#fucks up the only one doomed to survive it will be him. who (which this i havent gone into bc ??) eventually ends up alone anyway!

[bravevolunteer]

suicide mention tw // was thinking more about my h.unger g.ames au last night and realized there sure is something to be said about michael, known to not have that stable of a will to live, as a victor who, despite his tendency to lash out, will not only Not be killed for it but if necessary they'd probably actively stop him from trying to do it himself. thinking about how i said he's probably had episodes where they had to sedate him. which could not only be about lashing out against the capitol but also himself. okay. okay i'm regular-

#michael who lives with the constant thought that he should have died in the arena. who has this reinforced by william either explicity or #implicitly. who constantly has the rest of his family's lives hung over his head after his actions got his brother killed knowing that if h #fucks up the only one doomed to survive it will be him. who (which this i havent gone into bc ??) eventually ends up alone anyway! #it's about the endless cycle where no matter what he does it's never enough but he's not allowed to escape either #i don't post about michael's suicidal ideation outside of implications in threads nearly as much as i should #because it IS very heavy but also it's. so important when talking about his mental state #yeah. there had to be An Incident where he tried and was stopped. i feel fucking insane #suicide tw #suicidal ideation tw #suicide attempt tw #ask to tag #⁂ ･ﾟ: i was looking for a job‚ and then i found a job‚ and heaven knows i’m miserable now ➛ ooc

[bluegiragi]

You elaborated wonderfully on how Horangi views other Haetae and his relationship to them (I love how your brain works fr every tidbit of what you come up with is scrumptious).

You also gave us vague ideas of how Price and Soap view other dragons/werewolves.

But I’d love to know explicitly, How does everyone in 141 (and Konig) view others of their kind? How do they get treated by other monsters and hybrids? (I’d like to imagine they get a slight amount of flack for cooperating sometimes with the likes of humans)

lots of reading in this post, but I’ll section it off into Harpy, Wraith and Percht so it’s a bit more organized :)

Harpies

Harpy culture really prioritises independence above all else, to the point that their young are left to fend for themselves after they turn 16. They’re also quite a prideful bunch, which means they really dislike sharing space with other harpies. In the military it can be especially dicey, since two harpies will instinctively consider it an insult if they’re forced to be on the same team (it’d be like telling them you don’t think they’re good enough on their own) and it’ll result in a fight at worst and a cold, distant relationship at best. Even Gaz, who is pretty coolheaded and thoughtful as far as harpies go, would be irritated in that sort of situation.

Harpies don’t have this kind of instant animosity for any other flighted monster (like dragons) although they’ll still get a bit competitive. That irritation is a remnant instinct from back when they’d battle each other in the sky to prove themselves to mates - it would always end with one, dead, plummeting to the earth and the other victorious, still flapping. Their mating rituals are a lot less lethal these days, but that immediate wariness around their own kind has stuck.

Wraiths

There is no confirmed number of wraiths currently existing and probably never will be, because they’re impossible to keep track of. However, their numbers are probably very low, simply because the circumstances needed to create a wraith are extremely specific and unlikely to naturally occur.

Because of this, it’s unknown if two wraiths have ever even met - Ghost has definitely never met another one in his whole life (and never wants to either)- but if they did, chances are it wouldn’t end well for anyone involved. They are volatile, capable of massive amounts of destruction if let loose and (so far) impossible to contain against their will. I think they’d mostly be apathetic to one another in a “don’t fuck with me, and I won’t fuck with you” sort of way but they’re naturally sort of angry and vengeful, so it’s best to assume violent confrontation is an inevitability.

For what it’s worth, I think if Ghost did meet another wraith, he’d pity them.

Perchts

Perchts like each other well enough, so long as nobody veers away from tradition too much. They’re monsters that are perfectly happy living within their very insular, very regimented communities and distrust anything that differs from the norm. Their judgemental ways come from generations of belief that their kind all working towards the same goal is the only thing allowing them to survive in the remote areas they call home. However, they tend to go way too far, and punish any deviancy with draconian responses like public beatings and even exile.

König (or Klaus, as he was once known) tried his best in their community but he was doomed from the start with his enormous stature. He adopted a hunch as a child to try to fit in with his peers but it just wasn’t enough. After one too many mistakes, he was beaten and left for dead, effectively disowned by his own kind.

He was saved by a scouting party that happened to be in the area and then voluntarily allowed himself to be mutated so that he could be useful. He was all too happy to do so in the moment with spite against his own kind fueling him, but he regrets it a little nowadays as it’s started to take its toll on him.

Fun fact: Perchts can shapeshift into humans to hide their monstrous features. This means that Konig’s percht form is how he truly is, and whenever you see him as a human, that’s him in his shifted form.

König has a difficult relationship with Perchts nowadays. He hasn’t seen another one in decades since they all avoid large clusters of people like cities and villages. I think if he did meet another one he’d try to run away - he still feels some shame about never being accepted.

#maaaaaan get me away from my damn keyboard #yet another obscenely long lore drop #askbox #monster 141

[whetstonefires]

See I don't necessarily disagree with what seems to be the primary reading that Yue Qingyuan's shifu fucked him over, caring nothing for his needs or preferences and only for whether he was useful. That makes sense, it ties into plenty of the generational and societal themes of the story. It fits.

But iirc we don't actually get enough information to know that's what happened.

And the thing is it would be so in-character and also thematically appropriate if Yue Qingyuan absolutely did not explain his goals or why he was working so hard, because it was private and shameful and he didn't expect any sympathy, and there was a high risk of losing everything if he blabbed.

And also if he engaged with the existing ruleset with which he was presented, i.e. 'can't go off on your own on personal business until you've mastered your sword,' in the most negative and controlling manner possible, as absolute commandments.

He's a different kind of guy but he comes from the same background as Shen Jiu! It fucked him up also!

He is very very very not a guy who trusts the system to make allowances for him--even once he has all the power he 'does what he wants' and 'makes selfish choices' as a conscious transgression; not something he has a right to do, just something he can get away with so he's gonna. (And ofc he spends almost all the latitude he grants himself on sqq.)

And even less is he a guy who opens up easily.

He isn't too proud to ask for help or pity, so much as he just doesn't expect to get any.

So in this interpretation, he understood that rule as a non-negotiable barrier in his path, the target to overcome, and focused all his considerable will and talent on overcoming it through the sphere of action he felt he had control over.

And fucked himself up bad.

Whereupon his teacher, possessing absolutely no context for this dumb shit their star pupil pulled, did the only thing they thought might work to save his life, paying in the process no attention to the raving of someone deep in a psychotic break.

Like, I feel like there should have been a better, kinder medical option, but I don't know for sure that there was, so I can't say with certainty this was the kind of cruelty that derives from not caring enough.

And it really would be kind of elegant and so typical of Yue Qingyuan's fundamental tragedy if the real mistake was 'not confiding in anybody' the whole time.

And he was just so deeply sunk into the understanding that explaining and asking were useless that, even looking back, it never really occurred to him that maybe his mistake wasn't 'fucking it up when trying too hard to solve everything on his own' but 'assuming there was no help to be had, and that he had to do it all on his own.'

Like. What if this really could all have been avoided if he'd just trusted and communicated with the adult in charge of him? But of course, of course his history of trauma (neglect, child abuse, exploitation, being the One Responsible for the younger kids whom he could not keep safe) meant he was absolutely not going to do that.

It was basically impossible. For the person he was, the person the world had made of him. And that's always been the core tragedy the whole novel circles back upon.

People can only ever be themselves, and so very often the elements of self that let them survive until now are that which dooms them, that means they need someone else to intervene if they're ever going to be saved. Because your personal doom is always the thing from which you can't save yourself.

#hoc est meum #JUST LIKE SHEN JIU #yue qingyuan #svsss #scum villain #meta #trauma #ambiguous backstory elements #tragedy #growing into your deathmask #the fact that shen jiu got in #and got promoted #tends to imply the former generation wasn't particularly inflexible #or unwilling to entertain deviance #the fact that yqy got made Sect Leader #despite his disability #suggests his teacher valued him #on a personal level #though not necessarily a level that gave a shit #about his happiness or wellbeing #but we srsly do not know

[tsams-confessions]

Not so short confession about Eclipse and the entire TSAMS lore: Eclipse was only the bad guy because everyone treated him like one.

