#I basically read what happened. I got the gist

[hazelcephalopod]

What even is True Blood season 5? I enjoy it but everyone has their own plot and they are barely even in the same show at this point. There’s at least 5 genres happening and more storylines, I’m pretty sure they’ve exited off the books one or two seasons ago. At least.

The funniest bit is the cult plot line where you’re just so entranced by whatever cult bunker nonesense you only idly question how their getting away with this. Because they hardly get away with anything -in Bon Temp and nearby- until this general shows up and is just like “ok losers we know you are up to some shit Bc we have evidence. Also humans have the whole day to go out and do shit and we have plans to end all of you.” I can’t believe I have to admit that Russel was right, figuring out how to day walk would be useful if you want to rule over humanity. The writers just excuse all this with “vamps get stupid when they live in bigger groups.” From Pam. Law and Order vampire, Eric, and disturbingly but not surprisingly Russel and Steve were annoyingly the only ones with a bit of sense -in that order of course, Law and Order was actually trying to keep order. The other three have very few shits to give, Eric at least has a thriving survival instinct for himself and those closest to him. Russel and Steve are absolutely awful but kinda fun to watch, more so knowing this is basically Russels last big suicidal hurrah and Steve has no fucking idea that’s the train he’s boarded.

Bill is now a vamp supremecist cultist presumably bc he’s never done drugs. Tbh I personally think someone laced that blood with something centuries ago. Why would Lilith want sadness Bill the loser turned yesterday? Beyond me Tbh. I hope she was actually whispering to all of them. At least if someone drinks it that’s the end of it. Unless it is just psychedelics laced normal really old vamp blood which would be funny? Hell maybe if you ferment V long enough that’s just what happens. tbh now I wish they’d give it to a human I wanna see what would happen to them. For science.

[number1villainstan]

did you grow up believing that you were Fundamentally Evil because the only representation of your core personality traits you saw in the stories you read/watched were the villain (or rarely antihero) characters who no one liked or are you normal

[revacholianpizzaagenda]

Hello!

I am a couple of years late to the party but I just finished reading Sacred And Terrible Air and your summaries of it for help, and while I think I got the overall gist of the story, I am still confused about what exactly happened to the Lund girls.

I've heard different sources say that they ran away into the Pale, or that they were killed and the Pale caused everyone to forget them, or the idea that they somehow wanted to disappear and Khan's memory of them was holding them back - so could you clarify a bit what actually happened? Did I miss something?

Hello hello! Welcome to 🌫! Love to hear that my summaries helped^^

As for the girls, I don't think we have the means to understand it fully, but there are some near-certain details here and there which add up to some kind of scenario.

We know that whatever happened was their idea, their plan, with Zigi as their accomplice, because Zigi basically says as much to Ignus (they had strange, entropolic-adjacent thoughts which he did not understand in full), and because of the "“Zigi’s Ride to the End of the World" mixtape they lovingly left for him: they wanted to go to the end of the world and even expected Zigi to follow them there in the future. This much worked, it seems. They are indeed in the heart of the pale. They would be happier if Khan stopped connecting them to the world with his memories, but they're still sending him strongly worded nightmares from there, and chanting "ABSOLUTE NEGATION" from there. (Absolute negation, btw, is a Hegelian concept, look it up for much to think about. Luiga did tweet once that "they fear the pale because they do not understand absolute negation"...)

Also worth noting that their thoughts predate their meeting with Zigi - the final scene sets the chronology straight if nothing else.

Does this mean they were killed? Mmmmmaybe? I think that what we can say with some degree of certainty about the moment of their disappearance is: they (along with Zigi) did something that created a superdeep pale event, which the boys feel at the end of ch1. Their disappearance is oftentimes compared to that of the Harnankur, which also got poofed by superdeep pale. We know that whatever it is that they did counts as Zigi dirtying his hands, as per his convo with Ignus where Zigi's mysterious action is compared to the latter's war crimes, and somehow as the enactor of this he ended up impervious to the effects of the pale.

It's probably not exactly the same thing, but lately I've been thinking about the 2mm hole and the theories that it's manmade, a rift in reality created as the result of a hideous action (like whatever happened in the unmentionable church raid). It could be something like that.

Even then, there are many mysteries surrounding them. The parallels with Dolores Dei, compounded by their interest in the peaches (or apricots, it seems, the Estonian word is vague) of immortality. That paragraph about their births, which is telling us something, but what? Whatever it is about that godforsaken homunculus. And so on.

I hope this helps a bit? Thanks for asking!

[fellshish]

... curiousity killed the cat... but as someone who never watched a single ep of SPN and only joined tumblr in 2022 what the fuck happened?! I've got bits and pieces and probably the general gist of Nov 5th but I am so confused

Basically on nov 5th 2020 supernatural aired the 18th episode of its 15th season with only two more episodes to go. After twelve years of feverish shipping wars the angel of the lord castiel finally confessed his love to dean winchester and then was promptly sent to some sort of oily angel cemetery for the crime of loving him. This awoke thousands of superwholock sleeper agents from their slumber and caused destiel to twitter trend above the american presidential election and rumours of putin stepping down in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. It was the start of an increasingly ridiculous series of events which we must celebrate every year by posting the faces of misha collins and jensen ackles until at least one person blocks us

You can read more about it on the destielgate fanlore page

[loolilyumm]

WAITER! Can I please order a plate of Margot lore? /pos

YES OF COURSE, COMING RIGHT UP!!

INTRODUCING…MARGOT! She is a sleepy girl. She’s worked too many salmon run shifts. She mains the tri-stringer!

She’s quiet and introverted and doesn’t really care what others think of her. She also never had a lot of friends. This leads to her being a little blunt and off putting….but she’s working on it!!!

She started working salmon run shifts around splatoon 2 when she was only 14 years old. She lied about her age and Grizz didn’t really care. She started working at Grizzco for 2 reasons:

1: she wanted to make some money for herself. She lived in foster care / jumped around foster homes and orphanages most of her life and wanted to save up enough money so she could buy her own apartment and live by herself.

2: She is absolutely FASCINATED by salmonids. She can’t get enough of learning about them. And fighting them. It’s a chaotic fascination.

She does so much salmon run and doesn’t sleep enough or take very good care of herself. But she’s making good money and improving her skills and learning a lot about salmonids. She even found a little buddy that seems to really like her! She named him Socks.

She also made a friend named Millie who works salmon run shifts with her! (She’s the inkling pictured with Margot in the first image!) She’s a little clingy and weird, but..Margot likes her. She’d never admit it! (Millie belongs to the amazing @paninipanem)

She turned 17 during splatoon 3, and got recruited by Cuttlefish while walking home after a Grizzco shift. She thought he was kind of weird but went along with whatever he wanted. She may not care what others think, but she does have morals.

And then they FREAKING FELL DOWN A HOLE INTO ALTERNA AND WENT MISSING FOR MONTHS. Oops. Thanks cuttlefish.

Alterna was really confusing and…exciting for Margot. She didn’t want to show it, but she was super happy to form such deep relationships with Callie, Marie, and Reese (Captain 3.) Although the four of them were hopelessly lost in a scary place, they made it really fun.

She began to come out of her shell and feel comfortable around them. When she was in the foster care system, she never stayed with any families for very long, so she never opened up to anyone or made any friends. She didn’t even have bullies because they didn’t know she existed. She was invisible her whole life.

The NSS made her feel seen. She became emotionally attached to them. She’d never admit it, but she totally did! They treated her like a little sister.

But all things considered…Alterna was pretty terrifying. She had some close calls with the fuzzy ink. And when the final boss fight happened and she got LAUNCHED INTO SPACE? WTTFF????

The fact that MR. GRIZZ - HER BOSS. ENDED UP BEING THE VILLAIN. Her whole world got turned upside down.

She managed to beat him with the help of the NSS and even Octavio. She was injured on both her legs where fuzzy ink had struck her on the spaceship. When they returned to the surface, she wasn’t sure what to do. She was injured, she wasn’t ready to go back to grizzco, and her Foster family seemed to have forgotten about her.

Callie and Marie seemed to realize this and took her in. YAY!

Fast forward a few months…everyone is recovered and happy and the NSS is currently working to rescue octolings and keep salmonids from coming too close to Inkopolis!

And two of the old agents came back after being MIA for months. They were in the weird hell dimension. Whatever that’s about. (Side order)

Margot is back at Grizzco. She couldn’t leave her friend Millie hanging! (Millie was so worried those months that Margot was in Alterna. She stuck missing posters all around the place and could barely complete a single Grizzco shift without her amazing partner!)

But yeah! That’s the basic gist of it. I feel like Margot has a lot more I could say about her (lore and personality wise) but I’ll save that for another time!

Thank you SUPER MUCH for reading! I love my little guys and I hope you do too :D

[luxiomahariel]

Hey hey! Wanted to share an experience n get it off my chest if that’s okay, you don’t gotta post it if you don’t want to. This experience is what led me to discover transandrophobia and devour as much as I could of it and I’m also reading so much intersectional feminism as a result!

Ages back, a group of former “friends” that were all adult lesbians of varying transfem and nonbinary genders, unironically Exploded at me due to a conversation that I’ve since showed a vast amount of people who have all confirmed that I was being respectful and agreeable throughout. The gist of the convo was that I “wasn’t listening to transfems” because I, as someone who grew up as a brown arab woman, simply MENTIONED that Imane Khelif was being attacked through racism as well as transmisogyny. For context, I agreed multiple times that she was being attacked through both, but the group was immediately vehemently accusing me of denying transmisogny as a “tme”.

They kicked me from the server, and the owner dmed me a link to @/transmisogny-explained so I could “better myself”, which is a blog that has plenty of good posts, but is so deeply transandrophobic that it makes it difficult to even look through. During the aftermath of this whole thing, my partners had dmed some folks from the server to clarify what had happened for them to react so intensely, and I’ll quote some of the things I noticed from them/their responses:

- every single one of them was white.

- ONLY used he/him for me during this despite rarely/never doing so otherwise. I use any pronouns.

- described me reblogging transmasc positivity posts on my personal blog afterwards as “going on a reblogging rampage” and describing my emoji-filled, friendly, worried messages as “aggressive” and “lashing out after being criticized by a trans woman Once”.

- one said that they’ve been wanting to cut me off since they found out I support trans men lesbians. Because I call myself a multigender dyke and am a man as well as a woman.

- same person also spread that I was calling trans women slurs because I had once reblogged a post where someone mentioned “b/aeddels”

- shortly after they all blocked me on all platforms, my partners showed me their reblogs were absolutely full of the most transandrophobic slop I’ve ever seen, mixed in with good posts about supporting transfems. They also masked off about other queer infighting, such as being on the wrong, cruel side of ace discourse and also needlessly hating on mspec lesbians, anyone using Achillean or the “toothpaste flag” or anything that “appropriated lesbian culture”, and stuff like that.

- turned on my partners as well (tho with less vitriol thank god) for being associated with me. Which they didn’t deserve to be cut off for :(

Basically I’m more than glad to be cut off from them cuz I had no clue of the sheer hatred they were holding for queer people that were different from them, but also I can’t ever help but keep in mind that one of the quickest ways I’ve ever gotten to be called a man, or had he/him used on me, was alongside being called “tme” and being painted as an aggressor.

