#crows 1: soldiers

[liminalh-creations]

13. wear full black

Shuichi Akai's case notes from 5 August 2010

I exiled myself, and the nights, oh, father they don't leave me alone, oh my eyes

figuring out a distinct art style for akai was super difficult, and sticking to it when i replicate it, is even MORE difficult. :')

full chapter is here!

[mallratsys]

Some older Nomad Crow screenies fo today

[tobiasdrake]

*deep breath* Okay. Here we go.

I don't think the Netflix Avatar show likes women very much. It's a great show for fans of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh specifically. All four of those characters get a ton of great material. In fact, it's super great for Sokka stans, because the show takes him ultra-seriously and can't go five minutes without one character or another (usually a woman) praising him.

But the way it handles its female cast is troublesome.

Katara

So, all three of the main trio got some changes made to their stories. They changed Aang's story so that he wasn't running away from his responsibilities; He was just clearing his head and somehow accidentallied himself into a tsunami. Whoopsy-dooodle. Aang did nothing wrong.

They changed Sokka's story so that him being a leader of his people and a great guardian warrior is treated with complete seriousness. Multiple times, characters stop to talk about how brave and noble Sokka is for taking on such an intense responsibility, and tell him to his face what a great warrior and a wonderful leader he is. Also his misogyny is erased.

And they changed Katara's story so that she directly got her mom killed because she sucks at waterbending.

Katara tries to waterbend to attack the Fire Nation soldier but couldn't manage it, provoking the soldier to start actively searching for her and forcing her mom to fake a waterbending attack and draw his fire. They changed Katara's story so that her bad decision making fucking got her mom killed.

This is treated with the same level of severity as "Sokka was bullied by mean kids and also his dad doesn't think he's good enough to be a leader."

"I hoped Sokka would do better but not everyone is meant to have people's lives in their hands," Sokka's dad says of him.

Yeah, you're right, that's totally comparable to watching your mom get barbecued because you tried to waterbend in a situation you shouldn't have and then failed.

In fact, they give Sokka's greatest trauma more weight because it gets examined again with Yue next episode, while Katara actively getting her mom killed isn't brought up again at all. We get traumatized glimpses of it throughout the season leading up to the reveal, but after this scene in episode 5, it never comes up again.

But to be fair, Katara was a child. An event this significant would surely have motivated her, driving her to become the great waterbender she is now, right?

No! Katara sucks at waterbending and needs men who aren't even waterbenders to teach her how to waterbend. She requires instruction from Aang in episode 1 to learn how to waterbend, then from Jet in episode 3 to learn how to waterbend better.

And unlike the show, her relationship with Aang isn't a give-and-take; Katara doesn't teach Aang a single goddamn thing. He never learns to waterbend. She is a strictly a pupil throughout the whole season. Though she at least gets officially labeled a master in episode 8, so there's that.

In any case, the whole traumatic memory thing isn't even the only time she's directly compared with Sokka. Episodes 3 and 4 see Katara and Sokka bicker over whose morally dubious side character is better. Sokka likes the Mechanist and Katara likes Jet.

Ultimately, Katara is forced to eat crow when Jet turns out to be the worst, while Sokka is vindicated when the Mechanist sees the error of his ways and reforms. But not before two separate arguments where Sokka calls Katara childish and accuses her of acting like a little girl.

Arguments ultimately resolved when Katara apologizes to Sokka for not adequately respecting his very serious and ultra important role as village protector and leader. Gives him a whole speech about how great and glorious he is. And Sokka... appreciates Katara learning to respect him properly, I guess, because he never offers any similar sentiments back to her.

The show just... They need you to know how important Sokka is, okay? It's very important that you respect Sokka.

Suki

Suki suffers tremendously from that whole "Sokka's misogyny was removed" thing. Y'know, because they need something else to do with that episode. The show is deeply aware that Suki is Sokka's love interest, so they just do that right off the bat. Suki falls madly in love with him from the moment they meet, and spends the entire episode making goo-goo eyes and trying to get him to Notice Me Senpai.

They still do the "Suki Trains Sokka" stuff. But Sokka is a serious, dignified manly man worthy of the deepest respect now, so of course they don't make him wear the Kyoshi uniform. Instead, the main purpose of his training is to allow them to flirt some more. It's less martial arts training and more an excuse to grope each other and near-kiss.

Suki's just a waifu now. She still fights real good, but all of the stuff that made her relationship with Sokka interesting has been erased.

Yue

Yue, similarly, leaps straight to shipping from the word go. They write out her fiance, Hahn, by having Yue briefly meet Sokka earlier in the season. She spends one minute talking to him in the Spirit World about Spirit World lore; In that time, she falls so desperately, madly, unfathomably in love with him that she breaks off her marriage to Hahn and devotes herself to waiting for him to one day come to her.

"Never have I known such joys as that time you let me explain the spirit bear Hei Bei to you. Truly, we are destined to be together for life."

Like with Suki, they go out of their way to have Yue and Sokka already be a ship from the word 'go' so they don't have to spend time developing any kind of meaningful attraction.

They just. They really want you to know that Sokka is the manliest and most desirable man ever to walk this earth. It is very important that you understand how great he is. Women hurl themselves into his arms with zero effort whatsoever, because he's just so goddamn irresistible.

Fortunately, Hahn is super okay with this turn of events. He's the most chill guy ever, he gets along perfectly well with Sokka, and he completely supports Yue's right to dump him! In the famously misogynistic Northern Water Tribe, no less! What a swell guy. Aren't men swell?

June

June gets hit with that "rewritten as hollow waifu" stick too, but her eyes are set on Iroh. They rewrote June to be super attracted and flirty towards the man who was her unwanted sexual harasser in the source material. So that's fun.

Also, she barely does anything. Zuko hires her to find Aang, she succeeds, and then she fucks right off out of the show - But she manages to find time to express how unbelievably sexy Iroh is twice during that time.

She seriously just dropped into the show to flirt with Iroh and leave. She is unbelievably inconsequential.

Kyoshi

And then there's Kyoshi. They really want you to hate Kyoshi. She's constantly shot from below, as if looking down on Aang and the audience. Her voice takes on a demonic echoing reverb at one point as she's screaming at Aang that "THE AVATAR MUST BE A MERCILESS WARRIOR!!!"

She despises Aang, calling him a coward for running away from his responsibilities - Which, I remind you, is no longer a plot point because they unwrote that flaw from his character. So she's just a complete and utter asshole, shot from the asshole angle, yelling violently at him with asshole sound effects. They want you to despise this woman.

Azula

Awkwardly, they do not seem to want you to despise Azula.

There's a lot to be said for how Ozai treats Azula in the original show. The way the favoritism he shows her is every bit as cruel and manipulative as the unfavoritism that he shows Zuko. Ozai does not love Azula. He loves the reflection of himself he sees in her eyes, and his encouragement urges her to polish herself to ensure his reflection always shines through.

This is not that. The show instead erases the favoritism entirely. Ozai doesn't really care one way or another about either of his kids. He plays them against each other, bragging openly to Azula about how great Zuko is and unpleasably writing Azula off as weak and useless.

They've rewritten the dynamic between abusive father and his two abused kids in order to take Azula's pride away. Reimagining her from a gifted prodigy who excels at imitating the toxic behaviors of a father who doesn't truly care for her, to a put-upon overachiever tearing herself in knots to live up to the standards of her unpleasable father.

This results in a truly wild portrayal of Azula as insecure and jealous of Ozai's seemingly love for Zuko. Here, she is simply a browbeaten child constantly complaining to her friends about how mean her father is and conspiring to get one up over Daddy's Golden Child Zuko.

Which she fails at, because she backs Zhao. Zuko deftly defeats her without even realizing they're in competition.

Conclusion

The season ends well for some of these women. It ends promising that maybe we'll see Katara teaching Aang some day. It ends with Zhao bragging that Ozai just used Zuko to train Azula so maybe we'll see the more confident and misguidedly proud Azula some day. Yue becomes the moon like she's supposed to. June's still out there so maybe she'll get to do something again some day.

Katara gets to fight Pakku and lose, but she looks pretty cool. She gets to fight Zuko and lose, but she looks pretty cool. Azula learns to lightningbend because she's just so mad about Ozai's contempt for her and favoritism for Zuko, which isn't how you lightningbend.

But promises of future content fall flat when the content that exists is so underwhelming. This season made its feelings on these characters pretty evident, and it's unwise to expect better material from creators who've disappointed you with the material they already made.

The women of Netflix Avatar simply do not get to shine, outside of superficial moments like the "Women of Northern Water Tribe demand the right to fight and then fuck off and don't do anything for the entire rest of the episode" bit.

"In the midst of battle, we demand that you stop being sexist and give us permission to fight! This is a way better idea than convincing you to teach us to fight before the battle begins."

The characters of this show feel as if they've been reimagined to glorify the boys at the expense of the girls. The boys are treated with a great amount of care. They're dignified and made important movers of the plot, with their rough edges sanded off. While the girls are molded around them.

[devildomwriter]

Demon Types

Here’s my extensive guide to demon types and their psychology and physiology

What type is your OC

Avian

Avian demons are categorized based on feather or other bird like attributes.

A common avian demon will have one or more pairs of feathered wings, in rarer cases they will have a feathered tail, feathered ears, a bird’s beak, or bird’s feet.

Avian demons tend to be on the prideful and showy side and normally share one or more personality characteristics with the bird they most resemble, the most common being a raven or crow.

They tend to have a lighter body weight and their wings are more fragile since the bones inside are hollow allowing a lighter body for flight.

Another contributor to a light body weight is they have stomachs smaller than most demons which leads to them becoming full easily and not being weighed down by food

More common magic abilities in avian types include voice mimicking, flexible necks, heightened navigation skills, and a good amount of speed thanks to light bodies and feathered wings

Avians have a difficult time maintaining their wings or feathers on their own and will usually require help.

Every so often they keep their wings out to allow old feathers to fall and if they have no patience for this will do it themselves or ask for assistance

Similarly to angels, avian demons mix a special brew that must be applied to their wings to keep them clean, healthy, and shiny as they don’t produce it naturally like wild birds would.

Avians tend to have a habit of surrounding themselves with jewelry or nicknacks and collecting things they find like shiny pebbles. They usually can’t ignore fallen change on the street or purchasing any jewelry they deem appealing to the eye.

For this reason many avians are either wild thieves or high class citizens for the sole purpose of obtaining what they desire as demons lack sufficient control of their impulses.

Typically avians have jobs in offices, fashion, design, high profile positions, and the STEM field.

Given that many avians were once angels or are renowned in the same way Lucifer is, they are stereotyped as a high class type of demon though the majority live in the wilds acting more like vultures than peacocks

Known Avians: Lucifer

Commonality: 1/10

Reptilian

Reptilians demons are categorized based on scales and other reptilian features.

A common reptilian demon will present a long scaled tail, forked tongue, and slit pupils but not always all three. They will always have hard armor-like scales, and very rarely have wings.

Reptilian demons tend to be more hostile to others until they trust you and come out of their shells, which could take a long time.

Reptilians are easy to distinguish medically, because of their cold-blood combined with scales. For the rare winters and freezes in the Devildom, this is a real issue and they need to prepare their homes to maximum heat, as they don’t do well in the cold and could fall into a coma-like hibernation until they’ve become warm again.

The myth of demons being creatures of the night has a lot to do with reptilian demons. The reptilian demons are usually sent as spies warriors to the human realm due to their thick armor-like scales. However in the human world where the sun shines they become more lethargic and relaxed as they absorb the sun’s energy in the day and are more active and awake at night, using the energy they stored.

Reptilian magic tends to be geared more towards offensive spells since they are common soldiers and the original demon species, aside from the draconian devil. They can use defensive magic but their thick scales are usually protection enough from major wounds.

Every so often reptiles will shed their scales and regrow more durable ones, even if the specific demon does not need them for battle. Demons who are used to combat and battle will shed theirs more often, the bodies natural response to any inflictions.

Reptilians usually gravitate towards more militant jobs or ones that don’t appear in public eye like working from home, or in a quiet office room.

Reptilians don’t tend to have a social class stereotype because of their commonality but many are proud to be reptilian types and see themselves as the originals.

Known Reptilians: Barbatos

Commonality: 10/10

Aquatic

Aquatic demons are categorized based on their adaptability to water and the usual appearance of gills and webbed finger or toes.

A common aquatic demon will have a long tail, usually with fins or slick scales that help them adapt to the water and move more gracefully through it. Very rarely do they have wings but sometimes with will have large fins that appear to be wings.

Like reptilians they are cold blooded and in times of rare cold on the surface, they prefer to retreat to the warmer oceans and lakes or a heated indoor pool.

Similarly to fish the aquatic demons have a air-bladder that allows them to control their buoyancy and maintain the depth they are in the water without expending too much of their energy swimming upwards and downwards.

Not all aquatic demons will have gills but most have lungs adaptable to air and to water. If they don’t have gills they will need to exercise often to maintain their naturally powerful lungs allowing them to hold their breath for extended amounts of time. Most aquatic types can hold their breath for hours on end, untrained lungs should still be able to hold their breath for close to an hour before it becomes painful.

A downside to living on the land includes increased chances of dry skin and dry eyes. They usually compensate by taking more baths and showers, living somewhere more humid, and using eye drops.

All aquatic babies are born with gills and do better a water-crib—a bath-like crib full of water specifically for aquatic type demons—these cribs allow them to breathe more easily after birth and slowly adapt to the air.

More common magic and non-magic abilities in aquatic demons are water adaptability, water manipulation, communication with sea animals, great speed and grace in water, smell great distances underwater, excellent marksmanship, clearer vision, and some even have the ability to change their sex.

Their jobs typically involve water in some way for example working at an aquarium, being a life guard, being part of the navy or cost guard, teaching swimming are aqua aerobics, etc.

Aquatic demons tend to be more easy going, happy-go-lucky, bubbly people but there are exceptions and some can be very stealthy, shy, and introverted. They enjoy surrounding themselves with reminders of the ocean, lost treasures, and things like beautiful petals and shells

Known Aquatics: Leviathan

Commonality: 5/10

Mammalian

Mammalian are warm-blooded demons that bare clear animalistic traits in their demon forms. These can include bovine markings, felines eyes, more natural body hair, cloven feet, barbed tongues and many more common distinguishing features. Mammalian are very rarely winged, and usually have tails related to their animal. Most mammalians have cow, bull, sheep, goat, or lion features. The animal they are related to usually has a lot to do with personality, for examples the lions tend to be more proud and aggressive, the bovine are easily angered and slothful, the goats like to but heads with others and will eat just about anything, the felines tend to be loners and the canines tend to have large friend groups, etc.

Mammalians are usually heavier and physically stronger than they appear but their magic is usually weaker than the average demon as compensation.

Common magical abilities will also vary depending on the animal they relate to but usually include night-vision, increased senses, increased strength, heightened awareness of their surroundings, energy absorption, high adaptability and stealth, and silver tongues.

Mammalian demons have a tendency to shed and must brush their hair and tails often. They grow body hair more quickly and need to shave more often too, while some don’t mind this others are annoyed enough to seek out medication it magical alternatives to laser hair removal. Some however take great pride in their body hair and female/non-binary mammalian demons tend to be more attracted to those with beards or more hair.