Hate me all you want, but was prooven with KC, Solar, old Moon, Lunar (who is technically all that was good inside Eclipse) Ruin, heck, even with Sun that with a TINY BIT of love and care, anyone can change for the better. Solar needed his Sun to care about him in the start, and he never became a bad guy, even after his Sun died. KC needed, what? A 10 MINUTES LONG FRIENDLY CONVO with Glamrock Freddy, and after that he overcame his base coding. Old Moon sacrifised himself to not kill anymore person, giving KC and himself a chance in life to be better. Ruin was saved because new Moon and Sun risked their lifes and only way back to their home to get the cure for Ruin, even though Ruin brought Bloodmoon back, blew up the daycare and tormented them worse than Eclipse. Sun didn't go insane and potentially more suicidal because Earth showed up (I don't think he would've survived the guilt of loosing Moon without her). And Lunar... Eclipse got rid of his part that cared and wanted to be more than a villain, the part of him that longed for love and understanding... and to be fair I would be mad too if I was doomed to be a villain, and then the people who wronged me accepted my scrapped loving part without hesitation (which I scrapped because I hated I cared about said people) while I never got a chance to show I can be better. This doesn't justify what Eclipse did, because he still killed Lunar. Imma say it louder so everyone will understand: THIS DOESN'T JUSTIFY WHAT ECLIPSE DID TO LUNAR, BECAUSE IT WAS HORRIBLE AND WRONG IN SO MANY LEVELS!!!

But who didn't hurt/traumatize/killed their loved ones here? Old Moon was hardcore abusive with Sun and started this whole Eclipse problem (Moon cared still, but that doesn't excuse what he did to Sun), Sun killed Bloodmoon and hate to say it but he killed old Moon too without wanting to, KC, who was literally redeemed and forgiven killed probably hundreds of innocent people. Sun even gave Bloodmoon one last chance to be redeemed, but Eclipse? This mf died while trying to warn the only people he still somehow cared for, no matter how scrapped he was. He was begging to be heard out, not giving a flying fuck if Sun hurts him (and sidenote, even when Moon threatened to kill Eclipse, he accepted it, just wanted to be heard out, while Solar, when his Moon was truthfully wanting to kill him, he killed his Moon. Eclipse didn't even bother). He could've use the star to stop Sun, and he didn't.

And that's what I love in the lore of TSAMS, because this doesn't seem unintentional. Every now and then it's shown and prooven that with a tiny bit of understanding and love, ANYONE can change. All of the main characters (except for Earth and Lunar) did horrible things beforehand, and the only reason they stayed sane and didn't go down on a bad path on the long run because they had love and support by their side. Eclipse died TWICE, and even though it was confirmed by a celestial being who WATCHES THE ENTIRE COSMOS that this Eclipse is not the one who killed Lunar, he still payes the prize of V1 and 2 Eclipse's actions. And honestly... I don't understand new Moon and Solar, the two genius of the current lore: what do you expect from this copy of an Eclipse? He is a literally badly put togther scrapped dude who lives with horrying memories and has no idea why he lives. JUST MAYBEEE, if you'd give him a system repair, he would be less violent and more capable of helping you? Maybe? Oh yeah right I forgot that there is one universal rule throughout all dimensions: we hate and overvillainize our og Eclipse, because anyone deserves a chance in life, expect him.

And again, I'm not trying to protect Eclipse from hate or justify what he did, because he indeed became a villain. But what about everyone else? How come everyone else's action were forgiven and got a chance to be redeemed but not him? I'm not saying everyone should forgive him, heck Lunar has all right to never forgive him! But this Eclipse didn't do the actions he gets the blame for, and he would deserve to finally have more than just hate poured onto him. They don't have to forgive Eclipse, but if KC got a chance and Sun was WILLINGLY wanting to give a chance to Bloodmoon too, Eclipse has all right to get his redemption, because with Solar, it was prooven all an Eclipse needs is love and understanding.

.

#sun and moon show #the sun and moon show #tsams #sams #tsams confession #< block this if you dont want to see these #mod 1blood

[fulcrum-art-fox]

Akemi’s line, when Goro absently asks her what she thinks being rich feels like, and she says “like never thinking about how you’re rich” is another one of the insane lines this show excels at because like. fuck me that is such a simple line but it says everything. like it sums up a lot about how her character seems to act like, the way she’s always had wealth and status, but never freedom or choices of her own, so it’s the latter that she’s focused on, whereas Mizu and Taigen, who both come from less well to do backgrounds, are very aware and quite focused on it; it flavours much of their interactions with her. It’s even in one of the first lines we get from adult Taigen, when Akemi tells him her father gave them permission to marry and he marvels over “the lord’s daughter, marrying the son of a poor fisherman”, and it’s why being bested by Mizu is such a blow to him; his whole station is reliant upon his reputation as an undefeated samurai. When he loses that, he stands to lose everything. Mizu on the other hand is really quite scathing about it. She singles out Akemi’s wealth as a sign that surely she has it all, and disdains her coming all this way to “save a doomed engagement”. Akemi lives in a golden cage, and only sees the cage, whereas Mizu sees the gold and doesn’t seem to put as much weight on the cage. “She’s better off,” she says, when Akemi gets dragged back. And it’s true that Mizu has never had the luxuries Akemi grew up with, and she seems to resent the way Akemi takes them for granted, but it is also true that, on a foundation of concealment, Mizu has claimed some freedoms of choice that Akemi desperately desires. While Seki advised Akemi to “Fight within your confines, not against them,” Mizu has sidestepped some of those confines by living as male. To survive, but also to be able to achieve her revenge. But, it’s also an interesting line for Akemi to say, because it suggests more self awareness than you might otherwise have guessed; we know that her family line has not been rich for ever and ever, her father throws in her face that he was the one to raise them from nothing. The fact that it even occurs to her to say it demonstrates she’s much more aware than she appears, than she acts, sometimes. You can be aware that you’re privileged and still fall into the traps of being privileged. But Akemi is significantly more aware and perceptive than she can often come off as; she’s a not a political manipulator for nothing. A few hours with Mizu and she comes up with the line “You’re just . . . angry.” Which is a killer line like, in a few hours she’s shifted her position from demon to person, and deduced a lot about her. This is no monster, but a man with a lot of rage and pain in his heart. She still doesn’t know Mizu’s secret, but she’s seen to the heart of her, otherwise. Banger episode for Akemi

#blue eye samurai #blue eye samurai spoilers #Akemi #bes akemi

[droppingartintotheinfinite]

thinking trigun (1998 anime) thoughts…

i keep thinking about what would happen in an au where vash died instead of wolfwood. like vash is so essential to the narrative, he’s like whatever the opposite of narrative doom is. narrative immortality. he can’t die until he gets to knives and they have their final battle, it would break the rules of the story. he’ll live forever until that final confrontation, in a narrative sense, because the story can’t exist without him. if he died it would be a different story

like from the start wolfwood was always going to die and vash was always going to live to the final showdown, and everything in the narrative is ready and waiting for this to happen. the entire story is one long rube-goldberg machine that exists for the sole purpose of leading vash to knives and having them fight it out until one of them dies (knives surviving in the end is in defiance of the narrative. it’s vash telling the fate that’s been hanging over them their whole lives to go fuck itself. i am so goddamn feral about this but i can’t help wondering what would happen if you took it further) with the final conclusion of that deciding the fate of humanity

which is like the classic story, right. you’ve got the ultimate good guy and the ultimate bad guy battling for eternity until one of them wins and everyone else in the story is ultimately tangential to this. they can influence either party but the final conclusion is entirely out of their hands. to work within trigun’s tendency towards christianity parallels, it’s god versus the devil, each working to either save or damn humanity as a whole. tale as old as time

and trigun already plays with this narrative a fair bit. in fact i think it’s fairly reasonable to read trigun as a whole as a commentary on this type of story. practically vash’s entire character is that he absolutely straight up refuses to be the kind of hero who kills the bad guy at the end, even though everyone in the entire world including said bad guy is trying to make him into that, and the story ultimately concludes with him succeeding at this, successfully refusing to engage with the might makes right philosophy that everyone’s been trying to push him into and his reward for this is getting to take his brother home at the end, getting to force his way into a kinder conclusion where they have a chance at true reconciliation

and i love this. it is one of the reasons why trigun is the anime ever. but i keep thinking about what it would look like taken even further

because vash has narrative immortality, but only within the bounds of the narrative of him and knives as fated nemeses, only within the bounds of the narrative that considers him and knives to be the only characters in the story with true agency, and that’s the narrative vash has spent his entire existence desperately trying to deconstruct

i keep imagining a world where vash fucking. trips on a rock and eats shit or something while he’s fighting caine, takes a bullet to the head, and the story has to keep going without him. like, the ultimate defiance of knives’ ideology would be him inadvertently killing vash via all the fucking assassins he keeps sending at him, statistically it’s something you’d expect to happen but you know knives has never even considered a world where vash actually dies, let alone where it’s his fault

like i keep imagining fucking. wolfwood and the girls having to finish vash’s journey without him. the three of them going to knives and being like look. here is the ultimate consequence of your beliefs. you spent so long solving all your problems with murder that you accidentally killed the only person left who actually matters to you and it’s too late to get him back now. it’s too late to undo what you’ve done and we all have to live in the world your actions created

and i think this au is maybe really about knives and his control issues and his response to anything having the capacity to hurt him being to shoot it until it stops moving but only in the sense that the whole anime is about the narrative of damnation versus salvation that knives created in his head and then enforced on the whole planet. i want to see a world where he has to come face to face with the fact that he hurt vash more than humanity ever could have. i want to see a world where he has to drag himself into redemption because the only person in the world who loves him enough to do it for him is fucking dead and it’s his fault.

