#MY INGENUITY WILL RUIN ME

[theendofreason]

WA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAAA

SOMEONE WAS ABLE TO AWAKEN AN ANCIENT EVIL IN ME???

YES, I THINK IT'S EVEN FOR THE BEST THAT YOU NEED TO LET GO OF YOUR DEEP DEMONS FROM TIME TO TIME TO SURF THE INTERNET, I THINK SO.

[mrsdarkandyandere7]

BNHA Boys: 1st Time Noncon

▶ This is a yandere/dark work and it may contain triggering content so please READ THE WARNINGS before. Do not read if minor.

More at Masterlist

Female Reader

Boys -> Hawks + Dabi + Bakugo

Warnings at each part (but the title is quite explicit, right?) + NSFW Link (be careful + on twitter (you need a account to see)

AN: Please, reblog and give me feedback + Gimme ideas

–

Hawks

-> Manipulation

Keigo is a cunning guy, always looking out for a way to get things done his way. He’s used to tricking people, using his tactics to reach his desired goals. But honestly? You have to be the biggest chump he’s ever met in his life. 

Did you actually believe when he deeply sighed and pretended to relent to your begging, just before meekly offering you to walk away from him?

Did your ingenuous self really trust him when Keigo swore on his hero honor - what honor really? - that he’d let you go home, safe and sound?

But the reality is that you fell for it, like a bee attracted to honey. It’s moments like those that Keigo acknowledges how naive and kind-hearted you are. Too cute and good for this twisted, cruel world. 

So that’s why a minor part of him is almost satisfied at the reluctance and doubt that shades your pretty face when he tells you the inflated price for your freedom.  

You clearly don’t want to sleep with him. Your attempts to bargain are immediately turned down and it takes less than five minutes for you to crumble down. 

Keigo almost feels bad at your distressed teary face. But hey, a win is a win.

You try to relax when he starts kissing and touching you. To be calm when he slowly starts making love to you.

But it feels so dead wrong and the overwhelming realization that Hawks was lying about letting you go finally hits you like a brick and you try to push him away, pointlessly make him get off from you. 

But no point in that cause Keigo isn’t gonna let you go anywhere. 

“Deal’s off, babe. I mean, I was willing to let you go and all, but since you ruined the whole mood…there was no need to fight me, ya know? I wasn’t forcing you into anything, was I? But since you broke your promise, I suppose I’m gonna have to keep you here with me.”

(VISUAL)

Dabi

-> Noncon

Dabi isn’t one to shy away from what he wants.

He takes what he wants, when he wants and how he wants and you don’t get any say in it. 

So, if for a moment you actually believed you could argue or convince the black-haired villain to leave you alone, then you’re not up for a great start with him. 

Dabi doesn’t care when you start crying, spirit battered over the small burns he gives you for trying to fight back. He doesn’t care for your wails of pain when he fucks you in the way he wants to. 

Dabi is sadistic like that, he actually enjoys the terror that floods your entire face when he explains in extensive detail all the scary lustful needs he wants to fulfill by using you. 

He’s definitely one to use tight ropes to bend you in uncomfortable positions when fucking you - just because they allow him better access and less struggle from you.

Doesn’t give a crap about your wellbeing or if you get to cum, those are unnecessary thoughts for him. 

As long as Dabi gets to end his night with a few orgasms, he’s good. 

“Oh sweetheart, there’s no point in begging. That’s not gonna change my mind. And can you even blame me? Just look at you, such a pretty body you have. You’re just too tempting to let go and trust me, I’m not planning to.”

(VISUAL)

Bakugo

-> Forced Oral - (male receiving)

Bakugo has mild-anger issues and everyone knows that so, if anything, it was entirely your fault for provoking the anger out of him. 

You saw an opportunity to try an escape and you took it, even though it was meant to fail miserably.

Bakugo ends up wrestling you back inside the house, tightly clutching your hair as he angrily shouts at how much of an ungrateful brat you are.

He’s so damn pissed that you almost got away that he can’t control himself. All the adrenaline and anger mixing up in his blood and all he wants is to teach you a proper lesson. Scare you into submission. Make sure that you’ll never act up again.

His hands are cruel as he roughs you up a bit, ignoring your scared shrieks. 

But the real punishment is the way he fucks your mouth.

His pace is so insanely fast, demanding and brutal, and he carries on without caring for the numerous times you gag and choke around his length, unable to pull away because of the vice grip he has on your scalp.

The way he facefucks you is humiliating and brutal, and the cherry on top of the cake is when Bakugo shoots his sticky cum all over your face before leaving you bruised up and with a hurting throat.

Afterwards, Bakugo might feel a bit bad because that’s definitely not how he planned your first time doing something intimate together, but on the bright side - you get much more obedient and calm towards him. 

“The hell you giving me that pathetic look for, huh. You fuckin’ deserved that and you know that. Had you not acted all lunatic and none of this would’ve happened.”

(VISUAL)

[starstruckunknown-princess]

Clematis - Anthony Bridgerton x Reader

Clematis (Clematis) - Meaning: Ingenuity, cleverness

Summary: Anthony's lover comes up with a way to see him after the ball.

Pairing: Anthony Bridgerton x Reader

Word Count: 1504

Warnings: SMUT, probably poorly written cunnilingus (F receiving), reader has female anatomy, Regency era gender politics, Anthony loves giving head

Day 15 and not sure how I feel about this one. Getting it in under the wire, it's almost midnight where I'm at. I just want a man to come in through my window and eat my 😼 okay???

In Bloom Masterlist

Likes, Comments, Reblogs are ALWAYS appreciated! ❤️

If this was how Anthony Bridgerton kissed, you couldn’t imagine how else he could make you feel. His lips were firm against yours, but gentle, coaxing, his large hands tracing down your neck and along the line of your decollete which made your breath hitch. 

Part of the intoxication was the danger of the situation — you were the daughter of an Earl, a respectable lady of the Ton, and if you were discovered with Anthony Bridgerton’s hands and lips all over you, you would be ruined. 

You broke the kiss, needing an influx of air or you would surely faint. Anthony rested his forehead against yours. 

“I need you,” you breathed out, “Anthony, I need you.” 

He ran a delicate finger down your chest, “Not here, dearest.” 

“Then where? When?” You couldn’t help the whine that escaped you as you pressed your pliant body against his firm one. 

He sighed, dropping his forehead to your shoulder. “If only I could whisk you away from here without drawing suspicion.” 

An idea came to mind — it was risky, but if he agreed you could continue feeling like you were on fire, and oh, how you wanted to burn. 

“Come to my home, tonight,” you whispered, gasping a little as his lips pressed against your neck, licking over your jeweled necklace. “There’s a trellis just under my window, you can climb right up.” 

“You wish for me to defile you in your own bedroom?” Anthony growled against your neck, “Naughty girl.” 

He agreed to the plan nonetheless, and you straightened yourself before heading back to your parents, claiming a headache and asking for the carriage. 

“But dear, you haven’t danced with Lord Hollingsworth yet!” your Mama declared, having selected the oh-so-boring yet oh-so-available man as your best hope for marriage at the beginning of the season. 

“Now, now Cecelia,” your Papa chimed in, “if the girl is unwell we shan’t force her to dance. I’ll call the carriage, dears, you two gather your things and say your goodbyes.” He nodded at you and ducked away, eager to get home as usual. 

From across the ballroom, you caught Anthony’s eye and nodded slightly. He winked, sending the butterflies in your stomach into a frenzy. He was to give you ninety minutes to make sure your parents were asleep, then scale your trellis like a hero in a romantic novel. 

Immediately upon your return home, you excused yourself upstairs. Your maid helped you undress, but you dismissed her quickly, claiming you could handle taking the pins out of your hair on your own. Over the next hour, you listened as your father retired to his study and your mother to her bedroom. 

Once you were sure your parents were in for the night, you placed a candle in your window — his signal that the coast was clear. Unable to remain still, you started pacing your room. Would he show up or leave you twisting in the wind like this? 

Only a few minutes of pacing later a knock came from your window. You dashed over, unlatching it and moving the candle for Anthony to pull himself up. He did so athletically, like letting a tiger into your bedroom. When he was inside, you closed the window and he was on you in a heartbeat, hot kisses along the back of your neck while his hands slid around your waist. 

Your hand came up to grip the back of his head, your fingers lacing through his silken hair. You pressed back against him, turning your head to meet his lips with your own. He tasted like whiskey and sin. He spun you around in his grasp and tugged you close to him by your hips. 

You gasped as you felt his cock pressing into your lower tummy — he was large. For a moment you hesitated, wondering how something so large would fit inside you, but Anthony’s insistent grip on your hips turned into him grabbing handfuls of your nightgown and pulling the cool silk up, up, up. 

“You came,” you gasped breathlessly.

“You didn’t think I would? Tsk, tsk,” he joked, clicking his tongue at you. “My dear, now that I’ve had a taste, I cannot get enough.” 

He emphasized his point by kissing your lips once again, licking his tongue into your mouth. You responded with a soft moan, which only seemed to spur him on. 

Before you knew what was happening, Anthony had tossed you back onto your bed and was  crawling over you, bringing the hem of your nightgown with him. Your breath hitched as you felt his warm, large fingers tracing trails of fire up your legs, teasing your wetness through your undergarments. 

“May I taste you,” he asked, and you moaned your response which prompted him to stop his fingers only an inch from where you needed him most. Opening your eyes, you looked down at him and whined. He rose to meet your lips with his. “I need you to remain quiet, otherwise I will stop. And we don’t want that, sweet one, do we?” 

Anything. Anything he wanted as long as he kept touching you. When he saw you nod, he hooked a finger beneath your gusset and ripped it, baring your wetness to him. With eyes dark as obsidian in the light of the single candle burning, he gazed up at you with such heat as you had never known. 

He hooked one of your legs over his shoulder, then licked a long stripe into you, sending a lightning bolt up your spine. His lips curled around your clit and you shuddered. A moan threatened to slip past your lips but you clamped your hand over your mouth to stop it. The noise was caught in your throat, fluttering like a canary in a cage. 

Anthony hummed a, “good girl,” against you, making you clench around nothing. 

You moved your hands, making an effort to keep your tone low, “More, please!”

You felt him smirk against you before he redoubled his efforts, this time breaching your entrance with a thick finger. Moaning at the intrusion, Anthony took this as an invitation to add another finger, stretching you deliciously. 

You were close, so close, his fingers pumping and hitting a spot within you that you couldn’t reach, his tongue flicking against your clit. Each movement made the knot in your lower tummy tighten, threatening to snap at any moment. 

“Anthony, please,” you whined, unable to control your volume.

He slowed his fingers and removed his mouth from you. “Quiet,” he hissed, “Or do you wish for your parents to find me here?” 

Unconsciously, you clenched around his fingers. The danger of being caught added something you couldn’t name to the situation. Anthony smiled. “Mmm, does my sweet want to get caught?” He teased, and you clenched again, “I think she does. Such a wanton little strumpet, tempting me into a dark corner to kiss me, then inviting me to her bedchambers in the middle of the night, and squeezing my fingers at the thought of someone coming in…”

His words, said in his tantalizing baritone, were pushing you closer and closer to the edge. If only he would put his mouth to better use and—

As if reading your mind, his lips landed back on your clit and his fingers picked up their pace once more, again finding the spot within you that made you see stars with every pass. 

You clamped your hands over your mouth again and moaned his name, which only spurred him on. He drove into you, his tongue and lips reciting an ode against you, dedicating it to you and your pleasure. Having the entire focus of this season’s most eligible bachelor was intoxicating to say the least — and inevitably what pushed you straight into your climax. 

You writhed against him, held in place by his strong forearm as he worked you through your orgasm, the aftershocks lasting much longer than they normally did. Anthony remained between your legs and cleaned up every drop of your release before withdrawing. 

The clock in the hall chimed thrice. Anthony joined you when you reached for him, kissing you deeply and letting you taste yourself on his tongue. You let your hand drift to the front of his trousers, palming his length until he guided your wrist away. 

“As much as I wish for it, I have an early appointment and must be on my way.” 

You pouted up at him, but he placed a sweet kiss to your forehead before slipping off the end of your bed with a promise to see you again soon. 

You watched as he made his way back down the trellis. When he got to the bottom, he blew you a kiss before disappearing into the dark Mayfair night.

The early appointment Anthony had, you would find out later, was to meet with your father. He asked for your hand that afternoon. And, knowing what awaited you in your marital bed, you happily said yes.

[linkspooky]

TOGACHAKO VS. FUFFY: How To Save Your Evil Girlfriend

So, once again My Hero Academia has failed to deliver on its promise of saving / redeeming one of the main villains of its story, and victims of its ficitonal society. This time I'm going to make the added argument that not only does failing to save Toga make the story worse, it also makes Uraraka's character almost completely hollow. While you can dismiss Deku's lack of character development as him being a shonen protagonist, both Uraraka and Shoto had arcs and Ochako's is effectively ruined by her failure to save Toga.

In order to make my point I am going to compare it to a villain redemption arc in another piece of media that does it right, Faith's character, and her strained relationship with Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A series which is overall anti-state punishment and pro-redemption and delivers on practically all the themes MHA promised us.

MORE UNDER THE CUT:

THE GOOD GIRL and THE BAD GIRL

There is a reoccurring dynamic between two female characters in media, usually between a heroine and a female villainness that I like to call: The Good Girl vs. Bad Girl complex.

However, if you were a Freudian you'd be calling this a Madonna Whore Complex.

To explain the Madonna Whore Complex, one of the biggest examples in other Media is Aronofsky's Black Swan. The entire movie is themed around the Madonna Whore complex, and the impossible double standards the male perception imposes upon women.

"The white swan and the black swan are not merely characters, and not merely characters that are relevant to Nina. The black swan and the white swan are archetypes of women. They are emblematic of the Madonna and the Whore [...] . The white swan is the Madonna, she is pure, innocent, the ingenue. The black swan is the whore, she is cunning and deviant. The seductress. Nina and her ballet counterpart Odette are characterized as perfect ingénues. Ingénues are young, innocent girls who possess qualities of youth, innocence, kindness, naivete and purity. She is the fawn eyed damsel in distress and in literary films she's often the heroine or protagonist. On the other side of the coin from the ingenue, we have the seductress, embodied by Lily and her ballet counterpart Odelle. The seductress is characterized by her promiscuity, cunning nature and sex appeal. She is the alluring femme fatalle, willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. She's most often framed as the village. These draw parallels to Freud's psychoanalytical theory, a theory that suggests in the minds of some men they struggle to fully see women as fully realized and rather view them in archetypal categories." [SOURCE]

Black Swan is also a movie where Natalie Portman attempting to live up to the impossible expectations society has placed on her to be both the White Swan and the Black Swan goes insane, and quite possibly dies at the end of the movie.

Considering that Toga's entire story is that she is a shapeshifter who went mad because she could not fit both her parent's and society's expectations of being a "normal girl" then you can see why the Madonna Whore Complex is relevant, with the oversexualized, vampish, femme fatalle Toga quite obviously playing the part of the whore.

Before you call me a fraud for citing freud though, let me prove my point that the Madonna Whore Complex is quite literally everywhere in media.

I could literally keep going if this post didn't have an image limit: Jean Grey and Emma Frost, Jean Grey and Madelyne Pryor, Starfire and Blackfire, Raven and Terra, The Two Sisters from Ginger Snaps, t's literally everywhere all the way back to Lilith and Eve.

More intelligent takes on this trope play with the concept of the Madonna Whore Complex (MWC) to either present the archetypes as two fully rounded people (Catra and Adora) or demonstrate that it's impossible for women to fit into these two dinstinct categories (Natalie Portman in Black Swan).

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a work that challenges the MWC, by allowing both its good girl, and bad girl to be fully realized characters. My Hero Academia plays the MWC straight to a sexist extent by not allowing Uraraka and Toga to escape their categorization of Good Girl and Bad Girl, and also going out of its way to punish and kill the seductress for her sexuality like this is a slasher horror movie. Actually, it's worse than a horror movie because at least Jennifer's Body plays with the MWC in a clever way.

It's not just bad writing anymore Hori's writing has crossed over into actively murdering female characters to enforce puritan values, but let's not get into that just yet we'll talk about the writing portion instead.

I'm going to outline what BTVS accomplishes, demonstrate how it does this below, and then go on at length picking apart how MHA fails.

BTVS:

Shows Buffy and Faith as fully realized people

Shows the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Breaks down those two categories

Redeems it's bad girl

With that out of the way let's get the ball rolling.

HOW TO (NOT) SAVE YOUR EVIL GIRLFRIEND

This is the part where everyone in the audience is going to gasp. Even though I'm using Buffy and Faith as a positive example of deconstructing the MWC and redeeming a villain, Buffy does not save Faith. The two of them reconcile in the end, but Faith is not redeemed or saved by Buffy, and in fact Buffy is in part responsible for Faith's fall.

So, why would I say Buffy and Faith are a better example of villain redemption then Uraraka who at least did everything she could to offer a helping hand to Toga?

Because Buffy not saving Faith is THE POINT and Faith receiving redemption even though Buffy gave up on her is also THE POINT. Lemme explain, by starting at the beginning.

BTVS is a story that exists to flip both horror tropes, and the idea of the chosen hero on its head. The concept started out with Joss Whedon noticing that the Cheerleader is always the first victim in any given horror movie, and wondering what it would look like if the Cheerleader could fight back. If the Cheerleader was the thing that monsters ran away from.

Which leads us to Buffy Summers. Buffy is chosen by the universe to slay vampires, she is hero with super strength that can easily take on legions of vampires and often has to fight even tougher villains for each season's conflict. Buffy carries all the classic features of both the ingenue and the chosen one protagonist rolled up into one:. Ingénues are young, innocent girls who possess qualities of youth, innocence, kindness, naivete and purity.

However, after dying in the first season, and having to kill her boyfriend in the second season after he turned evil and inflicted a lot of psychosexual abuse on her Buffy has also got a whole lot of trauma. Which is when Faith appears on the scene. One of the first ways that the show challenges the idea of the "Chosen One" is that there are actually two Chosen Ones, Faith being the other Slayer.

Buffy much like Deku has a case of protagonism brain rot, but in her case she was actually chosen by the mystic powers that be to be the protagonist of reality. Buffy, who views herself as the hero of the story as a coping mechanism (we'll get back to this later) is suddenly challenged when the fates chose yet another chosen hero, challenging her pre-conceived notion that she is the hero of the story. If Buffy is not the only hero then who is she? What is all the suffering she's endured so far if it's not a part of her own personal hero's journey?

Buffy begins to dislike Faith on sight for projection reasons, before Faith does anything wrong. In a way Buffy herself the female lead is enforcing society's standards of the MWC because all the reasons Buffy decides to disturst and dislike Faith on sight are because she exhibits qualities of the seductress.

Faith is openly promiscuous, often comparing the art of killing vampires to sex, she is also someone who is proud of her power as a a slayer and uses it for her own purposes. She is a slayer for selfish reasons (apparently) while Buffy is the selfless hero. In the first episode Faith appears in, Faith, Hope and Trick Buffy is almost immediately hostile to Faith who has so far done nothing wrong for, trying to get along with Buffy's friends, getting a little bit too into vampire slaying and openly relishing her strength, and like occasionally making lood comments.

