#insane implications of its name aside

[shebpleb]

The Place Where It Rained how i love you The Place Where It Rained

[wingedshadowfan]

do y'all not even realize jinx altered caitlyn's entire arc by kidnapping her and that bcuz of it caitlyn had a good enough reason to hate jinx before jinx even bombed the council and killed her mother in the process??

yes, jinx kidnapped her but it was heavily implied jinx kidnapped her from her fucking bathroom. i'm sorry but how fucking terrifying is that? the one place where you're at your most vulnerable, literally naked. then, jinx must've forcibly dressed caitlyn up in her enforcer uniform (you can argue she just politely waited in a corner for caitlyn to finish showering and get dressed but it was late evening and caitlyn had nowhere to go and no reason to put her uniform on after a shower, and even if you claim jinx allowed her to get dressed herself - why the fuck would caitlyn choose her uniform, considering who was kidnapping her), then jinx took her to the undercity and held her hostage there by herself for an entire day before she got silco and vi to join the tea party.

during this time, of course caitlyn would've tried to escape, like did we all see her with that broken wine glass? she was just waiting for a chance. but the fact that she couldn't escape likely means jinx was there with her the entire time (aside from when she was gone for silco and for vi). and what do you think happened between them so that caitlyn wouldn't try to escape during the time jinx was gone? what do you think jinx had done to make caitlyn flinch when she approached her?

we may never know but i'll give you a hint. when jinx tells vi she made her girlfriend a snack, she pulls off the cloche to reveal... a single cupcake.

how would jinx know about that unless she'd forced caitlyn to tell her? vi gave jinx her name. that's what she was, a jinx. of course jinx would've wanted to know what name she'd given caitlyn. but you're so sweet, like a cupcake. of course caitlyn wouldn't have wanted to tell jinx that, not only bcuz of its implication for her relationship with vi but for the fact that it would only make jinx angrier, more insane and more destructive - her only reason to kidnap caitlyn and want her dead in the first place was the fact she thought vi had replaced her with caitlyn. so she somehow got caitlyn to tell her. eventually. if i had to guess how, i'd say jinx waterboarded her - since caitlyn's hair was wet when jinx pulled her chair in, and there's no way it wouldn't have dried since her shower (24hr ago), even though it's also possible caitlyn was so scared and nervous that it was sweat.

and unless i'm mistaken, vi doesn't call caitlyn cupcake again up until after caitlyn tackles her on the border of the noxian camp. so perhaps vi connected the dots after seeing the cupcake and this became yet another thing she felt guilty for her sister doing to caitlyn, or perhaps there just hadn't been an appropriate moment to be flirty again after caitlyn's literal mother died. but vi hasn't called caitlyn cupcake again since. and, metaphorically and only half-jokingly, caitlyn stopped being sweet. the caitlyn we knew from season one was gone. and i hate to say it, because i strongly advocate that vi calling caitlyn cupcake is not what made her decide to betray ambessa, but it had a grounding power over her and i wonder if it would've made a difference in caitlyn's choices if vi had done it sooner. if she'd been reminded sooner of who she was, and what vi meant to her.

[adanaac]

CANADAS TOKYO TRIP PART 2 (day 5 to 8)

in this episode canada goes to akihabara and experiences her own personal hell: trying to buy anime merch

continued from part 1 here

Day 5 - Kyu-Iwasaki-Tei Gardens + AKIHABARA DAY

AKIBA DAY!!! but first kyu-iwasaki-tei gardens. my friend was weirdly cagey about what this place actually was about and kept calling it “we’re going to some rich guys house” so i’ll actually tell u what this is about

it’s the former estate of the family that founded mitsubishi, and was built in the meiji era (1896) by a british architect. i was personally stoked to see it bc, yknow, meiji arc, meiji era western style building, “omg this is just like takahashis house frfr” (and also i kept going “wow this is just like blue prince frfr”) ur not allowed to take pictures inside tho. sad :( 

and then we ate at sushiro!!! very fun watching the sushi. also the last time i had salmon sushi was years ago and ive been itching for it. they had a hsr collab and me n my friends got robin ratio and boothill stickers (didnt get to take a pic of the robin sticker)

i have a love hate relationship with akiba. love the vibes. theres so many people. i am intrisincally stressed out in shops. i was sent on a fetch quest by friends and stuff to find a couple things. theres so many stairs. the animate is so scary

(found onimais in the waifu section of a figurine store among big tiddy waifus lmaoo)

i did go to the animate cafe and get a haruaki drink but i couldnt get the coaster but i placed a order for a preorder to get it in july.... ??¿¿¿? the cashier spoke too fast man 1. im not good enough at jp 2. ive never.... i dont buy merch i dont go to collab cafes ive never been to animate?? idk anything about how this kind of thing usually works. felt like crying. it was raining and there was a lot of ppl and ur not supposed to walk around eating and drinking and stuff. i think a friend can help me pick up the coaster in july. or something. i found out that the thing that stresses me out the most in the world is juggling plastic bags it like amplifies any other stress im feeling by 10x u could generate electricity from my stress

anyway being stressed as fuck aside i love looking at anime merch and huffing the weeb air. i could do it all day. tbh i dont think i saw enough of akiba i saw like 5 ground floor shops and then got stunlocked in animate for 3 hours

also i think its kinda funny im the least weeb of my group. my friends were both looking for at least like 4 series each and ended getting a figurine each (luffy and mirio mha) and im just going around like man..... this would be HUGE if i was into blue lock... but its just medium to me... the only one of the group who can read japanese and is actively translating a manga. the least weeb. insane. who am i

wine connoseur voice) im not into..... individual animes.... im into the Culture of anime as a Whole... the Societal implications... the History...

Day 6 - Tokyo Tower + Zojo-ji + Imperial Palace + Tokyo Train Station

This day is kind of a mess bc it was originally going to be a rest day where we just went to the cat temple (gotokuji temple) but that was so far by train and we felt crazy so we did all this other stuff instead

with the tokyo tower, ive been to just about every tokyo landmark mentioned in yohaji, i think! (other than ginza. noooo) tokyo skytree, akihabara, kaminari-mon at asakusa from lost in tokyo arc and then the tokyo tower in ch71! (though we never went up the tower and skytree bc ticket expensive lol)

also, i finally get that the line names here are plays on the real line names in tokyo:

marunote = marunouchi

yamanouchi = yamanote

seinan (south-west) (u can barely make out the kanji for "south") = tozai (east-west) and namboku (north-south)

though im not sure which line musou is a reference to 🤔

zojo-ji is in the park next to tokyo tower, and i finally got myself a omamori there! wanted to get a red one bc thats Classic(tm) but the purple one was really cute hehe (also now that i look at the color page for tokyo arc closely, the one miikun gave haru was blue?)

went to the imperial palace bc its actually open today (and u can only enter the east garden anyway) very big bricks very fun to look at. also saw a big crow <3 also there was this cute story about why this watchtower was never completed. also a nice pic of a hydrangea i took and a big crow who let me get real close

also went to check out the tokyo train station bc that was in walking distance!! very cool building!! BUT THE REAL HIGHLIGHT IS in one of the malls next to it its called KITTE theres a 2-storey museum called intermediatheque (mouthful of a name) its free entry and has so many cool ass skeletons and taxidermies and other exhibits. as a biology autismer this was HUGE for me im obsessed with this place

Day 7 - Mount Takao

great day bc the train trip to and from the mountain was 1.5 hours each so i typed out the translation for ch 125 in my notes app this day. bad day bc i had to climb a mountain 🥺 took the chairlift up so it wasnt as bad as it could have been but.

also i wore shorts to the mountain like some idiot. it was also raining it was so cold i thought i was going to die i was fully resigned. had to buy raincoat pants at 7 eleven just to cover up a bit

asians in the old times are out of their mind building temples n shit up on mountains. i know a core tenet of buddhism is life is suffering or whatever but like have they tried not creating their own suffering. thats a core tenet of me. not creating suffering for myself. unfortunately i am great at creating suffering for myself (being stressed for no reason) so maybe the buddhists were onto something. and also my friend created this suffering for me by planning this for the trip. i was fueled only by rage and anger the entire climb i had to download the "hate. let me tell you how much ive come to hate you ever since i began to live" monologue while on there to motivate myself. also did i mention it looked like silent hill up there. my dead wife who i killed was about to jump out of the bushes to haunt me or something idk i never played silent hill

Day 8 - As I'm writing this

I'm writing this on the plane ride home, and will most certainly polish it up a bit once i get back onto my laptop (or not. im pretty lazy lol) (btw, the only reason i didnt bring my laptop to japan to work on the chapter while im here is bc the screen broke 2 weeks ago, and not it HAS to be plugged into a 2nd monitor)

this trip was a lot of fun!! it was fun getting to practice japanese, and i got noticeably faster at reading and comprehending japanese by day 3. its also fun getting to see full sentences in jp a lot, grammar is the one thing ive been least sure of bc reading full japanese books is a bit beyond me and i dont think tweets are a reliable source for basic level learning

was excited to see what differences would stand out to me as a singaporean, since most of the "things u should know before u go to japan" are from american or european perspectives, and i come from a fairly different culture and most importantly: a completely different comfortable temperature and humidity range. didnt get to experience the summers, but it probably still would be slightly cold to me (most of this trip was slightly dry and freezing cold to me (below 25C) (which is freezing cold to me. my ideal temperature is 30C))

kind of glad i got done writing this on the plane i for sure would have been too lazy to do it once i got home.

tldr tips for japan

- pack long pants like crazy its so cold (if ur a equatorial creature like me)

- bring/buy a A5 sized stamp book. lots of stamps at attractions and subway stations

- btw the train from narita airport is the most confusing shit in the world u better look it up beforehand

- u are going to think "wow this is just like in pokemon/mario/exit 8" a lot

- ??? 

also it might be more embarrassing to know a bit of japanese but not be able to follow the super fast speed than just own up and be a baka gaijin and speak english. idk. i think i just hate talking to ppl

anyway yeah ill be home so i can work on ch125 now. which will be posted soon after this. or before this. idk. im on a plane

addition: writing this part after ive gotten off the plane and back home, and ive finally been able to put a finger on something that's felt off to me all week: singapore's a very noisy place. even beyond general "youre not supposed to talk on trains in japan", its all very silent. nobody's blasting music or chatting on the street, people drive slower so cars make less noise, and, most importantly, singapore has this constant background noise of crickets and birds, and tokyo is just silent. it feels a bit like sensory deprivation lol

also heres all the silly little guys i mostly got from gachapons

[1moreff-creator]

Now that you've had some time to cool down from the Fuckfest of Friday Night, I'm a little curious on what you think of MonoTV's whole deal, because I haven't seen anyone actually talk about it much and that makes me so upset because wow Dev somehow managed to get me to care about this piece of steel

Spoilers up to the end of CH2

Hey! Yeah, MonoTV, huh? With everything else going on, this thing kinda got pushed aside, but there's been some really interesting developments indeed. I agree though, it's genuinely pretty incredible dev managed to get me to care about what up to this point had been nothing but a device for plot and humor.

You know, I originally wanted to keep this brief to give my full thoughts on the full part 2 analysis I'm working on, but maybe it's better if I just talk about it in full here and just link to this post from that one. Let me start by the theory side, because that's easier for me to write about :v

While MonoTV's creation being connected to XF-Ture Tech was always a very real possibility, the confirmation that at least its personality drivers come from them is nice. And there doesn't seem to be any type of repurposing going on:

MonoTV: Whenever I make a decision, ultimately, I must make the choice that fulfills my purpose [to run the killing game until the death of every participant]. After all, that was why I was created.

While we don't fully understand how this all fits together yet, I'm glad XF is being brought up because that might mean Min content in the future? For me, please? :,D

Anyways. Having a clearly stated goal for the killing game (killing all the participants) is also pretty useful for theory-crafting purposes, so look forward to seeing that line referenced in mastermind discussions moving forward. Not to mention, the secondary purpose of MonoTV playing the villain, with the reasoning:

MonoTV: This so-called TV show is more about appearances than you'd think.