is this anything

#text post #sol speaks #trigun #trigun 98 #trigun meta #meta #vash the stampede #millions knives

[time-is-restored]

do you guys every think abt death vs immortality as a thoroughline in like. literally all of the mechs albums.

old king cole is explicitly warped by immortality (never to forgive he would eternal live, his hands dyed red by gore - can be read a few ways depending on where u place the emphasis, but at the very least communicates that his wrath is facilitated By his immortality), and the olympians commit attrocities in order to hold onto their wealth and the immortality that it grants them (murdering arachne, yanking heracles' chain the second he tries to go freelance, having a monopoly on the acheron etc). the value they put on immortality and living forever, and the fear they have of ever possibly losing it, has completely warped their morals and priorities.

and while it comes up less in tbi, there's still significant emphasis placed on how odin has been in power for a century (both thor + the narrator bring it up, and there's also an emphasis on how long ago the bifrost project was started, and how 'no one left living' can explain its science). her villain monologue in rangarok iv places the extinction of asgard as an honour - a ruin that no one can possibly rebuild from is called 'apotheosis'. and as she says at the end, the idea that no one can possibly outlive her is a key draw for odin. asgard dies with her.

in hnoc, the only really immortal character is brian (and we only really know that bc of knowledge we get from outside the album), but the axis of life and death as a privilege vs a curse is still very present. 'mordred's gift to Arthur could be love in his own eyes / fating him alone to keep the life to which he clings', not only posits that the gift of survival isn't inherently good + kind (which the audience would immediately recognise as love, not possibly love), but places emphasis on the fact that arthur is now utterly alone. the station's death at the hands of mordred is hardly a happy one ('Its people damned, doomed by a man who's lost all his regrets'), but arthur's fate is arguably worse. severed from the finality and closure of death, what does he become? [insert that one cool theory abt hnoc arthur becoming old king cole here]

it's like. on a meta level, the reason we as fans don't put much emphasis on the depravity + cruelty of the mechs is bc the people portraying the mechs are all charismatic + skilled performers. in live gigs they're all portraying the fun side of their characters - roasting each other, bantering with the audience, making fun of the characters they're singing about, referencing off-screen violence - bc if they portrayed their lore too literally they'd be comitting felonies LMAOOO

but narratively, its like. literally every album is a meditation on the ways that the glorification of immortality can ruin civilisations - can ruin galaxies. whether its rooted in the fear of you specifically dying, or of being outlived, or overpowered or forgotten, or if its done for the sake of someone else's survival... it's all corrosive. if u refuse to accept the indisputable impermanence of life, you lose the ability to value it, and u numb urself to the reality of just how fucked up it is to cut another person's life short for any reason.

like. i do think some of the mechs started as good people, and some of them even might still have ethical standards, but i REALLY cannot stop thinking about how fucking. fascinating it is that this group of immortals who are KNOWN for basically considering nothing but how fun and/or violent any given activity will be, have basically filled their entire discography with songs about how their continued existence is corrosive and brings tragedy + ruin wherever they go.

so how self-aware are they? do you think those old morals + ethics still linger in their mind, when they're writing down these tragedies? they willingly self identify as liars + thieves + bastards, etc etc, and they seem to have no trouble identifying the 'bad guys' in the various albums (ie: humanising snow + cinders + rose, but not king cole), but do those concepts actually mean anything emotionally, or even theoretically, for them all beyond their dramatic potential? do they remember their lives before they were mechanised as it actually happened, or do they remember it as lyrics to a song? is it possible to be entirely self aware abt ur own capacity for violence (as jonny in paticular claims to be), if you no longer relate to violence as anything other than a narrative device - a means to an end, whether comedic or dramatic?

#the mechanisms #mechanisms #mechs #its not even that i have a specific passion for super grimdark mechs characterisation #just from a thematic perspective it is SO interesting to have these characters #narrating tragedies who themselves dance in and out of narrative conventions + signifiers of good + evil #and also like. literally transform themSELVES into narratives via backstory fiction + songs #its all so like. was there ever a truth here? if its all been forgotten + replaced with stories? can any of them care about good and evil #anymore on a level beyond how it will make an audience react? #idk. i care them #mine #my writing

[chocodile]

Hypothetically speaking, what would one of Hyden’s preceding siblings turned out to be like had they survived into adulthood? Doubly so if Hyden still came to be, courtesy of preemptive pessimism for child-viability, and they shared a household. I’d kill to know what sort of absurd dynamic he’d have with an Older Sister or what her appearance might be like in comparison (contrast ??) to his.

That's an interesting hypothetical!

*BELOW IS ALL NON-CANON SPECULATION*

I think many factors could influence this… the biggest ones would be "how good at magic is this hypothetical sibling" as well as "how physically and mentally fucked up is this hypothetical sibling." Going with the "older sister" route, I can see a couple different outcomes:

Older Sister who is much more sickly and/or unable to use magic at all: Hyden wouldn't be that different. He'd still grow up seeing himself as his family's only real heir. He would probably feel some resentment and anger to his sister for "wasting" his parents' time and energy despite being obviously unfit to inherit the family mantle. Otherwise, though, he'd basically act as if she didn't exist. Their mother Aurelia would immediately switch to caring about her magically-inclined son rather than her mundane daughter. The rejected Older Sister might find solace getting along with Arcturus III, their introverted and ineffectual father… which would only deepen Hyden's dislike for her.

Older Sister who is magically-inclined and not on death's door: This would get interesting. As a male heir, he would supersede her in terms of title inheritance--something she would be quite displeased by if she'd grown up planning her life around being heir apparent. So I could see a serious rivalry forming. I think that especially with Hyden's growth disorder making him get really tall at a really young age she'd see him as a noxious invasive cuckoo chick poised to rapidly overtake her life and replace her.

As Hyden has previously stated (?), "madness" runs in his family, though. There are… solutions… to an undesirable usurper poised to steal your title that are available to the morally flexible noble. And, well, he was always sickly, right? If poor, dear baby brother were to pass away in his sleep after something was slipped into his wine glass at dinner… who's to say it wasn't a death of natural causes? Maybe it would even be the kinder option. I mean, the family healer always said that he was unlikely to survive to adulthood…

Baby Hyden's longevity here would probably come down to whether or not he figured out what his sister was plotting and turned the tables on her before it was too late.

A related possible path: He goes against inheritance norms and bows out of the wizard family title battle entirely, giving up on his magic schooling and allowing Older Sister to claim the role of Viscountess. He gets an arranged political marriage to a woman from another noble family and goes into another line of work. Maybe being a political advisor or researcher of magical artifacts something.

As you can imagine, this would be not be voluntary. More of a "Mom and Older Sister have leverage against me that I cannot overcome and were planning to kill me to get me out of the way, so we reached an agreement." Hyden would not be happy feeling like he'd been discarded and cheated out of his birthright. He would probably spiral downward over the years, chronically unable to find fulfillment or satisfaction, which he would blame on the fact that he'd been denied the life he was obviously supposed to have.

There would, of course, be many whispers about why the male heir would give up his title, though. It would be a really bad look. They'd figure there must be something terribly wrong with him.

Long story short: They wouldn't have a good relationship. The Hyden family dynamic is doomed to be a mess no matter what because everyone involved is extremely spoiled, extremely inbred, and extremely desperate to grab whatever power they can. They'd scheme and murder each other until there was one left standing no matter what.

#ask #baby hyden #furry #anthro #doodles #It would be an interesting hypothetical but ultimately he is meant to be an only child... it is a load-bearing plot point :P #*I'm unsure if the 'madness runs in my family' line is in a complete comic or one of my drafts... I know I wrote him saying it at some poin

[slxsherwriter]

Damnation as a Saving Grace

Fandom: 31

Pairing: Doom-head x female reader

Word Count: 2,725

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of death and murder

Author's note: So, due to life circumstances, Nano didn't go the way I wanted it. My final word count for the month ended up 12,666. I'm not disappointed with that by any means. This fic ended up being mostly written within the month. I added the last 600 words today. My first shot at writing Doom. I purposely left his lovely, wordy, wanting to seem educated way of speaking out for the time being due to the circumstances. There will be a continuation, and he gets to show off there ;)

The ache and pains that plagued your body were all shoved in the back of your mind, not present as the beat of your heart seemed to keep time with the slam of your feet against the concrete. Your own personal hell. Words had never been more true than when they had been spoken by whoever the hell was running this sick and twisted game. They weren't the focus though either. If you survived, then maybe you would dedicate some time to figuring out who the hell these people were and why they did what they did. If there was a why. But now, when you were trying to find a place to make your last stand, was not the time to narrow down your focus to those that didn't matter. 

