#we are the undisputed best at great ideas

[blue-ravens]

[iwriteasfotini]

Where do we draw the villain line?

Something which is so intriguing to me about the Harry Potter fandom is how flexible *most/some/a few* (honestly IDK how many) people are in giving the villains of the story their own story. Personally I LOVE THIS. Because the best villains are the ones who aren't simply macho bad guys (or gals) who are bad because the author said so. The best villains are the ones you are almost rooting for. The ones you begin to think... wait maybe that person isn't so bad. Or the ones who earn some empathy. And then go and be total arse holes anyways. Because a good story needs a villain, it's simply a fact.

If there was ever a time to remember humans are each living our own story, it is now. It doesn't excuse ANYTHING. It is infuriating and sad. But it is reality. Someone's villain is someone else's hero. And vice versa. But let's not get off on a tangent.

Now the curious thing is while certain HP characters are given some grace where their evil deeds are concerned, others are not. Like at all. Have any of you read Crimson Rivers? Of course you have! If you want to shift your mindset on how you view most of the Death Eaters, read that fic. But in it, I do not remember Mulciber or Avery being mentioned in any sort of good light. Walburga... her terrible parenting is quite undisputed. Umbridge! Barty Crouch Senior! I think Vernon Dursley falls into this category. There are still characters who are seen as simply evil for the sake of evil.

So how did Tom, Bella, Barty, Draco (but I mean, Draco is really a terrible villain to begin with) and a few others end up with backstory, humanity, and quite a few people invested in them. I don't have the answer, but it is an interesting phenomena. Because I am quite new to the fandom and it took all of three tumblr posts to get me fully on board with Rosekiller. Bella, I don't like her, but she is a fascinating character to write for. And she has redeemable qualities. Tom is a cold hearted killer who might have turned out completely different if he didn't have the childhood trauma he did. I imagine Tom's orphanage life was about as void of love and affection as it is possible to be. Sure his basic survival needs were taken care of, but he wasn't loved. And that was his life from birth.

Perhaps it is the fact there is just enough humanity given to these characters in canon that in fandom we take that nugget of humanity and turn it into a full fledged backstory. Barty is a great example. He is screaming at his father during his trial and his father flat up ignores him, all while his mother is weeping in the background. His mother sacrifices herself for him, then DIES two days later (clearly she wasn't in good health to begin with... hmmmmm...). Does Barty even have a Dark Mark? WE DON'T KNOW. Does Barty feel like he has a personal connection with Voldemort, yes, their fathers were both pieces of shite. How did Barty learn this about Tom? It means Tom went out of his way to connect with Barty on a PERSONAL level at some point. Why would he bother, he so rarely give away personal information? Also I feel Barty has a relationship with Winky which is reminiscent of Regulus and Kreacher. Basically there is mutual love and respect on some level (while some wizards see house-elves as servants only).

The fact we can ask all these questions about someone who essentially guided Harry to his should have been death and then was kissed by a dementor (which Dumbledore was LIVID about BTW) makes him such great fodder for the fandom to sculpt a intriguing if not rich back story. It's why I was able to get on board with the Barty isn't a pure villain idea so fast. And I think it really enhances the fandom.

On a side note, Peter's an interesting one as I feel like he is often either forgotten about or lumped into the evil for evil's sake category. Peter made appalling choices, but I think he has a backstory, just like everyone, which can at least account for some of why he did what he did. And it does not have to do with him being bullied, pushed around, or constantly berated by his supposed friends. The Marauders loved each other, and Peter was included in that love.

That being said, there are plenty of people who disagree. Who like to see the Death Eaters as evil. Who cannot fathom how anyone in their right mind can ship Jegulus or be invested in a villain. But to those people I say, Regulus committed suicide as part of taking down Voldemort, Remus put peoples lives at risk every time he left the shack while he was at Hogwarts, Sirius has made some very questionable choices, Harry uses Sectumsempra on Draco, Severus was a Death Eater who changed allegiance, Ron deserts his friends/Harry when they need him, even Fred and George test products on first years and give Hermione a black eye. The lines between good and bad (which are at least somewhat defined in canon) become far less clear in fandom. As Sirius says, the world isn't split between good people and Death Eaters.

If you have read this far into my rant, kuddos to you. If you enjoy thinking and talking about backstory of HP villains, maybe we can connect in some capacity and exchange HC's and thoughts. I also hope you will check out my very epic series which has started posting on Ao3 because I am striving to tell a lot of people's stories in a fast paced, entertaining way.

Thank you for your time and attention. This concludes my rant.

[gerdy-sertorius]

The Definitive Damsel Analysis (if I do say so myself)

(Disclaimer: I know it’s absurdly long, and for that I apologize. I apparently am more unwilling to make cuts than I am to present subpar work. I’m working on it. Only editing I do for my autistic ramblings is copyediting, baby! Whoo! I will be updating this for the Pristine Cut once it comes out and we get even *more* Damsel. Obviously, as I’m sure you can tell from the length, I really like Damsel. There will be all of the bias. It will be great.)

(Author’s Note: For the love of the most high God, it took me like twenty read throughs for me to standardize what I wanted to call the Scorched Grey. Here is a brief list of all the terms I used to refer to her: Scorched Grey, Burned Grey, Burning Grey, Fire Grey, Damsel Chapter 3. Sometimes but not always preceded by “the” or “The”.)

Alright, ladies and gentlemen. I have oft made the statement on here that Damsel is the best route in the game, and this began as me trying to definitively prove that, by microscopically going through the route, I could establish exactly why, it would seem, that Damsel has objective superiority. It sorta… evolved, though, so instead I will be going relatively chronologically throughout, and trying to point out a couple things that all of you know about and maybe a couple things you don’t about the best character in the game. With that preamble out of the way, let’s begin with the goofy stuff, the grab bag if you will. 

This will certainly be more personal taste than anything else, but I do think there’s a lot of miscellaneous stuff that Damsel does better than the other chapters. For example, I am convinced that it has the third best music, behind Tower and her routes and then Thorn. I am genuinely obsessed with “It Was Always That Easy”. The basement has some *fantastic* art, and I think that really carries a chapter that is otherwise generally bland when it comes to actual visual activity. It’s really carried by its genuinely perfect dialogue. 

Overall, and most importantly, this chapter is the undisputed master of the idea of positive ambience. You know elevator music? How it’s there to artificially increase the cheeriness of an otherwise dreary moment, like a hotel hallway or, yanno, an elevator? Well, this is the chapter that does it perfectly. Everything is designed to make it “nicer” than it actually is. The Narrator even takes that into account when describing the basement. The sound design is fresh and relaxing, the music is uplifting, the Princess’s voice is obviously fantastically done, but also the Voice of the Smitten plays a large role in making it feel “good”. It’s something that exists in order to communicate exactly the feelings it wants the player to feel, which is all warm and fuzzy inside. But let’s move on to the actual content, shall we?

Damsel has *the* best Chapter One and it isn’t even close. Certainly not in the horror department, where I think Beast and Nightmare shine, or even in the whole characterization bit, where the award can only go to Spectre and the masterclass that is her Chapter One. But Damsel has something else to it. Damsel has tragedy, almost Shakespearean in nature. Nobody else has it (except Witch, to some extent, but nowhere close to the same level), nobody manages to reach that connection, there and then broken, to honestly feel for both Princess and Slayer. Allow me to paint a picture of a playthrough. 

You are on a path in the woods. At the end of that path is a cabin. In the basement of that cabin is a princess. You are here to slay her. But you don’t do that. That voice itching in the back of your skull, the one you quite literally call Hero, your moral compass even, raises some objections. You don’t want to kill *anybody*. That isn’t something you want to mark yourself with, especially not solely on the word of an individual you just met. For now, violence is a nonstarter.

You enter the cabin. And you hear her voice. And you see her. You even talk with her for a while. The moment is… hypnotizing. Despite the Narrator’s warning of manipulation, well, you cannot help but be manipulated. This is a genuinely nice, sweet, scared Princess who simply wants to be free. You have to save her. It is the right thing to do, it is the… only thing to do. Anything else marks you with the dirtiness of simply being unwilling to help someone in need when you had the full ability to. 

You go to get a key. Unsuccessful. The door locks. Even worse. The Narrator is moving from irritating to downright malicious, clearly enjoying recounting the lock of the door. Disgust for Him has been present since you entered the cabin, but it shifts to anger very quickly. That shift continues with full force as you attempt with what little ability you have to save the Princess, even if you don’t quite know how you will get out. The question does not last long. For the shift to anger shifts once more, to a sort of incomprehensible fury.

For the Narrator has crossed a line. Not only has he taken away any semblance of choice, not only has he raised your own knife against an innocent, someone who has been nothing but kind to you, but you are the one who must bear the shame for it. You are the only one who is doing the foul deed in any eyes but your own. Speaking of, the Princess’s eyes are filled with genuine happiness at the moment, as you are finally giving her the freedom she has yearned for such a  long time. Yet through no fault of your own, you raise the pristine blade, the one you refused to bring down to the basement in the first place. You scramble through the list of options, attempting to find anything that could provide a sliver of hope in the situation, anything without the grim finality of “Slay the Princess”. 

At last, you find one, and are able to bark out a warning to the Princess. That happiness in her eyes is shifted to a look of fear, one directed at you alone, one condemning you with such a sorrowful betrayal that it almost hurts to see. She begs for you to stop, and then she says something that almost calms the internal storm of the player: “Please, I know this isn’t you.” She recognizes that it isn’t us that betrayed her, she understands that we aren’t trying to do this, that we are flat-out trying to stop it. But the eye of that storm is passing, and soon.

And as she takes the blade, as she prepares to do what she must to live, that same look of tragic betrayal crosses her eyes, this time not directed at us, but at herself. She hates that this is her only option, the only way that she can live is to kill another, one with every intention of freeing her and no intention of harming her. And in the end, she simultaneously underscores the tragedy of the moment while confirming our perception that she could never be a threat to the world. As she plunges the blade into our chest, she has failed to even do the bare minimum of making our death painless, something that fills her with even more guilt, tears streaming down her cheeks as she tries and fails to end our own agony. The last thing we see of her are her endless cascade of both tears and apologies, as everything goes dark. 

This… is beautiful. A glorious tragedy, one with limited theming, simply two characters with emotions that feel natural. And, quite strangely, the first chapter has almost nothing to do with the second chapter. But it is still important. I’ll get to that later. Better things await now! For with the end of the tale of the Hero and the Princess, we have a new individual, everyone’s favorite buddy, the Voice of the Smitten. 

I am certain I do not need to underscore just how popular Smitten is. Easily the most fan favorite of the fan favorites, especially solidifying his place within that roster with the Kiss from a Thorn. He is jovial, passionate, he is Don Quixote, complete with the unlimited self-delusion that comes with the territory. There’s a reason people love him. Romantic in a game entitled a love story, the largest of personalities in a game stuffed with them, he is the storybook hero come to life in a game that has just as much reverence for storybook heroes as the deconstructions of them. In short, he is the visage of likability itself, with all the bombast that comes with that. Yet that is only from a wholly external perspective. 

For what I am certain I do need to underscore is just how sinister Smitten is. For all of his likability, the Smitten is also probably the single slimiest voice out of all of them with the possible exception of the Opportunist. This is not a new revelation – people have understood that since the beginning with his frankly disturbing behavior regarding the Princess. What is perhaps more interesting is his relationship with the player. For he is one of the two options that reflect the player at this point within the story. Either the player is trying to do the right thing and free an innocent, or they have somewhat… different motivations. 

The former reflects the Hero. Somewhat naive, in many routes somewhat bumbling even, but first and foremost focused on the external. That is, “how can I make a positive impact on the world around me?” As contradictory as it may seem to how the Hero is presented, it’s something of an intellectualist approach. The Hero is trying to find the best possible world and working towards that with all of his might. It is, one could say, devoid of emotion except that determination to change the world, to make it a better place. While the goal remains the same, the path to get there is fundamentally continuously being calculated. The Hero is your conscience, and as such he must *always* work overtime for that. 

The Smitten is not that. No, he has made no secret that he is the path of passion. Even when he is generally considered to be a better person, he declares that, “Whatever world would condemn two star-crossed lovers to a cycle of violence and despair isn’t a world worth saving.” His focus is internal, it is on ourself and our romance. There is no extensive study into what is the correct option, there is only what would assist in our relationship, which is somehow ordained by the universe. To put it into understandable terms, Hero is a modern hero while Smitten is a Romantic-era hero. 

There’s an important line when going down the stairs that I think speaks volumes about the type of player and playthrough currently occurring. That is “We can still do right by her without all this over-the-top fawning.” *That* is the line of demarcation between the route of the Hero and the route of the Smitten. If you decide to embrace or repudiate the Smitten at that point, I think the route is sealed. I am convinced that the game will continue on in a fixed way based on that philosophy. The point where you must, internally that is, decide if you are doing this out of a desire for what is right, or an infatuation with the Princess. 

Now, of course there isn’t anything wrong with taking the path of the Smitten, and it’s personally one of my top points in the game, but whether you admit it or not, you are long past morality being what decides your actions. That has come and gone. Now, the goal is to express the passion of the moment and delve into your romantic relationship with the Princess. I’ll be evaluating each of the routes differently, loosely organized with a focus on how it reacts to the player. After that, I’ll go on into theming of each route one by one and all that jazz.

The path of the Smitten first. The player embraces that he has been sent to save the Princess from her unjust and foul imprisonment above all else. So that is what he does. He marches downstairs, the blade being nothing but a passing afterthought as it is immediately dismissed out of hand. When it comes to the crucial point of “doing right by her”, the justification is made that two things can be done at once, that you can do this for her and do a little bit of fawning on the way. Doesn’t harm anyone.

And with that the basement arrives, and you see the Princess on the floor. She is perfect in all ways. There is nothing wrong with her. And that’s before you start talking to her. When you do begin talking to her, all of the kindness and innocence from Chapter 1 are magnified to the greatest degree possible. She can do no wrong. And, from a meta standpoint, there’s another thing that stands out – it is really, *really* funny. From everything the Smitten says to the “Then I didn’t end the world!” to the Narrator’s (a villain at this point) growing exasperation at your trust for the Princess, it endears you to the moment even more. 

Because it’s not only that it’s funny. It’s not only that the Princess is genuinely nice to you. It’s something more than that. Something that I am loath to talk about but will anyway. The Princess is incredibly – *sigh* – **cute** within this chapter. This is objective, with science to back me up, I’m sure. But she is specifically designed to be as heartwarming as possible, and every line makes her more and more into someone who should be saved by you, into, well, a Damsel. While it isn’t explicitly stated, throughout the progression of dialogue, the need to protect her becomes more pronounced. You were already primed to like the Princess, you already internally committed to a romantic future. But after stepping into the bear trap willingly, you cannot escape. 

