#and it makes me sad i can't screenshot more of it here without risking getting the post flagged XD

[blackjackkent]

The city is hovering on the edge between summer and autumn, and the night has just the slightest hint of a chill on the air as Hector climbs the stairs to the balcony of the Singing Lute Inn, where Karlach told him to meet her.

She's already seated at the table; he can see her fidgeting nervously as he approaches, and her head snaps up, startled, at the sound of his footsteps. Then the nerves are wiped from her face as she grins brightly.

"Hi. Hi! You made it!" she says eagerly. Leaning forward, she pushes back the chair next to her at the table; her eyes run over him from head to foot, drinking in the sight of him in this place so far from camp or combat. "You look nice," she murmurs.

Hector has been nothing but excited to come out and spend this time with her, ever since she suggested the idea - but now, to his own surprise, he feels a pleasantly warm, bashful feeling settle into his chest and realizes he is blushing a little.

Their relationship has been rather backwards and jumbled, he reflects. Months of hoping, wishing, pining after someone he could not even touch, let alone have... and then the collapse, barely over the course of a day, into passionate love - which was new enough for him, when it happened. This, a more traditional romantic moment, is perhaps even more unfamiliar to him now. But unlike so many of the things he has faced that were new and terrifying... this is new and joyful, because it is with her. He is safe, with her eyes on him, no matter what.

"So do you," he murmurs, looking back appreciatively, and he is gratified to see a similar dark flush rise in her cheeks as well at the compliment.

"Thank you," she answers with a bright smile. Shifting nervously in her seat, she picks up the menu hastily and peruses it with an intense studiousness.

"Hmm. Baldurian seafood stew. No thank you..." She peers at him over the top of the sheet. "What do you think you'll have?"

He is conscious of the surreal feeling that they are performing a play for each other, each of them trying to sort out what "acting normal" entails, with a little warm thrill as they successfully hit each beat in the scene. "The grilled rothe ribs sound good," he says with a slight smile.

She grins with an air of relief. "Just what I had in mind," she agrees. She waves eagerly at the innkeeper, a broad and rather surly orc gentleman. "Two of the rothe ribs, please," she says firmly. "And two glasses of..." She pauses, looks questioningly at Hector.

"Wine," Hector puts in, pointing at the item on the menu.

"And two glasses of wine," Karlach finishes, and nods with satisfaction.

As the bartender stalks off, she leans forward, resting her elbows on the edge of the table. Her eyes narrow, taking on a playful air as she starts to relax into the moment.

"So... you're an adventurer, right? How's that going?"

Hector grins, mildly bemused. "You've been by my side for a lot of it, you know," he points out.

She gives him an gentle nudge in the shoulder. "I know, but this is our *first date*, remember?" she says conspiratorially. "Tonight, you're a mystery to me."

His eyebrows lift in understanding, and he opens his mouth to try and answer in kind, continue the conceit of them being strangers to each other... but then he stops, and grins sheepishly. He's neither actor, liar, nor orator at the best of times, and if he is honest, he is finding the way she is looking at him... distracting.

"I'm not sure I can pretend I don't already love you," he says ruefully.

She hesitates, then laughs, shaking her head. "It's all I can do to keep my hands to myself anyway," she answers, and snorts softly. "We're terrible at this."

He reaches out, puts a hand on hers on the table, grinning at her slight discomfiture. "Want to get out of here?" he says teasingly.

Her eyes widen and her face flashes through a mix of eagerness and determination in rapid succession. "No! ...Yes-- No. We came to have a nice date, and that's what we're going to do." She crosses her arms over her chest and looks at him with a stubborn smirk. "Go on. Date me. I dare you."

Hector laughs softly. "You're right. So... erm... where did you grow up?" he tries, after a moment's thought, trying to determine what he might ask her if he had never met her before, if the scent and warmth of her were still things he had yet to experience. This is still not his strong suit - but he will make the effort if it will make her happy.

She brightens up excitedly and settles back into the moment with only a little awkwardness.

"Right here in Baldur's Gate, more or less," she says, gesturing out to the view of the city below them. "My folks are long gone now. But they raised me in the Outer City. Dad was a porter in town, mum did laundry." She smiles nostalgically. "Still think of her when I smell clean sheets. We were poorer than dirt, but my gods we had fun."

He leans back in his seat, just enjoying listening to the sound of her voice, her excitement, her happiness at being back in the city, all washing over him. He's heard some of this from her before - but not all of it. Perhaps this 'pretending to be strangers' bit has even more merit than he expected.

"What about you?" she asks him curiously.

(A/N: The three options here are "much like yours," "i don't like to talk about my past," and "I'm from baldur's gate too, I wonder if we crossed paths"; none of these are actually relevant to Hector's experience of growing up at the monastery. So we're going to skip over this line. XD )

He has told her some things about his life among the monks of Silverlight before - but fairly little about his childhood there. He finds himself starting to talk about it now, though. He has no real stories of joy and excitement like those she describes, and on some level he has started to realize just how barren his life was in these particular regards until he met her... but there were good memories too. He ends up telling her a little about the lessons he received - how he started being trained as a scribe before they discovered his fascination with the ancient tomes and texts of their historical library...

She listens with rapt fascination, just as he had listened to her, a slight, blissful smile on her face.

It's hard to say how long they sit there, caught in the conversation, trading stories back and forth; both of them have started to relax into this 'first date' conceit and Hector feels his cheeks starting to hurt from smiling. They're only interrupted by the eventual arrival of their food... which is wrong.

Two plates of seafood stew land on the table in front of them, along with the two glasses of wine. Karlach looks down at the plate with an air of some disappointment - but is met with a curse from the irritable innkeeper who stalks away when she tries to ask for a change.

Hector can see her struggling to mask the disappointment at the meal not quite going as planned, and she forces a smile back onto her face.

"Worst guy I ever met," she mutters wryly. "How about a toast?"

But, frazzled, she moves too fast, and the wine glass slips from her fingers as she goes to lift it, sending a spray of pale purple across the table - and over her lap. "Oh, SHIT," she snaps, and Hector can hear her voice crack.

Frowning, he reaches out and takes her hand in both of his. He can feel the increased heat of the engine in her palm and knows it for a sign of her agitation, and his thumbs drift over her knuckles gently, soothingly. "We can use my glass," he says mildly, and reaches to lift it between them. "To us."

