#becoming a mass murderer kind of makes him a monster

[nixthelapin]

Félix’s Parents

Colt Fathom: abuser who thinks his son is a monster (while watching him harmlessly play with a stuffed rabbit and toy train)

Amelie Graham de Vanily: Boy Mom(TM) who thinks her son can do no wrong (while watching him kill every person on the planet)

[starrclown]

Question: Why is Alastor a overlord?

(Triggerwarning: Talks of rape, murder, and cannibalism.)

This isn't exactly a issue with Hazbin Hotel, this is a genuine question. Why is Alastor a overlord? Here's the conversation from Hazbin that Vaggie and Angel had.

V:" The Radio Demon. One of the most powerful demons hell has ever seen?"

A: "Ehhh, not big on politics."

V: *Sigh*. "Decades ago, Alastor manifested in Hell. Seemingly overnight, he began to topple Overloards who had been dominant for centuries. That kind of raw power had never been harnessed by a mortal soul before. He broadcasted his carriage all throughout Hell. Just so everyone could witness his ability. Sinners started calling him, The Radio Demon. As lazy as that is. Many have speculated what unimaginable force enabled him to rival our worlds most ancient and destructive evils. But one things for sure, he's a unpredictable source of danger. A wicked spirt of mystery. And a violent monster of chaos, the likes of which we can't risk getting involved with, unless we want to be erased!"

Which I'm sorry but, HE TOPPLED OVERLORDS THAT HAD BEEN THERE FOR CENTRIES?? HES ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL BEINGS IN HELL?? ANCIENT AND DESTRUCTIVE EVILS???

Okay 1. He's one of the most powerful beings in hell? Okay but the Goetias are above overlords. There are 72 Goetias in the Ars Goetia. There's the 7 deadly sins. There is Lucifer, Lilith, and Charlie. That's 82 beings above Alastor. Sure, Alastor could be the most powerful overlord but all of Hell. Yeah I call bullshit. 2. HOW did he topple over all the ancient overlords??? THE MAN HAS TENTICALS FOR FUCKS SAKE!! I'm sorry but I just don't see it.

Now Hazbin hasn't come out yet, so they might explain how he got so powerful but I see it as 3 options. (I could be wrong.)

1. Alastor as a human made a deal with a powerful demon but then stabbed them in the back and stole their power.

2. This is why Alastor has voodoo. So he has a reason to be so powerful.

3. His crimes as a human were so despicable that he gained a mass amount of power. Maybe the more despicable your crimes are makes you stronger?

Now there is flaws in all of these.

1. Alastor could have made a deal with a demon but how would he betray them? I'm not saying it's not possible but I think this would need thought.

2. I hope this is not the reason. Please do research on Voodoo if you wish to have a character practice Voodoo.

3. This could make sense but it would completely unravel. It would make sense for certain characters, Valentino being a rapist would make sense since he's disgusting and he would have become a overlord for his crimes. But Alastor? He was a murder and may have been a cannible when he was alive. Look, murder and cannibalism are disgusting buy that's what makes him so powerful? If that's the logic wouldn't Angel be the overlord and not Alastor since Angel was litteraly in the MAFIA. Like a crime organism?

(Not gonna lie Angel as a Overlord is a very fun idea and I may use that. If you draw that you should tag me 😗🫶)

I really hope this gets addressed in the show so we KNOW why HIM out of all sinners have THIS MUCH power.

(I swear to god if he somehow is more powerful then LUCIFER, LILITH, OR CHARLIE I'm gonna blow a gasket.)

- ⭐️StarClown⭐️

[honeycreammilkshake]

Reading your anons and your answers I think the problem with those fans is that they only accept a character if it's involved with satoru.

Like, apparently you are not allowed to like Sukuna anymore nor like both yuji and sukuna, but you were only allowed to like AND analyze Sukuna when he was fighting Satoru loool

I'm sorry but Sukuna is more than that, sukuna doesn't need THAT fight to be a character in his own, Sukuna also kept analyzing and having cool moments with other characters, just because your favorite character was dead doesn't mean other things stopped existing. This is one of those cases where fans keep thinking the manga is about some secondary character

hi, anon. thank you so much for this ask. i'm going to follow this up by making an unnecessarily long and ranty post nobody's going to bother to read, but i felt the overwhelming need to go in-depth for this anyways. apologies for the length of this.

to start off, i'm going to point out something that will probably get me a lot of hate or at least criticism from gojo fanatics, but i think it should be said for all those out there who keep twisting jkk to fit their own problematic concept of morals.

so we all know sukuna is the big bad of jjk. he's the main antagonist, the evil cannibal monster, a god of chaos and apathy and murder. i'm not here to argue against this, though. it's been clear from the beginning sukuna is a true villain in all of his actions and beliefs. however, we really need to look at the contexts behind how he became such a monster and consider if he's actually the most "evil" sorcerer/curse in the jujutsu world or not.

i'm going to address the underlying problem with the pro-gojo/anti-sukuna fans who twist the story to suit their own views first.

so gojo was born with a tremendous amount of power, so much that he's been branded the strongest jujutsu sorcerer of the modern age. he literally shifted the flow of cursed energy and from the start was set apart from others. it's truly terrifying how much power he has...

so it's a good thing he's a real sweet and caring guy, right?

if only.

gojo is irredeemably self-absorbed, unhealthily egotistical, obsessed with his own abilities, demeaning and insulting to others, brutal to his students and dismissive of their safety, and more than willing to commit mass murder.

when fighting with jogo, for example, he doesn't seem bothered at all by the massacre of innocent people during their battle, and is even willing to sacrifice bystanders all in the name of winning.

he's displayed this same kind of general apathy for the lives of others in his past as well.

in his past arc, it was geto who saved gojo from becoming an actual villain and instead managed to set gojo on the path of becoming the slightly less evil antihero he is today. however, after riko's death, the experience turned both of them on each other as they settled on opposite sides of "good vs evil."

without geto there to guide him, though, gojo would have easily lost his way and turned evil .... so where was a person like that for sukuna?

the jujutsu world is extremely heartless and obsessed with strength. the jujutsu higher-ups were willing to kill yuuji - an innocent teenager who just happened to become dangerously involved with the world of curses and the host of sukuna - as well as risk the health and safety of countless others, sorcerers and normal people alike. the whole jujutsu world is full of corruption and cold, cruel people.

but this is just in the modern world - during the golden age of jujutsu, in the heian era, conditions were even harsher and crueler than they are now. during this time, existence for regular people in japan was demanding, quality of life was very low, and so many died of sickness and starvation. the amount of curses that arose from all this suffering was immense and required the extreme powers of sorcerers to balance it out.

this is the context of sukuna's birth. he came into this world as a child of a starving mother and he himself would have starved if he didn't consume his twin in the womb.

during his conversation with kashimo, who asks if sukuna was born with that much power or if he gained it throughout his life, sukuna himself seems to not know. all he can say is... he was an unwanted wretch.

societal demands and religious fights back then would have led to an overwhelming stigma and dehumanization of anything that people feared or didn't understand... which probably means that sukuna, who was able to be born from the act of eating his own unborn twin, was seen as monstrous from the day of his birth on. and if he was indeed born with such strength and a body merged with that of his twin's, or at least the compacity to become that, he was also most likely villainized for his nature as well.

where gojo was more embraced and highly coveted by the jujutsu world, the world sukuna was born into most likely shunned him and led him to adapt the kind of mindset he has now.

sukuna sees strength as the only means of survival, rising above the cruelty shown to him to become the cruelest himself. this philosophy, which a lot of people at this time believed in - especially in the jujutsu world - shows us that sukuna probably saw his own really option to endure was to become a monster. those at the top are above all the weak feelings and suffering of the ones beneath, after all, or so he believes.

and it seems like so many of the strongest sorcerers still believe in that concept as well. both yorozu and gojo thought they could reach sukuna by challenging him, but in the end... only yuuji ever connected with the king of curses.

