but leaning sliiiightly toward Chaotic Good. He's more likely to follow laws, but it's because they can be used to help people if they're set up correctly. That being said, if he thinks a law is unjust, it's void in his eyes.

I'm going to tag @joasakura @trilliath @anarchycox @defira85 and anyone else who wants to tell us about their Tav/Durge 😊

[honeycreammilkshake]

at first you couldn't stand the idea of an afterlife with him...

but now you want to live the rest of your life with him?

seriously though.

yuuji went from hating him on sight to wanting to take him home with him. and honestly, i can't stop thinking about that.

the time yuuji spent with sukuna showed him there was much more to the monster than he first believed..... the fact that this whole story began with yuuji wanting to consume all 20 fingers so he could kill sukuna but ending with him wanting sukuna to come back to him so they could become one again..... and no, i don't care what anyone else says, it's canon that yuuji genuinely wanted for them to coexist with each other.

also. i just want to point out how full-circle they've become. sukuna screaming "your future is mine, brat!" at the beginning but dying in the end when yuuji offers (not surrenders, not gives in, but truly offers) that future to him. yuuji is willing to give sukuna his heart, soul, and body in the most compassionate, honest sense. it's such a display of kindness and warmth, such softness as yuuji cradles sukuna's remains, that sukuna probably couldn't take it.

i think it was more or less a split-second decision for him. and he chose to die as he was born: a curse.

i could be wrong but it seems to me like yuuji was breaking sukuna's resolve over the last few chapters, especially chapter 265, which focuses a lot on yuuji's empathy for sukuna... and also sukuna's mask starting to slip and reveal more of his contradicting nature.

i can't get over this scene. yuuji wants to talk to sukuna. he asks sukuna to indulge him. and sukuna does.

this entire chapter sukuna is uncharacteristically willing to go along with it. he's listening to yuuji the entire time because he responds to what yuuji is saying even when it's over such small things. and even his insults are for more subdued and strangely sound more affectionate/light-hearted compared to the stuff sukuna is usually spitting out.

i've said it before and i still think it's canon that yuuji has had the most power and influence over sukuna.

sukuna doesn't fight with anyone as closely or possessively as he does with yuuji (he treated todo like an unwelcome third wheel after todo crashed sukuita's violent little date entered the fight). sukuna isn't as moved as he is with others when yuuji challenged his ideals. no, he literally stopped mid-fight to wonder why the brat had such an overwhelming effect on him. he wanted to crush yuuji's ideal apart because they started to make him doubt himself as well.

yuuji gets under sukuna's skin and stays there like a thorn. like the parasite sukuna was supposed to be inside of yuuji. but the brat is now sukuna's own curse.

and i think he knew that if he'd accepted yuuji's offer, that curse would kill him. love is the worst curse of all.

sukuna knows his own nature. he's selfish and evil and cruel. yuuji embodies the opposite of all those qualities: he is the shades of love and hate that are far away from sukuna's mask of indifference. they could coexist but overtime sukuna's persona would begin to erode because yuuji has the most power of anyone else to change him. to make him rethink. and he can't have that. he needs to remain the static cruelty he was made into. he doesn't know any other way and he'd fall apart if yuuji showed him another fate.

it's really tragic when you realize yuuji's soul has been tied to sukuna's for so long. and in a sense, yuuji completes sukuna. he is kind of like the embodiment of the humanity and empathy that was probably forced out of sukuna. he's the missing whole that makes sukuna's whole a matching set. like yin and yang, the opposites that complement each other and cannot be separated.

in both a poetical and literal sense, yuuji was made for sukuna. he understands that they're like reflections of each other, one brighter and one darker. and yuuji still accepted and was willing to bear sukuna's monstrosity. because he saw him. studied him, even. loved him in the most selfless sense of the word.

it's so tragic.... i hate them.

[mareastrorum]

As a known villain-enthusiast, I figured I’d write up how I assess them as storytelling devices. Like, whether they��re enjoyable characters is up to taste, but whether they’re good writing requires critical assessment. This is a rather long post, so here is a summary:

Learning how to critique villains is a great way to identify skilled and passionate storytellers. They embody the ideas and decisions that the writer feels are incorrect. While some narrative devices are more subtle (local politics unfolding in the background, color or song cues, scene settings, etc.), villains are dramatic. That is a person designed to be wrong! They intentionally draw the audience’s focus for important steps of the story. When a writer stumbles on that, it reflects poorly on the entire work precisely because of that focus.

This post is going to get into the following key components of an effective villain:

They highlight the wrong conclusion about a key issue in the story.

They should be a symptom of either a larger issue in the narrative or the one they fixate on.

They don't need to be evil, and, in many cases, that label is a hindrance.

As the average age of the target audience and/or the length of the story increases, villains should be more frequently correct in their beliefs and choices.

They evoke strong emotion appropriate to the genre.

They don’t need to be antagonists, and antagonists don’t need to be villains.

They raise the stakes: the world will become worse if they are left unchecked.

Their strengths and weaknesses should be directly tied either to the central theme of the story or their opponent's character arc.

Their ending is consistent with the theme of the story.

If included, a villain redemption arc must have 4 components: (1) an external stimulus causing (2) a choice to deviate from their plan and (3) a corresponding shift in their worldview, and those result in (4) action that matches the strength of their new conviction.

They should not be included in a story if any of the above causes distraction or discordance with the main plot line.

Of course, there’s spoilers to follow, so reader beware.

First, some definitions. These are definitely not perfect, but they're how I keep these narrative issues separated in my own head.

A villain is someone whose wrong actions/beliefs are relevant to the plot/themes. An antagonist is someone who acts in direct conflict with the protagonist. The protagonist is the character that the audience follows in a story. Sometimes villains are protagonists, sometimes they're antagonists, and sometimes they're neither. This post addresses villains regardless of their other roles in a story.

I am intentionally using a vague word like “wrong” in that definition because villains are versatile tools. What is the core message or theme of this story? What is the wrong conclusion? What did the villain get right before they fucked up? At what point did this take a downturn? Can this be fixed before it’s too late? How can it be fixed? A well-designed villain can be used to answer most, if not all, of those questions without any reference to another character. When a villain is included in the story, each of the topics below is a point where the writer should be using that character to bolster the narrative.

Villains highlight the wrong conclusion about a key issue in the story.

The point of a villain is to be a bad example. A job well done requires the author to have a thorough, intimate understanding of the themes, plot, and other characters, and then showcase each of them through that villain.

In other words, the villain cannot be conceived before the protagonist's arc is decided. The author needs to have a plan for the protagonist's character arc and plot because that is going to be the audience's focus for the entire story, and the villain is meant to emphasize a key problem for that character. Even when the villain is the protagonist, their purpose as the protagonist must be determined first before any villainous aspects should be addressed.

That said, villains should be minimized or omitted for any issue that doesn't culminate in a climax. Villains are dramatic: once outed as a villain, the audience will watch everything they do. That level of focus is difficult to match with other narrative devices, so the optimal use is to direct it at key issues. For other topics, antagonists are a better fit (discussed further below). If the writer does not intend to address some core aspect of the story or worldbuilding, then it shouldn't significantly involve the villain.

A poorly done villain often reveals how the author failed to grasp something, either as a concept or in execution. Again, by definition, a villain is someone the author disagrees with. People are usually much better at making themselves and their own opinions look good than they are at portraying people with opposing viewpoints. A skilled storyteller commits to giving villains a good faith dissection rather than merely attacking a strawman.

Of course, more complex stories may warrant the use of minor villains, an ensemble, or a Big Bad Evil Guy standing above the rest. The depth and time spent on each villain should match their overall importance to the main storyline. Perhaps a lesser villain will feature in a particular episode/chapter addressing their connected theme, but they shouldn’t be emphasized by the writer outside of that relevance.

Villains should be a symptom of either a larger issue in the narrative or the one they fixate on.

This is one of the more common flaws that I've encountered. Most villains believe they are solving a problem. A lot of stories fall short of answering, "what is a better conclusion?"

Caveat: this isn’t necessary for all genres. Genres that rely on gaps in understanding don’t need to supply answers. Comedy, horror, short fiction, and any other story focusing entirely on a plot about “stuff went wrong” don’t necessarily benefit from telling the audience what the problem is. Eldritch horror stories, for example, are specifically about encounters that the characters and audience do not understand, but they may still feature villains.

This facet is more noticeable in stories about problems that affect large populations. Whether it's a social heirarchy, a government structure, a natural disaster, resource shortages, etc., it's something that requires more than removing villains from seats of power or ending a plan. The nature of the solution will vary widely, especially across genres, but the writer should be concerned with the exact thing the villain had been.

As an example, in a lot of contemporary stories involving revolutions by lower classes against an oppressive upper class, the key conflict of the story is that the revolutionaries have resorted to an unconscionable option for the sake of success. Whether it's genocide, biological warfare, nuclear escalation, etc., the climax is about stopping a villain from successfully employing that option. However, a solid number of those stories end with the status quo or with minor concessions by the upper class. Each of those is a problem. If they stuck with the status quo, the story is that the oppressed should accept their station, even without hope or promise of improvement. If there were minor concessions, then the message is that drastic threats of violence are necessary for even the smallest concessions. Neither of those is a very satisfying story, and in most cases, neither were the writer's intended takeaway. Unfortunately, that sort of message often gets baked in because the unspoken implication of “don’t resort to these tactics” is “accept your place”—unless an alternative is presented within the story.

Of course, the challenge for these sorts of stories is how to convey a better option without getting on a soapbox in the narration. Villains are an efficient option to challenge the protagonists (or their opponents if they're protagonists) on these issues. “If you're so determined to stop me, then what are you going to do about [XYZ]?” It's a great way to weave in the author's intended message through some exposition or by seeding internal conflict for the protagonist to grapple with after the two separate again. This can even be brought up by other characters in discussions about the villain, without requiring a direct confrontation. Whether the opposition achieves that goal isn’t necessary either; it’s enough to introduce it and start the path toward it, letting the implication become “that’s not happening yet because that would be the next story.”

While stories don’t need to answer every question, ignoring the villain’s concern conveys that the writer doesn’t care about that issue. In that case, why include it as the villain’s motivation? What benefit did that complication bring to the story? Useless or unintended elements should be cut from a story to avoid muddling the themes, and failure to do that with a villain demonstrates subpar storytelling.

Villains don't need to be evil, and, in many cases, that label is a hindrance.

Evil is a moral label. Some stories aren’t concerned with addressing how to be a good person, what should happen to bad people, etc. That is certainly a most common framing for a villain in Western media, but it’s not the only one. Stories don't need to convey a moral to be great.

Sometimes the villain cares deeply for others, is motivated by saving people and doing good, and checks all the boxes for a hero, but the means they resort to are absolutely fucked up. Their arc often involves realizing a terrible act is “necessary” to achieve their desired result, and because they believe that result is worth the travesties, they commit. The audience can debate whether that means the villain is good or evil, but that is beside the point; the problem is that they’re doing something they shouldn’t, regardless of the moral label attached to it. Stories like this often include a message that there aren’t good/bad people, only good/bad acts, which also means that people cannot attain a moral label, and therefore the villain cannot be evil. (The Dune novels are a fantastic example of this.)