He can see her relax, his voice and touch pushing away the frustration in favor of something warmer. She smiles slightly, nods agreement as he makes the toast, and her eyes track his intensely. The conceit of the first date is gone abruptly, and he sees the full depth of feeling in her eyes, everything they have built together in the months that he has been hers.

"May we live every day as if it were our last," she says softly. "'Cause you never know when your last will come." Before he can respond, she pushes up from her chair and leans across the table to press her lips against his fiercely.

As always, the oblique reference to how little time they have left makes his heart twist in his chest -- but now it is his turn to push that down and away. It has no place here. This moment is for her - for them - to feel, just for a little while, like they can say anything, do anything... like just for one night they are not trapped in the raging river of fate that is dragging them along.

Just for tonight, he thinks, and kisses her deeply, one hand sliding into her hair. Just for tonight... we have all of time ahead of us...

-----

It must be nearly two in the morning, he reflects vaguely sometime later, as he peers out at the curve of the moon and its position slowly descending towards the west. He's barely been aware of the passage of time; the last few hours have been some of the happiest of his life. Just like she promised... no monsters, no fights, no fears, just them, together, talking about whatever comes to mind, each sentence punctuated by a brush of fingertips against a hand or a cheek, a stolen kiss, a sip of wine...

And of course, the seafood stew, which really is dreadful, but certainly filling.

Karlach leans back in her chair with a heavy, contented sigh. "That was great," she mumbles, and flicks a glance at Hector with a slow smile. "The food and the company."

They've both had a little too much wine, really. Hector's lips have been fixed in a permanent, slightly giddy grin for at least the last hour. All the dark thoughts are far behind him now and he feels as if he is simply drifting, content to be near her, and has been forever, and will be forever still.

"Lovely having a normal evening amid the chaos..." he says quietly.

She smiles wryly. "Whatever do you mean? We're just two normal people... living normal lives... very, very normally."

But she can't maintain the facade again; her voice cracks just a little, and she reaches out abruptly, putting her hand over his on the table.

He stirs slightly, the happy buzz fading as he registers something serious and sad coming into her eyes.

"I know I can't stay forever," she says quietly. There's no attempt at jocular humor this time, no wry deflection or avoidance. Her voice is soft and flat, full of love and full of grief. "Here. With you. In fact, I feel like..." She swallows. "Like I don't have long left at all."

His face spasms with a failed effort to contain the fear that floods through him at those words. Every moment he knows it is on the horizon, and yet hearing her speak of it directly, as something looming even closer than before, feels like a dagger through his heart.

Her hand tightens around his, pulling him a little closer to her. "We've been through so much," she goes on. "And the worst is yet to come. I have every reason to feel terrified, hopeless... like giving up." She draws a breath and lets it out slowly, visibly struggling to keep composure long enough to finish speaking. "But to be here, with you, in the city I love, in this world I love so much... it's all I could really ask for."

She reaches out, cups her hand against his cheek, running her thumb along the edge of his beard. It's an affectionate gesture, of course, but it also serves to pull his face towards her, to nudge open his eyes so they meet hers squarely. "You hear me?" she says, suddenly fierce, her voice cracking again as the emotion starts to overwhelm her. "*You're* all I could ever ask for. I love you... and I know that whatever else this city will throw at us, we can handle it."

He is listening with such fervent attention that he feels a muscle start to ache in his neck. And though his instinct, whenever this topic comes up, is to recoil into grief... this time he forces himself only to listen, to let her words flow through him and strengthen him.

Maybe it will end. But it meant something. It meant everything. It will always have meant everything...

He will have that to hold onto, when the pain eventually finds him. As it will, no matter how hard he tries to look away.

"I love you too," he whispers unsteadily, looking back into her eyes, his gaze heavy with all the love he feels for her. In almost every other moment, he is so careful with what he shows, how he controls himself... but not here. There is nothing hidden, not from her.

She smiles, kisses him again, slow and deep, then rests her forehead against his. "Come on," she murmurs. "There's something I want to show you upstairs."

He has to take a moment and breathe several times before he trusts himself to speak. "What is it?" he asks.

She laughs, only a little shakily. "I rented us a room for the whole night. Just the two of us -- alone, finally."

In spite of the emotional strain of the conversation, he feels a flicker of eager warmth go all through him, and she grins at the expression on his face.

"After you," he says, and pushes himself unsteadily to his feet.

-----

He has only ever experienced their lovemaking in camp. And he had never had anything to complain of. She has always been more wonderful than he would have words to describe, no matter where they are. He wouldn't have thought to ask for more even if it had been an option.

But this... gods. A soft bed and her warmth all over him, the same hungry eagerness that has marked their previous encounters, and yet... slow.

They had claimed to each other that they were going slow, that first night back in the shadowlands - but it wasn't really. It was rushed and desperate, full of need and urgency - both from desire and from the necessary limitations of sex in a camp full of other people.

This... this is slow. They have all night, and no one to bother them, nothing to distract. He is free to take his time, explore every part of her as she explores him. And the look in her eyes as their bodies meld together is something he will never forget if he were to live to be a thousand years old.

He loves her... he loves her... he loves her... and he can feel her on the edge of slipping away from him, but he will carry this with him into the darkness when she is gone.

He loves her and he is losing her and he does not know what he will do without her.

But they have this.

They have this...

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #karlach x tav #long post #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #ok the cute followed by the feelsy... my heart was not prepared for this scene #and this took me like two hours to write because hector is having SO MANY EMOTIONS #and so am i #i am honestly so pleased with how this conversation went because ultimately it was a simple direct speech from her that he needed to hear #he needed to hear her not laugh or brush it off or avoid the topic #and he in turn needed to give her the gift of letting her tell him what she did and let it mean something without all the baggage #also this was one of the most sweet and soft sex scenes i have ever seen in a video game #and it makes me sad i can't screenshot more of it here without risking getting the post flagged XD #anyway it's 1am and i'm a mess #idk if there are like good and bad times to post this stuff but this probably counts as bad XD #also this post is enormous so y'know. never let it be said i don't give bang for the buck content-wise lol

[boyinthevoide]

this might be very obvious or like well known but one thing i think goes kind of unspoken about and i think is really interesting is how when eridan does his whole "fight sollux and kill fef and kanaya" thing, he does not initiate the fight. he doesnt show up with the intention of fighting, and he certainly doesnt show up wanting to kill two people.

