#scourge wants them to die

[kandicon]

*writes the same exact headcannons in slightly different scenarios over and over again*

[fleetsonourgecentral]

What If the Royal Au IS like Sonic underground but without the Silblings find their mom part?

Ok it's just I LOVE that Au and I want to help you with It by giving ideas, draws, whatever you NEED <:c

It would probably be difficult for the royalty au to be much like sonic underground considering in sonic underground the royal family has essentially already fallen and gone into hiding, while in the royalty au Scourge's family is still firmly in power and honestly probably doesn't even realise there's a rebellion brewing. Not a lot of places for parallels from what I can see. Although I guess it's similar in that Sonic is trying to take down the people in power lmao, but alas there isn't really a destiny aspect involved in the royalty au. Sonic is just an angry scruffy lil hedgehog commoner that thinks the royal family suck and is actually willing to do something about it, and Scourge just happens to run into him and fully support his cause because "my family fucking sucks and I don't care about any of this royalty shit so sure I'll help you take it down"

Omg aaaaaaa if you ever draw anything for this au (or this ship in general) I am begging you to tag me fhkdsakfkjl no pressure of course but... if you ever decide you wanna... I will certainly not complain about having more art of the bois

[noblehcart]

me, staring at gleb, matthias and dara: you three should not have as much in common as you do. icb i have this type.

[crimsoncandy04]

What if... Scaramouche cucking Kabukimono

(meanwhile in a parallel universe)

You never thought in a million years that it would be possible for someone to actually defeat The Traveler. But it finally happened.

And Scaramouche had finally completed his life's ambition and become the Everlasting Lord of Arcane Wisdom.

But it STILL wasn't good enough for him. Something inside of him still burned with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. Yet he didn't understand why.

Had he not achieved everything he set out to do?

Why was he still so... unsatisfied?

And then he remembered you one night.

You who had fought so bravely until you had been dealt a near fetal blow that had caused you to become comatose and unaware of the deaths of your old friends. You who had been clever in your attacks and almost just as underhanded as him sometimes.

Scaramouche could respect it.

A little.

Your martial prowess was often overshadowed by your disgusting and burdensome sensitivity.

You didn't want to hurt people.

Not if you didn't have to anyway.

It was your weakness and eventual downfall. Because after hearing Scaramouche's own life story and sympathizing with him, you were hesitant in finishing him off like you should have.

And he had seized the opportunity.

Emotions were a scourge on the face of humanity. Making them irrational. Making them weak.

You were no exception it seemed.

At least he, in all his wisdom and glory could understand this and overcome it.

Even if it was hard sometimes.

Scaramouche continued to imagine you, scared, confused, mournful, angry, and utterly alone in your cell beneath the sanctuary. He wanted to laugh at your circumstance or at least belittle you in his mind, but that same burning and nagging feeling ended up preventing him from doing so.

What was wrong with him?

Did he perhaps... feel bad for you?

Why?

You and that pesky traveler had been nothing but a thorn in his side since the day you met.

So why, now that he had won. Had locked you away until you were healthy enough to be tried by law, did he continuously have dreams about your teary face? The deep sorrow that probably plagued your heart after learning that your friends were gone?

Why did Scaramouche... feel like he was experiencing some kind of deja vu whenever he pictured you all alone with no one to turn to?

It was that original sin of his wasn't it?

The very same feeling of empathy that had besmirched his very being since the day of his creation.

Why wouldn't it die?

It needed to.

But alas...the spirit of his former self lived on inside of Scaramouche's mind like a parasite.

And he hated how YOU triggered it.

It took a few weeks for Scaramouche to finally come up with a plan to solve both of his problems.

First was to extract the essence of his former consciousness and self via an abyssal reach that only a god could ever hope to accomplish. It had exhausted him in doing so.

But the results were better than ideal.

Secondly, use the knowledge of the world at his disposal as well as what he could remember about himself and his own inner workings to create another vessel for the extracted consciousness.

And lastly, order some attendants to retrieve you from your prison cell below and bring you to him somewhat sedated and pumped full of some new drug that had been created by the fatui for torture purposes.

Once Scaramouche laid eyes on the perfect physical replica/clone of Kabukimono as well as a half conscious and drooling you on the floor, he knew that he would leave this room with there being no more doubt in the world,

That Scaramouche was truly the most powerful being in existence.

***Time Skip***

You sit awkwardly as the machine beneath you brought you to orgasm for the 6th time in a row. The giant purple dildo thrusts in and out of your soaking wet pussy quickly, assaulting your g spot repeatedly whether you liked it or not.

All the while, the monster who had you injected with powerful aphrodisiacs and sedatives was just watching the sybian destroy your cunt with a sick delight in his eyes. You wanted to yell at him through your ball gag but instead you just continued to moan loudly as you felt yourself piss again. Even then the machine didn't stop.

Scaramouche laughed coldly as he grew bored of you and soon turned to face his former self who he had bound in a similar fashion to you just a few feet away. Kabukimono's arms were pulled tightly behind his back. Secured to his ankles, forcing his legs apart.

Scaramouche couldn't stand the pitiful and obvious longing in those eyes. Especially when he heard you scream or cry through your gag. Kabukimono's eyes would widen even more. Torn between wanting to help you, and also wanting to take you.

