#they are the Only characters i think abt... the poeticism of it all

[sukunasweetheart]

Thoughts and analysis + rambling on sukuna's character! JJK anime AND manga spoilers below. Pls read with compassion, im not great at articulating my complicated thoughts 🙏

When sukuna told jogo that he shouldve just burned down everything he desired to without worrying abt identity or the future, sukuna was most likely referring to himself,, thats probably how he became so strong

Gege outright said in the official fanbook that its questionable whether the people around him ever considered sukuna human and that he himself most likely didn't think so either. He was nicknamed the king of curses before he even became a cursed object, so sukuna really didnt give a damn abt what he was, or whatever nickname he was given and he just kept doing what he was doing

And he's never referred to himself as the king of curses, it was always the people around him or the literal narrator! Even the famous quote "throughout the heavens and the earth, he alone is the honoured one" was said by the narrator, or by nanami in the season one anime. Not once has sukuna needed to introduce himself to someone, they already knew who he was and/or there was really no need to, since he was going to kill them anyway.

The idea of cannibalism isnt a big deal at all to him, its kind of like a complete and final line where he really crosses over into the non-human area, he literally views everyone else around him as something akin to either a thing to toy around with or to eat.

And this involvement of "cannibalism" is actually very interesting to me, because if he doesnt consider himself human, and other people didn't believe so either, is it really cannibalism? Gege seems to blur these kinds of lines with sukuna so incredibly! Sukuna is always drafting between human and nonhuman, life and death, the honoured one and the disgraced one. He's like everything all at once.

Though his trueform may have extra limbs and mouth, in my opinion he still looks and functions mostly like a human... yet theres also many moments where we realise that he really is far away from the rest of the cast, both in strength and thought.

To show evidence of sukuna drifting between life and death, I'd like to mention how he has spoken soul-to-soul with characters right before their death TWICE now, first being jogo and the other being kashimo... this isnt a coincidence! How was he able to do this? We have no clue, perhaps jogo + kashimo were only hallucinating or maybe sukuna really is able to have a lil chat with someone right before they die like some grim reaper 😭

I think this is what makes him a really poetic character, the way speaks is one thing, but to watch him really reach out and have a conversation with his opponent while they are in a very vulnerable state makes him really like a otherworldly figure (even though he slaughters them right atfter).

He's not a human yet he is still capable of understanding the desires that humans have, and their goals.

I believe sukuna is a really complex and flexible character, I've never really seen someone be so many things at once. He can be serious, strict, playful, goofy, evil with only the tiniest hints of compassion and many more...

#sukuna #ryomen sukuna #jujutsu kaisen #this is why i also think anything goes when u put him into an AU #i think even with characterisation and headcanons in various fics he's very flexible #like even with two possible contradicting headcanons sometimes i can see him doing both you know?? #maybe its just me (cuz im delulu) but yes :) #even though i tend to write him most often in AU rather than canon verse i very much adore jjk's sukuna as well... l

[tpher]

stop making me care about topher (respectfully)

my immediate thought was to annoyingly wax poetic abt topher to make it worse so i WILL

topher is 16 by the time hes in the show and the td timeline is all fucky wucky so lets say hes been a fan since the start so hes liked total drama for around 3 years. 3 years? not a lot of time but to a TEEN??? that is SO incredibly long. ESPECIALLY if ur autistic/have a hyperfixation like topher did. so total drama, chris in particular, was his LIFE

it is especially very.. unintentionally meta that so late in the show and in one of the most hated seasons you have this character who competes on the show with the intent of trying to make it better. he still loves it (or at the very least chris) but thinks it wasnt as good as it once was (again. chris). and again as a teen w a hyperfixation it hurts to see something u like go to shit. and in tophers case, its what awakened his dream to become a host someday. so what better way than to "fix" the show you loved by taking over, right? topher certainly has the drive and the motivation to try and make his dreams a reality, even if he does waste time and get distracted a bunch.

so imagine after years and years, you finally meet your idol. youre just so excited and wanna let him know just how much of a fan you are to get on his good side in general, but also as a networking opportunity. youve always wanted to be a host, so now youre not only meeting a host but THE host. so you try to talk but he doesnt really care. and youre just complimenting him and its bugging him. and giving him constructive criticism is also not allowed. and you flat out ask if you could just.. explain a challenge to the others at least once and he gets.. mad at you?

what are you doing wrong? nothing, of course. its just him who doesnt get it. its just him who doesnt appreciate all the years YOUVE put into him. he doesnt understand all the time and effort youve put into being camera-ready and taking meticulous care of your hair and skin; including being in posing classes since age 11 and having a suspiciously intricate knowledge on plastic surgery. most people your age barely even know what theyre going to college for, youve got your whole life figured out compared to them

youve waited long enough, you have the looks and the skills, and if he wont give you what you deserve, then its time to take matters into your own hands

so you grow bitter and impatient (and frown wrinkles, oh no!). youve resulted to stealing this mans phone to contact the network yourself.

and then imagine when you finally put in the effort. and you think your dreams are coming true and it was just your idol-- your FORMER idol-- pulling a prank on you. on international television. for millions of people including potential employers to see. which also cost your team the challenge and got you eliminated in such a humiliating way.

everything you had ever worked for is gone in an instant. and its all thanks to who was once your hero. the one who gave your life a clear trajectory

the last we see of topher, he is unable to form coherent sentences and twitching. we genuinely have no idea how hes doing right now

but i hope hes okay

#td topher

[the-meme-monarch]

Actually wait, wouldn't Secret Someone Frisk be afraid of Deltarune ending? After all, if they got kicked out of a world they were the main character in, then whats to say it won't happen again in this one. I can't imagine the cryptic (and way too unhelpful) Gaster explaining much before he added them to Deltarune.

Or maybe they fear the worse option... Kris ends up being booted. After all, they ended up being the main character and were kicked out, so they surely wouldn't want it to happen to someone else. Maybe that's their conflict with the Fun Gang, them either trying to stop the conflict from ever ending so they will never have to risk it OR trying to get the SOUL so that they can be sure only they will suffer from anything. After all, they evidently have a pretty low self esteem (judging the Sans+Papyrus+Flowey save them ask and the Prison asks) so I can imagine them being some kinda martyr, suffering so nobody else will have to.

i mean for frisk them being removed from undertale was bc of the choice at the end, the player choice "i have places to be". they're just an npc now so they probably think theyre safe here :0c but them wanting to keep A Conflict Going or wanting to get the soul to protect Kris does feel like something they'd do :'] i Am just developing this au/theory based on other people's input at this point bc i think i originally wanted to keep stuff vague so i could rework it as chapters came out Until the actual strange someone is revealed ! but frisk trying to do the good/right thing but it going wrong/ their perception of what's good/right being warped feels very. real

also frisk's thing w the soul had to do w their perceived dependency on it ! a thing I've been thinking abt ks frisk has no backstory and no other characters to fill in those gaps, they don't know why they went to mt ebott. the first thing they remember is Falling. they do not remember a point where their actions weren't dictated by the soul, and well having come from a true pacifist ending, the soul did all the right things, they got the good ending ! but now they don't have it and everything is going wrong for them. they've become an antagonist bc they wanted their happy ending. i feel like I'm just waxing poetic but idk i just really enjoy this au/theory there's Intricacies it's all very Intricate to me

