#well. more chill in comparison to others in the cult

[halfblackwolfdemon]

This is amazing, aaah!

I've recently been in the dpxdc fandom, it's awesome af and I just had an idea, a weird prompt.

We usually see Danny is or ends up as part of the batfam: Damian's twin, the new adoptee, something like that.

So how about Danny being Talia's older brother? Ra's favorite and the one who set all the standards that Talia, and later Damian, have to reach?

The original idea was: Danny left the LoA when he was young enough to never get to meet Bruce, so he never knew his sister had a son and thus that he was an uncle, he never knew his nephew was a hero nor that his nephew's father and his family were heroes.

So when an adult Danny, Phantom since 14 and High King of the Infinite Realms since 18 (or whatever age you feel like, I feel like that experience makes him very indifferent to a lot, and his morals are more similar to those of ectoentities than living things), met the JL and more specifically the batfamily, he felt the pits in RH and more slightly in Robin, and knew they were on some level involved with the LoA, so he just asked

"So… How did you get dad to let you use the pits?"

To which the batfam responds with "YOUR DAD!"

Then a second idea, derived from the og, was:

JL and JLD found out that the Ra's al Ghul was trying to summon the King of the Infinite Realms, so they go to stop him but fail to do it in time, then Danny in ghost king form appears.

He sees the scene, sees that his father is the one summoning him, and goes

"Oh hey dad!" as he transforms from his eldritch form to human form "You know you can call me right? I have a phone, no need for all this crap" .

Everyone, even Ra's, is shocked.

Idk sounds funny in my head

Feel free to make a fic out of this and sorry if I sound too formal or if there are mistakes, English is not my first language and I'm learning it

It is also my second time publishing something and I don't know how to use tags

[redflagshipwriter]

Hot Ghouls in your Area ch 4 progress

(read other sections of this and more stories here)

Danny floated miserably through the stacks, pulling out books that looked remotely plausible. Maybe he needed help. Jazz would help him without laughing at him, right?

Sam and Tucker absolutely would not. They would think it was hilarious that he had so little game that the universe assigned him a boyfriend via Jeremy Waters. 

‘As if I could pull a guy who looks like that,’ Danny thought wryly, and then felt a little bad about himself in comparison. Jason was, uhhhh, physically blessed. He was tall and well proportioned and his hands- Danny fought down a shiver and resisted the urge to steal another look. Jason was out of sight anyway.

Well. He still hadn't seen Jason's face. Maybe he was ugly! You never know. Or maybe under the helmet it was totally smooth, no face. That would be neat. Danny paused mid motion to imagine that.

Haha. Sick, man.

That concept cheered him up a little as he grimly opened the first book and started skimming for likely words like marriage, spouse, and concubine. 

He didn’t bother reading anything in detail. He stuck a post it note on each page with a relevant term and then put the book in a pile to take back to his dorm. This wasn’t going to get solved in a day.

Ah, shit. Danny paused. This wasn’t going to get solved in a day. He bit his lip and looked off in the direction where Jason had disappeared to do his own research.

He truly didn’t have time to devote to this right now. He was not willing to drop his school life in order to solve a sudden problem. Jason was just going to have to cope with whatever timeline Danny could manage without setting his life on fire.

On the other hand, Jason was a human guy who probably had a life of his own at the biker bar/fight club. Whatever the hell required that kind of outfit probably kept him busy! So Danny couldn’t like, just leave him in the castle to chill.

“Not to mention the fact that he shouldn’t be able to live here very long anyways,” Danny muttered to himself.

That was troubling him. Frankly, Jason should have been intolerably uncomfortable in the ghost zone for this long without specialized protective equipment. It wasn’t meant for humans.

‘What did Jeremy do to this guy?’

Yikes. Did this mean… Did this mean Danny should have given that little cult thing more credit? But Jeremy was just such a doofus. He grimaced. Embarrassing. Why were his enemies so embarrassing? This shit didn’t happen to, like, Wonder Woman.

Danny buried himself back in the books to avoid the growing suspicion that Jason might have been uhhhh magically altered to make him an appropriate concubine to a dead king. That thought sucked! He didn’t like it. He really didn’t like the idea of bringing it up with Jason.

When he had what he thought was a good first round of research, Danny shelved the books he’d gotten out and went to find where his …

He whole-body flinched at the point where he needed to plug an appropriate noun into that sentence. 

“Jason?” Danny called, juggling books into a stack. “I think we should probably get you back to the re- the human world. Before something inexorable happens.”

A pause.

“I don’t think you know what that word means,” Jason said. A book shut. Danny headed towards the sound, phasing through shelves effortlessly. A spark of curiosity lit up at Jason’s voice. He sounded relaxed, even through the helmet’s filter. 

‘I want to hear his real voice. Bet it’s nice.’

Wait. What? Danny shook the thought away, discomforted. He plastered a wide grin on his face. “I don’t know any words,” he lied breezily. “I’m just ad libbing. Anyway!” He flopped dramatically down onto the big chair next to Jason’s, making sure to be extra physical to get a satisfying whumpf. “We really should go! I can get you to the human world, but, uh, I can’t promise to put you back where you came from.” He scratched at the back of his neck. “I think this is going to be a more than one day affair.”

Jason was watching him. There was nothing visible through his helmet, but Danny got the sense that he was tense, waiting for a threat. 

Which, what? Why would Jason feel threatened by-

Oh. Danny felt a knot in his stomach. Right. That made a lot of sense. He felt kinda sick. 

He didn’t let the feeling show through and barreled on speaking. “I don’t exactly have an easy way for you to contact me, but we probably need to stay in touch to fix this. Do you have any ideas?” 

The lie felt kind of gross. But he could hardly tell the guy; “I’m an engineering student in Gotham, you can just call my cell or come to the dorms.”

Jason seemed to relax at the cessation of control. “If you can stick around, yeah. I’ll get you a burner phone, exchange numbers. You’re not going to…” He trailed off. Danny felt a frown somehow. “You won’t have any signal here, actually. That won’t work.”

“I can make it work,” Danny assured him, hands up. “I mean, I can’t make it work here, or I would have offered to help with your tech. But I can pop in and out of the human world and check my messages.”

“That’ll work.” Jason’s helmet turned ever so slightly. “About the books…”

“You found something good?” Danny asked, impressed. “Yeah, awesome. Just be really careful with them, the librarian is a scary guy.”

Jason’s hand flexed over the closed book on his thigh. “I can take- how many can I take out?”

Danny scoffed. “I’m not your dad,” he said. “Whatever you can carry, man. You ready to go or do you need a minute?” He flipped back to his feet with a grunt. 

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

My starting point when it comes to the consideration of any issue relating to free speech is my passionate belief that the second most precious thing in life is the right to express yourself freely. The most precious thing in life I think is food in your mouth and the third most precious is a roof over your head but a fixture in the Number 2 slot for me is free expression, just below the need to sustain life itself. That is because I have enjoyed free expression in this country all my professional life and expect to continue to do so, I personally highly unlikely to be arrested for whatever laws exist to contain free expression, because of the undoubtedly privileged position that is afforded to those of a high public profile. So, my concerns are less for myself and more for those more vulnerable because of their lower profile. Like the man arrested in Oxford for calling a police horse, gay. Or the teenager arrested for calling the Church of Scientology a cult. Or the café owner arrested for displaying passages from the bible on a TV screen.

When I heard of some of these more ludicrous offences and charges, I remembered that I had been here before in a fictional context. I once did a show called Not the Nine O’Clock News, some years ago, and we did a sketch where Griff Rhys-Jones played Constable Savage, a manifestly racist police officer to whom I, as his station commander, is giving a dressing down for arresting a black man on a whole string of ridiculous, trumped up and ludicrous charges. The charges for which Constable Savage arrested Mr. Winston Kodogo of 55 Mercer Road were these:

‘Walking on the cracks in the pavement.’

‘Walking in a loud shirt in a built-up area during the hours of darkness’ and one of my favourites ‘Walking around all over the place.’

He was also arrested for ‘Urinating in a public convenience’ and ‘Looking at me in a funny way’.

Who would have thought that we would end up with a law that would allow life to imitate art so exactly. I read somewhere, a defender of the status quo claiming that the fact that the gay horse case was dropped after the arrested man refused to pay the fine and that the Scientology case was also dropped at some point during the court process was proof that the law working well, ignoring the fact that the only reason these cases were dropped was because of the publicity that they had attracted. The Police sensed that ridicule was just around the corner and withdrew their actions. But what about the thousands of other cases that did not enjoy the oxygen of publicity? That weren’t quite ludicrous enough to attract media attention?  Even for those actions that were withdrawn, people were arrested, questioned, taken to court and then released. That isn’t a law working properly: that is censoriousness of the most intimidating kind, guaranteed to have, as Lord Dear says, a ‘chilling effect’ on free expression and free protest.

Parliament’s Joint committee on Human Rights summarized, as you may know, this whole issue very well by saying ‘While arresting a protestor for using threatening or abusive speech may, depending on the circumstances, be a proportionate response, we do not think that language or behaviour that is merely insulting should ever be criminalized in this way.’ The clear problem with the outlawing of insult is that too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism is easily construed as insult by certain parties. Ridicule is easily construed as insult. Sarcasm, unfavourable comparison, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy can be interpreted as insult. And because so many things can be interpreted as insult, it is hardly surprising that so many things have been, as the examples I talked about earlier show.

Although the law under discussion has been on the statute book for over 25 years, it is indicative of a culture that has taken hold of the programmes of successive governments that, with the reasonable and well-intended ambition to contain obnoxious elements in society, has created a society of an extraordinarily authoritarian and controlling nature. It is what you might call The New Intolerance, a new but intense desire to gag uncomfortable voices of dissent. ‘I am not intolerant’, say many people; say many softly spoken, highly educated, liberal-minded people: ‘I am only intolerant of intolerance’. And people tend to nod sagely and say ‘Oh, wise words, wise words’ and yet if you think about this supposedly inarguable statement for longer than five seconds, you realize that all it is advocating is the replacement of one kind of intolerance with another. Which to me doesn’t represent any kind of progress at all. Underlying prejudices, injustices or resentments are not addressed by arresting people: they are addressed by the issues being aired, argued and dealt with preferably outside the legal process. For me, the best way to increase society’s resistance to insulting or offensive speech is to allow a lot more of it. As with childhood diseases, you can better resist those germs to which you have been exposed.

We need to build our immunity to taking offence, so that we can deal with the issues that perfectly justified criticism can raise. Our priority should be to deal with the message, not the messenger. As President Obama said in an address to the United Nations only a month or so ago: ‘Llaudable efforts to restrict speech can become a tool to silence critics or oppress minorities. The strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech.’ And that is the essence of my thesis, more speech. If we want a robust society, we need more robust dialogue and that must include the right to insult or to offend. And as, even if, as Lord Dear says, you know, the freedom to be inoffensive is no freedom at all.

The repeal of this word in this clause will be only a small step, but it will, I hope, be a critical one in what should be a longer-term project to pause and slowly rewind a creeping culture of censoriousness. It is a small skirmish in the battle, in my opinion, to deal with what Sir Salman Rushdie refers to as the ‘outrage industry’ – self-appointed arbiters of the public good, encouraging media-stoked outrage, to which the police feel under terrible pressure to react. A newspaper rings up Scotland Yard: ‘Someone has said something slightly insulting on Twitter about someone who we think a national treasure. What are you going to do about it?’ And the police panic and they scrabble around and then grasp the most inappropriate lifeline of all, Section 5 of the Public Order Act, that thing where they can arrest anybody for saying anything that might be construed by anyone else as insulting. You know, they don’t seem to need a real victim, they need only to make the judgment that somebody could have been offended if they had heard or read what has been said. The most ludicrous degree of latitude. The storms that surround Twitter and Facebook comment have raised some fascinating issues about free speech, which we haven’t really yet come to terms with. Firstly, that we all have to take responsibility for what we say, which is quite a good lesson to learn. But secondly, we’ve learnt how appallingly prickly and intolerant society has become of even the mildest adverse comment.

The law should not be aiding and abetting this new intolerance. Free speech can only suffer if the law prevents us from dealing with its consequences. I offer you my wholehearted support to the Reform Section 5 campaign. Thank you very much.

[duhragonball]

Now that you pretty much wrapped up the Baby Saga, I have to ask a question. During your original Dragon Ball GT Retrospective in 2019, you said that Baby is actually a good villain once you ignore that nonsense with the Machine Mutants and the Luud Cult and it seems like you changed your mind on that. Is Baby really a good villain or is he only a good villain in comparison to the other GT villains?

