#after the monstrous behavior exhibited by SOME OF YOU

[chronically-ghosted]

Taylor, my darling, I need you to apologize for those tags about Dieter's rings/bracelets, because I am at work and I do not need to be focused on the thoughts about that right now.

oh.

you mean the tags for this post?

#so this morning i realized all his rings and bracelets are on his left hand#now this is VERY important: is he left handed or right handed#because i feel like this is the equivalent of seeing a woman with a long nail only on her ring finger 👀

why does that bother you? it's just a question. just a consideration. just a thought.

it's not like he intends to do anything with his right hand that might be impeded by rings, now is he?

#after the monstrous behavior exhibited by SOME OF YOU #adding rings and piercings to a man whom i already lose sleep over #today is the day I WAKE UP and choose violence

[rainstormcolors]

I’ve sat on these thoughts for a bit and have typed a few of them up before.

This is theorizing / organizing thoughts on something and I don’t know how much faith I have in posting it exactly.

But I’ve thought on how there can be a good faith reading of YGO’s original conclusion and very serious flaws in YGO’s conclusion at the same time. The conclusion to the film DSoD is also involved in reaching the culmination of these thoughts.

There are two running themes throughout YGO that feed into possible readings of DSoD’s conclusion. I want to be clear I feel DSoD is deliberately left open to interpretation and has plasticity, and it’s been noted before that Japanese audiences are more open to and willing to accept open endings in media than Western audiences, thus you see open endings more often in Japanese media.

But the first running theme throughout YGO is just how very willing characters exhibit self-destructive behaviors for the sake of others, how often they’re willing to risk their lives for the sake of someone they care about --- for the sake of protecting this other person or feeling like they’ve failed this person or even just to be useful. Atem, Yugi, Seto, Jonouchi, Isis, Rishid, Malik, Mahad, more still --- they all risk and offer their lives for someone they love. The anime further adds to this list. It’s love as something raw and destructive and desperate as these characters stumble through their lives, trying and failing and trying. This functions well within what DSoD offers at its conclusion: Seto risking his life to see Atem again. Maybe to save Atem, bring him home. Maybe just to say goodbye and to know their bond was real.

And I love that Atem greets Seto with a smile. After so much struggle and fear of connection and loneliness, the bond between Seto and Atem is shown to be real and it mattered. After all his pain, Seto is not rejected but greeted warmly by his friend. I want to make this clear before moving onward.

There’s a parallel between Gozaburo’s fate and Atem’s fate. There’s a parallel between Gozaburo’s fate and what Seto does at the ending of DSoD. There’s a parallel between Atem’s fate and what Seto does at the ending of DSoD. Within the bunkobans, Kazuki Takahashi reveals he had initial nebulous plans for Death-T’s conclusion to potentially be the overall series’ conclusion if his manga proved unsuccessful. This would mean these three parallel moments each mark a kind of conclusion to the overall story.

There are quieter examples of this. Aknadin and Priest Set. Mahad and Mana. Shadi Shin and Diva. Ishtar Sr. and Malik (with Rishid). Ryota Kajiki’s father and Ryota himself who we see in denial in the main series (I feel the manga’s version of his BC duel with Jonouchi does make it clear he understands on some level his father is dead but he isn’t ready to admit this to himself yet). Atem has moments regarding his own father’s death in the story as well. The series in general has a kind of fixation on observing the departure of a role model marking a milestone change—a new chapter of life—in a person’s life. It’s just different ways of examining and tackling this particular experience within the story. It’s a genuine fixation in the narrative. And I think that’s also why, in some degree though not matching the exact portrayals in the series, my own feelings on YGO’s original conclusion and Atem’s fate are what they are. I’ve talked to other people who have expressed this as well.

When you compare the three parallel cardinal moments of Gozaburo’s fate, Atem walking into Aaru, and Seto breaking through to Aaru, a kind of greater meta narrative appears. The scene between Seto and Gozaburo has a focus on the negative impact the departed has left on the survivor, the ugliest stings, and grief is monstrous and angry and hateful and bitter, and the survivor feels wronged by the dead and repulsed with themselves for these dark awful feelings --- the Grieving Survivor as Villain. The Departed as Villain. I’ve come to understand this feeling --- of seeing yourself as monstrous in grief --- as why I had personally been drawn to the manga’s version of Death-T myself. The scene which occurs between Yugi and Atem is starkly different. As Yugi cries that he’s too weak to go on alone, Atem comforts him. The dead is comforting the survivor in their grief and telling them they’ll be alright. The focus is now on the positive impact the departed has left on the survivor. There is love and hope and warmth here. And the survivor has all the agency now as Yugi sends Atem away. It is Grieving Survivor as Hero. It is the Departed as Hero.

Thus in the meta narrative, Death-T is a hyperfictionalized manifestation of the anger stage of grief and the Ceremonial Duel is a hyperfictionalized manifestation of the acceptance stage of grief.

But time passed, and then perhaps DSoD sees that grief is not a wound that ever really goes away – that the wound doesn’t go away. (My dad loved my mom more than anything, and he’ll never love anyone like that again.)

The scene between Mokuba and Seto is not one between heroes and villains. It’s no longer about vilifying or praising anyone, the one leaving or the one staying. They’re people. Seto is just a struggling person who has been in pain and Mokuba doesn’t have the agency to stop him – it wasn’t in Mokuba’s hands. They are just people now. And the film ends with Seto perhaps finding answers and peace. It wants Seto to find peace.

I don’t know why Kazuki Takahashi was revisiting this emotional situation over and over again in his story, with himself in control as the writer. I don’t think it’s appropriate to guess, but I hope he’s been able to find peace himself for whatever emotions he needed to work through in writing his story.

DSoD is open to interpretation and has plasticity and whenever I watch the film I am reminded of this. Likewise, it’s up to each person if they want to include it in their idea of canon or not. I personally have Seto return in my interpretations. We have half-canon art of Seto and Yugi working together post-DSoD as well.

YGO as a story has helped me through so much. It held me together during times when things felt so dark, and it helped me to ground myself. It’s helped me to understand myself and to connect with and understand other people. I harbor so much gratitude to this story and these characters. (I suppose I also understand what it’s like to depend too much on a hyperfixation / coping mechanism that you need to understand yourself and the world, and how it’s possible to step forwards for that hyperfixation to become something healthier and functioning as a tool of connection and not letting that piece of yourself go, that it can be part of you and people can accept you with it.)

I began to start trying to socialize again when DSoD came out, after a long time of avoiding people. I’ve come to terms with how, after so much trying, I gave up completely and stopped trying the day my mother died all that time ago. DSoD was the trigger for me to finally begin trying again. That’s my own meta narrative. I’m guilty of missteps, but I’ve made friends. The me of 6 years ago could never have imagined I could have friends the way I do now.

Which leads me back to Atem greeting Seto with a smile at the end of DSoD. I don’t think Seto believed he could ever form connections with another person either but he did. He was able to find a meaningful friend. That makes me happy.

#meta garbage

[bloodparfait]

What You Deserve | PJM

Pairing: Jimin x Reader

Genre: circus AU!, smut, angst

Warnings: blood, bruises, whipping, penetration, manhandling, swearing, cuts and gashes on your back, aggressive behavior, manipulation, character death

Word Count: 2K

                                                               ♥

“Welcome to the Bangtan World Circus.”

You couldn’t contain your smile as the man in front of you held out a job contract and the keys to a locker. After years of training as an acrobat you were finally where you wanted. Working at the biggest circus in the world.

The man who handed you the papers, Park Jimin, leader of the circus and thus your boss, smiled along with you before proclaiming:

“I hope you won’t see me just as your boss, but also as someone who you can come to get advice from.”

How naïve you were to think that any of the venom seeping out of his mouth would be genuine.

“Of course, sir. Thank you again for accepting me. I promise I will not disappoint.”

And disappoint you did not. It turned out the perfection you had for your craft kept drawing more and more people every night. Unfortunately, it also drew the negative attention coming from other workers.

Your mom was right when she said that sometimes you are too nice. Whenever the others threw their sweaty towels and told you to clean them or threw empty water bottles at your head because they “missed” the trash can you just put your head down.

It came to a point where even with people throwing flowers at your feet every night, more and more hatred putrefied in you. You had no friends, trained almost to the point of fainting and even after a year on the job not one of the other peers took you seriously.

Calling parents for advice didn’t help either, having been met with words such as “I thought this is what you wanted.” and “Well what am I supposed to do?”.

And despite his words in the beginning, Jimin also wasn’t of much help either. Whenever you met he was either working, talking to someone or screaming during the general assembly of all the performing acts.

“HOW MANY TIMES MUST I REPEAT MYSELF, YOU IMBECILES?”

The first time you heard him swear his lungs out you didn’t want to believe a face so beautiful and collected to be capable of turning into such a monstrous thing. But they’re just words. Surely you could brush those off and go on with your life. Soon enough it turned out the monster wasn’t just capable of screaming, but also punishing. And the black whip Jimin always had by his side was hungry for flesh.

Although you knew working in this industry would be harsh, this exhibit of leadership is downright diabolical.

Jimin, cracking his whip on one of the clowns while the hopeless one cowers into the circus floor, as if wanting to be swallowed by the earth.

The first time you saw this it felt like you were being transported to the Middle Ages. How could such barbaric methods still be used nowadays? But did you or anyone else do something to stop it? Of course not. The corruption of staying on the sidelines and not intervening crept into your veins. You worked so hard to get here. Why get out now?

The only thing you could do after that horrifying scene is promise that you would never end up in the position of that clown, ever.

How funny fate is sometimes.

                                                            ♥

Another whip cracks on your back as you’re being made an example out of.

“May I remind you that our motto here is “Art first”.”

His cold stare is pinned to your bloody back and your figure that is down on all 4, trembling and crying with teeth harshly grinding.

“Miss Y/N over here was found conspiring with our competition. What would it mean for me to just sit by without intervening?”

Of course you weren’t conspiring. All you did was find the hotel key of some girl from the other circus and were just being nice enough to return it since she stayed the same hotel. A misunderstanding in the eyes of one of your colleagues who quickly ran to tell Jimin. Unfortunately, what came out of her mouth was that you lent her the key to the choreography plans hidden in Jimin’s room.

Jimin knew this whole debacle wasn’t true. After all, he checked. But he wouldn’t pass the opportunity to humiliate. Especially, if it means humiliating the one nicknamed “Million Dollar Rose”. And just like a rose loses it petals so shall you lose all the hope you’ve ever had.

There was palpable seeping hatred that leaked out of his body for you. For your perfection in performance. Who the fuck do you think you are? Not missing a step in your routine while his dreams were stolen because of a leg injury.

“I hope tonight represents another one of my countless examples of what happens when you cross the line. Dismissed, all of you.”

The show might have been over for the others, but between the master and the subjugate the night barely started.

“As for you…” Jimin whispers knelt down to your body. “You’re fired.”

The earth might as well have swallowed you whole and crushed every bone in that moment and it still wouldn’t be as painful as those words. When Jimin gets up you scurry to follow him, but the burning slashes and adrenaline slow your shaky legs down.

Going in his office only humiliated you even more.

You dropped to your knees in front of him clasping your hands together with tears in your eyes.

“No! No! Please!”

“Your words mean nothing to me, miss Y/N. There is nothing I despise more than spies.” He speaks, continuing to walk with his back turned towards you.

“You have to believe me, the other girl can tell-”

“You want me to hear from the competition?!” Your comment indignities the man so much that for a second it makes you think it was better when he wasn’t looking at you. “As if they’d ever tell the truth.”

“Just- Please! I don’t have anywhere else to go! I’ll do anything, just please, let me keep this act!”

“…Anything?” Jimin asked incredulously.

Nothing feels more tragic than when Jimin touches your chin with his cane making you feel like a lost puppy at the mercy of a snake. If painters were to capture this scene what they would see in the small cabin is a man in power turning slowly and placing his boot on the small stool in front his subjugate. Eyes red and hurting,

It doesn’t take long to realize what he wants, so with no drop of self-esteem left in your soul your tongue darts out and swaps across the black leather.

“How funny. I never told you what I wanted. Yet you already thought you knew. And exceeded my expectations.”

His hand grabbed you by the top of your hair, gently enough that it also seemed romantic were it not for these circumstances, and forced both eyes to meet.

“I’m going to be honest with you, Y/N. I have never wanted to shove myself into someone’s body and be them.”

His hand left your head, instead raising you up by the leotard you were wearing and his palms caresses your face almost in a fatherly manner.

“Your eyes, your hair, your body. The way that you move, how you smile when people shout your name.” His hands slithered from your face to your neck and started choking you. “It makes me want crawl under your skin and live inside of you.” Jimin inhales deeply as if your soul was oozing out of the body and he was trying to capture it. “You are so perfect.”

You didn’t dare try to stop his hands from strangling your neck. After all, you’d probably be happy to die right now.

In a fell swoop Jimin turns your body around. You manage to grab onto his desk to not fall, mentally bracing yourself for what would follow: an agonizing throaty scream drips through grinding teeth as an entire bottle of whiskey is being poured on the fresh back cuts.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am so glad you are working for me and not for that piece of shit from the other circus. Did you know he sent job requests? You are so lucky that I got to see those letters first and put them on fire.” His hands were now travelling up and down your trembling back while you could only sob and look down at your feet.

“But still…it feels like you’re mocking me.” His tongue swept across your back to take in the alcohol mixed with the blood. Jimin’s face presses to yours and inhales deeply. One of his gloved hands grabs your jaw forcefully.

“Are you?”

Before you could answer his mouth crashed onto yours and you could feel the mix of the metallic taste and the alcohol disgustingly activating your taste buds.

Your mom was right when she said that sometimes you are too nice. But your mom doesn’t know nice people sometimes get the best rewards, because they knew how to work their way around people like Jimin. So instead of pushing the famous circus leader back, you face him and while still into the kiss innocently stroke his cheek. If you couldn’t convince, you might as well confuse.

Wide eyed and trembling, his lips separated from yours before falling onto the ground and clinging onto your waist like a child grabbing onto his mother. Soft sobs and hiccups escape the concealed face that is holding onto your legs with the fervor of a 5-year-old.

Your first instinct, after tearing at the emotional armor and anchoring back to reality, was to caress his hair. The second thing was realizing how much Jimin needed therapy.

You drop halfway down to gently place your palm on the leader’s face. You wouldn’t admit this out loud but seeing the man who tortured you 10 minutes ago ruined and disheveled, looking so disgustingly low made you want to step on his neck until he learned his place. But the opportunity to parasite into his mind was too big to miss.

So instead of choosing piece of mind, you choose violence.

“Jimin-ah…If I had known you needed my help, I would have come to you earlier.” You say while soothingly touching the man’s face with both palms.

“Don’t pity me.” His face turns stubbornly, prompting you to turn the blonde’s chin with a finger.  

“I wasn’t trying to. But you’re so mean to me that I can’t seem to get close as hard as I try.”

Your fingers slip under his black velvet glove trying to intertwine fingers with his “But I need you as much as you need me…so won’t you let me help you with that goal?”.

For a second it seems like his brain short-circuited, now knowing what to believe. No. He was the one running the place around here. But doesn’t it feel good when for once soft hands push you onto a office chair and the object of obsession now sits open legged on your lap, Jimin?

