#with the intention of being destroyed that was set in a world where random things would fall from the sky. Like books or teeth.

[goleb]

Here's a couple I wrote during class yesterday, haha.

He stood drenched in the rain-soaked alleyway, desperately trying to flick the lighter on, as if having a smoke in that very moment could bring him salvation. 

She left me with nothing but a note. Meet me where the rain falls upwards, it said. 

The smell of rain heralded the man's arrival. That's how I knew when to start running. 

My grandmother collected each year's first rain in little vials and gifted one to every child in the village. Drink it when you’re feeling hopeless, she told us. I was the first one who did.

By the time we got to the inn, it was already starting to rain. That was okay. We weren't ever going to leave. 

They bathed in rainwater exactly twice a month. At times of drought, they sent one of us to steal it directly from heavens.

Deep Water Challenge

Hello all weird and wonderful writers! This week, I thought it might be fun to host a mini-challenge where we turn the tables, and I give YOU a request.

Time to try your hand at micro-micro fiction. Write a 1-3 sentence prompt/'story', that has something to do with RAIN.

If participating, please add your submission either as a reblog or a comment on THIS POST, so we can keep all of them in one place and allow everyone else to look through them. On Friday May 17, I'll share my favorites in a separate post, tagging the authors.

As always, keep writing, and stay weird.

- L

[top-pleng]

Major affair novel spoilers, future episode spoilers

I'm realizing everyone has different interpretations on the Mom's reveal and what her intentions behind it were...

Personally, I don't think she's "lying," she sincerely believes it is true. I toyed with the idea of her lying or perhaps even a Joker scenario where she delusionally imagined the relationship, but neither of those fit for me. The book and TV show both set up the affair with Khwan (Pleng's mom) randomly talking about how Wi (Wan's mom) took care of Wut (Pleng's dad) for a time. And Wi did seem genuinely shocked—to me at least—in the book when she found out that Wan wasn't Wut's daughter.

We don't know the details of what Wi's relationship with Wut was like at all. Was it a one-time thing? A passionate affair? A moment of weakness? Perhaps Wi even intended to become pregnant in hopes of being able to manipulate Wut? (If so ... #girlpower #isupportwomenswrongs)

But we do know that according to Wi she confronted Wut and he adamantly denied it, but if they had sex and the timing was right ... Wut surely would have checked. I imagine that Wut did have a DNA test performed and determined that Wan wasn't his daughter, but he never told Wi this because he didn't want to validate her claim. After all, if he uses a DNA test as proof then doesn't that seem to indicate that he thought there was a possibility of Wan being his? He was probably worried of her using their affair to perhaps manipulate him further. Maybe he was afraid she'd go to his wife. Who knows?

It's really hard to say, because it's such a rather random plot point that isn't really explored. Wan doesn't care to know anything else and Pleng ... well she was too shocked by the potential incest to think too much about her father cheating on her mother lol. But I feel like once she discovered the truth, she'd probably have some questions that she wants answers to.

And the book nor show really delve into the question of whether or not the Dad was innocent in the business scandal that ruined his career and destroyed his family. Pleng thinks of him as a good, honest man and a loving father and husband. And the book is entirely from her point of view so we only ever really see that side of him.

The man that Pleng thinks her father is would absolutely never cheat on his wife, but ... there is so much more to the story than Chao Planoy gives us.

It honestly frustrates me sometimes how little the broader world of Affair is explored outside of the girls. Like, I want to know more! tell me more!!!

[autumnslance]

Since you're very knowledgeable about meta and lore for XIV, I was wondering if you've heard much about the original ideas for XIV and how it was supposed to connect to XIII and XV? I recently reran the Antitower and it seemed like they were really setting up a dark storyline for Hydaelyn and Minfilia that potentially extends all the way to ShB. There's the art of Minfilia in crystal chains and the creepy dolls are such a random boss but might be a callout to the Minfilias sacrificed on the First. I know XV was originally going to have an evil god pretending to be good with a connection to a crystal, and I recall hearing something similar about XIII. The fact that Venat also uses Noctis' Armiger has been fascinating me since EW. It's all got me curious, but I'm not sure if it's something that's been discussed in interviews or by fans.

Nothing that I'm overtly aware of; different teams worked on XIII and XV, and while all FF's tend to reference one another in order to tie the series together, XIV as the MMO amusement park/love letter to the franchise as a whole tends to refer back to the other games frequently, borrowing concepts, characters, and rough plot elements. Also there's a lot of overlap in production times, hence the crossover events for XIII and XV we did have before (the latter one a couple times) upon those games' releases.

As for events in Heavensward with Minfilia, I don't think Hydaelyn was ever meant to be "evil", but She was always holding things back and giving Her specific point of view. Minfilia's chains can also simply mean the shackles of duty and binding herself to Hydaelyn the way she did, not necessarily anything malevolent on Hydaelyn's part.

It's also important to remember that the Zodiark/Hydaelyn storyline was inherited from 1.x, kinda fiddled with in the background...and then really delved into and overhauled while we players saw a "break" from the meta plot in Stormblood. Ishikawa took over as Writing Lead and adjusted course for Shadowbringers and Endwalker.

So there's some fine details from ARR and HW that don't quite fit or make sense now after ShB and EW, though the devs have gone back and massaged a few things (like in the Lahabrea solo duty post-Ultima Weapon) or did their best to explain it away. I'm currently (very slowly) replaying EW on my miqo'te alt, and the Watcher gives the very Ghostly Obi-Wan "truth from a certain point of view" talk when the Scions meet with him on the moon. And later, after meeting Venat, we also get the idea that to preserve the time loop and make sure we got to where we needed to be, She was playing chess games on what She had to say and do, and when, as Hydaelyn.

And the writers are very fond of biased/not always accurate in-world knowledge, in order to give themselves wiggle room; the new lorebook really emphasizes that.

The Watcher's relevant dialogue, with WoL's options:

The Watcher: Indeed, there was a faction opposed to Zodiark's creation. But their aim was never to unmake Him. The Watcher: They understood the continued preservation of the natural order was dependent on His very existence. Until we could identify and address the underlying cause of the Final Days, He would need remain, for His departure would set in motion those apocalyptic forces once more. The Watcher: Hydaelyn recognized this as well. And so, rather than destroy, She sundered Zodiark, Herself, and the star into lesser reflections, that She might confine Him in this place. WoL Dialogue Options & Watcher's Responses: I could have sworn She beseeched me to banish the Darkness. The Watcher: Perhaps She did. But as with all beings, intent is not always in accord with spoken word. -- Then what She told me in the aetherial sea was false…? The Watcher: That the two once dwelled as one until Zodiark grew hungry for power, upsetting the balance twixt Them...? Not quite a lie, though a rather gross embellishment. The Watcher: But knowing what you know now, you must surely realize why She might opt to obfuscate and mislead. --- The Watcher: Hydaelyn and Zodiark are both constructs of man. Approximations of perfection limited by our own imperfections.

If anyone does have more information on the meta of XIV's interactions and influences back and forth with XIII and XV, or the original plans for XIV's Zodiark/Hydaelyn story (might be a good question for Anonymoose) by all means speak up; I wasn't really as active in XIV at the time when those other games were current.

But it also bears mentioning that while there's a lot of familiar concepts, names, and imagery in XVI, which was created by the same team as XIV, like all the other games before it that is normal to make it part of the franchise, and so XVI is very much its own world and story, not reliant on XIV, nor is XIV reliant upon it.

Though I for one am looking forward to that crossover and getting my Torgal mount and minion and hopefully Cid Telamon's theme for my orchestrion.

[icouldntthinkofabetternamesook]

It Devours! Ramble

I should be going to be but instead have this rant about an amazing book

killing God but God is representation of your trauma, lies and repression and destroying it ultimately does nothing to solve the issue because ultimately the damage is coming from inside of and your own refusal to face how what happened still lurks in your life, and God was never really a god just a scared cornered animal acting out it’s own survival and it only has the status of a God because people are using it as a symbol to project their fears and hopes on, making it bigger and having it killed for their satisfaction

the world simply being as it is and people projecting different world views on it in their own feeble attempts at understanding and comfort

religion being primarily based in community and belief, fulfilling and yet also restricting. Science being primarily based in isolation and uncertainty, necessary for safety and yet eternally contaminated from its own ideals by human nurture. viewing reality from any angle ultimately guarantees bias and as such by witnessing and trying to understand the world we fundamentally misinterpret it and how at the end of the day the important thing is to be open to other perspectives and view points and to open yourself up to human connection even if it means being wrong, both in the technical sense and in the sense that you hurt someone even with the best intentions and those good intentions do not undermine the hurt

Nilanjana is amazing. I way over identify with her lonely girl who only needs work not friends routine

Carlos really hates local government and would be weirdly fine with seeing NighVale as a whole burn if it meant keeping the specific people he loves safe and that is very sexy of him

Loved Pamela. She’s just so much fun, well intended but terrible at communicating and that fits into the border themes of connection doesn’t it

the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God really went off on the aesthetic. both the pamphlet and the slide show sermon where so fucking good, a perfect mix of creepy, spiritual and well intended. there just enough authentic about the ideology to make you understand why people would fall for it and actually believe in what they say with just enough so overtly wrong it’s unsettling

there was little hits of the old Strex here and there, but for the most part this had no continuity with years 2 or 3 and thats kinda fine because it manages to take the themes and aesthetics of what came before and weave it into something new and amazing. the dessert bluffs and Kevin timeline is totally broken but time is literally broken so...

I loved all the digressing and meanderings of the plot to focus on other set-random Nightvale characters rather than on the main plot and it really drives home the fact that Welcome to NightVale is about NightVale as a community rather than about any one protagonist or narrative. it makes that fact that you can pick up any piece of NighVale with no prior knowledge and jump right in work all the more because everyplace is just a small one in the grand mosaic that is NighVale where every person and every world view counts and this circles back around to what I was saying about community 

and you know what lets circle back around to what I said about Carlos being willing to let Nightvale burn for his family and the lack of continuity with year three and there’s really 2 main things to say, the first being the slightly bizarre retcon to make Carlos’ otherworld stay 10 miserable years instead of 1 where he’s “just staying, not trapped” and how I think we can all agree that Carlos’ “come move to the dessert otherworld with me and abandon all your friends and family became this otherworld is so great for research and my science work babe” and the fact that they never really felt with how Cecil was straight up suicidal and deeply depressed for the later half of the year and the lack of actual resolution to what was going through Carlos’ mind when he decided to come back with absolutely no shown issue or effort, and it is so much weirder for Carlos to try to talk Cecil into moving to a place where he is actually secretly miserable

and the second thing about that is that when Carlos comes back he refers to importance of NightVale as a community rather than a place and how Cecil needs to reconnect wth the people around him and focus “on the everyone” and how Carlos really did primarily come back for Cecil and to be with Cecil and how he says that NightVale is where everyone Cecil loves lives and Carlos really have a very small protective domain of people considered his own

Cecil literally be used as a stand in for the concept of love and connection and dependability itself with Nilanjana contemplating of wanting to find her Cecil and wanting to be Cecil for someone, the emphasis on the radio tower where Nil and Darryl's relationship gets physical for the first time. It is weird to read a piece of Nightvale that doesn’t have Cecil's perspective coloring every thing and never allowing me into his mind but its kinda cool because we instead just see him as a distant pillar of love, support and community and how those are ultimately the things the book believes is universal to science and religion and how concerning that then kinda makes Cecil’s statement that he would give up all of Nightvale for Carlos, even if he would much rather not, but also how good it is that Cecil is allowed to be selfish about something when he has had so much of life decided for him, being prophesied to be the voice of the community, being a tree who’s fruit is fed to the people, who’s truck is chopped down and used to make their shelter and how he nearly did almost once give up all of Nightvale for Carlos by going the the Otherworld with him

It was great seeing Abby even if only for a second

An entire book in the Nightvale style of deeply unsettling and profound and funny is a wonderful idea, with human nature so beautifully captured with in the pages and prose

the appearance of happiness being valued above the actual emotion. teeth as a fragmented symbol, being a part of something natural being a small segment of a symbol of joy and goodness and of course that piecemeal symbol being divorced from context and being made so creepy in that isolation, teeth both as a part of smiling and a part of biting, piece in isolation that could be either joy or devouring

always love me good cult

always love killing God and the horrible thing it makes of us

always love the conflict between understanding and belief

by the way, and I think this is a good thing, Never thought that any of the devoured people where dead. it would fuck with status quo to hard if Larry or Rico where gone. made it more a mystery of how they where going to comeback than an actual threat and thats a good thing

and you know how Cecil never actually talks about Homophobia or racism or any kind of discrimination is his show? and then we step outside of his heavily edited, censored perspective and it turns out theirs still antisemitism and racism and sexism and stuff like that in Nightvale? I think it makes me appreciate Cecil more to know that his pride in his identity and his dedication to showing a mostly egalitarian world, is intact a dedicated choice that he makes about his own identity and not just a passive aspect of his environment. Cecil overall came across as a lot more put together and reliable from other perspectives than his own. I would not have expected Cecil to be able to cook or be an emotional pillar right after his nice almost died. I think he might just have really low opinion of himself and it comes through in the show.

It can be really hard to tell the difference between Cecil being dumb because he’s putting on a show for the audience and trying to get around censorship Cecil being dumb die to reeducation side affects and timeline shenanigans, and Cecil being dumb because he just is. theres so many layers of truth and deception

religion being about the community, belief and interpretation of it all even when the facts are horrible

My god Carlos would have killed so many people and 1000% believed that it was City Council hating him enough to cut off their nose to spite their face and never once stopping to question his remarkably biased assumption. He really took the conflation of hero and scientist hard and is complete willing to force the issue with his own self rightness. Baby Girl you are so deranged!!! and he’s completely head over heels for Cecil. nice to know it goes both ways

I would like to get some more Darryl and Nil feels but its 11:54 and I have work tomorrow

also catch me think that Luisa is ‘like that’ as a result of being re-educated a bit to hard after having a mental break down from watching one of her co-workers die from Strex. two scientists went missing that day and we still don’t know what happened. and least one could have died

Nils absolutely came to town later and not with the rest of the research group

Carlos really killed God with gasoline and a flare gun when It was helpless and pinned. Darryl really looses faith in God when that faith is corroborated by fact and the truth can never be as real as the fantasy. Nil and Darryl really don’t work as a couple blue they just don’t have comparable word views and Darryl winds up wth the childhood best friend he shares a life and community with. Nil hooking up with Kareem would create perfect symmetry of scientist and radio host, so they clearly won’t work because it not their story its just one their would parallel, but her trying for a Cecil stand in works thematically due to all that Cecil represents within this story and Kareem is closer to Nils world view as a acts as the rational outsider to Cecil’s world view in the podcast

Hey, hey. invisible food and how you may or may not be eating anything, about how devouring is about becoming full, finding nutrients and fulling your body and taking care of yourself. you are flesh and you take in solid sunshine to be able to move and live and choosing to take the risk of starving yourself, of putting nothing in your body when it needs something, hearing your stomach growling and contracting around imaginary food who’s taste you made up, because it would ruin the fun to find out if you were actually taking care of yourself. Jon Peters constantly insisting that he is a farmer because he is unsure if he actually is a farmer, how he lives in fear and shame that his identity, the identity passed down from his father, built with the brother he lost to a distant war, is actually a lie, that he failed at what he was supposed to do because of the facts of his environment and how he decided to make up a story, spin a fantasy rather than admit the truth. how Nightvale eats empty air and no one is willing to admit the truth of their hunger because nightvale is a town of lies, secrets and stories

contrasting that with the flesh and weight of the smiling god. how for all its lofty thoughts and belief at the end of the day its just blood and crunching teeth. what seems like a lie, a fantasy, a story is really just plain naked truth, the blood and sweat and bile that we are, how we are just lumps of grey matter draped in bone and at the end of the day we die and that Charlie Bair who wanted his ghost license so he could continue on after death, Charlie Bair who will one day pay 10000$ to have his brain scooped out and turned into a cyborg slave of the smiling god, how bodies are just parts, how his fear of death turned to eternal pain. the smiling god devours. you are food. you will die

a science that chooses lies and fantasy and a religion that chooses facts and flesh

there is no one with out the other

Kevin and Darryl and Kasper and church being a business that can’t feel like a business to all but those in charge. a cybernetics company and a church that looks like a cheap office building

community being death, love being clear so all you see is the real, practical things on the other side of it, love being what is, love being the act of going about your life, the fox eats itself, the fox kills its pack, you kill the fox, skin it and wear its face over your own, what could be fire or trees with what could be chemicals or water, what would harm one or save the other but you don’t know if friendship is toxic, destructive, mutualistic or beneficial, the many faces of a relationship 

Nils throwing up in church, in that yellow costume that hides all of what she is, that makes her just one in a crowd, you go to church hungry but she ate her fill and this becomes her salvation because it allows her to escape the pull and get away from the locked room of cultists she’s pretending to be a part of

starving and feasting. devouring and imagining

this wound up being more about the visceral then the communal

stand by for something more coherent, there is to much to say about this book

tldr; understanding of the world is fundamentally flawed due to human subjectivity so its only by opening ourselves to other world views can we find understanding

[atiny-piratequeen]

Also totally random but at the same time not 👀

Of ataraxia who is the most overbearing/overprotective spouse when pups/guppies/mini-creatures/spawns are on the way. I feel like all of them would be EXTRA in all caps when it comes to pregnancy.