(yes i will fit sukuita in here... even if you don't ship them romantically, it's an undeniable fact that their relationship is much more complex than it seems and that yuuji does in fact care for the very monster he's supposed to destroy.)

when sukuna's dying in chapter 268, yuuji makes it clear that he's willing to serve the kind of caring, understanding role in sukuna's life that was most likely never given to him.

instead of dehumanizing sukuna, yuuji actually accepts that sukuna turned out to be the monster he is and says it was all a matter of chance how they became like this.

this a level of empathy, intimacy, and compassion that someone like gojo (and pretty much the vast majority of jjk characters) could never show. sukuna himself seems at a loss for words for this unbelievably caring treatment from yuuji - he's even surprised enough to use the brat's full name.

and i dislike that fans are starting to twist this interaction between them to make it fit their own views of sukuna and gojo.

look, i like gojo objectively. he's a fine enough character and serves an important role in jjk. i'm not against him or his fans, and i certainly don't want to hurt or make light of other people's feelings towards him. however, i do want to point something out that some fans should really know better. so many antis are against us sukuita shippers and/or sukuna fans and their main argument, over and over again, is how evil and monstrous sukuna is and that gojo is obviously better in every way. they claim that because gojo is on the side of good, it means sukuna is the worst in terms of morals (when villains like kenjaku are arguably just as terrible if not more so but dismissed so easily) we are delusional or wrong for sympathizing with sukuna.

so i would like to say to these people... please stop using these pallid, baseless arguments against us sukuna lovers because they're just so inaccurate and keep misunderstanding the whole story. it's more than okay to have your own headcanons and depictions of a fictional character, whether they're sukuna or gojo or any of the others - but do not force that depiction on others and do not force your interpretation of the source material on us just to appease your own opinions.

please be more respectful to others, please keep your own dislikes to yourself instead of lashing out at other fans you could instead just avoid, and please stop being so mean to gege. whether or not he makes gojo return should not be a reason to spread such hate about him. it's disrespectful towards both him and all writers who work so hard to make the content you treat so harshly.

thank you.

[bestworstcase]

some thoughts—messy ones—abt this beat:

this moment gets brought up with… honestly surprising regularity when people want to make a point about cinder being -redeemable- because she is, obviously, freaked out here. and like i don’t disagree that this scene and this specific beat in particular is doing really critical work to set up cinder’s villain->hero arc (not redemptive) but i do think “see! she’s repulsed by his wanton brutality!” is an odd and kind of reductive way to parse what’s happening here bc

that

is

a

grimm

thats a grimm. cinder reveled in the mass hysteria and violence she authored at the fall of beacon, personally reduced ozpin to a charred smear on the floor, and murdered a seventeen year old child in cold blood and gloated about it later. her first and only coping mechanism for Feels Bad is Killing People. it sparks joy. but she can’t stomach the sight of her coworker mauling a grimm.

ok? context is important. zoom out—

this is how salem’s training her—trying to train her—to mastery of the grimm arm. just throwing grimm at her until she reflexively falls back on her human arm, and then drops.

enough. i thought you were the girl who wanted power. stop holding back. if you want to master your new power, you must—

enter tyrian. and then for the whole dialogue between him and salem cinder gets framed like this:

folds hands.

the point of this scene is that cinder did lie to salem; she is not The Girl Who Wanted Power. what did she tell rhodes after she killed the madame? “i won’t have to run now.” she wants a home. she wants to be safe. she wants freedom. she believes—because the world has never given her a reason to believe otherwise—that becoming powerful is the only way she can ever get what she wants. but she does not, per se, want power.

and salem does not understand this because cinder has hitherto been very careful to keep her true motivation hidden, primarily because the last time she showed vulnerability her quasi-parental mentor immediately drew on her and shattered her ability to trust into a billion itty bitty pieces. cinder is, throughout this scene, very careful not to let salem see any of the stricken or pleading looks that the audience gets to see.

stop holding back.

tyrian interrupts when he does because salem can’t see through the mask cinder has presented to her (and is frustrated because she therefore can’t understand why cinder is being so timid with the phenomenal power she used to, it bears repeating, literally wipe the floor with ozpin)—and because what cinder takes from all of this is that salem wants her to be more brutal, like tyrian. there’s a reason cinder starts practicing on illusory rubys after this and why she’s frustrated and confused by salem’s judicious tactics in V5.

see? the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning; the scene is mirrored and tyrian is the looking glass. this:

is the guilt later renewed as horror:

there’s layers to cinder having this empathetic response to grimm when grimm are subjected to violence. obviously part of it is that cinder herself is grimm, at least in part, and that identification is conspicuously made present in the scene—

—but it goes beyond that. “you turned yourself into a monster just for power”/“look who’s talking.” think about how tenderly cinder says “shh, this is your home now” to the wyvern in V3. grimm are not the monsters in cinder’s story; they never have been. the abuse she suffered from her own kind was so horrific and unrelenting that it engendered a sense of kinship with the grimm. before she got that arm she was stitching grimm markings into the sleeves of her dress.

but insofar as this beat and this scene is integral to cinder’s nascent villain->hero arc the load-bearing pillar here is the contradiction between cinder’s notional aspiration (power) and her true motivation (freedom safeguarded by power), and the way her identification with and empathy for the grimm are tied up in that and the manner in which she tries to give salem what she thinks salem wants from her (i.e. be more like tyrian). which all comes back around with this ->

notably in 8.6 salem not only recants her harsh treatment of cinder since cinder returned but also reverses the things she says to cinder in 4.11. “i thought you were the girl who wanted power […] then stop holding back” -> “you’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want, and here i am holding you back instead of lifting you up.”

basically the rivalry between cinder and tyrian pulls a lot of symbolic weight because what tyrian represents vis-a-vis the salem-cinder dynamic is their shared misunderstanding of each other; salem accepts the ruthless power-hunger at face value and cinder reads into salem’s frustration a desire for cinder to be more brutal and both of them are incorrect. the framing of the disciplinary/apology scene in 8.6 communicates the shifting paradigm in part by adjusting his prominence in the composition of key shots before and after the pivot. and then salem sends him away to babysit the c-lister in vacuo.

point being the narrative development toward cinder’s villain->hero arc is also the narrative development toward salem’s villain->hero arc because they are structurally interdependent and constructed as a set; they’re meant to happen together and because of each other. that’s the trajectory. also cinder is keeping the arm and salem is not getting ungrimmed thank you goodnight

[thyandrawrites]

Being fully honest Dabi coming to Endv after being ignored yet again doesn't change the fact that he has been ignored yet again. Even now endv has his eyes on afo and I can't see it changing

Nah, I get that. I feel the same. To be honest I see this as another set up for failure. So far the heroes have consistently been making the wrong choices and letting things escalate instead of trying better ways of facing their opponents.

I didn't wanna say it in case I jinxed it with my prediction, but if we are to take Hawks and Mic's reactions as the standard for how the old gen will continue to act moving forward, then I'm expecting Enji to be much the same. He's gonna fight Touya like a villain who's too far gone. Possibly he'll even echo his colleagues and try to protect Touya's idealized memory by killing the man his son has become.

I might be wrong about this of course... But looking back at Enji's internal narration during the Central Hospital chapters and his thoughts as he fought AFO... He's still nowhere near recognizing that Dabi and Touya are the same person.

Remember this line?