Sometimes the villain is someone dedicated to a cause that has long since careened into villainy. Their personal morality doesn’t match with what they do because duty or honor requires them to act this way, and to forsake that obligation is also failure. No matter what they choose, they will be trampling their moral ideals. Pretty much any story about well-meaning military, police, government, or other duty-bound characters following a chain of command after the bad guy takes control is an example of this. Some stories focus on the interpersonal conflict arising out of that, and others stories might focus on the internal cognitive dissonance and psychological fallout of such circumstances. These stories often posit that there is no such thing as pure good, and since everyone must commit evil on some level in the course of pursuing a moral standard, we cannot assess anyone (including the villain) on morality alone. These also tend to be stories that include a redemption arc (discussed below), though they very frequently involve some sort of dramatic sacrifice in the process.

Other stories ignore morality entirely because it just isn’t the point. These villains tend to be more subtle because their presence isn’t as offensive to the audience. Bureaucrats ruthlessly enforcing the rules in spite of unique circumstances, then getting overruled by a superior after a big display by the protagonist, are a fairly common villain trope in media aimed at children and young adults. It does happen in media for adults as well, though most often in comedies (My Cousin Vinny, Ghostbusters) or legal/political/professional dramas. These stories usually criticize overzealous commitment to systems, not because the systems or villains are inherently evil, but because excessive enforcement can unhelpfully inhibit good, health, fun, freedom, etc.

Villains can absolutely be moral/good/neutral people in the author’s perspective, framed as such in a story, and still be the bad guys.

As the average age of the target audience and/or the length of the story increases, villains should be more frequently correct in their beliefs and choices.

This is such a frustrating thing when writers muck it up. As stated, villainy highlights a wrong conclusion. Do you know what would ruin that effect? If they’re wrong about everything.

The thing about highlighting is that it’s only useful when done sparingly or with clear methods of differentiation. Highlighting a single line with one color or multiple lines with different colors can each be effective methods of focusing attention, but highlighting an entire page is a waste of effort. The audience doesn’t know what to look at anymore. The purpose is lost when it's overdone.

So too with a villain. A well-constructed villain needs to get some things right. That is a signal that those aren't the parts the audience should be concerned with. That works both for focusing on themes (if indeed that side issue isn’t important) or as obfuscation for a reveal later on (related to plot, motive, identity, etc.). This wealthy villain pays his taxes without complaint, donates to charity, and tips generously, so the story message isn’t about whether businessmen pay their fair share to government, give back to the people generally, or pays people for their labor. Instead, when the businessman turns out to be a financier of a warlord plotting a coup, we can ignore the question, “should the wealthy use money to help people?” and instead focus on “the harm of using wealth to enable oppression far outweighs any generosity that coincides with it.”

In most media, I prefer main villains to be correct on so many things that, at some point in the story, they would have been capable of swaying me to their position if not for a key theme. That is the gold standard because it points the audience right at the villain’s narrative purpose and explains why no one has managed to stop the villain before this plot line. After all, if a person is tolerable, useful, or personable except for this one thing, then they are likely to have many allies and defenses to prevent anyone from stopping their plans. While not every villain needs that level of honing, it is vital that the villain associated closely to the main theme is the one with the most clarity.

When a villain is wrong about most things, that clarity is lost. That extremism is only expected in children’s fiction, comedy, and short form fiction because those genres usually don’t explore any other facets of the villain anyway—the audience rarely gets a comprehensive look at that character. A villain is a portrayal of a person, and people are complex. Any longer forms of media require more time spent with the villain, and a two-dimensional character doesn't hold up well in those circumstances. When an author decides to structure a villain who is incorrect at every step of a story, there is meaning there: this villain is intended as an extreme example of everything the author dislikes. This story is intended to be propaganda.

Propaganda invites heavier criticism: What ethnicity did the author choose for this representation of someone getting everything wrong? What gender? What sexuality? What nationality? Social or economic class? Level of education? How does that compare to their opposition? If there’s someone who does everything right, what differences are there between that one and the villain? Those choices are just as intentional as the decision to frame the villain as so egregiously wrong about everything. Writers don’t get to pretend such decisions are meaningless. More often than not, when this happens, the writer's bigoted views are put on display. The villain absolutely did its job, so it's not an ineffective villain: it told me what the writer disapproves of and that the theme of the story is that type of person is inferior. It just turns out that now I have an entirely separate reason to dislike this writer and their works.

Villains evoke strong emotion appropriate to the genre.

I expect that most discussions about villains will include something about making that character entertaining or fun, but that isn’t quite the right mark. A proper villain is evocative in a way that matches the genre. There’s a lot of flexibility in this, so entertainment value is a safe bet. Some stories need a villain that raises tension in every scene, and others just need a laid back asshole to quip at the hero and be an obstacle. That said, sometimes a villain would be better if they aren’t fun.

For example, in Pan’s Labyrinth, Captain Vidal (played by a well known Spanish comedian who had never previously ventured outside of comedy) in fascist Spain confronts a potential spy who claims that he was hunting rabbits with his son. Indeed, the man was carrying a weapon and a bag of supplies, and he has a younger man with him. Until that point, the Captain had been presented as extremely strict and hierarchical in every facet of his life, even with his new wife, but not necessarily bad. In full view of the man’s son, the Captain personally kills the hunter, declares him to be a traitor to Spain, then discovers the dead rabbits in the pack and ignores that he may have been wrong. The son is taken away without apology or aid—not even the food and supplies they had been carrying. Any audience expectation of mercy is shunted out the window because fascism involves seeing common people as either resources or threats, and nothing else. It’s a brutal, terrifying way to establish Captain Vidal’s role, that this character will not be fun or comedic, and what type of story the film will entail. We know without a shadow of doubt that if Captain Vidal discovers what the child protagonist has been up to, he will kill her. He would kill that little girl without remorse for the slightest infraction against his control. An unavoidable dread surrounds Captain Vidal’s presence through every subsequent scene, even when he isn’t shown on screen. That brought the terror of fascism to a personal level in a horrifically efficient manner. Excellent use of a villain.

Because the core purpose of a villain is to highlight aspects of a story, stoking the audience’s emotion is a surefire way to guarantee everyone is paying attention. The most commonly used options are anger (unjust acts), disgust (socially unacceptable traits), and fear (unflinching violence). Regardless of which emotion it is, it should be something either unexpected or more extreme than encountered otherwise. These cues should be in contrast to the emotions evoked by positive developments. If the rest of the mood of the story is somber, inappropriate lightheartedness is an excellent contrast. If the rest of the story is tense action, an eerie calm is incredibly upsetting. There are many options for creating a discordant tone, and doing so not only emphasizes that this villain is wrong somehow, but also ensures that any dialogue or narration in that scene carries that same sense of wrongness.

Obviously, some stories involve villain reveals, so those high-intensity scenes shouldn’t occur until the right moment. In those instances, the method and circumstances of the reveal are a great vehicle to emphasize the villain’s narrative purpose, especially when done close to or during the story’s climax. That said, a shocked audience may have difficulty parsing complicated dialogue; sticking to a simple, overarching topic is a much better option for those particular circumstances. That’s why a villain monologue is such a common trope: it works.

When this sort of emotional turmoil is absent, I get the sense that the writer doesn’t know how to structure a scene to reinforce themes. This sort of narrative device isn’t necessary for every villain scene, but if only one scene in an entire story were to stoke the audience’s feelings, it should be the scene where the villain’s conclusion is front and center. Denouements and moments of triumph also obviously warrant strong emotional responses, but I prioritize the villain for a simple reason: why would anyone add a villain to a story if they weren’t going to demand the audience’s attention? If that type of scene takes away from the story’s purpose, then the villain does too, and they should be removed.

Villains don't need to be antagonists, and antagonists don’t need to be villains.

This might seem contradictory to the preceding points, but the fact is that protagonists cannot be expected to fix every problem they encounter.

Villains are supposed to reach the wrong conclusion about something core to the theme or plot. Antagonists are just people who work against the protagonist. For a lawyerly analogue, my opposing counsel is the antagonist (working against me, a plaintiff litigator) and their client is the villain (that fucker did Wrong, even if they never interact with me and haven’t done anything since). The lawyer isn’t wrong for simply being on that side; they’re doing their job, and their job is to be in my way. I’m not right for simply being on my side; I’m just the one telling the story. When assessing a villain and protagonist, we look at both characters in those conflicts. In comparison, an any conflict with a non-villain antagonist is entirely focused on the protagonist; the antagonist’s values, beliefs, etc. don’t really matter.

All that said, villains are usually antagonists. It’s a very efficient way to structure a story, so it is a preferred option for shorter or simpler narratives. That isn't a flaw. It's a completely valid way to handle these roles. Whether the villain should or shouldn't be an antagonist depends on the themes. Is a person versus person conflict necessary to resolve the problem that the villain is highlighting?

For example, if the key theme is about the catastrophic damage caused by climate change, a direct conflict with the villain could distract from that. Many disaster movies focusing on climate change feature villains that ignore or exploit it, and rather than meet their end through conflict with the protagonists, they usually end up ruining themselves. That makes sense given that climate change is a phenomenon that cannot be stopped by an individual and that it doesn't discriminate as to who is affected. There's plenty of other themes where similar story structures are more effective than the protagonist causing the villain's downfall. Those stories don't benefit from direct conflicts with the villain, but that character added to the narrative regardless.

Sometimes a character is necessary for the protagonists to have a concrete victory at a certain point in the story, but there’s no thematic conclusion yet. Villains would distract from that, but antagonists wouldn’t. For example, a middle point in the story has the culmination of a coming of age arc for a main character, but the final conflict is still on the horizon: a sports competitor has to end their growth arc by winning at regionals before shifting to the main rising action involved in going to nationals. Introducing a local rival with no significant bad qualities would allow the audience to focus on the protagonist’s growth, and the villain in the later arc doesn’t lose any presence or effect by having a predecessor.

All that said, some characters shift over time, especially in serial media. An antagonist of the week in a superhero comic might be the dastardly Big Bad villain in a special release and then back to a background problem in the next. Villains should only be used to extent that they will help the audience understand the full scope of the themes. Regardless of genre (except maybe satire/parody), the villain shouldn’t be causing problems “on screen” beyond the scope of their purpose, so unless the dramatic brawl between villain and hero adds something other than cool visuals, antagonism is just wasted time.

Villains raise the stakes: the world will be worse if they are left unchecked.

Any villain that fails to raise the stakes is an example of poor writing. Why should the audience care about a villain if there is nothing to lose should they succeed? It is a complete failure to use such a dramatic narrative device to highlight a non-problem. Even if a villain is not an antagonist, they need to be a threat.

In order to achieve that, the villain needs to have strengths necessary to achieve their goal. When villains don't have a skill or a resources necessary for their plan, there should be a relatively straightforward method for them to fill that gap. For example, a warmongering monarch might lack the manpower from her own lands to continue conquering neighbors, so she has her army conscript soldiers from annexed territories to put on the front lines. Of course, these power gaps are also excellent points for conflict with the opposition, and that can be worked into the plot. By shaping the villain into a formidable power in the world, the protagonist (or their faction, allies, etc.) has to step up and find a solution to the plot problem before the villain ruins everything. It adds time pressure to the protagonist’s goals and allows for logical opportunities to foil the villain’s plans.

