#“humanity is a lost cause”

[of-pale]

[pcktknife]

she could stand to be a bit more sharky

[watermelinoe]

why is it "this is what happens when you tell white boys they're devils :(" when it comes to the white male alt right pipeline but no one calls for empathy for uneducated right wing white women. what about the high school girl to isolated stay at home mom pipeline. where is their loneliness epidemic

[pastafossa]

"Love Leaves A Mark" (Matt Murdock x F!Reader, Fic, Pure Fluff)

I've been working on this for a bit to celebrate the release of our older Born Again!Era Matt, and happily I can say this one's now done, which means I can finish up another little oneshot I have and then get back around to The Red Thread's next chapter. This is written with TRT!Reader in mind, but I also tried to write it vaguely so it's easy enough to enjoy even if you haven't read that massive saga. Also if you'd like notifications when I post a new story, drabble, or chapter, you can follow my sideblog @pastaxandria and set it for notifications!

Ship: Matt Murdock x F!Reader

Wordcount: 3.8k

Warnings for this fic: None that I know of, they're just being cute and in love as they grow old together. There ARE some vague physical changes described that are standard in aging but that feels pretty normal.

Fic Summary: You and Matt are growing older together, and you're both loving every second of it, including the physical changes that come with it.

“Did you get more toothpaste today?” you called sleepily, lifting one leg to idly scratch at your calf with your foot. You worked your toothbrush over to the other side of your mouth, wrinkling your nose at the taste. Nine years you’d been using your husband’s toothpaste and you’d never gotten used to the flavor, or lack thereof. You’d be damned if you didn’t use it regardless, though. “And Mini’s food?”

“Picked up both.” The low rumble of his voice was sleepy and distracted as it drifted out of the bedroom. Outside the little brownstone you both now called home, the snow continued to fall in thick, heavy flakes, muffling the roar of the wind and the few cars still out on the street despite the late hour and travel ban. You were grateful for that storm. In all the time you’d been with him you’d never had a problem with the Devil’s nightly rounds. Loving Matt meant loving Daredevil, too. But you still treasured evenings like these when he was able to stay in with you, your purring, cuddly husband happily playing the role of your favorite blanket. “I may have also stopped at the bookstore and gotten you something on the way home.”

You paused, shifting your gaze meaningfully toward the open bathroom doorway. You probed curiously at the psychic connection between you, a subtle attempt to discern what it was he’d picked up for you. All you got was a playful nudge back. He didn’t even have to try all that hard anymore, smoothly deflecting you with all the ease of swatting away a pillow.

“I don’t think so, sweetheart.” His voice was an amused whisper in your mind. “You’ll have to figure it out the old-fashioned way.” 

You scrubbed faster at your teeth, grinning at his laugh in the other room. 

“I don’t know how you have any gums left considering how often you do that,” he mused as you leaned down to rinse your mouth out. You quickly shoved your toothbrush back into the penguin-shaped toothbrush holder before flipping off the light and padding out of the bathroom. 

“The benefits of genetic tampering,” you said dryly, joining him in the bedroom. He was already settled into bed, sitting up with his back against the headboard, a well-worn book beneath his hand. Down atop his blanket-covered feet, a large, round black void of fur had arranged itself into a perfect circle, no head or tail to be seen. Matt tipped his head as he tracked your eager circling of the room, the barest little smirk quirking his lips. You scanned around for anything new, hunting along the walls and the bookshelves that had managed to migrate their way into the bedroom once your shared office slash library had gotten too full. Books had a tendency to breed like rabbits between you and Matt. “Where?” “Your nightstand. I figured you’d probably want to dive in.”

You darted over towards your nightstand.

“No way,” you breathed, sitting down on your side of the bed and snatching up the first of the three new hardbacks he’d placed on your nightstand. “This one—I thought it was going to take another week at least before they released it. How did you…?” “I kept checking with Hanna every time I passed by her bookstore.” He cleared his throat as you flipped open your new copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy to a random page, the much-loved scent of new paper and ink filling your nose. “Eventually she took pity on me and finally let me buy this one early with cash. Although she wasn’t sure why you wanted this one when you have so many other translations already.” 

