#where did my life go so wrong

[fumifooms]

Makima, devils and self-fulfillment

Dumping some Makima and CSM thoughts after a part 1 binge bc I think about her forever and ever. I’m sure I’m forgetting some devil lore, feel free to correct what i get wrong/what’s been confirmed. On the table of contents there’s why & how Makima got fixated on Chainsaw, her revealing liking for the country mouse and discussion of her nature & emotions & desires. Was the scorpion doomed to be a scorpion?

The most of this post was thought of during a conversation with @saccharineomens and I don’t think it makes sense to jump into the spiral it sent me on without first laying down the interesting groundwork theorizing she did:

"Thinking about how makima herself wants to be deified. I wonder whether she recognizes the difference between Love As Worship and the love that Aki, Power, and Denji had. She says she wants to help humanity by having Chainsawman eat the “bad” devils, but why does she want to help humans? Because she was ordered to by the Prime Minister? No, her drive seems much more personal than that, it seems like she teamed up with the PM for contractual reasons. (In the most recent chapters we see governmental members wanting certain devils to be eaten, too. What was Makima’s relationship with them? She’s too independent to just follow THEIR orders, she’s Control.)

So is she wanting to better humanity for the accolades, or out of the goodness of her heart? She sees the big picture. She sees any small sacrifice as worth it for the end result, and she’s ruthless. Perhaps she thinks that a more sedate human race would be easier to control? But Makima doesn’t loathe humanity. She never acts like she sees all humans as lesser. She loves humanity’s creations, like good food and movies. She just wants Good Things all the time

She says she prefers the country mouse BUT adds a story where she helps exterminate country mice like vermin. She likes the simplicity yet rejects the idea of being simple. Makima the complex individual you are"

~

The story itself seems to prefr the country mouse. Well- it strikes a balance, shows that a risk to live good & fully can be very worth it, but still that stability over ambition is preferable, proning having a simple happy life over fame, a simple job instead of a dangerous one, etc etc. And I do find Makima’s answer on this so so interesting, she prefers the country mouse, but this preference isn’t out of affection or sympathy but because of how relaxing it feels to exterminate them when they cause problems.

Order satisfies her. Her order satisfies her. She likes the action of rooting out disorder. Maybe this is the devil part, like how Power especially wants blood and drinking it, I feel there’s an itch to every devil, and for Makima it’s a very rigid world view/morality/standards & making things follow her rules and submit to her order.

And maybe this is why she’s attached to humans too, why she felt it was worth it to stick with the government- because devils are chaotic by nature (it’s a whole plot point that hell is essentially a free-for-all battleground for example), meanwhile humans are the species that universally rule Earth with systems they invented and instilled. They made then enforced rules, complex and intricate webs of them. She feels alienated amongst devils but she understands the humans’ need for an orderly organised society, and now she wants to be part of it. Control and conquest require social dynamics after all, requires civilizations or groups. War is chaotic while peace is, well, peaceful— Makima resents her sisters for being death, famine and war, things that throw the world in such chaos. She wants a world of perfect order, no matter how much collateral damage there will be if the end result is control.

This is even more interesting if you consider that yes, Makima is untouchable of her own design, she deifies herself with her omnipresent amount of control and the sway over others that she seeks and encourages— There is this urge to dehumanize her for it, that yes, she is the devil of control and that means she was never going to be any different, have any more feeling be any less uncanny. And I love part 2 so much for this, because it shows us the war devil and the famine devil and we see how frankly uncharismatic with poor self-discipline they are, Nayuta too, and it helps us realize just how much Makima’s success was self-made.

She admires Chainsaw Devil, the Hero of Hell, because he had his own code and his own rules and he made Hell, the chaos pit, submit to them unfailingly. Wherever he goes he decides what he does and what happens to the people he encounters but does so consistently, he has his mechanism and his rules that he always obeys, and he fulfills them every time. It’s still a mystery the why of Chainsaw Devil’s behavior back then and how it works exactly, maybe Pochita left hell because he was tired of these rules he lived by like chains, but still, he was a servant to his code. Makima would have been glad being killed and eaten by Chainsaw Devil because it’d have been becoming part of his design, his conquest, his domination, she’d have been part of that —his— order. Through her death she would be shaping his world and be part of a conqueror’s making history. Like how she appreciates the country mice that die for the sake of order. Like how sacrifices must be made to herself, like listing the name of every person whose life was lost to the Gun Devil— All for the ~greater good~, for her vision for the world. Conquest always thinks its reasons are justified.

