#These tags are like threats and a god complex put into one

[themistakehasarrived]

Have an unneeded word vomit on worldbuilding for the httyd tribal courtships for my fanfic.

[btw I have not heavily researched courtships but I've some fan ideas and tiny specks of actual courtship traditions.]

There are a few things that vary from tribe to tribe in my worldbuilding but let me word vomit it all anyway:

The requirement to begin a courtship is a weapon made by the courter or paid to be made with a design the courter asked for, it is in my head a way of giving the other a way for protection and saying they wish them to be well-protected.

Through what sort of weapon one gives also says a lot, if its an unfit weapon than there is a lack of attention put into it and it is, unfortunately for unobservent lads, an offensive gift that says they do not know the person they want to court beyond physical appearance.

Heavy jewellery is never a good gift, as a courtship gift should be practical even if it's only for show and much of the characters have duties to deal with in their day-to-day lives. Light earrings, bracelets, armbands, etc. Majorly, things that do not disturb them but still show that the person is in a courtship. These gifts usually go on to be worn even after marriage.

This is a more true to life courtship point but the father of the bride (in this case groom works too I suppose) asks for hand in marriage in place of their children. In my world, it's seen as a show of good-will between in-laws to be and an acceptance of the joining of two families through marriage.

The courtship requires the two courters to have one advisor each personally and one that works between the two as a counselor of sorts. This is to insurance no misunderstandings happen that lead to a dissolve of the courtship and build better relations between the two. As majority of times the courtship can happen between previously unknown parties but also between previously friends to courters.

Courtship requires the two to spend much time together, which means they are either together during events or alone away from others. Spending time to get to know each other better, come to an understanding of what they might require from this marriage, etc.

When one is ready to move the courtship to a marriage, which usually takes a year or two at the most to happen unless the courtship is broken off, then the two come to an agreement of when, how, where through their advisors and are given a day to spend together before it is announced. This is a last effort to insurance that the marriage is a good choice through private discussions and time spent together.

So, this was my—very unneeded but wanted word vomit on—courtship ideas and how this will very likely come into play in my fanfic.

An added fact, anything made by either of the courters is seen as a sacred gift because the person spent time and effort to create it. So, Jack with his sewing and Hiccup with his smithing go a long way in this fanfic later on.

[katyspersonal]

In defence of Shadow of the Erdtree + Getting my grudges with the fandom's bad takes off my chest

(! if you are seeing this caption it means the post was shared via queue feature, thus I must be STILL on my hiatus! will respond to comments when I am back online and thank all 5 of you for waiting for me! )

*deep, tired sigh* Allllright so... Ever since SoTE came out, it has been a rocky patch for me growing past initial shock, absorbing new lore and above all, dealing with some conflicts that transpired over it! In the end my grudges, as well as disagreements with popular attacks on this DLC accumulated enough to make me feel like smoking volcano, I swear.. You might have observed some anger already slipping through the cracks, but I've decided to place ALL of my opinions in one easily skippable post instead of turning my blog into a toxic pool with endless negative posts, so I'll just get to it!!

YEAH YEAH I know, a TRUE comedy genius remaking my DLC predictions bingo post to structure what I want to address fdhhdsf This is basically a 'so how is checking Elden Ring tag going today? :)' bingo but... it is easier to put it like this. I just need some way to simply vent my own frustrations because I hate everything featured in this image with THE burning rage. Putting my opinions and everything under cut but fair warning, not only it is going to be very long as if anyone who knows me is surprised dfhshfsd, but also very ANGRY! ANYWAYS!

1) "They excused genocide by giving Marika a sad backstory"

Sigh… Instantly off to a terrible start, and it is truly the most Tumblr take out of all Tumblr takes imaginable. So let me suggest something actually ground-breaking here… Giving your villain reasoning not only makes for a more realistic and interesting character, but is also crucial because nobody is just BORN evil.

sorry I had to I understand the temptation of wanting a villain whose sole drive is power control preserving privileges etc because it resonates more with the narratives proposed in real life and people's struggles, but not only even in real life things are FAR not as often as simple… but even if they were, Fromsoft is always dealing with more complicated matters that touch the nature of existence in general, and not just power and control over it someone could gain! Marika was not "just" evil even in the base game either, giving off the impression of someone wanting to build a perfect world of light, life, safety and abundance even at the expense of oppressing "potential threat" species (Omens serving as…. well, omens of the threat of returning to the primordial state of things or Albinaurics, creation of Nox, who angered the Greater Will itself once).

She waged war on the Fire Giants who had 'evil god of fire', caused natural disasters and whose fire existed as anathema to the Erdtree and declared her victory the start of the "better age"! That already spoke of a lot of complexity, without forcing the audience to agree with her motivations and actions but instead understand what weight they held in the grand scheme of things! Again: much like Gwyn who destroyed Dragons thus creating time, light and life the way it is known now and who for all his agenda against humans had a pretty solid reason to fear the darkness within them, which effects we've seen across the trilogy!

What DLC did add was simply a lore on Marika's origins as a Goddess, and what made her vulnerable enough for the Two Fingers to seek her! Divinity is further stated to not be a great thing via Miquella's whole arc, but the wish to change the world to the better hits harder when you personally were a victim of its fundamental corruption! She did not instantly become a good person over DLC lore, nor she was just evil person and nothing else in the base game! War against Fire Giants (maybe Dragons?) was the means to topple the current powers and establish her reign, oppressing certain species was the mean to preserve it. She searched not solely to take revenge on the Hornsent, but to build a different world where what they did would not happen, ironically ending up causing more injustice ANYWAYS! Miquella fell into this trap. Heck, GIDEON fell into this trap!

Even then, her machiavellian character does not explain why even after Hornsent were completely defeated that war continues forever through Messmer and his forces. Could this be just what Messmer insisted on and THUS she cast him away, or she lost any and all sight of what pusher her to it initially? In either case, even the game itself makes it very clear that Marika/Messmer are not heroes here in the SLIGHTEST!

On a more general note, detached from the specifics of this game: I do still find it more strange to be angry about villains being given sympathetic traits, as a concept. People who are just "born evil" are such a minority that they hardly can say anything about nature of men. Bad people, by proxy, are a combination of some sort of unhappy event (trauma, bad upbringing, faced oppression, mental illness that was not treated if not had its negative traits amplified due to environment, growing in propaganda and ignorance, abuse etc) and person's unwillingness or even inability to heal and stop the cycle of pain by refusing to cause more of it. It is not that simple, and often, people who were hurt so are past the point of not letting it make THEM evil, or lack resources to do so, or have their attempts to change if they WERE bad actively sabotaged.

This IS the true horror of existence: freedom of will itself being put in question. We might be not defined by our pain, but how we will respond to it might be defined by prior events, information we had, circumstances and society around us. How can ANYONE tell what they would be like if they endured the same? Can we be sure that we "endured the same but reacted differently" wasn't predefined by other, nicer factors? To be angry at the fact that a bad person who did bad things had a reasonable, even sympathetic explanation at the core of it all is to be angry that one's privilege to use "born evil" to mistreat and emotionally distance from those people is put into question!

In any case, 'explanation is not an excuse' works not only as a tool to still judge someone's sins, but ALSO to explain that writers making a character more elaborate is not a demand to like this character or excuse their actions! Everything has reason… This is why no one is entitled to declare they know what is good and bad for everyone. Not just people like Marika or Gwyn, but even us.

2) "Hornsent are dangerous and deserved extermination"

…okay, look, yes this is another heavy topic, and it does deserve a separate post which I did make already in the past ( x )! It is another topic that sort of transcends the boundaries of this story (another common Fromsoft W for making people question life and society themselves)! To put it down simply, of course no race is inherently evil, what is the reoccurring topic here is the culture! And what is on the surface is that Hornsent as culture and species, in many ways, are victims of its own oppressive religious institution and questionable traditions. Bonny Village's potentates are hostile, dangerous cult serving as a the weapon of """justice""" and """purification""" within Hornsent! They possibly go back-to-back with their religion but except they are extremist. We cannot tell whether general face of the religion, the Inquisitor hags, would do anything about it had they have more control, whether they tolerate it for convenience, or whether they encourage and utilise its existence. But what we CAN tell is that not only "impure races" are punished/killed, but even "unfaithful" Hornsent themselves!

Yes, definitely there are also Hornsent children who would have no choice regarding their upbringing, information, nor much agency over their actions, and we know they did not spare the children either from the story of Hornsent NPC that we follow! But even then, it is clear that Hornsent that were in disagreement about their culture's demands had to be quiet about it either, or else they'd likewise be persecuted!

"Why could not they just have started a revolution" is a very unfair criticism towards a culture/place oppressed by corrupt religious (and military?) institution on many levels! As someone from the country ruled by a tyrant feeding the civilians propaganda excusing genocide and promoting xenophobia, as well as very corrupt and oppressive religious institution that yet is hardly a HALFWAY as awful as some countries I could explain how hard (impossible) it is to reliably as much as gather enough people to rebel (with no results but legal troubles down to getting imprisoned). Let alone gather enough people to go an die for the cause. Especially when almost everyone with ANY power and weapons is already by the government's side completely rotten by propaganda. Feeling outnumbered, not having any resources because they're all in the hands of people who ARE corrupt, knowing even out of other people who disagree most would not risk leaving their children and sick relatives and alike in trouble rising up against the enemy they can't reliably take down is already a huge problem here. Even considering the (very idealistic) sentiment that dire consequences doesn't erase the blame that comes from not speaking up, it doesn't change that there are real and reasonable people who don't agree! Let alone the separate topic of how even people rotten by propaganda deserve a chance for rehabilitation! Propaganda is a horrifying tool and not having immunity to it should not be automatic death sentence!

Shadow Realm is already full of burn Hornsent spirits questioning what did they even do wrong and claiming they only wanted to live and didn't do anything, further proving that they might not even be much aware of what their Inquisitors and Potentates do, let alone not being a solid monolith race of those who agree with extermination of the "impure"! They are people, living in conditions of the culture held by the throat of those truly evil! It were a bunch of civilians burnt, as well as Hornsent's (NPC) wife and child who 99.99% didn't do anything. To think of it, it makes it very bitter that Bonny's Village and Inquisitors in the Tower clearly were able to recover and bounce back, when it were civilians who payed the price. Very grim yet clever remark about the real world as well, but I am sidetracking. In general, yes, a culture that considers itself holier than others with extremist forms of it deeming them unworthy of living should be stopped and criticised, but genocide can NEVER be the answer!

^^^ It fact, something already suggests there was a different answer, an even obvious one. Marika's "betrayal" suggests a long social game on her part, as well as the fact that Hornsent culture were trusting her! Maybe they knew she was a shaman and things were happening past the point where they stopped persecuting them, maybe they had no idea. Yet, in any case, Marika held enough social power to bridge the gap between the cultures, to let them evolve beyond their past, traditions and prejudice against 'outsider' cultures and instead learn from them!

^^^ In fact, the gap was bridged, since Crucible, THE Hornsent thing, WAS considered divine even as Golden Order was established! That was like… after getting Elden Ring instead of Dragons (whatever the reason was), war with the Fire Giants and murder of the Fell God and removal of Destined Death from the Elden Ring? Nonetheless, with the power to stop vicious cycle and to let the horrible practices and past be buried and dissolve in her new order of life and radiance, so-to-say "civilization", she chose the path of genocide and revenge that has not ended even to this day! As well as essentially became "the very thing she sworn to destroy" by keeping those like Omens and Albinaurics oppressed!

And to bring back the previous chapter of this post, it is not an invitation to say 'aww then it is fair that she hates Omens so much 🥺', but a pointer that what she did was wrong. And so, yet again, the cycle continues, take Vengeance-Seeking Hornsent that swears to kill not only her and her family, but everyone affiliated with her in any way even if they were innocent and simply were born under such order! He mirrors how she/Messmer did not simply stop at punishing those who WERE guilty, how violence and revenge will always only birth more of violence and revenge, until someone decides to stop it and chose to solve the situation the pacifist way to their best ability. Even when some people claim that within this option those who will want their power back can survive and ruin everything again: likewise, if culture is exterminated, victims will survive and come back with revenge. Either way suggests the risk, but only one of these ways has even a CHANCE of better future! What IS certain is that humanity could never be at better place unless we as species keep trying peace over and over, that won't banish all evil from the first try, but we must choose peace and not genocide over and over!

3) "Miquella's character was assassinated"

No, it wasn't.

OKAY FINE but it is one of the topics that are hard to approach seriously, when someone mistakes the arc of the character falling from grace to a complete rewrite of the character's personality! How falling from grace inherently suggests there was no grace to BEGIN with? Character assassination suggests Chloé Bourgeois from Ladybug that the character has been written a certain way, but then deliberate effort was done by the writers to damage their image and make the audience hate them or no longer care about them!

What we learned about Miquella from the base game was all information about him from the times long before we, player, arrived in the game, and before his departure in the Shadow Realm! He was kind, he cared about his sister to the point of creating a new school of magic and then creating Unalloyed Gold all to heal her, he wanted a gentler order than the Golden Order and created his own tree that welcomed everyone but first of all those oppressed by the Golden Order, he wished his brother Godwyn could die honourably instead of being a growing virus to all living past death. At the same time, he naturally needed military force to protect his Haligtree, as well as was able to bewitch people with his powers!

In Shadow of the Erdtree, nothing that followed erased that information! In fact, he still boldly stated that he wanted Age of Compassion! What we DID witness though were two things: 1) the fact that he had to get a bit machiavellian, something that already was obvious from the base game because kindness alone is not enough to survive in this world and you HAVE to do some planning as the leader up against the current order with its own fans, as well as people who hate the compassion as an idea and 2) that he has been leaving behind what made him the person that he was, including his feelings and attachments, which logically included caring for Malenia for example! So, the dearest sister is 'loyal blade', because he abandoned his love! He does not still love Radahn either, but Radahn was a part of the promise; a very pragmatic thing and memory that did not have to go as his feelings did. He simply was part of the initial plan to ascend to Godhood; Miquella sounded scared of the idea when he asked Radahn to be there for him, but abandoning his fears and doubts would not automatically erase the OATH. Effectively, a "contract".

Miquella was hyped up as that kind, almost perfect, noble person, for us to find out that he is not anymore. The 'anymore' part here is crucial! Fromsoft have previously did the trick with hyping a character up to be great but us finding out they were not with Vendrick and Gwyn (and very briefly with Artorias who didn't DO anything yet was hyped as THE hero when he was in fact defeated)! Miquella repeats the trend with reveal that he did charm Mohg back then (was not perfect in his actions, but I'll get to it later), but also has the story of further descent from that not-perfect-yet-GOOD person that we follow! He is effectively the most elaborate incarnation of the concept, and we know Elden Ring includes Fromsoft learning from their previous games a lot, polishing the concepts they want to use! Miyazaki confirmed that Elden Ring is "close" to the dark fantasy game of his dream, yet is still not it (someone stop this madman fhfdhs)!

To suggest that revealing him as complex, as well as adding the tragedy of repeating Marika's mistakes no matter how much he was running from this sad fate, equates the devs wanting us to hate him (that is what CA is) is ABSURD! He REALLY did not want to be Marika, he was AVOIDING it, yet no matter what, it caught up to him... How comes you equate tragedy and imperfection with suggesting that you should hate him according to the writers' intention? I will go further and say that if your expected reaction to finding out your fav was never perfect in the world where perfection doesn't survive, and had road to Hell paved with good intentions is 'oh devs made him hateable' it only speaks of your own lack of understanding and compassion. Miquella is as much of the victim of this wretched world as everyone else, where you die a hero, remain a lazy fence-sitter or try to do something but only drastic means to do it make a change. Really, this is just Fromsoft's world and Elden Ring is in no obligation to change their philosophy of existential horror!

4) "Fromsoft failed fans by not making it [insert a thing from a wishlist]"

It could be a bit subjective, but personally I think this is simply not how creativity works as a concept. This kind of criticism suggests that upon deciding on the DLC, developers were supposed to look at the fandom's discussions, determine what would be most emotionally satisfying for them, and go that route regardless of what their vision of the story was or what…? It feels like a very entitled kind of thinking for me. Creator's one task is to bring their own vision to life and tell the story and messages they want to deliver! Not to cater to the audience, not to tell them what they want to hear, not to do what sells well or, god forbid, fanservice. (and you can probably see in which paragraph I will need to touch this one too!)

Miyazaki has a rather grim vision of the world and humanity, that is not completely nihilist and devoid of hope, but never gives the coherent answer to what the better future IS either. Character Aldia from Dark Souls 2 (and vaguely in DS3) is probably the best personification of his philosophy. The world is wretched, but the means to change it are so terrible that one might question whether it is even all worth it and whether the new world built on sacrifices is truly better, toppling the corrupt power just replaces it with the other corrupt power unless you decide to straight up destroy the world, but there must be something, right? We just lack insight to understand what it IS, but how can we obtain that knowledge without losing our humanity? Happy ending or blunt message about how if you remove corrupt authority things will magically be good are not his style.

And… regarding smaller things, honestly? He had a right to throw in a random ship that didn't have any foreshadowing if he wanted! It is HIS story and HIS characters! Creator must not obstruct THEIR vision and preferences for anyone, but it is OUR choice whether to take it or leave it. Just because we gave Elden Ring that kind of popularity and influence with huge amount of support and bought copies of the game doesn't mean that now Miyazaki is under obligation to serve us and think about our reception and tastes as sort of "gratitude" or whatever… And on a relevant note, it is his choice which topics he wanted to explore in SoTE and which topics he was done with and decided to leave be.

Again I might be different, as the very moment we had a DLC confirmed I emotionally distanced from Elden Ring knowing that any headcanons and expectations could get jossed at this rate! Getting invested into series that is still in development suggests obvious risks! No one is obligated to ENJOY whatever choices he made, but what we should do is to remember that he had RIGHT to HIS choices.

5) *claiming all hinted that it obviously should have been Godwyn*

I've heard it often that base game all foreshadowed that Miquella was departing in the Shadow Realm to bring Godwyn back to life, Eclipse thing and all, therefore SoTE "betrayed" fans by not focusing on Godwyn. Everything was supposedly set up for him to be prominent or maybe to be a final boss instead, even if he'd be a through and through failed attempt of resurrecting him! But…

Even in the base game, it was suggested that 'Eclipse' was already attempted, and failed. Nothing to suggest that they would go and try again via different means. And, in fact, there is another piece of evidence that Miquella was not going to attempt another way of resurrecting Godwyn! 'Please die a true death' suggests that Miquella wanted Godwyn to not exist as Prince of Death, but to die fully; with his body too, not only his soul.

This is certainly not about resurrection, so it is safe to assume that Golden Epitaph was made as Miquella gave up the hope of returning Godwyn's soul to him! 'Eclipse' was attempted, and it failed! Moreover, 'Eclipse' is a thing associated with the Castle Sol / Mountaintops! Nothing to suggest that it is properly done in the Shadow Realm, it is very much Lands Between's thing to do. (could it be relevant that Fell God of the Fire Giants was killed, and even before Furnace Visage thing his fire was shaped like an orb, so like a sun? no sun to eclipse to begin with? now Erdtree is THE source of light? some fuel for interpretations)

This is not the only reason, as we have a more bold one, that is Fia's quest getting broken! One of the endings is Fia laying with Godwyn and bearing a Rune to bring Those who live in Death back in the Elden Ring, and one of the remembrance bosses is Fortissax fighting within his dream! If Miquella's goal was to go and try to resurrect Godwyn, that would already remove his body from that area by the very existence of the DLC! So, should have Fia's quest/ending and Fortissax battle been timed events only for pre-DLC era? Or, again, if you say that event would only happen if we followed the entire DLC story to the final battle: Fromsoft's DLCs typically do not have any significant effects on the base games, it is usually just some extra dialogues here and there. And what would be about Godwyn's "virus" growing in Stormveil, as well as on some enemies and deathroots in the ruins where Mariners resided? What is considered his body goes FAR beyond just Deeproot Depths, should they have programmed removing of ALL that to not contradict their own lore, then? It really doesn't feel like the case even from technical standpoint already!

From narrative standpoint, both Godwyn and Radahn should (have) stay(ed) dead for the story and emotional weight, however, elaborating Radahn didn't make his presence overbearing for Fromsoft's standards! On the contrary, he got more role besides kinda 'just being there' compared to other Demigods! Godwyn had a lot of impact and presence all over the story in the base game and one of the endings being tied to him! I will get to it in the paragraph about devs allegedly 'abandoning' some things that needed elaboration though!

Yet even then, devs still added Godwyn bits with Knights of Death getting sort of rebranding to still stand by him in death and the bit about Godwyn having custom-made medallions for his special knights! It is very clear that devs have not forgotten or forsaken Godwyn but instead keep reminding us how much he mattered for the idiots living in this fictional universe! However, they know where to stop so the character isn't devouring the story too much as they have their own style with balancing characters' presence! Saying that "only" adding Knights of Death going to protect what's left of their Lord like sort of fucked up plant culture in Shadow Realm is some sort of grave insult to his fans is just weird, because in fact devs were not supposed to add this EITHER!

6) "Scadutree fragments is a cheap way to force players to explore the map"

I don't think there is anything wrong about rewarding the players for exploring the open world map that is meant to be explored! And, yes, it is rewarding, not forcing! The bosses COULD be beat even without Scadutree fragments if you know what you are doing! Like, what surprises me the most is that this take typically comes from the gamers! You know, THE people who would know a thing or two about imbalanced builds or weapons, or have enough time and patience to memorise every single movement by the boss, let alone liking to challenge themselves!

Even then, Scadutree Fragments are supposed to be discovered naturally as you walk around, check niche places on the map, do platforming and search for optional enemies and bosses! If all you wanted from this DLC was to run very straightforward to just beat the boss already with ease so you check the remembrances faster, are you sure that you actually like PLAYING this game? Getting into an open world game when you don't want the 'open world' aspect seems counter-productive to me :/

Bonus mention: some people finding Abyssal Woods sequence frustrating and annoying! It is somewhat relevant to this complaint! Losing Torrent in this area perfectly adds to the sense of not being able to escape, and stealth game with Aging Untoucheable is straight up horror stuff! How are you supposed to experience getting into the forbidden area infested by the force that every living (and dead!) being in the setting fears, if you just can run straightforward to the boss willy-nilly without any buildup or obstacle! It feels like the same sort of complaint as Malenia being unfair boss when she should be hard as someone who "never knew defeat"! Fromsoft is very good at using gameplay elements to confirm what the lore says! This "criticism" just looks like straight up impatience to get your dopamine injection already instead of enjoying the process of learning this story like devs intended!

7) "Miquella has always been evil"

I suppose it goes as a sibling paragraph to 'Miquella's character was assassinated', except this time from the standpoint of those who either liked the "twist" or were indifferent to it… I think this is just a confirmation bias at play from the people who assumed this about the character from the start, often including but not limited to Berserk fanboys. I agree that the fact he has never been perfect was plain to see either, with Bewitching Branches being a sinister power as a concept and Haligtree Soldiers suicide-bombing being a bit too fanatical, but yet again: nothing erases the notion that he had good intentions!

Ansbach kind of reminds me of the same effect Kenneth once had; Kenneth described Godrick as pathetic and everyone agreed completely ignoring the bits that suggested otherwise, and now Ansbach described Miquella as a monster and this is what some people believe! Honestly, how do I develop this level of charisma to make people believe me uncritically fhfdhhfsd In any case, the "unreliable narrator" effect is very prominent in the game, and it is important to remember that developers make the character say what the character would, not give us the directions on what opinion to have!

Miquella's power is further elaborated upon in SoTE, as not inherently brainwashing one but a very strong remedy for someone's problems! Leda's fanatical murderous fixation, Hornsent's obsession with revenge, Moore's insecurities and Ansbach's fixation on avenging Mohg's "honor" (which is likewise a very questionable concept lol) all were muted, giving them peace and friendship instead of attacking each other OR himself! The key to them being pacified and happier being to fix their love on someone else doesn't make Miquella evil megalomaniac wanting an army of loyal dolls.. on the contrary, often caring for someone else IS the feeling that brings out the best in us humans!

Again, this one is subjective, and of course people can read the character any way they want! But I start to take an issue with this reading when people claim that it is canon and dig at the base game saying how he never cared for the compassion but just was sort of narcissist seeking the oppressed to make an army of admirers from or whatever… The DLC accentuates on how he has been abandoning the 'humane' parts of himself, that were making him vulnerable and as Demigod more human than God, so we meet him at his "lowest". Even then, he states his motivation to make a better world full of compassion and free of evil! He would make everyone hold hands in more peaceful ways if he could, but even from the base game his arc was basically trying and failing to heal his sister. Besides, Dane's last and only words are asking him to make a gentler world, without his spell in the effect-

Like, there are enough things that show he had enough reasons to make people see him as symbol of hope even without MAKING them to. With Radahn, we are repeatedly told that "he and Malenia helped him to cosplay Godfrey" stems from the oath they shared and Radahn agreed to! Whether you see Caelid battle as him wanting to die (to go to Shadow Realm) in a battle, or him rebelling against Miquella's world of shining flowers and kissing bunnies in the end as a warmonger but twins not having this "change" it still doesn't straight up speak of evil intent. Could be taken as despair and reaching that 'giving up' state! With Mohg we are not sure either. Maybe Miquella just wanted to "heal" his pain but his personality persisted and obsession/kidnapping happened, so he knew he was beyond help and TOO soaked in blood and sin! Or he was beyond help / didn't want help from the start, so EVENTUALLY (key word) amounted only to sacrifice in Miquella's eyes on his path to Godhood as he NEEDED one, maybe it was even seen as 'mercy'. Help is to build a better world as a honor and all.

He very likely wanted to make a better world for him too! Both their goals were connected to "love" after all! The reading of the character as evil is not as cut in stone and evident as some people make it look like!