#the monarch's court #strange someone frisk

[burningvelvet]

to cope with my post-binge blues from watching black sails, i just finished the treasure island audiobook. it's my first time with any treasure island media - now i have to watch the muppets movie. any way here are my thoughts:

- i knew the character of trelawney had to be based on the romantic era edward john trelawny of byron/shelley fame and I WAS RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sources: WONG, AMY R. “The Poetics of Talk in Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island.’" A Sandison Robert Louis Stevenson and the Appearance of Modernism

- i know that black sails isn't fully intended to be a perfect prequel or meant to be taken as filling in all of the gaps to treasure island but i'm still going to compare & contrast the two lol

- billy spending his whole life obsessed with flint and having alcohol withdrawal induced hallucinations about him. OMG. and i'm shocked that they just casually dropped that he visited flint in georgia to get the map like did flint request to see him before he died, was it just about the map, or did he want closure about the whole thing, did billy seek flint out, why didn't they kill each other, how the fuck did that whole thing go? i need more information dammit

- saw another post on here talking about how in black sails flint has that speech about the drunk guy named flint asking his grandpa for rum before disappearing into the sea and then in treasure island we find out flints last words were asking a "darby mcgraw" for rum before he died SO IN THE BLACK SAILS UNIVERSE DARBY IS HIS GRANDPA and so im wondering DID FLINT 1.0 EVER EXIST AT ALL OR WAS IT SIMPLY FORESHADOWING ALL ALONG but at the same time it doesnt matter because the black sails creators said the ending is intentionally canonically up to interpretation and black sails canon and treasure island canon dont match up any way but still it gives us so much to think about bc we never canonically find out who the fuck darby is

- the doctor is the funniest character ever and him giving zero shits about billy or silver is hilarious LMAO

- rly enjoy the descriptions of the contents of billy's pockets and chest. i love old shit and that whole nautical aesthetic ugh. im currently wondering about the significance of the five sea shells billy had (jim wonders abt them too) if they were souvenirs from the island or what... but we never find out!!

- and what the fuck was up with those black spots I NEED ANSWERS! It worked on Billy but not Silver?

- having grown up on PotC i'm very enthused at the references (the song, the rum, "dead mens chest," etc)

- wish we saw more of jims mom, she was lowkey a badass for a moment there telling everyone off and willing to face the wrath of the pirates with her son lol

- love how the men just take jim on for his valour and then decide to make him a cabinboy and the mom just gets a replacement son to help her around the house lmaoooo i wonder if that was a common thing for single women to do though?

- long john silver has a sort of jekyll/hyde personality (btw the author stevenson also wrote jekyll/hyde for those of you who dont know!) - also why the fuck did they leave him to his own devices toward the end and not have a gun on him 24/7 like? i was also shocked that he didnt run off with all the gold only some of it. most chaotic character ever

- my biggest questions are why did black sails take out the alcoholism and the sea shanties? but importantly the alcholism - if they were going for gritty, as they were? flint and billy's alcoholism is integral to their characters (defines their characters actually) in the book as contrasted by silvers moderation & thats rly interesting. and the lack of singing is just boring - pirates rly did have sea shanties - however i can understand for time constraints per episode and whatnot them taking out the singing for practicality - but the alcoholism again is integral to those characters as well as being historically accurate and realistic & would have added a lot imo

EDIT: immediately after posting this i realized that since there are a few years between the treasure burial and flint's supposed death in georgia, he could have become a drunk in that time if we're creating a black sails to treasure island timeline, and billy wouldn't have become a drunk til later on since black sails is set roughly 20 yrs before treasure island.

HOWEVER - by the talks of it in treasure island, and all the pirates referring to flint as a drunk etc., it would still seem that flint was always that way when they knew him, prone to drinking... but at the same time i guess you could say all the characters are jollier than in black sails as indicated by their singing and their more stereotypical piratey ways.

however i still think the alcoholism & addiction theme would have added an extra layer to everything especially after flints sad drunk scene with eleanor. also in toby stephens deep fathoms interview he said flint is essentially like an addict when it comes to his delusion & desires. anyway i digress

transcript here, audio is on youtube: https://www.justsaypodcast.com/blog/2018/12/18/transcript-interview-with-toby-stephens-of-black-sails

#queue #black sails #treasure island #currently reading #book review #book thoughts #age of sail #pirates #piracy #book opinions #robert louis stevenson #starz #billy bones #long john silver #captain flint #analysis #thoughts #my writing #my thoughts #my analysis

[rollercoasterwords]

10 books!! :•)

ty 4 the tag @otrtbs (+ @serethereal i'm just doing it on this blog) <3 here r 10 books 2 get 2 know me

1. a history of glitter and blood, by hannah moskowitz

favorite book of. all time probably. first read this when i was like 16 i think and since then i've reread it about once a year. keep waiting for it to like...hit me less hard but every time i read it i am still v much moved in the same sort of way that i was the first time!!

2. the last unicorn, by peter s. beagle

feel like this story is like. integral 2 me as a person. first encountered it in the form of the 1982 movie as a child + then discovered it was a book in high school. there are differences between the two of course but the central themes are the same + i do think the ending like. permanently altered my brain as a child such that it has shaped my worldview ever since

3. the archive of alternate endings, by lindsey drager

newest addition 2 the list!! just read this book like a month ago and it was so good that it now has a place of honor on my favorites list <3 made me full-body sob but is like. so exactly perfect for me as a book that it felt like it was written 4 me

4. animorphs, by k.a. applegate

surprisingly not a childhood series 4 me bc i watched one episode of the tv show they made in the 90s + it scared me so much that i never touched the books. however i read the entire series in college and. it is now one of my favorite works of literature ever.

