#what the actual fuck is a factor tree

[moe-broey]

SHARENA DID YOU ALSO PLAY ETRIAN ODYSSEY?????????????

Ah

[abyssalpriest]

can i be borderline controversial and say that i do think there's a correlation between the love and adoration for the other kings, Leviathan's brutal honesty about grey-morality and involvement in war when you know him as Leviathan, and his lack of worshipers here under that name. the controversial part being that the other kings seem way more into propaganda flourishing and part of why i say that is because ive known both of them and they fucking do that oops hashtag UPG (PVG) spilled outta my pockets there

ie its always people who work for the other kings i see so caught up in how loving and pure the kings and ''demons'' are, and you COULD say that's just because Lev doesn't have many worshipers under that name but I think its more so because when you know "Leviathan" uhhhhh. like you could say lack of lev worshipers = lack of lev propaganda but i think its more so lev isnt going to pretend to be a beautiful siren man in a suit who tells you he loves you so so much even tho he just met you two seconds ago

[quinacridonered]

Rings of Power Recap - Season 2, Episode 1

*crack content warning in effect* PROLOGUE

Sauron: Team Evil! Our former CEO will be pursuing other projects. 

Orcs: Do we get a vacation?

Sauron: As your new CEO, I am implementing a “die so I can enslave the world” program. 

Orc Daddy: I’ve been reading up on how to execute a coup d’etât, and we put together a little demo.

Melee: *ensues*

Orcs: *win*

Arda Environmental Advisory Board: Reporting elevated levels of Sauron in the Forodwaith water table.

PRESENT DAY

Rat: I’m thirsty.

Passing Cart Driver: I’m thirsty too.

Discorporeal Sauron: I’m thirsty three.

The World: Oh fuck, here we go.

--

Re-Corporeal Sauron: Which way to the orcs?

Passing Unlicensed Psychotherapist: We normally go away from them.

Sauron: I’m a bit depressed.

Psychotherapist: Have you heard of the power of positive thinking?

Sauron: I am an evil demigod, and yet you scare me a little.

Psychotherapist: Come on this ship so I can scare you some more.

--

Eldritch Marine Horror: I’m hangry.

Sauron: I am an evil demigod. 

Eldritch Marine Horror: Duly noted. I will eat something else.

Sauron: Can I interest you in a Passing Unlicensed Psychotherapist?

--

Sauron: I am thirsty again, but all I have is non-liquid stolen insignia.

Sudden Galadriel: I demand a spot on this raft.

Sauron: This is going to be a long incarnation.

—

Elrond: Mr. Principal! Galadriel threw gum in class!

Galadriel: I beg your pardon! Sire, I unwittingly unleashed an evil demigod by harassing him with motivational speeches.

Elf Principal: Anything else?

Galadriel: We did invent these rings…

Elrond: Bad rings!

Elf Principal: Bit above your pay grade. Give me the rings.

Elrond: I wonder what happens if I jump a waterfall.

Elf Principal: I wonder if anyone can invent a sedative.

--

Sauron: I love what you’ve done with the place.

Orc Daddy: Something about you seems familiar.

Sauron: Come fight elves for me. They’re working with Sauron. 

Orc Daddy: And you are?

Sauron: Not Sauron.

Orc Daddy: The next step in our multi-factor authentication requires seeing if you bleed red or not.

Waldreg: Turns out, red.

Orc Daddy: Now click on every square that shows a motorcycle.

--

Homeless Wizard: I wish I knew the way. I wish I knew my name. 

Nori: Mmm, burned cockroach.

Homeless Wizard: I wish there was a McDonald’s.

--

Elrond: Elf Elder, we made extremely sketchy rings that will surely bring our whole world to enslavement by the greatest evil since we defeated the previous greatest evil.

Elf Elder: I let nothing compromise my chill.

Elrond: I beg you to destroy these rings.

Elf Elder: If that’s what it takes to bring down your blood pressure, kiddo.

--

Orc Daddy: I’ve decided you are not Sauron. If we were to wash you, you would be much prettier than him.

Sauron: I’ll go find him then.

Orc Daddy: Can you ride a horse after all the beatings?

Sauron: Compared to abdominal sepsis, this was practically a spa.

--

Elf Principal: I will open this meeting by singing.

Elvendom: This does not bode well.

Elf Principal: We have no choice but to off-shore all operations.

Elf Elder: Actually, we do.

Elrond: You said you would get rid of the rings!

Elf Elder: Well, they seemed kind of precious.

Arda Environmental Advisory Board: Tree disease in Lindon falling back to acceptable parameters.

Elvendom: Phew.

Galadriel: Hah!

Elf Principal: Back to work, everyone.

Elrond: This could have been an email.

--

Celebrimbor: God, I love having adequate funding.

Assistant: What’s your next project?

Celebrimbor: Given the budget for this furnace, it better be something good.

Sauron: Did someone say “Request For Proposals?”

Celebrimbor: I can't work with someone this averse to showers.

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

WTF happened with the Battle of Eregion plot!? Multiple endings, reshoots, what?

After my rants and getting stuff out of my chest, it’s time to ask: what the fuck happened? What was that underwhelming and anticlimactic finale? Because it was a trainwreck overall, and it didn’t wrap up the season, at all. There are still several plot holes in place, and the red herrings piled up to a degree that seems absolutely nonsensical.

I’ve already mentioned this before on my rant, but episodes 2x07 and 2x08 looked out of place and disassociated with the previous ones. There seems to have been an invisible cut in the storytelling.

At the finale, we have scenes that are supposed to be epic (like Adar vs. Sauron, or Sauron Dark Lord coronation and him taking control over the Orc legions) looking almost like an afterthought, and extremely disappointing and predictable. The opening scene of 2x01 (the failed coronation of Sauron as the “new Dark Lord”) was more epic and well put together than this! And I’m not just talking about visuals, but the OST was lacking in "epic"ness too (which is very unlike Bear McCreary). Compare it with, for instance, the “Balrog of Moria” scene, where we saw that epic and “wow” factor, with both the visuals and the music.

We didn’t get to see Sauron with Morgoth’s crown on his head, and they really put the “a good story for another time” with Adar’s true name and backstory, and not to mention characters that died in the previous episode coming back to life at the finale with no further explanation (Arondir). And it’s puzzling because “The Stranger”, “Númenor” and “Balrog of Moria” plots seemed somewhat logical with their previous build-up. So, what the hell happened with the Battle of Eregion plot? (which happened to be the one I was the most interested in).

Last year, there were rumours that “Rings of Power” Season 2 might have filmed multiple endings. Now, we don’t know if this is true, or not, and there’s no way of telling now. However, when one analyses the whole season, something doesn’t look right, and pieces seem to be missing. Like they did reshoots. 

For instance: the Halbrand/Sauron in Galadriel's vision in 2x04 looked far more natural and well put together than the one we got at the finale:

These are two different scenes: and the wig in the final result looked kind of bad, and poorly styled. And the background is different: in the one from 2x04 there are trees, and the sky is blue; while in the one we got at the finale they are at the ruins and the sky is somewhat clouded.

One could argue the vision scene was supposed to be different, but why have the actual end result in 2x08 look so poorly done (as if it was done in a hurry), in comparison? One would think the production team would be more careful with the actual scene than a mere seconds’ vision. No? Especially since all the other visions Galadriel had in 2x04 actually happened in the show. Why was this one different?

Even this shot of Sauron looks completely out of place in that scene we got in 2x08.

1) "Crack theory" might have not been so "crack" after all

For those of you who aren't aware, "crack theory" was the theory that Elrond in Adar's tent in 2x07 was actually Sauron.

And if that was to be revealed as a plot twist at the finale, many of the plot holes from 2x06 and 2x07 would have been solved:

What did the corpse that showed up at Eregion in 2x06 truly said for Sauron to react in such way (anxiety and worry)?

Why didn't Adar take Nenya (nor even checked) from Elrond in that scene? It was the ring he wanted to destroy Sauron. Why sacrifice more Orcs and waste time? And what guarantee did Adar have he would see Elrond again, alive or even with the ring on his possession?