“It’s Palma’s new translation,” you murmured distractedly, dragging your finger down the flowing lines of poetry, your eyes skimming rapidly over the page. You could already spot some of the changes. “I have the first translation he did of the Inferno, but this is the first time he’s done the entirety of the Divine Comedy, and he’s tweaked his previous translation. It’s supposed to mimic the rhyming scheme Dante created more closely. Not easy when you’re shifting it from Italian to English. Dad’s going to have kittens when he hears the Devil got me my copy before he got his.”

Even without looking at him, you could feel Matt’s smug satisfaction. “You should call him so I can hear him swear.” “Call him yourself if you want to rub it in.” You snorted in amusement at Matt’s neverending desire to goad your adoptive father Ciro, who admittedly had a habit of goading back. At the very least their jabs had become less hostile over the years, the two of them now closer to sparring partners than actual enemies. You leaned over to look at the other two books Matt had gotten you, your brows shooting up. “And you got me Emily Wilson’s translations of the Illiad and the Odyssey? You’re spoiling me, husband dearest.” “You said last month you were thinking about picking them both up. I figured I’d check if they were there.” There was a rustle of blankets behind you, and a slightly irritated, ‘mrrp?’, presumably as Matt adjusted his feet beneath the fuzzy black hole curled up atop them. “Consider it an early anniversary gift.” “Not that I’m not grateful, but you and I both know it’s January, dear.” You set Dante back down atop the stack of books before swiveling on the bed to face Matt. You started crawling across the mountain of blankets and silk sheets toward his grinning form. “Our anniversary is months away.” “The anniversary of our first kiss, then.” His smile only grew wider when you reached him and threw your leg over him to sit astride his waist. It was something he welcomed as he always did, his hands setting aside his book immediately in favor of you. He slid his palms warmly up and down the fleece covering your thighs, pausing here and there to knead at the muscle just because he could. It never seemed to matter that he’d touched you a thousand times before. He treated every moment like this as if it were the first. “A few hardbacks are the least you deserve.” “Lines like that make me want to marry you.” You sighed, draping your arms comfortably over his broad shoulders, lifting one hand to idly card your fingers through his dark hair. He hummed beneath your touch, tilting his head openly into the fond drag of your fingers like a big cat. “Buying a woman hardbacks? In this economy? Put a ring on me, Mr. Murdock.”

“Now Mrs. Murdock, how would your husband feel about you saying things like that?” His voice was a playful purr, words thick and glutted thanks to the drag of your nails. You were pretty sure his eyes had rolled back behind his closed eyes. “He’d, mmm, hunt me down until his dying breath if I laid so much as a finger on you. As for me, my wife is… not inclined to let me go gently.” 

“You’re goddamn right I’m not.” You sprawled out against his chest, dipping your head. He met you halfway, touching his lips to yours. You gave him a warm, lazy kiss, faint traces of copper and cinnamon passed from his smiling mouth to yours. The familiar taste of him, the softness of his skin, the sweet warmth of his breath in your mouth soothed you in a way little else could, and you drew him deep into you on a slow inhale, humming against his lips. His chest rumbled contentedly beneath you in response, his hands sliding up from your thighs to squeeze and rub affectionately your hips. “And don’t you ever forget it.”

“Never,” he murmured against your mouth, chasing after you to steal another kiss when you tried to lift your head. You ran your fingers through his hair again, sighing at the soft, playful brush of his tongue against your lips, giving it a mischievous nip of your own that made him rumble another pleased noise beneath you. His voice dropped further, all lazy warmth and possessive hunger, shades of the Devil coloring the edges like a painter’s brush. “Mm, my wife, all mine.”                                     “Your wife,” you agreed fondly. “One who’s cut people before and will happily do it again if it keeps you safe.”

“Your services are very much appreciated.”

“They should be since I fully intend to sit in a pair of rocking chairs with you one day in our old age.” You brought your hand around to scratch your fingers lightly through the coarseness of his beard, making him groan breathlessly in delight, his back arching just a little beneath you. He’d been letting his beard grow in for the past week or so. You were unsure if it was by choice or if it was simply that he’d felt too busy to take the time to shave. It had been a while since you’d last seen him with a full beard, though, a few years at least. And to your pleasant surprise, there were a few changes. Your fingers petted curiously over the small patches of silver scattered around. “I’ve even kept you alive long enough that you’ve got grey here in your beard now. That’s new.” His brows rose in surprise, his eyes fluttering open where they’d fallen closed. “Really?”

