#and this kinda goes to show that spirits' morality is all about their awareness of a wrong-doing imo

[azurechicken]

It always gets me how Justice did not change at all, like, he is not corrupted at all. It makes everything more tragic than it already is. The only thing that changed was his perception, which of course, naturally came due to the change of hosts. I'm mostly taking Awakening Justice into account and how he acts because that is where we can carefully observe him by himself, without Anders' influence on the matter. And his influence is everything on the point I am trying to make.

When we first meet Justice, he is fulfilling his nature of bringing justice to the people he thinks that need it. He is very outspoken about it, and is already ready to take action with or without Warden's help. For a supposedly peaceful spirit that Anders claims to have ruined with his anger, Justice is acting pretty angry here himself (This is not the only time either). This is one of the first things I want to point out that did not change much about the spirit. Justice was always fierce about his cause. However, what stands out to me in these scenes is when the witch calls him out on his idea of justice.

Justice, is that what you are calling it? What of their punishment, burning my house to the ground and with me in it?

Well, in this case, the witch is a demon and mocking Justice for funsies. But what she says actually gives a bit more insight about what kind of a spirit Justice is. The actions do not speak louder than intent to him, as long as it is within the lines he set for himself. In a way, he was always okay with a few… casualties in the name of justice. Even though it is as simple as burning down a house this time. Isn't violence for violence vengeance after all?

While we are on the topic of vengeance, let's not forget the way he is eager on avenging Kristoff, vowing to kill every darkspawn for his cause (I mean the way he literally calls it avenging is enough debate for some people but I want to continue). So how come wanting to take revenge on the offenders that wronged not only his host but many other people, is any different? How did this route did not take him to the road of vengeance but attacking the templars, who are also offenders that wronged his host and other people, is corrupting him?

The answer is of course, that it is not, it did not. There is no difference between those two for Justice, there is no difference between vengeance and justice. Punishing the ones who deserve it is all there is. There is no gray area for spirits the way there is in the mortal world, and we see this clearly in the way he judges Velanna and Nathaniel for their crimes. Despite what I said about him seeing intent before action, now he cannot see beyond their wrongs. This simply shows that if the intent is as clear as violence for violence, he understands. But he does not understand the gray area of Velanna mistaking the innocents as guilty, or Nathaniel taking back what used to be already his.

 

There might be none for Justice, but there is a difference between darkspawn and templars for mortals. For one, darkspawn are generally mindless, and has no moral compass for us to judge. Whereas templars are just people with different ideals about life, to put it kindly at least. (Which is worse, being a mindless cruel monster, or having the mind and morals to choose to be something else but going for being one anyway? Lol another discussion for another time). Templars are the gray area that Justice lacks the understanding of. When he vows to kill every templar like he did with the darkspawn, he does not suddenly turn into a demon, he is simply punishing the ones that were doing wrong, as he does.

From here we can say that spirits' judgments and mortal's don't exactly match up. Though, there is one idea that seems to match better than others, and that is corruption. As far as we learn from Justice, spirits do not know about corruption any better than we do. Spirit do bad, spirit go bad, right? So, when Justice starts to feel things that are associated with demons, such as envy, he starts to fear corruption. He says he does not want to learn how a demon feels, but he also states that he does see the wishful thinking of a demon wanting to cross the Veil for this world. He is conflicted at best about the whole thing. Still, he does not consider himself corrupted regardless. I think that the reason behind that is simply the fact that generally, the Warden can ease his worries when Justice confides in them. And that is another thing that says a bit about him. He seems to accept the lack of understanding he has in the world, and chooses to listen to someone who does. Though, not just a random anybody, someone he deemed just.

So, let's see. A fade spirit with identity issues and an anxious spirit healer walks into a bar…

When they merged and Justice accepted Anders' cause for himself, and when they went all crazy on the Templars, Anders was scared. He feared the worst immediately because he is taught the worst about possession. He knew that Justice was angry because of him and his ideals about mages. So he blamed himself, called it a corruption he caused. And as I mentioned, Justice is accepting of the fact that he has a lack of understanding of some things. Plus, he was already scared of corruption. So, when Anders, who is an educated mage about possessions and corruption claims that he is slowly corrupting the spirit, they held onto it.

Everyone in their life from this point on, do nothing but egg them on about it, on top of it all. They might not corrupt each other, but everyone else does by pushing them the idea that they are now an abomination. Anders starts to fear the nonexistent corruption more, and Justice is confusing the inability to just wipe all the bad out with sloth. We are talking about a being who comes from the Fade, which can be bent at will and a place of immediate action. This works well in Awakening because we are already fighting darkspawn nonstop, and we are in the middle of a war. But in Kirkwall? Everything requires planning and suspended ideals. Templars bring injustice everywhere they go, yet there is not much they can do. After many years of being held back, it is no wonder Justice is surfacing more and more, itching to fulfill his purpose. Because he was always outspoken, angry at the injustice in the world and eager to bring justice. He did not change, but Anders' morals and his' just did not align the way they thought it would. They forgot that in Justice, there was always a part that was vengeance.

At the end, Justice was one of the most stable parts of Anders' story. He couldn't count his vow in Awakening complete without reaching the root of the problem, which was the broodmother. And he could not do so in Kirkwall without getting rid of the Chantry. Because chantry is the root of the Templars, and being a bystander while you can help solve everything easily is unjust all the same.

Anders and Justice had the same cause, different morality and they were just confused because they didn't know any better.

#going through awakening again made me so annoyinnnng i cant stop thinking about justice #listen i have so much more to say #justice didnt become a corrupted spirit when he went on a vengeance run on the darkspawn #and he didnt become a demon when he went on another vengeance run on templars #but once people were included they became confused #and this kinda goes to show that spirits' morality is all about their awareness of a wrong-doing imo #spirits' idea of doing something “bad” could mean something totally different like they need to be held a different judgment on the matter #demons could be just confused beings with too much feelings they couldn't understand so they became them #if they embody their name as much as spirits do there is nothing they can do about it #they cannot simply be bad because the emotion is not the bad part about such things they are the natural part #the bad part of negative emotions are the fact that they cause actions that we mortals would count as bad #at one point what of the nightmare demon eating away the fears we would be glad to be rid of is so bad? #and justice going as far as a boom for his virtue isnt something we could judge him bad for its just his nature #y'know? does that make sense? #they were right to blow shit up tho lol #im sleep deprived #i wrote this for myself but u can also have it lol #justice #anders #justice positive #anders positive #dragon age #dragon age awakening #me own

[altocat]

As a fellow fan of ATLA and also heard how the comics kinda fucked up some characters but never read myself, what was wrong with Ursa?

Beware, LOTS of infodumping/rambling below.

Basically, Ursa is kind of the worst. And the writers aren't even aware of it.

You're probably familiar with Ursa as she's portrayed on the show. She was a kind, supportive mother to Zuko and she disappears suddenly in the night without warning. Absolutely no complaints there. She was a pretty mysterious character and was central to Zuko keeping his kind nature.

IN THE COMICS we find out that she was betrothed to Ozai against her will, but already had another love interest before him. Okay. No big deal, right? We then see that she played favorites just as much as Ozai did, with her neglecting Azula and Azula feeling increasingly obligated to lash out in order to get her mother's attention, even negative. There's some dramatic bullshit about Ursa forging the idea that Zuko is not really Ozai's son, and Ozai subsequently treating Zuko like he never was, even though he knows it's a ruse. Anyway, to make a long story short, Ursa poisoned Firelord Azulon and fled in the night in order to protect Zuko. Still no big deal, right? Okay, she was a neglectful mother towards Azula and probably contributed to a LOT of issues there later. But whatever.

So Ursa is out on her own, a fugitive. Does she bide her time and wait for the opportunity to sneak in to save her kids from what she KNOWS is an abusive madman? Does she use her political power as the Firelord's former wife and the granddaughter of Avatar Roku to slowly build allies for her cause? Does she do everything in her power to get a message out to her kids to come find her for whenever Ozai's reign of terror is over?

NO. Because she goes and finds her ex bf and hooks up with him. And then goes to a Face-changing spirit to alter her appearance so that she's never discovered. The catch? In order to change her face, she has to willingly give up all her memories and basically become a completely different person. So Ursa, mother of the year, decides SURE. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT SHE'LL DO. She willingly chooses to abandon her kids and FORGET them so that she can change her identity and hook up with her bae for real. Oh, and they have another kid together. Because of course.

Years later, Zuko and go out to find her and are somehow able to solve the mystery that this random mom they've been talking to is actually his mother with no memories and a different face. Azula, btw, is fresh out of the asylum and is NOT having a good time, constantly hallucinating her mother, having manic border-suicidal episodes, and generally in pretty bad shape. If you recall in the show finale, Azula reveals via hallucination that she believes that Ursa always loved Zuko more than her and that Ursa perceives her to be a monster. Turns out, she was pretty validated in feeling this way, since even amnesia-Ursa herself seems to come to the conclusion that she didn't love Azula "enough" when Azula goes to confront her. Equally tragic is that Ursa now has a NEW and BETTER daughter who Zuko gets along with, making it all the more painful for Azula to process.

Azula eventually runs off just before the face-changing spirit comes to return Ursa's face and memories to her. Does Ursa spend subsequent comics looking for her seriously messed up daughter? Does Zuko struggle with the very real conflict that she willingly CHOSE to forget about her kids so she could have her happy little family without them? Of course not. No one calls her out on her selfishness. And she never looks for or mentions Azula ever again in pretty much every other issue that follows. Ursa constantly goes on and on about her trauma at the hands of Ozai, but the comics never take into account that she LEFT her kids to DEAL with that trauma WITHOUT her and probably was never coming back to get them.

So basically the moral of the story is that it's perfectly fine to leave your kids with your abusive partner as long as you're getting what YOU want. Oh, and that if you have a problematic child with mental health issues, you're right to ignore and replace them. Azula doesn't deserve anyone looking for her because she's "bad". Okay. Great.

Anyway, the Avatar comics are the worst. Like...the absolute worst.

#asks #Alto rambles #Not tagging this under ATLA because I don't want Ursa apologists after me #The comics are why I gave up on this series #I mean when people whine about Lucrecia she never even got to SEE Seph or build a relationship with him #She didn't choose to forget him either--she lives in that hell in the crystal with nightmare visions every day #And blames herself forever

[cinnamonest]

Xingqiu - Yandere Profile

I actually just got my sweet bookworm boi to his next to last ascension, my hydro baby, my angel, I love him even if bc of him I have to marathon fight the oceanid

I’ve had a lot of reqs for him & Chongyun dating back to January again lol but it only felt right to wait until I finished both so I could release them at the same time, so, Chongyun’s will be up immediately after this!

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TWs: fem reader, yandere, confinement, manipulative behaviors, mentions of homicide, gaslighting, Xingqiu being a spoiled arrogant brat

TWs (below cut): noncon/dubcon, manipulating and guilting reader into sex, overstimulation, fluids/cumplay, humiliation 

Since there's no canonical age but he has a bit of the rounded young face I'm tagging with the sh*ta tw as well!

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Severity Scale

Intelligence/Perceptiveness: 7 Brutality: 3 Physical capability: 4 Mental/emotional instability: 6 Restrictiveness: 7 Sexual sadism: 5 Stubbornness: 8

What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

Tries to buy his way to you, initially. He's grown up seeing the power that money holds over people, and, well, his father can always just wave a bit around and get whatever he wants from most people, so why should you be any different? He goes for stereotypical "girl" things like flowers and jewelry at first, unless you have some prominent and well-known interest, in which case he'll invest in something related to that.

Honestly, for all his chivalry and all that, his maturity is something of a faux one, a sort of projected self-image of the gentlemanly figure he strives to be... but when he lets that slip, he can be something of a childish spoiled brat. The thing is... he's completely unaware and refuses to acknowledge that he can be so immature. He likes getting what he wants, when he wants it, exactly how he wants it, and being denied the things he wants isn't particularly common in his life. So rejection comes not so much as a disappointment so much as a shock. No matter, you're just... a brat, yourself. You think you're too good for everyone, he reasons, so you play hard to get.

Really, after recovering from the initial shock, he realizes he likes things this way. He likes challenges. It would be no fun if you came to him easily. You may be a brat, but in the end, the one thing he refuses to ever do is lose. Chivalrous gentlemen are fine with having to earn their things, so really, he's thankful that you reminded him of his morals, of his desire to truly earn the things he wants. It will make it that much more meaningful.

So he goes heavy on the idea of "courting", following whatever old and prudish traditions may exist in Liyue. If you're from somewhere else, he figures, that could be why -- clearly he hasn't followed through on whatever is normal for your culture. Silly him. He makes an effort to research whatever those traditions may be, and goes to the absolute maximum on performing them. Lavishes you in gifts of all kinds, constantly giving you compliments. He even goes to the effort of, if all else fails, reading romance novels targeted at women to get a better grasp of what exactly you're supposed to like, and emulates those behaviors.

Overall, though, in later stages Xingqiu slightly more mild for a yan, allowing you to have interactions with others (even if he’s irritated), such as his family, family servants, and his friends, and will even take you outside now and then. However, he will cut off your ties to those friends you had before that weren't mutual friends. He's also one of the least likely yanderes to ever kill someone, and will avoid hurting people if possible -- if anything, he prefers more discreet methods like ruining their life socially or financially.

He's also a lot more moody behind closed doors than he is to most people. His attempts to be oh-so-mature eventually kinda crumble, and the more comfortable he becomes around you, the more he lets his immaturity show.

He could assign family servants to looking for you, but really, he prefers to do it himself, this is about love after all, he doesn't want to assign them to a task they would never perform as diligently as he could. But rather than stalking, he chooses to just kind of... stay with you. He's somehow always where you are, "coincidentally" running into you everywhere and then somehow nothing having anything to do, because he clings to you for hours until you finally have to go home, and even then, he'll just follow you to continue the visit there if he can. No point in watching from a distance when he can be right there with you. And again, he's actually surprisingly unaware that his clinginess is so obvious, he's oblivious to how obvious his infatuation is. Which is a bit odd, considering that he's usually fairly perceptive, but he's so confident in the fact that he is normally perceptive that he allows himself to slip into abnormal behaviors without really realizing it, because he's not constantly on guard in the way some less socially adept yanderes are.

On a genuinely sweet level, there's one little thing he keeps hidden from you. He's actually written a lot of love poetry for you, verses about you and all of the things he loves about you so much... Despite usually being fairly confident in his work, he can't bring himself to show it to you. He's too flustered. And considering your negative reactions to his affection (read: not wanting to be kept like a captive animal), he is actually a bit sensitive to that perceived rejection, which further discourages him. He keeps them all stashed away, stuffed into some fairly hidden drawer. Should you ever come across them and bring them up, it's one of a very few things that will genuinely make him super embarrassed, and he'll just insist they weren't about you, even though the details make it obvious they were, and storm off, never bringing it up again.

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

It's not kidnapping. It's... relocating. He's far too chivalrous to resort to something so brutish as kidnapping! He'll make sure you want to come with him. He can easily arrange for there to be rumors and reports of... occurrences near your home. Criminal activity, maybe false rumors of mysterious disappearances. Hell, he'll get Chongyun to testify that your house has demonic spirits in it. Something to make you want to move out. Maybe some things start happening to you -- you get the feeling you're being watched, you get threatening messages mailed to your home, you have strangers (read: randos who will do anything for some mora he gives them) telling you you're not welcome in the area and to get out. It's all incredibly confusing and scary and you have no idea what brought it all on!

Luckily for you, you have a rich, generous friend who makes it more than clear you're welcome to come stay with him for a while at any time. Eventually, no matter what it takes, he can push you to a point where you'll take him up on that offer. Something feels... oddly ominous about the way the gates to his family estate close behind you once you walk in. Like they're sealing your fate.

And once step one is done, step two of his plan goes into place - make sure you never want to leave. He can make that happen, there's plenty of space here for you to roam, plenty for you to do, and even when he's not there to entertain you, there's plenty of servants to keep an eye on you and make sure that whenever you try to leave, they'll smile and tell you you can't go just yet miss, there's this or that going on tonight! The young master said he had something important for you when he gets back later! You can't go out now, there was just an attack by some deranged person in the town still on the loose! Just... go back inside for now.

