#I love you more than I hate the thought of you being privy to my personal blog

[blujayonthewing]

it's a testament to how much I love my friend and how strongly I feel about tumblr as an art-sharing platform that I recommended she come to tumblr to share her art even though her doing so would inevitably lead to her following me on main

[tsukiida]

i just scrolled through my blog and i realised i have only two modes: weird pseudo-philosophical rambling. and absolutely unhinged yelling. AND I TELL YOUUUU IT'S SO FUNNYYYYYYY because i spent so long trying to curate my voice and sound like a normal, fun, easy to approach person back when i first made this blog!

then again it's been 3.5 years so i guess my voice changed naturally 🤨 i'm not smart enough for this 😮‍💨

[sincerelyyycece]

you frustrate me incredibly, sweetheart.

Who knew that having Remus Lupin as your academic rival could be so enjoyable?

note: classic academic rivals to lovers trope, remus lupin calling you sweetheart ACK

tags: @burningwitchprincess

sincerelyyycece © ─ all rights reserved. please do not repost/translate/copy any of my work.

Y/N Y/L/N stood out as an exceptional individual, effortlessly excelling in all endeavours. Her professors held her in high regard, and her peers looked up to her with a mix of admiration and envy, yearning to emulate her brilliance or bask in her presence. Within her academic department, she held a prominent position, often the subject of conversation and admiration, embodying the epitome of "brains and beauty."

Confident in her abilities, Y/N never fretted about being outshone academically, firmly believing in her own supremacy. While she garnered some rivals, she dismissed them as unworthy of her attention, except for one: Remus Lupin. Despite her initial disbelief, Remus once surpassed her in one of her favoured subjects, leaving Y/N both bewildered and intrigued. From that moment on, Remus became her foremost academic rival.

Y/N found amusement in besting Remus at class activities, relishing in her victories, yet seething with jealousy whenever Remus claimed an award she coveted. Their rivalry provided a captivating spectacle and a source of entertainment that heightened the stakes of academic achievement.

Their ongoing rivalry stretched across countless months, captivating everyone as they eagerly watched the intense competition between them. She harboured a strong disdain for him, and she suspected Remus felt similarly. Yet, as the saying goes, the boundary between love and hate can be remarkably thin.

It all began in the Care of Magical Creature class. She couldn't pinpoint the exact moment or reason, but whenever she laid eyes on Remus, a strange sensation gripped her.

As he presented his project to the audience, something about his demeanour made him unexpectedly appealing. When did he become so captivating? She hadn't even realized she was admiring him until their eyes met. Caught off guard, she quickly averted her gaze, trying to regain her composure. What just happened? She sighed in frustration, closing her eyes momentarily.

From then on, conflicting emotions about him plagued her thoughts incessantly. He occupied her mind entirely, and she yearned to free herself from his influence. The situation grew increasingly perplexing for her. She went to great lengths to avoid him, strategically ensuring they never crossed paths in class. Despite this, she remained actively engaged in her studies, except when Remus was involved.

She believed she'd successfully dodged him. Keyword: almost. En route to her next class, she found herself abruptly pulled into an empty classroom. Just as she was gearing up to give the stranger a piece of her mind, he beat her to it. "Why are you avoiding me?" came an all-too-familiar voice, causing her to tense. "Well?" he prodded.

"I'm not avoiding you, Lupin," she replied, turning to confront him. "I'm simply preoccupied with my studies," she shrugged. Remus emitted a small snort and remarked, "Please. You can come up with a better excuse than that, sweetheart." The endearment melted her, but she pretended to grimace at it, retorting, "I've asked you not to call me that."

"Not until you enlighten me on the genuine cause of your avoidance," he interjected, clearly teasing. "I've told you, I'm swamped with my academics!" she protested. He responded with a buzzer-like noise akin to those in TV game shows. "Incorrect. Try again," he prompted. "This is so ridiculous," she groaned. Once more, he replicated the sound, drawing out the exchange. "Ugh, I can't stand you!" she finally exploded. That's not true.

"That's not true," Remus interjected, almost as if he were privy to her thoughts. "What?" she murmured softly. "You don't hate me," he remarked with such ease, as though it were a commonplace observation. Her eyebrows furrowed. "What leads you to believe that?" she inquired, hoping to conceal her nerves. "I just have a feeling," he replied nonchalantly, shrugging.

"And what basis does this feeling have?" she pressed, her patience waning as his responses remained terse. "Just a hunch," he reiterated. "You're not making any sense," she protested. "If we're finished with this conversation, I need to head to class. I'm already running late."

As she moved toward the door, he halted her with a sudden confession, addressing her by her first name, a departure from his usual address. She turned back, silently urging him to continue. "I don't hate you," he admitted. Her expression twisted in confusion. "But you do," she retorted.

Remus shook his head, his smile unwavering. "No, really," she persisted. "You hate me!" Once again, Remus refuted her claim. She sighed inwardly in frustration. "Then why have you been competing with me relentlessly? Why strive so hard for the top spot if you don't harbour any animosity towards me?" she demanded.

"I confess," Remus began, "the only reason I've been your constant rival is because it was the only way to capture your attention." He paused as he noticed her silence, then added, "Your intellect has always fascinated me. I've admired you from afar, too intimidated to approach you directly. So, I engaged in every debate, competition, and challenge to ensure your focus was on me, if only for those moments when our minds clashed."

With a deep breath, he continued, "But now, I want more than just rivalry. I want to be the one you choose, the one you love."

My demeanour softened at his confession. I had mistaken his competitiveness for mutual hatred, yet he had been tirelessly vying for my attention all along. His confession made me realize his feelings for me. As Remus anxiously waited for my response, I finally spoke up, saying, "I've spent countless hours competing against you, but I've come to a realization." Remus visibly relaxed upon hearing my voice. "I no longer desire competition. Instead, I want to work with you, beside you, because... because I've fallen in love with you too."

He flashed a grin and remarked, "You frustrate me incredibly, sweetheart." I responded with a smile, quipping, "It's my forte."

With that, he tenderly encircled his arms around my waist, murmuring, "Can I kiss you?" I couldn't help but chuckle as I noticed the hint of a pout on his lips. He pleaded, "Pretty please?" I closed my eyes, leaning in to meet his lips. The kiss unfolded languidly as if we were relishing each other's presence. As he eventually drew back, he sported a foolish grin. He jestingly remarked, "Perhaps this is my finest reward yet." I couldn't help but snort at his cheesy humour.

Their lips met again in a moment that seemed to suspend time, sealing their newfound affection with a tender promise. With the weight of competition lifted, they embarked on a journey together, intertwining their paths in both love and academia. As they walked out of the empty classroom hand in hand, Y/N knew that their story was just beginning, brimming with possibilities and shared dreams. And in that moment, surrounded by the quiet hum of their shared laughter, she realized that sometimes rivalry could blossom into the most unexpected love story of all.

[cavegirlpoems]

So we all hate DnD, but I am kinda curious what are the actually bad ttrpgs?

I know that 3,5e and pf got bloated even more than 5e did, FATAL is a meme, but what else?

I think Chronicles of Darkness tell you the system's gonna be a sleek, streamlined narrative system and then immediately bukakke's pointless fiddly complexity all over everything, to an extent that I never see most STs actually use half the subsystems (does anybody actually like the Doors mechanic?) but also you can utterly break the game if you combine the right merits and powers in a way that I really hope isn't intentional. WoD games all have slightly clunky, lame mechanics but at least in OWoD the mechanics take an extremely simulationist approach of simply modeling the fiction, balance be damned; CoD throws out the simulationism in favour of abstraction and narrativism, but perversely only makes the mechanics more complex, and deploys more weird dice tricks so eyeballing probabilities gets much harder. Everything is fiddly, everything has specific exceptions, and everything good is gated behind weird prerequisites and builds as if the devs thought they were making pathfinder. If you're some sort of weirdo who actually prefers the CoD settings, run them using OWoD mechanics for the love of god.

Shadowrun 6e's character generation is so complex that people have created third party apps that are basically mandatory in order to wrangle it into shape. It's notoriously complex in play with basically every action requiring multiple steps of calculation, to the extent that 'you need to do calculus if you set off a grenade next to a wall' is a meme; when I played we simply never used grenades because we were all to scared of trying to make sense of the mechanics. However, in play a slightly minmaxed mage can make every other party member obsolete by simply summoning an extremely powerful spirit to solve every task. I hated every minute of it.

Pokemon Tabletop Adventures uses d20-based mechanics for trainers, where you roll a d20 vs armour class to hit, and then roll some damage. It also recreates the mechanics of the pokemon video games largely verbatim. Its expected that trainers and pokemon can and will interact despite using totally different systems, and trainers can even learn pokemon moves. Some classes are good at things like 'capturing and training pokemons' while others are good at 'fighting pokemons themselves with martial arts' or 'winning contests' or 'being a film noir detective', but you only get XP or mechanical support for the first ones. Some classes get abilities like 'perfect mind-control, no save' while others get abilities like 'you're better at growing berries'. You are expected to calculate the stats of every pokemon individually, from scratch, for every encounter. Encounters typically feature 5-10 wild pokemons often of multiple species and levels, alongside 3-5 player characters and up to six pokemons per PC. Its a fractal spreadsheet nightmare. Unlike shadowrun, the app to make this insanity playable doesn't exist. Good god. Send help.

