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sighed-the-snake · 7 months

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Gun LOADED!

Many people are looking to the bullet catch scene to theorize that Aziraphale is going to fake Crowley's death in the next season, but I think there's another compelling scene from S1 that we should be looking at.

The one with the paintball guns, from S1.

Norm, from management, has a YELLOW cloth tied around his arm, as does the rest of his platoon. Yellow is known to be associated with Aziraphale, and by extension, angels. But I don't think this manager is representing Aziraphale. I think he is meant to represent Crowley.

"I wanted to be a graphics designer," he says. "Design LPs for the Rolling Stones."

Crowley was a graphics designer, of a sort. He made beautiful nebulas. I also think Crowley worked for management and held a high position.

"But the careers teacher said he hadn't heard of them. So I spent 36 years double-checking form BF-18."

The careers teacher is probably God. I get the feeling people in Heaven did not understand or appreciate Crowley's cleverness, didn't understand his work. Crowley was more of an artist than a bureaucracy guy. I wonder if becoming friends with 'Lucifer and the Guys' afforded him some professional freedom, a way to get away from form BF-18, as it were. Maybe Lucifer was his boss and allowed him to do whatever his little heart desired because having a clever subordinate who pulled off such complex work made him look good.

"They couldn't just say, 'Oh, Norman, we're giving you early retirement. Have a watch, bugger off and tend to your marigolds."

The mention of tending to marigolds is interesting here.

The British have something called gardening leave.

From wikipedia, "Garden leave (also known as gardening leave) is the practice whereby an employee leaving a job – having resigned or otherwise had their employment terminated – is instructed to stay away from work during the notice period, while still remaining on the payroll."

It's a sort of limbo period between leaving the company and no longer working for them. You don't go into the office, you're not allowed to contact your former business associates, but you're still getting paid, and you're expected to respond if they call you for assistance. Gardening leave could be a short period of weeks or months to let things calm down before you return because you screwed up, or it could be a prelude to getting fired, or forced into retirement.

Gardening leave sounds an awful lot like what Crowley has on Earth. He was literally sent to a garden to do a job, and he does not return to Hell after. He remains. He lives a posh life with a expense account and a lot of freedom compared to other demons. Furfur remarks on the unfairness of it. Crowley appears to be given assignments once in a while but otherwise I don't think much is expected of him - again, compared to other demons. We've seen the way they're crammed in down there.

(Why he's on gardening leave is a speculation for another day.)

"Well, if they want war," Norm says, knotting his RED necktie around his head, "we're going to give them war. Okay, guys, let's get the bastards."

Clearly, this is when Crowley in Heaven says to himself, "Fuck it, I hate these guys, let's brawl."

And then he turns around and is promptly shot in the heart by the RED team.

He staggers dramatically. He falls. We see the life leave his eyes.

Except it's a trick. One that Norm is not privy to. He thought he was dead as much as everyone else.

But Norm raises his head and looks, bewildered, at the bullet hole in his pocket. He's made a miraculous escape. It mirrors the age-old TV trope of having some hard metal thing in his pocket to deflect the bullet.

In a way, I think this is supposed to represent Crowley's fall from Heaven that he did not see coming, but with S2 and the bullet catch adding context, I think this entire scene holds more meaning.

The thing is, part of writing a good story is including echoes of your theme.

Every single romantic relationship in Good Omens mirrors Crowley and Aziraphale in some way (I'll write more on that later, probably).

Adam and his friends being reflections of the Four Horsemen.

The bookshop being an echo of Eden. The repetition of the "leaving the garden" theme at the end of both seasons, with S1 burning down the bookshop, and S2 with Crowley and Aziraphale leaving it behind.

Twice now, once in each season, there has been a theme of bullets, of getting shot, of miraculously not dying, and no one expecting it.

I'm pretty confident that in S3, Supreme Archangel Aziraphale is going to have his hand forced. He's going to have to execute Crowley for something he has done to meddle with Heaven's plans. And I think Aziraphale is going to have to pull a fast one with very little planning to fake his boyfriend's death.

I can picture it now, with Aziraphale saying something ridiculous to the crowd of witnesses like, "FLAMING SWORD LOADED!" to drop the hint, and the crowd sighs inwardly over what an idiot Aziraphale is, but Crowley looks at him like, "What the fu- oh, we're doing a bullet catch."

#good omens #good omens meta #good omens analysis #aziracrow #aziraphale #crowley #Fell the Marvelous makes for a terrible executioner

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insomniac-shado · 3 months

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A rant about Clockwork, Nina, and basically all the fem creeps.

I’m so tired of seeing people saying that Clockwork and Nina are mary sues to make fun of them/bring them down.

Because you know what? ALMOST EVERY POPULAR CREEPYPASTA IS A MARY SUE. There. I SAID IT. Toby, Jeff, both Jacks, Clocky, Nina, Jane, Liu, ALL OF THEM. And that’s what makes them FUN.

You cannot say Nina is a shitty mary sue and hate her but then love Jeff the Killer. You can’t say Clocky is a badly written character and then love Ticci Toby. Because they’re all badly written characters !! And they’re all very similar in the ways that they are badly written. Yet JUST the girls get overhated to death? It’s just fucking misogyny. Sorry to break it to you.

The treatment of the fem creeps in this fandom is fucking sad. For most of the fandom’s lifetime they’ve all been beaten down and hated and had their creators sent death threats and been harassed. Yet all the male creeps (some of which ARE MUCH WORSE) get treated like gods gift to mankind.

Im so happy that characters like Clocky and Nina are getting more love now. It warms my heart considering everything them and their creators were put through. But I’m still sick of seeing people hating on them, spreading misinformation, and mischaracterizing them simply for existing. It’s stupid and it makes me so fucking pissed.

Almost every character in this fandom is a bad character. They were all written by 12-14 year olds with little to no experience writing horror or even just writing in general. It’s not fair to push the girls down for this reason while lifting the men up when they all have almost the exact same flaws in their story.

They all have very traumatic backstories, usually not well written. Their mental illnesses are not portrayed realistically. The stories have bad grammar and spelling. They all succeed way too easily for their ages and situations. THESE ARE THE COMMON THEMES ALMOST EVERY STORY. YOU CANNOT SAY THAT CLOCKWORK’S INSANITY IS HORRIBLY WRITTEN AND THEN SAY TOBY’S IS AMAZING.

It’s honestly so fucking stupid and I’m tired of seeing it everywhere. You don’t have to like all the creeps obviously, everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But when it comes to this kind of hate and mistreatment I’m so done.

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lady-corrine · 6 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/lady-corrine/733420805658230784

No bc I've seen ALL of these and they make me violent, lmao.

Esp the "did Rhaenyra betray herself" one from the take, a supposedly "feminist" video essay channel.

They say that bc Rhae had bastards and had sex out of wedlock, she deserves to be punished just for not laying down and taking beatings and "being happy" with a man incapable of loving her ROMANTICALLY. No matter WHAT she did, she would have been usurped. Thats the WHOLE point of the story. 🤦

It's truly a sight to behold, isn't it? (in the worst way possible)

I admit I haven't watched any of those videos — I knew they would enrage me and they would waste my time, so there wasn't any point in doing it. Even so, there is much to unpack here.

The attitude towards Rhaenyra from supposed "feminists" is beyond upsetting. They want for Rhaenyra to be submissive, obedient, subservient, to "shut up and endure". In their twisted vision, this is what makes a woman "worthy" — biting her tongue and being a perpetual victim (you can see how sick this is).

For them, a man (say Robert Baratheon) can fuck around and have as many bastards as he wishes, but if a woman has sex outside of marriage they slut shame her and deem her not fit to rule.

Mind you, Aegon II is a canonical rapist on screen and a sexual abuser in the book. When they search for him in the book, they find him having sex with a 12 years old girl - let that sink in, please!

Rhaenyra has to be a paragon of morality and purity and virtue — not Aegon though! He's the true king because has a dick between his legs!

But somehow it is Rhaenyra — Rhaenyra who was forced into her marriage with a gay man, Rhaenyra whose sons were recognized and accepted by Laenor and Corlys as true Velaryons, Rhaenyra whose sons were, above everything else, her heirs, through her and her alone — that is the villain and the monster, and unworthy to rule.

And I wonder if these people's hatred for Rhaenyra isn't actually them projecting and hating the autonomy that Rhaenyra displays in refusing to comply with her unhappy situation/marriage. She seeks joy and pleasure elsewhere! She doesn't just sit there and take it! And they loathe her for it!

God forbid if you're a woman and love sex!

"How dare Rhaenyra have sex outside of marriage?" Ma'am, the Middle Ages called. They want their mysoginistic and patriarchal concepts back!

Even more, since in their perception Rhaenyra defies her "duty" through her body (by having extramarital sex), they cheer for her being tortured, enduring physical suffering and ultimately having a gruesome death (see here).

Rhaenyra being slut shamed is also, tragically, a regular and common theme in this fandom:

Are any more words nedeed?

What else is there left to say?

#it's so deeply sad 💔#I can't put into words #she deserves so much better than this disgusting fandom #rhaenyra my beloved I'll always protect you 🥺#rhaenyra targaryen #rhaenyra i #answered asks #asoiaf #hotd #anti aegon ii

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asha-mage · 7 months

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DELICIOUS LEWS THERIN AND ISHY SCENE

"I know how much you hate being alive. But I don't want to do this again." WOOF

Fascinating that this was apparently a targeted strike at the different Forsaken, probably picking them off before the strike against The Pit of Doom.

INTRO RETURNS AW YEAH

A part of me was kinda hoping for a new season 2 one with the Heroes of the Horn, but Spoilers probably meant it couldn;t be. Maybe next time. (Also the Aes Sedai one slaps anyways)

I will NEVER be able to forgive them for making so many hateable men so god damn hot, Bornhold topping the list. And by 'never be able to forgive' I mean 'never be able to thank enough'. (see also: Masema)

28 feels like to small a number of damane for the Seanchan to have in Falme, but I suppose it's a rough estimate and also not including those still in 'training'

The Watches Over the Waves have always been one of those loose threads that never really got touched on. Glad their getting a glancing shot here.

"Prophecies are just the lies of long dead witches" intereeeesting. Not a shocking take for the Whitecloaks to have.

AW YEAH THE MOST UNCOMFORTABLE ROAD TRIP EVER

Dang Lanfear cold blooded still.