(its under the cut because there's a LOT of images, i wanted to make sure as much stuff as possible was in context.)

first, kanaya, because it's short.

when kanaya tells eridan about her plan to restore the troll race, this is what he says:

[Image IDs: two screenshots from returniabound, where eridan is angrily saying "if theres goin to be any sort a hope for our race as the prince of hope i demand to be involved so dont go anywhere without me got it".

End ID.]

firstly, this implies he isn't literally on his way out and stopping to get feferi. this also makes it very clear he didn't start out wanting to kill kanaya, because if he did, he wouldn't've gotten involved in her plan. obviously. she wouldn't be able to go through with it if she was dead.

then, feferi and sollux, because he talks to both of them at once.

the thing is, the way eridan and sollux's interactions work at least to me is that they're both just vaguely annoyed with each other, then when they interact they basically just provoke each other the whole time (i dont ship erisol it just doesnt fit to me). their interactions here follow this formula.

[Image IDs: a conversation between eridan and sollux. it goes thusly:

sollux: "oh GOD it's him. [feferi] can you tell him to go away, i don't even have the energy for this."

eridan: "hey finless this doesnt concern those with mustard sludge slippin through their veins [...] so keep your mouth closed or ill slit you open over my next meal"

sollux: "w/e bro, not interested".

End ID.]

admittedly eridan isn't exactly fond of sollux, and he is threatening him, but eridan does just kind of talk like that. they're both just pretty hostile towards each other.

and to feferi, eridan says this:

[Image ID: eridan saying "all i want to do is have a word with you" End ID]

this is just an honest statement. he has no reason to lie about this.

then, theres the actual thing that causes all the problems.

[Image IDs: a conversation between eridan and feferi, that goes thusly:

eridan: [...] so im gonna ask you this one last time and give you the chance im about to go please come with me

feferi: Go with you? Eridan, you weren't really serious about going to find Jack, were you?

eridan: of course i was and we should do it together

[...]

feferi: Jack Noir is INSANELY powerful Eridan! Please, I don't want to see you doing anything foolish by trying to fight him.

eridan: fight him are you fuckin nuts [...] im goin to join him and youre gonna join me in joinin him too fef come on lets go [...] only thing left to do is serve him and hope he spares us and im extending the invitation to come with me cause even though you dont think so i really do care about you

End ID.]

then there's some more dialogue and feferi resolves herself and sollux to stopping eridan.

[Image ID: feferi saying "That's it. This makes me sad, Eridan, but now we have to stop you. We can't let you find Jack and risk you leading him to us." End ID.]

eridan didn't want this to happen. he wanted feferi to agree and leave with him. he didn't not want to fight sollux but it doesn't seem to have been part of his original plan.

but here's the thing. eridan doesn't kill sollux.

[Image ID: sollux lies against a wall he's just been blasted against. there's blood trickling from his mouth and in a trail down the wall, and there is text on the right reading "KO'D." End ID]

he ko's him.

and that's important, because the move he uses is a very similar/more powerful version of the move he uses to kill feferi and kanaya.

[Image IDs: three images of eridan using hope magic to laser someone. in the first he engulfs sollux with it, in the second and third he is blasting feferi and kanaya respectively with it. End ID]

i have no trouble believing he could have killed sollux, but he doesn't. he doesn't want or need to. maybe it's just energy conservation, or maybe...

[Image ID: eridan saying "im not going to very well kill you am i that would be fuckin unconscionable what kind of friend would i be"]

...he just doesn't want to kill his friends?

because he only turns to killing after this set of panels:

[Image IDs: three panels from homestuck

panel one: feferi stands over an unconscious sollux with a horrified expression. eridan lurks in the background.

panel two: feferi turns to eridan with a furious expression.

panel three: feferi lunges towards eridan with 2x3dent in hand and still looking furious.

End ID.]

maybe feferi didn't want to kill eridan. but lunging towards someone with a murderous look and a sharp object does tend to have that sort of implication. eridan for this whole time is literally just standing there. feferi is the one to escalate it to possible attempted murder.

he then kills kanaya, who only actually attacks after he destroys the matriorb. fair enough! he had no reason to do that! but at that point his ex-moirail/flushed crush had just tried to kill him and he'd killed her, so it's safe to assume his emotional state wasn't exactly stable at this point.

so as a recap/TLDR:

eridan didn't start out the conversation wanting to end up killing/maiming three people. he made a plan with kanaya that basically requires her to be alive, he has every ability to kill sollux in the duel and quite specifically doesn't, and the entire reason he's here in the first place is to protect feferi and keep her alive. he doesn't initiate the fight, and he doesn't escalate it to murder.

basically he would be correct to go "they started it"

#i dont know why i made this ill be honest #i just noticed it and thought it was neat #eridan ampora #feferi peixes #sollux captor #homestuck #homestuck theory

[wonda-ch]

@dujour13 I had to take a screenshot to get it out of the sideblog. Sorry.💕 Thanks for asking. 😊

----

The lake lies quietly in the orange glow of the setting sun as Daeran approaches its shore with a blanket, a bottle of wine, and two glasses. He pauses when he recognizes Tishlia's silhouette, sitting near the shore with her arms wrapped around her knees, gazing into the water. She shouldn't be here. She should be looking for the animals, losing track of time as usual, and then finding him waiting on the shore, wine in hand, smiling at her.

The closer he gets, the more his stomach clenches when she does not turn her eyes to him, despite the fact that it should be impossible to approach her unnoticed. The slight trembling of her shoulders makes his gaze freeze for a moment. If she's crying, there must be a reason, one he doesn't know. As he continues to approach, he feverishly ponders what could be making her sad, and even more so, what could be keeping her from coming to him with that sadness.

Daeran is on the last steps to his wife when she wipes her eyes and sits up straighter, but she still doesn't look back at him. Shadowy, evil thoughts are already troubling him, and he tries to push them away until he can talk to her and get some clarity. "Tisha? What's wrong?"

"Nothing Dae, everything is fine."

The cramp in his stomach intensifies at this all too obvious lie. He sits down next to her, inverted so she can't avoid his gaze. When he tries to grab her hand, she reflexively pulls it away and the feeling of being rejected sends a chill down his spine and he tries hard not to let it affect his voice. "It doesn't look like all is well, why the tears, my love?"

