#and for that to be true it would mean one of the earlier corpses isn't actually dead

[pochapal]

gonna be honest i hadn't even really thought about a master key until now. that's...hm.

[thesoftboiledegg]

Starting from the first episode, Rick and Morty's sixth season mirrors, references and counters season three. Season six references other seasons, especially the second, but the writers really want you to focus on season three and how much has changed.

Season three starts with The Rickshank Rickdemption, which I think is the best episode in the series, but it also shows Rick at his worst: a horrifying monster who destroys everything in his path on a rampage that culminates in a full-on mental break as he yells incoherently at a terrified Morty in the garage.

The Rickshank Rickdemption shows Rick's "fake" backstory, features a return to Morty's original dimension and involves the whole family in a zany adventure. Unfortunately, this also kickstarts Rick's spiral into nearly irredeemable madness.

Solaricks goes to similar places: Rick's backstory, Morty's original dimension, the family's complicated dynamic. By now, season five has revealed that Rick's "fake" backstory wasn't fake after all. Instead of mocking the audience with a "Fuck you, you can't have what you want!" sneer, the episode shows us Rick's quiet sadness.

Meanwhile, Morty ends up in his original dimension yet again. But he doesn't find the goofy Mad Max-esque characters from season three. His father, who's become a more realistic deception of an apocalypse survivor, tears into him and tells him--and the audience--that he, Beth and Summer were real people, not plot devices.

The episode abandons the cold and mocking earlier version of the Cronenberg Smiths. Jerry abandons Morty, too, leaving Morty to wander away crying. No brutal destruction and bloody corpses on the citadel. Just a sad, lonely teenager in an empty landscape.

Rick comes back for him without claiming that he doesn't care about Morty. He doesn't yell at him, insult him, subject him to horrifying violence or bait him into trying to kill him. Morty's not angry at him, either. After everything that's happened, after all the fucked-up shit that Rick's pulled, after all the screaming and fighting and abuse, Morty runs to him with a smile on his face and his arms outstretched like a young child.

Nothing could make Rick abandon his revenge-fueled atrocities in The Rickshank Rickdemption. In Solaricks, he abandons his chance to kill Prime when Morty calls him "Grandpa."

Likewise, Final DeSmithation is the second Rick and Jerry episode that we've been hoping for since The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy. The first episode battered viewers with Rick and Jerry's hatred for each other. Rick unleashes rage-fueled tirades while Jerry focuses on his desire to get back at Rick, to hurt him and even kill him.

In Final DeSmithation, Rick isn't the one terrorizing Jerry. In fact, he actually gets annoyed at the Smiths for making fun of him (while doing household chores, which is another first for Rick.)

He has no reason to help Jerry. If anything, he has a chance to endlessly mock him. But he gives Jerry a half-assed explanation that he "just didn't want to see someone get bullied into going to a zoo," which would still be nice if it were true. Rick doesn't even bother making up a mean one, such as "I'm only doing this so that my daughter doesn't kick me out of the house for not saving your stupid ass."

Final DeSmithation also had a fandom staple: Rick in a suit and tie. The series full of fakeouts suddenly pivoted to giving fans what they want.

Rick's mean to Jerry throughout the episode, but you can tell that he's getting tired of the act. He's a little more patient, and his remarks are less incisive. At the end, Rick tries to take it back by slapping Jerry, but the episode doesn't end there. He immediately looks guilty and accepts Jerry's offer of friendship afterward.

I also loved when Rick said that he's "dead center on the alignment chart." Earlier seasons, including season three, glorified the idea of Rick being close to evil.

Analyze Piss is the most direct callback: a sequel to Pickle Rick. However, Rick's not concocting ridiculous plots to get out of therapy. He willingly attends therapy. He paces around and fights against it, but ultimately, he seeks help.

He respects Dr. Wong, who knows how to talk to him on his level. He puts her ideas into practice even when the family pushes back because Rick's not doing what they want him to do. Rick still struggles and falls apart, but he tried this time.

He has chances to manipulate the Smiths, but he doesn't take them. Instead, he looks at them sadly. His ego is slowly eroding.

Finally, Ricktional Mortpoon's Rickmas Mortcation mirrors The Rickchurian Mortydate. Both episodes are season finales, and both involve Rick and the President bickering with Morty caught in the middle and getting increasingly sick of Rick's bullshit.

Still, this episode is a little nicer. Rick relapses, but he doesn't entirely backslide and turn into the murderous lunatic that he was in The Rickchurian Mortydate. He's just crabby.

The episode ends with an exciting cliffhanger instead of a dark moment when the Smiths (rightfully) get tired of Rick's bullshit. Rick even says in his usual crazy rant that he'll try to be healthier in season seven as he hunts Prime Rick.

We finally get a fakeout, but this one is gentler than the others. It's disappointing that Rickbot wasn't the real Rick, but the writers don't want us to leave thinking that Rickbot existed only to fool us. Rickbot tells Morty that Rick technically committed those kind, loving acts. It's a surprise twist that doesn't negate the entire season.

Season six countered infamous scenes from other seasons, but the season three parallels stood out to me because they contrast Rick at his worst with Rick at (maybe) his best. He can't change the past, but when he ends up in the same situation again, he can make different choices.

[lansplaining]

Sorry if I ask but can you explain to me wwx's development character? I know I came as stupid but I can't see it😭😭. He doesn't even say sorry to jzx for killing him one time and he prefers to hide to lxc about sisi so he doesn't 'make the wrong choice'. I feel like he doesn't grow a lot...

this is actually such an interesting question and something i've been thinking about a lot since I finally finished my re-read of the final volume.

i don't think that wei wuxian undergoes what western readers at least-- i'm not qualified to speak for other traditions-- would expect from a protagonist's journey of growth. and, like i was talking about earlier today, it's certainly not a journey of growth that rests on a christian concept of 'redemption' through confession, atonement, or apology for the sins of your past.

wei wuxian is absolutely aware in the present timeline that his yiling patriarch phase was intense to say the least. he comments on having probably taken it too far re: the wen corpses he weaponized, and he cringes to see the way he struts around and publicly defies jiang cheng. when he first returns to life, he wants to just fuck off and ignore everything, but quickly realizes that he can't separate himself from the past, either practically or emotionally-- a step of growth!

but wei wuxian spends the entire novel in a state of denial so profound that he can't even directly confront, much less move on or grow from, the things he did in the past. he can't apologize in his head for killing jin zixuan because that would mean really thinking about what that meant and letting those emotions come back. he just keeps running from jiang cheng because deciding jiang cheng hates him is easier than opening his mind and heart to all the other things jiang cheng might be feeling and might have felt because of his actions. he can't make a real choice about what to tell lan xichen because that might require stopping and really thinking about where his consistent determination to make choices on other people's behalf has gotten him, and whether they were ever really better off for it.

a different story would be about wei wuxian confronting and thus working through and growing and changing because of these things-- but MDZS isn't that story. i'm not saying he doesn't develop as a protagonist, but the ways that he grows and changes are primarily about his relationship to lan wangji-- and in true MXTX fashion, the things that the primary couple feel for one another don't tend to extend into other areas of their lives or apply to other people. wei wuxian can confront the things lan wangji did for him, and his feelings of guilt about that-- and thus he can move on from them, he can wipe the slate clean. there's no need for thank you and sorry, we don't have to think about the past anymore, we just need each other in the present. it works for a romance, especially the specific terms of wangxian's romance, but denial is rarely a great route for increasing one's understanding of oneself.

[miiilowo]

hey, same anon from earlier here. Idk if you’ve thought of it but, do you have any thoughts about a fnafsb ruin rewrite? I like hearing your rewrite thoughts btw :] I think your ideas are very neat

i dont have any thoughts about a ruin rewrite exactly, but i do have ones for just the base game! so ill. share that here ^_^ sorry if youve alr seen me ramble about this specifically but its more simplified and straight to the point than my previous posts ab it anyways

my copycat killer vanny au is less of an AU and more of a "what if steel wool . didnt. do that: a collection of ideas" and so SB being different is a big big portion of it

First off, lore wise, I'd completely remove william. as much as i love him, im tired of his corpse being dragged around much like everyone else. This means no glitchtrap. Fnaf VR would be non-canon, and purely just be a compilation of games and have ZERO story implications. so it'd go straight from ucn+ffps -> security breach. the pizzaplex would exist because of the fazbear ent franchise package (the same one michael got in FFPS)

Vanny would be a true-crime obsessed freak failwoman who gets a little bit too invested in the missing childrens incident and mr afton as a result. she is homocidal. and unwell. after months (possibly years or more) of being obsessed with william and the murders, she sees that the pizzaplex is hiring, and takes her chance!

In one of the SB endings you can see that theres multiple already missing children listed in a newspaper. I'm sure you can see where im going with this

So. Security breach. My first course of action would be to solve the glamrock issue-If theres no glitchtrap, theres no reason to be aggressive. my solution to this is making it so they have a night mode where they try and find any patrons still in the building after closing time and alert the security guard ((think of all the vloggers posting WE STAYED OVERNIGHT IN THE PIZZAPLEX!?!?!?! (WE ALMOST GOT CAUGHT) videos)). this is bad because the security guard is vanessa

I think for the beginning of the game, we have gregory being caught by her straightaway. he would be upset, but not have a reason to really fear her; afterall, shes just some nightguard. she can take care of him and make sure hes safe, right? lure him into a false sense of security. i want her to bring him to a room (perhaps the vanny hideout in sb), say she has to leave and that she'll be right back. from here, the lights will go out (she shut them off + put on her little murder getup + disabled the security cameras). Now, going back to the missing kids, i like to imagine shes a bit of a freak and hasnt stuffed any of the bodies into the suits yet because she wants to wait until she has enough victims and then do it all at once. Gregory will either see blood or smell a corpse in the vanny hideout, and manage to escape through a vent. from here, the game will take place in the dark. vanny will peek around corners and from railings, always watching you but never quite catching up except for some chase sequences because she likes toying with her prey [which will eventually be her downfall]. You try to avoid her and the animatronics.

Glamrock freddy is a problem. I dont want the glamrocks to be as sentient as they currently are, so i think making them be a sort of shitty chatgpt AI would work wonderfully. It means that glamfred could be very, very, very unhelpful at times, and would leave room for uncanny interactions as well as funny ones, which fnaf is sort of known for. the funnies. the sillies. the jokes. the "dont poop on the floor"s. He would be programmed to protect children above all else, however, so he isn't in night mode like the others are.

In security breach, theres a really fucking good cut plotline about glamrock freddy. After getting all of his upgrades, when vanny disassembles him, he turns against gregory, and becomes an antagonist. i cannot stress enough that this USED TO BE IN THE GAME. we have lines of gregory crying and shit. i would 100% keep this in the SB rewrite. its at this point he would shift into night mode instead of just succumbing to the mind control stuff like before. thatd happen either about 2/3rds of the way through or halfway, with a few stretches of time where freddy either isnt cooperating or is unavailable like in the OG game beforehand

outside of that, i would make the pizzaplex smaller, grimier, and dingier. not the same levels as fnaf 1 of course, but the only super clean areas would be like. the atrium and dining areas. fazbear ent is neglectful and unsafe, the vents and rooms patrons dont go into typically arent gonna be super clean. the kitchens probably only get cleaned when they know a health inspector is coming. lets be real

id also love a heavier focus on liminal space sort of enviornments in the pizzaplex. its an empty 80s themed mall! its the perfect setting for it! they kinda sorta did it in the daycare, but didnt fully commit, and id LOOOVE more areas like that, because in the dark theyd be 100000x more unsettling. the only lighting would be very dim neon lighting for ambience and a flashlight i imagine, maybe one on gregorys fazwatch

i dont have a lot of plot points rounded out overall, just some concepts id throw in there, and i especially dont have an ending planned out. ive never been too big on the sci-fi elements fnaf took on around SL and the release of the books (been a fan the whole 9 years!), so trying to figure out an ending that would lean into ruin and making ruin....not like that . would be a whole. Task. a fun task, but a task nonetheless. i do like ruin quite a bit unlike SB, but it wouldnt mesh well with everything else i have going on here and would be bit out of left field i thinks

[minthara]

heyy i saw your otp asks while scrolling through the minthara tag and you characterize her so wellll and i was wondering do you have any specific headcannons about her👀👀👀

this means so much to me thank you 🥲 have a few thots:

- I think she's the youngest sister of her family, which is why she had no problem leaving the Underdark to go to Moonrise Tower. I don't think she could have gone much higher in house Baenre - she's probably extended family, not direct family of the matron. She does however have access to get good assassins and fighters (she mentions in the game) so she can't be fully unimportant.

- She was quite quick to turn of Lolth, and on the Absolute after you recruit her. I don't think she will ever follow a god again.

- She mentions stringing up corpses in "her" garden, so I'm guessing she has her own house in Menzoberranzan and isn't living with her family. The fact that she has a garden is honestly 💜

- My headcanon about her age proved true!! She's in the 200-300 span, on the earlier side I'd say. Gun to my head I'll say she is 236. She mentions smth about Viconia betraying her house and she was a child, so if anybody knows if there's a canon date for that we can narrow it down even closer 👀

- I guess she can play the lyre?? At least she gives you one to summon the dude who takes you to Moonrise Tower. She might have been training in the arts, growing up in such a prestigious house, but I don't think it's a hobby she enjoys.

- She says she's never been to Baldur's Gate when you enter, so I think she's never been to the surface at all before leaving for Moonrise. But she doesn't mention that afaik, so might be wrong.

- I don't think she had many friends, even less than normal for a noble drow.

- It's canon that she had whole big ol THING for Orin and also that she was very captivated by Ketheric (I think you can read it as admiration as well as a more romantic interest). She's into power, and people who have power, and she lets that admiration she has blind her to the bad sides of these people.

- She's jealous and possessive and if she gets implemented as a real romance I don't think she'd be open to polyamory.

- In dialogue it really does sometimes sound like she misses the Underdark and would like to go back to Menzoberranzan 💜

[ggren-mainz]

Umineko - question arcs playthrough -> ep 1 - 11

last part - All parts and episodes - next part

Things are getting worse and worse

she's been telling y'all who the culprit was all along, y'all just don't want to listen.

Also I was looking on reddit at memes and one umineko one was like making fun of people who assume the answer arc will answer shit and that they finished ep 8 and still didn't know the culprit like ....that can.,,happen? God no wait i gotta lock in huh?? no more 'NONBELIVERS"???? well i think for now it's ok since i sincerely doubt you can solve anything with half of ch1 only, but still.... Ig ill have to think *disolves into a puddle and dies*

Wouldn't Kinzo's room be the closest to a safe one? I mean i remember them saying that only Genji had the key to his room, and in rest it's all done with an automated system.

Am i smart or am i smart ? (I think i'll become the queen of pointing out the obvious atp.)