Let me put it like this: Baby is a good villain in the sense that he's thoroughly evil, and he has a consistent motivation to do evil things, and he also represents the opposite of what the hero represents.

I mean, he basically hijacks the whole world, and turns everyone into a population of slaves who adore him. He takes Goku's relationship with the Earth and flips it on its head. Now Baby is the Earth's hero and Goku has to fight against his adopted planet to defeat him. Baby doesn't train to get stronger. Instead he uses the strengths of others, like how he took over Vegeta's body and used the others' powers Bulma's scientific genius to enhance it.

There's also no depth that he won't stoop to. He fights dirty. He picks on defenseless enemies like Pan. He attacks, betrays, and abandons his own followers without a second thought. Baby is either a perversion of everything the Tuffles stood for, or he's actually what the Tuffles stood for, which is pretty chilling to consider.

And he's basically in a position where he has to be this vile, despicable menace. The Tuffles created him to take revenge and Tuffleize the universe. He can't just blow that off and become a farmer. He has to control other people's bodies and infect people with his eggs, because that's the only way he can achieve his goals. The closest he ever comes to doing anything noble is when he decides to kill Goku face-to-face, instead of taking over his body like he did to the others. And that turns out to be a huge mistake, since it allows Goku the opportunity to defeat him.

So he's a solid villain. He is not one of these mythical "good ideas" that GT apologists like to talk about. Baby's whole deal is just a mashup of past Dragon Ball villains.

He's a Tuffle doomsday weapon, like Hatchiyack.

He mind controls the entire population of Earth like Garlic Junior.

He's a Saiyan-hating autocrat, like Frieza.

He was created in some sort of incubation tank, and had to develop into his "perfect form", like Cell.

He uses Vegeta to achieve his goals, like Babidi

He uses the Oozaru form to turn the tables on Goku, like Vegeta.

He absorbs the powers of others to get stronger, like Majin Buu.

A lot of the Machine Mutant stuff is very reminiscent of Meta Cooler from Movie 6.

Again, it's not a sin to re-use ideas from other characters. I'm a firm believer in "Talent borrows; genius steals." The trick, though, is that you have to repurpose the ideas you take and disguise them like something original.

For example, the Androids Saga in DBZ was heavily inspired by the Terminator films. That's no secret; one look at Trunks' haircut and 16's everything should give it away. What makes it unique, however, is that Toriyama didn't just do a shot-for-shot retelling of the Terminator movies. His villains were created by a human scientist (Dr. Gero) instead of a supercomputer (Skynet). While the Terminators were relentless killing machines skilled in infiltration, most of Gero's assassins weren't even interested in killing their target, and they didn't even try to be subtle. All 17 wants to do is joyride in an ice cream truck.

Then you have Cell, who seems like he has more to do with Cronenberg movies than the Terminator franchise. He's an unexpected bad guy from an alternate future, kind of like Biff Tannen in "Back to the Future II," but he has all the powers of strong characters from the past, kind of like Serpentor from G.I. Joe. Did Toriyama swipe ideas from those stories as well? Maybe, but somewhere along the way, he ended up combining so many things together that he wound up with something original. The parallels are still there for critics to notice, but no one's filing lawsuits over 17 and Cell, because it's understood that they're distinct, unique characters, even if they were inspired by other works.

Baby's problem is that his creators just swiped ideas from just one property: Dragon Ball. And that's a terrible way to go about it, because the target audience is already familiar with Dragon Ball, so every time Baby does anything, the viewer is going to recognize it as something they've seen before in the same show. It makes Baby look rather authentic. You see him do stuff and he looks like he belongs in this franchise, because it's consistent with what you've seen before. But none of it is innovative because he's not doing anything new.

Now, if they had cast a wider net, and been a little more clever about it, Baby could have turned into something truly special. Suppose the writers had borrowed ideas from the 90's Batman movies, or "Knight Rider" or literally anything else. You'd have to do a lot of tinkering just to make it fit in to a series like GT, and that's where the creativity comes from. Then, when Baby does something, it's not going to be exactly like a time Frieza or Vegeta did something similar. He'd bring his own unique flavor to it. He'd whip out a gadget from his talking utility belt, and it'd be totally fresh.

I think this is why I like the concept of the Tuffles in general a lot more than I like Baby specifically. When I saw Kamin and Oren in Super Dragon Ball Heroes, I was thrilled, because it looked like someone had taken the Baby IP and done something genuinely fun with it. I think there's a mission in one of the games where Kami and Oren Tuffleize the planet Sadala in Universe 6, and you have to fight all the mind-controlled Saiyans to liberate the planet. It's basically the Baby Saga on a different location, but it still sounds a lot more appealing, because it's not saddled with Baby himself.

I sometimes think of trying to do stuff with the Tuffles in my fanfic, but I've never been able to come up with a good angle for it. There's a good story to be had from the Baby lore, but it's not the Baby Saga itself, because I just finished watching it, and it's a mess.

And I guess that's the trouble with Baby. Is he a good villain? Yeah, I think he clears the bar. Is he a great villain? I don't know if I'd go that far. But good? Sure, especially if you separate him from all the bullshit before his debut. But he's a good villain based on unoriginal ideas, and the execution was thoroughly botched. It's like if Tommy Wiseau put Dracula in "The Room". It doesn't matter how good a villain Dracula is, he's not going to come across well.

[autistic-britta-perry]

here for another 'let's connect qsmp to other show I've watched that nobody's going to know what I'm talking about' This might not be even accurate anymore idk i've not watched recently. SO. COBRA KAI!

team bolas dynamic of going from the people who were in the worst position and got killed to now being a very strong team that bonded through a cult-like loyalty and friendship. They're ALL bolas and if ANY of them is hurt they're ALL hurt. And then them feeling like they deserve to be in power and like anything they do is 'fighting back' and blue team's trying to make them look like the 'bad guys' when blue team's the one who started it, and they just embrace it and go okay I'll be your villain. All of that. is just like the cobra kai team from cobra kai tv show

Blue team's comparison doesn't work as well but it is a bit like the miyagi dojo in cobra kai too because they also think they're the good guys and red is not and are a bit hypocritical about what they're allowed to do vs red (which is a problem for red team too). And they're bonded but in a more chill way, and even though they're also having a miserable time because they didn't start out from absolute disaster their loyalty is a different one, it's more of a 'team' than an identity, their 'work' and 'personal' dynamics are more separate. And the relationships are more one-on-ones than like, an everyone always talking to each other thing. And they feel like red's attacking them and not playing by the rules.

I haven't watched the last few days I know some blue joined with red recently so idk how that changed dynamics if any and sorry team green but I don't think team green fits any of those really, they're the competent team that none of the teams have any real beef with lol.

For the comparisons, Daniel in cobra kai tv show teaches his miyagi dojo the way he's "meant" to and when he does do some underhanded things he justifies it as "well, cobra kai's evil, they had it coming". Johnny in cobra kai teaches them in a very probably bad way in theory way but that makes them all into fire-forged friends, and when THEY do bad shit it's like, well it's fine, you deserve to, you were getting beaten up before I trained you. One of the things I love the most about cobra kai is that cobra kai in the show it's all bullied kids and some of them have an arc of somewhat becoming bullies after fighting back because they enjoy the power and can't see themselves as the bullies because of their past. They get better, but tbh that is the way I'd see red team corruption going. (Clarification that they don't get bullied By Miyagi Do) And Miyagi Do only knows of them AFTER they've become powerful, didn't know them before, so they assume things of them and see them as the bad guys. But their past (which in qsmp purgatory is just that one first day for red team) is SO important for Cobra Kai and affects their own self perception so much. Anyway a lot of the show is just both teams and their leaders going at it and not communicating or realizing they're more alike than they think because they both think they're 100 % right and take any attack from the other as proof of that.

Anyway here's a montage of cobra kai's blue team and red team training for comparison.

Also Miyagi's style is a bit "boring but very good technique that works and that can be underestimated" whereas Cobra Kai's style is more chaotic and offense focused. This part probably doesn't work as much considering Bbh did a lot of offense as well but I thought the nerd tryhard team might appreciate that comparison lol.

Also here's one of my favorite cobra kai vids while I'm at it with these vibes i'm talking about and might be good motivation song for today idk man. Everyone's the hero! Everyone's the villain! And they get knocked down but they get up again! as they say (Spoilers! And comment if you like the vid)

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

The latest issue of the Obi-Wan comic has me wanting to write SO MUCH STUFF ABOUT IT it’s insane - but I’d have to brush up on Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now and Shatterpoint to be halfway coherent about it!! 

But!!!!

There’s this imagery of going up the river into the jungle to confront and probably kill a man tortured by death and war into a demented agent of death - with the risk of becoming the very same thing, and with the line between hunted and hunter blurring. It’s all swamp and mist and shadow and night! It’s that classic structure that has already been used in Star Wars so well! (In Shatterpoint, which was heavily inspired by Apocalypse Now and follows the same beats and atmosphere.)

We have that same insight into the pov character's struggle with the idea of killing a comrade who has lost their way, while questioning whether adherence to peace is even possible, or if it wasn't just denial and hopeless naivety.

Going up the river is a grotesque parade of dead bodies that chills the soul - and the living share the characteristics of the dead. The person looming over the story now inspires cult-like devotion in the other lost souls. It's SUCH an effective storytelling trope and one of my favorite explorations of war! Compare this to the previous issue.

This was the 'classic' examination of war: fairly straightfoward violence with clear goals that you either achieve or die trying, followed by the contemplation of how hollow and bitter victory feels.

This is the next step - there's no longer anything to fight for or against. Violence and death have become the very fabric of the world rather than an anomaly that can be rectified. Moral considerations have no weight and actions have no effect. The road is a river - you can't stray from it, and it only leads to one place, death (whether you want it or not. Anakin didn't want to kill Mekedrix, but he does). As Mekedrix says:

There's no point in virtue or honor or courage anymore, as all roads lead to death.

And the only way to escape this apocalyptic and perilous night and go back to the sunrise of the last issue (the sunrise that Obi-Wan kept seeking) is even more death.

It's so bleak but SO POWERFUL and effective. I'm not kidding, as means of conveying a tragedy go it's next to the perfect trope.

Going back to the cult-like aspect, with people being warped into symbols...

(I wish they'd make Shatterpoint into a movie just for this comparison. THE COMIC STRIP LOOKS LIKE ACTUAL FOOTAGE)

I'm going insane over these personifications of the outcome of war, shrouded in shadows and stripped of personhood that you find in desecrated old Temples.

People who can't connect to their names anymore or are robbed of their faces by the shadows or robbed of their health or cannot talk at all anymore (Shatterpoint). Obi-Wan keeps trying to remind Mekedrix that identity and life are what give nature and death meaning, but THE NIGHT IS JUST TOO DARK.

The art is SO GOOD. THIS IS THE FACE OBI-WAN MAKES WHEN HE KNOWS SOMEBODY IS LOST

From the very beginning of the story he KNOWS he won't save Mekedrix just like everybody who goes up the river into the Temple KNOWS what they'll find will be far beyond any hope of rescue. The question with that trope is never - will we bring this person home? - but what will we be when we come back?

I LOVE LOVE LOVE THAT WHAT DEFINES OBI-WAN IS THAT HE'S DEMONSTRABLY INSANELY RESILIENT TO THIS FORM OF HORROR. The original trope has the pov character coming back irreparably tainted. The variation in Shatterpoint has Mace's faith hanging by a string - by the end, he's beaten, bruised, exhausted and thoroughly tired of it all, and it costs him incredible pain and every last reserve of strength he has to make it through. But in this comic, Obi-Wan's crisis was last issue, when he could still see the sun, more so than in this one.

In this issue he's Anakin's rock and he's more focused on Mekedrix's despair than his own. HE'S CENTERED AND MOTIVATED BY THE THOUGHT OF PULLING PEOPLE OUT OF THE DARKNESS WHEN NOBODY CAN SEE THE LIGHT.

I don't even know where I'm going with all of this except that!!!!! The parallels and contrasts between William and Mace and Obi-Wan!!!! And Kurtz and Kar Vastor and Depa and Mekedrix!!!!!! The ART!!!!! THE POV CHARACTER NARRATING HIS JOURNEY UP THE RIVER INTO THE JUNGLE!!!!! THE IDEA OF A STORY ABOUT SEEKING A PERSON THAT TELLS YOU MORE ABOUT THE SEEKER THAN THE PERSON SOUGHT!!!!!!!! I just. It's good.