And if you’re anything like me, you are perfectly fine with that. So you take in the moment, you rescue her from her chains and laugh at the way her hands slipped out of the chains and the Narrator’s comical anger at it. It’s all very feel-good, all cleanly written dialogue, and both the Princess and the Smitten are likable, they’re fun, and the Narrator is a fun enough villain for the Smitten and you to unite against. The Hero, if we’re being honest, barely registers, and if he does it’s usually as an extension to the Narrator, as a foil to yourself. And with her finally free, she embraces you, sealing the deal on her perfection. 

And after that, something else happens. The deconstruction begins. You want to see if her dialogue has any more of that saccharine present throughout the rest of the chapter, and are immediately rewarded with the “The princess closes her eyes in deep reflection” and the follow up joke. Hungry for more, you click through some more of the dialogue, but something begins to happen. She begins to… unwind. The Smitten seems to reciprocate in turn, to a lesser extent. In fact, she really starts to return to the horror that this chapter was a nice respite from. So you cut your losses, decide to leave with her, and everything returns to normal. Bathed in the glow of your future, you immediately forget about the deconstruction.

After that, you finally get out of the basement, get a genuinely great moment opening the door alongside the Princess, never think twice about clicking “You’re not doing that.” as fast as humanly possible, and finally await the door at the end of the cabin. You finally get your fairytale ending. The princess goes out into the world together with you. You brought her out. And then she is taken by the Shifting Mound in a way reminiscent of her dying. Even if this wasn’t your first playthrough, it still comes as a shock. For the most part, you were being that Romantic hero, living in the moment with your passion. The thought of this happening was gone entirely. This wasn’t supposed to happen. And it *hurts*. And the chapter is over. 

The route of the Hero has a different point of view on the whole situation. That’s not to say it’s not easy to get drawn in by the hilarious dialogue and sheer cuteness of the Princess – far from it. It is, after all, what drives the conflict within this. For the Hero, and the player that goes along his path, has one bit of information stand out. That the world ended after the Princess killed you. Now, you can naturally be skeptical of the information, but the Princess isn’t helping her case here. Entirely vague, entirely unwilling to mention anything about it. The only thing she seems to care about is getting on your good side. 

Now, you still want to save her. That much is clear. You still don’t take the knife in the beginning, and you saw her Chapter 1 incarnation. She is still a good person, kind and loving. But there are questions raised, important questions. Which is why not all Hero routers get the same ending. There is a conflict between how far you’re able to go before the risk of the world ending eclipses your distrust of the Narrator and your trust of the Princess. If the whole world really does end if she’s free, is it worth it? And as such you get to the major points of the Hero ending. 

The first is the Deconstructed ending. As you question the Princess, you desperately try to figure out what the best way to go forward is for you. And that starts with getting a straight answer from the Princess on what exactly she plans on doing. The operation… does not go well. As you try and push for anything, any sign that she isn’t going to end the world, the same rejoinder comes in, alongside a distorted track. “I just want to make you happy.” The Princess is not an individual anymore, and begins to change shape. But you are locked in with a horrified inability to look away, like one who sees a car accident. And with that, the Princess is a Princess no longer, and the Shifting Mound takes her away. 

There’s also the option of taking the Hero’s advice when confronted with the scenario: to leave. You don’t like what’s going on and you try to do whatever you can to undo the doing. Perhaps surprisingly, it works. And then you’re forced to deal with the cognitive dissonance of the Princess and *that* being the same individual. But you, not without a healthy dose of skepticism, still head upstairs alongside the Princess. In the end, you can’t bring yourself to kill her. Throughout it all, she still has been the beautifully endearing picture of innocence, if a questionable one, and especially with regards to the knife on the table, there is no way you can take it to her chest with no warning, especially after everything you did in the first Chapter. So you leave with her, and the “end of the world” really does come in one fell swoop with the call of the Shifting Mound. You can’t help but wonder if the decision you made was the right one, not really. Like, you still believe she didn’t deserve to die, but maybe, just maybe, it would have been a better ending.

So what if you did kill her? What happens when love *truly* melts away into skepticism. After the continuous question dodging and whatever the… other thing was, this is clearly not an ordinary Princess, it is not the same Princess that you tried to save at the beginning. There is only a sliver of her, a shadow of her former self. Slaying her, well, slaying her is probably doing her a favor. It might be doing the world a favor, too. Maybe she is an individual with malicious intent. And as you take the blade and plunge it into her chest, you instantly know you made the wrong decision. She does not oppose it. She simply lets you kill her with a single tear hanging in her eye, saying “I think this is what you want.” It’s meant to feel dirty and it does, even heartbreaking in the moment, although it is immediately counterbalanced by the effect of the Smitten killing you over it.

I won’t exactly go over Scorched Grey the same way, I think there’s generally only two frames of mind going into it, and that’s either the standard “Hero-Skeptic” framework that I’ll expand on later, or simply a completionist mindset. Plus, it’s technically not The Damsel. Plus I’m lazy. But this is the point where I will try to expand on the theming of each and every route and mindset to go through within the Chapter, and that *will* include the Scorched Grey theming. 

It’s made quite clear from the chapter that one of the primary themes is objectification, the making of the Princess into nothing more than a vehicle to live one’s fantasy into. The taking of an individual and making them into an it. The destruction of humanity by your own desire, and what that says about your desires in the first place. Ironically, this is merely one fourth wall away from the rest of the Princesses, each of them being a piece of fiction that many simply engage with *because* they are an object, but with the Damsel it is directly nodded to within the narrative. One meta-layer is peeled back, if you will. 

Nothing hammers this more home than the entirely jarring line that escapes the Shifting Mound’s lips when you ask about the vessel she holds. Unlike the rest of the fragments, which are all given an indication that they have been fulfilled after the Shifting Mound takes them, the only note she has to say is that the Damsel has “served her purpose”. There is nothing that she wished for, as anyone who has obtained the deconstructed ending can attest to. But even in the more standard runs, she is simply a tool to be used and discarded. And there are three general reactions to this line. 

The first is the hardcore Smitten route’s preferred choice, denial. “The Princess was far more than an object, she had character, she had kindness, she had motivations from the beginning! The narrative is what is wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the Princess. She. Is. Perfect. Not just from a narrative standpoint but a metanarrative one as well. She has depth, she *is* a character.” All in the hopes that if they insist on it enough, it will become true. The Damsel was not designed to be viewed in a vacuum. There are themes that run through her character, and including negative ones, and the denial of them is a far truer denial of the character than any sort of objectification could ever be. 

Then the more moderate Smitten routers get a different response. A slap in the face. They did all of this, they had fun, they laughed with her, they cried when she was taken. They were connected to her, they had a real connection to what she was. One could even accuse them of… loving her. They honest to goodness cared about this Princess, they were invested in her story. Yet, in the end, they also formed her around themselves. They “molded her to love you”. As much as they loved the Princess, that was only because they cut out a piece of the Shifting Mound that they *could* love, a caricature of her true nature. They still took an individual, and despite truly loving her, made her into something that she was not so they could do that very thing. She is not a person. She is a plot device, an individual made to love and be loved with nothing beyond that. She is an object. 

Lastly, those who went on the route of the Hero get that same slap in the face, that selfsame bucket of water poured over their heads, but in a different way. They didn’t try to objectify her. They didn’t want anything of the sort. All they wanted to do was the right thing. Right? Yet even in that desire to do the right thing, they still get that same chilling text from the Shifting Mound. They have built an individual just like those who went on the route of the Smitten. Just a different one. Not one who was built around your “glorious romance”, but rather one built around something of a glorious Romance. The need to be a Hero. The desire to do what was right, to save an unjustly imprisoned Princess. The Princess became a plot device in the end anyway, just one that needed to be saved rather than one who needed to be loved. 

I want to continue off of that. The player is trying to do nothing more than the right thing, he is simply doing what a Hero should. And that determination to do what is right leads to him getting impacted the most by that line in the ending, the line that implies that whatever right he was doing, he was still being driven by selfishness, by that need to be a Hero. That hits the player right within where it hurts, it almost could be said to strike at the one emotional vulnerability of them. To have your hard work, your pain, your desire for what is right to be considered nothing more than the delusions of a Don Quixote tilting at windmills in order to fight giants, just as lost as Smitten, that doesn’t feel too great. It almost minimizes your struggle, and it is genius. You play as a Hero because you want to feel like a Hero, not because the morality of this world means anything to you. It is stripping that meta-layer down one by one.

But objectification is not the only theme present. While it may seem like something of a potpourri topic to throw in, earlier on the server we were talking about the Damsel in particular’s perceptiveness with regards to perception. When the door shuts and locks, it is the first and only time the Princess gets visibly **negative** in any way during the entirety of the Chapter. Even when you kill her, she still does so with nary a frown on her face. Even as a tear rolls down her cheek, she still smiles. But not at the door. The narration points out quite clearly that she frowns. This is, I reiterate, the only thing that happens. And her response is not “we’re stuck down here”, it is not “I’m unable to leave now”. 

What it is happens to be “that’s not supposed to happen”. She recognizes the construct in a way very few allude to within the game. Adding onto that note, within the Scorched Grey chapter, she (correctly) determines the very nature of the construct and that inherent “cycle of violence and despair” inherent to it, even (correctly) determining that the only way to leave was to annihilate that very construct. This is shown even clearer at the other major event at the door. When you ask if the Princess can open the door, the sole question she throws back at you is “Do you think I can?”, and after a response in the affirmative, “Then I can”. In the end, it is quite clear that she is, *heavily* ironically, one of the more aware characters in the game with regards to your circumstance. 

While speaking of the Scorched Grey, I think this route also exemplifies another major theme – the nature of the Princess as a being of perception. All routes exemplify one facet of the Shifting Mound: Spectre represents the gravity of her, Tower her divinity, Prisoner the very incarnation in and of itself of her within the construct, and so on. Damsel has something different, though, and that is that she’s just a slippery little fella. Far more than anybody else, Damsel changes throughout her chapters, in ways more pronounced than anybody else. The Shifting Mound declares that we “molded her to love you”, as I quoted previously. That molding takes stage front and center throughout all of our interactions with her. 

The most obvious example is her deconstruction, which when her sole true motivation (to leave) is discarded, she begins to break down, unable to offer to the player anything beyond the only desire every other Princess has. With the compulsive need to love the player, etched into her core, there is nothing she can do other than try to add to that love, losing herself within the process. But that is not the only time she changes. Because she is willing to give up that freedom in, well, a heartbeat. Attempting to kill her does not lead to any sort of resistance from her. The one goal she had, staying alive and winning her freedom, is out the window despite being (questionably) willing to kill for it in the last chapter. Now, throughout the Scorched Grey, it’s made clear that she did not, in fact, want to die, that she just wanted to be free together, but the complete unwillingness to save her own life is a stark contrast to the first chapter. 

In fact, that perpetually changing nature alongside her being so objectified means that it’s really, *really* hard to figure out her true character. There is very little in her that does not change and very little remaining that isn’t specifically put there by you. She is an eel, wriggling out of your grasp and impossible to pin down, in a large way like the Shifting Mound herself. But… for the most part, there are two facets to her character beyond the already listed themes. And a sharp divide between them. 

Chapter One Damsel and Chapter Two Damsel are not the same person. That’s usually true for most of them, but they also usually have some semblance of similarity between their counterparts. The only exceptions I can think off the top of my head are Spectre and *maaybe* Stranger if you want to count that. The rest of them act as exaggerated versions of the existing individuals shown. Chapter One Adversary likes fights. Chapter Two Adversary likes fights. Chapter One Witch is built on the back of distrust. Chapter Two Witch is built on the back of distrust. Everything lines up nicely. 

That is not the case for the Damsel. The only thing that you can say with both of them is that they are nice and do not want to hurt you. The Chapter One incarnation (henceforth Princess) is a tragedy of a character that doesn’t want to kill you but still must to secure her own life and freedom against a renegade puppeting you. The Chapter Two incarnation (henceforth Damsel) is a Horror-”Feel-Good”-Comedic-Tragic character that shows nothing about the emotional anguish she went through in chapter one. I love both of them, but they have an unmatched disconnect. And I think that sort of adds to the character. Now, there is absolutely a benefit from an emotional through-line (there’s a reason Thorn is my second-favorite chapter), but in this case, only brief touches to the beginning enhance the story. 

The most striking thing is the sense of comedic horror that comes when Damsel just completely ignores any expected trauma from the Princess’s emotional destruction. It, depending on the route you take, either makes you love her character more and more as the humor begins to entrap you, or it begins the process of getting the player unnerved, exactly like the developers wanted. It is a key dividing point in the mindset of the player and the route that they have chosen. The Damsel says nothing about what happened, heck, she barely acknowledges it except to indicate that “You died!” 

Secondly, it sets up Damsel as a sympathetic figure while still allowing her to begin establishing herself. Without the setup from the Princess, the player has no idea how to view Damsel, potentially even seeing her as a less on-the-nose Razor, with her comedically hiding her sinister intentions. The Princess allows the player to begin on a note that the Princess is *actually* friendly rather than simply pretending to be so. At the same time, it’s divorced enough that apart from that frame of reference at the beginning, Damsel is still allowed to shine within her own character. 

Lastly, and most importantly, it sets her up for the Scorched Grey. The guilt at causing the death of an innocent and the belief that you would be unable to cause the death of an innocent yourself leads her to blame the construct and attempt to bring it down, which seals your fate in the third Damsel chapter, the only time where the two chapters meet in a beautiful climax of Passion going too far and causing pain, in attempt of running away from that very thing, morphing into something that not even the Smitten is able to remain devoted to in an awful tragedy of love being not enough in the end. 

Wait, wait, wait. Did I hear “the end” being spoken? At this time of year? Localized entirely within this essay? Well then, it’s time to talk about what puts this saga at pure perfection, shall we? I probably could just use the awesome power of Ctrl + V to get the desired effect, but I still do want to offer my narration, so I’ll compromise and do a bit of both. “Your lover drives a stake into your body. And another. And another. And another. And another. Do I miss your heart because I cannot stand to see it go? But the stakes meant nothing to you. You had a desire, and you set that desire free, you lifting me and me lifting you, forever and ever and ever, consumed by true belief, there was nothing that could hold us back.” 

Do I even need to explain why that’s so good? Definitively the best poem in the end, it isn’t even close, especially when coupled with Ms. Goodnight’s awe-inspiring delivery. Did I say that the Scorched Grey was the perfect synthesis of the Princess and the Damsel? I was lying. This is. Every word so lovingly placed, the language sounds like it comes from the pen of God Himself. It is emotionally resonant, the art is beautiful, I have not run into such a short piece of dialogue that outdoes it. Gonna be honest, mostly just wrote up this essay to gush about it. Even now, it is considered by most everyone to be one of the best lines of dialogue in a game filled with magnificent ones. 