After a while, the makeshift prison started to look all the same. Something that you knew wasn't true given the few places that you had moved through. It was the panic speaking. And panic was a surefire pathway straight to death. Calming yourself down was easier said than done, of course, but if you wanted to make it out of here alive, you had to force it. 

Finding a small space to squeeze that seemed like it would serve as a decent hiding spot for the few moments that you would need it, you forced your body into the space. As quietly as you could, slow, deep breaths were taken in an attempt to slow down the way that you were sucking down air. Think. You had to think. 

Without weapons, you were at a bigger disadvantage. Already, you lacked knowledge of your location compared to whoever it was that they had coming after you. Lacking a weapon just left  you far more vulnerable than if you could at least defend yourself with something. If you could manage to get an attack in. A big if. This newest guy? The one that you hadn't seen yet? He moved real god damn quiet. Unlike the other Heads that had hunted you down, it didn't seem like he liked to play by taunting and building anticipation and terror. It was far more methodical and controlled. The three people that had made it with you through to the final three hours had been picked off one by one. Without warning and without the pomp and show that you had encountered up until then. Which made it that much more terrifying. You only knew it was a man when your friend had taken the chance to shout out loudly as he had died. 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," you murmured gently to yourself, squeezing your eyes shut. "Think…" A sneak attack would give you the best advantage but how did you sneak attack someone that was practically a ghost? And what were you going to use? A pipe? Could you get something off of the wall without making a lot of sound? It was a thought, one that you might have to seriously entertain and take the risk of with such limited options. There wasn't any scrap metal laying around that you could use. For likely being an abandoned area, it was surprisingly well maintained. Likely for the very reason you were looking around if the people running this game were as smart as they had seemed so far.

"Pipe it is." You glanced up and cocked your head. Could you manage to get up that high? A drop down point would be an even better sneak attack. He would be less prepared to anticipate it. At least you hoped that would be the case. And a reaction to that sort of attack might be a little slower, giving you a proper chance to actually cause a little damage. Maybe enough to incapacitate him enough to get away and get out. A fresh wave of determination came over you, washing away the doubt and the worry. It was your best chance, and if it worked out, you would be able to get out of here. It was all you wanted. Plan in mind. You just had to figure out how it was that you were getting up there and quickly. There was no telling where he was. If he was watching, well, your entire element of surprise would be ruined. 

It was a struggle, but you managed to find a small perch that was relatively inaccessible from any sort of high walkway or ladder. It had taken far more time than you would have liked, but the drop down was directly below. Your arms were screaming, muscles burning with the effort that you had needed to exert to get to your spot. Enough so that you were worried about being able to swing the pipe that you had pried off of the wall. Given that it was likely your only chance to get a whack in and escape, you were going to have to make due and give it your all. Survival demanded it. 

Again, you had to work on slowing your breathing. Every sound made seemed to echo in your ears, and the exertion had caused you to all but pant again. It felt like each sound you made was a bright, neon beacon hanging over your head, telling him exactly where to find you.

Straining to see anything in the dark or hear anything above your own breathing and beating heart, now it was a game of patience. Something that was incredibly difficult with the sense of anticipation that kept adrenaline pumping through your veins. The creaking and movement of the building in general was enough to send a shiver down your spine, spiking that adrenaline thinking that it was him who had found you. It was a horrid way to exist, ready to jump out of your skin at the slight sound, but you were going to make it through this. If not for anything other than to try and prove these fuckers wrong, to be able to shove it in their face. And maybe, just maybe, figure out how to get a little revenge for the friends that had died for their amusement. 

Steps. Careful, measured steps were coming down the hallway from your right. It was all wrong. He hadn't made that much noise up until now. It was almost as if he was purposeful in how he was walking to make sure that you were alerted to your presence. Set on edge, your hands tightened around the cool metal, eyes darting in both directions to see if it was some sort of trick. While things had been straightforward up until now, it didn't mean that they would stay that way. Maybe this was some method to get you to come out of hiding to play. You were sure that they didn't want anyone winning. Heaven forbid. That would cause an issue for their game. You were going to be that exception, though. You were going to survive this.

Nothing. Just the sounds of the careful steps. No man. The hair on the back of your neck stood. What was going on? There was still no appearance after a couple of moments, and it was all wrong. The pipe nearly slipped from your hand as you adjusted your grip, trying to keep your breathing as slow and steady as you possibly could. The steps faded away, but the feeling of urgency and danger did not go away. It heightened instead, the overwhelming feeling of dread just seeping in deeper and deeper. Eyes were on you. You could swear that you felt them, but it would be impossible. Shit. Stay still. You had to stay still. Movement would alert him to where you were. It had to be what he wanted, to draw you out, make you panic, get you running around without a game plan. That would just make you easier prey. 

So, you waited. As difficult as it was. Seconds passed in long, drawn out ticks of the clock, making it feel more like minutes for every second. But finally, finally, the lanky frame came into view. Just barely silhouetted against the light, the footsteps were near silent. That let you know the initial thought you had about the audible steps before had likely been right. They had been a purposeful decision meant to draw you out. He hadn't found you. There was a chance that staying would let you win. A slim chance. Which was one that you weren't willing to take. These people couldn't let you live if you did manage to make it through the time limit that had been placed on the game. 

Timing was just off as you dropped down onto the man, catching his back and shoulder rather than knocking him completely off of his feet. You grunted as you swung the pipe with as much might as you possibly could before you stopped midswing. Blinking, you tried again but found the same result. You couldn't bring the pipe against his flesh. Frustration mounted, and the fact nearly made you cry. This couldn't be happening. The man turned and went to swing at you in retaliation during that second swing, but he seemed to have the same problem, the punch missing you by a mile.

"Fuck me…" He grunted as he tried swinging again before reaching for a blade. The blade swung by your face but didn't come close to catching any skin. Realization sunk in as you both seemed entirely incapable of harming the other. This had to be some part of the sick joke that was being played on you. There was only one reason that someone couldn't harm another. Soulmates. This fucked up nightmare had just become worse. Maybe having him kill you would have been the better sort of end game. 

The pipe dropped from your hand, and you took a step back, but it was the furthest distance that you could manage. Something stopped another movement backward. He was simply staring at you, an unreadable look overtaking his features. An emotion that you couldn't place. Did you even want to? Christ, what did you do with this situation? It wasn't like the two of you could sit down and talk about this like normal people. He had been just ready to run you through with his switchblades, and you had been ready to bash his head, or really any part of his body that you could reach. 

"Don't move," he growled out and lifted the blade in his hand, using it to simply point at you this time. "You fucking understand?" You were torn between listening and ignoring the demand that had been made. Just because he couldn't harm you didn't mean that there wasn't others and that he wouldn't be going to get them. Another step back resulted in a rather aggressive sound being released from the man.

"You think I'm going to listen to you?" Your voice came out stronger than you thought it would, giving yourself a mental pat on the back for that. If your voice had come out shaky, you would have felt even worse than you were right now.

"Yeah, you fucking are." He moved closer, that distance that you had established vanished with two quick strides by the man. There was no stopping the wince that came. Logically, now you knew he couldn't hurt you. That didn't stop the emotional and a primal part of your brain reacting to the very real threat that was still perceived. Distance would help you feel more comfortable, as comfortable as one could get in such a situation. That also led to better observations, better decisions, and better outcomes. Swallowing hard, you found yourself nodding in agreement. Just because you agreed didn't mean that you would do it. Figuring that your best course of action would be to follow behind him, hopefully unseen, you had to appear obedient before making the attempt.

"Good. Now, stay fucking put and I'll be right back." One last inspection was given to you before he turned heel and began back down the hallway. You waited just a few moments, listening closely as the steps just began to fade away before you.made your move. The entire maze was disorienting but he made enough sound by the slimmest of margins for you to be able to follow. Was it a safe assumption to think that he would be moving to some sort of exit? Maybe and maybe not. Time would be the only way to tell. 

Ahead, the sound of a door being opened echoed out. Well, that spoiled a lot, but it didn't exactly signal a complete end to the spying idea. If you got lucky and the door stayed open. Given how the night had gone, maybe you had used up all of the luck that a person was allowed in a lifetime. But, the risk was well worth the reward.

There was a sliver of light guiding the way, hinting where the almost invisible door was. If you weren't trying to stay quiet, you would have cursed, violently and loudly. That was how these fuckers were slipping around unnoticed. Of course. Nothing to be done with that information now. Rather pointless to focus on it when the important bit was the murmured voice on the other side of the door. For a moment, you thought that there might have been more than one. Straining to hear, eyes closed and leaned as far forward as you cod be without giving yourself away, you realized it was only one. His. Low enough that it was nearly impossible to fully make out each word but the timber of the voice that had just sent shivers down your spine was now unmistakable. Only every second or third word was caught. 

