#ultimately he will keep doing what he does. Endure and Thrive

[salt216000]

man. that prev rain world post has just got me thinkin abt my ultrakill sisyphus ancient

his name is one boulder, one thousand steps. and he just. he loves life, man. he loves the endurance and the struggle. but that doesnt necessarily mean that he wishes he could go back from ascension, even if it was a process that was not of his own volition in Global AU specifically.

bc he knows that he spent every second of his life doing something that he felt was Purposeful to him. that doesnt mean it was always important in the grander scheme of things, but he endured, and that process of Trying was significant To Him.

[cosmicjoke]

Lestat and David and an act of self-condemnation:

Okay, one more post about “Tale of the Body Thief” and then I’m off to start “Memnoch the Devil” later tonight.  Be still my heart, lol.

But I just wanted to talk a little bit here about why Lestat does what he does at the end of TotBT, why he turns David against his will into a vampire.

I think, obviously, Lestat wanted from the beginning of the story to make David his companion.  That’s a recurring theme throughout this book, and indeed, all the books up to this point, that Lestat keeps choosing the wrong people to serve as his companions, people who don’t really understand him or can’t relate to him, people who will eventually turn away from him, and he’s sort of obsessing over David being his companion, because he sees a great deal of himself in him.  His courage, his strength, his will, his will to action, etc...  So obviously, that desire plays a part in it.  But I don’t think it’s actually the reason Lestat does it, at the end here.  It would have been the reason he did it with David when it was Raglan James occupying his body.  I think when Lestat bit him then, it was fully because he simply, desperately wanted David to be his companion.  And I’ve already gone into the implications of that experience in my other post on these last chapters of the book, so I won’t repeat myself here.

Nor do I think it was what David accuses Lestat of later, that being a petty cruelty and meanness, wanting to take David’s happiness away because he was able to succeed in this body that Lestat “didn’t have the strength to endure”, as David puts it.

What I think it really was, was an act of self-condemnation and self-recrimination.  I think it was Lestat condemning himself into darkness, and in so doing, sealing himself off from any possibility for self-delusion or ability to hide from the choice he had made, that choice being to once again become a vampire.  Lestat sees that choice as proof of his evil, and his conscience in the form of Claudia throughout the story is him tormenting himself over what he believes is his own hypocrisy and the falsity of his grief and guilt.  He’s asking himself over and over again what kind of person is he, that he enjoys being a vampire.  That he likes being this monster that he is, and that he keeps bringing others into it with him.  He’s suffering from immense guilt over that specifically, over his ability to thrive in and enjoy his vampirism, but also his inability to live without someone to share his life with, and tragically, he doesn’t see how that very fact proves him wrong about this negative self-image he has, this belief of himself as an irredeemable monster.

In the moment Lestat attacks and turns David, he’s playing a role.  He becomes this viciously cold, unfeeling and cruel person.  He’s acting like a true villain, like the very devil himself.  I’ve never seen Lestat be so mean.  And that powerfully contrasts with the person we see him as throughout every book up to this point, which is this sort of ill-tempered, but ultimately good-natured and positive person.  A kind of childlike innocent, almost, a sort of bumbling, impulsive and lovable rogue.  Someone who, at his core, is actually kind of a sweetheart.  Lestat’s behavior with David in this scene is so contradictory and so unlike how he is, throughout all the books, even IWTV, that it  strikes me completely as a performance.

And again the question comes of why.  Immediately after the act, Lestat reverts back into how he’s been throughout the story.  He’s deeply remorseful, guilt ridden, ashamed and miserable.  He begins to cry again.  The seeming relish and enjoyment he appeared to display during the attack is gone.  He hates what he’s done.  He hates that he did this to David.  He knows it was wrong and he thinks he deserves nothing now from the world but to be treated with evil.

I think this was Lestat punishing himself, in a way.  Forcing himself to face and accept his own monstrosity, and giving himself no place to hide from it, no place in which to seek solace from the torment of his own self-loathing. 

These are the final words of this story

“I wanted to say something to her as I held the locket; I wanted to say something to the being she had been, and to my own weakness, and to the greedy wicked being in me who had once again triumphed.  For I had.  I had won.

Yes, I wanted to say something so terribly much!  And would that it were full of poetry, and deep meaning, and would ransom my greed and my evil, and my lusty little heart.  For I was going to Rio, wasn’t I, and with David, and with Louis, and a new era was beginning...

Yes, say something- for the love of heaven and the love of Claudia- to darken it and show it for what it is!  Dear God, to lance it and show the horror at the core.

But I could not.

What more is there to say, really?

The tale is told.”

He’s disgusted with himself for his ability to carry on, to continue to not just live, but thrive, even in the face of what he believes is his evil.  He thinks he should remain in misery, that he should suffer and sink and self-destruct, and that he doesn’t is somehow proof of his evil, proof of his villainy and wickedness.  That is, after all, what he’s been told all his life by pretty much everyone.  That his eternal hope and optimism is, in fact, an engine of malice and destruction.  That his strength, his will to win, his refusal to “go down” is somehow indicative of wrongness, something obscene and unnatural and greedy, a weakness of character, a deep lack in his person. 

He condemns himself throughout these last chapters for his ability to be happy, to find happiness in the midst of his monstrosity, for his ability to rise above.

Lestat doing what he did to David was, I think, a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Believing himself so evil, and so beyond redemption, he chooses instead to embrace his damnation, and seal it in stone, refusing himself in the process any escape from his own torment.  If he does this thing, then he can no longer live in any kind of illusion as to who and what he is.  He can no longer lie to himself, he can no longer see himself capable of good or believe even that he ever wanted to be good.  And so I think he does this because he wants to suffer.  He wants to be punished.  He wants to remember, even in his moments of happiness, that he doesn’t deserve to be happy.  To remind himself that he’s the kind of person who would thoroughly betray and violate one of his very best friends, and so he doesn’t deserve love then either.  In a way, I feel, it’s his attempt to sink, to go down, to self-destruct, because, through all of this, he’s been made to believe completely that his great will and courage and ability to win is the very thing that marks him as a devil.  That it’s his very core, his very self, that is the true source of wrong in him.  And so maybe, if he’s forced to acknowledge that, if he’s forced to accept that, then that will somehow, at last, defeat him. 

[for-thosewhocare]

Elemental Review

OH. MY. GOD.

I have no clue why it took me so long to watch this movie. I VERY aware that I am so late to this movie and I’m kicking myself as to why.

I had THOUGHT I had grown out of Disney and traditional children movies but apparently they are not ready for me to do so because this movie was a banger. I cannot speak for the rest of the movies that Disney, Pixar, or any other children’s animation movie company has put out this year. I didn’t watch those; Especially the new “Wish” movie that everyone is cracking down so hard on.

However, I did watch elemental.

I don’t know what it is about the Disney movies recently, but Elemental, much like Encanto, was AMAZING. I even watched the movie twice in one day because I needed to share it with my girlfriend. (To which they hated it because it made them cry)

There is something about the plot and the messaging with in the movie meshing together so well that just had me in a chokehold. For those who haven’t had the pleasure of watching this movie, in simple terms, the movie is about the love story between a fire girl and a water boy. T That’s pretty basic Disney stuff. It’s just a love story. But where this movie really changes corse is under the surface of said love story. Elemental explores immigrant problems and racial discrimination in big cities, among other things. That alone is pretty astonishing, especially for a Disney film, which are traditionally just love stories. The movie also goes deeper into the interpersonal relationships in interracial relationships and how outside influences, such as societal differences and parental pressures can affect relationships. As someone who is in an interracial relationship myself, I absolutely gushed at this portrayal.

The movie starts off with Immigration story. I won’t go too far into it for those who haven’t seen it, but it was an amazing starting point of the movie. Even though the audience have no idea what’s going on because we don’t know the premise of this world and the rules of it yet, educated viewers, who are not the children that this is necessarily geared towards, will understand the hints that we are given. We further go onto the conflict of the story, which is centered around the main character, Ember, and her father’s shop. That’s where she meets city inspector, otherwise known as the Water-boy, Wade. From when they first met, you can see that Wade is definitely the one who fell first and oh my God, I love a good movie where the love interest falls in love first, no matter what gender.

The movie progresses and the movie it makes it clear that Ember’s parents do not like the idea of water people being around. Mostly Ember’s. In fact, Ember‘s father, Bernie, hates water people because of the racial discrimination that he has endured in the past due to water and fire not mixing. They quite literally combat each other. His main and most memorable quote is “They keep trying to water us down”. Also, Ember does make it clear that Element City is not made with fire people in mind. She says “There will have to be a miracle to get me over that bridge.” The movie even showing the trains that push water off the sides that is very harmful to fire people. In the scenes featuring the city, there is water everywhere and while every other element is able to thrive in a water filled environment, it is clearly not sustainable for fire. This is a continuous discrimination towards fire people. Some people would argue that it’s not necessarily discrimination rather negligence and lack of better ways to fully support fire peoples needs. However, I don’t think that is plausible being seen that there are racial slurs in this movie geared towards the fire people.

Let’s not forget the iconic dinner scene, in which Ember meets Wade‘s family. Which in the scene his family were overall very welcoming towards Ember. However, they ultimately did not know how to react to her. At one point, Wade’s nephew almost pushes her into a pool of water asking her if she would die if she fell in. I’m aware that he is a kid but I was dumbfounded. Not helping their case, Wade’s uncle had told her that she speaks English surprisingly clear to which she replied, “It’s amazing what speaking the same language your entire life does”.

The dinner scene is also the scene where Wade first hints that he is in love with Ember. This is where she realizes that because they could never touch she doesn’t see the relationship working and it causes such a great sadness in her heart that she cries for the first time. This scene simultaneously tugged on a heartstring of mine, while reminding me that this is in fact a love story and not a political exposé on how people treat immigrants in America.

Throughout the movie, Bernie was consistently corrected on his English also. This annoys me throughout the movie. The words everyone corrected him on were words that you could tell what he meant. There was just no need to correct him and they did so just because he was wrong. Bernie really messed up his words when he was frustrated or flustered or feeling a great amount of emotion so it was warranted that he would mess up up on a language he had to learn so late in life.

I felt such a strong connection with Ember and Bernie, having such a strong connect to my father. They had such a good relationship. Sure they had their stuff but who doesn’t but they worked through it. I loved the healthy relationships throughout the movie but Burnie and Ember are my favorite.

The end of the movie also resonated a little hard with me too. As a person who has been called sensitive my entire life, Wade being such an emotional person showed me two things. It tells me that Disney is showing people that it was OK to be a little emotional, no matter if that means you have an uncontrollable temper or that means that you sob at every little sadness in life. As a person who can’t seem to get their emotions in check, that was such a good message to hear at the point that I am in life. The second thing that it showed me was Disney is trying to combat the idea that they have been pushing for literally a century about toxic masculinity. Never in my 17 years of life I have seen a Disney character (that was a male) cry so much. And on top of his crying, his family also cries the same amount as him showing them that they are emotionally mature people who can understand that being sensitive and having a lot of emotions isn’t necessarily a bad thing, even though they are seen to be a little dense.

Honestly, if I could, I would go on a literal 30 page tangent about how much I love this movie, and how much I wish that Disney would continue these types of movies for the next century to come, but I’m gonna spare you.

I don’t know if you haven’t got the message from this entire opinion piece but in my opinion, I think you should go watch this movie. Watch it with a loved one (or loved ones) and really soak in the messaging of the movie. Maybe you’ll hate it. Maybe you’ll find that some things were missing but I do think that it’s a movie worth watching. No matter if you find it horrible and it didn’t fully live up to the Disney potential that it could have, was it not still a good laugh?

[eri-cheri]

Now that we have reached the last chapter of the year. It is time to do a 2020 roll call of what I like to call, “State of the Shippers”:

1. IzuOcha. Status: Placated.

-IzuOcha’s could celebrate several cute tidbits throughout the year. Mini moments as they say.

Anime Highlights: The OVA’s came in clutch with moments for shippers all around and IzuOcha is no exception. We got a cute tidbit where Izuku and Ochako bumped into each other and were flustered.

Manga Highlights: Christmas kept on giving to this fandom as the AM doll Izuku gave Ochako made many appearances. A cute fist bump between the two was also exchanged and Mina was right there bouncing with y’all.

Heroes Rising: Izuku super man carried Ochako to safety. And was Angy she was injured. Fans could enjoy the small Lois Lane moment.

Troubling Signs?: Ochako said “I would like to be excluded from this narrative” when it comes to her feelings for Deku. She’s a hero damnit! So if they are in for something, probably won’t be while they are still in school.

II. DabiHawks. Status: Yikes.

- Dabi and Hawk’s very public breakup set this fandom in disarray but also kind of disayay?