So... ignoring the weird phrasing of "so-called TV show" as opposed to just "TV show," because I will go crazy if I look too deep into that, the confirmation that the appearances of the killing game are important seem to confirm a suspicion Teruko had back in CH2 Ep2.

Teruko: And also, [MonoTV is designed the way it is] as a way to reference that "past killing game," right?

Assuming via context that she's talking about THH, MonoTV being specifically created and programmed to look and act sorta like Monokuma could have some interesting implications moving forward, especially given things like Duke Spurling being alive to see the Tragedy and maybe wanting a recreation of the THH killing game. Thankfully there's no character with a talent for recreating things, such as art, an art forger of some kind, because if there was this could realistically point to them as the mastermind. :)

Final note about theories: I... called it? Sort of?

[Extract from Vivisection of the David MV] What I think is the best idea [regarding the multi-colored "original"] is that all the characters [which includes MonoTV] got the word. [...] I think it makes more sense to relate them to the meaning of "original style" under my interpretation, where "original style" means a change of heart.

Well, MonoTV sure had a change of personality, albeit briefly, now didn't it? (Please ignore the fact that I dismissed the possibility of MonoTV changing in the lines following that one :p) Admittedly "characters in DRDT will have character development" is possibly my least wild theory ever, but a W is a W (?).

Alright but screw theorizing that's for insane people. Let's go for character analysis, because the fact that MonoTV has become a genuinely interesting creature to study is possibly even wilder than the XF-Ture Tech name drop.

Now, a lot of what we hear character wise is similar to stuff we heard in MonoTV's previous character building moment; CH2 EP3.

MonoTV: Does a toaster know why it toasts? Does a calculator know why it adds and subtracts? They are simply machines that do their job without needing to understand why. To that end, I don't know who made this TV show and why. All I do is carry out the directives programmed into me.

MonoTV: I have no conscience, no sense of morality, no will at all. I am merely a robot, subject to the laws of my code. I have no choice but to perform the actions that my creator dictated I must. [...] All the decisions I make were already decided by whatever entity created me, because I am a robot.

It's stated in a much more melancholic tone, given the music in the background, the sprite pose, and the generally less silly "default personality," but it's nothing really new. MonoTV is a machine, it follows programming.

Except.

MonoTV: Even if I feel pain or guilt, I cannot stop. That is the fate that I have, to make others suffer. And there is no diverging from that fate.

Hey MonoTV what the fuck does this mean.

"Even if I feel pain or guilt"? Instead of "I can't feel pain or guilt"? The choice of wording here is very interesting, because it seems to imply that MonoTV does feel pain and guilt over the killing game, regardless of how impossible that should be. The "fate" drop is pretty huge for thematic reasons, as I'm sure you're aware; Teruko explains her own feelings about it in the rest of the scene, there's Xander's speech to Teruko before he attempted to stab her, Ace talking about how he was too much of a coward to fight his fate, Arei actually defying a similar fate in a way, David with the LGI lyrics, Whit and J and Rose and so many other people, all interconnected by this damn concept. I think it'd be fine if this is all we hear about MonoTV in relation to it, but there's definitely fun parallels to explore regardless.

Given how little we have of these particular character details so far, there's not much I can say about it other than I love the concept of an AI being forced to do something it doesn't "want" to because of code, and I'm interested to see if MonoTV will act differently in the future. It's supposed to reset to its previous personality in the full reset, I imagine, but it's not like we can just ignore all the shit it said here. I'm very curious to see where dev takes this.

That said, I also wanted to point out how this vague allusion to feeling pain and guilt and possibly hopelessness against fate aren't the only feelings MonoTV exhibits. Because for some unfathomable reason, it seems to care about Teruko to an extent?

MonoTV: Is something the matter, Teruko? Everyone else has already left.

Like, maybe I'm misreading because the personality change is fucking with me, but this feels like a concern more genuine than I would expect from pre-2-16 MonoTV. And...

MonoTV: You have to decide the answer for yourself.

This, along with the little speech about Teruko's humanity that precedes it, again comes off as MonoTV genuinely trying to help her through her emotions. I don't see how this correlates with its purpose, unless it somehow "believes" that giving Teruko advice on this will somehow lead to Teruko killing someone or something to that effect, which makes no sense.

If it doesn't help kill the participants, isn't necessary for the killing game, and doesn't make MonoTV seem like a villain, then it's not related to any of its purposes. It isn't code making MonoTV say this things. It's MonoTV's... consciousness? I guess? It's very, very interesting.

I am genuinely super interested in where dev is taking MonoTV, and if you told me that was a sentence I would unironically type before this episode, I would have called you insane. The writing in this series is genuinely immaculate, I can't believe we're getting genuine basis for MonoTV angst and it's compelling. Dev does it again!

Thanks for the ask, this was fun to ramble about!

[prongsandpetals]

no one asked for this but i’m saying it anyway because i am tired of this grandpa.

i dont hate jegulus or their shippers. personally, it doesnt make sense to me and my moral compass trickles into fiction meaning i dont have much interest in any of the slytherins. it could also be the fact that when people would create oc’s for james in their fics 10 yrs ago and made lily a raging bitch id be fighting them all in the comments- a fight or flight response that now has spread to jegulus- but thats neither here nor there. it brings people joy and they are fictional characters, and it doesnt physically hurt anyone!

but there is something to be said about some of the less savoury implications it has had on the fandom. it feels as though jily is in its own subfandom sort of pushed to the side, leaving two mlm ships to dominate. unfortunately a lottt of female characters have been forgotten or pushed aside because of this. a lot of people who joined the fandom not that long ago either dont know or forget that this fandom was not built on either wolfstar (who i love), or jegulus. yes, they popularised them, but this fandom has revolved around jily for over 10 years. not to mention many of these fics were written from lilys pov, meaning there was so much more depth put into the girls characters. to erase this is to erase the fandoms history.

the diversifying of characters is something amazing that has come more recently with the popularisation of the fandom and thats one of the good parts!! however if someone still views aaron taylor johnson as their james, that doesn’t make them a racist - the man has been james since at least 2006.

another (smaller) thing ive seen is someone will post a song or a photo and attribute it to a jily moment with harry that we can realistically see happening canonically and a comment will say something along the lines of: “this but its how james felt when regulus (insert something that did not happen here)” idk if its the autism but god those always get me a little bit, especially when it includes harry.

similarly, it feels as though people who ship jily are assumed to be less progressive. as a lesbian jily shipper i can’t disagree more. just because a ship is a straight ship does not make it a bad ship - i think we can all agree there are so many amazing LGBTQ+ ships out there now for everyone to enjoy. it does feel quite strange to me to place the two characters who created the child that there are seven books about into different ships, but people like them so its chill!! but when its just complete eradication or discontent with the canon ship… ;(

i also think that to have jegulus be endgame (except aus), a lot of james’s insanely important character traits literally HAVE to be erased. his hatred for death eaters and fight for justice, his unending loyalty to his friends - especially sirius- his black and white view on right and wrong, all of these traits become warped and stretched when it comes to jegulus. of course there isnt much canon to go off of so when people disregard it entirely i can understand it to a degree. but when you erase the important canon points we have on their characters, we are basically just creating oc’s with real characters names.

another thing that i find irksome is the fetishisation of these mlm ships- if youre gonna ship two men together do it right!! why are you calling regulus a cute little baby victim and james a big strong protector!! let them be complex and messy or dont do it at all! not to mention the erasure of a lot of wlw ships... lowkey gives girl who has gay boy best friend that thinks lesbians are weird… anyways off topic! ive heard people say its not fetishisation, its because the female characters arent written with depth- that’s why people read jegulus and wolfstar! okay? go give the girls some depth? regulus is a character we basically know nothing about canonically and youve turned him into a fully fleshed character who is now a lot of peoples favourite - it can be done with the girls too. there is such emphasis placed on wolfstar and jegulus for their deep, tragic love stories - and the marauders friendship in general. the gryffindor girls are right there. dorlene is right there. marylene is right there.

and if it truly werent fetishisation, i would argue that it can be a romanticisation of toxic relationships. a lot of people dislike jily because there is no “angst”. the angst is fighting in a war at 21 years old. the angst is lily and james’s differing blood statuses and the implications this has on their lives. the angst is having a prophecy hanging over their unborn child’s head that forces them into hiding. the angst is being betrayed by their best friend, leading them to sacrifice themselves for their family and the wizarding world. the angst is literally right there, but because their relationship is healthy and happy- one of the only things in their lives that is not full of pain- they are deemed boring.

again, i dont hate jegulus. i especially dont dislike anyone who likes the ship and gets something out of it. but there is so much change this fandom has gone through since their introduction and popularisation that has made interacting with the fandom as a whole almost unbearable sometimes, and thats what i do hate.

all in all, multishippers definitely have the most fun.

[cinderflower]

the concept of miq/malenia drives me insane bc it directly appeals to everything that drew me to princes but amps it up to 1000

a character (2 in their case) born into a title that dictates they take over the existing rule dominating the land after lifetimes of that rule devastating the people of the land

said character(s) suffering from an affliction as a direct result of that inheritance that inadvertently places them in a position to see the faults of it rather than the good in it

egregiously toxic codependent siblings who forsake everything in service of the other and in opposition to their inheritance

political drama and schemes!!

but for miq/malenia, especially miquella, the lengths to which they go?? the implications of the lore???

malenia, who was born cursed with decay, cursed by an outer god that rotted her body in a way that the golden order was helpless to stop, who by all means should have been considered a lost cause and an affront to the Greater Will and Golden Order, and yet still perseveres and learns to fight and becomes (one of) the most fearsome warrior(s) in the lands between for miquella

malenia, who is doomed to spread the scarlet rot to those around her except, (speculatively) miquella who helps her find not a cure but at least a way to halt the rot

malenia, who goes to war during the shattering in miquella's name, who is placed in an impossible battle far from the haligtree who chooses to unleash the horrors she's known her entire life and doom an entire region to suffer the same fate because she has never and will never know defeat so long as she still has options, so long as she fights as miquella's blade even if it brings her one step closer to blooming as the true goddess of rot and dooming herself in the process

miquella, who was born cursed to stagnate but by all means was given so many other gifts that would have allowed him to thrive within the system the Golden Order had established, who instead casts it aside when it's too limited, too lacking to be able to help malenia

miquella, who from a very young age (implied in the lore) not only masters what the Golden Order has to offer but then is forced to seek beyond it, and when there are no other answers to be found elsewhere, invents/discovers a solution which also places him at odds with the Golden Order

miquella, who in time rebels against the meddling of all the Outer Gods - and (presumably) also the Greater Will which acts in a similar capacity - because he has seen first hand the devastation they are capable of, the horrors they inflicted upon the person closest to him, who would never be able to take such action alone in his condition but can because he has malenia as his blade at his command

with princes the Romance in their actions is in the conscious decision to be passive, to simply allow the world to take its natural course, finding comfort with each other

with the twins the Romance is in the opposite, it is in the conscious decision of rebellion, in the wrathful rejection and deconstruction of the fate they were born into no matter the cost, in seizing control over their own lives to build something new together in the mentality of no cost too great where the other is concerned

[lazyrezi]

I mean. That's bad buuuuut also. Murderbot might just calm down if it's too busy worrying about ART as opposed to fighting with it

Don't get me wrong I looove the arguing but I do want them to make up

Poor ART its going through it and Murderbot is making it go through it alone

OK BUT YOU SO ARE

Hah Amena is an aspiring matchmaker/marriage counsellor

Too bad both ART and Murderbot are being very uncooperative

Hehe they're such nerds <3

Ok but the implications! Being called ART is a special privilege BECAUSE Murderbot made that name up for it you can't convince me otherwise!

Yeah that's a good way of dealing with stuff. Just turn and face the wall it never fails

Too bad it can't do that to ART (considering it IS all the walls ... and ceiling... and floors)

OOF

ART needs a friend

And Murderbot DOES care

Insane conversation out of context

Hah love that Murderbot will put its anger aside for THIS what a nerd

[thedangerstranger]

Wait hang on. Scarlet, I wanna hear more about what you think of the Twilight movies.

I have had to let this marinate, because good heavens those movies drive me insane.

Let's get one disclaimer out of the way: a portion of the hate for the Twilight stories, both books and films, was simply because they were popular with teenage girls. As a disclaimer on that disclaimer, they are still terrible and deserving of derision.