Well, here's some translation trivia. In japanese he's only calling him a mass murderer (大量殺人者). The only reason why we know that he's even talking about Touya and not any other PLF villain is because the furigana (the little reading on the right of the aforementioned kanji string above) tells us he's referring to his son (むすこ). Stuff like this is hard to translate because English doesn't have an organic way to do the same kind of word play, so the only way to get across both definitions is to include them both in the line itself, like the character is uttering them at once. The famous "a dance with your son, here in hell" was another example of Hori using furigana that doesn't match with the kanji they're paired with, to get across a double meaning. But for the sake of understanding Enji's mentality, I'd like to stress that he sees Dabi first and foremost as a "mass murderer". Only incidentally, like an afterthought, as his son. You'll also notice how in that same scene he's thinking about "fighting him". Not reuniting, not seeing how he's doing. Fighting. Like he would any other villain, because to him this is still a matter to be tackled as a hero and not a father.

Point is, Enji still doesn't fully recognize Touya in Dabi.

This is how he pictures him in his mind's eye. This is not by far a flattering image. For all that Enji says that he recognizes the wrongs he did to Touya, the image he conjures when he thinks of him is not that of a man falling apart from the weight of unaddressed trauma and desperation. He sees a monster, grinning maniacally, reveling in Enji's anguish with sadistic glee. This is not the son he abused, over and over, until he had an emotional breakdown and lost himself. This is Enji picturing an enemy, someone not to feel any sympathy for. Someone whose most prominent feature is his creepy grinning mouth, open wide as if ready to devour everything Enji's been working for all these years.

Even in his thoughts, he keeps referring to Dabi as an abstract evil rather than a person:

He's the physical manifestation of Enji's "mistakes", not his son. Not the boy he said he missed so dearly he hoped he could get a second chance with.

Touya is Othered as an abstract being, the sum of every flaw Enji possesses but never wanted to acknowledge.

Now compare that to how he saw Touya as an idealized martyr:

Here Touya is remembered as a good kid, not through the distorted lenses above, because up until this moment he's still a "good victim". Someone who died before he could become an obstacle, and as such still someone who Enji treats with humanity. He brings offer to his altar and manifests "regret" over his premature death, because this Touya is easy to mourn. After all, with Touya gone, who's gonna complain about Enji using his memory as a justification for the continued abuse of Shouto and the rest of the family?

Certainly not Touya. The dead are the perfect people to idealize because they can no longer fight for their rights as a living person would. And Enji clearly knows this. He obviously ignores how training Shouto and punching him so hard he pukes goes directly against everything Touya ever wanted because Touya's wishes are simply no longer part of the equation. Touya is no longer a person but just a a cause that Enji needs to honor (arbitrarily, and with even more abuse than before).

But when Touya comes back, and suddenly he's a person with agency once again and not just an idealized memory anymore...

Suddenly, he becomes "a mass murderer".

So... No, I'm not really expecting Enji to turn around and act like a good dad just because Dabi showed up. As you said, Dabi chasing him down doesn't make Enji any less neglectful or any less at fault, and if Horikoshi knows what he's doing, he's probably about to make him do something extremely uncalled for and totally catered to himself, as Enji's actions so far have only been shielding his own ego from any genuine remorse

[allisoooon]

omfg can i say i love your viktor & allison takes so much

it’s been so frustrating being in the tua fandom having both viktor & allison as my top faves where too many people completely woobify viktor & demonize allison to hell and back

it’s kind of frustrating with viktor especially because you can at least blame the audience take away of allison in s3 on the writers doing stuff like focusing on a drunk five montage instead of allison’s pov but s1 is right there and apparently so many people’s take aways from it was “viktor is poor baby that must be protected” despite the fact that he is a 30 year old grown man tht was very clearly being an ass

and it’s confusing to me like, 1) what drew me to viktor and made him my fav was the fact that he’s kind of an ass, like I can’t remember if it was the cabin scene or the viktor bringing down the mansion scene but i saw that and was like “holy shit he’s an asshole, i have to watch this for him”

2) premise of tua is literally dysfunctional asshole siblings are dysfunctional because of their trauma but that’s no excuse esp because their actions are literally causing apocalypses and they have to learn to heal both individually as a family and once they do so the apocalypses will stop (probably)

I think for some people that when they strongly identify with a character, their natural self-serving bias pops up and wants to protect the character because they feel like they're protecting themselves. So I get where it comes from. People have been sanitizing their faves and bashing anyone remotely mean to them for as long as fandom has been around, probably.

Klaus compares Viktor to Carrie White in s3. Whether that was the inspiration for Viktor or not (which would make a ton of sense--Vanya in the comics is far more actively complicit in the end of the world, whereas Viktor seems to kind of go into a trance the way Sissy Spacek's Carrie does), it's extremely apt.

I've heard it said Stephen King has become so iconic because most of the "monsters" in his books are humans. As much as you feel for Carrie and want her to have a better lot in life, at the end of the day, she is the monster of this horror story. Her mother and her bullies are all more evil than she is, but they didn't massacre pretty much everyone at a high school dance. Especially with Spacek's portrayal, you almost feel like it wasn't Carrie's fault. It was out of character for her, and after everything she's endured, it makes sense if she got a power rush and literally burned everything to the ground.

Viktor is similarly the monster, or in this genre the supervillain, of s1. It's done incredibly well, too. By the time you've fully followed his arc up to when he snaps, it makes so much sense for him to lose it that it doesn't really even feel like mass murder. Like with Carrie, you've identified with this character's pain so much, you're kind of rooting for a cathartic power trip. The writing is so good that when a character does something unforgivable, you forgive it almost before it happens.

So it really does feel like a disservice to the character when people sanitize Viktor. As if you can only justify identifying with this character if they are a good person. Identifying with the monster doesn't make you a bad person. In fact, it was the writer's goal. Fighting it means you're not getting as much out of the story as you could be, and the message the author is trying to convey won't hit as hard. Viktor has a very real dark side, and it's always going to be a threat to the people around him. And yet he is gentle and soft-spoken, and tries to be a good person. These two things exist in the same character, which is how it happens in real life. When it happens in fiction, the audience can safely explore their own dark side. That's damn good writing.

[g0ttal0ve101]

for the dark oc asks 💀

1, 4, 7, and 13 for ermmm Thomas (⁉️ IF YOU WANT), Evelyn, Sam, and Lulu :3

SORRY THIS IS SO LATE GAAH!!!

also just and FYI i do like Thomas-LMAOAOAOA it’s fine to ask about him i just haven’t told you his updated lore and it’s. kinda fucking HORRENDOUS so you might see some of that here. :3

TW: mentions of violence, yandere themes, and sa.

1. Excluding murder, what is the worst thing your OC has ever done?

Thomas: he’s on the naughty list man. Blackmail, bribing judges/police officials, distributing illegal drugs/weapons, kidnapping, and a sprinkle of human trafficking, yeah. :3

Evelyn: SHE’S ONLY A MURDERER FOR A SIDE HUSSEL! (N/A)!! FREE HER!!!!! no but seriously the worst thing she’s done is brutally dissect like twenty people. she’s innocent 💔

Sam: aside from the murdering, he just stalks and kidnaps for the most part, so probably that. oh but he also drugs his victims so ig that’s sorta illegal too haha :3 (guess where he got the drugs from.)

Lucian: kidnapping probably….i feel like cannibalism ties in with murder so!!

4. What appears in your OC’s darkest nightmares?

Thomas: this man doesn’t HAVE nightmares. he goes to bed after dissecting someone like: 😴!! he could care less.

Evelyn: having violet give up on her. i mean, she wants to cure her condition more than anything, and having violet there to guide her has brought her a long way. without her, man…she might as well return to how it was. and that alone scares her more than anything.

Sam: his mother’s death is always his darkest nightmare. he knows its coming soon and one of these days he’s just gonna wake up and she’ll be gone.

Lucian: his (s/o) or friends sexually assaulting him. he ofc has nightmares about his stepfather’s abuse more often, but the darkest nightmares always originate from the thought that they would betray him like that too.