Of course, it's wishful thinking, but he likes to maintain the delusion that he can just keep this going indefinitely, that you won't finally one day put your foot down and tell him you've been stuck here nearly a month and you're ready to at least go visit home. He might even entertain it a bit - sure, you can go visit your old house with him and collect some of your old things to bring back with you, but he makes sure to make it look at though whatever problem he made up is still occurring. Nonetheless, if you're insistent, or at whatever point you finally crack and catch on, demand to know what's going on - well, it's not pretty. He gets into something of a tantrum if you don't comply, but ultimately, in his own little huffy, ticked off way, says you can't leave, and that's that, no more questions allowed, and no more of this ridiculous demand to leave. Of course, darling is taken aback at first, even thinking he's joking, but it soon becomes very clear he's completely serious, and intends to enforce that command.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape? 

When he's with you, he's tends to be pretty clingy, both physically and in conversation, never ceasing talking about this or that, and he's actually a sleep-clinger as well, keeping an iron grip around your waist when you sleep. So, whenever he's at his home, he insists on you being in his presence, usually physically touching, so you won't really get an opportunity while he's just in another room or something because you can't get any privacy to begin with. When you're in public, he's incredibly watchful over your every move and incredibly clingy then as well, so don't expect such a chance to arrive either.

Thus, your best bet is to try when you're under the watch of guards, whenever he's gone for whatever reason. They've been instructed to watch you from a distance, you see, he doesn't want them interacting with you directly, so you'll have a few chances here or there where they get distracted or their backs are turned. There will likely eventually also be a time where there's a scheduling error, you end up unsupervised! However, physically getting out of the estate is still difficult. There's still posted guards everywhere. So all in all, it's fairly difficult, especially in broad daylight, the only time he's not with you.

When you're inevitably dragged back kicking and screaming by some poor guards that aren't getting paid enough to deal with this, after getting back and hearing the report he deals with it in that unnerving saccharine way of feigning ignorance to try and get a reaction. Now, he knows you weren't trying to get out... right? Surely you got distracted by a bird or something, right? That's the only reason why you'd ever try to leave, right? It's obvious he knows better, and is just fucking with your head, but it's best not to lie. What he wants is an admittance of guilt and an apology, preferably down on the floor begging for forgiveness.

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

Moderate, leaning towards difficult. He's perceptive, and intelligent, but that intelligence is largely a sort of book-smarts type of intelligence. He's generally crafty and a prankster himself, so pulling things over on him is difficult because he's familiar with the mindset and methods of doing so, but he can be tricked if you put on a believable enough act. Basically, a darling who is a good actor stands a much better chance.

However, he's ultimately a learner. You can get away with some tricks or plots once, but he won't fall for the same thing twice. Any sort of escape or deceit you've tried once, he'll make active efforts to guard against and prevent in the future.

Manipulation, though, you can forget it. He's way too proud and stubborn to be emotionally manipulated, in the end getting his way and what he wants takes priority over making you happy, so don't expect to be able to manipulate him based on the notion of something making you happier.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

Fairly lenient, actually. You get a lot of access so long as your behavior is good, so really it's wise to be on your best behavior in the long term of things. He can get you anything you want, especially reading material. And you actually get to go outside, yay! He's like my earlier Childe profile on that -- he likes to go on dates, and he's actually really enthusiastic about it! He's big on date planning, wanting to see everything there is to see and do everything there is to do together. The rules are that you just need to be physically attached to him in some way -- you can hold his hand, grab at his sleeves, or he can do so to you (although he'd prefer you cling to him. He likes the image it projects to people around you). He actually gets really hyped about said dates whenever you plan them, he'll talk to you for hours plotting out all the things to do on this particular outing. At one point, his smile drops and his voice goes low and he tells you that, just a reminder, you know the rules for dates, right? ...Good.

Similarly, if you ask, he'll let you accompany him on more trivial outings as well, say if you'd like to go grocery shopping, and he certainly won't turn down a trip to the bookstore. The same rules apply, although he's a bit less excited for something so mundane.

One thing he won't do, surprisingly, is let you have anything to do with Guhua arts or skills. He won't teach you anything he knows nor let you learn, and if you were a follower of it before, he'll cut off your access to any material. His reasoning is that he just doesn't really think anything to do with combat suits you. You're better off learning more passive skills and hobbies.

In reality? He can't stand the thought of you ever being able to present a challenge to him in that sense. It would kill his ego if you ever managed to do something related to the Guhua arts better than he can, or even half as good as he can.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

Well, to occupy your time, he has things that need cleaning you know... Honestly, he's messy, and he's already used to having maids, so he kinda treats you like one to some degree. Of course, he's active in his little heroism adventures, but when it comes to his own living spaces and such things he can be a bit lazy. So, he'll give you tasks to do sometimes, he likes the power rush too that he gets from ordering you around a bit. It soothes the ego.

Outside of your strolls together, you can't be going outside (and you don't get to choose when you do go on your little walks and dates, he does, although he may grant you the wishes of your begging). Also, don't actually try to talk to the guards. They're there to watch you, nothing more, so pay them no mind, and by no means should you ever have a reason to make conversation with them. If there's an emergency or something you need, you may inform them and get help, nothing more. And really, they're more afraid of this rule than you are -- you'll have difficulty finding one even willing to talk to you, they all take the warnings they've been given very seriously.

He eventually gets nitpicky and makes all sorts of little behavioral rules, it's incredibly obnoxious. But honestly, suffering his bratty tantrums is enough of a punishment, even if he didn't usually follow it up with actual punishment, which, for him, tends to be something perverted in some way.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

He actually gets jealous rather easily, often over people who are no real threat. You can never be too nice to anyone -- even after he introduces you to his father and older brother, he expects you to be happy to meet them... but not that much. If you show too much excitement or happiness over any other being, he gets pouty, especially other men, but also your friends, male or female, family, even animals. His first reaction isn't to kill, rather, just an increase in isolation. Drag you back home and make sure you get a lot of time to yourselves, seeks reassurance that you really love him. If it's his own family, he might get grouchy towards them, snap at them a bit, bitterly drag you back off to your own room, where he'll then proceed to get equally grouchy towards you until you have given him enough reassurance he deems sufficient. In his own time, when you're not around, he makes sure to make it perfectly clear to those around him that they aren't to get in between you two.

He's one of the better yans to have in this regard, though, because he's unlikely to resort to killing anyone. He's got too much of his self-image invested in the idea of morals and justice to be able to do so, he can't delude himself into believing it's right or acceptable. It's not impossible to push him to that point, but it wouldn't just be someone you show any positive reception towards -- if Xingqiu did end up killing a rival, it would have to be one for whom you have very blatantly made clear you have actual romantic and sexual affection, someone who poses a genuine, real threat.

Xingqiu is a sort of open book when it comes to jealousy -- it's obvious to everyone around you that he's mad at someone else for even looking at you, and he doesn't try to hide it. It makes him that much angrier if someone doesn't obey his silent demand to stop interacting with you, doesn't seem fazed by his glares and coldness. He'll meet with them privately and make things clear verbally, since he tells himself maybe they're just dense and too stupid to understand. But they only get one more chance. Cross him twice, and they'll likely find themselves in financial ruin after pulling some strings through the connections of his father and brother.

What would make him significantly more likely to kill someone is someone who poses a legal threat, someone who catches on to what's going on and threatens to get him in serious trouble for it. Even if he tried bribing them, well, they'd likely just pretend to accept, and someone so bold likely wouldn't bow to threats.

This is where he can slip into the mindset of a delusional yandere. He once again projects the image in his head, that knight he wants to be for you, and hey, sometimes to save the princess, the heroes in his martial arts epics have to get their hands dirty, have to unfortunately get blood on their hands for the sake of the greater good. And hey, then it's usually called character development. Most of his fictional heroes tend to have killed at least one person in a sort of epic battle to defend something precious to them. This is no different. Of course, ambushing an unarmed person and running them through hardly counts as an epic battle, but he doesn't really take that part into account.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

Again, a bit of a spoiled brat at times. He's pouty, gives you the cold shoulder, yet dramatically inserts himself in front of you and whatever you're occupied with so you can't do anything. Basically he's forcing you to acknowledge his pouting and ask him what's wrong so that he can pull the "oh, nothing" until you ask again, and maybe he'll eventually bitterly, passive-aggressively make it clear what you did wrong. The bright side is he's easily soothed - an apology and some groveling will fix his attitude pretty quickly, although he'll have an infuriating air of superiority about it all, telling you he's glad you were able to understand what you did and have, hopefully, learned to correct the behavior in the future.

Worse offenses, things that make him genuinely and truly infuriated, are significantly worse, but rather uncharacteristically for him, he's quiet. And that's what's do frightening about it - for once you almost wish he would blabber or complain or whine like you're so used to, but his fury is dead silent. He moves without speaking, harsh motions that will either shove or tug you to wherever he's trying to maneuver you, and he shows how he feels through actions rather than words - he slams doors and objects, stomps, everything about his body language is frightening enough to make you stiffen and jolt.

Thankfully, Xingqiu is a milder yandere when it comes to severity of things he'll do to you in moments of anger -- he's one that can control himself well enough not to severely hurt you, break bones or anything like that. When it comes to his flashes of anger, at worst he might slap you in his tantrums, but he has at least enough self-control and empathy for you to manage better than a lot of yanderes.

So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

Below. It's mostly that he thinks rather highly of himself - he's an important person you know. He saves people, he goes around doing his little vigilante thing, and he's not afraid to flaunt sometimes.

If you happen to also be from a rich family, you can earn a little bit more respect from him, you're cultured and sophisticated. If you're intelligent, you can get some validity in his mind as well. He'll still consider himself more intelligent and higher status, something you'd be mindful to remember, but he'll begrudgingly acknowledge it.

A commoner darling, though? God forbid an airheaded one? Forget about getting any respect - you're more like... A cute little puppy to him. Dumb and loud and clumsy, but nonetheless very cute and loveable. You were just... Made to be something of an accessory to him. And he loves and values you, you mean the world to him really, but that's all the more reason why you should accept your place as such.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

It drives him up the wall. You know, his father could arrange his marriage to a ton of young rich daughters in Liyue who would be more than happy about it, but he can't get the attention of ONE girl he likes? It's infuriating. And it makes him all the more insistent to have specifically you.

For Xingqiu, it's a mix of both desperation and a pride thing as well. One one hand he desperately does truly want his feelings to be returned, he wants you to love him, he wants the fantasy he has in his head of you two having a long, happy future together. On the other hand, rejection is also a mark on his pride, and that irritates him beyond comprehension.

So don't expect him to ever give up, really. Unlike a lot of loving yans though, he doesn't blame himself, he directs the rejection hurt outward - maybe you're just so spoiled yourself that nothing is good enough for you. Maybe you're just playing hard to get. Maybe you just think constantly turning him down is funny, it's amusing to you, and, well, he doesn't take lightly to you trying to play games with him. So while he'll continue to try and earn your love, don't be surprised if it results in an irritated mood swing every now and then.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

A lack of desire/hesitancy to resort to violence or more morally wayward methods. He stakes a lot of his pride and self-image on being a chivalrous, upright, just person, someone who should exemplify right and punish wrong, and unfortunately for him he's not a delusional and can't convince himself that he's doing the right thing. He wants to be a gentleman, your knight in shining armor, the storybook hero he projects in his head that always comes to save his princess, who in turn is receptive and showers him in praise and affection and gratitude. You're the problem, you see, you're not following through on your role in all this.

As such, he really, really hates having to dirty his hands in any way, or do anything that he knows is wrong and will consequently drag him into guilt. Not that he can't be driven to it, because he certainly can, but if it reaches that point, that means you didn't cooperate with him to begin with, which would have made things so much easier, so he'll definitely rid himself of that guilt by redirecting the blame to you, or deluding himself into some bizarre justification.

Another thing... his family's compliance. Honestly? His dad is far too busy and far too done with Xingqiu's shit to expect any help from him. His son tends to be picky, whiny, and demanding -- now that you're here, he's finally satiated, finally actually paying attention to the important matters his father wants him to be involved with, finally not causing nearly as much trouble now that you're around. You can bet he's more than happy to put in some extra funds and personnel to restrain some random commoner, so long as his son is satisfied. His brother doesn't really agree with it all, but his brother wants this and his father is supporting it, so... his hands are tied. He turns a blind eye. And the staff, the servants? They're getting paid far too much to care, and besides, the family is incredibly influential -- should they get fired, it could smear their reputation. It’s kinda really discouraging, being surrounded by so many people, but none of them willing to help you.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

Bounces back and forth. On one hand, he wants to maintain, again, a gentlemanly and sophisticated image, and in his mind, such people don't normally think about such things, don't behave in lewd or degenerate ways. On the other hand, he's a nasty little perv that secretly sinks to the absolute depths of depravity. There's not much he can't get off to. If his poor brother hadn't been so busy being concerned about the martial arts books under his bed, and had dug further, he would have found that those books are actually just a cover-up for a different set of nasty, gross materials he's spent years accumulating -- some of the most vulgar smut you've ever seen, stuff you question how he ever even got ahold of. Surely the book house wouldn't sell this kind of material... it's honestly a mystery how he manages to get so much.

With his first few interactions, he tends to display the former image, but the more time he spends with anyone, the more that inner little pervert side tends to come out. He's definitely one to get touchy, his light grazing little touches become firmer and more daring, his hands always rest just at a point that's right on the boundary of being inappropriate. Sometimes he'll straight-up grope you and pass it off as teasing. He's also like Kaeya in that he intentionally tries to embarrass you by making your mind go to lewd places, making obvious innuendos and euphemisms, then pretending like he doesn't know why you're looking at him like that... oh, is that what you thought he meant? Wow, you must have such a dirty mind, you little pervert.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

Something like rape is barbaric! Of course he would never, eeeeever do something so awful, so unbecoming of someone like him. And he really never will. He's another yan that will simply... Secure your consent by whatever means necessary.

In the end he'll most likely guilt trip and gaslight his way into it. I mean, you're staying with him for free, he took you in, he feeds you and clothes you and you can't show one little bit of gratitude? He treats you like a wife and you can't fulfil your end of that role? Don't be selfish. He loves you so much... He'd do anything for you... don't you want him to be happy too?

He'll try different approaches. If seduction doesn't work off the bat, he'll try gaslighting, if that doesn't work, he'll try guilt tripping, if that doesn't work, he'll make up a bizarre lie - he has to have sex or he'll die, somehow! You get the idea. If you really, really, really push it, he may just resort to a vague threat of sorts - nothing too bad or deadly, but hey, it would sure be a shame if this recent market crash affected your family financially... Not that he knows anyone who has power over the local commerce or anything.

With a more timid, soft darling, you're likely to end up essentially... Dubcon'ed. Half-noncon'ed. He just kinda... Slowly goes for it, and at your protests insists no, it's ok, you'll feel good... And a timid darling too afraid to stop him doesn't exactly fight back or resist, so hey, silence is a green light.

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

Experimentation

As I've said, he's a nasty little perv deep down, and he can get off to, well, a LOT of things. And he loves to try new things out, no matter how weird it may be. He's one you can get into a lot of things involving toys and objects, or physical forms of things applied to the body (think temperature play, hot wax, nipple clamps -- anything that has to do with objects being used on you). Part of the fun of it all is having something new that he's never tried before! Even if it turns out to not be his favorite thing, he'll still enjoy the trying it out, and those things he DOES find himself liking, well, he'll just have to add them to the little mental list of favorites.

And he, honestly, enjoys the little reactions you often have to the notions of this or that -- the shock and sudden fear on your face when he tells you today you'll do this or that, and how you shake your cute little head so rapidly. It's not that bad, he promises, and he's done a lot of research and reading to be sure he does things correctly, so no worries!

Body writing

It's kinda comical because you can't make out a word. With his canonically horrendous handwriting, but fondness for the act of writing, it makes for what essentially looks to you like abstract art on your body -- but just know it's the lewdest, most degrading shit you can think of that he'll get all over your thighs and stomach, marking you as his. If nothing else, he gets off to it, and based on the little things he whispers in your ear, you know it's the same sort of humiliating things. If he takes his time, he can write better, but he gets caught up in the heat of the moment.

Lingerie

He's a fan of lacey, frilly things. And he will definitely invest in as many as he can buy, ornate and intricate things, stockings for your legs that have pretty lace patterns at the top of the thigh, bras and panties that are somehow both lacey and perfectly see-through. He's also a big fan of things that have holes in them for easy access, so you can wear it the whole time. And, if he's feeling meaner, he'll definitely have you walk around in just that for a while -- not out where anyone else in the estate could see you, of course, but in his room with him.