And she does mention with the country mice thing that she goes out to a friend’s farm every year! She has a human friend?? That she visits yearly and she genuinely likes it?? Ultimately she lives a busy city life because of her goal and drive and her urge & satisfaction with overseeing shaping the world herself, but part of her, like so many characters including Angel and Aki and Reze, wishes she could live a slow peaceful country life. Moviegoing and dogs and mice in a farm- Wouldn’t it be so much simpler if Makima could find fulfillment and happiness in being a farmer, in keeping control of her own farm, getting satisfaction from exterminating vermin and expertly getting everything right, the right crops grown at the right time on the right soil? Here, too, in a way it’s trying to have full control of an ecosystem, but her goals would be easier to achieve and better, without ceaseless sacrifice or much pressure. But Makima wants grandiosity and her goal does matter to her on a fundamental and moral level, she does think she knows what’s best for the world, and with the power to change it why wouldn’t she strive to? Visiting the farm is just a break, just something she does in fall to help out and just in time to see the vermin extermination. It calms her, then it’s back to actual work.

In capitalism, even the one at the very top of the ladder is ultimately alienated from others and often unsatisfied by their lifestyle, always wanting more and more power because surely that’s the extra edge they must be missing to be content— like how Makima thinks she wants to dominate Chainsaw Devil instead of being his equal. And she says it herself too, she likes humans the way humans like dogs…….. And she keeps so many dogs :( Makima prefers the country mice because they’re calming to root out, maybe because she usually mainly deals with city mice. It’s very easy to equate humans to the mice in this allegory because it’s pretty direct and she’s already likened humans to lesser animals compared to her. She’s self-isolating by design for her design but she still craves relationships and contentment, and the dogs are the embodiment or her want for bonds and occasional simplicity because there is no possible ulterior motive, no way they tie back into her wider plan. They’re her personal life— something that feels so alien when speaking about Makima. Personality and individuality and likes and preferences and friends they visit every year. She likes how easily she can train a dog and how they become putty in her hands, at her beck and call, how much they love her and how much she enjoys their love. How simple and straightforward and easy it is. She keeps them because she likes being loved by them and loving them, and she’s gotten and raised so many. A conqueror always wants more and more and more, is never satisfied.

Devils and agency

Like Power the blood devil wanting blood and having a fixation on drinking it like with Denji’s, or how it was shocking that the violence devil was pretty tame and nice and how he himself theorized it was because he was a fiend and possessing a human body… There’s something to be said about nature vs nurture with the devils. The way they reincarnate and always embody their fear makes it seem categorically like nature, that they always always end up fulfilling the role they were named after and born to fill… Outside influence they’re helpless but to conform with. Like the humans accepting their spot in the social ladder and the shittiness of their living conditions and job under capitalism. Makima craved being equals with someone despite being the control/conquest devil, Angel Devil despite claiming to be a devil who likes to see humans dying was haunted by their deaths and wanted to avoid ones like Aki’s. The Ghost Devil being ironically haunted by Himeno, seemingly helping Aki in her memory out of… Lasting affection? Or maybe it was less about being haunted itself and more about it recognizing how Himeno haunted Aki, and acknowledging that, with the memento, paying her respect to the ghost of her. It’s Angel Devil’s devil nature that makes him like human suffering, so then is it his angel nature too to still care about their deaths? Is there truth to this or is that just personality, just our confirmation bias haunting every part of their identity like it might in their own view of themselves too? We do know different reincarnations of devils do have different personalities after all.