Besides, who is there to judge? The gods surely won’t look down on this manifest of love where with almost true intention the person on top sips out the worries out of your mouth with a gentle kiss. Or when shy fingers unbutton the white shirt and hips rub down on your massive erection.

Tell me, Jimin, do you feel dirty? Disgusted at this display of power? Shouldn’t it be you grabbing the hair and fucking others into walls? Why do you indulge in this person unzipping your pants and sinking down on you? Because your face contorts in pleasure at how tight they are? At how they call out your name making it sound religious? Or maybe because they attach their lips to your neck and their hot breath makes your skin crawl with rapture.

By now you can’t believe how far this has gone. Getting Jimin to pay attention was one thing, but bouncing on his cock? Unimaginable. Besides, you were technically already fired. What is he going to do? Double fire you?

You bury your face into his neck in an attempt to silence the moans, but right then Jimin shoves all the sounds down your throat with his thumb. Your tongue spares no inch of his delicate skin, circling and remembering every crease on his finger. His other arm grabs your entire body up and manhandles it on the mahogany desk. You hiss in pain, the wounds still fresh on the back.

“Does it still hurt?” Jimin plunges deeper and harder, relishing at the lewd sounds coming from between your legs.

“A little.”

“Good.” He says through greeted teeth before biting into your shoulder.

He may feel like you’ve lost your power grip on him so he certainly didn’t expect to feel you biting into his arm AND leave deep scratches onto his back.

“Fuck, you brat!”

“Give me back my fucking act.”

“You don’t get to demand shi-ah!” His words are cut short when you grip his hair so hard you might actually have plucked some.

“I worked fucking hard for it!”

Jimin chuckles, stopping his thrusts to look at your face.

“Is that so? I’ll give you your stupid job back. Hell, I’ll even double your pay. But you best believe that from now on every day you work at this circus is going to be a living hell.”

“Why are you doing this?”

Maybe it’s because of how deeply his gaze pierces yours, but you can’t help but feel like time is suddenly frozen.

“…you are everything I can’t be. And I will not accept that. So…I reached the conclusion that there’s only one way we can both be equal.”

You would say something else, but you your eyebrows knit together as the strong methane smell suddenly reaches your nostrils. The last thing you hear is the distinct sound of a zippo lighter and your partner’s final words:

“See you in hell.”

#bts #park jimin #jimin #bts smut #bts x reader #jimin x you #jimin x reader #smut #angst #jimin smut #jimin angst #circus #fanfiction #bts imagines #bts fanfic #circus au #bts jimin #bts one shot #kpop imagines #kpop smut #kpop angst

[meanautisticenbian]

Lilith Clawthorne has Borderline Personality Disorder: an essay

Content warnings: mentions of abuse, cults, and self harm

I don't have much of an intro but I need to get some things out of the way. 

First off, this is an essay that I made mostly for fun and because I feel like more people need to hear about this. I am not excusing Lilith's actions in any way, though hopefully this may explain some of them. 

Secondly, as you might know I have BPD myself. I'm self diagnosed yes, but I still have enough symptoms. I see a lot of myself in Lilith, as well as several traits, and I hope that this essay will be informative.

With all that being said, let's get into the analysis starting with the symptoms that are only hinted at. One of the hallmarks of Borderline Personality Disorder is an intense fear of abandonment, which Lilith seems to display disgusted as her desire to cure Eda's curse. If it's not clear enough, Eda's really the only thing Lilith cares about, which makes sense since she's clearly the only thing she has. We know that she isn't super close to Amity, despite what fans want to believe, we don't know if she's formed any positive relationships with anyone in the Emperor's Coven and it would say a lot of she didn't. With all that in mind, she is clearly very close to Eda and whenever she tries to get away from her, Lilith is always either pissed off or saddened. Sure, this could just be because she wants to heal Eda's curse and is most likely being punished by Belos, and that's why this is listed as something that's hinted at. Then again, Catra from She Ra is BPD coded as well and she mostly wanted to bring Adora back to the Horde because Shadow Weaver wanted her and was an abusive piece of shit, but it was pretty obvious that she also just wanted her crush and only friend back, so I don't see how this can't be applied to Lilith as well.

Lilith seems to have a black–and–white view on the people around her and maybe even herself. Whenever Eda escapes her, she suddenly flips from being loving and caring to her and really acting like she cares about her to treating her like she just pissed on her waffles. Her way of viewing other people (mostly Eda) is another symptom of BPD, being a black–and–white view on everything and rapid changes in self image and views of everyone else. One moment she views Eda as a beautiful and loving sister, the next she's just an old woman slowing her down. One moment Belos is a trustworthy leader, next he's a monstrous tyrant. One moment Luz is an annoying child she can use as bait, next she's her only hope in saving Eda.

She seems to harbor some of these feelings to herself as well. One moment she acts like she's fully aware of the baddie she is, and next she seems to hate herself. Another valid explanation is that this could also be viewed as her hiding her insecurities since she is clearly one to hold back those emotions and she only ever seems to let Eda see this side of her (save for Luz in the season 1 finale) but this is still a common BPD trait that seems to fit her so it would make sense.

Now let's move on to the more explicit symptoms. If it's not obvious enough, Lilith has some major anger issues. She was ready to kill Eda after she did as much as annoy her in Covention and tell her how worthless her life is after she (actually Luz) escapes her in Once Upon a Swamp. It was certainly reasonable for her to be upset about Luz accidentally blowing up the side of a building, but she had a worse outburst over her sister rhyming.

Now we move on to what I think is her most obvious trait: her impulsiveness. Like I said before, Lilith tends to have sudden violent outbursts and act without thinking. It doesn't excuse anything she's done but it certainly does explain a LOT.

It could be a possible explanation for why her first instinct was to use Luz as a human shield while she was fighting Eda and threw Luz off a cliff in order to get Eda to use all her magic instead of making a new bubble for Luz or doing literally anything that WOULDN'T harm Luz. This could maybe (key word) also provide an explanation for why she cursed Eda instead of going and talking to her (assuming she didn't), but her disorder seems to stem more from trauma than it does genetics, both of which are ways BPD can manifest.

Mood swings are another symptom she definitely has, but that can easily be paired with the point about her changes in self image and how she views others, as well as the points about her anger and impulsivity, so I won't go into detail about that.

Depression, guilt, and ongoing feelings of emptiness are obvious traits that don't need much explaining.

The last major trait wanna bring up is self harm and self destructive and suicidal behavior. I couldn't really find any point in which she showed any suicidal tendencies or urges to hurt herself and it is most likely that she won't be showing those traits at any point in the future, though I do believe it is possible that the show may depict self destructive behaviors in her. Obviously, she wouldn't be shown cutting or burning herself, but maybe it could be displayed in a more PG fashion such as her not taking proper care of herself or having risky behaviors.

There are nine main traits of BPD and one needs to have at least five of them to get a diagnosis. Lilith seems to exhibit six and possibly seven of these traits. I could end it here by saying that Lilith definitely has BPD and needs a hug, but we're not done yet.

Despite what most people might say about borderline people and how we're depicted, we're more likely to be victims of abuse than we are abusers. Most of the time the trauma from the abuse is the cause of the disorder, for those who don't inherit it. Many people with the disorder have claimed to have been physically, sexually, psychologically or emotionally abused or neglected during their lifetime. We don't know the exact details of Lilith's time in the coven or what it was like for her, all we know is that it was basically a cult and she definitely experienced some form of abuse. We know that emotional and psychological abuse were definitely present in her and Belos's relationship, and there is definitely a possibility that there was some physical abuse as well. As for neglect, there isn't really anything that can support the claim even if it seems plausible, and logically speaking, she most likely wasn't sexually abused simply just because this is a family show, so unless Disney is ok with Dana going THERE, that one's a little too far out of the realm of possibility.

So, where does that leave us? Well if I'm being honest, she definitely seems to have a case of untreated and probably undiagnosed BPD caused by a series of traumatic events. And the thing is, she's only in 6/19 episodes in the series so far, and we've probably only really seen the tip of the iceberg. She could have a lot more going on with her that we will definitely see in season 2, I highly doubt she won't.

Lilith is definitely BPD coded, and whether the rep is intentional or not, it's still something I can consider good rep. It's super rare that you find borderline characters in the media that are not abusers, manipulators, or terrible, irredeemable people in general. Lilith is not a bad person whatsoever, and even if she's not much of a good person either, she's not irredeemable. She certainly has a long way to go, but with proper guidance and psychological help, she will get there eventually.

I would like to finish this off by saying I'm not trying to excuse or condone her actions, I am simply addressing how it's possible for her to be borderline, based on what screen time she has and my own experiences. I just want to express my appreciation for what rep we have, as well as analyzing her character a bit.

Thank you all for reading

- Sunny

#the owl house #toh #lilith clawthorne #toh lilith #lilith #emperor belos #edalyn clawthorne #eda clawthorne #toh eda #toh luz #luz noceda #tagging them just because they're mentioned and important #cult mention #bpd #Borderline Personality Disorder

[xoruffitup]

2 Months Later: Still Thinking About Annette

Alright here I go, BACK ON MY BULLSHIT! It’s another analysis post absolutely no one asked for! :)))

So I have now seen Annette *pauses to count* six times: Twice in Cannes, twice in US theaters, then twice on Prime with friends who hadn’t watched it yet. I have yet to tire of it nor have I ceased to find new layers and questions each and every time. The initial shock of its strangeness has almost entirely faded, and now I can peer into the abyss (ba dum tsss) of even the deranged “I tickled her to death” scene without flinching.

What I’ve come to most admire about this film is the contrast of its richness and restraint. I know, it seems ridiculous to characterize anything in this movie as ‘restrained.’ But what I am principally referring to is its ambiguity. The film certainly has plenty to say, and touches on a panoply of biting social commentaries. Yet even for its moments of stark self-awareness and its constant challenging of the very divide between performer and audience/bystander (put a pin in that for later), it never moralizes. It never announces its message. It remains stubbornly strange and difficult to grasp. Its characters are both stereotypes and foils. Its world remains highly surreal, even while referencing social ills and controversies from our own reality. Henry is criminal and monstrous in one moment, then human and pitiable the next. Ann is the selfless face of the #MeToo movement one moment, vengeful ghoul the next.

There are two sides to every coin, and about a hundred different conclusions one could claim the movie to really be “about.” As my favorite review of the film aptly put it: “Annette masters its own paradoxes. It’s a highly cerebral, formally complex film about unbridled emotion. A work of art propelled by a skepticism about where art comes from and why we value it the way we do. (…) Utterly unreal and completely truthful.” I have no answers here, only a whole lot of thoughts and connections to roll around in and fling into the ether. LET’S GET STARTED.

The first recurring element that made me realize I needed to write more about this film: The monkeys. After six viewings, I hope I’ve spotted all the references: 

Henry’s show is “The Ape of God” 

He eats bananas before going on stage

Annette has a number of stuffed monkey toys throughout the film

That bizarre shot of a gorilla holding newborn Annette in a roomful of other gorillas in the “Something’s About to Happen” montage

Henry looks through the shop window at a toy monkey playing cymbals while he sings “I’m A Good Father” after being questioned by the police.

On top of that, Leos made a comment in a Q&A about Adam looking like a monkey but “not in a bad way” – more in a primal sense. So why does Leos have monkeys on the brain?

By my view, this drives at a key tension in Henry’s character and the reason for much of his discontent. His public persona exists as the unstable subject of both acclaim and contempt. Even at the height of his success, he is still derided by his public to a certain degree. (“Ann and me, you disagree? What, is it blasphemy? Is she too perfect, and I some loathsome insect?”) His audience laugh and laud his antics and crude misbehavior, while he contorts himself into displays of vulgarity and self-derision, making himself a source of entertainment more akin to an animal in a zoo rather than a human performing art. In this sense, his existence is paralleled to that of a performing monkey, willing to exhibit any and all kinds of antisocial, cynical, and even grotesque behavior so long as it holds the public’s attention.

We see in the film’s middle stretch, when Henry’s personal unraveling is precipitated by the decline of his stardom, just how dependent he is upon these public overtures. We see in the dreaded reenactment of the tickling scene just how far he’s willing to go to cling to his spotlight. The song in his stand-up show (“Laugh, laugh, laugh, but don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me”) is really about Henry himself. We also see, in the film’s probing of the divides between artistry and artifice, how his dependence and desperation for public acclaim extend far beyond the stage. There are repeated instances of phantom audiences laughing at him – during the “I’m babysitting” interlude and when he “hears the stars laughing at me” just after he hears Annette sing for the first time when they’re stranded after the shipwreck. The laughter he elicits from his audiences haunts him, with its hint of mockery and scorn at his misanthropic eccentricity. He is not revered as an artist the way Ann is; rather, he is ogled like an oddity. Like a performing monkey, doing what the public has trained him to do. There is of course a tragic circularity here: Henry perverts himself to earn the public’s attention and love, feeding into their craving for the strange and shocking. In the very act, whatever love he hopes to receive becomes itself perverted, making him crave more.

(This troubled dependency is most directly captured in “You Used To Laugh”: “My dear public, ... you make me sick, you ruthless, unpredictable beasts.”)

This also connects to what ultimately becomes the undoing of Ann and Henry’s relationship: His jealousy and yearning for the same pure love Ann receives from her own public. Henry is never adored and idolized by his audiences the way Ann is by hers. I can’t help thinking the demonstration of this is the sole purpose of the scene where we see Henry come to Ann’s performance and watch her take her bows from backstage as the audience showers her with adulation. This is the thing Henry craves most, and why he acts the way he does (both on and off stage): To be loved that same way.

(I’m getting off course from the monkey thing but I’ll work my way back. Stick with me!! There are too many thoughts!)

The film’s tragedies are multi-layered, but chief among them is the fact that Henry’s craving for this same kind of veneration blinds him to the love he already receives from Ann. It makes him unwilling and/or unable to accept and internalize such love, let alone truly return it. Every time the melody of “We Love Each Other So Much” is repeated throughout the film, it grows increasingly somber and haunting – a far cry from the tender, pure-hearted declaration of its original form. The melody grows more melancholy as our understanding deepens of Henry’s character and our witnessing of his fall progresses. It becomes harder and harder to see this man as capable of a love like that, and we come to wonder whether he ever was at all. The exposure of his central tragic flaw – the reason for all this misfortune – is completed in the final scene, when Annette sings this melody for the final time with the opposite sentiment: “Now you have nothing to love.” Henry is plagued, to the end, by his compulsive need and yet incapacity for love.

His fraught, tormented relationship with his fame – trapped in this existence as nothing more than a performing monkey – defines his behavior both on and off stage. The mix of fascination and distaste with which his audiences regard him becomes internalized; shown to the extreme when we see newborn Annette being held by a gorilla in place of a father. He hates himself, is compulsively self-destructive through alcohol and pills, and yet is desperate for love and validation in any form. (It really all boils down to that line in “All The Girls”: “Hard to imagine all these fucking men who hate themselves but want us to love them.”)

