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kikyoupdates · 3 months ago

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Tears of a Villainess ⭑˚🗡️⭑ 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒: 𝑎 𝑛𝑒𝑤 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒

yandere!ocs x reader

yandere, reverse harem, isekai, original characters x fem!reader, slowburn, slowburn yandere

Reincarnation isn't as great as it sounds, especially when you've been reborn as none other than the villainess. Fated to die if you stand in the heroine's way, you immediately resolve to distance yourself from the plot. As long as you have nothing to do with any of the relevant characters, surely, you'll be able to avoid an untimely death. But in a horrible turn of events, the heroine ends up wanting to get close to you. Are you really doomed to meet the villainess' tragic end? Or is there an even more sinister fate that awaits you?

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Nobody likes the villainess.

This is because in virtually every novel, anime, or game, she is designed to be the heroine’s adversary. She is given little to no redeemable qualities, so that people will sympathize with the heroine that much more. While people root for the heroine to succeed, they also root for the villainess to fail—and inevitably, she does.

The game you’ve just finished playing is no exception.

“Wow. The villainess died in this ending too, huh?”

You rub your eyes. It’s late, nearly halfway through the night already. You have a bad habit of getting sucked into the games you play and losing track of time. You’ll be dead on your feet tomorrow, but you suppose that’s nothing special. At least you managed to clear all the major routes. There might’ve been some secret endings you missed, but you’ll go back and find those another day.

A heavy yawn falls from your lips. You lean back and stretch your arms out before closing your laptop and standing up from your desk.

As far as dating sims go, this one wasn’t too bad. The plot was predictable enough, but the characters were a lot more interesting than you were expecting. The heroine was perhaps a bit more naive than you would’ve liked, but you enjoyed her dynamic with each of the love interests, and all in all, it made for a likable cast.

Except for the villainess, of course. Nobody ever likes the villainess.

You start washing up and getting ready for bed, thoughts lingering all the while. If only the villainess had more depth to her. It’s a common trend in all of these fantasy-themed dating sims. Like, you understand that she’s meant to be an antagonist, but she’s still human, at the end of the day. Isn’t she allowed to have any sympathetic traits? Anything that could possibly make the player understand why she behaves the way that she does?

It’s practically an unwritten rule that villainess characters are required to be devoid of any actual substance. Their purpose is simply to torment the heroine, and somewhere down the road, face penance for their crimes.

The whole trope has been done to death by this point. Just once, can’t they come up with a more realistic villainess, who isn’t pure evil and has the capacity for normal human emotion? It’s true that antagonists are meant to be disliked, but you would still be much more appreciative of a credible and well-developed adversary. It would definitely enrich the story.

If you were ever to be put in charge of the villainess character, you’d like to think that you would do her justice.

But, well, that obviously won’t happen.

You get into bed, pile on some blankets, then flick your nightstand lamp off. Darkness comes quickly, signaling your weary eyelids to fall shut. Exhausted from a long night, you fall asleep right away.

Blissfully unaware.

Shit… it’s so bright.

As always, it takes a while for your eyes to open, and they do so with remarkable reluctance. You would think that since you’re not at all a morning person, you would get into the habit of going to bed early, but no, you’re determined to make the experience as painful as possible every time.

“G-Good morning, Lady [Name]. It’s time to wake up now. Did you sleep well?”

There’s a voice in the room. There’s a voice in the room, and it isn’t yours, which is kind of a big deal, because you live alone.

You jolt upright in bed, suddenly wide awake. “The fuck?! Who are you?”

It takes a few seconds for the blurriness to fade from your eyes, but when it finally does, you find yourself staring at a young woman you most certainly do not recognize. She has a meek, almost fearful expression, and her shoulders seem to be trembling a bit.

Why does she look so scared? You’re the one who’s supposed to be scared in this situation. After all, you just woke up with a goddamn stranger in your room.

Except… is this even your room?

On second glance, you realize that this doesn’t look anything like your bedroom. It’s countless times bigger, for one, not to mention how extravagantly decorated it is. Rather than a bedroom for a debt-addled university student, it looks more like the kind of chambers a princess might sleep in.

“I-I’m not sure what you mean, my lady,” the woman stammers in response. “Please forgive my rudeness. I was told to wake you at this hour because your fiancé is coming to visit this morning.”

“Huh…?”

You’re still gaping from having looked around the room, which is without a doubt, not the same old crappy bedroom you’re used to. But now that you finally look back at her, you realize that she’s equally as strange as the surroundings you find yourself in.

“Is that a maid outfit?” you ask.

She blinks twice, then casts a quick glance towards her attire. Obviously, she must not understand the purpose of the question, because her brows knit together in visible confusion.

“Yes, it is,” she nods hastily. There’s a pause, and then she looks scared again. “Does it… displease you? You said before you didn’t like the previous design. I-I can run down to the seamstress and have her come up with a different uniform that’s more to your tastes. Please forgive me for upsetting you this early in the morning.”

She bows deeply, as if she’s seeking to be absolved for some grave sin. You still don’t understand what the hell is going on, but based on how she’s dressed, and the way she keeps referring to you, it seems unlikely that she’s here to cause you any harm.

Actually, what did she call you earlier?”

“[Name],” you repeat, pointing to yourself. The maid cautiously raises her head and looks up at you, and you proceed to point again. “When you say that, are you… referring to me?”

Once again, she looks confused beyond belief, but despite that, she nods in agreement.

Well, then. This is awkward. Because as far as you remember, that is not your name.

You’re not sure what else to do but jump out of bed, and you run to the first mirror you can spot. As it so happens, there’s a massive vanity in the room, and it quickly confirms your greatest fears.

“Holy fuck.”

This isn’t your body. For as many years as you’ve lived, you have never looked like this. Even your voice sounds a bit different than usual, but you initially chalked that up to morning grogginess.

Slowly but surely, it’s all coming together, and you can’t even believe just how absurd this situation is.

You know who you are now. Having gotten a good look at yourself, but not only that, having heard how that maid referred to you, there’s no longer any doubt in your mind.

[Name]. You know that name all too well.

It’s none other than the villainess from the goddamn dating sim you just played.

You pinch your cheeks, and much to your horror, you can feel the pain. All of this is far too realistic and far too lucid for it to be a simple dream. The more time passes, the more you become viscerally aware of that fact.

This has seriously got to be a fucking joke.

When you said you had a tendency to get sucked into the games you played, you didn’t mean it literally!

“My lady,” the maid mumbles hesitantly. You notice that she’s incredibly wary of you, and is mindful of keeping as much distance as possible. “Is everything… alright? I-I’m very sorry if I’m overstepping. I just worry that… you might not be feeling well. Should I call for a doctor?”

Now you understand why she’s so skittish around you. In the game, the villainess treated everyone around her cruelly, including the maids and servants who’d waited on her for years. She was a true bitch in every sense of the word, just like every other one of her villainess predecessors, but now, it falls on you to take her place.

This is a big problem.

Because as far as you know, the only fate that awaits you in this world is death.

“I’m fine,” you reassure, smiling for good measure. Right. There’s no sense in panicking right off the bat. You’re sure there must be a solution. For the time being, you need to come to terms with everything. “Um… I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name. Anyways, would you please step out of the room so I can change? I'm still a bit drowsy. I’ll feel better once you give me a few minutes.”

The maid tries—but fails—to hide her shock. Something about what you just said must have tripped her up. The part about forgetting what to call her, maybe? Or perhaps your overall demeanor is off. It’s true that you’ve been acting kind of crazy, like questioning your own name and whatnot.

Well, hopefully she doesn’t read into it too much.

While the maid scampers off and shuts the door behind her, you start pacing around the room. It’s massive, so it actually feels less like pacing and more like walking laps around a field, but that’s neither here nor there.

You’ve been reincarnated into a dating sim, as the villainess who is destined to die in all of the game’s major endings. No matter who the heroine ends up with, her happy ending will come at the expense of your life.

But that’s only if you actually adhere to the plot, right?

You don’t know how the mechanics of this universe function. Even though this is a video game, it feels every bit the same as living in the real world. Of course, this fictional world was constructed around the plot, and you have no way of knowing if the world will continue to exist should things go awry.

Still, you’re willing to bet that it should. After all, the villainess is just a bland, disposable character. Her only purpose is to create conflict and add pressure to the heroine’s life. If you deliberately avoid crucial stages of the plot, doesn’t that mean that the heroine will naturally fall in love with one of her suitors and get her happily ever after? There doesn’t need to be a villainess in this story. Or in any story, for that matter.

You turn back towards the vanity to get another look at yourself. It feels so strange to stare back into a reflection that isn’t truly your own. But you don’t know how you’ll ever get back to your old world, and if such a thing is even possible anymore.

For better or worse, you will have to live on.

Lady [Name]. The villainess who attempted to thwart the heroine at every turn, and who made it her life’s mission to bring nothing but misfortune to those around her.

That is who you’ve been reborn as, and needless to say, it’s going to take a lot of getting used to.

“...think she must have eaten something rotten last night,” you can just vaguely hear someone whispering. “She even said sorry to me! And she acted like she didn’t know her own name!”

When you step out into the hallway after getting dressed, you aren’t at all surprised to hear people gossiping about you. As you surmised, it’s the same maid from earlier, the one who woke you up, and she’s chatting up a storm to practically anyone who’s willing to listen.

However, everyone’s faces turn pale when they see you approaching, and the poor maid snaps her lips shut as if she’s a clam. It seriously looks like she just saw her life flash before her eyes.

The servants all seem to fear you, and rightfully so. In the game, even though nothing was ever shown from the villainess’ perspective, it was still common knowledge that she mistreated her housestaff. She was a pompous, spoiled brat who clearly thought she was above everyone else. That cruel attitude of hers naturally carried over to her treatment of the heroine, and to far greater extremes.

It’s true that you’ve been reborn as the villainess, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be a villainess. In fact, you think it would be in your best interest to turn your reputation around. Surely then, you’ll have no way of getting caught up in nasty business with the heroine. You don’t want anyone to take issue with you. After all, the more enemies you have, the more likely you are to be killed.

Besides, it’s also just common decency to not act like a bitch.

“L-Lady [Name],” the same maid blanches. She’s clearly horrified to have been caught gossiping, and she brings her hands together, already begging to be forgiven. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me, I just—”

“Don’t worry about it,” you dismiss, letting slip a chuckle. “I was acting pretty strange this morning, huh? I guess I just didn’t get a good night’s sleep. But I’m feeling much better now. Anyways, I hope all of you are having a lovely morning so far!”

You walk off confidently, feeling as though you’ve taken yet another step towards restoring the villainess’ horrible reputation.

It’s not going to be that easy, though.

“She must have been possessed by a spirit…”

While everyone is losing their heads due to your sudden change in demeanor, you take the opportunity to walk through the manor and familiarize yourself with your surroundings. From what you remember, [Name] is the daughter of wealthy, reputable nobles. Her father is an affluent man with many connections, and it follows that she would grow up to be incredibly full of herself, used to always getting whatever she wants.

Seriously. Can’t these villainesses ever have more inspired backstories?

You shake your head in disbelief. Well, whatever. Perhaps it’s better that you don’t come from a tragic background. If there’s one benefit to being transported to this world, it’s the fact that you at least don’t have any more debts or student loans to worry about.

Then again, none of that will matter if you end up dead. You need to remember that every decision you make from now on could end up impacting your future in a big way.

Amongst the chaos of waking up in a completely new body, however, you’ve forgotten a very crucial piece of information. Something the maid mentioned earlier, which has since slipped your mind.

“[Name]!” someone suddenly exclaims. It’s a woman you don’t recognize, but she’s dressed immaculately and bears a striking resemblance to you, so you assume she must be your mother.

“Good morning,” you greet. You’re not sure what the right etiquette is for whenever nobles greet their parents, so you curtsy awkwardly.

Your mother just stares at you, and the silence is palpable.

Looks like that was a swing and a miss.

“What’s the matter with you?” she then frowns, gesturing towards your general appearance. “Why do you look so unkempt? I thought I reminded you last night that your fiancé would be visiting today. He’s just arrived and will be joining us for breakfast. And you expect to greet him in such a state?”

“I look nice,” you say simply.

“You aren’t even properly zipped up in the back. And did you even put on any makeup? Good grief. Which incompetent maid dressed you this morning? I’ll need to have a word with her.”

You’d rather not get anyone in trouble, especially since that one maid in particular looked like she was fighting for her life.

“I dressed myself today,” you confess.

Your mother’s eyes widen. “What? Why in the world would you do that when you have countless servants to do it for you?”

“Um… I don't know. Just for fun, I guess.”

She proceeds to give you that same quiet yet judgmental look from earlier, but after a heavy sigh, she relents.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore,” she grumbles, fiddling with the zippers of your dress and adjusting everything in place. She fusses over you for a while, but finally, she appears satisfied. Well, somewhat, at least. “That will have to do. You wouldn’t want to keep your guest waiting. Come along.”

She gestures for you to follow, which is actually a lucky break, because you were pretty much lost before she showed up.

Your mother walks for a while, then stops before a large door.

“He’s already waiting inside,” she tells you. “Make sure to be on your best behavior. We want this arrangement to go well. Alright?”

You nod in agreement. You’re not sure whether the villainess was well-behaved or not, but surely it can’t hurt to have your parents’ approval. You’ll need their resources and support if you ever land yourself in hot water.

Thus, you step inside the room to meet with your fiancé. But you’ve been so caught up in all the craziness that you actually forgot exactly who that fiancé was.

Soon enough, he’s looking you dead in the eye.

“Good morning, [Name]. I’m truly fortunate to meet with you so early in the day.”

The young man bows politely, and when he raises his head, there’s a subtle, practiced smile on his lips. It’s the smile of someone who is well-versed in etiquette and knows how to behave around others, but it isn’t a genuine smile, and certainly not the smile of someone who is happy to see their fiancée.

After all, he has no interest in you. He will never have any interest in you.

He is Alistair Calderwood, and he is destined to fall in love with the heroine.

You don’t respond. His was the first route you ever played in the game, so you’d almost forgotten that technically speaking, he was the villainess’ fiancé to start. It was one of the main reasons she harassed the heroine. Because their engagement fell through.

“[Name]?” your mother frowns. She chuckles weakly, unsettled by your silence, then outright jabs you in the ribs. “What are you doing? Hurry up and greet him!”

Greet him. Right, you have to greet him. It’s the normal thing to do. You’re meant to greet your fiancé, then enjoy a nice breakfast together.

But if you stick to normalcy, to the way things are supposed to go, you’ll end up dead faster than you know it.

So, fuck being normal. You’ve already decided what the right course of action is.

“Hello, Alistair,” you say, responding to his bow with a polite curtsy. “It’s nice to see you too. Thank you for coming all this way, but…”

He tilts his head, waiting for you to finish your sentence, but nothing could have prepared him for what you’re about to say.

“...I think we should break off our engagement.”

Alistair’s jaw drops open. So does your mother’s, for that matter. Even the servant standing idle in the corner of the room lets out a quiet gasp and covers their mouth with the palm of their hand.

As for you?

You can hardly contain your smile.

