#which only makes me feel more evil about it all.

[yinyuedijun]

LENA UR TAGS... I WILL CRY FR

had to immortalize these tags here forever I fear hope u don't mind. slsjwkdjaks

thank you for reading this despite being an anime only LMAO I can only imagine how disorienting it must have been given that your only context was e.e. = tighty whities 😭😭😭 SO GLAD you liked how I approached the character voices! I was indeed trying to make the evil eye kind of childish, in the sense that he has one-dimensional and simplistic take on everything that is a more sensory experience (sex, or drinking Pampy, or "playing"/sparring - he likes that stuff and that's about it).

AND YEAH JIJI 😭 sorry for the insane lore drop AGLSJSKDJS most of that you'll learn in canon + some of it was a headcanon. I won't say which is which. season 2 will be a whammy I fear 💔

"ee has been reading like a shy tsundere to me" is so funny to me HRFLSJKSKHAHAH I got sick of writing yandere ghost types so I went for something new this time 😭 also NOT THE CAT SALAD MEME GLDJSKSJS I'm glad that refrain landed well <3333 turbo granny is my FAVE as well also - I'm so glad you enjoyed her banana threat LMAO

ALSO!!!! I am!! so glad more than anything else that you enjoyed the relationship dynamics. the insecurity of the reader, along with the parallel between her feelings of inadequacy with jiji vs. evil eye's feelings for her were probably the two most central things to the narrative. this is ultimately a fic about not really knowing how to love someone the right way but trying to make it work despite it all!!! along with the crazy ghost sex ofc (CACKLED @ you blacking out wsjsjjsha).

thank you SOOOO MUCH for reading and 10x for the yap <3333 I TRULY ADORE U!!!!! THANK U LENA!!!

FUNERAL MARCH | evil eye x fem!reader x jiji

The Evil Eye doesn't love you. It's not in his nature as a demon, and he's not sure that it was in his nature as a human either. He wasn't loved and couldn’t love, and that's why he was given to the Tsuchinoko. But he likes to possess you nevertheless, and he often thinks about cursing you so that you’re bound to him. It would be the only way to keep you, because you probably don't love him, either—no human would embrace such a horrid and ugly existence. You just love the Vessel he inhabits. (Or: You and Jiji are now engaged. Of course, you have to ask the Evil Eye to marry you too.)

10.8k words. romance, smut, mild angst & comedy. rough sex with the Evil Eye (piv, creampie, overstimulation, bizarre magic, cnc elements in the “nooo it's too much” kind of way, dubcon with the magic). content warnings: aged up characterization, implied past sexual abuse (not involving Jiji or Evil Eye), brief mentions of suicidality, religious references (Taoist ghost marriage), use of English idioms that don't translate well into Japanese (forgive me), canon-typical crass humour. mdni.

I. THE GHOST

You’re in love with his Vessel.

The Evil Eye is well-aware of this. He hadn't known love as a human, but he saw it often enough in the House. Countless families moved in over the years, husbands and wives with little children who were frightened when he tried to play with them. After photography was invented, pictures lined the walls and decorated nightstands. They immortalized brides in their white kimono, grooms with their wide smiles, elegant ceremonies, decadent banquets.

The couples always looked like they were having so much fun, the Evil Eye noticed. Not just in the photos, but in their daily lives in the House—dancing with each other, pressing their lips together, laughing and singing and holding each other. Then they'd die together, hanging themselves because of that shitty worm. The Evil Eye always felt a kind of sadness seeing them in love—he’d never had that, and he'd never get it, and it was unfair in a way that filled him with a searing rage.

But he was even angrier when they died.

It used to make him angry too, when you talked about the Vessel. When he took over and he caught you laughing at something the Vessel had said, or dancing with him, or pressing your lips together. (Kissing, you’d told him the first time it happened. It's called kissing someone, when you do that.)

Then you started kissing the Evil Eye too, and suddenly he wasn't so angry anymore—the latent rage in him for once eased.

Still, it makes him feel sullen when you tell him, “Jiji and I want to get married.”

You are lying next to him in bed. Sweat is cooling on your naked body—you always get so hot when you and the Vessel get into bed with each other, or sometimes when he’s got you bent over the dining room table, or occasionally when you touch each other in that place you call the ‘locker room’, which tends to leave you extra breathless. No matter the place or the time, you’re always lighthearted, glowing, satisfied. It's the effect that the Vessel has when he’s inside you.

(Sex, you told the Evil Eye once, it's called having sex. Or making love. Not all sex is making love, but it's making love the way that Jiji and I do it. And then the Evil Eye demanded that you show him what exactly that meant, and that's when you took him inside you for the first time. He felt so good and so close with you that for a while, it was all he wanted to do.

Wants to do.)

“What does that mean,” the Evil Eye asks, although he has a good idea. You want to live in a House with the Vessel and laugh and sing and hold each other. You want to die together too, probably, your corpses hanging side-by-side from the same bannister.

“It means we’re going to dress up and make vows to spend the rest of our lives together,” you say. “And we’ll live together and build a home and maybe we’ll have babies too.”

The Evil Eye thinks of all those babies who lived in the House, impossibly tiny humans who were cradled by their mothers before they were burned alive as sacrifices. Before he became the Evil Eye—back when he was merely the ghost of a waif—he’d tried to play with them too, making silly faces and dancing as they giggled at him. He liked to pretend that they were his younger sisters or brothers, but sometimes he wondered how it'd feel to hold them and sing to them like their parents did. How it'd feel if he were a husband with a wife and a kid, what it would be like to dance with someone in the kitchen or tuck a child away into its cradle.

But every time he tried to pick the babies up, his hands would pass right through them. Kind-hearted ghosts can't love people in such a physical way; you need to be vengeful to hold onto anything. He'd had to learn to hate all humans before being able to touch them again, and now he's so rife with hatred that he can't love them anyway. All he can do is haunt them.

The Evil Eye doesn't love you. It's not in his nature as a demon, and he's not sure that it was in his nature as a human. He wasn't loved and couldn’t love, and that's why he was given to the Tsuchinoko. But he likes to possess you nevertheless, and he often thinks about cursing you so that you’re bound to him. It would be the only way to keep you, because you probably don't love him, either—no human would embrace such a horrid and ugly existence. You just love the Vessel he inhabits, and that's why he can kiss you and that's why he can hold you and that's why he’s allowed to sex with you (sex, not love—you've never called it making love when you do it with him, and you never look lighthearted after, and you never glow from his touch: he always leaves you panting, marked up, bruised, possessed).

You love the Vessel, so it makes sense that you would want to do all that with him: live in a House together and make babies together and eventually die together.

“Oh,” he says. “Sounds fun.”

You laugh. “Yes, I hope it'll be.” Then you lace your fingers with his, and look at him in a tender way that he'll probably never get used to. In a tender way that's meant for the Vessel.

“So, then,” you say almost shyly, “Do you wanna marry me too?”

II. THE VESSEL

Auntie Seiko is as beautiful, young, and no-nonsense as ever. Between meeting her as a child, coming into her care as a teenager, and now seeking her help as an adult, Jiji doesn't think she's ever changed. Most familiar to him right now is the expression that she’s wearing, the one that suggests that he might have shit for brains. Turbo Granny, perched on her shoulder, seems equally bemused, her porcelain cat eyes narrowed into judgemental slits. He'd been hoping that Momo and Okarun would understand his feelings, but they seem equally exasperated—Momo might even be a little appalled.

Anyone else might be disheartened by this reaction, but Jiji is undeterred. These are the people who once realised his wish to protect the Evil Eye; surely, they’ll also realise his wish for him to find happiness.

“—so we talked to him, right? Or my beautiful wifey talked to him, anyway—”

“We're not married yet, Jiji,” you interrupt dryly. “Don’t call me that.”

“—my future beautiful wifey talked to him about getting married, and he said yes! I'm on board. I think they should get a proper ceremony and everything. I know it's a little unconventional since she’ll be marrying me too, but I don't mind sharing, and I'd be willing to work out any legal issues. I'm sure we can find a country where polygamy is allowed.”

“Don’t you think the bigger problem is that he's an evil spirit?!” Momo asks—yells—but Jiji only shrugs.

“Evil or not, don't you think he deserves love and romance just as much as anyone else?”

“No!”

Jiji supposes that he can't blame Momo for her reaction, given how many times the Evil Eye has nearly killed her. Deeming her a lost cause, he turns his gaze on her boyfriend instead, almost puppy-like.

“Don’t you think so, Okarun?”

“Not really,” he admits, and Jiji nearly wilts at the betrayal before he adds, “but I understand where you're coming from. The Evil Eye was like a child when he first possessed you; his greatest wish was to find a friend to play with. Now he's basically a young man who's found his first love and his greatest wish is to be with her… and she, um, happens to be your wifey…”

“Don’t call me that!” you protest, oddly embarrassed, and Jiji resists the urge to squeeze you. You're so cute when you're flustered, it's unbearable. He makes a mental note to tell you this on the way home, though he already does this every day as a rule. When you were both still students, he would say it whenever he walked you home from school; nowadays, he more often says it during long-distance phone calls, or on FaceTime, or occasionally via text if your schedules are that misaligned. But he still makes it a point to remind you everyday, no matter where he is in the world: You're so cute. You're so pretty. You're beautiful, did you know that? I love you.

I love you, he thinks as he watches you. You look bashful right now. “We both want the Evil Eye to find happiness, and I’m pretty sure marriage will make him happy. And, well…” Your gaze drops. “It’d make me pretty happy too.”

Something in Jiji’s chest swells when he sees your expression. It feels mostly sweet, but there's also a painful edge to it. He’s always carried a kind of ache in his ribs ever since the day he caught his parents dangling from the second floor of the House and had to untie the nooses himself. Nowadays, he isn't sure if the pain is from that memory or if it's from the weight of the Evil Eye’s curse. Sometimes it feels like they're one and the same. Often it feels suffocating, like he's drowning and there's nothing he can do to breathe again—not laughing or joking or playing or running.

But you're always there when it’s hard. You're always beside him when he wakes up in the middle of the night to gasp for air, the way he used to when he was haunted as a teenager: It's okay, Jiji, you tell him, voice tender, I'm here for you. You aren't alone. I won't leave you. I won't let anything hurt you. I love you. The nightmares always leave him soaked in cold sweat, so he often switches in these moments, his consciousness displaced by a lonely, crying spirit. He doesn't know what it is you say to the Evil Eye, but when he comes back his heart feels lighter, and from that he knows that you've comforted him too.

The Evil Eye loves you—that much is clear. He loves you as much as Jiji does, probably. In a different way, sure, but just as much in strength.

It follows that nothing would make the Evil Eye happier in this world than getting married to you, Jiji figures. Dead or alive, who wouldn't be elated to marry the love of their life? And Jiji knows it'd make you equally as happy; only an idiot would think that you didn't love the Evil Eye back, and he's no fool. Some people might find it weird that he wants his wife to marry another man—and an evil spirit, at that—and maybe they're right for that. But why would Jiji ever turn down so much collective joy?

So he nods vigorously, giving Momo an intense look. “It'd make us all happy. Trust us!”

Momo gives you both a long, disbelieving stare.

“Well, when you put it that way…” She sighs, resigned. “When’s the wedding?”

“That's what we wanted your help with,” Jiji says, and he gives her grandmother an earnest look. “We want the wedding to be perfect, but we're not really sure how a ceremony would work with a youkai. What dates to choose, what venue to book, who could perform the rites… I mean, could you perform the rites, Ma’am?”

Auntie Seiko frowns. She looks on the verge of admonishing both of you, but Turbo Granny beats her to it: “Idiots. You can't do a Shinto ceremony with the Evil Eye. All three of you will combust into flames.”

“Oh.” Jiji remembers all the aliens and spirits alike that have burned upon attempting to chase them into the shrine grounds. He deflates. “Then… he can't get married?”

You squeeze his hand, and Jiji suspects that it's more for him than yourself. You don't seem nearly so worried.

“Would a Buddhist temple take us?” you ask.

“Doubt it,” Auntie Seiko says around her cigarette. “They’d probably try to exorcise your hubby on the spot—and even if they didn't, no Buddhist priest here would ever stand for tying the spirit of the deceased to a living person. It's how you get hauntings.”

“I don't mind being haunted by the Evil Eye,” you say immediately, and Auntie Seiko snorts.

“I know you don't, but it’s not in our job descriptions to curse people just because they're horny for a ghost.” Momo and Okarun cough loudly, and Jiji feels himself flushing; you cover your face with your hands. “I know a Chinese Taoist who’s done a few ghost marriages, though.”

“They’re okay with cursing people?” you ask, watching her through your fingers. “I mean—not that I mind.”

“Nah—they perform it as a pacification ritual. It would be the safest way to do something like this.” Auntie Seiko studies you closely. “I'm not sure how my acquaintance would react to an evil spirit or to polygamy, but I’ll call him and ask.”

“You're the best, Ma’am!” Jiji bursts, beaming. “We’ll save you an honoured spot in the front row! Turbo Granny too!” Elders should be respected, after all.

Turbo Granny makes a skeptical noise. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, numbnuts. Even if Seiko can find a priest stupid enough to oversee this wedding, there’s something you need that you probably can't find.”

“If we could find Okarun’s balls, I’m sure we can find anything,” you joke, but Granny seems unimpressed, her paws crossed over her chest.

Jiji frowns. “What exactly do we need to get?”

Turbo Granny gives you both an ominous look.

“His bones.”

III. THE CHILD

The Evil Eye hates being in the House.

All the spirits that he carries hate it too, airy things pulsing with rage and sadness and grief so palpable that he can always easily weaponise it. Any good memories that were ever constructed in the House are eclipsed by the hangings, the knife wounds, the suffocation, and also the burnings. Especially the burnings. Especially the white-hot lava washing over him, eating into his flesh—especially his last few days as a twitching, starving, dying thing on a stake; especially being buried, then the House being built atop his remains. Then all the children and babies sacrificed after him, wailing and screaming: unfair this is unfair let me go let me go let me go it hurts it hurts it hurts please stop this please help me Mom Mommy please help me please come back I don't want to die.

Doesn't anyone love me enough to save me?

He isn't ordinarily bothered by rage; he was born of it, after all. But he doesn't like feeling so much rage around you. The Evil Eye likes haunting you and will probably someday curse you—both things he once did to the families in this House—but he doesn't want to kill you.

He glances around the basement—the man cursed by Turbo Granny is here, and so is his lover. (Girlfriend, you’d called her. Momo is Okarun’s girlfriend, just like how I'm Jiji’s. You agree to be someone’s girlfriend when you have feelings for them and want to act on them. A-ah—what? Y-yes, I do have feelings for Jiji… Why do you ask?) The dancer and the Shinto priestess aren't here, and neither is the girl with the lizard suit, but they aren't needed.