Henry pretends to treat his audience with contempt, but then we see how he spirals once they turn on him. And since his show is a reflection of his truth - the only way he can admit it (he became a comedian because “it’s the only way I know to tell the truth without getting killed”), his performance of self becomes extreme and grotesque as his inability to love and be loved by either Ann or the public grows starker. He doesn’t know what to do with love or how to internalize it, and it becomes caught up in his self-destruction.

In Annette’s singing tour, Henry seeks a final chance to win back the public’s attention. (Why else would he need to take the stage himself to introduce her?) In another layer of tragedy, he subjects his daughter to the same existence that has for so long been his source of torment. She takes stages around the world, performing the same old song to the shock and delight of audiences everywhere – all while repeatedly shown holding a stuffed monkey.

This self-perpetuating cycle, subjecting first father then daughter to the whims and validation of flighty audiences, is not truly ended until the film’s final scene. Once Annette becomes a real girl, we see her fling the stuffed monkey away as she declares, “I will never sing again.” She rejects the role her father has tried to impose on her, and in so doing saves herself of the same fate. The camera shows that she leaves the monkey behind once she leaves – the symbol of both childhood and the exploitative existence she was forced into in attempt to win a fleeting illusion of love and affirmation.

This is also the moment Henry himself finally casts off the performing monkey complex – finally no longer willing to exist as a public spectacle; finally recognizing the costs were far too steep. “Stop watching me,” he murmurs to the camera in what becomes a more and more intriguing final line each time I hear it. A repudiation of modern media’s voyeuristic tendencies? A direct escalation of the film’s questions of performativity versus sincerity? The formal structural bookend to the film’s fourth wall-breaking first line: “May we start?” Or simply Henry departing the metaphorical stage for good?

I touched on Henry’s jealousy of Ann’s success as a key aspect of his character. There are a multitude of reasons why Henry is never adored by the public the way Ann is – some far beyond the simple reason of his show being of questionable taste. His jealousy is overt, menacing, and of course becomes the driver of the film’s great tragedy. Yet, I was continuously intrigued by the manner in which his underlying envy was expressed and escalated. Why is he so preoccupied with Ann “dying” on stage every night?

The very first time we hear them converse introduces this preoccupation and also establishes the diametric contrasts between them:

“How did the show go?” “I killed them. Destroyed them. Murdered them.” “Good boy.” “And your gig?” “I… saved them.” “You die so magnificently. Honey, you’re always dying.”

I kept asking myself just why Henry is so particularly bothered by Ann’s “dying” on stage. Why is this the thing he focuses on? Why does this fan the flames of his discontent and rage? Why is this representative of all he so yearns to have, but cannot?

During his first stand-up show: “She dies and dies and dies and then she bows and bows and bows. She’ll be bowing now till dawn. Honey, I love you so, but all that bowing’s got to go.”

While he’s home with newborn Annette: “Tonight, while she’s singing and dying, I’m babysitting.”

Of course, while waltzing in the storm: “Always trumpeting the sacred values. And then dying, dying, dying!”

The interesting thing is: This preoccupation isn’t fabricated within Henry’s head. He is not the only one equally horrified and mesmerized by the performance of a woman dying. We all, as a society, are as well. (Just why do we all know Gabby Petito’s name?) Ann’s fame grows and grows, swelled by rapturous audiences who applaud her death night after night. Her early line of “I saved them” codes her performed ‘deaths’ as sacrificial acts. As an artist, she is the very opposite of all Henry is: Selfless, beautiful, virtuous, and pure contrasted with Henry’s narcissism, vulgarity, menace, and im/amorality.

There are a number of frameworks through which to view this polarity – all of which seem equally valid and only add to the film’s complexity. In the most fundamental framework of gendered behavior, Ann is the archetypal woman to Henry’s archetypal man. He is brutish, dangerous, self-centered, and oblivious to the harms he causes. She is gentle, delicate, refined, and vulnerable. The imagery is not subtle. Just before “We Love Each Other So Much,” Ann’s neck is accentuated as both lovely and at risk as Henry’s massive hands hover at either side. 

The tickling scene is a fascinating indulgence and blurring of these archetypes. He approaches the bed as a hooded, menacing figure; she shrinks away, lifting her arms in a melodramatic show of self-defense. The image is almost comically self-aware. Then Henry sets upon her, and (though HIGHLY uncomfortable to witness) what follows is somehow both innocent and disquieting. He uses force, pinning her down beneath his considerable bulk and batting her hands away as he does what she implores him not to do. And yet, this is the only moment in the film when they share laughter, and the show of force then transforms into one of contented mutual affection.

In another brilliant display of ambiguous and opposing tensions, Henry and Ann are caricatures of gendered tropes, rendered so obviously that their apparent flatness reflects added meaning onto everything around them. Most interesting to me is the question of why Henry and Ann – tropes as they are – enjoy their respective versions of fame in the first place. I see this question as intimately connected to the film’s blurring of reality versus performance; and with it the eliding of boundaries between external audience and co-creator. Annette is more performance piece than it is film – casting the viewer as an active participant in the construction of its own experience by removing the fourth-wall, and by the artistic choice to show prolonged scenes of staged performances during which we are made aware of watching something both more immediate and distanced than actors in an enclosed, fabricated cinema world. It is also noteworthy that Henry’s audiences are shown as distinct individuals actively responding to his provocations – not merely a passive presence shrouded in shadow. His audience is both a stand-in for us as the viewers (the on-screen audience playing out our real-life responses to Henry’s degeneracy), and a vehicle through which we are called to self-examination.

Henry is a far more familiar character than any of us would like. The arc of his self-aggrandizement and self-hatred is utterly unoriginal, and this is intentional. We are left wondering why we – we being the audiences filling Henry’s show night after night, we being the cinemagoers sitting in the theatre, we even being the Netflix-bingers for whom consumption has replaced discernment – perpetually seem to give stages to men such as this. I won’t detour into political commentary here (though I can certainly see one), but will leave this thread at the question of what it tells us about ourselves, that such displays of male egotism are still so often met with applause and celebrity.

The question of Ann’s success is still more pernicious. The review I referenced in my opening calls the film “a critique of the romantic mythology on which its appeal would seem to depend.” Here is where I see that critique most directly played out – in its overt reference to the classical operatic and mythological traditions which underlie the film’s structure, enable Ann’s success, and ultimately essentialize her to the point of her own destruction. With few exceptions, the stories immortalized in opera are those of either seductive temptresses (think Carmen or La Traviata) or sacrificial virgins (think Brunnhilde throwing herself onto Siegfried’s funeral pyre), all of whom meet death before the curtain falls. I have a particularly vivid memory of seeing a production of Wagner’s Parsifal, advertised by an image of the hero standing atop a pile of female bodies. I remember the ad more clearly than the actual opera. Watching women “die and bow” is nothing new – we’ve been doing it collectively for centuries. Not only do we watch it again and again, but we elevate it to the echelons of High Art.

When you stare into the dark abyss (the “a-b-y-s-s, you illiterates”), the abyss stares back. Why do we as a society, as consumers, as viewers of art, continue to promulgate mythologies of murdered women and grant attention to displays of male entitlement and narcissism? From its very beginning, Henry and Ann’s story left very little to guess. Stronger than foreshadowing, Ann’s death and Henry’s descent into criminality were fated: Predetermined by the same dark desires and primitive gendered expectations by which they each initially rose to success.

Their existence as symbols, rather than individuals, leaves them little room to stray from their respective destinies. In consecutive, parallel scenes, we see how they are each haunted by the pervasive power of these regressive gendered mythologies. Ann dreams up an imagined #MeToo reckoning against Henry, casting him as the modern equivalent of the violent, chauvinistic male stereotype. Then, on the back of his bike, Henry sees visions of Ann meeting death night after night, always dressed in costume and sometimes murdered at the hands of men. It is only a matter of time until life imitates art. For purposes of this film, there was never much distinction between the two to begin with.

This is not to absolve Henry of personal culpability for his actions (or maybe it is, actually, because the idea of holding fictional characters ‘accountable’ for anything is simply asinine), but rather to say that Ann’s death should hardly come as a shock, predetermined as it was through every single sacrificial role she sang, and even her off-stage devotion to “saving” her audience. Before this background, there is little uniquely shocking or even aberrant in Henry’s actions (except maybe the fact that he didn’t intentionally murder her). This applies to both the on- and off-screen audience. There is something ironic and hypocritical in the same people who applauded Ann’s nightly deaths waving signs declaring, “Stop femicide.”

A few last thoughts on those particular moments that elicited different responses each time I watched:

Is the Conductor actually Annette’s father?

My take is no. First off, the timing doesn’t seem possible since Ann got pregnant after she and Henry were married. Then, the more I think about the Conductor’s character, the more I see him as deeply deluded, using Ann’s memory as both a comfort and coping mechanism after her death. It’s strange that we never see Ann so much as interact with him, let alone mention him. We see absolutely no indication that she feels anything at all for him. I can believe that she and the Conductor did indeed have a brief relationship before she met Henry, but it seems unlikely to have been much more than a fling.

What makes me suspicious of the Conductor’s claims is the fact that it’s only after Ann’s death that he begins to thread the narrative of them having fostered some secret love. At this point, she is no longer alive to dispute his story and he, in his grief over her, would have motivation to make himself believe he had been closer to her than he ever truly was. He can’t get much closer than being the father of her child, and I think he really grows attached to the idea during Annette’s concert tour.

I don’t think he lies about anything on purpose, but the result of his fantasies is that, ironically, he reduces Ann to a bargaining chip. His final words, “If only I had gotten Ann to love me more” always struck me as exposing his delusions. He does not regret her loss as a person; but rather the lost gain he himself could have had.

Melodramatic opera just wouldn’t be complete without two men fighting over a woman as if she’s an object – their true aim being supremacy over each other.

(Fangirl aside: ….. come on. Look at this little string bean next to ripped, primal sex god Henry McHenry and let’s be real, there’s little question who the father is.)

Finally, I can’t bring this to a conclusion without discussing THE OSCAR MONEY SHOT: That breathtaking, heartbreaking, exquisitely inscrutable close-up of Henry when Annette won’t sing at the Hyperbowl. Is he laughing? Is he crying? Both simultaneously? WHO CAN TELL?

Here’s my take: At this point, Henry has some idea of both what really happened on the boat and the fact that Ann is haunting him. This was established in those VERY narratively necessary shots of him taking his shirt off before getting in bed, where he asks himself, “Did I kill the one I love?” He recounts his recurring dream that “she’s here lying by my side,” and finally begs Ann’s forgiveness.

Ann is haunting him chiefly through Annette’s voice, so the fact that Annette now refuses to sing probably makes Henry think, in that moment at least, that he is free of Ann’s spirit. I imagine this would evoke a myriad of overwhelming emotions: Relief that he will no longer be tormented, but also sadness and loss that she is now truly gone from him.

Yes, I really do see all that on his face in those few long moments. Our fave is just THAT good.

So that about wraps up this latest installment of my overly involved analysis of the latest Adam Thirst Trap. :) Annette will always have a special place in my heart because it defined my Cannes experience, but it’s still an utterly singular and fascinating film no matter how you view it. Even if you take it purely at face value, it still delivers one of the wildest rides of your life.

To anyone who read this far: Thank you!! Keep talking to me about Annette in comments / asks! As you can gather, I literally never seem to get tired of it! <3

#Annette #Adam Driver #henry mchenry #Annette meta #Annette analysis

[be-al2-o4]

It's not October but consider.

Haunted Mandalorian Armor.

Not, "oh no I put on this armor and now I'm possessed!" Get out of here with your Sith nonsense.

Actual moving armor containing the conciousness (or what's left of it) of those proven to be dar'manda.

The monsters, demagolka, those with no honor or code.

This isn't showing your face and putting up your guns

These are actual horror stories.

"Why don't we go explore the ruins in the desert from the civil wars? There's bound to be so much history and culture there!"

"Did your Buir never tell you not to go there? Never tell you the stories of the Beskar'gam Shaadla ti Dar'manda? The Armor Moving with No Soul?"

Monstrous acts committed for the sake of change to please the old God, Kar Ha'ragnir. Slaughtering entire cities solely for conquest. And worse abandoning their God's teachings of change and growth for the false promises of Arasuum. Stagnating in their ways, until all they knew was hunting and death.

But not their own death. Even after their bodies gave out and their hearts stopped, Arasuum would not let them go. Would not let them change or pass on. They are trapped in their armor, and trapped in the places they haunt. They cannot change. They cannot be killed.

But they can kill.

We do not go into the old ruins on Mandalore.

Or

Soldiers, mandalorians, warriors, who follow the Resol'nare but when death greets them and beckons them to join manda, the over soul, they turn away.

It could be cowardice, to run away from their final fate.

It could be duty, refusing to allow another to carry the burden.

It could be despair, just a little more time, just to save one more, "I dont have time for manda my brothers are suffering"

And they get back up.

Their armor comes off occasionally at first.

But they died. There is no coming back from that.

Their body starts to rot.

So they put on the armor. And never take it off.

They haunt battlefields. Present and past.

Walking through ruins, remembering the blast that killed their riduur. The shrapnel that doomed them. Saying the names of every person they knew that died there.

A sudden ally or enemy on the battlefield.

No one knows where this Mandalorian comes from, or why they're fighting. Why they shrug off every fatal hit.

No one can find them after the battle.

"We have to find them! They could be dying!"

"If that's what I think it was, it's probably already dead. Best not to draw anymore of its attention."

But also

clone troopers getting back up

Not all of them. Some are ready to go.

Some never thought of what it means to be Mando'ade

For some it's not a choice at all, leaping away from their servitude knowing they'll see their brothers when its time.

But some get back up.

They keep 'surviving'

Until they don't.

Their body deteriorating under their blacks

Their brothers notice the odd behavior they start exhibiting but mostly it's written off as trauma.

They notice a smell.

Until one day they disappear.

On the battlefield as a casualty.

Or AWOL

But with the close quarters and the medical checks they can't hide the fact that they're decomposing.

But when their brothers are fighting, there may be an extra shiny or two in the battle.

They can never be found afterwards so its assumed they died.

When the lists are checked and units accounted for, well battles are messy and not all bodies can be recovered for identification or burial.

Anyone who notices the discrepancy doesn't mention it. Another Vod to watch your back is good news in a fight.

Until someone brings up security breaches. Possible Spies pretending to be Vod.

And one of the commanders in the meeting starts to shake and tells them of one his troopers. He saw Jammer, CT-4358, shot straight through the neck. Saw him fall and bleed out. And then 20 minutes later get up and keep fighting.

Jammer appeared fine. But he never reported to medical.

Jammer started pulling away from his batch mates. Displaying signs of suspicion and paranoia.

Jammer no longer touched or allowed others to touch him and wore full armor everywhere.

One day he pulled Jammer aside and Jammer's shoulder collapsed.

When Jammer tried to run he grabbed his hand.

It came off.

Jammer told him what happened.

He was going. Leaving. Heading someplace better. But he couldn't leave his batch mates behind as fodder for the Republic's war.

5 hours later CT-4358 was reported dead via a malfunctioning weapons unit.

But Jammer is still helping his batch mates, still fighting.

But he no longer belongs to the Republic.

However

They can fixate on things. They have nothing else. They take up causes.

Justice.

Vengeance.