"I'm grieving for my friend." Her voice is cold and dismissive.

"Midnight is gone, not dead. When Jax finds him and they settle their stupid argument, he'll be back." He relaxes a bit when he hears her reasoning, he doesn't quite understand it, but at least it doesn't seem threatening.

"You have no idea, Dae. They are dragons, I haven't heard any news from him, I have no idea where he is, he doesn't contact me. They are dragons, Dae, they have a different sense of time than we do. It could be years before he comes back." Without a sob, tears run down her cheeks again, but she doesn't try to hide them.

"If he wants to miss years with us, that's his choice and his loss. He won't risk it for long. Don't be sad, it wasn't you who argued with him. Until they return, we will be happy without them, you still have my most delightful company." Hoping that his motivating, light tone will brighten her mood, he tries to reach out his hand in her direction, but again she flinches from his touch.

Her reaction hits him like a low blow, and he drops his eyes to the ground. Hurt. Unsettled. He takes a deep breath, trying to control his voice, but the uncertainty clearly resonates in his next question. "What did I do wrong, Tisha?"

"It's not about you. It's nothing you've done, but it's not going to be all right because you decide so, Dae! Things do not come to you just because you want them to. You're not the center of the world." Her eyes pierce him and the anger in her sharp voice increases with every word.

The fury she makes him feel makes him flinch as if he had been physically hit. He quivers, angry at himself for not knowing where her anger comes from. His insecurity increases, he has no idea what words he can use now without making things worse.

A moment passes in which only the soft wind rustling the reeds can be heard. She has turned her eyes back to the water and he can see her holding back her anger, but he can't see why. The silence does not answer his questions and Tishlia seems unwilling to break it again.

His voice barely above a whisper, he makes a cautious approach. "I never wanted to be the center of the world. I only want to be the center of your world."

The wind continues to whisper, as if continuing his thoughts. When Tishlia looks into his eyes, he can see the sadness in the dark blue depths. For a moment, she stares at him as if to tell him her thoughts, and he chides himself for not understanding her. His self-reproach is interrupted when she finally speaks to him, calm and tender.

"That's what you are, you stupid idiot. That's why I'm sitting here, because of what you are." Her gaze returns to the water and more tears glisten on her cheeks. Hesitantly, as if trying to touch a burning log, he makes another attempt to take her hand. As she allows him to touch her, he finds himself holding his breath as he exhales in relief.

The warmth of her body suddenly leaning against his shoulder gently loosens the tense knot in his stomach. His free hand begins to gently brush her back, calming the renewed trembling of her shoulders. Without further questions, he waits patiently for her to explain what this is all about.

The setting sun bathes the lake in a reddish glow, the wind dies down so that even the whispering in the reeds seems to await her next words. "He wanted me to go with him. I tried to change his mind so he would stay. But he couldn't, he had to leave, and he wanted us to go together. I had to make a decision. I decided. And now… I miss him, Dae. It's like a part of me is gone. I don't regret my decision, I belong by your side, but sometimes… like today, it tears me apart".

He is glad that she can't see his face, in which his eyes now shine after her revelation. He holds her tighter in his arms, feeling the restless rhythm of her breathing and hearing the slight sob that has come over her again. His lips press tenderly against her temple as he says, "We'll look for him, everywhere, and we won't give up until we find him, I promise you, Tisha." She hears his promise and snuggles closer into his arms. These are the last words the lake will hear until the darkness falls.

#pathfinder wrath of the righteous #daeran #tishlia x daeran #dujour13 #the story of the bottle of wine that was not opened #poor wine

[hologramcowboy]

Hey, what do you think of Jensen and Elta celebrating Dean’s birthday with the Winchesters cast?

Thank you for asking.

Here are a few notes:

This cast & the producers have no clue how promos are done professionally, they have no strategy and come off as amateurs and toxic.

Danneel is trying yet again to pull of the no make up but has yet again used so many pounds of foundation she looks 20 years older than her botoxed face would look with a light amount required for the no makeup look. She is also wearing a horribly unflaterring outfit and the few strands of natural hair she does have left are completely burned. I don't know who her stylist is but they clearly hate the woman otherwise they would have told her that shade of red ages her and makes her more vulgar than she already is and that she needs to go for high quality extensions.

Jensen is egocentric, disconnected and terribly unhappy, he is only smiling because he is, once again, shitfaced. This won't look good to his buyers as an actor that drinks heavily ESPECIALLY during work related lives and events, is viewed as a production risk and tossed into the no pile. If Jensen wants to get cast he needs to stop acting like over 40 man who drinks himself into oblivion just to make it through his engagements.

Not even going to get into the self centric choice to celebrate Dean's birthday that way, such a cheap way with such cheap people (Tom welling excluded). It tells me he only cares about himself and the money and he clearly plans on reviving Dean. Also, can't help but get the feeling he had a reason for choosing to celebrate, can't put my finger on it but there's definitely something he finally feels pleased about though I don't think it relates to TW.

In the screenshots you sent Elta is behind him, no gentleman would leave her behind him during a live, he should have let her enter first. Yet again live proof Jensen is all about himself and Elta is an after thought. Even near the table, she wasn't near him, Tom was. 🤣

Someone please tell Danneel that putting foundation on your lips without after putting on at least a transparent but slightly tinted gloss or a light touch of color makes anyone looked washed out and dead and it also ages you. Someone also tell Elta that nude lips don't look good on older people especially people that purposefully use a foundation at least two to three shades lighter than their actual skin. Yet another faux pas. Each time I see this woman I end up wanting to restyle her head to toe as she is sadly cluless on how to enhance her features as well as body. Which for an actress, being clueless on that front is quite a sad thing to be. She was a "model", yes? She needs to apply what she learned.

Tom Welling is aging prematurely but he is the cutest thing to hit the earth, I am glad he was there, in a way.

It truly shows that Jensen never studied acting, he thinks what makes his character are the surface details such as pie and whiskey, he goes for the predictable clichès because he never explored the depth of his character. He is using Dean as a self importance crutch instead of going to therapy and getting back in touch with himself.

#anti jenneel #anti the winchesters

[coffee-bat]

sure i do! (posting screenshot of ask for easier formatting)

(also, i have a whump headcannons ask that i've been compiling the response to for the past weeks (anon who asked, i'm so sorry it's taking so long, i'm not ignoring your ask), so this one will focus strictly on everything OTHER than whump.)