“Yup. It’s very handsome.” You stroked at the prickly grey strands before your hands slid back and up to his temples, tracing the few strands of grey there just as affectionately. His cheeks had even turned the tiniest bit pink at your praise. “Some here, too. Just a little at your temples. You gonna be my silver fox, Matt?” “I guess so. That’s what I get for letting you pet all the color out over nine years.” He heaved a great sigh beneath you as if his care sheet instructions didn’t specify he get at least ten minutes of petting each day, without which he would wilt away. “You made me look old.” “Oh please. You don’t look old. You look human.” Your fingers left his hair so you could poke him pointedly in the chest. He threw you a wounded look, all furrowed brow and big sad eyes that you weren’t falling for even a little. “Also, you gave yourself those grey hairs, thank you very much. You’re the most stressed man I’ve ever met. Half of what you put yourself through would have turned anyone else’s hair white by now.”

“Fine. I’ll admit that I may have done… a few things that were somewhat stress—” “Got a building dropped on you. Fought Nobu in tissue paper. Got shot in the head. Used a neti pot to snort some fucking rusty tap water full of amoebas and tiny shrimp—”

“That last one still really bothers you, doesn’t it?”

“You have no idea. One day I’m going to kiss you and taste brain shrimp, I just know it.”

He snorted. “You say that like I don’t have my own list of all the things you’ve done that have almost given me a heart attack.”

“Alright, so my list is also… a bit long.” You tilted your head, watching his eyes shift absently around. After so many years with you, he was no longer self-conscious about letting you watch his eyes this closely, much to your delight. In the low light of the bedroom, his eyes were a soft, dark brown rather than the green or grey they could shift to during the day. Beautiful as always, especially with the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes, lines that now seemed permanent even when he wasn’t smiling. You brushed your thumb over a few of those lines, your playful tone falling away into something more serious. “What if I like it, though? These parts of you that are getting older? Like these laugh lines.”

He furrowed his brow pitifully. “Now you’re telling me I’m wrinkly, too?”

“Oh, fuck you!” you huffed, his body shaking beneath you as he laughed. “You know that’s not what I meant. Stop deflecting, I’m serious.”

“I’m know you are, even if you’re telling me I’m a grey, grizzled, wrinkled husk.” He groaned theatrically, rolling his head back. “You should just bury me if I’m that old.”

“Not a chance. Not when I love everything I’m seeing. Like these…” 

You leaned in and planted a kiss on the laugh lines in question, feeling them grow deeper under your lips as he smiled.

“And these…”

Another kiss, this time against one of the grey patches in his beard, making him sigh. 

“...and goddamn do I love all this, too,” you murmured, sitting back so you could drag your hands hungrily down the front of him. There was no part of him you didn’t love, but you’d be lying if you said you weren’t just a little obsessed with the dark hair now edging up past his shirt collar—so much of it now that he’d finally given up on shaving his chest and let it all grow back—and the slightly thicker lines of his abdomen and hips, both of them a touch softer than they had been almost a decade ago when you’d first met him. You’d know; you’d been laying on him almost every night for most of that decade, barring a few rough patches and business trips.

“Mrs. Murdock,” he breathed in feigned shock, as if he wasn’t aware of exactly how much you enjoyed both his chest hair and the whole of his body from top to bottom, “are you insinuating something about me?” “You mean like insinuating I’m the reason you now eat regularly and aren’t so dehydrated that I can practically draw a map of your veins by sight?” You squeezed at the meat of his abdomen and hips greedily, your voice growing smug as you kneaded at him. Your touch made him chuckle and squirm beneath you, only drawing more protests from the cat trying to sleep on top of his feet. “Yes. Yes, I am. You’re welcome for the health, by the way. You’re aging like a fine wine, husband dearest. And it makes me happy.” 

His face softened at that, one hand leaving your hips to lay against your sternum. “If your heart wasn’t beating so steadily, I’d say you were just trying to flatter me,” he mused. “But… me getting older really is making you happy, isn’t it?”

