#considering ... you know ... she chose to erase herself from existence and wanted to make him ''better''

[throughpatchesofviolet]

Now that I've seen the Pass E.G.O that released this week, I can finally talk a bit about the ideas I mentioned last night!!

^ This is Lasso--based on the Abnormality Rose Hunter, which has been a favorite of mine for a while--and the E.G.O animations include the horse--the Sinner rides it while attacking with a whip.

Naturally, my first thought upon realizing the E.G.O would be coming from Rose Hunter was the idea of Lasso!Sherry being paired with Wild Hunt!Heathcliff. They'd both have horses--Heathcliff has Dullahan, the "headless horse," and Rose Hunter reminds me a bit of the "headless horseman" with its design (even though it's likely based on the huntsman from Snow White, going off it's E.G.O Gift encounter in Mirror Dungeons ... though it still is technically headless /lh).

But I of course have two further pieces of evidence to support Sherry getting this E.G.O. The first is something Demian says in a cutscene following the conclusion of Canto VI:

I made myself physically ill going back for these screenshots, so that's great. /sarc

Anyway. If Ca.ther.ine is Heathcliff's "rose," then Sherry being the "Rose Hunter" has a bit of a more ... vicious interpretation.

The last thing I have is Hong Lu's line when he undergoes Corrosion while wielding Lasso:

^ This perfectly encapsulates how she feels about Moriarty. Remember, Sherry's Moriarty killed the person dearest to her and then left--he "fled," in her eyes. Her goal is to hunt him down, and I love that this E.G.O--or at least it's Corrosion--would resonate with her.

Also the default of this E.G.O is primarily who'd be shipped with Wild Hunt!Heathcliff!! I think she'd find Dullahan fascinating. And also she'd see her work with Heathcliff similar to her fulfilling some sort of bounty or contract ... she has some sense of loyalty to him and I think it gradually evolves into affection.

[abarero]

Hanna Sarasa: The life and times of a self-proclaimed “villain.”

This little essay dives into Hanna’s character, and will have spoilers for everything available in Magia Exedra on her. (You can watch her full set of episodes here.)

First off, I want to applaud whoever developed her story for Magia Exedra. While it would be easy to go with something less complicated, they really did a great job of introducing her character and the nuance behind her. A lot of people (either because all the NA server for MagiReco got was the event Flower’s Lament, or because they haven’t looked past that story) just see her as a crazy villain and there’s so so much more to her than that.

So let’s start with Hanna’s past.

As shown in Exedra, Hanna as a child had no friends, often being deemed by other children as “too gloomy” to play with. Until she was about to enter Elementary school, it was just her mother around. Then, one day, her father showed up.

She was never told the specifics, but was able to surmise the situation. Her father had been having an affair with her mother, that’s why he wasn’t around for her early years. Then when his first wife left him, he turned to Hanna’s mother.

Her father was not great. He committed petty crimes and often gambled away their money. As if this wasn’t a rough enough situation already, the father was physically abusive to Hanna and her mother simply stood by and let the abuse happen. She describes it as being beaten until she’s swollen, for things as simple as sleeping before it was deemed acceptable time to do so. Her mother would leave the room if Hanna pleaded for help.

This is important to consider, as it relates directly to Hanna’s inner vow to never become like her mother. She never wanted to be someone who turned a blind eye to someone who needed help.

This vow also related to her one joy in life- weekend mornings, when her parents slept in, when Hanna got up and watched TV with her earphones. And her favorite kind of show? Those about superheroes. “I want to be just like them,” she thought. This is how she hung onto hope throughout the abuse and neglect.

After years of this, her father died after getting stabbed to death in a fight. Hanna felt a bit more hopeful then, but soon her mother turned to drinking constantly. And while drunk, she stumbled in front of a car and got hit. This left Hanna an orphan.

Now Hanna was smart. While being an orphan was rough, she used what her parents left behind for her in money to pay the entrance fee to the prestigious Mizuna Girls’ School. Of course, she had to keep her grades up in order to cover tuition. But she was determined to go to this school because of her desire to be a hero and she felt this would be a new start for her. A fresh start away from her previous life as a crook’s gloomy daughter.

But due to her good grades, she found herself distanced from her peers. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Hanna’s desire to be a hero and not look the other way like her mother had led to another problem.

After doing her best to help another girl who was bullied, Hanna found herself the new target of the girls. Even worse, the girl she’d stood up for ended up siding with the bullies to harass Hanna.

Hanna mentions that this sort of treatment broke her. No one helped her and she felt so badly she considered suicide. That’s when Kyubey showed up.

Now backed into a corner and given a way out, Hanna chose to erase the bullies from existence. And she requests that she’s the only one who even remembers them, so she can know what she’s done.

After the wish has been made, Hanna regrets her choice. She feels she can never be a hero now, that she’d squandered her chance by making this wish.

I want to pause and examine this for a minute. Because given we’re dealing with a teenage girl, you can see how she let her repressed feelings get the best of her when Kyubey offered a wish. Kyubey, as usual, takes advantage of a girl when she’s at her lowest and exploits that. And in doing so, it gives Hanna the guilt and burden of making such a wish.

But with this change came life as a Magical Girl and with that, the one thing that would impact Hanna’s life the most. Her “most precious friend,” Mikoto Sena.

Mikoto and Hanna meet when Mikoto saves her from a Familiar. It was Mikoto’s first meeting with another Magical Girl and it’s easy to see how she’s drawn to Hanna almost immediately.

Hanna finds herself distancing herself at first, telling herself she’s only interested in Mikoto’s magical power of suggestion. But at some point, this distance disappears, and Hanna finds herself looking forward to the time they spent together.

Hanna does everything to bring herself closer to Mikoto, copying her magic and learning to use it so they can share tips. But Mikoto isn’t interested in that, and instead, to Hanna’s surprise she requests to learn more about Hanna.

Now the tragedy of the situation is that unbeknownst to Hanna, Mikoto’s home life wasn’t as perfect as she made seem. In fact, they had a lot more in common in that sense than Hanna knew. And, burdened with these secrets finally takes a toll on Mikoto and she witches out.

As detailed in the MagiReco event, Farewell Storage, Hanna goes through a lot in a short amount of time here. The truth of magical girl’s fates, her best and only friend becoming a witch before her eyes. She has a complete break and a part of Hanna shatters.

Broken and desperate, she wanders around all night, searching for Mikoto. And, at her wits end, she finally finds her. A ghost of sorts, maintained by Hanna’s own magic, Mikoto becomes Hanna’s shadow. The problem is, Mikoto is no longer just a girl and instead is plagued with the despair and destructive tendencies of a witch.

But although she’s disillusioned and broken herself, Hanna Sarasa is still at her heart, that girl who dreamed of becoming a hero. And when she realizes Mikoto has a compulsive need to destroy, Hanna decides to take that burden and guilt onto her own shoulders.

Hanna refuses to let Mikoto become evil, and instead makes a plan to become a villain herself to show Mikoto the meaning of hope. She thinks she can buy Mikoto a new lease on life, a happier life, in her stead. She humors her, letting them vandalize Mikoto’s former school after finding out how miserable she was there.

But she also makes every sacrifice necessary to put this villain plan into motion. Using her intelligence she turns groups of magical girls against each other, setting them up to be the good guys in her lesson. Then Hanna baits them into a confrontation, and when Nanaka refuses to kill her, Hanna takes her own soul gem in hand and smashes it.

A villain is meant to lose, that’s her message to Mikoto. Destroying things and making people miserable only leads to a bad end. She gives up her life with the intention that it will save Mikoto from the same fate.

Now tragically, Hanna doesn’t realize that Mikoto’s grip on sanity and hope will waiver and break on seeing Hanna kill herself. Hanna doesn’t realize even at the end that she was Mikoto’s world and without that, she’ll have no reason to believe in goodness. But Hanna makes the sacrifice with the belief that she’s shouldered the burden of evil entirely, that she’ll take those destructive and evil feelings to the grave with her, leaving Mikoto a clean slate.

The tragedy of Hanna is that despite calling herself a villain her actions, when viewed with the full knowledge of the circumstances, are anything but that. Even for her final act, she does so with the hope that it will save Mikoto.

Farewell Storage expands on this story, and I highly recommend it if you’ve not read it already, but Exedra does give us a moment we didn’t get from Mikoto’s perspective in that event.

Hanna’s goodbye.

At the end, I gave her a gentle hug. “Hey, Mikoto... I love you. I really, really wanted to be with you forever. I wanted to defeat the bad guys and protect the world together. But ya don't always make the best decisions, so ya get wrapped up in everything and get into all sorts of trouble. Each time, I end up helpin' ya, even if it means gettin' beat up. And then, ya cry and apologize, and I pat ya on the head and say it ain't nothin' to worry about. So smile... If ya smile, then it's all okay to me... *Sigh* There's still so much... I wanted to tell ya. Why am I like this? I can't ever talk about the important stuff properly... I really am...just stupid... But as stupid as I am... I was able to help ya, right? If I was...then I'm glad... That means...I was able to become who I wanted.”

Hanna’s goodbye to me really, truly, captures her feelings and character. The love she has for Mikoto, the wish that they’d been able to fight bad guys together, the hope that maybe if she’s able to have helped Mikoto then perhaps she’s become the hero she dreamed of after all. As much as Hanna postures and deems herself a villain, deep down, in her last moments it’s this feeling that comes to the surface. The hope that maybe she did good after all.

For a girl who’s spent her entire life being abused and bullied, you’d think she’d be bitter. You’d think she’d have lost her hope somewhere along the line. You’d think perhaps seeing Mikoto witch out would’ve been the last straw for her. But all the way to Hanna’s last moments, she not only clings to that hope and belief in heroes, but she does her damnedest to impart that hope to a girl who’s now more witch than human.

Just like she’d vowed as a child, Hanna was nothing like her mother. She didn’t look the other way when someone she loved needed her. She sacrificed herself under the name of a villain all so Mikoto Sena could be saved.

And although Hanna’s plan doesn’t succeed immediately (see MagiReco Arc 2 for all Mikoto’s story) it does come back to Hanna and hope at the end of Mikoto’s story. Hanna literally becomes Mikoto’s singular hope and in doing so, she saves a powerful witch from the depths of despair.

So while she might not seem it on the surface, once you look deeper, I find myself thinking she has indeed lived up to her childhood dreams of becoming a hero.

Through misery and tragedy, it’s Hanna who held her head high, kept her belief in goodness, and shouldered the burden all to save the girl she loved.

In the end, she became hope. And truly, what’s more heroic in the PMMM universe than the power of hope?

[random-autie-fangirl]

#dreemurr is an anagram for murderer

:0

I did not realize that, but I probably should’ve hah, oh dang, but thanks for the spelling tip :)

And Asriel is an anagram for serial! So together it makes serial murderer =) (Can you imagine Chara bursting to a fit of giggles just after realizing this (like right at the beginning of the Asriel fight?) "Oh, the universe does have such a wonderfully ironic sense of humour at times, does it not?" An inapropriate but very Chara response)

And then we have the rest of the family, Asgore is very obviously a murderer (as the six souls can attest) and then Chara....you can count attempted murder, but I think I have something more interesting actually.

Okay so, due to file attribution theory, we know that Chara had their own save file but they just never used it, (which makes sense since Asriel describes determination as the power Chara was trying to stop and they think very negatively about people being above consequences, and resetting helps negate consequences), I think that Chara might have been able to reset back to the beginning and save both themselves and Asriel when they died to the villagers, but they didn't. Because his and their deaths were the consequences of the plan failing, and that they didn't see the point of continuing or trying again once they had already failed. (I mean, think about it, Chara is confused about being alive again specifically because their plan failed).

To put it bluntly, Chara got to the game over screen, saw the will you persist question and clicked no. But Asriel was with them too, and by letting themselves die, Chara also chose to let Asriel die when they could have saved him, and that to me is what makes them a ...Dreemurr. (and yes, murder-suicide still counts as murder).

Which is sort of why I don't like the old adage "Chara only killed one person. Themselves." No, they killed their brother, no matter what timeline you're talking about, they killed Asriel. Don't forget that. C and A, ....Cain and Abel, maybe it was always meant to end this way (or maybe it didn't have to, if it was anyone else, but Chara seems to think the very notion of defying fate is blasphemy). "I would follow in your footsteps, I would erase myself from existence" But the first time round, Asriel didn't have a choice, did he? He had to follow in their footsteps, because Chara dragged him along with them.

And then we have Toriel, Toriel, no matter how you cut it didn't kill anyone but well...she divorced Asgore before the game started and she says in the game itself that she doesn't consider herself nor want to be a Dreemurr anymore,

So it might be an unfortunate truth that the Undertale dreemurrs are murderers but I guess Toriel got away and dropped the name before the family curse could get her. Good for her!

And...yeah, the Undertale Dreemurrs, there are some edgy theories about Kris accidentally killing Azzy or whatever but I just think it's like...Undertale and Deltarune are different games, Toriel's name is still Toriel despite not being the Tutorial segment anymore so I think the anagram didn't carry over between games and it doesn't mean anything anymore. (plus surely if the dreemurrs are murderers thing carried over, it would surely apply to Deltarune's version of Asriel and Asgore)

Anyway, you're welcome for the spelling tip! :)

[cantillat-moved]

The man cocked a brow and allowed a “hmmm” to resonate as Sonia was quick to defend herself about her ability to survive ‘debauchery parties’ as she called them, his gray gaze looking her up and down , his teasing soon turned into a chuckle. Yes, he wasn’t naïve or hypocrite to believe that Sonia was a pure and demure girl – someone like her must have learned how to navigate them early on. Shirou recalled about how naturally she talked about underage drinking and certain aspects of her life that would make his teenage self blush and Tohsaka try not to gag in her tea. Only Sakura managed to keep a certain degree of coolness. ❝ From the sounds of it, your cousin might keep his hands full with many interests.❞ just a small quip. ❝ Each to their own, I suppose. People cope in different ways. ❞ he couldn’t fathom the pressure that nobles like Sonia have to deal with, and while her cousins are spared from the stress from being the next in line to the throne they likely have their own stuff to think about. It was one of those occasions that, on a surface level, it could be envious: to live the life the way he wanted, indulging in what entertain him without a worry in the world --- it must be an empty existence all things considered, looking for fulfillment that will never come to pass.

Sonia’s own gaze didn’t go unnoticed, the conversation was indeed turning quite heavy and the young woman had come back from a social gathering that must have been exhausting both physically and mentally, with older individuals probing and testing her at every corner to see what would make her tick and to see how much they could push her without repercussions. ❝ Try to don’t lose the sight of why you are fighting. Sometimes it might be easier to discard your own heart, but some things are worth fighting for even if they are impossible. ❞ he shared a snippet of what motivated him, aware that his own fight will lead nowhere and only his own destruction waits for him at the end of the road. If by the end of it there will be more people smiling than crying, it will be worth it. Emiya was just a man with a gun and a few good ideas, the princess was someone whose battlefield was completely different than his and could reach far more people – and was tied to different limitations as he was, a cog in the machine just like him.  ❝ People are afraid of change so I can’t say it will be easy for you at the start, from my experience I can assure you that they are able to tell when their leader truly cares. Your feelings will reach the Novosonians and they’ll stand by you.❞ …Will stand by her as long she makes them happy, anyway. That he chose to keep to himself. Even the legendary the once and future King was abandoned by her subjects, in order to be the ideal ruler she discarded her emotions and tried to be just – and people didn’t want pure justice. They wanted their own bias confirmed. Thankfully Sonia is very different, and would never have to deal with that kind of trouble … Part of him felt bad doing the comparison at times, yet his mind wandered and recalled someone whom he can’t even remember her face…

❝ If you were to tell about Magecraft to your family or any members of Royal family or individuals close to you I would have to oppose. Your occult preferences are fine, they are within a margin of error that the Mage’s Association takes into consideration. ❞ his tone was serious, the sound of the movie in the background was thoroughly insignificant. ❝ The mage community is self-isolated for a number of reasons, only a very limited number of non-magi know the truth. If you were to tell your family, there would be the chance they would have to erase the memories about this knowledge. I’m sharing with you because you are my friend and you are important to me. And nowadays, in your position, this knowledge could be of help for you but I hope it will never be the case.❞ The magecraft world had its own set of rules, like how the nobles had their own thing. His first instinct was to shrug but that caused him a bit of discomfort, so he stopped the motion before proceeding any further. ❝ Don’t worry about my magic circuits or lack thereof. I’m not part of the association and I don’t have any interest in their political games. Magic is just a tool for me to do what I need to, that’s all. Similar to have access to a military vehicle or a sniper rifle, it is just something that helps to complete the mission. For them, however, it is a way of life. ❞ his magecraft was part of his identity, it was a fundamental piece of who Emiya Shirou was… But not his goal. That was different.

There was a mild surprise at her outburst. Did she take offence at his words about the books? Soon she clarified the question that was starting to form in his mind – should he bring the books or not? The answer was “yes”, apparently. ❝ I’d appreciate to be able to read something while here. I’ll bring my books whenever the opportunity presents itself. ❞ maybe he also should do something nice, like writing a dedicatory or placing a card inside the pages with some thoughts of the circumstances surrounding the reading, the people he have met and the places he went. It could be more knowledge added to the library, even if no-one would ever read it.

