#but he’s very humanized and i dig it

[consigleire]

i’ve talked about this before but my biggest peeve with ppl consuming vincenzo is the recurring comment about him not being violent enough or not being “mafia” enough like ONE: the man is in a foreign country where he can’t manipulate or control the cops, the legal system, or its citizens to the extent that he could in italy and within cassano territories. TWO: though he was a part of the mafia, he was a consigliere first and foremost - a lawyer, an advisor. violence was just an added trait when things needed to escalate to that point or be handled in such manners. it was a tool, not a necessity. THREE: the focus was on his ability to strategize and take down enemies and get what he wanted without the blatant use of violence. he sees himself as evil and as an antagonist, but one necessary to take down other evils deemed unsuited for the world. he can’t do that if he’s arrested. it’s about the game, it’s about getting what needs to be done, not about boldness in the sense of useless show and tell.

[wyvernquill]

I'm rewatching Anastasia and this convo would really fit in your AU

Hob: look, Murphy, I'm just trying to help Murphy: do you really think I'm an Endless, Hob?

Hob: you know I do.

Murphy: then stop bossing me around

I'm sorry, this ask is already over a year old, but I finally got around to writing a scene based on it! (Plus some Murphy&Gil bits I wanted to put in somewhere, anyway.) Hope you enjoy!

[Mild warning for contemplation of one's potential death, and having once lost the will to life - I wouldn't call it suicidal ideation, it doesn't quite go there, but I figured I'd better be safe than sorry.]

Link to Anastasia AU Masterpost!

(Tag list, let me know if you want to be added or taken off: @10moonymhrivertam @martybaker @globglobglobglobob @anonymoustitans @sunshines-fabulous-legs @dreamsofapiratelife @malice-royaume @kcsandmanfan @acedragontype @okilokiwithpurpose @tharkuun @silver-dream89 @i-write-stories-not-sins-bitch)

“Hob.” Murphy interrupts, eyes flashing with frustration.

(Today’s how-to-be-a-Dream-Lord lessons are not going well - not that any of them have, but this one is a particular catastrophe. Gil has already given up on their contrary charge for the evening, and with the way Murphy’s shoulders are up and tension bristles between them, Hob is unlikely to make much more headway tonight.)

“Tell me. Do you truly believe I am him? The Prince of Stories? The Dream King?”

“Yes,” Hob lies, easily, unflinchingly, and with a smile on his face. A good lie has to be treated like the truth, and maybe, one day, it’ll actually turn into one. They’ve been trying so very hard to teach Murphy this, he should know it by now. “Of course.”

“Then, perhaps,” Murphy spits, and despite his feral arrogance, despite the way he holds his head high and squares his slender shoulders, it’s not the regal indignation of a King, but the helpless tantrum of an angry child who’s failing in class. “You ought to finally treat me with the fucking deference an Endless is owed, Hob Gadling!”

(There are tears in his pale-blueish eyes, Hob can see them, can hear the crack in Murphy’s hoarse voice.

Nobody has treated this man with respect in all the years he remembers, that much is obvious. Nobody but his birds. And he knows, they all know, that he’s no prince, that his blood runs red, not blue - runs at all, come to think of it. Endless don’t bleed.

But he wants to be. He wishes he was. Murphy is not Dream of the Endless, but he is ravenous for the spoils of such a role. Desperate to be respected, to be worshipped and revered, desperate to be owed the sort of treatment he has never received.

Hob ought to be ashamed of himself for taking advantage of that helpless hunger for kindness and decency… and he will be. For the rest of his immortal life, he’ll live with the shame of what he did to cheat Death, and still not regret it.)

Hob plasters a smile over his impatience and opens his mouth, gentle, calming words already on the tip of his tongue. Murphy is lonely and frightened and frustrated, that much is obvious. Fine. Hob knew it wouldn’t be easy, to teach their false Dream all he needs to know, and this is not an insurmountable roadblock. If Hob can only reassure him, earn his trust, be his friend, even, it will make everything much easier. Poor thing, lashing out like an injured animal. But Hob can surely coax him into-

Murphy recoils. Flinches back from the admittedly-half-faked warmth, his face, his entire bearing collapsing into itself like a heavy portcullis rattling shut.