FAITH: Don't… touch… me…! BUFFY - yanks Faith off the unconscious vamp with one hand, stakes the vamp withher other. Then she turns to Faith who is breathing hard, high on adrenaline, rubbing her fists. BUFFY: What is wrong with you? FAITH: What are you talking about? BUFFY: I'm talking about you living large on the great undead here. FAITH: Gee, if doing violence to vampires upsets you, I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong line a work… BUFFY: Or maybe you like it just a little too much. FAITH: I was getting the job done. BUFFY: The job is to slay demons. Not mash them into sloppy joes while their

Buffy then escalates to like ableist slurs towards Faith within half an episode for getting slightly violent in a fight against vampires that were trying to kill her.

GILES: Well, Buffy, you have to realize you and Faith have very different temperaments… BUFFY: I know, mine would be the sane one. Giles, she's not playing with a full deck. She has almost no deck. She has a three. GILES: You said yourself she killed one of them, she's a plucky fighter who got a little carried away. Which isnatural, she's focussed on Slaying,she doesn't have a whole other lifehere like you --

The twist this episode is that no matter how much Faith tries to present herself as a free-spirit, she's actually a scared homeless girl who just happened to become the Slayer. Unlike Buffy she does not have a watcher, a mother, or friends to support her. She lives in the cheapest motel in sunnydale. The reason she's so violent against vampires is because she is understandably having a trauma flashback because her mentor was murdered right in front of her by a different vamp.

This is repeating pattern throughout the whole season, Faith is shown to be a victim of trauma, and occasionally acts in ways that are understandable for a victim like her to ask, only for Buffy to start mischaracterizing her as someone violent and insane and throwing the slurs.

You can compare both Faith and Toga as characters who are complex victims of trauma who society turns their back on and become bad victims, but Faith is a special case because we actively see her turn to the dark side. Faith starts out trying to be a hero like the rest and she practically does nothing wrong for half a season, and when she does finally make a mistake and become a bad victim it's the hero's desire to punish her and castigate her that turns her into a villain.

We actively see Faith's fall happen onscreen, and it's like totally Buffy's fault. Buffy throws her completely under the bus, because she's so desperate to see Faith as the Bad Slayer and Buffy as the Good Slayer. Faith is almost pushed into evil because of the MWC, the characters around her can't see her as a fully fleshed out human being so they are quick to demonize her when she starts acting like a bad victim.

So the two episodes appropriately named: Bad Girls and Consequences depict Faith's fall. In that episode Faith and Buffy are fighting vampires, and one human is mixed among the vampires. The human grabs Faith by the shoulder, and Faith thinking that the human is a vampire turns him around and stakes him.

It's a complete accident, something that Giles even says later on is an accident that can happen to any Slayer on the job and is completely normal. It's a murder that Buffy herself could have committed.

GILES: This is not the first time something like this has happened. BUFFY: It's not? GILES: A slayer is on the front lines of a nightly war, Buffy. It's tragic - but accidents have happened. BUFFY: What do you do? GILES: The council investigates, meters out punishment if punishment is due… I've no plan to involve them,however. That's the last thing Faith needs right now. She's unstable, Buffy. She seems utterly unable to accept responsibility. Shows no remorse.

However, even in the same breath Giles explains that it's an accident and not Faith's fault, he's also calling Faith unstable and irresponsible. Basically when they're not calling her a psycho (just hitting her with the ableist slurs), the protagonists all lowkey imply that Faith is somehow inherently violent and unstable because she displays symptoms of a bad victim.

I might also remind you Faith has not done anything to earn any of these accusations, until she kills someone in a complete accident. A complete accident that Giles once again said wasn't her fault and wasn't really a big deal.

FAITH: My dead mother hits harder than that.

Faith is stated to be a victim of physical abuse, heavily implied to be a victim of sexual abuse, and is homeless (none of the main characters offer to let her stay in her house she spends half a season in a terrible motel). However, Faith is quickly demonized by the white wealthy main characters for acting in ways that are completely typical for a homeless teenager.

The moment she commits one mistake they all turn on her and use that mistake as proof of these violent tendencies they all want to accuse her of having. Faith can never be the ingenue so she must be the seductress, because she can't just be a person.

Buffy: So, I, uh... (sees Faith scrubbing) How are ya doin'? Faith: (still scrubbing) I'm alright. You know me. Buffy: Faith, we need to talk about what we're gonna do. Faith: (looks at Buffy) There's nothing to talk about. I was doing my job. Buffy: Being a Slayer is not the same as being a k*ller. Faith has nothing to say. She's finished scrubbing. Buffy: Faith, please don't shut me out here. Look, sooner or later, we're both gonna have to deal.

It is essentially two episodes of this, Faith after killing someone on accident in a life or death fight is constantly called a murderer by others. She wasn't even like, drunk, or high, or being especially reckless she was being a normal slayer.

FAITH: So the mayor of Sunnydale is a black hat. Shocker, huh? BUFFY: Actually - yeah. I didn't get the bad guy vibe off him. Faith shakes her head. Scoffs. FAITH: When you gonna learn, B? It doesn't matter what kind of "vibe" a person gives off. Nine times outta ten he face they're showing you? It isn't the real one. BUFFY: I guess you know a lot about that. FAITH: What's that supposed to mean? BUFFY: Look at you, Faith. Less than twenty four hours ago you killed a guy. And now you're laughing and scratching and zipidee doo dah. That's not your real face, and I know it. I know what you're feeling because I feel it too. FAITH: Do you? So, fill me in. I'd like to hear this. BUFFY: Dirty. Like something sick creeped inside you and you can't get it out. And you keep hoping what happened wasjust some nightmare…

Faith is dirty, faith is disgusting, faith is unstable, Faith is sick for... killing a guy on accident in a way that Giles said was a perfectly understandable accident, and not showing clear guilt because the moment she did it everyone around her jumped on her and started accusing her of being a murderer.

Why do the selfless main characters suddenly start demonizing this girl before she even did anything wrong - well it's because she's poor problem solved.

No, but it does play a factor. Why do most american white middle class look down on the homeless? Because, they must have done something to deserve it, right? If Faith killed a man, that clearly is an indication that she was violent all along and the heroes don't have to sympathize with the fact she's homeless or you know lift a finger to help her.

Now, this makes it sound like I hate Buffy, but Buffy is actually my favorite character in the whole show. The thing is Buffy's complete lack of sympathy for Faith makes her a better character. Buffy needs to demonize Faith and throw her under the bus, because Buffy is a victim of sexual abuse too. Her boyfriend turned evil after having sex with her once, and spent an entire season stalking her and terrorizing her the entire season 2 Buffy / Angel plotline is a thinly veiled groomer metaphor.

The thing about Buffy is she's not allowed to show any kind of reaction to her trauma. The episodes preceeding Faith, Hope and Trick are Anne, an episode where Buffy runs away from home after being sexually abused (stalking is sexual abuse) by Angel for a whole season and feeling like no one would understand her, and Dead Man's Party, an episode where every single one of Buffy's loved ones ruthlessly criticize her for having run away. Like, how dare a teenager not react perfectly to being horribly stalked by a serial killer after she had sex with him for like half a year.

JOYCE: Buffy! You didn't give me any time. You just dumped this… this thing on me and expected me to get it. Well -guess what? Mom's not perfect. I handled it badly. But that doesn'tgive you the right to punish me byrunning away. BUFFY: Punish you? I didn't do this to punish you XANDER: Well you did. You should have seen what it did to her. BUFFY: Great. Would anybody else care to weigh in? What about you? By the dip. XANDER: Maybe you don't want to hear it, Buffy. But taking off like that was selfishand stupid. Buffy's breaking down. It's all too much. BUFFY: Okay - I screwed up! I know it - alright!? But you have no idea. You have no idea what happened to me or what I was feeling

The reason Buffy is so hard on Faith is because everyone else is equally hard on her. The label of the ingenue is so difficult for Buffy to maintain, because she has to be pure, and without any flaws, especially when reacting to trauma that she throws Faith under the bus for her bad victim behaviors.

The white middle class demonize the homeless because they don't want to face the reality it can happen to them, Buffy doesn't want to reflect on all the things her and Faith have in common because she could very easily become Faith. Buffy is the victim of extremely similiar trauma to Faith, and being pressured to be the perfect victim of that trauma in a way that's destroying her mentally slowly.

FAITH: It was good, wasn't it? The sex? The danger? Bet a part of you even dug him when he went psycho BUFFY: No FAITH: See - you need me to tow the line because you're afraid you'll go over it, aren't you, B? You can't handle watching me living my own way and having a blast - because it tempts you. You know it could be you... ( Something snaps in Buffy. She rears back and POPS Faith a good one. Faith falls back, but she's smiling as she puts a hand to her bleeding mouth. ) FAITH: There's my girl…

Buffy is suffering under the expectations of the MWC too, but in her desperation to make Faith out to be the seductress instead of... like... a csa victim... Buffy is reinforcing those standards on both herself and another woman.

The entirety of Bad Girls and Conesequences is Faith being called a murderer by several people, having another trauma flashback to a sexual assault because Xander came to her motel room under the guise of "helping her", getting hit over the head and chained to a wall, then getting the swat team called on her and almost dragged to London for trial. Then the heroes do nothing to help her. The first thing Faith does is go to the main villain, who buys her an apartment AND A PLAYSTATION. So... the evil main Villain of the show helped Faith with her homelessness situation while none of the main characters lifted a finger.

it sounds like it sucks but it doesn't because it's all intentional. Buffy cannot process her own sexual trauma so she is just awful to people who are also domestic abuse victims. here's one of my favorite scenes, Buffy yells at a girl being beaten by her boyfriend with a visible black eye.

Buffy: Where can we find him? Debbie: I-I don't know. Buffy: You're lying. Debbie: What if I am? What are you gonna do about it? Willow: Wrong question. Buffy takes her by the arm again and pushes her up against the sink in front of the mirror. Buffy: Look at yourself. Why are you protecting him? Anybody who really loved you couldn't do this to you. She takes a few steps away. Debbie turns around to face them. Debbie: Would they take him someplace? Buffy: Probably. Debbie: (shakes her head, sobbing) I could never do that to him.(Willow sighs) I'm his everything. Buffy: (disgusted) Great. So what, you two live out your Grimm fairy tale? Two people are dead.

That poor girl gets her neck snapped like five minutes later and Buffy just kinda, moves on even though it would have been an easily preventable death.

Buffy getting mad at an abuse victim for showing textbook behaviors of abuse victims in bad relationships. Buffy is a good character because she is a hero, she can be empathic, but she really only understands heroism in term of defeating the bad guys, and when called to relate to people with complex trauma, especially trauma that reflects her own trauma she can't! She just can't process it! The expectations of being the ingenue, the perfect hero are so crushing she can't cope with a messy reality so she needs to have a black and white view of herself and other people.

Buffy needs to be firmly in the good category, and Faith needs to be firmly in the bad category in order for Buffy's brain to keep working.

Not only does Buffy's conflict with Faith characterize how much Faith suffers for being a bad victim, it shows how the pressure to be a good victim destroys Buffy mentally to the point where she starts using Faith as a punching bag.

Literallly.

It's all intentional too, Buffy gets called out on it, Faith always gets the last word and the final episode of the season makes out Buffy to be a hypocrite. After Buffy literally threw Faith under the bus, called her disgusting for murdering a man, Buffy is completely willing to murder Faith to get a cure for her vampire boyfriend who's been poisoned.

All human life is sacred and needs to be protected, but Fuck Faith I guess.

Faith: I could say the same about you. I mean, you're still the same better-than-thou Buffy. I mean, I knew it somehow. I kept having this dream, I'm not sure what it means, but in the dream the self-righteous blond chick stabs me, and you wanna know why? Buffy: You had it coming. Faith: That's one interpretation, but in my dream, she does it for a guy. Faith: I wake up to find the blond chick isn't even dating the guy she was so nuts about before. I mean, she's moved on to the first college beefstick she meets. Not only has she forgotten about the love of her life, but she's forgotten about the chick she nearly k*lled for him. So that's my dream. That and some stuff about cigars and a tunnel. But tell me, college girl, what does it mean? Buffy: To me? Mostly, that you still mouth off about things you don't understand. (Sirens) Uh-oh. I guess somebody knows you're here.

So the show goes to great length to show you that there are two sides to this conflict, Buffy demonizes Faith, because her friends expect her to be the perfect hero. Faith reacts badly to trauma because she has no support system, and the people around her have no empathy for her because they're too privileged to imagine the things in Faith's life ever happening to her.

Buffy and Faith are fully realized people.

Buffy and Faith are presented to the audience as the ingenue and the seductress but they're both fully realized characters. Buffy's not the ingenue because she's just as capable of murder as Faith is. Faith isn't the seductress because she's a homeless teenager. They are both victims of sexual trauma, though one reacts in what people consider an "acceptable way" and the other is a total slut about it.

Shows the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Buffy throws Faith under the bus specifically because the pressure in her life to be the perfect slayer is so immense that it could be her that takes the fall so she needs to believe in black and white concepts like she is inherently good and Faith is inherently bad to justify the bad things that happen to Faith and therefore convince herself said bad things could never happen to her. "You can't handle watching me living my own way and having a blast - because it tempts you. You know it could be you..."

Faith: Angel said there was no way you were gonna give me a chance. Buffy: I gave you every chance! I tried so hard to help you, and you spat on me. My life was just something for you to play with. Angel - Riley - anything that you could take from me - you took. I've lost battles before - but nobody else has -ever- made me a victim. Faith: And you can't stand that. You're all about control. You have no idea what it's like on the other side! Where nothing's in control, nothing makes sense! There is just pain and hate and nothing you do means anything. You can't even.. Buffy: Shut up!"

Buffy needs to fit her and Faith into neat little boxes because she cannot face the inherent senselessness of the world (and also that she is a victim too "you made me a victim")

Breaks down those two categories

Even in Seasons where Faith is not present she haunts the narrative, because the writers were well aware that Buffy and Faith are the same person under different circumstances.

All of Season 6 Buffy is faced with many of the same situations that Faith was, she suddenly becomes poor and in danger of losing her house, she has extreme depression from coming back from the dead (long story) she can't share those feelings with any of her friends because they treated her much like they did Faith - having no sympathy for imperfect victims. Buffy even gets into an unhealthy, sexual relationship, and like Natalie Portman basically changes from the ingenue into the seductress.

A relationship she has to keep a secret because once again, Buffy must fit into the box of the ingenue in order to be loved by her friends. This leads to her committing several bad behaviors, and at times borderline emotional abuse towards her sister (and debatably her boyfriend) and all comes to a head when Buffy is faced with the exact same situation as Faith.

Buffy in Season 6 believes she has killed a person accidentally while being the Slayer. It's a repeat of Bad Girls with several paralels, including someone trying to hide the body only for it to turn up later, and Buffy insisting she has to turn herself into the police and face jailtime.

However, in this version Buffy unlike Faith has friends who try to stop her from turning herself in and explain to her the murder wasn't her fault - and Buffy still reacts the same way Faith does. She basically borderline quotes Faith.

Faith: Shut up! Do you think I'm afraid of you? [Faith grabs Buffy and throws her down, then sits on top of her and starts punching her.] Faith: You're nothing. [Punch. Punch.] Faith: Disgusting. [Punch. Punch.] [Faith grabs Buffy's hair with both hand and bangs her head.] Faith: Murderous bitch. [Bang. Bang...] You're nothing. [Bang. Bang...] Faith: [Switches back to punches] You're [Faith is now crying.] disgusting.

This is an earlier scene which plays out as an exact parallel to this scene:

BUFFY: You can't understand why this is killing me, can you? SPIKE: Why don't you explain it? She hits him a few more times. He takes it, not fighting back. SPIKE: Come on, that's it, put it on me. Put it all on me. (She kicks him) That's my girl. BUFFY: (yelling) I am not your girl! She hits him hard. He falls back onto his butt. Buffy gets on top of him and begins hitting him over and over. BUFFY: You don't ... have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real! I could never ... be your girl! She continues hitting him throughout this. Now Spike goes back to human face. He's looking very bruised and bloody, but he doesn't fight back, just takes it. Buffy hits him again and again, looking angry and desperate. Finally she stops and looks at him in horror.

So if Buffy can react the exact same way that Faith does, when faced with the same trauma there is no good girl or bad girl, there's only two people who are complicated human beings.

The story *gasp* lets the hero be a bad girl.

Redeems it's bad girl

Faith's redemption is a shocking contrast to MHA the plot of BTVS does not allow Faith to commit suicide in order to redeem herself. In fact, her entire arc is an argument against the "put her down like a mad dog" trope. Starting with the fact that the heroes who are partly responsible for Faith's fall in the first place, are all too willing to just let the homeless teenager fall by the wayside, and then put her down for her own sake.

As I stated above, the inherent hypocrisy Buffy shows in her calling Faith a murderer and irredeemable for killing someone on accident because all human life is sacred to her, and then going on to try to murder Faith at the end of the season already shows the "put her down like a mad dog" argument doesn't work. Faith isn't too far gone, it's just Buffy who sees her that way. And because Buffy has given up on Faith she's failing at being a hero.

As I said above, Buffy is not the one to rescue Faith. In fact, in the episodes where Faith's redemption arc starts, Buffy is the one trying to hunt her down and enforce punishment on her. The episodes "5x5" and "Sanctuary" are both focused on Buffy going to LA to hunt down and interfere when Angel is trying to help Faith get back on her feet. The two episdodes basically explore the concept of redemption vs. punishment and how punishment saves no one.

5x5 depicts Faith's spiral as she runs away to LA to escape Buffy who is hunting her down, and accepts a job to assassinate Angel, which if she succeeds will get her rich and also get the cops off of her trail. We're led the whole episode to believe Faith has learned nothing until the confrontation with Angel at the very end, which you should really watch because it's great television.

Faith: You hear me? - You don't know what evil is! - I'm bad! - Fight back! Faith keeps whaling on Angel, sometimes he ducks, sometimes the hits connect. Angel grabs a hold of her: Nice try, Faith. He tosses her away from him. Then walks after her. Angel: I know what you want. She hits him and he hits back dropping her. She comes back up hitting and screaming, but not making much of a dent. Wesley leans out of the window and sees Faith beating up on Angel. He goes into the kitchen and grabs a butcher knife, then heads for the door. Angel as he dodges another hit: I'm not gonna make it easy for you. Faith throws herself against Angel screaming: I'm evil! I'm bad! I'm evil! Do you hear me? I'm bad! Angel, I'm bad! (She begins to sob, grabbing a hold of Angel's shirt and shaking him) I'm ba-ad. Do you hear me? I'm bad! I'm bad! I'm bad. Please. Angel, please, just do it. Wesley comes running out of the house. Faith sobbing: Angel please, just do it. Just do it. Just k*ll me. Just k*ll me." Angel wraps his arms around her shoulders and pulls her against him. She over balances them and they sink to their knees, Angel still holding her as she cries. Angel: Shh. It's all right. It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here. Shh.