Sooo true, save this here to keep it in mind, but yeah while something may seem like the most logical answer for the opponent, they might've not done it because perhaps they haven't thought of it. Variables variables...

they all go to hide in Kinzo's room, and at the entrance, Maria says how the door is built to not let magical entities in, having the same symbol drawn on it as the charms she gave to Jessica and Battler. So Beatrice couldn't have entered this room with her magic, and instead the theory that Kinzo left it of his own accord is probably right. That or Eva was right about Natsuhi or she lied about the receipt OR a secret door exists.

oookay this changes things quite a lot. Basically, he said that Beatrice existed but she died. So does this suddenly turn into a ghost story? No i don't think so.

Yk what would be the funniest thing Beatrice could do rn? Appear lmao. But yeah no good resolution too bad it's almost definitely not the real one. Or at least not the entire story for sure.

Wait wait wait, will this imply that Kanon and/or Shannon were Kinzo's children?? Hmm i mean, maybe it could explain Kanon's words. Or maybe just someone in that orphanage. I don't know if I'm sold in any way but i'd argue it's something to keep in mind.

Ok they say he used the orphans as human sacrifices which we know isn't true cause Kanon kind of died of his own will...to some extent. Idk i don't believe it rn, but again, good to keep in mind.

FINALLY. Took them this long huh.

Huh so my earlier theory was wrong, the twilight doesn't literally mean twilight. Then i sure wonder what will happen at the end.

If this isn't magic and someone is doing all of this than props to them they sure are a good actor.

Look i get it these people are very worried and do not know what to do. I'm not gonna call them stupid or say they should've acted another way, but i hope next time loop/whatever going back in time will happen they will figure out that maybe they should take the "get my gold" threat more seriously.

She's so cool but at the same time she's so getting stabbed soon. I can just feel it.

They're dying.

:C poor Maria....She deserves better parents. Pls guys fix it fic with Maria found family,

so later they realize the whole purpose of the letter was to divide them, and bring fear. A phone call comes in which you can only hear Maria's distant singing, and the people in the room panic and go out as to find and help her.

Oh god...she'll be singing next to the corpses, won't she? Also, i wonder what she's singing.

ofc i was right. Also *points finger* I know this image! it's the one in the thumbnail of the "Answers to all Umineko crimes and murders" video that kept being recommended to me on youtube! I cannot wait to watch it tbh, i bet I'll be like"HUH??? NO WAY!? HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO GUESS THAT?!" the whole time.

So she is somehow blood related to Kinzo? I mean it being his wife would also work but I'd say daughter works better. Idk I'm saying bullshit, I'll just make a note of this.

ok so Natsuhi is invited to a duel with Beatrice and when the children find her, she has apparently shot herself. Maria then starts running towards the portrait where apparently Beatrice was, and we can hear her voice laughing. Then we cut to a sort of retelling of the events from the police's perspective, and apparently, they found the story about what happened on the island in a journal written by the one and only....*drum rolls* ....MARIA! now this wouldn't be that big of a surprise except we are also given the last line of the journal which says...

WHICH IS WEIRD ASF! because of obvious reasons. Why is she saying to find out the truth?? Does this mean she didn't actually believe in the witch? Or well maybe not that but did something else also happen? This doesn't sound like Maria at all. so ig another mystery to be discovered.

And this is it, the end of the chapter. The next part will be the tea party and my final thoughts and theories. Also just a thought but yeah, although i obviously wish to find the answers, this would be a metal way to end the game, and like not continue at all. Would be quite an end lol.

next part

[mermaidsirennikita]

I know everyone blames the animation for how lifeless and stale The Lion King (2019) is, and that's probably the biggest issue

(like how is it that the mouths don't move any better than they would a movie from the early 2000s that cost a fraction of this movie's budget)

But it's also just plan adaptational choices with the dialogue, the staging, etc. In the 2019 version, Scar pushes Simba towards the ledge after his return with this weird demotivational speech that is less about like.... the death of Mufasa and Simba's place as king, and more of this bullying demotivational spiel where at the end Simba goes "I'm nothing" the way you would say to your therapist after a heavy sesh.

In the original, it's this operatic crescendo that is VERY MUCH about Simba believing he killed his father, and you even get this moment where Nala is shocked, and Simba's mom is all "TELL ME IT ISN'T TRUE" as if her tiny child intentionally killed her giant lion husband (I blame it on shock, she had a hell of a day). This sets up Scar's reveal of "I killed Mufasa" and the adrenaline surge it gives Simba much better, and it's indicative of how little the people adapting this movie cared about the original's messaging, its Shakespearean origins, or its tone. Like, Simba isn't *just* dealing with long term nihilistic depression caused by trauma, he SPECIFICALLY believes he killed his father. And the scene technically highlights that, but takes the air out of what that means to Simba and focuses on like, this therapy-speak "I feel like I'm nothing" thing. SIMBA AIN'T THAT EVOLVED. HE DIDN'T GO TO THERAPY ONCE!!!! TIMON AND PUMBAA DON'T BELIEVE IN IT!!!!!!

In a dialogue-free moment that caught my eye as well--when we see Mufasa's corpse in the original, we see his full body pretty clearly, and it take up most of the frame. He looks pretty peaceful and unbattered aside from his whiskers/mane being fucked up, but he's clearly like. Devoid of energy. Which is something Disney didn't often show you with... really any characters, but especially good ones, prior to this. Snow White and Aurora were really just sleeping; you didn't see Bambi's mom's body. Simba like, nudges his head and pulls at his ear (in a callback to an earlier scene that the 2019 version butchers) and we see how slack his body is. Like, his lower jaw shifts differently in a way that suggests total lack of life, and it's honestly pretty disturbing.

In the 2019 version, we see much less of him, and there's not a lot of attempting to move the body, even though it makes sense that a child in denial who'd ever experienced death up close would do that. And I can't help but feel that this shorter, more sterile approach is like... about not wanting to freak kids out with the "realistic" corpse, which is more battered but somehow feels more artificial, too. The original sought to provoke emotion, while the remake actively avoids it.

Anyway, two things I noticed today

[bumblerhizal-art]

Helooooo~~~~ I come with questions for Vir, Iseran and Helga! For all three of them from the Codex prompts:

7. something written by a diplomat who has stayed at Skyhold

And for Helga specifically:

15. something written to your OC by a younger member of their family

Have an amazing day!!!

Hello hello hello! I've scrounged together a platter of codex entries for your sampling! I hope you find them up to taste

As a content warning, the 7s (particularly Vir and Iseran's) include some minor fantasy racism

Cut for length

7. Vir & Iseran

An intercepted letter found on Leliana's desk and bearing the seal of Savrenne. Dearest brother, With your next shipment, please include one of our musicians. Ignace lost his in the evacuation from Haven, and the music played in Skyhold's court is so painfully provincial compared to your Sylvestre's compositions. I require more velvets and furs as well. My seamstress needs quality materials to occupy her hands. I did not plan to spend so long in these freezing mountains. If my dresses grow any more outdated, the others may begin to think me a walking corpse, and with these temperatures, they very well may be right! I remember two of the Inquisitor's companions, the Dalish and Qunari apostates, from the Conclave. When I first saw them, the Qunari was carrying off the elf away from the Divine's quarters shortly before the explosion. Now, they stand unharmed and protected by the Inquisitor's side. It would be untoward of me to speak ill of those so clearly trusted by the Inquisitor, but it must strike one as suspicious. Perhaps Val Royeaux was too narrow in her earlier accusations. Just the same, these words may very well be the ramblings of mountain air madness. Pay them no heed. In happier news, after the Inquisition's rousing sealing of the Breach, it now intends to also locate and defeat its creator. Clearly, we were wise to lend them our support. I've overheard rumors of them attempting to secure invitations to the Empress's upcoming masquerade at the Winter Palace. I'm sure our efforts would be appreciated if we could make that any easier. Your most trusted ambassador, Etiennette

7. Helga

Arl Leonas, I have just arrived safely in Skyhold. The accommodations have been quite acceptable. There is a much heavier Orlesian presence than Fereldan, but rest assured they will not force their own course without challenge. I will keep you informed as events unfold. Ever at your service, Ser Gwyneth Ps. The rumors are true. The Herald is a dwarf. I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I have to wonder what it means that the Maker sent one who isn't even one of His own children to save us. He works in strange ways alright.

15. Helga

A carefully folded letter found among Helga's personal effects. A tattered white flower is inside. There are several words which have been misspelled, scribbled out, and rewritten correctly. Dear Mom, Gunnar let me borrow his crossbow yesterday. He said I was the quickest talent he'd ever seen! I knocked down five bottles in a row from the opposite side of the shooting range. By the time you get back, I bet I'll be the new best archer at the hideout. Dad's been taking me to the Uncrushable Pigeon for dinner every night, and it's starting to get samey. He tried to cook eggs for breakfast one time last week, and they caught on fire. The Dasher says you're going to be off on mission for a long time, but can you at least send Dad your recipes? I think he needs the help. I'm going to sneak a pretty flower I dried into the envelope for you when he's not looking. Sincerely, Willem

[Ask Game]

[mymadmedleyw]

Okay... I have an absolutely crazy idea.

I already have a concept that (after 'Change In The Core Of Heart') Tucker has a sort of face to face talk with Dan, to clear up some things.

So, my mind now is like 'what if to ensure he wouldn't hurt the teen, he changes to a form in what Tucker wouldn't count him as a threat?'.

Meaning... the form he remembers to Danny? Also known as, his version of fifteen-year-old Danny...

I just can't get rid of this idea now... it's so great!

I could rant about this picture now in my mind!

(unfortunately, I have to write something else before getting to this work-piece properly, but damn... just imagine it, goosebumps, goosebumps I say!)

Like (short scenario concept below):

...Trying to be negligent about the ghost's words, and latest statement, Tucker gazed into the dark night around them, marking the city below.

Amity Park seemed settled, unaware that there was a possible threath, hiding in plain sight.

Then, a flash of light, grabbed him out of the worried thinking, making him snap his head towards it to catch the explanation. A smaller shadow sat down on the roof a bit away from him.

At first, Tucker confused blinked, searching after the tall, glowing outline he was just talking with. But then as the prior action sank in his mind, he looked at the other, new form.

The thin outline, ignorant of his stalled mind, lit up a hand in greenness, and created a neon light ball in mid-air, breaking the darkness around them.

"Even if you already wear glasses, maybe you should avoid stay in dim light long. Human eyes could adjust, but let's not push it too far. It would just wreck it." A higher voice explained, the right opposite of the earlier deep, echoing one.

Tucker flabbergasted, stammering suddenly very unintelligently. Maybe the sound of it made the strange form caught the noise too. A very familiar outline turned to him then.

"What?" A mimicked version of a younger teen snapped. Tucker swallowed at the clear sight of his friend. It was Danny looking at him back now, from a few years ago.

The green light ball, reflecting from the bright, icy blue eyes, made it flicker those in the glowing redness, telling clearly what was going on.

With an annoyed eye-roll, the illusion explained himself. "I thought you'd be much comfortable with this, or was I wrong?" The exact copy of a younger Danny Fenton asked him in an unmistakable fretted tone, though in the teen's voice.

Tucker remained speechless, unsure what to say. Besides, he couldn't take off his eyes from the mimicked form. It was Danny, but at the same time...

He knew his friend back then, the tiredness of the features, he had been there after all, but this... It was like the body could have survived much worse things than he had been aware.

Then it hit. It wasn't Danny's shapeshifted form, it was...

"It's..." Tucker started, but couldn't let out the words. His mind was shocked.

The ghost, stared at his smaller hands as if checking the view, then turned back to him with a sigh. "Well, yes. This imagine of him sort of... burned in me. The fifteen-year-old version of me, of Danny, I mean." The clearance came. Then the being glanced at him. "I assumed it is better than my other form. You seemed tensed, so I thought it would make you less... uneasy."

Tucker blinked and blinked again. The truth sickened him. So, technically he was right now talking with a corpse. Or, a ghost... He couldn't tell which was the right labelling, but still.

Thinking long, at the end, Tucker sat down too, marking the sight in front of him. "Isn't it--"

"--weird?" The ghost guessed, pondering then on the answer. "It is. I'm only slowly getting to grasp what being me means, you know... But if you are asking about this 'form', yes it is. It's disgraceful. And it doesn't feel... right. But I think I couldn't talk with you normally otherwise, am I right?"

Frowning, then after a long moment, Tucker reluctantly admitted. "It's true..."

The ghost shifted a bit in his seating position, getting cross-legged, then slapped, satisfied. "Great! Now, where were we?"...

[chaos-writes]

Spoiled! A Rikiya Yotsubashi x reader fic

Warnings: so basically the reader gets called "little one" a lot. Call it what you want, but it is not CG/L (at least the kink side of it. It is more or less the therapeutics of it). There is a lot of softness and tenderness, and there is a bath scene. Not s*xual, but a bath nonetheless. Slight angst. Lots of comfort. Reader has a job (anywhere, doesn't matter) and there are descriptions of physical pain. It is so comfortable and fluffy that I have literally fallen asleep writing it. Twice.

Word count: ~2k

"Hey Rikiya, I'm home!" He was sitting on his squishy armchair, in gym shorts and an undershirt, hair down and sleepily flipping through the newspaper. He turned to look at me and gave a lazy smile. "Hello, Little One." I just got home from a long day at work and could quite literally pass out. "My nerves are shot. I had such a bad day today." His smile faltered a little, concern beginning to nibble at his expression.

He gently laid the newspaper he was holding onto the coffee table in front of him and motioned for me to lay on the couch next to his armchair. He sat a soft pillow down on the end of the couch closest to him. I layed down on the leather couch and took a deep breath. He stroked my hair a few times before planting a kiss to my temple.

"I know how hard you have been working lately, my dear. I want you to understand that it won't go unnoticed by me. You deserve so much, Little One. Now... what can I do to help make you feel better?"

"I would love to just rest. I barely have any energy left and every customer that came by had such an attitude and my boss was so mean today and- and..." tears welled and bit the corners of my eyes hard as my voice began to crack. Rikiya slid off the armchair and kneeled by my side, turning me onto my side and hugging me ever so tightly.

He then pulled me up and sat on the couch, having me straddle his lap and wrap my arms around his neck. I was only able to get a small glimpse of the tears shining in the corners of his eyes before I was enveloped in a pair if strong arms and given a warm soft chest to rest my head and cry into.

He spoke softly into my hair, "It's all right, Sunshine. It's okay to cry. I want nothing more than to take all of that pain away from you." He went on and rocked side to side as I silently sobbed into the crook of his neck and sniffled. "You're allowed to have these big feelings and show that you're having them. You're allowed to take up space and express how you feel. Let it all out, darling. Everything is going to be okay."

He held me until I no longer sniffled, cooing at and comforting me. He continued to encourage me to relieve all my worries from my mind. After what felt like ages, I sat up and he carefully cradled my face in his hands. "Are you okay? Do you feel a little better now?" Rikiya's tears dried and stained his cheeks now. His eyes spoke a million words of sorrow and shined brighter than I have ever seen before. I reached up to wipe his cheeks as gently as I could and rested my hands on his chest as I spoke.

"Yeah. I feel better. I dont know what made me do that, normally I can handle it..."