“Don’t you dare,” he growls, pointing one of his stick-thin fingers at Hob’s face, “don’t you DARE! I have no need for your false pity, and I want no part of it! I want-” the white of his eyes is bloodshot, and in his terror, in his fury, in his desperation, awash in unshed tears “-I want out. This deal is off. Find some other poor sucker to teach how to play Endless, I won’t do it! I’ve had enough!”

And before Hob can say as much as a single word, Murphy has snatched up his coat and slipped out onto the rainy street, Matthew following - but not after awarding Hob with a colder glare than he would’ve thought a mere raven capable of.

Murphy does not manage to flee very far.

He is in an unfamiliar town, with no money, no valuables besides the clothes on his back that are now slightly finer than he used to be; and the winter is cold and deep and stifling. He gets no further than a handful of streets until he slows halfway across a bridge, shaking with cold more than anger, snowflakes dancing around him. It is a quiet, windless night - and it has always calmed him, to stand underneath the dark sky at night, and know that most of the city lies asleep around him.

Matthew settles on the bridge’s parapet, caws. Hops closer, cocks his head to one side. There is a clear question in his bearing, a what now? glinting in his eyes. Birds are open and honest - unlike humans. Liars and hypocrites all.

“...I do not know, Matthew.” Murphy admits quietly. He has taken the coat, but forgotten the scarf in his haste, so he tugs at his collar, to keep the cold air from trickling down his spine. “I truly don’t.”

He does not have the means to return to London on his own - and at the same time, does not have much desire to do so. He had nothing and no-one there, but for the birds. Pockets can be picked anywhere - he could make a new start in this nameless town.

…if only it weren’t winter.

Murphy shivers, feeling his bones rattle with it. The night is calm, but bitterly cold, and it will not end well for him, sitting in the snow until morning. In the dark of winter, he cannot afford a night without shelter, a day without a sure way to come by some food to keep his strengths up. In London, he would have known where to go. Here, he is helpless.

Damn Hob Gadling, and may Destruction take him! Murphy will have no other choice but to crawl back to him, and hope he’ll be kept on as Endless-impersonator. Hope, because Murphy’s made a right pig’s ear of it so far, slow and clumsy to learn, and outright refusing to play at nobility. He will always be a gutter rat, Murphy knows it. They can’t fashion him into a Dream King, and perhaps this flare of temper will prove to Hob once and for all that there is no point in trying.

There is no point in trying.

Murphy gives up on his collar, and rests his hands on the parapet. Matthew caws, and presses his head against his arm, a far better reassurance than Hob’s false smiles. It comforts Murphy, at least a little. He’s not alone, never alone - no matter how lonely he might feel.

Underneath them, a foreign river flows just fast enough to avoid the freeze. The water does not reflect any stars, but the snow dancing over the surface makes it almost look as if. His own reflection wavers and breaks across the waves.

(Some nights, he dreams of a darkened shore and a sea stretching far past the horizon, black waters that fold up into the night sky, indistinguishable from each other. Of a wooden pier, and galaxies swirling underneath.

Whenever he leans out too far, the reflected eyes he meets are not his own, and he wakes with a scream lodged in his throat.)

Murphy shivers again, and savours the last remnants of his pride, before it, too, will have to be cast into the dirt and abandoned.

“I believe you forgot this, young friend.”

Murphy’s head snaps up.

Dreams and nightmares approach without a whisper, perfectly silent at night if they choose to be. Gilbert is no exception; and if Murphy were to pay attention to anything but his heart racing like a startled hare, he would perhaps be a little distressed by the fact that there are no fresh footprints in the snow beside his own.

