#villain hands down

[lotus-pear]

intertwined fate

[starry-bi-sky]

on a completely separate note; shizun luo binghe with a disciple shen yuan who fell into the abyss??? *thinks about LBH canonically stealing SQQ's corpse for 5 years* he'd hallucinate i think. like, like visual and audial hallucinations.

Keeps thinking he's seeing SQQ in the corner of his eyes, or wandering between the trees, amongst a group of disciples. Thinks he hears him calling for him, but its just the wind or another disciple.

Gets Xiu Ya reforged but patently fucking refuses to make a sword mound. Because his disciple Is Not Dead :))) There was No Body. He's Not Dead. And If You keep Insisting That He Is, He's Gonna Skewer You :). He's holding onto Xiu Ya so he can return his most favored disciple's sword when he returns. It's on his hip right next to Zheng Yang where it's supposed to be.

Also this motherfucker?? does not sleep btw. He has the image of SQQ, wide eyed and hysterical and standing at the mouth of the abyss burned into his fucking eyelids. Can't use the dreamscape to escape it either because he keeps trying to save him and either he does and it's an incredibly cruel trick to wake up to, or he doesn't and he gets his heart broken in several different pieces again.

There is no convincing this man that Shen Qingqiu is dead. Absolutely nothing at all. He is buried so deep in denial that moles would be jealous of how deep he is. He keeps making tea for two in the bamboo house only to remember that it's just him. SQQ's fans are hiding everywhere, little reminders of his presence. He goes to wake up SQQ on the mornings he sleeps in-- only to find the room empty.

[reineydraws]

had to draw this to understand the way i feel about him now that the manga's ended. 🥲 on that note: if you like hawks and his ending, maybe don't read my tags lol. it's not bashing (imo) but they're not v nice. 😅

bg + unobstructed pose under the cut!

his expression's a lil different 'cuz i only changed the merged layer, all the lighting effects already flattened onto it. 💀 alas.

[bee-ina-boat]

pattern ive noticed <3

[kaizsche]

I WILL FIND HIM. MAN OF STEEL (2013)

[sonicpositive]

Oooooh he looks SO GOOD

[book-lover85]

fics where Inej tells Kaz it's ok if he can't always touch her or can't always bring his full armor down as long as he's trying >>>>>>>

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[benevadeca]

LBH / SJ as parallels makes me crazy bc on one hand there's the themes of personal responsibility and the hard work necessary for taking agency for your choices and them being what shapes the kind of life that is reachable but on the other SJ was literally replaceable by the narrative and even when he did sporadically try to be Good it always blew up on him / never knew anything else and so was unable to be anything else.

VS LBH was not / protagonist halo / literal bloodline superiority / did at least know love which is what made him able to transcend the world by knowing the abuse he faced was something wrong and not something natural. Anyway

[the-broken-pen]

“I don’t need you.”

It sounded less grounded than the villain had wanted it to. It sounded like something someone had told them to say, and they were just repeating it with half hearted determination. They said it again, “I don’t need you.”

“No,” the hero agreed. They were grinning. “You don’t.”

The villain floundered. They, in all honesty, wanted a fight. To prove something, they supposed. That they really didn’t need the hero. That they weren’t in the wrong, here. “What?”

“I said,” the hero said slowly, and the beginnings of a grin curled at the edges of their mouth. “You don’t need me.”

“I don’t need you,” the villain repeated, and the hero nodded encouragingly. It just made the villain want to hit them.

The hero lounged against the doorframe, halfway in and halfway out of their apartment. And truly, that was the worst bit of it all—the hero wasn’t showing up outside the villain’s house, or driving by the villain’s work to see if they truly looked happier without them. But the villain was.

They wanted to scream, and kick, and throw plates onto the ground.

‘Leave me alone.’

But they couldn’t say that, because the hero had. They had cut contact and blocked numbers and ignored the villain’s car as it went by. Still, the villain felt haunted. As if they would never be clean of the hero, parts of their soul forever dirtied by it all.

The hero’s smile, and the way their voice sounded when they knew the villain would cave to their wishes.

They just wanted the hero to—

“Leave me alone.” It slipped out against their better judgement. From the way the hero’s grin widened, they knew it had been the worst thing they could have said.

“Darling, I have,” the hero said, their tone saccharine. Pitying. “You’re the one outside of my apartment.”

It felt like being burned alive, the frustration of it. The way it rose in their chest but had nowhere to go, leaving them shaking with nothing and everything trapped under their tongue.

“That’s not what I meant and you know that—“

“What, you miss me that bad? I thought you—“

“Shut up,” the villain snapped. The hero raised an eyebrow.

“It’s eating you alive, isn’t it?” They sounded pleased.

“It’s not,” the villain protested.

“I told you, you don’t need me.”

“I know,” the villain grit out.

“But you want me.”

Something in the villain’s brain stalled.

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t need me. You never have,” the hero said it like it was a fact. “You want me, though. Even as the sound of my name burns you, and the memory of me rots in your mouth, you’re going to want me.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I?” The hero’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You can go out to every bar in this city, kiss a hundred people who look like me and get just drunk enough to forget you’re not mine anymore—but you’re never going to stop missing me.”

The hero knew, of course they did, how hard the villain had tried to forget it entirely. The disaster they had become trying to be clean again.

“No matter how many shots you take to block out the memory of me, you’ll always be mine.”