Perrin and Avi! Aw yeah again!

......Interesting. What is that mist I wonder?

I continue to be so happy they nailed the Aiel so right.

Man Lanfear and Ishamael really sound like they ARE trying to seduce Rand to be their third.

FUCK that's clever (re: The Whitecloak smoke trick)

Their changing the framing of the Egwene rescue a bit, but their keeping Nynaeve's half of it pretty the same, so I'm hoping it will play out like in the books. Still one of my favorite scenes in the series.

Of course Ishamael steps out of that room and IMMEDIATELY knows that Lanfear is trying to play him

Mat! And Padan Fain! Surprised we aren't getting more of a reaction to Padan Fain is A Darkfriend from Mat, but that is a reveal that's pretty old to the audience at this point.

Moiraine and Lan! Platonic marriage re-established!

I like that they gave this speech to Loial re: heroes of a new age. It's very fitting for his character.

Offff. At least it's white cloaks so Egwene isn't going to have nearly as much guilt for slaughtering them.

FUCK

RANDA AL'THOR YOU ARE THE FUNnIEST PERSON ON THE PLANET

on the one hand i've always loved the Turak vs Rand duel, on the other....yeah probably does not have the sword trainining needed to do that this time round.

By Turak! At least you got to take Suroth down a peg this time!

Glad they kept the ritual suicide of the So'jhin re: Turak's death. It's one of those moments for hitting home just how fucked the Seanchan culture is.

.....Interesting choice to cut Ingtar's confession, especially after making a point to show the Shienar falcon early in the season. By Ingtar!

Oh hey Domon! You took Moiraine's advice I see.

'Take them to the deepest part of the ocean and dump them' Pffffffft. Peak Lanfear

MAY MAKING A NAGINTA WITH THE DAGGER IS SO A?UAHGAUSDUGHASUDGHASDGAUHSDGASUHFADSUHFASDFUH?ASDFASDFASDFAS

[It was at this point that I lost all coherence and stopped being able to liveblog effectively so here are some of my assorted post credits thoughts]

MOIRAINE AND LAN KILLING IT ONCE MORE

I have conflicted feelings about Egwene actually killing Renna, related mostly to the scene from the books being so important to the under laying themes of justice and fate, but I also can't deny that with it's shifted framing, it makes complete sense for the characters, and it heightens the ongoing theme of 'The Forsaken where to Lews what the EF5 where to Rand'.

I also have conflicted feelings about Nynaeve not being the one to heal Rand's wound, but I understand the logic of the choice, even if I don't agree with it.

On the other hand it is BRILLIANT AND INCREDIBLY SMART CHOICE to have Bornhold Senior be the one to kill Hopper, and Perrin to kill him in revenge. It's going to make the Two Rivers stuff A Lot More. It will also make Perrin's conviction to give himself up to the Whitecloaks make a lot more sense.

MAT BEING A HERO OF THE HORN IS INTERESTING BECAUSE MAT SPECIFICALLY WASN'T IN THE BOOKS- HE REFUSED REPEATEDLY THROUGH MANY LIVES. This lends credence to the 'future turning of the wheel' credence of the show which I've always favored anyways.

The scene where all these pivotal character moments are happening while Mat blows the horn, all these different arcs turning on their head, is SO FUCKING BRILLIANT

ALSO CONGRATS ON THE PROMOTION TO HERO OF THE HORN UNO

They don't specifically name drop any heroes in the scene, and I'll have to go back with X Ray to see if any are named, but THEIR SURE IS A BLONDE ARCHER LADY IN THAT SHOW SO FOR NOW HIGH BIRGITTE

ALSO HIGH ARTUR HAWKWING I ASSUME on the one hand it feels weird for your line to be directed at Mat instead of Rand. On the other your part in this scene originally was really just to drive home beyond any shadow of doubt, any ability of Rand to deny it to himself for a reason beyond stubbornness, that he was the Dragon. Rand's already accepted that here so you're not strictly speaking necessary for that, but still.

The shot where everyone is standing united against Ishamael is SO FUCKING GOOD.

Also by Ishamael! We'll see you in a few seasons in your newer, hotter, twinkier body!

(I don't envy the actor that has to live up to Fares Fares, it's going to be no easy task).

ALSO ENTER: THE OTHER FORSAKEN, dun dun dun!

Moggy fucking with Lanfear is so fucking good. FEED IT TO ME SLOWLY WITH GRAPES

GIRL SET HER TRAP AND WAITED FOR LANFEAR TO WALK INTO IT JUST SO SHE COULD GET THE UPPER HAND AND GLOAT IN AN OVERWHELMINGLY LESBIAN WAY WHAT AN ICON

Oh man I am going to rewatch and binge this entire season like FORTY TIMES.

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borninwinter81 · 2 months

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William Blake and Good Omens - an intertextual analysis

Please note: I did another version of this and posted it, but it was quite hurried, way too short, and was incorrect in a number of ways so I deleted it. However it had already been reblogged by the time i did so. If you happen to see another version of this meta that's not the right one, this is the version I'm happy with!

After my previous post re William Blake and Good Omens did so well, and so many people showed an interest I've decided to do a more in depth piece. This is focused upon the TV version of Good Omens, not the book.

Please don't tag Neil in this - although it's mostly textual analysis I do a very small amount of S3 theorising, and I know he doesn't want to see that.

I am in no way suggesting that Neil and Terry specifically wrote Good Omens with Blake in mind, I honestly just wanted an excuse to write more about Blake because I love his work so much, and I thought it would be interesting to try and apply some intertexuality since the works will contain similar themes, both being about God, religion, humanity, and angels and demons.

I also should stress that I am not an expert on Blake, there are people far more qualified to comment on him than I. I'm just a former literature student who loves his work.

There have been many different interpretations of Blake's work over the years, so it's completely fine to disagree with someone else's ideas about it, as with any work of art or literature. And although this piece is likely to be long, I'll barely be able to scratch the surface of all the possible meanings that could be ascribed to it.

Much like the old adage that if someone claims to understand quantum physics they're lying, I'm not sure anyone can truly fathom the full meaning of Blake's philosophy (especially in his later prophetic works, fuuuuuuck those beasts....), so if you're confused by him don't be discouraged, that's perfectly normal!

That being said, I wish to discuss the parallels between Good Omens and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, my personal favourite and probably the most accessible of his longer works.

"Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell."

This excerpt is from near the opening and sets out the central idea of the work - that there is an essential duality to humanity, and each person is a combination of extremes. These extremes are not at war with each other, but rather are equally necessary, hence the "marriage" of the title. "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is a metaphor for the human experience.

Consistently throughout The Marriage... Blake refers to the two extremes as Reason and Energy. These terms could be construed in a number of different ways: thought versus emotion, mental versus physical, restraint versus desire, temperance versus excess, caution versus impulsiveness, and following the rules versus free will.

Blake's use of the word "Reason" in this context may be somewhat confusing, however he likely chose it because of his negative feelings towards science and the Age of Enlightenment. Blake saw literal visions of angels and prophets and the divinity of all creation, and hated that science reduced everything to formulas, calculations, and materialism, leaving the world bereft of wonder. "Art is the Tree of Life. Science is the Tree of Death" as he put it.

His ideas about "reason" are best expressed by his painting "Newton". Though inspired by the scientist, it is not a portrait - instead it depicts a figure deeply engrossed in scientific drawings and calculations, totally ignoring the beauty all around him - see below.

In the context of The Marriage... Reason is "passive" because it involves thought, caution, self-restraint, and doing what you are told, all states which block action. Energy is "active" because it is physical, emotional, impulsive and allows you to act based on your own choices and desires. It's quite clear that Blake feels "energy" is the preferable state - he tells us as much in the next section:

"The Voice of the Devil

All Bibles or sacred codes, have been the causes of the following Errors. 1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul. 2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul. 3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies. But the following Contraries to these are True. 1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age. 2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy. 3. Energy is Eternal Delight."

So the body is an aspect of the soul, not separate from it, Energy comes from the body, it is Reason which places limits upon Energy, but Energy is eternal delight. Physicality, desire, impulsiveness, emotion, sensual pleasure and free will are not wrong or evil, they are aspects of the human soul and it is from them that we derive our enjoyment of life.

This does not necessarily mean that Reason is always bad. After all, Blake tells us that both are necessary for human existence. Sometimes temperance, caution and thought before action are required. But Reason becomes negative when it "usurps its place and governs the unwilling", i.e. when it completely supplants Energy and becomes the sole guiding factor, forcing passivity.

The Angels of The Marriage... are governed by "systematic reasoning", therefore they are wholly creatures of Reason. They are also "all religious" meaning they believe the "errors" stated above. His Devils by contrast "hate religion" meaning they believe the "contraries", which are the true statements according to Blake. It does not necessarily follow that they are wholly governed by Energy, merely that they believe Energy is "eternal delight".

It is worth noting at this point that Blake saw God and religion as totally separate. For Blake, "God" is that connection with divine wonder which was integral to his life; he tells us plainly that "all deities reside in the human breast" and that "the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God". In other words all humans have a direct and intuitive link with God and don't require the church, Priests, or a religious framework and adherence to a set of rules in order to reach moral decisions. These rules exist only to "enslave the vulgar".

The importance of this ability to make one's own choices about a moral course of action is shown by one of the "Memorable Fancy" sections of The Marriage...

Blake relates how a Devil is able to use an Angel's "systematic reasoning" against them:

"if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? Murder those who were murder'd because of him? Turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? Steal the labor of others to support him? Bear false witness when he omitted making a defence before Pilate? Covet when he pray'd for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments; Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules."

The Angel has no way to refute the "reasoning" that Jesus was governed by Energy and "impulse", i.e. his own morality, the "voice of righteous indignation", not reasoning and the rules laid down by Heaven. And because Jesus is the Messiah he must be virtuous, therefore Energy is virtuous. The Angel immediately allows himself to be consumed by fire and is resurrected as a Devil.

How can these concepts apply to the world of Good Omens? This was where my first draft was totally incorrect, as I tried to transfer Blake's ideas about Angels and Demons and Heaven and Hell wholesale, applying "reason" to Aziraphale and Heaven and "energy" to Crowley and Hell. In fact the divide is slightly different in the GO-verse: Crowley and Aziraphale *both* represent Energy, and it is Heaven and Hell that act according to Reason.