They have a harder time resisting temptation than most, this reason isn’t fully known, and they are typically outgoing and well known people, even the quiet ones have a large presence or air of mystery surrounding them.

Mammalians find fluffy pillows, clothes, and blankets to be very comforting. They prefer meaty foods and milk-based drinks although some stick to a more herbivore diet (based on their animal) however this is exceedingly rare as veganism/vegetarianism is almost unheard of for demons.

Mammalians tend to have more athletic, therapeutic, salesmanship or nature-based jobs including professional athletes, physical trainers, job recruiters, hosts, therapists, gardeners, farmers, etc.

Known Mammalians: Belphegor

Commonality: 4/10

Insectoid

Insectoid demons are distinguishable by their insect or arachnid features. Most will have more than one pair of eyes, bug-related wings, a scorpion tail, or piercers in their demon form.

Insectoid females tend to be larger than regular females and are more brazen and domineering. The males tend to be more quiet, aloof, and isolated.

Insectoids have larger appetites than most, can carry things much heavier than themselves, work best in groups, and tend to copy each other (almost like a hive-mind)

They are much sturdier than most demons but have a very fast metabolism as a means to help them fly more easily, so they can often be seen eating and you’d be hard pressed to find a youthful overweight insectoid.

Insectoids can also shed their exoskeletons and scales, which appears rather frightening but doesn’t cause them any harm and helps them in many ways. They become more durable, lose any trace of scars, and become more appealing too.

Insectoid demons usually have poison that can cause pain, immobility, or attraction. They use it as they see fit, but there are rules governing the usage and legality of some things their poison allows them to do.

Insectoids may have other amazing natural abilities like detecting a change in air current, incredibly high jumps, superior strength, hypermobility, superior durability and agility, silk-production, poison production, mobile heads, may have extra stomachs.

Magical abilities that insectoids may possess are mind-control, hormonal manipulation, invisibility, chemical manipulation, telepathy, magic tunneling (creation of tunnels using magic), and other earth-related abilities.

Insectoid males tend to gravitate towards laborious work, athletic careers, and somewhere they can be part of a large team, while females tend to seek jobs of power and strive to make their way up the ranks in the political and working world.

Insectoids tend to be clingier than most, like to observe others closely, are easily manipulated by trends, are very trusting, and a little aloof. For females almost the opposite can be said. These personalities also depend on the insect they represent but generally gender plays the largest roll and changes the way they think, however therapy can work for those who do like being naturally aloof or domineering. It should be noted that this is not always the case.

Insectoids are usually generalized as hard working and/or manipulative people and do very well in Devildom society.

Known Insectoids: Beelzebub

Commonality: 7/10

Draconian

Draconian demons will either have scaled dragon-like wings, or a dragon-tail. Those without these features may be categorized based on natural fire magic combined with cold-blood.

Draconian types have a very high tolerance to heat and fire, more so than the average demon. They have very strong wings and are highly capable fliers.

Unlike reptiles who absorb energy from sunlight to preserve, Draconians are completely photosynthetic and not only absorb energy for immoderate use and preservation, but heal faster, have their fire abilities fueled, and become more powerful in all aspects.

Like reptilian demons they usually just preserve this power for later, but are the most dependable fighters anywhere the sun shines as they don’t become relaxed and lethargic in the sunlight but much more aware.

Every year or after substantial damage is done to the body, Draconians will shed their scales and regrow nicer and sturdier scales to replace them.

Draconians tend to be very prideful since they are the same type as the royal bloodline—the original Draconians.

Like the beasts they’re named after, Draconian expect respect and adoration. They enjoy surrounding themselves with Golden and shiny things, gems, jewelry, expensive things and anything that enhances their charm and sense of authority.

Draconian’s are naturally more proficient in fire magic and typically do poorest with water magic though they’re able to become skilled in it too. Other magic they excel in are dark magic, curses, hexes, and voodoo, detection magic, summoning magic, mental manipulation, and seduction.

While their fire magic is exceedingly powerful, it will dull in colder temperatures.

Their natural abilities include heightened senses, accelerated healing, limb regrowth, powerful jumps, and fire resistance.

Unlike other cold blooded demons, the fire magic inside them keeps them warm enough to endure blizzards and freezes although they still feel the affects.

Draconian demons have a few quirky habits like slowly blinking, tilting their heads, flicking their tongues, hissing and lots of fidgeting.

Draconian types are generalized as upper class demons and haughty. They usually aim for high ranking jobs and political positions although due to their commonality, they can be found in every career although they prefer to avoid work they feel is demeaning or too demanding of them.

Known Draconians: Diavolo, Asmodeus, Mammon

Commonality: 9/10

Elemental

Elemental demons are very rare and possesses elemental features like rocky skin, twig horns, thorny tails, vine hair, etc.

Elemental demons are methodical and very in tune with their surroundings, allowing them to naturally adapt to social situations and blend in to a crowd.

Elemental demons’ personalities are reflected in their demon forms. A demon with a hostile personality may possesses rock like features or thorny tails, those with more wooden or nature related features are usually free spirited and down to earth, someone with fiery features are usually bold and outgoing, someone with ice features may be more introverted, etc.

Elementals are very rare and no two are exactly alike so not much can be determined about their physiology though it’s been shown they are proficient in the element reflected in their features.

Demons with earthen features will be proficient in earth magic, gravitational magic, strength enhancement, durability, defensive magic etc.

Demons with nature features will be more proficient in nature magic, growth and healing magic, energy magic, etc.

Demons with fire features will be proficient in fire magic, light magic, energy magic, offensive magic, etc.

Demons with water/ice features will be proficient in ice and water magic, blood magic, voodoo, positions, and empath magic.

Demons with shadow features will will be more proficient in dark magic, shadow magic, stealth magic, invisibility, etc.

Depending on their body they may shed leaves, replace and regrow bark and rocks, their fire may dim in cold months, their water may freeze in the cold, etc.

Elemental demons tend to gravitate towards more social and service related jobs. Although often seen as a powerful position, political positions are also a frequent option since they are meant to serve the public. Medical jobs are also a common choice.

Known Elementals: Satan

Commonality: .5/10

Deviant

A deviant demon has a form that does not fit into any specific category. Deviant types are extremely rare and named after such. These demons may have more or less than two horns, unusually physical abnormalities, and an undetermined representative animal. They are usually very powerful magic users and often appear as hybrids of known types.

Due to their rarity not much can be said about them other than they usually cause a stir when spotted and become famous more quickly due to their unique appearances and abilities.

Known Deviants: none

Commonality: (.02/10)

Lucifer

Lucifer is of the avian body type. He has four large black wings that are powerful enough to create gusts of wind and make him a very capable flier though he does not often use them to fly great distances.

Mammon

Mammon is of the draconian body type. Like other draconian demons he is resistant to fire and privy to fire magic. He is very energetic and due to lack of sunlight and crashes after using his energy instead of constantly being able to absorb more.

Leviathan

Leviathan may seem reptilian but he is of the aquatic type. Possessing defining gills and slick scales and a long tail that help him swim swiftly in the water he is the ultimate aquatic demon with extremely powerful water magic and command over sea life. His horns resemble coral that enable more stealth in the oceans.

Satan

Satan is of the elemental type. His tail relates to minerals and thorns as it is spiked and rock-hard. He is more capable of wielding fire rather than his body element of earth. This makes him somewhat of a deviant type.

Asmodeus

Asmodeus may have a scorpion as his representative but he bares stronger resemblance and characteristics of a draconian demon though this can be debated. Asmodeus has plentiful energy and four scaly wings which place him into this category. As someone who absorbs sunlight he does not easily tan or relax in it.

Beelzebub

Beelzebub is a fine example of an insectoid demon. His wings resemble of fly's wings but despite appearances they are not delicate and make him an incredibly fast flier, possibly the fastest of them. His wing scales sometimes shed and are replaced by stronger ones.

Belphegor

Belphegor is of the mammalian body type. He has a prickly cow tail which is very strong and fast, making it a powerful weapon to him. As a mammalian his magic is a little weaker but he is the strongest of the mammalian demons.

Barbatos

Barbatos is of the reptilian species. His bony horns represent the lost species of serpents like the one who tempted Eve. Despite being shaped like wings they by no means allow flight capabilities. His tail is forked and scaly and allows him to hang by it or easily tear things down with it. The scales are much smoother than the average reptilian which is useful for swimming. Barbatos was once considered a deviant type which is fitting for his magic and distinct characteristics but he was later evaluated as reptilian.

Diavolo

Diavolo is of the draconian body type just as all the proceeding kings were. The draconian type is held in high regard due to being a signature trait of the royal family. Diavolo has four large wings connected at the back and sharp talons which he covers with golden sheaths to prevent accidental harm and damage to his surroundings. He is very energetic and Fire is his strongest elemental magic type. Due to his status he can freely visit the human world and make use of his absorption abilities

[ladystoneboobs]

possibly incomplete list of asoiaf characters described as having red or even "ginger" hair (or red-gold as opposed to red-brown or ghiscari red-black), never auburn:

mycah, the butcher's boy*

beric dondarrion (red-gold hair)*

lharys, member of the three stooges men-at-arms (wild rust-colored hair)**

unnamed and unfortunate mother of robert baratheon's doomed youngest child, barra (light red-haired mother of black-haired baby)*

tomard aka "fat tom", stark guardsman (with his ginger whiskers)*

horas "horror" redwyne (orange hair)*

hobber "slobber" redwyne (orange hair)*

unnamed red-haired whore leaning out a window the day of ned's execution (presumably not the same as above since she was joking about the king's death)*

melisandre of asshai (deep burnished copper. red and terrible and red.)*

a man called jaqen h'ghar (red on one side, white on the other)*

pug-nosed dancy from chataya's brothel (described as red-haired by tyrion in acok but honey-blonde in asos, so presumably hair dye must have been involved between those book mentions.)**

addam marbrand (hair the same copper color as his horse's mane)*

"ginger-headed" maester frenken*

unnamed beardless ginger youth among theon's crew at winterfell*

ygritte, a spearwife "kissed-by-fire" (bright red)*

arryk aka "left" or "right", lady olenna's red-mustached guardsman*

erryk aka "left" or "right", lady olenna's other, identical, red-mustached guardsman*

lord paxter redwyne (tufts of orange hair)**

anguy the archer of the bwb*

a red-bearded karstark rapist dead in a crow cage at stoney sept*

tansy, innkeeper of the peach in stoney sept*

meryn trant (rust-red hair)*

"red" ronnet connington

mero, "the titan's bastard", former commander of the second sons (bushy red-gold beard)

a red-headed soldier who came with stannis to the wall

shadrich "the mad mouse" (bristly orange hair)*

lord rykker's red-mustached maester

marwyn belmore, lysa's former guard captain (ginger-headed)*

lord benedar belmore with a beard that was "a ginger-grey horror"*

lord orton merryweather (reddish-orange hair)

"the red oarsman", one of euron greyoy's followers (fiery red hair)

unnamed red-haired sailor arriving at port in braavos*

lord clement piper

and his son lewys "little lew" piper, who served as squire to jaime lannister in the riverlands

unnamed red-haired youth who first escaped northward with varamyr from the battle at the wall

one of illyrio's washerwomen (dull red hair)**

jon connington (once red hair gone to grey, still red at the roots and eyebrows even when the rest was dyed blue. also had a bright red beard as a younger man.)**

rolly "duck" duckfield (a shock of orange hair)**

a young man among the wildling refugees at mole's town whose red hair reminded jon of ygritte*

the "sunset kingdoms" girl raped by tyrion in the brothel where he was captured by jorah**

hagen's daughter, only other woman among asha greyjoy's crew

roggon rustbeard, one of asha's men

mully of the nw (greasy orange hair)*

bloodbeard, commander of the company of the cat (fiery red whiskers)

"ginger" jack, a toungeless sellsword of the windblown sent to dany, face nearly covered by his bristly, orange beard

gerrick kingsblood*

and his son*

and gerrick's daughter #1*

and gerrick's daughter #2*

and gerrick's daughter #3*

ronald storm, son of ronnet connington

one of the 7 "choicest" enslaved girls from the yunkish ship who were sacrificed by victarion (red-gold hair)

an enslaved redhead boy in line for a well, asking tyrion about dany**

nail, apprentice to hammer, the armorer for the second sons**

maester tybald, redhaired maester from the dreadfort serving arnolf karstark

valena toland, heiress to the tor (bright red hair)

teora toland, valena's younger sister with the same hair

uther shett, knight arriving for sweetrobin's tourney (ginger-haired and whiskered)*

*characters whose hair is described in the povs of starks (or jon snow) who only use the terms auburn or red-brown for catelyn, robb, sansa etc. and do not compare said characters to said tully-haired relations

**characters whose hair is described by tyrion lannister, who spent significant time with sansa and exclusively referred to her hair as auburn (without anyone else telling him her hair color as catelyn told brienne)

the only asoiaf characters ever described as having auburn hair:

catelyn tully stark

robb stark (red-brown/auburn tully hair "so like" his mother's, with a beard redder than his hair)

sansa stark (auburn hair lighter than her mother's, most reddish glowing in candlelight)

brandon "bran" stark (hair not bright red enough for him to distinguish himself from young benjen at first glance in a weirwood flashback)

rickon stark

brynden "the blackfish" tully (once auburn hair gone to grey)

edmure tully (auburn hair with a fiery beard, likely brighter than his hair like robb's)

lysa tully arryn baelish

known tully descendants never described as having auburn hair

arya stark (darker brown stark-colored hair)

hoster tully (hair and beard gone from brown to brown streaked with grey to white as snow)

robert "sweetrobin" arryn (fine brown hair, thought by sansa to be his best feature)

fun fact: the only other character that i can find to ever even be descibed as having red-brown hair in the main series is rowan, one of the spearwives who accompanied mance on his mission to winterfell. (described by theon, who had psychological reasons not to think of any hair-resemblance to robb and co.)

tl;dr i suppose my point here is that auburn hair in the real world may be a term thrown around wildly as a fancier way of saying red hair, but grrm and his westerosi creations seem to keep to a much more specific (true) definition. not just specific, almost entirely unique to a certain family, a weird mutation passing down their line somewhat inexplicably, like the magic platinum hair of the targaryens. (ned stark's 4 tully-haired kids being sorta like alicent hightower's 4 targ-haired kids where nobody can really explain why it was so dominant.) except it's actually more unique to the tullys than either black hair to the baratheons or silver hair to the targaryens, with the velaryons also having valyrian hair as well as some people in the essosi free cities too. which i guess makes rowan the wildling the equalivent of an unknown dragonseed or a lysene woman who could pass as a targ, and regular brown-haired hoster and sweetrobin the equivalent of regular blonde-haired alysanne and alyssa targaryen. so the next time someone calls the tullys lame or whatever, just remember that in-universe they're actually more special than the dragonriders, at least hairwise.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Rewatching Shadow and Bone so here are some of my favourite little details that I haven’t seen loads of people talk about (this is almost definitely just part 1 so stay tuned)

The bird cage in Heleen’s office

The masks on stalls in the Ketterdam streets, including Komedie Brute masks, what look like the Jackal masks, and what I believe might have been a sun summoner mask

The song that Ravkan soldiers in Mal’s unit sing whilst they march in s1e4 is the Kerch drinking song Nina sings for Inej on the boat in Six of Crows