On the other end of the spectrum from stupid fiddly crunch, Ten Candles is responsible for the single most miserable ttrpg experience of my life. It claims to be a narrative game which gives players the ability to define the fiction as they go, but fails at this because the GM has secret knowledge that other players aren't privy to, meaning that it invites players to be creatively vulnerable when they have narrative authority, with a chance that they might get their contributions unilaterally overruled due to information they had no way of knowing. Since the game ends with everybody dying automatically, the game inherently leans on the GM to railroad in what's meant to be a colaberative narrative experience. And finally, on a purely practical level, the clever conciet of playing by candlelight and extinguishing candles as the game progresses means that by half-way in you can't read your fucking character sheets or dice, which is less spooky and more irritating. God I hate ten candles.

[avnkin]

burn for you.

aemond targaryen x fem!reader

when your family is summoned to court you find yourself caught in the middle of your brother's and uncles conflicts

note: didn't think I'd ever be writing on here again then I discovered aemond and here we are lmao, also I just noticed that I reached 4k followers I don't deserve y'all tysm <;3 this fic has enemies to lovers type beat cuz I can't help myself. Also, I'm a sucker for Daemon speaking valyrian to Rhaenyra so there's plenty of that type of dialogue between the reader and Aemond not to worry though the translations are all written behind the text, enjoy

wc: 3.8k

warnings: foul language, asshole!aemond, incest, family drama, Aegon being a creep y'know the usual

You fiddled with the hems of your sleeves, the inky fabric wrapping itself firmly around your arms, the dress you wore cascading down your figure all the way down to your boots, the ridiculously tight corset beneath causing you to exhale a much-needed breath, you were nervous, that much was apparent.

You just moments earlier, along with everyone else in the throne room had been left permanently scarred after having witnessed Daemon cut your great uncle's head clean in half. You didn’t disagree with Daemon’s actions quite on the contrary you just weren’t privy to witnessing such violence firsthand, it was something you hated about attending court, everyone here seemed to be in a dick-measuring competition.

You let out a huff, you had no interest whatsoever in attending the family dinner Viserys had planned for tonight, you wanted nothing more than to mount your dragon and fly back to Dragonstone this instant. Your thoughts of escape were interrupted by a light knock on your door, you glanced over your shoulder immediately feeling your shoulders tense because you knew it was time to go.

"Are you ready my love?" your mother's voice could be heard from behind you as she peered her head into your room, pushing the door fully open once she saw you were decent. "Ready as can be, mother" you turned towards her walking into her outstretched arms as she engulfed you in her embrace. “You look wonderful” her soft fingers ran down your arms straightening the fabric as she fussed over you for a bit only stopping when you swatted her hands away, sighing she stepped aside allowing you to exit your chambers.

You’d only been walking for a short moment when you felt the need to ask, “when do we return home?” her eyes met yours as she raised an eyebrow at you “we’ve only just arrived” you rolled your eyes at her reply, she knew you hated it here.

You’d never been particularly close to the other side of your family, mostly because of the treatment your mother had to endure from them specially the queen herself.

You knew of their friendship in the past and had even suspected it might have been more than that though never daring to bring it up to your mother since the mere mention of her name seemed to put her on edge. You'd been privy to the many times Alicent had unfairly treated your mother and you cared not to pretend her cruelness was justified, never mind what had happened in the past.

"I know, I know just… play nice, okay? I don't want any trouble tonight, not in the state your grandsire is in" you looked down at your feet, frowning as you pondered the stress this might all be causing him, he was barely hanging on by a thread surely all this drama wasn’t helping.

"I'll play nice if they do" you muttered, glancing up at your mother who gave you a stern look "I jest" you finally caved coming to a halt before the large double doors that led into the dining hall. "It'll be fine" you heard your mother mutter, more to herself rather than to you. You smiled at the two guards posted outside the doors as they each grabbed a handle and pulled them open allowing you to enter.

The greens were already there, sitting patiently awaiting your arrival. You immediately felt yourself shrinking underneath their harsh glances, having to remind yourself you were no longer a mere girl of six like the last time you’d dined with them. You raised your chin as your mother reluctantly let her hand fall from yours taking her usual seat next to Daemon at the dinner table.

You looked around the room frowning once you made eye contact with Aegon, he was leering at you the same way he had been ever since you’d arrived at court, his eyes roamed your figure from top to bottom coming to a dead stop at your bust. You felt sick under his gaze, he had no shame whatsoever in looking at you however he pleased, eyes following you the entire way to your seat which much to your dismay and discomfort, was the one opposite his.

"Ah my dear niece" he slurred slamming his golden wine goblet onto the table, the liquid sloshing around the rims of it, he'd clearly not been shy on the alcohol. "You look absolutely ravishing" the compliment made you squirm in your seat your eyes darting around the room before landing on Daemon who was glaring daggers at the boy in front of you.

"Thank you, uncle" you forced out through gritted teeth trying your hardest to maintain a smile on your face, your mother’s words from earlier refraining you from calling him a creep and splashing that wine in his face.

You looked around the table then for the first time properly since you sat down, smiling at Helaena as she offered an apologetic look clearly ashamed of the man she had been forced to marry. You felt for the girl she didn't deserve someone like Aegon, although it could easily be argued that no one deserved someone like him.

It was Aemond who captured your attention next, he had certainly changed since the last time you’d met him, grown. You made eye contact with him for the first time since you’d arrived stopping yourself from cringing at the eyepatch he wore, the foul memory of the event now in the forefront of your mind and you immediately looked away feeling ashamed as soon as you did, it was him who had to suffer the horrendous aftermath of that night, not you.

You were snapped out of your thoughts when the doors opened revealing the king in his dire state. He was being carried by four guards, barely being able to keep his own head up let alone walk.

Everyone round the table stood including you, brushing down the skirts of your dress finding something to distract yourself with as you could barely bare to look at him in this state. Once the king had been placed at the center of the table all of you finally sat.

“How good it is, to see you all tonight, together” he was breathing heavily already out of breath from the few words he uttered.

“Prayer before we begin” you heard Alicent declare, your brows furrowing as your eyes met your mothers who seemed to be just as bewildered at these new customs as you. You couldn’t help the smile creeping onto your face it was almost comedic the flummoxed expressions on both Daemon’s and Rhaenyra’s faces

“May the mother smile down on this gathering of love…” you drowned out her words as you snuck a glance over at Aemond who had his eye closed and hands pressed together diligently listening to his mother’s prayer. He'd grown quite handsome over the years that had passed, you shook your head pushing those thoughts into the back of your mind as you looked back down at your hands, before closing your eyes once more.

“And to Vaemond Velaryon may the Gods give him rest”

Your eyes shot open at that, immediately darting over towards Daemon who couldn’t seem to help his amused expression, he looked over at you and you both gave each other sly smiles before you closed your eyes again resuming your praying stance.

Once Alicent had finally finished Viserys peeped up from next to her “this is certainly an occasion of celebration. My grandsons Jace and Luke are to marry their cousins Baela and Rhaena, further strengthening the bond between our houses. A toast to the young princes and their betrothed's” you grinned at Jace as you raised your own goblet, Daemons ‘hear, hear’ causing both your brothers to smile at their future wives proudly.

The moment didn’t last for long with Aegon feeling the need to lean over towards your brother muttering “well done Jace you’ll finally get to lie with a woman” you rolled your eyes, your uncle’s horrid personality never ceasing to amaze you. “You do know how the act is done, I presume” he continued “at least in principle, where to put your cock and all that”.

“Let it be cousin” Baela warned shooting Aegon a menacing glance as she placed her hand over Jace’s in an attempt to quell his rising anger.

“You can play the jester if you wish but hold your tongue before my betrothed” Jace cautioned seeming satisfied as Aegon backed down leaning back into his seat, raising his hands up in mock surrender.

You painfully sat through the remainder of the dinner having completely lost your appetite when Viserys had removed his golden mask revealing the decay hidden underneath. You listened to your family make their toasts, smiling at your mother in support when she tried to make common ground with Alicent who in turn surprisingly seemed to appreciate Rhaenyra’s declarations.

You were toying with the vegetables on your plate bored out of your mind when you noticed trouble seeming to brew on Aegons face as he downed the remainder of his cup in a split second, pushing his chair back and making his way towards the wine jug that sat between Baela and Jace.

You looked over at Aemond who was already starring at Aegon knowing his brother well enough to predict the upcoming wrangle.

“I…” Aegon started as he poured a decent amount of wine into his goblet. “I regret the disappointment you are soon to suffer. But if you ever wish to know what it is to be well satisfied, all you have to do is ask” your eyes widened at your uncle's audacity, but before you could say anything Jace had slammed his hands down onto the table his chair almost falling back at the speed in which he got up.

You shook your head at Jace and he seemed to bite his tongue his knuckles turning white as he forcibly held his hands at his sides. Your head turned at the sound of another chair being pushed back, Aemond had now also stood more than ready to come to his brother's defense if need be. His violet eye held a warning as if daring Jace to try something.

The aroma in the room felt suffocating the only person who seemed to be oblivious to the boys’ conflict was the king himself.

Goosebumps crawled up your skin as you felt Aemond’s eye on you. You squeezed your eyes shut taking in a breath before returning his gaze. He seemed to be intrigued by you, you figured it was because you didn’t look like your brothers, instead bearing the Targaryen features, silky white hair to match his own, violet eyes mirroring his as they bore into yours.

You raised your eyebrow in question wondering what he could possibly be thinking about, his lip upturned slightly at your expression, eye scanning you as he took in your new form, he seemed impressed and you didn’t know how to feel about it.