Yoru, war devil, is the most interesting one when talking about the nature vs nurture debate with devils. There is how through her we see the perhaps the most the consequences of a devil stopping being feared— we see a horseman for a concept as universal and horrifying as war be reduced to some bird who needs a contract with a human to have any power even just on the situation when meeting Asa. And through the story we get to know her better, and it becomes clear that her goal is fueled in good part by simply wanting to be remembered and respected through fear. Liked, validated, seen a powerful. But what is more isolating than war? Or control? We also see Nayuta accepting others’ house rules. If part 1 shows perhaps the futility of running away from the truth, with Denji’s memory, with escapist coping mechanisms, with passivity and denial under a corrupt system and with abusive relationships- running away from your own feelings and from the reality of things and from all that you are, more complex than simply human or devil or both or neither— part 2 builds upon the theme of cult of personalities, the chainsaw church, etc. The apocalypse is coming, but this celebrity superhero might save us all, or doom us all uh, dunno. The hero of hell reliving the cycle of pressure from responsibilities and expectations, maybe the part will end with Denji running away like Pochita did~

But yes, on the reverse, I think Famine is a very interesting example of how a devil’s namesake may be more innate than coerced by circumstances. One would think that a famine devil would only like inflicting famine upon others, not being famished itself, but Famine has a bottomless stomach that can never, ever be satisfied, sated. I struggle to find a psychological explanation for this, except that maybe instead of her being hungry it’s her feeling empty when she’s not eating, tasting and having that high sensory experience that releases serotonin in humans, sort of like drugs? But I do take this as a step towards the compulsion theory overall, feels like a reach in the consistency otherwise. And compulsion does not mean it’s something that they like nor that it’s something that they fight against, pretty neutral, just a nature that nudges you towards one path. Maybe it’s even just their go-to for entertainment. Maybe it’s the only thing that makes them feel right and whole. But still the debate remains, what is it, a compulsion or an urge or an itch or an active desire or a conscious chosen want? Does it change anything in practice?

And because of all of this earlier, devils being self-fulfilling prophecies with their role is not in unsignificant part nurture, because doing their atrocities is how they stay remembered— feared, powerful, known— hell and devils are a very isolating place and breed after all, and we do see devils can want companionship. Existentially, it’s their purpose and how they justify their place in the world, in the terrifyingly vast and unknowable cosmos.

We still know so little of what makes Chainsaw Devil so special, why his carnage is so self-controlled. Despite a chainsaw maybe being possibly one of the most "nature" thing you can be— a tool to cut things, a human tool that can be helpful for many things, something to be wielding by another at their judgement on what they decide, but mainly something to cut, a tool suited for carnage, to hurt and to destroy. A blade with a toothed chain, spinning around and around and around endlessly on the same road at the same pace. Such a…. Innately circular concept. And yet the Chainsaw Devil is his own, not driven by an urge or by chaos but his very own brand of order, his own unique assigned purpose, a "if you call i’ll come running to help" policy equalizing everyone. He chooses to withhold his destruction and interference otherwise, and then he chooses to be used. If it’s a choice, of course.

Maybe this is what inspired Makima so much, that Chainsaw Devil could decide what to make of himself despite expectations or innate role. Because even Hell he decided & managed to subjugate under his will and whim, with a precise vision and process. When Chainsaw Devil acts like Denji or is defeated, Makima clicks her tongue and loses her admiration and respect. Makima admired and liked Chainsaw Devil, but only as long as he matched her great image of him in her mind, as long as he followed he rules for what she thinks he should be like. She admired him for his unrivaled self-made success, but once he stepped out of that to truly embody self-fulfillment and agency, disappearing from hell to live on his own road at the beat of his own drum… Well. Surely that was a mistake she has to correct. However their second battle ends, the better conqueror will have prevailed and she’s happy about that, all in the spirit of domination and subjugation.

