the way he came real close to one of laios desperate plans while sleep deprived and hangry several chapters in advance.. he really does know laios huh.
my tags got too long so here they are under the cut
Even tho he wanted to sleep he probs was still listening to everything laios has to say. Bc he is Always Listening and Observing
Interesting in the context of how laios wants someone to understand him - to see him as he is but also the ways in which hes afraid of rejection and being seen as less than human but lacking the monstrousness to retaliate and lash out without regret bc then it would be The natural order of things but hell never be a monster he can only be a human being
but i think part of the reason shuro got so mad is bc he was putting all this effort into being considerate and feeling he got none in return. i think he wanted to be seen too! But i think he overlooked how he feels safe enough to express his rawest feelings w laios
But also i think laios was the first relationship shuro did not just let fizzle out at the first sign of interpersonal difficulty. bc lbr in this manner hes a coward. Disgusted by maizuru being his fathers mistress ? Dont talk it out n continue letting her treat him like a child while ignoring her. concerned hien and him will turn out like maizuru and his father—just let the friendship drift apart w time. concerned abt how inutade views her retainership when he knows his father just sees her as an oddity—dont say shit n just stew in it 5eva
passive aggression warrior!!!
Also interesting laios is like if we can make her monstrousness more manageable maybe she can live among ppl…the projection
The part at the end where toshiros like I know his gait from the sound of the bell by heart so i 100% know its him. he was listening the whole time! like a second heartbeat. Very metaphorical for their relationship. its a challenging relationship for the both of them but they dont give it up bc they care about each other.
thats love honestly i was genuinely moved by the interplay of toshiro laios n kabrus relationship. that laios promises hell eat w kabru on his terms even tho kabru wasnt upfront abt the monster thing initially giving him a motive to return. and how shuro gave him the bell as a promise hed bring him back to the surface no matter what. And he fulfills it even when laios leaves the bell behind bc he knows him so well To the surface and live among other ppl.
bc laios whole life he felt like he couldnt understand other ppl and they couldnt understand him even tho he wanted that connection that seemed so easy to everyone else
but thru kabru and shuro we see that no one in the world understands anyone else completely- thats why they enter the story w awful first impressions. As well as like well. Thats probs how laios comes off to other ppl
shuro calls him back bc the two as his peers are like u already have connections who value you (shuro) and deep connections youve yet to make w ppl who will be important to u going forward (kabru) and theyll both challenge and change deep seated issues about themselves to keep their connection w u alive
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☆ you sow; & thus you shall reap what you are owed
{☆} characters tsaritsa
{☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader
{☆} warnings blood, violence
{☆} word count 0.8k
You are dying.
Gold melts into the dirt, bleeds into the very earth that you'd molded by your own hands – a familiarity you do not understand the source of – you know it to be true, yet you do not remember it as Teyvat does. It weeps, in turn, for the way you bleed upon it, the way your lungs strain for breath.
It is fury and sorrow and fear and hatred so raw that your mind buckles.
You will die.
"A dying godling and its judge, it's jury – it's executioners," The voice is hollow and cold, sweeps across your broken body like the first chill of winter, "Archons who saw themselves Gods, now brought to heel by their own hubris."
A cold hand upon your cheek, the brush of a thumb across your lip, the gentle caress of cold across your skin. You know her – you don't remember, you shouldn't recognize her but you do – and she knows you. The cold beckons and you follow, let her kindness settle in the hollow space of your chest. You want to speak, to cry and scream and rage, let the world burn around you in a fit of flames so hot even she cannot contain it – but she silences you, quiets the anger seeping into your blood, quiets Teyvat itself.
"Do not speak, little godling. Guide my hand," She is cold; her hands are not gentle, yet it is bliss compared to the callous, cruel hands that have shattered you. She is cruel and cold and brutal but she is love in the way she kisses the crown of your head. She is love in the way she is the bulwark between you and the world that has scorned you – she is fury in the way she brings them to their knees. "And I shall enact judgement most divine."
They will pray for forgiveness, and they shall find themselves wanting.
"It wasn't our fault!" They cry, but you cannot recognize the voice – it breaks and cracks like glass. "They were too human. How were we meant to know? We– we thought they were.."
Silence.
You watch your judge – the executioner, the blade that shall carve their sins into the very marrow of Teyvat, stand above you like death. As cold as winter and just as brutal. Your temple has been painted in the gold of your divine blood, and she shall complete the masterpiece with their own. The Archons shall become the grandest art in the world – this temple the canvas, their blood the paint and their bodies the palette. The cold that cuts sinew cradles you – it sings to you, whispers sweetly in your ear and carves bone from body in the same breath. The cold presses it's lips to your wrist and it cradles a heart within it's palm – judges them and finds them guilty.
It is her spear that rests between their ribs, her sword that dissects and her dagger that carves – the cold devours.
In the breadth of this divine sanctuary, the Archons dwindle. They become the pieces of a divine work of art, they bleed and bend and break upon her hands. She shakes the heavens and carves mortality into the bones of the divine – your word is Law, and you weave their deaths into the roots of Teyvat itself.
They shall know of their grand folly in every moment henceforth and longer still and they shall weep.