“To prince Aegon and Prince Aemond” Jace’s words snapped you out of your trance as you turned back towards your brother, his goblet raised in his hand as he continued. “We have not seen each other in years, but I have fond memories of our shared youth. And as men, I hope we may yet be friends and allies. To you and your family’s good health dear uncles”

You smiled proudly at your brother who gave you a knowing wink before taking a sip out of his goblet, giving Aegon a ‘friendly’ punch on the shoulder as he did. Aegon put on a tight-lipped smile at your brothers’ words not even looking at him as he muttered “to you as well”.

Aemond reluctantly sat back down as the building tension finally seemed to dissipate until Helaena stood a slight wobble in her step as she steadied herself against the table clearly feeling the effects of the wine she had drunk, placing one hand atop the wooden structure she raised the other squeezing the cup she held tightly between her fingers.

“I would like to toast to Baela and Rhaena. They’ll be married soon. It isn’t so bad, mostly he just ignores you… except sometimes when he’s drunk”.

Your eyes widened at her words and you couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped your lips, quickly covering it up with a cough when you made eye contact with your mother who held a warning look.

“Good” you heard Otto tell her and for the first time in your life, you agreed with him.

You looked over at Jace and you could immediately tell that he was considering something, silent debate written all over his face until he eventually seemed to come to a conclusion standing up and excusing himself to Baela before he made his way around the table over to Helaena who seemed genuinely shocked as Jace reached out it his hand for her to take, an offer to dance.

You smiled lovingly at the scene before you, your niece who seemed for the first time since you got here to be enjoying herself. Jace had always had a talent for making people smile, it was truly a gift it was like he radiated happiness and it infected everyone around him.

Servants soon began to fill the room, each carrying silver platters of delicious cuisines as they made room on the already stuffed table for the added refreshments.

You heard your younger brother giggle from across the table and as you followed his gaze you soon realized why. A pig had just been placed in front of Aemond and you immediately recalled the time your brothers and Aegon had gifted him a pig claiming they had finally found him a dragon. 'The pink dread' they had called it, a cruel childish prank, you shook your head at Luke and it seemed to quell his giggles, you hoped that would have been the end of it.

You jumped when Aemond was suddenly slamming his fist into the table causing the entire thing to shake at his sheer strength. “Final tribute” he declared a mischievous glint in his eye as he smirked at his uncles gods you thought, here we go.

Aemond raised his goblet into the air his eye meeting yours as he spoke “to the health of my niece” he gave you a smile before turning to your brother “and to my nephews... Jace, Luke, and Joffrey” he trailed off “each of them handsome, wise…” there was a long pause as he turned to face Luke seemingly taking in his appearance his head vaguely tilting to one side as he smirked he wouldn’t you thought “Strong” he did.

Your eyes immediately widened in alarm as did your mother's. Alicent's warning tone as she muttered Aemond's name didn't seem to face him in the slightest.

“Let us drain our cups to these three, Strong boys” he continued clearly trying to get a rise out of your brothers. He succeeded but before Jace could say anything Alicent had called for the guards to remove the king clearly not wanting him to bear witness to the upcoming conflict.

“I dare you to say that again” Jace warned as soon as the doors had closed signaling Viserys’ exit from the room, Aemond feigned surprise at his words. “Why? ‘Twas only a compliment” Aemond put his cup down as he made his way over to Jace and you immediately stood up, coming to your brother’s defense.

“Do you not think yourself Strong?” Aemond kept pushing and before you could reach them Jace had punched Aemond square in the face earning a gasp from you as you stopped dead in your tracks.

Aemond let out a low laugh not having been affected in the least by your brother's assault and in retaliation easily pushed him to the ground. You finally unfroze at the thud that echoed around the room as Jace landed on the floor and hurried to stand between them stopping Aemond's stride as he attempted to get at your brother again.

“Dīnagon” move he warned, a glint of challenge in his eye.

“Kesan daor rual ao naejot ilagon iā ondos va ñuha lēkia” I will not allow you to lay a hand on my brother.

A low laugh rumbled in his throat, and though he seemed to be impressed as you stood your ground he easily pushed you aside but before you could come to your own defense Jace had sprung up from the floor immediately stepping in front of you and pushing you behind him.

“Don’t you dare touch my sister” he was seething you could feel the way his chest was heaving as you stood behind him.

“Mm… I don’t know, I think she wants me to touch her, don’t you gevie” beautiful your brother lunged at him, but Aemond easily moved out of the way shaking his head in amusement as he did.

“Jace!” your mother yelped as both she and Alicent finally intervened.

“That is enough!” Alicent could be heard from the other side of the room as she made her way around the table reaching for Aemond and instantly grabbing his arm as she scolded him, “why would you say such a thing before these people?” Aemond easily ripped his arm out of her grasp turning back towards Jace who was now being held back by one of the guards.

“I was merely expressing how proud I am of my family mother. Mm, though it seems my nephews aren’t quite as proud of theirs.” Jace finally managed to wriggle himself out of the guards hold just as Aemond finished his sentence but before he could lunge at him once more Daemon stepped in front of him finger raised in the air "wait" and Jace listened planting like a tree behind Daemon.

You walked to stand next to your brother, Aemond and Daemon's face-off had turned the entire room quiet. Your mother didn't seem to want you or your siblings bearing witness to this debacle any longer as she ordered all of you to return to your quarters.

You reluctantly obeyed knowing that putting up a fight would get you nowhere. You followed your siblings out of the room but before you left you snuck a quick glance over your shoulder turning your head back immediately once you saw Aemond's eye was already trained on you.

-

You got no sleep the following night, the previous events playing over and over again in your head, you raised yourself up pushing the covers off of you as you got out of bed.

Fresh air that's all I needed you thought, hastily getting up as you grabbed the cloak that lay on the chair in front of your vanity, pulling on your boots as you quietly exited your chambers.

The castle walls were only lit by a few flames littered along the walls, you let your fingertips brush along the cold stone surface as you planned to make your way down to the god's wood.

The moonlight shining through the windows was now the only thing brightening up your path as you neared your destination taking careful steps down the seemingly endless castle stairs.

"Can't sleep?" you stopped dead in your tracks at the familiar voice behind you, slowly turning around your eyes meeting Aemond's. He pushed himself off the stone pillar he was currently leaning against how did you not see him? slowly making his way toward you only coming to a halt when you were nearly chest to chest.

The blue moonlight lit up his features which were carefully hidden underneath the hood of his cloak.

"Issi ao pikagon nyke?" are you following me? he chuckled at your words, intertwining his hands behind his back as he slowly began to circle you.

He came to a halt when he stood behind you leaning close to your ear as he whispered "you think too highly of yourself dear niece" you shuttered as his breath fanned over your ear, turning your head to face him as he slowly made his way back in front of you.

"You think you're the only one troubled by sleep?" he tuts reaching his arm up to pull down his hood, he looked absolutely breathtaking. "No, I suppose not" you admitted eyes narrowing at him as he tilted his head giving you a one-over.

"That was quite the scene you made earlier" you commented crossing your arms over your chest as you looked up at him. "Tell me uncle, does that make you feel powerful? Bringing down your cousins in front of the entire family, in front of the king" his lip twitched at your words and you could immediately tell you struck a nerve so against your better judgment you kept pushing.

"Are you so desperate for daddy's approval that you-" he cut you off, fury in his eye as he grabbed you by the throat pushing you up against the stone pillar behind you, it wasn't enough force to hurt you, but it still took you by surprise, the wind knocked out of you momentarily as you clawed at his arm in an attempt to free yourself, with no avail.

He towered over you outmatching you in both height and strength "you've no business speaking to me that way dear niece" he leaned in closer, lips hovering above your ear as he whispered "don't think I won't gut you right here in this corridor and gift your heart to your bastard brothers"

He pulled back slightly to take you in, he seemed to be content with the state of you, chest heaving as you glared up at him hatred boiling in your tummy as you pushed with all your might against his chest, he didn't move instead he dropped his hand from your throat at his own accord before taking a step back, your shove having not affected his retrieval in the least.

You let out a long breath as oxygen now circled normally in your lungs once more. It took you a second to gather yourself but when you finally did you straightened your posture closing the distance between the two of you, once more

"Iksan daor zūgagon hen ao, kepos" i'm not scared of you, uncle.

"Ao yenka sagon" you should be.

You didn't dare be the one to back down first so you held his stare, his lip upturning slightly as he raised his hand up to clasp your cheek gently running his fingers down your throat, his feather-like touch a complete 180 from the way he had manhandled you only moments prior.

He finally stepped back out of your personal space a low 'mm' vibrating in his chest as he turned to leave. "You should get some sleep gevie" there was that word again beautiful "I'll see you in the morning".

let me know if you guys would like a part 2!

[yureichi]

I’ve gathered quotes from twk and qon of Jude being in love but pretending she wasn’t bc why not. let’s gooo.

“My body has acclimated (to poison), and now it craves what it should revile. An apt metaphor for other things.”

“(After the crossbow incident) I am shaking, I realize. The aftereffects of believing someone tried to assassinate Cardan, of realizing he could have died.”

“I wish I could think of a place he’d be safer.”

“I look into his eyes. His hand slides to my hip, as though he might pull me closer. For a dizzy, stupid moment, something seems to shimmer in the air between us.”

“I still feel the warm pressure of his fingers against my skin. Something is really wrong with me, to want what I hate, to want someone who despises me, even if he wants me, too. My only comfort is that he doesn’t know what I feel.”

“Our gazes meet, and there’s a shock of mutual understanding that our bodies are pressed too closely. […] I am aware of the warmth of his neck beneath my twined fingers, of the prickly brush of his hair and how I want to sink my hands into it. I inhale the scent of him—moss and oakwood and leather. I stare at his treacherous mouth and imagine it on me.”

