#universe: eternal tale

[albiorixsims]

Как вам такой эффект зловещей долины?

Узнаете, чей голос Влад одолжил?))

[albiorixsims]

Все. Официально. Мать от ребенка отказывается! 😱

Рогатое чудо без имени (пока что) поселится в сохру к Владу и дракончикам)))

«Инку-уб!» теперь живет у @albiorixsims

[silent-shanin]

Did you know Clem plays Rolance football in the Modern AU (not pictured Alisha swooning in the background)

[yunsound]

Chinese Mythology: Investiture of the Gods and the Heavenly Court

If there is one piece of literature that can define the mythology of an entire culture, what would that be? The Bible? The Homeric Epics? The Vedas?

None of these works can encompass an entire pantheon or mythological universe. Similarly, Chinese mythology does not rely purely on Journey to the West. Two other pillars of mythology are the 封神演义

and the 山海经 (the Classic of Mountains and Seas), an old National Geography magazine with lots of myths thrown in.

There are many, many more ancient and famous works, but these three are generally very widely-known. 

I’ll be focusing on the Fengshen Yanyi (Romance of the Investiture of the Gods, or just Investiture of the Gods in general). BTW, investiture means something like inauguration, deification or promotion in case it’s an unfamiliar word.

The Fengshen Yanyi

I covered this one very briefly in my Ne Zha post, linked here, but Fengshen Yanyi was a novel written in the 16th century by Xu Zhonglin.

It chronicled (in a fantastical manner, of course) the war between the King of Shang

and the eventual King of Zhou

It’s treated very much like the Trojan War, in which different gods assist in the battle, and incorporates many classic Chinese heroes.

Since it was written fairly recently by Chinese standards (only a few hundred years ago as opposed to a few thousand years ago), it’s become one of the main sources of information on mythology and the characters within it. 

The Zhou/Shang battle itself occurred over 3000 years ago, in 1056 BCE, and lasted some fifty years. 

It’s fairly impossible to cover the events of the novel in a single post since that would be the longest post in Tumblr history, but I will only cover its premise, not its plot. Honestly, I’m not even clear on the exact details of the plot of Fengshen myself, since it’s so long and complicated.

Chinese mythology is incredibly complicated. Even the most widely-accepted versions of myths are almost guaranteed to be inaccurate to their original versions thousands of years ago. Dates, times and who’s who are impossible to determine. As such, take what I say with a grain of salt, and do your own research, as painful as it may be. This is only meant to give an idea of what’s going on.

Additionally, the Fengshen Yanyi (also called the Fengshen Bang, or Deification List/Plaque), is just a novel. Think of it as a historical fantasy novel, or the Lord of the Rings Plus. It may be very foundational today, but it’s not the end-all-be-all of mythology. This is also true for Journey to the West, which is a fictional tale!

After all that preamble, let’s begin.

___

So, the highest official is the Haotian Emperor 昊天大帝. He’s the head honcho of the Heavenly Court.

I couldn't find any pictures of the Haotian Emperor (in popular culture he's usually depicted as young and hot, unlike the Jade Emperor, who's usually depicted as an old dude). As I mentioned in my Ne Zha post, it's debated whether or not the Haotian Emperor and the Jade Emperor are the same person.

I will assume them to be different people even though it's like 60% sure they're the same person, since I already referred to the Emperor in my Ne Zha post as the Jade Emperor. As such, Haotian Emperor is higher-ranked than the Jade Emperor, who works for Haotian.

Again! Time for a SUPER LONG backstory that is essential but also not ENTIRELY relevant to the actual plot of Fengshen. Think of this as a description of how the Fengshen Yanyi happened, or like historical background behind a war.

The Heavenly Court, rather than being a loose collection of gods with one ruler like in Greco-Roman mythology, is a proper government, with bureaus, supervisors, and minimum wage office workers. As such, it’s not exactly super desirable to work for the Heavenly Court.

Sure, you get to be a god, but it’s also the equivalent of working a cubicle job for eternity. You’re also a very lowly god: most heavenly officials aren’t powerful, just old: you could even get your ass kicked by a random monkey (foreshadowing). 

Not fun.

The Haotian Emperor is feeling a little lonely and overworked. He thinks there’s not enough workers in the Heavenly Court, so he wants to do some hiring (more on this later! Keep this part in mind.)

Who’s currently up in Heaven? Well, in Daoist mythology, the Dao created one, one created two, two created three, and three created everything (道生一，一生二，二生三，三生万物). What this means is that the Dao created the foundations of the world: the Three Pure Ones, three super-old super-powerful immortals.

These three super powerful immortals are as follows:

元始天尊 Yuanshi Tianzun, or Primordial Heavenly Lord

This is him in Ne Zha 1 (2019).

After he was created, he oversaw and supervised the creation of everything else. 

灵宝天尊 Lingbao Tianzun, or Treasured Heavenly Lord

Lingbao Tianzun was created from Yuanshi Tianzun. 

道德天尊/太上老君 Daode Tianzun (Virtuous Lawful Heavenly Lord) or Taishang Laojun (High Elder Lord)

The reason he has two names is because it’s unknown if Taishang Laojun and Daode Tianzun are the same person by different names: the answer is probably, but not 100%. He is the oldest, most powerful one. He is also considered to be Lao Zi (Lao Tsu), the founder of Daoism (I sometimes switch between Daoism and Taoism, but they’re the same thing).

In the above picture, Daode Tianzun is on the left, Yuanshi Tianzun is in the middle, Lingbao Tianzun is on the right. Yuanshi and Lingbao look very similar, but you can always identify Daode since he's the oldest one so he's the only one with white hair.

However, these three, despite being at the centre of everything, are not the most powerful. Chinese mythology and Daoism are messy. Stay with me: I promise I’m getting to the actual explanation of the Fengshen Yanyi soon.

The Creation Spirit created more beings before these three pure ones. One of these beings is called 鸿钧老祖 Hongjun Laozu, or Grandmaster of Eternal Balance

Could not find a picture of him, so just imagine a super old guy with big fancy robes.

(There is another one of these beings called Nuwa, the mother of all: she essentially sculpted humans out of clay. Keep her in mind, she’s important).

This is Nuwa! Technically her name is Nüwa, it's pronounced Nyoo Wah.

He takes three disciples: the Three Pure Ones, Yuanshi Tianzun, Lingbao Tianzun, and Daode Tianzun. 

Sometimes, these three disciples are Yuanshi Tianzun, Lingbao Tianzun, and another guy called 通天教主 Tongtian Jiaozhu (Teacher of All Through Heaven, or Grandmaster of Heaven). Tongtian Jiaozhu is the one that appears in Investiture of the Gods.

Yuanshi Tianzun and Daode Tianzun (Lao Zi) create the 阐教, or the Chan Sect to teach Taoism their way. The features of the Chan Sect are that there is no one leader- Yuanshi Tianzun and Lao Zi both teach the sect, they pick their disciples very strictly and only choose the best of the best, and every single disciple must follow strict rules and live very properly.

Fun fact: I’m sure you’ve heard of the concept of Zen. Zen is just the Japanese pronunciation of Chan: Chan Buddhism (or Zen) is the most widely-practised version today.

However, Tongtian Jiaozhu creates his own sect instead of the Chan Sect because he doesn’t like the prim and proper way they do things. His sect is called the 截教 or Jie Sect. His sect takes in all manners of people under the sun and is less proper, but also smaller than the Chan Sect. 

Why do I even mention these 2 sects? Well, in Investiture of the Gods, the main conflict is between King of Shang and King of Zhou (who wants to overthrow him since King Shang is a tyrannical brutal ruler), right?

Nope! In fact, it’s really more of a conflict between the Jie and Chan sects. The Zhou/Shang war is more of an excuse to go to war. The Jie fight for the King of Shang, and the Chan fight for the rebellion (for the eventual King of Zhou).

Why use the Zhou/Shang war? Well, the King of Shang kind of sucks, so people want a way to get rid of him. Remember Nuwa, the mother goddess who created humans? She also, by the way, made pillars to hold up heaven, so she’s a big deal.

Well, the King of Shang goes to her temple to worship but gets sloppy drunk and hits on a statue of her. This is like the equivalent of Trump (or *Insert World Leader*, I guess, depends on your politics) sending a tweet saying he’s going to fuck the Virgin Mary. The King of Shang leaves a sex poem about Nuwa on the wall of her temple.

Nuwa sees this and gets super mad. She summons a 1000-year-old nine-tailed fox spirit. Fox spirits are generally seen as promiscuous sexual spirits, who disguise themselves as beautiful women and bewitch men to bring about the downfall of dynasties.

Nuwa tells the fox spirit that if she can bring down the Shang dynasty, she’ll make her immortal. (In the novel she sends two other spirits as well, one a spirit of a pipa, which is an instrument, and the other a spirit of a nine-headed pheasant, but these two aren’t as important as Daji, and they both get discovered and executed anyway).

This is the Zhiji Jing (Pheasant Spirit)

This is the Pipa Jing (Pipa Spirit), ignore the watermark, I copied this from Google. Pipa is almost like a Chinese cross between a guitar and violin. It's a very elegant and beautiful sounding instrument.

This is Daji, accompanied by a photo of the actress who plays Daji in the recent Fengshen movie series. The movies are a solid 7.5/10, pretty good but not SPECTACULAR, but Na Ran's acting as Daji is amazing. She also happens to be gorgeous!

Sweet deal! The fox agrees and disguises herself as a gorgeous war prize taken by the King of Shang. The body she inhabits is called Su Daji, who is the daughter of one of the regional lords conquered by the King of Shang. 

In the original tale, Su Daji’s father (this story is a little muddled, so read this part with a big maybe) gifts her to the King of Shang to appease him. Asshole dad. 

Another version is that Su Daji is sent away by her father for her safety and kills herself to avoid being taken as a concubine by the King of Shang- very unfortunately for her, the fox spirit inserts herself into her body to bewitch the King. (Fox spirits are generally cruel, and it’s a huge dick move to have someone use your body to sleep with your biggest opp).

When Daji arrives, she immediately catches King of Shang’s attention. He becomes absolutely bewitched by her, and spends so much time, money and thought on her that he neglects his state and begins ruling with a tyrannical iron fist. Daji, since she’s really a fox spirit, is cruel and sadistic, and invents a number of scary torture devices to torture King of Shang’s opps. 

You can Google these devices yourself. A little gruesome to repeat.

One of the most famous parts of the Fengshen Yanyi is what’s called the Deer Pavilion 鹿台, which is an example of the ostentatious and luxurious nature of the acts King of Shang did for Daji.

In the Deer Pavilion, the King of Shang builds a lake filled with good wine and constructs a forest of meat for him and Daji to lounge in. Wine pool meat forest 酒池肉林 (jiu chi rou lin) is now a Chinese saying for excessive extravagance.

The entire nation is super, super mad at the King of Shang and Daji, and decides to revolt against them. This rebellion is led by Ji Fa (the eventual King of Zhou) and Jiang Ziya, his tactician (think of Jiang Ziya as Odysseus: the clever, capable and clear-headed strategist). BTW Jiang Ziya is Ji Fa’s father-in-law, so it’s not exactly an Agamemnon-Odysseus relationship.

OKAY!!!

Remember when I said the Haotian Emperor was feeling a little lonely up in heaven and wanted some workers? Feels like a century ago. 

The three immortals in charge of the Chan and Jie sects (Yuanshi Tianzun and Lao Zi for the Chan sect, and Tongtian Jiaozhu for the Jie sect) decide they’re going to make what’s called a Fengshen Bang. 

Roll credits!

Just kidding. You wish.

As I said, Fengshen Bang means Deification Plaque, or a less proper translation is just List of Gods to Promote. What are the contents of this Fengshen Bang?

Remember when I said working for the Haotian Emperor isn’t exactly a good thing? In fact, it kind of sucks. The prerequisite for getting more workers in heaven is that whoever goes to work for the emperor has to die first and spend the rest of eternity working a cubicle job if they suck and if they’re powerful they end up like a special ops force, just with no glory or money. Who TF wants to do that?

Think of the Fengshen Bang as the Death Note of ancient China. The Haotian Emperor and the three immortal sect masters can tell that a bunch of people are going to die in the upcoming Zhou/Shang war, so they decide that whoever dies in the war will get their name put on the Fengshen Bang and die. 

There’s another interpretation that they just put a whole bunch of names on the Fengshen Bang before the war and whoever manages to not die gets their name taken off.

It can also be interpreted as Santa Yagami’s naughty list: whoever misbehaves gets their name put on as well.

Either way, it’s functionally the same: no one wants their name written down on that list!!

The two sects both don’t want their disciples to die and leave their sect weakened in comparison, so they go home to tell their disciples, listen up and don’t cause any trouble.

The war isn’t that long compared to the life of a cultivator (functionally immortal compared to only 50 years of war) so as long as you keep your head down and manage to survive you’ll be okay.

However, there’s this one dude: his name is 申公豹 Shen Gong Bao (Panther Elder Shen, where Shen is just his last name) and he got kicked out of the Chan sect for being an asshole. He’s also a panther spirit. (You may remember him from Ne Zha 1 and 2 if you watched it!)

This is a carving of Shen Gong Bao as well as his appearance in Ne Zha 1 and 2 (2019 and 2025 movies).

He decides he’s going to get some revenge on the Chan sect, so he tells everyone in the Jie sect that working for the King of Shang (remember, asshole dictator) is great: he treats all his subordinates really well, and that his bad reputation is just the Chan sect being stuffy old dudes. He wants the Jie sect to go fight for the asshole King of Shang against the Chan sect.

About half of the Jie disciples are dumb, and think that sounds great! So they descend from their halls and go to find the King of Shang.

Jiang Ziya, the rebellion tactician, anticipated this, and dispatched half the Chan forces to go help fight. The Jie disciples get their asses beat and all die.

This is a painting of Jiang Ziya. Don't question why his forehead is bulging out Megamind-style: that's just his big brain.

This is Jiang Ziya in the Jiang Ziya animated movie (2020) set in the same cinematic universe as the two Ne Zha movies. This movie kind of flopped, but I like the character design at least.

The other half of the Jie sect is like, how dare you try to beat us up! They all go down from their halls to go fight the Chan sect for revenge. Jiang Ziya prepares his troops very well, so the other half of the Jie sect gets their asses beat as well.

Oops! Now the Jie sect ends up functionally all on the Fengshen Bang. Since the Chan sect suffered losses as well, about a third of their newest group of disciples all die as well. 

The Haotian Emperor is happy to have an army of minions, everyone else is not happy. 

I’m assuming Tongtian Jiaozhu is really fucking mad that his disciples are all idiots, but now 90% of his sect is super, super dead and working depressing government cubicle jobs (the ones that are better trained are doing special ops work).

By the way, remember Ne Zha? After he killed himself graphically and was revived, he survived the entire time and ascended to an immortal to work as a marshall in Heaven.

Working in Heaven is bad if you’re forced to through dying: if you ascend to immortality through cultivation, you’re super powerful and it’s actually a great job.

So Ne Zha is having a great time absolutely smashing up the Jie sect and King of Shang’s forces. Also in Heaven working cushy great jobs are Ne Zha’s asshole dad Li Jing (now ascended to a deity, the Pagoda-Bearing Lord), Ne Zha’s two brothers Jin Zha and Mu Zha, and Erlang Shen (who I will cover in a different post).

These are all “good guys” on the side of the Chan, so they fight against the dictator King of Shang.