Everyone involved is safely out irl, and knows fully that I am deeply closeted for safety irl. They spoke plenty of my “tme privilege” while knowing I was at home closeted against my will for my safety and suffering from it on the daily. They labeled me as a rampaging, lashing out tme man, despite rarely using anything but she/they for me beforehand. They cut me off from a huge portion of online community, knowing full well how unsafe my position was and how much I needed the support. I’ll never forget that they saw a closeted brown trans man mention racism alongside transmisogny and immediately jumped him and slandered his name with accusations and aggressive behavior.

jesus christ thats awful

bigotry always seems to come in bunches huh? transandrophobia, aphobia, homophobia, and exorsexism/enbyphobia.... yeesh.

im glad you got away from that server and hopefully my blog can be a safe space for you 🫂

[star-dust-no-name]

Hmm I have an idea..

What do you think of writing

Venti x Angel Reader?

Venti x Angel Reader

ᯓ✦

Venti x reader (can be read as platonic or romantic)

Gender neutral reader

Sypnosis: The right hand of the anemo God Barbatos is a angel

ᯓ✦

You knew Barbatos since before he was a god, you were friends with the unnamed bard which so happened to meet barbatos when he was just a wind spirit, since then the three of you were an inseparable trio, of course though all good things must end at some point as when the archon war came and your friend died you were traumatized.

You couldn’t do anything as you saw him being killed by the tyrant god even if you wanted to do anything your body wouldn’t move, of course the tyrant god saw that as an opportunity and killed you as well.

Oh well…

It seemed though that Celestia was laughing or had other plans for you because next thing you knew you woke up in a patch grass in the middle of Whispering Woods.

As you awoken though you came to realize a problem…

You had wings

Most notably angel wings.

Was this a curse?

You didn’t know…

You also noted your clothes

A cloak adorned you covering your wings it reached to the floor you also had shoes some basic brown shoes.

ᯓ✦

It had been a while since you came here, exactly 1 month since you awoke you still have no idea why you had grown wings or why you even had them you had long since found your grave alongside many others as well as your friend.

But at last you had made it…

Mondstat is what they called it

It looked beautiful and as you looked up you realized the statue…

It looked so much like him

It was uncanny how similar they were

You had also came to realize that you appeared the same like you did when you fought the war.

Which is why you often hid your face behind the cloak as to not make the citizens of Mondstat fear you or despise you.

It was then that it hit you again as you looked up at the statue

That feeling in your heart

The pang that made you feel like you and the statue were connected…

You shook your head

No it’s stupid you can’t connect yourself to a statue that looked so much like your dead friend

Who was that guy anyways? You asked the citizens and they had told you it was Barbatos…

Barbatos…

The name rolls off your tongue like a gentle reminder of something…

It was then that your ears heard a heavenly melody, that of a lyre.

ᯓ✦

The crowd claps at the bard as cheers were heard alongside some kids who wanted the bard to play another song…

You shouldn’t mingle with them but you couldn’t help being attached and attracted to the music

Almost as if it was leading you

The bard locked eyes with you as you felt the feeling again

Stay

And you did, eventually it was just you and the bard as children left to go play and adults went back to work

ᯓ✦

“So…you feel it too, don’t you?”

You nodded

At this point you were outside of Mondstat sitting on the ledge of the bridge with it already being nighttime.

“How strange…tell me though are you [Name]?”

You froze up as you nodded, when you asked him how he knew he grinned

“You really don’t recognize me?”

“It’s me, the wind spirit”

You looked at him it could be that he just read history books and knew who the wind spirit was but you yourself had already checked and all memories of a wind spirit were erased, and was it also a coincidence that he looked so much like him?

“You look just like him”

“I know I wanted to remember him somehow”

ᯓ✦

You both talked and talked eventually you got the full gist of how he was doing and you also revealed your wings to him.

“Say…would you like to be my right hand man?”

You looked shocked but agreed

And he smiled

Two friends and a memory of one

It was why when Mondstat was once again in need of rescuing and his directing from a previous friend of Venti did you appear.

And soon did you meet the citizens again

Not as a nameless wanderer

But as the right hand man of Barbatos.

ᯓ✦

[scarlettrosie]

mama bear jason

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

So, I've seen reading a lot of timjay after falling down the rabbit hole of dcxdp (which I don't know how I got here but it's fun!). Basically all my knowledge of the dc universe is fanfic and pop culture - and yet, never experiencing the source material is not in any way stopping my brain from coming up with story ideas. And there's this particular one that's been rattling around in my head.

So, personally I've been imagining this as girl!Jason, but this could work with like omegaverse or trans!Jason or mpreg of any kind.

Basically, instead of the Joker killing Jason, Jason gets sold to sex traffickers by his bio mom. This results in him being in the LOA's possession. Turns out, artificial wombs are really hard to make and if they work at all, it's more by mistake than design. And after too many failed attempts, Talia has decided to go the old-fashioned route and just use a human incubator. Enter Jason!

Who surprisingly has strong maternal (paternal?) instincts and therefore fully views Damian as his son despite sharing no DNA. Jason stays in the LOA officially as a wet nurse/caretaker/nanny/whatever, but is secretly plotting against Talia on how to kidnap Damian and take him far, far away.

Fast forward a few years, Damian is like 5 and the whole Bruce lost in time thing is happening and Tim is working with the LOA to get Bruce back. And it is during this time that Tim finds out that - holy shit! Jason is alive! Batfam thought he was dead (I'm thinking, Joker decided to double-cross Sheila and there was an explosion with a lot of unidentified bodies left behind). Despite Ra's and Talia's best efforts, Tim and Jason do manage to sneakily meet up.

Now, unfortunately, there is just too much going on to make a good plan on how to extract Jason and Damian, and Jason refuses to risk Damian's life on some half-assed plan (he's survived this long in the LOA, he can wait longer). So, Tim saves Bruce and barely escapes with his life (but missing his spleen), but does promise to come back and rescue them. Which, the batfam does! Like 10 months later. Not from lack of trying, but literally could not find where the LOA was hiding Jason.

There's now also a newborn. His name is TJ, officially it's for Thomas James. But it started off as Tim Jr. It's Tim's clone. 2 kids, neither biologically related to Jason and yet fully his in every way that matters.

So, there are some pretty complex and weird family dynamics at this point. Both Damian and TJ are Jason's kids, but biologically related to Bruce and Tim respectively. Jason lets Bruce have supervised contact with Damian, but is paranoid about his kid getting put in a Robin costume. Absolutely not! He WILL kill Bruce if he even thinks about it. Tim gets more leeway and they end up co-parenting pretty well (and falling in love in the process). The story for the public? Who fucking knows but a single DNA test will knock down that house of cards so let's just hope no one looks too hard.

Tim and Jason continue on, raising their kids together, eventually getting married and deciding to have more kids. Now biologically related to Jason! Yay! Damian gets to an age where he wants to be a vigilante because all his friends are. Jason agrees - with conditions. Namely, he can only do it during the summer and school breaks, has to be supervised by either Jason or Tim, and any Teen Titan/Young Justice work has to have a trusted adult mentor included (aka Jason. Jason is the only one Jason trusts to keep his kid safe.)

And that it. That's the gist of what my brain has been fixated on.

[phoenixeclipse-lmkau]

ISAT is In Stars And Time, if you have the time, watch "So, You're Stuck in a Time Loop!" by youtuber JelloApocalypse, its goes deep enough that you should have gotten the gist of the game without getting spoiled on the ending.

also very sorry that i haven't been crumbing, its crunchtime for me irl and i am ALMOST FREE, so i cant write my crumbs right now :(

also who cares if what you write isn't canon, its great to read all the same. off shoots and what-ifs are always interesting to read.

also, before i send, one last angst crumb:

what if reader was too late in the forest? if the wolf got to landing an injury on one or both of the cubs? knocking one out or perhaps fatally injuring them? imagine how the conscious/surviving cub would react to seeing reader running in to fend off the wolf too late? and imagine them seeing reader attempting to patch up injuries, not knowing if its too late or not.

if they return to their original forms in diyu, well, i guess that would be an easy way to break the curse? sun wukong already escaped once, he could probably do it again. so easy curse break, unless it reapplies itself the moment he leave diyu. would be terrible luck tho, to be a monkey cub all alone far away from the group, unless he was lucky to pop out near them.

i like my angst as much as i like my timeloops, haha.

also feel free to slice my asks if it makes your life easier, i don't mind if you jump back and forth or only answer some, or take longer to answer some than others.

Okay so the ideas of “In Stars and Time” are so cool! I really like what I have seen, personally I don’t care about spoilers so you don’t have to worry about spoiling anything for me! The video was a really fun watch, though with how much it jumped around it was rather confusing, but didn’t really give too many spoilers. Had some fun laughs during it.

OKIE!! I love angst so onto it!!

If one of the cubs get hurt to the point Reader has to worriedly patch them up, she would do so when they get to the village. Carefully wrapping them in cloth as she applies pressure to make sure the bleeding stops.

Throughout their lives neither Wukong nor Macaque have ever had to have someone take care of them like this. Someone frantically taking care of them, and fussing over their injuries and making sure that they are getting better.

For them to wake up or see Reader take care of their mate would send them spiraling in instincts for better or for worse- Their VERY selfish nature would more than likely to go almost full Yandere pretty quickly after that. Of course that would mean they’d have to break the curse (Not that they aren’t going to go Yandere they definitely will be going Yandere in this au, it is a Yandere au after all. They don’t like it when- Ah spoilers hehe~)

Now if one of the cubs are sent to Diyu. If one of the cubs is sent to Diyu then they would undoubtedly return to their regular forms, not only one but both would actually.

The curse that holds the two of them actually breaks if they are separated as is was a curse set to the both of them at the same time with the same spell. So if this were to happen there would be no more curse. (Whoever was sent to the Diyu would cause absolute devastation there though as they break out)

In this AU the DIYU had only captured Wukong the first time, however I know that in JTTW both of them end up in the DIYU during their fight. So we know that they can both end up there, personally in my au Macaque and Wukong are relatively equal in power. Each having their own skills that they are better in of course.

But basically if one were to die, then they would revert back to their Warlord Form, which would definitely freak Reader out. And she would get captured A LOT faster, at this point they wouldn’t kill her, they don’t see her as wife material quite yet but since they won’t kill her it would still happen.

Reader would end up on Flower Fruit Mountain starting off as a servant, one who the cubs of the mountain really like.

And it wouldn’t take too long for the warlords to fall in love with her when she’s always by them, as afraid as she is of them.

If this were to happen they’d find her fear cute at first, so it wouldn’t be as soft of a love story at first (I use soft because it’s the only word I can think of, Wukong and Macaque try to be soft but we all know court-napping isn’t actually soft)

Ba: “What is this woman doing here my king?”

Wukong: “She is going to be a servant.”

Ba: “You both seem to like this new servant you brought in.”

Wukong and Macaque: *both with bruises from getting into a fight with each other and finally admitting they like Reader to each other* “… Yeah, we do.”

Ma: “Go on dear, you wished to see the flowers didn’t you.”

Reader: “No-No I need to get my work done. I don’t want the Kings to be mad at me.”

Ma: *Thinking* ‘You don’t see how they will NEVER be mad at you, do you.’

I loved this ask!! Thank you for sending it, and I hope that you love this!

Comments, reblogs and likes always welcome!