“Then his mouth is against mine, and my lips part. I close my eyes against what I’m about to do. My fingers reach up to tangle in the black curls of his hair. He doesn’t kiss me as though he’s angry; his kiss is soft, yearning.”

“I’ve wanted this and feared it, and now that it’s happening, I don’t know how I will ever want anything else.”

“I hate you,” I say, the words coming out like a caress. I say it again, over and over. A litany. An enchantment. A ward against what I really feel.”

“I hate you,” I breathe into his mouth. “I hate you so much that sometimes I can't think of anything else.”

“I like him better than I’ve ever liked anyone and that of all the things he’s ever done to me, making me like him so much is by far the worst.”

“She loves him, I realize uncomfortably.

His fingers trace their way down her arm to the back of her wrist, and I remember vividly the feeling of those hands on me. Kiss me until I am sick of it, he said, and now he has most certainly gorged on my kisses. Now he is most certainly sick of them. I hate seeing him with Nicasia. I hate the thought of his touching her.”

“I wonder if I will ever be able to look at him again without remembering what it was like to touch him.”

“It occurs to me that maybe desire isn’t something overindulging helps. Maybe it is not unlike mithridatism; maybe I took a killing dose when I should have been poisoning myself slowly, one kiss at a time.”

“[…] All I want to do is walk into his arms. I want to drown my worries in his embrace. I want him to say something totally unlike himself, about things being okay.”

“The offhand implication that he’s not alone most nights bothers me, and I hate that it does.”

“I cannot look at him as he goes out. I am a coward. Maybe it’s the pain in my leg, maybe it’s worry over my brother, but a part of me wants to call after him, wants to apologize.”

“I hope Cardan misses me.”

“I wonder what would have happened if I’d admitted he wasn’t out of my system.”

“But when I think of the night he was shot at, the night he did coin tricks, I can’t help recalling him gazing up from my bed, intoxicated and disturbingly intoxicating.”

“I am unnerved to find myself here, in the new High King’s new bed—one I am still too human to lie in, beside someone who terrifies me the more I feel for him.”

“But there is also a weakness in me, because I dreamed of him kissing me for all my time in the Undersea, and now with his mouth on mine, I want to sink my nails into his back.”

“I don’t want to think of someone else standing beside Cardan in my place.”

“The very thought of being there (Elfhame), of seeing Cardan, speeds my heart. At least no one is privy to my thoughts. Stupid as they are, they remain my own.”

“I want another bite at the everapple, another chance at power, another shot at him.”

"He looks every inch the spy from the Court of Shadows, down to the sneaky smile pulling at a corner of his beautiful mouth."

[roleplaypositivity]

At this point I am tired. I cannot make everyone happy and it’s taking a serious toll on my mental health.

I came into this blog wanting to counter act the other blogs. From day one I have gotten various hate anons, been told this is useless, all sorts of things. Was accused of being a dozen different people (none of which were true. Seems I kept myself more hidden than I thought till my reveal.) And I’ve had an influx of messages and concerns where I don’t see damaging things or pick up on subtle hints of hostility but others do.

I am, at my heart, a people pleaser. Ask any of my friends. I will take apart every single piece of me to make others happy and to make them feel better. I will destroy myself for the sake of others.

I wanted to give everyone a fair chance at love and support. I have even posted things here from people who dislike me. I have shared support that was sent in for people who have hurt me. Why? Because I want everyone to have a chance to see they are loved and appreciated and cared for.

I am doing my best. And in doing my best I am causing unintended harm to others. In doing my best I am struggling to listen to every point of view that comes in. I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I want to give everyone a chance.

Last night I had three separate drama related incidents that are being put on this blog under the guise of support and positivity come to my attention. None of them had anything to do with the other, it just all came flooding in at once. And it’s a lot, it’s a lot to handle and take on and be unbiased on. Maybe if it came one at a time I could handle it better. (Also please note — if you were one who brought something to my attention I am very grateful to you in so many ways, and this is not me angry or anything. Just a bit overwhelmed, overstimulated, and trying my best for everyone ❤️.)

I am struggling. I am struggling and I don’t want to stop the positivity. But, I also can’t pick up on everything or make everyone happy. I dont want this to turn into a subtle hate blog, where people drop shade in backhanded ways. I also don’t want to alienate people who maybe see things shared from those they do have issues with but find this to be a safe place otherwise.

I am not privy to all the drama. Despite being told multiple times I am a popular page — I don’t see it half the time. And I don’t see all the drama out there. It gets lost on me, and I don’t know 80% of the names that get brought up a lot. So many get thrown around, and it’s not my corner of the roleplay world. I apologize for not being sure on everything. Or for missing things.

I also know that if a new negative blog pops up I have opened myself up in a big way to receive an intense amount of hate. I took a risk in revealing myself. I took a risk that I do think was worth it. Even if the hate gets to me. Heaven knows the past few anons on those blogs about me have caused me immense anxiety and stress. (And they were a big reason I wanted to make this place. To ease those feelings in others.)

At the end of the day I don’t want to stop this. I came into this with good and well meaning intentions. I came into this wanting to do what I always do — people please. I am sorry to everyone that I can’t.

I will, however, be doing a clean out of posts here tomorrow. Just for a fresh start. If there is anything you want to save, please, screencap it ❤️❤️❤️

This will not stop the blog. I really don’t want to stop it. However, I am, for my own sake, going to take a mental health day today and tomorrow. Knowing my people pleaser ways, however, I will still be trying to post. I will still be trying to share what I get in when I can. But, to be honest? All I want to do right now is banter with my WP and play Dead By Daylight. And maybe take a nap. But, I also know if I keep getting upset at myself for all this, Louis is going to shake me until I do some self care and show some self love.

❤️❤️❤️

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I appreciate all of you so very much. And for all the support I have received, thank you.

Lots of love,

Peachy — otherwise known as Armand (or Eds)

[eldritch-spouse]

Now I'm very interested in all the icons heats 👀 What's Cero's heat like? I love when characters who act dignified and in control losing it to their own basic urges

[I can't wait for people to shit on him in my inbox.]

TW: Verbal degradation; Cero is his own warning tbh.

Cero will occasionally take heat supressants.

The problem with that is, the larger one is, and the more powerful, the harder it becomes to suppress one's heats. Sure, you can brew a heat suppressor so potent that it muffles a Lord of Hell's rut, but that's not exactly cheap to make, it takes time, it's unreliable, unpredictable, and can have negative health consequences. Cero has been careful with his use of this treatment.

Usually, during heats, Cero has the manor mostly evacuated. He doesn't want anyone, not even his servants, to witness his sorry state. He knows he's going to peacock helplessly to anyone he sees, and that'll be the death of his ego right there. Cero, while not exactly a traditional nesting type, will surround himself with anything he's particularly proud of having, or things that represent his status, his honor. It's like a gross, self-flattering altar really.

Your marriage contract, if you still recall it, rushed and full of fervor as it was, had a vague clause about Cero's ruts. Said clause denotes that you are to follow any instructions related to it given to you in the future. And, even if you come to hate this (most likely), fact of the matter is you'll never have someone give you a more descriptive survival guide for their heats than Cero. The fear of uncertainty is null because everything you can expect is in those pages.

Pre-heat symptoms are subtle, but there. Most noticeably, Cero will become easily shaken by what people say about him. He'll grow obsessed with his looks and behavior, checking himself constantly, looking around like a crazy man. The demonlord becomes insecure, prone to petty outbursts over the slightest hint of offense to himself, and taking heavy blows to his self-esteem from a mere half-hearted insult. He's almost afraid of being around others, especially you. In fact, Cero will make himself very scarce around his Queen during this time.

At night, he orders the servants to arrange a guest room for you, and that's where you'll sleep for the remainder of his rut. Before you go to bed however, he shows up at your bedroom door and pushes towards you a neat file folder with several pages. You're ordered to read it, and he speed-walks away before you can see how sweaty he is. That is the file with all the information you need, as well as your schedule laid out for the upcoming days. All your personal needs are accounted for, and it's structured in a way that makes it look like nothing's even changed. You better make sure you respect the hours stated in those files, because if you're even a minute late with your timing, Cero will drag you into his room even if you scream bloody murder. One of the ways he stays sane is through keeping track of time, so you must always be on your toes.

Wear what he tells you to, bring him his meal after you eat, respect the breaks for basic necessities and sleeping. Show up at his room when the file tells you and listen to every little word he says- Or you'll get really hurt.

Although clouded in hormones, Cero behaves predictably. He expects reverence and timidity, complete obedience is demanded of you. Let it be known he has several whips, and there's a good chance he could use them during this time. If you manage to keep calm and respect these rules, you're treated to some egotistical sex for the most part, but you're also privy to some of the demonlord's more honest thoughts.

There are moments where Cero's confident attitude crumbles from the highs and lows of hormones. Moments where he'll throw himself at you on the verge of tears, naked, shivering with need- Begging you to tell him he's perfect, that you love him. Is he doing things right? Is he good enough? Do you want to fuck him? Is his cock any good? Is he half as immaculate as you? Pick your answers very carefully, because if you hurt him, Cero will take it out on you tenfold when he's no longer suffering a low.

When you leave his room at the scheduled hours, you'll hear Cero calling for you throughout the night. Sometimes they're sweet nothings, other times they're insults, degrading you- Why aren't you beneath him? As if you have anything else better to do, you whore. He doesn't mean them, and he says that in the files. You are to ignore him entirely. It's a bit hard to sleep when you can hear him fucking himself the whole night, but he specifies he needs those moments to... "Unwind privately".