❝ Is it? I never noticed. ❞ he certainly have never spent a moment to realize how his Projections felt, they are perfect replicas of something he’d come across in t he past. ❝  This one is a Projection of my best coat, made of wool and ready for all sorts of weather. I can’t say if the warmth is a byproduct of my magecraft or if there is any other circumstance at play. ❞ he was aware that his Reality Marble might be warm, even if he had never deployed it – there was no need for that nor he had met a situation he had to use it. ❝ I could probably make other Projections for you… Maybe… ❞ well, it wouldn’t be the right size but it might be better than nothing – once again magic was poured into his magic circuits, a pair of comfortable plush slippers formed. ❝ Here, try these on. ❞

“I can fare just fine at a ‘debauchery party,’ thank you very much,” Sonia quipped in return, her pout pausing only when she realized how such a phrase could be interpreted. “I simply choose not to make them a habit. Possible scandals and all, and I daresay everyone has their hands full with the future duke anyway.” Just as Liam would want it, she knew: he’d told her once that his future would never be a happy one, at least with how the Novoselic Royal Family was currently run. So having as much fun, no matter the risk, seemed like the only way to spend his life, without much care for the consequences. Too many nights had been spent sharing a bottle of amber-colored liquor, Sam studying his music or pilot training or some other talent he far excelled his brother and cousin in. Liam lived life lightly, sometimes too light for Sonia’s heart to take: the reasoning broke it every time. If there was one promise she wanted to keep as Queen, it was for him to live openly and honestly about who he was.

Hopes like that…that kept her going, even to formal dinners where she was only invited in order to compromise her morals. Or least, attempt to force her into doing so. Sonia sighed, leaning further back into the plush chair than was deemed ladylike. “I must use my naivete to my advantage, or else I will be taken advantage of,” She told him resolutely before turning her head to look at him, her look weary: by the topic, not him. Never him, as her blue eyes pleaded for a change of topic once she’d confirmed his concerns. “That is the path towards being jaded, is it not? If my kindness can be believed to be ignorance, then no one expects much of me. All the more surprising for them, then, when their assumptions catch them off-guard. But…thank you: I could not do this job without holding onto my principles. The crown will consume me otherwise one day. I am trying to ensure that does not happen, but it is not as simple as my father made it out to be when I was young. I am not sure if the Novosonian people agree with you on the last bit, though: that they are fortunate to have me as a ruler one day.”

If just for the fact they would have a reigning queen, something even the most open-minded of Novosonians had a difficult time swallowing. The track record of women in power in the history of the country counted as a sole reigning queen from five centuries ago, the only ruler who ever got close to having Novoselic invaded by enemies. Since then, the country has remained safe, neutral, and prosperous, to both praise and criticism around the world.

Having Sonia as queen one day would bring enough unrest to Novoselic, to some degree. She frowned at the advice, keeping magecraft and the world he resided in well away from hers, but she knew it was coming from a kind place. It just made the space between them feel all the bigger, and not just the space from her cozy easy chair to the bed he currently occupied. “Well, that will be to the relief of…well, everyone besides me, really,” Sonia admitted with a groan. “My occult hobby is already a problem, should it ever be found out. I suppose informing my family that magecraft exists and that we have been unwelcoming to mages, possibly to our detriment, is a conversation to spare them from. I am sorry they disregarded you, though: magic circuits should not have to prove anyone’s worth. Especially yours.”

Not that other governments around the world were terribly open about knowledge or dealings with mages and magecraft. Or if they were, they kept those conversations far away from the Novoselic Royal Family. Another example of ignorance, Sonia supposed, alongside her own. Though this time, her own came in the form of how Shirou felt about her borrowing his books.

“That is where you are wrong!” She accused, giving him her best attempt at a playful glare: narrowed eyes before breaking into a smile. “I keep plenty of secondhand items in my possession: or older, especially if it is family heirlooms. But much of my occult and horror film collection pieces are acquired secondhand. For collectors, sourcing preloved items can often mean they are quite rare and well-loved and taken care of. But if you cannot keep them, I shall be glad to give them a good home. You could even…”

A pause, a shiver. Whether it was due to the chill or her next thought, Sonia would never admit. “You could even visit when you like, if you should like to read them again. I shall ensure that you are given access to the library at Boudry House, whenever you wish.”

That hadn’t solved the blanket issue, but Shirou had taken that into his own hands. Literally, as Sonia watched him use his circuits to create an oversized coat. Oversized for her, anyway: it would likely fit him perfectly in a color he seemed to care for far more as an adult than he ever had as a teenager. To her knowledge, anyway. “Thank you,” She murmured, taking the coat gingerly in her hands. She knew by now that what he conjured was real: weight and feel and everything else that had to do with the object he had in mind. But that didn’t make it any less remarkable. Sonia slipped it over her shoulders and put her arms through the sleeves. As expected, both were too wide and too long for her shorter, slighter frame, but it allowed her to pull it tight over her cocktail dress like the blankets she’d been searching for.

“It is warm…” She smiled, rolling up the cuffs just a little for her hands to move easily before snuggling back down into the chair. No blanket or sweater or robe could compare. “Is that a lingering effect of the magecraft, Shirou? It feels…like you have recently worn it. That sort of warmth. It is wonderful.” Now, her only danger was falling asleep during the film, in her cocktail dress, and not in her own bed, properly dressed and ready for sleep. Of course, the footmen outside would hear Shirou if he needed anything but it was the principle of it all. He deserved a quiet place to recuperate and didn’t need to be at the receiving end of household gossip, if she were caught sound asleep in his room.

[shkspr]

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

[highfaelucien]

for elucien: maybe some soft content of lucien and elain cooking together

send me ship fic prompts!

Elain looked up as she heard a small tap at the door of the kitchen. She glanced towards Nuala and Cerridwen, both of whom remained relaxed, though she couldn't think who would be knocking.

Anyone who typically stayed here, Feyre and Rhys and their Inner Circle, none of them would have knocked. They would just have barged in, on a varying spectrum of politeness.

Azriel was at one end, and Cassian was on the other, which felt an appropriate way of measuring the two brothers' personalities.

"Come in!" she called, looking up from her flour dusted work table.

A golden glimmer caught her eye as one mechanical eye and one of glimmering red peered owlishly around the doorway.

"Lady Elain," he said with that courtly grace, giving her as refined a bow as any she'd ever seen, "Your sister told me that I could find you here. May I approach?"

"Oh," Elain said, a little flustered, feeling her cheeks go warm for reasons entirely unrelated to the heating oven behind her, "Oh, yes, of course, my lord-" she catches herself, remembering that he's not a lord, she corrects, "Lucien."

He inclined his head slightly and approached, carrying a small wicker basket in front of him, which he set gently on the worktop in front of her.

"Your sister told me that you liked to bake down her most days," he said, watching her almost warily, as though he expected her to snap at him for merely being here, "So I brought you a gift."

"A gift?" she repeated, blinking down at the basket.

"It won't bite," he said, with a small smile, "You can open it."

Tentatively, she slid the lid open and peered inside. At once, a tart, wonderful smell of fresh, crisp apples, unlike any she'd ever experienced, emerged from the basket.

She gave a little squeal of delight and took one from the basket, holding it in her hand. It was larger than any she'd ever seen, gleaming as brightly red as a forge. And the smell, even unpeeled, she had never smelled anything so mouthwatering or delicious.

Lucien smiled a little at her reaction to them and answered the question that had been dancing on the tip of her tongue, "They're from the Autumn Court."

There was a flicker in his eyes he couldn't quite read, a sadness, deep and haunted. And she felt it. She felt it, a deep pang in her own chest, twin and echo to what she saw in him. She wasn't sure if he was aware of that, as he kept talking, hands clasped behind his back, bouncing slightly on his toes.

"My mother sent it to me," he told her, and there was a tightness to his voice. She knew little of the other courts, but she had heard Lucien's mother lived a sad existence trapped with his father. "She told me, she told me to offer it to you, so that you would know that Autumn has more to it than the violence and brutality seen from outside."

He laid a gentle hand on the basket's lid, one slim finger tracing another of the apples. They had a meaning to him. A connection to his old court, his old home, the mother he had not seen in so long.

"I thought, perhaps, you could use them in your baking," he said, straightening up and taking a breath, composing himself, "They are best enjoyed when they are cooked."

"They smell even better than this?" Elain blurted, eyes widening.

Lucien huffed a soft laugh, and it felt, oddly, like a victory, "They do indeed. They are made for roasting, for bonfires, and mead. I think they will be an excellent treat for those upstairs. And for you."

She smiled at him, "Thank you," she said, giving him a polite little curtsy, "This is very thoughtful," she gestured towards Nuala and Cerridwen, the two wraiths watching silently but, she knew, listening to every word, "We were actually about to make a pie. I think now it shall be an apple pie."

He smiled at that, then gave her another bow and made to leave. Something about the way he turned, the way his touch had lingered upon the apples, the smell of him, of Autumn, that lingered, the sadness in his eyes, the sadness in her chest, has her calling out to him.

"Perhaps you could stay?"

Nuala and Cerridwen glanced up, but kept their thoughts to themselves, as always.

Lucien turned slowly, seeming a little startled, and looked at her with raised eyebrows, "That's not necessary," he said carefully, "Please, don't feel obliged."

"I don't," she told him firmly, trying to be more assertive, "I think it would be nice to have a practiced hand to show me precisely how to, to slice and spice these apples. So that they taste their best."

He hesitated just a moment, then he gave her a smile and tied his long red hair up into a loose bun on top of his head, securing it with a leather band around his wrist.

"I can certainly do that," he told her, with a soft smile, "I've roasted more of these in my lifetime than I'd care to count."

She gave him a little smile, then turned to Nuala and Cerridwen and said, trying, and failing, to control her blush, "The kitchen may be a little crowded with four of us. I think I can manage, with Lucien's help. Perhaps you could attend to your other duties? I know you're both very busy."

It was painfully transparent, but neither of her friends made any mention of that. They just gave her and Lucien little bows, then vanished through the wall.

Lucien gave an exaggerated shiver at the sight, "Does that ever get unnerving?" he asked Elain, squinting down at her.

She giggled, "I suppose it was at first," she admitted, "I've gotten used to them. Mostly. But I still get a fright if I turn around and they're standing inside the table. I thought perhaps it was just a holdover from my being human."

"No," Lucien said wryly, "That's definitely not a human thing. Standing in tables is downright unsettling."

Elain smiled again, then added, "They've been good friends to me, despite their blatant abuse of furniture. And they're very good bakers."

"That I can attest to as well," Lucien said, washing his hands at the sink, "Their pastries are deliciously light."

She couldn't help noting, out of the corner of her eye, as he rolled up his sleeves, that his arms were corded with muscle, and well toned.

He didn't have the bulk of Cassian, or even Azriel, who was less of a 'beefcake', to use Mor's word, than his brother, but still broad-chested and muscular. He was more delicately crafted, and she bit her lip as her brain very firmly did not object to that one bit.

Lucien didn't seem to notice her ogling. Or if he did, he was polite enough to pretend that he didn't, for which she was grateful.

"Why don't we prepare the apples together?" she suggested, "The pie crust is nearly ready, after all, and there are quite a few of them. I can peel if you don't mind chopping?"

"I am at your service, my lady," Lucien replied, giving her another sweeping bow, "Your kitchen, your authority."

"I don't think anyone has ever given me authority before," she mumbled, before she could stop herself, picking up one of the apples and starting to peel it with a sharp knife.

Lucien took out a cutting board and set it down beside her, fishing a knife from the nearby block.

He smiled as he waited for her to finish with her apple. As she handed it to him, he said, "If you were given authority, over a whole court, let's say, what would it be? A court of pastries and cream? Or perhaps roses and violets?"

She considered, humming, then said bluntly, "Well, it would certainly have a lot more sunlight than there is here."

Lucien laughed, even as she blushed.

"Oh dear," she said, feeling even the newly pointed tips of her ears growing hot, "That sounded rather rude and ungrateful, didn't it?"

"Actually," Lucien said, leaning in conspiratorially, so she once again caught his scent, and trembled with it, "It was quite refreshing. I know that Rhys has an aesthetic to maintain, the dark and broody git, and there's a definite beauty to all of this," he waved his knife around airily, "But it does get a bit depressing day after day."

Elain gave a little squeaky at the mention of Rhys being a 'dark and broody git' but otherwise smiled at Lucien's assessment.

"No-one else seems to have a problem with it," she said, watching as Lucien efficiently cored and sliced the apples she passed him.

He was clearly practiced in the kitchen, which surprised her. She'd been told he was a High Lord's son, a prince - she wasn't sure why they were called princes when their father's were lords, but hadn't questioned it - she hadn't expected culinary training to be in his skillset.

"In fact they all seem to like it, even," she said, with a little sigh, "I miss summers in the mortal lands. Everyone keeps telling me I should stop thinking about it. That my life is here now, but..."

"But it was your home for most of your life," Lucien said quietly, "And that is difficult to forget, or fully escape from, no matter how long you're gone from it."

She nodded, and watched him examine the apple in his hand, that sad longing back on his face.

"Do you miss your home, too?" she asked quietly.

He glanced at her, weighing her, apparently judging how to answer, sincere, or sarcastic. To her surprise, he chose sincerity.

"I do," he said quietly, "Both of them." He sighed very deeply, "I have bad memories connected to both Spring and Autumn. Terrible memories, if truth be told, but..."

"But there are good memories, too," Elain said quietly, finishing the thought, "And other people seem to forget those. Maybe that's why it's been so easy for them to move on with their new lives."

Lucien peered down at her, holding her gaze for a long time, then he nodded.

"When I was given quarters in Tamlin's manor," he said, turning that burning gaze away from her to confront the apples again, "I chose to decorate the space as my rooms had looked at Autumn. Dark wood pannelling, oranges, and reds, and yellows, the colours of the bonfires and falling leaves. Tamlin and the others couldn't understand it. They had thought I would want to erase every memory of that court, after what had happened to me there."

Elain didn't press him to go into details about what precisely that had been. She had overheard snippets and gossip, but she had never gotten the full story. Now did not feel like the time for it.

"They didn't understand," he said, shaking his head, "I left Autumn, left it gladly. But a part of my heart still belonged there. A part of my heart will always belong there. Just as another part will always belong to Spring. My mother was of Autumn. There was a fire in my blood that called to that court. the festivals, and bonfires. The plants, and the people. The scents, and the food, and the beauty of it.

"I still remembered those things fondly. I didn't want to let myself forget. I didn't want to become the kind of person who consisted only of scars, and sadness, defined only by the terrible things that have happened to them."

He huffed a soft laugh and had to stop himself dragging his long fingers through his hair while he was around food.

"I apologise, lady," I came here to deliver you some apples, not wax lyrical on my philosophy of life," he said, inclining his head towards her.

But she laid a gentle hand on his arm and said, "No, I like to hear it. It...It's good to hear, honestly. I don't like to forget the good times, either. Nesta and Feyre, they fit in so well here, and have taken so well to being fae, on the whole. I know that whenever anyone mentions our past in the human world, they think of that cottage. They think of freezing winters, and near starvation. Of abandonment, and rejection, and sadness. So I don't blame them for finding that easy to leave behind."

"What about you, Elain?" Lucien asked, very quietly, "What do you think of?"

Elain closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath, feeling a soft smile touch her lips, "I think of the cottage too," she admitted, "But I remember the way we all clustered around the fire under a big blanket, all of us.

"I remember my little windowbox, and the wild flowers I grew. I tried vegetables, but the seeds were too expensive, and the soil quality was too poor and shallow in my little box. But the flowers made me smile. They brought some colour to our dull, cold world when we needed it most.

"I remember Feyre's painting. And father's carvings. And the stories Nesta wrote and hid from us, but I still found them.

"I remember riding horses with mother when I was little. And pretty dresses that made me feel like a princess.

"I remember singing, and laughing, and living with my family. And sometimes, sometimes I feel mad for focusing on those little things, when everything else was so awful. I feel silly, and childish, and like I should think of things how they were."

"You are," Lucien said quietly, and she opened her eyes, finding him watching her with something close to awe on his face, "All of those things were real. They happened. They are true memories. I, I don't think it is childish to focus on the small things that brought you joy when the world was bleak and full of misery and pain. I think that makes you strong, and wonderful. In a world of harsh, jagged stones, and concrete walls, you find the beauty of the wildflowers growing up between the cracks. That, that is a very special, and noble way to live, I think."

"You see them too, don't you?" she said softly, "The flowers in the windowbox, and fighting to grow between the cracked stones. It's how you've survived after everything that's happened."

Lucien swallowed tightly, but nodded, "I try to," he replied, a little hoasely, "It's not always easy but...I try."

Elain nodded, "Me too," she murmured.

There was a long, intense silence, like a string being pulled taut between them. She felt herself leaning into it, both excited and afraid. Then Lucien cleared his throat and looked away.

She felt the relief, as the tension broke, but also a little disappointment, unable to discover where it might have pulled her to.

Taking a deep breath, Lucien said, too loudly, "Look at all these apples."

"Oh!" Elain exclaimed, only just taking note of the small mountain of slices between them, "Oh, yes."

"Come on," Lucien said, giving her a grin, clearly trying to put her at ease after that charged moment they had shared, "This is the best part."

It took him a moment, opening several cupboards, cursing under his breath when he caused a small avalanche of poorly stacked pots to come tumbling out of one, but he finally straightened up with a large mixing bowl held triumphantly in his hands.

He scooped all of the apple slices into it, then began raiding the spice rack. She lost track of all of the different things he tossed into the bowl. He gave it a final sniff, then nodded, satisfied.

"Alright, get stuck in," he said, nodding to her with a glint in his eyes.

She raised an eyebrow and he stuck his hands into the bowl with almost indecent enthusiasm, mixing the spices with the fruit slices.

Smiling, she stepped up shyly and put her hands into the bowl with him.