"It's alright, Little One," He said. He caressed my arms and waist and spoke, "You were probably bottling it up without realizing. You know it's always okay to come to me to talk, alright?"

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you, too, baby. Let's get you something to eat. You must be so hungry after such a long day." My hands traveled from his chest to my stomach. It's true, I thought. I forgot to eat…

I climbed off of his lap as he sat up and unlocked his phone. He pulled up one of those food delivery apps and leaned closer to me. "What looks good? Ooh, I know! How about pho? I think some warm food is what you need."

"That sounds pretty good right now. Can we get seafood rolls too?"

"I was just about to ask if you wanted some. I love those things!" He giggled and smiled his dorky smile at me. I giggled back. He placed the order and typed in the information.

"You know we can split it, right, Rikiya?"

"Nonsense. Tonight is about you, Little One. Don't worry about money or having to pay for food. You've dealt with enough today." He kissed my forehead and closed his phone.

"What do you say we watch a movie while we wait for the food? Your pick." He turned on the TV and flipped through the subscriptions. "How about one of those Tim Burton movies you like?"

"Yeah! What about The Corpse Bride?"

"Of course Dear!" He smiled widely.

About a half hour later, our food arrived. He walked out the living room, answered the door and thanked the delivery person. He returned with two small bags, one for each of us.

I started to slide down the couch to sit at the table, but Rikiya stopped me. He grabbed a cushion from underneath the table and took my hand in his. He gently helped me down onto the cushion and set up my food for me.

We ate silently with the movie playing in the background. I noticed in my peripheral vision that Rikiya was smiling to himself and looking at me every time I paid more attention to the TV rather than my food. 

He started to play with my cheeks and hair and smiled. He gingerly kissed my cheek and. I giggled and quickly dipped my finger in the warm broth. I swiped it onto the tip of his nose and we laughed. 

After a few moments of silence, he grabbed onto my hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. In that moment I knew I was going to be okay.

I ate slowly and savored every bite and slurp of those noodles. They felt so wonderful finally filling up my empty stomach and they warmed me right up. I have never felt so relaxed. 

As the end credits rolled around, I started to pick up all of the trash left on the table and collected it in one of the takeout bags it all came in. I hummed along with the soundtrack of the credits and wasn't aware of my surroundings in the slightest. 

I heard Rikiya get up from the table and felt his warmth as he sat himself behind me so that I sat between his legs. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into a warm and comforting embrace. He nuzzled into the crook of my neck and pressed small, gentle kisses to my jaw and shoulder. I reached over and started rubbing and patting the side of his leg. 

We sat in a comfortable silence as the movie finally finished and embraced each other for a while. I leaned back into Rikiya. "Rikiya?" 

"Yes, Little One?"

"I'm starting to hurt again. The food and everything was able to distract me but now I need to actually relieve the pain..." 

"I have an idea. I'll run a warm bath for you and set up your favorite aromatherapy things. Does lavender sound good, Darling?"

"That sounds wonderful, Rikiya." I gave him a sleepy smile.

He helped me up slowly and sat me down on the couch. He grabbed a blanket off the armchair and draped it over me to keep me warm while he handled everything. He kissed my head ever so gently and got to work, walking to the bathroom and setting everything up. 

Rikiya laid everything out on the counter so it was reachable from the bathtub. Lavender and cedarwood lotion, gentle shampoo, conditioner, lavender bubble bath, and rosehip and lavender candles. He grabbed some fresh extra-soft towels out of the closet and prepared them to be thrown in the dryer about halfway through the bath. He poured the bubble bath, lit the candles, finished running the bath and dimmed the lights. It was sunset, so it was still light enough to be able to navigate the bathroom and the different products.

I was laying on the couch, dozing off, when I felt a pair of hands on my blanket. Then, one was interlocking beneath my knees and the other around my back. I lazily opened my eyes and looked up at my carrier. He cooed at me and smiled. 

"So precious, my Sunshine."

I yawned and reached up to pet his cheeks while we were on our way to the bathroom. Soon enough, he stepped through the doorway of the bathroom and gently and slowly stood me up on my feet. 

Rikiya held onto my arms gently and spoke earnestly, "If you're okay with it, I'd like to stay in here with you to make sure you get to relax fully. The last thing you need is to worry about washing. You're in pain." 

"Okay. No funny business, though," I giggled. He smiled and shook his head. "No. No funny business. I just want you to relax. You had a hard week as it is." 

I undressed and got ready to get into the bathtub. Rikiya grabbed my hand and helped me down into the warm, inviting bath. I slid down and took a deep breath. "Perfect. You're such a wonderful being. So precious, so valuable, you're worth it all Little One... everything."

"You have no idea how good of a boyfriend you are, Rikiya."

He… winced?

He spoke carefully, "Thank you, I really do appreciate that. But something just isn't quite right with the term… boyfriend."

"Oh… did you have something else in mind, then?"

"What about 'partner'?" He smiled and caressed my cheek gently.

"That's fine. As long as we're both comfortable, I guess." I played with the bubbles and swiped some on his hand. He laughed and we both fell into a comfortable, sleepy silence. 

He grabbed the stack of soft towels he put out earlier and ran them to the dryer. He came back as quickly as he left and went back to kneeling next to me.

"Alright," he said, reaching for the different bottles. "Time to start washing."

He grabbed a cup, filled it, and began wetting my hair with the water. He filled the palm of his hand with some shampoo and gently lathered and massaged it through my scalp. He smiled and kissed my forehead. He tilted my head back and poured the warm water over my hair to rinse, continuing to massage in between pours.

He cleaned my hair completely of suds and oil and went to work on conditioning. He gently combed the conditioner through and worked it into my hair before rinsing throroughly. Rikiya then grabbed a wash rag and rubbed some moisturizing body wash into it. He rubbed my arms and legs and back, and continued washing me to his standard of cleanliness.

I continued to play with the bubbles and talk to Rikiya as the water cooled down from how long the bath had been.

"You're spoiling me, Rikiya," I said, petting his hair and caressing his cheek and neck.

"Well, that makes two of us, then. I feel so spoiled just being around you." He smiled and lifted the drain plug. I smiled and yawned. "Let's get you dried off and in some warm pajamas, okay?

"Okay."

After he dried me off with a warm towel and pulled on my pajamas, he guided me along and walked me to bed, which has been made, and complete with a cup of chamomile tea and heating pad waiting for me. He picked me up and gently laid me down. He pulled the fluffy blankets over me, tucked me in, and kissed my forehead.

Rikiya turned on the lamp and turned the bedroom lights off. He tugged off his undershirt and gently climbed into bed by my side. "I love you so much darling. You are my world."

"I love you too, Rikiya."

[starshiningsirius]

Dr. Jerkyll and Mr. Hyde (Yandere Leech twins x reader)

An au idea I had came to mind based off @yandere-wishes Victorian twst story and @yandere-romanticaa 's Extraterrestrial story.

I love these two eels and I'm late on their birthday but it's still their birthday for me.

The clear moonlit sky shown brightly over the waters of the ocean. As yet another scream echoed within the streets of a supposedly vacant city.

The detective woke up with a start but not from the scream, but from the ringing of her phone. A report she had been writing stuck to her face from the humid atmosphere. She picked it up getting a few details from Idia, who was panicking on the other side of the line. Considering he worked in the criminal department at the desk and didn't have to see any bodies whatsoever you would think he'd be calm when trying to say what happened.

"Calm down Idia. Tell me what happened?" Her voice was gentle since yelling wouldn't help his nerves.

"Therewasanothermurder! Theyclaimedanothervictim!" He spoke so fast that his words wouldn't be understood by most but she was used to this with him and every word was caught by the detective's ears.

"Where's the crime scene?"

"In front of Sam's shop on Crystal Road, Ms. Y/n L/n." The voice of Idia's younger sibling popped up a contrasting his older brother's cowardly behavior.

He wanted to be just like his older brother so he spent his days in the office with him. Though there were times when Idia tapped out and his brother had to step in.

"Thank you both. I'll head their now." She hung up after hearing a farewell from both brothers.

The candle was long out and she grabbed her gun, notebook, and pen within the darkness, before venturing out the confines of her home.

When she got there a crowd had surrounded one spot in particular.

Cater was already there taking photos of the scene as it was his job being a forensic photographer.

"Hey, hey! Y/n's here, make way!" The crowd parted for her as soon as he announced her presence.

Whispers were muttered as she passed through into the middle of the crime scene. Mostly about how she hadn't caught this killer yet. She ignored them though and went on to meet with her coworker.

"It never ceases to amaze me how your always here first Cater, if anything you should be a suspect." She started off saying to her compatriot.

"Can't help it if I want to stay informed dectective, I just want to stay informed before anyone else." His smile on his face was out of place as he took another photo of the corpse.

"Who was it this time?"

"Such a poor fate to befall dear Monsieur Heart." A new voice joined in the conversation.

"Rook, I see you've arrived but can I get their name please?" The detective said sighing at the theatrics of her friend.

"His name was Ace Trappola, I can't imagine how Monsieur Spade must be feeling about this tragedy." Rook feigned a sorrowful look.

"Oh yeah A-Deuce kun were inseparable, I feel sorry for him. Think he knows already?"

"If there as inseparable as you say Cater then I suppose not, he isn't here yet otherwise I'm sure he'd cause a scene." She noted.

"That doesn't make him a suspect though right? I mean sure he's been a suspect in many crimes before, but Deuce kun far too soft!" Cater was a bit frantic at the thought alone.

"No, I doubt it was him he wouldn't want to disappoint his mother with something as vulgar as murder, he cares for her far too much to do that." That calmed his worries.

"You know I've heard Monsieur Heart have many laments on how his delivery to Roi d' Rose-" Cater didn't let Rook finish.

"RIDDLE?! No way he did this! Have you seen how strict his mother is? Just waltzing in their office and so much as suspecting her son is a one way ticket to hearing her screams! Besides I doubt his mother would even let him out this late anyway, he's always about following the rules set in place for him." Cater says with an imaginary sweat that could have formed to express his fear and anxiety.

"True, and I can't afford another headache from that lady, but we could get some valuable intel from him about Trappola's demeanor the past few days seeing as it may be a pattern in the serial killers motives."

"What about Sam? He's gotta know something considering the murder occurred in front of his shop." Cater's gaze went toward the shop to the right of them.

"Ah the shop keep, a wonderfully eccentric man with many secrets." Rook stated his opinion of him from what he gathered on his own free time.

"Says the French man whose got info on everyone from stalking them on the street." The detective says shaking her head at the strange man next to her who happily smiled at her statement.

"I wouldn't call it that more so getting to know my prey more personally." She sighed hearing his reply.

"A crime analyst such as yourself is such a good cover up!" Cater's response made her sigh once again.

She shook her head toward her coworkers. They took their job in a mild manner but beyond that they did do well to get it done. Even though the means of how they did it were very much questionable in her eyes.

She looked toward the ground seeing the body of the former male right on the cusp of adulthood. His orange hair was a bit disheveled and the looks of shock on his face petrified in time.

"Ah, the dectective is already using those perceptive eyes of hers." Cater's words fell on deaf ears as she was examining the crime scene closely.

"As expected of Reine de la déduction, such dedication in her work. Très bien!"

Their bones were disfigured, just like the last person. No one has this type of strength it didn't make any sense. The only lead that was given but she noticed a glowing substance in his mouth.

"Cater, Rook, I need some confirmation. Out of all the other times these cases have been appearing there weren't any liquid substances to be found beside the occasional blood right?"

"You are correct."

"Yeah, nothing else to be found from what I could see." They both confirmed her suspicion.

She had to go talk to Jade again, but first thing tomorrow she had to interrogate Sam, as well as Riddle Rosenhearts which was sure to be headache on her part.

* * *

His mother was an agitation to say the least. During her entry into his mother's office and upon stating the reason for her entry, Riddle's mother had already hated her the moment she finished speaking. Yelling and hollering about how her son would never commit such a crime even though the dectective never stated he was a suspect in the slightest.

She only asked to question the behavior of Mr.Trappola as of late before he met his end. He was under no suspicion whatsoever but she wasn't having that and kept screeching until her son had to calm her down.

It was much more pleasant afterwards but the headache Y/n had in the early morning just listening to her screeching didn't disappear throughout the whole endeavour.

Just before she bid him farewell he apologized deeply for his mother's behavior with a red face of complete embarrassment. To which she replied it was alright and thanked him for his time. Unfortunately though she had to bear that burden on her own as Rook and Cater had their own jobs to partake in analyzing the other crimes and investigating the trend within the series of murders. It was unfair but that was life. By the time she exited their establishment it was already in the afternoon a little after lunch.

Next was to venture to Sam's shop which was right where the crime had taken place. The body was already removed and taken to forensics, so the only thing left was a broken street lamp.

"Ah, well if isn't the dectective, I believe I already know the pleasure of seeing you here on this fine day," He tipped his hat to her with a smile on his face.

"Afternoon to you too Sam. I would like to acquire any information you have on the murder of Ace Trappola that occurred last night, in front of your establishment."

"Such a shame the little demon, was too young to have bite the dust. But you know as well as I my information comes with a price."

"A thousand madols should suffice a description of what you saw right?" She questioned handing a stack of the paper currency to which he smiled at.

"All I know is that last night was certainly something else. I heard a smash of a lamppost outside my window, up on the second floor. Shop was already closed though. When I looked down I saw what looked to be two silhouettes outside the window. One way taller than the other though, I recognized of Trappola on the ground and something glowed within the hands of the killer, a vial of sorts. He poured it down the throat of the little demon, but Trappola put up a good fight before it was over."

"Over? Can you specify?"

"As in he was left on the ground for dead, it looked like he was choking on whatever was consumed. The killer held him tightly after he realized he was choking. It was similar to a hug but one that was more deadly than a normal one. After he dropped him to the ground and walked away laughing hysterically at who he squeezed."

"And you weren't going to go to the police to inform that you had witnessed the murderer of a serial killer!" Her voice had raised a bit in volume as her agrevated state didn't alleviate since earlier in the day.

"I'm not one to get involved in others private life, Dectective. I've got a business to run." She understood his point though exhaling a sigh through her nose.

"Right. If you want to keep your life you keep your mouth shut. Alright I thank you for the intel." The dectective closed her notebook after writing down many notes on the case.

"Pleasure doing business with ya, Dectective! Best of luck to you as well! You'll be needing it more than anyone." She was only able to hear the first part of it not when his cheery demeanor went away.

She walked out to her final destination of the day, a close friend of hers. His name was Jade Leech, a smart man that excelled in pharmaceuticals just as did Riddle's mother but in a more different sense. His potions were revolutionary with in the subject of alchemy and his botany skills and knowledge made his fame and fortune.

He's helped her on countless cases before, with his expertise in potions it aided in knowing key components to solving head bangers such as this.

As she reached the door of his manor she knocked before waiting a moment or two to see his smile.

"Dectective, how pleasant it is to see you today." He flashed his signature smile toward me, with pearly teeth straight and white.