It was no mistake. Scaramouche knew this because even if he DID find you detestable at best, as far as human women went, you had quite a soft and sensual body that just BEGGED for someone to ravage it.

Scaramouche had considered setting it up many times in the past. Making it to where his subordinates distracted your annoying companions while he had his way with your pretty body secretly.

But he has fought those needless and lowly desires instead.

However seeing the lust in the eyes of Kabukimono, made him realize that perhaps, this attraction to you was something that he couldn't fight. Something that even his most inexperienced form was feeling whether he understood what it meant yet or not.

And if this was true, then Scaramouche would conquer these feelings too. He'd keep you as a fuck doll for himself and at the same time, show this annoying and pesky version of himself that HE was stronger.

And HE was in charge here.

Scaramouche walked over and after casting Kabukimono a withering look, he began to press his sandal against Kabukimono's shaft. Forcing his hardened cock to be uncomfortably crushed against the ground underneath Scaramouche's foot.

Kabukimono whimpered as tears began to leak from his eyes and his nipples hardened. He was aroused from the pain and Scaramouche couldn't help but feel nothing but disgust towards him for it.

"you want the girl huh?"

Kabukimono nodded quickly. His own gag stifled his voice as he groaned slightly at the sensation of Scaramouche putting more of his weight down on his dick.

"Too bad. You seriously think I would let YOU have her before ME? That I'd let you fuck her with this useless cock of yours that gets off from being crushed?"

Scaramouche chuckled wickedly. Seeing Kabukimono blush a little as he heard you cry out again. His eyes fixated on the dildo as it stretched you apart and kept you in such a lewd position with your juices coating the floor beneath you for all to see.

Scaramouche couldn't stand it.

He crouched down and grabbed hold of Kabukimono's cock. Roughly stroking it then to the pace of the toy penetrating you in front of him.

"you wish that was your cock fucking her right? Tearing her apart and making her cum?" Scaramouche taunted. Continuing to pull several soft moans from his former self as he continued to pump his own cock.

"Do you even know HOW to use this pathetic thing yet? I doubt it. That machine isn't even real and it's better than this thing between your legs."

Kabukimono's back arched a little as artificial semen suddenly squirted from his dick. Coating Scaramouche's hand. Scaramouche narrowed his eyes in disgust as he tried to shake the stuff off.

"pathetic. You actually ejaculated from that? Oh how pitiful I truly was." Scaramouche got to his feet and turned back to you. Your head had slumped back a little and tears leaked out from underneath your blindfold as another orgasm was ripped from your body. He watched you gasp and tremble as you remained helpless in your bondage. A sadistic gleam filling his indigo eyes as another idea suddenly came to him.

He knelt down again and reached out to tease your swollen clit a little as he spoke.

"get used to it doll. I could make it hurt worse. However, if you behave during the next game I have planned for you, I'll make you feel better than anyone else ever could ~" Scaramouche purred. His touch makes you squeal as you try to fight back another climax but fail miserably.

"so fragile. So many ways I could make you crumble and break. I wonder if...I could somehow make this part even more sensitive."

You feel him pinch your pleasure nub between your legs and you struggle to not pass out. What was this bastard planning next for you and his other self?

[gentrychild]

No one asked the question but I'm happy to answer it anyway. In RAADSC, do villains eventually learn that Izuku is very afraid of rooftops? Absolutely, because Izuku is eager to share his wisdom about how rooftops are a scourge, from which you can fall and die, even though Aizawa asked him a thousand times not to advertise that he has a phobia.

(Izuku, of course, disagrees. He doesn't have a rooftop-related-phobia but a perfectly general distrust towards them. After all, did you know you could die from falling from those?)

Do villains use that knowledge against him? It happened. Once. After that, villains, civilians, anyone, really, learned that they did not want to be the reason why Izuku was forced to be on a roof.

[abort-that-thing-tournament]

Spay That Thing Preliminary Poll!

PROPAGANDA UNDER THE CUT

Ivypool: This series REALLY likes taking female characters that are popularly HC'ed as lesbian/asexual and pairing them up with random males so they can have babies :/ She would not fucking want that

Lizardstripe: Basically she didn’t want to be pregnant in the first place and feared feeling trapped in the nursery while having kits. But her feelings for this are dismissed by others around her, stating that “It’s a duty of a queen (a.k.a. pregnant lady) to have children for her society” There’s a lot more that should be said about misogynistic treatment and writing of Lizardstripe’s character within in the series for not wanting children (and why she would want a abortion) but I’ll just link an detailed essay/ramble @/bonefall made about her character here: https://www.tumblr.com/bonefall/728919845277745152/didnt-lizardstripe-refuse-to-give-her-kits-milk

Blossomfall: Girl had kittens with a cat multiple years older than her out of nowhere.

Hollyleaf: No Propaganda Submitted

Leafpool: Would've prevented a lot of drama.

Canon gave her so much shit for having kids even though her cat gods (StarClan) told her to have them because they were going to be special. Note that her role in the clan makes her pretty much a nun so she is not allowed to have kids usually. Her kids gave her shit for getting pregnant, her clan went easy on her for getting pregnant but still made her stop being a medicine cat because of it (she is one of the few that wanted to be one), even StarClan gave her shit for getting pregnant when she died and almost got sent to cat hell because of having kids she was told to have! She should have aborted the three!