When the villain is incompetent, that tension is lost. Within the story itself, of all the possible characters in this made up world, this was the one the writer focused on. Why hasn’t someone already stopped them, and why should the audience care what they’re up to? Why is the writer wasting the protagonist’s time on this character? That reflects poorly on the story because that conveys that there’s not a real a risk of failure or a bad ending; if there was, the writer should have focused on that instead! So, why include the villain at all?

Unless the story is parody, nothing is as disappointing as a story where a villain succeeds or fails because of something stupid. It can be funny, it can be an oversight or mistake or gap in knowledge, but it should never be because of stupidity. That tells me that the writer couldn’t up with something clever because they’re stupid—they used a complex narrative device without thinking it through—and they expect me (a member of the audience) to applaud. Absolutely not.

Villains' strengths and weaknesses should be directly tied either to the central theme of the story or their opponent's character arc.

Building off the last point, a villain should be competent in a narratively convenient way and have convenient weaknesses. In many story structures, a villain antagonist is a wonderfully efficient option for the protagonist hero to grapple with a key character development or plot climax. The best villains are those whose weaknesses are ones that the protagonist is capable of exploiting; it helps establish the protagonist as an appropriate perspective for this story. However, that logic needs to work both in the direction in which it was planned, and backwards from the opposite view.

First, the writer needs to choose a villain that suits the protagonist and the plot. I’ve lined out plenty of reasons for that above, but in short, the villain should be actively engaging in behavior or building to a turning point that will impact the ending that the protagonist desires. It doesn’t need to impact the protagonist directly, but there must be a clear motivation to interfere with the villain’s plan. Thus, the villain’s strengths should be relevant to the theme or opponent’s arc—it’d be a waste of opportunity otherwise.

Once the protagonist’s needs are established, the writer needs to change perspective: the villain needs to make sense within the narrative whether the protagonist does anything or not. Generally speaking, any person would prefer a plan with requirements they would not struggle to complete. People like to do things they’re good at. A mad scientist is going to prefer mad science over politics. A corrupt politician is going to prefer bribery over a ray gun. If the plot demands a particular course of action, the villain should be designed to be someone who prefers that method and is damn good at it. Even in situations where a villain is forced to resort to something they don’t excel in, there should be a logical explanation for how this arrangement came about. Failure to achieve this breaks immersion.

The difficult part of discussing this facet is that it is the most versatile aspect of villain characterization, so there aren’t any rigid requirements. I wouldn’t even go so far as to say that a villain should be a foil because that limits them to mirroring a specific character. They don’t need to be foils! Sometimes, a villain should be bigger than that: Sauron in The Lord of the Rings trilogy could be compared to numerous protagonists, but he is not a direct foil of one, while lesser villains (Denethor, Steward of Gondor) in the books are.

For a vague example, let's say I want to write a story about a slave who is leading a revolution. The obvious themes would be the necessity of violence to wrest freedom from oppressors, that legal systems are always biased in favor of those already in power, that most people will accept oppression of others for the sake of economic benefit, and so on. There are many potential villains, but the best ones would be the owner, the lawman (chief of police, sheriff, judge, etc.), and/or the head of government (mayor, governor, etc.). Regardless of which one I choose, their respective strengths (color of law, weaponry, support of the ruling class) will require the protagonist to address his own weaknesses (lack of legal authority, resources, and social capital), which gives the plot shape. Those are the parts that will be addressed in the rising action of the story. In addition, the villain's weaknesses (over-reliance on demoralized slaves, personal immorality, bigotry, cruelty, apathy, etc.) each give options for what strengths to give the protagonist. Perhaps the protagonist's unfailing courage and camaraderie stokes the other slaves' will to resist and fight back, and it becomes a story about greater numbers overcoming the villain's strengths. Another option is that the protagonist stoops just as low and has no moral or social high ground, and the point of the story is that freedom should be achieved by any means necessary by anyone willing to fight for it. Yet another option is that the protagonist makes contact with a third-party, and they cooperate to overthrow the villains, because the villains' institution of slavery could not be tolerated by anyone with an unbiased view (outsiders with no stake in it). Whichever possibility is chosen, the strengths/weaknesses of the villains put a tint on the overall message: the owner would focus the story on individuals and allow for more intimate exchanges between characters, the lawman would be more of a philosophical story with impersonal distance, and the head of government would focus on social values and how to change the will of other people. I need to choose the villain that allows me to explore my preferred protagonist arc, and I need to choose the plot line that matches well with that conflict.

But that’s a bit cerebral. A simpler example: Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. He’s sexist, only wants Belle because she’s the prettiest girl in the village, and his ego demands the best of everything. There’s literally nothing else he finds attractive about her. He’s charismatic and appeals to the toxic masculinity culture of the town. He does not value intelligence or kindness, so many potential options for getting what he wants are closed to him. In the climactic conflict, Gaston whips the town into a mob by using his charisma to deceive them, has Belle and her father imprisoned in their own home, and goes to kill the Beast so that he can claim the mantle of hero and Belle for himself. Belle uses her intelligence to improvise an escape, and her kindness spurs the Beast out of inaction after it was established that nothing else had ever swayed his heart. While there may be other things to criticize in this story, Gaston is an excellent example of making strengths and weaknesses relevant to plot, themes, and other characters. Everything he did was as bad as, if not worse than, the Beast, his conflict with Belle allowed her agency and traits to shine, and his devotion to violence and ego caused his own death rather than Belle resorting to his methods.

When that doesn't happen, it feels like a plot hole. Why hype up a villain to excel at worming his way into powerful social circles and then he never attempts to manipulate anyone in any scenes? Why make a villain so egotistical as to ignore security flaws in a key scene and then never have anyone take advantage? I’m not talking about trope subversion; I mean when a strength/weakness is added and then ignored. It's such an intrinsic part of the process for constructing a villain that failing to flesh it out demonstrates poor writing skills.

The villain’s ending is consistent with the theme of the story.

I truly do not care if villains get “what they deserve” in a story. Can it be satisfying to see villains contribute to their own failure? Yes, but they don’t deserve anything. They’re not real. Even if they were, people don’t deserve anything. You can’t earn an ending. The world doesn’t work that way, stories don’t work that way, and that line of thinking isn’t interesting. Catharsis is not about a character getting what the audience thinks they should, it’s about evoking emotional satisfaction, and limiting that assessment to whether characters get what they “deserve” is narrow-minded.

Because stories are not real, everything is on the table. The writer can do whatever they want to every single character. The most important issue is whether the outcome makes sense for what issue the villain was highlighting.

For example, if the villain is meant to be a focal point of corruption in a government structure, and the highlighted problem is that this person was tolerated by others because of the benefits they provided, deposing only that villain doesn't really fix anything. The people that let this happen are still there, and they'll find another person to do it the same way. Instead, a better resolution would be to turn that villain against their enablers, whether by threat or force or agreement. Maybe the villain is willing to testify against co-conspirators in exchange for a lenient sentence in a court of law. By definition, leniency means that the villain does not receive a fair punishment, but the problem is resolved and won't happen again. That demonstrates that the writer actually understands the issue they chose to address and that they're telling a story about a solution to a problem rather than fulfilling a base desire for punishment.

Of course, sometimes a key point of the story is wish fulfillment for punishment. The Count of Monte Cristo is probably the best revenge story ever written, with every single villain getting their comeuppance due the machinations of the wronged protagonist after returning from imprisonment and exile. Even better, the protagonist orchestrated the events so that each villain ultimately causes their own end through willful greed, ego, and cruelty. However, the key question is whether or not the protagonist is a villain too: at what point will he stop? When is it no longer justice? What about innocent bystanders? When faced with the decision whether to legally kill the only son of both his hated enemy and his former lover, Edmond Dantes finally decides to stop. This differentiates him from the villains, and the story allows the audience to determine whether to attribute it to morality, love, duty, etc. The story includes wish fulfillment because the ongoing audience consideration is “How many more times are you going to wish for this?” It felt good, it felt just, they “deserved” it, the world was better for it, but the point was that Dantes had other needs that he was ignoring by focusing solely on revenge. A core theme was that a desire for revenge is not inherently wrong—it springs from injustice and a desire for equitable results—but it isn’t the right answer to every problem. The villains’ ends fit in perfectly for the characters individually, the themes of the story, and the cultural backdrop of France before, during, and after the tumult of the Napoleonic wars.

Further, sometimes the “end” is just a pause. Many serials need the villain to remain a threat for future use, so that thread is left unresolved. This isn’t necessarily poor writing. However, those villains shouldn’t be intricately tied to a theme that requires a definitive resolution by the end of that phase. This type of arrangement requires extra planning because bringing back the villain will evoke those old themes, so either reviving the question or tying it into a new one is vital to a good story.

If included, a villain redemption arc must have 4 components: (1) an external stimulus causing (2) a choice to deviate from their plan and (3) a corresponding shift in their worldview, and those result in (4) action that matches the strength of their new conviction.

A proper villain redemption arc always has the same core message: people can change. It has absolutely nothing to do with earning anything because change comes from within; as soon as external approval comes into play, it’s no longer about change, it’s about relationships. The quality of a redemption arc has nothing to do with anyone other than the person being redeemed. If this type of arc doesn’t suit the story, it should not be included.

The four points listed above are necessary because they tie the villain’s arc to the plot. Why is the villain changing during this story? What does the writer believe is needed to correct course? Does the writer actually believe that people can change?

The external stimulus is necessary because of the above point that the villain should make things worse if left unchecked. That check doesn’t necessarily need to be the protagonist, an opponent, or even a character; it could be a sudden change in circumstances, like war breaking out or a new faction coming into play. Maybe the villain achieves their goal and something goes horribly wrong. Regardless of the specifics, the cause should something other than internal rumination. A villain coming to a sudden epiphany in a moment of daydreaming is too convenient, to the point that it lacks any dramatic effect. That tells me the writer doesn’t actually understand why the villain would choose this course of action in the first place. Demonstrating what would shake them out of it is not easy, but it is vital to a proper redemption arc. Something new needs to break the villain’s intentions apart.

The next two parts can happen in any order: shifting perspective first and then a choice, or choice first while ideas solidify, or both at the same time. Maybe there’s multiple steps along the way for each. Any of those can be believable.

The shift in perspective means that the villain understands that they had made the wrong choice. Whatever the new problem is, they couldn’t stop it, can’t fix it, or need something they had discarded, and the reason for that deficiency is their current course of action. The new development is undeniable proof that they were going to fail or already had failed. They don’t need to accept this psychological change immediately—the timing and fallout should match the genre—but it should happen in response to that external stimulus. In addition, even if they grapple with it as the story progresses, the villain should not fall back into old ways over minor problems. They can ruminate or even obsess over inconsequential issues, but actions should be taken only for something significant.

Once the dramatic revelation has occurred, the villain needs to have agency for how to deal with this dilemma. Maybe the story even involves the villain fighting for that agency before they exercise it, and that may happen in tandem with coming to terms with their shattered perspective. There should be at least one moment (perhaps several) where the villain has the opportunity to revert to their original plan or take a new path. That said, making such a choice under threat of death or harm isn’t very effective. Choice also requires more than one option, so I don’t find “you’re going to die anyway” circumstances to be powerful redemption arcs. They can be suitable for tragedies, but they carry the implication that villains have to face death before they will change, which is not going to mesh well with many themes absent some other redemption arcs in the same story to compare it to.