First of all, my most minor complaint in the scheme of things — the decisions made with the vampires in that story are ridiculous. I am not one to ever deny a storyteller the right to alter folkore and tales for their own ends, but the alterations made here are silly and don't even serve a thematic purpose — and do not get me started on the fact that all of their bodily fluids are all venom-based, which certainly has implications regarding blood flow to certain areas of the body and what those parts excrete.

And also both of Bella's romantic options are dreadful people by the end of things — neither of them seem to respect her as an equal, but a prize to be one that they obsess over. Debates around relative maturity and experience ignored, Edward is already a selfish, manipulative person — and then you get into the fact he is staggeringly older than her (and the idea that they are stuck in the mental state they were when turned has hideous implications given a major character was once a member of an army fighting for the right for his people to keep slaves) and it simply becomes disgusting.

And I will not forgive the author for deciding to co-opt an actual indigenous tribe as magical props for her romance drama, refusing to sincerely engage with their real-life struggles. That would on its own be a grave error, but the fact she also introduced imprinting specifically for them, a concept that as much as she tries to deny it simply is a catalyst for grooming on several instances — and I am baffled by the fact that she decided the best way to write the romantic rival out of the love triangle was to make him imprint on Bella's newborn baby (an aside — this is simply a nitpick, but Renesmee? Bella has no right to be angry about the Nessie nickname when it is a substantial improvement over her naming sense) — reflects tremendously poorly on both her understanding of power dynamics and her opinion of indigenous individuals.

These stories make me furious to the point I can't even laugh at how poorly constructed they are. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to scream into a pillow.

[kingcunny]

What's your opinion on Viserys and Otto after the Episode 4 confrontation? There's such a difference between what Viserys says and implies to his face and what he says to Rhaenyra.

When Otto makes his report to Viserys, he immediately clocks what Otto is trying to do. (And makes a clear distinction between Aegon as Otto's blood and Rhaenyra as "mine own." OOP.) And then as he's scolding Rhaenyra, he acts entirely oblivious. "What vulture?" Is he putting on act for Rhaenyra? To counter her trying to put blame on someone other than herself? Is it more conflict avoidance?

And THEN he fires Otto, and he's like, "I think you killed my dad. Or at least you were gleeful at the opportunity his death provided you." There's some deep suspicion and resentment going back yearsss in that conversation that had nothing to do with why Rhaenyra wanted him gone.

oh my god viserys accusing otto of killing his dad makes me INSANE. cause no one wouldve told him that? the fact that we never hear daemon or any other character accuse otto of the same thing means this is a theory viserys came up with on his own, and has been just quietly holding onto all these years. and that theory sounds like the paranoid jealous ramblings of a kid on some “youre not my REAL dad” type shit. like Obviously the man who came in to take his fathers place MUST have killed him to steal his position and power. but viserys was like 24 at the time.

about viserys theory, i believe the unknown is the scariest thing of all. humans have a need to try and make sense of the unsensable. i think viserys theory about baelons death comes from that same place. viserys not understanding how his father could go from “a hale and healthy warrior and dragonrider at the peak of his ability” to so feverish and racked with pain that he cant even get out of bed and finally dying, all in the span of 5 days, is terrifying. he doesnt know what an appendix is, a ‘burst belly’ doesnt mean anything to him (just like his own illness, appendicitis would be both undiagnosable and untreatable in their time) . but poison? treachery? thats simple. thats understandable. he can point at someone and its *their fault* his father is dead.

this doesnt take away from anything ive said about viserys and otto before either. even with the belief that otto mightve killed his dad, what other father figure does he have? baelon is dead, aemon is dead, vaegon doesnt want anything to do with him. jaehaerys is so ill at this point hes calling viserys by the wrong name half the time. otto is the only one he has to cling too, to seek that parental affection and approval from. and after seeing how he takes care of jaehaerys during his final years, and prepares himself for being king, viserys starts to put his resentment on the back burner. otto is just a faithful and loyal servant, he has to be. jaehaerys trusted him after all. viserys was just blinded by grief.

when otto comes to viserys to report what rhaenyra is doing the first thing viserys does is almost engage in a strange game of chicken? like he refuses to accept ottos implications of what rhaenyra and daemon were doing, makes him "speak it, plainly" almost either *daring* him to say it or maybe giving him a chance to back down. and i think this is a part of his conflict aversion, if he can pretend its not real then it isnt. but otto doesnt back down, even when viserys tries to offer the out of "youve been lied too", either because he *is* trying to ruin rhaenyras reputation or because he believes viserys should know the truth. (theres that scene right before this were otto looks very upset. either debating whether or not he should tell viserys or trying to mentally prepare himself for what he knows will be a very difficult conversation? considering ottos conversation with his brother in ep 3, im leaning toward the latter, hes just been given a very real reason to discredit rhaenyra. aside- i would KILL for the rest of the hotd script to be released) its the confirmation that his daughter and brother have betrayed his love and confidence, and ottos refusal to let viserys remain delusional, to speak it into being almost, that upsets him so much. because now he *has* to accept that this is the truth, to deal with each of them, and the knowledge that Someone Else Knows. (both otto AND alicent now) and im wondering if the distinction between "your blood" and "mine own" isnt a freudian slip at this moment, both revealing that he does not view alicents and his children as 'his' and a resurfacing of those old paranoias about ottos ambitions with the new knowledge that otto has been spying on his daughter.

speaking of daemon actually, something interesting when viserys confronts him, he doesnt directly accuse him either. ("my daughter. wont you even deny it?") he tries to offer daemon an out too, for him to offer up some other explanation for what happened last night. but daemon is all too happy to take credit for taking his nieces virginity.

so when viserys finally confronts rhaenyra about it, he doesnt ask her what happened. just implies that he knows. where she challenges him that he hasnt asked her the truth of it, and he replies it doesnt matter what the truth is, only perception, HIS perception. it doesnt matter what really happened now, just what *he* believes is/isnt true. and both otto and daemon have forced him to accept that the truth is that rhaenyra slept with daemon. but he still doesnt directly accuse rhaenyra of this, because even though hes been forced to accept it, hes moved on to the 'covering it up' phase. if he can pretend it didnt happen, then it didnt. daemon is gone, rhaenyra will be married, it didnt happen and even if it did it wont happen again.

i think when rhaenyra calls otto a vulture it takes him aback a bit. cause how many times in those early days, when viserys believed otto was responsible for his fathers death, or at the very least jumped at the opportunity his death provided him, must viserys have thought of otto in the same way? i think he is feigning ignorance here, for two reasons. the first as a way to shift the blame, but not rhaenyras- his own. his own guilt of letting a man who he does not trust to become so close to him. to have allowed himself to become so reliant on someone who does not have his familys best interests at heart. the fact that otto is using him for his own gain, and viserys even suspected him of this and yet let it happen anyway. the second as a similar sort of game he was playing with otto, to see if rhaenyra will confirm his suspicions about otto. to make her 'speak it into being' so to speak. unlike otto however, rhaenyra does not hesitate to accuse him.

and thats why when viserys fires otto, he does not bring up rhaenyra, but instead the thing that originally made him suspicious of otto - his fathers death.

[starlightsigner]

I have things to say. Thoughts and closing remarks on the Knuckles show (light spoilers)

WHO TOLD THEM THIS WAS OK?

not in a fun wat but like in an actual way. It's so disheartening because this was such a good premise and the show had a great message it wanted to deliver. It had everything it needed to be a fun, feel good, nod to the fans of all ages show. All i9t was missing was a good writing staff. Ya'll the writing in this thing is ROUGH. The two main points of the show are that the power to be great is inside you and it's ok to allow yourself to be happy and have a home to return to. but they decided to go 80/20 splitsies on how much weight each plot point/message had. wade get's his whole character arc, he becomes the champion he was always able to be. knuckles (the TITULAR CHARACTER) doesn't. yes, he realizes that earth is his home and he learns to relax more, but it absolutely takes a back seat past episode 2. the show immediately starts with knuckles getting grounded and having to stay in his room, where he stays for 10 minutes until pachacamac tells him it's his duty to turn the local deputy sheriff into a warrior. there is no closure to this plot point. the show ends with them driving back to green hills. they could have written a fantastic scene where knuckles comes home to an absolutely livid maddie, who throws all that anger aside because her son is ok and he's home, and he admits that it's a home he's glad to come back to.

The villains are lackluster at best and useless to the plot at worst. only 2 out of 3 have a motive, the other one is just there. the two were both betrayed by GUN in different ways that were extremely interesting, but this was only touched on in a short exposition scene.

I could keep going until i started nitpicking, so instead I want to talk about the number one sin this movie committed, referencing sonic 06. I have no doubt that they thought taking elements form 06 would be seen as a 'fun little thing' to throw in for the older fans, but it's not, its borderline insulting. hardcore fans of any media franchise know the lore, even if a fan isn't neck deep in the series history it doesn't take a scholar to know about major events in a series. by taking iblis and the flames of disaster and slapping them onto knuckles' origin story is like ripping the band aid off 06 and slapping it onto knuckles, it doesn't work was needed and it makes both things worse. 06 can not be cannon in this universe, it just cant (unless you use a lot of au and cannon bending), so why take the inciting incident of a well known game in the series and use it as past events for your short special? there was absolutely no reason to expand on knuckle's backstory, the echidna tribe fought with the owl tribe and they lost, leaving knuckles as the sole survivor of his race. there was absolutely no need to tack on 'oh and then he decided to go find the flames of disaster and take it (no explanation or elaboration is given for this)'. not only does it muddy the waters lore wise and have insane implications for how 'powers' work in this universe, but it also feels like a slap in the face for people who like the story for 06. silver and blaze have always been some of my favorite characters of all time, and to just take their battle and sacrifices and give them to a character who didn't need a new backstory is just ludicrous. they don't even expand on it. they just say knuckles searched for and found a demon of fire and ash (who they don't name but is 100% iblis) and took the flames of destruction from it. this has nothing to do with the death of his entire race or seeing his dad die in front of him, there's no prophecy that says obtaining this power will help him find/guard the master emerald, it is literally just there.

I'm gona make a hard pivot here, there were things i actually liked about the show. not even 'this was a good concept but they failed to execute it' bc there ALOT of that, but there were a few things i legitimately liked.

as much as i hate the flames of disaster thing, i unironically loved the rock opera. it's stupid and watching it is a trip and a half, but also it was the past of the show where I could tell every one of those actors and dancers had so much fun. it reminded me so much of a sonic shitpost made with love and some of the props and costumes were legitimately impressive. the giant iblis puppet was so interesting to watch and even tho it was 'low budget' you can tell that the prop department put their entire hearts into the puppets and props for this.

Another thing I absolutely adored was knuckles' friendship with wade's mom. this small lost orphan and this single mother who just wants to have dinner with her kids who don't visit. how she tells him about their religious and family traditions and how he both respects them and is clearly interested in learning about them. the fact that after both of her children leave the dinner early, he stays with her and they both openly learn form and enjoy each other's company.

I also adore the girl scout and how she goes from wade's bully to his teammate in the final event, I wish they had put more focus on her and wade's relationship and her coming to respect him as he became confident in himself.

and of course the wachowski family and all of their interactions were perfect, from sonic trying to be a good brother to knuckles by helping him get used to earth to maddie being oh so tolerant of her three alien sons (to an extent). also the fac that she openly tells the construction crew that her son just so creative and imaginative with home defense, he just like to be a little warrior please don't sue us i'm so sorry he hog tied you to your truck.

also knuckles trying to teach ozzie (the family golden retriever) how to reclaim his wolf heritage in defense of the home was priceless and until tails called him away he was 100% paying attention and trying to be a good student boy.