"It's nice to see you too Jade. May I come in?"

"Your always welcome here, though I must say you do look exhausted how about I put on some tea?" He made way for me to step in.

"You don't have to Jade."

"I insist, naturally I should show good hospitality to all my visitors. Your free to take a seat wherever you like."

"So how are your mushrooms doing?" She said starting up conversation on a favorable topic for him. He was in the kitchen that connected to the empty dining room, that opened the way to the living room where she sat.

"I imagine you didn't come here just to speak on how my mushrooms are doing alone?" He spoke it in the form of a question but he already knew the answer with a knowing smile on his face that she couldn't see but knew he had.

"You are right, my apologies, I actually require your aid with a substance that could be the key in solving the recent serial killings." She watched as he walked in with two plates in hand.

"It's fine, I'm glad you can come to me for help." He served the two plates, one in front of her and the other in front of himself.

They had pasta on both of them with the mushrooms I mentioned. It smelled heavenly. Her stomach growled loudly which caused Jade to laugh lightly.

"I'm assuming you haven't eaten much of anything have you?"

"No I had too much work to do today." She blushed looking away from him.

He sighed making a small 'tsk' noise.

"You have got to take better care of yourself, that dedication of yours is admirable but otherwise you'll drive yourself into an early grave with that sort of work ethic." He chastised.

"Ah, I just don't have the time these days, I'm sorry for all the trouble you have to go through for me." Her eyes traveled toward the food with a slight guilty feeling.

"You speak as if your some sort of burden on me, quite the contrary I worry for your safety and yours alone. You may be a skilled dectective but, I care for your well being first."

Her face grew to an intolerable temperature that would make people think she was sick. She was very much surprised by his words. The first time anyone has ever said anything that endearing to her in a while.

So to ignore the feeling of her heart racing she picked up her plate kept her eyes trained on it. Her expression looked to resemble pouting.

"L -let's just eat then shall we?" She stumbled on her first word internally cursing as she heard Jade's laughter.

. . .

After they had eaten Y/n had spent some time explaining to Jade the situation with Trappola's murder and handed him the vile of the substance found at the crime scene.

He listened attentively and chimed in few times for clarity. He said he would have the analysis of the substance done within two days. Soon enough she was on her way out the door even though he had offered her to stay the night she had declined politely. It wasn't weird since they were close friends with one another anyway. Not to mention there were times where she would fall asleep while waiting for Jade to finish his analysis and he would be nice enough to place her in a room.

"Thank you Jade, I would have loved to spend more time with you, but I've been really busy as of late with all these murders." She thought for a moment and then looked up at him. He was a bit tall, scratch that he was tall, of course so she got on the tips of her toes and placed a kiss on his cheek to show him her gratitude.

Jade's face lit a flame, cheeks flushed as he touched where her lips made contact.

"I'll see you later." Was all she said before walking away briskly passed the gates of his house not looking back.

She would've heard the glass breaking inside the male's house in which indicated another presense inside.

. . .

Two days had passed and the dectective was trying to piece together what was the link between these series of murders.

She had to go check with Lilia who is the pathologist that had completed an autopsy on all the bodies of the victims. As eccentric as he was he was more tolerable than the combo of intricacies that are her co workers. Then again everyone in this office was weird in their own way.

"Ah, dectective what great weather we're having today, is it not?" He said with a smile on his face.

Unlike Jade he was significantly shorter than him so she had to look down a little to see him or stand a few feet away.

"It is indeed, Lilia. You seem to be in a good mood today."

"That is because I have made a breakthrough on today, while working through the night." His smile grew and the magenta eyes affirmed his happiness toward the news he had to share.

"On Mr. Trappola's body, I have found something strange but interesting nevertheless! A scale and not only that, but there is something you should see for yourself!" He brought her over to said man's corpse luckily the bottom half of his body is covered and the top half as well up to his shoulders.

Lilia grabbed one of his tools for dissection and beckoned her to come closer as she showed her what he had found. That's when she saw it.

Lilia had a small knife and maneuvered it to a small spot itself, lifting up a small piece of skin that was already slit and based on the size of the knife and similarity to another a butter knife it wouldn't have been able to cut the skin.

"There are two more like this on this side of his neck and three on the other side. So it seems like they're gills.

"What about the other bodies?"

"I spent the night examining those as well and they all have the same gills but Trappola here is the only one who had a few scales."

"So maybe the substance has something to do with these oddities on him. Trappola probably ingested some."

"It's quite possible that whoever this murderer is trying to test the substance on the person instead of themselves but based on Trappola's few scales being the latest attempt it seems they are making improvement for whatever the elixir's use is. These strange characteristics it reminds me of some fairytale I heard some time ago." He drifted off sounding like an old man reminiscing.

"Enlgihten me then Lilia." Knowing just how Lilia liked to ramble on about myths and legends like he'd seen them and lived through their stories.

"Well if you insist but this one involves merfolk certainly you've heard of mermaids and such right these scales on legs don't they remind you of those types of things. Gills on their necks so that half people half fish would gain the ability to breath underwater."

"Ah right but this is reality. Seeing is believing though right? Who knows though maybe they could help with the case." She was skeptic hearing about a bunch of lore that could just be coincidental but she knew better than that. Coincidents were more than just preordained.

. . .

Now back at Jade's manor the dectective was contemplating what in the world such a myth could play a factor in a murder scene. It just didn't make any sense as to why the person would need such a potion. What type of person would you have to be to go that f-

She couldn't finish that thought since Jade had opened the door.

"Ah, Jade good day to you-" the dectective looked up toward him to see the tall man staring at her for a bit longer than a few seconds. She did notice the strand of black hair usually on his right was on the left.

Unconsciously she reached up and was about to grab it before her hand was grabbed.

"Just what are you doing little dectective?" His voice got a bit darker towards the end sending shivers down her spine for a second before she saw his eyes in front of her and thought to herself for a second.

'Was his gold eye always on the right?'

A slight tighter squeeze on her hand woke her up form her head. She was reminded of the situation again. She could feel his breath closer to her face, she was internally malfunctioning and was losing her train of focus.

"Ah, I was, I was just trying to flip your black strand of hair." She stuttered and didn't internally curse herself this time since the proximity was still a factor in her brain turning to mush.

Jade suddenly smiled a wide one at that. Usually it'd be small and polite even when teasing he'd have a signature closed eyed smile keeping the adorable image of his flustered dectective in his head. But that wasn't the case this time. This smile was more menacing and sent bad news toward all who saw it.

Jade towered over her a bit more leaning to the right a bit toward her ear.

"Dectective do you know what you remind me of?" He questioned with a wide smile on his face.

He leaned in too close for comfort his breath could be felt on her right ear, while his hand on her shoulder kept her still.

"An adorable little shrimp! I could just eat you up!" He said it slow to build up suspense but it sounded serious and at the same time.

She pushed him away feeling her face heat up tremendously like an oven.

"J -Jade!" She couldn't find the words to describe what she just heard feeling beyond embarrassed and having her heart pound loudly that she swore he could hear.

"I -I have to go, thank you for your time!" She frantically stated about to run off but before she could Jade had grabbed her wrist and pulled her back.

"Aww can't I get a kiss too, little shrimp? Besides aren't you forgetting something?" She was too put off by the request to understand the sentence, but her mind did process part of the sentence and she remembered why she came here.

He held up a folded up sheet of paper in his hands toying with her holding it out of her reach.

How could he say that in such a cool voice? Her nerves couldn't handle so much teasing, it wasn't unlike him but it seemed he had gone over his usual gentlemanly behavior.

She hurriedly kissed him on the cheek in which he hadn't expected such a quick response to his question with a blush on his face becoming apparent and his frozen stature. She took the opportunity to jump up for the paper and ran from near the doorstep bidding farewell with the sheet of paper she had took in hand leaving a blushing male to watch her run out. His smile grew as he saw her frantic behavior, excitement bubbling within him.

He ran outside to the backyard of the mansion to go share his newfound happiness.

. . .

"Jade! Shrimpy is really cute!" The one male spoke to Jade in a tone of voice that was different than that of a few minutes, one that would have made him believe he was Jade himself.

There appearances were so similar, cept for the eyes and voice they were twins after all. With a little makeup and easy voice tone change one could hardly tell the difference anyway.

"I'd thought you'd understand if you saw her up close, Floyd." Jade was actually outside tending to his mushrooms in the garden while his look alike was entertaining the female detective that had left in a hurry. Though knowing his brother he could already assume how it must have went. Thinking of his little dectective being so flustered indefinitely brought out his sadistic side a bit.

"Can we keep her?" Floyd was so fond of her seeing her turn red, hearing her heart beating loudly, when she stuttered and that kiss on the cheek pretty much sealed the deal for him. She was so full of life and it brought excitement for him since he had to stay within the manor and avoid everyone. His behavior would be brash and scare many in the public eye not only that but his strength was inhuman which could cause problems for the person on the receiving end. Especially if you were trying to blend in.

They only came from the sea to see the lives of humans and unlike one of their friends who started a business in this day and age. Jade could survive on land with the ability to easily fool others with a facade whereas Floyd couldn't do that all the time and would probably squeeze someone for no reason other than boredom.

He didn't like being confined but after seeing the dectective sleeping on the couch once, he became curious as to who she was and why Jade spent so much time helping her. He knew for a fact his brother was not at all kind or generous. He was beginning to finally understand.

"We are but you have to be patient, you did give her both sheets of paper before she ran off correct?" His brother inquired finally seeing the hunger in his brother's eyes.

"Yup, she gave me a kiss just so she could distract me and take it. Shrimpy is so cunning she makes me want to squeeze her and pay her back for catching me off guard like that." The thought alone sounded enticing to Floyd, he couldn't wait to wrap his tail around her.

"I need you to go on another 'outing' tonight we have to perfect this first if we want to have any shot at having her to ourselves." Jade's words did nothing to damper his mood as his excitement reached a new level at the thought of showing his little Shrimpy off to everyone.

They were trying to get make a potion in which a human could become a sea creature, though it was easy for Jade to make one for himself and Floyd to come on land. The same can't be said for a person that's been human and has not a single gene that ties them to the ocean. Altering genetics is difficult and delicate and one mistake and their dear little detective could end up just like those poor unfortunate souls that were test subjects. Jade would never risk bringing her with them under the sea if he wasn't sure she'd make it.

"Okay~ Jade!" He said eagerly!

Now that Floyd was on board as well he would be more motivated and inclined to help, making it more easier for Jade as he wouldn't bother and complain so much about being on land longer.

. . .

She barely slept a wink after what had occurred. Every time she thought about her encounter with Jade she'd blush and bury her face into a pillow with frustration.

She tried before to get some of her work done before that, but that didn't work out too well as her mind drifted back to the same situation.

How close he was, the warmth of his breath against her ear, it was enough to make her brain stop functioning as if he were there again.

He seemed far more clingy than usual and she didn't know how to describe it other than strange. The notes from the alchemist were neat and precise and confirmed what Lilia and her examined on the bodies earlier in the day. But that wasn't the only thing that fell from the folded piece of paper. It was another small piece with neat cursive that matched the analytics on the other page.

'Would you like to spend your day off with me?'

Yet another reason she wouldn't be getting much sleep tonight.

. . .

After getting off from work she mentioned to her coworkers how Jade had offered her to spend her day off with him. Well they asked what she was gonna do with her day off since it was a rarity. First Cater asked her if she said yes to him yet. She said no and he understood from the get go that she was way too flustered to even respond to him. So he offered to go respond to him on her phone.

Rook congratulated her and went on a rant about love even though she tried to get through his head it wasn't a date. He asked what she would wear and she had no actual clue, in which Rook took that as an invitation to lend his aid and expertise.

He brought her to one of his friend's businesses. Cater said this place was highly recommended and that anyone whose anyone came to the place for a makeover. Specifically called Vil's beauty salon and boutique. She didn't understand how a person could have both but he seemed to be managing it fine. The said shop owner gave her one look and shook his head at her appearance.

His words were, "What a poor excuse for a girl to go on date with such a potato face such as that, it's shameful for not only you but the guy as well."

He had her try on clothes and by the end of it all, she felt different. Her head hurt from all the pulling around of her hair. She had put on enough clothes that she believed she was playing dress up. The outfit settled upon was different from her usual style and she had on makeup for the first time in her life.

Rook and Cater applauded Vil's work new appearance. The dectective had to admit that when she looked in the mirror she understood why Vil had such a reputation that Cater reccomended him highly.

She had to buy all of it of course and thanked Vil immensely for his efforts. There was actually a discount considering Rook brought her and she looked so 'pathetic'. He had a victoriously smug smile on his face and complimented his own efforts before waving the trio off. She thanked her two coworkers and bid them farewell, looking forward to the her first day off in a millennia.

When she met Jade the next day at his door he was plenty surprised by her appearance. He blushed with his eyes widened in astonishment at the change. Not to mention on the side of the manor Floyd could see just how beautiful she had dressed. It was going to be a long day especially with the heels she was wearing and trying her hardest to walk in.

. . .

The two friends went to Clover's bakery where Jade offered to pay for any sweets she wanted but it seemed they were terribly busy today and the line was a bit long not mention the place was packed inside so there weren't any tables to sit in.

Trey said it was nice to see her out and about for once not on dectective business for once. He said hello to Jade as they were all friends though she only knew Trey from Jade who introduced me. On rare occasions she would go to his bakery for something sweet. He handed them two cupcakes for free but also asked for a favor for him.

"Can you give deliever Riddle this tart please? His mother isn't home and he rarely ever gets anything sweet. I usually have Ace do it but-" He looks away for a moment.

"It's fine, Jade do you-"

"It's no trouble at all, we'd be happy to." He says with an enchanting smile on his face.

Trey handed over the box containing the tart to them and they made their way over to the clinic where Riddle resided.

On the way Jade and her conversed. She asked him why he agreed so quickly and he responded with his own unique answer.

"I know it's in your nature to help others. Yet another fond trait of yours."

It's more embarrassing hearing it for the first time and out loud no less. She could feel her face heat up again.

"Then there's when you turn into a cherry, one of my favorite traits." He said in a teasing tone with a smile toward her making the dectective flush even more and look away biting into her cupcake. To ignore the laughter emitting from her friend alongside her. Now this is the Jade she knows.

. . .

To be completely honest both of them enjoyed their time today with one another. They had delivered Riddle's tart which was almost a complete disaster.

Considering she asked Jade to be lookout in case his mother came back. Long story short she did arrive earlier than expected. After she and Riddle heard her voice outside the walls right near the entrance gate, the dectective told Riddle to go before she found him with the tart. Riddle was far more worried about her but the dectective told him she'd be fine.

By fine she meant ducking in the rose bushes for cover, there weren't any thorns surprisingly all been cut off. She waited for Riddle's mother to enter the house and had to scale the wall that was located next to an alleyway. Climbing up was the easy part but getting down was the hard part. She was wearing heels and that drop looked like she would possibly break a bone if she landed the wrong way.