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freakenomenon · 4 months ago

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okay hereeee are some ted opinions that i feel as though i should share before i explode with frustration.

teds paranoia is due to AM of course, yes. this is horribly tragic and what AM has done to the survivors is HORRIBLE. but.... it doesn't excuse the CLEAR misogynistic bias ( and possible racial bias STAY WITH ME HERE IM BLACK I AM THE MOST CERTIFIED TO TALK ABOUT THIS. ) ted displays towards ellen. when talking about the others he doesn't make derogatory statements towards their gender identities or their choices within their past lives. especially with benny being gay he only states that AM had sexually humiliated him because of it, which does not mean he agrees with it. but then when he shifts over to ellen it's so OBVIOUS how victim blamey and sexist his words are. implying that she enjoys servicing them and that AM had given her pleasure despite her clearly not wanting any of that. he doesnt only just GLOSS OVER the sexual humiliation of benny, he uses it against ELLEN. paranoia does not CAUSE bigotry to sprout, as someone with paranoia if anything it's more offensive to IMPLY that it would cause saying something that horrendous to a SEXUAL ASSAULT VICTIM. ( not only talking about the elevator here by the way, ellen being forced to service the others can genuinely be considered proximity assault and COERCION but whatever ) yes, i do feel bad for ted in the aspect that he is a torture victim and he's gone through so much and that he has genuinely been driven mad. but bigotry within madness cannot be justified in ANY right. it's also very insulting to his character to imply that his ONLY personality traits are being a douchebag. yes it's a big part of him because he is ,,, a douchebag. but to truly understand why you shouldn't like ted as a PERSON ( not as a character, he's very well written do whatever you want ) you have to peel away exactly at what makes his actions unjustifiable in the end.

moving on, his portrayal in the game is both interesting and completely absurd and horrendous. let me start this off by saying. Ted. Does NOT. love ellen. Ted is not ACTUALLY in love with this woman. He's just clinging to whatever he can for validation and he believes that he is ENTITLED to her validation because of his isolation and belief that the MEN hate him. not to mention his warped view on sex due to him being groomed may have led him to believe that sex = love. the short sporadic and awfully humiliating sparks of passion between ellen and ted during those intimate moments, especially for a grooming victim. may be incredibly confusing and conflicting. which of course is not at all teds fault, he's a victim. i don't blame him for that. teds character in the game in some aspects couldve been a beautifully done portrayal of how "love" and a want for it can bring out the worst in someone. that having trauma doesn't always make good functioning morally correct members of society. in other aspects. it's. bad. God fucking. JESUS it's bad i don't even want to talk about how horrendous he is written in the game christ on a celery stick. I can't even say this is because of my personal disliking of ted. all of the characters are so STRANGELY written in the game that is actually absurd in resemblance to their characters in the short story. but whatever.

rant over.

#ihnmaims #i have no mouth and i must scream #ellen ihnmaims #ihnmaims ellen #ellen i have no mouth and i must scream #i have no mouth and i must scream ellen #ted ihnmaims #ihnmaims ted #ted i have no mouth and i must scream #i have no mouth and i must scream ted

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touchlikethesun · 7 days ago

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TW: sa. Hi! I hope it's okay to talk about it but about your tags in that post about SVSSS and SA being a recurring theme, I agree with a lot of it. I would say that even Bingge can be argued to be have some trauma since his first time was coerced. Someone pointed out Bingge could've become hypersexual as a result of that trauma and that it made me see the whole harem thing in a new light (but it doesn't make him innocent since he forced himself on a bunch of wives). It really is such a recurring theme it's hinted for Shen Jiu and for Su Xiyan and Binghe with the Old Palace Master. Su Xiyan's story is even the catalyst for Binghe's tragic backstory... You made a very good observation OP!

hey anon, yeah it's alright to talk about! i do appreciate you including a tw, but this is a topic i find really interesting, i actually opened my laptop back up to answer you lol

as for luo bingge, i didn't get into it in my tags bc… lowkey didn't expect ppl to read them lol (ty for doing so tho xx) and also he's quite a complicated case. we obviously can't say for certain since we see so little of him and what we do know is told to us thru multiple layers of unreliable narration, but i do think there is enough to suggest many of luo bingge's early sexual experiences were probably coerced or non-consensual, leading to trauma-induced hypersexual behavior. (edit: i am adding this parenthetical a few hours later after writing the rest of this and i didn't know how to fit it in otherwise so apologies, but i think it's worth pointing out that luo binghe - both bingmei and bingge, so i think we can consider it to be a core trait - do naturally have a much higher libido than most people. with bingmei we see how this causes issues for him in his relationship with shen qingqiu, but it's managed with kindness because sqq loves him and is patient enough to teach him boundaries and managed by binghe himself who loves and doesn't want to hurt sqq and who has been taught consent and respect from a younger age. when it comes to bingge, who lacks the sort of safe space provided by sqq and has no education in the matter, i think it's easy to see how he would have a much harder time understanding and managing his libido - again it isn't an excuse for SA, but this is just another convention of the genre that were it to be realised has horrible implications and consequences.)

but also, luo bingge lives in a world where healthy consensual sexual dynamics are so rarely modeled for him (the aforementioned coercive sex, but also constantly being gifted wives by other men, and the normalisation of rape in a world with sex pollen (sorry ik i already said that but like really it is so incredibly fucked up if you think about the implications of sex pollen in a real world)), and where he is being taught that the only way to be safe is to have physical power over others - of course we the reader know this is because it's being written as a venting male fantasy revenge story with a target audience of incels, but concretely this is bad for luo bingge's psyche, and you know, also leads him to do horrible things in retaliation and hurt and innombrable amount of people

and again, i don't know how much of this was really intentional on mxtx's part and how much i am reading into it, but svsss is about making one-dimensional smut novel characters into fully realised people and extrapolating out the implications for what it would mean for that world to be a real one. like, shanq qinghua and especially shen qingqiu have to learn that the people they live with are not as simple as they might have appeared on the screen of the webnovel. and part of the extrapolating, from my read of svsss, involves interrogating the ways characters have and have had their agency infringed upon in the original pidw and finding ways to return their agency to them in svsss. this is perhaps most clearly seen in the way all the "wife" characters in svsss are allowed to be their own people separate from binghe, with different passions and drives and again, agency to direct their own lives, contrary to sqq's expectations of them. however this also involves bringing to light just how pervasive and damaging the sexual violence in the original story really is, by showing the abuse that su xiyan suffered, by showing how binghe is negatively affected by xin mo and the other coercive elements of this world, by subverting expectations with shen jiu and showing how he was also a victim, and by making the only truly irredeemably evil character the old palace master, a disgusting old pervert and sexual harasser.

anyways yeah i think it's a really interesting aspect of svsss, and while i can understand why it might not be at the forefront of everyone's mind (good lord is it a BUMMER to think about), it would be a disservice to the narrative to forget it entirely.

#i can't remember if this was in svsss or just a particularly good fanfic but i seem to recall a line about how shen jiu had a pretty face #and that he must have suffered for it #if it's in the novels then grand if not then chapeau to the fic author that had that insight #but anyways thank you for the ask anon! i really appreciated the opportunity to expand on this topic!!#tw sa mention #tw fictional sa #svsss #svsss meta #luo binghe #luo bingge #gwen gets an ask

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linkspooky · 1 year ago

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You need to make another one of those "metas written by comparing characters with another show you liked" post about Getou now that you experienced FGO Morgan/Aesc.

Time to compare two characters from two different shows I liked (in this case Jujutsu Kaisen and Fate Grand Order: Cosmos of the Lostbelt 6 Faerie Britian) to illustrate what makes a good corruption / fallen hero arc. Two of the best examples I can think of in recent memory are Geto Suguru, and Morgan le Fay of Faerie Britian. They both have tragic arcs which follow similar beats which I think will illustrate exactly why audiences find these characters so compelling.

Both of these characters have their stories told out of order, appearing as villains first before their backstory is revealed but for the sake of simplicity I'm going in chronological order, the heroes they started as all the way to the villains they ended up being.

Before beginning though, a brief lesson on tragedy. Aristotle's poetics argued tragedy runs on the principal of catharsis. The audience feels for the characters on stage, no matter how terrible their acts may be. He argued in favor of moral ambiguity in its heroes. The tragic hero must neither be a villan or virtuous man, but a "character between these two extremes, ... a man who is not eminently goo and just, yet whose misfortune is brought about not by vice of depravity, but by some error or frailty [Aristotle's Poetics.]

The protagonists of tragedies are still heroes, but their good qualities are twisted against them. A tumblr post I see going around from time to time makes the argument that if Othello (the protagonist of Othello) were in Hamlet the story would not be a tragedy because Otello would just stab his uncle and avenge his father. If Hamlet (the protagonist of Hamlet) were in Othello, the story would not be a tragedy because Hamlet who is a characteristic overthinker would probably not fall victim to Iago's manipulations and jump to conclusions the way Othello did. Both of these characters are heroic, Hamlet is a clever and scheming prince, Othello is a talented general a moor who's managed to rise up the ranks in a racist society. However, they are both put into stories where those heroic values are twisted against them by the narrative framework itself. So to make the protagonists of tragedies into villains who were evil all along, ruins the moral ambiguity and therefore the catharsis of a tragedy.

Geto Suguru and Morgan Le Fay are heroes, placed in a narrative framework that twists their own heroic traits against them in ways they can't endure. They fall because of frailty, not because they were inherently evil to begin with. They are antagonists who have the qualities of protagonists, and once were arguably protagonists of the story, which is probably why they have so many fans in the audience despite the fact that they are both of them mass murderers and tyrants.

Now with the long preamble let's look at the stories.

Both characters start as essentially protagonists, and they foil the protagonists they are fighting against during their villain phase. Geto Suguru is a heavy foil for Yuji (we'll talk about this later) and Morgan so heavily foils Castoria because they are both the chosen one.

I'm going to start with Morgan because Fate/Nasuverse lore is a pain to explain. To simplify her story, Morgan Le Fay is from an alternate universe version of Britian. In that Britian everything is ruled by faeries. These are trickster faeries who are total jerks and extremely murderous at times. They were supposed to forge excalibur, but they just didn't do it because they were lazy. This was very bad, so the universe sent a big huge guy to tell them to forge the sword. They were lazy though so instead of listening to him they murdered him in his sleep and he died a horrible death.

The faeries could no longer be forgiven for failing to craft excalibur which is a really important sword that needed to exist, so god or heaven or fate or whoever decided to punish them and sent Aesc who will later be known as Morgan le Fay.

There's some time travel shenanigans but I'm going to skip it because it's confusing. Basically Aesc's job is to wipe out all fairy life and bring an end to their alternate universe, but she decides to defy her destiny instead. The heavens or whoever keep conjuring calamities to wipe out the fairites to punish them for their sins, but instead Aesc fights against them and saves the fairies.

I had a duty to paradise, but I knew that duty would result in Britiain's destruction. This other me, though... She loved Britiain dearly, even the lostbelt version of it. I thought about it, and I realized I wanted the same thing she did. From then on I chose to live as her. (Witch! Witch! Witch! You were the only one to survive the calamity) Countless times, I stopped the calamities. Countless times, I mended clan disputes to end wars. I did not mind. It was not the fairies I loved. I only loved britain itself and the home I would make here. It would be my very own Britian - something that was forever beyond my reach in Proper Human History. I did everything I could to make it a reality. Eventually though, I realized the best way to do that was to keep the faeries safe.

However, because Aesc is not one of them the fairies are generally ungrateful for her saving them again and again. Aesc gathers comrades around her to help ward off these calamities and save people, but she's often attacked by the same fairies she's just saved.

She continues fighting the system of her world again and again, until she's betrayed for the last time in her attempt to save Britan. The final straw is when after years of hard work she's finally brokered a piece and made a king who rules over all the allied fairy tribes, only for his coronation to be ruined, the king to be assassinated along with the entire round table. The king was also her lover, Uther.

Aaah! Aaaah! Why? Why? Why? This was supposed to be the greatest day in fairy history... Everything was supposed to change for the better! BUt they killed Uther! They slaughtered my entire round table like they were trash! They asked the world of us! They thought the world of Uther! BUt now, they've poisoned him...THey were too afraid to even face him cowards. Uther talk to me, please say something! I never let failure stop me! I've kept trying all these thousands of years! Am I doomed to failure here, too! Is it still not enough? Am I not enough? Is it not... Can I not save Britain? Is there no Britain that can be mine! Peace, equality, I never should have tried for either! How dare they! I can never forgive them ever!

You see much like Geto Suguru which I'll later illustrate, Aesc is caught in a cycle where she must continually fight disasters for the faeries to save them only to be met with their continued disdain. Her own higher minded intentions to save the people are what damns her to this painful cycle. If she'd been less heroic, if she didn't care she wouldn't have suffered. She's sacrificing herself over and over again, but sacrificing yourself is in a way just suffering. No one actually wants to walk the thorny path of the martyr, you'll get your feet hurt from all the thorns.

The people who are now accustomed to being saved despite doing none of the work themselves, are by and by completely ungrateful for Aesc's sacrifice. Aesc is a hero, but she's not in a hero's story so she doesn't get any of the benefits of a hero really. She's working with higher minded and more idealistic goals in a deeply cynical world and punished for it. I remind you, she was just there to kill all the faeries and end the world but she tried to save them instead.

It's important to emphasize their good intentions, because a shallower character reading would suggest that they just came out of the womb wanting to murder people. However, they're driven to it because they tried to be good, because they tried to be a hero. They are like Hamlet, and like Othello in the wrong story. They're also sacrificing themselves going against the system of their world and trying to be better than it, only to get dragged down. Their resentment grows against the people they are trying to save, the selfish and weak people who don't seem all that grateful for their heroism. The ones who aren't making sacrifices, the ones who are just content being saved.

I finally understood. My enemy wasn't just the calamities, it was the faeries of Britain as well. They were pure and innocent in the truest sense, they enjoyed both good and evil things alike without losing either that purity or innocence. They are at their core, no different from the loathsome humans who drove me from britain. So I crushed every possible source of malice. Vested interests. Discrimmination. Oppression. Envy. Mockery. All of it. But it wasn't enough. A few fairies took a look at the foundation of peace so many had worked so hard to build ... and tore it apart, because they didn't like it, because they could.

This is what finally leads to Morgan's breaking point, to decide that actually... fairies don't deserve rights. Morgan decides that the fairies are unworthy of salvation and rather than being the hero the only way to accomplish her goals is to become the oppressor and tyrant.

I give up, if everything has failed if it has all come to nothing, then I can never believe in people's so called goodness or understand it. Even if I did, what would be the point? Everything I did, everything I worked for... was just a waste of time. After all the times they betrayed me I should ahve known better... but I still clung foolishly to a sliver of hope. ANd now, because I wasted my time caring about something so utterly absurd, I've failed yet again. If my intent was to keep britain alive, then I was a fool to think being its savior was the way to accomplish it. No more. I will find another way. A better way. ...That's it. I won't deliver the fairies to absolution; I won't deliver salvation. Enough of this faerie of paradise, enough of being Avalon le Fae, I should have ruled this land from the start.

However, as I said it's only Morgan's repeated attempts to be the hero and save the fairies that drove her to this conclusion. However, I'd be amiss to say that Morgan didn't have flaws or selfish qualities from the start. Morgan le Fay is created from the Morgan le Fay we created with from proper legend. I'm not going to explain the lore, but basically she's an alternate universe version, who received memories from the Morgan le Fay of our universe. She knows the story of Morgan le Fay who tried to steal King Arthur's kingdom out from under him.

Alternate Universe Morgan le Fay still had the same chip on her shoulder, and entitlement that our Morgan did. She wanted the kingdom, and wanted Britain for herself. Her desire to play savior might have come from that very same entitlement that she deserves britain. Similiarly, she was most likely hurt so badly from the lack of praise because she also deserves praise for her actions. She has a bit of a superiority complex that places her above the fairies and makes her believe she has the right to rule.