The return of Mandalorian people.

They never remove their armor.

They find others with similar goals.

They never take off their armor.

To remove your helmet is to be with out soul.

The helmet is your face (their face rotted off a long time ago, the helmet is all they have)

Children are the future of Mandalore.

No living being can see your face.

They could create a clan almost entirely of foundlings.

And teach them it's normal to never take off their armor.

Follow the Resol'nare.

Never remove your helmet.

It is the way.

*edited for typos. Let me know if you see more.

#tw body horror #Star Wars #mandalorian culture #long post #head canons #the mandalorian #haunted armor

[thatboomerkid]

Giff -- SpellJammer Race for Pathfinder

Giff -- SpellJammer Race [19 RACE POINTS] for First Edition Pathfinder

Known to the gnomes of Markovia as the nilski konj vojnici, to the Hin plantation-owners of Covington Farms as los mercenarios gigantes del río, and to the human field-workers laboring near New Arvoreen most-often simply as “those big goddamn bastards,” the giff -- as they are called in their own guttural, roaring language -- represent a recently-contacted species of huge, violent, powerfully-built, terrifyingly-focused, and dangerously cagey combatants.

In the little-over-a-century since their discovery by the Hin, platoons of giff have already carved a bloody name for themselves across the wilds of Verdura -- and far beyond -- as unparalleled river-guides, rowdies, strike-breakers, mob debt-collectors, private enforcers, heavy-weapons units, siege engines, bodyguards, and elite soldiers of fortune.

Brought to you absolutely free to enjoy, to test & to share – as always – by the fine folks of my Patreon.

original image by the incredible Claudio Pozas, here

Type: Monstrous Humanoid (3 RP)

Ability Score Modifiers: Mixed Weakness (-2 RP)

+2 Strength, -4 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -4 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom

Size: Large (7 RP)

Giff gain a +2 size bonus to Strength and a -2 size penalty to Dexterity (already included above). Giff also suffer a -1 size penalty to their AC and a -1 size penalty on all attack rolls; they gain a +1 bonus on combat maneuver checks and to their CMD, and suffer a -4 size penalty on Stealth checks.

A giff takes up a space that is 10 feet by 10 feet and has a reach of 5 feet.

Base Speed: Normal speed (0 RP)

Languages: Standard (0 RP); giff speak their own eponymous, curiously poetic language, and most are -- in the modern day -- also conversant in Low Kozah-Talosii (usually spoken with a thick, pompous Verduran accent).

This bastardized dialect, the so-called “Common tongue” favored across Pyrespace for use in international, intercultural, and interplanetary trade, is a degraded mongrel variant of High Kozah-Talosii: the ancient root-tongue of both Arvorean and Brandobarin, still employed by the Church of Yondalla for use in sermons, hymns, and in all official records.

Big Damn Guns: Giff are treated as gnomes for purposes of the Experimental Gunsmith Archetype. (0 RP)

Darkvision: Giff have 60 ft. darkvision (0 RP); giff have relatively poor eyesight while out of water, which is easily corrected with simple lenses -- such as a monocle -- for use while reading. This vision is not poor enough to impart a mechanical penalty on Perception checks or attack rolls made by the giff.

Natural Armor: Giff have +3 natural armor (4 RP)

Natural Attack (Headbutt): Giff receive one natural attack, which is treated as a gore attack that deals 1d8 bludgeoning damage. (1 RP)

Natural Swimmers: Giff have a swim speed of 30 feet and gain the +8 racial bonus on Swim checks that a swim speed normally grants. (1 RP)

Powerful Charge (Headbutt): Whenever a giff charges, it deals twice the standard number of damage dice with its headbutt plus 1-1/2 times its Strength bonus. (2 RP)

River-Sense: Giff can sense vibrations in water, granting them blindsense 30 feet against creatures that are touching the same body of water. (1 RP)

Slow On Land: Giff often select the Clumsy, Easy Target, Magically Inept, Nearsighted, and Slow Reflexes Major Drawbacks (0 RP)

Spell Resistance (Greater): Giff have spell resistance equal to 11 + their character level. (3 RP)

Sporting: The species-wide love of warfare exhibited by the giff draws a sharp line of distinction between “sporting” and “unsporting” combat (see below). (-1 RP)

Sporting combat includes arm-wrestling, fisticuffs, darts, cards, dice, checkers, chess, billiards, cricket, rugby, skeet shooting, tennis, and golf, alongside tests of boasting, carousing, headbutting, toast-giving, swimming, push-ups, and a complex, ritualized sort of thunderous, unarmed mixed martial-art performed solely while stripped down to breeches & undergarments, usually in ankle-deep to waist-deep water, ending in pin or submission, which -- up to a point -- also serves as a type of flirting.

The military mentality of the giff even makes special allowances for a variety of “sporting” duels to the death. Establishing a proper duel requires a huge number of complex ritual elements that -- in the end -- mostly boils down to both giff formally acknowledging that:

Both giff are armed with approximately the same quality of weapons & armor (warhammer, combat knife, pistol, full plate, etc.)

Both giff have equal access to military support, including healing

Both giff have a grievance, no matter how petty

Both giff are suffering approximately the same level of injuries

Both giff have made arrangements for their estate, and for the treatment of their body after death

Once a “sporting” challenge to the death has been agreed-to by both parties, anything up to and including outright murder of one’s opponent is considered fair game.

Several major holidays each year celebrated by the giff include a “violent dueling festival” as part of their celebration; to outsiders, these events have a very bizarre, genteel, 1800s-Victorian-Teddy-Roosevelt-meets-The-Purge sort of feel to them:

“Happy holidays, friend; best of health this year to you and to your kin. And I say, old chap, don’t suppose it’s high time for a kukri-duel, eh, wot wot? Seeing as you got drunk on my finest brandy, made a pass at the missus, wiped your prodigious buttocks with my table linens, and micturated in my hedge-row as of Christmas last, well ... in lieu of an apology, what say I have Jenkins fetch the carving blades, eh? See which of has the moxie, shall we? Cheerio and have at thee then, old sport?”

If this formal challenge to a lethal sporting-duel is declined, the challenger must make all possible accommodations to guarantee the immediate physical safety of the giff she just challenged (at least until such time as the two giff part ways once more): providing the giff with weapons, armor, food, water, medicine, reading materials, a place to sleep, liquor, smoking tobacco, and anything else a gentleman or lady of high breeding could reasonably expect to have access to (even while imprisoned).

In short: if the challenged giff dies immediately after declining a duel, it is considered very embarrassing for the challenger.

For his own part, the declining giff must treat her challenger with the very utmost level of respect ... or risk being guilty of unsporting conduct, a fate far worse than mere death.

Any giff who finds herself about to violate the terms of properly “sporting” conduct instantly becomes aware of the error, just as if she were wearing a phylactery of faithfulness and, at all times, actively contemplating the thought of doing bodily harm to another giff: this behavioral limitation is not built as a trap for players to accidentally stumble into, but -- instead -- as an interesting roadblock to navigate around.

If two or more giff find themselves forced into a position of armed conflict against one another on a battlefield, both groups traditionally retire for at least a day of drinking and sorting-out ranks; on rare occasion, one platoon will join the other; more likely, all giff involved in any part of the operation will quit their current hirings and look for work elsewhere.

Any giff who engages another member of her own species in any type of unsporting combat -- attacking another giff with a weapon, for example, or with magic -- immediately suffers a -2 penalty on all skill checks, ability checks, attack rolls and saves; she continues to suffer this penalty until such time as she is able to make amends: presenting her victim with a formal written apology, or seeking our her victim’s family to beg their public pardon.

Each month, this penalty increases by 2. Guilt is a poison that grows by degrees, after all: ever-gnawing.

While she is suffering penalties in this way, if the giff is presented with the chance to punish herself – or a non-giff opponent! – while presented with something that reminds the giff of her betrayal, she may find herself compelled to do so regardless of the consequences:

Any time her betrayal is directly brought to her attention, the giff must make a Will save (DC = 10 + her character level + the Charisma modifier of the wronged giff). Failure means that the giff falls into a rage of abject self-loathing, completely focused on her own guilt for a number of rounds equal to the DC, above. Until she has finished with this exercise in hate, the giff can take no action other than to harm the reminder of her failure or enable herself to harm it: grappling a human shipmate who mentioned her old friend so that she might headbutt the human while strangling them, for example, or calmly loading a shotgun so that she might shoot the human dead in cold blood.

Note that the giff, while wracked with guilt & grief, is not required to do anything or harm anyone: she may simply stare at an old photograph and feel sad, for example, ignoring everyone around her.

During the fury of this black tempest, the giff suffers a -2 penalty to her AC.

Once the giff successfully makes amends, either with the wronged party or with the victim’s next-of-kin, all of the above penalties are removed. Entire subsets of giff society -- mediators, arbitrators, and negotiators -- are explicitly adapted to making absolutely certain that any errors in sporting conduct among giff are resolved quickly, and to the satisfaction of all parties. 

Should she fail to make amends before her death, any giff who has harmed another giff in an unsporting way invariably rises again as an undead horror of some kind (often a blood knight or graveknight): reborn as a rotting, lurching mountainside of infinitely destructive hated.

Note that the Sporting Racial Trait is not purely social, but rather acts as a species-wide ingrained psychological virtue: two giff living on Fenris who never expect to see the wide rivers of Verdura again are still bound by the rules of “sporting” conflict; neither could shoot the other in the back any more than either of them could grow wings and fly to the moon.

Undead giff do not possess the Sporting Trait, which is seen -- by living giff -- as the most abhorrent and disturbing quality imaginable.

Note, also, that the desire to behave in a sporting manner extends only to fellow giff: Chaotic Evil giff will routinely massacre unarmed non-giff by the thousands, bellowing with laughter as they do so, and even a Lawful Good giff will rarely think twice before sucker-punching a crude human making drunken threats and impolite remarks at the bar.

-------

Giff Timeline:

1603 A.D. (118 years ago): The colony of New Arvoreen is established on Verdura; giff make contact with Hin (and their human servants) for the first time.

1620 A.D.: First generation of giff who have always known about the existence of Hin, humans, and -- most importantly! -- firearms fully comes of age.

1636 A.D.: New Arvoreen is significantly expanded.

1667 A.D.: Nation of Markovia -- the technological-marvel nation named for its Founder, Monarch and Supreme Leader, Dr. Adlai Markovitch -- founded on Verdua; diplomatic trade established with New Arvoreen.

1669 A.D.: City of New Arvoreen significantly expanded.

1702 A.D.: New Arvoreen significantly expanded; land officially cleared for Covington Farms, soon to be the largest agricultural facility in the system; rates of forcible immigration of indentured humans to New Arvoreen tripled.

1721 A.D.: (current year)

original image here

Giff Ranks: Lieutenant, General, Colonel, Major General, Lieutenant General, Lieutenant Colonel, Captain General, Brigadier General, Field Marshall, Major, Captain, Sergeant Major, Commandant General, Wing General, Lieutenant Colonel General, Staff Sergent, Master Sergent, Master General, Grenadier General; note that “Lord” may be added to any military rank, alongside the designations of “First” and “First Class” (for example, “First Lord Brigadier General First Class”)

Giff military ranks are, effectively, meaningless noise to everyone except the giff themselves: every member of the species is a decorated officer of some complex rank within some elite military company or another, but such ranks are largely ceremonial and may be inherited, purchased, or passed through elaborate, bombastic ritual.

Further, the only thing preventing a young giff from forming an entirely new military organization & immediately naming herself -- of example -- Supreme Acting Field Commander and Secretary General of the Armies and Navies at Wartime is -- up to a point -- her own willingness to do so.

Male Giff Names: Any invented male Hin name.

Female Giff Names: Any invented female Hin name.

Giff Family Names: Any invented male Hin first name

Society

The giff are military-minded, and organize themselves into squads, platoons, companies, corps, and larger groups. The number of giff in a platoon varies according to the season, situation, and level of danger involved.

A giff "platoon" hired to protect a gambling operation may number only a single soldier, while a platoon hired to invade an illithid stronghold may number well over a hundred.

The giff pride themselves on their weapon-skills, and any giff carries a number of swords, daggers, maces, and similar tools on hand to deal with troublemakers.

A giff's true love, however, is the gun. A misfiring weapon matters little to the giff (occasional fatalities amongst soldiery are simply to expected); it is the flash, the noise, and the damage that most impress them.

Even unarmed, the giff are powerful opponents. Against non-giff, they’ll often wade into a brawl just for the pure fun of it, tossing various combatants on both sides around to prove themselves the victors.

Once a weapon is bared, however, and the challenge becomes “unsporting,” the giff consider all restrictions off: the challenge is now to the death.

The giff prize themselves as top-quality mercenaries, and to that end take great pride in owning -- if not always wearing -- elaborate suits of full-plate armor. These suits usually include massive helms featuring hyper-detailed, semi-realistic images of exotic monsters on the crests, inlaid with ivory and bone along the largest plates.

Armor repair is a major hobby among the giff, although great skill at the craft is surprisingly rare.

The giff are deeply suspicious of magic, magicians, and magical devices; their legendary foes, the Five Tiger Princes, are despised for their esoteric abilities as much for their wicked deviltry.

image here

Family

The giff are, for the most part, happiest among fellow members their own race, intermingling broadly with the Ghoran -- whom the giff utilize as an edible, inexhaustible workforce -- and the Tengu: another unofficial “servitor race” of the giff, most often used as messengers and household servants.

Ghoran living on giff lands are stoic: dutifully tending the fields of the giff in exchange for protection from ten-thousand other, vastly more predatory dangers. For all that giff treat the ghoran as disposable -- a ghoran living on Verdura produces one seed each year, and can grow a new member of the species in a single month -- the giff do not want the ghoran hunted to total extermination. That, for the ghoran, is saying something,

Tengu, on the other hand, are deeply prized by the giff as staff, usually in the roles of personal assistants, groomers, decorators, butlers, bartenders, man-servants, attaches, major domos, and maids. Since all giff are “wealthy land owners,” to one degree or another, the true power & prestige of a giff can be accurately measured by the number of tengu he employs.

Giff otherwise consider anything larger than them deeply threatening, yet also complain bitterly -- in private -- about the fragility of the smaller races. Outside their own platoons, the giff are happiest among military organizations with a strong chain of command.

For this reason, giff hold the Church of Yondalla in exceptionally high regard.

Giff especially despise the catfolk: although they don’t speak of it to outsiders, a century ago the giff were on the verge of extinction: hunted for sport and trophy by servants of the Five Tiger Princes, their people nearly cut to nothing and their lands held by only a few remaining families. Since their acquisition of firearms -- and the arrival of the Hin -- the catfolk have broadly retreated.

Every giff -- male, female, and giffling -- has a rank within their greater society, which can only be changed by a giff of higher rank. Within these ranks are sub-ranks, and within those sub-ranks are color-markings and badges. The highest-ranking giff gives the orders, the others obey. It does not matter if the orders are foolish or even suicidal: following them is the purpose of the giff in the universe. A quasi-mystical faith among the giff -- who claim to worship, in a vague way, the Golden General Bahamut, who was killed and eaten by the cowardly Five Tiger Princes in order to steal his strength -- confirms that all things have their place, and the place of the giff to follow orders.