7. How far is your OC willing to go to get what they want?

Thomas: anything. if thomas hall wants something, he’s gonna get it. there’s no doubt in my mind that he would commit mass genocide just for a fucking soda. the thing about thomas is that he doesn’t take no for an answer - take that as you will.

Evelyn: honestly, if she can’t have it, she’ll be fine with it. unless it’s a very dire need, she’ll drop it sooner or later. but if it’s something that pertains her well-being or condition…well…a few heads might roll.

Sam: very persistent. not for physical things, but emotional. he could care less if he didn’t get some shoes he wanted. now to have riley’s eyes on him? anything in the world will do for a sacrifice. <3

Lucian: oh he’s persistent alright. if he doesn’t get something minuscule he wants, he’ll be okay with that. but if it’s something dire, something he truly needs, his sweetheart mentality suddenly becomes a bit tainted. depending on what it is, some people may or may not make it out alive.

13. Who does your OC hate the most?

Thomas: his mother. there’s no other competition.

Evelyn: thomas lmao. not only does she hate him as a person, but she hates his fake persona that he puts up so people don’t know what kind of monster he really is.

Sam: lindsey hall and her little bitches. yeah. even if they’re six feet under the ground, sam will always be their #1 hater til the day he dies.

Lucian: this one was actually hard…but i would probably say his mother. he’s been manipulated by his stepfather so much that he can’t help but “love” him, even if he knows how wrong it was. his mother, however, LEFT HIM WITH THAT MAN knowing EXACTLY what he was capable of. so he hates her more than he will ever hate him.

[thethirdromana]

The Beetle characters based on how likely they would be to eat a worm

It's the sequel to Dracula characters based on how likely they would be to eat a worm that literally no one asked for.

The Beetle What do racist depictions of Egyptian deities/monsters eat anyway?! This is 100% a question that Richard Marsh did not consider, along with the many, many other things that he did not consider in this novel. Real beetles, though, eat worms among many other things, so I'm going to say that this one is a yes.

Sydney Atherton Because violence begets violence, I want Sydney Atherton to have to eat many worms. I want him to be force-fed them by the ghosts of murdered cats who, meowing and wailing, haunt his every waking hour and most of his sleeping ones. But we can't always get what we want, and if there's one thing that history teaches us, it's that privileged Englishmen of the 1890s very seldom got their just deserts. Sydney Atherton would not eat a worm.

Paul Lessingham It's funny how Paul, written by nearly anyone else, would be a sympathetic character - a social reformer trying to use his status to make life better for those worse off than him, while struggling with the impact of a long-ago trauma. But he's written by Richard Marsh, with his borderline fascistic view of strength and weakness, so here we are.

Anyway, Paul might have been hypnotised into eating a worm at some point, but that would be a weird thing even for the Beetle to do, so I think Paul's diet has been and will remain worm-free.

Marjorie Lindon Marjorie really diminishes as the novel goes on, doesn't she? By the end she's become the damsel in the tower; the woman who got tied to the train tracks. She exists to be white and in need of rescue. She's a plot device, and she would not eat a worm because plot devices don't eat. I only dimly remember the hints of Marjorie as a person who we got in earlier chapters, putting up a creditable fight against her overbearing father. The Marjorie that she could have been would eat a worm just to spite her dad, and good for her.

Augustus Champnell Who the fuck knows. Quick, people who have just spent several weeks reading a novel in which Augustus Champnell is one of the main characters: close your eyes and name any single trait that he has. I've got "upper-class" and "detective" and literally nothing else, how about you? Sure, he'd eat a worm, why not. It's not as if Richard Marsh has given me anything else to go on.

Percy Woodville Percy did get a character trait, and his character trait is "victim of bullying by Sydney Atherton". Sydney has definitely forced Percy to eat a worm at some point, whether in the playground as children or in the lab for some kind of experiment. Maybe more than one. Why do you still spend time with this guy, Percy? Why did you agree to be best man at his wedding? He's not your friend.

Dora Grayling For a character we don't really see all that much of, Dora Grayling is the most confirmed freak in the whole novel. She looks at Sydney Atherton and thinks, "I'd tap that." And then she flirts with him over the seductive concept of mass murder in the Amazon rainforest. There's no way of knowing what Dora might do, aided by her vast heiress fortune. She'd eat a worm, and she'd like it.

Robert Holt Poor, long-suffering, starved Robert Holt. Let him eat something.

[bladesalvation]

𝕆ℂ 𝕄𝔼𝕄𝔼

tagged by lbr. I stole this from the lovely @bloodyarn

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꒰ 𝗕𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒 ꒱ 

Full name: Nicholai Elenwyn Faalgard, known as Nihil Rot Gender: Nonbinary masc presenting Sexuality: Pansexual + demiromantic Pronouns: He/They

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꒰ 𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 ꒱ 

Birthplace: Auburn Trail, Baldur's Gate outskirts Job: Unholy Assassin Cult Leader Priest of Kelemvor and Medical Examiner Phobias: redcaps. His stress goes up 200% around redcaps and he gets real twitchy.  Guilty pleasures: Pumpkin seed and cranberry bread, preferrably with butter on it and a coffee or tea on the side. He's a sucker for it and probably the most chill you will ever see him

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꒰ 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐒 ꒱

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral (Neutral by end of redemption.)

Sins:

Vengeful: Unsurprisingly, the guy attracted to vengeful types has a vengeance boner himself-- and he is liable to not take any half-assed punishments as a fair trade unless you can really appeal to his humanity. Implusive: Nihil is a wildcard-- he has a method to his madness, but it is usually short-sighted and prone to last minute change. Indecisive: Honestly goes hand-in-hand with his impulses in the worst way. Nihil will go from ride or die on your plans of ascension to wrestling you to the ground and screaming at you about how stupid you are for going for it.

Virtues:

Loyal: Nihil is a ride or die no matter what bad decision you've made-- your best bet to break his loyalty is to turn on him or someone else within the Circle of people he trusts. Protective: He will defend those close to him with his life. Man is a guard dog in an elf body.

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꒰ 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 ꒱

Introvert / Extrovert

Organized/ Disorganized

Close-minded / Open-minded

Calm / Anxious / Restless

Disagreeable / Agreeable / In between

Cautious / Reckless / In between

Patient / Impatient / In between

Outspoken / Reserved / In between

Leader / Follower / Flexible

Empathetic / Unempathetic / In between

Optimist / Pessimist / Realist

Traditional / Modern / In between

Hard-working / Lazy

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꒰ 𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐒 ꒱

All of these are specific to Nihil only based on his story, not RP-- RP is always open ended because I would LOVE to have other insights, this is just the ideas I got

OTP:

Astarion : I'm sorry, they share a single braincell. They really do. I could write out Nihil's approvals and it would line up to Astarion's 95% of the time. They get along disturbingly well and Nihil would do just about anything for Astarion. They were both thrust in a life or death choice by a manipulative person and made the decision to survive only to pay for it by becoming chained to that person forever. Both use sex to manipulate and are numbed to killing, even having fun in doing it. Both are also just kinda here for the vibes in the worst way possible. Gortash: Ok ok I have been vocal abt the idea that Nihil and Gortash had a strictly sexual relationship with repressed feelings for each other for a bit, but what definitely gets me is both were hated and considered some kind of burden without truly knowing why and were picked up by their gods for their potential (and seemingly at their lowest point). Nihil was freshly widowed and his s/o someone who was one of the only people who didn't think he was a monster. So Gortash, this brilliant, well-spoken and frankly dashing man not only seemingly trusts him and values their partnership genuinely but re-iterates he isn't a monster? It's over boys.