They stayed quiet as they mixed, but occasionally their eyes met, and, even more intensely, their hands.

Finally, Lucien deemed it ready, and they began lining the apple slices at the bottom of the pie tin. He showed her how to weave a traditional Autumn lattice on the top, and even how to make some leaf patterns from the leftover pastry.

While it baked, Elain soaked in the scents of it cooking. Lucien was right, it was so much better than it was originally. As it went on, she noted Lucien was starting to shift a little uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

"What is it?" Elain asked, biting her lip, "Is my pastry not good enough to contain your magnificent Autumn apples?"

He glanced to her, mechanical eye whirring softly, and did not bite at her attempt at humour. He swallowed and said, "I don't think I should partake in this particular pie, Elain."

She frowned slightly, "Why not?" she asked, confused.

"It's, it's mainly a symbolic gesture, but I wouldn't want to take any chances. When, when a woman," she noted his use of the word 'woman' instead of 'female' with a jolt of pleased surprise, "Offers her mate food, and they accept, it generally seals their bond."

"Oh," Elain said, flushing as darkly as his hair.

"I'm not saying that if I eat this it will bind us togeher forever, with no choice, and no backing out but- To be honest with you, I have no idea what it will do, and I wouldn't want to take that risk."

"No," Elain said, perhaps a little too quickly, given the flash of quickly smothered pain in Lucien's face. "I mean, I'd like to take a little more time with things, if we could."

"We're immortal," Lucien said, with a small smile, "We can take all the time there is," he glanced at the large clock on the wall and added, "And speaking of time, I realise I'm almost late for my meeting with Azriel. He gets very grumpy when his guests aren't as punctual as he is."

"Azriel is always very punctual," Elain said, a little lamely, not quite sure what else to say.

"So I shall take my leave, lady," Lucien said, with another bow.

The formality felt...A little strange between them now, and she wasn't sure what she thought about that. She still didn't really know this man at all, and yet, what they had shared...

"Please tell me if you like the apples," he said, with a small smile.

"I will," she said, giving him a little curtsy in turn, "And please, give your mother my thanks."

"I will," he said, but there was a sadness in his eyes that told her he wasn't sure when he'd next get the chance to do that. If he ever did.

He turned to go, and she again found herself starting forwards, halting him once more, "Lucien," she said, and he glanced back towards her, "If, if you ever find yourself with any more fruits for baking. Or, or just the next time you're here, if you wanted to help me bake again I, I think I'd like that."

The smile Lucien gave her in answer was nothing short of a beam, something she had never seen from him before. It made him look younger, his eyes brighter, and softer.

He inclined his head to her in gratitude, then winnowed into nothing, leaving behind the faint scent of cinnamon and campfires, the perfect complement to their baking pie.

***

Thank you for the prompt! I hope you enjoyed!! (I got carried away and I'm SORRY).

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

(pt 1) i really enjoy all your atla analyses & you've done a great job breaking down the usual arguments re how eip shows that kataang shouldn't have happened. i'm curious about your take on one specific argument that i just saw today, in an analysis of the show by a zker that was otherwise quite good and respectful (i know you've already talked about eip a lot, so no problem if you don't feel like rehashing). the premise: aang didn't just pressure katara in eip, he threatened her.

(pt 2) they point to when katara joins aang & asks if he’s alright: “aang: no, i’m not! i hate this play! katara: i know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting. aang: overreacting? if i hadn’t blocked my chakra, i’d probably be in the avatar state right now!” the suggestion is he’s threatening her when he says ‘i’d probably be in the avatar state right now’ to describe his anger. i think this take exaggerates and oversimplifies it, but interested in your thoughts on it.

Hello my friend!! It is true I am Old inside and don’t like rehashing dhdlksjslks BUT your comments on my posts are always incredibly kind and insightful so I am more than willing to do a bit of rehashing for you 🥰 Besides! I’ve seen this general take before a few times and it’s always irked me for the exact reason you point out - it simultaneously exaggerates and oversimplifies the situation (and honestly that’s an impressive duality since it’s seemingly contradictory, so hats off to them lmaooo) - and now is as good a time as any to address it. So, for starters, let’s go ahead and get the excerpt they love to focus on so much:

Cut to Aang standing alone on a balcony. Katara enters and walks up to him.

Katara: Are you all right?

Aang: [Angered.] No, I’m not! I hate this play! [Yanks his hat off and throws it on the ground.]

Katara: I know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting.

Aang: Overreacting? If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!

Here’s the thing about so-called analyses of this excerpt: in a manner extremely convenient to the poster, they never seek to contextualize this moment. (I mean, to do so would deplatform their entire “argument” - perhaps that’s why they avoid performing a full analysis?) So let’s avoid that pitfall from the start.

Firstly, below are some links to related posts; I’m going to do my best to summarize the most relevant parts, but for anyone who desires greater detail, I gotchu 😤

This post explains why EIP (the play, lol) is imperialist propaganda and is intended to belittle the entire Gaang.

This post explains how Aang never acted “entitled” to Katara’s affections, particularly in regard to EIP.

This post breaks down the infamous EIP kiss like Snopes Fact Checker, covering common misconceptions, important perspectives to consider, etc.

Alright. With that out the way, it’s time for some context.

Aang and Katara have this conversation on the balcony after watching 95% of “The Boy in the Iceberg,” a play chock-full of Fire Nation propaganda that demeans the entire Gaang in order to prop up the Fire Nation as superior (hence why the play ends with Ozai’s victory). Here is my general breakdown of Aang and Katara’s treatment in particular from a previous post:

- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable

- aang, the avatar, the sole survivor of the fire nation’s genocide of the air nomads who is incredibly in-touch with his spirituality and femininity, is portrayed as an overly-airy and immature woman. the fire nation portrays him with a female actor to demean him (like, that’s classic imperialistic propagandist tactics) and furthermore writing his character as a childish airhead reinforces the fire nation sentiment that the air nomads were weak, foolish people who did not deserve to exist in their world

In other words, these kids have just watched almost an entire play that preys upon their insecurities and depicts them using racist and sexist stereotypes about their respective nations. It is completely understandable that tensions might run a little high and that their interactions would not be as balanced as usual (Katara and Aang have a great track record of communicating well with each other, as it happens!).

So we have to keep that in mind when examining the aforementioned excerpt. But there are other factors to consider, too! Namely: they are kids. Children. Teens. Aang is 12, Katara is 14.

If we want to be scientific, a person’s brain doesn’t finish developing until they are 25, lmao, and the preteen/teen years are when the prefrontal cortex that controls “rationality,” “judgement,” “forethought,” etc. is still developing. This doesn’t mean Aang and Katara are irrational and make poor decisions 24/7 (obviously not), but it does mean that in an intense, highly emotional situation, like after watching a play that intentionally demeans them and depicts them as inferior, they are more likely to overreact, more likely to be emotional, and more likely to make mistakes. Like, I’m serious, lol. “Teens process information with the amygdala.” That’s part of the brain that helps control emotions! It’s why teens sometimes struggle to articulate what we’re thinking, especially in situations that require instinct/impulse and quick decisions, because we’re really feeling whenever we make those choices. Acting more on emotion. Our brains simply haven’t finished developing the decision-making parts, lmao.

In sum: Aang and Katara are both kids, not adults, and should be interpreted as such. This doesn’t negate their intelligence, because they are both incredibly smart and Aang is arguably the wisest of the Gaang, but they are human. Young humans. They have emotions, and we should not be so cruel as to assume they’d never act on them.

So taking that all together, we can now acknowledge the high stress Aang and Katara are under, understand why they might be upset (*cough* imperialist propaganda is hurtful *cough*), and examine how their youth might play into their emotional reactions. And funny thing - all analyses that come to the conclusion of Aang “threatening” Katara here do not usually bother with this context. I can’t imagine why!

And you know what, let’s add one more piece of context: Sokka states that Aang left the theater “like, ten minutes ago,” which is what cues Katara to go look for him on the balcony. The reason I mention this line is because to me, it suggests Aang knew he was more worked up than usual! He chose to separate himself from his friends so he could process his frustration! He did not take his anger at the play out on them; instead, he purposefully took time and space to be alone.

With that in mind, I don’t understand at all how Aang’s Avatar state quote could be interpreted as a threat? Canonly, Aang is someone who was aware enough of his frustration to separate himself from the others - yet the logical next step is him threatening Katara as a result? He knew his intense emotions were because of the play (which he says himself), so the logical conclusion is that he then pinned the fault on Katara? What?? Sorry, that interpretation has no textual basis, lmao. But I digress!

Aang tells Katara, “If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!” As you said, this is the line people point to in an attempt to justify their (baseless) conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. So let’s bring in the two key pieces of context: imperialist propaganda and age. Given that Aang is 12, and given that Aang has just watched almost a full play that demeans him and everything his people stood for (and let’s not forget it also mocks his and Katara’s love for each other)…

His reaction is understandable. An exaggeration and needlessly dramatic, but understandable. He feels vulnerable and insecure and Aang is human. He is human and flawed and he overreacts here and I love that A:TLA shows how even our heroes, even people who are truly good at heart and in soul, can get overly upset (especially given the aforementioned circumstances!). Would Aang actually be in the Avatar state at that moment, had it been possible? Of course not! He’s young and he’s hurt and as such he says something dramatic to convey his anxieties and frustrations. The line is not meant to be taken literally, and seeing people do so despite all the factors that should be taken into consideration when analyzing it… Cue a long, tired sigh from me and so many other A:TLA fans.

And to be honest? I cannot fathom how people watch this episode and come to the conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. To me, this episode - besides being a recap episode - is one that humanizes our cast even further. Aang snaps at Katara, kisses her when he shouldn’t (which the story appropriately treats as wrong). Katara pushes down her true feelings and retreats into herself, afraid to start a relationship with the boy she loves because she’s already lost him once before and can’t bear to do so again. Zuko further confronts the hurt he’s enacted upon others, especially upon Iroh. Toph practices being vulnerable and accepting vulnerability from others by conversing with Zuko. Sokka witnesses how others have erased his contributions and labelled him as nothing more than the token nonbender in the group. Even Suki learns that she is not the only person who holds a place in Sokka’s heart and that she can never replace what he has lost.

To watch this episode where our heroes must come to terms with how the Fire Nation deems them inherently inferior, with how they have more fights to overcome in the future with the Fire Nation than a single war, and to come to the conclusion that… that what, Aang is abusive? A monster? Irredeemable? That he would threaten his best friend, someone he loves in every way?

Wow. That says more than enough about the viewer, doesn’t it?

[ihassheepquake]

DC's Batwoman 3.12 "We're All Mad Here" has aired on the CW and I'm here to talk about it

Penultimate episode time y'all. I don't know about anyone else but the penultimate episode almost stresses me out more than the actual finale.

It's been like three weeks, where the fuck did we leave off? Ope that's right, Alice wants the joybuzzer because she thinks it might be able to uncrazy her. I remember talking about this and thinking that it's not going to work on Alice because it's not the source of her craziness. Considering the whole thing with how Alice is "crazy" as a defense/coping mechanism that's the result of being kidnapped and tortured for years and then when she finally found some semblance of joy again, those joyous memories were erased by a woman who was mad that Alice fucked her brother.

Good to see Alice back to her roots on a murder spree.

Okay did it actually work? Because if so, then yay Beth I guess but it feels like a cop out. That doesn't get rid of the possibility that Beth is going to have to deal with all sorts of mental and emotional shit but I would've liked to see her chose to do the work to become Beth again. Which they could still do, I'm sure she's going to have a lot of guilt to deal with, but not a huge fan of the "oh here's a magical fix for my psychosis" thing.

"Is it just me or did they make Alice a victim?" because she is Sophie??? Does that excuse all the murder and other evil she did as Alice? Not at all! But she is, in fact, a victim. Because she was kidnapped and tortured by a dude for years. I know you don't like her Sophie but get your head out of your ass!

Oop and there's the continuing psychological problems, now Beth is seeing dead people. Oh so did she not save herself or is she having a new psychic break thing? Either way my previous statements may have to be retracted. Or I guess I did say that they can continue to explore these themes after her being saved. Okay whatever. I made my point, I stand by it, and I'm willing to be wrong.

Ha, Jada walking in on Sophie. That's admittedly very funny.

Yes Mary let her have it, fuck her up queen! You owe that bitch nothing.

Barbara Kean??? Looks like Miss Jet knows her and is may be more involved than we already know. She's part of Black Glove?? Okay that actually works, sure. And Jada kidnapped again, maybe they'll finally kill her this time, I still hate this character so much.

Is Mary going to confess?? Blame it on Ivy? Because I say blame it on Ivy, it really was all her fault.

Joker murdered Jason Todd confirmed?? Rad. More support for my "Bruce vanished because he murdered Joker for murdering Jason & paralyzing Barbara" theory.

Joker 2.lame doesn't even look good. Fucking hate that guy.

An Arkham and a Falcone are a part of Black Glove. And Burton Crowne, who apparently is tied to Talon of the Court of Owls. Considering that the Black Glove Society does not exist in comics (according to all research I've done), good on the writing team for picking entirely people from actual Gotham mythos. All pretty good choices too. They could've been a much more fun villain than Joker 2.lame. Although I'm not sure any of their backstory makes sense.

Not delusional Mouse coming and guilt tripping Alice. All here for it.

People think Alice killed the hunter? Is it true that Alice called and confessed?? Damn, that bitch be crazy. Mary going with it is the ultimate throwing her under the bus unless she really did confess.

Joker 2.lame, even your backstory is lame. But I guess good job writing team for seeing an opportunity to connect him to Alice. I guarantee that wasn't always the plan.

Kill her ass Ryan!! Rip his dick off!!!

Big fan of Ryan and Sophie finally talking shit through, deciding to be girlfriends. The gays stay winning! Mary and I are twins in that reaction.

Why do the villains always discover the Batcave? I swear that shit's gotta be on goggle maps or some shit by now considering everyone fucking finds it.

DC's Batwoman season 3 finale "Are We Having Fun Yet?" next week, March 2nd. One last go.

[supercorpkid]

This is why you should never trust an Imp – Part 3.

Supercorp, Kara Danvers x Daughter!Reader, Lena Luthor x Daughter!Reader

Word count: 2255.

“So, Kara knows.” Brainy says after you finish telling him your story.

“She hasn’t received any verbal confirmation, but yes.” You close your eyes thinking about how you might have ruined everything. “Should I expect to be stuck here forever?”

“According to my calculations…” Brainy says and you snap your eyes open to look at him. “There’s a high probability of my calculations being inaccurate.”

“What are you saying?”

“Look. The fifth dimension is unrelated to the sheer fabric of the regular dimensional space-time.” Brainy is about to open his mouth again and you interrupt him.

“So, you can’t do any correct calculation because Mxytopelek powers don’t respect the rules from our dimension.” You add and he looks at you perplexed, like he didn’t expect you at all to have understood that. “Luthor’s brain.” You explain yourself and he agrees with his head. “So, what do I do now?”

“I…” He looks at you and clasps his hands together. “Don’t know.”

“Great.” You give him a forced smile. “If we have no idea of what will happen next, can I please, please tell my moms the truth?”

“There’s no way to know the outcome of this, but you are aware of that.” He says and you agree. “I would say, do what’s best for you.”

He doesn’t have to tell you twice. You’re already flying back to the penthouse catching both of them off guard.

“Ok. Listen, I might be tearing the fabric of spacetime, but, well. Here goes nothing.” Kara turns back at you with a smile on her face. Lena has her eyebrows furrowed. “How do I explain it?” You take a deep breath. “Lena figured out how to combine both of your DNA’s so you two could have a daughter. Then I was born, like fifteen years ago. Or seventeen, I’m not sure.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Lena is completely in disbelief, but Kara doesn’t seem at all shocked. You were right, she knew it.

“Let her finish, love.” Kara asks and you agree.

“Kara, she’s saying she is our daughter, I think I’d remember if I had a daughter.”

“Right, well, remember that hypothetical question about time travel?” Lena shakes her head agreeing and Kara looks back at her, confused. “Yeah, well, it’s not really hypothetical. Cause, you see, I met this imp from the fifth dimension…”

“Mxyztplk!” Kara yells and you agree with your head.

“He said he would show me my future, and I got curious about what I was going to choose. You know, powers or science or robotics (I’m really good at that), and I wanted to see if you guys would be happy with my decision, but I guess he tricked me…”

“He does that a lot.” Kara adds, trying to make your story more believable to Lena.

“I should’ve known better. I am really stupid.” You look down ashamed and Kara goes to you and holds your chin.

“You are not. He’s an evil prankster, and you could never have guessed what would happen.” She makes you look at her and you smile at her.

“Yeah, well. There are a few possibilities of why no one remembers me. Y’know, different reality, memory wiping, maybe this is all a dream. Brainy have considered the options, but since the fifth dimension doesn’t oblige by the same rules from our dimension, there’s no way of knowing for sure, so if he doesn’t come, I might get stuck here forever, and if this is true then I needed you to know who I really am.”

“You’re our daughter.” Kara says with the biggest smile on her face and you smile at the realization that she’s happy about your existence.

“Ok, wait.” Lena stands up and walks to where you are both standing. She seems to analyze you for a second. “Why do you look so much like Kara?”

“Kryptonian DNA is actually dominant, and since the two chromosomes involved didn’t share similar sequences, if you had decided to combine them, it would probably have damaged the cells, producing genetic abnormalities. Since you couldn’t combine them, you chose to use Kara’s DNA so I could have powers.” You say and Lena’s eyes grow bigger. Kara is smiling next to her. “You know, the usual.”