5. gormenghast, by mervyn peake

this book means a lot 2 me personally bc it's like. tied 2 my dad 4 me <3 he's a big reader but our tastes only have a small overlap, so it's not super often that we'll both love the same book. but when i was in high school i was looking for something 2 read + he pulled gormenghast off his bookshelf + was like try this nobody's ever heard of it bc peake is not well-known but it's like. sprawling dark fantasy. + it ended up being one of the most beautiful + unique stories i have ever read <3

6. you too can have a body like mine, by alexandra kleeman

a favorite satire <3 love kleeman's writing style + the sort of weird suburbia-horror of this story

7. the man who laughs, by victor hugo

generally speaking i am not a big ~classics~ person however. my final year of hs this was the book i chose for my like big final english paper + it's like. the first book i really had 2 study on a deeper level + i loved all the twisting symbolism + the tragedy of it all

8. six of crows, by leigh bardugo

technically this is 2 books bc i'm thinking of the entire duology but. yeah <3 fave like. fun fantasy story 2 reread when i want a book that makes me feel like i'm watching a movie while i read it. also love love love all the characters <3

9. this is how you lose the time war, by max gladstone and amal el-mohtar

first time i read this book i felt like my brain was melting!!! so short but the exact kind of story that i love; sort of scrambled poetic writing style + weird dark fantasy + sci-fi elements

10. no future: queer theory and the death drive, by lee edelman

i actually. do not recommend this book as it is so dry + dense and an absolute slog 2 read. however it makes the list bc encountering lee edelman's writing abt reproductive futurity + the death drive was like. top 10 life-altering moments that fundamentally changed the way i think in college. so!!!

no-pressure tags: @steelycunt @dykefever @pomegranate-pill @suspendedinbush @mayescapade :•)

#book recs #tag game <3 #obviously i am a. big fantasy person as is evident from this list lol #i think it will simply always be my favorite genre !! apologies 4 the lack of genre diversity on this list tho lol #also mutuals. if anyone wants 2 exchange storygraphs <3 #currently i am only following my beloved ridi aka tumblr user steelycunt + i think it would be fun 2 see what ur all reading!!

[elluka]

Happy Pride. These are my Limbus Company headcanons. ID in alt, long ass explanations + extra headcanons under the cut bc I didn't like the look of when i put two flags on each character.

The City is a hellscape but it IS established that being GNC is cool in ruina, and I'm going off of the assumption that being nonconforming is fine for the most part, but queer identities aren't really something people talk about, BUT also it does vary wildly depending on the part of the city, leading to culture shock with a few characters having come from more conservative areas (sinclair, don quixote) when seeing people from more relaxed areas just living their best lives (faust, outis). (warning for mentions of trans and homophobia)

Dante isn't sure if they identified like this already or if they were just kind of assigned nonbinary when they had amnesia and has not questioned this. If they were to think about it, they would still be nonbinary, but maybe in a different way? They have the Agonies to go through and amnesia to wretsle with though, so they don't spend much time thinking abt gender when they;re fine with it as it is.

Sinclair is an egg still, but will eventually realise he is bigender and gay (for guys). He is aware of and respects nonbinary people and ppl who use other pronouns like Dante but subconsiously thinks that you need to have like, qualifications to be allowed identify as trans and it's not something that just anyone is allowed to do. He still hasn't accepted that he likes boys OR that he's not into girls. Give him some time, poor kid has catholic guilt in a setting with no catholics, he thinks every little thing he does is sinful, nevermind the stuff that other people actually say is a sin. He thinks its fine and is supportive when others are queer but not when he is.

Ishmael is a lesbian. She got up to some yuri on that boat. Nowadays she's too focused on revenge to think about romance though.

Meursault is pan. He doesn't care about gender, just appearance (he has comically high standards here, usually) and whether you make him do stuff he doesn't wanna do or not (he has comically low standards here, usually).

Rodya is bi. She will flirt with guys and girls alike, but when she's chatting up a woman she takes extra care to make sure it can easily be taken as a joke. My source for this is when she's flirting with Faust in canto 4. Bi4Bi with Gregor, at least in the LCB universe; she gets with others in different realities.

Gregor is also bi, nad pretty casual about it. Like, he gets nervous when chatting with anyone hot, but he's no more nervous with guys than with girls. I also like him being a trans guy, but I still need to workshop my lore for that. Bi4Bi with Rodya in the LCB universe, damn near bitchless in every other one. He has NO game.

Yi sang is something called reflectshift, which was defined by the coiner as "a gender related to mirrors , reflections & shapeshifting". He uses any pronouns but he doesn't tell people this and so people only use he/him so now he yearns for just one weirdo to break the cycle and call him something else. He will not ever express this sentiment, nor will he ever bring up his gender unless prompted, though if he is directly asked he will go on a long poetic rant about it.

Faust was a woman but then she made that contract with that undefined being and their minds connected so now Faust is a demigirl and Faust is Faust.

Outis is a lesbian the way the way many ancient greeks were gay. Men just aren't as smart or hot or personable or cool or strong as women, you see, they don't have the soul,

Hong Lu is gay. He thinks straight people are like, not real. All the books he's read only have straight romance in them but he thinks it's like, just one of those things that people think they should add, or like a job, where no-one actually WANTS to be straight but they have to, for some undefined reason.

Ryoshu is a trans guy. He cut his own hair with a sword in a dramatic moment. It's not that he hides his identity, but he's fine with people assuming he's a cis woman bc it is funny. He will confidently walk into mens restrooms or walk around in just boxers or whatever and everyone is always just like "oh man, ryoshu's doing a fucking bit again", which is funny enough that he doesn't say anything. If someone were to react with genuine hatred or something, though, he would walk up to them, explain that he IS a guy, and kill them. It's an art.

Don Quixote is a lesbiknight, a gender "related to being a lesbian and being a knight". She used to be out, and used she/her, he/him, and the neopronouns he/her/heroself, but after one too many incidents from before joining LCB and after losing sancho (her one ally) she has decided to just be a normal weird girl since people are nicer that way.

Heathcliff is currently only about Catherine, but if she had been another gender, he would have fallen just as hard. While he hasn't processed his identity, he is still perfectly happy to knock the brains out of homo/transphobes, because he likes hitting stuck up bastards with his baseball bat and he does feel very strongly that people should be able to do whatever they want without any buggers butting in on wtuff thats not their buisness. Good for him.

Demian is bi, and his gender is "a normal human boy" or "a boy, which is one of the most common genders held by homo sapiens, who are the dominent species on earth, not counting us abnormalities, of course".

Oh yeah also Charon is a lesbian. So is Sonya. That one person who said Sonya is a he/him lesbian is so real.

OH AND ANGELA IS A TRANS GUY. I will die on this fucking hill.

Sinclair's entire section here is inspired by both the game and the book. Ishmael was pure vibes. Ryoshu was inspired by the insane backstory i came up with for her after reading hell screen. You could read hell screen and not in a million years understand the backstory i came up with. Hong Lu not knowing abt straight people was inspired by my own experiences being uninterested in romance. Thank you.