Why, after obsessing over her for the whole season, didn’t we see Sauron’s reaction to Galadriel being locked in a cage, when he was right across the battlefield, at the walls of Eregion? He was at the walls with Celebrimbor and the guards when the Elven army arrives, and the scenes shows him looking in their direction. 

There were many clues that this “Elrond” was actually Sauron, in the scene itself: 

Elrond was all cleaned up, with a fresh face, and pristine clean armour and cloak, and flowing hair, after we’ve seen him arriving at Eregion with his face dirty with mud;

Elrond acting OCC: it’s been established that Elrond is a diplomatic character than values the lives of his kin (and horses). Instead, we don’t see Elrond trying to reason or deal with Adar in any way, shape or form: he taunts him about sacrificing the Orcs’ lives and doing Sauron’s biding, while going full warmongering on Adar by threating to cover the river with his children’s blood, the next minute. In this scene, Elrond is using tactic of Sauron’s playbook, by planting discord among the Orcs and further enticing the siege of Eregion. He also “planted the seeds” of Celebrimbor’s death into Adar’s mind in this scene, which I suspected to be the most likely scenario to happen (more on that later);

Adar randomly mentions Melian, the Maia who fell in love with an Elf; 

Once Elrond calls him “Adar” (“Father of the Orcs”), there is a switch on Adar’s whole demeanour, and we can even see Adar looking deeper into Elrond’s eyes, as if he was suspecting him not to be actually Elrond. Charlie Vicker did say both characters share a connection and a recognition, and Adar did recognize Halbrand as Sauron. Besides, in their scene in 2x01, what triggers Adar recognition of Sauron is also the mention of his children. Since Sauron gave him “children” (as he said to Galadriel in 2x06), the mention of it might, indeed, prompt some sort of immediate recognition in Adar.

Elrond removes the pin in front of the Orcs soldiers and not one sees or says a thing about it. The Orcs are one thing, but he boldly faces Adar with his pin missing, and this corrupted elf, with thousands of years old, doesn’t even notice it?

At night, we have a scene of Sauron looking over the Orc camp, which anxiety and worry on his face, when no one was watching him. Apparently, for no reason at all (perhaps he was deceiving the audience, too).

Where could Sauron ever get the pin? We know Galadriel loses her cloak and pin in 2x04, when she faces the Orcs and gets captured by Adar. If Sauron was keeping an eye on her (pun non intended), he could have retrieved her pin there. And this would also explain Sauron's reaction to the corpse in 2x06: it was a message from Adar revealing that he had Galadriel in captivity.

Besides, Elrond's pin is square-shaped and fits the circle. While the one he used on the tent scene with Adar is diamond-shape (like Galadriel’s) and is placed on top of the circle (not inside). These were two different pins. 

Instead, it turned out to be just Elrond on steroids for some reason. But why I was so certain this theory could actually happen?  

“Last Temptation” featured a rendition of “Kiss OST” with Sauron’s theme on the background (this would most likely be the track for this reveal); 

We don’t see Adar at Eregion in 2x08. At all. He’s the leader of the Orc legions, but he’s just chilling in the woods?

2) Which causes me to believe Adar's scenes at Eregion were cut from the final result.

Why? Because he was probably the one set to kill Celebrimbor, and not Sauron. Because he was the leader of the Orc army.

Elrond’s father prophecy that, one day, Celebrimbor’s life would be in Elrond’s hand was mentioned twice in “Rings of Power”, in the Season 1 and in 2x04, when he and Galadriel discuss the visions she saw through Nenya. So, there’s one prophecy down the drain, and anothe red herring. Because Elrond couldn't win a freaking battle all by himself. This prophecy implied a more direct involvement on Elrond's part.

Elrond didn’t witness Sauron killing Celebrimbor and even that scene (even though amazingly acted by the Charlies, because they are great actors), seemed kind of underwhelming and an afterthought, with only a handful of Orcs showing up. Where was Adar? Wasn’t he obsessed with finding and killing Sauron? Wasn’t he supposed to be there, too? 

Sauron taking control over the Orc legions in 2x08 also felt deeply anticlimactic, and like an afterthought. He just talks to them? They are like "ok! Adar out, Sauron in!" These Orcs ain’t loyal! He doesn’t need the One ring like in the books? What? 

Even Elrond and Gil-galad's scene at Eregion looked incomplete and lacking, probably because they were set to have some kind of encounter with Adar, than just watching some scrolls being burned by the Orcs. 

And, in the moment, Sauron (not Adar) killed Celebrimbor, I knew they would never have Galadriel succumbing to Sauron (even though that’s where the foreshadowing placed throughout the season hinted at), let alone kiss him. Because that wouldn't do well with the casuals and the general audience, and would most likely tarnish Galadriel’s character.

And so, 2x08 erased all the clues, foreshadowing and build-up, and replaced Galadriel and Sauron with one-dimensional characters embodying “good” vs. “evil”. All of Galadriel’s inner conflict is gone, and she’s now pure and Virgin Mary-type (just like the lorebros wanted her to be). And Sauron is the ultimate pure evil, and his desire for redemption from Season 1 never actually existed, he was big bad all along, and did I mention just how bad he is? Because the showrunners wanted you to know that.

The showrunners either reshoot stuff or already had these scenes filmed (multiple endings scenario)

But some of them look so careless, I’m more sold on the “reshoot” explanation.

And we have OSTs that aren’t used in their integrity or seemed out of place with the scene in question: for example, “Last Temptation” track was supposed to be Galadriel and Sauron’s scenes, but the score isn’t fully used and some bits were actually cut from the final result, and replaced by "Fall of Galadriel". Why? 

My guess is the show-runners chickened-out of delivering the story they were setting up in Season 2, which was Galadriel succumbing to Sauron's temptation. And having him kiss her, even through an illusion, was too risky. Maybe because they felt it could somewhat "redeem" Sauron in the eyes of the general audience, or make him look weak or whatever. Or they just wanted to please the lorebros. Even though they turned Sauron into a "simp", until he wasn't and he's just a player now? It's hard to keep track when they keep ret-con their own story.

So, Sauron takes Adar's role, and Adar is now Sauron in Galadriel's arc, with her actually considering living in peace with the Orcs... because reasons? After they basically burned down all of the Eregion. Wait, yes, it's only bad if it's Sauron doing it. What?

Or maybe they just wanted to have the cake and eat it too? That as well. But still, I think they did reshoots because some of these scenes at the finale were very bad and poorly done in an overall good season as if little mind went into writting and producing them.

[livwritesstuff]

In December of 2001, the receptionist at Steve’s counseling practice starts bugging him about sending out a holiday card of his and Eddie’s daughter. Clients and counselors alike send holiday cards to the practice, so by mid-December they’ve got a whole wall of them, and their receptionist wants Moe to be a part of it.

The second Eddie, still as theatrical as ever, hears the idea, he takes it and runs, which is how they end up with a photo of six-month-old Moe, wearing a white onesie and a big red wool hat and a big drool-y smile, being held up in front of their Christmas tree by Eddie so only his arms are visible.

It’s a cute picture – so cute, actually; maybe Steve is biased but with those big brown eyes and that smile? She’d be the cutest kid on that wall of cards by a factor of about a million.

Still, Steve was on the fence about doing a card so overtly Christmas. He and Ed had no interest, patience, or time for immersing their daughters in any particular religion, including the Catholicism that Steve had grown up in and the Judaism that Ed still has an affinity for via his late mother. They had agreed they’d celebrate the holidays that were fun for kids so they’d create memories and traditions and all that shit, and if there was an opening for some explanation for why they were celebrating, they’d take it, but it wasn’t a big deal. 

Maybe Steve was worried about the message they’d be sending if they sent a card out to all their friends and family with their daughter in a Santa-esque hat in front of a decorated Christmas tree.

Steve: I thought you wanted the card to be – what was it? Non…denominational?

Eddie:

Eddie: Well, I mean…yeah, but…

Eddie:

Eddie: Shut up. Her hat matches the ornaments and it’s cute as fuck.