[lastemberss]

finished the vampire armand last night and i have so many thoughts. it's definitely the book that had me the most invested so far in the series, maybe because i just can't take lestat's self-inflicted problems too seriously lmao.

i'm going to quit my job to become a full-time marius hater. i didn't like him before (it's the paternalism) but now ohhhh hell for marius!! hell for 10,000 years!!

early marius/armand is such a tasty blend of horrifying and romantic, things got surprisingly explicit! and the drama... armand at like 16 breaking down the door with an axe because marius isn't talking to him? incredible. of course then it's all downhill from there.

the religious stuff was more interesting than expected, except when it got into memnoch territory. i skipped that book for a reason! why are we still talking about this!! but it definitely added to the tragedy of it all.

the indoctrination into the cult and what happened to the other boys is so nightmare-inducing, god.

and then when we get to iwtv uhhhh. armand, beloved, you're really the villain of that story and the justifications are just making it worse. what you did to poor claudia was. not being helpful. really funny that his explanation for not helping lestat when he came crawling to him is that lestat healing by himself would make him stronger. it was all tough love really. tower? what tower?

no mention of nicki either, wow!!

now i'm really really curious about how the show will handle the rest of the interview with armand there. what does louis even know at this point? daniel will for sure notice that louis's version of events is off. is armand going to just blatantly lie and we'll only get the truth from lestat later? if armand confesses his claudia-related crimes louis might just set him on fire. unless of course show armand is a better person but. that's unlikely. or louis already knows and that's why he's so dead inside???

but back to the novel. armand and lestat really both instantly fell for louis because he was just so beautiful and sad huh.

very little new info on louis and armand's relationship? just that they both learned how to be alone from it. ow.

also tragic is the absence of daniel, the few times he's mentioned are so fucking sad. and everybody wandering away from night island...

i know marius is useless in general but he could've at least killed santino. dude had all your children tortured and/or murdered and you're just having a chat with him??? then again as i'm typing this i realize he's not the only one to be remarkably chill about their kid's murderer huh.

it's so funny that armand apparently hates gabrielle. why her of all people. what has she ever done to you, she's just minding her own business.

hilarious that armand has a problem with lestat's "brat prince" nickname and is like "prince of what?? on whose authority???". but then that's because of their collective marius issues.

more fun info: louis likes baz luhrmann's romeo+juliet, because of course he does, and armand watches the x-files apparently.

i love sybelle and benji, their section feels almost wholesome in comparison with. everything else. like yeah ok armand is kinda recreating the relationship he had with marius and bianca with them but. in a healthier way, sort of. he's trying. he's supportive. i hope nothing bad happens to them. well. nothing worse.

fucking. marius.

[lamelinam]

The maid and the Cat, Ren and Akira: some musings

What gloomy love brightened the half-lives of the Sohmas’ most Cursed ones?

I often wonder what the relationship between the former Cat and his attendant would have looked like, twisted and sad as it must have been. Precious little is shown about those two, and only through Kazuma’s pov. We know she took care of and pitied the Cat, to the point that she even slept with him and bore his child. This is not unlike Kureno’s relationship with Akito. She might have treated him with the same kindness and devotion, distant, perhaps harmful, yet selfless.

Selfless? I think another way to extrapolate on the story of Kazuma’s grandparents is with Ren and Akira’s relationship.

Many great meta writers have already pointed out that those who fill in the positions at the extremes of the Sohma hierarchy, the Cat and God, or in this case the Cat and the idolized, deified family head, are foils to each other and are the ones that are dehumanized and isolated the most.

But now I think that you can also compare the way the previous Cat and Akira both chose ("chose" being a relative term in the case of the Cat) a romantic partner.

(Akira wasn’t God, but as the family head, he was worshipped just like Akito. His sickness also contributed to making him stand apart. Not only was he kept inside the compound because of his frailty, the hold that death had on him blessed him with this ephemeral, divine aura. “Was it the sorrow that befell him at such a young age that gave him that otherworldly beauty?»)

Both Kazuma’s grandfather and Akito’s father were doomed, Akira to die an early death, Kazuma’s grandfather to live the life of a living dead. Both were buried alive in the Sohma estate, either at the outskirts or at the center of it.

Both reached out to their progeny. (But Kazuma rejected the offered cake, and will endeavour to atone and honour his grandfather’s memory. Akito clung to every memento she had of her father and will need to learn to let go of him.)

And both the previous Cat and Akira found some measure of comfort in the affections and arms of their female caretakers, Sohma servants who saw their loneliness and expressed their compassion, though not in a particularly healthy way: Kazuma’s grandmother acting out of pity, Ren out of obsessive love.

It’s interesting to me how their respective position was reflected in their partners’ feelings : the imprisoned, despised Cat, Kazuma’s grandmother looked down on. The respected, otherworldly beautiful Akira was adored by Ren.

Kazuma sums up his grandparents’ relationship thusly:

Those correspond to the main "duties" that a wife is traditionally supposed to provide her husband.

The day-to-day caring.

Childbearing.

Attending their husband’s deathbed.

Obviously Ren wished she could have skipped the second one and be there for the last one. (I headcanon that she had prepared her last words years in advance, finding small pleasures and comfort, on the back of the wave of despair anticipating Akira’s death, in rehearsing the declarations of passionate love she would address to the dying man.)

The Cat’s companion attended her partner’s deathbed, seemingly very composed, even cold, as seen in Kazuma’s memories, while Ren, deprived of her husband’s last moments, that she felt were “stolen” from her by Akito (in reality by the maids :@), was mad with grief.

"The only one who can save him"

Those parallels make me wonder whether or not the Cat’s companion might not have developed a saviour complex, like Ren, both believing that they were the only one able to save this lonely, condemned person they were taking care of, and relishing it.

“I love you” vs "I pity you"

On Ren’s side though, it seems that she believes she truly saw Akira, as the person hiding behind that otherworldly aura, filled with sadness and fearful of death. Seeing that Akira agrees with her ("Ren noticed I was lonely"), fought against the Sohma leaders and regretted on his deathbed that he and Ren couldn’t reconcile, I believe this is not a delusion of hers. Her love was genuine and passionate, and she and Akira were happy. Unfortunately, that happiness didn’t survive her pregnancy, for she was also jealous and obsessed.

Kazuma supposes that his grandmother believed that she was doing something good. I wonder at her expression. It is shadowed, enigmatic. Is it a smirk or not, is she sad or not? i wonder whether she was selfless in her pity, like Kureno, or selfish like Kagura, perhaps feeling better by «sacrificing» herself in associating with the Cat for the sake of a miserable soul.

(Whatever you can say or imagine about her, Kazuma doesn’t seem to suffer from the stigma of being the Cat’s grandson, nor does he bear any trace of an abusive upbringing - in fact, he was among those doing the abusing - or even the echoes of the previous generation’s, so my guess is that she was an okay mother and grandmother... which would have made Kazuma’s disappointment and hurt at her words all the sharper... Like Tohru thinking of the zodiacs members she finds so kind and adorable secretly looking down on someone else she realizes she cares about more than she thought.)

There is no way to know how the Cat reacted to a pity-love. But considering Kureno and Akito’s relationship, this might also have been but a superficial balm, and potentially just as hurtful. Then it depends on the interpretation. Kureno’s pity cocooned Akito and kept her from moving forward, but the Cat was condemned anyway to an eternity of imprisonment. Moving forward was forbidden to him. And if his self-worth was already completely destroyed as his role and his treatment are meant to do, he might have just felt grateful towards the attendant. There’s no way to say for sure whether he would have been hurt or not by the truth, and I don’t know which option is the saddest!

... but I know what could be sadder. Because is the maid entirely to blame? We know that in Fruits Basket, love requires a measure of selfishness. The one cursed with the Cat has no self, no existence, no wants and no future, and they accept this fate. They believe they deserve it. (Which is why the Cat's Room doesn't need bars in the manga, nor locks. Rin was under lock and keys because either Akito didn't completely trust her to keep her word or she didn't want someone to discover her.)

It would be very difficult for someone to fall in love with a person who has renounced to everything, perhaps including love. Because who's to say that the Cat loved the maid too?

Recognition vs indifference

How depressingly fitting that we don't even learn the Cat's name, while Akira’s is remembered by all and echoes back and forth in the later part of the story.

Ren marrying the Sohma family head was such a big political deal it provoked a family schism. The Cat’s story with the maid gets completely ignored. It is probably known, just not "officially recognized", says Kazuma. Like everything related to the Cat, it was relegated to the back of the minds, in the dusty closet of the things that are uncomfortable to think about but that you tolerate if it doesn’t upend your little world-view. Ugh, some maid is being inappropriate with that monster! Well, as long as she doesn’t free the loathsome creature, who cares. (And she wouldn’t, because she’s no Tohru.)

In contrast, the maids of the main family thought that Ren was stealing Akira from their grasp. Ren didn’t seem to care for the family, and in a way, her love allowed Akira to also escape from them, "snatched away" by "that woman”, for the old attendant. Unlike the Cat’s attendant, Ren felt like a threat to the Sohma strict hierarchical system. (Fortunately, God will be born to bring back the right order of things, phew! Certainly she he will accomplish what Akira-san was momentarily too misguided to do and rid us of that woman!)

Inheritance.

Both women's profession of their true feelings deeply marked their progeny and the way they view relationship, whether personal or not, romantic or filial.

While her mother affirmed that "a woman only needs one man", Akito leaned on the love of the zodiacs ; Kazuma viewed and loved Kyo as a human and dreaded that his son would find himself in the same situation as his grandfather but also with the same kind of companionship. (His reaction to Kagura speaks of a long-held anxiety). But Ren's hatred for Akito coloured the way Akito interpreted her words, while Kazuma’s grandmother’s declaration shook Kazuma, his personal relationship with his grandmother notwithstanding.

This comparison isn't about good or evil, neither to judge those characters. Furuba isn’t about that. Obviously, they are not blameless. But it is very difficult to say whether or not Kazuma’s grandmother was wrong to act out of pity if it provided a bit of comfort to a prisoner. And is it surprising that Ren developed this saviour’s complex when it seems she was the only one willing to breach Akira’s isolation bubble?

Anyway, Takaya-sensei is really good at making foils. Either because she does it on purpose or because her characters are so deeply intertwined with the themes of the series the parallels appear on their own. But in this case, I don’t think it’s for nothing that the chapters recounting Ren and the Cat’s attendant stories follow each other (chapters 114 and 115).

Of course, this meta is less an analysis and more suppositions and conjectures (frankly, I wonder if I might not as well have written a fanfic). From the little we see, the Cat’s companion and Ren work as distorted yin-yang mirrors, their differences highlighting the similarities of their situations, from the ugly effects of the inner workings of the Sohma cult to the messed up inner workings of the heart. Genuine but obsessed, jealous love... Pity, perhaps self-serving, in the guise of martyred love.... One thing I can say for sure is that these two both gave me chills in their own way.

[obeiii-mee]

Hi! Im new to your page and i love your writing 💕 i have a request for demon brothers headcanons on how they treat MC after realizing they get anxiety from things like yelling/loud abrupt noises/ things like that? For example, they flinch, get quiet, or start fidgeting? Thank you!!!

Aww, thank you so much. That means a lot to me and I’m really glad you like my writing considering I have such a chaotic style lmao. Also, welcome to this mess of a blog. We give off ‘cult’ vibes but at least we have hot, fictional demons to make up for that.This was super sweet because I know for a fact every single one of them would be very understanding of MC’s anxiety of anything.

Enjoy!

