#this one kept me up so many nights

[kessilover]

I have an idea for a Mergana fic

I have this Mergana Fic idea that I probably would never write because I am lazy, but I want to share it in case someone might want to write it.

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

It takes place during Servant of Two Masters (S4xE06), just before Morgana inserts the  Fomorroh into Merlin's neck.

A young man (maybe 17 or 18) barges inside. He looks like a young version of Merlin except he has green eyes. Before anyone says anything, this man collapses instantly.

There is an awkward silence between Merlin and Morgana for a few moments before she is like, "is he your brother?" and Merlin is like, "I don't see any resemblance" but inside he is screaming, did my father have another son?

Then, she tries to wake the young man and soon came to the realization that he is drained magically, and they need to wait for him to regain consciousness on his own before asking any questions.

"Maybe he is a distant relative?" Merlin mumbles to no one, and Morgana, whose plan is momentarily put on hold, tells Merlin that she knows a way that can help unravel the mystery.

Despite Merlin's objection, Morgana performs the spell (requires a drop of blood from each man) and the result is "Parent". (There is a whole color palette that can help identify the link between two people.) But the spell doesn't specify who is the parent and who is the offspring.

Since it was not possible, Morgana decides to do the spell using her own blood, and she gets the same result as Merlin: "Parent".

"Maybe I did something wrong." She says, and they leave it at that.

Hours later, the mysterious man wakes up and he takes one look at the chained Merlin, "Is it a sexual thing?" he says, startling both Merlin and Morgana.

Morgana quickly unchains him and Merlin supplies without really thinking, "We're making sure the chains are robust."

The young man's name is William, and he was attacked and used magic to escape. He came across the hovel and was looking for a place to hide.

He claims that he has never seen Merlin before, and the latter is dying to ask if he knows Balinor. 

William tells them his life story, that his parents died and that he was raised by his uncle.

Another person bursts in shortly after. The boy's uncle.

Here is the twist.

The uncle is actually Mordred, who kidnapped William (named after his father's childhood best friend) when he was an infant and killed his mother. He was raised not knowing who his real parents were and to hate Camelot and its king and his advisor Merlin because they were the reason behind William's parents' deaths.)

Chaos erupts when it turns out the danger William was trying to evade was Mordred, and his plan was to go back in time to save his mother after learning the actual truth. But the spell was too powerful and it left him weak.

William is like, "You killed my parents." and Mordred shouts back, "Your parents are dead because of you."

Here is another twist.

William recently killed Merlin (Furture version), thinking he was avenging his parents. But in reality, the boy's mother died trying to save her son from being kidnapped, and his father, on the other hand, died at the hands of the son that he spent years searching for.

Surprise!!

The kid is acually the son of Merlin and Morgana!!

"You killed your father?" Morgana asks William, who is too crestfallen to meet her gaze.

"Like mother like son." Mordred says with a snide. 

More chaos. 

"You lied to us?" Merlin accuses, while Morgana is too stunned to speak. 

Once again, Mordred smirks and adds "Just like his father,  isn't that right, Emrys?"

Even more chaos.

-----------

Please if you like the concept, write it, I really really want to read it.

[moonkhao]

hi.

[unawakening-float07]

i had one beer with one of my closest friends and my bf while we watched a country singer preform at a biker bar and it has been the greatest night of my life

[ayyponine]

not to be a milennial but harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban really is that bitch....

[nemmet]

question: how did you discover/get into scooby doo?

this is something i'm always so interested to hear, being that there are few people who don't have at least some small tie to the franchise. whether you would consider it one of your biggest current interests or it's just something nostalgic from your childhood, i'd love to know how you found scooby and what it means to you!

[tittyinfinity]

No seroquel means no sleep for me I guess. I've been trying for hours

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 24

"What is this place?" Manon asked Glennis as she found the crone polishing the handle of a gold-bound broom beside the fire. Two others lay on a cloak nearby. Menial work for the witch in charge of this camp.

"This is an ancient camp-one of the oldest we claim." Glennis's knobbed fingers flew over the broom handle. "Each of the seven Great Hearths has a fire here, as do many others." Indeed, there were far more than seven in the camp. "It was a gathering place for us after the war, and since then, it had become a place to usher in some of our younger witches to adulthood. It is a rite we've developed over the years—to send them into the deep wilds for a few weeks to hunt and survive with only their brooms and a knife. We remain here while they do so."