At first glance Aziraphale may appear to toe the line - he needs creative application of the rules to make him comfortable with trying to avert the apocalypse, and when he doesn't like the way matters are being handled by the Archangels he seeks a higher authority and goes straight to God. He'd clearly prefer someone to be confirming the rightness of his actions for him. However this doesn't mean that he won't act on his own.

Immediately upon his introduction to the story he has given away his flaming sword, an action that he took impulsively because he felt it was right, not because someone told him to. It bothers him, but he does it anyway.

In the Job storyline, though he initially looks for some loophole within the rules that will allow him to save Job's children, in the end he directly goes against Heaven to do it, even though he believes he is going to Fall and become a Demon for having done so.

Though he resists it and exhausts all other possible avenues first, he eventually does take an active role in averting the apocalypse in S1.

He hides Jim at great personal risk to himself and against the will of both Heaven and Hell, again because he feels it is the right thing to do.

He is therefore perfectly capable of independent action from a position of "righteous indignation".

On a more basic level, he enjoys worldly pleasures, which all come from "energy" according to Blake's philosophy. Food and drink most obviously, but also books, music, dancing, theatre, art and so on.

Crowley is more easy to place as acting from Energy - in spite of the obvious aesthetic differences between them, he also loves worldly pleasures. Alcohol and coffee, snazzy clothing, driving his car with Queen blaring on the stereo, going to lunch with Aziraphale, Shakespearean comedies. All things he isn't supposed to want or need, and which baffle other Demons, in the same way that Aziraphale's desire for food baffles the Angels.

And he's absolutely willing to act according to his own moral impulses when they conflict with Hell's orders (or Heaven's), be it saving Job's children, ensuring that Elspeth doesn't die by suicide, or averting the apocalypse. Yes, he'll try to hide his "good" actions in order to avoid punishment by Hell, but he's firmly "on his own side".

Conversely, Heaven and Hell are both part of the structure of religion in this story, are strictly adherent to a set of rules, and their inhabitants appear to have no real desires of their own, other than possible advancement within the systems they uphold. They are "passive" in that their functions allow the status quo to continue and the "great plan" to unfold as they believe it is meant to, even though each side expects a different outcome.

Again, applying Blake's philosophy, I would say the reason for this is that "energy is from the body". Crowley and Aziraphale have both been given bodies in order that they can exist on earth, and *have* existed on earth for 6000 years, therefore "energy" - physical pleasures and free thinking - have become a part of who they are.

On a more fundamental level, possession of a body can be equated to humanity, and humanity has been shown as the most powerful force of all in this story, its influence having led to Adam becoming "human incarnate", and thus acting according to what he feels is right, instead of fulfilling the function he was destined for.

Heaven and Hell contain no material objects, and the Angels and Demons are spiritual beings, having no bodies, so they are not open to energy, and therefore are wholly governed by Reason, and the preservation of the religious structures within which they exist. Structures which, as for Blake, may not actually have anything to do with God herself. In S1 she is a distant observer, clearly aware through her narration of all that is going on, but not interceding in any way. In S2 she is barely present save for her voice being heard briefly in Job, and overlaid with Gabriel's on two occasions.

Bearing all this in mind, what predictions can we make regarding S3 by applying Blake's philosophy?

"The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.

For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at [the] tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finite and corrupt.

This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment."

The parallels of the cherub with his flaming sword, and the passage of 6000 years should be obvious to anyone reading this - they have of course been lifted directly from the Bible as they are in GO.

I have read some metas which speculated that Aziraphale's bookshop, or perhaps Earth itself, is a metaphorical stand-in for Eden or The Tree of Life. Aziraphale has been commanded to leave his "Eden" and will now be instrumental in causing the whole of creation to become infinite and holy, but Blake tells us this will be done by an improvement of sensual enjoyment, which arises from Energy not Reason.

Sensual enjoyment is something which is intrinsic to Aziraphale's character, and this could make his placement in Heaven very important.

Putting aside all the "final fifteen" theories and taking matters at face value, Aziraphale tells us that if he's in charge he can make a difference - he needs to subvert the system from the inside out. The most subversive thing of all could be that a sensualist who acts according to "the voice of moral indignation" and "Energy" has become the supreme Archangel. We have seen in Blake how a realisation that Energy could be virtuous was enough to convert an Angel into a Devil (incidentally, does the image of an Angel being consumed by fire and emerging as a Devil seem familiar at all...)

We may have seen the beginnings of this already. Gabriel and Beelzebub became open to Energy from such little things as visiting earth, spending time in one another's company, and their mutual enjoyment of a song, which has given them wants and desires beyond those dictated by Heaven and Hell. This is enough to make them wish to leave their roles behind.

It's possible that the same may happen with Muriel. They haven't yet imbibed food or drink, but they have shown an enjoyment of books, which are an earthly pleasure, and open the reader up to new ideas and ways of thinking.

Of course, this would lead to questions regarding the Metatron's statement that he has "ingested things", and whether this means he is acting from reason or energy. Of course the simplest explanation is that it is a manipulation tactic, and he is lying about having done so, but if true that statement has some interesting implications. However, this is now super-long and I'm out of juice, so will leave others to speculate. I may return to this in the future!

There we go, hope you enjoyed. I doubt this will reach nearly as many people as my first Blake post, but if a few find it of interest then my work is done!

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superectojazzmage · 5 months

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Of everything that happens in the new issue of Immortal Thor, this scene stands out the most to me as something I feel will be one of the most important scenes of both the issue and the run as a whole.

In the very beginning of gods, of Earth, of humanity, of stories, among the very first incarnations of the archetypes that Thor and Loki embody - the mighty warrior and the devious trickster - see each other and immediately get into a fight out of sheer revulsion of everything their twin stands for.

Good vs evil. Light vs dark. Order vs chaos. Brawn vs brain. Control vs freedom. Life vs death. Fate vs choice. Peace vs war. Mundanity vs magic. Law vs crime. Creation vs destruction. Love vs hate. And many more. Clashing opposites, battling for supremacy. A cycle of violence and debate passed down the generations, from father to son, mentor to student, predecessor to successor, and so on. Brother waging battle against brother just to prove a point, to fulfill their role in the story. An ideological blood feud applied to archetypes and titles and narratives. Trickling all the way down into it's present expression... Thor and Loki.

Already it's clear that cycles of this sort are going to be a very large theme of Immortal Thor. The concept of recurrences and stories being retold over the years have been talked about a lot by the narrator. The comic goes to great lengths to draw attention to how Thor and his cast and, by extension, their own world in the form of comics are falling into patterns that transcend through time. And I feel that's going to be the crux of a great deal of the plot.

Loki hates the cycle. In their roles as both the goddess of stories and the god of mischief, they abhor stagnation and repetition. They want to be free of the roles "assigned" by the narrative. They want to be free of the debate, the never-ending battle of good and evil that ha destroyed their family time and again. Thor would want to be free of it too, if he realized he were part of it. But he struggles to do so. He's a rock in the sea of time. A god among mortals, a child of two worlds watching in confusion and grief as his human friends age and change and die around him while his divine brothers and sisters continue to stay the same. In this, they are trying to do what Gaea wanted to do but couldn't; to break the cycle.

Toranos and Utgard-Loki don't want to break the cycle. They ARE the cycle. Embodiments of the sins of the forefathers carrying down to their children. Representations of the archetypes of Thors and Lokis at their absolute worst, shorn of all true depth and compassion and true belief in their aspects in favor of continuing the godforsaken argument. Shades of the old festering in the blood of the young, infesting them with their baggage, holding them back from growing better, and lashing out at them when the new generations fail to meet the standards of the elders. And they may not even realize they're doing so.

This isn't the first time this theme has come up in Al Ewing's work.

Immortal Hulk presents the conflict between the Hulk and his archenemy, the Leader, as a similar generational feud. Both in a literal familial sense (the Banner and Sterns families being divided and warring after Robert and Samuel Sterns turn on each other) and a larger ideological sense (people using the power of gamma for good or ill, going all the way to the first Hulk being born from a leader's selfish desire to misuse magic as a tool of conquest). Sometimes the thoughtful man is the hero, sometimes the brute is. But they always fight. Senselessly and pointlessly. And the Green Door and the horror it brings was only stopped... by breaking the cycle. By defying it. By Hulk choosing to never sink to Leader's level, or those of his predecessors, and instead choose to forgive.

And Ewing makes clear cycles and wars spanning centuries like this are common in the Marvel Universe. The Eternity Mask is passed down generations of men and women, always fighting for freedom against those who would deny it. Nick Fury passes his name and identity and role onto his son. There's always an Ant Man, inheriting their predecessor's problems, and there's always an Ultron, trying to claim dominion. Arakko and Krakoa alike are divided between those who hold to the old ways and those who seek new ways. Ebony and Ivory Kings do their work, from within and without. On and on, the wheels turn.

It even goes back to the very beginning. To prior multiverses. All tracing back to the first super battle, the first superhero and first supervillain - Lifebringer-One and Anti-All, the cosmic knight and the entropic dragon - fighting for the fate of the nascent world.

Effectively, Ewing views and represents the narratives of superhero comics as we know them, as a sort of repeating song. The metatextual commentary is that all this has happened before and will happen again, because humanity will always dream of heroes battling monsters. There will always be a knight and a dragon. A warrior and a trickster. A superhero and a supervillain.

But he also acknowledges how this can go too far. How comics can fall into stagnating loops of repeating stories and stall status quos. Spider-Men being denied their stories because editors want to live in nostalgia instead of the now. X-Men getting their progress towards coexistence undone because writers can't handle change.

And this is all what Immortal Thor is about and will be about. The struggle for balance between opposites and extremes. Cyclical narratives and worlds. Ideas and stories being inherited and passed on. And all of it a commentary on comic books themselves and their history and role in culture.

It's brilliant stuff.