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The Brothers with an MC that gets anxiety from loud/abrupt noises:

Lucifer:

-He may not get anxiety from it, but Lucifer definitely prefers a quiet atmosphere/environment where he can focus on his work

-Which makes living with his brothers a living nightmare because they don’t have the capability to shut the fuck up

-That being said, he catches on rather quickly that you do not feel comfortable around loud noises in general

-There’s a limit to what he can do but every time you feel like you need a bit of peace and quiet, know that you are more than welcomed into his office at any time of the day. Even if he isn’t there

-He definitely prioritises your mental as well as your physical well being seeing as living with demons can have a massive effect on your sanity

-He’s not judgemental about it either because, while he doesn’t understand why loud noises may cause you to be so anxious, he understands that humans are built differently to demons

-Lucifer has no chill at times and will tell all of his brothers off every time they make a big scene, whether in public or private

-He can be a tad overprotective at times but he means really well, especially if he sees you’ve gotten oddly silent for the past few minutes or has caught wind of you fidgeting during dinner

-I don’t know how much I stressed so far about the observation skills this man has but I will keep doing, he can spot you flinching at loud noises from a mile away

Mammon:

-I believe that he can read people really well and can recognise when a person is feeling a certain way

-But he’s still a complete dumbass so he might still miss a few clues hidden in your mannerisms

-Like, he realises you’re uncomfortable but he doesn’t understand the degree of it or why it exists

-You’ll have to be blunt about it and tell him about your deal with loud noises because otherwise he will be stressing about it for weeks on end

-Dating him as a result of your anxiety over loud noises can prove to be...difficult

-He’s a very boisterous and obnoxious being, everytime a particular emotion of his flares up, he gets significantly noisier

-Whenever he enters the room you happen to be in, you’re forced to cover your ears and flinch because he has a way of announcing his presence

-But he tries so incredibly hard to act calmer around you and he so hates it when he fails to do so because he knows how uncomfortable you get as a result of him screaming like an idiot

-His brothers usually blame him when you start fidgeting because they assume he’s the cause of your rising anxiety and he started to believe it as well

-He sees that look on your face and he is just gutted

-He is ready to get on his knees and start apologising profusely until you forgive him for being such a noisy bastard

-The times other things/people are the cause of you going weirdly quiet, he will use his threatening tactics

-“Listen ‘ere, you’re makin’ my human uncomfortable so if you don’t shut the fuck up, I won’t let you see the light of day again. Do ya hear me?!?!”

-He says to the godfather clock when the sound of it striking midnight startled you

Levi:

-He 100% understands

-He hates loud noises as well and they usually make him scamper back to his room lol a rat in hiding

-Levi is slightly more immune to them however seeing as his brothers do have a habit of raising their voices all the time

-But do not worry, human, for he will protect his Henry from the annoying sounds people in general make at the cost of his life

-Take shelter in his room, please

-He loves having you in there and usually you only have the noise of video games in the background

-If you’re there and an anime he’s watching is getting too loud, he will turn it down for you ahead of time

-Sometimes, he can be as noisy as his brothers, especially when he rages at one of his games

-Bu he’s so quick to shut up once he realises you’re there

-And then, like Mammon, would start apologising for being not only an ugly otaku but an obnoxious one at that

-So y’all end up comforting and cuddling each other because.....uh....mutual hatred for loud things?

-Also, he would decapitate his brothers for you if they crossed a line (like he’s not really a Yandere but he’s a demon with demonic instincts to protect I guess)

Satan:

-Much like his father eldest brother, Satan also prefers silence in general

-After all, it’s a lot easier to read when his brothers aren’t there to muck about the place and make too much noise

-Humans are very different to demons, especially psychologically speaking and he understand that

-That’s why he doesn’t question it when you follow him into the library to seek refugee from his siblings

-If anything, he’s rather happy he gets to spend some time with you so the two of you sit in silence, each of you doing your own separate thing

-He knows if something is bothering you again, he can probably notice you suddenly start fidgeting in public

-He’s very cautious with you when you are in this state as he deems you are at your most vulnerable

-One time, a teacher at RAD raised his voice too high while scolding you for not paying attention and that earned an involuntary flinch from you

-That guy was officially on Satan’s shit list from then on, just so ya know

-Overall, he’s very sweet and patient with you and absolutely does not mind spending an entire day with you indoors away from loud noises

Asmo:

-He has no problem with loud noises whatsoever

-If anything, he loves being in crowded public places like The Fall, since partying and socialising is one of his many talents

-Not to mention, he’s so used to own family being so loud it just doesn’t affect him that much

-However, when you first arrived and he noticed just how badly you reacted to loud noises, he started avoiding things like clubbing as if it were the plague every time he hanged out with you

-Asmo needs social contact but he is more than willing to spend time indoors with you if it makes you feel better

-Or going out shopping in a relatively quiet shopping centre

-I mean, getting his nails done with you by his side sounds absolutely amazing to him

-So as much as he loves making noises and spending time in rowdy places, he’s always going to make an exception with you

-Always

Beel:

-Beel is unbothered by noise

-Sure, he does like it better when his brothers aren’t fighting and things are peaceful around the house

-But, he’s not fazed by yelling, loud music, heavy things falling and thudding against the ground etc.

-He picks up on your anxiety riddled gestures the first time Lucifer has a go at his brothers in front of you

-Because you started fidgeting like crazy and in that moment he was the only one that saw it

-So Beel grabbed your hand and led you outside of the room and Lucifer was so caught up in the moment he didn’t even realise it

-Probably, maybe he just let it go

-Basically, Beel decides that he shall protect you, the tiny human in comparison with him, from any loud noises that might startle you

-He will do it, do not test him

-One time, Mammon was screaming because he was chased by the witches and it made you flinch enough for Beel to see

-A couple hours later, Mammon disappears completely and shows up at your door, looking absolutely traumatised but genuinely apologetic and says sorry

-Sometimes people forget Beel is a demon

Belphie:

-I’m gonna make a wild assumption and presume that if you are vulnerable to loud noises, you are very likely a light sleeper

-If that is the case, (apologies if you’re not) then Belphie would be very quick to notice because a lot of shit goes down at night time and most of the time, it’s loud

-Belphie doesn’t have a problem with it, he can sleep through anything, even his brothers and especially Lucifer

-But he definitely notices if you aren’t cuddled up to him any more, even if he was asleep, because you sat up in bed suddenly at a random noise at 3am

-Note: That was Asmo sneaking back into the house trying to be as quite as possible but tripping and breaking a window

-“You’ll have to get used to that. My brothers are idiots, they don’t know when to be silent.”

-He prefers quiet places like the attic so he can actually sleep, but again, could do so either way so it doesn’t matter to him

-But he is going to be...let’s say ...upset.... if you were to wake up from a nap session because of someone something

-“Make one more sound and I’ll rip your tongue out.”

-Even when you aren’t napping, he gets very angry when people get unnecessarily loud, especially with you reaction

-But that just gives him an opportunity to bring you to the attic or something so the two of you can actually chill by yourselves for a chance

-Beel is invited obviously, but Belphie is just as happy to be left by himself with you

-Ironic how much his feelings for you have changed, huh?

————————————

So I really finished this by the end of the week. Hope this is actually some good because I spent all of my brain cells on an another giant request I’m working and the rest were used to write this. Thank you for sending me requests though guys! Now every time I get bored I can just answer your asks. Have a nice Monday!

Al~

[nat-20s]

what’s poppin everyone please have this fun lil writing warmup/short story inspired by me thinking “Dancing in the Moonlight” was definitely 100% about werewolves

~*~

“So, this your first transformation?”

The counselor? Leader? Tour guide? Asked this with a perfectly jovial tone, as if the typical social mores surrounding, ugh, lycanthropy, didn’t apply to her. They didn’t know what exact title to call her, and her name tag just said “Luna”, which, reflecting on it, either was a joke on her part or a reflection of her parents’ sense of humor.

Picking at the scabs from last month, they cringed and replied, “No. Uh. Second.”

Luna lets out a low whistle. “Oof. That sucks. Guessing you got bitten rather than inherited the ol’ wolfman gene?”

“That’s...kind of personal?”

Unlocking the front door of the log cabin that served as King Harvest’s Headquarters, Luna shrugs and says, “Shit, sorry. Forgot the whole weird stigma around your source of the once monthly nightmare, as if it fuckin matters. Also, I know, I know, ass out of you and me. Hey, you got any dietary restrictions? Gluten, peanut allergies, the like?”

Voice flat, they tell her, “I’m vegetarian,” and waits for the obvious response.

As they wander through the cabin towards the kitchen, Luna flipping on the light switches, generic club music starts to filter in. Instead of the obvious response, Luna asks, “You like veggie burgers? Or maybe pasta? I’d offer salad, but that’s really not gonna cut it for tonight.”

“I ate before I came.”

With a snort, she tells them, “Oh yeah? Did you have about 4000 calories?”

“No? Why would I have?”

Sweeping out her arm, she gestures at the food laying out on the counter and tells them, “Then eat up! 4000 is really a minimum for the night if you don’t want to feel like someone physically beat out all of your energy in the morning. 6000 is more the target area, but we got, hmm, about 15 minutes before things get uncomfortable, and half an hour max before things get dire.”

They glance down to the food, and, admittedly, the broccoli alfredo does look pretty appealing. Still, they have to ask, “Is this a cult?”

Luna lets out a bark of a laugh that has nothing to do with her (maybe) being a werewolf. “Okay, first of all, what kind of cult is like ‘fuck yeah, we’re a cult’? Secondly, despite the first thing, I can say that we’re not a cult. I know how “King Harvest: Center for Movement Therapy” sounds, both clinical and vague enough to be suspicious as hell, but I didn’t come up with the title, blame my long deceased dad for that one. Plus, ‘King Harvest: Bitchin’ Wolf Dance House’ probably wouldn’t look good on the grant applications.”

“Grants?”

“Oh yeah. This bad boy’s been publicly funded since its opening in 1972. Hence no membership fees.”

“Is that why animal control is giving out your business card? Are they one of your sponsors?”

“Nah, that’s just Jack. Me ‘n’ him go way back, hell, to his park ranger days.  I mean, yeah, I think he’ll campaign for us, but mostly I think he just hates capturing a wolf in the night only to have a naked, trembling human in the morning, and he knows that our program significantly reduces the odds of that happening, at least in this neck of the woods.”

They let out a hum, then glance back down to the food. As appealing as it down look, they’re still about..30% convinced this is an elaborate organ harvesting operation. Or sketchy sex thing.

Apparently sensing their hesitation, Luna says, “You got a favorite chip?”

“Salt and vinegar.”

Grabbing a sealed family sized bag from the overhead cabinets, Luna tosses it to them. “If you come back next full moon, either eat enough in advance or have a real meal here. That being said, excuse the turn of phrase, you should wolf that down. It’s sure as hell better than nothing.”

They catch it, and the bag opens with a puff of air that speaks to a reassuring lack of tampering. As they toss a chip into their mouth, Luna grabs a water bottle from the fridge and places it down next to them. “So? Any questions for me? We’ve still got about ten minutes before we have to go out there.”

Rolling their eyes, they tell her, “No. None at all.”

“Great! Soon as you’re done eating we’ll get you started.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Yeah, no shit, smart-ass. Seriously, what are your, we haven’t got much time.”

“I don’t know? The whole..thing? I mean, how is it supposed to..work? Like? At all?”

“You ever see Amok Time?”

“Is that relevant?”

“It’s a yes or no question babe.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then the explanation is going to be a lot more technical and take a lot longer, ultimately to likely make less sense.”

“...I’ve seen it.”

“Great! So, Pon Farr is basically this chemical blood imbalance that results in fuck or die disorder, yeah? But then Spock neither fucks nor dies, and eventually the vulcans get their shit together and find out that an intense fight can serve the same function, and the blood fever chills out. Lycanthropy operates on a similar enough basis for comparison. You’re compelled to act out on energetically heavy base instincts, returning to the ways of the wolf or whatever. Traditionally, that’s done through running and hunting, which has, historically, been a crapshoot at best. Theoretically, sex can also get the job done, but I’m sure you can imagine how that gets extremely dicey extremely quickly. Either restraints or isolation has been implemented for a while, but, c’mon, they’re bandaid solutions, and they’re far from foolproof. Luckily for us all, my grandmother decided to connect back with her ancestors, and there was a handful of stories having huge festivals to deal with ‘moon violence’. She tried it out, and, yeah, dancing works.”

“That sounds…”

They don’t know how that sounds. Made up, mostly.

“Like a bunch of hippie bullshit? Yeah, it kind of is, Grandma Josephine was a huge hippie, but it’s hippie bullshit that works. In fact, let’s go see the others, it almost always makes things clearer.”

Figuring that whatever they’re about to see can’t be worse than their transformation last month. They head through the sliding glass door out the back, the thump of the music suddenly loud enough to be felt in their chest. The sight that awaits them makes them drop their chips and let out a gasp. Barely able to speak, they exhale out, “None of them...they’re not wolves. How..how??”

Indeed, the roughly forty people jumping to the pulse of whatever they’re listening to (some to the in house DJ, some, apparently, to what’s playing over the large headphones they have adorned), resemble the image of a wolfman much more accurately. They bare claws, fangs, elongated snouts, upright ears, and  serious amounts of hair, but they’re on two legs, and moving like humans. Some of them are even singing along to the lyrics, which really shouldn’t be possible.