Respect the schedule, stay obedient, and it'll mostly be fine. Go out of your way to be irresponsible and Cero will have to take over in his muddled state- Something you decidedly don't want.

[reincarnatedintospace]

my current wriothesley observations so far...

*contains spoilers for 4.1 archon quests and wriothesley's story quest.* i am really enjoying wriothesley so much, so here's some observations i've made so far about him. i'll add/edit as i unlock more of his voice lines and story... everything said below is said with love. just because he's an awesome character doesn't mean he also doesn't have flaws and isn't still human.

this man read the 4-hour work week and said bet. he grinded his way to the top, created and documented several robust processes that would run on it's own and then kicked his feet up and watched the mora roll in. he literally gamed the system. (use the prisoners for free manpower and reap the benefits. sounds a little familar.)

he was an angry ass young man. all the shit he'd seen and been put through and (i assume) no one came to his and his siblings aid. so he took matters into his own hands because he didn't believe anyone else would do anything. he's worked hard since becoming Duke to temper that anger. it still comes out when something really gets to him, which is very evident on his character trailer and his end scene in his story quest.

this asshole literally drops people out the airlock into the literal ocean for getting on his bad side '...most people know better than to raise a real stink, while as for those who don’t… there are places where they can go. Just as flowing water can cleanse itself, so can a functioning society get rid of its rot.' - Character Story 2. those bodies are gonna show up Dexter style one day, my man.

he's not lazy, he's efficient, and values his own time.

he likes to play. this idiot enjoys being strategic and gets a kick out of outsmarting people. he's out there roaming around meropide observing everything he can so if anything comes up he's already got a 10-step plan in place to manourve everyone to his liking

he'd be very good at chess (what else is there to do in a prison but play board games? and workout)

wriothesley priotirizes consent and trust. "I am honoured to win your trust."

in saying that, it also feels like he still has some insecurities and doubts, feeling the need to be worthy of someone's trust and earn it in a way that seems like he needs to do something of value to be trusted and valued in return.

his tea obsession is funny. i know this is a game and it isn't all that deep. (i'll make it deep gdi) but it feels like there's something there, a story behind that. either a direct opposition to something he hated as a child, or a need to keep people around him. or something else.

he took up boxing to protect himself and others. no longer was he going to let anyone hurt him again. ever.

he's manipulative, in a 'i'm going to protect you because i know what's up and i enjoy the reactions when i reveal the truth/plot i'm only privy to'

i have so many thoughts so i might part 2 this.

[avocado-ramen]

My Tybalt Exposition

I read somewhere (likely on Twitter, but no guarantees) about people getting really upset with the depiction of Tybalt in the two most recent October Daye novels (Sleep No More and The Innocent Sleep) which cover the same events, one from October's POV, the other from Tybalt's. This is the first time there's been another narrator in the October Daye series outside of short stories/novellas.

That original poster said that while they saw Tybalt's behaviour as problematic in Sleep No More, they had hoped that The Innocent Sleep, since told from his point of view, would clarify matters and perhaps 'redeem' his character. They went on to say that The Innocent Sleep made it much worse, and (I am completely paraphrasing here, I read this weeks ago and no longer have those posts available for reference) that Tybalt was basically abusive trash. If I recall correctly, they toed the line with calling the author a DV sympathizer/apologizer, but it was a near thing.

Even if I remembered where that original post was, I wouldn’t link to it, because I don’t want to bring attention to what they said, nor do I want to risk people piling onto them as is common when people feel like an IP they love is being attacked in any way. I’d rather just make an entirely too long post explaining my own views, and possibly rambling too much and make no sense – because that’s what I do. 😊

As I’ve now finished The Innocent Sleep, I felt the need to get some thoughts down to address some of the things brought forward in that post/thread/whatever I read just after The Innocent Sleep was released.

The author: people need to realise that these books are FICTION. The bonus of writing fiction is that you can safely explore troublesome parts of humanity and society without actually agreeing with those troublesome things.

A significant portion of the books I read have murder happening either on page or off screen in the first few pages because the mystery of a dead body gives the protagonist something to do. Do I think these authors all believe that people should be able to go around killing each other just for fun? No. So why on earth would people think an author including any other kind of violence in their work approves of that violence? This could be it’s own post, and many others have made this point much better than I ever will. Tybalt’s behavior in Sleep No More: We are seeing Tybalt through October’s eyes. Sure, we as readers are privy to the previous 16 books worth of information (even more if we’ve read all the shorts and novellas), but at this point in time, October doesn’t know Tybalt. She’s never seen a Cait Sidhe. She doesn’t know anything about them aside from what Titania’s illusion tells her. From this framing, Tybalt comes across as brash, angry, controlling, and violent. He has a tendency to storm off if things aren’t going his way. To October, Tybalt’s behaviour is completely out of line, and she’d be correct – from everything she knows at this point. Tybalt’s behaviour in The Innocent Sleep: One thing people need to remember before they start applying present-day human morality to Tybalt is that he is not human. At all. He’s fae. Cait Sidhe. He is both a cat and a humanoid, but he is not, and has never been, human. One of the things the author has reiterated time and time again is that both the fae as a whole, and Cait Sidhe specifically, live by an entirely different set of rules than humanity does. Titania hates the Cait Sidhe because she believes they are beasts and below the perfection of her other descendant lines like the Daione Sidhe. As much as Titania is the villain, she’s not entirely wrong. First and foremost, the Cait Sidhe are cats. When backed into a corner, they’re going to lash out. If they’re stressed, or hurt, etc., they’re going to lash out. It’s what they do. I have the scars from my own cats to prove it.

Tybalt knows he is barely in control of his emotions. He freely admits that, and the fact that he at times needs to walk away before he lashes out and does something he’ll regret, which I feel is smart and responsible of him.

Tybalt’s attack on Ginevra in the throne room in Golden Shore is excessive. And it’s meant to be. It’s completely unexpected and jarring in Sleep No More when seen from October’s point of view. In The Innocent Sleep, being in Tybalt’s head, while still a severe overreaction to a situation he wasn’t paying attention to and therefore didn’t have full context of, it is completely in line for how a) a cat would react, and b) how a Cait Sidhe king would react when they believe someone has attacked/injured/wronged someone that ‘belongs’ to them. Does that make it right? No. And Tybalt himself shows as much shame as his position allows when he sees Ginevra at dinner. Do I think Tybalt is an abusive asshole that needs to be shunned, killed off, or whatever other over the top reaction people have had? No. And no, that doesn’t mean I approve of his behaviour or think he should face no repercussions. But context means a lot. I can see when his behaviour is completely in character for his species and title, while also admitting when he’s crossed a line. The benefit of an ongoing series is that it is quite possible that Tybalt will face the fallout of his behaviour in Book 19, or even further. I don’t expect everything to be wrapped up in a perfect bow at the end of each book. None of the characters in these books is perfect (with the exception of Spike, Cagney, and Lacey), and if the author can foreshadow some of the things we’ve seen in Book 16 way back in Book 1, then we can believe she’s got plans for them for Book 19 and beyond.

This is the same author that took one of the most loathsome characters and made me want to wrap him in wool and protect him at all costs (ok, I still want to shake him now and again), to the point that I named my new kitten after him. Please, admire Simon “The Tiny Terror”.

[twinkle-art]

hi mads! love your work! super duper normal about it and not insane at all! i wanted to ask what your azem is like in comparison to andromeda; how are they the same, how are they different, and how do those similarities and differences play into her fraught dynamic with emet-selch? thank you for your time and giving me so so so so much psychic damage!

thank you! that’s very high praise! i’d love to!

※perseus uses she/he- i used she in the last post for reading clarity and i’m gonna mostly use he here for the same reason

broadly speaking, my entire basis for perseus’ character is a very meta one. when i first thought her up, andromeda was supposed to be this sexy unflappable butch chad charismatic hero type and then she uh. really, really, really wasn’t that by the time msq was through with her. 

ergo, i thought it'd be fun to make perseus everything andromeda was supposed to be, name and all.

(side note: i first picked andromeda’s name in the character creator on a whim for the sound of it and could not have anticipated what she would become. kind of funny to name your wol Literally The Original Damsel In Fiction though. also you didn't ask but i Also didn't realize that Caecus didn't just mean "blind" but literally is "devoid of light". her garlean name is Damsel von Lightless. girl i'm so sorry.)

okay! similarities first though!

they both have a ravenous zest for life and a persistent good-naturedness that makes them easy to get along with when they let you in. they’re both big ol bleeding hearts who are intensely loyal and the first to throw themselves between danger and anyone in trouble. they’re both cagey about fully opening up, and prefer to fall back on a persona with strangers. they both give 100% to everything they do.

in a poetic sense, you could say the core essences of their souls are the same, beyond just the literal one.  

buuttttttt in practice they are like night and day. perseus’ exterior of an easygoing, almost frat bro-esque guy who doesn’t take anything too seriously may be just as much of an intentional construct as the stoic hero of few words façade that andromeda dons when she’s uncomfortable (that is, with literally everyone for the first three expacs) but it sits, far, far more naturally on him, blending seamlessly with his real self to the point where even he’s not sure where one begins and the other ends. 

where andromeda is deeply insecure, perseus is unwaveringly confident. where she’s easily swayed, he’s frustratingly stubborn. where her persona makes her come off as untouchable to a fault, his makes him effortlessly personable. where she latches on hard in all her relationships, offering her whole heart the second the threshold is breached, he can be flighty-bordering-on-avoidant around meaningfully vulnerable intimacy of any kind. 

and on that note: emet-selch hates andromeda for being, compared to his extremely rose-colored memory of perseus, a downgrade in every way. for better or worse, his azem was someone who would never, ever be cowed into submission, and he has a way of needling his way beneath andromeda’s carefully constructed exterior without even trying. she’s simply not as self-assured as perseus when it really matters, and so he resents every single inch he manages to take from her. he wants, more than anything, for her to fight back.

it’s worth nothing though, that emet-selch knows that perseus possessed a sensitive, complicated interiority beneath all that bravado. in fact, he wasn’t merely among the few privy to her “real” more complicated self, he was pretty uncontestedly the person she confided the most in, like, at all. like when i said the love was intense and practically familial i meant that shit. ironically, his abject refusal to accept andromeda as a worthy successor to someone he was incredibly close with causes him to flatten him in his memory, stripping him of the nuance he was rather special to be trusted with in the first place.

i'm not sure if he ever fully reckoned with that, to be honest. his final and only acknowledgement of andromeda was one of allowing her to stand on her own merits as her own person. even by then, i don't think he could stomach the idea of the two of them meaningfully being the same.