#immortal thor #the immortal thor #thor #mighty thor #thor odinson #loki #loki laufeyson #marvel #marvel comics #marvel 616 #earth 616 #marvel universe #al ewing #comic books #comics #media analysis #character analysis

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monstrouslyobsessed · 1 year

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Concept : Reader is a shrine priestess and have a crush on the shrine priest. But he is so powerful that people made a contract with the snake demon. They let him eat the priest in exchange for not attacking the village. The priest tried to fight the snake, but he was defeated. The villagers cut off his arms, so the snake can eat him better. Reader tried to save him, but was locked away in the shrine. But the priest cursed the village and his fused with the snake making him a snake monster he killed all the villagers and cut off six arms to replace those he lost. And now he can claim his sweet shrine maiden all for himself. (Sorry if its quite long and detailed, do as you wish) Thanks! —anonymous

—a/n: alright, i’ll bite and do this one with my own take, but please add the source behind such suggestions next time lol this one is originally from the compilation manga ive read forever ago, Hachishaku Hachiwa Keraku Meguri (TW!!! under-age, noncon, horror, extremely dead dove!!!), specifically the 4th story. i…don’t recommend reading every story btw, some of them are very…yikes, but the 4th one is pretty good if you can get past a certain issue (namely, the mc’s vague age range). the main difference is that the monster is a woman and mc’s a guy.

if you want my personal recs, stick with reading 3rd (the statues, is okay), 4th (6-armed snake lady, fave if only because of the monster’s beautiful design and backstory but wished the mc would be someone older), and 5th (swamp-worm monster in the forest, warning, pregnancy/birthing is involved, is okay) story and ignore the rest. 2nd (the monster on the road) is okay, actually, but i hated the monster’s creepy old man design lol rest is just a big fat no to me for various reasons.

anyway….i rambled enough. i think…i might actually keep this character, even if he isn't entirely original and is (almost) literally the genderbent version from the manga. i actually envisioned him with dark-colored skin though. hm, so the setting might even be different! i’ll let yall decide~enjoy!

—tw / tags: gn reader, horror, gore, violence, imprisonment, neglect, implied multiple deaths, amputations, general yandere themes, sfw…ish

—featured character(s): 6-armed snake-god / cursed priest

You can hear the screaming in your ears, the horrible gut-wrenching shrieks heralding the arrival of death. The earth rumbled distantly beneath your feet, striking unspeakable fear in your cold veins, pounding your heart, and your empty stomach twisting with nausea. You shuddered and your voice came out weak, dehydrated, “N-no…”

Raking your throbbing nails down the wood, bloody raw from scratching and pounding on the chained door, you fell to your knees and bowed your head. You’ve warned them, that the demon would not accept the trade—or that the priest wouldn’t retaliate in some way. A choke erupted from your dusty throat at the vision of the priest you cherished so, so much flashed within your mind.

His warming smile and the crinkles in the corners of his eyes, had transformed into something wrathful and malicious. His expression became one that spoke of murder, of dark, malevolent intent, as the hateful village men severed his arms and fed him into the yawning mouth of the snake-god. It wasn’t his cruel fate that had broken your heart and shattered it into pieces though.

The very moment before he disappeared into the slicked depth of the demon’s belly, the priest saw you and wore a horrified face. With blood tears running down his eyes, he interrupted his furious cursing with a soft whisper of your name. You remembered screaming through your tears and fighting against the fisted hands of burly men then, when the snake-god folded its mouth shut and swallowed him whole.

That was the last you’d seen of him and wept his name as the men dragged you from the forest clearing, satisfied that you were too weak to save the one they all feared.

He shouldn’t have died fearing for you.

As they’d thrown you into the dilapidated shrine, you were numbed with fury and sorrow and shouted that the demon would hunger for their flesh once more, that the priest had cursed them all, when they slammed the door shut and leave you for the dead. Your pleas and cries grew hoarse as you screamed your grief to the sky. There was no reply, only jeers from the village in the distance, as if laughing about your foolishness, that you shouldn’t have fallen in love with the priest.

Their cruelty was beyond your comprehension

You had no idea how long time had passed, there was no light in this rotting shrine, not even a single peek of any warm sunlight or the moon’s soft glow. There was no water, for your throat ran dry and your skin tightened on your bones, and there was no food as your stomach stopped rumbling some time ago. The villagers intended to let you die alone, pitifully and bitterly alone.

It could’ve been days, it could’ve been weeks, when you rose your head from the coarse ground, confused. Weakly, your hand reached towards the wooden door, and your calloused fingers traced around its edges, feeling along the rough surface and finding the raw marks you left behind, until they settled on a crook. Something familiar electrified the air, the sense of power pressed into your senses. You furrowed your brows—before fear sunk in your nerves once more.

The demon had returned to welt its hunger.

Screams followed and you remained in the shrine, with no more tears to shed. You couldn’t weep for the cruel men and your tongue was too dry for you to utter even a single prayer for the innocent children you once tended to. You bowed your head between your knees, but you were still alive.

You still knew fear, trembling with the desire to live.

Your hands were shaking wildly, but you forced them back into prayer as the screams continued unabated. The walls rattled with thunderous crashes. Louder and louder, until finally, after hours of agony, they stopped. Silence followed.

Only silence and the smell of blood, lingered. And an ominous feeling.

You slowly rose from your hunched position, your gaze fixed on the wooden door. The air had turned heavy with tension, and the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end. Something approached, quietly grinding the pebbles and dirt underfoot as it moved closer and closer.

Somehow, the walls started swaying and the sound of cracking timber reached your ears, rising above the deafening sounds of your heartbeats and your shuddering breathing. You clasped your hands into a prayer once more and begged the gods to answer, to spare you from the belly of the snake-god. Your prayers became desperate begging, for mercy.

As if in response to your prayer, the ceiling creaked and groaned and a low growl emanated from above. Your eyes widened, and you stumbled backward, barely catching yourself on a nearby pillar. The walls rumbled, and cracks began appearing along the floorboards.

Then, the light.

It cut into the pitch-black darkness you’d been trapped in for days and blinded you. Clasping your hands over your eyes, wincing in discomfort as if light burned you, something exploded overhead, shattering the roof tiles and raining tiny chunks onto your head. You flinched at the loud noise, shielding your face and ducking your head between your legs from any further danger.

As the crackling groan quietened, you remained still—half expecting the pain to cut into your skin and long teeth tearing into your brittle flesh. But, silence hangs thickly above into the air. As if in waiting for you to unveil your eyes to the world.

You hesitated, before slowly lifting your head, squinting and blinking against the light. When you adjusted to the brightness, you blinked and saw shadows. Shadows cast by a massive serpentine being coiling amidst the splinters and rocks littering the ground all around you, staring down at you with glowing golden eyes.

Your breath caught in your throat and you staggered forward, your arms reaching above your head, “—! You…you came back…?” Your words broke and dissolved into hiccupping sobs that shook your frail frame.

Long discolored arms distended from the being’s side, wrapping around you in a dangerous embrace. The priest’s pale face buried into the crook between your neck and shoulder, nuzzling into your dirt-caked hair and releasing a deep purr. Its body vibrated and you felt yourself being lifted from the ground. Your arms instinctively snaked themselves tighter around its thin neck, your cheek pressing against its strangely scaled skin, and you squeezed your eyes tightly shut. “Don’t leave me…please don’t leave me again…” You cried, with rivers of tears falling down your cheeks.

Tears you thought were completely dried out.

This was not the priest you remembered, his ashen body protruding from the mouth of the dead-eyed snake-god, his grin jarring with a smile too large for his handsome face, and having a few arms too many stitched to his sides. But as his fiery golden eyes warmed and his touches overly gentle on your skin, you knew. This was the same man you loved, the very man who never ceased to cherish you and always looked for ways to make you smile on bad days. Even after all this time. Even when everything else changed, he remained steadfast, loving, and kind.

—though, only to you, as he held you as if you were the most precious jewel in his world. Despite his loving gaze, he was dressed in the blood and guts of those he’d gleefully slaughtered for their slights against him, glimmering on his eternally long tail in the moonlight. Yes, he gripped your tiny body tighter to his emaciated body, all he’ll ever need is you.

—end

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k-marzolf · 11 months

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Monsters in the Dark #19

Dark themes, ptsd, nightmares, abandonment issues, language, fear, fem!reader.

@idaofinfinity @e-dubbc11 @rosaleenablack

Billy tossed and turned, a cold sweat breaking out over his body. He couldn’t find you. His heart raced, as adrenaline coursed through him. He called for you and called for you. Nothing. He ran around an abandoned looking hotel, frantic. The silence was deafening.

He tried to calm himself, use tactics that they’d taught him in the Marines, but he was too frantic.

Attachments were a weakness, and he’d created his own with you.

Sometimes it looked like you’d ghosted around a corner, but you were never there. All he heard was the whistling of the wind. It was maddening.

Billy woke up gasping for air, and reaching across the bed for you. It was empty.

He wiped sweat from his brow.

Fuck.

What if it was real? What if someone had taken you? He remembered climbing into bed with you, but nothing felt real right now.

He threw the duvet off, bolting out of the bedroom. There you stood in the kitchen at the fridge, a spoon in your mouth as you looked up at him, innocently.

“Billy?” You asked, pulling the spoon out of your mouth.

He moved around the island countertop, and grabbed you, crushing you to him. His heart rate returned to normal, feeling your very real form against him.

“What’s wrong, Billy?” You asked, letting him hold you, peeking up at him.

Billy licked his lips; “Couldn’t find you,” he rasped, clinging to you. “I don’t believe in fairytale endings, life has proven time and again that nothing lasts forever. I know someday we’ll be parted from each other, but I thought it came sooner than I expected.” Billy explained, hating how desperate he sounded. He hated being weak.

“Don’t say that. I’ll fight Heaven and hell itself to make sure we’re together forever. Never gonna let Billy go.” You whispered, clinging to the spoon in your hand, and to him.

God, you made him want to believe in forever. But it had never been proven to Billy. He remembered getting free ice creams from this kind older black man when he was still in the group home. But one day he died because he’d gotten shot accidentally in a drive by.

The one person who cared about Billy had been cruelly ripped from him. Billy just knew someday you’d be ripped from him just like Mr. Avery.

That his enemies would either kill you, or old age or illness would take you, or maybe you’d just leave someday, tired of him.

Billy kissed you, fingers digging into your hips. “You swear?” He rasped.

“I swear. I’m with Billy until only death parts us.” You said, and waved the spoon in his face. “Want some ice cream?” You grinned trying to lighten the mood.

Billy smiled, relaxing. “Yeah, baby.” He hummed, “I’d love some.”

So there the two of you ended up, at half past two in the morning, sharing ice cream.

For now, Billy was content not to think about the past or the future, but to just enjoy the moment with you.

For now.