Also, are their distinct monster pregnancies different in length in which the mate carries to term (cause bruh when I found out other mammals don’t carry their babies for nine months in their stomach I felt the world crumbling cause I was just like 🫨🫨🫨🫨 like that didn’t even fathom in my mind that it was possible)

All of this comes to mind because of the idea of daddy dragon mingi… makes me feral

Mingi is at the top, absolutely (its more the dragon thing than anything else, those eggs are harder than diamonds you could try and run them over with a truck and it would probably destroy the truck before it did shit to them but those are HIS (and your-) BABIES-), then Yunho (he'd probably set you on fire and use you as a chew toy if you tried to bring harm on his little ones or his partner), Seonghwa (siren eggs are very much not indestructible. They're not like your average egg where they'll split if the wind blows wrong, its all over, but its still not something he'd even chance if his Guppies to be were in danger), San & Hongjoong being tied after him and Yeo, Woo, and Jongho being the least bothered by it.

Wooyoung can literally tear holes in reality, he'd be able to detect malicious intent long before whoever wanted to deal it was even in the same area code as him and his. It makes completely rending someone into nothing rather easy.

For Jongho and Yeo, Incubi/Succubi spirits and Fae spirits kind of...come into being in this verse as a manifestation of their "parent's" power. So there's really less of a worry of protecting a defenseless little one like the others because Jongho’s kids wouldn't even be kids, they're just. Ready to be off on their own, fully grown, and depending on the type of Fae they are, Yeosang’s little ones would be either the same branch or they'd be stubbornly independent anyway and actually more dangerous because of them having so much unchecked power and such a bite of mischievousness to them.

That being said, for the ones who DO have little bapis no matter what, they all do have different periods of growth/coming into being, with the longest being between Mingi’s Eggs and whatever cosmic shit I decide to come into being if i choose to have Eldrich Woo actually be some kind of dad while spawning a mini world ender into being.

Maybe not, idk if yall want the added anxiety of a child who can tear the world apart while throwing one(1) temper tantrum

Also yes dragon dad mingi is very much a feral fangs and claws bared sight to behold

[ultraericthered]

Anime Update V2 51

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 - Have seen the next two episodes, and I’m noticing that Yuki getting lost from Mirai and Mirai having to call out his name seems to be a once an episode trend now, as are the aftershocks and tremors causing more random destruction and casualties, and the newscaster lady giving a report after every credits that clues you in on what’s to come in the next episode. Episode 4 was particularly notable, with Mirai’s petulant stubbornness giving me serious cringe (just use the portable disposable toilet already, girl!) as well as her continuing to be a terrible big sister to Yuki, a really gutwrenching scene with her and Yuki both sobbing over missing their home and parents, and oh yeah, Tokyo Tower falling down!

Hunter x Hunter - At last, the end of Greed Island. I was glad for Gon, Killua and Biscuit that they were able to achieve the win, am going to miss Biscuit if she’s really going to be away for a while, and damn, every new thing I hear about Ging really makes him come off more like a jerk. Getting a guy’s name wrong for a more convenient game title and not retracting it ‘cause you find it funny? Major dick!

Fruits Basket - Another solid episode for Yuki’s character growth.  We found out that Machi is actually the younger half-sister of Kakeru and that she struggles with having independence. Yuki also got locked in a closet for a bit and had to conquer more painful memories of Akito’s abuse in that time. But by far the episode’s most important development is that Cinderella has been chosen as the play for the upcoming school festival, with the roles cast as such: Saki as Cinderella, Kyo as the Prince, Minami as the evil stepmother, Tohru as the evil stepsister, and Yuki as the Fairy Godmother. I. can’t. wait!

Re:ZERO - This is no doubt going to be an unpopular opinion but, aside from Subaru’s continuing character arc of mental and moral degradation, I’m not particularly liking this arc compared to the ones before it. It had such promise at the very start, but rather than maintain focus on what it started with - the different campaign camps of the Royal Selection - it’s veering in a different direction that seems intent on throwing as much bleak, miserable, mean-spirited and edgy shit at you as it can. And if it was working dramatically, I’d be more forgiving of it...but I didn’t get “drama” from this episode, I got unintentional comedy gold. The Witch’s Cult shows up and we meet a character named Betelgeuse (yes, like Beetlejuice) and not only is he just about the most Extra psychotic weirdo I’ve ever seen in anime, but how he’s set up in the plot as Subaru’s new arch enemy comes out of nowhere. He kills Rem and torments Subaru about his “sloth!” (and Rem’s sloth too since she’s gratuitously in love with Subaru but hasn’t really acted upon those feelings) sending Subaru into a mental breakdown where he’s all  “RAAAWR I’LLKILLYOU, I’LLKILLYOU, I’LLFUCKINGKILLYOU!” and even screams his name:  “BETEEEELGEUUUUUSE!” There’s just no way I could take this seriously. The actually effectively creepy part was the very end with all the snow and the outline of giant monster Puck appearing, and then the evil, furious look on Subaru after time has looped back.

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works - Once again the part of the story where Shirou, Saber, Rin, and Archer face off against Ilya and Berseker for the first time, but this time with more details that the Deen anime left out such as Rin combating Ilya directly at one point, and there was even a scene of Kirei talking to Gilgamesh. Oh yes!

Symphogear GX - Another new start with another new enemy showing itself, this one being some creepy witch girl and her doll-like underlings who are after something from someone because they want to destroy the world. It’s not really clear yet, but I just loved seeing everyone again, especially with Kirika and Shirabe hanging with the main heroines now, and Maria doing her community service.

Eureka Seven - Finally got started on this, it’s been so long since I last saw any of this series, but Dai Sato, the head writer on it, is also the head writer of the currently running Pokemon Horizons, so the timing was serendipitous. Episode 1 spends a lot of time around Renton Thurston, a whiny 14 year old boy living in a small village who bitches about how much stuff in his life “sucks” but is also the son of a famed hero and who’s voiced in a very Tom Holland-ish sort of way by Johnny Yong Bosch (ironic since Holland is the first name of his idol), and some conflict with his grouchy old grandpa. It all changes when the Nirvash Type 0 shows up, piloted by a really weird girl with green hair and purple eyes named Eureka (pronounced EHUH-REK-UH), followed by Holland Novak’s crew in Gekko State and an assault from the United Federaton Military (which includes the cruel Captain Juergans and twerpy intel officer Dominic Sorel). So much is established within these two episodes I can’t recall it all off the top of my head, but damn does Sato’s strong writing make it fun!

Gintama - This episode took Gintoki and Katsura away from any of the other main characters as they’re roped into a temporary job that requires they crossdress and pass themselves off as women under new feminine identities. Yeah, one of those episodes, and easily the weakest to come out of this show at this point, though not without enjoyable moments. The plot with the ashamed son of the bigender owner of the place trying to prove himself a man led to something I had not been anticipating, and that in turn led to a laugh-out-loud ending joke. But for a cours concluder, they could’ve picked better.

AND

Oshi No Ko - For whatever reason, this anime was allowed to lead with a goddamn movie, one that despite its length is recommended viewing for determining whether or not this series is for you. And for me, it’d be a “nope!” Not because it was bad, I actually was quite engaged in it a good deal. But for a story with a premise this batshit crazy and totally ungrounded from the reality it’s depicting on-screen, it can only work if A: it’s a comedy, and B: Ai remains in the picture, as she’s the main selling point and the character with the most intrigue to her. Well, guess what happens at the end? It suddenly goes full “deep” and dramatic and serious, and it does so by having Ai get murdered at her home in front of her children by some rando stalker who may or may not have been brought there by the kids’ unknown father. Leading to a last minute swerve where Aquamarine vows to scour the entertainment industry for their father and whoever else might’ve had a hand in AI’s death, and get revenge! Yeah no, I think I’ll pass. I can see myself maybe checking back in with this every rare once in a while, but it’s not something I could get into. 

[cloudedmist]

Last night I wanted to commit suicide

I couldnt sleep. I felt very hurt and upset that a simple lie from an idiot could cause the police to hold on to my items for more than a year. I start to feel that life in such manner is so meaningless. Because I do my best in everything, don’t even want to take a cent from people, don’t even want to break a single rule in Singapore, wishing and hoping to set a good example for all... And a single lie from Callistar Chen Zhi Bin can make the police create problems for me for more than a year. It comes to me so often now, that I rather just commit suicide. Then I wont have to entertain such stupidity in the world. The stupidity where authorities choose to entertain every lie and dance around the fingers of recalcitrant aggressors prowling around to hamper the innocent. After all the good intentions, and working beyond my best, I feel I do not deserve being “captivated” and investigated on especially for more than a year. I recall how every day Callistar Chen Zhi Bin would complain about how his mother blames him for things he did not do. She would allege that he would play games on his phone till 4am in the morning. She would allege that he was mixing out with bad people in the neighborhood, and even go around asking random people if they had seen her child called “chen zhi bin”. She alleged finding a 6inch pubic hair in her room. She alleged I had forcefully entered her home to destroy her items. (She said it right before the police, and the policed asked what was damaged, and went around pointing to random places which had little to no damage). Back then, the police on-site knew she was psychotic and was lying. Now, Callistar Chen Zhi Bin takes after her practice, mind, and brain. But the police today do not know the police who were on-site back then. Otherwise they would know clearly that Callistar has taken the exact form as his perpetual lying mother. Back then, I felt, I had to help callistar otherwise he would have to face the psychotic (term used by the police back then) song and dance. He would have to face the abuse being hit by metal hangers and forcefully stuffed food in his mouth. I sat for hours around the estate incase my help was needed. Truthfully, if I could rewind time, I would let him be. Let him be beaten, abused, and leave him to break the laws. I should not have hounded him to make changes to his life, to have a good character, and live right. I should have let him fight on, let him go to school with shit pants, let him lose his aligners in the rubbish dump. He deserves it. To be very honest. If I do see his mother hit the crap out of him now (ofc she cant... he is too huge and big for her to control any more, and surely is a master at escaping her grasp) I would totally laugh it off. Such a deserving act for a monster.

[asexual-abomination]

A Quiet Ride

Hello! This isn't the omegaverse thing I was hinting at, but I wrote it as practice and ended up really liking it!

As always, I have no formal education in writing, any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Content/Trigger Warnings: Vague mentions of violence, reader having a meltdown, exploitation of my weirdly specific fear of driving on mountains. If there are any I'm missing, please let me know ASAP!

--//--

You would never understand Chrollo.

The long ride around the mountain felt useless, but you didn't dare question Chrollo's decision to bring you along.

You looked out of the window, distracting yourself with the glittering gold sequins of the town below. Rolling clouds obscured the moon and stars, swamping the world in inky blackness, despite the night not yet being late. The car's headlights cut through the shadows, revealing a winding lonely path up the mountain, an endless slab of grey without any signs of life nearby.

Chrollo hadn't yet told you why you here, and you hadn't yet bothered to ask. He would often just laugh and brush you off when you tried to question his strange intentions, so it quickly became easier to play along with the black haired man.

"So how have you been, in all your time away?"

With how long you had spent pointedly ignoring his presence, it almost didn't occur to you that the question might be for you.

"Good, I guess? I-I haven't really been up to much." Nervously, you took in his expression, and he seemed to be content with your mild-mannered answer, though that really meant nothing with this mysterious man.

"Hm, that's good to hear. I wonder if that sweet little coworker of yours has anything to do with that?"

There was no way to help it. You tensed up so hard you may as well have flinched in your seat. Why did he know about her?

--//--

The day had marked a whole year since you last had contact with a Troupe member, and the mixed emotions you felt left you staring blankly at your computer screen once the realization set in.

Typically, no-one would bother you about this, no-one would even notice, but today seemed different.

A girl probably a bit younger than yourself, bobbing around in a bright yellow sundress that contrasted her dark skin and a sunhat with a brim that covered almost her entire body span. She floated over to your little work station, offering a sunshine-bright smile on her cute round face.

Her warmth was infectious on the chill you exuded when you spoke, and it wasn't long before the two of you were speaking outside of work, something you hadn't ever done before under the Troupe's influence.

She took you shopping, you showed her your favorite games, she helped you dress fashionably, you helped her study for her degree. It was an adorable version of equal exchange, one that you found so fulfilling in the wake of your family's absence. You helping her study quickly became you hanging out at her apartment, and then that became you playing games together, completely forgetting her studying.

Then, one day, she brought you to meet her family. They were so kind and accepting, and things spiraled quickly from there. Your 'hang-outs' in public became more frequent, and her questions about your own family became more frequent.

You couldn't fathom telling her the truth. The truth about your strange childhood in Meteor City. How you were a disabled child, with barely any sense of a fighting chance, and by some miracle, the Troupe, still children themselves at the time had taken mercy on you.

How you were some strange form of entertainment for them, as they grew in notoriety, you seemed to be a figure of stability. After they dragged you out of the slums, since you were injured by some random starting gang that had shortly been destroyed, a strange system was set up. They would randomly show up in your life, in your house, at your work, where they would stick around and pretend you were the closest of friends and family for any time they chose from an hour to several months.

But you never went more than a week without seeing them. Even when they didn't come and see you directly, you'd spot one of them lurking on a street corner watching over you, before promptly disappearing.

Which is why Tania's sweet presence in your life was so needed through the bitterness of their mysterious absence.

--//--

"S-she has a name! A-and, um, yeah, she's been really nice this past year." You internally cringed and cursed yourself for your lackluster response, but it was all you could muster in the face of the fact that Chrollo knew about her. That also didn't even begin to encompass your feelings at the calmly threatening tone Chrollo had used when he spoke of her.