Master/slave

He's not a sadist per se, and doesn't really put you in pain, but he loves your submission. And no better way to exemplify submission than with service. The little bastard already makes you act like a maid outside of bed, but now he likes it even more -- there's a certain rush of power to laying out a command and seeing you follow it. Not to mention the cute look on your warm face as you follow though with the degrading shit. Oh, and you'd better believe he gets humiliating. It's not necessarily degrading in the sense that he says or makes you say bad things about yourself, but rather, just the commands themselves, getting on your hands and knees and crawling over to him, and demanding you slowly strip down. Make it cute, give him a show, you know? He won't be cruel in the things he says about you, yet your pride is still wrecked by the end of it all.

Voyeurism/masturbation instruction

He loves to watch you get off, honestly. It ties into the slave thing to a degree, making you follow every little command, telling you exactly how to touch yourself and move your hands. He'll sigh and tell you no, you're going to fast, you can't do it that fast yet... and if you get too overexcited, he'll just have to make you stop, since you can't seem to listen, and maybe not get to cum until tomorrow, so you can learn to behave better about it next time.

Fluids/Cumplay

He has something of a fixation with all kinds. He loves seeing the trail of saliva from your mouth when you pull off his dick, the way cum drips out of you and runs down your thighs. He also likes seeing it splattered across your face, your chest, in your hair, something about the sight of it nearly has him hard immediately after and ready to go. But he also likes how it will gross you out, leaving you tied up so that you can't wipe it off, are forced to just stay there with it dripping out of your holes and down your skin in a way that makes you shiver. And, really, he loves your fluids too, sweet salty slick that's just so mesmerizing to watch coat his fingers and face. But his favorite thing, probably has to be running his fingers through your own juices and slick, collecting it on his fingers, holding it up to your mouth and telling you to suck them clean. Somehow, it's even hotter when you're licking your own fluids off of his fingers, although you doing so with his is certainly nice too.

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

He’d like an heir one day. He's one to want a kid, maybe two, but not a whole lot. Just enough to have a proper family structure, much like the family he was raised in. It's the proper thing to do, he thinks, a natural part of the social order and continuation of a legacy. As a natural extension of his spoiled brat tendencies, he often doesn't think very responsibly in regards to preventing children, so, lucky for him, that ideal will likely come to fruition eventually, if physically possible.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

Absolutely uses overstimulation. Whatever sorts of toys exist in Teyvat, he's rich enough that he can easily obtain them - little things he can attach to you and leave buzzing, or thick plugs and internal toys to stuff you full and leave you there to suffer in stimulation and stretching for hours on end. And he doesn't leave you alone, no, he stays close by, leaving you tied up and blindfolded, the occasionally lazy checkup of "oh, how are you holding up over there? I almost totally forgot you were there!" in a mocking tone while he goes about reading his books or practicing or jerking off to the sight.

Also ruined orgasms. Ugh, he's the worst. Gets you right to your peak, likely also after hours of edging, and then just... stops. Right as you reach the high, stops all motion, leaves you whimpering and sobbing, it's literally painful to actually reach it, and then still have that orgasm taken from you. And he'll be sure to remind you that if you were good, you could experience it in full, he could make you feel so good and let you ride out that high... but so long as you insist on being such a stubborn little princess, unfortunately, he can't just give you that. He hates this too, you know, he says. He'd love nothing more than to share pleasure, but you insist on being difficult.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

Legs and thighs. He likes the aesthetics of legs, the softness, the way the flesh feels in his hands. The way touching them can make you jolt, the sensitivity, the way they leave little marks so perfectly if he sucks and bites at the skin. It's just really pretty.

#yandere genshin impact #yandere x reader #yandere xingqiu #yandere x y/n #tw: noncon #tw: dark content #tw:shota

[saanphoenix]

“Why do so many old-school FFVII fans think that Cloud took Zack’s memories?”

Alright, so first things first. We gotta start from the beginning. We gotta start with Jenova.

Jenova is the name given to the alien entity known as the Calamity. “Heaven’s dark harbinger.” This being, assumed to be female because of the body she was in at the Crater, was basically godlike in her natural abilities. Historically, she was able to shapeshift. She was telepathic. She had a nigh indomitable will. And she used her abilities to infect the race of human(oid)s that happened upon her crash site--the Cetra.

Now, Ifalna, within the English translation of the OG, states that Jenova turned the Cetra into monsters, nearly wiping them all out, and that the wee few that remained basically had to be sacrificed to seal Jenova away before she could do anymore damage to all life on the planet. The notes Sephiroth finds within the Shinra Mansion seem to corroborate this version of events, as he tells Zack that the Cetra chose to fight the Calamity while the other humans “hid”, thus being spared Jenova’s shenanigans, allowing them to become the dominant race on the planet, but ultimately being cowards unworthy to be the shepherds of any star, to quote Emet-Selch from FFXIV. Stay with me now.

We also know that the notes Sephiroth reads within the Shinra Mansion do not, in any way, call Jenova the Calamity. They still refer to her as a Cetra. Meaning that those notes are outdated, before the discovery of a living Cetra, a Cetra who is 2000 years removed from her own people’s history. Right? So.

(’Ah, but what about Genesis point-blank telling Sephiroth the truth? He knew what was up!’ Yes, because Hollander and Hojo found out from Gast’s recordings, and Ifalna herself, what Jenova actually was, and then Hollander told Genesis, who then said some stupid ass shit to trigger Sephiroth into looking into the wrong information, and now Nibelheim is not Nibelheim anymore and Cloud is missing one more family member than he was when he joined Shinra. Also, fuck Genesis. Anyway.)

HOJO, yeah? Hojo, in two separate novels written by Nojima himself, states to Aerith and Tseng separately that Jenova 1) will inevitably infect all life on the planet with her “cells” because of the very nature of the Lifestream and 2) turned the Cetra against each other via subtle manipulation and illusions of their loved ones, dead or alive, conceived from their own memories. She didn’t show up looking like the Eldritch horror with the eyeball nipple, she showed up looking like a run-of-the-mill Cetra. And she would further disguise herself as people a Cetra knew in order to gain their trust. And then, after she had gained that trust, she would say shit like, “Hey. Your friend over there hates you,” or, “Hey. Your friend over there wants to kill you.” And thus the Cetra, at the very least morally but probably also physically, became monsters and tore themselves apart.

You ever wonder why everything the Cetra had was booby-trapped and hidden behind riddles and self-sacrificial bullshit like their Temple? My guess is because Jenova made it so they couldn’t trust anyone, even themselves.

“Why did I read all that? What does that have to do with Cloud voring Zack’s memories?”

Because we gotta understand the mechanics of this bitch first so that we know what to look out for.

Now, we have an alien in stasis--presumed dead but definitely not--and a buncha scientists who really want a coveted spot sucking President Shinra’s dick as head of the Science Dept. who all think that taking the genetic material of a Cetra and splicing it into a modern-day human’s DNA will give them a Geiger counter to the Promised Land. Which they want to use as fuel because only some of them really understand what mako is and the others are just fucking stupid. Anyway, my guess is that they archeology their way to Jenova’s still-kinda-alive corpse and do some DNA testing and go, “Ah! We’ve found a Cetra. It has to be one! She’s by the crater, after all, and that’s where some of them were nuked by a Meteor! :) We’re geniuses!” And Jenova, in the Lifestream, went, “GOTCHA, BITCH!”

And through the power of dino DNA, out pops a lot of nonviable lifeforms, some monsters, and, eventually, a relatively normal kid with a flare for the dramatic who will become wholly obsessed with apples and very boring literature that he will insist on repeating every five goddamn seconds. As he was no Geiger counter to the Promised Land, out pops another relatively normal kid who will grow up to have dreams, and honor, and steal food from his neighbors because he was so damn honorable that he just could not ask for a handout.

With Hollander and Gillian’s experiments not producing anything of note other than children that need love and support, Hojo and Lucrecia decide to take a slightly different sample of Jenova’s cells and just start sticking them everywhere. They’re in Lucrecia. They’re in Lucrecia’s fetus. And...something strange starts to happen.

Lucrecia starts to feel the effects of Jenova. Lucrecia’s mind and body start to kind of deteriorate. Not the way that Genesis’ and Angeal’s do later on, but she is plagued by shit like severe depression and fatigue. She falls out on the floor multiple times. Her bodyguard is a little late on pulling the trigger of the gun aimed at her husband and, instead of doing anything productive about her husband proving he’s an amoral murderous fuckhead, she just decides to play doll with her kinda undead bodyguard, get even sicker, and then, finally, pops out a very strange looking baby. In fact, he looks a little alien.

“No, seriously, what does this have to do with anything?”

Genetics. How Jenova cells work. Whatever clump of cells they injected into Lucrecia, clearly different from those used in Project G, seemed to focus more on the mental fuckery aspect of Jenova than the physical, shapeshifting aspect of Jenova. I would also argue that one of the reasons Lucrecia was so adversely affected by the cells and Gillian was not is their mental well-being. Gillian, even when we meet her, seems very upbeat and doing pretty okay despite her husband having died from exhaustion a coupla years back. Lucrecia was depressed and very subservient even before she married Hojo. Losing her mentor--Vincent’s father--probably exacerbated that. And, later in Advent Children, that sort of mentality--hopelessness and despair--is what Sephiroth’s Geostigma feeds off of. That and thoughts of death/dying. But that is more speculation than anything.

So, Sephiroth’s cells are different from Genesis’ and Angeal’s, and they were all three bred differently, but they’re all kinda chimeras of Jenova’s. And once Genesis learns about his origins, it’s like the lightbulb goes off. This guy’s creating clones by infecting his 2nd and 3rd Class SOLDIERs with his own cells. And when he does that, their physical appearance becomes his own. As does their will. Whatever Genesis wants, the clones also want. And then he just grows a wing for shits and giggles. Once he tells his BFF Angeal the sitch, behold! He’s got monster clones--maybe because he realizes how fucked up overwriting a human being with yourself is--and wings, too. ...Why?

The power to do all of this shit was always there. It was genetically always there. They just had to be made aware of it, to have the puzzle piece put into place. When Sephiroth dies, that puzzle piece is put into place. And then he starts fuckin’ with shit. And turns into monstrous angels. And then dies again. And then comes back and finally grows himself his own wing. He did it, fellas. He’s a big boy now.

But we’re not here to talk about Sephiroth--ignore how much I talked about Sephiroth and his mommies previously--we’re here to talk about ZACK and CLOUD.

“What’s up with Zack and Cloud?”

First, what we must realize is that even though Hojo says that both Zack and Cloud are failed clones because they 1) didn’t take on any physical characteristics of Sephiroth, 2) didn’t seem controlled by Jenova (or Sephiroth) and, 3) didn’t exhibit the other signs of a Reunion impulse like the other clones in Nibelheim that does not mean that Sephiroth’s cells, Jenova’s cells, are not working on them.

As we’ve observed in other 1sts, abilities do not always manifest immediately or even noticeably. Clearly, Sephiroth’s physical appearance is a bit of a hint, but Genesis and Angeal look pretty damn normal and, if it weren’t for their mako injections, they probably wouldn’t be showing that much of an increase in physical capabilities. Theoretically. Maybe 10-year-old Angeal had biceps the size of a man’s head. I mean. Pff.

Zack’s tolerance to Jenova was strong due to his previous exposure in the SOLDIER program. Cloud’s mind broke pretty early on. Neither of these results matter to the fact that they both now have Sephiroth’s cells within them--just as Genesis’ and Angeal’s clones had theirs--and that their very wills are now going to be affected by Sephiroth’s. But they are also going to be a little bit like him in terms of power.

Zack’s hair, when ingested by a Genesis clone, a clone of a Type-G SOLDIER, transforms that clone into a monster. Zack doesn’t even have to do anything. The Jenova/Sephiroth cells within his body can just Do That, cause that change in another life form, of their own accord. I’m honestly shocked that, whenever they gave Zack these S-cells, HE didn’t turn into a monster. But that’s neither here nor there. I wanna talk about Cloud.

Cloud has mako poisoning, which the Remake describes as his spirit/soul being stuck between his body and the Lifestream. Weird. Anyway, he’s not fully aware of his surroundings at all times, and he clearly can’t control his body that much. He somehow has the ability to kinda get his feet shuffling, and I’m going to go on a limb and say he can chew whatever food Zack gives him, but most of the time, he’s a puppet with cut strings.

But he is also still recovering from a mind break caused by Jenova cells. The same cells that are just chilling in his body, like they are in Zack’s. And all the months Zack is dragging his ass across a continent, an ocean, and another continent, they and Cloud are listening to whatever the fuck Zack is saying. Cloud is also constantly in physical contact with Zack.

In The Kids Are Alright: A Turks Side Story, Kadaj has the power to not only read surface thoughts and memories just by being near someone, but he can also read deeper ones by making physical contact with someone. Because Jenova. And Sephiroth, whose cells Cloud and Zack have, in the OG demonstrates that he, too, can glean thoughts and memories from others. Because Jenova.

If this power is a genetic trait, as it is with Genesis and Angeal, then, sitting pretty underneath their skin, Zack and Cloud have this ability. Dormant. Snoozing. Kinda like the 1st Class Trio’s wings.

But Zack has a high tolerance and a high ignorance to Jenova and just what he might be capable of. Cloud’s mind is floating in and out at best. He’s not in control of himself. And when you have a situation like that, it is very, very easy to come to the conclusion that Cloud’s Jenova cells are passively absorbing the memories of Zack’s time in Nibelheim. That they are knitting these memories together with what little remain in Cloud’s head. That when Tifa comes across Cloud at the train station and calls him by name and remembers who he is that Cloud’s Jenova cells latch onto those memories in Tifa--as Sephiroth tells them they did--and they knit those memories with Zack’s and Cloud’s and the end result is the man we get at the beginning of the OG.

Because Cloud has visual memory of shit he never saw. It’s not just a visual medium telling a visual story. You wanna know how I know that for a fact? Because, in the Remake, Cloud remembers Sephiroth walking up to Jenova’s tank in the reactor from Sephiroth’s perspective. He is looking through Sephiroth’s eyes, through his memory, up at “Mother.” In that moment in the Remake, Cloud is Sephiroth. He’s not Cloud anymore.

Cloud sees Sephiroth delivering the speech of being an Ancient. Cloud wasn’t there. Cloud didn’t see that. Zack did. That is Zack’s memory.

The man writing the Remake is the same man who’s been at the head of MOST FFVII writing. He was on the OG, he wrote Advent Children, he wrote the novels, he wrote Crisis Core, he’s writing the Remake. He knows what these cells can do because he’s crafted this world-building for decades.

Cloud didn’t take all of Zack’s memories. He didn’t need to. Kadaj, in the novel, doesn’t glean everything from someone right off the bat. Because he doesn’t need to. Only when he needs to learn something else does he go digging. The same is probably true for what Cloud’s cells most likely did to be able to know what he knows. Hell! Kadaj gets punched in the novel and he ACCIDENTALLY picks up the emotions and memories of the guy who punched him. He didn’t want ‘em but he got ‘em!”

There is evidence within the OG, and even more within the Compilation, that lend weight to the theory that Cloud unintentionally read Zack’s mind when it came to the events of Nibelheim.

For years, people have wondered, “How the hell does Cloud know that if he wasn’t there?” For years, people have wondered, “How can he use the Buster Sword if he was just a little grunt that used a gun all the time?” The logical answer is, “Because of his Jenova cells. They can just do that shit.”

#long post #ffvii #ffvii spoilers #zack fair #cloud strife #jenova #sephiroth #jesus christ i wrote a novel

[fgooooooo]

So, your TWST x FGO is pretty interesting. What is FGO about exactly? All I remember is that there’s a war over the holy grail or smth?

FGO is a mobile gacha strategy game where you are the last master in the world and you have to go around and fix singularities (because a place where history went wrong and you need to correct it) with heroic spirit, also called servants (yeah it doesnt look good). Its part of the fate series with Fate Stay Night being the main thing. Fate itself is really big since there are so many spinoffs and other universes.

FGO is a lot of things. There are some really great stories and there are also a lot of problems with it as well. 

Grail wars happen mostly in Fate Zero, Fate Stay Night, and Fate Apocrypha and other spinoffs like Fate/Redline, etc... Grail wars are basically where 7 mages using servants from 7 different classes, saber, archer, lancer, rider, caster, assassin, and berserker (15 in fate apocrypha). And duke it out with each other, so its like a battle royale type of thing. The Grail is portrayed as a wish granting device which is why its so sought after.

In FGO there are more added classes like mooncancer, Beast class (non playable), alter ego, ruler, avenger, and foreigner.