She came to a decision to take a leap of fate and let her heels drop to the ground. One thought passed about Vil being pissed about her ruining them. She shook her head though and pushed herself off.

Before she could land someone else caught her. Looking up at her savior she saw the two colored eyes of Jade. Who smiled happily at making it on time.

"Ah look at that, my assumption was right. I thought you'd take this route out their place. It would've been such a shame if you were to get injured."

"Thank you Jade, can you put me down now please?"

"I don't think so I'd rather hold you like this until we get to the resturant for everyone to see." He playfully said watching her face heat up.

"Wha-? N -no I can walk on my own!"

"But you might have hurt something besides someone who can't get their words out is akin to a child so they must be coddled correct?" His teasing was endless today.

. . .

After leaving the Monstro Lounge a business run by one of Jade's friends, Azul Ashengrotto, the sun had already long set.

"Let me accompany you to your apartment, Y/n it's supposedly dangerous to be out after dark correct? Or you can just spend the night again?" He offered.

"I have to decline besides I've already used enough of your generosity I don't want to take it for granted. It's been such a great day thanks to you Jade, wish we could do these more often cept for the fact I have work tomorrow." She said in a relaxed tone.

Despite all the teasing she really did enjoy herself with the man. Having her heart beating loudly all day and having her brain short circuit was all too amusing to the man beside her, but out of everyone else even his own brother she made him feel strangely different. He couldn't explain the feeling itself, but he knew for a fact he'd never do all of this for someone he would use.

"You wish to spend more time with me? I can grant that you know." Jade had said that so simply and out of the blue but in a calm tone as well.

"There's no way you can do something like that but I appreciate the thought. It's fine though you've done enough already. I'd rather not burden you with a simple wish." She said with content.

Before he could respond to that statement fast footsteps hurried over to them both and made the pair turn around.

"I saw the killer it was Mr.Leech! He ran away from the scene!" His hair was a light green, eyes full of life and the loud tone of his voice was distinct.

"Sebek what do you mean you saw Jade kill someone he was with me the entire time!We just left the Monstro Lounge Azul saw us leave!" The dectective was defensive pertaining to justice being served, not to mention her friend was being accused and she had been with him the entirely of the day.

"No it was him I saw him Felmier was killed by him!"

"Felmier was killed?! You should've started with that! Take me to the body did you make sure he was dead?!"

. . .

Sebek had spread all about the town that Jade was the murderer even though the people who had seen us together throughout the day vouched. Trey, Riddle, Azul, Rook, and Cater even Vil had seen them together. Some actually took Sebek's words in and started to distrust Jade even so.

Vil and Rook two friends of Felmier had paid for the funeral costs as Epel's family was struggling. It was admirable to see the young man take on the vicious job as Vil's protégé. It really was a shame. Vil actually kept up a face and Rook though he looked upon the casket with blank like expression it was easy to tell he was out for blood. Jade did show up to pay his respects even though some glared at him and were suspicious.

Vil came up to dectecrive during the repass and told her to make that fool pay dearly. She would of course no argument there. Epel had been a good kid and may have been a bit brash but still good nonetheless. So was Ace.

And thus a good day ended on a sour note.

The dectective would have more sleepless nights. Lilia performed an autopsy on Epel's body with Vil standing by his side to make sure he didn't damage it. Even he was shocked to see more and more scales near his legs and gills that were more prominent.

These people were getting even more closer to there goal it seemed and she couldn't do a thing. She was so frustrated at that fact alone. Jade's analysis did help some though. Looking through shops though that sold what would be the components of the elixir nothing suspicious could be found in any of the people who had brought those items. Not to mention those who did didn't have all the items brought from another store, there was no reoccurring name in sales.

Speaking of Jade though she had begun to think back to Sebek. He wasn't the type to lie not on the name of the mysterious nobleman Malleus Draconia that he served would he ever embarrass himself to stain his name even slightly. That's what Lilia told her at least.

He said Jade had did the deed. But he was with her the entire time. Come to think Sam's description had also matched Jade's strange behavior before he gave her the analysis, but it didn't make sense. Jade was one person he couldn't be in two places at once!

Maybe someone was trying to frame him and to that extent she went to go question if he had any enemies of the sort. His response was that he didn't have any as far as he knew. That could have been a good lead.

With no others she sighed looking extremely worn out and Jade had a frown seeing her state. He insisted she stay the night and she denied saying she had to finish this case even more so now. He at least offered her a meal in which he put slipped some sleeping pills that made her fall asleep after eating.

Both pairs of two colored eyes gazed at her peaceful state not liking how she'd exhaust herself with so much work. Only for the sake of others and waste time and effort for people that isn't them. It was annoying to Floyd and agitated Jade more than he liked to admit. She did say she wanted to spend more time with them right?? If only she didn't have that stupid job. Even more a reason to push the date up to the next few days.

. . .

About a week and a half had passed and the dectective had no other leads still. It was killing her to say the least. All those unfortunate victims and those families and friends that mourned definitely weighed on her shoulders, guilt eating at her insides. Such a shame too within the end of the day she was at home taking an evening nap on her day off in which she didn't even go out today. Her phone buzzed waking her up from her slumber.

A text from Jade. It had been awhile since they last talked seeing as she fell asleep at his manor again even though she didn't intend to.

Rubbing her eyes she read the text from her bright phone screen.

'Meet me at the dock at 10 today.'

She wasn't as flustered as last time in fact she considered not going as this case took top priority. But this was Jade, her closest friend, and she hadn't taken much of a break as her nap was only 30 mintues probably the only amount of sleep she would get today if she was being honest with herself.

She reluctantly sighed and decided to get ready an hour before meeting him and walk there a bit early to have some time to her own thoughts. She thought about going to Vil's shop to buy another outfit but it would have been a waste if they were only meeting for a short time. Not to mention she didn't want Vil to come to the conclusion she was slacking off with Jade even though the bags around her eyes were very much proof.

As she sat at the edge of the dock admiring the stars the waves hitting the edge of the pier calmed her head. It was nice to say the least.

She wondered what Jade would have to talk about. She looked at her phone and saw it was 10:05, Jade being late was a surprise, hopefully if she waited a bit longer her worry would ease. That atmosphere could not have lasted any longer.

A slight wind blew and during that exact moment something pulled her under by her feet into the cold ocean waters below. She managed to hold her breath and open her eyes to see nothing but darkness even with the moon behind the clouds right about now only endless shadows were there.

She could barely hear but she could have sworn something swam by her. Arms touched her waist which almost made her scream for a moment though that was something suicidal. It touch the sides of her stomach and stayed there for a moment.

Even though she tried to struggle it was fruitless when the thing that held her tickled her sides making her open her mouth and succumb to breathing in water then choking soon after. That wasn't the only thing to occur since the next second lips were on hers and a fluid trickled down her throat along with the water that she was trying to swallow. The tongue of said thing dipped inside her mouth and would have made her gag if they hadn't pulled away.

She regretted it the moment they did cause she still could breath and with her mouth open she thought she would take her final breath. Both or what she assumes were two people backed off letting her go to meet her demise with her slowly closing her eyes. She didn't notice the glow of what transpired around her lower half of her body. She could finally take in some much needed breaths except her neck for some reason felt sore and she could no longer move her legs separately to try and swim up for air.

Looking down she saw the horrid image of a long tail with a fin on the end where her legs were supposed to be. The pain form her neck was from three newly formed slits on either side of her neck. Her fingers traced over them finding this whole situation unbelievable. When she finally came to her senses she found herself hearing voices as well.

"Shrimpy's still here! It worked, Jade!" A cheerful voice could be heard in the cold waters that surrounded her.

Something slimy wrapped about her new found lower half. Pulling her closer to be within someone's arms. They held her a bit too tight like all the air, water in her lungs could have been? Did she still even have those anymore she wondered? Even still the amount of pressure put on her by the creature hugging her was able to be felt.

He was laughing happily spinning around in circles with the former human female getting dizzy by the second.

"I can see that Floyd. How wonderful, but do take it down a notch she only was just turned after all." That voice was all too familiar. She couldn't help but say it aloud, but that couldn't be true.

"Jade?" Her voice was a whisper but of course he still heard it.

"Yes, my dear angelfish what is it?" He responded in an endearing tone that was calm despite the situation she was just put through.

She glanced toward the voice to see what appeared to be a creature similar to that of an eel by the tail. Her eyes trailed up to the sight of his face. It was him no doubt about it. The eyes were exact and so was the hair the only difference was the body and skin.

"Aw Shrimpy why'd you acknowledge him first? I'm here too." A voice whined in a more child like tone directly in her ear. It brought a shiver down her spine.

'Shrimpy?' That was unmistakably the nickname Jade gave her when he acted weird.

She turned toward his way and saw a sharp toothed grin on his face when she looked at him.

"Floyd you haven't even introduced yourself." Jade sounded like his normal self and this Floyd person was just the complete opposite of him.

"Oh right Shrimpy I'm Floyd, Jade's brother and your going to be with us in the sea from now on! Isn't that great? I can't wait to show you all my favorite places you'll love it!" He sounded so excited while dread built up in the mermaid.

"What do you mean stay here?! What have you done to me? Who, what even are you two?!" She said those words with malice laced into them having them both chuckle in response.

Jade had also wrapped his tail about her upper half restraining her further. He brought himself closer to her face, a smirk etched on to it.

"My, my, Y/n you did say you wanted to spend more time with me, isn't this what you wanted?" He tilted her chin up showing a sadistic smile on his face that only built up even more dread than what his brother had already.

"I didn't realize or expected anything like this and you know that! Why would you do this?! You! You-" She thought for a second processing all that had occurred the past couple of weeks.

"You killed them you gave them that exlixir that ended their lives. Every single one of them." This time it was the other brother's turn to speak.

"There's our little dectective she's so smart!~" Floyd just made her completely uncomfortable with how he would call her that nickname and whisper words in her ear.

"Why? Why would you do this?" She became defeated knowing turf like this was theirs and she stood no chance against them in the first place.

"Eh why? Is Shrimpy really that blind Jade?" Floyd mocked her with no remorse as tears streamed down the dectective's eyes at the thought of letting so many people down.

"Why? My dear angelfish haven't you noticed? We've become quite enamored with you. Hm no better word to put it is obsessed, at first it was just me but with Floyd's impatience I just had to get him in on understanding why we didn't go back home already. As for those people they were necessary for testing the elixir for this very moment. We couldn't have you dying on us afterall." He said with absolute calmness evoking rage within the mermaid.

She clenched her fists.

"So many were sacrificed, I should've died, instead." She murmured the last half but both the twin eels heard it.

There expressions turned dark and their tails gripped the female tighter startling her from her state of guilt.

"Eh, why would you say that Shrimpy, we can't have you leaving us. We finally got you all to ourselves and I haven't had much time with you, and yet you say you want to leave." Floyd's arms contracted her more than Jade's tail already, now she understood what it must have felt like for Trappola.

"He is right Y/n dear, we only want what's best for you and having you say that only makes our blood boil so please understand." Jade gripped her chin with a scary amount of strength. This was the first time he ever seemed so much more intimidating to her.

"Don't ever say something like that again am I clear?"

From that point on she was stuck between the twin eels who loved her so. She only wished she could have been able to listen to Sebek when he said the truth. Mr. Leech did do it just not the one she thought.

[lightrises]

"Only in allowing her to pass..." — Hornet, The Radiance, and the means by which Hallownest turned its victims against each other

A quick note: I read Hollow Knight as an anti-colonialist text. As such I'll be touching on topics related to colonialism as it's depicted in the world of the game, and said analysis will reflect both a sympathetic take on The Radiance and a critique of The Pale King that won't pull its punches. If this sounds up your alley, hello and thank you for the read! Let us be sad about these bugs together.

———

So!! A while back I realized something about pre-canon that felt rather... "curious" is one way to put it, I think. To wit: for all the effort and scheming and determination The Pale King poured into trying to get rid of The Radiance, neither of his plans involved directly killing her.

Was that his long game? Well, sure, that seems clear enough. His tack changed from luring the moths away from their god and creator to a more literal form of incarceration once the infection became a factor, but at its core the end goal never really changed—The Pale King very sincerely wished to destroy Radiance via obsolescence. The Seer lends us foreshadowing to confirm as much:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from Hollow Knight, showing the Seer and Ghost in the Seer's alcove at the Resting Grounds. Across both screenshots, the Seer tells Ghost the following: "None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters." End description.]

(Which, by the way and given the context, talk about an extremely unsubtle allusion to cultural genocide huh!!! Whew.)

In any case, we're left with a whole bunch of machinations which build up to... well, two very roundabout attempts at committing deicide. That's kind of weird, all things considered! Why not just do the deed in one fell swoop and get it over with?

This could be for any number of reasons. Maybe the king was devoid of the means to instantly kill another higher being. Maybe his personal sense of scruples stopped him short of signing off on MURDER murder (although, y'know, the aforementioned genocide + eternal imprisonment = still cool and copasectic apparently!). Maybe the long drawn-out cruelty was the point. Maybe the idea of playing fuckign 4D chess with the circumstances was too delicious for him to pass up—that man did love to tinker and stick his claws where they sure as hell didn't belong—or maybe it was a little bit of All The Things. Who knows!!

But interrogating The Pale King's methodology on this count isn't what I'm here for, at least not really. The main reason I raise this question at all is that in her own way, Hornet did too.

"I'd urge you to take that harder path... "

See, going by The Pale King's actions and what The White Lady explicitly says, they both foresaw two outcomes wrt the infection: it can be allowed to spread, or it can be contained. At Teacher's Archives, Quirrel acknowledges the fact that Ghost is expected to do... something about this, but he doesn't elaborate on what HE thinks that's supposed to be apart from the obvious "Gotta bust into Black Egg Temple first". Hornet is the one person who presents to us—to Ghost—what's framed as a third option: confront and destroy the infection at its source.

And she doesn't bring it up like it's just another tactic for Ghost to consider, prim and indifferent to what they would do. She nudges them towards it, actively, up to the point where she throws herself into the fray against Hollow at a juncture that's uniquely dangerous to her and her alone just to make that option feasible.

Even when she's couching it in disclaimers that this is still Ghost's decision to make (and let's be fair, she's extremely not wrong about that lol), no one can pretend Hornet is unbiased. It's obvious in that buttoned-down Hornet kind of way that she is way the hell done with the increasingly tenuous stalemate that's kept Hallownest's desiccated corpse from collapsing in on itself. Personally it's hard for me not to read some Toriel Undertale-esque "My father was too entrenched in his own foolishness to pursue any course of action that would have DEFINITIVELY ended this" shade into her stance here, regardless of whether that's strictly true in canon.

And that bit—Hornet's hopes for an end to Hallownest's stasis, moreover her grim calculation of what needs to be done to get there—that's the bit I find super interesting but likewise tragic and depressing as shit, on multiple levels. In no small part because a) canon itself gestures towards Hornet feeling conflicted about the very plan she's pushing, and moreover b) she has at least two (2) damn good reasons to feel that way.