If he tries to kill you, Okarun alone could probably stop him. This is the only reason that the Evil Eye agreed to let you come in the first place.

“This is so gross,” you whine, completely oblivious. You're knee-deep in the white gunk left by that shitty Tsuchinoko worm. “I can't believe you spent a whole day buried in this stuff, Okarun.”

“It saved me and Turbo Granny,” he replies, pushing his glasses up as he digs through the mess with you. “The lava would have gotten to us otherwise. I think it probably preserved the Evil Eye’s bones too.”

“I hope so…” You turn to the Evil Eye, head tilted. “Are you sure they're here, Jashi?”

Jashi. You say his title like it's name and not a curse. (Jashi, we should go try out this cafe, you'll say, or, Jashi, let’s go check out this show, or, I missed you, Jashi, it's been too long—here, can you feel how much I need you?) Sometimes he wonders if you ever forget that he's a ghost, or if using this Vessel fools you into thinking that he's human. If you lay beneath him in bed thinking that it's technically the Vessel inside you, and not just the monster possessing him.

“I’m a ghost,” he reminds you bluntly, “‘course I know where my remains are. Dunno if they've turned ash, though. Guess you can't marry me if they have.”

“No, we’ll get married,” you say, unbothered. “I'll dig up all the dirt from this shithole and say my vows to that if I have to.”

Okarun gives you a funny look. “How are you gonna get all that dirt out?” he asks.

“I'll make you carry it.”

“Huh? Says who?”

“Says Momo. He’ll help me carry it, right?”

“He will,” Momo affirms, and her boyfriend chokes. She ignores him, scanning the wreckage. “I hope it doesn't come to that, though. Hey, Evil Eye—can’t you be more specific with where we're supposed to dig? Coordinates or a map would be nice.”

“I'm not a fucking radar!”

You give him a pleading look. “Please, Jashi? Can't you try? For your future wifey?”

The Vessel's face gets hot. Its heart does the stupid thing where it jumps when you're around, or when he holds you after the two of you have sex, or when he stares too long at the engagement ring that's usually on your finger (now hanging around your neck on a silver chain, safely away from Tsuchinoko gunk).

“...fine. Gimme a sec.”

He closes the two eyes of the Vessel so that he can focus on his third. Human vision is too bound by shapes and light and figures; it distracts and deceives him. When he can't see your face, it becomes easier to hone in on his resentment. Unfair, his remains whisper to him, this is unfair let me go it hurts it hurts please stop please stop help me help me help me I don't want to die.

Doesn't anyone love me enough to save me?

“There,” he says eventually, pointing at the ground, “it's all there. In one spot. Guess I'm still a skeleton.”

You've got something of a sixth sense—whether it’s an effect of touching the golden ball or coupling so often with a spirit, the Evil Eye can't be sure. However it came about, it seems to tell you that he's right. Your eyes go soft when you rest a hand on the dirt he’s pointed at.

“Momo, Okarun,” you say, “Thank you for your help. I can dig this up myself—you guys can take a break.”

“Huh? No, we’d be happy to…” Okarun starts, but then Momo’s dragging him out by the collar and making him squawk.

“Sure—we’ll wait outside!” she says. “C’mon, Okarun, let's look for Mongolian Death Worm remains—I saw an occult article saying that it has medicinal properties if you make a powder extract from it…”

“You can't take that stuff seriously, Miss Ayase…”

After they leave, you spend the rest of the afternoon digging.

The Evil Eye offers to help, but you are determined to do it yourself. It's okay, Jashi, you say, I’m going to do it. You're going to be my hubby—the Vessel’s heart does the throbbing thing again—so it's only right that I'm the one to unearth you.

He doesn't understand it, but he shrugs anyway. Suit yourself. And he watches as you your fingers dig into the dirt, delicate nails collecting detritus. You don't want to use a shovel, you say, because you're sure that his bones will be fragile and you don't want to damage them. Even when he tells you that his bones are likely ruined in the first place, burned to shit and frail from rot, you don't let up. You just keep digging until you’re picking them out of the dirt.

You roll out a silk cloth, revealing lotuses against a pale backdrop. One by one, you lay his bones atop the pink and ivory thread, and you've found about half of them before he realises that you're reconstructing his skeleton. It's a small, pathetic thing. Help me help me I don't want to die, he can remember himself screaming. It hurts it hurts it hurts please stop. Doesn't anyone love me enough to save me?

The ghosts of the House begin to wail with rage.

Part of him worries for you—probably the part of him influenced by the Vessel, which is capable of a love that ghosts are not. It knows that you don't deserve his wrath.

“You should leave,” he says, but you shake your head. You take your time as you gather up bones, treating them all delicately as you roll them up in the silk, holding them close to you. As if you aren't in the presence of countless wrathful spirits. As if you are with the Vessel, and not with him.

“You were so small,” you say quietly. “Sometimes I forget that you were a child when you died.”

The Evil Eye stares at you, at the pathetic bundle in your hands. “That was ages ago.”

“But it never stops hurting, doesn't it?” you say, and the walls of the House close in on him. They tell him you're right, that you're a human, that you'll hurt him just like the rest of them, that you need to die too. But you look at him, soft in a way that belongs to the Vessel, tender in a way that the waif-ghost covets, and then the House shudders and goes quiet.

“I’m sorry I didn't help you back then,” you say, and it makes no sense, but he doesn't interrupt you. “I promise I'll make your married life a good one, now that we’re together.”

That's stupid, the Evil Eye thinks of saying, pedantic: I'm already dead. But you rise from the dirt before he can protest, and then you're taking his bones out of the House, cradling him in your arms.

Doesn't anyone love me enough to save me?

For the first time since being born, his body is allowed to leave the confines of its prison.

IV. THE BRIDE

The ceremony happens at night.

You spend the whole day readying yourself. Aira helps you get into your dress, admonishing you for the satanic rituals you'll soon perform but giving you her blessing anyway. Momo does your makeup, telling you to ignore Aira. Vamola says that you look lovely in stilted, earnest Japanese. Auntie Seiko helps you with your hair; she asks you, all the while, if you would like to wear a headdress that might protect you from evil, or for her to perform a consecration on your body. Turbo Granny is less roundabout, offering to take the Evil Eye’s banana in advance of your marital rites. Serpo warns you not to let the Evil Eye take your bananas—Why are you even here!? Momo yells at him—and Reiko Kashima says you shouldn't listen to any of them. You need to hold onto your man no matter what, she advises.

She also says you're beautiful, though of course you aren't as beautiful as her.

Beautiful. Are you beautiful? You'll be beautiful when you marry Jiji, because you're certain that his PR agent will want you prettied up by a team of stylists rather than a bunch of goofballs. You will need to look good for the photos, at least as handsome as him, and you don't know if you can manage that. You will need to be poised in front of the five hundred people attending, about which ten are your friends and none of which are your family.

You're already married to Jiji, technically. The two of you had a civil ceremony that only Momo and Okarun attended as witnesses, quick and dirty and secret. But the official ceremony will make it real, and you are terrified of that. You love Jiji beyond comprehension, and you know he loves you back tenfold, but you've never been able to rid yourself of the small voice in your head that tells you that you aren't good enough for him. It's been haunting you ever since the two of you fell in love, and you think maybe even before that. Maybe it started plaguing you when you were young.

When you were a child, you used to ask yourself if anyone would ever love you enough to save you from the things being done to you—the things you were convinced would be irreversible. You had confessed this to Jiji before you had sex with him for the first time. (Making love, he corrected you, I want to make love with you, and it made you feel so shy you nearly kicked him out of your bed.) He'd replied that he did love you enough, and that he would save you as many times as you wanted (I’m sorry I couldn't help you back then, he'd added nonsensically, but now that we’re together, I'll make sure your life is a good one), and you were so happy that you cried.

Sometimes you still cry, thinking about his words. But no matter how many times you replay the memory, no matter how often you tell yourself that Jiji is an honest man, the small voice in your head always warns that he’d lied to you. That your wedding to him will be a lie, too.

You often think about how he would leave you (gently), and why he would leave you (the list is endless). And then you try to imagine life without him—no cheerful kisses peppering your features, no goofy expressions putting you in stitches, no grueling morning runs, no messy kitchen sinks, no you're the cutest girl in the world, you're so beautiful I can't believe I'm dating you, how come you don't believe me when I say that stuff, I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again, I know you can get better I'll help you, I dunno how to talk about this with anyone other than you, sorry I cried that was kinda lame of me, sorry I need to go to Spain, sorry I was away for so long, I got you this merch, I got us tickets to this show, is it my fault you're going to therapy again, can you come with me to Berlin, is everything okay, come with me to the U.S., are you okay, are we okay, I don't want to break up, I love you, I love you so much, marry me, I'm being serious please marry me, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I promise I won't leave you—

You don't think you could imagine living without Jiji.

Your looming wedding to Jiji terrifies you, but your ghost marriage does not. You feel calm in your dress, certain in your decision. Jashi has never scared you the way that Jiji has, after all. He doesn't frighten you even when the Taoist priest pulls you aside and tells you, “You can still back out of this.”

“Why would I?”

He dabs at his temples with a handkerchief. “This ritual is dangerous with a being like the Evil Eye. Ghost marriages are meant to pacify benign spirits—not vengeful ghosts. I can't guarantee that he will be calmed by this.”

You give him a quizzical look. “If he isn't calmed, then what would happen?”

The priest swallows. “There are three potential outcomes. One—he is pacified completely and moves on to the afterlife.”

This would scare you ordinarily, but you know Jashi well enough to understand that he would never move on. “Okay. What else?”

“Two—he is unaffected, and things remain the same.”

You wait, watching the way his fingers tremble. A wind blows; it carries the scent of burning sandalwood from the wedding altar.

“And?”

“And three—the most likely possibility—he will attach himself to you and curse you.”

“Oh.” The thought should scare you, but you don't think it's fear that’s squeezing your heart. “What would a curse be like?”

“Devastating. You'll never be able to live a normal life, nor will you have a proper afterlife.” The priest shudders at this possibility, which apparently frightens him too much to further describe. “Listen—if the Evil Eye doesn't pass on, you must not complete the marriage. Completing it would make the attachment permanent, and it would realise any curse he places upon you.”

“‘Completing the marriage”?”

“Consummating it.” His face is white. “Sex magic is unspeakably powerful. I don't believe anyone would be able to break a curse that’s born from it—at least not involving such a great yaoguai.”

Anyone else might laugh at his words, but you remain quiet. After spending so long chasing golden balls and bananas, after nearly a decade of fighting off aliens trying to have sex with Momo and Aira, you know that he is telling the truth.

And besides—you know just how permanently a touch can linger (a lifetime, forever, doesn't anyone love me enough to save me?), so you aren't surprised to hear the kind of curse it inflicts.

“Okay,” you say. “I promise I won't let it happen.”

It is only with this vow that the Taoist consents to overseeing the marriage.

The affair is a hodgepodge of Chinese funerary practices and Western weddings—foreign in every respect, but not uncomfortable. Auntie Seiko, clad in red-and-white robes and a golden headdress, walks you down the aisle. Against all her counsel, a white veil sits atop your head and chases after your shoulders. You stop before an altar of offerings and summoning talismans, Taoist spells lit up by the full moon hanged above. Instead of a bridegroom, you are next to a coffin that holds a tiny skeleton. The priest is before you, now possessed by a death god that will call Jashi back to his remains. Supposedly it is a Taoist deity, but its presence feels more extraterrestrial to you than anything spiritual. You will need to ask Serpo about it later.

You study the audience as the priest begins the summoning ritual. Jiji sits in the front row, watching you intently; if all goes well, Jashi will leave his body for the duration of the ceremony, along with all the vengeful ghosts that once resided in the sacrificial house with him. The spirits of the house scare you more than Jashi; you do not know how they will behave once cleaved from his control. There's a banquet for them in the back, a long table with a spread of incense, flowers, rice, and fruit—but you do not know if it will be enough to pacify them.

Your wedding party is equally on edge. As the White Impermanence begins its rituals, Jiji’s body slumps, and everyone else stiffens in their seats. The air grows rife with malevolence. The stars and moon blink out of existence, the world around you grows silent, and a suffocating darkness overtakes the night—almost as if you have been submerged in Empty Space. Tiny cyan flames erupt in the air around the banquet table, their glow eerie in the darkness. They must all be onibi, you guess.

Jashi himself emerges before you, standing over the coffin that holds his bones. You’d expected him to look like the emaciated child that he'd died as, or perhaps the stick-thin monster that used to haunt Jiji—but he takes another form altogether, a formless shadow that your mind can barely comprehend. You're vaguely aware of Turbo Granny covering Momo’s eyes, Okarun transforming, Auntie Seiko readying her bat—but you don't look at any of them. You only stare, as if in a trance, at the single vertical eye that is now peering at you from the darkness.

It is probably strange that you feel so calm. If you were a normal person, you'd probably run from your wedding altar of incense and offerings. Or, actually—if you were a normal person, your mind would be fraying at the edges, gripped by a desire to self-destruct. You would sob and beg the Evil Eye to lift its gaze and let you go and to return to you your life.

But you are not a normal person. The Evil Eye has never really made you feel particularly suicidal, nor have you ever really wanted to beg for your life before it. Your gaze is calm as you recite your vows from memory:

I shall marry this man. No matter what tragedies may arise, I will love this person, respect this person, console this person, help this person—until death, and beyond it. I swear these things before the gods.

When the Evil Eye makes his vows, it is in speech that human ears cannot understand. From the wedding banquet, the spirits of the house cry, their wails cacophonous and wrathful, and suddenly you realise that something has gone terribly wrong. Something has changed with this ghost wedding, and not for the better, but when Seiko rises from her seat, you raise a hand.

Finally, the Evil Eye recedes. The darkness lifts, although the spirits linger. Jiji’s eyes flutter open, immediately anxious and disturbed. You give him a reassuring smile—and the rest of your wedding party, too.

Something has gone terribly wrong. Still, you go about your business cheerfully. You thank the Taoist priest, and you insist to him that you will clean up the altar yourself. You greet your friends and say that they should head for the reception, which will have food for humans rather than ghosts. You peck Jiji on the cheek, beaming at him, and he relaxes and congratulates you.

He cups your face tenderly, kisses you on the nose. “You look happy,” he says.

Something has gone terribly wrong, but you still smile and tell him, “Yes.”

V. THE OFFERING

Your marriage bed is an altar.

Ivory petals are scattered across the bed, along with whole lilies and chrysanthemums. Sweetness permeates the room, carried by the smoke of burning incense. Flames dance upon red candles, flickering as they cast a gentle, soft light. This is your attempt to set an intimate mood, but the Evil Eye does not feel any form of love—he only knows greed. Every object in this room is an offering for the dead, meant for ghosts to consume, and you are the greatest offering of all, waiting for him on the centre of the bed in white silk. You are more fragrant than any joss, riper than any fruit, and he is the most ravenous ghost in existence.