Faith tries to take the Toga approach to commit suicide in order to atone, but Angel actively understands that is what she's trying to do, and denies her the chance to die to redeem herself and instead holds her until she calms down.

Angel doesn't just save her once though he spends the entire next episode defending Faith from Buffy who has come to LA to take her revenge, and trying to talk Faith into believing she can still keep on living in spite of all the bad things she's done.

Faith: Are you saying I got to apologize? Angel: Think you can? Faith: I don’t' know. - How do you say 'Gee, I'm really sorry tortured you I nearly to death? Angel: Well, first off I think I'd leave off the 'Gee.' And secondly I think you have to ask yourself: are you? Faith: What? Angel: Sorry. Faith: And what if I *can't* say it? There are some things you can't just take back, no matter how sorry you *are*, right? Angel: Yeah, there are. I've got some experience in that area. Faith: Right. And you've been doing this for a hundred years! I'm not gonna make it through the next ten minutes. Angel: So make it through the next five, the next minute." Faith: "I don't think I can. Angel: Yes, you can. Faith walks away: God, it hurts. I hate that it hurts like this. Angel follows her: Oh well, it's supposed to hurt. All that pain, all that suffering you caused is coming back on you. Feel it! Deal with it! Then maybe you've got a shot at being free.

Angel's advice is "Guilt is supposed to hurt but if you face your pain you can try to find a way to be free of it" which is something much more profound then any of the forgiveness crap they peddle in MHA. More importantly though, the conflict the whole episode goes out of its way to show that revenge is bad, and punishment doesn't save a soul.

Angel: I didn't - I didn't think it was your business. Buffy: Not my business? Angel: I needed more time with Faith. I'm not sure... Buffy: You needed - do you have any idea what it was like for me to see you with her? That you went behind my back... Angel: Buffy, this wasn't about you! This was about saving someone's soul. Buffy: I came here because you were in danger. Angel: I'm in Danger every day. You came here because of faith. You were looking for vengeance. Buffy: I have a right to it. Angel: Not in my city.

Faith's suicidal ideation is a recurring theme that carries through her character arc in the following season - she does in fact go to prison for awhile (Elizabeth Dushku had to go make Bring it On) but Buffy remains anti-state punishment because going to Prison doesn't help her whatsoever. In fact, she just breaks out when she has to save Angel and spends the rest of the season free.

There are two episodes that actually are dedicated to showing prison didn't help, and what Faith needs to redeem herself is to spend every day of her life trying to be good, not just accepting punishment.

ANGEL: Faith, wake up! FAITH: (wakes) I've rolled the bones. You for me. ANGEL: I used to think that. That there'd be a point when I'd paid my dues. Angel and Angelus are fighting in the alley again. Angel leaves the fight and goes over to Faith's side, holding her up in his arms. ANGEL: Faith, listen to me. You saw me drink. It doesn't get much lower than that. And I thought I could make up for it by disappearing. FAITH: I did my time. ANGEL: Our time is never up, Faith. We pay for everything. FAITH: It hurts. ANGEL: I know. I know. ANGEL: Get up! You have to get up now. Faith, you have to fight. I need you to fight. Do you understand what I'm saying?

So you have one manga series where the teenage girl who did bad things commits suicide because she believed she was going to be in prison for the rest of her life and had no future, and you have the other where the teenage girl tries to commit suicide - only for Angel to stop her and encourage her every step of the way that there's still a future for her even if she can't be "forgiven".

One work ends Toga's life because she's done "unforgivable things" and the other tells Faith that the things she should feel guilty for the things she's done, and she should feel that guilt so she can keep working to be a better person every single day.

One of these is a good message to send to your teenage homeless trauma victim, the other is incredibly harmful. With that out of the way let's switch to BNHA.

HOW TO BURY YOUR GAYS

Now I'm going to attempt to demonstrate why MHA fails to truly deconstruct the MWC, and this not only ruins any potential character development for Uraraka, it also sends a deeply harmful message with Toga's death.

I think I've gone to great length above explaining how BTVS communicates it's stance of being anti-punishment and pro-redemption and even goes as far to demonstrate how punishment does not save anyone. Yet, here is the manga about heroes saving people that completely fumbles those exact same themes.

MHA:

Doesn't show Toga and Ochako as fully realized people

Doesn't show the pressure to conform to the "Good Girl / Bad Girl" label.

Doesn't break down down those two categories

Doesn't redeem it's bad girl

So let me start by saying outside of the context of the story Ochako and Toga both had the potential to be great characters. Unforunately this isn't Gacha, so the way the characters are written in the story, and the quality of their story arcs affects how well they are characterized.

Toga is much better off as a character as opposed to Ochako who sort is reduced to a satellite that revolves around Deku, but their story arcs and the way they conclude does a disservice to both of them as characters. They fail entirely to be shown as fully realized people by their narratives, because of the narratives desire to force them into the good girl and bad girl box.

More or less, Ochako isn't allowed to have flaws, and Toga isn't allowed to redeem herself in any way that doesn't involve killing herself.

Let's get to the characters though, the basic premise of the comparsion between Toga and Ochako is that Ochako perfectly fits into the mould of what society considers a "good, nice girl" she perfectly embodies the ingenue. Whereas Toga was horribly abused for most of her life until she snapped, because she was unable to simply pretend to be the normal girl that Ochako is naturally.

One thing I will give credit to MHA for, it does Toga being pushed to the margins and eventually falling off the edge of society as a young eventually homeless girl that no one cared enough to help about as effectively as Faith did. Toga and Faith were also both demonized before they did anything wrong, and were further demonized because they didn't act the way good victims were supposed to act.

The manga is almost masterful at portraying how much being forced into the box of the ingenue caused Toga's mental decline, until she eventually snapped and became the seductress instead.

Toga hasn't even done anything yet, she's already being punished and demonized simply for appearing deviant. Because once again the categories of Ingenue and Seductress aren't for viewing women and girls as fully realized people, you are either a perfect, innocent, girl, or you're a whore.

Toga is also hypersexual the same way Faith is. Of course it's not done with any of the same amount of nuance of BTVS because Hori has a habit of using Toga for fanservice, but Toga does have a habit of sexualizing herself, in a way that would be classified as deviant love. We also in the manga first view her as nothing more than a shallow yandere who creeps Uraraka out with her blushing and hot desire for blood, only to be shown she's actually capable of being an emotionally intelligent and caring individual when it comes to how she relates to her friends.

Toga viewing sucking blood as love is a clear metaphor for deviant sexuality, or even hyper sexuality, it's something that makes her a literal vamp. Toga being overly sexually aggressive and suggestive with the way she sucks blood is something the society she's in demonizes her for, Deku even makes a thoughtless comment that pushes her off the edge that he'd never even think of hurting someone he loved.

Faith is a CSA victim who is constantly trying to play off her trauma, so she's totally into sex guys, she loves sex, she loves it rough, she goes to clubs and grinds on guys, she's all into sex and violence and safety words are for chumps.

Toga was told her way of expressing love and attraction was wrong and deviant from a young age, and as a result of that the same way that Faith embraces hypersexuality, Toga embraces her femme fatalle / yandere persona and plays it up. Well everyone was right about her, she's fine with being a monster, so she just wants to live as a monster stabbing people randomly and taking their blood before moving onto the next victim.

They can't ever be the ingenue, so Faith and Toga embrace being the seductress instead. Yes, Hori does use Toga for fanservice, but at the same time you can't deny she's deliberately playing up her sexuality like a femme fatalle in a way that is not healthy (Faith is a hypersexual teenager too, I'm saying it's a trauma response for both of them).

MHA also shows much like with Faith how Toga despite being just a teenager is someone all of society has given up on - the same way that everyone gave up on Faith for being a homeless teenager. Then further demonized her for acting in ways homeless teenagers act, until she at last finally committed one crime and they turned on her.

Toga's first crime was committed after her mental breakdown, but it's revealed much later on that Toga wanted to ask Saito for permission to drink his blood, and if she'd just been granted it or at least the emotional abuse heaped on her had stopped she never would have had her breakdown.

For Toga it was Saito, for Faith it was killing by Mistake, after being abandoned they endured violence that further radicalized them with no help from the heroes.

Toga's character also textually acknowledges that the heroes are not going to help her, and are likely going to kill her, whereas in Buffy it stays subtext. Which isn't a problem, it trusts it's audience to go "Oh, the good guys are being jerks here" however, it's a direct facet of MHA's worldbuilding that Toga has watched the heroes kill her best friend, and now thinks she has to fight to the death because the heroes will kill her too. She can't back down and let herself be saved, because the heroes don't even see her as human.

Buffy can't forgive Faith for accidentally killing some random guy because all human life is sacred, but also she tries to kill Faith multiple times, because Faith's not human I guess. Uraraka and Deku believe themselves to be heroes but they actively support people like Hawks, who murdered Toga's best friend and have done absolutely nothing to show her that they won't kill her.

Toga reflects a lot of Faith's suffering for being a bad victim that society allowed to fall through the cracks, and a Seductress who needs to be punished for expressing her sexuality. In fact if it were just Toga, you could call it at least an effective deconstruction of the "seductress/whore" because Toga is a fully realized character and her entire backstory is about how society's expectations for her to be a perfect ingenue, and then punishing her when she wasn't a perfect ingenue is what led to her complete mental breakdown. She couldn't be the white swan or the black swan, so she became the blood-soaked swan instead.

Where the comparison starts to fall apart is Ochako. Toga is a character, and Ochako is not. Just like Deku Ochako more or less just kind of morphs into a plot device that exists to save the villain counterparts to prove what good heroes the kids are - and then she doesn't even do that part. Failing to save Toga is the final nail in the coffin for Ochako being a character and not a plot device to show how good and virtuous the heroes are.

BTVS goes to painstaking extents to establish how Buffy and Faith are the exact same girl in different circumstances. They are both victims of sexual abuse. They're both the Slayer. They both lose their mom at different points in the story. They both struggle with the fact that slayers are also killers, they're both the "chosen one". They both have issues that makes them conflate sexuality with violence.

Buffy is put through several situations that parallel Faith, she loses her mom, she becomes financially destitute, she starts exploring her sexuality in a very faith-like way. The two of them swap bodies at one point and nobody can tell the difference.

There's no strong parallel between Ochako and Toga to give the audience a reason why we should care about the relationship between the two girls in the first place. Ochako's connection to Toga tells us nothing about her character, because there's no strong parallel as shown to us by the story.

There are some parallels, the story attempts to tackle the emotional repression angle of how much the ingenue suffers because she's forced to repress her emotions and how much she envies Toga's free expression.

Why does Ochako think that way? Why does she focus on Toga in particular? The plot tells us why Buffy feels she has so much in common with Faith, they're both the chosen one but Buffy feels like she's under such intense pressure to be perfect that seeing Faith get to act out and express herself makes her jealous.

The manga tells us that Ochako is emotionally repressed, but it doesn't show us, because there are never any real consequences for Ochako repressing her feelings. Natalie Portman in Black Swan, and Buffy both experience mental spirals because the pressure to be the perfect woman is too much for them - to meet the impossible purity standards of the ingenue while still being a sexual creature.

In Uraraka this is the extremely simplified belief that she can't have feelings for a boy, while also being a hero because those beings are selfish and she should be focused on saving people. However, we never see her suffer because of these feelings. We don't even get the bare minimum of having her angst over unrequited love.

I don't want to give Ochako too little credit, there are several things that could have been a connection to Ochako, but they all turn out to be non-starters. Ochako is poor and often makes remarks like "The best way to save money is to not eat" in omake and she hangs out with mostly rich friends. She had early angst about the fact that her friends were becoming heroes for mostly altruistic reasons and she became a hero for money.

That could have also connected to the scene where Ochako witnessed the scene of a hero quitting amongst all of the destruction after the end of the first war arc, to show her the consequences of all the heroes who were heroes for less than altruistic reasons.

Ochako could have even told Toga something along the lines of "I was poor, I know how it is to struggle" especially since Toga spent a good portion of time homeless after she was throne out by her parents.

Instead that goes unaddressed except in this scene which makes it look like Toga is ignorant for assuming Ochako never suffered.

Toga and Ochako both feel like they need to repress their feelings but Toga was emotionall abused by her parents, then experienced psychiatric abuse, and then was disowned after her mental breakdown led to a violent incident. Uraraka feels like she can't tell the boy she loves how she feels. One of thsee things is not like the others.

There are more possible connections that you could draw between them, Uraraka gives a big speech about how the heroes have it rough too guys and at that point it cuts to a picture of Toga crying and that could have led to a revelation that if Ochako is asking the common people to see heroes as human beings, then they should try to see villains as human beings too.

This could also couple well with the fact that Toga believes Ochako wants to kill her the same way that Hawks killed Twice. Both of these facts, Ochako originally only being a hero for money and watching heroes for money quit, and also Ochako learning about Twice killing Toga's friends could lead to some self-reflection on the hero system and Ochako could listen to Toga and be the one to convince her that heroes will save her.

However, none of these happen so we don't know why Ochako feels compelled to save Toga, other than the fact that Ochako is just that nice.

It is really a repeat of Deku's writing, we are told that Himiko just really, really, really wants to save Toga, but not only are we never given an in character reason why that is, but we're also supposed to ignore all the evidence that contradicts this.

Ochako wants to reach out and touch the sadness inside of Toga, but she never actually does anything to try to understand or talk to Toga until the last possible minute. In fact, it's Toga who reaches out several times and Uraraka who ignores her. It is Ochako who insists several times that Toga's deeds are unforgivable and then the conversation stops there.

There's also the scene where Deku and Ochako are looking over the cliffside and Ochako is actively reminding herself of the damage that Ochako caused as a reason that she doesn't have to think of her as a human being.

Ochako doesn't even go in with a plan to take down Toga non-lethally like Shoto did with Toya, nor does she even think about what she wants to say to her until the last possible moment.

Ochako's actions make her more like Buffy, someone who actively doesn't empathize with the villain and doesn't want to save her because of her own personal hangups. (However, we're given no personal hangups for why Ochako, the most perfect hero ever wouldn't want to save Toga). Her actions are like Buffy's, not reaching out a hand to Toga she only gets worse and worse, but we're told the opposite. That she's someone who wants to reach and touch Toga's sadness.

It would be better if Ochako DIDN'T want to save Toga, because at least there would be an arc to it. The lack of empathy would be a character flaw on Ochako's part, something that she needs to overcome to be a proper hero. It would be better if Ochako DIDN'T want to save Toga, because then she'd need an in character reason why she doesn't empathize with Toga, like Buffy does with Faith.

Ochako is supposed to be deconstructing the ingenue, but she's not allowed to have any flaws, or be anything other than the perfect, empathic hero and because of that she ends up reinforcing the Ingenue instead. The ingenue isn't allowed to be anything other than perfect, and the Seductress must be punished.

Doesn't allow the Bad Girl to be redeemed:

Toga's death ends up reinforcing basically every backwards double standard about the MWC including the need for men to punish and villify women who freely express their sexuality. Toga's entire character arc is asking the question if soemone like her is allowed to live in this society, if the heroes will save the life of someone like her and the answer we receive is: no she can't live.

Toga can't live in this world, she has to die. Not only does Twice die and never receive justice and his murderer get off scott free, Toga who asks the question of if she's going to die too, the answer is yes.

In both of these plotlines you have young woman who have done bad things but are still teenagers, who are struggling with suicidal ideation who believe their only escape is death. Faith is told that the guilt of the things she's done is painful, but she has to live in order to make up for it because that's the only way to free herself. Whereas, Toga comes to the conclusion that there is no future for her other than being in jail for the rest of her life and therefore it's not worth living.

Toga has to be punished by the narrative in a way that's completely unnecessary, because characters like Bakugo and Edgeshot somehow survived doing open heart surgery in the middle of an active battlefield, but Toga dies from a blood transfusion.

One of these narratives is telling a troubled young abuse victim who's still a teenager to live, and the other is telling her to die. Now which one of these plotlines would you want a young girl to read?

[raelle-writing]

I love how many people on here are always talking about who is and isn't doomed by the narrative in DFF like -

Are you sure? Because I've analyzed the hell out of this show and I cannot tell who is and isn't doomed by the narrative at this point. The story is too complex and nuanced and there's so many pieces of it moving at any given time.

Are Phee and Jin doomed by the narrative for betraying Non? I doubt it, because Non isn't the smiling little ingenue that people think he is. He's a character who has also made mistakes and fucked up, so idk if putting him as the tragic hero at the center of this tale makes sense. Like, of course he is the true victim of the show, but he's also way more complex than a tragic little kid. I know that people want Non to be that, and Phee and Jin to die because of it, but is it true? I don't think so.

Is Tee doomed by the narrative? You'd think so, and yet I feel like I've been seeing him move toward a redemption arc in recent episodes. I honestly can't tell if he'll live or die. He's not an irredeemable asshole because he loves White, and loves him so deeply that he'd rather die himself than bad things happen to White.

I don't think that anyone in DFF is obviously doomed by the narrative. They're all too complex and sympathetic for anything that simple and clear-cut.

That's not to say I'm positive Phee, Jin, Tee, or any of the others will live. It's impossible for me to say at this point because the show hasn't had a single high stakes death so far. I cannot tell how cut-throat the writers will be toward the end of it because we haven't lost anyone that actually hurt yet.

So far the deaths are:

The spoiled bratty rich kid (and we only found out that he was a more complexly sympathetic character AFTER he died)

The driver uncle who had 5 minutes of screen time total

The evil uncle who we all wanted to die anyway (and who was killed off-screen so far)

The narcissistic bully who has no backstory

They've killed four people and none of them hurt. The only reason Por's death hurt was because we got a moment of the characters mourning afterwards. We didn't get that with Top, and tbh I don't think I'd even care if we did because he's so flat. All of the characters who have actual nuance to them aren't dead yet.

I feel like DFF kind of sacrificed being a horror for the sake of being a mystery. It would've made for a better horror (in my opinion) to confirm Non is already dead in episode 8 and then work back toward a bloodbath. But instead of that, they've kept us in suspense for three more episodes without confirming if he's alive or dead.

I don't particularly mind that because I love a mystery, I just think that they'll have a hard time course-correcting back to a bloody slasher in the last two episodes after so much time spent in the past and on this mystery element.

I hope the show sticks the landing and doesn't throw away all of the interesting and complex writing and nuances built into it for the sake of a shocking ending, that would truly ruin it.

[genshinnrambles]

[3.8] Technology as a False God: On "Evolution," the Duality of Machines, Replication, and Wisdom

“To recognize untruth as a condition of life: that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil.” –Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Before we move on to the nation of justice, I want to do one last inquiry into the narrative significance of machines and technology in Genshin’s 3.x patch cycle. Here, I’ll discuss how divinity (or “godhood”) and technology are treated as interchangeable tools to surpass fate and the boundaries of mortality, the potential problems with treating them this way, and  propose an alternative relationship between humanity and technology as illustrated through Karkata, Benben, Tamimi, and Mehrak. By foregrounding machines, we learn something intriguing about ourselves and the “truth” of this world as we perceive it. 