Finally, there needs to be action that matches both the villain’s new beliefs and the theme of the story, and the scale needs to be appropriately comparable to the villain’s prior intentions. Maybe the villain drains hoarded resources to support the protagonist’s gambit, emphasizing the need to collaborate with and trust in others. Maybe the villain becomes a double-agent and sabotages the corrupt empire from within, demonstrating that good is not served by people refusing to engage with an ongoing problem. Maybe the villain redesigns their ray gun to kill cancer cells, so the message is that technology is only as harmful as the people using it. Whatever they do, the villain’s redemption arc will be just as important to the audience as the protagonist’s arc. They need to make an impact worthy of that effect.

I’ll also note what I omit from this: emotion, forgiveness, and justice. Emotions are irrational, so I don’t buy into the idea that any character needs to experience a specific kind of emotion for a certain kind of arc or story to be high quality. Choices do not require emotional congruence. As for forgiveness and justice, redemption comes from within, and these two facets require input from other characters or social groups. Redemption does not need someone else’s permission or validation. While these three things can certainly add to a redemption arc—and I’m sure people have preferences—they are not necessary aspects. It is entirely possible to construct a quality redemption story without them.

Schindler’s List is essentially a villain redemption story: Oskar Schindler (the protagonist) was a businessman who joined and benefited from the rise of the Nazi Party. He held fascist leaning ideals (people as resources, efficiency and profit over all else, etc.) and bribed officials to get his way, but he wasn’t overtly cruel. His experiences with the Jews forced to work for him gradually changed his perspective, and he took small steps to make their lives easier or safer—against the wishes of the Nazi government. Eventually, he reached the point that he decided to engage in treason to try to save as many as he could, not only spending his ill-gotten fortune on selfless bribes, but also risking his own life, freedom, and station. There are several scenes that emphasize what would be done to him if his plots were discovered. Schindler ultimately saves hundreds of Jews and is not destroyed for it. Those he saved even work to protect him from the consequences of his past deeds. But his final scene shows that Schindler is crushed by his own conscience and laments that he could have done more. He was introduced as an apathetic, greedy villain, and his gradual change to a man genuinely heartbroken by the genocide and remorseful for his participation was well-paced and cathartic. In particular, his role as a villain (a “bystander” profiting from genocide) contrasted well with his later choices (sacrificing his fortune to save those he exploited).

In addition, the villain switching sides does not mean that it’s intended as a redemption arc. Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds absolutely betrayed the Nazis, but he did it to save his own hide and talked his way into a rather comfortable retirement over it. There was no internal crisis, no new belief system. Landa simply realized that he had a better chance at a preferred future, so he remorselessly served up people to be killed, just like in the opening scene. Nothing had changed. That worked wonderfully in a film about stopping violence with violence and the emotional dissatisfaction of letting vile people live after they had terrorized and slaughtered innocent people. So the protagonists carved a swastika into Landa’s forehead as a warning of who he was. Is any of that good? That isn’t even the right question for a Tarantino film, but again, it was not intended as a redemption arc; it was very clearly intended to mean that some people don’t change and we may have to let them live anyway.

Redemption arcs don’t suit every story or villain. They take a lot of narrative focus to pull off well, and many of the thematic implications can be handled in a protagonist’s arc anyway. A lot of writers tend to fuck up by making the protagonist’s forgiveness or approval a necessary part of the story, ignoring that they’ve then added a message that change is only legitimate when recognized by others. (Note: Schindler’s List dodges this because Schindler denies himself the catharsis of forgiveness.) That said, many audiences like that message. They like the idea that their permission is needed for a bad person to change. I have a strong aversion to that mentality, especially when it conflicts with other themes in the story.

Is the writer telling a story about redemption, or is it about a religious concept of sin and atonement? Forgiveness and acceptance? Is this really about change, or is it about punishing people who hurt your favorites? Change is something we do, and there is value in that even when there is no atonement, forgiveness, or punishment waiting at the end.

Villains should not be included in a story if any of the above causes distraction or discordance with the main plot line.

Villains aren’t necessary for every story. If you want to go with conflict structures, a person vs. world or person vs. self story doesn’t need a villain. Villains can be added to those stories, but they need to represent something about the world/self for that to make sense. They are too dramatic and time-consuming to toss in as an afterthought. If there is nothing else you take from this post, take this: if a villain doesn’t add substance to your story, don’t include one.

I can tell when the writer is just checking boxes. None of these things can be done well without a certain level of affection for both the art of storytelling and the story being told. It’s not even difficult; it just takes effort. There’s an incredible amount of stories out there to engage with, and I’m never going be pleased to put up with a writer’s checklist villain.

Write what you want, and if you don’t want to include a narrative device that requires effort, then don’t.

[tiredofthehumanlife]

Draco malfoy headcannons

flavor: fluffy and smutish but they're separated so you won't get jump scared

Also I'm returning to my roots with this stinky mf okay I have writers block

Sfw

Liked you in the hallway crush type of way yk like when there’s that one person in the halls that you're like “god damn, anyways where’s my next class”

Never even tried to speak to you was just like ” I'll gaze from afar”

The only problem is that he has major resting bitch face so you were sat there racking your brain over what you could’ve possibly done to this random daddy’s money kid (like this isn't set in a private school but LOOK OVER THERE)

Confessed by just standing in front of you and 👁👁 before handing you an outdated birthday card with a 100 dollar bill inside with a note inside that was basically just him like “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLE-“

You did give him a shot and he did actually speak words to you

bitchest bitch ever yall bicker (lovingly of course) 24/7

“did you for real just copy off of me?” “Okay well at least I don’t have daddy issues” “You cannot be talking and you know it”

He gives stick bug vibes yk

does not comprehend normal human life you could be complaining about doing laundry and he is like “Just have one of the elves do it?” and you are like “😶right so-“

just assume you have the answer to everything bc like you’re his partner? tf?

“how far away is Saturn in kilometers?” “They don't measure distance with kilometers, Draco, you dumbass. It’s called lightyears.” ‘right so in lightyears then?” “How tf am I supposed to know?”

he’ll hear a crash and look to you like you know what’s going on and you’ll turn his head back

I'm not one to assume someone’s sexuality but it's very much bisexual for the both of you (he likes guys and you know it)

a hot guy will pass and you both turn to each other like {insert Bratz meme here}

has created mustard gas on accident

laughs at his own jokes unironically (he is the only one laughing)

will try to be relatable and it's just like “yk that moment when your Prada shoes get gourmet chocolate on them”

makes up new names for your stuffed animals bc he thinks all the ones you picked were “lame”

his beauty sleep comes above everything else

Once Theo woke him up (there was a fire they had to evacuate) and the next night you found him hovering a pillow over Theo’s face you tackled him to the ground

Only knows how to play dominoes no card games or anything only dominoes

Bought you guys matching sleep masks

And embroidered PJs

And bunny slippers

PDA hater

He’ll sit next to you at max when you're around lots of people when you're just around his friends he's down with hugs and hand-holding holding maybe a cheek kiss but that's it

Alone is a different story he's attached to you he's actively trying to crawl under your skin as we speak

Terrified of bugs he's standing on a chair and screaming the second he sees one

Pays you in kisses when you take the bug outside (after you wash your hands)

Prefers baths over showers

Hates dogs and growls at them more than they growl at him

Only likes cats in theory bc they leave hair on his clothes

He's a reptile man

has owned a bearded dragon and will own more

Cold mf you wanna look me in the eye and tell me he has good circulation

Presses his cold ass feet against you while you're on the brink of sleep so confused when you swing your hand back to smack him

“I'm just cuddling you?”

“Cuddle somebody else fucking ice cube bitch ass”

Every single night

He sleeps on his back with his hands on his stomach like he's going to get lowered into his casket it's embarrassing

Thinks he knows how to shake ass and then when he tries (and fails) he considers never speaking to anyone ever again

Has gotten flirted with while he was with you and he just stared at them blankly bc he couldn't tell if it was happening

And then he left the room entirely

Walks in on people butt ass naked bc he has not learned how to knock (only child syndrome)

Stares a lot

He has nothing better to do so he’ll just come join you in your dorm and 👁hi👁

You've learned to block him out so he’ll scare the shit out of you

Sure he doesn't know how to flirt but he has money so he makes up for it

If you look at anything longer than three seconds he's following behind you with his card and the other twelve bags you have

This does have you ending up with things you didn't want so your friends love your random gifts

One of them will walk into potions with a luxury purse and one of the other kids will be like “tf Did you get that?” and your friends are like “🫵” And you're like “I didn't want it” So some of the student body does hate your guts just a little

favorite food is plain white rice

Thinks that acrylic nails go under the skin yk like in those videos with the fake hands pushing the nails up the finger yeah he thinks that actually happens to people

Jaw on the floor when you explain to him that's not what happens

Nsfw kinda

Down to three-way and will NOT let you forget

“I met this cute girl at the-” “I'm down. 😐”

“Oh did you see Harry this morning he was-” “Do you think he'd hook up with us?😐” “Babe. We've talked about this” “just once please”

Has asked you to peg him

unless you have a dick then he's asking for one of those two-way things (you're on my blog you know what I'm talking about dude)

Sub SUCK MY DICK DUDE HES A SUB SHUT UP

Actively begging sobbing on his knees “Please baby Please being so good please”

Would be a swinger and he'd have a pineapple on his front porch

Sorry

Has dabbled in the lockerrooms

Will ask you if the boys can watch him hit and you said only if they see him at his lowest begging and pleading for you he is silent as of now (give him two weeks)

Type of bitch to be covered in hickeys and when someone is like “What happened? To your neck?” and he's like “Literally what are you talking about?” will gaslight them into thinking there's nothing on his neck

Prefers cuddling naked but hates not immediately being in the bath after sex so he has to battle himself in his head

Can't dirty talk he's like “You look so nice when you're not in clothes? Do you like my wee wee?” and you're sitting there “bitch your what?”

Have resulted in him not being allowed to talk

Quickies number one hater

Needs his time to get into pussybitchboy mode

Okay bye

[calisources]

FANTASY MAGIC & ROMANCE SENTENCE QUOTES. various quotes about romance, and sometimes magic in a fantasy setting from various media. you can change names and pronouns according to how you see it fit.

“Rejection is an opportunity for your selection.”

“They say the soul cannot rest until it finds its match. Then it ignites.”

“You don't love someone because they're a dream of perfection. You love them because of the way they meet their challenges, how they struggle to overcome."

“She's magic, (name). A single flower blooming in an endless desert.”

"Is loving me really enough to endure everything you have to just to be with me?"

"Do you really want to put yourself through this?"

"You are under my protection now, and I protect what is mine.”

“I cannot come with you, my prince."

“You're exquisite. You're transcendent. And you are mine.”

"A man even a wealthy, beautiful, magically gifted princess would be pleased to call her own."

“One is always on time if time doesn't matter to them, little mouse”.

Call him. Claim him. Speak his Name. Make him thine before all others.”

“You think a courtship and a hunt are two separate things. They're not.”

“I’d once believed I could enamor her. But ’twas I, indeed, who was enamored.”

“Here it comes; the light chasing away the darkness.”

“Your mistake is thinking that without magic, I'm defeated.”

“The gods are nothing more than the monsters who happened to hold the pen."

"The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet."

"As they say, a jeweler knows the uncut gem. And I am. And she was. And so."

"In a perfect world, you could fuck people without giving them a piece of your heart. "

"In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect."

"In many ways, unwise love is the truest love."

"You are the harbor of my soul's journeying."