"'Really nice', hmm? Do 'really nice' coworkers take on ice cream dates and hold your hand on trips to visit their family?" Now his tone was entirely accusatory, with a harsh glare directed straight into your soul.

For a moment, your fear of his irresponsible driving overtook your fear of Chrollo’s violent insanity.

"Please watch the road."

"Answer my question, YN."

"Chrollo, please, I can't think."

"Are you really going to test me over this?"

He notices several seconds too late that a turn is coming up, dragging the steering wheel clockwise so sharply you once again worried that he would slam the car straight into the mountain wall nearby. You swore you could feel one side of the car lift entirely off of the road, tossing your heart into your throat and making you choke on your own breath.

When the car had landed again, and your heartbeat still raced, though in its right place in your chest this time, you tried to piece together some thoughts that would appease Chrollo to stop fucking staring at you.

"W-we... we aren't, er, we aren't anything official." You finally blurted out something, just for the sake of saying something that would fill the buzzing air.

In response, Chrollo turned his eyes back onto the road, but before you could sigh in relief, you heard the high-pitched buzzing of the car speeding up, and you realized he wasn't taking his foot off of the accelerator, at all.

"Your 'unofficial' little friend has been trying to take you away from me. Away from the Troupe. Did you really think we would ever let that slide? You thought a year without seeing us meant you no longer belonged to us, really?" A moment ago, when he was looking at you , you had felt the telltale notes of rising anger in his voice, the choppiness and volume making you scared for the moment, but now he was speaking with the lightness and pseudo-softness of a disappointed parent scolding a child.

And you knew from experience that this was far, far worse.

But you were never very good at following cues, were you? Maybe that's why they found you entertaining.

"What are you talking about?" Your question bursts out with a sob, the stress of the road and the thief next to you finally sending you over your mental edge, "You disappeared! I waited a year, a whole fucking year Chrollo, I spent hours watching and waiting for any of you to give me a sign to show that you still even considered me a part of the Troupe!" You gasped, feeling hysterical as you clutched at your own sides while rocking back and forth, almost on beat to the rhythmic thrum of the engine.

"I hate you, I hate every last goddamn member of your fucking Troupe, but I still waited for you because that's what you wanted, but you left me for a year. What the fuck did you expect me to think?" The final words were spoken through a throaty gasp, the tears streaming down your face and sobs building in your throat finally muting your rant.

You felt sick.

There was a turn coming up. Fast.

Chrollo was looking at you again.

The turn was right there.

He didn't move, his eyes fixed on you.

His foot still down on the accelerator.

You were gonna die here. The realization can't even draw another sob from you.

You weren't on the road anymore. Your eyes were squeezed shut, you couldn't even begin to guess how high up you were, but you could bet it was enough to kill you.

And suddenly the car's not even there.

You feel the biting cold of the mountain night air on your tear-stricken face, snapping out of your angry trance and into a new one.

Beginning to piece together what was going on, you realized that you were curled up and sobbing in Chrollo's arms, one of his arms hooked under your legs, the other around your shoulders. He's standing on the curve of the road where he'd just driven off, and staring down at you with the strangest blank look in your eyes.

Moments pass. Long, cold moments of eye contact as you shiver against his impassive body.

You can hear crickets. There's running water nearby, it sounds like a small creek, only a dribble. An owl hoots somewhere deep in the forest.

The relative silence is finally broken by a loud crash, just off the cliff. The car finally colliding with the ground all the way down the mountain. You whimper in response, the first real sound you made since you finished spitting your hatred at Chrollo.

"Did you really think I'd let you die?" His voice is soft, it's hard to not find comfort in it. "I know you don't mean all that, a lot of people say crazy things when on the verge of death, I would know." He adds a light chuckle to the end of his sentence, as if it was funny. "We're meeting with the rest of the Troupe in a cabin on this mountain. I don't think they'll be quite as understanding to this.. behavior, hm?" Again, he laughs. "Originally, you were going to help us as we decided on how to get rid of your little friend. But clearly, you're not in the right state for that. We'll show you the results whenever you're ready, okay?"

He begins to pace up the road, making no move to put you down or let you move in the slightest.

You leaned against his chest as you sniffled, and you remembered that there was a reason you had waited for Chrollo; he was always so understanding with your meltdowns.

[thefirstknife]

Hello! You already got some really good replies, but I'll go even more in depth in case you want more info.

I see others have also noted that you're probably thinking of Felwinter. He doesn't have a canon appearance! We only know what his helmet and his gloves were because they're earnable exotic armour in the game. His deal is that he's long dead, but he's a cool character so people love exploring parts of his story.

The robots are very important. They are called Exos and they are one of the three playable options. Exos are basically human minds uploaded into robot bodies. There are Exo civilians and Exo Guardians, they're just a normal part of the world! Every character with a number attached to the name is an Exo (with the exception of Felwinter, the only Exo without a number in the name, for complicated reasons). Some of the absolute best characters are Exos and some of the best stories are about Exos. There's also an enemy race of robots called the Vex! There's also various AI robots!

In-game community is fairly okay. Most random people you meet will try to be helpful or at least won't be actively harmful. There's a section of the community that's very obnoxious though and you can run into people who are actively detrimental, but overall it's not much different from other online games. People are generally interested in helping new players out! You can play through stuff alone, though most activities are matchmade. Some can still be played alone, but it will be hard for a new player. Having a friend or two to play with is recommended to help out with learning and to be able to avoid some matchmaking.

The entirety of Destiny lore is built on tragedy. That is the core driving force for the whole setting (the main starting event is "The Collapse," basically an end of the world in which the entire solar system was almost destroyed and most people died, but it also led to the creation of Ghosts and Guardians; Ghosts can resurrect people and turn them into immortal superpowered beings, which is who you play as). There's tragedy in SO MANY individual plots and stories, they're genuinely essential to everything. However, most tragedy stories will have a really hopeful and cathartic ending, as Destiny's core theme is hope. But the majority of the plots are deeply tragic. The already mentioned Felwinter is a really good example; a unique Exo who wanted to help humanity in their darkest times, but his good intentions led him and all of his friends to their death, orchestrated by the person who created him and who overreacted out of fear and forever regretted and lamented what he's done.

I'll put the rest separately because it's kinda relevant to know, but most of Destiny's real story and lore is in written format and it always has been. You will generally not learn much from just playing a campaign. There will be plenty of things there, but the majority of everything known and discussed about the setting is in lore books (which are earned by playing or are already unlocked by default if they're older content). Seasonal stories are a bit more story rich because they go on for weeks and deal with a specific plot over the course of roughly 8 weeks, give or take. They include plenty of dialogues and interactions and developments. They're being swapped to a new model starting after June though and we're not yet sure how much they'll differ.

The problem is that Destiny is not free. Well, it is "free," and you can start and play activities and the starting quest, but outside of that, you need to buy each expansion individually to play them. Same with seasonal stories. This will overall cost you less than an average subscription based MMO, but it's still a lot of money, especially when you don't know where to start. If anything, my advice would be to try out the free stuff and play a bit to see if you enjoy the gameplay because gameplay is primary here. If you do like that and want to know more, waiting for sales and getting expansions one by one in order should be a good deal! More under:

Another important disclaimer: a lot of the story stuff is no longer in the game. The reason for this is really complex and not an ideal situation for anyone involved. Devs went to great lengths to explain why this is an unfortunate decision that had to be made: I know some people will jump at the opportunity to shit on the game for this so I have to stress that the decision to "vault" (aka remove) content is not something they did maliciously to screw over players or whatever people believe it was. It's an incredibly complicated issue with the engine and the size of the game and the original code involved and the support on old gen consoles and other issues.

Seasonal stories are also removed after a year which has a lot to do with the same issues, but also with the issue of there simply not being enough players to populate 30+ activities at all times. Each season launches with 1-2 new activities and we're in season 23 right now. Before vaulting, matchmaking time for some old activities could go up to 30+ minutes, and that was when there were fewer activities in the game overall. That doesn't mean there's not enough people; there is! But nobody would be playing super old stuff if it were still in the game right now, because most players would have already earned everything from that. Size was a massive issue, making the game virtually impossible to update and maintain; the sacrifice was basically between old content and whether or not you'd be able to load and play anything new (and how long it would take to fix any issue, no matter how small).

The point is; don't get the wrong impression from kneejerk reactions (people LOVE to say the worst things about the game because of vaulting and usually do so without actually respecting developers who talked about the reasons for it), BUT I need you to be aware of this before you commit to the game because it's only fair. A lot of the cool stories cannot be played anymore or are locked to D1 which does not exist on the PC.

A lot of the stuff that's been removed are really cool stories that people have rose-tinted glasses about because we're nostalgic for them, but I have no clue how they'd feel to completely new players who have no investment in the story (for example, when I started in D2 at launch, I did not have any investment in the game and I knew nothing about D1 so the original campaign and expansions didn't mean anything to me (and were also originally not very liked), but people are super nostalgic for them now). Some of them aren't exactly incredibly relevant anymore either.

I'd personally prefer if everything in the game was still available for everybody, as most of the stories were incredibly cool and interesting (and in many cases, relevant). A big hurdle to this as well is that the first game is only available on consoles so if you're on PC, you can't play through D1 which is the actual beginning of the game with the most context for everything that's going on. Since I've been on the Felwinter mentions, for example, the crux of the tragedy of that story is an expansion in D1. We got some more stuff about it in D2 in lore, but without the context from D1, it wouldn't land the same I think.

Getting started in Destiny 2 right now is probably going to be incredibly confusing and overwhelming; something that people tend to rag on the game for, but something that's normal for a game that's nearing ten years of existence. I've played plenty of MMOs and getting into them late is always difficult. This isn't exclusive to Destiny. The only difference is that with Destiny, you will have to do homework and watch through old content online if you're really super invested in learning everything; all expansions and seasons are meticulously documented in full playthroughs. As I said, I would prefer if you could load in and play through everything, including D1, to catch up, but alas. Due to a tremendous amount of issues with how and when the game was made, this is simply not possible, at least not now.

If you like a shooter gameplay and cool guns and cool abilities and beautiful environments and a lot of really cool and deep lore, you'll probably like Destiny 2! If you get to play with people who can help you out (because stuff WILL be confusing, in a way most really long games are), it'll be a better experience. If you're only interested in a one-and-done experience to just get through stories, then it's not really something you can do without cashing out; genuinely it would be better to just watch the stories online and engage with the community for lore and questions. Destiny is mostly based on repeating gameplay loops and looking for loot and upgrading your character and collecting things and waiting for story developments. Without getting invested, a lot of content will not be accessible either because of the difficulty and the required gear and experience needed, as well as purchasing the relevant expansions and content.

I genuinely don't know how to recommend Destiny 2 very well, especially not this late into the game. I guess the best thing would be to load it up and give it a go. You can get the basics of the game from free to play content, but this is mostly just "free to try and see if it's your vibe." For any serious gameplay, you would have to purchase expansions. Old ones are on sales often and aren't too much of a price, but if you're looking to experience everything currently available, it's quite a lot to invest in so you would have to be sure you want to get into it before doing so.

This was not exactly a funny reply LMAO, but I tried being as informative and honest as possible. It's really hard for me to recommend Destiny to completely new people, but also I feel like anyone can just give it a go for free and see from there. There's nothing to lose to download and make your character and play a little bit in the open world and basic activities! And if you're interested in more, the community can give you further pointers for which expansions to get first or what might be most interesting to you. The fandom here on tumblr is very eager to get new people introduced to the blorbos and help out with gameplay!

hey destiny fandom I don't go there but im considering it here's a couple questions for you all:

Who is that robot I see people draw in skinny jeans. What's his deal.

Are the robots important? Like, If I were to play destiny, would the robots frequently show up and be relevant to the story?

Is the in-game community any good? Can I play through the main story without interacting with it?

Is there any story arks that are deeply tragic? I like my games leaving me staring blankly at the screen when I'm finished, lol.

Sincerely, a robot lover conducting a survey on if I should get into that game that's been compared to Warframe for ages. I could google this but Tumblr is honest and funny.

[witch-hazels-musings]

I seem to have pulled the Emperor, the Wheel of Fortune, and the Fool while visiting your shop with Zhongli, Miss Hazel... may I inquire what that may illustrate in the future?

The Lovers (true love), Wheel of Fortune (new beginnings), The Fool (fear of losing something), The Hierophant (learning), The Emperor (guidance) :: zhongli x gn reader | destined fate | combined requests 

warning: sfw, fluff : mention of visions

“Hold out your hand,” he requested and you did without question. His fingers curled around your own, their strength gentle even though you knew what they were capable of. Zhongli shared with you months ago his past; who and what he was were secrets you didn’t expect but you vowed to keep them until your dying breath. 

The evening air blew through your hair, it rustled your clothes but no matter how much it togged or pulled at you, you kept your eyes on him. 

It was two summers ago when you met Zhongli. It was strange that you’d never seen him around before but it was likely you weren’t paying that much attention anyway. 

With your face always in a book, buried deep in some search for a bit of knowledge they’d provide, you often didn’t notice even the most catastrophic of things from happening. The only time you could remember intently being involved in your surroundings was the day Morax fell, a day you’d never forget. 

Still, you hadn’t expected to bump into someone as prestigious as he. Or, at least as prestigious as you thought he was. A man dressed as eloquently as he was had to have come from a world vastly different than your own - if only you knew. 

He was polite, calm, considerate. Especially since he allowed you to take a book that he had had already purchased. He offered it to you with a bow and a smile, your fingers brushed against each other at the exchange. You’d never felt your heart flutter more. 

--

Weeks went by and you began to notice him in places you were. The spoken plays held at regular intervals on the balconies above the city. The hard to find antique shops where only historians or eclectics would find themselves on any random afternoon. The harbor where ships of all kinds brought unique commodities for trade. You enjoyed being there first to peruse the wares but you swore you never saw another soul there until him. 

Zhongli, you’d found out his name after the fourth time, was always active in something and though you swore he wasn’t following you, there was something intriguing about his presence. 

--

Months later, you ran into him in some strange circumstances. You’d heard about a troublesome natural disaster that impacted a small town beyond the city. You’d always been drawn to helping others when you could, and after discussing it with your employer you headed to offer any aid you could. 

It was difficult work, heartbreaking work as you helped with the families whose homes were damaged or destroyed. Yet it never shocked you to see how resilient the people of Liyue were. It was like they were all made from the hardest stones because no matter how far they were knocked down, they lifted themselves back up time and time again. 

“Are you alright?” you asked an elderly gentleman who hobbled across the debris filled street. His hand pressed against his back as he leaned heavily on the cane you hoped wouldn’t shatter under his weight. He reassured you with a smile but it didn’t stop you from offering your support. 

When you managed to get him to one of the small shelters set up for aid, you saw a familiar man standing beside a small, rather eerie looking girl. Later you found out it was the Director of the Funeral Parlor and that she had dragged her primary consultant with her to the aftermath. There was something odd about her energy in the destruction and you felt you weren’t alone in that thought.

-- 

Not long after that, the more the two of you crossed paths, the more you grew to know the other. You shared your interests with him, he with you. Your fondness of him grew until it nearly consumed you. Like kindred sprits you found one another and like tied strings your bonds tightened. 

Courting was a slow process but when you found out he had been doing so for the past many, many months you were relieved to find out waiting was a small fraction of the time he waited for you. 

Now, after years of falling madly in love, he brought you to a place you’d never been all so he could give you something you never thought you’d receive. 