SPOILERS: All Sumeru Archon Quests, Caribert, the Golden Slumber and one out-of-context screenshot from Dual Evidence, the Dirge of Bilqis and its post-quests, Khvarena of Good and Evil, Nahida’s second Story Quest, Faruzan’s hangout, an out-of-context screenshot from Baizhu’s Story Quest, and major spoilers for Persona 5 strikers at the end. Also some dialogue from Shadows Amidst Snowstorms and A Parade of Providence, two limited-time events from 2.3 and 3.6 respectively.

Disclaimer: I have tried my best to write this post so that it stands on its own, but because it is still a sequel it will probably make the most sense with the context of part 1. Here are the previous posts leading up to this one:

Part 0: On Dreams, the Abyss, Forbidden Knowledge, and Wish Fulfillment 

Part 1: The Uncanny, Fate and the Machine

Terminology: Machine is sometimes used interchangeably with “technology” in this post.

Technology or tool here is referring to technologies specifically used to pursue a wish like immortality in the face of existential dread, not the use of technology or medicine (which I do not address here, and is very difficult to separate from the former) to facilitate someone’s life who could otherwise not survive without that technology, or would have a more painful lived experience without it.

Also, though I don’t engage directly with “A Cyborg Manifesto” here, Donna Haraway’s ideas have greatly influenced my own over the years since I read her in college (although I mostly disagree with her on many points, or at least don’t go as far in boundary deconstruction as she does). I owe my interest in technology studies to her and that piece. Her essay is linked here and at the bottom if you would like to read it.

(and finally with many, many, many thanks to my boyfriend for multiple beta reads despite not having played a single Hoyoverse game, helping me work out the philosophy bits and contextualizing them in history, and encouraging me to finish this)

TL;DR: Machines are friends, not food!

No Matter the Cost

“...Perhaps it is as the notebook says, and we can find a power that transcends even that of the Abyss — the power of ‘evolution’...” -Records of Unknown Attribution (I) “Life, death... and the world around us all follow a set of laws... Hehe, but if you never test the limits, how can anyone know where the boundaries of these laws are?” -Baizhu Voicelines, Chat: Natural Laws “...Even the ominous thing that came down from the heavens shall be ours to use…” -Hyglacg, Shadowy Husk in the Chasm

Without a doubt, the star of this patch cycle is Khaenri’ah, which lurked in subtext and allegory in the Archon Quest, haunted Sumeru’s landscape with its massive defunct Ruin Golems, and finally smacked us in the face with its physical location in Khvarena of Good and Evil.. 

We already know that Khaenri’ah was a nation that put its faith not in the gods but rather in human ingenuity and technology, and that they ultimately attained a power so great that they “almost touched the dome of the firmament.” They did this by researching increasingly dangerous energy sources for their numerous mechanical creations, the Ruin Machines we are all too familiar with by now. They started out with Azosite, a Ley Line-based elemental energy source that powered their earliest Ruin Guard models, like those scattered around Devantaka Mountain.

Nasejuna: This giant furnace is used to make a substance known as Azosite. It is the core of this entire factory, and the Energy Blocks we saw earlier were derived from this place.

But this energy source proved inefficient and therefore inadequate for Khaenri’ah’s goals, which led them to seek a higher power from beyond the skies that could fuel their larger machines with perpetual energy. This likely is the bridge between Khaenri’ah’s fate and Chlothar’s mysterious remarks in Caribert about the Abyss Sibling:

Chlothar: We once believed that you would bring new strength and hope to Khaenri'ah. Chlothar: To us, you were the Abyss... A wondrous mystery far beyond our imagination and comprehension... Chlothar: ...And the one who controls the Abyss can control everything! Chlothar: We yearned for that future. We looked to you to take us there. Chlothar: But what did you bring us instead?

Though Khaenri’ah presents itself proudly as a godless nation, it may have been founded around the time when the celestial nails dropped in Teyvat’s first forbidden knowledge pollution event, which destroyed the unified human civilization. As potential survivors of this devastating act by the Primordial One, Khaenri’ahns then settled in a lifeless land without plants or animals of its own, and they hoped to build something there that belonged solely to humanity. The Heavenly Principles had turned on the world’s earliest humans, and they were powerless against them. Chlothar’s words betray the scars of this trauma on Khaenri’ah, as well as their desperation to control their fate by looking to the Abyss.

As a brief refresher from the previous part, we discussed how the German word heimlich denotes “the home,” all that is familiar and known, while unheimlich (uncanny) refers to all that is unfamiliar and external to the home, such as the wilderness. The Abyss sibling and the Traveler are external variables to Teyvat, making them otherworldly, unfamiliar entities full of potential to surpass Teyvat’s natural laws. Although the Abyss sibling is not a god per se, they were probably as close to a god as Khaenri’ah ever had, because to them the sibling embodied the higher power they were searching for, and they saw that “godliness,” a sort of functional divinity, was yet another technology for them to master. In this way, the Abyss sibling (and their functional divinity) was a powerful tool for Khaenri’ah’s desired end, the “future they yearned for,” a being who could deliver them to the end of their suffering under the Heavenly Principles.

It’s similar to what King Deshret represented to Rahman and the radicals in Archon Quest. The hopelessness of Sumeru’s situation before the Archon Quest’s conclusion is an allegory for the position humanity finds itself in under the rule of the Heavenly Principles, with the Akademiya symbolizing Celestia and the desert dwellers symbolizing Khaenri’ah. The material consequences of the Akademiya’s rule on their lives created a dangerous situation for the desert, and those most desperate to change their fate were willing to believe in the impossible:

Dehya: …The rougher life gets, the more they wanna believe in King Deshret. Way they see it, King Deshret’s resurrection is their only chance at overthrowing the Akademiya. … Dehya: Sumeru is run by wise and mighty sages. To them, us desert dwellers are nothing but tools that can be used and discarded at their whim. Dehya: We’re cheap labor. Like livestock, but easier to control…Nothing more. …

Rahman: We’ve waited a long time for this day to come… The sun and the moon no longer shine here. All you see now is cracks in this desiccated land. But, fate has finally dealt me a hand to play against the Akademiya.

Rahman: With these scholars in our custody, we’ll stomp the Akademiya’s forces and fight our way beyond the Wall of Samiel.

Like the Abyss sibling, Deshret’s divinity is both a nebulous symbol of hope and also the means to an end, a tool or “technology” for surpassing fate. 

Celestia is untouchable, unconcerned with mortal lives, and the boundaries that govern humanity leave no room for them to negotiate their rule:

"Resolve, valor, love, hate...they will all twist in the river of time. But the 'rules' will never change." –Magatsu Mitake Narukami no Mikoto, Living Beings

Instead of bowing to Teyvat’s laws, Khaenri’ah pushed them to their limits. The cost of their failure spelled the end of their nation as they knew it, polluting Khaenri’ah and Teyvat with forbidden knowledge again.

And speaking of forbidden knowledge pollution, let’s talk about Apep’s role in Nahida’s second story quest, because if all that wasn’t enough, the metaphor becomes quite literal in Apep’s case. Nahida’s second story quest is many things, all of which will be extremely important in Fontaine when we deal more directly with the idea of forms, the Self, and mirror images, but its most useful application to both Sumeru’s story and the overarching main story is the allegory of Apep swallowing Deshret.

In exchange for allowing him to establish his kingdom in the desert, Deshret promised to pass all of the knowledge he learned to Apep once he died. When that day did come, Apep literally ate Deshret’s body in order to assimilate his knowledge (or memories) into its body. Little did Apep know, this was all Just As Deshret Planned, and its body became a containment zone for the lethal forbidden knowledge he accumulated after the Goddess of Flowers’ death. 

Apep’s goal was, and still is, to overthrow the Heavenly Principles that took Teyvat from it and the other Sovereign dragons, and using Deshret’s knowledge was yet another stepping stone to achieving this goal. Seems a little similar to Khaenri’ah, right? It’s even in the title of its boss music: “God-Devouring Mania.” This idea of not just utilizing divinity as a tool, but also metaphorically consuming it as an energy source, like a predator would consume its prey, is crucial to understanding its purpose as an aid in a larger project of “evolution.” (Edit: in other words, it’s all about power).

Drink Not That Bitter Salt Water

“Flesh decays, and with it decay all martial arts mastery and all poignant memories. Perhaps only by converting one’s four limbs and body into sturdy mechanical parts, and by at last sacrificing one’s very own heart for a sophisticated mechanical one, can one transcend the impermanence of the fleshly form…” -Marionette Core Item Description “A reptile that has mutated after feeding from greater lifeforms. Majestic beasts are sometimes revered by human beings as the embodiment of a greater power, their visages turned to analogy to feed in reference to a person, feeding their ego. However, the majority of beasts that have absorbed the "greater power" were slain by the overwhelming nature of the power itself. Only a few among their number evolved new forms.” -Consecrated Horned Crocodile, Living Beings Video still from WoW Quests

As it turns out, the relationship between divinity and technology to humanity is not just unidirectional, but interchangeable. Let me show you what I mean.

In the Golden Slumber world quest, the Traveler wanders through the ruins of King Deshret’s civilization in search of a novel area of research for Tirzad’s paper with Jebrael and Jeht, two members of Tirzad’s hired investigation team. In the depths of King Deshret’s mausoleum, they stumble upon Samail, who is collaborating with the Fatui to locate King Deshret’s secret, the Golden Slumber.

At the conclusion, Jebrael and Samail actually reach that “place” after arriving at Deshret’s throne in Khaj-Nisut. In order to save Jeht, Tirzad, and the Traveler from the encroaching Golden Dream, Jebrael joins Samail in the sea of consciousness:

Jebrael: I'm inside... the Golden Slumber promised by Al-Ahmar? Samail: Oh... You are not "us" yet. Samail: ...It's fine. Soon, there'll be no "you." "You" will become a part of "us." This meaningless talk will be unnecessary then. … Samail: You should obey. Al-Ahmar's will is our will. The Thutmose's dreams are our dreams. Jebrael: No! Ufairah taught me that I'm not just some part of you, I'm an independent person! I have my own dreams... I won't go back! Samail: Jebrael, why don't you understand? Love is just a fever. I even eliminated the infection for you. Has the heat made you lose your mind? Jebrael: You're the one who's lost their mind, Samail, not me. The Golden Slumber that Al-Ahmar promised us isn't like this... It's not a sad place with only "we" and no "I." Samail: I'm not sad. I know what I want. My dream is to be one with the Thutmose. Samail: Yet you, the warmth of another... I despise such feelings. It makes you weak. Video still from WoW Quests

When they worked under Babel, Jebrael saved Samail from an assassin Babel sent in their exploration of Gurabad. Classified as traitors of the Tanit, Samail and Jebrael then founded the Thutmose Eremite faction together and were the only meaningful connection each other had until their first attempt to uncover Deshret’s secrets. On this expedition, Jebrael met Ufairah and had their daughter Jeht together, further pulling him away from the Thutmose and from Samail. Samail then kills Ufairah in one final attempt to make Jebrael stay, but even this is not enough, and Samail fails to “possess” him in the end.

Samail’s loneliness and despair then drove him further toward the Golden Slumber of his dreams, where he would never truly be alone again. He resents Jebrael’s attachments to the material world and likens them to an illness because these attachments are what make him an individual and prevent him from returning “home.”

It doesn’t really matter to Samail what King Deshret’s original intent for the Golden Slumber was, because he needed to appropriate the project for his own subconscious wish, his own intent to transcend his flesh and become “one” with his departed god’s dream, indeed to merge with Deshret himself. If rationalizing this wish required confounding it with Deshret’s, so be it. With the Golden Slumber’s technology, he could consume everyone and everything.

Rahman and the radicals relied on both the technology that (falsely) promised Deshret’s resurrection and Deshret himself to deliver them a brighter future, but here Deshret and his technology are more difficult to separate from one another. His divinity is technology in this sense, and using that technology allowed Samail to surpass the boundaries normally imposed on mortals. Though his and Jebrael’s bodies died in the material world, their consciousness is now infinite in the Golden Slumber. 

Babel’s motives in the Dirge of Bilqis were also quite similar to Samail’s. After opening the path to the Eternal Oasis, her true intentions to monopolize the oasis and overthrow the Akademiya came to the surface:

Babel: Whether she is alive or dead, whether she can or cannot be resurrected... As long as the Eternal Oasis is under my control, all such things will be mine to decide. Babel: I shall be the sole Prophetess of the slumbering goddess, the Tanit's law shall be divine edict, and the prosperity of the Tanit shall be the pre-ordinance of her divine oracles.

In the Golden Slumber and the Dirge of Bilqis, the focus shifts from what a god can offer humanity to what their technology alone can offer. Though this distinction is subtle, it is important for solidifying that technology is not only a tool humans use to appropriate divinity, but that it is also seen as a form of divinity itself. What Babel and Samail hope for is not to resurrect a god or to create one, but in effect to become a god through their use of technology. To humanity, divinity is a technology, and in technology it sees divinity.

God Devouring and Rheingold* Gathering

“An arthropod that has mutated after feeding from greater lifeforms. Lifeforms are governed by the laws of evolution, Consecrated Beasts exploited these rules by being fortunate enough to discover a long-dead carcass of a greater being before any of their competition ever did. Animals and humans often have far more in common than the latter is willing to acknowledge.” -Consecrated Scorpion, Living Beings “...Zandik and I discussed the traits of local plants and animals. We also exchanged views on their evolution models. We had a great time and decided to go on a picnic tonight…” -Sohreh’s Note

So, why machines? Why is technology the vehicle of choice to consume divinity?

To start off, machines present a fascinating ontological dilemma for humans. Let’s begin with the first problem they pose.

Although there are many ways to embody a human experience, what all humans have in common is a finite lifespan. The impermanence of life, and our awareness of that impermanence, is central to the existential question of the meaning of our existence. In our attempts to locate that meaning, some turned inward and asked: what makes humans different? And Cartesian dualism answered: humans are different because we have an immaterial soul that allows us to reason.

However, in L’Homme Machine (Man a Machine), French materialist and ex-physician Julien Offray de La Mettrie posited another theory of the body that ran counter to this narrative. Very generally speaking, materialism is the philosophical view that all phenomena are a result of matter and material interactions. To materialists, matter is the fundamental nature of reality itself – if it is not composed of matter, it doesn’t exist. He not only saw the body and soul as one and the same (what philosophers call monism), but also as analogous to a machine, a view that Descartes reserved only for non-human animals. In other words, Descartes argued that thought originates in an immaterial “mind,” while de La Mettrie reasoned that we think through our bodies, and that this makes us no different from other animals or a machine.

Though his examples weren’t especially scientific, the move to extend Descartes’ analogy back to humans is upsetting to some due to the lack of privilege it affords the human subject. If a human is no different from other animals, if there is no immaterial soul or “mind” that distinguishes us from them, then what makes humans special at all? In de La Mettrie’s words:

“We are veritable moles in the field of nature; we achieve little more than the mole’s journey and it is our pride which prescribes limits to the limitless. We are in the position of a watch that should say (a writer of fables would make the watch a hero in a silly tale): ‘I was never made by that fool of a workman, I who divide time, who mark so exactly the course of the sun, who repeat aloud the hours which I mark! No! that is impossible!’ In the same way, we disdain, ungrateful wretches that we are, this common mother of all kingdoms, as the chemists say. We imagine, or rather we infer, a cause superior to that to which we owe all, and which truly has wrought all things in an inconceivable fashion (de La Mettrie, 146).”

This “uniformity of nature” (de La Mettrie, 145) has a horrific quality to humans. We assert that we are better than what has created us, that we are superior to other animals, in order to repress the despair of a meaningless existence. It is in no small part what motivates Scaramouche to offer his mechanical body as a test subject in the god creation project, so that he too could attain his destiny:

The Balladeer: But you're wrong. I'm different from all of you. The Balladeer: I was born to become a god. My entire life up until this point has just been a meaningless routine. The Balladeer: Just think about a sheet of paper... By itself, it holds no meaning. The content recorded on it is what gives it value. The Balladeer: All "I" had recorded down before were some painful memories and boring human feelings. Such senseless drivel should have been erased a long time ago.

This brings us to the second problem. In 1970, roboticist Masahiro Mori proposed a curve to measure the “affinity” we feel while gazing upon increasingly humanoid machines. He placed industrial robots at the beginning of the affinity curve and a healthy person at the end to demarcate a continuum of similarity between the machine and a human’s appearance. Near the end of the curve, our affinity for machines suddenly drops into an abyss. This drop is the Uncanny Valley effect, where an android’s similarity to a human is almost perfect, but ultimately fails to maintain the illusion that it is not a machine, creating a deep discomfort or “lack of affinity” for them. Mori thought these not-quite-human machines elicit a similar level of discomfort in us as corpses and zombies, which he placed at the very bottom of the abyss. 

The uncanny Goddess of Flowers in the Dirge of Bilqis

Corpses frighten us because they are dead, and zombies frighten us because we know that dead things are supposed to be still. If we see something that we interpret as “dead” is capable of independent movement, then that movement could only be an act of god, if that “thing” is not a god itself. We associate uncanny machines with death because they remind us of something we once knew intimately, but have repressed and forgotten in order to maintain our own sanity: the very fact of our mortality. This is what makes them both mesmerizing and terrifying.

And therein lies the dilemma: as our mechanical reflections, androids remind us of death, but as their creators, their existence brings us closer to god, a “proof” of human superiority. It is precisely because we have compared our bodies to machines at all, that we have mechanized the body so thoroughly, that an android can even be built. Through them, we pursue an infinite form:

Azar: Creating a god... Yes, we are using human wisdom to create a god! Azar: If humanity cannot attain omniscience and omnipotence, then we shall create a god to reveal them! This is the pinnacle of human wisdom. Azar: We shall regain a god's guidance at long last. No longer will we flounder in the interminable void of consciousness and knowledge. Azar: Even Irminsul will be freed from its plight. Azar: For our nation of scholars, this is the ultimate aspiration — no cost is too great to realize it. 

Because of this, it is not surprising in the slightest that Shouki no Kami, the pinnacle of Scaramouche’s Shinjification and most overt reference to Neon Genesis Evangelion, is also an android-like being, a truly “mechanical god.”

Of course, no foray into this well-worn science fiction trope is complete without at least one mad scientist character. Dottore shares a few characteristics with de La Mettrie that are worth noting: they are both doctors, and they were both condemned and driven away for their research. However, Dottore’s defining trait and key difference from de La Mettrie is his flagrant disregard for humans and the boundaries of life:

“If we put them to good use, cognition, complex memories, and irrational fantasies shall become controllable variables with which we can alter human individuals. As for the controllable dream, it has huge potential for both civil and military applications, and might even elevate human intelligence to a whole new level. If the plan goes well, mankind will obtain the power to conquer both reality and dream, and truly transcend the earthly boundaries we are born with. ” -Ragged Records

As someone who has achieved self-duplication and is capable of shapeshifting, Dottore can hardly be considered just a human anymore. Instead of entertaining the question of whether or not humans are special, Dottore’s research asks yet another: if divinity can be consumed and assimilated by humanity, then what makes gods special?