"We should have taken our chances back then, when we were young and beautiful and didn't even know it."

"If you were a lord, you should be my lord, And the same if you were a thief."

“Take me with you. For laughs, for luck, for the unknown. Take me with you.”

“Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically–to those who hardly think about us in return.”

"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." 

 "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

[menonlywrestling]

Montana 2001

Batchelor Arthur (51), works as a delivery driver for a furniture company. He didn't do very well academically, and still lives in the town he was raised in. He always dreamed of becoming a Pro wrestler, but life got in the way and it never happened for him. He's a total pro wrestling nerd and goes to every live pro event in his county. Mostly he keeps himself to himself, and in his spare time, apart from watching wrestling, he works out in the small make shift gym in his basement. Occasionally he'll meet other men out of state, that he chats to online, for private pro wrestling bouts.

A few months ago, Jonathan (29) joined the same company, and was assigned to Arthur to help with the larger deliveries. Initially very quiet, he's starting to come out of his shell and chat a bit more when they're out in the van. Arthur isn't the most talkative either, but they're relaxed around each other a bit more now and there isn't as much awkwardness. They have some things in common. Working out, Sci fi and action movies. The gossipy receptionist at their company told Arthur that Jonathan was recently separated from his wife, and had moved to town to start over.

Arthur has become a bit infatuated with Jonathan. He's always checking him out when he's not looking, admiring his thicc, muscular body. Those eyes, those arms, the sexy Southern accent, that BIG ASS and package. He jerks off every night, imagining what Jonathan would look like in Pro gear. If he could wrestle, what would his favourite hold be? Would he be a heel or a jobber? He fantasises about them wrestling each other. About them being a tag team and winning the regional belts. About them making love in the ring after a bout.

One day, Arthur mentioned that he was going to a pro wrestling show after work. Jonathan asked if he could tag along. He had no plans. He doesn't really know anyone else in town. At the show they're having a great time. It's a Friday night, they're drinking beers and laughing. While watching the action, Arthur is impressed with Jonathan's commentary and knowledge of Pro wrestling. When he mentions this, Jonathan tells him that he wrestled Pro for a bit when he was younger, to earn some extra cash. His grandfather was a pro wrestler and taught him when he was a kid. He had a ring set up in his basement that they would practice in.

Arthur cannot believe what he's hearing. He's impressed, and incredibly turned on. He also notices that during the main event, a violent and bloody chain match between two enormous hot muscle bears, that Jonathan is trying to hide his massive hard on. Arthur questions if this is this really happening. Is he imagining this? Is this wishful thinking? Has he had too many beers? The guy's straight, after all.

After the show, Jonathan thanks Arthur for letting him tag along. He's had a great time. He says he's been feeling a bit lonely. "maybe I should start wrestling again, to get out of the house?" he says, jokingly.

As they make their way to the taxi rank, Arthur asks if he has plans for the weekend. Jonathan shrugs his shoulders "no, sir" he replies. Arthur pauses, then asks Jonathan if he'd like to come to his house tomorrow night. "We can order some pizzas, drink some beers and watch the WWF PPV on cable, if you'd like?"

J: "Sounds great, thanks, that would be cool"

A: "You know, I'm not a bad pro wrestler myself. I've been wrestling for years, on the underground scene. I was thinking that maybe, just for a bit of fun, we could have a bit of a tussle, were kinda the same size and....

Before he could finish, Jonathan says "I'll bring my gear".

To be continued?

[mcyt-yaoi-exchange]

SIGN UPS FOR THE MCYTBLR YAOI EXCHANGE HAVE OPENED!

To participate in this event, please join our discord for easier communication.

Link to the FAQ for our gifting requirements

As this might be someone first time signing up via AO3's gift exchange matching system, this will be a detailed guide on how to do so.

You can edit your sign ups until they close August 7 at 11:59pm EST.

Guide on how to sign up underneath the cut!

Guide for Sign-Ups!

Link to collection where you sign-up from

Highlighted below is where you click to sign-up

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Ordering of requests does not matter, they all have the same priority. You will be creating/receiving (1) one gift.

There are several different ways to fulfill the minimum requirements if you cannot for whatever reason, like having character-specific or pairing-specific requests if you are not in enough fandoms.

A pairing-specific example would be ZITS (Hermitcraft) and ZITS (Life Series), which could be separated out into two different requests.

Below is a Scott Smajor specific request example focusing on Empires SMP and Life Series.

You can even customize your request to include crossovers (this should be one of your 4-10 requests).

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For ratings, you have to choose one or both of the options available (Gen and Explicit). We are purely filtering for NSFW content.

If they only select Gen, that means they only want a non-explicit piece. If people are opting into explicit that means they're okay with NSFW, when you choose explicit AO3 will default to showing E in the symbols quadrant.

Description Box:

This is where you list out your DNW (Do Not Wants), wants, and prompts in as much detail as you like.

Add here if you wanted to clarify anything like pairing, since they all had to be unique— meaning it can't be repeated for a request if you used it in another request.

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Treats:

Treats are additional gifts that you can make on top of your assigned gift, either to another person or to the collection itself. They have no minimum requirement.

Treats are opt-out, please write somewhere on your requests that you do not want treats.

In the end this is what your request would look like to your gifter. This was for a different event so the formatting is slightly different.

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If you have any further questions or run into problems submitting please use #questions-for-the-mods channel on discord.

[babyseraphim]

BABYSERAPHIM’S DBDA MASTERPOST

so, the show's been cancelled, i know. but if they're not gonna make any more content, then by god, i'm gonna fucking do it myself.

~

Music Analyses

1910's Music: Edwin Payne Style The Doll Spider & The Blue Danube Waltz How did Edwin listen to music in the 1910's? What were Edwin's first/favorite piano pieces to play?

~

Playlists

Charles & Edwin Crystal Niko Esther Monty

~

Fanfics

my healing needed more than time beautiful fanart: ch. 1 - ch. 4 - ch 10

Chapters: 11/? Word count: 68.9k

After tangling with the spirit of a mad scientist, Edwin is left with a seven-year-old Charles that has no memory of him or their afterlife together. Edwin learns about Charles’s childhood in steps, as Charles finds his way back to the family he’s built by working through the trauma of his past.

~

dye it all, rosary beautiful fanart: ch. 1

Chapters: 2/2 Word count: 9.2k

Edwin doesn't understand how trauma works. He and Charles learn the hard way. (A fic based on the long-lasting consequences of the Lust circles of Hell on Edwin's psyche)

~

your virtue's my vice

Chapters: 1/1 Word count: 3k

Charles spent a full year making making sure Edwin was comfortable with intimacy. Now, Edwin wants to know why Charles never talks about himself. Sequel to dye it all, rosary

~

foolish flame beautiful fanart

Chapters: 1/1 (+ fanart) Word count: 5.6k

Orb-based will-o'-the-wisp mythology case fic written for Painland Week. Charles finds out what it's like to be the brains for a day, and Edwin is enraptured by his partner's endless talents. They kiss about it.

Overloaded

Chapter: 3/3 Word count: 9.1k

The aftermath of being used as a witch's magical battery has left Edwin's spectral body wracked with daily pain. Despite Crystal's protests, he does not think that Charles needs to know.

By Lantern’s Light

Chapters: 3/3 Word count: 13.6k matching playlist

Edwin is kidnapped by a demon during a case, leaving Charles and Crystal to pick up his trail. It takes them four days to find him. AKA, a heartbreaking story of love and near loss told from three separate perspectives.

I'm So Aces at Babysitting

Chapters: 2/2 Word count: 3.7k

Edwin babysits little Charles, and Charles babysits little Edwin. They go to the planetarium and the skate park, respectively.

~

All of the below fics are part of my pre-canon series and should be read in order

The Case of the Selkie’s Skin

Chapters: 4/4 Word count: 14.1k matching playlist

Charles and Edwin are hired by a recently deceased selkie to track down her skin, which was stolen from her and hidden away by her husband before he passed on. Charles finds that her story hits a little too close to home.

Victrola Blues

Chapters: 1/1 Word count: 3.6k

"[Edwin’s] past with music had unfortunately set him down a road that eventually ended with being murdered and imprisoned in Hell for seventy years. Most days, Edwin cannot help but believe that if his love of music hadn’t been so all-consuming, he may have gone on to live a full life."

The Case of Eros’s Arrow

Chapters: 4/? (not likely to be finished) Word count: 13.2k matching playlist

Charles and Edwin are hired by a deity of love four days before Valentine's Day to seek out a stolen magical item. What could possibly go wrong?

Series OC Masterpost

[cod-thoughts]

I'm sorry to hear you're having a rough day Q !!! I hope things get better for you soon, you should treat yourself to something nice in the meantime <3

I don't know if this is really a prompt, more like me spilling some random idea at you, but If this can help as a distraction:

Nik and Price who have decided to go on one of their hush hush black ops together. No backups, no one to pick them up, it's just them. It's dangerous, they know it, they know the risk, but who they're after is too important.

They knew the risk, even when they get separated, coms dead, and Price finds Nik laying on the floor, beaten down, bleeding, three bullets in his bulletproof vest. Nik is almost passed out but tells him he's fine and to go after the man they're here for, but John refuses, letting the guy go, despite what they risked to get him, and takes Nik home.

What follows is a long night of taking care of a bruised Nik, whose ego is hurt just as much as his body is, and who cannot understand why John of all people would let an important target escape to help him, when he wasn't even on the verge of death or anything. Two stubborn men who are very much in love just going at it.

yeah since six am this morning every thing that couldve gone wrong has gone wrong and its still going wrong lmao i made tea like 20mins ago to try to make myself feel better and the lid on my honey came off so i had to clean honey off of my desk :)

this brought me immense joy hehehe i wrote a little snippet for this idea it just came out of my brain i didnt intend to write anything but here we are pfft:

John finishes wrapping the bandage around Nik's arm, his hands steady despite the storm raging in his chest. Nik winces as he shifts, propped up against the couch, his face a patchwork of dried blood and bruises.

"You should have gone after him," Nik says, his voice hoarse but cutting. "We had him, John. You let him go because of me."

Price’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t look up, instead busying himself with the med kit. “I made the call, Nik. Let it go.”

“I was not dying,” Nik insists, a flicker of anger in his pale eyes. “You did not have to—"

“I wasn’t losing you.” John’s voice is low, rough, but the weight behind it silences Nik.

Nik studies him, the line of his shoulders, the way his hand lingers on a bandage like he’s bracing for another argument. “I am not fragile, you know,” Nik says quietly.

“Didn’t say you were,” John counters. He finally looks at him, his blue eyes hard but honest. “But I’ve buried too many people to risk you being another. Call me selfish, but I wasn’t bloody leaving you there.”

Nik scoffs, leaning his head back against the couch with a grimace. “Selfish? You? No. Stupid, maybe.”

“Say what you like,” John mutters, grabbing a wet cloth to clean the blood off Nik’s cheek. He works with a gentleness that doesn’t match his gruff tone. “You’re here. That’s what matters.”

Nik huffs, but there’s no heat behind it. “You will regret it tomorrow,” he murmurs, eyes closing as John’s hand steadies his face. “Letting him go.”

John’s lips twitch into a faint, humourless smile. “Maybe,” he admits. “But not as much as I’d regret losing you.”

Nik opens his eyes at that, his expression softening despite himself. “You are impossible, you know that?”