However, as I said Morgan didn't start out as a tyrant she did earnestly try to save the faeries despite harboring those more negative qualities and selfish intentions. She may have had a more self-serving variety of selflessness but it's more the fragility of her that causes her fall. She didn't fall because she was rotten to begin with, she was just not strong enough to withstand years and years of ungratefulness from the faeries and betrayal. She has all the makings of a proper hero, she decides to defy destiny to save the people of faerie britain when she was supposed to be their destroyer. However, because she's in a tragedy she falls due to her insecurities and flaws overwhelming her rather than rising to the occasion.

Her manga chapter and the FGO Lostbelt game prose itself uses the light in the distance as a metaphor for this. Morgan continues going forward on the faint light of hope that things will work out for her and that even as a tyrant she can save Britain. However, it's that same light that damns her. In tragedies heroic qualities become flipped into flaws. Morgan's most heroic quality is her determination, the willpower to endeavor for thousands of years to try to save Faerie Britain, but that determination makes her unchanging, causes her to make the same mistakes over and over again, and just makes her continually suffer like Sisyphus pushing his boulder up the hill.

But that light is just an insect trap - or at least that's how it is for the protagonist of the tragedy. Road to hell, and all that.

After reaching her breaking point Morgan decides she'll no longer try to save the fairies but rather only care about saving the kingdom itself. She goes from the kingdom's hero to its oppressive tyrant after seizing the throne for herself.

That's where we meet the villain we know today.

Now shifting gears to Geto Suguru, he is someone who starts out his story trying to be a hero. A little bit of context on the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, it takes place in an urban fantasy version of Japan where the jungian collective unconscious and the negative emotions of humanity create curses that kill and eat people. These curses need to be exorcised by a few special humans who are given superpowers known as jujutsu sorcerers.

There is an institution of sorcerers known as Jujutsu High, which raises sorcerers from a young age gifted with these powers to exorcise sorcerers. THese teenagers are often sent out on msisions. This is different from most stories of teenage heroes with superpower, because fighting curses is brutal and dangerous and most of these kids are going to die young. There's also no end in sight to the fight against curses, because no matter how many curses are exorcised humans will just keep making more.

Not only do they live in a cynical, and brutal world but most sorcerers are insanely selfish. Just to give an example of how immoral sorcerers are, one of the allies of the main characters is implied to molest her brother, and if she's not she still uses her like 12 year old brother as a child soldier. Nobody ever bothers to question this because the institution of sorcerers are inherently corrupt, it's an instituion that continually sends children off to their deaths and uses people as nothing more than cogs.

Caught within this unfair system and trapped in a cycle of exorcising curses that are just going to come back anyway is Geto Suguru, who is not only a model sorcerer he's presented as much more selfless than your average sorcerer. He's directly contrasted against Gojo Satoru who is kind of just a petty kid with a god complex.

Gojo uses his powers selfishly, he only fights because he's really powerful and killing curses is a way to test and use his abilities. (This is literally stated as canon by Nanami don't fight me on this I'm simplifying his motivations because this is not a Gojo meta look at the entire fight with Sukuna saving Megumi was a secondary concern he wanted to fight a strong opponent). Whether people are saved by his actions are a secondary concern.

Geto on the other hand goes against the grain for most of Jujutsu Society, and believes that they as stronger people have a duty to use their strength to protect the weak. This idea of noblesse oblige is way way different from the attitudes of most sorcerers, who as I said usually turn into petty little people with god complexes.

Not to say Geto doesn't have a god complex, but we'll get to that later. Geto is explicitly contrasted against Gojo who's the only other powerful sorcerer and his best friend, but doesn't think they have an obligation to use their powers to help anyone.

Right away we have two things in common with Morgan le Fay, number one they hold themselves to a higher minded ideal that of using their powers to act as a hero and protect the people underneath them. Number two, this is a choice they make to be better than the people around them. Morgan's destiny is to destroy the faeries and she tries to save them. Sorcerers usually just keep their heads down and do their jobs, they're not heroes, they don't save people they kill curses. In fact, the sorcerers who are selfish assholes (Mei Mei) are wildly succesful, the ones who try to help other people like Nanami die young.

They sacrifice themselves for others. Geto pursuing his higher minded ideal is faced with the same kind of tragedy that Morgan is, where his attempts to save a teenage girl named Riko not only blatantly fail, they fail because of Toji a person who cannot use cursed energy. Everyone they tried to protect died, and they're shown first hand not only does the world not really care about their idealism, but they're not really powerful enough to change this world in any way.

Morgan's lover Uther and all of her allies is ruthlessly slaughtered, by the same faeries she was trying to save after she brokered peace. Geto tries to save a little girl, and he not only watches her die, but he sees an entire crowd of normal people, the people he is fighting to save applause for her death. They all applaud her death because they're a part of a cult that believes that the girl was an affront to their god, but she was mostly just a normal teenager. He witnesses first hand that normal people do not care for the fate of Jujutsu Sorcerers whatsoever.

If Geto were more selfish he would be rewarded. If he didn't attempt to save people, if he just only cared about exorcising curses like Gojo did he'd probably become more powerful and he wouldn't succumb to despair the way he had. Geto exists in a narrative where selfishness is rewarded, and his selfless, heroic traits are continually punished.

This traumatic event makes him aware similarly to the brutal cycle he is caught up in. Morgan le Fay can't save the faeries, because faeries are jerks who can't change. Geto will just continually exorcise curses over and over again. Not only is humanity just going to keep producing more curses, but humans are vastly indifferent to the sacrifices that sorcerers (who are mostly children) keep making to try and save them.

Geto's choice to protect people is the cause of his suffering, because sacrifice is inherently taking on suffering for the sake of someone else - therefore sacrifice is suffering.

This too, leads to Geto's eventual breaking point where he lets his resentment for the same people he's trying to save corrupt him. An incident where just after seeing his dear friend die because of a curse, he's brought to a village of people. The whole village put two little girls in a cage, who were capable of seeing curses and blamed them as the scapegoat for a curse reflecting his village. Geto sees a flash of what happened to Riko again, a crowd full of normal people who don't have to fight curses applauding for the sacrifice of a little girl who was innocent. It's the macrocosm, all of society forcing a few sorcerers to die exorcising curses for them, shown on the microcosm, one village scapegoating two little girls who did nothing wrong.

That's what leads Geto to snap and massacre the whole village. He's now turned against the masses he wants to protect. He then decides that instead of protecting the masses, he's going to kill them and build a world of only sorcerers. He's no longer trying to save them, like Morgan le Fay he's turned to the hero and the Tyrant.

They both even utter similiar words.

I will never save the faeries! I will never forgive the faeries! I don't like monkeys. That's the truth I chose.

Monkeys is by the way, the word Geto uses to refer to normal people who cannot fight curses or even see them. People who don't have superpowers.

One more time I want to emphasize Geto did not come out of the womb wanting genocide. Hamlet didn't start out the play stabbing people. He does have his flaws, just like Morgan by assuming the role of the hero he sees himself in a separate, superior category to the people he wants to protect. There's a line I like in a youtube analysis for for Yuji that applies to Geto as well.

(Other people exist to be saved, which gives Yuji a role in the world) In a way Yuji thinks other people exist to validate his own existence.

Geto begins the story not seeing other people as people. They exist in a category separate from himself. Part of the reason that his failures hit him so hard, is because they disprove this idea of superiority he has for himself. He's shown his god complex is just a complex and he's as flawed and capable of failure as any mortal.

It's an inability to recognize that failure, learn from it, and reconcile it with themselves that causes both Morgan le Fay and Geto to spiral. They are the hero, they are trying to be just, they should reap the just rewards for being a hero. Geto even says as such in a moment of rare jealousy for Gojo, that Gojo is someone who also has godlike power and if Geto had that same power he could change the world the way he wants. He could create his more just world.

Morgan and Geto are characters who begin their narratives with superior complexes and senses of entitlement, selfishly selfess heroes and those negative qualities eventually lead them to fail. Geto thought being a sorcerer made him superior, he just also thought that with that superiority came a responsibility to protect others. Morgan le Fay thought she was the rightful king of Britain, she also thought that divine right to be king also came with an obligation to protect Britain. However, they're not meant to be seen as people who all along wanted to oppress and hurt others.

The key word with tragedy is catharsis, we are supposed to feel for the protagonists of tragedies. We're supposed to see our own traits reflected in them. It's their human qualities to drive them to tragedy.

After all, you reader on tumblr would probably not be able to be a perfectly selfless hero. If you saved someone and then they immediately tried to kill you, you would probably just be a little bitter about it. If you were like Geto and you were working tirelessly to exorcise curses, and all you got was your friends dying, I don't think you'd be like "This is okay :D". If anything, going mad in their extreme circumstances seems like a reasonable response, because could we as the audience do any better in their situations?

Of course the last similarity between Geto and Morgan (besides the fact they both adopt daughters they raise up to be little psychos but this post is getting too long already) is the fact that they both heavily foil the heroes of the story they occupy. They see themselves as villain, they play the role of villain, but they're really just heroes of another story.

Paradise or god or fate or whatever in Faerie britain eventually conjures up another chosen one. This chosen one Altria or as the fandom calls her Castoria is far less heroic. IN fact unlike Morgan who embraces the role of savior she would rather do anything she could to avoid Britain.

This is because for similiar reasons as Morgan, the faeries have basically abused her and tormented her all her life. Yet they still expect her to selflessly step up as their chosen one and save the day from the evil oppressive tyrant Morgan.

You have one protagonist who embraces their heroic quest, and even goes above and beyond by ignoring her destiny to wipe out the faeries and saving them instead. You have another who continually runs away from the heroic quest, and honestly doesn't seem to care that much about saving faeries.

Morgan is actually openly sympathetic to Castoria, and even offers to ally with her a couple of times because she bears the same burden as chosen one. This is another example of how Morgan doesn't quite fit the role of either hero or villain, the ambiguity who makes tragedy.

However, while Morgan does everything to defy fate, Castoria just kind of keeps marching along every step of Joseph Campbell's the heroes journey until she ends up defeating Morgan. Well she doesn't truly defeat her, but Morgan meets her tragic end and gets stabbed a whole bunch of times.

There's a similiar foiling between Geto, and the series protagonist Yuji who both start out the story believing that as sorcerers they have a duty to save others. There are several in story comparisons and direct parallels between the two.

Yuji attempts to save others with his power as a sorcerer over and over again, and is met with the same continual failure that Geto has. Yuji is the only real sorcerer in his generation that cares about saving strangers with his powers. Nobara wants money to live in Tokyo, Megumi only cares about protecting Yuji and his sister, Yuta only cares about his friends, Maki only wants revenge against her clan. Like Maki blatantly says whether people get saved or not by her actions is none of her business.

His own attempts to save people not only fail badly, but he watches people die. He watches a lot of people die in a situation where he is powerless to stop them.

He's met with the same tragedy of Geto but he doesn't succumb to it. The same for Castoria she doesn't decide to be a Tyrant the way that Morgan le Fay did. I would argue this isn't because of any inherent goodness that Castoria or Yuji have but rather because both of them are able to let go of their egoes. Yuji kind of believes the same thing Geto does, that other people exist to be saved by him. He's broken when he realizes that he's not a savior after all...but he's able to continue in a way that Geto isn't.

Yuji lets go of his ego entirely and believes that he's just a cog in the machine and he doesn't need to be some big hero or be rewarded at the end of his hero's journey.

Geto and Morgan le Fay both long for a role in the grand scheme of things. They are still employing narrative thinking, they need to play a story role to validate their existences. It's just that they flipped their role, they tried being the heroes but it didn't work so they're the villains now.

Geto is similiarly rebuffed by Yuta who is his eventual killer by saying that he doesn't actually care about saving the world or if Geto is right that sorcerers are superior to humans, he's only fighting for his friends.

I would say for both castoria and yuji it's not a matter of being inherently good people, but rather of being better at enduring than their counterparts are. Morgan le Fay and Geto try to take the world's suffering on their shoulders, and it breaks them because they're not heroes they're just normal people. Yuji, Castoria and to the same extent Yuta kind of learn to let go of their great heroic aspirations but because of that they're able to take on suffering better. They're trying to live in reality not a grand heroic fantasy.

To bring the example back to FGO, for Castoria and for Morgan the light of hope that led them down their heroic journeys mean two different things. For Morgan that light is an insect trap. Her flying towards that light just causes her to keep suffering through her sisyphian task. Castoria has a much more realistic point of view, she's not trying to get a happy ending or even save people, that light is the hope that at the end of her journey her actions will have meant something. It's more about the journey itself and the people she met along the way, then some big grand reward at the end.

Morgan le Fay and Geto both fail because they are fragile, because they are human. That's the most important takeaway of this long rambling post. They may be selfish, they may be entitled but they're flawed in human ways. After all, who doesn't want a happy ending?

#jjk meta #fgo meta #morgan le fay #fgo morgan #camelot #fgo lostbelt #geto suguru #suguru geto #idk what else to tag this #for the three people who are going to read this post #i hope you like this comun #the things i do for love

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chaotic-starlight24 · 7 months ago

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I'm rereading THE OUTSIDERS so I can catch the stuff I missed and annotate stuff :) I will be updating my thoughts as I go, spoilers under the cut

BTW, please don't fight me!!! These are just my thoughts and opinions!! There is some minor hating on Dally, like about how rude he can be! And mentions of Sodapop's worse traits! I still love both of them as characters!!!

You can look in the reblogs for the next part

I feel a lot of people downplay just how rude and disrespectful Dally is. He's my favorite character but I've now realized just how horrible he is. The movie def made him a better person. Like jumping children??? What joy is found there??? He has good traits though, that's just not really shown to strangers. He's still my favorite character though, he's tragic. Just pointing out his negatives.

I feel kinda bad for Sandy because Soda was constantly flirting with other girls or saying dirty things abt them. Like I understand "They're greasers, it's what they do!" and "it didn't mean anything to him!" But like, people hate so much on Sandy, I'm not justifying her cheating that was not good, but I understand if she was insecure

Cherry should have punched Dally hard enough to knock him out. Though she would prob be jumped later, if that wouldn't happen she should've decked him

...THIS LINE THOUGH

"He would kill the next person who jumped him. Nobody was ever going to beat him like that again. Not over his dead body..." p.34 abt Johnny

THAT IS SOME OF THE BEST FORESHADOWING IN SUCH A SUBTLE WAY!!!!!

I like Cherry's character a bit more, she's a little more interesting. I didn't pay attention much the first read to all the details and the movie kind of made her boring. Like it's missing several of her good lines.

Steve was really beefing with Pony, and it was real one-sided. Pony was really like "I thought he was pretty ok since he's sodas bestie, but he sure don't like me." Probably a case of unreliable narrator

I like Sodapop a lot more because the book really showcases both his good and bad traits. A lot of posts on here have turned him into a sort of, he's a perfect little innocent man. I understand some people are joking but it can be a little ooc.

I like that Darry goes skiing, glad he has some sort of activity he can enjoy :)

Random thing, but first time I read the book I imagined Darry with glasses. I might draw him later with them

WILL BE UPDATED AS I GO THROUGH MY REREAD

Please don't attack me because you disagree with my opinions!!! These are just my thoughts and stuff, not trying to call anyone out!