And as the curtain falls, as the world crumbles beneath fist and blade, she cradles your face between hands too cold – as gentle as a shard of ice between your ribs, as brutal as the kiss of gentle snowfall. The world buckles at the loss of six, but she alone does not allow it to break – you will have to mend the wounds of the world when you are well, but today you weep and Teyvat weeps with you.
And alone, the cold remains.
Stone has eroded, the wind has ceased, the flames have been extinguished, the storm has been silenced, the forests have gone quiet and the seas go still.
But the cold remains, bathed in gold.
It wraps you in thick furs, cradles you against the winter storm that brews beneath a veneer of composure. It brings you home – lets the world settle into a stillness and silence that inspires only dread and still she presses a kiss to your brow.
It is cold, but there has never been something so warm.
Where hands have broken you, she drapes you in furs, wipes away the thick gold that clings to your skin. She pieces you back together where you have been shattered, reshapes you where you have been bent – makes of you something new. Not a god and not a mortal but something wedged between them.
But you are yourself.
And you are where you belong.
They shall put you back together and you shall know only the worship worthy of the divine. They shall carve this world into your image, tear out and burn away the rot that festers.
All you need to do is say the word and they shall be your tools to make this world your own.
One word and those who wronged you shall burn, too.
Just one word. That's all it takes, and they shall take away your pain.
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also, because i'm still thinking about the disco elysium kids:
i think the difference in how people react to cuno vs cunoesse is really so indicative of peoples' reactions in general to trauma survivors. they're both kids who scream at you and call you slurs, but cuno will open up to you a little if you talk to him the right way and pass the right checks and give him time. and you can go to cuno's apartment and find out exactly what's caused him to act that way; you can see his dad and hear about how his dad acts and go "well, his behavior is still shitty, but he's 12 and i know why he acts that way, so it's fine", and then harry can take him back to jamrock with him and presumably into a life that's at least slightly better than his life in martinaise.
but i've seen (mostly outside of tumblr) a lot of people who play the game absolutely hate cunoesse, and i think it's because you don't get such an easy explanation for why she acts how she does? she screams and calls you slurs, too, but she won't let you get close to her. she freaks out if you even walk near her and accuses you of trying to hurt her. you don't get to find her house or her parents or an easy explanation, and she's not about to give you any potential ammo to hurt her further with by explaining what's happened to her. and it's pretty clear if you look for it — a 10 year old isn't just gonna accuse any adult who walks near her of attempted assault unless some real bad shit has happened to them — but because she isn't able to be can-opened by harry, isn't willing to calm down and talk to you, isn't able to let her guard down to give the audience insight into her mind, she's immediately seen as less sympathetic. people empathize more with those who respond to trauma with sadness than with anger, even when both of the subjects are little kids, and i think it's fucked up that just because she's angry cunoesse gets less sympathy from the audience than cuno does!!
(also not to mention like. the additional axes of gender, and of her being from outside of revachol, and of the different types of abuse at play for each of them. because i'm sure that all also plays a part in the differing reactions in-universe and on an audience level!)
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I’m going to paint you a picture of modern communication, and how it is fundamentally broken.
Let’s look at one friend. You chat pretty much everyday, and mostly talk to this person on twitter and discord, with occasional tumblr DMs. That’s three places you talk. But that’s actually not true, because you also have each other’s priv twitters and talk there as well. That’s four. Now account for, let’s say, one post reply per account per person, in addition to your DMs. That’s eight. But that’s ALSO not true, because not only do you talk in discord DMs with each other, but you’re in a friend group server as well! And you talk in those channels together! That’s nine.
This is one friend.
Now look around you. How many friends, how many mutuals are you in contact with. A few, a handful, a dozen, more? How many accounts per person do you have, how many places can you send each other posts, devolve into separate topics and conversations? How many people text you as well. Friends, family, coworkers? What do you do day to day around catching up, what IRL commitments will rip you away long enough to let the pile build again?
I can’t do it. I cannot live an actual life in the real world and balance this much interaction, it’s crushing. I reply to a friend’s post because I’m interested in the subject, I want to have a discussion! I WANT to talk about it with them, but I immediately kick myself for adding another conversation to the pile. Day by day, I ignore messages for hours on end and watch mountains pile around me, to reply en masse at the end of the night to let the cycle repeat. I wake up to six discord DMs and as I clear the third, the first replies back again.
We weren’t meant to have thirty simultaneous conversations. We weren’t. And you know in your bones that the number isn’t an exaggeration.
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Feel like as a fandom so many people have forgotten how to write meta other than like 'because of XYZ, man sad :(' or just like talking about Bruce or Jason
Like where are the discussions of morality, of politics, of religion, of race, of culture, of language, of grief and family in the greater dc fandom (beyond just a select few of the bats)
It's like I want to see more meta about the characters I love and care about, and just a wider variety of the ways that can be shown!
Trying not to frame this as complainy (although I know us comics fans love complaining haha!) because it's a change that I also want to see more in myself and the stuff I put out on this platform
So just like imagine it with me guys.... essay length examinations on blorbo.... the political ramifications of her actions, his relationship with his mother and ethnicity, her moral stances and how she will deviate from them when under immense stress, or their relation with gender and how it interacts with their powers
Think about it guys... this could all be yours for the low, low price of taking my hand and moving into this beautiful world together
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