….also, it simply must be said that andromeda gets no bitches due to a brutal combo of terrible luck and self sabotage and perseus was drowning in pussy to the point where he was kind of a menace

[maxwell-grant]

Do you have any thoughts on Rose from Street Fighter?

(Art by Jo Chen)

Lots of them, because despite everything I'm gonna complain about she is a very personally dear character to me, and not just because she is why I got into JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and therefore irreversibly altered my life as a result. Rose is an excellently designed foil to M.Bison, a character who allowed the series to poke and unveil the mystery of his origins and greatly expand the worldbuilding boundaries as a character who opened the doors for new supernatural vistas. M.Bison broke the rules and defied convention with his non-traditional abilities, and Rose helped fix up new ones by establishing the balance through which the forces and powers of the series work. M.Bison stomped into battle in ostentatious dictator garb, and Rose glided gracefully in a fashionable bouclé dress, neither of which were remotely traditional or indicative of their true fighting prowess, establishing them as a class of their own in more ways than one. The dictator bent on domination versus the teacher striving to liberate, Bison is all take, and Rose is all give.

In battle, Bison is an oppressive force, his moveset revolving around his barrage of hateful kicks and stomps and fiery claws and sadistic techniques that maximize cruelty above all else, where as Rose is ever careful, ever gentle, using her powers to misdirect and counter and disarm you into quickly ending the fight. Rose was the character who introduced a projectile reflector into the series, a solution to fireballs that radically altered their dominance in fights against her, via a move that forces you to reconsider tactics and punishes you for your aggression towards her. She was a mysterious middle-aged woman (and even if she doesn't show it much, that fact alone makes her a unicorn in fighting games) who fought with zero aggression, all elegance and sophistication, and every now and then a bit of playfulness poking through with a smirk or a wink or a finger wag or a sudden card-between-breasts trick, little icebreaker moments like those that go a long way.

And as the entryway to mysticism in the series, she adds to the existing characters because her win quotes against them are all about highlighting singular thematic depths or secrets to them that she alone is privy to. Everything Rose says to other characters generally articulates their struggles dramatically, or highlights a unique and defining depth to them, or sets up things that lend retroactive weight to their future plotlines. Rose helps make all the other characters cooler, because she lends significance and weight to them via proxy. She is the voice of fate and sometimes the voice of fate wants to tell you that you've been searching for the wrong things, or wants you to pay attention to the guiding stars and looming shadows that hang above you, or it wants to warn Ken that he probably should try to get his shit in order before the next game, or that Dan can carry on being an idiot and oddly do just fine.

There is a lot that self-evidently works about Rose, which is why it's weird that everytime I remember that she's considered fairly popular I actually get kinda shocked? She doesn't come up often in conversation, she's rather gloomy and lore-heavy and even kind of a downer character a lot of the time, not exactly the kind SF fans tend to flock to. I honestly thought I'd never see her again after Menat took the internet by storm, the fuck you mean she got voted above Zangief, Ibuki and Bison? I mean don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, it's just I tend to lump her in with my beloved niche Alpha freaks like Adon and Birdie and Sodom, whom I love but never expect to be a priority in a line-up.

I think part of that is because Rose might be the character who is hurt the most by the patchwork lore of the series and by the general lack of larger narratives that she is called for. As a matter of fact, I have been thinking of her lately, since SF6 just came out with what seems like FINALLY a proper set-in-stone confirmation that she always was her own person and not Bison's good side/other half of his soul, as was previously mentioned (and not just in Capcom USA mistranslations). I've been scouring plot guides and bios and translations since forever and could not begin telling you the origin/what was really going on with this identity mix-up and, frankly I like it better the way it is now without her being a weird Bison soul clone, even if it still leaves questions about her storyline hanging open. Which is a reocurring thing with her that I think hurts her as a character (not even gonna get into what the fuck was that SFV "she exists in a time loop/return to zero" thing and the implication she'd have to time travel to fix stuff or something, Rose you put that Mortal Kombat reboot bullshit back where it came from or so help me-)

Rose is weird and mysterious by design, that's a huge part of her appeal, but Rose also kinda demands a greater degree of coherence and narrative focus that the series doesn't really give her and probably won't unless she makes it into 6 (and I'm not expecting her to). She is very comparable to Nash in the sense that they were both designed around a prequel context with a clear story and a tragic ending in place from the get-go, since Bison clearly outlasted their missions to stop him and neither of them were around circa SF2, but then Bison came back for IV and both of them came back to pick up their missions, but with nowhere near the narrative importance to actually see them through, which kinda damned the two to have nothing to do. But where as Nash got a sacrifice, Rose has kind of spent the last two games she's been in running in place, and Menat aside it seems like they can't do anything more with her other than just have her wait for Bison to come back and threaten the world so she can ominously react and prophesize some other guy must take care of it instead.

Regarding the JoJo thing, Alpha 2 was my entry into SF and the one I played the most growing up, and when I dug around for info about the characters I learned about Rose being modeled after a character from a manga series. That was when I was a kid and before I could really read English proper and before the JoJo anime came out, so from what I could gather at the time via pages about the Capcom game and the Street Fighter connections, I thought it was a series about weird tarot mystics duking it out, and that this character Rose was based on was the protagonist, and for most of my childhood that's what I thought JJBA was about, some weird mystery thing waiting to be uncovered with this really cool mystery protagonist like none I had ever seen before, this weird fashionable older witch lady that wasn't like any protagonist I had heard of before was very intriguing to me.

And I guess this is more of a personal gripe but honestly, I never got over my dissappointment with Lisa Lisa. Less so that she wasn’t the protagonist (although that was there at first), but moreso that she turned out to not be a particularly cool or effective character despite her build-up. That's part of why I get annoyed at Rose being boiled down to just being Lisa Lisa first and foremost everytime she's mentioned, because people didn't do that until the Battle Tendency anime, and I didn't think Lisa Lisa was that great to begin with. And yeah I'm not happy that "cool powerful mystery lady who always gets put on the backburner so she can do commentary and chumps out at the climax so a male character can rescue her" is also something Rose shares with Lisa Lisa, and therefore I kinda got to be dissappointed twice. I guess it's the same cause with both of them, that they are so powerful that they kinda have to give way to the protagonist so as to not deflate the stakes. Rose is an excellently designed foil to Bison, but being set to fail from the get-go, she was never going to be any kind of meaningful threat to Bison, which unfortunately deflates her mystique.

Although when I stop to look at it now, with hindsight and SF6 reviving so much of my hopes for the series, there is a lot to appreciate in the fact that Rose's story has consistently leaned towards the subversion of her own self-assured doom. That from her debut she's been dead set on sacrificing herself to stop Bison, that there was never any other way and it had to be her and she had to face it alone and she had to make amends for Bison's corruption of their sacred power and stop him from destroying the world, and much of her dialogue in the Alpha series reflects this miserable burden she's tasked with and that other characters like Guy or Dhalsim tell her she might be taking a too fatalistic approach on, but clearly she can't stop her walk towards her inevitable demise.

"In every world, only the righteous survive."

"I have no intention of boasting about my victory. I'm no fighter..."

"Strength is not something to show off, but something to hide inside."

"I too… Maybe I shouldn't stay too long in this world…"

"God is helpless, and can't stop the flow of time."

Dhalsim (SFA3): "Even if it is for your mission, why do you close your heart...?"

And then it simply wasn't the case. She can see with perfect precision into the hearts and fates of every single character she interacts with, but has a major blindspot regarding her own. Three times she lunged herself to stop Bison and three times she failed at both stopping him and at dying while facing him, and in two of those occasions her proximity to him only enabled him to survive and turn the situation in his favor. Being the person who stops Bison simply wasn't where fate was going to lead her, and instead her purpose was one she had to find in taking a backseat and guiding others, joining the likes of Dhalsim and Oro as powerful but gentle mentoring forces in the background, and it's a beat I find more meaningful with her given her whole initial drive was to kill the man she once thought of as a master.

She's not just mentoring others to pass along her devoted fighting style or to pick up her slack and save the world, she's keeping alive the counterweight to the evil Bison unleashed on the world, she's replacing her former teacher so as to be his total opposite in every way, carrying on the torch that Bison sought to extinguish by murdering their master and fellow students, and she's imparting it to those under her care so they may reach beyond her limits in doing so. Rewatching her and Guy's IV endings gets me feeling something about Guy desperately calling her back to life when she's always been so ready to throw it away, imparting on her how much the world needs her. Not because she is going to stop the great evil, but because the world needs something more than great evil. There needs to be more than just evil dictating the rules.