#billy russo #billy russo x reader

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deusexlachina · 5 months

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Cheeseaged Exocolonist Age 15: Use my transcendence of time to cheat at cards

In which I befriend a furry by financially ruining him, in order to reach my full potential and ascend as an autistic god.

Year 15 starts with your home in ruins. There's no special dialogues, and only two ways to pass the first three months: help rebuild or mourn. I choose to mourn, because this is Sol's first time experiencing death (in this lifetime), and because, having maxed out Organizing, rebuilding is highly suboptimal, whereas mourning lets me avoid stress and trim my deck of useless non-blue filth.

Because I chose the sportsball, I find it when sifting through the rubble of my room and get this rather sad dialogue.

Mourning gives you many opportunities to level your Empathy. However, because I have the In Mourning status, all my stat increases are reduced by 1, rendering every single one of these +1 boosts completely worthless.

This always happens, because Kom always dies. I'm not sure if this was an attempt to really underscore how hurt Sol is, an oversight, or a straight-up troll.

After three months of developing my Empathy in nonexistent amounts, the Heliopause arrives, and Sol's home is gradually taken over by fascists who enthusiastically spread disease, worship the military and hate transgender people. I enjoy visual novels because it's a fun escape from the problems of the real world.

Fortunately, there are exactly two nice Helio kids, Nomi and Rex. Nomi is an nonbinary AuDHD techie and Rex is a furry engineer. Rex often reminds you that he is part dog, in case you had missed the ears. His dog traits include a reduced lifespan. This is not, to be clear, a setting where people just have mutations. This was a deliberate genetic augmentation. Someone purposefully made their kid part-dog. Incidentally, Nomi likes anime, so here's a panel from one of my old favourites, Fullmetal Alchemist. They've never seen that one, so really this picture wasn't relevant. Sorry.

I improve my friendship level with Rex by giving him sticks, his favourite item because he is part dog. Rex is easier than most to befriend because he enjoys physical affection, because he is part dog. I love Exocolonist, so rather than saying anything bad about the game here, I will reiterate that my favourite character is Tangent, because she's a complex person with a well-integrated character arc in dialogue with the central themes. The writers really took their time to make a fleshed-out character with deep relationships with the others and multiple character traits.

Once I have high enough friendship with Rex, he wants to play cards with me. I wait to play cards with him until after Vertumnalia, where I beat both Tangent and Nomi at the trivia game. The card you get from doing Trivia is worth 8, making it as powerful as the card you get for defeating a giant in a fight to the death. Better yet, it's blue. Why do I keep picking blue cards? You're about to see.

After Vertumnalia, I am Popular because of my detailed knowledge of pop culture trivia. I would fit right in on Vertumna, except it is currently ruled by fascists. We'll take care of that, but first we need to arm ourselves. Popularity doubles the amount of kudos you get for three months. From all sources. Now's the time to take Rex up on his offer to play cards. Rex is good at cards, but he has one critical weakness: he's playing against someone who has played this particular game countless times. I use my past-life knowledge to win the game, betting 100 kudos that I have a better card.

Sorry, make that 200. Sucker.

I now have a vast wealth of kudos, most of which I gained from cheating at cards by consulting my past lives. With this ill-gotten fortune, I buy the ultimate weapon in the game, which is surprisingly not the Drone Rifle, an actual gun. It is a "vintage focus device," a fidget spinner. Because Sol is very autistic indeed, a fidget spinner allows her to reach her full potential by letting her stim. Accessibility tools being a luxury you have to buy - in fact, the most expensive luxury in the game - paints a very bleak picture of the colony's ability to handle disability.

That would be just a joke, but Nougat's learning disability, Tangent's drug abuse and burnout, Dys' (potentially literal) alienation and Tammy's phobia of nearly everything all go pretty much neglected unless you step in. It's interesting how much Vertumna recreates the same oppressive structures that it is an attempt to flee from.

Fortunately, we can get rid of ableism through autistic world domination, to which we are one step closer.

#cheeseaged exocolonist #iwatex #excolonist spoilers

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ayuventi · 8 months

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So I’m taking a very small break from my tumblr hiatus to literally talk about the new opening and my thoughts about it bc I HAVE A LOT!!!

(Keep this Enso in mind from the opening and how the trail of the Enso continues onwards)

Under the cut for spoiler talks (for both anime and manga)

Okay so I apologize if this is a bit all over the place but please bear with me.

Something I noticed about Wano as that in a whole, is that it brings up circular natures of each character’s arcs and the story of finding as a whole as we saw through the flashback of what started 20 years prior with Gol D. Roger and his crew.

Every character got something depicted in their character arc that circles back to something in their past in Wano. Obviously the red scabbards doesn’t need much introspection I’m this regard outside of momonosuke, so I’m going to be focusing here on The Strawhats, Law, Kid, Yamato, and Momonosuke.

I’m going to start off with Yamato because of a key factor that I think really was subtle but adds so much to it. As we all know, Yamato when we were introduced to him, had chains on his hands. He was chained to Onigashima (a lone island which is important) at a young age. Now obviously, Yamato was meant to continue that theme of wanting to carry on Oden’s will but he was forcibly shackled there and to the past. Even when you see him with Ace, he’s still shackled and can’t break free of it until after Ace’s death when Luffy comes in and breaks those chains.

Luffy breaking those chains, and Luffy as a whole, was meant to be, of course, the symbolism of of freedom by him breaking the chains of what has bound ppl to their pasts and strive for the freedom to do as they please or move forward from the circular cycle or bonds of the past. This, along with Wano, is where the small trail from the Enzo I believe is impactful. Because every single character got some kind of development in their character that breaks them free from something that limited them or chained them to their past in Wano.

Zoro reaffirming his promises by becoming the King of Hell to better protect and carry out the promises that he made. Not only to his best friend, his captain, but also now to himself and his crew.

Sanji coming to terms with his past and moving forward with the knowledge that he may still have been modified as well but that will never define him, but rather have him tools to fight better to protect his loved ones.

Chopper with combating a virus while on the verge of becoming an ice oni (much in the same way Hiriluk was fighting against time to come up with a way to save people) and then find a cure with the chopperphage nebulizer that also was a pink cloud similar to the Sakura cloud that was set off when he left, formerly drum island.

Robin being entrusted by her friends and helping Sanji who called out for her, and thereby unlocking Demonia Fleure by also facing her past and breaking through the thoughts that her life doesn’t matter.

Brook with seeing the ppl of okobore town weren’t allowed to mourn for ppl that were lost but also being forced to face his past and know he’s got new friends to rely on and fight for.

Jinbei confronting Who’s Who and the battle where the Sun god Nika becomes a focus and him literally breaking Who’s Who with the visage of Fisher Tiger when he activated his own armament haki in regards to his past as a slave.

Usopp confronting his fears and becoming more and more brave and choosing to fight when he saves Kin’emon and Kiku, saying he hates the old traditions of simply laying down your life but rather you should fight to live.

Nami with saving Otama but also standing her ground in the face of potential death (much in the same way that Bellemere had for her and Nojiko) along with the declaration that Luffy will be king of the pirates when she formerly hated pirates.

I will get to Franky more in a moment, but the trust his friends had in his creations being something to save them rather than just being used as a weapon when Usopp and Chopper battled Big Mom.

Law not only made the decision that he wants to now live on and find out why he had to live his checkered life but also gave a very stunning tribute to Corazon who fought for him to live and be free.

Kid was forced to face the consequences of making the alliance with Apoo and Hawkins but broke from that by also developing a trust in the Strawhats and Law by fighting alongside them as allied rivals.

Momonosuke of course being the son of Oden and now finding his own will to live on and continue to carry on his father’s will by choosing to live and eventually, in the future, opening the land of Wano.

Now, here’s the biggest thing. Onigashima started on its own separate island, but has now moved onto the main landmass of Wano. What else lies on Wano, or rather below it?

Pluton.

I said I would elaborate more on Franky later but I’m also going to touch upon Law in this part as well. Franky as we know completely ripped up the documents regarding Pluton way back in water 7. I also wouldn’t be surprised perhaps if the Water in Law’s name holds some relevance to that and Water 7 as he is the surgeon of Death. Reason for this connection I’m proposing is because of this shot here in the opening which I don’t feel is coincidental if the them of the opening is anything to go off.

Now that the circular shackles have been broken, we are now moving away from the past cycles and forward into the new paths for each character and the story itself. I think the opening did a beautiful job of showcasing that this is the completion of what was started 20 years ago by Gol D. Roger and is now gearing us up for the path we’ll get to watch as the Strawhats move to find the One Piece.

Anyways, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

#one piece #one piece meta #one piece spoilers #one piece 1074 #one piece opening

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winterpinetrees · 6 months

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Here’s chapters 3-6 of the Silmarillion. I am having so much fun with this fantasy history textbook! Unfortunately I have basically no one to talk to about it.

Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor

Sauron mention!

I see how Tolkien wrote himself into a corner with the Orcs. He can only justify their constant deaths if they’re pure evil, but they are the descendants of kidnapped elves, and hate Melkor deep down.

I get that “lay upon his face” probably means a low bow, but it’s still a really funny line. The god of evil is just on the floor.

I get that this is pre-history and none of the Valar can comprehend evil, but Melkor is responsible for all evil ever. Maybe he should have been killed.

Why do all the names of the elf kings end in wë. Is Manwë biased towards them for having similar names to him? Thankfully I’m taking notes!

Dark elves and light elves! Like Norse mythology!

Of Thingol and Melian

Nice job getting seduced, Elwë. Maybe being one of the Sindar will save you from whatever tragedy happens with the eponymous silmarils.

Of Eldamar and the Princess of the Eldalie

I am really enjoying this theme of the ocean representing secrets and lost things.

It seems like Valinor is going to be the setting of most of the drama, while most of Middle-Earth is abandoned to Melkor.

Círdan!

White Tree of Numenor? Like the one in Gondor?

The Noldor are all linguists. Nice one Tolkien.

oh god. this paragraph is just a list of a dozen elf men with one character trait each.

SEVEN SONS? why Tolkien. why.

Maedhros has a cool name. Its recognizable! UNLIKE FINARFIN AND FINGOLFIN.

Galadriel?

Honestly seeing Cirdan and Galadriel here is terrifying, because now I know that characters from this era can show up in lotr. They haven’t all peacefully disappeared west or anything. The only thing keeping all dozen of those elf men from the end of the third age is an extremely high casualty rate.