Essentially, the story of the Fengshen Yanyi is about a bunch of guys trying very hard not to catch Heavenly Lord Yagami’s attention and end up on the Death Note. However, since most of them are dumb, they fail anyway.

[nataliawolff]

Within the literature of psychiatry and psychology there is an author who is absolutely essential to me and perhaps when I finish my studies at the university I will specialize specifically in his practice. He is a psychiatrist called Carl Jung, within his different theses he associated fairy tales with some elements of personality and so on, I asked myself in a fairy tale what my role would be. Definitely the first one that comes to mind is that I would be the white sorceress of the story, but not a sorceress in a cave making potions but a warrior sorceress. If I were the princess of the story I would definitely not be a castle princess but a warrior princess, I think I have war in my veins in some way because I like to test my physical and mental limits when I do sports for example. I liked the role of Selene in Underworld, a super powerful and strong vampire princess, I would also cosplay her. By the way, Kate Beckinsale, who plays Selene, is a year younger than me and looks splendid. I repeat what I said in another blog: I think my generation will be eternal.

[mia-nina-lilly]

Holly Black's fairy universe is so rich, expansive, and solid that one can have some certainty about the nature of her fey without it being affirmed all the time.

For example, one thing that seems clear is that fairies feel, and they feel intensely. If they hate, they can hate for centuries. If they love, they will love eternally and be willing to give their life for their beloved. In "The Darkest Part of the Forest," this is told as a horror story. In "Modern Faerie Tales," Kaye's entire adventure is based on her desire to become Roiben's consort.

In "The Cruel Prince" trilogy, Balekin hints at this difference when he talks strangely about how humans love — this is all without mentioning Tiernan and Hyacinthe, who became enemies and still love each other enough to fight for each other, or Lady Nore with her late husband's hands around her neck.

We see this firsthand with Cardan not once, but twice! The first time occurs when he throws himself in front of Jude to save her from being hit by one of Grimsen's traps, and the second time is when, similarly, Cardan throws himself in front of Jude to save her from having a blade buried in her body.

The first time, he shows surprise with himself. It was the moment he realized he loved her on that level — in fact, he just loves her as is natural to his species. The second time, any surprise seems to have vanished, as if he had already accepted that he would do it for her a thousand more times if necessary.

That is, the fairies indeed love as described in the poems, and that is simply fantastic on the part of the author because, let's face it, it makes perfect sense considering the aesthetic of the fairies and everything else. Yes, all of this is about how much I love Holly Black and her skill in creating such wonderfully subtle wonder-filled settings ✨✨

[chipik-lilboy]

CLOUD TOWER | pizza tower au |

༄ ‧₊ This is an alternative universe of our favorite "pizza tower". I can tell you for sure, the personality traits of some characters have been changed(And some could change their character quite strongly), which I think is logical. The universe does not just change the appearance and environment of the characters, but also the situation, the relationships between the characters and so on. There is NO clear antagonist, the characters are not divided into "bad" and "good".

IMPORTANT DETAIL! No one is negative towards each other! Keep this in mind.

"The three friends consisting of Peppino, Gustavo and Mr. Stick find themselves in a cloud kingdom, or as it is commonly called, the «Dream Kingdom». This is a place where there is an eternally calm atmosphere, a pleasant, harmonious melody for the ear with notes stretching out as if light as a feather. Keyboard instruments, brass, strings. At night, stars shine over the island, resembling a gold bar. You can take them right in your hands, feeling the sharp edges and smooth surface, as if this is the very star that is hung on the Christmas tree. In this place, the spirit of magic, fairy tales about fantasy, simple children's stories, a lullaby that your mother reads to you reigns. Delicate pink and orange clouds blow on you from behind while you admire this view."

Cloudface, in a great desire to learn more about humans, decides to place three friends in his kingdom through a dream. However, none of the trio signed up for this, and most likely they will want to leave the suspicious place as soon as possible.

Getting more angled in the lore au, Peppino, Gustavo and Stick got here from the canonical reality, so they certainly remember their pals from the tower...

Like I said, Peppino, Gustavo and Stick only got here because Cloudface had a hand in it. They do not realize that this is a dream, and most likely they are quite confused. 

BRICK (her first name is Bubble) - She is one of Cloudhead's sheep who broke out of the flock of sheep after seeing an unusual silhouette in the distance, which would eventually turn out to be Gustavo. Brick will be quite interested in a person and although with initial apprehension, she will become his friend, in the end of which she will receive her new name.

Much larger than other sheep, which is why it is more hardy. 

STARMAN (Pepperman) - This is an artist in the kingdom, an awkward conversationalist and one of the confidants in the kingdom. He has moved to the Dream Kingdom since he was a child, for reasons that he is silent about, like his friend Cloudface, who respects his comrade's decisions. The guy has a bunch of drawings of himself, but despite this, attention is only paid to his works of other characters, which is why since the reign of Cloudface, he began to paint landscapes and paintings, just like his friend. 

Despite all the support, how his work is appreciated, the man clearly does not feel that people are so honest in their words. Paranoia and a feeling of envy of the skills of others devour him like wolves, which makes the guy ask more and more of himself to be on the same level as others. 

No matter how much attention was paid to him, he needed only one person and his time spent on Starman. (His nicknames that may appear in the posts: Uncle Star, Starlet, Stellar, yellow guy.)

VIGILANTE - is the kingdom's chief guard, and is an asteroid like many other guards. He is responsible for all the guards, gives them orders and keeps them in order. It is said that he served the kingdom even before Cloudface's reign, which is also true. 

Vigilante replaced Cloudface's parents, took care of the boy and protected him from trouble in every possible way, but by failing to keep track of the small cloud, he endangered his rulers. 

Vigilante is one of Cloudface's confidants, kind of strict, scowling, serious, but somewhat caring. 

(Nicknames: Pebble, Rockman)

Noise and Noisette - unlike the others, they do not live in Cloud's kingdom, but in their own. They are incarnations of the sun and moon, and they are opposites. Noise is closer to haus, Noisette to tranquility. Despite the fact that there are many different people in the Dream Kingdom, Noise is an unloved guest, as his dispersion of haus prevents the calm kingdom from functioning normally. Noisette, on the other hand, is a favorite guest, and for the most part, Cloudface's company prefers her as a conversation partner.

(nicknames: Sunny and Munny, obsessed.)

FAKE PEPPINO - A hallucination of Peppino that haunts him after a terrible sleep disorder. What's weird is that others can see him too, but this is a fantasy world so pffft.

Fake Peppino in truth may not only be Peppino, he is also able to take on the silhouettes of others. He's pretty stupid, somehow he managed to get into the company of friends, although... Most often, they ignore it, because they are afraid. Fake is trying to copy Peppino and get to know others, why is the second one too mad (after all, even hallucination is much better in communication, lol.) 

CLOUDHEAD (pizzahead)- He's a sheep herder who is also Cloudface's son. He's the first one to notice Peppino in the dream kingdom when he was fast asleep on one of his sheep. He's less annoying here, if that's what you could call him. A kind soul with a very calm personality, albeit an overly positive one.

The boy is very bad at communication, but even so, he always streams to help or get acquainted, even if his father is against his friendship with the inhabitants of the kingdom. But people are not from here, are they? So why not!

In fact, the boy is quite naïve and not aware of the world, due to his strong overprotectiveness, which is why he is often confused with a child, although he is rightfully of age. 

(Nicknames: Sunshine, Cloud Jr., Cloud 2.0)

PIZZAFACE — Cloudface or Cloud for short. The star of this au, I guess… Basically, he was the first one to be created, and others were created in his image. He is the king of this cloud island and also part-time the one who gives you pleasant gentle dreams at night. I mean, he rarely and little sleeps, which is why his head is spinning a little. An ardent character, mood swings. Despite all this, he is quite a caring and gentle person, friendly, although these traits of his character may not always hover on the surface.

(Nicknames: Cloudy, Keeper of Dreams, Pinkface)

ALSO, NO LESS IMPORTANT, IS CLOUD WITH A BODY.

My boy's emotions~

****

༄ ‧₊For those who have read this post before on a previous account, I WANT TO SAY THAT THERE IS NEW INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHARACTERS HERE. Yes yes!! So re-read, please!

Thank you all for watching 🥺🥺🥺

I will be glad to any responses to my AU! Draw your OC, come up with headcanons, draw fanart, I will definitely appreciate it! 

I also want to say that I'm open to questions about au, do not hesitate to ask what interests you! 

[albiorixsims]

Saw this corset blouse by @strangegrapefruit and couldn't help myself...

Pose by @vellesa-well

[torpublishinggroup]

An unusual girl. An enigmatic man. An ancient castle. What could go wrong?

The Gothikana Hardcover Edition: featuring sprayed edges, a foil case stamp, gorgeously detailed endpapers, an updated map and deliciously moody art throughout.

WHAT IT’S ABOUT

The eternal romance of Beauty and the Beast meets the gothic suspense of Dracula in this erotic dark academia story of epic love from bestselling author RuNyx.

An unusual girl. An enigmatic man. An ancient castle. What could go wrong?

An outcast her entire life, Corvina Clemm is left adrift after losing her mother. When she receives the admission letter from the mysterious University of Verenmore, she accepts it as a sign from the universe. The last thing she expects though is an old, secluded castle on top of a mountain riddled with secrets, deceit, and death.

An enigma his entire life, Vad Deverell likes being a closed book but knowing exactly everything that happens in the university. A part-time professor working on his thesis, Vad has been around long enough to know the dangers the castle possesses. And he knows the moment his path crosses with Corvina, she's dangerous to everything that he is.

They shouldn't have caught each other's eye. They cannot be. But a chill-inducing century-old mystery forces them to collide. People have disappeared every five years over the past century, Corvina is getting clues to unraveling it all, and Vad needs to keep an eye on her.

And so, begins a tale of the mysterious, the morbid, the macabre, and a deep love that blossoms in the unlikeliest of places.

[amethystheartsx]

SCATTERED ACROSS THE STARS

Sylus Angst

After years of yearning, eons of loyalty what does a man do when all he gets is pieces, uneven and unfair.

Warnings: angst, slight mentions of chaos murder, drug addiction, and suicide (all mild)

AN: I often think all LIs and MC deserve better. A happiness of their own, not the kind tainted with curses and what not. If you don't like it don't read (°∀°)

Contains reference of another fic I wrote of zayne. I'll add link in case you wanna read.

Sylus was pissed.

No, that's not the right word, it portrays nothing but mere annoyance and anger. Sylus was beyond that.

Sylus was hurt.

No, that's not the right word as well, he wished he was just hurt. He wished it was only pain he felt every time he saw her with them.

Sylus was broken.

Tsk, incorrect yet again. How can one be broken when they were never whole to begin with.

For someone known to have everything worldly in the palm of his hand, Sylus lacked the most essential of his being. His soul, torn and used to bring life into another, one supposed to be his one true companion. His beloved. But Alas! 

Universe played a dirty trick.

For a dragon who owned the treasures of many fallen kings, the one who Never shared any of his possessions, even the one he did not care for, was forced to share the most precious one.

How ironic.

He thought his love was the purest, a beautiful yet tragic legend woven into the ancient ruins only for it to soar once again when they reunited.

He thought none like him existed, one who dared to love so fervently. A valiant display of ardent affection despite the curse that eventually killed him.

Sylus prided himself in his ability to love after the cosmos banned together to refrain it from happening, he prided himself to make a place for himself just so he could, for once, live out his fairy tale with her.

He deserved it right? After everything they went through. He still stands tall after that ever-longing suffering; her warm embrace should be his reward, right?!?.

Wrong.

Ah yes, wrong. Sylus felt wronged.

For the one whom he loved the most, was not his, at least not entirely.

Not the way he belonged to her. No. He longed for her, kept all of his love, his softness, his laughter reserved for her, made it so sacred so that when he laid it bare in front of her it would be nothing the eldest star in the ever-growing galaxy had ever witnessed before.

That's until he learned of them, their desires, their history.

A messenger who betrayed his god.

A god who led down his people.

A royal who left his own planet in ruins.

A fallen soldier who didn't let even death restrain him.

Each of them bared down their lives, people, treasures, and sanity. Over and over again. From gardens of jasmines to bonds of eternal. From past to future and across multiple timelines in between, tangled web, whispered myths and many fostered anecdotes.

Each of their feats rivaled the other, a grandeur display of Romance, that seeps through the galaxies and into her heart.

Wherever it beats, it finds her. They all find her, Love her, and then inevitably lose her.

Yes. The eternal cosmic affairs that have rattled the divine always end in the same way.

Heartbreak.

Tragic.

Unfulfilled.

Tsk. What a waste.

—--

Knowledge is power only some can bear, and Sylus would know. He had spied on them, all of them. Learned about them trying to find the flaws he could use to pry her away from their grasp. All for it to turn into failures.

Not just because they were clean slate, no like him they had their own fallouts.

But because of how happy she looked with them, so happy, just as she did with him. Not more, not less.

Just as much.

How unfair.

For he wanted her all for himself, blame his dragon roots but sylus don't share, how could he do it with the one who owns half his soul.

Is it so wrong he wants it all to himself? To get back the loyalty he had shown for eons?

He wasn't asking for much was he?

Everyday he will see her with one of them.

Under the starlight, along the oceans, in cozziness of duvets or the serenity of the night sky.

And she would dazzle for them just like she dazzles for him.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Nothing special.

__

His beloved was scattered across the stars, and he too only got the crumbs. The spared affections she had to offer, and sylus had enough.

He deserved to have something sacred. Something all for him. Just him.

And as the time went on he noticed…

So did she.

She deserved to have love that doesn't demand her being, her life, her blood, her heart.

She deserved to love as easy as breathing, not one suffocated with unseen linkages that burned with cosmic mischief.

She deserved to love and be loved with free will. Not because she was designed to, programmed to, and especially not with those picked by forces beyond her kin.

And so sylus decided to let her go, it wasnt easy, nor was it gentle but it did happen.

He pulled apart the string of fate, to let her free. It wasn't clean, certainly not smooth at edges but now she could breath. 

Soulmates can be platonic, romance isn't mandatory and besides, Kittens thrive better untethered, untamed.

—

After the “breakup”, if you can even call it that, a word far too trivial to define the undoing bond burned within the constellation, Sylus threw himself into work. Even more than before, going as far as taking Down the cheap underling, spreading chaos on the streets of the N-109 zone.

He was a ruthless killer before now he was a reckless one as well. His strategic movements and calculated attacks roughed up with insatiable need to wreak havoc.

He barely used his henchmen; why should he when he could do it better than them and also get the thrill of it?

Getting his own hands dirty in the hopes of removing the traces she left behind. He had learned the art of letting go, didnt mean he doesn’t get to process his grievance on his own accord, no matter how bloody it is.

Turns out he wasn't the first one to do so, it was the doctor. He, too, had to de-tangle himself from bushes full of thorns that had given him scars to last a lifetime, to plant a whole new garden with another flower just as fragrant, just as pretty. Even though it was small, it was still beautiful because it was entirely in bloom, not just the scraps he had to lose so much for.

Though Sylus was not looking for one, too tired by the charade to bother himself with it. He lived this long he would live out the rest of it as well.

Or so he thought.

---

During a hunt for a specific rat that had infiltrated the base, Sylus was not pleased when his carefully laid out trap was outsmarted by the traitor, fleeing the spot after tricking someone else into it.

“Looks like the rat trap ended up catching a little mouse” he spoke up approaching the bird cage that held just a sweet little thing, at least compared to him. 