(In fact, shortly after BASE game released, Miyazaki confirmed that Martin wrote some nice characters and Miyazaki wrote the ways to corrupt them. So, Martin wrote the kind guy, and Miyazaki put him through corruption arc. But I will get to it in due time -_-.....)

8) *views Messmer as just another (boring?) victim of Marika* (and variations)

This one I kind of saw in two forms: people who dislike the character or not care about him writing him down as "boring" for this one, and simps who kind of lift agency off the character in order to be able to like him! This is to put it roughly, as again, there are various variations but with the same sentiment at its core!

I do think that Marika having enough influence over his actions, and even having abused him emotionally in some way, is entirely palatable interpretation! The nature of Base Serpent, as well as supposed connection with the Fell God, is debatable and can vary from truly harmful thing to simply a force of nature that exists to ensure forces like Erdtree can't live forever. Regardless of interpretation, would a kind, loving mother truly allow for her child to hate himself so much?

Marika has….. a problem with fire. Waging war to put down the Flame of Ruin because it could burn the Erdtree and removing Destined Death that was fire-affiliated power already showed it; as 'Eternal', she of course wanted to live forever, same for her Erdtree! Messmer manifesting fire element would certainly be a problem for her, but was it though? Base Serpent is malicious but for this reason Winged Serpent exists, no? Can another side of universal balance be something that must be removed from the scheme of things? Can fire, or death, truly count as 'evil' things? Are not they simply forces of nature that Marika being the MILF Gwyn that she is did not desire personally, in her vision of a brighter, bountiful world?

My point is, even though she created many Divine Blessings to help him, she did likely inflict some sort of negative self-image on him anyways. Maybe it was not her intention, but she always feared him and eventually that brought her to hide him away!

So like, how does this NOT make Messmer just a victim? Okay, so here is the error that kind of started it all:

User drenched-in-sunlight explained it better in this ( x ) post, but the point is that taking up the Crusade that Marika wanted was Messmer's own initiative and not something she forced him to do like English localisation made it sound! So, she was still possessed with the wish for revenge, but Messmer was like 'hey no need to make your hands dirty, I can do it'! Like drenched-in-sunlight explained, Marika's 'wish' here is the same as in the description of her braid (same symbols), so Messmer sees what is hurting her, and ASKS to be the tool of her vengeance! I'd say that even without this bit, simply the fact that he is a grown ass man should give him agency and hold him up to proper judgement, but nuance is always important!

This does paint an interesting picture though: Marika has been trying to "heal" him (which is a debatable concept considering her character and what fire, save for Frenzied Flame, means in the setting, but I don't insist), he asked to deliver her vengeance FOR her, but also despite having sealed the Base Serpent within him she was still scared of him and sealed him away making everything connected with him heretical and warriors standing by him still shunned, and Messmer lived in hatred, begging her forgiveness before crashing her seal yet cursing her name upon his death! It looks to me as though she grew truly scared of him and decided she wanted him gone BECAUSE of seeing him in action during crusade! Him hating her for ditching him implies that was not something he expected, so maybe seeing him in Crusade made her go 'wow, my son is actually more scary than I thought'!

That speaks of Messmer as someone who can get carried away with cruelty in blind, fanatical devotion! (that also makes Queelign an interesting mirror into his youthful, more """innocent""" self but that's not the point fdhfhds) Marika might have been horrified by it, or horrified by her own ugly reflection in the monster she (unintentionally) created with her parenting, but nonetheless it describes Messmer's personality more. Someone whose reaction to his mother's trauma and yearning for vengeance was to not only take such terrible plan in his arms, but also to go too far with it, maybe even too far for HER. Not everyone would react the same way. A better person would've probably focus on helping his mother to heal and move on, or maybe even turn around and refuse to comply with such harmful intentions. But he, being a grown man who could think and choose, chose to commit genocide. He is evil! He is not JUST evil, either. He is NOT boring tool of Marika with no agency, though!

And on a relevant note, for the simps..

No but seriously fdhfhdfds I understand how that sentiment could have left a sour taste after SA Mohg truthers kept saying 'hey guys you aren't real fan of Mohg if you ignore what he did 🙄' (that certainly aged…….), but I still want to remind that a fictional character doesn't need to be stripped out of his agency to be found attractive! With Messmer what he is doing is a bit more direct, and it is NORMAL to simp for the characters you could not stand in real life! What is the fun of engaging in fictional worlds if you turn it into a morality contest and sort of a "practice" for what kind of endeavours and relationships you'd want in real life? It is for going wild and satisfying curiosity and dark impulses. No limits needed. This is just an advice if anyone needed one like this, because we just never know really.

9) *"corrects" people's interpretations (especially of Nanaya)*

Sigh...

This kind of behavior in the fandom is certainly not exclusive for the past-DLC era, but it really felt more relevant to address again and- yes, like I said, with Nanaya thing it is something I've witnessed the most! Not long ago I said that despite hearing people question why there are so many uncharitable takes on Nanaya I haven't really seen any? But yes, like usual, it happened because Tumblr bubble is often different and you need to catch updates from Reddit and Twitter to have full fandom picture! An example: not reposting the art of course, but here is a cute comic of Midra reuniting with Nanaya in spirit after death ( x ). And do you know why the artist had to add a caption to ask people to not correct their headcanons? …..because on Twitter, they got pestered with people "correcting" them that Nanaya was aKtUaly evil / Shabriri / etc. 🤡🤡🤡

Honestly, I approve of correcting people when they legitimately, objectively contradicted or missed something stated in canon! I disagree with the notion that canon is just a suggestion and the whole fun is to just use names and concepts from it to create one's own thing! I am one of the guys that wears the T-Shirt that says "Just make an OC then" because primarily fandoms are about studying and enjoying the source material! A good headcanon knowingly differs from canon, know rules to break them at the right places, all that. It is especially relevant in Fromsoft's games because the information in them is very scattered and obscured. You WILL miss something, and so communicating with the fans, double-checking wikis etc is crucial! Similarly with fanart: there is a difference between giving a character heterochromia and more interesting look to add flavor in design and drawing them incorrectly because you haven't SEEN their datamined face and need a pointer (looking at you, white Henryk Bloodborne fanarts all because not everyone checked datamined faces!)!

As I got this off my chest that I am not an absolutist with the 'let fans do what they want' because if someone doesn't need canon that much they can always make OCs or original settings…. …when something is not canon but simply a popular interpretation, don't "correct" people! Midra asks Nanaya to forgive him when he succumbs, and it is anyone's own choice whether they take it as her never having wanted him to succumb when she was still alive or her having been secretly lyinh and ensuring long endurance would made him explode into more "sufficient result"! Fromsoft's lore often leaves bits of information that can be used to justify any interpretation! And discussions, even debates, to prove why your version is better are very interesting! Fromsoft's lore community at its best feels like we are all academics defending our thesis before the audience! But the whole "well aktualy" + "there is no proof so your headcanon is bad" + "let me educate you media illiterate casual" + "but [popular loretuber] said this" attitude just isn't it.

The last example is important! This problem IS also often the result of latching onto what a popular loredigger says. Usually Vaatividya (video lore), charredthermos (wrote a popular Bloodborne interpretation document), Lokey's Lore (has whole website with his interpretation of Fromsoft games bits) and so. And I often see people hate these popular Youtubers too, but I think that the blame lays on the crowd! It is none of these guys' fault that the crowd decided to promote them to the fandom's idols and give them this sort of influence! They were not loredigging to gain this kind of power, they probably never expected the popularity, and they would sure be unhappy to know that their work is used to shun creativity and start fights in the community that they care about! Yes, even when they 'lokey' (haha geddit?) speak in the manner that suggests being close-minded to other interpretations, they are not forcing and CAN'T force fans to idolize them.

In the end, they were just doing what they loved, and popularity probably came from them being pioneers. But instead of spilling vitriol towards them and saying how they should be "dethroned" as if they damage the fandom, why not turn our anger towards THE people who idealize them? We are all angry when we are "corrected" and they use lore of someone popular as a "proof", but this is the fault of THE people who "correct". Discourage this behavior, encourage thinking like individuals and not like sheep. No one asked for the popularity or the power to stomp out any curiousity and creativity. Don't hate the big guy AND don't take the big guy's word as a gospel. In the end, we are all just guys looking for answers in the places where they were NOT given.

10) "Mohg beating allegations made the story worse"

Sibling paragraph to 'they've failed the fans by not making it a thing from my wishlist'. Themes of sexual abuse and incest ARE quite interesting and important, but not inherently THE most important, or more important than any other themes! The information about Miquella having put Mohg under spell opens up equally interesting things to talk about and look for! How did he end up like this? Was it an accident of him trying to "heal" Mohg and it no working, and then he decided to just use what he had when he followed his plan? Had he written Mohg down as only working as vessel sacrifice for that mad plan from the start? What was the backstory between Miquella and Mohg considering this? There are still interesting things to work with, regarding relationship of the two, but now with added spin of Miquella's fall from grace arc that starts with following the plan with Radahn. Because, I remind you, requirement for a vessel, so, someone powerful dying and being used, was part of it from the start! Since Radahn needed to die! It is dark, just in a different way, and divided between two characters instead of just clear stated victim and abuser without shades of grey or nuance!

I say 'divided between two characters' instead of 'they've switched' because Mohg didn't instantly become a GOOD person over this reveal! I praised him as a valid character to point out that not all victims of awful childhood and mistreatment are automatically good people, which is a good way to diversify the characters! Make things more realistic than black and white thinking. Similarly how Rykard or Dung Eater are evidence that not all people up against the oppressive system are automatically good people. That benefit of Mohg as a character didn't evaporate, he still serves that point well enough! Nothing in the DLC said that all the kidnapping of surgeons, corrupting people with the blood and bringing in sacrifices happened because of Miquella's charm. Ansbach, in fact, confirms that the blood cult madness existed before Miquella's charm! When we admit to him that we killed Mohg, he also states that such were understandable risks of seeking Lordship, implying that Mohgwyn Dynasty, so, attempt to insert himself into Golden Lineage through mad, violent means, was also already a plan before! To think of it, SA accusation is the one and only thing he beat x) Reminds me of this meme: ( x )

Again, the story allegedly becoming "worse" solely boils down to 'they've made it about a starter point in Miquella's descent from grace and not about sexual abuse' that is simply not true. It is still interesting and valid story, just in a different way! I would normally argue that as far as fandom life goes, it should have in fact improved things; whereas Mohg was never addressed and explored as a character beyond "mohglester" thing, now he should get proper respect and analysis by the fandom, right? …right? WRONG, now people do often simplify him in a different way and forget that he DID do all that other bad shit! 🤦🏻‍♂️

And I can imagine that complaint about this reveal is not limited to but INCLUDES fans being annoyed by how people simplify Mohg and make him a good guy now! But fandom's habit of selectively reducing characters to just one trait ("mohglester" before, "victim of brainwashing" now) is not the fault of writers. How exactly the fact that we, as a community, are too shallow and unprepared for complex story and characters Fromsoft offers to us, is the fault of Fromsoft? Creator should not simplify their writing or direct it a certain way just because of the notion that majority will lack attention span or insight to understand it! We are the ones who should do better! Mohg offered enough complexity in SA allegations era, he still offers enough complexity now, it is right there in the source material for those who seek and care!

11) "Why some people are still coping instead of admitting the writing is bad???"

Yeah very mature of me to single out this paragraph by making the headline sound like the speaker is having a fit, I know. 🙄 In my defence, this particular one also truly got on my nerves, but it lacks the same huge gravity as the topic of approving of Hornsent genocide did so it is just… it is certainly something right.

Certain kind of fans that I lovingly call 'Twins Cultists' (as opposing camp to 'Chadahn Simps') has been terrorizing the fandom with the attitude of singling out and shaming other fans for "wrong" interpretations, saying how they "disrespected story and characters" with the awful sin of not reading characters Malenia and Miquella deeply enough while at the same time reducing Godrick and Mohg to a bad punchline and insulting fans that read deep into THEM, trashing everyone outside of their echo chamber, putting characters/ships malicious ragebait takes in the TAGS and then playing victims of the "toxic community" and such and such. And you would expect this kind of behavior to get significantly humbled up and them to self-reflect on how they were treating fans when THEIR takes were disproven? And I am glad that some people DID!

Full respect to the guys who reconsidered the attitude of swinging their One True Reading at the heads of "heretical" fans like a bat now knowing Fromsoft always has some cards up their sleeves! Especially if they apologised to the fans they were rude to! But also enough people didn't and now not only hate differing fans harder, but also are furious that writers sorta took away their privilege to be mean to "media illiterate weirdos". I wish I had the patience to accept the fact that of course people are angry, because something so important for them was……. no, fuck that lol I don't.

Okay jokes aside, yes I am aware that it is not possible to care about something passionately without at least somewhat slipping into the territory of defending your understanding from "threats". All we can really do is to draw the line between getting too carried away by our passion and outright obnoxious toxicity in the fandom and TRY to not cross it. To CHOOSE to not cross it when we see it, and step back if we did cross it. I do, however, take an issue with people who refuse to try and even encourages the mentality of seeing fellow fans as "enemies" and gets proud knowing they angered someone or discouraged them to check the tag. In Fromsoft fandoms, it is almost exclusively Tumblr behavior, we are sure luckier than every other fandom in the internets, but I still want to get it off my chest. Like I said, this particular attitude developed a new form after SoTE released, attacking the fans who seek reasoning within the writing decisions they deemed badly written or fundamentally wrong.

And these instances are EXACTLY where I put "just caring passionately" as their motivation into question. Because if someone says it makes sense to say that Miquella and Malenia admired Radahn's kindness when they all were younger and thus he likely faced a negative character arc since then into becoming obsessed with war instead, and you get mad at them for "coping when calling a warmonger kind is dumb and makes no sense"…? Sorry, but who cares about characters MORE in this situation: the person offering proper thought about them given some new information, or the person who is mad that their one-dimensional vision got broken?

People finding creative, interesting and reasonable ways to incorporate new information into lore, in the ways that do not contradict the base game (!!!) is not "coping" or "seeing through pink glasses" or "refusing to admit their fav dev can do wrong" or whatever you choose to call it. It is simply using analysis and imagination, it is adapting and accepting. If you can't do it, you are welcomed to do rewrites of SoTE reveals and characters and ending, it is not illegal! But don't go and say that the writing is so awful and broken that everyone who accepts it "never actually loved Elden Ring" or other nonsense just because for YOU this writing didn't work! The one and only unforgivable thing the devs did starts and ends at the fact that Radahn thing was not foreshadowed, and yet even HERE his relevance is EASILY incorporated and developed into backstory if you are willing to put in effort! This retcon is such a nothing thing compared to what some other writers do glares at Ladybug retcons for comparison. Like, working with it is possible, and if you don't want to it doesn't mean others shouldn't.

And in fact, at first I saw a lot of enthusiasm regarding the rewrites, AUs, "fixes", dwelling on pre-existing lore ignoring SoTE and all that. I really did, and it was valid. But then what I saw, personally, was that flame dying down and amount of such posts shortening but out of those who left this brand of toxicity followed! My interpretation of this change is that when initial shock and frustration waned, more people started to notice SoTE was not bad.. and THAT made people who continued hating SoTE feel less validated, in a way. When people started to warm up to certain plot twists and decisions, to elaborate new information into their vision of the lore… people that still hated and disapproved of the thing lost the image of being "the saviors of the fandom from Miyazaki's garbage writing" and became simply people who do their own thing. And for people who are driven with negative impulses, 'just enjoying the things they like' is usually not enough. They need to be "right", they need to "contribute to the fandom", they need to be "better" and so on. It is a known thing about fandoms even aside of SoTE and Soulsborne fandoms altogether, and I feel like this situation is the return of it, personally.

Of course, this is all speculation and the dynamic I've observed. Maybe someone observed different processes entirely! I just think it is safe to assume as I've seen absurd level of toxicity even despite staying away from 'active' fandom (no 'cool kids' circles, no following popular creators, no open Discord servers, no checking tag or Reddittube etc)!

Still, "I'll fix awful creators' writing because I actually love and respect the characters unlike they" is already a very questionable sentiment, but to attack the fellow fans over this is beyond any patience and understanding! Eventually there is no "right" or "wrong" way to love the characters and story and to be passionate, even if we are naturally inclined to believe in our own vision the most! Perhaps you express your love by putting in a lot of effort to give the characters different writing entirely, to "save" them from decisions of creators you don't agree with. But it is an OPTION, not the One True Way, and… really, it is strange to be mad at people for being happy and satisfied with the story and finding a lot of valid things in it and call them blinded Fromsoft dickriders incapable of critical thinking or whatever! Bonus points when such sentiments come from EXACT same people who resent the Youtube bros that bash every other new TV series AND insult people who dared to enjoy such aaaaawful product or whatever… You guys really hate the type of YouTube "critics" who take personal insult in people who enjoyed a thing and even reasonably justified the parts that THEY declared disgrace to the series and disrespect to true fans? Yeah most reasonable people hate them. We all know at least one modern TV show whose fans got this sort of treatment. But don't you guys see how you've became exactly the same type of "critic" at this rate? Unacceptable behaviour, not justified by 'but it comes from place of passion'! I am passionate about Soulsborne as you could tell and I disapprove of it, no correlation!

12) "Fromsoft became woke" (and variations)

For startes, I have to wonder whether we've been playing the same games all along. Where was it when Gwyndolin was intersexual and affirmed himself as a trans man later? Seath is also blind and has what is a disability for his species? Where was it when Pharis/Evlana was a very GNC woman in Japanese original, but for you she looked a trans woman because English localisation made Pharis a he/him a removed Pharis' nametag from "female archer" in the woods? Where was it when our good friend intersexual trans man was literally killed by the church? Where was it when they had female doctors, church leaders and scholars in Victorian era? As well as strong female hunters like Maria or Gratia? Gratia and Rom are also confirmed intellectual disability rep via Japanese script? Or when both male OR female hunter could propose to Annalise? Or positive sex worker representation in Arianna being the only kind person to step in Oedon Chapel? Where was it in the BASE Elden Ring with Ranni being bisexual, Malenia representing severe physical and mental illness, Miquella being GNC at least and trans+neurodivergent-coded at most, Dolores being a return of GNC woman, Blind Swordsman, Niall being another prosthetic-using fighter and Marika/Radagon? Speaking of blindness there were also Maiden in Black, Firekeeper, Irina 1, Irina 2 and Hyetta? Where was it when through their whole games they never sexualized their female characters and the ONE exception in Gwynevere was not even on purpose? WHERE WAS IT WHEN TRANS COFFIN???

...okay, I can continue and I'd love to be reminded of more examples. But on the serious note, this complaint has two ways to go about it: 1) an understandable fatigue with writers and stories placing pseudofeminist agenda on bland unsympathetic female characters, retconning pre-established characters to pretend to care for diversity and generally hating the audience for merely being born cis/white/male and 2) people being upset at diversity in the cast to begin with and complaining about "forcing the politics in art". And in both cases, this just doesn't apply to Fromsoft.

In the first case, they simply aren't hating their "privileged demographics" audience through characters and narrative, and doesn't seem like they will. They write very compelling, nuanced and even sympathetic characters, as well as the stories that make you ask questions to yourself! They insist on messages against corruption of religious institutions and fascism, but even THEN they'll give sympathetic characters on that side (!), show that not all people who oppose them are good either (!!) and make damn sure to recognise at the start of it all were good intentions (!!!!!!). From this angle, you could argue they are not woke ENOUGH, actually, because of how merciful, open-minded and non-forceful their messages are! They deliver their points through characters who are actual people, rather than writing characters as bland plot devices that hate you!

In the second case... Yeah, as memey as the phrase is, but "they've always been woke". Just because Miyazaki loves motherly woman archetype and and Fromsoft games always had compelling married hetero couples doesn't mean they are your allies in "preserving traditional values"! Again, messages against religious corruption and preserving long-overdue order of things fearing change are plain. Elden Ring had a slight increase in diversity, but to think of it, Elden Ring is also a bigger game with bigger cast. I do want to point out though that the very concept of worrying that with more diverse characters somehow cis and white cast will no longer be a part of From's stories is strange. They'll never make it all about JUST one demographic because they cover nature of humanity in general, but if anything, adding way more angles than their staple Medieval Europe culture route gives them more power for TYPE of the messages they want to tell! Because their power is, and always been, showing the situation from different perspectives.

13) COMMERCIAL BREAK LOL

14) "Devs artificially increased difficulty instead of WORKING to make battles"

This is very unfair criticism already from the very concept! Players had two years to advance through the base game, and if you play consistently, it is enough time to become ridiculously overleleved! Overleveled to the point of not being able to enjoy playing SoTE at all, as all enemies would drop dead instantly! It was easy to sabotage the challenge and simply not let the devs give us the fun experience they intended. But, no! Devs cared to make things so that even if you are 300+ level and have godly build, you'll be down in two hits by the first Furnace Golem, let alone bosses! So, yes, you either need to run around and collect Scadutree Fragments, or seriously study your boss and come up with clever strategy! I am still proud of a really smart way to fight Rellana I invented x)

This complaint did have a period of initial shock when it was really blown out of proportion due to the comfort zone of being overpowered broken, but this opinion still lingers and I just find it strange! Why NOT make sure that players of any level physically can't be too strong to actually PLAY SoTE, instead of just running through it with ease? Even then, how comes they "didn't work on bosses"? Boss battles like Messmer, Bayle and Midra are absolutely wonderfully well done on every level! Romina, Rellana and Putrescent Knight are really great and have super interesting battles even if not as epic and show-stopping, aesthetic and moves alone are immaculate. Non-remembrance bosses who are also very fun and beautifully designed! There are annoying bits about Scadutree Avatar and Gaius, but you can't seriously say they did not WORK on them! The bosses are challenging not only due to artificial difficulty, because even at high Scadutree Fragments level you still need to give them thought! And while you do… right, you can admire the sound and the battle design!

I am just really confused about this complaint because it could only be applied to reusing Radahn for the final boss.. but even then he is not fully reused, and sure not so reused for Stage 2 where you can't see shit because of Miquella's spells. One "kinda mid" boss can't and should not eclipse all those awesome bosses! If anything, he feels more like a hard to get joke! Fans have been saying things like 'oh if only we could fight Vendrick at his prime', 'oh if only we could fight Gehrman at his prime' etc etc… now, as they ALSO did want to fight Radahn at his prime, they got an option to do so, and he is not all that impressive, right? :p Let's be real he only sucks because Leonard isn't here hgfhhhgb

15) *admiring how fanatical Leda is while hating other (male) characters with the same quirk*

Sigh... I will just leave this meme by the user wraith-caller here: ( x )

Yes, fandom does have decent amount of simps for this type of male character, I know. Lautrec, Alfred, and D twins. (Coincidentally, all women-killers x) Even if Devin is actually justified) I suppose Queelign would go here too if people didn't write him down as a joke character by proxy over a cursed cleric haircut? 🤔 skill issue btw So of course it is not to say that they are not given enough love/lust/other positive interest…..

…but for some STRANGE reason, people who feverishly admire Leda and simp for her or at least hail her as such compelling character that ALSO hate Alfred or D for being such horrid fanatics are almost a staple by now! Why!!! This problem existed to a smaller extent with people who hated Alfred while simping for Adella and even shipping her with her victim- and no, it is cool and based, one does NOT get into a media with dark themes to demand healthy characters and healthy ships, but why so many times gender defines it? I don't care if you are a lesbian; whether you give character a justice should NOT depend on whether you are attracted to them, or else you are no different from straight girls that would like a male character and hate female character with the same issues! And sure I don't care if you are a feminist and are inclined to give "pay back" for years of misogyny in the fandoms by applying double standards!!

16) "Why could not we have JUST ONE genuinely nice character?"

Alllllright so… apparently, I was wrong this whole time about SoTE. I was convinced that it had no impact on the base game beyond like, Leda greeting us in Mohgwyn Palace, but I suppose I was misinformed very much? Because turns out that this whole time I was not aware that SoTE removed existence of Roderika, Hewg, Boc, Melina & Torrent, Latenna, Albus, Thops, Jar Bairn, Millicent and Enia from the base game!

….fine, okay, sarcasm is not my forte at all, but what I said still stands from both subjective and objective standpoint. Subjectively, I don't think counting out minor characters does any good for enjoying and analyzing the story! Should anything only "really" count when it is a significant, major character? This reminded me of that time when someone said it was 'incredibly fucked up how Bloodborne only had 2 non-white characters' when in reality it has 13 but minor characters supposedly didn't matter much…?

I want to specify though how this bit is more about how I interact with fictional worlds; I take them as just fictional realms that I enjoy exploring and "living through", I do not put much emphasis on how much 'weight' characters representing certain demographic OR worldview in the story as someone able to love every other minor gremlin genuinely! Maybe it is autism, maybe it is the fact that I am naturally hesitant to interact with the 'big guys' anyways with real people too. I enjoy tending to flowers and I suppose for most people the point or representation they want to see should be visible from every angle, like Erdtree x) With major characters, I think Rennala and Godwyn are the closest we have to good people, yet they were not able to be 100% good conceptually due to their high status.. much like Miquella himself, which brings me to a more objective point!

Conceptually, it is already impossible to be fully good when you as much as hold a lot of power! Some people have to be neglected if not straight up stomped out, for your own safety or safety of others, and it won't be a good thing *regardless *of intentions! Some sacrifices have to be made because if you are nice to everyone while having a lot of power, bad people will try to use you! Some social games, if not straight up violence, have to be applied if you want to make a change in the world! The big, important person can't be perfectly kind, because in that case they will no longer be big and important! It is just cruel truth about how society works! And Miquella HAD to be big and important. He had huge plans for the world, and as much as keeping himself and what tribe he has built within the Haligtree safe implied some morally questionable acts, let alone making his path through the position where he can change anything!