This makes the giff very happy.

Giff platoons can be hired from their sprawling, palatial riverside plantations and mountain hunting-lodges by anyone looking for muscle. The social leaders among the giff are contractors: these specially-trained giff review prospective employers according to ability to pay, then make a recommendation to powerful warlords and famous adventurers among the giff. The leaders, in turn, consider the danger of the job, and whether taking it will enhance their giffdom.

Giff jobs are usually paid in firearms & gunpowder, though they often will accept other weapons and armor. Aboard ship, the giff require their own quarters, and will often request to bring on their own large weapons. They favor fire-projectors and bombards for ground work, and will happily blaze away at opponents regardless of the tactical situation.

The giff require the ships of others because they have -- for the most part -- no spellcasting abilities among them.

Giff of both sexes serve in their platoons, and both fight equally well. Giff young are raised tenderly until they are old enough to survive an exploding arquebus, then are inducted fully into the platoon.

The giff practice equality among the sexes in battle and in childrearing. They live about 70 years, but do not take aging gracefully. As a giff grows older and begins to slow down, he is possessed with the idea of proving himself still young and vital, usually in battle.

As a result, there are very, very few old giff.

#pathfinder #SPELLJAMMER #race #options #1st edition

[veliseraptor]

“I think sometimes it tips that way in modern au settings for reasons I can elaborate on if anyone is interested” I’m interested! Elaborate away!

(related to an offhand comment/bait I left in this ask about my Xue Yang sex headcanons and how specifically his relationship to sex tips more actively self-destructive than I think it does in canon)

oh boy you have unlocked a whole new level of headcanon and like. I’m sorry in advance. this is the kind of thing where I’m like “dang should I make a custom xue yang tag so I don’t inflict my everything on everyone else” and then I don’t. 

basically the thing is: setting aside the idea of a reincarnation au where he has some/any recollection of what happened in Yi City, which would be a headfuck all its own...I tend to think that Xue Yang does just have some Brain Stuff - specifically regarding the degree to which other people are “real” to him (they aren’t). 

by that I mean that he sort of struggles with conceiving that other people have the same level of interiority and for lack of a better word humanity as he does, which makes it very hard to care about them, on the whole, as individuals. in canon that’s also there, but to a certain extent he made a deliberate decision to just go “well, fuck it! norms are for nerds and society is fake.” He doesn’t care to try (after all, on some level others haven’t tried for him; he’s spent a fair amount of time being perceived as subhuman/being dehumanized).

(still find it very interesting that this is one of the only places during his fight with Song Lan where he stops smiling!)

I think his ability to work within the structure of a sect like the Jin was always a limited deal.

furthermore, there is a certain degree of self-destructiveness inherent in the kind of reckless behavior that Xue Yang exhibits! like, not consciously, and he is very much oriented toward survival and self-preservation for the most part, but on some level that attitude of see-what-happens contains within it seeds of a bit of a drive toward self-destruction. it’s complicated. and the reason why I think a modern setting brings that out is - well, it kind of comes down to ableism and stigma, honestly.

because a Xue Yang who has some Brain Issues as described above, in a modern context, is going to become aware pretty quickly that (a) that’s weird, and bad, and wrong, and probably sort of evil, and (b) that showing any kind of antisocial behavior is going to create significant issues for his trying to get what he wants. so he’s going to do his damnedest to perform normalcy, if only for the sake of moving through the world in a way that doesn’t get him in trouble - and he can do that, when motivated, to a greater or lesser extent.

but there’s always going to be a disjunction between his awareness of himself and how his brain works and how he experiences the world and relates to other people, and the knowledge of how things are supposed to work. 

which. it’s not like “psychopath” and “sociopath” are words people use that have any kind of good valence to them. 

I very definitively do not see a canon Xue Yang having issues with self-loathing - self-doubt, sure, uncertainty, sure, anxiety and insecurity about certain things, sure. but he definitely does not hate himself or have any sense that he’s somehow, you know, bad. I think that changes in a modern AU where it’s harder to be completely disengaged from society, and he’s less likely to have the ability to ignore quite as completely the messages he gets about something being wrong with him - and more likely to internalize them. 

which is going to produce, I think, more of a tendency toward that sense of active perception-of-the-monstrous-self, and consequently orient that recklessness more toward an indifference or active investment in self-destructive or self-harming behaviors. because impulsive + adrenaline seeking + just a little bit of internalized sense of himself as monstrous can very quickly lean toward something more serious and intentional than I think it is in canon.

anyway! that is my brief treatise on one of the ways in which I think a modern au Xue Yang is differently dysfunctional than a canon one, thank you for listening.

#nagisachan1 #conversating #xue yang #lise does meta #(...sort of) #aggressively headcanons #the sad queer cultivators show #i'd apologize for all this but i'm not actually sorry #I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE FOR ART #(or...sex headcanons) #off work for lunch post sex headcanons

[ruined-my-dramatic-entrance]

Hat’s Off to You

Platonic fluff, a bit silly or OOC but not a crackfic lol, 1659 words TW: S!Janus

“What’s going on here?” Patton asked as he popped up.

 After rolling his eyes and a moment of hesitation, Virgil replied, “Princey brought up some dumb idea about Janus having some weird secret hidden under his hat and now he and Logan are debating it.”

 “Well, what’s all hat about?” the moral side inquired further with a grin.

 Though Patton had expected Virgil to at least smirk at this, the latter instead protested, “Please, just get them to stop for now or something…”

 “Okay, kiddo. Sorry about Pat — uh, I mean that,” Patton corrected himself quickly before turning his attention to the other two.

 “I still think it’s probably something weird and evil, like some devil’s horns or — or pointed ears,” Roman insisted, gesturing to the vague areas that those body parts would be placed on himself.

 “If Janus were to be hiding something underneath his hat — which I still have very significant doubts about — then it would probably be a result of his half-snake composition, such as a lack of hair on that side of his head, covered by scales,” Logan chimed in with an even tone.

 “Well, yeah, maybe, but it still could be something… much more sinister that reveals how Thomas truly visualizes Deceit in his mind,” the prince suggested with a deep curiosity.

 “Wouldn’t that be you, Roman?” Patton asked with an innocent smile.

 “Wha—? No, I’m not a liar! I’m an actor but I am not Deceit,” Roman dismissed, clearly offended.

 “No, that’s not what I meant, and I was talking about Janus, not evil,” Patton said, subtly reminding Roman to be kinder about the side in question. “I meant that the way Thomas views Deceit as a concept would be your creativity, kiddo,” he explained.

 Roman paused for a moment. “I… suppose you’re right,” he agreed.

 “That would make sense, though it would still have the influence of how Thomas feels about the concept of Deceit in genera—” Logan tried to elaborate, but was cut off by Roman.

 “By Artemis’s beautiful bow, I think I know!” the creative side exclaimed with a wide gesture.

 “You’ve… decided on a guess?” Logan prompted, frowning slightly in curiosity and pushing his glasses backwards as he scanned Roman with his eyes.

 “Oh, brother, what is it now?” Virgil groaned, pulling his hood up over his head.

 “That’s the spirit! What do you think, Roman?” Patton encouraged excitedly.

 “Wolf ears,” Roman answered simply, as if the answer was obvious.

 “Uh… might’ve misheard you there, Kiddo,” Patton fretted, leaning in a bit closer in hopes of understanding Roman’s words better.

 “That… is an interesting guess. I suppose I could see some reasoning for this,” Logan mused, placing his knuckle against his lips in thought.

 “Please tell me you’re not actually considering this, dude,” Virgil pleaded, pulling his sleeves over his hands.

 “No, no, I’m serious!” Roman persisted, holding out his hands in a “wait” gesture. “From my best understanding of how Thomas views deception, he gets consistently stuck on the phrase ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ and sometimes he imagines liars as having certain wolf traits,” he finally explained. “Though, he usually only does that past 3am,” he added with a slight shrug before looking towards the rest of the group for approval.

 “In addition to that, Janus does seem to... work alone, if you will, with his varying goals for Thomas — a lone wolf, perhaps,” Logan elaborated, “Wolves are also regarded for their intelligence and have very complicated social dynamics, maybe tying into Janus’s ability to use charisma to his advantage. Symbolically, wolves are also regarded as confident, which he definitely exhibits.”

 “Come on, you don’t actually think Janus would have something as… as stupid as that,” Virgil disagreed, rubbing the back of his neck. Logan narrowed his eyes at the way he stumbled over his words.

 “Virgil, I expected you to be less… concerned about this matter — furthermore, to mock him for it,” the logical side deduced, tilting his head slightly in confusion. “So… either you’re embarrassed about something similar or something is wrong here,” he declared, causing the room to fall silent for a few seconds.

 “What’s wrong with Virge, Logan? Don’t just leave it all… ominous like that! It’s scary,” Patton fretted, looking at the side in question with worry.

 At that moment, Virgil showed up, shoving aside the “Virgil” that had been there before, who was pushed into the wall and reverted back into his true form.

 “Did someone say ‘scary?’” Virgil asked nonchalantly, giving Patton a quick glance before returning to glaring at Janus.

 “Deceit!!” Logan yelled, pointing at Janus.

 “Yes, yes, we’ve noticed, Logan, no need to sound the alarm, especially not so loudly,” Janus remarked.

 “Virgil!” Patton and Roman exclaimed in unison with smiles.

 “What was he doing here? What did he say?” Virgil asked, voice serious and impatient.

 “Nothing much! Since I got here, he was just denying some of Roman and Logan’s theories about what’s under his hat,” Patton recounted.

 “Yes, padre is right; that’s all the snake has done, nothing particularly evil or sinister,” Roman confirmed with a slight nod as if his valiant watch had kept Janus in check, whereas in reality he hadn’t really noticed.

 Virgil snickered. “You mean ‘cause he’s insecure about this?” he asked with a mischievous smile as he managed to snatch Janus’s hat, revealing a pair of… dark wolf ears.

 “Hah! I knew it! I called it! That was me, I was right. Got it before Logan,” Roman announced proudly before clearing his throat awkwardly and growing quiet to listen.

 “Only because it was your interpretation of symbolism,” Logan muttered under his breath, petty.

 “Aww, you’re like a teddy bear!” Patton commented with a gasp, “Or a puppy! Why would you hide this? We wouldn’t make fun of you for something so cute and nonthreatening!” He paused suddenly, realizing that he had just spoken the exact reason. “Ohh…” He grimaced slightly in guilt.

 “Yes, well, isn’t this lovely. This is exactly what I wanted, Virgil, thank you,” Janus complained in annoyance, shooting the man in question a pointed look. “It’s obvious that this is totally a part of myself that I like and wanted to share with the group.”

 “Janus, we won’t make fun of you for it, especially if you’re so insecure about it,” Patton reassured, looking around the room for agreement and receiving nods from everyone… as well as muffled snickers from Roman and Virgil.

 “Grandma, what big ears you have,” Roman murmured quietly under his breath, unable to resist the temptation.

 “What does it matter anyway? It’s clear I’m viewed as but a beast or a — a monstrous creature. Why would words make that any different?” Janus retorted to Patton, both his eyes and his phrasing giving away his hidden sadness.

 “Well, Janus, you of all sides should understand the power that words can hold,” Logan reminded tersely.

 “Regardless, Thomas could have at least chosen something scarier rather than just… an amalgamation of different animal symbols out of confusion,” Janus griped, gesturing into the air in frustration.

 “Weird is better than scary if it’s constant. Trust me on this one,” Virgil insisted, though his expression turned to one of slight… sympathy?

 “Trust isn’t exactly my strong suit,” Deceit responded, casting an unpleasant glance across the rest of the room. “I wonder why?” he added sarcastically.

 “It’s not my department either but…” Virgil trailed off, sighing. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this to you of all people,” he muttered. “But… I know what it’s like to feel different and unnecessary and — and like you’re built to just be weird, to just be the outcast,” he admitted, avoiding looking into the half-snake’s eyes. “I know what it’s like but… it’s not like that here, not with them. Not with us,” he assured, fiddling with his sleeves.

 “I think we all owe Janus an apology,” Patton pointed out. “I’m sorry for not respecting your privacy,” he said, looking at the aforementioned man with empathy.

 “I apologize for my earlier behavior. I was curious but not considerate,” Logan chimed in concisely.

 “I… suppose I’m sorry too,” Roman agreed, though he opened his mouth to say something else and closed it a moment later.

 “I guess I shouldn’t have… done that,” Virgil mumbled, handing Janus his hat back. “But you shouldn’t have impersonated me either.”

 “Very well, very well… I’m sorry for taking your place and deceiving you,” Janus replied, “though it did take them quite a while to catch on…”

 “It is indeed odd that Janus’s impersonation of you is much more accurate than of me or Patton,” Logan commented, frowning again in contemplation.

 “And that Virgil already knew about Janus’s ears,” Roman added, looking at Virgil in confusion.

 “Well, I —” Virgil began nervously.

 “— The little brat has done this before, you see,” Janus excused as he interrupted the anxious side. “It was terribly irritating,” he recalled about the false event, examining his nails through his gloves. “And yes, I’m afraid that the emo is the simplest to mimic -- it’s dreadfully easy,” he mocked, though said emo looked up at him when he realized that Janus had just… covered for him and his past as a dark side. That was not anywhere near what Virgil had expected.

 “Ah, that would make sense,” Logan accepted with a slight nod.

 “I, for one, still can’t decide whether his fluffy little ears are scary or, uh, adorable,” Roman admitted.

 Janus scoffed and examined his nails through his glove. “If you’re disturbed by this, wait until you find out what Remus hides under his mustache,” he pointed out.

 After a beat of silence, every other side in the room turned to him in a mixture of surprise, fear, and disgust, all exclaiming some variation of “hold up,” “wait,” or “what?!” Except for Patton, who simply remarked, “Well, I suppose we must-ask him later” with a chuckle.

#ts sides #sanders sides fanfiction #sanders sides #ts janus #tss janus #janus sanders #ts virgil #tss virgil #virgil sanders #roman sanders #ts roman #tss roman #tss #ts #ts patton #patton sanders #tss patton #logan sanders #ts logan #tss logan #ts deceit #deceit sanders #mine

[helahades]

the sexiest wip list

alright! reminder that this is a dark fic blog. dark fics are not just noncon, but uncomfortable subject matter and questionable thought processes and unreliable povs. control your media experience and read warnings carefully! they’ll be updated when the actual story releases, but these are wips, and i don’t know them all bc I simply have not finished these stories!

some darker warnings on this list include: threats of sexual violence, obsession, death, and previously mentioned unreliable povs from obsessive characters who justify themselves.

final reminder to read warnings! some of these are intense.

1) Jealous Thor (Untitled)

warnings: cheating, mean!reader, angst

You’re falling for Steve right under his nose. Each day, Thor feels you pull farther away. Each night, he squeezes his eyes shut as you lie asleep next to him, and tries to forget the way you lookat Steve these days with hunger and adoration that you once gave to him.

“He is earthly. For all his body’s and mind’s possession of unnatural experimental growth, he is earthly and limited, so Thor can’t understand why you’re drawing away from him, and telling Steve the jokes, giving Steve all the looks that had him hooked. The lingering eyes and touches… they ride the line of decency.”