He most certainly was talking about you. But was he talking to anyone? Those sick fucks running the thing were clearly watching so he could have some way to communicate without their voices being heard by others. Right? Maybe. Your fingers, weak and injured from the long night, couldn't keep their grasp on the wall, causing you to loudly stumble forward, actually falling right to your knees by the door. Well, that certainly would alert him that you hadn't stayed put like demanded and promised. 

The door ripped open, and there he stood, eyes wide and alight with anger. 

“Told you to stay the fuck put!” The words came out in a growl as he swiftly reached down and grasped your arm, yanking you upward. “Dumb fucking bitch.” Off balance, the pull that he gave towards rhe room that he was in had you stumbling again, barely able to keep to your feet. You didn't know what was going through his head but he was leading you somewhere and you were far too exhausted at this point to give much more of a fight. If this was the end, so be it. 

After a few minutes, you noticed that you didn't hear any other sounds. No voices, no pipes banging, no hissing of steam. It was far more quiet than any other section of the hell maze had been. That piqued your interest just a little bit. Either he was taking you somewhere private to kill you or…

The possibility sparked that survival instinct once more, and your eyes moved to the tall man that was just ahead of you, jerking you around by the ironclad grip he had on your wrist. Could he possibly be getting you out of here?

“You say a word, I'll change my mind about it all. One fucking word and I'll happily give you to to those two clown brothers.” The words were final and for once, you decided that it was best to listen to what you were being told. It seemed that maybe, your luck hadn't run out entirely. You didn't know what this meant or what his ultimate plans were for you. Maybe you were better off dying but it was an unknown and one that you weren't willing to chance. “Rich old fucks are gonna end up taking half my fucking pay for this shit…” Getting outside served better for you to have the chance to escape anyway. Following your twisted, psychotic soulmate was the only path forward that you saw. Hopefully it would work out. 

#slasher imagines #slasher writing #horror writing #slasher x reader #slasher x you #richard brake characters #nano 2023 #31 #doomhead #doom-head #doomhead x reader #doom-head x reader #doom head x reader

[jomiddlemarch]

I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

It was not that he was waiting for her as much as that he was most often in the faculty sitting room at this hour and so was she and the staff knew to leave out a full tea service and also a magically chilled bottle of very dry amontillado, the color of her eyes. And then to tell anyone else that the room was occupied and that they were not to be disturbed.

It wasn’t that he was waiting for her, but he did look up when she came into the room, letting the ancient, rare and precious book he held slip out of his hand, an instinctive, wandless spell keeping it from clattering onto the floor.

“You cut your hair,” Draco said. 

Any pretense to eloquence, savoir-faire, or intellectual rigor associated with achieving his Potions Mastery and Mwandamizi kemia had been decimated by the four words, uttered in a tone of complete shock, which given his Pureblood upbringing meant flat, with a hint of scorn. He had spent the past twelve years working to convince Hermione he wasn’t that man anymore, the one who would have meant the scorn, the fault-finding appraisal, cold and superior and not terribly clever underneath it all.

(The one he’d felt doomed to become before the chandelier fell in his family’s ballroom. Before she’d testified to keep him out of Azkaban. Before she’d returned his formal letter of apology with a brief addendum You were a child, Draco an absolution he didn’t deserve.)

Blaise always said he was his own worst enemy. Theo always nodded and offered a glass of single malt Scotch. Neville always shrugged and tried to reassure Draco, meandering through some nonsense about how they’d all had to grow up too soon, let down by the adults, forced to experience trauma that they’d been lucky to survive and a plate of buttered toast would soon set him to rights.

Luna changed the subject and talked about some possibly fictional chimerical creature to take his mind off his shortcomings. It never worked but he appreciated her effort and consistency.

“I suppose that’s better than ‘Bloody hell.’ And “Holy fucking Christ.’ Harry reverts to Muggle obscenity when he’s really surprised,” Hermione replied. “You only told me what I already know, as I didn’t accidentally fall into a Mongolian silver scissor-bush.”

“Is that a thing?” Draco asked. 

He had to keep talking but there was a lot to take in, the startlingly gorgeous line of her bare neck, the angle of her jaw, how her eyes looked enormous, luminous. How her chestnut hair was swept across her brow and came to a delicate little point on the nape of her neck, all these hidden aspects suddenly marvels revealed. Suddenly, astonishingly breath-taking and erotic and also heart-breaking, because he’d wanted so to run his fingers through her loose hair, to stand behind her and draw a brush through her curls. Watching her eyes get drowsy in the dressing-table’s looking-glass, resting a hand on her bare shoulder and feeling the tickling silk of her hair. He’d wanted to cast the spell that ended the charm securing her chignon, to pull out the jeweled pins she used to keep her braids in the coronet around her head. 

“No. It sounds like something Luna would mention though,” Hermione shrugged. It was as if he’d never seen the gesture before.

“It’s a lot to take in,” he said.

“It’s actually not. It’s both literally and figuratively not,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Snape being a double-agent in love with Harry’s mum was a lot to take in. Any Sunday lunch at Molly Weasley’s table is a lot to take in. War and Peace in the original Russian without a translation charm is a lot to take in. I took off a few inches—”

“A few inches?”

“Fine, I got the first professional, Muggle, haircut of my adult life because I was fed up with my hair and charms and Sleekeezy and glamours, so many glamours, and you would think I have announced I am Grindelwald’s secret lovechild,” she said in a tone of complete exasperation, pursing her lips in a matching moué he felt an impossible urge to kiss very thoroughly and until she was gasping his name. 

He was fairly certain that action would not be requited, not now, and potentially not ever.

But definitely not now.

She was now almost glaring at him, waiting for a response.

If this was ever to become something beyond hopeless pining, if he were ever to be allowed to call her sweetheart and coax her back to bed, he couldn’t get the next part wrong.

“Are you happy with it?” he said. It was a gamble, saying anything would have been a gamble, but there was a chance he’d gotten it right.

He’d surprised her, that he could tell instantly, though her face changed very subtly. It meant no one else who’d seen her had asked and considered she might be. No one else had thought about why she’d done it, only what they thought of it. Evidently, both Weasley and Potter had indicated a negative response, Weasley likely driven by his own unrealized Pureblood upbringing, where all witches wanted the long hair associated with power and Potter never wanted her to be anything other than she’d been in their youth, when her unruly hair was her most obvious signifier.

“Yes, I think I am,” she said. 

“That’s good. That’s what matters,” he said. He was supposed to reference the book he’d been reading or follow-up on their most recent conversation about geopolitics or whether Chopin was a Squib or at the very least offer her something to drink, the tea first and then, when she demurred, the sherry. But all of those would require him to look away from her and he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Not quite yet.

“I ought to have done it a long time ago,” she said. She spoke without her usual forthright confidence, but also without any of the regret the statement might have implied. She sounded hesitant, as if she wanted something from him she felt she shouldn’t. Or shouldn’t ask for.

It was tempting to make some sort of declaration, offer reassurance or an argument. But he’d gotten this far by asking her a question.

“Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. It would have been a way to move on. Grow up. Make my life easier, decide it for myself,” she said. She was watching him very closely as she spoke. She liked that he’d asked, though she wasn’t smiling. “It wouldn’t have been grief or some kind of, I don’t know, unhinged trauma response.”

It would very much have been a response to the colossal trauma she’d experienced if she’d hacked it all off after being tortured, and it wouldn’t have been unhinged when one considered the myriad extremely risky alternatives she might have chosen, but Draco wasn’t about to ruin everything. Even as his own worst enemy, he could keep from doing that.

“It could have been just something you do when you’re in your twenties, trying something out. Like, going to the Maldives or studying Norn. Learning earth magic from tribal elders in Namib.”

“Only you would saying learning earth magic in Namib is something you do in your twenties,” Draco said wryly. “Most people just go to the pub and fret a lot.”

“You didn’t,” she said.

“I think it’s well established I’m not most people,” he said.

“No. You’re not. You’re the only person who didn’t tell me cutting my hair was a terrible mistake,” she said. “As if it could even remotely compare to the other terrible mistakes I’ve made.”

“It’s not a terrible mistake,” he said. “And you’re the person I know best whose made the fewest terrible mistakes in her life and we can sit here drinking sherry talking about it because of it.”

“My parents wouldn’t agree,” she said.

“Neither would mine. I wonder how people grow up when they don’t have to discover their parents were deeply, entirely wrong about something absolutely crucial to survival,” Draco said.

“We could ask Blaise Zabini,” Hermione said after very clearly Thinking About It, a little crease appearing between her eyebrows.

“Too risky,” Draco replied. “It’s only the husbands people talk about but people have a way of disappearing when they ask questions about his mother.”

“No one would comment on her haircut,” Hermione said wistfully. “What a bloody icon.”

Draco laughed, startled.

“You’re enchanting,” he blurted out. Stupid, gauche, impulsive—he could go on (and on) about how ill-considered it had been.