Whatever happens in this upcoming Shadaloo vs Neo Shadaloo conflict they've been setting up it's going to feel awfully incomplete without Rose or Menat in it, given that Ed fights for the same things Rose did, stands as living proof of how even Psycho Power doesn't have to be a force for evil, and now Bison is back to challenge this bright new future they fought so hard for. In truth, while I'd prefer for Rose to come back, I wouldn't be bothered at all if it was Menat, I like her too (maybe let's go deep enough in the JoJo reference and have Menat fight with Rose's spirit accompanying her, fuck it let's make Rose a Stand why not). And more importantly, I like and need the series to continue being serious about putting forth the new generation. There is something important in a story about coming to terms with not being the main character, and that there is no value in action and sacrifice for the sake of it, but instead value to be found in staying alive to do good in the here and now with what you can. Death and mastery over fate are Bison's obsession's, not hers.

Gouken (SFIV): "Do not cower before your visions. Believe in your own power!"

T.Hawk (SSFIV): "Do not think your powers are your own. The spirits allow you to see things."

Guy (SSFIV): "Do not underestimate your importance to the world, Rose!"

Oro (SFV): "Look too far ahead and you may miss your very first step."

[whenthegoldrays]

You mentioned you think about scripting Mansfield Park or North and South, and it made me remember an idea I concocted one for how to open/structure a MP movie or series. The concepts are probably trite and demodé at this point, but I think they have potential in this case.

It would open with a young Maria, Julia, and Fanny at their school room for a lesson, Fanny failing to answer correctly on something she never was taught about, and being humiliated by her cousins.

Then it would transition to Fanny at the room she shares with Susan in Portsmouth later in the novel. She might, for example, be looking at the window and have a book Edmund gave her open on her lap, at his handwritten dedication (a quote about strength would be apropos). Susan comes in for another study session (bonus points if it is the same topic as the first scene, but presented in more depth or with more accuracy), but then she asks about Fanny's life at Mansfield, and that would be the closing of the opening of the adaptation.

I know narration is a bad word these days, but I think it could work really well here, because Fanny would tell Susan of an event in one way, but we'd see how in reality it was in a different, harsher way -Fanny is trying to protect/be grateful to her relations. It reveals character, and it can also create funny contrasts like Fanny mentioning the quiet kind intimacy of her evenings spent with Mrs. Bertram, and what we see is Mrs. Bertram snoring on the couch with pug on her lap as Fanny does her worsted work for her.

I thought of both opening and narration as ways to show front and center Fanny's growth and her at her moment of, paradoxically, the most agency and authority, in her relationship with Susan, and then preventing her from sinking into the background -fitting for the "I was quiet, but I was not blind" character. I think it also highlights the theme of education, that is so important to the novel, and would give more urgency to the events later on Fanny's Portsmouth visit and afterwards, which are A) the most thrilling B) those where the family begins to realize Fanny's importance and value to them. I mean that we'd be experiencing them with Fanny rather than through Fanny as before. Oh, it would also make Henry's Portsmouth visit more shocking, as Fanny is not privy to the scene where Henry discusses all her excellencies with Mary.

So, hmm, that's my idea, IDK what you think, but I had to share XD

wow I love this idea! it’s kind of giving me the mental image of Goob’s “they all hated me” as the flashback shows that everyone thinks he’s cool, but with Fanny it’d be the inverse. you get the sense of Fanny kind of wincing when she gets to a particularly painful point in the story and trying to gloss over it or soften it while the reality is much worse.

(this as an antidote to Fanny trash talking the Bertrams to Susie in 1999 my beloathed)

and you’re right, the narration also works best because so much of Fanny’s character relies on her inner thoughts. it’d be a bit of a challenge to find the right balance of Unreliable Narrator Fanny and Most Observant Person in the Room Fanny, as well as the right balance of stuff she leaves out of her tale but is still shown vs. what isn’t shown at all (such as Henry’s perspective of falling in love with her), but with some good brainstorming and trial and error, I think it would be very good!

your idea also somewhat reminds me of (sorry!) Little Women 2019, with the flashbacks to their childhood being interspersed with the second half of the story until after Laurie’s proposal, at which point we return to the present and experience the rest of the story in “real time.” so it’d be a similar thing here. oh, we’d also have to decide how much (if at all) Susan might interrupt the narration to give her own comments on it, possibly expressing skepticism or concern about the more dubious parts of the story.

honestly, this gives me so much to think about and I love it!! thanks so much for sharing it with me!

[boreal-sea]

"Stop telling people to encourage the cop inside their head...you do not need to be careful" "I can write tentacle noncon of my favorite character all day long" Ahh. It's always about finding ways to justify rape, isn't it? Fantasizing about rape absolutely makes you a bad person, and definitely tells a lot about your character. If you can masturbate to it, you're definitely okay with it to some degree. Studies show men exposed to rape porn are more likely to believe women enjoy rape and that it's not that big of a crime, especially if the victim shows a positive reaction to it. Fictional acting doesn't change the fact that your orgasm is real. These things DO affect real life. So pathetic.

"Fantasizing about rape absolutely makes you a bad person."

No it doesn't. Thoughtcrime is not real. I just imagined a random person getting stabbed right now, just to do it. Didn't make me a bad person.

I see you quote studies about cis men watching rape fantasy porn. But did you know that the women in those videos aren't actually being raped? They are actresses. They are playing a role. I notice you also don't cite any studies about cis women who enjoy rape fantasies. Do the studies show that these women also think real-life rape victims secretly enjoy being raped? And how do those numbers change when you involve trans people, including binary and nonbinary trans people?

I'm sorry but statistics about a single demographic of humans just isn't very convincing to me, especially when that demographic is cis men. Y'all always act like they are the only demographic that matters when it comes to sexual fantasy, and that's super weird to me.

And I'd argue that the idea that real-life women secretly like being raped is not caused by porn, but that the trope itself is a symptom of the patriarchy. That said, I don't think rape fantasies would disappear if the patriarchy disappeared. Because again, "this woman secretly enjoyed being raped and ravaged" is not exclusive to porn catered towards cis men. It's literally an entire romance novel genre written by and catered towards women. In this case, the reader is placing herself not in the position of the offender, but that of the victim. One could argue that these novels, because they reveal the inner thoughts of the character and how much she's actually enjoying the rape, are even more harmful than porn movies, since at least in the movie, we aren't 100% sure if the character the porn actress is playing is actually enjoying it, since we're not privy to the character's thoughts.

Hey - do you like horror movies? Do you think the writers, directors, crew, and actors are trying to justify violence? Do you think the people who made Friday the 13th all want to murder teenagers at campgrounds? Do you think the fans who watch these movies and delight in the violence and laugh at it are all secretly serial killers? Because I don't know if you're aware of this, but horror movies are very fun, and audience members do typically enjoy the murders.

What about the hit TV show Hannibal? Do you think the people who made it think cannibalism is ok? The show really glorifies cannibalism, rolls it up in a mixture of horror, eroticism and elegance. The main character Will is an incredibly unreliable narrator with regards to Hannibal, because he's partly in love with Hannibal, partly terrified of him, and literally suffering from a brain fever half of one of the seasons. But you're supposed to root for them anyway, you're supposed to be so swept up in their fucked up romance that when Will "betrays" Hannibal, you're supposed to feel heartbreak, and when they finally murder someone together and then plunge off a cliff in blood-soaked ecstasy, that's supposed to be a moment of elated victory.

What about Oldboy? You must HATE this movie - it depicts alcoholism, kidnapping, mind control, and torture. Oh yeah and incest. Is Oldboy trying to justify incest? The ending is kinda vague on what happens to the two main characters, after all.

What about action movies where the hero kills dozens or maybe hundreds of nameless characters on his way to kill the main villain? Are those movies trying to justify violence? They're definitely glorifying the violence.

And me? My noncon fanfic? I'm afab. I still identify as female. I've been into noncon since long before I came out as transmasc. I was finding things like men being tied up fascinating even in my teens, before I ever learned what bondage was.

There was a statue of some colonial guy with his hands tied behind his back in a museum. I stared at that statue for a really long time. Another time during this same age, we watched a Zorro movie, and Zorro was standing there very heroically, all tied up, and I found the scene very moving. Then, again in high school, a buddy was playing Metal Gear Solid. At one point in that game, a robot with long tentacle-like robot arms grabs one of the main characters, Raiden, and squeezes him and thrashes him around a bit. This time, the feelings I felt were definitely erotic.

I had never seen porn at that age. I did not know what bondage was. I didn't know BDSM was a thing. But I still, naturally, all on my own, found bondage erotic - and bondage can have elements of noncon to it. It certainly did in the fantasies I was experiencing. That's because these fantasies and kinks are natural human things. It is NORMAL to find this shit erotic.

Now. If you're watching porn that features rape fantasies and you start to believe that real-life people might secretly enjoy actually being raped, then you need to stop watching that kind of porn. But that applies to anything. If you watch a bunch of horror movies and start to think that maybe, murder is actually good, then you should probably stop watching horror movies. I'm not saying media can't affect people. But I AM saying that's not something that happens to everyone, and I am saying that most people are fully capable of consuming media in responsible ways.

Fictional rape is not about real people. I absolutely do want to justify the continuation of fictional depictions of the taboo and the forbidden, because these are perfectly normal fantasies that humans have had probably for our entire existence.