—

2) Heimdall Angst (Untitled)

warnings: major character death, grief, existentialism, out of body experiences

Connected by incredible wisdom and duty to fate, you and The Gatekeeper of Asgard are pulled together by the unique pairing of your mutual seeing abilities—made for greatness, and destined for tragedy.

This story stretches from the moment that catalyzes your meeting, across the years of loving him, to the moment you lose him.

“A fateful tragedy. He sees an arrow through a dove.

He wonders how he missed your encounter with him in the whispers of the cosmos.

“—They’re star deaths,” you say abruptly, “the ones that move and change color. They speed up when you watch them—show their whole life to come...I read about them. Most can’t ever see them life this”.

Turning to where you stand beside him, his eyes swirl with the magic of knowing you, of your destinies combined. He sees you stare at his stars like they’re new.

“Only us.”

—

3) Away from the Party - Steve Smut

warnings: smut, dubcon, roughness, manipulation, unintentional exhibition

Steve hates these parties. After a mission, the work has just begun, and he fumes at the impossible way that Tony covers all problems in diamonds and pearls. Some things aren’t meant to be pretty.

You are. You’re soft, and kind, and you coax him gently away from the party—the source of his frustrations, with promises of leaving early, of calming down. Oh. He’ll calm down. And you’re just the toy to help. In a closet a corner away from the government’s finest, America’s golden boy has a hand on your throat and one demand.

“Keep quiet.”

“Of course, you both ended up at the party anyway, but with you swirling cool fingertips at his aching temples and rubbing softly over the stretch marks on his chest, he couldn’t find anything in heart to disagree with you then.

Even now with his erection pressed to you through barriers of clothing, with scarcely retrained and monstrous lust, he is steadily calmed by your presence. This rush, the secrecy—it excites him. And you pull him through the haze of it.”

—

4) Monster Thor Headcanons

warnings: wound and gore descriptions, some sadness

The fantasy of it all. Aesthetic, Lifestyle, Behavior. Some talking points include: hair, horns, hints about how he was influenced by a soft and charming lover many years ago, general horniness. Also spoiler that I’ve decided that He is 8ft tall

“Thor is...ancient. he is a being of war and folklore and raw energy and he’s earthy and elemental and connected. and form follows function. (and also whatever horny thoughts we want )”

—

5) The Call

warnings: voyeurism, death threats, obsession, implied sexual assault threats

When Frank comes to visit you, you beam like a sunflower. You’ve rearranged your room, and you’re excited about it. He would like to revel in the moment with you...but he’s caught up in one detail. Your bed is pushed against the window...and he can’t convince you to let him move it.

After a night of sin and wild lovemaking, you lie asleep bathed in moonlight, and Frank wakes to a call. Billy. He’s set up on a rooftop miles away, and he’s got things to say about Frank’s girl and what he’d like to do to her. A red dot on his chest means he can only listen. To your gentle snoring, and to the twisted fantasy of a brother unhinged.

“Black silk pajamas. Hair wrapped up in satin. Yellow light almost like sun stretches to the ceiling, but not quite over the rolling hills of your silhouette turned away from him in quiet sleep.

Frank’s hardly got the time to wonder why he’s awake, because his phone buzzes slow again. Pulls the moment he realizes he will have to break this magic peace to molasses and he half fills his lungs before huffing it out and flipping the phone open and tucked between his ear and shoulder.

“What.”

“She’s a reaaaaal pretty one, Frankie boy. You sure know how to pick em.”

—

6) Loki Longing (Untitled)

warnings: pregnant!fem reader, angst

On the Eve of the birth of Asgard’s heir, Thor is away. In a bath of flowers and magic to ease your pain, maidens worry over you, and Loki rescues you away, letting you rest in bed, and dreaming of the days when you were his lover instead.

“I’d like to rest…in my bed now, please.”

The ladies look to each other. It hasn’t been long enough for the herbs to take effect.

“My Queen,” the eldest starts—

“She is certainly your queen,” a silky silver timbre interrupts, “I’ve learned it’s best to mind her.”

His eyes fall to your form, and some blocked conflict—some guarded affection rests there. Some longing tucked in a pocket like an impossible secret.

—

7) With Child - Obsessive Steve

warnings: pregnant!fem reader, obsessive Steve

Watching you content, and very pregnant, as you gaze adoringly at your husband Thor from where you rest, half in his lap, Steve can’t help but fantasize. He thinks about impregnating you, the mechanics of sex with a pregnant woman, and being the god who does it all.

“Do you have to lie on your side? Is Thor just behind you, spooning you, fucking with desperate thrusts because you drive him so crazy this way? Steve has heard—and he doesn’t know where—that women get wetter when with child. Steve can’t help but wonder...does Thor need to hold one leg up for you—to save your back that’s so often heavy with the weight of supporting his legacy?”

—

8) Dean’s Girl

warnings: unreliable pov (john), voyeurism, masturbation + voyeurism

John notices the way you avoid him. You always seem to leave a room just as he’s coming into it. He’s living in the bunker now, and having to realize a lot of things that have changed for the both of his sons.

For example, his oldest, the last he’d ever think would fall in love, has got a pretty girl that dismisses her practical father in law with pointed boredom. She’s protective—how can he blame her after all that he’d put Dean through?

She’s pretty, and John is only a man, and can’t stop himself from just...looking. It starts with a convenient bend as she unloads the dishwasher...then he..can’t help that the door was open and she happened to be changing right there. He also can’t help it the next time when he’s just a little too obvious, pleasuring himself to the smell of her pretty lace panties.

—

9) Operator, Operator - Steve Smut

warnings: smut, financial troubles?, mentions of creepiness against and danger to sex workers, exhibitionism via phone call

Underpaid and overworked, you along with your roommate/secret crush/ best friend Steve have trouble making ends meet on minimum wage + his art commissions. When you start picking up calls on a phone sex line, he’s able to reason. It’s quick cash, and Steve is mature enough to keep his thoughts appropriate...at first.

One day, he wakes to the sound of breathy moans and a faked orgasms. He wonders how you would sound if only you were high on real pleasure...and there’s no time like the present. Don’t hang up. This call has only just started.

“By the time this year—junior year—swung around, Steve realized he was only catching glimpses of you. He would hear the shake of your keys when you tossed them on the counter, your backpack when it thudded to the floor, and most recently—your moans.

You must not know he’s home. Ever since you started online sex work, specifically being a phone sex operator, you seemed to also make the silent choice that more graphic calls would be saved for when he’s not around.

He gets it. You both split the rent, and Steve has done jobs he’d rather not mention in desperate times, when commissions came short. Still, sometimes you can’t tell when he’s here, and despite his best efforts to push down his arousal, to tell himself you’re his best friend...he’s an artist, and he can’t help but listen, and certainly not the wandering of his imagination.”

—

10) Professor Steve Medfet - (Untitled)

In an alternate timeline, a washed up Steve Rogers starts a new life in a run down city as an art / anatomy teacher. A class of hungry college students is filled to the brim each year, expecting the unspoken promise of their favorite hands on lab. You.

You keep his class sated, in turn giving the professor job security for funding his simple life out of the public eye. Each year when he calls, you come. Each year the students find a new way to tear you embarrass and degrade, much to the pleasure of the professor.

“Same speech. Same meaningless words. Focusing on the stillness of your skin and how it feels to be alone, you can almost drown out the way his tone edges toward excitement, the way the chairs shift and squeak—the anticipation.

Pretending your heart doesn’t send heat and cold flashes through you and run your breathing shallow, you look at the nicks in the door and try to guess their stories.

But then the metal frame clicks, the door unlatches. Professor Rogers wears a gentle smirk. It doesn’t ease your mind one bit.”

—

11) Swelter - Forest God Thor

warnings: sexual scenes, time limited conflict, religious themes

With a sickness overtaking nearby villages, yours is next, and has decided to sacrifice you to the cause of foraging for preventative herbs. You venture into the ancient woods after a rare vine of flowers, but leave with much more after encountering Thor.

After disturbing him where he lies cooling in the bank of a stream, you vow to prove the true intention of your soul—that you aren’t a hunter, or witch after his form or faculty, but a pious girl, also needing to escape the heat.

“You’re in the old woods now, and aside from the trees and the mossy nature tangled around them, there is only Him. Thor.

God of the harvest, bringer of land’s wealth, fertility, and vitality. You know of the sacrifices, of the woods where He is rumored to live in an unseen form, of livid white fire in the sky if He is severely displeased.

His name must not be spoken outside of prayer or ritual, and even now, you stutter to think it, and wonder if you are alone in your thoughts.”

[...]

“The frustration and the fear in your dilemma disturb the air, disquieting the otherwise enduring peace of the old woods, which rouses a large form in the cool muddy bank of the stream. It is only leaves shifting at first. Faded pumpkin and dried oak scatter—and suddenly the air smells like rain and your mouth sets around the tastes of copper and sage. Then, the leaves tumble off of a beast of a mass that rises slowly, and you note that it felt like the atmosphere changed to accommodate its awakening.”

—

12) Halloween Party - Thor Smut (Untitled)

warnings: smut, heartbreak, depressed!reader

An exclusive and mysterious Halloween party is still on this year—and you’re invited. It’s meant to be so extravagant and flashy an Avenger will one day attend, and all attendees decorate themselves in costumes inspired by the heroes, hoping to be noticed.

Fresh after a breakup with your boyfriend Brock, you take one half of the preordered couples costume and dress up as a goddess, determined to have a good night with your friends, find some excitement, and most importantly, a new god to match.

“Standing solemn, floor to ceiling windows allow in a few milky rays reflected by the moon, but they’re all the gems of your bodice need to gleam to a suitor's eye. Tonight, while you plan to rid your soul of another, you are welcomed with open arms and careful consideration as the final offering at an altar. You are seen by a god.”

—

13) Grief

warnings: dead!reader, guilt, grief, scary science, how do i say this... smut that is borderline necroph—there’s a replica of you, dark!steve, tony lives, pepper dies

Steve’s world is upside down. He’s lost the light of his life, and is completely in the dark. Luckily for him, Tony is back in the business of reality rejecting technology, and has found a way for him to be with you again.

At an abandoned cottage, Steve brings an armful of your scents to give the Tony’s invention sensory data, and faces the strange reality of what’s always been his worst stage...his worst trait. Denial.

“Dozens of test bottles full of manufactured scents, the kind of thing you smell borrowing a sweater, or with your face in the crook of someone’s neck. Essentially, the sort of organic thing that cannot be recaptured.

Steve’s got an armful of perfume and body wash. Of conditioner and deodorant, of all the elements he can think that make you smell the way you would—the way you do.

He wills the thoughts to be present tense. If he pretends you are alive, maybe it will look like it is you only sleeping. He wonders how well Tony knows the texture of your hair suddenly, because if it isn’t right, the experience will fall to shambles. It currently walks a plank over shambles. One wrong interpretation or surprise, and Steve will find himself spinning and burning with the fall into a new and uncharted taboo.”

14) Night Drive - Dean Smut

warnings: road head

On a long overnight drive, your back pressed into the seat of the impala makes you miss lying in bed with your lover, makes you miss his gentle caress right next to you...so you remind him how good it is to be close.

“You think about it when he hums a little tune. When he hums the song he wishes would play and thinks will come up next, it is eerily soft, and eerily similar to the soft contentment he sighs when you kiss on his neck.

When he reaches for your hand to hold, it makes you consider the shortness of the distance between you, and you think of pulling his cock out right here, giving him head that melts him here on this endless road.

Looking at him, he senses your interest—he turns his head to meet your eyes, throws up a grin of boyish charm. He’s happy to be here with you. These night drives are fine. He’s never minded them. But they’re even lovelier when in your company.”

—

15) Shadow - The Bucky Mystery

warnings: stalking, injury, sexual assault, canon typical hydra torture, mentions of bucky being forced to assault people, traumatized reader

On the run from Hydra, there aren’t many things that Bucky can remember. Inside his mind, there aren’t many feelings that make sense. Mostly, he feels guilt. Horror.

Following you to the gym where you practice ballet alone in the nights is all that makes sense, and for reasons he can’t explain, he feels drawn to you.

As time goes on, Bucky feels more enticed by his desire, you start to feel eyes staring from the walls, motivations and traumas are revealed, and in a horrible symphony, you both remember your connection.

“He’s a matte shadow against the noir shine of metal walls—an observer in the unlit quiet on his side of the room.

And he feels his unimportance. It’s humbling. Holds up the room like chunky beams and high rafters, dressed in the same layered neutrals. Framing the same cotton candy dancer, silent as the pad of her slippers when she turns her weight onto a straight leg, other coming up with her ankle pointed to the bend of her knee.

She spins, she spins and she whips her head around with each one, but it’s Bucky who gets dizzy.”

send an ask with any questions, or for more details about a particular story!

#which wip #follower poll #future fic hints #update

[ganbaregokudo]

omens in your skies

      Another day, another force of nature to contend with. Wrenching her sword from a felled yokai, an aobozu, from its corpse, she glares at her newfound company. Rarely does she don a dour expression upon her face, but when the high of battle is still fresh, she will always be ready to strike when necessary. Cobalt blues flare briefly in recognition of the other being’s true nature lingering within. While stern, she does exhibit a small degree of curiosity toward the oni who happened upon her. He may as well wear the skin of a man, but she knows better.

      The skies are an overcast stone-like colour, casting a shadow over the two, bathing the world in mottled grey. A stark contrast to what is known as the Land of the Rising Sun. The godling turns toward the newcomer, sword swinging into full view and dripping fresh blood into the hungry soil below. Her head cants to the side, eyes narrowing into thin, blue slits. While she didn’t wish for a fight to erupt, she does not take well to any attempt to intimidate her. Her semi-belligerent posturing should serve as a universal expression. She does not intend to stay long and thus, one should not get in her way.

      With a sharp flick of her wrist, the blood snaps off the blade and colours the grass in monstrous ichor. While not brandishing the weapon in the form of a challenge, she holds it at her side to demonstrate that he should not approach her, not even by half a step.

       ❝And who might you be?❞ Her accent is that of a foreigner, but the words leave her effortlessly. Well-practiced but not to the point of fluency.

     Pour one out for the one-eyed priest. Nice guy. Always late on dues, so life was out to get him whichever way you sliced it. Hideo, though -- he feels the sulking envy of a monster robbed of their prey. This land is fraught with ghosts that whisper when the wind blows: remember the men who sought your prized head, who razed your mountain and hid themselves behind a holy crusade. She reminds him of them. Embodies the past. The scent of godly blood. Beast killer.      Yet. He remains as cool as his instinct will allow. Nothing personal, he chides to himself. No further away from business than saving face with the competition. A deal, right. He will be on his best behavior. After all, there’s no doubting that she’s not wielding that blade just for show. He’d very much rather not be on the receiving end of it; he’s grown quite fond of his head.       “Ain’t the warmest welcome I ever got,” he says. “But hey, let’s be civil -- I know when I’m outmatched.” In one smooth motion, he unsheathes his tantō and throws it blade-first into the soil. He presents his empty hands to her in surrender, giving his most cordial smile -- which is to say there’s still a clear undercurrent of menace no matter how hard he tries.      “Who am I?” He feigns offense in his tone. “I’m crushed! Lord of the mountain do anythin’ for ya? Then again, the legend ain’t exactly in the public consciousness these days. I’ll let it slide this time.” Hideo bares his teeth out of habit. “I’ve heard talk of some divine figure layin’ waste to the local folkspeople. You wanna gimme a reason why you offed our friendly cyclops here, eh Kami-chan?”