“Isn't this romantic?” you say, beaming at him, and this is when the Evil Eye understands that he absolutely cannot have sex with you.

The wedding was meant to pacify him, perhaps even allow him to move on, but it only did the opposite. Seeing you before him at the altar, vowing to spend a lifetime with him despite all his resentment and ugliness made bare—it only made him more covetous. To move on would be to give up all the love you’ve offered him, the kind of love he'd been denied his whole life.

The kind of love he cannot return.

But he wants it anyway. And like any ghost, he’ll take it—take your love, your heart, your body, your life—if he is allowed to spread your legs and fuck you.

He knows this intuitively, although Turbo Granny also told him this. If you care for her even a little bit, she'd groused, you won’t go through with it. Then she'd threatened to take his banana and his nuts.

But vengeful spirits cannot care for human beings, not truly. It's a wonder that the Evil Eye is hesitating at all, why he feels a pit when he thinks about trapping you. It must be a consequence of his Vessel, who loves you so selflessly that even his body resists hurting you.

“We shouldn’t do it,” he says outright. You blink at him.

“Why?” You tilt your head. “...are you getting wedding night jitters? Do ghosts get nervous?”

He stares at you, uncomprehending. “What? No! I'm not fucking nervous!”

You frown. “Then what's the matter?”

It'll be dangerous for you, he tries to say, but then you're giving him a shy look and untying the sash around your waist. He swallows as the silk robe drops around your shoulders, pools around your thighs. The ivory lace covering your breasts and your core is so sheer that he can practically see through it. It's delicate, pretty—and he wants nothing more than to tear it off and ruin you.

“Don’t you”—you look so flustered, so cute, an echo tells him—“don’t you wanna make love to your wifey?”

Part of him thinks he might cum in his pants. The other part of him wants to leave. Wifey, making love—those are all words that you use on the Vessel. All words that are meant for the Vessel. You're confusing the Evil Eye with your real lover, under the delusion that he is human, unaware that you're being haunted. The Evil Eye is not the man you wish to marry, to live in a House with, to make babies with, to grow old with.

Unfair unfair unfair it hurts it hurts it hurts please please please I don't want to die. I don't want you to die. Why can't I touch you? Why can't I hold you? Please please please—

“I can't.”

Your brow arches. “What do you mean?”

“I can't make love to you.” He pauses, feels a kind of frustration bubbling up when you give him a confused look. “I don't love you.”

Your mouth opens, and you make a faint, strangled noise before asking, “What?”

“I don't love you.”

It takes a moment. You stare at him; you look down; you close your eyes. Your shoulders shake. You'll probably get angry and throw him out, or you'll just calmly ask him to leave. However you do it, you would cast him out, and it would be for the better. You would remain uncursed, free to live out a proper life with the Vessel, and the Evil Eye would get to keep his nuts.

But instead of doing either of those things, you start sniffling—and all the blood leaves his face.

“You”—your voice is so fragile, and it cracks and breaks and his throat feels like it's closing up—“what do you mean you don't love me?”

The Evil Eye's mouth drops open as you start to sob. “W-wait, wait—why are you crying? Don’t cry!”

You start to wail. “You don't love me! I just married you and you don't love me! How am I not supposed to cry?” Between hiccups and sniffs, you pick up one of the pillows and throw it at him. He's paralyzed, forgets to dodge, and it hits him square in the face. “What did I do wrong?!”

“Nothing!” he yells. His heart is pounding. It's squeezing and twisting and it feels so bad that he nearly wants to dispossess the Vessel. “You didn't do anything wrong! It's not you! It's—”

“If you say ‘It’s not you, it's me’, I'll kill you! I'll really kill you!”

“I’m already dead!”

“Then I'll beat your ass!”

“You can't beat my ass! You're not strong enough!”

“Then I'll banish you! I'll spray Jiji with hot water everyday and I won't let you come out! Not even to have Pampy! Not even to play with Okarun!”

The Evil Eye’s mouth drops open. “That's fucking mean!”

“You're fucking mean!” You look at him, and your gaze is so watery and pained that the Evil Eye can't help but go to you. He doesn't realise that he's wiping away your tears until his fingers are wet, and he can’t find it in himself to push you away when you press your face into his shoulder and cling to him. His arms—no, the Vessel’s arms; it must be the Vessel doing this—tighten around you.

“Why—why don't you love me?” you whine between hiccups, and the Evil Eye should call you foolish for expecting him, a spirit who intends to kill all of mankind, to ever love a human. To think that you could spend all these years around him and be so delusional about his true nature—is it that you've forgotten that he drives people to suicide? That his intent is to someday kill all of you, after killing Okarun? The spirits of the House scream at him to grab your face and force you to look at his hideous third eye, to remind you of what he is, to say you're a human you should die like the rest of them you’re as guilty as all of them, you would lock me in a cage too, you would burn me alive and bury my bones beneath a House.

Instead, he rubs your back until your breath begins to even out. And rather than grabbing you and threatening you, he clears his throat.

“I'm… a vengeful spirit,” he says lamely. “Love just isn't something that's in our nature.”

“Why not?” you sniff.

“‘cause if it were, we wouldn't be vengeful. We wouldn't even be ghosts in the first place, probably.”

“B-but,” you whimper, “we've been dating for so long. We live together and sleep together and eat together. You take care of me and I take care of you. We go on dates and hold hands. We even have sex—like, a lot of sex. You initiate it!” You sound accusatory, and the Evil Eye doesn't understand why. Of course he wants to have sex with you; it's one of the most addictive things about having this body. The part of the living world he wants most, nowadays. “If you didn't feel anything for me, why would you do any of that?”

He bristles. “Of course I feel something for you,” the Evil Eye says, oddly agitated. “Just ‘cause I can't love doesn't mean I can't feel. Resentment is what anchors ghosts to this world in the first place.”

“Then what do you feel for me, if not love?” Your fingers dig into the Vessel’s white suit. “Resentment?”

The Evil Eye stares blankly. He doesn't know how to describe it all—the longing, the greed, the envy for the Vessel. The euphoria and closeness of being inside you, a feeling so good that he didn't even know that such joys existed when he was human. The idea of living in a House filled with wedding photos, the thought of making babies with you that he might hold and touch and kiss. So many things that he never had in life. So many things that he can't help but want in death.

So many things that he can't help but want to trap you for them.

“...no, I don't resent you,” he says. “It’s more like I wanna curse you.”

He expects you to cry more—after living for such a long time among humans, he now has enough manners to understand that it is rude to curse someone who has only ever treated you with unconditional love, even if in error—but instead, you become strangely quiet.

You pull away from him so that he can see your face. It's—hopeful?

“You wanna curse me?”

“Yeah. Curse you—haunt you, possess you, control you.” He shrugs. “The usual things that ghosts do when they're so attached to something that they can't move on. You know.”

“Oh.” You wipe your eyes, and the Evil Eye has to stop himself from helping. “I'm so happy.”

“...you're what?”

“I'm so happy that you feel that way about me.”

He stares at you. “You're happy that I wanna curse you?”

“Yeah.”

The Evil Eye studies you. You never react to him in ways that make sense—you’re endeared by him when you should be afraid; you treat him sweetly when you should be callous; you even seem to enjoy his violence when everyone else always punishes it. Now you’re touched by the idea of being cursed.

“Why?” he asks flatly. “I thought you wanted to be loved. Or make love. Something like that.”

You give the Evil Eye a long, thoughtful look.

“Jashi,” you start, voice gentle now, “what do you think love is supposed to look like?”

A married couple in a House. A baby in his mama’s arms. Three children dancing in a field, giggling in the sunlight.

“Dunno.” When you stare at him, as if expecting something, he grows agitated. “I said it's not in my nature. Talk to the Vessel about that stuff, not me.”

One of your brows arches. “Why? You're my husband”—his heart kicks violently at that; he hates this fucking body sometimes—“I want to know what you think love looks like. And besides…” Your voice gets all quiet, and you look away. “It’s not like Jiji would necessarily agree with my views anyway.”

That gets his attention. “What do you mean?”

You hum. “How do I explain it… well, for example—if I found happiness with someone else and left to be with them, Jiji would be heartbroken, but he would be happy for me. Because he loves me, it's ultimately most important for him that I'm happy.”

A married couple in a House. Two corpses dangling from the rafters. A baby in his mama’s arms. A child suffocating in the darkness, crying for his parents. Three children dancing in a field, giggling in the sunlight. Starving in a cage nearby, I'm so hungry, I'm so cold. Unfair unfair I don't wanna die I wanna play with other children I want to dance in the field please please please why can't I touch you why can't I hold you why why why—

“That's fucking stupid,” the Evil Eye blurts out.

“But that's what he’s told me—and I believe him.” You smile at him. “Now, how do you think I'd react if someone took you or Jiji away from me?”

This feels like a trick question. He squints at you. “The same?” he tries.

“That would be ideal. But honestly,” you admit, “I would resent you all for the rest of my life and then think about killing myself. That's what love looks like for me.”

“Oh.” The Evil Eye nods, relaxing. “Yeah, that makes way more sense.”

You laugh, sounding genuinely amused. “Jiji doesn't think so. It really worries him that I feel this way. It would worry most people, actually.” Then you get a little quiet. “I do want to get better for him, but it doesn't come naturally to me, the way that he loves me.”

He doesn't like the tone you're using—soft, uncertain. Mournful. You feel like one of the spirits in the House right now. He thinks about the way you cradled his bones, and his hold on you tightens.

“Where are you going with this?”

“I'm saying that I don't mind that you want to haunt me, or possess me, or whatever.” Your eyes are earnest. Steadfast with the confidence you had as you unearthed his grave. “To be honest, being cursed by you isn’t nearly as frightening as being loved by Jiji.”

The Evil Eye cups your face, thumbing away your tears. Would you cry like this if you knew what it would mean, to be possessed by him? Would you regret your offer to him, the way that the Vessel regrets his? Or would you stare at his true face as you did at the altar and vow to love him anyway?

Instead of asking you any of this, he allows you to loop your arms around his neck.

“I want you to make love to me,” you murmur sweetly as you climb atop him, and that makes him pause.

Two corpses dangling from the rafters. A child suffocating in the darkness, crying for his parents. Starving in a cage nearby, I'm so hungry, I'm so cold. Unfair unfair unfair why can't I touch you why can't I hold you why why why—

“I said I don't know how to do that.”

“Fine,” you say, and then you’re pressing your lips against his, grinding your cunt against his hardening cock. “Then curse me instead.”

VI. THE DEMON

You've always known that the Evil Eye couldn't love you in a normal way.

It was obvious from the outset, simply cataloguing him for what he is: a monster born from human sacrifice; a curse that drives people to madness, to suicide; a thing that regularly exploits Jiji for his body and makes him commit violence against his will. Jiji and Okarun and the rest might be delusional about the Evil Eye nowadays—thinking that he's just like a kid, that he just wants to play, that he’s in love and wants to get married and play house—but you are not. He can't play with Okarun in normal ways, and he can't love you in normal ways. Every desire ends in blood. That's how it began for him, after all. How he was born.

Your mind has always known this, but your body only learned it the first time you had sex. The Evil Eye doesn't know how to make love to you the way that Jiji does. You’ve tried countless times now, and he's even demanded that you make him do it that way so that he knows what the Vessel gets to feel during sex with you. You've kissed him deep and slow, gently touched him until he felt desire, taken him inside you and pressed your forehead to his. Just like that, you encouraged him countless times, you're doing so good. Good boy. You're doing so well. I love you.

You always end up with your face pressed into the mattress, cheeks wet with tears and throat hoarse from screaming. Sore and bruised and fatigued and it's too fast, it's too big, I can't, please, and with any other man you'd probably hate it but when it's Jashi you always end up moaning and begging for more. You'd always thought you’d be disgusted with yourself for having this kind of sex, but with him, you feel too good to really care. All you can think about is his teeth marking your neck, the cruelty of his rough hands, how his cock fills you so well that you can hardly breathe.

He’s taken you like this countless times, but something feels different about it right now. It might be the incense, so thick in your throat and your lungs that you're dizzy with it. It might be the fragrant petals crushed beneath you, soft and strange things that you stole from your wedding altar. Flowers for the dead, the priest had said to you, given to the ancestors, or to bodies as they're lowered into the ground.

You think maybe that's happening to you, right now: you’re dying, you're being torn apart, you’ll break in Jashi’s hands. It'll leave a mark on your body for a lifetime, forever—and you don't need to be saved.

But even after being fucked so many times, even after your mind has been made so hazy and distant, you're still trying so hard not to come apart at the seams. An agonizing pressure is building in your belly, and you can't let it burst. It’s inconvenient when you get too wet; it makes Jashi switch, which is normally hilarious but would feel catastrophic right now, when you’re drunk on the feeling of his cock inside you and don't want any of this to end. But it's so hard, keeping yourself from drenching him—you can hardly think when he's fucking you like this, let alone control yourself.

“I c-can't anymore,” you whine. “Jashi, you gotta stop, I need a break, please—”

Jashi doesn't care. He takes and takes and takes, and of course he does. It's in his nature as a vengeful ghost, as an existence so empty it can't do anything but consume the life around it. It's not enough that you’ve been ruined by his cock, that you're being used like a fleshlight. It's not enough that he’s made you cum countless times—not out of consideration to you, but simply because he's addicted to the feeling of you squeezing and milking him. It's not enough that he's spilled himself inside you more times than should be possible, uncaring of the consequences. It's not enough, it's never enough—he always needs more from you; more tears, more begging, more feverish, white-hot pleasure.

You shouldn't be surprised when you feel his hips start to stutter again, his cock twitching inside you. Some distant part of you is alarmed anyway, even as your cunt tightens around him, eager to be filled. You've never let anyone fuck you raw before tonight, never had anyone fill your womb up like this—not him and not Jiji; you've always been too afraid of pregnancy—but with each passing moment, it is harder to remember why. Not when it feels so good to be pumped full by him, your body flooded with a strange warmth each time. Unnatural, you keep thinking, this feels weird, he's doing something to me, he's cursing me, he's claiming me. But all you do is wrap your legs around his waist when he cums again, greedy for more, and you sigh in relief at the feeling of it.

He has to stop after this. He has to be sated. He pulls out, his cock throbbing against your swollen pussy, painting it a creamy white—and then he throws your legs over his shoulders and sinks back into you.