“Well, I am a witch,” she said. She did not seem put off. In fact, she smiled at him, a little shyly.  “Goes with the territory—”

“You enchant me. Bewitch me,” he said, throwing caution to the winds. “You don’t want anyone to comment on how you look, so I shouldn’t but you’re exquisite—”

He broke off, fearing he’d broken it all. She was still in the room and he still had all his bits and bobs, when he knew she was a dab hand at wandless curses. It was rather late to decide discretion was the better part of valor, but better late than never.

“I didn’t do it for you,” she said.

“No,” he replied.

“I didn’t do it only for you,” she clarified. “But I was curious to see how you’d react.”

“Did you have a hypothesis? You usually do,” he said.

“Yes. You’ve exceeded it slightly,” she said. There was a gleam in those sherry-brown eyes and when she tilted her head to the side, he understood the vampire’s insatiable lust. 

“I can do better than slightly,” he said, half-dazed with the realization that she was requiting far more than he’d ever imagined. And that she’d imagined his response to seeing her bare neck, had wanted his admiration. He got up from his chair and crossed the room to her, standing close enough to take her in his arms. “I can do a wide margin. Prodigious. Overwhelmingly—”

“I like prodigious,” she said and he leaned in and kissed her parted lips softly, then deeply, one hand at her waist, the other cupping her cheek. The urge to possess her was tremendous, held in check only by an immense and constant tenderness, the moon that could pull the devouring tide back from the shore.

“Can I see overwhelmingly?” she whispered. “For comparison—”

“Of course,” he answered and moved to kiss her neck. He tasted the pulse of her carotid, sucking gently where he wanted to nip her. He moved back up to the hollow behind her ear, grazing her lobe with his tongue, then murmured,

“You cut your hair. I love it.”

#dramione #hermione x draco #draco POV #post-hogwarts #epilogue what epilogue #hermione gets a haircut #romance #pining #always some extra worldbuilding #references to lots of characters #had so much fun I wrote a second part #that one's hermione POV

[thieves-in-the-palace]

jumps into ur ask box hello. hi. what are ur ng+ time loop thoughtz

god i have. a lot of thoughts about ng+ time loops in general. in relation to this post tho i specifically have Some Thoughts about Akira going through the loops trying to figure out why he's stuck there, how to get out, etc and also having to contend with Akechi dying every time but also like…the inevitable emotional cycles that come with watching the same guy die over and over.

✧ "Who is more unlucky here? The one who will die every time but never remember? Or the one who will live every time and always remember?" –> "Me. I'm the more unlucky one. What's this dude's fucking problem" –> "What's MY fucking problem? Why does this keep happening to me? Why doesn't anyone else remember? Why can't I escape this? Why does Akechi have to die every time??" –> "What's this dude's FUCKING problem–"

✧ does it count as a parasocial relationship if you know the guy irl and also it's based on the weird sense of kinship that comes with being doomed to repeatedly live through the same year over and over while he's doomed to die every time. hand in hand they are BOTH doomed baybee

✧ You know how Akechi is often portrayed as having Death Note-esque internal monologues when interacting with Akira? That but Akira is having his own wildly different internal monologue that sounds a lot like "okay you shit idiot. what's it gonna take to keep you from dying"

✧ The rest of the Thieves are surprised when Akira doesn't seem to react to Akechi's death, but they figure he's trying to keep it together for the sake of the mission. Truly tho Akira is mentally cussing Akechi out and lamenting the fact they're gonna have to fight god again soon. rip lawboy you would've loved fighting ol' yaldy

✧ Futaba hacks Akira's phone (for enrichment) and sees his most recent google search "is it bad to stop feeling bad after the 15th time you watch the same person die or are you allowed to start getting annoyed about it" – maybe he's going through something similar to what she went through w/ her mom? She starts prodding him about his past, but it doesn't really get her anywhere…

(If u want to get even more into Game-Based Reality Nonsense u could even say that Futaba can't find anything on Akira aside from his criminal record. No hospital records, no school info, no nothing. It's like the guy didn't even exist before the day he got arrested. Akira might not have any answers either, which, u know, doesn't help with the mental strain caused by being stuck in a time loop. Does he even exist outside of the loop? If the loop ended, would he disappear with it? etc etc)

✧ At the beginning of each loop, Akira makes a list of things that might break the time loop, updating it as needed. "Akechi survives" is at the top of the list every time bc it's one of the only things that never happens.

✧ Akira just generally having a slightly shorter temper w/ Akechi bc truly. How do u go through this sort of ordeal w/o wanting to rattle him like a maraca after a point. He won't hesitate to call Akechi cringe when the guy leans too heavily on his Pleasant Lawboy™ persona.

They wind up sparring in Mementos more frequently bc this Akira is more willing to entertain Akechi's bloodlust; fighting is a good outlet for Akira's own frustrations. Akechi keeps getting more and more annoyed each time tho bc why tf can this attic trash keep up with him? How is he predicting Akechi's attacks so well? (Akechi's going to start spitting fire if he ever finds out Akira has been holding back during their fights lmao. Akira can easily trounce him in 1v1 since like…3 loops ago?)

✧ Akira spending so much time annoyed and even furious w/ Akechi for not having enough self-preservation to survive even one loop only to ultimately circle right back into The Guilt + Sorrow bc god, all this time and he still can't figure out how to keep this fuckhead alive?

And it IS guilt Akira feels, unfortunately. Makoto and Futaba were both antagonistic towards the Phantom Thieves at first, too. Just spending some time with them was enough to reveal how getting screwed over by adults guided their actions; it doesn't absolve them of threatening the group, but it makes them easier to forgive.

Akira wonders, sometimes, if he's too quick to forgive Akechi. He's killed people, and he claims to be perfectly okay with being a murderer so long as it means he can reach his goals. But Akechi is a liar all the way down, too, because a cold-hearted killer wouldn't sacrifice himself for his enemies. He wouldn't give up his only shot at vengeance so easily after going through years of hell to achieve it. Yet Akechi still dies in that boiler room every time. Akechi never truly hates Akira, and Akira can't quite bring himself to ever truly hate Akechi, either.

But then Akira sees Akechi alive and well and smiling for the camera in the next loop, and he gets the abrupt urge to lay the guy out.

✧ "I want you to live. I also never want to see you again."

✧ And all of this is w/o getting into P5R's third semester hijinks. Akira thinking he's finally escaped the time loop only to realize that something Worse is happening now.

And Akechi is still there, because of fucking course he is–

#sorry for the delay on this btw! (<-cursed w/ tendency to draft asks and forget to post them) #ask #anonymous #persona 5 #p5 #akira kurusu #ren amamiya #goro akechi #Kidd speaking #ng+ time loops are. my beloveds my breads n butters #this isn't intended to be shuake but it can EASILY be read as such jhfgfgjhfg #ng+ time loop v1

[brandnewhuman]

Upon seeing the new ghost zombie skin I've drawn some angsty conclusions AND YOU ALL WILL HEAR ME OUT.

Ngl broskies, this one hurts me too FR FR. From the trailer it almost looks as if he's still sentient (I could be wrong but compared to the other zombies in the trailer he still acts very much like his human self) which makes sense with Simon's survival pattern in life. He's always the one that remains, the one that outlives everyone else, the man who neither himself or others can get rid of.

It's so tragic to think that beneath all the stuff the body undergoes when you get zombified, he's still there and he can see and feel everything but can't do anything to stop it. I think what hurts him the most is not just the fact that he's losing himself but that, like I said, yet again he's forced to outlive everyone.

Now, I don't know much about the codmw lore (AND BEFORE YOU COME HERE AND START FLEXING YOUR KNOWLEDGE, JUST KNOW IM NOT GONNA CHOOSE PEACE) but for what I know soap, in the original timeline, died and roach and a bunch of Simon's teammates too. With that in mind, I imagine that if he's a zombie and, taking a few creative liberties here, this zombie timeline could be placed a little bit before mw3 where everyone fucking expires then babyboy here is really going through it.

He's a monster now, and not in the "I feel like a monster because I think of myself that badly" no. He's quite literally a fucking rotting corpse walking and running around at full speed, body slamming the shit out of everyone. He has lost his friends, he has possibly had to watch that happen and once again, just like with his family, he couldn't do anything to prevent it and somehow ends up being the only survivor.

There's no amount of therapy that could ever fix that fucking shit bro, like he's doomed to real life plot armour where it doesn't work in his favour but instead just takes away everything and everyone he cares about. And now, even if he manages to gaslight himself into thinking he could make it work for once, that he could fr be happy with the next person that enters his life, he still wouldn't be able to be with them cause now he's a fucking zombie.

My brain likes to torture me with the thought that him retaining his self awareness and stuff wasn't on purpose and surely wasn't his choice, that the way the infection works on him is different. He feels so tired of dragging around his body and the mental tool it takes on him makes everything so hard. I could actually see him just deciding to cave in to the need of just...letting go, like to stop holding onto whatever is making him sentient and just kind of die inside his mind (?) Idk if it makes sense but since he can't physically die he would be content with just kind of switching himself off.