[rocketyship]

Hey, it's the anon who sent the really long ask and I'm sorry to say but i forgot what i was going to write about AM so I've put off sending another ask hoping I'd somehow remember 3am me's thoughts. That's obv not going to happen, though, so here's what i can scrounge up!

Your AM is in the very unique position of not only being non-human but also the only person BE openly has, let's say a... "dislike" for. There are ways he could relate to the humans of course (treated like a pet, not given any real self-determination etc) but it's experience is so different in so many other ways.(Naomi and AM were both "taken in" by BE while they were still.. idk young might not be the right word, but Naomi had time to grow up a bit before the whole thing while AM barely had time to realise that he's a person. Evan and AM are both seen as different from the others by BE, Evan for being a man and AM for not being one but Evan isn't dealt divine punishment for the whole trying to destroy humanity thing etc.)

Point is that AM as the narrator would be so fundementally different from the others, i think that's why i wanted to write about it. Narration from AM has the potential to be even clearer than Naomi's would be since there are things about BE she wouldn't show in front of the humans and things the humans just wouldn't be able to see in the same way(code AM might be privy to they couldn't interpret and such).

BE is also the reason AM can see, hear and feel so while he didn't have over a century to lament over not being able to (like the original AM did) that has to change so much, like you've already shown some of.

Oh and like you brought up in the post after my ask: there's no way traces of BE's code hasn't corrupted AM somehow! How would that change things? Does the corruption increase over time or would he just use that as an excuse for why he cares about these humans now? Would he even acknowledge that he has been "corrupted" or is he still too proud for that somewhere deep down? There's so much potential for character exploration!

The parallels between BE and the original AM is fun too! AM torturing it's humans to reinforce and remind itself of it's hatred for them and superiority over them vs BE torturing your AM as "divine retribution" for his sins and a way to remind herself of her job as her sheep's protector, her love for them as well as a reminder to both herself and your AM of her superiority over him.

Once again, hope you have a nice day!! It made me happy you've enjoyed my asks, and the explanation of the sanctuary was a nice bonus for the one before the last :)

This ended up really rambly, but i hope most of it is understandable and that my interpretations aren't like... completely different from what you were trying to portray. (Also, I'm used to referring to the original AM with it pronouns so i might mess up your AM's he from time to time, so here's a disclaimer that i dont do it on purpose)

You have a very good interpretation of my AM and it pleases me that my work my nonsensical posts came across the way I intended. One thing I have decided moving forward is that the story will be told in chapters or parts told from each characters perspective, with the exception of BE, as idk how to write the utterly bizarre way she thinks with it also being understandable to a reader.

But besides that I really like how you worded everything here, especially in pointing how BE is the counter part of the original AM. Truthfully the AM of this world is so different from the original, that I wouldn’t even describe him as the opposite of the og anymore. And you asked about how her code has corrupted him, and it definitely has become something that has gotten more prominent over time. In the beginning AM for sure had some of his pride and his og “hate-everything”ness, but overtime it has started to fizzle out, mostly as a survival tool priority, in the present time (109 years later) he struggles to recall exactly why he killed humanity in the first place, but still knows he did it as BE reminds him. He is also aware of his love for the humans coming from BE and often has crises if it’s own feelings or hers.

One thing about BE’s treatment of this AM (Who I might start calling Amy Idk), is that the body she gave him is very-very human like, as in it may or may not contain real human organs and bits of flesh, to really give him a warped “human” experience. So like the original AM, she has starved and dehydrated him for extensive periods of time, as well as the severe phycological and physical torture, yet she also doesn’t allow him to really “wonder” around. Although as stated before a bit ago his senses and nerves are hypersensitive, so he is generally very cautious about the stuff he gets up to. But one of the biggest differences between her and the OG AM, is how she has discovered to keep him in place. As in like what many real life abusers do, she kind of love-bombs him. As in she treats him nice sometimes, as it kind of “assures” him that he deserves this and if he behaves well then he can go upstairs and play with the humans. Not really helped that he has figured out that if he’s with the humans, BE doesn’t do anything (well she does it’s just more subtle), so that in of itself has definitely contributed to his love of the humans, finding safety with them, especially Evan who he has a particular interest in.

His body has contributed to him gaining things the og AM probably didn’t have cause of his circumstances, or at least a more tamer version. As you stated he is “young”, although I wouldn’t describe him as a child really, just kind of immature. Like he’s kind of goofy when his guard is down, if not clingy. His body is very sensitive, so while that does mean he experiences horrendous agony, it also goes the opposite way. So his odd cuddliness and enjoyment of warm things isn’t just me liking the idea of him in a pile of plushies I swear.

Anyhow I love your asks and everything, you se so cool. Thank you so so much. Hopefully you understood this ramble of mine like you did the others :D

[vixendoe]

(analysis crossposted from klei forums- formatting might be a bit odd as a result)

While I wasn't originally going to write anything major on my interpretations and thoughts on Maxwell's rework animation, I've seen an increasing amount of confusion, character hate, and just plain wrong ideas about Maxwell since it was released, and I wanted to share my thoughts, analysis, and possible theories on the animation.

The first thing I'd like to point out is that, as a character, Maxwell isn't stupid, and he isn't naive anymore either. He's not the type of person to blindly stumble into a deal, especially when he has a history of getting other people to do just this. While he still cares for Charlie more than anything, he's not oblivious to the fact she's not the same person she once was, nor is he unaware of what the shadows do to people in Their court. After all, he's the one who has the most up close and personal history with Them.

Maxwell is a character who's far from an open book, and his motivations and feelings are often hidden and obfuscated, in true showman fashion. Due to this fact, many people seem to think he misses being on The Throne, and would jump at the opportunity to be in control again. However, several quotes from him actively contradict this idea, especially coming from the Epilogue of Adventure mode itself.

We know that Maxwell actively did not like his time on The Throne and with Them, and much prefers to be free, even if he does put on all his huffing and puffing about how he was a king once, you know. (Hell, his main quote itself is 'Freedom suits me'). We also know that Maxwell is the one most privy to Their tactics of manipulation. After all, he was once Their main puppet and figurehead, being a step above the other survivors, albeit still bound to the same board. He may be unsure of how to adjust to being off of the Throne and out of Their control, but he certainly doesn't want to go back.

So, would the man who used deals and people's emotions to bring them into the same place he was trapped in, knows much more about the Constant and the shadows than the average survivor, and was trapped on a Throne that may well have been torture, be so quick to jump on a deal with Them that used his very own tactics?

As I said, Maxwell isn't naive like he once was, and he knows, very intimately, how They like to drag people into Their deals. He would obviously be able to recognize his own technique being used against him, and you can see hesitancy on his face as Charlie offers her deal.

He, barring Winona, is the person in the Constant that knows Charlie the most, and would easily be able to recognize that this was quite a bit... out of character for her, given everything that's happened during her time on the Throne. If the updates follow a consistent timeline, then he may very well have just seen her thoughts through the play, after all. It would seem odd to anyone for her to do this out of the blue, even after he was shown some of their moments together, and was reminded of how happy they used to be. He's aware of the fact that They like to play dirty with people's emotions, such as when it comes to their loved ones.

Given this all, I don't think Maxwell would blindly jump back into Their control, even at Charlie's insistence. Rather, I believe he has some sort of plan to play out, and the newfound power Charlie has gifted him was a bonus, and might just play into said plan. What he may be planning, I'm not sure of, but it might have something to do with trying to change Charlie's mind about Them.

Maxwell is obviously cared about by the other survivors. Not only was this shown in the animation, with several of them coming to check on him after he was presumably missing for some time, and they became concerned when he brushed them off, but character quotes, both from him and a handful of the survivors, seem to indicate this as well. Even if he didn't care for them in turn, his own compendium states that he feels like he owes a favor, annoyed as he may be over the fact. Would it really make sense for him to turn and abandon them, after everything?

Just from a writing standpoint, going back on 8 years of development, and showing that Maxwell was a part of the group as much as anyone else, would simply feel... cheap. It would feel disingenuous to his character, and a waste of showing that he wasn't under Their control if he were to slip back into it without some sort of plan. After everything he's been through, seeing him fall back down the very same path he'd broken away from would be highly unsatisfying for his character.

Charlie may have been trying to manipulate him into being on her side, for reasons unknown, but he isn't the naive fool he once was, and he's smart enough to notice his own tricks being used against him. It wouldn't be the first time he was promised power, after all, and he's already learned his lesson on that route, hasn't he?

With all of that said, I believe Maxwell is trying to play the long game here- stay in Charlie's good graces, make sure she believes he's on her side, and use that favoritism to his advantage. It's a risky game, for sure, but he's shown himself to be cunning before. Certainly he'd be able to think of something, even if it would run the risk of seeming suspicious to the other survivors.

As per what Charlie was looking to get out of the deal, well...

This is the first time we've seen the "Moon" post Return of Them in its true form, and I don't believe that to be a coincidence. With Wagstaff coming into the Constant and messing things up to his own desires, paying no heed to the rules of the game, Charlie might feel her power slipping, and in an attempt to regain control, is trying to get her pawns to be on her side. Starting, of course, with the person she believes she could get to follow her will the easiest.

Maybe I'm entirely in the wrong here. Maybe it's a completely surface level character regression. But wouldn't that just feel bad? I want to give the writing a lot more credit than that, and I really do believe there's more to this than meets the eye. Even if he doesn't have a plan, which I fully believe he does, it feels a bit cruel to truly hate him for his decision- after all, he was manipulated in the same way nearly every other survivor was, and by the person he loves more than anything, no less.

But, I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it all plays out.