“It is. I…” 

You paused for a moment, struggling to put into words what you were feeling. His hand at your hip edged up under your shirt until he could rub his thumb soothingly at your skin, content to wait while you figured out how to say what you wanted to say.

“I think it’s that… there was a time when I wasn’t sure if you’d live long enough for me to see you grow old with me.” You cupped his face in your hands, treasuring the way his eyes fell slowly closed and he leaned into your touch so openly, so easily. It had taken so much work to get him here, where he felt comfortable accepting your love and your affection, but it had been worth every ounce of effort. You traced over his laugh lines again with your thumbs before skipping down to the faint smile lines at the corners of his mouth, a mouth that pursed to kiss your thumb when you swept one over his lips. “But you did. I’m getting to see it. That’s special to me. I want to see that… that you’re still alive, that you’re living long enough for these things to happen. I want to see all these little grey hairs, and wrinkles, and the way your body has gotten a bit softer, because every little piece of you that gets older represents a moment I didn’t know if I’d get with you.”

He drew in a shaky breath before his eyes fluttered slowly open again. And in the dark of his eyes there was such a reverent joy, such a bone-deep love filling their depths that it almost took your breath away. You’d never tire of seeing it, even if you both lived for another fifty, another hundred, another thousand years, joined in this lifetime and in whatever came next. Religion had nothing on being loved fully, wholly by Matt. 

“I could say the same thing about you,” he breathed, his hand at your sternum sliding up to cradle your neck, thumb sweeping gently over the thin skin above your pulse. He pressed just a little, just enough to tug your skin back and forth. A moment later, he tugged you in until he could feather a kiss against your pulse where his thumb had been, lingering there as you nuzzled into his dark hair. “And spots like right here.”

“What’s changed there?” 

“The texture of your skin. How much it moves when I touch it. I like to think,” he whispered against your throat, “that your skin’s a little looser here now, more worn in, because I’ve stroked at it so much that I’ve changed you permanently. It’s a sign of just how much I’ve touched you, how many times you’ve trusted me and let me put my hands here. It’s never mattered to you how scarred those hands were, how covered in blood. You let my love leave a mark.”

He tightened his other hand against your hip next, taking hold of the curves that had changed as you’d journeyed through the years with him. “And you’re softer now, too, just like me.” From there he smoothed his hand affectionately upwards over your ribs and up past your breasts, mapping over all of the places your body had begun to show your age like his: stretchmarks and small wrinkles where once skin had been smooth and tight, scars from old battles now faded and ragged with time. The journey his hand took was made with reverence, tender and heavy with intent, his smile so very soft and almost… wondrous. “I may not be able to see you, but I can feel you growing old with me, too, sweetheart. More curves, a few wrinkles. It’s like I can feel your body sinking deeper and deeper into a life with me.”

“That’s what happens when love winds up being your gravity.” You leaned in to kiss his forehead lines. “A decade of being drawn in by you.”

“Mhm. And up here.” He shifted his hand at your throat to cup your face like you had his, his thumb tracing the corners of your eyes. “Laugh lines. Because our life’s made you laugh so much that it changed you. They weren’t there the first time I put my hands here. But they are now. Signs of how happy you are with me. And there are more every year, because you… love me enough to stay.”

“Hey, my Devil-Man,” you whispered, tilting his head up until your forehead could meet yours. He didn’t bother to hide the vulnerability in his eyes, this old wound of his. It was mostly mended now, when it came to you, but sometimes that furrowed scar inside his heart still made him ache. “Do you need me to remind you again? I’m not going anywhere, husband of mine. There’s nowhere you’ll go that I won’t follow.”

“I know.” His eyes fluttered as you stroked at his skin. His arms left your face until he could wind them tighter around you, pulling you in tight against him until his every breath became yours. That seemed to settle him some, the weight of you against his chest, especially when you dropped your head to his shoulder, nuzzling in against his neck. “That’s… that’s just it. With me, you see… moments you didn’t think you’d have because you didn’t think I’d make it. And I didn’t think I’d have this with you, either. A home, wrinkles, greying hair. Not because I didn’t think you’d live long enough, but… but because I never thought I’d find someone who could love me enough to stay this long. To love me this long. Long enough that I could feel you grow old with me.”