Yellowfang: She could not have raised those kits anyway, and she knew that. It would have spared her the agony of seeing her daughters die and giving her son away, unable to raise him, and watching him grow into a murderous dictator and eventually killing him.

Scourge: No Propaganda Submitted

Rock: No Propaganda Submitted

Every Female Warrior Cat: please erins stop making them pregnant

[bonefall]

Dunno if they properly count to be recycled but in 'Into the Wild' Dawncloud mentions having more kittens she doesn't want to be killed which can't be Blossom or Swamp who are dead by this point.

I'm counting them. I haven't named them yet, but in my notes, they're marked down as "WindClan Massacre 1" and "WindClan Massacre 2."

Dawncloud is a mess in-canon. She's an apprentice who's supposed to be an old queen with several litters, and a mate so old he should have been dead before she was born. The way I've decided to approach her is by making her more accurate to her TPB appearance; an old queen.

She is now Raggedstar's littermate.

A friend of Yellowfang's youth, along with Ashflame (previously ShC Ashfur).

Finchflight was a total git. The kind of husband that you really hope she divorces, but never does.

Nasty to her friends, really full of himself, a fantastic warrior who doesn't let you forget it.

"Dawcy, what do you see in that guy?" "Ohh, you don't know him like I do."

Together, they had several litters of kits. I'm still working out the nitty gritty details on how many litters and how many kits in each.

The oldest were the two who eventually die in the massacre. There weren't as many ShadowClan casualties as WindClan casualties that night, but they were strong warriors in the initial strike squad.

I'm thinking of giving them bird names-- Drake and Harrier, maybe. Finchflight would want his firstborn kits to have names like him, and Dawncloud would oblige.

Scorchwind is in a later litter. He was born after his uncle earned the honor title of Raggedpelt, and Dawncloud adored her brother's old name.

With his blessing, the unused, "lucky name" was passed to Scorchkit.

There's another "maybe" cat who might be hers-- a Glitch Warrior, the "Not Brokenstar" forest rogue from Rise of Scourge.

His WIP name is Braketail. A brake is a marshland dominated by one species of plant. I'm tempted to make his name Brakebone though.

May or may not stay in the Dawnkin family, though. Depends.

Since BB!Brokenstar both does not have the "child soldiers" plotline and has a much longer rule than his canon counterpart, Dawncloud is now the progenitor of some "kit saves."

Currently, Mossthorn is her lastborn.

Finchflight died while they were young, so their temperament is vastly different from his older siblings.

From there, Swampfang, Volewhisper, and Blossomfrost are grandchildren now.

Discopaw and her unnamed sibling (current WIP name Poppaw) may also be Dawnkin, depending.

I'm still deciding who the parents were, though.

Current draft is giving Swamp/Bloss/Vole to Mossthorn, but I might give them to one of the dead firstborns. I like the idea of Volepaw getting horribly mauled while rushing to his parent's defense.

Dawncloud there in the camp, burying two children and unsure if her grandson will survive his injuries, deciding in that moment she cannot lose another kit.

Sadly though, this doesn't have a happy ending. Dawncloud's family is devastated by Runningnose's plague.

Dawncloud, Mossthorn, Volewhisper, and Pop are taken out as Nightstar sympathizers. Disco and Swamp are targeted too, but survive.

Blossomfrost wanted to be a Cleric. She begged Runningnose to let her help, not knowing it was him who had unleashed it on the Clan that "betrayed" Brokenstar.

He warned her that the plague was dangerous, and that there were serious risks involved. She could have distanced herself from the infected, stayed safe. But she didn't.

Her death was unfortunate collateral. She was a bright young warrior with a good heart. A waste.

I'm unsure if Discopaw will stay in this family, but it's definitive that Crowfrost will be descended from Dawncloud. What defines this family is their bright, two-colored irises. Crow has cobalt ringed by brilliant blue frost.

To add insult to injury, I imagine Nightwhisper's name is a direct reference to Volewhisper. Probably Runningnose's idea; to have the first warrior that Tigerstar names be a repeat of the first title Nightstar gave.

'Let this be the sight you die seeing, Dawncloud,' Runningnose's subtle smile and gleeful eyes silently declare, 'I've taken your kits. I've trampled their honor. Everything you betrayed your Clan for was for nothing.'

It's only the beginning of TigerClan's tyranny, a droplet of the bloodbath to come.

[evilwriter37]

The funniest part to me about the whole viggo thing is that people think viggo was such a big villain. I mean he was evil, but not drago level evil, just save my business evil. Like can you imagine just going about your business peacefully and suddenly one day a teenager from some distant land tries to mess up your business and change it to their wants and needs. And if that doesnt happen, they declare war. And i get that hiccup was just trying to save dragons but to viggo it would've seemed a lot like colonisation or something. And hiccup didnt even try to peacefully negotiate with viggo like he did with drago. He just straight up went to war. Point is in the vigcup dynamic i think hiccup would be the freak and viggo would be the peacekeeper one. What are your thoughts.