- he often bites his nails when stressed, or even just bored (or when he has no cigar on hand. he has a thing for chewing/nibbling on things). stopping himself from doing it is one of the reasons he wears gloves (other than for warmth and to shield his hands from damage), as having his nails bit too short is painful and can make his work almost impossible. (saying this as a nail biter. you literally CANNOT use a finger that you bit the nail of too short)

- speaking of stimming, aside from biting things, he uses the compass around his neck as a stim toy. it's useless around him, as his own magnetic field renders it impossible to point north as it should, but he'll often play with it by making it spin through altering his field. it requires both focus and a small bit of physical effort, effectively taking his mind off whatever's stressing him, at least for a short bit until he gets bored.

- he thinks he can cook, but anyone who's ever tried his cooking strongly disagrees. while his techniques are okay, like he doesn't burn or undercook stuff, the things he makes are borderline inedible. (he once made a party cheese salad for a family meeting and lowkey bonded with moreau over him being the only one to like the atrocity)

- he's the youngest of the lords (with the age order being alcina>moreau>donna>karl). donna looks younger than him, however it's mostly because of his healing factor being worse than the others', making him actually age (even if very slow) instead of being stuck in time.

- he DESPISES family meetings, along with the family dinners miranda keeps insisting on (which take place either at the castle or at donna's place, as moreau's reservoir and the factory are unsuited for that to say the least), but the latter's redeeming factor is that, if he's lucky, he gets a unique opportunity to fuck with alcina. which usually means eating her out of house and home (using the fact that she's too proud of her good manners to refuse a guest), getting drunk, wrecking her house (muddy boots who?) and then passing out somewhere. it gives him the opportunity to make himself her problem and he loves that. (i've actually started work on a comic a few weeks ago where alcina kicks karl off a random couch she finds him on (in a food coma), a shitposty thing with a SLIGHTLY wholesome-ish ending (as wholesome as alcina gets), but it was taking so long that i just gave up at some point. though, if any of y'all would like to see it finished, let me know, it'd be easier to motivate myself to do it if i knew anyone actually wanted me to lol)

- he holds animals close to his heart but would hate to admit it, in fear of appearing weak or soft. claims that he lets the one (1) cat stay in his factory ONLY because it helps with rats, totally not for company because he's a sad lonely man, what are you talking about.

-he's neither a cat or dog person, he likes both equally, but it'd be far harder to keep a dog in his quarters, seeing as it would require both more space and regular walks + playtime, while a cat is perfectly happy with just getting to sleep on him at night (in terms of contact/bonding).

- though, while he doesn't have a dog, he lowkey treats the lycans as such. keeps them under his control solely through giving them dog treats he buys from the duke. (took him a long time and lots of claw/teeth injuries to figure that out, but hey, better late than never).

--warning: the next few paragraphs discuss weight insecurity and body dysmorphia. i'll let you know when the segment ends so you can skip it if it's triggering or makes you uncomfortable--

- he's insecure about his body, both the scars littered across it and his weight. the first can't be helped and he's aware of it, however the latter TECHNICALLY CAN be and thus it bothers him far more. he used to be in a better shape, both mentally and physically, before his life was completely consumed by his work and plans of the rebellion, however these days, he just can't afford to focus on keeping himself in shape (he doesn't have the time and energy to exercise outside of the weight lifting he has to do while working, and same goes for taking care of his diet. cooking and eating balanced food takes too much time and energy, making him resort to whatever is the quickest to make and will keep him going through the day). he feels intense discomfort when looking at younger pictures of himself, he can't help but feel that he has "let himself go" in the recent years, however simultanously doesn't have the time and energy to do anything about it. it's frustrating and makes him feel out of control.

- alcina once touched on the topic while arguing with him, and it fucked him up. up until then he clang onto the small bit of hope that maybe noone has noticed the changes in his body, that maybe it was just him that was hypersensitive to it and in reality it wasn't that visible, and alcina's comment instantly shattered it. not only did she notice, but she apparently considered it worthy of using against him. there goes his last bit of confidence.

- it was one of the very few times she has seen him actually cry (before storming off to hide himself in his factory). it was also one of the few times she had apologized to him. she has made comments about his height and general looks before, and it never seemed to bother him, he always retorded back with a snarky remark targeted back at her, so she truly thought he had no insecurity issues- but this time, for the first time, he just looked hurt, almost disbelieving, and ran away without a word. it made her initial anger melt away instantly, realizing what she did. she ran after him a few minutes later, hoping it wasn't too late and she hadn't done unreversable damage. the whole incident was a major blow to her ego, especially as she was forced to beg karl over the intercom to let her in, but she wouldn't have forgiven herself if she didn't tell him that she was sorry and didn't mean it. she had to admit to herself that it truly was a low blow and she couldn't let herself be carried away like this ever again.

- karl's confidence never really healed from the incident, it's not something he can just forget. but he did get a kick out of having alcina beg for forgiveness, so he considers at least that to be an upside of the whole thing.

--weight/body dysmorphia discussion ends here--

- he gets sensory overloads easily, especially from loud noise, making him snappy if there's too many people talking/making noise. he also often has issues with things touching him when he's already stressed - due to this, he keeps a hairband in his pocket at all times (to keep his hair out of his face), and has tied the belt of his trench coat behind his back so it wouldn't touch his arms while moving around (that one is actually part of his character model). having things hanging off him irritates him greatly.

- he has a tendency to cling onto/hug whatever is in his reach while he's asleep. usually it's a pillow or his blanket, but it's also a risk one should be aware of when choosing to sleep in one bed with him. you're gonna wake up in a death grip. and he's a heavy sleeper, so don't even think about going to the bathroom.

- speaking of physical affection, he loves massages, they're one of his favorite types of affection to receive. any kind of them, really. he's sore most of the time, so a bit of relief is always greatly appreciated. back/shoulders after a long day of work, tummy if his cadou is bothering him or his eating habits fucked him over again, maybe even hands if he's worked manually for too long and his palms are starting to cramp. it's all really appreciated. (another factor contributing to why he likes them is that they're completely selfless acts of affection. his partner isn't getting anything out of it (like they would with anything sexual or romantic), its only purpose is to help him feel better. makes him feel loved.)