Imo Makima’s biggest tool, similarly capitalism’s most helpful effect for its own purposes, is complacency. Resignation and passivity helps uphold the system and go along the flow of the will of the people in power. Aki and Reze go along with orders even when knowing their job is trash, etc. In Angel Devil especially we see him go along with the flow uncaring about anyhing, and we discover it was in part due to Makima taking away memories that motivated him. If every devil decides this is just how things are and how things should be that’s what they’ll continue to be and do mindlessly, not pursuing a better life like Chainsaw Devil and Denj and not seeking to change the world like Makima. I think even Makima veils herself to a lot of things, she doesn’t like to think deeply about some things, like her desire for connection, or how making bad movies disappear is strenuous and unsustainable and requiring sacrifices at best— how her judgement is as subjective as anyone else. How liking the country mouse and her friend back at the farm and her dogs could be not devoid of sentimality. Wanting bad movies erased is her one biggest show of selfishness, of pettiness and individuality, it’s about her tastes, simple as. About how she can have tastes, and cry seeing a scene of people hug, and want things that aren’t logical, her ideology and mind twisted into a pretzel to avoid acknowledging that she doesn’t live and breathe purely for the mission she’s made a single-minded robot out of herself to accomplish. Nayuta is assertive and selfish and loud, Makima is manipulative and strategically both for her goals and for coping hollow.

Everything in her plans and goals she says is for the greater good, necessary evil, manufactured happiness the way she’ll have decided for people— and that’s the thing isn’t it, like with War, it’s the crack that shows it was all truly about herself after all. Her self-made deification still had the flaw that a self made it. Makima is not omniscient, and it’s not Chainsaw Devil the not-so-fellow-kindred-soul conqueror who gets the best of her, but a city mouse, a dog, someone she would have never thought to respect, Denji.

[pseudophan]

gonna be so sad when tonight is the first preshow space with good audio and i'm asleep because i have a psych appointment tomorrow

[hplonesomeart]

Puzzlevison screenshot redraw!! On paper!! With water color!! Wahoo!!

I don’t have much credible experience with coloring traditional art—usually just doodling or sketching in my spare time for fun. But I’ve wanted to try expanding the different mediums I use and letting myself learn from them. It’s a nice change of pace and allows me to take a step back from responsibilities. And I’ve needed an excuse to keep working in this sketchbook so here we are!! I think in the end of this I might’ve treated the watercolors too similar to acrylic paints lol. Ah oh well all part of the ✨learning experience ✨

Also here have some goofy work behind-the-scenes progress photos

[waitineedaname]

I love that the best emotional acting when it comes to facial expressions comes from Lan Wangji (microexpressions) and Jiang Cheng (macroexpressions). Lan Wangji doesn't emote much but when you're keyed in, the tiny little changes in his facial expression are Devastating. Meanwhile Jiang Cheng is feeling Every Emotion, All The Time, and you are going to see it on every inch of his face. He'll go through twenty different expressions in the same amount of seconds and that face journey will be but a brief glimpse into the awful emotional rollercoaster that is Jiang Cheng's life

[possamble]

realizing im kind of a weirdo about laios and marcille

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

TUMBLR WHERE THE FUCK IS MY ARCHIVE

[paradoxical-pendulum]

idk how i hadn't watched everything everywhere all at once until now, but holy shit thats one hell of a movie, i am crying rn.

the cross section of, maybe life is just laundry and taxes over and over forever but it's forever with you, and we have to be kind to each other, and just everything. i've been that kid that wanted so badly to just get away from it all, from everything that hurt so much, even if i had to die to get away. i've been there and god it hurts, and this movie got exactly to the heart of my emotions.

and then the base of the multiverse concept is just the kind of story i wish i could be living. you are special and important, and everything that's wrong can be fixed, and every single misstep and mistake you've made is not just necessary but makes you the one that will fix everything! it starts with this concept that everything matters, even if the life you're living is bland and cyclical, it's all important, it all led you here. but as our view is expanded we're challenged with this idea that nothing matters, that none of our decisions actually mean anything, that it'll all happen in a verse so who cares about any of it. and i don't exactly know which camp i subscribe to at this point. yea, maybe none of my decisions will ever effect anything enough to cause actual change, and maybe nothing i do matters, but you matter. the people right in front of me matter. maybe the rest can just be, and maybe if i can just look out for those i care about it'll be enough for me.

also, totally different note, but i love the foreshadowing of everything, of the cyclical nature of the world Evelyn lives in. the laundry, and he taxes, how Mrs. Deidre circles the one form with thick black marker just like the bagel.

anyways. go watch everything everywhere all at once.