Pacifist character with unyielding principles who has a say in the fate of the world can often be portrayed from a very unpleasant angle, like, 'hug and forgive war criminals with unreal body count :3' angle (Steven Universe comes to mind first of all). Like, such decision make you wonder how this is being a GOOD guy here! But at the same time, is taking down those war criminals truly good either? When the character combines being the force of good AND being the force able to effect fate of the world, they inevitably are faced with the dilemma of either getting their hands dirty, thus sullying their grace at the very least, or making a decision that would feel like betrayal for the victims… which, again, sullies that grace but in another way. Miquella was already conceptually doomed to act Machiavellian by the virtue of being an Empyrean who wished change, much like Ranni except more subtly so!

And this is why true goodness could only come through the little guys. They don't have to make morally questionable decisions with no outcome that spares their innocence; their field of influence is to just care about their closest surrounding and to do their little tasks! They can't change the world, but they can change just the lives of their friends and their own.

Malenia, one of the key figures in the story, was faced with the choice to either "abandon her dignity" and nuke the continent to deliver Miquella's plan in full (the route she did end up doing), OR to preserve that "dignity" but thus hinder their plan that I remind you was against the Golden Order, to build a better world (which is also sort of morally questionable decision in the grand scheme of things)! She could not win and with all information we were given, more suffering in the setting would ensue no matter what! Do a drastic sacrifice for the greater good, or forsaken that greater good to preserve more lives but doom them to live in the same bad conditions forever was her picture! Yet Millicent, effectively a 'little guy' version of Malenia, had the privilege to die with her integrity intact without any big consequences for the world and great scheme of things! True good, certainly, can only exist in the smaller scale.

When it reaches the higher plane and higher decisions there is no way to remain 'unalloyed'. So, yes, we could NOT have 'just one genuinely nice character' out of people with huge power and importance. Not because Miyazaki allegedly hates hope and hates you! But because he is a writer that seems to understand such fundamental things and philosophical dilemmas from the track record of his games so far. ANY mature, insightful writer knows that the idea of someone 'important' forever being good might be a thing the audience wants, but not a genuine thing. "No matter how tender or exquisite a lie will remain a lie" and all.

17) *hating Radahn's inclusion because "dudebros got validated" and not over the story*

To be honest, this IS something I am also familiar with. I won't play the "unlike you snowflakes I don't care about online discourse uwu" persona because I SURE do! I used to dread Mariadeline ship because fans of it were easily the most toxic and unbearable type of Bloodborne fans, choosing to remain willfully ignorant about Gehrman's character actual lore, showing near-biphobia regarding Maria, having era of acting personally attacked when their ship was implied to be anything BUT cottagecore fluff dynamics without corners, playing victims of hate and "misogyny" when they themselves maliciously rage-baited fans that were just enjoying themselves, and doing that ableist 'no reading all this get a life' thing when shown where they were wrong! I had a period of really disliking Leda because she was an in-universe manifestation of aforementioned 'Twin Cultists' who act very similarly to common Mariadeline fans with spreading the "us CORRECT fans with MEDIA LITERACY who RESPECT story and characters vs them WEIRDOS" toxic mentality, with the whole joys of echo-chamber stuff, playing victims when they knew they were PROVOKING anger and feeling attacked when anyone dared to as much as to look at their favs as anything but perfect. I dealt with both and enjoy the ship now, and like Leda now. These are just two recent examples, but I faced a similar problem often, in previous fandoms as well. And I will be real here:

What helped me every time was to distance from the 'vocal' fandom, gather around a few friends to private chats and bounce around the ideas on our own. Without any outside influence, without deliberately skewing interpretation to "spite" anyone, without any motivation in it besides trying to look at things with clear gaze. The cure against the sour taste that bad fandom experiences have left is not to have the writers to "validate" you or to "spite" your opponents or whatever. The cure is ALSO not to completely abandon the ship/character/concept/etc giving up on it as if it was rotten and "not worth the stress". The cure is to hide away from this negative influence for a time being and build your own vision, that might have only like 3 other fans but be immune to everything! Us very few people here who like Mariadeline the different way keep FAR distance from its more 'common' fans, and we are pretty glad that we grew a Halightree in the contrary to their Erdtree x)

I do not really see why could not the same be done with Radahn as a character. In fact, it feels like there is an unspoken DEMAND for it. For 'reclaiming' him, even! My friend heraldofcrow made a post ( x ) about why Radahn is not 'Chadahn' at all but actually a sad character in his own right and just LOOK at the notes! Clearly, he does not have to remain a "mascot" of those dudebros and remain associated with the dumbest discourse you ever had to read!

I think the fandom really has lost the objective when prior the DLC you guys started to hope for certain outcomes based on the fandom experiences! People hoping for Miquella to be kind to make 'annoying Berserk fanboys' shut up, people hoping for Miquella to turn out evil to be vindicated after his annoying fans were toxic over "wrong" interpretations of him, people hoping for Mohg to be confirmed bewitched so everyone who called them media illiterate could eat their words, people hoping for the answer to Caelid battle to invalidate Malenia haters from Reddittube…… Like, how comes that we have forgotten that the first priority is to hear what the writer has to say and try to accept it as fans, or at least to have objective, reasonable wishes for the story rooted in our knowledge about writing and NOT in fandom discourse? It should not be a matter what group of fans gets validated or screwed over, it should be a matter of what it does to characters! It should not be important that now Malenia haters will NEVER shut up, but it SHOULD be important that we now have a better context for her moral failing and can work with it. She is not THEIR to trash on, she is YOURS to cherish as the girlfailure now with extra information!

There is a Russian saying: "Мышки кололись, плакали, но продолжали есть кактусы" (literally "(the) mice prickled themselves, cried, yet kept on eating the cacti"). It is a figure of speech describing someone who keeps stubbornly doing something that only brings them suffering without a reasonable purpose to it. This is exactly what those dudebros have been doing thinking about Malenia within the context of their fav and what they have been doing complaining about how hard it was fighting her when no one forced them to. But this is ALSO exactly what Malenia fans have been doing engaging in bad faith "debates" started by those guys and checking Reddittube knowing full well no good takes exist there!

If what you wish from it is effected not by your knowledge and tastes, but by your bias stemming from fandom experiences… really, distance from the fandom and heal. Characters are their own entities, not your tools to own other people in the fandom. It goes to both Reddittube AND Twitbr, to both people who started it and people who merely developed negativity as reaction. Fans are NOT part of the story and should never be, we are all just people observing it and reacting to it.

18) "They clearly gave Radahn spotlight because he was popular in (western) fanbase"

It is absurd to assume that Fromsoft would turn the planned story around because a lot of people on Reddit and their YouTube lore influencers declared 'Chadahn' their king. In fact, judging by the merch they're offering, Malenia is recognized as equally marketable if not MORE marketable! Besides, had they cared about Western fanbase's reception specifically (which IS where Radahn is loved), they would have likely avoided the potential backlash by that type of fans regarding making their fav LGBT+! With half-brother, no less. I've also heard a theory that they included Radahn as the very last moment solution, but I doubt that baking in Freyja into the story with her and Ansbach's questline, as well as creating Gaius, could've been something done in the last moment! I am not a game developer so correct me if anything, but it looks like a lot of work to do. Besides, there is not enough cut content in SoTE to suggest the plans were far different! And we all know that cut content always still lingers in the game's files with Fromsoft!

They can care about marketing- heck, using Vargram, an existing character with his own lore, to portray the "Tarnished" in promo materials because his set is more catchy than Knight/Tutorial set, for example! Or how replacing an option to murder Orphan of Kos as an infant with 'shadowy presence' because it felt too grim didn't undo the option to kill Arianna's infant and other celestial children, nor it undid how horrifying Fishing Hamlet was. They also obscured the fact that Annalise's baby got aborted, but not the fact that Queen Yharnam's baby was stolen while she has a bleeding wound where a big belly used to be. These are examples of making posters more eye-catching and dodging potential scandals about promoting abortion respectively, but nothing about nuking the plans for the story!

You know what sells even better than Radahn? Big boobs! Yet over and over they make their female characters have smaller chests, even Marika, and the ONE exception Miyazaki ever made, Gwynevere, was done because the guy who drew her concept was too happy! Heck, assuming that Miyazaki included Radahn because his coworker wrote a Miquella x Radahn fanfic he liked is more realistic assumption than him wanting to "sell better" jggfggfhgn In any case, my point is, they follow the vision they like and don't sacrifice integrity of the story!

(+On the relevant note, back then there was a scandal with press calling them "homophobic" for Mohg supposedly perpetuating a negative stereotype with incest/pedophilia accusation….. but while they debunked that impression, they've added consort thing with Radahn that falls for the exact same issues potential lol!!!! You know the only reason "Radahn is a groomer" takes don't exist is because people who care about Radahn aren't the discourse-starters of the fandom. They didn't escape certain side-eyeing even when they COULD and it is funny)

There is another thing I want to address though!

The screenshot is from this reveal trailer, and the excerpt is from Miyazaki's interview ( x ). I assume that this COULD be used as a reasoning behind thinking adding Radahn and final Miquella cutscene in the "last moment"; like 'you see, there was an ending where he 'reveals' (?) the Scadutree, but they cut it, and offered that unfinished clip of Miquella asking Radahn to come with him!' ..okay, sure, but you know what else was in that interview?

The confirmation that there would not be an extra ending for Elden Ring, of influence on the main game! Right off the bat, right after this trailer! Miquella "unveiling" the Shadow Realm or anything like that would have had consequences on the main game, certainly! They might have animated this prior because they wanted to add a new ending but then decided to not touch the main game under any circumstances but kept it for the cool trailer, or they animated it for the trailer from the start (like if Miquella is unveiling a new location for us, metanarratively)!

19) *refuses to use information and lore from the base game while looking at the DLC*

Yet AGAIN, "Free my man Mohg from SA allegations (he did do all that other shit though)". XD True, when it is not that people reduce (?) him to just a victim upon learning Miquella's Bewitching lore for the sentiment alone… it is then because they sort of forget. :clown: Ansbach's entire existence and what information we receive from him confirms that Mohg's scary bloody cult existed before Miquella's spell! It is up to anyone to interpret whether 'love' theme about his cult also existed before what Miquella did, or was, in fact, a side-effect, but kidnappings and sacrifices definitely were not caused by Miquella!

Another example off the top of my head is Maliketh and even Hoarax Loux / Godfrey basically evaporating from Marika's backstory, as though nothing ever existed besides her time at the Shaman village, Messmer and Fell God. And the latter one makes it especially odd, because base game hammered it down in every other Fire of the Giants' incantation that the motivation to put that fire down was because it was capable of burning the Erdtree and existed as anathema to it altogether, but now it got basically forgotten, as if all that ever existed about it was Messmer's presumed connection to it! I even got """corrected""" once when I stated that war with the Fire Giants happened to establish and protect the Erdtree, with something along the lines of 'we don't actually know what the motivation was but very likely to help with the curse that he caused on Messmer'! Also seeing the turning point of Marika's story in her becoming a God through Divine Gate, when in reality it was first her being chosen as an Empyrean by the Two Fingers! So, first someone now qualified to create the new order, and then actually creating it by entering the Divine Gate!

There were also Miquella things such as saying that he abandoned Malenia when she described his absence as "he will keep his promise", or saying that him forgetting Godwyn was a weird decision when the base game already suggested he failed and gave up with failed Eclipse and Golden Epitaph with words 'please die a true death'! To be honest, with Malenia one I myself fell for it at first, but… yeah, base game suggested he was going to return to her after/if his plan succeeded. Romina "creating" Scarlet Rot I also found to be often disconnected from (Outer) God of Rot existing 🤔

I suppose this could be justified because many people finished Elden Ring significant time prior the DLC, so many lore details got blurred and only general impressions of specific fixations stayed! It is just how memory works, and revisiting the source material from time to time is necessary! Even then, SoTE is so full of new information that it is easy to just completely fixate on it! I just think that it is important to remember that SoTE is still not just a whole game despite its absurd side and saturation with the new things, and things in it add into the base game! Not always like missing puzzle pieces but sometimes in a way that makes the puzzle itself bigger, but still. Gaius existing didn't replace Alabaster Lord that was Radahn's Gravity Magic teacher and Ogha, but he was also a "classmate"! Radahn being stated as an important sibling for Miquella and Malenia didn't replace Godwyn, but rather is added as someone also important! Hell, maybe he even became so close with them after Godwyn's assassination, but I'll get to the "it doesn't contradict stuff" in the meantime! Dryleafs and Needle Knights aren't supposed to make anyone forget about Loretta and the plan to find "proper" Haligtree Knights but never finding a master for such sword! They are just people who put faith into him after Erdtree started to die and his police force respectively! (Also no if I saw that Needle Knights are police then so have to you all, fuck you)

20) "How could they abandon [insert a thing that had enough place in the base game]?"

This kind of happens frequently, and usually it is about Godwyn! Sibling paragraph to 'it obviously should have been Godwyn' I suppose! Godwyn is not the first character who is very significant for the story yet everything happened behind the scenes, through descriptions and dialogues of other characters. In fact, meeting him in "person" is already a luxury by Fromsoft's standards! He had enough of spotlight already with his death triggering the VERY events of the plot with Shattering, one of Miquella's failed plans being about 'Eclipse' to bring him back, being grieved for by other characters, making peace with Ancient Dragons and thus a whole type of incantations in the game being linked to him, haunting the environment via Deathblight and being core figure in the questlines of Ranni, Fia and Rogier who are pretty significant characters all! He had enough development and presence in the narrative, I'd say to the point where bringing him into SoTE would overload the story with his presence! Not making him a core figure in the DLC and limiting new information about him to his most significant Knights rebranding into Knights of Death to protect the places where Prince of Death "grows", again, not some grave insult to his fans because what was there to tell about him happened in the base game!

With Fromsoft characters, THE tragic culmination of their story often happens behind the scenes and we are intended to meet the character at their lowest point, or just dead! With Godwyn, that culmination did happen behind the scenes, with such beloved, important, enigmatic figure getting assassinated and sending Marika over the edge, and we have a second emotional culmination for the character that we get to experience where we DO meet him at his lowest - an abomination on all living and mockery of former self, knowing Miquella did not get the wish to either return his soul OR let him die a true death! He did not have enough screen time, but he had enough presence in the story and feelings!

A similar complaint could be made regarding 'Well, Miyazaki said that Miquella would be a focus of the DLC, but we only meet Miquella in the end and he just sits on Radahn's back instead of at least fighting us himself'! (no not me making up a guy, it was an actual claim towards Miyazaki allegedly "lying") First, you people take it BACK about a very clever Dark Souls 3 reference and Miquella's spells not letting me see shit. Second, like I said, his presence is all over the narrative! All core NPCs talk about him, we follow his traces and find flowers growing from his blood, we learn more about him and his past, Radahn's story is now connected to his and Mohg's story with him given some insight, Trina is inseparable part of him, Dryleafs and Needle Knights are HIS covenants, we see effects with and without his spell… How is all this NOT 'being focused on the character'? Fromsoft's style of giving character time and space is not specifically to show them on screen or let us battle them or have dialogue with them!

Personally, I also at first wrongly assumed that they forsaken Miquella and Malenia's connection for the sake of Radahn, but this is, again, the case of one not excluding another! His connection had enough weight in the base game: he started Fundamentalism with Radagon primarily as a sort of magic to heal Malenia and abandoned it when it was not working, she always identified as 'Blade of Miquella' and it is the only thing she holds onto as she is falling apart, her clothes, prosthetics and armor pieces are made of his Unalloyed Gold and it even digs into her very body, all which he created for her, Ephael is full of statues depicting their younger selves holding each other, she was the one to have his needle (different from the gold needle) and she awaited him to keep his promise since he was "the most fearsome Empyrean"!

(Cut Rico's dialogue in the base game's files ( x ) ( x )) The original intention seemed to give Trina less of a 'personality', making her more inseparable entity from Miquella or even straight up just his disguise like with cut Merchants' questline, so the plan to ascend Miquella to Godhood was already in the plans! They have changed the dream realm thing since, recontextualizing Miquella going to sleep to ascend into presumed dream realm into Godhood with dream Trina persona to Miquella departing into the realm where rather all dead drift to, but the POINT of him leaving for that mad plan rather than mysteriously vanishing and Malenia not knowing why was there from the start! Writers didn't just "randomly made him abandon her" - he ALREADY did so in the very early draft of the story!

In the interview ( x ) about SoTE, Miyazaki also confirmed how many things that were planned from the start were cut from the base game's story because it was getting too big:

Miquella also abandoned not just her but everything, and Radahn logically got special treatment because he was part of the plan from the start! Miquella, who left every feeling that made him the person that he was, did not need to love Radahn or care for him to remember that a God requires 'consort' (in this setting's lore). It is not outlandish to assume that he wanted Radahn to share that fate (a fate so bad that Trina begged us to rather kill him that allow it, mind you!) and not Malenia because she already suffered enough for him in his eyes, for example. She depended on him for everything, so why not ask the other tough guy rather than a person that never knew independency and true agency outside of his influence?

My hot take is that not asking her to hold his hand through horrifying ordeal further proved him caring about her with all the context! He maybe ideally would not have asked Radahn either but if you need the Second Guy as a God, who will you rather ask: a person that already never knew life besides self-identifying as your tool or a kind tough guy who was the second most reliable figure for you BOTH after Godwyn? And would Godwyn be interested in the idea to abolish the Golden Order anyway? Radahn presumably changed his mind later in life, but Godwyn was THE Golden Order guy since the start! But my interpretation is not so relevant, it is subjective and again saying 'there is no glaring problem that people think there is, it comes down to interpretation'. There was still nothing else to add about how Malenia and Miquella were connected in SoTE, it was already all said in the base game!

I might be talking from the standpoint of someone who very much used to the way Fromsoft reveals information; they are very minimalist and precise, they give as much of it as needed to understand the gist, and bringing up something not in one description of an easily missed item but several times across unskippable lore is generous for them! They said enough in the base game for everyone to get the point and decided to not milk the same thing in SoTE, nor they erased or contradicted the information from the base game!

Wanting more information for the sake of it is valid and natural for fans, but Fromsoft doesn't give it just for the sake of it! They didn't abandon these topics, they simply finished talking about them! Even so, Godwyn got now got confirmed to have his version of Cleanrots/Redmines, and Romina offered a fantastic narrative parallel with Malenia as someone unable to bring Scarlet Rot to blooming from the buds state yet cherishing it, when Malenia wanted nothing more but to get rid of Scarlet Rot yet it kept getting through no matter what! They added some extras without exhausting the point itself!

21) "Sote was a mistake" (and variations)

YOU take that BACK about Thiollier and Ansbach. You take that back about Leda and her potential of interacting with Loretta, about Freyja, about insight on how Tanith looked like before marrying Rykard, about Moongrum having a twin sister- heck, about RENNALA having a super cool badass sister! You take that back about Midra and Nanaya and the whole cool Abyssal Woods location, about cool Midra's Manse lore and the best fucking boss battle and soundtrack ever. You take that back about Messmer and the Fire Knights. You take that back about cool battle mechanics additions with many two-handed arms, hand/legs combat mechanics and throwing weapons mechanics. You take that back about Romina and super cool insight on Scarlet Rot. You take that back about Ymir and super messed up cool cosmic eldrich stuff with cosmic fingers and Metyr being a return of Ebrietas archetype no one could expect. You take that back about how everyone finally pays more attention to the Fell God and worldbuilding in general. You take that back about immaculate aesthetic and captivating lore of Hornsent. You take that back about meeting Trina. You take that back about how significant and important topics they managed to raise- no, honestly, how cool is that that they got us to discuss the topics of fascism and genocide, as well as cycle of revenge and dilemma of limiting free will vs accepting cruelty of the world so hard that we FORGET to simp for [choose Messmer or Rellana or both depends on you] during such passionate debates? You take that back about coolest fucking sets ever and ability to become a dragon. You take that back about Igon, Florissax, finally getting an explanation about why Dragon Communion was a thing if Golden Order made a pact with Ancient Dragons and BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYLEEEEEEEEEE! You take that back about Gaius- actually no screw that man, remove his battle lol

…sorry had to add that punchline.

My point still stands: you cannot objectively say that SoTE was a mistake. Subjectively, you can; if you were a fan that solely cared about Miquella only through a certain lense and nothing else, then sure, SoTE fucked your headcanons over and all the cool stuff won't make you shift your hyperfixation. For you, it would have been better if SoTE never existed, you would've been better off in previous state of things, endlessly debating Radahn's fans and bullying people with charitable Mohg interpretations and whatever. But people like this do NOT represent the fandom as a whole at all! Not even in relevance to the gaming-only part of it, I am talking about artists-writers part of it as well! Objectively, SoTE contributed a lot of interesting lore and characters without breaking pre-established lore; as I stated earlier, importance of Godwyn and Malenia did NOT get erased just because Radahn had a retcon to also be important person! SoTE answered some questions that required answers, like origins of the Formless Mother, Dragon Communion, Trina's nature, what happened with Mohg, what was the reason for Caelid and what were these darn weird crawling hands enemies!

No I am not rofling, I was seriously very confused about them and made at least three attempts to solve the mystery of their nature, but SoTE finally freed me from that torment!!

Adding more characters absolutely was not a mistake! None of these characters broke pre-established things, they are merely more 'dolls' to play with! Answering some questions was also not a mistake; whereas people might not like what the answers ARE, tying some loose ends of the story was a good call! It is not as if they've written elaborate document explaining every single bit of lore to the point no one can make interpretations or create new stories anymore! All they did was putting an end to some arguments, however new questions arose in their place; questions more interesting than who is "misogynist" and who is "media illiterate".

From the gameplay standpoint alone, I do not understand this claim either. How exactly SoTE would ruin base game, which is intact and still accessible map without changes? Shadow Realm's map exists separately from the base game, none of it breaks the main game's locations and bosses! I doubt that new mechanics and weapons from the SoTE completely ruin the main game and make it imbalanced either! For most of them, having a strong weapon doesn't automatically make you skilled and even base game's bosses could still kick your ass. And as for "imbalanced" ones, gamer bros of the fandom have been doing great so far self-regulating themselves to shame people who used Mimic Tear, Comet Azur, Blasphemous Blade etc 🙄 Their field of creating artificial "honor"-based difficulty and challenging themselves would not suffer because of the weapons from SoTE! They are able to make the challenges and PvPs what they want within themselves, encourage or prohibit anything. It is not as if Miyazaki is holding them at the gunpoint telling them to use mechanics introduced in SoTE that they believe "ruin" the playing process! Simply not use new weapons or not go in the Shadow Realm altogether if you don't want to - and Elden Ring will remain what it used to be for you!

I guess I can only agree with the notion that aside of SOME story loose ends, base Elden Ring was not lacking in anything. It was a very huge game, with many characters, many locations, many worldbuilding things to touch upon and discuss, many mechanics, very contained and packed with things for years ahead to dissect, discuss and create art and writing and videos for! SoTE just made it even bigger! We were mostly living fine without these characters and new information, save for the frustrating arguments I've mentioned!

Mohg fans against SA interpretations could disagree entirely because as SoTE aired they all said "the night, and the hunt, were long…" But, like I said before, fandom experiences should not define what we want from the story! Some questions remaining unanswered was bearable from the STORY standpoint, but it is objectively NICE that they did get answers! And… just adding more characters is definitely not a problem. Not characters that break the story, just MORE characters. There is a Russian saying, "Кашу маслом не испортишь" ("you can't ruin the porrige by adding more butter in it"), and it applies here very much. Unless some people, for example, hate Messmer and are frustrated that they have to remember about him when writing Marika's backstory or anything.. I would not get it either way because giving a character a couple of sentences of acknowledgement and tossing them away feels like the easiest thing to do in my eyes. Fandom is always doing it, they have always been doing it, so why NOW this is something so hard to do?

22) *blames Martin for all the parts of the story they hate*

As funny as the joke about Martin being responsible for the "incest ship" is, considering his track record, Miyazaki actually confirmed in the interview right after the first SoTE trailer that Martin did not have anything new to add to the DLC story! But then, just because he didn't turn in to add new lore for SoTE specifically, how could we tell that he didn't write these "plot twists" previously? For this, we need to dial back to when his contributions to the Elden Ring were discussed after base game's release!

(Start watching from 6:00 to 7:25)

“Elden Ring was going to take place in, let’s say the present of their game universe. But what they wanted me to write was what happened like 5,000 years before that,” he said. “So I went back and wrote a history of what happened 5,000 years before the current game, and who all the characters were and who was killing each other and what powers they had. They had these runes that were at the center of the game, and the rune got split into many pieces, and that’s what screwed up the world. I laid all that out.”

So, he wrote the base premise for the backstory - what happened and existed before the Shattering, and up until that point! So, how characters got corrupted, how their plans changed and what happened to them later etc was up to Miyazaki to create! Take the concept of the character - who, what power, what status - and put them through the arc and development! Not Martin wrote the events that unraveled after the Shattering AND unravel as we play the game! Miyazaki himself also confirms this, according to this ( x ) interview:

“So it was more up to us to interpret this and say, ‘how did they become such inhuman monsters? And how did the mad taint of the shattered shards of the Elden Ring and its power affect them?’ So that was our job to take these grand heroes and sort of misshape them and distort them into something they were not.”

"…if we get a chance to show Martin and if he gets a chance to see the game and see these characters, I think he might be a bit shocked. When he wrote them, he was really envisioning something a little bit more human, a little bit more traditional human drama and fantasy characters. So I hope he gets a kick out of that.”