But it’s only Gilbert, kind-eyed and not-human, holding out Murphy’s scarf like a peace offering.

Murphy does not take it.

“Did Gadling send you?” he asks, wary.

“Robert informed me what had transpired between you two.” Gilbert admits. “But rest assured, I am here on nobody’s behalf but my own - and, well, yours. Frightfully nippy tonight, wouldn’t you say?”

Murphy does not say. He trusts Gil as little as Hob, perhaps even less. A dream attempting to betray the memory of his master seems hardly like a paragon of virtue, and is perhaps even more suspicious than a deceitful human.

(He does, however, take the scarf now. It’s too cold to be stubborn, and when he winds it around his neck, it smells of sunshine on a summer meadow, warm and comforting.)

“And if you truly wish to leave… dear boy, I won’t stop you.” Murphy does not like the way Gilbert looks at him, as if trying to see someone else beneath his skin. He does not meet Murphy’s eyes, if he can help it. “In fact I would send you off with well-earned compensation for your time, and travel fare. Unless…”

Gil steps up to the parapet beside him.

“...unless I can convince you to stay…?”

“Why would you?” Murphy mutters, instead of why would I, if you’re offering to pay me off? “It should be perfectly obvious that I’ll never pass muster.”

“Ironically,” Gilbert smiles, but only at the man he pretends to see whenever he looks at Murphy, “it is well known among the former denizens of the Dreaming that His Lordship was often prone to very similar bouts of pessimism. I have faith in you, Murphy - and so does Robert Gadling. Please, do not leave. I rather doubt we will succeed without you.”

"You…" Murphy struggles with the words, the sentiment behind them lodging uncomfortably in his throat. "You have great respect, even love, for Dream of the Endless' memory. So why do you pretend? Why try to fool his siblings that I am him?"

For a moment, Gilbert seems ready to insist, as always, that Murphy is, or at least might be - but, to his credit, he does not play Murphy for a fool, in the end. Not this time. Not like Hob always, always does.

"You are quite correct. I loved His Lordship deeply, in a way that could never be understood by anyone but a dream and their creator." Gilbert sighs, his soft meadow-green eyes gazing far into the distance of better days, lined by old grief. "He made me to be the Heart of the Dreaming, and he was the Dreaming, so I knew his heart and self better than any other. The loss, when he… you cannot imagine it, young friend. I thought I would wither away and die. I thought that would be a mercy. To live as a dream in a universe that does not contain Dream of the Endless seemed entirely unthinkable, and to be quite frank, I did not think I would survive longer than a year at most in the Waking."

"I understand," says Murphy, quietly, and he does. He is no stranger to the feeling of being so untethered, only floating along with the end looming over him, death - not Death, no longer, the Endless have been cast from their domains - only biding its time.

(In the first year he can remember, Murphy did not think he would see another, either.)

"And yet, the year passed. And I lived." Gilbert smiles, faintly, taking off his glasses to polish them. "I suspect it was humanity which saved me, for all that they robbed me of my home and Lord, as well. I found… such joy, in this world. In my human form, wandering among them. Calling a few select individuals friends, even. Young Robert's companionship was a particular blessing, and I owe him more than he can ever know."

He sets the glasses back on his nose.

"Lord Morpheus is dead." Says Gilbert. Says it like fact, like something too absolute for the sort of dream-creature born of hypotheticals he is, like an unshakeable truth he has resigned himself to. His voice only barely breaks over the words. "And I shall grieve him for all the rest of my days… but I must live to mourn him. Life goes on, young friend, and we must all move along with it. And, well. I cannot speak for Robert's motivations, but the true reason why I have agreed to this mad scheme…"

Gilbert takes Murphy's freezing hands in his own. His fingertips are not lined quite right, they would not leave prints that look even remotely like those of a human - but aside from that, his grip is warm, avuncular, firm, reassuring.