I like fgo because the main story is really good (especially lostbelts) and the characterization of heroic spirits CAN be really well done (example: Salieri, whose existence is screwed up due to people remembering him for the wrong reasons, such as being the one who killed mozart when that was false. Since thats the main thing he was remembered for, when you summon him he turns out to be this avenger with an identity crisis. He is the only salieri, however the real one cannot be found. He takes on the identity of salieri but in some lines, does not call himself that. Its super interesting to see how the way people remember you changes your character. Even Napoleon, who was terrible, if you summon him as an archer, he’s an ideal. He is napoleon but the version people admired him for not remember him for, therefore archer napoleon is actually cool. But if you summon his rider version, he’s actually more similar to how Napoleon was like in real life.)

Not to mention, its really cool seeing how historical/fictional characters get adapted and designed. Sometimes its awesome and other times its like.... real bad and sexualized and its gross!

While I love FGO, I am aware of it’s problems and how it can create problematic characters. FGO is big, meaning that there are multiple writers and some singularities are written bad, and theres one thats notorious for that. But some like camelot and babylonia are well written and well loved within the community.

Fate is also kinda funny because you would never imagine a scenario of Medea being a garbage kit collector or Alexander the Great being a gamer. That Edison is a Literal Furry (tm) and his spandex suit is like the collective of all of the presidents or something like that. Bartholomew Roberts has an obsession with eye covered hair. 

The stories can get pretty heart wrenching and so so good, and makes you wonder about morals, who’s wrong or right, do you really have the right to do this?, etc...

You play FGO for its characters and the story, you should NOT play it for the gacha. The gacha has a 1% droprate for an SSR with a 0.08% SSR rateup (in japan server, for north america server its 0.07%). The gacha is cruel and theres no pity system. But like I said, you don’t play it for the gacha, and the great thing about FGO is that you can clear really hard chapters with low rarity units. 1-3 star budget teams works!!! 1-3 star units are AWESOME and should not be overlooked just because of the rarity. 

FGO is really nice in building up characters, theres a lot of voicelines, and most have their own interlude/rank up quest that goes more in depth of the character. Theres also bond craft essences and valentines day gifts as well that show you more of their vulnerability. Theres a lot you get to work with and its really nice compared to other gachas where they don’t give you much individual content. 

I’m rambling a lot but FGO is pretty fun, I’ve been playing it for 3 years both JP and NA server, its the only mobile game that I’ve stuck for that long really. And to clarify, I am aware about the problems of FGO, trust me, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the other GOOD elements FGO has to offer. 

Hopefully I was able to clarify it well enough?

[iwillgetridofyourangerforyou]

In OPM, we have been blessed by both ONE (the best storyteller) and Murata (the best illustrator). I'm forever grateful for that fact. For me, every single works that ONE had created are excellent and have good quality story, kinda fresh and exciting to read unlike some mainstream shounen/seinen manga which usually seems formulaic. Btw, I love your analysis posts on webcomic topics, those are so good! Please talk more about it 💖

Ooo, besting. Haha I don’t like using unqualified superlatives but I have to admit ONE and Murata are currently my favorites and I do think they are exceptional. 

As far as Murata goes, I think I was near the Sea King chapter when I became consciously aware of how much time I was spending just staring at the line-work in the individual panels. I haven’t done quite as much research into his works but he does have a bit of a range in his styles. I was curious to see what more of his work looks like and so I considered reading Eyeshield 21, but since I’m prejudiced against sports in general I haven’t started. Murata’s art for OPM is a beautiful style I will shamelessly use to inspire my art for years to come. 

As far as ONE goes I loved the Mob Psycho 100 anime and I’ll be getting through the mangas shortly. While I missed a lot of the value of One-Punch Man when I first watched it, when I found the Manga and webcomic it quickly became my top favorite manga of all time. It’s definitely not what I expected. When I started reading Makai no Ossan I couldn’t put it down. I was awake at night till 3am thinking ‘oh just one more chapter.’ 

I like that ONE addressed a lot of similar themes with different contexts because sometimes the context matters and it makes the lesson a bit more comprehensible to different people in different phases of life. I think he’s aware of certain struggles people face at different phases of life too, and he doesn’t write everyone as a teenager. When ONE give’s his characters an age it means something, and it doesn’t necessarily mean maturity or experience directly proportional to their age. I think that, for me, ONE’s story telling feels so ‘fresh and exciting’ because it's almost as if he’s going through an exploration process with you as the reader to work out certain concepts and the implications. 

I don’t know how he does it but it almost feels like the character’s he writes live outside of him as the author with a will of their own that he gives life to for us. Sometimes it seems that he doesn’t even have a message he’s trying to communicate to the audience but so often a ‘moral’ or an ‘idea’ emerges from the pages even in the face of scenarios that seem to make that message implausible. An example I have for that at the moment is the battle between the spirit of Keiji Mogami, who killed himself after becoming angry and bitter at the horrible tragedies of life and Shigeo. When Keiji tried to show Shigeo why he’s so angry with the world, why rage and despair is the only logical conclusion, Shigeo peered into that rage and despair -possibly almost getting lost in it himself for a moment- only to come out stronger than before with the conviction that gratitude and hope is the path for him. 

I think HOPE is really one of the big things for me with ONE. I can be a pretty pessimistic person at times and I don’t resonate well with stories that pretend that everything is going to be alright. Stories that preach hope without addressing the pain and horror of living feel naive. I also don’t like to read horror stories and nihilistic stories all the time because it just puts me in a pretty dark place. I often find myself feeling hopeless and the cold emptiness of despair seems like a relief from some of the grief I’ve experienced. So when I have a good source of hope in my life I cling to it like a life preserver. I don’t really use storytelling as an escape from reality but as an extension of reality, to help make sense of it and to make it bearable. I think hope is one of those things that shines the brightest when the image is in full contrast and not muted by a softer light. Like Sam’s quote from Lord of the Rings: 

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered, full of darkness and danger they were. Sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when there’s so much bad that had happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That mean something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances to turn back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something. 

Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam? 

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for. 

Thank you! I am glad you like the writing I’ve done about the webcomic. I would like to do some more and knowing you’re interested in reading more does give me some additional motivation to get writing. :)

#asks #ask #anon #ONE #MP100 #One punch man #opm #one-punch man #Yusuke Murata #Makai no Ossan #LOTR #hope

[pastel-garbage-does-art]

Breakfast Invitation

Hey!! This is my first time posting a fic to Tumblr-- but I’m hecka proud so... :)

This is an entry I wrote during this weeks writing challenge in a discord server I’m in! I hope you like it, and if you want me to post more fics here as well I might start doing that :D

Trigger Warnings -- slightly unsympathetic Roman, anGst... tell me if I missed something and I’ll add it!

Ship -- Hints at Moceit, but is up to your perception.

Plot -- Janus gets another visit from Patton after his name reveal, and makes a deal he may not regret after all... maybe mornings are more of his thing now.

Breakfast Initiation

Janus ran a hand through his hair, sighing quietly. He set his hat on the dark oak nightstand, then thought back to when he revealed his name. While it was reassuring to have Thomas trust him for now, it still hurt that practically none of the others did.

He shook his head, laughing dryly before taking his capelet off and tossing it in the general direction of his closet. He heard a knock at his door and immediately knew by the softness who it was.

"Come in, Patton." He mumbled, looking over his shoulder to see the door open slowly.

Patton peeked his head in, then gave a small smile and a wave. "Hey, Janus."

Janus took his gloves off, and indicated with one hand for Patton to actually come into his room as he set them on top of his hat. "Hello, do you need something? Or do you just enjoy my company?" He joked with a smirk, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh," Patton closed the door quietly, then walked over to look at Janus nervously, "Well, I kinda got the sense you were having some... icky feelings." He fidgeted with his cardigan sleeves, waiting for a reply. But Janus was slightly speechless. It'd been so long since anyone had genuinely asked how he felt, and he didn't know how to reply.

"No... must be someone else." He smoothed back his hair with one hand, smiling. He faltered as Patton crossed his arms.

"Janus, don't lie to me right now. Please." His firm tone softened, "I know I haven't, well, been the best towards you in the past," he ignored Janus' small huff of disbelieving laughter, "but I do mean it when I say that I'm worried. I haven't felt such a strong wave of negative emotion from anyone since I met Virgil."

"Are you done with the self-righteous speech?" Janus muttered, raising a brow. He could've been mistaken, but he swore that Patton flinched, a flash of hurt in his eyes. "We both know I'm fine." He didn't mean to sound so harsh, but he was tired of Patton suddenly trying to be a saint. It was probably the fifth time this week, and it was only Wednesday mind you, that Patton had casually 'dropped by'.

"Janus-- I really do mean it! Won't you just talk to me? I've apologized, and I know I was wrong, so come on!" Patton raised his voice, surprising both of them. "I didn't mean to yell, I'm sorry." He whispered, glancing down at his wrist as he messed with his bracelets.

Janus let out a breath, "Okay. If I tell you how I'm feeling, will you stop?" Patton hesitated, then nodded meekly. "Fantastic. Yes, I feel 'icky', but you shouldn't be surprised. I finally reveal that I'm not trying to do anything awful or be a bad guy, but now I feel more hated than ever." He leaned down slightly, glaring, but not necessarily intending it to be directed at Patton alone. "And now I have someone who keeps coming to my room to see if I'm..." he trailed off, the heat dying in his words as he realized something, mumbling the last part, "okay."

God, he was an idiot. Patton was Morality. Why would he of all people come here to mock him by pretending to care? He wouldn't. Turns out he just has such high built walls that he automatically assumed Patton was out to get him by worming his insecurities out of him.

"Oh. I see." Patton said quietly, looking away. "Well, we had a deal so... I'll see you around." The now-defeated side turned away, and suddenly a flood of guilt rushed at Janus. He grabbed Patton's hand, gripping it tightly, "Please, Patton, don't leave." He choked, desperation in his voice. Tears were welling up in his eyes now, and he realized just how badly he'd wanted someone to reach out to him all this time.

"I thought you didn't want me here.", Patton replied, sounding bitter but looking surprised. It was more a statement than a question, considering Janus had pretty much indirectly said as much.

"How could you ever think that?" Janus brought Patton close to his chest, hugging him and mumbling into his hair.

"Well, you made it pretty clear before." He replied, not pushing away, but not hugging back either.

"I... I'm sorry Patton. This whole time you've been trying to be nice to me, and I thought it was a trick. I'm so used to being on my own that I tried pushing you away so I didn't have to get hurt." He pulled back just enough to look at Patton face-to-face. "And in doing so I hurt you, didn't I?"

Patton frowned, then nodded, suddenly teary. He hugged Janus back, hiding his face in his shirt out of embarrassment. "I just want to do my best to right my mistakes, Janus. I know I've treated you bad, and the others have too..." He looked up at him, "I think if they see that I'm okay with you, they'll start to be nicer."

Janus sighed, "Alright. How about a new agreement?" He offered with a small smile. Patton was a bit hesitant given the first 'deal' they made, but nodded, looking up at him and wiping at his eyes under his glasses. "From now on I'll stop pushing you away, and I'll come to whatever breakfast or hangout you invite me to instead of refusing. And in return, I just ask you to be honest to me too and... be my friend."

Smiling, he could tell Janus was a bit nervous about his request. Patton nodded again, but this time he wasn't hesitant. "Silly, you don't have to ask me to be your friend with a deal. I already want to be!" It was a bit surprising to Janus as to how much that relaxed him, but they were both glad that they finally got over things. "Well, I guess now that we've agreed on that..." Patton grinned mischievously.

"Oh no, what are you thinking?" Janus narrowed his eyes, speaking in a mostly playful tone.

"Join us for breakfast tomorrow?" Patton gave him little puppy eyes, making him sigh and smile. So it was true that nobody could say no to that look, huh?

"Alright, I'll see you then."

"Yes! Patton~ did a good thing~!" Janus laughed, and a second later Patton followed suit with little giggles. "Night, Jan." Seeing the taller side's surprise, he quickly added, "Sorry, I won't call you that if you don't want me to."

At this point, they'd separated from the hug, so he put an ungloved hand on Patton's shoulder and smiled. "No, it's okay. As long as I get to call you Pat." He teased.

"Okay!" Patton beamed, making Janus melt a bit. "See ya then!" He left, still smiling warmly.

"Here goes nothing." Janus sighed, shaking his head fondly before getting ready for bed.

                                              ★★★★★★★★

That morning Janus went down to the living room, looking around a bit as he didn't usually get the chance to see the difference between the real world one and the one the 'lights' occupied.

"Jan!" He nearly jumped out of his skin, whipping to look at the kitchen. Ah, it was just Patton.

"Good morning Pat," He walked over to the kitchen, leaning in the doorway and smiling, "What smells so good?"

Patton beamed, "I'm making pancakes! They have blueberries in them too." He turned back to the stove to check on the one currently in the pan, then flipped it.

"Sounds good." Janus pushed off the wall and began walking over to Patton to see if he wanted help, but was hit in the side of the head with a projectile pair of headphones. "Ow--"

"Why Is HE here?" Hissed a voice from the living room. Janus picked the headphones up from where they had fallen to the floor with a gloved hand, then looked up to see Virgil glaring at him.

"Ah, Virgil, morning. I think you dropped something." He held up the headphones to show, and smirked.

Patton glanced nervously between the two, then smiled at Virgil. "Now, Kiddo, that wasn't very nice. I invited Janus to have breakfast with us, so please apologize."

Virgil opened his mouth to argue, then let out a frustrated huff. Nobody could argue with Patton over something like this, so he begrudgingly muttered, "Sorry."

"It's alright." Janus shrugged, not in the mood to fight with him. This took Virgil by surprise, so he just stared as Janus walked over and held the headphones out. He honestly already felt out of place, so he wasn't about to give a reason to be shunned again, even if he wanted to make a mean-spirited remark.

"Okay," Virgil replied in an annoyed tone, snatching the headphones from Janus' hands and putting them back on, crossing his arms and sitting on the couch.

Janus sat at the dining table, Patton having added a fifth chair for him. He idly waited, fiddling with his gloves before looking up at Logan, whose footsteps had paused in the kitchen doorway suddenly. "Hello." He mumbled, waving.

"Janus. Good morning, I was not aware you'd be joining us this morning." Logan walked over to the table, sitting in his spot and closing his book.

"Oh, Patton invited me last night."

"So you finally stopped rejecting his attempts to talk to you." Logan scoffed, not trying to be mean, but most definitely having been annoyed when Patton whined in distress to him.

"... That I did." He looked down at his hands on the oak table, and they fell back into silence, the only sound being Patton humming as he finished cooking.

Logan finally spoke again, looking up from his book to realize he made the other more uncomfortable than he already was. "Janus, do excuse me, I didn't mean to be rude. It's only that I've seen how upset Patton was every time you rejected his attempts. I still am 'on the fence' about you, but if he has invited you to join us then it is illogical for me to intervene."

Janus smiled slightly, "Thanks, Logan." The other only nodded, fixed his glasses, then continued reading.

"Alrighty, everyone!" Patton beamed, making the three in the room look at him. "Breakfast is ready!" He put the plated pancakes at all five spots at the table, then looked around. "Where's Roman?"

"No clue," Virgil mumbled, walking into the kitchen and sitting in his chair, Logan thankfully sitting between him and Janus to prevent any bickering.

"It is likely he simply woke up late. I heard him singing whilst writing down ideas late last night, so it must have taken a toll." Logan stated as he set his book aside and picked up his fork.

"Well, if he doesn't come down in a few minutes I'll go get him. Poor kiddo must be tired!" Patton sat down, and they all began eating in relative quiet, occasionally talking or asking Patton if he added something to his recipe. Janus smiled a bit. Sure, Virgil was still upset at him, but it was nice to spend the morning around others and eat something that wasn't days old or burned. Neither he or Remus were very good cooks, and food poisoning was common with them.

Roman finally bounded into the kitchen, "I have arrived! Excuse my lateness, I was getting extra beauty sleep!" He went and sat at his seat, and Janus watched him while continuing to eat, wondering why he hadn't said anything to him.

"Great, now I have to look at Princey's face?" Virgil teased, rolling his eyes.

"Haha, very funny Panic! At The Everywhere." Roman shot back, picking up his fork.

"Good morning, Kiddo!" Patton smiled at their banter, standing up to take his and Logan's plates as they'd both finished eating already.