I recommend reading the whole page, but this is the gist of it! So, not only what events we are following are Miyazaki's work, but also their fall from grace, their sins, their mistakes and everything you might hate ('you' mostly as in, people upset that Miquella was not as perfect and pure as you wanted) is ALLLLLL on him! YOU leave Martin OUT of this! we also all know he only writes hetero incest fsdhfdghsfdg

23) "SoTE contradicted the base game's lore [example that doesn't contradict it]"

This one is less focused than it may seem, because it is not just about Godwyn and Malenia! In fact, it is rarer about them as complaints about them mostly do the "they got abandoned" route that I've already ranted a lot about! god it feels so good to finally rant lol I've seen some instances of people JUST throwing the 'ohh my GoD this new info is SOOOOO contradictory to [thing]' and refusing to elaborate, pouting and playing victims of blinded fanboys when questioned, which is in itself very infuriating! Regardless of how you are frustrated with SoTE, how it screwed your expectations and preferences personally, you are a garbage critic if you just waste your emotions without any real argument to your point, there is no way to put it lightly! That being said, for this particular reason, it would be easier to address concrete examples that HAD some explaining behind them from the critical people! But, it NEEDED to be said!

Personally, I've stumbled into a couple of things, in which I managed to add my say! The first was a claim that the whole story of the base game was not supposed to happen because if Marika got driven by the impulse of revenge and despair, she was supposed to succumb to Frenzied Flame but she didn't! And this is NOT some groundbreaking discovery about how the story is allegedly fundamentally broken, but simply a huge overlooking of pre-existing information, if not confirmation bias! Frenzied Flame and Three Fingers are very interesting topic in general, that I've covered in a couple of lore posts already, but for the subject: whereas the sickness of Frenzied Flame, aka the 'become too sad and you will start to burn' illness, is the case in the Lands Between and started because of Shabriri's crime, the story of Marika and Midra's Manse logically happened before Shabriri! Abyssal Woods and Midra's Manse have the eyeballs that are evidence of being directly grasped by the Three Fingers as the only eyeball items, whereas the Lands Between has Shabriri Grapes as eyes scorched from within but being grasped by Three Fingers became not a staple but an exception (Vyke)! Marika was contacted by the Two Fingers, not Three Fingers, to have the power that she does. Even then, is not it logical to assume that even after Shabriri caused his curse on the Lands Between, a God would be immune, especially if the "counterpart" of the Three Fingers is their guide? Not to mention how Messmer did take a lot of burden off her by doing her wish for revenge by himself-

Alright, you got the point. It is very easy to logically conclude why there is no glaring contradiction at all, and you don't even need to dig deep into lore to find out why! This is the brightest case from my memory that is best described as 'if you WANT to believe that Fromsoft completely broke the story, you WILL find a backup claim for it'! But unfair criticism that doesn't address the possible counter-evidence is not the way to analyze! When you want to make a claim, you need to scan the overall volume of information for possible objections to your claim and deal with them! Explain why they do not work, or why they are not truly saying anything! Sometimes, as you deal with the potential counter-evidence, you find that there are things you cannot reliably argue against and it might make your initial claim appear less solid or lose validity altogether! And this is fine! As big as the temptation to "prove" something is, the true purpose of having a claim should be to make sure that it is valid all things considered!

Just because you are already too upset with the story and the writers to give it proper effort and analysis doesn't mean you can just toss a bold, easily debunked statement and expect to not have any objection! This is not in particular to the 'Frenzied Flame makes Marika's backstory impossible' person at all, but about a behavior in the fandom I've also noticed; where someone's response to the information that deconfirms their criticism is 'well, but I am already too hurt and disappointed to dig deep and analyze, so…' No, not how it works. You are making a claim about existing piece of writing and thus put skill of the writer up to scrutiny, not writing your own AU/headcanon, therefore be ready to deal with counter-evidence if there is any!

Another example off the top of my head was that existence of Gaius allegedly contradicted the pre-established lore about oppression of Albinaurics! I want to point out though that the person who originally made this claim was nice and never denied validity of the counter-arguments! But as for the subject, I will repeat that it is very easy to assume that there would be some double standards put in action! Like 'oh yeah Albinaurics are cringe, but this one is nice to me so he is an exception'! Or 'yeah we all hate Albinaurics, but this one is HELPING us in the Crusade against those spurned of Grace, he is paying the price for being an impure species himself, let's be nice to him guys :)' (🤡🤡🤡).

In this case things are easy to explain not through digging into information in the game further, but through putting into consideration how humans tend to work! Though Messmer, for one, has his more humane traits stated with how he respected the wishes of his Fire Knights when some of them protested against burning Rauh Ruins, and Gaius might be an extension of that sympathetic side of him! Opinion that saying Radahn was admired by the twins for his kindness contradicts the lore falls apart even EASIER; it is not hard to assume he maybe used to be kind! Miquella even specifically revived his younger version, and it is very telling!

All in all, the writers do not need to overexplain every single thing to prove that there is no contradiction or things make sense! Elden Ring is entirely written in such a way where by just digging deeper, connecting the dots or even applying your imagination and experiences you can easily explain why things work! I just want to really, REALLY accentuate it that before you cry 'bad writing!!!' or 'contradiction!!!', give it SOME extra thought! And if you are not willing to because of disappointment/weak attention span/anger/etc, then don't make the claim to BEGIN with! What is the point of making a claim when you are not in the right state of mind to make SURE it is valid? Bashing a story or a writer while willfully not being fair to them with your effort and research is something better reserved for private chats with the friends just to let it all out, but not for the public blog for all other fans to read and REACT at!

24) "If fans have to fill the gaps and think themselves it's a bad writing"

Sigh… This is relevant to the earlier addressed complaint about fans 'coping', and somewhat relevant to the complaint about 'they should have given more information', AND reverse complaint to how they've answered some questions in SoTE, I suppose. For starters, this argument could not be further from truth at all! Do you really, genuinely, want to say that instead of provoking you to think, to express creativity and curiosity, to apply your knowledge or experience for understanding, writers should have just spoon-fed you every single thinkable bit of information as if you are a toddler? For sure, the discussion about how writers treat reading comprehension of their audience cannot come without addressing the demographics that supposedly would benefit from "over-explanation", so I'll jump RIGHT into it, skipping through the normies:

As an autistic person, I do have my own problems with sometimes skipping through a subtext or an "obvious" clue in the writing, this is true, and maybe people who want to state this are also autistic, I can't know for sure. But.. do we REALLY want to have our intellectual abilities insulted, as a group? Accommodating to autistic people should come locally, like in teaching the society to be more patient with 'stupid' questions and explaining the 'obvious' social cues! It SHOULD be about society being better! It should NOT be about quality of fiction in videogames and movies and TV shows dropping! It should NOT be about writers sacrificing the amazing language of subtlety, nonverbal storytelling and speaking through assumption that our own experiences as human beings will fill in the gaps! We can understand subtexts and unspoken lore, even if it might be harder. When we cannot, autists that did understand the subtext explain it to us! When THEY cannot, there will always be the guy on Youtuber or elsewhere musing about what they liked or disliked in the writing, revealing the information that we might have missed, and we will go 'huh'. We can help ourselves and each other!

Instead of being mad at the writers for not giving more spoken information and evidence, let's place the pieces of the whole puzzle that we did find together to discover a full picture and teach others AND themselves to be patient instead of screaming "reeee media illiterate!!!" at every sneeze! I have insulted another autist's intellectual abilities over not reading the clue I managed to. I had MY intellectual abilities insulted by another autist over not reading the clue THEY managed to! We should strive to be better and kinder as society, AND we should have pride in the ability to do so and ourselves, instead of implying that complicated, subtle writing is "too hard" for our "tiny toddler brains"!

Aside of the general sentiment that the writing that provokes you to use your brain/heart/both to fully comprehend it and gives fuel for debates and discussion, I want to address specifically Miyazaki and how he approaches writing, and why he does so. I want to link the video by Zullie regarding the topic, too:

To paraphrase it: Miyazaki, in his youth, loved reading English novels, but because he didn't have as great knowledge of English language at the time, some words or even sentences evaded him and he had to use his own imagination to understand what might have happened in the parts he could not read! The experience of having general layout and understanding of the story, but details being missed here and there and left up to you to think about, is precisely what he wanted to emulate! You might guess "the words lost in translation" correctly, or you might end up with a completely different meaning than the actual one, but what matters is the fun of this process! To include YOU, an individual, into completing the story! Bloodborne was the first Fromsoft's story I've gotten into, and even before knowing this information I had the feeling like, 'ah, they've written the full story, but then dragged an eraser across random parts'… and so, the hunch was correct!

Miyazaki doesn't just lazily drop ingredients in your direction expecting you to cook anything from them and then praise it as though it was HIS brilliant recipe, that some writers WILL do to sorta take the credit for your creativity! Nor he just cooks the full meal and gives it to you. He removes some ingredient from it so you CAN eat it and enjoy it, but you are always tempted to add something! Something feels missing, but it is up to you WHAT spice you add to complete it! Yet this meal is coherent enough for you to have a hunch on whether you should add something sour, sweet or salty, it is not quite JUST anything! But if you don't think hard about it and add what YOU like, regardless of whether you think it fits the meal or not, the meal won't necessarily taste bad… There IS recipe that exists. He DID write the story. He just lets you choose your own experience!

^^^ It goes in line with how he creates the games; he stated they are not adding the difficulty levels so players can overcome the challenge in some way that suits THEM as a player. Whether you want to cheat, or to grind levels until you become a God, or to cleverly use the tools and items you are given, or to study every move until you dodge them all or whatever! There is no "right" way to beat these games, though we could conclude from levels designs and tools what was 'intended' way to beat them! A 'suggestion'! You might end up going just the 'intended' way, or you might not! You might just happen to guess the missing story bits 'correctly', but also not, and this is okay!

We are endlessly teased with this feeling that if we think just a bit harder we will discover that hidden "right" way, and we all want to believe that we did! Fandom has two extremes between people who DO believe in One True reading of the story and stomp out every alternative suggestion AND people that claim there is no story and you can do whatever and canon doesn't matter and doesn't exist and all. The truth is somewhere in the middle, and it is so frustrating, it is so torturous at the times… but also, so clever and beautiful.

This approach is why discussion about the meaning of Dark Souls and Bloodborne is STILL alive a decade later and even "apparent" lore questions constantly get revisited, and Elden Ring will meet the same fate! Every boss will be beaten but there is always a different way. Every lore question will be answered, but there is always a different answer. Isn't it much better than if we just cOnSuMeD cOnTeNt in a short time and forgot it all, waiting the next one?

25) *frankly unfair toxicity towards creators, down to racism against Japanese*

(Jeez.. I am REALLY paying a hard price by not saving the screenshots of the terrible takes I am referencing, aren't I. -_-" Everyone will just decide that I've made up a guy because a take like this sounds too awful to be real, doesn't it…..) Look- Some lines should NOT be crossed. Say all you want about the writing quality, but how DARE you to bring in this sort of anime fetishes into this discussion? I am just without proper words, and I will not tolerate this slander of Miyazaki! Everyone, EVERYONE knows…. that his fetishes are feet and dying in absurd ways.

sdfjfdhfdsh OKAY OKAY SORRY I HAD TO, but in any case! Did you guys miss the part where Miquella's ever-young body was a curse, was acknowledged as a curse, was a counterpart to Malenia ever decaying as inability to change at all, and something he transcended when he became a God? At NO point his curse was brought up as something quirky and attractive, at NO point Radahn or anyone was addressed as someone finding guilty attraction to him! We had one (1) guy suggested to do that, Mohg, and they confirmed that his behavior was result of enchantment, but even if it was not: without the new information, it already looked like a BAD thing. Like a HORROR thing, even! Miquella wanted Radahn to be there for him as a consort/king, by STATUS, that we know as much! Nothing is there to outright state any of 'that' brand of attraction! It can range from 'yeah they kind of pulled the dynasty-preserving incest thing, very authentic to medieval royal dynasties vibe' to 'it was innocent and not romantic or sexual in any manner, consort is just a status of the second person after a titular God in this setting that doesn't have to be a partner'. You know what is missing from this range? This being a "fetish" that you could flail around in that 'well what else to expect from jApAnEsE developers, you know jApAn has a problem with such things right??????' (🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡)

________________________________

*long, relieved exhale*

So..... yeah, I am done I suppose fhhfds I know I forewarned it as sort of super angry and rude rant, but in a way, it turned out to be more of a love letter to SoTE than a hate letter to a certain kind of fandomry that I just was not able to avoid..

It is funny how it turned out, as at first I've had strong negative reaction of shock, and Radahn consort reveal even soured the first days of playing this DLC for me, heh. That disappointment hadn't vaned yet.. I do not vigorously oppose weird, problematic ships of course, I still stand by what I said about creative freedom. But I guess I kinda did not want Miquella to have any "ship" in canon...? It is hard to explain why, since I do not insist that he is mentally a child too. Maybe I've fallen for the person he WANTED to be, a 'God' that 'loves everyone equally / no one', so him singling out someone disagreed with that "possessive" streak more than I disagreed with how random Radahn felt?

Even so, aside of this, I've been slowly understanding writers' decisions more and more! And those I did not understand I've found to be valid and not broken at all as well! But despite warming up to SoTE more and more with every day and becoming a fan, I was not able to avoid the "window" to VERY toxic and awful takes, some from very toxic PEOPLE, that was my (ex) mutual abundantly reblogging them and.. I guess when I've finally snapped about how strongly I disapproved of that behaviour and how it was all passive aggression all along, my very only inhibitor was just- *snaps fingers*

Moral of the story: if something rubs you a very wrong way, do not keep it in and ADDRESS it. Because if you hope that the alert factor will go on its own, all you'll end with is telling each other very unpleasant things. Pent up aggression ALWAYS breaks through.

In this case, I just feel relieved after having finally written all these thoughts down SOMEwhere. They were eating me from inside, reducing my HP by randomly appearing in my brain even when I was busy and I just could not help but rotate them. Venting is good and healthy. I have some bad troubles with both mental and physical health these days, but at least now there is one LESS thing to siphon my energy away. 🛏️

[sitp-recs]

Hello! Not sure if you'll respond but I thought I'd ask about it anyway.

Would you happen to know of any fics with a very complex characterization of Draco and Harry with a bit of gut wrenching situations? Preferably older D&H after the war. I'm even open to tragedy, even cheating(?) and just something that is out of the ordinary. I know I'm shit at explaining this but, I'm just like, craving a fic that has adult problems, where one/both of them are at a moment of life where things are complex. Maybe H left D a while ago and married someone else, and then after a few years he sees him again and is just lost in a haze of "what if I hadn’t?" or "what to do with myself now?" because getting back with him isn’t easy? I'm sorry for this weird messy ask but you are the first person who came to my mind who I thought could help me out? Sorry for rambling so much! It's definitely alright if you can't find anything like this of course! Have a great day!

What an interesting ask, anon! I’m a bit picky with gut-wrenching themes but I do love myself a thought-provoking, mature fic. It’s about the implications and complications amirite 🤌🏼 this list is a personal take so I’m not sure it is what you’re looking for, but here are some fics that came to mind when I read your ask. Pls mind the tags before jumping in. I’d be very curious to see what my followers rec too!

Kissed by Pie (M, 12k)

Draco Malfoy was attacked by a rogue Dementor on the night of his Azkaban release. He self-exiled to Muggle London and opened a late-night chocolate shop called Kissed.

Poor Unfortunate Souls by DoubleApple (E, 19k)

Draco is a potioneer. Harry is trying to save his sex-challenged marriage. Everything is a mess, but at least there's an octopus in the lobby.

Unfinished Business by cupiscent (E, 20k)

Ten years after the War ends, Harry and Draco still haven't got their act together. But maybe it's not too late.

Stain of Silence by brummell (E, 28k)

After the war, Draco serves out his sentence in Harry Potter's house.

He Who Must Not Be Normal by lettered (E, 41k)

Potter has fame and fortune and posh clothes and all he wants is a simple life. Draco has a flat and a cat and a steady job and all he wants is a complicated life. Which makes you think this story has something exciting like body-swapping, but it doesn’t.

On One's Knees by pir8fancier (E, 34k)

The war is over and to the victors go the spoils. If you are triggered by infidelity, this is not the fic for you.

REVOLVEVLOVER by firethesound, zeitgeistic (E, 46k)

The work Harry does is justifiable. It’s justice. He works for his country, and his country is a republic—the magical side, anyway. It’s not laudable work, it’s not work he’s proud of, but it’s necessary work. Harry has always taken the necessary jobs that no one else has the stomach for. It’s just that he’s never deciphered a kill sheet and seen Draco Malfoy’s name on it.

Nightingale by michi_thekiller (NC-17, 60k)

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. -Jacques Deval

Super Rich Kids by trishjames (E, 81k)

Draco Malfoy has become disillusioned by the glitz and glamour of the scandalous lives of the Post-Second Wizarding War Pureblood Elite. Enter: one existential crisis, one group of thieving cynical friends, and several terrible, terrible decisions.

Merlin Works in Mysterious Ways by lordhellebore (M, 82k)

When Harry is forced to form a Blood Bond with Draco Malfoy under threat of death, he thinks his future will consist of a cold home and sexual frustration. But when a group of left-over Death Eaters decides to stir trouble, their lives change completely – and it takes them both some years to figure out whether it’s for better or for worse.

Danse Russe by Frayach (E, 140k)

True Love. Soul Mates. They're just words until put to the test. Harry and Draco have a bond that was forged in the hell of the post-war years and pulled them both back from an abyss of nihilism and self-destruction. Nothing can break it, or so they believed. But True Love can demand sacrifices too great to bear and deeds too terrible to justify.

Plus 2 fics I haven’t read but can vouch for the authors as I’m very familiar with their work:

Unhook the Stars by jad (E, 70k)

Seventy-thousand words of pornographic discourse between two boys-turned-men that still haven't learned how to communicate like normal people – with words.

Freedom to be by Quicksilvermaid (E, 170k)

Harry Potter is the Boy Who Lived. 12 years after the war, he's become the Boy Who Lived For Everyone Else. He has the perfect wife. The perfect house. The perfect job. The perfect friends. Only nothing feels perfect.

[elysia-nsimp]

I WANT TO PREFACE THIS TWST INCORRECT QUOTES BY STATING THE FOLLOWING:

all of the quotes that are Jamil talking to Kalim are actually me talking to my dog Ivy! It’s a running gag with my friends and I that the stuff I say to Ivy just gets more and more out of context and someone always quotes Jamil when I share a new conversation

Tagging: @queerlordsimon @ladyzsgolla @aetherphobia @thesunshineriptide @end3rm1st (lmk if you want to be added or removed ^^)

Warnings: Cursing, lighthearted bullying, suggestive jokes made by a bunch of asexuals and their token allosexual, caps

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5

——

Ruggie, RUNNING down the hallway screaming: I GOT A POPTAAAAAAARTTTT

——

Idia: Screech was put down by the CDC for being a safety hazard.

——

Deuce: why do you wanna go to school?? you're a fucking EGG!.... dumb bitch...

——

Floyd: he's a merman. thats his merass

——

Azul: I wish this game would let me commit tax fraud

——

Jade: I DO NOT CONSENT TO THE SEXUALIZATION OF MY THREATS

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Yuu, to Jade: can they go on little slug dates?

——

Floyd: It’s like depression if depression was a fish tank

——

Riddle: Well to me this sounds like colour 1 is a more complex colour that is made from something being added to the base of colour 2. Orange (colour 1) is just yellow (colour 2) but with red added. Similarly, green (colour 1) is just blue (colour 2) but with yellow added. Now how does this apply to purple? Thus far all colour two's have been primary colours (as the primary colours are red, yellow, and blue and so far we have yellow and blue but no red. This means that if we assume the same pattern to be true, the last colour 2 should be red. This also matches up with purple as the final colour 1 since red + blue = purple. Lastly, this enforces another pattern I have noticed. Let's look at the second set to see this pattern. In the second set we have blue (colour 2) + yellow = green (colour 1). Now something iinteresting here is that yellow is colour 2 of the previous set. This pattern continues in set 3. We have red (colour 2) + blue (colour 2 of the last set) = purple (colour 1). Finally, it even goes in a loop. In set one we have yellow (colour 2) + red = orange (colour 1). And what do we see here? That's right, red just so happens to be the colour 2 we determined to be the colour which finishes set 3. Therefore we can conclude from multiple patterns within this set that orange is to yellow as green is to blue as purple is to red.

——

Ace: it’s slightly NSFW, but there’s nothing explicit

Deuce: I’m allosexual, I’ll live

Ace: ok [sends picture]

Deuce: NEVERMIND

——

Trey: Dennys is like, the place you go when you burn your dinner for the holidays

——

Jade: Floyd… we’ve talked about this.

Floyd: about what

Jade: Tormenting the Gods…

——

Azul: If you or a loved one has been attacked by Timothy--

Idia: SCREECH

Azul: or Screech, yes-- [dies to screech]

Azul: ...oh

——

Floyd: this is what i call TRAUMA KARAOKE

——

Epel: the femininity is dwindling and the polyamory is spreading

——

Floyd, to Epel: Are you sustenance?….

——

Kalim: I have never felt more unsafe than with your face.

OB!Jamil: What the fuck.

——

Lilia: one day i will get my revenge. not only on the squirrel population, but the baby population

——

Floyd: There’s like 4.5 trans people in this room

Idia: .5??

Azul: am I the .5

Floyd: yes

——

Idia: Bad and naughty Discord users get put in the PS5 controller

——

Floyd: I am going to UNZIP YOUR SPINE.

——

Azul: This is all an elaborate game of pretend to them.

Floyd: AH YES. GAME OF PRETEND. LIKE HOW YOU KISSED ME ON THE MO U T H FOR PRA CT I CE

——

Epel, behind Vil’s back on why he’s a vampire: It’s because he’s so pasty

——

Kalim: i love sad cheesy romance scenes :)

Jamil: I love plotting evilly

Kalim: I also love plotting evilly but I also love sad cheesy romance scenes :)!!!

——

Jade: Yes, hello. I've been keeping Kalim company.

Floyd: yes 😏 company. and they KISSED ON THE MOUTH GAYLY

Jade, ignoring him: He's been teaching me aaall sorts of things...

Floyd: 😳😳 YEAH GAY THINGS. LIKE KISSING ON THE MOUTH.

Jamil: Answer me. What did you do to Kalim

Jade: What did I...do? We were just having a pleasant conversation.

Floyd: ah yes just a pleasant conversation. DEFINITELY NOT GAYLY KISSING

——

Jade: Out of the benevolence of Azul’s heart, he will let Jamil practice kissing with him.

Kalim: just like Floyd

——

Floyd: SWING THE DICK AT THEM. HELICOPTER DICK TO SCARE THE NINJAS AWAY

Jamil:

Kalim:

——

Trey: is it legal to milk clowns?

Jade: It depends on the clown… it depends on their sins…

Lilia: we dont like being milked actually

——

Ruggie: I wish I cried lemonade... because then I'd cry more often and then I'd have lemonade. And then I wouldn't be sad anymore... but then I'd cry happy tears because I have lemonade, which would make me cry more... and then the cycle repeats...

——

Floyd, in Minecraft: ooohhhHhhH Look at youUUU so KIND and GENEROUS HOUSEWARDEN--

Floyd, getting punched off the mineshaft by Azul: aH FUCK FUCK FUCK

——

Ortho, after Idia showed him many cursed furbys: You owe me a new pair of eyes.

Idia: can they be furby eyes 😀

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Jack: Maybe the real booty is the friends we made along the way yknow

——

Prof. Trein: Talk amongst yourselves, do not speak in Welsh.

——

Cater: That's how Im gonna start commenting on things now. Just, person adjective

Deuce: Cater uh- nice

Cater, WITHOUT HESITATION: Deuce depressed

——

Che’nya: My emotionally identifying with cats has nothing to do with me being a furry and EVERYTHING to do with me being autistic

——

Yuu, about Grim: Your heart is bigger than your little body!!

Ace: so is his ego

Yuu, laughing: that’s true

——

Silver: you look very intimidating right now

Sebek: Wh- Silver- I am sitting here eating my pocket muffin Silver

——

Deuce: If you poke my eyes I won’t be able to breathe- wait

——

Trey with a slinky over his eyes: New technology makes it more difficult to see! Mobility disaids

——

Cater: You reenter the VC. I turn around in a swivel chair, filing my nails. “I've been expecting you,” I say.

Idia: ...... [disconnects]

——

Jamil, to Kalim: I was wondering about the dust bunny too.. nO, NO, DONT EAT THE DUST BUNNY—

——

Ace: What are we SUPPOSED to do? Hold each other by the toes and sing a friendship song???

——

Lilia: mmmm bacon soap….

Silver:

Malleus:

Lilia:

Silver:

Malleus: …did you just say “bacon soap”?

——

Silver: You DO look intimidating, eating your pocket muffin like an APPLE, staring into the middle distance dramatically

Sebek:

——

Jamil: I really don’t want to touch your… gooey… wet… ball, Kalim.

——

Leona: There’s weed in this tea… Hm. [takes another sip]

——

Jamil: Kalim, stop putting your balls under the greenhouse. I don’t want to keep fishing them out.

——

Floyd: Shrimpy, I want you to know that i am going to shit in your bathroom. just wanted to make sure you knew.

Azul: that is NOT how i expected you to end that sentence

——

Jade: Whatcha doing?

Floyd: Your m—

Floyd:

Jade: Go on.

Floyd:

Jade: Finish the sentence, Floyd.

Floyd:

Jade: Floyd finish the sentence.

——

Idia: THREE ASEXUALS… RECREATING SEX

Vil:

Jade: sex 2

——

Lilia: Reminiscing from the glory days to the whore-y days

——

Silver: I got off the plane, saw someone who was my friend, got hugged, then you TOOK OFF YOUR SHIRT, BIT INTO AN APPLE LIKE A MUFFIN, SAT AGAINST THE WINDOW LIKE A WALL SIT AND STARED AT ME

Sebek:

——

Idia, TERRIFIED: PLEASE DO NOT LOOK TO ME FOR WISDOM I AM FUCKING STUPID

——

Jamil: why do you have to pick the balls to kick that hurt the most, kalim

——

Floyd: I like my men like I like my SCPs… keter class.