“At least she has your brain.” Kara says looking very excited.

“Yeah, she used her DNA for that part. Anyway, I would love to tell you guys more, but if I’m being honest, I’m still hungry. You think maybe I can eat some more, momma?” You look at Kara and she smiles from ear to ear.

“You hear that, Lena? I’m a momma.” Kara says making her way to the kitchen and grabbing a few things she can cook. “So, you eat like a Kryptonian.”

“Like half a Kryptonian, which is already way more than any normal person.” You are almost going to the counter when you go back to Lena, who’s still pretty shocked at your existence. “Mom, are you ok?”

“Yes, I’m fi… Wait, why am I mom and she is momma?” Lena still looks very confused, but she’s leaning into this.

“You guys taught me my first words, so I’m guessing you two chose that before?” You sit on the other side of the counter and Kara puts a plate of waffles in front of you. You start eating immediately. “Or, I don’t know. Kara looks this adorable all the time and I caught her vibe?”

“I look adorable!” It’s Lena’s defense and you go back to her, so you can hug her. She doesn’t hug you back, but also doesn’t pull away.

“Of course you’re adorable, mom.” You smile at her and Kara agrees with her head. “Maybe I call you mom ‘cause you’re the one who carried me for 9 months and so I had to make up something else for Kara?”

“I like that explanation better.” Lena smiles and Kara chuckles.

“And I like the other one.”

You go back to eating and they stay on the other side of the counter whispering to each other, you laugh at that.

“Hey, um, just so you guys know, I have super hearing.” You say and they both look back at you. Lena sighs and Kara laughs like it was really stupid of her.

“Well, as much as I want to get to know you, and I love the fact that I have a daughter…” Lena says turning back to you. “You have to go back to your own timeline. Or reality. Or even get out of your dream state.”

“Wait. Why?” Kara looks at her and pouts. “If she was erased from our timeline then I guess is ok, but what if she’s from another reality? What if she’s not our kid, and she leaves and… I won’t be a momma anymore.”

“She makes a good point.” You say looking at them. Lena looks at you and then back at Kara.

“Kara, you’ve been a momma for half an hour.” Lena crosses her arms. “I get why you want her to stay, and I want it too, but don’t you think that if she’s from another dimension her real momma is missing her?”

“Oh yeah, that’s a better point.” You agree with your head, and Kara looks back at you like you’re not helping.

“But, but…” She goes to you and holds your face with both hands. “Just look at her, Lena, she is so adorable, and cute, and beautiful.”

“Kara, she looks just like you when you were younger.” Lena rolls her eyes, and you smile squished between Kara’s hands.

“EXACTLY!” She yells excitedly. “Please, let’s keep her.”

“Honey, she’s not a dog.”

“Lena, she’s our daughter!”

“Ok, wait. We don’t know that. There’s like a 50% chance she is not!”

“That means there is a 50% chance she is! I like those odds!”

“Kara!”

“Can I just say something?” You raise your hand and they look at you. Kara finally let go of your face and you smile at her. “Mxytopolik said he’ll come tomorrow to pick me up, so… Maybe we should wait and see if he’s keeping his word?”

“I doubt that.” Kara says and you look at her.

“This will give us more time before mom invents a time machine or something.” You raise your eyebrows a couple of times and she smiles, looking back at Lena.

“I say we wait!” She holds you sideways. “Let’s go flying together! I’ve always wanted a kid to fly with me.”

“I’m a teen, but ok.”

You had a fun day flying around National City with Kara, and eating all the pastries you could. You showed her the house you all live in, and even stopped a robbery with her. At lunch, Kara dropped you off at L Corp, so you could spend some time with Lena, while she went to work at CatCo. Lena didn’t have much time for you, but you two still talked about science and your inventions in her free time. It was great, which only made you miss your timeline/reality more.

It’s been fun hanging with your moms, even if they have no idea of who you are. You never thought that telling them the silliest things of your routine will make them so excited. Kara almost peed herself when you told her that you fought Mister Freeze and won, and Lena’s face lit up when you told her that you have your own lab at L Corp and that you two often work together. You didn’t know these things made them so happy.

At night you went back to the penthouse with Lena. Kara was so excited about the next day, she had it all planned out. It was very disappointing when you told her that Mxytoplolik would probably come to pick you up. But as the night went by, you realized he had absolutely double crossed you again.

“He’s not coming!” You say walking from one side to the other. “He’ll leave me here! Stranded in the future!”

“Did you guys set up a time?” Kara asks and you go back to her.

“No, we didn’t set up a time! Who sets up a time with an imp?” You cross your arms and Lena takes a deep breath.

“It’s ok, we can figure something out. You’re smart like me, we will think of something.” Lena says being the voice of reason like always.

“What?” You cross your arms. “We don’t even know if I’m still in my timeline, or in a different reality, we don’t even know if this whole thing is actually real. We literally know shit about this.”

“Language!” Kara makes a hard face at you and you soften your features.

“You definitely sound like my Kara.” You sit back in the chair in front of them. “I’m sorry, I’m just afraid. If you’re not my moms, then the real ones are probably so desperate right now.” You hold your necklace in your hand and a tear falls from your eye.

“Hey.” Kara goes to you and squeezes your knee, reassuringly. “We will figure this out. I promise you.” You shake your head agreeing and she looks at your hand squeezing something. “What’s that?”

“Oh, um, it’s the necklace grandma Alura gave it to you.” You show it to her. And Kara’s eyes pop out right away. “I didn’t take it! You gave it to me when I turned 13!”

“Except, my necklace is right here.” Kara stands up, getting the necklace out of her shirt and you furrow your brows.

“There aren’t two necklaces in your timeline, right?” Lena already knows the answer, but she wants you to get there too.

“I’m not in my timeline.” You say completing Lena’s thoughts and she shakes her head agreeing.

“See! Now we know, so we just have to, um, figure out how to create a portal to your dimension.” Lena says trying to look confident and you agree with your head.

“You can call the Flash! He can help with that, he is always-”

“Who’s the Flash?” Kara asks and your face drops.

“Well, if the necklace wasn’t proof enough.” You’re sad again. You can’t stay where you are. Your moms are probably worried sick knowing that you’re gone. How are you even going to explain yourself to them?

Actually, that’s not what you’re worried about. You’re worried about never seeing them again. Kara and Lena from this reality are amazing, and they sound just like your moms, but now that you know you’re not with your real moms, it’s not enough. You need your Kara and your Lena.

“Hey, we don’t need the Flash, we can do it. Me and you, kid, we can do it.” Lena goes to you. She kneels before you, and pulls you in for a hug. “I promise you, I’ll do whatever it takes to send you back to your moms, ok?”

“Thank you.” You hold her tight, and it doesn’t take long until Kara joins the hug.

“We’ll figure this out.” Kara says with her chin on top of your head. “I’m just really sorry you’re not my daughter.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that too. You deserve a kid so adorable, and cute, and beautiful like me.” You all laugh, and Kara kisses the top of your head.

“Come on, smart-ass. Let’s figure out how to create a portal.” Lena is the first one to let go, and you stand up right after. “Let’s get you home.”

You smile to yourself. They might not be your moms, but you already love them dearly.

[shinidamachu]

yo asking someone to make a wish so half of their heritage is gone forever is fridge horror-level wtfness (thnx TV Tropes).

of course RT and Sunrise chose not to focus on it, and in mythology people do give up divinity or humanity for romantic reasons, but specifically in Inuyasha it was like ‘despite your demon half you can still live a good life’ as if he has some disease 🤨

like I get in history people have had to hide their heritage to survive war and avoid being shipped off to their death or lose their rights, but to ask someone to permanently discard half their heritage and presumably hide their origins until death is tragic as fuuuuuuuuuuu

It's not even that they chose not to focus on it, is that they deliberately portrayed it as this grand romantic gesture from Inuyasha’s part and for a part of the audience, it truly was. But then again, this backfired for people like me, because it only served to proof how desperate Inuyasha really was to fit in.

Poor guy was literally planning on using the jewel to become a full demon just the day before. Then, at Kikyo’s request, he agreed on doing the exact opposite with little to no deliberation other than “what will be made of you, Kikyo?” I can only assume he was afraid her feelings were conditional. That if he had said no, she would have called it quits.

Imagine the same situation, but this time Inuyasha has a support system to lean on. Prejudice against half demons are still a thing, however he has his parents, his friends, a place to belong. Would he still have said yes in order to live with Kikyo? I honestly doubt it.

You see, Inuyasha hates being human. Not in the sense of saying he hates it, but liking it in secret. He actively hates it. And I can’t stress enough that we don’t actually understand how rightfully entitled he is to hate it.

We know how a human body feels like, we’re used to have a human body. Inuyasha is only human once a month. The majority of time he is a half demon. That’s what he is used to. Even worse: put yourself in his shoes. If you were to lose half your strength, half your sight, half your hearing and speed every single New Moon, you'd curse that night too. 

Not to mention the sheer vulnerability of being emotionally and physically exposed, of not being able to protect yourself or the ones you care about and becoming a "burden” when he takes pride of being the (un)official guardian of the group. No wonder he felt so hopeless he made a point out of staying up all night. And this is what Kikyo was asking him to feel like every single day for the rest of his existence so their life together could be easier, with the aditional quicker of forever losing the features that marked him as his father’s son. You know, the man who died saving him and his mother.

Every single character that got close enough to find out about his night of weakness quickly became aware of how much he despises it. Now, we don’t know the exact duration of Inuyasha and Kikyo’s relationship, but here are our options: Kikyo didn’t know about the New Moon and that Inuyasha hated turning into human or she did know and decided to go for it anyway.

Considering that the latter option is straight up awful, I’ll just assume she simply didn’t know. What does this say about their relationship? If they were an item for a considerable period of time, how come she didn’t know about such a fundamental thing about him? Especially when people who weren’t even his love interest were aware of that fact pretty early on? What was it worth all that time together if they didn’t use it to have meaningful interactions and get to know one another? If Inuyasha was keeping secrets from her and if she wasn’t interested in learning them?

On the other hand, if their relationship was indeed short lived, that could justify the lack of knowledge, but a different issue raises: if they didn’t have time to collect basic information about each other, how am I supposed to believe in their love? How am I supposed to view the decision to erase his demonic side and live together as anything other than reckless, impulsive and thoughtless? How am I not supposed to see it as mutual convenience, a mean to an end? How am I not supposed to think they are acting out of lonileness and desire to fit in? How am I not supposed to think that if literally anyone else had given them the same options they would have taken it? 

A New Moon would have happened in at least one month, tops. That’s not love. That’s a thirty days affair. It could have grown into love, if given the chance, but the pairing seemed more interested in the life they ideolized for themselves than in each other.

I don’t think Kikyo meant it as an ultimatum or that she was disgusted by his demonic attributes. She wouldn’t have approached or kissed him as a half demon otherwise. But I think it’s hard to deny that she wasn’t necessarily fond of them either, since she jumped at the opportunity to get rid of them first chance she got, with no remorse whatsoever. As if it was a bonus. This allowed with the fact that the prejudice against half demons is an allegory for racism and that she used from false equivalence to make the point that both her and Inuyasha were in the same situation puts her in a bad light.

Inuyasha was isolated by people because of his heritage, something he couldn’t change without resorting to intrusive, traumatizing and permanent magic, which Kikyo herself suggested he did. Kikyo isolated herself. People loved her because of her status and she was a privileged woman in comparison. She could have dropped everything since she was unhappy living like that, but she spontaneously chose her duty and powers over love and an ordinary life. And as much as I disagree with her choices, I can at least respect and understand them. What I can’t do is feel sympathy for her when the consequences of said choices catch up with her.

The narrative doesn’t give this problem much focus, it treats it in a much more subtle way. For instance: the jewel only being destroyed by the right wish, paints wishing for Inuyasha to become human as wrong and selfish, with the potential to be catastrophic.

That being said, Inuyasha didn’t hate being a half demon, on the contrary. What he hated was being ostracized over it, so he decided to take matters on his own hands and, when he was free to choose between using the jewel to become a full demon or a human, he went the full demon route because he knew living as human would made him miserable. But the desire of being a full demon was a facade. What he so very clearly wanted, all along, was to be accepted the way he was. That’s why he had no trouble letting go of that goal to pursue the exact  opposite: there was no attachment to it. Full demon or human, he longed for a place to belong. If Kikyo was offering that to him, of course he would have taken it, even if becoming human was far from being the first choice.

Compare that with Inuyasha finally giving up from becoming a full demon, realizing he didn’t have to change at all, that he had a place to belong and people who loved him not despite of what he was but because of it, that he could be accepted as a half demon. Compare that with Inuyasha ending up with the girl that always encouraged him to be himself, with being comfortable enough around her to follow his instincts and embracing his canine mannerisms rather than shutting them down, which he didn’t quite did with Kikyo... The message is clear:

Kikyo should never, in any circumstance, have asked that of him. The implications of it were really bad and on paper it was a win-win situation for her because getting rid of the jewel to become an ordinary woman was something she already wanted. He was the one with the short end of the stick, sacrificing everything without the same level of compromising from her part.

And Inuyasha should never, in any circumstance, have accepted this deal. As his love interest, Kikyo should have been the very first persond advocating for him not to change. If the feelings they had for each other truly were love, then she should be the one helping him getting to terms with himself while he does the same for her, not legitimizing the absurd idea that a part of his essence was less worthy of existing than the other, that he should have be the one to change in order to fit in, rather than the people who oppressed him.

Thematically, even if subtle, the narrative did a decent job out of showing the audience how fucked up the whole thing actually was. What it failed to do was making Inuyasha and the others realizing how wrong it was and holding Kikyo accountable for her actions by making them talk about it.

Because God forbid Kikyo gets vocally told she was wrong (even though she often is) and God forbid Takahashi give Inukik the tiniest bit of substance and relationship development.

[ac3id]

🌸torment

pairings: shigaraki tomura x undercover!reader

warnings: smut,noncon, humiliation,voyeurism,dirty talking, fem reader,slight yandere if you squint

The past three months working for the wanted villian Shigaraki Tomura wasn't easy. Tomura was a difficult person to deal with, calming him down after his temper tantrums and dealing with his shameless comments about your body, you wondered whether this was worth it.

summary: After being exposed of an affair with her boss, [Y/N] is fired from the Tokyo police department. Luckily hope finds her as the Hero Commision offers her a job. Inflitrate the Paranormal Liberation Front and collect evidence that no. 2 hero Hawks had murdered Best Jeanist and Twice. [Y/N], under a pseudonym, lands herself a job as Shigaraki's assistant, but ofcourse, [Y/N]'s truth is brought to the light and Shigaraki has taken it above himself to punish the traitor.

word count:3.8k

masterlist

You had come to League under a fake name trough some connections by the Hero Commision you were able to land a job in the organization. Being Tomura's assistant was just a glorfied name for being his baby–sitter, before you it was the purple mist that took care of him but now while he was gone, it was in your hands that the man child didn't end up killing himself because of his self destructive habits.

It could have been an easy job if only Tomura didn't have to show how much of a pervert he was every five seconds. He would give unasked suggestions which made your blood boil but you couldn't do anything about it other than a smile and nod.

"You should wear a skirt you know? It's what assistants wear,"

"Sir, I don't think that's necessary. This isn't—"

"Wear a skirt tomorrow."

Regardless, you wore a skirt the next day. Going against the man child was a stupid idea anyway.

You never saw it coming and one day he had cornered you in his office, you had thought he was going to throw his perverted advances at you. You mentally braced yourself for the humiliation you would have to go through for the sake of the Hero Commision. But, no amount of mental strength could have prepared you for what was going to happen.

"What do you think about the Hero Eraserhead?" He said in a mocking voice.

He knew.

Yet, you still pulled your act up

"He's a Hero with an annoying quirk," You responsed sure of your answer. "You're right," Tomura grabbed your arm all with four fingers, his thumb inching closer to your clothed arm. You knew where he was going with this, while your brother, Aizawa Shouto, had the ability to erase quirks. You weren't affected by them. Tomura couldn't kill you just by grabbing your hand but he kept his thumb suspended so he doesn't disintegrate your clothes.

"So, you wouldn't mind if I gauged his eyes out and made him into a nomu?"

Tomura knew what he was doing but you were persistent, you were not going to let your cover fall.

"No, I don't care. Why are you asking me this, Sir?"

"Why?" He looked into your eyes, even though his face was covered by father you could still catch his merciless gaze crimson red eyes burning into your soul. His hand moves to around your neck his pinky still hovering over your neck probably out of habit.

"Sir, I don't understand." You ask and Tomura hums, even while working next to him this was the first time he was ever this close to you. Even while Father was covering majority of his face you still see the wrinkles around his eyes through the gaps.

He calls you out by your pseudonym, the fake name you had used to get around the villains. He says in a voice daring you to answer to that name.

Tomura already knew, he knew you were an Aizawa. He knew you were here from the Hero Commision, probably didn't know the reason why you were here and maybe that's why he kept you around. Coming clean right know would have saved you a lot of pain but you chose to answer to him.

"Yes?"

A piercing pain shot through your right thigh your whole started feel heavy.

"You're a very dumb bitch."

You hear Tomura growl before your mind blacked out.

You wake up feeling fuzzy, you cannot remember what happened or why you were in this dark room with only a light bulb hanging above you. You tried to bring your hands to your face to rub your eyes but you couldn't move them. They were tightly binded together behind the chair. You tried kicking but no avail they were also tied to the legs of the chair.

You looked around the room, the room was dark and you couldn't see anything in the abyss. Only the little circle where the light shone was illuminated, You gulped, what had you got yourself into?