Anime Highlights: None yet. This fandom was cruelly cock blocked by Bones. Sorry DabiHawks stans.

Manga Highlights: Where to begin, my goodness. With these fans, I guess the good and the bad is a plus in this homoerotic double agent relationship. We have the notion that Dabi may have known Hawks when they were kids, which may be a positive? Hori sure loves his childhood friends. Other than that. The GIRLS WERE FIGHTIN’. Hawks is now permanently scarred by Dabi and I don’t think it was kinky folks. Tokoyami inserted himself in the middle to White Knight Hawks, Dabi broke up with him via YT expose and overall, shippers could anguish in the absolute MESS that this ship endured this year. But I’m sure that’s part of the appeal. So...yay?

Heroes Rising: They were both in it.

Troubling Signs?: The entire relationship is a troubling sign which again, is part of the appeal. Maybe Hawks will cuddle up with Dabi’s father after the war. That’s troubling! Speaking of...

III. EndHawks. Status: Yearning and Burning.

-If there’s one thing Endeavor couldn’t stop worrying about, it was his hot (in more ways than one) new side piece who probably should have looked at the fine print when signing a contract to be a recurring guest star on “Keeping up with the Todoroki’s”.

Anime Highlights: A fateful meeting finally in high definition for all our eyes to see! Hawks’s unwavering support of his biggest hero was endearing to watch and their shenanigans together spurred the anime onlies to finally jump on the biggest May-December ship in the series.

Manga Highlights: Endeavor’s admiration and concern for Hawks seeped through the pages as we entered our most exciting arc in the manga yet. Fate split these two up yet entwined their downfall together. And that Fate’s name was Dabi...or should I say ⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️ or should I just say Touya!

Heroes Rising: “Don’t bite my head off, Endeavor.” Geez, can you flirt a little less loud Hawks?

Troubling Signs?: They say never meet your heroes and Hawks is in for a rude awakening. We shall see just how deep his admiration runs or if Endeavor’s past will split our dynamic duo up for good.

IV: TodoDeku. Status: “Precious”

-Shoto’s “Midoriya is in Danger” radar was highlighted in both manga and anime. 4th User’s quirk, who?

Anime Highlights: “Midoriya hasn’t returned yet.” “Where’s Midoriya?” “Midoriya! Grab my hand!” “Have some of my Soba Midoriya.” Shoto gets it. His emotional support friend is a danger magnet. TodoDeku’s also enjoyed tiny tidbits in the OVA such as a hand grabbing scene. Gotta hold tight to those crumbs.

Manga Highlights: Two Words. “Precious Friend.” Deku comes in w/o arms or legs fighting for Shoto and Shoto’s honor. These two spent the entire year worried sick about each other, and going against all odds to save each other. Precious Friends indeed. TDDK fans ate.

Heroes Rising: Shoto kicks some dog ass and then faints thinking of Deku (and Bakugo but shh. Let the shippers rejoice.) On the bright side, we have a 3rd movie coming featuring “The Three Musketeers” so shippers of TdDk can HOLD TIGHT to what’s to come.

Troubling Signs?: Shoto still doesn’t know about OFA and he’s gonna have LOTS of questions after this arc. Will Deku finally tell him? If not, it could make or break the ship.

V. TodoBaku. Status: “Shining through the city with a little funk and soul.”

-Who knew the greatest comedy duo we needed was Shoto and his hot headed “friend” or not friend? It still remains unclear to Shoto. Regardless, these two had a fun year.

Anime Highlights: “I wanna see your cute face”, disco dancing, and more fun in the provisional license training. Plus the OVA added some cute moments between the two such as Bakugo staying behind to save Todoroki during a dangerous excercise and his adorable plan neatly animated for us. I’d say TodoBaku’s really were resurgent and energized this year!

Manga Highlights: Shoto, that is not how you properly Catch a Kacchan, I’m sorry. But at least you did it you mad lad. As with Deku, Shoto spent the year worried sick about Bakugo. While the anime let us have our fun, these two were suffering in the manga.

Heroes Rising: Again, Shoto put a dog down and then fainted with Bakugo on his mind (and Deku but we ignore that. Shush.) TodoBaku’s have the 3rd movie to look forward to which is bound to have some amazing content!

Troubling Signs?: They have a lot of trauma to deal with. And a lot of Deku to worry about. I also imagine Shoto will be hurt about being left out of the OFA secret. We shall see what 2021 has to offer.

VI. KiriMina. Status: Unbreakable.

-Changing your hairstyle to match the gal who inspired you in middle school? Sorry y’all but if Mina were a guy, I’d say that’s gay af.

Anime Highlights: We got that backstory Bois. Red Riot’s origin might as well make him be called Pink Riot. Again with Hori and the childhood friends though I wouldn’t exactly call them friends. They just went to the same middle school but Kirishima was highly influenced by Mina’s Chivalrous spirit! A ship is born!

Manga Highlights: The influence is mutual! Mina creates a move based on Kirishima’s unbreakable and we all let out a collective “awwww”. Also in the war arc, we got Kirishima making sure Mina’s chivalrous spirit shines through right into Gigantomachia’s mouth! KiriMina may just be the unsung MVP’s of this arc.

Heroes Rising: They were in it.

Troubling Signs?: I can’t think of a single one. KiriMina’s can enjoy a peaceful sailing.

VII: KiriBaku. Status: Crumb Collectors.

-2020 was an uneventful year for KiriBaku but Bones made sure there were crumbs aplenty! Thank God for OVA’s!

Anime Highlights: KiriBaku’s did thrive in one episode! Kirishima reflects on the sludge incident and evolves his quirk based on inspiring words from Bakugo! Hooray! KiriBaku’s can thrive in their blossoming friendship. The OVA also has Kirishima (and Kaminari but shh) once again following Bakugo’s lead when it comes to the training excercise. How can you not? He’s so manly!

Manga Highlights: Not gonna lie. There is nothing much here this year. I did find a teeny tiny flake in Aizawa’s flashback. Kirishima and Bakugo are sitting next to each other. Oh! And at the hot pot gathering, Bakugo sits next to Kirishima! Eat your crumbs KiriBaku’s! There’s always next year!

Heroes Rising: Kirishima hangs with a lazy Bakugo and delivers the most hilarious line in the whole movie. “Silly Bakugo, there won’t be villains here!” Hahah... Silly Bakugo. Oh you~ KiriBaku’s can inhale the fact that those two sure love to hover around each other!

Troubling Signs?: With great crumbs come little responsiblity. No trouble if there’s no content! 🤔

VIII: KamiJirou. Status: Singing their hearts out 🎶

-If there’s any ship that’s coming close to canonization, I think this is it, folks! “Think of the person most important to you!” Can’t argue with Midnight!

Anime Highlights: Kaminari does non stop encouraging of Jirou and her hobbies! He works super hard to learn guitar for her sake! We love a king who can encourage his queen!

Manga Highlights: Kaminari thinks of the most important person to him and surprise! It’s Jirou! All of the feels can commence.

Heroes Rising: They were in it!

Troubling Signs?: Kaminari does love his women. And men. Kaminari overall is a huge flirt. But Jirou appears to have his heart strings. ❤️

IX: BakuDeku. Status: Rising. 👑

-Alternative Statuses include Winning, Thriving, Soaring. It’s just been non stop content this year. 2020 is truly the year for BakuDeku. The shippers can rejoice.

Anime Highlights: Three words. Be. My. Cane. The OVA’s helped fan the flames of the BkDk hearts with a surprise! Deku tops! Not only that, we got a lovely shoulder tap of encouragement in the canon material. While in season 4, Deku’s primary focus was Eri. Bakugo and Deku still had their moments to be hella gay.

Manga Highlights: Where do I even begin? I guess we’ll just cut to the chase with Bakugo Katsuki: Rising. We finally saw Bakugo’s true feelings manifest for Deku and if getting stabbed for him isn’t the ultimate showing of love, then idk what is. BakuDeku’s rounded out the year with the Volume 29 cover AND the volume 29 cover drafts to eat at our heart strings. Overall, their relationship got the spotlight in the manga this year. And we’re bound to start 2021 with a dramatic confrontation. Hand holding seems to be the key with these two and it didn’t stop with Heroes Rising...speaking of.

Heroes Rising: The entire movie. Like....yeah. That’s it. [OP, your bias is showing. You have to be SPECIFIC.] {But random criticizer in my head, if I lay out the entire plot of the movie, my post will be too long} [OP....] UGHHHH Okay okay. The POPSICLE MELTING. THE HAND HOLDING. THE CHARACTER DESIGNS OF WHAT MIGHT AS WELL BE THEIR LOVE CHILDREN. Did I mention? “It’s fine if it’s you?” CAUSE YEAH. Oh and All Might randomly officiating their wedding in their heads like idk. Isn’t it just simpler if I say the whole movie??!

Troubling Signs?: Well these two’s relationship is extremely delicate and while it has non stop soared this year, Deku might not take too kindly to Bakugo almost dying for him. Will they stop pushing each other away? Time will tell.

That’s all for this year folks! Happy Shipping and good luck to everyone next year!

[handlewcaare]

@grayrro how DARE you hide this in the tags?

The Prince and the Pauper.

(⚠️⚠️⚠️ manga spoilers ahead! ⚠️⚠️⚠️)

Which one is the most stressed?

Gojo’s life is pretty easy—as long as he puts the right amount of elbow grease into it—compared to Nanami’s. As I’ve stated, he was born into this world to completely subvert the expectations of what power really consists of. We’ve seen it in the latest episode where he obliterated a man with just a single glare and, aside from the emotional turmoil that was the Star Plasma Incident, he only made progress from there.

Without the blindfold, he’s a different man

I will disagree that Nanami “ran away” from the Jujutsu world. It was more or less that he was tired of Gojo being the ultimate problem-solver (especially when it lead to the death of one of his friends). If there’s one thing to note about Nanami, he’s extremely diligent—so much so that he would spend all-nighters at an office job. To constantly apply so much effort, only for some over-privileged asshole to sneeze and do 90% of what you should have done would have infuriated me to leave as well, especially if the burden of my friends’ death weighed heavy on my shoulders:

Why are we a team if he does all the work?

The thing is; Nanami isn’t the only one who resented Gojo for his limitless possibilities. Utahime did as well, though it was due to the irritation that her extremely well-thought out plan was crushed under Gojo’s intervention. In context, it showed how clever Utahime was. Though, how good is that when you have the Strongest Sorcerer alive at your side?:

Why learn the safe’s number when you can just blow it up?

Gojo isn’t someone who should be considered a team player. He’s the heavy duty trump card who gives fast results. The only problem is that he’s really not like that. Toji managed to wear down his endurance with his group of bounty hunters and wore down his luck fast. He still needs a team, but how can you work alongside someone who does all of the work effortlessly?

In a similar instance, we have Nanami who more or less endured the same thing. While he wouldn’t answer to the Jujutsu World’s call anymore, he still had someone to answer to.

Monetary gain means nothing if you’re not satisfied

As you’ve stated; Nanami wasn’t born with limitless power, but he had more accessible options. Him living an average life was a mere plan B that would have worked well for him, if it weren’t for the fact that he had more work to finish in the world of Cursed Spirits. Not only that, but he realized there really wasn’t much of a difference between answering to a lousy boss and a lousy boss who disrespects Jimi Hendrix.

Might as well do something you’re good at.

No matter what you do, you will always be the cog of some machine. That’s why Nanami always valued innocence. The real world doesn’t punish a child for trying to do the right thing, which is why I wholeheartedly agree that Nanami’s awareness set his status as Yuji’s momentary support in Gojo’s absence. Had Gojo merely stayed with Yuji in Nanami’s place, this would be an entirely different topic to discuss.

It also adds to the fact that Yuuta—one of Gojo’s students—didn’t have Nanami as his guidance, which is interesting to note how willing he is to comply with the people who wanted his head earlier (though, he is really indecisive):

How blissfully unaware you are

I also would like to point out how similar they are to their own abilities. Nanami is concise and blunt; keeping things to the point without fluffing up his words. The ratio technique is a very meticulous ability that requires dedication to knowing the most finest detail. I would be lucky to have him on my team simply because he can exploit weaknesses:

Without a stain on his suit

Compare that to Gojo who, as we all know, is extremely combustable with his attacks. There’s no grace, but there is a LOT of excitement in it. It’s merely weaponized dead space that blows practical craters in the skies and in the forest. It’s messy, it’s borderline chaotic—which is just about Gojo’s personality in a nutshell.

Bang.