"Morning Patton--" He cut himself off as he noticed Janus and stood up abruptly, literally whisking out his sword to pointing it at Janus, who leaned away a bit, dropping his forkful of pancake back onto his plate. "Caution! The Reptilian Rapscallion has infiltrated our kitchen!"

Patton put the plates in the sink and frowned, "Roman--"

But surprisingly, Logan interrupted, soundly moderately irritated, "Considering Janus has a plate of half-finished pancakes and his own chair at the table, he has not infiltrated anything. It is illogical to assume he was not invited, so please do put away your sword." He firmly stated, staring him down till he lowered the sword and sheathed it safely.

"Why is he here?" Roman glared at Janus, who stared back with a bit less intensity, not wanting to back down but also not wanting to cause more trouble.

"Because I invited him, Kiddo." Patton put a hand on his shoulder, smiling softly up at him. "It's alright." Roman stared at him in disbelief, then groaned and sat back down.

"So that's why you made blueberry pancakes!" Roman outburst seconds later, gasping as he looked back at his plate.

Patton laughed nervously, blushing in embarrassment. "Yep!"

"You dare initiate him without a group decision?" Roman narrowed his eyes at Patton, but there was no heat in his gaze. Virgil let out an annoyed sigh, setting his fork down after finishing his pancakes.

"Roman, I think we all know there is no stopping him. I'm clear proof of that." Janus looked at the emo in surprise, considering he threw his headphones at him that very morning. But he really did just look like he wanted this to be over, accepting that Patton was too kind to let Janus be shunned

"But..."

"No buts! Now eat up Roman! We have a long morning~!" Patton beamed.

Was Janus missing something, or did everyone but him know what that meant? Well... here goes nothing. He laughed quietly, a bright and happy noise, and the atmosphere lightened a bit as everyone resumed eating and chatting.

And that’s the end!

I hope you enjoyed :D

I actually didn’t add the second half to my entry, but I kept it in my post just because of the headphone toss lmao... I won first somehow,, Here’s Jamus’ drawing ^^

#sanders sides #janus #patton #roman #virgil #logan #sympathetic janus #ilovemyboys #idkwhatelsetotag

[thattimdrakeguy]

Robin - the first miniseries - issue #2 (R.I.P Tom Lyle)

This issue is really good at letting you know the bare bones basics of what Tim’s going through in this story.

It may not go through all the details, but it gives you pretty much the main components of what you need to do.

A nice recap that’s always good for readers that didn’t pick up the first issue. It’s very easy, and simple at lowering any confusion.

Although there is probably still butt loads given how little they actually say, but it’s easy to pick up.

Robin’s getting beat up, this adult man who is obviously not Batman is helping him.

You can pick it up fast and continue from there.

They also give Tim’s narration, and I can’t help but read this in the most deadpan clinically exhausted tone reality can bring. It’s so deadpan and self-depreciating, but at the same time, it lets the reader know he has that boy scout thought process.

You get a sense that the kid’s doing his best to be a superhero, but it always does a good job of letting you know that even he’s aware he’s not doing a good job.

Not feeling like he’s good enough is a constant theme of Tim’s character.

His narration also shows us, that Tim is a freaking idiot. That probably should’ve thought this out before nearly getting himself beat to death.

Like he’s clever, good with computers and all that, but he’s still an idiot kid

People to be always over-value Tim’s intelligence, and while he obviously gets a lot smarter than this (often to the point of being out of character to be frank). Some people might make you think he’s a genius, like James Tynion IV, but honestly he’s no genius.

He doesn’t always make the best decisions.

Though even when he’s five steps away from toppling over, he still does his best to do what he thinks is the best thing he can do. He’s doing his best to be a hero, even when he isn’t cut out for the job yet. He keeps on trying.

His relationship with Clyde is also pretty sweet for as odd as it is. I mean, they did just meet after Clyde was gonna get killed, and Timmy jumped in to give the bad guys something else to hit.

But for what it is, it’s decently sweet.

It’s more nice character building for Tim that shows how he is in Robin mode interacting with other people and victims of crime. He’s sweet, and always doing his best to do the right thing.

Like the little boy scout he is.

--

It’s easy to barely care for the villains of this miniseries though, because to be honest. They’re so generic that it’s a bit painful to read them sometimes. They feel like they’re out of a dollar bin Kung Fu movie from the 80s. I have no idea why this is who they decided to make Tim’s first villain this.

The name of the villain is even KING SNAKE, that’s such a cheesy Kung Fu movie villain name.

Oh no, a serious, violent, psychopathic, gang leader.

What ever shall we do.

It’s something you can skip over honestly, because you pretty much know it’s going to be stuff you’ve seen before.

Basically, they go into operation ‘kill the pipsqueak’ (they don’t call it that, but that’s the idea), and that’s the threat they pose. Its very bare bones.

Though there’s a part of this that alarms me more than the main villain.

Because this implies that the girl isn’t Tim’s age. The way she says he’s “almost a child” implies she’s notably older older than Tim given how she words herself, but maybe not, because Tim IS babyfaced. It is a joke people constantly think he’s 12 (and that’s at age 17, Tim’s 14 here. So who knows how he looks to people). So, how old is this girl?

Is she’s Tim’s age? Because I’m alarmed by this because she was vaguely flirting with him in the last issue. Is she his age and she doesn’t know? Cuz if she was his age and she knows, it’s weird for her to word it that way. She’d just say “around my age”, like how a normal person would.

Even then, she still notes how he’s super young like she doesn’t think they’re the same age, so that’s still super creepy.

That interaction alarms me a lot, but it’s not even close to the creepiest thing in this comic, but thankfully that’s in another issue.

I’m not looking forward to talking about it, but this is a review of this miniseries. So I’m going to.

--

The next scene shows just how much of a stupid, sheltered, rich kid Tim is.

Like this kid, just throws away this man’s clothes. This man is in his underwear when he wakes up. Tim took this man’s clothes off his body and threw it away.

This scene I just never liked though, because it’s very contrived.

Tim’s always been shown to be nice and respectful unless it’s to not so nice people. So why does he straight up throw the guys clothes out?

They don’t even play Tim to be creepy, or weird, or rude for this. So this wasn’t intended to make him out to be a disturbing gremlin child.

As far as I can tell, the gag is that Tim’s a sheltered rich kid, and a bit stupid sometimes, but if I woke up in my underwear with a kid talking about crime in front of me. I’d be a lot more alarmed.

Although maybe it’s just some crime movie trope I don’t know about. Girl’s in movies often wake up naked with no real concern. Which is a really gross trope.

I remember in Back to the Future Marty McFly woke up with no pants, but that WAS played as weird, because it WAS weird. You don’t take stranger’s clothes off. So this scene is just contrived.

The intention isn’t to make Tim’s character a weirdo. This wasn’t them trying to show him as creepy, because that’s simply not how it’s portrayed. It’s just a rich kid joke. So he isn’t as far as the series and how I’m concerned, and he doesn’t do anything like this ever again. So it’s just out of place, odd, and contrived.

Maybe this one of the many reason’s why people think Tim was gay. He backs away from being flirted with women, but he’ll take a man’s clothes off without a second thought.

Another creepy scene though, and a scene that’s not even meant to be creepy at that, which almost makes it worse to me. Like I sure hope this wasn’t the way they intended to make Tim come off as gay, because it’s a freaking creepy scene even if it’s kind of clearly not what they intended. 

Although, let me say, I’m 99% sure they honestly did not intend Tim to come off as gay in any way. Just a bad scene honestly. It’s written away from normal human logic, so it’s contrived, and they don’t even fully act like what just happened happened.

However due to the power of interpretation, if you think Tim’s gay, he’s gay.

If they wanted to show Tim being a sheltered rich kid, they should’ve done a better job writing it then this. If Tim’s gonna do it a weird thing, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing, then write it that way. Don’t just act like this wasn’t weird.

--

Lady Shiva has her “come with me if you want to live” moment though, and so the action continues.

In general this issue has a lot more action.

The format of the miniseries is a lot more like a movie than how most comics try to squeeze in a lot of action every issue. There’s action in the first issue, but it’s mostly condensed down a lot. This finally goes into action movie territory.

The bad guys are so corny. Like I can’t get over how much they look like cheesy 80s Kung Fu movie villains.

Tim deserves better than these bozos.

However they keep Tim’s character strong, by reaffirming he’s got no street smarts. Tim at this point is 100% only making this far by his book smarts. He’s naive, and stupid still.

They even got nice ‘show don’t tell’ moments, where Tim’s just freaking bad at this job still. Even though he is quick thinking and sort of clever.

People say Tim has no character, but he has plenty of character. He just isn’t loud. He’s mostly soft spoken so maybe his personality isn’t obvious, but he has it plenty if anyone wanted to pay attention to him.

--

Enjoy some more dumb rich kid Tim.

Like casually renting a farm house isn’t normal, Timothy.

Up until this point, some people may still argue that Tim’s a Gary Stu, because while even though he fails, and isn’t skilled. People still like him, and he doesn’t do anything morally wrong, but that’s not true either.

Tim’s so focus on figuring stuff out that he becomes insensitive to Clyde.

Mostly cuz he’s a dumb, but smart (contradiction, but remember Tim’s book and computer smart, not socially smart or street smart. There’s a distinction. He’s still incredibly naive and unaware that what he did wasn’t right) kid that didn’t realize it, but still. He did something wrong, and it’s shown that he’s wrong for it.

So the traits of his character are able to be shown more to stronger limits.

We know his strong points and his character flaws.

He’s got a heroic spirit, he’s computer smart, good at crime solving, he’s constantly trying to do the right thing, and he doesn’t give up.

but socially and street-wise he’s an idiot, and his sheltered childhood ended up with him being relatively insensitive without him being aware of it at first, and while it’s clear he isn’t insensitive out of malice, it’s still a character flaw, as it causes problems between the characters.

--

The final scene gives us some character growth, and if you wanna smack Timmy for being so insensitive to Clyde, well, in this training scene. Clyde smacks him for ya. (Even if it’s not for being insensitive)

We even get to see how emotionally vulnerable Tim is compared to some other superheroes too.

He cries when he’s angry unlike other superheroes who often enough get to look cool, tough, and masculine when they cry.

Here Tim looks like what lots of people would call a wimp.

As someone who cried a lot when they were mad, and even got bullied for that fact. I honestly just really appreciate, on a personal level, that they had Tim cry when he was mad. 

He’s got his butt kicked this whole entire time by pretty much every person he freaking met. So that’s a lot of emotion coming out of him that he’s been probably building up and internalizing inside of him with all his self-deprecation in his narration.

I kinda gotta question the morals of teaching Tim to fight with anger though.

But it’s still a good moment because it shows were Clyde comes from. That’s were Clyde gets his motivation to fight from and do all of this. Clyde even tho this is his only appearance does get character in this. We learn about him a lot.

It makes me wish Clyde showed up again. Unless he did and I somehow didn’t realize it was him, because he’s a neat character in his own way. Could’ve got a nice noir crime drama out of him.

Along with that. They don’t even ignore the morals of fighting with anger, because that immediately gets brought up.

So differences between these three weirdos come up when they become a trio.

--

I prefer the first issue just because it’s more of a character study, and didn’t have all the corniness.

This issue, while I focus on the bad stuff, because this is a review I’m gonna talk about it. It’s still a good issue. Just a good issue with bad scenes and crooked morals when it comes to the ambiguous age gap between Linx and Timmy that could end up making that whole interaction they had really creepy.

Tim’s character gets stronger, and the story gets filled out, even if the story is still bare bones at this point as far as the villains are concerned. It’s filled out in a way that means, there’s a threat, and there’s actual action and adventure to make it exciting.

So it’s not a perfect miniseries for anyone looking for story. It’s a miniseries that’s perfect for people that love and wanna learn about Timmy.

#Tim Drake #Robin #Clyde Rawlins #I don't think I tagged him in the last issue's review cuz I didn't know his last name off the top of my head #Lady Shiva #King Snake #Linx #DC Comics #Bat-Family #Bat-Fam #BatFamily #Batfam

[kendrixtermina]

Thoughts and Feelings about“Change Your Mind”

I really wish I could rewatch this motherfucker somewhere but I have to sleep and go to work 

Well on the one hand the main story lines are pretty much done for, on the other, the fallout alone could fill another season, and I’m actually glad that they’re not relegating that to the epilogue but actually going to show it

I assume season 5 will be Steven working with the Diamonds to improve homeworld, explaining things to Jasper, integrating the former corrupted gems on earth, finding out the deal with pink pearl, further developing Steven’s new fusions etc. 

Other open questions involve gem origins and peridot’s renewable energy project, but I suppose that will come up as Steven tries to make the Empire less... imperialistic. 

I understand why they wanted to air this in one piece, you couldn’t leave the younger viewers hanging with some of these creepytastic scenes and no resolution

There’s various concepts I feel reminded of. 

There’s this idea of “tzimtsum” in kaballalistic thought, about how God created the world - In order to create a being apart from himself, he “hid” some aspects of the being, the ones that would seem - So every part of creation reflects one aspect of god, but none shows the complete pictures of it, and because everything has some aspects of god but not others, it is unique - so all humans are made in gods image, but still be different from each other.  

Maybe Pink Diamond would be something like Lucifer in this analogy, part of the creation but as far from the god as you can get while still existing, and somehow their antithesis (stretching the analogy here, of course Judaism has no counterpart to Lucifer let alone the positive-ish early modernity interpretions of him - but of course, White Diamond isn’t exactly a benevolent God either. )

First of course Star Trek, like the ep where Captain Kirk is split into what at first seems like his good and evil half but is more like his animal instincts and higher reasoning, or in Voyager, when B’Elana Torres is split into her human and Klingon halves. 

I guess Garnet wasn’t completely wrong in his being something in-between fusion and human reproduction, his gem half could be considered A Pink Diamond, but not the same one who created him - He must be fricking powerful to shrug off WD’s beams like that, like how Stevonnie still has “boosted” versions of Steven’s abilities despite Connie being human, Steven’s probably like Pink Diamond, but ‘boosted’.  

Steven’s victory certainly showcases how it comes from both sides of his heritage. It involves making WD laugh/embarassed like what Pink used to do, but unlike her, he has the communication skills from Greg - I don’t think Pink ever talked to Blue in that way, she didn’t seem aware of what the other Diamonds were thinking at all, any more than she really understood Pearl’s lingering knot of complexes. It’s just not a skill she could have picked up before Greg - when? From whom?  

His responsibility is all uniquely him and due to his upbringing with the CG’s and wanting to help him more, tho, both his parents where free spirit hippy bohemians, but it was Steven who decided “Nope, I WANT to fix it, because I can”, not because he owes it to anybody, even when no one could fault him for running. 

Also, Frankenstein (the Novel not the film) - The original Victor was a sympathetic, even admirable character, but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to have empathy with the monster, though Adam was in many ways alike to him and initially didn’t wish to be his enemy.  Because while the gems relate to White Diamond as their goddess and the other Diamonds see her as their mother, she seems to regard them as extensions of herself. Maybe she would, as their creator. Gods are expected to smile benevolently upon their followers and solve their problems, Mothers, while they are flawed humans,  are supposed to love their kids as they are and realize that they become their own persons, but artists frequently tear up their own work if they’re dissatisfied with it, because it’s supposed to be a reflection of their existence, so they might hate it for not reflecting them well enough - 

i often regret tearing up half my teenage fanfics, but I’m able to view them different now that I’m - Back then, I felt like they reflectzed badly onto me - but if had kids and treated them like my fanfics or crumpled drawings, well, that would scar them for life. 

You could certainly see this as a metaphor for narcissism, particularly in the way WD judged everything by how much it was like her, to the point that she would ‘overwrite`’ ppl’s personalities with her ideas of how it ought to be, while lacking a solid identity of her own apart from being “perfect/the best” by default, but that only goes so far because the gems literally are her creations who take their characteristics from various aspects of her being. 

She’d have a completely different conceptual framework to anyone else, though she’s certainly not “above it” in any way. 

I don’t think she was completely unaffected by Pink’s dissapearence either, if you want to complete the Stages of Grief analogy she would be Denial or Bargaining. Most likely,  she was growing increasingly frustrated with her ability to make her empire “perfect” like she ought to and that’s why she started keeping to herself more and assuming that Pink couldn’t be dead. 

She seemed like the knowing one when she was as much in denial as anyone else - you can tell they had a complicated relationship because of how White saw herself in her, that might be why she indulged and preferred her, but then again she didn’t always like what she saw and felt that Pink represented parts of her that she didn’t want to see. 