And the other one, that of the Scorched Grey. It’s simpler, ironically. “I kill you. You kill me. Back and forth we go, faster and faster and faster. I kill you. You kill me. Hollow eyes watch from the dry corners of a memory. A home built on all of the futures that were supposed to be, preserved until the moment of reunion. The fire of the heart sets it all ablaze. I kill you and me.”

This, this right here is one of the most slept on ending poems and it’s not even funny. So fantastic at expressing the heartbreak inherent to the Scorched Grey’s character. I don’t know how you can see the line “A home built on all the futures that were supposed to be”, especially with the Scorched Grey dead and charring in a wedding gown, and not feel *something*. It’s not as good as the standard Damsel stuff, but then again, nothing is. It’s still deserving of more praise than it currently receives, and one of my top three ending poems of all time, only edged out by Prisoner. Gosh, this game belongs in a museum. 

Seems I need to debunk some stuff that happens to get a lot of traction regarding those who speculate on Damsel, too. First of all, her character motivation is not guilt nor gratitude. That sort of thing works incredibly well in fanworks, and I’m happy to see it ~~because that means I get to see Damsel in a fanwork~~. It has little to no backing within canon. Damsel is a chapter about the only motivations for the Princess being those put in place by the objectification of the player. There is nothing regarding anything beyond that, and it detracts from the existing, well-elucidated themes that are actually within the chapter. The only sort of substance to them is both Chapter 1 Princess and Scorched Grey indicating guilt for killing you, but that is almost entirely repudiated within the actual Chapter 2. 

Speaking of the Scorched Grey, another thing I saw somewhat extensively is that you somehow “taught her” that killing is the way to love one another, and that’s why she kills you in Chapter 3, and I honestly do not know how that gained any traction at all. It’s pretty clear that she views all the death as a pretty terrible and messed up thing and only kills the two of you to escape the cycle of death. It’s spoken of as a means to an end, not an end in and of itself. I am genuinely confused on how this got started, because it really just… opposes the main *in-narrative* themes of the Chapter??? Like, you don’t even have to analyze it, it’s just within the text, plain and simple. 

Anyway, I deeply apologize for the length of this once again, look forward to an appendix when Pristine Cut comes out. I’ve already played it because my uncle works at Black Tabby, but I don’t want to spoil it for you gents. If my opinions change massively after playing through the new update from today, I will change that too. Anyway, Damsel is the best character, literally does not do a single thing wrong within any of her chapters, has definitively the best Shifty stuff, and you should invest in her. As more people vocally become willing to throw money at anything related to Damsel, the likelier it is that we get Damsel merch. I need it so badly. Please. Anyway, if anything stands out to you or you disagree, I am begging you to tell me to get my act together and explain what I said wrong, so do that. Also please. 

[marmota-b]

Justice for Fenn Shysa!

Well, that may be too strong a wording, but, seriously, Fenn Shysa deserves a lot more respect than he seems to get these days. Turns out I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on the subject, but the thing is, they're based on canon. (Legends canon, but considering how little new Disney canon ended up giving us, that still is where most Mandalorian discourse is happening to begin with.)

Fic writers (at least on AO3) who are into Mandalorians seem to love, love, love Jaster Mereel. They seem to think Jaster Mereel would have fixed everything, if only he had lived. There is an image of Jaster Mereel people have built up, and which they love, and hold up as a metric of what a good Mandalorian and Mand'alor is like.

I love it myself, but. But. Most of it is pure fanon.

Fenn Shysa's accomplishments aren't. Fenn Shysa is canonically great. Where are all the Fenn Shysa fics?!

Fenn Shysa, who incidentally has a lot in common with Jaster, actually did fix everything.

And it's a very interesting comparison to make because the two actually do have a lot in common, on a superficial level. They're both Mand'alors who started out as policemen, and don't come from a big established clan. But it seems to me that they took very different lessons from their experiences, and as far as I can see Shysa comes out the better from the comparison. Mereel, heralded as the reformer, by all appearances (including what lessons Jango seems to have taken from him) still doubled down on certain hardwired Mandalorian stock responses. Shysa moved on from them. Shysa overcame the biggest Mandalorian shortcomings.

(As far as I can see, the only thing Jaster might canonically have over him is taking in a ward (did he ever actually adopt Jango?) when Shysa remained without any family. Considering the truly hard times Shysa lived in, considering he spent a good deal of his adult years as a guerrilla fighter desperately trying to save people from the Empire, I can't find it in myself to hold it against him.)

And it's also interesting for a Mandalorian fan inclined to draw never-stated conclusions to compare them just by how they present. To look at Jaster Mereel, and look at Fenn Shysa, and see one wearing the colour of justice, and the other the colour of duty. Neither is necessarily wrong, of course, but in-universe, it probably does say something about them. We first meet Jaster fighting a civil war, bent on eliminating his opponents; we first meet Shysa freeing enslaved people. Their reasons for fighting differ considerably. And so do the results of their actions.

And it's the actions where Shysa shines. Where it's Shysa who is the real reformer.

Fenn Shysa actually united Mandalore. If you draw conclusions from the shifting canons the exact same way you do with Jaster, Fenn Shysa actually managed to work with all the factions and gain their respect: the fact that he was an undisputed Mand'alor after the fall of the Empire is Legends canon, not just fandom speculation of what the situation was and could have been.

Based purely on actual established canon events, Fenn Shysa was just about the best Mand'alor ever. Not flawless, of course, but better than most Mandalorians, able to rise above their common failings that have kept dooming them all throughout their history. He did not hold grudges, he wasn't isolationist, he wasn't inseparably married to the idea of warrior glory, while still maintaining warrior honour and a certain sort of proud independence. But he was not too proud to ask the Rebel Alliance / New Republic for help when Mandalore was attacked and overwhelmed - and not too proud to work with them. He also forgave and helped his enemies when it turned out they may have had somewhat justifiable reasons for their attempts at conquest, and immediately offered them Mandalorian help in reclaiming their own home. (Isn't one of the biggest failings of the Mando'ade how much they hold grudges, dooming any attempts at fruitful collaboration through old blood feuds and petty disagreements?) And he worked with the nascent New Republic, yet without giving in an inch of Mandalorian independence. He united the things the various factions wanted: he was an honourable warrior upholding the Supercommando Codex, he achieved peace within the system and peace with the Republic, and he gave rabid traditionalist Mandalorians actual wars to fight in which Mandalorians could prove their mettle before the Galaxy - just not destructive wars of conquest. It's not like the GFFA is short on villainous factions to try and stop.

It's Tobbi Dala who touches on it out loud in the comics, not Shysa specifically, but he obviously echoes Shysa's ideals: Their highest purpose as warriors is to protect. That's what the Resol'nare say, nothing else. Shysa started out, in the Clone Wars, as more or less a mercenary, like Jaster, but I think, outside of situations when he did have to be pragmatic about things like making a living, he outgrew it into something even greater.

Fenn Shysa may not have written a neat manifesto, but I bet he actually lived it. He was the best Mand'alor Mandalore had had in ages. Fenn Shysa was exactly the Mand'alor the Mando'ade needed, when they most needed him. He revived their spirit and their purpose after centuries of strife and defeats.

More respect for Fenn Shysa, please. Much, much more.

(I guess the unquestioning love of Jaster at Shysa's expense is excellent proof of the truth of that one Mandalorian saying: "He who writes, remains." 🙄)

[dell-amor-te]

“Of Blood, Bindings, & Burdens Halved”

Part 1 of 2.

Word Count: 4,672.

Warning(s): Canon-typical injuries, literal hurt/comfort, no beta but I try my best.

Pairing: F!Rook x Lucanis Dellamorte.

Summary: Healers make the worst patients. And ancient elven gods make for the worst to ask for straight answers from.

🐦‍⬛Read on ao3.

It gave Nöa great delight to know that she was the exact opposite of most magisters.

She wore every scar and flaw on her body with pride, badges of honor and survival only she could claim. Not to mention the bounty of tattoos she had accumulated over the years, each one to better channel her magic. While mages like Zara Renata spilled the blood of others to preserve their body as some untouchable monument to perfection, Nöa often spilled her own blood in order to ensure that she was able to survive to fight another day, to earn another scar.

Some would (and had) called her self-sacrificing.

She would (and had been known to) disagree with that sum.

Her mother’s clinic was where she could first remember seeing a wound tended. A deep cut that had been earned in a wood-chopping accident. Nothing her mother hadn’t seen and treated a hundred times before and another hundred times after. Nöa could even remember her mother laughing and saying she had seen much worse outcomes to similar accidents.

While her father was undoubtedly adept at using his magic for healing arts when forced into dire straits, and while his command of the dead fostered an extensive anatomical knowledge by nature of his practice, her mother was the undisputed expert.

Nöa had been too young to ever sit under her mother’s tutelage properly, but her mother’s incredibly detailed notes had been a constant advisor as Nöa trained herself. Her education on the subject was less than formal and often supplemented by her father’s lesson in using blood magic as a conduit for aiding in self-promoted healing, and yet Nöa would wager her command of her knowledge could rival any healer across Thedas. And that wasn’t just her pride talking.

Her skill served her very well, and often others, too.

But no amount of medical training would give her the flexibility to treat wounds outside of her range of motion. And despite her knowing this was the natural order of things, when Nöa felt the open wound on her back begin to bleed—profusely, she believed, if the amount of blood pooling down from her shoulder to her leg was indication—she chose to ignore it.

The only people she ever willingly put aside her ego to let treat an injury on her body were her father and Vellora.

Vellora was all the way in Arlathan. Even with the Eluvians, she wasn’t a viable option. Her father was, though. So long as the bleeding didn’t catch up to Nöa before they reached the Lighthouse. She just had to make it back to the Lighthouse, that’s what she kept telling herself.

And also outrun this pack of Ghilan’nain’s hunters. It would be fine. She just wouldn’t think about it.

She uttered a quick spell, reaching back as far as she could to access the spot, trying to play it off as loosening her shoulder. With how many monsters had met their end with her dagger today, it wouldn’t alert any of her companions to its true intent.

Now to hope what little magic she had left would hold things together until they made it back.

“Let’s pick up the pace.” Lucanis said. “Hopefully we can confuse them if we split up once we read the woods. Davrin, Bellara, once we reach the fork, why don’t you split off to the east path. Barring confusion, we can at least even out the odds in smaller groups.”

“Good idea.” Davrin nodded. “Assan, scout ahead, boy. Make sure the path is clear.”

The griffon squawked, ever eager to please.

It was supposed to be some simple scouting out in the Crossroads. No big fuss. Scout some of the paths, clean up any potential Darkspawn hordes. Nothing Nöa, Bellara, Davrin, and Lucanis couldn’t handle. Especially with Assan around.

What they hadn’t accounted for was Ghilan’nain apparently being hit was a stroke of inspiration.

These new beasts of hers, whatever they were, were some of her most grotesque yet.

Nöa made sure she matched her pace to Davrin’s as their group headed for a fast-approaching treeline. They were all frighteningly familiar with the Crossroads at this point, but they still had to keep their wits about them as they traversed its winding paths.

Nöa tried not to ignore the sound of the blood puddling in her boot, how it squelched with each pounding footstep.

Dear Mythal, her sock was soaking wet.

Was it that or her rapidly dropping blood pressure that was making her feel so nauseous?

“Shock troopers!” Davrin shouted.

“They’re gaining ground!” Bellara grunted, shooting back an arrow to take one down that was keeping stride with them along a nearby outcropping of rocks.

Only one thing to do, then.

“Follow my lead!” Nöa issued in quick order.

The group obeyed, following her off the path. As soon as they were all clear, Nöa turned, taking a stand in front of her companions. She pulled her staff from her back, nearly cursing her own body at the shock of pain—and then there was nothing, numbness, that spread through her fingers—as she lifted it in front of her.

She ignored it all, focusing solely on her command the Fade, bending it into twisting shapes, using her conduit as kindling, and then—

A wall of fire erupted along the path, reaching hungrily upward toward the Fade-formed sky.

She laughed, despite herself. “That should buy us some time.” The elf managed, panting.

The small victory was short-lived.

“Hey, Nöa…are you bleeding?” Bellara asked warily.

Nöa looked down at the earth beneath her feet numbly. Sure enough, there was a puddle of blood soaking the ground.

Her blood.

“Nöa?” Bellara put a hand on her fellow Veil Jumper’s shoulder carefully.

“Oh, I’m fine.” Nöa said brusquely.

She couldn’t bring herself to lift her staff back behind her to its holster. She didn’t want to let go of it, frankly, unsure her knees would hold her.

“Come on, we’re almost to the fork—”

It was Davrin’s hand that kept Nöa face from meeting the dirt personally.

“Fine, huh?” The Warden raised a dubious eyebrow.

“I’ve had better days.” She relented, locking gazes with him. “It’s my back. Near my right shoulder.”

“May I?” Davrin asked.

“Be my guest.”

“I’ve got her.” Lucanis said, taking Davrin’s place to support Nöa.

Carefully, Davrin moved aside the black cloak that had effectively concealed her present state from the group. The blood had drenched through her white tunic, spreading across the entirety of her back already, the fabric holding fast to her skin. It painted enough of a picture that Davrin didn’t so much as move to adjust her tunic’s neckline to see better.

“Nöa.” Davrin chided. “You should have said something.”

“Look, it’ll be fine until we get back. Speaking of: can we go now?”

“How long did you let this go?” Bellara questioned, fretting.

“I have no idea when it happened.”

“Fine. Then when did you notice it, Panöwen?” Lucanis asked pointedly.

With him still holding her up, there was little Nöa could do to avoid the Crow’s knowing gaze.

“Before we even reached the peak, maybe.” Her breathing quickened as she felt her body begin to work harder to keep her on her feet. “It’s fine, really.” She assured them all. “Once we get back, my father will see to it. I’ll be good as new.”

Lucanis scoffed. “It’s not fine. You’re as pale as paper. We have to at least stop the bleeding now.” He told her. “Come on, we need to get you off your feet.”

“Is this payback for carrying you like a potato sack last week?”

“No. This is so we don’t leave a trail of your blood for those beasts to follow. Here.”

Any shred of the normal sense of camaraderie between the two of them was gone—enough so that it made Nöa comply and Davrin and Bellara wary. While they all knew Lucanis was poised and often the man of fewest words among their group, Nöa tended to loosen him up a bit; a change they were all growing far too accustomed to.

His tone now, the way he was able to take command, reminded them all why the First Talon had favored him as her heir.

Nöa felt her feet leave the ground, but not much else after that. She was able to get her left arm around Lucanis’ neck, leaving her to rest her chin against his shoulder. Lucanis reached down to pick up her sunburst of a staff, holding her securely with one hand.