[terramythos]

wrote a little something i liked

"Head Space"

No rest for the wicked, eh? I mean, you only have so much time in the day to do anything. And it’s so hard to pick what you want. There’s all those books you want to read on the shelf, but you’re just so tired. Would you even appreciate the words on the page? Maybe it’s better to save those for another day, and another day, and another. You’re not in the right headspace for that.

(the rest is under the cut)

What about all those movies and TV shows you promised your friends you’d watch? Well that’s such a commitment, isn’t it? Anywhere from two hours to twelve hours. And you have to pay attention the whole time! Besides, this video you watched on YouTube said that binge watching is unhealthy. Better not to watch it at all, or at least put it off a while longer. You’re not in the right headspace for that.

You’ve got dozens of video games you’ve been meaning to play. All you need to do is install one and start it up. Looking at the list right now, though, none of them sound quite right. There’s this horror classic all the video essayists talk about, but is now really the right time in your life to be playing it? After all, you got the basic gist based on what other people told you. Playing it would be a waste of time at this point. May as well just skip games today— after all, you’re not in the right headspace for that.

In fact, ChatGPT can just tell you about all of these things. Ask it for a summary of all those books, that way you never have to read them yourself. Ask it for a summary of those shows and those movies, that way you can tell your friends you watched them and have enough facts you can spew back at them when they want to talk about it. And those video games—man— finding all those essays to watch as background noise is so time consuming. ChatGPT can just tell you everything you need to know about them, too. That way you won’t waste any more of your precious time playing them or hearing about them. What if the book is disappointing? The movie, the TV show? The video game? It’s really better this way, to not read or watch or play at all. Think about how much time you’ll save.

Anyway I couldn’t think of how to end this one. It would take too long to think of a conclusion, and I’m a busy guy. There’s only so much free time in the day, and if I spend it all thinking of how to end some stupid writing exercise, then I’ve wasted the whole day. There’s so many other things I’d rather be doing. I could look at my shelves again, or the list of movies I really need to watch, or the games I need to play, or the music I’ve been meaning to listen to, or all the cooler better writing exercises I could try, or the crochet patterns I’ve been meaning to learn, or the plants I’ve been meaning to grow, or the pictures I’ve been meaning to draw, or the meditation I’ve been meaning to try, or the trails I’ve been meaning to walk. But it would be so much easier if someone or something else told me about all of those things, or just did them for me. What if these things challenge me, or scare me, or something bad happens to me along the way? When I really think about it, it’s better this way. I’ll save so much time.

Anyway, I’m tired. Let’s see what’s on my feed. I’m not in the right headspace to do anything else.

[carigm]

MAJOR POTENTIAL SPOILERS/LEAKS REGARDING S5 (WARNING)

Last Spring/Summer, a semi popular fandom account on Twitter got sent some leaks about S5, focused on the first half of the season. At this time, many fandom accounts were receiving supposed leaks, so our attention was a bit scattered and we didn’t focus on any of them too much. A popular leak account on Twitter (unrelated to ST) also mentioned that they had gotten the first half of S5 leaked, and that this source is “never wrong”. Now, it is hard to tell if these leaks are the same as the ones that the specific fandom account I’m talking about received, but something to keep in mind. Her leaks were given to her by a person named James (which I assume is a fake name). These leaks were also posted on Reddit, last year, by her (the person in the fandom that got the leaks from James) but some major things were omitted in that post. I’m gonna leave a link here in case you guys want to read the discussion.

I’m sharing these leaks with you because some things from them are kinda lining up with what we’re seeing from S5 production. Keep in mind that these could be fake/wrong, and James himself said he didn’t have info on the last couple of scripts.

According to James, Mike dies in Ep. 3. I’m adding more screenshots later for more context, but the gist of these leaks is that Mike bites it, mlvn never breakup nor do they get a resolution, and Byler is left up to interpretation but never really happens. (I don’t really need to get into how shitty this all is writing wise)

Let’s go over the things these leaks might have potentially gotten right, according to what we know so far.

1. James said that the time jump would occur in ep. 1, after an establishing scene where S4 left off. He said the time jump would place us in late 1987/early 1988. He also mentioned there would be a series of flashbacks showcasing stuff from before the time jump. The dates he gave do seem to be accurate, and David Harbour had a shaved head right before they went into filming, which could imply pre time jump scenes.

2. According to him, after Mike dies, they find a letter he had been writing. Some of us were theorizing Finn had a letter in his back pocket in those rooftop pics. Could’ve also been Finn’s script and he just stuck it there (who knows).

3. He said that Joyce gets badly injured in ep.3, and since there’s speculation Winona was seen filming at the hospital, some people think that means she was taken there because of her injury. It’s important to notice that Natalia, Cara, and Finn were also supposedly seen filming at the hospital, and that the production called for many extras for nurses and paramedics. So whatever they’re filming at the hospital, it might be bigger than Joyce getting injured in her leg. Let’s remember Max is at the hospital too. I’m not 100% sold on this part of the leaks.

4. Today it was revealed that they’re setting up to film at Stone Mountain. (This is where they filmed UD scenes for S4)

Apparently production might have purple tentacles out already. (UD vines?)

Cara Buono mentioned, in that video shared by Ross Duffer, that she was filming stuff from Ep.2. This was around 2 days ago.

The people that know about the leaks think this is where Mike dies in ep. 3. Here’s some further context:

Here’s some stuff he said about mlvn:

Which is just….meh, because like I said, it doesn’t look like him and El ever breakup before his supposed death. Plus Byler never gets any resolution.

Now some things that might disprove the leaks (I’m trying to be impartial here)

1. These leaks mentioned Argyle a couple of times, saying he has a hero moment at some point. Eduardo made it sound like he’s not coming back to the show, but tbh he could just be lying. He’s listed for ep.2 on IMDb (and yes I know anyone with an account can edit that site)

2. These leaks say that Mike is very insufferable for the 3 episodes he’s alive, basically lashing out at everyone, specially El, and just overall behaving like an asshole. I really didn’t get that from the ElMike rooftop scene, in fact he seemed very gentle with her. People that know about these leaks think that the rooftop scene is Mike maybe apologizing to El and them having a heart to heart, right before he dies (no comment).

All in all, if Mike is dying this early, I’m sure we’ll know soon enough. The rest of the cast is gonna be filming for like a year, and Finn will be done in like two weeks 💀

I also hope there’s more leaks soon (on Reddit) so that we might compare them to these and see wtf is up.

I know someone is gonna inevitably ask why leaks would be out almost a whole year before they started filming when we usually get them during filming or post production, but I’ve been told these leaks happened around the time the writer’s strike began, which is when they were originally gonna start filming. I was also told other shows had issues with leaks around that same time.

I don’t want to get too much into the truly awful writing we’re facing if these are real but…First, I believe it’s a total disservice to Mike’s character. One of your mains since S1 and you don’t even offer him the option of dying towards the end of the season? Even fucking Eddie got that. Two, it seems like a very easy cop out for not having to make Byler canon. Let’s just have neither ship be endgame and that way we don’t get queerbaiting allegations. It also stands in a zone too close to torture porn for my liking, because sure let’s kill the character two of the most traumatized characters in the history of TV love most. And yes, it’s also a disservice to El and Will’s characters. And lastly, if that supposed letter vaguely alludes Mike having some sort of sexuality problems (we don’t know atp) it is pretty fucked up they just killed him off like that. Sure let’s not explore any of that, but give a half assed explanation via letter ex machina. This is looking like Supernatural finale levels of bad to me.

Another point, I distinctly remember the Duffers saying, after S4, that they could never kill off a character like Mike because it would be too painful, and that ST would cease to be ST and lose its identity. They didn’t want to be like GOT. I sincerely hope they actually meant this and were not trying to be cheeky or whatever the fuck.

It would be genuinely insane, and quite frankly, a highlight of their lack of writing abilities.

I hope the leaks are wrong, but I felt like it was necessary to warn everyone just in case. I know I’m not watching something this awful.

[yandere-fics]

♡ Theanna Book AU Expanded ♡

(tweaked the personality I gave reader for this just a bit to add more details to it.)

You'd been an avid lover of romance fantasy books in your past life before you had been reincarnated here which was why you had not caught on to the exact book you were in. You'd read so many books over the years but this had been the only one you read that didn't include any romance, something that bored you so you had only even skimmed the novel, understanding the basic gist of it. If you had known you would fall into it, you definitely would have paid closer attention to it. You had been operating under the idea that this was a romance novel and so you decided it didn't matter what character you were in the story, you would just act like any typical heroine would do and you could always take one of the love interests that the heroine didn't want if it turned out there was actually a main character to this book you were in. You had managed to miss basically all the fighting just because you were busy picturing yourself in a romance fantasy. Your rivals for the throne didn't target you either because some were infatuated with you, a warm presence in their cold harsh palace, or just that you were plain stupid so you could be picked off later. It was only when you encountered the real main character that your reality came crashing down on you as you remembered all the odd occurrences you'd seen but just brushed off something to expand your own personal backstory.

You were lucky you even remembered her at all considering you had been living in this world for ten years at that point and prior to that you had read that book long before your death. You only remembered because how much you hated her bodyguard when you read the book. It was a classic story about a princess and her knight fighting for the throne and you'd assumed at some point the relationship between both of them would turn romantic. For there to be a "who hurt you?" moment but gradually the further you got into the book and the more deaths that started to happen, you realized it wasn't a romance. It was just a book about killing her hundred siblings and cousins who were in competition for the throne. Your final straw was when at the end of the book, her knight Abigail married another woman! So basically despite how you had carried yourself your entire life at this point, you weren't going to get a love interest, you'd probably get a knife to your neck instead. It was a total kick in the face so you decided you'd resign from the competition for the throne, a competition you hadn't even realized was happening until that morning when you'd met Theanna and resigned yourself to the servants quarters where gradually the people who remembered you either died off slowly in the fight or just forgot you were ever royal to begin with. You weren't in a romance novel like you wanted but at least you weren't dead. You still couldn't stop yourself from grumbling whenever you saw the knight Abigail in the halls of the palace, never to her face though.

Theanna wasn't going to just let you go forgotten though even if you made it clear you wanted to vanish amongst the crowds of servants, you'd been a strong contender for the throne even if you didn't know it just from how charming you were, there were quite a deal of nobles who had wanted you to win just so they'd have a nice charming puppet queen and some within the competitors who didn't care about any relation you might have to them and wanted to marry you themselves so you intrigued Theanna. She was interested in you the moment she moved into the competitors palace even if she never went up and spoke to you. You were so lost in your own world almost all the time and when she had first spoken to you, you'd seemed to have held an overwhelming amount of animosity just towards her personal knight which had been extremely amusing to watch especially knowing how much Abigail liked delicate noble ladies like yourself she was disheartened when you showed your hatred for her. It was something she enjoyed quite a lot so she had planned to watch closer within the palace but then you'd resigned from the competition, the first time you had ever acknowledged the contest outright, and she could no longer watch you quite as much as she had been wanting to. Of course the servants quarters were relatively close by but it left Theanna unsatisfied. For one even if you had not been the most fascinating person Theanna had ever met she simply could not be okay with a royal acting as a servant. It was a complete disgrace and something had to be done to fix it, namely, she would make you her queen.