John sets the cloth aside, his hand lingering for a moment on Nik’s jaw, a rare, unspoken moment between them. “So are you,” he replies. “Guess we’re even.”

The tension between them settles into something quieter, warmer, as John leans back, handing a blanket to Nik with a muttered, “Get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

Nik doesn’t argue this time, though his lips twitch into a faint smirk. “You are not going to hover all night, are you?”

John snorts, settling into the chair beside him. “Like hell I’m leaving you alone. Someone’s gotta keep you from doing something daft.”

Nik huffs out a soft laugh, wincing slightly. “And I cannot stop you?”

“Not a chance,” John replies, leaning back but keeping a watchful eye on him. “You’re stuck with me.”

[storiesbyjes2g]

Hey Jess! I had a question that I figured other people might want to know as well. I'm always amused at how your game matches sims up to marry or have children. I was wondering, what are your MCCC settings that make it happen so well? I have sims sitting in my 'manage households' and none of them have married or moved out with the 'in game' story progression. What's the secret sauce? 🤣

Howdy, partner! 🤭 It's funny you should ask me this because on my seven mile long list of video ideas I have is a short series about MCCC settings, and this is one subject I wanted to cover. But who knows when I'll get it together and actually record those videos lol. As you could imagine, the secret sauce has many ingredients, so I'll put the rest of this under the cut because it's a lot. Here we go!

Even though I said this is a multipart answer--and it is--I'm gonna split this up into two sections because marriages and pregnancies are two separate entities. Many of the settings are the same, and they both fall under the MC Pregnancy module, but they're still separate, and I think of them differently.

Marriages

Marriage Sim Selection

The first thing you should consider is who you want marrying and if your sims should be included in the process. As you've seen, I like seeing the other sims' lives progress, even if it's messy AF LOL. I especially love this happening in the aDOLTing save because I'm technically not allowed to play with anyone else but Luca right now. BUT, I don't want every single sim there is to get married, leaving no single sims for my sims to date. That's what happened in Emmy's generation and why I added Ali into the world because there were exactly TWO eligible males in the entire world, and I knew one of them would definitely not work out. In the Marriage Sim Selection part of MC Pregnancy, you can specify who can and cannot get married. I'm not gonna through each setting, but here are a few that are important enough to note.

Allow homeless marriage: Unless you regularly add your own sims to the world, I would enable this. Otherwise you probably won't have any marriages happening. This is disabled by default. Yes, you run the risk of your unplayable sims marrying someone hideous, but it's better than them dying alone, right? Plus you can always make them over. Your sim doesn't know the difference anyway lol.

Bypass dorm residents: If you don't enable this, your university students will be eligible for marriages!

Bypass played households: IF you want to be the matchmaker for your sims (the playable ones), turn this on! If you're flexible and don't mind surprises, turn it off.

Bypass active sim romances: This one needs to be in red lol. TURN THIS ON! If your sim is dating an NPC, and you don't want that sim to suddenly turn up married (I'm giggling...you know why), you need this on. I think it's on by default though. The only "gotcha" with this setting is that the relationship has to be significant. Lovebirds status isn't strong enough to prevent a marriage. I usually get my sims into an official relationship as soon as possible to prevent this.

Other Marriage

In the Other Marriage section (MC Pregnancy), there are settings for renaming, moving, etc. after marriage. You should definitely check out the settings to tailor it to how you want your world to be, but I want to call out Use Traits for Marriage. This is a newer setting that I enabled as soon as it launched. It doesn't make sense for Don Lothario to get married in every single save. He has the noncommittal trait! Turning this on will take a sim's traits into consideration before determining if they are eligible for random marriages.

Spouse Sim Selection

In this section, you can do things like allow polygamy and inter-family marrying, specify what % of marriages should be same sex, allow teen marriages, etc. Here are just a few settings I want to call out.

Occupancy Preference: It took me some years to figure this out, but this is honestly the key to my entire setup. This determines which group of NPCs are candidates for marriages and pregnancies by where they live. The choices are homeless only, prefer home sims, living in homes only, and none. I have prefer home sims on. I like neighbors dropping by and seeing them walking around, so I tend to put my sims' friends and sims I like into homes. This setting says when it's time for random marriages and pregnancies to occur, sims living in homes get first dibs. If none of them are eligible, then everyone else will have a chance. I used to have this on none, and I was experiencing waaaaaay too many random marriages. Like, good on the homeless sims for having lives lol, but they were snatching up every single eligible sim and I was like this has to stop lol.

Use Same Age-Group: I've gone back and forth about enabling or disabling this one and finally decided to enable it. This will keep your fresh from high school babies from getting married to someone with one foot in the grave! Sims will only marry other sims in the same age group as them. Back in the day I felt sorry for the elders because they're always single when they die. But I also felt sorry for the baby they married lol. True, when they croak, the kid can find new love, but they've wasted so much time being married to the old sim. So with this on, elders aren't completely out of luck. They can just only marry each other.

Pregnancies

Okay! Now that we know how to let sims get married, let's learn how to knock some up! 😂

I would check out the Offspring section of MC Pregnancy on your own just to get familiar with how you can shape your sims' families and even the children to a certain extent, but let's get to the important stuff.

Other Pregnancy

There's really good stuff in here like allow pregnancy aging, pregnancy duration, and random moods, but the only thing I want to call out is Use Traits for Pregnancy. This will take into account sims traits before they are marked as candidates. It won't prevent sims with the hates children trait from getting knocked up, but it will lower the percentage (which you can specify in another section, I think).

Partner Sim Selection

This is similar to marriage sim selection, and in here I also prefer home sims in the occupancy preferences. I also allow a veeeery tiny percentage for allow affairs. I like tea, what can I say? LOL Not everyone is faithful!

Pregnant Sim Selection

This is similar to spouse selection, and I do not allow homeless pregnancies for the same reasons I don't allow homeless marriages. I have all the same settings enabled from spouse selection, so revisit the above. Additionally, I use days until max age. This prevents a sim from getting pregnant X number of days from the end of whatever lifespan you specify is the oldest to be pregnant. I don't allow elder pregnancies, so this stops my adult sims from getting pregnancy X days from their elder birthday. My number is 10, but you pick whatever makes sense for your lifespans. I do this because I've had waaaaaaay too many sims get pregnant and have babies like the day before their elder birthday, and then they die before the kid is a teenager. I don't want orphans in my game! They make me sad. Besides, in real life, at a certain point women can't have children anymore, so I want my game to be the same.

Days to Run Checks: By default, MCCC will go through this process of marrying and knocking up sims 3 nights a week at midnight, but you can change that to whatever you like here. I thought 3 nights a week was WAY too often, so I only have it run once a week on Fridays.

Pregnancy Percentage: Just because the check runs every week doesn't mean I want someone getting pregnant every week. I'm not trying to create a baby boom. I cut the pregnancy percentage for young adults by half and adults by 75% (since IRL it's harder to get pregnant the older you get). I'm not afraid of a teen pregnancy story, so I do have teen pregnancies on and reduced their percentage by 85%. Even though I wouldn't mind telling that story, I don't want a teen pregnancy epidemic lol. I've had this enabled, but I've yet to have MCCC knock up a teen.

I think I skipped over Marriage Percentage but I use the same logic and similar percentages there too.

Valid Target Ages: HA! I see why I've never had a teen pregnancy lol. Even though I have it on, I never marked it as a valid target age. For whatever reason I only have YA selected. Not sure why. Probably for the best. If a teen pregnancy happens, I'd prefer it be my own sims.

Bonus

I love a little risk and challenge and surprise in my game. This is why I love using lumpinou's mods. I not a micromanager and prefer some things be left to chance. I like being able to try for a baby and it maybe not work that time. I don't like how predictable the game is. So, if you're feeling froggy, here are a few more settings for ya!

MC Woohoo - Woohoo Pregnancy

Risky Woohoo Percent: I used to have YA on 3%, but lumpinou has intergrated her mod with MCCC more, so I don't have this enabled anymore here. (it's controlled by her mod now and I think it's at 5% now). 3% might sound low, but MAN I've had so many oopsie babies on that little 3% lol.

Try for Baby Percent: I lowered mine to 65% just to add some variety and give my sims something to work toward. (No, this is not what caused Luca and Sophia's problem LOL).

MCCC Settings - Relationship Settings

I'm highlighting this because, even though I placed it in the bonus section, I highly recommend you check this out. These are the settings that control if/when sims move in together or break up!

Auto-Relationship Settings

Breakup Settings: You can specify which sim will move out and who the children will live with. Couple relationship change percentage applies a modifier that will make a couple's relationship (dating, not married) increase or decrease over time. I increased mine to 20%. Same thing with spouse relationship change except I only did 10% there.

Move-in Settings: I allow homeless romance move in and kept the romance level to the default. (sweethearts) I also increased the romance move-in percent to 25%.

Bypass Played Household: It should go without saying, but just in case it's not clear, I always want my playable households bypassed because I want to maintain control over what happens to them. About this, I have other households that I don't actually play (in the Pierson save) that I have as playable just to preserve them and prevent anything from happening. So to be clear, unless a household is marked as played, they will be subjected to the random marriages, pregnancies, and relationships.

A few months ago, I FINALLY decided to mark Emmy and Ali as unplayed, hoping that Ali would find love again and that Emmy and Dwayne would move in together. Instead, Alessia got knocked up, and Dwayne put his foot down LOL. Sorry dude. Wish I could help! Well, I could just move her in, but it actually doesn't feel right for the story...but that's an entirely different conversation lol.

Anyhoo...I hope you found something in this novel that helps to spice up your game! Thanks for asking!

[jackietaylorsversion]

Soulmates.

I was in a discord server earlier, and we got to talking about the Yellowjackets as soulmates, and I thought I'd share those thoughts here, just a nice little put together catalogue of all those thoughts put together. I might add to this, too, as more pairings and relationships come to me.

For the record, I want to point out that I think that all of these characters are soulmates, far beyond ship dynamics, far beyond romance. What makes up the insides of one makes up the insides of the others because they are all the same: teenage girls trapped in either growing or decaying bodies. Their souls are all mated to the others in some way or another.

Tai and Van are a pair. Two separate souls that are a part of a matched set, like socks. They can be worn mismatched, certainly, but they really are at their best together. Tai gives Van a purpose. Van calms Tai's "demons." They can exist without each other, live without each other, love without each other, but they just are at their best together.

Lottie and Nat are that sort of star-crossed soulmates, doomed soulmates. There's a red string of fate but its severed somewhere in the middle. They can be good for each other, laugh and smile and hold each other close. They can be the worst of each other, holding knives to each other's throats, laughing in the face of it. They're the epitome of a missed chance. What kind of missed chance? That's up for you to decide.

Misty and Nat are the kind of soulmates that don't seem like they'd match, but they work so good together. The believer and the skeptic (though who is who changes with the circumstance, the belief, the skepticism). Orange and blue. Salt and sweet. Chaotic good and lawful evil. They're diametrically opposed but in a way that makes sense, in a way that works together. They each feed off of what makes the other their opposite. One is running, the other is chasing. Of course one would die at the hand of the other.

Lottie and Laura Lee are the kind of soulmates where each thinks they are the worshipper while the other is the god. A prophet, a believer, a worship under the sun. Souls that just burn brighter around each other (and that pun was unintentional the first time but very intentional with the emphasis). Both want to help the other. Both want to hold the other. They are belief without boundaries personified. Each is Icarus. Each is the sun.