Matthias’ hesitation before saying “I feel nothing for you” and Nina replying “then I guess that makes you good at your job” is SO reflective of Matthias’ realisation that Brum didn’t have to drown the good parts of himself to do terrible things the way Matthias always did; Matthias had grown to admire Brum for what he believed was the ability to silence the good in himself in order to do what “must be done” because he found that so difficult to do, and acknowledging that Brum didn’t find those things difficult the way he did was one of the most important moments of being able to separate himself from the Drüskelle beliefs and begin to understand that what he went through was actually abuse and what’s implied to be at least similar to Stockholm Syndrome (I’ve written at length about this and if I get going I’ll never stop, so if anyone wants to know more lemme know and I’ll tag you in my post about it)

“Pomdrakon Players”, the group the Crows join to infiltrate the Little Palace, references Ravkan desert “Pomdrakon” where you soak raisins in brandy then set them on fire and try to grab them in the dark that Nina tells Matthias about on the ice

This isn’t an observation I just thought you’d all like to know that when I was watching the map room scene in episode 4 every time Alina said ‘Aleksander’ I repeated her in a stupid voice, which was really unfair to Alina because she doesn’t know but it was a genuine reaction and I stand by it because screw the Darkling

The comment that the Fjerdans don’t mark ash tress because they’re scared, I love that. I wonder if they pray when they mark trees, like they do when they cut them down? I personally got the impression that all trees were precious but ash trees were sacred when I read the book

The valve to turn out the lights in the Royal Archives Heist because all the lighting is gas powered!! Like I know this probably was just a thing we knew without really thinking about but it’s also really cool in that it reminds us about the class difference between the Crows and the others since, at least in the books, gas lighting isn’t as common to the Barrel as candles and bone lights are but is implied to be more common among the Merchants

Also not an observation but “you’re the quarter master, aren’t you?” “Yep” *wallop* will never not be hilarious and iconic

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the costume department for this show were goddamn miracle performers thank you for your service. I’ve banged on about the symbolism in the costumes before so I won’t now, but I have really only talked about s2 so I guess if you want more I could talk about s1

“No guns” *walking past Jesper* “no knives” *walking past Inej* “no weapons of any kind” *wait where’s Kaz* will always be fabulous

I genuinely have no idea how they did the Tailoring on Alina’s hair when Genya first does it for her but it is incredible like I don’t know exactly what changed but it just… I don’t know, it’s amazing

[pherelesytsia]

Who did this to you? 4

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x female/Reader

Summary: Bruised and broken, Y/N, trapped in a loveless marriage, arrives at her best friend's house, desperately hoping someone will help her, aware she cannot return to the estate of her husband.

Warning: fear, anxiety, Angst, swearing  

Word Count: 2.5k

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 5

The wind chanting a song of sorrow swept through the town and howled like a lonely wolf at the waxing moon escaping the glimmering mist. Not a soul roamed the streets, but the world was not free from terror and suffering, from pain and grief.

Midnight had not fallen, and the moon climbed high, claiming the sky as its kingdom, but the dawn of a new day, a new hope, was far away, not within reach.

The lawn was low and the lonely tree in the middle of the garden, enclosed by a low fence, swayed back and forth, dancing like a dancer to the serenade of melancholy. Light burned in the far corner of the house of smooth stone surrounded by higher, nearly similar ones. It seemed as if somebody was awake at the ungodly hour, stitching and patching or sitting over a lovingly written book of endless love, full of emotions the heart was longing for, a gentle tale written by a lonely writer longing for the unachievable.

Gasping, her bloodshot eyes opened. Gloom awoke. Fear spread through her. The memories, terrible and unforgettable returned, were painted in shrieking colours, oozing with poison and crimson. Her heart pounded rapidly, crashed into her chest, but the organ couldn't escape the prison. Y/N tried to clench her hands into fists to protect herself, but her fingers were nerveless. Fine lines of crimson trickled down her arms. Y/N begged for mercy, trying to escape the memories, but the formless silhouettes coiled like a snake around her frame. Breathing heavily, she awoke, thought she was already awake, and searched for the enemy, the evil faces bearing wicked eyes, but before the first cry reached her throat, Y/N realised she was in no danger, had survived and was alive.

Y/N hoped it was just a twisted dream. She braced herself. Slowly, fearing the answer, Y/N lowered her gaze. A lump formed in her throat. The wounds prevented her from moving, the sore arms and legs, the bruises shaped into hands. Y/N refused to trust the memories, but she spotted the evidence on her hands. Repulsed, she lifted her eyes. Wet crimson clinging to her trembling finger glistened in the light streaming dimly through the windows shielded by long curtains.

            "Peggy?" Y/N breathed.

Her hand shot to her neck and noticed how swollen her throat was, realised how difficult it was to fill her burning lungs with air. Again Y/N uttered her best friend's name, crowed like a crow, but no answer came.

The pain grew dull, but stayed a good friend, a companion reminding of good old times, a mate talking about the shenanigans done in the childhood. Slowly Y/N leaned her pounding head back on the pillow. The shooting pain evoked tears, but no injury on her body ached as much as her shattering heart, broken into millions of fragments.

Silence ruled like a ruthless king, torturing and dooming, wicked with a mind twisted as the limbs of a fallen soldier facing the grey heavens. A hush prayer crossed her lips, her mind played with her, imagined the worst things, but as Y/N calmed and brushed the sweat sticking to her forehead away she realised that if someone had invaded the house, she would have heard the intruder.

She busied herself with her fingers and ignored the pain clouding her mind. Her face curled like soured milk. Gently, almost lovingly Y/N caressed the golden ring, the gold shaped into the sign of infinity, a token of love, of marriage, of someone having captured the heart through caring gestures and tender words.

Realisation hit her like a wave. Weakly, Y/N smiled, knew what had happened, but she couldn't hate Peggy for what she had done, knew her friend well and assumed she must be knocking on the door of the building she had to call her home.

I need to leave, Y/N thought to herself, could not picture to face her husband. The world spun, but the shadows rising and falling like high slopes of the mountain didn’t scare her, amused her. Y/N pushed herself from the sofa and threw the blanket, which could not offer any warmth, to the side. Astonished she glanced at the clock above the wooden door and realised she had slept less than thirty minutes, but it felt as if she had been asleep for a whole year. A lonely tear danced down her face, but she didn’t brush it away, let it fall like rain. Y/N folded her arms in front of her chest, hiding the tips of her fingers, shielded herself and advanced at a slow pace. She couldn’t walk upright, couldn’t stay strong anymore. The darkness told her to come closer, luring her in, telling peace is awaiting her in the gloom, but Y/N was deaf to the voice and turned into the long, seemingly endless corridor leading to the locked door. Suddenly she stopped and focused her gaze over her shoulder, hoping to meet a person but her only friend was the darkness.

Peggy´s coat was gone. The only evidence Y/N needed to see to know that her friend was gone with the wind was the big puddle the shoes had left on the ground next to the door. Y/N clasped the key in the small bowl on the round table and stepped hesitantly closer to the entrance. Aware she could not stay in the house, fearing the words she knew would escape, the looks they would cast upon her and the dooming laughter she opened the door.

The night greeted her with open arms. Goosebumps reigned on her skin, but Y/N did not shiver nor cursed as the wind licked her wounds open. The leaves rustled, danced and painted the sinister sky in the hues of autumn. Y/N stumbled through the shadows, bearing no map and again she laughed, had no place to call her home, no place of refuge, a place to be herself without fearing rejection, could chant like a man or be ridiculous, behaving childish and amusing. Without realising it, Y/N walking in the glow of the faint stars, pushed the garden door open and turned in one direction, not knowing where to go, not having any other friends she could trust with her life who would not take her straight to the Shelby's in hope to get a golden coin, jewels and wealth in return.

            “Fools. Bloody Fools.” Y/N chuckled.

Laughter, the sounds of delight, didn't shatter the night like a spear breaking a wooden shield. Her thoughts amused her, delighted her. Foolishly the woman had hoped she would see her husband, wished he would stand in front of the house but Y/N wanted to hear no apology, nothing, no stories nor loving words and as she thought about it, Y/N longed for his closeness, an embrace.

Her mind drifted away, she had fallen in love with him the moment when the gazes crossed, found herself in his clear blue eyes mirroring the beauty of a cloudless day, and Y/N did not want to love him yet she had seen a tender, nearly carrying site of the ruthless man.

Brows almost touched. Bracing herself, Y/N turned, prepared for the worst, punches, curses, men willing to carry out what they have started. A familiar voice called her by her name. A sparkle of hope ignited in her chest. Her eyes narrowed and her heart skipped a beat. The modern vehicle had stopped five steps away from her. Y/N gulped. The outlines were too wide, too tall to be a woman, and Y/N cursed, hissed like a snake and prayed low prayers.

            "Y/N?" his voice frightened her.

The beams of the moon escaping the curdling clouds brushed his face, but the hat on his head spread a shadow on his pale features. She stumbled back. The shape rose in size. The beard had grown longer. Concerns continued to reign in his gaze and the wrinkles on his face deepened, realised it was Y/N dressed in the torn and tattered garment, walking like a shadow in the pitch-black shadows. The men jumped and ran. Deviousness did not prevail in his gaze. Fearfully, Y/N backed away, took two steps, tried to put as much space as possible between herself and the men. Crows screamed. She stumbled, the wooden fence forced her to a halt, forbidding her to flee, to escape the worst. Gulping, Y/N clawed her fingers into the flowing material of the torn fabric, covered her flesh and searched for a way out, breathed a prayer, and tried to scream for help, but she couldn't.

            "What are you doing here? What happened to you and where's Thomas?" Alfie asked sceptically.

Quickly he advanced, walked ahead, spoke loudly, ignored the people in the houses bordering the narrow road, trying to find a moment of peace in the land of dreams. Terror welled within his eyes, seeking another presence, a friend, but no one was standing by her side, nor in the remote gloom. He unbuttoned the buttons of his coat, took it off, and ignored the silent pleas to leave her alone. Alfie halted and placed his coat on Y/N´s shoulders, covered her battered body, and tried to warm her. He searched for the answer to the unspoken question, but the man could not speak, forgot hate and distaste, and breathed soothing words into her ear. Y/N tensed under his touch. Gently, fearing she would collapse like a house of cards under his touch, he touched her arms and brushed the strands of hair glued to her face away.

            "I won't hurt you, little one," Alfie assured.

Laughing, Y/N lifted her eyes from his torso clad in a white button-down. Her fingers curled into the warming material. The smell of smoke and expensive whiskey enveloping her had a soothing effect on her heart.

            "I don't think you could do anything worse to me, Mr Solomons.", "Come on, I'll take you home. The streets are no place for a flower like you," he spoke.

Y/N shook her head, stepped back and it didn't escape the man towering high above her.

            "Did he?" the man asked.

His voice sounded strange, almost fearful, unusual, and it seemed as if someone else was speaking, but it was Alfie who was talking. Y/N rammed her teeth into her lower lip, pushing away the horrible thoughts invading her heart like an army of hundreds of cruel warriors, barbarians with axes and swords. An icy shiver danced down her spine. Memories returned, but Y/N stayed in silence, couldn't speak nor cry like a banshee.

            “Y/N. Tell me. Has the Shelby hurt you?” Alfie urged.

Y/N didn't know what to answer. Lips didn't touch. The sharpened dagger jabbing deeper into her heart caused her to gasp in pain. Yes, he wounded me, Y/N reflected, lost in the ocean of memories. I can count on one hand how many times he has kissed me, how many times he has said that he loves me from the deepest depths of his heart. Thomas had never laid a hand on his wife, never dared to raise his voice, but he had forgotten her and Y/N forgot the moments when his eyes rested gently upon her, telling what lips could not express.

            "No, but I can't go to him. Maybe he doesn't mind that I am gone. Thank you very much for your coat, but I don't need it. I have to be on my way. I need to go." Y/N spoke loud enough to know that Alfie had heard her.

            "Are you crazy? I'm not going to leave you,” he spoke in a low voice.

His gloved hand gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

            "Alfie, I can't," Y/N answered hesitantly.

The moon escaped the fangs of the clouds. The pale light beamed upon them standing by the deserted road leading across the town. Patiently Alfie waited, needing to know what had occurred, refused to pressure her. He gulped at the sight. The fabric around her bruised neck was ripped and stained. The lipstick once painting her lips in deep hues, was slightly smudged and the curls framing her face were dishevelled.

            "Do you need a doctor?" he asked.

The question was unnecessary.

            "If you don't get in my car willingly, I will throw you in. I am not leaving you alone," he said.

Alfie breathed words, trying to bring Y/N to senses, not wanting to force the trembling woman into his automobile to inflict more pain and summon tears. Carefully his fingers played around the large dark buttons of his coat and closed each of the buttons, working from the bottom up, and tried to find more wounds, crimson and blueness, but the clouds reared and shifted and clouded the only source of light.

            "Come, little one, the streets are no place for a dainty flower like you. Everything is alright." Alfie continued.

His hands were shaking as he touched her. With care, he embraced Y/N, and she rested her head on his firm chest. His eyes widened. A wetness of unknown origin was leaking through the button-down clinging to his skin. He lowered his gaze. The sight fractured his heart. Alfie gulped. Her face mirrored the moon, pale and cold, and her fingers, bloodied and bruised, searched for a halt.

            "I will not harm you. I would never harm a woman. At my place, I will tend to your wounds and I can offer you a place to sleep." Alfie spoke gently.

            "Okay." Y/N finally answered.

Fog emerged out of the alleys of the forsaken city, engulfing the houses and streets. The faint smell of rain lingered in the air. Alfie pushed her towards the dark vehicle, telling her no harm could strike her, and Y/N let it happen, trusting the man protecting her from the ruthless winds of winter.