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homunculus-argument · 2 years ago

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Something I always love in fiction is when some character reminds other ones of some other character who is completely absent from the story, like someone who died long before the story itself even started. Like fuck yeah This Person keeps hearing remarks of how much they resemble someone they've never met, a ghost whose portrait is only painted in these faint shadows, whose eeriness they can't quite comprehend themselves. The idea that they themselves are an uncanny image of a figure they'll never meet.

A father who sees the same kind of traits and features of his lost childhood friend in his daughter, the friend who died a tragic death horribly young due to their own bad choices, watching with concern as his rowdy daughter takes the same kind of gleeful risks, says the same kind of outrageous things, and he knows painfully well what kind of lethal trouble that kind of wild youths can find by being too clever for their own good. He raised her too similarly.

A rough and insolent fatherless bastard who roams the same streets just as another rough and insolent fatherless bastard did long ago, who walks the same way, turns his head the exact same way when he snaps in response to an unintended insult, even spits on the street in the exact same way before starting a fight he will lose, and will probably unknowingly leave behind another fatherless bastard to be his own shadow, in the exact same way.

A young novice girl that everyone is convinced must be the late High Priestess reborn, as she does the same kind of things, moves in the same kind of ways, has similar quirks as the High Priestess did, even looks slightly past people as she talks and is talked to just the same way as the High Priestess did. Nothing supernatural is actually going on - she's from a different background than the old High Priestess, of a completely different people, and not related to her in any way. They're just both autistic.

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aroaceleovaldez · 2 years ago

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Tumblr kept breaking when I tried to reply to the ask about this since the post is too long, so answering this here finally:

A non-comprehensive list of misc things I’d change in HoO, since apparently people wanted me to elaborate further (Re: [This post]). Semi-off the top of my head since I don’t feel like re-reading all of HoO with notations right now. Also this will be followed up by a Things I Would Change About TOA post as well at some point, since that was also requested and kept breaking, but my brain is exhausted from getting this post set up so that will wait. I will link it [here] when I complete it.

Going under a read-more cause it’s very long. Literally Tumblr crashed like three times while I was trying to answer the original ask:

As said before (and what is a given):

1. Goes without saying - fix all the distasteful offensive character descriptions/traits. Similarly, fix the whole "these characters inexplicably look down upon their cultures" cause that's stupid and it's really annoying every time one of the Argo 2 crew brings up something about their cultures only to immediately go "but THAT'S SILLY and WEIRD."

2. Remove Calypso from the active plot, rather than the current canon retconning that doesn’t work saying that she was never actually released from Ogygia like she was supposed to be. There's no excuse for why she wasn't, unless it's supposed to be the gods sent Leo to release her to fulfill that promise, but that's not really implied to be the case at all. There's no excuse for the Olympians to just go back on their promise, since Hephaestus is established to visit Calypso regularly and basically is her only friend. It isn’t the type of thing he’d let be overlooked given all the characterization we know about Hephaestus, and given they are explicitly friends it can’t be that Olympus just “forgot” either. Also Calypso doesn't actually add anything to the plot of HoO or TOA besides serving as a love interest for Leo (not even a motive, just a love interest that "fixes him,” because he already has motive in saving Jason from being the hero of the prophecy and helping save the Argo 2 crew/camp/etc from Gaea etc etc. Leo's romance arc completely derails the established depressive spiral/destructive character arc that's been set up for him and it basically ruins Leo's entire character. He's a tragic character! Let him be tragic until he's done being tragic and then the end of BoO and TOA can be him starting his recovery arc! (I have some thoughts for how Calypso could work removed from HoO but an active character in TOA but that’ll be for the TOA post.)

If Leo still ends up on Ogygia, then have it be clear that Calypso's already left and the island is abandoned (which imo is WAY more narratively compelling for readers of the first series, because you already know the context of the island, but for readers who don't have that context it leads to this being an interesting mystery - who was Calypso? What was this island and why do all the signs/notes left by her imply she wasn't always alone but usually was and was desperate to leave?) and Leo has to collect the scraps left behind to build an escape for himself while he goes through a fun identity crisis. At some point maybe Hephaestus shows up and Leo gets an interaction with his dad that probably does not help his identity crisis and then he goes back to the Argo 2 to have a further identity crisis about how the rest of the crew got along in his absence (a good identity crisis or a bad identity crisis? depends on how they did without him! you decide! I personally like "they managed okay" and Leo feels Really Horrible About That Cause It Feels To Him Like They Don't Need Him. I like Leo's tragic arc, okay? It's compelling.) Iirc Leo’s also the only member of the Seven who doesn’t get to have some kind of direct conversation with their godly parent, at least in-person, so yknow. It’d be nice to have. Also if you want Aro/ace Leo Valdez this is the perfect spot to put it while he's having his identity crisis on Kiss Kiss Fall In Love Island, or when he gets back.

3. Jason's stab wound in BoO is not healed by the Power Of Friendship, and instead they use the Physician's Cure for that so it doesn't feel like they're literally deus ex machina-ing their way to cheating death like 3 times in the same book. It makes more sense to use Potion Of Don't Die on Wound Of Excruciatingly Painfully Slowly Killing You instead of Whoops You're Already Dead, Just Get Better. Ctrl+Z That Real Quick.

Given they already used the Physician’s Cure on Jason, Leo doesn’t die/get revived at the end of BoO. Instead he just almost dies, probably lands in CHB’s woods somewhere, and is found and patched up with the series ending on him being on the mend and starting on the path to healing and getting help for his Numerous Issues that he was putting off for The Entire Series. Which parallels nicely to Nico basically having the same thing (overexerting his powers to near death, ends series getting medical treatment/being on the mend and the indication that he’s moving on to a happier period of his life). Again, grand happy ending rather than aggravating fake-out.

Further notes:

- Heavily tweak Ella's character cause I get what Rick was going for, but the execution is… not awesome! Please, there's already so much ableism in HoO just. hmm. We can do better.

- Jason and Piper break up in HoO, probably around MoA when they start seeing Percy and Annabeth interacting and after they’ve had time to hang out with each other and realize their arranged relationship is Kind Of Fucked Up, Actually. (Probably something something them having gotten to spend time actually getting to know each other between TLH and MOA while they’re both at camp.) They have no problems with each other specifically and do genuinely like each other, but it just gets really awkward given all the memory manipulation and being set up as a "picture perfect couple" - emphasizing stuff like them both being children of really famous movie stars in their universe, or Jason as a son of Jupiter/Jove (an "all-father" type god) [and Juno - mother figure goddess and goddess of marriage]/"son of Rome" and Piper as a daughter of Aphrodite (goddess of love, also Aphrodite/Venus indirectly is associated as a sort of "mother of Rome" due to Aeneas). They just feel like they have too many expectations being put on their relationship and even though they do both like each other it feels too forced for them, but they’re comfortable staying just friends. This just gives way more opportunity for low-stakes character conflict among the Argo II crew outside of Monster Of The Week Chapter so things don’t feel unreasonably busy and chaotic and we actually get some consistent development. Just a nice mini-arc to follow in the downtime. Also while we’re here, more directly establish Piper’s bisexuality earlier on. If she’s already having an arc where she’s contemplating her romantic life, throw in a couple of nods to like “Piper thinking about her old childhood crush on Shel, the kid of a family friend she’d see when her and her dad visited Oklahoma” or something. Literally anything just to establish some kind of set-up to her getting a girlfriend later. Just for consistency’s sake.

- Bunkernine has a very good post about wishing the Argo II didn't have the magic plates from CHB, which I agree with in concept. Like I was just saying, MoA through BoO lacks a lot of little moments where we get to really focus in on the characters, probably in part because Rick was struggling to juggle so many parties given this was his first foray into writing a major cast that size. We can definitely cut out a lot of the random unnecessary fights and dramatic moments that don't really do anything for the plot and instead replace them with little moments of casual life on the Argo II - the scenes like those that do exist in HoO are some of HoO's most memorable moments to me! And they'd help a lot with how the characters never felt fully and properly fleshed-out. Let them exist as a cohesive group without two-to-three of them being absent at any given time! I don't think we necessarily have to remove the magic plates entirely because they do solve a fundamental problem ("where are these kids getting food?") but like, there is nothing stopping them from still cooking and just using the plates to get ingredients! Let these kids bake or something! Even just for fun! Though also I have personal headcanons about the Argo II crew's cooking skills and I really like the concept of like, during HoH or something at like 3am everybody hears something and they all suspiciously shuffle into the mess hall. And it’s just half-dead Nico standing there in his PJs making food for himself because Dammit They're IN VENICE and he’s FROM VENICE and they DON’T HAVE TIME TO STOP AT HIS OLD FAVORITE RESTAURANTS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT STILL EXIST and he Hasn't Had A Proper Meal In Weeks so By The Gods He Will Make His Mom's Old Recipes At 3am before he keels over from this quest. He just stares at everybody and goes "What are you all looking at. go away." and the rest of the crew just shuffles away awkwardly and leaves him to it. (Is Nico’s 3am meal actually good? Who knows. It is left a mystery.)

- Tweak the god characterizations. Remove the "gods splitting" thing and maybe play more with different aspects of gods/verisons of gods across history/city-states/etc presenting themselves instead. The Roman gods are not wholly equivilent to the Greek gods and it's actually really interesting from a historical perspective, and I think there's a lot you could do with that but instead it gets flatted in HoO which is sad to me. Just generally though, with the god characterizations, like. [uncomfortable pagan noises]. Which is almost impressive because it is difficult to write the Greco-Roman pantheons poorly since a good portion of them are basically just very complicated metaphors turned into personifications and characters. So they work fine for narrative purposes when applied accordingly, and yet! and yet!! Rick managed it! He managed to really bungle it in HoO and TOA. Because instead of leaning into the aspects of metaphors and dynamic characters he just fell into 2D tropes, gimmicks, and stereotypes. Off the top of my head the only deities written Okay in HoO is like. Hades/Pluto and Thanatos. (even Chiron in TOA is extremely lackluster, it's sad.) In the first series it ranges from “okay” to “actually really interesting” so it’s sad to see that drop-off and I would like it to be fixed.

Some potential examples for this: Play with the historical ties combo of like, Athena, Minerva, Enyo, Bellona, and etc! Annabeth and Reyna parallels! if the first 2 books are about the trios, let MoA be about Annabeth and Reyna and both their connections to Athena(/Bellona). Let Reyna be a second half in the Athena prophecy! It'd be cool and fit with her thematically and would set-up the whole Getting-Blessed-By-Athena thing later in BoO and make that scene feel so much cooler!

- Also retcon the whole "Hestia appears as an 8 year old for no reason" thing. And maybe also Artemis only appearing as a teen, because while Artemis has a mythological excuse, Hestia doesn't, so it just feels weird and at worst comes off as a little aphobic (depicting a character who explicitly is uninterested in relationships/romantic love as a child despite them being an immortal god with no basis for appearing as a child or even being comparatively young to other gods) with how it relates to aphobic tropes about disinterest in romance being "childish".

- Remove the "no children of Minerva" thing. Also maybe emphasize the aro/ace vibes there cause Athena being implied to be the only ace character in the entire series who a.) isn't literally a child/teen nor appears as one, and/or b.) hasn't had an unfortunate relationship that makes them disinterested in romance, but also at the same time being the only one out of herself/Hestia/Artemis to have relationships of some sort (having kids, implied to possibly be romantic but unclear) issss bad! actually! Bad tropes, don't like that. (Again aphobic tropes of disinterest in romance being “childish” and something that can be grown out of, or a result of trauma. Also it feels weird that the only a-spec characters in the series are all women. Can we have a male a-spec character please.) Just let Athena be aro/ace and vibing and occasionally having brain children cause she can do what she wants and everyone is aware of this and chill with it (And being a-spec doesn’t mean she’d be disinterested in having kids). Also maybe make her feel less cold cause "a-spec character is cold and loveless" is also an aphobic trope that PJO!Athena falls into, actually.

- Speaking of aphobic tropes, fix the Hunters! Please. Please just redo the Hunters of Artemis entirely. Holy cow. I wrote up an entire alternate oath/rules set for the Hunt because it's just so weird and poorly done. There were male Hunters of Artemis in Greek Mythology! Multiple! And most of them were chill! The "swearing off all romance" thing is also questionable, because depending on what versions of myths you’re looking at it’s potentially implied the Hunters had romantic relationships among themselves. And in Greek Mythology all the Hunters were definitely not all pre-teens. And it feels especially bad that the only adult Hunters we ever see are explicitly ex-Hunters who are heavily implied to be not ace and definitely aren't aro and are also implied to have "grown out of" being disinterested in romance. (That gagging noise you hear is me being sick of how many aphobic tropes the Hunters are juggling).

The version of the Hunters i have written up is, and I quote (from my notes): "Hunters can be any age, species, and gender identity (so long as they are comfortable enough being occasionally referred to as “Huntresses,” “Sisters,” “Maidens,” and etc). Relationships between Hunters are allowed so long as it will not endanger/distract from the Hunt or endanger any other Huntresses. Having a child is not allowed within the Hunt and any Huntresses who wish to do so must leave (purely because having a pregnant person/young child on the Hunt is dangerous, and safety is the number one priority - especially as Artemis is a protector of youth and goddess of childbirth. Once they turn like, 12 they can join, that’s fine. Everyone knows middle schoolers are the optimal combination of bloodthirstiness and ability to wield a weapon)." Also, just as like, a side-thing, I wanna see a clear-sighted mortal Huntress, because we're told thats a thing but we never see them. Closest we get is like ancient semi-immortals and Technical Nymphs, or other Huntresses who are of unspecified mortal/demigod status.

- Similar deal - fix the Amazons. they're… better but still a little wonky.

- Some slight tweaks to the Cupid Scene - Nico still has a confrontation with Cupid cause that is a very compelling scene that works well for Nico's character and informs a lot about him (and serves a purpose in a very meta way - not so much for the plot but reflecting something the first series did occasionally which was a kind of showing an example of a situation, usually a negative situation that either mirrors or directly references a type of situation a kid may find themself in, and explains and shows sympathy for the character being hurt in that situation. Which is notable because the demographic for the series is young middle schoolers and particularly neurodivergent kids, who are probably approaching a lot of new social situations or may struggle with empathy. It acts as an introduction to “unfortunately this is a bad thing that happens sometimes, and it hurts people, which is why you should be nice to this kid. Look at beloved character. Here’s an elaboration on why they’re hurt so you can understand.” So for the purposes of that, the scene of Nico getting outed would likely remain, but it would still keep the very overt “WOW THIS SUCKS, THIS IS A BAD SITUATION.” stuff) Most of the tweaks are just slight adjustments to minor prelude dialogue and/or setting, like. Jason does not forget that being gay is a thing for a second. And etc. But Nico having a very literal metaphorical conflict about grappling with how he views the concept of love by LITERALLY GETTING KICKED AROUND BY THE GOD OF LOVE is actually kinda badass from a narrative analysis perspective. This is exactly what i meant in the previous bullet points about the gods in a lot of myths and classical stories playing the roles of personifications of metaphors and that being used well. Admittedly I'm 50/50 on tweaking Cupid's general attitude in the scene itself, because a more hostile Cupid lends itself better to the meta use of the scene as described before but a more sympathetic-to-Nico Cupid who is nonetheless still kicking the shit out of him is interesting from a metaphor standpoint (something something Nico overcoming internalized homophobia but in the very literal form of it’s the god that literally presides over protecting gay love [yes that is an actual thing Eros/Cupid is the god of] beating him up).