I feel like it’s disingenuous to blame all this on Hiccup. Ryker is the one that showed up on Dragon’s Edge, took Stormfly, and then left Astrid to die. I think the steps Hiccup took in Night of the Hunters made sense and were in character for him in that situation. Ryker had already shown that he wasn’t interested in peace, especially not after luring in and capturing most of the Dragon Riders.

And Viggo is such a big villain though. There were so many points throughout the series that prove just how bad of a person he is. He’s not doing things for the better of his tribe, but for the better of himself. In his first episode we see him sentence a man to death for stealing from him for the sole reason that he didn’t have enough food. So not only do we see Viggo willing to kill over something, but we see that he’s not even taking proper care of those under him! Then there’s the Scourge of Odin. It’s not clear how the infection truly started at that point, but what we do know is that Viggo was using it for profit. He was going to extort his own dying people for money. And that? Well, that’s pretty damn twisted in my opinion.

It’s like I said in another ask recently: Viggo truly was a monster, and that is what makes his redemption all the more impactful. Hiccup didn’t coax innate goodness out of someone who had it in them the whole time, but instead planted a seed that we see grow within Viggo during the last two seasons.

I feel like it’s a massive mischaracterization to call Viggo any sort of peacekeeper or to act like he didn’t actually like the business of dragon hunting. We were shown many times on screen that he’s sadistic and, well, a villain. He toys with people and throws them away when he’s done with them, something he made very clear in the scene in which he’s playing live Maces and Talons with Dagur.

I love Viggo dearly, mostly because he’s bad. Been a villain lover since age 3 and I’m sure not stopping now! And Viggo is most certainly a villain, the best written one in the franchise.

[neidhart]

kcd oc 🧎🧎🧎 WHO IS HEEEEE

WOW, this is the first time someone had asked about my characters on social media, so thank you for reaching out!!

he is still a work in making, so i don't have a lot of definite lore set in stone yet, but i can talk about what i already have, and maybe do a proper post about him some other time

he's also not that much tied to the kcd plot, as he strays away from the main conflicts, just because he is an opportunist and prefers to profit from them while not necessarily taking part

this is basior (polish for a male wolf in hunter's jargon)

he's a bandit leader who roams various woods, poaches in them, terrorizes the local peasants and out of personal vendetta, attacks nobles passing by the forest trails where he currently resides

and that's mainly the idea i had for him!! i'm not very good at explaining things so my desriptions can be a little all over the place, but i'm also gonna throw in here some loose thoughts i wrote about him in order to get more familiar with his character:

Nobody really knows where he hailed from, as the man himself never spoke about his past.  There were rumours, of course, the kind you'd hear spoken in hushed whispers at places where no unwanted ears would hear them. Rumours, that claimed he was a werewolf, some swear he struck a pact with the devil, or even that he actually was the embodiment of the devil himself.  And maybe they were true. He never did anything to disperse those hearsays. Common people feared him, the nobles found him repulsive, and that gave him power and control which he very much enjoyed.  He didn't bear any personal name, at least none that mattered to him anymore. However, the people gave him a title - Basior, due to the fur cloak with wolf's head that served as a hood, which always obscured his face whenever he went hunting. It was like a second skin to him, once he wore it, it became one with him. He himself became a beast in those moments.  The man didn't care much for the name, but he allowed it, because it presented him more as a symbol or a wild animal than just a person, and that was very much to his liking. He was a threat to be reckoned with, and the forests he occupied were always treated with utmost caution, as the local residents refused to enter them at any given occasion, fearing that harm could come upon them if they dared to step inside. Strange things happened before to those who did, either they were never found again or came back so shaken, that they swore they had seen wrathful forest spirits among the trees, not just a common band of bandits.  He and his pack never lingered in one place too long, there was no reason to. It was easier for them to keep in move, as it would prevent them from being located easily by the local lords and their soldiers, who would want to deal with them for good. Outside the woods that they spent time poaching and living, they acted as scavengers and vultures - always following the trail of armies and scourging the battlefields after fights for loot and maybe even captives, if they could find some still breathing noble.  It was the only case in which he allowed nobles to stay alive upon encountering them. They were wounded, helpless, but overall - useful, if ransomed. He wasn't so merciful to those, who happened to travel through the forest paths, or the ones who hunted in the woods he occupied at the given time. Those encounters rarely ended well for those who opposed him. There was a deep-rooted hatred in his heart. At times the man thought it was the only thing that has kept him whole, the only thing that made his life thrive. And so, he fueled this spite that grew inside his heart with the blood of others.  At first, it was only of those who wronged him in some way or another, he justified his wrath as something that was inevitable. It was simply their fate. They would be judged by God after death, but why wait so long? Is it not better to quicken the process? They would die either way, as every living being. Later, he found that it didn't satisfy him anymore. He craved something else, something more fitted to his newly formed, cruel taste.

and that's basically it for now!! thank you for coming to my ted talk

[kpchrs]

Before meeting Buffy, Angel spent a century not doing anything because he had no purpose in life, no one to live for (he didn't even have things to live for before he knew about Shanshu, he only had things and people to die for). He tried to help someone back then, but they betrayed him and he got fed up immediately lmfao

For hundreds of years, all he knew is vampirism and Darla, his family. That's why he tried to stay in the Scourge for a while, cus beyond everything he just wanted love and a place to belong. The conscience won tho so he ran away.