In summary: Gojo and Nanami were the best in two different outcomes. Gojo can easily thrive in the world of Sorcerers and Nanami can easily make enough money to live comfortably in the real world. While we have Nanami in the Sorcerer world (if not, begrudgingly), we still have yet to see Gojo respond to the world without cursed spirits and being the most powerful Shaman. After all, having limitless powers doesn’t fit well in a job resume.

[carryonsimoncarryonbaz]

Hey there! thanks for the AWTWB asks you’ve been answering—they’ve helped me process some parts of the book and think things through.

that being said I’ve got one of my own questions for you.

one of the things I really loved about Carry On was Simon and Penny’s friendship. One of the things I appreciated about WS was the friendship between Baz and Penny.

but we didn‘t see much of either of those in AWTWB and that kind of bummed me out. What are your thoughts on the lack of those interactions?

hello anon, thanks for the ask! This might be a long one, so bear with me!

Simon and Penny's friendship is one of many wonderful parts of these books. Like you, it's one of the things I've loved to read. I was also so gratified to see that Baz and Penny grew to have such a deep and caring friendship in WS.

It may seem like we don't see those friendships "on screen" in the same way in AWTWB but I do think there are reasons for that, reasons that make a great deal of sense building on the previous books.

Simon and Penny's friendship is introduced in CO and we see it as rock solid through that book. I don't think there was any doubt as to the mutuality and depth of that relationship. It continues, albeit affected by Simon's personal trauma, in WS. In WS we also see the introduction of Baz and Penny's friendship--forged in their mutual care and love for Simon but being a distinct and separate entity as well, a love and caring for each other that goes alongside the relationship they have through Simon.

I don't think AWTWB diminishes those friendships. But circumstances have altered–based on Simon's decision early in the book to withdraw himself from the World of Mages, from the revelations about themselves the trip to America brought forth, with how they choose to move forward based on those circumstances.

I think CO and WS did a good job establishing the foundation and strength of Simon's friendship with Penny and the Baz and Penny one as well. I don't think there is any doubt in AWTWB that they all care very deeply for each other.

But Simon has drawn a line. A boundary. He believes he needs to be distinct and separate from the World of Mages to move forward, to get unstuck. He makes that very clear to Penny in his conversation with her, a conversation that is off-screen for very good reasons I think. One reason being it having a stronger emotional punch when Simon tells Baz (and us) in the break-up chapter--it would have been diluted if we had already heard his reasoning. Instead we get to hear Penny explain her understanding of it to Baz before Simon gives us the much more emotionally devastating version he gives Baz.

We get to see Penny making some very crucial realisations about the co-dependant relationship she and Simon had developed, about her own decisions and reactions to what had been going on in Simon's life. And her role as his friend and confidant. She is seeing things through a different lens–since the Mage's death, since Simon's spiral, since the trip to America. Mitali is rather harsh in her observations but Penny did thrive on the excitement and intrigue of the missions, her role as dread companion, the rush of research, intuition, and creative spell casting that she would contribute. But we saw even in CO that Penny had reached a point of wanting to spirit Simon away, to keep him safe, to pull him away from the World of Mages herself. A part of her that intuitively knew his life as a boy-soldier was unhealthy and hurtful to him in the long run. There is certainly a part of Penny that likely blames herself for not seeing through the Mage earlier, for not in some way protecting Simon or helping him avoid what ultimately happened. Not that she necessarily could have, but she would be thinking about it.

We know Baz feels that way as well. We hear Dr. Wellbelove voice a regret we know those closest to Simon would be feeling. Penny loves Simon. She does respect him. But she has put herself in a “taking care of him” role that takes away some of his agency and leads to a challenging dynamic. She and Baz both, in WS, but Penny has a longer history of that. After America she has come to a realisation that perhaps she has enabled or encouraged some of the situations they have found themselves in, that have been detrimental to Simon in the long run. That her mantra of Simon needing her hasn’t necessarily been healthy for their relationship. He sets a boundary with her and she chooses to respect it, not bulldoze right over it, as she may have in the past. This is a huge moment of character growth for her. She isn't relinquishing her relationship with Simon. She's giving him the freedom to do what he feel is right for him in the moment. She loves and trusts him enough to give him space when she understands he needs it. She doesn't like it, it hurts like hell, but she knows this agency and control and decision making on his own terms is vital for him. And when he calls her back, to help solve some new magickal conundrum, she doesn't let herself get drawn in. She keeps her promise to him, even if he's the one crossing the boundary.

It also allows her to be her own hero, if that makes sense. To be the hero of her own story, to approach something on her own terms. She bemoans the fact that she doesn't have Simon and Baz to listen to her think through things when she's with Shepard but the reality is she doesn't need them to do that--she can do this herself. It's empowering and a shift in her own experience. It also allows her to open herself up to someone new, let someone else in to her tiny circle.

I also think it's important in this story to see that just because someone asks for space, or needs some distance or agency, it doesn't necessarily mean you're losing them forever or that they are permanently rejecting you. Or that you’ve done something irrevocable. People need to grow and process and change and sometimes they need the space and freedom to do so. I think that's a very meaningful point. They last a little over a week apart but it's a week that provides them both with insight and growth. And they find themselves again, stronger than before, when they are back together.

And Simon talks it out with Penny. Baz tells him he should and he does. And it's ok that conversation is offscreen. We know the love they have for each other. We know Penny hates emotional conversations (her whole issue with saying goodbye from Carry On). It's not a scene we need to see--it's ok that it's private. It's how they'd want it.

We don't see as much of Baz and Penny's friendship, which you also mention, but I think again that's ok. It doesn't mean it ceases to exist--it simply continues on in the background as Simon and Baz's relationship work takes the forefront. Yes, Baz and Penny have a disagreement about Simon. But their friendship remains. They still communicate. They are still there for each other in the pivotal later scenes surrounding Smith. That hasn't changed. They have each others backs. They always will. I don't think Penny truly begrudges the fact that Simon and Baz have had this time together--I think she is very aware of how much they care for each other and that they needed to sort themselves to move forward also.

I hope this answered your question. The tl;dr is basically their friendships endure, even when not explicitly on the page. We don’t necessarily need to see them to know they’re there—the groundwork has been laid. We know their history and the depth of those friendships and that this time apart allowed for growth and progress and healthy boundaries and understanding. All good things. And in the end, they're all in this together, for each other and in support of each other.

[coolclaytony-2]

Gaoa Sicheu, Monk of the Zheia River

Type: Shikigami (Court of Clubs)

Attributes: Primary— Social, Secondary— Mental, Tertiary— Physical

Skill Proficiencies: Persuasion (Calming Anger), Stealth (Woodlands), Medicine (Herbal Remedies)

Virtue: Patience— Gaoa understands that every river flows at it's own pace and that things will ultimately happen when they will, and no sooner.

Vice: Fear— The myriad dangers of the World of Darkness frighten Gaoa, and he is uncertain he is fit to face them.

Background: A former keeper of the Zheia River Temple in Wen-Mung, Gaoa was unusual for a man of his people by virtue of a sedentary lifestyle, prefering the routine predictability of maintaining the temple and not having to face the trials and tribulations promised by the path of the nomad. When his soul became trapped in the Dreamlands, it was a mixed blessing for him, as he could continue his way of being without undue interruption, but the Release shattered this cycle cruelly as his temple had suddenly become a battlefield between the Nobility and the Wardens that had been carefully curating the illusion of tranquil certainty in his afterlife. The Gales may have repaired his temple in the aftermath, but he was still left with the cruel reality that it was not at all his temple, not the Zheia River, not the Forest of Wen-Mung, not even the Earth; all of it a crude simulation of a rose-tinted memory warped by time and magic. Gaoa was beside himself, he had unknowingly been dead for millennia, and was living a false life in a parody of his old one. Did he ever even truly live, or was he just another of the many false-people that populated the Dreamlands to give the pretense of a thriving kingdom? Burdened for the first time in ages with crippling uncertainty, he sought out the only person who could be trusted grant him actionable insight, The Queen of Clubs. The Matron of the Forests sympathized with his delimma, what good is a templekeeper when the temple keeps itself and what does one do when he is living a lie? Her answer, "The time has come, it seems, to leave your world of comfortable lies behind and seek truth in the perilous unknown.". By this point, many of Wen-Mung's finest teachers and scholars had long left for the land of the living to become Shikigami and as new Nobles blossomed into being, the demand for more such mentors and companions only grew. It was the Queen's suggestion that he take up the mantle and find new meaning in a much changed world. Gaoa was hesitant, at first, he was no teacher afterall. But ultimately he resolved to embrace, or otherwise endure, the trials that lay ahead.

In his true form, Gaoa Sicheu is an unremarkable man of timid mein. Close inspection of his spindly frame betrays the fact that at one time, he once lived as a woman, but such things are of little relevance. He is clearly in his 30's at the earliest, wearing simple turquoise hemp robes and a pair of oversized spectacles of Dannan-make. Like most monks of the forest, he keeps his head shaved.

He arrived on Earth with a vessel already prepared for him, an oragami praying mantis made by the hand of his ward (Size 1). Despite his history as a hermit, Gaoa is very socially competent. While his attribute and skill dots should emphasize his friendly (sometimes overly accommodating) personality and decent education, he is not a fighter by any stretch, at least not at first. As his ward grows her skills; he will likely endeavor to understand the World of Darkness as it is now learning all he can about the people and places that inhabit it and attempting to provide any insights he can (to this end, he may invest a lot of time into learning how to properly utilize the internet). What's more, he will ultimately recognize the need to be able to support his ward in a combat capacity if she presses the issue or finds herself frequently struggling in the field.

As a teacher, Gaoa struggles to offer anything beyond being an ear to which frustrations can be vented, a friend to binge anime with, and a pretty singing voice when one needs reason to smile.

[leportraitducadavre]

Well at first I was thought saying a coward in a moral sense, because I don’t Kakashi is a coward in that he afraid of death. But what I mean is Kakashi is coward in that he doesn’t stand up for what he claims to believe in and is willing to allow others to suffer ( his students) under a Village that he know his corrupt, but does nothing about it. Moral cowardice is mostly about choosing the path of least overall effort regardless of the fact that this path is in some sense wrong.

Let’s go for parts:

“But what I mean is Kakashi is coward in that he doesn’t stand up for what he claims to believe”

Not sure about this, Kakashi clearly stands up for what he claims he does: He does think that the way he acts is exactly the correct manner to defend his ideals. The “those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum,” that he repeated non-stop in the manga was just a twisted version of the original meaning that Obito intended. For Kakashi, abandoning one’s friends means turning their back on them and the village that saw them born and represents them, therefore, someone like Sasuke is an example of a scum.

(Not even when confronted with Obito was Kakashi able to disentangle his twisted-nationalistic version of the quote, so he internalized Obito's implication in Akatsuki by convincing himself that it was Obito the one who had changed in his views, rather than admitting he never actually understood what the phrase truly meant).

Konoha is full of people Kakashi cares for (and of people the ones he likes, care for, as well), not only his students but also his comrades, therefore, defending Konoha and the (corrupt) system that holds everything together is key. If Konoha stands, then everything he fights for has a chance at surviving, and the death of those close to him are not meaningless.

He twisted Obito’s words in order to fit them in his nationalistic viewing; something that turned out to be the moral compass that later on Naruto and everyone in the K11 internalized.

“is willing to allow others to suffer ( his students) under a Village that he know his corrupt, but does nothing about it”

As I said before, he concocted a mindset that allowed him to see suffering/death as a necessary (if not inevitable) sacrifice to protect something far more important than individuals’ safety: a symbol. He doesn’t force people to endure anything he would be unwilling to should he find himself in that situation, because to him, everything has a major purpose: Konoha’s survival.

The system is corrupt and he knows it, but he ends up tying those flaws to human’s course of actions instead of questioning the bases on which those individuals acted, which both led and allowed such conducts to occur.

“Moral cowardice is mostly about choosing the path of least overall effort regardless of the fact that this path is in some sense wrong.”

But that’s the thing, Kakashi has all the tools to see the wrongness of the system, and yet decides that the structure in place is still the best of all evils, so instead of improving it, it’s better to just keep doing what has been working until now in order to maintain the power (im)balance -that ultimately benefits Konoha the most-, and the temporary peace.

Minorities aren’t that important to him, Kakashi belongs to none of them so he knows nothing about what they’re enduring. The system was dirty to him as well and yet he thrived because he twisted reality to make himself believe (not without the help of a well-established educational system) that all his suffering was his own problem. Konoha had nothing to do with it, he was the one with issues, not the structure itself that forced his father and Rin to commit suicide (one because of shame, the other for a sentiment of protectiveness over a village that forced her into combat).