[klausysworld]

Hi, can you please write an oneshot where reader exploited yandere Klaus Mikaelson’s trust by faking her affection to escape, but she returned to his house a few hours later crying and apologising because she realised she cannot live without him and her feeling toward him is actually real despite she tried to convince herself otherwise? Thanks a lot.

You came back

My plan was supposed to be perfect.

It had taken fucking months to accomplish only for me to wind back up in the same situation by choice.

Weeks of gaining his trust and being loving.

I had kissed him, touched him, declared my love for him.

I had laughed at his jokes, worn what he asked of me. I was his precious girl and my own stupid mind had to go and fuck it all up.

I thought I was free.

I had tricked the beast.

I was out, my legs moving so fast I couldn’t feel them as I bolted through trees.

And yet once I was miles out of reach and ‘free’ I was really just alone.

What the actual fuck was I meant to do without Klaus?

He did everything for me.

I had no money and was in a thin summer dress, but the sky was getting darker and the winds were picking up.

The cars that went past scared me, I wasn’t used to the outside noises anymore or the bright headlights. I had ran off before I had eaten and now I was starving with nothing but trees for miles. I was too afraid to follow the road incase he was driving on it.

But after another few hours of aimlessly walking, I just wanted him to come get me. I wanted to go back home and snuggle up with him. I want his hands in my hair while we watch his stupid films and he feeds be strawberries and calls me his princess. I want him to wrap me up in a blanket and rock me to sleep with promises of a better future. He’s never gonna let me do anything now.

He’s gonna put me back in the basement instead of upstairs and I’m gonna have to sit silence again and wait for him to stop yelling at me.

And yet despite all of those factors, I still found myself back at his house. But he wasn’t home. So I just waited on his doorstep for hours. Until he came back.

I was curled up on his doormat with tears rolling down my cheeks and my body shivering.

My eyes were closed in the silent hope that I would either fall asleep or die before he got back.

Bur the second I heard a car pull up I was wide awake and my eyes shot open. I whined at the blinding lights from the car and covered my head in my arms

I could head his footsteps as he quickly approaches me

“Sweetheart” he whispered before I was lifted into his arms. I hid my face in his chest as he rubbed my back. I let out a sob as my hands gripped his henley.

I could feel the warmth of the house as he brought me inside and locked the door behind us. I bit the inside of my cheek when I opened my eyes, we were heading for the basement

“Please no” I whispered “Please I’ll do anything else” I begged “please, please I’m sorry” i cried, I held onto him tighter “I’m sorry” I repeated, i kissed his neck softly “I’m so sorry”

I could feel his hands in my hair as he opened the door and I immediately let out a cry “nononono” I whimpered, my nails dug into him “I came back” I whispered “I came back!” I yelled “I came back you can’t do this!” I pressed my lips to his but he pulled away, his hand grabbing my neck

“You ran.” He stated

“I came back” I whispered, tears staining my face as he tried to drag me down the stairs “I came back to you” I cried

“You tricked me” he muttered coldly

“I’m sorry” I whispered “I was scared…but I need you…I want you, I know that now”

His hand stroked my face “how am I supposed to believe you sweetheart?” He asked, hurt visible on his face

“I’ll do anything you want” I promised

“You let me do that already” he muttered, shaking his head “you let me do all those things just to run away didn’t you?”

I looked down and he nodded, I didn’t struggle as he put me into the cell that was originally my room. He sat me down on the floor and searched me, he frowned when he saw the rips in my dress and little cuts from where I had ran through the bushes and trees.

“Why would you come back?” He asked quietly “you went through so much trouble to get away, you’re freezing, bleeding and white as a ghost” he murmured “did something happen?” He questioned and my expression softened. Even wen he was mad, he still cared. He would always care. He loved me.

I shook my head “I missed you” I uttered and he nodded, holding my hand “there were so many loud things and it was dark, and cold, and I couldn’t find any food in the woods and then I was lost and I couldn’t find you- I couldn’t” I brought my knees to my chest as I choked on my own words.

I was lifted back into his arms on onto his lap making me cling to him tightly “you were in the woods? Sweetheart you were missing over 14 hours”

I rubbed my face against his chest, pushing his scent into my nose. I wrapped my arms around him as I nuzzled into him “will you stay here please?” I asked weakly “please, just ten minutes”

His hand pet my head and I was lifted back up, I squeezed his shirt and looked up to him in confusion “where are we going?” I questioned and he looked down to me, his fingers tucked a strand of hair behind my ear

“To my room sweetheart” he murmured kissing my head softly and speeding up both flights if stairs.

“Why?” I whispered as he put me down on his bed

“You came back” he responded as though it were obvious, “you came back” he repeated before kissing my lips softly.

His hands unbuttoned my dress at the back and lifted it over my head leaving me in my underwear. I looked up at him nervously but his expression held no malicious intent. He lifted me once more and brought me to his bathroom and pushed my panties down my legs. I stayed silent as he took my bra off and then stripped from his clothes. His arm went round my waist, pulling me to him and bringing us both into the shower. He turned it on and onto the hot temperature I liked.

My eyes shut as he kissed my neck gently, his fingers brushing through my hair to get it all wet. I sighed out as he lathered my hair in shampoo, the heat if the water was much needed after shaking in a forest for over a dozen hours.

“I do love you” I whispered “I’m sorry I didn’t know that until now…and I’m sorry I lied before when I said that I did when maybe I didn’t yet”

“It’s alright” he muttered, rinsing my hair, “I haven’t made this easy for you sweetheart, I admit to that. I understand why you ran away, it’s okay…but I never expected you to come back, I shouldn’t have been so mad…I shouldn’t have put you back down there. You came back, you’re perfect, my precious princess”

I pushed against him closer, pressing our bodies together. “I love you” I whispered again, hugging him to me. We remained silent until we were finished and I was swaddled with one of his big fluffy towels.

His arms kept me to him as he carried me back to his bed, grabbing clothes on his way.

He slipped my silky pyjamas up my legs and over my head before throwing on his boxers and getting into bed.

I looked around for a minute, I didn’t come into Klaus’s room very often. He had a window that could open and he didn’t like to risk me being able to jump. It smelt like him, covered in artwork and the colour scheme was dark. His bed was bigger than mine, bigger than any bed I had ever seen and comfiest too.

I kept still as I felt him combing through my hair and pulling it into a low ponytail. “You want to go look out the window?” He asked softly, normally looking outside was great but after experiencing the world again I didn’t want to go back so I shook my head quickly and lead down beside him.

He pulled me to him, his arms pulling me so his front curled around my back. “You won’t leave again, do you understand?” He questioned though it was really just a statement.

“I won’t leave again” I repeated

“Good girl” he murmured

I turned in his arms to face him and smiled weakly. He leant down and kissed my lips softly a few times “I love you sweetheart, I don’t want anything to happen to you…You know that” he mumbled, his hand cupped my face making my eyes close “I love you” he breathed with a kiss to my forehead ��I’m so proud of you for coming back”

“I’ll always come back”

[loganlostitall]

THE DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND

Rating: 18+ for sure

Word count: 1.7k

Characters: Negan Smith, adult gender neutral reader

Setting: Riverbend, season 11 episode 13

Content warnings: light spoilers!!! Be mindful of your own knowledge of the show. Oral sex (M receiving) and also references to oral sex (gn receiving), cum swallowing, spit/drool, slight mention of typical TWD violence, very brief speculation of Negan being dead ig?

Summary: you were in a relationship with Negan before he disappeared without a trace after Maggie took out the Reapers and found Alden. Just when you’re wondering if hope of finding him again is lost… there he is. And he’s very excited to see you.

Author’s note: I literally have no idea where this came from lmfao. I haven’t written in months and suddenly after listening to TDOPOM this little idea popped into my head and I couldn’t banish it so I sat down and slammed this out. Considering that there’s things I’ve had started since September, that’s a huge feat for me lmao. Anyways !!!

No beta, I’m gonna die with my errors like a man 🫡

NSFW under the cut

How long had it been, exactly? Whatever the amount of time, the true answer to such a question was too fucking long. Initially, when you left the Commonwealth a few days prior to venture further than your previous run in search of “resources” (also known as: your missing boyfriend; that you fully suspected everyone was too smart to believe you were looking for anything different, but continued lying to them anyway to avoid any emotional conflict) you hadn’t exactly… expected to actually find him. A piece of you had started to wonder if the time would come where you sunk a blade between a pair of vacant, milky eyes you’d despised and then adored.  