He is displeased red eyes were now on,

You.

your pretty big eyes on him as well as crimson shades dust your cheek. “I- I am not supposed to be here…” you spoke, rightfully scared as the man in front of you approached the bird cage, his veiny hand reaching out to hold a bar, still studying, still weary.

“Obviously” he says in a bored tone “you do not fit the description. It was supposed to be a large burly man and not a, well…a fragile little thing too easy to break” he says.

You couldn't help but giggle and that caught him off guard. “Sorry, it's just- your voice is just as deep as I imagined,” you say, making the man in front of you give you a questioning glare. “Excuse me?” he asked. Of course, she wasn't the first to say something like that to him. Many had tried to tempt the man who runs the city to no real outcome.

“You are sylus right? I- am a huge fan!” You say looking up from your place nearing the bars of the cage.

Many had claimed to be his nemesis, his rivals, even admirers, but a fan? That was a first. “A fan? A fan of what?” he asked, his low voice not portraying the hint of curiosity he felt.

“You know, like your achievements and stuff” you reply simply, matter-of-factly.

There was a beat of silence.

“You mean my criminal record?”

“A mighty impressive one”.

His devilishly handsome face contorts into a slightly puzzled expression as he refuses to look away at the shorter person in front of him who continued to look at him….like that.

Sylus was aware how blessed he was aesthetically but he couldn't help but be drawn to her eyes and how she looked at him. They brimmed with admiration, respect and slight fear that didn't aim towards him. Now it isn't that no one ever looked at him like that before, no. What made it different was how pure it was, how easy it came to her when it really shouldn't. Her desires were sated and she didn't require anything of him. Not his favor, not his hate. She was so contant in the moment just being present here, with him.

Sylus had to step back and look away. An unfamiliar weight unfolded in his chest

“Enough with this charade whatever this is” he says “how did you end up here? Because with what you have said so far I believe you are some kind of stalker? Is that what it is?” He speaks with accusations directed towards you.

“Oh no! No” you to quickly step back, panic drips your demeanor “There is a misunderstanding, I have been played to be accurate”.

“Oh? Why tell me more about it little mouse” he says crossing his arm, his tone was sarcastic yet sincere. “I am all ears”.

With a deep breath you begin “that big and burly man you mentioned vaguely, were you talking about daryl? Also known as the bishop?” When he nods cautiously you continue “right! So what happened was, I owed Daryl a favor and he cashed it in and told me to make this delivery for him and well I had no clue that delivery will bring me here” you breath out seemingly calm but that slight shakiness in your voice didn't miss him. “I assume he somehow knew it was a trap then set me up as an escape goat” 

Once you were finished sylus ran a hand through his hair, visibly frustrated. It doesn't happen often that one of his strategically laid out traps doesn't work or catch someone innocent, but even in this moment after his failed attempt his mind was more interested in you “And why would a small thing like you owe a man like bishop a favor” his eyes narrows down at you with suspicion laced with intrigue. Just who are you? First, you claim to be a fan and then turn out to have some sort of connection with a rat that Infiltrated his base.

The question made you chuckle “ah so funny story” you begin, now having sylus’s full attention because how would it be funny to know a man like The Bishop.

“So my dad killed his dad, and then like kind of adopted him because of guilt since his mom was a druggie, she ended her life subscription after like 4 to 5 years or so anyway” You wave it off like it was no big deal and the red-eyed man could only just listen to you stunned. “So yeah Daryl kind of came and went never really stayed, got in the wrong g crowd and found out the truth so he obviously tried to kill us all but thankfully couldn't” you rambled, sylus felt they were losing the plot “If he tried to kill you all why would you owe him….anything?” He tried hiding how absurd he found it, but she could see it as “that's the funny part of having a dysfunctional family.” she leaned on the bars of the cage. “Can't live with them, can't live without them. After nearly burning down our house and running away for good, or so I thought, he returned again remorseful because, well, my dad did take him in, and we were nice enough to him.” She shrugs. Sylus shifted on his feet, impatient “Still doesn't explain why-”

“I am getting there jeez” you giggle, “though we did not really forgive him and cut off our ties I had to reach out to him because” you take another deep breath and sylus holds his.

“I needed the money, we were in ruins, and all kinds of bills were stacking up my books, not making enough. It- it was rough,” You chuckle, but there is no humor in it; the sparkles in your eyes dim down, replaced by the pain of the past that still seems to haunt you. “It was a good chunk I borrowed and was paying him back bit by bit after I started doing well till out of the blue he called in and asked a favor in exchange for forgiving the rest of the loan and- well, rest is history” she stands straighter arms crossed “that answered all your questions?”

Sylus stares you up and down. He knows, of course, that you are not lying or deceiving him, that your heart is pure even after all you've been through, and it is only what you tell him; he wonders what else you hide behind that flowery smile.

“even if you are saying the truth you have seen too much now, and given your…complicated relationship with the bishop I suppose letting you go so freely won't be an option,” he says, his voice dropping low to that cold tone that can make anyone succumb to their knees, the one you had in your eyes right now. That's the look Sylus was used to, not that mellow one you have been giving him.

“No! No wait, don't kill me” you grabbed onto the bar's desperate pleas falling from your lips making him smirk “I-I can be useful I can help you find him! everything I know I'll tell you. Please” the last word falling much softly.

“mhm is that so then maybe you can be spared” sylus says knowing damn well he was never planning on killing her in the first place.

“Well then” he smirks “I am expecting your full corporation little miss”.

AN: This was supposed to be long lol, but I figured I'd make it a whole part 2 later. It is almost written but I have so many ideas I need to arrange it all first

Anywho, let me know if I should write it or not.

Also here is the link.

[eureka-its-zico]

Chaos in Their Bones Ch. 2

Ongoing Series

Synopsis: All your life you’d listened to your friend, Usopp spin wild tales about pirates and adventure. Pirates weren’t a thing that came often to Syrup Village, but one straw hat pirate and his crew changed all that the day they arrived. Now, you aren’t so sure if your sleepy little village was always pirate-free or if no one had been paying attention. 

Pairing: Roronoa Zoro x Reader

Genre: friends to lovers, frenemies to lovers, slow burn (I hope y’all like aching) eventual smut

Words: 6k+

A/N: For this chapter, I played with the idea of having Zoro’s POV. It felt necessary for the story progression that I had in mind. This chapter was a tad fun to write, and I hope that translated well into the story. Originally it was going to be longer, but I realized I wanted to save the dinner to go with all the action to end the Episode 3-4 story arc. Thank you guys so much for the love you’ve given this little story. I hope it continues to be one you enjoy 🖤 Much Love, Jenn

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This place is a maze. 

That thought rang true with every hallway you entered and the endless number of rooms within. With every step you took inside Kaya’s large estate, those words kept echoing through your head. How many guest suites could one house possibly hold? But also, why would you ever need so many?

You’d been wandering the halls for what felt like an eternity. Your head poked into each room after a brief knock. Yes, a brief knock before plunging head-first into someone’s private space wasn’t much of a warning but at least you were knocking. 

And all of this just to find Zoro who may or may not help you expose whatever metaphorical skeletons this butler had stuffed in his metaphorical closet. Or an actual closet. The possibilities felt endless. 

You weren’t even sure how you were going to explain to him exactly why you were searching for him without sounding like a creep. You would just have to cross that bridge when you came to it. 

You were about to give up trying to locate him because you were pretty sure you’d just passed that same exact clock for the second time in a row. You let out a raspberry as you placed your hands on your hips. Was it plausible you were lost? Inside a ginormous house like this? Yes, it sure as shit was. Maybe you should’ve been dropping breadcrumbs to find your way back to your own room when this was over. 

Rolling your tongue around your mouth, you looked down to your right and realized there were only two more doors left. What could it hurt just to look? You were already down here anyway. 

With a shrug, you moved towards the second to last door near the end of the hall. You weren’t in a rush to check what was behind either one, but you were also not leaving any stone unturned and all that. If your earlier dozen room checks were any indication of what to expect, you were willing to bet that you were going to find absolutely nothing waiting for you. The joy of joys. 

You were just a few feet from the door when you heard the lock click. The sound caused you to stop dead center, facing the door like an absolutely terrified rabbit caught in the headlights. What were the chances that whoever opened that door was going to be Zoro? And what were the chances that he would be willing to listen to what you had to say? 

The possibility of your questions being answered ebbed the panic in your chest down just a tad. Enough that when the door finally opened and Zoro was, in fact, standing before you, you silently thanked the universe for your suddenly award-winning luck. 

That was until you realized he was just standing there. In a robe. A silk robe with his swords slung over his shoulder and because of his current hold on his swords, said robe in question was flashing a peak of his chest. You immediately wanted to take back your previous thank you letter to the universe. 

This should be illegal. 

The worst part? You were pretty positive from the way Zoro was staring at you - his eyes taking you in from top to bottom lord HELP you - he did not seem as impressed with you as you were of him. Why in the hell couldn’t you say a word? Yes, he was attractive - stupidly so - but he was also just another guy. 

A guy in a thin silk robe and hair still damp from a bath. 

You watched as Zoro’s body began to relax, or relax as much as someone like him could. It was when he let out a sigh as if your very presence was keeping him from something important, that you felt your feet remove themselves from their spot in the carpet and spring you forward. 

There was a split second when Zoro’s eyes registered your movement. His eyebrows raised up in surprise as the almond shape of his eyes widened just a tad before he braced for whatever you were about to do. Zoro was planning on an attack and his body was primed to force you back. Instead of violence, he was met with your hands shoving him back inside his room with your foot kicking the door swiftly closed behind you. 

Once you knew you were both securely back inside the room, you stopped shoving him. You waited for your eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of the room before you looked around. It would be embarrassing if you’d done this and someone else - Nami or Luffy or anyone else really - had been inside with him. The only thing you noticed, however, was his previous clothes strewn across the room. 

When your eyes ventured back to Zoro you found his earlier shock replaced by what you could only guess was his usual stonewall expression. 

“Look,” he began the timber of his voice causing you to jump. “You seem nice and all, if not a little disturbed, but I’m not interested.” 

You looked up at him with your confusion knitting your brow together. 

“Not interested?”

You weren’t sure why it took you that long to realize what he meant, but it was dawning on you at warp speed and your confusion was quickly replaced with horror. 

“Oh my god! No, no! I was not trying to like, do anything to you like that.”

The disbelief in his eyes told you plainly he didn’t believe you, and by the tick in his jaw something was bothering him about your statement. 

Shit! He thinks I’m a perv 

You wanted to crawl under the nearest rock and die there. You followed his eyes as they trailed down his chest to find your hands were very much still attached to him, practically groping him. 

“Then why are your hands still on my chest?”

A small squeak of surprise left you as you dropped your hands down to your sides and shook them like it would be enough to get rid of the feeling of cupping his very pronounced…chest. You took a step back from him in hopes that giving him space would save the entire interaction. 

“Sorry about all the ugh…touching,” you mumbled. “But I did come here to speak to you about something.” 

“This is going to be good. Is it to convince me you weren’t trying to grope me?”

“God, you aren’t going to let it go, are you?” 

Closing your eyes you took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. When you finished, you opened your eyes again and gave him the best smile you could muster. 

“Okay, let’s start this again. I,” you motioned towards yourself, “have come to ask you if you noticed anything weird.” 

Zoro cocked an eyebrow at you. His arms moved to lock his arms across his chest somehow exposing the peek of flesh from the robe even more. 

“You mean weirder than right now?”

You purse your lips together tightly as you try to exhale all the annoyance from gathering in your body. 

“Let’s just move on from this moment, ok,” you began. “I came to talk to you about the butler.”

Without warning, Zoro rolled his eyes and dropped his arms from his chest. His swords clanging against his leg reminding you that he wasn’t making any move to set them down anytime soon. 

“Here we go again about the butler,” he groaned, and the very sound shouldn’t have sounded as enticing as it did.

Focus! 

“Oh, save it!” You snapped. “I saw you, okay? The way you looked at Klahadore before you followed your friends inside. You looked at him like you recognized him. Like you’d seen him before somewhere.” 

Zoro regarded you coolly. The hardness that had disappeared while he’d teased you earlier slid back into place until he was as unreadable as stone. 

“I’ve never seen that butler before in my entire life.” 

“Why are you lying?” 

You couldn’t keep the exasperation from your voice or how your desperation was starting to creep back in. Could you have been wrong about Zoro this whole time? Did you just see what you wanted to see?

No. You know what you saw and you were not going to be called crazy. You took a step towards him and weren’t surprised when he didn’t move back. Instead, he tilted his chin, his full pouty lips still very much pouting, as his eyes carefully watched you. 

“You know, that I know, that you looked at that guy and went, ‘hmph, something’s not right there’.” 

Yeah, that felt like a solid argument. 

You waited under Zoro’s cool gaze for him to reply. For him to show any sign of anything, really. He was literally the most unmoving person you’d ever meet, and you were starting to wonder if he was even real. The shitty part about waiting in silence, besides the uneasy commentary your brain was beginning to make, was the smell of the vanilla and sandalwood that wafted off him in mini waves that assaulted your senses. 

You were so intently transfixed by trying to match his unblinking gaze that when he finally moved his head down to be eye level with you, you’d almost jumped out of your skin. 

“Is everything okay with you? Do you suffer from any brain damage?” 

You wish you could say you handled the next few seconds with grace and poise. Things that all upstanding future doctors did when faced with adversity. However, that was most definitely not you, and you weren’t able to keep an exacerbated yell of frustration from cairning past your lips. 

“Oh! You are literally the most infuriating man I have ever met!”

“And you are the most perverted woman I have ever met,” Zoro shot back, this time taking a step towards you. 

If he was trying to intimidate you, he should’ve tried back when you weren’t ready to tear him limb from limb. 

“I beg your pardon?!”

“Who just pushes a semi-naked man into a room so they can grope him?”

“I wasn’t trying to grope you! I was trying to interrogate you for information!”

God, that sounded so much worse. 

“That sounds a lot worse, actually.”

Of course, Zoro would state the obvious, and was he - was he smirking? Your eyes rapidly blinked as you tried to make sense of what you were seeing because as fast as you’d noticed it, that devilish smirk had disappeared. Now Zoro once again looked as serious as before. You began to move back towards the door with your hands up in mock surrender. 

“You know what - fine! If you don’t want to help me, that’s your choice, but you know I’m right. And I’m going to prove that something is wrong here with or without your help.”

You shot one last look in his direction before turning on your heel and giving him your back. You were at the door, your hand on the doorknob when Zoro surprised you with a question of his own. 

“Why ask me to help you?”

Glancing over your shoulder, you expected to see that smug smirk on his face or to get the cold shoulder. What you found instead were eyes so intent on you - waiting for your response - that it caused your lungs to collapse. A million replies played over through your mind, but only one of them mattered. 

“Because out of everyone here, I thought you would believe me the most.” 

It didn’t matter if it was the answer he’d been looking for or the one you thought would win him over. You meant what you said and you hoped he’d felt your admission genuinely. If Usopp didn’t want to believe you, and if Zoro, who you still believed knew or at least felt something was off here, wasn’t going to be able to help you, you would just have to do it yourself. 

Did you know what that entailed? Hell no, but Naan didn’t raise a quitter, and you weren’t going to roll over and just give up just because it was hard. Not when someone’s very life depended on you. 

——————

After your incredible failure of finding a co-conspirator to help you on your quest for answers failed with flying colors, you weren’t exactly sure what to do with yourself. Usopp no doubt must have snuck in by now to see Kaya - sans your “gift” - and the others were probably in the ridiculous closet looking for dinner attire. While you could’ve gone just to socialize with everyone else, Kaya had sent a dress to your room. 