“Loving you has never been a chore, Matt.” You breathed in the scent of his skin, soap and the faint copper of blood, traces of cinnamon and just him. It was a scent you knew better than your own. You  lifted your hand to run your knuckles down his cheek, tracking your way through his greying beard, hoping that your touch would help your words sink in. He slid his hands up under the back of your shirt to drag his palms smoothly down your back, comforting himself with the feel of your skin as he tilted his head, listening to your heartbeat. It wasn’t because he thought you were lying, that much you knew. But he’d told you once he found the truth soothing when hearing something that might make him feel otherwise vulnerable. Something like this, this old wound of his, absolutely qualified. “And it never will be, no matter what comes at us. If you need me to remind you of that every day, I will. I’ll tell you that over and over again, until the day we die and get buried in matching coffins.”

“The same coffin,” he said quietly, tipping his head to nuzzle at your temple. “There’s a reason we took ‘Till death do we part’ out of our vows. No parting, even in death.” 

“Do they even sell double coffins? If so, I’m down.” “Even if they don’t, I’ll tell Foggy to make sure I end up in yours with you.” “I think I should end up in yours.” “Why?” “Because everyone will just assume your coffin’s extra heavy due to your goddamn audacity.” He burst out laughing beneath you, his body shaking and almost throwing you off him entirely. “I’m just saying,” you continued, trying not to grin as he choked out more laughter, “you live your life in a very particular way, man without fear. ‘Christ, why is his coffin so heavy?’ And our friends can just say, ‘well, you know, it’s Matt Murdock’ and it’ll explain everything. No one will notice me shoved in underneath you so you can lay on top of me forever.” 

“It’s a date,” he said, still huffing in amusement. A pointed paw tapped at your back before starting a walk up your spine. “Speaking of which, looks like someone’s eager to get in on the cuddling.” “Behold, offer to cuddle and both Matts will appear,” you snorted as roughly twenty pounds of scarred black cat trod his way stubbornly up and onto your shoulder, rasping out an indignant meow that sounded like he’d been smoking a pack a day for the past seven years, because how dare the two of you do this without inviting him. “I’m about to be sandwiched, I think. Hello, Mini-Matt.”

Sure enough, Matt’s smaller clone enthusiastically rammed his head against your temple, making you grunt, before doing the same to Matt’s chin. He was already purring like an old motorcycle engine in a request to get in on what seemed like a nice, cozy cuddle pile, as if Matt would ever turn the cat down. Sure enough, Matt leaned in, planting a kiss to Mini’s big fuzzy forehead before turning and laying a much gentler kiss on yours as Mini draped himself over your shoulder, stretching one paw out to pat Matt's face. “Something tells me you don’t mind, though.”

“Not even a little.” 

[lotus-pear]

regret

[cursoulla]

The World-Ender; Alternate Lad

🩸 bloodied version 👇

[rennybu]

i think Knell would have an annoying sensory memory to go with the whole blood magic fade connection...... which lingers with her a while after leaving meditation. trying to sleep but the fade thinks her head is still bleeding

[nobodymitskigabriel]

So the thing about Gabe to me is that he doesn’t quite fit in the categorically of Angel Who Is Eventually Humanized the way that Castiel or Anna do. He is more down to earth than the other angels but specifically in the way that GODS are, not humans. Like, even if he's not literally Loki, Gabriel is functionally an earthen deity for the millenia he spent dicking around and killing people. Other gods are literally the crowd he runs in, and he's an asshole because gods are assholes (and he specifically decided to be one of the more extreme asshole gods). Even though his sensibilities can be very human-like, even if he generally likes humans and wants them to stick around, there was always some level of divinity to his cruelty. So even if he did ultimately choose humanity I feel like putting him in with the angels who actually know what it's like to be human misses this part of his character.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

sequel to this ramble cause the way james talks bout the reduced cherik scenes throughout the xmen films in this video is making me want to kill people. 'we'll always have paris darling' what if we all blew up.

[backtothefanfiction]

Because She Believed | Joel Miller

Summary: Words of wisdom when it feels all hope is lost.