“I have lived many thousands of years,” he began while his thumb ran over your wrist. “I have witnessed the shifting of sand and sea, the rise and fall of the world. Death and rebirth are as constant as the sun, yet I cannot compare this feeling to any I have ever felt.” 

You took a step closer, heart beating so fast in your chest you thought it would make you pass out. Zhongli smiled at your reaction and closed his eyes. He seemed so regal even in his unease. The two of you closed the distance between each other and found rest against the others forehead. 

“I ask nothing more of you than what you have already given me,” he explained and you swore your hands were growing warmer with every word he uttered, “y/n.” 

“Yes.” 

“To know that you have given your heart to me is a gift I will forever treasure. So I too must provide something of equal value.” Your palm warmed unpleasantly but when you opened your eyes you squinted at the brilliant light that shined there. 

Zhongli pulled back but kept your hands in his while you finally realized what he had given you. You stared, gawked, and blinked through tears as you saw, resting in the palm of your hands, a vision that shined more brilliantly than melting gold. 

“I vow to protect you in this life. Whether I am near or far, to know you will be safe will put my mind at ease and, if you will accept it, I hope it will be a tool for you.” 

“Z-Zhongli --” your voice cracked, fingers wrapped around the throbbing, beating vision in your palm until it came to rest against your chest. It pulsed, resonated and set your heart aflame. A gift from an archon, a gift from your lover, a gift you would cherish all the days of your life. 

“Will you accept me?” he asked, eyes waiting, hoping and when you responded with a resounding yes as your arms wrapped around his neck, he called upon the beauty of this world to craft another gift that would rest around your ring finger; a memento of your everlasting love. 

ALT

Fate Made Event (May8-31) | Anthology | @nimko​ | @bubnix​

[shadow-sovereign]

Hi again! It's Lullaby. How about Antares being reincarnated as Jin-Woo's childhood friend on a whim of curiosity? As in Antares from canon being interested in MC and wanting to watch his life from close to the beginning? Imagine Antares becoming a kind of dork being hooked on anime/manga/games/literature... And then growing up, unlocking his memories... And learning that the new him grew very protective and possessive over Jin-woo, seeing him as precious treasure to hoard

Well, this idea feels like it could go a few different ways. There’s obviously time travel involved, for Antares to be interested in Jin-Woo’s life up close. (He wouldn’t get interested in a random human, after all.) But at what point does he travel and does anyone else remember the future?

Like, the Cup of Reincarnation could only go back ten years, so that wouldn’t really be seeing Jin-Woo’s life from the beginning. So, settling on one possibility to talk about – Antares from that final fight, somehow manages to save himself, and sends his consciousness to the past through some method. He’s been around a long time, maybe he found something on one of the worlds he destroyed.

He merges with his past self and then sets about finding a human family to be ‘born’ to. Someone that lives close enough to Jin-Woo that they’d at least go to the same school. And he’d probably give his human self a subconscious curiosity towards Jin-Woo, though he didn’t quite intend for them to end up best friends.

Antares is just curious about Jin-Woo. Why did Ashborn choose this human in particular? Why was Jin-Woo able to win against the Monarchs when the Rulers failed for centuries? What kind of life did he lead to develop such skill?

He wants to see Jin-Woo’s life from the very beginning and plans to awaken his own memories after Jin-Woo has already been approached by Ashborn. Since he doesn’t know exactly how that happened, he plans to have his memories triggered by feeling Ashborn’s mana on Jin-Woo. Mostly, this is to make sure he doesn’t accidentally interfere in whatever caught Ashborn’s notice, it’s not his intent to stop Jin-Woo from becoming the Shadow Monarch.

The most unexpected thing for Antares is how much he grows to like earth culture. All the wide variety of games and literature. And the endless ways to prepare food. He becomes even more of a foodie after he gets his memories back. As a Monarch, he didn’t need to eat that often and he never stopped to see how other cultures cooked their food before destroying them.

But now, he’s been immersed in earth culture. He’s absolutely fascinated by everything.

Perhaps his human self’s interest in games led to him trying to become a game designer? Learning coding and other stuff in school.

And as Jin-Woo’s Mom becomes sick and Jin-Woo has to go on several dangerous raids, human Antares hopes to get a good paying job and help with her medical bills. And unlike if someone else offered to help, it doesn’t feel like pity to Jin-Woo. After all, this is his childhood friend who practically grew up with his mom as an Aunt.

Also, human Antares would probably have like, a Korean name, when he’s reborn as a human. I just don’t have any idea what it would be. Korean names still feel really foreign to me. I’m much more used to Japanese anime.

Anyway, Antares is super surprised when he gets his memories back and realizes how attached he’s gotten to Jin-Woo. He wants to wrap him up in blankets and take him back to his den, where no one can hurt him. Which is...kind of a new feeling for him. He’s maybe had a few favored dragons before that he’s spoiled a bit. (He was pretty pissed when the Rulers captured Kamish.) But to want to protect someone else to this extent? To want to make them happy? He’s never experienced this love feeling before.

What he does know is that he’s a very possessive man and what he wants, he goes after. So, with his new knowledge of human culture, he makes a plan to woo Jin-Woo to his side. He doesn’t want to interfere with Jin-Woo gaining the full use of Ashborn’s powers, so he keeps his own status as a Monarch a secret for now, instead mimicking the Awakening of human Hunters.

As an S-rank, he’s now able to go on raids with Jin-Woo. And with this being his childhood friend, Jin-Woo isn’t going to say no to the guy joining his guild. Which makes the three they need with Jin-Ho.

And you just know that Jin-Ho is going to feel jealous and insecure that Jin-Woo already has a best friend and doesn’t seem to need him in any way. The guy wants to feel useful and to know that Jin-Woo wants him around.

Antares doesn’t get along with Jin-Ho at first. He’s possessive and territorial and doesn’t like that Jin-Ho is jealous of his time with Jin-Woo. But he’s read a lot and knows that humans need friends, not just a romantic partner. And he quickly figures out that Jin-Ho just wants a younger brother role.

Maybe he ends up conveying to Jin-Ho that as long as he’s just interested in that younger brother role, then they’ll get along just fine. And Jin-Ho can be a bit oblivious, but he also makes quick assumptions, leaps of logic, and realizes that hey, doesn’t this seem like a childhood friends to lovers story unfolding in front of him?

It settles both of them down once they realize that they each want a different type of attention from Jin-Woo, that it’s only a matter of figuring out when each of them gets to spend time with Jin-Woo. Antares is greedy and would prefer to have all of Jin-Woo’s time, but again, he grudgingly acknowledges that humans need friends. Maybe Antares has even made a few friends of his own through his interest in video games and anime.

The war would certainly go in a different direction with an Antares that no longer wants to destroy humanity. The other Monarchs might put up a fight at first, at having their plans so abruptly changed. They’re not going to understand at first why Earth has become off-limits, when they’ve already destroyed it to so many times in the other timelines. But also, they’re probably not going to want to piss off Antares, once they realize how serious he is about the matter.

This does bring up the question of how Jin-Woo would get the Black Heart if the Monarchs don’t kill him, but perhaps Ashborn just reaches a point where he’s ready to hand off the powers himself, no death required.

The Rulers aren’t going to know what’s going on with the Monarchs suddenly pulling away from Earth. I don’t think their conflict with the Monarchs wold end right away. Antares has become fond of Jin-Woo and Earth, but that doesn’t mean his animosity towards the Rulers would be gone. It’s probably not until he’s revealed what’s going on to Jin-Woo that the war comes to an end, as Jin-Woo wouldn’t be very happy about his childhood friend/boyfriend going on killing sprees on other worlds.

And Jin-Woo would probably keep him plenty distracted in other ways. Asking Antares how to do various magical things, playing video games with him, traveling earth and possibly other planets. Just having fun together. (And bringing souvenirs back for Jin-Ah. He probably wouldn’t risk taking her to other planets, but he takes plenty of family vacations on earth with her and their mom. And maybe their dad lives in this au too? Antares accidentally making things better through the power of curiosity and possessive love.)

I think this au definitely has a chance to be happier than canon. With Jin-Woo actually having emotional support from the very beginning, in the form of a best friend who’s his own age. (As opposed to Jin-Ah, who he has a responsibility to take care of, he’s not going to be as emotionally vulnerable with her.)

And he’ll have an immortal companion, someone who actually knows how their own form of magic works. I’m not sure how Jin-Woo figured out how to do things in canon after the system was gone, trial and error or maybe he found a way to access some of Ashborn’s memories. The novel wasn’t clear about a lot of things.

But yeah, happy ending. I can’t really think of anything else to say and I think this is long enough? I never know when to end one of these fic ideas. Or whether I’ve given enough detail to make it interesting to read. I guess click the heart button if you guys liked this and want to see more fic ideas in the future.

[collisiondiscourse]

on the wonder duo (part 1)

(BNHA Analysis Post Ahead! This isn’t explicitly romantic, but it is an analysis of the relationship between the two most popular characters in BNHA--Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku Midoriya. Split into two posts because I realized that this was gonna be long as HELL)

yall ever think about the fact that the wonder duo is perfectly set up in so that bakugou and deku together are the better version of all might?

bc like. ive been thinking.

everyone knows the win to save and save to win parallel. How they are supposedly two halves of a whole perfect hero (which, previously, was defined as all might)

but ever since bakugou and deku started working as one—growing together to win AND save and continuously reminding each other that they shouldnt try to do things alone, ive realized that its BECAUSE theres two of them that they surpass all might. its not a case of deku and bakugou both being 50% of an ideal hero, but rather i think that they are 100% of what all might SHOULD HAVE BEEN from the very beginning.

as early as the AM v AFO battle in kamino, we see the effects of all mights flawed existence. the fact that he, the greatest and supposedly infallible symbol of peace, was destroyed—society had begun to collapse. there was suddenly no pillar to hold people together and the impacts were so severe that even in the latest chapters of mha it keeps on getting worse. the truth is, all mights biggest mistake was the burden he placed on his own shoulders

with bakugou and deku... its different.

its different for them because down to their attributions, they seem like two halves of a whole person.

i think that the wonder duo are going to surpass all might because of the fact that they work together.

@bakugoukatsuki-rising @svpercraigus @tybee​ @isaustraliaathing​

(batshit crazy and conspiratorial essay under the cut !)

1. Complementary Colors

I’d like to first preface literally everything I say by the fact that I am not an expert analyzer or literary major in any way. I am literally just some random fan on the internet who has wayyy too much time and looks wayyy too deep into things, but here we go!

A common thing we see when we talk about bakugou and deku is the way they are... sort of an inverse of one another.

Down to the design of their features and the way they move, Deku is the obviously softer of the two. There’s an intentional contrast between the two of them, in the way that Deku’s drawn with round shapes and curvy hair and the way Bakugou is literally all spikes and half-mast eyes and rough muscles. Bakugou’s movements too are languid and showy, with the way he leans when he walks and splays his legs and kicks open doors. Katsuki, in a casual sense, is loud and dramatic. 

Deku on the other hand s finicky. He jitters when he walks and he’s often fidgeting and mumbling. Comparatively, the aura he radiates is energetic and frenzied, even self-conscious to a point unlike Bakugou’s calm and confident movements.

the point is, there’s a clear difference in how either of them are designed and what exactly they are supposed to represent. They utterly complement each other down to the way they behave and even their main colors (red-orange and blue-green) being literal complementary colors.

Now, moving to my more ungrounded points, this is quite a bit of a stretch so I’ll try as much as possible to make sense of these with hyperlinked sources because. yeah.

Down to their names, I think Deku and Bakugou both symbolize something deeper. I think that the way Hori expresses characters and what they’re meant to do is something that we have to pay close attention to when we talk about the Wonder Duo’s rise to success.

Izuku Midoriya (緑谷 出久), as some of us may know, does have an interesting meaning when broken up. According to a lovely fan translation of his name, ‘Izuku’--while not an actual name used commonly in real life--means to ‘Come out’ or ‘Long time’. ‘Midoriya’ on the other hand means (Midori) ‘Green’ and (ya) ‘valley’. The translator further pointed out that his first name ‘Izuku’ could be a reference to him being the first legendary hero to come out of the long-running All Might Era. (or, if you’ve been reading @/bakugoukatsuki-rising’s posts, the first significant anime protag in a long while to come out as queer, ppfft)

but that isn’t my focus right now.

We know that Hori LOVES telling stories with names, and more often than not in the BNHA universe, names alone tell us a lot of things about the characters. When referring to Izuku’s last name, Midoriya, it’s important I think to step back and realize that hey, maybe there’s something more to Green Valley than just the fact that his motif is all green.

After searching for a lil on the specifics of green valley, I’ve found out that across many cultures, the colour green and valleys in general tend to represent life. From dream analysts, to Christianity, and even old Taoist teachings, valleys are seen as areas of fertility and escape. They are seen as safe havens and often escapes for people to come to after running away from bad circumstances.

(Sound familiar?)

Deku, in essence represents life and peace. He represents being the “salvation” that the world in BNHA needed. To me, it sounds like Horikoshi is trying to say that he is the long-awaited hero in the sense. The one that people can feel will create a society that feels safe for everyone after years of All Might just saving people from themselves as a band-aid solution.

On the other hand, we have Katsuki Bakugou (爆豪 勝己), who’s name we commonly know means (Katsuki) Winner and (Bakugou) Explosion Master. He is essentially, the champion. The power. His name means success and power and all the things that make up winning.

When putting them side by side, it then becomes increasingly... interesting to me how their names almost perfectly slot into All Might’s save to win and win to save mantra, and how they are both quintessential parts to what made All Might as a hero.

2. Hero Too!

Now, I’m not even gonna really TOUCH much of what happens in canon. If you want me to do a step by step breakdown of their arcs in regards to the plot of manga and anime, feel free to send me a gratuitous ko-fi tip so I can pay for the headache I get after trying to organize my thoughts into word vomit.

What I WILL talk about on the other hand, is the subtle shift both of them slowly have in regards to how they look. Bakugou and Deku, while growing up, seem to have MANY many parallels--but before I elaborate on all of that, I wanna talk about something else.

Detour: Deku’s Red Shoes 

We all know the iconic symbol being Deku’s red shoes. For all his life, save for some outfits like his hero one, we see Deku more often than not wearing his signature red sneakers which have become a running joke in fandom.

But the funny thing is, in Japan, red shoes seem to have an interesting connotation.

In 1922, a popular Japanese nursery rhyme was written, called “Red Shoes”. The interesting part to me about this song was the symbolism that, in my tiny pea-sized brain, I could connect to the story of BNHA.

The story goes that there was a little girl with red shoes named ‘Kimi’. She was from Shizuoka prefecture (which, if you didn’t know, is most likely where Musutafu supposedly is) and was raised by a single mother. When she was young, her mother had to entrust her with a foreigner under the impression that they would give her a better life in America. The stranger is a man named Charles Hewitt (who was described to have blue eyes) and supposedly took her away. 

The singer of the song (supposedly the mother, but some argue it was written from the perspective of a childhood friend) believes that Kimi is happy and living a better life away from them, when the reality of the situation was much worse. The young girl with red shoes in actuality had Tuberculosis, and thus the foreigner whom she was entrusted to had left her to fend for herself and eventually left her to go to America while she died alone and orphaned.

“When I see red shoes, I think of her.”

A very interesting story with very interesting implications indeed.

-

Anyway, moving on to the more... “nuanced” and connected parts of this section, I have every reason to believe that Bakugou and Deku were simply MEANT to be working together down to how they dress. Now, I’d like to discuss their hero costumes.