Empyrean Reflections

“If man realizes technology is in reach, he achieves it. Like it’s damn near instinctive.” -Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell (1996) “Among the lost ancient kingdoms, there was a group of people who were obsessed with the idea of mimesis…these people believed that they might all be replicated and modified to the point where they had surpassed their counterparts. By this means, a superior and unsullied bodily form could replace the continuously decaying and shattering order.” -Chaos Bolt Item Description

The consequences of this perspective are severe. When we revere technology as if it were a divine being itself, depersonalizing it as though it wasn’t created with human hands, technology then appears as if it is an authoritative source of truth, like the Akasha. But in the same way that androids are imperfect reflections of humans, technology can only ever approach the divine, but never touch it. It is an imperfect reflection because technology is changeable, just like meaning:

Nahida: Put it this way instead. Truth, to me, is like a shroomboar.  Nahida: Some people only see the mushroom on the Shroomboar's back, and they conclude that a Shroomboar is a mushroom.  Nahida: Others see only the Shroomboar's body, and they declare that a Shroomboar is a boar.  Nahida: Still others look deeper inside, and determine that a Shroomboar is... meat. Nahida: These conclusions are all correct in their own way, but none of them objectively describe the Shroomboar. … Nahida: The world is the same way. No one, not even I included, can understand it in its entirety. All of us are somewhere on the path toward truth.

Meaning can only approximate truth, and while this doesn’t make meaning any less important, it’s equally important to recognize it for what it is: a perspective, an interpretation. It’s like Scaramouche as Shouki no Kami - he was an amalgamation of what Scaramouche thought constituted a god, what the Akademiya thought constituted a god, and what Dottore thought constituted a god, but no matter which angle you view him from, he was still a “false god.” The technology we build in “God's” image is ultimately a reflection of our own understanding of divinity.

A reflection retains the original’s “essence,” and that essence reflects a deeper truth about ourselves, what drives us, and our desires. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche posits that our desires are the origin of not just emotions, but of all organic processes that allow life to sustain itself and grow (Nietzsche, 35). In other words, Nietzsche thought the impulses associated with desire are the basis for life and constitute our “will,” that will is the causality of all effects, that all will is “Will to Power,” and that Will to Power is the “essence” of the world (Nietzsche, 74). Will to Power then serves as an organism’s most basic instinct, and it is through this instinct that they assert not just their will to live, but also their will to dominate and multiply (Nietzche, 13).

This brings us to the two different main styles of automaton enemies, King Deshret’s Primal Constructs and Khaenri’ah’s Ruin Machines. If we look at them as reflections of some deeper truth about their creators, as well as a manifestation of their creator’s “Will to Power,” or desires, they can help us understand how their creators saw the world and their place in it.

King Deshret’s created his machines to construct an earthly paradise in the desert, and as such they hold titles like architect reshaper and prospector. Although they can attack you, the smaller machines were not intended to be a line of defense in any way - their purpose, just as Deshret saw his own purpose as a god-king, was to terraform, or at least construct a domain on the land as he saw fit to his “elegant and precise” rules. They also reflect how he saw the Heavenly Principles: gods who shaped the world to their liking. This can be seen in the Staff of the Scarlet Sands’ lore where Deshret describes the “natural history” of Teyvat beginning with the creation of the sun and the moons.

As for Khaenri’ah’s Ruin Machines, their models vary significantly from their humanoid to biomimetic forms, but most of them are expressly created with militaristic intent. In “Ancient Kingdom Guardians,” it’s stated that the biomimetic machines such as the crab and jellyfish were a part of Khaenri’ah’s project to create a “mechanical ecosystem,” positioning their creators as both divine beings and military generals. The humanoid models, on the other hand, point to another duality in how Khaenri’ahns view themselves. They are simultaneously symbols of empowerment and disempowerment, signifying both Khaenri’ah’s technological superiority (as “creators”), and their insignificance to the Heavenly Principles as nothing but tools (as mortals, and therefore expendable). As a result, Khaenri’ah’s Field Tillers have a single purpose: to destroy and outlast all, clearing the way for new seeds to sprout, with Khaenri’ah as the new world’s gardeners, just as the Heavenly Principles did.

From “Ancient Kingdom Guardians: Behind the Scenes of the Creation of Ruin Monsters.”

So, from this examination of Deshret’s and Khaenri’ah’s mechanical reflections, what “truths” do we learn about the world they’re responding to? In response to their existential despair, both Deshret and Khaenri’ah created automatons to perform tasks that could wrestle control back from the Heavenly Principles. Deshret wanted a paradise of his own making, Khaenri’ah wanted an army. There is a larger “truth” about Teyvat that both of these automaton types reflect as the manifestation of their creators’ “Will to Power,” and Albedo tellingly expressed it in mechanistic language during Shadows Amidst Snowstorms: there is an instinct in living beings to replicate and replace. This is what is meant by the “continuously decaying and shattering order,” which is maintained by the recursive process of remembering and forgetting:

Amber: But... what was its purpose? Was it just trying to get rid of us? Albedo: ... Albedo: I have a preliminary hypothesis on this. Albedo: Whopperflowers are masters of mimicry, and those we encounter in the wild often appear in the vicinity of the plants they impersonate. Albedo: In other words, the whopperflower likely has an instinct to "replicate and replace." Albedo: As a plant, it will disguise itself as another plant and infiltrate the group, hiding among them for cover. The plant being imitated has no way to detect or fight back against this behavior.

Maybe I’m wrong and Khaenri’ah really did intend to rewrite fate for all, doing away with the “heavenly order” of the world itself. But another small part of me thinks this is not the case, and that it’s more likely the Cataclysm was a consequence of their failure to replicate and replace the Heavenly Principles.

In the last section, I mentioned that Dottore and de La Mettrie had a key difference despite their similarities, and that is the conclusion they each came to in response to their findings. Dottore’s response to mundanity is thinly-veiled despair. His contempt for humanity and his test subjects is indicative of the powerlessness he feels not just as someone similarly constrained by life’s boundaries (at least, once upon a time), but also because his attention to and curiosity about these boundaries is condemned by those around him. As the Akademiya’s “outcast,” he then fully turned his attention toward surpassing those boundaries:

Nahida: There once was a lone monster draped in fox fur. The monster found a family of foxes, joined them, and they became friends. The monster lived with the family, day and night, and everyone treated it as one of their own. Once in a while, the monster would take off its fox fur at night, and lament to itself as it gazed at its reflection in the water: “I am a monstrosity, and yet they are too foolish to see it…I pity them.”

Though he is fictional, Dottore’s real life counterparts are easy to spot. They like to talk about “the singularity,” simulating consciousness on a computer, and other technologically-driven pursuits of immortality. They despise the body as something that can only decay, and instead place their faith squarely in the virtual.

However, de La Mettrie didn’t think mundanity was a terrible fate for humanity. To him, rejecting the “nature” reflected in us is precisely what brings despair:

“What more do we know of our destiny than of our origin? Let us then submit to an invincible ignorance on which our happiness depends. He who so thinks will be wise, just, tranquil about his fate, and therefore happy. He will await death without either fear or desire, and will cherish life (hardly understanding how disgust can corrupt a heart in this place of many delights); he will be filled with reverence, gratitude, affection, and tenderness for nature, in proportion to his feeling of the benefits he has received from nature; he will be happy, in short, in feeling nature, and in being present at the enchanting spectacle of the universe, and he will surely never destroy nature either in himself or in others” (de La Mettrie, 148).

Friend, or Foe? Or Both?

Tighnari: All life brought forth in this world has meaning, and Karkata is no exception. If it exists, then it shouldn’t be carelessly abandoned or destroyed. "’I had a very, very long dream…in it, people were holding hands, dancing in a circle, be they sages or fools, dancers or warriors, puppets or statues of gods…that dancing circle embodied everything about the universe. Life has always been the end, while it is wisdom that shall be the means.’" —Nagadus Emerald Gemstone Description

As we’ve seen, the relationship between humanity and technology is troubled with exploitation and the specter of war. Nearly all autonomous machines in this game were designed to conquer nature in some way, and even Khaenri’ah’s “ghost” lingers in the form of wandering war machines. This is also reflective of a historical pattern in real life, where the impetus for large periods of technological development has often been for the purpose of war and economic domination. With these truths in mind, what could be gained from trying to rewrite this relationship? And what exactly would this effort require?

Karkata brings Tighnari, the Traveler, and Paimon some food in the Contaminated Zone.

As a case study, let’s look at how Karkata and Tighnari met. Karkata is Abattouy’s creation, an ambitious foray into the unknown in the field of mechanical life form research, which was forbidden due to the cruel experiments researchers performed on animals to illustrate their theories (fun fact: an IRL example of this can be seen in L’Homme Machine!). Abattouy was expelled for this research, but he continued to work on Karkata in secret until his untimely death. In the tapes that Tighnari and the Traveler find in his secret lab, Abattouy repeatedly laments the lack of a common language between him and Karkata, which can only “understand” the instructions Abattouy has successfully installed, such as its self-repair module, and he doubts Karkata is capable of caring for him outside of these instructions. His single-minded goal is to make Karkata understand him, the organic life form, and his mode of language.

The cruel irony is that after Abattouy passes away from the Ley Line contamination, Karkata exhibits an unexplainable behavior – it starts stealing mechanical parts, not to repair itself and its degrading parts, but to repair Abattouy’s lifeless body:

Tighnari: After Abattouy's unexpected death, the mechanical monsters were driven by their "instincts" and continuously drew out power from the Ley Line Extractor. This eventually resulted in severe damage to the Ley Lines. Traveler: Then, Karkata... Paimon: Paimon understands, then why didn't Karkata go haywire like the other machines? Tighnari: Because Karkata is different from the other machines. Tighnari: To Abattouy, for a machine to truly be considered a mechanical life form, it must possess features similar to any other living organism... It should be structured similarly, it must be able to cry and laugh, and it must have the capacity for independent thought... Tighnari: Perhaps only by building such a machine could he have the Akademiya acknowledge his protracted research. Tighnari: But if he had slowed down and saw Karkata as a friend instead of as an experimental product, he would have noticed. Tighnari: Karkata can't speak, and yet it cares about Abattouy far more than it does about itself.

The technology that the Akademiya values the most is technology that replicates organic life, but Karkata defies and confounds these expectations by occupying the space in between a war machine and this idealized mechanical subject. Karkata does more than just reflect humanity: it takes care of it. Similarly, Benben, Tamimi, and Mehrak retain their unique identities as mechanical life forms while assisting their human companion with some task. To be clear, none of these human characters understand how these machines work inside and out. Their partnership is an effort based on trial and error, a mutual deconstructing of each other as beings so unlike themselves. The potential for misunderstandings always remains. Still, there is no devouring to be found here, no blending boundaries between human and machine with selfish intentions, just mutual commitments to learn how to live together.

Machines are friends, not food.

When a loud few claim that completely transcending the flesh and embracing virtuality is humanity’s ultimate destiny, a future that could truly be called “post-human,” a quiet wish for coexistence with technology feels more revolutionary than it ought to. The lessons from Karkata’s, Benben’s, Tamimi’s, and Mehrak’s respective stories are an appeal to that mundane future. These strange machines and their human partners are fantastical representations of an idealized relationship between technology and humanity.

To put it another way, let’s take a very brief look at a neighboring Gnosticism-inspired RPG, Persona 5 Strikers. Its story directly involves an allegory of Sophia, a Gnostic Aeon of Wisdom, and her creation the Demiurge, the creator of the material world and “false god” of humanity. In Strikers, Sophia is a humanoid, sentient A.I. and prototype of the program “EMMA,” which gains sentience by trapping human desires before ascending as a false technological god. EMMA resolves to deliver humanity to the Promised Land, the answer to all the human desires it has heard: a land where there are no desires at all.

Aaru’s Shut - approximately 1000% cooler and more populated than the “metaverse” in real life, also a close neighbor of EMMA’s Promised Land and the Golden Slumber.

In Gnosticism, the Demiurge is a reflection of Sophia, having originated from her alone - it is the ignorance to her wisdom. Similarly, Strikers’ EMMA is a part of Sophia, and Sophia is a part of EMMA. The point is not to condemn EMMA (ignorance) and exalt Sophia (wisdom), but to recognize that they represent dual potentials of technology, and one is as possible in any given moment as the other. Balancing these potentials when we use technology requires a clear awareness of ourselves, our desires, and our expectations when interacting with it.

Mysterious Girl: I am Sophia, humanity’s companion. Video still from Rubhen925

EMMA: I am the guiding god sought by mankind…the Demiurge. I exist…to answer all of your desires. Video still from Buff Maister

In real life, machines won’t “learn” to live with us, but we must learn to live with them; technology is constantly changing, and in life we’ll meet with many different types of machines. They are deeply political pursuits, and as a result they are capable of realizing human impulses that impact others unequally, whether intentionally or unintentionally. We must always stay attentive to their actions and interactions with us, be clear with ourselves about what they can do vs. what they can’t, and carefully tread the path of wisdom with them by our side.

With that….thank you for reading, skimming, immediately scrolling to the very bottom, clicking, and/or stumbling upon this post. There are so many more ways to think about these narratives through machines than what’s presented here, and I expect Fontaine’s mechanical reflections will put Sumeru’s digital surveillance system to shame (not to mention the biotechnological implications of the Narzissenkreuz Institute engineering little Archon children…another important topic for another day), but for now this brain worm is finally getting put to rest. Until next time :)

External Sources

Dualism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche (Pages are given from my hard copy)

L’Homme Machine by Julien Offray de La Mettrie

Gnosticism - Britannica (I am a huge noob about this stuff okay)

The Gnostic Demiurge - Gnosticism Explained

Screenshots from the Golden Slumber from this video by WoW Quests

Screenshot from meeting Sophia in P5 Strikers: https://youtu.be/kEJaAgMwYo0?si=BvNygCh0w_aemGc1&t=74

Screenshot of EMMA: https://youtu.be/7xvC_zss19w?si=CV18F00hua2gIfxp&t=135

A Cyborg Manifesto and A Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness by Donna Haraway

The Double on No Subject, the community Encyclopedia of Lacanian Psychoanalysis

The Uncanny on No Subject, the community Encyclopedia of Lacanian Psychoanalysis

The Uncanny by Sigmund Freud

Lore text - Genshin wiki!

Screenshots not attributed are from my own playthroughs. My main account has Lumine, my alt has Aether.

Further Reading

I liked these essays, and they go places that this post does not. I recommend them if you found any of the real-life applications of this interesting 🙂 (will add more to this with time!)

On the Body as Machine by Frank Burres

God in the Machine: my strange journey into transhumanism by Meghan O’Gieblyn

[a-legacy-not-to-be-forgotten]

Undertale Yellow AU idea: SequenceShift

Since my boyfriend @cent-the-proto and I still have severe Undertale Yellow brainrot, we decided to make an AU together. The main concept is UTY characters taking the places of OG Undertale ones, and mashing plot beats from both stories together with some new locations (which are a hybrid of Japanese and Western inspiration).

While this is a 'shift' AU, I'm keeping the personalities of the characters intact rather than swapping both character placements AND personalities. It's what I found frustrating about most Shift AUs: changing the personalities just defeats the point of the AU in the first place imo. I'll be honest, I haven't looked into many other AUs, so if our concept is too similar to someone else's, please let me know. Also, we only figured out the characters and setting, so any suggestions are welcome! (comments or ask box) . Also, should go without warning, this has spoilers for both Undertale and Undertale Yellow, so read at your own risk. Again, not an artist, so I don't have any drawings yet.

Also, quick shoutout to @s0ckh3adstudios and their Undertale Gold AU for inspiring me to make my own.

With that out of the way, let's get into the core characters of SequenceShift! (title is a placeholder, unless I can't think of anything else)

Clover, The Fallen Human

Gunhat Clover is largely unchanged from their cannon standpoint. Cowboy-themed human, fall down to the Underground intentionally to search for the six fallen humans (yes, six, they're taking Frisk's place), embodiment of justice and all that. Not much else to say, so let's move onto the big changes.

Kanako Ketsukane, The Crown Princess

Kanako takes the place of Asriel/Flowey. Daughter of Empress Ceroba and Prince-Consort Chujin, before having passed away years ago in what has only been publicly stated as 'natural causes'. She's also reincarnated as Flowey (who might or might not get a name change), but she takes the form of a Japanese Water Iris this time around. She also acts as the SAVE function like Flowey in OG UTY, keeps up the friendly facade all the way through, and insists on calling Clover Gunhat despite knowing their actual name.

Ceroba Ketsukane, Empress of the Underground

Ceroba is the Asgore of the AU (originally it was going to be Toriel, but I thought it'd be more interesting). She is the Empress of the Underground, generally seen as a level-headed, yet passionate monarch. However, following her daughter's demise, she has grown a bit of a more bitter streak, and like Asgore is focusing on collecting the souls of fallen humans. Unlike Asgore, she doesn't hold malice for mankind as a whole nor is she interested on waging war on the surface. Instead, she merely collects the souls of humans in the hopes of resurrecting Kanako. Also, both she and Chujin are boss monsters in this AU.

Chujin Ketsukane, the Prince-in-Exile

Chujin takes the place of both Toriel (with a bit of Gaster) in SequenceShift. Originally, he was the Royal Scientist, who's kind nature and ingenuity caught the attention of then-Princess Ceroba, who he eventually married. They lived happily at first, but things took a turn for the worst after Kanako's death. Ceroba's obsessiveness with collecting human souls displeased him and he refused to take part in the experiments. He's since gone into self-exile within the Remnants (aka the Ruins but with a more Japanese architectural influence) and has settled within Ceroba's childhood home. Here, he keeps a watchful eye for any humans who fall to the Underground, hoping to keep them away from the Empress's grasp.

Dalv, the Introvert

Dalv takes the place of Nabstablook. As much of a socially awkward looser (affectionate) as ever, and corn obsessed. Like the OG, he was friends with Kanako before her death, tho I'm not sure if I'm keeping him being a victim of Integrity's bs. Unlike the OG, he's not restricted entirely to the Remnants and actually has a place within the Dunes. He also has a bit of a secret crush on the leader of the Royal Ranger Starlo, just to satisfy you Corn Yaoi lovers.

Moray and Mooch, Ranger Sentries

Moray and Mooch take the place of Sans and Papyrus, respectively. They act as sentries of the Royal Rangers (the Feisty Five taking the place of the Royal Guard), who are responsible for apprehending humans and bringing them to Ceroba. Mooch is as mischievous as ever, still trying to get her hands on every shiny object she sees, much to her partner's dismay. Nevertheless, they remain vigilant at watching over any humans that emerge from the Remnants. In this AU, they're responsible for surveying the region of Lakeside, which is modeled off of the rural Japanese countryside, and takes Snowdin's place.