Sham had looked absolutely miserable dropping it off and that was a joy all on its own. 

You considered heading to the closet just to see Luffy again. Luffy radiated optimism like sunshine; at the moment, that sort of unyielding optimism was the mood booster you needed. 

Unfortunately, you knew Zoro must have made his way there by now and you weren’t necessarily ready to face him again. The disappointment was clinging to you and that’s what you hated the most. You didn’t understand why you’d seemingly put all your eggs inside the Zoro basket. Just because he’d looked at Klahadore weird didn't mean he’d sensed something off. 

Shit, Klahadore was weird and deserved every side-eye glance he got. 

All it meant for you was going back to the drawing board for a new plan. One that was going to be able to get you next to Kaya. At least long enough so you could perform some kind of assessment. 

You rounded the corner to what you hoped was the hallway your room was down. The earlier thought you’d had about getting lost turned into an accurate one. You’d spent just as much time trying to get back to your room to get ready for dinner as you had searching for Zoro. 

Zoro.

Even just thinking about him made your jaw clench with fresh irritation. What was more infuriating than your most recent conversation was the fact you could still feel the strength of him in the hollows of your palms. The sharpness of his jaw and the high sculpt of his cheeks- 

No! Absolutely not, you chastised yourself. 

It was maddening how little he believed you - mocked you - and yet, here you were acting like some lovestruck teenager. He wasn’t that handsome. 

You were lost in your thoughts to the point you weren’t aware of your body's attempt to warn you. The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end and a sickening feeling began to rot in your gut and made sure all the imaginary - very imaginary - butterflies disappeared. 

The goosebumps that rose along your exposed skin informed you that the grand hallway, filled with all its riches and fine cherry woods was as ice cold as the dead. Has it always been this cold and you just never noticed? Or the eerie silence that made the manor feel more haunted than alive. 

Your feet involuntarily came to a halt in the middle of the hall. You couldn’t explain the panic that was building in your chest, but it felt like you were being watched. Your heart rate sped up until you could practically feel it thundering against your ribs. 

“You are being silly,” you whispered to yourself. “It’s just an old house.” 

“Old houses do have their quirks, don’t they?”

You wish you could say that when Klahadore spoke from behind you, you’d reacted with grace. With dignity. What actually happened was you screamed sharp enough it could raise the dead. 

The whiplash you gave yourself as you turned to face him was dizzying. You wanted to kill the fear that widened your eyes and pressed your brow into your hairline. Your mouth was painfully dry as you took in his presence and the absolute shit-eating grin he wore. 

He enjoyed seeing you afraid. 

“Oh dear, Doc, did I give you a fright?”

Klahadore gently tipped the frame of his glasses with the edge of his palm. You wanted to smack them off his smug face. 

“What do you want, Klahadore?”

You struggled to regain your composure. You refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing you afraid. It was what he wanted after all and didn’t take much to notice. He was already trying to close the few inches your retreat had given you. 

“I was simply wondering why you were wandering around the manor. You’ve been showing highly suspicious behavior ever since you and your friends arrived.” 

Your eyes narrowed in on him and as you held your head high. 

“Have you been following me?”

“Oh, come now, don't be silly. To have someone followed means you’re worried about what they’ll find, and you? You are the last thing I would be worried about.” 

Klahadore dropped his head down until he was eye level with you, but somehow used his size to remain imposing. A thinly veiled threat to remind you exactly what he thought of you; nothing. 

The first time you’d ever received an insult from Klahadore had been just like this. Alone and away from anywhere Kaya could hear him. He’d made sure that Usopp and you were together just so he wouldn’t have to repeat the insult twice. 

“I know you two must feel exceedingly special having Miss Kaya ask for you to come keep her company, but I’m afraid this will be the last time you ever come over unannounced or not. We can’t allow her image to be tarnished from being seen with unwanted children.” “Unwanted?” Usopp had been so confused - he knew he was wanted; wanted by Kaya and you. Klahadore saw in that confusion an opportunity to place doubt in his mind and completely tear him apart.  “Yes - unwanted. So unwanted that your father never returned, and your mother chose death as a final way to be rid of you.” “You son of a bitch!” You’d snarled and snapped. You were only kids.  The world had taught you early on about hardships and fairness; how the world and the people in it could lack kindness. But Naan always made you look for the good in the world, and in the people who sometimes allowed the ugliness of others to warp them into someone they weren’t.  It was a concept child you never understood. Teenage you were barely beginning to grasp it, but when Klahadore spoke those words so full of hate and venom at your best friend: there weren’t enough flames left in hell to cover up your rage.

The memory of that day left a black mark on your soul and you find it replaying at the most inconvenient of times. A harsh reminder of the first time you’d ever considered murder as a means of healing. The world would have to be a better place if someone like Klahadore wasn’t in it. Right? 

Naan, as always, talked you down from doing something rash. From allowing someone like Klahadore to have the last laugh and ruin all the plans you had for your life. 

But Naan wasn’t here to talk you off that ledge or to remind you who she knew you were. Your rage shouldn’t define you. Looking at Klahadore’s retreating back, you weren’t all too sure if it wasn’t you because if he ever showed up needing any form of medical attention, you weren’t so sure if he’d leave on his own two feet. 

A body bag would suit him nicely. 

You watched him until he completely disappeared leaving you alone once more inside the hallway. It felt weird to take those first steps back towards your room. To go inside and see the dress Kaya had sent to your room and know you were going to put it on and share dinner with that man standing in the same room. 

There had to be a way to show everyone here exactly who Klahadore was, and you would spend the whole dinner trying to do just that. 

———————

He’d been searching for a drink since his interaction with you back in his room. Zoro wanted to call you crazy - hell you acted crazy enough, but you’d done something he hadn’t expected. 

You’d surprised him.

He didn’t want to admit it then but he did get a weird vibe from the butler. The minute his eyes landed on Klahadore it had sparked a nagging feeling of a memory he just couldn’t quite place. 

And you’d noticed. 

After you’d left his room, he couldn’t shake the conversation you’d forced him to be a part of. Teasing you had been easy. He’d expected you to be a bleeding heart, but as you’d turned to leave, stomping your feet and spitting back words that stung for just a second, it had been Zoro’s turn to notice something about you. 

It was the fire of your determination that piqued his interest.  

While Zoro wasn’t sure why you held such a stick up your ass exactly about the butler, he was positive you had a reason. Besides the fact he couldn’t seem to pull up a clear memory of why the same butler piqued his own interest, and that was beginning to piss him off. 

What was even more annoying was the fact you’d brought it up enough that he’d asked Nami and Luffy if the butler seemed familiar. He didn’t know why he’d asked. If it had been more for him or for you. 

That pissed him off more. 

You seemed to be good at that. Pissing him off and getting under his skin. 

When he came downstairs, Zoro expected you to be there already. A quick glance around the room informed him you weren’t there, but a row of flutes filled with what he hoped was alcohol most certainly was. 

He carefully set down his strap of swords and moved closer to the drinks. No one else made a move towards them and, for a split second, Zoro was worried maybe the flutes were nonalcoholic. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around the delicate crystal and quickly brought it to his lips. 

The smell of the liquor hit him first and his muscles relaxed instantaneously. 

God. This was exactly what he needed. 

“Zoro! You gotta try this!”

Zoro didn’t bother looking because he’d seen the appetizers being served when he came down the stairs. He wasn’t impressed. Plus, if he was going to make it through this evening, he was going to need way more booze than what was inside these little Crystal flutes. 

“I got all I need right here,” he replied and brought the glass up to his lips. 

The first sip erased all the tension that had been binding up his muscles. The next pull from the glass relaxed him completely, and he downed what was left in one giant gulp. He placed the now-empty flute back down on the tray and swiftly grabbed another. 

Zoro was vaguely aware of all the chatting going on around him. The sound of Usopp and Luffy sharing stories and Nami doing whatever it was Nami did during fancy dinner parties. He meant what he said - he did have everything he needed to make it through this dinner inside these glasses. At least, that’s what he thought until the sound of a heel echoing off the step brought his attention to the top of the stairs. 

He was sure the new flute with his latest drink was at his lips. Zoro inhaled the sharp scent of liqueur with every breath he took. He just couldn’t seem to make his elbow bend enough to drop it from his face. 

You were making your way down the staircase, oblivious to the world around you as you came down with a hand carefully placed on the railing. 

The dress you wore was covered in article flowers; all of their small bold colors were bright against the backdrop of black chiffon. The top of the dress left your shoulders exposed, and the style you’d chosen to wear your hair, with beads of pearls intricately placed within each strand, made you seem ethereal. 

You looked like moonlight inside a garden; soft and wild and for the first time Zoro forgot that breathing was important. 

Once you reached the last step, your eyes finally moved up from the safety of your feet. Zoro was vaguely aware the rim of the glass was still resting on his bottom lip, and that he’d yet to take a drink. He felt frozen - helpless - until your eyes found his rooted frame - helplessly waiting - and the smile that curved your lips brightened up the room. 

It was in this second that he realized he was fucked, and the annoyance of that realization was enough for him to finally upend the glass in one large gulp. 

——————

Zoro had looked at you for less than a millisecond before he’d upended the contents of his glass in one large gulp. His disinterest was evident enough throughout his entire body. With one last glance in your direction, he turned back to the waiting tray of glasses. 

Well, that wasn’t the reaction you’d expected. 

The disappointment scraped raw across your chest as you watched Zoro take up another glass. His gaze was steadfast at the wall as he downed whatever was inside. What felt more disappointing was the fact you’d cared. 

For all intents and purposes, Zoro was an asshole. So, it begged the ever-present question: Why did it bother you so much? 

Yes, you’d painstakingly gotten ready around the dress Kaya left inside your suite. Was it your usual taste? You weren’t all that sure, to be honest. It’s not like you’d ever been invited to any fancy dinner parties before. You weren’t sure if this was the proper form of dress or if you’d gone overboard with your hair. 

At least Nami had a feather inside her hair and it looked as if she’d given her blood-orange hair some curls. She looked absolutely gorgeous and you made it your mission to tell her.

“Wow, Doc you look-“ Usopp began. 

You turned beaming towards your friend as you waited for him to acknowledge your hard work. Maybe at least Usopp, of all people, would say something nice. 

“Different.”

You could practically feel your smile deflate at the edges. 

“What did you put in your hair?” Luffy asked around a mouthful of meat. 

“Oh yeah, I was wondering what looked different. It’s the hair,” Usopp confirmed with Luffy. 

The both of them smiled and nodded at one another as if they just solved world hunger. Your tongue rolled around your cheek as you debated on what to say. Maybe you’d expected to much out of a bunch of men. 

“They’re pearls,” you huffed. 

“That’s silly,” Luffy chuckled. “Why would you ever put pearls in your hair?”

“It’s to look nice.”

“I never knew hair needed accessories,” Usopp offered before taking a bit of his appetizer.

“Nami put a feather in her hair,” Luffy offered before taking another bite. “Maybe you guys can talk about putting random stuff in your hair.” 

There was no way this conversation could be real, and yet…

Luffy was still wearing his genuine smile while he and Usopp continued to enjoy the appetizers Sham passed around. This evening was turning out to be the last time you’d ever consider wearing anything like this again. What was even worse was that out of the three of them, Zoro was the only one properly dressed. 

While Usopp went with his usual no shirt underneath his jacket, Luffy was wearing just a petty coat and miraculously found dress slacks that didn’t even reach his ankle. They looked like their usual selves, just dressed in black. 

But Zoro…

No! Absolutely not.

“I’ll go look for Nami so we can discuss…putting things in our hair.”

“That’s great! I’m sure it will make her happy. She seemed frustrated earlier when she asked for help.”

“I can’t imagine why,” you mumbled, as you turned to find Nami speaking to Merry. 

Well, it looked like that was going to be a bust too. Man, she really did look very pretty, though. You were considering what your options were. You weren’t comfortable just injecting yourself into whatever conversation Nami and Merry were having, especially not when she was rubbing his arm like that. 

Luckily for you, the sound of Klahadore announcing Kaya’s entrance kept you from having to go with your final option, which was to get a drink. Next to Zoro. 

You all collectively turned to watch as Klahadore helped Kaya make her way down the stairs. You couldn’t help but smile up at her and her current choice of attire. While she’d made you look like a garden, you could only assume she was the sunshine that hovered above it. The only problem you had with the golden silk material was that it somehow made her sickly pale skin appear paler. 

She must have picked the color in hopes it wouldn’t do that, but all it did was raise the alarm bells in the back of your mind. You’d allowed a pretty dress and a fancy meal to cloud the real reason you’d come in the first place. Instead of being a doctor, you were playing dress-up. 

You were still scolding yourself when Kaya finally made it to the end of the staircase. Her smile was bright and happier than it had been in a long time, as she regarded Nami and the dress she’d chosen. It hadn’t even registered that any of the clothes you currently were wearing belonged to her deceased parents. You made a mental note to make sure to take extra special care not to ruin the dress with any droplets of food. 

“Oh, Doc, I’m so glad I picked this,” Kaya breathed. “You look absolutely magical.” 

You couldn’t help but look down at the dress again. It was an incredibly delicate dress. A work of art to be worn on the body. Maybe that was why you felt like such an imposter wearing it. 

When you looked back at her, you tried to give Kaya a convincing smile. One you could even make yourself believe you felt worthy to have it on. 

“Oh, Kaya you are too nice,” you replied, only for her to shoot you down with a wave of her hand. 

“Nonsense. Usopp is always telling me about all the good you do for everyone. It’s time you let yourself be appreciated.”

Your earlier response to Kaya’s welcoming smile was one of your own, but at the mention of your supposed good deeds, you felt it tighten into a grimace. 

It means nothing if I can’t even help you.

Up close, her color wasn’t pale - it was ashen. The whites of her eyes were devoured with a yellowish tint and - 

Like the parasite he was, Klahadore was there pulling Kaya gently by her elbow to lead her back to the conversation between herself and Merry. Your eyes followed him as he made sure to plant her a few feet in front of you; her back excluding you from following to join. 

Once he made sure she was safely away from you, Klahadore stationed himself a few feet away next to the penguin pillar at the base of the stairs. He thought he was sneaky and that he had stopped your trained eyes from being able to do a quick evaluation.

Unlucky for Klahadore you were quicker than he thought. 

You were getting ready to head over to him when you caught Zoro walking back over to the tray. He was doing his usual of placing down an empty glass only to grab a fresh one, except this time he was talking. To Klahadore. 

What a fucking liar!

You couldn’t think straight as you watched the exchange. The way Klahadore overplayed the flabbergasted victim. You didn’t have to be close to them to know what Zoro was asking him, because just like you’d suspected, he did seem familiar to Zoro. 

It felt like you could breathe fire, you were so pissed. 

At some point, Klahadore ended the conversation by interjecting himself into someone else’s conversation. You didn’t care what it was. They could’ve been discussing flying pigs for all you cared. Your eyes were still honed in on Zoro who regarded you for a split second before he sat back down in the parlor’s middle seat. 

You started making your way towards him when Klahadore called out it was time to eat. You suddenly weren’t hungry. 

Zoro must have sensed you coming for him because in one swift move, he was out of the seat and standing. The strap that held his katana’s back over his shoulder as he followed Sham behind the double doors.

“You son of a-“

“Doc!” Usopp whisper-shouted as he nervously took your hand in his. “Sit next to me. Please.” 