And so, you certainly were taken by surprise when one hand snatched your arm and the other covered your mouth just as it had fallen open to loose a scream. Catching the barest glimpse of familiar ink etched across the skin of your assailant’s arm, tears stung your eyes when you realized with nausea sinking low in your gut that you weren’t ready to take him out. Brain not even acknowledging the relieving factor that the fingers touching you were warm. 

In your searching for him, he found you. How poetic. 

Those same hands hadn’t left your body since. Like right now, one at the base of your skull; fingernails repetitively scratching your scalp, ever so slightly. 

“God fucking damn, I’ve missed this. I mean, I missed you too, of fuckin’ course I did, but this? Fucking incredible.” The slew of complimentary expletives were muttered through grit teeth, and between unsteady huffs of breath. A pinched groan followed immediately after the thick words. He was going to attract walkers; as flattering as it was, that was the first thought to come to mind and on instinct you retaliated what he had subjected you to not much earlier by slowly grazing your palm up the planes of his stomach, over his chest, and to his mouth... which only served to inspire another moan. 

His head bobbed side to side with some dazed form of a nod and he flashed a tired—but still as gorgeous as usual—smile when he pulled your hand away. “Okay, okay, I’ll shut the hell up,” he sighed, much quieter though clearly without lack of restraint. Pride resounded through you with every flex of his jaw.

The phantom sensation of your back being pinned flat against the tree where Negan’s is now was still very prominent, though the only evidence to show for it was the glisten of his lips and the smudges over the fabric of his jeans that clothed his knees. A dull throb resonated between your thighs when you lowered your eyes to admire the very proof of his head being nestled there not very long ago, and the hum when you smirked around his cock gave him no choice but to bite down on his fist and keep quiet. 

With that, you returned to the task at hand or, rather, at hand and mouth. Hollowing your cheeks, you sunk down until the head of his dick nudged against the back of your throat and did absolutely nothing to fight the gag that sounded as a result. A long time ago, in an entirely different life, things like that had bothered you. Everything about your performance needed to be perfect, until Negan. He liked when you struggled to accommodate him. Got off on it. 

The vein along the underside of his endowment jumped and you did not hesitate to flatten your tongue and press up against it, curl the tip, and drag from end to end of the hypersensitive stripe beneath Negan’s skin and revel in the shiver it drew from him. 

Scrunching his eyebrows together, he whispered, “Fuck,” and even such a short, succinct, single syllable word seemed to knock the breath out of him. His mouth thinned into a straight line, lips all but disappearing, and the back of his head made an unceremonious collision with the bark behind it. The grimace that found his face was short lived, because that was the moment you decided was perfect to bring a cupped palm and fingers to his scrotum. They drew up instantaneously upon being touched.

He was close already. Aw. He really did miss you. 

A heavy glob of saliva rolled out between his cock and your lips when they crowned over the glans, but you simply sucked in a gulping breath and followed it with your tongue rather than fearing the quality of your performance. Smearing your drool down the length of his shaft would surely ease the glide of your mouth for whatever little remainder of time there was here. You would tease him about this later, but given that Negan cumming fast was a rare occurrence, it would mainly be playful bragging. 

The practically hypnotic motion of his nails carding through the short hairs where your head met your neck ceased abruptly after deepthroating him once more, and you would have mourned the loss if not for the heavy lidded, glazed over, hazel brown eyes that truly appeared to be doing nothing less than memorizing the way every feature of your face looked when your lips were stretched around him. You pushed up on his balls and squeezed, just barely bordering outside of the threshold of pain for him, and the hissed ‘awfuck-’ was your only warning. 

Never would you have believed that you could miss the taste of a man’s cum, and yet here you were, realizing how fucking happy you were to be tasting him, swallowing everything down like some sort of elixir. Hardly an easy task around something in your mouth, and repeatedly ramming down your throat due to him holding you in place as his hips jerked, but you were more than enthusiastic despite it. All you could do was squeeze your thighs together, breathe through your nose, swallow, and allow yourself to be used for the first time in what had felt like the longest six months in your entire life. Suddenly you couldn’t remember a single sweet thing that had ever tasted better than Negan Smith.

Though logically you knew it wasn’t a very long affair, the limited intake of oxygen disoriented you enough that you couldn’t quite tell how much time passed before the grip on the back of your head relinquished and a now softening erection retracted from your mouth. You drank air into your lungs as if you’d been under water and dropped your hands, both of which had a tacky mixture of drool and precum connecting them to your lips and his skin, all while holding eye contact even though his own gaze was trained upon your swollen, sticky mouth. 

After a moment to collect himself and gather his bearings—both literally and figuratively because he tucked himself back inside of his boxers but didn’t pull up the zip, Negan offered out his hands for you to grab hold of and help you back onto your feet. There were matching patches of dirt on your knees. As you started to bend down to dust yours off, a finger hooked beneath your chin to raise your head once more. He wiped the light, streaky eyeliner you managed to score from Princess off of your cheeks; and afterwards brought the hem of his black t-shirt to your mouth that was no more than a mess of goop but that wicked tongue of his peeked out from between his teeth as he cleaned up the mess. 

“So goddamn hot, baby,” Negan rushed forward to steal a kiss, which you happily reciprocated and that same tongue followed shortly after. You could still taste yourself in his mouth. Certainly, his own flavor lingered behind as well. The groan that fled his mouth to dissolve into yours was answer enough. “Fuckin missed the taste of us. Swear my dick could get hard all over again just from this shit.” His hand dropped to your own jeans that you’d secured back over your hips after you came, just in case a situation arose and the both of you had to be able to run quickly. Bypassing the zipper, Negan slid his fingers past the waistband and dipped into your underwear to gather what remained of your excrement and his own saliva, raising it to his lips to lick his fingers clean. There had hardly been enough time to suppress a moan before his mouth found your neck and you rolled your head off to the side, giggling in the process, to allow further access. 

Unfortunately for the both of you, upon looking towards where you could only assume Negan had been taking shelter, your eyes fell to a sight that meant things would have to cease for now. 

“…Is that Gabriel?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, forgive me Father or however the fuck that goes.” 

His mouth had only ceased its assault on your throat long enough to mumble the words against your skin, sending a chill through you and raising goosebumps all over you that would have to go ignored. Much to your chagrin, Gabriel and Aaron were approaching the building that Negan’s new group resided within, and perhaps it was paranoia but a little skepticism went a long way since the dead started walking.

While half-assedly shoving his face away from yourself, you asked, “What are your new men like?”

“Not very nice,” he answered with a shrug; failing multiple attempts to dodge your hand until deciding he would settle for kissing your palm instead. Would have been endearing under any other circumstance. 

“Negan Smith!” 

“UuugghhhhUUUUUUHHH fine!” He blustered overdramatically, tossing his arms up over his head with a heaving sigh and roll of his eyes just before zipping his pants back up, and then yours after. You wiped your hands on his pants as he began walking. 

And, even despite the current circumstance, after all the time you’d spent missing him, you couldn't help but smirk at his grumblings about no amount of Hail Mary’s or Our Father’s being repentance enough for what he would do to them for giving him Blue Balls as he guided you around the building for safe entry. 

Like he hadn’t cum already. If you made it out of this, which you could never be sure of anymore, it seems like you were going to have a lot of sucking up to do. 

Literally. 

This one-shot was actually a massive challenge for me because I’ve always found it almost completely impossible to write something so short because I try to pour everything into my writing and drag it out.. which really makes me worry that this is horrible/boring 😭

Anyways, hope it’s not and people find it decent. I won’t be doing much x reader stuff because I have an OC and an entire story planned out for him when I find the time, but there will be a few ! :)

Idk who else to tag other than my loyal bffs @murdadixon @hopefulatrocity @lanadelnegan 🥰 besitos para mis bebés

[ohbo-ohno]

in reference to the last Serial Killer!Ghost Captive!Soap ask: first off, HOLY FUCKING CHRIST. Second: I’m already thinking about how a reader may factor in.