Tai and Shauna are soulmates in a way that recognizes "That is my person." Two people that have so much in common, who understand each other, who both recognize the want in the other. They have an understanding and a care for each other that's fierce. I see you, you see me, ad it might not be pretty, but we will be honest with each other. Especially as the two of them have aged; time has not erased their understanding of one another.

Jackie and Nat are soulmates in a way that isn't explored a lot in the show but has been discussed, from what I've seen, really well. Foils. Two sides of the same coin. Opposites. Rich girl, poor girl. Prude, slut. There are certain stereotypes around both of them that, from a glance, seem to play out. One only needs to look deeper to really see it. Unfortunately, from the show, we never really see the two of them see past their expectations of each other.

Jackie and Shauna. Two heads, one heart. I don't know where you end and I begin and all that. We've been there, we've done that. We know it by heart. They're not a pair because a pair implies separation, and there is none. You can cut out your heart, and you can even replace it, but it's never the same. They're two shattered halves of the same fucked up whole. When one piece is gone, the hole cannot be filled properly ever again. There are some species of worms that, when worm cut in half, can keep living as two separate entities. That does not negate the fact that it was once one whole creature. They're unhealthy together. They're unnatural apart. One did not live long enough to remedy either of these facts.

(If Jackie's heart was still beating, I know it would beat in time with Shauna's. I hope Shauna ate it to feel it beat with hers one last time.)

[royonninjago]

Ninjago AU: Shatter Squad

With the insanity that has been the Ninjago Community on Halloween 2024, I personally an most excited to see Jay join the Forbidden Five and the return of Morro. And ever since then, I've had this really cool idea for an AU. I haven't started it since season 3 of Dragons Rising hasn't even been officially revealed yet, but when the time is right I swear I'm gonna make it a reality no matter what BS I have to use to make it work.

After the Forbidden Five have been dealt with, Jay is separated into two separate people. There is Jay Walker, the Blue Ninja and Elemental Master of Lightning who went missing in the Merge, and Ranga, the Former Forbidden Sixth and unknowing Elemental Master of Electricity who first woke up in the Administration after the Merge.

As a result of the Ninja healing Jay's shattered soul, his shattered half and post-merge memories were expelled from Jay and found themselves a new body. That is when Ranga, a Wolf Formling who looks very much like Jay with wolf ears and a tail, was born.

The Element of Electricity is very similar to Lightning, in a way that Heat is similar to Fire. Electricity can't match the power of Lightning and the user cannot generate their own, but its a lot better at controlling the output of electricity and absorbing electricity from other sources. The Master of Electricity can also store computer data and intercept radio signals since they're both forms of communication that rely on electricity, although the Master cannot understand this information without something to output it to.

At the same time, Morro is wandering around aimlessly through the Merged Realms with no Element to wield, no Master to serve, no place to call home, and no purpose in life except to survive (Lore and Details TBD).

Ranga and Morro meet up and become quick friends due to their shared trauma of living in another Ninja's shadow and no longer being the Master of their original Elements. They start traveling through the Merged Realms together.

Ranga, having learned Shatterspin from the Forbidden Five themselves with no need for a Wolf Mask, offers to teach Morro. As a former Elemental Master, he still has the spark of mastery required to learn it and it won't leave him completely defenseless in these dangerous and uncharted Merged Lands.

While Ranga teaches him Shatterspin, Morro points out how unhealthy and self-destructive the ideology is. As a result, Ranga refines both himself and his teachings to become less violent and hateful while Morro is able to better defend himself with Shatterspin.

Ranga's version of Shatterspin becomes less about "Forcing the world to bend to your will" and "Strength is Everything", to "Being the change you wish to see in the world" and "Using your pain to prevent others from feeling it".

Ranga and Morro often train together, Morro practicing his Shatterspin and Ranga practicing fighting in his Wolf Form. Ranga's weapons of choice are Nun-chucks and a Sickle, depending on the situation (Jay's weapon of choice, a Kusarigama, split into two). Morro's weapons of choice are a dual bladed Glaive (like in the leaked set) and a retractable Bo staff (in memory of Wu).

Eventually they come across a village that is being harassed by Wolf Clan Remnants, Wolf Clan Warriors whose masks have fused to their faces, becoming these cursed, half-human half-wolf creatures, like the Lycan King but smaller and less formidable.

Ranga and Morro fight them off and the Wolf Clan Remnants retreat, and the village thanks them and gives them food and shelter. The village leader tells them that the Remnants will be back unless they deal with the Alpha. They promise food, money, and whatever they can spare to help them with their problem. Morro convinces Ranga to help and he reluctantly agrees because they are broke.

When the Remnants next attack, their Alpha comes with them to raid. Morro deals with the Warriors while Ranga faces off against the Alpha. Unlike the others, the Alpha's mask hasn't fully fused to their face, they have Shatterspin armor, and they can use the type of Shatterspin that a Wolf Mask provides. The Alpha's attacks are strong and relentless, but wild and uncoordinated.

During the fight, Ranga reaches his True Potential and discovers he's the Master of Electricity by switching his goal from beating the Alpha to saving him by removing the mask, accepting the part of himself that wants to help people instead of hiding it away out of fear of being left behind again. When he's pinned down by the Alpha, he absorbs the electricity of the village and uses it to subdue the Alpha, knocking them out. Ranga removes the Mask and the Alpha is revealed to be Cinder.

When Cinder awakens a day or two later, he's hostile to Ranga and Morro but explains his situation (Details TBD, but excessive use of the Wolf Masks made him lose control and his memory becomes hazy).

Ranga and Morro talk and decide that if left alone, Cinder will just keep using a Wolf Mask and eventually fully succumb to the Wolf Mask. They decide to train him in their way of Shatterspin in the hopes of leading him down a better path. Cinder jumps at the chance at learning the Five's true techniques, but Ranga warns him that he's teaching him HIS way of Shatterspin and that he must follow everything he says to the letter, much to Cinder's chagrin.

After talking to Ranga about finding his True Potential, Morro decides to follow a feeling he's been having and the trio decides to set out towards an area that has been experiencing bad storms ever since the Merge.

On their way to the storm, Ranga and Morro train Cinder, starting with getting him to calm down and learn patience and control. They give him an incense lantern on the end of a chain (like in his concept art) to learn discipline. At first Cinder thinks its stupid and beneath him, but reluctantly comes around when Ranga explains a storm that happens only once a decade is more destructive than a storm that happens every week because the people affected have less experience on how to deal with it. This Incense chain eventually becomes Cinder's weapon of choice, along with two Scimitars.

Eventually when they reach the edge of the Storm-lands, they explain their mission to a village leader who explains that the eye of the storm is the peak of a nearby mountain and offers them a reward if they can stop the storm that wrecks havoc on them constantly.

At the top of the mountain, the trio finds the Storm Amulet that went missing along with Wojira at the end of Seabound. Morro keeps it and learns that because he is the Former Master of Wind, he can tap into the powers of the Amulet as long as he keeps the Amulet on him (in this AU, the Amulet is only about 4 inches in diameter instead of the size of someone's entire torso).

After the mission is over, the trio decide to keep traveling together and helping the people of the Merged Lands, officially forming the Shatter Squad.

Eventually I wanna add two other members to Shatter Squad to mirror the Forbidden Five, but who those members are is TBD. The only other non-OC character I can think of adding is Jordana as the resident Magic User who can use Shatterspin due to Rox possessing her, but DR seems to already be doing something with her so I'm not confident in adding her just yet.

And that's it! Feel free to tell me what you think or to suggest some ideas of your own!

[fayewoodss]

Dream Team Ships and Colors

(This was all written in Discord. I tried to edit it for a post, but if anything reads awkwardly, just remember that.)

Though I'm not really a serious shipper, I have a lot of thoughts on the Dream Team ships and how their designated colors coincide with their personalities and the roles they play.

DNF are green and blue, colors that are analogous on the color wheel. One is a primary color, a color that cannot be mixed using other colors, and the other is a secondary color, a color that is only made by mixing two colors. Green being a secondary color also means that it can lean more yellow or blue depending on how much of each color is mixed in, so in a way it's less fixed than blue and more flexible and unpredictable. Now, I think Dream's signature green is honestly kind of horrible, but I think that speaks to his own fun chaos. Dream has things that he is particular about, has structures and routines, but he also prides himself in being unpredictable and setting people off. We see it a lot in his humor, but also in how he shows love and affection. You don't always know what's coming next, just like mixing colors and pigments can give you a hue you weren't expecting. There are many shades and tints of blue, of course, but it isn't nearly as malleable of a color as green is. Especially when George's blue is often depicted as a very pure, light cerulean. Referring to my friends' thoughts on DNF's dynamic in the past and especially in recent videos, George shows a lot protection toward Dream. Blue is a color a synonyms, so going from protection we can use synonyms and word association and go protection > safety > comfort > calm. Blue is often considered to be the calmest color, receding into the background but always there, always familiar, a constant to fall back on. Blue and green have a relationship where they could easily overpower each other depending on how much of each color is added to the mix, but blue will always be a part of green. Green cannot exist without blue.

SNF are orange and blue, colors that are complementary of each other, or opposites on the color wheel. Complementary colors are always fascinating because they are warm-cool color combinations that naturally match by being opposites, but still tend to clash for the same reason: being opposites. Another important thing about complementary colors is when you mix them together it will lower the intensity of the other color. So, mixing orange into blue can lower the intensity and saturation of the blue, and vice versa. With Sapnap and George, you have two intense personalities both when they're being silly and being serious. Because of this, a lot of small minded smooth brained people (/j) don't think they work as friends, let alone a ship. But I believe that by matching each other in intensity, they also manage to dampen and ground each other when necessary. In many ways, they play as equals to each other, intense or calm. Orange is also a secondary color, being mixed from red and yellow, so like green there is flexibility there, but it's not as unpredictable as green because both red and yellow are warm colors, so there is a solidity and stubbornness to Sapnap. George also has his own stubborn streak which I think is reflected in blue being a primary color, always the same and cannot be made with other pigments. I think the notes of the safety and comfort of blue also play into SNF but in a way that is more subtle because they even out when mixed. Orange and blue can exist separately, but together they are a striking combination that thrives in intensity and attention, and can melt into a muted murky hue that springs notes both of mystery and safety.

[actual-changeling]

hello and welcome back to angst time with alex, the series where i, alex, (hopefully) cause everyone severe emotional pain for funsies!

have a pre-arcadia ficlet because "you're making this personal" has been bouncing around my brain like a screensaver all day.

tagging @today-in-fic

———

You're making this personal.

Did she make it personal? Did she really? Even more than three weeks later, she still cannot answer her own question.

It had been personal, that much she knows for certain, no matter how much Mulder might try to deny it; the past is not what is spinning a web in her mind. 'Making' implies it hadn't been personal before, and Scully thinks about love confessions surrounded by chlorine and disinfectant, high school reunions, and a Christmas filled with ghosts.

If none of that had been personal, if all of it had been, what, professional? The mere idea feels like nails scratching on a chalkboard, fundamentally wrong and against everything she knows—everything she thought she knew, anyway. Doubts are infecting her heart and festering within her blood, a poison that can only be purged the same way it was injected.