Acceptable Ships:

Shadowheart : Shadowheart was my original plan for Nihil honestly-- also a lot in common, worshipping "misunderstood" gods (though one could argue that at least Kelemvor is just distant, he isn't out here making people commit mass murders for him that I have seen. Bhaal? Got me there), they're fairly secretive people and like people who can respect their boundaries and let them come out of their shell, they want to be kind even if its not supposed to be in their nature... Honestly she should be in the OTP category but its not hard for him to be set up with any of the companions. Lae'zel : Gith have Nihil's whole heart. Really, her biggest drawback that made her not an OTP for him is just that she is snippy towards him asking questions which is really just a no go. But loves her loyalty and decisiveness and does what he can to understand why she is how she is and give her proper space and respect. Also he just loves siccing her on people. It's fun. Wyll: Honestlyyy I kinda accidentally fell in love with them dancing, I was expecting to find them so cute. But Wyll, like Karlach and Gale, deserve far better than a nightmare void of a man. I mean everyone deserves better but mostly Wyll, Karlach and Gale.

OT3: I wanted Nihil/Astarion/Shadowheart so bad y'all don't even know. YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I want Astarion to get his mean goth gf and slutty goth bf

Brotp:

Gale: I feel like not much needs to be said, he's a squishy wizard and kind of a pain in Nihil's eyes but he likes the guy and his stories, they're real fun!

Notp: Fuck Wulbren Bongle, I don't give a fuck abt this motherfucka's problems--

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꒰ 𝗕𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 ꒱

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𝐏𝐀𝐒𝐓 (tw pregnancy loss, cannibalism ment) - bullet points to go faster

Born to Kelehan Faalgard and Dannikah Hjol-- the son of an esteemed fabric merchant and a third generation Seldarine Drow immigrant respectively. Born in a small village outside of Baldur's Gate called Auburn Trail.

Danikkah struggled to keep a pregnancy throughout the first few years of marriage and exhausted every avenue to try and have a child with her husband. Her final loss in her second trimester drove her to seek out a hag living in the forest hugging the south of the village with the reluctant blessing of her husband.

Struck a deal with the hag, Mother Radley; a child with the power to beat the odds in exchange for what the couple cared for the most. Danikkah agreed, believing what she cared for the most was her family's long-standing farmstead. She was given an infused piece of 'a divine's flesh' to eat and successfully fell pregnant.

The family was shunned during the pregnancy when word got out how Danikkah got pregnant and Kelehan's tailor shop took a hit but despite the stress, the pregnancy progressed.

A drow girl appeared in their sheep's meadow a few weeks before Danikkah was due to give birth--With a surprising clarity the girl called Danikkah her mother, as 'Lady Silverhair told her to'. Believing the girl to be a late-answered prayer from Eilistraae herself, Danikkah was overjoyed to take her in and name her Dirzarra-- her soon-to-be son's older sister.

Nicholai was born and when Mother Radley came to retrieve her end of the bargain, she revealed that their daughter was the prized possession she wanted. The family refused and in turn were offered an ultimatum: Dirzarra came with her, or Nicholai would be undone. She gave the couple until their son turned 8, imbuing him with a magic illness that could not be cured until either a decision was made or the boy died.

Nicholai's parents would seek out clerics and priests to help, knowing the sickness could not be cured but willing to try. They were even more outcasts and it spread to the kids as time went on.

Nicholai spent most of his days ill at home, unable to play and help with chores and it only worsened as his time ran out. Days before his 8th birthday, he and Dirzarra were jumped in the meadow by one of the hag's servants. In a desperate attempt to save his sister, Nicholai unleashed his fury and frustration on the redcap and savaged it until it died.

When his time came, Nicholai was rushed to Baldur's Gate and the Stormshore Tabernacle for help, every other temple refusing the family's begging. When it was clear he was beyond saving, a priest of Kelemvor approached to read his last rites as a kindness to the family.

As he was about to pass, Nicholai was intervened by Bhaal, naming himself a savior to the boy and able to rid him of his disease if he vowed his soul and talents to him. Nicholai agreed and was saved, allowing those around him to believe it was Kelemvor that took pity on him and spared him this death.

As he grew, more murders around the village would spring up. The residents were panicked but unable to solve the killings, even when the Flaming Fists and various adventurers were called in. Nicholai proved himself a perfect assassin and worshipped Bhaal fervently. When he was 15, he would have a vision bidding him to kill the hag, Mother Radley. When he did, he would find the contract between the hag and his mother for his birth, as well as letters detailing his illness.

Outraged, his rancid blood bid him to turn on his parents and sister, failing the attempt before running away to Baldur's Gate under the false pretense of wanting a higher education and to eventually join a small group of Kelemvorite priests. There he would seek the attention of the Bhaalist cult, eventually being summoned to meet Sarevok and was christened as an initiate, changing his name to 'Nihil the Rotten'

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𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓

Nihil would train under the previous leader of the Bhaalist temple as an initiate from the age of 16, alongside his kin, Orin the Red. He would assume a false position as a medical student and Kelemvor cleric, specializing in the last rites of murder victims whose families could not afford services.

He would attempt to leave the cult at 21, with the help of his lover, a Lathanderan vengeance paladin named Flynn Bardr. However, he succumbed to his Urges shortly after a quick union and kill his new husband. Destroyed at the outcome, Nihil returned to the temple to face his kin and his mentor.

When he returned, the high priest attacked with the intent to kill the traitor, only for Nihil to kill him instead and claim his betrayal a test of his faith and take the high priest role for himself. He would proceed to grieve for his lover and beg Bhaal's forgiveness in private.

a few years later he would meet arms dealer and Banite Enver Gortash and they would agree to a tentative alliance at the behest of their gods. Over time they would both eventually be appointed as Chosen and enact Gortash's Accelerated Grand Design (not canon to RP, they would start a sexual relationship shortly after the theft of the Crown of Karsus.)

Orin and Nihil's relationship, already strained by his betrayal as she did not believe it a test of his faith, worsened as he took what she believed was her rightful place and began to brush her off, deeming her 'beneath him now'. This would lead to her betrayal in the Illithid colony.

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𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐎𝐈𝐃 𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐒𝐇

Overwhelming loss of memory, the only proof of who he is a scrap of paper of prayers and last rites read by clerics of Kelemvor and a dagger made of surgical steel, Nihil set out to seek aid where he could not provide it to himself. And yet, despite everything pointing to his divine position, he cannot hear his god like any other cleric...yet he still wields the arcane power of a priest.

Who is this power really coming from?

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[daekie]

i reblogged an oc ask meme from u and its only courteous to send questions! so here u go despite the fact we've never talked lol: ghost and betrayal for an oc of ur choice!

FAIR ENOUGH. FAIR ENOUGH. unfortunately ashton carver the vampire is taking up a lot of brain real estate and not even paying fucking rent (asshole. i’m getting art of him and maybe i’ll be able to think about other OCs after that) so ASHTON TIME

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts? Ashton has tried to make himself into a thing that isn’t bogged down by his ghosts and he’s kind of succeeded. Not really. Mostly she uses it as fuel, because -- You ever find out that you’re infected by the malevolent cells of your vampiric bloodline’s progenitor, that you pass those cells onto anyone you use your powers on, and that those cells are completely capable of transforming their host into an avatar of said progenitor? And that you might’ve been meant to be an avatar, but you’re more stubborn than god, so it didn’t work? And you used your powers on your ex, who’s now in a position of immense political and social weight? And you used your powers on your other party members? And your boss? And your friends? Because your powers were useful, and nobody else had them, and -- Sometimes they just kind of sit and think about it. About how on some level, that’s still part of why he’s doing this: it’s not just to have total control and agency over his own self. It’s because if she wants the people she cared about to be safe - from her, and from everything her bloodline entails -- she had to leave. They had to leave. And maybe if he gets strong enough, maybe if he burns his progenitor’s fucking blight from this world and from his blood, then maybe -- but monsters like him don’t retire. There isn’t an after. If she’s lucky she’ll go out in a blaze of glory and take that thing with her. But that underlying knowledge of what could happen always haunts her, right alongside the ghost of the person she used to be, back when she actually did care about them; back when she was human enough to care about one person like that. And then he goes off and summons a bunch of demons because that’s how we cope these days. There’s no therapy when you’re an internationally wanted vampiric criminal!! There’s just looking at yourself in the mirror and going YOU DUMB SON OF A BITCH, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT and then wearing your ex’s face next time you take public transport because you’re being so so so normal about those feelings you are pretending you do not have and can no longer understand.