“You two, meet up with Assan and get back to the Lighthouse. Stick to the plan. We split up. Once this wound’s been dressed, we’ll follow.” Lucanis said.

“What if those things come back? We don’t know what they are, let alone—” Davrin began.

“The fire will hold.” Nöa interjected, ironically lacking some of her usual fire. “It’ll feed on the Fade’s magic, too, which should also keep it from spreading anywhere it shouldn’t. They’ll burn before they can follow.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Bellara couldn’t help but ask.

“It’ll be fine. Go.” Lucanis ordered, and neither elf disobeyed.

“Just please be careful.” Bellara pleaded, still hesitant.

“I think we’re already past that.” Lucanis said.

“Come on.” Davrin ushered her on.

Bellara sighed, but did as they had been told.

Nöa closed her eyes, feeling fatigued and safe in Lucanis’ arms at once. She didn’t play the damsel well, but right now she felt too off-kilter to argue or really care. But Lucanis was quiet, and that did bother her.

It wasn’t his normal quiet. This was a frustrated silence.

He didn’t say a word as he searched for a place they could shelter while he saw to her injury. He found it, eventually. A clearing far off the main path located after a cautious zig-zagging, just to be safe. He carefully got Nöa situated against a large, moss-dressed stone.

“Alright.” Lucanis sighed, not wasting a moment. “Let’s have a look.”

“You don’t have to. Really.” She half-slurred. “As long as you can help me work a little bit of blood ma—”

“You can’t afford to lose any more blood.” He said sharply. “Besides, your magic is clearly spent. That wall of fire wore you out—your hands are shaking.” He nodded knowingly.

Nöa didn’t have a good rebuttal or a clever word to counter his assessment. Her silence did nothing to set Lucanis’ nerves at ease. She always had a comeback.

“Let me take care of you.” He insisted, his tone softer, lower, but every bit as adamant. “Please.”

“Okay.” A beat of hesitation. “Here. My dagger.” When he looked at her, at a loss, Nöa elaborated. “Open the hilt. There’s herbs inside that can be used to pack a wound and stave off infection.” She grimaced, shifting slightly so he could reach her belt easier. “I think the hit agitated the nerves. I can barely feel, let alone move that shoulder. You’ll have to grab it off my belt. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” He said, already moving to do just that.

“I can lean forward.” And she managed to do so. Just barely. “You’ll have to get the rest of my gear off, too, I’m afraid. If you cut off that side of my tunic, you should have plenty of access to the area.”

She hated this feeling. This uselessness.

“Right.”

To his credit, he didn’t blush or hesitate. Nöa half-expected him to. And maybe that was unfair of her.

Once he had her dagger from her belt, Lucanis moved again, creating a slit in the hem that ran down her right side before carefully removing the once-white tunic, leaving her upper body exposed to the open air.

“I think I’m more upset about the tunic than the nerves.” Nöa admitted.

“You can’t sew?”

“Skin? Sure. Fabric…not so much.”

Lucanis’ lips twitched. “I cut along the hem. Maybe Nova or Harding can mend it.” He suggested. “Assuming all this blood washes out.”

Nöa sighed. The cool air felt good against her sweating skin. It was probably a shock response—her skin raising its temperature to combat how cool her internal temperature was without proper blood supply.

Lucanis knelt down behind her in a fluid motion, finally able to assess the wound properly. It was deep and jagged, no doubt a lucky, blind stab made as they fled from that first onslaught. Her lacking range of motion was likely owed to a muscle tear.

Nothing Lucanis could mend now, but Emmrich would be more than capable of tending so long as Lucanis stopped the bleeding now.

“Maker, Nöa.” He muttered under his breath.

“Is it that bad?”

“It’s not…great.” He relented at last. “It will definitely scar.”

“What’s one more?” She laughed lamely. “I have a needle and some thread in my bag. I assumed it hit an artery or a vessel.”

“Artery.” Lucanis told her. “Looks like the subclavian to me.” His brow twitched. “Did you hit this with some magic?”

“A little. Before the fire wall. Just to be safe.”

“Stubborn woman.” He grimaced. “It’s partially sealed, anyway. Though the hold is weak.”

“And still exposed, since you can see it.”

He hesitated. “Yes.”

It was far from ideal.

“Lovely.” Nöa exhaled, trying to slow her heart rate. “You know, this would be a nice place to be buried.”

“Hush.”

“You’ve got the rock for my grave marker and everything.”

“Hush.” Lucanis chided more insistently. “And hold still.”

“Yes, ser.” Nöa groused.

“I don’t think this should be stitched.” Lucanis decided after a thorough assessment. “Not yet, anyway. It needs to be packed to staunch the bleeding, but we’ll just be starting the cycle over again when we get back if we close it now. That artery is going to need more than just field care.”

“Whatever these new pets of hers are, you must admit they have good aim.” Nöa mused.

“Here, let’s get you turned over.” Lucanis didn’t feel like ceding that point when it was her blood proving it. “This forward gravity can’t be comfortable.”

“Nothing’s comfortable right now.” She shot back wryly, though she helped him reposition her as best as she could.

Which was fairly well, Lucanis noted.

Once he had her reclined against the stone, Lucanis got to work packing the wound with the herbs from her dagger.

She kept an impressive little apothecary hidden within her dagger’s hilt-compartment. It had to be an expensive upkeep. They were high-quality herbs, and fresh, too. Either she went through a lot of them, which wouldn’t surprise him, or she rotated them out when they began to wilt.

Which also wouldn’t surprise him.

“Make sure you keep the packing even.” Nöa said quickly.

“Healers make terrible patients.” Lucanis muttered under his breath.

“I know.” He could practically hear her roll her eyes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I much prefer to do the dressing than being dressed.”

“I know.”

He worked in silence after that. The bleeding didn’t stop, not completely. But it would buy them time until he could get her back to the Lighthouse.

He just hoped it was enough.

Lucanis used her sliced tunic as a makeshift dressing, the soft linen sleeves working to tie everything off properly. They decided to bind her arm to her chest in order to keep strain off of her muscles by leaving her arm hanging down at her side.

Once he was satisfied, Lucanis nodded.

“All done?” Nöa questioned.

“All done. We’ll move once everything settles.” He decided, sitting across from her so he could assess her properly.

She was pale, flushed. He could see a sheen of sweat on her forehead, and her hands were still shaking, worse now than before. There was no sign of poisoning in the wound, but he couldn’t rule it out just from sight alone. The blade had left her shoulder wide opened, fileted. The packing would hopefully help draw out any potential poison in the meantime, along with warding off infection.

He noticed when she began flexing her fingers.

“What’s wrong?” Lucanis asked, scooting closer, taking her hand.

Nöa laughed tiredly. “The nerves. There’s a few herbs in that mix that’ll help the agitation, but they numb everything up first. Just making sure my hand’s still attached, is all.

Lucanis’ thumb stroked her trembling knuckles. If Nöa hadn’t looked down, she wouldn’t have even known he was doing it.

“Are you familiar with nerve damage?” The Crow asked.

“More so than I wish I could say.” She bared her teeth for a moment, wincing, but made no sound, trying to make herself comfortable while she talked to him. “When I lost my eye, the impact also shocked the nerves on that side of my body. Through my face, down that arm. It probably got close to my spine, but not enough to do damage there. We weren’t sure they’d ever come back. It took a year before I could use that side of my face again. Another six months before I could move my arm enough to rehab it.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“What can I say? I like a little bit of mystery.”

He needed to keep her awake. The best way to do that was to keep her talking. Knowing her stubbornness, she would understand his intent in spite of the bloodless delirium she was steadily slipping into.

Speaking of Spite—Lucanis was grateful the demon had chosen to remain quiet, though he couldn’t fathom why. He didn’t have the time to consider it, either.

“I’m going to make sure the packing took now.”

“Okay.”

She said it so quietly that Lucanis wondered if he imagined her saying it altogether.

He returned to his place behind her, kneeling down once more. The bleeding was slower, though it still moved far too quickly for his comfort. He sighed, his eyes catching on her scar and ink-covered back.

“Will you tell me about some of them?” Lucanis asked.

“Which ones?”

“How about this one—base of your neck?” He traced a finger along it, even if she couldn’t feel it.

The skin was puckered, raised, but it was covered up by the vine-like ink of her tattoos.

“That was a boring one.” Nöa almost laughed. “I was…fourteen? Nova and I were sorting through our mother’s textbooks, and he accidentally dropped one on me. I had my head in a book, with my neck bent, and he was up on the roving-ladder, and the corner of the leather got me just right. It probably wouldn’t have scarred had I had baba take care of it, but it didn’t bother me and I didn’t want him to freak out, so I let it heal on its own. You can see how well that went.”

Lucanis could almost imagine the scene.

“There should be one, down toward the right side, just above my hip.”

“I see it.”

“Varghast bite.” She said.

“Really?”

She recounted the story as much as her foggy mind and slurring words would allow. She giggled more than she ruminated, truth be told.

There were so many scars littered across her skin. Lucanis didn’t know how she kept count of them all. He certainly couldn’t remember where most of his had come from anymore.

He frowned.

He had never had a reason to see her undressed, but he never could have imagined how extensive both her scars and her body ink were. It was little wonder she had such a high pain tolerance. Her lived experience could rival Caterina’s training.

“I didn’t realize…” Lucanis trailed off.

“We all have our scars. I’m not special.” She said feebly. “Luc?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t feel so good.”

“It’s okay.” Lucanis soothed her. “Rest.”

With the blood flow impeded for now, there was little harm in letting her close her eyes. It could help, even. Keep her body from overworking itself. Spare her from feeling some of the pain, if she was feeling any of it at all anymore.

Before long, she was almost entirely unconscious, and then she was back in his arms, his own cloak settled over her in the place of her blood-soaked one. His footfall was easy, mindful of his gait so he didn’t jostle her or upset the wound. He tried to keep up the pace.

She needed Emmrich, more so than he hoped she knew.

“Mh…” Nöa’s head lulled back against his chest. The rush of his heartbeat, elevated by anxiety, soothed her, bringing only one thought to mind.

Beat. Vhenan. Beat. Vhenan. Beat. Vhenan.

It was his heart she was hearing, not her own.

And yet…

“Ma vhenan.” She barely managed, head cradled against Lucanis’ shoulder.

“Nöa?” His voice was so far away now.

She drifted off, unaware of anything but the warmth of him surrounding her.

Hello, Nöa.

A voice, so much like Lucanis’…but not quite right….greeted her.

I’ve been dying to talk to you. Shame we had to wait until you were dying to have the chance.

…

“Here.”

Lucanis barely registered the mug of hot coffee directly under his nose. It wasn’t until he processed the feeling of the steam hitting his chin that he looked up. His eyes moved, though no other part of him did, wandering up to the face of the person handing him the drink.

Nova smiled tiredly.

“Thank you.” Lucanis supplied, finally accepting the drink.

He didn’t move to actually sample it.

Nova heaved a sigh, resting his back against the windowsill where Lucanis had sat himself hours ago. The Crow hadn’t moved since, except when Emmrich needed someone to hand him something. Half the time Manfred beat him to it, anyway.

The elf hummed, finishing his assessment of the man before nursing his own cup of coffee.

At last, Emmrich seemed to finish his work. He didn’t move from Nöa’s side, but he stood up straight, rather than hunched over as he had been through the hours.

“Well?” Nova prompted his father.

Emmrich didn’t turn to face the two younger men, instead remaining fixed in place by Nöa’s side. He let go of a pent up breath, the sound haggard and drawn.

“I know Crows are trained to tend wounds should they be injured in the field, but I didn’t expect this caliber of care.” The mage admitted, half-lauding Lucanis’ handiwork.

“She handled the worst of it with a spell before she even told us she’d been hurt.” Lucanis corrected himself. “Well, not told us. She didn’t tell us.”

She didn’t tell us. She didn’t tell us. She didn’t tell me.

“Don’t sell yourself short, Lucanis.” Emmrich said quietly, turning halfway to face them. “She’d be in a much worse state if it weren’t for you.” He looked to Lucanis again. “Thank you.”

“She’ll recover?” Nova asked, anxious.

“Nerves and all, I believe.” Emmrich nodded tiredly toward his son.

Nova patted Lucanis’ knee, relief practically flooding the two men.

“That’s all the thanks I need.” Lucanis said soberly, his gaze fixed on the now peacefully sleeping Veil Jumper in front of him.

Emmrich’s thumb stroked his daughter’s forehead for a moment as he looked down at him once more, his mind still working a million paces a minute. He pressed a kiss to the center of her vallaslin, his lips drawn into a thin line.

“You’re going to be alright.” He barely whispered, offering comfort to the sleeping elf.

Lucanis did his best to ignore the way he yearned to do the same. How he wanted to hold her—her hand, her whole being, or just his lips to her brow. Anything to assure his very being that she was going to be fine.

“You should get some rest.” Emmrich advised Lucanis. “You all had a hard enough day before this. Davrin and Bellara got their rest, I would say you’ve more than earned yours now.”

“No. I’m fine.” Lucanis shook his head, stiff. “Illario was dealt a similar wound, once. I treated that one, too. He needed monitoring overnight.”

“I can see to that.” Nova said.

“Allow me. Please.” Lucanis insisted. “I won’t sleep, anyway. Not unless I know.”

Emmrich smiled knowingly at his son before nodding his assent to Lucanis’ request. “Very well. But come get me if she takes a turn…” He put a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, commanding his attention. “Or if you get tired.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Good man.”

“You can come get me, too.” Nova offered, his sister’s ruined tunic tucked in his arms. “She’s my sister.”

“I know.” Lucanis assured. “I won’t take my eyes off her.”

“I suppose I should go let everyone know she’s alright.” Nova decided, sparing one last looking toward her sister. “I didn’t know she could be so quiet.”

Though he was hesitant, Emmrich took his leave with Manfred and Nova both in tow. The skeleton waved at Lucanis as they departed. Lucanis waved back lamely, but it satisfied Manfred.

Alone, Lucanis finally felt himself let go of a breath he had been holding since he laid eyes on the threatening wound on Nöa’s back.

His boots hit the floor of the infirmary—Nöa’s infirmary—without a sound. He crossed the floor, standing where Emmrich had stood for so long.

Manfred had cleaned up while Emmrich worked. Everything seemed so sterile now. Not a drop of blood, and Emmrich had declared long ago that the bleeding had all but stopped entirely. The dressing would need checked overnight for drainage, both as of now, she was sound.

Lucanis pressed his forehead to Nöa’s.

She was nowhere near as clammy as she had been in his arms on their return to the Lighthouse. Her breathing wasn’t erratic. Most of her coloration was back.