It’s not without reason that Steven tells her to “get out of her own head” and try to see the world for what it is rather than her preconceived notions of what it is or means. You could perhaps relate that to 

When she realizes that she’s actually dead - that’s when she has her breakdown. 

You could even draw a parallel to “Romeo And Juliet”, where the older generation only realizes how much its ways were fucked up when it gets their beloved children killed for just trying to live happy lives. 

Cal Gustav Jung would certainly remind us that what irritates us about others are often things that irritate us about ourselves, that we may be liable to “see the world as we are” and never is that more apparent than when we view everything through some skewed belief system, or when we hate - people hate people who blur boundaries because they don’t want to confront the ambiguity within themselves, or act as “superior” and merciless because they’ve rejected their own mortal fragile humanity.

Another observation is that when you set up anything as the “default” you create pressure not to deviate from the norm and prevent its members from experiencing their individuality. (see societal pressure on heterosexual men, or Euro-Americans saying they ‘have no culture to celebrate’ - maybe instead of becoming a devouring plague upon your fellow men, you could actually appreciate European culture? Like, read some books, eat some cheese, learn a language, listen to some classical music, vote for worker protection laws?)

It speaks for PD that she even tried to save other aliens at some point. steven stepped completely out of her shadow the moment he was able to feel sorry for her, like “Geez, she had to live like that? No wonder she turned out the way she did!” he pretty much calls the other Diamonds out at some point, like he gets a secure sense of the differences between them when he realizes how much better off he’s been in his own life. Like, UGH. 

For my part, I don’t believe the “best of the worst” thing was true, and more of an “evil cannot comprehend good” moment from White, if not outright projection. (after all, White seems to view all other Gems as imperfect copies of herself) If anything, Pink seemed upset that she got stuck being the leader even as “Rose Quartz” (see the Beach scene in “Greg the babysitter”) - but of course Steven, not being Pink, wouldn’t know whether or not White is right. 

Other Thoughts:

In the earlier scenes you could see a lot of parallels to less than ideal family situations, and how people might end up acting as proxies of the problematic person, almost sprouting their words, in the name of keeping the peace, and how people in such an environment may have no idea of how it’s not normal

You CAN talk down such a person (I know of multiple people who made a bona fide job out of talking sense into literal nazis and clansmen, person by person - their tactic was generally to find whatever problem their rage came from), but there’s a difference between “flawed” and “awful” and I do think it came through that White is a piece of work quite unlike, say, Connie’s mother, and that Steven’s dealing with her because he wants to for the good of society, because he’s the bigger person and secure in himself,  not because he owes it to her or anything

It seems like they went for “awesome” rather than “beautiful” with Steven’s fusions. The designs are kinda gaudy, but even so, once you getpast the gaudy design, it’s kind of touching how Steven’s and Garnet’s fusion is essentially a motivational speaker who sprouts encouraging advice nonstop. Garnet was always Steven’s Mentor and  as well as the main person (besides greg) to teach him morals, as well as generally encouraging & supportive, but Steven of course encourages and supports her too, and both like doing that for others

I love Peridot’s short shorts and that she and Bismuth repaired the ships/ went a-tinkering together. It took me a bit to notice that it’s supposed to be shorts and not just her old outfit with starts instead tho

Voice of Reason!Connieis a gift that keeps on giving

#steven universe #su spoilers #change your mind

[tumblunni]

Rambling about my new watchholder oc Mallory

* absolute gremlin child. Eats dirt. Probably more of a monster than most of the yokai.

* at the same time tho, she is like super sunshine friend! She looks kinda gloomy ominous but her personality is actually super bubbly and her biggest priority in life is making new yokai friends and loving them forever. Like, creepy in a wholesome way? She does indeed love horror movies and creepy crawlies and could probably fistfight god, but that doesnt mean she's evil!

* kinda always bored but also easily exciteable? One of her biggest recurring jokes is just ignoring the normal or sane solution to a thing and doing something more fun even if its more difficult or dangerous. Actually i guess its more "fearless" than bored? Or bored of fear, lol. Fearless and doesnt really give a shit about any rules. But again not in a mean way, she doesnt break rules because she wants to piss people off, just like "im not gonna believe this if nobody bothers explaining why its supposed to be so important". But not exactly phrased like that cos that would be rude, lol. So uhh more like just relateable autism feel of not grasping social cues but mixed with a personality thats quite outgoing and uncaring of being judged poorly for not being normal, as opposed to me who's always worried about what people think.

* oh wait thats the word for it!! Free-spirited! Trickster! Like a peter pan type of trickster tho, more than loki. Like just "i am naturally outside the obligations of normalcy" rather than "i am intentionally trying to prank/illusion/manipulate people cos its funny". Or uhh i guess "manic pixie dream girl" but without all the stupid shit that trope has got associated with.

* pretty much just wish fullfillment of "what if i was confident enough to not care what people think and just act like myself no matter what"

* anyway in summary she likes to climb trees n stuff and her reaction to yokai being real is "yay" and her reaction to seeing an undefeatable giant kaiju is to run at it and try and suplex it with her bare hands. She's kind of a badass! Tho lol also her biggest character flaw is her badassness, cos she can be reckless due to the lack of fear. But then also sometimes when everyone is hopeless she really does manage to save the day no matter what, and help inspire everyone else to be brave too!

* though i'm thinking of maybe a character arc where she starts off seeing this as just a fun adventure with no stakes, and it doesnt matter if you take risks cos nobody's gonna get hurt anyway. Like a "this isnt really real, its just my hero's story" sort of thing? When things start getting more dark and she faces things she cant just defeat with simple optimism, it kinda stops being fun anymore. And she has to realize that even if she doesnt care about her own self preservation there's consequences that could happen to her friends and family. And maybe she's already made mistakes that she can't take back, and now she's neck deep in a conflict thats a lot bigger and more insurmountable than she thought. You can't just fistfight something like the abstract concept of hatred for humanity which will continue to be perpetuated as long as the idea keeps taking root. And maybe even yokai you befriended could start to believe it too, after all you've kinda been treating them as just fun toys and sidekicks on a story that's all about you, and dragging them into danger with your recklessness. Even though you're fighting the villains, are you really doing it because you actually care about saving the day? Do you even know what you're saving it from...?

* and similar to her unflappable victoryness being shaken, i think her fearlessness and confidence could also be deeper than they look on the surface. I feel like maybe as the story goes on it could be revealed that its less being fearless and more just not caring about her own safety. You start to see her get more actual consequences from her fights, and it starts to become sort of concerning that she keeps brushing it off as no big deal. Laughing it off. Wondering why her friends are even sad that she got hurt. And maybe she isnt really happy all the time and 100% secure in who she is, she just tries to hide any signs of doubt because she feels like nobody would care. And that she has to always be the funny class clown or else nobody would want to be her friend. And like.. She doesnt even really believe that she's great, believe that she's fine as she is. She's more aware of her weirdness than she lets on. She's constantly, paralyzingly aware that everyone thinks she's a freak. She did use to try and change herself to fit in, but she kept failing at it and it never helped her get any friends. Or when she did think she made a friend they'd turn on her whenever she slipped up and showed a crack in her mask of the perfect normal person. The perfect normal person they wanted her to be.. Constantly changing into WHATEVER anyone wanted her to be. The only reason she doesnt do that anymore is that she lost all hope in it working, not that she actually gained confidence in her true self. And even when she's npt conciously doing it she's still subconciously trying to be what people want her to be. She has to always be funny, always be fearless, she has to cling to the few parts of her weirdness that people dont seem to hate. And now she has to be the hero. She has to carry all the dreams of everyone she's met along the way, while never letting them know when she's scared she wont be able to help make them come true. She's always just laughing it off and never being fully open with any of her friends, because she's scared they'll hate her. ..

* so uhh.. Yeah. Personal experience of that. Personal experience of trying to fit into negative stereotypes of autism because thats what everyone saw me as no matter how hard i tried, and also it was the only form of autism theyd treat positively, somehow. Like just be the "funny one" and dont challenge any of their assumptions ans they'll leave you in relative peace. Put up with some degree of degredation to avoid the even worse version. And i was doing all of this at a very youbg age before i even knew i was autistic or what autism was, but i could still feel how people treated me differently and how i had to friggin agree with it or else they'd never let it go. Gahhh.. It was all way too complicated and dark for a kid to understand!

* so yeah anyway her story arc is going from being a badass funny to being a funny badass? Like she just becomes more genuinely tough and cool when she's not always winning and the stakes dont seem so low and comical AND most importantly you know her real feelings and see that she will indeed continue fighting even when she's scared. And she doesnt try so hard to be cool all the time so it just lets her be more genuine. And form actual relationships with everyone with genuine feelings. So its less "she is badass because its funny" and more "she is a badass because she's a badass". But she's still funny, just in more varied ways than simply "the only reason she won this fight so fast is because jokes". Fighting legit threatening enemies in fights that arent over in five seconds. So they can contain... SEVERAL joke..!!! And also some actual fighting for once!!

* hhh i dunno i am very tired im probably not explaining this well

* oh and i think possibly she has a bit of a complex of feeling she's nothing without her yokai watch? Like the yokai are her first friends who never abandoned her. And she always felt like she was useless and it was her own fault that she didnt have any friends. She first started off being all irreverent and goofy when she got the yokai watch cos she was well into her "i dont care anymore" phase of depression and felt certain these new friends would all realise she was awful eventually and leave, so like.. Why get attatched? Just have fun while it lasts. So maybe actually she shows early signs of her depression by trying harder to be normal whenever anyone shows her friendship. Maybe something where she starts straigjtening her hair or dressing more feminine and then you just see this look on her face like her heart has shattered when someone agrees that she does look better now. (Maybe a new yokai she recently caught who was like super cool and she wanted to impress them?) And she gets compulsively obsessed with it, exaggerating it to a ridiculous degree and starting to change other parts of her appearance and everyone goes from giggling about this weird circumstance to getting REALLY DAMN CONCERNED! And in the end something something the yokai who was an asshole abput her needing to be more feminine slips up and shows his true assy colours to the other yokai and theyre like IT WAS YOU and he's like "what? You should be thanking me for fixing your shitty trainer!" And Then Everyone Beats Him Up Forever. Etc etc moral that real friends accept you for who you are and anyone who tells you you have to change to impress them is not worth impressing. Also maybe some aspect where the yokai dude thinks that mallory is trying to impress him cos she has a crush on him, and thats the moment that manages to snap her out of her depressive funk. Self hate overrided by sheer EWW NO IM A LESBIAN, DUDE i just liked ur cool hat, geez. (Wait was that entire plot idea just an excuse to find a way to foreshadow her getting a crush on hailey in yw3...?)

* and maybe i dunno some sort of dramatic episode where she loses the ability to use the yokai watch and is faced with her self worth issues all at once and its super fuckin sad and we all know eventually she will get to see all her yokai friends again cos the plots not gonna end before finishing all the games but still MEGA SUPER SAD MOMENT ANYWAY (also tearful reunions!)

* also i just heard theres a yokai called furgus thats a big adorable hairball that gives people big hair. So maybe that could be one of the comically easy victory episodes? He uses his power on mallory but her hair is already too fluffy to be floofed! Maybe it backfires and turns his own hair into a boring bowl cut, lol? And then maybe a sequel where he returns for revenge a million episodes later but it just so happens to be during the maddiman boss fight and he accidentally cures his balding. "Noooo dont thank me nooooo" *is forced against his will to become a popular advertosing mascot for hair cream* *like straight up just gets sucked into the nearest bottle and sealed like a genie* *cursed forever to fame and fortune and a million dollar salary*

* lol i dont think im as funny as the actual yokai watch writers but i have a few ideas at least. This will be fun to draw!

#bunni plays yokai watch

[kilerya]

The tiefling sisters -Ven’s story

ok so here’s the first part of the backstory of the tiefling sisters Andvenom (Ven to friends), the chaotic neutral Circle of the Land(Underdark) druid, and Solys the chaotic good Circle of the Land (Grassland) druid who got separated very young and reunited through some...sheer stubbornness on Ven’s part honestly. This partt is Ven’s backstory I’ll post Solys’ backstory later...when I get around to writing it.

Putting this under a read more cause it’s very long and probably like 2 people are interested in reading it at best

when they were very young (like 5yo and barely a month respectively) their mom was on the run from some potentially bad people who caught up with the the three of them and the group they were traveling with in the Underdark, the mom managed to hide her eldest at the beginning of the attack but died soon after, the only real memory that this poor little tiefling keeps from that night is someone running off with her baby sister.

A couple of days after the attack, little tiefling is still there surrounded by wreckage and corpses when a band of mercenaries passes by and investigate (cause you know, free loot maybe), they’re scary but she doesn’t have that many option so she approaches them. They ask what happened there but she tries to answer but can’t, just stutters and sobs a bit. One of the mercenaries gets annoyed and picks her up by the back of her collar to try and intimidate her and as soon as she’s level with his face she slaps him with a Poison Spray cantrip much to the amusement of the rest of the band. The surprise (and y’know, 1d12 poison damage) makes him drop her and she scrambles away, before he can retaliate his boss tells him to back off and comes to talk to her himself. He introduces himself as Istar, leader of the Shadow Vipers and tells her that so long as she can make herself useful they’ll keep her fed and relatively safe (they live dangerous lives and all) is she comes with them and well she’s a scared, hungry and alone 5 years old she doesn’t have any other options that she can think off so she goes with them.

She does her best to be useful but there’s not a lot she can do around the camp (in a system of caves that lead down to the Underdark, they were on their way back when they picked her up) and the people around aren’t very nice, they’re all a pretty selfish bunch brought together by greed mostly, Istar finds her little poison trick amusing but doesn’t have a use for it right away, a couple of days in her stay the mercenary druid Meira takes pity on her and starts teaching her since she shows at least a little talent for the craft. No one in the camp can pronounce her name (cause it’s Infernal) and they don’t make too much of an effort to learn so for the first few months most of them just call her kid if they want to address her. The mercenaries take her on missions sometimes, talks that have the potential to go bad where the possibility of having a small tiefling burst out and spray poison in someone’s face before running off can be an advantage, they have a trigger word for it, when things go start going bad Istar goes all threatening saying a variation of ‘anger the Shadow Vipers and you’ll be met with steel and venom’ and that’s her cue to do her thing. Since that’s the closest thing that resemble someone talking about her she starts thinking of it as her name. The first time she gets to tag along on a supply run in town she wanders off in a shop to look at stuff while Meira is busy haggling at the counter, one of the shop’s employees approaches her to make sure she doesn’t break anything. When he asks for her name this little 6 years old tiefling proudly says ‘Andvenom!’ which leads to a very confused employee and a facepalming Meira who doesn’t argue with it cause well... it’s not like anyone bothered to give the self proclaimed Andvenom a proper name in Common, but she does insist on calling her Ven when the name sticks and so does Istar to avoid any poison spray related unpleasantness.