At the start of their series, using these godawful pics for reference, it’s clear to see that neither of them seem alike in any way--reflecting the dissonance in their relationship at that point in canon.

ough. deku why. (yes we know why its because you love your mom you stupid little bunny <3)

Anyway, we see an immediate gap in how the two of them are. Deku’s first costume is one that reflects how he treated his dream of being a hero. He was still in that childlike idolization phase, the one where his dreams and aspirations were hinged on pure feelings and inspiration from All Might. Katsuki on the other hand was a lot more tactical--professional to an extent. The gap between their respective development with their quirks is something that is clearly felt in every fashion decision they’d made.

(Notice how Deku’s green is a lot brighter and less like the green accents Katsuki has all over his costume.)

As time progressed however... their costumes changed. The colors, the silhouettes, the practical functions, most things.

(Deku’s Gamma Costume and Bakugou’s Winter Costume used respectively)

we begin to notice a few similarities.

As the show goes on and we see more evolutions of their costumes, it almost seems like they begin to look like a matching pair. Deku’s green grows darker and almost teal in nature, while Bakugou’s orange is veering towards red territory. This is important to note because red-orange and blue-green as I said earlier were complementary colors as compared to simply orange and green. The minute shift is something I really wasn’t quite sure was intentional, but something I find interesting to pick up nonetheless as the colors they used to accent their costumes begin to match up.

Secondly, I think and important thing to note is silhouettes. The way that both Bakugou and Deku’s costumes are designed follow a lot of parallels that typically we don’t see with the rest of 1-A. For one, they both have a combination of tight long-sleeved tops with a bulkier set of bottoms. They also share the use of utility belts and metal pieces typically worn around their necks. Deku has his bunny-eared hood that mimics All Might’s hair, while Bakugou has his orange and black explosion ear-pieces that mimic his own quirk.

i don’t think any other people in class 1-A match each other as subtly yet strongly as these two. Uraraka and Deku and Bakugou and Kirishima do come close however.

“But Codi, you fucking knob!” I hear you plea. “This is such a reach and tells us practically NOTHING!” And yes, I’m inclined to agree with you! You’d be sort of right in the idea that this is a reach. Maybe I am looking too much into this, and maybe it really isn’t that deep--but I do think that them subconsciously matching outfits means something quite brilliant.

In the way that their costumes are designed, each aspect of either outfits have a very logical explanation. The changes were strategic and made with their fighting styles vividly in mind, so what that tells me is that BECAUSE these costumes are so complementary or similar in nature (Bakugou’s reinforcing his arms while Deku reinforces his legs), these two are implicitly showing the audience that their combat styles are complementary as well. 

The evolution of their design choices and similarities tell us that even unknowingly, their minds line up in strategy on the battlefield--a clear exhibit for why they would be INCREDIBLY POWERFUL as a Hero Duo to begin with.

When I look at their hero costumes side by side, I see a mirror. I see the way that these two are reflections of each other and are strong where the other isn’t. The point I see in BNHA repeatedly is that EVERYONE HAS A WEAKNESS. Nothing is infallible, regardless of how hard you train or how powerful your quirk is. Everyone will always have a weakness, but the significant difference I see when fandom discusses the future of Pro-Hero Society is that the new generation is finally raising itself to be RELIANT on each other. 

Observing their fighting styles and the simple use of their quirks, its obvious that they are indeed two parts of a whole hero. Bakugou, who’s quirk emphasized his arms and hands and the power that comes from it, while Deku who’s quirk now emphasizes his legs and lower body and the way he’s always running to save people.

IN CONCLUSION:

As they become heroes, it is easy to assume that if nothing else, Bakugou and Deku will cover each other’s weak spots (especially when you consider the way Deku probably won’t be able to keep using his arms with the way both the anime and manga are going...) (also chapter 285, anyone?)

-

Part Two: Interactions, OfA

kofi || commission details

[band--psycho]

Bucky Barnes x Reader-The Memories

I spent a lot of time wondering whether or not I should post this but after a long time of considering it, I thought I should. This is an extremely personal story but I hope that it helps anyone who needs it! 💖 

I just wanna say a huge thank you to @little-diable and @xacatalepsyx​ who’ve supported me so much while writing this💖 

Warnings: Sexual Assault (if this triggers you do not read below the cut)

~Every seven years, the cells in your entire body will be destroyed and replaced with new cells. One day, I will have a body you will have never touched~

I watched as the clock struck midnight, marking four years since it happened. Four years to the day since my world turned upside down. Four years since my view on the world changed. Four years...and yet it still felt like it’d only happened yesterday. I never thought it would happen to me, least of all by a family member, but it did. The thought of it is always there, even on my good days it’s there, lingering like a cursed thought in the back of my mind, but on days like today, the memory was in the forefront of my mind. 

I carefully sat up in bed, hugging my knees to my chest, knowing that if I closed my eyes I would be taken back there; I’d be locked in that flat with him. The thoughts alone were enough to terrify me, but I always found a way to distract myself, but if I slept I would be trapped in a nightmare. That scene replaying itself constantly in my head. 

I glanced over at Bucky, the light brown messy locks of his hair covering the side of his face as he slept. It wasn’t often that Bucky had a peaceful night sleep but Fury had been sending him on so many missions lately it wasn’t much of a surprise that he was exhausted so the last thing I wanted to do was disturb him. I leaned over slightly and stroked a few of the stray strands away from his face, lightly brushing my lips against his cheek before making my way downstairs. 

I sat in front of the TV, letting the sounds of whatever tv show was playing surround me as I opened up my photo album; attempting to get lost in happier memories. I flicked through a few pages before I came across a page full of pictures of me and Bucky. I traced my index around the outline of his face, the goofy smile he was pulling instantly making me smile a little bit. After the assault, I was terrified of everyone, I couldn’t even leave my house the first few months after it happened, terrified that someone was going to do something to me. I was even scared of the Avengers, I locked myself away in my house living in a recurring nightmare that I couldn’t seem to wake up from and even when I did sleep, he was there in my mind, haunting me like a ghost. 

One day, Bucky came over, he waited outside my door for the best part of four hours until I opened the door reluctantly to him, instantly he knew something was wrong. I still remember the sadness and shock in his eyes when I flinched as he went to hug me. I never thought I could be with anyone, mentally or physically after what had happened but Bucky proved me wrong. He helped me through the panic attacks and the nightmares. He stayed up with me for entire evenings sometimes, sometimes we’d talk and comfort each about the nightmares that still followed us. other times he’d just sit on the other side of the sofa and read me a story, The Hobbit was always his favorite and in all honesty it was nice to just slip away from reality for a while, listening to his voice as he read the tale of this fantasy world and then there were times where we’d just sit in silence watching a whatever tv show or movie was playing at the time. Over time, we started going out of the house together, at first it was just to the corner shop down the road, then it was to the park that was ten minutes away from my house and then the two of us would just go on random adventures together; it wasn’t easy. There were good days and bad days, even something so simple as a look or a word could bring all the memories flooding back like a tidal wave. I felt like I was broken, dirty, damaged goods but Bucky would always be there to remind me that I was still me, that I was a survivor. And most importantly, that I wasn’t alone. Two and a half years later,  we started dating. He wasn’t just my boyfriend though, he was my best friend, as cliche as that sounds but it’s the truth. I trusted him, completely. 

“Babe?” I heard Buky drowsily call out as he walked down the stairs, a small smile tugged at his lips when he saw me curled up on the sofa, my photo album lying across my lap. 

“You doing okay?” He asked, sitting down next to me, placing a delicate kiss on the side of my head, his metal hand lightly wrapping around mine. 

“I’m getting there,” I whispered, giving him a small reassuring smile. 

“ C’mere,” he mumbled, lifting his arm up slightly so I could snuggle up next to him. We stayed like that for a while in a comfortable silence as I continued to flick through the pages of the photo album. His arms wrapped around me, acting like a shield, protecting me from the thoughts he knew were swimming around in my head. 

“Y’know how strong you are right?” He cooed, his hands tracing small comforting circles on my arm.

“I wouldn’t have gotten this far without you,” 

“You would’ve, doll, I just gave you a helping hand when you needed it,” I smiled, placing a delicate kiss on his cheek, before setting the album down on the table. After a while we went from sitting on the sofa to lying on it, my head on his exposed chest, the sound of his steady heartbeat acting almost like a soothing lullaby while his arms were wrapped around me, holding me close. He was my safe haven. I knew I could be any version of myself with him and he’d stay; I could have days were I’d laughing and joking just like I did before other days I could be in tears, not being able to shake the thoughts from my head; but he’d be there for both days and every type of day in between. 

“I love you, Buck,” I hummed, my lips pressing a gentle kiss on his chest. 

“I love you too, doll,” he hummed back, squeezing my body slightly before lifting my chin lightly , pulling me in for a short but sweet kiss. 

“Can you read to me?” I asked against his lips. 

“Of course I can,” A warm chuckle left his lips as he reached over to the table, grabbing the book that was sitting on there. He waited  a few minutes for me to get comfortable before he read the words “In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit,” I couldn’t help the smile that came across my face as I closed my eyes, intently listening to the words he was reading, his voice soothing all the demons in my head and his words creating a much happier picture in my mind then what could’ve been. 

I wasn’t 100% okay, in all honesty, I doubt I’ll ever be 100% okay; what happened was something that was going to affect me for the rest of my life and I knew that; but four years ago, I never would’ve thought I could get this far. I’m still here. I’m still fighting and no matter how hard it seems sometimes to get through the day, I will continue to fight; not only for myself, but for anyone who’s gone through something like me. To show that even in your darkest days, there’s still hope. 

Tagging:

@barneswidow @muzzyandbusy @impala1967dwinchester @coldlilheart @amaryllis23 @wild-rose-35 @rustedbridges @tigerf-cker @mesmerisedangel @sweeterthanthis  @outer-banks-bitches @heloisedaphnebrightmore @abadamn @drabblewithfrannybarnes @chrissquares @miss-nori85 @xbreezymeadowsx

[gopeachllama]

My hopes for the VA tv show

So i got into vampire academy when i was in like grade 8/9 i think? So i would have been in my early teens. It's a book series that is very near-perfect to me, and it is very dear to my heart bc it's been with me for so long. That being said, i will be the first one to admit that there is a serious lack of diverse representation. Like i said before, i got into it almost ten years ago, and back then, even as a poc growing up as a minority, i was aware of this however it wasn't much of an issue for me mainly becuase it wasn't a issue for the people (the non-pocs) around me. Now that va is being developed into a tv series, i think this would be the perfect opportunity to change some things up to include more diverse characters. I've seen that there's already qutie a few people on here dicussing the sexualities of the characters, and they're really great. But this conversation is about race-bending. For anyone that wants to contribute to this post, i'm all up for kind and careful dicussions, it's not my intention to offend anyone, and i'm not trashing the series or it's creator.

Also the points about diversity and race in particular shouldn't be dimissed just because it's a fantasy/paranormal genre. Yes it is a fantasy/paranormal series but it is set in the real modern world, where issues like race and prejudice are relavent! You can't just ignore it. Also im sure that a lot of va stan are like me, in that they got into it at a very young age and now are older and also find these issue important to them, whether they are a poc or not.

Just a warning there will be a lot of spoilers (also random spiderman homecoming spoilers) in this post, so for anyone that hasn't read the books proceed with caution.

So firstly, i want to talk about the characters that won't be changed. Dimitri will obviously be russian. I like the idea that the royal families originating from european countries, so alot of the royals in this series lissa, adrian, victor etc. i think should stay white. It reflects a lot of the real world issues about how the people in 'higher class' western societies are mainly white. this is more personal but i have this weird headcannon that christian is like half-southeast asian (i say south-east asian bc i am also, and i would love more representation of my race (s/o to any of my sri lankan book stans if y'all even exist on here!!)) In the later books there is a focus on the prejudice regarding his relationship with lissa. this is due to the fact that his family is shun from the other royal bc of his parents willingly turning. It was a good plot point, but there was somthing about taking the real world prejudice of interracial relationship and using here between two white characters and framing it as something else that just rubs me off the wrong way (again, i never had these feelings as i was reading it for the first time, it was only until i got older that issues like race a representations became more important to me). This way, they can keep still keep the bit about christian's parents and race-bending christian would have any affect on the overall story. Rose (my baby) she could be made fully persian but if they stick with her being biracial, then i hope when it comes to casting that they find someone that has more persian physical features rather than someone with more eurocentric features.

Now for the main characters I think should be race-bent are eddie, jill and sydeny should be black. For eddie, i first thought that mason should be race-bent but then this would be a major problem in the second book because of the harmful sterotype about black people always being the first (major character) to die (i am STILL taumatised over mason's death and its going to destroy me all over again when i see it with my own two eyes).

Sydney, as far as i know, there's nothing in the books that make is pivitol for her to be white. And while is important to be diverse with race, it's important to be diverse with black characters in itself. Sydney has always been such an interesting character to me. she's analytical and methodical, she's book smart, and she's almost the complete opposite of rose, but doesn't make her any less a compelling character. So much in books, movies and tv shows, black females characters are mainly potrayed as strong, hardass, take-no-prisoners (sometimes even hyper-sexualised) type personalities. So rarely do we see them as with characteristic like sydeny's, so i think it would be really great to show this. Also her relationship with adrian has a lot of the same points with i said about christian's relationship with lissa regarding prejudice.

With Jill, i noticed that in the books, Mead sort of goes out for her way to describe her physical appearance, so that when later it is revealed that she is lissa's half sister, the readers are able to think "oh yeah of course they look really similar" and so it doesn't seem like a telenovella style outrageous plot twist. But for this i want to quickly talk about how in spiderman homecoming, peter's love interest who is black, is revealed to be the daughter of the villan who is white. For me, it was amazing reveal and something i was not expecting at all, but at the same time, its wasn't hard for me to believe because of course birracial people exist. I think it would be really cool to do the same thing here with Jill. It a great way to subvert people's expectations and wouldn't make the plot twist any less unreasonable. Aslo from what i can remember there are no black vampires?? for some reason? that was always kinda weird to me. Also with the three of these character's being black, they can still maintain the storyline of them passing off as siblings when they're in hiding, that is if they ever adapt the bloodlines storyline too.

Whether or not these characters, or any of the characters, will be race-bent, it won't change my experince with the book series. Like I said at the start, vampire academy will always be THAT series for me. The world-building is simple and easy to follow but the plot and characters are so compelling. But this upcoming tv adaptions would be a good oppotuny to address the very few things i (and a lot of other diverse readers) have with it.

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

Of Monsters and Men

Chapter 10- Before A Fall

Summary: With your heart torn from the troublesome events on the mountain, your mind in swirling with mixed emotions for your Witcher and the violet eyed witch you’re bound to. Now where will you choose to go as a war begins brewing on the horizon?

Warning: some angst, more reader backstory​

Masterlist

You had let yourself wallow in your sadness and anger for some time now upon another far off peak of the mountains. You couldn't look back, you couldn't even bare to turn around and fly yourself into the arms of Geralt after what he had done.

It hurt.

But you couldn't forgive so easily as you'd like to, he had made a promise almost fifty years ago to never let magic manipulate your lives in anyway. To never use dark powers against you, no spells, no enchantments, no sorcerers, nothing that could alter your reality or bend your will. Nothing to bind your very vessel to in any way, shape, or form.

He promised.

He knew your hate for how magic can ruin and destroy with simple words and rash actions. But alas, Geralt made his wish and now it can never be broken. Although you had to admit, the intended sentiment was heartfelt after all. His wish was to keep you bound to Yennefer for as long as you two are alive, his intentions were so that you'd never feel alone when he's gone and dead.