Luna grins, making it obvious that she’s used to this level of shell shocks. “Ultimately, you do have to give into some damn rigorous instincts. But dancing is a human instinct, not a canine one, so you end up, well, humanoid. Pretty nifty, huh?”

“And they all..they all keep their minds? I didn’t...they don’t blackout?”

“Not since we banned alcohol in the 90s! Here, watch this.”

Luna nods her head at the DJ, and the DJ, obligingly, turns down the music for a moment. The members of the crowd not listening to their own music pause, then look towards the door. She cries out, “Hey gang! HOW WE ALL DOIN’ TONIGHT?”, and gets a mix between a howl and “WOO!” cried back. The DJ then turns the music back up, and the general movement of the crowd resumes.

They should be more skeptical. They want to be more skeptical, they were just minutes before, but it’s hard to disagree with something right in front of you. “This will work for me? I just..have to dance?”

“Well, it’s not guaranteed. Few things are. But we have yet to have someone turn violent on us. If you start to fell yourself slipping from consciousness, though, I do ask that you start heading further into the woods, as to not hurt other guest. If you find yourself just getting tired, there’s beds inside, and a fair amount of pillows around the edge of the quote unquote dance floor, if you end up in more of a nesting mood. Also, I recommend taking off your shoes before you start.”

“What? Why?”

Luna gives a pointed glance at the dancers’ feet, which, ah. They’re about twice as large as normal and at least twice as sharp. The converse on their feet would be no match. “Ah.”

“Ready?”

They shove off their shoes and place the remainder of their chips aside. “As I’ll ever be.”

Good thing, too, as they’re starting to feel an uncomfortable pressure in their chest that was the prelude to disaster last month.

Luna strides to the center of the dance floor, which is really a plush lawn surrounded by forest. The crowd naturally moves around her, and she yells out, “Aiyana! Play my song!”

Aiyana gives a nod, and the opening notes of “Dancing in the Moonlight” start to sound out. “Seriously?”

Luna shrugs, grinning like a fool, and says, “It’s a classic!”

“It’s cliché at best.”

Luna shrugs, and then begins dancing. She’s hardly elegant, but she is dazzlingly joyful in her uncoordinated movements. As the song reaches the first chorus, she gives a twirl, and in the split second it takes, she’s transformed. They blink in shock, not knowing you could transform that seamlessly, that quickly, that painlessly. Luna in half wolf form is just as expressive as the human Luna, and she gives a nod over her shoulder as if to say Come on.

Feeling somewhat foolish, they start to bop their head to the tune. Luna lets out a huff and grabs their hands, spinning them around and forcing them to get moving. At first, it’s them indulging Luna, but as they let themselves get lost in rhythm, they feel a stretching sensation in their face and limbs. It’s not unpleasant, more like when you wake up and work out the tension in your spine. They open their eyes and look down at their hands, now covered in fur in and made for slashing. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt, and they’re still themselves, and they had no idea that full moons could be like this, maybe for the rest of their lives.

They turn their head to the night sky, and their body can’t help but continue to dance. Despite all their fear, all their dread, “movement therapy” worked, and they can admit, at least to themselves, that they feel warm and bright.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

I have a head cannon that when technoblade becomes friends with someone he braids their hair he's so far done it to Tommy philza and ranboo but only philza knows why

This is such a good prompt thanks! I went a little overboard and added a lot of my own hc's, hope that’s okay! Quick note I’m not past exile yet so my apologies if bedrock bros and just Ranboo in general are slightly inaccurate

When Philza met Techno, Techno was only a child, barely even able to talk, sitting dead-eyed in the ruins of a piglin village, hiding under the rubble in the hopes he wouldn’t be spotted. Philza, of course, being Philza, basically immediately adopts him.

Philza tried his best, he really did, but this was in the middle of a war, and Philza didn’t really know that child soldiers aren’t the best thing (he never quite learnt that, honestly). Techno learnt to fight before he learnt to read.

When Techno was young, he always had his hair cut short and out of his face, but he really liked the small side braid that Philza always wore in his hair. He had started to grow it out a bit, but not long enough to braid, by the time he became the vessel of the Blood God.

Short side note, he and Philza were fighting against a cult, and they’d managed to capture Techno and brand the sigil of the God into his flesh allowing the Blood God to make Techno his champion. Needless to say, the cult was near immediately completely wiped out after this process was complete, but also Technoblade wasn’t exactly super thrilled with all this.

Along with the more obvious changes- glowing, blood-red eyes, growing to almost nine feet tall, an insatiable desire for a good fight, and the constant voices ringing in his head, the growth of his hair was barely noticeable. Sure, it touched the floor and regrew rapidly when cut, but it seemed to mystically never get in his way during combat.

During combat being the operative sentence. Even if it isn’t life threatening, constantly tripping over your own hair when you’re still trying to get used to being a good two feet taller than usual and the voices in your head constantly mocking you for it.

This is when Techno gets the idea to braid it, like Philza does! The issue is, he doesn’t know how to braid hair, and he’s been so terrified of accidentally hurting Philza with all of his changes that he’s been avoiding him best he can, so his attempts fail horribly.

Meanwhile, Philza's very concerned that Techno's started avoiding him. He’s actually really frightened that Techno hates him now, since as the champion of the Blood God, with the voices of it’s angels in his head now, he might well view all other gods as enemies, and Philza, as not only the most esteemed angel but the husband of the goddess Kristin, would be included in that.

Still, he was very concerned about how Techno was avoiding him, and eventually came into Techno's room to have a talk with him, and he walked in on one of Techno's honestly awful attempts at braiding his own hair.

Philza offers to help braid Techno's hair, and during this they have a long, long conversation about both of their worries. Techno reassures Philza that he doesn’t hate him (or Kristin, for that matter), and Philza reassures Techno that he’s not going to lose control. The voices decide that Philza is pretty pog, actually, and chill out a bit. Overall, it’s just a massive relief for everyone.

After this, Philza starts teaching Techno how to braid his hair. It’s a slow process- especially since braiding nine feet of hair is an ordeal- but it’s one of the few moments of peace in the Angel of Death and the champion of the Blood God's life. Once Techno learnt how to braid hair, he started braiding Philza's too. The two of them knew what it meant. I trust you, unconditionally, and without fail.

Hundreds of thousands of years pass. Nations rise and fall, legends are made, but Philza and Techno stick by each other’s side throughout it all. They maintain the tradition of braiding each other’s hair. Techno does not do it with anyone else, but Philza does it with whatever random of assortment of children is under his wing at the specific time. Techno can’t quite understand the mans attachment to whatever orphan he finds on the street. Even the ones who don’t die in the battlefield die too soon, and he can’t understand how you could let yourself go through the heartbreak of seeing their inevitable demise.

He doesn’t expect the latest batch to be any different. Sure, one's Philza's biological kid, so he’d theoretically be able to survive indefinitely, but he’s a creative type who’s so inept with a sword Techno's certain he’ll perish the second a war comes around. One's a failed clone of Philza, but the hybrid and human DNA he was given to stabilise him made him a mess of instincts with atrophied wings and constant sickness. And while the shine in the ram-boys eyes shine with an energy that's definitely a sign of some relation to the older species, everything else about him suggests a regular child who’ll pass and die in maybe a hundred years tops.

Still, when he receives a letter from Wilbur about a rebellion, Techno was excited to go. More for the fun of combat and of course overthrowing a tyrant, but he can’t help but feel proud of the boy he remembered once trying to pick up a sword blade-end becoming a capable general.

He honestly developed a respect for Tommy and Tubbo during Pogtopia. They were so young, and already capable warriors. He felt they were naive, with their talk about restarting a government, but held hope in them that they’d realise that anarchy would be preferable.

Still, they drifted apart, in no short part due to being pressured into canonically killing Tubbo and non-canonically killing Tommy. Techno would never admit it, but the anger in Tommy's eyes and the fear in Tubbo's whenever he was around stung a bit.

His few interactions with Tommy after the sixteenth lead him to believe that the boy didn’t want anything else to do with him, so he was surprised to find the boy shivering under his house, bruised and eerily quiet in comparison to the Tommy he was used to who would never stop talking.

The Blood God may be more traditionally thought of as a god of combat, of killing and of blood shed by violence, but that’s only scratching the surface of the Blood God's dominion. It is also a god of anarchy, of freedom, of vengeance, and of protecting those who cannot protect themselves. And as a champion of the Blood God, Techno would have hesitated throwing out even someone he despised in those circumstances, but Tommy? There was no way he wouldn’t have helped him, despite how much he grumbled and groaned (that, at least, was easier than admitting attachment).

Techno tries, he really does. But he mistakes bruises and scars caused by cruel hands to the ones a younger Tommy came home with on accident due to his frailness, the possessiveness of the man who hurt him as he came in search as him as overbearing concern instead of obsession. He chalks up confused feelings to some awful accident, unwilling to pry in the clearly distressed child's business (and while he doesn’t want to admit it, he doesn’t want to think that Dream, his friendly rival for thousands of years, might be truly a monster.)

The first time Techno offered to braid Tommy's hair, he didn’t even realise what he offered until he’d already said it. Tommy was just sat, shivering, despite being curled up in one of Techno's cloaks in front of the fire, and Techno'd noticed how Tommy's long hair always got in his face, and he kept raising a shaking hand to push too long hair out of his face, and Techno couldn't help but be reminded of himself long ago, scared to leave his room and dealing with hair far too long for for himself.

That’s not to say he had any regrets, though.

Techno braided Tommy's hair every day after that. Honestly, on the days where he wasn’t shaking bad enough that he couldn’t braid his own hair it sort of annoyed Tommy- he felt a bit like he was being pitied, and that’s something he absolutely can’t fucking stand, but Techno's pity was far, far preferable to being back with Dream, watching the light slowly drain from his eyes in the reflection in the water every day, so he stayed quiet.

After Tommy's betrayal, Techno felt hurt- far, far more hurt than he’d ever found himself before. He’d given the boy his unconditional trust- showed it to him, every day, and Tommy couldn’t even show enough trust to stay by him.

The first time he saw Tommy after, still wearing a braid in his hair, a mockery of friendship, he punched through the walls in his home afterwards. Anger hurt less than sorrow, so he stewed in it, refusing to admit he still cared about the boy at all.

As such, it took him a long time to even braid his own hair, let alone anyone else’s. It was something that was safe, and now just reminded him of a boy who used his kindness and left it unrepaid.

The first person he started braiding the hair of again was Philza, not long after this. It was Philza, and Techno doubted he could lose trust in the man, even if he flat out stabbed him in the back quite literally. Philza was much closer to a friend than a father, but he was still the closest thing to family Techno had ever known.

Eventually though, somehow another boy managed to sneak past his defence. Ranboo was awkwardly tall and quiet with a crown and inexplicably good fighting skills, and Techno couldn’t help but like the boy who reminded him so much of himself. He supposes this is probably the closest he'll ever get to understanding Philza and his children.

Still, it takes a while for him to feel safe and comfortable braiding Ranboo's hair for him- as far as he was aware, Ranboo almost never had it loose out of the braid it was already in, anyway. The last time he trusted someone who reminded him of himself, it only hurt.

Eventually, though, Technoblade came around. Ranboo had just come out of one of his weird sleepwalking states, hair a mess and very distressed. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure if the kid had enough memory to know who he was, but he relaxed as Techno braided his hair and talked about nothing in particular.

Now, as Technoblade's founded the Syndicate, he's grown a little more comfortable showing affection to others, especially Philza and Ranboo. Niki's a little new, but Techno knows that someday soon he'll trust her enough to braid through her hair, and put his trust in her completely.

[cherry-interlude]

Lana Del Rey Unreleased Ranking (5)

This is a re-ranking of Lana's unreleased songs, after making a first a few years ago. This is all my opinion, which I don't mind anyone disagreeing with but don't come for me for it - honestly, I like every song, despite any criticism, and this ranking is very vague. It's based on objective and subjective opinion.

This is the fifth of five posts, with my favourites.

Wild One

Lana is nostalgic without the sadness, remembering how she’d shake it for Mike but is embracing her freedom. She lets country influence seep through her voice and her uncomplicated instrumentals – it would be an unsurprising addition to Chemtrails

True Love On The Side

Though simple in structure and lyrics, it’s more Lana’s grittier rock sound and her incredible vocals that make this one of my favourite unreleased tracks. Lana lets herself go and goes full pop rock chick for this track, whilst keeping in with her ‘other woman’ trope that makes the song still familiar despite its departure from her usual music.