——

Jamil: Don’t EAT your tie, Kalim-

——

Jamil: Don’t steal any more frogs Kalim

——

Idia: The heart wants what the heart wants… the heart wants autism. 🤷

——

Jamil: LEAVE MY BALL ALONE

——

Rook: maybe you can domesticate beastmen

Jack: I don’t like the implications of domesticated beastmen

Rook: I don’t think you appreciate my artistic interpretation here

——

Floyd: I can’t believe Azul is a sugar daddy

Jade: …DONT SAY IT LIKE THAT

——

Ace: if each day is a gift then can i return mondays?!

——

Sebek: IF YOU WOULDNT LIE TO FAERIES THEN YOU SHOULDNT LIE ABOUT BEAN AND CHEESE BURRITOS

——

Cater: Ace is dead?? Crab rave???

——

Vil: I can’t believe you

Rook: I feel like you don’t appreciate my artistic expression

——

Jamil: You need to go to the hospital

Floyd: I JUST WENT YESTERDAY!!!

Jamil: YEAH BUT THAT WAS BEFORE YOU ATE A MICROWAVE

——

Floyd: personally speaking, mood. professionally speaking, yeah.

——

Anyway that’s all this time, much longer than usual because I had a lot saved up

Lots of Floyd because he haunts my every thought my bad

[corn-fanfiction]

SAVIOUR COMPLEX (Mark Hoffman x F!Reader) (PT. 7)

(PT. 6)

Rated: M

TAGS: language/past abuse/Mark Hoffman being a c*p/reader's life is maybe becoming less normal/Mark is protective bc it's his job but he's also problematic/because he's a c*p/Detective Gibson is his own tw/kissy kissy

**NOTE: Hey guys. Thank you so much for interaction with this fic, and I’m seeing a lot of new followers. I love that!! But I really need to stress right now how I do not support/endorse C*stas M*ndylor as a person or his opinions. He’s racist and I enjoy and only enjoy Mark Hoffman’s character. If you are a C*stas Stan, I highly encourage you to maybe cease interacting with this fic.**

“To say that this looks bad is an understatement.”

Mark scoffs and paces the Chief’s office.

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“No, let’s go over everything that’s happened tonight. You breach protocol by taking your case out on a date, you bring her to an active crime scene where her boyfriend has just died in a Jigsaw trap, and you are in the FBI’s sights! How is that dramatic?”

“Ex.”

Chief is stunned, baffled and befuddled. “Excuse me?”

“Ex boyfriend.”

“Are you-“ Chief sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “You’re pulling my leg, right? This is a joke. This has to be a joke because I know you're not this stupid.”

“Watch it.”

“No, fuck it. You’re off her case and you’re suspended until I can figure out what the fuck to do with you. Turn in your badge and gun.”

Mark stares him down. He doesn’t move.

“Do it, or we’re gonna have a scene.”

Mark grinds his teeth, his jaw ticks. He’s holding air that he refuses to sigh away as he slams his sidearm and his badge down on the Chief’s desk.

“Who’s my replacement? I assume whoever it is has her next door in interrogation, right?”

“Questioning.”

“Don’t fucking split hairs with me right now.”

Before the Chief has a chance to respond, the heavy metal doors to the interrogation hall open and close. Mark throws the office door open and sees you passing. He gives you a comforting hand but then leaves when he hears a snort from Gibson. He turns on him and Gibson either isn’t expecting it or doesn’t think Mark will actually put hands on him. On both fronts, he’s wrong, because Mark grabs him by his collar and holds him with shaking arms.

“What the fuck is your problem, Gibson!?”

Gibson pushes Mark’s arms from his chest and shoves him. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to send the message.

“I’m doing my job, Hoffman. Don’t forget, you’re a suspect too, and in danger of ‘reassignment’. Right?”

Gibson huffs and adjusts his shirt. Mark points a finger at his chest.

“You better keep your nose outta things before something happens to it.”

“Is that a threat?”

Mark is about to let him know that yes, it is a threat, when he feels a hand on his arm. He whips around and there you are, staring up at him with empty, dark eyes that are pooling with tears. God, you look ragged, traumatized- you are. 

“Mark, come on, please. Please, let’s just go home. Please.”

He softens at your plea. He’ll do anything for you right now, and that includes walking away from this fight. He gives Gibson a final mean look and guides you out of the station and takes you home.

Now, he’s staring out the window of your bedroom as you’re curled against him in sleep, one arm tucked under your head and the other draped across you. He realizes that he probably shouldn’t have even brought you here, but rather have taken you back to his place. You need familiarity, sure, but whoever had been stalking you could still be after you.

That was something else you didn’t know. When you and Mark had arrived on the scene and he saw Ted’s body, it was apparent that it wasn’t…fresh. Of course, he knew that Gibson had to have shown you the photos but there’s no way you were in a state to notice that detail. And it looked like more than a couple days. The death was old…older than the day someone showed up outside your window.

He pulls you closer. Not only is someone imitating Jigsaw- him, not only had that person killed Ted, but they were likely the one stalking you. 

It isn’t far fetched to think there’s another Jigsaw copycat; after all, that’s how he got the gig. The difference is that John and Amanda are both dead, and neither of them can handle this so Mark can focus on you. Mark racks his brain to shake loose any possible suspects. Everyone with any hand near Jigsaw is dead except him…and Jill. Christ, what if this is all Jill? Jealous because he has you and she has no one?

But Jill doesn’t have the physical strength to manage this on her own, and Mark’s watched her long enough to know she lives a solitary life. So no, Jill may be possible, but highly unlikely.

It has to be someone you know, or someone who knows him and his feelings towards you. It would be too large a coincidence for it to be a random copycat.

Who? Who?

The good news is that if he's suspended, he has plenty of time to find out.

There’s a banging on the door the next morning. You immediately jump and press your back to the headboard. Mark stands, reaches for his gun and then curses when he remembers he turned it in the night before.

You look up at him in a panic and he raises a calming hand. He glances at the window- nobody there. Goes down the hall and grabs a knife from the kitchen.

A peek out the front window reveals Gibson at the door, tapping his foot, looking around, checking his watch. Mark curses and opens the door, subtly setting the knife on the kitchen counter.

Gibson stops, looks Mark up and down, then cracks a smile.

“Jesus. Wasted no time, I see.”

Mark scowls and his grip on the door tightens. “Careful, Gibson. There’s no cameras here.”

Gibson looks over Mark’s shoulder and into the apartment.

“She around?”

“Yes, she’s in bed, and very fucking traumatized from the shake-down you gave her. That make you feel big, Gibson? Harassing a woman who’s being stalked and just saw her ex-boyfriend murdered?”

“Just doing my job. You know all about that.”

Before Mark can get another word out, you come up behind him, now having donned some pants and a cardigan.

“Detective Gibson. What a…well, whatever it is. What do you need?”

Gibson smiles at you, self-satisfied.

“I’m taking over your case. And with the recent danger, we think it’s best we put you in a safe house.”

Your eyes widen and you push your way past Hoffman who puts a hand on your shoulder. You shrug him off.

“Fuck that! You and your precinct already upheaved my life with this protection bullshit, now you wanna take me away from my job, my apartment? And for what? Jigsaw very clearly has no problem with me!”

“Yeah. Wonder why that is.”

Mark watches as you turn red. 

“Besides, not like you’re leaving much behind.”

Mark barely has time to grab you when you lunge for Gibson, who leans away with a chuckle.

“Easy. I can always still take you in by force.”

“Fuck off, no you can’t,” Mark bites. “She can deny if she wants to.”

“Yeah, but that don’t look too good either, does it? Got a reason to stay away from the police?”

“Aside from the fact they’re batting 1,000 when it comes to harassment?”

Gibson looks from you to Mark. 

“You don’t seem to mind too much.”

“That’s it-” 

Mark is out the door before you can stop him and he slugs Gibson in the jaw. The younger detective stumbles back into the yard and Mark looms over him.

“Get the fuck outta here. And unless you have a warrant, you can tell the chief to shove this whole thing up his ass.”

Gibson stands and spits some blood into the grass.

“Your ass is out, Hoffman. You hear me? You’re fucked!” Gibson shouts and returns to his cruiser, stepping into the driver’s seat and retrieving his walkie-talkie. You run out to get Mark.

“Mark, what the fuck?!”

Mark sighs, shakes out his hand, turns to you. “I’m sorry. I- I can’t stand that prick. He was asking for it.”

“Yeah, no kidding! He was egging you on and you gave him exactly what he wanted. You could lose your job!”

“Nah,” Mark says, shaking his head and heading back inside. You follow him.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll have a word with the Chief, pay some penance, do crossing duty or something for a few weeks. Shit like this happens all the time.”

Mark goes to your freezer and grabs a bag of peas to cradle against his knuckles. When he faces you again, you’re leaning against the counter, chewing on your lip, staring at the imitation marble.

“What?” he inquires.

“Nothing.”

“No, what are you thinking?”

He watches as you splay your hand against the countertop, moving your fingers back and forth. He moves to stand next to you, moves his head to be closer to yours. Nudges you.

“Come on. Let me in.”

You sigh. “I don’t know what’s happening anymore. I don’t think I’m in danger. Or maybe I am. I don’t really care. But…maybe it’s best if we took a break? Just until the dust settles?”

Mark’s heart plummets into his gut and his eyes search yours, his head unmoving.

“You want that?”

“No. No, I really don’t. But I’ll be fine, and you can’t lose your job.”

Because it’s all I have.

Well, that was before he had you.

“Let Gibson take over my case. Once it dies he’ll get bored, I bet. I’m willing to wait.”

You finally meet his eyes and your hand finds his on the counter.

“What if I’m not?” he mutters, his lips so close to yours.

“I mean, I never really pegged you for a patient man. But…”

It’s like you can’t help yourself. Your lips come up to meet his and his hand gently cups your jaw. 

Another kiss. One deeper and warmer. Before there can be a third that leads to something more, you pull away and Mark sighs.

“Maybe it’ll die out fast, you know?”

Mark nods at the refrigerator. 

“Maybe.”

“Hey,” you say, tilting his face towards you. “Look at me. It’ll be fine. Distance and fondness and all that.”

“I don’t think I can get any fonder, honestly.”

He watches in pain as your eyes flutter through that small confession and a smile pulls at your lips.

“Well, just hold on to it, then. And phones exist, you know?”

He dips down for a kiss on your cheek.

“So do midnight rendezvouses. And windows.”

“Come on,” you gently push against his chest. “Just think of how nice it’ll be when this all passes. Maybe my bed will see some action other than cuddling all night long, hm?”

Mark groans. “God, why would you say something like that when you’re trying to rush me out the door?”

“If I was rushing, you’d be gone already. I’m stalling, actually.”

Another kiss. Then one on the forehead. 

“Alright. Go makeup with the asshole outside. Apologize to the Chief. Help kids cross the street or something. I’ll see you soon.”

Mark grinds his teeth but submits, laying the peas on the counter.

“Sorry for defrosting those.”

You smile reassuringly, and it does help him feel like things will be okay. “Maybe we'll eat them next time.”

[enobariasdistrict2]

if i can't find that post about clato + childhood best friends au that was posted probably over a decade ago by scrolling through the clato tag then i will MAKE one. tagging @jugheadthelesbian, @persephoneprice, @thorneswife, @ohhowwehavefallen, and other clato friends.

they met (4th and 5th grade) because he tried to pull her ponytail and she broke his wrist for it. despite the yells and threats from cato, he immediately liked her then, and told his mom about "the cool girl who broke my wrist" when he was on the hospital painkillers

he's forced to apologize, and they spend every day together after that

it goes on for years. eventually in middle school she teaches him how to do hair so he can braid hers, he screws up the first three four five eight times but once he masters it cato is responsible for the task every morning, it saves her a lot of time (he can do a basic braid and acts like he's a hairstyling god, to which she can only roll her eyes.)

cato also carries hair ties on his wrist just for her, she plucks them off of his arm without even asking when she needs them.

cato won't Care about Things (clove) in Public but when no one's watching he won't stop playing with the ends of the braid. it's actually really soothing and relaxing for him. she let's him do it because it helps him calm himself and get into less fights

he's a year older and has a superiority complex about it. cato always wants to share his WisdomTM with her, unsolicited, because clearly he knows so much better about everything. his advice for any issue is Fists. that's all he says - fistfight. he has never had any other idea to fix any problem. ever.

in high school cato goes to all of clove's volleyball games and sits quietly in the stands because he knows she doesn't like being fussed over. once they got in a fight and because he wanted to annoy her he went full cheerleading mode at her game, constantly yelling and telling anyone who'd listen "that's my girl!" she yelled at him afterwards (he could only think about how pretty she was when she was mad.)

he has to carry her Pacey Carrying Drunk Joey style more than once, and not exclusively at parties either. it was not because she was drunk - she'd never put anything in her body that made her lose control, a Career even in a modern au - but because she was about to fight some football player three times her size

speaking of sports: cato is also one of the football guys at their high school, with some wrestling! clove shows up to practices and yells at him when she thinks he's performing pathetically (it's done out of love!!)

bedsharing. sweet when they were just friends, intimate when the relationship becomes MoreTM. he scratches her back. she's always getting her cold feet on him.

they understand each other's meanness and sense of humor better than anyone else. people might find them abrasive or harsh or violent, but cato and clove admire these things in each other.

lots of random play (be fr is it really play) fights and wrestling matches on the ground. completely unprompted. neither need an excuse to be aggressive.

he taught her to drive or at least did practices with her (i don't think that's legal in the real world/in my home state if he's not 21 but pretend it is). lots of cursing involved.

that's all i have if anyone would like to add more feel free

[gayofthefae]

Notes: this is all the Duffers’ fault aka this whole idea was inspired by the line used in the Stranger Things diegetic soundtrack “even as I wander, I’m keeping you in sight” implying a level of self awareness during Mike’s relationship with El or even some awareness before based on the use of keeping as something to maintain from some implied “before”.

Thinking about bi Mike saying when he developed romantic feelings for El he realized that he had had them before.

And now that I’ve said it out loud, thinking about the complexities of Mike realizing that what he had felt/been feeling for Will was romantic because of the romantic feelings he was developing for someone else.

And then being in mourning so obviously he’s not just gonna jump tracks back to Will again as if nothing happened and then he’s torn. For the year and a half since. 

Thinking about Mike acknowledging his feelings for Will at the same moment he acknowledged his feelings for El and this fascinating idea of one not being able to exist without the other. THINKING ABOUT MIKE REJECTING THE IDEA OF HAVING FEELINGS FOR EL BECAUSE IF THAT’S WHAT ROMANTIC FEELINGS FEEL LIKE THEN THAT MEANS THAT-

oh i am thinking thoughts

and then I put a bunch more in the tags so I’m not reformatting them but here

#whether it's like THE answer that the duffer's are providing or have planned or not i just think it fits into the puzzle in such an interest#ing but aligned way i'd never thought of before#it explains his hesitancy to admit his feelings despite being insecure about not having had a crush yet#it explains his projection and seeming torn#it explains his focus on el as the second/more recent person he developed feelings for and trying to equate that to being a separate instanc#e from will#like because he started having feelings for her second that means that his feelings for will should end soon and he will transition to el#he realizes he's had feelings for will but he tries his best to treat it as: i learned some hard to swallow information about myself. that i#HAD feelings for Will#but it isn't that#and then it bleeds into the retroactive repression theory and the compartmentalization of yeah i had a crush on him no biggie though because#i don't anymore so it doesn't even really matter actually so idk why we're even talking about this really#he's using his self awareness as an excuse to equate it to being past he held off acknowledging 1/2 of his hand in hand feelings he knew he#as torn but tried to focus on el even though he was still emotionally pulled to will and that pull overrode the commitment to singular roman#tic focus in the instances that he realized it was negatively impacting will. because not losing Will will always be more important to him#than whatever shit he's dealing with in his own head. it's like that threat of losing people grounds him. reminds him of the consequences of#his actions and the ripple of his repression and he snaps back into acting on his emotions of getting Will back and he'll deal with the#emotional and romantic repurcussions of that later but it's the instinctual priority

Oh my god also the SHED SCENE as it plays into this whole idea? This a very exciting new avenue to explore. Okay, Mike going through the grief without El but still having those feelings for Will and that same applicable instinct to save and help and comfort him overriding the idea of socially “right” or acceptable and just acting on his feelings and something about the way that scene is shot and the way everyone turns around to face them and how he isn’t sitting in the place everyone sits when they talk to Will and how it was impulsive. impromptu. Nobody expected him to talk in that moment. It was just Joyce there. He stepped up to help and maybe he wasn’t even sure he was gonna tell that story. Maybe it was a conscious choice or maybe it just fell out of his mouth, I honestly don’t know. But thinking about that same prioritization instinctively that he’s shown to disregard social ideas to focus on El and actually allow himself to pay needed attention to Will as well (not saying social pressures is all that makes him pay attention to El just that it does influence his lack of focus on Will) coming up in the original supernatural context.

Thinking about how El showing up made Mike feel better after Will was dancing with that girl. But how Will’s presence and comfort made Mike feel better after El “died”. And how it’s always been this exchange that we knew about but his self-aware feelings never had to actually be addressed until season 3 because he was mourning but she was also dead supposedly so at the very least he no longer had to decipher between or prioritize those feelings until she came back. And then her coming back was a good thing but then they were both there and he had to face that El’s presence hadn’t erased his feelings for Will. Maybe he thought that his feelings, like their presence, would be mutually exclusive. Because even if he had feelings for Will in season 2, it was in El’s absence. So maybe he felt fine in the idea that that was the nature of their existence. And then he was comforted well El showed up - distracted from Will and that girl. Thus, again, telling him that they could exist separately. 

Even when the summer came he wasn’t actually struggling to balance them that much. He had both of them - maybe a bit more focus on El just in his routine tardiness but besides that pretty balanced. He maintained the relationship he always had with Will because there’s no harm in that, right? And likely hoped that because he was in a romantic relationship with El and not in one with Will that that would even the scales and he would get over this thing with Will as long as he didn’t reinforce the romantic aspect and it would be fine but then shit hit the fan and we’ve already been over that a million times including in this post so. If I think of more, I’ll make more edits. :) Excited about this new perspective. I love when things just    fit  !

[xshybutdeadlyx]

Just gonna be a big rant of word vomit.

Please note I'm not trying to attack anyone I'm just kinda laying my feelings out.

I kinda wonder why I bother with Fandoms. I rarely act in any fandoms I'm hyperfixating over but for hazbin hotel I thought why not. But to the surprise of no one it is just like every other Fandom with backhanded comments always being tossed around. And most of it is centered around the character Alastor which I get but God it's giving me anxiety.

Like right now I'm seeing the a divide on the possibility of him having a kinship with the people of the hotel. Personally I think he does or more like did but he's going back to his roots of keeping everyone at an arms length and using them because of his defeat by the hands of Adam. But I personally think those feelings can resurface, but it's gonna be a battle to do so. But I am seeing a lot that people don't believe those feelings were ever there. He really is just a cold heartless bastard who has a God complex and is just mad he lost and that's it. And I feel like that is also correct. But I don't think that makes my hypothesis or how I feel I read the scene wrong? But I've seen people say "if you think this certain way then you are show illiterate and you don't know his character and IM the only one who understands him!" Like....OK? That's the beautiful thing about any piece of literature characters and scenes, anyone can interpret it in so may different ways and it doesn't make anyone wrong. So can't we all just have our own interpretation and just gush over it instead of scoffing at people who didn't see the same thing you saw?

As for shipping, that's a whole monster within its own. I personally don't think anyone is entitled to dictate what someone can and can't do with pixilated characters. I honestly very much understand that Alastor is a big deal considering he's aroace, and that doesn't get enough media representation. And I respect the hell out of it. But I'll also in the same breath say I'm a shipper. I love staticradio because I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers trope. In canon, I want Alastor to keep being the beautiful dick head he is that just has gossip tea parties with Rosie and just doesn't have those romantic or sexual urges. In fanon, though, anyone can really do what they want. I think as long as there aren't death threats or literal force being used to make the creator of the show force Alastor into a relationship I don't think theirs anything in fanon that should be taken seriously when canon is right there glaring everyone in the face. If people wanna keep the "relationship" one-sided? Awesome. If they want Alastor to smooch someone? Cool. They want him to rawdog or get raw dogged by someone. Hey, power to ya, just put it in the tags so people can steer clear of it if they don't wanna see that. I see many people saying it's erasure, but I just don't see how it's erasure when it's still there in canon. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, can erase Alastor, who is a sassy aroace king. I can't say I don't understand the mentality, though. As a bisexual woman myself, I see fanfics where bi characters are labeled straight or lesbian/gay completely, ignoring that who they date doesn't make them, neither straight nor gay. It does sting and leave a bad taste but again they can say that, they can write all they want and if it's cathartic for them then ok more power to em because at the end of the day that character is still bisexual they didn't erase it. Usually, people are good at tagging, so if they do make them one way or the other, i dont read or look at the art. It's very easy to scroll down. Sometimes i see it repedidly, but that's what blacklisting is for too. There are many countermeasures. Plus, a lot of things are all in good fun or just canon divergence. People can be creative and play with different ideas. "What if a character was like that!?" "What if they do this!?" "What if this happened instead, and it changed their whole character!?" That's what's supposed to be fun about being in fandoms. Everyone is entitled to feel how they feel. You're allowed to not like something. But I don't think you're allowed to make other people feel like shit because they go against canon, or more precisely, against your views. I genuinely don't think anyone ever means disrespect. All they want to do is have fun and create along with like-minded individuals. You're allowed to not like something. Hell, I don't like Vox and Val together, and that shits canon, but that just means I ain't gonna actively seek it out. (I personally ship Valentino with a bug zapper.)

All in all I just want everyone to feel safe and just have fun because I've just seen so many people to scared, me included, to do anything in the Fandom in fear of getting attacked and that's mostly what's been really eating away at me. But at the end of the day, this IS the internet, and discourse is basically its bread and butter.

Like I said though this is mostly just a vent post but I wouldn't mind to hear others thoughts if you're willing. I know I just probably talked out of my ass for forever. At the end of the day we are just all apart of this silly little Fandom of silly little demon people and we should all just be having fun look at what we like, write/draw what we want. It's exhausting spending energy like anger and malice, we should just focus on the things that matter to us and the things we like and just enjoy it for however long the hyperfixation lasts. Nobody is wrong. Nobody is right. we are just creators or people on here to just escape for a little bit and connect with a show or characters that resonate with us.

Ok for reals this time peace ✌️ if you made it this far and actually read everything I had to say thank you, you're a trooper. I hope I didn't offend anyone since that was not my intent. I just had a lot of feelings and I'd rather we all get along then tear each other apart.

[bunny-carrothunter]

the questions you get are scary lol

so could you rank your poinion on the villains from best to worst?

thank god finally an sfw asks for the wordgirl tag alfkjskd there's like so many villains jfc but I'll try to be brief. Rank as in favorites or how good they are villains? I’ll do the latter, the former I’ll make a separate post for it.

this is my opinion on ranking, ik everyone has their own.

Villains I won't even mention cuz I don't have a big enough opinion on: Coach, Masked Meat Marauder, Timmy Timbo, Rhyme&Reason, Raul, Glen, Royal Dandy, Amazing Rope Guy, Big Left Hand Guy, Guy Rich (even tho I love him) and Kid Potato (RIP ;-;).

17. Eileen

Both easy to get her riled up and get her to calm down. Just a nuisance, not really a villain. Also her episodes are just either tedious or give us all collective ptsd from that one annoying spoiled child in middle school.

16. Seymour

Above Eileen cuz he's actually entertaining sometimes. Daran Norris voicing any character will automatically be a fun time. Good at tricking people (tho that doesn't say much when those people are from Fair City) and concepts can be fun.

15. Invisi-Bill

Yes, just him and not his bf, dont hurt me. On his own, he can both fun and tricky but he's much too focused on being the center of attention or prideful to really do much. I love him, but as a villain, he could use work. He and BLHG just do it for fun and status so can't blame them.

14. Granny May

An OG but I’m putting her low because most of her crimes/schticks seem to be the same thing. And yeah their effective (with the people of Fair City, lol), but it does get boring sometimes. And it sucks cuz she’s such a girlboss but she does get pushed aside a lot compared to the other villains, specially in later seasons. I feel they could of done more with her, tbh.

13. Butcher

I'm gonna get lash for this- As a character, I love Butcher. 10/10 dad material. But as a villain.. It mostly sometimes feels he just does it just because, not out of any motive, other than maybe wanting to be appreciated and respected by his veteran-villain dad, Kid Potato. He's THE OG villain voiced by the show's own co-creator, and yet when put with other villains, he kinda lacks motive. Love him, but compared to the next villains, he's low here. Love ya, Butcher.

12. Maria the Energy Monster

She's like Eileen but actually a threat, and with much more personality. Not only can you not attack her directly because well electricity, but it's hard to actually defeat her when she's literal just an element, but love that despite it she still gets her own character.

11. Nocan the Contrarian

Nocan is when you take a himbo and give him the title of a villain and no further instructions. Most of the time he's just vibing but as a villain, he can be difficult to defeat and that's a compliment. Both strong with a weapon and physically, but also just a lot of fun.

10. The Learnerner

Weird Al. That's it.

9. Victoria Best

Now here's where we get to actual motives for being a villain. On her own, Victoria is a complex, love-to-hate character, but when she decides to play the villain, Victoria can be a real threat. She'll go lengths for jealousy and approval and that can cause problems not only for Wordgirl but everyone else around her. It makes it not only interesting to watch but WANT her to do better, unlike other villains you just enjoy to watch actually play as the show villain.