That's it. That's my painful brain fart for you to enjoy and suffer with. Unfortunately I can't pay for anyone's therapy, you are free to end my existence instead.

#zombie cod #zombie ghost #ghost cod #simon ghost riley headcanons #cod headcanons #call of duty #simon riley #call of duty modern warfare 2 #codmw2 #cod fandom #cod

[morally-grey-girlbosses]

POLLRUNNER'S NOTE: Wu Zetian (Iron Widow) and Wu Zetian (IRL History) are in this tournament as separate characters.

Propaganda under the cut.

Han Sooyoung:

She's the designated morally grey person of her found family (they accepted her reluctantly cuz she did some evil (morally grey) stuff. She literally has to kill the protagonist multiple times (or be the one to take the initiative) because no one else wants to and she's the only one 'evil' enough to do it. She has such an interesting relationship with the 'completely morally good' characters in the story and by interesting I mean so gay and so fucked up! Also she's my cringefail babygirl and deserves to win. Did i mention the alternate universe where she saves everyone by dooming one person but her goal at the end is to abandon everyone anyway? The part where she destroys the world and passively kills thousands of people (they don't just die once either) and makes someone experience literal hell just to save one person... Yeah

honestly she kinda sucks but in a soaking wet cat way (affectionate). she might be a plagiarist but she did it better anyway (rip tls123). she's got a lot of problems, but luckily most of them can be solved by the massive amount of money she makes as an author and celestial twitch streamer, money which she also uses to publically flex multiple times. the first to come to mind is the time she went on a date and he was talking down to her, so she pulled out the keys to her expensive car and said he didn't make enough money for her (or something similar, either way she basically told him to fuck off). the problems that can't be solved by money exist because she is living through the apocalypse, and she's still successful despite that. she started a cult at the start of the apocalypse to make use of her plagiarism, which i think was also just a way for her to survive. she's replacing her smoking habit with lemon candy and we love to see a positive change like that

Wu Zetian:

So she spends the entire like first quarter of the book fantasizing about killing this dude who killed her sister, and then she does it! She murders him! In her world, boys and girls get paired up to fight in these giant super cool machines, but because of the way the system works, it kills the girl a lot of the time. But Zetian totally turned that around! Then she gets paired with the strongest fighter in the army in hopes that he'll kill her, but she doesn't and actually ends up in a polycule with him. Also, she's based off of the only female emperor in Chinese history.

#poll #tournament poll #wormblr #han sooyoung #omniscient reader #omniscient reader's viewpoint #wu zetian #wu xetian #iron widow #orv #round 2

[shriekshrike]

y’know what’s really interesting about last night’s episode is that it really revealed the BIGGEST flaw that bells hells has as a party:

they don’t fucking trust each other enough. or rather, they don’t trust themselves.

sure, they have the “you can have my back, you can save my life, you can heal me and switch places with me in a fight, you can head into danger and come out just fine” trust because if they didnt, they wouldn’t have made it this far. literally.

but they’re all so fucking careful when it comes to their suspicions! chet never says anything to anyone about dusk, orym doesn’t say shit about reading chet’s and dusk’s lips, imogen doesn’t say boo about not being able to read dusk’s mind. it’s not that they don’t think the others aren’t capable, but more like “if i don’t get all my ducks in a row no one will believe me” which!! is so much. to think about.

because when it’s said like that it’s not like they don’t trust one another, it’s more like they DON’T TRUST THEMSELVES individually! which makes so much sense! ashton got betrayed by ppl they thought they knew better than anyone else in the world, FCG finds out someone they thought was dead is actually alive and never bothered to get them back and they’re also fucking glitching more and more often and he finds out not only did dancer not make them but also they are MUCH MUCH older than anything or anyone else they’ve ever met (pre divergence BABY aeor is for LOVERS nd robits), imogen was a hermit in her own fucking home bc no one wanted to be around the girl who could get into your head (not like she had a choice sometimes) and she doesn’t trust herself not to somehow cross lines with people whether that be on accident or on purpose, laudna licherally spent 30 years post-death being ousted from town to town because people found her a freak and a witch and has a DEAD NECROMANCER WHO KILLED HER IN HER HEAD, fearne is slowly coming to realization that her parents maybe weren’t sending her post cards all those years and that her life really wasn’t all it was cracked up to be and her memory is a little fucky (that feywild shit, huh), orym still probably feels residual survivor’s guilt in being unable to protect the one person who really truly mattered to him and sees it as a failing in himself rather than just something that happened, chet is a werewolf who literally gets run out of towns because of what he is and he could literally lose control if he’s too hurt or out of it and hurt someone else (as seen w orym)

like they’re so...aware of the trust they have for one another, but because they don’t trust themselves, they never SAY SHIT bc they’re always second guessing their suspicions which is so fascinating to watch; they don’t trust themselves enough to follow their instincts to trust one another even moreso. they’ve all got like folie a deaux but it’s mass imposter syndrome instead.

and it’s not like dusk knew that abt the bells, but it worked so well in dusk’s favor bc even if it was an 11th hour realization and discovery for the pc’s who did start to get suspicious, it would have been enough time to maybe do something. but they DIDN’T and it kinda doomed them!

after this i hope they get more...confident in their own capabilities. or at least learn to trust their own guts without needing confirmation or waiting for all the chips to land. sometimes, you just gotta listen to the sirens in ur head because that’s the part of u that wants u to survive no matter what.

dusk says a lot of shit and idk how much was truth laced with the sweetness of lies you wanna hear, but they got one thing fucking right. bells hells are special. and they gotta realize it before it really lands them in hotter fucking water.

#cr spoilers #critical role #bells hells #i wuv them and i think about them a lot ok #they really gotta trust themselves #as much as they trust one another.

[inastarlesssky]

In Defense of Dramione - an essay

Okay, time for another Ted talk/ soapbox/ pointless rambling...Putting it under the cut because I have opinions.

In Defense of Dramione - an essay

First of all, I want to say I ship Dramione. Which is a recent thing, specifically about half a year ago. I didn't always because well it never occurred to me that you could. Of course, that's how ships are. We ship some ships bc they're canon, okay, fine. But we ship a whole lot others that aren't because you name whatever reason (they've got chemistry, they WORK, they're better than the canonically approved pairings whatever the hell else, idk). My point is, it had never crossed my mind that I myself would actually like the idea of Draco and Hermione. Bc naturally, you look at them and you think, "He did insult her when they were children. He was an asshat, etc etc." But...BUT.

You know that trope Enemies to Lovers? Ever heard of redemption arcs? Yeah, those are things. Of course, I don't speak on behalf of everyone in the fandom because we all have our reasons for why. But I ship them because there is potential in Draco's character for growth, for repentance, for redemption. I believe that he's capable, when he's an adult of realizing that he fucked up and that the beliefs he was spoonfed as a child are not the law of the land. I've read more fics than I can count that describe this character arc for him and they do it masterfully. Honestly, I think he's a pretty complex character and I believe that we see a sliver of that in the last few movies. Like look, in 6th year, Harry hit him with Sectumsempra and nearly killed him. But when the Golden Trio were at the Manor and it was on Draco's shoulders to identify Harry and basically seal their doom, did he do it? Did he rat them out? Nope.

Maybe this wasn't exactly Draco "forgiving" Harry, admittedly. But Draco saw that Harry was their only hope for destroying Voldemort or for having some sliver of a winning chance, of a possibility of surviving the mess Voldemort was orchestrating. He obviously deemed it important enough to dare to lie, especially knowing that Bellatrix would have summoned the Dark Lord himself in the next few moments. If Draco really didn't care about the outcome of everything, he wouldn't have done that. If anything, we see that he cares at least about the safety of his family because that could have also been the motive. But that gets me thinking, couldn't he also have confirmed Harry's identity? Voldy would have arrived, perhaps praised Draco and spared the Malfoys to die another die. So really, Draco might have gotten more out of it if he HAD confirmed Harry's identity. Hmm food for thought.

Second point, I'm not going to judge anyone in the fandom because of reasons stated above, but I will go so far as to say, please, if you don't ship Dramione, that's okay. Everyone has their own cup of tea, but please, do NOT claim that all of us (that every single one of us who happen to support this ship) are and I quote "are just a bunch of horny teenagers desperate for some pretty boy and pretty girl sex". That isn't fair and it frankly isn't true, so please don't. I know many wonderful people who have crafted amazing stories and shown great talent through their writing to express the complexities I've just spoken about.

I'll end by saying that we all have our ships, and that's okay. There's no real right or wrong inasfaras who you ship with whom. But it's a basic gesture of respect, I think, to let others love the pairings that they love. Spreading hatred, ill-will or just unkindness toward those of us who enjoy a particular ship, that's not cool and that's what brings us down in what should be something we all enjoy and go to find joy and share that joy with others.