- Remove Reyna's “prophecy” entirely. It's stupid and pointless and doesn’t make sense with her character at all. Just say she's ace. There is not a single scene in any of the series that ever indicates that Reyna believes that she can only be happy if she’s in a relationship and that’s some kind of internal struggle she needs to overcome. The closest we ever get is Reyna being upset that her best friend disappeared and when he returns she finds out he had forgotten about her completely. Which does not apply to the “prophecy” at all. We just don’t need it.

- Absence of "a character" can work! Jason's lack of personality and backstory can work but it works best if it's absence is felt and properly explored. This works best if we get more information about Camp Jupiter from SoN and from the other Roman characters, especially Reyna (and maybe even Nico referencing his trips there!) because that inherently informs us about what Jason's life was like there. Have other characters note things about Jason and highlight the fact that this is absent from Jason's own POV! He's lost that part of his life! It was taken from him! That's such an interesting dynamic to have and explore! But we don't get any of that!

Side-note: Part of the problem with Jason's amnesia is that it feels so awkward especially compared to Percy's amnesia because we already know what Percy can't remember. We have the context that informs his character, even though he can't remember it, so that absence is felt and it feels really compelling! Also, Percy is unfamiliar with Camp Jupiter, and we're unfamiliar with Camp Jupiter, so it feels new and interesting (even though we don't actually get much about it so we never actually form any real attachment to it and that's a problem later on in every subsequent scene when we're supposed to care about what happens to Camp Jupiter but we. don't). The reason it doesn't work for Jason is because we don't know what's absent and we already know CHB. Jason also already knows about demigods and stuff, so if you're a new reader starting at HoO it just doesn't work. Because Jason already knows everything and we're being led from his POV primarily for that portion of TLH, and even Piper and Leo's backstories both heavily include being pushed around by Gaea/and or Hera/Juno, so if you aren't familiar with the universe you're just being hurried along and it ends up feeling weak. At least with Percy even if you don't know the contexts of his backstory, we can feel the implications of other characters referencing things about him extremely often, so you feel the weight of his memories being gone, and he doesn't know about the roman gods and you, the reader, aren't expected to know much if anything about it either. We don’t get the full demigod debriefing (but that's also the second book) but we at least get a Camp Jupiter debriefing. The first two books are a bit messy in those specific regards with setting up the camps for the series, and we don’t really see the camps much for the rest of HoO (except for CHB, of course).

This is personally why I stand by that if we ever get a roman series it should be a three-part series from Reyna's POV, because leading with Jason is basically like trying to lead PJatO with Annabeth - a demigod raised in camp and surrounded by the knowledge of this stuff their entire life. It doesn't work as a character who's acting as an introduction to this world for the reader. There's no real clean way to work that out for HoO unfortunately, since literally all our protagonists are given established pasts involving knowledge of Greco-Roman mythology being real and half of them are either already at camp or have been to a different camp. I'd say best solution would probably actually be leading from Piper for TLH and tweak her character set-up slightly in that she Does Not Know What's Going On At All re: Gaea and the Giants. She just knows Something Happened To Her Dad and she's the POV we follow into TLH, because that mirrors Percy in beginning of TLT well (with Sally being kidnapped)! It's a fun call-back for the old readers and a good lead-in for the new readers.

- Fix Nico backstory inconsistencies caused by Rick almost making his birthday in March and confusing himself over it. He's 12 in TLO, 13 in HoO. He was born January 28th, 1929, and got put in the Lotus Hotel and Casino in 1939 (If you wanna be cute, we can specifically say May 1st, 1939, to reference the musical). Hazel is one month older than him chronologically and one year older than him post-revival. Something something also smooth out the inconsistencies about Nico being raised in Italy and how Maria met Hades and stuff. Fill in the rest as you will.

- I do stand by that the entire PJO timeline is not one-to-one with the real world. That's always been a thing with the series. We're basically condensing everything from ~1998 to ~2020 into an 18 year timeline. We don't need to be exact with things. Don't get too bogged down with it.

- Make the whole "injuries caused by celestial bronze/imperial gold for demigods makes their souls self-destruct" thing specifically relating to cursed weapons/materials or feature some more volatile abomination combo weapons like Backbiter (with Backbiter being described as unstable due to being both celestial bronze and mortal steel). (Ex.: the spear used to stab Jason in BoO is just cursed, and maybe Octavian's catapult plan is a "well i put a bunch of mortal steel and imperial gold in a pot and melted them together a bit and now it really wants to explode so im gonna just chuck the entire thing and hope it kills everyone lots and lots <3" which is tbh significantly more dastardly and fucked-up, which makes Octavian a bit more compelling). Having it just be a plain trait of celestial bronze/imperial gold doesn’t make any sense and is only referenced like twice in HoO and never again in basically the entire three series. Again: consistency.

- Make a more prominent reference to the whole "btw there are retired adult Romans just living wherever but they're legally required to help any campers who request aid" thing, cause you could totally do something really fun and cool with that but idk what.

- PICK A THEME! First series theme was family! Second series theme is….. we don’t know! It felt like maybe a theme was intended at some point but we lost it. Forging a new life for one’s self/choosing your own path/etc could be a good theme, or something similar. or found family. or both. We’ve got a bunch of characters absolutely ripe for “I didn’t think i’d get this far and now I have to like, actually consider what i want to do in life. huh” arcs! (Frank! Leo! Hazel! Jason! Percy! Nico!) Do something with that!

- Lean more into the characters having aspects inspired by myths, or legends being mirrored in plot points: 7 against Thebes, the Argonauts, etc etc etc. The first series leaning into it heavily worked really well! More of that! HoO and TOA suffer a lot from lack of mythological basis to lean their plots on, despite there being plenty to work from. It instead just kind of messily mashes random misc myths (haha, alliteration) together into a very incoherent plot. Annabeth is known to be explicitly based off Atalanta, Percy is mostly based off Perseus and Theseus, Leo has loose connections based off of Demophon of Eleusis and possibly also his brother Triptolemus, etc etc. There’s stuff to work with! Poke around at the mythological figures of the original Argo and maybe match them up a bit (though most of the Argonaut myths were used in Sea of Monsters, so focus more on the figures/archetypes rather than just exact myths of what they did. For more plot-things, maybe consider Seven Against Thebes, though admittedly the plot of that is just Kinda Depressing.)

- Slightly related to that - lean into Piper presumably mirroring Orpheus! Or even if she isn’t supposed to, let her do that, because it fits with her thematically SUPER well. Her charmspeak is OP and that needs to be appreciated. In canon she brings Jason back from the brink of death in TLH and just straight up gives Festus a soul/free will/sentience. Let her go Orpheus-mode on everybody. You can even tie that in with the half-hearted snake theme that Rick tried to throw in there that didn’t work at all. We can make this work, just lean into it. It’ll be fun.

- Remove scene of Nico confessing to Percy at end of BoO. it’s just. random and feels sudden and OOC. Give Nico time. You could maybe replace it by having him come out to Reyna on his own terms while they’re on their quest discussing their adventures thus far and them having a very sweet little emotional moment rather than it being a weird out-of-place afterthought comical scene.

- Remove Bob and Damacus. They’re just half-literal dues ex machinas for Percabeth in Tartarus that don’t make sense. It feels extremely cheap and doesn’t fit with the established mythos of either figure (and Bob feels extra awkward without the context of knowing Sword of Hades). If they do run into a figure who helps them out in Tartarus, Arke could possibly be a good option - especially since in SoN Percy meets Iris. There’s a lot potentially you could do there with Percy mistaking her for her twin and stuff like that. If we want a figure to more-so take the role that Bob fills (Nico encouraging an immortal to be sympathetic to Percy and thus indirectly helping him later) that role could be filled by Nyx instead of making her a minor antagonist - imply Nico encountered Nyx in Tartarus or something and she took pity on him as someone who also understands the dark, and he told her about Percy and so Nyx is willing to help Percabeth escape. Plus imagine how COOL a Nyx & her children vs Tartarus/Titans/Giants fight would be. That’d be a significantly more memorable scene than the Tartarus fight scenes we did get. (“Why would Nyx help though?” One of Nyx’s kids is LITERALLY a goddess of friendship [Philotes], we have excuses.)

- On a similar note, this is more of a TSATS thing, but for goodness’ sake STOP THROWING CHARACTERS INTO TARTARUS. You’re overusing it! It only works when we use it sparingly! In fact, just in general Tartarus works better the less we see of it! Nico going through Tartarus once in SoN-MoA, yes, that works! Especially since we have almost no idea what happened to him down there, just that it was Terrifying and Horrible and he Barely Survived. Not going into much detail means we get more out of it. The only exception to that really was when Percy realized that Nico saw Tartarus as it truly was the entire time, because that’s one hell (ha) of a punch to the gut in terms of added information! Percabeth falling into Tartarus in MoA? Eh, fine, sure, because we’ve established that Nico (who is implied to be more resilient to that environment on virtue of being a child of Hades) talked about his experiences down there so they know what to expect and how to survive. Though it does kind of just feel like Rick went “Oh wait hey I can use this to make angst!” and then overused the hell out of it. It feels way weaker in general in HoH because of how much detail we get, because Tartarus has been built up so much until that point that literally anything we get will feel lackluster in comparison, especially with how it kind of feels like Percabeth just. breezed through it with little more difficulty than they’d usually face on their quests. Solangelo jumping into Tartarus in TSATS is honestly just a blatant “Oh boy we can make Solangelo into Percabeth 2!” and it doesn’t work at all because NICO HAS ALREADY BEEN TO TARTARUS.

The only way you could make Nico going into Tartarus two times work is if he fell into Tartarus a second time to replace Percabeth falling down there. Because we’ve established he knows what it’s like down there, he survived it once, and he is actively sparing someone else he cares about from suffering his same fate. And then he can return once again even closer to death and A Little Fucked Up and it turns into a rule of threes where we know “Oh, Nico can’t go back to Tartarus again because if he does he’ll Lose Himself Completely” which is way more interesting than romance angst for the sake of romance angst. Especially since again, we don’t see it, it’s all only implied. Also it then also turns Tartarus into even more of a “Nico is probably the only demigod who could ever even hope to survive Tartarus” which keeps Tartarus as an ominous thing. Percabeth falling into Tartarus lessens that by a lot because it implies that it doesn’t matter that Nico is a child of Hades; that had absolutely no bearing on his ability to survive down there. TL;DR: Stop throwing characters into Tartarus. Either throw Nico in twice in a row and no Percabeth or Nico and Percabeth once only and never touch it again.

- More heavily set up Percy’s emotions/mood/etc being influenced by water around him. If we keep most of Percabeth in Tartaurs, then this would really make the Achlys scene pack a bigger punch. Up until HoH everything is “oh how quirky” but the minute Percy’s surrounded by the rivers of the underworld and the acid/poision you get hit with the “oh shit” realization that Percy Is About To Get SCARY.

- Maybe have Annabeth keep her blindness from Tartarus, or trade Jason having glasses to her having glasses as a result of that, since vision is actually an aspect of Athena so it kind of fits her more, thematically-speaking.

- Change the judo flip percabeth scene in MoA to Annabeth picking Percy up and spinning him around in a hug/swinging him into a dip cause that’s cuter, makes more sense given Percy’s PTSD, and still highlights Annabeth being very strong and showing off in front of the Romans while they’re still being lovey-dovey.

But also, related to that, you could potentially make a sub-arc for Percabeth throughout HoO (so that they actually have like. some type of character development that fits them rather than them feeling stagnant the entire time) about Annabeth learning she doesn’t know as much about Percy as she thought (learning about Gabe [since as far as we know she actually doesn't know much if anything about that!], seeing his behavior change with different types of water, etc) kicked off by the judo flip scene, and possibly vice versa (Percy learning more about Annabeth’s time spent traveling with Thalia and Luke, growing up at CHB, her relationship with Athena and other campers at CHB, etc) so they gain a deeper understanding of one another. If Percy keeps his curse of Achilles, that could also factor in (contrasting Percy’s “perfect” image [relationship, near-immortality] against Annabeth realizing she doesn’t know as much about Percy as she thought [could also parallel that dynamic to Jaspiper, which opens opportunities for Annabeth/Piper and Jason/Percy bonding] [Or Annabeth/Jason and Piper/Percy bonding! I want more Annabeth/Jason and Piper/Percy parallels so bad. They’re almost there but we never get them. Please.]/ the Argo II crew learning about Percy’s past) with Percy being more prone to seek out conflict or solve problems with violence due to the Curse of Achilles and eventually recognizing that [possibly after Tartarus] and it scaring him just as much as it frightens Annabeth. Maybe at that point Percy tries to make some sort of deal to rid himself of the curse.)

- Maybe also explicitly parallel Percy getting the curse of Achilles with Nico’s help to Poseidon giving his lover Caeneus iron skin. There’s no really smooth way to do it, but maybe even just a during Nico’s pov him going “I heard about this myth once and got an idea. It didn’t work.” Just for that added through-line of connecting the series and further establishing “yeah, no, Nico’s been gay this whole time. this isn’t a new thing. we aren’t pulling this from thin air.”

- Give Piper a different weapon than the knife from the beginning cause she stops using it eventually anyways. Also just... no cornucopia. That part is just stupid and there’s no point for it. If we have to keep it as a plot object, give it to someone else - Nico could work because then there’s actually at least a valid relation there regarding his godly parent (yes, Pluto sometimes has cornucopia associations). Also Nico having a cornucopia would be kinda funny in a subversion of expectations thing. Maybe even have Nico go on a little exposition-y rant complaining about Hades/Pluto versus Plutus (the Greek god of plenty/wealth, later merged with Pluto).

- Similarly, either remove Diocletian’s scepter (if we have multiple characters who can boss around skeletons, why do we need an entire separate extra object whose sole purpose is to let them boss around skeletons?) or let Nico keep it but it loses its abilities, so it’s literally just “well now he has a cool bashing stick for bashing things.” Or let him use it as a cane to highlight him being disabled!

- As I slightly touched upon in a previous bullet point, give Piper more connections to her dad’s community in Oklahoma - where’s all her family friends? Tristan is a major pop culture figure in the Riordanverse, so it’d make sense that people from the community he grew up in would like. know him? But all we ever hear about is Piper’s Grandpa Tom. Even though apparently Piper is already good enough friends with Shel presumably before Piper moves to Oklahoma that the two start dating soon afterwards. Heck, again, have Piper reference Shel specifically. Just at any point. For any reason. Just to establish that she knows people her own age that exist outside of CHB.

Similarly, flesh out the background Romans in Camp Jupiter more in SoN and possibly also BoO, particularly the ones Jason references by name but we never see anything of, besides at most maybe more background references. Highlight them either through the SoN trio interacting with more characters while at camp (and we’re left to glean specific details of Jason’s past through others, which would make Jason more compelling and how these details are absent from himself but present to those around him, playing into his memory loss more) and possibly also through Reyna (and maybe Nico)’s POV(s) in BoO. (And maybe if we get a Reyna POV in MoA, then there as well).

- Let Reyna use magic! We establish that she studied under Circe and then never see anything come of that other than referencing her Tragic Backstory™. It could be a fun point for Reyna and Hazel to bond over, even!

- Remove the random “Hunters of Artemis death fodder” scene with Orion in BoO. There’s no reason for that. It’s just kinda dumb and feels bad given it’s basically just “We’re gonna kill a bunch of nondescript allegedly a-spec coded characters now for no reason. <3” like ???. That served no purpose. It just felt weird.