Considering you'll most likely outlive him, unless someone was to slice you open with silver and set your corpse on fire, or better yet. Get yourself mauled to death by a goddamn werewolf, what a way to go, either option not really settling well with you. But perhaps you'd never given it much thought, what would you do after Geralt left this world? You couldn't say, nor did you care to think about it, nor did you want to think about it.

But now, you're forever linked to Yennefer until the end of her days or maybe yours. You could almost laugh, how clever of destiny to bind your cares and concerns with a mage, and forever at that. She's half elf and you're a dhampir, neither of you are aging much anytime soon or even at all for that matter. You may have kept your time in Aretuza and your old friendship with Yennefer a thing of the past, but now you must accept your fate.

Maybe this is destiny?

Hate should not seep its inky talons into your soul, nor should lasting anger burn like dragon fire in your heart. You did once have a good friendship with the lavender eyed sorceress for many years, but your paths had gone separate ways when she was called to court and the mages of Aretuza began to drive you mad with their constant bickering and pettiness with one another.

Your time in the great academy transpired into a violent end when one bold admirer had attempted to charm you with his admittedly strong love potion, you had left those halls half naked and covered in his blood once you'd found the strength to break through the spell. Not one mage had dared make an effort to stop you, they understood their fellow enchanters deathly mistake and for that they let you leave without so much as a word.

You felt disgusted for letting yourself get sweet talked and manipulated by his charming aurora and false heartfelt words. You didn't even notice when he handed you a sweet smelling mystery liquid, it tasted fine going down and within seconds did you feel lust take over your body for the alluring man. But another part of you didn't want how you felt, it wasn't right, it didn't feel right. But he looked so good, and you wanted him, but did you?

In the end you had snapped out of it as half your clothing was littering the floor, he was smiling a triumphant grin from beneath your clothed legs as your fuzzy mind cleared, your heart fuming with rage as he kept oblivious to your realization. A second later did you enjoy hearing his screams of agony as you sunk your sharp pearly white fangs deep into his naked jugular, it all happened so fast. He scratched at your body as you pinned him down and ripped open his stomach, making certain to crush his prized jewels as your last final act of revenge, leaving him bruised and bleeding out upon his bed when you fled the room.

He had taken nothing but your pride. Yet he payed for it with his life.

You could hear his ragged final breaths as you flew down the enchanted hallways of Aretuza, collecting your belongings and fleeing the giant castle before you took it upon yourself to end anymore despicable lives residing in that academy.

You didn't bother telling Tissaia, she would figure it out eventually.

And as for Yennefer, she was living as a mage in luxury.

But as you stand upon this rocky ledge it all seems like a bad dream, perhaps it was just all constructed in a past life? Feels like it, but alas, it is far behind you and Yennefer was gone from the academy when it all happened. It was not her fault, you truly have no right to hate her.

So you won't. Is this still destiny?

Taking a deep breath you slowly let all your troubles and resentments out and into the dusty breeze as you stand high upon the jagged shelf of the mountainside. It's been three days since the taxing events after the dragon hunt, when all truths had been revealed and you had left Geralt in your rage. You'll find him again without a doubt in your mind, when the time is right and your infuriation has subsided. Then you will seek him out and make amends, but for now, as you brood into the sunset you can't help but feel torn to go and speak with Yennefer, you must.

Something just doesn't feel right in the air, you're pinning it on the grand mass of marching Nilfgaardian soldiers you had spotted to the west only yesterday. A great enemy of Cintra, and an impending threat to the innocent lives of nearby villagers. You close your eyes as a soft breeze caresses your face, you've made up your mind, it's time to find your old friend.

No more anger.

-meanwhile in the underkeeps of Cintra-

Geralt leans against a stone wall, listening for the footsteps of Mousesack, doing his best to keep you out of his thoughts for the time being so he can focus on the task at hand. He may not have you in his mind at the moment, but his heart has not stopped feeling dreary with heavy regret and anguish for how you had left him so suddenly.

It's been a week, still too long, he thinks.

He truly did not mean to upset you so, but when he made that wish, his mind was only concerned with keeping you happy for the next thousand years when he rots in the earth and your body flows with life. Though now he feels quite foolish for such a burdensome wish upon yourself, binding a part of your soul to Yennefer and hers with your own. So no matter wherever you two will travel, a strange call to one another will always remain in the back of your minds.

Like a shadow.

Geralt's ears prick with the sounds of rushed footfalls against the stony ground as the mage quickly approaches him from down the long shadowy hallway, "Out of nowhere, you send word to meet you. All this time, I thought you were dead." Exclaims Mousesack as Geralt turns to face him from around the corner.

"I told you last time I was in Cintra that I wasn't coming back."

Mousesack eyes him suspiciously, "Yet here you are." The Witcher hums in reply as Mousesack asks for an answer to Geralt's random appearance, a telling smirk upon his face as he walks closer, "You've come for your Child of Surprise, haven't you?"

"The opposite. I want you to tell me that he's safe and healthy so I can keep on riding."

Geralt turns from Mousesack and begins walking down the hallway as the mage smiles, "He....is a girl." Geralt abruptly turns around at the surprising news, "Princess Cirilla has been raised by Calanthe since her parents died."

"What?" Whispers Geralt, shocked by the news.

"Pavetta and Duny's ship was lost at sea. Have you been hiding your head in the sand?" The greying mage pauses for a moment, brow furrowing, "Why now? Why do you think she's not safe?"

"I saw an army making camp at the Amell Pass. A sea of black and gold." Replies Geralt.

Mousesack nods, "Nilfgaard is set on sweeping the Continent. But since that night at Pavetta's banquet, the Queen's done everything she can to keep her family safe from threats. Shut the walls. Fortified the gates." A shadow flashes against the walls as rushed footsteps befall upon the ground, grabbing Geralt's attention as he leans in closer to the mage, eyes dark.

"Sent assassins!" He growls.

"What?"

"Were you followed?"

"No." Answers Mousesack honestly.

Geralt sneers at the grey bearded man before turning and walking towards the sound of the hidden killers, Mousesack's brow furrows in confusion, "Why don't you just have your lady dhampir Y/N slay them for you and avoid such a wasteful chase? She can't be far now can she, never one to linger from your side for very long."

Geralt halts in his tracks, his mind reeling before he turns an eye to the wondering mage, "She was summoned back to her homeland. Something important, she couldn't say....so I didn't ask. I'm on my own." His voice is gravely as he lies, shifting his attention back to the opening entrance of another hallway to continue his hunt for the assassins. Mousesack left speculating if this tale has any truth to it or not, wisely deciding not to press the subject any further.

——

It hadn't been very difficult to find her, all you had to do was concentrate and let the magic given unto you by the djinn lead yourself into the direction of Yennefer like a compass. When you let it work, it seemed a rather simple task to begin your hunt for the notorious mage.

It took about a week or so to find her, you had decided to travel like a civilized person and ride to her whereabouts on the back of a silver steed. Your horse bringing you to a huge excavation site where a part of the Nilfgaard army is currently stationed, directing their workers and no doubt captured slaves to dig and scrape away at the rocky hillside for whatever the fuck type of obsidian looking rock. You could honestly care less for their troubles, the problems of these people of little concern to you.

After riding down a dirt covered road and past the tired faces of burnt-out workers you stopped by a wooden cart, tying your horse next to another. You finish the knot and step into the road, catching the scent of your friend who's aroma is still fresh, she's close, her trail leading into a nearby makeshift tavern.

"Where are you coming from, my lady?"

You stop in your tracks as a dirty faced Nilfgaardian soldier keeps you from your search, handing him a fake smile you catch his light brown eyes, "Nowhere too interesting I'm afraid."

He nods, thinking hard for a moment, his heartbeat picking up with nervousness, "W-well, if you're here to seek aid from a mage, the, uh...tavern is that way. Good day then." He stumbles quickly in reply, no doubt unnerved by your scarlet eyes and friendly sharp grin.

What a man he is.

And just like that he's gone, smiling contently with yourself and this odd bit of luck, you make for the titular gathering house with cheap ale or perhaps the tavern as it's called. Once you reach about ten feet from the opened wooden door do you stop, the familiar voices of Yennefer and Istredd, her first lover from Aretuza, fill your ears as they speak about their past dealings and Yenn's thirst for power over most things, including their relationship.

More things are said before he stands up to leave, but before he's able to catch you in his sights do you turn around and narrowly miss being found out, he'd definitely remember you. Istredd trudges past, oblivious as you listen to the whispered voice of a new man joining Yennefer at her table. He claims himself to be Vilgefortz of Roggeveen, another mage, of fucking course.

Folding your arms in annoyance you walk over to lean your back against the side of the tavern and listen as he tells Yennefer how Nilfgaard is seeking out mages for their conquests, quietly noting that they should return to Aretuza before any soldiers start asking for their assistance. She sounds doubtful until he lets known that Tissaia and himself need her nonetheless, apparently shits important, who would have thought. You can't help but roll your eyes as Vilgefortz practically sweet talks her, explaining that Tissaia said that Yennefer is the best student she's ever taught.

And that's it, Yennefer's sold.

You could never ignore getting yourself buttered up, huh Yenn.

The friendly mage abruptly stands up, telling Yennefer to meet him in half an hour by the north gate before he says his goodbyes and exits through the opened door, right past you. You watch in curiosity as he walks off before turning yourself towards the entrance and stepping into the doorway, you look down to your right. Making quick eye contact with Yennefer's violet irises, she immediately frowns as you sit across from her, though she is quite taken aback at your random intrusion.

A smirk plays at your lips, "Well aren't you just having the time of your life. Quite popular today aren't we now?"

Yennefer rolls her eyes in annoyance, "What the fuck are you doing here?" She says dryly, you lean back in your chair as a fangy grin breaks out upon your face.

"I could ask you the same thing but....I'm not an idiot. You came back to rekindle that old flame with Istredd, how sweet, honestly. Who would've thought."

"Oh fuck off Y/N."

A light chuckle escapes you, "Don't be so dramatic Yenn, I didn't leave Geralt's ass and travel all this way for nothing...."

"You left him?" She wonders, her brows furrowing, honestly quite surprised.

A telling sigh falls from your lips, "For the time being, I'm still pissed over the whole djinn and his last wish. So here I am, sitting in a shit tavern with an old acquaintance, also...I wanted to make sure you don't hate me. Believe it or not, I do care about you Yennefer, and that's not the magic speaking. So with that in mind, I've witnessed what Nilfgaard has been doing lately and it doesn't look good." You shrug, "Guess I wanted to make sure you where fine."

She glances down at her hands before finding your scarlet eyes, "I can't tell if that's the Aretuza Y/N, or the magic talking." Her voice almost playful.

"Maybe it's both? But can I not give a shit for once about anyone other than myself? I mean look around us." You glance at the tired out workers and Nilfgaardian soldiers before leaning in closer to Yennefer, "Things are changing, soon these valleys will be covered in blood, people fighting for survival, the land ablaze and destroyed from war. I've lived enough lifetimes to have seen it happen over and over again."

She nods slowly, taking in what you're saying, "Yes, so it seems. But last I'd remembered, you've never really cared much for the troubles of other kingdoms. Even your own for that matter."

"I don't." Your reply blunt and to the point, "But this is Nilfgaard, and though I could care less about the reasoning behind their conquests. I know who they seek to bring their wrath upon."

"Cintra." She whispers.

"Yes." You pause for a moment as three soldiers clad in black armor walk past your table and towards the bar, your wary eyes trail them before turning your attention back to Yennefer, "And I'd rather not have innocent lives taken by the hands of filthy soldiers, I could live without smelling blood in the air and the rotting of children's corpses." You let out a breath before leaning in and keeping your voice to that of a whisper, "Geralt's Child of Surprise resides in that kingdom, within the walls of Cintra. I do not care for the little shit in the slightest, but by law this child will be in our care soon enough. Whether I want to meet him or not."

She nods, understanding your concerns for the invading forces of Nilfgaard, "That's quite the predicament Y/N."

"Yes." You lean back once again, folding your arms as you tilt your head to the side, "Almost as intriguing as your own one." You add with a smirk.

"What did you hear?"

"The mage, Vilgefortz of Roggeveen seems to have caught you in his sights. And how interesting, it appears our old friend Tissaia is in need of you after all these long years." You study her face, her lavender eyes downcast as she thinks, "You're going aren't you?"

"I need answers Y/N." Her eyes are on yours once again, "It doesn't make much sense I'll admit, but it's been a long while and I have nothing keeping me here anyways." She confesses honestly, you tap the hilt of your dagger, thinking hard.

"Do as you wish, I will not stop you. Have fun with those self entitled idiots." You sneer, she simply smiles at your usual disgust for the mages of Aretuza. You stare at her, your face falling as you shake your head.

"Yennefer don't."

She leans herself closer to you, her eyes almost pleading, you haven't heard the words but just looking at her can you tell exactly what she's about to ask, "Y/N. Against my better judgment...I'm asking, I guess....would you join me. Please?"

Pursing your lips together you stare at the table before finding her gaze once more, every ounce of your entire vessel screaming for you to say no, though you can't help but feel drawn to follow, "God I hate magic." You mutter, shaking your head.

"You were the one who came to find me after all, remember? Make sure I'm fine and not dead." She muses with a mischievous spark in her eye.

"Well aren't you lucky that I have no solid plans for the next week but brood in the woods and think of all by problems." You deadpan before an apprehensive half smile pulls at the corners of your lips, "Why the fuck not? Lets pay Tissaia a visit shall we."

——

After the debacle of mysterious assassins in the underkeeps of the Cintran castle, Mousesack had saved Geralt from a possible demise when he teleported them elsewhere amongst the grounds. Now the Witcher follows him to find Queen Calanthe and hopefully greet this Child of Surprise he's been promised no matter how much he'd rather not be here. How he wishes you where by his side to lighten the mood, things would undoubtedly run smoother.

He passes under a stone archway leading into a courtyard where the Queen has her back turned to them, she's speaking to her loyal guardsmen while eyeing up the weaponry before her. She moves down the tabled lined with swords, "I want reports from the Amell Pass every hour.." Her head moves right at the sounds of Geralt and Mousesack approaching, her dark eyes lock with Geralt's golden ones. She looks stoic and loathsome to see him again, even after all these years.

Swords unsheathe behind her, "I warned you about coming back. I've been away 12 years and I planned on staying that way till you sent eight men to kill me."

She takes a couple threatening steps forward, "Well, I'm asking you now. Do not do this."

"If you treated me more as a friend then a threat...Do you know the difference anymore?" He pauses as she says nothing, "I'm here to protect the girl."

"Who I've raised as my own." Counters Calanthe, "Why would I give my only heir to someone who never cared enough to come back to her? Move along, Witcher. I'll pay whatever you want." She turns her back to leave.

"I cannot be bought." She trains her irritated gaze back to Geralt, "You should remember."

"Money can't undo the Law of Surprise." Says Mousesack, "Kings who've tried to outbid destiny end up on pikes."

"And if I win the war but lose Ciri, what victory is that?" Challenges the Queen as Geralt takes a  step forward, her men showing their weapons as they stand ready to guard her.

"Maybe that army won't come, and if they do, maybe you'll be ready. But if you have any doubt in your mind that she's safe here, give her to me. Call it destiny, insecurity, what larger forces at work, I don't care. I will take her, protect her, and bring her back unharmed, I promise you that."