betrayal: Has your OC ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust? Has your OC ever betrayed someone who trusted them? Hahaha. Haha. Ha. Betrayer, liar, murderer, devil-worshipper, soul-devourer, you gotta give her whole secondary subtitle all at once or you’re not being accurate, come on now.  All jokes aside, Ashton’s reputation for backstabbing and betrayal is mostly exaggerated, but you nonconsensually turn a man into the hulk to fight a demon and then immediately leave the city without saying goodbye + devour the soul of an ancient vampire for power + go on a mad quest for power involving mass murder + start worshipping demons once and he takes it so personally. The relationship is, uh, strained, but that’s kind of what tends to happen when you infect a guy with sentient vampire flesh cancer and then ghost him. They’re not friends anymore. Betrayal of Ashton herself, though... becoming a vampire was the big one. He really was in love, and he really did think the guy cared about him, and he really did trust the guy. Three months locked in a closet earning the privilege to have fingers or a mouth did pretty safely debunk the notion.

[semiweirdshipper]

Herman Is one of my top 3 killers and I love how you write him and make me so happy 💓 I was wondering how was your reaction when you saw him for the first time and how he become your favorite? What was your story?

When I saw him, I was surprised and a little scared and I told myself that I don't want to see him but that's funny because I started to watch his videos and liked him. I like his laugh or how is his power in dbd and Everyone said that It's wrong and horrible. I was nervous because everyone said people who main him are as bad as him and my personality is like your reader fics and so I was sad. But a week later I told myself that I don't care what they say, I like him and Love to see him.

Hi villainfan. First I'd like to tell you that it's perfectly fine to love Herman (or any character for that matter). Never let anyone else ever stop you from loving something that makes you happy.

When I first saw Herman, I was excited. I literally bought dbd for the purpose of learning everything I could about the killers. And I shamelessly admit to playing Herman and purposely shocking survivors just to hear his laugh, but that's... perfectly normal! In terms of his story/background, I do believe that Herman is the cruelest killer there is. He's a non-empathetic, mass murdering, sadistic, neuroscience obsessed freakazoid. BUT... That didn't stop me from making "changes".

When I first started searching for fanfiction with him, everything written with Herman mostly involved rape, abuse and torture, and I just didn't like that. And a bunch of other killers were written that way too. So I allowed myself to unleash my inner crybaby and I made the ultimate decision to start changing the killers' personalities to help make them nicer and more likable. Herman was one of my first test subjects- no pun intended.

The first chapter of 'When a Survivor Bullies' was actually a product of my negative feelings towards how Herman was normally portrayed. Instead of writing him as a rapey, cruel monster with no self control, I gave him all the self control along with kindness, consideration and respect. As I continued to write for that story, you can see how the flower of his personality bloomed. I couldn't resist turning him into a prince charming.

Herman is one of my top favorites because I genuinely enjoy writing him and it makes me happy knowing that my version of him causes people to smile.

Thank you for your question, villainfan. I hope you always continue to have fun playing Herman, and enjoy whatever content you can find with him. And I hope to bring you and many others lots of more content with our lovely, electric prince. ❤️

[whileiamdying]

Holy Spider review: a brutal serial killer tale

Posted by David Baldwin | Jan 20, 2023 | Reviews

Ali Abassi’s Holy Spider retells the story of Iranian murderer The Spider Killer – but smartly avoids glorifying his actions.

This review contains  light spoilers.

Basing a film on the actions of a real life serial killer is a contentious decision for any filmmaker. Most mass murderers yearn for some kind of notoriety, and what easier way to achieve that than being immortalised in popular culture? By depicting their crimes on screen, said filmmaker is effectively giving them exactly what they want. It’s a testament to the skills and sensitivities of director Ali Abbasi that his new film Holy Spider manages to largely avoid that trap by turning the story of the Iranian murderer known as the Spider Killer into something much more far-reaching. The film shifts focus between the characters of a fictionalised journalist named Rahimi (Zar Amir-Ebrahimi) and the killer Saeed (Mehdi Bajestani), a former soldier who targets sex workers in the holy city of Mashhad. Rahimi comes up against numerous obstacles solely because of being a woman, whilst it soon becomes clear that there are many in Mashhad who see Saeed’s actions as admirable, effectively cleaning up the streets of ‘unclean’ prostitutes. This is where Holy Spider justifies its existence. Early on, the scenes of women being brutally murdered make it seem like Abbasi is – like many others before him – falling into the trap of celebrating a monster. Yet as the story unfolds we see how misogyny has been weaved into the very fabric of an entire society. Saeed is depicted as a broken and pathetic man, but his crimes are practically deified by those who suggest a higher power has a hand in his violent acts. The two performances from Amir-Ebrahimi and Bajestani are note-perfect, and the way in which Abbasi skilfully blends reality with fantasy ensures that even those familiar with the real life case of the Spider Killer will be questioning where exactly the story will end up. Abbasi even uses that knowledge against the more informed viewer in the film’s latter half, making them question whether he’s willing to offer an alternative history (and ending) for the Spider Killer in order to really make his point. Ultimately though, he doesn’t have to, and Abbasi makes that most apparent in the film’s most galling moment. It’s one saved for the very last, as Saeed’s son – recorded by Rahimi on a handheld camera – matter-of-factly uses his younger sister to demonstrate how his father committed his gruesome crimes, placing his knee on her throat, rolling her body up in a carpet and even suggesting that he would consider following in his father’s bloody footsteps. And why not? His father is a hero. The message is clear. A film like Holy Spider doesn’t need to glorify a monster, because society already has.

Holy Spider is in cinemas now.

[headphones-and-stuffed-cats]

Some NeShiki AU ideas to consider (especially if you think there's been enough canon-compliant fics and think we need a little more variety)

1. Witch and Familiar AU

This can be interesting if you make it so Neku is the stubborn and unruly kind of familar that Shiki needs to 'rein in'. Shenanigans can ensue when he gains the ability to turn into a human either through Shiki's misaimed magic or potions, you do you. Also the hilarity of Shiki trying to teach him human customs.

2. Cold-hearted fairy tale prince and normal, ordinary girl

Reverse isekai where Neku is a character from Shiki's childhood book. One day, he's suddenly brought into modern day Shibuya and it's up to Shiki to make him 'act normal' ('No there's no monsters in this world! Put away the fire magic please!') Some dramas to consider can be Shiki trying to stop Neku from solving every little inconvenience with magic and possibly commit murder with his powers, after all, he probably came from a dark fantasy world.

3. Witch and witch hunter AU

A little of enemies to lovers. Shiki is an activist in the witches society trying to push back against the mass persecution of witches after witnessing her brethren gets executed left and right. Neku is a prodigy raised in a family of witch hunters, brought up since childhood to view witches as evil creatures and that his job is to get rid of every single one of them.

4. Werewolves AU

EIther one of them is born or cursed to be one. They try to navigate life in society and one of them knows the other's secret (becoming their secret keeper) when romance is in the air, one hesitates because getting too close to them might mean danger to their wellbeing.

5. Siren and ship-wrecked seafarer AU

Neku is a shipwrecked sailor trying navigate through an unknown island, one day, he's lulled by a beautiful singing voice in a nearby lagoon: it was a siren. He knows all the tales about them, so he better watch out right? Better kill it before its songs mess with his head but...but what about the other way? What if he asked her for help? Can he trust her or is he doing something dumb?