TagList:

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[br1ghtestlight]

here's a list of bob's burgers episodes that focus on a specific relationship dynamic between main characters (examples: bob and louise episodes, linda and tina, gene and louise etc) obviously not including every episode where they interact with each other bcuz that would be uhh every episode. but episodes where their relationship or dynamic is the heart of the story and some silly subplots focused on their dynamic w/ each other (with probably a few exceptions)

hopefully this is helpful if you feel like watching louise/tina or bob/gene etc episodes but don't remember all the titles!!! in the future I would like to do a similar list but for ship-related episodes (fischoeder/bob episodes, rudy/louise etc) but we'll see if that happens lol

bob and louise episodes:

s1ep9 spaghetti western and meatballs

s3ep22 carpe museum

s5ep10 late afternoon in the garden of bob and louise

s5ep20 hawk and chick

s6ep19 glued, where's my bob? (subplot)

s8ep12 the hurt soccer

s8ep18 as i walk through the alley of the shadow of ramps

s10ep20 poops! i didn't do it again

s11ep14 mr. lonely farts (subplot)

s12ep8 stuck in the kitchen with you

s13ep6 apple gore-chard (but not gory)

gene and bob episodes:

s2ep9 beefsquatch

s3ep12 broadcast wagstaff school news (subplot)

s5ep5 best burger

s5ep14 little hard dad

s7ep18 the laser-inth

s8ep8 v for valentine-detta (subplot)

s9ep12 the helen hunt (subplot)

s10ep2 boys just wanna have fungus

s11ep7 diarrhea of a poopy kid

s12ep7 loft in bedslation (subplot)

s12ep19 a-sprout a boy

s13ep7 ready player gene

s13ep12 oh row you didn't (subplot)

tina and bob episodes:

s1ep4 sexy dance fighting

s1ep6 sheesh! cab, bob?

s3ep7 tina-rannosaurus wrecks

s3ep10 mother daughter laser razor (subplot)

s4ep5 turkey in a can (subplot)

s4ep7 bob and deliver

s4ep17 the equestranauts

s6ep14 the hormone-iums

s6ep17 the horse rider-er

s10ep3 motor, she boat

s11ep22 vampire disco death dance

s12ep21 some like it bot part 1: eighth grade runner

s12ep22 some like it bot part 2: judge-bot day

s13ep17 crow encounters of the bird kind

gene and louise episodes:

s1ep9 spaghetti western and meatballs

s2ep6 dr yap (subplot)

s4ep18 ambergris

s5ep17 itty bitty ditty committee

s6ep12 stand by gene

s6ep17 the horse rider-er (subplot)

s7ep5 large brother, where fart thou?

s7ep8 ex mach tina (subplot)

s7ep13 the grand mama-pest hotel (subplot)

s7ep15 ain't miss debatin' (subplot)

s9ep9 ufo no you didn't (subplot)

s9ep17 what about blob?

s9ep20 the gene mile

s10ep5 legends of the mall

s10ep10 have yourself a maily little christmas (subplot)

s10ep11 drumforgiven

s10ep14 wag the song (subplot)

s10ep15 yurty rotten scoundrels (subplot)

s10ep18 tappy tappy tappy tap tap tap (subplot)

s12ep10 gene's christmas break

s13ep11 cheaty cheaty bang bang (subplot)

s13ep14 these boots are made for stalking (subplot)

s13ep17 crow encounters of the bird kind (subplot)

s14ep5 bully-ieve it or not (subplot)

louise and tina episodes:

s1ep6 sheesh! cab, bob? (subplot)

s3ep21 boyz 4 now

s4ep18 ambergris

s4ep20 gene it on (subplot)

s5ep7 tina tailor soldier spy

s5ep8 midday run

s5ep9 speakeasy rider

s6ep16 bye bye boo boo

s7ep6 the quirkducers

s7ep18 the laser-inth (subplot)

s8ep12 the hurt soccer (subplot)

s8ep14 the date escape (subplot)

s8ep15 go tina on the mountain

s8ep18 as i walk through the alley in the shadow of ramps

s8ep20 mission impos-slug-ble

s10ep2 boys just wanna have fungus (subplot)

s10ep12 a fish called tina

s11ep4 heartbreak hotel-oween

s11ep5 fast time capsules at wagstaff school

s11ep9 mommy boy (subplot)

s11ep15 ¿y tu tina tambie?

s12ep1 manic pixie crap show

s12ep19 a-sprout a boy (subplot)

s13ep1 to bob, or not to bob (subplot)

s13ep7 ready player gene (subplot)

s13ep8 putts-giving

s13ep10 the plight before christmas

s13ep15 the show (and tell) must go on

s14ep3 the pickleorette (subplot)

s14ep4 running down a gene (subplot)

linda and louise episodes:

s1ep7 bed and breakfast

s3ep10 mother daughter laser razor

s4ep9 slumber party

s5ep14 little hard dad (subplot)

s5ep19 housetrap (subplot)

s6ep17 the horse rider-er (subplot)

s7ep1 flu-ouise

s7ep18 the laser-inth (subplot)

s7ep19 thelma and louise except thelma is linda

s11ep2 worms of in-rear-ment

s12ep7 loft in bedslation

s12ep17 the spider house rules

s13ep13 stop! or my mom will sleuth!

s13ep22 amelia

s14ep1 fight at the not okay chore-ral

gene and linda episodes:

s3ep23 the unnatural

s4ep20 gene it on

s6ep17 the horse rider-er (subplot)

s8ep11 sleeping with the frenemy (subplot)

s8ep12 the hurt soccer (subplot)

s10ep3 motor, she boat (subplot)

s10ep9 all that gene

s11ep9 mommy boy

s11ep22 vampire disco death dance (subplot)

s13ep18 gift card or buy trying

linda and tina episodes:

s2ep8 bad tina

s5ep13 little hard dad (subplot)

s7ep13 the grand mama-pest hotel

s7ep18 the laser-inth (subplot)

s8ep8 v for valentine-detta

s9ep12 the helen hunt

s10ep15 yurty rotten scoundrels

s10ep21 local she-ro

s11ep14 mr lonely farts (subplot)

s13ep11 cheaty cheaty bang bang

s13ep14 these boots are made for stalking

s14ep7 the (raccoon) king and i (subplot)

tina and gene episodes*

*tina and gene have never had a real episode or subplot focused on their relationship dynamic so this section may be. a little sparse. and include episodes that don't focus on their relationship but have significant interactions between them. I'M TRYING MY BEST HERE THE BOB'S BURGERS WRITERS ARE GIVING ME NOTHING

s3ep16 topsy (subplot)

s4ep9 slumber party (subplot?)

s5ep17 itty bitty ditty committee (subplot kinda?)

s5ep19 housetrap (subplot)

s7ep10 there's no business like mr business business (subplot)

s7ep19 thelma and louise except linda is thelma (subplot?)

s9ep18 if you love it so much, why don't you marionette? (subplot)

s10ep12 a fish called tina

s11ep17 fingers-loose (subplot? maybe?)

s12ep8 stuck in the kitchen with you (subplot)

s12ep15 ancient misbehavin' (subplot of a subplot)

s13ep6 apple gore-chard (but not gory) (subplot)

s14ep2 the amazing rudy (subplot?)

[eggsaladstain]

so i thoroughly enjoyed season 2 even if it was extremely rushed and the fact that it’s not a 1:1 adaptation is genuinely so fun to me.

like i get it, things are different from the books, the characters have developed in way they did not in the books, but the books still exist. the show canon does not negate the book canon in any way - we just have twice as much canon now and honestly i fail to see the downside to that.

book/show spoilers under the cut.

let me start with the not so good before i get to the good.

the crows really got shortchanged this time around and most of their storyline definitely felt more out of place this season compared to the first. and as satisfying as it was to see kaz beat pekka, all the wesper and kanej moments, and have 5 of 6 crows all together (sorry matthias, better luck next time buddy), the show was not nearly as successful integrating the crooked kingdom plot points as it was the storm and siege and ruin and rising ones. but i get it, the crows were always going to be secondary to alina.

that said, i do love the idea of taking this heist most of us are already familiar with and turning it on its head with these new character dynamics. imagine an empowered and free inej returning to ketterdam to help a less burdened, less haunted kaz plan the heist. imagine jesper in his element, confident and proud of his grisha abilities now that he’s made peace with his past. imagine wylan and jesper openly flirting at the most inopportune moments. imagine nina and matthias presumably actually getting some screen time together?? the possibilities are endless and i can’t wait to see where they go with this.

now, onto alina’s storyline, which has the biggest departure from the books.

the show ends with alina killing mal, amplifying her power to singlehandedly destroy the fold, bringing mal back to life with merzost, and then killing the fjerdan intruder with the cut summoned from shadows instead of light and seeming to enjoy her newfound shadow power. this is the story of a savior who becomes a saint who finds herself turning into a heretic - dark alina arc let’s go!!

i love this direction for the show because it’s incredibly consistent with alina’s journey and the way she is constantly presented as a foil for the darkling, following in his footsteps even without realizing it. she has tremendous power and a desire to protect those she cares about, and she’s clever and cunning and willing to do whatever it takes to reach her goal, whether that’s burning a set of maps so she can join mal in his trip across the fold or agreeing to a political engagement to give ravka hope for the future. though she has mal and nikolai and her other allies, this is really her journey and hers alone - her journey of discovery to embrace her own power, even as she becomes that very evil she worked so hard to destroy. the message of the show is that power corrupts, and it corrupts even those with the best of intentions, perhaps especially those with the best of intentions.

in contrast, the book ending is pretty much the exact opposite - alina fights the darkling’s forces inside the fold alongside both the first and second army. she kills mal to amplify her power but ends up losing it altogether. instead of amplifying her, the amplifier gives her power to the first army soldiers and other non-grisha around her and they, an army of sun summoners, destroy the fold once and for all. alina then kills the darkling, mal is resurrected using regular grisha-means, and alina and mal live a quiet life running the orphanage in keramzin. this is the story of a savior who is allowed to die a saint and live a quiet, happy life afterwards - poetic cinema, beautiful in its subtlety and restraint.

there’s a lot of criticism about the way ruin and rising ends and i get it, i really do. was it necessary for alina to lose her powers in order for the other sun summoners to gain them? why is her love for her power seen as something greedy, something to be punished and taken away? god forbid women do ANYTHING. but i will defend this ending with my last breath because it’s such a wonderfully subversive way to conclude alina’s story and i really don’t think it deserves most of the hate it gets.

the original trilogy started out as a pretty generic story about a chosen one who was destined to defeat a great evil and ended instead with a group of ordinary soldiers and orphans being the heroes instead. call me sentimental, but i ADORE how it comes full circle - alina was, after all, an ordinary soldier and orphan when we first met her. throughout the books, we see how she struggles under the weight of her power and the burden of her responsibilities, and i just really love the way ruin and rising said no, you do not have to do this alone, you are not the only light in the dark, here are your fellow countrymen to support you in your greatest hour of need. so often, these stories end with the heroine saving the world and then being expected to continue keeping watch with the knowledge that they will be called upon again the next time the world needs saving. and ruin and rising again says no, you have done your duty, let someone else stand guard, you have earned your rest and you deserve it.

all this is to say that i loved alina’s ending in the books, and i love that it’s different in the show. we get to explore the other paths her story could have taken, we are not just limited to the one. i love the crows as they are in the books as well, and i don’t entirely mind how different they are in the show for the same reasons.

this is an adaptation that knows when to pull from the source material and when to create something entirely new. it was never meant to replace the books, it was created in addition to them, and i hope we get many more new stories after this.

[cosmichorrorsarestillnicerthanme]

You know what? Let me give into my Sephiroth fantasies real quick.

May I request number 1 with Sephiroth sfw for the 100 Followers Event please?

Also congratulations on 100 followers.

You and a good and very cool friend of mine, @heraldofcrow , would probably get along well. Unless you are Crow then belay that recommendation.

NOW! YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND!!!

Sephiroth had a habit of biting and gnawing on things when he was working on paperwork or when he was bored.

In his time at Shin Ra he had gone through so many pens, pencils, and markers that they had actually assigned someone to keep and eye on his bad habit and ensure it didn’t develop into him chewing on electrical wires, or other, more dangerous office supplies while also ensuring he didn’t develop any other habbits, like committing arson or traumatizing blonde twinks.

That person was you.

Your one and only job at Shin Ra, was to ensure that Sephiroth didn’t do any of the things above by keeping him supplied with things to chew on.

From candies, taffy, and gum to, in extreme situations, specialized crackers.

You supplied the 1st Class Soldier with it all.

And over time, Sephiroth had grown fond of you.

More than as a work associate, and more than a friend.

More than someone who was assigned to work with him because of his bad habit.

But as someone he wanted to spend time with, to enjoy listening to.

And over time, he gained the courage to do that.

The courage to take the small bits of happiness in his life and hold onto it tight.

That is what you were to Sephiroth.

An anchor, a grounding point for his existence.

He knew he was in love with you.

It took him a while to figure it out, but when he did…

He was quite happy with that realization.

[liminalh-creations]

11. throw away.

Gotta stop thinking about normal. Gotta start rolling with the punches.

new chapter finally up! here's a link to it, and also my interpretation of some of the characters that (re)appear! :)

firstly, say hello to jägermeister, absolute powerhouse milf!!

i'm very pleased with the artwork here. the character is presented affable and almost playful (both in action and costuming); while the background consists of a pattern taken from East German architecture blending into the RNA structures, overlayed with a particular reddish tone strongly associated with her life's work.

secondly, say hello to vodka!! look at his horrible KGB sunglasses, theyre sof uckingh funny to me the background of this piece is made of distorted/fried images of different spreadsheets in different languages, the research of which led me to researching soviet computer programming for literally no reason also, here is him without his sunglasses on :)

[autumnshighlady]

I’ve Always Liked to Play With Fire (part 16)

NESTA ARCHERON X ERIS VANSERRA X FEMALE!READER

summary: the moment you’ve all been waiting for, that’s all i can say

warnings: Night Court slander, pro-Tamlin, 

word count: 7.7k (y’all better appreciate how long this is)

DO NOT REPOST ANYWHERE

a/n: THIS IS THE BIGGEST CHAPTER YET GUYS!! so much is revealed that i’ve been planning for MONTHS, i’m so excited to share it with you. please send me all your reactions!

feedback is appreciated, just no hate pls! these are just my opinions, i’m more curious to see how you all like the writing and characterization and storylines!

part 1 // part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / part 9 / part 10 / part 11 / part 12 / part 13 / part 14 / part 15 / 

read on ao3

Spotify playlist

✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧

The stench of blood and shredded flesh was choking your senses, clogging your throat like the thickest oil. Everything was happening in slow motion through the stained glass as Hybern’s soldiers retreated, crowing their victory as if it took a great deal of skill to slaughter a defenceless village. Their cries were muffled, as if you were underwater. Every limb ached, too stiff and heavy to move even an inch. No amount of effort could get you to lift your head up.

You were going to die here. That much you had accepted.

What would be the point in living anyway? With your entire village dead, you closed your eyes, waiting for the embrace of death to whisk you away. Each breath was like shredding a knife through your chest, what was taking so long? Everyone else was gone, yet you were cursed with the ability to still draw breath.

A strange, white flicker drew your eyelids open. Everything was blurry, but even in your dazed state you could tell that something was happening. Groaning, you stretched out your fingers. If you had a voice, you knew you’d be screaming at the pain from such a simple movement. As your palm outstretched, something warm and gentle closed around it, as if the sweet spring breeze itself had formed a hand of its own to clasp yours. The touch was gentle, reassuring even. It flooded you with a sense of calm. Was this what death was like?

The white flickering from the bodies in the village erupted in a shower of starlight and sunshine, glowing tendrils rising from the mangled fae in your line of vision. They descended upon you like smoke, and the warm touch around your hand squeezed once before agony overtook your body.

You didn’t know if you were screaming or not. Your throat burned as if a dagger had slashed it open. Your abdomen ached, as if it was being hacked apart by a longsword. It felt like Hybern’s soldiers had descended upon you with their weapons, striking and cutting a thousand times. You heard nothing but the ringing in your ears as your body shook with spasms.

Please just let me die faster, You pleaded to the Mother. I can’t take this. Just end it already.

Even throughout the unbearable pain that wracked your body, you could still feel the warm sensation like someone was squeezing your palm. You wondered if it was your mother, preparing to guide you into whatever afterlife lay ahead. But the pain didn’t stop, didn’t end. It just kept going for what felt like eons. And then, like a weighted blanket was being laid over you, it stopped.

*********************

“Wake up.”