Of Feanor and the Unchaining of Melkor

The first elf to die, dies in childbirth. You’ve got to be kidding me.

The fact that Feanor is described as having a fiery spirit every single time he’s mentioned? When fire so far has only been associated with Eru and Melkor? Terrifying. I know he makes the silmarils and causes every problem but I’m still worried.

Feanor is someone’s first elf oc. He’s literally tall, dark, and handsome with piercingly bright eyes.

Melkor’s out! That’s bad!

Poor Nerdanel. Wise, patient, strong of will Nerdanel. A fellow smith doomed to try and tame a husband who’s associated with the divine fire, just because she’s a woman and this is an old story. I hope she makes it out of this mess alive. I have no hope for her husband or sons, but maybe she and Galadriel can be Final Girls together. Probably not.

#by me #j r r tolkien #tolkien #the silmarillion #readingthesilmarillion #does Nerdanel have a tag?#nerdanel

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50cal-fullauto-astarion · 6 months

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Going all out on this because Dot did an amazing job with these questions:

🧩, 🦴, 🥝, ❄️ & 🦷 for the ask game, please <3!

KEZ YOU OUT HERE SPOILING MEEE 🥰🥰💖💖

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

9 times out of 10 it’s either first person POV, a character waking up for the day age describing themselves as they look in a mirror, or WALLS of text. Formatting and first paragraph will always destroy my perception of a fic, and it doesn’t matter how good it is even two sentences after that.

Another more esoteric thing is any kind of dad’s best friend or stepfather or barely legal/he’s too old for me trope. I think those are literally the most vile fucking shit, and I just block on site. And I’m all for taboos, and people writing what they want, but I’ve never seen that shit written well nor on a blog that isn’t sparkly and pink and giving off major DDlg vibes. Fucking stomach turning.

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?

Answered this guy here! But I’ll add a few others that aren’t pieces of media dfhj. The words: abattoir, incandescent, butcher, slaughter, dappled. Different deep jewel shades of blue and green. Animal eyes. Bones in odd places. Videos of interesting women cooking. Dreams about: mothers, children, fire, the apocalypse, all my lost true loves, every corner of the town I visit that I should mark on map.

🥝 ⇢ do you lie a lot? what’s the most recent lie you told?

I lie quite a bit, but it used to be that almost every word out of my mouth was an exaggerated abs pointless lie dfhjd. Yay growing up in dysfunctional household! These days I’m much more conscientious and purposeful about being honest, and I’m always trying to improve, just going with white lies about stuff at work to make my life easier (“I need to use the restroom” means I’m going for a smoke), or at home to keep things smoother (“They were out of X creamer” means I forgot).

Most recent lie was this evening when I told my sister I had left the store and I couldn’t get her a certain brand of energy drink, but I was in the checkout line and didn’t want to go back through lmao.

❄️ ⇢ what’s your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

HO BOY SO MANY DFHJ. These are more vibes than anything solid sfhj. In alphabetical order:

@alittleposhtoad grieving in a cold place, love that has kindling in friendship, oranges peeled by one set of hands for another, tea in an old electric kettle on a black night, you can always come home here and home is what you call my head on your chest.

@dotcie two weirdos walk into a dive bar, and their mutually assured obsession exhibits as mutually assured destruction, sweating under a street lamp in a town where tourists don’t go at 3am with a man you swore you’d never see again, bedsheets they smell like sweat and home under an open window.

@kastlequill cannibalism as a type of taboo and closed religion, rage wielded elegant and precise like a blade, thought put into evils until they’re extrapolated into facets of humanity, the dichotomy of suffering as holiness and pointlessness, dangerous men they have either accepted or full on love the blood in their mouths, cities at sunset with the lights glittering on.

@parttimeprophet hey babe hehe. Animal hated paid back in animal brutality, cold women with colder determination, hell and religion and the death of god and the apocalypse, lipstick that glimmers like rubies, men that love the collars around their necks.

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

More wisdom: take breathers as much as you can in any area of life - steal then when you can at work, in hobbies, in talking, in cleaning - whether it’s 5 mins or 5 months, you need to rest, shit will be waiting for you when you get back. Don’t write down anything you don’t want read. Horses and boats are fun hobbies, but you can have the same financial experience by throwing wads of cash in a bonfire.

More life hacks: if you want to buy a used car, go for a Honda, bc you can beat the dog shit out of them for 30 years and they’ll still run like a clock. To save money, don’t get addicted to coke. The secret to the best homemade fried chicken you’ve ever had in your life is a pinch of cinnamon in your seasoned flour, and to make it crispy add a tablespoon of baking soda. Cream of tartar will make it meringue not break, but if you use too much it will taste hella metallic. 2 drops of dandelion tincture in a shot glass worth of water helps with liver and gallbladder inflammation - that’s Appalachian not crystal woowoo medicine. Don’t whistle outside at night.

#holler holler get $#DGHJJF BLESS U KEZ THANK ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

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bimboficationblues · 8 months

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Marv Wolfman and George Perez's "New Teen Titans" Evaluated

Background

This analysis covers Marv Wolfman and George Perez's New Teen Titans (1980) #1-40, Tales of the Teen Titans #41-58, and New Teen Titans (1984) #1-5. My justification is that after #5, Perez leaves the series he helped define through his bold, detailed panels and spreads, and Wolfman self-professedly experiences writer's block and starts rehashing some plots for a while before things go off the rails in the 90s. So I kind of consider the arc "The Terror of Trigon" a good wrap-up point because it takes the character of Raven (whose motivations kick off the series) off the playing field, Perez departs, and most other plots have resolved in a satisfactory way by this point. I may make an addendum post about the post-Perez years at some point.

DC Comics' The New Teen Titans was intended to emulate the success of the Uncanny X-Men under Chris Claremont over at Marvel Comics. Wolfman took the ensemble cast and tangle of interwoven, character-driven plots of UXM and pushed them in a parallel direction.

The X-Men under Claremont's tenure centered on an internationalist group of mostly adult misfits, "hated and feared" as the old slogan goes, caught up in a complex, politically charged science-fantasy soap opera, and all the characters are haunted by death or absence in one way or another in connection to their social position. The new status quo had also cleared away most of the characters from the poorly received Stan Lee era, instead focusing on a new cast with new relationships, motives, and histories to uncover. Claremont's run is very much about the long game. God, I should really reread it and do a writeup.

By contrast, NTT is less politically pointed (and when it does attempt to be politically pointed it usually falls flat) and generally less grand in scope, but still has a very clear thematic thrust. The Titans are teenagers in the middle of discovering themselves as people, and they deal with a lot of pre-rational frustrations surrounding intimacy and emotional forthrightness. They also regularly confront institutions and authorities that have diminishing, exploitative, or degrading expectations for them because of their age or social status. This reflects Wolfman and Perez's intentions for the book, which was to get the team out from under the shadow of the Justice League and make their own unique mark.

In my own estimation, while I think UXM's highs are generally better and more bizarre or interesting, NTT has fewer valleys - at least while Wolfman and Perez are collaborating (though to be fair, Wolfman/Perez worked together for only five years while Claremont wrote his book for sixteen). I think this reflects Wolfman's stronger aptitude for characterization and Perez's guiding touch as a co-plotter, while Claremont's talent lay in worldbuilding and grand-scheme plotting.

Anyway, perhaps unsurprisingly for a book that is basically "X-Men but more immediately relatable to teenagers," NTT sold like gangbusters and kept DC Comics from bankruptcy.

The People

The ensemble cast of NTT is especially strong because it deliberately ties to the book's themes about growing up and becoming your own person.

The empathic pacifist Raven feels as though her own emotions could at any point explode and hurt everyone around her - seeing them as outlets for the aspects of her father that exist within her to emerge - so she shuts herself off from the world (kind of a transfem imo).

Starfire is a sexually liberated free spirit with a passionate rage towards injustice on account of having experienced it herself, expressed by blinding solar-powered starbolts, as well as blood-knight tendencies that place her at odds with her teammates and Earth society at large (kind of a transfem imo).

Changeling (formerly known as Beast Boy) is a young class-clown masking an inferiority complex and a disbelief in his own self-worth, linked to a feeling of being repeatedly left behind by abandonment, betrayal, or death.

Robin is self-serious, overly self-reliant, and trying to figure out what makes a good leader, as well as get out from under his mentors' shadows, which eventually shapes his evolution into Nightwing.

Cyborg's race and disability mark him as an outcast; while some of the writing around this merits criticism, it produces a character who is struggling with a fundamental loneliness, exhaustion, and anger at being treated like an object of utility by the adults in his life and a monster by society at large, which makes his budding friendships with the other Titans much sweeter.

Late introduction Jericho, a non-verbal mutant, is a sweet, sensitive artistic type, but also a bit scary, reflected in his ability to temporarily possess people by making eye contact with them; he's largely a means to ground Raven at a time when her other teammates are getting increasingly wary of her. Just don't read about what happens to him later.

Another latecomer, Terra, is sort of the problem child of the team; she's the youngest along with Beast Boy, she's got buck teeth and a bad attitude, is clearly immature and doesn't believe in other people's ability to help her. She's an insecure and angry child, which makes her highly dangerous given her control over earth and rock. We also learn fairly early after she joins the team that she's a spy, and questions start stirring about how she's gonna turn out. We'll come back to Terra, and not for good reasons, but I do actually enjoy her presence within the team as a spanner in the works.

They're all broadly relatable archetypes, but they have enough flexibility within their emotional journeys to allow for different kinds of fun superhero plots.

The casting isn't universally great, though. While Wonder Girl has a more developed personality relative to her previous appearances - serious, bright, and a bit of a romantic, basically the "Mom Friend" - she doesn't get to change much during this section of the book. A lot of her arc is tethered to an extremely boring and inappropriate relationship with college professor Terry Long, and finding her parents, which is resolved in a single issue. (Crisis on Infinite Earths later made her the victim of one of the biggest continuity snarls in DC, but that is outside the scope of this review.) Kid Flash is also there, but only to be out-of-character, annoying, conservative, and a dick to Raven, because Wolfman didn't actually want him in the book. The leap from this to something like Mark Waid's run on "The Flash" is night and day.