You squirmed around in your chair trying to break free of the bounds but that was impossible, footsteps resonated in the room and you gasped. A familiar tall figure came into the light, his hair shining under the white light and a deceased hand covering his face hiding a wicked grin.

"Why am I here?" You ask even though you knew the answer, you should just admit it. All this would get by easier.

"You're here because you're a dumb bitch who doesn't know when to stop lying!" Tomura taunts his voice shrilly. He walks towards the table picking up the pocket knife and walks towards you. Dread fills you up as your breath hitches, he stops at front of you placing the knife on your right cheek while his free hand goes to close around your neck.

His eyes narrow at you and can't help but let out a whimper. If he already knew why was he doing this to you? He could have just killed you when he found out.

"You know.." You whisper weakly, he grins madly behind the hand on his face.

"Yes I know, Dabi told me everything." He answers

"Then w–why are yo– what is all this?"

You're met with silence, the hand which grasped your neck leaves it as Tomura removes Father from his face and places it back on the table. He comes back to you this time pressing the knife at front of your throat.

"I absolutely hate people who take advantage of other's feelings. You came in here to collect evidence to put a charge of murder on Hawks? I don't trust you. Never did. This is going to be a lesson for you. For all of you." He says as his red eyes bore into your sorry soul.

The knife which was pressing against your neck had cut into your skin and drew out some blood, he relaxed the knife and pulled out a black smartphone.

"Are you going to kill me?" You meekly ask.

"Oh, you wish I kill you. I will do something worse," You tense up as he holds the smartphone's camera to your face. "Let's make you famous, like your brother!" He smiles his lips cracking which leaves shivers down your spine.

"Now," He says as he grips your jaw with his free hand bringing the phone to your face, "I will ask some questions and you have to answer them? People are watching okay? This is an interview!" Your blood runs cold. What does he mean people are watching? Is he live streaming this?

"What do you mean?" You ask in a low voice which barely passed as a whisper, "Come on, don't tell me you don't know what is going to happen now. This is an interview with Eraserhead's little sister! You are going to tell us about yourself right?"

"Tomura please, no. Anything but this, anything." You plead hoping he would give mercy to you, save you from the embarrassment and possibly the end of your career and life.

"Anything? This is what I want. Now, three..two..one!" He moves back as the camera captures all of you, tied helpless in a chair.

"Hello my dear viewers! Today we're going to be doing a little interview with you will never guess who!" He dramatically calls out, you lower head your hair falls on your face covering it.

"Eraserhead's little sister! I bet you're surprised as well, not a lot of people know she exists! Now!"

Tomura grabs your hair and pulls it roughly directing your face to the camera, "Why don't you tell us your name?" he taunts you, his face is covered by the phone but his eyes peeked from behind it. His hands moves from your hair to your jaw, his thumb pressing on your lips.

You say your pseudonym and as your lips seperate Tomura dips his thumb inside your mouth holding your tongue tightly against floor of your mouth cutting you off. Your first instinct is to bite his thumb but you choose not when he says, "Tell me your name or I'll cut this cute little tongue and leave you here." Your hot breath fans his thumb. "Now I'll let you go, tell us your name."

Biting back tears you let out a tiny whisper.

"Aizawa Y/N" Your voice cracks and you mutter out a sorry directed to everyone watching.

"What did you say? I didn't hear you now. Louder." Tomura growls as tears slip down your cheek, his grip still tight on your and camera looking at your face.

"Aizawa Y/N." You voice is shrilly, trying to contol your tears and to make yourself look stronger.

"Ah! There it is! Everyone, Aizawa Shouta's younger sister Aizawa Y/N!" He calls out with a chuckle. He leaves your face and you lower it again, you cannot look up. The shame, the guilt and fear was eating at you. His hand comes down on your head again but instead of roughly pulling you up by your hair he pats it down.

"Good, now as a reward." His hand comes down to your jaw again this time his pointer and middle finger pressing against your lips, "Open your mouth." he orders and you oblige. His slender and cold fingers enter your mouth, resting on top of your tongue again. Your instincts tell you to bite him but you knew better.

"Suck." He commands. You close your lips around his fingers and do as you're told, he lets out a wicked laugh and brings the phone to your mouth camera capturing your cheeks hollowing against him.

He scrolls through the comments, millions watching the comments were lewd considering he was streaming on an erotic website people just thought this was some fucked up role play.

"This is the hottest slut i've ever seen on this website" Tomura read out the comment, tears flow down from cheek as he turns the phone's screen to you. He was actually streaming this.

The 'live' symbol was at the right most corner of the screen the comments which were degrading you.

('can u fuck her already?i'm getting impatient here bro')

('look at the way this whore dresses,shes basically asking for it')

('dude whos filming this is such a lucky bastard')

('she probably likes all the attention like a naughty little whore')

You saw Tomura's face from the screen his crazed smile looking at and soon the lewd comments changed to concerned ones.

(wtf)

('omg isnt that the league's tomura' )

('wtf this is so fucked up')

('yall report this shit this is literally so fucked up')

He turned the phone around again and pulled out his fingers from your mouth wiping your saliva off on your cheek. Four fingers excluding his pinkie played with the collar of your shirt.

"Y/N, tell me, what are you doing in a place like this? I bet the viewers are wondering what the younger sister of a Pro Hero does as a living?"

The millions of strangers watching this sat in fear, a few bastards aroused by this horrific situation. Who knew that the leader of the villain league was this merciless? Heroes and Government officials watched the stream, pitying you as their tech support tried to pin point the location of the phone but all to vain.

You didn't want to even think about what your family and brother were thinking. This probably wasn't as humiliating to you as it was for your brother. He would have face the public the next day, releasing a false statement that everything was OK and it was under control. You couldn't start to imagine the number of people you were disappointing every second you sat strapped to this chair.

"Who do you work for?" Tomura asked again growling as his eyebrows furrowed.

"The Hero C–Commission," Sobs left your lips as he continued to look down at you like you were a piece of meat cooked and ready to be eaten. "t–the Hero Commision?" He said in a voice pretending to be hurt, "I thought you were working for us! I thought you were working for me! What were those three months about? You sat by my side helping me with my ups and downs. What do you mean the Hero Commision " He angrily growled the last part. You tried to hang your head low but Tomura pulled you by your hair once again making you look directly at the camera.

"Tell them why you're here! They want to know!" The upbeat cheer never leaves his voice. It was as if he was asking you how many pets you had or what was your favorite color.

"I'm here undercover," He lets go of your hair and you head hangs down tears falling on your thighs as you bite your trembling lips to not let out any sounds. Tomura lets out a satisfied hum his fingers reach for your collar once again and he catches it with five fingers and it turns to dust.

"You were sweating. To be honest I don't think its hot in here but guess I did you a favor, hmm?"

He plays with strap of your bra, he leans closer to your face as the camera captures your covered chest. "Won't you thank me?" He whispers into your ear as his free hand moves around your chest groping it and pinching your nipples through your bra until they harden.

"Thank you." You feel his hand move down and on your tight skirt as he disintegrates the material,leaving you bare in your underwear. He moves back with the camera showcasing you in your bra and panties. "Y/N told me she was feeling a little hot so I helped her, don't you think I'm a good person? I'm just like those heroes in a way," He chuckles your head still hangs low he walks up to and pulls your hair forcing you to look at him, "I'm still mad, why are you here undercover? and maybe stop looking at the floor all the time, unless you want me to chop your head off." He lets go of your hair and you continue looking up. "I went undercover to investigate. I went uncover to investigate weather Hawks killed Best Jeanist." Tomura lets of an exaggerated gasp.

"W–What did y–you say? Hawks killed Best Jeanist?"

You couldn't answer anymore. You were weeping, the gravity of the situation set in you couldn't think straight anymore all you wanted was to get out of this mess. Your moans of despair resonated in the room, Tomura looked down at you he was annoyed. He let out a low groan as he scowled down at you, he flicked your forehead, "Stop crying, answer the damn question." he ordered voice dipped in venom.

"Tomura, please let me go.. please stop this." You begged and he scoffed, "Who are you calling 'Tomura'? I'm your boss aren't I?" he pulled you by your hair moving your head back and forth. "Tomura, please no." You pleaded again but no avail he didn't show any mercy.

"You pesky heroes think you can send anyone in here and get away with it? And guess what your precious hero Hawks did kill Best Jeanist. He also killed my ally Twice but I guess you all insects will forgive that. But I am not going to forgive you! Here's a lesson you all will remember."

Tomura brought all of his five fingers on the chair you were sitting on and everything in contact with it turned to dust. You fell on the floor on your back your arms and legs free from the ropes as you laid completely bare on the floor your most intimate parts on full display for Tomura and everyone watching the stream.

You tried to crawl back to escape him but his shoe met your stomach pressing on it making whine in pain, "Are you going to kill me...?" you asked choking on sobs.

He tsked, "No, I will not kill you I already said so didn't I? Now we are not done. Before you decided to come here like a dumb bitch you are, what did you do?" You sense the unfiltered rage in his voice the shoe on your stomach pressed harder. "I worked at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department." You answered, "Why were you fired?" He knew everything didn't he. He was going to make you regret existing.

"Tomura..." You whined and he tsked, "Please, kill me." Tomura scoffed, he was going to force himself on you while talk about every little bad choices that you had made in life you were done for. If he let you out in the world after this you wouldn't be able to face anyone anymore.

His shoe pressed even harder into your stomach, he bent down pinching your hardening nipple and brought the phone to your face. "You're asking me to show you mercy? Too bad Y/N, I'm not a hero. You don't get to die!" He started laughing as your face turned to a terrified one. "Now, tell me, why were you fired?" His hands moved around your body but the camera stayed at your face. You broke down as you explained your affair which had with your lieutenant, when you stopped Tomura gave a wicked laugh he looked down at you with disgust and lust in his eyes."Ereaserhead's little sister is a whore." Tomura grabbed you by your neck and brought you to your knees, you looked up at him only to the camera positioned at front of your face. "Do what whores do the best." The bulge in his pants was hard to ignore you could feel your heartbeat picking up as you  hear his belt jingle off while unbuckling his belt the camera recording every move and millions of people eagerly watching.

Soon his pants were discarded and your mouth was around his girth

Your tongue sticks out to lick his length from bottom to top, lubing it up so it would be easier to take it all into your mouth. He let out another loud pant as you licked him from top to bottom.

"Filthy," he spat, his words thick with lust and dominance. "Absolutely filthy," He reemphasized,

Tomura impatiently nudges your lips with the head of his cock, His precum already decorates your lips and chin, and you glance up at him,

Tomura and the viewers are truly mesmerized by the way you swallow his cock as he allows himself to bottom out every time, savouring the feeling of your warm and tight depths around him.

You swallowed around him, trying to ignore the burning sensation in your lungs .You couldn't breathe because of how he blocked your airway, and you squeezed your eyes shut, trying not to breakdown. You swallowed around him again, another low groan meeting your ears.

his cock hitting the back of your throat. Your eyes watering further as you got used to the feeling. and trying not to gag you lifted your head back and began the motion stimulating his cock. He let out a real audible moan now, his hands gripping your hair as you went up and down. A mixture of tears and drool was dripping down your chin, pooling down the floor as you tried to let him take all of himself in your mouth.

You kept the blowjob up until you heard his breath get harder and more erratic with each hit with the back of your throat. He gripped your head and began thrusting hard into your mouth, hissed moans and sounds of pleasure escaped his clenched teeth as he reached his climax fucking your face.

You felt the hot seed burst out in your throat, the warm and bitter liquid sliding down. Tomura's pants were heavy as he slowly pumped into your mouth, the liquid filling your throat as you swallowed it all down.

You popped off of him,your vision blurring with tears,your cheeks damp inhaling more greedy amounts of air. He wiped the drool off of your chin,forcing you on your feet as you struggled to maintained your balance. You noticed the dull ache of your knees, which had been pressed to the floor the entire time.

He brushed a hand through your hair, crouching matching your height. "Do you like being a whore? "

He gripped your thigh and his fingers crawled upwards, "Instead of working hard like everyone in the society did u like getting on your knees and sucking off your boss? ''

His hands squeezed your ass up, as the smartphone was pointed to your face

You hiccuped nodding slowly

"A filthy slut like you always needs a dick or two in your mouth. Am I correct?" He asks, knowing exactly what his words are doing to you. You whine a little louder wishing for this all to be over, and when you don't answer he grabs your hips with his rough hands,Your legs splay out in front the camera, standing between them and smirking down at you.

"Bend over. give us a little show." You bend over the table  as he guides you, leaning into the hard cold wood under you. You feel his knee between your legs, nudging them open for his inspection,You knew what was coming his fingers rubbed your slit and camera positioned directly above it. You feel the brush of his warm breath over your exposed pussy, wet and aching.

You felt him position himself at your entrance. You couldn’t think straight now,You could feel heat begin to pool at his words and you blushed. What was wrong with you?

He pushed your legs apart and admired you, all exposed for him. He licked his lips. "look at you,your'e dripping." " I bet you love it. What a dirty fucking slut you are, getting turned on by people watching this slutty little pussy get fucked,"

"Am I correct?" he says more sternly, a glimmer of excitement in his warning gaze.

"Yes, sir," you answer.

''I- I cant''

“You can and you will,” he says dismissively, his hand already wrapping itself into your hair. “Now take my cock like the whore you are.”

You arch your back, spreading your legs further to take Tomura's pounding.

Tomura moaned above you as he kept thrusting faster and harder. He lowered his head sucking and biting on your neck.He groaned thrusting into you from behind giving your ass a hard slap. You moaned biting your bottom lip. He kept pounding your pussy grabbing your hair in his other fist. The footage on the camera became shakey and blurry.

Sliding his hands over your thighs, he lifts your legs onto his shoulders, and a silent moan erupts from you. This angle allows his cock to reach even deeper, and your cries turn to deep moans as Tomura hits hard and deep with every single thrust,feeling the eyes of the viewers on him

He let out a soft growl in your ear before thrusting faster. "''You're such a good little slut , taking whatever my cock gives you''"

He almost doesn't want to cum, but then he imagines what your pussy would look like all filled with cum, his cum, and the thought alone urges him to slam into you harder.

"God, fuck, I'm cumming, take it, take it all you cocksleeve."

''T- Tomura'' you gasped

You felt sick, as if you were going to pass out.

this livestream has ended

You laid lifeless on the table as you felt his cum dripping our of your abused hole. Your eyes narrowed and you felt something wet prod your lips. You tried to move your head back but his hand pushed you into a deeper kiss.

The last thing you could remember was him kissing you.

<Feedbacks are really appreciated >

artwork isn’t mine **

[ardenttheories]

i think to me one of the worst things about epilogues davekat is that in context it makes them both seem like horribly self-absorbed creeps. their lack of visiting their extremely depressed and isolated BEST FRIEND, john, is played as a joke at the start of candy, but like... that’s terrible? candy dave regrets not dating karkat more than his brother’s suicide (that he could have prevented and chose not to?) fucked UP

The Epilogues make light of every damn mental illness there is, and it’s deeply frustrating, especially when you consider how many of these kids are mentally ill or have trauma. 

Like, an interesting point of depressed John could have been the reasoning behind why people didn’t go to check in on him. 

Why would Dave, someone who was stifled for years and kept inside a very small apartment filled with traps and danger, not want to spend more time outside with his friends? Why would he, who only spent time with one person for 13 whole years, not want to experience life with other people? Why would Dave, who repressed his own trauma so much that he was more concerned about Jade seeing his dead body than he was with touching it, completely blank that the same thing is happening in someone else? Why would Dave, who understands the importance of being able to open up to someone about your struggles and have them validated, not immediately check in on someone who clearly struggles post-game?

Does he just want to spend some time for himself? Is he being selfish because he was never allowed to be before? Is he hesitant or even scared to face what he never acknowledged while in the game, and talking to John would make him have to face that? Is he unwilling to see his childhood hero at his worst? Or does he just genuinely think that John can’t be struggling, because John never struggles, and his own impression of John is blinding him?

Like, there’s so many things that could have made Dave’s lack of interest in John’s welbeing interesting - or having Dave go to visit John in and of itself would’ve been amazing to see. They’re fucking friends. If one of your friends doesn’t come out for a few months, you don’t just not check on them, or take their “I’m okay!” at face value. 

And I think a lot of this is what I mean when I say that they lose a lot of their individuality when they get together. Dave, for some reason... stops being Dave. He stops existing outside of Karkat. They become weirdly reclusive, existing only with each other, like none of the people around them really matter. They spend so much of their time trying to get people to leave in the Epilogues? It’s actually pretty bad, all things considered. That’s not what a healthy relationship looks like. It’s not even what a healthy friendship looks like. 

It’s also frustrating how little Dirk’s suicide is actually acknowledged in the characters who loved him most. Dirk dies, and that’s just sort of it. I get that it’s Candy, and that things are made irrelevant all the time, but Dave literally gets one speech to mourn Dirk and it pretty much never comes up again.

People don’t just get over loved ones. Even to this day, ten years after my granddad died, I can still remember one of his favourite poems and sometimes cry thinking about it. Four years after I lost a good friend of mine, I still break down over how unfair it is that they got taken from me. It’s not easy to just accept that someone is dead. It’s not easy even years later to be okay with it.

You definitely don’t just move right the fuck on after a funeral with little to no other thoughts on it. Like. Geeze. What a way to be insensitive to the people who’ve lost those to suicide and to suicidal people who saw how few people cared about Dirk when he was dead. But also, just how infuriatingly unrealistic that depiction is?