Manon asked quietly, "Do you know what our initiation rite is?"

Glennis's face tightened. "I do. We all do." Which hearth had the witch she'd killed at age sixteen belonged to?

"You're not a cold person."

He arched a brow. "Is that your professional opinion?"

Manon studied him. "You can descend to those levels when you are angry, when your friends are threatened. But you are not cold, not at heart. I've seen men who are, and you are not."

"Neither are you," he said a bit quietly.

The wrong thing to say.

Manon stiffened, her chin lifting. "I am one hundred seventeen years old," she said flatly. "I have spent the majority of that time killing. Don't convince yourself that the events of the past few months have erased that."

"Keep telling yourself that." He doubted anyone had ever spoken to her that baldly-relished that he now did, and kept his throat intact.

She snarled in his face. "You're a fool if you believe the fact that I am their queen wipes away the truth that I have killed scores of Crochans."

"That fact will always remain. It's how you make it count now that matters."

Make it count. Aelin had said as much back in those initial days after he'd been freed of the collar. He tried not to wonder whether the icy bite of Wyrdstone would soon clamp around his neck once more.

"I am not a softhearted Crochan. I will never be, even if I wear their crown of stars."

He'd heard the whispers about that crown amongst the Crochans this week-about whether it would be found at last. Rhiannon Crochan's crown of stars, stolen from her dying body by Baba Yellowlegs herself. Where it had gone after Aelin had killed the Matron, Dorian had not the faintest idea. If it had stayed with that strange carnival she'd traveled with, it could be anywhere. Could have been sold for quick coin.

Manon went on, "If that is what the Crochans expect me to become before they join in this war, then I will let them venture to Eyllwe tomorrow alone."

"Is it so bad, to care?" The gods knew he'd been struggling to do so himself.

"I don't know how to," she growled.

Ridiculous. An outright lie. Perhaps it was because of the high likelihood that he'd be collared again at Morath, perhaps it was because he was a king who'd left his kingdom in an enemy's grip, but Dorian found himself saying, "You do care. You know it, too. It's what makes you so damn scared of all this."

Her golden eyes raged, but she said nothing.

"Caring doesn't make you weak," he offered.

"Then why don't you heed your own advice?"

"I care." His temper rose to meet hers. And he decided to hell with it-decided to let go of that leash he'd put on himself. Let go of that restraint. "I care about more than I should. I even care about you."

Another wrong thing to say.

Manon stood—as high as the tent would allow. "Then you're a fool." She shoved on her boots and stomped into the frigid night.

I even care about you.

Manon scowled as she turned in her sleep, wedged between Asterin and Sorrel. Only hours remained until they were to move out—to head to Eyllwe and whatever force might be waiting to ally with the Crochans. And in need of help.

Caring doesn't make you weak.

The king was a fool. Little more than a boy.

What did he know of anything?

Still the words burrowed under her skin, her bones. Is it so bad, to care?

She didn't know. Didn't want to know.

[scarecrowgolem]

There is a very specific sort of antisemitism that is seemingly common in mental health facilities and its fucking terrifying

[playertwotails]

So was finally able to watch Sonic prime today and I have so many words after the first watch.

Gonna put it all under the cut so spoilers for Sonic Prime below.

So I love Nine so much. He is gonna be probably one of the best characters in this show, in my opinion.

Just he's been through so much with no one caring about him at all. I like that he's just a very selfish character but in an understandable way. Why would he stay and help these people he's never met, no one ever bothered to ever help him so why would/should he help them. So yeah of course he's not gonna care to help the resistance they never did anything for him.

He only cares about Sonic who is the first person in his entire life to ever be kind to him. Nine has an immediate attachment to Sonic, despite him saying otherwise that they aren't friends, but actions speak louder than words there buddy-o. Like you literally wanted to start a new world with just the two of you my guy.

I see people thinking that Nine thinks Sonic abandoned him there at the end, and I think he does a little bit but not 100%. In that he's not gonna just betray Sonic since Sonic didn't save him. Nine is smart he knows Sonic keeps randomly traversing the Shatterverse thing area and has the same energy signal. Once Sonic is able to explain "oh I was going towards you but then got booted into the in-between" Nine will probable be like "oh that tracks based on my calculations" (in my mind I want it to go like this at least, plus I hate plots with the "oh you left me so I will betray you" when literally it was out of the other persons control to leave them, idk I just really am not a fan of that kind of plot line).