- Also just as a like, logistics thing - change the route Team Statue takes in BoO from the huge jump over the Atlantic into Peurto Rico into them traveling up into like the UK, then over to Iceland and Greenland and then Canada and down the east coast rather than the huge jump and up the east coast. The smaller jumps make more sense given the entire POINT of their quest taking as long as it does is that Nico can’t make extremely large shadow-travel jumps at that time. Plus if they’re traveling south then they could pass through Maine and we could maybe cameo Nico’s old school and that’d be fun. The pit-stop in Puerto Rico doesn’t really give us much that we couldn’t have just gotten from Reyna explaining it anyways. If they pause in Maine that can be where Nico and Reyna have a heart-to-heart about their tragic backstories and past experiences with horrible ghosts that they had to exorcise.

- If Team Statue travels a northern route we can make jokes about Nico learning specifically 1930s British English before he moved to America. The gang goes to London and Coach proceeds to incessantly make fun of Nico for not only using British slang, but using OUTDATED British slang (which is made weirder given he doesn’t have a British accent).

- Also extremely tiny detail but a specific acknowledgement that Piper was helping out Nico once they got back to the ship when Nico’s getting rescued from the jar. Since Piper just kind of drags him off-screen. Just any kind of follow-up to that. Like Nico doing his classic “You were vaguely nice to me. I would now Die For You.” Just them having basically any kind of interaction or acknowledgement of that scene, mostly cause I think it’s funny.

- Let Annabeth keep her laptop, and get rid of the sphere of Archimedes cause it just feels kinds pointless and random? We don’t really have any emotional connection to Annabeth’s laptop (and her hat gets replaced in Demigods & Magicians anyways) so her losing it doesn’t really feel impactful at all. Maybe have Leo use Annabeth’s laptop while she’s in Tartarus and that acts as the point of guilt for him rather than weird random curse stuff with a random new introduced object. Instead of “oh no fortune cookie thing or whatever” it’s him feeling guilty he saved Annabeth’s laptop but couldn’t help Annabeth herself. Especially since Leo would also have his Ogygia identity crisis in the same book so he can feel extra bad about himself for a bit, to lead up to his role in BoO nicely (sometimes a character negatively spiraling is more narratively compelling than them having positive development for the majority of the series and that’s okay! Let him be tragic but again he gets a happy ending and an implication post-BoO that he’ll begin a road of healing/recovery surrounded by loved ones. It works out.) AND there could be a very sweet moment once Annabeth gets back from Tartarus and Leo gives her the laptop back and it’s a huge relief to her that one of her prized possessions was in safe hands while she was gone and that she has it back when she thought she might have lost it.

- Further highlight Jason’s whole Greek/Roman/etc identity crisis. Bonus points if we go further into acknowledging Jupiter/Zeus’s epithets and roles and Jason having some epiphany that the Romans look to him with the expectations of Jupiter/Juno as king and queen of the gods making him some kind of perfect leader, but he’s not that at all. He’s the son of Jove and Juno, father and mother of the gods. He doesn’t want to be a general or praetor or anything like that, he wants to spend time with his friends and family at a summer camp where they’re safe. He wants to regain the childhood he lost being raised as a perfect soldier and get the chance to go to school and learn about his long-lost family and do cheesy summer camp activities. He is a wolf but he is not a creature built for the hunt - he is part of a pack.

- Touched upon it briefly in a previous bullet point but Curse of Achilles can stay/go, does not particularly matter to me either way. I do think it’d be funny though if Percy does keep the Curse of Achilles that he also randomly gets the Nemean Lion’s pelt back. Initially maybe as like a gift from Hera/Juno to help him cover his Achilles’ Heel while he’s running around with no memory just as insurance so he doesn’t die (with bonus points of the Romans being introduced to Percy either wearing the stupidest looking coat ever or wearing just a straight up bullet-proof lion’s pelt, which would even further solidify his “Are We Sure This Guy Isn’t A God In Disguise” vibes). But then later on into the series it’s just kind of part of his outfit or maybe even a running gag. The praetors have their magic bullet-proof cloaks, Percy has a very silly looking bullet-proof fur coat that is sometimes a whole lion.

- Keep Hazel’s blackouts. There’s not really a reason for them to disappear altogether for her? They’re somewhat tied to her powers and are a consequence of her coming back from the dead, which also helps keep the concept running in the series that death is a consequence that can’t just be easily evaded, even while we’re operating with the Doors of Death being open. That way future deaths in the series don’t feel like they could be as easily negated/avoided. Also, Hazel is disabled! This is a disability of hers! Why are we somehow magically getting rid of it without even an explanation as to why? Heck, if we’re getting rid of Piper’s knife, Hazel’s dreams when she has her blackouts could be used to supplement the dagger’s insight into the future, since we’ve already established that Hazel gets prophetic dreams sometimes anyways. Also fun thematic matching for the Death Sibs with them both having disabilities and random ways to glean the future (Hazel’s blackouts, Nico talking to ghosts). Her blackouts would probably improve slightly over the course of the series but never fully disappear, and it ends up mostly a thing of she can tell when they’re about to occur and prepare quickly for that or let someone know before she passes out.

- Get rid of Frank’s curse in SoN instead of waiting until The Tyrant’s Tomb. If we’re going to get rid of it eventually anyways, do it during the big scene of him freeing Thanatos. Let him have his cool big moment of embracing his destiny and that breaking the curse the first time he does it rather than him doing it twice but it only breaking the curse the second time? Also if the curse is broken earlier on then Frank’s entire arc gets to be about him realizing he has a life to live, since in SoN a major part of his character is that he’s not afraid of death because he’s used to the idea that his curse could kill him at any point. He’s actually pretty reckless for the beginning of HoO because of that. If he realizes that he no longer is at risk of dying at any given moment because he thought about candles too hard, then that opens the opportunity of him having a whole existential crisis about what he actually wants to do with his life and him looking to the future for once.

Bonus opportunity for this - maybe Frank actually gets fire powers as a result of his curse breaking. Ares/Mars has an association with fire so it would fit for him as a son of Mars. Plus, then we could also have an even more overt dynamic of Frank and Leo acting as each other’s parallels and foils and the two of them slowly growing more used to one another and actually becoming close friends. Lots of bonding over getting used to their fire powers and overcoming their mutual fears of fire and probably also solidarity in having lost their moms. Just - the boys are bonding! The boys are bonding. Fire boys hours.

- Related to Frank’s curse, give Hazel and Frank parallel narratives of them realizing they have a future ahead of them (Hazel re: getting a second chance at life and Frank re: realizing he’s no longer at risk of spontaneously combusting) and them grappling with trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives and how they want to live them after everything is said and done. And also being motivated for once to make it out the other side in one piece because they’re determined to not waste the opportunity they’ve been given. The two of them coming to terms with realizing they have a future if they can make it through this (which is also a fun contrast to Leo and Nico actively almost sacrificing their own lives for others and having essentially an opposite character arc for the majority of the series).

- Especially while Frank (and Hazel) are having these arcs, going back to the idea of Leo getting stuck on Ogygia alone for a bit - very strongly contrasting the arcs of Frank’s mental health improving over the series while Leo’s is very steadily decreasing (until BoO at which point again the series ends with Leo getting help and beginning to improve/heal).

- Also further emphasizing Leo and Nico’s parallels throughout HoO. They’re both autistic on top of the usual adhd/dyslexia and have issues with social interactions and care a lot about Hazel and are having a majorly bad time throughout the entire quest and are pretty depressed, etc etc etc. Again, parallel narratives at the end of BoO with them healing and things looking up for them - I think I’ve mentioned that like four times now you get the idea.

- Make Frank ADHD/dyslexic. There is literally no reason for him not to be and him being the outlier for being neurotypical feels weird and doesn’t fit with the literal entire worldbuilding we have for demigods. If it’s part of “demigod instincts” or whatever then Frank should be ADHD/dyslexic! And it’s not even a “the Romans aren’t ADHD/dyslexic” because we’re explicitly told they are! They are specifically also ADHD and dyslexic! So why isn’t Frank? There’s no reason. It annoys me.

- The Frank/Hazel/Leo “love triangle” can stay but it’s significantly more one-sided. Frank is mostly just intimidated by Leo for multiple reasons (mostly fire-related reasons) and Leo is mutually intimidated by Frank (because Frank is bigger than him and Leo is scared of everyone, really, but especially people who are bigger than him, because they could beat him up. Which is basically everyone). Hazel is not romantically interested in Leo and Leo is not romantically interested in her, though they are very close and do have a very confusing time trying to figure out the whole Sammy situation. Frank still misinterprets this as Hazel and Leo being romantic. Leo does not realize Frank is misinterpreting that as them being romantic and think Frank just hates him for the general reasons that Leo has found people usually hate him for no reason over. Leo wants nothing to do with that situation though. Eventually they all sort it out and become a very strong trio.

- Again as I briefly touched upon before, maybe give Reyna a protagonist role in MOA if not an outright POV. Probably an outright POV, with the main POVs of the book being her and Annabeth. Again, themes of historical associations between Athena and Bellona and playing with that, alongside making Reyna more of a prominent player earlier on in the series and letting us see more of the Romans. Use this opportunity to heavily parallel her with Annabeth (and also highlight her parallels with Percy, and Annabeth’s parallels with Jason).

- Really I just want more Annabeth/Jason and Percy/Reyna parallels. There’s so much you can do there. The blond(e) gifted kid/smart aleck raised at camp and their best friend, the former newbie raised with a difficult home life. Percy and Reyna both have dogs (Mrs. O’Leary / Aurum and Argentium) and pegasi (Blackjack and Skippy). And a sibling they don’t see often (Tyson / Hylla). You could have notes about Jason and Thalia and Annabeth and the dynamics within that and how those internally parallel each other. Or more about when Reyna encountered Percy and Annabeth while on Circe’s Island. Really anything more about Reyna’s time on Circe’s Island. Heck maybe you could parallel that to Percy’s difficult time in school, since Circe’s whole thing was that she was training the sorceresses living there, so that’s kind of like a school environment. Paralleling first quests between Reyna and Jason with the events of the first series with Percy and Annabeth. Etc. etc. etc.

- We are taking BoO and just. Throwing it out the window, really. We don’t have time to unpack all of that. Just start mostly from scratch, same extremely rough overarching elements are there.

- Also actually just. Rework the whole main prophecy too while we’re at it. It kinda sucks. It’s just kind of a weak prophecy. “To storm or fire the world will fall” or whatever; we can do better. I don’t have the brain power to write a better prophecy right now but just [see my recent post] for notes about what I think makes for a good prophecy in the series and why the main HoO one is kinda lame.

Footnotes:

Again, I will be following this up with part 2 electric boogaloo: Things I Would Change About TOA* (*That I can say without spoiling Deadangelos too much) at some point and I will link that when I make it. If you made it this far, gold star.

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pessimisticpigeonsworld · 1 year ago

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"aegon is an interesting and complex character" imagine finding a character who is an abuser/rapist " interesting" what is your morality to find a character like that complex? "all the characters are bad people" yes but I don't see anyone calling Ramsay Bolton interesting or complex. TG stans are so weird, they keep making these stupid excuses for aegon just because Tom is a good looking guy i think....Like Aegon all you want but accept that he is a horrible person, don't make excuses just to not feel wrong for liking a character like that

A character having an abusive mother (yes, Alicent abused him, even before he was raping women) and negligent father isn't exactly an original backstory. Because of this the characters/antagonists with it need to be well written or at least have more to them to make them be actually complex. There are interesting characters with the same backstory traits as Aegon, but they have more substance to their characters; their more than just "my mom doesn't like me and my dad doesn't care :(".

That is a tragic childhood, but if someone never grows past this and uses it constantly excuse their shitty actions (like rape), they loose any sympathy, for good reason. Aegon isn't a complex character, he's a bland trope played by an attractive man. The only deviation from the trope is Aegon's whole "I don't want it :(" thing, which is basically just him not wanting responsibility. Yeah, someone can like that trope, everyone has favorites, for antagonists and protagonists alike. However, people calling him "complex" or sympathizing with him are blatantly wrong.

Aegon is perpetually infantilized by the show and the fans and it's just so frustrating. Aegon isn't a child, he's a grown ass man, who rapes servant girls, rapes his wife, hates his family, and doesn't want any responsibility. Honestly, Ramsay is a better antagonist than him, because at least Ramsay is fully committed. D&D weren't interested in trying to make him "sympathetic" (probably one of the only good things I'll ever say about them).

Aegon is a rapist, a negligent father, his brother's bully, and an awful ruler. There's nothing redeeming in his character, the only thing close to that is his reluctance to take the throne, something he quickly lost once he got a taste of the power. Anyone who sympathizes with him or likes him needs to help, Condal and Hess included.

#anti aegon ii targaryen #anti team green #house of the dragon #anti ryan condal #anti sarah hess #anti alicent hightower #team black

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mdhwrites · 4 months ago

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Since you watched Hazbin hotel, you maybe have watched Helluva Boss too. I have a question, cause im curious.

Do you think that Stolas's marriage was retconned to victimize him?

So I'm going to swerve this at first to just talk about the fact that what they did with Stolas is nothing new, it's just essentially twin tropes smashing together at the same time. Both are ways people use family to humanize someone, and in a broader context two ways in general used to humanize someone. His daughter is essentially "Save the Cat" where by showing a gentler, warmer, more caring side of himself, we know there's nobility in him which can paint some of his better actions in a kinder light. Meanwhile, his wife shows the pressure and cruelty upon him, the way life crushes him, that makes his crueler actions seem perhaps more like coping mechanisms. It's like giving an alcoholic a tragic backstory so you understand that he doesn't drink himself to oblivion because it's fun for him and he doesn't care about the harm it does to others but because he needs it to survive and function at all, at least in his eyes.

Neither of these tropes are bad either. Done with less awful character traits, you get stuff like the silly person who covers their trauma by being over the top and maybe ignoring reality more than they should. I myself literally used saving a cat as a way to humanize my noble main character in Little Miss Rich Witch because while she was dismissive of others and seem annoyed at many people's actions, now she was willing to hurt herself by reaching into a bush of brambles and help a kitten find safety. It theoretically can help assure the reader that a better person is under there and going to emerge eventually.

...Which brings us back to Stolas. Now the first thing I have to mention is that you're actually incorrect. I have not watched Hazbin but I mention a lot of shows that I've seen enough analysis, discussion, etc. for and feel comfortable enough mentioning some broadstroke elements that resonate with what I'm discussing. I HAVE seen some of Helluva Boss but ended it on the episode where Blitzo and Moxxie get kidnapped so I'm not ignorant on these subjects but I didn't really see when life went to complete shit for Stolas...

And I do not give a fuck because neither of these tropes function when there is no better man to speak of. I mentioned Rich Witch not just as self promotion but because of a REALLY important element that fails with his daughter: Follow through. Azu, the noble girl, puts herself in danger of breaking the rules because her busy schedule means that in order to bring the kitten to a shelter, she first has to bring it to school the next day. Then we find out that while she's tsundere about the reasons for working there and doesn't think animals like her, she actually volunteers at that same shelter so this is hardly the first animal she's saved in some way. This makes what is essentially virtue signalling an actual part of the fucking character. Stolas on the other hand, in the SAME EPISODE that we introduced to Octavia, has seemingly neglected his daughter's interests and the fact that she's been growing up for roughly a decade. Hell, even then, he still hires his boytoy to guard them so he can focus on being horny than his daughter and on other childish pleasures that he enjoys. So... Yeah, he gets a really sweet song with her but it's hardly like that's some small nugget smoldering at the core of his character as that fire burned out long ago.