Maybe she’s there with her friends, partying it up in the woods by a bonfire, and everyone is too drunk to notice she wanders off after hearing some whimpering from the thicket. She stumbles on Soap, muzzled tight and filthy and frantic and cradling his twisted ankle, and knows something is seriously wrong.

Immediately she drops everything and starts trying to help. She asks him if he’s okay, what happened to him, don’t worry, she’ll get him out of that muzzle. She picks at it with her fingers and nearly gets it off before she hears and FEELS a gunshot whizz right past her head.

Ghost found them. And seeing this precious little thing trying to help his good boy, immediately putting herself in front of him to keep him safe if need be, makes him start to wonder if Johnny could use a friend. And he hoists his rifle again, misses on purpose to make her yelp, and watches her back into a tree while he checks on Johnny. His ankle is fine, just a bit sprained, he’ll be back on his feet in no time. But he’s whining and shaking his head, trying to plead with Ghost through the muzzle not to kill this kind stranger who almost cut him free. He doesn’t want to see her die!! And Ghost turns back to the Reader, trembling against the tree and trying to hide behind her arms, and he comes closer like the menacing brick shithouse he is and she nearly sobs and begs that she’ll do anything, god, just please don’t shoot her!!!!

Maybe Ghost goes and kills all her friends first, comes back to find her still curled up against that tree with Johnny next to her, and she screams when she sees him fucking drenched in blood. Or maybe he takes her home first, puts her and Johnny in a crate together and locks it to make sure they stay out of trouble, and then goes out for blood; maybe he comes back to them dragging the bodies of Reader’s friends and it’s all she can do to keep from passing out. Maybe she gets included in their little chase game later on…

~🦋

someday i'll write my actual serial killer au but it is NOT TODAY so let's indulge in some variances <3 (ask is referencing this post)

i don't usually puppify my reader inserts to the extent that i do soap but holy SHIT if this ask doesn't beg for a puppy reader

ghost hunting his hound down, finds his poor boy injured and what seems to be an equally feral girl standing above him, totally protective :/ even when soap tries to shover her away, she stays crouched in front of him, hardly even flinching at the gun in ghost's arms

and isn't that interesting? this little thing so eager to protect what's his? oh, ghost is hooked immediately. (what's better than one guard dog? two guard dogs!)

manages to finally scare her away from soap with a few well placed bullets, poor thing tries hard as she can not to go skittering away but instinct gets the best of her eventually. she's not quite brave enough to tackle ghost when he gets closer, but he sees her eying his gun. ghost is quick enough checking soap that she doesn't have a chance to try anything

he'd come with a leash for soap (always makes the man crawl back to the car after their little hunts, just to keep him in that puppy headspace so he doesn't start struggling) but doesn't have an extra. good news is, soap is so desperate to keep ghost from killing his new friend, he's perfectly willing to follow without the leash when ghost hooks his collar and leash on the new girl

she doesn't have a muzzle (ghost doesn't have an extra, and none of them would fit her anyway), so he ends up tugging this wriggling and shouting thing along while his pup stays right at his side, providing such a good example for their new pet. ghost is already planning his rewards

he tucks them both into johnny's crate after wrapping the pup's ankle. gives his new girl a bone to chew on (plugs her nose and stuffs the gag between her teeth, tightens it until she growls at him and then ruffles her hair, locks her hands into some paw gloves so she starts to understand what's happening) and covers the crate in a blanket. smiles when johnny looks up at him nervously and his girl tries to cover her fear with anger

takes about an hour to kill & get rid of all her little friends.

and oh how she howls when he comes back home without hosing himself down. she squirms and writhes, kicks johnny's ankle and goes still when he whimpers. ghost can't help but laugh when she taps her forehead to his, an apology. his pups already get along so well, he can't wait to see how she'll fare after a little training

it's about time he got soap a friend, anyways. pups are social creatures, and he knows johnny needs someone to play with when ghost's busy. the new pup showed up at just the right time <3

[susiephone]

the comments on my "which horror movie would you survive" poll are so fucking funny because you can fully tell who hasn't actually WATCHED some of these movies, or at least, not watched in a while.

"i'd survive saw because i'm a good person so i wouldn't get put in a saw trap!" my dude john kramer puts people in saw traps for using recreational drugs and being suicidal. he LOVES to put totally innocent people in saw traps to punish someone else. this is first-movie shit. you probably think the villain of saw is the puppet.

"i'd survive scream because i never answer the phone!" do you think ghostface only kills people they talk to on the phone. do you. do you think that is the deciding factor. look me in the eye do you think whether or not you answer the phone is how ghostface decides whether or not to target you.

"i'd survive scream because i'm not a teenager!" ghostface has been killing adults since day one. actually, since before day one since the death of a fully adult woman is like. a pretty big thing that happened before the first movie even started.

"i'd survive scream because the killer's just a couple of normal humans!" okay this one i will give you. in a straight fight, yeah, you probably have a better shot at defeating ghostface than most slashers. but he's not just two randos. he's two of your FRIENDS. guess which two! ghostface's biggest weapon is always surprise. they get their shit wrecked approximately 10 minutes post-reveal.

"i'd survive a quiet place because i'd shut up!" but do you snore? can you guarantee you won't ever sneeze at the wrong moment? what if a tree falls near where you are?

"i'd survive cabin the woods-" if you're in that movie, you're being drugged and actively manipulated. all those characters would've survived if they hadn't been drugged and actively manipulated. that's the point.

"i'd survive 28 days later-" nope. sit down. (there's a reason this was easily the least popular response.)

honestly the most valid responses were "CELIBACY SWEEP" and "ace rights!!" for "it follows."

[electricsynthesis]

keith galraisms post

physical characteristics

-his hair grows like 3 times as fast as a normal persons. it grows unusually thick and weirdly layered and textured. i imagine it having a texture that isnt curly or wavy or straight, but is sort of coarse and pointed. dense hair. this is why he has a weird mullet. he cuts it and then he wakes up a week later and the mullets back. i reblogged a post with this exact hc like 2 days ago but i stg ive had this opinion for years

-somewhere around 19-20~ his canines fall out. literally like humans' teeth do with baby teeth. they get wiggly and then fall out. and then he grows extremely pointed fangs in their spot. when he tells coran this, coran explains that this is common in galra to lose their milk canines and grow adult fangs. lance compares it to wisdom teeth and keith gets annoyed

-on a similar note, the reason keith has a full set of teeth despite being a troglodyte child who beats people up when pissed off is because he just grows his teeth back once theyre knocked out. this didnt happen with his baby teeth but once his adult teeth grew in, he would just. Grow new teeth. this unsettles him deeply everytime he thinks about it because humans are born with both sets of teeth. how is he doing this .

-he can see in the dark

-he has prey animal hearing. his ears perk up when he hears sharp distant sounds

-obviously i think he growls when hes pissed and purrs when hes happy. Who do you take me for. i do think this is one of those things keith assumed was normal until he was older and someone he was fighting made fun of him for "growling like a dog". i think, pretty vitally, he does not sound like a human growling andor purring. i think he sounds like a cat. he also hisses but texas kogane trained him out of that as a kid. as an adult (post galra-heritage arc) he sometimes does it anyway. connecting with his inner child <3

-more generally i think his voice toes the razor's edge of sounding like a normal human's. i think it lowers to registers and heightens to heights that sound only just like a human could make that sound

-his ears have always been pointed enough to be noticeable (texas kogane had him trained to keep his hair relatively long so it would cover them) but they only get pointier the older he gets. they never stick out or anything but one day in their twenties allura sees them and is like hey! youre like a baby altean! and keith doesnt live this observation down for the entire rest of his life