When Spike got a soul, it helped him so much to have a purpose in Buffy, even though I think without the First messed with his head, imo he wouldn't spend 100 years in solitude like Angel? I genuinely believe he would mingle in the crowd a lot sooner, cus he loves the world and life.

This is not an anti Angel btw. If I were one of them, I would be an Angel I think. This is not him being evil, this is him being -- whatever people say -- very human. If Angel got his purpose earlier, he too would get a grip sooner.

[cavegirlpoems]

So, the scourge of Fantasy Races in Black Death Rising

I dislike the way most gygaxian fantasy basically just has 'elf' and 'dwarf' and 'orc' and so on as different ethnicities, that it then gives statistical modifiers to. "Oh, this race of people are strong and tall and prone to violence because of their genetics, and these ones are genetically beautiful and wise". It all gets a bit skull-callipers-ey to my mind.

On the other hand, I had written a setting with ghosts and demons running around, and I wanted them to be playable. How to handle this?

Firstly, I ditched the word 'race' entirely. All human ethnicities are mechanically identical, as are all ethnicities of other types of being. Instead, I'm using nature. Why?

The point is that a character's nature reflects their current state of being, and this can change. For many characters, it probably will at some point, when they die and return as undead.

Your nature doesn't give you stat adjustments or cultural abilities, or anything like that. You get a dice of Hit Points, which will be a d6 almost all the time; beings whose health is frailer get a d4, those whose health is more rugged get a d8. Then you get a couple of perks or flaws that reflect the basic type of being you are.

So, we have four rough sorts of Nature. Humans (and variations on humanity), spiritual entities that were never human (mimics & petty demons), artificial beings (homunculi & grotesques), and the various sorts of undead.

Mortal humans are our baseline that everything else deviates from. They get more equipment (since they're part of society in a way the others aren't), and that's basically it. Then, the variations on humanity aren't inhereted traits, they're about your life circumstances. You get Purified Ones, humans raised by witch cults in a state of ritual purity, effectively artificial saints. You get Lycanthropes, humans infested by wild magical forces that make them terrifying to animals and struggle to fit into polite society. And you get ghouls, humans whose births were touched by the plague, who become asymptomatic plague carriers, and tend to become vampires when they die.

Then for spiritual beings, you have two types. Both are fundamentally fallen angels, the difference is where they fell to. Petty Demons ended up in Hell; they suffer more heavily from the effects of sin, struggle to interact with holy things, but can draw on Hellfire for strength in combat. Mimics, on the other hand, found themselves in the mortal world, where they promptly hid among mortals; they can shapeshift, but are easily influenced by whatever role they're playing.

Artificial beings are similar, it's just a matter of who made them. Some are made by mortal magicians; these are homunculi, who can't heal just by resting but whose artificial bodies are easily restored by a doctor. Then Grotesques are the strange results of Wormwood's falling to earth; spontaneously-generated oddities that are immune to the ill-effects of Wormwood or other toxins, but who carry Wormwood's attention, causing magic to go awry around them and having a generally unsettling aura.

Then, finally, there's the undead. These are some other type of being (often human, but plenty of the time other types too), who died and came back. All undead are immune to a bunch of stuff like sickness and drowning, but also can't recover from injury like the living, accumulating more wounds over time. The state you were in when you died determines what you come back as. If your body and soul are both pretty intact, you come back as a revenant. If your soul is intact but your body is too broken to animate, you come back as a ghost, animating a false body of dust and ash. On the flip-side, if you died with an intact body but a dangerously shredded soul, you come back as a Waif; a spiritually empty husk animated by residual memories. Then, lastly, if you die affected by the Plague, you always have the chance to come back as a Vampire, and find yourself driven to feed on the blood of the living like a zombie but retain your sentience.

The key thing is that a character can shift between these different types of being. The obvious one is becoming undead, but other means exist. The Cult of Babylon brew dyscrasias that can transform the drinker into a spiritual Mimic, for example. Similarly, the heralds of Wormwood can transform you into a Grotesque through exposure. And there are a whole selection of magic items that let you shift your nature; a wolf-pelt that lets the wearer become a lycanthrope, or a set of false teeth that make their user become a ghoul.

This helps create the right mix of origins among player characters; a blend of regular humans, rather weird humans, spiritual oddities, and the risen dead.

[dragonmasterhiccup]

The cage was cramped with three angry dragons backed up against each other, hissing at all sides as their flanks were pressed together in a tight circle. No matter what, not a one of them would dare move, no matter who walked by or what sounds that echoed around their bizarre floating wooden prison startled them. The dragons were not the concern.

After all, they had teeth, fangs, and fire...their sister did not. She was nothing more than a walking spindly skeleton covered in exposed flesh swaddled in bundles of shed dragon skin collected from her own family. She didn't have the means to defend herself that her brothers did, though she certainly would try.

The white dragon tinged with the blues of the sea was the most outwardly hostile and antagonistic, hissing and spitting at the slightest movement and sound that neared them, green eyes blazing from the darkness, while his silver and gold brothers each continued to be cautious.

They could survive these small armoured creatures that had the same proficiency to build tools that their sister did. They were mighty dragons, after all. The scourges of the sky and of the daylight. She...their sister was only their dearest little runt.