Do they really think that out of everything, Dave's biggest regret would be Karkat? Someone who’s still alive and who he can actively chase after and mend things with? That he’d think of Karkat over his own brother who he actively went to seek help from, who he felt actively lost without the guidance of? Like. You can regret things at equal capacities. If nothing else, they could’ve had Dave regret losing both Karkat and Dirk. Loss does that to you!! If you lose one person, losing another stacks on top! It doesn’t override it, especially if the second person is still alive! 

DaveKat shouldn’t overwrite everything else that Dave and Karkat live for or have going for them in life. DaveKat shouldn’t stop them from spending time with their friends, shouldn’t make them recluses, shouldn’t erase their own friendships for each other. It shouldn’t stop Dave from caring as much about Dirk as he clearly does. 

It’s frustrating and I completely agree with you. They just lose so much of who they are for this weird unity that they become, I assume because the writers can’t be arsed to write a good, healthy MLM relationship for once. 

(On a side note, and going back to John for a sec, because man does it frustrate me: Even Rose was shit at this. Rose, who only calls John when she actively needs him, despite being a Seer and likely Knowing that he’s struggling. Rose, who is struggling herself, and didn’t think to tell John that she’s sick, despite him being her friend. Rose, who is into psychology, and probably would have known that John was struggling to reach out. Did they just forget everything about her character, or?). 

[bestworstcase]

a comprehensive guide to zhan tiri’s lore or, it’s not that confusing or contradictory, i promise

first things first: if you are somebody who pays attention to creator interviews and you are interested in canonical zhan tiri lore, i want you to gather up everything you’ve ever heard chris say about zhan tiri and erase it from of your brain. i know he’s made statements regarding his interpretation of her backstory but this post was made by death of the author gang and we are interested ONLY in what is stated and shown in the text itself. meaning belongs to the viewers, and creator interpretation is irrelevant. 

ready? let’s go!

who or what is zhan tiri?

zhan tiri’s first appearance in coronan history occurred thousands of years ago; in plus est en vous, rapunzel specifies two thousand, but every other mention of zhan tiri as a historical figure is “eons” or “millennia,” and the most objective source we have—the plus est flashback—is marked “thousands of years ago.”  

there is no direct evidence to suggest that she existed prior to this, but i think there is enough circumstantial support for this theory to conclude that she did: namely, the existence of idols and other religious iconography associated with her name. my reasoning here is as follows: 

the plus est en vous flashback shows demanitus banishing zhan tiri to the lost realm. this makes it—give or take a few years—the last point in time when zhan tiri would have been free and thus able to make any lasting cultural impact.

it follows that any relevant historical artifacts we see must predate the plus est flashback, as they represent a time when zhan tiri had a significant enough cultural impact to fuel their creation.

moreover, though sugracha and tromus are the only disciples of zhan tiri who directly appear in the series, it is implied that there are many more: 

Lord Demanitus was in a constant battle with Zhan Tiri and his brethren. Over the years, Demanitus captured many of the evil spirits and held them prisoner in that chamber. (S1, Painter’s Block)

much of the coronan folklore concerning the demanitus-zhan tiri relationship is... wrong, but due to sugracha’s verifiable imprisonment in the demanitus chamber, i feel it reasonable to conclude that this tidbit is correct in that there are, or at least were, other disciples held inside the demanitus chamber. and, as with the historical artifacts associated with zhan tiri, it is logical to conclude that whatever cult produced these disciples predated the plus est flashback. 

so, we’ve established the historical artifacts and iconography associated with zhan tiri came before the plus est flashback, but what exactly does that entail, and what does it tell us about zhan tiri’s true nature?

icons of zhan tiri: an overview

#1: janus point

janus point is a henge, and based on the iconography—the ram’s head symbol is plastered all over the jardinière and the henge pillars—it appears to be a site dedicated specifically to zhan tiri. the same symbol also appears on the seal in which sugracha’s spirit was trapped inside the demanitus chamber and is unique in that the muzzle appears to corkscrew.

the appearance of the henge evokes a quasi-religious flavor, and in who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, rapunzel refers to the site as a “mystical ground.” at the very least, this is a ritual site that was heavily associated with zhan tiri, and it would not be much of a stretch to conclude she was outright worshipped here.

#2: the spire idol

this artifact appears in both the keeper of the spire and race to the spire. it’s a small stone idol kept in the spire’s... gatehouse, for lack of a better term, and it depicts the basic ram-headed hulking demon zhan tiri. nothing is said about it in either episode. 

#3: the tree of zhan tiri

there is zhan tiri iconography all over this tree.

the stone ram’s head over the entrance...

...the bas-relief in the first chamber...

...more ram’s heads over all the interior archways and the scroll shelves...

...and a return of the corkscrew-snouted ram’s head from janus point on the altar for this glorious oversized flytrap.

#4: the shell house

tromus’s shrine gives us yet another variation on the ram’s head symbol as well as another full-body idol and also, though i didn’t get a screenshot of it because it’s hard to see with the way tumblr resizes images, a little ram’s head symbol on the clasp of his robes. 

so where did this imagery come from?

with the exception of the spire idol, there is evidence to suggest that zhan tiri herself had direct influence over the design of all this iconography. 

janus point seems to have held some importance to zhan tiri herself; when she appears to varian in cassandra’s revenge, she surrounds herself with pieces of it and superimposes her own head on top of the tree. 

further, the corkscrew-snouted ram’s head reoccurs at the great tree, which is unique among the sites associated with her in that we know zhan tiri actually resided there for what sounds like a significant amount of time; according to the legend adira shares, the great tree was zhan tiri’s “stronghold.”

this means that it’s plausible that either (a) zhan tiri herself shaped the symbols on display in the tree, or (b) they were modeled after her by her contemporaries. the interesting thing about this, there are four distinct variations on the ram’s head symbol inside the tree: 1) long, thick snout with elongated horns; 2) angular, no snout, short horns, 3) corkscrew-snouted, and 4) humanlike skull with ram horns. 

and likewise, the iconography inside the shell house was created by someone we know to have been a contemporary of zhan tiri’s; tromus was one of the students of demanitus who turned against him to join zhan tiri instead, and it is logical to assume that he did, in fact, see zhan tiri in the flesh at some point—and his ram’s head design is yet again different.

this begs the question: if all five of these designs were modeled on zhan tiri herself, why is there such variety in the basic shape? i believe this is a strong point in favor of considering zhan tiri a shapeshifter who chose and stuck with a single general form for long periods of time but casually and frequently modified the smaller details. and in fact, we do see her do this in season three, with the most notable occurrence being. this: 

so, we have concluded that: 

zhan tiri’s historical iconography predates the plus est flashback, and

accurately represented her physical appearance from that time

from this, the only reasonable conclusion is that zhan tiri is a shapeshifter, who spent a considerable amount of time in the giant, ram-headed demon form depicted in all of her pre-demanitus iconography. 

but she’s human in the plus est flashback!

in the series, human characters are designed with a wide diversity of shapes and sizes, but their color palettes stay within the range of realism, with natural skin tones and eye/hair colors. zhan tiri is... not like that.

she may be human-shaped, but her color palette sits drastically outside the norms the series has established for human characters; her skin is dead white, her hair is a dull lilac color, her eyes are bright purple with a circle of gold around the pupils. none of these are natural human colors.

there is precedent in the series for marked changes in appearance and coloration as a result of meddling with magical forces: when cassandra claims the moonstone, it turns her hair and eyes bright blue and gives her an unhealthy-looking pallor. rapunzel’s hair, likewise, turns gold due to the sundrop’s influence. thus, taking this in isolation, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to conclude that zhan tiri, too, has had her appearance altered by whatever magical nonsense she’s been mucking around with.

however, if we look at this design in the context of the conclusions we’ve already drawn about her historical iconography and what that tells us about her true nature, i think a much simpler and more plausible explanation is that zhan tiri, being a shapeshifter, donned this humanlike form in order to get closer to demanitus. there could be any number of reasons for doing so—considering demanitus’s fixation on seeking the drops for the right reasons, i would imagine creating some distance from the malevolent monster form in order to gain his trust would have played a role in this decision.

five final points in favor of shapeshifting

#1: zhan tiri in the lost realm

we see in plus est en vous that the lost realm causes absurd magical mutations in people who are trapped there. varian theorizes that these mutations could become irreversible if they stay in the lost realm for long enough, but given that they are all freed shortly thereafter and the changes revert, there is no concrete evidence for or against this theory.

still, this raises an interesting question: if the lost realm mutates anyone who enters it, and if these changes become irreversible after long periods of time what would happen if a shapeshifter was trapped there for thousands of years?

when zhan tiri escapes from the lost realm, she isn’t all that different in appearance from when she entered it. she’s much smaller. her hairstyle has changed a bit. she lost the bag at some point. but that’s... really it. it’s a much less drastic alteration than we see happening with the coronans, who are shown transforming into objects and animals, with their bodies distorted, or with pieces of themselves becoming detached and floating away. and these changes also serve her manipulation of cass by making her appear small, weak, and harmless, so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility for zhan tiri to have chosen this form for herself.

i think it is reasonable to assume that zhan tiri, being a shapeshifter herself, was able to, if not outright resist whatever magic in the lost realm causes these mutations, at least “fix” them as they happened. her brief appearance in painter’s block supports the idea that she retained the ability to shapeshift while inside the lost realm, since she appears there as the ram-headed demon.

#2: her shapeshifting disciples

both tromus and sugracha are able to appear human, and sugracha states that she can take “many forms” in painter’s block. though it’s never explained where they got this power, it is reasonable to conclude that they received it from zhan tiri—she is their master, and the implication very much seems to be that it was she who gave them their creepy green spirit form of immortality.

and, if zhan tiri is handing out powers of shapeshifting to her minions, it follows that she must be capable of shapeshifting herself, too. 

#3: gremlin zhan tiri’s demonic shadow

this shows up in cassandra’s revenge and plus est en vous and seems to straightforwardly suggest that zhan tiri’s true nature is closer to the ram-headed demon, with the humanlike form being more of a disguise.

#4: we see her shapeshift in plus est en vous.

she briefly loses her grip on the humanlike nature of the gremlin form when rapunzel blasts her with the sundrop, as i noted above. and later—once she has the drops in hand and the gremlin form has no further use to her—she sheds it altogether to return to yet another variation on the ram-headed demon, albeit one that looks more... monkey than ram: 

#5: and finally, zhan tiri herself says so

in race to the spire: 

I believe Cassandra promised us a proper introduction, but she failed to deliver, didn’t she? Frankly, I’m surprised you hadn’t guessed who I am—seeing as how we’ve already met, in a way. You see, over the centuries, I’ve taken the form of whatever suits my needs: a warlock, a demon... even a blizzard. 

she also portrays herself as the ram-headed demon in the vision she gives to cassandra in once a handmaiden:

now... zhan tiri is a liar, and if these were statements given in isolation of any supporting evidence, i would be skeptical. however, when all the evidence in the text points toward zhan tiri being a shapeshifting entity as the most logical explanation for everything we see of her throughout the series, i’m inclined to take her corroborating statements as a factual confirmation. 

in conclusion: zhan tiri is, and has always been, a shapeshifter. if she has a “true” form, the evidence points toward it being the large, ram-headed, tentacled demon, while the humanlike shape(s) we see in season three are forms she assumed to ingratiate herself to demanitus and, later, cassandra. 

what’s the timeline with her and  lord demanitus?

time in this series is fuzzy. this applies not only to zhan tiri and demanitus, but to every historical event discussed by the characters and the timespans covered by each season, where the only time markers are the lantern festivals that celebrate rapunzel’s nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first birthdays and a few throwaway lines about the passage of months. thus, there is no way to say with absolute certainly when any specific event in zhan tiri’s backstory occurred chronologically. we have to do our best to arrange the events we know about in an order that is logical. 

this is complicated by the fact that we know demanitus fudged some of the details to make himself look better to rapunzel and eugene: he obscured the fact that he and zhan tiri were working partners for an unknown length of time. this verifiable lie of omission casts a patina of doubt over everything else he says regarding their shared past, but it also accounts for discrepancies between what we see and what we’re told. 

as always in unreliable narrator situations, what we see has far more weight than what we’re told. with this in mind, there are three tiers of trustworthiness in the information we are given about zhan tiri’s past: most trustworthy are the flashbacks and things we see with our own eyes; in the middle are the accounts of zhan tiri’s contemporaries—demanitus and the disciples; and at the bottom are the folk legends recounted by xavier and adira. 

so what do we see?

#1: zhan tiri and demanitus searched for the drops together

just how this arrangement came to be is unclear, but i think we can glean some interesting information from the plus est flashback.

DEMANITUS: Zhan Tiri! This is your last warning! Give up this foolish quest for power.

ZHAN TIRI: This quest for the sundrop and moonstone was both of ours.

DEMANITUS: It was, until you made it about something darker. You made it all about gaining power for yourself! You turned your back on what was right!

ZHAN TIRI: And you turned your back on me. As long as I live, I will never stop until I have that power!

DEMANITUS: I know.

[He activates the portal to the Lost Realm.]

ZHAN TIRI: This is far from over! I will have that power, and when I do, I will destroy your beloved Corona! I promise you!

[The portal closes.]

DEMANITUS: I had no choice, Vigor. I had to send her to the Lost Realm.

this suggests a couple things.

first, the working relationship between demanitus and zhan tiri broke down because her selfish desire for power clashed with his idealism. demanitus didn’t want the power of the combined sundrop and moonstone for himself; he wanted to reunite them in the service of a cause he believed to be right. zhan tiri, by contrast, was interested solely in acquiring that power for herself—but given how demanitus reacted when he learned this, it seems obvious that he didn’t know that about zhan tiri until later in their relationship.

in other words, there was some level of deceit on her part involved with their partnership from the very beginning. she hid her true motives from him; she may also have hidden her true nature from him. i think there is support both for and against the latter point: in the present day, demanitus describes zhan tiri as “a warlock”—a word zhan tiri uses as an example of her duplicitous shapeshifting—but he also describes her as being “from another realm”—suggesting he knew her to be something otherworldly or inhuman. 

i tend to fall on the side of demanitus knowing her basic nature while they were contemporaries, but believing she shared his more noble motivations at first, but i think a strong argument could be made in favor of him believing her to be human from the start and only discovering her true nature later. 

second, demanitus appears to have cared for zhan tiri far more than she cared for him. in the flashback, she’s angry at his betrayal, but her focus is on her desire for the power of the sundrop and moonstone. by contrast, demanitus gives her plenty of warning and chances to turn away from her dark path, pleads with her to “give up” her selfish motivations, and expresses clear regret after her refusal forces him to banish her to the lost realm. 

this, again, supports the interpretation that zhan tiri manipulated or used  demanitus to further her own goals, just as she would later do with cassandra, rather than this being a true partnership that broke down as a result of differing goals. she doesn’t care about him any more than she cared about cass.

#2: zhan tiri’s behavior in season three

season three firmly establishes zhan tiri as a skilled manipulator who does not care about anyone or anything besides herself and her pursuit of her own power. i won’t get into the weeds with this—if you want to read a breakdown of (some) of zhan tiri’s manipulation of cass in season three, i wrote a post about once a handmaiden here—because for our purposes, we just need to understand that the basic character of zhan tiri as we see her in the present should inform our interpretation of her behavior in the past. 

in other words, i think it is safe to assume that zhan tiri applied similar techniques and principles of manipulation to demanitus as we see her do to cassandra in the present; to wit, she would have sought to make him emotionally dependent on her by exploiting whatever vulnerabilities she could find and presenting herself to him as a trustworthy friend and kindred spirit. 

#3: she is not close to her disciples

once she is freed, zhan tiri never so much as mentions tromus or sugracha again. moreover, it is unclear how much personal information they actually know about her: in painter’s block, sugracha refers to zhan tiri as “he,” which could indicate one of several things: 

zhan tiri is female, but her disciples don’t know her well enough for assumptions they made about her gender based on the appearance of the ram-headed demon form to have been corrected, or

zhan tiri doesn’t subscribe to human conceptualizations of gender, and both “she” and “he” are acceptable pronouns because the gendered connotations of both are equally irrelevant.

i, personally, prefer the second explanation, but the first is tenuously supported by how little zhan tiri cares for her disciples.

what do her contemporaries say?

lord demanitus’s telling of his conflict with zhan tiri is as follows: 

Millennia ago, a mysterious event in the heavens divided an ancient power in two. The sundrop and moonstone fell to the earth. Three of my pupils and I researched the legend of the sundrop and moonstone, two elements that longed to reunite. We searched, but alas could not find them.

Unfortunately, we were not the only ones looking. My pupils betrayed me, and summoned my old nemesis, Zhan Tiri: a warlock from another realm, bent on destruction. It took all of my powers to banish the evil from our world.