-his stupid purple eyes are canon and go without saying. and the whole "go yellow and slitted when hes pissed" is also canon and goes without saying. im bringing this up because in home again's 'verse, by the time the events of the fic are happening the only people whos actually seen this happen are lance and shiro, because keith got a little upset at some enemy combatants on a mission with them once, and when they told him he was like. what the fuck are you talking about. fuck no. you imagined that. and they swear UP AND FUCKING DOWN that no, keith, your eyes literally turned yellow. they went slitted. we didnt imagine it that really happened--

behaviors

-he bites people. in all contexts. violent. affectionate. sexual. if left unsupervised he will bite hard enough to draw blood so if its a lovebite you have to slap him away. unless youre into that i guess. this is one of those things he didnt notice until adulthood and he sat there like. head in hands. why is me being galra so fucking obvious in hindsight

-whether or not keith's temper and violent tendencies are the result of a childhood of violent bullying and general social neglect or if theres a genetic factor is entirely conjecture and everyone has a different, private opinion on the subject (keith's opinion is that it doesnt really matter), but its generally agreed on that his ability to power through lifethreatening injuries on pure adrenaline is a Galra Thing

-climbs trees like a spider monkey. generally likes being in places that are both high up and enclosed . if left to his own devices will start climbing around on shit. in the castle this is generally fun because theres big empty rooms that are entirely unused. but they all collectively realize this goes beyond castle exploration once they get back to earth and find keith on top of the fridge at 3 am. im talking completely relaxed while shoved as far in the upper corner of the room as he can possibly get

-hoards random shit he finds sentimental and keeps them shoved in various corners of his room. like a dragon. after they get together (sorry for sudden klance bias) lance is constantly accidentally finding his shit scattered around their room shoved into little corners. this is a love language to keith. hes hiding their beloved belongings in safe places. lance finds it EXTREMELY annoying because its early and he needs his moisturizer, keith, if its wrapped in my jacket underneath the bed again im gonna explode

the eternal question

-pidge: have you ever considered talking to a psychologist about you having autism keith: no. the orderly at the orphanage was convinced i was. but i'm obviously just galra. pidge: [exasperated silence]

[centrally-unplanned]

I'ma explain the Stardew Valley fascism thing because I am bored and sometimes explaining obvious things is good for your brain. So the idea here is that "the simple country life" of farming, hanging out your small town neighbors, building an elaborate produce gift-based harem, and existing in perpetual tranquility with them is very appealing to fascist/reactionary aesthetics. Cosmopolitan urbanity is a disease, a blight upon society, sucking the spirit of the yeoman people out of their souls and blending it with degenerate races/liberals until they are too weak and dependent to fight the forces of globalism and they cope by being gay living in the pod. If the people could just return to the land, work by the sweat of their brow, they would have beautiful blond wives and their spirit/t-levels would soar to the heights God intended for us. Or whatever. So Stardew Valley is an indulgence of that fantasy by letting you reject urbanism, embrace tradition, and thus it has fascist aesthetics.

The problem here is A: what the fuck you are talking about, and also B: misunderstanding cause & effect. The appeal of farm life does not cause a fear of rootless jews queering your children outside of the most banal ways, the fears come first, the farming life is stapled on. Which you know, because everybody loves the farm life as a fantasy! Not in practice, obviously, which is why its a video game and not an agribusiness contract. But we all love the fantasy of a beautiful farm in the countryside, being one with the earth and baking rustic dinners in bronze kitchenware on hand-carved wooden tables. Since 90% of people don't take that fantasy and blame its lack of actualization in their lives on filthy immigrants, its probably not the causal factor in these things! People liking trees is not problematic because it has (virtually) no political implications without a ton of other context. Most people have more than one fantasy after all, often contradictory ones.

But if you are a political radical doing propaganda on the internet, its far more appealing to the audience (which includes yourself) if your vision is all-in, has the carrots and the sticks. For some the insane rush of a totalitarian world order wiping clean the slate of human society and re-ordering it according to your own mercurial whims is enough regardless of why, but for some (pathetic losers ofc) out there they need a little more juice, something concrete. So its married to reactionary aesthetics for the full picture, that this political order will deliver the farm life unto you. That works because, again "everybody" likes the farm life, that is way of broadening the appeal. But its neither the problem with the vision nor the cause of the political ideology. Some people who authentically like the farm life become farmers, you can just do that. Most don't, because they just wanna play a video game.

To clarify, what I am not saying is that the "reactionary aesthetics" are irrelevant and could be swapped out. My point is that instead they are universal. They are normally built out of uncontestably positive things. Those blond tradwives are hotties! Wheat is pretty and tastes good! You can't remove that from culture outside of being a fascist yourself. None of that makes fascism what it is, its all the other stuff. And when people make media out to be fascist, they are almost always bringing in from the outside 99% of the secret sauce. It is case by case of course, there is authentically authoritarian media out there. But in practice, 90%+ of these accusations are "Stardew Valley is fascist" level. Its a very silly debate to get drawn into.

[serpentface]

What exactly are living gods in the blightseed universe?

Ok here's the (DANGEROUSLY vestigial at this point) Meta Deeplore:

There is a material form of energy that is utilized by biological bodies essentially as an animating force. This IS the vaguely defined, extremely ambiguous magic in the setting. It is what produces the actual experience of Consciousness and can be basically considered 1:1 with conscious experience. All life utilizes this energy (whether actually conscious life in the traditional sense or not).

It cannot be created or destroyed, and rather follows pathways of dispersal between one material plane and a parallel plane. This parallel plane is 'the ether' 'the dreamlands' etc, and has its own matter. Discrete entities from the dreamlands are essentially formed as a byproduct of consciousness and, when interacted with, are deeply susceptible to the influence of conscious Thought (they are essentially matter organized By consciousness and can be reorganized by consciousness)

These are the entities that can become living gods. Dreamlands fauna occasionally slips into prime material reality, at which point they are directly under the influence of consciousness and can be transformed. Dreamlands fauna in of itself is not directly perceivable but produces a sense of Presence, like the feeling of being watched when alone in the wilderness, a 'third man effect', a sense of inexplicable awe or fear, seeing shadows from the corner of your eye, etc. The combination of their tangible effects and their susceptibility to consciousness creates a self-reinforcing cycle that produces living gods.

IE: if one is on a forest and people experience the sensation of its presence, belief that there is some entity there may develop. This will follow the lines of the cultural worldview- say there are already beliefs in spectral hounds that encounter travelers at night, it might be interpreted as a location-specific hound, given a name and identity through stories. This in turn causes the dreamlands fauna to physically embody that form and the assumed qualities, and people will start having absolute materially real encounters with it, thus reinforcing the initial beliefs that created it and generating new elements of the mythology. This is what a living god is.

They need persistent, localized, and coherent beliefs to hold their forms. If a village creates a living god and is then wiped out in a disaster, the god will gradually lose its form and return to its initial state of a sense of Presence. This is also a limiting factor on the 'size' and power of a living god, if an entire religion formed around it and became a widespread phenomena, the living god itself cannot 'keep up'. It is sustained on direct and localized interactions, so belief becoming widely dispersed (especially if the localized belief is lost) will cause it to gradually become less discrete. The effect of this property is that living gods are almost always minor deities or spirits tied to a specific location by a specific nearby culture. A lot of deities in larger religions may have once had a living god component that is now indiscrete.

The living god of the Ur-tree is an unusual exception in that it was created over millennia, basically by the survival instincts of the Plants it interacts with, and has held its form over hundreds of millions of years due to this being ubiquitous and un-susceptible to cultural change. The only thing that could 'kill it' is if its forest was entirely destroyed.

So 99% of living gods can be described as thoughtforms created by the process of folkloric/religious development. They are created BY people and not the other way around, and nothing about their nature confirms or denies the existence of other deities or etc.

And yeah I'm going to be 100% real I am REALLY tempted to dump even this extremely ambiguous magical element like it is soooooooooooooooo fucking NOT important to the setting at this point. I've kind of allowed 'literal god entities created by mortal belief' to be just a tiny part of the world's fabric by their nature, like it works within the worldbuilding for such a hugely significant concept to ultimately be insignificant in the overall framework, so I COULD just Leave It but idk. If it were not for me wanting to still have my big fucking god tree and a talking dog as an actual character it would be out of here soooo fast..........