“Nooo,” you moan, squirming, thrashing, knowing you'll burst if he fucks you again. “I can't, I can't—I can't hold it in anymore, I can't—”

“Then don't,” he grunts. He looks straight down at you, his weight heavy on you, oppressive, unnatural. You hold your breath as you look at his face—dark and vicious, the vibrant eye on his forehead enrapturing. For the first time in your life, you feel a madness creeping in as it stares at you, fraying at your control. You can't move, can't resist him, can't think, and when he starts thrusting again, your body floods with a euphoria so hot that all you know how to do is cry.

You’re going to break from the ecstasy.

“W-what,” you gasp, “what are you doing to—”

Something hits your sweet spot, and your voice clips off into a desperate whimper. His cockhead starts grinding against it, and you try so hard to squirm, to stop, to control yourself—but whatever he's done to you has made you weak, pliant, and you feel yourself start to pulse. Pinned beneath his gaze, you can neither get away nor fight it. You can only surrender. The pressure is too much, your womb is too hot, and suddenly your back is arching and you feel like you're dying as you gush all over him.

You're in hysterics as you come down, panting and gasping for breath. “No more, no more,” you beg, squeezing your eyes shut, clinging to him. You sob into the crook of his neck, and finally—finally—he relents.

He’s gentle as he pulls out, careful as he sets you down on the bed. Kisses pepper your cheeks, your eyelids, your lips. Then, finally—his forehead pressed against yours, lashes fluttering against your skin.

“You're alright,” Jiji murmurs. “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

VIII. THE CURSE

The Evil Eye has cursed you.

Jiji saw it on your body: a sunburst of strange characters on your stomach, an eye in the centre. The Taoist priest had broken into a pale sweat at the sight, its implications: if anyone else tries to touch you, whether with the intent to do harm or pleasure, then the untold carnage will be wrought upon them. Should you ever try to leave the Evil Eye, he will drag you back with such violence that it will shatter you. That so long as that vengeful ghost is bound to this earth, then so too shall be you.

Jiji is less worried than he probably should be. He doubts that the Evil Eye would truly ever hurt you, and also doubts that you’re physically capable of leaving him anyway. Ever since being marked, you haven't been able to go a day without having either of them inside you—brutally if it is with the Evil Eye; gently if with Jiji. Either way, you’ve been desperate for their touch, plagued by an all-consuming lust if you can't have them. It puts a wrench into all the plans for your respective careers and for the long distance arrangement. Auntie Seiko plans to train you to suppress the curse, but it isn't sustainable.

Privately, though, there's a part of Jiji that doesn't mind the excuse to see you all the time. It’s not that he wants to deny you your freedom, quite the opposite, but—you're his beautiful wife. And he's ridiculously in love with you. He can't help but miss you every day you're apart, and he also can't bring himself to complain about this particular aspect of the curse.

He also understands the Evil Eye for doing this to you. Sure, cursing you wasn't Jiji’s first act as a newlywed—but he also kinda gets it.

Jiji shares dreams with the Evil Eye, sometimes. He sees within them everything that the Evil Eye has experienced—not just as a demon, but as a spirit, a child, a waif. Sometimes he hears the thoughts that he once had, the ones that made him turn vengeful: unfair, this is unfair let me go it hurts it hurts please stop please stop help me help me help me I don't want to die.

Doesn't anyone love me enough to save me?

After all that? Of course the Evil Eye doesn't experience desire the way that a human would. Of course playing with someone is the same thing as killing them. Of course loving someone is the same thing as cursing them. And the Evil Eye loves you—that much is obvious, would be obvious to Jiji even if they didn't share a body—so of course his instinct was to carve you open and mark you with his spell.

Jiji feels poorly about it sometimes, guilty and selfish and like he should have ended things after all. Then you'd be free to love whoever you want, without the threat of certain death looming over you. But then you smile at him in bed, so tender and pretty and glowing beneath him. “I'm glad I get to be with you both,” you sigh, and then he can't really complain. After all, you're his beautiful wife. Jiji is ridiculously in love with you. Of course he wants you to be happy.

If it really ever comes down to it, if you really ever wanted to leave—Jiji knows he'd have himself exorcised. He'd rather die than hurt you. But the possibility seems so distant right now, with how you're studying the stone monument before you. You seem peaceful, tranquil, a calm figure cut against a placid, blue sky. Jiji guesses that's appropriate: cemeteries are meant to be resting places.

This plot of gravesoil belongs to the Enjoji family, and there is a spot carved out for you, right next to the space reserved for him. You bear his surname now, so when the two of you pass, you’ll be allowed to rest side-by-side. He already knows what the Evil Eye would say to that: you'll live in a House together and make babies together and eventually die together and be buried together. And if Jiji could talk to him, if he could for once directly speak with the monster inhabiting him, he'd beam at him and say yeah, we sure are.

But the Evil Eye would miss one thing, and it's that he'd also be buried with you. He'd be buried with both of you.

In your hands is an urn, plain but dignified. It carries the ashes of a waif hundreds of years old, the remnants of a brutal sacrifice. The last step of a ghost marriage is to bury the bones of the bride with the remains of the groom, but you're an Enjoji now, and Jiji’s family does cremations, not burials. When the time comes, you'll be burned, and your ashes will be mixed with those belonging to Jashi. He’ll go before either of you: by the end of the day, his remains will be in the crypt, though Jiji doubts his spirit is going anywhere.

“We’ll be interred with each other, someday,” you say to the ashes, tender. “But first we’ll spend a lifetime together.”

Then you turn to Jiji, your smile sunlit. It's shy, because you're always shy around Jiji—even though he's now your husband and you’ve married him in front of five hundred people and he's made love to you every which way on every piece of furniture in the house since then—and you add, “And we’ll spend a lifetime together too.”

Jiji laughs. “I guess you're stuck with me,” he says, and a frown briefly overtakes your face.

“We’re all stuck with each other,” you correct him. “You're cursed as much as I am.”

“I guess.” He scratches his cheek, sheepish. “Sorry you ended up with a husband who’s possessed by a ghost.”

“I wasn’t talking about Jashi,” you say, and you seem a little uncertain, but Jiji can't help but smile. Partly because he appreciates it when you're earnest with him, but mostly just because he loves you.

“You're so beautiful,” he says, “did you know that?”

You huff at him, turning around. “You’re too much,” you chide, but he hears the fondness in your tone. Jiji grins, and—in the privacy of the cemetery—takes the opportunity to loop his arms around you. You giggle when he squeezes you, and then your voice goes quiet.

“I love you,” you say, “did you know that?”

“Uh huh.” He spins you around so he can waggle his brows and give you his most reassuring look. You snort violently at his expression. “It’s super obvious. You can't resist my charms.”

When your laughter passes, you look down at the ashes in your arms—the child that you carried out of the House.

“Do you think,” you ask, voice odd, “he knows that?”

Jiji’s eyes soften. Because he shares dreams with the Evil Eye, and sometimes he shares thoughts with him too—like the pain in his chest that's been aching ever since he found his parents hanging side-by-side from the second floor, the one that grew every time he found the body of a spirit medium, the one that choked him when his relatives called him cursed and slammed the door in his face. He slept on the ground in front of their house after that—he didn't want to go back to the place where his parents nearly died—and called Auntie Seiko the next day, when he realised that they truly didn't want him around.

Sometimes he shares dreams with the ghost haunting him, and when he screams in his sleep he can't tell if the voice in his throat is truly his or if it actually belongs to the Evil Eye. But no matter its origin, it goes quiet when you hold him in bed and kiss his forehead. Just like how it went quiet when you carried that skeleton out of the House.

Doesn't anyone love me enough to save me?

“Yeah,” Jiji says. “Yeah, he does.”

END

some general notes:

this was a weird fic to write. ordinarily I would write the evil eye as having a childish and immature narrative voice; however, I (1) had to balance it with an aged up characterization, and (2) did not want to get cancelled, so I instead ended up with something in-between that feels a little awkward

there is jiji-focused companion fic that is like 50% done about him fucking you nasty after he switches places with the evil on your wedding night. I will probably finish it and post it when s2 comes out LOL

i know this is not my best writing rip please forgive me

some cultural notes:

taoism has real-life sex magic practices and places a lot of significance on, err, certain bodily fluids in terms of spiritual energy. none of these beliefs have anything to do with getting cursed via freaky ghost marital sex, but they served as the general inspiration for the curse in the fic (alongside dandadan canon, which coincidentally also places a lot of spiritual significance in sex and sexual organs lol)

the vows recited by the reader are a modification of standard japanese wedding vows (found on Google, take with a grain of salt). incidentally, western-style weddings are apparently quite popular in Japan, hence the decision for the bridal dress.

a lot of the wedding details are inspired by chinese funerary practices in addition to actual taoist ghost marriages. I took a lot of creative liberties with the wedding scene in general; real-life ghost marriages are quite different (from my understanding; I have never attended one)

[lumdays]

please notice me, prince!! ♡

au by @alli-ily << i've been meaning to join this au for a little while now hehehe

*click for better quality LMAO,,, sorry i have no idea why it's so fucked up but i did transcript the important stuff down here if you want

sir? dame? siyun (aka azul's worst nightmare)

"though they are very capable, they're quite unpopular with nobles as they tend to disobey even direct orders if they figure that there is a more efficient way to do things. they're also a little too honest for high society's taste."

siyun hails from far away lands, practically another world (hehe nod to them being a yuu). it is known that they have two younger siblings and that their parents are both well but it seems that they are no longer in contact.

...ashengrotto despises them (they give him SO many headaches, FREE HIM 🙏🙏)

some more stuff utc,, ARGHHH I BRAINROT OVER AUS LIKE THIS SO FAST💔💔💔 it's the evil manhwa lover in me

ALRIGHT SOOO.... the reason why i keep mentioning azul is because In My Head (please correct me if i'm wrong/you don't want me making up stuff HELPPP i didn't know what to go off aside that there's a bunch of kingdoms and nobles), he was accused/is suspected of embezzlement and siyun was dispatched to monitor him.

...they might as well be the bane of his existence honestly. embezzlement is likely the one crime he has yet to commit but with a highly competent knight keeping a close eye on him, it's gotten a lot harder for him to do anything that is remotely not outstanding-member-of-society material, which pisses him off to no end (...that's kinda just his own assumptions though LMAO, siyun does NOT care that much about the matters of some rich merchant,, unless someone gets hurt that is).

ANYWAYS. this made me think i should probably write down how they feel about lady ariya and prince shin

starting with lady ariya

siyun truly admires her resolve to clear her family's name. but they also can't help but feel something akin pity for her, the path she chose for herself will be long and arduous, especially alone—very few manage to walk out, head held high and pride intact. still, she seems like a promising young lady and siyun is a hopeful person, "i will assist you should you ever call for me."

prince shin (@liyuviq)

humble beginnings, big responsibilities. it's a bit presumptuous, but siyun sort of relates to the illegitimate prince. perhaps not fully—they never experienced Suddenly Being A Royal and sincerely hoped they never would, even in another universe. however, they can relate to the whiplash, the struggle to cram into a few months—no, weeks—everything the other nobles learned over the years, the stares, the whispers... they remember how it all felt, and when they look at their highness shin, they can only hope that they will rise through it all. "then again, i do know i am not your highness. perhaps you don't feel even a fraction of the dread that filled me back then—i would be very glad if so."

i hope i'm not overstepping 👉👈,, aghh also open for interactions for anyone interested hdhdhhdshd, i haven't checked the tag yet HELP

as for the hypothetical target of their affection,,, i fear it may be butler jade 💀💀........... I'M A SUCKER FOR BUTLER X KNIGHT ARCHETYPE 💔💔💔ALSO I BRAINROT OVER YUNDE 2MUCH💔AH AND quick lore rundown

i imagine their knighthood still stands in another empire—or kingdom,,, sorry my knowledge of the world building here is a little vague HDUAJHF. anyway the point is that they are skilled enough for the royal family themselves to take them under their heavy golden wing—until the ashengrotto accusations and they're given bits and pieces of their freedom back.

I'M REALLY SORRY MOOTS THIS IS JUST ME YAPPING ON AND ON..... but like this au's really sick‼️‼️‼️ tags - @heyhellohihowareyou @elenauaurs @distant-velleity @twistedwonderlandshenanigans @skriblee-ksk @sickle-stick @puowei @jadelover69 @tixdixl @nemisisnemi @angelwishess @theleechyskrunkly @chillygourami @bunniehunn @cheerleaderman UUUH DID I FORGET ANYONE.....

[myjjongie]

☾ BETWEEN SCARS AND KISSES ── p. jongseong

IN WHICH: the vampire you found one night always crashes at your place when he feels like it. only this time he's severely hurt.

PAIRING: vampire!jay x human!fem reader GENRE/WARNINGS: lowercase intended !!, one shot, slight angst (not sure if its slightly or a lot LOL), minor fluff, skinship, mentions of blood/wounds, scars WORD COUNT: 2.2k ₊⊹♡ EVIE'S NOTE: i intended for this to be cuter but then remembered its vampire jay and i needed to make you all miserable :3 i love being evil. also sorry for making this late, really wanted to post this one right away.

the soft clicking of your keyboard echoed within your quiet bedroom. you paused for a moment as you began to think about something or perhaps someone.

it had been months since you last saw jay. your brows furrowed as worry settled in. you couldn’t help but count as the number of days turned into weeks then months. negative thoughts began to plague your mind as you continued to think about him. the worst part? you had no way of reaching him. he always turned up on his own terms and you could do nothing but wait.

waiting for jay to show up on his own was always frustrating. but what made it more difficult, what made jay different. was the fact he was a vampire.

your thoughts drifted to the first night you met jay. the memory so vivid as if it all happened yesterday. you were exhausted, tired legs dragging you home. the only thing on your mind being the comfort of your bed. but when taking that shortcut to your apartment did you see him.

at the time jay looked like a regular human who got beat up. left there all alone in the alleyway you couldn’t help but worry. feeling bad for him your meek body dragged his heavier set body back to your apartment. once there you treated all his wounds, which at the time were only surface level.

once satisfied with your not so perfect patchwork. you sat on the floor beside your bed. exhaustion soon taking over you. unbeknownst to you the mysterious man would wake up a couple hours later.

your body awoke at the ominous feeling of someone hovering over you. once your eyelashes fluttered open did you meet unfamiliar burgundy red eyes. your body was now shocked awake. before you could say anything was when you realized the band-aids that scatter his face were gone. it was as if he never had any wounds to begin with. there was no way that was possible, you remembered the red bruising so vividly.

before any words could be exchanged between yourself and him he left. you sat there for months trying to figure out if what happened was real or a dream. that was until one night he came knocking on your balcony window. you finally found out then what his name was and who he was.

blinking back to reality you stared at the bright screen. pushing away from your desk you lightly stretched before getting up from your chair. after doing so a loud sound was heard from outside your balcony window. the sound made your body jump causing your heart to race in your chest. slowly making your way over to the window your shaking hands peeled back the curtain.

relief washed over you as your eyes recognized the figure outside. sliding the glass door open you let out a shaky laugh.