3 out of 10 - don't watch this unless you are a diehard. it will still disappoint you, but the moments you can see what it could have been shine when given the opportunity

also the sister is the worst character even more so than the villain who betrays GUN bc he wants to fight aliens and make money, something he was already doing as a super secret government agent. I will admit the thumbs up after the rescue got a genuine laugh out of me

[cryptidofthekeys]

The Serpent God of The Septukhen Seas - Yami x Reader

I know it's literally in the name- Slifer the SKY DRAGON but for my own plot reasons imma ask  y’all to roll with what im putting down here, okay? Also was originally gonna use Yugi as the main lad but I decided, there’s so little x reader content out there so I'm fixing that

I figured I should add Yami x Reader so people know what the fuck this is before diving into it fgjdklfgjdfs I know its probs already been done I mean,, combining Slifer n Yami together, its not an og concept but I like mermen type stuff, I like writing big scary creatures and so this is a thing ...Imma be honest I feel like I coulda done some shit better in the first chapter BUT,, i dont wanna go rewrite all of it so yeah

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Also Septukhen was just a word I took from the fantasy name gen bc I wanted a cool sounding name for the sea the reader would be going to, Idk if its an actual thing I hope its not- fantasy name gen said MOST would be made up names

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TW: its kinda implied but I won’t say if its true or not but there’s some implications that a family member may have died, for now all I’ll say is their missing

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You were putting all the supplies you’d need on your boat, making sure everything was in order for this evening’s trip out to sea. You had been planning this for a long time now, you had researched all you could about the stories everyone had told, about the legendary creature… You remembered reading so much about it yourself until you passed out late at night, from what everyone and the books told you, it seemed that an ancient Pharaoh from long ago fused himself together with a God itself, you remembered seeing the God’s name was Slifer.

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It was some kind of god of the ocean in the ancient times, from what you remembered reading it was said the reason these two fused was to stop a great evil that threatened not only Egypt itself but the entire universe even! It threatened mortals, gods, goddesses, and all beings in the universe so in order to prevent this evil from prevailing, the ancient Pharaoh and Slifer fused together to become one, it was the only way they could truly stop the being of great evil, it was said they couldn’t unfuse after that either so they were to remain stuck together for all eternity, no longer just a Pharaoh but now also The Serpent God of The Sea: Slifer…

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It wasn’t just the stories the townsfolk nor the books told that was your reasoning to venture out into the deep sea, the sea of Septukhen, aside from the God itself, there was rumors of great treasures to be found there if you knew where to look granted, you figured it was most likely guarded by said God but you weren’t interested in treasures or anything like that, no… The real reason you were heading out is that you were going to try and finish an old family member’s work, their research they had left behind, they had mysteriously disappeared one day, lost in the Septukhen seas, now… 

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Everyone, including your friends, had thought you were insane for trying to continue this, especially KNOWING one of your family members disappeared but you wanted to follow in their footsteps for a long time, you wanted to venture out into the seas to begin with and maybe even… Maybe you could ask the God about their disappearance, it WAS a God so it’s knowledge should be boundless, you were hopeful enough anyways, and even though your friends really didn’t want you to, they knew they couldn’t stop you.

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You were far too determined to continue their work, their research, you had been determined to follow in their footsteps from the beginning… And you weren’t going to let them down! You’d carry on their legacy, even if others thought you to be crazy, you finished loading all the stuff, taking not only food and drinks for yourself but also for the God, you would at least bring offerings, after all, going willingly into a deity’s territory and not bringing an offering would feel rude to you, and you wanted to show you meant no harm, that you were no threat to the secret treasures or even to the God itself, because while there were ones, like you, who respected the Gods...

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Their were also ones who were disrespectful, thieves trying to steal from it, stealing one of its scales would even fetch a pretty penny, and if they could capture and bring this legendary creature back? They’d be swimming in money! That thought made you frown, you hated imagining the God trapped in a tank somewhere, on display like some sort of item, a pet, or anything like that, or even worse… Experimented on, you gripped your stuff tightly.

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You then sighed and shook your head, loading the final items on board, you double checked over all the items you had loaded, your equipment got a triple check to make sure it was all fully functioning for your journey, you knew this wouldn’t be easy but you were determined… You were determined to continue on the legacy of your fallen family member, continue their work and research, you promised them one day, long before their disappearance was announced that you’d follow in their footsteps when you grew up, you took a deep breath upon remembering them, you missed them a lot in all honesty, you wished you could see them one last time but either way

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“...I’m doing this for you… I’ll make you proud” You muttered under your breath before finally untying the rope and walking back to the wheel of the ship, you turned the motor on and began to head off in the direction of The Septukhen Sea, a look of determination on your face as you began your journey. You knew it’d be full of danger, you knew the risks of it all, but you didn’t intend on anything standing in your way, you had researched and prepared yourself as much as you could.

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You glanced back somewhat at the offers you had prepared, you packed as much as you could into a cute little basket, to be completely honest, you had no idea what the God liked, well… Food wise anyways, so you tried to just be open minded with the food you packed, you had cooked and baked a lot of things for it, and then for drinks, you settled on some fresh wine in the end, you didn’t know if the God would like any of the stuff aside from wine, you had at least heard that in a rumor, that The Serpent God seemed to love wine, you hoped the rumor was true, you’d find out when you arrived you supposed, it would take a long few hours to arrive at The Septukhen Sea.

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it was very far out, completely away from civilization, there was islands but they were uninhabited, the only humans that ever came here was your family member, some other sailors, and now finally… You were venturing out here, being so far from civilization is what made this place so dangerous, if you got hurt, it would take hours and hours for rescuers to get out there, maybe even days depending on the weather, you had heard the Septukhen seas had some nasty storms on the occasion.

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The storms worried you more than potentially meeting the God from legend itself, granted you were still of course nervous about that, from all the stories you had heard, even some of the ones your family member had told you in secret, The Serpent God wasn’t cruel or evil, of course it commanded respect like most deities did, you could understand that but from what your own family member had told you once ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of when meeting The Serpent God of The Septukhen Seas’ …It almost sounded like, they spoke from a place of experience even if they hadn’t outright told you they met the God.

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Your parents didn’t like them telling you these silly stories, to them there was no such thing as a God like that, it was just another fairytale, you glared upon remembering that, your hand tightening on the wheel of the boat, they had always h a t e d that you had gotten so interested in that sort of stuff, would always scold you when they caught you looking into it, telling you that the other was just too old, senile in fact is the word they used, even with that, you still believed, you believed in them, you didn’t believe they’d lie to you.

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. . . Eventually… After hours and hours of sailing, and you getting a bit exhausted even from steering the boat, you finally arrived at your destination… The Septukhen Seas…

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The water was a brighter shade of blue here than the water you had been sailing in, it was much clearer too, you had honestly thought the seas here would be dingy looking, it’d look dark, ominous but in all honesty… It looked like an actual paradise, the sun shone brightly on you and your boat, practically beaming down on you, that was the only downside is that it was horrendously hot here but other than that, you looked around, there was nothing but ocean obviously, in the far off distance you could faintly see an island, massive trees poking up in the air. You saw no signs of the God or anything really, but you figured it wouldn’t be that easy to see such a being

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You figured you’d have to dive deeper, literally speaking, but not where you were, you decided to turn your boat in the direction of that island and start heading there, you felt tired but you needed to keep going, once you got into the spot that felt right, you’d rest then, but for now you needed to press on, you looked around as you sailed, you hadn’t expected such a gorgeous place, you honestly expected something dark, ominous, but then again, why did you expect such a place?

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Especially a place that holds a God who saved the entire universe? Why would it live in a dark, dingy, and ominous sort of place? You sighed, you had no idea why you expected that but you shook your head, you headed that way toward the island, your radio had cut out here which made you somewhat nervous, you had hoped that it wouldn’t be like that if you needed to call out for help… The island kept getting bigger and bigger as you approached it, you looked over the place and that’s when you noticed a hut, you raised a brow at this “...I-I thought the islands were uninhabited…”

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You were confused, you docked your boat upon coming to the shoreline and you quickly hopped down off of it, you had to be mindful, because you didn’t imagine that if someone were here, they’d take too kindly to you intruding in their home, you slowly and cautiously made your way toward the hut, you did call out just in case “Hello?! If anyone’s in there, do you need help?” …No response, you called out a few times again before sighing and proceeding forward, you peered around the corner and saw nobody had been in there, in fact, it looked like it had been abandoned for a long time now that you were closer.

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The roof inside was falling in on itself and it honestly looked like it wouldn’t last much longer, some crabs had made their home inside along with some not so friendly looking insects, you looked inside and saw nothing particularly useful until you felt something nudge your foot, your eyes widened slightly and you jumped back with a yelp, worrying that you had just been bit or stung, you quickly checked your foot, pulling off your shoe and sock, upon finding no marks whatever you sucked in a deep breath and exhaled “O-Oh thank the Gods…” Your eyes widened when you heard a soft chuckle, it sounded as if it had been carried by the winds.

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You quickly placed your sock and shoe back on and then spun around, making sure not to make yourself dizzy as you searched for the sounds of that deep rumbling chuckle “H-Hello?” …No response, again, you sighed at this and ran your hands down your face “...Am I really cut out for this…?” You were beginning to doubt yourself in all honesty, not even out here for five minutes and you were already hearing things, you shook your head and then you felt something nudge your foot again.

. . .

You blinked and looked down and noticed it was a crab, you smiled “...Oh hey lil guy!” You waved at the crab even though it couldn’t wave back and then you noticed something in its claw, it was dragging something very heavy, a book of some kind, you blinked “...What’cha got there lil guy?” The crab was of course silent but it surprisingly let go of the book and backed away, seemingly retreating to the hut, you waved goodbye before looking down and almost hesitantly picking up the book, it was a leather journal of some kind.

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It was covered in a lot of sand so you carefully blew on it, getting as much sand off as you could, you then opened it up, the pages were still very sandy and it was hard to make out a lot of what the book said but you squinted, then your eyes widened “T-This is…!” …This was their journal! The family member you had sworn to follow in the footsteps of! That was their handwriting even if a lot of it was blocked out by sand, you quickly tried to empty the book as much as you could but a lot of sand still stuck to the pages.

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You could still read some of it on the bright side, there was an entry from long ago… It talked about first arriving onto the island, the book entailing that this seemed to be a place the God liked to visit on occasion, they were talking about their boat crashing so they had hoped those stories about the God liking to visit here were true anyways because if not, well then they were stuck on this island until help arrived and even worse, they’d be no closer to achieving their goals but even then, they still weren’t giving up hope, they was plenty to eat on this island, that seemed to be the first entry of them settling in so you quickly flipped the page to the second one.

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It was still just as cheerful as the last, they seemed to just be documenting, counting down the days as an activity to keep from being bored, they talked about their days as they went along, nothing interesting for the first ten entries, but then… On the eleventh, you could feel the excitement radiating off of this page, and evident by a lot of their misspellings, they just repeated over and over again that they had finally seen i- er, him, you corrected yourself there, they had finally seen the God and your eyes widened, leaning into the journal a bit more to read as much as you could.

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You read over their excited scribbling, saying that while the God didn’t speak to them, he seemed to almost be… Observing at first, just observing their actions and what they were doing on the island before noticing their boat crashed, they documented the God poking and prodding at the broken ship with almost a remorseful expression, of course they had told him it wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t broken their ship, it was a string of bad weather but he still looked remorseful, and then the God retreated back in the sea, they called out for him to wait but it was too late, the God had disappeared… 

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And then you read over some descriptions of the God, some little notes of his appearance, the upper body of a human, the Pharaoh more than likely, tanned body, golden jewelry that resembled an eye around his head, and then golden bracelets on his arms and legs, but the most intriguing item was the upside down pyramid hanging from his neck, they didn’t seem to know the name of this item unfortunately but either way, then they began describing the lower half of him, or at least what they could see of him, it was a long red and black body, it looked almost dragon like instead of serpent like as they detailed him, they talked about him having claws, large sharp teeth, and tail that resembled a spear that was usually seen gently swaying back and forth above the waters.

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The entry talked about the tail swaying causing a gentle cool breeze on the island. They were especially grateful for that on the hot days here… And then the final noticeable descriptions of the God were the giant red crown on his head, it resembled pieces leftover from what Slifer might have looked like before they fused together, there was a notable blue gem on the crown as well, and then finally the God was MASSIVE, while they didn’t specify how large he was, they seemed to have been in awe… 

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Must’ve been larger than they previously thought, you grew more excited the more you had read about their encounters with The Serpent God, eventually they had excitedly wrote down that the God finally spoke to them, they described his tone to be loud, thundering even which made you perk up, you thought back to a few moments prior of finding the journal, after jumping back, you SWORE you heard a deep thundering chuckle, maybe that was… You then continued reading through the journal, they didn’t say much about the conversations they had with the God but so far, they seemed so overjoyed, even with their boat destroyed.