[grison-in-space]

Hey! Not trying to keep an annoying conversation going but I wanted to say I super appreciate your rebuttal on the ARA stuff, it was a really good clear summary. Particularly glad you brought up the "nothing with us without us" thing because that tendency in ARA circles to treat animal liberation as the Same Thing as liberating marginalised humans, who can speak for them-fucking-selves, is so upsetting and overtly dehumanising and it's really valuable to see that pointed out. It's also so connected to the move towards tankie or fascist rhetoric, because it so strongly relies on a paternalistic view of exploited people as passive recievers of harm and charity. Anyway sorry I'm a bit ill and rambly but I really appreciated the clarity of your takes is what I wanted to say.

No worries, the boundary I wanted to set was more "I'm not interested in repeating that I know full well what ARA ideology is and how that hooks into veganism, and I'm not a captive audience." I'm happy to have conversations, including with people I disagree with; I am not happy to have to repeatedly explain the same thing that has, again, been my consistent experience for nigh on twenty years of interacting with the community. This is not that, so. Thank you for the compliment.

The paternalism is such a huge factor. It reminds me very much of benevolent sexism (as opposed to hostile sexism), and rings all the same alarm bells. It really, really, really reminds me of the way Autism Speaks talks about autistic children and always has.

If animals don't have language (and they largely don't) and if they communicate in ways that might be non-intuituve to a human (and they often do), surely it's incumbent on us as humans to decode the meaning of the signals they are sending in order to understand how to ethically interact with one another. Communication, after all, can happen perfectly well in the absence of language. And yet.

There's also just so little understanding and interest in the reality of what the consequences of "freedom" for animals living in captivity actually are and can be; consider for example Flaco the eagle owl who escaped into NYC, as @why-animals-do-the-thing covered last year. For a species that is notoriously reliant on our social structures and learned skill sets to survive, you'd think we could handle this better. But I see an awful lot of animal rights activists who seem to think that successfully releasing animals into the wild—freeing them from human control—is just a matter of one heartwarming video where the animal steps out of the cage and immediately locks its new job as an independent forager into place. It isn't.

I am also just straight up not convinced that freedom in the sense of being on your own and able to do whatever you want is all that great. I have spent my entire life boldly going where no one has gone before. It kind of sucks, actually. On the other hand, as a neurodivergent person personally I do a lot of structuring my choices with an eye to Past Me pissing off Current Me because I know Future Me will appreciate it. I can devise my own structures to let me successfully do that ... or I can just outsource the enforcing to a third party with opinions, which is something I sometimes need to do badly enough to purchase and train an entire stupid dog about it, because asking other humans to do it is relationally expensive. Sometimes having external structures that keep me from doing dumb things when the impulses get me is good actually.

And I mean, I'm a biologist. I went a little viral here a few years ago for being silly and describing what acacia trees do to try to fight off their greatest enemy: the mighty but terrifying giraffe. I know how plants engage their agency as dramatically and persistently as any animal; they're just sessile, so they do everything without the ability to get up and go. They are, however, no less active or opinionated a participant in the ecological chaos of the world than any other kingdom. To say nothing of fungi! To live is, unless you have chloroplasts, to consume. And even an awful lot of chloroplast-bearing species engage in a little heterotrophy now and again.

So like. Why should I think that eating plants is necessarily any more ethical than eating animals? Why does ARA-driven veganism think that increasingly processed and modified diets that camouflage and hide our connection to our food as part of the natural world that, yes, we also live in? Why do we hide from the complexity and the small grief of life, the shadow of death that has to come for there to be any room to change? One day, I too will die, and something will consume me unless I choose instead to be consumed by fire itself. That's carbon, baby!

[zhuoyichenpretty]

Ep 22-23 Commentary

Ha...I was inexplicably nervous for eps 22-23 and it looks like I was right to be (-: What a rollercoaster. Spoilers below!

I've just come out of ep 23 and uh????? holy shit????? ZYC????

Ok ok but to backtrack, let's do my comments semi-chronologically:

Ep 22:

A carry-over from ep 21 that I have to mention—heck yeah PSJ give WZY hell. She doesn't have all that many lines but she sure knows how to make them count. Also seeing PSJ and WX get screen time just the two of them makes my brain go "yay <3"

Back to ep 22, loved the fake-out sundial ayeee that was a nice Chekhov's gun that also brings the real sundial back into relevance for later. Also me eating up the PSJ and ZYC crumb of an interaction has brought to my attention how starved I am of their screen time together.

This whole ep was a great lament towards the feared inevitable. Every sad downcast look from ZYC, every complicated glance WX gives him. A wonderful, terrible crossroads for these characters. I love that for ZYC especially, it's such an incredible mess of emotion coming to a head. Bad enough that he's come to care about the demon who killed his family and ruined his life, bad enough that he's sworn a blood oath he regrets and tied himself to punishing someone he no longer finds culpable, bad enough that ZYZ's life or death depends solely on his choice and ZYZ is constantly practically begging for death when ZYC wants him to live. How much immensely worse it makes the whole situation that WX is literally ZYZ's soulmate. And obviously the whole team has only grown more and more attached to ZYZ, too. ZYC's personal turmoil aside, how heavy must that responsibility and guilt be? For the finishing blow that only he can deliver to also deeply threaten every other person he cares about? Everyone understands in the abstract what must happen and why, but just like seeing ZYZ lose control firsthand, the gulf between understanding and experiencing is so unimaginably wide. If he kills ZYZ, can there really be no resentment from his friends? From WX?

Also it seems ZYC only wears cloaks so that he can give them to other people lmao

Ah fuck, the farewell drinks. I didn't even factor in how ZYC might not survive the encounter (''': The drama truly was like hm can we possibly give ZYC a worse day than that night his whole fam died? Maybe give him a bunch of new family members and also the blade and the fate and the sole responsibility to potentially irrevocably scar said family members with? And he might die in the process too? (-: haha maybe? (((-:

Oh. Oh. Addendum. I forgot this til I saw it mentioned in another post—ZYC recounting his oath as he watched WX smile when they discussed reviving the tree...I could feel him weighing those words against his own life, against ZYZ's life, against WX's happiness. One way out of this impossible situation is indeed to doom himself. I'm in pieces.

Damn if WX isn't dedicated heart and soul, going into the sundial like that. I'm sad no one could keep her company for those 300 years but also I guess that's kind of an impossible ask (and maybe not survivable for the other non-goddess mortals? I'm admittedly very unclear on sundial time loophole logistics). It would have been nice to see someone offer though, even just to be turned down.

Ooh I like the soul needle fake-out, given this show's penchant for retroactive "actually we had a plan all along" moments. A good subversion of the narrative's own style.

Also I saved this for the end because it doesn't really fit the linearity of my comments but what the fuuuuuuuck oh my god I absolutely flipped out at this scene:

I am at once rabidly intrigued and at the same time not sure if I'll be satisfied with whatever payoff will come for this so I don't want to overindulge in theorizing and setting my own expectations too high. Maybe this is just a fevered hallucination, maybe it means nothing (I hope it means something). But damn!!! What a gorgeous man crazy scene.

In conclusion, ep 22 had some good stuff for me. Plot development and reflection and tension enough that I may have been satisfied with just that one episode. But they gave us two, so onward to ep 23 comments!

Ep 23:

I like how many solid reasons the team has to suspect ZYC being possessed. Even though I withheld judgment during my watch given how quickly the show usually confirms that kind of stuff with a possession mark, just simply casting that doubt made the whole build up that much more intense.

ZYC slowly walking down the corridor with the whole grounds lit a somber and haunting gold—*chef's kiss*

ZYC's monologue to a catatonic ZYZ is so important to me. The closest we'll get to his internal monologue about this whole situation. The kinds of things said when we think there's no conscious listener.

Okay so, having finished this episode and looking back, Li Lun's hands coming up from behind ZYC was not to denote possession (at least in this episode), potentially is a visual from ZYZ's POV, and seems related to the above screencap. I am so, so curious. Once again, I'm stopping myself from further speculation because I want to be surprised but ahhhhhhhhh

PSJ shooting at Ao Yin is so gorgeous. Her action scenes seriously never disappoint—the creativity of her fight choreos!! Also very cool that the whole team is getting to take part in the action, not just the two male leads.