You were still seeing metaphorical red. Your brain firing rapidly on only one main thought and that was to get a hold of Zoro and throttle him. 

It wasn’t Usopp’s fault that Zoro was a dick, and he looked genuinely terrified. Stuffing your current bad mood as far down as you could muster (you were about to see said moss-haired reason for your fowl mood in t-minus two seconds), you planted on a smile and gently took Usopp’s hand. 

“What kind of wingman would I be if I didn’t?”

“Oh, thank god,” he laughed. 

The both of you followed closely behind Merry and the others as you were all escorted inside the dining room. Merry quickly took his seat at the end of the table, and you noticed rather quickly Zoro had claimed the seat closest to the door. 

Without thinking, you took the seat beside him and motioned for Usopp to take the last one. The one directly beside Kaya. For a moment, Usopp looked at you wide-eyed and uncertain. You did your best to make him comfortable. 

“You got this, Usopp,” you whispered. “Don’t overthink it.”

His response came in a small nod that did little to erase the terror that shined in his eyes. You gave his arm a light squeeze for reassurance before you straightened up in the chair. Glancing over, you watched as Zoro poured what looked like a freshly opened bottle of wine into a glass. 

You waited patiently for him to finish and when he went to set the bottle down you made your move. With a slight lean to your right, you swiped your hand out to grab a hold of the glass. Zoro caught the movement too late, but you now had his full attention. His nostrils flaring the only indication that he was irritated by your sudden drink stealing. 

Good. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” He questioned. 

His dark eyes never left your face as he waited for you to answer. 

“Being petty.”

To bring the point home, you tilted the glass in his direction in a silent salute. You made sure he watched as you brought it to your lips and took a sip of the blood-red wine within. 

Zoro’s jaw ticked in irritation as you gave him a devious smirk, and when Sham came by Zoro waved her over. 

“I need a new glass.”

Now the smile that graced your lips was genuine and you made sure Zoro was aware of it. It was time to have a little fun of your own and that included hogging as much of his alcohol as humanly possible. 

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

As always, thank you for reading. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

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mercy upon ourselves

See my full list of works here!

Summary: Your multiversal duty of punishing perpetrators of infidelity in their afterlife takes an interesting turn when you see that the betrayed party is one of your variants | loose 'sequel' to 'all will be alright in time'

Pairing: Loki (God of Stories/Time) x Reader; Will Ransome x Reader (different Reader)

Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings: 18+ | talks of infidelity; steamy moments at the end; (technically) mass murder; Cora Seaborne (yeah she's a warning); Will Ransome (in this case he needs to be a warning, too) [let me know if i missed anything!]

Things to be aware of: this loosely takes place in the RTC 'multiverse', but no prior reading of the series is required; Reader is the goddess of fidelity

Dick-tionary: steamy moments (but not outright smut) starts at "Loki let out a low chuckle"

Your duty as goddess of fidelity, in theory, was simple enough. Upon the death of a betrayer, you were to choose their punishment in their eternal afterlife. After your first few thousand cases, they all began to meld into the same old tale, often feeling as if they all even wore the same face.

That was until this particular story. Where the face of the deceased and betrayed wife held…your own.

Before you could even call out to him, Loki was by your side in a heartbeat, laying his hands gently on your shoulders and pressing a kiss to the back of your head. "I can sense your unease, little Princess. What troubles you?"

Together you looked through the glowing branches that surrounded you, each telling the story of a different timeline, a different universe. Until you finally found the one which held the case you needed to review. The universe where your echo had died of a broken heart upon learning that your husband, Loki's echo in the form of a Reverend William Ransome, betrayed you to have an entanglement with a newcomer in your quaint village of Aldwinter.

"This is no variant of mine," your husband seethed. "I could never belittle our love like this, the thought alone pains me."

You took his hand in yours, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. "I know, husband. This timeline is simply…a fluke. Our echoes, our variants? They are not reflections of ourselves. His flaws and failures are not your burden to bear."

"Failure," he repeated, his top lip curling up in a sneer as he looked upon the faces of his variant and his mistress, living together under the same roof, sleeping in the very bed that your variant breathed her last. "That is precisely what this branch is. Perhaps it should just drift away…to wither and rot."

"Loki we should not punish an entire universe for the mistake of one man. There are still countless lives within this branch--"

"And your variant is no longer one of them because of the mistake of his one man. He deserves to suffer."

"And he will," you reassured him. "His suffering falls within my purview. It is my Norns-given duty to see to it. And while I know we both would relish in watching as this pathetic coward of a man sees the end of days upon him, I cannot in good conscience have it be at the cost of an entire universe. But perhaps the village that was complicit…the village that stayed silent to protect their precious reverend's reputation."

"What do you have in mind, my love?" He pulled you close to him, embracing you from behind, hands caressing your sides. Soothing himself from the unease of seeing how his variant dared take you for granted.

I was made to be yours. Words that resonated so deeply into both your souls. Words he used when he first confessed his love to you. The same words you yourself uttered when your memory spell had broken and you found him that fateful day eons ago.

The same words you both used within your new vows when he returned to you. And used ever since.

And somehow this insipid trifling man thought himself above those words? Dare even spit them back in the face of the same entities that weaved your two souls together so intricately that it bled through every timeline and universe known to him?

All the suffering in the Nine Realms would not be enough for this William Ransome as far as he was concerned.

"Well, husband, we are in a rather…unique circumstance," you mused aloud, a little sound of contentment slipping from your lips when he pressed a kiss to your temple. "I bear the same face as this Y/N Ransome…and they reside in a town that is riddled with a rather superstitious lot. And my variant…she deserves her revenge, does she not?"

Had it not been for the gloomier and grayer than usual state of the sky, it seemed a typical day in Aldwinter. It had been years since the spectacle that was your passing occurred, and the townsfolk had finally began to warm to the presence of Cora Seaborne. Sure, she and William would still get looks out of the corners of their eyes, especially when she would emerge from the house in a dress that people could have sworn was yours, but other than that, no one made any trouble for them.

Not to their face. Not anymore.

The cold heaviness of regret had made itself at home in the pit of your widower's stomach ever since that day, the day that he betrayed you. No amount of rationalizing could have him absolve himself of his sin. Any which way he went with his internal arguments, they would all land in the same place.

The blame fell entirely on him. And he would have to live with the consequences of what he'd done for the rest of his days.

In the form of the tombstone that would steadily erode with the passing of time.

And in the form of the new family he was all but strong armed into taking on, if only to spare himself more scandal and ridicule. He'd already lost the respect of a good number of the congregation, this would smite the number down to a paltry handful if he turned his back on his then pregnant mistress.

Though despite all their efforts at maintaining what they thought they'd found with each other, they had lost the babe. Twice. As if God Himself willed it so that no child would ever result from their treachery. A fitting punishment, as far as Will was concerned.

Love may not have been a weakness, but lust most definitely was. Lust was what drove him to commit the treachery that led to the loss of love.

He should have resisted. Walked away. Ran, even.

Perhaps if he had, you would still be here, serving as a bright ray of sunlight even in the dark gray overcast over your little town. Perhaps your children wouldn't have turned their backs on him and he would be allowed the privilege of getting to see them build their own families, lead their own lives.

Instead all he had was darkness and silence. And he had no one to blame but himself.

"William!" Cora's shriek traveled across the marshes.

Moments like these, he preferred the darkness and silence.

He tried to take in a breath before turning to face her, the picture of a doting partner. "What is it, Cora?"

"The look--the looking glass, I saw--"

Her stammering was cut short by the sound of Matthew frantically ringing the alarm bell. "TIDE INCOMING! EVERYONE GO INSIDE! GET TO SAFETY!"

One of the fishermen in the approaching boats stumbled forward until he fell limp in the reverend's arms. "The waves, they be the size of mountains. Bigger even. God is angry with us."

"No," Matthew wheezed, coughing out sea water. "That wasn't God, out there in the waters. Not our God. That was some sorceress, some witch. Demoness. We must find safety." He began to usher every villager he could find into the church. "She don't look like the type that shows mercy."

"She?" Cora spoke, pointing a shaky finger at the curate. "You…saw her face? Tell me does she look like--"

"Enough talk about the evil looming in on us, Mrs Seaborne!" he snapped, pointing his finger at the Ransome house. "Go home. May this evil, whoever and whatever she may be, have mercy on us all."

"What was that, Cora?" Will hissed as they made their way home. "You look completely beside yourself."

"I could have sworn I saw Y/N's face in the looking glass," she said shakily, gulping for breath, shuddering when she said your name aloud once more. "Will, she looked angry. Vengeful."

"You're not making any sense, Y/N is gone," he said tersely, a familiar lump forming at the back of his throat as he forced himself to acknowledge your absence from his life. He ushered her along, trying to ensure that she at least would not stumble too harshly. "I laid her into the ground myself, gave her eulogy."

"I know," she huffed. "But I also know what I saw, that was no hallucination, Will--"

"I've read texts that there are some pregnancies that alter with the minds, the perception of the expectant mother. Perhaps this is simply one of those cases," he waved off. "Look, Cora we're almost home. We can wait out the storm and then when this is all over you can rest. We all can."

She simply nodded and they cross the marshes back to their home, only to find Francis, pale as freshly pressed cardstock, awaiting them by the door. "Mother, F-Father, there's a woman--" he sputtered out, pointing at the open door.

And then you stepped out. "There you are. Cowards."

William's heart stopped in his chest watching you walk out of your old home, what seemed to be billowing fabric drenched and clinging to your skin, hugging every curve that his hands had longed for since your passing. Even soaking wet, your dress proudly gleamed a brilliant emerald green, and there was a glow that seemed to radiate from underneath your skin.

You were no longer of this earth. You were something…more. Something above them all. And it showed in the way you held yourself, in your gaze as you looked upon the marshes that held your former home. As you looked upon the husband that survived you, your upper lip curling in derision as you saw the bump protruding from Cora's stomach.

"Y/N…" he whispered your name, your sheer presence bringing him to his knees. "Sweet wife, you have returned--"

"Hold that rancid thought," you silenced him, raising your hand in the air as if grasping for something. In an instant, his words ceased, feeling as if his tongue had swollen and became as heavy as lead in his mouth. "You do not get to call me your wife, Reverend Ransome. Not since you sullied your vows and laid with this London whore."

Cora took a step toward you, opening her mouth as if to defend herself, or perhaps her lover. But you put a stop to that as well, raising your other hand in her direction, and suddenly she was forced to sink to her knees as well. "Please, Y/N," she pleaded with you. "Let us take this inside there is a tide coming--"

"Do you mean this tide, friend?" you spat the last word out, as if it tasted bitter on your tongue. Suddenly the tide was steadily approaching the shore, rising to a height that would completely engulf and decimate Aldwinter once it bore down on them. And you rose from the ground, floating well above the roof of the Ransome home, the reverend, along with his lover and her son, looking up at you in sheer horror.

"What do you want from us?!" Francis yelled into the sky, reminding you of how mortal worshippers would look to the sky and beg the gods for explanations. For miracles.

"I do not wish for you to give me anything, young Mr Seaborne. In fact, I wish to offer you all…a choice." You turned your gaze to the kneeling couple. "Get in the water. And perhaps I shall spare this town."

"Y/N please, this town is full of innocent lives, no matter what has happened to you I know in my heart that you would never wreak this kind of devastation upon--"

"What has happened to me?!" you repeated, your shrieking tone piercing even through the deafening sound of the tidal wave still standing tall, waiting to descend. "Your lustful indiscretion cost an innocent life, William Ransome. There is no innocent life in this town. Not anymore. The people here chose to stay silent, to keep your affair a secret for the sake of preventing a scandal. Though that didn't seem to work out the way you'd hoped, did it?" You motioned toward the wave with a jerk of your head again. "Get in the water."

The wave grew even more violent, already taking in the fishing boats and pulling it into its dark abyss.

They both stubbornly stayed still, still kneeling on the muddy marsh ground staying silent. The tramp's hand twitched toward the vicar's, but his moved upward, as if wishing to reach for you.

It was always you, she realized bitterly. She may have him now, but only as a result of his momentary lapse in good judgment where his body chose another's. But his heart…his heart would always choose you.

When presented with any semblance of a choice, Will Ransome would crawl back to you on his hands and knees in a heartbeat. And now she must lie on the bed she made. The bed they both made.

Only when you pointed toward her son, her dear Francis, and he was lifted up from the ground, kicking and struggling in mid-air, did both of them make a noise. Calling out to you, pleading for you to put him down and stop the madness. "This is the last time I will repeat myself, adulterers. Get in the water. Or your boy here suffers first."

"Y/N, stop this," Cora spoke, rising to her feet. "Are you not tired? It has been so long, years, even. Francis was still just a little boy when you last saw him. He is a grown man now, how long will you let anger consume you?"

Even from this distance, you could see the ire in Will's features, clearly ticked off with the words that came out of his lover's mouth. "My darling, please. What must I do to atone for my transgressions towards you? I will promise you anything, do anything. Whatever you wish for, it's yours, please can we just go home?"

You lowered both Francis Seaborne and yourself down to the ground, the young man running immediately to his mother, quivering like a leaf in the wind. The disgraced vicar reached his arms out toward you, every muscle tensing and freezing in place when you rose your hand into the air again. "It is the actions of philanderers like you that make the mortals look down on me, consider me a lesser god."

"God?" Cora repeated in a sharp exhale. "Don't be ridiculous, Y/N--"

"Fools like you don't realize what awaits you on the other side of your mortality, where the fate of your eternal afterlife…falls to me," you cut her off, not bothering to hide the smirk that tugged at the corner of your mouth. "Adulterers doomed to suffer an endless loop of the consequences of their actions."

"My wife--"

"Is dead, Mister Ransome," you bellowed. From the corner of your eye you could see villagers gathering at their windows, the horror in their expressions as they began to speculate on what exactly had come to terrorize their quaint little town. "You killed her, there is no use in denying it. Your foolish, licentious choices brought her to her grave. For that alone, you will suffer once your feeble human life reaches its conclusion."

"If you are not Y/N Ransome, then who are you?" Francis asked, voice shaking as he held on to his mother. "Why have you come to wreak havoc in our lives?"

You walked toward the town's vicar, tears in his eyes as he watched you move closer. He reached for your hands, looking like a wounded pup when you swatted him away. "I am the goddess of fidelity," you answered simply. "When betrayers like you and your mistress cease your time on this mortal plane, you and everyone complicit in your torrid affair will be at my mercy."

The tide rose even higher, looming menacingly over the town in a dangerous arch, blocking out what little light they once had from the sun beyond the clouds. You grasped William's chin harshly, fear evident in his eyes, heart thundering against his chest.

"But your actions, your infidelity in particular…upset my husband," you spoke, holding his gaze as you  hissed the words inches from his face. "And for that, I am willing to bend the rules and begin your suffering ahead of time. Put forth the events that will thrust your pathetic souls upon my doorstep."

You rose from the ground again, rage for your fallen variant coursing through you as you heard them plead for forgiveness. For mercy.

"P-Please Y/N…" Cora sputtered out. "I will leave the town and no one will ever hear from me again, just please let me leave with my boy."

"No," you droned. "You have asked what you can do to atone, I presented you with a choice. Now I know how capable you both are of making choices, you've made several together, some of them even on the very ground you stand on. Which leads me to believe…you have made your choice. Stubbornly bargaining your way out of my wrath, out of your suffering. At the cost of this town you call home."