Warnings: angst, references to wanting to end it all, grief, despair, dealing with end of the world feels

A/N: for everyone who feels hopeless right now living through yet again even more end of the world kind of shit. Some days it feels hard to go on. It’s hard to find hope. But it will always be here. Hope can be found in pockets of humanity and will forever endure through art. I hope this helps the spark inside those who need it most right now.

The second you got back to the apartment that night you knew you were done. It had been yet another shitty day amongst a whole month of shitty days and you couldn’t take any more. Everything felt perpetually grey. The grief you carried around unmovable and ever growing as yet another day passed and more bodies were burnt in the square. More people being flagged as infected and culled after an outbreak on the lower east side of the QZ.

You just didn’t have the energy anymore. It felt like the sun never shone. There was no time for fun. No joy left to balance out the hardship. It was just wake, eat basic rations, go do grunt work for more tokens, come back, eat, shower, sleep. The same thing everyday on a loop and you were sick of it.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this, Joel.” You confided in him as you sat in front of the window contemplating your options. You didn’t know how long you had been sat there staring at his gun on the coffee table, but it was long enough for him to make it home and find you before you had had the chance to get up the confidence to do something with it. “The rest of my family is dead. I have no idea what happened to my friends. Every day I wake up in this fucking run down apartment and go and do chores for a bunch of people who couldn’t care less if I lived or died.” You sniffed as you tried to fight off the tears that were prickling your eyes.

He didn’t say anything in response, the silence hanging thickly in the air between you. You were sure if you looked up at him you’d see a look of pity on his face and you couldn’t bear to face it. Instead you turned your body towards the window, your eyes fixated on a spot out in the square.

“You know,” you sniff again, your voice quiet and strained, “they burned the body of a ten year old little boy today,” you said as he came and took a seat next to you on the little bench under the window. “What kind of life is this?” You asked, finally turning your gaze on him, your voice cracking and breaking as despair wracked through your body. You could see the pain reflected in his eyes, the image of his own dead little girl replaying in his mind. “How do we just keep going?” You asked helplessly, hoping he had an answer you couldn’t seem to find right now.

He was quiet and contemplative as he thought over your questions. Questions that had plagued his own mind one too many times in the quiet darkness of the night. He slowly sighed, his gaze softening as it shifted from pity to sympathy. “Because we do.” He finally said, his arm reaching out across your back so he could pull you into his side. “Because if we don’t, all the other things we did with this world goes to waste. Everything our Mothers and Fathers- our ancestors- worked hard on to give us all a better life, was for nothing. We can’t bear to let them down. We’ve come too far in this world to just give up now. And as long as there is a few people who get up everyday and keep on going, there will always be hope that something can change.”

“You really believe that?”

You watched as he sighed, his eyes falling from yours, yet another memory replaying in his mind causing his resolve to falter. You felt his chest sag. “No,” he said to you honestly, “but Sarah did. And if she believed in that, then so do I, because I believed in her. And I keep fighting and living for her and the life she never got to have.”

“Then I’ll keep fighting for her too… and for that little boy,” you added, trying to muster your courage to keep fighting.

“It’s okay to feel like this every now and again,” Joel said, and you felt him rest his chin on top of your head as he pulled you in closer to him again. You turned your body into him, your legs spreading out over his as you allowed yourself to fold fully into his embrace. “It’s what makes us human. It’s okay to break every now and again. And no matter what happens I’ll be here to hold you until you’re ready to put yourself back together.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

[ananke-xiii]

[rosy-crow]

While I’m rewatching this chapter, I actually have to say I felt really bad about Masamune, dude. It’s hard not to see the parallels he has with Sephiroth even though his story is his own.

Alissa frames him as the real monster, saying he was seduced by the sword too…and maybe he was? But initially, after he forged it, it wasn’t his choice to go and start the Robio village conflict.

The villagers lost their minds because the sword is cursed One Ring style, I guess (likely something related to Jenova, considering Masamune was suddenly possessed to forge it).

But still, the conflict started with an act of betrayal. The people Masamune served turned on him and tried to steal his masterwork. They even broke into his home. It sounds like they went animalistic over it, fighting each other and all.