Her plan was going to be seduce you once you were her exclusive maid but… she'd found something that seemed more promising in your bedroom. A journal, at first full of rants about how you couldn't wait to be an adult so the romance story could begin, you thought your life was a book apparently. She was excited to be able to tease you about that. As she got further in though she hit the section in which you and her had met and the entire page was just about hating Abigail and she could vaguely make out that you thought Abigail was the character in a book you'd read. She closed the journal, she didn't want to hear any more rants about how the knight in the book should have wound up with the princess, it was a bit off putting to her but she loved you and so she'd use this incomprehensible book to force your hand in marriage.

"You're h-highness, you wanted to see me?" When you had read about Theanna in the book she hadn't come off nearly as intimidating than she did whenever you were forced to encounter her within the halls of the palace. You were mostly convinced she was still planning on killing you even after you left the contest with how she stared at you every time you'd ever seen her in the hallway. You had assumed that she was planning on killing you now that she'd taken the throne just so she could punish you for thinking you could avoid dying. When you looked up though she was holding your notebook, you'd made it to take notes on your surroundings so you could piece together what romance novel you were in before you found out this wasn't actually a romance. You never could bring yourself to get rid of it though, which you realized now was a mistake, the main character of the novel was now in possession of your dark secret.

"I found this interesting notebook, darling, would you please sit down?" You scurried onto her couch, your head down in shame. She would certainly kill you now finding out all the embarrassing things you had ever thought, especially when she read the passage about how the princess and the knight should have made out in the book.

"Should I read some out darling?" She cleared her throat and you winced thinking about whatever cringey paragraph she'd read out. "Actually I don't think I will, reading about how you think Abigail should kiss me good night was enough for one lifetime. Anyways Darling, now that I know your shameful secret, how about a proposal?" She leaned over you keeping you pinned to the sofa as you hesitantly opened your eyes.

"W-what is it, y-your h-highness?" You knew whatever it was probably wasn't going to be good, you'd seen all the killing she'd done being a maid and having to clean up those bloodspots, hers were always the worst!

"Marry me, or I'll let everyone know you're delusional." You could only nod thinking about how horrible your life was. Lamenting how you never got your romance novel meanwhile Theanna was plotting all the things she could do for you that you said you'd seen in romance novels.

[btnclmrttn]

Imagine:

Nsfw alphabet with saitama

I know is a lot but is up to you, hope you are alright these days!

NSFW ALPHABET(+18) - Saitama

[Kicking ass, hon! Thank you for your patience with this. I hope it satisfies your request!]

A = Aftercare

His go-to is taking a bath with you. Cleaning up the mess he made of you (and on you) and cuddling until the water isn’t so warm anymore. He doesn’t notice how clingy he is, as he doesn’t want anything less than his arms wrapped around you for the most part. 

B = Body part

On him, his hands. Shit, he's strong, and his hands have something to show for it. They’re so gentle with you and adore having your waist fill them. He loves your waist area. Holding it and letting his thumbs run along your back or drawing circles around your stomach.

C = Cum

Loves fucking you until cum starts trailing down your thighs or slopping against him. A visual reassurance he’s making you feel good. Also likes pulling out and cumming on your hole, smearing it on you with his tip before sliding himself back in and going for a second round right there. He likes doing that almost as much as just cumming inside you.

D = Dirty Secret

Would so love to walk in on you masturbating one day. He’s thought about it so many times. He wants it entirely unexpected, so he doesn’t ever bring it up, but he has his hopes.

E = Experience

Well, he's got the gist of it. He never had the best luck with dating and didn't like it casually, but he's read and watched about plenty enough not to be ignorant about how the general of it goes.

His attitude is that he would rather have a connection with someone and learn about them thoroughly versus quick satisfaction, so whatever needs to be hands-on to learn, he's ready and willing.

F = Favorite Position

Being able to see your face is what he wants most. So ASIDE from somn basic, he likes holding you up either against a wall or with your legs wrapped around him. He isn’t so bummed about being so strong anymore since he can do that to you.

G = Goofy

So fucking goofy. He was so shy and nervous the first time you two did it he had to be a bit goofy to relax. Now, it's just his thing. He loves hearing you laugh, too, while you're having your fun. It makes it more intimate for him

It's also pretty hot to him how your laughter blends with your moans.

H = Hair

Well...uh...

I = Intimacy

Aside from being goofy he is a total cornball, too. Absolute goober. Holding you close and whispering all the sweet things, taking his time, looking you in the eye, and occasional random kisses on your forehead. Lots of non-verbal cornball shit

J = Jack Off

He doesn’t do it as much now that he’s in a relationship. Did it a lot when living alone and being so bored all the time. These days, it only happens when he’s been away from you for too long.

K = Kink

OVERSTIMULATION

I will die on this hill. He started liking it more and more when he figured out it wasn't hard for him to do it by accident—being overstimulated himself, though? Loves it. He wants to see how much he can push himself and take it. He'll whine and grip the sheets so hard he could tear them, fumbling over his words

"I can take it. I can take it."

L = Location

Perfectly content with keeping it in just the bedroom. He wouldn't feel that comfortable doing it outside unless there was certainty no one would be able to stumble on it (i.e., on the roof of a tall building or a middle of nowhere ass location). That and also some of the annoying inconveniences of what you could run into kill the mood for him

M = Motivation

It isn’t difficult at all to get him going. Oh, and especially if you make him something really good. Seriously, if you ever make him something that he likes a whole lot, it’s damn near some foreplay. Quickest route to getting fucked good.

N = NO

Not into any pain play of any kind. No biting or manhandling. He's too strong and would hurt you, which is the last thing he wants to do. Also doesn't want to be mean. Degrading is a no-no. 

O = Oral

Loves recieving for sure he ain’t quiet about that. When giving, he enjoys you thoroughly. He eats you up like he’s savoring his last meal and is in no rush at all. Not stopping just because you came either. 

P = Pace

Overall prefers to be slow and sensual. Making love like he's just stupid drunk off you. It's the intimacy of it that he favors. You might get surprised sometimes though; when you're getting closer and closer that's when he starts being rough and just has a massive grin on his face as he messes with you that way. You know he's plotting overkill when he's cheesing more than usual.

Q = Quickie

Absolutely! He could make it quick if need be. It’s not something he would do often intentionally, its more of a last option to you both being busy and a little sexually frustrated. He’d still prefer to “make it up to you” whether a quickie was resorted to or not.

R = Risk

For sure would try about anything at least once within your guys boundaries. Why not? It’s not often he has a suggustion, but when he does you gotta wonder what’s running through his head when he’s quiet. He don’t even know some shit he says can be considered kinda freaky and is so nonchalant about it. 

S = Stamina

Strongest guy in the known universe. No need to guess! It's great that he doesn't tire out until he doesn't and you are whipped. You're in control of when you two stop. He could go all day, and would. He'd be so down for just a day of nothing but nasty.

T = Toys

They are so damn expensive and that irks him. However! Dude will use anything you already have. Once he realized how much of a friend these devices were, it became a weapon. Straight-up murder. His overstimulation kink would go berserk. That being said, any toys that use batteries are his enemy. Batteries get expensive with a kink like that.

U = Unfair

Quite a bit but he's still a bit goofy. "You sure? Absolutely sure? Positive?"He does it mostly for laughs, or because you thought you could do the same and he's giving it back. As much as he likes to just take his time touching you it messes with you eventually. Oh but if he's in the middle of just tearing you up and he's got you all a noisy mess, he's looking to push your buttons.

V = Volume

Mostly it's his heavy, trembling breathing that makes the most noise. He's more vocal when he's getting closer Cursing under his breath and moaning your name. If you want a crybaby, though, you can get one if you play into that overstimulation kink. Just don’t get another noise complaint on you guys 

W = Wild Card

Mutual masterbation would be so enjoyable for him. You get a whole full view of how he looks at you and how hard you make him, and watch how he tries so badly to let you finish by yourself instead of swoop in and make you come himself. It drives him NUTS.

X = X-Ray

Considering how average he presents himself, it would fit that he's also average in the pants. Not huge, not small, not super girthed up or anything. 5 and some odd inches is the average.  Throwing in though he has the most excellent Adonis belt you could feast your eyes on because of all that training he did.

Y = Yearning

Higher than you’d assume. As chill as he seems it’s just a bit surprising. He’ll jump from his chill state to horny. Being as quiet as he is though it’s just hard to catch on to when naughty thoughts start cycling until they finally get to him. 

Z = ZZZ

It makes him relaxed enough to fall asleep not to long after, but he can hold out until he knows you’re properly taken care of. That sleep is about to be deep as hell, though

[gold-rhine]

What the guard dogs are for

There are some things you never want to hear your secret years-long crush saying, such as “I’m getting married,” “I think we should stay friends” or “I’m the destroyer of the present order, the one who shall judge all gods, and the foe of humanity.” Wriothesley’s very bad, no good day of trying to unravel conspiracy theories, fumbling a tea party with Chief Justice and learning Teyvat’s ancient history and vishap lore from the leading expert lector.

Genre: angst and misinformation campaign

Characters: Neuvillette\Wriothesley, Enjou

Warnings: sfw in a sense that nothing even remotely sexy happens, but there is dissociation, ptsd episode, brief mention of self-harm, and Enjou doing same thing he does in canon, which is not quite gaslighting? Anyway, let me know if you feel any other warnings need to be added.

Chapters: 1 out of 2. Wordcount: ~8k

With his morning tea, Wriothesley riffled through the reports as usual. Nothing was marked urgent, so he started with the most boring part, - the official ones. The production numbers, coupon consumption statistics, everything is prepared for Neuvillette’s upcoming inspection, which was mostly a formality, but he would want it to go as smoothly as possible. 

Reports from the surface informants. Traveler stirring up a ruckus with the research institute… Well, about time, that pit couldn’t go on forever pretending that massive explosions are just a part of science routine. 

Next, creatures called “vishaps” appeared recently in Erinnyes Forest. These vishaps are apparently a lesser form of dragons, and connected to Liyue vishaps, also lizard-like creatures, though in Liyue they are aligned with geo, not hydro. Non-hostile to humans, aside from one accident. But in that one they fought back against the hunters sent by nobles to capture them as novelty pets. So the only regrettable part was that they didn’t get the nobles, only their lackeys. For shame. 

Next, there are gangs with new lingo going around, which generally was a good thing to pay attention to as they usually ended up in Meropide. Wriothesley frowned, reading the lingo translations, as he suddenly felt old. “Trendy Zaytun Peach” was something he’d got called for taking it up the ass a lot in his days, but now it’s a hip and cool nickname with the youngsters. 

Informal internal reports. Victims of beret society are rehabilitating fine, preparations for the wedding are underway. Good. Albert, a new guy from the shop, is sending him tea. Quite good tea at that. Obviously a bribe attempt, though he didn’t ask for anything as of yet, so it was basically free. Everything was fair in love and bribes as far as Wriothesley was concerned. You could throw everything at the feet of your beloved as to the feet of your targeted bureaucrat, and receive nothing and you would have no claim to complain. Now, the fact he wouldn’t take it into account when making decisions about their proposals, and sometimes would even consider it a negative, was a different matter altogether. 

He perked up reading the last report. There was a new conspiracy, whose agenda was not very clear, as they were more careful than the others, but the gist was something against Neuvillette, so Wriothesley was tracking it for some time. It was hard to get anything concrete though, as they were pretty good at keeping a low profile, but now apparently one of the members by the name of Jacque got into the Fortress on unrelated charges, and he was reportedly not the brightest shank on the block. 