I knew the research I had written about the sundrop and moonstone was valuable. Dangerous, in evil hands. So I tore the scroll and hid the pieces...

this exposition also shows us the identities of the three pupils who turned against demanitus and joined zhan tiri instead: sugracha, tromus, and gothel.

their identities are all confirmed outside of this sequence: sugracha and tromus appear as loyal servants of zhan tiri, and in a tale of two sisters, rapunzel and cassandra discover gothel’s research on the sundrop flower, including a piece that is an obvious attempt to recreate the demanitus scroll, indicating that gothel was indeed his student at one time: 

though it appears that gothel abandoned zhan tiri as well once she found the sundrop flower, as she hoarded its power for herself rather than seeking to use it to free her former master from the lost realm. 

now... because demanitus leaves out the part of this story that would involve admitting he worked with zhan tiri before she became his “nemesis,” we can’t say with any certainty when this business with his traitorous pupils freeing her happened—or, indeed, if it actually happened that way at all. it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that the three disciples could have been pupils of both demanitus and zhan tiri, who stuck with zhan tiri after demanitus betrayed her and banished her to the lost realm. 

my personal belief is that demanitus gathered his pupils to help him continue the search for the sundrop and moonstone after the flashback in plus est, only for them to be lured away by zhan tiri (perhaps via communication in dreams or visions, as cassandra’s revenge establishes that she’s capable of entering people’s dreams whilst trapped in the lost realm) and free her by reactivating the portal—thus shifting demanitus’s focus from “find the sundrop and moonstone” to “put the demon back in her prison and clean up this mess.” 

however, this is all very up for personal interpretation, because demanitus’s version of events is verifiably deceptive and thus cannot be taken as hard fact.

and what do the folk legends say?

#1: the blizzard

Eons ago, an evil warlock, Zhan Tiri, had a deep hatred for Corona, and cast a spell which caused a blizzard to sweep across the land. The storm destroyed everything in its path. All would have been lost, had it not been for the ancient engineer and inventor, Lord Demanitus. 

Using both magic and science, Demanitus built a massive subterranean machine deep in the Coronan mountains. This mighty device had the ability to change the direction of the wind, and it pushed the flurries out to the sea. The day was saved. Zhan Tiri had indeed been defeated. But some say the curse of the storm lives on, and is simply waiting to strike again...

we know that the basic event described here really happened, because the demanitus device does exist in the location indicated by the legend and works just as described. the details may have been glossed over or elaborated on over the centuries, but we know it is accurate in the essentials.

until recently, i put the events described in this legend immediately before the plus est flashback, to account for the snow on the ground during the flashback, but over the course of writing this post i have actually changed my own mind, and i now think that zhan tiri’s blizzard occurred when the disciples freed her from the lost realm for the first time. why? well, the imagery used to illustrate xavier’s telling of the blizzard legend is directly echoed by the imagery used to illustrate zhan tiri’s release in demanitus’s account in lost and found: 

queen for a day.

and lost and found. 

the color palettes here are identical, and in both, zhan tiri is depicted as the ram-headed demon, in almost the same pose, rising out of the mountains—which fits with both the location of the demanitus device and the possibility that she created (or became) the blizzard immediately after being released from the portal in the coronan mountains. moreover, her hatred of corona is based on her hatred of demanitus and her vengeful desire to destroy everything he loves, which would logically be stronger after he successfully imprisoned her once. 

#2: the great tree

Millennia ago, this tree was once a sentient being, a force for good. But it was corrupted by the evil sorcerer [Zhan Tiri] to destroy any who approached it. It was Zhan Tiri’s stronghold. Inside it, he was invincible. But Lord Demanitus put a stop to the tree’s magic using an enchanted spear. 

as with xavier’s blizzard legend, the fact of the spear’s existence and the behavior of the great tree itself once the spear is removed proves the basic accuracy of this legend. 

the difficulty hear lies with pinpointing when all this occurred. unlike the blizzard, there are no contextual clues to suggest where this conflict at the great tree may lie in the general timeline, so any conclusions we draw must be based on speculation. the only thing we know for sure is that zhan tiri’s residence in the great tree ended during demanitus’s lifetime, which puts a hard stop in it at about two thousand years ago.

my theory is that zhan tiri corrupted and resided in the great tree long before demanitus’s time. adira calls it her stronghold, and as discussed in the first section, the great tree has the greatest variety and frequency of zhan tiri iconography of any location in the series. one of the symbols inside the great tree is even found thousands of miles away at janus point—the corkscrew-snouted ram’s head—which draws a possible line of influence from the tree to janus point. taken together, all of this suggests a long period of time during which the great tree was zhan tiri’s tree.

and as for when it entered into the conflict between demanitus and zhan tiri, i believe there are two possibilities: 

demanitus knew of zhan tiri’s use of the great tree as a fortress, and she allowed him inside while they were collaborating in their search for the drops. she likely hid the violent nature of its defenses from him for a while; then she either let her guard down and allowed him to glimpse more of the truth, or the tree as attacked and he inadvertently witnessed a brutal massacre. either way, this is what clued him in to her ulterior motives, and he crafted the spear to destroy the tree’s magic—and it is this betrayal that zhan tiri references in the plus est flashback when she says “you turned your back on me.” 

zhan tiri had been using the great tree as a home for many years without the aggressive kill-anyone-who-enters security measures, allowing it to function as a library or house of research. this may have been how she and demanitus encountered each other in the first place, and would go a long way to explaining why demanitus trusted her initially. it wasn’t until demanitus turned against her and imprisoned her in the lost realm, and her subsequent release by his pupils, that she became enraged and turned the great tree into an indiscriminate killing machine and demanitus forged his magical spear to stop her.

i think both options are equally plausible, and since there isn’t any direct evidence one way or another, this is another case for personal interpretation and preference to really come into play.

so, to sum up...

at some point around two thousand years ago, lord demanitus encountered zhan tiri, and she persuaded him to trust her and work with her to find the mythical sundrop and moonstone. she was most likely just using him the whole time, while he grew to care for her but became so uncomfortable with her violent methods and selfish motivations that he felt he had no choice to imprison her in the lost realm. 

his pupils—whom he either once shared with zhan tiri, or gathered after the breakdown of his relationship with zhan tiri—turned against him, and either took her side in the conflict, or successfully freed her from the lost realm. i think the latter explanation(s) fit better with the information we are given. 

the blizzard discussed in queen for a day most likely happened after the plus est flashback and her subsequent release by the disciples. 

the conflict at the great tree most likely occurred either right before or at some point after the plus est flashback and her subsequent release, but it is plausible to assume that by this point she had been residing in the great tree for a considerable amount of time prior to working with demanitus. 

demanitus defeated zhan tiri and her disciples, imprisoned her in the lost realm, imprisoned most if not all of her disciples in the demanitus chamber, destroyed the portal to the lost realm so she couldn’t easily be brought back, and transferred his soul into the immortal body of a monkey so he could spend the next two thousand years as a... watchman of sorts, over the drops, probably with the hope that he could step in to prevent zhan tiri’s release if necessary.

[godsofhumanity]

GODHUNTER by AMY SUMIDA | REVIEW

okiee this was recommended to me by @inkleaves ^-^ uhmm so i have a LOT to say about this book. spoilers under cut.

OVERVIEW: “Godhunter” is the epithet given to a young woman named Vervain who uses witchcraft and magic to go around committing deicide in order to save humanity from gods who drain their energy to gain immortality and other godly attributes. However, when Vervain is recruited by the Norse god Thor, she finds herself in an alliance with the people she originally considered her enemies, as they work together to save the world from the maliciousness of the Aztec god, Huitzilopochtli.

RATING: 2/10. i’m giving it a low rating because it doesn’t really have too much to do with mythology, but i did like its general portrayal of most deities even though this book was insanely cringey and dumb.. now, even though under the cut, i’ve kinda bashed the book quite a bit, i still have to admit that i’d be lying if i said i didn’t have fun reading it. i stayed up to 1 AM trying to finish it because i had to find out what the protag’s next stupid decision would be,, all in all, if you like trash/cringe fiction- this is for you.

WARNING: even though this book is a YA novel, I’d say there’s a definite emphasis on the adult part of “young adult”... Certain scenes and themes are inappropriate for minors.

AVAILABLE ON: pdf link here ^-^ ((i think it downloads immediately if you click))

THINGS I LIKED:

the book is cringe.

great diversity in terms of the god cast. i learned about some new deities that i was previously unfamiliar with, so that was cool

Brahma (Hindu deity) wears a Gucci belt as part of his attire ^-^

whatever Estsanatlehi and Tsohanoai (Native American deities) had going on.... they were really cute and wholesome

THOR-HORUS BROTP AGENDA!!!!!!!! everyone who follows me already knows how keen i am about this idea of all the war deities hanging out together (fite club), and this novel served up exactly that. disappointing that Huitzilopochtli wasn’t a part of it, but i am settling for Thor and Horus’ several centuries old friendship.

Horus’ falcon tattoo detail.. i LOVE the idea of the gods having their sacred animals tattooed,, it’s so awesome!!!

Pan... i liked the way he still had his little horns, and he was kinda chaotic and fun.

in general, the descriptions of the gods were so pleasant and so cool.. i really liked the way that pretty much all the gods were beautiful,, this is very much in line with my own idea of how the gods look, and i think it makes sense, because they’re meant to be charismatic, compelling beings- beings that you worship, beings that you praise- why would they be anything but beautiful? and even if they were considered ugly by other gods, that’s only in comparison to other deities.. from a human perspective,, i just can’t see how any mortal could consider a god to be anything less than perfection,, idk

in particular- i really enjoyed the descriptions of Huitzilopochtli in his debut. i know he’s a piece of shit in the novel, but i LOVED the way he was described with his war-frenzy being triggered by blood, and the way, as god of the sun, his body almost glows, and heats up as though you’re looking into the sun itself, and the only way he can cool it down is by bathing in blood... WOWOWOWOW it’s just such a neat and fantastic visual description. his physical appearance really paid tribute to Huitzilopochtli’s original domain and attributes.

i also liked the linking between Huitzilopochtli being the Father of Vampires.. links between Aztec culture and vampirism is a trope that i didn’t originally suspect, but have become exposed to quite a bit as of late,, and i think that it’s quite a clever little plot. i liked that Huitzilopochtli also debunks superstitions about the sun, garlic, crosses, holy water etc.

Huitzilopochtli as the villain. the man makes a BRILLIANT villain- his motives are very clear and also, i thought, justified, albeit unoriginal. his presence is quite terrifying, and the reader does worry for Vervain’s safety whenever she’s with him- which is good! this means that he fills out his role as a villain well. tbh,, i did love Huitzilopochtli from the moment of his debut, but he got knocked out of my books during a certain temple scene and i have some thoughts about that in the next section.

when Vervain wakes up after the temple dream with Huitzilo, and she relaxes because it was just a dream, but then she looks into the mirror and sees bite marks on her neck!!! CHILLS! now THAT was good writing- it was unexpected, and served well to navigate into the next part of the plot.

Odin and Huitzilopochtli holding a ted talk on “how to create panic and discord among the humans”, and the gods having to bring certain meals depending on what the first letter of their names were.

Vervain’s pop-culture references, and her weaponry- especially the gloves that have blades in them that get released when she swings her hand downwards. very cool, i want them.

casual appearances from Vladimir Putin (yes, i said Vladimir Putin)... i couldn’t stop laughing when i read that Huitzilo was trying to kill Putin’s daughter to instigate a war...... asdhshajdhasdjfhjdhf insane

also i know Vervain was trying to mock Huitzilo when she nicknamed him “Blue”,, but like.. that’s a really cute name and it wasn’t even insulting.. yeah, that one backfired on you Vervain... if anything, that just made it seem like she actually had affections for him and i feel like probably in part is the reason why he felt encouraged to pursue her.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE/THINGS THAT DIDN’T MAKE SENSE AND/OR CONFUSED ME:

the book is cringe.

it reads like a 15 year old’s fantasy AU where she’s a humble young woman, unextraordinary- yet somehow, she is the muse of every man’s desire. handsome, ripped gods who never wear clothes are laying themselves down at her feet,, and she is just overwhelmed by the choices before her; and all the while, she has to balance a complicated love life with her duty to save the world (since she’s the only one who can).

Vervain as a protagonist. idk how old she’s meant to be, but since the book is in first-person, and the reader is exposed to her innermost thoughts,, i’ve gotta say- she’s incredibly immature. as a protagonist, i just feel like she’s rude, pretentious, snobby.. she has no idea what “respect” even means. in every scene, she’s either fighting someone, or lusting after them (when Teharon told her off for having lascivious thoughts about him, and she simply responded with “well stop being so sexy then” i wanted to die.... WHAT is wrong with her)

i hate the way she looks down on the gods- even if you didn’t worship them, or even believed in their existence, surely you wouldn’t have the gall to lecture Hades and Persephone on how to be a good couple (especially when your advice is shit). surely you wouldn’t have the gall to say to Thor what Vervain says to him on pg 227, 4th line from the bottom, that i will not repeat here. Vervain is just too self-absorbed. i don’t hate her, but i definitely think her character is a bit,,, iffy.

relating to Vervain as the protagonist- everything just seems to happen to her.. and i know that she’s the protag, and things are meant to happen to her, but it all happens to her one after the other in succession, no breaks. it’s so easy for her... oh? Huitzilopochtli is going to kill Putin’s daughter? no worries, Vervain can read Huitzilopochtli’s thoughts! oh? the gods have never been able to transform more than half their body into their animal form? no worries, Vervain is so powerful she can force a god to change against their will! oh? Vervain is being attacked by blood-thirsty wolves? no worries, she saved the life of one werewolf and now he’s indebted to her and will literally kill himself in order to protect her! everything is easy, and nothing is a problem.

the way every male deity ever sees Vervain once and immediately wants to take her to bed. why was that a necessary aspect of her character? and also, why are the gods portrayed as such lustful beings?? it really wasn’t necessary.

Horus throwing a fit about how December 25 is his birthday and that it was stolen from him by Jesus... to quote:

“No big deal?” Horus puffed up. “I was called the Lamb of God. I had twelve apostles, and my myths spoke of my crucifixion and consequent resurrection in three days. His stories were my stories first!”

it’s fine that Horus is angry about his birthday which was i think, historically celebrated around this date- but the rest of it isn’t even true???? Horus didn’t have 12 apostles, i’m pretty sure he was also not called “Lamb of God”, and he wasn’t crucified!!! aghhhh even Thor says “It’s been so long that even you don’t remember things accurately.”

anyways.. my beef with this is the way it’s phrased so as to imply that “oh christianity just stole everything from the pagans” when this is so incredibly false and sounds like something an ill-informed person would say. you can read more about christianity, paganism and christmas here

kinda related to the previous point- the jokes about Jesus’ skin colour. i quote:

“... when Christ first became a god, he looked Jewish because those were the people he chose to align himself with. However, the Jews didn’t want him, and when Christianity spread, the white people wanted Jesus to look more like them. With the change in belief, Christ’s appearance changed. ... We used to tease him about how he looked whiter every time we saw him... Kind of like Michael Jackson...”

what the FUCK??????? seems like Sumida doesn’t understand that various ethnic groups illustrate Jesus as appearing as the local people do. Yes, obviously in a Western country, Jesus is going to look European, he’s going to look white. If you go to Japan, you will see Jesus and the rest of the gang looking pretty fucking Japanese. the point of this is NOT to erase Jesus’ Jewish ethnicity, and it is certainly not because of something like “the Jews didn’t want him”- it is because it is a way for followers to better relate to the Divine. including Christ in this story isn’t the problem- i’ve seen others do it very well. the problem is how uneducated her writing comes across.

all the gods have human jobs so that they can earn money and stuff,, which is fine- Thor, for example, owns a line of boats, which makes sense. but Pan? his job is making p*rn. now even though it’s true that everyone associates Pan with sexuality and stuff,,, this isn’t his primary role, and making Pan out to be just a playboy who has his mind in the gutter 24/7 i think is a bit of a mockery. Pan is, first and foremost, a god of the Wild. why Sumida elected to make him a p*rn manufacturer and not a wildlife conservationist is beyond me... i’m not even pagan, and i thought this creative decision was distasteful and stupid, especially because his character is actually quite light-hearted and cool.

the temple scene with Huitzilopochtli and Vervain. as i said previously, i really really liked Huitzilo’s character. he made an excellent villain. but this part?? i understand why it was done, but i HATED that it had to happen... not just because it was horrible for Vervain, but Huitzilo seemed so powerful and godly right up to that point- after which he seemed pretty pathetic- going back after Vervain after she’s rejected him countless times. she is JUST a mortal!!! c’mon Huitzilo, give it up!!! you are degrading yourself at the expense of achieving one mortal’s “love”.. the fact that he had to hypnotise her to get what he wanted AND had to achieve it through her dreams (when’s she can’t protect herself) was sooooo pathetic and disgraceful.. IMO, he committed the worst sin any person could ever commit and i just... AGHHHHHHHHH SMH WHY?!

speaking of morons- Thor. Thor just comes across to me as extremely possessive, and over-protective,, and idk how Vervain was NOT creeped out by the fact that Thor had literally been stalking her for two years before she even met him. wtf? god or not- that’s creepy. actually, i think it’s creepier because he is a god. 

Sif. i am still waiting for good media representation of thunder god Thor and his beautiful golden-haired wife Sif- i want them to be HAPPY, and i want them to be in love the way they should be! 