[carnivalls]

good morning. thinking again of juve and her dog

[whumpshaped]

i love. all powerful whumpers. i know i talk about this a lot but i just really absolutely love when a whumper controls every aspect of whumpee's life. not even as a human, but more as a god. a being so far above whumpee that they genuinely have no chance of fighting back.

maybe whumper literally created whumpee, and is now playing with them like a puppet. and whumpee is forced to bump into the invisible walls of their confined world over and over again, realising again and again that they can only ever go as far as whumper allows.

and maybe... sometimes... whumpee thinks they have outwitted whumper. they find a little loophole, a glitch in the matrix, a tear in the fabric of their artificial reality. they take the opportunity immediately, thinking they're about to be free... only to end up as a pawn in whumper's game yet again. the opening was put there on purpose, specifically for whumpee to find. and where it led was entirely controlled. and whumper enjoyed every second of this delightful little show of whumpee feeling some hope, only for it to be violently ripped away.

again.

[florbelles]

finished hera & started lady macbeth and we have got to start blaming women for shit again for real

[tennessoui]

ganymede & zeus but make it obikin

been a while since i did a ficlet for tumblr....this comes out of a discord convo about ganymede!anakin and zeus!obi-wan......sort of dark tho gods are horrible beings with no boundaries

(for @jswander ) (2.3k)

Every muscle in Anakin’s body feels overextended and sore. He cries out from the sensation upon waking, instinctively trying to curl in on himself—anything to get away from the pain.

“Hush now,” a voice above him and below him and around him says. “None of that, beloved,” it speaks again when Anakin fights to tear open his eyes. “Sleep.”

There is nothing Anakin wants to do simultaneously more and less, but he’s never submitted under another’s thumb without a fight. With a great push of effort, he arches his back up, off the comfortable surface he’s laying on. And with what remains of his will, he wrenches his eyes open to survey his surroundings.

He cannot see a thing. White fills his vision, so bright and heated that it feels as if he is burning from the inside out, as if his very being is disintegrating the longer he looks at the light. It is blinding. It is everything. He cannot look away, nor can he close his eyes. His mouth has fallen open and he can hear himself screaming from the pain of it all, the radiance of the being in front of him.

“You stupid boy,” the voice snaps, sounding absolutely furious as the light coalesces into one solid shape, something that looks like a chest, then an arm, then a hand reaching towards him.

Anakin tries to scramble back, away from what will surely feel like a brand against his skin—and oh gods, doess he know what that feels like—but the hand extends faster than he can move, and even when he turns his head away, it catches him. It covers his eyes.

“Drink,” the voice murmurs, reverberating around him. Only then does Anakin notice that a cup has been brought to his lips. His lips seel themselves into a firm line. No. No. “You stupid child,” the voice snaps, “Do as you are told.”

It is the sheer power in the command that causes Anakin to open his mouth, to tip his head back. He is the lion among men, the Conqueror with No Fear, the Queen of Naboo’s Chosen Warrior, and yet—he opens his mouth and yields to the voice, to the hand over his eyes that burns. It feels like renewal, not pain, though that may be because every other part of his body still feels as if it is on fire, the aches from the first few moments of consciousness burning to ash under the pain of that radiance.

“Sleep,” the voice commands, and this time Anakin can do nothing but listen.

—---------

When he awakens next, he can tell from the breeze in the air that he has been moved. It is cool, and the breeze brushes against his skin like a gentle friend, running over his body to reach every part of him.

It is then he realizes that someone has stripped him of his clothes, his armor. He had been wearing armor. He had been preparing to lead his men into battle. He had—

The breeze in the air twirls around his chest and neck, caressing his skin until his nipples stiffen into peaks from the cold. Almost distantly, it sounds as if someone is laughing, an exhale over and over again that conveys their mirth, and Anakin can suddenly feel the breeze on his lips like a lover’s breath.

“Eurus, out,” a voice roars from somewhere that is everywhere and nowhere all at once. Anakin quakes from the sound of it, but the breeze withdraws, tosses out one last laugh that sounds almost like a cackle, before seemingly winking out of existence.

Anakin lies carefully still. The fabric beneath him feels soft, slippery. He’d been to the palace of Naboo only once to pay respect to the queen he fought his wars in the name of. Her personal chambers had been draped in a material that felt similar. So soft that it had felt then almost uncomfortable to touch. 