So, what do I mean by that? Let's look here first:

[Image description: A screenshot from Hollow Knight, of Hornet and Ghost inside the Temple of the Black Egg, standing in front of the unsealed egg itself. Hornet has been struck by the Dream Nail and her dialogue is displayed as follows: "... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?" End description.]

As the curtain is about to drop on things one way or another, Hornet thinks,

... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?

Now, looking at that last bit it's easy to go "Oh no, Hornet's worried that Ghost won't survive killing The Radiance!" And I do think that's part of it: Hornet is, categorically, not her father. By endgame it's clear she's not content to view her Void-borne siblings as tools to be used then disposed of. She's also well aware that as a healthy autonomous Vessel amongst the countless dead, Ghost is the only person left alive who has a fighting chance against The Radiance. Knowing someone is the only qualified candidate for the job doesn't make encouraging them to embrace a probable death sentence any less of a bitter pill to swallow, though. And odds are on that this sentiment extends to Hollow too, who IS going to die no matter what happens here. To put it bluntly, it's more than reasonable to conclude that Hornet hates the absolute fuck out of this.

But I don't think that's all there is to it either. Remember what I said earlier about The Pale King's bids for genocide? Well, it's not like the man deigned to limit his efforts to just the moth tribe.

"We do not choose our mothers... "

On top of everything else—an infected Hallownest being all she's ever known, the fact that she only exists because of the infection, the list goes on—Hornet has spent her life wedged into a position that's been uncomfortable and terminally unglamorous at best: she is both a daughter of her father's kingdom and of Deepnest.

Deepnest, which like the moths and many others was here long before the wyrm and his lady wife swanned onto the scene and the God Become Bug laid claim to everything the Light touched plus a considerable amount of change. THAT Deepnest, which has fought claw and thread to retain its sovereignty against same-said settler king, and for which Herrah not only surrendered her life but also agreed to bed her worst enemy, all in hopes of securing a viable future for her people (put a pin in that last part by the way, I'll come back to it soon).

Two Worlds, One Family (Ft. An Indigenous Woman Trying Her Damndest To Work With What She's Got Versus An Imperialist Who Only Signed Up For This Because He Needed The Political Favor THAT Badly, So It's The Height Of Dysfunctional Actually). Fun times!!!!

The baggage this entails for Hornet is gnarly enough without implications made by The White Lady and the pre-canon timeline of events and even Team Cherry's dev notes that the king may well have looked at baby Hornet, gone "YOINK", then ensured she spent the lion's share of her childhood reared within the pearly auspices of his Pale Court*. That would be rather advantageous for Him Specifically after all, the potential to mold a born foe into a future ally and even have her trained in combat under the same tutelage as her doomed sibling. And far be it from him to stop a grown Hornet—his own flesh and blood too!—from making Deepnest her forever home if she so pleased. He totally wouldn't be reneging on his "fair bargain made" by doing this one simple thing until Hornet came of age, not t e c h nic c a l l y.

If that is indeed the case, there's a non-zero chance Hornet's formative years were a hot mess of cultural alienation and being a good deal more privy than most to just how much of a bastard her father could be. There's an equally non-zero chance that at some point she stood or sat within earshot as The Pale King finally, finally dropped all pretense and euphemism to name the Light for precisely what (for who) it was.

See, in conjunction with the question that started this whole dang train of thought I've been asking this one too: Does Hornet know? When she speaks of confronting "the heart of [the] infection" does she know she's talking about not just a literal person but someone very specific? The Radiance, who god though she may be shares skin in the game alongside Hornet as a native woman screwed over by the same settler king, likewise deprived of her kin and saddled with a life gone horrendously pear-shaped?

I'll assume for the sake of exploring the possibility and because I think it's a likely one anyway that yes, Hornet does know. She knows, and despite everything can't help empathizing. She might even look at Radiance and see bits and pieces both reflected and slightly inversed in her own mother: Radiance was forced to the sidelines while her people—her children, the brood she was meant to lead and care for—died out under The Pale King's rule, and it's no stretch to assume she's at least as upset about that as she has been about everything else; Herrah too took drastic measures for her people's sake, trying to head off annihilation by relegating herself to the sidelines in an act that was as much calculated risk as an attempt to find wiggle room and leverage in the face of a nasty proposition.

A calculated risk that, if things continue as they are, might well amount to nothing as the rest of Deepnest gets eaten alive by the infection. It survived The Pale King's advances for so so long, only to fall here. Herrah's sacrifice would be for naught; the other tribes—themselves the king's victims—would keep succumbing to the infection too.

And this is where things fall apart.

"... or the circumstance into which we are born."

Let's be clear: I think Hornet is wise enough to know what's what here, that all the carnage and suffering falls on her father's head for starting this slow-motion trainwreck in the first place. Hallownest wasn't always Hallownest. This domain was Radiance's home first, along with many others. It was the worm-turned-king who rolled up on the scene unsolicited and decided this was a ""'problem""" that had to be """solved""".

But the fact of the matter is that he's gone and The Radiance is here, raging, seemingly inconsolable. Above and beyond being Deepnest's rightful heir, Hornet isn't in a position to countenance more splash damage even if the grief and fury fueling it makes perfect sense. She can understand without ever bringing herself to love Radiance, and she can bend her knee to practicality even if she hates the everloving shit out of it because the fact that it "has" to end this way isn't fair.

This lends itself to one last awful conclusion: that Hornet has probably considered and (rightly or wrongly) discarded the possibility that Radiance can be saved, at least not without dragging more collateral along for the ride. If even her mother and every other enemy to the king seemed to dismiss talking Radiance down as an option way back when... well. Why should Hornet hope for any better after things have escalated so far?

Again, it's practical. A practical net good is what Hornet strives for. And again, it fucking sucks.

For extra tragedy points, this makes Hornet's extended crypticness around Ghost followed by her last minute casting about for a reason to tell them "Wait, don't; not just yet" that she never voices even more of a gut punch. She can't bring herself to burden Ghost with the context that haunts her so, least of all when it might weaken their resolve to go through with what (she thinks) needs doing.

It's the "same song, different verse" which led to the mantis tribe and Deepnest being pitted against each other: Hallownest rigged the game so that two women who could have been powerful allies—who have a mutual vested interest in driving out settler rule—wound up poised as enemies instead. And how awful is that? The king for all his being extremely fucking dead still gets the last laugh, because outside of a miracle the game never manifests Hornet can salvage what her mother started and look forward to a future where Deepnest pulls itself back from the brink if and only if The Radiance dies.

Resolution comes at the price of a completed genocide. Add two more dead siblings to the unconscionable pile thereof, while we're at it. That's what it boils down to whether or not Hornet can bear to articulate it as such, and there's no grace or even a properly bittersweet ending to wring from this clusterfuck. And that is rough.

———

* This has been better explained elsewhere, but a quick rundown: The White Lady tells Ghost that Hornet and Herrah "were permitted little time together." On its surface this can be taken to mean that Hornet was still very young when Herrah was shipped off to Eternal Dreamland—except this doesn't jive with the fact that we meet Hornet as an adult. If the stasis kicked in once the Dreamers went to their rest, which in turn halted the aging process for every living bug in Hallownest, AND before all this Hornet experienced little by the way of quality time with her birth mother... I think you can see where I'm going with this.

To top it off we've got Team Cherry weighing in ominously from their dev notes on Herrah: "As part of the agreement for her alliance and her role as a dreamer, King gave her a child (Hornet). Was she allowed to keep this child or was she taken away?" This isn't confirmation by itself of course, but given additional canon details (see above): Can I get a "yikes" in the chat fellas.

[magnus-the-maqnificent]

Ok, but also this is kinda right? Like we malec shippers, has accepted that Alec doesn't wanna be immortal and although he and Rafe are gonna die one day, at least Magnus and Max won't be alone. But it's really annoying that every rule of the TSC world can change when it comes to certain characters (like Tessa being the only warlock without a mark that can have children, or Simon becoming human again) but not for malec. Like, the immortality issue got solved completely for Sizzy, although Simon should've died when he gave up his immortality, but Asmodeus easily made him alive again, when he couldn't do the same thing for Magnus? What was the difference? Simon should've been a corpse too, but it easily got fixed where as it couldn't be fixed for Magnus.

And also Tessa doesn't have a warlock mark making her inhuman (and causing her problem like the others!) and can have children, while warlocks shouldn't be able to do that (the whole reason why Warlocks can't bear children is that they're the offspring of humans and demons who are basically two different species, and therefore it makes them hybrids incapable of bearing children. It's a biology fact! It isn't sth made up, so I don't see how the offspring of a Shadowhunter and a demon who are also from two different species can bear children. When in biology, if you can have a living child, capable of bearing children, with another being, it shows YOU'RE BOTH FROM THE SAME SPECIES!! I know it's fantasy but it's not fair that it applies to all warlocks except one for no obvious reasons!)

So what I'm saying is that, basically malec immortality problem can be solved too, but it seems that it's not going to. Alec wouldn't want to become immortal, because he has a parabatai and they should die together, and Magnus can't become mortal without dying (even though the same problem got solved for Simon) and he WOULDN'T now, anyways, because that would mean Max will have no one for him.

Pufffff this is not me hating on any character or CC, I'm just nagging because I remembered immortality angst again today. My words are true though :(

@cassandraclare cmon, don’t be shy, give the people what they want 😤 (*cough* immortal malec *cough*)

Also, someone sent me a different post from this same account earlier today 👀 anon, are you that same person? Anon, why are you scrolling through an anti cc account sksksk

I lowkey disagree with your points about Tessa, cause her entire existence and the point of her character is to break all the rules of the shadow world. And I feel like it's important is remember that her father isn't just an ordinary demon but a fallen angel. That coupled with her mother's angelic heritage could be why she can have children. We already know that warlocks born to fallen angels show some exceptions - like how Magnus can light up a witchlight while other warlocks can't. As a biology student, I agree with your points about warlocks being a hybrid species ofc. This is just me speculating. Also, I don't think a warlock mark makes someone inhuman :)

And as for Simon and Magnus... afaik, Magnus has lived long beyond a normal human lifespan, which could be why he wouldn't be able to turn mortal without dying. Simon however is only 17, so he'd be fine. I honestly don't know enough about necromancy to know if Magnus could be revived or not :/ cause if his immortality is gone he'd be a 400 year old dead mortal. And just thinking of this is melting my brain sksksksk

Also, just remember that Tessa has it the same, if not worse as Magnus. She's immortal, and she has to live through losing a husband and her children twice. And unlike Magnus, she doesn't have an immortal child to keep her company either. 🤷‍♀️

[catboyebooks]

resuming. anyway. after it's been proven that peko is not secretly a spanish vigilante killer, she takes off the mask and basically says, well, my work here is done. i should clarify because i misspoke a bit when talking about this earlier — i said peko is under the impression that they technically voted incorrectly in voting for her because she was acting on kuzuryuu's behalf, but i said something like "she thinks she'll win the killing game" when what i meant was she thinks her plan has worked and kuzuryuu, as the "true killer," will win the killing game. peko thinks she and everyone else besides kuzuryuu will be executed now that they've voted for her.

most of the group seems confused, as peko is being vague, still hasn't elaborated on her motive, and they don't know what she's talking about when she references being a "tool" that somebody else used. komaeda's of course the exception; he says he gets it, confirms that he's suspected this all along (replaying this case, it's very clear that he went into the trial having more or less figured out that peko and kuzuryuu were working together on this one), and when the others ask what he's on about this time he says, well, someone else was at the beach house around the time of the murder. hinata realizes this is what komaeda was alluding to earlier when he was asking questions about the body discovery announcement.

komaeda continues on to say it's particularly interesting that monokuma was reluctant to clarify the body discovery announcement rule, because that to him indicates that this could have a bearing (geddit) on the outcome of the trial. he gets interrupted partway through this when he refers to kuzuryuu (without naming him) as an "accomplice" by peko, who insists he's looking at it wrong and she's just a tool the true killer used. this prompts a discussion about who would have the most motive to actually kill koizumi, and obviously that's kuzuryuu. hinata finally clarifies to the group (it hadn't come up earlier) that there's no way twilight syndrome is "just a game," they have actual photos of the events depicted in the game, which were awarded to the first person to beat said game. which of course was kuzuryuu, hinata saw him holding the ending prize the other day. (it's really hitting me how after being forced to learn of the death of his little sister via playing a video game, he was then awarded with a photo of her corpse. i really can't help but have sympathy for the guy here.)

a couple of the others start getting agitated at this point wondering if they voted wrong, since kuzuryuu clearly not only had the motive but set the whole thing in motion. peko (who is coming across just a touch unhinged here) says that that's exactly what she means when she says they're too late. she didn't have any motive to kill koizumi, this whole thing wasn't her plan, she was acting on kuzuryuu's orders. she declares that therefore, she isn't really the killer. this prompts a rather anxious group discussion about whether this means they voted wrong. nidai says none of this makes sense to him in the first place because peko isn't a tool, she's a human being (thank you!). souda also agrees with this. some of the others seem less certain.

monokuma lets the uncertainty drag out as long as possible (he actually calls for a commercial break, and the trial properly ends at this point so we pause for scoring — i got a B). peko meanwhile is continuing to argue that she doesn't count as the killer and nanami finally asks kuzuryuu to explain (peko just keeps reiterating that she's a tool, so they're not getting anywhere with her). kuzuryuu says he and peko grew up together, and here's where we get the explanation about that finally. the tl;dr is peko was abandoned as an infant and taken in by the kuzuryuu clan, basically on the condition that she become a hitman and work directly for the family's heir. she and kuzuryuu have grown up together but because of this arrangement, the relationship hasn't ever exactly been normal. peko seems to have wholly accepted the idea that she's basically a living weapon acting under kuzuryuu's orders, and that this duty comes before her own personhood. kuzuryuu doesn't use this language when talking about it, he humanizes her more than she humanizes herself. the others also try to argue with peko's logic and say that she's a person in her own right, they hung out with her and everything, but she claims she was only doing this because kuzuryuu told her to and that it didn't actually mean anything to her.

interestingly, though, she quotes what he said to her about it and she seems to have totally misinterpreted it. kuzuryuu had told her when they arrived at the island that there was no need for them to continue their professional relationship while here, that this was a class trip and they could behave as fellow classmates. she took it as "act normal with the others and pretend you don't know me" (in fairness, peko says they generally conceal their professional relationship) but i think it's pretty obvious that what he meant was "we can act normal with each other here. you're not my employee and you don't need to be 'a tool' for me. we're peers." she also reveals that she thinks he hates her.

kuzuryuu is clearly distressed while she's talking about this but he doesn't refute what she's saying right away; instead he talks about his reaction to finding out his sister had been killed. he says he sent the prize envelope with the photographs to koizumi because he was still having trouble believing it was true, and it seems like he did actually just intend to talk to her originally, but she started avoiding him, and given his upbringing he figured the only appropriate response to finding out koizumi was involved in the death of his sister was to have her killed as retribution. hence the plan to lure her to the beach house and frame saionji. even then, he says he wasn't sure if he could actually go through with it, but when he talked to koizumi at the beach house she ended up going on the offensive and telling him it was wrong of him to have killed E-ko. here kuzuryuu and peko's stories differ — he claims he grabbed the bat (as if he intended to commit the murder himself), peko says he called her over and told her to do it.

post has already gotten long as hell and we're still going, i'll pause here and reblog / start a new one

[xiyao-feels]

Nie//yao (MDZS)

So NMJ/JGY is actually getting two versions, because my read on them is wildly different for MDZS vs CQL.