"Ciri is all I have left of my daughter." Whispers the Queen, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"If Ciri survives, then Pavetta lives on too." Geralt leaves it at that, remaining silent as Calanthe's mind reels with what to do next. He can tell just how terrified she is to possibly lose Ciri, however she must make a choice. No matter how difficult it is to make.

"Law of Surprise has been called!" Announces the Queen to her guardsmen and subjects in the snow covered courtyard, voice more softer and solemn now as she faces Geralt, "I'll tell Cirilla myself."

With that said, Geralt was escorted to a separate section of the castle as he awaits the meeting between himself and princess Cirilla. He paces back and forth down the hallway for a good long while until a guard was sent for him. Now here he is, walking towards the door where the Child of Surprise awaits him with her Queen grandmother. Two armored men simultaneously open the large wooden door, Geralt walks into the cavernous room where Mousesack looks up at him while the doors close. They do not say a word to each other.

Calanthe sits, consoling a frightened Ciri who's back is turned to Geralt, she holds the girls hands, "I need you to be brave now, because who are you?"

"The Lion Cub of Cintra." Replies the blonde girl, voice small and fragile.

She then stands, turning around to finally face him. He walks further into the room, golden eyes studying the face of princess Cirilla. She is short and thin, eyes wide and fearful, face pale as a flushed nervousness pulls to the surface, "Pleased to meet you, Princess." Greets the Witcher.

She speaks not once to him, she then abruptly turns to face the Queen by her side, "Can I say goodbye to my friends now?"

"Of course." Nods Calanthe as Cirilla leaves with haste out the side door. Geralt remains quiet as she glares at him, "I'll summon you when she's ready."

Geralt exits through the same doors he came through, he walks down the hallway, pausing a moment as he thinks on the brief interaction. Something just doesn't sit right with him about that girl, she just didn't look how he'd imagined her to be. She can't be Pavetta's child, can she? He shakes off those thoughts and decides to wander down a long torch lit hallway leading out into an opened yard where people are wandering about.

Suddenly the princess runs into view, she races over to a gathering of market kids playing some kind of game, one boy jumps up and immediate pulls her into a hug. "Take care." He whispers as the princess releases him to face a young teen with a cap on their head. She then gifts a small bow, "Your Highness." Before turning around and racing off the same way she came in.

Now Geralt knows the truth.

He leaves the doorway in search of the lying Queen, it takes not long before he's found her walking past some large windows with her ladies by her side. "First, you try and kill me, then you lie to me. I'm just trying to keep Cirilla safe."

"Ciri is safe, with me, until the day she takes over my throne." Queen Calanthe takes a couple steps forward but is halted by Geralt who stands his ground in front of her.

"Listen to me." He advises, voice low and gravely.

"I did listen once." Says Calanthe unbothered, "Let a hedgehog into my court. It got me Pavetta dead. I won't lose Ciri too. So you and destiny can both fuck right off. Because if Nilfgaard comes, will destiny carry a banner into battle? No. We have an army, a navy...and me." Speaks the Queen slyly, starting to walk around Geralt who halts her with a hand to her arm.

"A dynasty can't survive on arrogance alone."

"Says a Witcher. She needs family. You no nothing about that. Your own mother cared so little, she discarded you." Smartly speaks the Queen, "Where is your vampiric lover, hm? She's not even here, gone to see her actual family so I've been told." Calanthe swaggers past Geralt who feels a pang of heartache in his chest for that low blow.

"You lecture me on a mother's love yet you offer up someone else's daughter."

Calanthe stops, "Queen to all of Cintra, grandmother to one." She looks at him over her shoulder, "I won't orphan that girl."

Geralt watches as she begins walking down the hallway towards another opened door, "You're sentencing her to death."

"What I miss?" Asks the intrigued face of Lord Eick.

"Nothing." Replies the Queen as she keeps walking, "Get him out of my sight."

-

Sir Eick walks down a small flight of stone steps with Geralt by his side, they follow a brick path leading down from the castle doors now behind them. Two guards stand at their posts to either side of the wooden entrance as the two men walk across the layed bricks. "I remember when you honored the Law of Surprise. What changed?"

"I had a granddaughter."

"So protect her. What if Calanthe's wrong? What if they come and Ciri is trapped?"

"I fight side by side with my Queen."

"You put too much faith in that woman."

Lord Eick stops walking to look at Geralt, "Well, you weren't there. After Pavetta died, Calanthe would wake up howling in the night. The Lioness, nearly broken. Someone who's able to pull themselves out of that, they'll have my confidence till my final day."

Geralt says not a word, he knows this Lord cannot be reasoned with so instead does the Witcher walk under a small keep, he stops when Lord Eick calls to him, "I need your promise you won't come back."

Geralt slowly turns around to face him, "If I hear Ciri's in danger, you know I can't do that." A second later does two iron cage slates fall into place, locking Geralt into his new little prison.

"I know." Replies the man, giving him one last glance before returning back to the main castle.

Now Geralt really wishes you where here with him.

——

With the aid of Yennefer's ever convenient ability to create portals going from one realm to the next, you, Vilgefortz, and herself made it into the enchanted halls of Aretuza in no time. Though to Yennefer's utter disappointment and your own unsurprised one. It turned out that Tissaia didn't actually ask for Yennefer after all, in fact she doesn't even know that you're both here.

In a fit of anger did Yennefer turn away in search of Tissaia before finding herself down one of the many hallways in this ginormous academy. "I can't fucking believe this. Of course this is how they get me here, I should have known."

"Too bad you can't see into the future, that could have saved us some time."

"Very funny, Y/N." Mutters Yennefer.

"Now come on, you're certainly not the only one between the two of us who'd rather not be here at all." She raises a brow at that.

"You didn't have to join me."

"No, but maybe my curiosity had taken the better of me, and anyways, this place does not hold all terrible memories for me to begin with. This was my home for some time even before you showed up, I did like it here once."

"Well you weren't bought and taken from your family one day without a choice, forced to live here as the lowest of the low. Ridiculed, spoken down upon, lied to."

"No I wasn't, that was saved for you and your magical sisters." She furrows her brows as you chuckle.

"You find humor in our misery?"

"I don't. I find your temperament about the ordeal a tad humorous yes."

"And why is that?"

"Because you had what you needed here to become someone great, and you've survived well by yourself, becoming a powerful mage at that." You add as her frown dissipates, "I remember the first time we met, granted you were unconscious and bleeding on the floor, but after that. When we actually met. I knew you were special then, as I know you are now."

"And how would you know that?"

You playfully bump into her shoulder, "I am a wise and very old woman, I know my looks are deceiving, however I can see through people better then most. I understand them, I can just tell."

"And how could you tell with me?"

"For one, your eyes are purple which is already a huge giveaway. Secondly, you had a prominent physical deformity paired with a rare talent for portal making. I could practically smell your elven blood coursing through those veins before I knew what you looked like. It wasn't hard to tell you were going to be someone."

She stops walking  in the middle of the long hallway, a conflicted expression flashing across her features, "You really thought all that?"

"I always did. I always knew when certain mages would ascend, if I figured you weren't going to make it. I would have told you." Your eyes dart from the ground then back up to her again, "Maybe, and I say just maybe, I've always had a little soft spot for you. Contrary to what you may believe, there is someone who is proud of you...and that's still not the djinn's wish talking. I mean it."

Yennefer breaks out into a small smile, "You're such a sap."

"I can be when I want to." You state half defensibly, "I'm not all just a pretty face and two scary looking eyes."

"Clearly."

Your head turns to the sounds of giggling coming from one of the novice mage's sleeping quarters, "I think your old room is occupied. Hm, I can't say I really care much to meet them. I'm going to see if my old room is still covered in cobwebs or not, see you around."

She gives you a nod, "I'll let you know when I find Tissaia."

Leaving Yennefer to most likely scare the young mages, you begin wandering around the stony pathways until you reach your old room. Stopping at the door, you can hear the sounds of a thudding heartbeat, someone has made themselves a place here. You smile and walk elsewhere, glad that someone could find a nice room to call their own since your absence so long ago.

Finding your way near the room of ascension where many a mage has been turned into an eel to further fuel the place with magic. You can hear the stern voice of Tissaia and the whispering of the novice girls, soon the sounds of their rushed footsteps are heard racing up the steps towards the entranceway. You stand a short distance from the doorway, watching in curiosity as the three young mages meet your gaze while they file out of the hallway.

The pale one with reddish blonde hair halts abruptly in her tracks as her two friends do the same, blue eyes wide in nervous bewilderment at your figure in the room. Your clothing a vast contrast to their usual dark blue uniform, a dagger sheathed at your side, and eyes the color of shimmering rubies staring back at them. They smell of herbs, salt, and magic; heartbeats quickening the longer they stay frozen looking at you.

You gift them a fangy grin and a small bow of your head in greeting, "Are my two acquaintances down there?" You already know the answer, just something said to break their trance.

The one with the healed burns scarred on the side of her face swallows before speaking, "They are. Good day miss." She bows her head respectfully before leading her two friends down the hallway as quickly as they can without running. Apparently you still have that affect on young witches and wizards no matter how long you've been gone from here.

Knowing that the infamous mage had not seen you yet, you decide to keep hidden round the corner to elicit a childish plan that will be worth the trouble getting here. When her footsteps grew louder as she made haste up the steps does a telling smirk come to your lips. Once her red dress caught your eye did you pop out of the shadows, instantly frightening her in your mischievousness. She drew back against the closest wall. Her blue eyes wide as she stared at you in shock, Yennefer appearing in the doorway entrance piecing together what just took place.

Tissaia's heart thuds rapidly in her chest as you take a step forward, eyeing her like a wolf to its prey, "I never wanted to come back here, but just listening to the sweet rush of blood coursing through your veins has made this trip that much better."

Touching her chest she pulls herself from the wall as Yennefer's face breaks in amusement, "Y/N." Replies the heiress bluntly, not an ounce of emotion lacing her words. You simply smirk, tilting your head up as you study her stoic face, those are quite the cheek bones she has.

You feel a brush of air as Yennefer steps closer, "Believe me it wasn't our intention to come back here, most of all mine."

Her eyes of judgment turn to Yennefer, "Then you failed at that, too."

"Look at this place. It's a joke." Scoffs Yennefer.

You laugh, "Letting in girls that can't even do magic, I couldn't smell it all of them...And I already thought this place was pathetic enough. It's really gone down the gutter since I left."

Tissaia remains unfazed, "Sometimes, you have to compromise in order to survive."

"You say I never took responsibility for the way my life turned out. What about you?" Challenges Yennefer, her question left unanswered as multiple mages of all kinds begin walking from one opened doorway to the next, Tissaia abruptly turning around to look as you and Yennefer watch on in confusion.

The fuck?

"It's happening." Whispers Tissaia knowingly before quickly joining the assembly into the desired room, you both have no time to ask what is truly going on before Triss walks into view. Her shimmery peach colored dress flowing as she walks by.

"Triss!" Calls out Yennefer, the familiar mage halts her footing as she turns towards the two of you, a surprised expression crossing her features.

"Yennefer. I tried finding you for years. And Y/N, wow, this is quit a surprise."

"Why are you all here?" You wonder, getting straight to the point.

Her brows furrow in worry, "An emergency conclave of the Northern Mages. Nilfgaard took Marnadal."

"What?" Whispers Yennefer in disbelief.

Triss looks to you sadly, "They're attacking Cintra." Your heart practically catches in your throat, you hadn't expected the Nilfgaardian army to lay siege so soon. It has only been a couple weeks since last you've seen Geralt but your innermost feelings can sense that he's gone to the city to claim that damned Child of Surprise. You had talked about it before the dragon hunt and before you'd made plans to visit the ocean, now it appears like a far off memory when soldiers weren't marching across the land and things were fine.

That idiot better be alive.

Triss quickly departs to join the gathering mages, you can feel Yennefer's conflict within herself to either join them or abandon her duty. She turns to you, her face deep in thought, "Yenn just go. I'll be out here when all is over and done, I can't stand the smell of some of them, it's absolutely appalling."

"Alright then. I'll meet you by the east wing balcony when it's over."

She quickly turns and disappears behind the grand wooden doors, you stop for a moment in the large empty hallway before making your way to the balcony where you can get some fresh air away from all those mages and wizards, their enchanted auroras is almost suffocating at times.

You stand brooding in the light of the half moon as it sits contently from her place high up in the sky. It's been about thirty minutes since you'd left Yennefer to fend for herself among the liars, murders, and tricksters claiming themselves as noble mages of the court.

But you will not let your hate consume you, there are good hiding within their numbers and that may just be enough to keep you from slaughtering every single one of them if given the chance. Gods you have such mixed feelings for this place it's starting to give you a headache.

Drifting away from your more sinister and heavily conflicting thoughts, your ears prick up to the sound of approaching footsteps, Yennefer's no doubt. Leaning yourself against the stone wall, your face turned towards the shimmering ocean, she walks up to your side. Resting her hands atop the stony balcony as a frustrated sigh leaves her lips when she turns her head to you, "You're probably right."

"About what?"

"Coming here, to Aretuza. I should have told everyone to fuck off and then left for a more peaceful part of the Continent."

You chuckle, "You'd get bored, eventually."

An amused huff of air escapes from her nostrils, a small smile upon her tired face, "I hate you sometimes."

"Yeah." You sigh, "Me too."

She side eyes you for a moment, her sights set over the glistening waves, "Well, you're going to really laugh when you hear this."

You raise a brow, "Alright jester, tell me a joke."

"It would appear that Vilgefortz and Tissaia are going with a secret band of mages to fight against the forces of Nilfgaard." She freely lets slip, you turn your head to her when she quickly catches your intrigued gaze.

"Now that. Is hilarious, what are they going to do? Hmm? Create illusions of naked women in hopes that the soldiers will become distracted enough that they can, oh I don't know. Conjure an army of scarecrows to fight for them." You jest with a small chuckle, "These mages are not warriors, most of them have never even welded anything hard besides a kings fucking cock. They don't use fire magic and they find destructive sorcery to be something worth banishing and deeply frowned upon. Again, not much for fighters."

She slowly nods, "I know. That's why I'm asking, would you join us?"

"I have no reason to help them."

"Y/N." She pleads, "Think of what Nilfgaard has already done and what they will do. You even told me that you did, in fact, give a shit because of your tie with Cintra."

"Cintra's fucked."

"What about the Child of Surprise? Geralt even? You told me he's probably there right now. Do you not care for his safety?" Presses Yennefer much to your great annoyance, she's got you there.

"Of course I care that his heart is still beating, he's a fucking Witcher, he'll be fine." You pause for a moment, your crimson eyes glowing like two glistening rubies in the moonlight, "Queen Calanthe has brought this hellfire upon herself and the whole Continent due to her pride and arrogance. Cintra can and will fall in fire and blood, I've seen it all before and I'll watch it happen again."

Yennefer shakes her head, "Sometimes I forget that you're four-hundred something years old, but Y/N listen. I understand that you don't care much for royalty and the conflicts of kingdoms. But the Brotherhood must prevail..."

"That's Tissaia speaking. Why do you actually give enough of a shit to fight?" You challenge.

She looks out upon the vast ocean, a light salty breeze brushing past her face, "What else do I have in this world?" She whispers, her voice almost on the verge of breaking.

You suddenly feel a bit terrible, her words hanging over you heavily, "You want to save your only real home? Dare I ask why, but I don't need to, I already know the answer."

"Tissaia and you have been my only family, this place may be full of shit and lies, but it is a place for people like me who need guidance. And I'd rather not have it fall into the wrong hands, or be reduced to crumbling rocks and ash. Enough death was caused by it's construction already."