Fault lines are tearing apart the ground underneath her feet, and in the aftermath of the earthquakes they lived through, she is still waiting for new tremors to appear. Meanwhile, Mulder is flipping through their newly assigned Arcadia files and cracking sunflower seeds between his teeth.

Every discarded shell is another foot of earth breaking away, another inch of dark nothingness added to the ever-growing chasm separating them.

You're making this personal.

Maybe she did, just like he did in the hallway right outside his apartment, and her skin itches with the need to get up to try to run away and away and away. 

Simply to see if he will let her disappear this time. If he will grab her wrist and make it personal again. If he will force her to listen to a door slam shut behind her back as she questions the last six years of their partnership.

Another sunflower seed cracks open, another imperceptible flinch runs through her fingertips.

A matching set of rings is glinting between them on the desk, fitted to their hands, and, somehow, she knows Mulder will make it more than personal. He never not made it personal, not when he started all the way back in Bellefleur, not almost a month ago, surrounded by the Lone Gunmen and despair.

Scully feels the weight of his gaze and resists the urge to snap at him; she can practically hear him attempt to profile her. She doubts he will get it right any time soon.

"How about Rob and Laura?"

A day of fake names and faker marriage stories flung across the office, a day of heavy silence and jokes she left hanging in the air. She considers throwing the file in his face and going home. She considers starting a fight and pushing his buttons until he gets angry enough to be mean to her. Again. Until one of them slips up and speaks the name that's dangling above them like the blade of their personal guillotine.

Until he tries to make it personal, because it isn't—not anymore, not the way it was, and they both know it.

Instead, she flips to the next page and crosses her legs; she is wearing too much black and hasn't touched a skirt in two weeks. Familiar armour made of fabric and shadows, of heels, frantic sidesteps to avoid his touch, and the refusal to meet his eyes.

Mulder jokes and pushes because that's who he is. Scully lets him because the ghost of them refuses to dissipate, lingering in the corners of every room they're in.

Because the true lie of personal interest is all they have left.

"Sure, fine." Her voice sounds faint and hollow, and another sunflower seed shell hits the desk like a gunshot. "Whatever."

[louisjude]

Honestly -

Most of these ‘fans’ do not like Buck for Buck. They have created a version of him in canon and anything he does that doesn’t fit it it’s OOC for them, even if it is exactly how he’d act (case in point: The BT scene on 710). They, somehow, cannot accept Buck has changed and matured and is not the same guy he was during S2/S3. Hell, he’s grown alone during S7 alone. Discovering a part of himself has done wonders for him.

Likewise, I truly believe the only representation they care about or want is if it comes in the form of Buddie. They cry on how Henren is being ignored and how it is BuckTommy’s fault, but when have they ever shown care or interest for them beforehand? They use them as part of their argument without giving them proper attention. They don’t care we now have great mlm representation on screen in a show like 911, they’re just mad because it is not Buddie.

And I do suspect they became this mad this fast because they do see the potential of BT and they know this can very well be a LTR for Buck. Ofc we don’t know what will happen, but if we look at it from a neutral POV, we all can see the seeds being planted for Tommy to be there for a while. They’ve made creative choices with him that they haven’t made with no other LI that really sells it for me, to be honest.

(Including giving them a particular sound for everytime they have a moment, but I digress)

I do agree with you - I care about Buck being happy. I was quick to get on board with BT because I have never seen Buck act so giddy and into someone. And so far, I think Tommy is matching him really well. We’ll see what happens in Season 8, but I would be surprised if they break up during it, even more so if it is ep 3/4, which arguably will be right after the start of the season (assuming they go for a multi eps opener)

If I'm being honest, the toxic side of that part of the fandom feels very reminiscent of certain subset of another fandom I'm apart of that I do not want to delve into because I've already done so many times.

get ready for a long response

I came into the 911 fandom as bvddie shipper, I still love the ship itself, idc if it ever goes canon because fanfic exists, edits exist, fanart exists. I love eddie and buck as separate characters respectively and I do not need them to be together enjoy their relationship whether it's platonic or romantic.

I think a lot of the loud, toxic shippers cannot separate them. Listen I think the co-parent jokes are hilarious and cute, but when it comes down to it in reality of the show, buck is not chris' parent. he's like an uncle, so many ppl grow up with their parents friends as their "aunts and uncles" and that's exactly how I'm viewing chris and bucks relationship ever since I've come down from the bvddie high of analyzing everything and putting meaning behind every little piece of dialogue or set design or just like anything. I can acknowledge 911 is not a blockbuster franchise that has months or years of thought put into meaning behind set design or clothing choices like other fandoms I'm apart of that absolutely have so much thought and time put into them for things like that.

bvddie in itself is a great concept. absolutely you can read into scenes as being romantic even if they never were intended that way, that's what we do as fans. I completely understand why ppl see them as endgame because they're absolutely allowed to think that. but us bucktommy shippers are allowed to also talk about why we think bucktommy is endgame. I think that's another issue ppl are having is being able to curate their own feed, if you don't want to see people talk about one of these topics then block accs, block tags, keep your peace!

buck and tommy absolutely feel as though they have been written to last from what I've seen so far so tommy leaving so quickly would feel weird and like a punch in the gut to the journey buck as made. he made the effort to be with tommy even after everything went south. tommy made the effort to show up for buck. we are shown them being on very good terms by the season finale, like, we are probably intimate with one another and are in our cute honeymoon phase type of good terms. having them break up so early would be another Ali/Natalia moment and like, I just am tired of the same story being repeated for buck.

If they really were going for bvddie endgame, I think it would have been done this season. tommy wouldn't have been brought in at all or wouldn't have been involved in the plot outside helping rescue bobby and athena. they didn't need kim there, they could have built on eddies catholic guilt for his queer arc, they could have written what people were theorizing with the bachelor party where buck and eddie ended up kissing while drunk which could have spurred their relationship to begin and still have eddie go through a crisis and found a way to have chris still leave for texas (if they wanted to stick with a cheating arc, it could have been marisol & chris walking in on buck and eddie kissing) like there's so many things people theorized that genuinely would have been great ways to have bvddie be endgame but literally none of those things happened and instead we got buck in a stable, happy relationship with tommy that has been set up in a way that absolutely can have them going through all sorts of things from strengthening their relationship to testing their relationship. tommy can absolutely be integrated into the plot as much as karen is if not more. all I can say is why throw away such potential when you already had the other potential there?

also as an eddie diaz defender, they can never make me hate eddie diaz, I just want to see him not feel this constant need to find a new mom/wife when he's never had time for himself EVER. he needs therapy, he needs to build back trust with christopher, he needs to stop searching for this perfect woman because if there's someone out there for him they will find him eventually. I really want eddie to focus on chris and himself and stop worrying so much about what his life should look like per his family/what society thinks his life should look like.

I truly cannot stress enough how much eddie needs to fix himself and his and chris' relationship before jumping into another romance, whether it be buck or anyone else.

on the other hand, buck deserves to be loved ANYWAYS. tommy is already showing potential to just love buck anyways despite anything that happens, that he'll do anything for him, that he can be his rock. gerrard can definitely be smh to shake them up, no couple in this show is safe from anything no matter how in love and happy they are. it's time for buck to have his madney, bathena, henren moments with his own love interest. buck deserves to be happy with tommy, to go through the hard times with him, for someone to love him no matter what and that absolutely does not take away from how important buck and eddie's friendship is. people cannot seem to grasp that unfortunately and it's sad.

in other words, im so tired of people acting like they are superior over ships. I truly am.

[stardust948]

To keep on theme with the recent Urzai week:

Do you have any headcanons for them? Either canon atla of your own au

I have some for both!

Canon:

It was always an arranged marriage whether Ursa was a noble's daughter or if we're following the comics and she grew up as a peasant. She and Ozai had a bit of an awkward start, but they learned to get along mainly out of survival. (The Fire Nation Courts are brutal especially when you're the Firelord's least favorite).

Ozai is lowkey a simp. Ursa said one genuine nice thing to him, and he nearly went into an angst coma.

Ursa reigned Ozai in a lot which is why things immediately went down the drain after she left.

PDA is frown upon for Fire Nation royalty, so Ozai would make up for it by buying a lot of gifts for Ursa.

Ozai always planned for Ursa to return and rule by his side which is why he never remarried. She eventually fell of radar and presumed dead.

Once Ursa returned after the war and sided with Zuko's anti-imperialism, Ozai saw it as a betrayal and personal rejection much like how Azula viewed Mai and Ty Lee after the Boiling Rock. (Yes, Ursa was previously an imperialist like the rest of the Fire Nation Royal family).

Brave is the heart that loves / Dragon AU:

Ozai and Ursa did shortly break up after they ran away together. Both were very stressed from trying to survive on the streets and got into a huge fight.

They spent a couple of days apart before tracking down each other. They both apologized and promised to support one another from then on.

Zuko was conceived that night.

Frenemies / High School AU:

They got together freshman year when Ozai filled as the Dragon King when the original actor Ikem got sick. It was Ozai's first real play in the Performing Arts high school he fought his father tooth and nail to enroll in, so of course he was nervous. But Ursa helped him through it.

They had an impromptu kiss on stage during opening night. The director liked it so much he added it to the script permanently. Ikem was highly pissed because he was going to use the play to confess to Ursa, but Ozai beat him to it.

They had an on again off again relationship throughout high school. It was either a lot of PDA or screaming matches. Sometimes both at the same time.

The relationship became toxic senior year, so Ursa broke up with Ozai for good. But by graduation, they were on friendly terms after some personal growth.

A few years later, they reunited at Hakoda and Kya's wedding and decided to give their relationship another chance. Since they're more mature this go round, it worked out and they get married sometime later.

Their friends, the rest of the Gaang's parents, NEVER let them live down their cringy high school years.

Apothecary AU:

Ozai set out to make Ursa his pawn, but he ended up becoming hers'.

He becomes legit depressed after Ursa was fired from her apothecary job to the point Iroh convinced Azulon to let her return.

Ursa loves it when Ozai drops his stern prince act and goofs around with her.

The whole palace knows they're courting before they do.

Ursa's a little unhinged in this AU and often experiments on herself to test the medicines. Ozai had learned the hard way not to eat her food or tea.

That said, Ursa was way too eager to help Ozai assassin Azulon. She had the poisons already picked out and ready to go. Ozai should be concern, but he's too far gone at this point.

Very match my freak energy.

Rivers in the desert AU:

Ozai and Ursa's relationship was really more of a partnership with benefits before they were forced to flee. After being separated, romantic feelings began to develop.

There is an inversion appearance wise. Ursa's darker skin tones, which made her stand out like a sore thumb in the royal courts, allowed her to pass for Earth Kingdom with the right clothes. Ozai is the exact opposite.

~Going into spoiler territory~

Ursa cannot, for the life of her, believe Ozai knows how to use a stove now. (Ursa: "Who are you and what have you've done with my husband???") Ozai took Ursa's airbending pretty well. (It was a long day and he's tired.)

Both had changed a lot once they reunite but Ozai a bit more self-conscious. He did not have access to his expensive beauty products for years and body type had changed. He's still fit but his abs are gone. (Nearly starving to death will do that). Ursa assures him it's alright and she likes that his body is softer now.

They both have gray hair strands (The Gaang is great, but we all know what they're like.)

Once the Fire Nation is defeated, they swear to not have any more kids. Kiyi was a pure accident.

@urzaiweekblog