“you know the whole disappearing act then showing up whenever you please, isn’t good for my heart. you scared me half to death.” you waited for his signature smirk, a teasing remark, anything. but jay stood there silent.

“jay?” you weakly called out to him. there was still no reply from him. that’s when you saw it. the blood. his body swayed slightly, almost as if he was barely holding himself together.

before jay could collapse your smaller frame caught him into your arms. you stumbled back a bit, your back pressed against the glass. panic surged through you, adrenaline dulling the strain of your struggle as you carried jay’s limp body to the bathroom.

you caught your breath after leaning him against the bathtub. once you were done did you notice his eyes flutter open. jay took note of your worried face. his own face twisted in pain as he tried to stand up, in the end jay was still seated on the floor.

“yn. i’m fine. it’s not that big of a deal.” his voice was hoarse and weak as he urged you to stop.

“what do you mean not that big of a deal! you’re at my window bleeding how can you say that!” tears started to burn into your eyes. you would be lying if you denied feeling at least something for jay. to see him this hurt and wounded in front of you made you feel anxious.

“yn..” his hand found its way to yours that was desperately clutched to his leather jacket. he could feel the way your body trembled.

jay knew it wasn’t out of fear but with concern. huffing out a weakened sigh he sat himself up a bit to undress himself from the jacket and shirt. letting him take his time you got up to find your first aid kit. once coming back to him, you finally saw his bare body for the first time. you weren’t prepared to see how many scars adorned his chest.

your eyes immediately noticed the gash on his abdomen. due to jay’s healing factor the deep cut was closing. even though it was healing it was at a slow rate. the piercing red blood that drenched his body slowly faded into a deep red.

settling down in-between his legs on the floor, you immediately got to work. you wrapped bandages across his body to stop the flow of the blood oozing out from the wound.

the tears in your eyes trickled as you continued on with your work. so worried about helping jay you didn’t notice his hand come up to tuck away the hair that was in your face. the moment you realized his gentle comfort was the moment he wiped away a stray tear.

you looked up at him your watery eyes studying his face. his eyebrows were knitted into a frown as he continued to stare at you.

“why are you looking at me like that?” you sniffled out still busy with the task at hand.

“i don’t like it when you cry.” jay softly said as his finger gently caressed your cheek.

“who’s fault is that hmm?”

jay hummed back in response as his hand still lingered on your face. you couldn’t help but notice the way jay softly rubbed his thumb on your lower cheek. not saying anything about it you finished up bandaging him. before saying something, jay cut you off.

“i didn’t realize you had a beauty mark here.” his words were soft as he continuously stared.

at the mention of the beauty mark on your face your eyes couldn’t help but look at the birth mark on his neck. it was quite fascinating how the mark was faintly shaped like a heart. next to his birth mark displayed fang marks, you always knew those marks were from a vampire but never dwelled much on it to ask him. you could tell he never truly wanted to speak on it. shaking your head from your thoughts your focus went back to the kit.

“you’d be surprised i have a lot all over honestly.” you let out a gentle laugh as you began to pack everything away.

once the first aid kit was closed was when you finally took the moment to examine jay’s chest. you never noticed how many scars truly littered his body. there were faint ones that were barely recognizable to the eye. accompanied with those were a couple big ones that looked as if it took many months to heal. without realizing it your fingers were gently running across the scar that occupied the middle of his chest. jay let out a ragged breath at your gentle touch.

it looked as if he took a slash from a sword or something even sharper and bigger than that. you took note of how the skin stretched together to fix itself. as your fingers traced along the healed wound you felt the way it was slightly raised yet rough.

“did this one hurt?” you asked softly, fingers tracing the distinctive mark. the silence in the bathroom made your voice sound small.

“in the moment it did. but once my body let it heal it wasn’t so bad after.”

“i see.” your voice trailed off as you noticed a scar that looked as if he got pierced by something.

the jagged edges resembled that of a spiderweb. the placement of this scar was on the upper left of his chest. all you could think about was how close the wound was to his heart. this one would have, no it could have killed him. your eyes began to water again at the thought of jay facing death on multiple occasions. the tears that brimmed at the edge of your eyes fell onto his chest. jay looked down at you studying the way your body trembled as you cried.

“why are you crying again?” his voice was a soothing coo as he began to wipe your tears away for a second time.

“thinking about how much you suffered makes me sad. i’m sorry.” your voice cracked as more tears left your eyes.

“don’t be sorry. i’m okay now yn isn’t that all that should matter?”

“yes but.” a sigh left your lips at the loss of words you had. it was true jay was here now so why were you crying about things that happened in his past. you couldn’t deny that the wounds you saw before you made you feel sorrow.

once your tears dried up a second time jay spoke.

“you were right yn. i am surprised at how many beauty marks you have.”

“where did that come from?” you let out a soft laugh. your body softly trembled at the cold touch of jay’s fingers trail along your neck.

his fingers gently tapped across any mark he noticed. the feeling sending a shiver down your back.

“you know. i heard a saying. every beauty mark or mole someone has was where their lover kissed them in their past life.” jay’s voice came out in a low tone as he eyed the dots that were scattered along your chest and face.

“then i guess my lover loved me deeply in my past life.” you smiled at the concept of what beauty marks and moles could represent. your smile immediately faltered as you felt the warmth of something press against your skin.

looking down you saw jay’s face buried into the crook of your neck and shoulder. he laid butterfly kisses along the nape of your neck. the feeling was ticklish yet it felt right. a light whimper left your lips as you felt his sharp teeth nibble into your skin.

“jay…” your voice was a gentle hush. your fingers tangled into his hair for support.

despite knowing jay for a year, not once did he ever try to take your blood. if he was gonna do it now you were prepared for the impending pain. your eyes closed shut as you waited for his fangs to pierce into you. yet his fangs never broke into your skin. you hesitantly blinked open your eyes to see that familiar color of burgundy. as well as the faint mole under his left eye you’ve adored the moment you noticed it.

jay’s eyes held a hunger you recognized all too well. a desire he never truly allowed himself to indulge on. a desire to sink his fangs into you and taste your blood. you could always see it whenever he lingered close to you.

yet feeling this way he never gave in to it. he knew deep down if he did he might hurt you or worse lose you. his firm hands gripped your shoulder as he pushed your body away from his. he quickly stood up from the ground as he gathered up his shirt and jacket. he walked past you leaving the bathroom.

matching his pace you hurried yourself up from the floor following behind him.

“where are you going you’re still hurt?!” you couldn’t help but scream out to him watching as he made his way to the balcony.

his movements stopped, back faced to you unwilling to turn around. your eyes took in the scars that cascaded along his back. it dawned on you that everywhere on his body were full of wounds. wounds that he would never truly open up about. not now, not any time soon.

“i’ll see you later yn. okay?” as jay stood there he quickly put on the shirt covered in his blood. one hand opening the window ready to leave as the other tightly held his leather jacket.

“jay please…” your voice wavered reaching out to him. but he wouldn’t turn around to meet you. watching him walk away from you, you could feel your heart break apart. you should be mad at him. but all you could think about was whether jay would be okay. his body still battered with wounds.

your fingers twitched at your side. aching to reach for his hand hoping to stop him. but before you could even think of moving jay’s voice stopped you.

“i’m sorry yn. i’ll be back…” jay faintly turned his body to take one more quick glance at you. satisfied at seeing your face one last time, he vanished into the night.

you rushed to the balcony in hopes of getting one last glimpse of him, but he was already gone. only the faint glow of the street lamps illuminating the dark street remained.

perm taglist ( open! send a ask to be added ) . . . @ikeulove @leehsngs @nickiminajleftasscheek

©myjjongie 2025

[handalea]

Team Natsu Magic HC

So I was rewatching the gmg arc, and something I really appreciated about the artstyle was how they made the celestial spirits glow compared to humans at nighttime, and it got me thinking of how Lucy's magic makes her fit right in with them but also look normal with the rest of her team, and it kind of spiraled from there so accept my brain rot pls.

Lucy

As I was saying above, Lucy's skin & hair faintly glows in the starlight/moonlight. It's not that noticeable when she's standing next to other humans, but when she's with her spirits at night, she looks like she belongs with them.

Lucy is covered in light freckles, and occasionally they will move across her skin like shooting stars, or random lines will faintly connect like a constellation. It occurs more when she's around her immediate family or spirits. Team Natsu has a game where as soon as they see it they treat it like a shooting star, and everyone makes a wish. Lucy didn't notice it until they started doing it, and was freaked out about the freckles for a little bit.

Lucy practices what we would consider practical witchcraft, she has an altar set up in her apartment that she changes every time a new zodiac season starts. Even though she knows her spirits and has close bonds with them, she does this to feel close to other celestial spirits when they meet. She is also superstitious, and on nights when the team is safely asleep in her apartment she will put lines of salt across entry points in her apartment to ward off evil.

Natsu

Natsu is always warm. Always. I know this is something that is exhausted but that boy wears crop tops and shorts constantly, and also loves walking around barefoot. He only wears the duster every once in a while, and team Natsu considers it bad luck when he does, because Fairy Tail always gets into conflicts when he does.

Natsu can use his hands like a heat gun, which is useful for when Lucy has to repaint her apartment when things get covered in scorch marks. Natsu finds it boring but Lucy threatens to not make him dinner if he doesn't.

Like Gajeel and Cobra, when Natsu starts to get really angry his skin starts to harden, and it looks like scales are emerging from under his skin. Watching them fully break through the skin when he uses dragon force scares the shit out of his enemies.

When him and Lucy eventually settle down and have kids, he has Gray, Wendy and Ezra help him gather scales from his dragon force to make a scarf for their children. Lucy and Erza get into knitting, and eventually drag Wendy and Gray into it too, and the entire team helps make the next generations scarves.

With his dragon senses, Natsu is fully tuned into his teams scent. He knows the scent of their favorite food, their blood, their hygine products. While he does know the rest of the guildmates general smell Natsu has fully committed his closet families smell into his brain.

Erza

Erza has to set a time every month where she sits down and repairs her armor and sharpens her swords. Before the team fully started leaning on each other the entire process would take her like 5 days, but with Lucy sitting down and asking Erza to teach her how, eventually the rest of the team started helping her. Lucy hosts it at her apartment, and they make a weekend out of it. Eating greasy food, talking shit on their enemies and discussing the latest guild goss, they manage to knock out Erza's monthly chore in two days.

Erza has to keep a mental inventory stock at all times. With how much swords that break during battle she has a revolving number in her head at all times, it's exhausting at times when she can't stop thinking of it before she goes to bed.

Team Natsu has managed to learn to glance at Erza when she's reequipping and from a single second can guess which armor she's getting into, and they're able to adjust their battle strategy/team work without speaking.

Gray

Gray will have steam coming off of him constantly when it's warm outside, and on those days no one blames him for his stripping habit.

At this point the entire team is used to seeing him naked and they don't mention it if they are at one of their apartments, but they all have an extra pair of clothes for him in their travel packs when they are out in public.

Lucy will gravitate towards him when it's hot outside, the mist feels nice, and as they got closer it's common for Gray to have a hand on her ankle/ shoulder to help cool her down. Wendy and the exceeds pick this habit up as well.

On the colder days Grays skin actually hardens, think of how Twilight described the vampires skin, and it will also sparkle lightly.

In his off time Gray participates in ice carving competitions, but he will have to travel to go to them. He is banned from participating in any of Magnolias since he always wins and it has started more than one fist fight.

Wendy

Wendy is very sensitive to the weather, and can usually tell when a huge storm is coming before it hits Magnolia. She has helped save lives by warning the town of incoming deadly weather events, and helping them prepare for it.

Wendy moves silently, her footsteps are as light as air. While Team Natsu is used to it, she constantly scares other people in the guild and she feels bad about it, while the rest of the team finds it hilarious.

While her nose is not at the level that Natsu's is, she has gotten over her pride and has asked him to train her, and she is slowly picking up her team mates smell.

Natsu and Wendy curl up together on long train rides, usually both resting their heads on Lucy's lap. Wendy can't explain it but that woman makes the worst of the aches go away.

As Wendy starts getting more powerful she gains the ability to generate thunder storms and tornado, she also doesn't need Carla to fly. She doesn't use the ability though unless she's in dragon force, she doesn't care if she can fly on her own. Her and Carla are a team dammit.

[bluuscreen]

okay actually i’m gonna talk more about the seizures thing under the cut because i wanna get into it

first i’m gonna give the disclaimer that i personally have never had a seizure [afaik? though i feel like that’s something i would know] and i’m basing this purely on some cursory research, but i’m definitely open to input if anyone with more experience than me has any o7 this is also a sort of fantasy version of epilepsy since it’s caused by something supernatural, but i’m gonna try and keep it at least kinda grounded

sonic’s seizures are mostly caused by stress or fatigue. so if he overworks himself, doesn’t get enough sleep, etc. he’s at higher risk

this does mean he’s probably most liable to seize during battles and the various world-ending calamities that happen on a semi-regular basis. his friends end up setting up a system where he isn’t allowed to go in without backup anymore [even if it annoys him] and they’ll tag in to do the brunt of the fighting if he even looks like he’s getting a bit wobbly/spacey

if he does pass out/space out during battle the usual protocol is for tails, rouge, or shadow [because of flight and/or speed] to carry him somewhere safe, make sure he’s alright and set up with a book or a game to relax with once he’s conscious again, then get back to the fight if they’re still needed

his seizures mostly present like how the whole prism ghost thing looked after nine got the energy out of his body. falling to the ground, passing out, twitching/spasming, you get it. going by the descriptions that i’m reading on mayoclinic i think it’d be something akin to tonic or tonic-clonic?

starfall islands SUCKED for him both because he was stressed pretty much the whole time with very little help/rest and the cyber corruption made his symptoms way worse. he mainly experienced memory loss, fatigue, numbness, and brain fog, on top of his already present symptoms. amy, knuckles, tails and later sage had to keep reminding him of where he was and what he was supposed to be doing [this part could be considered canon [just slightly different circumstances] if we look at the voice lines that are shown in this video. looking at the comments it seems these lines weren’t actually cut, they just probably only play when sonic is idle for long enough. which ofc makes me wish the corruption had more consequences which is why i’m tying it in here]

the memory issues are somewhat of an ongoing problem, not really related to the seizures specifically but they are still related to the prism energy and later cyber corruption messing with his brain. his friends have had to get used to occasionally being called by the wrong name when sonics wires get crossed and he mixes them up with one of their shatter-selves. shadow is technically immune to this, but sonic has forgotten his name at least once and resorted to using nicknames for like twenty minutes until shadow noticed and reminded him

i’m not quite sure how sonic handles big fights once tails, amy and knuckles go off to travel the world after frontiers? honestly the most fun idea to me here is that eggman is like “yeah i’m evil but i’m not that much of an asshole” and just doesn’t cause any huge shit until he knows sonic has backup. or team dark and his other friends just help him out more often idk

going super does temporarily fix all of these issues, but obvi he can’t be super sonic forever. it’s like taking panadol for a headache—fixes the symptom, not necessarily the cause, and wears off eventually

watched sonic prime, have some doodles [no the “classic” universe doesn’t really make sense However i wanted to draw tiny shadow so whatever]

text under the “classics” since it may be hard to read:

- shadow is arguably nicer, but he’s affectionate in the same way a grumpy cat is

- not the actual classics [obvi, since shadow doesn’t have a classic vers.]. they’re in roughly the same point in the timeline [as regular sonic and shadow], they’re just small

[roodles03]

Hazbin Hotel Angelic Wings Theory

Something I thought of while falling asleep last night, is that after Vaggie regains her wings, they become retractable.