Wriothesley made the arrangements. 

Half an hour later, he happened to stroll by when Jacque was being beaten up by three guys in the shadowy corner. 

“Hey, what’s going on here? Leave him alone!” he said, walking up to them.

“Oh yeah?”, said one of the bullies, turning to him. “Well, make me!”

They were paid double for the pretend fight. It might have been an overkill, usually Wriothesley would go for just scaring them off without combat. Especially because anyone who’s been in the Fortess for some time or had a head on their shoulders would understand that nobody would try to openly fight the Duke outside of the fight club arena. But Jacque was as fresh as they get, allegedly stupid, and it was Wriothesley’s first chance at any info in two whole months, so he decided to make it as impressive as possible.

He went as easy on the guys as he could, they theatrically threw the fight and retreated. 

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, kneeling next to the guy in the corner and putting his hand on his shoulder for emphasis. 

“Yeah, yeah, I think I’m fine,” Jacque muttered, shaking his head. 

“Why did they attack you?”

“They don’t want me to spread the truth...” Jacque said with heavy emphasis. “But uh, thanks for helping me out.” 

“No need to thank me. I feel bad enough that honest folk like yourself get picked on in MY Fortress. That’s not how I want to run my place, so it’s only natural that I stand up for you.”

It took a moment, but finally the guy gasped.

“Your fortress? Are you… the Duke?”

At least he knew what “Duke” is.

“Yeah,” Wriothesley grinned, turning up the charm. “And allow me to get you a couple of drinks to compensate for the rude welcome you’ve received so far.”

He got them to the Coupon Cafeteria, where best meals were already arranged, and generously poured alcohol into the poor guy, listening to the story of his life and misfortunes that brought him to the Fortress, nodding empathetically. He didn’t ask about Neuvillette at all, to not spook the target, trusting that he will come to this anyway, and finally his patience was rewarded. 

“You know, you’re good!” the guy said drunkenly after some time, clasping his hand on Wriothesley's shoulder, which he beared stoically, grinning with all friendliness in the world. 

“You know, they say we can’t talk to you because you’re bought by that lizard, but I think you’re a good guy. You just don’t know all the facts!”

“Which are?”

The guy leaned closer to him and lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. “Neuvillette is an evil dragon!”

Wriothesley choked on a laughter, which was way too obvious to turn into cough even for the dunce this stupid. 

“No, you don't understand! Dragons were enemies of humanity that Celestia conquered. But they come back when killed! They reincarnate! He is a hydro dragon who was reborn in a human form so he could more easily trick us!”

Wriothesley blinked, remembering Neuvillette standing under the rain, and the old children’s song. “Hydro dragon, Hydro dragon, don’t cry….”

“He put our rightful archon Furina on that trial, right? No one else saw the verdict, so he pretended she was declared guilty. He forced her to abdicate and took the power for himself!”

Wriothesley realized long ago that Neuvilette, of course, was not human. It was clear to any idiot who talked to him for longer than a minute in an informal setting, not to mention a lifespan of at least five hundred years. But there were a lot of options other than “evil dragon”. There were old gods who did not receive archonhood, but instead decided to serve the archon, like Liyue’s adepti, and he always assumed Neuvillette was of the same kind. But the idea that Iudex was some kind of evil monster with a grudge against humanity was ridiculous. Especially when he showed up at the Fortress and saved the entire Fountaine and Wriothesley’s own hide from the flood.

“Really?”

“Yeah! We should restore our true archon Furina to her rightful throne!”

Furina’s insurrection? Interesting. Wouldn’t peg her for someone capable of this type of conspiracy.

“And did Furina herself give us her blessing?”

“She can’t speak publicly, as this monster threatens her.”

Hmm, inconclusive on Furina’s involvement.

He spent more time with the drunk Jacque, trying to get more details, but couldn’t get much more than unhinged ramblings on how evil the dragons are and how insidious it was for a dragon to pretend to be a human. He had to leave to prepare to Neuvillette's arrival the next day.

_____

Neuvillette stepped out of Opera Epiclese into the rain and slowed down his pace to prolong the sensation. It was a bit of what humans called guilty pleasure, as he felt guilty from inflicting rain on humans for his own pleasure. Though from his understanding, humans felt guilty because they saw this pleasure as something bad for themselves. Even if often this supposed harm made no sense to Neuvillette. Eating too much food until a human's stomach hurt was at least understandable to see as such, but he heard one of palais’ secretaries say that romance novels were her guilty pleasure. How could humans feel guilty for something as simple as reading? He stopped and asked her why she would feel guilty for reading, because melusines kept telling him that socializing with humans is very easy, you just need to ask them questions about themselves and let them talk about what they like. Well, it didn’t seem to work, as the secretary stumbled, started hyperventilating and emanated levels of panic and anxiety comparable to someone in the defendant’s chair. Sensing human emotions did not actually help Neuvillette in communicating with them, as he could not discern the reasons. He asked her if she perhaps came into possession of any cursed texts? He could generally sense the stench of corruption and there was nothing on her, but there was always a possibility that it was a curse he could not register. She panicked even more and vehemently denied. At this point he decided to give up on socializing, as it was obviously very distressing for humans, but felt obliged to tell her that if she ever did read anything she felt was cursed, to inform him. He hoped it would assuage her fear of reading. She thanked him, stuttering, and after that day avoided him at all costs. 

The rain was a compromise solution in any case. Neuvillette always felt a bit strained and uncomfortable in his body, but after obtaining full dragonhood and most of the memories of past lives, the human shape felt downright stifling. He now remembered thousands of years of being something much bigger, long coils that could easily crush the spire of Opera Epiclese. Now, when he looked at his own reflection, it was hard to comprehend that this small and ridiculous frame was actually him. In addition, all of his memories and instincts called him to be submerged in water. But even with his poor understanding of humans, he realized that seeing the Iudex floating in the river would alarm humans much more than him standing under the rain. So rain was the closest solution he could get at his position. 

He summoned rain instinctively, to be as close to engulfed in water as possible. It was a bit embarrassing that even humans noticed it and composed a rhyme, even if that rhyme was inaccurate. He didn’t cry, as vishaps didn’t cry at all and even his current human shaped body didn’t have tear ducts. The closest he could pinpoint to human experience, as he understood it, was being stressed and desire to be comforted, for which water was his best remedy.

And currently he was quite stressed, looking over the Fontaine laws in an attempt to revise them. The current system that treated justice as theater was clearly imperfect, which he realized long ago. But he never saw himself as authorized to change it, as humans were the responsibility of the archon and even without it, he was well aware he didn’t understand humans, so he knew it wasn’t his place to question the human justice system, to which he was only a temporary guest. But now, as fontanias became part of Teyvat after his decision, and so, a part of his responsibility as Teyvat’s god of life, even if the usurper tried to deny him, he couldn’t ignore the need for change any longer. The problem was that he did not understand humans any better, so it was very stressful to try and restructure their systems of governance. 

He extended a hand, catching raindrops on his palm, when he noticed a silhouette near the elevator to the Fortress, and stopped himself from visibly controlling the weather. 

Wriothesley caught his eyes and grinned, approaching him at brisk pace, umbrella over his head.

“Greetings, Monsieur.”

“Good morning, Your Grace.”

Wriothesley always somehow managed to make a “Monsieur” sound more impactful than Neuvillette could “Your Grace”, despite one being a noble title and another just a polite greeting. 

“Would you like to…?” Wriothesley extended his arm with an umbrella, without actually covering Neuvillette with it. In the past, as a part of playing a role of “normal human”, Neuvillette accepted such offers, though there were not many aside from Wriothesley who dared to approach him with it. But now, as he was a full-fledged dragon, at the height of his power and influence in this land, surely he could afford to discard this role? Surely he could afford to be himself at least in this?

“No, thank you,” he said, smiling and trying to sound as cordial as possible, so that Wriothesley would not think it was a slight against him personally. “Don’t take it as offense, but I actually like being under the rain.”

The Duke smiled back, shaking his head.

“No offense taken, but why didn’t you say it last time? I felt like an idiot forcing you under an umbrella.”

“Really?” Neuvillette perked up, falling in step with the human. “You could tell that I…”

“Hated it? Yeah, for sure.”

“....prefered not to have an umbrella.”

Wriothesley let out a low, guttural bark of laughter that somehow got to the dragon despite him not being interested in humans in general.

“Not only I could tell I disturbed you, but I had to walk on the flowerbed to get to you, and then I trailed dirt in the Palais while everyone here glared at me for the audacity. Meanwhile you walked on the same dirt, but stayed pristine!”

“I’m sorry for…”

“Hey, don’t apologize. I’m just kidding, don’t worry.”

Neuvillette met the greyish blue eyes of thawed ice directly and sensed that he was truly not bothered, which didn’t make much sense. But Wriothesley was one of the very few humans who was not scared in the dragon’s presence. He was, probably, the only one who emanated only positive emotions at their meetings. Neuvillette mostly encountered negative reactions in his daily life at the trials, so he could not tell apart which positive feelings exactly that he read from Wriothesley due to the lack of exposure. But perhaps…

“I wouldn’t want you to feel unwelcome at the Palais,” Neuvillette said after a short pause.

Wriothesley grinned with a careless shrug.

“Then I will be there, even if the rest of your bureaucrats make faces. As I said, don’t worry.”

Neuvilette frowned, but didn’t see much point in pressing this further. After a confrontation with Navia, the dragon realized that his lack of understanding of humans hindered him, instead of making him truly impartial. Especially now that he was de facto in charge of the entire Fontaine government. And practice showed that only direct interaction with humans could give valuable experience, as watching from the Iudex seat did not allow him a nuanced understanding. 

So perhaps, if Wriothesley was a rare human who was not scared of him, and he proved rational and trustworthy in the years they knew each other, Neuvillette could confide in his true nature and maybe ask for advice in understanding humanity?

“Perhaps staying for some tea would make up for this past offense?”

Wriothesley stumbled for a moment.

“Seriously?” He sounded as casual and ironic as usual, but the surprised burst of positive emotions from him was bright and obvious. “After all these years you finally decided to deign my humble office with your presence?”

“It’d be a completely unofficial visit, of course.”

“Sure, sure. It was never my secret plot to bribe you with a tea party, trust me, even I realize my tea is not that good.”

His voice was ironic, but for a moment Neuvillette could see his crooked grin turn into a genuine smile. So, reassured that he was not imposing, Iudex nodded and followed the human into the Fortress’ entrance.

_________

The inspection itself was mostly a formality. The Court of Fontaine technically had no direct authority over Meripode, but it provided guards and substantial resources, and so it had a right to oversee the use of these assets. The actual budgeting was done on the regular in behind the scenes reports though, as the data was not visible in the in person visit. Still, it was a time honored tradition that got Neuvilette to show up regularly.

“Take a seat. It will take me a minute to make tea.”

Neuvilette gracefully sat down on the visitor’s chair In Wriothesley office, folding his hands on the cane. He still sat with a ramrod straight back and perfect posture, but there was a certain lightness to him today, which was hard to put into words. 

“The inspection is over, yet you are still nervous.”