#limbus company

[catilinas]

hey Tate :^) randomly popping up to say that i just finished both 'The king must die' and 'The bull from the sea' in (almost) one go instead of working/eating/sleeping. and i can't thank you enough for recommending these books, the first one especially! so... maybe you have some other myth retellings or historical novels in mind to recommend?

hi!!! i’m so glad you enjoyed them / that i’m not the only person who felt like that reading them. the king must die especially Yeah. holy shit.

for Other Recommendations. the few ~myth retellings~ that i’ve read alas mostly are not novels. the genre of ‘myth retelling’ novels < the genre of weird long poems that Do Things with specific ancient texts rather than ‘myths’. but i do read a Lot of historical novels so i definitely have recommendations there! as long as you care about like. the roman republic. anyway here’s a list:

memorial - alice oswald. a ‘translation’ of the iliad, but only the death scenes (often just lists of names!) and the epic similes. it frames itself as yknow. a memorial. to the dead minor characters of the iliad but imo it also speaks to the futility of epic memorialisation. i have read the two page introduction approximately One Million Times.

nobody - alice oswald. you will be missing out if you don’t read this one against memorial. it’s a ‘retelling’ of ‘the odyssey’ and a lot of other myths that involve the sea at any point. a lot of the oresteia too. but it also never names any of its characters or indicates where each story starts or ends. oswald’s best poetry is always about water and this book is Mostly About Water so it snaps supremely.

war music - christopher logue. similar concept but completely different vibe to memorial. also a king poetic Selective reinterpretation of the iliad, but focusing mostly on combat scenes. i’m a big fan of the deliberate anachronisms and framing of the poem through camera angles / film terminology like it’s such a sexy way to ‘translate’ the omniscient moving narrator. AND it pushes you towards a v different emotional response than oswald like memorial is lowkey War And The Pity Of War (The Poetry Is In The Pity) while war music is like. uncomfortably fun. i think comparisons of ancient epic to modern (war-focused) action films can be Lazy or Done Badly (thinking only abt Violent Action Scenes Made Heroic and not the role of the listener/reader/viewer) but the elements of that in war music Work! also agamemnon gets called a piece of shit

tv men: hektor - anne carson. the spectatorship element of war music made more obvious and on a much smaller scale (it’s just one poem in a sequence). also v cool things going on w different degrees of Looseness of translation stacked inside one another

autobiography of red - anne carson. based on the fragments of stesichorus’ geryoneis but bcs the original is so incomplete it can’t really be a ‘retelling’ so much as an imagining of what the poem could and definitely Could Not be. technically a novel but A Novel In Verse. also one of my favourite books of all time ever. it’s in third person but the claustrophobia of the narrative style / the way the protagonist is often closed off to parts of his own thoughts is Weirdly Similar to theseus in the king must die? ALSO geryon ends up with a photography motif. this time we are also using it to think about the subjectivity of which fragments of a poem end up surviving / what gets cut off outside the edge of the photograph

red doc> - anne carson. rip so much carson But this is the sequel to autobiography of red. what happens when you live past the end of your myth. namedrops the battle of ager falernus. prometheus is there. (and also: h of h play - anne carson. i didn’t know whether to include this because it is A Play. like it’s a ‘translation’ (loosest sense of the word) of euripides’ hercules. but geryon (or a version of him) is there for long enough that it counts as the final installment of autobiography of red. to me.)

lavinia - ursula le guin. the second half of the aeneid told from the perspective of lavinia. BUT what sets it apart from other What If Myth—But Woman ‘retellings’ is like. v close engagement with the aeneid as a story and specifically A Story Written By An Actual Author who created his fictionalised past in very deliberate directions. like it doesn’t just treat the aeneid as an authorless body of mythic stories. vergil’s ghost is a character also. fate is real also. ALSO the setting in The Mythic Past As It Becomes The Historical Past + le guin’s decision to include vaguely supernatural elements but never the gods directly is like. very similar to the texture of worldbuilding in renault’s theseus books.

fire from heaven - mary renault. speaking of her. she wrote a whole bunch of other historical novels which you might like! this is the only other one i’ve read so far though. it’s the first of a trilogy about alexander the great. alexander has lot like theseus in that they are both deeply fucked up little guys :-)

dancing with the lion series - jeanne reames (@jeannereames hi 👋). also about the early life of alexander the great. i’ve only read the first one of these (again) but like. i read the whole thing in a day. the level of historical detail is also absolutely nuts. which makes sense bcs reames is an alexander specialist. but still!!!

cicero trilogy - robert harris. welcome to the rome zone. this is the series that got me into roman history :/ it follows the life of cicero from the perspective of his secretary tiro (the inventor of a shorthand system!). It Makes Roman Politics Fun I Promise. for real though these books manage to cover a very complicated period while also not getting bogged down in it And showing you cicero’s Wit. like i know i’m tumblr user catilinas but these books mean i can never really dislike cicero

roma sub rosa series - steven saylor. but if any books Could make me dislike cicero. well. these are a Long series of detective novels set at the end of the roman republic. catiline is there And He’s Sexy. you WILL get invested in the fictional detective’s family drama. also the author is gay and writes lgbt characters in a way that like. actually thinks about what that means In Ancient Rome. catilina’s riddle (book 3) is one of my favourite books of all time ever. also congrats to saylor for writing detective novels which really get into the function of the figure of the detective / Who Is The Detective Really Helping Here / cicero is a massive bastard etc

masters of rome - colleen mccullough. i’m just going to link the review that convinced me and also my entire family to read these. they are terrible they are amazing marcus livius drusus is there. they are massive they cover almost one hundred years of history sulla is sexy and kills people and you will know so much of the minutiae of roman politics If you get through them all

the key / the lock / the door in the wall - benita kane jaro. the key and the door in the wall are a duology about marcus caelius rufus and his relationships w catullus and then caesar. and also clodia. the lock was written later but i’d chronologically in between, and is about cicero and his conflict with clodius. BUT also all three books repeat A Lot of the same events, just from slightly different angles. the unreliability of the narrator helps / makes this v fun. the prose is A Vibe also a lot of the focus is less abt the political situation than like. caelius being young-ish as the republic collapses.

attis - tom holland. legally i have to include this :/ i don’t even know how to describe it like it’s a cryptid of a book you might have to get it through interlibrary loans. it’s not even brilliant it’s just so so weird and also the author cannot explain why bcs he can’t remember what happens in it. it’s about catullus (archeology student?) in a modernised alternate history version of rome (90s london?) being involved in a mystery involving ritual murders (tom holland HAS read girard. if you were wondering). there are also clowns.

hostis - vale aida ( @valeaida hi also 👋). first in an in progress series abt an alternate history version of the second punic war. i read the whole thing in a day instead of writing one of my essays earlier this year :/ have you ever read livy/silius and been like uurfgjhgh the narrative parallels between the lives of hannibal and scipio…… What If That Was A Book. you will go nuts over the barcids

augustus - john edward williams. my highschool philosophy teacher recommended this to me :-) it’s a kind of epistolary novel In That it’s framed as a collection of (imaginary) texts like. letters and biographies and memoirs, all showing Sides but never the entirety of The Emperor Augustus over the course of his life. i read this around the same time as A Source Book for the augustan period and was like. yeah.