Vaggie regains her wings in Hello Rosie, but as we can see in the next episode they're seemingly gone

But later in The Show Must Go On, it's shown she can just pull them out at will and then retract them when she wants later.

Now comparing her to another Angel of her kind (exorcists) Lute ALWAYS has her wings out and it appears she CANNOT retract them. (This also applies to Adam but I don't think he counts as a true exorcist angel)

This may also apply to Vaggie herself before she was brutalized and attacked by Lute. As she has her old set of wings at all times.

(Yes, TORN off, not CUT off. Lute didn't use angelic weapons to cut off Vaggie's wings, she TORE them off with her bare hands. That's why Vaggie was able to grow them back)

So perhaps having your wings physically torn off in some way, when you grow them back it has the side effect of making them retractable. I was thinking that maybe the animators just don't want to draw the wings at all times but clearly they do for other angels and other winged characters so this seems purposeful.

This also seems to apply to the seraphim angels we see, Sera and Emily. They ALWAYS have their wings out and it doesn't seem they can retract them at will.

Now, who else is a Seraphim who CAN retract their wings?

Yes, it's Lucifer.

In fact, it seems Lucifer highly prefers to keep his wings retracted. Seemingly only using them to fly, fight, or show off. They also appear to come out automatically similar to his horns when he goes full-demon.

Now I actually did go back to the opening storybook sequence, and Lucifer has his wings out the ENTIRE time rather than just before which does make this a bit confusing.

But I do find it really odd he only has half his wings here, just before being thrown into hell, despite it not being a side profile. As an artist I really see no reason for that choice, it wouldn't really affect the silhouettes too much because they show overlap in earlier scenes. It just seems super odd here. But at the same time, there's no way to know the true intention of why they drew it the way they did. Maybe it was to make things appear clearer, it could be foreshadowing he lost half his wings? Who knows. I don't have an answer for this part.

But It's also important to note this opening scene was narrated to us as if it were a storybook being read to a child. Narratively, It's a simple narration/exposition of a previous event in the story. A lot of shows do this and leave out the details in order to actually show us what happened on screen in a flashback down the line. And to make that actual flashback more satisfying and NOT feel like a waste of time, they most definitely had to leave stuff out of this initial exposition. (Plus you still want mysteries to keep viewers engaged) Think of the Roo, Root of all Evil Theory, or how they don't talk much about Eve at all. This could be stuff they intentionally left out in case they do have a flashback of this moment later in the series.

So it's entirely possible that they purposely left out Lucifer getting his wings torn off to make it a surprise for when they do actually show us the fall of humanity, and in turn, Lucifer's fall.

Of course, you could argue that Vaggie and Lucifer CHOOSE to retract their wings while the other angels don't, but the fact that no angel we know of besides them does it, and they're both fallen angels, one of which we know FOR SURE had their wings torn off, it raises enough eyebrows for me.

Basically, I think it's very possible that through the evidence of Vaggie's wings being retractable after growing them back, and every other angel we know of never retracts their wings and has never had their wings torn off, it can be assumed that Lucifer might have had his wings torn off as punishment when he was sent down to hell.

[tyrantisterror]

Wife Goals: Edelgard von Hresvelg

Alright gang, after covering Morrigan from Dragon Age Origins last time, it's time for another RPG gal here on Wife Goals, the emotional breakdown masquerading as a series of personal essays that I swear won't go more than seven entries! I swear! It's going to be video game ladies from here on out actually, both because the interactive nature of that medium makes it REALLY easy to form these unhealthy parasocial attachments to fictional ladies, AND because it's the most socially acceptable way to project your desire for romance on made up people! Huzzah for video games! Huzzah!

I don't remember exactly why, but I was in a bad headspace when Fire Emblem: Three Houses came out. It was probably just the normal "why have I accomplished so little in my life why am I still alone oh god I've wasted my time on earth" thing that's always gnawing at my brain, IDK. What I know is that the void inside me was GNAWING and I needed to fill it, preferably with something new, because replaying my age-old favorite RPGs, while soothing, would also feel... sad. You gotta try new things to trick yourself into thinking you're going somewhere, you know?

I had played Fire Emblem Awakening, and it was pretty good! Pretty fun, it had an evil witch in it who was romanceable, and that was fun. I didn't finish it, but I sunk a good few hours into it. I had also played Fire Emblem Fates and.... I shouldn't have! It's bad! It's basically Incest: The Game! Don't play it! So, you know, I didn't exactly have full confidence in Fire Emblem: Three Houses when I picked it up, but the gnawing void needed some new content, and if it was as good as Awakening, or just less incest-y than Fates, it'd scratch the itch for a bit.

Guys... Three Houses is so much better than Awakening. My void was eating GOOD that summer.

The conceit of Fire Emblem: Three Houses is that there are three nations who send their most promising young people (i.e. mostly the rich kids) to an academy located in the monastery of the Fantasy Vatican - by that I mean it's owned by the leaders of the church that forms the primary religion in all three nations. Each nation has its own "house" in the academy - fraternities, basically - and your Player character is a mercenary who's been more or less forced to be a long term substitute teacher for said fraternities despite being about the same age as the students. You're the honor student who's forced to play teacher by a struggling school district, basically, only if said honor student was hired because of their experience in killing bandits.

Which house you choose matters immensely, as the OTHER conceit of the game is that all those friendly college-aged students of yours are destined to inherit important political roles in a war that is beginning to brew, and when that war breaks out, you and your students are going to be seeing one nation's perspective in the three-way conflict that ensues. Those perspectives, or routes as they're officially called, differ DRASTICALLY, in part because the leaders among the three groups of students you have to choose from have vastly different goals they're trying to achieve. And one of those students is Edelgard von Hresvelg, heir to the Adrestian Empire.

The first thing you need to know about Edelgard is that she is heavily villain-coded, both in general and in the Fire Emblem franchise specifically. Fire Emblem is a franchise with so many entries that it has its own recurring tropes. There are specifically archetypes that recur a lot, and one of the most common is The Big Villainous Tyrant Wearing Red. They often lead a big, villainous empire that's trying to take over the world, as you do. And Edelgard's nation... has red on their banners. Edelgard's customized school uniform includes a red cape and red tights. And the title she stands to inherit is Emperor - i.e. a title that you specifically get by owning more than one nation, and it's stated that the Adrestian Empire used to own ALL of the continent before it was fractured to its current state, which is exactly the sort of setup that led past Fire Emblem villains to start world-conquering.

She is going to grow up into an empress in red. She's the Big Bad. Maybe not right now, but if you know the genre, and specifically the Fire Emblem tropes, you KNOW she's inevitably going to be the villain. Or at least a villain - often the Big Villainous Tyrant in Red is, in normal trope terms, The Heavy, i.e. the villain you fight the most, but not the FINAL villain. The Darth Vader, if you will, with a Palpatine who reveals himself towards the end.

This is why Edelgard's route is the only route that bifurcates - there is a crucial moment, the moment right before Edelgard proves she is very much the Fire Emblem trope you'd think she is, where you have to choose whether to stand with her or not. You can choose to side against her, and if you choose to do that, or to do either of the other two routes, then Edelgard is exactly the villain you think she is, and as such, you have to kill her before the game is done. And that's all she is - another Evil Tyrant in Red, an emperor to be slain, a villain through and through.

...but this is a game about different perspectives on a war, and wars are never black and white. They're messy, and the game is very good about showing that while most of the people in this conflict have good intentions, NONE of them have all of the facts, and none of them made completely perfect choices, in part because there were very few perfect choices to make.

We get to know Edelgard very well before the crisis moment in her route. As you'd expect of a royal heir, she has a lot of weight on her shoulders from the responsibilities that leadership will bring. But she also has weight from a lot of unexpected sources as well. She's tight-lipped at first, but it becomes clear that this young woman has some horrific trauma in her past - she keeps waking up with night terrors about rats trying to eat her, night terrors that you find out are suppressed memories.

Edelgard, it turns out, is not just a royal, but also the subject of the fantasy equivalent of horrible genetic experimentation. So were all of her brothers and sisters - the only difference is that Edelgard is the only one who survived. She spent her childhood being tortured physically and psychologically to make her stronger, all while watching the same things happen to her siblings until they died one by one. Her night terrors about rats come from the time she spent in dungeons with her dying siblings.

See, the magical fantasy world of this game has a society that buys into what is essentially fantasy eugenics - noble houses are marked as such because they bear "crests," i.e. magic powers that make them stronger and more durable than normal people, which can be passed down through familial lines. Crests are said to be gifts from the gods that the Church is devoted to, so the Church explicitly supports and provides propaganda for this eugenics-based hierarchy of nobility.

Everything Edelgard suffered as a child was because of a scheme endorsed by some nobles to put two crests in one person's body - a scheme to make an ubermensch through eugenics. If it weren't for the crest system and this idea of noble, divinely ordained bloodlines, Edelgard would not have had such a horrendous childhood.

So, rather than make a girl who embodies the ideal of this system, the people who experimented on Edelgard ensured that she knew one thing was true above all else: the crest system, and everything that supports it, needs to be burnt to the fucking ground. And hey, what do you know, she now has superpowers AND is the heir to a fucking empire. With some clever scheming, she could turn the tables on the people who planned to make her a pawn, destroy the entire hierarchy of the continent, and remake society into a place where bloodlines don't matter. It'd take a lot of work and ruthlessness, but it was possible. She could make a world where no one would suffer like her again.

And, like, she's not the only one suffering! In her house alone, you have students like Bernadetta, who has become an agoraphoric wreck as a result of her father trying to force her to marry men she doesn't know to secure their bloodline's place in the hierarchy, and Dorothea, who is a commoner that had to scrape and strive just to get to this monastery in hopes of marrying into a family that will let her live without the specter of poverty hanging over her. In the other houses you have characters like Marianne, whose family's crest is said to be cursed and feels she deserves to die because of it, or Lysithea, the youngest student at the monastery who knows she's going to die in a few years because she suffered the same experiments as Edelgard did, or Mercedes, whose father was so desperate to continue his crest's bloodline that he, uh... tried to do a Fire Emblem: Fates on her. The crest system sucks, nobility sucks, the Church created and enforced all of these systems so it sucks, ALL of this shit needs to be BURNT TO THE FUCKING GROUND!

So think about that big choice in this route again. You can look at what the tropes tell you - that Edelgard is a villain, that she is starting a war that will cost hundreds of lives, and that it would be perfectly morally defensible to stand against her. If you make that choice - that very genre savvy choice - you will become the champion of the Church, literally the organization that stands for the Status Quo above all else, crush Edelgard's rebellion, and forever brand her as the villain she so definitely is.

...OR

You can see her point, and stand with the woman you took as your pupil. You can make the choice to allow yourself to be branded a villain by history if it means fighting for the possibility of a better world - and that very well could happen, because one of the secrets of this game is that you're villain-coded too. The default player character name is Byleth, after all - and that's not just any name, it's one of the fucking arch demons in the Lesser Key of fucking Solomon! You're a mercenary dressed all in black with the name of a fucking demon who just spent half the game tutoring a Tyrant in Red. If Edelgard fails, it will not be hard for history to smear your name alongside hers!

But you can be brave and do it anyways. You can say fuck it, let me be the villain, because this system needs to burn.

Edelgard makes some horrendous and evil choices in the other routes, but one of the great things about this game is that playing all the different sides allows you to make sense of the actions of other characters, and that's SO important to Edelgard's route. You are, in many ways, the crucial component Edelgard's plan needs for success. She has, until meeting you, been more or less on her own - I mean, yes, she has Hubert, her loyal minion who acts and dresses like a Dracula, but Hubert's flaw is that he is slavishly loyal, to the point that he is unwilling to tell Edelgard she's wrong. You, however, are an ally that does not treat Edelgard as a superior, but as an equal - you provide her counsel that's willing to contradict her, and as such provide insight that allows he to find better solutions to problems.

With you on her side, Edelgard never gets so desperate as to take the more drastic and cruel choices she does in the other routes. She's able to stick to her ideals without risking survival, she's able to be her best self, to offer mercy and reduce casualties as much as possible.

And it's not a one-way relationship, either. Byleth, your player character, was also a sufferer of magical genetic experimentation - Rhea, the head of the Church, basically tried to make her dead mother (who's also the main god of the church, it's a whole thing) reincarnate by implanting her crest stone into Byleth as a baby, an act that killed Byleth's mother in childbirth and resulted in Byleth always feeling half-dead as a person. In the other routes, Byleth ascends into a sort of demigod, absorbing those godly energies but never fully manifesting as the old goddess reborn.

But in Edelgard's route? You kill Rhea, and in doing so, that crest stone in your body vanishes, and your heart beats for the first time in your life. Protecting the status quo makes you a demigod - but burning it down let's you finally be yourself. Your mortal, human, living self, with a heart that's you're own, not something someone forced into you.

Edelgard does not remain emperor long when she wins - she keeps the throne long enough to put all her reforms in motion and make sure anyone who'd bring the old crest system back is dead as dirt, then appoints a successor and retires. She lives a normal life, with you if you choose to romance her, content to have made sure that the horrors she and others witnessed under that hierarchy never happen again. That was her goal, her big villainous scheme.

I don't know about you, but I think that's fucking rare in fiction - to have character look at the systems in place, think, "this shit needs to burn," and, in at least one version of the tale, be 100% right on the fucking money. God, I love her so much.

(Also, if you need additional convincing: Rhea, the leader of the church and basically Edelgard's archenemy, is a green-haired milf with a dumptruck ass who turns into a dragon, and I still chose Edelgard over her. Do you know how hard that is for me, specifically? She's got an enormous butt and turns into a dragon and I still said "No thanks, it's the albino for me!" instead. That's how much Edelgard fucking rules!)