[othercat2]

This Crossover is Full of Pandaemonium

Chrono Crusade and SVSSS is an almost perfect fit.

Chrono Crusade: Girl makes a contract with a devil in order to find her brother. They both become exorcists of a demon-hunting religious order to do this. It turns out that the "devils" are actually aliens! Key bit of information about these devils: Devils are composed of cells referred to as "Legion." (I tended to interpret them as being biotechnic organisms, basically nanotech Bee People.) The manga ending features the antagonist trying to set off a Grey Goo apocalypse because he hates imperialism that much. He's stopped by Chrono, the titular demon of the manga series. The success is Pyrrhic though, and the ending made me bawl my eyes out.

Anyway! Say it turns out that the SVSSS Heavenly Demons are Heavenly in the sense that they are aliens! Specifically, the Chrono Crusade aliens. But not as a precise crossover. This was a different ship, a different cosmic accident, that crashed and resulted in the PIDW Heavenly Demons. (And the passengers, not the crew, which is why they don't have horns putting them under the control of the ship.)

In addition, because why not include the transmigrator elements, lets have either Chrono (one of the two protagonists) or Aion (the antagonist), or both end up in PIDW verse.

Choose your player:

Aion: Okay so, Aion is a monster. He cannot help being a monster because the ritual that would have permanently enslaved him to a horrifying gestalt of screaming ghosts being used as fuel/computer/life support system went wrong and as a result, he has a deep and utter loathing for any form of hierarchal control. It probably didn't help that the Elders of his community decided to put down him and his entire generation because something went wrong. (This does not stop him from taking advantage of it.) To make things worse, he is an idealistic monster, in the sense that he believes that his actions are correct and righteous, and in a certain sense they very well might be. Our boy could be best said to be an anarchist. He believes that the mass extinction event he's trying to trigger will lead to a better, more peaceful, with a better and kinder way of life. However, he's going about it in a way that is utterly lacking in individual compassion for the folks he's willing to murder for his cause. (I kind of headcanon him as being neurodivergent. I played and wrote him as somewhat unable to grok actual social cues, and made him the kind of literal-minded where you just go down a rabbit hole of why certain phrases mean certain things, which is more or less canon because he keeps mixing up common aphorisms or remembering them incorrectly in canon.)

Chrono: Our boy is Aion's brother. Chrono adored and believed in his brother and what he thought was their joint goal of freedom and safety from their people, who were still trying to hunt them down. His faith is shaken after a sequence of events that results in the death of Mary, the woman they both care about. Aion kills the woman, who has vast gifts of precognition because the woman was subsumed by the Horrifying Ghost Gestalt Monster. He believed there was no hope and no cure, and because Aion is a kind of a complete bastard, he ordered Chrono to kill her. Chrono objects and tries to run for it with Mary, but Mary ends up dead anyway. Chrono possessed greater compassion and empathy for individuals. (Also neurodivergent, but in a slightly different way. His behavior seems to indicate that he was probably the one assigned as the "responsible one" in childhood. He's very empathetic and protective of those he's close to. He's gentler than Aion, buuut paradoxically more likely to go absolutely berserk if a loved one is threatened.)

Both these boys have so much fucking ptsd.

Both can almost look completely human except for their hair and eyes. (Aion: white hair, light purple eyes, Chrono, red eyes, purple hair. I might make them better and disguises.)

The possibilities of who I could stick them with are endless. Aion would probably go to ground and become a crime boss. This is what he knows, and would be good at, even in Fantasy Ancient China. Possibly he gets involved with demonic cultivators because that is also a part of his mo. Those demonic cultivators will probably end up very dead, but no great loss. An interesting story might be Aion taking in Shen Jiu, or stumbling across bitty!Mobei-jun. Or both! Aion would probably be in a crisis of faith because of having been defeated/stopped by Chrono, but would start weaving new plots almost immediately because fuck all hierarchal systems.

Chrono on the other hand is usually moved to support. What Chrono knows is "exorcism" which is essentially being a demon hunter. Our boy ends up going on a lot of night hunts, and maybe acquires a social network that way. He'd make an extra effort to seem human. He'd end up becoming very well known as a "cultivator." I would also want to have him maybe run into Shen Jiu or maybe Shang Qinghua. Or maybe Su Xiyan.

[emeraldspiral]

So after Dracula I started listening to some other gothic horror audio books.

First was Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

I don’t think I’ve ever watched an adaptation of the story as much as things which reference or are inspired by the original story, like the Hulk or Two-Face. I feel like you most often see Jekyll or Jekyll-analogues as good guys with a repressed dark side they hate. But in the original story that’s not really the case at all. Like, Jekyll outright confesses that the experiment wasn’t about separating out good and evil so he could get rid of his dark side or anything noble or purely curious. He basically just had a mid-life crisis where he wanted to relive his youth as a party-boy and resented having to give up his old habits and act like a respectable adult. He took the formula so he could shed any feelings of empathy or guilt and do whatever he wanted without caring and without having to face any consequences since no one recognized him in his Hyde form. It’s basically the same concept as the idea that if you gave a man a ring that made him invisible he’d turn into a complete psychopath because fear of consequence is the only thing stopping us from being evil.

Jekyll is conscious of what Hyde does and enjoys it for the most part and continues taking the formula despite the havoc Hyde wreaks in what seems to be an allegory for addiction. He only tries to stop being Hyde after he murders someone and he can’t bribe his way out of trouble as Jekyll. And when Hyde starts to take over even when he hasn’t taken the formula he kills himself to escape the consequences of his actions, not to prevent Hyde from doing further harm.

Frankenstein similarly, I know doesn’t have a lot of faithful adaptations and the idea of the monster in popular culture isn’t accurate to the book at all, but I feel like the way people talk about the actual book Victor and the Monster doesn’t quite reflect what I took from it.

Like, I definitely agree with everyone who calls Victor out on being a shithead for bringing life to the Monster and not nurturing it at all, but I also think the Monster isn’t as sympathetic as he’s often portrayed as. I guess it’s easier to feel bad for him in a lot of adaptations because he’s usually portrayed as having low intellect and not hurting people on purpose (like Lenny from of Mice and Men) or only reacting when scared or threatened, like an animal would.

But in the book the Monster is highly intelligent and kills innocent people unprovoked and on purpose out of pure spite. He’s basically the kind of person who becomes a mass shooter.

When Victor finally comes face to face with the Monster, he starts off by essentially saying he used to be a “Nice Guy”, and at first you’re inclined to believe it when you hear his loving description of the family he stalked and how he tried to help them and befriend them. But bear in mind, he didn’t have a real relationship with them, he just fantasized about having one. And when his dream didn’t come true he torched their cottage in revenge when he heard they were so scared of him they wanted to move.

Then he tells Victor he murdered his kid brother just because he hates his life and wanted to punish Victor for giving it to him. Then he framed a girl for the murder knowing she would be executed for it when she didn’t even know he existed purely because she was pretty and he wanted her companionship and knew he couldn’t have it because she’d be terrified of him like everyone else, and therefore deserved to die. Total incel logic.

Further, he tells Victor that if he can’t have human companionship he wants him to make another like himself so they can at least have each other. He literally says he only does bad things because he’s miserable but if Victor makes him happy he’ll stop, and he thinks a girlfriend is the magical fix that’ll solve all of his problems. Big Chris-Chan asking Santa for a girlfriend for Xmas energy.