But here, I think Masamune has agency! Bro might even have regret.

It’s like he loses faith in his people and that’s when he starts killing them. Again, paralleling Sephiroth’s story a lil bit…

I like how it sounds like there was a choice here and maybe Masamune took the darker path out of hatred or anger over being swarmed and attacked by his neighbors after serving them and creating the weapons they would need to survive in the creepy environment they were in.

Yeah okay, the sword was maybe stirring up the worst in these people, but their drive to get claim it was greed, right? They wanted more than what Masamune had already given them. They wanted HIS own precious belonging and creation.

It’s like a material parallel to Sephiroth and Shinra, which is pretty damn cool sdjfjdj.

Masamune became a murderer and destroyed his own home after he watched his fellow man sink into animalistic greed and violence, targeting his life’s work and service. He killed them and they killed each other. There was evil on both sides in the Robio tragedy.

Sephiroth’s story is darker because he chooses to go well beyond the destruction of his own home, but knowing the context and build-up, knowing how he came to view humanity as a whole as his enemy, we know why he chose what he did.

It’s twisted and evil, but what I like is how both his story and Masamune’s story have these little hints about why exactly both turned on their fellow man. I won’t be surprised if Jenova is behind the scenes stirring shit up like a demon whispering in people’s ears, but there’s enough room for agency too!!

Masamune also wanted to find someone to inherit the sword last chapter too. Maybe bro just wants peace now or something idk.

[eager-wolfboy]

Has anyone made an HDG story of like…. An ex-billionaire? Or like a transphobic evil horrific mom? Someone who genuinely liked the Accord and wished it were back? I want a story with a character like that, just to see their shit getting rocked.

Like, imagine some Elon Musk dude has delusions and bravado that he could somehow exploit the Affini. Of course, we the audience knows he’ll always fail, and the Affini will win effortlessly and elegantly. Just.. yeah, the potential catharsis of writing/read that could be unreal.

I guess some redemption could happen, like they get Scrooged, but therein lies a question: how would the Affini try to redeem someone like this?? Would the Affini even find them redeemable? If no, then what do they do to people like that?

[magpie-trove]

All my life people have derided hoping the best in people as weak and stupid. Well. Luckily God uses the weak and stupid things to shame the strong and wise

[fatal-blow]

so im reading A Brief History of Intelligence* by Max Bennett, which discusses all of the major breakthroughs throughout evolutionary history, and first of all its just extremely refreshig to have a discussion about the brain and mental abilities that is grounded in biology

but also its stuck with me deeply that one of the first things that the book establishes is that the brains of many other animals (birds, mammals, especially mammals) are really similar to our own. which is huge when the narrative around the human brain is about how much more special and weird it is compared to other mammals

like even the simplest animals share serotonin and dopamine with us! anything after the evolution of corals and jellyfishes pretty much!

and because i interact with animals more than other humans more on a daily basis, i feel like this book really lets me get to know them. i get to learn all the things i have in common with my fish, my cats, the birds outside, the squirrel who visits me, and the more i read the more i think it's such a gargantuan disservice that's been done to other animals the way we've historically judged them to be so much...less than us.

like idk. nothing has driven home for me more that humans are just another type of animal than this book, and that's saying something because i was raised on the idea that humans are animals.

*edited to the actual book name idk why i thought it was the other thing

[pain-is-too-tired]

One thing I like to hc with the Apollo Head Counselors is that they all represent a time of which the sun is out.

Lee - Dawn/Dusk

Mainly dusk, but pretty much imagine him in browns, oranges , dusky yellows and reds and the like.

Michael - Twilight

Starts after the fall of Dusk,short lived. Haralds the start of darkness and but also first light when it falls. The darkess time in which the sun is out. I see him muted/ dark blues,dull browns and blacks. Maybe a touch of greyish pale yellows.

Will - Daylight

Longest lived, bright, it's what most people think about when they think of the sun. With his golden sun kissed hair and sky blue eyes its pretty on the nose. I see him in bright/light yellows and blues.

Idk why I thought of posting this, I just love them and wanted to share my thoughts.

Think it is pretty obvious how I tend to draw them, but it's fun to write it out ^^