"You truly aren't Y/N Ransome, are you?" she spat out, a look of entitled indignance on her face. "The Y/N I knew wouldn't be this ruthless. She would have shown mercy--"

"Oh but I am showing mercy, you unworthy tart," you spat back. "For ruthlessness is mercy. Upon ourselves." With a flick of your wrist, the tidal wave was finally let loose.

And the little town of Aldwinter sunk into the water.

Before the tsunami crashed down and took you with it, Loki conjured a portal and pulled you back to safety, a bit of water splashing into your bedchambers before it closed. With a wave of his magic the water evaporated into the air, and your soaked dress was dried.

"Husband…" you spoke, a wide smile gracing your features when your eyes met his. You both were on the floor, the god cradling you in his arms as he pushed your hair away from your face.

"My darling wife," he breathed out, his own smile mirroring yours as he picked you up in his arms, carrying you to the bed. "Your flair for the dramatic has you reckless as ever."

He sat you on the edge of the bed, handing you a goblet of wine that did a quick job of warming you and canceling out the effects of the damp cold of Aldwinter.

"You should rest, my love," he said softly, moving to position himself behind you to undo the braids in your hair, carefully working his fingers through the wet strands. "This is the first time you wielded your newfound powers as a goddess, I can imagine your body feels overworked…and famished."

As if on cue, your stomach grumbled, causing your husband to chuckle and press a tender kiss to your cheek. "How did you know when to pull me back?"

"To start, I must admit that I was watching the spectacular show you put on, avenging your variant with such vigor," he whispered into your skin. His hands found their way to your shoulders, working away at the knots. "And our souls' threads are intertwined, little Princess. I can always feel when you need me. I was made to be yours."

"And I yours," you sighed contendedly, leaning against him when he wrapped his arms around you. When he cupped the side of your face, holding you as he pressed his lips to yours, you all but melted into his embrace. "I love you," you mumbled against his lips.

"And I love you," he murmured, continuing to kiss your lips as he maneuvered you to lie down on the bed. With a wave of his hand, the fabric that covered your skin changed to something much lighter, more sheer. One of your sleeping gowns, you surmised. "Rest, dear heart. I shall arrange for food to be brought to us for when you wake."

Your body was all too eager to obey the softly spoken command. The rest of you, however…well, after the ordeal in that despondent village on Midgard, the rest of you ached for your husband's touch. To wash away the muck of the marshes.

Loki let out a low chuckle, kissing along your clavicle as his hand roamed the side of your body. "I can always feel when you need me," he repeated, his tone holding a much more lustful intent than moments earlier. "And much as I want nothing more than to indulge in making love to my beautiful wife, I cannot, should not, be so selfish and ignore her body's need for rest." He made his way to your lips, allowing himself the tiniest sliver of decadence as he licked into your mouth. "You'll need your strength for what I intend to do to you later tonight."

Your breath hitched as images flashed in your mind of your husband teasing and pleasuring you, claiming your body repeatedly well until after the sun rose the next morning. In multiple places throughout your marital chambers. Constantly finding or making the time to bring you to orgasm in the midst of pampering you.

Suddenly it made sense why he would choose to deny you now…in exchange for a much more delicious reward just a few short hours away.

"Would you stay regardless, husband?" you asked weakly, already feeling yourself succumbing to the exhaustion and the slumber that your plush sheets promised. "Hold me?"

You weren't able to see the loving smile that graced your husband's face from your request. You only felt the soft kiss on your forehead before he positioned you to lay in his arms. "Gladly, my darling." He conjured a book into his free hand, ready to begin reading to you when a stray question entered his mind. "What of their souls, Y/N? What hellscape did you design for them?"

"I gave them what they deserve," you grumbled, shifting your position to hold him closer, your arm draping over his stomach as you laid your head on his chest. "Each other. They are doomed to spend their afterlife together, with Cora knowing that his heart longs for his late wife. And William having to watch from the sidelines as my variant finds new love. You have a stray echo that never found his fated, by the name of Pine. I presume by now they've found each other, starting a story of their own."

A/N: Hang on what's this…? Did I tease a future story at the end there? 😳 Why yes…yes I did 🤭 Ngl this year felt like I didn't get a whole lotta stories done especially in the latter half, but hopefully with everything finding a bit of balance, 2025 will look a bit different and I can set aside more time for story writing 💖

Ooh, and also I def got the idea to make this because of the "Get in the Water" song

'everything' taglist: @simplyholl @loopsisloops @imalovernotahater @coldnique @loz-3 @huntress-artemiss @salempoe @vickie5446 @athalialaufeyson @lokiprompts @kats72 @kikster606 @asgards-princess-of-mischief @lokixryss @thomase1 @mischief2sarawr @lovingchoices14 @lunarnights95 @goblingirlsarah @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @creationsbyme @maple-seed @mjsthrillernp @ladyofthestayingpower @mygfloki @sititran @glitterylokislut @ozymdias @fictive-sl0th  @lokidbadguy @mochie85 @silverfire475 @joyful-enchantress @elizabethmidnight2017 @holdmytesseract @smolvenger @gigglingtiggerv2 @lokidokieokie @lunarnights95 @superficialdomina @kmc1989 @november-rayne @goddessofwonderland @buttercupcookies-blog @peaky-marvel @lokiified @tom-hlover @dryyoursaltyoceantears @herdetectivetheorist @alexakeyloveloki

[maxwell-grant]

Any thoughts on Namor? I was going to ask about whether he counts as villain, but given that part of Namor's whole Thing is wrapped around the fact that he hops back and forth over that line all the time, I'm not sure it's a question that can be answered.

He was made king before he was even born; it was something that he didn’t have a choice in, it was destiny. - Ryan Coogler

"HE IS THE PENDULUM THAT SWINGS BETWEEN THE POLARITIES OF DEVIANT AND ETERNAL, X-51. HIS IS THE SECOND FACE OF MAN." - Earth X #0

I've spoken before on Namor and his Weird Tales pulp horror debut story, and I can't really get into how I feel about Namor as an F4 villain without giving thoughts on Namor himself. The short version is I think Namor rules, and in a better world, Bill Everett would be better remembered as a foundational creative force for the entirety of the Marvel Universe, just based on the creation of Namor. I think he's the Rosetta Stone by which the core of the Marvel Universe is first seen and is subsequently translated and reiterated, and I think it's also extremely self-evident why he got so many revivals and why he gets to stick around in ways guys like Jim Hammond and Ka-Zar didn't.

Not just for the history of Marvel but for the comic book superhero as a concept, he is tremendously significant as well as very compelling, and in the context of Lee-Kirby F4, in large part because he already ruled as a character beforehand, he makes for a really dynamic villain/anti-hero/force of nature who consistently made for some of their most fun stories. The problem here is that the influence of said villain run ended up affecting Namor for the worse in ways that seriously drag him down as a character, to the point he is very consistently at his absolute worst and most limited whenever he has to share a story with them. He's FAR from the worst Fantastic Four villain, not even close, but I can't think of a character I'd like to see lees as a F4 villain than him. It truly pains me to say I'd sooner have another Blastaar or Psycho-Man F4 story than a Namor F4 story, and to get into why we have to talk about Namor's history.

See, as much as I like discovering and doing pop culture paleonthology, I'm generally not in favor of propping up characters mainly through what historical importance or possible influence they had, because that, on it's own, just doesn't make an interesting character, and in fact usually marks a character as having failed to retain relevance or popularity, when all that matters about them can only be spoken about via the past tense and not what they do or mean now (Wonder Woman, and her inarguable decline of popularity, is unfortunately a relevant example of this). I think it's often one of the sadder ways to try and prop up any old character you like, and I bring this up mainly for context's sake.

I don't think this is truly applicable to Namor - his historical significance has always taken a backseat to his mercurial alliances and troubled personality and that other thing and all that's usually defined him since the 60s up to his modern appearences, and it's certainly not the thing most writers use him for anyway, for better or worse. But in his case, it is absolutely necessary to bring up because of how significant it was to his comeback, and to understand why I argue Namor is one of the most important characters for the Marvel Universe as a project and shared story. In the Sub-Mariner, introduced as an "Ultra-Man of the Deep", we have one of the first and most significant responses to Superman.

(Excerpt taken from Bill Everett: Fire & Water)

Timely's big innovation, which was to serve the embryonic Marvel well and help to distinguish it from DC, was to come down from Olympus and give voice to the elements themselves by personifying the forces of nature as heroes.

Prince Namor of Atlantis, the Sub-Mariner, was the creation of seventeen-year-old Bill Everett. Superman sometimes flouted the law, but decent people had nothing to fear from the essentially upstanding Man of Steel. Prince Namor was different: This half-human terrorist was prepared to inundate the just and unjust alike as he rode on whaleback at the foaming apocalyptic crest of the devastating mega-tsunami that he unleashed on New York in his first adventure.

Namor was the face of JD insolence, awaiting rock 'n' roll, Marlon Brando, and James Dean to ratify his power. Driven by passions and brief allegiances, Namor faced the entire world with a fuck-you snarl, committing acts of high anarchy on a scale undreamed of by terrorists in the real world. There was no shortage of sea stories, tales of Atlantis, storms, piracy, dynastic succession, and imperial vengeance from which to draw inspiration for Namor's fertile new fantasy playground. - Supergods, by Grant Morrison

Even all the way back in 1939 in his murderous beginnings, Namor already felt like a Marvel character in every way that matters, the forerunner to all the tools Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko would use to revolutionize the superhero. Bill Everett just doesn't get enough credit for how profoundly he beat everyone to the punch, all the Wolverines and Hulks and Venoms and Magnetos, descendants of Marvel's primordial super menace. Everett would eventually look back on these early Namor stories as too raw and unpolished, describing them as mostly the ventings of an angry young man, and sure enough the Sub-Mariner would quickly team up with the Torch and join the fight against the Nazis and transition into superheroics proper. But even as Namor gained solo titles, even as he became more of a household name, that unpredictability and edge to the character still remained. Namor was always a character of intriguing extremes and an irreconcilable duality, from his birth in-universe as well as out of it, up to everything that would define him for the following 80+ years.

When Everett is happy, Namor will save kids whose yacht sunk and cooperate with police while receiving accolades from the public as if he’s freakin’ Superman. When Everett is pissed about something, Namor will contemplate stealing world-destroying weapons from the villains so he can wipe out the human race himself! Sometimes Namor will be perfectly friendly initially, but be falsely blamed by humans, join up with the villains, then turn his back on them at the last minute.

Just like the gods of Greece, Namor can be mankind’s friend in some stories, in others; he can be its worst enemy over something petty. Everett may not have thought much of it, but he was doing something unique among superhero comics: Creating a character that the reader is fascinated by not so much because of the question of what others will do to him, but because of what he’ll do to others, and because watching Namor rage at the humans allows the reader (and his creator) to blow off some steam of their (his) own - Outofthequicksand

And speaking of said duality, it's also important to highlight the extent to which Namor was indeed, from day one, coded as biracial and placed in opposition to the "white race", particularly in his earliest comics that openly placed him at war with "the white man". I'll defer here to the resident Namor expert @imperiuswrecked, who has covered this aspect of Namor more extensively. This will come into relevance later.

It's important to establish the history and significance that Namor had prior to the 60s, that he was Marvel's first star character (Captain America has a much, much spottier track record until his proper comeback) but one without a consistent title to be in, because it's that very same history and significance that caused him to be brought back and remain an inviolate mainstay of the universe from the moment there was a universe for him to live in and return to. When Timely becomes Marvel, when the Fantastic Four revolutionize the superhero and begin the building blocks of the new shared universe, Namor can enter right out of the gate to add history and intrigue and turmoil to this new universe.

DC’s heroes were authoritarian in character and concept. They were authority figures, whether formally or informally. They were solidly in favor of established authority. Marvel’s heroes, however, were the opposites of DC’s characters. They rejected consensus and conformity. They were usually alienated from society and felt themselves to be men and women apart. They were the products of tragic beginnings, but unlike DC’s characters, the Marvel superheroes were never allowed to forget the tragedies that birthed them. They had uneasy relationships with the public, who often turned on them. They had uneasy relationships with the forces of authority.

Even Marvel’s villains were granted two dimensions, leaving them villainous but flawed in recognizable and understandable ways. Marvel’s heroes, villains, and stories were often ambiguous, and ambiguity was an entirely new concept in superhero comics - The Evolution of the Costumed Avenger, by Jess Nevins

Marvel can now repurpose it's old comics and it's oldest icon for texture in the new ones - we can discover that the Fantastic Four are entering a world that already beheld the Sub-Mariner, "the world's most unusual character", and forgot about him, that saw the mighty war hero enter a hypnotized slumber and, once awakened, find himself in the world of the atom bomb and the destruction it wrought upon his old life and people. Now, all the might of the former superheroic Namor is turned against "humanity", and with him an endless oceanic bestiary under his command, and a mandate to reconnect with what's left of his people and let nothing in the world get in his way.

And thus Namor takes on a newfound role - on top of being their first continuity deep cut, he is now the complicated/sympathetic/nuanced baddie who can become an ally, the first ambiguous villain of Marvel. The first of it's villains who displays a capacity to become an ally or reform, soon to be followed by the likes of Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Black Widow. And the moment a bigger menace enters the scene via Doctor Doom, the new greatest villain of their world, Namor can now be an opposing force of conflicting alliances and loyalties, assisting Doom and turning against him on the same story.

For the rest of the Lee-Kirby run, he will go on to become arguably the 2nd greatest Fantastic Four villain of the time, one reserved for special occasions in the same way Doom is, but one who demands entirely different considerations writing-wise because he is, fundamentally, not a true monster or villain, just an opposing force of mercurial allegiances but unwavering commitment. Traits that in the past made him a game-changing but inconsistent hero, here make him into a unique but difficult villain, one who unfortunately often does fall into routine as he is simply not built for the kind of long-term commitment to direct antagonism that Doom or the others are. But at his best in the Lee-Kirby run, he is incredibly fun to read about.

I simply do not get tired ever of all the weird animals and monsters and contraptions and underwater set pieces that Namor as a villain in this era brings with him in every appearence, he appeals really strongly to the ocean nerd in me and the palenthology nerd also, because Kirby absolutely was cracking open the picture books for reference, I was not expecting a Dunkleosteus and a Xenacanthus to show up when I started this run. I was so happy to find them in here, and wait you mean to tell me that Namor was piloting a fucking Mosasaurus??? Why isn't he doing that more often??? There is just a consistently enjoyable unpredictability to Namor's arsenal in this era, whether it's the monsters he summons or him pulling new weird powers related to sea creatures. Him having "the powers of all creatures who live beneath the sea" is one of those typically over-the-top early Marvel developments (like the Lizard having the powers of all the lizards on Earth) that I DEARLY miss and wish would come back, because they promise infinitely wilder possibilites than anyone's ever taken advantage of.

With the Marvel Universe underway and his newfound role, Namor now exists in a dual-role: He grows away from being a full-time Fantastic Four villain and rejoins his kingdom and ostensibly returns to something akin to his original role, but the world has now changed and changed Namor with it. Away from Everett's hands and from Lee-Kirby's vision, there are now significant competing ideas of The Sub-Mariner, and the following decades will be defined by this push and pull. He reattains a solo title, but only sporadically. He joins the Defenders, a team with fellow self-contained weirdos who defy superhero convention, and go on adventures to map out the weird corners of Marvel. He retroactively forms the Invaders, defining the vision of 1940s Marvel with Cap and Hammond, and his flooding of New York would go on to become a formative catastrophe in the history of this world. Subsequent Fantastic Four writers will drag him back again and again to diminishing results, he fights the Avengers and joins the Avengers, he gets pulled into the X-Men orbit because of his mutant connections, and when the 2000s mega-arc initiates, he is tapped to join the Illuminati, where he now must adjust to the rest of the Marvel Universe playing in his pool and worse, fucking in it.