You opened your eyes and groaned, Rhysand’s voice making your already pounding head worse. You had endured hours of hearing it scraping against your mental shields, pressing to try and find a way in. You had felt his anger, his frustration and disbelief at not being able to get through. Every ounce of his hatred had been flung at you like a thousand arrows, making you see right through the High Lord.

You felt his self righteousness, his true feelings about how he didn’t give a shit about anything but his precious circle. Even them, he looked down upon – including his own mate and High Lady. As Rhysand flung his thoughts at you, you read them like paper on parchment. He may love Feyre and his family, but at the end of the day he needed control. And there you were, a stain on his image, a brick out of place at the foundation of his empire, threatening to bring the whole thing down.

Rhysand, the High Lord of the Night Court, feared you.

He was afraid of your influence, how openly rebelling on him and calling out his lies might spread ideas to others. Especially with Nesta, Cauldron-made, on your side. The thought of Rhys being afraid of you would have made you laugh, if you weren’t tied up in a cell for days on end. You weren’t even sure how you were still alive

You never figured out what happened that day your village was attacked, after the slaughter ceased and you were left alone. Every time you closed your eyes, that glowing light from the bodies around you haunted your dreams. You weren’t sure if it was even real, if any of it actually happened or if your mind had made it up. But you had felt different since that day in a way that couldn’t be explained. It was as if something coursed through your bones, waiting to answer a call.

You were changed that day, and for months you had chalked it up to your state of mind being altered by something so traumatic. But you had been in this cell without food for longer than your body, even as a faerie, should have been able to survive. Something that clearly also perplexed your captor as he stared at you.

“I don’t understand you, (Y/N).” Rhysand said with lethal calm. “Nothing about you makes sense. You happen to survive a slaughter at the hands of Hybern, you infiltrate my court and make a magical bond with Nesta Archeron that nobody has ever seen before, and you somehow resist my magic. I want to know how you’re able to do that.”

You spat up the blood that had been pooling in your mouth. “Go fuck yourself. Prick.”

The High Lord chuckled, but continued as if you hadn’t spoken. “And to top it off, you’ve been scheming with Eris Vanserra this whole time. Plotting to overthrow me, perhaps? To rip my court out from under me like Feyre did to your beloved Tamlin? If it is revenge you are after, I suggest you rethink your plan.”

You said nothing. It would be pointless to argue with him. Anything you say would be twisted and used against you, so you held your tongue.

“It matters not,” Rhys continued, pacing back and forth with his hands in his pockets. “Because you failed in whatever it is you wanted to accomplish. You are here, locked in this dungeon where nobody can find you. And whether I grant you a merciful death or not depends on you answering this one simple question.”

Rhys stopped pacing, and leaned towards you. His face was inches away from yours, violet eyes boring into you like lasers. You could feel his breath on your face as he spoke. “What spell did you use to cast the bond? Gwyn’s story only tells us so much, if any of it is even related to this, but I know there’s more to it”

You huffed, cracked lips stinging with the effort of speaking. “You seemed to have a list of other questions, what happened to those?”

“Oh, I have other ways of finding out the answers to almost everything else. But with Nesta Archeron tucked away somewhere in Autumn, you are the only other person who can speak to the magic of the spell.” Rhys’ slender finger caressed your cheek, making you squirm with discomfort. “And if you cooperate like a good girl, how about I make you a deal? I will let Nesta live out whatever shit life she wants in Autumn in peace, provided you give me what I need.”

Your breath lurched, the horror of his insinuation dawning on you. Rhys never intended to let Nesta live peacefully in Autumn, not because he cared for her safety in the clutches of Beron, but because losing her made him look weak. Even if Nesta was married to Eris and protected by the whole of Autumn, Rhysand would take every opportunity he could to hunt her like a dog and bring her back.

No doubt he’d paint himself as the hero of the situation. Poor Nesta Archeron, stolen away by the evil Autumn prince and made a bride against her will. Rhysand would save her from her terrible fate, dragging her back to the Night Court to be hailed a saviour. And that would be the last time Nesta ever stepped out of Night, he would make sure of it. Under the illusion of caring for his beloved sister in law, of course.

You glared at him, but he only chuckled again. Rhys leaned away from you and stood back upright, picking at the sleeve of his shirt casually. “It matters not,” He said. “Azriel is on his way right now. He’ll tell me what he’s discovered, and when the sun rises over the mountains, he will kill you.”

It felt like a bucket of ice had been dumped on your body as you remembered the fading voices of Rhys’ command to his spymaster before you had passed out. You didn’t know what Azriel would do. On the one hand, he had stood up for you in a way that Rhys clearly hadn’t expected. But on the other, he has been loyal to the prick for five centuries – holding out hope that would change now was foolish. All you could truly hope for was that he granted you a quick death.

“What if he didn’t find anything?” You croaked. “Still gonna kill me then? I thought you were desperate to find answers.”

“If Azriel cannot find them, then there is nobody that can,” The High Lord countered simply, as if he were making idle chit chat. “And then whatever secrets you’re so determined to keep die with you, the magic along with it. That’s something I can live with if not knowing at the end of the day means protecting my court.”

You laughed bitterly. “As if you care about that?”

Rhys’ eyes narrowed, his body stilling like a predator frozen before the kill. “Excuse me?”

“You sure don’t give a shit about most of it.” You challenged brazenly. “The women in Illyria who still get their wings clipped, anyone who has the misfortune of living outside Velaris, you don’t care about anyone but yourself and your little family. You rule because you like the power, not because you care about the people your power is supposed to protect.”

“I have outlawed wing clipping in Illyria–” Rhys growled, but you interrupted him.

“And without enforcing it harshly you have only ensured that the practice of wing clipping becomes more underground, leaving females to die from mangled procedures.”

If looks could kill, Rhysand’s would have obliterated you. But you couldn’t help but smirk to yourself at the anger you elicited from the High Lord. Judging by his reaction you knew that he knew you were right. He just hated hearing it.

“I see Azriel taught you too much.” Rhys hissed.

“What did I teach her too much of?”

You flinched as Azriel’s voice echoed in the chamber. Out of the shadows he appeared, melting into the space of the dark cell like wax. His expression was unreadable, and he did not look at you. He faced his brother, not sparing you a single glance.

“Azriel, I am very glad you’re here.” Rhys’ voice singsonged, an obnoxiously chipper tone to it. The smug look on his face made you tense up preparing for the worst.

Gwyn was the only other person who knew about what magic was used to cast the bond between you and Nesta. Your gut twisted at the thought of Azriel going to her for answers. The priestess had sworn she would never breathe a word, but in more ways than one Azriel could be… persuasive. Rhys had already figured out the story the spell was based on by going into her mind, if he knew what else she had found….

You were certain of one thing though: if Azriel had harmed Gwyn in any way, you’d tear him limb from limb.

“I assume you’re going to be more helpful than this one here regarding information on the bond?” Rhys continued, crossing his arms proudly.

Silence that was almost too loud took over the cell for a few moments, until Azriel uttered one word from his lips. “No.”

Rhys blinked in surprise. “No?” He said. “You mean you honestly found nothing?”

A tentative flicker of hope ignited in your chest. Azriel was stone faced as he answered to his High Lord. “Correct. The library was of no use, even the restricted section. I found nothing resembling the bond (Y/N) and Nesta used.”

The High Lord’s eyes narrowed, and he cocked his head. “Interesting. You are usually more useful than this, Az.”

“I explored all of my available resources and found nothing.” Azriel’s voice was monotone, no emotion or life to it. It was the voice of a spy, unreadable and impossible to decipher. It made you nervous, unsure of what angle he was playing at. Azriel was not stupid, he had to know Gwyn would have been the one to give you and Nesta access to the information.

Which means whatever his reasoning was, he chose to keep Rhysand in the dark.

“Pity.” Rhys clucked his tongue in disappointment. “I know dear Amren was dying to find out what spell it was. But it doesn't matter anymore. I guess we’ll all have to live with the disappointment, won’t we?”

Azriel remained motionless as he spoke. “I am sorry I failed you.”

Another minute of silence overcame the cell. You barely even breathed, heart racing with every passing second. Until Rhys spoke the words you had been anticipating for days. “Kill her.”

The shadowsinger shifted, standing more upright. As your heart dropped into your stomach, you anticipated him reaching for truth-teller. If he had kept the information about the spell out of Rhysand’s hands, you took it as a sign he would make your death quick and clean at least. And so you closed your eyes, finding yourself for the second time in one year waiting for death to come and claim you.

“No.”

Azriel’s firm words made your eyes snap open in confusion. Rhysand was taking a deep breath, as if trying to keep himself calm and collected before he spoke. “And why not?” The High Lord said icily.

“Because this is wrong.” Azriel said, shifting his weight as if the mere act of disobeying his High Lord caused him discomfort. He glanced at you, eyes softening for a second as he spoke. “And she is my friend.”

“Please,” Rhys scoffed angrily. “No she is not. She was manipulating you, you fool. Maybe her pretty face kept your shadows distracted enough from figuring that out, but she is not your friend. She is your prisoner, whom your High Lord is ordering you to kill.”

“I said no.”

You glanced uneasily between them, not expecting Azriel to openly defend you like this. Rhys, apparently, felt the same thing. His breath was uneven, and his voice laced with rage as he spoke. “What has gotten into you, Azriel? Are you really going to disobey me like this?”

Azriel argued back, trying to reason with his brother. “Rhys, what we are doing to this female is wrong. All signs point to her wanting just to be free, not to bring harm to your court. She has no desire to overthrow you, or whatever bizarre shit your brain has come up with. Killing her would be wrong.”

“SHE IS A FUCKING THREAT TO MY COURT!” Rhys suddenly bellowed, his loud yell hurting your ears as it echoed throughout the chamber. Without warning, Rhysand shoved Azriel against the wall, a loud crack sounding as the spymaster’s wings collided with solid rock. He groaned in pain, but did not fight back.

. “And I am ORDERING you to do your job and eliminate her.” Rhys growled at him, pressing his neck into the wall. “If you do not, then I–”

“Do it yourself, coward.” You spat with as much defiance as you could. You hated seeing Azriel let his brother overpower him, watching him give up because he thought he deserved punishment for disobedience. You did not necessarily see eye to eye with the shadowsinger on everything – hell, there were times where his bystanderism made him just as bad as the rest of his circle.

But you could not let this happen to you, because it was all your fault. It was because of you he was in this position – his job, his family, his life on the line because he was trying to help you.

Rhys froze, pausing whatever blow he was about to land on his spymaster before he slowly turned to gaze at you. “What did you just say?”

“I said…” Every word was an effort, but a surge of determination flooded through you. “Kill me yourself, you fucking coward. Do your own dirty work for once.”

Rhysand snarled, letting go of Azriel with a shove. He stormed over towards you and grabbed your throat, hand gripping it like talons. His face was pure rage, the ugly face behind the charming mask, the illusion finally shattered. “I’m going to enjoy this,” He spat in your face. “And when I’m done, I’m going to drag Nesta back here kicking and screaming if I have to. And she will meet this very same fate once I make her scream.”

Something deep inside of you snapped. A strange sensation coursed through your bones, filling your broken body with life once again. Your wrists no longer ached, your back was no longer stiff. You could barely hear over the roaring in your head as you pictured Nesta’s beautiful face in your mind. The ringing in your ears became so loud, and before the High Lord of the Night Court unleashed his dark mist upon you, the world went white.

*********************

Wake up.

It was not the snarling, arrogant voice of Rhysand that greeted you, but a soft female one. It was familiar yet foreign all at once, the sound of both one voice and a thousand altogether, blended like a strange melody. Your eyes fluttered open, and you were met with a familiar scene.

Your village.

The bodies had gone, only ash and dirt remaining where they once were. The buildings remained in ruins, like the memorial of an ancient city. Vines had begun to curl over the rooftops, circling down the sides of what remained of the houses that Hybern did not burn down. Flowers had blossomed across the earth, a stark contrast to the death and destruction that had occurred on the very same soil all those months ago. You glanced at your arms, which were free from the cuts and bruises inflicted upon you in the dungeon. You felt no pain.

“Do you remember what happened that day?”

You jumped as the female voice sounded behind you. Whirling around, you were met with a tall female. She had olive skin and warm brown eyes, with long brown hair that shone like the rays of the sun itself. Her face was kind but strong, and she wore sparling robes that almost blended in with her skin. She emitted an otherworldly glow, a kind of radiance that shook you to your very core.

“Who… who are you?” You stuttered.

The female smiled softly, her elegant hands clasped together. “I am Estelle.”

Your mind raced, putting together the pieces from Gwyn’s information. “Like… the mother goddess from the story? Jayana’s lover?”

She nodded. “A millenia later, and I find myself missing her every day. Much like you miss your Nesta.”  

You took a steady breath, shaking your head. “Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?”

The goddess chuckled softly. “No, my child, you are not dead. You are here for a reason, one which requires an answer to my question. Do you remember this day?”

You paused, taking a few steps back and scanning the clearing. Your heart ached at the sight of it so empty, so quiet and lifeless. It held so many good memories, ones that were now tainted with bloodshed and violence. “Not all of it…”

“Do you ever have dreams, my child? Dreams where you’re back in this clearing, body seized with pain so violent it felt like you were dying a thousand times?”

You felt her presence follow you as you wandered aimlessly. “Yes…” You muttered. “Are you going to tell me that really happened?”

“Is that what you want me to tell you?”

You whirled around, facing the female once again. “Look, I don’t know what the hell is happening right now. Or at all, frankly. I’ve had enough riddles, can you please just tell me why I’m here?”

Despite your anger, Estelle showed no sign of hurt at your sharp words. There was sorrow behind her eyes, an understanding, one that you felt could see into every inch of your soul.

“You know my story, correct?” She said softly. You nodded.

“Good,” She continued. “When I absorbed the life forces of my fallen comrades, I felt each and every one of their deaths. It tore through my body like a riptide, and I was sure it was going to break me.  I felt their rage, their fear, their anguish as they were slaughtered much like your village was. And after that day, I held a new power, one that allowed me to escape Hel and break the realms of the world apart.”

Your throat was dry, a dizziness overcoming you as the weight of her words dawned on you. Every dream you had about that day, every nightmare that ended in blinding light and pain was the exact experience that the goddess in the story had felt. “What are you saying?” Your voice was quiet as you asked a question you were pretty sure you knew the answer to.

“My child,” Estelle said. “The same thing happened to you. What you felt that day was the life force of everyone in your village flooding into your body. You felt each and every one of their deaths, and I am sorry you had to experience that. But it happened for a reason.” You weren’t sure you were breathing at this point. You rested your hands on your knees, trying to stabilise yourself. “Do you mean….” Your voice stuttered as you spoke. “Do you mean that… what I felt that day… what I felt afterwards…”

Your voice trailed off, but a warm hand on your shoulder reassured you.

“Yes. Your body now possesses the life force of hundreds of deaths, a power you can shape and wield however you choose.”

The feeling of the goddess’s hand on your shoulder struck something in you. All those times you felt that invisible touch, that reassuring presence that you thought you had imagined… You had thought it was maybe the Mother, but it dawned over you that it had been Estelle this whole time. Hers was the hand that held yours as you felt the deaths of your friends and family rip through you. Hers was the voice that helped you stay strong as Rhysand tortured you.