#if this end up being formatted weird. whoops. i am on my Phone #book list #beeps

[whimsylinxx]

MAJOR SPOILERS ⚠️

Bungou stray dogs manga spoilers

Chapter 105.5

ppl are comfortable w this chapter cuz asagri wouldn't kill a character easily. They struggle but they're eventually saved in the end. but I wouldn't be comfortable when this is abt dazai facing danger. his death in every universe is probable and serves the plot in many ways

I obv can’t tell what Asagiri’s plans are for every character. I can only say that he doesn’t like killing off important characters, and that I personally hope that Dazai doesn’t die (which also goes for every character tbh)

We all know that killing off odasaku was, unfortunately, necessary for the plot and dazai's character development but Idk whether him killing off would give the same effect on other characters (mainly chuuya)

If we're talking about dazai, bsd is def his redemption arc. Yes, him dying and saving everyone but himself would be poetic ngl but it'd be a pity if his life is thrown away like that, interrupting that arc. he really never forgot what oda said before dying.

There's this Tumblr post talking about Dazai's potential death that I really admire and think it's poetic but I can't help but feel sorry for him cuz he's my fav character after all and m pretty sure his death is gonna hurt. Not only from my point of view but also for bsd characters'

ppl saying "chuuya is pretending that he's still a vampire and he's secretly now working with dazai cuz dazai's speech awakened him" give me one. just fkn one logical explanation to this apart from the power of love wth????

And das dazai being so desperate to be called babygirl and all flirty flirty w this sigma at the most inappropriate time imaginable. I love him sm istg.

Ah yes and here's another beautiful panel of fyodor that will eventually be turned into a living nightmare by bones

IN THE END I WANT TO SAY THAT THIS IS SOCIETY IF THE ADA LISTENED TO RANPO AND REFUSED THE JOB

#bsd dazai #dazai osamu #bsd icons #bsd manga #bungo stray dogs #bungou gay dogs #bsd chuuya #bsd s4 #bsd sigma #bsd headcanons #bsd 105 #nakaharachuuya #fyodor dostoevsky

[boxwinebaddie]

i am not a tyde gal, but AHWGHK OWAH!!! thats so cuteee! i thought i was the only one who found like the always catching and realizing when narcoleptics were gonna have a sleep attack was cute (if that sentence made sense lol). THEY'RE BOTH DUMMY FINE!! like clyde is finneee. but tolkien is like FINEEE. i want them.

d'awwww <3 c': /you/ are so cute, friend! you and a plethora of other anons who have sent me in positive messages abt rm!tyde, haha!

it means a lot to me bc a large point of insecurity for me is that when i first entered the sp fandom, early on, i fell super hard into Style, which directly interacts with the main four/five or the cfpom in my ncu lore, so i focused heavily on them/their dynamic...which meant explored creek ( the other main sp ship ) and the craig and those guys boys waaaaay less and know...much less abt them.

in general...but also how they fit into my fanfictions.

however, we know how i am, i never put out anything for you guys unless i feel strongly about it and feel like it's been thoroughly researched and creatively curated by me in a way that aligns with the show that we love, the characters we care about and my lore/the universe that i am cobbling them into...

( -- which, if you sent me an ask about rm!craig, i promise i will get to it, i am still developing that lore as well as rm!tweeks [ again, be nice to me, i am very insecure abt them ]. if you sent me an ask about bebe or wen, also, please know i am still developing Them as well. again, i like to really carefully craft my characters and make sure there are not glaring plot holes/they are authentic to my canon/sp. )

...so when i debuted rm!tyde, i personally was very stoked on fuccboi dumb jock frat boy secret elle woods daddy issues clyde and chill crunchy vibes poetic artist fight the man golden boy celebrity tolkien, but i was nervous about how you all would perceive them.

Very Well, it seems!!!!! which absolutely THRILLS ME!!!! thank you guys for sending in validating asks -- it is my lifeblood. mWAH! <3

( also, sorry i made tolkien British...it had to be done. cheers, luv! xx )

and while i too was not initially a tyde girlie ( again, i am not that knowledgeable abt sp chars outside of style ) i'm love rm!tyde so much...they are so Cute to me. <3333

i feel like when they start dating, it's gonna be like clyde rolling up like *obnoxious jocky american accent vc* hey bro! ;), handing tolkien his tea from the coffee cart ( except it's Not bc clyde was not paying attention and grabbed a cup marked clara...smh, tolkien said it was the thought that counts ) speaking of him, he is definitely in the grass, sketching stuff listening to chill music and is the *posh london accent* hiya babes xx <3 boyfriend and then they kiss...Amazing.

BUT YES!!!! I LOVE NARCOLEPSY CLYDE SO MUCH!!!

SLEEPY KING

i feel like even as friends, they're in a study group for one of their classes talking to some girl and clyde's words start to slur and he's like swayinggg and the girl looks scared as Fuck but tolkien just catches him like it's nothing ( he is very used to this ) and the girl is like??? WHAT JUST HAPPENED IS HE OKAY DOES HE NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL??? and tolkien very calmly with clyde In His Arms is like "don't worry, darling. he's quite alright; happens all the time. would you mind if we moved over to the couches, though?"

and she's just like "...." as they walk over there, then tolkien sits down, sets clyde's head on his lap, shrugs off his jacket, throws it over clyde's legs and their classmate is like "uh…should we do this later, maybe?" and tolkien's like "oh, no. he'll be out for a while. sleeps like an angel, snores like a bulldozer. very heavy too; wouldn't wake up for the apocalypse. now...where was i? oh, right! i Do think the system is inherently classist and fueled by capitalistic greed." HSADLKS

anyways...live laugh tyde, everybody.

-uncle nina, destroyer of sacred sp canon

p.s. i do think their running joke is don't sleep with anyone or fall for anyone else lmaoooooooo

OKAY EDIT: I HAD CLYDE HAVE TOLK TRY GREASY NASTY AMERICAN BOY FOOD ONCE AND…

ROOOOLLLL CLIP!

i love them oh my goddddd

#no one ask me abt craig and those guys i'm embarassed #like i am deadass insecure abt not being confident in those characterizations considering i usually am smh #i do feel v confident in clyde and tolkien tho i seriously love them like clyde is like yuh skeet bruh dolla dolla bills fuck bitches get $ #tolkien is like Scuse Me Love But Would You Mind Providing Me A Light? Of My Life Or Otherwise ;) Cheers Darling! <3 #hey bro x hiya babes supremacy truly #*also tolkien vc everyday* tie ur trainers!!! >:O #*clyde also everyday* doesn't and eats shit on the pavement #tolkien does nag him to take his meds everyday #he's like And Don't Be Late #clyde's like taking my oxybate ya ya whatever mary poppins #like you better marry that man and pop those pills clydesdale #i also think that they watch a lot of shows together and clyde is like DONT START IT WITHOUT ME and tolks like ok dont be LATE then? #smh #boys boys boys #sorry ill go back to being a style girlie #they’ve just been on my brain lately #also this is slightly off topic #but i think clyde has a touch of the tism #and his thing is DINOSAURS #and clyde just nerds out for 15 minutes abt different dinosaurs and tolk sketches him #them drinking tolks fancy boy ipas on their single dorm room bed #watching their netflix show all like wHAT NO WAIT #them like bro!!! bruv!!! dUDE!!! MATE!!! #CHEEKY LIL SNOG WHEEEN

[artoile]

hi hi hi 👀 im here to ask about jamiazu !!

what got you into shipping them? like what aspects about their dynamic and potential chemistry and stuff . i usually love to hear abt that kind of stuff i hope the ask isnt too silly teehee

HELLOOOOO SORRY IM LATE. Work and life have been kicking my ass and I wanted to take my time answering this 💀

There are many things I love about azjm/jamiazu and I could write thousands upon thousands of words waxing poetics about why I adore their dynamic

But...if I'm being completely honest with myself...the first thing that initially got me into the pair was.............................................................(wait for it)................................................................................................................