Also Nine still made sure that he gave the Eggman quintuplets a reason not to kill Sonic. I think once Nine realizes they can't find Sonic in that reality he'll put two and two together of what happened.

Also also can we talk about how Nine was literally smarter than all 5 Eggmans put together. He hacked their computers, overrode Rusty Rose, and figured out how to traverse the Shatterverse in a few weeks with the shard that the human forms of Eggsecute couldn't figure out when they literally had it for seemingly years. Nine just Legally Blond "what like it's hard" the Eggmans so bad.

Side note, can we just talk about how in almost every single world Sonic's first response is "I need to find Tails!!" He needs Tails to figure out what going on and how to fix it but also that's his best friend and little brother, new situation find the person he trusts the most first. Him saving Mangey Tails when he first got to the jungle world was just so adorable he was so worried about him.

There's so much with this show I wanna talk about but I'm real tired.

Let me know what ya'll think of of Sonic Prime and/or Nine.

[prettydumbmutt]

.post hookup yapping in tags.

[zevrans-remade]

.

[ronanlynchbf]

saying "this is unbearable" abt things yet still continuing to bear them. give it up for the human spirit everyone 🙏👆👍💪💪💪❗❗❗

[burinazar]

under the cut, many words of an Ebil pondering whether it’s writing Wazukyan well or might be flanderizing the character by making him Care Too Much, in an attempt to overcompensate against readings where he Doesn’t Care At all:

i spent most of my initial viewing of s2 not particularly trying to understand what Wazukyan was 'really up to' as far as the motivations behind his actions bc i was too busy worrying about The Other Two Sages (as points of comparisons, i loved Vueko from episode one and liked Belaf from the same point but didn’t glom on to him SO hard until after ep7/8 and now I love them both so excessively much that it’s ridiculous.) But after finishing it and looking at the story as a whole it became clear analysis of that character was really rewarding in the context of the other ones i already liked, and now that i have/do try to put effort into 'getting’ him and became more interested in depicting the character as a result...lately I’ve become concerned that I risk adding to Boring Silly Readings Of Him. 

there’s two interpretation that i think are not very interesting: ‘common fan take #1: he’s completely ruthless and uncaring, gives zero craps about Vueko, Belaf, Irumyuui, and likely the rest of the Ganja-tai, and only prioritizes his own wish to continue the journey’ (because this is simply not that interesting to think about and risks turning him into Bondrewd 2.0; though i also feel it is contradicted by some canon, but there is room for discussion there. feel free to throw an ask or message my way if this piques your interest or you’d like to Argue Politely over it) and ‘common fan take #2: LOL Wazuchad did Literally Nothing Wrong’ (this is mostly an attitude thing, and is distinct from ‘after consideration of the situation I personally believe his actions were justified’ or something. what i mean is people who meme about ‘Wazuchad’ are generally sweeping away the idea that there might have been any moral consideration to make at all and that is, again, boring. the entire arcs of all four characters (five actually, Fau too) fall apart as compelling if you aren’t even willing to consider the questions involved or accord any validity to not wanting Irumyuui to suffer.) 

Readings i think are interesting tend to deviate from both of these either a little or a lot by adding complexity to how one views his goals, actions, and motivations, so that even if they may still land in the general category of ‘bad guy and did an indefensibly bad thing’ or ‘not a bad guy, did a bad thing but for compelling and human reasons’, he hasn’t been totally condemned or totally absolved on the way to either conclusion. Both of the flatter readings obfuscate the possibility he harbored genuine fondness for the other characters, and that’s what I want to push back on. I especially like thinking he cared about them a lot but this was counterbalanced by the need to save the rest of the crew (I always bring this up but it’s way too easy to forget 90% of the Ganja were already dead and drowned when they hit the Abyss, he can’t not have had thoughts about that?) and, of course, also his own ambition and desire (and yet in my reading his ambition was directly linked to the idea of a home for his people, not merely himself; the sense of homesickness and desire to journey on that Wazukyan articulates seems to be thematically linked to all of the characters in Ganja and be a cousin to the desire to see what’s at the bottom of the Abyss that most of the entire show’s cast feels). It’s complicated and sad and great. 