"I fear that his siblings will not be able to live on without him." Gilbert confesses, quietly. "They are not made to accept change and move on from a loss as monumental as what humanity has wrought upon them. To have you… not him, not entirely, but perhaps enough… it is my most solemn hope that it might give them some form of closure at long last."

"So that's what it is?" Murphy laughs, bitterly. "Charitable concern for the well-being of personifications of abstract concepts!?"

"No." Gilbert corrects mildly. "Love. For my creator's family."

Murphy scoffs. His chest aches with it.

"What you, hmm. What you must understand, about Lord Morpheus…" Gilbert seems to be choosing his words very carefully. "...is that, for all that he was often harsh and commanding, he was so very loving, always. My Lord loved with all his self, even if he would attempt to turn a cold shoulder to the world - and I think you are much like him in temperament, young Murphy.”

Murphy does not acknowledge that. He doesn't think he can.

“He loved his family, and he loved the Dreaming, and all the beings in it. I was his heart, or near as, you must recall, I knew the truth at the core of him.

Memories or not, love as he did, and you will be a credit to his name, and a comfort to all who knew him."

(Murphy does not have it in himself to love like Dream of the Endless did. He already struggles to love at all.

But perhaps, for the sake of the entity whose memory he will dishonour, he can try.)

“So. Will you come back and resume your lessons?” Gil asks, very gently. “You may leave, now or any other time, of course you may. But it would be to your benefit, as well as to that of many others, if you did not.”

“I’ll stay,” Murphy forces out. He could blame the way his hands shake on the cold. “For now.”

“Thank you, dear child. Thank you.” This time, when Gilbert smiles, it very nearly feels like it is directed at him, after all. “Now, let’s get you out of this cold, hm? And Matthew as well.”

Murphy lets Gilbert herd him back to their inn, sits through Hob Gadling’s apology and wonders if it was sincere - he can never tell, with this infuriating man - and continues to learn as much as possible about the life of Dream of the Endless.

But he’s slowly realising, if anything will convince the Endless siblings, then it certainly won’t be the trivia. He’ll have to learn to love like the Lord of Stories, for their deception to have a snowflake’s chance in hell.

(Oh, wonderful. As if this wasn’t difficult enough already…)

[eregar]

Raphael's character class potentially being bard is so fun. casting his tendency to use charm and illusion as not necessarily a devilish trait but instead as a bardic trait being used for devilish ends and suggesting that his cunning is possibly something that was learned rather than something that was innate. and it means he gets to be a bit of a loser <3

[dannybobany]

Fnaf au where William figures out how to actually resurrect cc and then the aftons just have to live with that— not only is cc undead now but dad is freaking victor Frankenstein !! (like, literally, I imagine William discovered how to harvest remnant from recently deceased corpses rather then killing anyone himself, thus the mci doesn’t happen and Charlie doesn’t die either)

They just have to pretend this is normal and fine

[greasydumbfuck]

nobody understands frank like i do (i do not understand him either)

[bluebudgie]

Alright gw2 peeps, here's one for all of you with a lot of alts:

All your characters of the same class (e.g. all your rangers) are stuck together in an escape room.

Which of your "class groups" is off the worst and who gets the job done with no problem?

[sonicunleash]

anyways speaking of crossing over sonic with everything i never posted this ff7 au shadow design i drew up when i was watching ff7 with a friend (mostly cause this is literally all i have Drawn of the au and every other thought is written down in a like 300+ message long conversation we had). i put jenova cells in that thing

[sysig]

What makes a villain a villain for you? Idk very broad question no wrong answers to it

I tend to conflate "villain" and "antagonist" - or at least antagonistic, if they're a main character like Charm is haha - someone who impedes others, who seeks to do harm, who is in some way uncontrollable and therefore dangerous. I also tend to like villains that have someone or something to rage against, very Megamind haha - "If there's bad, good will rise up against it."