Persephone. i like the idea of Persephone being sweet-tempered, and kind- but in this book, she’s such a wimp??????? she totally just lets Vervain be rude to her, a goddess who’s name means “Bringer of Destruction”. also- her relationship with Hades seems toxic.. i mean,, he like tracks her? she starts stuttering when she talks to him, and gets nervous when people so much as mention his name. not to mention the fact that Persephone says that when she does go back to him, all he demands from her is a certain horizontal dance so much so that she is “sore” (<- quoting from the book here) every time she returns??????? WHAT IS HAPPENING?????????? and no one even questions it. Vervain doesn’t even question it! instead she suggests that Persephone MOVES IN with Hades permanently???? and that Hades should just start verbally saying how much he loves Persephone instead of “showing” her how much he “loves” her.....??? there are SO many issues with this.. i can’t even- *screams*

the Aphrodite-is-madly-in-love-with-Huitzilopochtli side plot. it could have been really good, but then it ends so abruptly,,, i mean.. why’d Aphrodite get done so dirty like that? Also summary of Hephaestus’ first and final scenes:

Hephaestus, entering the room: Right, what’s all this then? Vervain: Your wife is cheating on you (again) Hephaestus: Aight, i’m out *leaves and never comes back for the rest of the book*

what the HECK was the ending with Trevor?? i hate Vervain so much i can’t... okay first of all- WHY did Trevor decide to have a wolf-marriage with Vervain?? he kept on going on about how she’s so beautiful, and kind, and caring... NO SHE ISN’T TREVOR!!! i’m so mad that he would pledge himself for all eternity to this girl who doesn’t even like him in that way!!! you played yourself son

also- Thor accepts the fact that Trevor is going to have to be close by to Vervain because the terms of the marriage state that Trevor will literally die without her touch, which is VERY GENEROUS of Thor... but Vervain?? ooooh i HATE her.. she has the audacity to look at Trevor with her lecherous eyes thinking about lustful things IN THOR’S OWN BED!!!!! and then she thinks to herself “oh whoops i shouldn’t be thinking that”- yeah you’re darn right you shouldn’t be thinking that!!!! whatttt is wrong with her............. 

also- where tf did Huitzilo go??? he just gave up on trying to instigate a war and vanished?? the plot was so unresolved?????? AGH!

[atroposmoiraifate]

Atropos or Aisa (/ˈætrəpɒs/; Ancient Greek: Ἄτροπος "without turn"), in Greek mythology, was one of the three Moirai, goddesses of fate and destiny. Atropos was the oldest of the Three Fates, and was known as "the Inflexible One.  It was Atropos who chose the mechanism of death and ended the life of mortals by cutting their threads. She worked along with her two sisters, Clotho, who spun the thread, and Lachesis, who measured the length. Atropos has been featured in several stories such as Atalanta and Achilles.

Her origin, along with the other two fates, is uncertain, although some called them the daughters of the night. It is clear, however, that at a certain period they ceased to be only concerned with death and also became those powers who decided what may happen to individuals. Although Zeus was the chief Greek god and their father, he was still subject to the decisions of the Fates, and thus the executor of destiny, rather than its source. According to Hesiod's Theogony, Atropos and her sisters (Clotho and Lachesis) were the daughters of Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night) and sister to Thanatos and Hypnos, though later in the same work (ll. 901-906) they are said to have been of Zeus and Themis

Name: Atropos, Atty, Asia in some places.

Lives on Mount Olympus with her sisters in their temple.

Best Friend: Lacy

Final Fate is the strongest of them all. His name will not said aloud. The last time they did they really messed up their brothers life.

Who is Atropos, or Atty you ask?

Atropos was the oldest of the Three Fates, and well known as the inflexible or \"inevitable.  Atropos was mean, having no regard for the life of humans, animals, or gods.  It didn't matter to her what species a soul was, Atropos chose the mechanism of death and ended the life of mortals and Gods alike by cutting their thread with her abhorred shears. She worked along with her two sisters, Clotho, who spun the thread, and Lachesis, who measured the length.  The three ran Olympus.  Zeus the so-called King of the Gods feared them.  His fear of them ran so deep that he locked them away on the left side of Olympus, so they were far away from him.  Zeus knew deep down that the three sisters held what it took to take him down, and that didn't set well with him.  So he imprisoned them..... or thought he did so that would never occur.

Atropos origin, along with her two sisters, is uncertain, although some called them the daughters of the night. It is evident, however, that when Zeus ruled, the sisters were to deal with death only, and also became those powers who decided what may happen to individuals. Although Zeus was the chief Greek god and their \"father\", he was still subject to the decisions of the Fates, and thus the executor of destiny, rather than its source. According to legend Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis were the daughters of Erebus ( God of Darkness) and Nyx ( Goddess of Night).

Atropos and her sisters had lived for centuries on Mount Olympus doing the bidding of the all mighty father of the Gods, Zeus, who didn't even bother to mess with them.  Along with this threat of Death, prediction of future events, they lived a lonely life. Of the three sisters, Atropos had used her bowls, and she perfected the use of them.  The outside world of those whose life she took had intrigued her.  She had watched many be born, and many die and always by her hand as she cut their life cord.

Atropos, Clotho, and Lachesis had never known their parents at all. They were considered an abomination as the futuristic predictions proved to be true, the three were feared among even the Gods.  Themis had no choice but to hand the three over to Zeus.  Zeus had shoved them inside a temple on the left side of Olympus, they never received any visitors, for too many feared them, feared the unknown leaving the three lonely, and bitter.

Locked away in the temple the sisters became distant from all others.  Only doing the bidding of Zeus on a mission to find the one that held the power to end the universe, thus putting an end to the almighty \"Greek Gods\" in doing so.  Every century Atropos would scan the world for the being that had been foretold would end them all. Standing before her bowls a young male Demon had come into clear view as she stood there, her eyes on the image in the water she found she couldn't move. His stare captivating even as a reflexion.  Staring at the water as her sisters walked in she reached down swirling the water with her hands, erasing the image of the male that would bring an end to the universe as she knew it. Shaking her head to the two as they walked past her. Atropos knew in her heart that she had to protect this male even if it was the last thing she did.

Atropos had become fascinated by the world outside the temple at this time with the humans, and the others as she and her sisters would come to call them.  Humans were not the only thing walking the universe, Demons, weres, shifters, witches, among others walked along with them. However, these creatures also feared the Fates.  Atropos hated being cooped up in the temple and began changing her appearance, showing her face in various towns, states, and countries. It was during one of these times that she found herself standing face to face with the young Demon she had seen in the bowls.  Unable to see her she took her hand running it along the nape of his neck watching the chills run down his spine as the hand of Death had just raked his skin.  Atropos had decided to keep the secret; she watched him throughout his young life.  Watching him struggle, fail (only in his eyes, but never in hers.) and pick himself back up again, and again.  Atropos watched from a distance; he never knew she was there; it was something she had perfected.  As she found her way back to the temple, she only smiled as her sisters questioned her about where she had been, what she had been doing, and who she had been watching.  Not once did she give in to either of them about who it was.

Atropos continued to watch Cal, as a matter of fact he consumed much of her time, and oh how he made it easy for her, he was Destruction, and her, well she was Death, and they go hand in hand.  Atropos had a habit of showing up after he had caused mass Destruction guiding those souls to the place they were to end up for eternity.  Atropos could have cared less about the lost souls she moved.  She knew that it brought her closer to that Cal.  Atropos needed someone who would listen, and she had come to trust her sister, Lacy.  Atropos found she was spending more and more time repeating the stories of the young male who had her heart, yet sadly didn't even know she existed.  She spoke of his greatness, his strength, agility, and how he was a savior in her eyes.  Never once did she talk about him being the one who would take down Olympus, and Zeus, the pompous ass.

One day, as Atropos spoke the words unbeknownst to her Clotho was hiding in the room, listening to every word that had been spoken.  As she made her way home,  stepping into her room, she found her sister had locked her in with wards and spells making sure the Fate of Death would never come out of the room again. Lacy would try to coax her out, she declined. Even though she had the power to break the wards.

Falling into a great despair, she spent her time watching Cal through the bowls, she kept them from her sister, and Zeus protecting him from certain demise had they found out.  Atropos tracked his every move, knowing when he was in battle when he was hurt, defeated, and angry.  As she watched from afar, a little of her died as she did so. Atropos knew that being the oldest, and the strongest, also the most feared of the three that at any time she could break the bonds that held her, however, she didn't push knowing her fate was here, and that this is where she belonged in the temple, bringing death and cutting cords.

Lacy made sure that Clotho never locked Atty up again, as a matter of fact, the complete opposite occured, Clotho stayed away from her, for fear of what she would do to her. Atty had decided at that moment when her eyes had locked with the Cals; she had secretly adored, that she was going to live the rest of her existence the way she wanted to, and that was without interference from her nosy sister.  Atty did just that; she lived knowing that even that one time of looking into his eyes, touching his cheek, would have to be enough.  It would have to put out the flame that would burn eternally for the male.

Atropos had kept an eye on Cal making sure he was not making more mistakes; she found ways to guide him in the ways he needed to be. Her sister thought she had completely lost her mind when she did this.  Scowling at her, she wouldn't lose sight on what she knew he stood for, and who he was.  Atty had always seen Cal as hope, hope for all mankind, hope for the world while others had trouble getting past where he came from, and what he was.  Atropos had caught glimpse of the great male he would become.

Smiling as she watched him. Sure, he had an attitude, he was cocky, and to others was something of a tyrant. Cal had always pushed to get his way.  These were all traits Atty had watched throughout the years, and found that they were  the very things he needed to survive the ways of the universe and the painful things that had thrown his way.

As time passed, Atropos discovered that her time with her bowls gave her the greatest joys, up until the day she heard the soul that had screamed for her to collect it.  As Atropos went to collect it, she saw who it was, and under what circumstances, Atty looked around for another soul, the fates must have been mistaken looking around backing up her eyes wide as she took her shears, taking the woman's hand with her own.  Her eyes were looking through to the window right to Atty's soul.  This has to be relation to Cal, she knew it. She had a job to do. Even though the female spoke to her as she escorted her soul she'd never tell another what was said. As Atty delivered the soul, the words rang over and over in her mind.  Watching Cals life the next couple of years she felt helpless, she knew that at this point Atty had given in to the fact that he was lost to the world, and to what she thought was to be would never be, and wasn't there.

As Atropos watched Cal,she screamed out in anger, wanting to warn him of how it would end, a las she couldn't...…. it was against all that had been drilled in her head.  NEVER MESS WITH FATE!!!  It will come back and bite you in the ass.  Atropos felt her heart beating as she watched it all unfold, Cal, her sister, Cassius and she knew before it went down exactly how it was going to end.  For her beloved bowls had shown her the end of the only male she would ever love, a forbidden love.  Tears falling into the water she knew she had to save him.  Cal was the savior of many. Breaking through the hold her sister they had at the entrance, she splintered the door that had held her behind.  Giving her sister a snarl, she scattered like a bug after a light had been turned on.  Grinning as she moved fluidly through the temple finding her way. The Fate of Death begged her best friend, her sister Lacy for help.  Atropos and Lacy moved swiftly and they made it in time to watch the Dream Brothers, the God of War, Ares, and a powerful shifter, Demons everywhere attack them..... and her Cal would be no more.

Moving in what felt to be slow motion, they watched from the corner to what seemed to be the inevitable.  As the Male fell out of place by those that sought to assist. She watched as the other males were falling as well, and weren't getting up without help.  Atropos couldn't bring herself to carry her Males soul to the other realm, not knowing who he was, what he stood for and how the world needed him, she needed him though he'd never know. Atropos knew right then and there that she would have sacrificed her beating heart before she  would lose him.  Reaching down, she touched Cal and smiled as her heart beat wildly against her chest.  His scent invaded every essence as she stood knowing they would all live.  She would be able to remember the feel of Cals skin, she lingered for a second, it was almost a second that got her caught.  As the males woke up and her eyes met with his, she gave him a small smile before they vanished from the place of battle.   It was a moment etched in her mind forever, and one she was sure he'd forget.

Lacy told Atty there wouldn't be another time like this. They weren't meant to interfere in the lives of others. As much as it broke her heart she knew Lacy was right, and she would always watch from a far. Perhaps Lacy and Atty could take their own trip into New Orleans. Atty had always wanted ro live there, maybe Lacy could be talked into into it.....she would see.

[blodreina-noumou]

what would the show have had to have done to be considered good for you? I thoroughly enjoyed my time watching the show, so I look back at it fondly.

Oh god, where do I even begin?

For starters - if you’re one of the people who enjoyed The 100 in its entirety, good for you! That’s awesome! I don’t want to diminish that. These are just my feelings and my opinions, and I don’t intend for them to make anyone else feel bad for what they like. The ending could’ve been much worse, I’ll give it that. And there were obviously moments I enjoyed throughout the final season, and the series as a whole will still stand (unfortunately) as one of my favorites.

HOWEVER.

I found the ending thoroughly disappointing. It robbed our characters of any of the development they made in the final season, for the sake of propping up Clarke (canonically, that is why they stayed.)

The final season provided us with some really fascinating journeys for our characters. Without recapping the whole season, I can say that I really liked where Octavia, Emori, Murphy, and Echo ended up in their respective arcs. They all had to overcome their past tragedies to fulfill new roles. It was interesting and engaging.

The show itself provided us with so many interesting conflicts, with so many different groups who had competing goals and ideals. On some level, it promised us that peace was not possible until these folks all learned to work together and stop killing each other. That was the goal, all along. 

Survival of the human race was the first goal of the show, and survival of the human race is only possible if they (a) stay human and (b) survive.

Neither of those things happened by the end. The goal of our protagonists - the thing they allegedly existed for, in their stories - to save the human race and survive and thrive and all of that, did not happen for the vast majority of people.

Transcendence and the final scene on the beach erases all of the hard work they did in showing us those character journeys, and in making us invest time and energy into different groups that would only continue to suffer assimilation and homogenization by the end.

What was interesting to me about our main characters - Clarke, Bellamy, Monty, Raven, Murphy, Octavia, Emori, and Echo - was that they appeared to be the ones best suited (according to the storytellers) to save the human race.

The moment the show introduced the Grounders, I wanted a political thriller that I was probably never going to get. I accept that. 

What I cannot accept is that they erased all of their conflicts with a convenient deus ex machina, and everything that our characters learned is more or less pointless because of it. I’ll focus on their s7 arcs, but I think it applies to their entire storylines.

Octavia learns about her brother’s way of raising her and comes to forgive him for it. She becomes a parent herself. She manages to bridge the gap between two cultures yet again (Bardo and...everyone else, I guess) by falling in love with Levitt. 

She will never utilize any of those skills again. Hope no longer needs a parent. There will never be another culture different from them again. She and Levitt will never have children.

Murphy learns to put value in the group, and to recognize his own abilities as a leader and as a man. He saves multiple people in Sanctum, becoming their protector and their shield. 

Emori learns to put value in herself, and to recognize her abilities to empathize with outcasts and those deemed “less worthy” by society. She becomes a queen in her own right, a protector and a diplomat.

No one will ever need them to fulfill these roles, ever again. There was no point in them leading those people.

Echo had to go back to a deeply painful role, one which has cost her dearly in life - a spy among her enemy. When she’s brought to her lowest, to the brink of committing genocide, it’s her love for her family that keeps her from going over the edge. She reemerges as herself, recognizing that her painful past does not define her, and she can find love despite it.

Too bad the love of her life was murdered by Clarke!

I wanted our heroes to save the human race, not be the only humans that ended up saved. Does that make sense?

Clarke gets the closest thing to a happy ending of anyone, since she was the one who insisted for seven seasons that “[her] people” were the most important thing in the world, and that she would stop at nothing to protect them. Welp, now there’s nothing to protect them from. Her genocidal rages get a little slap on the wrist and then she gets to spend an endless beach day bossing everyone around and pouting.

It just sucked.

I hate the magic hand-wave of all of the conflicts. You can try to tell me that transcendence was a choice all you want. Plenty of people chose the City of Light, too. That didn’t make the way it erased their individuality and personal goals okay. Frankly, the ending to me feels like everyone just decided to go into the City of Light anyway. And sure, they keep their bad memories and some semblance of individuality, but what do those things even mean when you just one blip of a species that works, moves, lives, and decides things as one?

They didn’t overcome their tribalism. All of the other tribes just got assimilated into the borg. And sure, they maintain some semblance of personality once they transcend - we know that because of Madi’s message to Clarke. But what kind of lives are they going to have as part of that big glowy shit? Madi never gets to grow up, or fall in love, or pet dogs again. (Picasso is always going to wonder where her new best friend went.)

And who were those alien assholes anyway? Who are they to say that their way is better, that they have the right to judge entire species based on one representative? That they can just exterminate anyone whose way of life doesn’t match up with theirs?

Our heroes didn’t save the human race. The human race turned into something else entirely, and its last survivors get to watch each other die knowing that that’s it, that’s the end of them all.

No societies. No cultures. No new art, or music, or fashion.

No children, no future. No hope. 

It’s very disappointing and scary to me. I don’t like the messaging and I don’t like the implications for the surviving characters.

There was a brief, brief moment when I saw a glimpse of an ending that I could’ve liked. When Raven says, “just give us another chance,” I was really expecting the aliens to swoop off and leave humanity to their own devices. No crystallization. No transcendence. All of the remaining groups have to come together and figure out how to thrive together. Discuss and establish a system of government that doesn’t rely on state-sanctioned child battle royales, or body snatching, or extreme restrictions on how many children people can have. Obviously, in this ending, nobody gets shot and nobody almost dies. Madi retains control of her body, somehow. Fill in the details yourself, but my ending would include just about everybody surviving.

Build a society that will grow. Let our characters take the lessons they’ve learned and apply them in a meaningful way, a lasting way. Show us that humanity will survive and will rebuild, on the planet of our birth. Let them rest, but let that rest and that peace mean something more than, “Good job! You made it to episode 100!”

Not to mention, the fact that Earth did eventually heal made everything that Monty and Harper did at the end of s5 completely pointless. Monty thought he was delivering the human race to a new hope. He was just steering them towards assimilation to the borg. I don’t think that’s the “do better” that he wanted, you know?

I could go on, but this is long enough. I’ll just end by saying this - if someone had told me, back in 2015 when I started watching, that this is how the show would end, I never would’ve started it. Not for Lexa, not for Octavia, not for anything. 

The ending made everything they went through so painfully pointless.