The trio of brothers would sooner die than allow these trappers to separate them from her. If they dared try, they would lose more than just spears.

However, despite the clear difference in size and threat between herself and her brothers, the scrawny women wrapped in pale skin still growled and hissed as gutturally as her comparatively weak vocal chords could allow. Though, the years had given her the remarkable ability to accurately mimic the communication style of her family and even other dragon species despite her limitations.

But she wouldn't allow her brothers to think she wouldn't fight to protect them as fiercely as they would to protect her. They were her brothers...she wouldn't let these people - Vikings, as she vaguely recalled the word from her very young and foggy childhood - hurt her brothers.

Their mother would never forgive her if she let that happen.

@the-stranger-of-the-hidden-world

(Hi! Been lurking for a little while, hope this is okay as an introduction!)

This was different than their past raids.

Hiccup, from the scout reports, there weren't many dragons on the ship, but the species they held was rare.

Now Hiccup would have worked to free them either way, but he knew the stakes were high with how rare these particular dragons were.

Flying in low, the other dragon riders trailed behind him. His mother and Eret had joined for this particular mission as well.

Hiccup leapt off of Toothless, Astrid doing the same, and they used their flight suits to glide down to the deck, landing without making any noise.

They crept forward, knocking any hunters unconscious that they came across, as the other riders landed with their dragons, Hiccup found himself standing in front of a large cage.

Lifting his mask, his eyes widened in awe at the three dragons before him. But, their stance was rather unusual.

It almost looked like...were they protecting another? Hiccup couldn't tell through the dark.

That wasn't the only thing that shocked him, though. "You... you look like Night Furies, except...brighter..."

He couldn't believe what he was seeing!

But, these dragons needed to be freed first.

As the other riders worked to distract and stop the remaining hunters, Hiccup approached the cage carefully, hand held out towards the dragons.

He spoke softly, in a calm manner. "Hey, hey! It's okay, it's okay...I'm going to break you out, okay? I just need to..."

Approaching the cage lock, he realized it wasn't a pickable lock...but, it didn't appear to be Gronckle iron.

"Toothless! Plasma blast!"

The dragon appeared in the darkness behind Hiccup, blasting the lock, destroying it.

It didn't look like the dragons had any muzzles on, which was good.

Hiccup stepped back, swinging the door open. Seeing how aggressive these dragons were, he wanted to give them space.

"Go on. Hurry, before they can track you!"

[batboyblog]

You know what really upsets me?

1) This song is Still not America’s National Anthem

2) More importantly though, when some Christian Conservatives and fundamentalist minded folk hijack said song, saying it’s proof of Christianity being the US’ religion when in reality it was actually an Abolitionist Song, only given Christian lyrics because the all original version was specifically talking about abolitionist John Brown

https://youtu.be/ibNaHFlfBy8?feature=shared

you know even before I clicked on that I knew you were talking about the Battle Hymn of The Republicans, from "This song is Still not America’s National Anthem" I knew which song,

I've always loved Judy Garland's rendition of it, she captures the raw power and intensity of it that is often sanded off, she has clearly thought about and feels every line

I don't think you can really understand this song outside of New England, its a place of stoney hills, towering pines, and long snowy months, it breeds men slow to anger but who burn with unwavering certainties.

every line of that song I see row on row of marching men of New England in Union Blue bring their unshakable Calvinist Congregationalist faith with them, The Truth is Marching On.

There's always been two spirts in America, the loud, the showy, the selfish, the showman and the bigot. But along side it something else an iron grit, to do what is right not because it is easy but because it has to be done. Out at sea in 1630 the first Governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop gave a sermon.

Ironically it's best known today, if it's known at all, for the line Ronald Reagan stole and used "we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us" Reagan always added the showman like "Shining" to City a "Shining city on a hill"

Winthrop would have been horrified as the example he was imploring his shipmates to set for the world was this:

"We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body." and "If thy brother be in want and thou canst help him, thou needst not make doubt, what thou shouldst do; if thou lovest God thou must help him,"

some times I drive past the white washed meeting houses of my native country and I think about that communitarian dream, they were difficult, hard people to like those stoney New Englanders, but some part of me loves them for that vision, to make others’ conditions your own.

Its that particular faith and their God that marches on from every line of the Battle Hymn, that iron resolve and belief in the higher calling of caring for others, its not some lovey dovey hippy idea of love, it is a commission from God himself, it is the certain of what a Christian must do or forsake the love of God forever.

"As He died to make men holy, 

Let! Us! DIE!! To! Make! Men! FREE!"

Today's selfish self centered evangelicalism, where wealth is a sign of Gods love, that lays hands on Donald Trump bares no true relationship to the burning faith of the abolitionists, and men like Robert Gould Shaw or Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who marched with their God south to fight a crusade to free the slaves and destroy the evil of slavery forever.

Lincoln as always put it best

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.""

any ways I think that was a long winded way to say Modern American Christians have never felt called by their God to do anything truly hard and would crap themselves if they did.

[woodface]

I've been rewatching Motherland: Fort Salem because sometimes you just need to see Tally thirst after General Alder... and well because Alder continues to be one of the most intriguing characters in recent media. She gets to be a hero and a villain all at once, and while she makes a lot of dubious choices, there is just a part of me that understands why and wants to excuse her for it all.