8. Ms Question

Harmless at first, Ms Question actually does possess abilities that can cause chaos and harm when she focuses. Not only can she confuse and escape any enemy just with her super natural abilities, but she can also spread her power to food that can spread much quicker and more discreetly. Not only that, she can materialize a hoverboard on command not only for her but others she carries around. Mischievous at her core and absolutely fun to watch. She actually got rid of all the villains in town singlehandedly and would of won if they hadn’t come back.

7. Whammer

Absolute chaos of a man that vibes and I love him. Physically, he’s definitely the strongest of the villains, being able to take down a ship with a single pebble and lifting a ferris wheel right off its hinges. AND a himbo? Whole package. I love Whammer, he’s funny, adorable and so fun when it comes to character interactions.

6. Lady Redundant Woman

Girlboss. The fact she works in retail and chooses to be a villain on the side like a hobby is so funny to me, go off girl. Her ability to duplicate anything, not just art but actual people is lowkey OP? AND NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT? Feral lady that bites rude people’s ankles and we stan.

5. Tobey

Before you attack me, hear me out. Tobey relies mostly on his robots, which he’s really good at, however without it, he’s literately just a kid. I would of liked to see if he’s as good in computers as he is in engineering like if he was able to hack into electronics, that would be another thing (tho I AM using this hc for a fic I’m writing), but if doesn’t have his robots or the funds for (”The Shrinking Allowance” comic being an example of this scenario), plus the fact his only motive is getting Wordgirl’s attention, doesn’t do much for him as a villain. Still, he is still quite formidable.

4. Mr. Big & Leslie

Ignoring the fact Mr Big almost did take over the world twice, he and Leslie are also just fun to watch as a duo. Admittedly Mr Big could do more damage if he didn’t have Leslie to keep him in check, who’s has actively stopped or interfere his plans because she just decided to lol. Mr Big can be more evil than other villains as he’s one of the few that did incapacitate Wordgirl (Ms Power included) for some time. But alas, it’s his own incompetency (and well, himboness) that prevents him from getting to say Two Brains level.

3. Chuck

Talk about never judge a book by its cover. The fact Chuck has ACTUALLY managed to take over the world/city with the rest of the villains under his command and everyone just casually forgets because yeah you wouldn’t expect it from someone that lives in his mom’s basement. It’s not clear if he buys all his weapons or makes them himself, but he def makes the best out of them.

2. Ms. Power

Absolute no doubt. If it wasn’t for one weakness of just not listening to her, she definitely would have been OP. Not to say she already wasn’t, being up to Wordgirl’s level, but unlike Wordgirl, she needs someone else’s weakness (and well feelings) to win. Still, OP, 10/10 villain, love Jane Lynch, so much potential and I like her. 

1. Dr Two-Brains

Was there ever any doubt? Fan favorite aside, there’s a reason he’s the top villain. Not only is he the most story/plot written villain with past history with Wordgirl herself, inventions alone, he’s basically a super human with ridiculously enhanced sense of smell, teeth to chew drywall and even steel bars, enhanced speed and of course super intelligence. He’s up to Dr Cockroach level of intelligence to build a ray out of arts and crafts and scraps. And ALL THAT aside, this man can sing, dance, ice skate, is a frequent cook, can speak mouse and has an incredible charisma. Goes without saying, there’s a reason he’s a favorite villain to almost everyone.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

This is a semi old ask but I don’t plan on rewriting anything SO SORRY FOR THE LATE RESPONSE ANON

[bananahoard]

AO3 BananaHoard? Someday. Maybe.

Some of my friends keep asking me if I am ever going to post my fanfic anywhere & Honestly I Don't Think I Can because of the immense judgement that JUST the potential chapter tags would bring me from strangers who like. Haven't followed me for years:

Digimon fic potential tags:

Power imbalance, coercion, rough sex, corruption, mentions of abuse, depression, suicidal thoughts, major character death, soul eating, physical brain trauma, literally rips a chunk out of someone's mind, amputation, sexual coersion, mentions of prostitution, drug abuse, addiction, toxic relationships, toxic codependency, bloodletting, mentions of starvation/themes of famine, TBD…

Why is this: Basically digital entities living in what is best described as a digital whalefall, where quality of living is extremely poor. One man who controls a large sector with a lot of power, really likes to abuse the power he has over people dependent on him, but it's not initially apparent why he's manipulating an unknown chain of people to get his own ends. Hint: He wants to kill (what he believes to be) god & needs something to do it. There's no human characters in this, & it's all OCs/non-canon characters.

DBZ AU fic potential tags:

Canon characters, power imbalance, injury, torture, implied physical abuse, mentions of genocide, family abuse, racism (Saiyan), space politics, major character death, toxic relationships, sexual coercion, threats of bodily harm, bruising, graphic descriptions of bodily harm, burning/burn wounds (energy attacks), choking, alien heat cycles, rough sex, TBD.

Why is this: DBZ already can be very graphic when played straight, & I'm not going to fuck around here in writing. Anything dealing with Frieza obviously should be a Given from fans, & this is no exception. I go into detail with the Cold family dynamics & politics involving the Saiyans here, & there is one relationship which has a lot of power imbalance that may make people uncomfortable (Frieza+Zarbon). There's also things mentioned with Cold arranging the pairing of Cooler with another individual as to continue the family line to to speak, but this ends up failing, as Cooler has already been in a secret (positive) relationship with a canon crew member, against his father's wishes. Cooler also sleeps around, so to speak, as to coerce a character. The result of this is Frieza's rise to power & Cooler rebelling against his father for lying about passing down his seat to his eldest son, entirely due to his perceived "flawed genetics" as a son born from a traditional birth (in contrast to Frieza, who was born from parthenogenesis 'from Cold alone'; alien junk, don't worry about it). Cold is not a nice father & that whole thing can probably make people uncomfortable. Everyone involved isn't nice, to be frank. I entirely started this very complex & super long AU just so Cooler & Salza could fuck, so sue me.

...

Sooo... if you read all that & don't hate me from just surface judgement, I GUESS spur me to eventually post junk when it's finished? Or ask me about it? Idk. I put a massive amount of work in a ton of fic I never post due to 'darker' themes, so I am hesitant to ever speak of my writing.

[bitsandbobsofwriting]

A new servant desperately struggles to understand what exactly Merlin is:

A cryptid? Arthur's boyfriend? Simply a dude? The court jester? Something else entirely? Who knows, certainly not the new guy.

The first time the new kitchen-hand, Tristan, saw The King’s dark-haired servant sprinting down the corridor, he couldn’t tell if the man was laughing or crying.

He was fast, faster than Tristan thought possible for someone whose arms were so full of laundry, but he politely steps out of the way, coming to the conclusion that he must’ve been late for something. At least... he did think that, until he turns the next corner to see three of The king’s most trusted knights peering out of windows and into random doors. Tristan freezes in the corridor, he’d heard that servants were treated extremely well here, but he’d only been employed for a few days and he didn’t want to risk anything by pushing past or addressing his betters.

One of the knights, Sir Leon, his brain helpfully supplies, spots him stood there, and his annoyed frown quickly morphs into a friendly smile:

“Pardon me, sorry, I don’t suppose you’ve seen Merlin around anywhere, have you?”

Tristan’s eyes go wide and the grip he has on his tray tightens, but he forces himself to take a breath and answer, trying his best to keep his voice even:

“Merlin is... The King’s manservant? Tall, with dark hair?”

Another knight pushes forward, he looks to be the oldest, with dark hair falling in an almost deliberately tousled way around his bearded jawline. His charming grin seems just a little too wide to be genuine, but Tristan isn’t quite sure if that’s because he’s about to take pleasure in punishing someone, or if he’s just being polite to a stranger:

“Yeah, yeah that’s him, seen him? Arsehole turned our shirts pink in the wash, and something tells me it was deliberate.”

Tristan gulps at the accusation and he takes a shaky step back, but before he can even think of defending the stranger that he now thinks must’ve been crying, the last of the three knights, a giant, if Tristan believed in such things, steps forward:

“Don’t worry, we won’t beat him too much.” 

He says it with a grin and a quirk of his eyebrows, but once again the kitchen-hand can’t tell if it was cruel or genuine, if he was being sarcastic or not.

“Uh... yeah, he turned left at the end of this corridor, but I didn’t see where he went after that, I apologise.”

Sir Leon waves away his apology with a smile, looking to the long-haired knight with a raised eyebrow:

“The stables?”

The man grins widely, nodding his agreement as he turns his grin to the giant. Sir Leon offers Tristan another soft smile, murmuring his thanks before moving past him, elbowing the other two to prompt them in to thanking him as well. The three of them march down the corridor with almost vindictive smiles on their faces, and Tristan prepares himself to see a vacancy note, or possibly a funeral invite, posted on the notice board by the next morning.

When he passes a window that evening to see the King’s manservant being carried on the giant’s shoulders as five other knights pelt them with gloves, a grin on every face, he decides that... well... it’s probably best to just not to ask.

~

The next time he sees Merlin, a few days later, The King is also there.

This is the first time Tristan has been in Arthur Pendragon’s presence, and though the other servant’s all rave on about how awkwardly kind he is, he’s a bundle of nerves. Not even Cook’s stories about how often she whacks The King’s knuckles with a wooden spoon when she catches him about to pilfer something stops Tristan’s heart from racing. 

The King was overseeing a few of the servants decorate the main hall for a feast, and whilst Tristan is certain that that’s not something The King normally does, he doesn’t question it, just thinks that maybe the other servants had been telling the truth, and he was a genuinely nice, but normal man. 

Merlin stands at his side, and though Tristan can’t hear their conversation, the two of them are clearly bickering over something. The servant can’t help his curiosity, wanting desperately to move closer to find out what sort of things The King allows his servant to bicker with him about; luckily, the table right next to them has yet to be laid, so he moves towards it quickly. He doesn’t even glance at them, terrified of being caught out, but perhaps Merlin surviving the knights non-wrath the other day is encouraging him, and his steps don’t falter. Their words come in to focus, and he has to stop the confused, and slightly horrified, frown from spreading across his face:

“Arthur, I swear to the Gods, if you make me wear that hat again, I’ll piss in your wine and serve it to you in front of a crowd.”

The King scoffs just as Tristan shakily begins laying down the cutlery:

“That’s treason, Merlin.”

“Do I look like I care? Not only will I piss in your wine, I will not hesitate to push you over a balcony at the first opportunity. This hall is high up and it’s a long way down to the gardens. He drank toxic wine and turned loopy and tipped himself off a balcony and went splat! That’s what people will say. I’m not wearing the Godamn hat.”

Tristan has to focus extra carefully to stop himself from gasping; Merlin just threatened to kill The King... that’s got to be a death sentence. Pissing off some knights that he’s obviously friendly with is one thing, but threatening to kill The-

“Ha ha. Very funny. If you can’t tell, Merlin, I’m being sarcastic, I know you struggle with complex concepts like that.”

Merlin just rolls his eyes, crossing his arms as he says with no hesitation:

“My mind is more than capable of coping, My Lord, it’s your belt I worry about being able to cope nowadays.”

Tristan bites his tongue to stop himself from yelping and turns away so neither of them can see his horrified face. The King just makes an outraged noise in the back of his throat, and Tristan can hear Merlin snort in laughter at whatever expression Arthur was wearing to match such a noise:

“Go to the stocks. I want you there for three hours.”

Tristan lets out a confused breath; Merlin threatens to kill The King, and gets playful sarcasm, but he implies The King might be a tad overweight, and gets sent to the stocks for three hours? How is that-

“Yeah... no. Not happening. The feast starts in less than two hours and I still have to help Guinevere organise some stuff in the courtyard, do Gaius’ rounds for him, then put an extra hole in your belt and help you get dressed because, despite being a grown man, you’re still an idiot who’s incapable of putting clothes on in any sort of decent manner.”

Tristan finds himself relaxing a little. This seems to be the norm for them, but surely... surely The King had a line somewhere, and a servant just flat out refusing to be disciplined must be where it lies?

Arthur just scoffs, and Tristan angles his head in such a way that he can see him roll his eyes:

“Fuck off.”

Merlin grins, seeming to cast a suspicious gaze over the room to make sure no one was watching and somehow completely missing Tristan stood just there, before saying quietly:

“You love me really, you prat.”

With that, Merlin reaches up to yank at a lock of The King’s hair before hurrying off in the direction of the courtyard before Arthur can react. The King jumps slightly, clearly caught by surprise as an annoyed flush rises on his face, but Tristan just frowns in confusion when his shock gives way to a softly amused smile.

Huh.

~

The next few times Tristan saw Merlin made him fear for the servant’s safety. He was being taken on hunts by The King and his knights, that’s meant to be for squires, to learn the ropes and gain experience in tracking and riding. 

He supposes it isn’t entirely unheard of for a servant to follow their master on a hunt, but with the way Merlin complains without pause, and The King in turn complains about his complaining, he thinks it would better for everyone if Merlin just... didn’t go. When he brings it up to another servant, a lovely woman named Guinevere who had helped him get unlost at least three times in his first week, she just laughs and smiles at him pityingly:

“I wouldn’t worry, those two have been like that forever, they’re practically inseparable.”

Tristan responds with a rather intelligent sounding:

“...What?”

Gwen laughs softly again, shaking her head and patting his shoulder consolingly:

“You’ll get used to it, they’re just... like that.”

She gives him one more smile before turning to wave the boys out of the gates and walking back to the castle as if this were the most normal thing in the world. Tristan supposes that it probably is.

The next time Tristan sees Merlin leave the city gates with the knights, Sir Elyan, Sir Mordred, and Sir Lancelot this time, it’s distinctly worse. Because he’d caught sight of the patrol rota last time he ran food down to the training ground, and he was certain that those three had a city patrol right about now.

Before he even has time to gape in shock, he hears Merlin’s pleading voice as he trails Sir Elyan like a lost puppy:

“Please, El, I promise to stay out of the way, I will do anything, but I swear to the Gods if I have to spend one more minute around that prat, I’ll hurl myself from the battlements.”

Swearing to the Gods and threating to hurl various people, including himself, from significant heights seems to be some sort of theme for The King’s manservant. Before Tristan can consider the implications of that, Sir Elyan turns to Merlin with a wide, teasing grin on his face:

“You know, I would’ve let you tag along for free, Merlin, but now that you’ve promised me something I feel the need to take advantage.”

Tristan tenses at that, a shot of ice spiking down his spine. He has keen eyes and sharp ears, he knows that Sir Elyan is the lovely Gwen’s brother, Sir Mordred seems to have an... odd worship for the servant, and he’s definitely picked up on the close bond between Merlin and Sir Lancelot, but is this where Camelot’s image comes crashing down in Tristan’s head? He knew that it was better here for servant’s than other Kingdoms, but there are always people who’ll take advantage of their position, no matter where you are. Merlin’s shoulders just drop and he asks in a sulking voice:

“What do you want?”

Tristan grits his teeth, moving his gaze so no one would catch him glaring at the knight as he tries to figure out a way to help, a way to get this virtual stranger out of being... abused, in such a manner. If he’d carried on glaring, he would’ve noticed Elyan’s soft smile and amused raised eyebrow:

“Next time you gather herbs for Gaius, bring back some more of those flowers that you got for Gwen. She said they added vibrancy to the house, whatever that means, but they make her happy, so...-”

Merlin just giggles and nods and Tristan relaxes, looking back to them with a confused smile on his face. That was... actually kind of sweet, he can definitely see the resemblance between the knight and his sister:

“-AND I want whatever Arthur’s having for dinner tonight, his food always looks way nicer than ours.”

Merlin lets out a faux annoyed groan, but then rolls his eyes and grins, nodding:

“Consider it done. Can we go now? I really don’t want to risk him seeing me and giving me some stupid chore to do.”

Elyan laughs and nods, and the four of them begin making their way out of the courtyard and into the city. Sir Lancelot finally joins the conversation, clearly amused as he says:

“You know it’s literally your job to do chores, right?”

Merlin turns to glare at him as Sir Mordred and Sir Elyan laugh, and Tristan only just hears his reply as the castle gates shut behind them:

“Fuck off.”

Tristan decides it would be pointless to bring this up to anyone again, he figures he’ll probably just get the same answer as last time.

~

The next confusing incident happens only a few days later. But Tristan supposes that at this point... it really shouldn’t be confusing. Gwen was right, he did just... get used to it.

He heard the steps pounding down the corridor before he saw him, but they were coming fast and hard, so he presses himself against the wall, holding the tray to his side to protect it as best he could as Merlin comes skidding round the corner. 

He stops just long enough for Tristan to calm himself by spying the wide grin on his face, but he’s quickly sprinting down the hall again, laughing as he waves whatever it is he’s got clutched in his hands. The second set of loud, rapid footsteps stops Tristan from stepping away from the wall quite yet. Just a moment later, Sir Gwaine follows Merlin’s skidded path around the corner, though the heavier man overshoots slightly and he runs into the wall opposite Tristan with a crash and a deep groan.

The rebellious knight gives a wide-eyed Tristan an awkward nod before pushing himself off the wall and following Merlin’s blazing trail, screaming down the corridor:

“I warned you Merlin!! Don’t come between a man and his ale, now give that back you bastard!”

Tristan hears Merlin’s laughter grow louder, even from the two corridors away that the other servant had managed to race to.

He shrugs to himself, waiting for a moment to see if anyone else was going to come barrelling around the corner before sighing, and continuing his journey up to the visiting Lord’s chambers.

It was unusual, he thought, how quickly he’d come to terms with the fact that a servant was sassing The King and pranking the knights and inviting himself on various hunts and patrols that he really had no business on. Unusual indeed.

~

He’d learnt to ignore it. Or at least brush it off.

In the two weeks since Merlin had (presumably) stolen Sir Gwaine’s skin of ale, he’d seen the servant call The King a long list of imaginative insults (what the hell is a dollop head?), walk around with Sir Leon’s cloak on because he was a little chilly, accuse someone of treason (and somehow been right about it), and threaten to kill at least seven people; including, but not limited to: The King himself, The King’s already dead father, some stuck up Noble (though that was under his breath, Tristan just happened to be stood next to him), and Sir Percival.

And Gwen was... absolutely right. He's just... like that. He's Merlin, and that’s what Merlin does.

So when he turns a corner in a rarely used to corridor to see him pressing The King against a wall, snogging the life out of him, Tristan simply turns around and walks back the other way. Both of them look fairly happy with the arrangement, and they’d probably chosen this corridor for the exact same reason Tristan had: it was out of everyone’s way, and was unlikely to be inhabited.

He thinks it’s odd, how... un-odd he finds it. He absent-mindedly thinks that, with the way they acted around each other, he really should’ve seen this coming. A sudden thought occurs to him, and he ducks into a storage cupboard, laying his tray down carefully as he rummages through the boxes. He lets out a quiet “Yay” when he finds what he’s looking for, carefully picking up his tray with only one hand and nudging the door open again with his hip. 

He walks back towards the corner he had just turned (and turned again) making a conscious effort to keep his steps quiet; he places the danger sign, usually used where walls had collapsed or windows had been smashed, in the middle of the corridor, a clear indication of “Do Not Enter”.

He nods smugly at his quick thinking and easy handy work before mentally planning the quickest route to the kitchens and following it hurriedly.

He casually wonders if he has time to circle around to the other end of the corridor so he could put another sign down before Cook gets angry at him for being late. Probably not. At least, not before they... finish up and move on. Hmm. He suddenly panics about the thought of them seeing the sign and knowing that someone had spotted them but... well. Hopefully they would just appreciate it and move on.

Yet again, he decides not to bring this up to anyone. He may or may not have overheard a few of the knights making some sort of bet, and he may or may not want to watch on with amusement as they fail to realise that all of them have already lost.

Tristan smiles to himself; working here had turned out to be rather entertaining, in the end.

~

THE END

I know it’s short, but I really didn’t know what else to add without it sounding like I was just repeating myself over and over😅

I hope y’all enjoyed it!!

[estercity]

just extending on both of my latest persona 5 posts: i think it’s important that for every palace owner it isn’t the phantom thieves who are the main catalyst for the metaverse break UNTIL shido. even with them working in the background, it has to be someone else who is that final push before the thieves can enter. my ideas are (tw suicide and sexual abuse mention):

kamoshida: shiho. her suicide attempt and the resulting hospital investigation is what gets the public eye on kamoshida, spreading the rumors of his sexual misconduct to a much larger audience and causes him to break

madarame: ohya. ohya publishes an article based on ‘anonymous’ claims (either ryuji purposely sought her out knowing he’d create a stir OR yusuke gave her facts she could use because his oppinion of his teacher have changed) that madarame’s work is stolen. these aren’t NEW rumors for the timing and the media stir it causes at such a key time in his career causes him to break

kaneshiro: THIS IDEA IS FROM @samarecharm ‘S TAGS; someone with connections in either law enforcement or legal coming after kaneshiro, maybe even on unfounded claims, whilst kaneshiro is threating the phantom thieves is enough to make him crack. i don’t think it would take much, i’d even probably use SAE to be the one that applies the final preassure because even if she won’t look into the case for a while the stir is enough to throw him.

futaba: sojiro. okay for this i have to fuck with things a bit - i’d bring out the uncle threating to fight sojiro for custody OUT of her confidant and put it in the main story. i think futaba’s emotions at realizing if she remains in this state and her uncle manages to gain custody of her based on that, the threat of he’d essentially force her to conform with a society she is not equipt for due to her grief and trauma would be enough. the catalyst is futaba either overhearing or sojiro confronting futaba directly with this knowledge

okumura: i think there should be a whistleblower. in the midst of everything okumura is doing and the news about the changing hearts, someone comes forward with evidence of okumura’s corruption and unlawful business. obviously this would just be a downfall waiting to happen, the conference would be more addressing the evidence than admitting without any, but i think okumura experiencing a heavier downfall fits considering...HOW IT ENDS FOR HIM.

sae: ITS GOT TO BE AKECHI. even if they’re not aware it’s akechi, i think he should be medelling in the background and i think sae should know about it even if the other phantom thieves - or us as the audience - don’t witness it. i can just imagine him twisting it into a ‘oh but no hard feelings, right? i’m just doing this out of concern ^.^’ when he is FULLY sabotaging her and her case.

shido: THIS IS THE ONE WHERE AKIRA HAS TO BE THE CATALYST. shido and momentos are the palaces where akira is the final application of preasure (though momentos is akira inspiring the PEOPLE). i think it would be interesting if shido gets to realize akira is the one after him. that means this endeavour is personal, that means he knows akira will not stop until he gets his revenge. maybe he even accepts them in? he has nothing to hide anymore, they know who he is.

maruki: i briefly considered rumi. and i might even say i’d want a bait and switch where you’re led to believe it’s rumi, SOMEHOW, but i think in the end it has to be sumire. sumire is a huge victim of maruki’s god complex and i think she has the right more than any to blow things WIDE OPEN and bring maruki’s downfall. i think she’d come out about her struggles and explain WHY she’s been the way she is, citing maruki for manipulating her into believing she was her twin sister and setting back her recovery. its a large enough case that once the ideal reality breaks down maruki realizes VERY quickly how much trouble he’s in and at that point there’s no preventing the inevitable

anyway. those are my thoughts :) i’d like each person to appear in the palace in some way. i might go with like a playing card of chess piece motif? since it’s like the final play of the game if you will - but yeah thats all i got <3

[vegalocity]

A Place for Stories

I don't do Carrds or anything so i'm gonna level with you guys, this is a very simple post for me to pin up as general fandom information.

My name is Vega, I'm interested in a lot of things, I'm an artist/writer and I make dumb crossovers and sad AUs

I have several current projects and several complete ones

there's a lot of them so this is going under a cut, but here's my art tag and here's my writing tag and here's my AO3

AUs/stories i'm working on/have completed are for these fandoms

Boku no Hero Academia

Gravity Falls

Lego Monkie Kid

The Owl House

Miraculous Ladybug

Undertale

the status of any of these stories doesn't matter, if you're curious about literally any of them, or if you saw that i reblogged a prompt meme recently and want to see something in any of these AUs/stories

BNHA

The Magi Underground

On God I am still working on this. But it's what it says on the tin. Magical Girls and magical warriors still very much exist in the work of heroes and Quirks, they just have to be much more secret

Ships: Bakugou Katsuki/Hanasaki Momoko (Bakupeach) Miscellaneous other crossover ships

-in progress but it's slow bc there are SO many magical girl series i'm putting in here-

Undertale/Mister Peabody and Sherman

Twice Burned and Thrice Shy

Chara and Asriel were both revived, but Chara and Frisk have very... differing views on exactly who is responsible for some... certain timelines... And unfortunately for Chara, Frisk got to tell their story first. Chara ends up running into an unlikely dynamic duo, and finds before too long, that they aren't bereft of having people in their corner. Another human child, and the possible dog-monster that acts as his father are very invested in helping them out.

Ships: None

-In Progress but slow because this fic is too damn complex for speedy updates-

Miraculous Ladybug

Miraculous Rewrite

This is a project that had been hatched between myself and @gererrin, we rewrote the entirety of Miraculous Ladybug in the span of 4 seasons, serializing the narrative while also letting many episodes exist in standalone format, focused more on worldbuilding and character arcs, and also a healthy dose of queer characters, polyamory, and an actual sliding threat scale

Ships: So many

-Complete, spinoffs in progress-

LMK

Oblivion

if you know me for anything from LMK it's probably this fic series/AU Basis.

A second Porty Clone had been summoned and slipped away during a battle set in the indeterminate future, and comes into possession of a very dangerous magical artifact; a record with the ability to brainwash demons, and he's got his sights set on a certain fire demon he knows his creator is sweet on

(this is a psychological horror so mind the warnings, also there's a bad ending that's bore quite a lot of fruit)

Ships: Spicynoodles, but like, don't root for a happy ending for it

-on Hiatus-

Tyrant Prince

This is a splinter of the Oblivion AU, more specifically the Bad End version where Porty Clone was able to make Xiaotian believe that this whole thing is Good Actually.