BUT LIKE. 

i’m afraid of accidentally creating  ‘boring reductivist fanon #3′ if my depiction accords TOO charitable an interpretation to the guy and paints too rosy a picture of how much he cared about the others. 

Like am I going too far in the other direction when I make him goofy and silly and a bit bumbling and genuinely caring, especially if I haven’t written all caps front and center in the same piece of fanwork that I understand the character has notably dark aspects to his actions and interactions with the others and the grim things his choices and his influence on them others’ choices ultimately lead to?

i don’t want to erase that he did stuff that makes your blood run cold, I just think it’s compelling to read the character as someone who did that while being very human and caring a lot about the others in the situation, because that’s a lot more interesting. I’m wrestling with this bc in the thing I want to finish next Vueko is thinking about how he was like a surrogate guardian to her at points in her life, and since it’s Vueko she obviously hasn’t forgotten anything he did towards the end of their time together and what it meant for her and her family and that comes up directly afterwards but I feel like someone could think ‘what is this story even doing, what is this apologism and flattening of Waz into some kind of friendly grandpa’. As much as I don’t want to see people Bondrewd him or Wazuchad him, I don’t want to Friendly Bumbling Grandpa him, which risks being boring and reductive in its own way. Alright that’s all, just wanted to ramble, input and comments from other san ken likers welcome tho.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

"Ed Iskandar talked with God. Then it was Lucifer’s turn. Now he was addressing Adam and Eve.

[...]

Right now, Iskandar was rehearsing the plays from Act I, including Madeleine George’s 10-minute piece about the Fall of Man, which she gives the elaborate title,  “A Worm Walks Into A Garden or The Fall of Man, an experiment in motive and comedy.”  In it, Lucifer tells dumb jokes to Adam and Eve, as a way of seducing them. Adam finds them funny. Eve doesn’t.

“You’re missing a crucial part of your anatomy,” Lucifer says to Eve. “The funnybone.”

Lucifer is being played by Asia Kate Dillon.

[...]

Dillon was writhing and entwining themself around Eve.  Suddenly Chase Brock, the show’s choreographer, got down on the floor and started to writhe on the floor along with Lucifer. Brock had researched the earthworm, and showed some pictures of earthworms to Dillon on his laptop to suggest other moves they could make."

"50 different plays by almost as many different playwrights is a massive undertaking in which each vignette varies in tone from the one before it.  The actors playing the characters do not change from play to play; this forces the performers to be as comfortable and convincing with farce as they are playing tragedy.  It is also fascinating to contemplate the mental and emotional gymnastics that each performer of The Bats (the resident acting company of The Flea) must have undergone to ensure that each character maintains the same internal psychological throughline when they appear in different plays by very different authors.

The first act deals with the Old Testament books and the Nativity.  In playwright Dale Orlandersmith’s Song of the Trimorph, the angels in Heaven mindlessly worship God (a deliciously petty, yet shrewdly authoritative Matthew Jeffers), who takes it as His due until Lucifer (Asia Kate Dillon) starts to question whether love without choice means anything.

Dillon’s beautifully delicate, white-haired devil is one of the show’s most complex figures. Watching them evolve from nuanced philosopher to diabolical heavy to world-weary cynic, depending on the vignette, is fascinating.  The narrative speeds its way through the Bible. Highlights include Madeleine George’s surprisingly feminist take on the Adam and Eve story; Hwang’s marvelously urgent Cain and Abel tale, which posits the first murder as a story of vengeance against a capricious God; and Mallery Avidon’s whimsically horrifying tale of Noah’s Flood, which also entails the deaths of everyone who didn’t make it aboard the Ark.

[...]

The show’s second section deals with the Life of Jesus, with Colin Waitt’s astonishingly variegated boy-next-door Jesus shifting from an idealistic dreamer as he travels with Mary and Joseph to a forceful, almost angry philosopher when he argues with Lucifer about the nature of love to a bratty dolt when he confronts Gabriel about his inevitable fate.  The fact that the playwrights clearly have a different idea of Jesus’s personality sets Wiatt a complex task:  He has to make his Christ the same in all situations; whether he’s being comic or tragic, Wiatt is convincing and moving in a performance of stunning versatility.