.......................................hakukai

IUDAWHAUWGDYAWGDYAUGDAAWDAD

Now. You might be thinking, "Kono, what the HELL does hakukai have to do with azjm?!?"

And to that I say. Hear me out:

Do you get me. Do you see my vision. Are the worms crawling inside my brain coming through? Is this anything? (<- Person who is completely deranged and delusional)

Hakukai and Azjm are obviously very different pairs for many reasons but I think they have some core similartities that REALLY appeal to me: They're both dynamics with two classmates where one half wants to learn EVERYTHING there is to know about the other one. Person A (Azul & Hakuba) wants to dissect and understand the other's motives as thoroughly as possible and bring everything about them to the light. A is very straightforward about their interest--- but it is over-the-top to a degree that may come as very cloying and saccharine, leading Person B (Jamil & Kaito) to interpret it as dishonest. Consequently, B is very suspicious of A's motives and tries to keep them at bay. B has a part of themselves they're trying to hide (With Kaito, it's KID. With Jamil pre-CH4 it's his skills and real personality) but they know A is able to see through their bullshit.

HAVING SAID ALL THAT, TO SAY I ONLY LIKE JAMIAZU BECAUSE OF HAKUKAI WOULD BE UNFAIR. It's the main reason the ship appealed to me initially and why I started looking into it, but

I think hakukai is ultimately a soft ship. Despite being increbily chaotic, Hakuba and Kaito are both good, selfless guys at heart. Azul and Jamil are anything but.

There's a lot more emotional constipation and resentment in azjm,as well as dishonesty and selfishness on both sides. Azjm lends itself to more mindgames and tension. Azul and Jamil are both cruel and conniving; they are both willing to use and exploit one another, making for a really tenuous relationship...And that is fascinating to me!

Azul is a fundamentally greedy character that is used to taking stuff from others for his own benefit while Jamil is someone who has been forced to give everything and not have anything of his own due to circumstance and these traits are both their undoing. Azul becomes too fixated with the things he has accumulated because they're a tangible representation of his own worth while Jamil becomes resentful, bitter and self-sabotaging due to the things he's been forced to give up due to his position. I like that jamiazu as a dynamic has the potential of challenging those roles and making the characters question their positions as they interact and become increasingly frustrated with one another. Azul dislikes wasted potential. Jamil is a wealth of wasted potential. Jamil resents those free flaunt their skills and possessions. Flaunting is a core part of who Azul is.

Azul trying to rationalise his interest in Jamil as a business endeavour despite it bordering on ridiculous and unprofitable because he's 100% convinced Jamil is a worthy investment. Jamil struggling with the idea of seeing Azul as someone on par with him and a possible partner to help him reach his full potential. Their image of one another slowly morphing from "valuable asset" to genuine equals.

Not to mention how absolutely terrible (for everyone else) they would be together!!!

I also really love Octarabia/Scaravinelle as a dynamic. So I really like how the tweels and Kalim play a part in the overall relationship as well. But that's a topic for another day!!!

ANYWAY. I DON'T KNOW IF THIS ANSWERED THE QUESTION AT ALL. WADIUHAWUDHAWUIDHAWUIHDAUIDW I could talk about them all day. The snide comments. The scheming. The constant observation. The 4D chess. Jamil losing his mind. You get me.

With all that said. Phantom thief Jamiazu AU when? 🤨

#little poached deteggtive #asks #azujami #jamiazu

[sageshadowed]

🧅 im hope finally i can send memes also *boops*

yeah hey. thanks sir. boops you with the force of like a thousand suns

i think the original character i wanted to make this meme for was sigyn norsemythology, like "only gets mentioned in völuspá 35 and lokasenna end notes in the poetic edda" sigyn, but also the version of sigyn i've been writing in a like norse retelling story i've been working on since like high school? though it's changed a lot since then.

the rest of this is 1. i will tell you more about sigyn bc i'm too shy to do so above a readmore 2. rambling abt my taste in stories and tropes and opinions abt story/mythology retellings

ok hey. first of all: sig is loki's wife, exclusively known in the eddas for holding a bowl over loki's face when she[^1] was bound, catching as a serpent dripped venom into it. so like. gestures vaguely. the narrative parallels are remarkable, except macaque didn't stay.

my sigyn is a butch lesbian and loki's transfem and theyre super married ok ! also both of em r chinese [or at least jötunnheim is based on china/ne asia] loki's from the north and sig's from the south. my citation for this is the beginning notes of lokasenna: þórr kom eigi, því at hann var í austrvegi, amirite?[^2] iirc there's scholarship out there about how this is supposed to be an allegory for the sámi people, probly sámi/russia/eastern europe would've been better ethnicities/cultures to pull from, but. yknow. i am the person i am

second: i think a lot about what get lost in mythological retellings and how we rewrite sigyn in norse mythology retellings specifically. this has actually been kinda a hot topic in norse retelling lit recently. everyone wants sigyn to be a bigger character in the myths-- you see more books written from her or loki's perspective or whatever, especially since loki's a more popular character, since everyone loves a trickster god. this is supposed to b feminist, or whatever. (few of them are actually good and i can tell u this bc i've read most of them. special interests are wild)

but like what if you consider that sigyn didn't want to be in the myths, seeing how they talked about loki and going "huh. no thanks! i don't wanna be written about like this, actually." what if the myths aren't true, or misrepresent what events actually happened?? what then becomes ur attitude towards the writer of/subjects of the myths?? what gets recorded in history and what gets forgotten or smoothed over. what do we do when the queers are considered the monsters.

anyway i think a lot about how jttw (novel) exists in universe and often i wonder how macaque is written in it. and if it stays as-is, i think about how he would know, deeply, that he is not a guy who just shows up in two chapters. but he is written that way bc stories and histories are cruel.

also wrt just norse mythology vs. jttw in general, a lot of my blorbos are guys who have been fucked over by gods so wukong and loki have that in common. both of them have been my favs for a long ass time. shoutouts

[^1]: she/her pronouns for loki thx. she's a trans woman unless u wanna argue abt how old norse gender was constructed ! i can also do this infodump on request [^2]: norse mythology has been my special interest since i was ~12 and i learned a bit of old norse for it and i'm so sorry for the person i am about it

#ooc #sunsage #answered

[sukunasweetheart]

no energy to be spamming today but yes, only sukuna could ever blow my depression away and yet also give it back to me tenfold...