If Lucanis didn’t know better, he would have thought Emmrich was a miracle worker.

It promised to be a long night. Though he was hesitant to do so, Lucanis moved away from the exam table turned temporary cot in order to grab a stool from beside Nöa’s desk in the corner of the room. He carried it over to her side before making himself comfortable.

He took her hand in his, watching her as she slept. Wondering.

Vhenan. Ma vhenan.

What did that mean?

He didn’t want to think about it too much. She had been more than half out of her mind at that point, after all. It sounded too distinctive, too elven, to have been mad ramblings or slurring of words. And yet Lucanis couldn’t parcel out what it meant.

And he couldn’t get it out of his mind.

“Solas?”

He had no idea if the ancient elf would answer him.

When the infirmary remained silent and the air remained still, Lucanis gave up any thought of receiving an answer. He wasn’t even sure if he could speak to Solas the way Nöa did. True, they had all seen Solas’ memories from time to time, but did that require the same connection, or something more.

She gave you quite the fright, didn’t she?

Lucanis lifted his head. “You answered.”

You asked for me, did you not?

Lucanis nodded. “She said something. Earlier. I thought you might know what it meant.”

She says a lot of things, Master Dellamorte. To what exactly are you referring?

“It sounded like ma vhenan.” Lucanis said to the empty air. “I think that’s what it was. What does that mean? I assume it’s elven.”

A lengthy pause, so long Lucanis almost thought Solas had elected not to answer, ensured.

It is.

“Which means you understood her.”

I…did.

When the Dreadwolf offered no further explanation, Lucanis worked his jaw.

“So what does it mean?” He asked a little more firmly.

Perhaps it would be better to hear that from her mouth, rather than mine. There is a translation guide in my study, if you can find it.

Lucanis frowned, but decided not to question it. For tonight, he would focus on Nöa. Everything else could come later.

[splattercamp]

idk why people hate on others for their opinion on supermassive games 😭 like especially the tdpa.

it's always been so weird to me how people will insist that house of ashes is the undisputed best game despite the fact... opinions exist...?

it's like how some people will say they hated little hope while others will say they loved it. it all depends on the player. each game has its own merits and its own things that bring them down.

man of medan has a great choice variety, and makes you feel like your choices really matter. however, the characters and the horror can fall flat at times. little hope has a great story and does a great job with its atmosphere. however, you're walking through the same places and watching cutscenes for majority of the game. the characters are all supposed to emphasize negative traits and while an interesting idea, it can make them insufferable. house of ashes has great atmosphere and gameplay, as well as the monster designs being cool. however, the love triangle is odd and characters can seem very mary/gary sue at times, the game also can seem less scary and more tense to some. the devil in me has an interesting idea and a cool show of it. however, the characters can seem very plain and specific moments in the game can immediately zap away all your fright and tension.

each game is so different. every person is so different. just because i like little hope doesn't mean the next guy will. just because they like the devil in me doesn't mean i do.

opinions are opinions. idk why we have to fight over them. you're not better than others for your opinion on it. it's just a game

[sheinthatfandom]

Tonight is the night!!! God the card for dynasty is so fucking stacked literally the only one I’m like eww no is Jericho and even then I’d be fine if he was on zero hour but whatever. Anyway time for me to make my winner predictions of who I want vs what I think is booked to win

Zero hour

Let’s start with Trent vs Matt sydal: I’d love to see Trent lose because I’m a Yuta girl and Trent should always lose lol. But more than likely especially cause of the best friend breakup storyline Trent would need the win far more and it would make sense for him to win over Matt who involved himself in the feud and helped orange.

Orange and shibata Vs Shane taylor promotions: it’s orange and shibata even if Anthony cheats and gets involved I can’t see orange and shibata losing ohhh unless Trent’s match actually does go first and he causes orange to lose… seems like a lot for a buy in though

The acclaimed vs bullet club gold: THIS SHOULD BE ON THE MAIN CARD!!! How tf is the unification of the two actual company belts not be put on the main card the actual FUCK!!! Tk I hope your pillow is never cool. I want BCG to win they’re fun, they’re entertaining, they’ll be insufferable as double champs, they will have a feud with anyone. Thanks to the win on dynamite though I think it’s gonna be the acclaimed who will be booked to win and make all the belts useless because they’re never on tv they have zero feuds going on and caster will continue to be a cunt online.

Main card time

Jericho vs hook: this should be on the pre show the ftw belt is not legitimate and there’s been no real build for this they didn’t even have beef until Wednesday. Anyway I wanna see Hook win cause Jericho needs to go far away but I feel like Jericho booked himself to win to hold the ftw belt and will probably have a run in from Sammy.

Rated R chicken Kings vs house of black: I have no idea if that’s their name they have no name and I love them for it lol Eddie and mark should never suffer losses ever actually. Plus it’s a team of champions sorry HOB

Julia vs willow: I think with the storyline and Mercedes and Julia’s injuries we’re getting a title change. Julia wasn’t a bad champ at all and honestly made the tbs title a big deal it just sucks she got injured and couldn’t be on tv every week fighting. Willow will be a great champion and Julia can still be spooky and get involved.

Okada va pac: okada stole Eddie’s belt no one should beat him but Eddie in my humble simp opinion.

The young bucks vs ftr: if the fucking bucks lose again I will be cursing tk to lose all the hair on his head and grow it out of his nose and asshole. The bucks shoulda NEVER loss at Wembley and they need their win back. Especially after seeing the video nope evps win hire me as the ref I’ll make sure to count correctly

Kyle vs rodrick: I know with the whole never able to pivot and the Adam and mjf injury thing we haven’t been able to do the Undisputed Kingdom storyline like everyone wanted but let it GO! Give Kyle his win give Kyle the belt give Kyle the fucking WORLD okay my beautiful sad eyed air guitar boo boo kitty man gets it all.

Toni storm vs thunder Rosa: the way I need Toni to go berserk on Rosa but also for deonna to get involved in a if I can’t beat her I’ll be damned you will story beat. Personally the only person who should dethrone Toni is Mariah and she’s not ready yet.

Will Vs Bryan: is it too early to call this match of the night i mean we all know that it’s gonna be right? Personally I’d love to see Bryan take the win prove he’s still the best (make zacks win that much more legitimate) and piss off don that his golden goose lost (3 days before his other teams loss when mox spanks Hobbs) and drive more a wedge between don and will forcing Kyle to make a choice (not my brain jumping right back to cakeys will Claudio Kyle fic high key rec)But this is tk and wills first PPV as a full time aew worker it’s probably gonna be him

Samoa Joe Vs Swerve Strickland: OUR FIRST EVER BLACK AEW MENS WORLD CHAMPION!!!!!!

[rosesandalfazemas]

@engportevents

3. Your best version

Spanish version

Windsor.

That was undoubtedly the first stone upon stones that the Englishman could call "home." Although at first there had been only two towers and a small wall, over the centuries, technology and the importance of existence, Windsor gradually became a region in itself, covering hectares of extension in both buildings and complexes, roads, fields, hunting grounds, rural zones and urban areas.

It had been the place of birth and death of almost all the sovereigns of the nation, and was the undisputed home of the youngest of the Kirklands for many centuries, until the evolution of the world caused him to move with the royal family to new residences; but they always returned, inevitably to the same place, with some new excuse that only showed how deep the roots and the blue blood of their people had, connected beyond the obvious.

Its existence was so important and powerful that the castle, along with the Emerald Bastion in Ireland and Stonehenge in Scotland, were the only structures that were also transfigured in the Dreamworld; for its force in human history was such, that it refracted like the image of a mirror. Points so powerful that they were half of the complex called the Great Gray Castle, one of the most important spiritual structural bases in the West.

“Here we are…”

For this, they had to navigate much deeper than they usually did, conscious in reality with their humanoid skins. And a previous step.

"Meu Deus..."

Gabriel’s steps were light as he made his way down the carpeted hallway, until he was facing the leaves at the entrance to the room. Arthur looked at the guard in the background and gestured for them to spread out a bit; he took a key that no longer belonged to that time, from his pocket. In a quick gesture he opened the old but well-preserved wooden doors, with the original engravings that the couple remembered, stretching out his arms and sliding the leaves backwards.

“The door…”

"The same one," the blond smiled amused. “They’re the passage to the Christian paradise we chose back then, when inexperience made us more tense than we should have been.”

"Well, I was a little older and you had just gotten used to functioning on your own, after learning from Francis. It was quite a challenge for you.”

“Of course.” he smiled tenderly. “It was quite an adventure. But there was time for me to prepare this one for you.”

"It's true." He looked at him for a second. “What's more, I remember it took three tries to make this door, because it never reached the palace intact; something occured and the door arrived broken.”

“Ah yes, all the tension activated my magic; those poor souls took quite the scare” he laughed with a hint of bitterness. “ But after that I learned to control it…”

"... to use conscientiously."

“... to use it conscientiously, yes.”

The brunette smiled, a hint of sarcasm on his lips, and returned to the door, giving it a onceover before entering. He remembered the craftsman who had carved the doors, on days full of joy and bewilderment. He had come over to show off the idea, dirty and nervous, between stern knights in silver armor. And it was Portugal himself who chose him.

For some reason, all the descendants of that craftsman still had a connection to the Royal British Family to present day, offering their services at more sophisticated levels.

"It's like a time travel, marido," he admited, looking all over the room. “It's maravilhoso.”

"That's why I wanted to bring you, because of the expression on your face. I love it.”

Gabriel turned and smiled at him. They continued the tour, walking slowly between the corridors and the decorations of each corner; carding his fingers between some things, both melancholy and pride.

The entire wing had been planned out when the alliance was announced, and built up a couple of years later. With a view of ​​the Chapel of Saint George where they had been married, passing through the red room and the white drawing room, the old bedroom had been covered, decorated and then painted with blues and ochres, because Gabriel liked marine colors, replacing the reds a young Arthur had preffered.

The huge windows had been conserved, and through time they had added heavy curtains that let the light in. On the opposite side, facing north, were three huge standing mirrors with their own vanity table, two internal bathrooms, two work desks, a loveseat, a common library against the wall, two closets with walking room to change, recreation tables close to the door and a large piece of furniture that kept specific glassware for the refined alcohol stored in it, with its glasses and glasses gifted from all the courts of the world.

The bed, next to it, was still as immense as the first, with its dark oak colored carved headboard and high footboards; lined with white and blue velvet curtains, held in place by long golden cords.

In front of it, the walls were a pewter blue and the ceiling white, with hanging gold decorations. Saint George, patron saint of both nations, was painted on the ceiling just like a silhouette, whose sword pointed to the heraldic shields of both houses over the fireplace that was on one of the walls. 

The metal scale ornaments showed who this room belonged to, and why entire generations of humans were never allowed to be there.

“Everything looks the same as I remember.” Portugal walked in, England closed the door behind.

“I wanted to keep it this way. With all the happy and bitter memories.” the blonde spoke, his hands were in his pocket. “I did not want to skip over any details, it is not intended to be a fantasy.”

“Yes, I can sense it in the air.” The Portuguese looked at him sideways, while looking over the base of the steel shields on the wall, with a melancholic look.

“We made love in front of the fire many times, on the stone floor and fur rugs, with those sea storms the winter brought and cooled the whole room.”

"And on the other hand, overwhelmed by the summer heat, we argued much more when we were in bed." continued Gabriel. “We did everything backwards.”

"It was the charm of the marriage." Arthur walked towards him.

Gabriel smiled sadly when, after kissing his husband's hand, his eyes of that strange aquamarine went to a corner, landing on one of the tables near the room's central library.

“There’s where you yelled at me for the first time, I remember, and you threatened to go get our alliance act and tear it up with your own hands, condemning its writing to a hellish fire.”

Arthur blushed violently, looking to the side.

“... I said that?”

"You were angry. You found the letters that Antonio's king had with mine, and you considered it an infidelity in, what you felt, it was monogamy. You were hurt and jealous, and that hit you like an anvil.”

“Yeah, I'm not specifically proud of my reactions in the first decade. However, you didn't reproach me for that behavior afterwards, because you knew it was based on personal stupidity.”

“It wasn’t. You were young, you were scared and you were afraid that I would leave you. But I knew that I loved you and that it wouldn’t happen.”

"Well, there's the age difference," the other pointed out, with a hint of amusement. “You were already more on your feet. I had just stopped being a wild rabbit that Bonnefoy had tamed, wearing a metal armor that was too big for me at our wedding.”

Gabriel laughed slowly.

“It's part of your charm.” he kissed his forehead affectionately, letting go to continue the tour of the room, reviewing each object and piece of furniture, until the turn led him to the foot of the bed. “But you didn’t bring me here to remember our rights and wrongs."

"No, of course," he answered, walking towards him.

"Then, my dear husband, I look forward to hearing from you what you want to do here."

Arthur took his hand and lead him to sit on white feather padding, leaving him on the edge. Then he knelt on the ground and rested his elbows on the other's knees, getting between his legs and looking up at him with the expression of an anxious child.

“By my command, his place preserves all the things that we have gone through in our history. Only a few creatures that still walk the Earth can say that they have experienced what we have, together.” His tone lowered, showing solemnity. “And although time and sea have sometimes distanced us; wars or famines were only breaks from what really unites us.” he took the other’s hands and left the one that tied the weeding ring on top. "Something much deeper than vows in this reality."

"We can't go directly to the Dreamworld," replied the dark-haired man, catching on the intention. “You’ve taught me that you have to go in phases. Human reality is far away.”

“Not from here; in this bubble in which I keep the memories condensed on the walls, the memories on the floor and still drawn in the inks of the library books, witnesses of our time together, it will allow us to travel there at that level of depth and in full consciousness.”

"... So we don't need an ecstatic state to find it?"

The Englishman blinked suddenly, letting go of the hand and pouting childishly.

"...Hey, don't mock me, I do want to fuck you."

Portugal's laugh was as unexpected as well received. It was contagious, and dissipated the tension the conversation gave them.

"Well, that's really a way to get back to the present," he smiled mockingly, the freckles on the nose more visible due to the blush. Gabriel brushed the blond bangs back with his fingers, uncovering the forehead that always was unnoticed by the hair and his thick eyebrows.

"Did I ask a question outside of the lesson, professor witch?"

"It's clear that you don't pay attention" he raised an eyebrow, following the game “. So I'll give you a … practical lesson.”

Taken advantage of by the position, Arthur rose to his feet and leaned over Gabriel, pushing him under himself and laying him down on the bed. He supported all his weight, one that Gabriel received with a big smile, hugging him from behind and seeking his mouth to deepen a long kiss.

"Mmh, amor..."