“This whole time…” You said breathlessly, her presence behind you like a warm light on your back. “I thought it was the Mother guiding me. But it was you.”

“My dear, we are one and the same.”

You whipped around to face the goddess. “You’re the Mother?”

Estelle simply smiled. “The war that took Jayana from me was centuries before Prythian was formed. After I escaped Hel, I wandered about the universe, utterly lost. Until I found this untamed world, unguided by any spirit. I did not ask to be named the Mother, but my true name had been lost in my years alone. So I became her, but I never forgot who I was. And I never will.”

You ran a hand through your hair, mind spinning with the overload of information. The story of Jayana and Estelle was not only true, but Estelle was the Mother herself, the being that watched over Prythian and was worshipped all over the land. Not only that, but you were living what Estelle had experienced hundreds and thousands of years ago.

“Why?” Was all you could ask, not knowing what to say.

“Not everything has to have an answer,” Estelle said, taking your hand in her own. “And I urge you not to expect to know the explanation for everything after this. But as for why you are here, I needed you to know the truth. You refused to believe your dreams, and chose to try and forget about them instead of asking yourself if they were really just imaginary. You possess the power of life now, just as I do. And you are in a terrible situation, my child. I ask that you recall my story, and use this power to find your way back to your mate.”

Even in this strange dreamy reality, time seemed to stop. Mate. The world itself seemed to spiral down upon you as the word replayed in your head over and over again.

Nesta was your mate.

“But… but Cassian is Nesta’s mate.” Was all you could sputter out. Something stirred in you, as if awoken by the realisation. It was like the bond, but stronger. Its presence in your chest was undeniable, reaching out as if it were searching for its other half.  

“Fae folk can have more than one mate in some instances. Nesta Archeron has more than one, but Cassian is not one of them.”

“How–”

Estelle cut you off, more urgency in her voice than before. “I have already told you not to expect the answers to every question you have just yet. All will reveal itself in time. But Jayana and I were mates before I created the spell that allowed us to communicate. Therefore, in order for the magic to work, the spell had to be done between two mates. The daemati-like powers is the only thing that spell gives. Everything else you feel? That deeper connection to Nesta? It was already there in the mating bond. The spell had nothing to do with it.”

“Holy shit.” You gasped, blood racing. “So you’re saying… Nesta and I are mates, and that’s why the spell worked?”

She nodded. “And why Rhysand was not able to activate it. It can only be done so between two mates, no matter how powerful an outsider’s magic is. And your magic is also the reason he cannot get into your head. You are protected from all other daemati magic.”

“I’m going to pass out…” You muttered, taking a seat on the log a few feet away. Within seconds, Estelle’s, or the Mother’s, appeared beside you.

“Everything happens for a reason, my child. You received those powers for a reason. You came across my story for a reason. I didn’t have a chance to use the spell to find my way back to my mate, but you do. Seize it.”

That strange presence in your bones you had felt after you woke up from the massacre, it wasn’t imagined after all. Deep down, you had always known something otherworldly happened. But you had spent months pushing it aside, trying to ignore it out of fear of what it was. “This is all just happening inside my head, isn’t it?”

Estelle’s long robes rustled in the breeze. “Of course it is,” She said. “But that does not mean it’s not real. Across the universe, there are multiple realities. Multiple versions of oneself that may seem like different people, but are all variants of one another. With beings like me, that does not happen unless we make it so. You, (Y/N), are an incarnate version of me. It’s why this is happening in your head. I am not some external being that is inside your mind right now. I am you, and you are me.”

You were the Mother incarnate. Holy shit. It felt like a dream, but the presence beside you was too strong to be anything but real. “If people have variants of each other,” You asked, trying to keep your voice steady. “Does that mean….Nesta is Jayana?”

“In a sense,” Estelle responded. “The connection is not direct like with you and I. I saw your situation when Hybern attacked your village, and I kept you alive by having your body absorb the life force of the dead just like I had. And thus, you became a version of me. Nesta Archeron is her own person, but fate seems to like its parallels. I see much of Jayana in her. They both have the same temper, both represent a death goddess feared across all the lands.”

You frowned. “You mean you aren’t the decider of fate? I thought everything that happened was with your guidance?”

She laughed melodically, the sound like the song of birds on a spring morning. “No, my child. I decide many things, yes. But not all. None of us do, and we do not know what does.”

Estelle’s words echoed in your mind like a hurricane, threatening to overwhelm you. But it didn’t, because in a way, everything made sense. She had no reason to lie, even if this was just some bizarre dream or afterlife sentence. The way you felt that connection to Nesta, that force in your body that threatened to explode when you were angry, it all aligned with what the goddess beside you was saying.

“I cannot linger any longer,” Estelle murmured, covering your shaking hands with her own. “But remember how I got out of Hel. Find that power buried within you and rattle the stars with it. I will always be there alongside you, my child. You are never alone.”

You turned to say something, another hundred questions racing through your mind, but the world around you glowed as the Mother faded into the light. Within a few seconds, she had gone.

Once again, you looked at the clearing around you. The marks on the earth where the bodies had lain seemed to glow, calling out to you. A force deep within you sung in response, begging you to release it. As you poured over Estelle’s words, you recalled how the magic she absorbed allowed her to burst out of Hel and free herself.

Rattle the stars.

Her wording was deliberate. The Night Court was represented by the stars. You knew not the extent of your powers, but if your theory was right, you could make the entire Night Court feel your fury.

And so you closed your eyes, and let the clearing slip away as you let that power you’d been pushing down surge through you. It felt like you were falling, the clearing swallowing up as you descended into a void of light.

*********************

It could have been a millenia you were falling, or perhaps a second. As you let yourself go down into the base of whatever power lay within you, you felt memories crash into you all at once. Your mother’s smile as she presented you with her freshly baked scones. The feeling of Nesta’s lips as she kissed you for the first time. Lucien pressing a cold cloth to your head when you were sick. Eris holding you as you danced in the Hewn City. Rhysand’s smirk as he carved into you like a piece of meat.

The rage that boiled up as Rhysand’s face flashed through your mind quickened your plummet, your power bubbling up and ready to overflow. And so you opened your eyes.

A look of horror crossed Rhysand’s features as your eyes glowed with a bright white half a second before his magic went to strike you down. Dark mist collided with pure light as you exploded with a war cry of ancient times.

*********************

White hot rage was all you could feel as you unleashed yourself. Rage of the Spring Court souls whose life forces you had absorbed crying out with you for vengeance against the Night Court. Rhysand was thrown back, Azriel too as your light exploded. The walls around you crumbled, your chains shattering as everything around you came crashing down. The earth beneath your feet shook, the rock from the prison walls flying a hundred feet out to either side.

Wind ripped against your face as the mountain your cell had been inside crumbled away before you, creating avalanches of stone whose impact upon the ground sounded like thunder. Your blood sang, as if the life force within you was happy to be used. Surprisingly, Velaris was visible in the distance – you had thought your prison would be some remote mountain in Illyria. But perhaps Rhys knew that’s what everyone would assume, and keeping you closer to his home would keep you from being discovered.

Out of the shadows, Rhysand and Azriel appeared from the smoke, coughing violently. As they finally opened their eyes to look at you, pure wonder crossed their faces. You didn’t have to look down at yourself to know you were glowing with that same light Estelle had. Your gaze landed upon Azriel, who froze like a statue as it landed on him.

He didn’t cower, or scurry away. He simply gazed at you in awe for a few more moments before dipping his head, bowing before your presence. Rhys, on the other hand, got to his feet and snarled.

“What are you?” The High Lord hissed, gathering dark mist between his fingertips.

“I am Life,” The voice you responded with was not entirely your own – it was ancient and prophetic, with the authority of a god. “And your court has taken everything from me. You will pay for your crimes, High Lord Rhysand.”

Rhys made a vicious noise, talons of mist forming at his fingertips. You quickly realised that despite what you had just done, you had no clue how to defend yourself with your power. But before he could make the first blow, a ring of silver fire burst through the air and surrounded him, accompanied by a fierce roar from the sky. As you looked up, letting your eyes adjust to the bright daylight, you gasped at the sight before you.

Three dragons were flying towards the ruined mountain. One black, one silver, and one gold. The golden one was without a rider, circling the ruins around you and crying out. A familiar redhead was perched atop the black one, golden armour shining in the midday sun.

Eris, a golden flame atop a black fire breathing mount, had come to your rescue. But it was the silver dragon your eyes were drawn to, and that piece in your chest that had spent the last few weeks reaching out to Nesta crackled with excitement as you gazed upon the silver dragon’s mount.

Dressed in red, scaling armour was Nesta. Even from the ground, you could see her silver eyes glow in the same shade as the flames surrounding Rhysand. She had the wrathful look of a death goddess as she descended with her dragon, its silver wings creating hurricane like gusts of wind as it hovered before you and Rhys.

Nesta and Eris had come to save you.

You couldn’t help but glance at Azriel, who seemed sagged with relief. Your throat closed up with emotion – the spymaster knew Eris and Nesta would show up, and likely told them exactly where.

“Nesta.” Rhys growled, staring up at his sister-in-law with anger. “Leave.”

“Not without (Y/N).” Nesta’s voice was clear and strong, commanding Rhys like a queen commanding her subjects. Her dragon roared furiously at Rhysand, causing the High Lord to flinch.

“Dragons?” He sputtered, coughing as the smoke from the silver flames blew in his face. “What… how?”

“You have your surprises, Rhysand, and I have mine.” Eris piped up, landing his black dragon on the ground. The earth shook with its impact, sending more rocks crashing down the remains of the mountain.

Weariness took over your body, and you felt the light begin to fade as your magic retreated.

No no no, You cursed to yourself, trying to summon it again. But every muscle in your body ached from the sudden surge, unable to bear any more magic. You felt helpless again, trapped. Rhysand tried to take a step towards you, but scurried back as the ground once again shook, this time behind you.

The golden dragon had landed right behind you and let out a vicious roar towards Rhysand, its eyes glowing with fury. It stood protectively over your shoulder, towering over you menacingly in a way that promised certain death to anyone who made a move.

“Dragons are protective creatures,” Eris said. “I wouldn’t get any closer.”

“You’ve invaded my court,” Rhysand hissed. “This is an act of war.”

Eris chuckled. “Technically, you declared war first. We’re just finishing what you started.”

Before anyone could speak up, a horn sounded from the ridge in the distance. You whirled around, the motion making you slightly dizzy. But your eyes were clear as ever as the banners of the Spring Court appeared over the hill.

Armoured bodies marched in synch as soldiers approached on horseback, led by none other than Lucien. His cloak streamed behind him in the wind as he loped towards the scene of the wreckage. You nearly wept, not having seen him since he rescued you. From the look on his face, Lucien felt the same way.

A different type of roar was carried fast in the wind, and a mighty beast winnowed in front of the army and led the march. Its elk-like antlers and massive body sped ahead of his troops with his great stride, bounding towards you.

“What is going on here?” Rhysand demanded, unable to hide the slight panic from his voice.

“You started this war when you stole (Y/N) from Spring,” Eris said coolly, patting his dragon. “We’ve found it in our best interests to align with Tamlin over the matter, not you.”

The dragons did not react as Tamlin’s beast form landed right beside them, growling. Tears streamed down your face in relief – the High Lord you had looked up to, the male you had helped get back on his feet, had joined in on the effort to save you.

“Rhysand.” Tamlin growled in greeting.

“If this is some sort of revenge plan on Feyre–” Rhysand began, but was quickly interrupted.

“This is not about her,” The High Lord of Spring snapped. “This is about (Y/N). You have kidnapped and imprisoned an esteemed member of my court, which is considered an act of war. I do not want to shed blood, but we will if you refuse to let her return to me.”

“(Y/N) is a member of my court now.” Rhys responded, evening out his voice. You knew he was trying to put on his collected mask, but it was cracked and slipping. You snorted at the weakness of his voice, and the dragon behind you made a similar noise, as if it was mirroring you.

“Is she?” Lucien said, halting his horse next to Tamlin and looking at Rhysand with a hatred you didn’t know he had. “Because she is still registered as a member of Spring. You never opened any accounts or filed any legal documents with her name, so according to the law there is no proof that you have taken her in as an official member. Which means you have wrongfully imprisoned a member of another court.”

“This is absurd.” Rhys scoffed. “Get out of my court. Now. This is my business.”

“Hand (Y/N) over and we will.” Lucien responded. The armies of the Spring Court halted a few metres behind the dragons, hands clasping their weapons, ready for the order to jump into action.

Malice glittered in Rhys’ eyes. You knew he wouldn’t give up easily, not when you had already made him look weak once. “No.” He said firmly.

No sooner had the syllable left his lips did a band of silver fire wrap around his throat. He cried out in pain as the flame danced, licking at his skin but not quite burning. The silver dragon’s roar turned all eyes to Nesta, and your heart jumped at the sight.

Nesta had stood up on her dragon’s back, silver flames wrapped around her fingertips and arms. The clouds darkened above everyone, thunder rumbling in the distance as her eyes glowed brighter.

“You locked me up.” Nesta’s voice was cold as ice and sharp as steel. Nobody moved a muscle as it echoed alongside the eerie cries of the wind. “I helped you, dozens of times. And you locked me up because I didn’t cope with the war YOU dragged me into in the way you deemed acceptable. I was an object to you, one to use and exploit when it suited you only to lock me away again when you were done. None of your circle has had any respect for me, Rhysand. From the beginning, you have pitted yourselves against me because it’s easier to make me the bad guy than take a look at your own flaws and mistakes. You took my human life, my money, my house, and everything I had. I was never a person to you, just a problem.”

Even Tamlin had gone completely still as Nesta twisted her hand, causing another band of fire to appear. This time, it bound Rhys’ hands and ankles, forcing him to his knees. Black mist attempted to make its way through the fire, but was rapidly quenched. Rhysand’s magic was no match for Nesta’s fury.

“I am taking my life back, Rhysand.” Nesta said. “And you and my sister will have no say or part in it. Do not come after me, do not try and bring me back here. If you try, I will burn you to nothing but ash.”

Rhysand growled, thrashing against Nesta’s fire. “Azriel!” He barked. “Do something!”

The shadowsinger was pale faced, surveying the scene before him. “Let her go,” He said sternly. “This is a fight we cannot win.”

You found your feet again, standing up on shaky legs. You summoned more magic – your body protested, but you ignored it as a shimmering white gag wrapped around Rhysand’s mouth, joining his silver flames.

“This isn’t a debate.” You panted, the weight of your tattered, shredded dress making you want to collapse. But you relented. “I am leaving with them, and you will let me.”

Tamlin’s beast form crawled towards Rhysand, growling. “I was wrong to lock Feyre up, I know that.” He spat. “But don’t pretend like you didn’t do the exact same thing to Nesta and (Y/N).”

Rhys mumbled something through the gag, but was ignored. You felt a nudge, and the golden dragon was gently pushing its snout into you. You placed your hand on its nose, letting the beast inhale your scent.

“Zorzimril says it’s time to go.” Eris quipped, smirking down at you. “Let’s get you out of here.”

You nodded, glancing up at Nesta. Your mate.

Her eyes were locked on you, and a faint tear ran down her cheek. Tentatively, you reached towards the spell-made bond. Nesta?

I…. I can’t believe I’m hearing your voice. Nesta’s response came, and so did your tears. Your lungs shook as you inhaled deeply between sobs.