here are some spiraling thoughts and rambles from seeing the new ep today:

a really interesting thing abt sukuna is that he knows, he understands the thought process of others. and maybe its in a cold and calculative kinda way but still, i think it gives him more depth, he is incredibly aware and intelligent, and he shuns the idea of love not out of ignorance, but because he already "knows" what it is…

the way he witnessed jogo's last moments/words and recognised what it was that he really wanted, idk it just really is a poetic moment to me?? aagh i have so many jumbled thoughts but i cant put them into proper words but yea sukuna is such a deeply complex character

and honestly this only feeds into my delusions more bc it gives me the impression that if sukuna actually tried, he would be great at it, whether it be love or literally anything else…

and also was it just me that feels that sometimes his expressions feel a bit empty at times??? im not trying to say hes being emotional or anything, but all this reminds me of the theme of loneliness, the way he stares at jogo's melting body

ik the manga showed it kinda differently but i feel that maybe he's probably either reminiscing to something OR (ik this is a reach, leave me alone) its that feeling of "loneliness" peeking out slightly in him, because that gap in strength between him and literally everyone else in the world is never closing, he never feels the same sort of satisfaction that his opponents feel-- dying upon giving their all and then being acknowledged by someone stronger than them

perhaps thats what sukuna is referring to when he says "i dont know what that is either" because he doesnt relate to jogo's feelings at the end, sukuna's never needed anyone's acknowledgement ever because first and foremost he never cared abt others in the first place and second, he's always been the strongest(?)

[wastrelwoods]

thinking abt how there’s this smooth easy equilibrium to the way will and hannibal talk even in their disagreements where they really feel like they are demonstrating fluency in a language only they know. & some people are only aware of hannibal speaking with a certain poetic bent and assume will’s way of speaking is much more in the vernacular because they don’t pay much attention to the fact that will always understands what he means, fully and completely, including what he leaves unsaid,and in fact the way that hannibal speaks when he speaks to will is unsettling because of how directly it mirror’s will’s thoughts inside his head. he SAYS that much in 2x01 but its implicitly true in their first meeting, when hannibal psychoanalyzes him with language borrowed from graham’s own narration in red dragon. i DO think there are some main characters in this show who speak to each other in the way that one paints a word picture in odd, impressionistic, strokes of layered metaphor and the other replies in more standard vernacular that cuts through all the bullshit and brings the conversation down to earth they have kind of a playful back-and-forth while they do this. but those characters are will and jack

#the ''i want you to stop saying odd shit''// ''i don't sleep i just dream'' detective duo #the buddy cops #not to be back on my will and jack bullshit i just love the way they talk to each other they are just an Odd Couple #TO BE CLEAR i would NOT suggest that jack is any less smart or perceptive #i just think he's the one who speaks in the most clear and literal manner

[duncebento]

how to become a decent writer like you

hiii well i took fiction and poetry writing classes @ columbia but looking back ive always been pretty decent at writing :> my parents read a lotttt to me (mostly a. a. milne) and i was reading magic treehouse on my own around 3 or 4, so i think that just being exposed to a lot of writing made me more adept…but that’s not very helpful. so i would recommend not just reading a lot, but (same as with any art) attempting to dismantle anything you find yourself liking in order to better emulate it. i personally am nominally influenced by the casual academic voices of ppl like terry eagleton as well as fiction writers like the brontës and nabokov, and when i’m reading them i habitually take note of what’s being done by the language. actually, my little bookshelf is beside me, so let’s have a look:

this is the opening of baldwin’s giovanni’s room. it would take a lot of words to discuss everything that’s being done, but a couple things:

“my face is…a darker past” is a pair of sentences giving us a LOT of information, and quite poetically! our main character is not only telling us that he is white, he is saying something about what whiteness has done, and a bit of how he feels about that whiteness (and, perhaps, a bit of what baldwin feels about whiteness.) this is not purple prose: there is a reason why it is not written “i have an average face. my ancestors were european.” it could have been, but that simplicity would have painted a different character without all the drama and brooding this one appears to possess! beyond that, baldwin’s phrasing compels us to think about whiteness, about privilege, and about what it means not to be marginalized— even the earlier act of watching his reflection in the “darkening gleam of the window pane” curves nicely into this talk of whiteness, because it implies the visual contrast our mc has with darkness! the nature of poetry, in fact, is “defamiliarization,” phrasing that compels the reader to see the Real in a way they don’t normally have reason to.

and this is fiction, but good argumentative writing is also based in an attempt to anticipate the reaction of its reader. as such, take note of your reactions while reading! “I stand at…morning of my life” is a lovely opening sentence, because it is contrastive: standing at the window of a great house in the south of france is surely a reason to feel grand in general— so when our mc expresses his terror, we wonder “but why??” and baldwin knew we would think “but why??” which is why he placed it at the very beginning of the book. the next sentence, seemingly unrelated, has a LOT more meaning after the first sentence, a sort of kuleshov effect…we realize that we are not just hearing about random objects in the setting (although we ARE getting info abt the setting), we assume because of the aforementioned terror that the mc may be drinking away his despair, and is hence keeping the bottle close. and so on and so on. to write well argumentatively, you must reverse-engineer the reaction you wish your audience to have, i believe. so i hope that’s helpful!

[watanabes-cum-dump]

Guess who finished Stromblood ✨

Anyways, I love me some characters with beautiful dead blue eyes~

Also some feelings abt Zenos under the cut bc I do be having ideas

He's honestly very interesting to me, and I find him very unique among villains. Like he doesn't hate WoL, in fact he calls us his "first friend." He fights for his own pleasure, which is really cool to see amongst the sea of villains fighting for vengeance or for what they perceive as right- but not Zenos. He fights to feel something. Zenos fights to feel the high of battle. He really is a monster. I do kinda think it's his dad's fault because he shows no remorse for his son's death and states that a monster is not fit for the throne and honestly that solidified him for me. A villain living and fighting for nothing but the thrill of battle is just super poetic for me. We are his friend, his equal, and his greatest rival because we are the only one who can compare. Eikon slayer, hero of Eorzea; the Warrior of Light is the only one who can give him that thrill.

Makes me wonder how he developed this thrill for battle. Throwing himself into increasingly dangerous situations to feel the rush of adrenaline from a good hunt. He's what, 26? Has he been this way since he was a kid? Or was it something he fostered as he got older and served in the Garlean army?

Anyways now onto the shippy stuff-

I'm gonna say it right now, but Elysia is one order away from being a bloodthirsty murderer. Killing gods has given her something of an ego- and honestly if it weren't for the Scions and the Alliance puppeting her around she'd be little more than a monster herself. She's vain, prideful, and a little selfish at times. She has little left to live for, and not much to return to.

So in a way, her and Zenos are similar. They both have major daddy issues lmao, but that aside, Elysia also seeks an equal. Eikons are all the same when they die, and no mortal has every really measured up to her.