@oplitis​

#oplitis #//wow I love a budding friendship #real bastard hours #ink in progress.

[clairen45]

Comparing TFA with Legend by Ridley Scott-part 1

To be honest, I already had this 1985 movie in mind when watching TFA, but I just got to watch it again a couple of days ago, and would like to share how relevant I think it is in the creation of the Reylo plotline.

To sum it up, Legend is an unapologetic fairy tale fantasy about the conflict between Light and Darkness. Visually superb , it failed to deliver totally but it had some good moments, and an awesome villain costume (with the great Tim Curry underneath it all), taking Satanic to the next level, with its massive prosthetic horns and hooves of a bull. The reveal, in the last part of the movie, was even more a surprise as from the get go, this formidable villain, not so subtly named Darkness, had major concerns about his own frailty: ‘Mother Night! Fold your dark arms about me. Protect me in your black embrace. I sit alone, an impotent exile, whilst this force, this presence, returns to torment me!’, the force in question being Light, embodied by two unicorns. In his venture to destroy the unicorns, he becomes aware, later, of yet another weakness, as he becomes attracted to the heroine, a princess named Lily. In a dialogue with an invisible father, he bemoans: ‘Father, I hold the world in my grasp and yet, this girl distracts me. It has been an eternity since I have felt such desire. What am I to do?’. To which a voice replies: ‘She fascinates you because her soul is pure. To make her one of us, charm her, woo her, change her spirit, hypnotize her, set her free, bring her to you!’. So the plan will be to seduce the princess, through gifts and hypnosis, and turn the naive and white Lily into a sensuous dark counterpart fit to become his bride. It is in the seduction scene that the villain, up to that point hidden to the audience, is finally revealed to us.

We can already stop there and mark the parallels with the way the character of Kylo Ren is introduced to us in TFA. With his mask, powers, ruthless behavior, and altered voice, he is totally dehumanized. Moreover, if he does not have Darkness’ animalistic features, his fiery lightsaber is very reminiscent of a Satanic cross. His first appearance is supposed to introduce him as a formidable villain, yet, this first impression is almost immediately shattered in the Vader mask scene, halfway through the film, where he exhibits the same angst as Scott’s character: ‘Forgive me. I feel it again... the pull to the light’, with the undertone that the pull to the Light might effectively means his own destruction. Just like Darkness, he is literally seen sitting alone, looking for guidance, feeling like an ‘impotent exile’ (the way he is treated by Snoke, and his inner conflicts). And just like Darkness, he becomes obsessed with ‘THE GIRL’, a total object of distraction that starts affecting his decisions and plans. Revealingly, their meeting scene takes place after this sequence. And his dialogues with Snoke about the girl can be compared with the one between Darkness and his Father. Snoke calls him out on his interest in the girl, underlines how revealing she is of his weakness, but instead of asking him to ‘bring her to you’, asks him to ‘bring her to me’. And how could some people bypass the fact that Kylo so adamantly professes that he ‘will not be seduced’ by the Light Side, an expression that is pretty much explicit? In ESB, Yoda was warning against the fact that the Dark Side was more ‘seductive’, but here we see that the seductiveness goes both ways, which had never been stated before, and has way different implications when ‘the girl’ is involved. The mere fact that Kylo never tries to destroy Rey but actively (albeit awkwardly) tries to turn her to his side is revealing: he effectively wants/needs to ‘seduce’ her.

Even the differences with Scott’s movie are actually telling. I pointed out that Darkness is not seen to us until he gets to finally meet the girl, and that is the moment when he reveals himself as a monstrous, animalistic, Satanic creature. Interestingly, it is just the opposite in TFA. We FIRST see the monster, the creature in the mask, and it is WHEN he meets the girl that he reveals himself AND turns out to be not just a man, but an attractive one to boot (JJ called him a prince).Needless to say that Darkness ends up defeated and does not woo the girl, which, considering the inversion, leaves some hope for Kylo in part IX.

#reylo evidence #reylo #reylo fandom #star wars ep 8 #ridley scott #kylo ren #kylo x rey #star wars meta #reylo meta #star wars parallels #cinema parallels #reylo fam #the force awakens

[emersonmanandnature]

October 13, 2020

I ask you why is money our god?

God looks down on his creation, his son’s crown of thorns well healed, he thinks in a universal caring for his children but lately he has begun to see that these humans don’t have the discipline to coordinate a system of power that is shared equally by all. As he looks down on his congregation he finds himself wishing he never made adam and eve. Would the universe really care if its vastness was a little less populated?

The evangelical was a belligerent soldier for our lord, a preacher that loved the power he had accumulated in this human form over his congregation even though he had never met our savior personally but heard good things about him and the sacrifice he gave us on his bloody cross was just a wild ride of egomania.

What god-man lets all forget the countless others that were tortured and nailed to the cross by Pontius Pilate for mankind always seeks the one because the many gets confusing and the powers that be need to implicitly demand a one god system of mental and physical control.

But now I am the priestly human that has the power and I aim to keep it for my flock needs to be disciplined and shown that god is always present in the form of a bully, oh no! I meant an intelligent and personal coward, sorry I am a little confused right now too much booze does that to a man of god, a person making mucho bucks! even though I am way above being called a person for I am a saintly presence trying my best to guide my congregation to the holy land somewhere close I am sure. But not to my own paradise beach mansion on the shores of pure money. Don’t start thinking I stole the cash from my congregation, oh no how or why should I, they give their cash as free citizens of this here USA of criminal minds.

Why does anyone wanting what is best for his people, his flock of worshipers, always end up giving themselves up, sacrificing their life by allowing violence to be done to their physical revelation of a truth that was performed 2,000 years ago?

You won’t find me sacrificing an inch of my own skin and any of my hard earned cash from my profiteering drama of the evangelical cult of praise the lord for he is our bank drive up window. And all monies are safely deposited in off shore accounts and these crooks, I mean bankers, will get their split if they keep up the disguise of propriety.

And still with no sign of our god being present in his godly flesh or at least send your son back to this lonely planet and we can start over again for in our lives at present we are run by mobsters, criminal minds seeking their own earthly paradise off the sweat of the working poor and the middle class, as wars escalate, murder exceeds expectations, violence now an acceptable behavior we enter a new stage of evolution without guidance from above but from technology separating us from each other and conditioning us to see ourselves through a video screen and not the physical contact we must have to connect with others on a personal level.

We have been duped to believe in a god through a book written as a means of our salvation but if you read this book it seems like a crazy revelation not of god but our need as human beings to begin organizing our lives not around money and wars but as a society willing to reach out to others and give each other a helping hand.

Our fears, doubts and anxieties allow the wealthy to continue their plague of destruction on this planet without interference from our absentee god they created to placate us into doing what is best for the rich and not ourselves.

The words in the bible are a necessary truth on how to live your life and the necessary consequences of what will happen if you don’t. The book has everything you need to live a good life until you realize that your life is not as important as the money lenders that christ exposed in the temple for they saw a means of protecting themselves by being the powerful force on this planet and therefore we became the pawns that need to obey their structured greed. And what a brilliant idea they had to postpone the peoples paradise here on earth and state the only way to get to heaven is to shut up and do your duty and then when you die you will be able to enter the kingdom of heaven, if god blesses your life.

So god their fictional character died for our sins and through his sacrifice, a god that can’t die, the con on humanity was complete.

God is a bad father figure not only because he sacrificed his only son but where has our holy pride been all these centuries. He has become an absentee father to his herded children, as if we needed that to remind us that our paradise is only a death away. Lets give a big screaming hallelujah that dying is god’s way of loving us!

If we know one thing through the centuries is that there is nothing humans won’t do to others and to themselves when it comes to being religious zealots seeking an exhibition of their theatrical natures. And the persecution of innocence for these men of evil wealth rallied around that idea in order to maintain control over the populations of the world, they needed to make sure all humans needed to be born in sin and therefore they would flock to the church of wealth, oh I mean the church of a godlike priest, in order to get into god’s heavenly resort, no exceptions.

This way innocence doesn’t exist for these new born babies of sin and it is much easier to accuse the children to obey the rulers of this world until they die and make it into the twilight zone of faith.

It feels a lot like George Orwell’s classic book 1984!

Hate of innocence is anything but liberating, this non existent god should be ashamed of himself or herself.

For the crooks of this world to come up with this scheme that the children will be born into sin was a revelation of their monstrous egos and a great business plan that exceeded their wildest dreams.

Humans are loyal to their churches god for he is truth and any contradictions to their beliefs is ignored or attacked.

What humans want above all else is to be accepted, to be part of a group they believe in and can trust and feel nurtured in their faith especially when the minister presents his control of his flock using his mastery of his biblical words of sin in all human activities, but when their behavior interferes with the preachers demands, for he is the saintly path to god but forget about communication directly with god for his silence would only cause confusion but if you seek god, seek him through me, just a man but a man with high regard for himself and his parishioners for they will be saved if they just accept my words from the holy book, for I am the conduit, as your middle man through which god can be contacted and your souls saved from your vile sinful natures.

Judge not and I won’t be judged for some of my relished perverse desires get me all excited but in my truth I know that god will forgive my transgressions because I am a man of the cloth and I have a deep connection with our lord and father.

In each of his sermons he professionally uses redundant demands that his congregation get with it and bring in more servants of god for his church is a real money maker for him, praise the lord our holy father and a cash cow, oh, wait I am sorry, “a golden cash cow”.

This minister of anger and hypocrisy didn’t really care whether god was one man or three as long as the money kept flowing into his account but for god  being one god was not enough, to easy, so our father broke his holiness into three imaginary subjects of intense passion, his three amigos, friends, as he one entity divided himself into three spirits and in this separation of self I think the father got a little paranoid about sharing the power so he sent his son to be the savior of the human disgrace, well you know the story, god sent his only son down to be tortured and nailed to a cross because I guess god was busy that day and his son was getting a little lazy and little stuck on himself so god thought why not give his son this task, put a little more motivation into his sons perfect being but why couldn’t he just appear and pretend to go through the motions of being human and why did they, the holy trinity of power decide to have him born to a virgin without asking the virgins parents if that would be ok, it seems a little forward for the powers that be to look toward his son and not themselves as saviors but that is ok because god will take that credit anyway,

So gods son is growing up fast and creating a little uncertainty with his father maybe because he wants to get this trial, his day in court done, completed, tortured, crucified and  buried and risen again so he can get back to flirting with the saintly woman not that he was a romeo with infinite power but that he was only human with human emotions and what a paradise to come home too anyhow as we know he created a ruckus with his preaching and

Begins to gather around him his future apostles these guys were a little aimless in their lives and when they heard him preach, his words consumed them and they praised his mental makeup and his ability to preach by educating the people that this world we live in is nothing but a test and if you pass this test then you will be rewarded in god’s almighty heaven somewhere up there in the sky or past it or maybe on another planet anyway you will live happily ever after or as we like to say you will live forever in infinite sermons by one of the holy three on how they saved you from extinction by giving you freewill and criminal minds to destroy the planet that once was our paradise but it might get a little boring when the threesome go on vacation, even gods need a break from the constant thumbs up or thumps down as the horde of people keep coming,

Earth must be a pretty horrible place for so many humans dying in violence and climate destruction and that is when you will get a substitute godly preacher, an evangelical that believes he is the next coming power to tame sin in others but not in himself as his radar eyes have spotted some of the pretty angels flying around doing good works here on earth, so lets step back a bit, we jumped to far ahead lets get back to god’s only son and his short time on earth to save us by sacrificing himself for our sins not his own for he was the son of god and as such his father loved him as a spirit friend also but still felt a little uptight about his son being an almighty being as he was and what of his second cousin the holy ghost and why ghost, why not holy spirit or the

Third wheel now that doesn’t sound right lets just keep him as the holy sidekick that sounds a little more fluid and consequential and besides we all believe in spirits don’t we and why this big deal about evil for we know human nature for I made them and we know the desires of their sinful lusts for we created adam and eve, they were the perfect pair for they understood their beauty and their ego’s were large and why shouldn’t they eat the apple of sin how bad could that be, who would make a rule like that and then follow through by ousting us from paradise when in fact it was god, the older god, not that handsome jesus, that said we were his only children at this time and think about it if we were his children why would we believe he would abandoned us to a world ripe with violence and hate and meaningless drivel, just because my eve was hungry and enticed to eat the

Redness of the apple and I might have taken a little bite off it myself and if it was the tree of knowledge what’s the big deal you know I am not stupid and look evil is as evil does and I guess you are more upset with being disobeyed than you are in your creations and look after that fiasco eve bore sons cain and abel and what did cain do, now that’s evil, what is a little apple of knowledge it wasn’t like we ate the whole damn tree, and besides we could have eaten from the tree of life and we would live as long you, forever our god and our accuser, for don’t we have a right to know what our god knows and isn’t that your unique knowledge and shouldn’t it be ours for we are you and you are us, why can’t human beings know the reasoned purpose of god not as a spirit unseen but a gift to mankind, yey our impossible luck to be born on a planet that has air and natural beauty even though its inhabitants are shallow animals willing to destroy this planet for profit by not caring anything about human survival.

#religion #god #adam and eve #fiction #father #son #holy ghost #fiasco #paradise awaits #cjcorwinoriginal

[ad-ciu]

Of Gods and Mice.

So that Conclusions post about Dungeons and Dragons went over well apparently? Not sure why, I honestly thought it was mostly me rambling, but, hey, I guess I will actually start that Smite analysis I was talking about.

So, Smite is a video game created by High-Rez Studies. It is a MOBA, and I will admit I don’t actually play it. Or, I haven’t since I was in second year. The premise of the game is your standard MOBA, so a team based conflict with various characters. In Smite, these characters are Gods and Goddesses (plus some Demigods, and miscellaneous monstrous entities) which has recently added a new Pantheon to their game. The Celtic Pantheon. So, let’s talk about this.

As always, this commentary is not intended to be a critique of the developers in anyways, but an examination of Celtic Studies failings to develop approachable resources for the general public. I’m actually considering reaching out to High-Rez to talk about this one day in a professional (’professional’) capacity, I find the situation with them really curious.

So, a Celtic Pantheon. It’s not a thing, it was never a thing, and will never be a thing. The use of the term ‘Celtic’ was hotly debated in the last decade since it’s a modern term and none of the peoples well think of as ‘Celtic’ identified as Celts or similar to each other. The argument was eventually settled by deciding the term ‘Celtic’ was referring to the language family tree rather than anything else.