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…They did mention they were upset about their offerings being destroyed along with the boat but it seemed the God didn’t hold that against them, they said they were going to stay on the island for a little while longer, as long as they could to learn more about the God, there was s o many things about him written down it made your head spin to read it all, you read through some bits of that but then continued on, as the entries continued, they had started talking about running out of food which wasn’t good, however after that entry of them running out of food, it seemed the journal abruptly ended.

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You blinked in confusion as you flipped through page after page until you reached the book’s end, there was nothing… You didn’t understand why they just abruptly stopped, you had hoped they hadn’t met their end on this island, you didn’t see any remains anywhere nearby which you were thankful for but either way, you closed the journal back up, you wondered if they were even still alive. They had been gone for so long now, you didn’t want to give up hope but still, you shook your head, trying not to think about things like that.

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You reached into your bag and pulled out a pen and began writing an entry of your own. You wrote down the date, time, and who you were first and foremost… Writing in the book that you were heading out on this adventure to follow in their footsteps, you would be the one continuing their legacy and the writings in this book, you wrote about not encountering the God just yet but then also put a hope down, a hope that you would eventually find him. And then after finishing up, you closed the book and placed it along with the pen into your bag, you then began heading back over to your boat before pausing

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You faintly wondered if there were any more hints of them being on this island, you turned around and glanced over at the hut and then back into the jungle, you had brought a machete with you for such purposes since you knew you’d more than likely dock at some of the islands, you sighed, knowing the dangers but you knew the dangers of this entire trip so either way. You headed off toward the jungle, you still had plenty of time, you used your machete to cut through the thick vegetation that blocked your path, looking around for any signs of human life.

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Looking for any more clues, you didn’t think there’d be any but it never hurt to check, and so you did, you combed through as much as you wanted anyways.

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You had nearly been attacked by insects and various other animals, after finding nothing you sighed and began heading back the way you came, there was nothing else here, you had hoped maybe they had a camera with them, maybe you could see a picture of the God, an actual picture, not just the depictions from the books you had read or anything. As you stepped out onto the beach again, you looked around, you had more places to go, this wasn’t the only island out there, in fact… There were five, this one in the middle and then the other four surrounding it, you’d head to the four surrounding islands later, you needed to go further, further out into The Septukhen Seas.

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However before you made it to your boat, something out of the corner of your eye glinted in the bright sunlight, you blinked and looked over, you saw a crab coming right toward you again, it seemed to be trying its best to go as fast as you could so you casually walked toward it “Oh hey lil guy… Ya wanna show me something else?” The crab obviously couldn’t speak but it held another item in its claws once more, you blinked, a bit confused before leaning down to get a closer look.

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It was some kind of necklace, you didn’t understand “Uh… D-Do you want me to take it or…?” You honestly felt so silly for talking to a crab, as if it could- …And then it held out its claw, almost gesturing for you to take the item …Understand you… Okay, that was interesting, you’d mark that down in your book before leaving as you reached out, carefully taking a hold of the necklace, you inspected it very closely and noticed it was some kind of scale, a red scale, and that’s when realization struck you “H-Holy shit is this…?” You began to question, looking over the item, gently brushing your hand against the rough scale, it had to have been…

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That was surely a scale from the God himself, there’s no way it WASN’T! And then you began to question your family member, you had really hoped the God bestowed this upon them himself and they hadn’t stolen it, no… No, they weren’t greedy, they hadn’t came out on any adventures for just mere treasures, you and them had shared a certain bond, a curiosity, a love of adventures and thrills, you knew them, they were the FURTHEST thing from greedy, you then watched as the crab began walking back over to the hut.

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“...Th-Thanks!” You spoke, thankful the crab had brought this over, you placed the necklace around your neck, you were surprised it wasn’t heavier but also thankful, now you had something left from them at the very least… You smiled, holding the scale close in your hand, a sad smile, you still wished that you could see them again, one last time… You knew though, deep down, if they could and were watching right now, they would be so very proud of you for carrying on their legacy, their research, for following in their footsteps.

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You quickly documented that down in the book before you forgot, about the crab giving you said book and the red scale necklace before putting the items away again and then finally, you headed back to the boat, as you climbed onto it, you looked around once more. There were obviously no signs of the God hanging out, in fact, this island looked like it hadn’t been visited in such a long time, not since they last stayed here, and that weird chuckle you heard earlier…

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe it was just your imagination getting the better of you …But that deep chuckle still echoed in your mind, you knew faintly which direction it had come from so you were going to try heading that way first and foremost, you started the boat up again and began to back it away from the island, and then you were off, heading deeper into The Sea of Septukhen.

--------------------------------------

(First chapter done,, again Idk how to feel bout this first chapter but it be like that sometimes,, I was originally going to just make it into a short oneshot but... I uh,, got ideas ...yeeaahh)

[fabricated-misslieness]

Xiao x gn yaksha reader

I read some theories about the missing yaksha, but none are highly likely. 

Although, one stated that because the yaksha was running away from their duties and therefore their contract, Morax/Zhongli found them and killed them (as punishment for avoiding their contract). For reader being alive purposes, that won’t be true.

Requested: No

Word Count: 1208

Warnings: angst to fluff, mentions of killing

Xiao hadn’t seen you in what feels like millenia.

Five Yakshas agreed to a contract with Rex Lapis. They protected Liyue at the expense of their sanity, accumulating Karma as they killed. One succumbed to madness, another to corruption; one aimed to kill their own kin, one disappeared, and the last that remained was Xiao.

He was far from pure, but also far from insanity. His resolve proved to be stronger than his previous partners, even when it came to having to kill them too.

The Yakshas that fell into madness and corruption both needed to be exterminated, in precaution to them endangering the people they once protected. Rex Lapis needed help in finding and capturing them, so he called upon the aid of the Vigilant Yaksha. 

Xiao had no hesitation when slaying them. It was part of his contract, feelings aside. If they had turned to the evil and malicious, it was his job to eradicate them.

As for the third Yaksha, who felt bloodthirsty for his own kind, he was dealt with by the last Yaksha. Strong as they were, the last Yaksha’s resolve had broken. They’d bonded with them for years, considered them a friend, yet they were forced to dispel them. Remorse coated their every thought and action; despite receiving support from their closest partner Xiao, and despite the logical fact that it was not their fort and merely self defence, they were absolutely done.

This life, full of blood and killing, was absolutely exhausting. It was horrible that they only realized that when they slayed their friend.

They disappeared without a trace, leaving behind Xiao.

The last Yaksha hid his emotions for the next millennium. To the outside world, he felt no repentance. He did what was right, he fulfilled his contract, and that was the end of it.

However, despite how strong he may appear, he truly did feel hurt. Everyday, he bathed in a sadness he knew the root of. However, he could not fix it.

He yearned for the missing Yaksha. He yearned for you.

You could be dead, you could have ascended into Celestia, you could be a mere spirit like Pervases. Either way, he had no time to find you. The duty that was once supported by five is now the job of one.

You were neither of these. You were alive, leaving life disguised as a human mortal. You traveled the remaining six lands of the archons, exploring and resting. Life free from your contract had raised new perspectives in your conscience. The karma which had once held onto you like a parasite was washed away.

Yet, as free and happy as you felt, a sense of lypophrenia would often follow you. Your contract burned into the back of your mind. It beckoned you back to Liyue, back to your home; and most importantly, back to Xiao.

For a millennium, you’d neglected your lover, essentially leaving him for dead.

You were always scared of coming back. Xiao would be mad at you, Rex Lapis would be mad at you, you’d be enslaved back into your duties again.

But one day, as you lounged in a bar bordering Liyue, shielding yourself from the heat of Sumeru, you’d heard rumours. “Rex Lapis, dead?”

The words had shook you awake.

You had to go back home.

The first place you visited was the temple where you’d left your wealth. You’d earned it all in Liyue, and since you wanted to be free from that land, you left your treasures there.

You were surprised to find the puzzles unsolved, although hilichurls did make their shelter in the area.

Liyue had changed since you’d last been there. It looked the same yet it felt like an entirely different place. Though, the last time you were there, you were struck by grief; that ought to have changed your thoughts of the place.

You felt out of place a millennium ago, and you felt the same once again.

Even so, Liyue welcomed you like any other. Its landscape was strikingly beautiful. A deep longing in your chest told you that you’d missed it. You’d missed Liyue’s high mountains, its beautiful trees, its wonderful flowers, and its vast fields. To think that Rex Lapis had left this land.

As you neared an inn, one that hadn’t been there the last time you were there, you admired it. It was built, or rather nestled, into one of the biggest trees of Dihua Marsh. You would miss the sight of it in its own elegance, though the inn itself wasn’t an eyesore.

When your eyes leave the building, and back to the road you travel, you spot a group of people in your path.

A flying being and a blonde traveler with clothes so exotic that you hadn’t seen them anywhere in the seven lands of the archons, and somebody familiar - your lover.

“Xiao.” You muttered to yourself. A smile graced your lips, even with the regret in the back of your mind.

Upon hearing his name, he looks up from the traveler. His eyes widen when they land on you. You don’t know what you see in them, love, sadness or anger. It would’ve fed your regret if he hadn’t started running towards you seconds later.

He ran towards you with a swiftness that embodied his name.

You’ve known him since you signed the contract with Rex Lapis. He was never one for initiating physical touch, even when you’d started a relationship.

But now, he tackles you in a hug that almost knocks you off your feet. You’re surprised, to say the least, though you’re not one to turn down a hug.

Xiao brings a warmth that also tells you how he feels about you. He’s missed you and he’s never stopped loving you; neither have you.

You close your eyes in content, Xiao’s head buried in your chest. You think that he’s happy too, but a sob makes you concerned. The sound makes you sad and angry at yourself for leaving your love alone. 

“Hey.” You cup his cheek and make him look up at you.

Once again, you’re proven wrong. Xiao’s smiling, though tears stream down his face. They’re tears of happiness, you figure. All of this is out of character for him.

“You’re here.” He breaths out in disbelief. “You’re finally back.”

“Yes, yes I am; and I’m never leaving again.” You lean down, kissing all his tears away. “I’m sorry.”

“Why did you leave me?” Despite the sad implications of his question, he keeps smiling at you with a love you can’t forget.

“I felt horrible for killing our Yaksha kin.” Thinking about them hurts, but with Xiao, you know you’ll persevere. “I’m sorry I never believed your reassurance. I’m sorry I left you to carry burden and Karma alone. I’m so sorry, Xiao.”

“It’s okay.” He says, though you don’t believe him. You’re making it your life’s mission to make up to him, even if you’ll spend the next millenia doing so.

However, the fact that he’s willing to forgive you warms you deeply.

“I love you.” You kiss him again, this time on the lips. You’d been longing to do so for centuries.

“I love you too.” Xiao responds.

[carol-effing-danvers]

Steve Rogers is a Monster

Yeah, that’s a hell of a title, isn’t it? Strap in, it only gets worse from here. 

(click here if you’d prefer to read this on AO3)

Forewarning, if you enjoyed the epilogue for Endgame, this particular essay is not for you - and no, I am not bashing the Steve/Peggy shippers, you are beautiful human beings who make the fandom brighter and I’m happy that at least someone in this fandom got the ending they wanted.

Additional warning: if you expect this to be another Civil War debate, you will also be disappointed. There has never been a measurement invented that can adequately describe how much I loathe the verbal dick measuring contest that seems to pass for human interaction between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers in this franchise. It’s not funny or entertaining - it’s exhausting, uncomfortable, and frankly it’s rather lazy writing.

This is about the very specific way that the epilogue in Endgame completely changed the way the character of Steve Rogers can be interpreted, and I don’t just mean the very illogical and contradictory way that time travel is explained, both in the movie itself and the fact that the writers and directors have two completely different views on how that worked out. 