Driving In Cars With Boys

Dripping in nostalgia, Driving In Cars With Boys makes you yearn for the kind of 1950s/1960s era Lana often laments over. Lana is a bad girl just having fun, doing what she pleases and giving in to her vices, and it’s this kind of song that is relatable in its escapism and desire to just do what you please. There are two versions, one with a more monotone chorus that matches the rest of the verses and another where Lana sings in a higher register, letting her cheerful, breezy love for driving with the boys shine through in her vocals.

Angels Forever Forever Angels

Perfect for Paradise, Angels Forever Forever Angels has that slow, rhythmic summer drive feel, a relaxed version of Ride which also has associations with the bikers that feature in both the music video for Ride and the lyrics to this unreleased song. It’s dreamy but grounded by Lana’s patriotic love for the grungier side of Americana.

Hollywood

It has a breathy chorus you could sing to, the feeling of a summer evening and blue skies. The ever building and dropping beat that keeps the song ticking as restlessly as Lana’s hopes and dreams gets me feeling pumped as much as her emphasised, dragged out “Hollywood” in the chorus makes me soothed. Lana is wishing for fame and fortune but it has the feel of an eighties American teen movie, iconic and deserving of a cult following.

Yes To Heaven

Hazy like a daydream, Yes To Heaven is made of sunlight and soft grass, closer to nature than the spotlights of Lana’s often alcohol-soaked, money drenched stages. Lana’s voice is tentative until it shimmers in the chorus, and though it was made for Ultraviolence, it wouldn’t be out of place on the shining beacon of hope that is Lana’s positive turn, Lust For Life.

Life Is Beautiful

This gorgeous song was intended for Age of Adaline’s trailer, and it’s been years of waiting for the full song to be released. Now we have it, it’s certainly worth the wait. Dreamy and soft, this track is a timeless classic that could underwhelm from it’s gentle feel but works perfectly well as a pure little love song.

On Our Way

Stripped back and with a country twang, Lana doesn’t add fuss and frills to this song, instead just crooning precisely how she feels in the kind of song that keeps you daydreaming for hours. Not even the smattering of her favourite imagery (Chevrolets and K-Mart lip gloss) overshadows the love that’s at the forefront of this track.

Never Let Me Go

Like On Our Way, Never Let Me Go has the country twang and stripped back feel that makes this a more subdued song, her lyrics shining even more. Lana’s additional strings layer this song well and her comparisons to the dangerous couple that is Sid and Nancy gives this track an edge, keeping it from being too frothy.

French Restaurant

A piano ballad, Lana strips back the hurt of Without You and dual dedication of Video Games to sing about how fame matters so little to her while she’s torn between two men. Her voice is beautiful and it does well to be so minimal in its production, her emotion driving the song clearly enough. Especially pretty are the backing vocals of the choruses, echoes of her thoughts that hammer home her broken feelings.

Trash Magic

Lana’s delicate and soft vocals help tie into the Lolita-esque character Lana often plays in her music. It has a similar feel to 1949, dripping with her delicious imagery, and wouldn’t be out of place on AKA Lizzy Grant. Lana is the fragile ‘daddy’s girl’ again in this song, and the sharp yet soothing music in the background sets the tone for a quiet trailer park night.

Us Against The World

Though fairly chilled out, Lana still hooks listeners with her characterisation of waitress by day/stripper by night, a dangerous girl tempting an equally dangerous guy. Lana drips sexiness in this song and though it’s not as exciting as some of her other unreleased pop hits, it is perfect for the Del Rey character.

Your Girl

Much like Caught You Boy, Lana is desperate for a man she can’t have but is instead a complete wreck. Lana just repeats over and over how she wishes she was this man’s girl, practically pleading after describing how she needs to be led off the stage from falling apart. Yet it’s still sultry, still passionate, and is topped off by her honey-like vocal demonstration in the bridge and the chorus.

Roses

Lana is the other woman with a twist – instead of moping about her man (Other Woman, Sad Girl) she is taking action. Fighting against him, not letting him go without making some noise and getting rid of his girlfriend, Lana storms into the song with a vengeful wrath and calls him out for his poor attempts at apologies. When this song first came out, I adored it, since it was the exact kind of strong-girl track I wanted from her with a great hook and all the right Lana-isms. Now, I still get that thrill listening to this song and its kick-ass fuck-you to the man she loves.

Playing Dangerous

The churning drums, the spoken verses and the coy vocals set this song apart from her others. It falls shorter during the choruses, the verses being the best parts of the track, but the way Lana interacts with the listener ultimately and is a more direct character of ‘innocent’ seductress who might actually be downright bad (arson is hinted).

Serene Queen

Lana is unbothered and unruffled, as collected as she is in Put Your Lips Together but this time with a definite Ultraviolence/Honeymoon feel. Lana is unshaken by the blazing guns, instead completely calm with her dangerous lover, questioning why he even has a problem in the first place. As it picks up in the chorus, almost smirking, it becomes one of her finer unreleased songs yet.

Ave Maria

This is just an instrumental but there’s something so beautifully haunting about it. It wouldn’t be out of place in a Hollywood movie, with shades of the Lolita soundtrack instantly coming to mind when it first starts. It even works well without singing, and I hope we get a full version soon.

Puppy Love

From the perspective of a Marilyn Monroe figure, Lana plays the teenage girl wishing for a traditional romance with her lover. It’s ever-so-adorable, harking back to the sweeter parts of the fifties, but there’s a sense of sadness throughout it. Under the surface of the puppy love is the reality that the references to Monroe do not forget her sadness, loneliness and ultimately her overdose. The tone shifts to such an unhappiness in the bridge, directly calling back to Monroe’s phone call shortly before she overdosed, twisting the song to something more melancholic.

Cherry Blossom

The lullaby that grew into the marvellous, completed Cherry Blossom is a lovely tribute to someone small and beloved. Though Lana doesn’t have children yet, the care in her voice and each of her heart-warming compliments and promises is still thoroughly enjoyable – and comforting.

Colour Blue

In a song that reminds me of the love/hate relationship of Norman Fucking Rockwell, Lana takes her time to question why she loves the men that she does and, ultimately, grow from it, beginning to want something different. It’s raw and personal, with a gushing chorus that is complimented fully by the guitar. This song is blue all over, from Lana's opening harmonisation to her abrupt, unhappy ending.

Paradise

This song is, of course, pure paradise. A summery beat, a flippant Lana simply enjoying her lover no matter how long she’ll have him for and her coos of “sick!” and “that’s dope!” make this into a tasty distraction fit for the sunny months. Her casualness in this track is fresh as well as the dance-happy music that she doesn’t often create in her albums.

Meet Me In The Pale Moonlight

Lana is the waitress with a crush in this bop of a track, trying to convince a guy to get with her instead of that “bitch”. Convincing she is, as she uses all of her charm, wit and insistence that there’s no promises behind her intentions to have a good time with him. It’s just a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of her music, not too heavy and perfectly polished. It’s self-assured as much as it is breezy, and calm as it is it’s still a riot to listen to.

Caught You Boy

A dream-esque confession of desire, obsession and pure, crazy love, Lana isn’t outright insane in this track (Kinda Outta Luck, Jealous Girl, Serial Killer) but she hints towards being slightly too attached to her beau and describing herself as an army of one. The song is sweet and flowery but there’s a sadness and danger to it that keeps it from being too sugary.

Fine China

Some of Lana’s best lyrics are in Fine China as she sings of her fractured relationship, unhappy wedding and many beautiful yet easily broken things. It’s a slow, unfussy ballad but her strong voice and stunning lyrics make it so much more than a throwaway unreleased song.

Thunder

What feels like a coming-of-age slow dance song but is ultimately a choir-backed break-up track. Lana’s lyrics are clever and her voice is the perfect complement to The Last Shadow Puppets, this combined work a sure hit that deserves some kind of release and recognition. Lana is frustrated but tender as she leads the song with plenty of presence.

Prom Song Gone Wrong

The fifties feel, the teenage romance, the warm and gorgeous vocals that switch from dreamily longing to a cheeky talk-rap suggest this is a song tied tightly to Puppy Love, except with a more hopeful feel to it. Lana is ready to leave and she wants her lover to come with her, and even if it’s a youthful mistake there’s no mistaking that the love she – and her man – feels is real. It’s a pretty dedication to the kind of head-spinning romance of younger years, though it has an edge to it. Lana’s choruses are desperate, her pleading genuine and the strange way the music builds and collapses right at the end give the illusion all isn’t the sunshine and rainbows Lana sings of – and hopes for.

[itmighthavebeenintentional]

We've Got Tonight - Ch 4

Summary: “It’s not your job to do this, Andy. You make people happy. I was in the diner all of ten minutes, and you knew exactly how to get me to smile. You do normal, real things like garden and sing karaoke. Saving the world is my job, Sam’s job. Sometimes it’s even Cas’s job, but it’s not yours.”

Inspired by Bob Seger’s “We’ve Got Tonight”

Warnings: Major Character Death, More Major Character Deaths (sort of?), higher than show level violence, blood, light smutting, language, demons, apocalypse, inferred suicide, cult activity.

18+ ONLY, MINORS DO NOT PROCEED

Author’s Note: This story is set hazily around season 8. Just squint a little, and it’ll settle in somewhere. I wrote this story after certain big revelations in the show, but before other big ones; you’ll most likely be able to tell which. I play with time a bit in the story itself, so if things seem out of order, they are. Hopefully, by the end, all the pieces will fit together.

What the hell, let’s give it a shot.

EXTRA WARNING: THIS CHAPTER IS THE SOURCE OF MOST OF THE WARNINGS FOR THE STORY. Please don't kill me. THIS IS NOT THE LAST CHAPTER, I PROMISE. It's not over yet. I can't promise you won't hate me when it's over, but I will not leave you here. There's more.

Image and major edits by the incomparable @there-must-be-a-lock . Heavy editing and cheering by @thoughtslikeaminefield . Thank you both so much.

In case you missed it: Chapter 3 ItMightHaveBeenintentional’s Masterlist

...

We’ve Got Tonight

Ch 4

Pre-dawn is too damn cold, she decides. She has to visually check that her fingers are actually doing up the buttons to her ragged denim jacket. She lost sensation in her hands a while back, and it’s the only way to make sure they’re actually doing their job. Her jacket is utterly unsuitable for the current temperature, but she doesn’t expect to need it for much longer.

Just before sunrise, Crowley told her.

The sky is already lightening on the horizon, the medium gray more obvious than she would have thought against the stark black, but, then, she’s never had much occasion to be out quite this late before. She’s usually done at the diner by six, singing at the club by ten, and in bed by two at the latest. She hopes Crowley is punctual. She can’t decide if the waiting or the cold is worse.

Except that, yes, she really can. The waiting is definitely worse.

The sound of shifting gravel pulls her out of her thoughts, and she turns to find the King of Hell himself smiling beatifically at her. She shivers, not bothering to search out the source of her discomfort, as she is rather spoiled for choice at the moment. She’s out in the freezing dark, about to hand over her life and soul to a demon because deranged cultists got it into their heads that they should use her blood to start an apocalypse (and who knew there was more than one of those outside of Sunnydale, seriously).

Shivering is probably the most rational reaction she’s had in a while.

“Hello, darling. Pleasant evening with the boys?”

He’s got more sass in one off-the cuff remark than she has in her entire history, and for a moment she can only marvel at the affected innocence in his expression. It's almost convincing. She opts to remain silent rather than take his bait. He smirks, the expression natural and only a touch derisive.

“No surprises, then? No sidekicks to save you at the last minute from the bad, bad demon?”

“I thought the torture didn’t start until after you kill me,” she sighs, hugging her arms tighter around herself, a futile attempt to ward off the chill. Maybe she’s got a little spark in her, after all. He laughs, a friendly, personable chuckle that would set anyone else at ease, reassure them of his honorable, benign intentions.

“Come on, Crowley, what's the hold up? I was here on time. Can we just get this over with already? I could have gotten one more round in with Dean if we were just going to stand around, shootin’ the breeze.”

Even watching for it, she can only just see the tick in Crowley's jaw, the slightest tension that betrays...something. She doesn't know what or why, but Crowley has more than a little unhealthy obsession with the elder Winchester brother, and she is pleased she managed to crack his veneer even for the briefest moment.