Me too.

There will be time to catch up later. Come, let’s leave.

The golden dragon had lowered its shoulder to the ground and looked at you expectantly. Tentatively, you climbed onto its back, grasping the horns down its spine as you settled yourself. From the view on dragonback, you surveyed the site you had been standing on. Rubble from the mountain was everywhere, the great peak crumbled into a small hill. The gags on Rhys had disappeared, but he remained kneeling, face twisted with anger. Azriel stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder and giving Eris a slight nod. Tamlin and Lucien stood side by side once again, united with a common cause. Your heart swelled as you recognized the faces of the soldiers they brought – many of them fae that you had taken into the manor after losing their homes to Hybern. You could see it in their eyes that they had come not just because they were ordered to, but because they wanted to help you like you had helped them.

“Let’s get out of this wretched court.” Eris sighed, winking at you.

“Wait.” You said as an idea popped into your head. “I have something I want to do first.”

Nesta smirked at you, knowing exactly what you meant.

*********************

You, Nesta, and Eris soared on dragonback through the Night Court, approaching the Inner Circle’s mountainside cabin. You relished in the cold air whipped across your face, having not felt fresh air in weeks. Zorzimril happily flew you alongside Nesta, making happy growling noises as the excitement of what you were about to do made you jittery.

As your dragons approached the cabin, they stopped, hovering in the air above it. You looked towards Nesta and Eris, and they gave you a nod. You shouted the command Nesta had taught you, and Zorzimril unleashed a torrent of flames upon the cabin. The scent of burnt wood filled the air as the structure was quickly engulfed. Within ten seconds, it was reduced to ash.

And so the three of you flew to each remote residence of the inner circle, making sure it was away from the city before burning it to the ground. With every palace set aflame you whopped with delight, causing Eris to chuckle. It was satisfying, watching their luxuries burn down while half of Illyria was starving and poor. The Inner Circle had fled to the River House, the one shared residence of theirs that remained intact due to it being in the city centre. You did not want to punish innocent people for the crimes of their leader, like Feyre had done to your court. No, this was proper vengeance. And you relished in it.

Despite your exhaustion and pain from the last few weeks, you let yourself cheer and cry out on the back of Zorzimril as you soared through the air between Nesta and Eris, headed for the thicket of the autumn trees in the distance, leaving the Night Court behind you.

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[xxnghtclls]

Permission

Chapter 29

(Chapter 28; Chapter 30)

True Form Sukuna x Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warning: Graphic Depiction Of Violence

Please see Chapter 1 for tags!

Sounds Of War

A ground full of ashes and burned twigs crumbling under your feet. A grey clouded sky above your head. Dark smoke rising into the air and into your nose. The smell of death crawls its way through the burned down village you’re walking through.

It’s been two and a half days since you left the shrine with Uraume’s permission. That particular night was windy and rain kept crashing down on the sheet you brought with you as a shelter. It didn’t keep you from getting wet, but it kept you from getting soaking wet.

Your way didn’t lead through the woods this time, but right along the wall of trees. Sometimes you would hear something moving in the dark thicket of the woods, curses maybe, but nothing ever came into your vicinity. The more you walked a long the edge of the forest, the less rain kept coming down the sky. It was dark, however the light of the moon helped you to find your way, as well as the string pulling at your heart.

Three days march to the south.

You wouldn’t take a rest to sleep, would keep walking, eating an apple while taking a break. The determination in your mind and heart couldn’t let you waste any seconds from your goal to get to him, to see him, maybe even to embrace him. However, the constant heartache would force you to rest after walking for hours and hours, taking a little nap at a campfire, feeling the sting on your neck whenever you rolled over. When you woke up, you would hurry yourself back on your feet, even forgetting the sheet you brought with you and kept walking and walking. The sun wasn’t shining, but it wasn’t raining either.

At some point you arrived at a village, but not the Stone Village Uraume was talking about. With the hood of your cape covering your head, you carefully walked through it and noticed that only women and children were present, working in front of their huts and houses. The more you walked, the more you wondered if their husbands and fathers were drafted as soldiers and fighters in this war. When you walked past a little hut, you heard a baby scream from the inside and you wondered if your King already took his price. Two early born twins. You shook your head to yourself, thought he already turned you into a monster, since you couldn’t hate him for accepting this kind of price, couldn’t stop loving him despite his cruel appetite.

Leaving the village, you kept walking. Crossing over a hill, you saw black smoke rising in the distance and dead trees surrounding a grey area. Your heartbeat picked up its pace, string pulling more, making you hurry down the hill into the direction of the smoke.

A ground full of ashes and burned twigs crumbling under your feet.

You look around. Crows are screaming from the dead and leafless trees that surround the sight in front of you. Burned down huts and houses everywhere, some small fires still burning between piles of dirt. The end of the battle here was not too long ago. The string on your heart keeps tugging and pulling, leading your way through the aftermath. The ground is almost as black as the crows. The smell of rotting bodies, burned skin and blood creeps in your nose. You look around and spot an arm, thats sticking out of the black dirt, fingers being spread and cracked in unusual ways. Skin deep red and black, almost burned down to its flesh. Letting your eyes wander more, you spot more and more signs of this massacre. Hand, feet, whole limbs, pieces of guts and even bodies that have been teared in half. A body over here next to its head, seemingly ripped off of it with bare hands. A body over there ripped in two vertically. Flies buzzing through the air, maggots crawling in the mouths of corpses. An uneasy and thick warmth looms over the whole scene, making the smell even more unbearable. A pool of deep red blood streaming through crevices of the black ground, like arteries. Bodies who seem to have been sliced into three, the cut on the edge of their flesh clean. Bodies sliced into so many pieces, you can just assume it was a body before. You keep walking slowly through that graveyard of a village, even spotting dead women and children, who might not have had the chance to escape what happened here. With grotesque faces of death, those corpses pierce into your eyes and soul, watch you while you make your way.

You know, that the man you call your King must be the one who is responsible for this. A calamity, that rolled over this village like a wave. Without mercy.

And you can’t deny that it shocks you, seeing all this death at your feet, caused by the same hands that carried you through the woods, pressing you gently at his chest. Your heart and mind, however, can’t let go, keeps hurting and aching and missing him with your whole being.

“Oy oy oy, what do we have here?” a male voice reaches your ears from behind. Your stomach churns and you slowly turn your head to see who it is.

“A young woman your age… this isn’t a place for you.” the flirty tone in his voice already disgusts you. It’s a middle aged man, covered in dirt and holding an axe, looking like he somehow survived this massacre. His skin is burned on hands and face, his clothes are ripped. You watch him through the side of your eye, standing a few meters across from him, not answering.

The man adjusts the grip on his axe and your hand moves to the hilt of the dagger.

“What are you doing here?” he smirks, while his eyes wander down your figure. “Looking for your long lost husband? He’s most probably rotting away somewhere.”

Your nose twitches in anger at his words. The way he looks at you disgusts you.

“Are you from here?” you ask. He chuckles, licking his lip and nods at you. “Good!… ‘cause I’m looking for the man who made these people rot!” you spit back “And I will tell him, that he forgot someone!”

The mans gaze turns dark, his smirk fades and his jaw clenches. Your grip on the dagger tightens, crows suddenly fly through the air. Two seconds pass, before he dashes forward, running to you. In the same moment you draw the dagger out of your clothes and sprint with all your might through the blood soaked dirt. You can feel him approaching and you know that you will not be fast enough to outrun him. Heart rate exhilarates.

Remember!

You concentrate, ready to throw.

Splash. Splash. Splash.

He’s close!!

You turn around, want to throw your dagger, but he’s too close, already swinging his axe at you.

Fuck!

Breath hitches. You crouch down in your turning motion, while shock knocks the air from your lungs. Desperately you swing his dagger across his shins instead, cutting his skin bloody.

“FUCKING BITCH!” he growls in pain, taking another swing at you. Adrenaline lets you react in time and you kick him in his left knee. You hear something crack and he stumbles backwards, limping, cursing and shouting at you. You watch him stumble back, trying to catch your breath, before you hurry back on your feet and start to run again. The wet ground beneath you makes it hard and you don’t lose too much time to try to throw your dagger once again. Hearing him approaching you, more slowly now, you turn around to throw.

However, aiming at a still standing tree is different, than aiming for a running mans head and the lack of training doesn’t make all of this easier.

The dagger cuts him on the hand holding his axe, causing him to lose it and his index finger. He cries out and you watch him, not being able to suppress your smirk. You walk backwards and suddenly trip over a body that’s laying there.

Shit!

The man notices and dashes to you. You’re not fast enough to hurry up and he falls onto you, grabbing your collar.

“I’m gonna make you rot!” he shouts and punches the left side of your face with his bleeding hand.

Bam!

It almost knocks you out, makes you feel needles in your head, but you catch yourself.

“You’re fucking ugly!” you growl at him and spit blood into his eyes. He flinches and growls in pain, burying his face in his hands. You take the chance to wriggle in his hold and knee him in his balls. The man cries out in pain, giving you time to slither through his hold, turn around and crawl away as fast as you can. With dirt squeezing through your fingers, your eyes search for a weapon and you spot something wooden laying next to a corpse near you.

A bow.

Your eyes widen, as you see an arrow sticking into the dirt right next to it. Fear spreads in your gut, as you hear him catching himself, knowing he’s not far away and you take all your strength to hurry to the bow. You crawl as fast as you can, already reaching out for the bow, before you feel him grabbing your foot, pulling you back, causing your face to take a dive through the dirt. He grabs your waist, but you manage to kick him into the face. It gives you time to hastily grab the bow and arrow. Feeling him close to your body once again, you turn around and with trembling hands you nock the arrow in the bow before quickly releasing it without aiming. With a loud dull impact, the arrow shoots through the right eye of your attacker, making him freeze. Your hands shake in fear, as you breathe heavily, waiting for something to happen. The mans open mouth starts to salivate, juices and blood run down the pierced side of his face, before he slowly falls down to his side.

Dead.

You’re frozen, still staring into the air before you, panting. Dirt covers your face and the shock still runs through your veins.

It was pure luck.

You’ve never used a bow before, never even held one. Only seen the men in your village using them and watched Sukuna how he shot his fire arrows. Tears pool in your eyes, as the adrenaline dies down. It was also your first kill.

Ever.

The rotting smell of this place crawls into your nose and it’s too much. You let the bow fall and lean to your side, retching and vomiting into the dirt.

Where are you?, you think, before the string tugs hard at your heart.

Hissing and spitting, you gather yourself. You look at the bow and the arrow thats still sticking into that mans head. Finally getting back up on your feet, you pick up the bow and wrap it around you. You look in disgust at the corpse you’re responsible for and grab the arrow. His head moves with your pulling motion and you sneer at the quiet squelching sound of the juices of his eye.

It’s stuck. Tightly.

You look around, hoping to see other arrows. The quiver belonging to the man you found the bow next to is empty. Feeling the string pulling at your heart and the urgency to keep going, you decide to try and pull it out of the mans head. You put your foot on his face and keep pulling and pulling. Something inside his skull breaks at your force, loosening the arrow. With a last pull, you stumble back, managing to rip it out of his head. You pick up the empty quiver, store the arrow in it and knot it to the right side of your waist. After that, you gather the dagger and put it back into the fabric of the left side of your waist, your cape hiding both of your weapons, except the bow. Your clothes are dirty and so is your skin.

After the incident in the burned village, you walked into the woods in the surrounding area, hoping to find a stream. On your way, you started training the flowing hand movements again, started to throw your dagger three or four times into the ground or trees. After walking for an hour or so, you finally found some water, cleaned your face, your neck and drank from it. It made you feel a lot better, but hurt at the same time. You mustered your face in the reflection of the water, noticed that your left cheek was bruised from the punch that man gave you. Rage bubbled up in you and you decided to keep training for the night, just in case you would get into such a situation again.

This night, you shot the only arrow you had about one hundred times, always having in mind how Sukuna looked like doing it. The way he stood, how he held his arms, how he flexed his muscles. You tried your best to copy him from your memory and you constantly hoped he was there to help you, to guide you. Constantly hoped, that maybe he would even watch you through the branches of the trees, watch you stand by the little campfire you made, shooting your arrows. With every time you shot your arrow, you got better and you hoped he would see, hoped he would come out of the bushes to smirk at you with that special smirk of his, with wrinkling eyelids, a shit eating grin, mocking you for how bad your stance or your grip is.

This night you felt as lonely as ever, shot your arrow with tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat. Shot it about a hundred times. Hoping he would know you would come for him.

And for him only.

Walking about 4 hours further to the south on the next day, you finally arrive at the Stone Village. You hide behind the surrounding trees and watch the scene and to your surprise, it’s pretty calm. It’s a huge village, people are going after their business. The houses are made of stones, not out of wood. You’ve never seen something like that. A lot of women and children you see, but also some men. But not your King, not your Sukuna. No fire, no fight, no war, no death. Nothing.

Uraume said Sukuna would be here.

You chew on your lip, trying to figure out the situation. Eyes wandering everywhere, you couldn’t see him. It’s no use. You have to wait until it gets dark and then tiptoe through there, listening. So you wait. And wait and wait, sharpening your arrow, eating some of the vegetables you brought. Until the sun is setting.

Taking a few deep breaths, you gather yourself, put your cape in place and putting on the hood. You sneak along the back of a hut and wait, hearing nothing but chatter about the day and some delicate affairs of some women and men. After a while, you sneak to the next house and to the next, hearing nothing of much importance. It’s getting darker every second now. Sneaking to the next house, you listen to a mother talking to her kid inside. It’s a banter between mother and son. He doesn’t want to eat his dinner. His mother shushes him and keeps talking, that he needs to eat in order to grow big and strong. You huff to yourself, want to keep going to the next hut, until you hear the kid again.

“Does daddy have to leave tonight?” the kid asks.

“Yes, my love.” the mother sighs.

“When will he come back?”

“Tomorrow! He’s not far. He’ll come right back after fighting and killing this big ol’ monster that keeps terrorising us and our neighbourhood.” you hear her voice becoming playful.

A weight falls from your heart, as soon as you hear her words.

“Ryo… Ryooomen Sukuna!” the kid remembers.

“Exactly! Don’t say that too loud though, the neighbours don’t like hearing the name.” she whispers.

“Oh.” he whispers back. “Are they scared of him?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, their son has to leave tonight, too. And this monster has already killed many many people here.” she whispers.

“But why? What about Daddy?”

“People in the north don’t like us and are weak, they sent this monster to fight for them. But they won’t succeed.” she pats his back. “We’re stronger. And Daddy is a warrior. The best.”

You miss Sukuna so badly while listening to their conversation. Sighing, you close your eyes, breathing softly to yourself.

He’s not far.

BOOM!

A loud explosion makes you jump and your eyes shoot open. The ground vibrates and children start crying, the atmosphere grows uneasy. People start to run around. You take the chance of the chaos and rush out of your hiding to see what’s going on.

“The demon’s here! Farmers Village! Everyone get ready!” someone shouts, handing out weaponry. You look around. On the dark sky you see smoke coming up in the distance. Your heart flutters.

He’s here.