[fascinationstreetmp3]

Sometimes I fear they won't do devil's minion at all. Armand won't call Daniel beloved and like the turning- the turning was said to be done in spite where in the books there was at least some love, something that made Armand say they will be in hell together after all. I feel like there is a possibility that in the show hell together means like a thorn lodged in the throat. You can't ignore it and you can't get rid of it. That will hurt a lot if they do that.

im sure dm will definitely be romantic in the show at some point, it's just a case of how they get there because things are obviously different from the books.

i myself am keeping an open mind about the whole "spite" thing tbh. that descriptor does not come from armand or daniel, it comes from louis, who was not there— and in my opinion, daniel sorta dodges addressing it any further when louis brings it up, and there could be multiple reasons for that (he doesn't want to talk about it? or maybe there's more to it he isn't letting on right now?)

just throwing things out there but if it WAS entirely spiteful, but past dm happened, it's possible they could also utilise daniel's book turning scene for the "memory wipe", framing that as armand's act of love in order to save daniel's life, which would balance things out a little more. either way i think we WILL see the turning no matter what anyone says

where they are now with each other, the writers might take inspiration from the sort of push/pull they have towards 1985 in qotd, along with the long period of separation they have after qotd and the regret armand feels for turning daniel. daniel feeling resentful towards armand (for turning him? for messing with his and louis' memories? for leaving him all alone?), but unable to stay away for long; armand believing he has made a horrible mistake and trying to stay away while also dealing with the fact that daniel destroyed armand's relationship with louis, but he and daniel are bound together now and the maker/fledgling connection sometimes seems to be a lot stronger in the show, even between "strangers" as displayed by madeleine & louis being able to "feel" one another

i think show daniel seeing armand at his lowest, knowing what he can do to people and what he has done to him, will play into the way daniel sees armand in the books: a terrible creature capable of great evil who daniel is drawn to and loves for who he is, and armand gets to be perceived outside of the roles he's always playing by someone he doesnt have to control or lie to (and cant, really). for how they get to the love part... im curious to see how it will go because there's a lot of ways it could happen. i'm just certain they will get there. they might feel stuck in "hell together" at first, but eventually hatred won't be the only thing that binds them together (if it ever was the 'only' thing between them in the first place)

maybe tangentially related but ive seen people suggest rolin jones has some sort of dislike for dm or that he just straight up doesn't care/wasn't planning on including it, and of course i have no clue what's going through his head but i have to disagree. a deeper relationship between armand and daniel has only been hinted at right now; pieces of a puzzle slowly make themselves known, and the audience has to notice them and put the puzzle together with what they've got so far. just because something's in the books doesn't mean theyll just talk about it openly, its still a show spoiler. which means outside of the show (in interviews etc) it's only going to be acknowledged as a "thing that happens in the books", yknow? just like book characters that havent appeared yet, the way theyll be portrayed in the show isnt discussed. kinda why i think they got king of spoilers eric bogosian to drop the "budding romance" line in those sdcc videos from a while back because to me... that technically is a show spoiler lmao

[mieanme]

Merman x Siren au

Hualian - (part XIII)

First part: PART I Previous part: PART XII

~ Previously on the underwater telenovela ~

After the siren playfully pats Xie Lian's head, they take off in the direction San Lang heard the noise come from. They swim for a longer while before Xie Lian notices a small shadow on the surface of the ocean.

It's a human boat.

***

Xie Lian's eyes instantly travel to the siren's silhouette. He feels a cold shiver run down his spine, when he sees the intense gaze with which San Lang is staring at the boat. When Xie Lian reminds himself of what the siren probably does with intruders like these, his stomach flips around inside his guts.

Humans… are problematic in general. They pollute the waters, they hunt down underwater creatures for fun and, at the top of all that, they think of themselves as superior. Not all of them are like that though, as Xie Lian has heard, but he himself never encountered any humans. The only connection he has with them is the trash he collects.

He must admit he's always been curious about the species that is ruling the land. Their unusual concept of making so many different tools is fantastic to him, which is no surprise at this point. However, he's always been wary of humans themselves. He's heard too many horrible stories and he's too much of an easy prey to ever try his luck in looking for friendly and safe humans. Most of them would probably want his white tail somewhere on display without the rest of the body.

It still doesn't change the fact that San Lang probably won't ask those humans their motives for entering his waters before simply drowning their boat and getting rid of the intruders. Xie Lian needs to magically make sure they're not dangerous and convince San Lang to not hurt them if they have no bad intentions.

“San Lang,” Xie Lian squeaks, quietly, but still manages to get the siren's attention. “Can you… hear how many of them there are and what are they up to?”

“Not clearly, but I do. There's two humans on the boat,” the siren states and looks back at the boat. “It's not going to take long, stay back.”

“Wait, San Lang!” Xie Lian grabs the siren's arm without thinking, pricking himself on one of the siren's spikes. He lets out a pained hiss, which earns him a horrified look from San Lang.

The siren takes his palm in his other hand and carefully but firmly leads it away from the spikes on his elbows. Xie Lian looks up at him and already feels guilty for his own actions. He can feel the little stinging in his finger, the one siren slowly inspects.

“Sorry, I didn't think this through,” the merman speaks up, not wanting San Lang to take the blame for this situation. The finger lets out a small amount of blood, but it stops soon enough, before the siren is even able to try helping.

San Lang looks Xie Lian in the eyes when he makes sure the merman is only in a slight inconvenience. Even though he didn't do anything wrong, the merman can see the look in his eyes. The siren is not only worried, but he also feels guilty.

“You should be more careful when trying to touch me. I don't want to hurt you, but by nature I shouldn't be easy to touch.”

The merman nods.

“It's entirely my fault, please, don't feel bad about it!” Xie Lian assures. “Besides, I'm fine, it's nothing.”

“You wanted to tell me something,” the siren reminds, getting back on track. He also gives one look to the boat that is slowly approaching their way.

“Ah, yes!” Xie Lian clicks, even more nervous now. “Please, if they're not evil, can we, maybe, lead them away from your territory? Or talk to them?”

The siren sighs. Only from that Xie Lian can tell he doesn't like the idea of caring for the intruders.

“It's quite a risk to just approach the humans, even with the best intentions at hand. And I do not speak human language.” San Lang explains, bringing a new issue to Xie Lian's face.

The merman doesn't speak the human language either.

He knows how to say a few words and understands most of the sentences, but he rarely gets his head above the surface to practice their way of speaking. His knowledge comes from listening to the other mers at the canteen, from his friends or from the trash.

“Then maybe—,”

“Ming-xiong, are you, …, we, …, going, …, right way?”

“We are. Si… down.”

Xie Lian didn't even notice when the boat got close enough to hear the humans speaking to each other. They probably must have been silent before, because not only the merman gets a little startled at them, but also the siren cocks his head upwards, as if the voices really brought his attention.

The merman swims closer to the siren, just in case, even if the humans don't seem interested about what's underneath them at all.

“We … been … around for so long! I thought you really knew the place to see them!”

“I know. Be patient.”

A cold shiver runs down Xie Lian's spine yet again. “The place to see them”? What are those humans looking for? His pod members? The siren? Maybe they are more dangerous than he expected.

“I'm hungry though! Are you sure we're getting closer to the whales' feeding waters? I want to see them without a sandwich in my hand!”

“You can eat. Food is in the backpack.”

Xie Lian blinks at those words. He turns his head to look at San Lang, but the siren already has a smirk on his face, looking right where the boat is.

“We can leave. No underwater life is getting harmed by them,” the siren announces and turns around. When he does, Xie Lian notices the way he moved his tail fin - slightly smacking the surface of the water, sending an almost unnoticeable wave towards the boat.

Xie Lian thinks that it must have been some kind of a warning for the humans. If they heard the subtle change in how the waves of the ocean sound at that very moment, they might get more alert and leave sooner. At least that's what Xie Lian wants to believe - it was all way to easy to convince the siren to leave them alone, but Xie Lian isn't going to complain.

He doesn't argue though. He's happy the siren gave up on hurting the humans, even if it's probably against his usual way of acting - after all, letting intruders into your territory isn't something the siren normally does. Xie Lian and those humans are an anomaly.

They get back to the coral reef in silence. San Lang seems at ease, leading the way, while Xie Lian tries to apply the movement tricks the siren has taught him today. From time to time the siren points out that he's doing a good job, so he probably figured out not to disturb the merman in putting the new knowledge in use.

When they swim into the siren's caves, Xie Lian instinctively grabs onto San Lang's hand, this time being way more careful to not hurt himself. The siren leads him to the resting place and suggests that the merman should take some rest after another intense day.

“What about you?” Xie Lian asks, obediently lying down on the glowing corals. He cannot deny that he's exhausted. He not only swam across some stressfully open areas, he also tried hard to learn what the siren was showing him and at the top of that, he also almost interacted with humans for the first time in his life. However, the siren didn't seem to be even a little bit tired. “Aren't you tired? We've been swimming around all day and it's almost dark now.”

“I'm alright. I do not need as much rest as merfolk. Also, I'm a nocturnal creature. I usually rest for a few hours right after dawn and it's enough for me,” the siren explains.

Xie Lian nods and breaks eye contact with San Lang, slowly relaxing into the soft bed of corals. He still feels a little anxious, or maybe ungrateful - he's not only going to sleep when the siren isn't, but he's also made the creature's whole day almost only about himself.

How selfish of him. He's never been like this. Noone has ever let him be such a bother. Even if the siren denies that, Xie Lian still feels bad.

Maybe he should just go back to his pod? Forget about learning anything and just continue to go about his life like he always did? This way the siren wouldn't have to babysit him anymore.

Because, yes, now San Lang doesn't see him as a bother, but what if the merman doesn't make any progress in learning? What if he takes too long to get a hold of the siren's technique? Sooner or later, but the siren will probably get… annoyed with him. And Xie Lian would do anything to avoid that.

“What's on your mind, little merman?” The siren asks suddenly, startling Xie Lian. “I have a strange feeling your thoughts are up to no good.”

“Ah, haha, no, no, I just—,” Xie Lian scratches the back of his neck, unable to come up with any valid excuse. He deflates a few moments later, deciding to just confess how he feels. “Well, I really appreciate everything you're doing for me, but I do not deserve that. And… I'm pretty sure you're going to find me annoying and useless in no time if I stay here.”

The siren is silent for a while. 'He's probably agreeing with me', says Xie Lian's mind, which pierces an invisible spear through the merman's heart.

Finally, after a while of just looking at his own tangled fingers, something else comes into Xie Lian's view. It's the siren's big hand, covering his own, as well as the shadow of the red tail enveloping the merman just like it did in the morning - all around him, but without a single touch. Xie Lian follows the arm that came from behind him with his eyes, just to track the siren's face.

San Lang is settled right behind him and is looking at him with a gentle smile. It's so beautiful that Xie Lian doesn't know what to do with himself. The siren squeezes their hands together, trying to comfort the merman, before he speaks up.

“You really don't trust my words, little merman,” he clicks in such a soft tone Xie Lian would never think the creature is capable of. “I can't blame you. I know it's hard to be vulnerable to this extent, especially after getting your trust shattered many times,” the siren continues, as if he knew exactly how Xie Lian felt. It's honestly a little scary - how good the siren is at reading others.

Or maybe Xie Lian is just like an open book?

“But I have no reason to not be sincere with you. I believe anyone should be able to provide for themselves. If that's what you want, I will be teaching you until we reach our goal. If you prefer me to provide or the way it is arranged in your pod, I cannot make you learn. If you want to leave, you always can, but you're also welcome to come back. You can take one thing for granted - I will never call you selfish for trying to learn how to survive. Ever.”

Xie Lian abruptly turns around, causing the siren to withdraw his hand and back away a little bit to not hurt him. San Lang thinks the merman just wants to face him, but he's completely caught off guard when the other one simply wraps his arms around his neck and hides himself in the siren's chest.

“Little merman?” San Lang clicks, slowly placing his hands around the merman's waist.

“T-thank you,” Xie Lian says, hugging himself into the other's body. The siren hugs him back a little more firmly, hearing a silent sob escape his mouth. “Thank you so much.”

“No need. You can stay by my side until you get tired of me,” the siren assures, causing Xie Lian to back away a little bit from his hold to look at San Lang's face.

The merman's eyes are slightly reddish, but even if he shed a few tears, they dissolved into the ocean water with the speed of light. However, he's smiling now, looking up at the siren with ease.

“How could I get tired of being treated so kindly?” Xie Lian asks in a tone that makes him sound like he's stating the most obvious facts in this world.

The siren offers him a smile too, gently lying him back down on the corals. This time he stays closer to the merman though, hugging him lightly to his chest.

“Rest. I will be here,” San Lang clicks, brushing his fingers through the merman's hair, petting his head on the way.

“Thank you…” is the last thing Xie Lian whispers before he falls asleep.

***

That's it for today! I wonder if anyone knows what's my plan with beefleaf here hehehehe *laughs in evil*. See ya soon!

[trollhunted]

Oh boy, now that I'm done with the rewatch it's time to air out some of the grievances I have with the writing choices made regarding the antagonists...

Starting off a little more positive – Merlin's portrayal worked fairly well overall as this arrogant manipulative old jerk of a wizard, who may have noble goals but achieves them via not so honorable methods in the name of the greater good.

It was a pretty good bait-and-switch with the way the show had built up this image of the mysterious and benevolent mage, but left enough hints to his true character via little details that quickly turn sour in hindsight once you've actually met him. He's not a villain, but they did make him a decent morally gray character in the few episodes he's around.

However, I think he should've been held more accountable for his actions and behavior, especially when his grand plan doesn't work out because he was too wrapped up in his own head to see the truth.

That leads me to Morgana, the big evil "mastermind" of the show. I have to say, I love how utterly unhinged they made her in the first half of season 3, though she loses some of that by the end of it. I don't really have many complaints about her as a villain, but rather like to nitpick aspects surrounding her character and some missed potential.

Design-wise I find her a little lackluster as someone called "the Eldritch Queen" and while it definitely was a fun idea to contrast Merlin's dark armor with all that gold, I believe they missed the mark a little. They should've gone a step further and contrasted the design even more by giving it a creepy and organic direction. Her "armor" could've been more insectoid and reminiscent of bones or dead wood.

Also, a small thing that always bothers me are the green accents on her, when that was being established as Merlin's color. It does connect them visually in a way, but mostly just feels out of place to me. Now, about that missed potential...

As a queen of shadows, I would've liked if they'd played up her insidious nature a little more. As Claire, instead of immediately trying (and badly failing) to kill the Trollhunter, they should've dragged out the possession a little. She could've used this position to destroy the team from within, test their limits, tear them apart to weaken their will, only to have it all backfire with how much they trust and care for each other. It would've paralleled Angor's approach, because considering his background, he must've picked up these methods from someone, no?