At least I don't have to worry about Dean, Andy thinks, relief creeping into the sea of dread that is her stomach. Her deal with Crowley was not only about stopping the apocalypse but also keeping Sam and Dean and even Castiel safe.

“Once you're gone, I won’t harm a hair on their precious heads, nor any other part of them,” he swore to her a mere eighteen hours earlier.

“I’m hurt you don't find my company more pleasant, love,” he murmurs, taking a couple of steps closer. He slides his hands in his coat pockets, the very picture of nonchalance. “I do try my best to be cordial, even congenial, after all. But since you’re so very uncomfortable, I suppose you won't object, then, that I took the liberty of inviting a few friends whose company you seem to prefer. What a lovely party we’ll have when they get here.”

As if he’s summoned them, a pair of lights appear in the distance, growing larger with every passing moment. Headlights, she realizes; a second later, she hears the distinctive roaring of a very particular car engine, and before she can turn back to Crowley, the Impala leaps out of the darkness, skidding across the hard-packed dirt road, coming to a halt bare inches from the demon’s impeccably shined shoes.

Andy stumbles back, choking in the cloud of dust the car kicks up, only to hit something solid. Impossibly strong fingers dig into her chin, lifting her face out and away as cold, thin metal is pressed to the side of her neck, and only now does she freeze.

“Let her go, Crowley,” Dean growls, his gun drawn and aimed even before he exits the car. “This isn't her fight, and you know it!” On the other side, Sam and Castiel climb out, Sam drawing his gun and moving to flank the demon.

“I do heartily protest, sir,” Crowley says, his tone mild and conversational. The blade digs in ever so slightly under her ear, and a thin trickle of warmth slides down her skin to soak into her collar. Dean doesn't flinch, but his eyes narrow, and he readjusts his aim.

“Not only is the lady at the epicenter of this fight, she's gone and made herself the brightest star in the show. Ask her yourself, if you don’t believe me.”

“How-” she manages through fear-numbed vocal cords. Dean should be unconscious, snoring blissfully away in his bed where she left him. She made sure to leave no sort of trail they could follow, and she checked that they were all asleep or otherwise occupied before she took off.

“I wasn’t asleep, Andy,” Dean replies, leveling his gun at Crowley. “And I’ve been tracking since I was seven. Gimme some credit.”

“I wouldn't do that, if I were you, Moose.” Crowley’s words freeze Sam in his tracks, and the blade on Andy’s neck digs in a little deeper. The flow of warmth down her neck widens just a touch. The sheer smugness in Crowley’s tone sets her teeth on edge, breaking through her stupor, and she grabs the hand with the knife, pulling at it with all her might. She, of course, doesn’t make a dent in the demonic strength, but she’s got to try something.

If you asked her later, Andy would swear to you that the searing pain that drags along her neck parallel to her jaw line right then is pure Hellfire. Deep down in the darkest recesses of her mind where all the worst truths lurk, she knows she’s feeling the bite from Crowley’s knife, but in that instant all she is aware of is the agony of the wound, of Dean’s enraged roar, and the juxtaposition of Crowley’s gentle touch pressing her own fingers to something hot and slippery under her jaw.

“Hold pressure there, sweetheart, or you’ll bleed out too soon. Wouldn’t want you to miss the finale.”

Her knees buckle, and she drops, but somehow she stays upright long enough to see Crowley’s demons approach out of the darkness. She tries to warn the boys, but time moves with a dreamlike lethargy that betrays every one of her good intentions, and, anyway, her voice doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. The roar of gunfire all around her sounds faint in comparison to the rushing in her ears, and she is powerless to stop Crowley’s plans from reaching fruition.

“You...said...you wouldn’t...”

“Well, pet, you aren’t dead yet, are you? I’ve got, what, at least another three minutes before you snuff it, by my count. Plenty of time to conclude my business with the Winchesters and their featherbrained friend before you expire.”

Though he was right behind her only a moment ago, Crowley appears abruptly next to Castiel, who at the moment is distracted by two lesser demons both wielding machetes. She realizes as she watches Cas easily fend them off that they, just like Andy, are only a distraction, only bait to tempt the bigger players to overextend themselves.

Too late, she sees the perfection of Crowley’s plan. In all the confusion, she loses track of Sam, and she wrenches her eyes away from Dean’s staggering form only to watch as the angel blade in Crowley’s hand bursts through Castiel’s chest. Then her gentle, confused friend is gone in a flash. The demons vanish, and she can’t find Sam or Dean, can’t reach them, can’t make her voice work to call out.

The quiet is wrong, so out of place after the violent cacophony. The roaring is gone, the gunfire silenced, and all that’s left is a terrible wheezing, gurgling sound that takes her too long to recognize as her own labored breathing.

“Crow...ley…”

“I’m here, darling. What do you need?”

“Lying...bastard…”

“Now, now, sweetheart, are those really what you want your last words to be?” He lifts her easily from the ground, carrying her the few yards to where Dean lies sprawled in the dusty gravel. His shirt is stained black in the retreating darkness, and Andy can only be thankful that she won’t make it to sunrise to see what exact shade of red is spreading over him. Dean’s far hand scrabbles on the ground, stopping its frantic search only when it finds his brother’s.

Sam’s still form doesn’t return his brother’s grip.

“After all, I’ve done you a favor; I didn’t have to give you the opportunity to say good-bye. I can’t promise you adjoining cells, but I’m sure your torture will coincide with his occasionally,” Crowley continues conversationally, “so, really, the two of you should be thanking me that you’ll at least get occasional visiting privileges. It pays to be on good terms with the king, after all. And, who knows? After a couple hundred years of good behavior, I might even be persuaded to-”

“Why?” It’s all she can manage as he lays her on the ground. Dean reaches for her with his free hand, and she is just able to find his fingers. Their eyes meet, but her vision is blurring as breathing gets tougher, and she can’t see what he’s mouthing to her. Even his eyes, such a luminescent green only hours ago, are fading into the remaining dark of the night.

“The Winchesters, dear, it’s always been about the Winchesters. Oh, the fanatics and their doomsday ritual were real enough, as was your blood. I just simply took advantage of the situation, as any intelligent monarch would do. Settled things with the apocalypse groupies, rid myself of some major pains in my rear, and now I get you, to boot! I do love when a plan comes together.”

Dean’s fingers tighten in hers, and she tries to grip his back, but the harder she holds on, the less she can feel him.

She’s not really feeling much of anything but cold now.

“Shut...up...already.”

“Always ungrateful in the end, even after everything I do for them,” Crowley grumbles from above her. But then he does shut up, and she finally feels something besides the cold.

Relief. ...

Chapter 5

[ocdhuacheng]

@dumbweebracoon hiii not bothering, I talk shit about starember a lot but I’m not sure if Ive ever made a coherent post listing all the reasons why so here we go:

(Also I hope it’s okay that I made a separate post about this rather than just replying on the other one, because I’m petty and I want it in the tag)

draws incest: if you do a google search of starember lotr art you will find a whole bunch of sexual (either suggestively or explicit) art of thranduil and legolas, who, idk if uve ever read or watched it, are in fact father and son

Draws pedophilia/shotacon: in a lot of these pieces Legolas is portrayed to be visibly underage

Used naziism for the aesthetic???? : There was at least one of these where the characters were being all “”””sexy”””” in SS uniforms and with the nazi flag/imagery which is. Barf. This is a bit harder to find because I think they deleted it but there was a post out there with more information but I can’t find it anymore sorry. If anyone knows where the evidence for this is feel free to link it, but i hope you’ll trust me when i say I’ve seen it so like it iiiis real and I’m not making it up 😅

Racism/colorism: the way the banyue people are drawn, especially in comparison to banyue herself is really bad. Theyre pretty much arab stereotypes, while banyue, who is supposed to be of the same race as ke mo & co. (At least from one parent, forget which one) is super pale and dainty. Saying ie. Dark skin = barbarism, being wrong, etc, and light skin = being good, etc. Considering ke mo and squad are the only dark skinned characters in the entire manhua entirely (iirc) is also. Not a good look. It seems they’re allergic to drawing darker skin unless it’s on antagonists. I’ve seen a lot of asian/middle eastern ppl explain this better than I can but yeah that’s the gist

Similarly, exotification of the Middle East: remember that one awful hualian art where xl is in really revealing, “””sexy””” (putting this in quotes because it’s not actually sexy it’s just really uncomfortable) “””middle eastern harem””” clothing and is sitting in hc’s lap like he’s about to get fucked and it’s all very embarrassing and gross. Like starember Idk why it’s so hard for you to not draw other cultures in a superficial objectified way but like go off queen I guess

Fujoshi crimes lol: yea u mentioned drawing hua cheng super buff but like imo this isn’t just a personal taste issue it’s just she draws him so ridiculously masculine (San lang is better I think iirc, but hua cheng....... that is not hua cheng. That is refrigerator kylo ren) and xie lian so dainty and feminine it’s so obvious that they only see them as ~seme and uke~. Their visual designs, and also the way I think they ignore their canon personalities just to make xie lian all blushy and vacant (especially in their separate fanarts) and shit and hua cheng all 😏😏😏😏😏shows they do not give a shit about gay men at all beyond how well they can get off to them.

Personal taste but also not really: Also the ugly ass redraws are increasing this fetishy kind of thing too. Why does everyone always look like 👁👄👁when they draw them????? Why change their eye color and face shape to be more “white” for a lack of a better term. It’s so uncomfy. Their original style from the earlier chapters was fine, and actually even enjoyable in places so idk why they’re changing it. Also they’re just incapable of putting any emotion into their art like yeah it’s like. Pretty or whatever but everyone is so 😐 it’s just boring. ALSO SAME FACE SYNDROME. LMAOOOOO. The other complaints I have about their art are pretty much all just objectively personal taste so I won’t go into it but yeah. Their art is so overrated.

Their stans: okay I’ll admit that this isn’t really starembers fault but I have to put it in here because the way a lot of you people talk about them is super embarrassing. Like. Kind of cult like. And if anyone has criticisms of them, you harass the shit out of them. Like chill, unclench, they’re not a god (people have unironically said they are) and it’s not a war crime for people to not like them or their work. Also always going to the “people hate starember because they’re jealous of their talent” comeback is so tired like no I hate them because they’re a shitty overrated person, or even just because I don’t like their art style, definitely not because I want to draw like them. People have valid reasons for not liking starember and Idk why that’s so hard for their stans to accept, and they act as if not liking starember is some moral failing it’s ridiculous. Cult, I swear to god.

Not really explained well But yeah. If I’m forgetting anything feel free to add on lol

[ryuichirou]

Please can you share more eruri headcanons in any AUs you want? :3 Love your art sm btw, ty for sharing it

Anon!! Sorry for taking so long to reply to your ask. It made us too excited haha, so I tried to compile headcanons from as many AUs as I could… Although I wouldn’t call them headcanons: these are from our AUs after all, so think of them as little snippets of our stories?? Something like that, yeah haha.

(And thank you for enjoying our stuff <3)

1. Cleaning Company AU:

I probably mentioned it at some point, but Erwin definitely tries to make his apartment as dirty as possible just so he could invite Levi for cleaning more often and just so he stays there longer.

Erwin is addicted to anime, hentai, weird porn and gacha games in this au, especially gacha games. He plays a lot of visual novels too, and there are a lot of weird and confusing background noises happening while Levi’s cleaning, but he doesn’t ask questions. Well, maybe sometimes. Erwin’s fave games are the ones which combine hentai and gacha/gambling.

2. Sea AU:

Despite not showing it, Erwin doesn’t like leaving Levi alone for a long time when he goes on his business trips. This is one of the reasons he doesn’t mind Levi handing out with Eren while he’s gone.

When  Erwin has day offs, he transforms into NEETwin instantly. One second he’s a clean beautiful man in a white shirt (that Levi ironed this morning) and a tie, then you blink, and he’s a hobo in smelly sweatpants. Levi bitches about it, but he doesn’t mind seeing Erwin getting comfy. As long as he’s clean…

3. Cult AU:

Erwin is very intrigued by Eren’s cult, so he’s excited about Levi going there and checking out all the rituals and stuff. Every time Levi comes back, Erwin asks a lot of questions, and who can refuse these shining with excitement eyes? Well, Levi. Sometimes, when it’s too annoying and he’s too tired…

Erwin got a rash once because he fucked Levi after Eren made him the chosen one, so Erwin had to join the cult to make the rush go away.