In MDZS I...don't ship it? I mean, there just doesn't seem to be to be anything there at all of a romantic or sexual nature. It's not that they don't care about each other, they clearly do, but it's in a way that is...NMJ as substitute father, JGY as substitute brother, and heavily, heavily inflected by their (current and then former) relationship as superior and subordinate.

Putting this behind a cut because a) it's me explaining at breath length with quotes why I don't think they have a romantic or sexual relationship and I don't want people to have to see that unless they want and b) accordingly it is REALLY LONG and I also don't want to clutter people's dashes, so.

Actually backing up a step, I don't see MDZS NMJ as being attracted to anyone, that's not really specific to JGY. I tend to read him as aspec, tbh. So theoretically he could have romantic feelings about JGY without being attracted to him—I think he may have some quasi-romantic feelings for LXC, though I don't think he conceptualizes it that way—but... honestly, it's not really clear to me that he even likes JGY as a person.

I'm not saying he doesn't like JGY! He clearly does, at least before MY tricks him and flees. But it doesn't seem to have anything to do with MY's personality, as opposed to like—MY being really competent and conducting himself well.

Some quotes about what exactly NMJ values about JGY:

'Nie MingJue interrupted him, “I promoted you not because I wanted you to give back anything out of gratitude. I simply thought that you should stay in this position, since you are capable enough and your conduct is to my liking. If you really want to pay me back, just kill a few more of those Wen-dogs on the battlefield!”'

'After [Meng Yao] left [for Langya], Nie MingJue switched to another deputy. Wei WuXian, however, felt that the new one was always a few beats slower. Meng Yao was an unusually clever talent. He could understand what wasn’t said, and perform to the best with the simplest orders. He was efficient and never slacked. Anyone used to him wouldn’t be able to refrain from comparing him with others.'

'Nie MingJue was never close to people. He rarely opened up to anyone. Though he finally managed to obtain a competent, trustworthy subordinate, whose character and capabilities he approved, he found that the subordinate’s true colors were nothing like what he had thought they were. It was only natural that his reaction was so extreme.'

'Wei WuXian had once found it strange as well. Ever since Meng Yao betrayed the QingheNie Sect, the relationship between Nie MingJue and him hadn’t been the same as before. Then why did they later become sworn brothers? From his observations, aside from how Lan XiChen brought it up, having always hoped that the two would reconcile, the most important factor was probably the gratitude of saving his life and writing the letters. To be precise, in his past battles, he had more-or-less depended on the information that Meng Yao sent over through Lan XiChen. He still thought that Jin GuangYao was a talented person whom one would rarely come upon, and intended on leading him back onto the right path. However, Jin GuangYao wasn’t his subordinate anymore. Only after they became sworn brothers would he have the status and the position to urge Jin GuangYao, like how he disciplined his younger brother, Nie HuaiSang.'

Jin GuangYao spoke with dejection, “But, Brother, didn’t you hear what he said in the oath? Every sentence meant something more. ‘Face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb’—this was clearly a warning for me. I… I’ve never heard of such an oath before.”

Lan XiChen replied in a gentle voice, “He said ‘if one were to think otherwise’. Do you think otherwise? If not, then why should you worry over it so much?"

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t, but Brother has already decided that I do, so what can I do?”

Lan XiChen, “He has always cherished your talent, hoping that you would choose the right path.”

You might notice a recurring theme here: there's a lot of focus JGY's competence and conduct. But anything about who JGY is as a person? Not so much.

They clearly had a good superior/subordinate relationship going on, albeit one in which NMJ was missing a lot of context (see just behave well and show people up, plus the you're missing a solid foundation thing). But it does seem to be basically professional. WWX describes them as conversing "peaceably, even impressively" in contrast to "his future self, always being scolded by Nie MingJue" and "those jokes of how 'LianFang-Zun fled whenever he heard that ChiFeng-Zun arrived,'" and.... that's kind of it. The closest we get to them as friends is them talking together with LXC after NMJ tells MY he will give him a letter of recommendation and send him to his father; as WWX describes it, "The three chatted back and forth, at times serious, yet at times light. The conversation was much more relaxed than when they had been in the living room. Listening to their chatter, Wei WuXian often wanted to get a word in as well, yet he was unable to do so."

That's definitely not nothing! But it's also the most we ever get, only shows up the once, and is explicitly contrasted with their conversation from earlier. Moreover, I'm pretty sure LXC's presence is a necessary part of things; NMJ tends to respond differently to LXC than to other people (even just earlier in this chapter, we're told that while "Nie MingJue had never been one for humour," "in front of Lan XiChen his expression eased"), and WWX explicitly notes LXC's conversation skills in the context of this conversation: "At this point in time, their relationship really isn't bad. Zewu-Jun is actually quite good at holding conversations, so why is Lan Zhan so bad at it?"

In addition, I'd say that looking at the early part of that conversation is quite telling; while LXC and MY are sitting together as equals, MY stand up at once the moment NMJ interrupts, and doesn't sit even after NMJ tells him to do so (I think he probably does take a seat at some point, but the narrative doesn't actually tell us when). Moreover, MY seems to be worried that NMJ will be offended by a possible lack of gratitude on MY's part ("Sect Leader Nie, if you heard everything, then you should've also heard me say that..."), and the only objection he expresses to leaving is precisely that he owes NMJ a debt of gratitude, not anything to do with, like, missing him. To me all the evidence suggests that while they had a close relationship, it was not a /personal/ relationship, but fundamentally one of superior and subordinate.

(For a close read of the scene where NMJ, LXC and MY are talking together, I highly recommend @confusion-and-more's post here)

Moving on, let's look at after JGY becomes JGY. They don't seem to particularly spend time together with each other, certainly not for the sake of it. There's a brief moment at the Flower Banquet where NMJ asks JGY why he's wasting his time with XY (who has not at this point in time committed his crime, he just has a reputation), but after JGY makes his excuse and scurries away, NMJ turns away and doesn't seem to seek him out or even pay him any particular attention for the rest of the scene; he only shows up once more, and that's following WWX. (And although JGY-as-replacement-NHS would be a post all on its own, I do think it's interesting to note that the exchange about XY is immediately followed by LXC and LWJ coming over, described in a way that highlights both their impressiveness and their status at brothers—their Twin Jade-ness, one might say.) During the guqin scene, NMJ only speaks once, and it's to address LXC—to protest the inappropriateness of LXC leaking exclusive Lan techniques. When JGY shows up to play the guqin for him the first time, NMJ asks JGY "what did you come here for," which suggests that NMJ is not generally expecting JGY to come by without a specific, concrete reason. The closest they ever seem to get after JGY becomes JGY is during these guqin-playing sessions, and as WWX describes it, "when playing the guqin, the way that the two conversed and got along even had a hint of the peace they had before they fell out"—which is certainly better than there being no peace at all, but which I think suggests there's still at least some tension, given that it's only a "hint."

Now, NMJ certainly cares about JGY, both in the sense of desiring his well-being, at first, and absolutely in the sense of being emotionally invested in him—even after his death, as a fierce corpse his only desire is to kill Jin Guangyao. But while they had a close superior-subordinate relationship—certainly NMJ seems to have felt close to MY—at no point was it a close personal relationship, and I don't think that NMJ even liked JGY (or MY, I'm using the name expansively) as a person, let alone was in love with him.

But mostly so far I've been focusing in NMJ's feelings. What about JGY? Is /he/ in love with NMJ?

Once again, I just don't read him that way. This isn't to say he didn't care for NMJ—he absolutely did! He goes to quite significant lengths to save his life from WRH in the Sun Palace, including quite a lot of risk to MY himself—I analyze that in a lot more depth in the first part of my post here, if you're interested, though I will also note now that he specifically sent for LXC to help NMJ. (You'll have to scroll down some; I'm responding to someone else's post.) Afterwards, he kneels to NMJ and apologizes, I think sincerely, for hurting him and for invoking his pain about his father's death. He certainly conceives of himself as owing a debt of gratitude to NMJ for recognizing him, and he's so overcome when NMJ offers to send him to his father with a letter of recommendation, saying that he didn't promote MY so that MY would owe him, that he quite remarkably can't even find words. NMJ meant a lot to him, and so did NMJ's not defining him in terms of his birth—until he did, of course, at the stairs kick incident. But as far as I can tell, there's nothing to suggest he has /romantic feelings/ for NMJ, and frankly—how can I put this—it does not at all surprise me that JGY isn't in love with someone with a violent temper who is noted at least twice to react to people explaining themselves when he is angry with even more anger, and that's even without the thing where he nearly killed JGY on multiple occasions and called him the son of a prostitute.

No, I think JGY's emotional journey with NMJ goes through three stages: first, he's deeply grateful to him and respects him a great deal, although he's also aware of NMJ's lack of awareness of certain social realities (see: the teacup scene, NMJ yelling at the other Nie cultivators about their treatment of MY and telling MY not to worry as long as his conduct is upright); second, after Sun Palace, still gratitude and respect but also a mounting frustration with his lack of awareness of the implications of JGY's social position and his hypocrisy re: acceptable violence; finally, after the stairs kick when NMJ kicks him down the stairs, almost kills him, and tells him what else can be expected from the son of a prostitute, he is completely done with NMJ, but is still very much scared of him. The gratitude, I've discussed; the frustration, I think is fairly obvious in the speech he gives back to NMJ at the stairs. But I think the fear is often undervalued, so I'm going to pull a bunch of quotes again:

Meng Yao shrunk immediately after his previous outburst. Watching Baxia slash toward him, he sprinted off at once, scared lifeless. Of the two, one striked with madness and the other fled with madness. Both staggered, still soaked in blood. In such amusing circumstances, as Wei WuXian chopped at the future Chief Cultivator, in his heart he split his sides laughing. He thought that if not for how Nie MingJue was under heavy injuries and lacked spiritual power, Meng Yao would probably have been dead already.

Baxia’s strikes were so menacing that Shuoyue had to unsheath. Lan XiChen stopped him, half to support his figure and half to block his attacks, “MingJue-xiong, calm down! Why bother?”

Nie MingJue, “Why don’t you ask what he did?!”

Lan XiChen turned around to look at Meng Yao, his face was full of terror. He stammered as if he didn’t dare speak.

Nie MingJue remained silent, while Baxia and Shuoyue continued. Meng Yao took a glimpse at the glares from the clashes of the saber and the sword, his gaze full of fear. After a while, however, he still took a step forward. He kneeled to Nie MingJue.

A moment later, Nie MingJue still raised his saber. Lan XiChen, “MingJue-xiong!”

Meng Yao shut his eyes. Lan XiChen also tightened his grip on Shuoyue, “Please excuse…”

Before he could finish his sentence, the silver light of the blade slashed down violently, onto a boulder on the side.

Meng Yao flinched from the thunder of the boulder splitting apart. Looking over, he saw that it had been sliced into two halves, from the top to the bottom.

Jin GuangYao nodded. Xue Yang had been infamous ever since he was young. Wei WuXian clearly felt Nie MingJue’s brows knit even tighter. He spoke, “Why are you wasting your time with such a person?”

Jin GuangYao, “The LanlingJin Sect recruited him.”

He didn’t dare to protest any further. Excuse being that he needed to care for the guests, he scurried to the other side.

[part of his speech to NMJ at the stairs] You think that I should be afraid of nothing? Well I'm afraid of everything, even other people!

Within the temple, three people called Nie MingJue’s corpse ‘Brother’ but the three tones were drastically different. Jin GuangYao’s face was full of a drowning fear. His entire body began to shiver. No matter dead or alive, the person Jin GuangYao was most scared of was none but this sworn brother of his whose temper tolerated no evil. As his body shivered, his hands shivered as well, and the bloody guqin string he clutched tightly in his hand also began to shiver.

Clenching his teeth, Jin GuangYao struck a few acupoints of his arm. Amidst the dizziness that came from a loss of blood, he suddenly saw Nie MingJue walk a step towards him, his eyes locked on him. He was immediately half-dead with fear.

Collapsed beside Lan XiChen, Jin GuangYao saw this scene as well. Whether because the bleeding and the pain intensified at his arm and stomach or from some other reason, the glisten of tears could be seen in his eyes. But before he had a chance to catch his breath or lick his wounds, Nie MingJue turned around after he pulled his fist back and stared hungrily in his direction.

The harsh, stern expression on his rigid face held a sense of judgement that was no different from before he died. Even his tears had been scared away as Jin GuangYao turned to Lan XiChen for help, his voice trembling, “Brother…”

I think the stuff with, you know, handling NMJ's fierce corpse and hanging onto his head is often viewed as evidence of JGY's continued emotional investment in NMJ, but... I don't really think so? First of all, NMJ's fierce corpse is completely obsessed with killing JGY. I'll spare you another round of quotes on that because this is already ridiculously long and because it's not at all subtle—it's all over the temple chapters, take a look! And second of all—well, there's ways of getting information from a corpse. In this case, NMJ's resentful energy is so strong that without the protection of his body, papernan WWX is actually sucked into NMJ's memories against his will! Sure, maybe no one would risk it, and maybe no one who risked it would survive, but especially given that NMJ's fierce corpse is completely obsessed with killing JGY, that's a heck of a risk to take. And look at the description of the protections around NMJ's head:

Suddenly, Wei WuXian noticed that one of the shelves were blocked by a curtain. The curtain was covered in sinister, blood-red runes. It was a talisman of forbiddance, one of extreme power.

Jin GuangYao walked over and lifted the curtain.

For a split second, Wei WuXian thought that he had been exposed. After the faint firelight made its way through the curtain, he found that he was enveloped in a shadow. A circular object just happened to be in front of him.

Jin GuangYao stood still, as though he was staring into the eyes of whatever was inside this shelf.

After a moment, he spoke, “Were you the one looking at me?"

Of course, there couldn’t be any response. He was silent for a while, then let down the curtain.

Wei WuXian quietly attached himself to the object. Cold and hard, it seemed to be a helmet. He then turned to the front. As he had expected, he saw a pallid face. The one who sealed the head wanted it to see nothing, hear nothing, speak nothing, and so incantations had been crowded onto the waxen skin. The eyes, the ears, and the mouth were all sealed tightly shut.

There's containment, it's suppressed to all hell and back, and JGY quite justifiably expects it to be murderously obsessed with him, but to me it doesn't suggest a reciprocal obsession—just more fear.