- speaking of, he literally cried the first time ethan gave him a shoulder rub. feeling the decades worth of pain, tiredness and muscle strain that he didn't realize he felt finally fade, be washed away, made his eyes water, he couldn't help it. it wasn't long after they had moved in together (as roommates, since karl had nowhere to go), and to karl, it felt like an affirmation that it's over, he can relax, he can rest now. no need to keep overworking himself, to keep not letting himself ever catch a break because "he might like it too much and stop chasing his goal", to keep doing anything to keep himself going for years on end despite knowing it's ruining his body. it's done, it's over, he finally deserves a rest. it made ethan deeply confused and concerned before karl sobbed out why he's crying.

these are all for now, i think! at least all that comes to mind at the moment. if you'd like me to talk about headcannons on a specific subject/topic (or expand on any of these ones), let me know! i'm sure to think of something that i haven't already, or forgot to write down. i just love talking about headcannons, man.

#this bitch took me 2 hours to write i really hope you like it #resident evil village #resident evil 8 #karl heisenberg #alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu #headcannons #long post

[lightrises]

"Only in allowing her to pass..." — Hornet, The Radiance, and the means by which Hallownest turned its victims against each other

A quick note: I read Hollow Knight as an anti-colonialist text. As such I'll be touching on topics related to colonialism as it's depicted in the world of the game, and said analysis will reflect both a sympathetic take on The Radiance and a critique of The Pale King that won't pull its punches. If this sounds up your alley, hello and thank you for the read! Let us be sad about these bugs together.

———

So!! A while back I realized something about pre-canon that felt rather... "curious" is one way to put it, I think. To wit: for all the effort and scheming and determination The Pale King poured into trying to get rid of The Radiance, neither of his plans involved directly killing her.

Was that his long game? Well, sure, that seems clear enough. His tack changed from luring the moths away from their god and creator to a more literal form of incarceration once the infection became a factor, but at its core the end goal never really changed—The Pale King very sincerely wished to destroy Radiance via obsolescence. The Seer lends us foreshadowing to confirm as much:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from Hollow Knight, showing the Seer and Ghost in the Seer's alcove at the Resting Grounds. Across both screenshots, the Seer tells Ghost the following: "None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters." End description.]

(Which, by the way and given the context, talk about an extremely unsubtle allusion to cultural genocide huh!!! Whew.)

In any case, we're left with a whole bunch of machinations which build up to... well, two very roundabout attempts at committing deicide. That's kind of weird, all things considered! Why not just do the deed in one fell swoop and get it over with?

This could be for any number of reasons. Maybe the king was devoid of the means to instantly kill another higher being. Maybe his personal sense of scruples stopped him short of signing off on MURDER murder (although, y'know, the aforementioned genocide + eternal imprisonment = still cool and copasectic apparently!). Maybe the long drawn-out cruelty was the point. Maybe the idea of playing fuckign 4D chess with the circumstances was too delicious for him to pass up—that man did love to tinker and stick his claws where they sure as hell didn't belong—or maybe it was a little bit of All The Things. Who knows!!

But interrogating The Pale King's methodology on this count isn't what I'm here for, at least not really. The main reason I raise this question at all is that in her own way, Hornet did too.

"I'd urge you to take that harder path... "

See, going by The Pale King's actions and what The White Lady explicitly says, they both foresaw two outcomes wrt the infection: it can be allowed to spread, or it can be contained. At Teacher's Archives, Quirrel acknowledges the fact that Ghost is expected to do... something about this, but he doesn't elaborate on what HE thinks that's supposed to be apart from the obvious "Gotta bust into Black Egg Temple first". Hornet is the one person who presents to us—to Ghost—what's framed as a third option: confront and destroy the infection at its source.

And she doesn't bring it up like it's just another tactic for Ghost to consider, prim and indifferent to what they would do. She nudges them towards it, actively, up to the point where she throws herself into the fray against Hollow at a juncture that's uniquely dangerous to her and her alone just to make that option feasible.

Even when she's couching it in disclaimers that this is still Ghost's decision to make (and let's be fair, she's extremely not wrong about that lol), no one can pretend Hornet is unbiased. It's obvious in that buttoned-down Hornet kind of way that she is way the hell done with the increasingly tenuous stalemate that's kept Hallownest's desiccated corpse from collapsing in on itself. Personally it's hard for me not to read some Toriel Undertale-esque "My father was too entrenched in his own foolishness to pursue any course of action that would have DEFINITIVELY ended this" shade into her stance here, regardless of whether that's strictly true in canon.

And that bit—Hornet's hopes for an end to Hallownest's stasis, moreover her grim calculation of what needs to be done to get there—that's the bit I find super interesting but likewise tragic and depressing as shit, on multiple levels. In no small part because a) canon itself gestures towards Hornet feeling conflicted about the very plan she's pushing, and moreover b) she has at least two (2) damn good reasons to feel that way.

So, what do I mean by that? Let's look here first:

[Image description: A screenshot from Hollow Knight, of Hornet and Ghost inside the Temple of the Black Egg, standing in front of the unsealed egg itself. Hornet has been struck by the Dream Nail and her dialogue is displayed as follows: "... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?" End description.]

As the curtain is about to drop on things one way or another, Hornet thinks,

... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?

Now, looking at that last bit it's easy to go "Oh no, Hornet's worried that Ghost won't survive killing The Radiance!" And I do think that's part of it: Hornet is, categorically, not her father. By endgame it's clear she's not content to view her Void-borne siblings as tools to be used then disposed of. She's also well aware that as a healthy autonomous Vessel amongst the countless dead, Ghost is the only person left alive who has a fighting chance against The Radiance. Knowing someone is the only qualified candidate for the job doesn't make encouraging them to embrace a probable death sentence any less of a bitter pill to swallow, though. And odds are on that this sentiment extends to Hollow too, who IS going to die no matter what happens here. To put it bluntly, it's more than reasonable to conclude that Hornet hates the absolute fuck out of this.

But I don't think that's all there is to it either. Remember what I said earlier about The Pale King's bids for genocide? Well, it's not like the man deigned to limit his efforts to just the moth tribe.