Wriothesley knew he had a poker face good enough to cover it, yet Neuvillette saw it anyway. He had theorized for a long time that the Iudex could sense emotions, but usually he would not acknowledge it directly like this. “I wasn't nervous about the inspection to begin with. But inviting a high and mighty Iudex himself to the tea for years and then disappointing him when he finally accepts would be a devastating faux de pas. They will mock me on the first pages of all the papers tomorrow.”

Neuvillette frowned slightly.

“I must underline that I’m not here in any official capacity, and I would hope I’m talking to Wriothesley, not the Warden or the Duke. If you agree, I would ask that we leave the titles at the door.”

“No, of course,” Wriothesley, who had fantasized about leaving titles at the door and then clothes on the floor for actual years, said quickly, frantically recalculating how he could turn the tea party to wine tasting, which best wines he had confiscated in his storage and how he could make turning on the gramophone and then maybe leaning against the edge of the table in front of Neuvillette look natural and smooth. “Absolutely. I was just joking anyway, don’t mind it.”

“Ah, I see. I apologize, I’m unfortunately prone to missing humorous intent, so I appreciate your clarification.”

With how far the Iudex went out of his way to assure people of his good intentions in informal situations, Wriothesley really didn’t understand how everyone found him so intimidating. Especially because he very often had to interact with assholes in positions of power who did try to intimidate him on purpose and the contrast was very apparent. Neuvillette projected an aura of power without really wanting to, and then tried to over-explain himself to make others feel at ease. His earnest awkwardness was something like the clumsiness of a huge beast like an elephant trying not to step on the gaggle of kittens at his feet.

“In any case, there is nothing to be nervous about. After all, tea is liquid, and it’s really hard to make liquids unpleasant. So far I think only Fonta truly managed it.” Neuvillette drummed his fingers on the table and glanced at Wriothesley. “To be frank, if crimes against water could be prosecuted, Fonta would receive life in prison.”

Wriothesley snorted. “So no sugar in your tea, I take it?”

“No, thank you,” Iudex said politely and then, after a short pause, “And to clarify, I was not serious. There is nothing wrong with people liking sugary drinks, of course. I was just making an attempt at a joke.”

He really was horrendously bad at pretending to be a human. How could anyone hear him talk and still believe he’s a scheming manipulator was beyond ridiculous.

“No, I got it. It was a good joke,” The Duke grinned, placing a teacup in front of Neuvillette and sitting down across the table with his own.

Neuvillette gave him a graceful nod with a little smile and picked up his cup, giving it a swirl before tasting.

“Hmm. Interesting. Poignant. Bitter,” he said thoughtfully, tilting his head. 

Wriothesley was about to mention that this sort was not usually bitter, but Iudex continued. 

“Not by nature, but forced by circumstances. Not nearly enough water to be nourished, so it had to adapt and conserve strength, letting leaves seen as unimportant to die and concentrate on survival of the main branches. But there is not just hunger… there is a dream of rain. An ache of something not ever known, but yearned, longed for, without realizing what it is. But then…” Neuvillette closed his eyes for a moment. “It happened. There is a memory of luminous joy of water not gathered by mere drops, but drank in full, overwhelming, a feast after a life of fighting for scraps of morning dew. It had tasted rain at least once in the end.”

Wriothesley put his own cup down, leaning forward in disbelief.

“No way. This was a harvest from a drought year and it’s normally a mild sort, considered unusually strong in this season. How could you know this? Are you cheating?”

“You’re welcome to test me with other samples,” Neuvillette said with an air of a magnanimous ruler granting a boon and put the teacup down with a delicate clink. 

“Oh, I’m taking you up on your word, trust me,” the Duke grinned, but then paused. He didn’t want to spoil the mood, but he remembered how strongly Neuvillette felt about the perceived melusines conspiracy. Wriothesley had to tell him about the evil dragon idiots just to make sure he’s not thrown off balance later. That’s what the guard dogs are for, after all.

“Actually, before we move forward with testing your psychic tea reading abilities, there is something concerning official business that I think you should know. And then we can forget it completely.”

Neuvillette inclined his head with a small smile.

“There is a small group of conspirators, - and I must reiterate, it’s very small - who operate on the ridiculous idea that… uh, that you’re some kind of an evil dragon who schemed to overthrow Furina.”

Neuvillette's smile froze.

“You don’t have to worry about it, really. It’s negligibly small, and well, anyone with a working brain would not believe that you’re a monster in disguise.”

Iudex was silent for some time, not meeting Wriothesley’s eyes.

“Are melusines implicated in this?” he said finally.

“No. No, there’s no connection to them in this stupid theory.”

“Good. That's good. They do love living with humans so much.”

Wriothesley suspected that Iudex was taking things kind of out of proportion again.

“Listen, it’s really nothing…”

“No, no, I understand. It would be so unacceptably horrifying for humans to learn their ruler is a… monster.”

Neuvillette's voice wavered, but his face was impartial, strict, previous lightness gone completely. Wriothesley saw his hands tighten their grip on the handle of his cane a moment before he abruptly stood up.

“I must apologize for impropriety, but I have important business in the Palais which was inappropriate for me to neglect for so long. I must beg your leave to depart.”

Wriothesley stood up too, scraping to understand what he did wrong.

“Wait, it’s not…”

“Thank you for your time, Your Grace.”

Wriothesley shut his mouth, the title feeling like a slap for the first time in his life. The formality and politeness somehow only made it worse. He took a deep breath and willed himself to sound calm.

“I hope you have a nice evening, Monsieur Iudex.”

Neuvillette left in what for his usual dignified pace could be considered a hurry. Wriothesley followed him without being seen, partly to make sure he doesn’t get bothered by inmates and partly on an instinct to investigate. 

At the Fortress’ entrance, he watched Neuvillette walk under the rain, lifting his head upward. The blue strands of his long hair glowed and so did his coat-tails. They extended, shining brilliant bioluminescent blue, trailing behind the Chief Justice, in a moment looking like fish’s fins, then the next - as colossal snake’s coils. Sea waves crashed against the ridge without any wind, rising high, reaching to a lonely glowing figure of Iudex. With bated breath, Wriothesley watched Neuvillette extend a hand, as if catching raindrops - and rain stopped mid-flight in the air, lingering over his palm, waves frozen cresting over the earth. The raindrops gathered in a shuddering spheres, and then stretched upwards, against all laws of gravity.  Wriothesley’s heart skipped a beat as Neuvillette closed his fist and the rain flew backwards to the skies.

Wriothesley stormed back into his office and frantically searched through the reports, pages flying about, until he found the one about vishaps. He looked at the photos, seeing similarities he would never look for before. The dark blue color of vishap’s hide was nearly identical to Neuvillette’s attire, but that was small beans, easily written off as coincidence. Their eyes, bright magenta with white vertical slice of a pupil, resembled Iudex, but there was room for debate, as his eyes were much paler, lilac merging into gentle blue instead of a bright pink, even as white vertical pupil was so similar. What really struck Wriothesley after all this, was actually the little blue feather at the side of the head of both vishaps and Neuvillette. It was identical and looked so… deliberate. It had to be chosen and placed precisely like this. 

Still, this was not enough. He needed more evidence. He needed… he needed answers.

He walked to Jacque's block as quickly as he could without alarming inmates, but when he got to the conspirator’s room, Jacque was sleeping on the bed and a man was sitting on the chair next to him, reading a book. He looked up when Wriothesley walked in and stood up, clumsily dropping the book. He was tall and gangly, had dark hair, Inazuman features and light brown eyes behind the glasses. 

“Who are you?” Wriothesley was really not in the mood for playing games.

“Well, my organization caught wind that you are interested in learning some… historical information, and our poor Jacque is really not the best source, which is why I’m here to answer any questions you have,” the man gave him a groveling smile. “You can call me Enjou.”

“Not here. In my office. Follow me.”

When they got there, Enjou whistled musingly.

“Uh, what a nice office! Must be a pretty sweet gig. I wish I had an office instead of slinking in dump ruins all the time.” He sighed theatrically. “So, I assume your main questions are on the vishap situation. I…”

“Wait,” Wriothesley said, walking up to one of his wall cabinets. “You can’t expect me to just believe you on your word.”

“Oh, of course, of course! You’re free to rough me up a bit first. Maybe a little bit of torture? But only a little bit, I’ve got a glass jaw, haha!”

Wriothesley didn’t live so long as an undisputed champion of fight club to not recognize a freak who gets off on pain. He grimaced, walking up to the table where Enjou was already trying to rifle through the papers. He stopped with an apologetic grin and put his hands up. Wriothesley put a glass vial on the table.

“Drink.”

Enjou raised his eyebrows.

“Are we dining and wining first or?...”

“It’s a truth serum,” it was a secret project of the Sumeru Akademiya, before the sages were overthrown. Dendro Archon reportedly could read the thoughts of people, and sages were trying to replicate the effect at least partially. Wriothesley came into possession of it after using his network to get the sages connected to the needed people in Fontaine institute, as Fontaine was at the cutting edge of mech technology and the sages were apparently building an artificial god. Didn’t pan out for them, but the serum worked. Wriothesley was sure of it, because he tried it on himself first.

“Oh! How exciting! How does it work? Will it perhaps burn my insides in agonizing pain if I lie?”

“Drink,” Wriothesley said through gritted teeth.

Enjou smiled and drank the vial in one shot.

“Well, nothing is burning so far, but the evening is young, haha,” he said, smacking his lips.

Wriothesley took a deep breath.

“Why are you here?”

“Huh? What do you mean? To explain the history to you, as I said.”

“Because of the goodness of your heart? What’s your agenda? Your goal?”

Enhou cleared his throat.

“Well, first of all, I do believe in uncovering and spreading so-called “forbidden” knowledge. But with your particular case can you really question my agenda? I didn’t come to you first. You were the one who sought us out. I didn’t even want to be here! I was doing my own thing without knowing about you, to be honest! But, well, I am in an organization with some unfortunate morons who thought that recruiting a convenient idiot and then sending him into underworld prison to make sure he isn’t heard is a great plan. And then when the Warden takes note of the idiot and gets him to blabber, these same morons go, Enjou, you have to get there, because you’re a vishap expert! Ugh.” 

Enjou shook his head in seemingly sincere frustration.

“But um, yeah, I’m not trying to recruit you or anything. We know how you’ve disposed of House of Hearth agents and how you generally obstruct Fatui’s activity, and we just don't want you to do the same to us. Because we’re not your enemy! So I’m here to provide you with the necessary context to see that.”

Wriothesley drummed his fingers on the table.

“Okay. Start talking about Neuvilette and vishaps.”

“Well, Neuvilette is a Hydro Dragon, that should be obvious. To clarify, Hydro Dragon here means Hydro Dragon Sovereign, because technically all hydro vishaps are hydro dragons. If you didn’t know, which is understandable, as you’re more of a fighter type and not a bookworm like myself, haha, vishaps are primordial elemental creatures, original rulers of this land and mortal foes of humanity. Long before Archons, there were Dragon Sovereigns in charge of each element. Then there was a war with Celestia, specifics of which are not widely known, but we do know that Celestia won, dragons were largely eradicated and the huge chunks of powers of Sovereigns were taken from them and given to the Archons. Hydro Sovereign was killed.” 