I'll also note that as a strategy for containing the information about his own involvement it's a very successful operation! It failed in the end /eventually/, but the failure needed:

someone who could successfully break into his private treasure room and escape without being caught

who could also perform Empathy or a similar tecnnique on NMJ's head and survive it

who could successfully recreate from memory the altered Empathy song

whom LXC would be willing to listen to

That's a heck of a tall order!

As to being done with NMJ after the stairs, well, listen to what he says to LXC:

Jin GuangYao spoke with dejection, “But, Brother, didn’t you hear what he said in the oath? Every sentence meant something more. ‘Face a thousand accusing fingers, be torn from limb to limb’—this was clearly a warning for me. I… I’ve never heard of such an oath before.”

[...]

Jin GuangYao, “It’s not that I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong, but that sometimes I really can’t help. Nowadays, I have it bad no matter which side I’m on. I have to ensure that I’m on everyone’s good sides. I wouldn’t care if it were someone else, but have I mistreated our eldest brother in any way? Brother, you heard as well. What did he call me?”

[...]

Jin GuangYao was almost sobbing, “If he could say such a thing when he was angry, then just how does he think of me on a daily basis? Is it that because I couldn’t choose my background, because my mother couldn’t choose her fate, I’ll have to be humiliated by others throughout my whole life? If so, then how is Brother different from the people who look down on me? No matter what I do, in the end, just a sentence and I’m ‘the son of a prostitute’.”

And then of course there's what he says to LXC, in his speech to him at the end: "You, on the other hand, ZeWu-Jun, Sect Leader Lan, are as intolerant of me as Nie MingJue—you refuse to spare me even a single breath of life!"

So—wow, this got very long—I don't ship them, and although I think they have very much mattered emotionally to each other, I don't really see them as ever having been in love with or attracted to each other.

A couple of end notes:

In MDZS, NMJ isn't the first (non-MS) person who recognizes MY's worth, although he is the first person to promote him; by the time NMJ promotes MY MY has already met, rescued, and exchanged intimate confidences with LXC, who respects him greatly and thinks he is highly talented (see again the conversation in Hejian which NMJ overhears/eavedrops on).

I've seen people talk about them not understanding each other, but while NMJ certainly doesn't understand JGY, it's not at all obvious that the reverse is true; he generally seems to understand him pretty well. I think he has two surprises overall: first, that he wasn't expecting NMJ to say he didn't promote MY so MY would owe him, and volunteer to send him to his father with a letter of recommendation—and second, he wasn't expecting NMJ, who for all his flaws did seem to ignore JGY's background in good ways as well as bad, to call him the son of a prostitute.

I definitely don't read the coffin at the end as romantic. Or I mean, uh, there's the romance of an obsessive stalker-murderer finally getting his victim, and that's not nothing (unironically; look, I'm a Hannibal fan), but I don't think it's usually what people mean. This is a shitty end for JGY, part of how thoroughly he loses and is destroyed. I think to some extent it might be that he doesn't want LXC to be the one who killed him, and to some extent it's an act of defiance—now that he has nothing to lose, not even his life, he's going to go out fighting. I would expand on this but this post is ridiculously long and I have way too many quotes, maybe I'll do it in a separate post later on—but if you look at the description of it in the text, plus the subsequent description of it in the coffin...yeah. JGY didn't want to die, he didn't want to be engaged in a mutually destructive thing with NMJ; he wanted to leave NMJ behind in the past, and move on. It's not, for him any kind of fulfillment, is my read.

All quotes are taken from the Exiled Rebels translation: ch 48-50 for everything about NMJ and JGY's past relationship, ch. 47 for the description of JGY's containment measures for NMJ's head, and ch. 106-108 for the quotes about JGY's fear of NMJ's fierce corpse. The description of JGY going into the coffin is at the end of 108 if you want to have a look, and there's more in 109 and 110 about the difficulty of sealing NMJ's fierce corpse/its power and violence.

[wearesorcerer]

[PF] Golems, Ranked

Ordinarily, I would leave this sort of thing to @weareartificers or @we-are-siege-engineer or [insert other Collective artificer here] -- whomever specifically covers robots and golems and such. However, I'm going through various books right now and am reminded at how much I like and dislike some of these. So here you are: thoughts on animated minions you can make for fun (and perhaps profit).

Adamantine (Bestiary 2): Ye olde epic golem. One of the few things approaching the Tarrasque in difficulty to destroy. Needs better artwork, though, and otherwise isn't terribly interesting. B

Alchemical (Bestiary 2): This one has such horror potential, it's amazing. The brain-in-a-jar part is a nice but unnecessary touch. A

Behemoth (Lost Kingdoms): This seems like a very round-about way of sticking castle on the back of a Colossal-sized creature. C

Blood (Bestiary 4): This is mostly gross (because it forces you to think about coagulation). It is not without precedent, but even then, it's gross. C-

Bone (Bestiary 3): The Bone Prison ability is really what makes this its own creature, rather than a variant skeleton or a negative energy golem. Needs better artwork. N.B.: Not the same as the 2nd ed. monster of the same name. B

Bone, Equine (Tombs of Golarion): I mean, it's a different take on a golem, for sure. I'm not sure if it appeals any differently to me than a horse skeleton would, but it's no worse than a normal bone golem. B

Brass (Legacy of Fire #6, Bestiary 3): Talk about looks being deceiving! Its artwork is lame enough that you pass over the entry, yet it has 1.) an oversized sword which you can't disarm it of, 2.) a breath weapon AoE DoT that can last longer than the recharge die (better than most breath weapons), and 3.) an explosive self-destruct. Kudos to whomever designed this! Contrast with the one in Monster Manual 2 3.0, which is just a minotaur-themed golem. A+

Cannon (Bestiary 3): (Swoons.) I love this. Yes, it's yet another Gunslinger thingy, but it's doing it as a robot (it could not be a golem and be fine, as far as fluff goes) with a feakin' cannon. It's scary enough as-is; imagine it with a pepperbox (revolving) barrel. A+

Carrion (Crimson Throne #1, B2): Y'know how flesh golems are already just zombies but made by science? Well, these are more so: they're lower CR and HD (so cheap to produce), they spread disease, they use especially poorly preserved corpses, necromancers are the ones who tend to make them, and they require animate dead to create. Superfluous. D-

Caryatid Column (an aside): Both of Pathfinder's entries on the Caryatid Column (in the Bonus Bestiary and Bestiary 3) specify that it isn't a true golem and that it cannot be made into shield guardian; which of these is the cause of the other isn't specified. Instead, Caryatid Columns are low HD monsters, so they're cheap enough to mass produce. The Pathfinder version is less meaningfully distinct from other golems than in earlier incarnations; its only abilities are both things many other constructs should have by default: Shatter Weapon (which is in theory representing what happens when you take a sword to a block of stone) and Statue (which is the same thing as the Gargoyle's Freeze [in Place] ability and is again something any non-living block of stone should be able to do). I bring all of this up because...

Caryatid (The Witchwar Legacy): The Caryatid Golem also exists; it's a 14 HD "variant Stone Golem" (the only things the two share besides type and material of construction are number of hit dice) with all of the Caryatid Column's abilities. It doesn't make sense in context: it debuted in a scenario where regular Caryatid Columns might not be CR appropriate one-on-one, but there are twenty four of them to use. Like...why bother wasting page space on these? C- (I like Caryatids and gave them this grade.)

Clay: aka Rabbi Loew's Golem, aka what was originally meant by "golem." Except when we mean "Terracotta Warrior," which is a construct type but not a golem. The Pathfinder version is identical to the 3.5 version, which apart from mentioning that the clay is soft is lifted almost word-for-word from the 2nd ed. description (which is paired with an image of a Terracotta Warrior). Aside from the lack of word-play for activation and deactivation, I don't know how much this conforms to the original story. C for Clay.

Clockwork (Bestiary 2): This is fairly disappointing. Since Pathfinder made it so that you can sneak attack (or crit) almost anything (Rogues: "Wah! Baby want to attack vital organs in things which don't have them!" Paizo: "Okay! You're a warrior class now anyway! You're no longer the squishy pseudo-adventurer who survives by wits alone!" -- No seriously, that's what happened.), there's not a need to specify that creatures of certain types have complex inner workings. Ergo, this may as well be an iron golem with lots of swords, as all it gets is extra slashing damage options. C

Coral (Isles of the Shackles, Bestiary 4): I had come up with this as an idea for a setting of mine before I saw the version in PF. Though I like the idea (and the fast healing), the execution is a bit bland -- just another golem. C+

Crystal (Bestiary 5): The original 3.x Crystal Golem is listed as the Psion Killer on the SRD and, as its name implies, is intended to be for psychics what a normal golem is for arcanists. This one is the reverse: instead of casting dispel psionics, its presence amplifies psychic magic and the construct itself can use psychic spells. I'ma give it points for trying to make itself distinct, instead of being needlessly redundant like much of the (still glorious) 3.x psionics system. B-

Dragonhide (Construct Handbook): Like the Dragonflesh Golem (3.0 Monster Manual II), this is a draconic equivalent of the flesh golem. Unlike that one, it's not the corpse of multiple dragons stitched together, but the corpse of a giant with draconic grafts stitched onto it. Mechanically, this version is highly customizable, but not as cool as 1.) draconic grafts (the item type) or 2.) a dragon (alternate monster entry). B

Fiend-Infused Template (Cheliax, the Infernal Empire): This is kinda cool, but the Berserk Liberation ability alone is a headache in the making for any DM crazy enough to run one. C

Flesh Golem: As I said before about the Carrion Golem, the flesh golem is simply a zombie created through engineering instead of other methods and with a very specific literary/film pedigree. Mechanically, it's an excuse to make undead without them actually being undead, like the plant zombies created by the Yellow Musk Creeper or like if you cast animate objects on a corpse. It also misses the entire point of the novel, which is that the monster is both entirely alive and fully sapient, if pissed off. D

Fossil (Bestiary 3): I thought this was kinda nifty, if a great showcase in how animate objects becomes necessary to explain how something stands. (There are several very good reasons why museums tend to mount replicas of fossils rather than actual fossils, weight and instability being some of them.) However, it's its petrifying attacks that really stand out. B+

Glass (Bestiary 2): The mere fact that it gets spell turning as an extraordinary ability with a recharge is pretty freakin' great; it makes up for the fact that its other main ability is worthless because Pathfinder did not correct the Dazzled status effect (and keeps insisting on Fort saves against it; you can shield your eyes [Reflex], but your immune system isn't going to protect your vision from bright light, TYVM). The inclusion of the Stained Glass Golem as a variant is a nice space-freeing choice -- and this entry is better than the one in Monster Manual 2 3.0. B

Gold (Bestiary 6): Despite its name, its main feature is casting prismatic spray when it hits a target. That's...a little extreme for a golem, but not in a way that gives it many points. C

Ice (Bestiary): Sadly, this is not a snowman, but something more like a Glass Golem -- even though its attacks don't deal slashing damage (and they should), the icy destruction ability makes it clear that it's not snow. I'd say make lesser (snowman) and greater (ice sculpture) forms to address this; the snowman has the same slams but no icy destruction ability, the greater gains the explosion and deals slashing damage on attacks. C

Inubrix (Construct Handbook): This is kinda like an iron golem, but more powerful, since it phases through iron (and thus steel). Seems like overkill. B

Ioun (Ruins of Azlant #6): The naming poor. In general, a golem is named for the material it's made out of. The ioun golem isn't made out of ioun stones, but brass, platinum, and silver; rather, it can socket six of them (like gems in WoW), attracts nearby ones via an aura, and can temporarily drain them to cast magic missile. As a monster, it's only okay if you have ioun stones running rampant in your game; Meow might have one. C+

Iron: I have never understood why the OG D&D robot has a poisonous breath weapon; maybe it's to connect it to the improperly-named Gorgons. C

Junk (Bestiary 4): This is a novelty. You don't see very many swarms, let alone swarms of non-animals. There are other construct swarms, to be sure, but this one is more like a construct vampire or worm-that-walks, which is cooler. And it has fast healing. This is some primo shit. B+

Lead (Bestiary 5): Eh. I mean, it at least does what lead should do (I think; the acid thing doesn't sound like anything I know about lead, but I'm not a chemist). Its biggest novelty is that, if it were a Pokémon, it'd be a Poison/Steel (or vice-versa)-type, which is a heretofore unseen type combo. C

Magnetite (Giantslayer #5): A lodestone golem? A permanent magnet made to make the lives of most adventurers (especially peeps like Knight) that much more difficult? You have my attention! B+

Marrowstone (Inner Sea Bestiary): Yet another faux-undead golem, except this one operates like most undead in that it creates spawn. Pass. D

Mask (Masks of the Living God): This one can also turn into a swarm, but it's a swarm of magical masks. It has two kinds of attack masks: ones that silence and suffocate (scary) and ones that dominate. "What, a domination ability on a construct?" Yeah, but it has Int 7, so it can make use of that. Kinda. For this to be a good construct, it would need a positive Int modifier to best screw with parties, but it's still bizarrely cool. B

Mithral (Bestiary 2): It's almost a T-1000, which just means you need to make it one by adding a high Int score and more shapechanging. B

Noqual (Inner Sea Bestiary): Outdoing the Psion-Killer by a mile, the noqual golem is very much a competent anti-magic construct. It would pair well with a magnetite golem if the latter's abilities weren't magical. B

Obsidian (Bestiary 6): As you should expect, this one is all about slashing damage. It could have worked well as a variant glass golem (given that obsidian is glass). C

Panthereon (Mummy's Mask #4): Laser. Eye. Beams. Need I say more? B+

Quantium (Inner Sea Bestiary): These are a pair of otherwise unique golems that protect the city; as such, they have no crafting notes. They're kinda cool, but the fact that their information is made so fluff-specific limits their use in non-Golarion games. C+

Quintessence (Bestiary 6): Yet another take on a soul-sucking monster, but one in which the monster eats the soul without destroying it, which is somewhat better than normal. I'm not sure I'd ever want to use it, but perhaps someone someday might. C

Robot (Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars): Contextually, this is a robot that's been damaged beyond repair and used to make something akin to an Iron Golem. Mechanically, t differs from the Iron Golem in that it's electricity-oriented. So-so. C+

Sand (Construct Handbook): Why is this a golem and not an elemental? C

Shadow (Hell's Rebels #6): I don't know if I think this is a good or bad idea; it's just sort of strange. C

Stone: It's just sort of basic, y'know? I always look at stone golems and wonder whether or not they should just be earth elementals, since they're often conflated anyway. C

Viridium (Bestiary 6): Mainly a disease golem, its natural attacks are needlessly anomalous -- just give it a freakin' sword and shield. D

Wax (Carrion Crown #5, Bestiary 4): Remember that episode of Gravity Falls where all the wax figures come to life? (Or any other show where the same happens.) That's these. It's another take on the doppelganger, but it's one which is susceptible to fire damage and doesn't require there to be an entire species of creatures that want to replace people (be they tied to mirrors or not), so that's kinda cool. B-/C+

Wood (Bestiary): I'm just not feeling this one, y'know? There are plenty of golems that have AoE splinter attacks (plus the Twigjack). C-