"We do not choose our mothers... "

On top of everything else—an infected Hallownest being all she's ever known, the fact that she only exists because of the infection, the list goes on—Hornet has spent her life wedged into a position that's been uncomfortable and terminally unglamorous at best: she is both a daughter of her father's kingdom and of Deepnest.

Deepnest, which like the moths and many others was here long before the wyrm and his lady wife swanned onto the scene and the God Become Bug laid claim to everything the Light touched plus a considerable amount of change. THAT Deepnest, which has fought claw and thread to retain its sovereignty against same-said settler king, and for which Herrah not only surrendered her life but also agreed to bed her worst enemy, all in hopes of securing a viable future for her people (put a pin in that last part by the way, I'll come back to it soon).

Two Worlds, One Family (Ft. An Indigenous Woman Trying Her Damndest To Work With What She's Got Versus An Imperialist Who Only Signed Up For This Because He Needed The Political Favor THAT Badly, So It's The Height Of Dysfunctional Actually). Fun times!!!!

The baggage this entails for Hornet is gnarly enough without implications made by The White Lady and the pre-canon timeline of events and even Team Cherry's dev notes that the king may well have looked at baby Hornet, gone "YOINK", then ensured she spent the lion's share of her childhood reared within the pearly auspices of his Pale Court*. That would be rather advantageous for Him Specifically after all, the potential to mold a born foe into a future ally and even have her trained in combat under the same tutelage as her doomed sibling. And far be it from him to stop a grown Hornet—his own flesh and blood too!—from making Deepnest her forever home if she so pleased. He totally wouldn't be reneging on his "fair bargain made" by doing this one simple thing until Hornet came of age, not t e c h nic c a l l y.

If that is indeed the case, there's a non-zero chance Hornet's formative years were a hot mess of cultural alienation and being a good deal more privy than most to just how much of a bastard her father could be. There's an equally non-zero chance that at some point she stood or sat within earshot as The Pale King finally, finally dropped all pretense and euphemism to name the Light for precisely what (for who) it was.

See, in conjunction with the question that started this whole dang train of thought I've been asking this one too: Does Hornet know? When she speaks of confronting "the heart of [the] infection" does she know she's talking about not just a literal person but someone very specific? The Radiance, who god though she may be shares skin in the game alongside Hornet as a native woman screwed over by the same settler king, likewise deprived of her kin and saddled with a life gone horrendously pear-shaped?

I'll assume for the sake of exploring the possibility and because I think it's a likely one anyway that yes, Hornet does know. She knows, and despite everything can't help empathizing. She might even look at Radiance and see bits and pieces both reflected and slightly inversed in her own mother: Radiance was forced to the sidelines while her people—her children, the brood she was meant to lead and care for—died out under The Pale King's rule, and it's no stretch to assume she's at least as upset about that as she has been about everything else; Herrah too took drastic measures for her people's sake, trying to head off annihilation by relegating herself to the sidelines in an act that was as much calculated risk as an attempt to find wiggle room and leverage in the face of a nasty proposition.

A calculated risk that, if things continue as they are, might well amount to nothing as the rest of Deepnest gets eaten alive by the infection. It survived The Pale King's advances for so so long, only to fall here. Herrah's sacrifice would be for naught; the other tribes—themselves the king's victims—would keep succumbing to the infection too.

And this is where things fall apart.

"... or the circumstance into which we are born."

Let's be clear: I think Hornet is wise enough to know what's what here, that all the carnage and suffering falls on her father's head for starting this slow-motion trainwreck in the first place. Hallownest wasn't always Hallownest. This domain was Radiance's home first, along with many others. It was the worm-turned-king who rolled up on the scene unsolicited and decided this was a ""'problem""" that had to be """solved""".

But the fact of the matter is that he's gone and The Radiance is here, raging, seemingly inconsolable. Above and beyond being Deepnest's rightful heir, Hornet isn't in a position to countenance more splash damage even if the grief and fury fueling it makes perfect sense. She can understand without ever bringing herself to love Radiance, and she can bend her knee to practicality even if she hates the everloving shit out of it because the fact that it "has" to end this way isn't fair.

This lends itself to one last awful conclusion: that Hornet has probably considered and (rightly or wrongly) discarded the possibility that Radiance can be saved, at least not without dragging more collateral along for the ride. If even her mother and every other enemy to the king seemed to dismiss talking Radiance down as an option way back when... well. Why should Hornet hope for any better after things have escalated so far?

Again, it's practical. A practical net good is what Hornet strives for. And again, it fucking sucks.

For extra tragedy points, this makes Hornet's extended crypticness around Ghost followed by her last minute casting about for a reason to tell them "Wait, don't; not just yet" that she never voices even more of a gut punch. She can't bring herself to burden Ghost with the context that haunts her so, least of all when it might weaken their resolve to go through with what (she thinks) needs doing.

It's the "same song, different verse" which led to the mantis tribe and Deepnest being pitted against each other: Hallownest rigged the game so that two women who could have been powerful allies—who have a mutual vested interest in driving out settler rule—wound up poised as enemies instead. And how awful is that? The king for all his being extremely fucking dead still gets the last laugh, because outside of a miracle the game never manifests Hornet can salvage what her mother started and look forward to a future where Deepnest pulls itself back from the brink if and only if The Radiance dies.

Resolution comes at the price of a completed genocide. Add two more dead siblings to the unconscionable pile thereof, while we're at it. That's what it boils down to whether or not Hornet can bear to articulate it as such, and there's no grace or even a properly bittersweet ending to wring from this clusterfuck. And that is rough.

———

* This has been better explained elsewhere, but a quick rundown: The White Lady tells Ghost that Hornet and Herrah "were permitted little time together." On its surface this can be taken to mean that Hornet was still very young when Herrah was shipped off to Eternal Dreamland—except this doesn't jive with the fact that we meet Hornet as an adult. If the stasis kicked in once the Dreamers went to their rest, which in turn halted the aging process for every living bug in Hallownest, AND before all this Hornet experienced little by the way of quality time with her birth mother... I think you can see where I'm going with this.

To top it off we've got Team Cherry weighing in ominously from their dev notes on Herrah: "As part of the agreement for her alliance and her role as a dreamer, King gave her a child (Hornet). Was she allowed to keep this child or was she taken away?" This isn't confirmation by itself of course, but given additional canon details (see above): Can I get a "yikes" in the chat fellas.