Which brings us to his wife. Hey, why does the alcoholic have a tragic backstory instead of saying, "I beat my wife because she's a bitch and that's why I drink"? It's because the latter doesn't feel like a justified response. At that point, you are a horrible human being with little care for others, you're just bitching and moaning so that you can justify your terrible behavior. This is what Stolas is doing to his wife. "You're a bitch so I openly, confidently, CONSTANTLY cheat on you with someone I do not actually act like I give a fuck about except for his dick because otherwise show him basic human decency." At that point, the only reason the show manages to frame Stolas' wife as worse than him is because she never gets a song with Octavia so it comes across like only one tried to be a good parent before things went to hell and... That's just narrative bias, not strict fact. Not from what I saw.

These tropes only work when there is a better man underneath it all. There is no better man to Stolas. It's akin to how Blitzo has this tragic backstory, life has clearly dealt him a terrible hand... And he's just a complete horrid monster when it comes to those around him. Moxxie despises him for what he does to his privacy, his boundaries and his own personal life and for what? Because Blitzo gets off on it? Luna is a trying too hard goth chick and she isn't actually that mean or cruel or the like. Not even the fucking succubi that act as an antagonist for an episode are as bad to their people as Blitzo is to his and that's without getting into how that episode's proper antagonist is actually Blitzo, both because of past actions and present.

There is at no point, besides shallow backstory (which as always, backstory does not actually a character make because their present actions matter WAY MORE), where we really have a reason to think there's good people in there anymore. That's also why I dropped the show. I wanted to continue but it clearly was going to focus on its worst characters rather than anyone with an ounce of likability. Or, better yet, anything actually compelling about them several episodes into the series besides "Uwu, look at my tragedy while I harass the people around me."

I'm sorry, that just makes you the asshole. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I had initially considering answering this privately since I don't know all the nuances about Blitzo's marriage... But also I watched 7 episodes (including the pilot), more than twice as many as most people tell you is a fair shake, and these were my impressions. At that point... Sorry, you have an uphill battle to prove your sexual harassment in story is somehow justified. The CONSTANT sexual harassment that is not just because they're in hell since Moxxie and Millie prove you don't have to be like this. It's still a choice.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#helluva boss #blitzo #Stolas #helluva critical

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soleilnomoon · 2 years ago

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geto suguru x fem reader | issa toxic affair, y'all.

6.2k words (i know, i know), fem reader, nsfw, 18+ mdni; angst city, angst angst city biiitch (yk the vibes) & smut (obvy); feat. cute stuff like a lil' degradation, toxic ass relationship, a lil infidelity, obsessive love & jealousy, lovers 2 exes 2 enemies 2 lovers, public indecency, hand job, oral (f receiving), knife play, a lil bit of blood kink, alcohol, geto is a certified asshole & but reader gets him back, yandere reader bc i love being toxic, gojo makes an appearance! also idk other stuff probably idr ok; also reader is black bc i said she is. this is for @510hz's how to be a heartbreaker collab event (ty so much for letting me participate, i had fun truly). this was inspired by mariana's "power & control"; there's also a lil inspo from "the glory" in there, you'll see. it took me forever but i survived, i hope y'all survive reading this 🤭 (if u see typos/grammatical errors no u didn't)

“you horrify me. but at the same time, / i horrify myself. we are horrible.” – hélène cixous

there’s a name for the disease you have; it’s called foolishness, or, in layman’s terms: love.

your mother warned you long ago, to guard your heart — to ensure that no man could penetrate the thick walls encasing it — yet there you are, a silly, pathetic thing scurrying behind a man who would readily cast you aside if it suited him. you truly did resist him at first; you rebuffed his advances with polite smiles and curt responses, yet he persisted daily and, in hindsight, obsessively.

it’s in his nature, after all.

a man like geto suguru simply does not concede if his pride is on the line — and your initial rejection did, in fact, bruise his ego; although, he’ll never openly admit that.

when he does manage to wiggle his way into your heart, with his charming smiles, small gestures that you somehow misinterpret as kindness, you steadily fall for him. it’s not your fault, not really. geto is just that damn good at figuring people out; and with you, it wasn’t difficult. he found it remarkably easy to sway you, he almost felt bad.

almost.

the first few months are pure bliss; he picks you up promptly for dates, takes you to nice restaurants in the city, pays for spa days and shopping sprees — buys you things you never really allowed yourself to buy on your own, surprises you with lavish floral arrangements that make you cry needlessly over how tragically romantic he’s being. and, suddenly, your heart, which was so strongly protected, becomes vulnerable and falls under his control. it flutters around helplessly in the gilded cage he’s crafted for it — a too-tight fit, where every time you exhale you feel the thick bars pressing tightly and you suffocate — but still, love makes you think that all of this is worth it in the end.

as long as geto calls you his, that’s all that matters.

when he calls your phone, you pick up on the first ring, eager and desperate —to hear the dulcet tones embedded in his voice, the words saccharine and carefully picked; things you’ve always wanted to be told, he whispers them all to you before you fall asleep.

but the thing about geto is, boredom is never too far away from him.

it wraps itself around his arms one morning, slithers along and drenches his skin, completely warping his sense of morality — making him much more severe and uncaring than he normally is. all your cute, quirky traits become bothersome to him; he tires of your laugh, doesn’t care to see that sparkle in your eyes whenever he shows up at your front door, and listening to you drone on and on about things that you like bores him to tears.

when he fucks you, it’s impassively, as if it’s something he needs to tick off his list of weekly duties, rather than something he chooses to do because he genuinely wants to be intimate. you don’t question it at first, but it becomes painfully obvious — and awkward — when he leaves every time, not bothering to kiss you goodnight or even look your way. your mind is cruel one morning, when you reflect on how sex with geto is mostly about him getting off and not you; it never bothered you before, but as the months go on, it starts one of many tiny cracks in his veneer.

the rejection is unbearable — tangible in the way it makes you sluggish and depressed — but you deal with it; you must, after all, he’s the love of your life. you simply can’t imagine being with anyone else now.

geto becomes the very man your mother warned you about, but you ignore it without question.

love is work, you remind yourself for the umpteenth time as you sit in the back of your favorite restaurant, checking the time repeatedly and seeing that he still hasn’t shown. you’re in a modest dress with a slit down the side and you’ve already downed two glasses of wine without him. it’s been forty minutes, the server keeps checking on you, giving you pitying looks despite your smiles and insistence that your boyfriend is definitely on his way.

but the longer you sit there, the less sure of that you are.

eventually you leave; they don’t charge you for a thing and you thank them for their kindness — pity, really — and head home. you try calling geto and get his voicemail again; so you leave yet another teary message, this one more incoherent than the last two, and toss your phone onto your vanity before crying yourself the sleep. you don’t know what to do with this feeling — the hopelessness is eating you alive; or maybe it’s just the wine making you overly sensitive.

geto knows he’s an asshole and relishes in it.

he has his notifications silenced while he’s downtown with a few close friends, partying in an exclusive lounge, drinking until his head grows heavy. he doesn’t remember how he gets back to his place, and barely remembers who he fucked that night, but he does have the common decency to kick them out come morning. he’s hospitable like that. his head throbs as he scrolls through his phone, promptly ignoring the twelve texts from you and the fifteen missed calls. gojo called him heartless last night, which he thought was ridiculous — he has a heart, it just doesn’t always work properly; geto now assumes gojo was referring to his mistreatment of you.

something about that nags at him a little, so he decides to play nice and call you back. the phone continues to ring as he lounges on the plush couch in his living room, causing him to frown; very strange. you normally pick up for him right away, but you’re not answering. he should be concerned, but he chalks it up to you sleeping and decides to try again in an hour.

after his third time calling, annoyance turns into anger which fuels his petty jealousy.

what could you possibly be doing that would require you to ignore him — him — of all people?

“y/n,” he says as calmly as he can while his hand grips his phone tightly, it’s his fourth voicemail, but he doesn’t really care. “i don’t know what game you’re playing at, but i assure you… you won’t win.” he doesn’t elaborate past that, and instead throws his phone at the nearest wall — not bothering to pick it up once it clatters onto the hardwood floor. his anger surprises him; subduing certain emotions is an art for him, so all of this feels very new and uncomfortable.

he tells himself this weakness is only temporary, and that you’ll come to your senses too. except, you don’t. you don’t call him back; you don’t bother texting, and you don’t listen to his voicemails until three days later. when geto finds you, you’re in the middle of rewatching your favorite show for the tenth time, eating leftover pizza in your pajamas.

with his nose wrinkled, geto shuffles through your apartment, taking note of the pile of dishes in your kitchen and the way you’ve completely let go of yourself. he’s appalled that a woman like you has succumbed to the frivolities that accompanies hurt feelings. he even says as much to you when you fail to greet him or acknowledge his presence.

it's when he turns off the tv, that you blink several times, sluggish and confused before realizing that the beautiful man before you is not a figment of your imagination.

“suguru,” you sound his name out like it’s unfamiliar, your tongue thick from keeping quiet these past few days; your mind’s a mess, you’re still reeling from the betrayal of him clearly abandoning you, discarding you like you’re just a toy that he’s long forgotten on the street. he snaps his fingers impatiently in front of your face to get your attention again.

“wh-what is it?”

he frowns again. “what do you mean ‘wh-what is it’?” his mockery of your voice and his accompanying sneer is unbecoming of him, you think, but you don’t say that out loud; instead you put down the pizza you were nibbling and yawn languidly.

“you don’t have to be an ass,” you remark carefully, finally glancing up at him as though you’re seeing him for the first time. love muddled your vision, but now you can see geto suguru for all that he is. a liar, a conman, a shitty human being; but most importantly, he’s still the love of your life. you take that last bit seriously; maybe a little too seriously.

but love has a way of making you foolish in ways that are incomprehensible to others.

geto narrows his eyes at you before his lips twitch and he laughs at your insolence. “okay, that’s fair. i did stand you up, after all.”

you turn back to the tv and shrug, flicking a few crumbs off your shirt. “doesn’t matter. what’s done is done.”

for some reason, your apathy agitates him greatly. your tone is off — detached, devoid of the usual joviality that you have whenever he’s around; he figures that he deserves that, but he knows you won’t be mad at him for long. you never are.

“don’t get ahead of yourself, y/n,” his words drift through the air, venomous and well-practiced — he’s mastered the art of tearing down others without even trying — his annoyance reaches its peak when you ignore him and he exhales loudly, as if the entire situation has bored him to death. “since you obviously don’t give a damn about my presence,” he starts, not bothering to hide his malice or irritation, “i’ll give you what you want.”

which is space. permanently — at least, that’s what he thinks you want anyway. he slams the copy of your apartment key onto the coffee table — something that would’ve made you flinch days ago, but you’re so numb you barely notice.

it’s unbelievable that after a year, this is how you treat him; maybe it’s for the best that he’s breaking up with you. after all, he’d never be able to tolerate you having the upper hand in the breakup. still, it does concern him a bit that you’re not reacting in the way you usually would; did he honestly break your heart that badly that you’ve taken to retreating to the far recesses of your mind? not that it matters to him; you served your purpose and wore out your welcome eight months ago.

he just needed a reason to end it.

once he leaves, you feel like you can breathe again. and after a few minutes, you realize what just happened. you scramble off the couch, heart beating rapidly, palm slick with perspiration as you yank open the door and call out to him.

but he’s long gone; already driven off, ready to take on the world without you.

you wear your rejection like a bruise that won’t ever heal; each word said, each call and text ignored, is like a punch in the same spot over and over.

will you ever be able to move on properly?

it’s not really his problem if you can or can’t get over him, as he’s already moved on within the hour. the thing about geto is, he always assumes he’s the one in control — that he holds all the cards in his hands; but he isn’t. he forgets that you’re entirely too observant for your own good, curious, resourceful, and lethal when provoked long enough. you foolishly grab your car keys and drive to his place in the middle of the night; you ignore traffic lights, drive faster than necessary, swerve in and out of traffic as a fit of madness course through your veins.

love continues to delude you into thinking that there’s a way to fix it all; there has to be, it’s the only thing you can believe in right now.

you think about ringing his doorbell, think about calling and texting, think about just banging on his window and demanding he let you in. but you don’t. instead, you lean against your car, dark, heavy clouds looming over that part of the city as rain comes down hard and practically oppressively.

but you don’t move.

you stand there, shivering; soaked from head to toe, hands balled into fists — his last words playing over and over in your mind, like a song you can’t seem to forget. and every time you hear his voice, your heart shatters a little more; you imagine he’s having fun inside, laughing with gojo and whatever new flavor he’s decided to whet his appetite with. you want to give him the benefit of the doubt; maybe he’s having a bad week? maybe he didn’t mean to break up with you; but the longer you try to convince yourself, the sharper his betrayal becomes.

the truth is bitter, inedible, and harsh; it clamps around your mind as the remnants of your heart morphs into ash.

you bite your tongue hard enough to draw blood, but you don’t feel it; how can you, after all that’s happened?

eventually, you hop into your car and drive to your best friend’s house — she’s the only one you can go to, now that you’ve realized that geto is serious about leaving you. after pouring your heart out and downing a few more glasses of wine, your best friend takes you by the shoulders and shakes you repeatedly.

“y/n,” she says calmly, eyes soft and warm, “honestly, babe, you need to move on from him. is he worth all of this trouble?” you consider her question, roll your bottom lip in between your teeth before answering properly.

“of course, he is,” you say quietly, and then a little louder, “my love for him is so strong that i actually think i hate him.” you’ve never seen your best friend so speechless in your life, but there she is, unable to formulate an appropriate enough response to talk you out of this.

but the thing is, as soon as those words leave your mouth, it finally clicks; all the pieces to the jigsaw puzzle set perfectly in place. how could you have been so foolish?

you love him so much that you hate him, and your hatred is so strong that it can only be perceived as love. it’s irrational, maddening, incredibly toxic; but you revel in it. you know what you need to do, you just need time to do it.

days blend into weeks, and weeks to months; you sell your soul to get back your dignity, that determination that geto stupidly overlooked continuously fuels your quest for revenge. you disappear from the city, change your phone number, leave your apartment, and become a nonthreatening ghost from geto’s past. he forgets about you every time he sleeps with someone else, forgets about you whenever he goes on vacation, forgets about you as he whispers the same sweet things to another over and over and over again.

his ego is something to be marveled, and he feels a little unstoppable these days.

six months later, geto finds himself at a stuffy gala — one that his company’s holding to legally siphon money from the upper 1% under the guise of philanthropy — and spends most of the night dodging gojo’s questions over another failed relationship.