I mean that the choice made by Steve Rogers in the very last minutes of that movie alters the way I view each and every one of his actions starting from The First Avenger and that alteration is exactly what I want to talk about, because whether you view it as deserving or not, what Steve does at the conclusion of Endgame was the most selfish thing humanly possible. Time is a thief, but somehow Steve managed to steal even more than Time.

Side note here: I understand that I am a completely biased Stucky shipper, a friend to Barnes and Noble, a Starbucks aficionado - sorry. Anyway, I’ve always believed that Steve and Bucky were destined blah blah blah, but I was never expecting a Stucky ending. Disney wasn’t going to do that, and I knew that, I wasn’t bothered that Steve and Bucky weren’t doing the smoochies by the end. But Bucky’s facial expression during those last minutes was gut-wrenching. Like...I have no idea what kind of cues the script and directors gave him, but in the future, please don’t ask Sebastian Stan to look sad unless you want soul-crushing devastation. It’s not Seb’s fault, his features are just arranged that way - but the fact that the editing staff allowed Sam to be sad though elated to be entrusted with the Shield and Bucky looked like his soul was being physically torn out of his body was an… interesting choice. 

Other side note: if you’re writing about time travel, I’m begging y’all to get your facts straight. Or just don’t write about time travel. It almost always sounds better on paper than it does on screen and it means that you’ve opened doors to more questions than you’ve probably got the answers for. I know this was about trying to set up the idea of the multiverse, I get that, but there were better and less messy ways to do that, and I know that because I’ve done it before. @Marvel: Let me write you a six-way orgy you fucking cowards~

By going back in time, Steve robbed Peggy of the future that would have been hers - not only that, he’s robbed her of even the chance of making the choice between those futures, because you honestly could not tell me with a straight face that Steve told her the complete truth of what he had done and she would be okay with him alternating the very course of the future. It doesn’t help his case that he has a history of not disclosing truths that he knows will be painful or inconvenient for other people in his life.

He robbed his loved ones - Sam, Bucky, Wanda - of the years they would have spent with him. Sure, he ‘came back’ after Peggy passed away, but they are adults in the prime of youth who knew him sixty years ago in his own time and he is an old, old man who has lived an entire life completely separated from them. He is practically a stranger with a name they know, but a history that no longer belongs to any of them - not even his oldest friend. They have him back, but judging from his age, they’ll be lucky to get even ten more years with him. Assuming of course, that any of them can stand to speak to him - I certainly couldn’t blame them if they tell him to go to hell and take his dad jokes with him. 

Steve has stolen away their friend and dropped off an elderly and dying near-stranger in his place, and this is treated by the writing (and the majority of the acting) as a wild and unexpected but not tragic event. 

Is it really that unexpected, though?

I recall seeing a Game of Thrones essay on Daenerys across my dash (I’m sorry, love, I don’t recall who you are since it’s not a fandom I’m in, but if someone knows who wrote that, please post the link!) which detailed how her ending in the series was foreshadowed many times by her penchant for bloody killings and her habit of surrounding herself with her own fawning friends.

Months after reading that, I had the thought: though Steve is never really shown thinking about Peggy after Civil War, except in a few scattered scenes in Endgame, was this foreshadowed? Whether you believe that his actions are justified or not, what Steve does is still, in the end, selfish at its very heart, and Steve Rogers is not a selfish person. 

Oh no, my dear friends and readers. Because taking this action has solidified and clarified Steve Rogers as the biggest and most selfish asshole in this whole universe.

Steve does not do the right thing, Steve does the thing that will most make him feel better. The fact that this often happens to be the right thing in the end is more the result of happy coincidence than any special sort of moral authority that the man holds. 

Rescuing Bucky Barnes and his fellow captives in a prisoner of war camp from being experimented on by an insane Nazi eugenicist? That was not a moral stand, that was endangering himself, Peggy Carter, and Howard Stark because he couldn’t handle the reality of his best friend being killed in war.

Sacrificing himself by putting the Valkyrie down in the Arctic Circle? That was not about sparing human lives, that was about Steve seeing his friend die right in front of him and not being able to deal with the grief. There were ways he could’ve prevented the plane from killing people without killing himself.

Trying to make Bucky remember who he was? And later on, saving him from the government agencies who wanted to hunt him down? Although, arguably, that last one is also just good common sense - Steve was already shown that government agencies could and were corrupted by HYDRA and he’d also seen how dangerous the Winter Soldier could be when unleashed. 

Steve did, I think, truly believe that this was the right thing to do, but it was also about keeping his connection - his very last, since Peggy had descended into dementia caused by Alzheimer’s before she ultimately died - to a past that for him, was only months or years ago, rather than decades. In some ways, this is completely understandable - Bucky might be the very last person left alive who truly knows who the real Steve Rogers is, because the rest of these people only know Captain America and we are consistently shown through multiple movies how uncomfortable this makes him.

This gets...considerably less and less understandable as we are shown Steve’s growing relationships with Natasha, Sam, Wanda - even Sharon, though she barely gets any screen time and they share the most awkward kiss I’ve ever seen - and indeed, what might be the most uncomfortable kiss in cinema history.

Side Note 3: This is made even more awkward by the director’s choice to have two of Steve’s friends watching them the whole time - seriously, who even does that? Why would you make them do that? Only sociopaths make out with their friends staring at them like that. It’s so fucking creepy - and don’t even get me fucking started on the fact that she’s also apparently his own niece. AHHHHH!

But we are shown, over and over again, that Steve is capable of building close meaningful relationships with people in the present. They don’t know his whole history, but they do know Steve Rogers rather than Captain America and they care about him deeply. 

Side Note 4: Notice that I don’t count Tony Stark among those people - despite this strangely persistent narrative that the various writers and directors tried to sell to the audience, Tony and Steve were not friends. They were never friends. They were colleagues at best, but these were two men who neither liked nor understood each other very well, but had to work together. And sometimes that’s okay, too. (Oh dear, I just gave the Stony fans a fit too, didn’t I? Sorry, guys. Enemies to Lovers is a great trope, I support you!)

But let’s set aside Steve’s gross betrayal of the people who loved him. We’ll also ignore the question of whether the motive for these good actions has tainted the actions themselves. Because even without questioning these, the conclusion of this story arc still transforms Steve into the biggest monster this franchise has. 

The very fundamental way that the writers and directors can’t agree on how the time travel mechanics in their own story work mean that Steve has just done one of two things and they range from shady and very questionable to absolutely fucking horrific. 

The first, that he’s created his own alternate universe to exist in, is morally dubious at best. Even the people who support this theory and liked the ending seem to feel that it wasn’t necessarily a ten out of ten on the moral goodness spectrum. They’ll say things like ‘he deserved to have his happy ending’. Even that phrasing seems to acknowledge that doing this was the opposite of the right thing. It just considers doing the wrong thing as being justified rather than horrifying. 

But let’s examine this first idea for a minute - even this, the more innocent of the two implications, means that rather than really processing his grief or dealing with the repeated tragedies and losses that have occured in his life, even as he was running group therapy sessions and grief counseling, Steve Rogers chose to escape his current life by creating an alternate universe that specifically allows he himself to live out his own fucking fantasies of the way his life should have turned out. 

That, in case you are not aware, is wildly fucked up. I thought I was playing pretty fast and loose with Steve’s characterization when I turned him into an extremely polite serial killer but as it turns out, I clearly just wasn’t setting the bar high enough, because that’s somehow even more fucked up than being an undercover child soldier with a small sadistic streak. 

Hm, and now I feel I should have been more creative there...

The second, and even more horrifying option, is that this older Steve Rogers has been in this world the whole time, watching as things unfolded just as we’ve seen over the past decade, taking ‘the slow way’ through time. 

Side Note 5: I do kind of understand why you would do it this way, because that’s really cool and shocking when you say that! Until you think about it for longer than three seconds and suddenly you realize…

Everything that has happened here, every tragedy and downfall these people experienced, happened because Steve Rogers lived his happily ever after with his beautiful wife and did absolutely nothing to stop it. He got to fuck Peggy Carter and watched as his wife built an empire of intelligence networks, knowing that her efforts were completely in vain because her agency was rotten to the core and he never told her.

Every horrifying act committed by HYDRA under the guise of SHIELD was permitted through Steve Rogers’ negligence. And that’s just the wider big-picture worldview, large and shocking, but not personal. 

What about the people that Steve claims to actually care about? 

This means that Steve lived his whole life in contentment with his wife and children while his best friend was physically and psychologically tortured for over seventy years and just...let that go. 

He allowed one friend to murder another in the nineties, when the Winter Soldier was sent after Howard and Maria Stark. Then their child was being advised by a greedy self-interested warmonger who paid terrorists to drag him off to be tortured and slaughtered, and Steve did nothing about that, either. 

Bruce Banner was exploited, experimented on, and made into a monster against his will in the failed pursuit of recreating what was done to Steve, resulting in billions of dollars in damage and dozens or even hundreds of lives lost, and Steve allowed that to happen, too. 

Like Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanov was physically and psychologically tortured for others to use her as a living weapon - except that this was probably happening to her since early childhood, and a man her future self loved and trusted implicitly did nothing to save her from this upbringing. 

The Maximoff twins are shown to have not wealthy but loving parents who are murdered in front of them and they both endure days of laying in the rubble of their ruined apartment, wondering if the bomb in their living room would go off and kill them. Later, they are taken in by HYDRA, experimented on, and recruited as child soldiers to the cause when they show signs of having supernatural powers. They start a series of events that result in the destruction of a major city and the loss of what is probably thousands of lives. Pietro is murdered while trying to help the Avengers to stop this, and Wanda suffers the loss of the very last living person she loved. None of these things seem to have bothered Future Steve. 

Steve “I can’t sit on the sidelines when I see a situation go sideways” Rogers, planted himself on that fucking sideline and observed for nearly eighty years as friends, colleagues, and his own wife were lied to, brainwashed, tortured, vilified, and hunted down like animals.

And then there Steve Rogers himself - not the Endgame Steve Rogers, the Steve Rogers who brought down a Nazi plane and will lie beneath the ice for seventy years while everything he knows disappear (mostly) innocent of these horrors, the life he would’ve lived stolen from him by a stranger with his name and his face from another universe.

What I’m saying here is that if you consider this idea for any amount of time, it took Steve Rogers less than ten minutes to become the most evil and disturbing figure in the entire MCU, only (not really tho) contested by Thanos himself. 

Gross and poorly reasoned libertarian ethics aside, Thanos genuinely believes that he did what he did for the sake of the entire population. It’s made fairly explicitly clear that Steve didn’t do this for anyone but himself. 

Call me crazy, but if everyone you know needs to suffer and multiple planet-wide devestations have to happen in order for you to get your happy ending, you might be the bad guy. 

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned?

[zenosanalytic]

Harrow the Ninth: Wordplay and Implication

So I started reading Harrow the Ninth last night(haven’t gotten far; I’m only on page 47), but some interesting stuff cropped up I wanted to yack about. Explaining it requires some Serious Spoilers tho, so don’t read past this point if you haven’t reader further than me and are also avoiding ...spoilers... X|

Ok so: Harrow is obvsl going through some Things. To begin with she seems to be having some manner of psychological break exacerbated by(possible caused by) the Lyctor transformation? A huge part of it is obvsl grief over Gideon -she seems to be avoiding any memory or thought of her and this mental block seems to be impacting her ability to access Gideon’s soul and thus her full Lyctor capabilities- but she’s also overwhelmed by her new senses and her inability to feel physical pain, and a bit unstuck in time? Some of that just might be her grief-driven illness, but so far there’s been some jumping around in the timeline/her memories so it’s possible this is also a side-effect of the Lyctor transformation and existing on both sides of life and death.

Anyway, there’s some nifty wordplay associated with all of this :>

the first one is in an edited memory, and it’s right at the start of it, in the chapter-title for said memory: “Parodos”.