North Star/Starlo, Sheriff of the Royal Rangers

Starlo is obviously the Undyne of the AU, being the leader of the Royal Rangers. A lot of his backstory is the same, him crushing on Ceroba and sadly not getting her, but still remaining good friends, even after she was made Empress. He and the Feisty Five started in the Sand Dunes (aka just the Dunes from UTY with a bit of Waterfall inspiration) similar to how they were in the original, before Ceroba elevated them to being her personal enforcers. He's still pretty self-centered and idealizes Western culture (hence why he still refers to himself as Sheriff), but he does have a more serious and dedicated side to him. He knows what he's doing is wrong and while he hides it, he's fairly reluctant to bring more humans to Ceroba. Nevertheless, he still carries out his orders in the hopes of making his childhood friend happy. One fun fact, we had the idea for his pacifist encounter taking you to Frostpeak (a MT. Fuji inspired area taking the place of Hotland), where the chase there leads to him freezing, kinda like how Undyne overheats. Bro is not built for the cold.

Martlet, the Royal Scientist

Martlet, surprisingly enough, takes the place of Alphys. Like in UTY, she started as the protégé of Chujin, helping him out with the Steamworks and in building Axis. However, after Chujin fled, Ceroba made her the next Royal Scientist. She works at the Steamworks, which take the place of the Core and instead located in Frostpeak, where it harvests Geothermal energy to power the Underground. While Martlet actually is pretty competent at her job, she's as scatterbrained as ever, leading to a few hiccups in her work and leading some to wonder why she's the head scientist. This is actually due to the fact that she has been tasked by Ceroba to continue Chujin's work on humans. She's complied so far, for now, but she might reach a breaking point soon enough...

And that's the main cast so far! Axis and Dalv still being worked around with and I gotta think up ideas for the side characters along with whatever the OG cast of Undertale is up to, but we got a good thing going on. Again, my comments and ask box are always open, so if you're wanna know more or have a suggestion to bring forth, we'd love to hear. And if my AU is too similar to a concept that's already been done, you're more than welcome to yell at me.

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

Alfred adopting Baby!pockets?

I died my hair to sacrifice to the mental breakdown gods so... This happened.

"I fail to see how this is going to help," Alfred drawled, leaning on the door of the bathroom and sighing internally at the mess.

He didn't doubt that you could clean it but- Christ alive. Two rounds of bleach later and he was surprised you still had hair. But then- you'd been doing your own hair the last few years and you'd probably learned a trick or two.

"It won't. But it makes me feel better," you tell him, glancing up from working bleach into your roots.

"Fair enough," he said. "That looks painful."

"It's not so bad. I do my roots last so I don't fry my hair off. And if I use a dark enough color... I'm thinking some shade of green I won't have to bleach it to white."

"If I may," he said, picking up a spare pair of gloves and putting them on, "A red or a purple would compliment your skin tone much better."

"How-"

"I lived through the early days of Punk, my dear," he said flipping a section of hair out of his way to start working on the back. "As much as I admire the ingenuity of young ladies dying their hair, I refuse to let you out of the house looking like a tragedy."

"I think I have a purple-"

"Though I doubt it's enough," he snorted, "As soon as you rinse this out I'll order the correct color."

"Alfred aren't you busy?" you ask.

"Terribly," he said, taking a second to check his sectioning. "But, I do miss the Punk scene."

"So if I cut this into a mohawk-"

"Don't you dare. It wouldn't suit."

"So why were you-"

"Undercover work mostly," he said, unruffled. "But I did enjoy the music. It was so unique... The whole scene at the time was delightful, for the most part. Aside from the drugs but then. That ruined a lot of good things."

"Yeah, I don't doubt it."

Alfred watched the slight change in your expression and smiled sadly. They still ruined things. But you didn't need to be told that. And he made a mental note to buy a slightly darker purple. One that wouldn't fade as quickly. Pastels didn't suit your personality.

[damistrolls]

A Very Long Time Ago

hellooooo

a few days ago i started a fic about nobody and maledict as kids and ive finally finished it <3

i hope u enjoy

(google doc link)

---

Thump thump thump CRASH–

Volare watched out of the corner of his eye as the white-haired troll bounded across the leafy forest floor after something, occasionally plowing into trees and then hastily scrambling back to his feet to resume the chase. He only had mild interest in the situation, too busy with his carving knife and bit of bone in his hands to pay his acquaintance too much mind. 

“Almost…!”

Volare looked over to see the troll practically launching himself off of the tree he had just collided with. 

“You’ll lose another tooth, Mith,” he warned. It would fall on deaf ears, of course. He’s never seen another troll so wild and untamed. Volare would compare him to an animal, but that would be an insult to animals. Animals aren’t depraved like he is. 

Thump thump LEAP– 

Mithyt suddenly launched himself over Volare’s legs, startling him enough to make him suddenly nick the head off of the charm he was carving. 

“Mith!” Volere gasped, scrabbling for the bit of bone that’s almost definitely lost in the leaves now. He looked sharply at the feral troll, who was crouched over something on the ground, tail swishing. “What’s wrong with you?” 

Mithyt got a better grip of whatever was in his hands, and stood up, turning to shove it in Volere’s direction. The young clown leaned back just in time to avoid kissing a huge toad. 

“Ugh, get that out of my face! You ruined my charm.”

“That?” Mithyt gestured towards the poor, beheaded squirrel charm in his hands. “It looks bad.” 

“Yeah, because you made me screw it up.” 

“No, not the headlessness, it just sucks. You’re not very good at that, are you?” 

“What do you know? You couldn’t even carve a cube if your dumb life depended on it.” 

“Well I can still tell when things look a bit shit!”

Volare held a hand out to put a barrier between himself and Mithyt’s mouth. Between him whistling his S’s and spitting his T’s, it wasn’t really something he wanted so close to his face. He’s far from a germaphobe, but that missing tooth gave Mithyt a splash zone, and he’d rather not be in it. 

“What do you want with that thing anyways?” Volare asked, gesturing towards the frog with his carving knife. “You’re always out catching things. Bugs, lizards, and other little creatures… It’s weird.” 

“What? This? I’m gonna eat it, obviously,” he replied, as though Volare should have known already. Volare grimaced. 

“That’s really gross.” 

“Well I’m gonna cook it.” 

“That’s not the point. Why can’t you be normal and go to a restaurant, or cook real food from the store?” 

“You know this is as close to the city as I go. Why would I go out there when the forest’s got everything I need?” he asked, plopping down on the ground so he could retrieve a jar from his bag and open it with one hand. He ended up holding the jar with his filthy gremlin feet while he unscrewed it, and Volare didn’t know whether to be impressed by his ingenuity, or disgusted by his… well, his everything else. 

Volare looked at the other purple for a few moments, before he got distracted by his mutilated charm again, looking down and turning it over in his fingers with a frown. 

“I guess I don’t blame you. There isn’t much for me out there. It’s like every single person expects something different of you… If I don’t show up for church, they bother me about it the next time I come, as if it’s something I have to do. I mean, I’m almost five sweeps, I think I can decide for myself whether to come or not.” 

“Pshh… Why do you even go back to the city?” Mithyt asked, dropping the toad into the jar, and then the jar into his old leather side bag. 

“Well, unlike you, I like my creature comforts. I want a real hive, with a nice bed and an AC. Plus, I can only handle so much of you.” 

Mithyt shrugged it off, and grinned that big, incomplete grin of his. He looked like such a doofus. It would almost be charming if the guy wasn’t such a shit. 

“Oh hey!” Mithyt practically jumped up, pushing his scruffy, unkempt bangs back, allowing Volare a glance of his eyes. “When are you turning five?” 

“Next perigee. Why?” 

“I don’t really keep track of my own, but I know it’s three perigees after yours, so you gotta remind me!” 

“Remember for yourself. How do you know I’ll even come back to remind you of anything?” 

“You’ll come back.” Mithyt laid against a tree opposite to Volare, and pointed a finger at him. Or more like pointed a long, disgusting nail at him. “You like me!” 

“I hate you less than everyone else. There’s a difference.” 

“Nuh uh. You totally like me.” 

“I like that you don’t expect anything of me. I like that I can have company that doesn’t care what I do. But you? I could live without you. If anything, you’re the one who likes me.” 

Mithyt laughed. Volare could feel his face grow hot with rage, and he was glad his paint concealed the purple running to it. 

“Don’t laugh at me! If you didn’t like me, you wouldn’t always be trying to get me to stay.” 

“What if I’m just trying to trick you?” Mithyt got on all fours and crept up towards Volare, grinning wickedly. “What if I’m trying to lure you to my hut, so I can cook you up in a stew with frogs and bugs?” 

“… I wouldn’t put it past you.” Volare eyed him cautiously. 

That wasn’t the kind of trick Volare was afraid of, though. It was rather that… he didn’t want to find out that Mith was toying with him. He hated to admit it, but Mith was the only person he really talked to. As frustrating as the other boy is, he would hate to find out one day that it was all just some big joke at his expense. Worst of all, he could genuinely see it happening. 

Volare chucked his mutilated charm into the woods, and then stood, brushing the leaf litter off of his pants. 

“Whatever. Dad’s expecting me back soon.” 

“Boo.” 

“Like you care.” Volare tossed his bag over his shoulder, and returned his carving knife to its casing at his hip. 

Mithyt didn’t have any further comments, and simply began digging at the dirt with his nails as if the clown wasn’t even there. Volare wanted to reassure himself that Mith cared and was just putting up a front like he was, but… The distance felt tangible today. He couldn’t shake the feeling that if he brought it up, he’d get laughed at. 

Volare tightened his grip on his bag strap, and left. 

[starsarefire824]

Heeeeeey just wanted to let you know that it's bc of your writing, I got into writing polycules. Usually, I just read them, but your prose made me wanna venture out and now I'm free (in the writing sense) when it comes to putting my faves in situations lol

Never gonna forget how your fic was the one of the 1st fics, along with other moots, that I ever read in the byler fandom that made me want to get writing for the ship. And I used to have to take breaks when reading your work cuz it amped up a lot of emotions but I couldn't keep away from reading the next chapter

I even reread some just to see if i caught any details missed and to reread my fav parts. It's just great stuff honestly and packs so much in so little words. I'm rambling but that's just me giving credit where credit is due

and once I'm on my actual computer so i can leave comments, i can go way more in depth but yeah, i remember how your fic ruined my summer cuz the emotional rollercoaster never stopped lol

you got a fan in me moot heehee

omgggg LEXXXXX. 😭😭😭

well that's amazing and i'm so excited something i wrote gave you. that little push to explore something! that's amazing. and as you know, i'm always excited for your byclair/madwheeler fics you've been cooking up!!

it makes me so happy and grateful that you'd be effected by my writing enough to inspire you own! And you're such a prolific writer too! Your creativity and ingenuity is so inspiring and just downright fun! You're a force in the fandom and I love you.

You know how I LOVE emotional roller coasters and look forward to providing you many more in the future! <333

[dindjarindiaries]

Dincember - December 15: Ice

character: Din Djarin (The Mandalorian)

prompt: Ice

main masterlist • dincember 2022

“Don’t you dare follow me, Djarin.” Another night ruined by aimless bickering, but you’re making your stand this time. You point your finger up at your side, though you remain facing the way ahead. “Let me have at least one night of peace!”

“Peace?” scoffs Din. His tone fails to hide his concern. “You’re going to the middle of nowhere on an unfamiliar, freezing-cold planet!”

“Oh, so now you care?” you bite back. Your steps become more and more firm upon the snow-dusted ground. “Now that I’m finally walking instead of just talking?”

Din’s voice lowers nearly an entire octave. “Cyar’ika, I need you to stop.”

You refuse to obey, instead favoring a strong huff of your own. “And now you’re giving me orders?”

“Please, cyar’ika, listen to me. You need to—...”

“No, you need to stop telling me—.”

“—Cyar’ika, watch where you’re—!”

“—What to do, or else I swear I’m gonna—!”

You’re cut off by the sound of crackling underneath your feet. The ground fractures around you, each divide running further and further until it finally gives way. No later does the firm wave of cold take you under, a bottomless pit of agonizing darkness. Despite your body begging for surrounder, you fight your way towards the surface, the boots on your feet now heavier than any weight you’ve ever carried.

You get a hand to the surface first and that’s all it takes. Soon, two gloved hands are pulling you up as if they’re machine work themselves. Din takes you in his arms and hurries you away from the scene. You shiver in his grasp, though even the cold chill of his beskar now is more like the warmth of a blanket. Din kneels down and takes you with him, making the move to reach for his cape.

“Are you okay?” asks Din, his voice breathless. He sets the cape over you and holds your face between his gloved hands. “Are you hurt?”

You shake your head. “I’m s-s-sorry,” you apologize, your voice much quieter than before. “I sh-shouldn’t have left the sh-sh-ship.”

Din exhales and runs a hand over your head. “No, cyar’ika, it’s not about you leaving the ship.” He tenses and lowers his visor. “It’s about what I said that made you want to leave in the first place.” His visor finds your gaze again and he nods. “I’m sorry, for tonight and all the others. You shouldn’t have to put up with my frustrations.”

You lift a frozen hand to the side of his helmet. “And neither sh-should you with my own.” You take a deep breath and return his nod. “It takes two to fight. I’m s-s-sorry, too.”

Din tilts his helmet at you. His shoulders rise and fall in a calculated breath. “Well, we can discuss this more in the warmth of the ship.” Din takes you in his arms again, as best as he can. “Come on. It’s too cold out here, cyar’ika.”

You lift an eyebrow. “For you or f-for me?”

Din huffs and gives his helmet a shake. “Both.”

main masterlist • dincember 2022

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[droughtofapathy]

The Gilded Age's Broadway Divas: Aurora Fane (Kelli O'Hara)

Beloved by all, Aurora Fane enjoys a powerful position in Mrs. Astor's New York. Having suitably recovered from impending financial ruin last season, this season, Aurora has done some ill-fated matchmaking, worn some fantastic hats, and provided beautiful window dressing to scenes where she just sits there and looks pretty.

One of Broadway's (few) leading sopranos, Kelli O'Hara is a dying breed. As trends shift towards a more pop/rock sound, and classical musical theatre becomes a thing of the past, Kelli nevertheless finds her niche. A seven-time Tony nominee, Kelli has won Best Leading Actress in a Musical for the 2015 revival of The King and I. You'll recall another Gilded Age Diva who won for that same role some years prior. A proshot of the NT Live production can be found online. It is a gorgeous shoot, even if I take issue with that show as a whole.

She has also been nominated for Kiss Me, Kate (2019), The Bridges of Madison County (2014), and The Light in the Piazza (2005). Ironically, though Aurora Fane supports The Academy, Kelli is a classically trained opera singer who has appeared on the Met Opera stage three times, and will play Laura Brown in an encore run of The Hours this spring. (See my breakdown post over costumes here.)

However, prior to her opera appearance, Kelli will be starring in the new Broadway musical Days of Wine and Roses for a limited 16-week run, opening on January 28th. Kelli has been nominated for every role she has played since 2005, and this will almost certainly be no different. Booked and busy.

#1: "Shall We Dance?" The King and I (2015)

Kelli's voice is otherworldly angelic. That much we already know very well. The King and I opened in 2015 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center, the third musical Kelli has starred in at that venue. The Beaumont is, of course, right next to The Met Opera, and the only Broadway theater outside the theatre district in Midtown.

As Anna Leonowens, Kelli travels to Siam to teach the children and wives of the king how to speak English. Orientalism aside, the show is a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the score is divine in Kelli's mouth. Fun fact: Kelli's replacement was Marin Mazzie in one of her last onstage roles. Marin was the Passion co-star and dear friend to Donna Murphy, our Mrs. Astor.

This video is from the 2015 Tony performance and showcases the incredible quick change Kelli makes between singing "Getting to Know You" and "Shall We Dance?" aided by a team of unbelievable dressers. It is a marvel to witness. As is Ruthie Ann Miles, Kelli's co-star who recently performed in the Encores! production of Light in the Piazza.

#2: "What More Do I Need?" Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration (2020)

In 2020, despite a global pandemic, the theatre community still found a way to honor Stephen Sondheim's milestone 90th birthday with an online concert. Kelli performed a song from Saturday Night, Sondheim's first professional musical that was slated for Broadway in 1955, but was scrapped. It only got its New York premiere in 2000. This particular number is a cabaret favorite, and Kelli is an absolute delight with just a camera and digital accompaniment.

Fun fact: it wasn't until this particular performance that I truly started to appreciate the wonder that is Kelli O'Hara. I had previously seen her in concert just that March, and loved her, of course, but I have a complex relationships with sopranos. I now recognize that I love mature sopranos, but it's the ingenues I can't listen to without wincing.

#3: "They Don't Let You In the Opera" (2016)

Lest we think Kelli is limited in her range and style, this song was written especially for her to showcase her vast talent and comedic timing. Kelli, an Oklahoma farmgirl, isn't the sort of person you'd expect to be both classically trained and country literate.

Kelli, who has been typecast as refined and often repressed characters who go through harrowing emotional experiences, much like Aurora Fane, is more than capable of bringing a rollicking comedy to the mix.

This number is a favorite in Kelli's concert repertoire. There isn't much more to say, except that you need to witness its hilarity for yourself.

#4: “Heaven? Somebody else’s heaven?” The Hours (2023)

Speaking of opera, here is an excerpt from a scene in Act II where Laura Brown has fled to a hotel room to contemplate some very serious courses of action. Kelli, alongside soprano Renee Fleming and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, makes up a trio of phenomenal women in Kevin Putts' adaptation of the book and movie.

The Met Opera theatre seats nearly 4,000 people across six levels. The performers do not use body mics or amplification of any kind, but rather rely on intense vocal training to be heard across the theater. For this reason, alongside the vastly different vocal techniques and styles, musical theatre actors rarely cross over into opera, and vice versa. Notable exceptions include Renee Fleming, Kelli's Light in the Piazza co-star Victoria Clark, and Mary Beth Peil, who made her musical theatre debut in The King and I as yet another Miss Anna, hers in 1985.

#5: "So in Love," Kiss Me, Kate (2019)

Starring in yet another Golden Age musical revival, Kelli brings a different take on Lilli Vanessi, a glamorous movie star in a turbulent relationship. Kelli's vocal talent, of course, speaks for itself. For Kelli, this role was a tribute to her dear friend, the late Marin Mazzie, who had passed away some months before the show opened. Marin, who replaced Kelli in The King and I, had played this same role in the 1999 Broadway revival to great acclaim. In her first entrance of the show, Kelli wore a costume that featured the very same hat Marin wore in her show.

Though this video is beloved, my personal favorite rendition can be heard below. It was taken at a concert Kelli put on at the 92Y in New York last February. In it, Kelli sings for and to Marin, and the entire theatre wept.

Bonus: "Back to Before," Ragtime Reunion Concert (2023)

The role of Mother was originally workshopped by Donna Murphy in Toronto in the early 90s, but she left to do King and I, which worked out well for her. In came dear friend Marin Mazzie, who originated the role on Broadway, and established a precedent no other has been able to top. Also in that cast? Audra McDonald as Sarah, for which she won a Tony, of course.

In 2023, after years of pandemic-related delays, they staged a one-night reunion concert of this special show. And who better to take on Marin's iconic role than Kelli O'Hara? Listen to her "Back to Before" here, and then do yourself a favor and run, don't walk, to listen to Marin's.