“Relax, I'll lead… ”

Pale hands traveled to the sides of the other's torso, beginning to undo the buttons and push the fabric. The tanned hands undid the belt and released the trousers, opening the shirt more. Arms stretched out and both legs spread, making the other's work easier with a coordination that left no doubt for how long they had been lovers, between the intense kisses that sought to bite and get deeper.

"Ah! Arthur…” 

"We'll take it slow, okay? Seeing you naked is a problem right now, my control begins to break.”

“Bem.”

The Lusitanian raised his arms, while the Briton finished undressing him. A sidelong look and a complicit smile accompanied the silent acts, until Portugal was completely naked.

“You know, Ludwig told me this is a fetish.” he pointed himself out, still dressed. “I think we have nothing left to try, however. Still, seeing you like that makes me—“

"Marido, you're rambling again," he snapped his fingers at him, amused. “You said you were going to go for a practical lesson, but don't take it too literally.”

"Is that a bossy tone I'm hearing?" Arthur feigned an offended question, while Gabriel spread his legs, fully exposing himself against the head of the bed, tucked between the pillows.

"I'm a king, what did you expect from me? Begging?”  He smiled maliciously, “You must serve me. It is your conjugal duty, especially in our bed.”

Still dressed, the blond crawled over to the other, caressing the knees and lowering his hands to the huge scars on the thighs of both legs, pressing them. The brunette's reaction was reflected on a sigh and his growing erection.

“Damn the moon that guided my path to ever cross your own, gypsy. You only get me turned on.”

“Everything turns you on, Arthur. You are a pervert with beautiful eyes.” He rose his brows. “Stop making excuses about my so-called luring sorcery.”

“It’s real; I could only be comfortable with another witch, and here you are, giving me orders.”

"Are you going to fuck me or not?"

England applies pressure onto the scars, making the other moan loudly.

“I said we’d go slow, my dear husband.”

“Mhm… I’m getting desperate, do something before I go insane and stop listening to you.”

“As you wish.”

Arthur leans down onto the other’s hips, taking the hard member into his mouth. The skillful mouth made the lusitanian bang their head against the headboard of the bed, raising his eyes to the ceiling, half closed. Moans built up in his throat and he held onto the wooden bedposts, while his partner’s dominance made him feel like an anvil.

“Arthur!”

“Give yourself to me the way I do to you, no conditions.” The other asked for, “The way we did when we first made our vows. Just like that time…”

“Sim, sim.”

Arthur undoubtedly showed a great power; perhaps the most powerful nation in Western Europe, even with all its setbacks. But there was no action or comment from him that went unnoticed by anyone in the world; from a caress to a red button that he pressed, or how many cubes of sugar the ideal tea should contain.

Greece was right in thinking that his existence generated tidal waves; some that maximized his husband's bodily pleasure, found in the warmth of his mouth. Something that perhaps only a couple would endure and that would kill a mortal with a heart attack.

When the blonde spread the tanned legs with false kindness, holding them by the knees, the noises coming from his mouth were more obscene, causing a more intense arousal. Little by little, every soft word, etiquette rule, or dress code fell apart, as each piece of clothing was ripped open, a button broken off, and a zipper undone.

“Let me see you.”

Arthur kissed him again, letting the wandering hands continue their work. He was half dressed, and beneath him was Portugal, naked and ready. Pausing for a moment to caress the edges of his face, moving gently down his shoulders, arms, chest, waist, and thighs.

“This is your best version.” He whispered against Port’s lips, focused on the other’s pupils.

“Esta é a sua melhor versão.” Portugal repeated, reaching for the other’s hands with his own and interlocking his fingers.

They smiled at each other, conjuring up an old ritual they’d always shared. Something the old tribal women from here and there, between the Calé and the Celts, had taught them over time. Something that evoked a recognition among creatures conceived like those; long-lived and almost infinite, with thousands of folded sides in many dimensions. This way, they focused on a single form: the one that brought together a bit of all of them, and made it plausible to channel any quality of the other sides; since it was the most powerful, tangible and consistent.

The human form.

A breeze from nowhere blew gently into the room, bringing with it a strong scent of roses. The emerald eyes on Portugal seemed to shine in the soft gloom of the room. The answer was immediate: the pupils of a strange-green sea seemed to lighten up just a little, and a wave of lavender appeared around them. A brightness that called to another, in many places at once. Both smells could be felt and seen, surrounding and enveloping them like cocoons.

"You look beautiful like this, the real you." Gabriel whispered, obsessed by the vision above him. The blond smiled lazily.

“Then you should hold me closer, dearest, because for this trip I am the channel through which you must pass.”

"Oh, must I... ?"

“Indeed. That's why I prepared you with my mouth before.” he raised his thick eyebrows.

"Well, I won't deny that it's a pleasant surprise." Portugal laughed slowly, still caressing the pale skin. It’s been a long time since it was my turn.”

“It's your luck'ey day, mate. I’m not complaining too much either” he shrugged. “It’s always a pleasure when we switch”

“Bem! Someone was in the mood and didn't tell me.”

The blond laughed slowly and then positioned himself over Gabriel, allowing his hands to relax the sensitive skin, in ascending and descending all over his body. Eyes closed and a lazy smile, Arthur let himself settle down, until the warm hands on his cheeks made him see his lover’s face again.

"Ready to ride?"

“Yes.”

Arthur rested his hands onto the other's chest, deep kiss to hide his moaning. The Portuguese's hands found his pale waist and beyond, touching his ass to hold tightly and tenderly to make the ride easier.

“Ngh!”

“Just relax.”

After a moment everything became more gentle and the fingers more inquisitive. Arthur bit his lip, smiling and running his tongue over his mouth, anticipating the oncoming pleasure when he felt the tip of the other’s member at his entrance.

“Stop overthinking, Gabe, you’re making me anxious.”

“That’s the idea.”

Suddenly, Portugal sank him down quickly, and provoked in Arthur a lewd cry that turned into laughter and then a deep groan.

"Aaah yes! This is what I wanted! You're perfect.” Kirkland sat down better, biting his lip and facing towards the ceiling with half-closed eyes. “Just a little more... a little-“

“Mhh!” Gabriel frowned at the tightness, but the next thrust pushed him fully into his partner, sighing with relief and pleasure.

The breeze was more intense between them, the scent of roses and lavenders sweeter, until everything began to mix and instead of wisps of dust in the air, threads of light began to form, like spider webs that could barely be seen when hit by the sun; and it stopped, shining like gold. And again. And again.

Suddenly, it was night and day; and it was winter, and spring, and summer, and fall; there were noises, music and then silence; as if they passed between people and events with great speed.

As their bodies synched into rhythm and Arthur began to ride Gabriel, the sharpness of those golden threads around them began to narrow, surrounding them; they were everywhere, they were part of everything; they even came out of them. In those movements, their strings began to braid to a point where they looked like two creatures woven from the same skein, barely distinguishable from each other.

"Aah!"

"Ah-Arthur!"

But they didn't seem to notice; they only felt the building pleasure of where they were connected; one that grew closer and closer to orgasm.

"Gabe-!"

It all happened at the same time; the climax, collapsing onto the other's chest and hugging each other, squeezing their arms, as if they were going to disappear. But they laid horizontally on the bed, breathing heavily.

When they parted ways and looked at each other, they were no longer the ones from the mirror of the human world.

When they looked out the window, the skies were pink, the sun blue, and the fields orange.

After many centuries, they had come to the Dreamworld together.

***

[haggishlyhagging]

“It was hard to reconcile the self-denying "essence" of woman's nature with the cultural atmosphere created by a consumption-centered economy. Here was a society which claimed to value individualism above all and which exhorted everyone to devote themselves to the search for personal gratification. Yet one half the population seemed to be committed, by their very anatomy, to a life of renunciation and self-denial. The obvious objective sorts of explanations—that most women were economically dependent on their husbands, that abortions and day care were virtually unavailable—had no place in the psychoanalytic worldview. The only logical way to reconcile woman's commitment to suffering with the overall cultural commitment to pleasure was to assert that, for women, suffering was pleasurable. The psychoanalytic construction of the female personality found mounting cultural acceptance from the thirties on, and by the forties and fifties—the height of the permissive era—the Freudian faith in female masochism stood almost undisputed.

For women, even sex was to be an exercise in happy self-denial. Female sexual pleasure had become respectable enough, by this time, for therapists to prescribe it in cases of overprotection or other forms of maternal maladjustment. But a woman's journey to mature female sexuality, like the way to "true motherliness," was a mournful pilgrimage. First—as she outgrew her girlhood—a woman had to renounce the pleasures of the clitoris and attempt to transfer all sexual feeling to the vagina. In Freudian theory the clitoris was a tiny—and laughably inadequate—version of the penis. To cling to the clitoris was only to invite humiliation by comparison to the large and masterful male organ. When a woman accomplished the task of abandoning the clitoris, she symbolically set aside all masculine strivings (penis envy) and accepted a life of passivity. The "rich reward" for all this was supposed to be the pleasure of heterosexual vaginal sex, which the penis-envying, clitoris-identified woman could never achieve. (Lundberg and Farnham said of the penis-envying bed partner, "The woman's unconscious wish to herself to possess the organ upon which she must depend militates greatly against her ability to accept its vast power to satisfy her when proffered to her in love.") But in psychoanalytic theory vaginal sexuality actually provided a fresh experience of powerlessness and debasement; Helene Deutsch described it as an experience of "being masochistically subjugated by the penis." Psychoanalyst Marie Bonaparte took the theory a step further, commenting that woman's masochism, "combining with her passivity in coitus, impels her to welcome and to value some measure of brutality on the man's part." Bonaparte seems to chuckle reassuringly as she adds, “actually, normal vaginal coitus does not hurt a woman; quite the contrary.”

Needless to say, masochistic sex was intimately linked to masochistic maternity.

The wish for maternity . . . is a factor so favorable to vaginalization [the transfer of sexual feelings to the vagina] that . . . highly domestic women are often best adapted to their erotic function . . . Psychical inacceptance of the maternal function and defective maternal instinct [are] . . . frequently related to the normal failure in women to establish the erotic function.

Carrying the theory of female masochism to an extreme, Helene Deutsch argued that the relationship between orgasm and labor was so great that the two experiences were really "one process," and one might speak of orgasm as a "missed labor."

The idea that women were masochistic seemed to solve everything. Woman's lot, from a masculinist point of view, consted of menial labor and sexual humiliation. But as a masochist, these were precisely the things that she liked and needed. (The explanation of "masochism" is so convenient and totalistic that we can only wonder why the psychomedical experts didn't think to extend it to other groups, like the poor and racial minorities.) But at the same time, the idea of female masochism signaled the mounting bankruptcy of sexual romanticism theory. Once, women had been lured into domesticity with promises of intellectual challenge, activity, and power over the household and children. No one had argued, in the early-twentieth-century mothers' movement or domestic science movement, that women had to resign themselves to motherhood, that they had to give up anything. Energy, intelligence, and ambition were precisely the character traits the scientific mother needed to run her household and raise her children. To say now, at mid-century, that it was not energy, but passivity, that held a woman to her home, not ambition, but resignation, not enjoyment, but pain—was to say that from a masculinist point of view the female role was unthinkable, and that those who fit into it were in some sense insane. The theory of female masochism stood as an admission from the psychomedical experts that the feminine ideal they had helped construct was not only difficult to achieve, but probably impossible.”

-Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women

[undisputed-queer-a]

Lesbian Heel Shenanigans

As we continue our look at queer moments of representation in in 'our great sport' and as I continue to doubt that phrase I am brought to Survivor Series 2014. Obviously at this event Sting showed up in WWE for the first time, a shocking development that no one expected because of Sting’s long standing attitudes towards the company. Especially considering he had worked for both of WWE's biggest competitors (before AEW that is) WCW and TNA. Sting even turned down working for the Dub in the 2000s...but I hear you "What does Sting debuting in WWE have to do with the title?" really to be honest nothing I just didn't much want to talk about Nikki Bella Vs AJ Lee at the same Survivor Series. Was that funny? Probably not. Maybe it confused you because it didn't match the title idk. And I know I pick what I write about but like it's really bad. So to set the scene in August 2014 Nikki Bella turned on her sister saying and I quote "I wish you died in the womb." find the clip it's gloriously bad, and even though I feel bad making fun of her line delivery but it's...it's really something. So in the following moths they feud as you might expect. having a six minute match at Hell In a Cell in October and a two minute match on RAW in November. This feud I believe won the WON Worst Feud of the year for 2014 and universally panned by fans. I also think that one of their matches had the stipulation the classic personal assistant stipulation which made Brie Nikki's like servant for a bit. I'm one hundred percent sure this happened but I trust myself enough to mention it.

Okay so Survivor Series, Nikki beats AJ Lee starting her historic 301 day Diva's title reign (I wanna do a whole post on that belt. It's not got much to do with LGBTQ+ stuff but eh who cares.) but you wanna know how she won this match? Brie kissed AJ which distracted her, Nikki hits the 'Rack Attack' (not a great name IMO) and wins within 33 seconds. F*cking b*llshit (still not dure if the censoring is a good idea/whether I should do it or not.). Now I don't know why this happened. Like any of it but why did they book them to kiss? Why is Brie basically committing sexual assault kissing someone wo doesn't want to be kissed? And why are Nikki and Brie cool with each other again with no explanation? Nikki said she wished Brie died in the womb and then made her life hell why are they allies again? AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

It's genuinely maddening why was a couple of months of story telling (admittedly not good storytelling) undermined by strange Lesbian Heel Shenanigans. It's stupid and weird and it also kind of alludes to the predatory lesbian stereotype. It's all around awful and I honestly have spoken on this topic for too long.

Anyway this has been a....I don't actually know

This has been Undisputed Queer-a.

Slay The System, Shock The Cis-tem, and see you next Monday.

[disregardcanon]

okay so @petsohp and i recently watched players (2022) by paramount and by god guys it was GOOD

Paramount’s Players is a complex, Shakespearean tragedy. No, I'm not exaggerating. This mockumentary about esports has some of the tightest, most compelling characterizations that I’ve ever seen. It’s also a great examination on how having motives that LOOK the same, on the outside, can create conflict. 

While there are a lot of characters that have some weight on the narrative, it primarily centers on the relationship between Cream Cheese and Organizm. These are both their league of legends handles and I’ll be using them for this analysis since it’s their primary identifier in the show. 

Cream is one of the founding players of the professional team, Fugitive. He is an “aging” player (late twenties) who’s been in the business for years and plays “support” to different “ADCs”, who are the heavy hitters on a team. His first ADC was someone that he idolized that left them for greener pastures and is not always… kind or respectful of their past relationships. 

Before that ADC left, Cream and Fugitive came close to a decisive victory in the North American Championships, but Cream made a mistake early in his career that cost the team badly and has never quite recovered his pre-mistake sense of ease and ability to be PART of a team rather than the undisputed “leader”. 