Enjou made a dramatic pause, before leaning forward with a grin. “But you see, vishaps reincarnate. Neuvillette is a Hydro Sovereign reborn in a human shape. There was actually an Inazuman prophecy about it, recorded in the Byakuyakoku Collection. That Hydro Dragon will descend in a human form, and it specifically mentions a cane. This really baffles me, to be honest. How could they predict the cane? Why does he even need a cane? Surely not because of any weakness, he’s an immortal dragon, 500 years is very young for him. And the records say when Neuvilette took his position as the Iudex some 400 years ago, he already had a cane. Was he born with it? Like, had he sprung fully formed, with a cane? Did he pick it up as, I don't know, honorary agreement with a prophecy? Or were his fashion choices actually predetermined to the degree that the prophecy knew them millenia ago?”

“Get back on track,” Wriothesley growled.

“Oh, sorry. Hmm, this serum works by forcing you to spell your thoughts out loud, yes? Well, then it’s not my fault I’m even more blabbering than usual!”

Wriothesley clasped his hands together and said slowly, carefully watching Inazuman’s reaction. “Even if he is a hydro sovereign dragon, as you say, this alone does not make him evil, as your conspiracy claims.”

Enjou fixed his glasses. He really had the hands of a bookworm, no work calluses or fighting scars. But there were spots of reddened, peeling skin that looked like burns that didn’t get to fully heal before getting burned again.

“Did you miss the “mortal foe of humanity” bit? But okay, sure. This is Fontaine after all, presumption of innocence and all that. I mean, I can’t read his thoughts to tell you under oath that he’s evil, so don’t take me to court, hehe!” Enjou grinned, clearly pleased at his own joke. “But I can tell what I know and ask some questions. My first question is why, after losing a war and presumably being killed by Celestia, would an ancient dragon god want to serve a servant of Celestia? The Archon, who rules with what is actually his own power? Unless he had some sort of agenda, perhaps? And come to think of it, why would Hydro Archon put a mortal foe of humanity into a position of such institutional power?”

“Are you implying Neuvilette forced Furina to give him the position of Iudex?”

“Well, I wasn’t here!” Enjou raised his hands defensively. “But why else would he become the Iudex?”

“There are higher beings and gods serving archons in other nations. Like Liyue adepti serving Rex Lapis.”

“Morax was known as the prime of the adepti. None of them could compare with him at strength. Same with yokai and Baal in Inazuma, she was the strongest by far. It’s natural that they would accept servitude. But here…” Enjou glanced at Wriothesley with a sly smile. “If you had to make a bet on a direct fight between Neuvillette and Furina, who would you bet on? Come on, I know tales that her own court would not listen to her until the Iudex tapped his cane.”

Wriothesley couldn’t really argue with this. When the Primordial Sea started breaking out, he himself sent for Neuvillette and didn’t even think to ask the actual Archon.

“In that case, why didn’t he just kill her immediately? Why would he play the judge?”

“Well, you see, he would not get his power back from just killing her. It would just pass to the next Archon. No, the Hydro Archon had to destroy her own throne. And running out the ruler requires a long game, as you know very well yourself, You Grace.”

Wriothesley kept a calm face, but something must have given him away, as Enjou grinned predatorily.

“Next set of facts and questions. You know of the infamous Archon trial, of course? When it was revealed that fontanian people are actually oceanids, given human shape by the previous hydro archon, Egeria? And the prophecy of the flood works because Primordial Sea waters dissolve fontanians into their oceanid forms. Well, the flood actually came. Why were fontanians not dissolved?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me that.”

“Hehe, yes. It was because Neuvillette turned them into real humans with his powers of Hydro Sovereign. How generous of him, yeah? The question is, why did it take him so long? It’s been 500 years, and yet fontanians were made human only minutes before the flood.”

Despite a feeble bookworm posturing, there was a shadow of unhinged madness in his eyes, dangerous enough that in any other case Wriothesley would cut contact. But the stakes were too high right now. He needed to get all the information he could out of this lunatic.

“You might also remember that on the same trial it was proven that Furina is not a Hydro Archon. And I can tell you that the actual Archon, Focalors, was in the Oracle machine the whole time. Sorry, I’m not even trying to pronounce that full name, haha!”

The urge to punch this bastard was overwhelming, but Wriothesley kept himself in check, mostly because he could tell he was being baited into it and he didn’t want to give the piece of shit the satisfaction.

“Anyway, Neuvilette had an audience with her right after a trial, and as result she killed herself and gave him power back. You see, Hydro Archon doesn’t have the ability to turn oceanids into real humans. All of you were just… things, playing at being humans,” Enjou said with a smirk that looked more fascinated than mocking. “But Hydro Sovereign, the original god of life, does have the power to do so. And he also, conveniently, has control over the Primordial Sea, which you, Your Grace, already know as he stopped the flood in your own Fortress.”

Wriothesley raised an eyebrow and Enjou smiled with a shrug.

“Again, I was not there! But I do know Hydro Sovereign controls the Primordial Sea, and that there is an entrance to the Sea in the Meripode Fortress. I also know that there was some emergency in the Fortress, where inmates were told to run as close to the surface as possible, and then Monsieur Iudex visited and the disaster was somehow avoided.”

Wriothesley frowned. 

“If he was really a mortal enemy of humanity, why wouldn’t he just let the gates of Meripode break and the flood happen right there and then? We would all be gone and he wouldn’t need to lift a finger. Instead he ran to help when I… when the Fortress called.”

“And what would that achieve? He still wouldn’t get his power back,” Enjou shrugged dismissively and then smiled, almost wistfully. 

“No, you know what I would do if *I* was the Hydro Sovereign with an ability to take human form? And if the Archon who held my power hostage was relatively weak AND had the prophecy involving a flood of the Sea I control? Well, I’d infiltrate human society, take a position of high authority and make sure the humans not only see me as the personification of law and justice, but also respect me more than their own Archon. And when the prophecy deadline is coming up, I’d make sure I have people loyal to me in some key positions. Such as Royal Duelist… and the Warden of the Fortress.”

“He didn’t make me the Warden,” Wriothesley gritted out. 

“No, but he did make you the Duke, didn’t he?” Enjou smirked with a wink. “Our sources say the Court was not thrilled to give the highest noble title to you. And if the Iudex did not throw his own weight behind it, it would have never come to pass. How generous of him.”

It was true, Wriothesley’s own informants reported that the Court loathed to give him a title, let alone as high as the Duke. Neuvillette was the only one who fought for him and fought hard, because usually Iudex’s one word was enough to make a decision, but here the stalemate lasted for two months. They wanted to compromise and give him the viscount, but Iudex wouldn’t budge, so in the end, they caved.

Wriothesley never asked Neuvillette for the title. Neuvillette never mentioned what he did for the Warden and never dropped anything even as close as a hint of asking anything in return.

Unless you see it as a part of centuries long game, where mundane favors didn’t matter, but being called first to the access of the Primordial Sea did.

“Ah, you’re starting to get it, don’t you?” Enjou sensed blood in the water, like a proper shark would. “Then I would orchestrate a public court hearing to absolutely discredit the current ruler and corner the actual Archon. And when Focalors is forced to talk to me…. I would make a bargain. Saving the lives of all fontanians in exchange of getting my full power back and Focalors dying. Isn't it ironic that the dragon playing human was the one to turn human-shaped water things into actual humans?"

Enjou leaned back against his chair, grinning with satisfaction.

“And then I’d have an entire country loyal to me as a ruler, which would make a great foothold to use for attacking Celestia.”

Wriothesley took a deep breath.

“You really expect me to take you on your word? You might believe it yourself, which will pass the truth serum, but the word of a lunatic is not evidence.”

“Oh, of course not! I would never expect you to take my lowly word for it. Instead, why don’t you take Monsieur Iudex’s word?”

Enjou made a dramatic gesture of spilling a heap of conches onto the table. Wriothesley raised his eyebrows, when the other man poked one of them awkwardly.

“Now that I have reclaimed one of the Seven Authorities from the hands of the usurpers, I have regained my true form,” a calm voice that was undoubtedly Neuvillette, said out of nowhere. “I am now a fully fledged dragon, powerful enough to judge the rest of the gods. My final destiny is to judge the Usurper-King in the heavens above.”

“This could be faked,” Wriothesley said automatically, just to argue, but his heart already fell.

“You wound me! These are his words, and I spent an entire night fishing them out for you, I’ll have you know. It’s quite hard to capture this. You’re welcome to listen to all of them and see for yourself.”

Almost against his will, Wriothesley reached out and touched one of the conches.

“…I shall fulfill my vow to judge all of The Seven in turn, even if the sky should fall and the ground give way.”

Wriothesley took an abrupt breath through his teeth. Enjou sighed and stood up.

“I think it’s better for you to listen to this alone. After, you’re welcome to reach out to us, but please don’t make any hasty decisions. I’ll see you soon, Your Grace!”

Enjou walked down the stairs, and by the time Wriothesley got to them, there was no one there. The Duke couldn’t bring himself to focus on that though. Instead, he walked up to one of the wall cabinets and took out a bottle of whiskey he was saving up as a possible gift.

He didn’t bother with the glass. He fell down into the chair in front of the conches and clenched his fingers on the bottle, icy veins springing up from under them. He took a sip and touched another conch.

“…my grievances with the usurpers have yet to be settled... They owe a debt of blood that shall not be forgotten.”

He drank, staring blindly into the distance, and listened, and the quiet words burned worse than whiskey sliding down his throat. He caught himself on a familiar thought. “This can’t be happening. This is too monstrous.” The same feverish thoughts he had when he discovered the truth about his foster parents.

As if by now he shouldn’t have learned that nothing is too monstrous in this world.

“As a survivor of the dragon race who has regained my full dragonhood, I must fulfill my oath and obligations even if it means returning all the water in the oceans back to the heavens.”

It really did sound exactly like Neuvillette. Wriothesley tried to find the lie, something that sounded fake, but not only the voice, but the cadence and word choice fit. And it sounded calm, impartial as usual too. And then there were hydro vishaps appearing in Erinnyes…

Fuck, was it really that easy to fool him? Was he really this big of a fool? He learned to distrust sweet words and warm smiles, and he was so sure that he wouldn’t get caught in the same lies ever again, even if he sacrificed his ability to love for this. But all it took was a seeming opposite, direct and harsh, too cold and intimidating to appear manipulative, but endearingly awkward just sometimes, just enough to make him believe that… That there was something true and clear in this rotten world. That he could trust in *someone*.

“Nothing will stop me from rendering judgment on each of The Seven.” 

He went through all of the recordings, frantically at first, wanting to find contradictions, then, when none were found, numbly re-listening to the few that hit the worst.

“…also the destroyer of the present order, the one who shall judge all gods, and the foe of humanity. “

Wasn’t it too obvious in hindsight? Why would the Iudex stake his own reputation on Wriothesley’s title? How could you not see it coming? Oh, because you thought you “deserve” it for turning this dog-fighting pit of a prison into something with a modicum of fairness? Because you thought he recognized your redemption? Gods, what are you, fucking fourteen again, did you learn nothing, why would anyone ever care about you, you naive goddamn idiot?

Soon, the bottle was somehow almost done. At this point he was running one recording on repeat, mindless and purposeless except for repeating slashes of pain, familiar rhythm like the knife on his wrists years ago.

"Hydro Dragon, Hydro Dragon, don't cry." Whoever had penned that rhyme, as well as the Fontainians who came to believe in it, must not have known the Hydro Dragon all that well, considering that they thought the Hydro Dragon could cry. What did they take said Dragon for, some sort of bleeding heart who grieved for humans and the heavens alike?”