I think Victor is completely in the right to not buy it. The Monster isn’t really a nice guy if he goes around attacking innocent people who haven’t done anything to him just because nobody loves him and he resents them for being happy when he isn’t. He’s also right to worry that giving the Monster a bride won’t be the fix he’s hoping for. She might not be his perfect waifu fantasy. She might not even like him. Or just having each other while still being outcasts might not be enough. The bride might be just as pissed that she was commissioned and brought to life, condemned to be an abominable outcast, as the Monster was with Victor. Then Victor would be responsible for bringing two violent hyper-intelligent super-powered monsters with a hatred for humanity, and him specifically, into the world.

I also think Walton is right when he calls out the Monster at the end as a hypocrite. He dedicated his life to making Victor miserable by killing everyone he loved and then baiting him to chase him into the arctic purely to make him suffer from having to endure the cold, then claims to mourn him when he dies, as if he wouldn’t still be endeavoring to torture him if he were still alive. He says he knows the things he did were awful and he hates himself for it, but he still did them and kept doing them until he’d accomplished his life goal of making Victor suffer. He didn’t stop because it was wrong, he stopped because he was done.

Of course, Victor is still a dick. Like, aside from bringing the Monster to life and immediately rejecting and abandoning it he lets a lot of people he supposedly cares about die because he’s a coward. Like, he knows the Monster is out there and just ignores it for most of the story instead of warning his loved ones or proactively trying to stop it. He also allows a good family friend to be executed for a crime the Monster committed. He claims he would’ve confessed to the crime and taken the noose himself if he didn’t have an alibi which made it impossible, and didn’t speak up about the Monster because he thought he’d just be dismissed as crazy. But if he were really a good person, he would’ve tried no matter how unlikely he was to be believed.

I definitely see the homoerotic undertones in the story. Like it opens with Walton cryposting to his sister about how much he wants a BF and then he meets Victor and instantly falls in love, while Victor is so passionately in love with his BF he goes into a months long angst-coma when he dies. It also feels kinda deliberate that in the original version his relationship with Elizabeth was incestuous and even in the revised version people keep asking him if he really wants to marry the girl who was raised with him as his sister and tells him it’s really okay if they’re not into each other like that. He keeps saying “Yeah, I’m fine. I totally wanna bang my sister” and yet he dreads his wedding day because he believes his life will be over because of the Monster’s promise to “be with [him] on [his] wedding night”.

There’s a running theme in the story about isolation, depression, and the need for companionship. Walton, as I said before, begins the story lamenting that he doesn’t have any friends (and apparently doesn’t see potential in any of his crewmates) and is ecstatic to meet Victor and find he’s exactly the sort of person he was looking for. When Victor’s story begins he’s had a pretty good life with a loving family and some good friends growing up but finds himself lonely and having difficulty making friends at college. He starts becoming enraptured with study instead of socializing, then once he starts working on his Monster he becomes so obsessed with it he neglects his relationships until people start to really worry about him. Once he returns home his friends and family try to nurture him, but the trauma of creating the Monster and consequences that arise thereafter make it a struggle to enjoy life no matter what they do to try to cheer him up. Meanwhile the Monster’s heartache over being friendless transforms him into a bitter misanthrope who can’t stand the thought of Victor being happy while he’s so miserable. When Victor gets to the end of his tale, the takeaway he seems to want Walton to have isn’t “Don’t tamper in god’s domain” as much as “prioritize your companions over your ambition”. Because his whole story started with him neglecting the people who loved him to pursue his creation, and then that creation systematically robbed him of them. Victor and the Monster are both extremely miserable throughout the story, but they both live for each other. Victor feels that he can’t die and leave the world and his friends to deal with the Monster on their own so long as he’s on the loose (not that Victor does anything to protect them while alive). But the Monster also feels that he can’t die as long as Victor lives because he needs his revenge and can’t be satisfied with the possibility of him ever moving on with his life and finding happiness again. Only when Victor dies is the Monster’s spiteful purpose fulfilled so that he can finally allow himself to die and free himself of the wretched existence of being shunned and hated by all.

It does kinda make you appreciate Young Frankenstein more. Even though it’s based around the pop-culture Monster and not the book Monster its main purpose is still redeeming the original sin of Victor’s failure to nurture the life he created, which exists in all versions of the story. His grandson creates a Monster of his own, but this time he not only chooses to love his creation, but to fight for him to be accepted by society so that he can find friendship and love too.

[oersteds]

Twiz Lore Summary (With Shitposts) (Part 2) (Now with More Post!)

i keep mixing up osmosis and mitosis. gotta keep smacking my brain with "it's mitosis. it's fucking mitosis. stop fortnite dancing at me you dickweed" anyways long ass post under the cut. i need so much sleep

When we left off, Oersted was about to throw hands at Straybow. Again. I mean, I would do the same in his shoes, given the circumstances. Imagine if that nice (if extremely naive) stranger who ressurrected you, showed you around the local area, gave you a room at an inn no questions asked, and was just all around possibly the nicest person you've ever met even before you died, got killed by your former best friend. You know. The same one who ruined your life.

I mean, he's wrong to assume that Straybow killed Twiz, here. But it's incredibly suspicious, to put it lightly. Even without the blood. Even if Straybow looks just as shocked as Oersted at both the potentially dead friend, and the fact that neither of them really expected to meet again.

Regardless of this, the innkeeper's panicking. Someone's just rushed into the inn, shouting about "more corpses on the beach" or some shit. So there's no time to think too much about the (alleged) corpse on the floor. Forget the fact that it's like 2 AM during this. They don't need sleep, they need answers.

They get to the beach. Surprise, there's corpses. Some aren't fully dead. Not all of them are human. Hey, wait, why is someone ressurrecting random monsters? Nobody does that! Is there, perhaps, a new Demon King...? But, what kind of Demon King would toss their freshly raised minions into the ocean, just hoping they'll wash up somewhere??? What a waste of a perfectly good monster!

Cut back to Twiz. She's not dead. In fact, she just woke up. The innkeeper stayed behind, plus, Oersted was decent enough to at least place Twiz onto a bed before leaving. ...wait, does he know??? (yes)

She has no idea what she just slept through. So, let's recap. She believes the following:

Oersted and Straybow don't know eachother. (Wrong. They've got beef.)

Straybow wasn't just framed for her "murder." (Oersted's doing a little trolling)

There are no more corpses on the beach, because she just rezzed the only one. (She's about to be proven wrong in the worst way)

And finally, a human being can't perform mitosis, ever. (Shit's gonna keep happening.)

Back to the beach corpses. Since there's a bunch that're still alive, the locals are gonna be asking a lot of questions. For some reason, the monsters aren't attacking. They're actually... really polite, especially given the circumstances.

In fact, one of them, a dragon, gave the most helpful answers to the questions... Most of the others only remembered a falling feeling, then waking up here. Some heard a man's voice, but couldn't quite make out what he was saying.

The dragon gave a detailed account of what happened. And that account... is a teeny bit horrifying for Oersted. Just a little! (Sarcasm.)

The dragon's account heavily implies that this mysterious ressurrector is looking for someone. Someone whom Oersted had just become friends with. And that strange man, that the dragon's describing?

Yea, he looks and sounds incredibly unsafe. Like, "stay far the fuck away" levels of unsafe. According to the dragon, this white-haired stranger is mass ressurrecting people in the hopes of ressurrecting someone named Twiz. And then dumping the ressurrected people into the ocean. Because they're not this "Twiz" person. Not even the dragon seems to know what, exactly, this dude wants with Twiz, or who Twiz even is, but... They hope she'll be okay! That man was rather unpleasant to deal with. Someone really should stop him...

"...hey, I didn't know you had a twin brother, Oersted!" says the dragon.

When the fuck did he get here. How the fuck did he get here. Now there's two of them. Shit.

Part 3 eventually. When it's ready. When I've actually cooked the ideas in my brain oven. (The mitosis image is a shitpost. Oersted has no clue how this happened. Odio just appeared, randomly, and nobody saw him arriving. So maybe it was mitosis?)