Over the years Ven learned some reaaaally questionable morals from the mercenaries but also a bunch of useful skills like use daggers, pick locks, stealth, spot valuables, cheat at cards, play innocent and generally lie really really well... you know, criminal stuff, and Meira taught her a few more magic tricks, which turned out to be very useful cause eventually people weren’t as surprised by the whole Poison Spray thing and once one went ‘aHA I’m immune to poi-’ and got slapped with a Thunderwave instead and that he really wasn’t prepared for, neither were his friends behind him, it was one of the few times the mercenaries actually seemed genuinely impressed by her little tricks. She’s more comfortable using poison/necrotic damage based magic to fight as well as fire that she has a natural affinity for since she’s a tiefling. She also relies on magic a lot out of combat to make up for her really low strength, she learns Spider Walk specifically to avoid having to climb anything ever. Since she’s been trying to prove herself and her usefulness from a very young age she grew a really competitive/contrary streak, for all that she grew to know better than to be too eager to please and perceptive enough to know when someone is trying to bullshit her, any of that wisdom goes right out the window when someone says she can’t do something, tell her she’s not able or not allowed to do anything and she’ll run at it out of spite which caused her some trouble with some of the more mean spirited mercenaries (you know that first guy she Poison Sprayed ? kinda holds a grudge)

Because the mercenaries are a pretty varied bunch species wise she doesn’t really get any shit from them for being a tiefling and she’s pretty proud of her origins cause they give her some pretty cool skills. There’s been one incident that bothered her when she was a young teen (about 12 or so), the mercenaries passed through a pretty superstitious small town and the people were aggressive towards her saying she was cursed and trying to chase her out before she caused a disaster to fall on them. In a rare show of compassion, Istar (who’s a half orc and has dealt with shitty people before) took Ven aside that evening and told her those people were full of shit and didn’t know what they were talking about, if she was cursed the Vipers wouldn’t be doing nearly as well as they were and the only reason she her presence could ‘cause a disaster’ anywhere is cause she would actively make it happen because those people were assholes and they deserved it, she is who she is and anyone who has a problem with should get a Poison Spray in the face. It cheered her up a bit but the incident still stays with her for some time. The next time someone tries to mess with her she goes full on intimidation Thaumaturgy amplified ‘YES I AM EVIL I WILL BRING A PLAGUE DOWN ON YOUR HEAD MWAHAHA A PLAGUE OF FIRE AND VENOM (back to regular volume) ...or you could stop being a dick, your choice’, so she is aware that some people have trouble with tieflings but fuck the lot of them she has no intentions of hiding what she is

Ven still gets nightmares about her mom’s death and losing her sister, not very detailed ones she doesn’t remember who the attackers were exactly but one thing is always really clear: someone, she doesn’t know if they’re a friend or enemy, taking her baby sister and running off disappearing into the darkness. The older she gets the more she gets convinced that it was a bad person who STOLE her sister and deserves to pay for it. There’s always a little hope when meeting another tiefling that it’s her sister and they’d somehow recognize each other right away and go off to make a lot of money kicking ass together. She doesn’t tell anyone in the Vipers about it, Meira knows about the nightmares because she’s the one Ven is the closest to but not to the point of opening up that much more. Sometimes after she starts taking on solo contracts, she finds some signs of activity of the people that killed her mom including an old torn up report talking about that day, it’s too damaged to get too much information out of it but it’s a lead she wants to follow in hopes of learning what happened to her sister. She knows better than to just rush off on her own without a plan so she goes back to the Shadow Vipers’ headquarters to ask Istar for some backup, it doesn’t go well at all. He thinks the whole thing is a fool’s errand and her sister probably didn’t make it no matter who took her and refuses to send anyone out unless she’s willing to pay for it. They have a big argument about it and Ven eventually storms off, grabs her stuff and leaves. Istar is convinced she’ll be back soon enough when she realises it’s pointless so he doesn’t send anyone after her.

Ven’s in her early twenties when she goes off on her own to find her sister, it’s not easy and she hits a lot of dead ends but she’s entirely too stubborn to give. When she’s not actively investigating she picks up mercenary work to be able to pay for living expenses on the road, a lot of the jobs she takes are escort missions that’ll take her roughly in the direction she needs to travel, it’s not the best paying ones but at least it saves time. Eventually she manages to track down the person who ran away with her sister and get the name of the town where she was dropped off all those years ago. As angry that Ven is to learn that her sister was abandoned in a field for a druid to find (and you know, the years of build up resentment over the fact her sister was stolen, even if it turned out to be for a good reason), she doesn’t kill the woman, hurts her badly but doesn’t kill her. Since the place she has to go is almost on the other side of the continent, Ven joins a merchant caravan as hired muscles to get there while still getting paid. It’s the longest she stays with any group aside from the Vipers but she doesn’t form any real attachment to any of them, she acts friendly cause they might be useful but that’s about it. She does learn a few useful tricks from a bard traveling with them who has about as much morals as she does (they bond a bit over being terrible people). It’s a very long trip to her sister’s hometown and when Ven gets there she finds out Solys is away on her own adventure...

#andvenom #tiefling sister druids

[thesummonerofaskr]

Salt 2: Tharja

Rant under the read more.

Oh Tharja. How I hate thee. Let me count the ways. I was ready to do a rant upon this character back during the Enduring Love gauntlet after she won, the only character to take two wins after multiple gauntlets and prove that people absolutely enjoy psychopaths more then they love to admit. And I mean... I like psychopathic characters to a degree as well. I’m just more aware that if half of these characters I like were real, they would deserve to die in horrible, painful manners. But Tharja... Tharja doesn’t click with me. I don’t find her entertaining. Still, I decided not to do the rant then because I figured it would prove nothing. She took her second win and surely wouldn’t be in another gauntlet for a while, right?

Well now we have Winter Vs. New Years. And since as with any gauntlets they do internal eliminations first, we already have a million people predicting that the final match will come down to Winter!Tharja vs. NewYears!Camilla. And needless to say, while I am loathe to admit it, I do understand the anger and frustration that comes from the fact that the reason these two characters are so popular has less to do with personality and more to do with their physical assets. Because a lot of people who play this game consist of two groups, those groups being prepubescent straight men and prepubescent lesbians who see big tits and immediately rate that character high because “daaaaaaaaaaaaaaayum!” Meanwhile Faye from Shadows of Valentia has a similar personality with a more modest character design, yet notice how many people despise her because she isn’t built like a supermodel. A good number of these people who hate also like Tharja and/or Camilla. You wanna talk about double standards?

Now to be fair I know there are reasons to like Tharja. I like Camilla. And Faye, while cute, doesn’t get a lot of writing outside of her obsession for Alm. But if I had to take any of these girls in real life, it would definitely be Faye because she’s not ready to murder Celica for her man. That being said, though, why do I hate Tharja personally? I like Camilla. I like Henry. I even like Peri. It doesn’t get more problematic then Xander’s literal problematic servant. What’s my beef with Tharja?

Well for starters her personality doesn’t appeal to me. Tharja is dark and broody. She intentionally acts this way because she doesn’t care for social contact and because she feels it is the way a harbinger of death, destruction, and doom is meant to act, heavily contrasted with her fellow Dark Mage in Awakening in Henry whom is upbeat, cheerful, and has a bad joke or pun at the ready even while committing horrible acts of atrocity. Both are morally bankrupt as far as ethics go, but who sounds like the more entertaining character out of the two? Camilla may be as obsessive as Tharja, but she’s also got more charm in her unbridled and unquestionable love for her family as well as her adoration for children and animals. Tharja’s just kinda... dull to me. She’s either dull or scheming. All of her good acts feel forced because it doesn’t seem like the character she is. It’s similar to Peri’s support with Odin. Most of her supports involve her being heavily problematic and being scolded for her practical murder fetish, yet when Odin does it, she’s apparently leading a group designed to rehabilitate the disorderly such as her. I love Peri for being more entertaining, but she’s a psychotic bratty womanchild! Where the fuck did that come from?! But for Tharja, that’s nearly every support she has. The only one where you could see her being that nice is with her stalker crush Robin. Speaking of which...

My second gripe is that it’s never explained why exactly she’s obsessed with Robin. Nor is there any real way to headcanon it either. I once posited it might have something to do with Grima, but was then reminded that Tharja is willing to destroy Grima for Robin, meaning she cares for the man more then the dragon. So why is that so? I don’t know. Nobody does. Compare that to her expy in Fates, Rhajat. Corrin saves Rhajat when she’s a little girl from a life-ending experience. Then they save her again during the Faceless rampage. Rhajat was already smitten the first time, but the second time around sealed her obsession for Corrin. Camilla’s obsession? As she explains in her support with Niles (another popular character whom I despise, go figure), she saw Corrin as a scared, lonely child who now had the entire world against them as a Hoshidan in Nohr. During the Concubine Wars, she was a living weapon against her half-siblings, unloved by her own mother and hunted by her other family until the bloodshed ended and she was able to live peacefully with Xander, Leo, and Elise. She doesn’t want Corrin to feel as alone as she did and so she utterly smothers them with affection. She knows that her other three siblings can handle themselves since they also lived through those bloody times, but Corrin is this sweet, naive person who can’t even murder Hoshidan prisoners on King Garon’s orders. Clearly they need more affection and more time to grow in Camilla’s eyes. Faye doesn’t have as much writing either, but there’s at least enough to headcanon why she’s obsessed with Alm. She might’ve had a regular old crush on Alm as a child, but then Slayde comes to Ram Village ready to kill Kliff, Gray, and Tobin as well as her, though it’s implied in his dialogue and the dialogue of his men that she was also considered a target for rape! Because God knows the women can’t be spared in pre-Tellius Fire Emblem stories.That would naturally be a very traumatic experience that was delayed long enough for Mycen to come save them by Alm acting like this brave hero, charging out and punching Slayde in the face despite the fact that it would’ve cost both him and Celica dearly if Mycen didn’t show when he did. Psychologically speaking, Faye could very well see Alm as an anchoring point, something comforting to her now scarred psyche, and thus that dependency manifested itself into an obsessive desire that causes her to become more and more unhinged when she goes into battle alongside Alm and the others in the name of the Deliverance. But if I keep going on about how much I like Faye and how much I wish she’d gotten more development, we’ll lose the topic completely, so onto the final reason I hate Tharja.

You know what all of these characters I like do that Tharja doesn’t? They respect their children. Camilla loves children. Faye doesn’t have children as far as I know, but I imagine she would love them even if she does disappear for days on end because of that mangled psyche of her’s. Henry and Peri both end up surprisingly good parents despite their usual disturbing behavior. Even Niles, whom I stated above I do not like, is a good father... well as good as a Fates parent can be. Tharja, however? Tharja openly experiments with magic on her daughter. And here’s the thing. We’re not counting the Tharja in the future who went mad with grief and started experimenting on Noire to “make her stronger” or whatever. In Noire’s support with her father, she’s come down with a runny nose and it’s Tharja who cursed her with it. Progressing further reveals that he tried to get her to undo the hex only for her to move it to him as well. Noire gets upset because that was how it was even in the future and thus it seemed to her that nothing was changing, so by their A-Support, her father goes balls to the wall and takes all of Tharja’s cursing implements, which makes Tharja chase him around violently and this... lifts Noire’s spirits because it’s different. I’ve seen people try to defend this by saying “it’ll make Noire stronger,” but that is often used as an excuse by abusers to defend what they do to their children in real life. It hits too close to home and I find it absolutely disgusting that this is used by some of her fans to excuse her actions. A few others have mentioned it should be taken as goofy, but again this is a character who seemingly values tradition over mischief. I doubt that she meant her anger to be taken as if in jest. So as far as I’m concerned, she did it because she knew she could, because she knew Noire had taken it before, and because she figured Noire made an easy guinea pig, making her a shitty mother and a disgusting human being.

I can forgive a psychotic personality in fiction. I can forgive obsessiveness. I can forgive violence, especially since I can be quite an aggressive person myself. I can forgive a lot of things in fiction as long as the characters are entertaining. I don’t expect to make people like Peri or Camilla if they hate them. If either of those two were real, I imagine the former would need to be put to death immediately and the latter put in a psyche ward at least if not put to death as well. But Tharja isn’t just dull, uninteresting, and morally bankrupt. She also represents how disgusting some people will get in order to defend her. You can tell me how disgusting I am for liking Peri because “I’m woobifying a serial murderer,” even though I haven’t called her anything short of disturbed and monstrous, but I won’t try to turn around and convince you that it’s not her fault since her father raised her to kill people and encouraged her as a child to murder her butlers and maids since it made her happy. He should be put to death too, sure, but Peri is far too broken to realistically save and only Fates’ stock writing could even hope to try. I’m not gonna tell you to dislike Tharja if you’re reading this and like her. I only hope you have proper reasons to like her whilst accepting that she isn’t a hero, she isn’t a nice person, and she isn’t morally just in her actions.

Or you could like her because she has big tits, I guess. Seems to be the go-to reason for Tharja/Camilla fans.

#ooc #michele rants #character hate #not gonna tag the character's name #but it is in the title #sorry to all the fans if it shows up regardless

[podcastmecaptain]

ars PLACEMENT: helen

part of advanced PLACEMENT: an ars PARADOXICA high school au about a gang of queer teen nerds, by @estherroberts​ , @podcastmecaptain , and @lizzieraindrops

all three of the aformentioned dorks are responsible for the hijinks found in this post. today’s, @podcastmecaptain especially. 

click here for the au masterpost | track _#ars placement_ for updates!

ALSO: things aren’t always showing up in the tags, so your most reliable bet is the aforementioned masterpost.

helen is grace incarnate.

she is human. but if god was a human, this is what she’d be.

helen is very confident in everything about herself

very aware of how she’s viewed and doesn’t act like she cares but she’ll definitely bring it up to you

probably takes a little bit more of it than she should because she has the grace of saint sebastian

and then she BITES BACK AND IT WILL SLAUGHTER YOU BECAUSE SHE WILL DO IT WITH THE VENGEANCE AND CASUALNESS OF HERA

“phenomenal woman-

that’s me.”

helen figured it out pretty early

she was one of those rare kids who transitioned really young and got a lot of support

she started hormone blockers around twelve but she was pretty much “I am a princess now.” around eight

helen’s parents are like “k so we ended up with divinity for a child, so"

HELEN’S PARENTS ADORE HER

(they pay for her transition because they’re good parents who don’t make their child pay for medical procedures)

(she supplements it with her gigs tho)

she used to be in the children’s sunday choir and the only thing she’s sad about is having to leave that group but she found a KID’S JAZZ GROUP

she still volunteers there on the weekends

she doesn’t have much of an interest in teaching in her future but she does like guiding the kids from the sidelines and demonstrating pitch and posture for them

the only time anthony’s workaholic ass has ever thought about children is when watching her with them and he gets super embarrassed about it and never brings it up

speaking of she has perfect queen’s posture and anthony slumps out of habit of bending over his notes in coffee shops and she’s always doing that thing where she pokes a knuckle into the middle of his shoulder blades to get him to jolt up straight, it’s practically a greeting at this point

helen, out of habit or affirmation, not because she thinks her parents doubt her

says “still a girl!” every time she blows her candles out on her birthday

everyone present whoops happily

on her SEVENTEENTH

YOU BET YOUR ASS SHE GIVES A KARAOKE ABBA PERFORMANCE

SHE IS THE DANCING QUEEN

YOUNG AND SWEET

ONLY SEVENTEEN

OH YEAAAH

on her eighteenth though she stands up after the candles

and announces triumphantly

“today!

I am a WOMAN!”

the resounding cheer rattles the windowpanes.

helen figures out the poly thing the latest

she is with both anthony and, of all people, and of course, june barlow

helen’s got love in spades to give

anthony, his story is further down

now, june

helen and june sip lemon spritzers by fountains and judge passerby together but helen is much more sweet about it and june is just like “look at that hunty with the denim on denim and the ‘may i speak to the manager’ haircut screeching like some kinda bug into her fucking samsung ugH”

then they talk about how men are pigs and how the IMF has failed the world

because those girlfriends are viciously anti capitalist/anti war

they hold hands while talking about dreams for the world

and also hold hands while talking about crushing those who wrong them under their heels

june is a ball of sparks and red eyes

and helen can understand a bit of this

helen is sweet and elegant and so  kind that she’ll give you more patience than you deserve

but she’s also passionately righteous. and not in the surfer dude way. the moral code of a damn justice fury.

helen has a lot of Greece in her, its in the name and in her being

if she realizes something is wrong there will be hell to pay.

helen is something else.

she is gentle and she doesn’t stop until she’s content, she won’t SIT DOWN and let someone else be responsible for the world she sees

if she wants something CHANGED she gets up and won’t be subdued until she has reached the culmination at all costs, no matter how long it takes. she doesn’t let go of something she disagrees with, won’t leave something she doesn’t like

helen is elegance but she is also a goddamn rottweiler? she will clamp her jaws on what she sees as wrong or even just disquieting and won’t let go until it’s collapsed enough that she can destroy it or fix it

and the thing is june changes that. june, angry bitter snarling june, not through sweetness or a delicate hand but through just being her, lets her accept that. okay. this is flawed. but i’m FINE with it. all things are flawed. you can let life be human, work to change it, don’t let go of your passion for compassion, but expand that compassion to include “this can breathe”

june is DEEPLY flawed. no shit. but she’s working on it constantly. she won’t change herself, she crosses line without a lot of regard, and she matches helen in having no lenience. but her response is immediate and harsh.

she lets herself have love, for quentin, for helen, for herself, to get excited and get passionate and know that EVERYTHING has something wrong with it, and you can CHANGE that but you will wind up making mistakes while you change it

and you can’t accept other’s flaws without acknowledging your own

(this logic adds to the strange, begrudging half friendship anthony and june will neither admit exists)

so helen and her can see what happens with this, in each other, and reflect on it. they both respond well to the other and work together in when to bare their teeth and why, but they can relax with someone else on their side.

and see what they need to change in themselves as much as the world, and be okay with that

sometimes they talk about the colors they find in people

in helen, june finds soft sage, warm rich brown

helen sees magenta in june, and faint traces of yellow (or teal? or royal blue?) its debatable, what the end result is, but whatever it is,

she burns bright.