Another writing point that bothers me is her imprisonment. No matter how you look at it, sealing an ancient evil sorceress inside (or even near) the heartstone – a MAJOR source of pure energy – just sounds like an all around bad idea. Wouldn't it make sense for her to feed on that energy? And even if not that, shouldn't you be worried about her corrupting it??

I get that from an animation standpoint it's an extremely convenient way to have everything happening in one place, so you don't actually have to set up so many new assets, but man... it's just kind of stupid lol.

Honestly the way I would've rationalized this whole deal is: instead of having her sealed up in Arcadia Oaks, California of all places (why did they even end up there?) she could've been imprisoned within the previous Trollmarket in europe. Her and Gunmar have tried to bring about the Eternal Night before and almost succeeded, which led to the battle of Killahead, where both were sealed away.

Imagine Gunmar and his forces had taken the old Trollmarket and used its heartstone for that spell, draining it in the process. Although they were stopped and defeated, Trollmarket was destroyed and their rock of sustenance dead, which would prompt the trolls to leave and seek a new home across the globe.

Merlin could've trapped Morgana in the empty heartstone as a way to contain her powers, using the last of his magic. Maybe the reason he was so sure she would be weak and easy to vanquish after her imprisonment is because he had intended to slowly syphon her energy to empower himself and never considered that she would figure out how to reverse the spell to drain him instead.

And to add some flavor to this location, Morgana's presence could've twisted the old Trollmarket into something eery and barely recognizable, giving others reason to avoid this place. It could've served to show the heroes what may become of their beloved Trollmarket if Gunmar wins, given them more incentive to fight for what they have.

That's just an idea though.

Angor Rot was always a big pot of missed potential to me and his return in season 3 just ended up feeling, well, hollow lol. He was introduced as a great antagonist but in my honest opinion kinda fell off the moment they destroyed his soul and just turned him into an angry beast. Besides the overall bad taste it leaves behind, we really didn't need a Bular 2. And it's a little annoying they somewhat continued with that direction even when he was revived and supposedly got his soul back.

I like that they cared enough to dig a little into his conflicting emotions given his history & enslavement, but these moments should've been brought up in the climax of the first season. He should've regained his soul back then and suddenly be forced to reconcile with the atrocities committed in the name of his mistress. His revenge on Strickler should've conflicted with his newly regained conscience...

And, oh man, Strickler is a bit of an annoying case. It's kind of absurd to me that they would choose to give this man an easy "redemption" while tossing around Angor's corpse like that.

Angor Rot literally had his soul and autonomy taken from him and while these actions definitely twisted him throughout the ages, at the end of the day it was never his choice. Strickler was in a somewhat similar situation as a changeling made to serve Gunmar, but the major difference is that he did have a choice. Multiple even.

Even in his predicament, Angor chose to offer the Trollhunter a deal to free both of them of Strickler's control. Whether he actually would've honored that deal is hard to say, but I think even if he'd betrayed Jim's trust, it would've made for a good opportunity to speak of who he used to be and what he's become, and have his first real choice in centuries be to spare them.

Strickler on the other hand is far more vile and self-serving at his core. At first you could argue that it's mostly the (very real) threat of Bular breathing down his neck that pushes him to harm Jim despite his soft spot for the kid. But when both Bular and Gunmar are out of the picture, instead of using this freedom constructively, he doubles down on killing the Trollhunter while finding every opportunity to get under his skin.

This man literally chooses to continue beefing with a teenager and don't get me wrong, I love it. Comedy aside, it is genuinely a fun exploration of his character and what makes him work as a complex personal antagonist. But the fun quickly stops when they try to rush him into a lackluster "redemption arc" to get him on the main team.

I'm aware that tons of people love the stricklake pairing and "lady x monster man" is very much a del Toro staple, but I really don't think Strickler should've been "redeemed" given everything he did, there should've been FAR more serious repercussions. It would've made more sense to me to put him in a "reluctant, not entirely trustworthy, sort-of-ally" position than suddenly have him be one of the Good Guys because... romance?

Not to mention the quality of their writing and characterization took quite a dip to mend their relationship and make said last minute romance happen. The drama surrounding it was cheesed up to such a degree it felt like they were putting on a play and didn't tell anyone.

Nomura's turnaround makes perfect sense narratively speaking because she was a straight-forward, impersonal antagonist, who only began to sympathize with the enemy when they were forced into the same position and she had nothing left to lose. She probably gave Jim a few nightmares, but the Lakes don't have anywhere near the number of reasons to hate her as they should with Strickler.

Oh and on the topic of changelings, let's get to the Janus Order. In my honest opinion, I think the Order was an overall waste. What made the changelings fun to me was precisely how they jumped between playing human and the cruel brutality of their monstrous nature. They weren't really a blend of these two worlds, but rather just putting on an act.

That's what made examples like Strickler, Nomura, and NotEnrique emotionally toeing the line of what it means to be human so interesting. Because they aren't human, but have learned to love the world they live in. And it's also what would've made Jim's transformation so strange/special, because he actually would've embodied joining those worlds.

The Janus Order both visually and narratively throws a wrench into that for no reason. (And don't get me started on the whole "evil, politically powerful organization secretly controlling the world" deal..........)

The way I could actually see a point to that direction, is if it had been a relatively inconsequential side-plot where the Janus Order is more like a small-scale cult of humans or even low-grade sorcerers worshipping the Pale Lady. It could've been a one or two episode issue that would've mainly served to build up some lore & foreshadowing surrounding Morgana, before she would've made her big entrance in the third season.

Ah... and even Gunmar could've been handled much better in the later seasons. Bular isn't a perfect character, but he serves his purpose as the introductory villain fairly well and for a kids show like that, it's a sensible execution.

Gunmar's character started out very strong – as the presumed endboss, they combined Bular's intimidation factor and Strickler's conniving nature with him and added some class as a millennia old monster warlord. It works fantastically. While that image falls a little here and there, his portrayal in the Darklands still makes sense as someone who seemingly lost all hope and resigned himself to his eternal prison... and even then he displayed a malicious sort of patience by wanting to break Jim's spirit instead of simply killing him.

So for that to quickly turn into an impatient old man, who just barks out threats and orders and blindly follows whatever anyone tells him the moment he's on the surface... it, well, is pretty disappointing. It's understandable for Bular, the younger and less experienced son, to be rash and impatient, but a warlord? That's a position that requires a ton of patience and tactical prowess.

I really wish they would've kept the way he was presented in the first season and give us this big villain who's not only physically scary, but observational and dedicated enough to send Chompsky back with a message saying he'll kill all those Jim holds dear for killing his son and then listing literally everyone the kid knows.

Plus, his origin as some kind of actual monster born from a corrupted heartstone should've been explored! They could've gone into that endless hunger he apparently displays, that would've made him consume countless living creatures and even drain the magic energy out of crystals...

Instead we ended up with Bular 2 again, but even worse somehow, and it just made Gunmar about as threatening as a parked truck.

[unopenablebox]

doing evil behaviors (looking up different methods of engagement ring sourcing to try to identify the most ethical one)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The girls are plottinggggg

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[lovelyrotter]

can ppl in this fandom like... stop... implying that transmasculinity in hcs or (especially) canon is shallow or misogynistic or even transmisogynistic on princible, like literally just by being prescent in someones mind or in the text. like that doesnt fuckin feel good. thats kind of really nasty to imply. if its not okay to say about other trans experiences, maybe dont say it about this one either. why is there a weird little exception here. yall KNOW how much that sucks to hear all day every day. what the fuck

[side-by-side-sideblog]

Also the tma/tme debate demands that queer people out themselves to everyone online by saying which they are... outing culture isn't a safe place. Plus it's binary, binaries are our enemies. Sex is a spectrum, Gender is a spectrum, they're a set of traits that come at random. To create a "you are this, you are that" puts people who are in the middle as targets to force them to pick one. Like it isn't welcoming to intersex people, it's outing them to a binary of "are you us or them" again. It also puts nonbinary people in a tough spot in a similar way!!

Also I don't get why this whole fight against transmascs acts as if transmascs are cis men. I'm butch, I am a woman, but I am getting top surgery, I consider it a masculine transition and consider myself transmasculine. I think trans men are like buddies of mine, just dudes who support masc women. A lot of the oppression I face is similar to theirs, so they're like comrades in arms. With this debate I guess makes me an enemy, someone who doesn't face misogyny or transphobia at the same time... I'm a woman, one with a complicated gender but like, that changes nothing.

I see people reblog/post things like "praying for a bomb that kills all transmascs" and then turning around and reblogging horry posts about butch women. I guess I am a sex object that is also only worth being sexy or bombed?These tma/tme groups use transmisogyny to be misogynistic to any queer person who disagrees. They also habe no singular gender identity because there are a bunch of trans men harassing other trans men over this. The tma/tme groups go after trans women, they go after trans men, they go after intersex advocates for not agreeing. Almost every intersex resource is now marked red on shinigami eyes because people are not being honest with wanting to make a good community that accepts people. All it takes is one person saying something "wrong" and they get death threats, rape threats. That's trans misogyny, and it's happening to any trans person masc, fem, neutral, all the of the above. I've seen some people go around calling transmascs zipper tits. Woah, noooo!! That makes this place fucking unsafe, there's nothing good about that, that's not safe for trans men, for butch women, or any anyone who gets top surgery, ever, like, wtf!!! You can't say stuff like that and be like "All butch women are cool" I am a zipper tit butch women??? You're not protecting anyone by doing that.

I am in both camps, a lot of butches are, so what fucking game is this? And not to mention, I feel more connected and safe with trans men than cis men, but I am still comfortable with cis men at times too. Men have helped me feel comfortable being masculine, and being myself. Being strong and loud, and that getting treated as acceptable in spaces with men comes from men who have respect for women.

My butch partner has a lot of the same opinions, we talk about this stuff together. Feminine spaces feel unsafe by how they demonizes masculinity, but then act like femininity is safe. So now the community has to decide when to like me and when not to like me, as some sort of tokenized minority. The way that works is oddly familiar to trans men, because sex and gender is a spectrum and I am a masculine woman so I have a lot of boxes ticked that trans men also do, just less than they have.

I had a reblog on a post about this discourse a bit ago saying "when a white woman cries a black person dies." Women have a unique way that they can harm and hurt and oppress others by their connection to the concept of purity, divine creation, and whiteness. Purity can be a weapon used by women intentionally, and people die from it's blade and the user walks away as victim. Femininity is its own balancing act of pros and cons that isn't something divinely perfect or a hidden evil behind a pretty face (like some misogynists think)

Just like masculinity isn't evil, men aren’t evil, and can harm if they choose to. But trans men/transmascs do not have any sort of power over women systemically like cis men. There are chances that trans people can hurt one another through minor power, like having a social media account and sending your followers after people, but that is nothing like how cis men can harm trans people systemically by denying them healthcare through voting it into illegality.

There's also the fact that some queer spaces are not safe for everyone. "no men" spaces makes almost every trans person of any identity look at in the same way... do they mean me? And I do think that too because I am a weird man woman thing, which is fine with me, but am I included in that "no man" part?

The idea that we must turn a word to help describe oppression into a box is childish at best, and malicious at worst. It becomes the same old "men are invading women's spaces" and I guess I'm a man in this situation but also a women that will be loved and hated depending on what the situation requires.

We have trans men online talking about escaping trafficking, and how there are people interested in trans men because they're trans men. That's misogyny mixed with ownership, the people interested don't respect trans men as men, they see a unique women to buy. Why is this somehow a problem to talk about, why did the responses to that conversation get "this would be worse for trans fems"

Oppression isn't a game to win!!!

And the fact that each country has its own issues. How trans men are treated in india by the queer community there is oppression, they're seen as brood mares, and must be submissive. The way trans people are treated is wide, vast, and complicated beyond belief.

My trans sister also isn't on Tumblr much but I read her out loud the discourse so we can talk about it together and she has so many opinions on how dangerous this all is. She says that it's genuinely a very black and white minefield, and that transmisogyny has been turned into a way to inflict transmisogyny on others. That misogyny is the main tool used to enforce gender norms, so of course that's the tool that bigots are familiar with to use against trans people. We shouldn't be doing the same. Transmascs are being called hysterical bitches, that's misogyny, that's misogyny against them for being trans and masculine specifically... So transmisogyny. I don't want the people who find me or my partner to be sexy butches (in a fetishized way - because no one wants to talk about that either, that the community doesn't respect butch women), also calling me a hysterical bitch actually because I'm *checks notes* transmasc and am not a women because I am transmasc so it's okay, I am a man and an oppressor. 😐😑😐😑😐 what?

As long as anyone thinks trans people can easily be accepted by a society that has yet to really accept anyone who is 'weird', like even furries, then we have a long way to go. Trans men haven't escaped misogyny, their minds and bodies surely haven't and probably never will, and that's how trauma works, how oppressive trauma works, you never forget it.

A society that has a narrow acceptance for men, that made being a man into a competition to win doesn't have open seats. Trans men are not on that playing board, and I'm definitely not either, and I don't think many queer people are unless to be an isolated token piece.

I don’t understand TME v TMA. This is the same as the idea that patriarchy exclusively affects women and can never cause harm to men. Trans misogyny is real and of course it disproportionately targets trans women, but its still the reason that trans men, non binary and intersex people face their unique issues. Trans misogyny is not fixed by calling trans women terfs or trans men soft UwU babies. If you want to combat transmisogyny stop reinforcing it you numbskulls!!

[scoliosisgoblin]

Which version of Rick is your fav?

it's so hard for me to choose tbh. HOWEVER, I'd say Evil Rick

then I'd say it's C-137 and Memory Rick

I love how pathetic™ Evil Rick really is tbh. love that he's being controlled by his Morty. can you guess who my favorite Morty is?

[moeblob]

Amazing, take some of the side character demons from Evil Bound.

Vincie is a menace to Chuck and Chuck alone so in Hell, Chuck hexes his hand behind his back so that he isn't grabbed as much (and it's harder to pet him). Chuck is like the most irresponsible older sibling ever to demons though so Kelvin recruits him (as an older sibling vibe) to go help him get his ACTUAL older sibling from Earth. Chuck agrees. And then drags Vincie from Hell with them because no one else wants to babysit him and he refuses to unbind the hex just to re-hex when he returns to Hell.

In Hell, Kelvin actually doesn't appear much different than his human form! Like Kronos, the lines under his eyes are red in Hell but black on earth. Chuck however? In Hell he has wolf-ish ears and has a fur lining his neck (note the neck scars in human form). In addition to that he has four eyes in Hell (note the scars under his eyes in human form). Vincie just has horns in Hell. And! In Hell the hex doesn't have a silly looking "tied up" look, it's invisible unless Vincie strains it with movement and then its red text. But it shifts on earth to be visible.

Vincie's biggest agony for the entirety on earth is "dude it's colder here than in Hell I want a jacket to slip my arms into BUT I CANT BECAUSE IM BOUND".