“You’re insane,” the villain finally managed. The hero simply tipped their head to the side in acknowledgement. “That’s not-what’s wrong with you—“

“You’re the one who misses me.”

It stung, deep in the villain’s stomach. It took them too long to remember how to breathe—too long after that to think of what to say.

“If I’m lucky, I won’t ever have to see you again,” their voice quivered, slightly. “But knowing us, the next time we meet it will be in hell.”

The hero laughed and closed the door in their face.

The villain blocked them. Avoided the side of town the worked in. Moved three cities over.

It didn’t matter.

The villain could still feel the hero under their skin.

Later, whenever someone would ask, “Have you ever been haunted?”

The villain would think back to the hero.

And say, “Yes.”

[cosmic-walkers]

I think the best way I could describe this episode is 'fear'. The absolute fear that Thomas feels after Jane's death when reality begins to weigh on him. The complete devastation in his eyes when Mary told him that Stephen had returned, the way that his relationship around Henry is different. Henry isn't a friend to him, he's a dangerous person, but now he realizes he's stuck. The way he accidentally let it slip that he would retaliate against Henry, in front of Risley, and the cold fear that we see in his face.

Thomas is genuinely terrified. I don't think he believes death, is looming in the air, but he knows that something is going to happen. And i mean, the fear he is feeling was enough to get him sick, and nearly die. It brought back his Italian fever but this time, it was worse, much much worse.

He can't even talk straight, he can't walk straight, he can't think. Thomas, a man who has been nothing but brave and resilient his whole life is finally being broken down, and finally succumbing to fear. Which is something he truly, truly, never thought he'd be able to feel fully.

What did Anne say in the first season, "Fear can unmake a man" , and well...it's happening.

[astracora]

friend: hey write caleb smearing blood on mc's face then kissing them or licking it off

me: i need you to give me like 20 seconds not to lie down and scream

It's here btw...

[velisle]

hands? hands.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Marinette: What is wrong with me? Why am I having such trouble telling Adrien how I feel Marinette: (Gets flashback while getting akumatized) Omg it isnt my fault! its just I was bullied for years because of a corrupt society that let chloé make my life hell for years and one of the many awful things done just happened to include confessing to my crush only for it to go so wrong that I repressed it. And these events also ended up getting my only friend who would stick up for me suspended from school. Thank goodness there isnt anything wrong with me! Marinette:(Taking 5 seconds to think about it) Wow... it is impressive I am not a super villain with this backstory.

[stiltonbasket]

3 for the ao3 wrapped please 💜

The work I'm most proud of is my Bingqiu baby fic, may she be a light to you in dark places (when all other lights go out). (Podfic by @kickit-kick here.)

I started brainstorming an SV canon divergence fic with Luo Binghe as movie!Arwen from LOTR in February or March--but since I already had several MDZS projects in progress, I decided to shelve the LOTR AU and come back to it after completing one of my existing WIPs.

In April, I realized that I could use the Arwen!Binghe plot to fill a prompt for the SV Gotcha, so I got to work and managed to complete the fic in about two months. I'm very happy with how the story turned out, but finishing it within nine-ish weeks was a very welcome plus!

However, none of this would have been possible without my wonderful illustrator, @habunnn. A great deal of the fic came about thanks to their art; I wrote the passage about Tianlang-jun biting baby Hengxia to soothe her while she was teething because Habun drew a cute sketch of TLJ biting Hengxia's cheek, and the final chapter (where Hengxia celebrates her third birthday) was written because of Habun's illustration of Bingqiu and Hengxia cuddling outside the bamboo house after her birthday party. The fic was originally supposed to end with Hengxia's birth: but since we had art of toddler Hengxia, I had to write an extra chapter to go with it!

[nellasbookplanet]

Okay but a thought of mine given new rise by the animated intro after having it niggle at the back of my mind for months now are Ludinus and Otohan as villains and who’s going to be standing as the final big bad at the end of the campaign, the way Vecna and Lucien did for c1 and c2.

Because the obvious answer is Ludinus. He’s the instigator, the leader of the cult, a villain in the making for 2 whole campaigns and over a thousand years (not to mention the one who's actually interacted with the party outside of fights). But Otohan is the one standing center stage of the villain line-up in the opening. She’s the one shown actively fighting the party. And, more importantly (as narrative matters more than barely glimpsed easter eggs), she's the one tied to the history and setting of Marquet, who has actual stakes in the people there and has fought for (and against) them before in the Apex War (while the place Ludinus called home was torn down centuries ago, leaving him caring for seemingly nothing but his ultimate goal since). She’s the one who’s actually Ruidusborn, and she’s tied to the Luxon as well with her strange magic. And despite all this, she’s mostly passed under the radar so far, given very little developments or motives or history or even personality. She’s little more than a cool aesthetic and a handful of threats.

And here’s my thought: maybe that’s on purpose. Ludinus, in his great arrogance, has placed himself as the greatest threat, and he’s being treated as such by the Hells. But is he? He steals immortality, appropriates the very concept of being Ruidusborn while holding a secret resentment for lacking the very powers it grants. He barely knows what he’s doing, and certainly not what he's about to unleash. And is there anything more satisfying than seeing a deeply arrogant and hubristic villain taken down by his own folly in underestimating those around him? So what if, as the final fight edges closer, the person actually holding the powers Ludinus pretends to steps up out of the shadows she placed herself in, keeping her motives to herself, barely remarked upon by Ludinus or the Hells or the audience, and personally cuts him down and takes her place as THE exalted Ruidusborn?