As the Illuminati forms, as events like Civil War and Secret Invasion and Dark Reign proceed to twist and darken the universe and all of it's heroes, as the Marvel Universe starts to reckon more and more with it's nature as The Bastardverse it has always fundamentally been, the primordial bastard must step in to respond accordingly. When representatives of the world convene in the shadows to steer it, Namor has to be invited, even if only to clash against them. When the mutants go to war with the Avengers and attain godhood, they bring him in, so he can be goaded into going on a rampage and do what they all were always going to do. And when the Illuminati has to turn truly monstrous for the sake of saving the multiverse, when it's time for Reed Richards and T'challa to drown their doubts and principles and commit to monstrosity for the sake of saving their worlds, there they must bring in Namor again, because he has been doing it longer than any of them. Because amidst everyone else grappling with moral complications and tough choices, he is the only one who is perfectly fine with who he is and what he's doing and what needs to be done. His new job is to give these people a license, and the warning that comes with it.

He gives the Illuminati a license to be villainous in the name of a greater good (surely, they can never be worse than Namor, they all think), and he warns them of the path this will inevitably lead to. He gives them a warning about how justified the Hulk will be when he comes after them all. He gives the Phoenix Five a license to drop the Miracleman act and go to war, and the early shot that warns them all of what's to come next. He gives T'Challa a license to be the monster he needs to be to save the world, and when that fails, avenge his people by taking him down. He gives the Cabal a license to pick up where the Illuminati left off and, to his horror, show Namor what real shameless monstrosity looks like, and at the end of everything, he's there to help T'Challa in his last stand, putting everything aside to distract Doom even at the cost of his own life.

And as a result of his antagonistic dynamic towards Black Panther and Wakanda culminating in this arc, Namor's deal became significantly informed by his status as a pseudo-Black Panther villain, and thus we, at last, reach the latest and most significant development regarding Namor: his role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Ryan Coogler and Tenoch Huerta to me granted the character an emotional context here that clarifies everything he is, and all that shapes his thought. He’s not angry at the surface world and its clownshit in abstract. It’s not just the anger of a distant warrior-king of the oceans. It’s the anger of the colonized, of the Othered.

What Ryan Coogler and Tenoch Huerta did is give him specificity. He’s not just a broad-strokes figure in White hands, for White writers to write as an archetypal broad-strokes morally murky angry bastard guy. No, there’s a specific history to this guy, there’s a cultural specificity and context to his very existence.

I like this Namor a lot. The character finally makes an emotional sense, to me. I understand him. I relate to his rage, as I'm sure plenty of people do. - Ryan Coogler’s Namor and Specificity

Namor in Wakanda Forever has been touted as a complete reinvention of the character, which isn't quite true: while many of the Mesoamerican traits and specific signifiers are indeed new, and certainly do a LOT to recontextualize and breathe new life into every facet of his character, Wakanda Forever Namor is less a reinvention of Namor as much as it is a synthesis of Namor. It is all the prior Namors we have discussed here unified and blended into one: He is the avenging villain/troubled anti-hero who has incredibly justified reasons to wage war on humanity for the sake of his people, he is the emburdened child king of a wronged underground civilization, he is the noble but troubled romantic figure who swings between monster and savior on a dime, he is the fun over-the-top supervillain with an endless supply of underwater trickery who will go on a rampage if he feels spurned or betrayed, he is the folk demigod who floods the great noble city in a life-shattering calamity, and he is the righteous bastard here to stake his ground on these new political backstabbing games that superheroes engage with now, dragged away from his kingdom and people so he can play the primordial shadow the righteous bastard anti-heroes of new must defeat or work with and, at minimum, recognize within themselves.

And he is, at last and once more, the righteous fury of The Other. He is no longer just coded as a POC character or implied to be, and he can now fully resume his original aims. He can now once again be at war against "the white man", against the colonial forces that have ravaged his home and people, and this no longer has to be subtext. He can fully embody a power fantasy of retribution against your oppressors without having to be allegorical about it, but because he is no longer alone in being such, he can now clash against and be in dialogue with another character who also represents such a power fantasy. He can bestow upon Shuri the hunting license to be like Killmonger, but he is no mere oppressor, and even if he himself deserves vengeance, he is what he is to protect something greater than himself, and for the sake of their people, they must sacrifice even their own vendettas. He warns that they must hang together, or be hanged separately.

And so Namor achieved this new form, and funny enough, one that ties him into the greatest legacy of the Fantastic Four. Where as he was once the 2nd or 3rd greatest/most popular Fantastic Four villain, he is now the 2nd or 3rd greatest/most popular Black Panther villain. Outside of these specific stories that can afford him a clear arc to work with, does he work as a reocurring Black Panther villain? No, not really. But he was T'Challa's most personal enemy on the biggest story either of them were ever a part of up until that point, and then his MCU debut that revitalized and redefined the character happened with him as the villain in the Black Panther sequel, so he's undeniably already there. Although as much as I throughly loved Wakanda Forever and what it did with Namor, I have absolutely zero desire to see him come back for anything unless it's the same team at the helm (I am not optimistic and indifferent towards Avengers: Doomsday for a variety of self-evident reasons, and unfortunately he is one of them).

Yes I was supposed to be talking about Namor as a Fantastic Four villain, guess it's time to ruin the fun and shoot the elephant in the room: In the context of Lee-Kirby F4, I actually think Namor and Sue's thing is mostly fine. Not good, but fine, for what it is at the time. I think there's a lot of things that I give Lee-Kirby F4 a pass for that I otherwise wouldn't on other comics and not simply because of goodwill, but because even a lot of it's problematic / outdated elements I think are useful signifiers, interesting points of contrast and discussion, or thematically relevant for the time period and what F4's aims were, although that's certainly not a blanket pass for everthing (there are good reasons why nobody has bothered to textually address how misogynistic Reed was to Sue in that era). Namor and Sue's thing, from day one, existed in the service of an exoticized "romance with the alien monster/foreigner" pulp trope that was already outdated and problematic then, but doing a 60s superhero/sci-fi take on the pulp tropes and cliches that Lee and Kirby grew up reading about was central to the whole thing, Sue's complicated feelings about Namor made it a shlocky pseudo love triangle instead of a one-sided creep obsession, the kid-friendly tone meant that things hardly ever got too uncomfortable or like actual assault (although still a little too close).

Fantastic Four was built atop their prior experience with monster comics and romance comics, a monster romance was kind of inevitable, and when Reed and Sue properly got together and married, while Namor's subsequent appearences still brought it up, it would get gradually phased out as the Sub-Mariner drifted more into uneasy ally/heroic status. That, in itself, should have been the end of it, but evidently it was not. Every decade, someone decides to reiterate this plotline, and every decade, it reflects worse on them. On Sue, it was a misogynistic reputation as someone who deep down wanted to cheat on Reed, it was being known as a character who had nothing exciting going on with her life besides the horny fishman, and on Namor's end, it's a pop culture reputation as a sleaze and a womanizer and a creep who revolves around his obsession with a married woman who does not want him. That was the thing Namor was and is known for, the main joke of every pastiche, and unfortunately it seems like not even Wakanda Forever was able to change that in the long run. I'm not sure what could, at this point.

I'm gonna be upfront here, part of the problem is that Sue Storm has always gotten the short end of the stick, and as a result has always been considerably less developed than the other 3. In the Lee-Kirby F4 era, unfortunately is is true that Namor was the only thing Sue had going on until she and Reed got married, and then the marriage was the only thing she had going on. Her lack of foundation is the original sin of Lee-Kirby F4, and things only got worse for her when said foundation was later provided by John Byrne, a putrid man who left everything he ever touched toxic for generations after to deal with. To this day, Sue Storm functionally does not have a foundation the way the other 3 have, and that's why the default with her still exists defined around either Reed, or Namor. Even Hickman couldn't think of much of anything for Sue to do other than to beat up Namor and get involved with Atlantean politics, on the one part of the book she got to have her own adventures. It's a problem that goes beyond whatever tiresome shtick she and Namor have, and it drags them both down.

And it's not like Namor playing the heel is a bad thing, that's been inseparable to his deal since day one. But it was already lame enough in the comics when he was a cool compelling versatile character constantly reduced to a shlocky trope or a creep. It's infinitely worse now that Marvel has, in the wake of Wakanda Forever, a clear interest in acknowledging Namor as not-white, in making him more explicitly indigenous, in having him exist as a principled rival/enemy within the Black Panther side of the world. I think having him be that, and doing the Sue thing, is just a complete fucking misfire on every level, just an unthinkably bad idea to combine the two, taking the allegorical exotic pulp racism of the 60s dynamic and doing it without the allegory / feeding into extremely dangerous and bigoted stereotypes against indigenous / brown-skinned men, really just shooting out the character's knees and making him too detestable for anyone to even want to see him be anything but a prop to be knocked down. I'm certainly not saying I want him and Sue to be magically chaste friends (although, again, that is a dynamic Namor can have just fine with other characters), I just don't think there's any redeeming this even if he goes back to looking like a white Dwayne Johnson. I think the best case scenario is him never interacting with the Fantastic Four again or at least until they figure out what they want out of him.

So yes, I think Namor absolutely does count as a villain - he is not just a villain, but being a villain, being able to play the villain and play the hero in varying measures, is a core part of what he is and does. Namor is a character that I think will probably never be particularly or especially popular again for similar reasons as to why some of the pulp characters I talk about or Captain Marvel or, shit even the Fantastic Four, face difficulties in that regard - their deal has been replicated endlessly and absorbed into what everyone else around them does, and even if they remain unique and dynamic characters, their cultural import and significance will never truly translate to them being a thing most non-comics people have reasons to know or care about. But even if Namor will never be a particularly important character for the Marvel Universe on an ongoing basis, I do think he is an extremely important character for understanding the Marvel Universe and how it works. Even past whatever he means for Marvel - in many ways, I'd still argue he is The Marvel Superman - the purer, more primal or powerful strain of what the others are trying to be and do.

Whether he is hero or villain, whether he leads the charge or takes a backseat, whether he is right or wrong, he is The Guy. The universe comes from him and around him, if not in-universe then outside of it. The universe is shaped like him. He comes to tear down the order of things and brawl with whoever tries to stop him, to meet brothers in arms and war against new enemies and guide his monstrous children to their futures. The DC heroes aspire to be like Superman, the man from the stars who wants others to rise and meet him there, while the Marvel heroes deny the Namor within them, the man from the depths who beckons them to the abyss where he lives. Because the truth of the Marvel Universe is not joining hands in the sun as the people of tomorrow, it's the avenging sons and children without love flooding New York City and fighting each other atop the ruins.

Rather than slap a symbol on an altruistic strongman’s chest, like so many other characters in Superman’s wake, Everett eschewed those impulses, pulling instead from legend and literature to craft a unique character. In an odd way, this gives Namor and Superman a deeper kinship than his caped imitators, as the Last Son of Krypton was also inspired by mythos, literature, and, some theorize, profound personal heartbreak.

Superman is the immigrant who never knew his destroyed homeland, and fights so that his new homeland does not suffer the same fate, while the Sub-Mariner is the product of two races, and cannot find peace within himself until his peoples find peace with each other

It is appropriate Superman came from another star; he is a kind of unsullied messiah. Namor, however, is a demigod, fully in tune with his sometimes visceral passions, and fully aware that sometimes that leads to trouble. But he is alive, and this is his nature.

a bastard son, a half-breed prince his underwater race never fully trusted, and a super-powered anomaly the human race always feared, leaving Namor forever at odds with both worlds. He has all the power and uses it for vengeance – although sometimes, reluctantly, for a common cause, as well.

Fighting between self-interest and emotional nobility, he is a reflection of us. - The Brilliance of Bill Everett’s Sub-Mariner, Marvel’s Superman

[regnumveritatis]

Films made to praise Arsinoe/Perseleia in the Athenide verse

2) Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame part 2

Apologies for the long wait to those of you who were excited for this compilation. Had a lot of work to be done, and now the semester is ending, so I'm using my newly found free time to catch up on backlogged ideas. That being said, I hope everyone enjoys the lore building.

1) The lie of Arsinoe 'simply fading'

On the day where the golden Athenide 'faded' away from our mortal plane despite her cult having enormous success all through the Aegean and Adriatic coasts, the farmers of Athens coincidentally write on how they witnessed large eagles attack then proceed to eat the golden orioles hiding in their olive groves. Athenians of the time took it as a sign of tyrannical delights soon to be defeated at the hands of mighty Zeus. The high priestess of Corinth, however, took this news on an entirely different way and proclaimed,'Reason has been murdered by the State!' For which she was punished and declared insane as no one would believe Zeus capable of murdering the child of his favored daughter Athena. Here, the writers are giving the winning argument to that Cassandra-like woman as Zeus/Jupiter clearly chases and kills his own granddaughter and then attempts to apply roman law to her last kit. Her death also mirrors the historical murder of Princess Arsinoe of Ptolemaic Egypt as she is killed on the steps of Holy Ground by someone who deems her a threat.

2) Styx always takes her due:

Contrary to what the ego of Olympus's king would believe, even Zeus can not break his word or violate the sanctuary of another deity without consequences. The movie chooses to represent Styx as the archdeacon of the cathedral in a historical nod to how places granting asylum to slaves (the real reason the Romani went in large waves to France during this period was escaping chattel slavery in balto slavic countries) to be broken under pain of death shifted from the temple of Hermes and the Athenides to the statue of the Emperor then finally to the catholic cathedral where any who murdered within its halls were doomed to eternal perdition. While Styx can't prove Zeus's role in the murder of their friend, they can force him to uphold the promise not to directly harm his granddaughter's wards unless provoked since doing so will condemn him to Tartarus per his own agreement centuries ago. By this fear, Frollo claims Quasimodo (a name that in this universe is a taunt to Arsinoe as she has left her work unfinished so her son is half-formed) to raise though not without embedding the child with a lie that will falsely indebt him to his supposed benevolence

3) The Roman Mutilation:

The 'future' scenes from the beginning are done from an entirely roman standpoint as far as Frollo/Zeus is concerned. He fully endorses the false tale of Pietas Securitas as it suits his needs perfectly, spreading the word of her cruelty both to eliminate anything corrupt in his eyes and to create belief in his virtue for the mortals. Fides Nerio is also brought low as she is no savior, merely a minor goddess collecting the spoils of war. Jupiter is not the cruel god calling for these barbaric games of slaughter. How can he when he did not even approve of Dionysius's barbaric revelry? By reminding the mortals/demigods still believing in him of the atrocities committed by Rome and comparing them to his care, he causes them to feel guilt over doubting him and thus easily manipulates the situation to his control. Despite all this, people long for something more than what Zeus offers even if they don't know what exactly this entails which brings us to the part you've all been waiting for: the Perpollo shipping.

4) The introduction of Phoebus

Any hardcore greek mythology fan knows what the name of this character references. Shining Phoebus arrives at the city bearing the name of that loathed Trojan Prince humbly, his desire to be part of the people a stark contrast to the previous behavior of other authority figures. His cloak is Athenide blue in deference to his unyielding devotion to Lady Loyalty and his horse is named Achilles in yet another attempt to besmirch the reputation of the demigod who trampled upon Perseleia's blessing with his cruelty as he proves that Achilles makes a better horse than a human. Due to his departure from Galia and anything remotely Roman till after the fall of the Empire, Phoebus does not recognize the layout of the now medieval city. He appeals to the previous rule of xenia by kindly asking the city guards for directions and taking their indifference to him calmly. Their lack of respect is forgotten instantly as Truth's eyes gaze at long last Loyalty, here named Esmeralda.