And you know, that might have been a nice and understandable excuse for a thirteen-year-old boy, but when you’re twenty-six and you’ve seen everything he did during his time in the shinobi force, then you turn from victim to accomplice, because you’re an active participant in the oppression -not only he did nothing to change things, he vigorously pushed his students in the nationalistic mindset.

Summarizing, I'm not sure about the "coward" stand when it comes to Kakashi's moral mindset, because it implies that he was just too terrified (or like you said, unable/unwilling to make an effort to question his ideals) to change things even when knowing and acknowledging the problems. I think he knew about the consequences of the system in place and took a stance to support it and reproduce it because of his nationalistic mindset. It's not that I don't agree with your points, but is the term to describe his moral compass the one I'm not sure about.

[troquantary]

Didyme, Part 2: Something, Something, Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Continuing from here, and we’re doing sub-parts for this bit. I’m genuinely surprised I had this much to say. (And fun fact, I almost lost the entire goddamn post, but fortunately I was copy-pasting into Word just in case. Not today, Satan.)

2.1. What Canon Tells Us

Didyme’s murder by Aro (and with Caius’ apparent assistance, either during or afterwards), is only mentioned on the page in Life and Death, the 10th Anniversary gender-swapped version of Twilight. Edythe/Edward mentions it briefly when discussing the painting of the leaders Carine/Carlisle brought back from Volterra, but it’s just background information with little narrative weight. I bring it up just to highlight Caius’ involvement and knowledge -- I’ll get back to that.

Now, here’s the “canon” backstory we have to work with. Per the illustrated guide, Didyme was Aro’s younger sister, and he turned her at some point after meeting Marcus, Caius, and Athenadora. Interestingly, the Guide doesn’t say anything about Aro returning to Didyme out of brotherly love; apparently he just wanted to see if she would have a powerful gift like his, only to be underwhelmed (”disappointed,” according to his Guide entry) by her actual ability -- she made people happy just by being around them. Then she and Marcus fell in love, sharing “the strongest romantic bond of any of the Volturi” (from Marcus’ Guide entry), and this prompted a suddenly very single Aro to seek out his own mate, Sulpicia. The Guide says Didyme “distracted” Marcus from Aro’s goals, and that the pair eventually made plans to split off on their own, leading Aro to murder Didyme so he could hold onto Marcus and his valuable gift. Although nothing written so far suggests that Aro even liked his sister, the Guide does state that Aro “truly loved her” and that his grief upon killing Didyme was genuine.

Apparently Caius’ role in all is was something Meyer thought up later, because none of the leaders’ Guide entries mention him being in on it. (You can’t see me, but I’m staring pointedly at Part One.)

2.2. Fuck Canon, Actually

(This just seemed like the funniest place for a cut. Continued below~)

I’ll be honest with you, person who’s persistent/unfortunate enough to still be here: very little about this murder scenario makes sense to me. I’m going to start with the “disappointing” nature of Didyme’s gift and that it was supposedly much less useful to Aro than Marcus’, because that’s just...stupid, frankly, and there’s no way Aro would have missed the inherent utility of Didyme’s gift. I don’t even have to read into anything to get this idea -- the Guide itself shows us how useful it is! It says right there in Marcus’ entry that Aro went off to turn Didyme, and returned with his sister, “along with the first members of the guard -- vampires who were drawn to Didyme’s aura of happiness.” That is a direct quote.

Just -- I practically shrieked when I read that. You’re telling me that Didyme’s gift was the stated reason their coven got its first subordinates, and I’m supposed to believe that Aro thought that was disappointing? Fuck off! Fuck off!! Even if Didyme’s happiness aura isn’t as powerful as Corin’s opium haze, well, Aro doesn’t have Corin yet, does he? He has every reason in the world to want to keep Didyme around, drawing other vampires to his cause -- even if most of those vampires aren’t gifted or skilled enough to join the guard, it’s still good PR.

At this early stage in the Volturi’s rise to power, it isn’t a good time to lose Didyme -- or any of his inner coven, really. Yet Aro apparently considered her disposable enough that he killed her. I can’t square this with what we know about Aro: that he’s still coherent despite holding god-knows how many people’s lives in his head; that he’s very intelligent; that he’s cunning, charming, and persuasive. Aro, once he learned they were thinking about leaving, would have tried to talk to Didyme and Marcus and done everything in his power to convince them to stay just a bit longer, until the Volturi’s position was more secure. And maybe he did; the timeline of all this is hazy, but nothing in the Guide suggests that Aro jumped straight to duplicity and murder. Clearly, though, whatever negotiations or arguments he presented failed. So what does their desire to leave the Volturi at this critical stage say about Didyme, or Marcus for that matter?

2.3. What It Says About Didyme and Marcus (Mostly Headcanon)

Brace yourself, because we’re into full headcanon territory now. To follow me, please refer to @therealvinelle ‘s meta about the larger mission of the Volturi and why they’re necessary, because I’m starting from the perspective that the Volturi are ultimately a force working in vampires’ and humans’ favor. While Meyer and the Guide would have you believe that Aro’s just power-hungry, actually looking at the impact of the Volturi and the benefits of enforcing secrecy shows that his broader vision isn’t just world domination, but establishing a world in which vampires and humans can both thrive and endure. There’s no way the rest of the inner coven was unaware of this goal; we know Aro talks a lot, so he’s certainly talked his coven’s ears off about this.

Now, we know very little about Marcus and what he was like before he was all dead inside. Based on what would be a logical balance of personalities, with Aro as lead decision-maker and Caius as ruthless enforcer, it seems likely that Marcus was originally the voice of reason and/or mercy. I also think Marcus would have had a strong sense of duty. The Guide says that Aro was the first friend Marcus had as a vampire, and I believe that Marcus cared about him very much and was committed to the Volturi. I think he would have been genuinely conflicted about leaving, especially considering the stabler, safer world the Volturi have been striving to build, and which they haven’t yet secured. Again, it’s a very bad time for any of the leadership to split off -- but in the end, Marcus and Didyme are going to do it anyway.

What for, though? Why leave? @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin has an interesting take on that question here: that Didyme saw that she and Marcus would be locked into the Volturi life and a thankless existence for eternity and tried to opt out while she still could. I like it a lot, it’s a great post and that scenario makes sense, but the tone of it feels...too forgiving. Maybe that’s because I’m evil. But the way I see it, given the magnitude of the Volturi’s mission, and its (at best) very tenuous grip on power at the time Marcus and Didyme plan to leave (they haven’t even defeated the Romanians yet), jeopardizing the entire operation so that they can pursue their romance unburdened strikes me as...well, fundamentally selfish on some level, so much that I find myself side-eyeing Didyme and Marcus for it. Although to be clear, it’s not the desire to live their own lives apart from the Volturi that I find selfish, just the timing of their departure.

Honestly, I’d like not to vilify another female character if I don’t have to. Given everything I’ve just said, I see Didyme in much the same way as I see Bella: not a bad person, but someone with definite selfish tendencies. At best, she’s likely short-sighted or naive if she doesn’t see how leaving the Volturi at this stage is fucking them over in a big way. However, I hesitate to read into the happiness aura as a straightforward indication of Didyme’s fundamental goodness; I think she probably was kind, charming, and delightful to be around, hence the nature of her gift -- but that capacity for selfishness is still there. (I’m certain Meyer wants us to take her gift as proof of Didyme’s goodness, to reinforce how evil Aro is for killing her...but I think I’ve made my disdain for what Meyer wants me to think pretty clear.)

2.4. MURDER MOST FOUL

I am not saying it was justifiable or okay for Aro to murder his sister. I’m really not. It’s actually better, from a character standpoint, that it isn’t okay -- that Aro has to carry this with him for the rest of his life while Marcus sits in the throne next to him, reduced to a husk, so that in effect Aro has lost them both after all. It’s got that Greek tragedy element @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin​ mentioned in her post. (Even better from that standpoint, the Guide implies that Aro found Chelsea relatively soon after killing Didyme, which compounds the tragedy.) I mean, it’s terrible, and it hurts me because I love Aro, but it’s compelling stuff.

What I am saying is, I can see how their insistence on leaving might have deeply hurt and offended him. And that brings me to my issue with the calculated murder scenario the Guide gives us -- I still think Didyme’s gift is too valuable for Aro to throw away by killing her in cold...venom (or whatever), even as the price for keeping Marcus in the fold. Plus, there’s the fact that Aro does love Didyme, and I imagine her gift makes it very difficult for people to think of harming her...when they’re calm, anyway.

Yeah, the only way I can really see the murder happening is if Aro killed Didyme in the heat of an argument about her leaving, possibly even by accident -- except you can’t accidentally kill a vampire, can you? It’s a very deliberate process wherein you have to dismember them and burn every piece, which also means it probably takes long enough that any irrational, overwhelming rage would wear off before you were done. But now that you’ve started....

I mean, at that point it would certainly be awkward to put your half-rubble sister back together, and Aro would be in a whole other load of shit even if he did. It’s possible, given what we’re told, that Aro could have lashed out and yanked Didyme’s head off before snapping out of it, only to realize that his sole option now is to finish the job. If he doesn’t kill Didyme now, she and Marcus won’t just leave, they’ll be sworn enemies of Aro from then on. And thanks to Didyme’s gift being the draw for a lot of the guard, and the inherently bad look of a leader who would brutally attack his own sister, a chunk of the guard would probably leave with them, destroying Aro’s plans. No, the only way to salvage it is to follow through.

Then Aro has to call in Caius for help with the cover-up, because it wasn’t actually planned and it’s just pure luck that no one walked in on the murder as it was happening.

And maybe Aro learns a hard lesson about learning to let people walk away, leaving the possibility open that they could be drawn in again. Because if Aro had just waited, he would have found Chelsea, and with her gift he could have had Marcus and Didyme back again.

Assuming everything didn’t fall apart as soon as they left, of course. But that’s a whole other what-if scenario.

[anonymouslyangsty]

Been seeing a lot of taka lives au which is *chefs kiss* but it really does make me wonder just how difficult taka's physical and mental healing process would be if he survived the hit.

Chefs make out session more like it

But that's a really good question. Like, this boy has a horrible time. He makes his first friend in a death game, only to have said friend brutally murdered in front of him. Then he gets depressed, has a total mental breakdown that ends with him adopting his dead friend's personality, then gets bludgeoned half to death.

Yeah, Kiyotaka is going through it.

And yes, he's the Ultimate Moral Compass. But at that point, you really have to question if his upbeat, kind personality can endure. We already saw him break under the weight of the loss of Mondo, and I don't think he'll ever fully recover from that break.

I don't think he'd snap and break his morals, but I can't see him going back to his normal cheerful demeanor either.

Maybe he'd give up his title of Moral Compass. He failed to keep the students alive, he failed to save Mondo, he lost control and threatened another student, then he broke the rules to try to find an exit. After all that, does he really deserve his Ultimate? He's done nothing but fail the people around him.

Not to mention that Mondo's death in itself shattered his entire worldview. Because how could Mondo, a man he looked up to so much, be a killer? Taka has a very black and white view of the world, and Chihiro's murder utterly shatters that. I don't think he'd be able to pick up the pieces easily.

And honestly? I could see this segwaying into him actually making friends that aren't Mondo. Because to be honest, it's clear that Mondo was his only friend there. Makoto and Hiro were also pretty nice to him, but besides that, he’s kinda disliked or tolerated at best.He's not very popular, and a part of that is because he's so strict.

But if he gives up on his title? Then he doesn't need to be as perfect. He doesn't need to carry the burden of taking care of everyone. And sure, he'll frame it as "I'm not worthy of such a role" rather than "I shouldn't carry the weight of every life here", but the end result of him taking on way less responsibility is there.

Without that strong need to take care of everyone, Taka would feel less obligated to lecture everyone. Plus, he can be less strict with both his classmates and himself. Because let's be honest. Taka deserves a nap and a hobby that isn't studying or working out.

(Dang, now I wish Hifumi was still alive in this situation: I want him to try to show Taka some anime)

Slightly off topic here, but I don't think the title of Ultimate Moral Compass is doing Taka any favors. Yes, morals are important. Yes, working hard is vital. However, Taka is so extreme that he denies himself the ability to relax and also seriously hinders his ability to socialize.

Without the burden of that ultimate, Kiyotaka would have a much richer life. Which is ironic in a way. Kiyotaka thinks that one cannot succeed without hard work, which is true. But can one thrive without a life outside of work? No. And it's only through giving up, something Taka would normally never do, that he can start really bonding with the other students.

Also, if Kiyotaka gives up his Ultimate, then he can be mean to Togami. He doesn't need to take the highroad anymore. Taka gets to punch the hell out of Togami because his bro never got to.