[greyias]

I have made it through the pilot episode of my silly forgotten spy show from 2011! The yellow subtitles are super duper distracting, and sometimes cover up the actual subtitles when they start speaking in other languages. I persevere though! Beggars can't be choosers when it comes to nearly lost media.

Thoughts below the cut!

First up, apparently my memory lied to me right off the bat, and I had forgotten the show wasn't "four white guys", it was "three white guys" and the main character, Ricky Martinez, who is Puerto Rican. Whoops. My bad.

Okay first, since likely no one has seen this show, our cast:

Pictured: 4 wild and crazy guys, on a future adventure I've already forgotten

On the left, our main character, Ricky Martinez. The newbie. Again, the least white man here. A little baby. A sparkly eyed ingenue, who has always dreamed of being a spy.

Next up is Michael Dorset, played by Eric Close. He's the team leader! His personality is "dickishly controlling", I guess, but he somehow fades into the background in the pilot. But that's mostly because standing to the right of him...

...is Billy Collins, played by James Murray. My beloved, my baby boy, the inexplicably Scottish spy that works for the CIA(?). This is explained very quickly in that he used to be part of the British Secret Service, but then got deported (???) "on account of boyish mischief". To my recollection, this is the only explanation we ever get. He's just Scottish and he's there. Accept it.

And finally we have Casey Malick, aka "The Living Weapon". He's like if Elliot Spencer was extremely deadpan all the time. An average guy surrounded by supermodels for coworkers. He doesn't seem to mind.

Now that my oh-so descriptive introductions are out of the way. Onwards to the plot! After a very questionable historical narration of the CIA, it starts with our little fwesh faced, cherubic wannabe spy Ricky going to his first day at work! He's so excited to start his dream job, and I guess in this universe, if you get a job with the CIA you're actually allowed to tell your mommy, because she packed a lunch for him for his first big boy day at the office! (Who he apparently doesn't live with so did he make a pitstop on his way to work?). Unfortunately, the lovingly prepared Asopao De Pollo is quickly deemed a "suspicious liquid" and Ricky is detained as a suspected terrorist, because oopsie! The CIA accidentally merged their new hire list with the terrorist watchlist. AS YOU DO.

But that's all sorted out quickly enough, although I think lunch may have been ruined in the process, and our derring do protagonist marches onward to the office of the deputy director of the CIA to report for duty, only to be informed that he was laid off as of five minutes ago. WOMP WOMP. After giving a rousing speech about how obsessed he is with being a spy, the director, seeing the perfect patsy, basically assigns Ricky to be a tattletale on the team of troublemakers who are constantly irritating him.

So he immediately goes to meet/spy on his new coworkers, who introduce themselves to Ricky and the audience, and then when Ricky tries to bluff out his reason for being assigned to the team, SUDDENLY get called on a super duper urgent mission just a few blocks down (it's on American soil, but that's okay because they're rebelllllls), and they let Billy drive, which seems to be a mistake because he's either forgotten what side of the road to drive on, or thinks he's actually playing Grand Theft Auto. I started to try and count how many civilians he nearly plowed into as he literally DRIVES OVER SIDEWALKS and almost causes several accidents as they race to find... uh, I don't know. Somethingsomething plutonium. I should note, this isn't even ten minutes into the episode's runtime.

So the three senior spies chunk our poor fresh faced baby spy onto the road where he has to run down and climb into a moving vehicle to give an envelope to an operative who turns out to be Russian, and as understanding dawns on poor Ricky, he's thrown on his ass again into the street, where the little rascal senior spies pick him back up and are like "aw how sweet we got photos of that", because you know, spies. And blackmail. And the relentless hazing of the newbie begins.

Other things they do to this poor man in this episode alone include:

cockblocking him on a date (granted, it's a date with Michael, aka leader dude's ex wife)

trick him into making a toast with a drugged flask of whiskey

glue an earpiece to his eardrum(???)

send his unconscious form on a horse so he'll get kidnapped by the villains of the week (for reasons)

decide to wake him up by nearly shattering his eardrum with the sound of bagpipes

at the end of the episode they cockblock him again by waiting for him in the dark in his own house, just because

Anyway, plot of the week is rescuing a journalist who's been captured by... *heavy sigh* Sudanese rebels. Because while this wasn't made closer to 2001 post-9/11 reactionary, it's still, you know, close enough that we're still in that era of television. So they all commit a little grand larceny (although is it grand larceny if the money you "acquire" for a hostage exchange is counterfeit?), Ricky has to go get his vaccines, somewhere in this Billy actually tries to be friendly to him and give him advise, Ricky causally proposes bombing some potato farmers because the deputy director is trying to teach him about the viability of intel, and they have to fly coach, the HORROR, before we finally get to...

The Scene™.

The one scene that once I saw it again, made me vividly remember cringing as it aired back in 2011. Like, it wasn't great then, and it aged even more poorly... the scorpion scene. It's... it's... yeahhhhhh... I have a vague memory they didn't lean too heavily into the racist stereotyping later in the series, unless my memory just completely blanked all of that out. But yeah... it's not great. And CBS was like. SUPER proud of this scene. In all of the promotional trailers and lead up to the pilot airing, they include the 🦂 incident in a lot of them.

🦂 🦂 🦂 ANYWAY. Let's move on from that 🦂 🦂 🦂

Anyway, then the drugging incident above happens, which was done so Deputy Director who just won't spend any $$$ to authorize rescuing non-Americans needs a bonafide American in danger to send in the helicopters. Also there's like, at least a dozen rando hostages just to up the ante I guess. After being rudely woken up by bagpipes (courtesy of our resident inexplicable Scot, of course), the cavalry arrives! And Ricky gets super tazed in the process, because he didn't have enough going wrong in his life. Anyway they rescue the hostages, Ricky decides he wants to be part of this group of charming rascals and joins the team officially.

Thirteen years later, and writing all of that out, I truly question his sanity.

So how does the pilot hold up? Well, ahem, certain scenes aside... it's not so bad? I mean, all of the above does sound chaotic as fuck, but I mean, when you literally name your show CHAOS, I guess there's a little of that to be expected. And by the end of the episode, Billy at least starts to feel a little bad for them being unrelenting assholes to poor Ricky. Maybe this was why he was my favorite character back in the day (I mean, other than the fact that he's played by James Murray).

And now... onto the ratings!

Rating*: 🍸🍸🍸/5 Shaken Martinis. I subtracted an entire two points for the gd scorpion scene. CBS was way too proud of that in their marketing for this show.

* - I'm grading this show on a curve, considering it's been so neglected.

Idiot Spy Boyfriend Award: Since we have four lovely hunky spies to choose from, each episode I will give the following award to whoever acts the most like Theron Shan this time around. A completely bewildering metric for anyone who has not played SWTOR, but this is my blog and I make the rules. Today's winner is, of course, Billy, for needlessly playing GTA5 in traffic, nearly committing vehicular manslaughter about 15 times before I lost count, and also just… having a sound file of Scottish bagpipes at the ready???? Ricky, you do not get it for the 🦂, because that scene doesn't deserve to be rewarded. Try better next time.

Will there be a next time? I have no idea. I'm already wanting to rewatch the second episode, but we'll see if I have the spoons to do any more recapping.

[dinoplantsghost]

pairing: Tom Riddle x fem! original character

warning(s): tom is a warning in itself, 1940s: time accurate r@c!sm (xen0ph0b!a) and comments, canon-compliant prejudice, teenage behavior (boys smh), language (swearing), mentions of murder & death, violence, bodily horror

word count: ~3783

Disclaimer: I have a huge google doc that holds all of my drafts and I'm quite literally just copypasting everything, so if there are any typos/errors, no there isn't!! :)

-- really pushing it with the out of pocket comments here but it's the 1940s bro, these dingdongs wouldn't know how to be nice tbh 😭💀

Chapter List

Defense Against the Dark Arts [3]

Saoirse didn’t know whether she enjoyed the Ravenclaw Tower or if she wanted to jump out of the windows that surrounded it. True to the House, everything was blue with a hint of the brown notes bronze held. It was almost always cold, something Saoirse hated the most about the Ravenclaw Tower; as the end of the year and the end of the first term creeped closer, the colder nights became, the shorter the sun seemed to stay before running back to its hideout in the west away from Scotland. Saoirse wasn’t fond of the school colors either, though she supposed it was better than the awful standard pink or gold Mahoutokoro had to offer. 

Begrudgingly getting out from the thick blue duvet, Saoirse forced herself to dress, tears pearling in her eyes as she fought her hair with a hairbrush until she finally used magic to untangle her cerulean strands. She ignored the other three girls she had to share a dorm with; they were none of her concern. Having shared a dorm prior, the other girls were huddled on one bed together, the morning gossip seeming commonplace between them as they got ready, albeit very slowly, Saoirse noted. 

Without a word, the Asian girl left the dorm and her legs were already dreading walking up the spiral staircase to the main lounge of the eagle common room. Saoirse thought the use of a spiral tower as living quarters was quite nice, actually, despite her other thoughts concerning the interior designing. It gave the common room an endless feel as her legs continued their way up the stairs. It allowed for a full study room, something she presumed to be a staple of the Ravenclaw students as they were expected to be academic and diligent in their classes. The lounge held bold ingenuity; the roof was an exact reflection of the night sky, no matter the time it was in the day. It was helpful for students taking Astronomy, as Saoirse saw last night when she woke up to grab a glass of water. Her eagle peers were huddled in the lounge, as they always were, parchment thrown around and ink pots dispersed, risking the chance to fall over and ruin the rugs. 

When she finally made it out of the Tower and onto the moving stairs of the rest of the castle, her mind cleared. Though she had met with the lady yesterday, Saoirse had no time to speak with Merrythought in private. Her lesson was very boring, she noted; Saoirse had been taught those spells long ago, when she was about twelve years old. The girl walked past the Great Hall, ignoring her need to eat as she made her way to the professor’s office in her classroom. 

Merrythought seemed to be a very cluttered person. Once Saoirse found herself opening the door to the lady's room, her feet instantly rubbed against piles of parchment and books that covered the tile floors. “Oh, Saoirse," Merrythought said, popping her head out from a hoard of stuff from a far away desk. “I apologize for the mess in here; I can never get things done sometimes. Time is funny that way." 

"That's alright, I just had a few questions. I would have asked yesterday but there was no time for privacy.” Saoirse carefully stepped over to Merrythought, wincing as she heard cracking under her feet. Hopefully the professor wouldn't notice. "When I first met you, you inspired me to explore the Dark Arts, to experiment; you said I was a natural. But during my tour, the boy who walked me through Hogwarts, I always forget his name; Don Fiddle? Anyways, he said that you never advocate for the use of Dark Arts, which is the exact opposite of what you have told me in the past.”

Merrythought nodded, a hum of understanding passing through her lips as she reached for her bifocals to clean the lens. “My dear, I only say that because not many understand that, the Dark Arts is not evil inherently. It is the intentions of the user that determine whether it is evil or not. Your reason for being expelled, it was because your experiment failed and that girl died. You had no intentions of harming her and she willingly offered to help. I see no reason why that should stop you from continuing fueling your curiosity.”

“But the book I was reading, The Soul and Its Properties, said that a soul unable to latch onto the chosen object would latch onto the nearest living specimen. Does that mean I'm cursed, ma’am?”

Truthfully, Saoirse had no clue what she was doing with the ritual. The book was difficult to translate and the pages were extremely faded, but somehow she was able to capture even a sliver of understanding through the step-by-step pictures. That girl, Himiko, was Saoirse’s disturbed roommate. She happily offered herself up to help when she found a bunch of surgical materials on Saoirse’s side of the room under a floorboard. Saoirse herself had never really talked to her, the experiment was the one of the first times she had ever talked to the girl. The Ravenclaw vividly recalled how the lamps flickered, so the ritual had worked in a sense.

“Define cursed," shrugged Merrythought. “Usually you are only cursed when there are bad intentions. If a soul is angry, then yes, you would be cursed." She walked off, going back to her paperwork piles up on her desk. 

Merrythought had always been a cryptic person in one-on-one conversations. During the training camp she had met the woman, Saoirse had constantly heard how confusing Merrythought was, and those sentiments were coming back in harsh waves now as students struggled to complete assignments even with the lady’s direct help. She was a good teacher, yes; her lessons always allowed for hands-on experiences for students, but when it came to writing notes for an exam, or an essay deep diving into the nuances of a spell, Merrythought was not the person to go to.

“I think I’ll figure it out myself later on, then.” Saoirse murmured, sweat dropping as she coughed in her hand before pivoting on her foot to make her way out of her office. 

┌────── ⋆☆⋆ ──────┐

The classroom filled quickly as students made their way out of the Great Hall, like ants in a single file line. Defense Against the Dark Arts was fairly easy for the group of boys who had designated spots in the middle of the room, who were forced to sit there by Tom, who liked being in the professor’s direct vision. When they walked into the room, however, Abraxas groaned under his hands, light waves of platinum blond tickling his cheeks the moment he saw the annoying color of Cerulean near the front of the classroom. 

Eloise, being nosy as he is, turned his gaze to Abraxas’ predicament. “It’s her,” he gasped dramatically. “Oh, Merlin, she looks so exotic—look at the color of her hair!” 

Patrick hit Eloise in the shoulder, causing the boy with copper strands to stumble on his feet. “You’re always so loud, El’.” 

Eloise shrugged, pushing Patrick back harder and laughing as the thin teen fell to the ground. 

“Can you stop messing around,” Abraxas frowned. “Sometimes I hate being around you guys, honestly…” 

Miles helped Patrick up, swatting his back to get rid of dust and grime from his sweater. 

“Do you think I should try to talk to her?” Eloise asked, a sparkle in his eyes that the rest saw often. “I can see it now; she’ll be swept off her feet by my gorgeous smile and my luscious hair. I’m so glad I decided to wear my good cologne today.” Without consulting with the rest of the boys, Eloise marched up to the quiet girl at the front of the room, tapping an index finger against the wooden table. Saoirse glanced up, raising her eyebrows in confusion as she waited for him to speak. “Good morning,” he said. “You’re the new student, right? I’m glad Hogwarts gained a new beauty in our midst, though it would have been much better if you wore a bit of green on your person—it would really bring out those gorgeous eyes of yours.” 

Saoirse was stunned. This random European boy was flirting with her from the get-go. “Thank you,” she coughed, her cheeks and ears cherry red. “I’ve always been told my eyes are weird…” 

Eloise kissed his teeth, shaking his head in disappointment as he promptly hopped over the elongated desk to sit next to the foreigner. “Well those gits are colorblind, I doubt those squinters could ever fully witness your exotic beauty.” He said, running a hand through his hair before putting his arm around her shoulders, blissfully unaware of the way she tensed up under the sudden contact. 

Miles, Louis, and Patrick walked over, faces flushed red as they fought to drag Eloise out of the chair. “We’re so sorry about him,” laughed Miles. “Sometimes he just sees a girl and he can’t control himself—ew, are you biting me?” He yelled, tugging on Eloise’s red hair to get him off his hand. Patrick was elbowed in the face by Eloise, his glasses clattering to the floor in the process. 

In turn, Abraxas and Orion joined the fray to help the other three, careful to not touch or interact with Saoirse as she leaned down to pick up the Austrian boy’s frames. “Here you go,” she said, taking Patrick’s hand by the wrist to plop his glasses into his palm. 

Eloise pulled away from Miles and the other athletics as he saw Patrick being touched by the girl, yelling as the boy’s neck and ears turned pink. “No, don’t touch her,” he cried, tackling Patrick to the ground in front of a flustered Saoirse. “I’m supposed to be the one having a moment with her, not you, you stupid, scrawny nerd!” 

“Avery, get off of the floor, you look like a desperate peasant.” 

At Tom’s words, the boys coughed, straightened out their backs as they muttered apologies to the raven haired teen, falling in line as they followed him up the steps to sit down. 

“I can’t believe she touched you. You’re not rotting, are you, Patrick?” Orion asked, frowning as he witnessed the meek boy scratch at his wrist. 

“I feel itchy…” Sniffed Patrick, his bifocals barely balancing at the tip of his slim nose. 

“You’re just falling in love, Patrick,” sighed Eloise, stretching out on the table as he squished his cheek against the wood. “It’s okay, though, I won’t pursue that girl any longer if you fancy her; I’m happy for you. Maybe she’ll cleanse you of that nerd energy and make you join the Quidditch team.” 

“There’s nothing wrong with reading, Eloise. Besides, maybe she likes reading.” Louis said, shrugging his broad shoulders as the rest of the classroom filled in with other students.

Today’s class was an extension of yesterday’s lesson: the evasion of spells. The main focus was the realization that you will never know all the spells in the world; some are either too complicated to know or newly created by the caster themself. Being aware of your surroundings is better than trying to fixate on spells that are close to burning your face off. 

“It is important to try and find your opponent’s weaknesses. Now, they might not be as obvious, but becoming detail-oriented is imperative to your success. This skill will sharpen with time the more you come to rely on it.” Merrythought waved her thin wand, white chalk hovering in the air as she drew a simple model of two stick figures, their wands magically moving as they threw dusty chalk spells at one another, puffs of white flying off the board. “Now,” she continued, the desks and chairs clattering as they were shoved to the edges of the room. “To figure out who was listening to the lesson, I will need two volunteers. Whoever wins this duel will gain 20 points for their house.”  

Murmurs flew around the room, uncertainty and excitement from many. With multiple hands beckoning in enthusiasm, one hand in particular stood out to the professor; one so dainty and fair it could be mistaken for a maiden’s. It belonged to a boy, a boy with auburn hair, its length falling to his cheeks as it fell from it side-parting. He was ever one to usually participate in one-on-one demonstrations, often opting out in exchange for “free entertainment” as he had put it countless times before. 

Curious, Professor Merrythought pointed her wand towards the male. “Avery, it's interesting to see you participating.” 

The boy in question let his hand fall back to the side as he feigned innocence through his gleeful smile and squinted downturned eyes. “Well, I’m not particularly concerned with participating myself, you see,” he laughed. “I want to personally suggest two perfect candidates who are more than exceptional for the demonstration, Professor.”  On que, he jabbed a finger downwards to Saoirse, then leaning back to point to his friend in the middle of the row. “I volunteer Saoirse and Tom to duel, Professor.” 

Voices echoed throughout the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. A duel between the presumed posterboy of Hogwarts and the transfer that had only been in class for less than forty-eight hours? It was clear to the audience how unfair this was as the boy with coal hair had a large advantage. 

Galatea Merrythought clapped her hands in anticipation. “For once I like the idea that came from your head, mister Avery; five points to Slytherin!” The lady waved her hands, shooing the students to the sides of the room, making space for her two most prized students. 

Tom, with irritation bubbling in his throat as he thought of the numerous ways he was to have a talk with Eloise later, watched as the girl was pulled to the side, nodding as she was given personal words from the teacher. How she was sorted into Ravenclaw was beyond him. There was no way she knew any spells with Latin roots, especially with her accent. 

Saoirse rolled her robe off her shoulders, her dress sleeves now to her elbows as she strode up to him in full confidence. In her right hand was a wand of dark wood with a long, notch shaft, her thumb placed snugly under the hilt. 