Anakin had been born a slave. He did not know soft things, nor how to languish against them. The queen had tried to show him how, had made such a persistent overture in the name of pleasure that he had sworn his loyalty to her name—but, privately, to her figure against those silks, the line of her throat, the tilt of her chin as she gave ground and submitted to his desires—and yet he still could never relax in the comfort her status and love had offered. He was not made for it.

He was not made for these silks either, though they certainly felt different against his skin. 

“You are too perfect for your own good, my darling,” the voice says quietly, a hand running through Anakin’s hair carefully. The motion is one filled with strange devotion. Tenderness. “Your beauty could start a war amongst the gods themselves, for they would all like to take you, to have you. Yet you are mine.” 

Anakin can feel his heart stutter at this declaration. The touch of his hair is no longer tender. It is proprietary. He opens his mouth, wets his lips. “I am no one’s,” he whispers, voice hoarse and cracking. 

His defiance makes the voice laugh, a rich sound that reminds Anakin of the sounds of rocks tumbling down a mountainside. “You have sworn yourself to me, Anakin Skywalker, of course you are mine.”

“You are not my queen—“

“You would be wise to not speak of your infidelities so casually,” the voice snaps, and the hairs on Anakin’s arms stand as the air seems to fill with electricity. “You have no queen here.” 

Anakin is silent, his mind and heart racing. Has he been captured? Is he a slave again? He would rather die. 

“Open your eyes, darling. Look upon me and allow me to see the reward of my labor,” the voice turns soft again, coaxing, and the hand leaves his hair to trail down the side of his face, thumb brushing over the bow of his lips.

“Hurt,” Anakin manages to say. The thumb takes his parted lips as invitation and presses into his mouth to rest against his teeth. Anakin thinks about biting it, but there is something inside him that screams at him to be careful. To tread carefully around this voice. This man.

“I know,” the voice croons, “and I apologize for it, treasure. I had not expected you to wake so soon after your ordeal and was not prepared. Humans cannot bear to look upon my godly form. Those who have have perished. You have frightened me with your recklessness.” 

The thumb presses down hard before it withdraws.

“Open your eyes, Anakin,” the voice says. “Your king demands it.” 

Gingerly, carefully, Anakin opens his eyes.

He is met immediately with the sight of a man leaning over him. His face is lined with a well-kept beard, short and practical and dark red. His hair too is the same color of russet, pushed up and off his forehead in a rakish cut. His eyes though—Anakin cannot look away from them. They are glittering, electric blue. No—they are the color of the sky before a thunderstorm, whirling points of gray and dark blue. No—they the early morning sky in the north of Naboo, slate gray and bright.

“Hello there, darling,” the man says. He strokes Anakin’s cheek again, resting his broad hand against his skin.

Anakin can do nothing but stare. This man—he is handsome beyond imagination, but there is something in the set of his face, the jut of his lips, his jaw—perhaps something in his eyes that screams danger.

He is so perfect that he is almost unreal.

“I will miss the blue of your eyes,” the man murmurs, looking at him intently. Critically.

Hungrily.

“What?” Anakin whispers.

The man continues as if he has not heard him. “Yet there is something deeply satisfying in seeing your eyes stained gold from my blood. You wear it well, darling, your godhood.”

Anakin shakes his head. The man’s words—they do not make sense though he says them in the manner any sane man speaks. 

“Truly you were born to be mine,” the man whispers like a sacred declaration, and this finally causes Anakin to flinch away.

“I am no one’s,” he says again, shifting off the fabrics and pushing himself to stand. He was wrong earlier—he is not fully nude, though he thinks he’d prefer to be. There is a cloth like a skirt around his hips, though the fabric only covers the area between his legs, held together by clasps that lay against his hips. And even then, it is light and transparent and doing little to protect his modesty. His chest is bare, but his upper arms have been wrapped in gold coils, one short and one extending almost to his elbow.

The man before him has dressed him as a child would dress a doll and it infuriates him. He is Anakin Skywalker, a lion among men, and he will not suffer this.

“I am no one’s,” he declares with a snarl, turning upon the man and striding forward. “Release me at once!”