This can all lead to a new Kiyotaka by the end of the game. One that is still trying to help everyone, but is far more open to different points of view. One who is more flexible, and thus more resilient. One who doesn't carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Because no, he is not fit to lead them. He's already failed them time and time again. But that doesn't mean he has to give up either. Mondo wouldn't want him to.

So I mainly talked about character evolution, but there's still the physical to consider. He got freaking bludgeoned over the head. And yeah, I hear that head wounds bleed a lot even if they aren't bad, so it may look worse than it is. But still. He's not walking away from that without a concussion.

And I love the idea of that being an excuse for him and Sakura to hang out more. Because of all the group, she and Hina probably have the most experience with injuries, so it'd make sense for those two to take care of while he's healing.

I feel like that situation has so much room for character development! Because let's be honest here, it would've been so cool if Hina and Sakura actually tried helping Taka after Mondo's death. It seems in character for them, because both are very kind people. So this gives the chance to make this happen.

Plus I just think those 3 would have a great dynamic. Both Taka and Hina are loud, expressive, and passionate. With Kiyotaka abandoning his ultimate, he'd have no reason to refuse Hina's indulgent attempts to cheer him up. They can eat doughnuts together <3

Sakura and Taka are both strict, determined, and moral. So I think they could both get along really well! Let them drink tea together, and Sakura can give him some wisdom. She can help him realize that good people can make bad decisions, and that bad decision doesn't immediately make them evil. Good advice given Mondo's death, plus foreshadowing.

Also! I love how this could lead into Sakura's death! Sakura being the traitor would once again fit into that whole "oh no my friend who I see as morally good did something horrible" thing. But now, without the weight of his talent and a more flexible worldview, Kiyotaka can withstand that type of blow.

I can see him and Hina being the ones to vouch for Sakura, to look for solutions rather than attacking her. And when Sakura does die, and Hina has her breakdown, Kiyotaka can be there for her. He knows all too well what it's like to lose a friend to the death game.

Just...let Taka and Hina be friends. Let them be part of the "I made a buff friend in the death game but they became a blackened and died. Also fuck Togami" club together.

So basically: Taka gets a more healthy level of depressed (not comatose) and abandons his talent. That lets him explore more things about life, even if they aren’t related to school. He makes friends with Hina and Sakura, who help him with balancing work and fun (Hina), and having a more flexible view on morality (Sakura).

Then Sakura dies, and Kiyotaka is better equipped to be a comfort to Hina.

[maxwell-grant]

Do you have any opinion on the Wold Newton universe or more generally the attempts to create a coherent universe based on massive crossover of victorian and/or pulp fictions ?

Fair warning to any and all of you who follow my blog and might think to yourselves "Wow, I want a Pulp Hero Cinematic Universe!". You don't. What you want is for these characters to thrive again and maybe kick ass together after reestablishing themselves as cool and popular and interesting characters in the pop culture eye, and I want that too, I've been working on ideas for years to try and bring some of that to reality, it's part of the whole point of this blog in the first place, and I must stress: Nothing, and I repeat, nothing, is going to put these characters six feet under faster than a botched attempt to follow in the MCU's footsteps. You don't want to watch these characters suffocate under the strain of a cinematic universe. I didn't like watching it happen with Marvel to begin with, as much as that clearly worked out for them.

If DC could only just barely catch up to the MCU's shadow and only started to thrive when they took a diametrically opposite approach, if the Monsterverse, despite the fact that it's characters were already in a cinematic universe together, only just barely limps on due to the popularity of it's central players, the pulp heroes don't have a chance in hell if they try and play by those rules. The Shadow and Doc Savage and Green Hornet can survive failed reboots, but not every character's got that kind of safety net, not every author can afford to take the risks necessary to commit to these properties, and some characters take a lot longer to crawl out of graves than others.

So with that said, let's talk about the WNU.

When I first started doing research on pulp heroes in general I spent a very long time going through all of the Wold Newton pages I could find, and I have a lot of them saved in case the websites get taken down one way or another. I still consult them frequently and I still consider them a pretty invaluable resource for anyone who wants to get acquainted with pulp characters, even if it must be prefaced that the WNU is basically fanfiction.

The Wold Newton Universe was a massive shared fanfiction universe before we had a proper name for this kind of thing and I do find it a little disheartening that, despite it predating or influencing works like LOEG and Incognito and Planetary, and how several current authors either got started writing articles for it or even professed their love of it, it's a currently dead project. I guess it ultimately wasn't supposed to even last as long as it did anyway, and much like the characters it's based on, it ultimately doesn't really die so much as it just lives on differently.

The big problem I have with the mainline WNU is, besides not liking Phillip Jose Farmer's writing, that much of it is basically crack fanfiction built on very, very flimsy family connections as an excuse to tie characters together, and already I think the premise that somehow, all of these characters are related, all of them are part of a special family tree connected by meteor-irradiated blood, to be extremely weak. A lot of the writing in many of the WNU pages is just not good and not workable, and it's hard to fault it as such considering this is fanfic, it's written by enthusiastic fans and not professional writers (although some of these people are, the Lofficiers have no excuse). But the great thing about the WNU is that, because it's a shared project with no ownership, everyone gets to play around and rewrite canon at will and bring their own angle to it.

There's WNU pages that are very hardline against the inclusion of superheroes, others don't have that restriction at all. There's WNU fan pages focusing exclusively on monsters and horror. Jess Nevins wrote a ton of pages digging out the really obscure characters only he knows about. There's Cool French Comics which is focused heavily on the European side of things, which is also where I discovered The Grey Claw's existence, and Tales of the Shadowmen is based a lot on these. I know for a fact that there used to be at least a couple of pages focusing on anime although the Wayback Machine doesn't have most of them archived. It's not so much a single shared universe or timeline so much as it's several, outright dozens, of them depending on who's writing the pages, and they were all free to either incorporate theories made by other authors or purposefully rewrite them. It’s a freedom afforded by the fact that these are non-profit fanfics, and the fact that over half of the characters in these webpages are public domain or in copyright purgatory to begin with.

Unlike with DC, who's got a hodgepodge of concepts that logically shouldn't work together but are still held together by the consistent ideal of the superhero and the Justice League and whatnot, and Marvel, who was a continuous crossover soap opera right from the start, the Pulp Heroes don't live in the same worlds, don't live in the same time periods, many of them weren't designed to do so, don't have a sliding timescale or rebooting timeline to keep them perpetually on the same level, they don't exist under unified copyright, don't operate by the same rules, and are less built to sacrifice their individuality and settings for the sake of costumed punch-ups with a bunch of randos. Superheroes are able to exist together by operating under a very strongly defined notion of what a superhero is and does, and if the Pulp Heroes had anything of the sort, I wouldn't have to make a chart in the first place trying to create a coherent explanation as to what defines them.

Before the MCU could sell people on the Avengers, it first had to sell them on all of it's other team players first, it needed to do the groundwork and rework all of it's existing characters to make sure they could reasonably be crammed on screen together. From the start, their universe was dictated by the need to have these characters team up. Be honest: Do you think this is gonna work for the Pulp Heroes? Characters whose greatest selling point, whose most enduring and unique traits, are the ways in which they are not like other heroes? Characters that currently struggle for newfound popularity because of the common notion that they are just superheroes, except old and racist and outdated. Do you think these characters aren't better off instead dispelling these preconceptions to rebel against the superhero dominance and thrive in different areas? The secret of their success in the first place was the ways in which they weren't like the Victorian Heroes that preceded them, and guess what, now they are on the same boat.

The concept is not unworkable, it's not impossible, some good stories have resulted out of mashing the icons big and small together, hell I have several Pulp Hero universe concepts I'm working on. But I must stress the need of approaching this from a different perspective. And that perspective starts with doing the groundwork on what works and what doesn't for them.

The only genuinely successful pulp hero universes to an extent I've seen were those that were built from the ground up based on an idea that these characters were supposed to interact and work together, or at least share a history together. The strongest one I've seen would definitely be The Chimera Brigade, because it's not preoccupied with mashing icons together but instead telling a story informed by the history of these characters, informed by it's central point: Namely, what does a pulp/superhero history look like from a French perspective. It's biggest names are used only sparingly, it's got a ton of original characters to make the world feel more seamless and real, it takes the routes less traveled to make the story stand more on it's own feet and not just based on the characters it's intended to reference. And in doing so, it's also allowed several of it's characters to thrive individually as well as collectively.

In that regard, I think the greatest thing the WNU has is that it provides a skeleton to work with. It provides not just one but several ideas of what you can do with these characters past their respective stories, either in personal canons, crossovers with other properties or even existing in shared universes. The ideas are there either for existing characters or original creations. What you do with those ideas is up to you.

[psalloacappella]

tempo rubato

Day 7 Prompt: free prompt // “From now on . . .”

@sasusakublankperiodweek

Ao3 | FFN | ↓

It is a divine and breathtaking thing, to be untethered from their earthly expectations.

The rhythm of the world is a universal hum, an unbroken orbit consisting only of two.

(we write a story)

Hewn halves of the same whole, shadow and light.

They tell themselves to keep it simple, take it slow. This, whatever this is.

The dynamic shift between them is not sudden nor gradual, but something permanent, piquant, and passionate.

Arcs of exploration, personal and entwined: They roam the edges of the world they know and the enclaves they don’t, hoping that their bonding will reveal the hidden map — time reigning at the helm, the pilgrim cartographer. 

But they’ve never been blithe or unfocused, not in their goals or in the shaping of their destinies. Certainly, nothing between them has ever been anything other than a dramatic affair, enduring, and a love that every other eye can see.

“How many days has it been?” she asks him across an inn table, watching him in the dim light. 

Sasuke knows damn well she’s aware of the hours and seconds that have elapsed together; she’s far too precise for sly questions of time. Does it matter?

He pauses before answering, already so taken with the way she levels her gaze at him, unadorned, and knows bringing her along will be the ultimate undoing of his penance journey, the taking apart of his hard heart. Sunrise cleaving through his endless dusk.

“Months, now.” Gathering up the last shreds of meat from his bowl, he places it in hers and meets her eyes in the manner of setting dry kindling alight. 

And so it works, this restrained and sentimental pace, for a while.

.

(we speed up)

Whispers in firelight will be their foundation, the tales that will shape their future. They speak of mundanities (flowers), practicalities (weather) and dreams, some past, lost, and others transforming into hesitant, potential plans. They speak of scars, this one that one, from the one they called Sasori she breathes, his fingertips tracing a swift cleaving crescent, from him, he mutters, and he knows she’ll know which man simply by the smolder in his sloe and violet eyes.

Some damage gossamer, passing marks on the skin, and others rugged as mountain ranges, raised in affront. Shapes distorting and flickering in the flames. A reminder of the world they hold up, the home they must decide to recommit to, if they can.

They travel and retrace their own history, craving and dreading the point at which they meet the end if only to know the epilogue. 

But this love is unbridled, moves at breakneck speeds — years piled up with unsaid things, so it’s easy to melt, crumble, learn and map every single vulnerable inch of one another. Hearts, minds, skin. Whispering one another’s names in constant refrain.

It is a divine and breathtaking thing, to be untethered from their earthly expectations.

The rhythm of the world is a universal hum, an unbroken orbit consisting only of two.

.

(we slow down)

Swimming in a lazy river, circling as fish in palty ponds consisting only of their dual halves, they speak of coulds:  Could we settle somewhere new? Is the place that birthed us a sort of destiny? Is that home, or is this, you and I, enough of an identity? 

Could our future thrive in the same place of our trauma?

Could this system, somehow, become better? 

Balancing a brush between idle fingers, Sakura drips dry in the parched heat and nibbles the end of it in thought.

“Anything to add?” she asks. 

Sasuke swats at an insect, squinting in the high noon.

“For Kakashi?” Thinks a moment, then glances sidelong at her; at the way she holds things aloft so delicate in hands that break the earth. Heal men, and kill them on occasion. At the way she imbues such seriousness into her letters to their ex-sensei, frown rivets dashing across her forehead. At the fading water evaporating from her skin. “Ah, just to share it with the idiot.”

Lips drawn in moue, Sakura struggles not to laugh. “I can write separate letters; Kaka-sensei is busy now. Hokage things, you know?”

She watches him throw his arm against his eyes to shield them from a dazzling sun, and his quiet snicker contains multitudes, echos in a song. The expression just in that reminds her how little friction remains between them, that they’ve caught fire. 

“He can dictate to Naruto — you’ll burn out here if I let you write two,” he chides, noting the red dusting on her cheeks, suffused with glow. “I’m not quite sure how well he reads on his own anyway.”

Erupting into giggles, she shades her own eyes to stare at him with bewitching and stripped abandon. “Be nice. You know he’s next in line to lead, and no matter what he says, he’ll need you.”