Okay, it seems I really defended Draco more than Hermione here but I will die on this hill and defend my dorks. Fight me on it (joking here but really though. XD) Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

#my ramblings #dramione #draco malfoy #hermione granger #in defense of dramione #because i'm sick of seeing people throwing unnecessary shade on this beautiful fandom #thanks for coming to my ted talk

[powderblueblood]

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR EDDIE

— the 411 on the loser playboy of the midwestern world

Tagged by @jo-harrington & @deathbecomesthem who got this stunning prompt on the road, love this love youse

let’s talk MUNSON!

What story is he from? What kind of story is it (Fix-it fic, Older!Eddie, Rockstar!Eddie etc)? The Eddie darling that takes up prime real estate in my brain is of course Hellfire & Ice Eddie, which is a teen romantic-dramadey with sprinkles of crime capers on top. We meet him at 18 years of age, drug dealin’, Dungeon wheelin’, at the absolute top of his bottom of the food chain game. He’s all raw nerve and engine sputter, our consummate not ready for prime time player. He is brassy, ballsy, funny, terrified.

What inspired you to write this Eddie? Flight of Icarus, actually! It reignited my initial love for him by basically confirming what I had already known to be true—he’s a little bitch that’ll take any opportunity to be struck down lovesick and he’s doomed by his bloodline.

What are your favorite headcanons about him/share something you never shared in your story? Eddie runs on a full tank of defiance, just burning rubber against what’s expected of kids his age—but to zoom in? Eddie sometimes wonders what it would be like if he was different. Tried harder. Cut his hair, joined the basketball team, really pulled himself up by his bootstraps and divorced himself from his stain of a last name. Folded in and blended, made all the right moves. Why couldn’t I do that? he thinks, Just pretend. I’m good at making shit up. But that’s selling out. And Eddie Munson is no sell out—rap sheet or no, his life is his own.

What does he wear on a casual day? On a dressier day? What does he wear to bed? Casual day, it’s your cartoon character stock costume of insert band t-shirt here, ripped jeans there, doubled up battle vest and leather cut to top it all off. There might be a variant in jean shade but that’s it. He likes to stick to a look. The dressiest he’ll go (he does not own dressy clothes) is a black cable knit sweater, very old, with the thumb holes worried through the cuffs. To bed, preferably nothing, but boxers of absolutely necessary and a very old, ratty pair of flannel PJ bottoms and an old t-shirt or a faded sweatshirt of Wayne’s if it’s freezing.

Favorite foods? This FUCK loves a pizza with the most fuckass toppings. Anchovy, black olive, pepperoni, sweetcorn (for the vitamins!), pineapple (for the jizz thing!) all on the one pie. But he can cook, to an extent, and we unfortunately have to hand this to ex-line cook Al who taught him how to grill a cheese and make a bitchin’ spaghetti with honeyed tomato gravy and lots of oregano. Eddie also loves a snack he can gesticulate with, see: Twizzler, corn dog, ice pop. Bordering on phallic foods.

Tell Us About His Family/Friends: Immediately in the gene pool—Al, the absent and up-to-no-good father who somehow still has a knife in Eddie’s side and will twist it with the simple words, “C’mon, that’s my boy!” Wayne, uncle and father figure, silent but loving and the only real pillar Eddie could ever lean against, and he feels like such a burden for it sometimes. Elizabeth, mommy dearest and dead, canonised like a saint in Eddie’s mind, and might have been but also might not have been. The root of his love of music and his need to tell stories to survive. The found-by-the-hand-of fate family— Ronnie Ecker, the Stalter to his Waldorf, the Bonham to his Page, the only person he’d ever follow into battle because you wouldn’t think it but Ronnie, who is secretly rage akimbo, would accidentally lead that charge. He loves her like a sister, she loves him like a dog. Just kidding. Maybe. He wants to be Ronnie Ecker when he grows up. Granny Ecker comes as part of this deal, one of the people credited with whooping Eddie into shape. We don’t quite know what shape yet, it’s Picassoan in nature. Then, the extension again that is the great Corroded Coffin/Hellfire crossover event—Jeff, Cyrus, Dougie and Gareth. He’s not quite as close with the boys, but they’re good boys. They love and fear him, except for Cyrus who is a true enigma which pisses Eddie off because he’s supposed to be the fucking enigma here, dammit.

Yeah Yeah, he's a Metalhead. Tell Us MORE About His Taste in Music in your story: We are working off Flight of Icarus rules so he’s got a taste in the mouth for Howlin’ Wolf style blues, real down and dirty Detroit shit. He also loves a sleazeball, so enter Tom Waits and when he’s feeling REALLY sentimental, Leonard Cohen. Eddie loves to bite a thumb so he has some punk spinning too—Richard Hell, MC5, The Cramps, and reluctantly Iggy and the Stooges. They’re Al’s favourite so kind of tainted. Last but not least, I think that Johnny Cash’s Live From Folsom Prison album gets a lot of play. Particularly Cocaine Blues and Dark in the Dungeon, which he’s definitely incorporated into some campaign. He does NOT listen to CHICK MUSIC because he’s a loser boy (Wayne has a Linda Ronstadt record that makes him cry).

What are his views on romance? On sex? Eddie Munson falls in love fourteen times a day because at the be all and end all, he’s an artist and he’s sensitive as shit. Let’s get one thing straight—he can flirt to beat the band, once anyone gives him the time of day. Which they don’t. But in his mind? He’s a silver tongued Casanova. It’s just easier to use on people he hates. Once he has a crush, he has an obsession, even if he’s oftentimes too chickenshit to act on it. Cue pulling pigtails in the playground routine. He wants so badly to worship someone and be worshipped in return, okay, it’s reciprocal worshipping—give him mutual pathological obsession or give him DEATH. He wants to build a shrine, and will, to the right person. He’ll preoccupy his mind with every detail about them to the point where, yeah, it is borderline kind of stalkery but he’s still 18 years old. Speaking of, sex? Yeah, he’s done it. Badly. He’s like to do it again, goodly. He’d like to do it with someone that wasn’t treating it like an experiment, someone who’d let him slobber all over them and rut and keen and whine like the hound in heat he fucking feels like. He has no goddamn control! He experiences pleasure in a total headrush, never been able to stay cool and sexy and commanding a day in his life. He just wants, wants, wants and he burns so hot. Eddie wants so clumsily that it comes out at the most inappropriate times, like the nurse’s office after he gets his fist busted. He’s not some sex god, just some dick with an overeager cock. But he sure is willing to put in the work.

Is he optimistic or pessimistic? Pessimistic on the surface, the life is shit and then you die so might as well do some whippits poster boy but so so secretly, Eddie holds the tiniest flame of hope that someday, somehow, things will get better. At the very least easier. That he’ll grow into his bones somehow, or someone will help soothe him into them. That he’ll feel some kind of belonging. Because he does want that, really. Some soft place to land.

Where or with whom is he most comfortable? Those pockets of alchemy at Hellfire Club when he’s got a rapt audience. With Ronnie, sitting on the sagging couch outside his trailer. Playing chauffeur to a certain princess across-the-way.

What are his views of his future? What are his hopes/dreams? Pie in the sky? Cover of Circus with his cheeks out, duh. A Grammy or two, his own metal club, a published fantasy author, shit. He’s not askin’ for the world, here! But honestly, Eddie’s view of his future is 18 year old misanthropist bleak. He hasn’t even considered college as an option, not that he’d get there with his grades. He figures he might just start selling full time for Rick once (if) he graduates then hopefully have the good enough sense to take his money and split to Chicago or someplace. Might hit it lucky when he’s played in a couple more iterations of Corroded Coffin and con someone into letting him be a session guitarist—which wouldn’t be the cover of Circus, but would still be a huge deal! But as much as an ego game as he likes to talk, he’s got this terrible, looming feeling that he’ll never leave Hawkins alive.

What do you imagine his future looks like? (If your story is incomplete or if this would be a spoiler you're not willing to share, you can skip this question.) I’ll give you a couple details, because I am writing a sequel about this. Picture a brief stint in Indianapolis. Meaner, grizzlier, bartender-ier, going on a decade of heartbreak, performing at his sexual best but nearing burnout and about to turn 30 with some side dealings at home that are edging out of the side and into the forefront. Heavy is the hand that wears the ring. You look so much like your father!

Anything else you'd like us to know about your Eddie/your story? He is so full of love and piss and vinegar. He is going to end up cherished. Like, violently so.

Optional Vulnerable Question: Why do you write fics for Eddie Munson? I love a tragedy touched smartass who folds at the first sign of affection. I want to nourish him and eat him up like the witch from Hansel and Gretel. Or have Lacy do it for me, whatever.

tagging: YOU. READING THIS. Not KIDDING IF YOURE READING THIS GET TO WORK

#YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH BOYYYYYYYYYYYYYY #you can tell I came up through rp by reading this #wrote on mobile so if you see typos NO U DIDNT! #e. munson by powder #hai brainrot