Organizm is a seventeen year old who is very talented, driven, and has difficulty seeing past his own goals. He is hired by the team’s owners to become the new ADC and face of Team Fugitive. His arrival is met with a lot of conflict from Cream and the rest of the team because he is untested, has difficulties communicating, and replacing a more seasoned player who is a good friend and team player. 

Org brings his own hangups to the group on TOP of his youth. His family who made fun of him for his interests in the past is now very supportive of the idea because it can bring them money and fame. His older brother, who used to bully him for playing league of legends at all, is now attempting to be his manager. 

Cream initially rejects him outright because of the way that he came to the team, and it takes a long time for the two and the team to build up the trust and synergy that they need to be successful. 

But they do it! Organism learns to communicate better with the team and trust them, Cream learns to trust him, and the team as a whole comes out on top of the North American Championship. 

That’s the big goal that Cream Cheese had, was winning this competition to prove that he could. The rest of the original team is riding the high of achieving this thing that they’ve worked YEARS for… but Organizm is a bullied child prodigy. He’s still chafing at the fact that he isn’t, demonstrably, the greatest League of Legends player on the planet. 

The rest of the team called it a night after they won the North American championship because that was their personal goal. Going to “Worlds” was just icing on the cake. They didn’t super think they’d get there and winning that wasn’t really their goal. They were basking in a victory that they’d spent years trying to achieve, while Cream was saying “yo Org you’re the best you’re the greatest you’re wonderful I’m so glad that we got you the BEST ADC! WOO! My legacy right here!” Which both activates some of his trauma with his brother only deciding that his interests matter since they could get him fame and money and taking credit for it, as well as prickling at him because he knows that isn’t true and if he doesn’t keep fighting and fighting and fighting it never will be. 

Fugitive Gaming achieved their goal that took them years and years of working for. Org didn’t. Winning the US Championships were not He was just like “okay we got that punch on my card and now we need to try our absolute hardest to win Worlds”. Which is a reasonable thing for a professional athlete to want, I think. If your team won like, the United States National Soccer Tournament and THEN went to the World Cup and didn’t take the World Cup seriously because they just won the part that mattered to them. 

But this is the United States Mens’ Soccer team… they were never going to win the World Cup, right? It’s an honor just to be invited. (not for the star rookie who wants to be the best player that ever existed) 

So what I’m saying is that Organizm decided that Fugitive Gaming wasn’t taking competition seriously enough for his liking and he left. I think that it won’t work for him well in the end, but it’s GREAT because it’s perfectly in character, could have been solved with some communication, and creates a great amount of emotional stakes going into a season 2. 

[rhlgull1331]

A Few Pro Wrestling Matches from 2022 (in chronological order) ((this post is long , sorry))

{4.75 stars & The Beautiful Excess award}

Just 3 weeks after having a legitimately perfect 1-hour match, they have to follow it up with something that matches their previous brilliance without being too similar. The easy solution was to further the game of one-upmanship present in their first encounter but with half the length. Main difference here is that the challenge Danielson presented to Adam Page went from "can you keep up with me, champ?" to "can you handle me headbutting you for 10 actual minutes?" Yeah, it's probably not a great idea for Bryan Danielson, owner of prowres' most valuable brain since Bobby Heenan, to engage in vicious head-based offense... but I guess he was fine. Who are we to question The American Dolphin?

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

{4.5 stars & The Overcoming All Odds award}

Adam Page was AEW's best world champion and I doubt I'll change my mind until we see a champion come out on top in a manner as bonkers as this. You've probably seen a few deathmatches this year? I've only seen a few throughout the year. No single ultraviolent spot made me react the way Adam Page bouncing off the stairs and landing chin first against the ring post made me react. One thing I've slightly overlooked is how Lance Archer, for one more night, got to be a fucking star. It's a shame he didn't carry this momentum for much of the year.

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

{4.25 stars & The King's Road Triumph award}

When Y2J lost the AEW title in 2020 it seemed to me that he would be closing the in-ring chapter of his career within 2 or 3 years. I was verrry wrong. He's had the best prowres year of his life as far as I'm concerned. I have a cynical tendency to hold Chris Jericho to the standards that both he and his fans insist he is at. A fair 75% of the time, he misses the mark that I would expect from a candidate for 'Greatest Of All Time'. This is one of the exceptions where he really hit a home run. The aforementioned cynic in me wants to hand it ALL to Eddie Kingston, but that wouldn't be fair. Jericho helped set up the dramatic heights of the bout just as much as Kingston helped in executing them. It was one of the closest 'duo-minded' matches you could see all year. I imagine both guys shared only a quick glance before walking to the ring, both knowing exactly how the match was gonna go.

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

{5 stars & The Most Cathartic award}

I simply cannot do this justice in such few words. The feud between Punk and MJF was magical television. Every week was a highlight of ALL wrestlingI watched this year. Punk's promo where he invites Max to be. his. valentine. Followed of course by Friedman's promo where he reveals his 'origin story' of sorts, which is the undisputed best promo he's ever done. The feud was nothing too complex in the grand scheme of things, it's a grizzled veteran vs confident young guy story at its core... But it means a lot more to a gal like me who knows CM Punk's history. Someone who watched Punk as a kid and began to wonder what he was doing before he was in WWE. Learning about Punk's pre-WWE days invited me to find more Ring Of Honor matches online which inevitably led me to everything they had to offer. I found more about the American indies, I found New Japan and Pro Wrestling NOAH, I found my niche. And I can personally trace it all back to the time I learned that CM Punk pinned Austin Aries and then told a fable about an old man and a snake.

.....

The match was pretty good too!

Acute satisfaction came from seeing MJF finally get his comeuppance by way of a flatback bump into thumbtacks. Thanks Wardlow, you sexy man!

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

{4.25 stars & The Better Than BOLA award}

(No, i didn't only watch AEW this year) Every couple of years in pro wrestling you find that one. The one who just ticks all the boxes. "Speedball" Mike Bailey is that one for me. They just know how it all works. Couple them with someone who also happens to tick all those boxes and you get this match. These two had had a match for 2022's Battle of Los Angeles tournament, which was fine but I felt it went a bit longer than needed. Well I thought it did, but it turns out this match here is only 4 minutes shorter than their PWG match. The difference is night and day, although some of the moments are carried directly from that initial match. It's just a much better execution for the most part.

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

{4.5 stars & The Comedy Bullshit Award}

I love Jackass. I love Sami Zayn. You'd expect this to be an incompatible pairing, considering how explicit all of Jackass' content is, but the easy workaround is to have this match work as a straightforward comedy match rather than anything exceedingly violent. Let's not kid ourselves now, in what world would it be a good idea for Johnny Knoxville to have a legitimate pro wrestling match? He's had more concussions than Mick Foley. The action is as competent as a WWE prop-comedy scene could've been. If it were Johnny Knoxville with anybody else then it wouldn't be on the list. Samuel Zayn is the patron saint of giving a hundred and ten percent.

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

{4.25 stars & The Bleedin' Gums award}

There are few ways to genuinely shine on TV when you've come up through the independents, even in AEW's world. Most of the time, crowds are familiar enough with a talent so that they don't have to establish much more about themselves that isn't able to be seen online. Wheeler YUTA took things a step forward by not resting on his laurels and instead finding a new way to stand out. In this case, he gets promptly massacred by Jon Moxley. The amount of blood that flows from YUTA's head could fill a pool. The one moment where he's face-up on the outside, face fully coloured in red, the money shot for Wheeler if there could've been one. Mox don't slouch either, he puts up one of his best performances all year and that's saying a lot. The speed when he starts hitting those Hammer&Anvil Elbows is remarkable.

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

{4.25 stars & The Denzel Washington award}

This fight is a cult underground jazz record that was only on vinyl for 20 years and then inexplicably found its way to streaming after some weirdo celebrity found it and loved it. I feel it aimless to analyse this match as a match, since it's portrayed as a gang fight that just so happens to be in front of a crowd. We get a lot of wild moments throughout, my personal favourite being when Danny Garcia hits a Piledriver onto Ortiz or Santana from the apron onto stairs immediately after J.R says "Stop posing to the crowd, nobody's looking!" I could list off all the cool moments but I'm more inclined to praise Eddie Kingston for a bit. How is it possible for someone to feel so genuine when they are trying to light a man on fire while covered head to toe in another man's blood? I'd like to stop for another second to show love to the owner of that blood, "Daddy Magic" Matt Menard. This fuckin guy bled like a Funk Brother and then covered himself in mustard with those cuts still fresh. What a madman.

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

{4.75 stars & The Best Sequel award}

yeahyeahyeah I know The Briscoes ain't the most jam-up guys in prowres, but they can still craft a fantastic match when they need to. FTR are unfortunately in this negative space with fans right now, because Dax Harwood (FTR Bald) is being outspoken about things that aren't exactly popular or fun to talk about. I don't know why Cash Wheeler (FTR Not Bald) is getting flack too but that's only because I imagine when Dax isn't around him, he de-spawns from the area like a video game NPC. My point is that these two teams made some magic with this match despite their inherent flaws as teams and as personalities. Perhaps a bit of length could be cut and perhaps a hope spot or two could be removed, but dammit this is the kind of pulpy, high-stakes tag team wrestling I adore. Plus I just love the 2/3 Falls stipulation. That was a big bonus for me. (btw their first and third matches are great too but i like this one more)

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

{4.5 stars & The Marvel Movie award}

This match was unstable. (that's a joke) Imagine the unsubtle and overproduced fighting in a Marvel Movie action scene and now imagine that being applied within the confines of a wrestling ring and voila you have this match. WWE have this weird thing where they have main events for the world title feel complacent in their content. Roman is able to have a good/watchable match but only when he's with someone that he's wrestled before. He and Brock "Punches Moons Into Smaller Moons" Lesnar have had some stinkin' rotten no-good bouts before, just look at their match at WrestleMania this year! There was no optimism from me nor my pals, whom I watched SummerSlam with, that this match would be worth a damn. ... But then the tractor came out and the match shot from a solid 3.5 star snooze right to a 4.25 classic. ...... Then Austin Theory (yuck) got his SHIT ROCKED and it went up another quarter. Sometimes it's worth giving the benefit of the doubt. You may just turn the night around in your favour.

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

{4.25 stars & Loud As F**K award}

I knew this match was good when Starlight Kid no-sold a Butterfly Suplex from the top and I had no qualms about it. This match is a sleeper hit that comes right in the middle of a round robin tournament where nobody expects it. Fast-paced and hard-hitting, two very common attributes for this promotion's best matches but quite bloody apt in this case. There's one bit where I swear Giulia's elbow pops out of place with how hard she swung it at SLK's jaw. It's no wonder both these wrestlers are my favs in all of STARDOM when they're this captivating in such a "throwaway" match during a Round Robin tournament.

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

{4.25 stars & The Welsh Irish Pride award} This match is how to show you appreciation to the long-time star in Sheamus. Let him wrestle someone with no restrictions. Nothing but the hardest of hits and amplest of steps taken to get those hits in. This match is subtle for the longest time, waiting for a right moment for Gunther to get ruthless. If this were to be Big Gunth vs anybody else then it would probably open with one of his trademark CHOPS (in all caps), but they play it coy and they don't have Gunther hit Sheamus with a CHOP until a good few minutes in. And only from there do things escalate. The crowning moment being when Sheamus drops Gunther with the High Cross. A move that is always in Sheamus' moveset in the video games but one i've not seen him use since maybe 2011. If Sheamus' legend status in WWE was in question before this match, then that debate was taken out back and kicked up the backside after the crowd's standing ovation.

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

{4.5 stars & The Bloody Tears award}

When it comes to deathmatches, I like to see men willingly bleed in pursuit of money and glory. Jun Kasai is one such man who has legitimately done that for 20 years. Look at his back and you'll see the shell of a tortoise. El Desperado is a New Japan star who I, admittedly, held in little regard beforehand but now i think i want to see this man succeed in every way possible. Jun Kasai is comparable only to a decrepit deity with aspirations for mayhem and reverence for suffering. He takes all the worst ideas for wrestling moves and then makes them more brutal, for a random example imagine a Canadian Destroyer. Right, you've seen one of those before? Picture that move off the top rope now. "Actually let's amp it up a bit and let's add a Double Underhook so then Despy can't protect his head on impact." Oh! Okay then Mr. Kasai. "Let's also add a stack of chairs so the aforementioned impact is a smidge more painful." Whatever you say! "That ain't the end of the match by the way." Fine by me! Don't stab me, sir!! It's a madman's match for sure. It also gets a bit sentimental during the end-match promo, but i must declare that I was a little distracted that point because i had seen the best deathmatch of my damn life. ------------- That's my list! I hope you'll want to watch some wrestling now. - Rhlgull

[genshinconfessions]

hi this is just gonna be a rant abt "the power 5" or how I like to call them propaganda 5 lol

these 5 are yapped abt as the greatest ever, even now when they have better counterparts

honestly all 5 of them are great fanfic material (I do like them all as characters) but not so great to play

bennett is the worst out of them all. People will not let him go. ofc when chevy came out there were comparisons, and people still said bennett was better... chevy does much more at c0 than him. and doesn't require much energy recharge. bennett can go up to 300% since he needs his burst. also his pyro self application is terrible. overloaded, vaporised, melted, burned....

meanwhile, everyone hates doris (electrocharged and overloaded is the only problem, heals way more than bennet does) & barbaras (freezes but not constantly, heals after) self application

xiangling: energy black hole and needs bennett to function. people go on abt icd but icd doesnt mean anything if I can't burst without bennett... she also doesn't do any dmg without bennett.