You know what they say about absolute power

AKA the Traffic Light Trio deserve a villain au or two that aren't swap aus or possession aus

Ships: Spicynoodles, Freenoodles, Ironbull, Silktea (they're all like super fucked up though) and Cyberhunt (the only not fucked up one)

-in progress, being fleshed out by an rp with @unseelie-robynx so you can ask her for details too-

White Bone Amnesia AU

Xiaotian is the actual son of Sun Wukong, MK on the other hand doesn't remember much of anything of his own past from before he worked at Pigsy's Noodles, he's not the only one with memory issues.

Ships: Spicynoodles, MksDadsShipping

-Currently being reworked-

The Little Detective

This isn't TECHNICALLY an AU, but it's the main story for my OC, a six year old child detective named Wong Minyi, looking for her missing Father and getting into schenanigans in the world of Magic and monsters and solving some mysteries while she's there. (Syntax her father is Syntax this is not a secret) (also here's Minyi's general character tag if you just want more information on her)

Ships: None (though maybe some in the Minyi general tag bc she's a fun minor character to have in ship stories sometimes)

-in progress but its slow-

Animorphs AU

The Lady Bone Demon is replaced as the major antagonist with the Yeerk empire. a mishmash of Animorphs and Monkey Kid plotlines full of new allies new enemies, and the horrors of War and such

Ships: Tripsun/Tangsun/this ship has too many names, Pigsy/Tang/Syntax, Xiaojiao/Aximili, Spicynoodles, Ironbull

-In progress-

Theatre AU

Well it can't all be sad in here, this is my token patented Civillian AU, The Flower Fruit Theatre is one of the most popular shoestring budget theaters in the city, entertaining the masses with reasonably priced musicals with casts of college students and some old greats only slightly past their prime, they also find themselves in a one-sided rivalry with the most expensive hoity toity 'musicals are for fools' theatres in the city, the Bull King's Chambermen.

Ships: Spicynoodles, Peachtea

-not actively on hiatus but not currently being worked on-

Princess Bride AU

Its what it says on the tin, Red Son is Buttercup, Xiaotian is Wesley, the casting falls from there

Ships: Spicynoodles

-completed, getting additional scenes written up for the AO3 release-

Atlantis: The Lost Empire AU

On god i am working on this; summary to come later.

Ships: To be determined

-in progress-

Owl House

Prisoner Princess Luz

Belos has decided to adopt the human that's been causing him problems.

Her opinion on the matter is wholly irrelevant.

This is a dark one my guys.

Ships: Raeda, Lumity, Scarlow

-in progress, currently being reworked-

Gravity Falls

Equivalent Exchange

i kinda hate that i'm putting this here because it's so old, but for the sake of completion it's going here.

Gravity falls Madoka Magical crossover AU. Mabel Pines has been scoped out by the Kyubey, typical Madoka Magica dark things ensure

Ships: None

-completed-

[ryosmne]

Safe Place.

Yakuza! Nanami Kento x gn Reader

Hello everyone, this fic is in collaboration with my dear friend @sunfloweroranges you can read their fic here :D

I kind of changed my writing style for this one, I'm trying out different things so let me know how it goes, feedback is always welcome, that's all from me hope you have a good time reading 💜

Summary: You're clueless

Warnings: mentions of blood, mature themes, mentions of murder and head chopping, language, yandare Nanami if you squint.

Grocery shopping is never fun when you're alone, especially making your way back home in the cold winter months, it gets dark so early.

A slight twist of your gut had made you walk back home in a faster pace. Turning your head every couple of steps, you never saw anything, yet this feeling never left even when you got through the main entrance of your apartment complex.

The elevator was broken once more, and you were already out of breath from rushing back, as you took the first steps up, your next door neighbor, who looked way too scary for your own liking bumped your shoulder on his way down.

Jeez he's in a hurry today.

Mumbling a quick apology, even though he was the one that was at fault, you quickly found the strength to run up the stairs and lock yourself in. Some short of commotion was coming from outside the complex that you didn't really care to hear.

That pink haired guy, your neighbor, who was build like a damn door, always got himself in some short of trouble, hearing him yell profanities or even throwing punches was a far too often occurance.

Why did he have to live right next door?

It's safe to say you did the best to keep the hell away from him, not that he seemed to bother with you, neitherless he was fucking scary.

Kento was ten minutes late, he was never late, except for the days that he had to clean up someone's mess, the days someone underestimated the power he held or the days someone dared speak your name. He wouldn't even tell them 'dont you dare speak their name' or anything along those lines. There was no warning when it came to mentioning yo,u only taking immediate action.

Naturally you were in the dark about all of that, Kento -or Ken as you would often referred to him as- kept you far far away from the darkness of his world. That was his way of keeping you safe and at the same time having you as his personal way out of his work and in his defence he didn't completely lie about his employment. He was an investor, just a bit of a different stock market than what you had in mind.

As far as you knew, Nanami Kento was an extremely successful business man, he chalked up his tattoo covered body as just his preferred style, since he is this good at what he does, he likes to say that his work place doesn't give a damn about his ink covered skin and the expensive gifts that he always pressures you to accept are just another benefit of his high profile job.

"Darling, I hope you didn't start without me." Wrapping your arms around your extremely sweet boyfriend you left a small kiss on his lips watching as the corners tagged upwards in an equally sweet smile the moment your lips left his.

"Of course not Ken, it's Friday remember?" Fridays are the established date nights in, you and Kento cook and dine together. More often than not you end up slow dancing to some jazz, or with you laying on his chest Infront of the fireplace, listening to his heartbeat, talking about life while he strokes your hair until the dawn.

Tossing him an apron, after he -like the gentleman he is- tied yours, you got to work on today's dish: Chorizo carbonara.

"You're never late on Fridays, bad day at work?"

You spoke while slicing some papers.

"Yeah, the stocks are all over the place and it's getting me stressed, but it's our night darling, anything else isn't of importance."

Kento always found a way of distracting you when it came to talking about his day, he is always quite vague and when his palm rested on the small of your back gazing down at you with those adoring eyes, it's hard to keep focused on anything other than him.

"Why don't you tell me about your day love?"

He always asked you that, Kento is in awful need of the calm that the mundane life you live carries. He craves to feel that, he still loves the power he holds over people, the way the mare mention of his name makes others tremble in fear of what the man will do to them shall they not comply to his requests -more accurately orders-

"Thankfully work was pretty good today, I finished grocery shopping so we could cook, I got us that wine you really loved too. The neighbor is being weird again but that's not new, maybe moving out isn't a bad idea."

Everything was like music to Kento's ears untill that last sentence. You had mentioned moving out before, but Kento always found a way to convince you not to. The rent was good, this house is close to your work, he would always reason with you until you changed your mind. He never pushed too hard fearing that you'd suspect something, but you only smiled and ended up agreeing with him.

You see, unbeknownst to you, your weird neighbor is Nanami's most trusted man, he's protecting you twenty four hours a day, even as you walked up the stairs today he dealt with another threat that was headed right your way. No, you cannot move before you know everything, but Nanami can't bring himself to break your bubble, he loves you and you love him, the real him, he would never scare you by letting you take a peek at his point of view. Maybe he should run away with you afterall.

"He doesn't look that bad, love. I'm sure he wouldn't hurt a fly."

Nanami knew he was capable of a lot more than that but it was true, your neighbor was an ally and although he would hurt lots of people, you were on the list of people to be protected and Sukuna took his bosses orders very seriously.

"Besides, my love, anyone would have to get through me first before attempting to lay a finger on you."

With the way his lips moulded on yours and his velvety tone, how could you not believe every single word that just came out of his mouth. Kento would die before letting anything happen to you, that little statement helped bring you comfort.

"You must really love my house Ken, can you pass me the butter?"

The moment your back was turned, Kento let out a breath of relief. That little voice in his head he always pushed away yelled at him to tell you everything, he burried it in the back of his mind once more.

"Can you believe that? I swear she drives me insane- Ken are you listening to me?"

That was weird, Kento always gave you his full attention. Perhaps he was tired today.

"Yes darling, you were talking about that Satoru guy, the one who annoys you at work."

Yeah you were, but that was while you were still eating, about twenty minutes ago.

"Babe, you're tired, let's go to bed, we can pick up where we left off another time, you need to rest."

The habit of staying up all night on Fridays had really stuck, but sleeping when your partner clearly needed to, is very much on schedule although it rarely ever happened.

Getting up from the sofa, tagging at Kento's arm to follow you to the bedroom had Kento irritated at how concerned you grew for him. He still feels you're too good at times, all the time to be exact.

You only heard him sigh before he pulled you back on the sofa, having lost your balance in his sudden move, you landed on top of him.

"Stay with me a little longer my love, I'm sorry I spaced out, I'm all ears for you now."

Another invitation for you to just talk to him, he didn't care about what. Kento loved the tone of your voice, how it changed pitch depending on what emotion you held or what you were talking about. His voice was quite monotone, like everyone else's around him. He had to grow thick skin and throw away all short of feelings, but everything he locked away years ago came rushing back the moment he spilled coffee on you six months ago. You hadn't even complained about the burning sensation on your skin as he helped clean you up, you just gave Kento a smile telling him that everything was fine and these things happen.

In his world they don't, someone can breathe the wrong way and lose their head, all it took was your damn smile and that statement to get him to need something different than what he had. Kento never thought he missed a thing, he found out how wrong he was that very day.

Sometimes he wished he never took the time to help you out back then, but that was only because he didn't know that he'd put you through all this.

"So I'm just sat there in a staring contest over the last price of cake, I won but my eyes still feel a bit dry."

You laughed, Kento stared down at you with a fond smile, your head on his lap and your hands tangled in his, brushing his knuckles and examining every bit of his skin with such care, God you were beautiful all over.

While Kento's hands were very interesting a small detail in the cuff of his shirt got your stomach to drop.

"Ken, is that blood?"

He swore he cleaned up, he always cleaned up before coming back to you, he never missed a single splatter. Maybe rushing home after not one, but two people tried to harm you today put him on edge.

He had missed a single drop. He was absolutely disgusted that even that tiny part of someone who dared to say the name y/n out loud infront of him and even threatened your existence was anywhere near you.

"Sweetheart that's probably tomato sauce from cooking, thanks for pointing it out, you know I hate staining my clothes, I'll go change."

Your meal didn't contain tomato sauce.

Why was your gut telling you that something was off?

Kento seemed a bit tense tonight, was it just a bad day at work?

He never really conversed on his profession. The huge dragon that started from the back of his thigh, ended on his left shoulder covering his entire back was just his 'style'. You swore you heard him talk to the pink haired man who lived next door but he told you he was on the phone. Everything little bit of suspicious behaviour you had previously payed no mind to, came to you. On top of that what was his reason to lie about a drop of blood on his sleeve? He could've said it was a paper cut or something, Why did he lie?

Behind the bathroom door Kento only cursed at him self.

Why didn't he lie better?

[stayarmytinyzenmoa-l]

Without a Trace [Ch. 2]

Vigilantes AU

TW: Language, Mentions of Murder, Explosions, Blood, Implications of Abuse, Implications of Alcoholism,

Genre: Drama, Angst, Light Comedy

Pairing: ATEEZ x Reader

Y/N Pronouns: Not Specified

Summary: Vigilante work has been outlawed, thus sending nine prominent vigilantes either into retirement or into lower ground and, while some abide by the law, a few continue on. Then, one day, a greater threat forces these vigilantes to come together once again, regardless of the law.

(2/11) [Main Masterlist] | [Without a Trace Masterlist] | [Previous] | [Next]

Word Count: 5.3K

Notes: Yup, now we’re up to speed with word count HAHAHAHA but things are really starting to pick up now, maybe, Limitless Podcast on its way!

General Tag List: @vickylamore​​ @yeongwvnhi​​ @mizzdivagirl7-blog​​ @sehunnies-hunnie96​​ @yangsrose​​ @bat-shark-repellant​​ @cloudreads​​ @raeincitizen​​ @here-aeth​​ @lofied​​ @lune1897​​

Without a Trace: @thatnelsy​​ @sunsethw4​​

Disclaimer: Please remember that this is an AU and a work of fiction, obviously the idols mentioned/written about in this story would never partake in these actions. The idols mentioned in this work are meant to be seen more as face claims rather than the actual idols themselves.

“Here, I got it,” Eric walked up next to you, grabbed one of the extra boxes stacked in your hands, and held it easily under his arm. “What’s with you? Just go back and grab the rest later.”

“I’m a one trip kind of person,” you laughed. “Do you have the key?”

“Yup,” Eric pulled it out of his pocket and shook it in his hand.

“And did you lock the car?”

“Definitely, I double-checked,” Eric nodded.

“Shut the fuck up!” A loud voice boomed in the room next to you and you both shut your mouths.

“Are you… are you sure you don’t want to just stay with my parents a little longer?” You asked him in a quiet voice.

“Yup, definitely, I think your dad’s mad that I’m not being a breadwinner or something,” Eric sighs. “The complex is just… a bit of a fixer-upper.”

“Fixer-upper? Eric, I think we’re going to get killed here,” you mumbled. He raises his hand up to shove away a glass bottle and it smashes against the creaky floors beneath you. “Oh, fucking hell, how’d you see that coming?” You asked him.

“Uh… lucky guess,” he shrugs.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry,” a tentative voice trembled while she stumbled out of the open door. She knelt on the ground and cleaned up the glass shards.

“It’s fine, let me help with that,” you placed the various boxes on the floor and helped the woman pick up the larger of the shards. “Everything alright?”

“Yes. Everything’s fine.”

“Yuna! Get back in here!” A louder voice shouted. Yuna picked up the remaining pieces in a hurry.

“Congratulations on moving in, please make yourselves comfortable,” she excused herself and shut the door behind her. You and Eric looked at each other quickly before you grabbed the boxes again and continued down to your apartment.

“I hope she’s alright,” Eric looked over his shoulder. He jams the key in the door and opens it. “You go in first,” he continues looking around the hall while you walk inside.

Despite the questionable hallways of the complex, the apartment itself was somewhat cozy. It was a small one bed and one bath apartment and in surprisingly good condition. You placed the boxes on the kitchenette counter and started opening a few.

“Safe to say that we shouldn’t invite anyone here,” Eric locks the door behind him. 

“Eric are you sure there aren’t better places to move into?”

“Of course! Rent here’s like $200 monthly.”

“Gee, I wonder why.”

“Oh, come on, (Y/N), we’ll be fine!”

“Eric, we’re on top of a strip club.”

“It’s all good, it’s our own place, and it’s a start,” he reassures you.

“If I die.”

“Oh my god, don’t be so dramatic.”

“I want you to put your name under my cause of death.”

“Deal,” Eric laughs he reaches into one of the boxes, pulls out the plates and bowls, and starts putting them into cupboards.

“Before I forget,” you walked to the conjoined living room and started taking pillows out of boxes to toss onto the couch. “Giselle asked if we can join them at the Mad Dog.”

“Tell her yeah, we’re like a good few blocks away from there.”

“Eric we are not walking there.”

“I’m just saying,” Eric closed the cupboards and moved to the living room, falling onto the couch. “What time?”

“In half an hour,” you checked your watch. 

“What? Why are you just telling me this now?”

“We were kind of busy, I don’t know, moving in,” you laughed and pushed his head gently. “I’m going to go change out of this now, I have dust all over me, geez.”

“Wait, wait, I’m coming too,” Eric hopped off and followed you into the bedroom.

Thus leading you to about an hour later, sitting in one of the booths at the lounge you used to frequent all the time and listening to your surroundings with your, slightly annoying, boyfriend sitting next to you.

“Happy spring everyone! Now that we’re all settled from the new year, let’s strive to make this 2019 a good one! Start your April off right with some spring cleaning,” the chipper voice of the news anchor filled the lounge area. Adults of all ages worked on whatever or had quiet conversations of phones or with each other and, somewhere near the back, the sound of a coffee machine was just barely audible. The sun was shining that day and the weather was very nearly perfect. You and Eric were originally going to have a picnic in the park until your friends asked to meet up with you both, and now here you were, waiting for some very late people.

“Do you hear that?” Eric asks you. He leans on your shoulder and you lightly leaned your head against his. Your eyes were glued to your phone while you looked through Twitter. The various posts about masked vigilantes beating up bad guys and saving the city. You had no idea what to think of it, really. One day some person who went by “Leviathan” started kicking ass and suddenly more masked vigilantes popped up. If anything, it was rather chaotic, and the politics behind it all just made the whole thing muddled, but you’d be lying if you said that you weren’t at the very bit interested. You wanted to talk to one, figure out what’s going on in their heads and what pushed them into becoming these fantastical heroes you see every time you opened Twitter.

“Hmm?”

“It’s a sign.”

“For?”

“For you to become a more organized person.”

“Oh, shut up!” You pushed his head off of your shoulder and he fell onto your lap instead. A notification pinged at the top of your phone and you tapped on it while you ran your fingers through Eric’s hair, softly massaging the top of his head while you responded to the group chat.

“Who are you texting?”

“The others, they’re taking forever,” you leaned your head against the back of the booth and grabbed Eric’s coffee, drinking some of it before setting it back down.

“What do you think?”

“Kind of bitter,” you flipped your phone over on the table and sighed. “But I’m definitely more awake now, that’s for sure,” you laughed.

“Nice, but I was talking about the whole vigilante thing,” Eric points up at your Twitter feed. “I think it’s kind of cool, kind of dangerous, but kind of cool.”

“Yeah, me too. I don’t know, I feel like with every new vigilante there’s a new “villain” that shows up to get rid of them. It’s all kind of messy, I think,” you liked a few pictures. “But some of these vigilantes are really cool.”

“And some are… questionable.”

“Yup,” you laughed and showed him a tweet about the vigilante Justin Seagull. Apparently, they had stopped a robbery at an electronics store and for a reward, the owner gave him a free PC and monitor, so that was the upside to it. However, that was the last time he was active, which led you and many others to wonder what exactly it was that motivates some of these vigilantes. “But definitely entertaining.”

“Yeah… I don’t know, it’s weird,” Eric sighs.

“Why so?”

“I just feel like anything can happen now that there’s so much of them, and with them equally flashy villains who we don’t even know why they’re here. Which is the one who apologized recently?”

“Uh… the name escapes me, but I know who you’re talking about. The one who basically just said “I just wanted attention, I didn’t mean for people to die” right?”

“Yeah! That one! It’s crazy, I wonder how the hell people can be so… I don’t even know what to call it, maybe ignorant.”

“Once people start dying it’s a whole other story,” you turned your phone off.

You and Eric had been in a well-established relationship for quite some time now, you were nearing your second year anniversary, actually. Sure, he was a bit of a handful but so were you and thus it balances out. You had both met when you unceremoniously spilled coffee on him while you and your now best friend Giselle were rushing to the DNA concert and the rest was history. You were at a point where you both could be real with each other, transparent even. You both didn’t have any secrets to hide, that much was for sure.

Speaking of Giselle, you wondered what was taking them so long. The five of you had agreed to meet at this lounge to just get caught up since everyone had been so busy and Giselle, being the responsible friend of the group, insisted that she could easily pick up the other two boys on the way. However, that was nearly an hour ago, and to say you were worried was nothing short of an understatement, regardless of whether they were on their way or not.

“Have you been talking to Jisung lately?”

“Han Jisung?” He asks and you nod in confirmation. “Uh… not as often as we used to, why?” Eric stayed in his spot on your lap and moved his legs up in an attempt to fit his entire body into the booth.

“Just curious, I usually talk to Giselle and Jeno, but Jisung’s a whole different person,” you hummed and shifted under him. Jisung was a friend of Eric’s who was the most recent to join this makeshift friend group. Though he typically kept to himself, he was always present whenever the group agreed to meet up, he’d occasionally add his input, but that was it. Though he had an uncanny ability to see through the others. “Plus, he rarely talks in the group chat.”

“Yeah, he’s been kinda on his own lately,” Eric yawns. “I’m gonna take a nap, wake me up when they get here, okay?”

“Sure thing,” you draped your sweater’s sleeve over his eyes so he could rest better while you looked up at the news network.

“And now Dr. Jung Jaehyun, professor of Criminology at SKU, and his statement on vigilante justice.”

“Hello, everyone, and good afternoon. In the wake of an influx of vigilante justice, I’d like to make clear that vigilantes, at this current moment, seem to be working in favor of the general public. They’re very aware of how we perceive them and, as we have observed, they’re very interactive with people’s opinions on their actions and they act accordingly. It is the fact that they work in the general interest and leave the legalities to the authorities, in the end, is what greatly distinguishes them from other criminals that many paint them as…”

“Hello, lovebirds!” Jeno slid next to you, subsequently pressing Eric’s legs against the wall and smashing you between them. 

Lee Jeno was somewhat of an energizer, a bit of a mom friend, and definitely the one who checks up on the other friends the most. You always saw him as the more responsible one of the quintet despite appearances, and he was oddly observant of everyone and everything. Sometimes you felt like he could read everyone’s minds.

“Argh… what the fuck?” Eric sounded more drowsy than pissed while he sat up in the booth. His head followed Giselle and Jisung slowly. “Oh, hey, everyone.”

“Sorry we’re so late,” Giselle collapses on the table. “Traffic… and Jisung’s dog tore up my back seat.”

Uchinaga Aeri, or Giselle as you all called her, was one you had known for the longest. It was through her that you met Eric, actually. Giselle was the self-proclaimed responsible friend, which was already telling enough, but she was also the first with a driver’s license so it was best that no one questioned her.

“He didn’t tear it up, he just lightly chewed on the headrests,” Jisung corrects her.

“But, that’s not why we’re here today,” Giselle speaks over him. “How’ve you two been? I feel like we haven’t properly spoken in forever.”

“Oh, we’re good. We’re finally settled into the… uh… apartment,” you laughed.

“That’s good! At least you guys got a place,” Jeno stretches his arms over his head and tucked them behind his head. “Where’s it at? When’s the house warming?”

“About that,” you cleared your throat, your mind flashing back to the day you moved into the apartment when you were so nicely greeted by the interesting people you would become neighbors with. “We don’t think we’re going to have one… at the apartment.”

“What? Why not?” Giselle asks.

“Instead, Eric and I decided to treat you all today!” You nudged him and he nodded quickly.

“Yeah, definitely, it’s just our neighbors,” Eric dismisses the topic. “But anyway, how have you guys been? Sorry, we kinda drifted while we moved. We basically ghosted you all for like, what, a couple of weeks?”

“Try a month,” Giselle teases.

“No, no, it’s fine! Moving’s a big event,” Jisung cuts in. “You’re all moved in for sure? You don’t need us to come help?”

“No!” You and Eric both responded at the same time and the other three eyed you both suspiciously.

“Are you two—” Jeno is cut off by a loud explosion echoing across the street. Your head whips towards the window, watching the chaos unfold in the streets. Eric pushed you and Jeno off of the couch just as the windows shook and cracked.

“We have to get out of here,” Eric tapped your shoulder lightly at first, but when gunshots rang, he pulled you up before Jeno and pushed Giselle and Jisung behind him. You stumbled back, the news stations switching to breaking news all around. This was the obvious downside to the rise of vigilante justice. Everyone assumed that it would bring criminal activity down and, while it did, it rose the overall danger of them. Just the other day you heard about a shootout between a vigilante and their “nemesis” that resulted in multiple civilian deaths, and now? A whole bank just blew up. Some days you wished the masked crusaders stayed in the confines of pages. “Go!” Eric pushed the group back as the window gave in entirely.

“This just in, Park and Kim Jewelers are currently under fire by the two criminals Lady Midnight and Steelhead. They have revealed that they will hold on to the hostages until the police force releases Cosmonaut from their custody. If more than two hours elapse, they will open fire.”

“Crap,” Eric curses under his breath while the group finally got out of the lounge. He turned to run back in and you grabbed his wrist.

“What? What’s wrong? Let’s go, Eric!” You look over his shoulder.

“I’ll catch up with you guys in a second, yeah? I think I saw someone in there.”

“Save it for the vigilantes, Eric!”

“We will keep you updated on the scene, although it seems like two or three vigilantes are currently en route to Main Street.”

“They’ll be too busy with the store, I’ll be right back, promise!” Eric pulls his hand out of your grasp and sprints back into the lounge. You made a move to follow, but Jisung held you back.

“We can wait for him away from a kill zone, (Y/N), let’s go!” Jisung urges you. Giselle only nods.

“Eric’s not stupid, he’ll be back, let’s just go,” she is about to say more until an officer shouted at the group to head to a safer area.

“I’ll catch up to you guys too,” you ran back into the lounge.

“(Y/N)! Get back here!” Jeno was next to follow you.

“Are you two insane?!” Jisung third.

“We’re going to die, fucking hell, Eric, this is your fault!” Giselle was next, all four ignoring the officer’s shouts. “If we die, we die together, I can’t be alone here!” She shouts.

“Eric?!” You ran into the empty lounge and turned in a full circle, trying to spot the trigger happy boy anywhere. “Where the hell is he?”

“Eric’s going to get himself killed, fuck,” Jisung caught his breath while he looked around. The lounge was certainly messier, with the broken windows resulting from the distant explosion and the general mess from the stampeding retreaters, it was fascinating how anyone’s life can change in a second, especially when there was an uncountable number of people trying to play hero and the people who are for whatever reason in their way. You look towards the doors of the bank just in time for two people to come tumbling out and into the already narrow streets.

“Oh hell no!” Giselle gasps. “Shit, let’s just get out of here!”

“We still haven’t found Eric!” Jeno reasons.