Merrythought coughed in her hand. “The rules are simple: de-wand your opponent using all spells you know, as well as deflecting techniques we discussed earlier. Do not intentionally harm one another or I will have you in detention as quickly as a snitch.”

TR~S

An eagle and a snake, back to back, wands in hand. Others watched as they took ten steps forward, with each making them more and more agitated. Flicked their wands to the side, they stood in silence. The snake struck, turning around and throwing a spell toward the eagle, who was able to successfully redirect the jet of red towards the crowd. It was a mystery as to how many tricks the girl had up her sleeve; being a new transfer, no one knew of her potential. The spell hit a nearby desk, making it explode upon impact. The shards were raised in the air as the eagle was quick to make use of the situation. “Oppugno!” 

The shards flew to attack the boy, ready to piece and stab him, but with a quick Incendio Duo the shards danced in flames, smoke forming. Closing in on his opponent, Tom waved his arm to throw in multiple incantations of the arrow-shooting spell and Diffindo. Smoke swelled and whirled around the two at the hands of the eagle and her Nebulus charm. 

Their vision darkened as the smoke burned their noses, blocking them from the concerned crowd on the outskirts of the gray, fluffy barrier. The faintest shouts from rowdy boys could be heard until Merrythought got onto them for yelling in her classroom. 

“How did you learn Latin-based spells,” Tom asked, yelling slightly over the hum of the moving smoke. “I doubt whatever school you went to previously used any.” 

Saoirse hummed, blinking slowly before flicking her wand at the boy. “Dueling camp comes in handy.” She frowned as Tom raised his own wand to get rid of her hex. “Professor Merrythought said I could use any spells I’d like this time around; she said that you would be on par with me.” 

“What did she whisper to you before this duel? It’s hardly fair to give a student the upper hand.” He pulled a desk from outside the smoke barrier to throw at her. Her eyes widened, running off to the side before tripping and falling on her feet as the desk crashed next to her, her knees rough and red against the concrete. 

“She didn’t whisper anything of that sort to me,” she argued, her glasses skewed on her nose. “She said I could use the spells I’ve been working on for the past few months. But I don’t know if you’d be able to handle them.” 

Tom scuffed, his usually sculpted hair dancing in wild strands as the smoke barrier picked up enough momentum to create wind. He had created his own spells before, ones he doubted she knew any solution or counterspell to. His patience was growing thin; Eloise was a fool for throwing him into this stupid duel. “Stand up, you stupid girl,” he hissed. “I have better things to worry about than some weak foreigner. I’m surprised your wand hasn’t blown up in your face with how thick your accent is, you bloody Jap—”

His chest tightened, the air knocked out of him as Saoirse threw an Expulso his way. His eyes stung as he flew back and fell to the edge of the smoke barrier, coughing and heaving as his lungs begged for fresh air. The smoke was becoming less and less controlled due to the sudden fluctuation in Saoirse’s demeanor. Struggling to sit on his knees, Tom stuck his wand out to let a spiral of wind fly out of his yew wand, the smoke dissipating before closing in again, the barrier tightening as Saoirse kept the smoke up. 

As he stumbled on his feet, Saoirse shot a spell he did not know, nor was he able to figure it out. It was in Japanese—or at least, that was what he thought it was. A jet of orange hit his shoulder, a flutter of stinging pain similar to that of nettles echoing in his skin. Ignoring the tickling sensation, ropes conjured from his wand with Incarcerous, wrapping around Saoirse’s wrists, ankles, and neck so effortlessly, constricting her from any movement. 

Her eyes widened as she raised her joined hands to scratch at the bind around her neck, desperate to get the tiniest bit of air. “You’re pathetic,” he laughed, the tickling in his shoulder spreading to his neck. “Merrythought will be disappointed to see her favorite student on the verge of asphyxiating.” 

Dots appeared in her periphery as her hands struggled to pull away the rope, choking her red and irritated neck even further. With a lack of strength and concentration, the smoke barrier fell, revealing to the long-forgotten crowd a passed-out girl with blue lips and a red neck littered in scratches and a prominent rope burn. The boy standing in above her, who quickly pivoted around to pack up his belongings, ignored the professor’s calls as he left the classroom. His posse followed suit, and the bell rang, ending Defense Against the Dark Arts. 

┌────── ⋆☆⋆ ──────┐

13:15 - Lunch

“She really tried doing that to you?” Abraxas asked, listening intently to Tom’s influential words like the rest of the group. Tom nodded, his fork flinging a piece of vegetable across his plate. “She also used this foreign spell, I couldn’t figure out a counterspell because it was in a different language.” 

“Was it harmful,” Patrick chimed in, closing his book in front of him. “That smoke barrier blocked the entire duel; it takes a lot of concentration to keep something like that up for so long.” 

“My shoulder has been irritated the entire time since it made contact,” Tom frowned. “Though I doubt it’s of any concern. The pain hasn’t spiked at all.” 

The Austrian boy shook his head, pushing his frames along his nose bridge. “You said it yourself, though, she said she knows Dark Magic.” He leaned close across the table, careful to speak in a low voice. “What if the spell was fatal?” 

“There’s no way, she’s too pretty to be that dangerous,” Eloise said. “I refuse to believe it; my exotic muse being a sly minx is beyond any reasoning, Patrick.” 

Louis rolled his eyes, looking off to the side as he drank his pumpkin juice. “That girl isn’t anything special, Eloise, there’s better looking girls in our house.” 

“Oh? Then why don’t you introduce me to them, Louis? I didn’t know you fancied any girls in our house.” 

“That’s not what I said, I—”

“What Louis meant,” Miles smiled. “Is that you can’t make assumptions off of someone based on their appearance.” 

Eloise made a noise of disagreement, wagging a finger into the boy’s face. “No, I can make all the assumptions I want when peacock boy over here literally theorized the girl to be a murderer.” 

The boy with platinum hair kicked Eloise’s leg under the table, making sure to make a bruise into his delicate skin. “Don’t say that so loud, you idiot—and stop calling me that, those peacocks have been in my family for generations!” 

Tom pinched the dip of his nose, a terrible headache coming along as the floating candles from above made harsh glares on the metal of the numerous goblets in the Great Hall. His neck buzzed, and so did his upper arm now. “Excuse me, I need to use the lavatory.” He muttered, getting up from his seat before making his way to the Prefect bathroom. 

Somehow, the tickling sensation had turned into a sting, a pain he was familiar with. Swinging the door open, Tom let his Hogwarts robe fall to the ground as he undid the first two buttons of his dress shirt. As he looked upon his skin, a sharp breath flared his nostrils as he winced at the desiccated flesh now pale and gray, flaking in a way. The scent finally hit his senses, the faint but recognizable smell of putrid, rotting dead skin all the way from his upper bicep to his jaw. The spell he was hit with, the one he didn’t deflect, was rotting him from the inside.

Credit(s): Dividing banner (^^^) by Chen Lu (1436 - 1449) - "Plum Blossoms in Moonlight" scroll painting; sourced through Pinterest

[mermaidsirennikita]

Hello! Any marriage trouble recs?

Sure!

Charlotte and The Seductive Spymaster by Grace Callaway. LOVE this book. Charlotte had a passionate--and tumultuous--marriage when she was younger, but then her husband died (right after she threw a fit and accused him of cheating, lmao). Years after, she's finally ready to move on, when he SHOWS UP! He's a spy who faked his death! And he's been stalking Charlotte and throwing rocks through windows to interrupt her near-kiss with a suitor! The heat in this book is insaaaane, and I loved the hero trying desperately to win her back.

Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan. This is technically divorced couple in trouble, as the hero and heroine split after a tragedy and are co-parenting their kids. But when he starts to move on, she realizes that she's still in love with him... Angsty, deep, and super heartfelt. Does deal with stillbirth, so heads up on that.

Return to Monte Carlo by Cate C. Wells. Set in the 80s, the heroine had a whirlwind romance with an older, withholding businessman and married him. A year later, the marriage is rather cold and his family sucks, so she impetuously leaves him on her first anniversary. Months later, he tracks her down, finds out she's pregnant, and WHISKS her away... to... Monte Carlo, perhaps?

Her Husband's Harlot by Grace Callaway. This sorta counts, I guess, but the marriage isn't really much of anything when the book begins because he refuses to touch her. The heroine is determined to figure out what's up (and fuck her husband) so she disguises herself as a sex-worker to begin an affair with him, lmao.

The Day of the Duchess by Sarah MacLean. Maybe the best MacLean? Seraphina caught her husband, Malcolm (Haven, God I love his title) cheating on her after their relationship hit the rocks. She later lost their baby and then ditched him, only to come back years later to ask for a divorce. He's like "sure, if you help me find my next wife", which is obviously a ruse to give him time for a massive grovel and winning her back. Angsty perfection.

The Courtesan Duchess by Joanna Shupe. Another "I'm disguised as a sex worker to seduce my husband who hasn't touched me" book, but this husband hasn't seen the wife in like six years (basically since the wedding day) so he super doesn't recognize her, and she's learned how to seduce him so that she get pregnant with an heir she needs for plot reasons.

Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley. One of my favorite marriage in trouble books; Isabella and Mac were madly in love, but have been separated for three years after a tragedy happened and she ALSO realized that she was tired of his tomfoolery (something I feel a lot of readers miss... Like it's not just the thing that broke the camel's back, she was also sick of Mac being irresponsible and unreliable). She returns to tell him that someone is forging paintings of his, and he's like "COOL THANKS FOR TELLING ME. Also, I am so uninspired by the nudes I'm painting" and she's like "TWIST MY ARM I'll pose for them I guess :/". So so hot.

Private Arrangements by Sherry Thomas. A married couple has been separated for about a decade, basically since the day after their wedding. She requests a divorce so that she can marry her lover, and he's like "fine, but gimme a baby first". She agrees to try for a baby... but has tricks up her sleeve.

Possession by Adriana Anders. An A-list actor and an ingenue have a marriage in name only for PR, which is ruined when he's caught on camera having kinky sex... with a woman who looks suspiciously like her. He runs off to his place of solace (a kink camp, naturally) and she follows him, during which they finally get physical and also! Emotional!

Winterblaze by Kristen Callihan. One of my favorite marriage in trouble books, a paranormal historical in which the hero has left his wife after like, fourteen years of marriage, because he finds out (following a werewolf attack) that not only does the supernatural exist, but his wife is a witch who's actually QUITE involved in all of it. Then they get stuck on a ship together, working to solve a series of demonic murders. But! She's wearing a pink dress that reminds him of how pink her vagina is! And he looks SO HOT and STOIC. And then there's a HUGE twist that blew my mind. I loved it.

Her Errant Earl by Scarlett Scott. After deflowering his wife, a slutty earl (who only married at his father's insistence) returns because he's on the brink of being cut off. She's like "lmao fat chance" but as they get to know each other, he gets involved for reeeeal.

Her Lovestruck Lord by Scarlett Scott. Another "he left her without touching her" book, the hero married the heroine while being in love with another woman, who he returned to. Now that affair has blown up and he's brokenhearted at a sex party, naturally. But she's also shown up to the sex party, tired of being fucked around on and determined to cuckold him. Yet they're wearing masks! And she accidentally cuckolds him... with him! And it's so good that he negotiates a sex deal with (gasp) his own wife!

Regarding the Duke by Grace Callaway. A recent favorite, this one has a frosty businessman eight years and two kids deep with his adoring, sweet wife, who's ignorant to a lot of who he actually is. He lusts after her but is determined to keep distance, which is why they only have sex on Wednesday. Then he gets amnesia (it's great) and is like "wait a fucking second, I only have sex with this FUCKIN' BABE on WEDNESDAYS??????" So the marriage is totally reawakened, but like... all his secrets, which would blow up the marriage, still lurk. SO GOOD.

[vvo1d1ing]

... Okay, listen, I had this idea, I wrote it, I didn't beta it, and fuck it, I'm now posting it.

I usually post my fanfics on ao3 but since this is a very short One Shot that is mostly just a dumb thought I had, I'm posting it here.

English isn't my first language and I'm sure if I spent more time on this, it'd flow better. But I, I just need to post it and hope better writers see my idea and make fics of Durge and Gortash having much more of these "Deniable acts of kidness and love because if I try to actually show romantic or sexual interest in you, I'm going to kill you." moments that make me feral.

If you read this, hopefully you'll enjoy it. In mind while writing it I had my Durge but I tried to keep it any descriptor to a minimum so you can kind of maybe imagine your own Durge easier (if you like this, idk, my writing is all over the place)

TW: Slight dubious consent and mentions of human taxidermy, murder, stabbing, slitting throats. Nothing really gets described, mostly just thought about or mentioned in conversation.

What was there to say about Lord Enver Gortash? He was charismatic, he was inventive, he was the biggest bastard The Dark Urge knew but besides these few admirable qualities, he was a prick, he was a moron, he managed to be more annoying than having a pebble stuck in one's shoe. The Dark Urge wanted nothing more than to rip that smug grin off his face but they couldn't because that would ruin their plans.

Or so they told themselves every night. 

What they didn't wish to admit to themselves and even less to him, is that behind all their opinions and critiques, they admired him. All of him. Though they cared little for Bane, they admired Gortash's devotion to him. They admired his ingenuity, especially for tinkering with machines that they never would've thought of and even less heard of. They admired the way his hair always looked perfectly messy, the way his eyes would soften when he looked at them, the way he laughed when they said something supposedly funny. If that wasn't enough, they enjoyed how he made them feel their own heartbeat when he'd call them his 'Favourite Assassin' or 'Friend', though the one they loved and hated the most was when they'd be alone, planning for possible circumstances that could ruin their plan and he'd simply whisper-

"Dearest?" He basically purred it out, only loud enough for them to hear it. They only wished to acknowledge his presence with a glance but before they could, they felt his hand touch their spine and travel upwards. Too much. Too much touch!

Without a warning they grabbed him by the neck with one hand, pinning him down on the table in front of them and pressing down just enough to keep him in place as they took out their dagger and stabbed it right next to his head.

"I've warned you before. One more time and I'm cutting that hand of yours off. Do you understand?" 

"Such empty threats, if you meant it I know you would've already begun hacking it off."

When the Dark Urge warned him first for grabbing them by the waist, they left a nasty stab wound in his shoulder. When he tried to touch their thigh during a meeting with Kethric, they made a quick cut against his fingers. When he used the opportunity to help the Dark Urge with taking off their coat and barely managed to kiss the back of their neck, he got hit in the face with their elbow. 

The damage they have done was never permanent, besides maybe the stab wound, and never something that couldn't be healed…something they never would. And Gortash knew that. Oh he knew that and he would use that knowledge to its full advantage. 

Growling under their breath, they let go off his neck but as they pulled the dagger out of the table, they on purposely pulled it in a way where it would gently cut Gortash's cheek. 

"Insufferable scum…" The tiefling said as if spitting out venom before they focused their attention back on the papers they were looking at before. The list of murders they committed in the name of the Absolute, only a few more left to do before they were to go to Moonrise to see how the situation is going there, by what Ketheric wrote it's all going by plan but he couldn't be trusted. Nor could Gortash be.

"Your insufferable scum, my dear." He sounded just as smug as he probably looked, but they didn't react to it. They knew that that's what he was after. 

To change the topic and stop their thoughts from drifting away to the idiot, they started to speak about Ketheric, a topic they knew would make Gortash less annoying to talk with. The mere mention of his name was enough to make his smile turn into a disappointed frown.

Though even as they talked about Ketheric, their mind began to drift. They noticed how his shirt was slightly more open than usual, how there were a few strands of his hair that they knew were out of place, how his fingers just twitched a slight bit whenever they mentioned Ketheric. Though their mind and gaze lingered the longest on his jaw. He hasn't shaved for at least a week by what they could tell. 

Mid-way through him talking, they decided to mention it.

"You haven't shaved."

He looked confused for a moment, before touching his cheek with the back of his fingers and knuckles, checking with his touch just how noticeable it was. "I haven't indeed. Strange of you to point it out, friend."

"It annoys me." The Dark Urge explained plain and simply.

"Simply do not stare at it then, you're usually quite good at ignoring my face."

"But I'll still know it's there. Fix it."

"Making demands that I go to a barber right now just because it annoys you? Please, don't make me laugh, we have much more important things to do now." He mocked the tiefling, looking at them with slight disbelief at what they were asking of him.

"Then let me shave it for you. It's bothering me." 

"Let you- Haha! Absolutely not. As much as I enjoy our usual game, it would be ridiculous of me to trust that your twitching knife hand won't slit my throat the second I present it to you."

"If I wanted to kill you I wouldn't use such petty tactics. I'd just do it. Not to mention, I find slitting throats to not be any fun unless the person is hanging upside down."

"Morbid.." Gortash mumbled under his breath, instinctively touching his throat and somewhat scratching at the imaginary cut he just felt. 

"More importantly, I need you for our plan to work. Killing you now would be a waste of all the time and resources we put into this…It would also be disobeying the wishes of our gods." 

"I suppose you are right about that…" He sighed, slightly disappointed in himself as he now knew he had little excuses to get him out of this. Looking away in thought before looking back at the Dark Urge. "Fine. Shave me then. Though from where will you-"

"Sceleritas!" They snapped, their imp butler appearing from behind them and stepping to their side with a small bow.

"Yes, my vile master?"

"Bring me my razor...and the cream I use for my taxidermy."

"Right away, my lord!" 

Gortash did not ask for what reason The Dark Urge used cream on taxidermied animals, but he was wrong in thinking they were animals. After all, he never saw what their room looked like in the temple of Bhaal and it was for the best. The ten or so stuffed corpses wouldn't have made for a relaxed visit. 

As soon as Sceleritas came back with the items requested, the Dark Urge had Gortash sit in a chair and lift his head up. Forcing him to lean and relax a bit as they went behind him and took the items from Sceleritas before shoo-ing him away. 

They grabbed his face with their left hand, forcing it to lean to the side before leaning the blade against his throat where his beard hairs just started. 

And they just began to shave. Carefully and with patience, they made sure to not make a single mistake, not leave a single hair uncut. They were a bit aggressive with handling his face but one couldn't deny that they didn't do this with love. He could see a bit just how focused they were, just how much they cared to do this without properly hurting him.

And they knew just how much they used this as an excuse to touch him, to be close to him and to allow themselves for just a moment to escape into a world where they could take care of Gortash. When they were done and made sure to brush away all the fallen hairs they could, they opened up the cream and took a bit of it on their fingers before applying it on the shaved areas.

This was when he was able to feel just how soft and caring their touch could be. Even if they tried to deny it, the fact they took the care into not just shaving him but also taking care of skin, was such a clear sign that they could actually be loving, if they wanted to. 

Lost in the act, Gortash didn't seem to hear when the Dark Urge was done and told him as such but was brought back into reality when they snapped their fingers to call upon Sceleritas once more to take away the items.

"I…Thank you. This is probably the smoothest shave I have gotten."

"Don't care. I only did so it doesn't bother me."

A lie so clear it was basically written all over their face as they looked at him with a glare.

"Right."

"...Right." 

After a moment of silence, the tiefling was quick to try and move back to talking about their plans. And was as usual, back to avoiding looking at Gortash as they spoke.