She is so pivotal to the series, even when she is in the background in the first season, this very world is what it is because of her choices. She saved and doomed witches in the same breath. She made them a home, and protected them, while putting all their lives in the line of fire. Anyway, before I get too side tracked...

It struck me on this rewatch just how desperate Alder gets in S2. I don't remember noticing it as acutely before just how much she starts to crumble the moment Wade makes it clear she will take away her army from her - a line she repeatedly throws around as a reminder to anyone trying to oppose her. The first crack in the armour is Anacostia, her choice to disobey orders and play into Petra's hand. The way we see her trembling and close to breaking at this betrayal. S2 Alder is isolated and has her back up against the wall. Petra Bellweather has stopped hiding her ambitions, pushing at every turn to get rid of Alder, and her one ally seems to agree.

And then there is Tally who keeps pushing, who was so intimately connected to her and who she felt genuine affection for, but even she who was inside her mind only came out seeing the worst of her. S2 Alder is held down by her own decisions. Years of needing to compromise at every turn, to see the worst of humanity and to push through it for her witches whose faith she sealed along with her own. Her warning to Petra when she is stripped of her position is a visceral one. Petra does not know what she is taking on at all, and it shows instantly as everything starts falling apart around them the moment Alder is gone.

It's a curious thing she mentions later to Petra that the accords are more than words, and the accusation that Alder knew a way around them regardless. Would she have been able to do more? Stop more of Silver's manipulations even if she had to Push or Puppet to do it? Would anyone have blamed her then if she had done so or would they have seen that yes, stopping Silver was worth it. Stopping Wade was worth it in Sarah's mind too because they were taking her witches from her. Her army - how many times does she repeat that during this season? Petra accuses her of having lost her humanity, but I don't think she ever did. I do think she lost her connections to humanity. So many generations of witches she has watched die or grow old and be replaced, so many battles and each of them worse, each of them making it a little easier to justify her actions. Until that ultimate moment where she felt her control slipping, where those around her only saw the worst of each choice without seeing the patterns she could see forming. The return of the Camarilla who would once more take everything she held dear and seek to destroy all witches like they had destroyed her family and her coven before, Wade's persistence that Alder had to go when Alder more than anything felt that her work was not done and Petra who she saw as unprepared to take on the weight that Alder had carried for centuries.

It makes it all the more striking when the execution scene comes around. Alder taking up the scourge to condemn one more witch. A witch who brought them all to the brink, but whose motivations were entirely her fault. The fact that she is the one to take this action rather than Petra who was about to take over, only to then have Tally Craven stand up against her. To have the witches' army that was hers mere moments ago move against her.

There is such desperation in that moment when you see her realise how many she would have to hurt to follow these orders that she is bound to. Wade pushing her even then when these young soldiers are putting their lives on the line and Alder's desperation in that moment. I love that it's Anacostia who breaks the moment, who moves forward and gives Sarah permission to stop and walk away. Permission that centuries of following orders and walking that line could never have given her. Seeing her realise that even if she couldn't be there anymore, then perhaps she had left this army strong enough to go on without her anyway. I feel like there is pride there as much as there is heartache, all of it granted with a touch to the shoulders from the one witch she saw as her own daughter. Tally's look as Alder walks away speaks volumes as well, the moment she realises what she has done only for the world to fall apart. Her goodbye to Alder in the next episode shows it so much, giving Alder permission to put down her burdens and I don't think anyone ever told her that. She has gotten used to being revered and loathed at once, to have people judge her but rarely to have them sympathise with her. You see it even more as Nicte keeps pushing at Tally, telling her the old crone had to go while Tally is more and more realising that Alder going was like a dam breaking. And we get to see a different Alder after that, once the moment is gone and she has lost control. The Alder who steps up to Petra and says "how can I help", who never resents her the title of General and only gives her deference because she knows the weight of it, and maybe it hurts because it isn't her army anymore, but in a way... it will always be. It says enough how much hope she brings when she shows up at Fort Salem and the witches see her and even Petra is strengthened by her there. She might not be their General anymore, but she still is their hope and their strength. It echoes in her conversation with Khalida later on when she talks about how the cabin she grew up in was the last time she felt safe and it was the last time she felt free to simply be. I needed to make sure we lived. And Sarah Alder first meant her sister, but when she lost her as well, it became all witches. She became a leader not because she was born into it, but because no one else would fight for them so she did. And any time she failed and lost again, she got up and fought harder. She sang The Mother into being, their ultimate salvation (even if I find the resolution kinda meh). There's one more bit of her conversation with Khalida that stands out though: These moments could have destroyed us, but they did not. And we need not endure this pain alone, we are stronger together. It's sad to think that for good chunks of her time, Alder was alone. When her sister was murdered and she signed the accords. When her coven was taken, and she was alone again, but she kept going. She built an army around her, but how much was she alone in her pain? I think she was at the end there, a loneliness of her own making by pushing people away and a loneliness that grew when she was surrounded by those who resented her decisions (rightly so on many occasions), and yet... She was a mother to Anacostia and she saw something in M and gave them a place to call home. Petra is so very wrong when she tells Sarah that she lost her humanity, but she isn't wrong that Alder might be on her way of losing the connections that let her feel that humanity so keenly. Alder made mistakes, but it was her humanity that pushed her as far as it did and that kept her going, and watching her be able to embrace it fully again in S3 is so fascinating because it is a very different Alder there who looks at Tally and holds her when she worried for Raelle, and it a softer Alder who finally can connect with Khalida rather than be at odds at her, because she finally has time to slow down and not focus on the bigger picture she was trying to reach.