Duty. It sits between them occasionally, considered and sometimes unwanted. 

“You as well.”

Before she’s laughed it off, brushed it away to avoid its grip, but he’s correct. They are fever-bound in fire to the village that will shape the future. A daunting prospect. 

“And I’ll need you too.”

Sakura’s so sure she’s misheard, but he’s closer now than a moment ago, sweeping into her orbit with his infuriating and silent speed, thumb resting gently on her blazing bottom lip.

Bringing the question into being, a fruitless thing he’d never deliberate but she never has qualms about speaking into being. 

“Do we have to go back?”

In answer he kisses her on a simmering, sunny riverbank in a way that would make their mothers blush, an apology, a wish, and this day becomes an axis even if they won’t know it for many cycles of the moon.

A pin is pressed into a shared soul map, becomes a burgeoning accompaniment, another rising phrase in their endless song.

From now on, they are in harmony, particularly with something much larger than themselves. 

.

.

Somehow it seems the village feels them coming, whispers paving the way.

Beginning with the far-flung ranging scouts and flying fast to the spry perimeter lookouts, on to the first inner circle defensive squads and, once the shinobi are identified, the hostile caution drops from their voices in a game of telephone to be replaced with a slightly manic curiosity. 

“Two,” one of them says, yanking a sweaty flak collar from his neck. 

“No,” the other says in a strident tone, waving his answer away. “There’s another with them. Three.”

Details drip in Ino’s ears, and she leaves her post in a whirlwind, a tornado of emotion whose  witnessed story springboards from house to training ground to alcove to inn. 

It’s fitting that the first encounter, or reunion, occurs in the middle of a main road beginning as ringing, if loving insults but dwindling to potshots from gritted teeth and smoothing into cooing whispers as the two women, these best friends, encircle one another with shaking arms and a bundle pressed between them; the accompanying men linger at awkward edges, Sasuke betraying so little with his usual impassive expression and Shikamaru, who was tripped up in Ino’s anger along the way, keeping his hands in his pockets. 

“Oh, how could you?” Ino sniffles, wiping away tears with the heel of her hand. “Can’t do anything by half-measures, no subtlety, you never could! No letter, no warning.” Here she glares at Sasuke for a moment, enough for him to cast his eyes away in at least a modest show of humility. 

The moments pile upon, become stranger and more surprising, as Ino presses her lips to the bundle in Sakura’s arms and Shikamaru sighs in not-unhappy resignation, ah, so it is, and extends his hand to an unusually startled Sasuke and for a fleeting sliver-second, the corners of his mouth aren’t quite so dour.

“Who’s next?” Ino asks, tenderly flicking away a lock of Sakura’s hair. “Though by now, the whole damn town knows.”

The men shake clumsily, wary, bereft of custom.

“I’m sure you had nothing to do with that. The honorary uncle, it's only fair.”

“We have to report regardless,” Sasuke supplies quietly. Bending over the bundle and his new wife (which, Ino will rant in retrospect, seems obvious now — his unusual tenderness, his glow, men don’t glow like that for just anyone, any reason!), he whispers, begins to lead her away. They walk with high heads and radiant faces.

Her jade eyes behold their new bundle, but his eyes stay, mostly, on her. 

.

By now the gossip’s reached his stuffy office, and though he’s never been one to put on airs or prepare for visitors, he does try to clear a free spot to be able to see over the mess of his desk, before an aide takes pity on him and handles the rest.

He will have to get a full, unadorned look at this.

She leads, of course she does — this is the love at twelve she forcibly took into her own hands, even when it pricked and bruised. Wrestled it until she won. The newlywed glow is obvious. As a shadow Sasuke sweeps in behind, but the tiny uplift of his lips is still evident.

True, then. Differences all around.

“The kids do things differently these days,” Kakashi jokes. “Have you at least considered getting married?”

“Have you?” Sasuke snarks.

Sakura shushes him gently, thumbing away some errant speck from their bundle’s chubby face. Eyes bright, they seem to dim the rest of the room as she raises them to Kakashi and asks, breathless, “Do you want to—?”

And despite his aide’s effort to clear his desk he gets up and comes around it, to them, closing the loop around a future he hopes is halcyon and new, shepherds of peacetime. 

He wonders if they’ve had their real homecoming yet, the true test — but no, he’d be able to tell. Not that the joy in Sakura’s face could possibly be more evident, and by the careful way Sasuke presses his mouth to her temple, nudges her with his nose (and there’s the glow, the one that paints great men often only because of exceptional women they love). Naruto, busy and climbing for his Hokage position but with his own recent arrival, his own legacy coming in the form of something tiny, blond, and confusing. 

The third point of their legendary triumvirate, no doubt unaware of what’s coming to his doorstep and in tow, the new member of his full life he’ll meet anew. 

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Sakura whispers, eyes shining.

A gloved hand on each head, as if they’re genin again:  He’s gentle with Sakura, ruffles Sasuke’s hair with a roguish twinkle if only to provoke his trademark scowl. 

Subdued, but their sensei’s happiness sings through in the crinkles in the corners of his eyes. 

.

Perhaps they don’t expect Naruto to be the one they see as the door swings open; after all the last letter he sent in his untidy scrawl is still in Sasuke’s cloak pocket, unread in the wake of their universe shifting to this perennial birth that’s brought them across the world and then to their best friend’s doorstep, clutching this thing that did not exist and now does, borne of them and their love; he stands there, blond hair in chaos and a strange smattering of dirt on his cheek and a rag over his shoulder covered in fluids that his friends now know will be constant, streaming, the aftermath of infants; Hinata behind him, carrying her own bundle, with the same look of frenzied-excited exhaustion but now her mouth falls into a small, round ‘o’ as she sizes up the scene faster than her darling, ditzy husband, who’s bereft of speech and straightens up from his sagging position against the door frame, stunned.

“S-Sakura-chan!” Bright ocean eyes ping from her face — beaming, because she’s already understood this wonderful coincidence and can deduce now what his message contained, she begins to weep a little, overwhelmed — to Sasuke’s, hesitant but with its own subtle change, a fleeting expression of love and pride. 

Hinata makes a comforting noise behind them, a reassuring response to Sakura’s tears, the language of women a bit quieter, something less decipherable.

“‘Ay, Sasuke you total bastard, showing up like this! Didn’t respond to my letter—”

“You ass,” Sasuke hisses, tugging fabric over one tiny ear belonging to his daughter. “She can hear that.”

“She’s in trouble anyway, with my mouth,” Sakura sighs, brushing away a tear.

Naruto’s eyes grow so wide they push the earthly bounds of his sockets. His head whips ‘round to look at his wife, their son, and snaps back just as fast to stare at his best friends.

“She?” The word comes out croaky, and Naruto’s already sniffling.

Sasuke and Sakura exchange a glance, the ghost of a knowing smile:  His sentiment has always been equal parts maddening and endearing, his adoration broadcast to the entire world.

Sasuke assents with a nod, but his own voiced response emerges with surprising vibrato emotion. Perhaps to hide it, he drops his chin onto Sakura’s head, resting it there. “Yeah. A little girl.”

They should expect it, but it’s still a scuffle like old times, Naruto tackling them both, gathering them close in his way, welcoming them home from the outside world and back into his magnetism, his heart. 

“Can’t believe you — didn’t even — you just come home like this—”

Their greetings and scoldings and expressions of love mesh together, can’t believe Sasuke managed it, Don’t squish her, Naruto! You idiot, It's you who’s managed it, how old, how long, where did you travel, what have you seen, how old is your son?

“How did you know?” Naruto asks, finally allowing them to breathe. He stares at Sakura, quizzical. “Betcha missed my letter. So how’d you know it’s a boy?”

“I’m a medic, remember?” Readjusting her daughter, she extends her other hand to Hinata, gesturing so she comes closer, anticipating a deeper appreciation of a friendship they’ve already begun, a new language they’ll learn together. “Had a feeling. I just know.”

But Naruto’s tugging on them again, drawing them close and tight, rooting them to the earth and the place they sprung from, flourished and fought in, and now, where they’ve returned. 

Time slackening and quickening though never lost or stolen, occasionally rhythm-robbed but always arriving expectantly, weaving their life legends into knots.

The codetta they’ve always managed to sing together in the end. 

[giftofshewbread]

That Time is Here

By Dennis Huebshman   Published on: August 21, 2021

From 2 Timothy 4:3-4; “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (all emphasis mine)

“Religion” is thriving, and some mega-churches are filled to capacity during regular “services.” The biggest issue is that true Bible teaching is getting hard to find. For some of these churches, the Sunday after the Rapture will not see any change in attendance. They’ll still be putting on light shows, have heart-thumping music, and be giving “ear-tickling” messages for those itching ears. However, Jesus will be conveniently left out. The newer generation doesn’t want to be told they are sinners in need of a Savior but that their earthly lifestyle is just fine.

The one to three hours a week “Christians” are content to be present and support their organized evangelical churches; just don’t expect anything else the rest of the week. Besides, all religions worship the same god, and Jesus was a good person, but not really necessary for us to go to heaven – right? The need here is to read John 14:6.

While true believers’ numbers are declining in America, the places that are seeing increases are in countries that persecute and martyr Christians. Iran, China, North Korea, parts of Africa and other Middle East nations are a few that seek out anyone who calls on Jesus to be their Savior. There have been reports of people being given a chance to renounce Jesus and turn back to the religion of that area, yet many choose death rather than change.

Several countries around the world today are making it a crime for anyone to speak out against lifestyles that God calls abominations. Canada is one of these countries where there are pastors and educators facing prison for calling the “alphabet” lifestyles sinful. Cases of arrests are also being reported in Europe and Scandinavia, and America is just a breath away from this same action.

Luke 21:16:17; “You will be delivered up, even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for My name’s sake.”

Matthew 24:10-13; “And then many will fall away and betray one another, and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

Next, Paul’s prophecy about the end of this age in 2 Timothy 3:1-5: “But understand this, that in the last days will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”

The last line is good advice, but how is one to avoid such people when they are all around and growing daily in number?

In 2 Peter 2:1-3, “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed, they will exploit you with their false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.”

Going to 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life – is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires; but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”

Continuing to 1 John 2:18-19, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain they all are not of us.”

The antichrists and false prophets that have been around since the time of John’s writings are not the ultimate evil ones of Daniel and Revelation. All that have come, and all that are here now, are a prelude to the era of the 7-year Wrath/Tribulation.

The ultimate antichrist and false prophet most likely are alive today. They may or may not know the role that they are about to play, but they are in Satan’s grip. However, 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7 explains why the beast hasn’t come forth yet. “And you know what is restraining him now, so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only He who now restrains it will do so until He is out of the way.”

All true believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. For the antichrist to appear, that influence will be removed; and in doing so, the Rapture has to occur first to keep God’s promise to keep us from that coming wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10; Revelation 3:10).

Anyone who truly focuses on the world today should be able to see that all the signs are here right now. There have always been evil people and unspeakable, horrible deeds that have been done, but the sheer magnitude today of satanic activity is overwhelming.

Our government, along with the liberal faux news media, are “programming” people to follow whatever they say without question, and sadly, they are gaining a majority of followers. The new world order is rapidly coming together, and eventually, there will be a one-world government just as God said there would be. Prior to this, there will be a coalition that will attack Israel (Ezekiel 38), believing that they will be able to plunder the wealth which that small nation has.

Jesus said there would be wars and rumors of wars near the end of the age. We are seeing a lot of “saber-rattling” from the coalition of Russia, Iran and Turkey that formed just within the last decade. Ezekiel 38:4 states that God will “put hooks into your jaws” and convince them to attack Israel. The “hook” would be the massive gas and oil deposits that Israel has, as all three members of the coalition are financially strapped.

Nothing that is taking place today surprises our Heavenly Father. All prophecy leading up to these times has been fulfilled with 100% accuracy. Why would anyone think this would be any different?

Knowing what the Bible says about end-time events, one might think this would be warning enough to possibly change the outcome. However, 1 Corinthians 1:18 says, “For the word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.”

Also, 2 Thessalonians 2:11, “Therefore, God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false.” I believe that delusion has already started.

The best scenario of all this is Luke 21:28, where Jesus tells us to look up when all this starts to take place because our redemption is near. All who have truly received and accepted Jesus as their Savior will not be here for the worst 7-year period of time this world has ever seen.

The mechanics (ABCs) of redemption are found in Romans 10:9-13, which ends by saying that “All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” God will force no one to accept His Son, but He will not turn anyone away who truly calls on Jesus. The event known as the Rapture could take place at any moment of any day now.