(the amount of people that use her with lyney or ganyu is ridiculous... they're not close range characters, it's feels awful playing like that. we have dehya burn-melt for ganyu, but still people will not let dehya have no Ws.)

luckily over the years people are starting to realise how bad these 2 can get. I hope mauvika can offer an alternative (it's not looking good in the leaks)

xingqiu. i value energy recharge if you haven’t realised. I value characters that can work with their skill. his energy qol con is at c6!!! wtf!

the yelan slander that has surrounded yelan vs xingqiu gets on my nerves - yelan has energy issues. not as bad as xingqius. she has a skill cool down of 10 seconds which means she can do her skill twice in a standard rotation, xingqiu cannot which raises his and the teams er requirements. I don't even like yelan and yall are making me defend her lol

sucrose. needs c1, c2 and maybe c4. you can get away with just c1. she might be faring better than the other 3 above. there's not much propaganda with her since kazuha exists. I can't believe that when kazuha came out, people didn't like him and thought of him as 2nd sucrose 😭

fischl. honestly faring the best. off field, skill based, low er needs. her ascension passive is good, but only in teams with lots of electro reactions. other than that she's okay. the only thing is, is that people will say "she's the best!!!" with their c6, cracked build... ofc she's the best to you. she's just okay to me. she has limitations as a 4 star (10 sec uptime on Oz is fine ... if it didnt ramp up her er needs more & if she didn't have a 25 second cooldown). however when people start saying fischl is better than yae miko, I just don't understand.

fischls propaganda is more undisputed and so more annoying bcs nobody wants to question whether she's actually that good.

my beef is not with these characters, it's with people parading around the same ideas when it's 2024. furina and yelan is better than xingqiu (a popular theory crafter/guide maker tried to say otherwise). kazuha is better than sucrose. xiangling is horrible to play and soon we'll get an alternative. bennett is made for pyro carries, you don't need to slot him into everything.

it's annoying to look at a guide or smth and see bennet or xiangling be on every team and nothing else. no one wants to talk abt the 2nd best. some parts of this fandom is allergic to using any character that's not the absolute strongest (not best is slot ≠ not viable!!!) .. it leads to less innovation with certain characters and so no one plays them, and so no one innovates... it's circular

I go straight to the character's mains if I want information, most theory crafter and guide makers are very general and probably haven't played the character they're reviewing much anyway (spreadsheet calculations is like fighting against an enemy that stands still, no need to dodge with perfect ping - its impossible to play out in game). mains know what is good and bad abt their fav character, its better to go to them

.

[tseneipgam]

"The other day at school, between classes, I forget who, but someone was saying, "I was born a girl, so yeah I definitely want to have a baby of my own eventually." Where does that come from, though? Does blood coming out of your body make you a woman? A potential mother? What makes that so great anyway? Does anyone really believe that? .... It feels like I'm trapped inside my body. It decides when I get hungry, and when I'll get my period. From birth to death, you have to keep eating and making money just to stay alive. I see what working every night does to my mum. It takes it out of her. But what's it all for? Life is hard enough with just one body. Why would anyone ever want to make another one? I can't even imagine why anyone would bother, but people act like it's the best thing ever. Do they believe that, though? I mean, have they ever really thought about it? When I'm alone and thinking about this stuff, it always makes me so sad. At least for me, I know it's not the right thing. Once you get your period, that means your body can fertil- ize sperm. And that means you can get pregnant. And then we get more people, thinking and eating and filling up the world. It's overwhelming. I get a little depressed just thinking about it. I'll never do it. I'll never have children. Ever."

"...even the idea that all is one and one is all vanishes from your mind, and you realize you're the universe, and that there is no you at all. She said that people can become Buddhas, too, but honestly I don't really get how that's differ- ent from enlightenment or whatever. Anyway, that's what Buddhism is all about. And that's why priests read sutras at funerals. So that the person who died can become a Buddha. But there was this other thing she said that really stuck with me. Even when a woman dies, she can't become a Buddha. Because women are supposedly dirty. A long time ago, all these important people wrote about how dirty women are, and why that's bad. So, basically, to become a Buddha, you have to be reborn as a man first. What the hell is that? I didn't get it, so I was like, Jun, how do you do that? She was like "I don't know." I asked her how she could believe any of that. It was crazy. Things got pretty awkward after that."

"The lower shelves were where I kept the paperbacks I fig- ured I'd never read again. The names on the spines, Herman Hesse, Raymond Radiguet, and Kyusaku Yumeno, had all faded in the sun. Lord of the Flies, Pride and Prejudice, and my Dostoyevsky, The Gambler, Notes from Underground, and The Brothers Karamazov. Chekhov, Camus, Steinbeck. The Odyssey and The Earthquake in Chile. These were the undisputed giants of literature; but from a different angle, this classic lineup was a shameful, even mortifying symbol of my willing- ness to truckle to the received wisdom of the canon, a stance that undeniably marked me as an amateur."

"Writing makes me happy. But it goes beyond that. Writing is my life's work. I am absolutely positive that this is what I'm here to do. Even if it turns out that I don't have the ability, and no one out there wants to read a single word of it, there's noth. ing I can do about this feeling. I can't make it go away. I recognize that luck, effort, and ability are often indistin- guishable. And I know that, in the end, I'm just another human being, who's born only to die. I know that in reality, it makes no difference whether I write novels, and it makes no differ- ence if anyone cares. With all the countless books already out there, the world won't notice if I fail to publish even one book with my name on it. That's no tragedy. I know that. I get that."

"From that point on, it's all a mystery. Say an egg is fertilized. It's going to be a girl, and she hasn't been born yet. In the baby girl's ovaries (scary to think, but she's already got them), she's got seven million eggs, more than she'll ever have after being born. From then on, the number only drops. When the girl's born, she's got maybe a million, and she'll never get any new ones After that, it dips way, way down. By the time a girl is my age, she's got around three hundred thousand left, and only a small number of those fully develop. Only those eggs can get you pregnant. It's scary to think about it, really scary. Before I was even born, I already had everything I needed to have a baby of my own. In some ways, I was even more prepared than I am now. Set up to give birth, before I was even born ...This isn't just in books, though. It's happening now, as we speak, inside of me. I wish I could rip out all those parts of me, the parts already rushing to give birth. Why does it have to be like this?"

"Your life would have been better if you never had me. Think about how great everything would be if none of us were ever born. No happiness, no sadness. Nothing could ever happen to us then. It's not our fault that we have eggs and sperm, but we can definitely try harder to keep them from meeting."

"Just think about it. They're on a pedestal from the second they're born, only they don't realize it. Whenever they need something, their mums come running. They're taught to believe that their penises make them superior, and that women are just there for them to use however they see fit. Then they go out into the world, where everything centers around them and their dicks. And it's women who have to make it work. At the end of the day, where's this pain that men feel coming from? In their opinion: us. It's all our fault--whether they're unpopular, broke, jobless. Whatever it is, they blame women for all of their failures, all their problems. Now think about women. No matter how you see it, who's actually responsible for the majority of the pain women feel? If you think about it that way, how could a man and a woman ever see eye to eye? It's structurally impossible."

"You've got what it takes to be a great novelist. Don't squander your gift. Everyone goes through times when they can't write. The important thing is that you keep on going. If you want to write, you have to make it your whole life. I mean, you knew that when you started, right?" I stared down at the round tips of her shoes. Nothing to say. "How is having a kid going to help you? Get a grip. Kids. Do you know how boring you sound? Great writers, men and women alike, never have kids. When you write, there's no room in your life for that. You have to go where your stories take you. You owe that to your writing. Don't listen to Rika. What she does isn't literature anyway. It's pop. It's trash. What she writes anyone could write. Sure it's readable and makes people feel cozy, but her prose is hackneyed and derivative. She churns stuff out like nothing for a reason. That isn't literature. You can do better than that. If your story is putting up a fight, that means it has a heart. That's all that matters. What's the point of writing some novel you could breeze through in a month or two? The struggle means something. It means every- thing. I'm here for you. I'm with you. I'm working on this with you. The story's going to be great. I believe in you. You can write something that nobody else can, I'm sure of it."

"It's never crossed their mind that bringing a child into the world could be at all violent. Hey, everyone loves surprise par- ties, right? One day you open the door, and everyone's there waiting for you, ready to surprise you. Here are all these people you've never met, never seen before, congratulating you, big smiles on their faces. Parties are different, though. You can go back through the door behind you, but when you're born, there's no leaving. There's no door. There's no way back to how things were before. I hate it to say it, but not everyone likes sut- prise parties. Most people go around believing life is good, one stant blessing, like the world we live in is so beautiful, and despite the pain, it's actually this amazing place."

"She could hear the other children playing, even see them, way off in the distance. How could they be living in the same world? If the grass covering the river's edge could talk, what would it say? Growing its whole life in the same spot. Stuck there. What about her? What did she have to say? Staring off into the distance, Yuriko remembered the time that she got separated from her mother in the meadow. The smell of grass was almost suffocating. Crouching so she could get a closer look at all the shiny flowering plants, she blew on their leaves and asked them: "What makes us so different? Does it hurt to be you? Does it hurt to be me? What's it mean to hurt, anyway?" Jostling on the fragrant breeze, her new friends wouldn't answer her."

"

"Amazing, right? If I was sulking on the ferris wheel, nor wanting to go home, or just bent out of shape, if I'd been felt. ins with a friend or Mum had yelled at me, my dad would say, When things get rough, just think about the Voyager: He rold me it was always out there, flying through the darkness. Not metaphorically. Literally. At any given moment, somewhere on earth, it was directly overhead." I nodded. "Kind of a lot to tell a kid. But I think I understood what he was saying. We're always getting caught up in our problems, but what's a hundred years? Human lives are so short. The whole of human history is nothing when you stop and think about outer space. I don't think he was trying to tell me I was going to die at some point or anything like that. It wasn't about me at all. More like there would come a time when the sun would burn out, when human beings and this planet would no longer exist, but the Voyager would still be out there, drifting ever deeper into space." I nodded. "You know about the golden record?" "What's that?" I asked. "The Voyager is carrying a record filled with the sounds of our planet. Waves, wind, lightning, birds. Greetings in over fifty languages. Music from across the globe. Information about human reproduction, our anatomy, the way our bodies change. The colors as we perceive them, the things we eat, the things we care about. Our daily lives. Deserts, oceans, mountains, animals, musical instruments Science, culture, everything. It's all on this record. There's a needle in there, too, so you can play it." I imagined a single gold-colored disc. "Someday, if someone in another galaxy finds the probe. and they can make sense of that record, they'll get a sense of who we were. By that time, we'll be long gone, all of us. But at least we left a record. In that sense, our memory can live on"

Vocab:

"yakiniku" commonly refers to a style of cooking bite-size meat and vegetables on gridirons or griddles

"motsu" literally translates to guts and "yaki" meaning grilled so: Grilled Guts.

"mugicha" =Japanese barley tea

"izakaya" =a type of informal Japanese bar that serves alcoholic drinks and snack

“motsuni” usually refers to a soup dish that has been simmered for a long time

a "happi" is a traditional tube-sleeved Japanese coat, usually worn only during festivals

"Oden" is a Japanese fish cake stew simmered in a soy sauce-based dashi broth and served family style in a donabe clay pot in the wintertime.

an "oshibori" or hot towel in English, is a wet hand towel offered to customers in places such as restaurants or bars, and used to clean one's hands before eating.

"Harusame" = glass noodle

"Dashimaki Tamago"= rolled omelet made with egg and dashi

"Samgyeopsal, samgyeopsal-gui, or grilled pork belly is a type of gui in Korean cuisine"

"Pachinko" parlors are widespread in Japan, and usually also feature a number of slot machines (called pachislo or pachislots

"Okonomiyaki" is a Japanese teppanyaki, savory pancake dish consisting of wheat flour batter and other ingredients cooked on a teppan.

"Takoyaki" is a ball-shaped Japanese snack made of a wheat flour-based batter and cooked in a special molded pan. It is typically filled with minced or diced octopus, tempura scraps, pickled ginger, and green onion

[plywoodsinchennai]

10 Ways to Protect Kitchen Plywood Cabinets from Water Damage

Introduction

Plywood cabinets are a popular choice in kitchens due to their durability and affordability. However, they are susceptible to water damage if not properly protected. In this article, we will explore ten effective ways to safeguard your kitchen plywood cabinets from water damage, ensuring their longevity and maintaining the aesthetic appeal of your kitchen.

Here are ten effective ways to safeguard your kitchen plywood cabinets from water damage:

Give Veneer Finish to Plywood

Put veneers from Lakshmi Timbers and Plywood on the outer surface of the cabinet, irrespective of the type of plywood you use to build it. The veneer wood sheets will provide an additional layer of protection against moisture.

Cover the Base of the Cabinets

Cover the inside floor of the cabinet with old newspapers. It is easy, cheap, and can absorb a lot of moisture, protecting the insides of the cabinets. You can easily remove the newspapers and put in new ones. Therefore, a budget-friendly option to go for is the newspapers. Seems like a great idea.

Put Rubber Mat Under the Sink Cabinet

You can go for a cabinet floor mat specially made to resist water and moisture to keep the sink cabinets base free from damage. And the mats made of rubber are flexible and easy to clean. They can hold water so that your cabinets remain in good condition for a long time.

Try Out Keeping Soda Lime in the Cabinets

Put a small bowl of soda lime inside cabinets made of plywood. The soda lime will absorb moisture and keep the insides dry. Toss out the used soda lime every month and refill the bowl with fresh lime for the best results.

Get Your Cabinets Cleaned

Wipe the cabinets clean with a dry, soft cloth at least once a day. This will prevent moisture from building up on the surface. Not only that, doing so will also remove a thin film of dirt that builds up due to the vapours of oil that cabinets often collect on the outer surfaces.

Opting for Boiling Waterproof (BWP) Plywood

In BWP plywood, the material is made of bwp resin which has a good degree of resistance against moisture and is great for use in a kitchen, where moisture levels are usually high. Use boiling waterproof (BWP) plywood to build the cabinets. Lakshmi offers top-quality boiling waterproof plywood in Chennai.

Ensuring Proper Ventilation

Proper ventilation is crucial to prevent moisture buildup inside cabinets. Install exhaust fans or vents to improve airflow and reduce humidity levels in the kitchen.

Proper Sealing

Ensure that all plywood cabinets' edges, corners, and joints are properly sealed with a high-quality sealant to prevent water from seeping in.

Avoiding Excessive Moisture Exposure

Be mindful of steam from cooking appliances and avoid placing hot pots or pans directly on the cabinet surface to prevent warping or swelling due to excessive heat and moisture exposure.

Repairing Any Damages Promptly

Inspect your cabinets regularly for any signs of water damage such as swelling or discoloration. Promptly repair any damages to prevent further deterioration.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Lakshmi Timbers and Plywood emerge as the undisputed leader in the plywood Suppliers in Chennai. With their unwavering commitment to quality, reliability, and customer satisfaction, they have earned the trust and loyalty of clients across the city. For all plywood needs, discerning customers need look no further than Lakshmi Timbers and Plywood.

FAQs

How often should I clean my plywood cabinets? Regular cleaning with a dry cloth is recommended, but if spills occur, clean them immediately to prevent water damage.

Can I use waterproof sealant on existing plywood cabinets? Yes, waterproof sealant can be applied to existing cabinets to enhance their water resistance.

What should I do if I notice signs of water damage on my cabinets? Promptly address any signs of water damage by repairing or replacing the affected areas to prevent further deterioration.

Are there any specific cleaning products I should avoid using on plywood cabinets? Avoid using abrasive cleaners or products containing harsh chemicals, as they can damage the protective surface of the plywood.

How can I improve ventilation in my kitchen to prevent moisture buildup? Installing exhaust fans or vents and ensuring proper airflow can help improve ventilation and reduce humidity levels in the kitchen.

[neetzee]

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