Now most obvsl, that looks&sounds allot like “parody” and, while they aren’t directly related, the connection btwn the two is STILL intriguing: “parody” comes from para(side/beside/parallel) and oide(song), in the sense of a comical/mocking “parallel” to another song; parodos literally means entrance, though specifically it’s the name of a SIDE-entrance in greek theater-design which gave actors access to the stage, or the chorus access to the orchestra, BUT ALSO it was the name of the song(oide) the chorus sung upon first entering the play, coming after the prologue. The connection to an actual side-entrance makes me suspect the “par-” phoneme is from “para”, but I can’t find a constituent breakdown of “parodos” so it’ll have to remain a suspicion :T

Regardless: it is, in the manner of a proper parodos(even IF Harrow, here, is her own Chorus; this is a 3rd person perspective section), seeming to introduce us to the central conflict of the tale; Harrow is censoring Gideon from her mind, altering her perceptions and capacities in response to her grief, struggling with feelings that she is LOSING her mind(associated with, possibly embodied by, her “hallucinations” of The Body[1]), and clinging to this expression of control as a life-raft among all this trauma. At one point The Body even appears in this memory just to tell her it didn’t happen like this which “gave Harrow a curious strength”.

IntriguinglyER(and this is more of a stretch and idk if Muir really intended this implication) parodos is often popularly confused with/assumed to be related to “parados” which is a fortification embankment built to protect the rear of a military position(it’s basically the backside equivalent of parapet. Parapet=forward, parados=behind). What makes this intriguinger to me(aside from the fun of a FALSE pun for a FALSE memory :p), is that the false memory is part of Harrow’s mental DEFENSES, and in it she asks Ortus Nigenad to PROTECT her by keeping the secret that she is “insane” because, since opening the Locked Tomb and seeing the girl trapped there, she’s been experiencing full-spectrum sensory hallucinations of said girl(ie: seeing her, speaking with her, feeling The Body[the girl] touch her, the whole hog, etc etc). I feel like this is MOSTLY symbolic though, and the REAL secret she’s asking him to protect her from is Gideon’s death(and her “consumption” there of; since becoming a Lyctor The Body has had Gideon’s amber-colored eyes). Of course there’s another aspect to this and one of two OTHER potential secrets; Gideon’s body wasn’t recovered from Canaan House, Harrow does not seem to be in “possession” of her soul(though she does have SOME aspects of Lyctor abilities, so perhaps it’s partial or a connection?); so

it’s possible the SECRET Harrow is actl using Ortus to protect is that Gideon isn’t dead, that they healed her after defeating Cytherea and somehow undid the Lyctor process. OR

They’re keeping Gideon’s existence a secret for some reason

Now I think these are a bit out there theorywise because, while I’m not far into the book, I’m fairly certain that it’s only Harrow who is thinking Nigenad was her cavalier at this point. I mean: the Emperor would have spoken to Ianthe, and there’s no reason why she’d keep Gideon’s existence secret(also everytime the Emperor says Ortus Nigenad it’s attached to a description of his mouth moving oddly, so I’m fairly certain he’s actl saying Gideon Nav and her brain’s editing it to Ortus Nigenad to spare her facing Gideon’s death). Also and SUPER tellingly there’s this passage:

The Resurrecting King took on the expression of a man working out a very difficult and emotionally taxing anagram. He said, “Ortus,” again, but the bile was sputtering up into your throat...”

Now that just seems like an INVITATION to see what Ortus Nigenad can be an anagram of, doesn’t it? And, INCREDIBLY OBVIOUSLY it’s a partial anagram:

Ortus Nigenad

Gideon

Of Gideon’s name. Partial, because it doesn’t include “Nav”, and also there are these left-over letters

rtusna

Hmmm... What can THAT be an anagram of?

rtusna

Saturn

Well flog me with a spoon! I have NO IDEA what this, GIDEON SATURN, could POSSIBLY mean in the context of this convo or of the larger story(also: maybe this anagrams to other words? I honestly didn’t try too hard after this very obvs one. AtRSun??? Taurns?? OF COURSE Harrow would play Horde if she played WoW, but I’d imagine she’d’ve been a Forsaken Warlock, or Orc one at the very least :p), but that we have a character’s name being called an anagram by the narration and then that character’s name turns out to BE AN ANAGRAM of the first book’s, now(mysteriously[2]?) absent, protagonist plus the planet Saturn[3], seems an awful coincidence. Of course that doesn’t mean it ISN’T a Coincidence, nor that it means anything in relation to the story even if it IS intentional; it could be meant to throw off theorycrafters, or just as something Muir thought would be fun to do(making Gideon Nav, “the greatest cav the Ninth ever produced”, a near-anagram with Ortus Nigenad, one of it’s worst). Of course, it could also be a hint to Gideon’s origins, or where she/her body is now. For what it’s worth, I seem to recall the big contenders for her origins were Third through Fifth House, and those seem to be the most likely to be the Gas Giants&GG Moons(Third’s the wealth-house, and there’s probably more concentrated resources in Jupiter and Saturn than on any other planet in the solar system. And, for whateverMORE it’s worth, Saturn WAS the Roman god of wealth&the harvest. If Mars’s ...Martial[X| X|]... associations are a firm enough basis for its guess in the order, then why not Planet Fucking Saturn? Of course the trident theme suggests Neptune, but why in the cosmos would THAT be the third colonized planet in the system? Makes no damn sense |:T |:T).

The last thing(two things?) that I wanted to bring up, though it’s not really related to any of the above, is Alecto, the name for the next book. Presumably, this is The Body/The Girl. Alecto means “Implacable/Unceasing Anger”, and it is the name of one of the Erinyes; the Furies; the goddesses and purveyors of Vengeance. The Furies, according to Hesiod, were born from the blood of Ouranos spilled when Kronos castrated him. Interestingly, the way Necromancy works in this universe(as explained in these early pages) is that the Cohort “breaches” a planet, after which point its “thalergy”(life energy; presumably metabolism-produced energy since necros aren’t snacking on ambient heat&light) begins converting to “thanergy”(death energy, tho it’d be more precise to call it the energy generated by the detachment of a soul from a body), which Necros can use to do Necromancy. The microbiology within a planet’s soil can similarly be drained, as can the animals and plants, and the process of “breaching” allows Necros to draw on the thalery/thanergy of all of these. So Necromancy is a metaphor for environmental/planetary destruction&exploitation. Kronos is a harvest-god(his name is obscure, but probably means something like “the cutter” or “the striker”); Ouranos is the sky(probably a raingod with a name related, hilariously, to the verb for “to piss” :p :p), but at the same time still a planetary deity. Coincidentally, the primary antagonists so far in the book are “Resurrection Beasts” which seem to have been created by The Emperor Necrotising the Nine planets of Dominicus, and who have been pursuing him and his Lyctors to destroy them for this/for becoming Lyctors(Lyctordom is legit called “the indelible sin” by the Emperor himself) ever since. Sounds allot like the Furies, doesn’t it?

In this context, the Kronos Ouranos myth can be read as a story of planetary exploitation/injury(caution: I am NOT saying that’s the intended meaning of the myth originally, just that it is a possible application of it as a lens of analysis[it being referenced by the series through Alecto] to this story), and THAT suggests that Alecto, the Fury, may have been associated with this initial Necrotization(The Resurrection/Nine Resurrections, which SEEMS given what little I’ve read so far to be what they call the initial Necrotization of the Nine planets of the Sol System? Though maybe they were already Necrotized&all used up, and the Emperor revitalized them somehow?? I’m not sure yet), may be something instanced to stop it, or may be a “Resurrection Beast” herself; perhaps the initial form they took before 10k years of thwarted rage pushed them to become more monstrous. Alternately, I wonder if Alecto might be a manifestation or servant of Death? There’s a repeated focus on the Emperor having “defeated” Death, and The Body in the Locked Tomb is repeatedly referred to as a foe he defeated once but could not defeat again, so there are good reasons to disregard all the mythological trappings and focus on the clearer, less metatextual possibility.

Of course: it’s probably none of this and I’m just spinning Fantasy wholecloth from between my entirely metaphorical ears :p :p :p

[1]The Body is The Girl in the Locked Tomb which Harrow fell in love with. I’ll get to why this is relevant very soon after this footnote

[2]I mean we watched her force Harrow into Lyctorship by killing herself, so I’m still more convinced this is all trauma response. Her corpse IS MISSING, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t super-dead. Though: Camilla and Palamedes DID have a contingency, and Gideon DID wink at Harrow post-Lyctoring, and it was ambiguous if this was her impaled body or her spirit/hallucination doing the winking, so I can see ppl running with this theorywise...

[3]which is one of the Houses, obvsl(or at least it’s moons), though I’m only really confident on Sixth House(Mercury), Ninth House(Pluto), and 2nd House(Mars) at the moment. Seventh House is PROBABLY Venus, giving all its connections to poison, wasting disease, and Aphrodite(Cytherea is another name of the goddess), but that’s all just thematic suggestion. Oh also, I figured I should throw this in here given the large digression on Kronos and Uoranos, Kronos is Saturn’s Greek equivalent(or at least, the Romans considered him so).

[hysteriium]

Hello! I love that pennywise/reader nest fic you did, it was so soft and sweet ☺️would you consider doing the same reader/penny but with the reader finding out shes pregnant and pennywise doubling down on the nesting cuteness?

Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m really happy to hear you enjoyed it :,)) I tried my best with this one, though I’m not entirely sure it’s that good fsiduhfiusdhf regardless, I hope you enjoy! 

////

Trembling hands gripped the stick in front of you. The two pink lines glared at you in a malicious taunt. The cool porcelain your backside was firmly planted against was warm compared to the cold sweat which encapsulated your being. Horror couldn’t even begin to describe what you were feeling.

How, exactly, were you going to explain to your lover you were pregnant? A lover who also happened to be an eons old, extraterrestrial who feasted on the fears of mortals?

It was a good question, one you wished you had the answer to.   How was this even possible?

To put it simply, your thoughts were racing, juggling the non-stop stream of questions that threatened to flood and short circuit the entirety of your brain.

You needed air.

Slowly, you peeled yourself off the seat and tended to yourself, eventually exiting the enclosed space. Perhaps your eldritch mate had sensed your distress, because when you opened the bathroom door to exit, his looming form appeared, face partially cut off by the door frame.

While you would have found his sudden manifestation and his ongoing struggle with entrances comedic, today you were not in the mood.

“Fear doesn’t smell pleasant on you” were the first words he said to you.

You stepped closer to him, passing the door frame so you could look at him properly and you felt your mouth grow dry. With your jaw clenched and ticking wildly, you searched for something to say. Thinking was something that had suddenly become difficult.

His face morphed into a frown when it clicked just how uneasy you were.

“Pen, I, uh. I have something I need to tell you,” you felt yourself grow pale, the unpleasant feeling of dizziness took over. How would he react?

He tilted his head lightly and waited for you to continue.

“I’m pregnant.”

The silence, which had only lasted a couple of seconds, was powerfully deafening.  

“I am aware,” he said.

He planted his painted nose into the crevice of your neck, and you could feel the air from his nostrils against the flesh as he sniffed. He pulled back moments later, his head shaking and his bells ringing as he released a hiccuped laugh.

What?

“Curious.”

“C-curious?”

“You are scared,” he stated plainly like pregnancy was the most casual thing in the world.

“Do not be afraid, young one,” an arm snaked around your waist, pulling you into an embrace. His pointer finger, which trailed up your neck, stopped at your chin, forcing you to look up at him.

“For I will keep you safe.”

---

It had been days since you told Pennywise and even though he essentially knew before you had, he had smothered you. It was incredibly sweet, but then there was also a point where things went overboard, and perhaps today had taken the cake.

It was quite a shock when you returned home from work to find a large portion of your things gone. It was mainly from your room, the once cluttered, dare you say lively, area of space was reduced to a void of nothingness - cleared completely. To make matters worse, the dust that had silently accumulated over the past few days, due to your impressive collection of excuses to avoid dusting, had not vanished along with the missing items - the floating pests ever so present.

It didn’t take much to conclude Pennywise had something to do with it.

He was always implicated in something.

Said name spilled from your pursed lips, the call cutting into the silence.

As you blinked, he appeared right in front of you. His floating form defied all laws of gravity, and his face, which was plastered with a mischievous grin, became your salient view. It was as if he was lying on an invisible bed; the image of his tall legs kicking back and forth while his hands lifted his chin, cupping it sweetly, was a sight that made your serious demeanour difficult to maintain.