Also while drawing this, I realized Zenos has little demon wings on his armor that contract Elysia's angel theming perfectly. Hehehehe it's just soooo juicy. Esp because Elysia isn't exactly an angel herself- she's kind of a piece of shit but she often tries to hide it behind her charms. So I think it would lead to this interesting dynamic of Zenos wanting to see her truly unleash that beast and be the rampaging piece of shit she is and Elysia trying to keep that side of her under wraps because he doesn't deserve the satisfaction of seeing her true self.

I can see the twisted potential of them being together- Zenos utterly obsessed with finding his equal and Elysia being more than happy to have yet another man wrapped around her finger. Reasoning be damned, she just likes the attention and appreciates the fight. They would be... an interesting power couple.

But at the same time, I did say that they were similiar and in some fucked up way I think they would find comfort in each other. Now they definitely operate under the "I can make him/her worse" logic but it's comfort nonetheless and anything is better than whatever the hell Zenos was raised in so yeah. If they were to be more genuine though, I don't think I see them being in love with each other. I think Zenos would confuse all the adrenaline for affection in the above toxic scenario, but I cannot see him actually being in love with her lmao. I think Zenos x WoL kinda needs a morally sound WoL to be a somewhat functional relationship and Elysia is... definitely NOT that girl lmao.

I think they would be great friends actually. They kind of balance each other out. Zenos "hehehehehe violence, carnage bloooodddd" and Elysia being all "okay yes but let's be subtle about it." Also I think more than anything, Zenos needs a friend to get his shit together like love will NOT fix that man. Not that they would try to fix each other, and that's the beauty of a friendship. They're both just kind of existing and understanding each other.

My fix for this is the Eorzea Academy AU where Zenos is still yk crazy and whatnot but Elysia is his keeper lmao. Like "Sorry abt my dog" and it's Zenos bullying the freshmen or smth lol.

#also kinda unrelated but i think zenos to “you'll be back” from hamilton idk it's been floating around in my head #sorry theatre kid things #zenos yae galvus #zenos x wol #ffxiv stormblood #kouryuu's shit #wol elysia vespera #wolship #long post #oops

[nightmarist]

OK i wanna talk abt themes, parallels, etc between my vampire oc and astarion:

ixalan vampires in mtg are blessed by the immortal sun - its where they get their powers from. they can walk in the daylight and most mtg vampires in other planes can see their reflections. aurelio is a paladin, and in a pre-phyrexia/post-war of the spark world, the ixalan vampires aren't conquerors anymore by Saint Elenda's decree (the first vampire of ixalan).

vampirism in ixalan is to be used to protect people, it is a sacrifice like martyrdom, not something to advocate all people become. vampires are revered as holy and go out of their way to fast for days, weeks, months at a time as to only drink the blood of "sinners, criminals, and heretics" - there is canonically a problem with some vampires deciding who is considered a sinner and abusing their power, but it is generally frowned upon socially and legally. i have additional heacanons about their social structure, but thats neither here nor there.

astarion is (or was, I supposed) a night-bound vampire who could only travel in darkness. he hadnt felt the sun in 200 years until after he was kidnapped by the mindflayers and infected. he can't see his reflection anymore but he still manages a vain facade. vampires, at least cazador and velioth specifically, are horribly abusive to their "children" and don't care necessarily whose blood they drink. at the most they seem to care how pretty their victims are, not about their character. as astarion puts it, vampires are a threat to each other for being competitors in territory.

however, in ixalan, the rite to becoming a vampire is a sacred one, and vampires are meant to coexist as a unit of protection. in other planes, some vampires make an effort to maintain a balanced predator/prey existence as not to accidentally extinct humans and therefore starve themselves to death.

the culture shock I love to imagine in particular, how wounded or jealous astarion might be of how Wonderful ixalan vampirism sounds compared to the horrors he had to live with. aurelio being personally slighted and disgusted and Outraged by cazador's treatment of his sacred and holy wards, horrified by the outright abuse.

most vampires across mtg have different ways of turning. for ixalan, its a sacred ritual performed by a select few so the bite of a vampire doesn't necessarily make a spawn, nor does sharing of blood make a vampire. frankly, i think the concept of a vampire "spawn" or otherwise "not-vampire-vampire" would be so alien to aurelio, just as alien as aurelio's entire type of vampirism is to astarion.

both of them are filrtatiious but in wildly different ways. astarion's filrting and charisma mostly seems to come out of a need to survive - maybe he had that personality type prior to being turned, but it evolved into a defense mechanism to lure victims, to talk his way out of problems, and more. he's usually not very genuine about it despite it comes as easy as breathing to him (which is the added tragedy).

aurelio is flirtatious but much more genuinely - he doesn't do it to gt what he wants, he does it because he likes to compliment people, to see them smile. he loves finding ways to make people happy, and does it so ostentatiously, waxing poetic about a person's hair or eyes or fighting style, whatever he keenly sees is that person's area of interest or something they need to hear.

for aurelio, there's an art to seduction, while his charisma is genuine he still uses it to keep a personal distance between himself and others, using subtext and cultural social cues and stratified language to keep a personal distance between himself and who he's flirting with as not to accidentally misled someone and hurt them. but seduction includes these kinds of flirtations. it's an intricate dance and both parties ebb and flow the waltz until someone backs away or gets closer.

This is where the one of the biggest clashes of their developing relationship i think comes between them - when aurelio flirts with him, astarion plays along as a survival tactic. astarion flirts and plays with people to get what he wants and automatically assumes that what aurelio is doing, especially because he sees aurelio do it to, well, everyone. astarion doesnt believe aurelio is being genuine, and aurelio is hurt when astarion isn't being genuine. and it creates this interesting tension, this wedge, when they both want to express how they feel but their "love language" is, early on at least, incompatible.

let alone the additional envy that astarion would feel about aurelio's vampirism type - maybe he cant taste food, but he could always walk in the sun? people revered them? i definitely want to write a high tension scene where he snaps at aurelio out of a combination of jealousy and this massive gap of experiences they have.

the vampiric age gap and power imbalance i think is also intriguing. mtg vampires live to thousands of years old, although ixalan are among the younger vampires. astarion is only 200 (ish) years old but doesn't actually know (as per "speak with dead" if you kill him, cries). on one hand, the anomaly of vampirism erasing the idea of age gap between vampires, centuries are centuries and whose keeping track, is an interesting one, but reailstically this is also a thousand some year old vampire realizing this barely 2 century vampire has basically never lived a real life and they have to dance this power imbalance, aurelio not wanting to overstep boundaries and astarion inherently feeling threatened or lesser than an older "true" vampire in near constant fight-flight-freeze even if it's someone he wants to care about and needing to work through it, and aurelio learning how to navigate astarion's nature delicately without insulting his strength of character.

#i have a lot of thoughts about my crossover vampire ship #bg3 #astarion #bg3 oc #well i mean hes mtg but shhh theyre technically the same multiverse #my ocs #my oc #aurelio