Villains can be as complex or simplistic as you like, which is very fun! Some villains like to be evil for funsies! Some are tortured! Some don't realize that what they're doing is harmful! Yves is great example of a BBEG who has only good intentions imo (and coincidentally, is also modeled after my own ADHD lol, I have something of a soft spot for dysregulated villains haha)

One of my favourite aspects of the True Villainy AU, and kind of Just Desserts S2 as a whole, is how different types of villains look and move in that world - Charm was seduced by thoughts of revenge that stemmed from loneliness and bitterness, where Kaiein is a manipulative asshole who gets his kicks from causing chaos from the sidelines. Their motivations are very different, but they both do harm, and are both stopped! Villains ✨

[papa-evershed]

for the always lovely @academia4me 💖

[somethingabouttransformers]

upon starting to watch Transformers G1 from the beginning I think I can safely say I want to kiss Hound on the face. What a guy

[talentforlying]

father grimaldi: forgive me, lord, for i have sinned. constantine: — understatement of the bloody century, that is. father grimaldi: the chapel is closed to the public! who are you? how did you get in here . . .? constantine: did you know vatican city has the highest per-capita crime rate of any nation state in the world? i'd have thought a touch of breaking and entering's pretty much par for the course around here.

so #1, an undeniable slay.

#2, how long do we think he was sitting in the confessional booth waiting for the guy to wake up from ellie's fake vision quest. like an hour? checking his light, practicing his Big Reveal Pose TM? he probably brought a book with him and just shoved it underneath the seat cushion when it was time to show off.

#3, knowing how intensely he studied & continues to study in order to teach himself magic at such an absurdly advanced level without any teachers to formally guide him? and how that level of dedication would absolutely carry over into researching a mark / making sure he had every corner of a confidence scheme nailed down pat? i like to imagine that the day before this meeting was spent with his severely under-caffeinated ass parked at a public library computer, squinting at articles for 'most important things to know about vatican city before you travel' or 'top 10 little-known facts about vatican city' and using the back of his boarding pass to take notes on what would be the best throwaway line to blow off all the usual questions with.

also, he probably woke up still in his travel clothes less than two hours before this scene and had to hustle to get suited up in time for his Dramatic Apparition. the demon blood was boiling so bad in that chapel that it was giving him a killer migraine. he didn't get breakfast so his stomach was growling the ENTIRE time. but all that meant was he had plenty of room to eat UP the runway and that's EXACTLY what the fuck he did.i'm

[arolesbianism]

You see Jackie is great because she has a similar appeal to me as Maxwell but she's a lesbian and also not british so she's automatically a billion times better and more interesting

[fragmentedblade]

I haven't looked forwards to a character as much as I've looked forwards to Sunday. I hope he won't disappoint

[sleepymarmot]

This is the same misguided logic that we constantly see online lately: acting as if life is governed by the same rules as art. Art can be representational or non-representational or something in between, but the real world in general and human beings specifically do not and can not represent anything, they just exist.

This panel is just one part of a bigger comic (”How to Look at a Cubist Painting” by Ad Reinhardt, first one in the “How to Look” series, and the panel reappears in later installments), and its first panel, which I just saw for the first time, irritated me even more:

If you think that every painting should look like something real, then you live in that century (long gone) that believed the real world was a matter of what things look like. This art of imitation and illusion “saw” things from a fixed, absolute point of view (later satirized by surrealist painters who make something look not only like one thing but also like six or seven other things).

Oh yes, as we all know, human beings before the 20th century were all staunch materialists. Nobody had ever wondered whether there was anything else to life than what is available to the senses, which is why philosophy and religion were only invented after the steam engine. Up until the invention of cubism, the main purpose of art had been the most accurate and realistic depiction of the material world. Not only had nobody in the past centuries ever tried to use symbolic language to convey abstract ideas through art, but also every artist on the planet had always used a single kind of perspective. /s

[bisaster-energy]

i do get making cas essentially human i understand that he can adjust to it and actually enjoy life like that. but um. i just think he can be just as fulfilled as a full blown angel

[005mins]

/  my man literally called out his own servant-