If this was true… If this was true, then Wriothesley didn’t just get fooled himself. Then he helped a monster take control of the country and potentially use it in war against heavens. 

He clenched his hand and it took him a moment to realize he broke the bottle he was holding in it. That pain from glass pieces in his palm felt small and distant now. But at last, it spurned him into action.

If this was true, he only had one shot. He’d already told Neuvillette of the dragon conspiracy, like a good little idiot eager to please. And any tyrant worth his salt would make sure to take him out after his, especially now that he outlived his purpose in giving access to Meripode vaults. He might have some time because of how oblivious he was, dismissing the conspiracy openly, but it couldn’t be long. 

He couldn’t take his time. He couldn’t hope for the better. He had to act like it’s the worst option possible. More than anything, he needed to confront Neuvillette, dragon Sovereign or not. He had to fix this, no matter the cost.

He realized he needed leverage. Brute strength was out of the question. Even before the flood, Neuvillette absolutely destroyed Fatui Harbinger in one flash, quicker than anyone in the audience could see what happened. Wriothesley would put himself against Harbringer with no hesitation, but he wasn’t an idiot. If this was how powerful Iudex was before, then after allegedly gaining his full power, there was no way Wriothesley could threaten him. No, he needed something else.

He took out the paper and wrote a note, taking care to not stain it with blood. Fortunately, he held the bottle in his left hand, so he could keep it out of the way.

“....and so confess that I, Wriothesley, Warden of the Fortress of Meripode, killed Chief Justice, Iudex Neuvillette.”

He finished the note and carefully put in his signature, then folded the paper into an envelope and closed it with his personal seal. Then he walked up to a safe, one of the hidden ones, and punched in a code. When the safe opened, he rummaged in it for a moment, until finally taking out two vials.

This was sold to him as the poison that could kill a god.

[hiemaldesirae]

thinking of a witch/fae radiostatic au after rereading some of my guilty pleasure fandom fics hhhhhnneuhg

basically the gist of it is, unseelie king alastor gets kidnapped by witch vox's village and now vox needs to figure out how to keep alastor from dying because his death means the rest of the court coming for blood while also trying to make sure the fae king doesnt try and fucking eat him or something. oh also they knew each other before.

Vox's mother always used to say, there's comfort in routine.

Perhaps that's why Vox finds himself redoing the same three-card spread over and over, despite always managing to get the same results. He chews on his fingernails as he frowns harder, reshuffling once more.

"Whatcha doing?" Angel Dust, the only other witch in the village, pops up behind him, startling Vox, who sighs and relaxes once he realizes who's behind him. "I thought you were busy helping the healers, man. Are you just doing tarot readings while we're working ourselves ta' the bone?"

Vox frowns, pressing his lips together.

He doesn't have anything against Angel, really, it's just difficult talking to people who aren't Vel or Val. And maybe it's more difficult talking to Angel because of his relationship with Val, but that isn't something he's willing to admit in front of his best friend's boyfriend. "Well, I got basically put on house arrest today because apparently, the fae they brought back was so strong they didn't trust me not to get too interested in them and throw the whole plan off."

"Couldn't they've least stationed ya with the healers? You can serve that house arrest after we make sure no one's dead," Angel groans. "I mean, didya see the state everyone came back in?"

He had. Vox had watched with white knuckles as they'd brought Velvette and Valentino's unconscious forms across to the healers lodge and tents, doing and redoing protection spells around their home and the village wards. He had wanted to help as soon as he'd seen them, but the village chief had ordered for him specifically to stay home.

So he'd busied himself with tarot cards. But it seemed even that wasn't working out for him, because...

"Oh, shit. This is... a pretty fuckin' bad spread, ain't it?"

"You tell me," Vox grouses. He shuffles the cards again and tries another time, only for those same three cards to appear again as if mocking him. Three of Swords. The Tower. And of course, Death.

Now, of the three, death was probably the most positive card of the spread. All it meant was change- not necessarily as dark as its name. But the tower and three of swords... well. Those only spelt out foreboding fates.

"What didya even ask?"

"It's about the fae they brought in." Vox taps his hand against the counter before starting to reorganize his cards. No sense in leaving them out now, after all: their message had been clear and simple. This was a mistake. You're all fucked. "Apparently, they're on par with royalty. Which as you can probably guess, isn't very well known for their kind tempers. So I was doing readings to try and see what might happen from keeping them here, and..."

Angel grimaces. "So... you're saying that we're fucked, basically?"

"You can do your own reading if you want," Vox says cryptically as he stands up, stretching his limbs. "Anyway, I'm going to go and strengthen the protection shield on the village wards. Not much else to do while I'm stuck here, anyway."

"Right... well, guess I'll see ya round then."

"Mm, see you."

When Angel leaves, Vox breathes a sigh of relief. He unclenches his hand to regard the skeleton key he'd stolen from the chief hours earlier on complete autopilot, hardly even realizing he'd taken the damn thing til he'd gotten back home and started performing frantic readings.

It was the key to the village cellar, a place located on the edge of town. Vox, Val and Vel lived closest to it- which worked out well, considering of the three of them, two were part of the village's elite fae hunting brigade and the last was one of the villages only two witches, and the more experienced one at that. He supposed, given the circumstances, that the fae who'd beaten his friends to a pulp was probably down there. And, well... Vox was nothing if deathly curious.

So that night, on a half moon, Vox quietly exits the house, being sure not to accidentally trip an alarm on the way. He makes his way to the outdoors cellar and unlocks the door, making his way downstairs into a damp and cramped room. His eyes are immediately drawn to the large iron cage hanging in the dead centre of the room, sucking in a breath as he takes a small step back. The cage is impressive, but what's inside of it...

A mass of shadows writhe and twist around a restrained figure, dispersing slightly around where the fae's eyes must be. Vox flinches back when a ghostly grey-black hand reaches out for him, its dark tipped claws so sharp he's sure the fae could have sliced him to ribbons had they not been restrained by their shackles and prison.

It serves its purpose: Vox is immediately and incredibly intimidated. Having said that, he came here for a reason, and he's not so much of a fucking coward that he'd simply flee with his tail between his legs at the first sight of an adverse reaction from the captured faerie.

"Hey, uh... I know you probably don't believe me- and you probably shouldn't, honestly, but- er, I'm here to help you. As much as I can, anyway." Vox raises his hands up in the air as he moves slowly toward the cage, keenly aware of the fae's fixed gaze on him all the while.

He reaches out and slowly, cautiously, places a small, dead rabbit on the precipice of the cage's platform. It was one he'd caught with a trap that afternoon, under the excuse of storing away fresh meat for Velvette and Valentino when they returned- but, well, there were other animals he'd caught, too. They wouldn't miss one tiny rabbit.

The shadow cloaked faerie regards the mound of fresh meat for only a second before jerking forwards and swallowing it whole.

Vox watches with rapt attention, mesmerized by the faeries brutality. He almost doesn't notice when the fae turns to address him, voice raw and scratchy and deeper than the ocean. "What did you do that for?"

"Cause..." Vox worries at his lip.

He doesn't really want to lie to the fae- he's not dumb, alright, that'd be a practical death wish, even if he was lying with good intent- but he's also not so sure how it will react to being told he only did it out of curiosity. Because he wanted to see just what it was that his reading deemed so dangerous to their little town. "I guess... I wanted to see what was so strong that they took down half the village guard."

The fae startles at this. The shadows surrounding their cage shrinks back a little, finally unveiling enough of their appearance for Vox to put a face to a... well, for Vox to get a good look at them.

Dark reddish brown hair with black streaks at the edges sharpen into pointed deer ears, with two short buck antlers growing from the fae's head. They have deep crimson eyes, tinged with flecks of bright green- it pairs well with their skin, a deep, rich brown that reminds Vox of rich autumn soil at the harvest. He's... pretty sure this fae is a man, but appearances can be deceiving, and he's not quite keen on being cursed for assuming blindly.

"Hm. Well, you weren't among the host that came to attack me, were you now?" The faerie's eyes narrow as Vox stutters out a faint no, babbling out excuses to lead them away from the conclusion of him being a witch (and thus always placed under pseudo-house arrest when time comes for a fae hunt). "Then, you don't realize what a mistake your village has made, do you, dear?"

Vox pauses. "What do you mean, mistake?"

The room's temperature drops almost the moment the question falls from his lips, and Vox pulls his cloak closer to himself as he distances himself from the cage, willing his arms to stop trembling as he watches. The shadows around the fae pull close again and coalesce into a cape of sorts, rising above the faerie as they entwine themselves around the fae's head, almost like- almost like-

A crown.

"Oh, shit."

The Unseelie Fae King gives Vox a tight lipped smile. "So, do you see now?"

Well. At least that answered what the tarot cards were trying to tell him.

[nicofan57]

hi i havewords to share. the seitei war info from this chapter is propaganda (kagurabachi 66 spoilers kinda)

okay i dont really post much analysis or long textposts on here (i usually share my bachi thoughts on reddit) so um. bear with me. also if anyone wants to add or refute a point i make idm! im not the Most knowledgeable on these things so

^the pages i am talking about, for reference

first i wanna start by talking about real life. for anyone reading this that doesnt know yet, kagurabachi’s story is about japan’s atrocities in ww2, it is anti-imperialist. history textbooks glorify the military especially, and schools just dont explain the war in depth and for the most part this contributes to making japan look better. there is a lot of glorification of japan as a completely “perfect” country, even from the citizens themselves, because they dont have anything deeper than a basic understanding of what happened during ww2. i read something on this for an ap lang paper, so i’ll link it if anyone’s curious (idk how to access this without jstor, sorry!): The Glorification of War in Japanese Education by Saburo Ienaga.

now how does this relate back to kagurabachi ? at first glance, the info about the seitei war doesnt really seem like its propaganda, and its easy to fall for what these pages are trying to make you believe— that the people on the shokoku are the enemies (ive seen it happen on twitter). but actually examining the pages, its very vague. like it just talks about “the invasion” it doesnt say like Who invaded What if you get what i mean. the vagueness is intentional, it shows there is something about the war we dont know. chihiro is only just regurgitating the surface level information he knows about the war to iori, who only also has that surface level knowledge (since her memories got wiped). both are victims of this censorship i mentioned before, it’s supposed to reflect the basic education japanese people get about ww2. it says the blades and the master swordsmen “wiped out the enemy” but who really Is the enemy? if the people of the shokoku really were the enemies, why was there graffiti on samura’s walls saying he’s a murderer, despite being regarded as a hero in school? why was kunishige so reluctant to tell chihiro about the war?

so honestly i think that it wasn’t really a war it looks like it was kind of more like. a genocide. it makes sense, theres a lot of recurring events in history where the gist is “strong country invades other country and destroys the natives of other country in order to exploit/take something”. land, materials, etc (in this case it would be the datenseki). it lines up with samuras betrayal and his goal to kill all the swordbearers, it lines up with kunishige frowning whenever shiba told chihiro stories from the war, it lines up with even shiba being hesitant to reveal what really happened in the war to chihiro and shatter what hes known for his entire life to keep him safe, and probably many other instances i cant think of rn

as a closing thought: based off the information we have now, the closest thing i think parallels the seitei “war” from actual history is the pacific war during ww2