No one has sinned so greatly that they cannot be forgiven. The absolute unforgivable sin is to take your last breath on this earth without having Jesus as your Savior. All He asks is that you acknowledge you have sinned and ask His forgiveness; He has already paid in full the price God requires – a pure, sinless blood sacrifice. Then, have the faith that God raised Him from the dead to conquer sin and death for us. When you call on Him, the Holy Spirit will come and reside in you until you are with Jesus, either by death or by Rapture.

Call on Him today, right now, and you will be assured of an eternal home with Him in paradise. It will be the best decision you will have ever made.

Maranatha – Come, Lord Jesus!

[feynavaley]

What do you think about the slavic siblings? Their personalities and relations to each other?

Wow, that’s one loaded question! 😅 I’ll try to answer, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to in a satisfactory way.

First of all, a premise: like I have said in regard to other characters, the Slavic siblings aren’t among my favourite characters so I don’t have such a solid and well-analysed characterization for them as I do for others (chiefly, the FACE family members). Moreover, they’re quite complex characters and they appear a lot in canon which means that, without focusing specifically on them, it’s easy for me to have missed something. Nevertheless, I can try to give a brief answer (just touching what I think are some core aspects of their personalities) to the best of my abilities.

Ukraine

I’m starting with her because she sounds like the easiest one to pin down. She’s stabler than her siblings, at least. I see her as a woman who witnessed a lot of suffering during her childhood and had to mature quite fast because of it – but, instead of becoming jaded, she turned her suffering into empathy and compassion. Knowing so well what suffering means and how it can damage people, she does her best to always treat others with kindness and patience, to give them a chance to get better before writing them off as ‘bad people’. She has seen what violence does and she wants to break the cycle.

Her compassion makes her very motherly, too. Once she gets fond of people, she actively looks after them and their well-being. She’s the kind of person who is at her happiest when she sees the people around her happy. She thinks more about others than about herself – but not because she values herself little or because she has low self-esteem, it’s because she thrives in helping other people. She’s mostly happy with herself and wants to externalize this happiness, to see other people reach this level of satisfaction as well.

People can see her as weak because she isn’t loud, she has a tendency of being quite emotional, and she doesn’t assert herself unless it’s truly needed. She’s the kind of person who prefers to smooth things down instead of being stubborn. Yet, she can also be very firm when she wants to. In particular, I can see her being very protective of her family members.

Russia

Oh, where do I even start about him... he’s such a complex character that I really am not sure of how I see his characterization. I’ve seen many different takes and I found myself agreeing with and enjoying wildly different ones.

The thing about Russia is that I see him as a living, walking contradiction. The fandom is past the days when he was simply dismissed as ‘cruel’ or ‘evil’ and now tends to acknowledge his loneliness, the suffering he had to endure during childhood, and the wish he often expresses to get closer to other people. However, he also undeniably shows a cruel side at times. I can fully acknowledge that this may come from the fact he was subjected to so much violence that he ended up internalizing it as an acceptable way to behave, but this doesn’t change the facts. He doesn’t seem to care too much about hurting other people as long as he reaches his goal. I think both aspects of his character needs to be acknowledged. This duality is part of him.

The impression I ultimately got from Russia is that he’s an extremely self-serving person. He does care about other people, but only in relation to himself. If he’s nice to someone, it isn’t because he genuinely wants the well-being of that person but because he wants what that gesture brings to him: that person’s gratitude and potential friendship. I also think he can get to genuinely care about people (his family, for example) and, in this case, be upset if something happens to them because they are suffering and, conversely, try to make them happy not only because it would make them more well-disposed towards him but also because he just wants them to be. However, this is limited to a small circle of people. When anybody else is involved, I have the impression he just doesn’t care. Not that he would hurt them out of nowhere, but he wouldn’t see it as a problem if he needed to in order to get something he wanted. I don’t think he would enjoy it – but he wouldn’t regret it too much, either. Likewise, he wouldn’t stop to help them unless there was something in for him as well. It’s almost as if he didn’t actually have a sense of morality and of what’s wrong or right. He just takes what he wants and cares when he wants to. Almost like the way a child reasons.

Belarus

Belarus is another mystery, as far as I’m concerned. Like Russia, she seems to carry the scars of a harsh childhood. She’s determined and strong-willed, always working hard and doing her best to get what she wants, but also pessimistic and carrying frankness to the point of rudeness; she doesn’t seem to care at all about people outside from a few selected ones. Personally, I see this as the sign of a person who has suffered much and is trying to protect herself from further suffering by distancing herself from anything that could become a weakness. Moreover, I read her as one of those people who use the strength of will they developed to overcome their trials as a way to scorn people who didn’t manage to find the same strength. In other words, Belarus feels justified to hold in contempt ‘weaker’ people because by enduring what she did, she proved it’s possible to do so. Those who don’t manage just don’t try hard enough, in her opinion. They don’t deserve compassion. Just like her, they must bear their suffering alone. (This is why she’s always so blunt, too. She doesn’t see the point in softening the blow. If people can’t take the truth, they’re weaklings. They need to learn to do so.)

At the same time, Belarus isn’t a loner – from her interactions with Russia and briefly America, it almost looks like she needs to attach herself to somebody. And once she has found this person, her attachment and devotion reach unhealthy levels. Once again, this may be a result of her trauma. Maybe, having witnessed so much suffering makes her fear the same could happen to those few she cares about and she goes overboard trying to protect them. Or maybe, she feels lost without somebody ‘leading’ her. She spends so much energy building a wall around herself (to protect herself) that she has never had the time to figure out who she wants to be. She ends up dedicating herself fully to somebody because without that, she’d be nothing. She needs external validation and inputs to thrive. It may also be something else, or a mixture of things. As I said, Belarus is a character I have an extremely hard time pinning down.

The Three Siblings

Regarding the interactions of those three siblings as family, instead, I have to say that their familial unit looks almost healthier than the single individuals as it’s somehow adjusted around their flaws.

The one who brings everybody together is Ukraine. As I have already said, her big heart and maternal tendencies mean that she cares immensely for her siblings. She’s able to excuse their flaws because she sees where they come from and at the same time, she genuinely loves them. She wants the best for them; to see them thrive and at the same time, to be part of their lives. She’s the one who constantly checks on everybody and keeps suggesting they hang out together. She’s extremely protective if somebody hurts them, too.

Russia loves Ukraine deeply, of course. How could he not, when she offers him exactly what he yearns the most, affection and warmth? But it isn’t only this. I think Ukraine belongs to those few people Russia genuinely cares about. He mostly lets her do her own thing because he knows she’s capable enough, but he’s also very protective of her. Hurt Ukraine, and you’re dead. No questions asked.

Belarus cares for Ukraine just as much. She also often criticizes her sister, though. Ukraine is one of those people Belarus would consider ‘too weak’ due to her soft-hearted nature. However, Belarus also knows Ukraine too well to dismiss the strength her sister hides behind her kind nature. Belarus begrudgingly respects Ukraine. Moreover, for how much she doesn’t like to admit it, even Belarus is touched by how much Ukraine cares for her and treasures it deeply. Belarus is also very protective of Ukraine and may even be willing to behave a bit better if her sister is present.

In regard to the relationship between Russia and Belarus, instead... Two people with such baggage aren’t a good starting point for a healthy relationship. If we look at canon, the one between them isn’t.

Now, I want to spend a few words on Belarus’s ‘obsession’ towards Russia. I think her attachment stems from both the familial bond they have and her admiration for Russia’s strength; with her bleak outlook, she wants to associate with strong people. And, as I’ve said before, completely devote herself to him. About the ‘marriage’ thing, though – personally, I don’t think there’s a romantic feeling involved. The way I see it, what nations call ‘marriage’ isn’t actually a wedding but a mere political union, a contract. One that grants a personification some rights over another one, basically. There’s nothing about it that is like a human wedding, it’s mutually understood that no kind of feelings (or romantic/sexual relationship between the two parts) is involved. This is why even blood-related siblings can ‘marry’. So, Belarus wants to ‘marry’ Russia because this would be the best way to serve and protect him – both by being always by his side and by ‘rescuing’ him from other unions that could not be as favourable for Russia. Of course, she goes about it completely the wrong way, but all Belarus wants is to protect Russia and to be acknowledged by him as his ally and useful subject.

We know from canon, however, that Russia doesn’t answer well to Belarus’s obsession. He’s creeped out and annoyed by her. Still, I don’t think he hates her. He’s almost like an older sibling who doesn’t have patience for the younger ones. But deep down, he still cares for Belarus because she’s his – his sister and his family. He probably doesn’t enjoy Belarus’s company as much as he enjoys Ukraine’s, but that’s because of the way she behaves. If Belarus were a bit less obsessive, Russia would tolerate her better. He also isn’t so overtly protective of Belarus as he is of Ukraine, but this is because Belarus is more than capable of defending herself (and unlike Ukraine, she doesn’t let anything slide). I think that if somebody ended up actually hurting Belarus, Russia would react just as bad.

...

All these are just my impressions, though. And they might not even be all canon-compliant as I may have missed something. I still hope they make sense! But if you want to explore the slavic siblings, I’d recommend you to have a look at @chessna2, she’s certainly more expert about them than I am!

[ozhiel]

Wrong Turn ~ 2021 [Full HD]

https://cinemax24.net/en/movie/630586/wrong-turn

Overview -

When a franchise has been stretched beyond its theatrical beginnings into the multitude of direct-to-video sequels - it's time for a reboot!  Wrong Turn - gets a complete reimagining that aims for the classic Murderous Cult instead of the mutant Hillbilly Horror sub-genre. Screenwriter of the 2003 original Alan McElroy returns with director Mike P. Nelson to give the franchise a fresh direction forward but ultimately the show doesn't travel a new trail as a group of friends goes missing hiking the Appalachia Trail. Overall the film works, delivers some gore-fueled scares, but pacing is a problem and the film runs far too long padding out material that would have enjoyed some slashing. Wrong Turn is getting a One-Night only theatrical release via Fathom Events. Tickets can be purchased through Fandango - Worth A Look

Young, fresh out of college friends will do what they always do - travel to a remote place where no one has been before and go for an adventure hike well off the beaten path. That's exactly what Jen Shaw (Charlotte Vega), her boyfriend Darius (Adain Bradley), and four of their friends are about to do along the Appalachia Trail. Warned by the seemingly ignorant redneck locals to hire a guide or stay on the path, Jen and her friends instead hunt to find a lost Civil War fort. Instead of finding a historical relic, they descend into a nightmare world where a cult has thrived in isolation for generations - and will do anything to protect their way of life.

The franchise relaunch is always a tricky prospect. It's one thing if the property has a massive devoted fanbase like Halloween that longs to see the primary villain come up with new ways to do essentially the same thing over and over again. It's something else when the concept of the franchise was already straining under the weight of direct-to-video sequels and knockoffs. 2003's Wrong Turn helped kick off the return to Hillbilly Horror that hadn't really been experienced since the 70s. Taking a page from the terrifying episode "Home" from the fourth season of The X-Files, the original film focused on an inbred family of mutant hill folk cannibals and the following five sequels ground that concept into the ground with little variation or fanfare.

https://cinemax24.net/en/movie/630586/wrong-turn

2021's Wrong Turn takes a page closer to Ari Aster's dark comedy/horror hybrid Midsommar and other murderous cult flicks than the expected mutant cannibal hillbillies. Which turns out to be a clever avenue to explore, even if it's not altogether fulfilling. Original series screenwriter Alan McElroy earns worthy props crafting a scenario worth exploring. The script establishes a culture for this cult and a way of life they believe is right and Bill Sage makes a creepy turn here as the leader of The Foundation - John. Pulling some characteristics of cult leaders ranging from Jim Jones to Roch Thériault, he's equally menacing and charismatic. Jen and her friends end up playing a high-stakes game of cultural anthropology where the slightest grievance could end in death - or something far worse. And I do mean it that way. Those who die, thankfully die fast. Those who don't - well, that reveal is one of the creepiest most unsettling things this movie has to offer. If only there were more moments like that we'd have something special here.  

While I would call this an overall successful reboot of the Wrong Turn franchise - it does enough different to make it worthwhile - my principal complaint is the length. At just under two hours, it's about fifteen minutes too long for its own good. Director Mike P. Nelson and his editors just don't manage the pace to drum up genuine suspense or the intended scares to have much impact. Conversations that don't mean anything last far too long where essential pieces of dialog for character and plot are shortchanged.

The film's opening with Matthew Modine as Jen's father Scott trying to figure out where she disappeared doesn't need to be there at all. Once that intro is done the next hour plays as a flashback to "six-weeks earlier." Then it picks back up with Modine and his search for Jen now that we know where she is. Given the movie's title that intro is just wasted screentime. The audience already knows bad things are going to happen; the opening only delays the inevitable without adding anything.  