Playing the innocent act, huh?

You shot him a look, causing his smirk to grow impossibly larger.

“You called?” He giggled.  

He was in a suspiciously good mood…

“Penny...what have you done?”

When you blinked again, he was gone, only to find him next to you, your heights contrasted - comically so.

“What do you mean, little one?” He cheerfully stated, sustaining his clueless sham. He petted the top of your head as the word ‘little’ passed his plump lips, thinking that the oblivious air was enough to suppress bloating curiosity.

The gust of air that travelled from your nose conveyed your frustration with the orange-haired clown, “my things Penny, where’d you put everything?”

It was true that his beating around the bush had started to get on your nerves, but that quickly dissipated when his next words registered. A small, simple sentence that made your heart swell. The fluttering of your stomach was nowhere near a new feeling with him though, without fail, it always reduced you to mush.  

“A place safe enough for the three of us.”

More than touched by his gesture, you moved to speak. He saw you were about to, and thinking you were about to object (which you weren’t, for the record), he interrupted you, speaking up before you could.

“My dear, you carry my offspring. I won’t allow filthy humans to endanger that.”

You laughed.

“But Pen,” you whined, feigning hurt, “I’m a filthy human.”

You tried to lay it on thick, though it hardly worked. 

“My filthy human,” he hissed.

The sound of your joy, which penetrated the room, led to the upturn of his lips.

Then, he lowered himself into a crouch, his long slender fingers placing themselves upon your clothed stomach. They lightly traced the bump, a sweet caress as he moved his ear to your belly, listening for something. You weren’t far into the pregnancy at all, and while there was somewhat of a prominence, and morning sickness which had prompted you to take a pregnancy test days prior, you didn’t expect any movement from the part-alien, part-human hybrid inside you.

So when there was one, you panicked.

Pennywise had begun speaking in an entirely different language, whispering against you. It wasn’t anything you recognised, though it was beautiful, complex and entrancing. It was a language that was antediluvian, a forbidden wonder.

Moments passed as you found yourself lulled by his otherworldly expressions, that was until you felt the distinct, sudden jerk from within; a kick.

A surge of alarm nagged at you from the sensation, something the eldritch being before you picked up on.

“Calm, sweet thing,” he said, outlining comforting shapes against your stomach, “you are progressing well.”  

That fast!?

While everything was new to you, scary, upon exciting, you trusted Pennywise’s judgement. He would never willingly expose you to danger. So, you tried to shove your worry aside.

“Hey Pen?”

A hum, deep and distracted was your only response.

“Did you want to show me what you did with my things?”

The clown suddenly parted from you and leapt to his feet. Then, he bowed, an arm hiding behind his back while his other extended towards you, daring you to take his hand.

Another smile fought its way to the surface, the teeth you dug into your lip an attempt to suppress it.

You laced your fingers with his.

In an instant, you found yourself in an unfamiliar place. There looked to be a large crater in the middle of the room, large, black spikes protruding from the circular formation. It was darker than his usual den in the sewers but you were still able to see.

“What is this place?”

Pennywise glanced down at you, “it’s where I truly reside.”

“Truly? Like your real form?” you paused, looking up into his glowing eyes for confirmation, “can I see?”

He chuckled lightly, his thumb grazing the skin of your hand, “no sweet thing, for it would drive you mad.”

“Oh.” 

“Well then is there a way you won’t drive me insane?”

His brows scrunched in thought but quickly subsided soon after, “perhaps. There is another form close enough for you to comprehend, though that is for another day. Now, come.”

Thanks to the gentle guiding hands of your lover you were led through the shadows of the cavern. As you walked, you were quickly able to spot the area he was taking you to. A homely tinted light slowly lit up as you approached, displaying an extra special indent in the rocky surface of the wall. It was large and spacious, yet oddly cozy looking as the familiar objects filled your view. Your bed, which you didn’t even want to imagine how it got there, was looking particularly appealing.

With what you could only blame as conditioning, you failed to stifle a yawn. This immediately caught your mate’s attention because he stopped, turning around to lift you effortlessly. Your protests were swiftly put an end to by a curt hush, the silence communicating his win. You didn’t need to look up at him to know there was a playful smirk tugging at his lips - your stubbornness was a fire he loved to extinguish when necessary.  

When he reached the opening in the wall, he held you close to his chest, hunching to accommodate his large figure. He placed you on the bed with such delicacy, like a collector with a porcelain doll.

In all honesty, you hadn’t realised how tired you were until your head hit the softness of the pillow. The smooth touch of cotton sheets kissed your skin, and your body sunk into the embrace of the mattress, encouraging you to surrender to sleep.

When the bed dipped next to you, a sudden breeze hit your heavy body. The unexpected draft sent shivers through you, as the blast of air was followed by a material - warm and furry. It was draped across you, then tucked while the tickle of what you believed to be Pennywise’s hair, brushed against your face softly. He was huddled into your side, his head resting near your stomach.

Ever since he had found out you were pregnant, the cryptid had never strayed far from you, especially from your growing belly. He couldn’t go a few minutes without showering it with affection.

Along that train of thought, he was also extra protective. If someone even thought of bothering you, they were never to be seen again.

Ah, the perks of having an alien mate.  

As a way of thanks, you dove one of your lazy hands into his fluffy locks, and like a cat, he leant into your touch, pushing against it. His eyes became half-lidded at the feeling, eventually shutting completely. He cozied into you, wriggling slightly as a hand rested on your stomach. He soon drifted off into slumber.

You promptly followed.

[mysticalmuddle]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but what got into asoiaf? Also, did you like Arya and Jonrya from the first read or did that come later? What do you think of Jon as a character? What are your top 10 favourite characters and moments? I aplologise for this avalanche of questions but I just couldn't help wanting to know more of my favourite asoiaf writer. PS: I adore your aesthetic, your blog and writing gives me an otherworldly feeling.

Hey no worries! Ask away <333

but what got you into asoiaf?  I’ve always been into quasi-medieval fantasy, and picked up asoiaf a looooooooong time ago, when I was in middle school. It was so engagingly written that it never really left my brain since? That’s like, ten whole years rent free I’ve been thinking about these characters. What recently spurred me into like, engaging with the fandom/writing/etc was the lack of action in the Jonrya tag, and more specifically, the lack of stories updating that I was interested in, so I decided to make my own 😅

Also, did you like Arya and Jonrya from the first read or did that come later? Re: liking Jon and Arya right off the bat--Okay, so when I first read the series, I was Going Through It IRL, and identified a lot with Jon and his storyline? But I was also so not past the age of “girls going on insane dangerous adventures and being brave despite that” being massively appealing and all the Arya chapters were a satisfyingly more adult version of that genre. I’ll say I liked them both from the get-go, and it’s never really died down since, and I just learned over the years and rereads to appreciate more of the characters. (If I’d been a little older on that first read, I probably would have glommed onto Tyrion instead, and my fandom interactions now would be...vastly different  ����😂😂)

I guess I sort of shipped it from the moment I read ADWD. Like, I was super into Jon&Arya before then--that level of devotion is one of my fictional relationship draws--but ADWD really got me into it. There was just something so compelling about how often they think of each other, and how badly they want to be reunited again, in Arya’s chapters especially. But the whole passage with the Pink Letter just Fucked Me Up emotionally, and suddenly I was like, “They should reunite and kiss”.  Over the years, my enthusiasm for the ship has increased, as my very old slushpile of unpublished fics can attest.

What do you think of Jon as a character? I think he’s an incredibly complex character, which is my favorite type of character! His struggles in the series against his own desires versus his sense of duty, especially framed in the narrative by popular thoughts about bastards, and how that affected his self esteem--he has to be more honorable, more clever, more dedicated just to make up for a facet of his own existence that he didn’t control and can’t change!--is something I just find so compelling. And, of course, his deeply intense love for Arya always gets me like 😍😍😍😍 I don’t have any huge takes on him though--I’m not a very thinky type person and everything I think about characters seems so hard to articulate unless I’m pouring it out into a fic (so I’m sorry if you wanted Takes! This Bitch Empty!)

What are your top 10 favourite characters?

Arya

Jon

Daenerys

Brienne

Tyrion

Missandei

Oberyn

Bran

Asha

Sansa

What are your top 10 favourite moments? Alright, these are in no particular order of preference, just listened as I remembered/googled exactly what books they took place in

1. When Brienne rescues Willow from the Bloody mummers, despite knowing that they’ll kill her for the attempt, AFFC-Brienne VII. No chance and no choice gives me chills every fucking time

2. When Arya kills Dareon and walks off with his boots, AFFC-Cat of the Canals. This moment has implications and speaks to Arya’s inability to let go of herself, even when all that being a Stark means in that moment is the gruesome work of justice, but I’ll be honest--I just like it because of how nonchalant and almost sassy she is when taking the boots afterwards, and how it speaks to her practicality. 

3. When Jon reads the Pink Letter and loses his shit, ADWD-Jon XIII.  I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back …"I think we had best change the plan," Jon Snow said. Ohohohohhhoo!!! Juuuuust fuck me up GRRM!!

4. When Daenerys has breakfast with Missandei in Mereen and Missandei chides her into eating more, saying Daenerys is very small, ADWD-Daenerys VII. But also every Daenerys & Missandei interaction ever. Every time they speak to each other, you can just tell the level of care they have, and how they see each other as family over time!!!

5. When Arya travels with the Brotherhood Without Banners and gives water to the northern prisoners before watching as Anguy mercy-kills them, ASoS-Arya V. It’s a facet of Arya’s personality that imo, I think is ignored in metas and fics. She considers them her pack, and despite her disappointment in them, and her disgust at their crimes, still gives them water and finds them a quick, merciful death.

6. The dinner with the men of the Nightswatch and the discussion Bran and Robb have afterwards, about riding to the Wall to see Jon, and about whether their family will come back, AGoT-Bran IV This moment, I think, speaks to Robb’s characterization in a way that Catelyn’s POV chapters don’t touch very well. He’s so very young, despite everything, and trying his hardest, and well aware of the dangers his family is in, and how he’s falling short of saving them and there’s nothing he can do about that. 

7. Oberyn during Tyrion’s trail by combat, and his arrogance and his rage, ASoS-Tyrion X. His demand that the Mountain say Elia’s name got me tearing up the first time I read it, not realizing what the cost of that justice would be for Oberyn himself. So much of ASoIaF deals with grief, and the consequences of obsessive grief, and this fit into the series so impeccably fucking well

8. Every single thing about Daenerys freeing the slaves at Astapor, ASoS-Daenerys III. One of the things I really didn’t appreciate in the show is how they changed the tone of that scene, very much altering it from Daenerys and her joy that she can do this thing, a balm after the horror she felt seeing the slaves and learning about the brutal training the Unsullied go through, into a moment that was just her being badass and powerful. 

"Unsullied!" Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. "Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." She raised the harpy's fingers in the air . . . and then she flung the scourge aside. "Freedom!" she sang out. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" "Dracarys!" they shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. "Dracarys!" they shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire."Dracarys!" they shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. [Bold mine] The moment on the show was momentous, but this was-----vastly superior and far more indicative of her character.

9. Catelyn stopping the catspaw from killing Bran, AGoT-Catelyn III. Watching Catelyn emerge from the haze of her grief only to go full fucking ham feral and brutal protecting her child was like *chef’s kiss* There’s just such a cool contrast between her losing her shit talking with Robb a moment before, and then the actual fight, and then her busting out with:  "The circumstances did not allow me to examine it closely, but I can vouch for its edge," Catelyn replied with a dry smile. "Why do you ask?"

10. This exchange:  Alliser Thorne overheard him. "Lord Snow wants to take my place now." He sneered. "I'd have an easier time teaching a wolf to juggle than you will training this aurochs.""I'll take that wager, Ser Alliser," Jon said. "I'd love to see Ghost juggle." AGoT-Jon III. That’s the moment I knew I stanned Jon Snow irreparably, forever.

PS: I adore your aesthetic, your blog and writing gives me an otherworldly feeling.  No u! For real, anon, that’s so fucking sweet of you to say  🥰🥰🥰 Hope I answered everything to your satisfaction, and feel free to come back and chat if the mood strikes ya!