The man arches a singular eyebrow but otherwise appears completely unaffected. Anakin feels like roaring, like taking his face into his hands and ripping it apart. 

“Where am I?” He interrogates as he stalks towards the man. Though he is handsome and though he appears strong, his bare torso as visible as Anakin’s and just as well-muscled, Anakin is a warrior and broader than this man, taller too.

Anakin can beat him into submission. 

“Why have you taken me? Return me at once, and I will let you live! I am Anakin Skywalker, I am the Resolute, I am the warrior with no fear and the Queen’s intended. I—”

The man, whose face had been unflinching in response to Anakin’s threats, stands at the mention of the queen, beautiful features twisting into a wicked snarl as he suddenly meets Anakin in the middle. The temperature in the room grows cold and the air becomes heavy with electricity. With something that Anakin does not know how to name.

“If you mention your queen once more, I will kill her,” the man bites out, every word weighted with promise. “I will kill her and see her soul damned to Tartarus. I will take her there myself and string her up amongst her kin. Thieves and pillagers and all those mortals who were foolish enough to attempt to steal from the king of the gods.”

Anakin flinches away, some long buried instinct in him insisting that he put space between himseslf and the predator staring down at him. “Who—who are you?” he asks, question catching in his throat. 

The man’s eyes, stormy blue now and swirling in his rage, lighten at the question. His mouth relaxes. He appears to enjoy answering, for he takes his time with it. “I find myself offended that you have forgotten,” he says, moving to touch Anakin again.

Like a frightened rabbit that knows it has found itself in the jaws of a lion, Anakin lets the bejeweled hands cup his face.

“I am the man who bought you and your mother from your masters when you were but a child. And I am the boy who sold you fruits that never seemed to bruise, no matter how you handled them as you walked home. I am the cat that lurked outside the god king’s temple as you prayed to him for strength and skill and riches, promised yourself to him in return, promised to wage every war in his name, conquer in his colors. And I am the old man who trained you in battle, showed you how to fight and kill and conquer.”

Anakin shakes his head, struck speechless at these words. They are the ramblings of an insane man, but…but this man knows too much about him. No one knows that he was born a slave. Even when he fucked Padmé, he had made sure that she could not see the brand on his leg.

He latches onto the last words, shaking his head harder. ��Ben was a crippled old man. You are—” handsome, is the only word that comes to mind.

As if the man has heard it in his head, he grins, gifting him with a flash of white teeth. “Yes, he was, wasn’t he? And you were so young then, all of eighteen years old and eager to prove yourself. I thought if I took my most preferred form, this form, you would never pay attention to my lessons. And I knew if you had offered yourself to me then, I would not have turned you down. Nor would I have let you leave.” Anakin shakes his head once more, but there’s no power in the motion.

“I was the eagle that flew above you as marched into battle, and I was the handmaiden who bore witness to your betrayal, when you promised yourself to the queen of Naboo, as if you had not already promised yourself to me.”

The scowl has returned, marring the man’s perfect features.

Anakin swallows, wetting his lips. “I promised myself to the king of the gods,” he whispers. “To Kenobi.”

“And he has made good on your promise,” the man smiles, one hand falling from his face to cup his neck. “He has taken you from your battlefield, delivered you to Mount Olympus. I have taken you as mine, I have taken what is mine.”

Deep within Anakin, he knows that the man before him speaks the truth. That he is no man at all. That—that—that he is—

“Kenobi,” he whispers, and the king of the gods lets his eyes flutter shut as if he hearing his name from Anakin’s lips causes him great pleasure.

“Yes,” Kenobi growls, adjusting his hold on him to tug him closer to his body.

Anakin is touching a god. A god is touching Anakin. The king of the gods has taken him from the battlefield, from the arms of his bride to be, from the mortal realm all together.

And he is holding him like he has no intention of letting him go.

[foxgloveinspace]

I mean this in the nicest way possible: I wish I was a better friend.

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

Still haven't messaged my mom back. And I don't think I'm going to.

[jrueships]

ill be having such a good time then Boom, someone says something

[bunnihearted]

🌧️🫧💭

[hauntedwoman]

as badly as i want to avoid my mom she is making it extremely difficult