“Maybe we missed him on his way out,” Jisung looks back to the entrance of the lounge. Just as the group argued, the two villains focused on them, neither moving nor making a single sound.

“Word in from the authorities on scene, Lady Midnight and Steelhead have just executed all hostages.”

“Great going, (Y/N), you got us all killed,” Jisung snarks.

“Not dead yet,” you argued. Lady Midnight took a step towards the group and you all huddled together, too afraid to move even the slightest. Steelhead brought their gun up and trained it at the group. “If we die here,  Jeno it was me who stole your $50.”

“What?!”

“Riri and I bought the new Anti-Romantic album with it, please don’t hate us.”

“Are you both kidding me?!” Jeno looks over at you.

“(Y/N) why did you tell him?!”

“We’re about to get gunned down!”

“This is the least of our problems right now,” Jisung holds his hands up. In the flick of Lady Midnight’s wrist, Steelhead opens fire.

You could nearly count the seconds. The seconds before a large shield flew parallel to you with such precision, and the seconds before you heard the sounds of bullet cases hitting the floors. The shield ricocheted against the wall and you rebounded back to its owner. Wearing a mask that obscured their face entirely and a uniform-clad with steel, he readjusted the shield on his arm.

“You should probably leave,” the voice was masked by a heavy, but still understandable, distortion.

“Aegis! Look if Eric’s lost somewhere he’ll make sure he’s safe, now let’s go,” Giselle grabbed your arm and dragged you away from the scene.

“Yeah, no doubt,” Jeno nodded quickly and you all ran out of the lounge.

“This is such bull shit,” you muttered while you ducked your head at the sounds of fighting. “Eric! You fucking owe me, you jerk!” You shouted behind you.

“Have your lover’s quarrel later,” Jisung suddenly throws his hand out and stops the group as a woman steps in front of you.

“Are you kidding me…” you scoffed.

“Sorry, we can’t have any witnesses,” Lady Midnight flicked her wrist once more and a dagger slid out of her sleeve.

“(L/N) (Y/N), died by getting stabbed to death by a woman in midnight-themed lingerie,” you held your head in your hands.

“Sorry to crash the party!” The sound of a motorcycle revving its engine came fast, and before you could say anything, Lady Midnight was knocked off of her feet and dragged back into the lounge. Jeno gasped next to you and you turned to look at him, seeing him holding his phone up and live-streaming.

“Jeno?!”

“Oh god that was Blackout, Jaemin’s going to be so fucking jealous,” he says with a hint of amazement.

“Okay, cool the two weirdos with no lives are being handled by Aegis and Blackout, let’s go now, I have a final tonight and I can’t fucking die because my parents are co-signed to my loan so they’ll be charged if I do!” Giselle continues to push everyone back towards the safe zone marked by the holographic walls. 

You stole one more look back, seeing the intense battle going on and hearing only bits of the conversations in between, all amidst the chaos around them. This was the ridiculous means to an end that followed vigilantes around, there’s always some villain who wants to one-up the other and fight a vigilante and no one would ever know their true motives unless they said it. It was completely fucking ridiculous.

~

The sounds of your footsteps echoed against the walls of the pristine hallway. Your watch read a simple 2:05 am July 27, 2021. Today was the day that Senator Johnson was to sign the extension of the Enforcement Reallocation Act, affecting all districts horrifically disproportionately and benefitting some than most. Although politics was never your forte, it was clear to anyone that it just made the already wide difference worse.

You stopped at the front of the Senator’s office, the door slightly ajar.

Choi San always did his work fast.

You opened the door and walked in.

The office was dark save for the overcast of moonlight from the central window, you took a step forward and heard a small and quiet splash of liquid. You looked down to your boots and saw the dark liquid that encircled it, just barely touching the ends of the cloak that concealed you.

“Swift as death,” he says behind you.

“Messy as pigs,” you snarked back, staring at the dead body on the floor. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt for you to be cleaner, this is just disgusting.” You stepped back and wiped the bottom of your shoe on the velvet rug.

“Gets the point across, I think,” San kicked off the wall behind you and walks up to the dead man, the quiet squishing sounds of drenched cloth louder in the silent hour. “He was your neighbor, right?”

“Yeah, kind of a despicable man,” you shrugged, watching San shove the body over with the front of his shoe. “Yuna finally moved out of my place though, she’s staying with Chan for now, but we’ll see how she does.”

“That’s good,” San rolls his shoulders back.

“What happened to you?” The question came out suddenly, you didn’t intend to interrogate him now.

“When something must be done, you do it before it comes back to bite you in the ass,” You could feel San’s frown in his voice, “you should know.”

“You,” you took a step forward, fully ready to go off on him, but you recollected yourself easily. “Here,” you dropped the suitcase right where the pool of blood stopped.

“What’s that?”

“It’s from Yunho, Hongjoong wants to put a team together,” you explained. “Someone’s been going around killing vigilantes.”

“I know,” San leans against the desk. “Saw your name on the list.”

“Yup,” you shook your head. “Look, just think about it, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” San steps over the dead body and grabs the handle of the case, drops of red dropping along the case. “Get home safely, I saw your lock was busted.”

“You know about that too?” You asked him.

“I was going to drop by to say hello and I saw it, figured you had it handled though,” San shrugs. Without saying anything more, he left the office.

“Fucking hell…”

~

The sound of glasses hitting wood was, in some way, rhythmic. There were hushed conversations mixed in with boisterous ones, and all of that surrounded by the thumps of footsteps and the creaks of chairs. But despite it all, two men sitting near the end of the bar managed to stay in their own world.

“How’s your retirement going, Mingi?” Seonghwa asks him. Mingi just hums, looking around the bar before answering. 

“It’s alright, I’m working at the paper now…” Mingi answers. “I kind of miss it though, the adrenaline, the rush of whatever… but I don’t regret stopping, I’m afraid I would’ve ended up like San if I did.”

“Well, now’s your chance to rethink that,” Seonghwa stares into his glass. “It would be nice to have the man on the ground again.”

“I can’t believe I ever did that,” Mingi sighs. “So… that Charlatan person’s real then?” Mingi’s voice was hoarse.

“Unfortunately so, I just investigated the scene at Changbin’s house,” Seonghwa answers. He swirls the whiskey in his glass and sighs. “And now (Y/N)’s on the chopping block.”

“I’ve heard,” Mingi holds his head in his hands and places his elbows on the counter. “Fuck, I told (Y/N) to stop with that bull shit,” Mingi shakes his head and grabs his glass, drinking more of the red wine in it.

“Even if (Y/N) did… no doubt it would’ve just delayed the inevitable,” Seonghwa says. “It’s only a matter of time until our names are on that list.”

“We were careful.”

“So were the Aces.”

“(Y/N) and Jisung are on that list… what about Giselle? She’s literally a sitting duck.”

“Don’t reduce anyone to just that, Mingi,” Seonghwa’s voice was stern. “Either way, (Y/N)’s on the list, and no doubt we’re soon to follow,” Seonghwa pulls up the silver case and places it on the counter. “Think about it.”

“I will.” Mingi watched Seonghwa leave the bar. Seonghwa pulled the fedora over his head while he walked out into the heavy rains, he hoped the others were having more luck.

~

Wooyoung shoved the covers off of him. He was breathing heavily while he sat up in bed, his feet against the cold floors of the home. He reaches for his phone, knocking over however many pill bottles were on the nightstand in the process, and he tapped on a contact.

“Come on… pick up, please,” he says between gasps.

“This is Seo Changbin, I can’t reach the phone right now, so leave a message and I’ll call you back later,” there was a loud beep and Wooyoung stood up, walking around the messy room while speaking.

“Hey, Changbin, it’s Wooyoung again,” he starts. “I, uh, haven’t heard from you in a while. I keep having that dream again, the one I had after we retired, it won’t stop. And every time I sleep it just continues and… fuck, just… call me back, okay?” Wooyoung hangs up the phone, ignoring the twenty-eight outgoing calls he had made to the missing man.

He walks out of his bedroom and sits on the couch, staring blankly at the screen in front of him. He reached over for the remote and pressed the on button. Then the power went off entirely in his apartment.

“Seriously?” Wooyoung hits his head against the back of his couch. “Fucking kill me now…”

“Wooyoung.”

“Fuck! Who the hell?!” Wooyoung jumped up on his feet and looked around, his fists up and ready.

“Behind you, dumbass,” Wooyoung turned around to the TV screen that displayed a cartoonish monster on it.

“Yeosang, you know I have a door right? You don’t need to put me at risk of a heart attack every single time you decide to talk to me,” Wooyoung collapses on the couch.

“Maybe you should lay off the caffeine.”

“People are so wasteful! They order coffee then they never show up and why would we throw away a perfectly good drink?”

“Early death, I’m telling you.”

“Just come out already! Your stupid hehetmon is hurting my eyes.”

“Don’t disrespect hehetmon that way,” Yeosang’s distorted voice was one Wooyoung was long used to. “Anyway, I’m not actually there… for reasons, I kind of have to stick to home base.”

“Is it because of that Charlatan person?” Wooyoung asks. “I saw (Y/N)’s name on their list,” Wooyoung shook his head.

“Yes. Look, Hongjoong’s looking to bring a team together.”

“No! No, nope, no, no! I don’t want to do it, I want nothing to do with any of that!” Wooyoung stood up again and pointed a finger at the TV, he turns quickly and stubs his toe against a suitcase. “What the hell is this?!”

“Thanks for considering, Wooyoung, I’ll tell Hongjoong that you’d think about it,” Yeosang’s voice was taunting.

“What? I said no! I’m personally enjoying working as a barista! I do not want to go back to beating people up for no reason!” Wooyoung argues. The screen shuts off and he groans loudly. Then it turns back on again with an entirely different image, one that caused Wooyoung’s jaw to hang ajar in pure and utter terror.

~

“Oh, Hongjoong, long time no see,” Jongho shoots the basketball into its hoop easily. “What brings you to this side?”

“I’ll just cut to the chase, Jongho,” Hongjoong places a suitcase at the outbounds of the court. “Join my team.”

“What, do you need a point guard or something?” Jongho jokingly asks. Hongjoong’s face remained serious and Jongho just laughed. “Serious then, huh? What for? Vigilante justice is technically illegal, you know.”

“Have you heard of the Charlatan? The person who’s killing off vigilantes?”

“The person who wants to kill (Y/N), right? Yeah, of course, I was going to go check-up and make sure that Charlatan didn’t get the opportunity,” Jongho dribbles the ball lazily. “So, you need a team to find them?”

“Maybe, Yeosang’s having a hard time tracking Charlatan at all.”

“Oh, Yeosang’s taken an interest? I’m guessing this team-up was more of his idea, then, and he just handed you the title of leader.”

“Yeah, basic Yeosang things.”

“Thought so,” Jongho throws the ball towards Hongjoong, who caught it easily with one hand. “Either way, I’ll have to say no.”

“What? Why?” Hongjoong passed the ball back, and Jongho caught it with a reluctant look.

“I think it’s just a coincidence, really, there’s no way that Charlatan’s picking off vigilantes. We’re too careful,” Jongho says. “Most of their claimed victims were nobodies.”

“You don’t know that, we were careful, and maybe so were they.”

“Maybe,” Jongho shrugs and shoots the ball again. It bounced off the rim and back into Jongho’s hands.

“Joining in a team would only be insurance, if anything.”

“Just safety then? I won’t have to put on some gaudy outfit again?”

“I wouldn’t call this gaudy,” Hongjoong nudged the case at his feet. “But if you don’t want to fight, you don’t have to. Just join us.”

“Hm,” Jongho hums. “Last time we tried a team up with 3RACHA it didn’t end up well, you remember that. No one cared.”

“This time will be different, we have a clear goal now aside from “keep the city safe,” it will work.”

“You sound sure of yourself, but then again you always are,” Jongho tucks the ball under his arms. “I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a yes, I like being a normal person, you know.”

“Just a think about it is good enough,” Hongjoong crosses his arms. “Wait for a message from Yeosang.”

“Yup,” Jongho turned around and walked the other way, grabbing his bag on the way, the metal and corresponding wrapped wires under his sleeve reflecting the rising sun for a second before it covered up again.

[alirhi]

Loki ranting

Okay. I had this thought in my head of like just compiling links of all the Loki shit I've posted/reblogged so far so that when I get into a conversation about the show and how it fucking disgusted me, I can just be like "here. here's this masterlist post, go read all this shit. This is my entire argument, and not only mine, but a lot of stuff posted by people far more intelligent and level-headed and eloquent than I am, whom I happen to agree with." Because the alternative is constantly getting fired up all over again, and that is exhausting.

BUT! I'm stupid and don't know how tumblr works. Apparently I can't just be like "give me all the Loki-tagged shit I've got" I can only search all the Loki-tagged shit on all of tumblr. And I'm not scrolling back through all of my posts. I talk too fucking much for that shit 😂

So, I'll try to remember all of my grievances with how the MCU has treated Loki, and all of the excellent posts made by other, equally upset fans, and put it all together here under this nice, neat little cut for everyone else's sanity and scrolling convenience...

For people who actually read my shit fairly regularly - bless you, you crazy, patient people. I love you! - this is going to be a lot of repetition of shit you've already read. Probably at least twice. I'm passionate and I have a terrible memory lol. Sorry.

Anyway, first, for those who don't know me and haven't been following my explosions of rage for the past couple of months, some quick background: I do not read comic books, so Loki's Marvel comic canon means nothing to me. I know almost nothing about it. The reason I'm so in love with the character in the MCU is because I am an eclectic witch and the deity I've actively loved and worshiped the longest in my life (literally for as long as I can remember) is Loki. So when he was mentioned in The Mask, I squeed. When they named Matt Damon's character after him in Dogma, I cheered.

When Thor came out in 2011, I just about died from happiness. I was hungry for any representation of this underappreciated god, no matter what it was. I didn't even bitch about how underpowered he was, because at least he was there. But I'm getting slightly ahead of myself.

I can hear anyone reading this going "Why Loki? Isn't he, like, evil? Like basically the Norse version of The Devil?" Because I heard all this shit irl all the fucking time. And no. So let me give you a quick rundown of who Loki actually is.

Loki is a Trickster God. He's often referred to as the God of Mischief. He is not and never was evil, simply chaotic and hedonistic. Loki Laufeyjarson was the son of Laufey (that's mama; they changed her to a man for some reason in the movie) and Fárbauti. Right from the start, from his name, we get a sign of how Loki goes against traditional norms of the time, because in Norse culture, families were patrilineal, and surnames were "son/daughter of father" (which would have made him Loki Fárbautitason), not the mother. But Loki's surname is matrilineal. Feminist icon woo! lol

Though he's a Jotunn, Loki is counted among the Gods (Aesir) in Norse tradition. Depending on his mood, he is alternately helpful or disruptive to the other Gods. I'm not gonna sit and teach a whole text class on him lol but I'll use my favorite example of Misunderstood Loki - the conception of Sleipnir!

So, get this shit. This is also part of why I DO NOT follow Odin and never fucking will (a very small part, but still part of the reason). So, the other Norse Gods are petty motherfuckers, and they wanted some shit built but didn't want to pay the dude doing the building. So they were like "okay, if you can get it done in X amount of time, we'll pay you, but if you can't manage it NO MATTER WHAT, this whole thing is free." And they made sure he had NO help, nothing but him, his materials, and his Very Good Horsey. And this guy and his horse were fucking BAMFs. So it was looking like he was definitely gonna get it done in time, and Odin was like "nah, fuck that shit. I'm cheap." and so he sent Loki to distract the work horse. Loki transformed into a mare and lured the horse away, got fucked, got pregnant, gave birth to the 8-legged (for some reason) horse Sleipnir. Odin rides Loki's son into battle. Um. Kay.

So Loki helped Odin be a petty mf, and Odin got himself a new pet out of the deal.

Oh, also, because he's smart af and a shapeshifter and a master magician and genderfluid, Loki "fails" to fit the super fucking toxic and narrow Norse/Aesir view of "a real man". He prefers intelligence and manipulation to solve problems rather than violence, he's not afraid to behave like a clown if it gets shit done, and that grosses the Aesir out, so they constantly ridicule him for being "less than a man".

Loki is the God of the outcast and the misunderstood. The marginalized people from all walks of life. He is the God of the LGBT community. In modern terms, he's pansexual, polyamorous (married to Sigyn and they are deeply in love, but boy gets around and I've never seen any indication that Sigyn gives a shit) and genderfluid.

Okay. Focus, Ali. This is part of why I usually post multiple rants instead of one big long one XD The longer I ramble, the more I get sidetracked and forget the original point.

So. Loki's awesome, and being a Trickster, is powerful as all fucking hell. There's not much he can't do.

And now we come to Thor (the movie, not the deity). Loki's there! 24-year-old Ali is spazzing! All is right with the world!

Oh lord, they've actually done him justice?! Amazing! He's complex and nuanced and emotional, just like the real Loki! I loved this movie. Loved. It. The climactic thing with trying to blow up Jotunheim never really made much sense to me until someone made an excellent point the other day about Loki being raised in a racist society that was racist against his own race, he just didn't know it yet, poor child. Baby Thor was never corrected when he pledged to commit mass genocide, so Baby Loki probably absorbed the lesson then that Jotunns=evil and killing them all will win his father's love. Anyway, 2011 Loki was a beautiful, heartbreaking portrayal of the God I've loved all my life and spent 24 years longing to see depicted on the big screen.

Then The Avengers happened. And I saw another Loki very close to Norse mythology - mainly, how he's treated. In the beginning of the movie, he's sick, exhausted, and in pain. He can hardly stand, he stumbles and needs help when he walks. He was very obviously tortured, and the sickly blue light of the scepter's control is in his eyes. That gets less and less pronounced as the movie goes on, showing Loki working his way free of it, but in the beginning, he's a mess. Because he was tortured and used by Thanos. Marvel directly confirmed this, and that he was under the scepter's/Mind Stone's control. Loki's actions are not his own in The Avengers. He's under both threat and Thanos' direct control. The movie actually shows The Other directly threatening him to keep him on task, because this is not Loki's plan. It is not what he wants. He's being used and villainized... Just like in real life. It hurt to see this done to him, but the accuracy was too beautiful to ignore.

Thor: The Dark World comes out. I've heard people complain that this movie is the weak link in the Thor trilogy. I disagree. I think that's Ragnarok, for a bunch of reasons, but we'll get there. (And for the record, I loved Ragnarok, too. It was a funny movie. Infinity War and the Disney+ series are the only portrayals of Loki in the MCU that I truly fucking hated.) Anyway, good, fun movie. Had its faults, as all movies do, but it still followed Loki's real-life arc in a way. How? By having Loki dragged back to Asgard in chains and imprisoned underground. Again, not super happy that this happened to my love, and having to see it on screen was painful, but at least in the MCU he's not chained to a rock with venom dripping on his face for eternity, so there's that. (poor Sigyn. how tired do her arms get, holding up that bowl? best wife ever, amirite?)

In TDW, we're shown Loki's love for Frigga, who favored him and taught him magic as a child. We see his bravado; his attempts to mask his true feelings, especially grief. We see him slowly coming back to himself after the events of The Avengers, and slowly mending his relationship with his brother. He accepts that Odin will likely never love him, but Thor just might, because they were close when they were young. "I didn't do it for him." No, no my sweet, you did it for your brother, and a little out of guilt for what happened to your mother.

At the end, Loki fakes his death and escapes, taking the throne, and I have mixed feelings about this. Not the writer's choices here; I love that completely! A natural progression in Loki's story. But my joy is tainted by how closely they're following the Eddas now. Because Loki's escape from his prison heralds the beginning of Ragnarok. And Loki will die in Ragnarok. I don't want to see that play out in front of my face. I won't be able to handle the grief (spoiler alert! IW broke me. I almost walked out of the theater. Loki's death was legitimately fucking traumatic for me. I don't even care how pathetic that is. That grief was real, it was intense, and I still shake and cry when I think about it.)

Marvel announces that Thor 3 will be called Ragnarok. The internet treats this as a shocking revelation. I roll my eyes and mumble "duh" to myself and move on XD

Then they say Ragnarok will be a buddy comedy. I throw up a little in my mouth and no longer want to live on this planet. If they're going to make something called Ragnarok, could they at least treat it with even a fraction of the respect they've shown these characters thusfar? Jfc. I mean, I'll see it anyway, because I'm a whore for Tom Hiddleston lol. But come on, people!

I hated that they made Hel the long-lost older sister and Fenrir her fucking pet/attack dog. Those are my favorites of Loki's children! Hel is such an incredible badass that the early Christians named their dimension of eternal torture after her! They were terrified of her, to the point of naming the place that terrified them most after her. That's awesome! And Fenrir's just the best. I love wolves. Those two details, and Odin's retcon of "we're not Gods! ...lol, except your sister. she's totally a Goddess. and def gonna kill literally everything, so... good luck! byyyeeeee" pissed me off royally.

The rest was great. I genuinely liked this movie. Still do. And they finally used The Immigrant Song! That was pretty cool. If they'd thrown in Bring the Hammer Down and Thunderstruck, I might've called this movie perfect. XD

I wasn't totally in love with their portrayal of Loki in Ragnarok. Yes, the falling for 30 minutes line was funny, as was "I have to get off this planet" and "YES! That's how it feels!" And "Get Help" was funny as hell. But also, like... There is no way Loki would have been the dumb one in that first encounter with Hela. Also, he can teleport and project copies of himself and shit, so... He would not have been that desperate to go straight back to Asgard and bring her right along with them. Loki's not stupid. But whatever. Movie's gotta movie.

What I did love was seeing the slow mending of his relationship with Thor continuing, and the badass fighting on the bridge. I also loved that, like Real Loki, Movie Loki helped when help was needed, was quick and clever, and while he was carrying out the main plan, he was also planning ahead and grabbing the Tesseract. Yes, that drew Thanos right to them, but that's a whole other thing. Loki never would have left that thing on Asgard to be destroyed or lost.

And now Infinity War. Hooooly fucking shit. You know what? No. I'm not going into this. He was killed, years of character growth were erased forever, my heart fucking shattered. The end.

Endgame. IW hurt me so bad I didn't see Endgame until this year. I actually watched Civil War first (for context: I had actively avoided all Cap movies until this year because I fucking hate Steve Rogers. I find him insufferable. Did not realize what I was denying myself until I watched CW and finally saw the charms of Bucky. When he appeared in IW, I was so lost. XD I was like "...who dis? Murder Jesus?" also I just... didn't care. I was numb by then from crying through most of the movie over Loki)

So, anyway. Endgame. Loki picks up the Tesseract in alternate 2012, escapes, fans go "yay! he didn't actually die!" I go "yes he fucking did. Five years of his life, gone. Five years of growth and change, erased. Loki is dead. This will not be the same."

I was more right than I could have predicted. Now we come to the point of this rant. Sorry it took so long, but you were warned lol.

The Loki series makes me so angry I actually get sick to my stomach. It was fucking TRASH. When I praised Marvel for following Norse mythology so faithfully earlier? Yeah. I DID NOT MEAN TREAT HIM THE WAY THE OTHER GODS DID. I did not mean paint him as a pitiful clown, a joke, a caricature of who he truly was, with his pain and suffering played for LAUGHS.

This is supposed to be 2012 Loki, newly freed from Thanos' control. The Loki we saw in the beginning of TDW - snarky, exhausted, nihilistic. The Loki who rolled his eyes and said "get on with it" expecting to be killed.

The bumbling clown flipping on a dime from posturing to calling himself weak is not 2012 Loki. That is not ANY Loki. That is Tom Hiddleston in a black wig doing what he's told by a shitty writer who had no fucking idea what he was doing and was salty about his (bad) original script (for something totally fucking unrelated) getting killed.

In Episode 1, Loki is mocked, imprisoned, stripped against his will, tormented, belittled, and given a flippant summary of all the trauma Actual MCU Loki suffered that this one skipped out on, with no context, no acknowledgement of the trauma he's already lived quite fucking recently, and with the narrative twisted to not only erase all the abuse he's suffered, but to make it all his fault. And this is supposed to make him want to help these people?

And worse, IT FUCKING WORKS. WHAT?! I CAN'T- FUCKING WHAT?! Remember when I said LOKI IS NOT FUCKING STUPID?! So why is he STUPID?

Episode 2, he's a child. Mentally, this Loki is a fucking child. Now we've erased all the growth and development of his entire adult life. He's dopey, impatient, impulsive, desperate for a pat on the back and actually shows it. Yes, abused and neglected children crave the positive attention we never received, and we often grow up to be a bit emotionally stunted. But not all of us, and not Loki. Not as we've seen him EVER in the rest of the MCU. Playful and a bit callous at times? Absolutely! But not a big dumb fucking puppy.

Episode 3, a ray of hope, despite Sylvie! (I hate Sylvie) Loki casually admits he's pan/bi; labels never come up, but he admits to being with both men and women! He sings! Not really relevant to whether I approve of his portrayal or not lol but Tom has a beautiful voice, Norwegian ("Asgardian" lol) is a gorgeous, entrancing language, and I could watch that one bit on loop for eternity and never get bored. And then, finally, we see a glimpse - a glimpse - of Loki's power! He stops a falling building and pushes it right back up! Are we finally getting to see what he can really do? Will the next episode bring us Loki in all his glory?

Nope. 4 and 5 we see him mocked and pushed around and utterly irrelevant. Again. We see tiny reflections of what he could maybe theoretically do in other random Loki variants, but the "main" (lawl. main. it was the Sylvie and Mobius show. Loki was never the main anything.) Loki? Nothing. He wears his heart on his sleeve for no reason, bonds with the man who imprisoned, taunted, and gaslit him, is killed, and continues to be a moron and a joke. Always the clown. Always the dumb one. The one with the bad ideas. The inferior Loki.

Don't even get me started on that finale. I can't. This already took so much out of me. Fuck Marvel. Fuck this fucking show. I just... I'm done.