You rest your forearms against the smooth stone of the balcony, a huff leaving your lips, "When do we leave then?" Yennefer snaps her full attention over to your casual aurora, wholeheartedly surprised that you've decided to join her.

"Uh, tomorrow, at dawn. We'll travel for a day before boats take us across a bit of ocean. From the shore we'll walk by foot to the Elven keep at Sodden's Hill. Before Nilfgaard can claim it."

This is not how you'd intended to visit the sea shore.

"Right. That would be most unfortunate, well, can't wait to tear the throats out of some Nilfgaardian soldiers. I bet they taste divine." You add slyly, a tinge of playfulness surrounding your words.

"Thought blood wasn't part of your diet?" Retorts Yennefer, nudging your shoulder in a friendly manner.

"I can consume both food and blood to survive, you already know this, I just so happen to eat normal meals because it terrifies people if I were to just suck the life out of a beggar at the table. Tavern goers are not very fond of that behavior if you needed to know."

"Of course." She chuckles, "Well, if we're lucky Nilfgaard will ignore the pass and leave us all be. Though I doubt it will come to that, we're never that blessed."

"No. I guess not. But they will suffer as we have, I'll make sure of it, those unlucky bastards will pay for their kingdom's sins." You say defiantly, "We'll defend Aretuza and this part of the north with our lives...I guess..it's about time I should do something good in the world."

-

Tagged:  @notahappytree​ @ashleyforeverareject​ @sokkasdarling​ @kmuir1​​@haleypearce @diegos-butt​ (@auds24 sorry idk why ur name won’t work) @a-girl-who-loves-disney

[attemptsonherlifepdf]

attempts on her life: an exploration of victimhood, theatre and self-empowerment as modern feminine survival tactics

trigger warning for discussions of suicide, self harm, sexual assault, fetishism, eating disorders, implications of paedophilia and violence

‘is she not saying, your help oppresses me? is she not saying, the only way to avoid being a victim of the patriarchal structures of late 20th century capitalism is to become her own victim?’ martin crimp’s 1997 play, attempts on her life, was first performed at the royal court theatre upstairs the year of its release. written ‘for a company of actors whose composition should reflect the world beyond theatre’, the play explores the seedier, harsher aspects of reality, including pornography, ethnic violence and suicide. crimp’s central character, anne, is characterised as unique and empowered, but most importantly she is characterised by narrators and other characters describing her. the irony of a woman described as so empowered having so little voice of her own throughout the play is crucial to the question the play poses: is liberation from patriarchal constraints even possible, or do acts of reclamation serve to eventually end up catering to the male gaze regardless?

the scene ‘untitled (100 words)’ details anne’s self-destruction, manifesting in ‘various attempts to kill herself.’ it is an effort to replace being a victim of ‘patriarchal structures’ with being a victim of her own actions and emotions. arguably though, this effort may not be entirely fruitful as anne’s behaviour produces the same result she would achieve through allowing herself to cater to traditional expectations: a helpless victim of the male gaze. anne’s actions are presented as exhibitionist; while motivated by her own suicidal ideation, her attempts to take her life work as ‘a kind of theatre for a world in which theatre itself has died.’ she leaves a ‘gallery’ of memorabilia surrounding her attempts, including ‘medicine bottles, records of hospital admissions polaroids of the several hiv positive with whom she has intentionally had unprotected intercourse, pieces of broken glass...suicide notes…’ a narrator describes this exhibition as ‘the spectacle of her own existence, the radical pronography...the religious object.’ the semantic field of language in this scene associated with anne’s suicide attempts is littered with sexualisation and ideas of performance: ‘its sexy...voeyuers...pornography...object of herself...to be consumed...self-indulgent...entertaining.’ this opens up a dialogue between the narrators that evaluates her suicidal behaviour as a piece of artwork. one asks ‘who would possibly accept this kind of undigested exhibitionism as a work of art?’ while the other offers the idea that ‘gestures of radicalism take on new meaning in a society where the radical gesture is simply one more form of entertainment - in this case artwork - to be consumed.’ as uncomfortable as it is to suggest, anne’s suicidality is both fetishised and commodified, something that is partially her own doing. the concepts of ‘pure narcissism’ and ‘self-indulgence’ are attributed to her performance, along with one of the narrators pushing for her to receive psychiatric treatment. an obvious but viable interpretation of anne’s ‘gallery’ is that it is an exaggerated cry for help, where she lays out the evidence of her mental state in the hopes of receiving validation or assistance. this idea is disputed by this narrator’s counterpart, who suggests that ‘help is the last thing she wants.’ the sexualised language used and the repeated hints at exhibitionism could indicate that her performance is for the purpose of her own sexual pleasure: ‘surely our presence [the audience] here makes us mere voyeurs in bedlam.’ in forcing those around her to witness her mental decline, anne may be participating in fetishism. she certainly is acting with the intention of performing, and of being watched.

this is where the idea of empowerment and reclamation comes in. anne forces her peers into watching, something that she gets pleasure from, and this arguably serves as a reversal of typical sexual dynamics which place men in dominant, pleasure-receiving roles roles. in self-destructive behaviours, she reclaims her body and chooses to destroy it herself rather than allowing others to do it to her. however, in the process of doing so she achieves the same result that she would if she were allowing her environment to shape her into an object of the male gaze; that is to say, a helpless object. men’s stereotypical attraction to what ibsen referred to as ‘feminine helplessness’ tends to be the driving force of the objectification of women. it can be argued that this objectification is inevitable and thus anne’s efforts to control the means by which it occurs is the closest she can get to liberating herself from it. finding a way to enjoy or bear something painful and inevitable serves as a survival mechanism; ‘not the object of others, but the object of herself.’

the aesthetic framing of anne’s violence against herself is incredibly significant to its relevance as a piece of artwork. in ‘aesthetic violence and women in film: kill bill with flying daggers’, kupfer argues that film, and by extension plays and scripts, aesthetically frame violence in three ways: symbolically, structurally, and as a narrative essential. anne’s violence can be characterised as self harm and fulfills these three framings. symbolically it is an act of free will and a reclamation of her own body, an opportunity to enjoy her ‘inevitable’ objectification. structurally, the scene ‘untitled (100 words)’ occurs five scenes after the last discussion of anne’s suicidality within the play, a scene titled ‘mum and dad.’ this sets up certain aspects of anne’s performative nature in advance. after a suicide attempt she describes ‘[feeling] like a screen’ to her parents: ‘where everything from the front looks real and alive, but round the back there’s just dust and a few wires...an absence of character.’ here she details an experience of feeling disconnected from herself beyond her performance. the act of using performance as a means of openly criticising performance is certainly subversive, and is a device seen in more modern media, such as bojack horseman (‘i felt like a xerox of a xerox of a xerox...not my character’) and in bo burnham’s ‘inside.’ crimp uses his play to propose ideas about the nature of acting, particularly its role in the lives of women. the sentiment of acting being a survival tactic for women is echoed in much earlier texts, such as ibsen’s ‘a doll’s house.’ throughout the play nora caters to her husband’s infantalised fantasies of her whenever he is present, and doing so results in him giving her an allowance and certain limited but significant moments of freedom. torvald admits, ‘i would not be a man if your feminine helplessness did not make you doubly attractive in my eyes’ and repeatedly states that he wishes some ‘terrible fate’ would befall his wife so that he could have the pleasure of rescuing her. anne’s performance of suicidality, of feeling ‘beyond help’, would likely be received by men similarly to how nora’s childish facade is received by her husband, as a fantasy that involves saving her for their own sense of pleasure and accomplishment. however, what makes anne’s behaviour ‘radical’ is her refusal to accept help. she recognises that her feelings of hopelessness are fetishised and argues that ‘your help oppresses me.’ this sentiment is also reflected in ‘a doll’s house’; nora must refuse torvald’s money and help in order to pursue her own freedom in the final act. catering to his idealised image of a wife only served to help her survive her household, not to prosper or be her individual self. she had to leave the environment which forced her to perform behind entirely in order to discover who she is beyond the act. not accepting help is anne’s version of this, but the narrators consider the idea that even in isolating her act to only include herself, anne still cannot escape objectification. her ‘radical gesture’ of destroying herself and laying out the evidence of her behaviour is ‘simply one more form of entertainment, one more product… to be consumed.’ an earlier scene, titled ‘the camera loves you’ includes the line ‘we need to go for the sexiest scenario’, a statement which accurately summarises the likely reception to anne’s ‘dialogue of objects.’ arguably another aspect of what makes anne’s predicament ‘the sexiest scenario’ is that even within the text itself she is the subject of the conversation, but rarely a participant. anne is described by narrators, art critics, her parents, her family, etc, but only ever speaks for herself when her defiant statements are being quoted by one of these narrators. descriptions of her self-inflicted violence fit kupfer’s final framing: a narrative essential.

interestingly, the play consists of a somewhat non-linear narrative, where each of its 17 scenes has its own plot unconnected to that of the last. as a result, a narrative essential in ‘attempts on her life’ would be a device, or in this case an instance of violence, which builds our understanding of both anne and the play’s messages, rather than a traditional narrative essential which would drive the plot forwards. the play delivers multiple instances of various forms of violence, ranging from ethnic violence to self harm to forced pornography. anne’s self-injury in particular is framed just prior to and just after the midpoint of the play. before the midpoint, the audience learns of her ‘terrible detachment’ from the character she plays, how she ‘feels like a screen.’ the midpoint, a scene titled ‘the international threat of terrorism™’ opens with a brief analysis of a statement made by anne: ‘i do not recognise your authority.’ the speaker asks, ‘does she really imagine that anything can justify her acts of random senseless violence?’ ‘random’ and ‘senseless’ seem ill-fitting qualities to attribute to anne’s violence, particularly given that her parents state ‘she’s planned all this.’ however, this midpoint scene states ‘no one can find anne’s motive’, seemingly the reason that the speaker cannot see a possible justification for her behaviour. choosing not to recognise the authority of those around her is yet another aspect of our protagonist’s performance that is ‘radical.’ in neglecting to acknowledge the power of those objectifying her, anne is achieving two things; either she is allowing herself to experience her own body and emotions without it being for the sake of others, or she is allowing herself to be fetishised and is simply in denial of it. her defiance is complex and the results of it, and indeed the motivations behind it, are difficult to ascertain.

martin crimp’s use of 17 separate individual scenes rather than a traditional singular plot narrative allows the audience to gain a multifaceted understanding of many multifaceted issues. anne is placed and acts within varying contexts such as her own personal self destruction, destruction of land that comes with ethnic cleansing, the commodification of female bodies and two different familial structures. the scene ‘the camera loves you’ emphasises how anne is an ‘everywoman’ but rather than this term being used to describe an average woman in daily life, it instead refers to a woman who is, simply put, everything. anne is described in the scene ‘girl next door’ as ‘the girl next door...royalty…a pornographic movie star...a killer and a brand of car...a terrorist threat...a mother of three...femme fatale...a presidential candidate...a predator…’ by not allocating a specific speaker to each line, crimp allows the director to decide who describes anne and in what way. lines such as ‘what we see here is the work of a girl who clearly should have been admitted, not to an art school but to a psychiatric unit’ can be spoken by a parent, an art critic, a teacher, anyone, and the relation of the speaker to anne is what characterises the comment and thus characterises her. someone described as ‘self indulgent’ by a parent is very different to someone described the same way by a lover. this means that anne is not just every woman, but every woman to everyone. by placing this ‘everywoman’ in such a range of contexts, she arguably becomes a plot device used to convey meaning, and it can be argued that this negates the more empowered features of her character. it is entirely common for female characters to be reduced to plot devices, however most often when this occurs, the character is two-dimensional. anne, on the other hand, is consistently given additional layers to her character in every scene; she exists to be characterised. excessive use of character description in conjunction with limited speaking time is either evidence that crimp’s writing is atypical in style but not theme, or that it is poignant.

arguably, by giving anne countless traits and emphasising ideas of performance and media, crimp is using his 17 scenes as an extreme example of the commodification of female bodies. anne is sold to the audience as this larger-than-life persona, someone who fulfils a million roles in subversive ways that are interesting to watch, but she still ‘feels like a screen.’ again, this sentiment of the effects of performance on an actor is echoed in many modern texts and pieces of media, but ‘attempts on her life’ makes this point in specific reference to women. real life examples of anne’s treatment exist, and her ‘everywoman’ role allows audiences to relate anne to any number of women existing in media. the way that others only talk about anne when describing or evaluating her mimics the way that agencies and record labels create a solid branding for their actors, musicians, and so on. this brand becomes an intrinsic part of their genuine personality as they cannot be caught behaving in a way that is not consistent with it. acting becomes a constant, and these women are constantly selling a brand or persona, and have very little space to behave in ways that feel true to themselves instead. acting ‘out of character’ results in the loss of public support, funding from agencies, job offers, etc, and thus the character created for celebrities is vital to their survival in their respective industries. as previously discussed, traditional texts argue the importance of theatre for women’s survival just as much, namely ibsen’s ‘a doll’s house.’ the same way nora must leave the environment that forces her to act in order to be happy or individual, anne must do the same; but her attempts at suicide suggest that the environment forcing her performance is not a household or an industry, but ‘the patriarchal structures of late twentieth century capitalism.’ either she dies or ‘becomes her own victim’ in an attempt to escape constant performance, but even her death becomes somewhat performative. even dead, many female celebrities continue their branding through martyrdom. there is very little room for one to make art detailing suicide, sex, and the like without seemingly crossing the line between expression and glorification. women who suffer are not necessarily acting, but as their suffering is a part of their life experience, it becomes interwoven in their branding or public image: amy winehouse’s experiences with alcoholism and bulimia come to mind. winehouse never glorified alcoholism herself, but songs such as ‘rehab’ and documentaries covering her illness released after her death have certainly been accused of doing so. agencies and other creatives took advantage of winehouse’s struggles in order to perform their own ‘activism’ or ‘spreading of awareness.’

in light of ‘attempts on her life’ and the concepts surrounding performance that it poses, we must consider: is liberation from patriarchal constraints even possible, or do acts of reclamation serve to eventually end up catering to the male gaze regardless? it would not be accurate to the play’s style and purpose to try to make one singular conclusion to this question. crimp uses varying styles and contexts in order to showcase the various aspects there are to this issue; the necessity of performance, the constraints it leads to, the sexualisation of suffering, brand maintenance, and so on. anne’s lack of voice in this play can be read either as an example of the very thing the play criticises, or simply just poor usage of character, and the former feels most appropriate for crimp’s writing style. the play implies that victimhood can be intrinsic to womanhood, but presents anne’s defiance as ideallised, encouraging it. theatre can be used as both a survival mechanism and a method of empowerment, but the play posits that it is only empowering to a certain extent; it allows one to control the means by which they are objectified but not to actually avoid objectification. one can behave in undesirable manners, such as anne’s displays of suicidality and exhibitionism, but then we must examine their motivations. is anne behaving in this way solely based upon her low mental health? or is the fact that she is also engaging in a form of exhibitionism and forcing an audience evidence of her sexualising her own experience? if so, her sexualisation of suicidal behaviour likely stems from the ‘patriarchal structures’ she is working to avoid being a victim of, suggesting that it is not possible to liberate oneself from them. anne is evidence that women are not separate from the patriarchy, but active participants in it as it is a collection of ideals engraved into western society. it would be unfair and somewhat dejected to conclude that these ideals cannot be unlearned, but ‘attempts on her life’ certainly illustrates that unlearning them is a more active and difficult task than simply holding a feminist ideology.

i.k.b