But, right, on-topic. So, Deities venerated in Trans-Alpine Gaul before Roman colonization, Deities venerated in Cis-Alpine Gaul, Deities venerated in 5th century Ulster, the Deities venerated by the Galatians at the time of their conquest, the Deities of the 1st century Brythonic ‘Celts’ of Wales, all these Deities would be different. There are, yes, some entities that have echoes across these areas to varying degrees, but by and large, the Deities of various Celtic peoples are super-duper regional. These peoples, and their Deities, are not the same as each other. They stretch from Ireland to Anatolia, and from the Classical period all the way through to the modern day (or like the... let’s say 11th century for their Deities?). They can’t be organized into a single Pantheon, if you could even have a ‘Gaulish Pantheon’.

High-Rez has, however, chosen to classify a Pantheon in their game as the ‘Celtic’ Pantheon. Curious. Thus far they include two Gaulish (Artio, Cernunnos) Deities and two Irish (The Morrigan and CuChulain) literary figures in this Pantheon. What is super interesting, however, is High-Rez does seem to have a goal for representing cultural groups as distinct from each other due to another choice of Pantheon. The Roman Pantheon and the Greek Pantheon are separate from each other. 

This is a division I totally agree with. Mars is so different from Ares they should be different. Venus and Aphrodite undergo massive shifts. The Roman notion of what a Deity is gets heavily influenced by their native Italian roots. So, this division is something I think is great! 

But, the Celtic Pantheon is a thing. There isn’t the Gaulish Pantheon, the Irish Pantheon, the Welsh Pantheon, there is just a Celtic Pantheon. This, this is made so much more interesting due to the division of the Roman and the Greek Pantheons. Why would this be handled differently? If someone on their team has enough knowledge in Classical religious systems, they probably have had enough tangential interactions with Continental Celtic traditions they should be able to see the differences between Medieval Irish and Welsh literature from the peoples the Romans came in contact with. But, they clearly didn’t. Or chose not to.

So, we can see two branches of reasoning here for this decision to present the Celtic Pantheon as a single entity. Either this was done unwittingly, or intentionally. And, if intentionally, the question branches again into why. I feel as though the Smite team must have enough basic information on hand due to their depictions of a decent breadth of Pantheons to realize that a ‘Celtic’ Pantheon is inaccurate. So, the question moves to ‘Why.’

I can see several reasons for a why, all of which are interesting. The first of which I think might be it. It is expected. People expect a ‘Celtic Pantheon’. I would need help from some members of the Smite community to know if this is true, if people were asking specifically for a ‘Celtic’ Pantheon, or a Gaulish/Irish one, but I feel like this might be it. The general public sees ‘The Celts’ as an entity due to a century of bad publications and pop culture on the topic of them. 

Building off this notion that it was expected, I also suspect that no one is much bothered about it. I can remember that High-Rez got into some trouble for their depiction of Hindu Deities at one point, so they are on their Best Behavior with religions with large populations, or cultural groups that are still concerned about respectful depictions of their classical Deities. The Celts are not. The Celtic Peoples don’t have a bone-deep connection to their Deities any more, and the NeoPagan communities who might be concerned with these depictions are, well, rather small. No one is going to raise a massive stink about the Celtic Pantheon contrasted against royally screwing up a depiction of Vishnu.

The other reason that there might be for this Celtic Pantheon in a game which has otherwise exhibited a pretty decent commitment to dividing Pantheons reasonably, I suspect there might be a ‘thing’ about having specific Pantheons cutting back on release windows for new Deities, especially crowd favorites. The Morrigan, and Cernunnos are the problems here. If you have a Gaulish Pantheon to give the fans Cernunnos, then you have to wait ages and ages before you can put out an Irish Pantheon and give The Morrigan, the other golden-child. By merging Pantheons, you can give The Morrigan, then Cernunnos, then CuChulain, and then, like, Math Mathonwy or someone without having to wait years between these since the Fans might have a fit if you released three ‘Celtic’ Pantheons in a row.

After writing that out, I expect it is a combination of all of these things. However, that doesn’t get into the mess that these individual Deities are. I mean, CuChulain is decent, hard to mess him up story-wise.

So, yeah. I expect this odd situation with a ‘Celtic Pantheon’ in an otherwise seemingly well-researched game is due to release windows, and that only a few Deities are well known from each Pantheon. As always, however, the Celts are not the ones most bungled. I think a friend of mine has mentioned before that the Mayan Pantheon has at least one totally fictional figure in it for some reason.

Right then. Tomorrow! Artio. Honestly, odd choice in my mind for not-Cernunnos Gaulish Deity. But, her depiction is super odd. 

#smite game #smite #mythology #celtic mythology #celtic

[lichlairs]

Checkout our new post over at https://lichlair.com/daily-monster-34-meazel

Daily Monster #34: Meazel

Today’s Daily Monster comes to us from Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes aaaaand that’s about as much I know about them going into this. After yesterday’s big old Moloch, I’m kind of hoping for a simpler monster that I can use in my every day encounters. I guess we shall see. Without any further ado, let us discuss…

The Meazel

The basics

Oh boy, these guys have definitely been living in the local sewers for a bit too long. Their highest stat is their +3 DEX, which is somehow followed by their +2 INT? Is there a sewer school system I never learned about? So many questions. The Meazel’s WIS is slightly above average with a +1, and then we have CHA with a +0. Their lowest stat is a tie between STR and CON both with -1.

Meazels are considered medium humanoids of neutral evil alignment. They have an AC of 13, 30ft of movement, and my favorite part; a hit point pool of 10d8-10. Yeah, that’s a first for this series.

Despite their terrible constitution, these creatures still have a few interesting benefits. They get a +3 to Perception and +5 to Stealth. On top of that Meazels also have an incredible Darkvision of 120ft.

Okay, now let’s take a look at some of the feat–what the f*ck?

Wait, what?

…

Oooookay soooo… these things are actually insane! How is this a CR1 monster? Jeez.

Let’s start from the beginning. Thanks to a feature called Shadow Stealth, these creatures can take the Hide action as a bonus action to remind the party rogue that he just ain’t that special.

I guess they also have access to a simple Shortsword attack but why on earth would you use that when you can use the coolest weapon ever? I’m talking about the Garrote, of course. Using this weapon automatically grapples a creature and deals constant damage as long as the grapple isn’t broken. I guess if it were just this it could still be reasonable for this to be a CR1 monster, but there’s more!

Meazels get access to Shadow Teleport. It works similar to that one Shadow Monk ability except it has a range of 500ft AND YOU DON’T NEED TO BE ABLE TO SEE YOUR DESTINATION. You can just… go there… as long as you are familiar with the place and it is within range YOU CAN JUST NINJA KIDNAP THE BARD. There is no save for this either; just like in that one meme the Meazel is just gone along with whatever or whomever it was holding at the time. Granted this ability works on a 5-6 recharge but who cares??? You can instantly split up the party just like that.

The lore

The Meazel first appeared in Dungeons and Dragons as part of the 1st edition Fiend Folio in 1981.

They are a vicious, monstrous race that tends to live in underground areas. More often than not they can be found living in places like sewers or abandoned tunnels, but they’re known to also inhabit swamp areas.

They are described as having grayish or greenish skin tones full of warts and rashes caused by many of the skin diseases suffered by the species. As suggested by their low constitution, they have frail looking bodies and sickly eyes that are almost jet black.

Personality wise, Meazels are incredibly malicious and vindictive. They’re extremely cruel can exhibit psychopathic behaviors. These creatures are hated by all other races including themselves. They’re full of self loathing and spend a lot of their time contemplating their terrible lives. In the spirit of the holidays, imagine the Grinch, but with a side of mange and intent to kill.

Because of their living conditions, most Meazels are immune to a wide arrange of disease, at least lore wise since this isn’t necessarily reflected in their statblocks. Likewise, their mere presence is often enough to make other creatures sick, especially if there is some sort of blood cross contamination. Victims of their claw attacks (no longer a thing for 5th edition) often exhibited symptoms similar to those of the Mezels.

Meazels usually despise company and keep to themselves whenever possible. One of the few exceptions being for pets. They are known to keep creatures like drakes and spiders as companions. Despite their antisocial nature, these creatures do keep some sort of worship, particularly for any beings that might be able to help them remove their curse.

The execution

Honestly this could 100% turn into a TPKing encounter if we’re not careful, especially if we want to make use of all the features this creature has to offer. Here’s what I’m picturing:

The party is sent to investigate strange disappearances that have been going on around the city. After some investigation and tracking, they discover some leads that seem to point towards the victims being dragged into the sewer systems below the city.

The reason? A group of Meazels has banded together with the goal of gathering enough sacrificed to Levistus, who has promised to rid them of their cursed existence in exchange. Or something. Really up to you on this one, the Meazel would probably fall for whoever of whatever is able to make them that offer, even if it isn’t true.

What’s important is that once the party descends below the city, they find a giant maze of corridors, heck, maybe they even run into some other underground inhabitants, like Mites. As they follow the signs of struggle down the path, there is a muffled scream of pain from whoever is at the back of the line. When the rest of the party turns to look, however, their friend is gone; though maybe, if you’re feeling merciful, they hear the sounds of combat starting on the opposite end of the wall, just around the corner.

Separating the party will definitely have your players on high alert. Personally, I think I would try to get at least a couple of them into different areas. It then becomes a matter of choice: will they deal with the problem at hand, or will they try to rush to find their missing friends? Will they make it on time? Only their choices will tell.

If at all possible, I would recommend trying to run this as two separate encounters; one for the main group, and one for the separated players. Not knowing what’s going on with the other group is sure to create a sense of urgently that will have your players on the edge of their seats.

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Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark: 10 Hidden Details Everyone Completely Missed

Generations' worth of kids were scared and terrified by the books in the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series, which was an anthology of creepy tales that were perfect for a Halloween reading or a good scare. The legacy of these books was felt in this year’s adaptation, which weaves a select number of stories into a period piece set near the end of the 60s.

Directed by André Øvredal of Trollhunter and The Autopsy of Jane Doe fame, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is filled with references not just to its famous source material but to many other facets of the horror genre. From tributes to hidden details from the pages, here are 10 details you may have missed while watching Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

RELATED: 10 Best Monster Movies Of All Time, Ranked

10 The Movie Features The Hearse Song

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark has an appropriately haunting score, with each ghost getting a unique piece composed for them. A notable one is the ominous music that Sarah and Lou Lou’s music box plays, which, unlike the other tunes, is a pre-existing song.

The musical box’s song is an arrangement of The Hearse Song, which was also featured as a poem in the original books. The melancholic song, which describes what happens to a corpse in grim detail, is actually a World War I dirge commonly sung by American and British soldiers.

RELATED: 10 Best Uses Of Licensed Music In The MCU

9 References to Classic Horror Movies

Set in 1968, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark pays tribute to the horror movies of the time that defined the genre today. The most prominent homage is to George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, a classic that’s featured in a drive-in theater.

Additionally, Stella is shown to be a horror nut who especially loves the horror movies released in the ‘50s. Some examples include Beast from Haunted Cave, Frankenstein’s Daughter, Indestructible Man, and Mesa of Lost Women—all of which are shown through their original posters in her room.

8 Stephen Gammell’s Art

Aside from the spooky stories written by Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is best known for Stephen Gammell's accompanying art. To perfectly capture the books’ aura of dread, the filmmakers too great effort in bringing Gammell's haunting illustrations to life.

This is best seen through Harold and the Pale Lady, who are visually accurate to their printed counterparts. A notable change is the Big Toe woman, whose face was based on the iconic ghostly visage featured in the story The Haunted House.

RELATED: The 10 Most Haunting Ghost Movies Of The 2010s, Ranked

7 The Other Stories

When Stella flips through Sarah’s book, she skips a couple of stories that were written before the events of the movie. Some of these stories can be read in the books that inspired the movie, and they’re presumably being saved for future installments.

These other stories include The Attic, Cat’s Paw, Stranger, and The Wendigo. In the movie, it’s hinted that each of these tales actually narrates the dark fates that befell each of the Bellows family’s members, who all imprisoned Sarah within the house to hide their corruption and keep their wealth.

6 Sarah’s Book Was Based on The One In Pan’s Labyrinth

Sarah’s book is an ancient tome that writes stories by itself, possibly possessed by her spirit or at least empowered by a supernatural presence. If the book’s function and appearance look familiar, that’s because it was inspired by the one seen in Pan’s Labyrinth.

Called The Book of Crossroads, the book is given to Ofelia by Faun. In it, Ofelia finds three tasks that she must accomplish to reclaim her title as princess of the underground fairy kingdom. Like Sarah’s book, The Book of Crossroads writes its own text although less ominously.

5 Stella’s Dad Is Hank Schrader

Stella’s father is Deputy Roy Nicholls, a good man who’s burdened by past mistakes and tragedies. He’s portrayed by Dean Norris, who is best known for playing Walter White’s law-abiding foil and caring brother-in-law Hank Schrader in Breaking Bad.

Ever since his career-making role as a DEA agent, Norris has been consistently cast as a figure of law enforcement. Some notable examples include his role as Col. Richard Williams in The Big Bang Theory, Det. Kevin Raines in the Death Wish remake, and the abusive Glenn Sickleman in the tonally confusing The Book of Henry.

4 The Demogorgon Is Harold and the Pale Lady

Both the scarecrow Harold and the Pale Lady were portrayed by stuntman/choreographer Mark Steger, who is best known for portraying the Demogorgon in Stranger Things. This would explain these ghosts’ creepy and uncanny movements, which could only be brought to life by the guy who did a good job of scaring Dungeons & Dragons-loving kids.

Steger’s other credits include the sentient art installation Hoboman in Velvet Buzzsaw, the elusive Bigfoot in The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot, and a Critter in Critters: A New Binge.

RELATED: 10 Things People Missed In Stranger Things 3

3 Slender Man is The Big Toe Woman

The Big Toe Woman is easily recognizable for her unnatural height, which is only possible thanks to Slender Man actor Javier Botet. Botet actually has Marfan Syndrome—a rare genetic disorder that makes a patient’s body unnaturally thin and tall, which he used to make his name known in the filmmaking business.

Botet’s other famous works include three ghosts in del Toro’s Crimson Peak, the eponymous and monstrous Mama in Mama (which was produced by del Toro), and the diseased hobo in It who wants to barf on Eddie.

2 The Jangly Man Symbolizes War Injuries

True to his story, The Jangly Man is an amalgamation of different stories from the original books. One specific example is Me Tie Dought-ty Walker, which features a talking severed head.

According to the filmmakers, The Jangly Man was meant to be a horrific mess of dismembered limbs, metaphorically representing those severely disfigured by the Vietnam War. Since the filmmakers wanted to limit the CGI, The Jangly Man instead had a regular pair of arms and legs that twisted in ways they shouldn’t. The Jangly Man is portrayed by real-life contortionist Troy Jones, who famously joined America’s Got Talent.

1 The Asylum Is A Real Place

Desperate for answers, Stella and her friends go to the Pennhurst Hospital to find out what really happened to Sarah. The hospital where Chuck disappears isn’t just a haunting set-piece in the movie, but a real one as well.

The real Pennhurst State School and Hospital was a controversial asylum in Pennsylvania. It was closed in 1987 after the staffs’ abusive behavior was exposed, but not before its history of eugenics, segregation, and other inhumane practices were made public. Today, some buildings have been torn down, while most of it remains open as a haunted house exhibit for tourists.

NEXT: What To Expect From Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark 2

source https://screenrant.com/scary-stories-movie-hidden-details/

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