Characters are also on the painfully thin side - again, playing to genre tropes. Charlotte Vega and Matthew Modine carry most of the dramatic weight with an appreciable father/daughter dynamic. Again, Bill Sage is an ominous presence and Daisy Head earns high marks as the creepy Edith. The rest of the cast is there to fill time until they're appropriately 86'd in gloriously gory ways. And while there is ample gore, we don't really care enough about the characters for any demise to be meaningful or all that shocking. When Jen and her friends call out the names of the friends gone missing, you're constantly replying "who?" They could have easily been named after their character archetypes "The Jerk," "The Priss," "Gay Guy 1," "Gay Guy 2", and "Boyfriend" for how simply defined they are. You know who is going to die and how badly pretty much as soon as you meet this troupe of traveling friends.

At the end of the day I was entertained by this new spin for Wrong Turn - a franchise I basically gave up caring anything for around when the second sequel hit video store shelves. This film doesn't do anything new to the genre, but for the series, it's a notable refresher. Between this series' sequels and the recent Hills Have Eyes, on top of the remake series of I Spit On Your Grave, it was long past time to bury Hillbilly Horror and let that genre corpse rot a little before digging it up again. If Wrong Turn 2021 was just a little bit leaner it'd play a bit meaner and give horror hounds some more meaty scares to sink their teeth into. It's certainly a better movie than any of the past direct-to-video sequels but that may not be a strong enough recommendation.

Final Thoughts In the last seventeen years, the Wrong Turn franchise has run the cinematic gauntlet. It started with a solid creepy first film but endured through a series of haphazard (at best) direct-to-video sequels that strain to keep the name alive in the minds of horror fans. Now we find ourselves with a reboot that shakes things up dramatically for the franchise moving away from Hillbilly Horror and into the Murderous Cult sub-genre. And it works for the most part with Matthew Modine making a fine Action-Dad, and our new cult The Foundation a creepy evil entity to explore. Holding things back is an extended runtime and odd pacing that bogs down the momentum and impact of some of the scarier setups. Overall a decent relaunch to a franchise long gone stale. Wrong Turn is getting a One-Night only theatrical release via Fathom Events. Tickets can be purchased through Fandango - ultimately, it's Worth A Look

[hkvoyage]

I am a real old lady, living in Israel, and I am a Klaine-MPreg addict. Do you have a list, or know of a list, of these stories. The regular klaine list (Lynne & Zinnia) doesn't have one. Thanks. OLK

A search for completed mpreg fics resulted in 183 fics on AO3 and 125 fics on FF.net. Here are the search results on S&C. Judging by the number of hits or favorites on these stories, there are plenty of readers that like mpreg!Klaine fics.

Under the cut are 11 mpreg!Kurt fics and 17 mpreg!Blaine fics. I placed an asterisk against the authors who have written a few mpreg stories.

Warning: Some of these also contain boypussy. Make sure you read the tags or author comments if this bothers you. Happy reading! HKVoyage

MPREG KURT

Who Says by Karanoaoi *

Wolves mate for life once an Alpha claims their Omega mate, but the ways of choosing your mate are changing from the traditional meets where all non-mated wolves of age are thrown in together and you end up with a mate. Alphas still have to start a mating run, but what if the Omega has their eye on a certain Alpha? Follow the Anderson and Hummel families through these changes. A generational fic starting with Grandma Anderson and going through Kurt and Blaines generation. 

Note: Part 1 of the The Life of a Werewolf series

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Not As It Seems by fearlessly

Blaine had been frozen where he stood. The boy in front of him was gorgeous. He had never seen a creature so beautiful in his life and quite frankly, Blaine was awestruck. His eyes, they were like raging ocean storms yet they were gentle, inviting, and so utterly … organic.

~~~~~

The Ultimate Christmas Present by LilLizzie94

Blaine has been in Afghanistan for the past 7 months and Kurt has been home by himself…they recieved some interesting news right before he was deployed…Kurt was pregnant. Blaine has come home early to surprise Kurt for christmas…but he’s not the only surprise in store for the two. MPREG don’t like… Don’t read.

~~~~~

I’ll Be Home for Christmas by DreamingisBelieving

Imagine person A from your OTP is pregnant during Christmas and for some reason of your choice, person B won’t be home for Christmas, leaving person A alone. 

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The Anderson Rose by missbeizy *

In the mountains of what was once the Northeastern United States of America, the descendants of a band of refugees who had escaped New York City at the end of a great World War are beginning to thrive after almost a thousand years of struggle. Relying on a combination of bits and pieces of advanced technology salvaged from the remains of great cities, as well as the still-pristine forest that they now call home, the people of Westerville are determined to rebuild a world in which peace, love, and cooperation mean more than victory, greed, and wealth. 

~~~~~

Wont Tell Anyone by karanoaoi *

The Royal family has never had a problem securing their claim to the throne. That was until now. The King and Queen have been unable to bear any children passed their only son, Blaine. Now when their reign is threatened by other Nobel families that declare their family as weak, they turn to the one way they know that will show everyone their family line has not ended. Having their son marry and produce a strong line of heirs.

Sequel: Make a Move

~~~~~

Be Still My Heart by witchcraftandclickery

During a stressful and almost disastrous Black Friday Shopping adventure for Kurt, he meets and is saved by a strange older man. As their friendship progresses, so does their relationship. After falling in love with the perfect man, Kurt finds out he’s pregnant. Age!difference Older!Blaine 

Note: Although this fic is not marked as completed, the reviews of the final chapter indicate that it is. It is easy to overlook marking a fic as completed on FF.net.

~~~~~

I Will by witchcraftandclickery 

Kurt, cheerleader with the jock boyfriend is failing English. Blaine, nerd with a crush is actually really good at English. Kurt is sent to Blaine for tutoring, where one thing leads to another. A few weeks later, Kurt learns he is pregnant. MPREG. GKM fill.

~~~~~

Come Take My Hand Now by controlofwhatido

Post 4x14 AU where Blaine finds out he's pregnant (instead of Rachel).

~~~~~

Men, Babies and Other Disasters by TheWhiteOwl

Kurt, the 30-year-old successful fashion designer is desperate for a child. He visits a fertility clinic but he soon realizes that getting pregnant won’t be as easy as it first seemed. But than he bumps into Blaine, a cute and hot guy and it changes everything.A quick decision. Just one night with a stranger… Blaine doesn’t even have to about it. Too bad Blaine seems to be everywhere Kurt goes and it makes avoiding him a little bit complicated.

~~~~~

Ontás lýkos by Verseau_87

Back from New York and visiting his parent's during summer vacation, Kurt (literally) bumps into Blaine. Another werewolf like him. Their love is quick and easy, but it seems life is never that simple. Trying to enjoy their time together and merge their respective packs, they both must navigate being in love, over coming every obstacle along the way.

Note: Part 1 of Being Wolves

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Three Times Blaine Doesn't Have Sex with Kurt, and the One Time He Does by ohmywhy

The one in which mpreg!Kurt and Blaine are just friends and shouldn’t be. BP!Kurt

MPREG BLAINE

Chances Verse by DreamingKate *

Kurt liked his new boyfriend but something was a little different about him.

~~~~~

The Odds by @gleeana *

Canon compliant with the show through the Klaine wedding, with the rather major twist that in this universe, men can become pregnant … and Kurt learns Blaine is pregnant soon after the wedding. A little too soon, given the circumstances.

This is a story about the power of love and family, and about the consequences of secrets.

~~~~~

Baby Mine (Be My Baby) by anythingbutplatonic

Summary: Just weeks after he confessed to cheating when Kurt left for New York, Blaine discovers he’s pregnant. There’s no doubt in his mind that the baby is Kurt’s, but there’s no way anyone can know. Distraught after the break-up and afraid of being judged if anyone finds out, he decides to hide his pregnancy….until he can’t anymore. AU, obviously.

~~~~~

Apple of My Eye by idoltina *

A fill for this GKM prompt. AU after The Break Up. Blaine finds out that he’s pregnant after Kurt breaks up with him (with Kurt’s child, no less). He tries telling Kurt about it, but Kurt refuses to talk to him. Blaine decides to finish his senior year at home and give the baby up for adoption. Only he doesn’t. He ends up keeping the baby – a daughter – and takes her to New York with him when he leaves for college. He raises her partially on his own with some help from his parents, and tries to juggle parenthood, school, and work. And everything works out okay for a little over two years – until he runs into Kurt.

~~~~~

At the End of the Road by slaysvamps

AU from 4x10 Glee, Actually. Weeks after leaving Kurt in New York Blaine finds himself in a situation he never would have expected. With Kurt moving on with his life and ignoring him completely, Blaine must find a way handle things on his own. Until he doesn’t.

~~~~~

What I Call Life by warblerslushie *

Kurt broke off the engagement and left Blaine. Three years later, Kurt’s at a strip club for his bachelor party and sees Blaine working. Blaine’s been working there and enduring uncomfortable glances and touches for a year to make sure that his son was properly cared for. MPREG. Based on a tumblr prompt from blangstpromptoftheday. 

~~~~~

And Baby Makes Three by anythingbutplatonic

Klaine AU: A few weeks after Mr Schuester’s almost-wedding and the events that followed, Blaine starts having symptoms. Symptoms that appear to be a lot like pregnancy. 

~~~~~

We’re In This Together Or Not At All. by zigzag18

Blaine Anderson’s life is about to be turned upside down. After a hook-up with head Cheerio Kurt Hummel, Blaine finds out he’s pregnant. He didn’t tell Kurt that he was a carrier, so how is he suppose to tell Kurt? How is he, a 17 year old high school senior suppose to take care of a baby? 

~~~~~

Apartment 143 by idoltina *

Six years into their marriage, Kurt and Blaine are starting to be established enough in their careers to want to settle down into a more permanent residence. When they happen upon a refurbished apartment in an old building at a price that’s a steal, they immediately snatch it up. They settle into their new home over the summer, and after a fairly intoxicated and intimate Halloween, they find themselves expecting their family to grow by one more. But as the pregnancy progresses, so does the level of paranormal activity in their home. It doesn’t take long for them to bring in paranormal investigators to figure out what inhabits their home, if they can get rid of it, and how to protect themselves and their unborn child from it – if they can. 

~~~~~

Spark Like Empty Lighters by atticrissfinch

It was supposed to just be a hook-up between student and teacher…and it was. But what will happen when Blaine reveals to Kurt that he’s pregnant with Kurt’s child? an mpreg!blaine au.

~~~~~

When We’re Older by warblerslushie *

Kurt and Blaine have been married for several years and Blaine’s been wanting to start a family, especially since they’re getting older. However, with their work schedules and the fact that Kurt’s just not ready for kids right now, things have been slow within the Anderson-Hummel household. But what will happen when the couple receives some unexpected news?

~~~~~

thought i could do this on my own by ShanleenKinnJaskey

Prince Kurt Hummel falls in love with Blaine Anderson, an orphan servant boy, and thankfully he returns Kurt’s affections. But what will happen when one night Blaine disappears, leaving only a letter behind that contains an unbelievable explanation? When, years later, Blaine appears with two sons in tow (one deadly ill), will Kurt finally learn the truth?

Note: Part 1 of the to be loved series

~~~~~

Don’t Stop Believing by Julesmonster

Blaine is trying hard to win Kurt back now that they’re both going to be in New York, but even if he does, life has a few surprises in store for them, and not all of them are good. Warnings: MPreg, Character Death (Not Kurt or Blaine).

~~~~~

Hold My Heart by universalromance

GKM Fill: Blaine is a carrier who is sold by his parents when they are in need of money. He is gifted to Kurt by his buyer in order to gain favour with newly elected Congressman Hummel. He is expecting to be mistreated the way he was always told but soon discovers that there is still good in some people.

Note: Part 1 of Treasure My Heart

~~~~~

Heart Of Glass by framby

At the end of his senior year, Blaine left Kurt and Ohio without explanation. When they are forced to work together Kurt just wants to get it over with as painlessly as possible. Little does he know that Blaine's secret will turn his life upside down.

~~~~~

Nobody Said It Was Easy by Julesmonster

Following “The Breakup” Kurt and Blaine must discover where their relationship is going and if it will survive even as they face new problems. MPreg. Slash of the Klaine variety. Major spoilers for 4.4.

All Over Again by warblerslushie

Kurt and Blaine have been happily married for close to two decades and have three beautiful children. Not long after their oldest goes off to California to start college, they find out some very surprising news; the kind of news that really shakes up the whole family, especially when you're at that age where you've just started to get settled and ready for an empty nest. MPREG.