#hollow knight #hornet (hollow knight) #hornet hollow knight #hk hornet #the radiance #hk radiance #herrah #hk herrah #hollow knight meta #sup folks it's been a minute since i dropped a whole dang essay but Here We Go!!!!!!

[itsclydebitches]

Something that really bugged me with E11, in regards to the revelation "oh holy shit Salem's coming in person with an army of Grimm to fucking obliterate Atlas and Mantle" and Ruby's naïve little speech about how "you can't be killed but you can still fail and be stopped." Like, does Ruby realize that in both instances where Salem "failed" – the incomplete destruction of Vale, and the defeat at Mistral – it wasn't Salem who was personally defeated? It was her subordinates. [1/10]

Yeah ranting! And such organized ranting too (I appreciate the numbering for me to get screenshots in order lol). Response below the cut!

Literally all of this though. 

Very glad the group is realizing that “defeating” Salem doesn’t necessarily mean killing her but, as said in my recap, wouldn’t it have been great if we could have seen that major revelation happening on screen? 

Meanwhile, the problem with chucking that revelation into this particular conversation is that (I’m a broken record here) these are two VERY DIFFERENT contexts. Ozpin’s “Holding her off is how we win” is in reference to the entirety of humanity across generations of time. RWBY’s “Holding you off is how we win” is in reference to one specific battle... which, as you say, presumably has Salem herself joining in. The reason why Ozpin’s stance has worked up until now is because all of Salem’s tools are defeatable even if she herself is not. You can capture/kill her subordinates. You can take the Maiden powers. You can hide a relic. You cannot, however, kill or capture or stop Salem herself. Not yet anyway. Because no one besides Ironwood has bothered to try and think up a way how. So Ruby is taking a broadly fantastic perspective and applying it to the ONE scenario where it doesn’t work. The second she heard Salem herself is (again, presumably) coming she should have seen the wisdom in at least considering Ironwood’s stance. Because you can’t win this battle. Based on the current information that is not a debatable claim, it’s straight up fact. Even if you capture Cinder and manage to kill every single one of Salem’s grimm---which is a hugely big “if”---you straight up cannot defeat Salem herself. She reminded them right in the office: time is on my side. She can stride into Mantle and just take out everyone at her leisure. You manage to obliterate her somehow? Give her five seconds and she’ll reform. Manage to hold her off for hours, days, even weeks? What does that matter to her? She is, as of right now, literally an unstoppable force so until the characters get any evidence that she’s bluffing about showing up the stance of, “We have to try!” is just straight up stupidity. You will die. Everyone else will die too. That’s just a given at this point in the series. 

Sorry I’m just really hung up on this lol. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE an underdog story, but this is so much more than that. This is the group looking at a literal immortal sorceress with a giant grimm army, coming to attack while they’re all exhausted and Ruby hasn’t managed to get her eyes to work twice now in as many hours. How exactly do they expect to achieve any outcome except for death? Which, to be clear, can also be a compelling setup. That’s 300′s story: death is inevitable so we’ll face it head on and go down fighting. But RWBY’s story isn’t complete yet. This isn’t the final hour where Salem wins, but we at least get to see the heroes give as good as they get before she does. So having your characters insist that there’s another way out of this---and then inevitably writing a horrendously convenient plot that illogically caters to that---is beyond frustrating. If they wanted a story where Ironwood truly abandons Mantle and is criticized for not doing everything he could, then they needed to not tell the characters that Salem herself is coming. Because that changes things from, “Ironwood isn’t willing to fight the hard fight to save others” to “Ironwood is the only one admitting that they are undeniably screwed, so get whoever you can out of dodge.” 

Willfully ignorant is really the right way to put it. Not just on Ruby’s part but the story’s too. RT ignores their own setups and then expects the audience to take that illogical change at face value. If you give me a villain who is that over powered, make her literally immortal, have an entire volume of the group freaking out over how impossible beating her is... don’t be surprised when that carries over just a few episodes later. You don’t get to build Salem up as an unbeatable threat and then turn around and have the heroes insist that she’s not actually unbeatable. You just have to try hard and never back down! Which, again, good mindset for this whole war, horrific mindset for a single battle where you’re risking an entire kingdom in the process. Yeah, they could have compromised. They could have immediately left to evacuate as much of Mantle as possible while Ironwood prepared (and then the story could do something to ensure that ultimately no one was actually abandoned if they want). But digging in their heels like this? I get that it’s the “right” thing to do, but as Pyrrha showed without a doubt, sometimes the “right” thing leads only to death. Which is fine when it’s just your own life on the line, but Team RWBY isn’t offering themselves up as sacrifices. They’re demanding that Ironwood offer everyone up as that sacrifice. They’re asking for an act of faith that is not only 100% illogical based on their knowledge of the situation, but something they haven’t even begun to earn from him yet. “Trust us to keep your kingdom safe from the literal immortal even though you couldn’t even trust us to share her immortality in the first place. Or keep one of your secrets. Or tell you about those choices until you’d backed us into a corner.” RWBYJNR hasn’t done a single thing this volume to earn Ironwood’s trust, so slamming in here with a, “Trust us to do the impossible” is wholly unearned. Which is sad because in a better written show I might have been able to get behind something like that. There are some heroes you have so much faith in that logic doesn’t even come into play. I know it’s “impossible” but I just have that level of trust that they’ll actually find a way. 

Team RWBY hasn’t earned that level of trust yet. Not from the viewer and definitely not from Ironwood. 

(As for the Salem question... literally just because it’s a story. If they had her act on her desires with her full power there would be zero hope for the heroes and then the story ends. But you’re right, rather than just announcing that Salem randomly prefers to stay on the sidelines, we should have gotten some reason for why that is. What’s our villain’s motivation? Why bother hanging back in a castle? Give us a reason for this very convenient setup and tell us more about Salem at the same time. Remember, her own actions don’t have to be entirely logical, they just have to be known by the audience. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, it’s a preferred headcanon of mine that Salem doesn’t attack because she doesn’t truly want to win. She doesn’t want to revert to a destroyed Remnant where she’s the only living thing again. But that’s still just a headcanon. The story itself hasn’t done any work to explain that glaring issue of, “If Salem is so powerful... why in the world hasn’t she just kicked everyone’s ass yet?”) 

#rwby #rwby volume 7 #rwby volume 7 spoilers #mymetas #silvokrent