and that is june to helen.

helen did some casual exploratory stuff the early years, late middle school, freshman-sophomore year

she gets her shit together pretty quick and then a like OK noW i can be more serious about it instead of poking, not that it meant nothing but now i know what i’m about and can do it responsibly

because she’s not sciencey but she’s sure as hell sharp in matters of the heart

she considered becoming a social worker at one point but she knows she has a problem with taking on project problem people when it’s not her job and she doesn’t want that to BE her job, because she knows she’d wind up on tough cases, and her passion is music and song anyway

that was more of a “hey your counselor thinks you should logically check this path”

but she realizes people don’t seem to realize that seemingly further reaching dreams are work too, and often take more dedication and spirit and responsibility than settling for what people THINK you should do for money, even though she certainly thinks higher of that work than that, she knows why she was recommended it and she knows what she wants

helen knows the importance of dreams. of that you shouldn’t have to be settling for less.

sometimes she does. but no one can achieve the level helen OWNS. let’s be realistic.

her hands are soft and loving but her nails are short and a little sharp

(anthony paints them for her)

(mostly metallics)

(occasionally little smudgey flowers)

helen doesn’t cry a lot but lets herself cry over things that matter. a lot of things matter, but she’s very good at sorting out what she doesn’t want to fret over

it’s a healthy cry, for all emotions

helen gets emotional about events but cries mostly over people

good people, people important to her

specifically

her parents

josephine baker

martha p. johnson

sylvia rivera

ella fitzgerald

maya angelou

her anthony and her june

she laughs it off a little bit afterward

for all that she is shaky and sentimental when she’s done

cupping porcelain mugs of hot tea in her hands and blinking slowly up at the posters on her wall, the chiffon drapes blowing a little over her bed and brushing against her

she washes her face and moves around her room, dancing a little bit until the faces of her heroes on the walls blur with motion instead of water

and overall feels better when she’s done

ok so helen actually first seriously dates a girl, its the first two serious times actually. they both meet her parents. the first goes off to boarding school and they tried to keep it up in letters, but the longer they wrote to each other the more they realized the other had very different opinions and like. helen just stopped replying. the second one was the person she lost her virginity to, they met at band camp. they’re still friends, but agreed that’s how they were better off.

helen describes herself as “loosely bi”, meaning she isn’t a big label girl for THAT aspect of herself but if she had to tap it with a moniker that would be it.

she meets anthony very similarly to how she met him on canon because THAT CANNOT GET BETTER

so she’s gotten a job at a place called the Soft Note

which is one of the only two close by queer bars

this one is the less club one. this is more wine and sashimi sushi and hipster brick walls

she sees someone in the back a Lot

which is weird

because he’s got a cheap laptop and notes and what looks like… a screwdriver and a circuit? one of those little box things with all the oddly gendered ports and wires

which is also weird because this is a bar where old queens hustle round and chatter about this new-fangled ellen and whisper sweet nothings in each other’s ears and toast to those lost to the aids crisis

otherwise her parents wouldn’t let her play that venue

so it never found good wifi or convenient outlets to be a. necessity.

or. checking for ids on young boys who don’t order alcohol and peek out from the booth at her and Oh. this kid’s spectacles just slipped down his nose and he has eyelashes off the wazoo.

so she says okay bill nye jr. i’m gonna test a hypothesis.

she looks him dead in the eye for the WHOLE of What A Wonderful World.

the timbre of her voice never falters, soaking into the dark wood paneling on the bar and skipping across the bottles on the wall

she is, for lack of better words, magnificent

she tries to go over afterward but a bunch of old queens stop her trying to compliment her in the Olde Gayest way

and by the time she’s hugged every one of them and has a bra now stuffed with Old Gay’s cash instead of tissue

he’s got a worried bouncer hovering over him asking to call his parents because he’s crying quietly

AND SHE LIKE FREEZES AND JUST KINDA

BREathes in, out, waves the bouncer off politely and

tips anthony’s chin up with two fingers

and she just looks so concerned for him

and he just doesn’t know what to say

BECAUSE WHO FUCKING WOULD

so he doesn’t say anything, he just swallows and sits up

anthony gets the deer in the headlights moment where he is. in awe

(SHESTOUCHINGMESHESTOUCHINGMESHESTOUCHINGMESHES)

and she just kinda sits on the counter and says “Hey there. I didn’t mean to sc- intimidate you or the like. ”

anthony: ….

helen: yeah okay that probably was a guarantee wasn’t it.

she taps his chin up again till his mouth closes and eyes him over, tilts his computer screen back, checking the non existing wifi, notes the two words and a couple of slight key smashes in his document, looks at his drink, sniffs it- “boy, is this apple juice?”

anthony:

anthony:

she steals his apple juice and sits on the counter, nursing it

“oh. damn, damn. nice nails.” he’s got glittery tarot cards on them.

snaps out of it slightly, looks down, proceeds to slowly wipe his cheeks and sit on his hands.

“…hey. i didn’t break you did i?”

nothin.

gives him back the drink

he kinda unconsciously slots his lips over where the lipstick is on the glass.

“so. you like jazz or just me.”

he chokes.

there is no more eye contact. she has an answer. she is smiling. he gathers his notes, nods to her jerkily, SCUTTLES OUT.

“See you tomorrow!” she calls after him. doesn’t yell cause she’s a lady. he trips anyway.

minute the bar door swings shut, the old queens start CACKLING. she throws a napkin at them and calls them mean, and looks into getting a business card so she can kiss it with her lipstick and slot it into his keyboard next time. it’ll be three weeks before he can look her in the eye.

#ars placement #Ars Paradoxica #helen partridge #Anthony Partridge #june barlowe #patron-saints #lizzieraindrops

[blueskyheadleft010]

Dream Log 8/30/19

I know that the older I get the less often I dream, but gosh darn it why is it that whenever I do dream it’s the most random flipping shit that just keeps going on an on like some demented movie that doesn’t know how to wrap up?

Anyways, this morning I had an interesting one about Steven Universe. Now that the show is basically done, I guess my mind likes to toy with the possibilities of what the confrontation with the Diamonds could have been, since we now know who Pink Diamond was.

So I dreamed that Steven had encountered White Diamond back in her ship, except it was parked on Earth for some reason. And White Diamond kinda tries convincing Steven that he’s Pink Diamond/Rose, and the Crystal Gems, especially Pearl, are screaming at White to not ‘do that’ (I guess implying that White not tell?? Steven that he’s Pink Diamond??) and then Steven crouches down and grimaces like he has a terrible headache.

“I remember...” Steven muttered, and then suddenly he breaks out in a cold sweat and White Diamond grins and like, pulls his gemstone from his bellybutton, but really it was more like she yanked it out tbh, but it doesn’t fully come out but rather cracks and splits evenly down the middle (I guess because Steven was trying to resist White’s hold on him or something???)

Anyways, we cut to Steven just kind of comatose on the floor as Connie runs screaming towards him, and then we get this weird little flashback to Pearl reliving watching Rose and Greg get together, and Rose excitedly telling Pearl that she was pregnant. And Pearl explains to the dream audience (me basically) that every moment she served under Rose was terrifying, because she had all this power, and that she was only using Greg as a power source for some unfathomable reason. Rose thought human beings held some amazing organic power that she wanted to exploit as a Diamond because in her perception the other Diamonds considered her inferior. (Which wasn’t true, expect for White because she was crazy too, but Blue and Yellow actually feared Pink because she was too similar to White and thus White favored Pink because of their similarities).

So basically Pearl explains that Rose was way too overpowered, and crazy as hell, and that Pearl could only watch as helpless gems were destroyed, betrayed, and crushed under the weight of Rose’s might just because it brought some sick satisfaction to her. “It’s boring being just a Diamond.” Rose explains, “Why not add a little political intrigue? Tip the scales for the underdogs and piss off Blue and Yellow in the process?” She then proceeds to laugh in the flashback. “Oh and the best part? They won’t even have a clue who’s friend or foe! The irony!” She then proceeds to babble about the possibilities of maybe even getting a gem to slay a Diamond. (This is where she gets the idea for making Steven. A literal wolf in sheep’s clothing).

Thankfully she never gets too far with her plans. For all of Rose’s scheming she failed to order/command Pearl to ‘train’ Steven to be a Diamond assassin, and since the Crystal Gems were kept in secret until the end about Rose’s plans, no one could be forced to change her will, nor make it come true save for Pearl.

And Pearl had had enough. She made sure Steven was protected, but not just because she cared (that came later on.) She knew that if Steven died Rose would come back, and all hell would break loose at that point.

She also decided to disobey Rose, one of the first of many liberating things she did after Rose’s ‘death’. She gathered up and rekindled what was left of the Crystal Gems and told them Rose had wanted peace. For there to be a new era; an era of cohabitation between humans, the Earth, and the gems that lived on it. (Similar to the show’s plot, except Pearl was the one to make up the rules, not Rose).

This was made more apparent by the ‘birth’ of Steven, who Pearl explained was Rose’s son, and that she had made Steven to help bridge the gap between the two species. Every gem was floored and honored that Rose would make such a noble sacrifice, and they taught the boy how to be kind and loving and accepting of everyone and thing.

But here’s the kicker. Pink Diamond was powerful not only for her might, but for her trickery. When she ruled, everygem loved her and obeyed her unquestionably. But surely, you ask, how could this be? Where the dissenters merely crushed and swept under the rug? No. Something far worse was done to the traitors.

Pink Diamond, wiped their memories.

She reprogrammed them from the ground up, and they were very much aware of themselves when she did this to them. All the way up until the last bit, when they would be completely ‘wiped’ and essentially were dead in mind, body, and spirit, as something else took over their shell of a gem. It was horrible, and so Pearl kept her head down and mouth shut for fear of being an imperfect pearl and joining the rest of them.

Pearl never wanted Rose to come back from her makeshift prison.

And so when White yanked Steven’s gem from his being, cracking it into two, something new was reawakened.

Enter Bloodstone; a part of Rose that was awakened when the gem was split. Bloodstone is demented, only half there, meaning half of her morals are gone as well (what little she did have).

She goes on a bloody rampage inside the ship, cackling madly as White watches in interest at this new development when Steven suddenly wakes up.

“You.” He turns to Bloodstone, “You don’t belong here.” He tells her as everyone else just kinda scoots back into a corner of the ship, terrified.

“On the contrary,” Bloodstone smirks as her arm suddenly elongates and grabs Steven by the forehead, “It is you who does not belong.” Her hands light up with pink electricity.

We then are treated to a mindscape, where the demented Rose/Bloodstone starts fighting with Steven, both struggling for dominance as Bloodstone starts trying to erase Steven’s memories at the same time Steven tries to overwrite Bloodstone’s with his. The power dynamic is surprisingly balanced, shocking Bloodstone as she asks how it is possible that Steven could beat a ten thousand year old Diamond ruler from Homeworld. (this part plays out really fast in my dream, making silly little ‘boop’ noises and ‘fastforwarding’ sounds as colored silhouettes of Steven and Bloodstone’s forms fight).

“Just a little thing I like to call ‘love’.” Steven smirks, as he catches her off guard long enough to overwrite her memories on how to memory wipe someone, effectively breaking the mindscape as Bloodstone writhes in the floor like shes’ in pain.

White Diamond suddenly just scoops her up, scowls at everyone, and then ejects them all out of the ship onto Earth and she flipping yeets out of existence with her ship and everyone just watches. Pearl runs up to hug Steven and comments on how brave he was, to which Steven replies that now since his gem is broken, Pink Diamond can’t hurt anyone else. Amethyst comments on how horridly morbid that sounds, but Connie and Steven laugh. 

“I still have my other powers,” He smirks, “I’m not out of the game yet.” Then the rest of the dream just kinda dissolves away as the characters just keep walking in circles around the beach.

#steven universe #dream #story #fanfiction #su fanfic #sky rambles #it late #dream log #wtf #kinda morbid #but not terribly? #Bloodstone #Pink Diamond #it was a cool story #but frustrating to dream #probably spent an hour real time dreaming it tbh

[thegleerealworld-blog]

Welcome to The Real World house, ASH! We are very excited to have MARLEY ROSE here at the Real World house. Don’t forget to send in your account within 24 hours and make sure to re-read the rules and check out the navigation so you know what tags to track! We can’t wait for you to join us.

BEHIND THE SCENES:

Name: Ash. Age: 21. Timezone: PST. Activity Level: 5; I currently work two jobs, so my activity some days may be better than others, but I try to get a few replies in every day as my schedule fluctuates. Previous Accounts: Removed for privacy. Triggers: Removed for privacy. Anything else?: Removed for privacy.

READY, SET, ACTION:

Character Name: Marley Rose. Date of Birth: Pansexual. Sexuality: March 16th. Occupation: Waitress. Current Location: San Antonio, Texas. Three Positive Traits: Compassionate, Free-spirited, Creative. Three Negative Traits: Timid, Self-deprecating, Naive.

Biography:

Although not painfully shy, Marley’s default stance places her in the background. Her family commented on how the girl, however beautiful and talented, tended to be more of a wall fixture than standing out among her same aged cousins. It’s something she hasn’t been able to shake completely, and sometimes she doubts if it’s even possible. There’s something about leaving the comfort of a crowd that makes her uneasy, no matter how much she tries to deny it to herself. But she knows she’ll have to break out of her shell one day, if she hopes to achieve her dreams and finally get her songs into the mainstream of music.

Marley is no stranger to hardship, or hard work - watching her single mother struggle provide them with a roof and food every day, left a huge impact on the young girl. She grew up never wanting more than they could afford, and getting odd jobs at the age of twelve to help take care of her school supplies and other personal needs, and helping out her mom as best as possible. The two have an unbreakable bond, leaning on each other for support and always keeping an open line of communication. Marley hopes that she might be able to move up from a waitress one day, to a position where she can finally provide herself and her mother with the comforts they had to forgo going up.

While Marley enjoys singing, and is aware that she has a pretty decent voice, her true love lies in writing, primarily poetry and song lyrics. When she’s not busy busting tables, she can usually be found jotting down in her journal. Being the type to find inspiration in just about any and everything, there isn’t a day that goes by where Marley hasn’t crafted at least a stanza. While her fashion taste ranges from day to day, the brunette is decidedly partial to sixties/seventies style clothing. Bell bottoms, vintage clothing, and anything that has psychedelic or flower patterns. In some ways, Marley feels as though she should have been born during the times of Woodstock, living by a ‘peace and love’ mantra over emotions like jealousy and revenge. Though she is by no means a pushover, her preference is to solve matters civilly if at all possible.

Marley doesn’t simply exude a cherubic charm - she tries her hardest to live by a code of morals, ingrained by her mother, to always do good by others, and to be true to herself no matter what temptations may arise. So being coined a ‘goody-two-shoes’ in high school didn’t phase her that much, but she can tend to be a little naive when it comes to who is and who isn’t looking out for her. Sometimes trying to see the best in people has it’s price, and sooner or later, Marley is worried if her trusting, good nature will be her eventual downfall.

Para Sample: Removed for privacy.

YOUR FIRST CONFESSIONAL:

WHY ARE YOU AUDITIONING FOR THE REAL WORLD?

Is it pretty corny if I say for the experience? I’ll say it anyway, honestly, I’m just so excited to be apart of something this epic! I’ve never been to San Francisco before, and, well, being on television is completely new territory as well, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spread my wings and see what reality tv has to offer.

WHAT AND WHO ARE YOU LEAVING BEHIND BACK HOME?

Good news, I’m leaving behind a job I couldn’t stand as well as a manager whose idea of ‘positive reinforcement’ was attempting to grope me in the bathroom hall. Charming, right? But the negative of all this is definitely having to part with my mom - we’re kinda attached at the hip, always have been. The farthest I’ve been away from her is just a few hours, let alone hopping across states.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO GAIN IN THE NEXT SIX MONTHS IN SAN FRANCISCO?

Life experience, as well as hoping to make a lasting impression with the people watching at home. It’s been an aspiration of mine to become a singer, ever since I was a little girl. If I can get my name out there in a good light, this seems like a good start as any.

WHILE ON THE REAL WORLD, AMERICA IS WATCHING YOUR EVERY MOVE. WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU WANT TO SAY TO THE VIEWERS AT HOME?

Well, first of all, Hello! I hope you guys enjoy the show, and I’ll do my best to keep you guys tuning in every night for all the fun. See you in the bay!

#accepted #grwaccepted