4) The reclaiming of the name Esmeralda

In the Ancient Greek era, emeralds were sacred to Artemis, the lady of the hunt and twin to Apollo. The connection was done because they were the same color as the woods she so loved. As such, emeralds were traditionally believed to provide protection in the woods, which is why Cleopatra purposefully gifted her most esteemed guests with them to show her sincere hospitality as well as her wealth. The Romans, however, did not wish for Diana to share anything with 'the seductress of Egypt', so they changed the stone's patronage from her to Venus. In Roman mythology, emeralds are then said to bolster fertility and were gifted as tokens of affection and/or fiery passion that could help couples conceive. Even so, a connection to Artemis remained by way of her twin Phoebus as emeralds were also believed to have healing properties (emphasized on the eyes as proven by the emerald lenses created to improve sight) and mystical properties that would aid clairvoyance. By the middle ages, it's romantic symbolism had shifted from Venus' fertility and passion to Apollo even further as mystics like Saint Hildegard commented how they were believed to provide truth among lovers as one could not lie about infidelity whilst holding an emerald per popular belief. By doing so the Christian population unknowingly removed themselves from the grasps of Love in favor of Truth and Loyalty together as they always should have been. The new meaning is reaffirmed in the character who is inspired by Perseleia. We see a further rejection of Roman times in her beautiful dark skin that Ovid considered 'the mark of the poor' and her healthy curves with voluminous black hair that are a far cry from the thin, blonde aesthetic considered a pillar of beauty by the Empire. Esmeralda is loyalty free from the shackles of Fides Nerio as she dances with her sisters' outcasts. Immediately, she is drawn to Phoebus and nods in harmless flirtation that she dare not allow to go farther knowing fully the nature of men.

[10yrsyart]

Luke 15:7, "There is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who were righteous and haven't strayed away!"

i was thinking about this verse recently and wondering.. how different it would be if people could see just how important they are to God. so important in fact that the Creator of the universe, an everlasting Being, came down Himself to experience death to set us free from Death. if you were the only human needing redemption, He would have gone through it all just for you.

it's up to you to accept or reject this payment on your behalf. there's no way to pay it yourself, you can never be "good enough" to make it to Heaven. He took on your punishment for you and only His sacrifice absolves you from it. if you reject Him, He will honor that decision, and you'll spend eternity separated from Him and all joy, light, and happiness. not because He's cruel, but because all good things stem from the Lord. there is no life without Jesus Christ.

the experience of the man in this comic is actually based on many testimonies i've listened to. people cried out to Jesus, and either saw or felt His love and were changed. don't wait! you have the entirety of Heaven cheering you on, longing for you to join our family. the hole in your heart can only be filled by the Holy Spirit's Presence. don't reject your opportunity to experience God's wonders forever, in a reality far greater than Earth could ever hope to be.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

transcript:

Saint 1: Quick! It's happening!

Man: (sighs)

Demon 1: Things aren't gonna get better, y'know? At least you're not believing in a fairy tale like them.

Demon 2: Reality, not delusion!

Demon 3: Only you can change your life. You're the master of your own destiny!

Man: I've tried everything, but I still feel empty...

Demon 1: Better than being trapped under a bunch of religious rules forever. Is that what you want?

Demon 2: You're worth nothing. You don't deserve any help.

Demon 3: Worthless, worthless~

Man: I'm so sick of this. It's all pointless.. I just want it to stop...

Demon 1: Yes, it's pointless!

Demon 2: Even if you call, no one will answer!

Demon 3: You might as well end it now. There's nothing in your future-

Man: Jesus!

Saint 2: HAH!

Saint 3: Yes!!

Demons (all): NO! No No No No No No No

Man: If you're real, prove it to me! I can't do this. Help me, I need you!

Saint 4: Yeaaaah!

Saint 5: That's right!

Saint 6: I love this part!

Saint 7: WOOOH! YESHUA!

Man: ..Forgive me.

Jesus: (smiles) Welcome home, My son.

Saint 8: He did it!!

Saint 9: Yes!

Saint 10: JESUS!!

Saint 11: Atta boy!

Angel 1: HAH! GOT'M!

Saint 12: Did you see that?!

Saint 13: A new family member!

Angel 2: Hallelujah!

Angel 3: Praise Yah!

Saint 14: Thank You.

Saint 15: I can't wait until he gets here!

Heavenly voices: Our Lord Jehovah! Hallelujah! Praise Yahweh forever! Holy Holy Holy. Yeshua our Savior! Is the Lord God Almighty.

Saint 7: WOOOH! YESHUA!!

God the Father: (smiles)

Man: ...I don't feel empty.

[kenpachissluut]

The Demonic temptation with Incubus Shunsui Kyoraku ‹𝟹

first day of the @bleachsmutfest ❤️‍🔥 alternative universe! This is my first long fanfiction, i hope you have fun reading! 🎀

⚝ sum: after breaking up with your boyfriend, you decided to summon the hell famous Incubus Shunsui Kyoraku. You heard tales about him, how he took the heartbreak away in just one single night and you were determined to find out if it was true. Was it a big mistake who would made you run for your life or the best decision ever getting fucked by an demon?

warnings: smut content, explicit language, fem!reader, incubus!shunsui, unprotected, slight humiliation, rough penetration, manhandling, breeding, obsession & possession, spit, choking.

wc: 2.2 k

It was an cool and warm summer night, the wind blew through the rustling trees and the birds were singing an melodic soft tune. Amongst the chilly night, you sat on your bedroom floor, some lit candles surrounding you in an circle with an drawn pentagram in the middle. It wasn’t probably the best idea to do an satanic ritual but you were bored and heartbroken, but mostly important curious if it would even work. You tried summoning an demon, not just any demon but the most beautiful incubus the Heavens and Hell ever heard of, Kyoraku Shunsui.

Your Boyfriend recently had left you, leaving an empty feeling inside of your heart but the desire for something darker also grew within. Could this ritual possibly work and take the pain in your heart away? Atleast for a short amount of time. Speaking an satanic poem that was dedicated to only him from you, telling the Incubus Shunsui how much you desired and needed him, right now. As you spoke your words, the candles around you began to flicker uncontrollably and a cold wind blew through the window of your room, blowing all the candles out. Leaving you in an darkness that was beyond scary as a cold shiver run down your spine.

„That was an damn mistake“ your trembling voice cut through the silence of the dark room, only to be answered by an deep but sensually male laugh. Your poor heart pounded rapidly and anxiously in your chest, the words got stuck in your throat out of sudden. With an swift and rapid move the candles flickered back to life, revealing the imposing stature of the Incubus you summoned, right infront of you in the circle.

It was him, Kyoraku Shunsui. The tales you heard about him did not make him any justice, he was beyond mesmerizing. His long wavy brown hair cascaded down his bare wide shoulders, crimson eyes piercing right through the depths of your soul. He towered over you in an inhuman height and has an well toned muscular body, behind him flattering his beautiful black elegant wings with intricate patterns in it. His demonic appearance was accentuated by the black horns who addorned his forehead. He stares down at you with an curious glint in his sensual hodded eyes, his sharp fangs peeking through the wicked smirk he offered you.

„So you are the little girl who summoned me? Tell me, why shouldn’t I rip your heart out for disturbing my eternal peaceful life“? He asked you with an rough sinister tone, his words sounding like an death threat but also like honey at the same time. You gulped anxiously in your dry throat, staring up at him with your widen innocent doe eyes, but behind that innocence and fear lingered a deep desire that he noticed as soon as you spoke up in a stuttering tone. „I uhm… my Lord i summoned you, because i desire you. Please take the pain in my heart away even if i am taking my last breath because of you“.

Hearing your scared but confident words and seeing how you submissively kneeled infront of him, made his lust and desire for you grew even more. Graceful in his movements he leaned down, lifting your chin with his calloused fingers to look deep into your eyes, studying your true intentions. His gaze was intense and pierced right through you, but you didn’t wavered one bit. One of his strong hands slides slowly but sensually over your throat, squeezing it lightly but firm enough to make it hard to breathe. The mere thought that he could kill you in an instant was horrifying but extremely exciting. He chuckled lowly, a deep velvety rumble in his chest as he stroked his thumb over your rosy plump slightly parted lips.

„You want me to seduce you, isn’t that it? I can see it in your eyes my dear, the pain in your heart that you are feeling is not real. But the wicked and sick desire for something darker is. Tell me, why should i grant you this wish of yours, what can you offer me in return“? His thumb slowly pushed part your plump lips inside of your mouth, to see how you would react to his words and his blunt move. Not expecting you to wrap your lips around his thumb, sucking on it sensually but gently. Your eyes stare back into his crimson ones, trying to show him that you are unlike someone else he had encountered before.

His brows raised up in surprise and mild amusement, as he watched you carefully but seductively sucking on his thumb, trying to turn the tables on him. What an cheeky little minx you are. Your voice cut through the silence who was charged with tension, softly but in an tantalizing tone holding his thumb before your lips. „If you grant me the wish to fulfill my desire my Lord, i will promise you eternal loyalty and whatever you desire from me“.

Your words were enough to fuel the fire in his cold rotten heart for you as he stoods up, his hand wrapping tightly around your throat and lifting you up from the floor without real effort. The tight grip was enough to make you choke, leaving you gasping for air in his deathly hands. Trying to keep your cool to show him you did not back away and keep your promise, you remained silently obedient in his grasp.

He slowly walked with you in his grip to your massive king size bed, slamming you down onto the mattress with an soft thud. Desperately panting for air, you sat up quickly on your elbows to decipher his next move carefully. He let his silken black robe fall down from his muscular body, revealing him in all of his fucking glory. His throbbing massive hard cock sprung out, his thick precum leaking out of his tip as he stares down at you with an sinister but intense smirk. Shunsui his deep rough voice cuts through the cold air, leaving his lips like pure sugar.

„You called for me you little minx. Now you will get me, all of me and you will take what i fucking give to you. Or else i change my mind and rip that sensitive little mortal heart out of your chest“.

Nodding anxiously and eagerly in response, he was in a matter of seconds on top of you. His weight pressed you down onto the soft mattress, a massive hand gripping your small wrists over your head preventing you to escape. His other hand pulled at the silky red nightdress you wore, ripping it with an swift move off your body leaving you vulnerable and totally exposed to his eyes. His crimson irises roamed over your pretty body in an appreciating manner. Leaning down next to your face, his velvety seducing words tickled hotly your ear, making your body shiver in anticipation.

„I can’t deny that you are an wonderful sight, my dear. You look absolutely ravishing and i will take great enjoyment to destroy that beautiful little cunt of yours. At the end of the night you will forget everything but my name and the pleasure i will grant you“.

His cold hand slides sensually over your slightly nervously sweating body, mapping out every inch until he reaches right in between your thighs. His fingers gently trace over your inner thighs until he reaches your sensitive soaked core. He chuckled deeply in his chest at seeing your evident arousal, his palm wiping over your slick folds in a teasing manner. A whimpered sound escaped your sweet lips at his teasing, cheeks blushing in a shade of soft pink as you opened your mouth to speak or rather to beg.

„My Lord, please sto—- you were cut off with his massive cock sliding deep into your warm pussy, stretching you all at once. A loud choked cry escaped your lips, shock written all over your dumbfounded face at his blunt reply or rather action. He took amusement in your adorable reaction and wasted no time into fulfilling your and his darkest desire. His hard monstrous length slides with ease slowly back and forth in your wet pussy, strong hands holding you by your hips in place while you are just trying to realize whether this is really happening or if it’s just an fucking illusion. His face leaned down and his sharp fangs graze gently over your throat, leaving wet hot kisses in its trail. Soft little gasps and melodic moans leave your pretty mouth, while he increases his speed a tiny bit more, hitting right into your cervix.

„Show me how much you desire me, woman. Is that all i get from you? Some soft almost inaudible moans? Seems like i have to be more rougher and fuck the life out of your body, huh“?

Your eyes widened in slight offense at his humiliating words and before he even gave you a chance to answer, his cock left your pussy leaving you feeling empty inside. As you let out a whiny sound, you gaze up at him with a pout on your face, until it was turned into a loud scream as he slams his cock right back into your pussy roughly. And out. And back inside of your cunt again. And out again. He continued his rough assault on your pussy, slamming deep right into your cervix and leaving your mind in a hazy cloud of intense pleasure. You felt like you were on Cloud Nine, getting fucked by an Incubus you summoned yourself, making yourself question your damn sanity.

Heavy loud moans echoed in the room and his cock slamming balls deep into your slick cunt. You were already a crying mess totally lost in your pleasure but as he grabbed you by your waist and lifted you up, while he remained kneeled on the bed you lost it for real. Without any kind of real effort, he slammed you up and down on his massive cock holding you by your waist, while he even thrusted rougher and deeper against your cervix. You could feel a damn bulge in your belly, that’s how deep and rough he was fucking you in all kind of senses. The memories of your Ex Boyfriend and the heartbreak blew away, replaced by the intense pleasure he was gifting you.

He pushed you against the headboard, his form dwarfing yours in an instant as he grabbed your legs firmly spreading them for him nice and wide. He manhandles you with practiced ease just like he fucking wants, with you being completely obediently to him. He thrusts his monstrous cock now in an fast almost animalistic way into your abused puffy hole, deep groans and rough growls escaping his pretty lips as he pounded your cunt like no one else ever did before. While he slams his hips with all his demonic force against you, he spat down onto your sensitive clit smearing the liquid all over your already slick folds. Shunsui aggressively started to rub your clit in circling motions, while he was also still focused on abusing your stretched hole even more. As he leaned down, sharp fangs bit into your soft breast and his wet tongue slides and teased your stiffened peaks while you gave him all the loud sensual moans and whimpers he desperately wanted to hear.

It was inhuman, getting fucked by an demon but not just any demon but an Incubus. They were right on what they were saying, once you had an Incubus in your life, you never go back to anything else.

„Are you ready for me my sweet little human? My cock is almost on the edge to burst and ready to stuff you full with my cum. Is that what you wanted? Me, filling your womb up with my demonic evil seed, binding you to me for eternity“? he practically growled out sinisterly.

Your mind was hazy and your vision blurry, yet you managed a weak whimpering nod out and that was enough for him to break you right then and there. Shunsui slammed his hips one last time deep against you, his warm cum shooting right into your womb, stuffing you to the brim full and coating your walls completely with his release. At the same time your orgasm washed over you leaving you as an trembling and crying mess from the level of intensity. That incubus really had worn you the fuck out. As you both catched your breaths slowly and came down from your amazing high, he gently but firm enough grasped your chin making you look right into his face.

„Now, you know what that means right? You promised me eternal loyalty and i make sure you will never forget who you belong to. From now on you listen to my every command and most importantly… you never get rid of me again. You are mine, little human“. The whispered sinister but tantalizing words danced right into your mind, making you forget about everything else but him and how he had just fucked you.

You knew he probably would never leave you again, using you as his little toy whenever he needed you but the more you thought about it, the more it was damn worth it. To be honest a real man never could satisfy the way like an demonic Incubus did today. So let’s screw everything and become that Incubus little pet, spoiled rotten and always stuffed to the brim with his lovely cum.

Kenpachissluut writes ⋆. 𐙚 ̊