Bai Jiu possession was not on my bingo card but I sure do love that we literally saw the possession take place and I still didn't connect the dots. Good shitttt. Also oh no ): ZYC was telling the truth about the soul needle, he was just tricked ):

Seriously from the Ao Yin case to getting PSJ released to reviving the Divine Wood to getting tricked by possessed!Bai Jiu to making pear soup to fighting ZYZ to fighting Li Lun—when will ZYC get a single goddamn vacation day holy shit.

Also when will WX tear up that contract so ZYZ can stop having a mild heart attack every time he wants to kiss her ): &I love that they saved the 300-year montage for this moment. While their ship doesn't give me brainrot personally, who could be unmoved by that incredible and undisclosed sacrifice? That's soulmatism.

Okay, I'd seen clips of them filming the ZYC and Li Lun fight but damn I did not expect it'd be happening right now!! Right after already taking damage from ZYZ? And my god is Li Lun brutal. The two actors did such an impressive job on this entire fight, what with Li Lun's ease and ZYC's suffering. I really appreciated the extensive hand-to-hand combat after Li Lun literally obliterated ZYC's sword. (Also though, given the origin of that sword, I kept hoping for a flashback to ZYC's brother once it broke, but alas, no dice.) Anyway, the show does not play around about ZYC whump it seems. I was very very shook by that throat punch; that shit legitimately looked like it hurt.

Honestly, I had a hard time with the extended ZYZ and Li Lun conversation at the very end because oh my god someone please heal ZYC lmao. But of course, that's the end of the episode~~

Y'all...check on your local ZYC stans because I was not okay after all that (': I need a heaping dose of comfort after all that hurt, but as always I'm cautious of hoping for much from canon itself. So yeah! Ep 23 was solid, but I would probably be in better shape if today's release just ended on ep 22 ((':

Time to go wait for the cast's Hi6 episode to drop so I can heal my battered heart ;-;

[graceandtheidiotsquad]

Dumb Character Headcanons: Champion Cynthia

I am having brainrot over the queen of sinnoh ok. I love her and her crazy family so much-! I apologize for how random some of these are-some of them I got inspiration from popular ones from, some from AUs i've seen and some I just made up on the fly-Ok, enough rambling-on with the show!

- TOTAL. MOMMA. BEAR. She just-has very motherly, protective vibes and despite being one of the most generally considered TERRIFYING CHARACTERS IN THE SERIES (and I'm mildly scared of her too!) she'd probably take you out for ice cream after battling her to celebrate a job well done, win or lose.

- Speaking of ice cream, I think this is not only a popular hc i agree with but they made it CANON In the anime that she cannot, for the life of her, decide what flavor she wants and will just stand there for 15 minutes weighing all the pros and cons and unintentionally holding up the line. I mean she'll move when she realizes and apologize PROFUSELY but still- ...But would YOU tell her to hurry up and choose?? No, I don't think so.

- Her hair is usually either down most of the time or tied up in a bun. But only for when she needs it-she doesn't care how messy it gets, she just likes being wild I suppose. Sometimes you'll find her literally wrestling one of her pokemon for fun (usually Garchomp) and her hair will be full of leaves and sticks, and not a care in the world! One of her family taught her how to tie her hair back in a bun, and though she adores them-she was quite the pain to get to stand still long enough to even TRY as a child.

- You wouldn't think it, with how classy she is-...buuuuuut she was almost a leash kid. You think she gets this intimidation factor just from being so classy and dramatic alone? No, she can be fucking FERAL when she wants to be. Sometimes the Sinnoh League will have trouble finding her to get her to report to her champion duties as she's gotten distracted and wandered off to explore some ruins somewhere in the region and never told anyone where she was going. 

- She used to and still can climb trees in seconds if left unattended. This has lead to many a heart-attack for her grandmother, watching her little baby Cynthia nearly DIE falling out of said tree, only to be completely unharmed and even LAUGHING at the experience. 

- Actually is a REALLY big fan of the wrestling/battle royale circuit. She can and will burst out singing some of the intros at the top of her lungs, much to the shock of ANYONE in the room with her. 

- She also happy dances and likes to put on music when she works. She loves piano but even she can't resist a good earworm, humming along to it as she runs around the local library or (reluctantly) winds up cooped up inside doing or cleaning up paperwork. This is implied to be canon in a spinoff game (Pokemon Masters EX if you're curious) and I totally agree that she just-cannot be bothered to clean up her office and it's almost CONSTANTLY a mess because she keeps getting distracted by new things to look at or something she hadn't seen in ages (BECAUSE of the mess) like a book and just winds up reading it all day. It's a vicious cycle!

- The reason she loves piano so much is she actually knows how to play, and is VERY Good at it! A very dear member of her family taught her when she was very young and she plays to help remember him-wherever the hell he's wandered off to now. Music connects us just as much as pokemon do, in her mind-so whenever she plays, he's right beside her again-whether physically or not. 

- She has inherited the family 'way too fucking tall' gene and that does NOT help her intimidating appearance sometimes.

- Sometimes casually speaks fluent Latin/Greek just to confuse the shit outta people. Look, she isn't usually spiteful-but even the most graceful and kind people have their limits. The same person who taught her piano taught her it-probably for that express purpose. Also several swear words. (thankfully if she ever swears, it's in said language so hardly anyone will know-)

- She grew up feeling-quite isolated from others her age because of her intense focus on studying history and battling competitively. Mostly the history thing-the battling thing probably didn't help as most kids were likely TERRIFIED of how intense she got. But-...i think that's why she loved that member of her family so much. Finally, someone who understood her...! He'd even given her the egg that would hatch into her Garchomp. (It was SUPPOSED to be a togepi, that wouldn't cause much hassle aside from the occasional accident with metronome-...but NOOOOOO, he decided to let her cause havoc. Her grandma nearly smacked him.)

- Honestly if you told her you were a demon or some supernatural shit she'd probably be more fascinated and barrage you with questions than scared. Or kick ass if you were hostile-DO. NOT. FUCK. WITH THE CHAMPION OF SINNOH.

- She may or may not be guilty of spoiling hers and other people's Pokémon with treats. She can't help it! She has a WEAKNESS for puppy dog eyes, whether it be her own Pokémon, any she's babysitting (she feels like someone who would do that if asked) Or young trainers she's taken a shine to. 

- Wound up with a heavy ass, GIGANTIC hand-me-down backpack from who-knows how many generations ago and yes, she CAN lug it around with ease. She doesn't much for her league job, but it's her go-to when it comes to adventuring or exploring.  - Speaking of the backpack-she often carries her spiritomb outside of its pokeball inside while in particularly rough areas, usually hiding inside its keystone. You never know if you'll need a pokemon for backup and don't have time to reach for one of your pokeball before things get dicey, after all-and the sight of a very angry ghost and dark type pokemon erupting from an ancient backpack is more than enough to send anyone who would likely cause trouble PACKING-looking almost as if something is being summoned right behind her! (She doesn't know why she looks so terrifying that way, but at least it means no one will cause too much trouble)

- An absolute GIRLBOSS for sure-but also very, very soft when it comes to people she loves. She'll gush and gush about her family members-especially younger ones, or trainers she's mentally adopted (and she does this a lot.) as her own 'pack', so to speak. She'll try to tone it down if it makes them uncomfortable but it's so HARD-she feels so blessed to have people who love her for who she is, as strange and beautiful and intimidating and just a little bit odd as she can be that she just HAS to spread word about how amazing they are! (She's like one of those moms who shows off photos of her kids all the time, just not in an annoying way if that makes sense?? At least she tries not to be-but once she starts rambling about them or ANYTHING it is almost impossible to get her to stop!)

- Often makes hand gestures like pointing when she speaks, especially when she gets excited. She often doesn't realize she's doing it half the time-but she always does it when taking pictures. She just-feels like her hands HAVE to be doing something!

- I will not give away the massive spoiler this ties into but she OWNS the song Blood Right by Madame Macabre. JUST-IF YOU DONT WANT SPOILERS FOR LEGENDS ARCEUS, JUST-BE PREPARED YOU'RE IN FOR A RIDE!