Throughout the series there are a number of interwoven plotlines, many of which tie into a cast of recurring villains. I don't think any of these antagonists, as characters, are especially strong, but they definitely serve as good engines for drama. You've got the Fearsome Five, the demon and Raven's father Trigon, Starfire's imperialist sister Blackfire, mysteriously immortal child-killer Brother Blood and his Church, and wily hyper-competent mercenary Deathstroke the Terminator. I'm not even listing everyone here - the number of iconic antagonists introduced or refined in this period is seriously impressive. So let's talk the plots they brought with them!

The Plots

Raven brings the Titans together initially to confront her father Trigon, making her conflict with him arguably the heart of the book. The first few issues go about establishing some villains and introducing our core cast, who are not getting along super great at this point and are largely held together by Raven's manipulation. Slowly, however, the team grows to understand and trust one another. After an initial encounter with Trigon in which they just barely contain him with the help of Raven's mother, the group gets involved in a variety of shorter and longer adventures. Some of my favorites:

The original Trigon arc is great, and I especially like the introduction of Raven's personal history with the Azarath pacifists, a civilization of passive mystics pledged to non-interference with Trigon's evil and who raised Raven to repress her emotions. It makes for really great drama and angst on Raven's part, as she doesn't understand why these wise people would turn a blind eye to cruelty and oppression.

Starfire is kidnapped by her evil sister Blackfire for a bizarre space opera costarring the rebellious Omega Men, which really lets Perez show off strange creatures and technology. The journey to rescue Starfire splinters the group into different factions operating with imperfect information at various points, as different segments of the alien civilizations jockey for supremacy, until finally the two sisters face off in a bloody showdown.

The team has several encounters with the mysterious Brother Blood and his corrupting Church of Blood, which spreads its tendrils throughout politics and the media and inflicts harsh punishments on heathens and apostates. This is perhaps the most on-the-nose example of authorities trying to use children to their own ends, and Brother Blood is quite imposing as an antagonist.

The group confronts the Brotherhood of Evil in the nation of Zandia, with Changeling looking to rescue the last vestiges of his old Doom Patrol team and exact revenge on the people that wiped out one of his families. It's pretty dark and introduces a new international Brotherhood of Evil that's surprisingly fun to watch.

There are some nice one-shot issues as well, like Robin's investigation of Wonder Girl's (pre-Crisis) origins; Cyborg's reconciliation with his father; the very weird story of Thunder and Lightning, mutant children of an alien who went to Vietnam; and "Who Killed Trident?", where the group has to put together disparate stories to figure out how a supervillain wound up dead. (Spoilers: it's multiple guys in the same costume, a conceit Wolfman would rehash with the Wildebeest Society after Perez departs.)

The only real lowlights here are a couple of blander self-contained issues, and the brief arc where Wonder Girl and Starfire have a confrontation in Themyscira, home of the Amazons, in which WG gets hypno-seduced. It's very lame. This sort of horned up 80s sexism is an unfortunately recurring facet of the book.

But barring those misses, the first volume of NTT is consistently great. We also get a miniseries focusing on the four lesser-known members of the team (Changeling, Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven) that explores their backstories in a bit more detail; it's not necessary but it's a fine read. It's after the book splits in two, the coextensive "Tales of the Teen Titans" and second volume of "New Teen Titans," that things start getting a little wobbly. First, the Brother Blood plot wraps up ambiguously, which is fine. Then we get to "The Judas Contract," the most famous and controversial Teen Titans story.

"The Judas Contract" sees the whole team undone by the viper in their garden, Terra, and exposes the cracks in their collective armor. This arc is a culmination of established plot points rather than a self-contained story, as Deathstroke's vengeance quest towards the Titans and Terra's status as a mole had already been long established. So it's really more about seeing how these things will pay off. Will Terra redeem herself, will she die? What are her motivations? Will Deathstroke complete his contract to capture or kill the Titans, and how? This remains a very popular story and it definitely has its strong points: Dick Grayson's reinvention of himself as Nightwing after a clever issue where he investigates the disappearance of his friends, the introduction of Jericho (who has a very 80s visual design but a great presence on the team), and the final action-packed confrontation. And while I'm about to say a lot of critical things about Terra's character writing, there are definitely things I like about her as a character and villain.

However, it is impossible to escape the fact that the writing of the arc's core antagonists, Deathstroke and Terra, is extremely fucked. Perez's comments about his intentions for the 15-year-old Terra's character are legitimately heinous, and Terra's "evil" is symbolically represented by her wearing eyeshadow and negligees, sleeping with a much older man, and smoking (Deathstroke even says "good superhero girls don't wear makeup"). We basically come away with a story about a victim of statutory rape who gets karmically punished for being innately crazy and evil, while the man who groomed her kind of gets let off the hook and painted as an equal victim. It's such a shallow, regressive morality play, with dashes of sexism and stigma around mental illness, and it stands out very strangely against the otherwise fairly grounded character work in NTT. It's also a severely missed opportunity to write something more meaningfully tragic. Though honestly, if it were not for the narration in The Judas Contract which proclaims Terra irredeemably evil or the follow-up mini-arc which gives Deathstroke absolution (just in time for an anti-hero rebrand and an ongoing series!), I think the story would work perfectly fine. We'd see somebody consumed by their own rage and trauma after being manipulated and used, which would be a good foil for a lot of the core cast's arcs. As is, though, the '03 cartoon's version of these events is objectively better in every conceivable way.

I would also describe The Judas Contract as the beginning of the end. Before Perez's final arc on "The Terror of Trigon," there are a few filler arcs in "Tales," several of which have guest pencilers who don't have his eye for dramatic layouts and action splashes to nearly the same degree. Worse, a lot of these stories are boring (Cyborg temporarily getting a non-mechanical look and Wonder Girl's wedding) or annoying (Changeling's vengeance quest against Deathstroke, which doubles down on Judas Contract's bad choices, and a forced romance between tertiary characters Lilith and Azrael). We get a little more Jericho which is nice, and a fun little Atlantis story that wraps up the HIVE neatly for the time being, but otherwise this is a valley.

"The Terror of Trigon," though, is legitimately a masterstroke. It's some of Perez's finest draftsmanship and neatly bookends the series with a much more brooding, terrifying take on the original Trigon arc. I honestly don't want to say much more about it - it's worth reading for yourself.

The Pages

While as mentioned, I think Wolfman is a good character writer, it's George Perez's draftsmanship that really makes New Teen Titans shine, and it's after his departure that some of the magic starts to go. However, I don't want to diminish the strength of colorists and inkers like Adrienne Roy and Romeo Tanghal, who do incredible work at making all the artist's pencils feel alive and bright. I don't have great equipment to talk about the pages, so I'll just highlight a few that I really like from across the series. (You may also notice that I have a favorite character.)

The Verdict

I definitely think NTT is worth reading up through The Judas Contract (with a critical eye) and maybe the Atlantis arc that follows it; then you can probably skip ahead to The Terror of Trigon. If you still want to stick with it after that, well, that's for another writeup! There's definitely interesting or intriguing stuff in there, even if there's an uptick in shakier stories. But that entire first volume is basically great.

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fangruninsimp · 2 years

Text

Post Canon Fics

⚠️Spoilers ahead⚠️

my heart is buried on speer by miyawaki (Chaghan/Altan, 195)

once, chaghan found altan's body.

when it's cold i'd like to die by miyawaki (Chaghan&Qara, 240)

chaghan can't stand the cold.

your faith walks on broken glass by agnes_writes (Rin/Nezha, T, 1k)

Nezha ponders the Hesperians' idea of Heaven and Hell, and his mind only conjures up her name.

necropolis by Anonymous (Rin/Nezha, T, 318)

There was probably love there, but it didn't really matter.

i'd meet you where the spirit meets the bones (in a faith-forgotten land) by agnes_writes (Rin & Altan, M, 7.3k)

When she dies, Rin is faced with the one person she'd wished she'd never see again.

But when the dust settles, she finds that Altan Trengsin may have the answers she's searching for.

a shame, you seemed an honest man by toddxnderson (Rin/Nezha, G, 2.6k)

ashes are not the strongest of foundations, but they will do.

or: nezha, after.

some things were tend to be forgotten due to old age by chiru_trash (Rin/Nezha, T, 1k)

Nezha after The Burning God, need I explain more?

i'd end up too hungry to sleep by tellmeyoursecrets (Rin/Nezha, M, 505)

years after the events of the burning god, nezha is married to a hesperian bride.

years later, she ponders.

Beside you always by muchswag (Rin/Nezha, N/A, 162)

After perhaps a year or two after Rin's death, Nezha was married. And as the years passed, he missed her more than ever. But perhaps she was right beside him all of this time.

first love / late spring (my heart seems to burst) by isola13 (Rin/Nezha, T, 4.6k)

First love is supposed to be sweet, innocent, and hopeful. When it blossoms on late spring however, harsher realities render every piece of it into shreds, as it falls and withers and dies.

It’ll always be you by Runin_reads (Rin/Nezha, G, 544)

Nezha tells his daughter about his first love.

Small by UnapologeticallyMeatwad (Rin&Kitay, T, 2.7k) *incomplete*

Rin wakes up one year later, but doesn't know why she's still alive.

nothing new by sagittariusmoon (Rin/Nezha, G, 414)

"How can a person know everything at 18, but nothing at 22?

Will you still want me, when I’m nothing new?"

Nezha turns 22, and then he thinks about Rin, like he always does.

these characters all need therapy so I gave it to them by chenkitays (G, 6.6k)

Rin, Nezha, Kitay, Vaisra and Jiang attend a group therapy session led by one (1) exhausted Strategy master. spoilers for the entire trilogy.

Break the Cycle by queenkatharine (M, 10.2k)

Every time she’d thought about the Federation and what she’d done, she told herself that she’d do it again if she had the chance. She insisted upon it until her dying day.

This time would be different.

Or, what if Rin did get the chance to do it all over again and made different decisions? M rating for themes related to war.

i want him (but we're not right) by tellmeyoursecrets (Rin/Nezha, N/A, 1.1k)

She looks him in the eyes. “I hated you for what you did. With all my heart.”

“I know.”

“I still missed you. I still wanted you to—Gods.”