“you really don’t think you’re the problem?” gojo says in between sips of champagne, eyeing his best friend through his dark shades, and smiling as if he already knows the answer to that particular question.

geto lets out a frustrated groan and rolls his eyes. “i’m not doing this with you.” because the last thing he needs, is gojo killing his buzz. he glances at the people in attendance, dark eyes flicking over each guest, seemingly uninterested in any of them until you walk in.

he’s not sure it’s you at first, as your beauty captivates him in a way that doesn’t make sense to him. you’re in a pair of heels that look equal parts elegant and enticing, a shimmering, gold gown with a plunging neckline and incredibly high slit. the color offsets the warm undertones of your rich, brown skin that seems silky and otherworldly under all the lights in the room. geto blinks several times, almost as if he can’t believe that it’s you. and, if it wasn’t for gojo making comments about how he didn’t realize you had curves like that, geto might’ve believed you were a figment of his imagination.

how the tables turn.

your date escorts you to a table towards the back, one that’s close enough that geto can watch you properly. something about you is different. he’s not sure if it’s the confidence you exude as you smile coyly at some of the other guests, plump lips curving upward whenever another man asks to make your acquaintance. you keep your head held high, graceful, as if you belong with that crowd — even though geto knows you don’t. you’d never be able to come to an event like this on your own, but he isn’t upset about that.

what he’s upset at, is your date’s hand lingering on your thigh, thumb caressing your knee as he leans over to whisper something in your ear; that’s your cue to smile demurely and swat at his hand. the laugh is well timed — you even throw your head back, offering geto a full view of your elongated neck and round breasts that cling to the fabric of your gown. you excuse yourself under the guise of going to the restroom, and walk past geto without glancing at him — it’s difficult, you so badly want to turn and watch his reaction, but you keep strong, hips swaying as you take the first hallway on your left.

he’s not sure if it’s curiosity, jealousy, or insanity that drives him to get out of his seat and stalk after you. geto was done with you, he knew that — you knew that — but there he is, chasing you like some lovesick teen that can’t seem to get their unrequited crush out of their head. thankfully, the hallway is empty, so when he rounds the corner, he finds you standing there, checking out your reflection in your compact mirror. you feign surprise when you realize someone’s there, one that morphs into temporary confusion before you smile sweetly at your ex-boyfriend.

“well, isn’t this a fun surprise,” you say airily, a sly smile tumbling onto your lips as you make your way over to him. he’s somehow forgotten how to breathe while simultaneously forgetting that you always looked like this — overwhelmingly beautiful and alluring — he just insisted you dress plain on purpose. you like that he’s speechless; you like that his eyes haven’t left you since you walked into the gala. when you get close enough that he can see just how long and thick your lashes are, he finally snaps out of his stupor — somewhat.

“y/n,” he says belatedly, a bit of awe and amusement coloring his voice, “i’m surprised to see you.” what he really wanted to say, was that he’s trying to remember why he broke up with you in the first place — because nothing comes to mind. not when you reach your hand to delicately tuck a strand of his hair behind his ear, not when you intentionally place your hand on his chest, and call out his name softly, almost like a whisper before you take a step back.

“i changed my number,” you say in order to drive the point home and pluck your new phone out of your clutch. “and i moved, but i’d love to catch up with you.” he doesn’t say anything when you type your contact information in his phone and when your lips brush against his cheek, he’s reminded of just how much he adored you initially. he wants to ask why you’ve suddenly come back, but the words stick to the roof of his mouth — thick and impossible to remove, slowly rotting through his common sense. it must be some absurd act of possession that has him pull you close enough to brush his lips against yours; you relish in the nostalgia of the moment, with memories of him kissing you spontaneously during your dates — after all, you’ve been in this position so many times before.

the difference? your claws are sharper, dipped in one of the most potent poisons in the world — hatred.

but you have a role to play now: the naïve ex-girlfriend, who knew nothing of the world before meeting him. geto’s ego knows no bounds when you part your lips for him effortlessly, back arching as he runs his hand down it; his fingers are cool against your exposed skin and you shiver from the contact. he smirks at that, liking that he can still get that sort of reaction out of you. time is essential now, so you kiss him suddenly — your lips soft, supple, and sweet as ever.

geto uses that opportunity to slip is tongue inside of your mouth and familiarizes himself with your taste. you whimper softly and he smirks, thinking that he’s somehow won you over all over again, especially when you drag your nails down the back of his neck, scratching his skin without a care. they’re much sharper than he’s known them to be, and while the sting is tolerable, it’s also annoying. yet he can’t seem to pry himself away; your body feels perfect against his, and you surprise him once again when you rub your hand against his cock. geto’s never known you to be that bold before — and in public too? your kiss transforms into something much demanding, and before he realizes it, you’ve unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants.

a heat passes through both of you — and you almost forget yourself as you fall into a familiar dance, kissing him fervently as you wrap your hand around his cock. it stiffens almost immediately, a painful reminder that he’s still impossibly attracted to you, despite what he told himself months ago. you get drunk off of the power you hold over him — the man who mercilessly crushed your heart and left you alone to deal with the aftermath — and have to remind yourself that you’re only supposed to tease him a bit.

his breathing grows uneven, and it’s comical how he’s forgotten that anyone can easily walk in on you two — he just doesn’t care. he’d fuck you in front of everyone just to prove a damn point. your hand strokes faster, twisting as it moves up and down his thick length, his skin hot and smooth, keeping you in a daze. it’s always been like that with you — getting so hopelessly caught up in him that you forget anything else exists.

a voice in the back of your mind tells you to slow down, but you ignore it — the thrill of feeling each jerk of his hips has you moaning into his mouth, breathlessly kissing him like you have all the time in the world.

except you don’t.

the reality of that hits you faster than you’d like, so you bite his lip hard enough to draw blood. you pull away after, almost innocently and lick the blood off of him. the move practically pushes him over the edge, and he has to tell himself that he shouldn’t try fucking you in that hallway. you do your best to catch your breath and blink slowly as you both look at each other. to give yourself a bit of an edge, you swipe your thumb against the tip of his cock and admire the precum on your hand. you bring it up your lips, tongue gliding against your skin to savor the taste of him. it’s a polarizing and captivating experience; something about that makes him want to kiss you all over again, but he refrains from doing so, instead focusing on tucking himself in and fixing his clothes properly.

if you were cruel, you’d take a picture of this moment — of geto with a slightly heaving chest, flushed cheeks, confusion etched on his face as if he doesn’t understand why he let himself get carried away like that. your lipstick is smeared prettily against his lips — red, intoxicating, and ominous.

you smile at that; happy that you’ve successfully integrated yourself into his life again.

“let’s… pick this up again sometime,” your voice has a strange lilt to it — coy and musical, dangerously sultry. his heart skips a beat, and he thinks he’s gone mad; geto doesn’t swoon or obsess the way others do for him. but you’re different now, much more interesting, and mysterious. he knows there’s something wrong with this picture, but he can’t seem to connect the dots just yet.

he doesn’t get another chance to talk to you, as your date keeps you busy most of the night; you don’t bother looking at geto until the end of the event, where you wiggle your fingers at him before leaving.

as soon as you get into your date’s car, you get a text message from a number you’ve memorized by heart and smile as you mentally list all the things you need to do before your revenge can be complete.

little does he know, you haven’t moved at all; you still own your old apartment, but you don’t stay there. you temporarily moved into your childhood friend’s place — a ritzy, luxurious high-rise apartment by the beach — while they travel for work out of the country. it’s all for show, of course; you need geto (and gojo, by extension) to think you’ve somehow elevated yourself financially, that you’re successfully integrated into similar social circles, that you can casually score invites to lavish events that cater to the wealthy elite. after changing out of your gown and into something comfortable, you decide to pay a visit to your old place; it’s mostly empty, save for your old bedroom.

you poured your savings into surveillance equipment, have monitors set up around the room, have hundreds of candid pictures of geto and the people he frequently associates with over the past six months plastered all along the walls. you’ve scribbled out his face in most of the pics, and have drawn lines and arrows, written incoherent notes to yourself — making connections and scenarios so that your contingency plans are unshakeable.

geto texts you again and you smile to yourself, loving the way you’ve already slithered into his mind after one brief conversation with him. he doesn’t realize you’ve been watching him all this time, doesn’t realize that you placed cameras in his home, doesn’t realize that you have unfiltered access to his computer and phone — it pays to have friends who dabble in those things.

you make some tea before sitting on the cushy computer chair as you watch geto stress over you not texting him back; you chuckle and spin around in your chair, elation building up in your chest, rattling that gilded cage around your heart. he’s so stupid, it’s almost too easy; you open the text thread with him, start typing out a bogus response for a few minutes, then delete it and leave him on read.

it takes him half an hour to really lose his mind over you not texting him back, and all you can do is laugh until tears fall out of your eyes.

you want him to fall so hopelessly in love with you, that you become his very reason for living and breathing. then you want to carve out his heart and leave him behind. a perfect plan, really; there are some kinks you still need to iron out, but you know, in time, that everything will go as planned.

uneasiness settles into geto’s stomach over the next few weeks; you barely text him back, and when he calls, you’re always busy. it’s foolish the way he’s pining after you; he knows it’s just because he hasn’t seen you in a long time, but something about you is just so… different. the way you abruptly cut conversations short with him, how you keep rescheduling lunch and dinner with him; how you intentionally let yourself be seen on social media with various men and women. and even when he wants to delete your number and block you, he can’t seem to do it.

because there’s no logical reason why he should be upset. you two aren’t dating anymore, this is just his lust-ridden brain taking hold of his common sense. or, that’s what he keeps telling himself.

when you do manage to see him for dinner one night, you tease him mercilessly and without remorse. at first, geto thinks he has control over the flow of the conversation. you keep blushing whenever he strokes your palm, giggle appropriately when he bumps his knee against yours, and act demure when he gives you permission to order anything off the menu. and you do; the guilt you used to feel is nowhere to be found, instead you thrive in the high that accompanies spending his money frivolously.

in return, you slide your foot up along his leg — slow and tenuous, the first course in your act to capture his heart completely — flirt heavily without restriction and encourage him to keep ordering drinks. geto grows tired of dragging things out and insists you continue the evening back at his place.

“oh,” you say softly and, after a long drawn out moment, your lips curve into a knowing smile.

after you’re both full and pleasantly tipsy, he takes you to his place; in his mind it won’t be long before he has you begging him to fuck you — and then he can finally be rid of this ridiculous obsession. you barely make it through the door because his hands are all over you, tugging roughly on your dress to take it off of you. if you weren’t so determined to see this through, you’d laugh — at his eagerness, at his annoyance with the matter, at your uncanny ability to fool him into thinking that you really want him back.

you lay on his bed, legs spread wide, arousal dripping from your folds as he kisses along the inside of your thighs. normally, geto is an incredibly selfish lover — but tonight, he busies himself with devouring you entirely. almost like he’s trying to make up for lost time. your skin is littered with bite marks and hickeys, but you don’t mind; a few battle scars are necessary in the long run. an unprecedented hunger takes hold of his mind — drives him to eat your pussy with vigor and passion. you roll your hips forward, nipples hard as you moan his name loudly.

he likes how you’re falling apart for him — and only him; you tug on his hair roughly, nails raking against his scalp when he flicks his tongue against your throbbing clit. you forgot that when geto puts his mind to something, he really puts in work; his cock is stiff, but he chooses to ignore it for the sake of watching you writhe on his bed, hand pulling on his bed sheet as soon as he slips his lithe fingers inside of you. he pumps them in and out, fast and hard; you bite down on your bottom lip to keep from screaming, but you lose your composure quickly.

the orgasm leaves you panting and whimpering, softly moaning when geto continues to lap at your pussy, despite how sensitive you feel. you get on all fours without prompting and rub your ass against his cock. the sight is erotic and has him gliding the tip of his cock along your wet pussy, an act that wholly surprises him, even more so when he barely gives you warning before driving his cock inside of your tight hole.

again, he wonders what is different; he’s fucked you more times than he can count, and yet this feels completely new — as if you’re not you, but someone else. and he’s so close to the truth, yet so far away that you try your best not to laugh, even as he powers into you over and over, his cock thick and imposing as his pace picks up.

he knocks his hips against you, strokes lethal but pleasurable. you hiss when he grabs a fistful of your hair, but you let him do it anyway — you want to bide your time before the big finale, of course. geto’s mind melts the longer his cock is inside of you, your plush, warm walls tight around him, squeezing in a way that has him moaning your name out loud.

it surprises him, actually, but he doesn’t stop himself; if anything, he’s more invigorated as he continues to fuck you like you’re the only one he ever thinks about. and, while it probably is true, you also know geto more than he knows you. he pulls out of you suddenly, half in a daze and entirely hooked on your body, and slaps your ass before telling you to ride him instead.

it's almost too easy at this point because this is exactly what you want.

you take your time climbing on top and rub your pussy along his length, grinding and rolling your hips teasingly. his frustration gets the best of him when he grabs your hips to hold you steady.

“y/n,” he warns, voice low and husky. you like him like this — too consumed with lust to realize just how much danger he’s in.

“i’m sorry, baby,” you say almost a little too convincingly, lifting up before sinking down slowly, his cock filling you up in the best sort of way. he’s in heaven, clearly; the way your cunt keeps sucking him back in, your arousal dripping onto his skin — your pussy is the gift that keeps on giving, he tells you offhandedly. you laugh and laugh and laugh, determined to snatch his soul out of his body every time you impale yourself on his cock.

his nails sink into your skin when he holds onto your hips, lifting his upwards to thrust inside of you deeply.

“you know, suguru,” your voice is breathy and hypnotizing, his eyes are glazed over and unfocused; you place your hands on his headboard, under the guise of holding on so he can fuck you properly, but really you’re reaching behind to grab the knife you’ve taped to the back of it. “you’re a shitty person.” there’s confusion etched onto his pretty face, and you chuckle darkly as you buck your hips against his and brandish the knife in front of him.

he'd noticed that it went missing from his set days ago, but figured he’d misplaced it.

“where did you get that?” he grunts when you clench your pussy around him, still riding him as if this is a common occurrence for both of you.

you continue talking as if he didn’t ask a valid question and gently tap his cheek with the flat part of the blade. “you broke my heart, turned my love into ash,” you ride him harder, your ass bouncing on his hips, and he’s much more aroused than he should be. which is alarming because he isn’t stopping you at all. “and you went about your life like i never mattered.” that part still hurt, and you don’t think as you hold the knife to his throat, the blade sharp enough that it knicks his skin when you lean forward.

he knows he should tell you to stop, but for some reason, it’s as if he’s paralyzed by your confession. he deserves it, he knows that, but you refuse to have any sort of sympathy for him. a bit of blood drips down his neck and you stab the blade onto his pillow, nearly missing his face. he actually fucking flinches and it makes you laugh again.

“you’re so fucking stupid,” you almost pity him. almost.

geto’s life literally flashes before his eyes. he’s never seen you this ruthless; the soft, demure woman he knew before is gone — in her place, is someone cold and demanding, someone who won’t hesitate to maim him if he toes the line.

his skin blanches and he swallows hard, words lodged deep in his throat. he doesn’t know what to say to you. “i—”

you run your tongue along his jaw, and grin triumphantly when he shivers uneasily. “you don’t get it, do you? you’re mine forever.” he wants to ask what you mean by that, but you don’t give him the chance. “i hate you so much, that i want to watch the life drain from your eyes.”

it’s morbid and unreal, but it feels right. “that’s also a form of love, right?” you’re not making any sense, and you don’t care; you’ve deviated from your plan — you intended to drag things out, but once he started fucking you and acting like he was running the show all over again, you snapped. “you’re mine forever, understand?”

he had every opportunity to grab the knife, to shake you off of him, but you keep moving your hips, keep moaning for him, and keep kissing him like you want to breathe in his essence. he’s trapped and probably will never find his way out; he realizes now, that your return wasn’t a coincidence. it was planned. it’s fear that keeps him on that bad, that lets you keep fucking him until you’re satisfied, and when he finally cums, you smile wickedly and pick the knife up again.

“there’s no one who will love you the way i do, baby.”

#⋆˙⟡♡ htbahb collab #jjk x reader #jjk x y/n #jjk smut #geto suguru x reader #geto suguru x y/n #geto suguru smut #geto x reader #geto x y/n #geto smut #‘i can change him’ 🥴#no tf i can't he ain't shit!!!#i love him anyway it's complicated #yandere reader #fic request #geto x black reader #jjk x black reader

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