There is a huge boar at Eren’s farm that reminds Levi of Erwin. There’s something about his energy… it’s hard to explain or point out. Plus, Erwin is annoying Levi with his questions, so the least Levi can do is to call him an actual pig. When Erwin heard about the comparison, he laughed and asked for a picture.

4. Serial Killer AU:

Just like in the canonverse, there is a lot of trust between Erwin and Levi. Erwin trusts that Levi can handle any situation and doesn’t shy away from sending him to really dangerous placed even without an official permission of the police, just because he feels like they’re going to catch the criminal if Levi does that. And Levi always trusts his judgment.

If we’re going the “Eren kidnapped Levi” route, Erwin is going to randomly show up at their doors at some point. Not to run away with Levi, but to live with them: it feels like a much more interesting scenario to him than whatever’s left of his police investigator career back at home. Plus, it feels good to be with Levi again after not seeing him for god knows how long.

5. Ghost!Eren AU:

Erwin is a stalker who knows a lot about Levi and spends all of his free time either stalking him, lurking for more info about him or editing videos to send him tapes.

Erwin has this luxury to do whatever he wants, because he is quite a lucky gambler and actually won a lottery that made him rich as heck. Once he outs himself to Levi and starts talking to him face-to-face, he doesn’t shy away from using the fact that Levi is poor and offering him money for both info and other stuff (not the sexy stuff though :( ).

6. Trailer AU:

While Levi is chilling at Zeke’s place, Erwin never contacts him personally, but stays in touch with Zeke just to check how things are going. And he is probably not going to tell Levi about it.

7. Zombie apocalypse AU:

After what happened and Erwin turned into a zombie, Levi’s entire life is pretty much dedicated to looking after Erwin and making sure he isn’t a danger to everybody. He feeds him fresh meat, he tries his best to keep him locked and tied up (he had to get very strong chains and a muzzle just to be able to be around Erwin with smaller risk). As a result, they spend a lot of time together. Levi talks to him, even though he knows Erwin won’t be able to respond and probably doesn’t even understand or recognize him anymore.

8. Island AU:

Like we mentioned in our masterpost, in this AU Erwin loves sending Levi to dangerous places to get souvenirs. And he has a lot of them, but one of his most precious ones is a small ancient figurine of an elephant. He keeps it on his work desk in his office where he spends the majority of his time.

Oh yeah, Erwin is a very important CEO in this AU, and he pretty much gave Levi a very good place to work, because he always needs him around… or somewhere else, if he wants Levi to get him something new, exciting and shiny. But anyway, they can afford it easily.

9. Okusan AU:

The one where Levi wears kappogi and Erwin is into cuckolding looool; the first time Levi agreed to roleplay a classical “a housewife and a plumber” scenario (and he really thought it would be their first and only roleplay…), he got a random call from Erwin’s phone right when they started to do the thing. It turned out that Erwin just gave his phone to a random dude and asked him to call Levi and pretend to be his husband, just so the roleplay feels more believable.

[solar-pxwered]

A List Of Norman Reedus Movies/Shows I Have Seen And My Opinions On Them

1. The Boondock Saints

The Best. A classic. Bloody and inappropriate and if I remember my count correctly, contains 194 “fucks” or variations of it (this movie certainly illustrates the diversity of the word). Terrible Irish accents. A KICKASS soundtrack. Willem DeFoe crossdressing. Dropping toilets on people’s heads. Over the top action sequences. Cheesy dialogue. Campy as fuck. I freakin’ love it.

2. The Boondock Saints 2: All Saints Day

Some people didn’t like this one as much as the first one, and I admit that I wasn’t as fond of the new detective in this one as I was of Smecker...but, overall, I really enjoyed it and I drove 2 hours to see it in theaters. I love Romeo more than Rocco. The humor was on point. It was nice to see the original actors for Doc, Dolly, Duffy and Greenley. There was more terrible Irish accents, another KICKASS soundtrack, cheesy dialogue, over the top action sequences, still campy as fuck. I freaking love it.

3. The Walking Dead

Cannot even describe how much I love this show. I have ALWAYS loved zombie related shows and movies so this show was right up my alley from the very beginning all the way back in 2010. I watched it religiously every Sunday. I adore this roller coaster ride of a show and I especially adore Daryl, Carol and Jerry. This show has it all: Comedy, drama (hella lots of that), tragedy and triumph...and it never fails to pulls me in and hold my interest.

4. Mimic

Honestly, I saw this a LONG time ago and I hated it because...well, because I have a cockroach phobia, ok?! Don’t judge. Norman’s part was pretty small, not one of his lasting impressions on me.

5. Six Ways To Sunday

This is a weird one. It’s about an overly innocent 18 year (played by Norman) who gets involved in the Mob and develops an alter ego that’s violent and his complete opposite. There’s murder, prostitutes and good ol’ fashioned mother-son incest and it wasn’t a movie I suggest for the lighthearted or anyone with those sort of triggers. 

That being said, I watched the whole thing and didn’t hate it. It was just uncomfortable...as seems to be a theme with Norman Reedus movies.

6. Dark Harbor

This fucking movie...

Ok, so, I’ll be straight with you: I really enjoyed this dumbass movie. It had me guessing right up to the very end and it took me on a very strange ride along the way. 

If watching someone sexually feed a woman a poisonous mushroom, lots of dark eyed staring scenes or Norman Reedus making out with Alan Rickman is your thing, then go for it. 

7. Let the Devil Wear Black

It’s modern Hamlet. What else is there to say? If you like Hamlet, you’ll like this movie. If you like pre-car accident, baby face Reedus with the black hair, you’ll like this movie. I liked it.

8. 8MM

You know what the best thing about this movie is? Nicholas Cage. He steals the damn show no matter what movie he’s in and no one can even deny that fact. Norman’s part in this one is pretty small too but I liked this movie anyway because...well, Nick Cage. Enough said.

9. Bad Seed

I honestly can’t remember how this movie ends, all I remember was that it wasn’t at all how I expected it. I liked this movie because it’s a psychological thriller and that’s my most favorite genre of all time. The movie’s premise is a guy suspects his wife of having an affair and comes home one night and finds her murdered so he goes after her lover (Reedus) to try and kill him because he believes he was the one who killed her. It’s a cat and mouse chase sort of thing...now I need to rewatch it because I can’t, for the life of me, remember how it ends.

10. Gossip

Ok, no JOKE, this is the best movie I ever randomly discovered and I can’t believe how many people have never heard of it! It’s got some big names in it (Lena Headey, Norman Reedus, James Marsden and Kate Hudson to name a few).

It’s a psychological thriller/mystery drama in which three friends start a rumor at their school as a social experiment for their class. The rumor grows, however, and suddenly it’s out of their hands and spiraling out of control. People start getting hurt, reputations get dragged through the mud and then it escalates to the point of someone losing their life. The three main characters {Reedus, Headey and Marsden) try to figure out the truth behind the out of control rumors and discover more than they ever imagined, or ever wanted.

I HIGHLY recommend this movie. I really, REALLY do. The ending is one of the best twists I’ve seen in a LONG time.

11. The Beatnicks

This movie is so weird. It’s like...it’s just really weird. It revolves around two beat poets who find a magic box that somehow magically helps them get good at being poets but it’s like...an evil box and so they decide to only use it once and then get rid of it. Yeah, it’s a weird movie. Not my highest suggestion.

12. Blade II

Ok, if you’ve never seen the Blade Trilogy then I just don’t even know what to tell you. 

My favorite of the three movies, Blade 2 gives us the glorious Reedus character of Scud, the pot smoking, horrible-shirt-wearing, mechanical genius and Blade’s sidekick. Not only is he precious and adorable, the movie in all is enjoyable and has a fun rave-esque soundtrack. 

The one thing I hate? *SPOILER ALERT* Scud’s scummy betrayal.

13. Tough Luck

This is another one of those movies that I liked but it’s just so freaking weird. 

It’s a psychological drama where a down on his luck con artist, Archie (Reedus), tries to rip off a carnival worker and gets caught. As punishment, he’s hired to work at the carnival  to pay off the debt. He gets involved in a scheme to murder the owner’s wife, but falls in love with her in the process.

Things go to shit. He gets the short end of the stick. More plots and lies develop. It’s all twisted until the end and the answers fall into place.

I really like this movie, it’s one that I kept and still have my copy of. 

A word of warning though, never leave this movie on your movie shelf for your father to find and watch while you’re away at college, resulting in your mother calling you and asking you why you have such a nasty movie. Because the sex scene at the end is OUTRAGEOUS. I mean, it is the FUNNIEST fucking sex scene I have ever seen in my life and I can’t ever watch it without cringing and laughing. My mother, however, didn’t think it was funny at all and my father was too shocked to even form a sentence.

I highly suggest this trippy as hell movie.

14. Octane

Ok, to be fair, this movie is actually alright, although Norman’s character gets the shittiest death possible. I mean, imagine dying because some psycho vampire kisses you and bites your tongue out. That’s one shitty death.

But, overall, this is a good thriller. Johnathan Rhys Meyers plays the villain and he’s always pretty quality. The story is basically a teenager has a disagreement with her mom and gets picked up by this drugged up, blood sucking, vampire wannabe cult and indoctrinated joining them. Her mother joins up with a tow truck driver (Reedus) whose daughter was also kidnapped years ago and who has been hunting the cult down ever since. 

It was a cringe filled, yet interesting, movie and I didn’t hate it.

15. John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns

This is John Carpenter....OF COURSE I liked this one. 

I won’t say what it’s about because that would ruin the story, but it’s part of an anthology and John Carpenter loved Norman’s role so much he STILL talks about it today and suggests Norman to people in the industry.

It’s a good one if you’re into horror shorts or anthologies or the genius of the legend that is John Carpenter.

16. A Crime

I had completely forgotten about this movie until I started making this post, but now that I remember...I REALLY liked this one!!

This is a pretty sad one, but it was very good and Norman’s acting in it is absolutely wonderful. His character’s wife was murdered and the suspect was never found so his neighbor, who really likes him, creates a fake culprit so that he can finally get some closure. 

This is a good one. I suggest this one if you’re in the mood for a strange sort of romance movie that has underlying thriller tones.

17. Moscow Chill

I remember watching this one, and I remember enjoying it, but I honestly can’t remember anything about it except that it’s a Russian film in which Norman plays a computer hacker who gets hired to hack into a Russian bank and gets caught and put in prison. But I honestly can’t remember what happens in detail.

If you like foreign movies with hacking and subterfuge plots, then give it a try because I do remember enjoying it while I watched.

18. Red Canyon

This one is kinda fucked up. Imagine Daryl Dixon mixed with Breaking Bad mixed with Deliverance and you’ve pretty much got the story...

A brother and sister return to their mother’s hometown to settle things and put their horrible past behind them...but upon returning they end up reliving the nightmare all over again.

It’s a good thriller/horror watch, but there are scenes of sexual violence so if that’s not something you can handle, then don’t watch this one.

19. Hero Wanted

This. Is. A. GOOD. Movie.

Cuba Gooding Jr. is the lead and he does an AMAZING job. Gooding’s character is a garbage man who falls in love with a girl who never takes any notice of him. To get her attention, he stages a heist in which he is supposed to jump in, save the day, and win the girl...only the heist turns out to be real and he is shot and the girl is also shot in the process. He sets out for revenge and gets in way over his head.

Norman’s part in this isn’t very big...but HOLY SHIT, was it impactful. His character didn’t have a lot of screen time, in comparison to a lot of other people, but he had a solid backstory and reason for being involved and MY GOD did I cry about it. This was actually the first movie of his I watched AFTER discovering Boondock Saints and it solidified my love for his acting abilities.

A very good watch. Highly suggest.

20. Messengers 2: The Scarecrow

This one is pretty ok, actually, as far as lame horror movies go. 

The plot is simple: Blonde, beardy, corn farmer Norman gets slowly driven insane by the haunted scarecrow in his field that he thinks putting up is a good idea for some damn reason. He starts to get more and more violent and rapey as time goes on until his family is forced to take up arms against him.

It’s not bad. Second part in what I THINK is a trilogy? I’ve only ever seen the first two. If you like horror movies then this one is a good watch. As I mentioned though, there is an attempted rape scene in this one so just be aware.

21: Pandorum

It’s an alien movie. Astronauts run into a species that is stronger and hungry for tasty humans. Shepard (Norman’s character) doesn’t make it out alive. If you’re not in the mood to see Norman get LITERALLY gutted or other characters get nommed by aliens, then don’t watch.

If you ARE, then go ahead and watch, because it was pretty alright.