The truth is always ugly. Some people will make it out as some golden thread, ramrod straight and unquestionable in its existence, but it’s not. When what you fought for becomes history, sometimes it forgets that the winner was the one who had lost the most. Survival of the body is not always survival of the mind. There is always, always, a cost larger than what is said in the books.

they hold onto things. they let things go. by sourpistachios (T, 1.5k)

In the aftermath, Nezha looks at his hands.

haunted by the look in my eyes by isola13 (Rin/Nezha, T, 7.1k)

that would've loved you for a lifetime

When Rin haunts him, Nezha screams, shouts, curses, and begs.

When Rin haunts him, Nezha screams, shouts, curses, and begs her to leave.

When Rin haunts him, Nezha screams, shouts, curses, and begs her to stay.

if I'm dead to you by isola13 (Rin/Nezha, G, 1.8k)

why are you at the wake?

The first year is the hardest.

Rin simply doesn't know how to be dead.

When I was young and dreamed of glory by Knightowl019 (Nezha/Original Character, T, 12.4k)

After the aftermath of Fang Runin's death, Nezha kept his word. He had to fix the country that barely existed.

Nezha's life changed into something that was different from before. Even when the ghosts of the dead haunted him, he knew he had to make things right. But will he ever find peace? Will he manage to unite the country from the rift the Republic created? Will the people ever accept Nezha as their leader or will it spark another rebellion?

reminiscence by paldogangsaan (Rin/Nezha, Nezha&Kitay, T, 1.4k)

It didn’t feel fair that Rin and Kitay could leave this world together whilst Nezha was forced to live, to survive them both.

the dreaming faith by byeoleil (Rin/Nezha, Nezha&Kitay, T, 6.2k) *incomplete*

Something is wrong with the Pantheon and it is, of course, Yin Nezha's fault. He accepts mysterious psychedelic drugs from a very cryptic Chaghan Suren with no instructions other than "lol you suck."

In his slumber, Nezha sees them. A short collection of Nezha's dreams starring Rin, Mingzha, Venka, Kitay, and more.

peace by isola13 (Rin/Nezha, G, 1k)

When Nezha dies, Rin is waiting for him.

Queen of Ashes by CyclonicJet (M, 3.1k)

“Fire is passion. It knows neither friend nor foe. In its wake, it leaves no victory. No conquest. No people. Only ashes.”

Rin reflects on her life, and considers what her legacy will be, and what she must do to ensure that legacy.

Or “A brief literary analysis of what Nikara might have looked like had Rin won, as viewed from her own perspective and memories, some thirty years after the end of The Burning God.”

to drown in your ashes by chenkitays (Rin/Nezha, G, 2k)

His Rin, whose laugh was louder and more explosive than her rage, whose eyes were sadder and darker than the world she left behind, whose smile was brighter than the hottest flames she could conjure.

idk its just a post tbg fix-it you already know the drill

there's a hollow in this house by tidesong (Rin/Nezha, T, 7k)

What Nezha has, it’s an absence. He was raised next to the river, in a city that knew the ebb and flow of the tide. The flood would come in the summer, a wet and hungry thing, swallowing shorelines before breaching the city. He feels the same way now, when the water had receded suddenly, violently; left only the traces of what once was. Nezha did not need the Dragon to teach him that lesson—he’d lived it all on his own.

Water, he says to Kitay, doesn’t know how to let go. It only drowns.

—

This time, the living haunt the dead.

you'd come back to me by isola13 (Rin/Nezha, T, 13.8k)

“I knew you’d linger like a tattoo kiss, I knew you’d haunt all of my what ifs, the smell of smoke would hang around this long”

A burden of a country is one that a single person shouldn’t handle.

But Nezha takes it. Until one day, he breaks.

The Unwinding Clock of Fate by Secret_Keeper_AO3 (M, 6.6k) *incomplete*

5 years after the end of The Burning God, Yin Nezha, president of the Republic of Nikan, has saved Nikan-and its people from starvation and war and further atrocity by giving Hesparia the corpse of Fang Runin. Yin Nezha has had to throw open Nikan's gates to Hesparia in order to continue its survival, and Hesparian assimilation, racism, segregation, and discrimination has already rooted itself deep into the continent. But Nezha wants to put a stop to it, and as the Dragon grows restless and the bracelets on his hands tighten the Dragon's only access to the world, it only increases the want to rise, to claim, to sink, to drown.

Tomorrow is Brighter Than Yesterday by queenkatharine (T, 3.7k)

Understanding strikes Nezha. Here, now, after everything they’d gone through and with Rin buried next to Kitay on Speer, Nezha finally understands.

In which Kesegi survives the war and he sheds some light on a few things.

take what you want by chenkitays (Rin&Kitay, G, 1.4k)

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BURNING GOD

Chapter 34 of the Burning God rewritten from Kitay's point of view. Why did I do this? I physically don't know but I was in the mood to cause pain today

your smile, my ghost, i fell to my knees by agnes_writes (Rin/Nezha, T, 3.1k)

“Nezha couldn’t register the choking gurgles in her throat, the glassy panic in her eyes, or the warmth of her blood as it spilled down his hands. He couldn’t, or he would shatter.”

And so he did.

Tears of the Phoenix by CyclonicJet (M, 1.7k)

Nezha has succeeded in destroying the Gray Towers. He has waged his war against the Hesperian faith, against the maker itself, and won. And now he must face one final challenge. The final demon controlling him. The final shadow still lying thick over Nikara. Fang Runin is dead. But her spirit...her spirit still burns.

anywhere you go by chenkitays (Rin/Nezha, G, 3.6k)

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BURNING GOD

"She would tell Pipaji and Dulin that they had done well. She would tell Suni, Baji and Ramsa that she was sorry. She would tell Altan that he was right. She would tell Master Jiang thank you." (p534 of TBG)

Rin visits her dead loved ones, and tries to make sense of the afterlife with her friends.

sunset by chenkitays (Rin&Kitay, G, 931)

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BURNING GOD

Rin and Kitay meet and talk in the afterlife. that's it but I wrote this because im still in pain even though it's been 3 months. the pain will never stop.

hoax by moonlightjjk (Rin/Nezha, G, 1.7k)

forty years after nezha becomes the ruler of nikara, an old friend visits him.

if i'm on fire, you'll be made of ashes too by sagittariusmoon (Rin/Nezha, G, 1.7k)

While they wait, they try to make sense of each other and a life of no good choices.

evermore by isola13 (Rin/Nezha, T, 1.1k)

Nezha lives on. Rin's ghost haunts him.

Reunion by peachtofu (Rin/Nezha, G, 1k)

THE BURNING GOD SPOILERS. The story takes place a decade after the ending of The Burning God.

Fire and water, though elements from the same earth, were never meant to be. For one to survive, it must extinguish the other.

aim for my heart (go for blood) by ssukis (Rin/Nezha, T, 6.9k)

Nezha finds that it is impossible to let go after finding Rin again.

After the Storm by toocleverfox (Rin/Nehza, T, 1.4k)

MAJOR THE BURNING GOD SPOILERS

Nezha goes to find Chaghan after the events of The Burning God.

the finish line by tidesong (Rin/Nezha, G, 2.9k)

So this was how it felt to be burned by the sun.

Nezha is haunted by someone who's not very good at staying away.

The Wailing Prince by yinsnezha (Rin/Nezha, G, 1k)

Nezha likes to talk to the stars when he can’t sleep.

#tpw #the poppy war #poppy war fanfiction #the poppy war spoilers #ao3 #post canon fics

112 notes · View notes

77ngiez · 10 months

Note

erm. smiles. chihiro izuru miu

chihio ^^

favorite thing about them i looove her intense care and love and passion for her work and the way she goes above and beyond for it. youve talked abt her themes and narratives a lot but like i feel like its sooo interesting that she genuinely loves her talent and continues living on after death because of the passion she holds for it .

least favorite thing about them transmisogyny

favorite line not a line specifically but her whole convo with hajime in dr2 drives me insane.

brOTP literally truly genuinely want her to be friends with izuru and also hajime. her and izuru are coding transfems. her and hajime i just find interedting bcz of the aforementiond dr2 convo

OTP FUJIMAKIII <3333 also i enjoy chifumi a fair amount (blame roob)

nOTP I HATE CHIMONDO I HATE CHISHIMARU I HATE CHISHIMONDO.they suck so bad with each other they pick at eeach orhers scabs (metaphortically)

random headcanon as a child believed fhat if she ate a watermelon seed then a watermelon would grow inside of her. she believed this up until like a year before hopes peak probablt

unpopular opinion genuinely one of the most important chatacters in the series

song i associate with them digital/physical heart by vane

favorite picture of them gonna seem sooo self absorbed for this but i rlly love the sprite edit i did of her a while back

IZUZU

favorite thing about them her themes and narratives !!! i adoooore the concept of taking control of your own life and leaving behind the "purpose" your creators made you for. she Fascinates me

least favorite thing about them how little screentime she gets.. i do love the moments we get in dr3 tho

favorite line let her be a girlboss!!!

brOTP izuru chihiro friend chip……… :] also pls let her interact w hajime & the naegis i am begging on my hands and knees

OTP KAMUNAGA .AND KAMUKOMA. izuru when silly white-haired antagonists with belief systems deemed ridiculous by their classmates <3

nOTP dont like kamunami. sorry. i see the appeal i like the concept but the execution is not there. also i dont like her with makoto At All Ever (hinata/naegi cousinisms in my brain)

random headcanon when not using her talents she has little to no navigation skills lol

unpopular opinion this freak is a GIRL !!!!

song i associate with them kamippoi na/god-ish by pinocchio-p <3

favorite picture of them

yeah

MEEOO

favorite thing about them her ISSSSUEEES <3333

least favorite thing about them maintenance scene.

favorite line all those ch4 bits where she insisted that she was doing what she was doing for the greater good..

brOTP her and touko would be so fucking funny actually. girls with the weirdest beef. IDK i feel like her dynamic with kaede is vv interesting and also with shuichi.

OTP Oh You Know (irouma)

nOTP kiiruma go away

random headcanon at age 13 she didnt have acne and she thought she was a freak for it bcz every other 13 yo in school had acne and she cried into the mirror about it

unpopular opinion SHES NOT ANNOYING SHES NOT A CREEP SHES TRAAAAUUUMATIZEDDD

song i associate with them teratera by kuragep (i would have said miu by mcki-robyns p but it is literally written abt her so thats cheating rip)

favorite picture of them

loove this old unused trial cg from the demo version

#nana.txt #ask game #dr #chihiro fujisaki #izuru kamukura #miu iruma #sorren #long post

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