[spect-era]

YAYYYY SOUP AU.. ITS SOOO CUTE AND COOL I LOVE IT SO MUCH how are the decepticons doing with their buddy galvatron? and hows arcees friendship with the stunticons :0 (and do they still turn into menasor)

Woa they-hermes this is like a n honour…thank you so much :D

Overall: not great!

There’s 2 main factions in the current decepticon army, those who were there before Galvatron and then cyclonus scourge + the sweeps. A lot of decepticons followed Galvatron at first because he was powerful then they realized “hey wait he doesn’t really have a goal does he?” Since Galvatron wants to destroy autobots however doesn’t quite know what to do with cybertron and being a ruler afterwards since that goal originated from megatron and unicron! Also some are upset over abandoning some decepticons who were “too damaged”. One of these groups being the combaticons who r in need of medical attention since their processors are sparking and about to die (side effects of the programming shockwave put in them and due to megatrons ‘death’)

So there’s a lot of infighting and cyclonus is the only thing keeping others from challenging Galvatron for the right to lead.

As for Arcee, it’s a bit of a rough start since well… stunticons. However after they’re cleared to leave moon they were hiding on they begrudgingly folllow her because hey. They got left behind and this way they get food and won’t starve! And at first it’s a bit shitty bc both parties don’t like each other but then a Arcee talks a bit with dead end , and they bond a bit over how the whole “why are we still fighting if both leaders are dead” thing. This then leads into bonding a bit with the other stunticons!

Eventually they trust her enough to help direct menasor , it’s a bit like someone trying to wrangle a couple wild animals^^

And finally yes! They can combine! Just took a moment for menasor to get on the same page about not killing anyone he sees with a red badge!

[impatient-traveler]

The Aera problem

Thought I'd write up a post about this, mainly because I want to put this information out there but I don't want it to be in a reply where it'd come off like I'm descending on any specific person.

To clarify ahead of time: You're perfectly free to accept whatever parts of official XV-related content you want! You can enjoy them and be excited about them and I'm happy for you. I just also think there's a lot of context that some people might be missing on this that they might want to know.

So, Terada. For those who don't know, Terada took over game director duties as Tabata was forced to focus on the next project (Agni/Forspoken, at the time it was still closer to Agni). That was about when EpP was being developed, though that was mid transition and not fully him. Which is why you start to notice contradictions around that point.

Terada is a fucking sexist, there's no putting it mildly. He's done such delightful things as: arrive at a fan gathering, notice it was mostly women, and open his panel with "wow that's a lot of females". Another time he talked about how it's guys that play video games, don't you know? Women don't do that. And said that there's no point in the game having more costume options for the characters because "nobody wants to dress up men".

He's also a liar, loves to take credit for other people's accomplishments, and everything he makes is just really badly written, but those are kind of tangential to what I'm trying to say here.

The main issue is that then, after no previous mention of Ardyn ever having had a love interest or family, we suddenly are told "actually, ALL of his motivation was about a dead woman". We had been already given plenty of reasons for the way he was: He'd been in the process of healing the Scourge, he was accused and "ostracized and daemonized" in his own words. We know he was imprisoned for some time, (again: I am treating pre-Terada stuff as canon here, so it wasn't necessarily all the time up to when he entered the Niflheim political scene) and we know he's unable to die! That's plenty!! That's a great reason to be upset!!!

And suddenly Aera gets introduced and none of what I just said is given *any* more attention. In fact it's actively stated (by him being perfectly docile at the start of EpA) that none of that mattered! He's fine! Totally not broken by betrayal and imprisonment!! Instead we're given a new character that has no reason to be there and no agency at all. She's just an accessory for Ardyn to be sad about.

Time to bring up another anectode about Terada. They did a livestream when the EpA anime dropped. They did a Q&A there. It wasn't live questions. These had been gathered, vetted, and pre-approved. He had EVERY OPPORTUNITY to prepare for it. He gets asked something along the lines (paraphrasing but I remember it very well): "I'm very interested in Aera! What can you tell us about her? What is she like?" What followed was a solid minute of the guy going "uhhh... ummm... well... uuuhhhhh.... she likes.... uhhh.... tea.... and uhhh... a-archaeology?" You know, like she has a shot in the anime where she's drinking tea, and another where her and Ardyn are in some old ruins for 5 seconds.

Alright, long enough post already. One last thing is many of you might point out that there's little difference betweeen Aera and Luna. And that's a valid point, but I have to disagree. Luna has many problems as a character, I won't deny that. She's criminally underutilized. But she has infinitely more agency than Aera, she's at least mentioned/acknowledged infinitely more, and the game actually properly explores and develops Noctis's OTHER reasons for doing what he's doing, so she's not solely a convenient piece of motivation for him.