It’s getting loud, people are taking their horses and ride into the direction of the smoke. Others heave loads of stones, ropes, torches and tar into carriages, ready to move on. Huge slingshots are prepared for moving, too. Your heart starts racing, pulse in your throat as you keep looking around. It’s too far away to just run there. It would take too long.

You spot two young men, loading their carriage and run to them.

“Take me with you.” you tell them, earning a suspicious side eye from them.

“Stay here woman. That’s no place for you.” one of them says, making you sound like you’re a dumb bitch.

“I need to fight this monster.” you spit at them. “This asshole killed my mother six years ago.”

They huff at you, mustering your bruised face and not answering. You draw your bow and nock your arrow aiming at the eye of one of them in a smooth move.

“I mean it.” you threaten him. The man chuckles, checking out your quiver.

“One arrow only? You have to be kidding.” he mocks you.

“One arrow is enough to kill.” you spit at him, pulling harder at the bows string. He clenches his jaw, before motioning you to the back of his carriage. You jump in and they start moving through the forest to the neighboured village.

On your way, many riders and carriages move next to you. Ready to fight your King. Your love.

Boom!

Another explosion. The ground shatters. Cows and pigs and sheep come running into your direction. The fire paints the dark night sky in a gradient of yellow to red, marking the spot of where the fight goes down.

The stinging smell of smoke crawls into your nose again. Distant voices screaming and shouting reach your ears. You hear children crying, babies wailing. Panic everywhere.

Like that night, six years ago.

Suddenly a loud swoosh through the air. An arrow flies from the left side and with a dull impact, the guy who was holding the reins, gets shot in the head.

“Motherfucker!” the other guys shouts, before taking the reins and whipping the horse to go faster. Your breath hitches, not expecting people to go at each other, too. But then you remember.

The man at the audience asked for help. Sukuna won’t be the only one fighting.

Shouting and the sounds of weapons colliding become louder.

It get’s more crowded. Silhouettes of people running around, fighting each other with bows and arrows, axes, knifes and some even with swords. You’re close enough to that farmers village now.

Time to get off.

The horse pulling the carriage still runs fast. It’s probably only a matter of time until the other guy gets shot too. Or you. You watch the ground beneath the carriage moving, evaluating the best moment to jump, when suddenly you hear a familiar whoosh flying through the air.

A fire arrow lands on the ground right next to you, setting the bushes on fire. The horse shies away at the arrows impact, the sudden break causing you to fall off the carriage. You fall hard, but you’re able to catch yourself and get back up on your feet. The horse neighs and buckles, while you’re drawing the dagger and holding on to it tightly. You jump and run into the thicket on the other side, trying to avoid any kind of combat and the fire, leaving the carriage behind.

Another woosh.

A fire arrow shoots directly at the buckling horse and the tar in the carriage catches fire. It sends a heatwave into your back, while you keep running through the branches and bushes. You see horses running through the crowd, sometimes with rider, sometimes without.

Screaming. Neighing. Ripping. Tearing. Stabbing. Dying.

The sounds of war.

Where is he?

Being hidden in the thicket, you can’t see. Eyes shooting from left to right, from right to left. Trying to spot the man you came here for. Only the sight of people fighting and shouting in the middle of the village. Burning houses. Fire everywhere.

“Hahahah!” suddenly you hear a distant laughter. Maniacal laughter. You’ve heard it before. Heart races in your throat as you recognise his voice. Still no sight of him.

Something cracks behind you. You turn around, seeing a man creeping up behind your back. Immediately your feet start to run out of the thicket into the crowd of fighting people. An arrow hits the ground right next to your feet while you run, missing it only by some inches. You see people getting shot in the head, blood splattering, heads being cut off. Running, you dodge horses and jump over dead bodies. Fighting men fall in front of your feet fighting for their lives and the others death. You see men pulling women at their hair, pulling them into the darkness of the woods while they’re screaming. The man still follows you and you run and run with all your might, as suddenly a burning ball of tar covered rocks, bound together with ropes, flies over your head, illuminating the scene, before it impacts on the roof of a wooden house on your right not far away from you, resulting it to burn immediately, the flames reaching high up in the sky. You hear women screaming and crying and men shouting and dying.

And Sukuna laughing.

Hearing the man coming up closer behind you, you calculate two more steps. You turn around to throw your dagger at your attacker. With a loud sting, the dagger hits right into his chest, making him fall onto his back while running. Your mind doesn’t think, before you rush to him and yank the dagger out of his ripcage.

Keep running!

You turn back around and run more into the direction of where the laughter comes from. Arrows still hit the ground in your vicinity while you run through this massacre. Fire arrows land in the crowds, putting people on fire. One after another. You see burning people running around, some of those faces already burned down to their bones. The impact of another ball lights up a dark corner to your left in some distance to you. Its so bright, you run and hide in between two huts and squint your eyes. Trying to catch your breath, you’re waiting until your sight becomes better.

Badum. Badum. Badum.

You hear his laughter.

Badum Badum Badum.

The light flickers down.

BadumBadumBadum.

You see him.

The dark silhouette of Sukuna fighting in front of fire, two of his four hands hold swords, slashing men who look so small in comparison to him. His two other hands are ripping them apart with bare hands, like they’re toys. Your eyes widen.

“Sukuna” you whisper, taking a deep breath.

Finally!

Relieved, you smile to yourself, before another burning ball wooshes through the sky and impacts into the ground in your vicinity, making the dirt shoot up into the air. You start to run out of your hiding into his direction.

“Sukuna!” you say. Another ball hits an already burning barn. Muted sounds of horses neighing and screaming inside of it.

Boom!

Another big one on the ground a few yards away from you. Men are yanked off their feet by the impact of its shockwave.

Boom!

Little stones of their impact on the ground hit your face and arms while you keep running and running. Your skin burns from the heat filling out this battlefield.

Boom!

You run between the explosions of those burning bombs, fixated on the silhouette of your fighting King. Dirt flies into your face, makes it hard to see. It stings in your eyes, but you keep running. Running so fast, your thighs start to ache, your heart beats up to your throat and your throat feels like fire. The nearer you come to him, the more you see his face.

With his eyes turned white from bloodlust, a sadistic smile on his face, he slashes one man after another. No mercy. Blood splattered on his face and body, the orange light of the fire painting bright reflections on it and into his rage filled eyes.

You run and run and run and shout louder and louder until your lungs burn.

“SUKUNA!”

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

“Crowley is Malleus’s long lost father” theory is popping off right now in like every twst social media community so I wanted to know what your thoughts on it were?

I briefly discussed this theory in the final paragraph of this post (although it is full of spoilers, so please be cautious of that). To reiterate (and to add more details), the main pieces of evidence that come up when discussing this idea are:

Malleus’s dad is confirmed missing, but we never saw a body or have confirmation of his death so we can’t 100% trust that.

Crowley’s past and motives remain a total mystery. (The crow mask he wears is also highly suspicious; why does he never remove it? Why does it resemble the masks worn by Briar Country soldiers? Because Malleus would recognize his father? Because Lilia might recognize his old friend?)

The name of Malleus’s dad may be romanized as Levan/Revan (we don’t have an official English localization for book 7 yet, so we don’t know for sure how it would be written). The former looks like the word “raven”, just with the vowels swapped around. And you know who else is a black bird?? Diablo, Maleficent’s crow and right-hand man, similar to how Levan/Revan was Mallenoa’s right-hand man. Who else do we know that’s a crow? Crowley.

Levan/Revan is described by Lilia as someone who “always dumped their work onto others/him”, which is something that Crowley also does to his own students.

So I guess the conclusion is that Malleus’s dad went into hiding to protect himself (especially if we assumed that his wife got killed off shortly after his disappearance; his own life may be in danger as well)?

I think the idea is definitely… interesting??? It would also be a big rug pull since players have been joking since day 1 that Crowley gives the vibes of a deadbeat/absentee dad or someone who went off to buy milk and never came back 😂 But in terms of how likely I think it is to become a reality??? I think it’s definitely kind of shaky if we’re going with only what we know right now.

The problem I have with this theory is twofold. Firstly, it’s counting a lot of omission of information as proof rather than details present as proof (which really could be spun any which way you like if you tried hard enough). Secondly, the main thread of logic here is basically the same as “Ace traitor” theory. We’re drawing conclusions from… a name (in Ace’s case, the fact that his surname isn’t “Heart” like the other card soldiers but is “Trappola”), which isn’t a lot of solid evidence in of itself.

I don’t know if I totally buy that Malleus’s dad would go MIA for literally 400ish years either? Like… he was the princess’s confidant, right? So he must have cared for her very much. Why would he up and abandon his wife (rather than coming to her rescue), his friend (Lilia), his country, AND his unborn child who NEEDS his love magic to be hatched? Why wouldn’t he return once the war was over?? Why would he run off to Sage’s Island and become the headmaster there??? If he doesn’t want to be a present father figure, why have a child at all or put himself in a position where he now has to monitor several hundreds of children every year instead of the one child that is actually his? (I know that Lilia started off not wanting kids and then became more open to the idea over time (ie people can change), but I don't think we can conclude the same happened to Crowley given how dismissive he still is in present day and how little we really know about Malleus's dad's true personality.) And surely if Crowley was Malleus’s dad, he’s not so ignorant as to not know Malleus is his son, right…? But then why forget about his existence 90% of the time and forget to invite him when he knows Malleus is on campus and he had not been there for him all his life???? Why actively be such an asshole???

The mask thing on Crowley is suspicious as heck, yes, but I don’t know if Malleus would be able to identify his father on sight since he never saw him or got to know him before hatching. On the flip side, how would Lilia not immediately notice his friend by voice??? Or by the mask if it is, indeed, his friend’s trademark or a custom from Briar Country? Are we arguing “characters made dumb for the sake of plot”? 😭 (Believe it or not, this is actually the most credible piece of evidence to me just because of how often TWST has employed cases of mistaken identity for the sake of convenience; I wouldn’t put it past them.)

Lilia does describe Levan/Revan as someone who dumps work on others, but he says Mallenoa does the same thing. Yet there are other aspects to Mallenoa which we also learn about. Shirking work is not the entire personality of Malleus’s dad and while his overall character may be inclusive of that, there are tons of traits unaccounted for; we barely know the guy. The Crowley = Levan theory feels like taking a conclusion and working backwards/retroactively changing the interpretation of other details to prove the conclusion we began with, instead of taking suspicious details and synthesizing a conclusion from it.

Anyway! You can see that I’m hesitant about this theory. I’d like more concrete details before I get on board with it because there isn't enough to implicate Crowley specifically—but hey, that’s not to say the idea isn’t interesting or funny 🤔 I’d personally love to see Malleus’s reaction to Crowley Darth Vader-ing him, haha 😂

Side note: It’s also sort of funny how people don’t believe Crowley is Malleus’s dad simply because they think Mallenoa is “too good/hot” for a man as bumbling as Crowley www

[laurellerual]

Arya and Sansa storyswap: an exercise in imagination

Premise: I tried to speculate what might happen if Sansa manages to escape King's Landing and Arya gets stuck in the capital. I collected my thoughts on this scenario trying to make logical, credible choices that respected the characterization of the characters and the timeline of the books (the wiki was very usefull for this). I discarded all the scenarios that end in "…and then she dies horribly" because they're boring. I write with assumption that they would still remain POV characters and therefore mantain a minimum of plot armor. Like everyone, I have my biases so it's not perfect, but I tried to put myself in the most neutral mindset possible. Enjoy and let me know your thoughts. Part 1, Part 2

Part 3/3: Reunion

A Storm of Swords

Sandor and his “squire" are captured and bringed to Stoney Sept in the Riverlands. The Brotherhood without Banners takes them to Hollow Hill. Clegane is put on trial for various atrocities committed by Lannister soldiers, but he survives and is freed.

Arya is recognized by Harwin and Sansa. The two sisters reunite and remain under the "protection" of the outlaws. Because of this, the story takes a very different turn from here on.

For example, I don't think Arya would try to escape the Brotherhood so soon. As a result I don't think the Hound would be unable to kidnap the Stark girls again. However, the Hound could also decide to stay with the Brotherhood. He could plan to go to the Twins, introduce himself to Robb as Arya's savior, and ask him for a job.

So the Brotherhood proceeds as planned, they now have another valuable hostage and intend to take both girls to Lord Edmure's wedding and ransom them to their family. A group of men (like Lem, Harwin, Tom, etc) accompanies the sisters to Harroway to cross the Trident, but their journey is delayed because they find it flooded (like in Arya IX).

They reach the Twins just in time for the Red Wedding, and the outlaws manage to drag the Stark sisters away and save them. Arya and Sansa go through a complicated period of mourning but the fact of being together helps them. The two want to hold onto hope that perhaps their mother might have survived.

One night Arya has her first wolf dream in a long time: she sees Cat's body and drags it out of the river. In the morning Sansa suggests asking the men to go back and look for the woman, but Arya tells her that she's dead. As per canon Lord Beric, Thoros and the others come across the corpse and Dondarrion dies to resurrect her.

Lem's group continues their journey, this time they intend to take the girls to Lysa Arryn, but they discover that the mountain clans are bolder than ever and decide not to take the risk and return to the Riverlands.

The Stark sisters are getting impatient, Arya suggests that the two could run away and try to get to Winterfell alone. Sansa has to inform her sister that Winterfell was conquered by Theon months ago. She is devastated and abandons all plans. Lem's group returns to the Hollow Hill to discuss a new plan with Beric or perhaps to take more men as escorts before returning to the Vale.

Waiting for them in the hill, there isn't the lightning lord but Lady Stoneheart! Mother and daughters reunite.

A Feast for Crows

That's it. Final cliffhanger, sorry.

[ungodly-amounts-of-godly-trauma]

wotw round 1

propaganda under the cut!

wylan van eck:

Everyone turns him into a baby due to sheer ableism. He can't read, so they turn him into an uwu crybaby. Literally what the fuck. He's a fucking wizard at math and chemistry and he's literally a ball of spitfire behind a sophisticated upbringing. Guy runs on subtle spite. But since he's gay and disabled... He'S bAbY. ugh. also bonus points for everyone using him as an excuse to be racist. They'll make him cry and blame it on an Kuwei (Asian kid) and then say racist shit bc of it. Literally in canon Wylan was just annoyed about what actually happened. And mostly not even at Kuwei. No crying involved.

Listen. Wylan maybe isn’t as experienced at crime as Kaz or the others but he literally makes bombs for a living. His response to not wanting to kill unconscious men is ‘We could wake them up’. His father tried to murder him. Wylan is a badass be gay do criminal, not some cinnamon roll (is it because he’s dyslexic? Is it because he’s the white one in an interracial m/m ship? Is the fandom just bad at reading?)

wylan is unhinged her makes books bombs and loves explosives. he amazing at chemistry and math and music. he is NOT a soft uwu baby that needs saving from Jesper or kaz he can do it by himself

agent 8:

Was a child soldier, lost their memory and got trapped in an underground testing facility, had to complete a bunch of tests BY THEMSELF and collect four thangs, almost got blended after assembling said thangs, and then had to escape the facility, defeat a mind-controlled version of your character from the first game, and save the world, where if you get splatted, unlike the rest of the game, you canonically die. Yet people reduce them to "too pure for this world, needs protected." they are NOT helpless they literally have military training. It's less common now but it was a very common sentiment back when Octo Expansion came out.