Indeed, his likable turns in Gabriel Jason Dean’s beautiful Christ Enters Jerusalem makes his ferocious agonies in Qui Nguyen’s Christ Before Herod and his subsequent crucifixion all the more heartrending. The third act deals with Christ’s resurrection and humanity’s fate at the Day of Judgment, and includes a series of plays set in modern times, as well as God’s final words to Lucifer, Jesus, and to us.  The show’s final Day of Judgment coda by Jose Rivera is an essay of forgiveness and unexpected love."

"Overall, the point of view of The Mysteries leans toward deism, the Enlightenment philosophy that presents God as a kind of clockmaker who created the universe, then left it alone to run according to its own laws. We see God squabbling with, then abandoning, Lucifer, setting in motion the events of the Bible, but even in Eden he is surprisingly enigmatic.

[...]

And, as one of the thieves killed with Jesus prophesies, it may all be for naught; he conjures up a future in which "the religion founded -- haha --upon your existence will be held up to justify the slaughter of millions over hundreds and thousands of years, for the brutal sins of domination and exploitation, the lynchings, the massacres and genocide, the relentless militarism. Everything you stood for will be erased."

[...]

In any case, the company is an almost constant joy. Among the more striking performances, [...] Asia Kate Dillon is a compelling presence as Lucifer."

"Four dozen playwrights take four dozen spiritual positions, which allows bubbles of radical reimagining to emerge only to sink again beneath the waves. For instance, our very first playwright, Dael Orlandersmith, paints Lucifer (Asia Kate Dillon) as a sweetheart Cordelia type refusing to curry favor with an insecure God (Matthew Jeffers). The fallen Light bringer keeps popping up throughout, and yet while Lucifer makes a number of solid points—many vigorously antichurch—they're still costumed as a blood-smeared reptile. Does evil exist? Or does it only exist when it can dress super cool?"

"It begins with a scene in heaven where we meet the lavish Angel Chorus that will be with us for the duration of the play, and witness Lucifer’s expulsion from heaven, something like in Milton’s Paradise Lost.

[...]

We also meet the rebellious Lucifer in that first scene in heaven, played with dazzling cynicism by Asia Kate Dillon, and at the same time the angel Gabriel, played by Alice Allemano, who, obedient to God, in contrast to Lucifer, struggles valiantly trying to make sense out of God’s commands and following through on them.  These two, Lucifer and Gabriel, played by tall, striking people, fine actors who resemble one another, hold the vast array together like bookends.

The scenes in the Garden of Eden are delightful, played, appropriately in the nude, by Jaspal Binning as Adam and Alesandra Nahodil as Eve.  Throughout the play, Biblical episodes are interpreted by the many playwrights in non-canonical ways and the first of these is brilliant:  the knowledge the first couple gain through their disobedient eating of the apple is — how to tell a good joke and how to enjoy one!"

"Act I – The Fall begins with Creation and Lucifer’s fall from grace with God. Lucifer is played by a steady, radiant Asia Kate Dillon who reappears frequently to mix things up with earthlings and the rival angel, Gabriel, played by Alice Allemano makes goodness alluring. God is played by an extremely patient and multi-dimensional Matthew Jeffers whose sense of humor humanizes the Lord."

"As starting points, Dael Orlandersmith’s “Song of the Trimorph (Lucifer’s Lament)” and Liz Duffy Adams’s “Falling for You” are somewhat too abstract, particularly “Falling for You,” which has Lucifer wonder, “How can there be love in the absence of being?”"

"Starting with the Fall, we are introduced to the Angel Gabriel and the fallen angel Lucifer, played by two equally lissome and brilliant young actors, Alice Allemano and Asia Kate Dillon. They compete for God’s affections by using a chorus of singing punk angels."

"Asia Dillon as Lucifer brought the precise mixture of demonic delight and fragility necessary for such an adaptation: watching their performance was like looking at a raw cut in the bowels of the earth, brimming with fire and unimaginable sadness."

(no relevant quotes, but throwing in a brief pdf of a grantee project report that focuses on Engagement)

[chainsawworld]

Everyday I try to be normal about that old woman and everyday I fail worse than I did previously

[chelleisamazing]

So, update on the long distance situationship-- I'm so confused and frustrated about it.

Things we did:

Make out

Dance closely and suggestively

Speak about our feelings and other deep subjects at 3 am under the stars in front of the ocean

Let each other know we wanted to hook up

Swim and smoke weed in the ocean on our underwear at the crack of dawn

Things we did not do:

Spend more than 10 minutes completely on our own

Have sex